Is It Permissible to Kill a Thief

Opening post by the rabbi

Is It Permissible to Kill a Thief

Posted on 15/1/2007

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Is it permissible to kill a thief

The incident that occurred last Friday night, in which a farmer shot a thief to death after he tried to break in and steal from his sheepfold, has provoked a great deal of inflammatory rhetoric from several directions, but very little genuine public discussion.

My intuitive feeling on this matter is very ‘American’: if he enters my home to steal, I should warn him, and if he ignores the warning and continues to enter, he should be shot (if it is possible to begin with the legs, that is presumably preferable, although my instinct says that even this is a luxury in such a situation).

For under the law as it currently stands here, several thieves can come in broad daylight to a person’s home, or farm, enter his pen or warehouse, begin loading onto a truck whatever they want before his astonished eyes, and even ask for his help. He can try kicking and screaming, but he is forbidden to harm them. This is what they do every night on the farms in that area, and no one says a word.

One of the neighboring farm owners was interviewed and said that he relies only on Bedouin law, and therefore he tries to catch them physically and, through his Bedouin neighbors, reach one of the sheikhs who will compel them, according to local custom, to return the stolen property. That is the only chance of seeing his property again (he also added that the Bedouins themselves kill without compunction anyone who steals, and only we, because of ‘equality before the law,’ are prevented from doing so).

This is what I heard with my own astonished ears from the police commander in that area, who said that as a private citizen he would choose to let them steal, and afterward inform the police, who would try by intelligence means to recover the stolen property.

The efficiency of the police and their ‘intelligence means’ is well known for its wondrous quality. To rely on them is tantamount to telling you to throw your property into the sea. But my intention here is to discuss the principled question.

In the background lies the fact that this is a permanent phenomenon, in which people’s property becomes a free-for-all, and in our ‘sovereign’ state the only solution is to pay protection money or turn to the sheikh’s court.

The principled question is the following: apparently, according to Jewish law (however infuriating I find this), there is no permission to kill thieves. Nevertheless, the matter should be discussed from several angles:

1. After I threaten the thief and he continues to enter, he has himself forfeited his own life, so why should I have to pay money in order to save it? There is no such obligation (toward someone who himself forfeits his life and enters into danger).

2. From the law of ‘if a thief is found breaking in,’ it would seem that there is no permission to kill except where there is mortal danger. But it seems to me that this is far too superficial. First of all, even there there is a solution: not to confront the thief, and to remain asleep (or pretend to be asleep), and thus spare the confrontation (as the above-mentioned policeman recommended). Why does the Torah permit me to stand and defend my property? Apparently there is here a legitimation to defend my property, even at the cost of killing the thief. The reasoning is probably the same as in section 1. True, the Talmud contains expressions suggesting that such restraint is unrealistic (‘a person does not remain passive over his property’), but from several medieval authorities it appears that this is a genuine legitimation. That is, there is legitimacy to standing up for one’s property. The proof is that on the Sabbath, when all my property is burning, I am supposed to stand by and not extinguish the fire. In other words, when necessary they do indeed demand that I remain passive even with respect to my property (and Tosafot already raised the difficulty from the law permitting the removal of a corpse because of fire or the sun).

True, the Talmud still formally requires a mortal danger, but this assumption is made categorically, and I am not required to check in every case whether there is a danger to life (in clear cases, such as a father against his son, it is indeed forbidden to kill). My sense is that there is some measure of legitimation here.

3. Since this is a phenomenon in which thieves abuse the protection granted to them by the law (see the absurdity I described above), there is room and need for a public enactment permitting killing even if Jewish law in fact does not permit it as a matter of strict law. There is no doubt that such an enactment is permitted, and in my opinion it is highly desirable and very important.

Whoever enters into danger after such permission is granted should not complain if he is killed. According to the laws of nature, whoever enters fire dies.

I would be glad to hear responses from the public on the principled issue. I have not checked the medieval authorities on the topic of ‘if a thief is found breaking in,’ but this impression—that there is there a legitimation for killing, despite the terminology that grounds it in mortal danger—was formed in me when I studied it. Can anyone enlighten us on this matter?

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Source (the ‘Stop—People Think Here’ forum): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2129025