Q&A: Disqualification of a Borrower with Interest from Testimony
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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Disqualification of a Borrower with Interest from Testimony
Question
- Rava, in tractate Sanhedrin, adds to the law in the Mishnah that one who borrows with interest is also disqualified from testimony.
My question is whether this is because of desire for money, making him a kind of robber, or whether he becomes wicked and is therefore disqualified from testimony.
2. Does the prohibition of interest apply only to a person's basic needs, but for luxuries there is no prohibition of interest?
With blessings and appreciation.
Answer
- You are asking whether one who borrows with interest is a wicked person of monetary violence, or an ordinary wicked person. I am not sure there is any practical halakhic difference, since both are disqualified. True, there are opinions that a wicked person of monetary violence is only suspected of lying and is not intrinsically disqualified (Ketzot HaChoshen), but most halakhic decisors do not hold that way. The straightforward view is that witnesses to an interest-bearing loan are ordinary wicked people, not people of monetary violence. It is reasonable that the borrower is the same. Still, there is room to see him as a wicked person of monetary violence, because he is willing to violate a prohibition in order to obtain a loan, which is a kind of desire for money. In that respect he is worse than the witnesses to the loan.
- I am not familiar with such a distinction in Jewish law. What has been written is that regarding a heter iska, it should be applied only to business needs, and not to other needs (even distress). This is not a stringency, but the very nature of a heter iska, which is designed for business dealings and not for household consumption and the like.
Discussion on Answer
It is possible that this is just a conventional wording.
Your explanation is the view of most halakhic decisors, as I wrote. True, one is not flogged for interest, but many have written that he is still disqualified (because the reason one is not flogged is not due to the leniency of the transgression, but because it can be remedied by repayment and restitution).
I suggested that perhaps there is still desire for money here, because he commits a transgression in order to obtain a loan. If it is a matter of saving a life, then there is no transgression. And if not, then there is a transgression here for the sake of obtaining money. A robber too can be in financial distress. So is this not a wicked person of monetary violence?
Thank you very much!
The Mishnah wrote: "One who lends with interest is disqualified from testimony."
Rava adds that the borrower is as well. If the reason were desire for money, why didn't the Mishnah also write borrower?
{I also don't understand what desire for money the borrower has. It could be that we are dealing with a person in distress who has nothing to eat and therefore borrows.} Therefore, in my opinion, Rava's novelty is that even though there is no desire for money here, he is disqualified from testimony because he is wicked, since he borrowed with interest. What does the Rabbi think? Is this a valid explanation? Or is this what the Rabbi wrote and I just did not understand his words?