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Must die

asked 4 years ago

A person who has committed a crime and is liable to death for it, is he allowed to commit suicide or to worry that he will die, for example, asking a family member to kill him in order to fulfill the fact that “he is liable to death”? Why not, actually?

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מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago

Apparently the question is whether he is obliged to do so, not whether he is permitted to do so.
A good question that I have asked myself more than once. Simply put, it seems that he is forbidden to commit suicide, since he is not obligated to die until the court of appeals decrees it against him, unlike a financial debt that exists regardless of the ruling. Although this is apparently disputed by Reka and Tus in Batu 5a (see ibid. in GHS).
It is certainly forbidden to kill another person, since the other person is not a close witness and cannot collect evidence and sentence him to death. The person himself may have a place to judge, and as stated simply, he is also forbidden.
It seems that death will not atone for him either, since only death decreed by a nearby court atones. Thus we found in the polemic about the renewal of the ordination (in the 16th century), that they wanted to renew the ordination so that they could flog the rapists and atone for them. This means that floggings that were not decreed by a nearby court do not atone. Indeed, part of the debate there was precisely about this (see the end of the Mahalbach’s response in the ordination pamphlet in Oruch).

EA replied 4 years ago

I didn't understand something. The imposition of the penalty (death by flogging, whatever) applies immediately after the commission of the offense, meaning it is a direct result of committing the offense (the person turns from an ordinary person into a person liable to death), but the imposition is only activated by the court; or is there not even a death penalty on him as long as the court has not ruled that he is liable to death?

Incidentally, even if you find it said that an offender is prohibited from committing suicide to fulfill the "deserving of death" requirement, is he still obliged to go to the court and report and inform them that he committed an offense for which he is liable to death? And since a person does not make himself evil, is he obliged to take care of this and bring witnesses (those who gave the warning before committing the offense, for example) to the court to testify that he is liable to death?

מיכי replied 4 years ago

I explained. In the accepted view, he is not obligated to die until the judge rules on this. See Rek’a there.

In my opinion, he is indeed obligated to bring the witnesses if he can. And I saw from the question of the Melam Suf’a concerning the murderer of the singers, that the Gemara says that Pinchas had a persecutory law regarding him, despite the law of zealots harming him. And the Melam asks why a person sentenced to death cannot kill a messenger in the court of law of persecutory law. In my opinion, the answer is that the obligation to kill a Sabbath violator applies to all of Israel, including the violator himself, and in the court of law only the executioners. The obligation to kill him is also imposed on him, and therefore the messenger is also his and is not a persecutor. It is not like in the law of zealots harming him, where there is no obligation on the public to kill the Aramaic blasphemer. [And it does not contradict the view of the Rekab that there is no obligation to bring him to court. The public has an obligation to bring him to court and judge him.]
They say that the obligation to kill those who deserve death applies to the entire public, including the person who deserves death.
This needs to be further elaborated upon, and so on.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

(Sorry for the squinting). The MLA there does not make it difficult to kill a messenger in the MDA, which is obviously not justified because the messenger has an obligation to kill, but rather he is satisfied with the blood redeemer (apparently only the MDA has permission to redeem and is not commanded to do so) whether the unintentional murderer can turn around and kill him. Therefore, the MLA says that every pursuer is not permitted to turn around and kill the rescuer because the rescuer is doing his duty. Therefore, one should not arrive at the idea that the obligation is imposed on everyone, etc.

EA replied 4 years ago

Without going into too much detail, isn't there a contradiction in your words? You started by saying that only the court can rule whether the offender deserves the death penalty or not, and you ended by saying that the offender must bring the witnesses to the court because the obligation to kill those who deserve the death penalty applies to the entire public. But before going to court, he is not yet obligated to die! So why would he be obligated to bring the witnesses!

Perhaps one of the implications of your argument (that the obligation to kill those who deserve the death penalty applies to the entire public, including the offender himself) is that the offender is prohibited from fleeing after they have ruled that he deserves the death penalty! This is actually a novelty, we have not found such a prohibition. Apparently, who said that the offender is prohibited from fleeing before receiving the punishment! What do you think?

