Daily Talk
A man takes a perutah's worth of benefit from something consecrated, the smallest coin there is, and the Rambam calls him a misappropriator. What is it about a thing that belongs to God alone that even the tiniest use of it counts as theft?
What Belongs to God Alone
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About This Talk
Chapters 4 and 5 of Avodat Yom HaKippurim lay the whole Day of Atonement out as one unbroken sequence and then ask what happens when the sequence breaks: a right act at the wrong moment is of no consequence, spilled blood sends the High Priest back only to the start of the phase he was in, and once the applications to the golden altar are done a spill costs nothing at all. Hilchot Me'ilah opens on the other side of the same question, where a perutah's worth of benefit from what belongs to God alone makes a person a misappropriator, and anything ever permitted to anyone is outside the law entirely.