Conflicts of Interest 

Rav Pinchas Vind has a surprising piece of advice for American parents of children studying in Israel.

“Give them a dollar.”

What is this? Some kind of segulah?

“The dollar will save them from committing one of the most serious aveiros,” Rav Vind declares. “They shouldn’t spend the dollar, but make sure to keep it with them the entire time that they’re in Israel. That way they’ll be protected.”

What transgression could a yeshivah bochur or seminary student stumble on, that having a dollar will prevent?

The answer is ribbis, the Torah prohibition of borrowing or lending money to a fellow Jew with interest, explains Rav Pinchas Vind, founder and rabbinical director of the Beis Horaah L’Inyanei Ribbis, the only beis horaah in the world to deal exclusively with hilchos ribbis and its corollary, heter iska. Yeshivah or seminary students studying in Israel often borrow dollars from their friends when they’ve run out of cash and are waiting for some more to arrive from their TAM (Tatty and Mommy) machine back home. The problem is that borrowing dollars in Israel (or any foreign currency anywhere) might entail a serious question of ribbis. That’s because exchange rates fluctuate constantly, and when the borrower returns the money, it may be worth more against the local currency than when he borrowed it. This means that even if he returns the same amount of dollars that he borrowed, it might be worth more in shekels. The problem can be avoided, though, if the borrower has at least one dollar in his possession before he starts borrowing. “This is not a chumrah,” Rav Vind stresses, “but an outright halachah in the Mishnah.”