Parshas Korach 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- Jun 18
- 2 min read
Monetary, Interpersonal Laws and Din Torah (73)
Laws of Loans. Continued. Question: I borrowed a dozen eggs from my neighbor. Two of them had blood spots in them. Do I have to pay him back a dozen eggs or ten eggs, and if I don’t owe a dozen, can I just pay back a dozen or is it Ribbis?
Answer: You only owe him ten eggs. Even though in halacha it suffices with our battery eggs to just throw away the bloodspot and eat the rest, as explained in Shulchan Aruch (1), since the widespread custom is to throw away the whole egg because of different chumros, and not save the good part, you only owe ten eggs. The one who lent you the eggs most probably would have found those blood spots the same way you had found them and would have also thrown out those two eggs. Since that is the halacha, it would be forbidden to pay him back twelve eggs because of the issur of Ribbis [interest on a loan]. The fact is that this is considered a loan since you are paying back different eggs. If there was not a clear blood spot, but something that needs a psak from a Rav, which many people just don’t bother asking and just throw away the entire egg, one might debate the following question: In this case, do we say that you have no right to be machmir at the other person’s expense and as a result, you owe him twelve eggs? Or since the other person also might not have bothered, you therefore only owe him ten? R’ Moshe Sternbuch shlita in Tesuvos Vehanhagos (2) rules that in this specific case you would have to pay the twelve eggs.
Question: I lent money to a company that is owned by a number of Jewish partners, and they are not able to pay me now from the limited company funds. Can I collect my debt from the private belongings of the partners?
Answer: It is fully accepted in the financial world that a business company entity has limited liability, [hence the name L.L.C.]. Therefore, the private belongings of the partners are not liable. Those who lend to the company know this and presumably had this in mind when they lent the money in the first place, and they cannot go now and collect from private money (3). Certainly they cannot get from the private money of shareholders.
(1) יו"ד סו:ג (2) תשובות והנהגות א:תתכא (3) ע' פתחי חושן, הלואה ז:יז