Subject: Netvort:
parshas Ki Tseitzei, 5765 ( re-sending)
I've Got Your
Number
By
Rabbi Joshua (deservingly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
In this
week's parsha, we learn of the form of punishment prescribed by the Torah for
someone who transgresses a prohibition of the Torah. The Torah tells us that if
men have a quarrel and they are brought to judgment, the judges should
'vindicate the righteous one and find the wicked one guilty." If, continues the
Torah, the wicked one is worthy of being struck, "the judge shall cast him down,
and he shall strike him, before him, according to his wickedness by a count.
Forty shall he strike him, he shall not add; lest he continue to strike him many
blows beyond these, and your brother shall be degraded in your eyes" ( Devorim,
25: 1-4).In the following verse, the Torah presents the prohibition of muzzling
an ox while it is threshing. The Talmud in Makkos derives, from his
juxtaposition, the nature of the prohibition that one must transgress in order
to incur the punishment of lashes. For example, the prohibition must be one
which involves a direct action on the part of the perpetration ( 'lav sheyeish
bo ma'aseh), just as muzzling one's animal is a direct action. However, besides
this formal connection, there is also an intrinsic connection between the
punishment of lashes and the prohibition of muzzling one's animal while it
threshes. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his Torah commentary, gives a
lengthy exposition of both the formal and the intrinsic connection. I would like
to focus on the intrinsic connection, and show how a general principle in Torah
interpretation can be derived from it.
The Talmud in Makkos, 23a,
tells us that the strands of whip used for the administration of the lashes must
be made from calfskin and donkey hide, as a hint to the verse in Yeshaya,1:3,
"The ox knows its owner and a donkey knows the trough of its master; Israel does
not know, My nation does not understood." As explained by Rabbi Hirsch, the
punishment is meant to educate the sinner, making him realize that by
transgressing God's word, he has not shown the kind of gratitude that even an
animal intuitively shows its master. The Torah says that through the lashing,
the perpetrator will be degraded before his brothers. Through developing a sense
of shame in reaction to the punishment for his offense, the sinner will,
hopefully, repent of his sin. Rabbeinu Yonah, in his Gates of Repentance ( not
cited by Rabbi Hirsch), writes that a sense of embarrassment and shame over
one's sins is a major part of the process of repentance. Although the person, by
his actions, has actually sunk below the level of an animal, Rabbi Hirsch writes
that the Torah, by placing the prohibition of muzzling an animal while it
threshes directly after the section on the punishment of lashes, is telling us
that we should not treat a human being worse than an animal. I believe, however,
that there is a deeper message in this juxtaposition, as I will demonstrate.
The Mishnah in Makkos, 22 a, tells us that although the Torah
mentions the number of forty in prescribing the punishment of lashes, the court
cannot exceed thirty-nine. They further explain that the number of lashes he
receives must be an odd number, divisible by three, similar to the number
thirty-nine. thirty- nine. The Talmud (22 b) then tells us that great Torah
scholars deserve our honor and respect, to the extent that we should rise for
them, just as we rise for a Torah scroll, because the Torah mentioned forty
lashes, and the rabbis reduced the number to thirty- nine. Rabbi Kalman
Kahane,zt'l, who was the founding rabbi of Kibbutz Chaim, presents, in the first
volume of his work Cheiker VeIyun, an elaborate discussion of the different
opinions concerning this exegesis, considering whether it constitutes the simple
meaning of the verses, or a rabbinic adjustment. He shows, among other things,
that the Rambam seems to take opposite approaches to this question in different
works that he wrote. One explanation that he does not mention, however, but
which is suggested by Rabbi Yehudah Copperman in his book, Peshuto Shel Mikra,
is that both are true. The true intent of the Torah, according to this approach,
is that the sinner should receive forty lashes. However, out of
consideration for human dignity, the sentence is reduced to a maximum of
thirty-nine, and must be given as an odd number of lashes closest to the number
that the person's physical constitution can bear without having his life
threatened by the punishment.
My teacher, Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik,
zt'l, gave a similar explanation of the Rambam's approach to the rabbis'
explanation that the Biblical punishment of' an eye for an eye' is actually
referring to monetary payment. By right, as the Rambam explains in his Guide for
the Perplexed, the sinner deserves to have his own eye removed, in conformity
with the principle of 'measure for measure.' However, the Torah took human
weaknesses into consideration, and reduced the severity of the punishment that
the person would receive. Rabbi Copperman, writes that , in actuality, this kind
of change from the ideal situation to the stuation as it manifests itself in
daily life is the difference between 'peshat,' or the plain meaning of a verse,
and 'derash', or the extrapolated meaning. The plain meaning of the verse, then,
tells us what Torah law should be on an ideal level, and the derash tells us how
this law translates itself to the level that human beings are actually on, in
thisworld. Based on Rabbi Copperman's application of this principle to the
number of lashes a sinner should receive by pure Torah law, and the Torah's
deflection from that number to a smaller one, we can better understand the
intrinsic connection between the punishment of lashes and the prohibition of
muzzling one's animal while it threshes produce.
As we have seen,
when a person transgresses a prohibition of the Torah, he acts on a level even
lower than that of an animal. Thus, we would expect that he should be
treated on a level even lower than that of an animal, and no regard at all
should be given to his dignity. Thus, although the Torah does show consideration
for the animal and prohibits us from muzzling it while it threshes, a sinner
does not deserve this kind of consideration. In fact, this is what the Torah is
intimating when it tells us that the sinner should receive forty lashes.
However, this is only the law of the Torah on an ideal level, before it is
translated to the every day world. The rabbis teach us that Torah law, as
applied to this world, does take into consideration man's frailties, and his
basic dignity, and deflects from a strict application of the law, which would
treat him as being lower than the animals, and imposes a smaller number of
lashes, so that the degradation hat the sinner suffers is sufficient to bring
him to repentance, but not severe enough to lower his dignity below that of the
animals. Even though the sinner has, in fact, acted in a manner that world
warrant such a severe punishment, the Torah does not impose such a penalty. It
is in this sense that the Talmud tells us that rabbis, by discerning this
fundamental approach to punishment in the Torah, are worthy of our honor and
respect, just as the scroll of the Torah itself is worthy of such treatment.
Please note:The inclusion of the addresses of Netvort subscribers in the
first mailing was inadvertant. My aplogies. JH
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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