Jerusalem – A gentile man taught a Jerusalem haredi community an important lesson when he acted on his right to take their leavened products bestowed upon him ahead of Pessah in what was obviously more than just a symbolic act.
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The tradition of selling one’s hametz to a non-Jew is what allows observant Jews to keep in their possession various products which are not kosher for Pessah. Normally, after the holiday, the non-Jew will sell the goods back.
As reported by haredi media outlets, members of the Mishkenot Yaakov community in the capital’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood were encouraged by their Rabbi Simcha Rabinowitz to take the tradition one step further, and rather than selling the hametz, actually give it to the non-Jew, who would presumably return it after the holiday.
Many people chose to put their products – including expensive alcoholic beverages – in the room destined for the hametz, believing that such an act would be a higher degree of observing the holiday’s prohibition of not owning leavened products.
After the transaction took place and shortly before the holiday began, however, the gentile arrived with his vehicle and proceeded to take the goods, which were legally his. Objecting to his actions was not an option, since that would prove that the deal was not sincere, which would mean that the hametz would have belonged to the Jews.
LOL…
Li’chaim
that’s what happens when you try to outdo everybody else with frum shtick…
nobody asked them to try and be more machmir than generations of ehrliche yorei shomayim who followed our gedolim.
That’s why I sell my chometz to a rabbi and not to a gentile. It costs more but they are more honest. Many of my friends sell their chometz online and give a fake address to avoid such problems.
Selling to a local rav, like our grandparent did in the alte heim is the correct hashkafah. The rav will most likely resell the chometz to a goy he knows will play along with the “sale” an “repurchase” after yom tov. There is never a fear that a rav would c’v come to your house and take posession of all your shnaps.
This happeneds every so often every generation. There are classic stories with the gedolim of how they tried to get the goy to stop drinking all the beer/liquor he bought legally (sending him on a job on chold hamoed to another rov in another town – paying him for this “job”, thereby saving the local merchants parnassa) etc.
I remember as a kid, a local shuls Chometz was sold to the janitor – who found it contained liquor and promptly drunk it all first night seder!
This happens. It legal. Zull zein a kappora!
this is funny. (maybe not for the people who sold the chometz)
this also happened to a North American yeshiva, which sold all the chometz including the whiskey to the janitor. comes motzoei yom tov–they found out he had a great party and all the liquor was gone.
still laugh years later.
When you sell the chometz to a Rov, he doesn’t keep it. Or he would be over the same as you would. He resells it to a gentile, knowing all the dinim and laws on how to do it properly.
If selling was good enough for the previous generations why do “talmidei chachamim” of todays generation try to outsmart them.
The level of am horatzus displayed by commenters 3,4,5 & 6 is scary.
BTW, it does not appear that anyone protested what the gentile did. They were fully aware that it was his and he can do so. the JP was just trying to use innuendo to insinuate that these people were less the sincere when they sold the chometz, and it is just the opposite.
The goy actually owes the sellers money now, because the money he paid was merely a deposit.
Reply to No. 12
You are the one missing the point. If everyone sells their chometz to the local Rav, we assume he knows the halacha regarding whether or not he needs to resell that chometz to a goy. If he is concerned that the goy might renege on the agreement and either take custody of the chometz or refuse to sell it back to the rightful owners, the Rav would presumably retain control over the chometz to prevent the loss of property to the tzibur.
As the Midrash says: “Talmid chacham she’in bo daas. . .. .”
That’s the last time he’ll be the buyer!
It happaned to my father too. I rememeber when I was a little kid, we were in the middle of the second seder, when a Goy knocked on our door, he said he came to see his chometz that he bought.
Well you couldn’t make my father happier if you gave him a Million Dolllars. My father had a very expensive liquer collection, he was so happy he told him to come right in and showed him where it was.
He couldn’t stop talking about it for years. He said that, that year he felt like he really sold the chometz.
That’s the only reason the sale can be legit., That the goy has the right to take the chometz, otherwise how can it be a valid sale?
If the goy only made a down payment, he owes the rest of the money for whatever he bought and decided to keep/use
There was a story in Israel this year about a man who sold his entire house for Pesach, not just his chometz in the house, to a Gentile. He and his family went away for Yom Tov. Then the house burned to the ground over Yom Tov. The insurance company refused to pay for the loss, saying that the man had sold the house to someone else, so the homeowner’s policy was automatically cancelled at the time of the sale. And the man could not argue that he didn’t really sell his house, because that would be admitting that he kept his chometz. As someone who works in the insurance industry, I can tell you that this is a pretty compelling argument from a legal standpoint, although it is quite a dirty trick by the insurer. Moral of the story: be careful.
the article says they GAVE the chometz to a gentile. If there was no shtar mechira, and them thinking they would get back the chometz then Hashem actually did them a favor because when giving away something thiinking you would get it back makes the whole deal “posul” and would render the chometz forbidden after Pesach. when we sell thinking we get it back at least we go through all the technicalities through the shtar making it kosher v’yoshor.
secondly, the Rabbi trying to be machmir, sorry, i thought one is not permitted to give a gentile a gift just out of the blue(unless he services you in some way). Maybe he actually did, don’t know for sure..