Q&A: Jewish Law
Jewish Law
Question
I wanted to ask about the power of punishment in the Torah, or alternatively about my obligation to obey something that places on me, and on the society around me, the responsibility to punish me. What happens if I committed a sin and a punishment applies to me, and I simply decide to move to another country and become a citizen of a different country in the wilderness period? Seemingly it looks obvious that someone who sinned and did not keep the Sabbath should receive punishment, and there is no such option that says: if you don’t want to belong to our laws, fine, you are expelled from the nation. Why, and how, is there a right to punish? If we compare it to today, if a person committed a sin that does not involve harming another person, such that it would obligate us to pursue and punish him—for example, he did not honor the Memorial Day ceremony and acted contemptuously in the middle—it seems that we would not chase after him to punish him if he left the country. Does the power to punish stem specifically from the fact that the sin was committed in our territory, and not, as people think, from the fact that he is Jewish?
Answer
I don’t understand the question. In principle, if you signed a contract, then you have to abide by it. But I’m not sure that from the Holy One’s perspective there is no option of leaving. Maybe a person who leaves really would be exempt. Human courts do not recognize that, because it is a way to evade every obligation and punishment, and it would undermine the entire religious society and its halakhic commitment. But what the Holy One’s attitude is toward such a departure—I do not know. That is only if you decided to leave because you simply no longer feel like being a partner. But if you stopped believing, then it seems to me obvious that the Holy One has no claim against you at all.
Discussion on Answer
I do not understand all this verbiage. When you say that the Torah is a religious matter, as opposed to what are you saying it? What is the alternative side that could justify punishing someone who does not accept the system?
By the way, there is no punishment for someone who does not believe in the system.
I mean to exclude the idea of religion from the Torah—that is, that it is much more than just a matter of faith; it also has an obligation grounded in history. Because if the Torah is only a religious matter, then a person can simply be an unbeliever, and then from what angle can I punish him? Poor guy—he just cannot grasp what we grasp intellectually. But from the Torah’s perspective, it seems that a person does not have the option of saying, “I do not believe in this path,” and being exempt. So from what angle does he deserve punishment? I am saying that it may be because God took us out of Egypt on the understanding that we are the seed of Abraham and that we are supposed to keep the Torah; and therefore even after 2,000 years we have no ability to say that we do not believe, because our very existence rests on faith in the Torah, for the sake of which we left Egypt. From that angle, a person who does not believe still deserves punishment, and therefore he also does not have the option, from the Torah’s perspective, to say: I am leaving the system, you carry on with your own thing, and leave me alone—because he lives, and came out of the bondage of Egypt, only on condition of keeping the Torah.
Seemingly, if I understand the Torah as only a religious matter, then the whole issue of punishment is not understandable. A child is born into the world and says to his father: I do not believe in these laws. His father will tell him: this is our people and these are the laws we have. It sounds reasonable that the father would say to the son: if you want to leave, then leave—but to kill him because he does not believe? That sounds excessive, because you cannot obligate someone to believe if he himself was not actually at Mount Sinai. Maybe the only claim is that if you want to be part of the nation, you must accept these laws, and seemingly the claim that if you do not want to, then go away, does not exist—not because it is invalid, but because that is not the issue under discussion. I want to remain close to my parents even though they have strict rules in the house; I do have the option of leaving, but I do not want to. Or perhaps because we were taken out of Egypt and we are a people by virtue of the Creator of the world, from now on our very existence is dependent on the reason for which the Creator of the world took us out of Egypt, and we have no right to leave no matter what. That is a somewhat primitive way of looking at it, but there is a certain logic to the idea that our parents, who brought us into the world, have complete control over me, aside from whatever God says they too are subject to.