Question

Hello and blessings!
As is known, there are prohibitions that depend on a person’s act, and there are prohibitions that depend on the result.
Our question is: when we hold a person liable under a prohibition that is result-based, do we hold him liable for the fact that a forbidden result occurred and is attributed to him, or do we hold him liable for having performed an act that led to the forbidden result, with the obvious requirement that the result in fact occur?
We can illustrate this with the prohibition of murder. If the prohibition of murder is result-based, one must consider what exactly we hold the person liable for: for performing an act of murder through which a person died, or for the death of the person as attributed to him, while the act of murder merely serves as the tool by which responsibility is imposed on the person.
By way of further clarification, I need to stress that it does not seem plausible to me to say that there is such a sharp split here between the prohibition and the liability, such that they stem from two different things altogether (result and act). To be sure, we have seen that sometimes there are additional conditions in order to hold a person liable, but from that to saying that they derive from entirely different things is a big leap.
Therefore I should clarify that what I meant was this: on the abstract level, the prohibition is result-based, but the prohibition applies to a person, and so one could say that at the point where the prohibition meets the person, a demand is created upon the person not to act toward the forbidden result—and that is the meaning of the second side. So in the end there is no sharp split between the prohibition and the liability. When I said there is a split, I meant between the abstract level of the prohibition [in theory] and the reality in practice that follows from the fact that it applies to a human being.
In practice, I think it is necessary to examine the Talmudic topic of lifting requiring setting down, etc., but I did not have enough time to study it as fully as needed, and so I brought proofs from later authorities (Acharonim) that came to mind automatically.
A. A discussion of the words of Chemdat Shlomo
One source I found is the responsa Chemdat Shlomo (Orach Chayim, sec. 38, in the gloss at the end of his remarks). After writing that a person is liable for murder even in cases where the reasoning of “What do you see?” does not apply, he establishes that exemption for coercion is not merely an exemption from punishment, but a novelty to the effect that the act is not considered an act at all. On this he wonders, and his words are as follows:
“And one must still examine that which is obvious to the Talmud—that a murderer must be killed rather than transgress—why not say that it is not called an act, since it was under coercion? It must be said that there it is different, for one cannot say that he is as one who is absent, since in the end he performs an act and kills a person, and through his actions a Jew is killed; therefore one cannot say that he is as one who is absent and did nothing. Yet nevertheless Maimonides maintains that he is not executed, for it is no worse than the most severe of all, from which it is proven that after the fact he is not executed.” End quote.
And it seems, in explaining his words, that he is not retracting his above principle—that under coercion, the act is not considered an act at all—but rather saying that in the end the result occurred, and it does not matter that the act is not attributed to him, because in the end the person was killed.
And, thank God, I found that Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky wrote in Zikhron Shmuel (sec. 65, letter 12) as follows:
“If we say that for a Noahide, the reason he is permitted to transgress is because an act done under coercion is not considered an act, as Chemdat Shlomo wrote, then one must say that in the case of murder this reasoning does not apply at all. That is because it is relevant only where the prohibition lies in the act itself, unlike murder, where the main point is that his fellow should not be murdered. Only because of preservation of life would there be room to permit it, and regarding this we say: it is logical, etc., and there is no preservation of life here.”
[I later saw that this is how his words were explained in the book Pri Moshe (on damage caused by a person, apparently sec. 2, though I do not have it with me at the moment). In discussing whether liability in torts stems from lack of guarding, from an act, or from a result, in the view of Nachmanides—who explains that a person is liable even in complete coercion—he uses the principle of Chemdat Shlomo and explains that in prohibitions that are result-based, the exemption of coercion is not relevant at all, since it does not matter to us that there is a deficiency in the act, because in the end the result occurred.]
If Chemdat Shlomo held that a person’s liability is not for the result, but rather for the act that led to that result, then it is obvious that as long as the act is not attributed to him, there would be no basis whatsoever to hold him liable. From here one may infer that, in the view of Chemdat Shlomo, liability is for the result itself.
