1-5769: Mitzvah N-37

Talmidav Shel Aharon

1-5769: Mitzvah N-37

October 28, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 37 – This is a negative commandment: Do not wrongfully keep anything belonging to your neighbor.

Hafetz Hayim: for Scripture says, “you shall not wrongfully deprive your fellow” (Lev. 19:13). This means that a person is not to withhold an item of monetary value of his fellow-man that came into his hand by the other’s wish, and now he retains it and does not return it to the other: for example, if he has in his possession a loan {tat the other lent him] or wages [that the other has earned] and the other cannot extract if from him because he is powerful, he thus violates this prohibition. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

It is hard for us to imagine the issue here because we are so committed to acting in moral and correct fashion at all times. This law comes from an era where the rich and powerful oppressed the weak and the poor because they could do it and get away with it. I suppose that this kind of greed never really went away, now we have the financial instruments to get wealth from everyone equally rather than oppressing the poor.

Here are the examples. A rich man hires a worker to do some work. The work is finished and the worker wants to be paid. The worker tries and tries to get the man to pay but there is always some reason that the rich man can’t pay him. The work is finished and therefore the money already “belongs” to the worker, but he can’t get the money away from the rich man. There is a separate mitzvah to “not let the wages of a worker stay with you overnight.” That is, he should be paid the same day he finishes the work. The rich man is not stealing from the worker, he is just lording over him how rich and powerful he is and the worker can do nothing but beg to be paid. In ancient time, even calling the rich man to court may not insure that the man would be paid. Our lesson teaches us to promptly pay what we owe.

The other example is about taking advantage of a neighbor. A neighbor comes to a man and is worried about an object that will be left behind while the neighbor is on vacation. The man takes it into his house and guards it for the duration of the neighbor’s vacation. He may even have the right to use the object while the neighbor is gone. When the neighbor returns, he wants his object back but the man does not want to part with it so fast. To keep it would be stealing but again, he doesn’t claim the object as his own, he only delays returning it to its owner making the neighbor wait or beg for it to be returned. This is causing pain and humiliation to the neighbor and thus it is forbidden by this negative mitzvah. The rich and powerful cannot humiliate another human being.

33-5768: Mitzvah N-36

Talmidav Shel Aharon
33-5768: Mitzvah N-36
October 8, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 36 – This is a negative commandment: Do not deny [falsely] anything of value [owed]
Hafetz Hayim: for Scripture says, “neither shall you deal falsely” (Lev. 19:11). And this is an admonition against the lying denial of anything of value worth from a perutah on up. It includes all kinds of denial in monetary matters, whether about something entrusted for safekeeping or a loan; whether one person robbed another or cheated him; or he found a lost object and did not return it. If the other sued him for it and he gave a false denial, the thus violates this prohibition and becomes disqualified to be a witness and give testimony. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

With all the troubles in the economy today, we can easily understand why a person would lie under oath over a monetary matter. Between greed and our nature to covet what other people have, it is not beyond belief that someone would lie or cheat to hang on to what was not his or hers. This is the reason we have courts, to determine who is lying and who is not and to make sure that those who lie, are punished properly.
This does not preclude the possibility that there may be a disagreement over who the object belongs to or who has the right to the money in question. That is not what is covered by this mitzvah. This refers so someone who knows that the object or the money does not belong to him but he wants to keep it. This person is a thief; there is no other name for it. We should also note that it also applies to someone who offers to safeguard an item and then, when the owner comes to claim it, says that the object is his and never belonged to the owner. It also applies to someone who would take a loan and then deny that he took the money or a person who collected a loan and then claimed later that he was never paid. One might think that he is justified in taking what is not his because the other person has so much and really would not miss this insignificant sum of money or that the other person is really a bad person who got this money or object in a questionable manner and does not deserve to own it. (You could think of O.J. Simpson here and his latest trial and conviction. This mitzvah does not apply to him only because Mr. Simpson is not Jewish.)
The Hafetz Hayim notes that the minimum amount for violating this mitzvah is a “perutah”, the smallest coin in use during the period of the Talmud. The value of the item in this dispute is irrelevant. It belongs to someone else and must be returned. If you find a lost object, and it is possible to determine who the owner is, you must do what is needed to return the object. Unless the object has no signs of ownership (lost cash for instance) it must be returned. A wallet can be identified by its owner so one can say a wallet was found and the person, who can identify it, can get it back. If one were to keep an object without trying to find the owner, that person is a thief.
Finally, if you are convicted of lying about an object, you not only loose the object, but you lose your reputation as well. You are a convicted liar and can never testify in court again.

