[Avodah] serving on a Jury??

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 09, 2011 at 03:32:35PM -0800, Harvey Benton wrote:
: The same would apply to other transgressions - e.g. embezzlement crimes, where 
: USA medina for instance would put someone in jail, while torah law would 
: probably just impose a knas. 

But there is a chiyuv to keep an orderly society (uvi'arta hara'ah
miqirbekha) encumbent on both Jews and benei Noach. And it's on the
strength of that chiyuv that "beis din makin ve'onshin shelo min
hadin". And in fact, R Huna cut off the hand -- shelo min hadin --
of someone who constantly hit other people. (Sanhedrin 58b)

To my mind it's more of a question of defining the limits of that chiyuv.
Does halakhah have a concept of disproportionate punishment wouldn't be
permitted under the chiyuv to have batei din?

There is a relevent teshuvah in the Besamim Rosh about not cutting off
the nose of a woman who repeatedly found non-Jewish men to shack up with.
Thus, making her undesirable to such men in the future, and thus keeping
her and any children she may later have, within the community.

Problem is, the Besamim Rosh is a far from an impeccable source. It
claims to be from the Rosh, but there are real indications it's really
authored by the man who claimed to have gotten ahold of the manuscript,
R' Saul Berlin (1740 - 1794), who had close associations with the early
(and still O) maskilim of Berlin and Breslau. And a maskil would have
clear reason to minimize the role of rabbis as a penal system in a
Jewish autonomous community. Especially such punishments so unpalatable
to modern sensibilities!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced with a decision ask yourself,
micha at aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter