“Efron was present among the people of Chais; so Efron Hacheeti answered Avraham in the ears of the people of Chais, all who entered the gate of his town, saying, ‘No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.’… And Efron replied to Avraham, saying to him, ‘My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver — what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.’”
The Zera Shimshon asks a few questions concerning the incident of Avraham’s purchase of Me’aras Hamachpela from Efron Hacheeti.
Firstly, how did Efron have the chutzpah to change the deal so greatly? In the beginning, Efron said he was willing to give Avraham the land for free and in the end, Efron asked the outrageous price of 400 shekel kesef!
The Zera Shimshon’s first explanation is based on the halacha of bar metzra, the rights of an adjacent neighbor. This halacha states that if the owner of a property wants to sell his property, adjacent neighbors can stop the sale to the outsider if they want to buy the property. Also, included in this halacha is that if the outsider already bought the property they can annul the sale. However, this is only the case when the owner sells the property; however, if the owner gave the property as a present to someone, the neighbors have no right to prevent the sale.
The Zera Shimshon explains, according to this, initially Efron offered to give Avraham Me’aras Hamachpela as a present for free — this offer was made in front of Bnei Chais, who were his neighbors. Efron didn’t really mean it; he only said it to fool his neighbors into believing that this a present and the halacha of bar metzra doesn’t apply. Later on, when Efron and Avraham were alone, he told Avraham what he really wanted — lots and lots of money for his field.
The Zera Shimshon rejects this explanation because, according to this, how can it be, like it is written in the pasuk that Avraham gave the 400 shekel kesef in front of the Bnei Chais. If Efron was worried that his neighbors would claim the halacha of bar metzra, he should have kept the sale a secret even after he sold the field; since the neighbors could annul the sale, even after it was done!
Before the Zera Shimshon gives his own explanation, he asks two more questions: Firstly, there seems to be a contradiction in pesukim from whom Avraham actually bought the Me’aras Hamachpela from. In the end of the parsha, it says, “The field that Avraham had bought from Bnei Chais …” This implies that Avraham didn’t buy the field from Efron, but rather, he bought it from the Bnei Chais!
On the other hand, at the end of Parshas Vayechi, when Yaakov asked his children to bury him, it says (Bereishis 49:30), “… in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which is the field Avraham bought from Efron Hacheeti for burial property.” How can we reconcile these two pesukim?
A second question is that at the time Avraham acquired the field, it never says that he actually bought it! It only says (Bereishis 23:16), “And Avraham listened to Efron, and Avraham weighed out to Efron the silver that he had named… 400 shekel of silver, accepted by the merchant.”
The Zera Shimshon answers all three questions in light of a Gemara in Kiddushin (59a) that relates the following incident: “Rabbi Giddal was negotiating for a certain field and Rabbi Abba went and bought it. Thereupon, Rabbi Giddal went and complained about him to Rabbi Zera, who went, in turn, and complained to Rabbi Yitzchak Nappaha. ‘Wait until he comes up to us for the festival,’ he said to him. When Rabbi Zera came up Rabbi Yitzchak Nappaha met and asked him, ‘What is the halacha if a poor man is examining a piece of bread to buy, and another comes and takes it away from him?’ ‘He is called a wicked man,’ was his answer: ‘Then why did you, sir, act so?’ he questioned him. ‘I did not know that he was negotiating for it,’ he answered. ‘Then, let him have it now,’ he suggested. ‘I will not sell it to him,’ he answered, ‘because it is the first field which I have ever bought. And it is not a good omen for me to sell it; but if he wants it as a gift, let him take it.’”
Now, Rabbi Giddal would not take possession, because it is written: “But he that hates gifts shall live,” nor would Rabbi Abba, because Rabbi Giddal had negotiated for it; and so neither took possession, and it was called: “the rabbis’ field.”
From this incident, we learn three halachos:
Firstly, that it is a bad omen to sell one’s first field. Secondly, that it is praiseworthy not to take gifts. And thirdly, when a person relinquishes rights to a field in order for a second person to take, and the second person does not take it, the land remains in limbo and neither of them own it.
According to this, the Zera Shimshon explains the incident of Avraham Avinu buying the Me’aras Hamachpela.
In the beginning, Efron didn’t want to sell the field to Avraham; Efron wanted to give it to Avraham, because it was his first field he ever bought and to sell it would be a bad omen.
However, after Efron heard that Avraham did not want to take it as a present, he said that the price the field is worth 400 silver shekel. Efron didn’t tell Avraham this in order to sell him the land for this price; but he reasoned that if Avraham would spend 400 shekel, it wouldn’t be considered that Avraham was getting a present.
This is the reason that, at the time of acquisition, it doesn’t say that Avraham bought it from Efron, but only that he “weighed out the money.”
Since, Efron relinquished his rights on the field and Avraham didn’t want to take it, it became hefker and it then became the property of all of the Bnei Chais.
It is, therefore, considered as if Avraham got it from them. On the other hand, since it was originally Efron’s field and only he had relinquished his rights in order to give it Avraham; it is also considered like Avraham bought it from him!
