Q&A: Selling Leavened Food Without the Owner’s Knowledge
Selling Leavened Food Without the Owner’s Knowledge
Question
Hello, and blessings.
At our workplace they didn’t arrange a sale of leavened food, but apparently there is a religious employee who did make such a sale for the company, though he didn’t ask permission for it.
Is that valid?
Answer
Who does the leavened food belong to? A sale without the owner’s permission is not valid. And even if this is considered a benefit, this would be acting beneficially by disposing of something that belongs to another, not conferring a benefit upon him, and straightforwardly it does not take effect.
Discussion on Answer
Why doesn’t acting beneficially by disposing of another person’s property take effect? This is a dispute between the Ketzot (243:8) and Terumat HaDeshen, and the Rema ruled like Terumat HaDeshen. There is a lot of evidence from the Talmud in support of Terumat HaDeshen; the Ketzot (in Ketzot and in Avnei Miluim) remains unresolved because of two Talmudic passages. The proofs that the Ketzot brings from Rashba and Tosafot are not convincing. It seems that Tosafot and Rashba mean something different from what the Ketzot claims, and many have already noted this. Therefore it would seem that the ruling should follow Terumat HaDeshen.
[In addition, one could say that even according to the Ketzot this would have the status of acting for someone’s benefit, since he does receive something—he receives money.]
In principle, there is room for your argument. However, that is only according to the side that says acting for someone’s benefit works by virtue of “we are witnesses,” as in Tosafot, and then he can do whatever an agent could do. The Ketzot HaChoshen, consistent with his own view, proved that this is not so from the passage about despair without awareness. Straightforwardly, this depends on the dispute between Rashi and Tosafot regarding one who seizes property on behalf of a creditor when that harms others—whether this is said also regarding an agent or only regarding one who acquires on someone else’s behalf, but this is not the place to elaborate.
But in our case, in any event it is very difficult to say this. The company is not religiously owned, so there is no basis at all for saying “we are witnesses” that they appointed him as an agent (which is the “we are witnesses” of Tosafot), or even that they want this at all (and then there is no rule of acting for someone’s benefit according to any view).
And all this is even for acting for a person’s benefit. To act beneficially by disposing of another person’s property in a case like this is not relevant at all.
If I’m not mistaken, this is a dispute between the Chazon Ish and the Steipler, and as I recall they treat it leniently because it is a rabbinic-level doubt, since leavened food that remained in a Jew’s possession over Passover is prohibited only by rabbinic law.