מיכי replied 4 years ago

Tirgitz, as far as I remember, the MP also comments on the Yed emissary. But he is not in front of me now.

EA, it seems that you are not reading what I am writing (perhaps due to the excitement these days 🙂 ).
Indeed, the question of escape is also a projection of my words.

EA replied 4 years ago

Hahahaha no, I'm actually focused.. Maybe I missed something in what you said, I'll repeat it tomorrow!

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

(Maybe from a comment in Mecca. https://ibb.co/Czg1jKL)

מיכי replied 4 years ago

I must have gotten my comment mixed up. Anyway, we need to discuss the messenger in the Bible and why the judge didn't bring that up as well.
Therefore, it seems that the messenger in the Bible is even more serious than the pursuer, since there is no doubt about it. What is the difference? After all, even in the pursuer, it is commanded that he kill the pursuer. That is why I wrote that here it is not a matter of obligation on him to kill the person being pursued, but that the obligation is on all of us, including the person being pursued.
It turns out that there is a hierarchy in this law:
Jealous ones who harm. Matter.
The blood savior. Mitzvah/right.
The pursuer. Obligation.
The messenger in the Bible. Obligation on the public.
(And we need to discuss a little why in the pursuer it was not said that this is an obligation on the public, including the pursuer himself. And there is a division)

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

Tirgitz, the difference between a persecutor and a messenger in the Bible is that in the persecutor it is a commandment on the public (or its right to defend itself) and in the messenger in the Bible it is an obligation on the public from God.

EA, this is the Socratic dilemma (whether to escape the death penalty), and so it is in the act of Shimon ben Shetach.

EA replied 4 years ago

Here, Rabbi, I found this one that is probably very related to our topic. You might be interested. I haven't read it yet, but I really like the author's analyses. https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/wozner-brihammismoret/he/wozner-brihammismoret.pdf

EA replied 4 years ago

Maybe it's worth a column (for the upcoming days of excitement, but I don't know if I'll have time to read it, haha) on the theory of punishment from the perspective of the offender, a perspective that hasn't been discussed enough if I'm not mistaken.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

You see. You say that the Messenger suggested in the Haw Amina that the pursuer is permitted to turn over the rescuer, and not that the one who is liable to death is permitted to turn over a messenger in the Hadith, and from this we proceed to divide between the pursuer and the messenger (so that the evidence is based on the man in the Messenger's case and not on the actual laws).
If we want to divide between the pursuer and the messenger, perhaps it is possible to do it more simply, because in a pursuer, the pursuer is certainly not obligated to kill himself in order to save the pursued, since he can always simply stop pursuing (even whoever says that it is not obligatory to save with one of his limbs and if the rescuer wants to kill, the killer seems to clearly admit that it is permissible to save with one of his limbs).
Furthermore, perhaps it is possible to invent that the Messenger's intention in the Haw Amina that a pursuer who turns over the rescuer is not killed (and perhaps even the pursuer is permitted to turn over, and not just exempted if he passed and turned over) is precisely when the rescuer saves by mistake. If the pursuer decides to stop killing (he runs and pursues the pursued but secretly decides in his heart that when he reaches him he will not kill him), then an intermediate situation is created, in which the rescuer, in his opinion, rightly thinks that he is obligated to kill, but the rescuer is mistaken in the facts and in truth there is no obligation to kill the pursuer. And precisely in the 2nd verse there is a hawa amina that the pursuer will change his mind, because in truth, after he changes his mind, there is no longer an obligation on the rescuer (and therefore every pursuer who changes his mind is exempt because he acted lawfully). But if he is sentenced to death, there is truly an obligation (commandment) on the messenger.
However, according to the 7th verse, one must decide whether a person who knows that the witnesses are wrong, such as one who knows that the witnesses are conspiring, is allowed to change his mind. And from this it seems that the one sentenced to death is allowed to turn back (it seems that this is also the case according to your explanation. Right?) But if he turns back later, they will kill him by a new messenger because in their opinion he is not allowed. And it follows that if he desecrated the Sabbath and was sentenced to death and turned back on the messenger (with witnesses and warning) and his witnesses were incited to the desecration, and then he was not liable to death at all and killed the messenger justly, was he killed on the side that killed the messenger - which has to do with the side that was not killed.

הפוסק האחרון replied 4 years ago

Suicide is a grave sin in itself. The suicide is a murderer who deserves death and has escaped punishment.

י.ד. replied 4 years ago

“Yakom Ish Tzrurot was the son of the sister of R’ Yossi ben Yoezer Ish Tzrudah, and he was the one who composed Susiya on Shabbat. Komi Sarita ran out of food. He said to him: My father-in-law Susiya Darchbi Meri, and my father-in-law Susiya Darchbi Meri. He said to him: If that is so for those who anger him, how about those who do his will! He said to him: Does a man do his will more than you?! He said to him: If that is so for those who do his will, how much more so for those who anger him! The matter entered him like the poison of Achna, and he went and personally carried out the four deaths of the court of law: stoning, burning, killing, and strangulation[14]. What did he do? He brought a beam, stuck it in the ground, tied a rope to it, arranged the trees and surrounded them with a fence of stones, and made a fire in front of it, stuck the sword in the middle, and lit a light under the trees under the stones, and hung himself on the beam and strangled. The fire was before him, the thread was cut off, he fell into the fire, a sword was before him, and a fence fell on him, and he was burned. Yossi ben Yoezer, a man of Tzari'da, dozed off, and saw his bed blown up in the air. He said: In a short time this one preceded me to the Garden of Eden. (Genesis Rabba, parasha 65, verse 22,)
And yet it seems to me that the Torah expects the sinner to repent and not necessarily to kill himself, as Ezekiel says:
“He said to them, ‘As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live, turn from your evil ways, and why will you die, O house of Israel?’
And so it is in the closing prayer of Yom Kippur:
For you do not desire the destruction of the world, as it is said: ‘Seek the Lord’ When he is found, call upon him while he is near. And it is said: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” And you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and abounding in goodness, and you desire the conversion of the wicked, and you do not desire their death, as it is said: “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘do I delight in the death of the wicked?’ But rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways, and why will you die, O house of Israel.” And it is said: “I delight in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, ‘if not in that he turn from his way and live.’” And it is said: “For I have no pleasure in the death of the dead, says the Lord, and they shall return and live”.
Or perhaps we can use verse 91, in which the Rabbi discusses a case in which a court of law was convinced that the sinner had repented and exempted him from punishment. So according to this, if a person feels that he has repented to the point of becoming a different person, as the Maimonides says, he can exempt himself from punishment even for serious offenses in the Torah.

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

EA,
For some reason what I answered does not appear here. I know and respect Shai Wesner. It is indeed interesting. But he did not cite primary sources there, only secondary ones, and he could have found them. Both in the case of Shimon ben Shetach and in the case brought by the rabbi, and of course from my comment on the rabbi.

Tirgitz,
Indeed. The evidence is from ignoring the rabbi. He discusses Zimri, the blood savior and the pursuer, but not the emissary in the rabbi.
The pursuer is allowed to save but is not obligated. If so, the question of why he cannot kill the rescuer remains. Just as with Zimri, Pinchas could have stopped pursuing and yet still have a persecutor's law.
Validity in the rabbi is unlikely.
In the last paragraph, it seems likely.

טירגיץ replied 4 years ago

It is worth adding, before reading Wesner's article (which I also join the circle of admirers, etc.), a trigger warning for those with a weak heart about an abnormal deontological level of radiation.

EA replied 2 years ago

Rabbi, a persecutor who cannot save the pursued by one of the pursuer's limbs, and in the end something happened that ultimately resulted in the pursuer not killing the pursued, is the pursuer liable to death? That is, in the 14th century, will they be killed for the very act of persecution? Or is the pursuer liable to death only if the pursued was killed?

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

A pursuer is not liable to death in a beid. The rescuer must kill him in order to save the pursued. Although there is an innovation that it is considered as a death penalty in the matter of Cain Lia in the derabah of Minya (breaking utensils is exempt from them), it is clear that there is no death penalty here in a beid. Even if someone comes in hiding, if the sun has risen on him, he has no blood.

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