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Project Fellow Weekly - Issue 185
WHAT'S THE LAW
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Encouraging intelligent and entertaining debate at your Shabbat table.
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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The Florsheim Heist
34th st. Manhattan 7:00 PM. Facing the door, Regina locks up the Florsheim retail store in which she is employed. As she turns around, a masked pair of armed thugs corner her back to the imposing glass door and demand her to show them to the safe inside.
Quivering, holding on to what might turn out to be her last breath, she enters the store, descends to the basement, climbs back up the ladder and hands over the contents to the masked men who instantly flee the scene.
Need Regina compensate her boss?
What's the Law?
Please email us with your comments, questions, and answers at weekly@projectfellow.org.
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The Reliable Rabbi
Volovelsky Center in old Tel Aviv housed apartments and many artisan workshops constructed from wood.
Once every few months, R. YM Lau writes in Out of the Depths, (pg.220) whenever a fire broke out, neighborhood residents would come to their Rabbi, R. Frankel's simple home and deposit their valuables, confident that their treasures would be safe. A pile would grow in the center of the room: candlesticks, records, books, Menorahs, bags of money, a little baby etc. When the fire died down, the residents would return to retrieve their belongings. Their full trust in their legendary Rabbi never soured. As a true Rabbi, R. Frankel tended to his constituents' physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual needs.
Suppose the story would have once ended differently.
Suppose a criminal would have forced his way in to the impoverished Rabbi's apartment and threatened his life. As a man with no riches of his own to placate the menace, could he have saved his skin by directing the criminal to a constituent's valuables - or are his constituent's belongings untouchable? If he may do so, is he be liable to compensate him/her?
What's the Law?
Please email us with your comments, questions, and answers at weekly@projectfellow.org.
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The Answer:
The Rabbi could save his skin and would be absolved from compensating his constituents.
Detailed Explanation
The Reliable Rabbi invokes the following Halachos
Informant's/Accomplice's Compensation
- One who hands over a fellow's money or reveals its whereabouts to a strongman must fully compensate the victim for the financial damage perpetrated [Choshen Mishpat 386: 2] .
- One who saves him/herself from physical pain, death or financial loss by willfully using someone else's property or money may do so, but must fully compensate the owner [ibid.].
- Similarly, one who is financially, physically or mortally threatened to hand over property may hand over property belonging to his/her fellow but must fully compensate the owner [ibid.].
- [Note: There are those who maintain that the victim is absolved from compensating the owner if the aggressors identified the property they wished to extort.]
Informant's/Accomplice's Dispensations
- However, one who is 1) physically or mortally threatened to hand over a fellow's property (and in the opinion of Rashba, Ramban, and Ra"ah even if threatened financially) and 2) does not physically hand over the money him/herself, as but merely reveals its whereabouts to his/her aggressors is absolved from compensating the owner [Choshen Mishpat 386: 2, Sha"ch 22, Be'er Heitev 15] .
- If the aggressors were in a position that they could have seized the property with or without the assistance of the victim, the victim is absolved from compensating the owner even if the victim handed over the property to the aggressors [Choshen Mishpat 386: 4].
Application
The rabbi is permitted to save his skin with the property of others. Though, generally speaking one who does so must compensate the owner for the incurred loss, our scenario differs.
Were a criminal to force his way into the Rabbi's impoverished apartment and discover the heaping pile of belongings before his eyes, he could have seized the property with or without the rabbi's help. Hence, the rabbi's role is quite insignificant. As such, whether the rabbi chooses to merely direct the criminal to the belongings or actually hand them to him, Rabbi Frankel would be absolved from compensating his constituents.
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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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