Q&A: Acquisition
Acquisition
Question
Does the Rabbi have any article that explains the whole process of acquisitions, such as meeting of the minds and the like?
And I also find it difficult regarding the Rabbi’s article on the chapter "HaZahav," where the Rabbi wrote that in a sale I retain the value of the item for myself, and then the other party is obligated to strip the value off the item and give it to me, and this is done through money, which is a kind of representative of value in the world, and so it is like a deposit, and that is why betrothal can take effect. If so, it is very difficult: why, if the item has a value of one hundred shekels and we agreed that he would pay me one hundred and one, would I not be obligated to give him one hundred and one? After all, that value does not exist. Unless the Rabbi holds that there is some legal effect of sale, and if so there is no need to arrive at the idea that there was a limited acquisition here—that is, excluding the value. Let it suffice that there is some sale agreement here.
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. If you agreed on a price, then that is its value. By the way, the idea of stripping off the value is not my thesis but that of some later authorities; I think the Kovetz Shiurim.
Discussion on Answer
And the Rabbi also didn’t answer me whether he has an article on how the whole acquisition system works, such as meeting of the minds.
I don’t recall. There is Pri Moshe, which brings together all the material and discussions on acquisitions. Read critically, but it is definitely a very useful book.
What is obvious to you is not at all obvious to me. When they fixed a different value, then here it is “for me, it is worth that much.”
It is obvious to me that “for me, it is worth that much,” without that being under the legal effect of a sale, would not obligate, for a simple reason: if someone damaged my bottle of water, which in the store is worth, say, five shekels, and I decide that for me it is worth five hundred shekels, that would not obligate the other person to give me that amount, for the simple reason that a bottle of water does not contain that kind of value.
Actually, I do not understand at all how an agreement between the parties can determine that the item contains more value.
P.S. I connected less with the content of that book, and I am looking for an article by the Rabbi.
What do the initials “Kovetz Shiurim” stand for?
I looked for it on Google and didn’t find it.
Kovetz Shiurim. Didn’t I cite it there?
But it is obvious that the value of an item is measured by the uses it is worth. For example, a coat in winter—if, for the sake of argument, the value of its warming use is one hundred shekels (and it is obvious that a coat in winter has real value based on the use it provides)—then if we determine that it is worth a million (leave aside here the law of overcharging, which is an external law, and there are also cases where there is no overcharging because he explicitly waives it), then I do not have ownership in an item worth a million, only a hundred.