State's Witnesses: A Bleak Look at Jewish Law and Our Contemporary Rabbis (Column 84)

From what the Arukh HaShulchan wrote in Choshen Mishpat 388:7 and in Tzitz Eliezer 9:52, it appears that the prohibition of informing to the authorities specifically does not apply under a government that is run justly when there is a need for it; see there.

under a government that is run*

Rabbi Buaron is no longer a rabbinical judge in the Rabbinate (his son fills his place), and Rabbi Arousi is in any case also a Doctor of Law…

More power to you.
The reasoning of "moser" as though this were a gentile government teaches us about the motivation behind the ruling.
Unbelievable.

M,
I hope you’re not seriously intending to argue with this nonsense. Certainly not with quotations from Tzitz Eliezer, who is a known heretic and half a Zionist, God save us.

And therefore?

Bentsi, this doesn’t teach us about any motivation; it says so explicitly. That really is what they think there.
By the way, that in itself may perhaps be legitimate, because I too think that on the principled level there isn’t much difference between the State of Israel and Belgium (except that here there are Jews, and therefore I personally am happier to live here). The stupidity is to think that one can live a normal life with the law of a moser applying to someone who turns to the authorities and cooperates with the law. That is the worst kind of idiocy I see here, and it leads to the corruption and decay of Haredi society.

Regarding note 2.
I didn’t understand why compare “So-and-so sodomized me willingly” to “I wanted to” and then witnesses came, so that he should be exempt under the law of one who admits to a fine and then witnesses come—he is exempt (according to the view that says so)? What fine is there here?

Many thanks for the last post! You can add to the list the authentic Sephardic Chief Rabbi as well:
A report from the newspaper B’Kehillah, February 2017 — Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef: the concept called a “state witness” is without any doubt against halakhah:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJAdMjYRm7IMnZiT1VyckRvTGc

Warm regards,

Many thanks.
Indeed, one more for the list of fools. As it is said: “My father chastised you with whips…”
Goodbye,

Oh, at last there is someone here who understood what is really important in this article. I’ll try to explain more, because I was brief.

First question: “An admission of a litigant is like a hundred witnesses.” In the language of our lawyer-cousins, confession is the queen of evidence. But one who admits to a fine is exempt. Where did the queen of evidence go? Why shouldn’t we obligate him?
Second question: halakhically it is ruled that one who admits to a fine and afterward witnesses come is exempt. And here the son asks: granted, the confession itself does not obligate him, but why shouldn’t the witnesses obligate him? Where did their power disappear?
And these two are resolved by one another: the one who admits is certainly believed in his admission even regarding a fine. But once he admitted, he is considered a penitent, and therefore he is forgiven (in the language of the later formalists: the confession exempts; it doesn’t merely fail to obligate). Therefore even if witnesses come afterward, they do not obligate him. Not because they are not believed, but because we forgave him.

And from here you will also understand why in monetary matters confession does help. When a person admits to a loan, this is not a punishment but a monetary debt. Therefore it makes no sense to forgive him, since he has his fellow’s money in his possession. So if confession is the queen of evidence, then it is clear to us that he borrowed, and therefore it is clear that we obligate him to repay. Only with punishments, where there is no monetary obligation to another person but only a punitive obligation upon him, can we forgive him when he confesses. We waive the punishment for him.

That is with monetary punishments, meaning fines. But what about corporal punishments, or other punishments? A person who incriminated himself is certainly believed, for confession is the queen of evidence. So why is he exempt from punishment? One could say that this is because we forgive him, just like one who admits to a fine. If so, then even when witnesses come after the self-incrimination, there is room for the reasoning that we should not punish him. The self-incrimination exempts; it does not merely fail to obligate.

However, one can distinguish in several ways:
1. From the language of the Gemara, “a person cannot render himself wicked,” it does not sound as though he is forgiven because he confessed and repented, but rather that there is an essential inadmissibility here.
2. Perhaps they forgive him only for the lighter monetary punishments and not for the more severe corporal punishments, but I have found no source for this distinction (nor for my comparison). Plainly, one should compare them to each other, although I haven’t yet found that either (I only just now thought of the question). I assume that in the Gemara we will not find proof one way or the other, but perhaps among the Rishonim or Acharonim we will.
It should be remembered that we split testimony also in testimony about interest, which is monetary, and by logic it does not seem to me that lending at interest is more severe than theft. True, there plainly they are only disqualified from testimony, which ostensibly is not a punishment at all but a halakhic consequence. But this can be discussed at great length, and this is not the place.
That concludes my pilpulim.

The pilpul is nice, but still, for our purposes, (and as you yourself wrote in option 1, if I understood correctly), the analogy between “rendering oneself wicked” and “admitting to a fine” is not compelling at all, and in my opinion not so precise. The reason the Sages exempted one who admits is because it is a “fine” — an obligation they imposed on him בעקבות a serious deed he did, and therefore repentance and confession are relevant and exempt him (and not merely “do not obligate” him) from the fine. That is not so with “a person cannot render himself wicked” and “a person is close to himself,” etc., where this is not a matter of fine but an obligation by law; he simply cannot impose it on himself, and when witnesses come he will certainly be obligated, and there is no logic in his earlier confession to exempt him.

In any case, thanks a lot.

Absolutely not correct. Is a fine not an obligation by law? From where did you draw this strange claim? A fine is entirely an obligation by law, except that it is a punishment and not compensation. Therefore self-incrimination, which is a confession to a punitive obligation imposed by law, is exactly like one who admits to a fine.

And after all the cynicism…
Even when judging according to the law of the kingdom, it is still right to reflect on certain directions that the Torah sets out and on what can be learned from them.
When the Torah equates the small and the great and the poor, it teaches an idea that should also radiate onto the king’s law, so that there too they should not prefer convicting the great over convicting the poor simply because this one is great and that one is poor.
When the Torah teaches that one must distance oneself from the testimony of an interested party because it is not clean, that too should radiate onto the king’s law, even though it accepts testimony that is invalid under Torah law.
And as I understand it, this is the intention of the rabbis being quoted: to say that according to the spirit of the Torah, according to the worldview that can be inferred from Torah law, such dubious agreements, whose stench carries from afar, are not proper even if they carry a certain price.

Now I understood what you meant.

With monetary punishment there is the principal and there is the fine (that is what I meant by “not from the essence of the law”; I was imprecise in my wording. And I was mistaken to compare corporal punishment to the “principal”).

What does convicting the small and the great have to do with this? Who spoke about that?
And even if so, who says otherwise? What is the “intellectual” novelty here? Maybe in the third millennium BCE that was a novelty, and credit to our holy Torah for teaching us and the whole world this thing. But a day or two has passed since then, no?

The Torah teaches nothing regarding an interested witness. That is the reasoning of the Sages (whether they compare him to a litigant and a relative, or whether they see him as suspect of lying), and this “intellectual” reasoning exists for every sensible person, including kindergarten children. Does someone need to be taught that an interested witness is biased? Are these the “ideas” one finds in the Torah? These are banal things that nobody ever thought to dispute (except in halakhah itself, of course, because there there are “intellectual” views that this is an intrinsic disqualification and not a suspicion of lying. That is, the only place where this reasoning is not self-evident is halakhah). The relevant question here is not whether to believe an interested witness, but how to apply that principle and to what extent, and on that you chatterboxes have of course said nothing.

And it is still interesting to look for proof for my reasoning that one who incriminates himself and afterward witnesses come is exempt (from punishment. It is unlikely that he would be exempt from disqualification as a witness).

By this logic one could also justify torture. How can we get to the truth and prevent crime in the face of criminals without methods of torture like these? There is a danger here to the very existence of the state, for whose sake it is certainly justified to use torture on criminals and squeeze the truth out of them. The abolition of torture two hundred years ago brought us to our current situation, with a flourishing criminal system and no tool in the hands of the state to deal with it except the ridiculous institution of the state witness.

A good article about self-incrimination and plea bargains can be found here: https://alaxon.co.il/article/%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA/

Not ridiculous at all.
If you or our intellectual Torah have a better idea — I have no doubt it will be listened to very attentively.
As for torture, it all depends on the level of threat (whether it justifies torture, and how much). Exactly like the matter of state witnesses.

