The Golden Chapter – Money and the Acquisition Effect of Money – Lesson 5

Table of Contents

• General Overview
• Stipulating a Specific Consideration in a Monetary Acquisition
• The Dispute Between Rashi and Maimonides: Debt Versus Acquisition of Value
• Condition Versus Acquisition, and the Implications of Non-Fulfillment of the Condition
• Nimukei Yosef: New Dinars and Obligation to Give Specific Consideration
• The Difficulty Raised by Kuntres Ha-Sefekot from the Ran in Avodah Zarah and the Rema on a Worker’s Wages
• An Attempted Resolution Through Maimonides: Sale Proceeds as Acquisition, and a Worker’s Wages as a Debt
• The Ketzot’s Approach: Money Does Not Create Obligation, and a Worker Is Like One Who Gives Money
• Rabbi David Povidarski’s Critique of the Ketzot’s Proof from the Mishnah
• Machaneh Ephraim: Undertaking Regarding Something Not Yet in Existence, and the Practical Difference
• Netivot: “He Who Punishes” Regarding Wages for Work, and the Distinction Between “This Object Will Be Yours” and “I Will Give You”
• Even HaEzer: The Nature of Coinage Versus Appraisal, and Resolving the Ran and Nimukei Yosef
• Contemporary Implications: Mass Production, the Law of the Kingdom, and Bank Deposits

Summary

General Overview

The text examines whether, in a monetary acquisition transaction, one can stipulate that the consideration be given specifically in a certain kind of equivalent value, such as new wheat or a black lamb, and perhaps even in one specific object itself. It frames the question against the backdrop of a fundamental dispute over whether a monetary acquisition creates an acquisition of value or only a debt and obligation. It explains that if this is understood as a condition, then failure to fulfill the condition voids the transaction and does not create a claim to the object; whereas if it is understood as an acquisition of value, non-payment may become theft and grounds for a claim in religious court. The text then presents an apparent contradiction between Nimukei Yosef, who requires compliance with the stipulated consideration, and the Ran in Avodah Zarah and the Rema regarding a hired worker, who allow payment in money. It develops several ways to resolve this, mainly through the views of the Ketzot, Machaneh Ephraim, Netivot, and Rabbi David Povidarski, while discussing whether a worker’s labor is comparable to giving money, to sale proceeds, or to goods subject to appraisal.

Stipulating a Specific Consideration in a Monetary Acquisition

The text presents a case where someone sells merchandise and asks that the buyer pay not with just any equivalent value, but specifically with new wheat, a black lamb, or even with “this lamb.” It distinguishes between “a lamb” in general and “this lamb.” It emphasizes that this is about monetary acquisition, not barter, and asks whether one can limit the way the consideration is paid to a specific equivalent value or to a concrete object. It notes that if we are really talking about a specific object as the “consideration,” then the question arises whether this comes close to barter acquisition, and what the practical difference would be regarding who performs the act of taking possession that finalizes the deal.

The Dispute Between Rashi and Maimonides: Debt Versus Acquisition of Value

The text links the possibility of demanding specific consideration to the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over the nature of monetary acquisition. It describes that according to Rashi, taking possession of the merchandise creates only a debt, and therefore it seems that the seller does not “acquire” anything from the buyer; rather, only an obligation is created to pay an agreed value, so in principle one can repay with any equivalent value. According to Maimonides, taking possession of the merchandise transfers to the seller actual “value” that is located with the buyer, in a way similar to an abstract deposit. Therefore, it may be possible to acquire even value realized in a specific form, such as new wheat or a black lamb, and even to view failure to give it as theft and grounds for a claim in religious court.

Condition Versus Acquisition, and the Implications of Non-Fulfillment of the Condition

The text suggests that even according to Rashi, one can limit the consideration through a condition attached to the transaction, like conditions in betrothal and sale. It clarifies that a condition does not prohibit and does not “obligate” an action; rather, it establishes that the consent was given on that basis. Therefore, if the other party does not fulfill the condition, the transaction is void and he is not obligated in the stipulated object. It illustrates this with a conditional bill of divorce, on condition that she not drink wine for five years, and emphasizes that the possible issue is not violation of the condition itself, but the consequences of voiding the act. It distinguishes this from Maimonides’ understanding, in which failure to pay the thing that was acquired as realized value may be considered theft, because the item is already owned by its owner.

Nimukei Yosef: New Dinars and Obligation to Give Specific Consideration

The text cites Nimukei Yosef, who explains the claim “I want them new” regarding new dinars, and argues that one must give new ones even if the old ones are worth more. It quotes that Nimukei Yosef learns from this that, with movable property, one who took possession of an object and stipulated that he would give “a kor of new wheat” must give as he specified, and from here concludes that one can obligate a specific type of consideration. It notes that this can be interpreted either as an obligation through a condition or as an acquisition of realized value, depending on the approach.

The Difficulty Raised by Kuntres Ha-Sefekot from the Ran in Avodah Zarah and the Rema on a Worker’s Wages

The text presents the difficulty raised by the brother of the Ketzot, who cites the Ran in Avodah Zarah, chapter HaSocher: if one hires a worker and stipulates payment of “this kor of wheat” or “a kor of wheat” generally, he is not obligated to give wheat, only money, because taking possession is lacking. It adds that the Rema rules this way in section 332, and sets up the contradiction with Nimukei Yosef, who requires payment as stipulated. It sharpens the point that the Ran’s statement itself needs explanation, because in the case of a worker’s wages the worker has already done his work, and there is no simple way to say that the transaction will be voided.

An Attempted Resolution Through Maimonides: Sale Proceeds as Acquisition, and a Worker’s Wages as a Debt

The text proposes a move that sees no difficulty if we distinguish between sale proceeds and a worker’s wages: with sale proceeds there is an acquisition of value, and therefore the seller acquired what was stipulated; whereas with wages, the matter resembles a loan and only a debt is created. It raises a technical possibility that the absence of a properly formulated condition could cause the stipulation regarding wages not to take effect, leaving only an obligation to pay money in any form. It challenges this from Maimonides, who explains that a worker’s wages are not canceled in the Sabbatical year and compares this to a deposit. It then suggests that, in the view of the Shulchan Arukh, one can distinguish between acquisition of value in sale proceeds and the reason wages are not canceled, following the Kesef Mishneh, who does not base that on a deposit but on the purpose of the obligation.

The Ketzot’s Approach: Money Does Not Create Obligation, and a Worker Is Like One Who Gives Money

The text cites the Ketzot, who explains “gold acquires silver” as creating an obligation rather than an acquisition, because coinage is not acquired by barter. He concludes from this that “silver does not acquire gold” means it also does not create obligation, so even if one stipulated to give gold in exchange for silver, it is ineffective, because gold is considered produce relative to silver and taking possession is lacking. This is how he resolves the Ran with Nimukei Yosef: money does not obligate produce, and therefore in a case of a worker’s wages, where the worker’s labor has the legal status of giving money, there is no obligation to give wheat specifically. By contrast, when someone took possession of produce and stipulated that he would repay with other produce, “produce obligates produce,” and therefore regarding sale proceeds the obligation works as stipulated.

Rabbi David Povidarski’s Critique of the Ketzot’s Proof from the Mishnah

The text cites Rabbi David Povidarski, who argues that the Ketzot’s proof from the Mishnah is not necessary, because in the first clause, “acquires” must mean “creates obligation” in order to teach that gold is produce and silver is coinage; but in the second clause, “silver does not acquire gold,” the main novelty is the law of acquisition itself, that money does not acquire the sale and only taking possession does, and from this it is not proven that no obligation is created. He suggests that the Mishnah may be dealing with a case where money was given as an act of acquisition and not as an act of undertaking, and therefore no obligation arises. But if money was explicitly given in order to undertake payment in gold or produce, perhaps the stipulation is effective. This returns us to the basic question of why a condition should not work, and raises the possibility that the problem is that the laws of conditions were not properly fulfilled.

Machaneh Ephraim: Undertaking Regarding Something Not Yet in Existence, and the Practical Difference

The text cites Machaneh Ephraim in the laws of selling something not yet in existence, section 3, who sets up a practical difference in a case where one asks for consideration in a specific object that is not in the buyer’s possession at the time of the transaction. He rules that by taking possession of the movable item, the buyer becomes obligated to give such-and-such wheat as stipulated, even if he did not have it in hand, because a person can obligate himself regarding something not yet in existence even though a person cannot transfer ownership of something not yet in existence. The text brings this as proof from the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and from Nimukei Yosef on “gold creates obligation for silver,” and rejects the interpretation that Nimukei Yosef means only “if he wants to uphold the sale” and not a real obligation. It argues that the comparison between the Ran and Nimukei Yosef is not necessary, because hiring workers is considered like giving money.

Netivot: “He Who Punishes” Regarding Wages for Work, and the Distinction Between “This Object Will Be Yours” and “I Will Give You”

The text cites Netivot in section 203, who challenges the Ketzot: if wages for labor have the status of giving money, then there should at least be the sanction of “He Who Punishes” when one fails to give the object that was promised. He distinguishes between a formulation in which the employer says, “Work for me as a laborer, and this object will be yours,” in which case the labor counts as payment for an acquisition and for “He Who Punishes,” and a formulation of “Work for me as a laborer, and I will give you this object as your wages,” which is like a promise and like a loan, from which he may discharge himself with money even ab initio. And even if he said, “You will have no repayment except from this,” he can still discharge himself with money. He brings proofs from betrothal and from the payment to a non-Jewish prostitute, where labor or intercourse acquires a cloak or creates the status of such payment, and concludes that in the case of a Jew, the distinction depends on whether an actual transfer of ownership took place or only a promise of repayment.

Even HaEzer: The Nature of Coinage Versus Appraisal, and Resolving the Ran and Nimukei Yosef

The text cites Even HaEzer, who disagrees with the Ketzot and argues that the difference between “gold creates obligation” and “silver does not create obligation” follows from logic: an object and a worker are subject to appraisal, and therefore taking possession of them or acquiring them creates an obligation for money as stipulated; but coinage, which is fixed in amount, cannot “create obligation” beyond what it itself is worth. It has only a Torah-level mode of acquisition through acquisition itself, and when there is no rabbinic acquisition, there is no obligation regarding an object either. He therefore explains that wages for labor, which are subject to appraisal, can create obligation as stipulated. He proposes a resolution according to which both the Ran and Nimukei Yosef agree that with money one can discharge the obligation; and only if he gives wheat must he give “new” wheat rather than “old” wheat. So there is no essential contradiction, only an added rule in the Ran that what difference does it make whether it is the items themselves or their monetary value.

Contemporary Implications: Mass Production, the Law of the Kingdom, and Bank Deposits

The text suggests an implication for modern reality, in which payment of money may acquire by force of the law of the kingdom, such as ordering a book from a publisher, in which case the buyer acquires “a book” as a type and not one specific copy out of many. It describes how, in mass production, many goods resemble coinage in the sense that units are interchangeable, similar to tomatoes or printed copies. It mentions a previous position according to which depositing money in a bank is a deposit of value rather than a loan, and from this follow implications for the Sabbatical cancellation of debts and for the laws of interest, while emphasizing that the applications depend on clarifying the reality and the underlying definitions.

Okay, last time we talked about consideration—whether, when someone wants to receive a certain kind of consideration in a money-based acquisition, someone sold merchandise and wants to receive the payment in new coins, in new wheat, in some particular type of consideration, and maybe even in a concrete object, not just a certain category. The question is whether you can do such a thing. Right? Say I sell you a chair and I want you to pay me specifically in new wheat. Or, in principle, do you simply owe me money or something of monetary value? We’re talking about a money-based acquisition, not barter. Right? You always have to remember that. If we were talking about barter, that would be a completely different sugya, but we’re talking about a money-based acquisition. In a money-based acquisition, what you pay me is the consideration. It isn’t merchandise. Once it’s consideration, then basically it’s given to me as monetary value—sorry, as something worth money. If it’s something worth money, then seemingly you can give it to me in any form of monetary value, as long as the value is what we agreed on. Okay? And then the question starts to come up among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim): what happens if I want the consideration specifically, say, in new wheat? Give me the thing of value, the hundred shekels you owe me, but pay it in a particular kind of consideration, a particular form of value. Or alternatively, pay me specifically with a black lamb—that’s what I want. You could go even further and ask what happens if I ask you for a particular object. In other words, I want you to give me that lamb. Not a black lamb in general—whichever black lamb—but give me that lamb. In the language of the Talmud this is called “an unspecified lamb” and “this lamb.” “An unspecified lamb” means: give me a lamb, I don’t care which one. “This lamb” means: give me this one. Okay? There may be a difference between these two things. We’ll see later; you can discuss that issue too.

Now, on the face of it, there may be room to tie this to the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that we saw: according to Maimonides, who says that you can transfer ownership of value and that this counts as acquisition and not merely obligation, whereas in the straightforward reading of Rashi, in several places it sounds like this is only an obligation. Right? Rashi wrote on page 55b, for example, that in a money-based acquisition, once I pulled the merchandise, I obligated myself to give him the money. Rashi emphasizes there that it’s not that the other side acquired something; rather, a debt was created—I obligated myself to give him the money, so he didn’t acquire anything. But according to Maimonides, the moment I pull the merchandise, he acquired a value of one hundred shekels that is by me; that is his by acquisition. Okay? That’s different, for example, from a loan, where Maimonides says a loan is given for spending, so he didn’t actually acquire anything—I just have to pay him.

So if we really proceed from that dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), then it may be that our discussion depends on it. Why? If I go with Rashi, then in a money-based acquisition, once I pulled the merchandise, I basically obligated myself to give you some value of one hundred shekels. Okay? Now, if you didn’t acquire anything, I just owe you one hundred shekels—that’s like a loan. Now in principle, I can repay my debt to you in any way. As long as I gave you the value you’re owed, everything is fine, because you don’t have something specific that you acquired from me. You can’t ask me specifically for this thing and not that thing. I owe you one hundred shekels—the value of one hundred shekels. Fine. So I’ll give it in any form I want, and therefore according to Rashi’s approach I would expect that such a thing would not be possible. You wouldn’t be able to stipulate that the consideration be given specifically in a certain form—that he give me the value, the value we set, in whatever form he wants.

In contrast, according to Maimonides, where we say that in a money-based acquisition both sides acquire: I acquire the merchandise, and you, correspondingly, acquire the consideration. Here there would be room to say that if he acquires, maybe he can acquire something specific. I want specifically this lamb. So the moment I pulled the merchandise, you acquired the lamb. Because it’s not an obligation to give you one hundred shekels; rather, in exchange for the merchandise that I acquired, you acquired something from me. Usually you acquire abstract value, but if you want something else, then the transaction is almost like barter. Basically, the transaction is that you acquired that other thing, according to what we agreed. Okay? Seemingly.

The dispute could be on that point. But I said that this isn’t necessary, because even according to Rashi it could be that I can—it’s only an obligation, not an acquisition—and I can obligate myself conditionally. What does that mean? We’re making a money-based acquisition. I pull the chair, and correspondingly—that is, a debt is created from me to you—I’m obligated to give you a certain value, not an acquisition but an obligation or debt. But maybe when we make this transaction, that transaction can be accompanied by a condition. You can place conditions on transactions, right? A man can betroth a woman on condition that tomorrow it rains. I can sell you the car on condition that such-and-such. I can place conditions on any transaction. Now, maybe when a person says, “I want the consideration specifically in a black lamb,” or “it doesn’t matter which one,” then true, he didn’t acquire anything; it’s only an obligation. But that obligation is accompanied by a condition. In other words, I’m willing to make this transaction with you only if you pay me the consideration specifically in a black lamb and not in any other thing of monetary value. And then, even though I didn’t acquire something specific—the seller, that is, didn’t acquire something specific from the buyer—still he can limit him to paying him in a particular type of item because there’s a condition: without that, I don’t want the transaction. So I can always make the transaction conditional on that thing.

But in principle, it seems to me that if it really is a condition, then once the person doesn’t pay you in a black lamb—say you wanted a black lamb, and I don’t pay you in a black lamb—then what happens? Can you sue me for the black lamb instead of what I gave you? No. The transaction is simply void. Once the condition wasn’t fulfilled, the transaction is void. If I want to keep the lamb and leave the transaction in place, then I’ll have to pay you in a lamb, but it’s not that I owe you a lamb. I don’t owe you anything. If I don’t fulfill the condition, the transaction is void—that’s all. So it’s not that I really owe you a lamb.

So the difference between what I’m saying in Rashi and what I’m saying in Maimonides—we’ll see other differences later—but that’s one difference between them. You need to understand that when I make a condition with someone, it’s not that the condition obligates him to do something. A condition is not an obligation, a condition is not a contract; a condition is a condition. In other words, I make my consent to the transaction dependent on some condition being fulfilled. If you don’t fulfill it, you haven’t committed a transgression, you haven’t acted against the terms of the transaction; the transaction is void because the condition wasn’t fulfilled. I didn’t consent on that basis.

Think, for example, of a woman who received a bill of divorce on condition that she not drink wine for five years. Okay, you can give such a bill of divorce—an example that appears in the Talmud. Now she’s divorced, she went and married someone else, she had children, everything is fine. Now she wants to drink wine; three years have passed, okay? Now she wants to drink wine. Is she allowed to? Then the condition is void? Of course she is. But the bill of divorce is void. Right—only the bill of divorce would be void, but she’s allowed. You can discuss it—since the bill of divorce becomes void, it turns out that the marriage to the second man is illicit, and the children are mamzerim, so a problem is created here. The question is whether she is allowed to do that. But the problem is not that she violated the condition. Violating the condition is her right—I’m not the Holy One, blessed be He. The fact that I make conditions doesn’t turn it into a prohibition for her. It may be that here, in this specific case, there would be a problem in violating the condition because she harms her children, not because she harms me. It’s not because it goes against the contract, but because she turns her children into mamzerim, and even that is debatable—whether it’s really forbidden or not. But a condition doesn’t make something forbidden.

In the same way, I want to argue here that according to Rashi, where this is not an acquisition: if I acquired the chair, I pulled the chair, you acquired from me monetary value—didn’t acquire, sorry, a debt was created from me, a value of one hundred shekels that I need to pay you. You make the transaction conditional on this—that when I pay those hundred shekels, I pay them specifically in a lamb, a black lamb or whatever. So that’s a condition. I can choose not to pay. If I don’t pay, the transaction is void; nothing happened, I didn’t commit a transgression or anything; it’s just that you didn’t consent on that basis, so the transaction is void. Okay?

According to Maimonides, if I don’t give you the black lamb, then I committed a wrongdoing—I’m a thief. You can sue me. You acquired a black lamb; it’s yours. You have to understand—that’s a difference. Now, you can sue me in a religious court, right? As if I’m holding a deposit of yours. An abstract deposit—not a concrete deposit, but an abstract deposit. But yes, even according to Maimonides there’s an innovation here. First we said, according to Maimonides, that you can acquire that abstract thing called value. A kind of abstraction that we make, and suddenly it becomes merchandise. You can acquire it, you can own it—that was the innovation from the introductory lectures. We talked about that in the introductory lectures. Now we have an innovation on top of that innovation: that I can acquire value that is realized in a certain way. I want a value of one hundred shekels realized in new wheat, or in black lambs, or in barley, or in whatever. That too can be acquired—that’s an even more abstract thing. I mean, fine, the concept of value is an abstract thing we understand; we’re already used to using money, money expresses value, so maybe you can also own value. Value basically becomes a kind of merchandise. But here there’s a subtler innovation: it’s not just that I acquire value from you, I acquire from you value in black lambs or in new wheat. That too can be acquired. And yes, that’s not a condition as in Rashi, but an acquisition. I have by you a black lamb worth one hundred shekels. Which lamb? Any one, it doesn’t matter which, but some one.

