THE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE OF JEWISH LAW 
Rabbi Emanuel Quint, Dean

Lesson # 298 • Rabbinic-Declared Robbery

We shall IY"H revert to the topic of Dina D’Malchuta Dina in future lessons.

There are many actions that a person may take that are not categorized as robbery according to Torah law, but since this conduct verges on robbery, the Rabbis of the Talmud prohibited these types of behavior. They became classified as Rabbinic-declared robbery.

This lesson sets forth the actions so declared and the underlying reasons for the Rabbis so acting.

The Reasons for the Rabbinic Enactments
All of these decrees were made for the welfare and peace of society, so that people will not get into quarrels with others. In the case of gamblers, the decree was made since they are busy gambling, therefore do nothing to enhance the well-being of society. None of my friends or acquaintances raise or fly pigeons. So why do I devote so much time to the topic of pigeons? First of all, the halacha does, and equally important, it shows how meticulous the halacha is so as not to take things that don’t belong to us, even when actual robbery or theft is not involved.

Examples of Rabbinic-Declared Robbery
Gamblers
If individuals play with cards, dice or similar devices, and agree among themselves that the winner of the game receives a certain amount of money from the others, this is deemed Rabbinic- declared robbery. It also applies to racing animals, birds or any other similar wager. This holds true though the winner obtains the winnings with the consent of the loser.

Gambling with a Gentile does not involve robbery, but entails the prohibition of wasting time in useless pursuits, for it is not fitting for a person to spend any part of his life other than on gaining knowledge and furthering civilization. There are those who say that gambling with Gentiles is permitted only if the Jew has a gainful employment, but if he earns his livelihood through gambling, it is also prohibited.

Seizing from traps
If a person laid traps for wild animals, birds or fish and the traps have prey and someone takes them, he is liable for Rabbinic-decreed robbery. If the traps have a receptacle and fish are caught therein, then it is actual robbery. As soon as the fish or animal enters the receptacle, it was acquired for the owner of the trap.

Robbing swarms of bees
Bees are ordinarily not under human control. Yet by decree of the Rabbis of the Talmud, one can acquire ownership of them. Thus if one obtains a swarm of bees by robbery and keeps it from the owner when it enters his premises, this is Rabbinic-declared robbery. Accordingly, if a swarm of bees left one person’s domain and came to rest in his neighbor’s domain, the owner of the swarm has the right to walk across his neighbor’s field until he has recovered his swarm. If he does damage he must pay for it, but he may not cut off a branch even though he intends to pay for it.

Unowned fruit from trees
If a poor person is lopping off forgotten olives from the top of an olive tree and another poor person comes and picks them up from the ground, this is deemed Rabbinic-declared robbery. However, if the person on top of the tree after holding them in his hands throws them to the ground, the other commits robbery according to Torah law, for as soon as the person on top of the tree holds the olives in his hands, he acquired ownership of the olives.

A person with a Legal Disability Finds an Object
If a deaf-mute or mentally deficient person or minor find an object, the object would not legally belong to them under Torah law. They do not have the capacity to acquire a thing unless the seller or the employer or donor gives it to them or to some qualified person enable them to acquire the object. But in the case of found objects that have been abandoned by the owner, there is no one to aid them to acquire the object. Thus if an adult were to take the objects they found, the taker would not be robbing them since legally it did not belong to them. The Rabbis of the Talmud, to protect the peace of society decreed that objects found by these classes of people should not be taken away from them and that they may keep that which they find.

Remedies of the Victim
If one has in his possession anything obtained by what is Rabbinic declared robbery, it cannot be extracted from him by a Beth Din. However, such robber is disqualified from taking oaths in Beth Din and as acting as a witness in Beth din.

Pigeon-Related Activities
No one may fly a pigeon in an inhabited area because it may come back attracting non-owned pigeons together with owned pigeons. This is taking other people’s property. It is not technically robbery, because the owner of the attracted pigeons is not really the owner unless he raises them in his home or his barn. (The attracted pigeons that he has in his dovecote feed in the fields of others or in public places and the “owner” does not usually have full control over them.

However, if the pigeons return to the same dovecote every day and are fed by the owner who trains them and raises them, then if anyone takes such pigeons he is a robber according to Torah law.) If one sends out a male pigeon it may attract female pigeons from someone else’s dovecote, or if he sends out female pigeons it may attract male pigeons from someone else’s dovecote. All that is said about pigeons applies to any other bird or wild or domestic animal.

Similarly the Rabbis prohibited the catching of pigeons in inhabited areas because they probably belong to someone else. Traps for pigeons may not be set except at a distance of four mils (2.65 miles) from an inhabited area. However, in a region where vines are cultivated, traps may not be set even a at distance of one hundred miles, because the pigeons belong to the owners of the vines. Also a person may not set traps among dovecotes even if they are his own, unless they are a hundred miles away from any inhabited region, since other doves are likely to come to any collection of dovecotes.

A dovecote must be at least 100 feet from a town.

A person may not set up a dovecote even in his own field unless there are at least 100 feet of his own field on each side of the dovecote, so that the young birds will not cause any damage in nearby fields and eat from another’s property. However, if someone buys a dovecote, although it does not meet the requirement of the last sentence, he does not have to move it since the prior owner acquired a prescriptive right to keep it there.

The subject matter of this lesson is more fully discussed in volume IX chapter 370 of A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law by E. Quint. Copies of all volumes can be purchased via email: orders@gefenpublishing.com and via website: www.israelbooks.com and at local Judaica bookstores. Questions to quint@inter.net.il