The Law of a thief is discussed at the end of this week’s Torah portion: ‘He shall return the robbed item that he robbed. or anything about which he had sworn falsely _ he shall repay (its principle) the value of the stolen item adding (its fifth) a fifth of the items value; he shall give it to its owner on the day he admits his guilt ‘.
The reason a fifth must be added to the value of the item is because, by stealing the item or money the thief denied the owner the ability to invest the value and make a profit. Therefore it is incumbent upon the thief to compensate the victim of his crime for the lost profit by adding a fifth to the value of what was stolen (Kli Yakar).
We are told that nothing that happens to a person is by mere chance – rather every thing is in accordance with the Master plan. So if someone wrongs us we should not get angry with the person, we should instead realise that they was just a messenger from God; if that particular person had not hurt us it would have still happened somehow through some other agent or means (Tanya).
Based on this, our religiously minded thief may think to himself: Although I must return the value of the stolen goods, surely God willed this person to lose any profit that could have been made while he was with out the money or item. So is it correct for me to interfere with God’s will.
Thus the Torah tells us: ‘He shall repay the value of the stolen item adding a fifth of the item’s value; he shall give it to its owner on the day he admits his guilt ‘, because second-guessing God is impossible. Perhaps God only wanted this person to lose in the interim but not in the long term, so the Torah encourages the thief ‘to admit his guilt ‘ and return the stolen money together with the lost profit, in order not to prolong the anguish that has been caused to the victim.
This is a powerful lesson for us. The Torah is careful to limit the distress of any individual, even if he is deemed deserving of that anguish.From the law of the thief we learn the importance reducing our fellowman’s distress by ‘admitting one’s guilt and repaying the value of the stolen item and adding a fifth ‘. This is very much like apologizing for acting in a hurtful manner.
After acting in an insensitive way many of us find it very difficult to console the person we upset by saying ‘I am sorry ‘. We may feel that the apology is not deserved or that apologizing is a sign of weakness. This law teaches us that apologizing is a show of strength rather then weakness; an apology must be made even if we feel that the other person is not deserving of it. We just have to find the courage to overcome our resistance to this sometimes-challenging task.