Conceptual Analysis – Lesson 20
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Loan and purchase money: “I have a hundred shekels with you”
- What money is, and what defines “money” versus “goods” in a transaction
- “Gold acquires silver” and Rashi: acquiring value, not acquiring a specific coin
- The conceptual history of money: from barter to abstract value and then digital abstraction
- Purchase money as acquired value versus a loan as an obligation of a future gift
- Acquisition by money, consideration, and the act of acquisition: the Taz and the Sma, and the implication for betrothal
- Acquisition by exchange versus acquisition by money, and the discussion whether a coin can serve as exchange
- Produce, exchange, and the parallel to value
- The language of the Mishnah, “acquires” versus “obligates,” and its meaning for purchase money
- Betrothal and exchange: “taking-taking” and two versions of the law of “less than a perutah’s worth”
Summary
General Overview
The lecture sharpens the distinction between a loan and purchase money through a conceptual definition of money as abstract value. It explains that in purchase money, the seller has with the buyer a “value” that belongs to him, and therefore one can effect acquisition and betrothal with purchase money; whereas in a loan, the lender has nothing with the borrower, only a future obligation of repayment. From this, the lecture explains the halakhic asymmetry between money and goods in acquisitions, interprets the language of the Mishnah “gold acquires silver” as referring to acquisition of value rather than of a specific coin, and connects these distinctions to the laws of exchange acquisition, to the dispute whether a coin can function as exchange, and to the rule that a woman cannot be betrothed through exchange even though betrothal is learned from “taking-taking” from Ephron’s field.
Loan and purchase money: “I have a hundred shekels with you”
The claim is that a loan is a kind of gift: the lender gives a gift to the borrower, and the borrower is Torah-obligated to give a gift back, and that obligation is translated into a monetary lien and therefore enters the realm of Choshen Mishpat. Maimonides rules that one cannot betroth with a loan and cannot acquire with a loan, because “a loan is given to be spent,” and according to Maimonides this means that the lender has nothing with the borrower; what will be given at repayment is a future gift from the borrower’s own property. In purchase money the law is different, and Maimonides innovates, following the Ri Migash, that one can acquire and can betroth a woman with purchase money, because in purchase money the seller has with the buyer the “purchase money” as a value that belongs to him. The difference is not between money and objects, because something worth money is like money, but between a loan and a sale on credit; in a product loan the lender does not have the thing itself with the borrower, only an obligation of repayment, whereas in a sale on credit the seller has with the buyer the value of the purchase money.
What money is, and what defines “money” versus “goods” in a transaction
The difficulty is how to define, in a transaction, what the acquired object is and what the money is, since the seller wants the money just as much as the buyer wants the object, and since something worth money is like money, one could in principle also see the goods as payment. The Mishnah at the start of the chapter on gold establishes an asymmetry: movables acquire coinage, but coinage does not acquire movables; if one gave money but did not pull the produce, he can retract, but if he pulled the produce and did not give money, he cannot retract. This distinction requires a halakhic definition of what “coinage” is and what “movables” are, and what it means to say that one thing “acquires” the other.
“Gold acquires silver” and Rashi: acquiring value, not acquiring a specific coin
Rashi explains that if one buys minted gold dinars with silver dinars, pulling the gold obligates the recipient of the gold to give silver dinars and he cannot retract; but if he gave silver dinars first, he has not acquired, and both can retract, because silver coinage counts as money, since it is more readily spent. The question is what “acquires the silver” means, if there are no specific silver dinars that are acquired, since he can pay with other dinars, even ones not in his possession at the time of the transaction. The answer developed later is that in purchase money, what is acquired with the other party is “value,” not a defined coin, and therefore the language “acquires” refers to acquisition of abstract value.
The conceptual history of money: from barter to abstract value and then digital abstraction
The lecture describes a historical hypothesis of the transition from barter trade of goods for goods to a stalled market requiring intermediaries and numerous exchange rates, and then the invention of money as a solution that streamlines the market. Money is defined as something that has no use as merchandise, but rather an object that embodies value by convention, and prices are set for all goods in terms of money. This is presented as an abstraction of the concept of “value” from an attribute of an object into a noun standing on its own, and then its embodiment through bills and coins that are “pure value.” In the modern era, a further abstraction is described, in which even tangible bills and coins become unnecessary, and value is recorded in a banking and digital system, so that one transfers value without transferring a physical object, and the symbols themselves are destined to disappear.
Purchase money as acquired value versus a loan as an obligation of a future gift
In purchase money, “I have with you” means not a particular coin and not even a mechanism of retroactive clarification, but value that belongs to the seller, even if the buyer is poor and has no bills at all. In a loan, the lender has with the borrower not even value, only the obligation of a commandment to repay in the future, and therefore one cannot acquire or betroth through waiving a loan. In purchase money, the buyer has a value defined as an abstract asset acquired by the seller, and by virtue of this one can betroth with purchase money and acquire through it.
Acquisition by money, consideration, and the act of acquisition: the Taz and the Sma, and the implication for betrothal
In Choshen Mishpat, section 194, a dispute is brought between the Taz and the Sma regarding buying a field through acquisition by money: the Taz argues that one perutah of the money serves as the symbolic act of acquisition and therefore is not part of the consideration, so one must add another perutah to complete the payment; the Sma argues that transferring the consideration itself is the acquisitive act and there is no need for a separate perutah. In the name of Rabbi Chaim Ozer’s brother-in-law, in the book Afikei Yam, it is brought that regarding a woman there is no dispute, because in betrothal the money is certainly not consideration for the value of “merchandise” but a formal act that effects betrothal, and the absurdity that a woman is “worth a perutah” sharpens the point that the money there is not payment of consideration but an act of acquisition.
Acquisition by exchange versus acquisition by money, and the discussion whether a coin can serve as exchange
Acquisition by exchange is described as a primitive and symmetrical acquisition of one object against another, in contrast to acquisition by money, which moves on the plane of value and formal action. In the Talmudic text in Bava Metzia it is said that Rav and Levi disputed whether a coin can serve as exchange, and Rav Pappa explains the reason a coin cannot serve as exchange: “his mind is on the imprint, and the imprint is liable to be annulled,” because the value of a coin depends on convention and on the stamped form, and the king can cancel it. The explanation is that coinage is pure value without a functional “body,” and therefore it is unsuitable for exchange, which is the swap of object for object, whereas acquisition by money is the exchange of value for value.
Produce, exchange, and the parallel to value
It is said that there is an opinion in the Talmudic text that even produce cannot serve as exchange, and the reasoning develops through the difference between a utensil like a hammer, whose use does not consume it, and produce, whose use consumes the thing itself. In produce there is no separation between body and fruits in the sense of principal that remains after use, and therefore produce is viewed as close to coinage in that there is no “body” separate from its value in use. The concept of “acquisition of fruits” is presented as acquisition of the uses or the value, like a house for its fruits or a hammer for its fruits, whereas in the fruit itself there is no meaning to acquisition of body for its fruits, because the use consumes the body.
The language of the Mishnah, “acquires” versus “obligates,” and its meaning for purchase money
In the Talmudic text in Bava Metzia it is asked whether “gold acquires silver” refers to exchange, and the answer is “through value,” and then the question is raised that it should have said “obligates” rather than “acquires,” because there is no acquisition of a specific coin. The Talmudic text answers: “Teach: gold obligates,” and the lecture explains that “obligates” would associate the matter with a loan, whereas here we are dealing with purchase money, where there is acquisition of value, and therefore the language “acquires” is precise, because the gold acquires with the other party silver-value that is acquired, rather than merely creating a repayment obligation like a loan.
Betrothal and exchange: “taking-taking” and two versions of the law of “less than a perutah’s worth”
In tractate Kiddushin it is said that the enumeration in the Mishnah comes to exclude exchange, because you might have thought to learn “taking-taking” from Ephron’s field, that just as a field is transferred through exchange, so too a woman; therefore it teaches us that not so. The reason in the Talmudic text is that exchange applies even with less than a perutah’s worth, whereas a woman is not acquired with less than a perutah’s worth. In Rashi the version is “she does not transfer herself,” because it is degrading for her, while in Tosafot and the Ritva there is a version “she is not acquired” without the word “herself,” leading to the understanding that this is an essential law and not merely a matter of indignity. The explanation is that a woman is not “merchandise” acquired as object for object, and betrothal requires a formal action on the plane of value; therefore exchange, as a primitive act of swapping, does not belong in betrothal, whereas money does belong as a formal act that effects the legal status of betrothal.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good. Last time we talked about—after I tried to define what the legal part of Jewish law is, Choshen Mishpat as opposed to the other sections—I moved on to define what a loan is. And I talked about a loan versus purchase money. The claim was that a loan is basically a kind of gift. The lender gives a gift to the borrower, and in return the Torah obligates the borrower to give a gift back, and that obligation, which is really in the category of a commandment, gets translated into a monetary lien, and that’s why it enters into Choshen Mishpat. Now, at the end of last time, I made a comparison between purchase money and a loan. We saw in Maimonides that law—which is what appears in the Talmudic text, basically—that you cannot betroth with a loan and you cannot acquire with a loan, because “a loan is given to be spent.” And therefore, when you betroth a woman, you’re not really giving her anything if all you do is waive the loan she owes you. Then we saw Maimonides’ novel point—and I said this follows the Ri Migash—that with purchase money that’s not true. With purchase money, you can acquire and you can betroth a woman. And I explained it like this: the claim was that purchase money, unlike a loan—in a loan, the lender actually has nothing with the borrower. Meaning, he doesn’t have money with the borrower that the borrower has to return to him. A loan is not returned; a loan is repaid. In contrast, with purchase money, the claim is that if the buyer, say, bought from me on credit, and he owes me a hundred shekels, then I have a hundred shekels with him. And therefore, if I want to use those hundred shekels to acquire some object, or to betroth a woman, or whatever it may be, you can acquire with it and you can betroth a woman with it. That raises the question—what does it mean that I have a hundred shekels with him in purchase money? After all, we saw that “a loan is given to be spent.” The meaning of that is not that every coin I have with you—you know, it isn’t mine. Any coin you have, if you owe me money, you can spend it. So there is no particular coin here that belongs to the lender. But then I said that according to Maimonides, that is not the meaning of “a loan is given to be spent.” “A loan is given to be spent” means not that I don’t have a concrete coin with you, but that I have nothing with you at all. What you will give me when you repay the loan is a future gift that you will give me from your own property. We saw that from the law of “driving away a lion” and more. In purchase money—
[Speaker B] Rabbi, is that also—sorry—is that also if I lend you a product, or only money?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Same thing. There’s no difference at all. A loan is a loan.
[Speaker B] What’s the difference between a product and a sale where you took things from me and owe purchase money? So the Rabbi says that with purchase money, it’s not—it’s not—you can betroth with purchase money. So why, if I lend you a product, can’t I?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Purchase money and a loan—that’s exactly the point. I’m saying that purchase money is not a loan. If I lent you an egg, right? Basically I gave it to you as a gift, and afterward you have to give me back an egg, or some other monetary equivalent, and that too will be a gift—but it’s not that I now have an egg with you. That’s a loan. And a loan can be of goods too, not only money.
[Speaker C] Purchase money—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —is when I buy an egg from you and I owe you its value, so now you have with me the value of the egg—I don’t know, two shekels—you have two shekels with me. With that you can betroth a woman, with that you can acquire, you can do anything. That’s the claim. The difference is not between money and objects—I’ll get to that today, the difference between money and objects. The difference is not between money and objects. In the simple sense, something worth money is like money; there is no difference at all between money and something worth money. The difference is between a loan and a sale. The question is what you did with the objects, not what you did it with—whether with objects or with money. The question is what you did with them: did you lend them, or did you sell on credit?
[Speaker B] So now the Rabbi wants to define what really passes over, what lies between the two, what the difference is?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. From here I want to move on to understand what money is. What is money, generally? What is its meaning? What’s its definition? How do we identify it? What is it, really? But before that, I specifically want to start from the point where I ended last time. Because when I say that when I sold you something and you didn’t pay me, then the purchase money is with you—and I claim that I now have a hundred shekels with you—so what exactly is this hundred shekels that I have with you? After all, you can still take any hundred shekels that you have and spend them, buy something with them, use them. I can’t stop you from spending any of the specific coins or bills you have. So what exactly is this thing that I have with you? That’s the initial question, really, and from there I want to set out. So here I want to try to define this concept a bit. But before I get into the definition, the attempt to define what money is and what this thing is that I have with you as purchase money has implications for other things too. For example, we define acquisition by money: we acquire an object by paying money for it. Okay? At the Torah level, money acquires; rabbinically, one also needs pulling. Let’s speak right now at the Torah level. Now suppose I buy a lamb from you and pay you a thousand shekels. What defines the money here, and what defines the acquired object? Why not say that you are buying from me the thousand-shekel bill, and paying me for it with the lamb? How can you distinguish between that description and the description we usually use, that I’m buying a lamb from you and paying you a thousand shekels—the thousand shekels are the money? After all, the halakhic rule is that something worth money is like money. If, for example, I owe you money from a loan, I can give you a lamb; if it’s worth a thousand shekels, I can give you a lamb instead of the thousand shekels I owe you. There’s no difference—something worth money is like money. The same in betrothal: even the benefit of an action—right, “dance before me,” I mentioned that—one can betroth a woman by dancing before her, because that thing is worth money. So as far as Jewish law is concerned, something worth money and money are the same. So this asymmetry in acquisition by money needs a definition. How do I define, in a given transaction, what the merchandise is and what the money paid for it is? Why not regard the bill as the merchandise, and the lamb as the payment for the bill that I’m buying? How do we define that? Because I want the lamb? The lamb is what people want? That’s not true. The seller wants the thousand shekels, that’s why he sells the lamb. So he wants the thousand shekels exactly as much as I want the lamb, and we exchange this for that. So why are the thousand shekels the money and the lamb the merchandise? That’s really another aspect of the same question. These things become especially sharp in the Mishnah at the beginning of the fourth chapter of Bava Metzia, the chapter called “Gold,” where the Mishnah says this: gold acquires silver, but silver does not acquire gold. And from here—yes—gold acquires silver, and silver does not acquire gold. Copper acquires silver, but silver does not acquire copper. Inferior coins acquire superior ones, and superior ones do not acquire inferior ones, and so on. What’s the point, really? Movables acquire coinage; coinage does not acquire movables. All movables acquire one another. How so? If he pulled produce from him and did not give him money, he cannot retract. If he gave him money and did not pull produce from him, he can retract. But they said: He who exacted payment from the generation of the Flood and from the generation of the Dispersion will in the future exact payment from one who does not stand by his word. What is it saying there? Suppose we decided on a deal for a lamb. You sell me a lamb and I pay you a thousand shekels. If you took my thousand shekels, the deal still hasn’t been concluded. We can retract, and then you’ll return the thousand shekels and that’s that. I don’t have to take the lamb from you; I can tell you: return the thousand shekels, I changed my mind. Even though “He who exacts payment”—it’s not okay what I’m doing. But legally I can do that; the sale has not yet been completed. Lawyers have some term for this, I think—they say the transaction hasn’t yet crystallized. In any case, the reverse is not so. The reverse is not true. If we made the same deal and I took the lamb from you, and now I’m supposed to pay you the thousand shekels, and then I say: you know what, I changed my mind, take the lamb back and I won’t pay you the thousand shekels—that’s impossible. Because I have to give you those thousand shekels, and that’s it. You can’t retract from that transaction. The deal has been concluded. But there’s an asymmetry: in acquisition by money there is an asymmetry between the merchandise and the money. Pulling the merchandise acquires the merchandise for me and the money for you. Your taking possession of the money acquires nothing—not the money for you and not the merchandise for me.
