Resources For Kesubos 98

1.     The גמרא says that if an אלמנה sells the land of the כתובה to herself, the sale is not valid and the יתומים can take it back because they can tell her “מאן שם ליך?” רש"י explains this to mean that since the property never left one רשות and went into another but rather the מוכר and קונה are one and the same, it isn’t a valid sale. The ריטב"א points out that according to this, if someone is made a שליח to sell something, they can’t sell it to themselves. However, the ריטב"א says this doesn’t fit in well with the words מאן שם ליך well. Rather the ריטב"א brings another פּשט that the reason the sale of the כתובה is not valid is simply because we are concerned that a proper שומא wasn’t done since the person was selling the land to themselves. According to that a person could sell something to themselves if the item didn’t require a שומא like in a case of something with a known price like a box of cereal. Interestingly, the מחנה אפרים in שלוחין סימן ך ד"ה אמנם brings an opinion that if a שליח wants to buy something which he is supposed to sell for himself (assuming the שומא is not an issue), he can simply have someone else be זוכה in the item for him. The proof is that a woman can become a שליח הולכה to give herself a גט when she gets home if the husband appoints her to do so. The מחנה אפרים disagrees with this and says that גט is different since it is the דעת הבעל that makes the גירושין. In our case, you need a קונה and מקנה and there still isn’t that so the sale would not be valid.

2.     The גמרא says that if a שליח buys something for the משלח and he gets more than the worth of the item, if it is an item with a fixed cost then the משלחand the שליח split the extra amount. Why do they split it? רש"י explains because there is a ספק as to why the buyer gave the extra money: was it because he liked the שליח and wanted to give him a little extra or is it because he likes the owner and he wanted to give the owner something extra. Therefore, they split it. The רי"ף has a completely different פּשט. The רי"ף learns that there is no ספק at all. Rather, we assume that the buyer wanted to give the שליח a tip. Nonetheless, since this only happened to the שליח through his working for the business, the בעל is entitled to half the amount as well. This is obviously very relevant להלכה. If you fly for a company and you get the frequent flyer points, can the business owner who sent you demand you give him half the points? It should be dependent on the מחלוקת above. According to רש"י, the שליח should get everything since the airlines say explicitly who they are giving it to, yet according to the רי"ף they would need to split it since it came to the worker through the business.  The רמ"א in חו"מ סימן קפּ"ג סעיף ו paskens like רש"י and the ט"ז there paskens like the רי"ף. In fact, the ט"ז says that רש"י also has to agree that what the רי"ף said is also true since if it is really just a ספק who the buyer intended to give the tip to, then we should say המוציא מחברו עליו הראיה and the שליח should keep everything! Rather, רש"י must also agree to the רי"ף that the owner also has some זכות but the שליח may have more. 

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