Q&A: Parking
Parking
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi.
A blue-and-white curb during the daytime costs money. You can activate Pango or buy a parking ticket; if not, you risk getting a 100-shekel municipal parking fine. Suppose I park for a few minutes, or even an hour, and don’t pay (as stated, taking the risk of getting a ticket) — is there theft here? Am I using someone’s property without permission? Someone’s right? I assume the main purpose is to bring money into the city’s coffers, and maybe also for order and organization.
Answer
The main purpose of a vegetable seller is also to bring money into his till. So is it therefore permitted to steal vegetables from him? This is the payment that the public charges for its services, and someone who uses them without paying is a thief. Beyond the theft issue, there is also an obligation to obey municipal regulations (as the authority of the town leaders) and the law (the law of the land is law).
Discussion on Answer
Literally, it is a contradiction, but texts like this are not always interpreted literally. One can understand it as excluding cold and heat, without addressing fear of Heaven. Just as there are several commandments that are said to be equivalent to the entire Torah, which of course cannot be logically true (see Rabbi Wolbe’s booklet on the equivalent commandments).
By the way, Rabbi Uri Wolff argues that there is a dispute on the issue of “everything is in the hands of Heaven.” Rabbi Elai, who says that one should go to a distant place and wear black, disagrees with this. He connects additional Talmudic passages to that as well. I don’t think he is right, but according to his approach this passage could also be added.
I wanted to ask one more thing, in a different context.
A friend told me that the Talmud in Ketubot 30 says that everything is in the hands of Heaven except cold and heat, and therefore according to that Talmud even fear of Heaven is in the hands of Heaven.
He said to me: if I tell you that you’re allowed to bring into my house anything except stones and peanuts, would pretzels be allowed? I answered yes. He says it’s the same thing here: “except cold and heat” comes to exclude those, meaning all other things are in the hands of Heaven. Is that correct? But there is also a Talmudic passage that says everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.
So does that mean the two contradict each other? Is his logic correct?