Are 'criminal' and 'evil' synonymous?

With God’s help

Beer – 2013

For the Matot Parsha

At the beginning of the Torah, the Torah deals with the laws of vows. When a woman makes a vow, her husband can break it only on the day he hears about it, and then her vow is null and void. But if he does not break it on that day, even if he breaks the vow later, the vow remains valid.

And here, in Rashi, on verse 6, he writes:

And the Lord will forgive her – What does the Scripture say about a woman who vowed to be a Nazirite and her husband heard and violated her, and she did not know and broke her vow and drank wine and defiled herself for the dead, she is the one who needs forgiveness, even though he is violated. And if those who violate need forgiveness, how much more so those who are not violated:

Rashi speaks of a situation in which a woman made a vow and the husband broke it on the day he heard about it but did not reveal it to her. She broke the vow intentionally, with the intention of committing an offense, but in practice she failed and did not commit the offense (since the vow was broken). Such a woman needs atonement and forgiveness, even though she apparently did not commit any offense. The atonement is for her very bad intention. Apparently, the conclusion that arises from this is that the essence of the offense is the bad intention, and the act is not necessary for the person to be considered a criminal.

In verse 16, the Torah deals with a situation where the husband violates her vow after the day of hearing it, meaning a violation that is not valid. What happens if the wife does not know that the violation is not valid and therefore inadvertently allows herself to do the deed (she thinks it is permissible), thereby breaking the vow? Rashi writes about this here:

And he bore his punishment – he entered under it. We learned from this that the one who causes a fault to his friend enters under him for all punishments:

This is the opposite situation from the previous one. Above, there was criminal intent but no offense was committed, whereas here there is an offense but no criminal intent. Rashi's words indicate that in such a situation, the woman is not at fault, and it is the husband who failed her who is subject to punishment. If so, we once again see that the main thing is the intent, not the act.

The source of Rashi's words is found in Babylonian Nazir 23:1:

TAR: +Numbers 33:1+ A woman who has committed adultery and the Lord will forgive her – a woman whose husband has committed adultery and she did not know that the Scripture says that she needs atonement and forgiveness. And when the Rabbi would come to this verse, he would cry, and what if someone who intended to offer pork in his hand and offered lamb in his hand – is required to make atonement and forgiveness, someone who intends to offer pork in his hand and offered pork in his hand – all the more so! Similarly, you say: +Vayikra 5+ and did not know, and was guilty, and bore his iniquity – and what about the one who intended to offer lamb meat in his hand and pork meat in his hand, such as a piece of half fat and half milk, he said, “Read and bear his iniquity,” the one who intended to offer pork meat in his hand and pork meat in his hand – Ach”6! Isi ben Yehuda says: And did not know, and was guilty, and bore his iniquity – and what about the one who intended to offer lamb meat in his hand and pork meat in his hand, such as two pieces, one of milk and one of fat, and bore his iniquity, the one who intended to offer pork meat in his hand and pork meat in his hand – how much more so! The Levites will discuss this matter.

Two typical cases are presented here: one thought of eating pork and ended up with a lamb, a case that corresponds to the first situation in our Rashi (intention without action). And then we are talking about someone who thought of eating lamb and ended up with a pig – which corresponds to the second case in Rashi (action without intention). The second case is what we usually call an inadvertent offense.

Is the main thing in the Torah really the intention and not the deed? And do we punish a person for bad intentions? The accepted halakhic rule is that there is no punishment for intentions. Punishment is only for actual acts of transgression. When there is no intention, this is a mitigating factor regarding the punishment (instead of punishment, there is a sacrifice), but certainly the deed is what we are punished for. A transgression is the doing of an act and not the intention to do an act. When there is no deed of a transgression, no matter how bad the intention, it constitutes at most a cause for punishment at the hands of Heaven, but certainly not one that requires punishment at the hands of man.

But on further examination, logic actually says that the picture described in Rashi is more correct for us. Why does it matter whether the person succeeded in carrying out his plan or not? And if a murderer aims a weapon and pulls the trigger, but a malfunction occurs in the weapon and his attempted murder fails, is he less evil? Does he deserve a lesser punishment? Ostensibly, an attempted murder is a complete evil, just like a successful murder. The fact that the murderer is unlucky or unlucky does not diminish his evil.

Indeed, if our perception of punishment were based on the desire to punish wickedness, we would truly expect that punishment would be given for intentions and not for actions. If an act is required in order to punish, it is a sign that this is not the halakhic perception of punishment. It is interesting to note that in most legal systems, an attempt to commit a crime is less serious than the actual commission of the crime. An attempt to murder requires a less severe punishment than a successful murder. Why? It seems that there is a perception here that sees punishment not as punishment for wickedness, but as a type of disinfection and cleansing of the filth caused by the sin. Therefore, here it is necessary that the sin be actually committed, since without someone being murdered there is no filth to clean. In ordinary legal systems, there is a punishment (albeit a lighter one) for attempted murder, but in halakhic law there is no punishment at all for attempts. In other words, halakhic law advocates a pure perception of punishment as cleansing and purification, and not retribution.

It is true that if the act is done but there was no intention (it is done accidentally), this affects the way we see the person, and of course also the punishment. An unintentional person is not punished, even though the act of the offense was committed. The reason for this is that the obligation to cleanse and purify the sin is not imposed on him, since he is not guilty. If so, the act is a necessary but not sufficient condition to impose a punishment. In addition, intention is also required. But intention without action according to Halacha does not require anything, this is in contrast to other legal systems.

If so, according to the law, what is the status of someone who has an intention but does not do the deed? As stated, this is an evil Shlumiel who fails to carry out his plan, like the one who intended to eat a pig and ended up with a lamb. Such a person is completely evil, as we saw above, but he is an evil person who did not commit a crime. Therefore, no punishment is imposed on him, but he needs forgiveness and atonement, and the intention is in the hands of Heaven. There is no crime here, since no deed was done, but his evil intention makes him a bad person in the moral and spiritual sense, and as such he needs atonement.

The conclusion from our words is that punishment comes only for actions. Without committing the offense, there is no punishment. Although the act is not a sufficient condition for punishment, it is a necessary condition. In order for us to actually punish him, intention is also required, and without it, he is mistaken, at most he must make a sacrifice to atone for himself (but not to cleanse the filth of sin, because it was not created). But our judgment of a person really depends solely on intentions, as we have seen that simple logic dictates. It seems that Rashi is talking about this in our parasha. There is no contradiction here with the halakhic view that we described, which sees the act as the sole cause for punishment.

Criminal and wicked are not synonymous. It is possible for a criminal to be non-wicked (accidentally: someone who thought of eating a lamb and ended up with a pig) and a wicked person to be non-criminal (he thought of eating a pig and ended up with a lamb). Punishment requires both criminality and wickedness, but atonement and forgiveness are required for all wickedness.

Good Saturday,

Michai Avraham