Q&A: Interest
Interest
Question
Hello Rabbi, I wanted to ask a question about the laws of interest. I recently started dealing in investments in stocks and virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. There are various ways to lend stocks or currency with interest to different companies, most of which are owned by non-Jews. Is this permissible even though it is fixed interest, since most of the companies are owned by non-Jews? And can one also combine this with the view of the Rashba regarding interest where there are no clearly identified owners?
Answer
I’m not familiar with this topic, so it’s hard for me to answer. I’ll address only the points I understood. There is no nullification by majority when it comes to people, so the fact that most of them are non-Jews does not help. However, if you mean the majority of the companies and not the majority of the owners of the company, then that is following the majority and not nullification by majority, and that does apply even with people. One should discuss the prohibition of lending with interest to institutions (like a bank or a business), and there is definitely room for the view that this is not included in the Torah prohibition of interest.