Tell me more ×
Mi Yodeya is a question and answer site for those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite

Today I watched while a man walked into a pastry shop, took a large box of cookies and put it into his bag. He then walked out of the store and away, disregarding my stink eye on him.

  1. If I were to call him on it he would or run or say I was lying and there might be some Chilul Hashem חילול השם.
  2. The cookie boxes were placed at the entrance to the store and definitely fell under the category of Lifney Iver לפני עיוור, and probably the merchants have Yiush יאוש (this type of store expects things to be stolen on a daily basis).
  3. On the other hand, there's the factor of deterring the perpetrator; i.e., he will now steal more since he wasn't caught last time.

The questions are:

A: Am I obligated to chase the perpetrator / inform the store, when no reconciliation will come of it (including the store not changing the way they display the goods)?

B: Must I pay for the box, seeing as I did not do anything?

C: Would it matter if i was only 98% sure that he had actually stolen?

share|improve this question
1  
@SethJ, what do you think now? – msh210♦ Mar 5 at 15:47
1  
There is a lot of presupposed knowledge in this question. How do you know he was stealing (98% sure? How was this quantified?)? How do you know they have Yeush? What makes the Chillul HaShem of his denial more significant than the Kiddush HaShem of apprehending a thief (and why would his lying be a Chillul HaShem on your part)? How is the placement of the display Lifnei 'Iver? (@msh210, I'm still not satisfied. Maybe I'm being too picky, I don't know, but I'd rather he go to his rabbi for this - and tell the store owner!) – Seth J Mar 5 at 17:26
1  
@SethJ, I think this just needs to be generalized. Want to try your hand? – msh210♦ Mar 5 at 17:50
2  
@msh210, ok, I'll give it a shot, but before I do, Yaakov, can you offer me some reason why this would be different if, say, it were a different crime than petty theft? – Seth J Mar 5 at 17:53
1  
YaakovPinsky, I'm going to close this question as a temporary measure to prevent answers from being posted while the question gets edited. I'll be glad to reopen it thereafter. – msh210♦ Mar 5 at 17:54
show 2 more comments

closed as too localized by Seth J, msh210♦ Mar 5 at 17:54

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.