Damage and Theft Involving Forbidden Items

The Rabbi’s Opening Post

Damage and Theft Involving Forbidden Items

Posted on 9/12/2010

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Damage and Theft Involving Forbidden Items

I have just seen the following report, titled ‘A Terrible Incident Involving Newspaper Theft’:

The bulletin ‘Halakhah u-Ma’aseh’, distributed each week on the walls of synagogues and in the study halls of the yeshivot, publishes this week a letter from a married yeshiva student from Kiryat Sefer, in which he recounts a heroic act that earned him applause from his peers.

The letter opens with a description from his city of residence, Modi’in Illit. In the morning hours, the married yeshiva student was walking past the neighborhood grocery, and suddenly his feet struck a bundle of weekly magazines, the kind of which the sages do not approve. Without thinking twice, he took the bundle of magazines and threw them into the nearby dumpster.

The shopkeeper, who had just arrived at his place of work and noticed what was happening, began shouting at the married yeshiva student that he was a thief and would not be forgiven. But the student was not deterred, and began shouting back at the shopkeeper for ‘causing others to sin’ by providing the residents with improper reading material.

Later in the letter, the married yeshiva student describes how additional married yeshiva students who arrived at the scene supported him and shouted at the shopkeeper.

After leaving the place, that married yeshiva student approached one of the leading Torah authorities (whose name, for some reason, is not mentioned in the letter) and asked him whether he had acted properly. According to the student, that leading authority answered him: “It would seem that it is permitted. But in practice, ask your rabbi.”

The editors of ‘Bechadrei Haredim’ would be happy to receive the name and ruling of that leading Torah authority.

This brought back memories of a similar ‘terrible incident’ that happened to me personally in Yeruham. One of the students at the Haredi yeshiva there borrowed from me a secular book to read. When the spiritual supervisor saw the book in his hand, he confiscated it from him, claiming that it was forbidden (neglect of Torah study? immodest material?). When the student told me what had happened, I told him to inform the supervisor that I would bring him before a rabbinical court for theft, and he replied that the leading Torah authorities (which ones?) permit stealing forbidden items in order to save both me and the student.

There are several questions here: 1. Is there permission to steal a forbidden item? Apparently yes, since it is no worse than coercing observance of the commandments. Still, one could argue that he should sell it to a non-Jew and bring me the money. I do not know whether there is permission in such a case to steal and throw away my property. 2. Who determines whether something is forbidden? Tomorrow morning the Ashkenazim may get up, steal legumes on Passover from Sephardim, and throw them into the trash. That is how we have arrived at the theft of ‘weeklies of which the leading sages of the generation do not approve’ (this was presumably outright pornography, as one would expect from a kiosk in Kiryat Sefer). 3. On the other hand, what is someone who genuinely thinks it is forbidden supposed to do? Must he know a rabbi who permits it in order to avoid stealing? Usually the rabbi who is lenient will not be regarded by him as a rabbi precisely because of such leniencies. If so, where is the line? 4. Is neglect of Torah study a prohibition for this purpose? If so, one could steal and throw away any book whatsoever (and computers too, of course). And if not, why not?

It is important to distinguish here between our views on the question whether the item is actually forbidden. I assume that most readers here think that those weeklies, whatever they may be, do not fall under any prohibition. But I am asking a principled question, and therefore this specific issue should be set aside.

Source (forum "Atzor Kan Choshvim"): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2855223&forum_id=1364