Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Bava Metzia 74 - Commodity Loans (Finds)

Commodity loans - such as a loan of a bag of wheat to be repaid with a bag of wheat later - are generally prohibited. If the price of the commodity increases in the interim, the lender will receive back more value than he lent, which constitutes interest. The correct way to give such loans is to estimate the value of the bag when it is given and later return the amount of wheat of equal value.


Nevertheless, a person may lend his sharecropper wheat to be used as seeds to repay the same amount of wheat after the harvest. In this case, it is not a commodity loan but the terms of the shareholder agreement. 

Art: Still Life With Two Sacks And A Bottle by Vincent Van Gogh 

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