[Avodah] torture in halacha???

[Zev Sero]

On 15/05/2012 3:16 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> For animals, you say that if it's for a reason, it's not assur.
> For people, you say it's assur with certain exceptions.
>
> Distinguish between "certain exceptions" and sufficient "reason".

The difference is that TzBCh is specifically about purposeless sadistic
infliction of pain.  It's not the act itself that the Torah cares about,
but the motives behind it, and the middah that allows a person to do it.
Whereas the issur of hurting a person is about the effect on the victim;
instead of "with certain exceptions" I should have said "unless you have
a specific heter".


-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon