Bonuses and Gifts in Purchasing, Part 1 - Rabbi Yisrael Meatuf shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:10 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, today we’re starting a new topic. It’s very practical and very interesting, but also very complex. As always, we’ll try to make it as simple as possible. Our topic today is bonuses and gifts. Before we begin, I’d like to hear examples of promotions—whatever kinds come to mind. We’ll see if we can cover all the possibilities, because each promotion has some small difference that changes the picture. We’re familiar with all sorts of promotions from stores. Give me some examples.

00:55 Speaker 3 Two for ten.

00:57 Speaker 2 Okay. Okay. With a purchase over a certain amount.

01:04 Speaker 3 Club members.

01:05 Speaker 2 Club members. Okay, let’s see whether we’ve managed to cover everything. I’ve put together about ten examples here. “Buy and get”: buy a refrigerator, get a mixer. Is that a gift or a promotion? We’ll see shortly. Once I went to buy a freezer—

01:28 Speaker 3 That sounds like a gift.

01:29 Speaker 2 What?

01:30 Speaker 3 That sounds like a gift.

01:31 Speaker 2 Sounds like a gift. I wanted to buy a freezer—

01:33 Speaker 3 They’re asking whether it’s a gift or a promotion, since there’s no price written next to it.

01:36 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. That’s the big question. That’s the big question here. Once I wanted to buy a freezer. The freezer was 1,200; I wanted to buy it for 1,200. There was some... I don’t remember, and I won’t name stores or advertisements and such. It was something advertised in all the newspapers. I called and said, “I’m looking for something for 1,200.” They told me, “Oh, the one you see in the paper for 1,250 with these gifts and those gifts? Without the gifts, it’s 1,200.” In other words, you’re paying 150 shekels for the gifts. So that’s “buy and get.” Okay? Four for a hundred—that’s what you mentioned earlier. Buy one, get one; buy two, get one. The difference between buy one, get one and buy two, get one will matter a great deal later. With a purchase over a certain amount. The second item at half price. Here there are... let’s give three possibilities, three possibilities: the second item at half price, the second item for nine shekels, and the second item for one shekel. Everyone understands the difference. When they tell you the second item costs one shekel, you’re not really paying one shekel for the product. But the second item for nine shekels—if that’s more or less its regular price, can you say you really bought it for nine shekels? A coupon for your next purchase, and accumulating points. Okay? Now, with all these things, if I go to the store and receive the gifts and benefits, everything is fine, because—

02:57 Speaker 3 Club members.

02:57 Speaker 2 Club members is another example, yes. A club member gets...

03:01 Speaker 3 Twenty shekels—uh, the product costs 650.

03:06 Speaker 2 Wait, what’s the twenty?

03:08 Speaker 3 The product costs 650; for club members it costs 400, and becoming a club member costs twenty.

03:13 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, that’s a good example, because you’re actually paying to become a club member. Now, if you’re buying for someone else, there’s a question here. Right. If I buy for myself, all these things are fine. I got gifts; I’m happy. But if I sent someone to buy something and he received a gift, the question now is who it belongs to. It isn’t always a case of my sending someone. Sometimes, for example, a person buys something for a farbrengen. He’s donating, or someone else is donating. When it’s a donation, the question splits three ways: does it belong to the shliach, the donor, or the institution? Someone might be donating for an institution. We won’t get into that today. So we’ll look at the sources. Today I’ll give you a page of sources, and it’s important to know the sources well, because rushing to the practical applications doesn’t work. First we need to know the sources well. The example in halacha, already in the Gemara, is of a person going to a store. It’s the old-fashioned way of shopping, which we’ve discussed here in previous classes. Those who remember, it was like this here too—I remember as a child that the same idea existed here. You come to the counter and tell the seller, “I want such-and-such,” and the seller goes and brings it to you. So you come with a container from home, say, and tell him, “I want a kilo of semolina.” He goes and brings you a kilo of semolina. But instead of bringing you one kilo, he brings you a kilo and a half. That’s the example in halacha. Or two kilos—let’s say two kilos, because it’s easier. Who owns the extra kilo? The person who came to the store to buy it, or the person who sent him? Now, as an aside, before we continue, I have a question for you. I believe you haven’t given it much thought, but it’s very, very fundamental to the whole subject of buying and selling. You sent someone to a store to buy a siddur. He bought the siddur. We’re all familiar

05:11 Speaker 2 with the laws of acquisition. For something to belong to someone, an act of acquisition has to take place, and that’s no mere technicality. We gave an example in the previous class, I think—or two classes ago. Someone bought a house, and non-Jews came and altered the house, changed the walls. There was a whole story there. In that case, it mattered a great deal when all that happened: before the acquisition or after it. Who bears the loss? I sent someone to buy a siddur. He bought the siddur, and now it’s in his hands. Who does that siddur belong to right now? Does it belong to the seller, to the shliach who bought it, or to me, who sent him?

