One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה
Forbidden Intercourse 1
Sefer Kedushah · The opening of the book of Holiness • Liability and the court • Who is responsible • Evidence and presumption
2
Witnesses, plus a warning,
before a court may punish
3
Modes of court execution:
stoning, burning, strangulation
1
Union judged by strangulation:
adultery
30
Days of living openly as
married to set a presumption
1:1-8The Boundary and Its Consequences
- Kareit for both. Whoever willingly enters a union with one of the arayot is liable to kareit; the verse says souls, so the man and the woman are equally bound. Unknowingly, each brings a fixed sin offering. (1:1)
- Witnesses and a warning. The court executes only with witnesses and a warning that was disregarded, even for a Torah scholar, since the warning distinguishes the inadvertent from the deliberate. Kareit applies regardless. (1:2-3)
- Three modes of execution. The Rambam lists the unions judged by stoning and by burning. Strangulation applies only to adultery, while a priest's daughter is burned and a betrothed maiden is stoned. (1:4-6)
- Below the capital cases. Other arayot carry kareit alone, with lashes where there was warning. Negative commandments bring lashes, rabbinic prohibitions bring stripes for rebellious conduct, and positive commandments carry no set penalty, though the court may discipline. (1:7-8)
RememberHeaven's judgment needs no witnesses. The court's judgment needs two, and a warning spoken at the moment.
1:9-18Who Truly Took Part
- The compelled are free. One who is compelled bears no lashes, offering or execution. A woman compelled at the outset is not liable even if she later yielded, since her nature was compelled. (1:9)
- When liability begins. Liability begins at the first stage of the union, not its completion, in any manner. An act without capacity for union is not considered relations, though it still carries rabbinic discipline. (1:10-11)
- No disowning what one took part in. One who enters a forbidden union without intending it is still liable for an offering. Relations after death carry no liability, but one who is mortally ill is still alive in law. (1:12)
- Minors and doubtful cases. A minor is never punished and the adult is. The Rambam also sets rules for relations between males, for the androgynus and tumtum, and for animals. (1:13-17)
- Sorting the two parties. Between any two people, the minor, the sleeping, the inadvertent and the compelled are spared, while the other bears the full liability. (1:18)
RememberResponsibility follows will. The line is fixed, and the law asks carefully who actually chose to cross it.
1:19-23Evidence and What Everyone Knows
- Witnesses need not see everything. Seeing a couple in the unmistakable posture of intimacy is enough; the court presumes what it means. (1:19)
- Family by presumption. Relatives are judged by established presumption, as with the woman who raised an infant in Jerusalem. The law of striking a father proves it, since no court can prove fatherhood directly. (1:20)
- Thirty days. A couple from overseas who live openly as married for thirty days are treated as married; within thirty days no one is executed on that presumption. (1:21)
- What neighbors know. A woman known among her neighbors to be a niddah is treated so. A priest whose warned and secluded wife is accused by one witness is lashed for relations with her. (1:22)
- A father's word. A father who says his daughter is consecrated to a certain man is believed. The stored text ends partway through this halacha. (1:23)
RememberThe holiness of a family rests on clarity. What a community openly knows about who belongs to whom is the frame halacha builds on.