Sefer Devarim

Parshat Shoftim: On Competition

In Parshat Shoftim, which means “judges,” Moshe instructs the Israelites on how to build a just society. He relays the commandment to appoint judges, and emphasizes that they must judge fairly. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” 1 Moses tells us. 

Further laws are given to us for the establishment of justice, including this often-overlooked commandment:

You shall not move your neighbor’s landmarks, set up by previous generations, in the property that will be allotted to you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. 2

The simplest understanding of this mitzvah is that one cannot steal someone else’s land. Moses Maimonides writes in his Mishneh Torah:

If a person removed his neighbor’s landmark and included some of their area into his own, even as much as a finger’s length, he is deemed a gannav (robber) if he did it forcibly, and a gazlan 3 (thief) if he removed it secretly. 4

This is so important that later in Deuteronomy, when listing all of the curses that will befall the Israelites if they do not follow the ethical laws of the Torah, we are told: “Cursed be the one who moves a neighbor’s landmark; and all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” 5

There is some flexibility within the tradition about boundaries being transgressed—for example, when giving a gift. A story from the Jerusalem Talmud recounts a case of trespassing with good intentions:  

Rabbi Ḥinena bar Pappa used to distribute his charity in the night. Once, the prince of spirits encountered him. He [the prince] said to him: “Did not [Moses] our teacher teach us, ‘Do not displace your neighbor’s boundaries?’” 6 He [Rabbi Hinena] said to him: “But is it not written [in the Book of Proverbs], ‘A gift in secret appeases anger?’” 7 He was afraid of him and fled from him. 8

Indeed, there may be competing values, as we see above and as we will still see, that outweigh the value of honoring boundaries. 

This prohibition, called hassagat gevul, literally meaning “moving a border” and based on the wording of our opening verse, is expanded to protecting businesses from damaging degrees of competition. In Jewish law, one cannot unfairly compete with an existing business. For example, you cannot cause significant harm to your neighbor by opening a competing pizza shop next to their pizza shop. 9 

Of course, many times in our advanced economies today, monopolies are harmful to workers, consumers, and small businesses, and this makes anti-trust laws necessary to prevent people from being taken advantage of. On the whole, competition is good. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, in particular, was lenient about allowing businesses, especially in America, compete. 10  

And yet, a totally unchecked marketplace—in which mom-and-pop shops can easily be destroyed by national chains, and those with excess capital can sell things so cheaply that they knock out their competitor—is also not healthy for families and communities. 

Sure, competition is good for the economy, but there need to be limits. We need regulations to ensure business stability and to make it easier for smaller businesses and entities to exist.

On the one hand, regulating business is something only the government can effectively do. And halachah, Jewish law, has a place in ensuring fairness in business as well. At the same time, we should constantly, in our own work lives, be on the lookout for ways in which we might be encroaching on someone else’s boundaries. 

Similarly, in life overall, we must be mindful of respecting the territory of others, be that their physical property, roles they play in family or social life, or anything else that is valuable to them. 

We learn from this parshah that, in a just society, people need to have peace of mind that they won’t lose what is theirs. 

  1.  Deuteronomy 16:20
  2.  Deuteronomy 19:14
  3.  The halachic difference between a gazlan and a gannav is a technical one, beyond the scope of this essay.
  4.  Mishneh Torah, Laws of Theft 7:11
  5.  Deuteronomy 27:17
  6.  Deuteronomy 19:14
  7.  Proverbs 21:14
  8.  Jerusalem Talmud, Pei’ah 8:8:8
  9.  While this is the general rule, there are many technicalities and variables to be taken into consideration when wishing to open a business, oftentimes resulting in a permit being granted by the rabbinic authorities. See the following footnote. 
  10.  Gray Matter I, Monetary Issues, “Hasagat Gevul; Economic Competition in Jewish Law”