05:50 Speaker 4 To the person who sent him.

05:51 Speaker 2 How does it belong to the person who sent him?

05:52 Speaker 4 Right.

05:52 Speaker 2 What act of acquisition did the person who sent him perform on that siddur?

05:57 Speaker 4 The shliach did it for me.

05:58 Speaker 2 The shliach acted on behalf of the person who sent him. Now, if the seller knows he’s a shliach, you could say that he intends to give it to the person who sent him through the shliach. He gives it to him, and that way—

06:13 Speaker 4 That’s not the point here. The very fact that he sends him is like saying to him, “Acquire this for me.” He’s a shliach; he was sent.

06:19 Speaker 2 Now, if you’re acquiring something ownerless, you tell him, “Acquire it for me,” and he picks it up and acquires it for you. But here someone is giving it. Presumably, he needs to know to whom he’s giving it.

06:28 Speaker 4 We acquired it immediately; that has nothing to do with him.

06:29 Speaker 2 You need the seller’s intent to transfer ownership.

06:31 Speaker 4 And if there’s no intent on the seller’s part?

06:32 Speaker 2 Then he thinks he’s transferring ownership to you. No, he doesn’t. He needs to know to whom he’s transferring ownership.

06:36 Speaker 4 What does the seller think?

06:37 Speaker 2 For an acquisition to take effect, every acquisition requires the person’s intent. Say you’ve agreed with someone that you’re getting this siddur as a gift, okay? It’s settled completely: you’re getting it as a gift. I’ve gone away, and you come here and pick it up. Have you acquired it or not? The answer is no. Why? Because the acquisition didn’t take place with my intent. I need to tell you, “Go, take possession of it, and acquire it,” or you need to be here and take it from my hand, while I see it. You need the seller’s intent to transfer ownership.

07:08 Speaker 4 As the seller, you don’t care who buys it.

07:10 Speaker 2 Okay, so the answer is what you’re saying. The answer is that whenever a seller gives someone an item, he intends to give it to the owner of the money, the one who paid. So when he gives it to the shliach, he intends for the owner of the money—the one who provided the money—to acquire it. I don’t want to complicate things, but... What? Now, that’s the first item. The first item belongs to the person who sent him. What happens with the second item? Who does it belong to? So let’s see. This is the Alter Rebbe’s wording. Below, I wrote Rashi’s view. The Alter Rebbe actually presents two opinions in his discussion. He brings the case in the Gemara: someone gives his friend money to buy an item with a fixed, known price. He sends him to buy a kilo of sugar. A kilo of sugar costs four shekels. The seller gives the shliach extra: he gives him two. So that extra amount is a gift. What do we do with that gift? He doesn’t have to transfer all of it to the owner of the money, only half. They split it fifty-fifty. What’s the reason that— Now, the fifty-fifty split is stated in the Gemara. They split it fifty-fifty. The halachic authorities disagree about why it’s fifty-fifty, and from that come all the present-day cases. Why fifty-fifty? The first opinion says it’s because we don’t know to whom he gave this gift: the shliach or the person who sent him. He doesn’t spell out the two sides here, but basically, the seller has someone standing in front of him and gives him a gift, and we don’t know whether he means to give it to the shliach or to the person who sent him. That’s what Rashi says. The Ritva goes into a little more detail than Rashi. He says: did the seller give it to the one who provided the money? Or did he give it to the shliach because he wants him to come back and buy again? He wants him to have a good feeling and come back to buy again. Who actually comes to the store? The shliach comes to the store. You don’t know what the seller intended. We don’t

09:15 Speaker 2 know what he intended, so they split it fifty-fifty. There’s apparently a question here about whether it’s—

09:22 Speaker 5 Which money is he talking about? Today everything... even today, when you pay by credit card and...

09:28 Speaker 2 The shliach’s own money, or the money of the person who sent him?

09:30 Speaker 5 Usually it’s the money of the person who sent him. It couldn’t be that my wife...

09:33 Speaker 2 I think it’s usually the shliach’s money. Think about it: you send someone and say, “Buy this for me.” Do you usually give him money in advance, or do you say, “Buy it for me, and I’ll pay you back afterward”?

09:42 Speaker 5 Two possibilities that, uh...

09:44 Speaker 2 Oh, two people.

09:45 Speaker 5 Two people.

09:46 Speaker 2 Okay, fine.

09:48 Speaker 5 It could be that the money here was set aside in advance, right? Or... it depends on the case we're discussing.

09:55 Speaker 2 On how much he knows it's going to cost.

09:57 Speaker 5 There are also people who have an open account there, for example, where money is advanced, right?

10:03 Speaker 2 So in that case he isn't actually paying; he's creating a debt for the sender.

