Selected Responsa Notes
1. Baba Batra 8a-b.
3. Gitin 4:6.
4. How to determine the“monetary value” of captives is a subject of some dispute. Some(Chidushey ha-Ritba, Gittin 45a) set the amount according to the price the individual would fetch on the slave market(or the estimated price, should slavery no longer be in practice; Responsa Maharam Lublin,# 15). Others(Responsa R. David ibn Zimra Ha-Chadashot,# 40) measure the ransom price against that which is normally paid to kidnappers. Still others(Responsa Menachem Ha-Meiri, Beit Ha-Bechirah, Ketubot 52b) set the price according to the captive's social status.
5. Gittin 45a. 6. Rashi, Gittin 45a, s.v. o'dilma.
7. Yad, Hilkhot Matanot Aniyim 8:12. Alfasi, Ketubot 52b(fol. 19a), rules that a husband may not redeem his captive wife“for more than her monetary value." This suggests that Alfasi, too, accepts the reasoning that the limits are set in order to discourage future kidnappings and that even a private individual may not exceed those restrictions; see Rabbeinu Nissim ad loc., as well as Chiddushey Ha- Rashba, Gittin 45a. This position is adopted as well by the Gaon of Vilna (Bi‘ur Ha-Gra, Yoreh Dea 252,# 6).
8. Gittin 4:44, following Tosafot, Gittin 45a, s.v. dela. See also R. Asher to M.
9. Ketubot 5:22. in the name of R. Meir Halevy Abulafia. See Ketubot 52a-b.
10. See Gittin 58a, where R. Yehoshua pays a high price to redeem a child from captivity, because he realizes that the child is learned and will one day become a great halakhic sage.“How much the more so,” says R. Asher,“does this apply to one who is already a talmid chakham.”
I1. See R. Yoel Sirkes, Bayit Chadash to Tur, Yoreh Deah 252, who notes that such is common practice“to which no one objects”, and R. Shabtai Cohen, Siftey
Kohen, Yoreh Deah 252,# 4.
12. Yoreh Deah 252:4. In Even Haezer 78:2, we read:“the husband is not obligated to redeem his wife at a price greater than her monetary value....” This Suggests that he may do so if he wishes.
13. A similar order of priorities is established with regard to the giving stivdalor See Baba Metzi’a 71a(on Ex. 22:24); Yad, Hilkhot Matanot Aniyim 7:13; Shulhan Arukh Y oreh Deah 251:3.