Eroding the Fabric of Society

The other day I was at the supermarket making small talk with the cashier. I did the perfectly Canadian thing and talked about the weather, but Sharon had something else on her mind. She was complaining about shoplifting.

She heard on the news that shoplifting was becoming a way of life in larger cities. People enter stores in broad daylight with large boxes and fill their containers with merchandise to resell for profit. Just the other day, she told me, someone came into the store, took four large bags from the rack, filled them with meat, and walked out the door.

She was telling shoppers because she hoped we would intervene when we saw it. After all, our grocery bills increase because of shoplifting.

I understood why she was turning to customers. Store management generally does not allow employees to confront shoplifters. These encounters can become violent, and if employees are injured, the store can be liable. The store protects its employees by telling them not to get involved, so the cashier was recruiting customers instead.

But that raises a deeper question: Why does theft so often lead to confrontation? Why does someone who has taken something that does not belong to them feel justified fighting to protect it?

The Torah addresses this phenomenon.

Moving the Markers
In addition to the Torah’s general prohibition against stealing, it specifies: “Do not move your neighbor’s landmark established by previous generations that you will inherit in the land that G-d, your G-d, will give you” (Deuteronomy 19:14).

This prohibits secretly moving a property boundary so that your neighbor doesn’t know they have been plundered. You gaslight them, making them think they are wrong for accusing you of theft.

At first glance, this seems unnecessary. If moving a boundary marker is theft, why does the Torah need a separate prohibition? Why is it not simply included in the general prohibition against stealing?

The commentaries explain that the Torah is addressing something deeper than the act of theft itself. The danger of moving a boundary marker is that the thief can convince himself that he is not really stealing.

He tells himself that if he had been present when the land was originally divided, he would have argued that he deserved more. Perhaps he would have presented his case before the courts. But now that the boundaries have already been established, he feels that he was denied the opportunity to explain why he deserves more.

In his mind, he is not committing an injustice. He is correcting one. He is not the thief. He is the victim.

Furthermore, because the land was ultimately granted by G-d, he convinces himself that G-d understands his grievance. Surely, G-d recognizes that this mistake must be corrected.

The Torah rejects this entire argument. The danger of theft is not only taking what belongs to someone else. It is convincing ourselves that our wrongdoing is actually righteousness.

This explains another detail. The prohibition against moving boundary markers appears immediately after the Mitzvah to establish cities of refuge for those who commit accidental manslaughter.

The commentators explain that there is a deeper connection. A person who becomes convinced that his actions are completely justified can become so certain of his righteousness that anyone who opposes him becomes an obstacle rather than a human being deserving respect. A dispute over property can escalate into violence.

But there is another connection. The concern of moving boundary markers applies not only to private property. A person could also move the boundaries of communal property, such as the land designated for a city of refuge.

This is theft from the public. Public theft carries a unique danger because the victim is harder to see. When someone steals from an individual, the victim stands before him. When someone steals from the community, he can convince himself that no one is really suffering. The cost will simply be absorbed by everyone else.

But society is not an abstraction. Society is made up of individuals, and harm to the collective is still harm.

Modern Application
This brings us back to shoplifting.

If you ask shoplifters today why it is acceptable to steal from a business, they often have a ready answer. They have been victimized by the system. They did not receive a proper education, cannot find decent employment, or are underpaid when they do find work. The owners of these stores make money from people like them and should therefore give something back. They are not stealing from an innocent person. They are reclaiming what was taken from them.

Moreover, the store owners will not really lose money. They will simply pass the cost on to their customers. The loss will be spread throughout society. And if society has wronged them, perhaps they are merely collecting a debt. Even G-d, they imagine, understands their position. They are not bad people. They are simply correcting an injustice.

The Torah comes along and exposes the flaw in this reasoning. Theft has long been forbidden. The problem is that some people convince themselves that they are not stealing at all. They are moving the markers. They are redefining right and wrong until their actions appear justified.

The Cost of Stealing from the Collective
The Torah teaches that stealing from the community is not less serious than stealing from an individual. In some ways, it is even more dangerous. If we steal one hundred dollars from one person, everyone understands that we have taken something valuable. But if we take one dollar from one hundred people, we often fail to recognize that we have done the same thing.

This reminds me of a story about the Lubavitcher Rebbe: A long line of people gathered to see him, and he spent several minutes speaking with each person. On one occasion, he had a terrible cough and, between audiences, could barely contain it. His secretary suggested that he take a few minutes to drink tea and recover.

The Rebbe replied that if he took a few minutes, he would not merely be taking time for himself. He would be taking time from every person waiting in line. Together, those minutes would add up to hundreds of minutes taken from others.

Have we ever thought of this when we take an extra minute to chat with the doctor during an appointment? We usually do not think much of it because it is only one minute. But that minute does not disappear. Every patient who comes after us is delayed by that same minute. We would never take one hundred minutes from one person. Yet we sometimes take one minute from one hundred people.

Driving G-d Out

The deepest problem with this mindset is not only that it harms other people. It is that it distances us from G-d. The shoplifter claims that G-d is on his side. He invokes G-d to justify taking what does not belong to him. As if G-d were part of the mistake that victimized Him and is making up for it. But when we use G-d’s name to defend injustice, we do not bring Him closer. We push Him away.

For generations, our ancestors brought G-d into the world by living according to His will. They made this world into a dwelling place for Him. But when we behave in ways that violate His will and then claim that He approves, we move the boundary marker between ourselves and G-d. We create distance where there should be closeness.

The inescapable conclusion is that the only way to come close to G-d is to come close to His children. When we steal from His children, no matter how convincing our justifications may sound, we push G-d away.[1]

[1] This essay is based on commentary from Ramban, Abarbanel, Alshich, Rabbenu Bachye, and Degel Machaneh Efraim on Deuteronomy 19:14.