Chapter 29
Laws Derived from Isaiah: Running, Walking, Commerce, Measuring, Reading, Speaking
BUYING AND SELLING ON BHABBATH AND YOM TOV
16.a. One is prohibited from engaging in trade on Shabbath or Yom Tov.
16.b. This prohibition is applicable both to selling and to buying.
16.c. It applies even if the “trading” is motivated by halachic considerations, as where
1) one wishes to sell one’s chametz to a non-Jew on a Shabbath which is the day preceding Passover, 2) one wishes to sell to a non-Jew an animal which is about to give birth for the first time. (Such a sale would prevent sanctity, with its attendant complications, from attaching to the firstborn).
17.a. Despite the above prohibition, the Rabbis have ruled that one may take goods* from a shopkeeper on Shabbath (where there is an eiruv and the goods may be carried about) or Yom Tov, provided
1) the goods are required for Shabbath or Yom Tov
and
2) one is careful not to mention expressions of “buying” or “selling” (as will be explained in the paragraphs below)**
17.b. One may promise the shopkeeper that one will come to an arrangement with him after Shabbath or Yom To with regard to the merchandise one has taken.
17.c. One may even give the shopkeeper some object as security, but one should not expressly say to him that that is why one is leaving it with him.
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*See, however, paragraph 26 below.
**Of course the shop may not be kept open as if for regular business.
