Business Ethics: A Thought in Jewish Monetary Law - Rabbi Shlomo Cohen

[Music] [Applause] Welcome back to our series on Jewish monetary law. In the previous um sh we spoke about the the the the the validity of a verbal agreement in Jewish monetary law. in this sh to now I want to today's sh I want to discuss more what about a thought in Jewish monetary law you must be thinking I'm crazy what what do you mean a thought what about a thought the garamora tells us a tremendous story in Babasa about a rabbi called Safra Safra was a businessman and he was in the middle of davening when a buyer came to him to offer him a price for his uh for his merchandise. He offered the price, but he didn't realize that Rafa was in the middle of daing and he couldn't answer. So, Rafsafra just kept quiet and didn't say anything and carried on davening. The buyer thought that his price wasn't right, so he put up the price. At first, he offered a,000. Now, he said, "Okay, okay, okay. I can see you have suffered. That's not good enough for you. 1,100. And Rafsafra kept quiet cuz he was still in the middle of duffing and he couldn't answer. The buyer started getting frustrated because he really wanted Rsaf's merchandise. 1,200. Still Rafa didn't answer. 1,300. Still Rafa didn't answer until he got the price up to 1,500. And then Rafa answered. He says, "Of course I'm prepared to sell you my merchandise, but said Raf Safra, I'm going to sell it to you for 1,000, the original price that you offered. I couldn't answer you because I was in the middle of doubing, but in my heart, I had agreed to your offer. I was prepared to sell for a,000. That was a good offer for me. So afterwards, for the fact for you that for even though you are prepared to now pay 1,500, I'm not going to take it from you. I'm going to sell it to you for 1,000. Ask the Gomorrah what Rafa did. Is that an obligation? Are we all obligated to do that? I understand the ramifications of that. Right? You're selling your car and you've decided you want 60,000 for the car and then suddenly this big fat guy arrives with a big fat wallet bursting with dollars with a big Texan hat on, right? And he's and it's just like, "Wow, a dream." And they and you can see that you can get a lot more money than you'd ever dreamed of from this guy. He says, "Yeah, my my my only son wants this car. I'll pay whatever you want. Are you allowed to now put the price up even though you'd originally thought that you were only going to take 60,000? Are you allowed to now put the price up and ask for 65 and 70,000? Because you can see that you've got a buyer here who's going to pay whatever you need, what whatever you ask for, right? Are you allowed to put the price up? answers the Gomorrah. What Rafa did was what he did was within the boundaries of the law. It wasn't an obligation. It was that's a someone who is prepared to lose money. Someone who's prepared to lose money in order to stand by their thoughts, right? But it's not an obligation. It's for people that are on a high spiritual level that they can call themselves a real someone who's on that level. Yeah. Stand by your thoughts. Do things according to the way you thought. Once you thought of a price, don't you don't change it just because now you found someone who's prepared to pay more. But generally, there's no obligation at all to follow your thought. We have a rule in Jewish monetary law. things that are just in your heart don't haveic ramifications. They don't have umic value. They don't they don't bind you in any way. Right? That's only where there's already been a verbal agreement would we say that now you have an obligation to stand by your word. Again, as we said in the previous year, it's a moral obligation. But let's look at some other circumstances where maybe a thought has more validity than it does in a in a normal case of negotiations. Let's talk about a case two cases I want to talk about. One is where you're mo where you're foregoing a debt that someone owes you and the other case is a case of charity. But first, let's talk about the case of Makila. Someone owes you a thousand $1,000 and they've owed you it for a long time and they don't seem to be paying on time. They don't seem to be able to pay. And you know that this guy has got financial problems. So, while you're lying there in bed in the morning, you think to yourself, you know what? I'm going to forgo that debt. I'm going to be mo led to my to this old friend of mine, Shim. I'm going to be moet. And then you wake up, you get out of bed and you tell your wife also that you're going to be mo Shim. You tell your wife that you've decided to be mo Shimon that debt, but you haven't told Shiman and you haven't made any contractual act of a Kenyan anything that would it would seem would would actually bind you to to stand by what you thought and have now said. So what is your obligation? A half an hour later, you get a phone call from Shiman and he gets you angry. he's a neighbor of yours and he starts complaining about noise and about the way the ch your children are are making are making a mess in the hallways of the apartment of the apartment building and then you suddenly think to yourself why you know what I'm not going to be moim that debt I want him to pay that money I want him to pay me back that $1,000 and you tell him you know Shimon you better pay me that $1,000 soon are you allowed to do that first of all let's take the case where you verbally told your wife that you're going to forgo that debt. I'm not talking about saying that maybe I'm going to be foregoing that debt. You said definitely to your wife, I forgo that debt that Shimon owes me. The $1,000 that Shiman owes me, I'm foregoing that debt. From the moment that you say it, the debt is foregone. The debt does not exist anymore because to forgo a debt works verbally. A purchase doesn't, but ma does. Ma works verbally. When you verbally say that your mo a debt, then your your mo you forgive it. You're for foregoing a debt. The debt is now foregone. It's gone. It's finished. If you now lie and tell Shim that no, you still have to pay me that $1,000. So you're actually stealing from him by taking that $1,000 from him after you've already been mo. But when