Sorry, that was ironic. Compared to torture, a state witness is certainly a less fearsome tool.
There is logic in the institution of the state witness, just as there is logic in the institution of torture and in the institution of the plea bargain, and yet there is also logic in criticizing them. Institutions of this type create a certain incentive that does not always serve justice and truth, even if it serves social order. And since, in my view as a citizen, it is also important that the state’s justice system seek justice and truth and not only social order, it matters to me that criticism of these institutions be heard, even if under rabbinic cover, if only to arouse discussion about them that will set limits for them.

You are right that these institutions belong to the level of the state and not to Torah law. But at least from the story of the killers of Joash in the book of Chronicles, it seems that King Amaziah took inspiration from Torah law in order to avoid collective punishment, as Ran writes on tractate Sanhedrin:
“And he slew not the children of the murderers, according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying: The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall die for his own sin” (II Kings 14:6; parallel in II Chronicles 25:4)

Yes, but that’s trivial. Of course there is room for criticism, and of course rabbis are also allowed. Only if we could avoid the banal to the point of idiocy, that would be very nice.
And the inspiration from Torah law is always only when you would have acted that way anyway on the basis of your own reasoning. So what is the fig leaf of the Torah’s intellectuality for? I’m already fed up with this shallow vacuity. Innocently, I thought one could expect a bit more from Torah scholars than from the last idiot. I was mistaken.

Isn’t reasoning a cultural matter?

I didn’t understand the question.

With God’s help, 15 Av 5777

A “state witness” is not merely an “interested party,” but someone who received a benefit in order to testify in the direction desired by the investigative and prosecutorial authorities. If there is strong circumstantial evidence, there may perhaps be room to accept it because of emergency necessity, and then there is no need to validate the dubious testimony of a witness who received a benefit.

The selective publication of “incriminating” material from interrogation rooms, when the person being investigated cannot present his full version lest he be accused of “obstructing investigative proceedings” — may cause that person irreversible damage, for even if after many months or years he is found innocent, he has already been judged and convicted by the media and public opinion. This is true regarding every person, and especially regarding public figures who are in the “crosshairs” of many rivals. Care must be taken not to harm the good name of innocent people.

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

In the last line:
… in the “crosshairs” of many rivals, …

I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, but for several years now (and probably much longer in the depths of my heart) the thought has been forming in me that nowadays, among 90 percent of those called Torah scholars (and were I not afraid, I would say even more), there is a problem of lack of judgment, a lack of common sense. It’s not that if they hadn’t studied Torah they would have had judgment, but there is a feeling that somehow their Torah study increases the lack of judgment that was already there before. It seems this is a process that began 150–200 years ago and has gradually intensified. There is such a feeling that I would almost say (in paraphrase): “A Torah scholar — who has no judgment.” What the rabbi saw in this article is a drop in the ocean. I have seen dozens of articles of this kind in “Kikar HaShabbat,” “B’Hadrei Haredim,” “Srugim,” and more. One of two things always happens: with regard to an issue related to the sphere of the optional/permitted (let us set aside for the moment the Haredi view that there is no such thing) and not a distinctly halakhic issue (at least on the surface), either they say things that are unreasonable (and not only because of some superficial contradiction to the Torah), or they say trivial things but in the name of the Torah. As if from a kind of lack of self-confidence: if Heaven forbid the Torah does not command or forbid, then we won’t know what to do (again, regardless of whether in fact the Torah did command it). I have seen ridiculous discussions about environmental protection with all kinds of rabbinic sources. What happened to simply understanding that polluting the environment has bad consequences for us? Good thing they didn’t bring sources for not wasting money because otherwise there won’t be any left. And the phenomenon is spreading in religious Zionism as well, where every military operation becomes “the war of God against His enemies” (regardless of the correctness of that claim, which inwardly I do agree with), and not, Heaven forbid, simply defending ourselves. Rabbi Amital once spoke about holiness built on top of normalcy. It seems that the normalcy (simple common sense) is simply lacking among Torah learners. It reminds me that in Haredi elementary school there is no such subject as “nature,” God save us. There is “the wonders of the Creator” (as though if you mention nature, tomorrow everyone will deny God. There is no such thing as nature. Everything is miracles. And what happens as a matter of course is that the value of miracles naturally declines).

Indeed.
Every word is true.
It reminds me of the principal of my sons’ cheder who, at the end of an evening we held in the community center hall in Yeruham, asked us to clean up and not leave any trash behind so that there should not, Heaven forbid, be a desecration of God’s name.

Hence you must say:
If the rabbi says something accepted by the “consensus,” they will rebuke him for being trivial; if he says something controversial, they will denounce him for saying something unreasonable; and if he chooses the “right to remain silent,” he will be denounced for disconnecting from reality.

So what should the rabbi do?

Respectfully, Sancho Panza, man of La Mancha,

In terms of reasoning — it really does require investigation what the distinction is.
In terms of the law — in my opinion and according to my (very limited) familiarity, it is hard that anyone would say such a thing, for if so you would exempt murderers, etc., by their running to court to confess immediately after the act… If this were correct, it is something that should have been stated explicitly in the earlier sources.

The attack on the rabbis from the direction that the charges are not completely canceled but only reduced, and from the direction that in the end the state witness may be harmed socially, is one of the stupidest things I have read. What difference do the details of the benefit make? In the end he decided it was worthwhile for him.
As an aside,
do you think it would also be possible to give a suitcase of dollars to a witness so that he would agree to testify? What is the difference?
do you think there is any difference between the eagerness of police and prosecutors to notch an X on the belt (certainly over a reviled prime minister) and the eagerness of every litigant to profit? Would you allow one side in a case, who has the money and the means, to hire witnesses as he pleases?
In general, the credit you implicitly give to the common sense of the state’s justice system is excessive.

Rabbi, it seems this is a dispute between Rashi and Tosafot in tractate Makkot 5a (Rashi s.v. “What is the reason”; Tosafot s.v. “At the time”).
And regarding the end of note (2), perhaps Tosafot s.v. “What practical difference does it make” in Bava Batra 45 suggests another way to resolve it.

To Sancho Panza (is it really Pansha?)

This has nothing to do with what specifically a rabbi has to do. Every person should know what to say as needed. If one needs to be silent, then one should be silent and not get excited by condemnations. Those who condemn usually use rabbis in order to advance their private agendas. And any person who needs to say something is better off not saying trivial things at all (unless he suspects that for others they may not be trivial). And every rabbi is also a human being and can also say what he has to say in one of the optional spheres as a human being and not necessarily as a rabbi, if he has something intelligent to say about it. A rabbi can and should speak as a rabbi and speak in the name of the Torah on matters that are in the sphere of commandment and obligation (the Torah sphere), and even then, mainly only if he has something substantive (and preferably original) to say. A situation in which there is simply no basic understanding that you need to clean up after yourself (simple morality, and not even as “derekh eretz preceded the Torah”), but only because otherwise there will be a desecration of God’s name, is itself a desecration of God’s name (and then no honor is accorded to the rabbi). And the very fact that even for this situation one again has to use the concept “desecration of God’s name” is again a desecration of God’s name, and so on ad infinitum, or until all the flutes are desecrated.

And again, although in practice morality is part of “derekh eretz,” the very fact that one still has to use this Talmudic terminology is again a lack of judgment (and again, a desecration of God’s name).

Again, to Sancho Panza

I still haven’t addressed all the cases you presented. The problem the rabbi presented is not that the rabbis said something trivial, but that they felt a need to say it in the name of the Torah. And rabbis are permitted (and sometimes obligated) to say things that are controversial. To be controversial does not mean “unreasonable.” Something unreasonable means something that no reasonable person would accept, including the rabbi himself, except that for some reason, because it seems that the Torah says the opposite, he suddenly loses all his human critical sense and becomes like a person who got hit on the head with a hammer and says what he says as though it could not even be thought otherwise. I say deliberately “it seems that the Torah says the opposite” because I believe the Torah cannot conflict with common sense (because if there is no common sense, there is nothing. There is madness). The Torah also does not in fact derive from it. My belief is that the Torah is above it, like a building with two floors. The second floor is built on the first. If the first falls, the second falls too. On the other hand, from the second floor one sees farther than from the first. The fact that the Torah is on the higher floor means that sometimes, when there is a clash between the Torah’s commands and what seems to us to be logic (common sense), then one of three things is the case:

Either the Torah has another internal logic that overrides our logic, which we do not know (for example, if by chance someone were a liberal person and homosexual relations appeared to his human eyes to be legitimate relations, but he also believes in the Torah and its eternity, then the prohibition of male homosexual intercourse would defeat his private common sense by force of some hidden reason that the Holy One, blessed be He, has — but really there is no loss of common sense here, but the victory of one part of common sense over another part).