[Speaker B] So now is it because money is a bit more—more general? You can’t hear? And because money is more general, it’s not something defined, so when you buy something you can buy anything with it, more than with a lamb?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With a lamb too, you can—that’s what I said before—you can also buy anything with a lamb. A lamb is worth money.
[Speaker B] Yes, but in the market, for example, let’s say there are X people who would buy a lamb, but with money you can buy any product.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From people’s point of view, most people prefer money to a lamb. Okay, so what? Where’s the definition? And if there’s a place where they do like lambs, then the lamb will be money? You know, in the past salt served as money. People would pay with salt in various transactions. Salt was the money. The definition here—what exactly is the merchandise and what is the money in a transaction—is a very unclear business, and here we see that this definition has halakhic significance. Meaning, we need to know in every transaction what the merchandise is and what the money is. And in the background we remember that something worth money is like money, so the whole business becomes very undefined and unclear. Another question that comes up here: it says here, “gold acquires silver and silver does not acquire gold.” In a transaction where I sell you—give you—gold, and in return you give me silver, then the gold is the merchandise and the silver is the consideration, the money. Silver metal constitutes the money in that transaction. Therefore, when you pull the gold, the transaction is concluded: I acquired the silver and you acquired the gold. And if I pulled the silver from you, the transaction is not concluded; we can retract. You did not acquire the gold, I did not acquire the silver, and we can retract. That is to say, in a transaction of gold versus silver—gold coins versus silver coins—the Talmudic text also says that there, the gold is the merchandise and the silver is the consideration. What does “gold acquires silver” mean? What does that mean—that gold acquires silver? Does it acquire certain specific silver coins? After all, I can give any coin I want. So in what sense—what is acquired here? What does it mean that he acquired the silver? Suppose I pulled the merchandise, the lamb or the gold or whatever it is. What does it mean that the money was acquired? It wasn’t acquired. You owe me money. In what sense is it called that the money is acquired? Nothing here is acquired. There isn’t some specific coin that I acquired in this way. So why do they speak here of “gold acquires silver” and “silver does not acquire gold”? What does “acquires” mean?
[Speaker C] Rashi here on the spot—just a second—look at Rashi here on this Mishnah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Gold acquires silver”: one who buys minted gold dinars with silver dinars. “Minted gold dinars” means a coin made of gold. Not just a lump of gold, which maybe is easier to see as merchandise. We’re talking about gold coins, what you’d take out of your wallet—gold coins. And against that one pays silver dinars, also minted. Okay? So Rashi says: “One who buys minted gold dinars with silver dinars, and gave him gold dinars—the pulling of the gold acquires the silver for the owner of the gold, and the one who received the gold dinars becomes obligated to give him the silver dinars and cannot retract. But silver does not acquire the gold; if he gave him silver dinars first, he did not acquire, and both can retract. For silver coinage counts as money, because it is readily spent,” and so on. So what does this word mean, that he acquired the silver dinars? Are there some specific silver dinars here that he acquired? He acquires nothing. After all, in the end I can give him different dinars, or even dinars I don’t currently have. So what exactly did you acquire? What does it mean that you acquire? Notice that what’s being discussed here is purchase money, right? This is exactly what we defined in the previous lecture as purchase money. You took merchandise, so now you owe me the purchase money. As long as you haven’t paid, then basically I have the purchase money with you. The Mishnah here in Bava Metzia defines it as though I acquired the purchase money.
[Speaker B] What does “readily spent” mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Readily spent” means they circulate in commerce. I understand. Okay.
[Speaker B] The gold—so I—so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Gold acquires silver. I acquired the silver dinars, but I didn’t acquire any silver dinar. There is no object here that one can point to and say I acquired it, that it’s mine. So what are we talking about here when we say “I acquired”? Here I want to give a little introduction. These are familiar ideas, all in all, but it’s worth sharpening them. The point is this: when we look at this concept called money, here we’re engaged in definitions, conceptual analysis, trying to define concepts—what is money really? In the past, in the distant past, I assume—again, I’m describing a kind of history here, not from knowledge but as a hypothesis that this is probably how it worked. In the beginning the market was built in such a way that if I had extra tomatoes and you had an extra chair, I gave you tomatoes and you wanted tomatoes, so I gave you the tomatoes and you gave me a chair in return. And trade was barter. Basically I received merchandise that I wanted, and in return I gave you merchandise that you wanted. Now, a market like that, of barter, is an exchange of goods for goods. It’s a market with no money yet. Goods against goods. What’s the problem with such a market? In such a market, suppose I need chairs and I have tomatoes. To get a chair, I need to find someone who needs tomatoes on the one hand, and who has an extra chair on the other hand. If I find someone who has an extra chair but doesn’t need tomatoes, I won’t be able to make a deal with him because I have nothing to give him for his chair. On the other hand, if I find someone who needs tomatoes but doesn’t have an extra chair, then I can give him the tomatoes but he has no chair to give me. But I want to give the tomatoes for a chair. So in short, the market is stuck. I have no way to conduct trade. I need to find exactly someone who wants something like what I have. What do you do in such a stuck market? I assume that in such a situation people look for a third factor to mediate between us. Suppose I have tomatoes and I want a chair. I find someone who needs tomatoes but has a table for me, okay? So I give him the tomatoes and take the table from him. Now I look for someone who wants a table and will give me a chair for it. If I find someone like that, the problem is solved. If not, I’ll give someone a table and get some other merchandise from him, and with that merchandise I’ll try to buy a chair, and so on, until I find someone from whom my merchandise can buy a chair. Now that’s a very problematic market. Try finding all these middlemen, and who knows whether in the end it will actually conclude with someone who gives me the chair I’m looking for.