B. The words of Machaneh Chayim
Another possible proof regarding this issue may be brought from the words of Machaneh Chayim (part 3, sec. 22), who infers from the words of Nimukei Yosef as follows: “What emerges from this is that the permission to do labor close to the onset of the Sabbath is because the beginning of the labor is considered as though the labor was also completed on Friday; everything follows the beginning of the labor, and the end is simply drawn after it. And all this is only if the beginning was permitted, during the weekday; but if he begins the labor on the Sabbath, it is forbidden, and understand this well.” End quote.
“However, upon further analysis it appears necessary to distinguish. Since Beit Hillel derives this from ‘Six days shall your works be done, and on the seventh day…,’ meaning that sometimes it is permitted even on the seventh day, therefore specifically if the labor began on a weekday and its effect continued by itself into the Sabbath day, that is what the Torah permitted, because everything follows the beginning, which was at a time of permission, namely on a weekday, and was completed by itself on the Sabbath. For example, lighting the fire in the Chamber of the Hearth: once the wood begins to catch, the fire continues on its own and burns all night, just like lighting a lamp on Friday before the Sabbath, which continues burning all night, or when the spices began to cook and continue cooking all night. Since the labor began on a weekday, the Torah said: ‘Six days shall your works be done, and on the seventh day’—what was done on a weekday may also be completed on the seventh day, because the end, which finishes by itself, is named after the beginning of the act; for the act of lighting and the act of cooking began on a weekday, and the completion follows after it. Thus the category of labor began permissibly. But if he did not begin the labor on a weekday, and he performs the act by which the labor begins on the Sabbath, then it is truly forbidden, for he did not perform the beginning of the labor during the six weekday days. When he begins on the Sabbath the category of labor—such as lighting a lamp or cooking—it is considered as though he is now performing the act that begins the labor. And if he performs an act by which he lights the lamp on the Sabbath or begins to cook on the Sabbath, he is indeed liable for it, because he desecrates the Sabbath through the beginning of the labor and transgresses ‘do not do any labor.’ What difference does it make whether the causative act of labor was on a weekday or on the Sabbath? In any event, he began the labor on the Sabbath. Understand this well.”
Although later in his remarks he qualifies this and says that one violates a different prohibition, not “do not do any labor,” that is because with Sabbath prohibitions there is a special definition: the prohibition concerns the person’s exertion (Beit Meir, sec. 5, subsec. 14). But there is no reason to say that he would retract his definition regarding other prohibitions.
If we determine that, in prohibitions that stem from the result, a person is liable for the act that led to the result, this must be explained by saying that this is the part in which the person takes an active role in the prohibition. If so, even on the Sabbath, where it is clear and obvious that the prohibition is act-based, a person should still be liable for the part of the act in which he takes an active role, and not for the continuation of the act that proceeds by itself.
An example can be brought from the words of Rashash on Shabbat 73b, who argues that in the labor of cooking, the operative act is the placing that leads to cooking. Therefore one who cooks on the Sabbath and bakes after the Sabbath is liable, since the placement suitable for cooking was done on the Sabbath [this is how Rabbi Frank explained his words in Har Tzvi, part 1, sec. 129, based on Beit Meir, that the prohibition on the Sabbath is the person’s actual act].
If we say this, then seemingly there is no room for Machaneh Chayim’s distinction between an action that begins on the Sabbath and one that begins on Friday before the Sabbath, because the part in which the person acted actively was on Friday, and so it should be possible to attribute the liability to that point.
From here one must infer that Machaneh Chayim holds that we do not hold a person liable for the part in which he participated actively, but rather for whatever is defined as the prohibition. In act-based prohibitions, the person is liable for the act (even for parts in which he did not participate actively), whereas in result-based prohibitions he is liable for the result itself, and therefore as long as the act itself did not begin on Friday, it cannot be attributed to Friday.
Although perhaps one can distinguish after all between Machaneh Chayim’s case and ours. He is discussing one action that leads to another action, where there is a significant gap between the two, whereas we are discussing an act and a result that are continuous. Therefore, in our case, perhaps one really can attribute everything to the beginning; this requires further analysis. In practice, common sense would seem to suggest that in result-based prohibitions, the time of liability should be when the result begins, since that is the main point, and not when the act begins, since that is not a central part of the definition of the prohibition, and therefore liability should not begin there.