you just thought about it in your bed, when you had before you said it to your wife, even though you had a final um decision, we're not talking about just toying with the idea, maybe I'll be mo, maybe I won't be mo, we're talking about a final decision that you're definitely going to be mo, but you never told anyone. So you don't have an obligation to stand by what you thought. Again, the principle that we said before what you thought in your heart does not obligate you. That applies here too and there is no obligation. But now let's talk about the the the other case that I mentioned to you. A case of charity where someone makes a promise to charity either in their mind or verbally. The the the tells us whenever someone would in their heart think and decide and come to a final decision that they want to give something over to the beta mikdash to heish in the time of the beta mikdash. As soon as they had that thought, what they thought about was given over to the beta mikdash. If they had a they had a an animal that they wanted to give over for a sacrifice, they would think that animal I'm going to give it to the beta mikdash. As soon as they had that thought, the animal now belongs to the beta mikdash. It doesn't belong to them anymore. If they were to afterwards change their mind and sell it, they'd be stealing from Heish, right? But says the postkim that was only in the time that we had a beta mikdash. Then these of heish that it worked with a thought they applied then in our times when we don't have heish the all we have isot which is a very important but it's not considered as the hectish of the Torah it's considered asin as far as the Torah the Torah is concerned and therefore this doesn't work that where you just have a thought to give to charity that that money now belongs to charity. But what does happen when you make a promise to charity you've made a vow even though you haven't actually given the money over yet. When you make a promise to charity, you're making a vow to give it. A vow has to be kept and based in even have the authority to to to force someone to keep their vows where someone has verbally said that they're going to give money to charity. So that that's definitely a vow and it's definitely something that bas have the power to enforce. But even where just in your mind you'd made a vow to charity even where you just thought and again we're talking about a final serious thought. We're not think thought. We're not talking about someone who's thinking maybe I'm going to give $1,000 to that yeshiva. We're talking about someone who's decided in their mind, I am giving $1,000 to to my local sh or I'm giving $1,000 to that yeshiva. Once someone has made that final decision in their mind, the is that there that's considered a vow and they have an obligation to keep that vow. Again, the money hasn't yet been given over. The money doesn't belong to that yeshiva, but you have an obligation now to give it over and to keep your the vow that you've made. Let me just tell you a short short story that actually happened to someone. And and that it emphasizes the difference between a vow and where you've actually given money over. There was a guy who had in his house two charity boxes. on one charity box. It was given to him by his local yeshiva and it had their name on it and the box belonged to them. It was their box. It was in his house. And whenever he had some spare change, he would put it in the box and then the yeshiva would come once a month or once every six months and empty the box, take the money that was there or he would take it to the yeshiva. Doesn't make any difference. But the thing is that that box belonged to the yeshiva. It didn't belong to him. He had another charity box at home. He had another pushka. The other pushka that he had was just a box of his where whenever he had free change, he would put it in that box and then when people came to the door to ask for charity or if he heard of a good cause, he would take the money out of that box and give it to the charity. So you've got two boxes in this guy's home. One, the actual box belongs to particular yeshiva. The other one is just a general box for money that he's put aside that when any whenever someone comes to the door, he'll give it to them. But he hasn't decided who to give it to. He's just decided that this money he's going to give to charity. Lenu, this guy had a fire and both boxes were destroyed and he that he knows how much he had in each. Let's say he knows that he had $1,000 in each box. What is his obligation now? Does he have to make up that money again? Does he have to give the money again a second time now that it's been lost or not? The answer is that with as far as the box that belongs to the yeshiva is concerned, any money that he put in has now been given over to the yeshiva. The box belongs to them. The box is their domain. It acquires on their behalf. So any money that he put in that box, the $1,000 that he put in that box and they hadn't yet come to collect actually belongs to them and he's looking after it for them in his house. The other box is money that he has vowed to give to charity but hasn't yet given. He's waiting for people to come to the door needy causes and to them he'll give the money but he hasn't given the money over yet. The second box is vows of his, promises of his to give money to charity which he hasn't yet done. So now that after the fire where he's lost the two boxes, what's his obligation? As far as the box that belonged to the yeshiva concern is concerned, that's the yeshiva's loss. It's their box. It's their money that was burnt in the fire. But as far as the other box is concerned, which is money that he'd vowed to give and has not yet given over, so his vow is not nullified by the fact that there was a fire and he'll have to make up that thousand out of his own pocket a second time to keep the vow that was made that he has to give this money over to the yeshiva. So that's an interesting practical application that would come out of the difference between whether you've made a vow to charity or whether the money's actually been given over to the tarot charity. Right? That's the story of the the two pushkers. Thank you. [Music]