[Avodah] Threats Against A Judge

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:11am GMT, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: I wrote: 
:> 1) It seems to me that the prohibiton against murder DOES
:> require mesiras nefesh by its very nature: "Who knows whose
:> blood is redder?"

: R' Micha Berger commented:
:> I fail to undertand what you're saying. How does your
:> question make shefichas dam more about mesiras nefesh than AZ
:> or gilui arayos? What the question you quote shows is why one
:> should be moseir nefesh, why this made it to the list of 3.
:> But how does it define the very nature of refusing to kill?

: It is because both murder and mesiras nefesh involve a loss of
: life. Therefore one can easily get into a logical discussion about when
: they conflict.

That's not mesiras nefesh. Milkhamah requires risk to one's own life,
therefore it must be permissable to risk one's life to do it -- otherwise
the mitzvah couldn't exist. Murder is another person's life. Whose blood
is redder is a different argument than the one we're making. It could
be that the 3 yeihareig ve'al ya'avor are for three different reasons,
and shefichas damam is about weighing lives.

But the list apparently does not include mitzvos that require
self-sacrifice by their very definition.

: RZS is treating self-preservation as an important factor in these
: decisions. I don't. Self-preservation is a desire and an instinct,
: not a moral imperative.

I think RZS is an Objectivist, so I'm not surprised.

: The case of a rodef is different. His actions cheapen life, and it is
: not unfair to value his life according to his valuation. The result is
: that yes indeed, my life *is* more valuable, and he forfeits his.

Al sheloshah devarim ha'olam omeid, and anyone who takes an axe to any
of the pillars is cheapening life. I think that's the real meaning of the
3 yeihareig ve'al ya'avor list. The Maharal (Derekh haChaim 1:2) shows how:

The opposite of Torah, self refinement, is gilui arayos. (To put it in
my own thoughts, the only one harmed when conducted "by two consenting
adults behind closed doors" are the two people themselves. Second,
the mussarist I try to be appreciates this definition of Torah.)

Avodah vs AZ is self evident, as is gemillus chassadim vs shefichas damim.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's nice to be smart,
micha at aishdas.org        but it's smarter to be nice.
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