The Priest Forbade Chametz
‘Acquired By Admission’
(Bava Basra 149a)
Property can be transferred by payment, bills of sale, chazakah, pulling, lifting, hand-to-hand delivery, chalipin, kinyan agav, and chatzer.
Our sugya mentions another means of transferring property known as odaisa, or “admission,” in which a property admits that his property now belongs to another. Odaisa is mentioned only in our sugya and it is appropriate, therefore, to devote some discussion to this unusual means of transferring property.
The Strongest Method Of Acquisition
Some maintain that an owner’s statement that an item he owned now belongs to another evidences a determination to grant this other person the item. Odaisa, then, is as valid as any other means of transferring property (Shitah Mekubetzes, Bava Basra, ibid., in the name of Tosafos HaRosh; Ketzos HaChoshen, 40, s.k. 1 and 194, s.k. 4, based on Tosafos, Bava Metzia 46a and Bava Basra, ibid). Rabbi Yechezkel Landau actually calls odaisa “the strongest method of acquisition” (Noda BiYehudah, 1st edition, Choshen Mishpat 30). According to this opinion, the new owner acquires title as soon as the previous owner makes his admission (Ritva, Bava Metzia 46a; Rashba 4:50, see also Imrei Binah, Dinei Halvaah 16).
Others maintain, however, that odaisa only obligates a property owner to transfer his item to another person if that other person later puts forth such a claim. In the meantime, though, the item remains in the previous owner’s possession.
Moribund
Moreover, some believe that odaisa only works if the owner of the item is moribund (a shechiv mera) and that it differs from other methods of acquisition (Itur 5; Or Zarua 752; Tashbetz, 1:152 and 3:325). Most halachic, however, authorities hold that odaisa is valid even if the owner is healthy (see Shach, Choshen Mishpat 60, s.k. 32, and Ketzos HaChoshen 194).
An Anti-Semite
Many years ago, an anti-Semitic priest directed his parishioners to refuse to buy chametz on the eve of Pesach. The gentiles were not particularly anti-Semitic but they obeyed their spiritual leader.
To get around the predicament this order created, Rabbi Meir Arik (1855-1926), author of Imrei Yosher, suggested that Jews wishing to sell their chametz “admit” that their chametz now belongs to gentiles. This admission will act as a means of transferring the chametz to them, even without their knowledge (Imrei Yosher 1:3).
Avoiding Penury
According to the opinion that odaisa is just as valid as others method of transferring property, Rabbi Meir Arik’s solution to circumvent the anti-Semite priest’s directive was a good one. According to the other opinion, however, it was not.
It is important to note that in many European villages, landless Jews were only able to eke out a living by dealing in beer and liquor and for them to have to completely liquidate their stock every erev Pesach would have left them penniless for the most part.