[Avodah] Murder a Chok or Logically Compelling

Rabbi Meir G. Rabi meirabi at gmail.com
Sat Sep 7 07:39:30 PDT 2024


Where Baruch is threatening the life of Aharon
even if only inadvertently [he is standing on his air supply line]
Baruch is a Rodef
and must be killed.

Where the threat is from a third party
The third party is the Rodef - but we are unable to neutralise that Rodef
Rava Paskens, since in HKBHs eyes no one Js life is more valuable than
another
one may not kill EVEN in order to save their own life
and KVeChomer no outsider can kill
[so this is a LOGICAL argument, Lamah Li Kera Sevara Hu, it is NOT a Chok]

TTBOMKnowledge, this is the Halacha
And was presented in order to challenge the proposition
That Halacha, HKBHs commands, CAN runs contrary to common sense
As is illustrated by the ruling
That two lives are NOT more valuable than one

I do not understand why or how it is related,
but R Micha argued/presented the illustration of
A surgeon who can save 5 people
by randomly selecting and killing an uninvolved person
[which is clearly wrong, no?]
Thereby proving that we cannot simply argue
that the best outcome for the most people
Is the right choice

I do not suspect that anyone in the discussion proposed or entertained such
a thought
and the reason is because
The random person is UNINVOLVED
And it is self evident [Sevara, Lama Li Kera]
That it is utterly untenable that we randomly grab someone to save the life
of many.
And that is why I do not understand why R Micha made a reference to that
illustration.

R Micha added that Halacha presents a different subflavor of Deontology,
called
Virtue Ethics. i.e. that our primary concern is Middos Tovos ("virtues').

I do not understand this
As Rashi explains this case, Halacha determines the value of a Y life in
the eyes of HKBH
is the same be that Yid a RoshY or a Shoteh
I do not readily see how that relates to Middos Tovos.

As for deontology - ethical choice following rules - and its subflavours
I do not understand why this has anything to do with ethics

Our ethics are determined by being loyal to HKBH
Rava expresses that best by ruling that the life of a famous Rosh Yeshivah
Is no more valuable in the eyes of HKBH than the life of
an illiterate Y street sweeper
Or brain injured paraplegic.

R Micha also presents
Every Y life has infinite value,
Certainly, this is the foundation of Rava’s Pesak – the RY and the brain
injured paraplegic
#######

We also touched upon Rava’s ruling
As it appears to contradict the ruling that
The entire city must perish rather than give up one Y to be executed
i.e. may lives are NOT more valued than one life
[This Q is posed by the Kessef Mishnah]
Which is resolved by understanding that
The Y in the city are being asked to trample upon their Yiddishkeit
Which invokes the Mitzvah of Kiddush HaShem
And the entire city is commanded in this Mitzvah
Because the enemy is perfectly capable of killing everyone
Their single intent and purpose is to humiliate the Y
[and it is likely that it is a Mitzvah for one to voluntarily go to the
enemy in order to save the city]
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