[Speaker D] And you also need a huge number of exchange rates. What? You need a huge number of exchange rates—not just dollar-shekel, but chair-tomato, table, and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. You need exchange rates, and at the initial stage those rates are determined only by personal interest—how much I want it—not by how much it’s worth on the market. Because in an undeveloped market you have no way of knowing how much it’s worth on the market. So the question is how important it is to me and how important it is to you, and therefore it really is a very underdeveloped form of trade. There’s something inherently stuck about it. Now what happens at that stage, once people noticed that this market, this primitive market, is stuck, is that they invented the concept of money. What is the concept of money? The concept of money comes to solve this tangle. What does that mean? We take something that basically serves no purpose. It has no importance, no use. These coins or bills don’t help me with anything. Nobody needs them as merchandise. Okay, that’s not the point, that’s not merchandise. Merchandise is always something that has some value because you can do something with it—eat it, work with it, wear it, something. But with this you can do nothing. Money has no use. So what? We define this money as a certain value—one hundred shekels, ten agorot, things like that. And now we quantify, or set prices for, all the goods in the market in terms of money. So this is worth ten shekels, this is worth fifteen shekels, this is worth fifty agorot, and now we can exchange everything in the market for money. What’s the advantage of that? After all, nobody really needs money—there’s nothing to do with it. What’s the advantage? The advantage is that the market becomes efficient. I no longer need intermediaries. If I have tomatoes and I need chairs, I have no problem anymore—one middle step solves the whole problem. I don’t need a whole chain of middlemen, and in the end it’s not even clear it would work. I give you the tomatoes and you give me money for the tomatoes, and now I go with that money and look for someone selling a chair, and I’ll give him my money in return for his chair. That’s it. I don’t need now to find an intermediary who needs tomatoes and will give me a table, then the table for a car, then the car for a chair. That knot is untied, or solved. In other words, money streamlines the market. But what’s really the idea behind money? The idea, once people hit upon this concept of money, was a brilliant invention not only in the technical sense—that it streamlines the market—but also in the conceptual sense. Because really, the concept of money, unlike every other object in the market—every other object in the market, its value or exchange value is determined by its function. That is, by what use can be made of it, and how much that use is worth to people. That is what determines the object’s value. An object’s value is determined by its function. With money, the value is determined arbitrarily. It has no function. I have no way of measuring the value of money—I’m talking now about conventional money, right? There were of course situations in which money also really was worth its value. Say they’d take a gold coin, and the value of the coin really was the value of the gold in the coin. But I’m talking now about conventional money, not that kind of money. So conventional money basically has value, and that value is fixed arbitrarily or by convention. It does not reflect the uses I have for the thing, unlike every other object. And really one could say that money is a kind of—in the process of inventing money, they carried out a kind of abstraction and embodiment. What do I mean? After the barter market functioned as I described, suddenly people understood that there is such a thing as exchange rates. Meaning, a tomato is not worth a chair. A chair is not worth a car. For a car you need to give ten chairs. For a chair you need to give two kilos of tomatoes, or something like that. So that means we are not simply exchanging object for object, but there is some scale, some measuring rod, by means of which we measure all goods. An abstract measuring rod. Notice, we’re talking about a world where the concept of money still doesn’t exist. But people suddenly understood that different goods have different values. It’s not one for one. And now people say, wait a second—so let’s abstract and talk about the concept of value itself. The concept of value itself. It’s like an abstract concept, like talking about the speed of a car—not how fast the car is going, not the car moving at a speed, but speed itself, detached from the car. This is Alice in Wonderland, right? There’s a grin without a cat. A cat without a grin—so there can also be a grin without a cat. Have you ever seen a grin without a cat? A cat’s grin, but without the cat. That’s roughly what we’re talking about here. The point is that we are trying to turn an adjective into a noun. Say we defined something as speed. Not the speed of something; speed has become a noun, not a description of the state of some other object. So when we talk about specific objects, we know they have a use and they have a value. Usually the value reflects the use. Now I’m saying: let’s take the concept of value. Usually value is the value of something, right? Just as speed is the speed of something—a car, a person, whatever. So too value is the value of something. There is no such thing as value in the abstract. Value of something. Value does not stand on its own; value is not a noun. Value is an attribute, okay? A property of something. It is not a noun. Now they say: okay, let’s take value, abstract it, and treat the concept of value as a noun. Now we will talk about buying and selling value. Not an object with a certain value, but I can now transfer value to you. Suppose you give me tomatoes, and I transfer to you one hundred shekels’ worth of value for the kilos of tomatoes I bought from you. Okay? So I give you value in exchange for the tomatoes. In the old world, in the market I described earlier, there wasn’t—what could I give you? I couldn’t give you anything. There is no such thing as value. Value is always the value of something. So I have to give it to you through a lamb, through a chair, through a car, through whatever, because those are objects that have value. What do we do? We now take the concept of money—the concept of value, sorry—after it was created by the abstraction we made. Right? Every object has value, and now let’s take value—not the value of a particular object—and treat it as an object that exists in its own right. And now we’ll give that abstraction concrete embodiment. What does that mean? We’ll create some object or thing which, for us, will be the embodiment of the concept of value. Now the concept of value becomes an object you can touch. And you talk about a value of one hundred shekels. Suppose you gave me five kilos of tomatoes and you want fifty shekels from me. Okay? I’m supposed to transfer to you an object worth fifty shekels. But we saw that’s a problematic market. So what—should I give you a chair? No good, you don’t need a chair. What do I do? In principle I need to transfer to you a value of fifty shekels. I take a fifty-shekel bill and give it to you. What I gave you is not an object you can make use of—I gave you value. Meaning, the fifty-shekel bill is an object whose entire essence is its value. Unlike other objects, whose essence is the function they fulfill, and that is reflected in their value. But this object has no function; it is pure value. Okay? That is basically the definition of money. The definition of money is something that is an object embodying or realizing the abstract concept called value. By the way, in our age—or not even our age, this has been true for quite a while—today this has become even more abstract: we don’t even need the money anymore. After making this abstraction and inventing money, and for thousands of years using money to buy and sell, then we get to bank accounts and computers and credit cards and things of that sort, and then I don’t even need money. There’s no need actually to produce coins or paper money; all that’s needed is to record how much value each person has. In some central place in the bank—I don’t know where—some central place has to record how much value I have. And if I just bought something from you, you no longer need to give me a hundred-shekel bill. You can reduce the figure in your bank column so that instead of one thousand it says nine hundred, and in my column instead of one thousand it says eleven hundred. That means that a value of one hundred shekels passed from you to me, even though you transferred nothing to me. There’s no need to transfer the bill itself, the coin itself. This is abstraction upon abstraction. We are basically going back: at first I said that we made an abstraction and embodied or realized it through coins and bills. Now we’re basically going back and staying with the original abstraction. We now have the concept of value, and we don’t really need an object to express it, to realize it. Now the concept of value has gone back to being an abstract concept, and we record how much value each person has at his disposal—
[Speaker C] And we trade in that concept of value.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the modern age. What makes this possible is computers, communications, digital means, so that now I don’t need—until now, I needed the whole world to know that you have value. So I have value in the bank. How do I know that you have value in the bank? Anyone can tell me he has value in the bank. Give me a hundred shekels in cash—once you give it to me, I know I received one hundred shekels’ worth of value. I don’t have to worry that maybe you have no coverage, that maybe there’s no money in your account. Today, when communication is sophisticated, we can immediately check whether he has coverage or not, so now there is no need for coins and bills. That’s already redundant. You can return to the abstraction of value and speak about value. You give me a car, I give you value in return. That’s it, I have value, enough value to give you, so I give you that value. Now there’s no need to do it by counting bills into your hand. I can record with you a certain quantity of value that left me and entered you. That is basically going back along the path I described before. Technology allows us to make the abstraction without carrying it forward by way of physical embodiment. Meaning, I can speak about the abstract concept of value without realizing it through coins or bills. Coins and bills will basically disappear from the world in a short time. Already today they don’t have much significance, but in a short time they’ll disappear from the world. There’ll be no need for them. No need to produce coins and bills, because coins and bills really are unnecessary—they’re just a symbol, something symbolizing a certain amount of value. Once I have a way to verify that a person has that value, I don’t need the symbols. Meaning, they’re unnecessary. In the end we’re talking about the abstract thing itself. Now why am I describing all this? Because you need to understand that this is really the meaning of the concept of money. Money means the embodiment of value. And that’s not the same as merchandise. Every piece of merchandise has value, but it is not pure value. A lamb, or a hammer, or a car—these are things that have use, and that use is worth a certain amount of value to people. So every such object has value, but you cannot say that the object is value. It is not value. It is a functional object that has value. Money is pure value. It is basically an abstract concept, just a symbol. Now, why am I saying this? Because now everything I described earlier falls right into place. When I talk about purchase money, I say there’s a difference between a loan and purchase money. In a loan I have nothing with you; you have an obligation to repay the loan, to give me a gift back. In purchase money I have with you a value of one hundred shekels. You can betroth with it, you can acquire with it. I asked: what does it mean that I have with you a value of one hundred shekels? Is that a certain coin or bill with you that belongs to me? And the answer is no. Any bill you want, you can spend it, give it to whomever you want. So what is this thing that is with you and belongs to me? The answer is: value. Purchase money means that with you there is a value of one hundred shekels that belongs to me. One hundred shekels out of the value found with you belongs to me. This has nothing to do at all with whether you have bills or coins, and which of your bills or coins belong to me. Yes, one could have defined this in terms of retroactive clarification, but that is not the right definition. By retroactive clarification I mean: suppose I really have a hundred-shekel bill with you, but it’s not one of the bills, not a defined bill among the bills you have—it’s one among the bills. Once you choose the hundred-shekel bill with which you repay the debt, it will become clear that this was the bill that belonged to me. That is called retroactive clarification in the language of the Talmudic text.