10:08 Speaker 5 There's that case too.

10:09 Speaker 2 Ah, or he has an account there. It doesn't matter here. If the shliach creates a debt for the sender, it's as though the sender paid.

10:17 Speaker 5 Yes.

10:17 Speaker 2 Now, if you noticed, the Alter Rebbe writes, “One who gives his fellow money to buy.” That raises the question: What happens if he didn't give him money to buy it, and instead the person bought it with his own money? But as I said earlier, I don't want to complicate things. I'll take the simple, ordinary case, because if we go through every possibility right at the start, we'll get tangled up. A simple case: Someone gave another person money; he went and bought something and received a gift. They divide the gift in half. Half and half. Why? Because we don't know whom the seller intended to give it to.

10:48 Speaker 5 When he gives him two kilos, he would have to tell him, “I'm giving you this as a gift from your store.” He didn't know.

10:54 Speaker 2 Now, uh, so there shouldn't be overcharging? Because afterward he'll claim—

10:57 Speaker 5 No, that's not overcharging.

10:59 Speaker 2 Maybe it's a mistake.

10:59 Speaker 5 He simply asked for two kilos, and the seller gave him the kilo. As if someone would commit a transgression—what do I... [unclear].

11:07 Speaker 2 Okay, so we're talking about a case where it's clear that this isn't a mistake. If it looks like a mistake, then there's room to discuss it, and the seller could say, “That was a mistake,” and so on. But when it's clear it isn't a mistake, we treat it as a gift.

11:20 Speaker 5 So according to that, it is half and half, even—

11:23 Speaker 2 Wait, we're still holding at Rashi's opinion, the first opinion. Rashi's opinion is half and half. The Gemara says half and half. The question is why. So according to the first opinion, why half and half? Because we don't know whom he intended it for.

11:33 Speaker 5 Even when the seller—the sender, the one who sent him—gave the money. Even—

11:37 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When the sender gave the money.

11:39 Speaker 5 Good. He's asking a strong question: What reason does the seller have to give him a gift? If it's to attract customers, the person who comes to him is the shliach. So why should the gift go to the owner of the money?

11:51 Speaker 2 What does the seller care who comes? The main thing is that people come.

11:54 Speaker 5 No, what's more important to the seller is that the money comes in.

11:59 Speaker 2 Who will bring him the money? Who will make that happen? This shliach can go to a different store each time.

12:06 Speaker 5 If the... if the sender receives the gift, the shliach might have an interest in buying at his store, buying at his store.

12:11 Speaker 2 The sender will have an interest in sending someone again. Right, right. So it's half and half. Now, you said—he said—that he has to say whom it's for. What happens if he said, “I'm giving this to you. You're my friend; I'm giving it to you”? According to Rashi, what happens? According to Rashi, it belongs to the shliach. Why did we say it's half and half? Because we don't know whom the giver intended it for. But if he said, “I'm giving this to you,” it belongs to the shliach. If he said, “I'm giving this to the sender,” it belongs to the sender. Now, the opinion is—

12:37 Speaker 5 It could make a difference whether it's something offered to everyone as a regular promotion or something meant for him personally. I mean, even if he didn't say so, but when he came in the seller gave it to him, he said—

12:45 Speaker 2 Earlier, in the middle of what you were saying, you mentioned a promotion arranged in advance. A promotion arranged in advance is what happens in most cases today, and that's actually where the practical situation changes from the straightforward halachic case. All the poskim try, each in his own way, to explain what exactly changed here. So let's take the old case. We'll use the old case at the checkout counter: you arrive and he adds something for you on the spot, an occasional gift given then and there. If it's arranged in advance, that really does change things. We'll see why later. Now, I'm touching on a very broad topic in monetary law, but just very briefly. There's a rule in halachah—let's put it in today's language—if you benefited, you pay. A person who benefits is supposed to pay for what he enjoyed. For example, a person saw food on a table, thought it was ownerless, and ate it. It turns out it belongs to someone, and he says, “I didn't know; I believed it was ownerless.” Okay, you didn't know, but in practice you benefited. You ate it; it tasted good. Pay for what you enjoyed. There's a concept called mishtarshei lei. This is just—you don't have to understand it fully. It's only an introduction to what follows. There are, for example, gifts due to kohanim and similar things, which are called “property with no one to claim it.” Property with no one to claim it: you ate it by mistake, as we said before, and there's no claimant, no one to demand payment from you. In principle, you ought to be exempt. Tosafos says there's a stronger situation than simply benefiting: a situation of mishtarshei lei. What does that mean? You've saved yourself an expense. For example, in this case, supposedly, that person saved the cost of breakfast. The fact that he enjoyed it, that it tasted good and everything—that's one thing. But he was supposed to go to the store and pay ten shekels for breakfast, and now he's saved ten shekels. For that, he ought to pay even to—

14:47 Speaker 2 Even in a case of gifts due to kohanim, property with no one to claim it, he ought to pay because he now has money in his pocket: he has an extra ten shekels left. Where did those ten shek—those ten shekels come from? Give them back to where they belonged. Why did I say “supposedly”? Because Tosafos there says it doesn't work that way in the case of food. Why? Because he could fast if he wanted to. That's what Tosafos says: he could fast. He didn't have to—was I obligated to eat breakfast? I wasn't. So he—there was... How? About, about... There's an example there of a king who came and took his tithes, and that exempted him from other tithes. In that case he would have to pay—something like that, which isn't connected to food. When someone has saved an expense, he has to pay what—

15:30 Speaker 5 A situation.

