NEW YORK (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Dear Rabbi, Lakewood has been a booming town in terms of businesses.  I work in an office where they have a food room so that the employees won’t leave for lunch and use the time to work for the company.  The food stocks are quite tempting.  However, I like the standard scrambled eggs for a snack mid-day.  There are no cooking facilities there, so I did bring in a Betty Crocker that I picked up from Bingo for $24.99.  I did not ask permission from the CEO or from HR.  It seems that some of the other employees were not too excited about what I did.  Someone pointed out that it may be considered gezel or dishonest.  Is this true?  If so, do I owe any money?

ANSWER:

Using a facility without permission is a form of trespassing.  You did not specify your gender, but if you are aware that you are possibly trespassing and that it is gezel you may be pasul l’aidus according to the Gra in Siman 40– invalid to serve as a halachic witness. If you are unaware of either then you are not pasul l’aidus. So, if you are reading this and believe it, then it was just ruined for you.

There is such a thing as tacit permission, where it can be assumed that the owners do not care.  But, of late, permission is often necessary before one does something unilaterally in the corporate world.

What exactly is the halachic violation? The violation is actually that of stealing. The Talmud (Bava Basra 88a) records a debate between Rabbi Yehudah and the Sages as to whether borrowing an item without permission renders a person a gazlan, a thief, or whether he simply has the status of a borrower.

Rabbi Yehudah maintains that he does not have the halachic status of a thief, while the Sages maintain that he does. The Rif and the Rambam both rule in accordance with the Sages-that he is considered a thief. Indeed, this is also the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch in four different places (C.M. 292:1, 308:7, 359:5, 363:5).

Is the “considered a thief” designation applicable in all cases? Generally speaking, borrowing an item has a value associated with it. In the case of trespassing, there may be no particular value per se in setting foot on the person’s property, or in parking improperly. While this may be the case, the Chazon Ish (B.K. 20:5) writes that the prohibition of sho’el shelo mida’as (one who borrows without permission) applies even when the item is not something that generally has a market value, and even if the value is less than that of a perutah.

How do we know that borrowing without permission also applies to being on someone’s land, or parking illegally? Maybe, it can be argued that in order to “borrow,” you have to physically take an object; here, you are just taking up space on someone’s land.

THE PROOF

The Rashbam in Bava Basra 57b discusses a case of a piece of property owned by two partners. The Rashbam writes that we are lenient and assume that one partner allows the other to place his animals on the land even without explicitly giving permission. In such a case, he would not be considered a sho’el shelo mida’as since they, in general, are partners, and would let the other do what he wants with their property. According to the Rashbam, therefore, when not dealing with two partners of a property, trespassing would be subsumed under the concept of sho’el shelo mida’as.

Now for payback purposes let’s look at the power draw. Betty Crocker electric skillets/griddles are usually rated around 1,200 watts (1.2 kW).

Time to cook two eggs. Figure roughly 2–3 minutes to preheat plus 3–4 minutes to cook two eggs, so call it about 6 minutes of total “on the counter” time.

Using 7 minutes of power use:

1.2 kW × (7÷ 60) hours ≈ 0.14 kWh per day which is .7 kWh per week

Electricity around here is roughly 31¢/kWh which is equal to 22 cents per week.

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