[Speaker B] And what if he has nothing? If he’s poor and has nothing at all, no property, nothing? Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which is why I’m saying: one could have defined the concept of value that I have with you that way. But that is not the correct definition. Because even a poor person who has no bill at all can owe me a hundred shekels.
[Speaker B] Is the obligation the value? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The obligation to return it? No, no. That’s exactly what I’m saying. In a loan, in a loan, I really have nothing with you—not even value do I have with you. I have nothing with you. You owe me a hundred shekels; you have a commandment to give me a hundred shekels as a gift in a month. But right now I have nothing with you. Therefore you can’t betroth a woman with it and you can’t acquire with it. In purchase money I do have something with you. What is that something with which one can acquire and betroth a woman? What is that something? That something is value. It’s something abstract. And it is not one of the coins or one of the bills you have—that’s a mistake. The coins and bills you have are symbols.
[Speaker B] A hundred shekels of value that are with you belong to me—because I gave you merchandise that is tangible, that expresses value?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Not necessarily merchandise that is physically present; even if I danced for you, it has value. Yes, yes. The moment I gave you the merchandise, I acquired something that is with you. That something is not any one of the coins you have, nor even through any mechanism of selection. That something is value, and that value is acquired by me. Now understand what level of abstraction is needed to define such a thing. Look at this—this is really living in a philosophical sphere. You basically owe me value of one hundred shekels. It’s not any one of the coins or bills you have, but rather you owe me value of one hundred shekels. There is value of one hundred shekels with you that is mine. That is basically what is acquired through a money-based act of acquisition. Now, there is a difference—a difference—we spoke in the previous lesson, I think it was the previous lesson, I spoke about the concept of acquisition through money. I said that in acquisition through money, I buy from you, say, a chair and pay you one hundred shekels. Again, I’m talking at the Torah level; rabbinically you also need pulling possession, but at the Torah level money effects acquisition even for movable goods. So I buy from you a chair and pay you one hundred shekels, okay? That is basically a sale transaction through acquisition by money. Now, suppose I didn’t lift the chair but bought it through acquisition by money. So I brought—I think I brought it up, if I remember correctly—the dispute between the Taz and the Sma about money as exchange payment or money as equivalence. Did we talk about that? I’m no longer one hundred percent sure. I’ll mention it again; maybe you don’t remember, or maybe we didn’t talk about it—I’m just getting confused.
[Speaker B] No, I think we didn’t talk about it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so in section 194 in Choshen Mishpat, there’s a dispute between the Taz and the Sma. Suppose I bought a field from you for one thousand shekels. We agreed that you are selling me the field for one thousand shekels. Now, land is acquired by money, by document, or by taking possession. We decided to do it through acquisition by money. So I gave you one hundred shekels and bought the field from you. Now the money that passed to you is basically money that is a symbolic act that contains the acquisition—contains in quotation marks, of course, yes—contains, causes the acquisition to take effect. Okay? Now if that’s so, then really there are two different functions that the transfer of money fulfills. The money is also the payment you receive for the field, but the transfer of the money is also the acquisitive act through which I buy the field. And those are not the same thing. For example, if I buy the field by taking possession, I still have to pay you one thousand shekels. You’re not willing to give me the field unless I give you one thousand shekels in exchange for the field. Right? That’s what makes you agree to the transaction. You’re willing to give me the field, to sell me the field, if you receive one thousand shekels in return for the field. So even if I buy the field by taking possession or by document, obviously that doesn’t exempt me from paying. I have to pay you one thousand shekels, because that is the payment for the transaction. It’s just that the acquisitive act that applies the transaction in that case is not the transfer of money, but taking possession, or writing a document, or actually transferring a document. Okay? What happens when the money also performs the acquisitive act? Meaning, I give you one thousand shekels. Those one thousand shekels do two things. They are also the payment for the transaction—you receive one thousand shekels for the field—but transferring the one thousand shekels is also the acquisitive act by which I buy the field. So the Taz claims that after I gave you the one thousand shekels, I still need to give you one more perutah. I still owe you one perutah. Because one perutah out of the thousand shekels was the money with which I performed the act of acquisition. It was not part of the payment you received. I had to transfer money to you in order to apply the acquisition to the field. So one perutah out of the thousand shekels I gave you was dedicated to applying my ownership to the field. So in effect I gave you, as payment, one thousand shekels minus one perutah. So I need to make up that extra perutah to you. In contrast, the Sma claims that in acquisition by money, the transfer of the payment is itself the acquisitive act. It’s not some separate symbolic act where you need to transfer money as an acquisitive act, and besides that also give him money as payment. Rather, the transfer of money is the acquisitive act. When you give him the payment for the field, the transfer of that payment to him is the act that applies the acquisition. And therefore you don’t need to add another perutah. The entire one thousand shekels are payment, but the transfer of the payment is also what effects the acquisition. You don’t need a separate perutah here in order to bring about the acquisition. That is the Sma’s claim. In any case, for our purposes, we really see that there is a fundamental difference between acquisition by money and barter acquisition. Barter acquisition is the ancient acquisition I described earlier: I give you tomatoes, you give me a chair. Okay? This is basically a primitive acquisition. I give you something you need, you give me something I need. There is full symmetry here. There is no side that is money and a side that is merchandise. It’s merchandise against merchandise. In this world there is no money at all. We are exchanging goods for goods. It’s a primitive transaction. That’s how commerce began, in old human culture, let’s say—back in my imaginary history, yes. What happened when money was invented? When money was invented, we basically moved to a formal plane. Now the legal plane became less like ordinary day-to-day homeowner-type stuff that people do, and we start thinking about the formal meaning of actions. There is value, there is a symbol that expresses that value, and transferring the symbol basically expresses a transfer of value. You see that we are starting to think in a very abstract way. In barter acquisition there is nothing abstract at all. In barter acquisition I give you a chair, you give me tomatoes, everything is fine. Nobody discusses the question of when the acquisition happened and who acquired—it's not interesting. I mean, at the end of the day, you take the tomatoes, I take the chair, and we go home. The transaction is symmetrical. There is no side that is money and a side that is merchandise. Both sides are merchandise—it depends what you want. When there is money opposite merchandise, an asymmetry is created. You have to define what the money is and what the merchandise is. And the acquisitive act is a symbolic act, an abstract act. That is acquisition by money. I transfer the money to you as a legal act, not because you need one thousand shekels, but because I transfer the money to you because this is a legal act that contains an acquisition. That did not exist in the world of barter; there was no such legal sphere of formal abstract concepts. Rather, it was simply: you give me, I give you, what you need, what you don’t need. Nobody is defining legal categories here. The moment money was born, an entire world of concepts was born with it, or an entire sphere of concepts—abstract formal concepts. And now I can define a completely formal acquisition. I transfer to you a perutah, and in exchange I acquire a field—even a field the size of the city of Tel Aviv, it doesn’t matter. A perutah—you can buy that field with a perutah. That will not be the payment that makes you agree; as payment I’ll give you many millions. But in order to apply the acquisition I can transfer you a perutah. The transfer of a perutah is a symbolic act, and that act expresses final intent and it basically applies ownership. Okay?