15:31 Speaker 2 What?

15:31 Speaker 5 I mean, I have no problem with that. It happened. A bus.

15:36 Speaker 2 A bus is, in principle, a company with a clear owner. “Property with no one to claim it” refers to cases like money for the poor, money for a group when you don't know who belongs to that group. Someone donated money and said, “Take this and give it to anyone whose name starts with A.” That's property with no one to claim it. Now, all this is an introduction to what follows. There's a situation where someone—now, in the previous two cases, when I ate it, the other person had ten shekels before and now has zero. He suffered a loss. Either I benefited or I saved an expense. There's a third situation: one person benefits and the other suffers no loss. I benefited, but he didn't lose anything. For example, I lived in his house or used an object of his. In that situation, where one benefits and the other suffers no loss, he's exempt. He doesn't have to pay. Now notice what happens here in our case.

16:30 Speaker 6 Even if it's intended for rental?

16:32 Speaker 2 What? If it's intended for rental, that's considered a loss; if it's something not intended for rental, that's considered no loss.

16:40 Speaker 6 In Israel, the law is that in order to—

16:41 Speaker 2 In Israel, seemingly everything is intended for rental. Now—no, it could be an apartment that's unfit to live in, for example. It has some damage that makes it unfit to live in, so that's something not intended for rental. There's also—there will be—

16:59 Speaker 6 You wanted to talk about the situation of someone—

17:01 Speaker 2 There's also a situation—

17:02 Speaker 6 He can't rent it out; that's also a situation.

17:04 Speaker 2 There's a situation where someone flies abroad and leaves his apartment as it is, without arranging for anyone to take care of it. Now it's just sitting there. So they say that—

17:14 Speaker 6 Someone comes to live in it.

17:16 Speaker 2 There’s also [unclear] there, yes. Now, back to our case. We brought cases where the other person loses out and where he doesn’t. What happens here? That shliach, we said, received a gift according to Rashi. He went to the store to buy something and received a gift. What do they do? They split it fifty-fifty. But what if the seller explicitly told him, “This is for you”? Okay, so it’s for me. According to Rashi, he keeps it for himself. But wait—where did it come from? You bought a kilo of sugar and got another kilo of sugar. You didn’t spend anything out of pocket, and suddenly you have a kilo of sugar. How did this gift come to you? Because someone sent you to buy a kilo of sugar. If he hadn’t sent you, you wouldn’t have received the gift. In other words, you’ve benefited now. This is difficult; it isn’t like the previous cases. On the one hand, the other person hasn’t lost anything. On the other hand, you can’t say, “One person benefits and the other loses nothing,” because there’s an additional gift here that came because of the other person. You’re taking from it, reducing it, but it came because of him. This brings us to the second approach. Why do they split it? The first approach said: Why split it? We don’t know whom it was meant for, so they split it fifty-fifty. That’s Rashi. The next approach says as follows. I said I’d summarize it because it’s a little complicated: “And some say that even if the seller specified that he gave it to him, he must give half of it to the one who sent him, since this benefit came to him through the other person’s money.” You didn’t receive this benefit out of nowhere. You didn’t, so to speak, do anything for it. True, you went to buy it, but if you’d simply walked into and out of the store, you wouldn’t have received a gift. You received it because he sent you to buy something, because of that purchase. Split it fifty-fifty with the person who—

19:02 Speaker 2 caused you to benefit. That’s the ruling here according to the second opinion, the view of the Rif. So, to sum up: The Gemara says that a shliach who receives a gift must split it fifty-fifty with the person who sent him. Why, according to Rashi? Because we don’t know whom it belongs to, so they split it fifty-fifty. But according to Rashi, if we do know, it belongs entirely to that person. The Rif introduces a major point: Since the shliach benefited through the person who sent him, he must split it fifty-fifty with him. What does the Alter Rebbe rule? “A G-d-fearing person should take their words into account.” That’s how the Alter Rebbe rules. In other words, strictly speaking, if he received a gift, it belongs to him, but a G-d-fearing person will give half to the person who sent him. He adds another sentence: “And likewise with any benefit that comes to the shliach through his mission.” Any benefit he receives through his mission, he must split fifty-fifty with the person who sent him.