32-5768: Mitzvah N-35

Talmidav Shel Aharon
32-5768: Mitzvah N-35
August 19, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 35 – This is a negative commandment: do not take anything in robbery from one’s fellow-man by main force.

Hafetz Hayim: For Scripture says, “nor shall you rob him.” (Lev. 19:13). The prohibition of this injunction is on anything worth from a prutah [the smallest coin] and up, yet even less than that is forbidden [but not punishable] like anything less than a minimum amount. If a person takes even something worth a prutah from his fellow man, it as though he takes his life. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

Stealing is a serious crime, but robbery, stealing by force, is much worse. Stealing can be done in secret; robbery is done in full view of the victim and it is as if the robber doesn’t care. It is one thing not to fear your fellow human being, but robbery also implies that the robber does not fear God either. The fact that robbery implies stealing as well as the threat to the life of the victim; this makes it one of the most terrible crimes. It is said that robbery was one of the three sins that caused the first Temple of Jerusalem to be destroyed.
On the one hand, it is clear that there must be a minimum value to the crime. Some items are so small that the threat to life could not be very great. Still, the minimum for robbery is the smallest coin. After all, even a penny or a dime could be a lot of money for someone who is very poor. Still, even something worth less could be considered robbery. It is said that this was one of the sins of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. When a new merchant set up his grain shop in the marketplace, every person in the city would come and steal one grain of wheat from his shop. By the end of the day, he had nothing and there was nobody to arrest for the crime, after all, they had stolen only one grain of wheat!! It is so often that we steal from a friend or from our workplace simple small items, a box of paperclips, a stapler, a ream of paper, but no matter how small, it is still stealing and forbidden.
People also get very attached to their possessions. Even a small coin could be very important to a person. In the movie, “Throw Mama From the Train” actor, Danny D’Vito asks his friend, Billy Crystal, to come see his coin collection. He takes out a small box with just a few coins in it. “What are these coins?” asks Crystal. “Well,” says D’Vito, “this is the nickel that I got as change from when my father bought me my first ice cream cone. And this is a quarter that I won at Coney Island…” the value of the coin collection was not in the resale value of the coins, but in the memories they recalled in the mind of their owner. They were small coins but to D’Vito’s character, they were priceless. No wonder we are taught that one who robs another, it is as though he takes his life. Many have pined away for years over beloved objects which were stolen.
Finally, take note that this law is applied equally to Jews and non-Jews. Nobody is outside the protection of this law.

31-5768: Mitzvah N-34

Talmidav Shel Aharon
31-5768: Mitzvah N-34
August 12, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 34 – This is a negative commandment: do not steal objects or items whatever their monetary value.
Hafetz Hayim: For Scripture says, “You shall not steal.” (Lev. 19:11). The prohibition applies to anything worth from a “perutah” [the smallest coin] and up. It is all one whether a person steals the item of monetary value of a Jew, a minor, or a non-Jew: he has to make compensation. It is forbidden to steal anything at all by the law of the Torah, as the law applies to anything half or less than the minimum amount. It is forbidden to steal anything by way of a joke, or with the intention of returning it, or with the intention of paying for it. It is forbidden to buy anything which can be firmly assumed to have been stolen. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

As we saw last week, the prohibition against stealing items belonging to someone else is not from the Ten Commandments, it is from this source in Leviticus. In the Ten Commandments, the list includes laws that have capital punishment as their penalty. In this case, the Torah has a series of fines that are levied against those who would steal. For most items, one returns the object, or the value of the object (if it can no longer be returned) and pays a penalty of half the value of the item stolen. If the item is an animal, the penalty is different. For small animals he pays a penalty of 4 times the value of the animal. If it is a large animal, the fine is five times the value of the animal. The Sages comment on the difference in the penalty since they assume that he would carry away a small animal (sheep or goat) but the larger ones, (cow or ox) would be led away on their own power. Since it was more embarrassing to carry a sheep on one’s shoulders, the difference in fines was in recognition of this embarrassment. It seems to me, however, that if the thief chooses to steal the animal, it should not be a factor if he has to embarrass himself or not.
My mother would say, “Stealing is stealing”. The Hafetz Hayim agrees. The value of the item is not a mitigating factor. Stealing as a joke or prank or even with the intention to buy the item is all stealing and is forbidden. It causes pain to the owner and the pain is unnecessary. One does not play fast and loose with things that belong to another person. This includes pens that belong to the company we work for, shoplifting when there is no one to catch you, and tampering with time on a time card.
Stealing also does not depend on who you are stealing from. There is no justification for stealing from a minor (candy from a baby) or from a non-Jew. Stealing from a non-Jew may even be a bigger crime since it would also involve Hillul HaShem, the desecration of G-d’s name in the eye of the victim.
Finally, it does not matter if you did not do the stealing. One is forbidden to traffic in known stolen goods. If you are caught with stolen goods, you must return it and pay the penalty.

