The Thief Within

The Thief Within

A story from the Talmud: Mar Zutra, a great scholar known for his piety, once had occasion to travel. The journey took several days and he stayed at various inns along the way. One inn was what we would call “upscale,” and offered its patrons excellent accommodations and a fine dining experience. To add to the atmosphere, for example, beverages were served in pure silver vessels.

During one of the meals the pleasant atmosphere was disturbed by the desperate cries of the landlord. One of the silver vessels, worth quite hefty sum, had been stolen. An uproar ensued, and it was all the landlord could do to restore order. But he was still in a quandary: one of his guests had stolen something of considerable value. He couldn’t very well go around accusing all his guests - aside from ruining his reputation and business, he had nothing to go on. On the other hand, if he didn’t catch the thief, not only would he suffer the financial loss, but word get out that his was not a secure establishment.

In desperation, knowing that a great Sage was staying at the inn, the landlord turned to Mar Zutra for help. Mar Zutra agreed to do what he could. So he sat in the large dining room and watched. After a while he called over the landlord and pointed out a young man. “That is your thief.” The landlord of course asked Mar Zutra was he sure and how did he know. Mar Zutra replied, “I observed this person wash his hands and, seeing no towel about, dry them on someone else’s garment. That showed me he has no consideration for other people’s property.” The landlord confronted the young man who, when presented with the reasoning of Mar Zutra, confessed.

Of course, there is more to this story than the cleverness of Mar Zutra. There is a lesson for all of us. Too often we think of stealing only in terms of “big ticket” items. By that I mean more than just stealing thousands from a bank, defrauding customers or investors, carjacking, robbery whether of a convenience store or an individual on the street. When we think of stealing we think of taking something that doesn’t belong to us. Or rather, some thing. It doesn’t matter if that thing is a valuable silver vessel or a candy bar from the drug store.

But Mar Zutra saw that theft starts at a deeper, more internal level. Stealing begins with an attitude, and that attitude manifests itself first, if not foremost, in discourtesy. We might think the thief took nothing when he dried his hands on someone else’s garment. After all, the thief’s hands were already clean - he’d just washed them. So it wasn’t as if he was soiling the garment. He was just getting it a little wet. A few minutes later, and who would have known?

But from one perspective, that was the bigger theft. In what way is being discourteous, being disrespectful, a bigger theft than actually stealing something worth hundreds of dollars? Let’s consider some common examples of “drying  your hands on someone else’s garment”: a driver who, in a traffic jam, cuts in front of others; people in a store or on a line who don’t wait their turn, verbally pushing someone out of the way; interrupting a conversation to take a phone call - or one phone call to take another (call waiting as theft of the other person’s time); not picking up after your dog - or letting it go on another person’s yard to begin with. 

These are minor irritants, small affronts to another person’s dignity, a flippant dismissal of the other person’s self-worth. Why are they, in one sense, worse than outright theft of a diamond necklace or a silver vessel?

There is a two-fold answer: The theft of a valuable object, while invasive and a violation of the other person’s psychic space, at least can be rationalized. Much as the victim feels vulnerable, much as the victim has been hurt, at least there is the explanation that it wasn’t personal. The thief wanted the thing, and the owner was in the way. This doesn’t minimize the harm done or the evil of the act. One of the Seven Universal Commandments is - don’t steal. Anything. At any level.

But for the victim, the assault on his dignity, the denigration of her self-worth, comes as a result of - through - the theft of the object. And so for the thief, the primary objective is the thing, not the person harmed.

However, when one “dries his hands on another’s garment” - in any of its manifestations, whether those mentioned above or another - the primary result is the disrespect. It’s not that the person needs to dry his or her hands - if so, the thief’s own garment would do. It’s that the other person doesn’t matter. The other person has no significance. The Divine Providence that put, so to speak, that person ahead of you in the line, the other person’s house on this street, is ignored, in a sense blasphemed and spat upon. The theft of another’s dignity - even when that person is not aware of it - declares that what G-d thinks is significant, you don’t; that how G-d orders things doesn’t matter; and that who G-d creates space and time for, you don’t have room for.

This leads to the second part of the answer: such an attitude steals not only from the other person, but primarily from one’s self. There is a spiritual mirror effect at work in the world: Disregard for another is disregard for one’s own soul. Drying the hands on another’s garment can only be done by dirtying one’s own.