Or indeed what you think the Torah commanded is not in fact what it commanded (this has happened to me many times).

Or indeed common sense, under deeper examination, is mistaken (it is crooked) (this too has happened many times).

In any case, there is such a thing as common sense, and a person must believe in it, otherwise he cannot believe in anything. The criticism of the rabbis is that if the Torah says something that contradicts simple human perception, they do not say: there is a contradiction here and there is no choice — if we do not go according to the Torah, things will be worse. Rather, it seems as though the simple human perception does not even occur to them. As if they do not have it at all. The example is again same-sex relations. This is a legitimate dispute between conservatives and liberals (as happens in the USA), and although there is truth on each side, in the end only one of them is actually right (the ultra-conservative side — tolerant conservatism, which allows the other side to err and does not kill it in mass impulsiveness). But one cannot deny the simple reality that in general the current Western attitude toward LGBT people, even with its own insanities and deviations from common sense, compared to what it was in the past (they executed them, put them in prison) and what it still is in the East — is progress in the world. But no, the rabbis supposedly do not see this. No mind — no worries. It says “abomination.” That’s it. Head against the wall. No reflection on reality at all. Nothing. Zero attempt to understand how the Torah (not at the level of the prohibition, where there is not so much of a problem, like the prohibition concerning a mamzer, for example, but at the level of “abomination”) fits with what appears to the eye. This is just donkey-like primitiveness. (But for some reason you don’t see a rush of Haredim to Iran. Or even to Alabama. They live in New York, Antwerp, London, Paris. The tolerance that allows them to live good lives as they wish they exploit. But for others — no. And I assume the same is true of Hardalim. Either this is hypocrisy or a lack of judgment.) And this is because they learned Torah. It is actually a kind of flattery toward the Torah, not faith in its justice.

Apparently these novelties are not so self-evident even today.
In order to secure the conviction of an important person, they are willing to turn a blind eye to the deeds of a less important person. And in order to secure a conviction, they are willing to resort to testimony whose involvement in the matter is very conspicuous and casts a heavy shadow.
Is there justice in this? And is raising the conviction rate (with all its benefit) worth the damage to the pursuit of justice?
Perhaps in your eyes a state witness is something acceptable and upright, but others think this is a highly dubious institution, like other unjust laws such as plea bargains. And in their opinion (and mine), the directions the Torah sets out strengthen their position.
(And let it be clear that I am not speaking specifically about the story that has now made headlines. It’s not as though I voted for that party.)

With regard to the prohibition concerning a mamzer, I meant to say that with this prohibition there is not so much of a problem of contradiction between the Torah and common sense. There are limitations in reality, and the prohibition concerning a mamzer is one of them. The mamzer is indeed not to blame for his situation, but the sanctity of Israel creates an unpleasant situation in which, on the one hand, he cannot marry a Jewish woman, and on the other hand, not a gentile woman either. The assumption is that if he knew what the sanctity of Israel is (kabbalists perhaps know what it is), then he would accept the reality with understanding. The same with the prohibition of male homosexual intercourse, which indeed also applies to gentiles. But there is not so much contradiction to common sense. A person with a same-sex inclination, if he understands the values from which this prohibition arose, will also understand why they override the fulfillment of his desire (which, in the context of sexual desire generally, not necessarily toward his own sex, is a kind of value — otherwise why does it exist? — unlike a desire to kill, for example, if someone has one). And he too will accept it with understanding and will not need to be “heroic” all his life, nor will he be “miserable.” With all due respect, the purpose of life is not to get married but something higher, which meanwhile not a single person I know really knows what it is. He will live, like everyone else, for the attainment of that purpose.

But homophobia (or more precisely non-love of homosexuals — which in itself, like every phobia, can be okay — the fact that you do not love something does not mean that specifically you are not okay) that hides behind the Torah under the pretext of “abomination” (which for some reason, among the Haredim, fraudulent scales, which are also an “abomination,” are accepted with complete understanding) is simply a lack of judgment.

Choose the right to remain silent. We would all thank them for that.

Today people also protest the silence of rabbis; see the article by Don Miguel de-Abrahamo, “On Moral Numbness,” on his site “Articalas ei Risponsas,” column 51.

Regards, Sancho Panza, man of La Mancha

Especially since when you keep everything in your belly, a ‘panza’ (“big belly” in Iberian) grows.

With these fools, their silence is preferable to their dullness.

As far as I remember, one who rebukes is supposed to turn to the person whom he thinks acted improperly and present his objections to him before going out against him in public. Did you approach Rabbi Buaron and Rabbi Arousi to receive clarifications? It seems to me that Kiryat Ono (where Rabbi Arousi serves as rabbi, and not Givatayim) is not far from Lod 🙂

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levincharo

I did not approach them, because my purpose here is not to rebuke them but to make clear to the public that they and their foolish words do not represent the Torah and its students.
Givatayim—who mentioned it?

Your honor explains in column 5, “The Attitude of the Right and Left to Racism,” that the dispute between them is not psychological but ontological — whether there are universals. If we see the Left and Right as two different cultures with different assumptions about reality, we will also get different reasonings based on those different assumptions. This can be extended to any cultural dispute that presupposes a different ontology, which will create different lines of reasoning; thus, for example, we would get a culture that accepts collective punishment as understandable, as opposed to a culture that does not accept collective punishment, and this regardless of whether the law belongs to state law or Torah law.

Indeed true. I wrote this here:
https://mikyab.net/?s=%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%AA+%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%9F
Though I am making a claim of correlation and not a necessary claim. It is possible for a left-wing person to support collective punishment and vice versa.

One must remember that this is about secular courts and not Torah law, so if the matter is accepted in the secular courts (common sense?) that is supposed to help even according to Torah law (is that really so?).
Moreover, I am a two-penny researcher and jurist, but despite that I am almost sure that the witness needs to substantiate what he says; that is, they do not rely on the witness (or hardly rely on the witness — we are back to the secular courts) but on the evidence he provides (recordings, correspondence, and the like).

With all due respect to the rabbi, I did not understand from what standpoint the rabbi is coming in his criticism: is it from the side of halakhah, that the rabbi thinks there is a severe halakhic mistake here with some “ignorance” in it? If so, then perhaps indeed these cases of corruption (which I do not know at all from where to judge, whether this is even called monetary law, such that from a halakhic standpoint—and not a practical one, where it may be that sometimes judges must depart from the rule because of emergency necessity and the like—it is a scriptural decree that two witnesses are required and they are judged like all matters of testimony; and in my opinion a single witness would not initially be believed in such a case, and see the words of Rabbi Nahum Rakover in his book “Rule of Law”)—if they were judged before a private rabbinical court, the judge according to his own discretion might believe that witness when necessary, but from a halakhic standpoint there still would not be an institution of a “state witness” as a fixed institution, only when necessary according to the judge’s discretion. And perhaps this is the intention of those rabbis, to say that the institution of the state witness is not halakhic as a fixed law. (By the way, as far as I remember there are many developed countries that do not have state witnesses, so I do not understand where the rabbi’s admiration for this law comes from.) And still, if there is a halakhic dispute here, I do not understand what all the great fuss is about.
P.S. I have a feeling that whenever there is criticism of Haredi society and its leaders, the rabbi is always among the critics, and very often the things appear tendentious and not substantive and realistic (the rabbi is willing to be here for homosexuals, but Rabbi Elyashiv and the like are primitive and closed and anti-intellectual, and there is no room to try to understand them). But about that I would like to discuss with the rabbi in another forum or face to face, because it is long and I am not a fast typist.
In any event, thank you for the article. If I may compliment the rabbi: he is one of the few who can combine in his articles current affairs, philosophy, etc., together with deep and interesting Torah thoughts.

Hello.
It seems to me that I explained the matter very well. I have no “admiration” for this law, and as far as I know there is no such law of state witness. It is an institution that has developed and has a logic to it.
1. My claim is that these statements are stupid because they are general, whereas reality is complex and changing.
2. My claim is that they are irresponsible, because it is easy to disqualify this whole institution categorically when you have no responsibility to run a state and a legal and investigative system.
3. My claim is that they present a matter of reasoning as enlightened Torah opinion, in the manner of fools of this sort who hang everything on the Torah and try to show the world its beauty and depth when it comes to simple and banal things. That is all.

As for my tendency to criticize the Haredim, I am indeed critical, but not only toward them. Beyond that, Rabbi Arousi is not Haredi. And beyond that, a central concern of mine is criticism of Torah conceptions, and therefore in many cases I criticize them and not modern art or dirty beaches. But you will find with me quite a few criticisms of secular people as well, and of the “holy” law too (such as the column on punishment and more). I do not idolize anyone, certainly not blindly. If you have examples, I would be happy for you to bring them. Here you happened upon a poor example.

All the best

Regarding the pilpul: “I have now thought about the law of splitting a statement. According to halakhah, if a person comes and testifies: ‘So-and-so lent me money at interest’ (Sanhedrin 25), or ‘So-and-so sodomized me willingly’ (Sanhedrin 9), we accept his testimony about the other person but not about himself (because a person cannot render himself wicked). What is the law if after his admission two witnesses come and testify that he borrowed at interest or was sodomized willingly? Prima facie there would be room to compare this to the law of one who admits to a fine and afterward witnesses came, that he is exempt.”
As far as I remember, the law that one who admits to a fine is exempt applies only where he obligated himself monetarily (= to return the principal) (and perhaps this is because repentance has to be accompanied by an act of repair). If so, in “So-and-so sodomized me” the exemption of one who admits to a fine is not relevant at all.

To the honorable Rabbi Moshe, may he live long and well (my teacher and rabbi from whom I learned to be rid of pilpulim).
First, I enjoyed your wonderful words immensely. There are moments of pleasure amid the confusion, chaos, and disorder here, in which people deal with what is truly important.

Indeed, prima facie you are right that my position here depends on the dispute between Rav Hamnuna and Rava in Bava Kamma 75a: whether one who admits to a fine that did not obligate him in anything, and then witnesses came, is liable or exempt.
And in particular since Rambam and the other decisors ruled like Rava, my pilpul has fallen into the pit. However, according to Rav Hamnuna, my pilpul still stands, and we gain the rule that according to Rav Hamnuna, one who incriminates himself and then witnesses come is exempt.
But I later saw in Meiri there that he brought two opinions: one like the Rambam above, and the second maintains that this law was said only regarding theft (and brings proof from the case of Rabban Gamliel there), and from this my pilpul rises and stands even in practice, since our case is not theft.
And I also saw in Even HaEzel on Rambam (Theft 3:9), who explained it as I myself had thought to explain the Gemara, and it seems that according to his view too my pilpul rises and stands. For prima facie it is difficult why the Gemara set it up in a case where they sued him for theft and he denied it and witnesses came, and then he admitted to slaughter and sale. Why was it necessary to establish that he denied the theft and witnesses came regarding the theft? Even if he had himself admitted the theft, or if witnesses of the theft had simply come, and then he admitted the slaughter and sale and witnesses came (what a schlimazel he is) — in such a case he still should have been liable for the slaughter and sale, because by admitting the slaughter he did not obligate himself in anything. It follows that it is his initial denial of the theft that makes him liable for the slaughter, and not the fact that his admission about the slaughter does not obligate him in anything. Thus we learn that even according to Rava there is no rule that if his admission does not obligate him in anything, then there is no exemption when witnesses come afterward.
And the later authorities noted that this is also implied by Rashi there, 71a, “and if not for the fact that they established it,” and in Tosafot’s difficulty on him at the beginning of the chapter. And according to Rashi it seems like that opinion in Meiri. Though from Rashi in our sugya (75a) it does not seem so.
In any case, according to these views too (the anonymous opinion in Meiri, Even HaEzel, and Rashi 71a), my pilpul once again rises and stands.
Examine it well.

With God’s help, 15 Av 5777

In Tehumin 3, pp. 238–249, the words of Rabbi Avraham Shapira and Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu of blessed memory, and may he live long and well Rabbi Dov Lior, were brought on the subject of “The attitude of halakhah to state law.” In those words the rabbis also addressed the issue of the “state witness.”

Rabbi Lior (p. 248) discusses the “state witness” within the framework of “the king’s law”:

“In principle, a king has broad authority in criminal law and rules of evidence and is not bound specifically by the ordinary law… for example, a king can pardon one who was sentenced to punishment, unlike a court, which is not permitted to do so… From here there is an implication for one of the aspects of a state witness, namely that the state may waive his sentence even though he is suspect.
So too in the laws of evidence. According to the law, one does not rely on voice identification… but it is possible that under the law of the king one may rely on such identifications; from here the validity of a lineup, photographic identification, or fingerprints… From here too there is an implication for the main aspect of the state witness, namely that within the framework of kingship he may be believed despite being suspect. In general, in the laws of evidence we find various enactments to believe invalid witnesses, made for emergency necessity and the betterment of civil order. So it is with the testimony of townspeople regarding matters of the town despite their personal stake. See the responsa of Rashba and Rosh brought in Beit Yosef, Choshen Mishpat, end of siman 37.”

By contrast, Rabbi Shapira (p. 238) holds that the state witness is suspect of lying and that “generally one should distance oneself from this path,” unless it is a case bordering on danger to life:

“The question you are asking, an up-to-date question — the attitude to a ‘state witness,’ accepted as a valid arrangement in the state — halakhah relates to it negatively. The witness has a stake in the matter, and how can we believe him? True, the state has certain powers by the law of kingship in criminal matters, but there is a limit to the matter. Rambam already ruled, based on the interpretation of the verse ‘Do not slay the innocent and the righteous,’ that at times we release a criminal if there is no clear proof to convict him (see Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 290, and beginning of chapter 20 of Hilkhot Sanhedrin).
However, one must consider whether the use of a state witness should be rejected totally. Perhaps one should distinguish between different crimes: when dealing with habitual criminals suspected of murder, and this borders on actual danger to life, there may be room to be lenient; but generally one should distance oneself from this path. An invalid witness, such as a woman or relative, may perhaps be believed in criminal matters, by force of enactments, but they are not suspected of lying; this is not so with a state witness, who, as stated, has a stake in his testimony. True, one may use such a witness in order to uncover documents and proofs known only to him, etc., but not accept his words at face value.”

Rabbi Eliyahu’s words on the need to enact enactments in the criminal sphere, and who has the authority to enact them, and on the subject of the “state witness” in particular — there, p. 243. See there… and “Give to a wise man and he will become wiser still.”

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

In paragraph 1, line 1:
… and may he live long and well Rabbi Dov Lior.

In the paragraph beginning “By contrast, Rabbi Shapira holds,” lines 1–2:
… “distance oneself from this path,” unless it is a situation bordering on danger to life:..

With God’s help, 18 Av 5777

Additional material on the “state witness” in Torah law may be found by the interested reader in Prof. Nahum Rakover’s book, “Rule of Law in Israel,” chapter five: State Witness, on the Da’at website; in the article “State Witness” on the website of the Machon Mishpat La’Am Institute (connected to the hesder yeshiva in Sderot); and in the article by Rabbi Yossi Sharabi and Dr. Yuval Sinai, “Corroborative Evidence for the Testimony of a State Witness in Hebrew Law,” on the website of the Netanya Academic College. And in the literature cited in those articles.

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

Rambam says that one does not humiliate a Torah scholar in public.

Rambam says? There are explicit Torah prohibitions in the Talmud and all the decisors. See for example here: http://www.daat.ac.il/mishpat-ivri/skirot/273-2.htm
But the Sages also taught us that where there is a desecration of God’s name, no honor is accorded to the rabbi. One who speaks in the name of the Torah (and by that route also in my name and in all our names) must bear the consequences.

I am speaking about procedure and clarification. The case of a Torah scholar is conducted behind closed doors. “Cover him like the night.” There is an entire sugya on the topic of a nasi who sinned, a Torah scholar who sinned.

It is clear that what is hiding here is a total lack of trust in Israel’s justice system. Every mashgiach sometimes uses “state witnesses” in order to maintain the moral condition in the yeshiva 🙂

If those rabbis were speaking in their own name, or explaining that this is not necessarily the Torah’s position,
but merely their way of understanding, their words would be heard.
And therefore I would expect of a Torah scholar-rabbi to discuss moral matters as well,
but not in such a decisive way, and with arguments at kindergarten level.
And all in the name of the Torah and its exalted “values.”
(Although I am quite suspicious of the people who put out the report, and of every report that appears bombastically in newspaper headlines, which distorts and uproots any real meaning from what was said.)

A question for the rabbi to think about

Regarding whether the state witness is considered an interested party.
Seemingly, his interest is in the very act of testifying, not in the content of the testimony.

That is, they persuade him to agree to testify to what he knows, though he is not interested in testifying.

