What the Court Cannot Reach

About This Talk

Chapter 2 draws the circle of the earthly court around the hand itself: one who kills with his own hands, by sword, stone, strangling or fire, is executed, while one who hires a murderer, sends his servants, binds a man before a lion, or takes his own life is a shedder of blood liable only at the hands of Heaven, which the Rambam reads from the threefold I will demand an account of Genesis 9; a king may still execute such killers to perfect society, a court may do so as an emergency measure, and otherwise the court must beat him nearly to death and imprison him so that others will not arrange killings with impunity. The victim is never ranked: a one-day-old infant, a woman or a man, the healthy, the dying and one already in his death throes are all protected, except a premature baby within thirty days, one in his death throes from wounds others inflicted, and one certainly known to be a trefah whom physicians declare beyond remedy; every person is presumed sound, and a trefah who kills is executed only if he killed before the court itself, since witnesses against him could not be subject to hazamah. The killer of a Canaanite servant is executed like the killer of any Jew, and the owner's leniency when his servant survives a full day applies only to blows with a rod or strap, never to a lethal weapon, and not to a servant within a seller's thirty-day stipulation, one half free, or one held by partners, while the killer of a resident alien or a gentile is not executed by a Jewish court. Chapter 3 is the assessment of that could cause death: the object, the place struck, the force, the distance thrown, and the size, strength and health of both parties; a pointed iron object of any size suffices while a blunt hunk of metal is assessed like stone; a fall is measured by height and by the victim, with the Rambam's own view that ten handbreadths does not kill; holding a man in water or fire, smothering him, sealing him from air, or filling his room with smoke is execution as if by strangling, while binding him to starve, leaving him to later cold or heat, covering him with a barrel, removing his roof or setting a snake on him is murder before Heaven but not a capital case; neither the pusher nor the one who removed a ladder or shield is executed; a stone rebounding from a wall makes the thrower liable, a ball in play is exempt within four cubits of the wall and liable beyond, and one who turns water on a bound man is liable only if the first burst kills. Chapter 4 requires that intent, instrument and target meet: one who intended another victim, one who threw into a crowd, and one whose blow struck where it could not have killed as aimed are exempt from death and exile; a victim assessed to live leaves the attacker liable only for the five damages even if he later dies, a victim assessed to die keeps him imprisoned, full recovery walking on his own strength frees him on payment, and improvement followed by death after an assessment of death means execution with no second assessment; ten who strike with ten sticks are all exempt since one man must be entirely accountable, while the eleventh whose stone alone could kill is executed; unconvicted killers are confined in a kipah, because murder destroys society more than idolatry, forbidden relations or Shabbat violation, and no lifetime of mitzvot outweighs it, as shown by Ach'av, condemned for the blood of Navot alone; the chapter closes on the rulings concerning minim and apikorsim, which later authorities such as the Chazon Ish held inapplicable in an era of hidden providence, and on the obligation to save a Jew who sins only occasionally for his own pleasure.