Here we are with another Torah portion which challenges us to either go along with mainstream adopted “politically correct” views or go against it adopting Torah text as is with “Torah correctness”. In the spirit of this web site we are making ourselves a target of “politically correct” public.
Here is quite detail description of the legal system as instructed by God:
” Appoint yourself judges and officers for your tribes in all your settlements … and make sure that they administer honest judgment for the people“.
“When you discover a man or a woman doing evil in the eyes of God in one of your settlements” … following is an examples of idol worship practices … “you must listen, interrogate. If the accusation is established to be true ” … ” you shall take this man or woman to your gates … you shall pelt the man or woman with stones.”
Case of capital punishment in clear wording. Point in case: God does not allow a “unity among Jews” on the ground of “no matter what”. God not only bans such unity but prescribes a severe capital punishment for Jewish born defector. Very clear Divine ruling against often preached today “unity of all the Jews”, preached with disregard to what some Jews do against their God, their Land and their people…
(Side note: How would this Divine ruling change if, in addition to the defection from God of Israel, the evildoers also assist the enemies of Jews (let say Amalek for example) in afflicting their own people? Answer to this question I leave to the reader…)
So how this case of capital punishment can be proved? Only by the testimony of two or more witnesses. To make this witnesses feel responsible for the sentencing, their hands suppose to be the first to put the guilty person to death and, consequently, if the witnesses eventually revealed to be false, their fate is to be the same as the fate of a person they falsely testified against and killed.
Torah prescribes the level of authority of the Supreme Court (Sanhedrin) in the place of the Holly Temple (“The place which God your Lord will choose“) for all the cases where judges and officers could not come up with decision. The decision made by Sanhedrin is to be enforced by the threat of capital punishment.
In another case Torah considers the killed person found in between two settlements and no lead to the guilty party. In such case Torah prescribes only the elders of the closest settlement to conduct a ritual for a solemn vow that ” our hands did not spill this blood and our eyes have not witnessed it…” . This surely adds a feel of responsibility by the Jews who have a fear of God, yet we see here that this ritual does not replace justice. In other words Torah does not hide the fact that in earthly life there are many cases when justice cannot be done by mortals and, borrowing the words from Rambam, we see that “this Law is nothing but a concession to a human weakness” (“guide for the Perplexed”, Moreh Nevuhim). It is Divinely devised to make the best judgment in the worst situation where not much is known about the crime.
How can we apply such system today? As Rabbis say only few of the criminals who committed capital crimes would ever receive a capital punishment, for how many crimes have two or more witnesses?
To be able to apply Torah’s view on the legal system we must clearly separate the goal and purpose of the Divine Law and it’s means. The goal and purpose are eternal as they teach us today as they taught Jews 4,000 years ago to change our minds to “find the King” as Rambam puts it. “Means” or methods might be provided only for the Jews at that time, considering their level of development, their current available technology and their habits and customs. What else could God prescribe Jews to follow 4,000 years ago? Could He command us to run DNA test? To use recorded video or photo images? Surely not. Only witness testimony was available back then. But we can learn from it something which is timeless: a requirement to gather convincing proves or testimonies before a person can be sentenced for a capital crime… “Means” cannot be eternal, but the purpose can and does… Many of the similar cases as Torah considered above with the body found between the settlements, could be successfully solved by investigators today using modern technology (which was not available at the time of Torah writing). The point is – use all the means available today to solve the case and punish the offender according to God’s will.
Still, today, as back then, there are and will be many legal cases including murder, when there are no facts to prove the guilt or innocence of a person in relation to the deadly incident. In such unsolved cases Torah puts the final judgment into the hands of the relative of the victim. Torah calls him “blood avenger” and gives him unrestricted rights, even to kill (only in case if no solution was made by local court or Sanhedrin)! At the same time Torah allows the suspect of the murder or the innocent witness, however you look at it, to run to one of the Refuge Cities. It is kind of the first documented description of the prison – suspected person can live there without moving outside of the boundaries of the city. Within this city he is protected from the “blood avenger” but not outside…
It is interesting to notice here some facts from after the WW2. There were few Jewish survivors in East Europe who were involved in activities which constituted a revenge against local nazi collaborators during the war. Information was not leaked even to the local Jews and was never publicided in Israel. This topic was and still is a “tabu” for all the Jews. When author of this article, while researching the Holocaust, tried to question the reasoning for the tabu, a typical answer of the secular Jews was: “this is not good to do” and typical answer of the religious Jews was : “Torah does not allow this to do”. The latter answer surely is a false mainstream opinion adopted by orthodox Judaism contrary to Torah. While the former answer is a mainstream non-religious Jewish opinion adopted from gentile world… In both answers Torah’s view was not consulted …