20:00 Speaker 6 Why, according to the Rif, doesn’t it all belong to the one who sent him? If you say it came through his money, what gift did the shliach receive here?

20:09 Speaker 2 In the case where the seller specified whom it was for. In that case, it’s fifty-fifty.

20:15 Speaker 6 And if he didn’t specify? Would it all belong to the one who sent him?

20:20 Speaker 7 He didn’t specify.

20:22 Speaker 6 It would certainly also be fifty-fifty.

20:23 Speaker 2 Yes, right, that would also be fifty-fifty.

20:25 Speaker 6 No.

20:27 Speaker 2 The question, ultimately, is about the half he received—whether he then splits that half fifty-fifty.

20:31 Speaker 6 No, both of them got something from it.

20:33 Speaker 2 But we don’t know.

20:37 Speaker 6 In the case where he didn’t specify, the person goes back and retracts it; the problem is that we don’t know.

20:43 Speaker 2 That’s the straightforward reading, following the order in which the Alter Rebbe presents it. He brings it after the previous opinion.

20:48 Speaker 6 So that needs to be understood in the Alter Rebbe’s words.

20:55 Speaker 2 Now let’s try to talk about situations today. First, a summary of the opinions.

21:01 Speaker 6 According to the halachah, this factor takes precedence. In other words, I’m saying, “I’m giving it to you,” but ultimately it was the money of the person who sent him, so they split it fifty-fifty.

21:12 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you what: The Alter Rebbe writes only one side of this here. The Tzemach Tzedek brings the same opinion, but phrases it a little differently. He says, “This one’s money caused it, and that one’s feet caused it.” That’s how he puts it. According to the Tzemach Tzedek, it follows that any gift given as a result of a purchase should be split fifty-fifty. Why? Because both of them contributed to it—the person who sent him and the shliach. One contributed his feet, and the other his money. According to the Tzemach Tzedek, it would follow that even if I explicitly said, “I’m giving this to the person who sent him,” he would have to split it with the shliach, because the shliach also contributed: he went there. That’s how it works. I didn’t mention this earlier because the Alter Rebbe doesn’t spell it out. He brings only one side.

21:55 Speaker 6 If it’s considered that… [unclear] two [unclear] and three hundred shekels. Now I came to talk. Now someone else wants to come in. Let’s move on.

22:09 Speaker 2 Are you asking whether you’re allowed to add someone else to a purchase? That’s a topic in its own right. A topic in its own right. I don’t remember if we stopped at [unclear], but perhaps after these classes we’ll move on to that subject. He’s asking about using special offers for someone else: having a loyalty card and buying for someone else, or combining several purchases into one. We’re looking at a case where he does it properly. The question is whom it belongs to.

22:34 Speaker 6 Why? Why isn’t he considered the agent of the… the agent of the [unclear]?

22:42 Speaker 2 A person’s agent is like himself. He’s the agent of the person who sent him.

22:46 Speaker 6 Yes. I don’t know. I… a person…

22:51 Speaker 2 He’s an agent in what he does. As we said, the moment he picks up that item, it belongs to the person who sent him. But the gift is something additional to his mission. Now we come to the next stage: today’s special offers. If I make a purchase and there’s an advertised buy-one-get-one-free offer from the outset, as we said earlier, is that really a gift? Is someone giving me gifts here? Are they handing out gifts? On the face of it, it’s already built into the price. Essentially, it’s a kind of discount. So what happens? We’ve been talking about a gift. What if it wasn’t a gift but a discount? I sent someone to buy something that costs a hundred shekels—that’s its price in every store—and he got a fifty-shekel discount and bought it for fifty. Can the shliach say, “Let’s split that discount fifty-fifty. You pay seventy-five, I’ll get twenty-five, and you’ll save twenty-five”? So what’s the criterion? How do I determine whether something is a gift or a discount? The criterion is whether the price is fixed or not fixed. A fixed price is like the sugar example: sugar costs four and a half shekels, or a kilo of nuts costs seventy shekels. If the seller gives you more, that’s a gift, an addition, and they split it. For a non-fixed price, the best examples are buying a house, a used car, and things like that. They don’t have a clear price. Let’s take the opposite example—not our example, where you received a gift. Rather, I sent you as a real-estate broker. That’s a case we’ve mentioned before as well. A broker is selling an apartment. He asks the client, “How much do you want to sell it for?” “A million.” Then he goes and sells it for one million one hundred thousand. Whom does that extra hundred thousand shekels belong to? Can the broker say, “You asked for a million and got it. The extra hundred thousand goes in my pocket,” or does it belong to the seller?

24:52 Speaker 8 He has to tell him.

24:53 Speaker 2 What?

24:53 Speaker 8 He has to tell him.

24:53 Speaker 2 Does he have to tell him about it?

24:55 Speaker 8 Does he or doesn’t he?

24:57 Speaker 2 What’s the answer? What’s the answer? This is called a non-fixed price. An apartment has no clear price, so when, instead of charging the buyer a million, you brought us one million one hundred thousand, what did he pay that amount for? He didn’t give you a gift of a hundred thousand shekels. He paid one million one hundred thousand for the apartment. So all that money goes to the seller. It doesn’t belong to the broker at all. That’s an example of a non-fixed price. The same applies if I go into a store to buy things that… These days, there aren’t really products in a store without fixed prices. Everything has a price. It’s more like—someone here mentioned a clearance sale. You come to a clearance sale, they put together several items and say, “Here, take all this for a hundred shekels.” There isn’t really an individual price for each thing. The person who sent him asked him to buy a siddur that costs fifty shekels. In practice, he left the store with a pile of books, and it cost him a hundred shekels. Do I say there’s a siddur here for fifty and everything else is a gift? No. I say it’s all one overall price for everything. In the Gemara’s terminology, it’s called—

26:05 Speaker 8 So it all belongs to the…

26:07 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. That is what the Gemara does say. But if it is something without a fixed price, he must give everything to the sender. And here he adds a sentence that essentially covers all our cases today: “Because this is not a gift, but a bargain purchase.” It is not a gift; it is a bargain purchase. In our words, a bargain purchase is a discount. So the Gemara does tell us when the two share it, when there is something to discuss: when there are gifts, we start thinking about whom they belong to. When there is a discount, who got the discount? The person who bought it simply paid less. So he sent you with a hundred shekels, and you got a discount: it cost only fifty. You still have fifty in your hand. Whose fifty is that? It belongs to the sender. It has nothing to do with you. He got the discount. If it were a gift, I would wonder whom it belonged to. That is what emerges from the Gemara. Even if, when he sent him, he told him to buy it at the higher price—he explicitly said, “Buy this for me for a hundred shekels”—and he got it for fifty, in practice this is a discount, not a gift. With that, I’ll return to the beginning of the class, to all the examples we gave at the start. “Buy and get”: there is a promotion where you buy a refrigerator and get a mixer. Now we need to look at this—it is a little hard to define. In principle, “buy and get” is a gift. I bought a refrigerator and received a mixer. But we have to understand from the circumstances whether it is included in the price. How can we tell? I think the measure is whether it was clearly advertised in advance in the newspapers: buy this, get that. Presumably, then, it is covered by the price. But if it is a gift—for example, a new store gives something as a gift with every purchase, and you see that they do not look at how much you bought, whether for fifty,

28:15 Speaker 2 a hundred, or a thousand. A gift with every purchase. The seller has a pile of gifts to one side and gives one to everyone who buys something. Here, that gift is not included in the price; it is not something you paid for. Rather, he wants to attract customers, so he gives out these gifts. Who is the customer he wants to attract? That is exactly our question. Is it you, the agent, or the sender? So they share it. In other words, you always have to distinguish—and it is a little hard to define—whether I am truly receiving an additional gift, in which case they share it, or whether it is included in the price I paid. If I paid for it, it is essentially a discount. Instead of the refrigerator costing less—or whether it is an addition—I bought two products together. Why should the sender pay for the products and the agent receive them? There is no reason. Four for a hundred. With four for a hundred, something else comes into play that changes the picture. You sent me to buy one product for fifty shekels, for thirty shekels. Now there is a four-for-a-hundred deal. On my own initiative, as the agent, I come and buy three more to make it four for a hundred. You sent me to buy one; you knew it cost thirty. So I say, “I’ll pay seventy and buy the other three, and you’ll buy your one for thirty. What do you have to do with this promotion?” What do you say? Here it is the same question: was there a gift here or a discount? Is four for a hundred giving you something extra, or is it a discount? It is a discount. The seller is telling you that instead of each one costing thirty—really, it is each one. You see this clearly now at the 5 Teves book sales every year. They have promotions of three for a hundred, four for a hundred. You buy one book and it costs twenty-five. Four for a hundred, so

30:16 Speaker 2 it is not really “four for a hundred.” Each book costs twenty-five. Some places want you to buy four, so they tell you to buy four to get that discount. But essentially, it is a discount. So when that agent added the products, he managed to get a discount. He got the discount. Again, every discount goes to the sender. So if the sender sent you with thirty shekels, and in the end the product cost twenty-five, give him back five shekels, because ultimately you caused him to get a discount. It is not a gift. There is no additional gift here. Of course, you benefit too. They effectively shared... Wait, not twenty-five. Sorry, I made a mistake. Four. No. Yes, twenty-five. So you also benefited from that discount. Instead of paying thirty for each product, you paid twenty-five.

31:03 Speaker 9 But that is a different question, isn’t it? How can he use the sender’s money? He is ordering merchandise without money of his own.

31:11 Speaker 2 He has no money of his own. He has the sender’s money. So that reduces—

31:16 Speaker 9 For them, it really helps that he bought a car for thirty thousand shekels.

31:20 Speaker 2 Yes, he certainly needs the car.

31:24 Speaker 9 What is the problem with it? He bought four for a hundred and charged the sender twenty-five shekels, with seventy-five shekels from his own pocket. Thirty from the sender and seventy from his own pocket.

31:33 Speaker 2 Look, using the sender’s money is a separate issue. Am I allowed to use money that is in my possession?

31:39 Speaker 9 If it is his own money.

31:41 Speaker 2 It is all his own money.

31:42 Speaker 9 No, not all of it. The sender does not have the money for this in his bank account. He has thirty shekels. The agent added seventy shekels and bought it.

31:51 Speaker 2 So, in principle, he did use the sender’s money. He used five shekels of it.

31:54 Speaker 9 And he would not have come to the store without the assignment.

31:58 Speaker 2 Who, the agent?

31:59 Speaker 9 The agent.

32:00 Speaker 2 So he—

32:01 Speaker 9 Then why is he even a party to this? What is his claim?

32:04 Speaker 2 The agent’s?

32:06 Speaker 9 Yes.

32:06 Speaker 2 He says—

32:06 Speaker 9 Our agent. If he had money—

32:09 Speaker 2 “I added my own money. You could not have gotten this promotion on your own.”

32:13 Speaker 9 His own money?

32:14 Speaker 2 Yes, he added his own money. Yes, he added his own money.

32:16 Speaker 9 He did not send me for ten bags, but it is all money, I do not know what.

32:19 Speaker 2 No, I am talking about a case where he sent him to buy one for thirty, and the agent, on his own initiative, bought three products for himself to qualify for the promotion. That gave him a discount.

32:32 Speaker 9 No, it is five shekels.

32:33 Speaker 2 Here it is five shekels, which is a small amount, but sometimes it is more money. The law for a small coin is the same as for a dinar.

32:37 Speaker 9 No, that is fine, because he took advantage of the...

32:40 Speaker 2 No, what I am saying is that the products are divided equally.

32:44 Speaker 9 Equally? No, no.

32:44 Speaker 2 He has to give it back to him. You allocate the total price across all the products. That is how you do it. This is a simple case of four for a hundred. Sometimes it gets a little more complicated. We will see in a moment. Buy one, get one. He sent him to buy a kilo of sugar, and he got two. Whom do they belong to? At first glance, it is a gift: there is an extra kilo of sugar for free. But because it was a promotion advertised in advance, they effectively decided to give anyone who buys one a discount, so that each kilo costs him half as much. The sender therefore gets both kilos of sugar. The agent gets nothing. Now, buy two, get one. Here it is different. He sent you to buy one, and you added another one with your own money, and then you received the third. Whom does that third one belong to?

33:32 Speaker 9 To both of you.

33:32 Speaker 2 Good. Half and half, because we effectively made this purchase together. On a purchase over a hundred shekels.

33:40 Speaker 9 And how is that different from what we had before, a hundred and a hundred?

33:46 Speaker 2 From buy two, get one, or from the purchase over a hundred shekels?

33:49 Speaker 9 Buy two, get one.

33:50 Speaker 2 “Buy two, get one” sounds as though the third one is a gift. That is how it sounds. But really it is not.

33:57 Speaker 9 It is not a gift.

33:57 Speaker 2 So it is not a gift. Then it is a discount?

33:59 Speaker 9 A discount. If I bought another one.

34:02 Speaker 2 So if you added one—if the agent added one and bought it—then each of them effectively bought one, and they got the third. They divide it half and half. But if the sender bought both, then the third is not considered a gift that they share. It is considered part of the purchase, part of the transaction.

34:20 Speaker 9 But in the case just now, where they already saved five shekels, a person still shares that. How much does the agent gain?

34:28 Speaker 2 Again, what? In which case?

34:30 Speaker 9 With the... the thing—

34:32 Speaker 2 Four for a hundred.

34:34 Speaker 9 He needs one.

34:35 Speaker 2 Yes, he needs one.

34:37 Speaker 9 And on the one, she already saved money. Right?

34:41 Speaker 2 Instead of thirty, twenty-five. That is it.

34:45 Speaker 9 But that should be divided by three.

34:46 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. It is not divided that way. No. What I was just talking about—buy two, get one—is where each person bought one, and then the third came from the store, from the seller. That one they divide in two, half for him and half for him. With four for a hundred, if the sender bought one product and the agent bought three, you take the total price, a hundred shekels, allocate it across all the products, and each pays his proportional share: twenty-five. It comes out the same in the end.