[Speaker B] So what is the dispute between the Taz and the Sma? What is the basis of their dispute?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically the dispute is over what the symbolic act is that contains the acquisition. The Taz claims that what we have here is a transfer of money—just a transfer of money. Just as standing on one foot or lifting something can be an acquisitive act, so too transferring a sum of money from one person to another can be an acquisitive act. That is what the Taz claims. The Sma says no, this is not a formal act. Rather, the moment I transfer the payment to you, that itself constitutes the acquisitive act. The acquisitive act is not done separately from the transfer of value. The moment I transferred the value to you, the transfer of value itself is the acquisitive act. You don’t need an acquisitive act and also a transfer of value—that’s what the Taz claims. The Sma says no, the transfer of value is defined as the act that contains the acquisition. Understood? Okay. So therefore you don’t need a perutah because it
[Speaker D] itself does the work. Do you hear? Is there a difference between them regarding the process of marrying a woman, where a woman is acquired by…? Is there a difference between them on that matter?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A very interesting question. In the book Afikei Yam, whose author was Rabbi Chaim Ozer’s brother-in-law, in section 16 he discusses returning money, also a somewhat problematic concept, a complex concept. In any case, it doesn’t matter for now. In the middle of that he brings a note in parentheses from his brother-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Ozer. His brother-in-law claims that regarding a woman there is no dispute between the Sma and the Taz. Why? Because in the acquisition of a woman, when you pay the money, that is certainly not payment. There, according to everyone, it is a formal act. Why? Because when you acquire a woman you are not acquiring merchandise. The money that you give her is not her value. And the two of you are not setting some value for this transaction either—there is no value to this transaction. Meaning, it’s not like you’re buying merchandise that you can use in some specific way and it is worth such-and-such, and so you give payment in that amount. No, this is not that kind of transaction. A woman is not acquired through value; a woman is acquired through a formal act. Therefore the act of acquiring a woman is the formal act of transferring money. And there there is no dispute between the Sma and the Taz. It is obvious that the perutah given in betrothal is an act of acquisition; it is not payment.
[Speaker B] Because basically she isn’t receiving payment; after all, the money that remains afterward is also of the… the payment is the relationship. Yes, because the money that remains, the money he gives her, stays within the family, and the husband also has something in it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. That money is her money. So maybe there is the husband’s right to usufruct in her property—nichsei milug, tzon barzel—that’s already… but this money is, in principle, her money. Not only that, you can also marry a woman by giving money to her father, and there the money certainly remains with him. So that’s not the point—that the money becomes jointly theirs. Rather, the money here does not constitute payment for merchandise, because this is not merchandise that has a value; you are not buying merchandise here. The betrothal of a woman is not merchandise whose value you pay in money. Therefore it is absurd to think that the value of this transaction is a perutah. You marry a woman with a perutah. Right? She is betrothed with a perutah, so everything is fine. What does that mean? And where is the transfer of payment? What, is the woman worth a perutah? Is that her value?
[Speaker B] And all women are the same?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter. Certainly if you decided to marry her, you presumably don’t think she’s worth a perutah. A woman worth a perutah—I wouldn’t recommend marrying her. The point is that the money you give here is not value—not value of merchandise. Therefore there is no room here for the dispute of the Taz and the Sma. Let’s see how he resolves various difficulties there with this—it doesn’t matter right now. In any case, returning to our issue, what he is really saying is that this opens up an entire world. A whole legal sphere is born here, of formal discourse, of acts that contain legal effects, ownership. In the primitive world of barter trade, people don’t speak in legal language; they don’t speak in the language of legal effects and the application of ownership. You need tomatoes, I need a chair—take the chair, bring the tomatoes, we go home. Nobody asks, wait, who does this belong to? And by what acquisitive act did he acquire it? And what? All these concepts do not exist in the primitive world of barter trade. The moment money was born, the world became more sophisticated. The world became able to do abstract things, to do formal acts that contain legal effects. And of course now it begins to develop into all sorts of sophisticated and abstract transactions, and you can buy future goods, and of course it keeps becoming more and more sophisticated. But it starts from the invention of money. Money is basically the first building block of the formal abstract legal world that underlies economics. Okay? That is basically the definition of the concept of money. And now if I return to the comparison we made between purchase money and a loan, then my claim is that in a loan, when you say that you owe me one hundred shekels, that does not mean that there is value of one hundred shekels with you that is mine. “You owe me one hundred shekels” means that in another two weeks there will be upon you an obligation to give me a gift of one hundred shekels. Right now I have nothing with you. In purchase money I do have something with you—but nothing tangible. I have one hundred shekels with you, but as value. Meaning, I have with you an abstract value, and formal legal thinking sees this abstract value as though it were actually some kind of asset, some kind of object. And I acquire it. And that is the first Mishnah in the chapter HaZahav: gold acquires silver, but silver does not acquire gold. What does that mean? When I give you the merchandise—a lamb—in exchange for one thousand shekels, then I gave you the lamb. The moment you pulled the lamb, I acquired value of one thousand shekels that is with you. I truly acquired it, as one acquires an object. What is the object that I acquired? It is an abstract object. It is value of one thousand shekels. It is not a one-thousand-shekel bill. None of the bills is acquired by me, not even through later determination—none of them. Value of one thousand shekels that is with you is acquired by me. You see that this is a continuation of the process of abstraction I described earlier. Once we choose to relate to this abstract concept—value—as a concrete concept, and we decide to realize it through bills and coins that serve as its expression or symbol, we can take one step further and now say: okay, but really that is only a symbol. So when I say that there is value of one hundred shekels with you that belongs to me, I do not mean that there is a one-hundred-shekel bill with you that belongs to me. I don’t want the symbols; I am looking for the thing that the symbols symbolize, namely the value. I acquired from you value of one thousand shekels. That’s all. Without going through the concrete expressions of one-thousand-shekel bills. No. I acquired your value of one thousand shekels; it belongs to me. You see that here this is really the completion of that process of abstraction I described earlier. Because now, after we defined the concept of value and made it tangible by concretizing it in coins and bills, we now turn around and relate to value as merchandise that can be bought, can be paid with—everything. It is merchandise that I can buy. The moment I gave you the lamb, I acquired the silver dinars. Which silver dinars? None of the silver dinars that are with you. None of them. I acquired one hundred silver dinars from you. It may even be future silver dinars that you will have; it doesn’t matter. You need to bring me the value of one hundred silver dinars. That is what you need to bring me. Therefore when one says that he acquired the value, they mean it literally: he truly acquired something. Not like when people say “he owes me one hundred shekels,” as in a loan. This is not a loan. In a loan, there is upon you an obligation to give me gifts. Here I acquired—there is something with you that is mine. That thing is value. And with that value I can buy things, I can marry a woman with purchase money, as we saw in Maimonides. Meaning, you see what kind of attitude there is toward the concept of value—as though it is actually merchandise, merchandise that one buys, sells, buys by means of. And it really proceeds as though it were an object, a tangible object. Okay. Now, look for example at the Talmud in Bava
[Speaker C] Metzia 45b. It was stated: Rav and Levi—they are two sages. One said that a coin can function as barter, and one said that a coin cannot function as barter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether one can acquire a coin through barter. Right? You know that even after acquisition by money exists, barter acquisition was not abolished. Barter acquisition is still a valid mode of acquisition even in the sophisticated legal world created after the concept of money was invented. I can still trade tomatoes for chairs. You can. That primitive mode of acquisition that existed long ago is still here. Now you don’t have to do it in that way. There are also formal ways to make an acquisition, but obviously that ancient, primitive acquisition still exists; it’s among us, it’s here. And of course now halakhic or formal legal discussions begin about it. Now too it has to be inserted into the framework of formal legal acquisitive acts. Now the question, for example, is whether when we want to acquire a coin, is a coin like merchandise? Can it be acquired through barter? To give you a lamb and acquire the coins? So Rav and Levi say: one said a coin can function as barter, and one says a coin cannot function as barter. What does that mean? Now notice: we already saw that you can’t acquire a coin—I mean, you can acquire a coin by giving you the lamb. But there I’m speaking about acquisition by money. The coin—sorry, the coin is the payment for the lamb. And when do I acquire that payment, that value that is the payment for the lamb? When you pull the lamb. But there the context is a discussion of acquisition by money. Here the discussion is about barter acquisition, a different kind of acquisition. It looks very similar—here too I give money in exchange for merchandise—but I’m not giving the money as acquisition by money for the merchandise. Rather, I’m giving the money as the substitute for the merchandise. I’m making an exchange: you want money, I want a lamb, let’s exchange. On the face of it, that looks like acquisition by money. I want one hundred shekels, you want a chair—give me one hundred shekels and take the chair. No. On the legal level, in the formal abstract legal sphere, these are defined as two different acquisitions. This is the primitive acquisition of exchanging one thing for another, and this is the formal acquisition called acquisition by money. Now the question is whether, in the primitive acquisition, one can exchange money for merchandise. Can a coin function as barter or not? Now what does that depend on? Rav Pappa said: what is the reason of the one who says a coin cannot function as barter? The one who says a coin does not function as barter—why? Because his mind is on the stamp, and the stamp is liable to be canceled. What does that mean? A coin is different from every other object in the world, because with a coin all of its value is agreed-upon value. The form stamped on the coin—usually the king’s image, but some form stamped onto the coin—that form determines its value. If they stamped on it that it is worth one hundred shekels, then it is one hundred shekels. If they stamped on it that it is worth ten shekels, then it is worth ten shekels. It does not depend on the value of the metal of the coin itself. Unlike a hammer, whose value is a function of its function—that is, whatever function it has is what determines its value. So basically a coin is a fiction. A coin is simply an agreement, and the form stamped on the coin reflects what the agreement is. The king basically decides—or society decides by agreement among its members—that this thing will symbolize value of one hundred shekels. It is not really worth one hundred shekels; it will symbolize value of one hundred shekels. It is purely a matter of agreement, an arbitrary matter. So the Gemara says: because with a coin, his mind is on the stamp, and the stamp is liable to be canceled. What does that mean? After all, the king can remove coins from circulation and declare: from now on these coins will no longer be valid. They are not to be used.
