Q&A: Pruzbul and the Cancellation of Debts Nowadays
Pruzbul and the Cancellation of Debts Nowadays
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
The Sabbatical year will soon end, and the following questions come up:
1. Are there practical implications nowadays for the cancellation of debts at the end of the seventh year? After all, many people have loans they took out and also loans they gave (for example, they took a mortgage or lent money to a bank/investment body as part of a savings deposit, etc.).
2. Does one need to make a pruzbul, perhaps in order to avoid the prohibition involved in the cancellation of debts? And if so, how is it done? I know that one can make a kind of general heter iska; the question is whether there is also a general pruzbul.
3. What about small personal loans between one person and another, where no repayment date was set and no document was made for them?
Best regards,
Answer
Hello.
I think banks make a pruzbul, but when you borrow from them it is irrelevant to you in any case. They are the lenders whose claim is affected, not you. As for loans to them, you can include them in your pruzbul, although it is not necessary (it is not clear that the cancellation of debts applies to a loan to a bank).
There is a general pruzbul. I am sure you can find a text online.
Loans for which no time was set are thirty-day loans, and that is how they should be treated. The document is not important for our purposes.
Discussion on Answer
The Rabbinate does not sell leavened food for everyone. It sells only public leavened food, because the government appointed and authorized it for that purpose. Private leavened food is sold only by the owner himself (to the private rabbi he chooses, and not through the Chief Rabbinate), and without his permission no one else sells it. You cannot sell something that belongs to someone without his knowledge, because “one may act to a person’s benefit in his absence,” but according to most opinions one may not act on behalf of a person in disposing of his property in his absence and without his knowledge.
I understood that according to most halakhic decisors, one can make a pruzbul even for a person who is unaware of it, based on the rule “one may act to a person’s benefit in his absence,” similar to the sale of leavened food that is done for a person who is unaware of it. My question about that is: in the case of selling leavened food, I understood that the Chief Rabbinate sells all the leavened food of all the Jews in the country for Passover. If so, why is it not customary to make a pruzbul for all the Jews in the country as well? Or perhaps they do, and I just don’t know about it?