Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress
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Opening post by the rabbi
Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress
Posted on 10/2/2005
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Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress
The following remarks are made about the archetypal average secular Jew. Of course, each case must be considered on its own merits.
As is well known, many are stringent not to cause a secular Jew to transgress. For example, they will not give him driving directions on the Sabbath, nor will they cross in front of him on the road so as not to cause him to stop his car and turn on the brake lights.
And yet I have always wondered what sense there is in this. If indeed the typical secular Jew is a captured infant (for after all, we do not ‘cast him down’ as one otherwise would. And I certainly think this is justified. He is indeed a captured infant in every respect), then he is like someone who is unaware of the very existence of the Sabbath.
And even if he knows the bare information that there is such a thing as the Sabbath and that some ‘Indians’ are careful to observe it, from his perspective that means nothing at all.
If so, one who is unaware of the very existence of the Sabbath incurs only one sin-offering for all his transgressions (see the Mishnah at the beginning of the chapter ‘A Great Principle’). If so, what room is there for the question of causing him to transgress, or of reducing the number of his transgressions?
Perhaps, however, there is room to discuss the transgressions as something that harms the collective (drilling a hole in the boat we all share), but not with respect to him himself, regarding whom it seems that this makes no practical difference. If so, this is the prohibition of ‘placing a stumbling block before the blind,’ which is an obligation between a person and God, and not toward the other person.
I would prefer that we not get into the question of ‘let the wicked man gorge himself and die,’ which contradicts my basic premise.
I have not investigated the matter, and presumably there are discussions of it in contemporary articles (and presumably it has already come up on our forum as well).
I would appreciate it if someone would enlighten me.
Source (the forum ‘Stop Here, Think’): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1278994