This is something our Torah does too — by command, and perhaps even by punishment, for someone who does not testify to what he knows.

But I wouldn’t call that an interested party, since he has no interest in testifying for or against, but only in saying what he knows.

Is that a valid point, Tzemachim?

If there were immunity for a “state witness” also for a witness on behalf of the defense, you would be right. But here immunity is granted only from the side of the prosecution, on the assumption that the “state witness” will assist it. Is there any greater payment of a benefit than that?

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

Many thanks, sir, for your pleasant words that you wrote to me, and even more thanks for the many things that broaden the mind that you write and that I too take delight in reading.
I reflected a little further on the sugya, and a few comments:
First, a technical comment: it seems that you switched the opinions of Rava and Rav Hamnuna. Rav Hamnuna is the one who says that one whose admission exempts him from nothing is not exempt from the fine when witnesses come.
What you asked — “And if he had himself admitted the theft, or if witnesses of the theft had simply come, and then he admitted the slaughter and sale and witnesses came (what a schlimazel he is). In such a case he still should have been liable for the slaughter and sale, because by admitting the slaughter he did not obligate himself in anything” — is apparently explained on 75b, that if he had admitted the theft he would not have been liable for the slaughter and sale because “the Merciful One said four and five, and not three and four.” And as for the second possibility you brought, “or if witnesses of the theft had simply come” — according to this, that is exactly the case brought by the Gemara, and what the Gemara added, that he denied and witnesses came, is to exclude a case where he admitted before the witnesses.
You also brought the words of Meiri. To me, Meiri’s words are not clear and I am perplexed by them. On the one hand, from Meiri’s phrase “and some disagree with this,” it seems he means as you wrote, that there is an opinion among the Rishonim disputing Rambam; on the other hand, the reason he wrote, “and they learned it from the fact that they did not answer…” is virtually a quotation of Rava’s words in the Gemara. If so, he is not bringing a dispute among Rishonim in the ruling, but explaining the dispute among the Amoraim. Meiri also wrote, “And so from what we ruled in chapter one concerning half-damages,” which supports your reading that Meiri is speaking about the ruling of the Rishonim. And from here to a third remark, which is a great wonder in my eyes, because in chapter one I did not find at all that Meiri brought our dispute; he only brought on 15a the law of the Gemara that half-damages are a fine and one does not pay by his own admission (and he also brought the dispute among the Rishonim whether with half-damages, even though they are not collected, we say to him “go pay,” which is not relevant to our matter). If so, it seems his intent is that the very law that one does not pay the fine of half-damages by his own admission goes against Rav Hamnuna, since there he does not obligate himself in anything by his admission, and according to Rav Hamnuna there should be no need to exempt such a person who admits to a fine. Now apparently, according to the distinction the later authorities made, that there are two elements in “one does not pay a fine by his own admission” — one, that he does not obligate himself, and two, that the admission exempts him from the fine — there is no contradiction from there to Rav Hamnuna. For Rav Hamnuna spoke about the second law, that an admission that does not obligate money does not exempt from a fine; but the first law remains in place, that this admission does not obligate him in the fine, and that is the law there in “half-damages are a fine,” and there is no contradiction from there to Rav Hamnuna. From this it appears that Meiri did not accept that there are two laws and held that there is only the law that the admission exempts, and if it does not exempt then he is liable by virtue of admission of a litigant. But that cannot be, since Rav Hamnuna explicitly said that one who admits to slaughter is liable only when witnesses come, and the distinction of the later authorities is necessary: there is a law that admission does not obligate, and there is a law that admission exempts, and their parameters differ. This requires investigation.

Not precise. He receives such status only if he provides testimony that helps the prosecution against the main defendant.

One can suggest a strong argument to permit a “state witness” in the present case, for Rabbi Avraham Shapira (in Tehumin 3, p. 238, quoted above) inclined to say that although generally there is concern about the reliability of a “state witness,” there is room to use one in a situation bordering on danger to life.

So we too may say that since Prime Minister Netanyahu is an obstacle to the peace process — his removal from the leadership of the state is an urgent need bordering on danger to life, in which we may rely even on a “state witness” 🙂

With blessings of peace, Sh. Tz. Left-Winger

That follows from an approach that opposes a state witness not because of his reliability but because he ought to be punished. And even here I would not draw the line דווקא at danger to life. In any case, I certainly would not call this a strong argument.

For that reason I was careful to write that he admitted twice. It seems to me that the Gemara speaks of one admission about the whole matter (theft + slaughter and sale), and by logic this seems different from my case.
Indeed, half-damages are a very good proof, and as for the missing Meiri there, it is not a great wonder, since there are different manuscripts, and even differences between Meiri’s Chiddushim and Beit HaBechirah.
As for your difficulty that these are exactly Rava’s words in the Gemara, see the Schottenstein/Chavruta note there, note 14, which explained this based on Even HaEzel (who himself discusses there the two laws regarding admission to a fine — that it exempts and that it does not obligate).

A state witness is, in practice, an investigative tool. It was also used by the Romans, as brought by the Sages: “You didn’t steal? Then who stole with you?”

An interesting question arose here: why don’t they make state-witness agreements with defense witnesses? Seemingly, the investigative authorities are supposed to arrive at the truth and not convict the defendant. If there is a witness who refuses to reveal details beneficial to the defendant, why don’t they make a state-witness agreement with him?

*Update from an email exchange:
[Michi]:
Why don’t they make a state-witness agreement with defense witnesses? Seemingly, the investigative authorities are supposed to get to the truth and not necessarily convict the defendant. So if there is a witness who refuses to reveal details favorable to the defendant, why not make a state-witness agreement with him in order to bring the truth to light and acquit the defendant?
​Or perhaps they do? I assume the silence of a defense witness is a rarer situation, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t happen.
—————————————
[M.]:
A preliminary answer:

1. The main purpose of the trial, as well as the main purpose of the investigation, is the discovery of truth.
2. The police are tasked with investigating in order to discover evidence of crimes. It turns out that in our world one can often uncover evidence by giving benefits to criminals — partners in the same crime under investigation or in another crime. Thus the state witness was born, whose utility is clear in the practical world (see Shula Zaken, Ganor… Haro…) but whose dangers also exist, especially the concern that the state witness will transfer a substantial part of the responsibility for the crime onto his fellow.
3. At first glance, the practical difficulty raised by your question is this: the police think the state witness will testify to details they do not know or cannot prove, but they believe those details are true. If they thought the details were not correct — that is, that the suspect had committed no crime — why recruit a state witness against him?
4. Returning to the first point: there is no principled impediment to giving a benefit to a witness in order for him to testify in favor of a suspect or defendant, if after examination the police think there is reason to do so for the sake of uncovering the truth.
5. Take a possible example: the state indicts someone for murder based on another person’s testimony against him. Now someone comes and says he saw another person commit the murder, and he is willing to testify if they promise he will not be prosecuted (since he too had a small part in the planning/execution of the murder). A way would have to be found to do that, unless they think his testimony is false testimony. How would they assess that? Not always simple. Likewise, there are sensitive cases in which witnesses come to testify, and the prosecution declares that the words of this witness may not be used in other proceedings. That declaration can also be in favor of a defense witness. There can be complicated cases in this matter.

I still need to sharpen the answer for myself.
—————————————
[Michi]:
All this is clear. But my impression is that in practice this doesn’t happen (am I mistaken?). And from this the conclusion is that the police and prosecution think their goal is conviction and not necessarily the discovery of truth.
—————————————
[M.]:
Precisely regarding what happens in practice — I need to “go back” and think, including about my private connection to the subject of the state witness.

It is clear that the lower the level of the investigating body, the more it thinks its goal is conviction and not the discovery of truth. Some prosecutors are infected with this too, and that is not good.

Judicial history is full of cases in which this was said to police officers, and also to prosecutors, again and again. And it has consequences too. A routine example: the suspect raises an alibi claim, and the police are in no rush to investigate. There are many judgments on this. However, the conclusion at the end of your words is too hasty and sweeping, with all due respect.
—————————————
[Michi]:
I’ll open with a remark. I did not mean that someone lies in order to incriminate, but that they see as their main goal conviction and not finding the truth. That is what matters to them, and therefore only for that do they offer a state-witness agreement. In my poverty I still feel there is truth in this, contrary to your criticism, but all the same I would be happy to hear whether there have been cases of a state-witness agreement offered to defense witnesses, and if not — why not.

