If you walk in somebody’s house, you’re a guest and you lean against the window and your elbow goes through the pane and you say, “Oops, I’m so sorry,” that’s not enough. You’re sorry? If you walk out, you’re a gazlan. You have to pay for it!
Or if you’re sitting at a kiddush and you want to hand a neighbor a glass of wine and while you’re doing it, a drop falls on his pants, you have to pay for the cleaner. You can’t say, “I’m sorry.” That’s םָ„ָ‡„יƒז≈מ ין≈ּב ‚≈‚ֹוׁ ̆ ין≈ּב ̃יƒּזַּמַה. Even though you didn’t intend, you have to pay!
You have to learn these things because people are transgressing all the time! And these are sins for which there’s no forgiveness unless you pay up! They’re so serious! Yom Kippur will not help! And therefore we begin to understand the great obligation of bein adam l’chaveiro.
You must know that if you sit on somebody’s chair, it’s a chair that belongs to someone! And if instead of sitting on the four legs, you’d like to have a little ride so you tilt it back and forth on two legs — it’s not made for that. It’s not a rocking chair. So you’re loosening the glue in the joints. You’re mekatzer yamim of that chair. You have to know you’re osid liten es hadin.
It’s not a joke! It’s a serious matter! You’re a mazik! The chair might not collapse immediately, but someday it will collapse before its time because the chair was not made to sit on two legs.
