Q&A: Change of status between the act of transgression and the "fulfillment" of the transgression
Change of status between the act of transgression and the "fulfillment" of the transgression
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
Following a discussion with friends about the Huri ruling, which dealt with the issue of harm to a fetus that was born alive and later died (I discovered that there is an accepted legal principle in a number of legal systems called the Born alive rule), I wondered whether Jewish law has any discussion of a parallel process in which a person commits a transgression or causes damage, and afterward the object of the transgression/damage changes status in a way that would lead to a change in punishment.
An example I thought of: a person strikes his Canaanite slave, which puts him in a situation of liability for the death penalty if the slave dies immediately, or exemption if the slave dies after a day or two. What would happen if that same person freed the slave (so that he converts and becomes a fully Jewish person) after a day, and afterward—say, a week later—the slave dies as a direct result of the blows? At the time of the beating, the master was not liable, and at the time of death he caused the death of a fully Jewish person.
Is the Rabbi familiar with any discussion in Jewish law of a similar situation?
Answer
He was born dead, was resuscitated, and then died definitively.
If I understood the rule correctly, then causing injury or death is forbidden only to a living person. If you harmed a fetus, there is no punishment unless there are consequences for its condition when it is born alive. In the case here, he was born dead and revived, and the court ruled that this is like being born alive, and therefore harming him while he was a fetus entails punishment.
I didn’t understand exactly what you’re looking for. What change in the baby are you talking about: his birth (the change from fetus to baby), or his resuscitation after birth (from a dead baby to a live baby), or perhaps the transition from a live baby to his final death?
None of these seems to me like the principle you’re talking about. When the baby was revived after birth, it became clear that he had been alive, and harming him as a fetus constituted harming a living person. This is not a change of status operating retroactively; rather, since this is a result-based offense, you have to examine whether the required result actually occurred. The change of status does not alter the punishment, but rather reveals retroactively that he was alive from the outset (because someone who is dead but can be revived is alive. The resuscitation revealed that he was a dead person who could be revived).
Therefore I do not understand the question.