Milk, Markets, and Mishpatim | Rabbi Jeremy Perlow | February 11th 2026

We'll go ahead and get started. It's wonderful to see everyone this morning. Uh, special shout out to my parents who came all the way from Chicago to join us and give beer for this year. >> I was wondering that nice lady gave out. >> So, if you enjoy see, you know who to think. >> Okay. Today's uh morning baby midash program inavia is dedicated for the 2026 academic year nishmat Danielle Benir and limu and lim bat aamas and mai mosha and bat y marcus parents of jud marcus today's morning of learning is dedicated ashar ben have a quick and speedy recovery >> amen okay Today I thought it would be important to talk about what's going on in the news. Yesterday uh last week we were driving home from this year and my wife said to me, she said, "You have to take a video of this. Are you looking what's going on?" We were driving past and all of a sudden there's lines and lines of cars, tractors and farmers and all types of different vehicles blocking the road and baram were going the other way. So it wasn't so terrible. But for those who are trying to get home or those who are trying to go to work, it was a big nuisance. And for those who've been watching the news know that there's a big Hafka. It's not the only Hafka. There've been many, many Hafka notes going on. Protest, they block off Highway One and you see farmers, they're dumping milk everywhere. What's going on? What's all this about? And uh unfortunately I think it's very very challenging when we see politics that it's people are so up in arms. It's very hard and I think both sides have what to rely on. There's both what to talk about on both sides. Both sides are justified a little bit. Um but today I think the goal is here I think really is to devote this topic. What does have to say about um price regulation? Is price regulation something we should be doing? Is it something we can be doing? Is it something which is forbidden? And I think uh unfortunately um we know we know that the let's just talk a little bit of background. Okay. I want to just frame the issue a little bit before we go into all the details. What I want to also do is I want to try and just preempt all this. uh the uh we know that the OU is a taxexempt organization and what that means on a practical level is we're not supposed to talk politics. So as a disclaimer, right? It's a disclaimer. This is not political. It's not meant to be political, but I think it's important that we understand what does Hak have to say about this topic. So um what are the goals of the reform? Let's start with the basics. So they wanted to what what are the goals? They want to try to break up monopolies. So we know milk is one of the products in Israel which is regulated. All the prices on milk uh for the standard milk you find in the stores is regulated. There's a set price. Now that price happens to be a little bit of a high price. Um, we know is food in Israel isn't always cheap, but milk in particular is a relatively high price, but it's standardized. It's it's set. And what they want to try and do is remove that price regulation with the goal of breaking up monopolies, breaking up uh preventing major local dairies like Tnuva and Tara and Strauss from monopolizing the market and try as much as possible to enable smart smaller farmers to have um or to have other groups also be able to join the the um market. Now what they also want to do is they want to lower the tariffs on milk being exported into the country which would mean imported into the country I'm sorry imported into the country which would mean that the price of milk also would go down. So both of those things would help the price of milk go down. We're not going to have a set price of milk which would be very good for the economy and would be very good for the average consumer in saving their wealth. On the other hand, right, the other the main argument against doing this reform would be that the all the local farmers who aren't big businesses might not be able to compete and they might go out of business. So, it would be very good for the average consumer and saving their pockets. Uh for the local farmers, they might suffer tremendously and some of them would have to go out of business. In fact, part of the package, what they're trying to do in the reform is they want to actually supplement the income of these poor farmers who wouldn't be able to um continue with their work. They want to actually supplement their income to either enable them to continue or buy them a little bit of time that they could find other work. >> I have a question about it. So, the farmers today all have to sell their milk to these big monopolies. Is that what happens? >> So, okay. So, I I I'll tell you like this. Uh I don't know all the details to how this works but in a nutshell I think what's going to end up happening is that these small farmers are going to have to close up shop because most of them won't be able to compete with these very low prices that are going to be set that are going to be uh beginning to to to sprout and uh as a result what might happen have to happen is they'll be bought out by the bigger companies. Um that's that's number one. So again so it's a very very complex issue. I don't want to discuss the politics in great length. I don't know about the polics in great length. Okay. Uh but I do want to discuss what the Torah has to say about this. And if you look very carefully, we know uh this is we were just talking about this last night actually. Uh my parents and I we were discussing the fact that if you look now at the state of Israel and what it is and what it represents, you'll notice the fact that we have a government which isn't exactly religious. What does that mean for us? If when they originally established the state of Israel, one of their goals was they wanted to have many of the rabbanim were making a very big push to have a religious government to follow all the dinor in the government. Now I grew up in America, okay? In America, we believe in a separation of church and state, but it doesn't have to be like that in Israel. We could have them be more together. We could have some of the laws of the Torah, the Dina Torah, be implemented on a practical level. But unfortunately as we've seen that's not exactly what's developed 100%. We do have religious authority regarding issues of personal status right marriage and divorce um girus right conversions in in these areas 100%em it's a beautiful thing but in other areas we see it's a little bit more complicated and that isn't necessarily always being implemented properly. I remember Rabbi Mosha Hower of