Question: Dear rabbi, for several nights I am pre occupied and not sleeping. The reason I am not sleeping is because I own a business in a rented store, and following the covid pandemic I was in debts of hundreds of thousands of shekels. one day the landlord of my store offered me that he was willing to give up half the amount of my debts to him, in exchange for me selling him my share of the “olom habba” and buying his עבירות (iniquities), and under a terrible pressure I agreed to his terms. Now that I’ve recovered from the debts, I am asking if the sale still in valid, because I must regret it, and whether I have to pay him the money he gave me in exchange for the bargain.?
Answer: This sale is not valid, because it is impossible to sell mitzvot or avaroit (iniquities), as it is said (yhzekiel 18) “צדקת הצדיק עליו תהיה, ורשעת הרשע עליו תהיה” (“The righteous righteous on him will be, and the evil of the evil on him will be”). although you need to make תשובה for this act that you have agreed to buy your friend’s iniquities, to convert eternal wages into money. In particular, your landlord who sold the offences should regret the evil of his actions that goes with the arbitrary heart and imagines in his soul that he sold the offences and by doing so will be saved from his evil deeds, as if it is possible to escape the great and terrible day of judgment. And because the bargain doesn’t apply, you’re left having to pay the store owner the money he deserves.
