“‘And There Is One Who Perishes Without Justice’: Is There Death Without Sin?” (Column 659)

With God’s help.

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

Parashat Chukat opens with the laws of corpse-impurity; later it describes Miriam’s death, followed by the water crisis and the striking of the rock, which led to the decree of death upon Moses and Aaron. Toward the end of the portion, Aaron’s death on Mount Hor is recounted. All these are deaths decreed and carried out by the Holy One, for various reasons. This raises a broader question about human death in general: is it, too, always decreed and executed by God? It is commonly assumed so—but you surely won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree. As part of my view of God’s non-intervention in the world altogether (see, for example, Column 280), I assume that human deaths are likewise the result of ordinary worldly processes—whether death from old age, or from accidents, diseases, intentional murder, or negligent homicide (unintentional killing), and the like. I have touched on these issues before and, as is known, have thereby become a certified heretic. Yet there is an assumption that the rabbinic tradition (Hazal) presents us with a different picture. Even if that were true, I do not think the Sages possess authority and/or superior understanding regarding matters of fact; nevertheless, I thought it worthwhile to consider the issue from their perspective. I will return at the end to the significance of discussing Hazal’s view.

In Column 436 I already touched on this. I distinguished there between intentional murder and unintentional killing, and argued that from various sources in Hazal and the Rishonim it emerges that human actions done intentionally are not handed over to God’s control. Human beings have free choice, and if they decide to murder they can succeed even if the victim did not “deserve” to die. I also brought a source for this from the sugya in Chagigah 5a and R. Ḥananel there. By contrast, other sources imply that actions done inadvertently are indeed in God’s hands; the principal source is the sugya in Makkot 10b regarding the unintentional killer. I concluded there that the matter touches on other Talmudic sources as well. Here I wish to examine those two sugyot in greater detail, together with another Talmudic sugya in Shabbat 55a–b. I will present a possible stance regarding the Talmudic conception on this topic (of course, there are additional relevant sugyot).

“There Is No Death Without Sin”: The Sugya in Shabbat

The Gemara in Shabbat 55a–b discusses the connection between death and transgression:

Rav Ami said: There is no death without sin and no suffering without transgression. “There is no death without sin,” as it is written: “The soul that sins—it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him,” etc. (Ezekiel 18). “There is no suffering without transgression,” as it is written: “I will punish their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with plagues” (Psalms 89:33).

The opening dictum, by Rav Ami, assumes that there is no death without sin. He derives this from verses in Ezekiel (chapter 18), to which we will return. If so, it would seem that every death is God’s doing (i.e., by His decision), for otherwise why link death to sin? One can, of course, say that God embedded in creation a nature that causes every person who has sinned sufficiently to die. This distinguishes the question of God’s involvement in the world from the question of “death without sin.” Still, within the picture that “there is no death without sin,” there is, at least indirectly, divine involvement (the introduction of additional spiritual “laws of nature”). Bare physical laws, by themselves, would not truly produce such an outcome. In any case, here I will deal with the question of death without sin, not with the broader question of divine intervention.

Now the Gemara raises a challenge from a baraita:

They challenged: The ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Master of the Universe, why did You impose death upon Adam the first?” He said to them: “I commanded him a light command and he transgressed it.” They said to Him: “But Moses and Aaron, who fulfilled the entire Torah, died!” He said to them: “One fate is for the righteous and for the wicked, for the good….”

On the one hand, we see that Adam’s death was because of sin. On the other hand, Moses and Aaron—who did not sin—nevertheless died. Ultimately, the baraita states that one and the same fate befalls the righteous and the wicked. Simply put, all can die, with or without sin. Whence, then, the assumption that death was imposed upon Adam by God due to sin? That it was imposed by God appears explicitly in the Torah, and so too that it was because of sin. But according to the Gemara at this stage, that is not necessary: in Adam’s case it says it was due to sin, yet death without sin is also possible, as with Moses and Aaron.

Note that all the deaths discussed here—Adam, Moses, and Aaron—are explicitly said to have been imposed by God. He decreed and He carried out. This raises the question about ordinary human deaths: are they also done by God because of sin? Obviously, if even a death directly decreed by God can occur without sin, then for an ordinary person, all the more so. There it is not a divine imposition at all, but rather a matter of the ordinary course of the world.

To this the Gemara answers:

He (Rav Ami) holds like this tanna, as it is taught: R. Shimon b. Elazar says: Even Moses and Aaron died because of their sin, as it is written: “Because you did not believe in Me…” (Numbers 20:12)—[implying] had you believed in Me, your time to depart from the world would not yet have arrived.

