[Avodah] torture in halacha???

hankman hankman at bell.net
Mon May 14 15:17:22 PDT 2012


On 14/05/2012 4:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 02:01:18PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> On 5/13/2012 3:26 PM, Harvey Benton wrote:

>>> is torture ever allowed in halacha???

>> Is it ever not allowed in halakha?

> If tza'ar baalei chaim isn't allowed, lo kol shekein humans.
> So, there has to be a criterion for justification.

RZS wrote:

If it's for no reason then why talk about torture? Hitting another
person is explicitly forbidden by the Torah: "pen yosif". The question
only makes sense in a case where we've already determined that hitting
is permitted, and now RHB is asking whether there are any cases where
not only hitting but also torture is permitted. And RLL's response is
correct: first find a case where it's *not* permitted, and only then
can you ask whether there also exist cases where it is.

CM responds:
I think RMB’s logic makes more sense, and the argument by RZS above is missing the step that RMB provided.

That is to say: Accepting RZS’s point that even plain vanilla hitting is asur even if it does not amount to torture, so we must be considering cases where hitting is permitted. Now comes RHB with his question about torture. Then RZS chooses R’nLL logic rather than argue that even if hitting is permitted perhaps the level of issur from the kal vechomer from tza'ar baalei chaim would indicate that the default at this point is issur and you would then have to bring proof of heter and not as R’nLL assumes a default of heter.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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