Wednesday, January 29, 2014

selling an eved ivri to another owner

Ralbag on last week’s parsha is mechadesh that just as an eved ivri does not pass b’yerusha to other relatives when his master dies, so too an eved ivri may not be sold by his master to some other party.  The master’s kinyan in the eved is non-transferable. 
The one exception to this din is that after the master of the eved dies, the eved is still bound to work for master’s sons.  It seems that this din of “kam tachtav” is not a halacha in yerusha or kinyanim, as that would undermine the Ralbag’s chiddush, but rather means that so long as the owner has a son, it is as if the owner himself is still alive – the son is not a new owner, but an extension of his father’s ba’alus (see Koveitz Shiurim II:12).

Minchas Chinuch asks: the din is that a father cannot pass on b’yerusha rights he has to his ketana daughter.  For example, a father has a right to the earnings of his daughter.  If the father dies, this right does not pass through inheritance to his sons.  If so, based on the chiddush of the Ralbag, a father should not be able to sell his daughter either.  Clearly this is not the case, so your homework is to come up with a chiluk between the two halachos.   

2 comments:

  1. You're right. A father cannot sell his daughter. That's why her metziah does not belong to her "buyer." All he can do is transfer to someone else the rights that entitle him to her maaseh yadayim, and even that only with a kinyan that has a din of kesef kiddushin al tnai.

    Do you have something in mind?

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  2. You are saying what sounds to me like a big chiddush as if it was a davar pashut -- I assume shifchus is not the same as ishus. An owner has the option to do yiud, and according to one view the money he uses to buy the shifcha may count as kesef kiddushin in retrospect, but that does not mean what he is doing is kiddushin. He is buying a slave, plain and simple, and the girl's father is selling her into slavery. (from Chaim)

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