That is, there is another tanna who holds that even Moses and Aaron died due to a sin (apparently, the striking of the rock in our parashah). Thus, we now have a tannaitic dispute as to whether Moses and Aaron died on account of sin, or whether it was a divine decree without sin. According to the view that they died without sin, death can occur without sin. Rav Ami follows the view that there is no death without sin; hence, in his opinion Moses and Aaron died because of their sin.

The Gemara then challenges from another baraita:

They challenged: Four died “on account of the Serpent,” and these are they: Benjamin son of Jacob, Amram father of Moses, Jesse father of David, and Chileab son of David. All (of this) is received by tradition, except for Jesse father of David, about whom Scripture explicates, as it is written: “And Amasa did Absalom appoint over the army instead of Joab; and Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Ithra the Israelite, who went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, mother of Joab” (II Samuel 17:25). Was she the daughter of Nahash? Was she not the daughter of Jesse, as it is written: “And their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail” (I Chronicles 2:16)? Rather [she is called] “the daughter of one who died on account of the Serpent.” Whose opinion is this? If you say the tanna of the baraita of the ministering angels—behold, there are Moses and Aaron!

The baraita says that only four died “on account of the Serpent,” i.e., without sin (merely because death was decreed upon humankind due to the sin of Adam and the serpent). This contradicts the view that Moses and Aaron died without sin. To this the Gemara replies:

Rather, is it not R. Shimon b. Elazar? Learn from here: There is death without sin and suffering without transgression—and the refutation of Rav Ami is indeed a refutation.

This baraita follows R. Shimon b. Elazar, who holds that even Moses and Aaron died because of their sin.

In the end, it emerges that Rav Ami and R. Shimon b. Elazar maintain that there is no death without sin, and that Moses and Aaron died because of their sin. The baraita that four died “on account of the Serpent” holds that only four died without sin, while everyone else dies for their sin. And the baraita of the ministering angels holds that even Moses and Aaron died without sin.

[Parenthetically, this last stance is difficult, for the verses themselves say that they died because of their sin. This is explicit in our parashah (Numbers 20:12):

“And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron: ‘Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land that I have given them.’”

True, the decree here is that they will not enter the land, not an explicit decree of death. According to that view, their death was decreed upon them without sin. Moreover, the Gemara sounds as though they had not sinned at all—“they fulfilled the entire Torah, and [yet] died”—not merely that they did not die for their sin. This seems plainly to contradict the verses. Perhaps the intent is that they fulfilled the entire Torah, and therefore for a single sin of this sort it was not fitting that they should die.]

However, as we saw above, Rav Ami and the first baraita dealt only with people whose death God Himself decreed and whom He Himself took. The discussion is whether, when God Himself causes someone to die, this happens only on account of sin or also without sin. But it is not clear what they think regarding ordinary people’s deaths. It may be that, according to all opinions, those die by the ordinary course of the world. As I noted earlier, the deaths discussed in Parashat Chukat are all of this sort (Miriam and Aaron; and also Moses, upon whom only a decree was pronounced, which will be carried out at the end of the Torah). Accordingly, those four who died “on account of the Serpent” were taken by God, rather than dying by the ordinary course; hence it is stated of them that they had no sin.

This brings us to the sugya in Chagigah, which explicitly says that one can perish “without justice”; in our terms, this likely refers only to ordinary death (not at God’s direct hand).

“And There Is One Who Perishes Without Justice”: The Sugya in Chagigah

In Chagigah there is a discussion whether there is one who is “swept away without justice.” The phrasing is a bit different from the Shabbat sugya. If, indeed, Shabbat addresses only death directly at God’s hand, then perhaps the wording “death without sin” (or “on account of the Serpent”) refers to divine taking, while “perishes without justice” refers to ordinary death. Now, the sugya itself:

The Gemara in Chagigah 4b–5a states:

When Rav Yosef reached this verse, he would weep: “And there is one who perishes without justice” (Proverbs 13:23). He said: “Is there someone who goes [i.e., dies] before his time?”

The Gemara moves from “there is one who perishes without justice” to “someone who goes before his time.” This shift is puzzling: if he dies without sin, the problem is not that it is “before his time,” but that it is undeserved. If he were to die “in his time” yet without sin, would that not be problematic? The Gemara’s language suggests that death “in its time” requires no justification; it is natural death. There it may occur with or without sin. But when one goes before his time, that can be only consequent to sin. If he sinned, then that is the appropriate time for him to die. But if one dies before his time without sin—that would seem impossible.

This also emerges from the language of the baraita in Shabbat:

As it is taught: R. Shimon b. Elazar says: Even Moses and Aaron died for their sin, as it is written: “Because you did not believe in Me…”—[implying] had you believed in Me, your time to depart from the world would not yet have arrived.

