Borrowing Mitzvah Items Without Permission?

May I use someone’s tallis, tefillin, or siddur without asking?

Taking another person’s belongings without permission makes one a gazlan, even with the intent to return them. The Alter Rebbe adds that we do not go by what most owners would tolerate. If even a minority would object for fear their item might be ruined, you may not use it, even if you are certain that you won’t cause damage.¹

Mitzvah items are different. Chazal assume that a person is glad (nicha lei) to have a mitzvah done with his property where there is no loss to his pocket. Wearing a tallis briefly costs the owner nothing, so the Shulchan Aruch rules that one may take a friend’s tallis and recite a bracha on it, and the Rama says the same about tefillin.²

Since the heter rests on the owner’s presumed consent, it applies only to occasional use, and only in the place the owner left it. Taking a tallis or tefillin from shul to one’s home, or from the owner’s home to shul, is forbidden even if you put it back exactly where you found it, since a person does not want his belongings moved elsewhere.³

If you found the tallis folded, you must refold it. Otherwise, the owner will mind, and it turns out you were a borrower without permission, which is gezel. The Alter Rebbe rules that any fold will do; you need not restore the original folds, and on Shabbos, you need not fold it at all .⁴ When the owner is present, you should simply ask, and if he is known to be particular, using it is forbidden.⁵

As for the bracha, the Alter Rebbe writes that one who wears a friend’s tallis this way need not recite one, since the owner knows nothing about it and it cannot be treated as though he gave it as a gift. Yet , you may make a bracha if you wish. Tefillin need not belong to the wearer, so you do recite the bracha on them.⁶

Seforim are the exception. Since a person may read at length until the sefer wears out, the Rama forbids learning from someone else’s seforim without permission, and the Alter Rebbe writes that this prohibits even a single time. The Mishnah Berurah notes that people commonly pick up a siddur or machzor in shul, and he finds no heter for the practice.⁷

Other recent poskim are lenient. The Chesed La’alafim writes that since people commonly daven from whichever siddur comes to hand, one who leaves his siddur in shul is not particular, as long as it is returned to its place and not carried elsewhere.⁸ The Aruch Hashulchan adds that now that seforim are printed and easily replaced, one may learn from another’s sefer briefly unless he knows the owner minds.⁹

In practice, much depends on the owner and the item. A tallis or siddur left out on a shelf in shul is one thing, and a tallis in a personal locker or a valuable sefer would be different.¹⁰

See Sources (open PDF)