The Talmud, property ownership, and the law of the kingdom

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Which Rules? The Law of the Kingdom, or the Law of the Jews? In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, the rabbis debate whether Jews owe anything to gentiles, when it comes to property rights.

In the course of this discussion, the rabbis turn to the issue of what happens when a Jew purchases property from a gentile. Such transactions must have occurred regularly in Babylonia and throughout the diaspora, but their status under Jewish law remains problematic because halakha governs only transactions where both parties are Jewish. When a gentile sells land to a Jew, therefore, there is a moment in the process when the land is technically owned by nobody. “The gentile relinquishes ownership of it from the moment when the money reaches his hand, while the Jew does not acquire it until the deed reaches his hand,” we read in Bava Batra 54b.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.