By the way, here is a correct remark on the issue that was written there on the site. Seemingly we do find immunity also for a defense witness, but there are clear differences (I now quote from there):

There is such a creature as “witness immunity,” whether on behalf of the defense or on behalf of the prosecution. Thus, for example, in the trial of Elor Azaria, MDA medic Ofer Ohana testified as a defense witness. During his examination, concern arose from the witness’s words that they might expose him to criminal prosecution, and the judges told him that within their legal authority they were granting him immunity, so that his words, both in the prosecutor’s questioning and in the defense attorney’s questioning, could not be used as incriminating evidence against him.

Between this immunity granted to a witness and a “state-witness agreement” there is a world of difference. This immunity is granted by the judges, who are a neutral factor whose only aim is to ascertain the truth. It is granted before they know what the witness is going to say, and the matter is done in a public proceeding. Likewise, the immunity is only with regard to what the witness says in his testimony, which may not be used as evidence against him — they do not promise to close any case against him if there is incriminating evidence from elsewhere.

By contrast, in a “state-witness agreement” conducted “behind closed doors” by investigative and prosecutorial authorities who desire incriminating testimony, and in return promise the witness closure of cases against him even if there is incriminating material from another source — such a deal smells like “giving a benefit to a witness so that he will testify in the desired direction,” and in less euphemistic words, “suborning a witness by bribery.”

Perhaps one could use the more reasonable route of “witness immunity” also at the investigation stage, by means of external supervision by a neutral judge, who would grant the person questioned immunity from self-incrimination, without prior knowledge of what he will say and without dependence on what he says. And thus perhaps the need for the very dubious tool of the “state witness” would disappear entirely.
—————————————
[M.]:
Below is an attached answer from a friend of my session group who understands the matter.
The example I had in mind: the police have evidence against Reuven for murder. Levi comes and says he saw that someone else committed the murder:
But he helped that other person and asks not to stand trial, in exchange for his testimony.
He did not help that person, but is willing to tell the truth in exchange for waiving prosecution in another unrelated case.
Whether the matter is still in the investigative stage or after an indictment has already been filed, there is no room here for the question of a state witness as a defense witness. That is because in the “flow chart” we will find that the person will be investigated, and the police and prosecution will have to decide how to proceed. Thus, for example, if they are certain that Levi’s version is reliable, it would be possible to turn him into a state witness as a prosecution witness against the new defendant, after the original defendant is first acquitted. And much more could be said.

Here is the answer mentioned above:
The question is unclear and is not from the world of reality.
How does the police know that the defense witness “exculpates” the suspect, and what kind of state-witness agreement does the rabbi want to make with him?

Example 1 — an alibi witness.
The rabbi’s assumption is that the police know — apparently from the suspect — that that witness is alleged to have been with the suspect. He is the alibi witness put forward by the suspect.
And the assumption is that that witness does not confirm the alibi.
So what should be done with him? What agreement should be offered to him? That he should tell the “truth,” that he was with the suspect elsewhere? So what is he supposed to receive? What forgiveness? He is not a partner to a crime that did not happen.
And besides, if the police believe the suspect’s alibi, then they do not need a state witness. The doubt alone is enough.

Example 2 — a witness who would testify that he is the criminal and that he did it.
Why is a state witness needed here, and why should he testify to that, and why give him a reward?
If there is suspicion against that witness — let them investigate him as a suspect.
And if he confesses, then he will get a lighter sentence in court.
But why give him forgiveness in order to exonerate the original suspect?
If in any case the police have suspicion against the witness, with some initial evidentiary foundation — then that by itself creates doubt regarding the original suspect, which is enough to acquit him. A kind of alternative suspect…
In any case, why give the witness an agreement and forgiveness? Under the assumption that the facts are that he is the perpetrator, why give him an exemption?
It is not to bring the truth to light, because the original suspect will in any case be acquitted due to the incriminating evidence against the witness.
And if there is no incriminating evidence at all against that witness — then who would know that it was he? The original suspect “does not know,” because according to his claim he is innocent and was not there and does not know who did it.
And if the original suspect says he was there only as an observer and saw the witness do it — then there is evidence against the witness, and he should be investigated as a suspect.
—————————————
[Michi]:
I don’t agree. Suppose the other defendant died long ago and can no longer be tried, and the whole discussion is only whether to acquit the current defendant.
Alternatively, the other person is not liable for the murder (he did it in self-defense), but the witness caused that situation, and therefore if they were to charge him, he would be responsible. So they exempt him as a state witness in order to acquit the current defendant.

With God’s help, 19 Av 5777

To RMD”A — greetings,

There is such a creature as “witness immunity,” whether on behalf of the defense or on behalf of the prosecution. Thus, for example, in the trial of Elor Azaria, MDA medic Ofer Ohana testified as a defense witness. During his examination, concern arose from the witness’s words that they might expose him to criminal prosecution, and the judges told him that within their legal authority they were granting him immunity, so that his words, both in the prosecutor’s questioning and in the defense attorney’s questioning, could not be used as incriminating evidence against him.

Between this immunity granted to a witness and a “state-witness agreement” there is a world of difference. This immunity is granted by the judges, who are a neutral factor whose only aim is to ascertain the truth. It is granted before they know what the witness is going to say, and the matter is done in a public proceeding. Likewise, the immunity is only with regard to what the witness says in his testimony, which may not be used as evidence against him — they do not promise to close any case against him if there is incriminating evidence from elsewhere.

By contrast, in a “state-witness agreement” conducted “behind closed doors” by investigative and prosecutorial authorities who desire incriminating testimony, and in return promise the witness closure of cases against him even if there is incriminating material from another source — such a deal smells like “giving a benefit to a witness so that he will testify in the desired direction,” and in less euphemistic words, “suborning a witness by bribery.”

Perhaps one could use the more reasonable route of “witness immunity” also at the investigation stage, by means of external supervision by a neutral judge, who would grant the person questioned immunity from self-incrimination, without prior knowledge of what he will say and without dependence on what he says. And thus perhaps the need for the very dubious tool of the “state witness” would disappear entirely.

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

In paragraph 4, line 3:
… and without dependence on what he says. …

On witness immunity in the Azaria trial, see the excerpt from the hearing quoted in the article, “MDA medic: I made a conference call between Elor Azaria and his father, but it was deleted,” on the Maariv website (5.7.16).

Greetings to the rabbi.
I did not quite understand why the rabbi thinks the problem is only a localized one regarding the state witness.
It seems to me that even according to the laws of the State of Israel, a witness as such is not believed, and only if he presents circumstantial evidence such as documents and anything that can be verified independently of his speech, etc. — only then is he believed.
But according to the Torah’s words, as far as I know, there is no such thing as circumstantial evidence. Is a fingerprint considered testimony according to halakhah?
This issue joins a long line of rules that are archaic and irrelevant to our times. For example: single-witness testimony, testimony of a woman and of a secular Jew, testimony of a boy under age 13, and the like.
Most rabbis have not thrown Hebrew law into the trash. And it seems that you do want to throw it into the trash, or perhaps use it only as a source of inspiration, and so on.

In summary, my question and request is: perhaps you could write something more general about how, in your view, Hebrew law is still relevant today.

Dear Doctor. Fortunate are you, who all your days have heard only sublime words of wisdom. But allow me nevertheless to explain my intent to you before my judgment is finally sealed.
The testimony of a state witness is based also on repentance. Therefore, when one lightens his punishment rather than canceling it entirely, that better verifies that this is indeed repentance (because the prize is smaller). The same applies to the fact that the witness will suffer social harm. He decided not necessarily because it was worthwhile for him, but because he decided to cooperate with justice.
As for the suitcase, certainly yes — if it is understood that his testimony will be truthful testimony (for example by cross-checking additional evidence) or that it will only direct the investigators to other testimony and evidence, and they, not the witness’s testimony, are what will decide.
In general, your lack of credit toward the justice system is excessive to the point of foolishness.
All the best.

Not true. At least in monetary law, circumstantial evidence definitely has weight. Compare the words of Rambam at the beginning of chapter 20 of Hilkhot Sanhedrin to his words at the beginning of chapter 24. And even in capital cases, Tosafot disagrees with Rambam, and according to his approach unequivocal circumstantial evidence is admissible like testimony (as in “the victim came on his own feet”).

Your criticism of the archaic nature of halakhic rules stems from a lack of understanding. After all, all these problems already existed in their time as well, so this has nothing to do with being archaic. You can of course wonder why they established those rules, but there is no point in throwing out today things for which nothing relevant has changed from then until now.

