One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת גְּזֵלָה וַאֲבֵדָה
Robbery and Lost Property · Chapters 1-3
Sefer Nezikin · What Robbery Is • When a Thing Stops Being His • Price, Use and Trust
1
P'rutah: the floor for
any duty to return
3
Negative commandments
broken by one taking
4
Dinarim for a one dinar jug
he broke after it rose
9
Coins for fifty dates,
not the ten sold singly
Ch 1Robbery, Withholding, and the Thought Behind Them
- Force, and its quieter twin. A robber gazlan takes openly by force: snatching from the hand, carrying utensils out of another's domain, seizing livestock and working it, eating another's produce. The one who withholds oshek was handed money willingly, as a loan or a wage, and refuses to give it back. Both verses sit in Leviticus 19:13. (1:3-4)
- No lashes, because money is owed. Robbing a p'rutah's worth breaks a negative commandment, but there are no lashes, since the positive commandment to return corrects it; even burning the object leaves the payment due. Below a p'rutah there is a transgression and no duty to return. Forbidden even from a gentile who worships idols. (1:1-2, 1:6)
- Return means the object, in the right place. Only the article discharges it; if lost or changed, he pays its value, and he pays the principal alone whether he confessed or was convicted by witnesses. Robbed in a settled region, the victim may refuse delivery out in the desert, and the risk stays with the robber. Money hidden in change or slipped into a wallet that holds money is returned; into an empty wallet it is not, until the owner is told. (1:5, 1:7-8)
- The chain of three. Desiring in the heart alone breaks one commandment; pressuring an owner with friends until he sells breaks two, even at a high price; taking by force breaks three. Desire leads to coveting, coveting to robbery, robbery to murder, as with Achav and Navot. (1:9-12)
RememberRobbing a p'rutah is like taking a man's soul, and yet if the article is gone and the robber comes on his own to pay, you may not accept it - he is helped and forgiven, to keep the path of repentance open.
Ch 2Shinui and Ye'ush: When Title Moves
- Unchanged goes back, period. An article still as it was returns in substance even where the owner despaired, and even out of the robber's heirs' hands. A change in the robber's possession makes it his, and he pays the value as of the day of the robbery, even where the owner never despaired. (2:1-2)
- Despair alone gives him only the growth. Where the owner despaired and nothing changed, the Sages granted the robber the increase accrued from the despair onward, which the owner reimburses before taking his property back. Despair plus a sale or gift lets the buyer keep it, unchanged or not, by despair together with the transfer of domain. (2:2-4)
- Offspring and shearings follow the despair. A cow that conceived or a sheep that grew wool in his hands: after despair the calf and the shearings are his, before despair they are the owner's, though the robber still bears accidents. Consecrating or slaughtering after despair makes it his only from that moment, so the sinner does not profit. Increase bought with expense, as in fattening a gaunt animal, is reimbursed either way. (2:6-9)
- A change is a change of name. Carving boards into a utensil, dyeing or spinning wool, weaving threads into cloth, grinding a brick to dust, melting coins, cutting beams into boards, a lamb become a ram or a calf an ox: all acquired. Anything that can revert to its former state is not a change at all, so sand pressed into a brick, metal struck into a coin and polished old coins are not acquired. (2:10-14)
RememberBreak a robbed utensil and you pay its full worth and keep the pieces, unless the owner wants the pieces, in which case he takes them and you pay the depreciation.
Ch 3Price, Use, and the Watchman's Hand
- His hand sets the price. A jug worth a dinar that rose to four: if he broke, drank, sold or gave it away he pays four, its worth when it left him, since he would have had to return it intact; if it broke or was lost by other causes he pays one. Worth four at the taking and one at the end, he pays four either way. (3:1-2)
- Wholesale, not retail. Fifty dates worth nine as a basket and ten sold singly cost him nine, and "I would have sold them one by one" is not heard, in robbery and in damages alike. Consecrated property is the exception: there he pays ten. (3:3)
- Did the object survive as itself? An aged or incurably ill animal, a coin struck out of circulation, wholly rotted produce, wine turned to vinegar: destruction, pay the value as of the taking. A recoverable animal, a coin still spent in another country, partly spoiled produce, terumah gone impure, leaven that sat through Passover, an animal now unfit for the altar: he says "here is your article" and hands it back. (3:4-5)
- Use is robbery even with no damage. Riding, loading, plowing or threshing with another's animal and returning it sound transgresses robbery and owes nothing; one habituated to it is penalized for his earnings, even outside the Land. A courtyard that is normally rented costs rent even to a squatter who never rents; one that is not costs nothing, since one gains and the other loses nothing. A watchman who puts his hand to a deposit is a robber liable for accidents, and lifting the jug to draw a revi'it makes the whole jug his risk. (3:6, 3:9, 3:11-12)
RememberA creditor who seizes collateral without the court's license is a robber, debt or no debt: stand outside and let the debtor bring the security out to you.