@Shokhet He's fine now.

@Shokhet @mevaqesh recall the great venn diagram of topicality:

@MonicaCellio do keep us posted on the gender. i wonder why they can't just do an ultrasound?

@DoubleAA Sounds expensive. They probably don't have veterinary insurance

@MonicaCellio it's actually a really big deal if that happens, because the kohein has to accept it but has to take care of the animal without getting any benefit (no shearing, working, milking, etc.) or purposefully harming it. the situation has been carefully avoided for centuries by selling part of nulliparous goats/cows/etc. to a gentile. see for instance matzav.com/rav-moshe-heinemann-performs-mechirah-of-sheep

In Europe if it happened by accident they used to leave the Bekhor to roam and graze in the cemetery so no one would use it by accident.

@DoubleAA Great word; thanks!

@IsaacMoses More expensive than buying three donkeys for not even a 100% chance of there being a son?

@DoubleAA Oh. Hmm. I guess it could've made sense to do an ultrasound before buying the donkeys. OTOH, I'll bet the donkeys are being housed and boarded at their former owner's farm, and that the current owner is planning to sell them and their progeny back to the farmer, probably for close to the original purchase price, so the final cost of this deal may be relatively marginal.

... of course, if the "'shares'" are actual ownership shares, then I'd expect that the shareholders would recoup most of their investment commensurate with the main owner's recovery when the donkey is sold back to the farmer. Unless there's some special clause that says that after the redemption, they forfeit their ownership rights to the main owner or to the Kollel. I wonder how that's being handled. After all, I doubt the main owner is planning to keep the donkeys indefinitely.

@IsaacMoses What's the link for?

^ emphasizes what's wrong with the answer post without actually saying that anything is wrong with it. Very nice.

(Also the informal tone probably goes over better with a large swath of people.)

There's no contract or apparent opportunity to make a kinyan; just paypal links. It seems to me that participants succeed in supporting the Kollel and, if a pidyon is performed, in sponsoring the performance of the mitzva, but it's hard for me to understand how they'd end up actually having a share in the donkey itself and thus, direct credit for fulfillment of the mitzva.

@msh210 Oops. Fixed. Thanks

FWIW

@IsaacMoses kinyan situmta?

@msh210 Maybe, but based on what local standards? I seriously doubt that there's any other local context in which someone can purchase part of an animal simply via a unilateral Paypal donation (i.e. with nothing at all in the way of contract, verbal description of terms, etc.).

Taking that into account along with the fact that, as I mentioned, there's no explanation of what's going to happen to the shareholders' new property, it's hard for me to accept that this is intended to convey actual ownership. But I'm speaking out of ignorance of all relevant Torah and civil laws as well as local customs and circumstances, of course.

@IsaacMoses I do not know very much about this (I sense a main-site question coming on...), but they say "A share of the Donkey is $36. It is a fractional ownership which gives the owner the obligation to fulfill the mitzvah." I don't know what a kinyan situmta is or how it would apply. Supporting the kollel is good too but if I do this I'm doing it for a share in the mitzvah. What questions should I be asking them about how they're doing this?

@DoubleAA one of my cats had to have an abdominal ultrasound last year and it cost almost $500. They were looking for a tumor not a fetus; not sure how that changes the required precision. OTOH, a donkey is a lot bigger than a cat.

@MonicaCellio to the best of my limited understanding, kinyan situmta basically means that if you transfer ownership of something without one of the official kinyan methods, but using a mechanism considered binding by local custom (e.g. signing a contract to purchase a car), then Halacha will consider it binding. It's a very useful concept for preventing weird "backsies" situations when normal business deals come before B"D.

@MonicaCellio Imagine that you're buying a share in an animal. What would you, as a prospective part-owner, want to know? That's what I'd want to know: Who's responsible for housing and feeding it? What happens to my share if it gets sold? Who gets to make decisions about its disposition (I guess that's known), and what's their long-term plan for it?

I think it would be interesting, just as an academic exercise, to hear what they answer those questions. I'm curious, in general, how seriously they're taking this "buying a share" thing, but stating it like that could be rude.

They have footnotes about donations being redirected to general Kollel donations rather than ownership stakes in case the donor is a Kohen, Levi, or wife thereof, or in case the donkey gives birth to a female. Is this redirection accomplished entirely through the footnotes, and the Paypal-donor's implied acceptance thereof? (Hmmm... if so, does the birth clause present issues of asmachta?) What if a non-Jew purchases a share?

@IsaacMoses Moreover, it's not clear who owns the sheep that they will give the Kohein. That's the Mitzva. Owning the donkey but not the sheep is like owning the house but having someone else put the Mezuza up. You're no longer obligated, but you didn't really "do" the Mitzva.

I sent them an email asking some technical questions about the process. We'll see if they write back.

It could very well be that the owner will be properly Makneh the donkey and sheep via someone else to everyone who has donated (who isn't a kohein/levi). Then afterwards he will reacquire the donkey for himself and sell it back to the farmer. (This is not unlike how the box of matza for an eruv is treated.)

@DoubleAA OTOH, the conditional stuff becomes less of a problem with respect to the sheep. "If there's a pidyon to do, this money will go toward buying part of a sheep; if not, it will go toward a donation."

@DoubleAA Thanks

@DoubleAA Ah. That removes quite a few complications.

So, one wouldn't actually start owning a share in the donkey upon completion of the Paypal donation. The kinyan happens as a batch process, near the last minute. I guess they'd say something like "I hereby transfer ownership of shares in this donkey to everyone on this list who is a Yisrael."

