[Avodah] mesira vs chillul hashem

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 04:45:09PM -0500, Dorron Katzin wrote:
: In the United States, I am not willing to grant that he could be right.

We also have RHS's position that uvi'arta hara'ah miqirbekha obligates
us to assist secular laws that are part of implementing the 7th mitzvah
benei Noach.

The previous cycle on mesirah bizman hazeh was pretty recent.
It is a subset of our discussion at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=D#DINA%20DEMALCHUTA>
and <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IS%20THIS%20MUTTAR>

As well as my Dec 2008 post WRT mesirah and Madoff
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n433.shtml#01>. A partial quote
of RHS I'm copying from that post:
> If, however, one is guilty of a crime, and according to the law of the
> land deserves a prison sentence, or will be put to death, even though
> according to Jewish law his punishment would not be as severe, this is
> not mesirah (see Ritva to Bava Metsia 83b; Dvar Avraham vol. I pg. 8).
> ... In an instance of avoiding a chilul Hashem, just like we would
> be obligated to return the aveidas akum, so too we would be obligated
> to hand over this individual (see Rama, Choshen Mishpat 388:12).

> If the non-Jewish governmental authorities know that one Jew is
> concealing information about another Jew in order to save him from
> punishment, the Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 28:3) considers this a
> situation of chilul Hashem...

> Even if one is guilty of a crime and deserves a punishment according to
> the laws of the land, but due to anti-semetic attitudes he will probably
> suffer more than if he were a non-Jew; or, the (state) prison conditions
> are such that he will suffer at the hands of the other inmates (or at
> the hands of the guards) in a manner that is not proscribed by law, then
> turning the offender in would constitute mesirah... However, mesirah
> is permitted in situations where one is a public menace (see Shach to
> Choshen Mishpat 388, 59), or if one is physically or psychologically
> harming another individual ... (see Shach to Choshen Mishpat ibid, 45).

> The Jewish community does not have the ability to investigate these
> types of cases. Wherever there are raglayim ladavar that there seems
> to be a problem, the proper government agencies should be contacted to
> investigate.

In a country where Jews wouldn't assume we get anti-semitism motivated
sentencing, the third paragraph quoted requires informing the authorities.

RHS also obligates informing if we are talking about a more hostile
country, but there are raglayim ledavar that the person is physically
or psychologically dangerous to the public. (Not even to Yehudim in
particular.)

Notice how this differs from the Agudah's recent statement about
people about whom there are raglayim ledavar for an accusation of child
molesting. What the Agudah is saying within a non-antisemitic system
RHS limits to overriding someone else to anti-semitic treatment.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous