A mitzvah may not be performed with “dirty hands.” In other words, when we are engaged in the fulfilment of the Torah’s commands, it would be antithetical to the whole enterprise, and hence prohibited, to do so by means of stolen objects or other forbidden materials. This is how the Talmud understands the words in our parsha: va’asu la’hem tzizizit (Bamidbar 15:38).
“And they shall make for them tzitzit of their own, to exclude the use of stolen ritual fringes” (Tractate Sukkah 9a). The Talmud in multiple locations warns us against a mitzvah haba’a ba’avera, a mitzvah ensconced in a transgression. If we have stolen assets, how dare we use them to purchase a lulav, or a sukkah, or even make a charitable contribution to a worthy cause? The Torah refuses to assign holiness to objects that have come into our hands through forbidden means.
Yet perhaps there is another paradigm of stealing to which we also must be sensitive. Allow me to explain what I believe lies at the core of this issue with a story I heard from Rabbi Saul Berman. Two American sailors had shore leave in Amsterdam and decided Knowing neither the language nor the liturgy, and fearing being out of step, they selected one well dressed young gentleman and decided they would do whatever he did.
All went well for a while until at one point the gentleman stood, so the sailors stood, and pandemonium broke loose. Much later the sailors discovered that they had happened upon a baptism and the pastor had j.
