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 Fellow Weekly -  Issue 124

WHAT'S THE LAW

  

 

 
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Fellow Weekly raises issues of business law and ethics through lively emails by featuring your real-life scenarios answered by our leading authorities and professionals.
 

   

 

  

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This week's issue is dedicated in loving memory and li'ilui nishmas

 

R' Noach Yaakov ben R' Bentziyon Yechiel Michal Foxman zt"l.

 

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Case # 230 To Save a Synagogue!

  

During the trying years of 1809-1812 - just as the rumblings of reform began advocating municipal change, the city of Pressburg suffered from numerous ravaging fires - during war time and peace - which tragically swept through the ghetto quarters. The fires impoverished the people and destroyed Jewish homes. The fire of 1811 proved to be particularly demoralizing when the Jewish hospital burned down.

 

It occurred during one such fire, that the horrified townsmen noticed that their synagogue was in danger of becoming engulfed in the inferno, as the merciless flames traveled rapidly through the city.

 

Determined to save their beloved house of worship, they raised their axes in hand and created a fire line by demolishing the adjacent shack of a poor widow.

 

(Note: A similar, but perhaps different story took place in San Francisco in 1906. As a result of the 1906 earhquake, incontrollable fires broke out through the city. The entire Van Ness Avenue was dynamited to create a fire break.)

 

Must the townsmen reimburse the widow for destroying her home to save their synagogue?


 

 

 
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Case 230: To Save a Synagogue!
 
During the trying years of 1809-1812 - just as the rumblings of reform began advocating change, the city of Pressburg suffered from numerous ravaging fires - during war time and peace - which tragically swept through the ghetto quarters. The fires impoverished the people and destroyed Jewish homes. The fire of 1811 proved to be particularly demoralizing when the Jewish hospital burned down.
 
 It occurred during one such fire, (in truth, this story took place in a fire in 1802) that the horrified townsmen noticed that their synagogue was in danger of becoming engulfed in the inferno, as the merciless flames traveled rapidly through the city.
 
 Determined to save their beloved house of worship, they raised their axes in hand and created a fire line by demolishing the adjacent shack of a poor widow.
 
(Note: A similar, but perhaps different story took place in San Francisco in 1906. As a result of the 1906 earhquake, incontrollable fires broke out through the city. The entire Van Ness Avenue was dynamited to create a fire break.)
 
Were the townsmen permitted to destroy the widow's shack to save their synagogue? Must the townsmen reimburse the widow her?  

 

What's the Law?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Answer

We present you here with a concise ruling. For a more intricate elucidation, please see the detailed explanation below.

 

If the widow was not around or did not protest, the townsmen were permitted to destroy her shack to save their synagogue but they must repair her roof.

 

 

 

 

Detailed Explanation
 
 

 To Save a Synagogue invokes the following three laws:

  

1. May A avert a sudden significant monetary loss through temporarily using B's assets of lesser value?

 
If B is present, A may not do so without B's consent. If B is not available to consent or protest, Beis Din allows A to assume that B would consent to use his/her money temporarily to save a fellow Jew from suffering a clear greater financial loss so long as due compensation is guaranteed [Choshen Mishpat 308, 174].
 
2. One who loses an article to a lion, bear, and gales of area, rush of the river or similar circumstance of almost sure defeat despairs from ever retrieving it. Protesting the contrary is like crying over a collapsed home. While generally one should nevertheless return the article to the original owner, the finder would not be liable for damaging it [Choshen Mishpat 259:7].
 
3. If the "lion, bear, or gales of the sea" are encroaching towards the article but have yet to ensnare it, there is reason to argue that despair might not be a given, and the owner's protests might be legitimate. In such a situation, it is proper to treat the article as though it still belongs to the original owner [Chasam Sofer Yoreh Deah Responsum 234].
 

 

Application:
 
Although, as long as the widow did not protest, the townsmen were permitted to destroy her shack in order to save their "more expensive" house of worship, nonetheless they are required to immediately compensate her for the loss. We would not view the shack as though it was already lost to the "gales of the sea" and virtually ownerless; as the conflageration did not yet engulf the widow's shack. The widow's claim that her shack might not have burned down must be respected. Hence, the townsmen must rebuild her roof. [With respect to from which community fund they should draw the money, see Chasam Sofer Yoreh Deah Responsum 234]. 

 

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Note:
 
Although we aim to present the correct ruling, varying details are always important and decisively influence every individual case. Our readers are thus encouraged to present their personal cases to a competent authority and not solely rely on the information provided.
 

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