for fifty. When he brings it to the principal, he says, “Take this watch for fifty.” The principal says, “It is worth no more than ten.” He replies, “You told me, ‘Buy it for whatever you wish,’ and I wished to buy it for fifty.” Here, the author says that this is not valid. But we know with certainty that when the principal says to the agent, “For whatever you wish,” he has merely entrusted the matter to his integrity; and it is not integrity to purchase something worth ten for fifty.

Even if he specifies a particular item and says, “Buy it,” and the agent asks, “For how much?” and he replies, “For whatever you consider appropriate,” this is valid. It may be said that this falls under the author’s statement and is therefore invalid; and it may be said that it does not fall under it, because here he has not restricted him to unrestricted discretion. Rather, he has qualified it by what he considers appropriate. This is a form of specification, so it is not like unrestricted discretion.

Another example: he says, “Buy a sheep for the delegation coming to me, or for the guests.” The agent asks, “For how much?” He replies, “For whatever you consider appropriate.” This is permissible, for although it involves some uncertainty, and he may perhaps purchase it for a price that never occurred to the principal, such cases are slight and are customarily overlooked by people. In reality, these are individual cases, but we should know the governing principle for them.

The governing principle is: “Everything indicated by custom or contextual evidence, which is encompassed by the principal’s words and involves no prohibition in the Sacred Law, is valid.” This is because the basic principle in transactions is permissibility. Thus, if they do not conflict with the Sacred Law, with customary practice, or with the wording of the two parties to the transaction, then the basic ruling is that they are valid.