How, though, can the re-acquisition and sale back to the farmer happen without explicit consent of the co-owners?

@IsaacMoses If you and I co-own an apple, both of us have complete rights to eat it.

It's different than each of us owning half of the apple.

This is the former situation. So any of the co-owners can go pick up the animal and acquire the whole thing for themself.

Again this is just like the eruv matza. Anyone can show up and eat the whole thing. They don't have to limit themselves to 1/500th of the box (for a city of population 500)

@DoubleAA So any of the above can sell the animal and pocket the entire proceeds? I guess that's the same as eating the matza and digesting all of the calories.

@IsaacMoses Ya. They might have to sell it for zero to themself (and split the zero evenly) then sell to someone else as sole owner. If you sell directly the partner might have a claim. Not sure.

Don't go into business with someone without trusting them or having clear binding contractual obligations.

In more ordinary cases there could be binding "Minhag HaMedina" of how to do business which would be the default terms of service. But I'm not sure that applies here since no one is actually expecting part of the donkey at the end or thinks this is a normal business venture, like with the eruv matza.

@DoubleAA So it's the expectations established by the website, stated more precisely by the people making the transaction, including an agent for all of the share-buyers, at the time of kinyan.

@IsaacMoses Again I'm just speculating a way for them to do this. They may have no plan and are just pocketing the money

@DoubleAA I'm inclined to believe that your speculation is closer to the reality than not, since it seems to fit with various caveats on the website (especially the one that mentions timing of a "kinyan") that wouldn't be stated if they weren't making some sort of technical transaction.

@IsaacMoses thanks. These are indeed interesting questions, and I think I'll go ahead and (politely and respecfully) ask them about the details of the transactions.

@DoubleAA thanks. I'll be interested to hear what they say if they respond. And I'll also share any response I get.

@Scimonster That's good.

I don't know why this hasn't been deleted as NAA. I flagged it as such, but the flag is in my history as "disputed." ...it totally ignores my question, and discusses a different topic entirely.

Two out of three reviewers said "Looks OK"

@Shokhet That's why it was marked by the system disputed. NAA flags automatically trigger a review.

cc @mevaqesh ^^^^

@DoubleAA I understand. My question wasn't about the system. It was about the reviewers.

@Shokhet I agree.

@Shokhet I see that I'm the first person to downvote this answer. Similarly surprising.

@IsaacMoses I didn't, because it was a new user. (And I thought the question was on the fast track to deletion.)

(And it was a well-written answer with a good source; just placed on the wrong question.)

@Shokhet I thought that technically it was only a very poor answer not a complete non-answer, since it did contain a basic parameter (not mentioned in the question): whether an animal is of a domesticated species. While this is vague, it is nevertheless a definition. There is on evidence that this is the only parameter for kashrut, but that makes it poorer, but I thought, nevertheless an answer. IT was a close call.

Anyone interested in coming back to the Sukkos publication?

@DonielF pinging some of our usual publication-wranglers: @IsaacMoses @Scimonster @DoubleAA @Shokhet @msh210 (off the top of my head; apologies for omissions).

See the discussion in comments on that post. Among the publication suggestions Sukkot is in the middle by votes. However, if somebody wants to drive a publication even if it's not the top suggestion, we have precedent for that. So I suggested that @DonielF come to chat to discuss, and I pointed to a sample plan because any publication needs an organizer.

And with that I have to step out for a few hours, sorry. I'll be back later!

@mevaqesh Thanks for expaining. The way I see it, though, that post is NAA at all because while there may be a basis for distinction between חיות ובהמות in Hebrew, Seh has not provided any reason to assume that the distinction is relevant to the rules of identifying kosher species.

The question post assumes, until shown otherwise, that the rules for identifying kosher species are no different for animals that are domesticated vs animals that are not.

@Shokhet "Seh has not provided any reason to assume that the distinction is relevant to the rules of identifying kosher species." He doesn't have to provide a reason for it to be an answer. He just has to assume it.

@DonielF @MonicaCellio Sounds like a good idea. I probably won't be able to spend a lot of time on it until the semester is over. Now is a good time to start thinking about Sukkos, though.

@mevaqesh So then he (she?) should write that into the answer. The answer, as it is right now, says absolutely nothing at all about kosher rules.

(And if it did, then they should really say what difference it makes. Are there different rules for identifying kosher animals that are domesticated vs aren't?)

@Shokhet Yes. I had not considered that as it was not the issue that had been raised with the post.

@Shokhet I agree that the post could be improved. However, it is implicit that the poster assumes that the general linguistic parameters are the determinant for kashrut categories. While it would be better to state that explicitly, I thought that it was clear enough from the context.

@mevaqesh ...I just skimmed devarim 14:9, cited in my question. There is no mention of a differentiation between בהמה and חיה.

@DonielF If I understood you correctly, this: judaism.stackexchange.com/a/82455/8775 is not an answer to your question. If so, please indicate that it is not an answer. If not, please clarify.

Back to publications, for a minute: I think it's fine that Sukkos is not the most highly voted suggestion there. Parsha Q&A (the highest-voted incomplete suggestion) is a great idea, but also a lot of work and a lot of material. (And there isn't necessarily one good, publishable Q/A set per parsha.) Bein Hametzarim might work, and I like the Sukkos suggestion more than the two tefillah-related ones.