I certainly have not thrown Hebrew law into the trash (what is that anyway? In my opinion the term is empty). One must understand its place and its use even when there is a state that operates according to halakhah, and certainly in our state. And it is definitely not a source of inspiration in my opinion.
I wrote an article on this, and the matters will be elaborated further in the third book of the trilogy I am currently writing.
Here is the article:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%90-%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%98-%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%93%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A4/

And if you wish, see also here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%96%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%A2/

With God’s help, Friday eve, parashat Ekev, 5777

Rambam, who says in chapter 24 of Hilkhot Sanhedrin (halakhah 1): “A judge may adjudicate monetary cases according to the matters toward which his mind inclines as true, and the matter is strong in his heart that it is so, even though there is no clear proof there” — continues (halakhah 2) by standing on the danger of this path: “All these things are the essence of the law. But once courts that were not proper multiplied, and even if they were proper in their deeds, they were not wise as they should be and possessed of understanding, most Jewish courts agreed not to reverse an oath except on clear proof, and not to impair a document and destroy its presumption by the testimony of a woman or an invalid witness; and so in all other laws, the judge should not rule based on his own reliance or his own knowledge, so that every layman should not say: my heart believes this one and my mind relies on that.”

Thus we learn that already from the time of the Geonim, most Jewish courts refrained from relying on estimation, lest every layman say “my heart believes this one and my mind relies on that.” Has our generation really become fit for this?

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

It certainly has become fit, and all the rabbinical courts in the world judge according to estimation, except that they cover themselves by having the parties sign that it is either law or compromise. And certainly the secular courts judge according to estimation and according to one’s own admission and by minors and women, as the Rishonim already wrote. Simple enough.

Here it is brought that Rabbi Dov Lior’s opinion is that a state witness is legitimate evidence within the framework of criminal enactments
https://www.inn.co.il/Articles/Article.aspx/16414

In another context, Rav Kook criticized the admired ideal of constant Torah study, made famous in the negative injunction of the “sin of neglecting Torah study,” and he did so in the name of the value of freedom, the freedom of creative thought:

“One who has the soul of a creator must create ideas and thoughts, and it is impossible for him to confine himself to his study alone. For the flame of the soul rises by itself, and it is impossible to stop it in its course.” Shemoneh Kevatzim 7:190, and therefore:

“Space for thoughts — this is the constant demand that every thinking person demands of himself. Constant study can constrict thought, blur it at the beginning of its birth. And the habit of constant study, shallow persistence, it is this that intensifies this disease of narrowness of thought. With all our strength we must be redeemed from it, in order to redeem our soul from the pressure of its straits, to redeem it from Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Ibid., 194.

It seems to me that in our day, when there is a flood of information available to anyone seeking wisdom, Torah scholars of the old type face, almost against their will, a danger of obtuseness. Because either you choose to be intelligent and to be aware of and available to additional fields of knowledge alongside Torah study — especially adjacent ones like economics and law — or you choose (as an entire sector) to seal yourself off consciously out of a kind of condescension, a condescension that holds that “turn it and turn it, for all is in it,” or alternatively “what do those scientists understand at all,” etc., etc. Because otherwise, if Torah scholars were to give themselves an honest inner accounting, they would have to ask themselves how it is possible that they toil for years of their lives over legal rulings in great depth without examining the parallels or alternatives to them in the secular-scientific field. What lover of wisdom — and they are certainly lovers of wisdom if they study so much — does not look at parallels? It can only be, against your will, through the help of blacking out and obscuring all science and philosophy — consciously and intentionally — so that, Heaven forbid, we should not be forced to invest in them and consume our days in Torah neglect. In a word: contempt for science was born in order to justify not engaging with it, tempting as it is.

In earlier days, apparently, Torah scholars constituted a kind of legal and intellectual alternative, and therefore could delude themselves — or perhaps it was not a delusion at all — that they were wise and understanding by virtue of their engagement in Torah and the very deep Talmud (truly). It is also reasonable that from time to time they glanced at external wisdom (cf. Rema), or at least could hear developments in external wisdom from their friends in the community or from the gentiles around them. Torah scholars have always been curious people, and this is how they apparently operated. From this it follows that they were wise and semi-educated, and that sufficed.

However, with the development of scientific and philosophical thought, and of doctrine so abundant on the one hand and accessible on the other, it became impossible to remain a Torah scholar who is truly wise and aware without choosing one of two options: either to invest a great deal in studying external wisdom, or to dismiss it with a wave of the hand. Because the option of being some sort of amateur who only tastes a little of the wisdoms — that is no longer possible. Just think: is it possible to deal with medical law using the methods of the days of the Baal Shem Tov and village doctors? No! There is a need for broad familiarity with the medical field. Is it possible to deal with the laws of turning on electricity without knowing electronics? With the laws of interest without understanding modern economics? And so on in a thousand other areas, each of which is an ocean of knowledge — even at its surface level. And because of this, most Torah scholars have closed themselves off from engagement with external wisdom, sometimes under the pretext of the heresy blowing from it, etc. But at the same time they were not willing to take upon themselves the hold of silence. They do not recognize themselves as ignoramuses, but have remained with the intellectual status that stuck to them from earlier times, and therefore they voice their position on every platform — which has now become “the Torah’s position!” With this fig leaf they can still cover their intellectual nakedness, convinced of it so strongly precisely because deep in their hearts they know their own ignorance. “Lechatchila ariber!” I do not mean to speak about the rabbis presented in Michi’s article, whose words I did not even look into. Rather, I mean to provide a kind of map of the phenomenon as a whole.

What Rav Kook wrote at the beginning hints at lines of thought that opened up among a certain rabbinic stratum a hundred years ago, and apparently did not strike enough root and branch because of the travails of the Holocaust and the struggles over secularization. May it be God’s will.

I agree on the principled level, but it is important to note that one need not actually be (and also cannot be) a real expert in all fields. One needs to know the modes of thinking, and preferably also the basic principles, to be curious, and to consult experts. Someone with an open mind can rule on halakhah even in areas in which he is not an expert.

With God’s help, 24 Av 5777

To RMD”A — greetings,

Granted, for one’s own admission or the testimony of a relative or an invalid witness and the like — it is possible to enact an enactment or invoke “the law of the kingdom”; and likewise in the case of a strong estimation based on evidence that leaves no reasonable doubt, that is understandable. But with regard to: a confession extracted under torture; a witness suborned by payment to testify as the prosecution desires; a witness whose words were found to contradict one another; an exposed colluding witness proven not even to have been at the place at the time of the event about which he testifies; and a witness who says, “It seems to me I heard” — can one in all these cases rely on testimony that has been undermined merely because some judge decided that he is “impressed by the witness’s credibility,” and on the basis of such shaky testimony convict “beyond all reasonable doubt”?

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

What courts decide according to estimation where the litigants accepted a compromise is of course not relevant here. In criminal law there must be proof “beyond all reasonable doubt.” There too there is “criminal mediation” that leads to an agreed compromise, but where there is no agreement, strict justice requires a high threshold of proof, “beyond all reasonable doubt.”

To our master Rabbi Sh. Tz., may he live long and well.
You have ground already-ground flour. These things are known and have already been discussed here ad nauseam. Of course such a witness is suspect and receives benefits, and believe me, there is no police investigator or prosecutor who does not know that. They do not need Rabbi Buaron or Rabbi Arousi to tell them this. It is exactly this banality and sloganism that I am talking about. After all, despite these suspicions and simplistic arguments, one can still get quite a lot of information from him, and therefore to reject categorically the whole concept of a state witness is foolishness fit for children in kindergarten.

With God’s help, 24 Av 5777

To Gil — witness Gil,

It is impossible for a halakhic authority to be an expert in every branch of science. Especially in our generation, where there is specialization in every scientific branch. A physician is not a physicist, a physicist is not a chemist. A philosopher is not a jurist, and a jurist is not an economist. And even within the various professions there are subfields, each requiring unique expertise.

A halakhic authority must be expert in his own field. When he must rule on a question requiring professional knowledge, he turns to experts in that profession so that they may testify, and on the basis of the experts’ testimony clarifying the reality, halakhah is ruled. In a considerable portion of cases there are disputes among the experts, and here there are halakhic rules of decision: whether one follows the majority or the greatest expert; when danger to life leads to leniency; and when we say “the heart knows the bitterness of its soul” and rely on the patient’s subjective feeling.

