חדש באתר: עוזר בינה מלאכותית המבוסס על כתביו ושיעוריו של הרב מיכאל אברהם

Q&A: Renunciation Before Three

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Renunciation Before Three

Question

Hello Rabbi Michi,
A neighbor of mine wants to declare seventh-year wine ownerless before three witnesses. She declared it ownerless before her adult son and two neighbors, but now I realized that her son is probably not a valid witness.
Have a kosher and happy Passover

Answer

It’s not a problem. It is ownerless, and everything is fine.
Here’s a brief explanation:
 
The tannaitic authorities disagreed about before how many people one must declare property ownerless. In practice, Jewish law follows Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, that one person is enough, and the rabbis decreed that it should be declared ownerless before three.
A. It is worth considering whether the three need to be valid to serve in judgment, because this is apparently a religious court, not witnesses. (For witnesses, two are enough.) Logically, this should be compared to the annulment of vows, which can also be done before relatives, since there is no legal ruling here that is being rendered by this panel.
B. What is the law after the fact if she declared it ownerless before one or two? It is reasonable that the renunciation takes effect anyway (certainly before two), and therefore there is no need—and in fact it is also impossible—to declare it ownerless again.
C. Moreover, even according to the view of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, there are halakhic decisors who said that when one declares something ownerless in order to avoid a prohibition, one person is enough. And some ruled that for movable property, one person is enough. Our case is movable property being declared ownerless in order to avoid a prohibition.
Everything is fine. Have a kosher and happy holiday,
Michi

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