Chapter 29
Laws Derived from Isaiah: Running, Walking, Commerce, Measuring, Reading, Speaking
BUYING AND SELLING ON BHABBATH AND YOM TOV
20.a. 1) It is as well not to ask a shopkeeper for a specific quantity of a commodity which needs to be weighed or measured. (Contrast paragraph 21 below, where required the commodity is already packed and is merely identified by quantity.)
2) Actual weighing or measuring is of course forbidden. (See paragraph 32 below.)
20.b. One may
1) request the shopkeeper to fill a bag or container with a commodity and
2) promise him to weigh an identical bag or container filled with the same commodity after Shabbath, one’s intention in doing so being to ascertain how much one has to pay him.
20.c. It is also permissible for the shopkeeper to fill a vessel designed for measuring and to hand it to the customer together with its contents, that is to say without emptying it into another vessel.
20.d. If the shopkeeper is not precise as to the amount he puts into the measuring vessel, but pours in a little more or a little less than the exact measure, he may even empty it into vessels belonging to the customer. (See paragraphs 34 and 35 below.)
21. One may indicate to the shopkeeper the kind of item one would like to acquire from him, even if one has to mention weight or measure for this purpose, as where one identifies the desired goods by the size of the package (See, however, paragraph 23 below.)
