[Avodah] Apikores?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, December 20, 2007 2:20 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
> : What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was
> : too many executions. (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)
> 
> Opening Shabbos 15a...
> 
> R' Yitzchaq bar Avdimei says it was to avoid dinei kenasos. This is
> questioned and clarified -- it was to avoid dinei nefashos. Dinei
> nefashos includes misas beis din as well as malkos, not just judging
> retzichah.

It includes malkos, but the *reason* they moved was because of too
many murderers, not too many treif-eaters or shatnez-wearers.  There's
no mention that they had malkos in mind.


> Now the question is why they avoided corporal punishment. Was it
> because they couldn't politically, or because they weren't willing to
> mete it out in such quantity?
> 
> Well, as you also seem to recall, Chazal say "misherabu". (I'm looking
> for that quote, but keep on turning up Sotah 9:9 about the end of egla
> arufah, not galus.)

It's at Avoda Zara 8b, at the bottom of the page.  And it says
explicitly that it was because there were a lot of murderers and
they were *not able* to try them.  Not that they didn't *want* to,
but that they couldn't.  Now it doesn't say exactly *why* they
couldn't judge the murderers; that's where outside history can help
us (as we've been discussing in other threads, how limudei chol can
help explain questions in torah).


 
> That was where I deduced causality -- too many murderers lead to doing
> away with trying to kill them. In line with achas lesheva/shiv'im
> shanah. I'm not sure why being politically unable to mete out capital
> punishment would justify removing other powers of Sanhedrin.

It wasn't just the Sanhedrin, it was every beit din in the country.
There were a lot of murderers *everywhere* in EY, and the batei din
weren't able to try them.  By moving offices, the Sanhedrin removed
the power of every b"d to sit on dinei nefashot.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas