Are adults obligated to pay for damage they caused as children?

The scene: a Jewish wedding in Prague, around two hundred and fifty years ago. All the Jews of the community have come to celebrate and partake in the lavish wedding feast. But the father of the groom  is worried — it looks like the wine is about to run out. He looks around for someone who can help and spots a young boy of 12. The father places some coins in the boy's hand and asks him to go to R' Tzvi's wine warehouse, located at the far end of the street, and purchase a case of wine for the wedding celebration.

This taken care of, the father returns to the celebration. In the end, the wine doesn't run out and everyone rejoices until the small hours of the morning. Happy and exhausted, the father and his family then return home.

The next morning, he has a guest. It is R' Tzvi, the owner of the wine warehouse, and he is furious. He tells the groom's father that apparently, someone entered his warehouse during the wedding and took several cases of wine. Some of the bottles were later found smashed on the street.

The groom's father summons the boy and the story emerges. When he arrived at the warehouse, no one was there — not surprisingly, given that almost all the city's Jews were at the wedding. The boy managed to find his way in and took a few cases of wine. On his way back, he slipped and some of the bottles fell and broke. And what of the money? The boy fell silent.

A few weeks later, the boy turned 13; he was now bar mitzvah, an adult in Jewish law. R' Tzvi summoned him to Beit Din, a Torah trial, before Rabbi Yaakov Reischer, the head of the Prague rabbinical court.

To the surprise of many, Rabbi Reischer ruled that the boy was obligated to pay for the damage he had caused, even though he was a minor at the time of the incident. The surprise was due to the fact that the halachah clearly states that a minor cannot be held responsible for damage that he causes. Rabbi Reischer explained that in his view, a minor was only exempt because one cannot hold him responsible for his actions. Nonetheless, this does not mean that an item he stole became his! If the object is found, it is certainly returned to its owners.

In a case where the object is not found but the minor benefited from it in some way (such as by drinking the wine), the minor is obligated to repay the loss. This differs from a case in which he only caused damage and gained nothing. While a minor cannot be sued, as an adult he is now required to restore what he unlawfully took.

Rabbi Reischer then added support for his view from a law written in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) which stipulates that a minor who borrowed money must repay it. Although one cannot impose responsibility for damages on him, if he undertakes a financial obligation then it applies to him, and he is obligated to pay once he becomes an adult. If so, the same would seem to apply if he steals an item and benefits from it.

The Vilna Gaon, however, disputes Rabbi Reischer's understanding of the halachah. In his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, he writes that while a minor is indeed obligated to repay a loan, this does not apply to a stolen object. The reason, he explains, is that the Sages specifically enacted a provision enabling a minor to borrow money, so that if he suffers from hunger or some other want, he will be able to obtain a loan. If minors were not obligated to repay loans, no one would lend them money; therefore, they were specifically obligated in repayment.

With regard to other cases involving how a person should deal with sins committed as a minor, Rabbi Reischer notes that according to the Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles), someone who was a child when he cursed his father is obligated to repent when he becomes an adult. The same applies to any other transgression between man and his fellow — one should repent to the extent possible, and this includes asking the wronged party for forgiveness.

Nevertheless, writes Rabbi Reischer, the victim should not be too strict with him nor demand that he repay beyond is ability.