interesting psak of the week

The Mishpacha newspaper (hebrew) reported on a story that occurred this past week that drew a psak from rav Chaim Kanievsky.



A yeshiva bachur from Bnei Brak went to learn in a yeshiva in Yerushalayim. He told his mother he was having a hard time getting used to the food being served and he was hungry. She decided to send him food from home.



The mother packed up a home cooked meal. His father took the package to the bus station, found the bus that goes to Yerushalayim and stuck the package of food in the luggage compartment under the bus. He called his son and told him when to expect the bus to arrive and that he should be waiting by the station in Yerushalayim to remove the food.



The plan worked, the kid got the food, satisfied his hunger and all was good.



The father was going to do this again and became concerned there might be a problem with this plan. He was concerned it might be considered bassar she'nisalem min ha'ayin - meat that is left open in public and unsupervised is rabbinically considered not kosher because it might have been switched for non-kosher meat.



The father went to Rav Zilbershtein, a Rav in Bnei Brak, to ask if the meat is ok or not. Rav Zilbershtein said the meat is fine as far as his concern of unsupervised meat goes. However, Rav Zilbershtein added, there might be a different problem that he is stealing from Egged by sticking the package under the bus without paying for the transport.



The father was shocked. He assumed it was ok because of the concept of zeh ne'he'ne v'zeh lo chasser - one person benefiting while not causing any loss to the other person.

Rav Zilbershetin suggested it does not qualify for the zeh ne'he'ne status because if it became public knowledge one could do this, many would send packages like that causing Egged a loss because the luggage compartment would be full with, theoretically, no room for luggage. Rav Zilbershtein directed the question to his brother in law Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

Rav Kanievsky considered the question and paskened that one would be prohibited from sending packages in this fashion unless he paid Egged for the service. His logic was fairly simple - when you use a bus service for anything - either a trip or a delivery, you have to pay. If, however, a person travellin on the bus would be willing to take the package under his responsibility, then he would not have to pay. But just to stick it in the luggage compartment requires full payment. He also said the father has to pay for the packages he had already sent in this fashion.