Ashalam uh I once got to hear him speak on tishab and every tishab for those who got to hear him speak no he used to choose one character in uh who who lived not that long ago and he speak about one particular Jewish uh important personality and go into great detail but what an impact they made for the Jewish community and I think one of the last few years before he passed away he chose to speak about her Now those who know Rabbi Herzog, not the current Rebeer, okay, this is his grandfather actually. Okay, he was the first chief rabbi in Israel and this is one of the things he pushed for tremendously and unfortunately it did not come 100% to fruition but he wanted it very very badly al similarly son also was one of the big proponents of pushing pushing pushing to try and have an agenda of in the government. So it's something we don't have 100% but it's something we have to be thinking about and I think the very first step in implementing this and accomplishing this goal is we first have to have the knowledge because what ends up happening you have a governing body the the people are running the government how are we going to implement if we don't even know what says how are we going to begin to think about these questions if we don't first know what has to say about these broad topics so I think the first step is the knowledge and that's what we're here for today the first step is to discuss practically what does have to say about these topics which seemingly is like removed from people talk about they think about kdes right they think about will be due in but who's thinking about mishbat who's thinking about civil law but there's a whole section of the a quarter of the is devoted to civil law and I think that's why it's important to discuss today so we have here in source number one the Torah places tremendous emphasis on integrity in one's business the Torah says We're not supposed to have dishonest weights and measurements, right? And in fact, if you look carefully, what does it say? And then the next verse says, "You're not supposed to have even in your house dishonest weights and measurements." So, it's interesting. You can't even own dishonest weights and measurements. Eventually, you should have a complete right and righteous, right? uh types of measurements. It says again, so we have here number one, if we're careful in our weights and measurements, we'll have a long life on this world specifically referring probably to beautiful thing. We'll have a long life in the converse. It's considered a perversion. It's considered inappropriate. Anyone acts otherwise. And then we're told what seemingly doesn't seem to belong here, but the very next says, "Remember what Malik did to you when you left." So, a few questions here. >> What's the connection between dishonest weights and measurements? And you'll notice another question. I bolded for you a few words here in the first source. We have here says twice and then it says it says also twice. What is this emphasis on? You shall not have and you shall have emphasizing again and again. So these are not my questions. These are actually Rash's questions. You look at verse number two. I quoted for you Rashi. He says the Torah is emphasizing not only you sh you shall not have but it's also telling you you will not have in Hebrew that's one of the amazing things when you go about the Hebrew language every single right when you translate the phrase it doesn't do it justice because can mean one of two things right it can mean you shall not have it could also mean you won't have so if you do this the Torah sending to you if you do this if you have dishonest weights and measurements that's in your home, you won't have you're going to lose you're going to lose out. And contrastingly, if you do this, if you have honest weights and measurements, the next So, you want to know the secret to financial success, being honest. That's it. We have to be honest in our business. The Torah says right here, black and white. Why then does the Torah juxtapose this with the mitzvah of Rashi tells us, "If you are dishonest in your weights and measurements, then you need to be worried. We need to be concerned about the enemy coming to attack. Says to back up this idea, this theory that he presents here from the midum that if a person is dishonest in weights and measurements, a person is dishonest in his business, that's when a mo comes to attack. That's when the enemy comes to get us. It's very interesting. Right here we are fighting a war constantly. Israel is constantly in a state of war. Right? I have brothers in the army now that keep going being called back to Miloim over and over again. It's it's crazy. Why is this happening? Why are we in kind of constant state of war? We have to be honest in our business, right? A little bit of a hint here perhaps of what we can do perhaps to fix to justify to fix the situation. So, uh it's interesting again. So if we're honest in our weights and and measurements, if we're honest in our business again, we'll have we'll be financially successful, we'll have a long life in the land of the enemy won't attack. Sounds like a beautiful. So here the Torah is emphasizing to us how important it is. We have to be honest in our business. We have one more source I'm going to give you from the before we go into the the rabbitic sources here. If you look at source number three, we have the The Torah here tells us that there's a prohibition of when you buy and sell. How do you determine what's appropriate price? How much is too much of a markup? How much is inappropriate? We're going ahead and we're adding we're we're we're making the prices a little bit too high. The Torah says if it's going to lead to that you're charging over or undercharging more than one sixth of the market value, it's considered a biblical prohibition. A biblical prohibition. We're not allowed, the Torah is very clear. We're not allowed to over or undercharge more than one sixth. Right? So overcharging obviously on the seller's end is the prohibition. And to to undercharge more than a sixth would be unfair for the the the seller. Who determines market value? >> Ah, that is a subject of tremendous tremendous debate. He asked the question was who determines market value? >> Okay, that is an excellent question. I've heard many many shim on this topic. It's not a we're not going to do that today because that's a big topic. For now, we'll just call it market value, but that's a very important topic. And there's also a bigger question which is does every product have a market value? You know, if I go ahead and I sell my property uh in Hornov, does that have a set amount of of uh is there a set price for that? Do we find set prices for karkov or does is there such a thing is very clear by ka we assume in car codes. There's no such thing as by car codes by there's no market value when it comes to real estate. It's interesting. So certain things have we see a precedent for this idea that not everything even has a market value. So what products have a market value? you have to begin to discuss, you have to begin to think about. What I want to discuss though is um you can think about this a little bit. Obviously, this this prohibition won't even begin to get off the ground if the bait or the governing body, okay, goes ahead and they fix a price because if they have a set price, if they fix the price, then obviously there's no. So this prohibition potentially could be avoided if we go ahead and we have a set price. So again is it the right thing to do? Is it not the right thing to do? You can discuss but on a basic level if you have such a system in place obviously there would be no prohibition of own there would be no concern about overcharging. It's set >> maybe the government price is already overcharging. >> Ah okay. Right. >> So that's right. That's a very important point. Maybe perhaps we could argue that the price is too high. In fact, that's the point of the reform. They believe that it is too high and we have to lower it. So, what's the appropriate thing to do? So, what I want to do now, I want to switch over a little bit. Let's go to some of the rabbitic sources. And the first question we have to ask is, should the governments play a role in price valuation? So, the garbacha discusses the puk we just read in source number one. It says, what do we learn from this this phrase, this puk? There's a requirement that the bait has an obligation to appoint inspectors argued or inspectors for me for weights and measurements. However, there is not a requirement to appoint inspectors for >> uh to determining the market for for ensuring that people are keeping to the market price. Which means if someone has just let's say go into right and you check their scale right and the scale is offbalance it would be the responsibility of the bin to appoint someone to have an inspector to go and check to make sure those scales are accurate right contrastingly if the osherat is selling for let's say they're selling uh apples at a ridiculous price is someone is it the job of the bait team to go ahead and determine whether that price of apples is correct is it within the range of normaly no they're not required to do that. However, this point was hotly contested. We're going to see now many many who wait on on this issue of whether perhaps we also need to go ahead and appoint inspectors even for determining the proper uh the proper market values being sent. So if someone goes ahead and again they need to appoint also for the sharing they also need to have people appointed for this for this task. So who's the expert on this topic? The expert on this topic we know Rav and used to always debate. their study partners and they used to always debate back and forth and Rav was known for being someone who we've always passed like Rav when it comes to matters of so you want to know is my uh fik who do you go to Rav it's a matter of if you want to know when it comes to areas of mammus though if you want to know for monetary disputes who to go to who's the expert in monetary disputes so his opinion should be taken with great gravity here He said to one of his students to Cara, he said that's his name of the students Cara. He said poke tanu please tell the bay please inform them that it's incorrect. We only go ahead and appoint inspectors to determine whether the skills are correct. That's it. That's all we're all to do. And he was very insistent on this. Why? He felt that's what the says. The Torah tells us That's what we have to check. That's what we have to make sure people are doing. That's what we have to enforce to have honest weights and measurements. But to go ahead and make sure that people are selling according to market value, that's beyond the scope of bait. That's what he felt. What? Well, let's look at what happened at the end of the story. Then last second paragraph in source four. So car went ahead and despite what said, despite request, he went out and taught. are going to mean ba ba the shim. He didn't do what said. He said we have to go ahead and appoint inspectors for both heard what was about was going on. He said what's your name? He said cara. You knew a student's name but he asked him what's your name? Cara. Does anyone know the other meaning of Karen? Cara. car. >> That's right. A horn. He said a horn play on his name. A horn should grow forth from your eye. >> Wow. And sure enough, that's what happened. Curse came about. Again, I don't know if it's like a big horn. It's probably like a little growth. Okay. But a horn grew forth from his eye. V. So, so what was Cara doing? He went against his rabbi. He went against. How could he do this? Just pulling this out of thin air. And here I bold it for you. He says, "Unfortunately, we live in a very very distorted world. There are people who cheat. There are people who are dishonest in their business. And Ramy Barama, the source of carnazine, Ramy Barama felt for this reason we have to take extra judicial measures. We have to go ahead and go beyond what the Torah tells us. And we are required as a bin to appoint to make sure that people are selling according to fair market value. And in fact, if you look in the that's how we pass him. Even though was the expert, even though was the was the rabbi, we were told here that we pass him like Ramy Bar. We pass them like a student's car now and we go ahead and we were meant to regulate prices. It is the responsibility of the bait to regulate prices. >> It's very socialistic and communist. >> Ah right. So how far does this go? Maybe we're turning it into socialist group here. Maybe it's communis communism. Maybe it's inappropriate. Sometimes the market >> they were we were socialist that controls it because you know things get sold that are as as as they're required and as the the the need is there. >> Very good. Very good. So, we're going to see soon that this power in some ways it's very very broad and in some ways it's extremely limited and we're going to see we're going to go back and forth because obviously Kazal don't want us to turn into a communist society, not a socialist society, not a communist society and we're going to see in some ways it's a very very broad scope of power and in some ways it's extremely limited. So, let's go through one by one. We have here in source number five, we have two sources five and six tell us two examples of the the extreme power that is given to Bin and there's extreme responsibility that they are that they have to make sure uh to maintain fair market prices. Here we have a story in the mission in okay right there's a set of birds that a person would be required to bring a woman would be required to bring after she gives birth okay so there was an incident which happened in where the price of these birds went up two dinar zah which is the equivalent of 25 dinar okay it's a lot of money a lot a lot of money so basically what was happening unfortunately Their people were jacking up the price, right? All these bird sellers, they knew that they have all these women coming in. They want to buy their birds every time they have a birth. And so they decided they're going to jack up the price and then they'll have to buy them for whatever the price they set. They had a monopoly on the price. So okay, this place refers to mikdash. This is he's vowing in the name of the mikdash in the name of the temple. He says, "I'm swearing right now that I'm not going to let the night pass. I'm not going to sleep tonight until the price goes back down until the price is he went into court that same day." And he taught if a woman had five births, five certain births. Okay. What does it mean certain? Sometimes if a woman miscarries, it's unclear whether she's required to bring this corban. So here, here. So five births, five real births. So how many corban does she need to bring? She only needs to bring one corban and she does not need to bring any additional corban. What happened now? The market price dropped. There wasn't such a great need. The price went all the way down to a quarter of a dinaressa. So it went down in price by it's now 125th of the original price. Sorry 100 of the original price. >> 100 price. >> So why? So he got the price to drop tremendously in the same day by just teaching one >> demand. >> Now >> supply and demand. >> Supply and demand. The questioner begins though, let's think about this. Was he really allowed to do that? How many corban does the Torah tell you you have to bring per birth? >> One. >> One. And he went ahead and he said, "No, if you have five births, you only have to bring one corban." How was he about to do that? >> Bring it before the har went to >> So he So you bring it end after all five. You bring one one corban presumably. But the question begins, so how can he do that? So the barton explains here why he says that even though there's a Torah requirement to bring five corban in such a great situation of need where the mitzvah will be lost entirely because what's going to happen if the prices skyrocket the price is so high then people can't even afford the corban what's going to happen they're going to be poor women who won't bring and the worst is they don't bring any corbanuts what's going to happen they don't bring me any corbanets they're not even allowed to eat kochi. But what are they going to eat? What are they going to eat? Some of these women, they're married to kohanim. Some of them have to eat kochi. That's what their food is. They're going to end up eating it. So much greater tra travesty is going to emerge if they went ahead and didn't take action. So says, I have to do something about this. He went ahead and he quote unquote violated the laws of the Torah. He violated the laws of the Torah, so to speak, on a temporary basis until the price is dropped. That's how the bartender explains this. It's why now agrees with this explanation. The takes a little bit of a different spin. He says, "What does it mean?" He says that when the the Mishna said that the rest are not obligatory, it means that they did not bring others in order to enable her to eat, she still has to bring them, but in order to eat kim, she only needs to eat one. She only needs to bring one corban. So a little bit of difference. That is the in order to eat, she only needs to bring one corban. But does she still is she still required to bring the other four? Yes. So according to the it's a little bit less of a right. But the Bartura's explanation is wild. It's mindboggling. He's actually changing the laws of the Torah, so to speak, right? He's going ahead and saying, "We don't have to go ahead. We don't have to bring these even though it's a mitzvah in order to bring down the market price." Wow. Similarly, if you look at the next source in number six, we have a suka here. We have here three opinions regarding what is the requirements to bring on sukis. We know we have dal minim right the four species and there's a big question here how many of each species we bring. So we know classically we have one Lula, we have one, we have three adsim and two but it wasn't always agreed upon and this is the source of the debate right here. The tells us says you bring one you have three. He says, "And even if you have two," now he's going back to the you have you have twoim which are the top is cut off and one which is not that's okay. So you need to have three two in two in not such great condition as long as one is in good condition that's enough. He says no. He says you need to have three. And even if the three of them, the tops are they're cut off, right? He says that's good. So you need he agrees with the number, but he's a little bit more lenient regarding the number that needs to be in good condition. And says perhaps the most lenient. We'll see in a second. It's not says you have one of everything. One of everything. That's the final opinion of so how do we pass your three opinions three rabbis how you know what to do so we follow the middle opinion that you're supposed to have three but if two and and even if all three of them are not in such great condition that suffices now I'll just tell you parenthetical points we don't exactly do that right we know we're very careful about our adusting today we're very careful They should all look beautiful. They should all be we're very careful about them. But nonetheless, here we have the Gar tells us the opinion of the he went ahead and we know this is this is what always did because he told the merchants of go ahead make sure that you set your prices not too high. He was very clear with them. you have to lower your prices, make them what they're supposed to be at the market value. And he says, if not, if you don't lower your prices, I'm going to reveal to people that they're actually allowed to have less. So again we find that the rabbis are using the to enable people to to enable the market to be a to set the the correct the correct uh rate. So I'll tell you if you look at the Rambam and you look at tooth so they all hold like Ravish they think that really we should follow Ravish which means you have to have a higher standard of the only one of them is not allowed to be so great. If you look in however the or which means again according to the mentos that what was going on here is that he was willing to bend over backwards. He was willing to follow a more lenient opinion, right? To go back to the in order to to bring the market's value, the market price where it's supposed to be. In contrast, we have the says really is the so different approaches here. What was exactly what was doing? Some say was actually changing the so to speak and some say the was uh he's following but on a more basic level he is teaching people the more basic dean in order as a temporary means to enable the micro prices to go down but either way you slice it you see how much the money bend over backwards to try and make the prices thin it's very important how >> yes I'm just curious about the um about the regulating of market values was that for everything the examples I brought over here keing for example omen has to bring there is many getting out you have to have that >> correct >> we're going to get there we're going to get there it's coming up we'll get there okay if you okay this is amazing I always love this the Torah is connected every little piece and every little detail is connected where do you find the answer to this question you look in the bur and one of the first places in that right at the beginning he's talking about how we were we talked about last week we're supposed to enjoy Shabbat there's four on Shabbat we mentioned Shamur right and on two from the Torah two from the rabbanim so on one of the from the to enjoy shabas one of the requirements writes he says if you enjoy fish on chabas you should have fish on chabas and he even says he even goes so far he says if you enjoy fish. You should have fish in all the meals. He says, "Have it for all three meals." What ends up happening? You have fish for all three meals and everyone's doing this. The price goes up. The M brewer says, "What do you do if all of a sudden the price is going up, there's such a strong need and the suppliers realize they have a monopoly on this market and they jack up the prices? What do you do?" >> Very good. So the so the Mishna brewer writes that in such a case what you're required to do the kazal have a requirement they're obligated to tell people not to buy fish not to buy fish now fish is something we don't really need fish you can fulfill the mitzvah of Shabas sell fish okay you can get by just fine you're supposed to enjoy Shabbat you're supposed to enjoy good foods but if you enjoy other things it's wonderful you don't have to buy have fish so the he quotes two opinions though about how to how to do this the says it depends >> where you read >> it's not in the source sheet You're not >> I don't want to overwhelm everyone with all the sources. I didn't put everything on. So it says the Mr. Brewery quotes in the bare that if they raise the price by more than a third in that case no one should buy fish says the rabba a little bit differently. He says even if they raise the price by less than a third more than the market value still no one should buy fish if there's a need to help the poor if there's a need to help the which means that you see bait is able to step in to stop the raising of the prices even if it's perhaps not going up too much it's not more than a third over the market value okay if it's en if it's in order to help enable the anem to buy food for shabas That's how we writes. So we see so far that there is a precedent for enabling the bait or perhaps the governing body also to step in and try and control the market a little bit. There is something that we can do. We have to take some type of measures and now we're not now we haven't gotten to um you know having a set price for certain products but at the very least that we have to see that they have to do something. Either it's teach or it's tell people to stop buying. Whatever they're going to do, they have to step in somehow to try and regulate prices. >> Okay. >> There was years ago here a strike on cottage cheese >> and the price went down. >> They did. >> So sometimes it works. Yeah. That's a great >> Yeah, but sometimes it works. Sometimes it can help you put go ahead and you know conduct a strike. Sure. If you look at source number seven, I want to switch over now a little bit. So we haven't gotten practically what we do. We have a lot to discuss still. So we have to discuss first of all, are we ever allowed to hoard food and essentials? And our farmers the farmers right the producers ever permitted to create unfair prices. So if you look at the baba we're told says a person can make his own personal right his own personal his area of land and a storage house which means yes sounds like you can hoard there's a practice that supports this it says seems to be the opposite at first we're not allowed to store fruit which things you're not allowed to store things which are essential products. Essential products those are the things we're not allowed to hoard. They give a few examples wine oils flour the basic essentials we are not permitted to hoard. But when it comes to spices, cumin, pepper, those things, you would be permitted to hoard it because do you need pepper to live? You don't really need pepper to live. Okay? In spite the fact that all the restaurants for some reason they give you a little pepper right on the table, right? You don't need it to live. You can go without it. It's not essential. When does all this apply? That's when you go ahead and you buy things from the marketplace. Aar. Ah. So here we told this is all with regards to the buyer. If I'm a buyer and I go ahead and I want to buy out all the milk in the store, that you can't do, right? That you can't do, right? We can't go ahead and buy all the milk in the store. That's not appropriate. But if I'm a milk producer, right? If I'm a farmer and I want to hold on to my milk seemingly mutar the branch seems to say you're permitted to do that. No really you can hold on to all the milk. You're a farmer. You can hold on to all the milk I produced. Why not? So the says no come on you can't go that far. We'll get the next source number eight. So first of all regarding the first issue I mentioned before right the bait is obligated to go ahead and appoint officers to make sure to enforce price control that we're not going ahead and overcharging too much in the stores. Now is this an obligation or is this something they're allowed to do? What's the purpose? He says you're obligated but why? So this