Anonymous On The Parsha

לא תגנב

The famous story of Solomon's wisdom in threatening to split a child in half is known far and wide. There is another story of lesser, but similar wisdom that is told of the Maharal of Prague. There was a Pauper in Prague who because of lack of funds was forced to go to Hungary on business. On the journey home he was traveling home by foot and he happened upon a well to do citizen of Prague. The kindly man offered him a ride in his wagon. The pauper was only too happy to accept the offer. The wealthy citizen was transporting Barrels of wine back to Prague and the pauper hid his savings in one of the barrels for safe keeping for the duration of the trip. Upon arrival back to Prague the pauper went to retrieve his earnings and saw it was missing. Sensing foul play he called "The Kind Sir" to the Maharal of Prague for a Din Torah. The Maharal understood the situation and right away came to his decision. He said since the man who owns the barrels says he did not take the money I can only draw one conclusion on the trip one of the Gentile workers opened the Barrel looking for money. Then it would seem that I must rule all the Barrels to be Yayin Nesach, as he most probably went through all the barrels looking for money. Now our "Kind Sir" broke into a sweat, as the mere penance he had stolen from the pauper was hardly worth the thousands of rubles the wine was worth. The Mahral's decisions meant his shipment would be almost worthless. It was at this point the Sir made a wise decision and asked to see the Rabbi in his private study and the kind Rabbi was only to happy to oblige his request. There he admitted to the indiscrepency, but the Mahral told him that all is good and fine but I can not believe you to change my judgment because of the Talmudic law that a person can not incriminate himself.The only way he would accept his repentance and reverse his decision was if he got up publicly in the Shul and admitted in front of all to his heinous crime.

*Talelei Oros