What determines “his time”? Perhaps physiology (age 120). Perhaps a natural death of some sort, in contrast to death “by the hand of Heaven.” On the second reading, any natural death can occur without sin; the question is only regarding “one who is swept away,” i.e., someone who is taken rather than simply dies. What does “taken” mean? Perhaps taken by God. If so, we are back to the Shabbat discussion, confining ourselves to death directly at God’s hand—and even there, the question is whether it can happen without sin (and we saw in Shabbat that this is a dispute).

Now the Gemara says that one can indeed perish without justice, and brings the case related by Rav Bibi bar Abaye:

It is so, as in the case of Rav Bibi bar Abaye, by whom the Angel of Death was wont to be. He said to his agent: “Go bring me Miriam the hairdresser of women.” He went and brought Miriam the teacher of children. He (the Angel) said to him: “I told you Miriam the hairdresser of women!” He (the agent) said to him: “If so, return her.” He said: “Since you have brought her, let her be counted [i.e., toward my tally].” He (Rav Bibi) said to him: “But how were you able to take her?” He answered: “She had a poker in her hand; she was stirring and heating an oven. She removed it and placed it on the top of her foot; it burned, her fortune waned, and I took her.”

Rav Bibi then asks the Angel of Death whether he has permission to do this:

Rav Bibi bar Abaye said to him: “Do you have permission to do such a thing?” He said to him: “Is it not written, ‘And there is one who perishes without justice’?” He said to him: “But is it not written, ‘One generation goes and another comes’ (Ecclesiastes 1:4)?” He answered: “I drag them along with me until the generation is complete; then I hand him over to Dumah.” He (Rav Bibi) said: “In any case, what do you do with the remaining years?” He answered: “If there is a Torah scholar who overlooks his measured claims (forgives insults), I add them to him, and it serves as a replacement.”

For our purposes, we see that there is one who perishes without justice—that is, a person can die even though it is not due him. It is not stated here that Miriam who was taken had not sinned, but it was before her time. Hence, the entire discussion is about death before one’s time, not about whether one can die without having sinned. This leaves us with the question: what is the “time” at which one dies regardless of sin? We saw that it could be some fixed age (120 years), or a time set in advance for that person, or the point at which a natural (or even non-natural) death occurs in the ordinary course of the world.

Those four who died “on account of the Serpent” likewise raise a question: why, indeed, were they caused to die? If there was no sin—especially given my claim that God Himself decreed their deaths—why put them to death? Evidently, their time had simply arrived. Following Adam’s sin, death was decreed upon man, meaning that people’s days were limited. Thereafter, each person dies when his day arrives; and even if he had not sinned until then, when his day arrives he dies “on account of the Serpent.” This itself shows that death, when one’s time arrives, certainly does not depend on sin. I believe those four did not die at the same age; thus, the natural death that comes irrespective of sin is not at a fixed age but when that particular person’s time comes (perhaps by the laws of nature and his physiology).

In any case, this sugya concerns a person’s death at the hands of the Angel of Death—and, simply put, the Angel of Death is Hazal’s way of describing natural death. This is not a case of God directly “taking” someone. I argued above that this can indeed happen without sin (arguably it always happens without sin—without divine involvement there is no reason to tie death to sin).

R. Ḥananel (on 5a) writes, however:

“‘There is one who perishes without justice’—the incident of Miriam the hairdresser and Miriam the teacher of children, whom the agent confused and brought the hairdresser. Some say these things were seen in a dream. Moreover, Rav Bibi bar Abaye was involved in seeing demons; thus one may say that he saw it in such a manner, and we do not rely on it. The explanation of ‘there is one who perishes without [justice]’ is such as a person who kills his fellow.”

In his view, the sugya concludes that there is someone who perishes without justice, and he is unwilling to accept this. He therefore suggests that perhaps it was a dream rather than a factual description (though if so, it is unclear why the sugya brings it as proof). Still, the verse remains—“there is one who perishes without justice”—and he must explain it; hence, he explains that this refers to a case where one person kills another.

What does this mean? It seems that if Reuben decides to murder Shimon, this can lead to Shimon’s death before his time even though Shimon had no sin warranting it. What, then, cannot happen according to R. Ḥananel? Apparently, death by way of nature (i.e., via the Angel of Death). That, according to him, occurs only if there is sin (hence, in his view, Rav Bibi’s story cannot be true). It seems R. Ḥananel understands that natural death is governed by God and therefore will not occur “without justice.” God does not execute judgment without due cause. Unlike my suggestion above, for him there is no difference between direct divine taking and natural death. The sole exception is when a person decides to murder his fellow; only in that case can there be death without sin.

