The River Nobody Imagined

About This Talk

Mechirah 19 to 21 turn to the seller's responsibility, the burden of proof, and how the words of a sale are read. Chapter 19 forbids selling property under dispute or awaiting judgment without telling the buyer; claimants who appear after acquisition but before any use let the buyer retract, there being no greater blemish, while once he used it even by dropping his marker he litigates and collects from the seller if he loses; every seller of land, servants or movables is responsible if the article is taken because of him, even without a stipulation, and a deed that omits it is treated as a scribal error; this covers seizure by a Jewish court for theft, robbery or the seller's creditor, not seizure by gentiles through a king's decree or their courts, which is beyond his control; a seller who guaranteed losses beyond his control pays even for gentile seizure but not for a dried stream, a river changing course or an earthquake, since conditions include only well-known matters that were in the speaker's mind, as in the sailors whose river stopped flowing; a seller who stipulated no responsibility is free even if the field proves stolen; a seller without responsibility may still litigate so his buyer has no grievance, and one who bought back with his buyer's guarantee cannot charge him for his own creditor but may for their father's. Chapter 20 rules that after a haggle between 200 and a maneh, a silent handover by the seller yields a maneh and a taking by the buyer yields 200; a buyer unsure which of five sold to him leaves the money among them until the truth is known or Elijah comes, the pious paying each, while one who swore falsely and repented pays all five; the seller is believed about who bought while he holds the article and is one witness after; whoever wants to take from another bears the burden of proof and the defendant otherwise swears; for produce or coins in the public domain the buyer who claims he paid swears holding a sacred object and takes them, in the buyer's domain a lighter oath, in the storekeeper's domain the storekeeper swears; a birth near the sale must be proven by the buyer, and if neither knows and it stands in neither's domain they divide; a buyer claiming the larger field must prove it; and a doubt is borne by the one in whose domain it arose, as with the donkey that died after its owner took the cow and the butcher who finds a needle without a scab. Chapter 21 makes a sale of a known kind in unknown quantity binding, with ona'ah checked, but not whatever is in this house, chest or sack, which is a gamble; supplies measures for a house, a large house, a hall, a garden, a crypt, an irrigation ditch and paths, and rules that a king's road or a road to a grave sold without limit is not binding; sets rules for boundary lines and holds that an apartment or field drawn with the whole building's or valley's boundaries sells only the apartment or field; and reads words as people use them: fields is two, all my fields excludes gardens and orchards, my property includes them, all my property includes even his tefillin, one of my oxen is the smallest, Reuven's field is the one people call so, half a field comes from the poorer part, and for a man who owns half a field, the half that I own sells all of it while half the field that I own sells a quarter.