What You Wanted Him to Lose

About This Talk

A new treatise opens, and chapter 1 defines the offense before it prices it: stealing a perutah's worth breaks a negative commandment with no lashes, since there is money to pay, and the prohibition reaches even a theft meant as a jest, a theft meant to be returned and a theft meant to be paid for, lest a person become habituated; a thief takes in stealth without the owner's knowing while a robber takes openly by force, which is why an armed bandit is classed as a thief even when the owner watches him do it. On the testimony of two witnesses he pays double, and the Rambam gives the reason that governs all three chapters, that he loses the amount he desired his colleague to lose, while a thief who admits the theft pays the principal alone, as with every Torah fine; an ox or sheep he slaughtered or sold costs five times or four times its worth; minors and servants owe no double, though a child who steals is struck according to his strength so that he not grow accustomed to it; offspring and shearings are restored but fattening he paid for is his, a fundamental change in his possession transfers the article to him and fixes the payment at the time of the theft, so a calf grown into an ox is his own animal to slaughter, and a thief who steals from a thief pays double to nobody. Chapter 2 maps where the fine does not reach: theft from a gentile or from consecrated property repays the principal only, since the verse says he shall pay double to his colleague, and the same exclusion covers servants, promissory notes and land, and terumah held by an Israelite who owns only the right to choose a priest, while a firstling donkey before redemption and a blemished, half-bred or part-owned animal still carry the full penalty; slaughtering and selling are read widely, taking in a gift, an agent's act, a sale on credit, a barter, the settling of a debt and an engagement gift sent to a father-in-law's house, while an invalid slaughter drops him to double and a valid slaughter whose carcass is found taref does not; a court that says go and give him what you stole closes the theft, a court that says you are obligated to return it does not, and a man becomes a thief the instant he lifts the object even inside the owner's yard, where merely dragging it leaves him exempt if it dies there. Chapter 3 handles collisions and the last resort: where a capital or lashing offense and a monetary debt arise in one instant the money is not collected, so an arrow that tears a garment on Shabbat and a wallet dragged out of a private domain cost nothing, while a wallet lifted inside first costs double because the theft preceded the Sabbath violation, and a stolen animal slaughtered on Shabbat or for idolatry carries no fourfold or fivefold payment; an admission cancels the fine only when made before a court in session, so an admission out of session or before two judges leaves him liable once witnesses arrive, and a thief who admits to one partner in court while denying to the other pays the partner he denied five times half the ox; payment comes from movable property, failing that from the finest of his land, and failing that the court sells him for the principal alone and never for the fine, a man and not a woman, a hundred times for a hundred victims but never twice for the same one, and a man worth a hundred and one against a theft of a hundred is not sold at all, because his whole worth must fit inside what he took.