Daily Talk
A man hands a woman a coin and nothing happens, because she had lent it to him first. A man does her a real service, worth many coins, and nothing happens, because a favor turns into a debt the moment it is finished. Then a man of standing takes a coin out of her hand, gives back nothing whatsoever, and she is married to him. Why should a chapter this severe about what counts as money end by counting the pleasure of being accepted?
The Dinar That Went the Wrong Way
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About This Talk
Chapter 5 works out what a man may consecrate a woman with, beginning with the things he does not own well enough to give, so that anything forbidden to benefit from fails even where the prohibition is only Rabbinic, the proceeds of a false deity fail while the proceeds of other forbidden articles succeed, dedicated Temple property succeeds only where he did not know it was dedicated, second tithe never succeeds since it is not his until redeemed, and a priest's share of the offerings fails because he was permitted only to eat it, while terumah inherited through a maternal grandfather succeeds because it can be sold and terumah an Israelite separates from his own heap fails because choosing the priest is a privilege and not money. It then runs a long series of cases in which something real would have counted except that it had already happened, ruling that a loan she owes him cannot consecrate since a loan is given to be spent and nothing presently exists to benefit from, that repaying a debt he owed her cannot consecrate once she has taken the money even if she explicitly agrees, since she merely took what was rightfully hers, that speaking to the ruling authorities on her behalf and performing work for her both fail without a prutah of his own because a completed benefit has become a debt she owes, and that silence works only when the words come before the transfer, while a returned collateral and the benefit of extending a loan of two hundred zuz do consecrate because she has the use of something from that moment forward. It closes by reversing direction, validating a present given at her request to a third party, ruling that a woman who gives a dinar to an important person and is consecrated by the pleasure of his accepting it is consecrated although he gave her nothing at all, voiding a dinar given on condition that she return it, deciding dates given one at a time by the last date alone and dates given as a set by their combined worth, and reckoning a cup by cup and contents for water, by the cup alone for wine, and by the contents alone for oil, so that oil worth less than a prutah leaves the kiddushin in doubt however fine the silver is.