Ze nehene v'ze lo chaser – ins and outs

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  • July 8, 2015 2:37 am at 2:37 am #615984
    Curiosity
    Participant

    Can someone please address, from a halachic analysis, ze nehene v’ze lo chaser (ZNVZLC henceforth)? I realize the answer always depends, but is there a rule of thumb on how do we hold in general?

    What if someone does an external action that qualifies as ZNVZLC to give himself an advantage over other people, such as in business or in school? (Assume that competition isn’t aware of the opportunity to take the ZNVZLC action, but might otherwise take it if they were aware.) Now that the person who did the ZNVZLC action had the advantage and gained by putting themselves ahead of the competition, is this still called v’lo chaser?

    July 8, 2015 4:41 am at 4:41 am #1091435
    pcoz
    Member

    If you pirate a CD that you wouldn’t have bought anyway, is that ok?

    July 8, 2015 3:36 pm at 3:36 pm #1091436
    Curiosity
    Participant

    pcoz – I appreciate the response, but that’s really not where I wanted to go with this. You can do a CR search and find half a dozen other threads on CD pirating. I’d rather not pin it to a single anecdotal example.

    My question is more to get into Jewish ethics. Is it moral to do an action that involves misusing someone else’s property without any detriment to them but that benefits yourself and gives you an “unfair” advantage over others?

    Common, where are the coffee sipping talmidei chachomim?!

    July 8, 2015 6:34 pm at 6:34 pm #1091437
    Aprager
    Participant

    Chaser is qualified my monetary loss; more precisely someone who benefits of another person’s property at the expense of the owner’s profit. E.g. if you rent out a house, and I go in, and no-one else can stay there because I am there, I have caused you the loss of rental.

    If no-one else would have stayed it is called lo chaser, and the owner cannot claim payment.

    As for your question whether it is ‘moral’ to be nehneh, I think you are asking whether it is permitted l’chatchila (ab initio), if so I refer you to the Gra on C.M. 363, Nesivos 250,16 and Shut Chasam Sofer Vol. 5 (C.M.) 79, the Pischei Teshuva in C.M. 359 and even in the Rishonim: Tosfos Rid on B.M. 117b.

    I discussed this very issue with R’ Zalman Nechemia Goldberg (R’ Sholmo Zalman’s son-in-law, who said about him that he is the world expert in Choshen Mishpat and Even Ho’ezer) on a number of occasions, and he rules that it is permitted l’chatchila.

    That is all on the premise that the owner does not stipulate to the contrary (see Tosfos and Rema) – if a person makes a ‘machaa’ then the nehneh transgresses gezel. If it is clear that the owner would not want someone using his property, even without stipulation this may be enough to constitute theft.

    See the upcoming article in the Yated Neeman in a couple of weeks which will discuss this issue in Rabbi Travis’ QandA with the Gedolim column.

    July 8, 2015 11:22 pm at 11:22 pm #1091438
    Curiosity
    Participant

    Aprager – thank you very much! Very interesting. One case I had in mind is using someone else’s login for an online service without permission – obviously assuming that you are not costing them anything. I’m curious where that would fall into halacha. I’m not subscribed to the Yated, but I’ll keep an eye out for a copy.

    July 13, 2015 12:28 am at 12:28 am #1091439
    pcoz
    Member

    There is a discussion on Din Online about using a Wifi network you find unsecured. One question is invasion of privacy the other question is you are using the person’s ISP’s bandwidth without paying.

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