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The author of this article asked me to share this:
He also asked me to share the coin charts and the complete pre-copy editing article for those who are doing Hazahav and can’t wait until the sequels are published:
http://www.box.net/shared/642nle6fnh
Daf Yomi Insights
By Rabbi Yosef Sebrow
Thursday, June 11, 2009
My brother Avrohom asked me to write a supplement to his daf yomi article. The daf yomi is coming up to perek hazahav in Bava Metzia, which discusses the ancient monetary system. This is a rather poorly known area of the Talmud, since it deals with the monetary facts on the ground of 2,000 years ago.
This series of articles is written to help people understand this area of Talmud. (We will explain the title in a later installment.) It is based on knowledge and research picked up from having a hobby of collecting ancient coins. I am not a professor and never formally studied this subject. This article contains my opinions as well. If you spot an error, feel free to write in and correct it.
Some basic information to start with: a Troy ounce has 31.1 grams. A regular ounce has 28.3 grams.
What Is Money?
History Of Money
Early Forms Of Money
Ancient society would have laughed at our idea of money: intrinsically worthless pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them, backed by nothing but government fiat, with not much separating it from the play money sold in the toy aisles of chain drug stores. When the Midrash Tanchumah (Parashas Terumah, Paragraph 7) predicted this, it must have come as a complete shock to a society used to the idea that money has to be worth something. Early money consisted of commodity goods desired enough to always be accepted, but common enough to be easily available for transactions. Some examples are:
Clearly, coins are the better way to go, as well as being less bloody when you need to get change. It is perhaps for this reason that the Gemara in Pesachim 54B calls the nature of people to accept coins as money a creation from Hashem.
Biblical Examples Of Money
Rabbi Yosef Sebrow is a musmach of Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem and an alumnus of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim. He is currently the IT Director at Star Financial. He thanks his wife for her patience while he composed and researched this series. He can be reached at [email protected].
Moderator’s Note: Here are links to the other parts of this article:
nice! that chart can really help when learning complicated gemaros. i don’t know about this gemara but kidushin 12a u really need a chart like this
Very useful for Hazahav, which Daf Yomi is doing now. A very dense read, but some real funny lines throughout. I’m not sure I like the way the author says, “The Shulchan Aruch is wrong but the Ketzos says it’s ok”. Very strange hashkafa. If we know Rashi is right, then a shekel is 14 grams, not 17. I doubt Hashem meant for us to perpetuate errors.
Jothar – I’m not so sure you should be questioning the author’s hashkafa’s. The author seems to be a talmid chochom and has semicha/learnt at 2 well known yeshivos.
Mod-55, isn’t the purpose of the Coffee room to ask questions and debate the issues better left to our gedolim and those better than us? 🙂
Bottom line, this Ketzos which the author so casually tossed out there is a very troubling hashkafah if taken literally. I’m sure there are other interpretations/modifications to this hashkafah of the ketzos. The Ramban the author quoted had no problems retracting his pshat when he saw the “shekel yisroel” coin.
Thank you for this article and the other one too. It was very informational and balanced. It is interesting that the Ramban, as would be expected , retracted his halachic position when he heard contrary objective, reliable, non rabbinic evidence from a knowledgable source. Equally interesting, and very curious, is the Chazon Ish’s well known refusal to consider archaeological or historical evidence or recently discovered old manuscripts exhibiting different girsaos or historical evidence. The Chazon Ish seems to have been extaordinarily mistrustful of the reliability of the sources, and even more so, the potential for abuse of the information garnered.
These articles are great, especially because they’re written in such a way that the average person can easily comprehend their meaning. Thanks for sharing them here.
Incidentally, I think I may know a girl who’s related to Rabbi Sebrow. Does he live in/have relatives in Teaneck?
At least the Mets are too far out to be collapsing this September…
Could this mean that the p’ruta will be completely replaced by plastic?
There’s talk of repealing the penny. They’d save money like that, and nobody wants them. Maybe that would qualify.
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