Hello Everyone,
Last week we learned about the two methods by which a one person can act on behalf of a second person. The first method is by the method of שליחות- agency. The person appoints the second person to act on his or her behalf.
The second method is by the method referred to as זכייה .I can’t think of a good single word translation for זכייה so I will explain it. זכייה is the acting on behalf of a second person without being asked to do so. זכייה a purely voluntary act. The beneficiary of this זכייה does not need to be aware that the second person has acted on his or her behalf. Nonetheless, should someone acquire an object on behalf of someone else, the acquisition is effective.
We saw this last week.
Today we will look a bit in details into זכייה .The reason that I think it is worthwhile to learn a bit more about זכייה is because of a revolutionary ruling handed down by the Rabbinical Court of Safed eleven years ago. In this case a there was man who was in a coma for seven years. His unfortunate wife was an aguna- a woman who was bound in marriage without any hope for remarrying. The Halacha is that only the husband may initiate the divorce process and in this case the husband could not do this. The wife of this man faced a very bleak future.
Rav Uriel Lavi of the Safed court came up with a remarkable idea. While it is true that the husband needs to initiate and carry out the divorce, the court could act on his behalf via the mechanism of זכייה to issue the divorce.
This application of זכייה to a divorce case was apparently never carried out in the case of a husband who was in a coma.
The ruling is so remarkable that I think we ought to learn more about זכייהso that we can understand this ruling of Rav Lavi.