[Avodah] Abuse and halakhah

[Doron Beckerman]

> If you follow that logic you would also have to say that the Torah sees no
> difference between rape and seduction.

Yes there is. A mefateh only pays if he doesn't marry the girl.

> Isn't boshes and pegam, certainly boshes, precisely about the emotional
> devastation?

Not really. Pegam is the actual loss of value because she is not a
besulah. According to the Rambam (Chovel Umazik 5:7), Raavad (ibid. 2;2),
Shulchan Aruch (CM 420:7) and Rema (ibid. 8) Boshes is only paid if the
act is done in front of others (or if it is a visible wound). So it isn't
about the emotional devastation, it is about the shame of others knowing
about it. I don't think we want to open that Pandora's box. (What do you
do where the parents insist on hushing it up, does the one who leaked
the story pay them boshes?) ... [Tosafos to Kesuvos 65b maintains that
Boshes applies in private as well, but it isn't clear he would expand
that to emotional devastation.]

> Now, it may be true, that in terms of the perpetrator, and absent a victim,
> the sin of loshen hora is worse than that of sexual relations (that it seems
> to me is also the thrust of the next portion of the gemora in Arachin) 

This I might agree with, that it is about the perpetrator - the Iyyun
Yaakov to Arachin says that a rapist fell prey to his Yetzer, and a
Motzee Shem Ra has no Hanaah. That sits well? How do you isolate it? Like
I said, it seems that Hashem expresses less outrage at falling prey to
one's Yetzer (the Gemara calls it "for Hanaas Shechivah") in such a way
that tears someone's life apart than for spreading false rumors that
one's wife was guilty of consensual infidelity.

>> but nobody appears to be suggesting giving a victim of loshen hora monetary
>> damages for boshes and pegam at the level that we are talking about for
>> rape.

I dunno. Nowadays, we don't collect boshes at all me'ikar hadin, since
there are no mumchim. But, the license to collect Boshes todayfor any
act involving boshes is from the Takanas HaGeonim that we collect for
Biyush Bedevarim, particularly Motzee Shem Ra (CM 420:38). If we assume,
as above, that Boshes is the public humiliation involved - I would think
Hotza'as Shem Ra on an innocent person as a sexual predator ranks pretty
darned high.