One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הלכות מכירה
Mechirah 28-30 · Sales, chapters 28 to 30
Sefer Kinyan · The closing chapters of the treatise: were the words honest, was the seller competent, was the property his to transfer.
1/24
Margin allowed on an approximate measure
10
Handbreadths that exclude a rock or hollow
3
Classes whose sales are void by Torah law
20
Years of age before inherited land may be sold
Ch 28Measure, and what the words promised
- Rocks and hollows drop out at ten handbreadths. In a parcel sold as fit to sow a kor, boulders ten handbreadths high and hollows ten deep are not counted in the measure, because a buyer will not pay for one field and receive what looks like three. He acquires them without paying for them (28:1)
- As measured with a rope means exactly. Any shortfall reduces the price proportionally; any surplus, however slight, returns to the seller (28:5)
- Without the rope, the margin is one twenty-fourth. A quarter kav per parcel fit to sow a se'ah is inside the agreement. Past that, every quarter-kav unit lacking or additional is reckoned and settled (28:6)
- Nine kabbim divides money from land. A surplus under an area fit to sow nine kabbim is repaid in money at the sale price; at nine kabbim or more the land itself may go back, and must go back if it adjoins another field of the seller. In a garden the line falls to half a kav (28:7, 28:9)
- Local custom overrides the entire chapter. All of these rules apply only where no prevailing custom exists. Where there is one, follow the custom, and follow what the words mean to most of the local people (28:15)
RememberOne clause decides everything: fit to sow a kor is approximate, fit to sow a kor as measured with a rope is exact.
Ch 29Who is competent to buy and sell
- Three classes are void by Scriptural law. A deaf mute, a mentally incapable or emotionally unstable person, and a minor. The Sages reinstated the deaf mute and the minor so that they could secure a livelihood (29:1)
- A minor: nothing before six, movables from six if tested. Shown to understand the nature of a transaction, his purchases, sales and gifts bind, whether large or small, in health or on his deathbed, but never for land (29:6)
- A guardian cancels whatever the minor does. Where a guardian has been appointed, even the minor's movable transactions are of no consequence unless the guardian approves them (29:7)
- Majority is thirteen and twelve, with the signs. From then movables bind even without understanding of transactions, while land requires majority and understanding together (29:12)
- Inherited land may not be sold before twenty. Even with the signs and with full understanding, lest the youth sell it cheaply, drawn by money and not yet settled within ordinary worldly ways (29:13)
RememberThe Sages let a child trade so that he would not be forced to remain idle, with nobody willing to buy from him or sell to him.
Ch 30Whose property was it to transfer
- An unknowing buyer holds the option. Where another acquires property on his behalf without his knowledge, he may take it or decline it, and the seller may no longer retract. A deed may be drawn in his absence and he pays the scribe either way (30:1)
- A Canaanite servant's deals rest with his master. The master confirms or nullifies them by word alone, with no formal kinyan required (30:2)
- A wife's transactions rest with her husband. Whatever she sells, gives or receives, from his property, from tzon barzel, from property designated in her marriage contract or from nichsei m'log, he may confirm or nullify entirely (30:3)
- Her ratification of his sale is set aside. Where he sells land she is tied to through her marriage contract and the buyer has her confirm it with a kinyan, the sale is nullified all the same, because she may say she acted only to generate satisfaction for her husband (30:3)
- A court may trade an orphan's property but never gift it. Purchases and sales bind; a gift is of no consequence, because a person may not give away what does not belong to him. The same holds for a guardian appointed by the court or by the father before his death (30:6)
- A sale on Shabbat is punished and valid. He receives stripes and his deeds are binding; a kinyan chalifin made on Shabbat holds, and the written record follows afterward (30:7)
RememberPermission and effect are separate questions. The treatise closes by punishing a seller and keeping his sale.