A Question About Repaying Stolen Money

if someone stole money in business in the past and has stopped the sin how exactly does he repay the amount that was stolen if it was a large amount is it allowed to give it staka uh in a total amount stolen ah very good question so if a person stole this money if he's Jewish and he stole it from another Jew then he has to return it to that Jew he has to return it to that Jew he cannot give that money in staka now unless if that Jew that he stole from died or he's simply uh nowhere to be found he's he tried to find him he's nowhere to be found the his kids his wife are nowhere to be found and uh you simply can't find them then you could actually give that money to a public cause such as K or uh some type of public uh uh uh need homeless shelter it even be uh in order to uh do something that this person or his descendants could potentially benefit from of course helping uh the world learn more Torah is more beneficial than uh than anything else but again Some people prefer to give it to homeless shelters or other public causes either way that's only if you cannot find him that's only if you cannot find him another time that this is applicable is if a person stole it from an entity where if that entity were to find out that they stole from them they would simply arrest him and put him in jail now there's no Mitzvah of you going to jail so if if you returning the money is going to put you in trouble then you could again do the same thing that I mentioned and give the money for their behalf on their behalf uh you know to a public cause um if a uh if a person uh stole from a non-jew the same applies you have to return it to a non-jew also you're not allowed to steal from a Jew you're not allowed to steal from a non-jew and in fact the rambam and several other Pim say that it's even worse to steal from a non-jew than it is to steal from a Jew and the reason why is because if you steal from a Jew that Jew is simply going to say that you're a bad person but if a non-jew say sees that you stole from him that non-jew is not only going to think you're a bad person he's going to think that all Jews are bad people which causes a desecration of God so stealing from a njw is much much worse hence the reason why a person has to exert some effort to return to the person that they stole from regardless of the amount little amount big amount doesn't make a difference now if the person is simply like I said not available and you've tried finding him uh legitimately tried finding him not like you you know you called the same number you have from 35 years ago it didn't work and you simply gave up no like you actually tried finding this person and he's not available he's gone then again you could go and give it to a public cause uh if you would get in trouble by giving it back uh legally you could go to jail or or or something like that then again you can give it to a public cause but uh don't automatically assume you can give it to a public cause because sometimes a person will do that when it's very easy for them to find the person they stole from they're just embarrassed to do it and uh they end up giving it to a public cause and it's not it doesn't fix it doesn't fix the problem doesn't fix the stealing so they go up to sh and they're still considered a thief and I know that many people don't want to return things that they stole because they're embarrassed but you should know that the embarrassment is necessary in order for the repentance to be complete so the embarrassed is the embarrassing part is actually necessary in order for the uh the uh tun to be complete we are meant to be a light unto the Nations not to follow their misguided practices remember every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a we don't celebrate non-jewish holidays even if they seem harmless it's a z disrespect to the Torah and could lead to CH Hashem desecration of God's name stick to our holy to and our own holidays that's the path of a true Jew