It’s clear that if I’m talking about “this lamb,” not “an unspecified lamb” but “this lamb,” meaning it’s not that I want you to realize the value for me in a certain type of merchandise like a lamb, but I’m saying no, no—this very lamb itself will be the consideration—isn’t that a barter acquisition? What? In my opinion that would be a barter acquisition. It resembles barter, but there’s room to discuss it. It could be that this is still a money-based acquisition, and the acquisition by which I acquire the lamb is because the lamb is the money, or the consideration, for the transaction. A practical difference, for example, is that if you pull that lamb, the transaction is not completed, because one who pulls the money doesn’t finalize the transaction; only one who pulls the merchandise finalizes the transaction. So the question will be whether this turns into a barter acquisition, or whether you can make a money-based acquisition with concrete monetary value—that is, with a particular object.

Okay, so let’s see now. We asked last time—I’m just reviewing this so we can get into the issue—let’s look at the words of Nimukei Yosef. Nimukei Yosef says like this: “I need the old ones”—I need the old coins to last a long time; yes, we’re talking about new dinars—“I need the old ones to last a long time, and the new ones are more convenient for me so they won’t blacken too much.” We learn from this that the claim about old coins is a valid claim. “And Rabbi Hananel wrote that even though the old ones are worth more, he must give him new ones as he ruled.” Nimukei Yosef says—and this is the key sentence—“And similarly with movable property: one who pulled an object from his fellow and stipulated that he would give him a kor of new wheat must give him as he stipulated.” You can obligate yourself to a particular type of consideration. And again, as I said, this can be interpreted according to Rashi as an obligation with a condition—that you realize it by means of new wheat—or according to Maimonides as an acquisition of a value of one hundred shekels in new wheat. Two approaches.

On this, the brother of the Ketzot, the author of Kuntras Ha-Sefekot, asks. Here he brings the Nimukei Yosef, and now he asks: “And my brilliant brother, our teacher Rabbi Yehuda Kahane, raised a difficulty from what the Ran wrote in tractate Avodah Zarah, in the chapter ‘One who hires,’ that one who hires a laborer and stipulates to give him as wages ‘this kor of wheat,’ or even ‘a kor of wheat’ without specification”—notice the difference: “this kor of wheat,” meaning these particular wheat grains, or “a kor of wheat” in general, an unspecified kor of wheat—“he is not required to give him wheat, but rather money, because pulling is lacking.” As long as you didn’t pull that kor, you didn’t acquire it, right? Because merchandise is acquired only by pulling. So how—how do you acquire it? Of course, if this were barter, then that wouldn’t be true. If it were barter, then pulling the merchandise of one side transfers the merchandise for both sides. But here it’s a money-based acquisition, not barter. In a money-based acquisition you need to pull the merchandise, not the—not the money, right? So even if that money here is monetary value, it’s basically merchandise. And the merchandise is functioning here as monetary value; as long as you didn’t pull it, you didn’t acquire it. Since that is so, what basically happens here? He has to give him money; he’s not obligated to give him that specific kor. And the Rema also wrote this in section 332. If so, why does he have to give as he stipulated? And there in Bnei Yaakov I found that he raised this question.”

What does that mean? He asks on the Nimukei Yosef we saw earlier in our sugya from the Ran in Avodah Zarah. The Ran in Avodah Zarah, notice, is not talking about a money-based acquisition; he’s talking about a laborer’s wages. I hired a worker and I need to pay him. Now the worker wants me to pay him with “this kor of wheat” or with “a kor of wheat.” He says, specifically in wheat. No, don’t give me money, not barley, not chairs—I want wheat. Or even specifically that particular kor of wheat. It doesn’t take effect. I can give him the monetary value I owe him in any form I want. That’s what the Ran argues. Kuntras Ha-Sefekot—yes, the Ketzot’s brother—says that this contradicts what Nimukei Yosef says in our sugya. Nimukei Yosef says that in a sale, a money-based acquisition can be conditioned on payment in specific consideration, or a specific type, or even truly specific consideration.

So it comes out that you’re converting the kor of wheat, his wages, into money, and with that money you give him the kor of wheat, right? Yes, that kor of wheat functions here as monetary value. Exactly, right. So in the language of the Ran, notice: “One who hires a laborer and stipulates to give him as wages this kor of wheat or even an unspecified kor of wheat.” It sounds like he probably sees this as a condition, not an acquisition but a stipulation. You owe me money, and I stipulate that you pay me that money specifically in wheat or in this kor of wheat, okay? But from his wording it sounds like this is a condition, not an acquisition. So on the face of it, it seems he holds like Rashi. And if so, what does that mean? Then no—you can’t just give him money. The big question is why. If it really is a condition, what’s the problem? What, the condition doesn’t take effect? You can make conditions in any transaction. Why shouldn’t that work? Leaving aside for the moment the contradiction with Nimukei Yosef, I’m just asking: why in fact shouldn’t it work? How can you say it doesn’t work? We saw that whether according to Rashi or according to Maimonides it ought to work. According to Rashi by the laws of conditions, and according to Maimonides because it’s an acquisition—I acquired it. Either way, it ought to work. So how does the Ran claim that it doesn’t work? Leaving aside his contradiction with Nimukei Yosef—how can we really understand this idea that it doesn’t work?

You can’t even say here that the transaction becomes void, since the worker did his work. Right, he showed up and worked. So it’s not like if you bought something then the transaction becomes void; here it doesn’t even work in that sense. Right. So the statement of the Ran itself needs explanation even before the question of the contradiction with Nimukei Yosef. Yes, and the Rema also brings it as Jewish law. I noted that, admittedly, this is seemingly a difficulty from one authority against another—from the Ran against the Nimukei Yosef. Fine, so there’s a dispute, what’s the problem? But the Shulchan Arukh rules both things. The Shulchan Arukh rules both the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef, and therefore in any case we need to reconcile at least the position of the Shulchan Arukh, even if not the positions of the Ran and Nimukei Yosef themselves.

Now in principle, this is roughly where we got to last time. In principle, there was room to say that the Ran doesn’t pose a difficulty to the Nimukei Yosef. Yes, I call it “the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef,” but think of it as two laws in the Shulchan Arukh, because the Ran and Nimukei Yosef themselves don’t owe each other anything. But I call it “the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef,” meaning from the law of the Ran to the law of Nimukei Yosef, okay? Why is it not difficult? Because if we go in the direction of Maimonides—that you can acquire value, and in a money-based sales transaction I basically acquire the value, not an obligation, not an obligation and not a condition, but I acquire the value—okay? Then the claim is that concerning purchase payment, Nimukei Yosef is right. Why? Because there’s an acquisition here. Once there’s an acquisition… what I acquired, I acquired. If I acquired wheat, you need to pay me wheat, because that’s what’s mine. Right? It’s not an obligation. If it’s an obligation, I say it’s monetary value in general—you can give me that monetary value however you want. But if it’s an acquisition, what I acquired is mine; you can’t give me something else. Okay? Therefore one could say that the law of Nimukei Yosef is based on the fact that this is an acquisition.

But with the Ran, we’re dealing with a laborer’s wages, not purchase payment. Now regarding wages, there was room to say—and I remind you that Maimonides also says that in a loan, for example, I didn’t acquire value. It’s not like purchase payment. In purchase payment I acquired value that is mine and located by you. In a loan, you owe me money; it’s a kind of future obligation. Right now I don’t have anything by you. You owe me something in the future. Now the question is what to compare wages to. If I compare wages to a loan, then there’s no problem. Why? Because what Nimukei Yosef says—that I acquire when you owe me what we stipulated—is because there we’re dealing with a money-based acquisition. In a money-based acquisition, I acquire the value. And we said that according to Maimonides, when one acquires the value there’s much more reason to say that you can also acquire something specific, not just general value; on the contrary, maybe it’s even easier to acquire, because it’s less abstract: you acquired something specific. Okay?

In contrast, wages—maybe wages are like a loan. I owe you that money, but it’s not that you have value by me. I owe you that money. If I owe you that money, that’s a debt. A debt can be paid in any way that I—not any way I want. Why doesn’t this look like a condition? Even if it’s only an obligation, we saw there’s a stipulation here. So I say, maybe there wasn’t a double condition or something like that, and then under the laws of conditions it’s not a valid condition. True, you certainly have to pay because he did work for you, so my obligation to pay certainly exists. But the condition—so long as I didn’t really formulate it as a condition—then there isn’t a valid condition here. What remains is that I owe you one hundred shekels. How to pay it? In any form I decide. Okay? So that’s only a technical issue—why in fact not see it as a condition. But at the level of principle, the answer is that in purchase payment this is an acquisition, while in wages it’s like a loan; in other words, it’s basically a debt, not an obligation—or a debt, not an acquisition.

What? Or. Now that’s an excellent question. An excellent question. Something seriously bothers me, because with the worker there’s a right corresponding to the duty. Unlike a loan, it’s not—it’s not on the same plane at all. I didn’t understand. In a loan, after all, if I gave it and it was given for spending and he returns cash, Rav Pappa said that he has to repay his debt. In wages it’s something else; the man has a right. Who told you? Why not say it’s like a loan? What is it? Can he choose not to return it? There’s no such thing as not returning. He has to pay you just like I have to repay you a loan. No, you have to—it’s not an obligation just because he must. He must because the Torah obligated him to repay. Right, and here too the same thing. Who says? Here too the same thing. A laborer’s wages are also the same thing. “On that day you shall give his wages,” “do not delay”—maybe that too is an obligation that the Torah imposed. So the question is whether wages are like a loan or like purchase payment.

If I say that wages are like a loan, then maybe I can reconcile the Ran with Nimukei Yosef. I want to say more than that. In purchase payment, how does Maimonides say that he acquires the value, right? How does he acquire the value? By pulling the merchandise, right? Pulling the merchandise is what transfers the value to the seller. The value that is by the buyer is acquired by the seller. Suppose I wanted to say that this is acquisition of value also in wages. How do you acquire it there? The work—you have to understand—when I worked for you, you didn’t pull anything and acquire something through which I could say that I thereby acquired the corresponding value—I, meaning the worker, acquired the value located by the employer. The employer didn’t pull anything. Rather, the worker did work. Right? That’s what physically happened here. What was the act that was actually done here? The worker did work. Is doing the work parallel to pulling the merchandise? That’s really the question.