However, the plain sense of the sugya accords with what I have suggested—namely, that even death before its time can befall a person without sin, as in Rav Bibi’s case (there the death was at the hands of the Angel of Death, i.e., not by God’s direct taking). And, of course, the same applies to a person who dies when his time has come (his generation has been completed). But death directly by God does not occur without sin (with the exception of the four—or six—exceptions we saw in Shabbat). Death “in its time” certainly occurs even without sin.

Ezekiel 18: “The Soul That Sins—It Shall Die”

The verses cited in Shabbat 55a are from Ezekiel 18. If we consider the context, the entire chapter speaks of death because of sin:

“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live—declares the Lord God—this proverb shall no longer be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that sins—it shall die. If a man is righteous and does justice and righteousness; has not eaten upon the mountains, and has not lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel; has not defiled his neighbor’s wife, and has not approached a menstruant woman; has wronged no one, has restored his pledge, has not robbed; has given his bread to the hungry, and covered the naked with a garment; has not given on interest nor taken increase; has withdrawn his hand from iniquity; has executed true judgment between man and man; has walked in My statutes and kept My ordinances to do truth—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God. But if he fathers a violent son, a shedder of blood, who does any of these (evils)… who has eaten upon the mountains and defiled his neighbor’s wife; has oppressed the poor and needy; has robbed; has not restored the pledge; has lifted up his eyes to idols; has committed abomination; has given on interest and taken increase—shall he then live? He shall not live; he has done all these abominations; he shall surely be put to death; his blood shall be upon him. Now if he fathers a son who sees all his father’s sins which he has done, and sees and does not do likewise; has not eaten upon the mountains; has not lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel; has not defiled his neighbor’s wife; has wronged no man; has not taken a pledge; has not robbed; has given his bread to the hungry and covered the naked with a garment; has withdrawn his hand from the poor; has not received interest nor increase; has executed My ordinances; has walked in My statutes—he shall not die for the iniquity of his father; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother, and did that which is not good among his people—behold, he shall die in his iniquity. Yet you say: Why does not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son has done justice and righteousness, has kept all My statutes and done them—he shall surely live. The soul that sins—it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked turns from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all My statutes, and does justice and righteousness—he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered to him; in his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Do I at all desire the death of the wicked?—declares the Lord God—rather, that he turn from his ways and live. But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does—shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; in his treachery that he has trespassed and in his sin that he has sinned—in them he shall die. Yet you say: The way of the Lord is not proper. Hear now, O house of Israel: Is My way not proper? Are not your ways not proper? When the righteous turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and dies in them—in his iniquity that he has done he shall die. And when the wicked turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does justice and righteousness, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considers and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed—he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says: The way of the Lord is not proper. Are My ways not proper, O house of Israel? Are not your ways not proper? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every man according to his ways—declares the Lord God. Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity not be your stumbling block. Cast away from you all your transgressions wherein you have transgressed; and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not desire the death of him that dies—declares the Lord God. Therefore turn and live.”

According to my proposal here, the entire chapter should be read as speaking of death executed by God. It does not say that death is always due to sin, but that if God executes (i.e., actively causes) someone’s death, it is only because of sin. God does not execute judgment without due justice. The chapter does not teach that a person never dies without sin, but that he is not executed for his fathers’ sins—only for his own. But that is only where he is executed (by God), not when he simply dies. Hence, the verse “there is one who perishes without justice,” which concerns ordinary death, is not problematic for what emerges from this chapter (since it addresses divine execution).

The Sugya in Makkot: The Unintentional Killer

The Gemara in Makkot 10b explains the matter of the unintentional killer thus:

Reish Lakish opened this section from here: “And one who did not lie in wait, but God brought it into his hand…” (Exodus 21:13). As people say in the ancient proverb: “From the wicked comes forth wickedness” (I Samuel 24:14). About what is Scripture speaking? Of two men who killed a soul—one killed unintentionally and one killed intentionally—yet neither had witnesses. The Holy One brings them to one inn: the one who killed intentionally sits beneath a ladder; the one who killed unintentionally descends the ladder; he falls upon him and kills him. The one who killed intentionally is [now] killed, and the one who killed unintentionally goes into exile.