35:22 Speaker 9 Let us say that with four for a hundred, that is certainly a discount, while with buy two, get one, it is certainly a gift.

35:28 Speaker 2 What I was saying is that it is not a gift but a discount. If it were a gift, let us say the sender sent you to buy two, not one—two bags of sugar—and you got a third. If it were a gift, you would be supposed to share it half and half. As we said, whenever an agent receives a gift, he shares it half and half with the sender. But because it was not a gift—not that he saw you there, liked the look of you or something, and gave you a gift on the spot, but that it was agreed in advance that anyone who buys two here gets one—it is actually part of the price. So I would not call it “buy two, get one.” I would call it “three for the price of two.” Let us call it that. It is a discount.

36:07 Speaker 9 But he already received the amount.

36:10 Speaker 2 That’s a discount on the total, and—

36:12 Speaker 9 But what will he do with that amount?

36:13 Speaker 2 Ah, what do they actually do with that kilo? As I understand it, that kilo belongs to both of them jointly. They’ll have to work it out between themselves.

36:21 Speaker 9 He already received a discount on the total.

36:22 Speaker 2 How? Wait, are you talking about a situation where there’s both four for a hundred and a buy-two-get-one offer?

36:28 Speaker 9 For the same amount.

36:28 Speaker 2 The same... There’s no such promotion today. No, I’m talking about two different cases. Four for a hundred is one case; buy two, get one is another. Fine. A purchase over 100 shekels: someone sends you to buy things, and with a purchase over 100 shekels you get a gift, a benefit, a discount, or something like that. And you added items of your own to reach 100 shekels. So again, I would look at each person’s share of the 100 shekels. Now, if the person who sent you gave you 100 shekels to spend and you came along and added other things afterward, then he has already paid his 100 shekels, and it all belongs to him. But if he sent you to spend less than 100 shekels and you helped him reach 100, then your share of that total belongs to you. And 100 shekels is a good example, because the amounts are exactly the percentages. He paid 77 and you paid 23. Now you receive a gift. Twenty-three percent of the gift belongs to you, and 77 percent belongs to him. Seventy-seven. The second item at half price—again, these are just examples; it comes out the same in the end. Everything was agreed on in advance. The second item at half price is really two products for the price of one and a half. That’s what it comes to, and you divide it the same way. The second item for nine shekels, the same thing; the second item for one shekel. So, for example, the second item for one shekel—if the person sent to buy arrives... How?

37:57 Speaker 9 Both are the same price.

37:59 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s just... That one shekel is just a marketing trick, right? It makes it feel different. Yes. A coupon for the next purchase. A coupon for the next purchase. What do you say—is that a discount or a gift? I bought something for 100 shekels and got a coupon for 30 shekels off my next purchase. That’s a gift. It isn’t a discount, because in this sale the product cost its regular price. Now I’ve received a coupon for my next purchase; that’s a gift. Here, the person sent to buy and the person who sent him do split it. And accumulating points—that’s the last case we’ll need to discuss in more detail in the next class. Let’s give a short story for the next class, and then we’ll analyze it. An employee of a company who works as a kashrus supervisor is flying abroad all the time. He pays with his own credit card, gets reimbursed afterward, and buys through some... Yes, he has accumulated a lot of miles and received a free ticket. Does it belong to that employee or to the company? Based on what we’ve learned, what do you think? Why?

39:20 Speaker 9 Because it’s neither this nor that, but he did it one after another.

39:23 Speaker 2 He benefited—he benefited from the person who sent him?

39:25 Speaker 9 He benefited because the card is really the company’s doing; he isn’t the one promoting it. If it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t have gotten any of it. It’s through the company that he gets to...

39:32 Speaker 2 Right. Now, we said that if you benefited thanks to the person who sent you, you split it fifty-fifty for that reason. The question is whether it will be fifty-fifty here, or whether everything will go to the person who sent him. And even within this case, there are two possibilities. One is that they told you to buy from this company. The other is that they don’t care—you can buy wherever you want—but you keep choosing to buy from the same company each time, so you’ve played a part in earning the benefit. We’ll leave that as a question for next time. There are quite a few other possibilities. Ah, I think it’s on the sheet. A credit card: you get—and this is a very strong example—you get points on your credit card when you buy something, or a discount. Some discounts don’t come immediately but arrive as a credit back to the card. You bought something for a friend and received a credit back to your card. There’s another example that isn’t so common here in Israel but is more common abroad: a rebate. You buy something with a rebate. Are you familiar with rebates? Abroad, in America, they’re very, very common. You buy a product, get some kind of coupon, enter your details, fill something out and send it by mail, or whatever. Then you get the money in your account. You receive a refund into your account. Why do they do it that way? I don’t know. Apparently, they do it so that anyone who doesn’t have the energy for the process won’t use it. Whoever does have the energy will use it.