Another matter: “You shall take for you” – Rabbi Ḥiyya taught: With a transaction and not with robbery; “for you” – for each and every one of you; “for you” – from what is yours and not what is stolen. Rabbi Levi said: One who takes a stolen palm branch,20To use for the mitzva. to what is the matter comparable? To a bandit who is sitting at a crossroads and robbing the passersby. One time, a legionnaire passed by him to collect the taxes for the province, and he rose before him, robbed him, and took everything that was in his possession.
Sometime later, the bandit was apprehended and incarcerated in prison. The legionnaire went to him and said to him: ‘Give me what you robbed from me, and I will advocate on your behalf before the king.’ He said to him: ‘From everything that I have robbed and from everything that I have taken, this man21A reference to himself. has nothing other than this rug that is beneath me, and it is from what was yours.’
He said to him: ‘Give it to me, and I will advocate on your behalf before the king.’ He said to him: ‘Take it.’ He said to him: ‘You should know that tomorrow when you enter before the king to stand trial and he asks and says to you: Do you have a person who will advocate on your behalf, say to him: I have so-and-so legionnaire who will advocate on my behalf. He will send and summon me, and I will come and advocate on your behalf before him.’
The next day, they stood him on trial before the king. The king asked him, saying to him: ‘Do you have a person who will advocate on your behalf?’ He said to him: ‘I have so-and-so legionnaire who will advocate on my behalf.’ The king sent and summoned him and said to him: ‘Do you know anything in favor of this man?’
He said to him: ‘I know that when you sent me to collect the taxes of that province, he rose before me and took everything that was in my possession. This rug that was from what was mine attests in his regard.’ All the people were crying out and saying: ‘Woe unto this one whose advocate became his prosecutor.’ So, a person takes a palm branch in order to accrue merit, but if it is stolen, it cries out before the Holy One blessed be He and says: ‘I was obtained by robbery; I was obtained by villainy!’ The ministering angels say: ‘Woe unto this one, whose advocate became his prosecutor.’