[Avodah] Lifnei Iver

[Nachman Levine]

Micha Berger writes:
> Well, the notion of saying that lifnei iveir is about bad advice or 
> helping
> someone sin to the exclusion of literally tripping the blind is 
> supported in
> part by the fact that tripping blind people violates other issurim. 
> It would
> be superfluous to prohibit this particular kind of chavalah.
> 
> So, there would be no nafqa mina lehalakhah, since both agree that 
> (1) telling
> someone to sin violates LI, and (2) putting a stumbling block where 
> it might
> cause a blind person to hurt himself is assur. The debate is only 
> over which
> issurim #2 violates.


There’s no question that tripping a blind person is really not nice and
(in the context of lifnei iveir and beyond) not to be encouraged. And
certainly forbidden. 
 
My question was in regard to its (paradoxic) specific Shem Isur as
regards its halachic meaning. The Ragatchover (Responsa Tzafnas Paneach
5) raises the issue if Lifnei Iver violates (generalized) Lifnei Iver or
a subset of the specific sin that was encouraged and abetteted, though
not Halachically itself constituting a Maaseh. [He brings many
fascinating examples: is giving fire to fire-worshipping  Persians
(Sanhedrin 74a) avizrayhu of Avodah Zarah (Rashi) or “only Lifnei Iver”
(Ramban) (!)]. (And see the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Likutei Sichos 11:149, ff.
65).
 
So is [literal] Lifnei Iver an independent Shem Isur in the Torah
(Meshech Chochmah, Zohar, etc.), or simply a subset of another
prohibition, and thus what is the status of its own [halachic] Lifnei
Iver? So, not necessarily a halachic Nafka Mina, though the Ragatchover
cites several (halachic) instances of nafka minas of the general question
(is a Tarfus seller a Tarfus eater or not as regards Eidus (Rambam Eidus
12:9), etc.), but rather what shall we call this generalized/specific
Isur.
 
There is of course, a POST-postmodern reading and Nafka Mina in the
relationship of Peshat and Derash in Lifnei Iver. If, as had been pointed
out, MANY instances of “Iver” are meant simply metaphoric in many
(Halachic!) texts (Ki HaShochad YE-AVER, Shemos 23:9, Devarim 1:19),
etc.) and ALL usages of Michshol in Tanach are ALWAYS metaphoric in their
plainest sense (Michshol Avon, etc.), reading Lifnei Iver lo Sitein
Michshol literally would make it the ONLY Pasuk in Tanach where it isn’t
meant metaphorically at its plainest level of meaning.
 
Thus: if Lifnei Iver at the level of Peshuto shel Mikra is understood as
plainly metaphoric at its simplest level of meaning, (as in: Im yakum
veyis-halech bachutz al Mishanto, im yizrach alav hashemesh, Charbi
veKashti, etc.)
 
the Halachic sense [encouraging] of  Lifnei Iver would be the pasuk’s
Peshat meaning and the subset prohibition of [literally] tripping derived
by reading the pasuk hyperliterally would be a shem Isur derived by
Derash! (and would this have halachic ramifications?)

Nachman Levine
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