One of the problems with experts is that sometimes their opinions do not stem from established empirical-scientific information, but from their value judgments that are opposed to the Torah. And to this too one must pay attention, and not follow them blindly without examination. Today there are many God-fearing experts in all the professions of science, technology, and medicine, economics, policy and security, psychology and education, whom halakhic decisors consult.

There are also situations in which halakhah is determined not according to the reality observed in research, but according to what appears to ordinary sight, just as we certainly would not forbid eating swarming creatures invisible to the naked eye if one is not equipped with a microscope. Thus Rambam ruled that regarding fatal defects in humans one follows the physicians’ definitions, whereas with fatal defects in animals the definitions in the Talmud determine. And the Rogatchover Gaon explained the difference: in capital law, the reality of a fatal defect such that one will not live twelve months is the cause of the law, whereas in the case of defects in an animal, the definitions given in the Talmud are a sign and not a cause.

(These matters were brought in an article by Rabbi Yaakov Ariel on the subject of kashering stainless steel utensils; I referred to it and to additional material in my comments to “In response to ‘a gentile that halakhah did not know,’” on the “Shabbat Supplement — Makor Rishon” website.)

In short: the expert testifies, and the rabbi rules according to the rules of halakhah.

Regards, Sh. Tz. Levinger

Rabbi Sh. Tz., that is a somewhat simplistic description.
See here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%AA/

The argument against state witnesses is not relevant from a Torah perspective.
Halakhah accepts information only through witnesses. When a person is accused by witnesses, he himself either denies them or renders them colluding witnesses.
But a story about another fact is ordinary testimony, and if there are two witnesses who tell a story, we will indeed accept them as witnesses.
Here he is only one, and that is a reason not to accept him.
Secondly, even if there were two state witnesses testifying about another story that touches on testimony involving themselves, then it depends on the testimony: if indeed the testimony of the state witnesses contradicts the accusing witnesses, there would be here a doubt of two against two, and we would treat it like all such doubts. But if it is another criminal story, that does not exempt them from the accusation against them; it is only to bribe them to testify to other testimony that does not contradict the testimony accusing the state witnesses.
Without entering into halakhic arguments, the impression the column conveys is that a state witness, so long as it is possible that he is speaking the truth, will be accepted.
The halakhic approach has no interest in people who may possibly be speaking the truth. It has categories of disqualified witnesses, and whoever falls into that category falls into it, even if in my eyes or the judge’s eyes that disqualified person could shed light on the affair and prevent crime in Israel.
But the Torah disqualified women, minors, slaves, and gentiles not because they do not speak the truth.
Perhaps this is the different point of departure between you and Buaron.
Buaron sees halakhah as rejecting the whole testimony story at its root, and halakhah has no interest in discovering the hidden truth.
Whereas for you it is part of the principles of faith to accept testimony that can tell us what really happened.
And David already said, “Cleanse me from hidden faults.”

David, that is not much of a novelty. Who disputes it? Those people were speaking about the policy of the police, the prosecution, and the courts of the State of Israel. Is the whole problem merely that they accept a witness who is halakhically invalid? Why didn’t they come out against accepting women or gentiles (who are not speaking innocently)?
Besides, halakhah too would accept all these witnesses the moment it had to run the state and be responsible for what happens in it. These are the two systems Ran speaks about in his derashot. These statements are completely detached.

Hello
Regarding the discussion of splitting a statement and “one who admits to a fine is exempt.”
First, as I understand it, liability for a fine is not like liability for money, and the liability is created only by the court. And this is the novelty of a litigant’s admission according to Rav: not only does the power of his mouth not suffice to obligate him in a fine, but it also fully exempts him even when witnesses come afterward.
And I am unsure what Ketzot HaChoshen thought about this — see siman 1, se’if katan 6, in understanding Ramban’s view regarding a litigant’s admission nowadays, that without witnesses coming after his admission, no liability would arise. From here it follows that something concrete is needed to create the liability. But in Ketzot HaChoshen 350:2 it appears from his words that he thinks there is a real lien even in a fine, and by a litigant’s admission his lien is waived.
In any case, I saw in Chiddushei HaGRI”R on Bava Metzia, siman 2, that he holds as I said. That is, even in punishments, no liability is created without a court even if he admitted. And in punishments there is no second novelty, that is, a litigant’s admission does not create an exemption, and therefore he will be liable when witnesses come. And he tries to prove this.

The source for the distinction between fine and punishments is a scriptural decree: in the fine of double payment there is a scriptural decree, but not in other punishments. And perhaps the reasoning is that when a person admits, he obligates himself in the principal, and consequently there is no need to punish him with a fine. The fine is a punishment for his denial (or non-admission). Perhaps this is how one should understand the source of Rava bar Ahilai for Rav’s view, since he brings an additional derashah that repeats the same point, that one can obligate only by witnesses and not by admission. What did he add for us beyond the first derashah? Rather, the first derashah taught that one cannot obligate by admission and only judges can convict (“whom the judges shall convict” — specifically judges). The second derashah added that only when it is the witnesses who found the principal, i.e. the theft, will there be liability (“if the theft be found” — by witnesses — “shall be found” — by judges). But if the witnesses did not need to find the theft because it was already returned by the thief — there is no liability of double payment.
And so it is proven from Bava Kamma 75: “for he exempted himself from nothing,” meaning that Rav’s view is only because he spared the court and the witnesses from restoring the principal, and as Rashi says: “for by his admission he is not coming to restore anything.” (And one cannot say that only where it is evident that he is not admitting in order to escape the fine, because he is obligating himself in the principal, his admission exempts him — for one cannot suspect Rabban Gamliel of this.)
And all this does not apply to other punishments, where one cannot say that the matter is found in his hand even without witnesses — for by his admission there is no liability at all.

In any case — for our matter regarding a state witness, in my humble opinion it is more similar to splitting a statement, because it is all punishment and there is no principal with a fine atop it. Therefore, even if he does not obligate himself by his admission, if witnesses come afterward — he will be liable.

What you brought from the GRI”R is the dispute between Rashi and Tosafot in Makkot 5a.

In the second passage you assume that the law was stated only when the fine comes in addition to the principal. But I explained here that this itself is not clear. It appears there is a dispute among the Rishonim about it. And I already explained the connection to my question regarding one who admits to punishment (because with punishment there is never a principal alongside it).

Hot off the press
https://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/403731

Indeed, very amusing.
Actually, on second thought this is not amusing at all. Since I want to believe the Jew is not a complete idiot, and since his words are utter nonsense from so many angles that an encyclopedia would be needed to detail them all, the required conclusion is that we have here a combination of three winning elements:
1. The “values” lecturer effect: the intense desire to show that Hebrew law has a solution for all the failings of other legal systems. As described in the column above.
2. Hubris: the assumption that what I myself (= Rabbi Arousi) think is the word of God that descended from Sinai.
3. A rather simplistic line of reasoning that may be true and may not (in my opinion, very much not): I myself (= Rabbi Arousi) think Lieberman ought to resign. As described in the column above.
The meaning is that instead of Aharon Barak, who explained to us that what he thinks is the law of the state and therefore there are no lacunae and the law of the state has a solution to every problem (there is no need to resort to “the principles of justice, equity, and peace of Israel’s heritage”), now Ratzon Arousi explains that what he thinks is the word of God, and now there are no lacunae and Hebrew law has a solution to every problem. So why resort to Israeli law (on which Rabbi Arousi did his doctorate) if there is such an original and authentic solution straight from Sinai?! Exactly like the affair of state witnesses described in the column above.

It is simply horrifying to see a central rabbi in Israel endowed with the level of thinking of a child in kindergarten. This is really parallel to the words of Smotrich (published yesterday), who wants the state to be run according to halakhah, though in Smotrich’s case one can give his words some reasonable interpretation, which, to the best of my judgment, cannot be done with Rabbi Ratzon Arousi’s words.

It really does not seem to me that Rabbi Arousi plans to conduct things according to pure Torah law. He is not naive and he knows the sources. What he probably does think is that Hebrew law is the starting point. If they remembered that starting point, perhaps state witnesses would remain a last-resort weapon against public enemies where there is a code of silence against them (mafiosi). What happens today is very far from balance.

As for conducting proceedings in secret, these are explicit sugyot. Here too, certainly if there is a need one acts differently, but that (in his view) is the starting point, and it has sources.

And another gem
https://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/438126

Truly a collection of nonsense and drivel.

If there is currently handing over of names here, is it advisable to refrain because this involves the law of a moser?

??