[Speaker E] He takes out an old shekel and brings a new shekel.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He removes—exactly—he issues other coins, and now those are the ones in use. So what will you do with the coins you have? You can use them for decoration—they’re worth nothing. You can’t do that with a hammer, right? The king cannot decide that hammers are worth nothing. A hammer has value by virtue of the fact that one can do work with it. But a coin—its whole essence is conventionality. The moment the convention is voided, its value is voided; it no longer has value. Therefore the Gemara says a coin is pure form. Every object has substance and form, or value in our case. A coin has only form; it has no value on its own, no revealed utility. But the value of the coin can be nullified by the king’s decision tomorrow morning. So what? Why is that a reason that a coin cannot function as barter? Because there is a difference—let’s say, as payment, exactly. In acquisition by money, the money functions differently from the merchandise. The money is pure value, and it performs the acquisitive act on the merchandise. Okay? And then you basically give the money and receive merchandise. In barter you cannot exchange a thing—barter is an exchange of substance for substance. In acquisition by money it is an exchange of form for form, or value for value. Let’s say with a hammer, its substance is the ability to hammer nails with it or crack nuts with it, whatever you want. Its value is twenty shekels. Okay? So it has substance—its actual substance is what one does with it—and it has its value. A coin has no substance; it only has value. Now acquisition by money works on the level of value. What does it mean to acquire by money? I give you the value of a lamb, and you give me the lamb at the same value at which you received the payment, at the same amount of payment you received. So we exchanged value for value. Okay? Which of course is something done in an abstract formal legal sphere. In contrast, primitive commerce is: you need tomatoes, I need chairs. That’s substance for substance. A coin has no substance. It has neither substance nor the likeness of substance. A coin—it’s no wonder everybody chases money as if it were idolatry, because a coin has no substance and no likeness of substance. It is really an abstract thing, an abstract thing to which we assign value by agreement. Therefore in barter, once I understand that this is the meaning of a coin, barter is impossible. Because barter has to have substance; this has only form. But form is exactly the definition of acquisition by money. It is exchange of value for value. Barter is exchange of the thing itself for the substance of something else. Therefore a coin cannot be used for barter. By the way, regarding produce, the Gemara says that with produce too there is a dispute among the Amoraim whether produce can function as barter or not. Why should it be impossible to do barter with produce?
[Speaker B] So notice, there is something very special here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is the difference between a fruit and a hammer?
[Speaker B] This remains and that doesn’t remain; this is consumed and that isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. With a hammer, using it does not consume it. Therefore it has use, it has a function, and it has value. After I used it, I can sell it along with its value. No problem. These are two independent things. It has use, it has substance, and it has form—it has value. With fruits, in certain respects, it is like money. Since in certain respects it is the exact opposite of money, because it has only substance and no form, it has no value beyond its use, because the use consumes it; no fruit remains after you use it. Not like a hammer. But if you look at it from the other side, you can see it as very much like money, because when I give you fruit, I did not give you something for use separately from its value. I gave you value, and then you just eat the fruit and that’s the end of the story; you can’t pass it on afterward. Nothing remains here. The moment you use it, you consumed it, and in that sense it is similar to a coin, because it doesn’t really have substance separate from value. Therefore there is an opinion in the Gemara that produce too does not function as barter, just as a coin does not function as barter. In barter you exchange substance for substance; produce is not substance. Therefore, for example, when one acquires the rights to the fruits of something—what is a right to fruits in Jewish law? A right to fruits in Jewish law is a right to the value. “Fruits” is the halakhic expression for value. But what does it mean, for example, if someone acquired the fruits-right of an object? The fruits of a hammer are its uses, or the fruits of a house are the ability to live in it, the function it fulfills. Okay? So when I want to sell you the hammer for its fruits, then the hammer remains mine; I only sold you the rights to use the hammer. But the hammer itself remains mine. So that is a separation between ownership of the substance and ownership of the fruits, or ownership of the object as opposed to its fruits, meaning the ability to use the thing. Okay? Now with actual fruit it makes no sense to own the substance as opposed to its fruits, right? Because whoever owns the use of the fruit also consumes the fruit itself. I cannot transfer to you an orange “for its fruits.” Because the moment you use the orange, you’ve finished it, used it up. So what remains mine after I gave you only the fruits? That’s another way of seeing the same point. Therefore when I give you the hammer for its fruits, or a house for its fruits, you will use it, but the principal itself, the thing itself, remains mine. It’s not something you use up. But fruits… just a moment. The fruits relate to the tree as the uses of the hammer relate to the hammer, yes—like the use of the hammer relates to the hammer. But when I look at the fruit itself, not at its relation to the tree, the fruit itself is actually also a form of pure value, like money. Therefore there is an opinion in the Gemara that it does not function as barter. Now, in the Gemara in… one moment before that Gemara. Let’s look for a second at the continuation.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, if with a hammer “for its fruits” I’m selling the fruits, the use of it, then what remains in that hammer?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can sell you its use for a week, for example.
[Speaker B] I understand. And then it returns to me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or, I don’t know, maybe I can scratch my back with this hammer or do something with the body of the hammer, alongside your uses. Doesn’t matter. This hammer—I will leave it to my children after you are no longer in the world. Okay? Because it is mine. You can make use of it as long as you can. Look at the continuation of the Gemara there in the chapter HaZahav. The Gemara says: we learned in the Mishnah. Yes—after saying that a coin does not function as barter because one’s mind is on the stamp. We learned: gold acquires silver. What, is this not by way of barter? And infer from this that a coin can function as barter? The Gemara says: no, by way of payment. Yes, if gold acquires silver, what do we see? That one can acquire money through barter. So the Gemara says: no, no—this is acquisition by money, not barter acquisition. So the Gemara asks: if so, “gold acquires silver”? It should have said “gold obligates silver.” What does that mean? That is a very fascinating question. What does that mean? Why does it say there “gold acquires silver”? It should have said “gold obligates silver.”
[Speaker E] More correct.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because I really do not acquire anything concrete. Right? I’m not acquiring something. No silver coin is acquired by me. Therefore, on the face of it, this is proof that we are talking there about barter and not acquisition by money. If it is barter, then I acquire the specific silver coins—that is a particular asset. But if it is acquisition by money, I have acquired nothing, so what is the meaning of the expression “gold acquires silver”? What exactly does it acquire? This is exactly what I explained earlier, by the way, yes? It should have been “obligates”—you owe me money. The Gemara says: teach “gold obligates.” Basically it should say “gold obligates.” Now, however, it doesn’t say “gold obligates”; it says “gold acquires.” This is some kind of textual emendation.
