Last week, we explained that in order to permit a foreign currency loan the borrower needs to own a bit of the currency that he’s borrowing.

A Yid suffering from financial difficulties once approached the late Rabbi Chaim Greineman (the nephew of the Chazon Ish) and begged him for help. He told Rav Chaim that he has no rest, and spends his time rolling over loans from one gemach to another trying to cover his debt. 

Rav Chaim took out a 20-dollar bill and wrote a beracha for the man on the bill. “Keep this in your wallet,” he told him “and this will be a beracha for your parnassa.” 

The others present were surprised at the uncharacteristic type of beracha emanating from one of the generation’s pillars of logic and reason. With a smile, Rav Chaim explained. This fellow, who spends his day borrowing, surely borrows lots of dollars, he said, and he probably does not have a dollar to his name. That means he is constantly repaying ribbis. Can there be a greater financial danger? By giving him a 20-dollar bill inscribed with a beracha, Rav Chaim said, he can guarantee that his future dollar loans are halachically safe. This can solve a lot of his ribbis issues and therefore pave the way to material success. 

Here are the main points to remember: 

• The borrower’s foreign currency money must be available to be used to repay the loan. If one has a dollar in a place that he doesn’t have regular access to, he may not borrow the money. Additionally, most poskim posit that a coin such as a quarter or dime would not work for this purpose, because it’s not an accepted form of payment in a foreign country.
• If one lives in Eretz Yisrael but owns a dollar in America, that suffices, because it would be relatively easy to access the money. 
• The poskim debate the status of money in a bank account. The reason is that the money has technically been lent to the bank, and therefore the borrower does not presently own the money. 
• The lender may give the borrower a dollar as a gift, thereby enabling him to borrow in dollars.  However, to loan him a dollar in order to permit the loan does not work. (For those who follow the traditions of the Edot amizrach this does suffice.)