[Avodah] Apikores?

[Elazar M. Teitz]

RZSero:
<What it says is that there were too many murderers, not that there was too many executions. (And it says nothing about corporal punishment.)>

RMBerger:<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.>

RZS:
<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.>

RMB:
<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.)>

rzs:
<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).>

RMB:
<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.>

RZS:
<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.>

     First, there is no mention whatever of corporal punishment, and indeed the ability to administer corporal punishment is not curtailed by the absence of the Beis Din Hagadol from the Lishkas Hagazis.  It is capital punishment -- dinei n'fashos -- and capital punishment alone whose administration requires the presence in Lishkas Hagazis.

    Second, it is Rashi who says (Sanhedrin 41a, s.v. Ela dinei n'fashos) that "v'keivan d'chazu din'fshei rotz'chim v'lo hayu maspikin ladun a'mdu v'galu misham."  It wasn't the lack of authority, which would have been described as "v'lo yach'lu ladun." The words "v'lo maspikin" means that they couldn't keep up.

    Furthermore, if "lo yach'lu l'meidan" means that they lacked the authority to try such cases, why should they go out of the lishka in order not to try those cases, since they couldn't try them even if they stayed put? 

    And what is the meaning of "ki heichi d'lo lichayvei"? If for some reason they couldn't try capital cases, it was not so that the murderers should not become liable; it was because the court had its authority taken away.  And certainly according to the Ramah, who explains in Sanhedrin that "ki heichi d'lo lichayvei" refers to Beis Din, that they not be guilty biydei Shamayim for not fulfilling the duty of killing those who were sentenced -- what chiyuv could they have if they were anoosim by an outside power?

     Also, why "misherabu harotz'chim"?  If it wasn't the increased caseload, but the denial of authority by an outside power, _that_ should have been given as the reason for their galus; the number of cases would have been irrelevant.

     It would seem that the only reasonable way to understand the g'mara is as Rashi did, that they were unable to judge all of them because of the heavy caseload.  Thus, rather than judge some and not others, they decided to make it impossible to impose a death penalty on anyone.

EMT 
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