Thursday, April 30, 2015

the difference where you place the comma makes

Do you read the pasuk “lo talin peulas sachir itcha [comma], ad boker” or “lo talis peulas sachir [comma], itcha ad boker?” What difference does it make?

The gemara (B”M 110b) writes that if you ask someone to hire workers for you, neither you nor the person who actually does the hiring violate a lav if you pay late. You don’t violate the lav because you didn’t do the hiring; the person who did the hiring doesn’t violate the lav because the workers didn’t work for him. Achronim ask why don’t we consider the person who did the hiring to be a shliach and say shlucho shel adam k’moso? Tos RI”D already deals with this issue and writes that since the workers know that the one hiring them is not the one ultimately responsible to cut them a paycheck, there is no expectation on their part of getting paid immediately. This sevara,
explains the Meshech Chochma, shows us the correct way to read the pasuk (and he proves it from the targum and trop as well). It’s not “itcha ad boker,” meaning the money is with you until morning, but rather the pasuk is referring to “sachir itcha [comma],” someone whom you, not your agent or friend, hired. Only in that case is there a lav involved.

On a different note (BTW, is it better to lump a few small things like this together in one post or to make them separate posts?) R’ Shteiman in his
Ayeles haShachar on Chumash asks what the chiddush is of saying “v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha” is a “klal gadol baTorah.” Isn’t it obvious that without ahavas yisrael it would be impossible to not be nichshal in the many bein adam l’chaveiro precepts in our parsha and others?

Were it only as pashut to everyone as it is to R’ Shteinman.

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