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Death of an hour and death of the world

שו”תDeath of an hour and death of the world
asked 2 years ago

Suppose we learn that in a minute the resurrection of the dead will take place. Is there a moral or halakhic prohibition against killing an animal that is dead for an hour?

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מיכי Staff answered 2 years ago

This is not an hour’s death, but an eternal death. Even ordinary death is an hour’s death until the resurrection of the dead, only there it will take longer.
Not everything that happens for a fixed period of time is “for a time.” For example, someone who buys land in the 48th year, right before the Jubilee, is no different from someone who buys it in the first year. Furthermore, in both cases, it is the ownership of the body and not the ownership of fruits, even though it is for a time. And the reason for this is that the Jubilee is an expropriation, not a time-limit. For example, when I sell you land for the world and after a year the king comes and expropriates it, it is clearly not ownership for the time. Your ownership is worldly and the ownership of the body. The reason for this is that ownership for the time is ownership that is predetermined for a fixed period of time. Here we are talking about a purchase that was made for the world, but the king came and expropriated. The end time was not stated in the transaction itself.
And so it is with temporal life. If it is known that the disease that is in you is the one that will kill you within a short time, this is temporal life. But if it is only known that you will die but the cause is not in you, this is eternal life. And this is the distinction of Thos in the Bible between one who throws a tool from the top of a roof, which is considered a broken tool, and one who shoots an arrow at the tool, which is not considered broken (because the cause of the breakage is not yet within it).
Although in the Jubilee this is known in advance, the transaction is still a global sale and the Torah is what terminates it. Therefore, there too, it is the property of the body. Likewise, in the case of a person who shoots an arrow, it is known that the tool will break within a few seconds, and yet since the breakage is not yet inside it, it is not a broken tool.
And so, for Landon Didan, when you kill him, it is not a partial or slight killing. It is a complete killing, and there is a prohibition against murder. The fact that God will come later and ‘take away’ the death, that is, change the situation, is not inherent in your act. You killed completely, forever, and only later did God come and revive the dead. One must discuss a situation in which you yourself have the power to resurrect the dead and you kill a person and revive him immediately, but even there, I think it is outright murder.

טירגיץ replied 2 years ago

Do you think this is also morally correct? The truth is that I didn't ask just from a halakhic perspective (which is sometimes a bit of a stretch for me). It seems to me that I personally don't mind dying for an hour at all.

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

I think that in relation to human life it is correct to apply formal thinking. It is forbidden to take a life, regardless of extenuating circumstances, etc. It is true that if you yourself ask me to do it, that is a different matter. It is like assisting suicide, which in my opinion has no moral problem. But since you asked, just because you assume it doesn't bother you, we will not invalidate the prohibition on murder.

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