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14 โ[1] ** ืืื ืชืืืจื ืืืืจ ืืขืืืชื, "And if you sell anything to your neighbour, etc."** *Torat Kohanim* on this verse asks: "whence do we know that the legislation concerning overcharging does not apply to transactions involving real estate?" Answer: "this is why the Torah wrote ืื ืงื ื ืืื ืขืืืชื, "or if you will buy **from the hand** of your neighbour." This means that the commandment not to charge too much applies only to ืืืืืืื, mobile goods, chattels. The Talmud *Baba Metzia* 56 queries this ruling pointing to Numbers 21,26 where the word ืื is used in connection with land, i.e. "he took his whole land **from his hand**, as far as the river Arnon." The Talmud concludes by saying that in every other instance the word ืืื is to be understood literally, whereas only in this instance (Numbers 21,26) the word means "in his possession." Thus far the Talmud. The question arises why we do not use the verse in Numbers to deduce that the word ืืื never needs to be understood literally as "his hand?" We must answer that the meaning of the word ืืื is certainly "his hand" in the literal sense of the word. It is not disputed that the meaning of the word ืืื may also be "something under one's control," however the literal meaning is the more likely in our context. When I have the choice of how to understand the word I naturally choose the meaning which fits the context in which the word appears. Moreover, if the Torah had not intended that we understand the word ืืื literally it should have used a different word to prevent us from misunderstanding its purpose. We need to explore therefore why the sages inisted that the legislation against overcharging in our verse speaks only of the sale of chattels and that the verse does not speak at all of sales involving real estate.
โ[2] It appears that although the exegesis employed by our sages is based on their prior knowledge of these ืืืืืช which had been handed down orally from Mount Sinai, they were interested in linking all these ืืืืืช to the written text of the Torah. The plain meaning of our verse is perfectly compatible with the known ืืืืืช on this subject. We must remember that the Torah had already prohibited the irrevocable sale of real estate in the land of Israel through the institution known as ืืืื, Jubilee year legislation. That legislation precluded overcharging for the land as the Torah expressly stipulated that the sale price be based on the number of harvests the land in question would produce before the next Jubilee year (verses 16-17). Verse 17 speaks specifically about not overcharging an unsuspecting purchaser who thought that he bought title to that land outright. The seller meanwhile intended to invoke Torah law in the Jubilee year and claim back the land in question without compensating the buyer. In such a situation, i.e. that the seller purports to sell property against which there is no potential lien, the principle of overcharging does apply so that the original sale is invalidated due to the seller having misrepresented what he sold. Seeing that the Torah took care of potential overcharging for land in those verses, it is clear that in verse 14 the Torah speaks only of the sale of chattels and the word ืืื is to be applied only in its literal sense. In our case the Torah protected the buyer of land against being overcharged seeing no outsider would protest the sale, only the seller himself who claims to base his protest on Torah law. The Torah therefore saw fit to protect the unsuspecting buyer against this particular claim only by writing that the price had to be based on the number of years till the Jubilee year from the time of the sale. By contrast then, the words ืื ืชืื ื in verse 14 apply only to the sale of chattels.
Version: Or Hachayim, trans. Eliyahu Munk
Source: http://www.urimpublications.com/or-hachayim-commentary-on-the-torah-5-vols.html
License: CC-BY