{"id":6053,"date":"2023-03-24T14:37:42","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T14:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2025-05-30T13:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:07:11","slug":"parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Parshas Vayikra: Self-Confession &#8211; The Torah&#8217;s View"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;he shall pay it with its principal, adding its fifths to it&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<cite>Vayikra (Leviticus) &#8211; Chapter 5, Verse 24<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/jewish-marriage-according-to-the-torah\/\">Torah law<\/a>, a thief who voluntarily returns what&nbsp;he has stolen is not subject to any legal penalty. If, however, he was caught by witnesses and found guilty&nbsp;in a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beth_din\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Beit Din<\/a>, a Jewish court of law, he is required to pay back double. If a person successfully&nbsp;deceives the court and denies a debt under oath, and then repents and confesses to his crime, he is required to pay back his debt with an additional 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The underlying idea here seems simple. On the one hand, theft is a serious crime and a ubiquitous temptation and society therefore needs to institute strong disincentives to discourage it. On the other hand, severely punishing someone for a voluntarily confessed crime has the negative effect of discouraging such confessions. Thus, a thief who confesses on his own initiative is not punished at all, outside of having to return his ill-gotten gains. Even in this much more severe case, involving a false oath in court, the punishment&nbsp;is less severe than a normal case of theft because he ultimately confessed voluntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This reflects the general principle that God is always open to self-confession and compassionate towards those who wish to improve themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button tm-cta\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/sign-up.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Learn more about Jewish Law with a personal study partner. Join TorahMates today!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Parshas Vayikra: Self-confession &#8211; The Torah&#8217;s View | Rabbi Eli Reit<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;&#8230;he shall pay it with its principal, adding its fifths to it&#8230;&#8221; Vayikra (Leviticus) &#8211; Chapter 5, Verse 24 According to Torah law, a thief who voluntarily returns what&nbsp;he has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,9],"tags":[13,45],"class_list":["post-6053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vayikra","category-weekly-torah-portion","tag-articles","tag-parsha"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Self-Confession - The Torah&#039;s View - Vayikra - Jewish Resources<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"God is always open and compassionate towards those who wish to improve themselves, as is understood from the laws regarding self-confession.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Self-Confession - The Torah&#039;s View - Vayikra - Jewish Resources\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God is always open and compassionate towards those who wish to improve themselves, as is understood from the laws regarding self-confession.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jewish Resources\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/torahmates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-24T14:37:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-30T13:07:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/shutterstock_782972068.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"TorahMates\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@oorah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@oorah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"TorahMates\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/parshas-vayikra-self-confession-the-torahs-view\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"TorahMates\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.torahmates.org\/jewish-resources\/#\/schema\/person\/df1cd798c41777159e9fee85cb392ef9\"},\"headline\":\"Parshas Vayikra: Self-Confession &#8211; 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