A Conundrum

[gnomi]

I got home from the grocery store to find a jar of dried rosemary leaves in my bag that I did not purchase. It *is* hechshered (certified kosher) and it is the brand I buy. But I didn't pull it from the shelf, and it does not appear on my receipt.

Do I:

1. Return it to the store and explain that it was in my bag and I didn't pay for it (running the risk that they will think I shoplifted it and am now feeling remorse)?

2. Go back to the store and give them money for the jar of rosemary?

3. Keep and use the rosemary (I put it in tomato sauces and other tasty food)?


I like rosemary, and I use it, but I wasn't due to buy more for a while yet. Thus my conundrum.

Thoughts?

ETA: I called this morning, and they said I *could* come in and pay for it or return it, but it was fine with them if I just kept it.

Comments

Re: m'yayesh makes hefker

[madfilkentist]

This line of argumentation puts a hypothetical -- that the store was compensated by someone else's paying for rosemary they didn't get -- over a fact -- that N. received something from the store which she didn't pay for. Arguing that the store probably didn't really lose anything is a dangerous line of thinking which can excuse all kinds of evasions. I'm reminded of a character in a Dave Berg cartoon who said that pilfering from work is a victimless crime because the employer is insured against it.

I don't know what any of the Hebrew words mean, so I'm not addressing that part of your argument.

Re: m'yayesh makes hefker

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

I'm making an argument from Jewish legal principals based on a specific commandment in the Torah (roughly, our Bible) as elucidated by our rabbis over two millenia according to tradition. The bottle of rosemary is not stolen within that or indeed ANY legal framework: it falls under a different category, that of lost objects. Theft requires intent. The Torah law in question puts specific requirements on Jews with respect to lost objects, one of which is to return it to the CORRECT owner. In doing so, the question of probability is appropriate to bring in to the argument. Someone lost something; I merely insist that it probably wasn't the store. If you assume as I do that it wasn't the store that suffered the loss, either directly or by replacing the missing rosemary when the customer complains, then returning the bottle to the store improperly benefits the store and implicitly steals the customer. If it was not the store that suffered the loss, gnomi would no more discharge her duty to G-d and man by returning it there, than she would by "returning" the bottle of rosemary to me. (Of course if you assume that the store was indeed the entity that suffered the loss, you should return it there. But the fact that gnomi is (1) an observant Jew who knows that already and yet (2) is posting this question, means to me that she does not assume that it was indeed the store that suffered the loss.)

IIUC, Jewish law provides a framework for knowing when a found object is liable to having efforts made for its return: it needs to have identifying characteristics, and it needs to be within a period of time that the owner will have not given up hope of having it returned. Again, the law permits discussion of probability, of the average person. I am averring that the customer is likely to have despaired of his/her rosemary within a brief time of his/her discovery that it was missing. In such a case, the rosemary becomes ownerless in Jewish law and need not be returned.

Now, you can look at this and point, as many people throughout the millenia have done, and say "[Orthodox] Jews don't obey the spirit of the law, it's all letter and pettifogging." You're entitled to your opinion on that matter; you (and anyone else reading my response) are entitled to have a system of willy-nilly morals that responds to individual feelings of guilt about keeping the rosemary. However, the OP, and I, are Orthodox Jews who believe that Torah provides us with a G-d-given system for thinking about such questions. We are entitled to, indeed encouraged to and praised for, behavior beyond the letter of the law -- but only when that behavior actually results in making whole the loss of the ACTUAL person (or corporate entity) that suffered the loss.

If in Jewish law she is entitled to keep the rosemary but does not, instead returning it to the WRONG person, she is guilty of having deprived herself (stealing from herself) of a legitimate benefit, which is problematic in Jewish law as well. If despite pointing to legal principals she feels guilty about keeping the rosemary she could "return" the bottle by donating its value to a community-oriented cause within the community she believes the customer comes from.

I of course may be wrong in my understanding of the law, which is why I use the abbreviation CYLOR (consult your local orthodox rabbi) to remind her (well, she knows) and anyone lurking and reading, that I am not qualified to rule as an expert on such matters, but do so only from my understanding of the law as a reasonably educated layperson.