Shabbat Parashat Teruma 5786

Ask the Rabbi: Late Payment?

Question: My wife hired a babysitter (=bbst) for a few afternoon hours and was about to pay her cash, when bbst said she preferred payment via Paybox. My wife does not have it on her phone, so she messaged me with the details. I was busy at work and did the transfer at night. Later, I was concerned that perhaps I/we violated bal talin (not paying late). Did it help that: I had prepared the money in time, and bbst decided not to take it; my wife hired her, and she did her job by providing me as an address bbst accepted, and I who paid late, did not hire her?

Answer: It is an honor to field a question from one who is so concerned with the minutiae of this important mitzva that few people think about. Ostensibly, since bbst worked by the hour and finished before the end of halachic day, you/your wife had to pay before night (Bava Metzia 110b). We will analyze possible indications that you did not violate anything, some of which depend on nuanced details.

Like for most monetary rights mitzvot (ribbit is an exception), if the worker agrees to receive the money later than standard, there is no violation of bal talin or related mitzvot. (The employer may sometimes lose the positive mitzva of “on its day you shall pay his wages” (Devarim 24:15; see Pitchei Teshuva, Sechirut 9:(36)), but this quite innocuous). The rights’ waiver need not be explicit or enthusiastic. For example, the gemara (Bava Metzia 111a) says that one whose livelihood is from periodic market days can wait to pay when that day comes because we assume the worker understood all along that this is when he would be paid (Rashi ad loc.). Even when all parameters indicate on-time payment, if the worker did not ask yet for the money, there is no bal talin (Bava Metzia 112a); the lack of request is sufficient indication that he does not care to get paid yet (Ahavat Chesed I:9:11).

From this perspective, it is likely that bbst’s mindset was as follows: “The mother is willing to pay me now, and I asked for Paybox, which she can’t do and she has to ask her husband. Who knows if he is available now to do it? I really do not care if he does it right away or in several hours.” If so, what happened is fine. On the other hand, Halacha follows psychological assumptions Chazal make about cases like ours, and we are hesitant to make small distinctions between their case and ours or say that mindsets have changed – barring strong indications. In cases where we do not have an assumption of Chazal, like yours, it is difficult to rely on our own psychological assumptions.

Considering that the gemara (Bava Metzia 111a) says that bal talin is only when the person who must pay also hired the worker, how to view your home dynamics is significant. It sounds that your wife had both roles – until she lost the payment role. It is a good question to what extent to treat a couple as one unit or as partners (see Ahavat Chesed I:10:(10); Shevet Halevi VII:322).

According to the possibility that you entered the picture as a “player” and not just someone doing his wife’s technical bidding or a part of the “couple unit,” the following halacha is relevant. If the employer arranges for a storeowner to give credit to the worker on his behalf, the employer’s obligation is suspended (Bava Metzia 111a), at least if the worker agrees (see Beit Yosef, CM 339, Ahavat Chesed ibid. 5). However, if your wife assured bbst that you would pay immediately and you could not, you might not be equivalent to the storeowner.

In short, it is likely that your family’s forthcoming approach was enough that bbst was fine with the slight delay, based on psychological grounds or halachic precedent. The halachically safest thing was for your wife to stipulate that bbst waive the need to pay before night if she wanted Paybox. Although bbst would almost certainly agree, if needed, your wife had leverage, as an employer who has cash to pay cannot be told she must pay in another way. However, if your wife readily agreed that bbst would be paid with Paybox without receiving a grace period, it might be a problem.

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