Bava Kamma 109
Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the status of the Biblical penalty of an extra fifth imposed for one who confesses that he denied a theft under oath. The particular case is regarding someone who stole from his father, and then denied it under oath, and before he can make restitution, his father dies. Technically, he inherited part of the fine due to his father, and one might think that his percentage of the inheritance should be deducted off the fine, while paying the balance. However, the actual rule is that he must pay his brothers the full fine so that he fulfills the requirements for penance. Rav Yosef discusses what he should do if he is unable to find any relatives. In such a case, he should give the fine to tzedakah.
Tzedakah seems to be an all purpose solution, when the regular channel for a mitzvah is unavailable, so as to make up for the payment due his kin.
Sefer Chassidim (764 and 765) offers guidance to an individual who sought counsel regarding being denied a mitzvah. In his town, the kibbud of rolling the Torah (which probably includes what we call hagbah) was auctioned off in exchange for a donation to the local indigents. This individual had a consistent practice of purchasing this privilege, and he was attached and devoted to this mitzvah. One time, a group of unsavory individuals ganged up on him and outbid him by a large margin, monopolizing ownership of this mitzvah throughout the year. The petitioner was in a moral conundrum. On the one hand, he felt this contingent was not worthy of the mitzvah due to their poor character, “and some of them cannot even read a verse,” he noted. On the other hand, if he intervenes, in the end the impoverished folks will lose out on the extra money. Apparently, due to his stature and recognition in the community, the person had the ability to protest and retain his chazakah on the mitzvah, despite not being able to outbid his competitors.
The answer given was that even though the bidders were not worthy and insincere, he should let them win, so as to increase the amount of funds made available for charity. Then, he adds an important line: If he will continue to give what he used to give to tzedakah, even though he is now losing the bid, it will be considered a zechus for him as if he gave the larger amount of his opponent bidders.
This is a fascinating idea, which may have practical applications. Consider a situation where one is outbid for an aliyah. There is no obligation, but I wonder if, based on this, he chose to pay his last offered amount. Would he get the same zechus of tzedakah as if he was the highest bidder?
Sefer Daf al Daf brings down the Mishnas Avraham commentary on Sefer Chassidim who goes even further. He says we see from Sefer Chassidim that in regard to any mitzvah that involved a payment but that one is unable to fulfill, if one gives that payment to tzedakah, he receives the merit as if he performed that mitzvah. For example, if you would normally buy an esrog for $100 and one year there are no esrogim available, if you were to give that $100 to charity, it would count as if you performed mitzvah of taking the esrog!
I wonder if we may extrapolate beyond money, and broaden it to any effort. Say a person is unwell and cannot fast on Yom Kippur, but his doctors say that he would be fine just drinking water. Would abstaining from solid food, which is the farthest effort he can make, count as if he fully fasted? Or, perhaps there is something special and redemptive of tzedakah, and thus this principle only applies when you donate the amount of money you would have expended on the mitzvah. Then in the case of fasting, while it might be meritorious to abstain as much as possible, it still does not count as the mitzvah. While there is also is a halacha that certain fasts can be redeemed by giving the value of the food that he eats to tzedakah (Shulchan Aruch 334:26), that may not be related to this zechus. As the case in Sefer Chassidim involves giving a payment equal to what he would have paid for the mitzvah, in our situation fasting costs no money. So while a sign of sincerity and devotion, it is unclear if these actions would ensure the same merit of the mitzvah itself.
Jewish Criminals
Bava Kamma 112
Our Gemara discusses the unfortunate situation of children whose father was a thief. Are the children who were supported by their father over the years responsible to pay restitution to those whom he stole from? We won’t get into the halachic specifics, but instead I thought to discuss the social and psychological impact of having a father who is a thief.
Unfortunately, there are crooks even in the frum world. Sometimes the convicted felon might be an otherwise upstanding member of the community, perhaps even due to his acquired wealth, an admired pillar of the community. Certain types of fraud, especially government fraud, can be rationalized as “crimes with no victims” or “the way business is done in this city.” This allows a sophisticated religious perpetrator to be different in his legal practices versus his interpersonal relationships.
But what is it like to experience having a supportive father, who for all appearances is a wonderful person, suddenly become a convicted criminal? There must be shock, and feelings of intense loss of the prior social and religious status, aside from the trauma of imprisonment of a loved one. Those are the immediate concerns, but then there also must be confusion about loyalty. If your father is a good man, how could he do this? If the law does not count, do you emulate his lifestyle? More subtle psychological challenges ensue regarding the ill-gotten gains. If your whole life you are used to affluence, and even received many benefits from illegitimately gained funds, how do you undo that? Is your own success legitimate?
I could not find specific research literature on these effects in frum families, so I widened my research to include a category of persons that, at first glance, are unrelated: mafia families. At least from non-fiction memoirs and movies, one gets the sense that the external religious practices can be strongly interwoven into the family values and result in extreme loyalty to the clan, multi-generational strong patriarchal and matriarchal figures, as well as rooted family traditions and ethnic pride. In an emotional-symbolic sense, there are parallels to the frum family (lehavdil).
I will reference psychological dynamics described by researchers Serena Guinta, et al, that bear resemblance, and are instructive regarding frum children of convicted white collar felons. (Mediterranean Journal of Vol 9 No 1 Social Sciences January 2018, “Being Mafia Children: An Empirical Transgenerational Research”):
- The mafia family has a rigid organizational structure which is also the source of its strength and its own power. This structure rests basically on the distinction between the “inside,” which protects and helps, and the “outside,” alien and threatening.
- The mother educates her children giving them the values of the mafia culture, in a condition of acceptance of the family hierarchy, preventing them from developing autonomy and keeping them forever tied to herself; the father, mostly idealized, is the model to imitate, provides rules and values; the child is educated to the code of silence, to show virility, strength and opposition to the legal power. (With frum families, we can substitute “virility, strength and opposition to the legal power” with “Stoicism and contempt for the frivolous and meaningless illusions of secular culture,” which involve discarding a more balanced respect and sense of propriety for secular laws and values, even when at times they are alien to Torah values.)
- Idealization of the father figure, who often may be absent from family life due the intensity of the legal, and not-so-legal, business escapades. The admiration from afar can serve as a way to mythologize the father, and allow him to be a greater personage than when he is up close.
- There is conflict of loyalty between family versus the outside world. Family expectations become a cage from which it is difficult to escape. And this is particularly true for the mafia families, in which trying to disengage is considered treason, a sort of denial of the family roots and an effort to acquire values different from those provided by the family context.
- Adolescence is a time of questioning personal values and finding one’s identity in contrast to family and community values. Therefore teenage children of convicted felons may experience the above difficulties with greater intensity.
Of course, I do not mean to say that all Jewish white collar felons are anywhere near to the depraved morality of mafiosos, but rather by way of comparison to understand psychological dynamics that are similar. In addition, there certainly are convicted white collar criminals who may be largely innocent, in the frum and secular community. We must be especially careful not to judge appearances, as the press and gossip mill can be cruel.
