A dramatic and highly unusual scene at a Pesach fair held at the Haifa Port Terminal has sparked attention online: A young chareidi man arrived with his family and purchased every item of chametz—including all the beer and pizzas being sold at the event—and then demanded that they be publicly destroyed.
According to a report published by Walla, the man paid a staggering 83,200 shekels to the bar operators, insisted they sign a declaration pledging not to sell chametz during the Yom Tov, and personally supervised as dozens of beer kegs were emptied and the pizzas were thrown away and incinerated.
Many secular Jews who were at the fair expressed anger over what happened. Assaf Danieli, 43, of Ramat Meir, was attending the event with his family and said he was caught off guard: “When we returned from sailing, the bartender refused to sell me wine because they were busy spilling out the beer. He told me that something crazy happened, pointed at a chareidi guy, and said that he bought all the beer, some 30 kegs, and demanded that they spill it out.”
Clearly frustrated, Danieli continued, “In principle, I think it’s stunning that someone is investing nearly a hundred thousand shekels to save me from my own free will, when that money could actually save people for real. After all, anyone who wanted to drink beer and eat pizza did so a short distance away.”
The organizers behind the event declined to offer a detailed explanation. “This is a totally private event,” said event organizer Asaf Ben-David. Both the Haifa Municipality and Haifa Port emphasized that they were not affiliated with the fair.
Tempo Beer Industries, the company behind Goldstar Beer—which appeared to be a sponsor of the fair—also distanced itself. “Goldstar Beer provides an annual sponsorship to the Haifa Terminal, which hosted the spring fair this year. We have no control over the Terminal’s events, and this was not a sponsorship for the aforementioned event. If we had been aware of the event ahead of time, we would have worked for the removal of Goldstar from the invitation as a sponsor.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
He “purchased” it on Pesach ???? Was oveir on “bal yemotzai” ? Doesn’t sound so charedi or so educated.
He paid but did not have in mind to be Koneh.
Basically just paying them to dispose.
He did not purchase the chametz, G-d forbid. He convinced the owners to destroy the chametz and not deal with any more chametz for the rest of pesach and he compensated them for their willingness to do so.
Assur
This doesn’t make sense. If the young Chareidi man really bought chometz, then he owned it over Pesach. That’s an issur d’oraisa!
This is an amazing thing this person did! I’m surprised at you, a supposedly frum news site, for presenting it as a negative thing.
So the Frum guy owned the chamezt on Peasach until it was destroyed?!
From a halachik perspective, was it muttar for this guy to own the chametz on pesach?
No. He was oiver an issur dioraisah, nebach.
Deceptively written article. This tzadik paid the vendor/s the full amount that he/they would have earned over the week long festival on the condition the chometz was destroyed. Of course he didn’t “purchase” the chometz. He just purchased the זכות of preventing ignorant Jews of being עובר איסור דאורייתא of eating חמץ on Pesach. He actually made an enormous קידוש השם. There was other food and drink available there that wasn’t outright chometz.
Interesting, if by being oyver a lav for which he is chayav malkus, he saves hundreds of people from a chiyuv kares, a sha’ila for the poskim…
Plain halachah, if my memory doesn’t betray me, is that one cannot even be oyver an issur derabbanan in such circumstances, but I might certainly be wrong.
Learn to read english
TRUE YIRAS SHAMAYIM, NO HE DIDN’T BUY IT ,HE PAID THE OWNER TO SPILL IT OUT.
KIDDUSH HASHEM! KAIN YIRBU!
this is from quote from the article insisted they sign a declaration pledging not to sell chametz during the Yom Tov, why would this b aser?
this is a classic example of where the question is if it’s shayach to be moneya someone from issur… if it was possible to stop them and you didn’t, you are also nitfas in the issur altz kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh, the question is whether or not that’s considered actually stopping them because they didn’t stop like the article pointed out (aderaba they probably ate the chametz in spite…); the question of kiddush hashem v/s chillul hashem is also dependent on if you consider them meizidim or shoggim (tinok shenishba), for a shoggeg you don’t make a mechaa that way – it’ll just push them further. for a rasha gamur, not entirely sure if there’s even an achrayus to make them stop, but it definitely made a good mechaa… and theirs no question of kinyan becuase maos einam konos, and he definitely didn’t have daas to do anything but get permission to destroy the chametz.