Man Seeks Rabbinic Ruling That Neighbor A Putz

“Is habitual inconsiderateness a din de’oraisa or just a very strong chumra?”

Teaneck, April 19 — Chaim Lefkowitz has formally petitioned the local Beis Din for a verdict that his next-door neighbor, Shlomo Katz, is in fact a putz, or at least a shkotz.

The 47-year-old father of five says he has exhausted every other option. For eighteen months, Lefkowitz claims, he has endured Katz’s minivan parked three inches over the shared driveway line, Katz’s teenagers using Lefkowitz’s front lawn as an unofficial soccer pitch, and Katz’s habit of returning borrowed tools in noticeably worse condition than when they left the garage. Most recently, Lefkowitz contends, Katz fired up a leaf blower at 7:15 a.m. on a Sunday while Lefkowitz’s youngest was still asleep.

“I tried the polite approach,” Lefkowitz told reporters outside the Beis Din offices this morning. “I tried the ‘maybe we can learn a daf together’ approach. I even tried the ‘here’s a nice bottle of schnapps, let’s be friends’ approach. Nothing. At this point I need the rabbis to tell me, black on white, that he’s a putz. Otherwise I can’t warn the block without it being lashon hara.”

According to clerical sources familiar with the petition, Lefkowitz is not asking the court to order Katz to move his car or stop playing 1990’s Mordechai Ben-David songs at 11 p.m. on Thursday nights. He is seeking a narrow psak: that, under the circumstances, Katz meets the classical definition of a putz, thereby granting Lefkowitz a heter to (a) refer to him as such in private conversation and (b) post a factual summary on various WhatsApp groups without fear of sin.

Rabbi Yitzchak Stern, a dayan not involved in the case but familiar with its details, offered some conceptual background. “We have the Chofetz Chaim, we have the Rambam on bein adam l’chaveiro, Choshen Mishpat Hilkhos Sh’kheinim, and we have eighteen months of security-camera footage,” he said. “It’s not a simple question. Is habitual inconsiderateness a din de’oraisa or just a very strong chumra? Is not acting like a complete schmuck something that others have a right to expect, and therefore can impose informal social sanctions such as the epithets ‘shkotz,’ ‘shmendrick,’ or ‘no-goodnik’ if one fails to maintain such minimum thresholds of interaction? It’s a machloikes poiskim, no doubt – what isn’t, in our complex world? I wouldn’t expect a ruling before Shavuos.”

Shavuos begins this year at sundown on May 21.

Katz, reached by phone while backing his minivan into Lefkowitz’s driveway, rejected the entire premise. “He’s the putz,” Katz said. “His kids kick balls into my rose bushes. His wife once asked me if I could ‘turn down the sukkah lights’ because they shine into her bedroom. Me, a putz? Please. If the court wants to rule on something, let them rule on why his garbage cans are always at least a day late getting back from the curb.”

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