The Gemara explains that when Reuben kills Shimon unintentionally, it happened due to a divine plan: previously Reuben had been liable to exile and Shimon was liable to death. To bring to each what is due him, God arranges that they come to the same place—Reuben on a ladder and Shimon beneath it. God then causes Reuben to kill Shimon unintentionally; thus Reuben receives the exile due him and Shimon receives the death due him, and all is set right.[2] At first glance, this reflects a conception contrary to the conclusion of the Chagigah sugya: here we see that there is no one who perishes without justice, for if someone dies, it is because it was due to him.

According to R. Ḥananel, who maintains that death at human hands—and only that—is not necessarily “with justice,” there is no difficulty: our sugya concerns unintentional killing, and even R. Ḥananel would agree that there is no “perishing without justice” here. In unintentional killing there is no deliberate human decision to murder; it is a mere incident. The person functions as part of natural processes; according to R. Ḥananel’s assumption, these are guided by Heaven and do not occur without justice or sin. It is akin to death by God’s hand.

On my approach, however, there is indeed a problem. I argued that the earlier discussions relate only to death directly by God, and there we saw a dispute whether that can occur without sin. But deaths in the ordinary course of the world certainly can occur without sin. Yet our sugya in Makkot speaks of such a natural death—and still assumes that this does not happen without divine guidance, and effectively, sin. The person who died had murdered in the past and was therefore liable to death.

Admittedly, the sugya here concerns someone who had murdered and was in fact liable to death, though for some reason this had not been carried out. Perhaps in such a case, God does indeed intervene to ensure that he dies, since that is his due. This does not necessarily imply that every person who dies does so on account of sin. Still, the very assumption that if a person dies he must have murdered in the past suggests that the sugya presumes there is no death without sin. On my view, one could say he died due to the other’s negligence, without any connection to a prior sin of his own.

Thus, the sugya in Makkot seems to contradict my conception, and perhaps it disputes the other sugyot. It may also be that this sugya regards unintentional killing as a special case—especially in light of the difficulty I raised in note 2.

Summary and Implications

In this column I have tried to show that death without sin is indeed possible. When a person’s time arrives, he dies because of the primordial decree following Adam’s sin (“one generation goes and another comes”). Here, sin is certainly unnecessary. If one dies before his time, it would seem that even then death can occur without sin, as we saw with Rav Bibi and as implied by “there is one who perishes without justice.” True, R. Ḥananel restricts this to intentional murder, but that is not the plain sense of the sugya. Beyond this, in Makkot it appears plainly that one who is killed unintentionally also dies on account of sin.

Bottom line: whatever Hazal’s view may be—and as we saw, there are Talmudic disputes on this—I do not feel bound by the Talmud’s conclusions in such matters, for several reasons. First, this is not a halakhic matter, and thus the Talmud holds no authority over it. Second, it is a factual matter, to which authority cannot apply. Third, I do not see how the Sages could have had information about such a matter, at least not beyond arguments and reasoning available to any reasonable person. For all these reasons, I wish to qualify the significance of the discussion presented here: I have tried to show Talmudic conceptions closer to my own, but even if there were none, I do not see myself as bound to the Talmud’s conceptions on such an issue.

More generally, it seems implausible to me that in a disaster like the tsunami, where hundreds of thousands perished, or the Holocaust, where millions died, the Holy One examined each victim and meted out exactly what he “deserved.” Such an insane concentration of those “liable to death” in one place strikes me as implausible. Therefore, to my mind, death without sin is certainly possible, both as a matter of reason and as emerges from Talmudic sugyot.

I will conclude with another methodological note. My discussion here engaged aggadic sugyot and biblical verses—two sources I generally do not dwell upon. Beyond the reasons noted above for the Sages’ lack of authority in such matters, I have often pointed out that, as a matter of fact, on such topics people ultimately adopt the stance that seems reasonable to them, not necessarily what emerges from analyzing aggadic sugyot or from studying and interpreting biblical verses. In general, it is unclear to what extent these sugyot are meant to cohere with one another; there may well be conflicting sugyot and differing conceptual stances, and it is not necessarily proper to harmonize them.

I must add, however, that the sugyot in Shabbat and Chagigah are somewhat unusual compared with many other aggadic sugyot, in that they present a seemingly systematic discussion of a conceptual issue: a fairly sharp thesis is presented; objections are raised; sources are adduced; contradictions are posed; and disputes arise in resolving them—very much like halakhic sugyot. My impression is that these are more rigorous and systematic debates than is typical for the genre. But, as noted, for our purposes that does not matter much.

[1] The Maharsha brings the verse “The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down to Dumah,” showing that there are dead who are not consigned to Dumah and those who are.

[2] A question for the discerning reader: how did it come about that Reuben was liable to exile? Did he previously kill unintentionally? Why did that happen then? Because even then he was liable to exile due to an earlier killing? How, exactly, could such a chain begin?