Wednesday, September 14, 2022

pruzbul and shemitas kesafim

Some Achronim write that if someone makes a pruzbul, he should make a small loan to a friend and allow shemita to cancel it in order to fulfill the mitzvah of shemitas kesafim.  Another possible solution to accomplish the same thing is to exclude one debt from the pruzbul and allow it to be cancelled.  A third option, which is questionable, is to declare the pruzbul void with respect to one outstanding loan (the use of verbal declaration to cancel a written pruzbul is what makes this questionable).

Yesh lachkor how pruzbul works: does pruzbul allow for the collection of the loan that existed before shemita, or does pruzbul mean the previous loan was cancelled, but thanks to the pruzbul a new loan now exists that can be collected?

All the above solutions assume the former is correct and the previous loan is still outstanding and not cancelled.  See R' Berel Povarski's shiurim on Gittin 36  where he takes the latter approach.  If that is correct, then none of these solutions are needed, as the loans are cancelled by shemitas kesafim and what pruzbul allows for is the collection of a new "refinanced" loan.

1 comment:

  1. I get that it could be that it is a mitzvah to be meshameit a loan in the year of shmittah. The emuna and chesed aspects make that more reasonable than saying so by the mitzva of biur chametz. But do you think that it could possibly apply to Shmitta bazman hazeh? I'm asking what you think, not what "achronim" say.

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