Q&A: On the prohibition against damaging another person’s property
On the prohibition against damaging another person’s property
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the prohibition against damaging another person’s property, I saw that the commentators try to find the source of the prohibition. Today I happened to come across what seems to me to be a pretty good proof that I haven’t seen mentioned by the commentators:
Bava Kamma 60b:
“And David longed and said: Who will give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate? And the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate [etc.].” What was he asking? … Rav Huna said: There were stacks of barley belonging to Jews, and Philistines were hiding in them, and he was asking: What is the law regarding saving oneself through another person’s property? They sent him the answer: It is forbidden to save oneself through another person’s property, but you are a king, and a king may break through to make himself a way, and no one may protest.
David wanted to burn (= damage) the Jewish stack and thereby eliminate the Philistines. The answer he received was that this is forbidden for an ordinary person. Many commentators ask here why this should be forbidden, since robbery is not one of the three cardinal sins for which one must be killed rather than transgress. So the question arises: who mentioned robbery here at all? David wanted to cause damage, not to rob. I am trying to infer from here that the prohibition against causing damage was understood by the commentators, intuitively, as a form of robbery.
Likewise, the Tur wrote at the beginning of the laws of damages, section 378: “Just as it is forbidden to steal or rob another person’s property, so too it is forbidden to damage his property even when one derives no benefit from it.”
What do you think?
Best regards,
Answer
Oren,
The Tur’s statement is brought up in every introductory lecture to Bava Kamma, and this is a very old point.
As for your proof: the fact that some commentators see one who causes damage as falling under the prohibition of robbery, and therefore explain the passage that way, does not mean there is no room for the question.
First, because the others who ask what the source is for the prohibition against causing damage do not have to agree with them; they will explain that the passage is talking about the prohibition against causing damage, not the prohibition of robbery.
Second, perhaps one needs a source for that itself—that causing damage is included under robbery. After all, it certainly does not say there, “and he robbed the spear.”
Third, related to the previous point, when they challenge the Talmud on the basis of the prohibition of robbery, that may just be a manner of speaking. In the language of the Sages, any infringement of another person’s property is called robbery (for example, misappropriating a deposit, and so on), but that is not necessarily a statement about the formal prohibition of robbery.
And fourth, the prohibition of robbery in the Talmud itself, at the beginning of the chapter “Which is Interest,” is mixed together with interest, overcharging, and withholding a laborer’s wages (the Talmud there constructs a “why each case had to be stated” analysis among them). So it seems that there really are passages that understood the prohibition of robbery that way, and perhaps this is one of them as well. That does not mean it is agreed upon or that this is how it works throughout the entire Talmud.