1 00:00:00,669 --> 00:00:05,709 A good case can be made that the Eighth Commandment, "Do Not Steal," 2 00:00:05,709 --> 00:00:10,640 is the one commandment that encompasses all the others. 3 00:00:10,650 --> 00:00:15,110 How does "Do not Steal" encompass the other commandments? 4 00:00:15,110 --> 00:00:21,560 Murder is the stealing of another person's life. Adultery is the stealing of another person's spouse. 5 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:25,700 Coveting is the desire to steal what belongs to another person. 6 00:00:25,700 --> 00:00:30,700 Giving false testimony is stealing justice. And so on. 7 00:00:30,700 --> 00:00:36,580 This commandment is unique in another way: It is the only commandment that is completely 8 00:00:36,589 --> 00:00:42,280 open-ended. All the other commandments are specific. The Fifth Commandment, for example, 9 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:47,820 states that it is our parents whom we should honor. The Sixth Commandment, prohibiting murder, 10 00:00:47,820 --> 00:00:52,739 is about taking the life of an innocent human being. The Seventh Commandment, prohibiting 11 00:00:52,739 --> 00:00:59,480 adultery, is also specific -- to a married person. Two unmarried people cannot commit adultery. 12 00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:05,900 But the commandment against stealing doesn't even hint at what it is we are forbidden to steal. 13 00:01:05,900 --> 00:01:11,760 Which means that we cannot take anything that belongs to another person. 14 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:15,939 And that, in turn, means three big things: 15 00:01:15,939 --> 00:01:21,640 First and foremost, the commandment against stealing has always been understood to mean 16 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:27,080 that we are not allowed to steal another human being -- what we call kidnapping. 17 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:32,900 That is why no one who had even an elementary understanding of the Eighth Commandment 18 00:01:32,900 --> 00:01:37,860 could ever use the Bible to justify the most common form of slavery 19 00:01:37,860 --> 00:01:42,080 -- the kidnapping of human beings and selling them into slavery. 20 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:46,299 Critics of the Bible argue that the Bible allowed slavery. But the type 21 00:01:46,299 --> 00:01:52,879 of slavery described was in almost all cases what was known as indentured servitude, 22 00:01:52,880 --> 00:02:00,340 the selling of oneself to another person for a fixed period of time in order to work off a debt. 23 00:02:00,340 --> 00:02:06,140 This had nothing to do with kidnapping free people -- such as was done in Africa and elsewhere. 24 00:02:06,140 --> 00:02:11,860 That was expressly forbidden by the Eighth Commandment. 25 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:17,800 The second significant meaning of the commandment against stealing is the sanctity of people's property. 26 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:24,120 Just as we are forbidden to steal people, we are forbidden to steal what people own. 27 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:29,459 It has been shown over and over that private property, beginning with land ownership, 28 00:02:29,459 --> 00:02:36,370 is indispensable to creating a free and decent society. Every totalitarian regime takes away 29 00:02:36,370 --> 00:02:41,459 private property rights. In the ancient and medieval world a few rich people owned all 30 00:02:41,459 --> 00:02:47,519 the land and the majority of the population worked on that land for the enrichment of the owners. 31 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:51,740 And then, in nineteenth century Europe, many socialists argued for taking 32 00:02:51,750 --> 00:02:59,340 away private property and giving it to the "people." Where that advice was followed, 33 00:02:59,340 --> 00:03:04,640 in what came to be known as the communist world, theft of property quickly resulted 34 00:03:04,650 --> 00:03:10,870 in theft of freedom, and ultimately massive theft of life. 35 00:03:10,870 --> 00:03:15,489 The third enormously important meaning of the commandment against stealing concerns 36 00:03:15,489 --> 00:03:23,340 the many non-material things each person owns: their reputation; their dignity; their trust; 37 00:03:23,340 --> 00:03:27,540 and their intellectual property. Let's quickly run through these: 38 00:03:27,540 --> 00:03:34,760 1) A person's reputation. Stealing a person's good name -- whether through libel, slander, 39 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:42,560 or gossip - is a particularly destructive form of theft. Because, unlike money or property, 40 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:49,180 once a person's good name has been stolen, it can almost never be fully restored. 41 00:03:49,180 --> 00:03:57,300 2) A person's dignity. The act of stealing a person's dignity is known as humiliation. 42 00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:03,700 And humiliating a person, especially in public, can do permanent damage to what is perhaps 43 00:04:03,709 --> 00:04:09,340 the most precious thing any of us owns -- our dignity. 44 00:04:09,340 --> 00:04:15,360 3) A person's trust. Stealing a person's trust is known as deceiving someone. 45 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:22,500 In fact, in Hebrew a term for tricking someone is g'neivat da'at, which literally means "stealing knowledge." 46 00:04:22,500 --> 00:04:27,660 One example is tricking people into buying something, as when a real estate agent omits 47 00:04:27,670 --> 00:04:33,850 telling a prospective purchaser all the flaws in a home, in order to make a sale. Another 48 00:04:33,850 --> 00:04:39,680 example would be when someone deceives another person with insincere proclamations of love 49 00:04:39,690 --> 00:04:44,480 in order to obtain material or sexual favors. 50 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:51,340 4) A person's intellectual property. This form of theft includes anything from copying 51 00:04:51,350 --> 00:04:56,550 software or downloading music and movies without paying for them 52 00:04:56,550 --> 00:05:02,070 to stealing a person's words, what we know as plagiarism. 53 00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:11,000 Stealing a life, a person, a spouse, material property, intellectual property, a reputation, 54 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:18,420 dignity, or trust: There is hardly any aspect of human life that is not harmed 55 00:05:18,420 --> 00:05:26,800 -- sometimes irreparably so -- by stealing. That is why it is fair to say that if everyone observed 56 00:05:26,810 --> 00:05:32,370 only one of the 10 commandments, observing the commandment "Do Not Steal" would, 57 00:05:32,370 --> 00:05:37,060 all by itself, make a beautiful world. 58 00:05:37,070 --> 00:05:38,730 I'm Dennis Prager.