Because one could say that doing the work is producing the merchandise, not pulling the merchandise. So long as I haven’t done it—if I did your work, there’s something to pay for. But the performance of the work isn’t an act of acquisition. Doing the work is simply executing or producing the merchandise. I produced the thing that you receive from me. That’s not an act of acquisition. When I pull the merchandise, the merchandise already existed beforehand. Now I pull it, so I performed an act of acquisition. I acquired the merchandise, and correspondingly you acquired value, the value of the merchandise. But with the act of a laborer, there is no way to acquire the value even if I went with Maimonides. And therefore it may be that what the Ran is saying is that in the act of a laborer this really is like a loan and not like purchase payment. Because here you can’t acquire value; at most an obligation is created, and maybe even that obligation is created by the Torah—that if a laborer worked for you, the Torah obligates you to pay him, just like with a loan. Okay? So there is perhaps even some logic to distinguish between purchase payment and wages.

But of course, all of this is said only if I’m speaking—only if I go with the position of Maimonides, that in purchase payment I acquire the value. But if I go with the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), then basically it seems I don’t acquire the value; rather an obligation is created, like Rashi. Once an obligation is created, in that situation I don’t see any reason to distinguish between purchase payment and wages. Either way: if you tell me the condition works, then it should work in both. If you tell me it’s not a condition because there wasn’t a double condition or something like that, fine—then it shouldn’t work in either. But how can you distinguish between purchase payment and wages if you don’t go in Maimonides’ direction? Therefore, this whole line opens up mainly if we go with Maimonides.

Now with Maimonides himself it’s hard to say this. Why? Because Maimonides, if you remember, explains the Mishnah in Shevi’it—what you asked earlier. The Mishnah in Shevi’it says there are things that are not canceled, and Maimonides says this is like a deposit. Something that belongs to you by acquisition—there’s no remission there, because the Torah in the remission of debts doesn’t transfer to me things that belong to you; it only exempts me from future debts I owe you, as in a loan. Now one of the examples brought there in the Mishnah is wages. Wages are not canceled. Right? And if so, according to Maimonides, apparently he holds that also in wages, the worker acquired the money just as in purchase payment the seller acquired the value. And if so, you can’t make the distinction we suggested earlier.

But of course Maimonides doesn’t owe anything to the Ran and Nimukei Yosef. What I want to argue is that perhaps the Shulchan Arukh goes in Maimonides’ direction, in Maimonides’ basic conception that there is an acquisition of value, okay? But he does not agree with Maimonides that with wages too this is acquisition of value. No. On that point he doesn’t agree with Maimonides. You don’t have to accept all of Maimonides wholesale. And you say: I agree with Maimonides that in purchase payment this is not merely an obligation, but I acquired value. I do not agree with Maimonides regarding wages. In my view wages are like a loan, it really is a debt as in a loan. So why then is it not canceled? We saw that the Kesef Mishneh, even in explaining Maimonides himself, doesn’t explain him the way I said. And the Kesef Mishneh does not accept the statement that this is like a deposit and therefore not canceled. Rather, as we discussed, there are other explanations—for example, that the matter wasn’t done as a benefit to the needy, and therefore the law of debt remission doesn’t apply. Neither wages, nor store credit, nor any of those things are benefits to the needy. Therefore the law of debt remission wasn’t said about them.

So if that’s the Kesef Mishneh, which is the Shulchan Arukh, right? The question we asked was about the Shulchan Arukh. So the position of the Shulchan Arukh itself—even if he goes with Maimonides—doesn’t see in this any reason why remission should not cancel it. The explanation for why remission doesn’t cancel it is another explanation. And therefore I can say that specifically in the Shulchan Arukh he goes with Maimonides that purchase payment really means I acquired value. A loan does not. Wages, in his view, are like a loan, and here he departs from Maimonides. But wages are also like a loan in his view. And why are wages and purchase payment and everything not canceled? That’s unrelated to whether you acquired something or whether it’s an obligation. The question is what the purpose of the obligation is. Is it a benefit to the needy or not a benefit to the needy? Okay? And therefore in the Shulchan Arukh itself I can explain it this way. With Maimonides it won’t work. But in the Shulchan Arukh itself I can explain it this way.

Okay. Let’s see the Ketzot. So after the Ketzot brings his brother’s difficulty, he says: “Therefore it seems to me, in my humble opinion…” Again? Wages are more severe than theft, severe in both, there is holiness here, a laborer is a worker, ‘do not delay his wages,’ but it’s more severe than theft. What does “more severe” mean? More severe in terms of the fact that the employer pays him. Whether the transgression is more severe or less severe is a different discussion. What does that have to do with us? I’m talking about the nature of the debt—whether it’s a debt or acquisition of value. That’s a legal distinction, not a question of more severe or less severe.

“Therefore it seems to me, in my humble opinion, that certainly where the Talmud explains ‘gold acquires silver,’ it means ‘he became obligated in the silver,’ because coin cannot be acquired through barter.” Which way does the Ketzot go? Not like what I said in Maimonides, right? The Ketzot says that in purchase payment this is creation of an obligation to pay money; it is not acquisition of value, because coin cannot be acquired through barter. You can’t acquire value. It cannot be acquired through barter. If you could acquire it, it would be a barter acquisition. You can’t acquire it; it is only creation of an obligation, like Rashi. “And if so, of necessity that which we learned, ‘silver does not acquire gold,’ means that even if he stipulated to give him gold for the silver, that too does not work, because gold is treated as produce relative to silver, and pulling is lacking.”

What is he saying? Let’s think a moment about silver versus gold. I pulled the silver and asked that in exchange for this silver you give me a lamb. I pulled the silver—notice, not the merchandise. Okay? And I asked that in exchange for this you give me a lamb. Are you obligated to give me a lamb? No. You pulled the silver and I asked that correspondingly you give me a lamb. Are you obligated to give me a lamb? No. Certainly not. Why? Because pulling the money does not acquire—whether by Torah law or rabbinic law, but pulling the money does not acquire; only pulling the merchandise does. Right? Therefore you can say that when I pulled the merchandise, correspondingly you acquired value located by me. Now the question arises whether for that value you can ask only in terms of wheat or a lamb or something like that. But here the situation is reversed. If you pulled the money, not the merchandise, and you want specific merchandise—why on earth? The whole idea in a money-based acquisition is that pulling the money does nothing except create “He Who punished,” it does nothing substantial. Therefore here it’s clear you acquire nothing. Clear…

Wait, who is the one pulling? The seller pulled the money? Obviously, certainly that. So what? He didn’t acquire. Consent is free. So long as you didn’t acquire, I consented and then I changed my mind. Yes, what are you saying? The seller pulled the money—that’s the picture. The seller pulled the money and therefore didn’t supply the merchandise. Right? Then he can’t ask him for specific merchandise because nothing happened. It’s not the same thing as the discussion of Nimukei Yosef, because Nimukei Yosef is talking about when I pulled the merchandise. And now the question is whether correspondingly you can ask me for specific consideration. That’s one discussion. But would anyone imagine that when I pull the money, you’ll be able to ask me in exchange for that for specific merchandise? Not specific merchandise and not unspecified merchandise—you can’t ask me for anything, except of course the money back. If I just took your money, that’s theft; that’s something else. Of course I need to return the money. But nothing in the transaction was completed.

He says: “Because gold is produce relative to silver, and pulling is lacking. And this proves that even if one obligates himself to give gold for silver, it is ineffective.” Right, that’s obvious—that’s what we saw. “And if so, even unspecified produce cannot be obligated in exchange for money.” Right, you can’t say anything, not even “I don’t owe you a concrete object.” If you pulled the money—but of course I also won’t owe you a non-concrete object: “give me some chair, it doesn’t matter which,” or “an unspecified kor of wheat.” Right? Clearly not. It doesn’t acquire. It obligates nothing. And here it’s exactly the opposite. Why? Because specificity is more stringent. No—to acquire something specific is easier than to acquire something abstract. That it’s possible to acquire something abstract is Maimonides’ innovation. If pulling the money cannot acquire something concrete, how could it acquire for me something abstract? It’s harder to acquire something abstract. The very idea that you can acquire such a thing is Maimonides’ innovation. Rather, pulling the money just isn’t an act that acquires. If it doesn’t acquire, it acquires nothing; certainly it won’t acquire something that is even harder to acquire.

Yes. Yes. I want to compare it to something concrete from reality. Suppose there’s a receivership sale. Yes. And he doesn’t consent and he also doesn’t… they transferred him the money, but it’s money. But there’s something here… From whom, to whom? To his creditor? Yes. So what’s the problem? If they transferred him money, that’s what he’s owed. What’s the issue? But here there’s a dispute. What’s a receivership sale? Receivership means I owe someone money and can’t pay, so they seize my assets. Suppose husband and wife want to separate property. Okay. But the court basically requires them to do it. Okay, to divide, to dissolve a partnership or something like that? Okay. Then here basically there’s an entity, and in the end a third party comes and buys both of their shares, and they divide the money. And the third party transfers the money to the receiver and there are two others here, and basically they consent to this because in the end they get the money—not sure they consent… No, I don’t understand the question. Okay, I don’t know, we’ll work on it. Okay.

Fine. He says: “And that is the law of the Ran—that money does not acquire even so as to obligate an unspecified kor of wheat. And therefore in one who hires a laborer, he is not obligated to give him wheat, because the labor of the worker is only like giving money.” Do you hear what he’s saying? He says: we wondered whether wages are like a loan or like purchase payment. The Ketzot says: it’s neither this nor that. Maybe it’s more like a loan, basically, but really it’s neither this nor that. The labor of the worker is like someone who gave you money. If someone gave you money, he did not create any obligation in you. Okay? And therefore, in labor, says the Ran, the worker can’t tell him, “Give me specifically wheat,” or “Give me specifically a lamb,” or “Give me anything specific.” No. The fact that I did work doesn’t obligate anything. Maybe, as I said earlier, because it’s an act that is not an act of acquisition.