way a person will not go ahead and get as much as much uh >> profit as he as he desires because a person should not go ahead and profit too much on things which are basic necessities as we mentioned flour wine oils. What is your to profit? What's considered fair profit? One sixth one six is considered the set amount as we saw by you're allowed to go ahead and raise you have to make a profit. So you're allowed to go ahead and profit 16th of the value of the item one value of the item you're allowed. When does this apply below if you are a wholeseller? You're selling without difficulty. You're a wholeseller. But if you are a merchant and you sell little by little, but little by little, you're a shop owner, you're a shopkeeper. In that case, then in that case, you can make a little bit more of a profit because for you, it's it's more difficult. You're in the store. You're in the store for a certain amount of hours. It takes a long time to sell your goods. You're not buying it from a wholesaler. So for you, you're out to in addition to the the 16th of the value of the item, you're out there to get also one six of the value of in addition to that, you also charge for the value of your time of your work, right? And the expenditures that are necessary in order for you to sell your goods. >> Is the upper limit 1/3 that you had mentioned earlier in the mission brewer? >> So one/3 is a little bit different. 1/3 is regarding the requirements of the um bait team to step in if someone's charging more 1/3 more than this number. Right? So you take the one6 that they're allowed to sell, right? That that helps you get to the appropriate market value. If they're charging one/3 more than that, that's when the bait team sometimes has to step in and they might have to go ahead and you know >> do one of these other methods we were discussing. >> Fix prices, >> right? >> Okay. So so far we learned you're out to get six. you out to go ahead write the proper appropriate price is a one6th depending on whether you're wholesaler or one6 of the item itself or if you're a private seller one sixth of the one 16 of the item plus the expenditures and the effort that you put into selling it. Now this when does this apply though? But if when does this all apply? when the price of the goods right the price of the market value is not extremely high but if all of a sudden the market value jumped in coria which means what does that mean practically let's say it used to be that the price of uh right say the price of apples right you could buy uh whatever a pound of apples for well let's make an easy numbers okay sorry kilo of apples thank you okay I'm still in my American mindset here. Okay. People reminding me, okay, you can buy a queue of apples. Use easy numbers. A queue of apples for one uh let's say 10 shekel. We just got the shekele, right? Okay. Okay. For 10 shekel and all of a sudden now the price jumps, right? The price jumps and you already you as the the seller already bought from the wholesaler your kilo of apples for uh 10 shekel. Now the price jumps though, right now it happens to be the going rate for apples is way way higher. Let's say it's already 20 shekel. So that's way more than a sixth. That's way more. So are you out to sell for 20 shekel? Says if that's the current going rate even though you bought it from wonderful you'll make a bigger profit. You're allowed to do that. That's on the books. When does this apply? That you can sell it more than one of what you bought it. That's if the went ahead and they established that this is the proper price for this is the going rate now for the sellers to sell it. Nonetheless, if all the other merchants are going ahead and selling for a higher price, but the Beijing didn't say that's the set price, doesn't matter. You're still allowed to go ahead and charge the same amount as everyone else. You don't have to lose out just because other people are violating and selling for more. If everyone's selling for this amount, you as the seller, you are allowed also to sell for the higher amount. Interesting. Right. So we don't punish the good of the good the good students so to speak, right? We don't punish the those who are doing right. >> Oh, exactly that. Just really briefly, u suppos supposeding in college everyone is cheating. Okay. One person is not cheating according to this. Would that student be able to cheat? I have to be on the same as a student. And >> so okay, so I want to be fair, right? So we have to be very careful where we apply this. Right. Right. That doesn't mean if everyone jumps off a bridge, I should jump off a bridge. Obviously, right? I think my mother would be the first one to tell me that. Uh but beyond that, I think we have to also think about, right, on a practical level here, what's going to happen if this guy goes ahead and sells for the for the uh uh so okay, so it's a fair question actually, right? Because here you could make a whipping without that. It's true, but the says in this case, you're not required to do that. We have to know each area is a little bit different. It's a little more nuanced. >> But here again, the is giving us permission to sell at the higher rates. I think you'll see it in the next that there is a little bit of a limitation on this. If you look at the next source, okay, this is just a few this is just the same just a few later continues here and he tells us that there's a little bit of a limitation. Number one, you are not allowed to hoard produce in Israel or anywhere there's the majority of the Jewish population. That's if you buy it from the market. But again, as we mentioned previously, if it's your own private produce that you put together, then it's permitted. However, it's a time of famine. If it's a time of famine, you should not go ahead and store more than what you need for that year. So, number one, can you hoard? >> Yes. >> Yes. If it's yours, um, are there any limitations on how much you can hoard? >> Yes. >> Yes. You're not allowed to hoard more than your what your family needs. If it's >> a time of famine, which means that people don't really need it. If there's plenty of produce, then you could continue to hoard. It's my produce, right? If people really need it though, there's a time of famine, then we're not allowed to hoard more than what your family needs for the year. Now so here we have very interesting look at the wording here that we're told here the government body right the people of the town right who are the leaders of the town obviously they are permitted to go ahead and set a market value the cold for anything they want notice he's not he's not limiting it now to the staples he's not limiting it to flour and wine. He's expanding it a little bit. Okay, we're going to see soon based on the next source. This is a special takana that they have here based primarily on hear bait heare that the the bait is allowed to go ahead and even for other items as they see it necessary they can go ahead and they're allowed not required they're allowed to step in and set prices for any item they view necessary. Again, is it a requirement? It's not a requirement. Should they be doing it? You have to ask your right. You have to ask your economists. But but again, are they allowed to do it? Yes, they're allowed to do it. And they can even administer penalties for those that go ahead and violate these set laws that they've made. So again, can the government body step in? Yes, they're allowed to do it. Should they step in? We'll have to see. That's a little bit more complicated. Okay. But again, should they step in? We know already. We we already discussed that if there's such a need, if there's essentials that people are not able to get because they're overcharging, then they have to step in and they're obligated. So there are cases where the government does need to step in. Now, it's ironic because here, right, what do we have going on in our market? What's going on in our case? >> The government is setting the high price. >> The government is setting the high price. But if you think about it, right, they're not setting the high price to help the consumer. >> Help the farmer. >> To help the farmers, >> help the monopolies. >> And help the monopolies. So, so we have here, it's very interesting, is not for the consumer. This this price they've set. It's a very interesting dynamic, right? It's a very interesting dynamic. So again, is the Beijing allowed to set a price for essentials? Yes. But here it's a very different type of price they've set. It's a very different type of price that they've set. So, so you might argue that, right? That's the reform. They're trying to go ahead and get rid of this. And maybe it's inappropriate the way they've done it. Okay. So, let's look. We have one more. We have to go through two more sources here. Let's see if we can squeeze it in. We have the Rambam in source number 10. And then I want to try and do uh one last topic. We have time. We'll try and squeeze one last topic. We'll see what we can get to. The rabb he quotes that one of the essential rules for is we again means right to review we're not allowed to charge more than a six of the going rate as a seller but one of the essential principles behind this is that if you verbalize if people know what is the going rate and you communicate that to them and they say even still I want to buy No issue of oh no. So if people know this is what it really costs, but I'm willing to pay more for whatever reason, then it's okay, right? What you're not allowed to do is to mislead them and they think the price is they think the price is uh whatever you're saying and really the price is much less and you don't communicate with them with them. That's a big problem. It's like >> you said >> yeah so sales so I think people know that that's not exactly what ro costs right doesn't cost that much to really produce than rogue but again they people know that's the go rates and people know it's a special for the mitzvah and people feel comfortable with it so I think it's well known so I think people are comfortable with that now if you charge way more than the going rates and already there it's a little bit more fuzzy I don't know if that's that might be an actual issue at a certain point. Yeah. Okay. Even if you tell him, I bought this for just one and I'm going to sell it to you for 10. So, you're honest. You're open. If he's willing to buy it, that's okay. But nonetheless, we've sold even though on an individual level that would be okay. That would be permitted. But the Beijing is obligated to step in and set a price. Well, in the point overseer, the point people couldn't practically be at the scenes where this is happening is to make sure that no one's being cheated. They should only be allowed to gain one sixth value, one six above what they bought it for. That's what they should get as the wages. And you should not the seller should not be able to gain more than a six. So again on an individual level the rule is right if you communicate with him what it costs you're okay. On a on a level of bin though they're have to try and regulate the market a little bit to prevent people from profiting too much beyond what's appropriate. >> Okay. One last one last point then I'll take your question. But this only applies to essentials, right? To the staples. Okay. Right. Wine, oil. I think obviously milk would apply for today. I think for sure milk as well. Wow. For non-essentials, >> whatever you like. >> Whatever you like. Wow. The Rambam is permitting us to go very far as a seller. Whatever you like. If it's a non-essential, no problem. He thinks >> we don't have to step in. Let have a free market. It's okay. It's good. >> Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. >> Determine what the essentials are. >> Ah. >> Yeah. That's al for our purposes, we could just say milk for sure is an essential. Okay. Spices already. Spices are I would think maybe is an essential. He's saying no. Even spices that's not an essential. That's an explicit example here. So I think most things qualify as non-essentials. So again, so free market is a value here. The Rambom is telling us we don't have to step in and you know watch every single transaction that happens for most things, right? For most things that are non- essentials, we don't necessarily need to be stepping in. >> Yeah. >> So two issue items. Nobody does six. Nobody could stay in business not doing that anymore. That's the first thing because I mean in electric thing that's because you have to pay rent on a store in electric. >> Ah so we did mention let's be clear a six right >> beyond as a seller. >> Right. Right. So but the question I have beyond that point that nobody does six is that because it's a different world. Where did the six come from? >> I mean yeah they must have had a reason saying a six 10 12 a fifth. So a six a six uh I don't want to go too much in detail but if you look in the Mishna and babitsia that's where they discuss the topic of I don't want to go too much into it because it's a whole uh topic in of itself >> but uh we'll save that for another stream maybe. Okay. Okay. Let's wrap up. Yeah. Mosha Ruben. Yeah. >> So then today would be bread. >> Yeah. Bread I think is for sure a staple. Yeah. And you see that's actually what they do in Israel. There's a step rice on milk and bread. >> Plain bread. >> That's what it is right now. plain bread and plain milk. That's what they have right now. So, you can see again it's a little bit of a mccore here. We have >> he only mentions edibles. >> What about if I need a car to get to work? Great question. >> In Israel, if you ask most people non-essential that's think most people would say in Israel. I live in I'm a little bit biased. >> That's why they're building. There's so much you know in hard know if there public transportation here it's very good >> not yet no not yet but public transportation in general is very good so I think uh you know if you live in uh you know you live uh you live down south you have up north okay so it's a little bit more difficult but we uh let's wrap up I want to do one last source and if we have time to discuss one last hot topic in this in this area okay let's jump to the second paragraph He says as follows and we know was known for being uh he told us the bottom line practically what's the minh what do we do sometimes you can learn a whole from top to bottom from beginning to end and you still you don't know what to do you can learn all the sources but still practically how do we ask him so he puts it together and he puts it together very nicely for us and he also adds points that we need to be thinking about today so let's read what he says second paragraph everything we've discussed He says number one all this only applies if the has the authority and the ability to enforce the rules. Unfortunately, as we know today, bin right arabanim are given very little power. Very little power. >> They have too much according to some people. >> According to some people, it's still too much, right? Still too much. Okay. Now, what does that mean practically? I'll tell you in just a second on this. He says, bottom line, the uh the Gar and Babatra tells us that the government, they go ahead. They're they're supposed to uh what they're supposed to do what's supposed to happen is they're supposed to go ahead and get the approval of the local bait localim uh in order to determine what's appropriate prices for these these items. But practically he says if the rabbanim are not involved in this which I think is definitely the case today writes he says they're not involved in the field then there's no need to receive this approval for regulating prices. So what do you see from this of today? Who becomes responsible? >> The government, right? We treat them like an equivalent. Their not involved in this. The government is involved in this. They're doing the research. They're trying to find out what is the whole finance ministry, right? Trying to determine what are the appropriate prices for the market. So, we regulate to them. We we don't they don't even need Bit's approval today. Okay. He says, "Put up their sellers. You're not going to listen anyways." Said, "You can't force them. You can't do anything about it. then we don't even though there still there's some people are going to listen to there's some people are very devoted and they're going to listen to the rabbis even if they're not enforcing it still we're not going to enforce our rules upon those we're not going to enforce our rules upon those individuals who are going to listen regardless because maybe what's going to happen is you're not going to help fix the market you're just causing these individual sellers to lose out there's no purpose in that however Ever if the B knows then if they have to sell at this lower price then they're encourage their friends who are also selling in the same market to sell for that same lower price then then you should force the listeners to go ahead take action they'll sell at a lower price and then they'll encourage all those who are in the same market as them to do the same. So if again if the baiting has a means of controlling the market a little bit to help lower the prices for the economy to boost the economy then they're expected to do so. He says but now he says now we have the opposite problem. What what are these? I had to figure this out. I had to research this. What he meant here he's referring to people who slash the prices. Then they slash the prices. Why? Try and put the other party out of business. They're trying to hurt the other parties. We have the opposite problem. It's not that they're raising the prices. They're lowering the prices so much that they're hurting the other the other sellers. In this case, we have the opposite problem. What do we do? He says first he says to gain a even for essentials certainly for other things you have to gain even more for other things. He says and he he's crying out about this. How could it be? we're we're lowering the prices so much that you can't make a living. These poor these poor farmers, right, who now can't make a living because they're fighting against this competition. And he concludes by telling us a nice quick summary. He says you can divide all the things we've discussed today, all the different categories that we sell into three different groups. You have the essentials those you sell for a sixth and not more. Number two, if it's not, it's not an essential. It's not related to a specific food need. You can get even double. You can get even more than double. That's permitted. And then finally, he talks about a third category yet to discuss. He calls it. Wow. He puts this into a new category. He says spices, they're not exent. It's not. We were talking about now two categories. you have essentials and everything else. He says there's a third category. There's things that are not essential, but they do help you a lot, right? They do like spices. They make the food taste a lot better. He puts this in the middle category. He says for this, you're allowed to profit only up to a maximum of 100%. Which is still a lot, but there is the cap. There is a cap on these things, and we have to be mindful of that cap. So, uh, I want to wrap up. I want to conclude the there's another hot topic I'm not going to get to today but I wanted to say the following we live in a very complex world with a lot going on and I I think it's a that we live in such a world we have an opportunity to think critically about how economics work how relates to economics and we have to think practically what we're going to do not only in our own personal business to be honest in our business but we have to hope and we have to denem should give us clarity to to help others to help the world be uh upstanding to be an orim to be light up to the nations that we should always be uh thinking mindfully about how to create the world in a better place. We should be all zen to live in according to