Study Bava Metzia folio 46A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
וחוזר ואומר: הרי הן מחוללין על מעות שיש לי בבית. טעמא דאין בידו מעות, הא אם יש בידו מעות – ליקני להו לאידך במשיכה ופריק, דהכי עדיף, דהוה ליה נכראי.
and then he says: This second-tithe produce that now belongs to you is hereby desacralized on coins that I have at home. The Talmud infers: The reason that it is necessary to employ this artifice is that he does not have coins in his hand. But if he has coins in his hand let him transfer ownership of the coins to the other person by means of the transaction of pulling, and then that other person will desacralize the second-tithe produce. The reason for this is that this procedure is preferable, as the one who desacralizes the produce is a stranger, not the owner of the produce. Therefore, it appears less like artifice designed to circumvent paying the additional 1/5th.
The Talmud continues to state its objection to the opinion of Rav Pappa. And if you say a coin is acquired by means of a transaction of exchange, then even if the owner of produce has no money in his hand, let the owner transfer ownership of the coins, wherever they are, to the other person by means of a cloth, as he can perform a transaction of symbolic exchange with a cloth; and then let the other person desacralize the produce. The Talmud answers: The case in the baraita is one in which he does not have a cloth. The Talmud challenges: And let the owner transfer ownership of the coins to the other person by means of land, i.e., perform an act of transaction concerning the land and include the coins in the transaction. The Talmud answers: The case in the baraita is one in which he does not have land.