Of course, what do you mean—so then I don’t have to pay him? Don’t have to pay the worker? Of course I do. Not a Torah prohibition? You have to pay. That’s theft, that’s something else. What, “do not delay”? “Do not delay,” theft. But I have to—so it’s not that no obligation was created; an obligation was created. This is not comparable to giving money. In giving money I owe you nothing; nothing was created. With the worker there is an obligation: I owe you one hundred shekels; only you can’t ask me specifically for wheat. Why not? What’s the difference? He says: because it resembles giving money—but it doesn’t really resemble giving money. In giving money, nothing happened; here I owe you one hundred shekels. In giving money, you have to return the money. Exactly! So apparently he holds that in giving money, in the end, what do you mean nothing happened? I owe you one hundred shekels. True, I don’t need to give you the merchandise, but I do owe you the one hundred shekels. I can give you either the one hundred shekels you gave me or some other equivalent value, it doesn’t matter—I need to return it. Now with a worker it’s basically the same thing, except what? I can’t return the work to you; the work has already been done. How can it be returned? Therefore I have to give you money. That means the obligation to give you money exists here, but not because you acquired something. I owe you one hundred shekels. In principle I could have returned the work to you and told you to get lost—I wouldn’t owe anything. Fine, you can’t return the work technically, it’s simply impossible; it’s already been done. With the money you gave me in a money-based acquisition, I basically owe you those hundred shekels. You gave me one hundred shekels, only you want, in exchange for those hundred shekels, specifically this chair. That you can’t do. All you can ask me for is your one hundred shekels back. I can, by the way, give you that chair as monetary value, to return your hundred shekels through a chair. Fine. But that won’t be because you acquired the chair, but because that is the thing of value with which I return your money. Therefore he says these are not at all similar—the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef are not talking about the same thing.

Nimukei Yosef is talking about when I acquired merchandise; correspondingly I can obligate—specific consideration. Why? Because I acquired some consideration, or obligated myself with a condition, or whatever it may be. Here, I didn’t obligate anything, I just have to return what is yours, so fine, I’ll return it. It’s like someone who gave money. “But one who pulled produce and stipulated that he would give him wheat instead of the price of the produce, he is indeed obligated as he stipulated.” Notice again—it’s the language of stipulation. “And in Maimonides…” That’s apparently like Rashi, not like Maimonides. It’s a stipulation, not an acquisition. “Even though produce does not function in barter, that is specifically by way of acquisition, one in exchange for the other, but to obligate oneself in produce as a money-based acquisition, since responsibility rests on him…” and so on. “Certainly if this obligation is money, then even to obligate the produce it does not help, as is proven from ‘silver does not acquire gold,’ as we wrote. And the laborer’s wages are only like money, as we wrote. The upshot is: money does not obligate produce, and that is wages; but produce indeed obligates other produce, and that is Nimukei Yosef.”

That’s how he explains the contradiction between the Ran and Nimukei Yosef. The Ketzot brought proof for this—that pulling money doesn’t acquire and doesn’t even obligate. Why? He says like this: when gold acquires silver, we saw this earlier—when we say “gold acquires silver,” does this speak of acquisition or of obligation? Obligation. There is no acquisition according to the Ketzot. Maimonides doesn’t say that, but according to the Ketzot and Rashi it’s an obligation, not an acquisition. You cannot acquire money through barter. It is an obligation. So when we also say “silver does not acquire gold,” “acquire” here too means obligation, right? Because the term “acquire” in the Mishnah should mean in the latter clause what it means in the first clause. In the first clause it certainly means obligation, when it says “gold acquires silver.” So when it says “silver does not acquire gold,” what does it mean? Money does not obligate gold. Not only does it not acquire it; it also does not obligate it. That is the Ketzot’s proof. Therefore he says that when I transfer the money, not even an obligation is created here. Nothing is created. Not only is no acquisition created. Okay? That is essentially the Ketzot’s proof from the Mishnah—that transfer of money doesn’t even create an obligation.

Now Rabbi David Povidorsky raises a difficulty on this in his lectures here. He says: “At first glance, his proof from the Mishnah is not a proof. For specifically in the first clause, ‘gold acquires silver,’ it must mean ‘obligates silver,’ not ‘acquires.’ Why? Because with this it teaches us that gold is produce and silver is coin, for whenever one pulls produce, the money does not become acquired by the seller to be his; rather, by his acquiring the purchase, he thereby becomes obligated in the purchase price. Thus, when we say here that gold is produce and pulling it acquires the gold, it means that it obligates the silver.” That is in the first clause. He says: when you tell me in the first clause that gold acquires silver, clearly “acquire” there means obligate. Why? Because what is the Mishnah’s novelty in saying that gold acquires silver? The novelty is that gold is the produce and silver is the coin. Right? That is the novelty. Once I know that, you don’t have to tell me that gold acquires silver—that’s obvious. The novelty is what counts as gold and what counts as silver, not that gold acquires silver, but that gold is produce and silver is coin.

What’s the novelty in the latter clause? When the latter clause says that silver does not acquire gold. Is the novelty that silver is the coin? I already heard that in the first clause. So what is the novelty? “But in the latter clause, where it teaches ‘silver does not acquire gold,’ the novelty is not that silver is coin and gold is produce, because that was already taught in the first clause, that gold is produce. Rather, the intent there is with respect to the main law of acquisition, teaching us that money does not acquire the purchase; only pulling acquires. And if so, the word ‘acquire’ there is meant literally—that it does not acquire. But regarding our question whether money obligates or not, the Mishnah says nothing at all.” Don’t bring me proofs from the Mishnah that money doesn’t even create an obligation. When it says that silver doesn’t acquire gold, it means it really doesn’t acquire gold—but it might still create an obligation.

You tell me that in the first clause “acquire” means only obligate. So in the latter clause too “acquire” means obligate—that was the Ketzot’s claim. Rabbi David Povidorsky says: not true. In the first clause “acquire” must mean obligate. Why? Because there the whole novelty is that gold is produce and silver is coin. So you tell me clearly the whole discussion can only be about obligation, not acquisition. But in the latter clause, what is the novelty? The novelty that gold is produce and silver is coin was already taught in the first clause. So what is the novelty in the latter clause? The novelty is in acquisition law—that if you pull the coin, the produce is not acquired. But it could be that an obligation is created. The produce is not acquired; you can pay in some other way, but maybe an obligation is created. There’s no acquisition here. And therefore the “does not acquire” appearing in the latter clause may really refer to acquisition, not to obligation—even though the “acquire” in the first clause refers to obligation, not to acquisition. So there is no proof for what the Ketzot wrote.

Of course, the Mishnah itself says that if I pull the money, the gold isn’t acquired and no obligation is created either; there is only “He Who punished.” So not from the Ketzot’s inference—the Ketzot’s inference may indeed not be correct. But the Mishnah itself says no obligation is created. Otherwise I would owe you gold, right? Not necessarily. It may be that an obligation is created, but that obligation isn’t necessarily to gold. Rather, that he has to return the money that you gave him—that’s all. Because you gave him money. But I’m not obligated to give you gold. You see, this brings us back to Nimukei Yosef. Because Nimukei Yosef says there can be an obligation regarding an abstract thing. I owe you gold—not a particular gold item, but a certain amount of gold. And if you tell me that the Mishnah says you didn’t acquire the gold but still might have become obligated in gold—that’s what Rabbi David Povidorsky says. Then what does it mean? Really, you didn’t acquire the gold in terms of a money-based acquisition. The money is the coin, not the produce. So pulling the coin didn’t acquire the gold, which is the produce, but it may have created an obligation to gold. And for example in the context of wages, it could be that you would need to give specifically the wheat. Because an obligation was created there, just like with pulling money. Even if the Ketzot is right that wages are like pulling money, that still doesn’t mean no obligation was created. An obligation was created.

I think it’s hard to say that an obligation to gold was created, because in fact you don’t have to give him the gold—the fact is, you don’t have to give him the gold; there’s only “He Who punished.” It’s not that you have to give—you could give him other gold. No, you’re not obligated to give him gold at all. You can simply return his money and that’s it. Okay? Therefore there, no obligation to gold was created at all. But an obligation to value was created. After all, you need to return either the money or something else of equal value. And with wages, since you can’t return the laborer’s work, then basically you have to return the money. So in the end this is only a question about the Ketzot’s proof from the Mishnah. But the principle the Ketzot says could still be accepted even by him. Okay? Because through the laborer’s work, essentially an obligation is created to return you the money—that’s all—not to something specific. That too he agrees with.

And one can say further: even if you say that the phrase there means also that it does not obligate, that is specifically where we’re dealing with a case in which the money was not given as an obligation to bind him to give gold for the money, but was given as an act of acquisition. He gave the money as an act of acquisition. And then he tells him to acquire the gold for him. If so, in that case it is taught correctly: since money does not acquire, and he didn’t acquire the gold, it follows certainly that it also does not obligate, since he didn’t give the money in order that the other become obligated in gold, but rather in order to acquire, and he did not acquire. He gave it in order to acquire, not in order to obligate. So therefore it can’t acquire, because it’s coin, and I didn’t intend to obligate you, so no obligation was created.

But where he explicitly gave him money in order to obligate him in gold or produce, such as where he stipulated with him that the repayment for the money would be gold or produce, it may well be that the stipulation is effective, and the money obligates him to give the produce as he obligated himself. For the Mishnah does not deal with that at all. For example, what happens if he lends him money on condition that he repay it in gold? A loan on condition that he repay it in gold. In the straightforward reading, that’s a condition, and it is valid, right? Everything is fine. That’s what he says here. And he says that wages, simply speaking, are that. Wages are—suppose that’s like giving money, wages. Then that’s a loan, right? Like a loan. Not purchase payment but a loan. Wait, isn’t that—isn’t that an obligation? Wages aren’t an obligation? I’m saying: it’s like a loan. It creates an obligation just as a loan creates an obligation. Yes, yes, okay.

So he says, if as the Ketzot said, it’s like a loan—fine. But even in a loan, if I ask for repayment in terms of wheat or gold or whatever, if we stipulated it and both parties agreed, then certainly it’s possible. Therefore, what the Ketzot argues—that wages are like giving money—doesn’t help. Fine, even if you’re right that it’s like giving money. But even when I give money I can stipulate that I want repayment in specific terms. So why doesn’t it work here? He’s basically taking us back to the question I asked earlier—after all, why shouldn’t a condition work? Why shouldn’t a condition work here? You can make conditions in any transaction, right? That’s basically the question.

Right. So I said it may be that there was no double condition or something like that, just a technical point. In principle, if he had done it properly, then indeed it would help. The Machaneh Ephraim, in the laws of selling a thing not yet in existence, section 3, writes like the Ketzot. He says: one who sold an object to his fellow so that the latter would give him another object in exchange, and at that time that object was not in the buyer’s possession. That’s already an interesting hint. We’re talking about a case where, say, I sold you a chair so that you would give me that lamb—a specific lamb, an object, not a type of lamb. Not “bring me a lamb,” but “give me this lamb.” Now, if this isn’t barter—because if it is barter, of course everything is fine—but if it’s a money-based acquisition and I just want the consideration to be that lamb. Now the lamb wasn’t in the buyer’s possession at that time. He said: I’ll buy that lamb and bring it to you. Right now he doesn’t have that lamb. You can already see from the wording where this is going.

If according to Maimonides I’m talking about an acquisition—once I pulled the chair, the question is whether you acquired the lamb. Now that’s a thing not yet in existence; I don’t yet have that lamb. So you can’t acquire a thing not yet in existence. According to Maimonides that can’t work, because it’s an acquisition of a thing not yet in existence. But if, like Rashi, we’re dealing with the fact that I obligated myself to you for money, and there’s a condition that the money I obligated myself to you for I’ll give you in the form of the lamb—then you say, fine, now I’ll buy the lamb and give you that lamb in satisfaction of the debt I owe you. And in the straightforward reading that would depend on the dispute between Rashi and Maimonides.

So here’s another practical difference. Earlier we mentioned one practical difference: what happens if I didn’t fulfill the condition? Then there’s only the problem of theft, but not that you can sue me for the lamb. Rather, give me back what I gave you, because I gave it to you only on the understanding of the lamb, so it’s theft. According to Maimonides, no—you can sue me for the lamb because I acquired the lamb. Right? That’s one practical difference. A second practical difference: what happens if at the time of the transaction I had no lamb? According to Maimonides, where this is acquisition, it doesn’t work. I can’t acquire a lamb not yet in existence. But according to Rashi, I basically obligated myself to you for one hundred shekels, and there’s a condition that I’ll give those hundred shekels to you in the form of a lamb—or that specific lamb, doesn’t matter. A condition is fine. I’ll buy the lamb and fulfill the condition; I’ll give you the lamb. There’s no problem in the fact that right now the lamb is not in my possession.

And that’s his wording: “and at that time that object was not in the buyer’s possession.” “And in our case it seems to me, in my humble opinion, that Shimon is obligated to provide the wheat to Reuven, even though he had no wheat at the time of the transaction.” So how does he understand it? Like Rashi, right? That it’s an obligation with a condition. “And even though generally, if he fixed the price according to the market rate and gave money, the sale is not completed except with respect to ‘He Who punished,’ even if the seller had wheat.” Right? What happens if I have wheat and you want to buy wheat from me, so you pay me one hundred shekels, I pulled the money, fine? Nothing happened except ‘He Who punished,’ right? You can’t then say, okay, now pay me in wheat, right? And that’s even if he had wheat at that very moment. Why? Because of the money. Because of what we saw above, right? That’s what he says, like the Ketzot.

“There it is different because money does not acquire. After all, when I pulled the money, you did not acquire anything.” But if I did an act that does acquire, such as pulling the merchandise, that does acquire. And if I want correspondingly that you repay me in—or that I repay you in terms of specific merchandise, that’s perfectly fine. I did an act that acquired; it’s not like giving money. Okay? That’s exactly what he says. “But in our case, where he sold him objects in order that he give him produce, then from the moment Shimon pulled the objects, he became obligated to give him such-and-such wheat as he stipulated with him. And though a person cannot transfer ownership of a thing not yet in existence, he can obligate himself regarding a thing not yet in existence.” There it is explicitly. You see? Meaning, if it were an acquisition as Maimonides says, then you couldn’t do it—a thing not yet in existence. But he says: this is not acquisition, this is obligation, as Rashi says—that when the Talmud says “gold acquires silver,” it means it obligates the silver, not acquisition of value as Maimonides understands. With obligation, you can obligate yourself regarding a thing not yet in existence. I’ll obligate myself that I’ll bring you these things. So long as the debt is created. You can’t create a future debt. You can create a present debt and say that this debt will be repaid to you in lambs or in wheat or something like that.

And from where do you say—meaning, how do you know—that in every such case it is nothing but self-obligation, and that this is effective? From what the halakhic authorities wrote, and what Nimukei Yosef brought in the chapter “Gold,” regarding what the Talmud there explains about the phrase in the Mishnah “gold acquires silver”—that this is what it means: gold obligates the silver. By pulling the gold, this one became obligated to give him the silver as he stipulated with him—if old, old; if new, new. And the medieval authorities (Rishonim) learned from here that the same applies if he sold him an object in order that he give him such-and-such…” He brings Nimukei Yosef as proof. Fine? So he understands Nimukei Yosef like the Ketzot, but he brings here another practical difference. The practical difference is what happens when the object with which I’m trying to have you pay me is not in your possession at the time of the transaction. Then according to Maimonides it won’t help, and according to Rashi it is an obligation regarding something not yet in existence, and that does help.

“And I saw someone who wanted to explain and say that what Nimukei Yosef wrote—that he is required to give him wheat as he stipulated—means if he wants to uphold the sale, but not that he is obligated to give him wheat.” What is he saying? Nimukei Yosef—I explained earlier how one can understand Nimukei Yosef as saying that you owe wheat, apparently because this is an acquisition, right? Not obligation. Yes, Maimonides, exactly. But we already saw that in Nimukei Yosef and the Ketzot it doesn’t sound like they understood it that way, and also in the Ran it doesn’t sound like they understood it as obligation—obligation with a condition. Okay? So he says: there were people who wanted to explain that when Nimukei Yosef wrote that he must give him wheat as stipulated, that means only if he wants to maintain the sale. I’m not really obligated to give you wheat. Not really obligated to give you wheat. What then? Then the sale reverts.

What is the logic behind that? That it’s a condition, right? Since this is a matter of obligation and not acquisition, then the fact that you want the payment specifically in wheat is apparently a condition placed on the obligation. What practical difference follows? Here is the practical difference we spoke about earlier. If this is only a condition, then you don’t owe the wheat, I didn’t acquire the wheat; only if you don’t give me the wheat does the transaction become void. That’s all. Revert the transaction, everything is fine. And all that Nimukei Yosef claims—that this is the novelty here—that all Nimukei Yosef claims when he says you need to give him specifically wheat, he doesn’t mean that he actually owes him the wheat. Because otherwise this could really work only with Maimonides. He actually owes the wheat.

But if you understand that we’re dealing here with obligation and not acquisition, how can you understand Nimukei Yosef saying that he must give him wheat? Not that he really must give the wheat. If you want to maintain the transaction, you’ll have to give wheat. If you don’t give the wheat, the transaction is void because the condition failed. You want to maintain the transaction? You’ll need to give wheat. Okay? And this sharpens very much what I said earlier: unlike all the other suggested resolutions raised here by the medieval and later authorities, there is the natural answer that Nimukei Yosef goes with Maimonides—and so does the Shulchan Arukh. With wages, that’s a different story. If with wages they view it like a loan, like giving money, while Maimonides views wages too as like purchase payment because it is not canceled—yes, in his view. Fine, in that they don’t follow Maimonides. But Nimukei Yosef himself, the natural way to explain him, is like Maimonides. The only way to explain Nimukei Yosef with Rashi is if you say that when he says he must give him wheat, that doesn’t really mean he owes him the wheat—only that if he doesn’t give him wheat, the sale is void. You want to maintain the sale? You’ll need to give wheat. Okay?

And they brought this because they found difficulty from what the Rosh and the Ran wrote in tractate Avodah Zarah regarding “a hire-payment” and “pulling is lacking”: from here one can learn that one who hires a laborer and agreed with him to give him a kor of wheat as wages is not required to give specifically wheat, since he did not pull it. And giving money suffices. Thus we see that a person does not obligate himself to give specifically wheat until there is pulling. Yes, so what led them to explain Nimukei Yosef this way was the Ran. Once again, because of the contradiction between Nimukei Yosef and the Ran. Then the claim is basically that Nimukei Yosef also says that you didn’t acquire the wheat, but only imposed a condition; so if he doesn’t give the wheat, the sale is void. If you want to maintain the sale, give the wheat.

“And in my humble opinion, the one who explained this way, carried along by his flow, was not precise.” The Machaneh Ephraim says that this explanation is built on imprecision. “For the wages of laborers are only like giving money, as the Kesef Mishneh wrote, and therefore he is not obligated to give the wheat, since money does not acquire at all, not even to obligate the seller, as is written in ‘silver does not acquire gold.’ And the meaning of ‘acquire’ there is ‘obligate.’ But giving produce or an object does obligate one to give all that he stipulated, and money or something worth money—even if it was not in his possession.” In other words, what he says is: don’t compare the Ran to Nimukei Yosef, because the Ran talks about giving money and Nimukei Yosef talks about giving an object. If an object was given, okay, then that’s something else. Why is that something else if an object was given? Apparently he understands that an obligation is created. With giving money, not even an obligation is created—just ‘He Who punished.’ With giving an object, an obligation is created; the question is whether this obligation is to wheat or not to wheat. So he says it may be an obligation to wheat. Okay? That’s the claim.

I think that in the straightforward conception, in my opinion those commentators are right. If you don’t understand Nimukei Yosef as acquisition, then so what if an obligation was created? Fine, an obligation was created, and I’ll pay it in money, not in wheat. Why should he pay it in wheat? What will you say—that there’s a condition? Maybe there is a condition. Then you say, if I don’t pay the wheat, fine, then I won’t pay the wheat. If you want to void the transaction, void the transaction. But in order to maintain the transaction I need to pay wheat; money won’t help. That is what those commentators say, and in my opinion they’re right. That is what is called for if one wants to pull Nimukei Yosef in Rashi’s direction rather than Maimonides’.

Now just one note: someone asked this—about implications for our times. Today they produce things, say I want to buy a book. When I go to a store and buy a certain book, okay, I pulled the book, and thereby the book is acquired to me, right? Pulling acquires, and I need to pay the consideration; pulling acquires. What happens if I send money to the publisher and they send me a book back—not in a store, from the publisher? I sent them the money, and assuming the law of the land says money acquires, okay? Money does acquire. But what did he acquire? Do they need to give me a particular book? Of course not, right? Return the money—but to give you a particular title. Not a specific physical copy; they can give me whichever copy they want. I mean a certain title, but not a particular physical item. I bought the book—say, Genesis from a particular publisher—so I say they need to give me that Genesis, but not the copy that belongs to Reuven as opposed to another copy. Why? Because they have a thousand copies; they’ll give you whichever one they want from the thousand. So what comes out is that it’s true that according to Jewish law, when I paid the money it doesn’t acquire, but in today’s legal system in the state, payment of money does acquire, right? Now they have to give me a book, but not a specific copy. Suppose I want this copy and not that one—no. That means that with this money you basically acquired a non-specific book, right? You acquired—not an obligation—you acquired a non-specific book, meaning a kind of book, but not a specific volume. Okay?

So today, even with merchandise, in the age of mass production that we have today—once this wasn’t the case—in the age of mass production, a book becomes very similar to money. What difference does it make whether you take this hundred-shekel bill or another hundred-shekel bill? Bottom line, give me a hundred-shekel bill. Similarly, what difference does it make if you give me this Genesis volume or that Genesis volume? Give me Genesis; that’s what I want. So in the age of mass production, this starts to become very similar to what happens with money. By the way, even in the past there were things like this, for example in agriculture. When they produce tomatoes, fine—tomatoes. I bought a kilo of tomatoes from you; it doesn’t have to be a particular kilo. I pay you money and bring me a kilo of tomatoes, because with tomatoes, mass production existed already then. Books were not mass-produced then. With books, I paid you and you copied me a particular book. It wasn’t that there was a printing press that produced a thousand books and I bought one of them. Okay? So this has implications, for example, for various things that happen today.

I also mentioned in one of the earlier lectures that when I deposit money in a bank, that’s a deposit and not a loan to the bank, and therefore all the laws of interest there, in my opinion, are not relevant. Because this is a deposit of value. People think that if a loan is given for spending, then this is a loan because the bank doesn’t have to return the actual money I deposited. It only needs to return some value. I said: yes, but according to Maimonides, who says you can acquire value, then a bank deposit is a deposit, not a loan—it’s a deposit of value. It wouldn’t be canceled, there’s no issue of debt remission, you don’t need a prozbul vis-à-vis the bank, interest with a bank is not really relevant—perhaps rabbinically, but not interest on a loan, okay? Perhaps the dust of interest, but not actual interest. So this casts light on these issues: understanding how to define the concept well. The principles are taken from there, but the applications need to be checked according to the reality in which we operate.

The Netivot in section 203 raises a difficulty on the Ketzot. He says: from the phrase “if new, new,” the Nimukei Yosef learned that if at the time of selling movable property he specified that the other should give him a kor of wheat, and he pulled the movable property, then he becomes obligated to give specifically the kor of wheat. And it sounds from his words that even if it was not in his possession at the time of the acquisition of the movable property, he is obligated to give the kor of wheat, since pulling movable property obligates the other side, as we say with gold that ‘gold acquires silver,’ and obligation works even with a thing not yet in existence. Exactly like the Machaneh Ephraim, right? And afterward the book Machaneh Ephraim came into my hands, and he wrote this explicitly in the laws of a thing not yet in existence. But later, in section 332, he raised the difficulty of one who promised to give him an object as wages—that he can give him money, which is the Ran, right? One who promises a laborer to give him an object as wages. And he answered that the labor is like giving money for the object, and money does not acquire.

Still, in my humble opinion, this is difficult. For in section 332 it sounds like he can give him the value even initially. But if wages are considered like giving money, then he should at least have to accept ‘He Who punished’ when he doesn’t want to give him the object. What is he saying? He says, if you compare wages to giving money, that’s what the Ketzot said, right? Then what comes out? Suppose I agreed with you that you’d work for me, you did the work, and now I owe you one hundred shekels. Now you wanted, instead of those hundred shekels, to get this chair worth one hundred shekels. The Ran says: he’s not obligated; I can give you another hundred shekels. So the Netivot says: at least there should be ‘He Who punished,’ right? Because after all, I obligated myself to give you the chair. True, the obligation doesn’t take effect, but at least if you compare it to giving money—in giving money too, even if I don’t give you the merchandise, there’s at least ‘He Who punished,’ right? So with respect to ‘He Who punished,’ this basically functions like an acquisition and not like an obligation. That’s a very interesting point. That’s what the Netivot claims.

In other words, what are they saying here? This is an obligation, not an acquisition, right? It’s an obligation, and you can obligate yourself even regarding a thing not yet in existence. Now what happens if this is an obligation and not an acquisition? Then seemingly I can pay it in any form whatsoever, unless there was a condition; and if not, then I pay it however I want. He says: yes, but in the dimension of ‘He Who punished,’ I do see this as an acquisition, not as an obligation. Meaning, for the purpose of ‘He Who punished,’ you have to treat it as though an acquisition happened—a kind of rabbinic thing, not even rabbinic law but some kind of curse or whatever. So it’s not that an acquisition really happened; it’s only an obligation, and obligation can apply even to something not yet in existence. But for the purpose of ‘He Who punished’ you have to treat it as an acquisition. And that’s what troubles him about the Ketzot: why don’t we find anywhere that the Shulchan Arukh says there is ‘He Who punished’ if he doesn’t give him the wheat? It says initially: give him whatever you want; you’re not obligated to give him what you agreed. You might say: but there is ‘He Who punished’ if you don’t give it. Of course if this is acquisition and not obligation, then that wouldn’t be relevant.

The Netivot says as follows: “Therefore it seems to me, in my humble opinion, that certainly if he told him, ‘Work for me as a laborer, and this object will be yours,’ then certainly this is considered like giving money for the object, and he would have to accept ‘He Who punished’ if he doesn’t want to give him the object. For in Kiddushin, in such a case, if she said, ‘Work for me as a laborer and I will become betrothed to you,’ she is betrothed. And similarly with a non-Jewish prostitute, who acquires through money, etc., if he said to her, ‘Submit to me in exchange for this cloak,’ she acquires it through intercourse—that was the hire-payment. If so, here too, with a Jewish laborer, he acquires for the purpose of ‘He Who punished’ through wages.”

“But in section 332 we are dealing with a case where he said, ‘Work for me as a laborer and I will give you this object as your wage’”—not “this object will be yours.” He didn’t stipulate that he wants the… yes, he says—no, sorry, in both cases the employer says: “Work for me as a laborer and this object will be yours.” Then I’m basically transferring the object to you in exchange for the labor. So here it is really possible to say that the labor of the worker is the money with which to acquire the object, right? Now the worker worked, and now I don’t want to give the object—there is ‘He Who punished,’ right? When one does a money-based acquisition and I pull the money, there is ‘He Who punished’ regarding the money, so here too there is ‘He Who punished.’ But if I say to him, “Work for me as a laborer and I will give you this object as your wages”—not “this object will be yours”—I am just promising you that I’ll give you that object. Promises are nothing. Write them on ice. In Jewish law there’s no force to promises. “I will give” is not acquisition; it is as though he said to him, “Lend me money, and I’ll repay you with this object,” in which case he can give him money initially. He can give him money initially. Even if he said to him, “You will have no repayment except from this,” or “only from this will I repay you,” he can satisfy him with cash initially. There isn’t even ‘He Who punished.’

Do you hear the difference? If you say, “I will transfer ownership to you”—we basically agreed on a transaction of acquisition. And then, notice, this turns the whole thing around, because we usually understand that with wages, the worker’s labor is the merchandise and the money is the consideration. Right? But if I say, “Work for me as a laborer and this object will be yours,” then what is he saying here? No. The worker’s labor is the money. And I want to transfer the object to you in exchange for the labor, that the labor be the consideration. So if you did the labor, it’s like one who gave the money in a sale, and then there is ‘He Who punished.’ Right? But if I say to you, “Work for me as a laborer and I will give you this object as your wage,” then what is the merchandise here? The merchandise here is the worker’s labor, not the object. The object is the consideration. Right? But since the worker’s labor is like giving money, then giving money doesn’t create even ‘He Who punished.’ Because there isn’t a transaction here of money in exchange for merchandise. The object that I promised to give you is also only a promise. I basically obligated myself to give you money, like a loan. I obligated myself to give you money. Now I tell you I promise that I’ll repay that loan with this specific object. Promises are nothing. Suppose I promised to give you something—there is no ‘He Who punished’ if I don’t keep the promise. ‘He Who punished’ exists only where I carried out a money transaction. Why? Because then it’s not just a promise. I already received money for that promise. Something happened. True, receiving the money doesn’t acquire, neither by rabbinic nor Torah law, but you can’t say that nothing happened and it’s just a promise. A bare promise—“I will give”—that has no legal force. Okay? Therefore here there isn’t even ‘He Who punished.’ That’s his claim.

Then what comes out is very interesting. If indeed he says to him, “and I will give you this object,” then even the comparison made by the Machaneh Ephraim and the Ketzot between the labor of the worker and giving money now goes one step further. Now it really becomes a case where there is even ‘He Who punished’ once you received the money. That’s basically what he adds here. Okay?

Let’s look for a moment at Even Ha-Ezer; I want to cover a little more. The Even Ha-Ezer says this: “And if old, old”—the old and new coins. “The Ketzot Ha-Choshen in section 203 brought the words of Nimukei Yosef, etc., and raised a difficulty on it in the name of his brother from what the Ran wrote. And the Ketzot Ha-Choshen wrote there: that the law of ‘gold acquires silver,’ where we say ‘gold obligates,’ means that if he bought an object with money and pulled the object, he became obligated in the money as he stipulated. But if he took the money, he did not acquire the object and also did not become obligated except for ‘He Who punished.’ And therefore, when one hires a laborer and stipulates to give a kor of wheat, he is not obligated, because the labor of the worker is only like giving money.” See there, where he expands on this.

“And in my humble opinion the words of the Ketzot Ha-Choshen are incorrect. For the fact that gold obligates and silver does not obligate does not come from a special verse. It doesn’t derive from a verse. Rather, it is simple logic. Since the buyer acquired the object and priced it at a dinar, once he pulled the object and acquired it, he thereby became obligated in that dinar. Pulling the object obligates him in the dinar. And to that we add that he became obligated as he stipulated. If he stipulated to give a new one, he must give a new one. But if the seller took the dinar and did not become obligated in the object, that is because coin, since it is fixed in amount, cannot be used to obligate more than it is worth. For there is no process of appraisal by which to assess it as worth more than a dinar. It only has the mode of acquisition by Torah law. But by rabbinic law, since money does not acquire, there is no obligation in the object either.”

What is he saying? He says something interesting. An object has no natural fixed value. Someone can say: for me this object is worth one hundred shekels, even though its market value is eighty. Or the opposite. “For me it is worth it,” in Talmudic language. Yes—“for me” it is worth one hundred shekels. An object—its value isn’t embedded in its essence. The value of a coin—that is the essence of the coin. A coin is nothing but value. I can’t appraise a one-hundred-shekel coin at one hundred and twenty. It is one hundred shekels by definition. Right? Therefore basically you can’t give a coin and thereby become obligated to give merchandise in exchange. Why? When I give you the merchandise, I say: the merchandise can be appraised in various ways—one hundred shekels, eighty shekels, one hundred fifty shekels, whatever we set. Right? We appraise the merchandise. Once you received the merchandise, you are obligated to give me the money according to how we appraised the merchandise, right? But when I give you the money, you are not obligated to give me merchandise, because money, all it has is value. At most, return the money to me. You can’t, say, become obligated in merchandise worth one hundred fifty when you got one hundred. That’s irrelevant. The one hundred shekels can’t obligate you in anything. All you can do is acquire the coin of one hundred shekels. But not that pulling the coin of one hundred shekels obligates you toward me in something. It’s not like merchandise.

So what does this mean? Since by Torah law money does acquire according to Rabbi Yohanan—according to practical Jewish law we rule like Rabbi Yohanan—so by Torah law money really does acquire. But the Rabbis said money does not acquire, right? Now, money does not acquire and also does not obligate. Because obligating is something money cannot do anyway, regardless of the Rabbis. To obligate, it can’t. So he basically says like this: the fact that money does not acquire is a rabbinic enactment. The fact that money does not obligate is essential logic arising from the understanding of what a coin is. It’s not the same thing. It’s not that the Rabbis canceled both the power of money to acquire and the power of money to obligate. No. The power of money to acquire exists; the power of money to obligate does not exist.

In a loan, what happens? It doesn’t obligate me in merchandise. It creates a debt, because you received one hundred shekels, you need to return one hundred shekels to me. Here you want to obligate me regarding merchandise—not to obligate me to return the one hundred shekels I received, but to obligate me regarding merchandise. That doesn’t exist. Coin cannot do that. Merchandise can obligate one to give the consideration. But consideration cannot obligate one to give merchandise. Consideration by definition is consideration—that’s the whole point. It cannot be merchandise against which you obligate giving consideration. Therefore he says: once the Rabbis canceled the power of money to acquire, then basically money cannot acquire. To obligate—money can’t do that by virtue of being money. So it comes out that money neither obligates nor acquires. Okay?

“And if so, when one hires a laborer and stipulates to give a kor of wheat, since labor has a mode of appraisal…” Meaning—not the opposite. It’s merchandise again. It may be like giving money in terms of the structure of the transaction. But in terms of the nature of the thing, it is not money; it is merchandise. Because labor doesn’t have a natural fixed value. In that sense it can be appraised as eighty shekels, or one hundred, or one hundred fifty—exactly like an object, like merchandise, right? Therefore, remember I said in the introductory lecture that money has two functions. One function is that money is basically the thing with which I pay consideration in a money-based acquisition, right? Essentially a representation of value. Okay? That is, it’s one side of the asymmetry in a money-based acquisition. The other thing is the definition of the concept of money itself, the coin itself.

Now he says that wages have only one of the characteristics of money, not both. It is the money in terms of the transaction. If you ask me, in the transaction of wages versus merchandise, what are wages in that transaction? Wages are the money of that transaction. But if you ask me what the essence of wages is—money or merchandise? It’s merchandise, not money. Therefore he says that although if you transfer wages, then the Rabbis enacted that there won’t be acquisition here, because the Rabbis said that money doesn’t acquire—transfer of merchandise acquires, but transfer of money does not acquire—but in terms of creating obligation, ordinary money doesn’t create obligation because the logic says that a kind of thing like money cannot create obligation. But wages can create obligation. Therefore obligation can exist here. Okay? And therefore he argues that the Ketzot Ha-Choshen is not correct. There is a contradiction between the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef. Because wages should really be able to obligate. And if they obligate, then Nimukei Yosef says that once you’re obligated, you can also obligate a specific thing, say new wheat or such-and-such a lamb. So with wages too that should be the case. Why then does the Ran say that with wages he can pay him in money or in whatever he wants? The dimension of obligation in wages exists exactly as it does in—sorry, not as money, but as merchandise. Okay?

Of course, if I go with Maimonides then nothing is difficult. This whole discussion is only if we don’t go with Maimonides and instead everything is about creation of obligations. Then he says: if that’s the case, wages can create obligation. And if the Ran were understood against Nimukei Yosef, then it should come out that if we fixed wheat or a lamb, then one should have to pay what was fixed. Then he says: “And furthermore, the basis of his difficulty seems to be that what the Ran wrote—that he is not required to give him wheat but money—is for that very same reason by which one who is obligated to give, in the case of one who bought an object, as he stipulated, and if he stipulated ‘new’ he must give ‘new’—namely because that is how they appraised and set the price of the object, at a new dinar. In the case of one who hires a laborer and stipulates to give him a kor of wheat as wages, certainly there too he must give as he stipulated, except that he is not obligated in a specific thing, since by giving money equal to a kor of wheat he thereby fulfills the condition and his obligation. For what difference does it make whether the wheat themselves or their value, since his obligation to give a kor of wheat is not because he became obligated in a particular object, but because he became obligated as he stipulated.”

In other words, he says that giving the money is basically like giving the wheat, because something worth money is like money; buy wheat with this money, and that means I fulfilled what I obligated myself to. I obligated myself to give you wheat; I gave you the money, and that basically gives you the wheat. Therefore the Ran says that with wages, if he stipulated wheat, he can pay him with money. Why does the Nimukei Yosef there say that not so—in the case of one who bought an object he must give it to him? Because there he apparently understands that… “And the Nimukei Yosef, who wrote that one who buys an object from his fellow and stipulates to give new wheat is obligated to give as he stipulated, means that he cannot exempt himself with old wheat, but with money he certainly can exempt himself.” Do you hear what he’s saying? Basically the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef say the same thing. This is a new answer. They say the same thing. What does that mean? Nimukei Yosef too says that you can give money instead of the wheat, all he says is that if you give wheat you have to give new wheat and not old wheat, because I basically measured the price in terms of new wheat. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything beyond value here.

It’s a bit strange—why can’t I then give old wheat as monetary value? In other words, instead of the money I’ll give old wheat. He claims I can basically stipulate: if you give me wheat, give me new wheat, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give me money; you can give me money, and in that sense the Ran and the Nimukei Yosef are saying exactly the same thing. Both of them basically say that you can give money. And this is what he says: “Thus there is no difference at all between the words of Nimukei Yosef and the words of the Ran; they are really saying the same thing. Nimukei Yosef teaches that one must give as he stipulated, and the Ran teaches that he can exempt himself with money from whatever he stipulated to give, because what difference is there whether the item itself or its value? He has paid him as he stipulated.” So the Ran is simply one additional layer on top of Nimukei Yosef. Nimukei Yosef only says you have to pay what you stipulated, and the Ran says: right, but paying what you stipulated can also be done through money, because what difference is there between the item itself and its monetary value.

He apparently understands that old wheat and new wheat are different in value—it’s a different value. It’s not the same value; just give fewer new wheat, or more old wheat, and you reach the same value. He apparently understands that the value differs. If you say, for example, that old and new are of the same value, then apparently—if I understand correctly—that would indeed be fine, because what difference is there? Something worth money is like money. He apparently understands that when we’re talking about new wheat, it means I want more. Basically I gave you a chair and I want a kilo of new wheat, but that kilo of new wheat is really worth one hundred ten shekels, not one hundred like a kilo of old wheat. Therefore he says: if you want to give me one hundred ten shekels in money, give me whatever you want; but don’t give me a kilo of old wheat—that you can’t do. If you give me 1.1 kilos of old wheat, that’s also fine, I think, because otherwise it’s hard to understand what he wants—something worth money is like money. Then his claim is that there is no contradiction between the Ran and Nimukei Yosef, and that they are saying the same thing. And I say: that is not the simple reading. The simple reading seems to be that new wheat and old wheat have the same value, meaning like superior land and inferior land. I owe you something worth one hundred shekels in return for a loan; now do I need to pay with superior land or with inferior land? But clearly the value of the land has to be one hundred shekels—that is what I borrowed.

Okay, that’s where I’ll stop. There are a few more points you can see in the summary I’m uploading to the site, to Moodle, okay? But here I’m already finishing the issue of a non-specific item. We’ll move on to “se’ah for a se’ah.” Look in Moodle—I’ll also send a sheet with points for anyone who wants to prepare, so check Moodle; it’ll be uploaded soon.