26 Feb Wise Robber

A woman with a baby carriage walked into a jewelry store one day with a big smile on her face. “Today is my tenth anniversary,” she announced. “My husband told me to pick out something expensive.” After looking through various showcases, the woman chose something nice. She then turned to the sales lady and said, ”I am going to leave my carriage here. I want to go show the jewelry to my husband who is sitting in the car.” The sales lady agreed. Within two minutes of the woman leaving, another woman came in screaming, “I am looking for my baby…!” She then spots the carriage and breathes a sigh of relief saying, “Shew! Here here is my baby! I left my carriage outside for a second and someone stole my baby!” It seemed that the woman who took the jewelry had stolen the child and now stole the jewelry.

The sales lady called her boss. The boss told her to follow the woman with the carriage. He instructed her to do so even if it meant closing the store. The sales lady followed the woman with the carriage from a distance. After walking a couple of blocks, she sees the woman with the carriage meeting up with the other woman who had stolen the jewelry. The one with the jewelry escaped, but the one with the carriage was apprehended.

The owner of the store figured out that these two women must be accomplices; as the woman who took the carriage was not scared that the real mother would come in during the perpetration of the crime.

From this story we see that you always have to be alert. In lashon hakodesh this is called, “Kabdehu ve’chashdehu.” We can also learn from this story how to come up with smart ideas to defeat the yetzer hora.

We will discuss the halachic ramifications to this story. Is the second woman with the carriage responsible for the other’s crime? This would probably fall under the category of dina de’garmi not gerama. It would be similar to a worker in a store giving the key to the store to ganavim who will rob the store at night. It would seem from this that the second woman would be responsible to pay for the theft.

If both women were caught, can the storeowner collect from either one? Do they each pay half? If they would have to pay fifty-fifty why is it if the woman with the jewelry was not caught, the second one would have to pay for the whole geneiva? It would not be clear.

In the event none of the women were caught, may the owner collect from the sales lady? Is this considered an oness or a geneiva? If it were anoness, the woman would be pattur as a shommer sachar is pattur. It would seem that this is a case of oness and she would be pattur. May the owner deduct that day’s wages since she did not do her job properly? If she were already paid, he would not be able to take it back. If he did not pay her yet, he would be a muchzak; and she therefore cannot get the money from him. This would only apply to a single girl. If the sales lady is a married woman, the money would belong to her husband and the owner would not be able to deduct.