In the animal kingdom, what we call stealing is a way of life. For example, a pride of lions brings down a wildebeest, but before they can feast on their kill, a group of hyenas chase off the lions and steal the meal the lions worked so hard for. This is totally acceptable for animals, yet for humans it is not. Why? What is God’s purpose in prohibiting stealing?
Are we defining “stealing,” by our own value system or by G-d’s value system?
Forget the hyenas, you yourself can chase away the lions and then YOU can cook the wildebeest and feed on it. That is not theft. G-d allows it. Of course we are assuming that no country laws are being broken, and that the wildebeest was not the private property of a human. If you take the wildebeest from a human and not from the lions, that would be theft.
(A Jew of course could not do what you are allowed to do because that wildebeest would not be kosher, and G-d requires Jews to maintain His laws of kosher.)
G-d placed animals on Earth for the benefit of people. That is their function. For food, for clothing… for a million and one uses. Yet, they are to serve man first, and only after that they can become a meal for some other animal.
G-d prohibits stealing because human beings are not animals. Yes, they have an animal component; but they also have a neshama (human soul). No animal has a neshama. It is the neshama that G-d is interested in developing. It is from the neshama that man has the ability to discern right from wrong. G-d gives us rules to develop this understanding. Such rules are not necessary for animals, whose actions are instinctive, and will never develop a spiritual side that G-d is looking for from us.