[Speaker B] That’s a brutal solution.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not a textual emendation. The Mishnah says “gold acquires silver.” Nobody is changing the text. The intention, the meaning, is “gold obligates,” not that it’s a textual change. Why indeed didn’t the Mishnah itself write “gold obligates”? A very simple answer. Because “obligates” means a loan. But here this is purchase money. In purchase money I acquire, I do not obligate. It’s not that you owe me one hundred shekels. “You owe me one hundred shekels” means that you will have to give me a gift of one hundred shekels in a month. But in purchase money, I acquire, I do not obligate. It’s just true that I do not acquire specific silver coins. In that sense, it is not called “acquires the silver.” There is no concrete thing here that I acquired. Therefore it is as though it obligates—as though you need to give me future silver coins. But it is not really obligates. Therefore the Mishnah used the phrase “gold acquires silver.” And that is precise language. No need to change the text. It is correct to say “gold acquires silver.” The intention is: acquires in the sense that you need to give me one hundred shekels in the future, but it is acquisition, not like a loan. I now have with you value of one hundred shekels. You see? On the one hand it is like a loan, on the other hand the Mishnah says that it is called acquires and not obligates. That is exactly what I was saying here. I think that is what is written here in the Gemara—what I said earlier. Now look at the Gemara in Kiddushin.
[Speaker C] The Gemara in Kiddushin 3a… one second. The Gemara there discusses how one marries a woman. So the Gemara says: a woman is acquired in three ways.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Money, document, and intercourse. The Gemara asks: the numbering in the beginning—what does it exclude? The numbering at the end—what does it exclude? The numbering in the beginning excludes canopy marriage—or whatever, that’s another story. The Gemara says: and according to Rav Huna, who says canopy does in fact acquire, then what does the number come to exclude? So what does it exclude? It excludes barter. You might have thought, since we derive “taking” from “taking” from Ephron’s field, just as a field is acquired by barter, so too a woman might be acquired by barter—therefore it teaches us otherwise. And you would have thought that a woman can be married by barter, and it teaches us that she cannot. But after all, the acquisition of a woman is learned from the acquisition of a field—“taking” “taking” from Ephron’s field—and a field can indeed be acquired by barter. Right? You would think the same is true for a woman, and it teaches us that it is not, even though we learn it from a field. Why? What is the difference? The Gemara says: shall we say it really is so? So why indeed should a woman not be acquired by barter? After all, we learn it from a field, and if a field is acquired by barter, so should a woman be. The Gemara says: barter can be effected with less than the value of a perutah, and a woman does not transfer herself for less than the value of a perutah. Here there are two versions among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). “A woman does not transfer herself for less than the value of a perutah”—Rashi explains: it is degrading for a woman to be acquired for less than a perutah, and therefore she is not betrothed; she is unwilling to be betrothed by barter, because barter can be done with less than the value of a perutah. By the way, why can barter be done with less than the value of a perutah? Because barter is exchange of substance for substance, not value for value. So why should it matter if it is not worth a perutah? So it has no value—so what? In barter I exchange substance for substance. In acquisition by money you cannot do it with less than the value of a perutah, because in acquisition by money I need to pay you value, and less than the value of a perutah lacks value. But in barter I exchange substance for substance, and therefore there is no problem—you can do it for less than a perutah. And therefore in barter as well, what is used is vessels and not food and not… and that is a dispute—and not coinage, because all those things have no substance, as I said earlier. So you cannot exchange substance for substance with those things; only merchandise can be exchanged for merchandise, substance for substance. So if so, what happens with a woman? Rashi says that this is a rabbinic law. It is degrading for a woman to acquire herself by barter, because after all barter can be done for less than the value of a perutah, so it’s as if it doesn’t accord her proper value, and so on. You might think that if you give her a perutah, then that is already fine—a perutah is proper value. This whole explanation is really very strange. And more than that, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask against Rashi: but what if he does the barter with more than a perutah? Right, barter can be done for less than a perutah, but what if he does it with more than a perutah? So Rashi says: yes, but rabbinically they still forbade it, because they didn’t want—since barter can also be done with less than a perutah, they forbade it even with more. All of this is forced. Tosafot brings a position, and the Ritva sharpens it further, that has a different reading here. With less than the value of a perutah, a woman is not acquired—not “does not transfer herself,” but “is not acquired.” There is no “herself”; they don’t read the word “herself.” What does that mean? That by barter one cannot acquire a woman at all. A woman is not acquired by barter—not because she does not want it; this is not a rabbinic law. Rather, a woman, as we saw earlier, is not merchandise that you acquire substance for substance. You receive this merchandise and pay for it with other merchandise, or with money or with other goods—barter or money? No. A woman is not merchandise. So what, then? The similarity between a woman and the acquisition of a field is only a formal similarity. It is not really that you acquire a woman. “A woman is acquired in three ways” does not mean that you acquire her and now she is your property, unlike a field. Rather, there is “taking” “taking” from Ephron’s field. That verbal analogy teaches you that the same formal abstract act that performs an act of acquisition with property can also apply betrothal to a woman. Not that it is the same action, not that the result is the same result. Is the woman now acquired to me and my property? Not my property. Rather, the same formal act that creates ownership in a field creates betrothal in a woman. But there is no comparison between betrothal and acquisition of a field. As we saw earlier, with a woman I do not acquire merchandise. Therefore a woman cannot be acquired by barter. Because with a woman the act must be a formal act. This is not an exchange like the primitive acquisition: I need a woman, you need oranges, take oranges and give me a woman. It doesn’t work like that. I am not taking the woman as merchandise. Therefore barter acquisition is not relevant in this context. The act of betrothal is a formal legal act that contains a legal effect called betrothal. And barter is not a formal act. In order to apply betrothal, you need a formal act, and therefore betrothal by money works with a woman, but barter does not. And that is what several medieval authorities (Rishonim) say here: that with less than a perutah a woman is not acquired—not “does not transfer herself”—because value is required; you need an abstract legal act here in order to betroth. So basically we see—I’ll just summarize because our time is already up—basically the claim is that money means the concrete embodiment of an abstract concept: value. That is the meaning of money. After making that abstraction, we can now even work without the mediation of money, and speak about value itself as merchandise. And that value can be acquired. In acquisition by money, one transfers merchandise and receives value in exchange. And if he has not yet given me the coins, then I have value with him corresponding to the value of the merchandise he received. That is the meaning of purchase money. In a loan I do not have even the value with him. I have nothing. He only has to give me one hundred shekels, but it’s not that I have value with him. After that we saw that this abstraction, which led to the definition of the concept of money, also led us to the definition of acquisition by money, which is basically an abstract legal act, as distinct from the primitive acquisition, barter trade, which always existed. It is not done in an abstract legal sphere; it is simply exchange, like children do, like anyone does. You don’t need complex legal definitions here. And one of the consequences of this is that money and produce cannot be acquired by barter, because they are abstract value. And a woman too cannot be acquired by barter. With a woman too—although a woman is not value, I do not acquire her value, I do not own her—with a woman I also do not acquire her body; she does not belong to me. Rather, I need a formal act in order to apply her betrothal. Where a formal act is required, barter is not a formal act. Barter is primitive commerce: what you do is what it is. It does not symbolize anything; it does not operate on a formal legal plane. Therefore it cannot effect betrothal. Betrothal is effected by transferring money because that is a formal act that applies betrothal. Okay, next time I’ll need a little time to complete this and then we’ll move on. Let’s stop here. Does anyone want to comment or ask? Thank you very much, more power to you, Sabbath peace.
[Speaker E] Okay, goodbye, Sabbath
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] peace.