Q&A: Distinction Between Money and Physical Suffering
Distinction Between Money and Physical Suffering
Question
In the Babylonian Talmud, in the last chapter of Bava Kamma, it is explained that if an agent of the religious court says that a person refuses to come to court, they place him under excommunication,
but they do not write it down, because it is impossible to collect the scribe’s fee on the basis of that credibility alone. How can it be that causing a person such enormous humiliation
and writing that he is under excommunication
is possible on the basis of a religious court agent
when Rashi explains that there is a presumption that he does not lie,
but even a small coin for the scribe’s fee cannot be collected?
Is this a decree of Scripture, that money is treated more stringently than emotional suffering?
Answer
See Perishah, section 11, subsection 2, who noted this. To extract money we require two witnesses.
You could ask similarly regarding the rule that one witness is trusted in matters of prohibition: after all, to testify that a certain piece of meat is non-kosher, one witness is enough, even though this causes its owner a monetary loss.
This is not a question of how important it is to a person, but of the laws of evidence in Jewish law.
Discussion on Answer
As I understand it, what I wrote is what he is answering.
Thank you for the answer,
but I did not understand the answer of the Perishah.