ARENDA
"Arenda" is a Polish term designating the lease of fixed assets or of prerogatives, such as land, mills, inns, breweries, distilleries, or of special rights, such as the collection of duties and taxes.
Great Arenda
The lease of public revenues and monopolies. The Jews first held the leases of royal revenues suck as the mint, salt mines, customs, and tax farming. The number of Jewish lessees increased in the 15th century. Often, the same person would lease customs and mines. The Nobels of western Poland prevented Jews from leasing royal revenues as it was highly lucrative. As the nobles gained more power in the 16th and 17th centuries, the nobles tried to obtain a monopoly on leasing royal prerogatives. In 1538, the Polish Sejm("diet") prohibited the leasing of royal revenes to Jews. Fearing retalliation from the nobles, the council of the 4 lands in 1580 forbade the Jews to lease the great Arenda. Although the nobles controlled the royal prerogatives, the Jews could still lease town and private products and services. For example, flour milling, potash, pitch, fish ponds, the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, and sometimes the leasing of whole estates.(Part of the agricultural Arenda).
Until the middle of the 16th century, Jews were among the chief lessees in Lithuania and White Russia. In 1569, the Lithuanian Sejm game the nobility a monopoly on leases in Lithuania, Belorussia and the Ukraine. Due to the economic ramifications, the Lithuanian Jewish community openly defied this order.
Agricultural Arenda
The lease of land estates or specific branches in agriculture, forestry, and processing. Reasons for its development: 1) increasing exports of agricultural products to Western Europe.
2) development of processing industries - e.g. alcohol. 3) The nobility had little interest, capital, or commercial skills to control their latifundia. Therefore, they went to the Jewish lessees.
In Lithuania and Red Russia, Jews leased single estates and whole towns. The Jewish lessee frequently became the economic adviser to the Polish magnate.
Because of the importance of the agricultural arenda, the Council of the Four lands often dealt with its problems. E.g. they ruled that a Jew may not attempt to acquire a lease already held by another Jew for three years, and also addressed how to be shomer shabbat while managing a Christian lease. In southeastern Poland, the Jews were pressured from the landlords, and hated by the peasantry. Although in some areas the Jews did not force the peasants to work on Jewish holidays, they were still attacked - verbally by the church for interfering in their affairs and massacres in the Cossack and peasant uprisings in the 17th century.
The last years of the Polish "republic of the nobility" saw an economic and cultural decline accompanied by growing Catholic reaction to the reformation. The central authority weakened and the nobility felt free to act as they pleased. During this period, the Jewish position also declined both economically and socially.
COUNCILS OF THE LANDS
The councils of the lands were the central institutions of Jewish self government in Poland and Lithuania from the middle of the 16th century until 1764. There was a separate body for Lithuania that was similar in structure and function as the Polish one. They represented the highest form of Jewish autonomy attained by European Jewry in terms of extent and duration.
OPPOSITION TO THE SHULHAN ARUCH
1) Many scholars have notices occasional contradictions between the Shulhan Aruch and the Beit Yosef.
2) Yom Tov Zahalon: The Shulhan Aruch was compiled for "minors and ignoramuses."
3) Oriental communities were hesitant to accept the Shulhan Aruch's premise of following the Rif, Rambam, and Rosh since it went against Halacha K'Vatraei.
POLISH AND GERMAN CRITICISM
More fundamental against the Shulhan Aruch.
1) The concept of codifying halacha was rejected by the spiritual founders of Polish Jewry, Jacob Pollak and Shalim Shachna.
2) Judah Bezalel: Shachna's student - Once the decided law could be ascertained without any mental effort, there would be an increase in the undesirable pilpul for its own sake and proper study - Torah, Mishna, and Talmud would become neglected.
3) Study and understanding of the law were prerequisites for deciding it. According to Judah, making talmudic decisions, even if in error, was preferable to basing a decision on a single work without knowing the underlying reason.
4) Hayyim Bezalel: Judah's brother - was opposed to the compilation of halachik summaries since they lead to a laxity in studying torah.
5) Dispute was vital to the substance of halacha and offered possibilities for deciding the law according to the judge's own circumstances. Therefore, any attempt to codify Jewish law is fundamentally flawed.