Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Choshen Mishpat/101

Paragraph 1- If the borrower comes to pay back and has money, he must give the money. He cannot compel the lender to accept real property or moveable items. If we don’t know that the borrower has money, we do not make him swear. Even if we see he has money, but he says it does not belong to him but to so and so, we would not have him swear. We would, however, place a cherem on anyone who knows that the borrower has money. In a case where he says he does not have the money and is discovered to be lying, he is no longer believed with respect to this debt to say he does not have money. Rather, he must trouble himself to go and sell and bring money. Similarly, if the court sees that he is lying and has money but does not want to pay it, they would force him to pay. See below seifs 7 and 8.

Paragraph 2- If the borrower does not have money, he does not have to sell in order to obtain money. Rather, he only has to give what he has. If he has moveable items and real property and the lender prefers the moveable items over the real property, he must give him the moveable items, but he can give him whichever moveable items the borrower wants and the lender cannot say I don’t want these moveable items.

Paragraph 3- If the borrower has money and real property or money and moveable items and the borrower wants to pay money, the lender cannot say I don’t want money but real property or moveable items. Similarly, if there is no money and just real property and moveable items and the borrower wants to give moveable items, the lender cannot say I only want real property.

Paragraph 4- If the borrower only has real property and wants to repay with it and the lender says I don’t want it and I am not asking for anything at the moment but I will wait until you have money, the lender is in the right. See earlier Siman 74. If the borrower’s money was deposited with a third party, we would remove the money and give it to the lender. If, however, it was given as a loan to the third party, we would not remove the money before the deadline.

Paragraph 5- If the borrower has loan documents against others, the lenders can collect from them and we will evaluate them for the amount of the loan if he is a strong person and based on the character of the properties- superior or inferior. Even if the borrower has other moveable items, the lender can collect the documents with their worth.

Paragraph 6- There are those that say that when it comes to selling merchandise we do not deal with any kind of appraisal of the defendant’s items. Rather, the defendant will give the amount of money they agreed on of the currency they agreed on.

Paragraph 7- If the borrower has money and claims it belongs to a gentile and the lender suspects it really belong to the borrower, we place a cherem on anyone who knows the borrower has money. There are those that say that if the borrower is wealthy we do not listen to his claim and we force him to pay.

Paragraph 8- If it is known that the money belongs to the borrower and he says it belongs to the gentile and he is unable to give the money because the gentile is stopping him, we force the borrower to sell real property and give money to his creditor. Similarly, if it is known that the gentile has a claim on the borrower’s property and the lender is concerned to take the property because of the gentile’s claim, the borrower must trouble himself to sell and give money.

Paragraph 9- Any real property or moveable items that are given to the lender should be appraised for the amount he is able to sell the item immediately, even out of his home, based on the time, and not the value if he were to go and sell it in the city or marketplace or to hold on to it until he were to find a buyer or the item’s value were to increase because otherwise we would be closing the door to loans.

Paragraph 10- The lender can collect any moveable items of the borrower that he can find. If he does not have enough moveable items, he collects real property after they place a cherem on anyone who has the borrower’s moveable items or knows of the borrower’s moveable items and does not bring them to court. This is the primary law, and not like others who say he must swear on this. He then collects all real property the borrower has, even if there is a lien on it for his wife’s kesubah or an earlier creditor. We would collect for this lender immediately and if the first lender comes to collect from him he may collect.

Paragraph 11- If the borrower has moveable items or real property and gentile-debts against him, and says the gentile has a lien on all his properties and if the Jew were to take it the gentiles would come and imprison him and he would be in captivity, we would not listen to him. Rather, the Jew will collect his debt and if the gentiles imprison him, all the Jews are commanded to redeem him.