[Avodah] Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda

[Jay F. Shachter]

> 
> We are told that Tamar risked execution rather than publicly
> embarrassing Yehuda.
>

Can we please stop taking these rhetorical statements literally?
I do not minimize the sin of publicly embarrassing someone (as you
may perhaps have inferred from my last posting to this mailing list),
but no one is obliged to risk execution rather than publicly embarrass
someone.  You are not even allowed to risk execution rather than
publicly embarrass someone (there are minority opinions that disagree).
And Bney Noax -- remember, we are talking about Bney Noax here -- are
not even obliged to martyr themselves to avoid committing idolatry, or
gilluy `arayoth.

(Also, as has been mentioned before on this mailing list, I think the
pshat of the psuqim is that Tamar was about to be branded, not burnt
alive.)

               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
               6424 North Whipple Street
               Chicago IL  60645-4111
                       (1-773)7613784   landline
                       (1-410)9964737   GoogleVoice
                       jay at m5.chicago.il.us
                       http://m5.chicago.il.us

               When Martin Buber was a schoolboy, it must have been
               no fun at all playing tag with him during recess.