30-5768: Mitzvah N-33

Talmidav Shel Aharon
30-5768: Mitzvah N-33
August 5, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 33 – This is a negative commandment: do not kidnap a living Jew.

Hafetz Hayim: For Scripture says, “You shall not steal.” (Ex. 20:13). The Sages of blessed memory learned (Talmud Sanhedrin 86a) that this is an admonition to one who would kidnap a living Jew. If he sells him into slavery he likewise violates a negative commandment, since that is covered by the injunction, “They shall not be sold as slaves” (Lev. 25:42) a kidnapper is not punishable by death until he steals away an Israelite, takes him into his domain and makes use of him, and sells him to others. If he sold the man to the father or brother of the one who was kidnapped, he would be free of punishment. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

Once again, the Ten Commandments doesn’t say what we think it says. On the surface, when it says, “You shall not steal” we would think that it refers to the theft of someone’s “stuff” (chattels as it is called in the legal literature). But stealing property is covered by the law in Leviticus 19:11. The Rabbis also noted that the prohibition against stealing is found between the laws of murder and adultery, both capital crimes. Stealing property did not seem to fit, so they interpreted this law to be a ban on kidnapping.

There are two other places where this law is mentioned. Exodus 21:16 and Deut. 24:7 and there are some discrepancies between them. Exodus refers to the kidnapping of all people but Deut. seems to limit the law to kidnapping Jews. It reconcile the many differences between these two verses, the sages limited the charge of Kidnapping to those who abduct, detain, enslave and sell a human being. Without all four parts, a kidnapper could not be put to death. The crime may be reprehensible, but not a capital offence. This is the reason that the sale of the man to his father or brother would not make him guilty of any offence. The brother or father would be buying the man, not for slavery, but to redeem him from captivity. (Redeeming from captivity would be a positive mitzvahfor the family.)

Without all four elements, there could be no punishment for the kidnapper at all since any one element missing, would make the act incomplete and not a “real kidnapping.”

The Hafetz Hayim seems to limit this law to Jews but my sources informed me that it applies to all human beings. Kidnapping and the sale of those people into slavery is forbidden for all people.

29-5768: Mitzvah N-32

Talmidav Shel Aharon
29-5768: Mitzvah N-32
July 30, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 32 – This is a negative commandment: do not kill a living human being
Hafetz Hayim: For Scripture says, “You shall not murder.” (Ex. 20:13). If someone kills a human being deliberately, his execution should be by the sword (decapitation). If he did not kill him with his own hand but only caused his death, he is not subject to execution by court verdict, but is punishable by death at heaven’s hands. If someone destroys even one living person in Jewry, it is as though he made a whole world perish. If someone closes a person’s eyes at the departure of his life (instead of afterward) he thus sheds blood (by shortening the other’s life, however briefly. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

The Ten Commandments do not say, “You shall not kill” it says instead, “You shall not murder”. Murder here is the taking of another human life. It does not matter if that life is Jewish or not. Taking a human life is a capital crime in all cases. The Torah is clear, if you murder, you are executed. Of the four types of capital punishment, the one used for murder is decapitation. The later rabbis ruled that if you injure someone, even though the Torah requires “eye for an eye” we set a value on the injury and the one who injures pays that amount to the one injured. The Torah, however, forbids ransoming someone accused of murder. There can be no valuation placed on the taking of a life. The murderer must die. Maybe!
The Sages of the Talmud did not want to execute murderers. They declared that a court that sentences on person to death in seven years was a “hanging court”. Other Rabbis declared that if they were on that court, it would not happen once in seventy years. The Sages understood that such a position might encourage murder but then again, they could turn their condemned over to the Romans for punishment.
How could they reverse a plain, clear law from the Torah? They really didn’t. The law is still on the books, The Sages just made it very difficult to get a clear conviction. There had to be two witnesses to the murder, that is, they had to see the actual killing. (Seeing a man holding a bloody sword over a dead body was not proof enough for the court). That alone is rare. The witnesses could not be relatives of the victim or the killer making getting a witness very difficult. The witnesses had to be warned that if they were plotting to testify falsely, the execution they plotted for the defendant would be carried out on them instead. There were no jury trials but the court would have seventy one judges and to execute the defendant, they needed not a simple majority but 50% plus two. To acquit, however, they only needed 50% plus one. In all other cases the elder judges spoke before the younger colleagues. In capital cases, the younger colleagues voted first so as not to be swayed by their more experienced colleagues. A man was presumed innocent until proven guilty and once acquitted; the defendant could not be tried again for the same crime. We see that it was very hard to convict in a capital case. Why then did they just take capital punishment off the books? Because they felt that from time to time there may be a need to execute a criminal in unusual circumstances. In the Middle Ages, for example, the community might execute a person convicted of informing against the community to the non-Jewish authorities in order to bring down a pogrom or riot in which many could be killed. Even with all the terrorists in Israeli prisons, only one person has ever been executed in Israel, for a crime so great it warranted this one exception: Adof Eichmann.
Accidental killing is not the same as murder and the one who kills without premeditation is not put to death. It is in the hands of Heaven if he will die a premature death. Soldiers and those who were defending themselves or others from deadly force could use deadly force themselves to prevent killing. This too is allowed. This law, interestingly enough, is also used to allow an abortion to protect the health of the mother. The fetus endangering his mother is called “one who pursues with murderous intent” and can be killed before he kills his victim (in this case, his mother).
The Rabbis noted that G-d created only one person, Adam, in the divine image in order to teach that whoever takes one life, it is as if he has killed an entire world. The killer has not killed just one person but he has also killed all the descendants of that person. If a human being is created in the image of G-d, then the one who kills a person is guilty of desecrating the image of G-d as well as killing a human being. It is a very grave crime.
The final note has to do with euthanasia. We are not allowed to end a life even one moment before they are destined to die. Even when a person is breathing their last breaths, we don’t touch them or interfere with their passing. To close the eyes of someone who is dying but not yet dead, is a final insult to the dying and is declared to be as if one has hastened the death and therefore a murderer, even though the person was dying anyway. We can remove things that prevent a person from dying but we can not hasten the natural progression of death without being called a murderer.

28-5768: Mitzvah N-31

Talmidav Shel Aharon
28-5768: Mitzvah N-31
July 15, 2008

Negative Mitzvah 31 – This is a negative commandment: do not swear an oath of expression over a falsehood.

Hafetz Hayim: For Scripture says, “and you shall not swear by my name falsely.” (Lev. 19:12). This is called an oath of expression. A person is punishable for this if he takes a [false] oath over things that are possible to do, whether in the future or the past. For example, “That I ate” or “I threw a stone into the sea.”or that so and so spoke to so and so” “that I did not eat” or “I did not throw a stone into the sea” or “so and so did not talk to so and so”. And in the future: for example, “ That I shall eat,” or “I shall not eat” or “I will throw a pebble or stone into the sea” or “I will not throw.” If a person swore to one of these statements, he would violate this prohibition. It is in force everywhere and at all times for both men and women.

In keeping with the theme of the importance of words, we have the rules about more standard oaths. When one would offer an oath, it would include the Name of G-d and would be spoken in the presence of the court or witnesses. The value of this oath was to testify about something when another witness was not present or about an intention that no one else can know. The examples here are the mundane activities of life. We don’t go around looking for witnesses every time we want to do something. We go to lunch, talk to those around us and take little notice of it until it becomes important. When someone else gets into trouble, we want to help if we can.
The reminder here is that we are forbidden to speak a falsehood even about the most mundane activity. G-d’s name is involved and we have to be meticulous about how we use that name. If we know that we are being asked to swear to something, even in the future, we have to make sure that we only speak what is true. Maybe you meant to eat but for some reason you didn’t eat that meal that day. Maybe you always see two people together for lunch but you are not sure that on the particular day in question, they were in their usual seat. Just because you always go on a picnic in the park during the summer, does not mean that you can swear that you will be in the park this coming weekend since weather and a host of family issues could prevent this from happening.
Do we really remember what we had for lunch last Tuesday? Even if we always eat at the same sandwich shop, are we sure that last Tuesday was the exception, or perhaps this coming Tuesday will be different. You could get sick, the office could close early, the diner could burn down. This mitzvah teaches us to watch our words and make sure that we don’t swear to something that, later, could prove to be wrong or false. This would damage our reputation and would damage G-d’s reputation as well. We need to keep our daily dairy current and refer back to it before we invoke it before we take any oaths.
The later Rabbis did not like oaths for this reason. It is too easy to make a false oath like these and they would undermine the entire legal system. Better to avoid as many oaths as possible.