The Document Tied to His Thigh

About This Talk

Zechiyah u'Matanah 7-9 governs the two places where property moves without the ordinary act of acquisition. Chapter 7 treats shushvinut, the money friends send a groom before coming to eat and drink with him: it is not an outright gift, because it is plainly obvious that a man did not send ten dinarim so the recipient could consume a zuz's worth, so a court expropriates it, though only when the sender later marries in the same manner, maiden for maiden and public reception for public reception; attendance settles the account, with the whole sum returning from a man who was invited and stayed home, a deduction for one never notified who also has a justified complaint, and a sliding assessment that takes half from a man of standing and only the meal from a tightfisted man; five statements fix its character as court-expropriable, due only at the matching time, outside the laws of interest so one dinar may be returned as ten, not canceled by the Sabbatical year, and not subject to the firstborn's double portion since it is only ra'ui; and the chapter closes by refusing the reverse conversion, so money pressed on a man whose finances failed is an irrecoverable gift unless lending was stated at the time, and wine or oil sent to a wedding is a deed of kindness never claimable in court. Chapter 8 defines the sh'chiv me'ra, not the blind, lame or handless man, who transacts as a healthy person, but one weak throughout his body who cannot walk in the market place and is confined to his bed, whose bare instructions transfer property at his death on a Rabbinic decree given Scriptural force so that a dying person will not become exasperated knowing his words are of no consequence; he needs no kinyan, no document, no appointment of witnesses, and may endow a child still in the womb, while nothing passes before death so the ketubah and the daughters' maintenance are expropriated out of what he apportioned; a kinyan recited plainly in the document destroys the gift unless the wording says it was made to amplify it; apportioning everything with nothing retained is retracted on recovery while retaining land or movables makes it a healthy man's gift effective from the writing; a gift of all the property he is known to own counts as partial, on the suspicion of property in a distant country, unless he said all my property that is these; and setting out to sea, setting out with a caravan, being carried off in chains or sudden severe illness all count as apportioning because of impending death, with a signed-over servant keeping his freedom though the property reverts. Chapter 9 then weighs his words, so take, take hold of, acquire, obtain and inherit transfer while benefit from it, stand in it and be supported by it transfer nothing; refusal voids the gift but silence followed by later protest completes it; he may retract until death, even past a proxy acquisition, until a kinyan ends the matter, and retracting part of a gift of everything leaves the first recipient nothing; a convert cannot give his estate to a son not conceived in holiness though an acknowledged debt to that son is paid, and a debt acknowledged to a gentile is repaid while a gift to a gentile is not heeded; freeing a servant is enforced against the heirs because a servant is obligated in mitzvot; and a deed of gift found tied to the dead man's thigh is of no consequence, since we assume that having written it and kept it he changed his mind.