Bar Metzra Preemption Rights over Paired Synagogue Seats

Description

The Chasam Sofer rejects three of the buyer's defenses against a bar metzra claim on a synagogue seat, then rules that whether the adjacent landowner may preempt both the men's and women's section seats depends on local custom: if the seats are customarily paired and sold as a unit they are treated as one field and the full purchase may be preempted, but if they are not customarily linked the bar metzra cannot preempt even the adjacent seat since the combined sale cannot be split. He sides with the Sma and Taz against the Shach's proposed textual emendation, and concludes by distinguishing between removing attached versus detached synagogue fixtures.