Q: When Reuven was hired as a rebbi in a yeshivah, he was offered the option of having a portion of his salary invested in a pension fund. He accepted that offer, asking the administration to invest $5,000 of his annual salary into the fund on his behalf. Last year, when he married off his first child, he asked the administration to stop investing the money into the pension fund and add the amount to his salary, to cover some of the expenses of the simchah. They added the $5,000 to his paycheck, but mistakenly deposited $5,000 into his pension fund as well.
The administration recently noticed the error and contacted him to let him know that they would deduct the $5,000 from his salary this year.
Reuven argued that he cannot afford to have that money deducted, because he needs it for his living expenses. The administration says that they have no way of retrieving the money, because it cannot be withdrawn without incurring a penalty.
What is the halachah?
A: When someone owes money to an employee, he is required to pay with actual money (see Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 336:1), and at the payment deadline (ibid. 339). He may not deposit the money in an account from which it cannot be accessed immediately. Therefore, since Reuven was owed his wages, he is not required to accept the money the yeshivah deposited into the pension fund — which he cannot access now — as payment of this year’s wages. If he rejects the offer, the money in the pension fund belongs to the yeshivah, and when Reuven reaches retirement age and is able to withdraw the funds without a penalty, he must repay the $5,000 along with any interest or dividends accrued. Alternatively, if he decides at any point that he wants more money deposited in the pension fund, he may give them from his own money to repay them for the amount they deposited last year.
[Even in instances in which a person is not obligated to pay with money specifically, and he may pay with anything having monetary value — e.g., for damages he inflicted (see ibid. 419:1 and Inyan, Parashas Ki Savo/BHI #671, Aug. 30, 2023) — he is still obligated to pay on time if he owes money by a specific deadline, which is generally 30 days (see ibid. 100:1). Because Reuven cannot withdraw money until he reaches retirement age, which will be far past the deadline, it is not considered payment until then.]
If the administration does not want to wait decades to get back the money, and is willing to allow him to keep the $5,000 then in exchange for his repaying less money now, then he might be required to pay the amount he is willing to part with now in order to have this investment later in life. A person is required to pay for benefits he receives (neheneh), and this, too, is considered a benefit.
Clearly, however, the amount he would have to pay now is less than $5,000, as we can discern from a Gemara (Makkos 3a) regarding eidim zomemin. Eidim zomemin are witnesses who are proven to have testified falsely when other witnesses testify that they couldn’t possibly have witnessed the event they testified about because they were with them in a different place at the time they claim the event occurred. The halachah is that the eidim zomemin are given the same punishment they wanted to inflict on the person about whom they testified. If they testified that Shimon borrowed money from Levi, and he agreed to repay it in 30 days, and in reality he had only agreed to repay after ten years, they are required to pay Shimon the amount a person would be willing to pay to have that amount of money for ten years rather than thirty days (see Choshen Mishpat 38:17 and 73:2).
Our case is similar but in the reverse — we have to find out how much money Reuven is willing to part with today to have the $5,000 invested for later in life. This is calculated on an individual basis; we must determine how much it is worth to Reuven to invest $5,000 for later in life, rather than attempting to determine a market value for having that money invested for later. When someone damages another person, the damage is estimated according to the actual market value. But in this case, because we are forcing Reuven to pay the amount he benefits from having the investment, he is the one who determines how much that benefit is worth to him (see Choshen Mishpat 375:4). If he is willing to pay only a small percentage of that $5,000 now in order to have the investment, then that is all the benefit is worth to him.
Obviously, if the yeshivah is willing to pay the penalty for early withdrawal of the $5,000, Reuven must withdraw the money and return it to them.
