Shabbos Parashas Kedoshim - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Kedoshim - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

You shall not steal, you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another.

[Vayikra 19:11]

Well, this certainly sounds like good advice, but what does it really mean? Did we not

have something nearly identical already in the Ten Commandments? The Torah does

not repeating itself without a new lesson, so what is different here?

Rashi and others prove that the "steal" in the Ten Commandments refers to kidnapping,

thus our verse means one who steals money. The Gemora in Sanhedrin generalizes it

to mean "property", specifically non-land items. Ibn Ezra takes it a step further, and

says there are three types of stealing, the kidnapping referred to in the Ten Commandments,

the stealing of one's mind or ideas, and the stealing in our verse referring to chattels.

Ibn Ezra explains the middle part of our verse, "deny falsely" refers to someone denying

that someone left something in their care, in other words a bailee claiming that the bailed

property is in fact his own, not the actual owner's. Ibn Ezra differentiates this from the third part

of our verse, "not lie", by explaining the latter to mean demanding money from someone

on false pretenses, as in saying, I loaned you money and I want it back, when no loan

ever took place.

Nechama Leibowitz says similar, that "deny falsely" applies to a just claim, and "not lie"

applies to a false claim.

As he often does, Rav Hirsch looks at the grammatical construct. He notes, "These verses

(11-12), in contrast to 13 and on, are given in the personal plural. The similar commands

in the Ten Commandments are addressed to the individual." He explains this differentiation

in that the commandments addressed in the singular are prohibitions that unfortunately

must apply in every nation, that there are always some people who are thieves who need

punishment. The commandments addressed in the plural are those that set the people of

Israel aside as a special nation.

When an individual does wrong, it is the responsibility of the nation to catch and correct

him. When the moral fabric of society breaks down, something much more serious has

occurred. Our verse is targeted at that moral fabric. When someone kidnaps, everybody

is shocked and mortified, the nation as a whole remains strong in opposition to that evil.

But when people in general begin excusing evil by allowing it into their daily business and

social lives, small cheating, inappropriate claims,etc., then society breaks down from the

middle.

Thus in numerous verses in our parsha, we see the words, "I am Hashem".

Verse 19:2, for example, ends, " You shall be holy, for holy am I, Hashem your G-d."

Our verse is a directive to us all to make sure that as a nation, we are holy and

represent holiness.