0

The punishment of lashes serves as a kapparah (atonement) for a person's aveirah.

  • 1) The Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah # 594) writes that the reason for the mitzvah of lashes was to penalize the sinner in this world so that he should change his ways and still merit a desirable afterlife.

  • 2) Rambam Hilchos Sanhedrin 17:7- Whenever a person sins and is lashed, he returns to his original state of kashrus.

  • see also: Rashi on Sanhedrin 10a who writes how lashes are like one of the 4 types of capital punishment (ie each which provides kapparah)

However

The mishnah on Makkos 22b states:

נתקלקל בין בריעי בין במים פטור רבי יהודה אומר האיש בריעי והאשה במים:

If one sullies himself, whether with excrement or with urine, he is exempt [from further lashes]. Rabbi Yehuda says: the man is exempted with excrement, and the woman is exempted with urine.

expanded on Makkos 23a

... and the Rambam elaborates further in Hilchos Sanhedrin 17:5

מִי שֶׁאֲמָדוּהוּ וּכְשֶׁהִתְחִיל לִלְקוֹת נִתְקַלְקֵל מִכֹּחַ הַהַכָּאָה בֵּין בְּרֵיעִי בֵּין בְּמֵימֵי רַגְלַיִם אֵין מַכִּין אוֹתוֹ יוֹתֵר שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים כה ג) "וְנִקְלָה אָחִיךָ לְעֵינֶיךָ" כֵּיוָן שֶׁנִּקְלָה פָּטוּר

When it was estimated that a person could bear a specific number of lashes, they began lashing him and he became distressed due to the power of the blows and either defecated or urinated, he is not given any more lashes. This is derived from Deuteronomy 25:3: "and your brother will be degraded before your eyes." Since he was distressed, he is absolved.

Question:

I understand how wetting or soiling oneself is a fulfillment of "and your brother will be degraded before your eyes" and is enough to cut the session short.

But can it really be that a person receives the kapparah for lashes by wetting or soiling themself? How?

Improve this question
14
  • Seriously, we don't deal with Kapparah, we only deal with what we're are authorized to do. So if we stone someone, that's because we're commanded to do so, with no connection with the Kapparah that comes from G-d. Similarly, with lashes - we do what we ought to do, and G-d decides whether the person is forgiven or not.
    – Al Berko
    May 23, 2019 at 10:01
  • In other words, you're asking whether פטור is פטור אבל אסור (still needs some Kapporah) or פטור לגמרי (like wetting completes the lashes)?
    – Al Berko
    May 23, 2019 at 10:04
  • Perhaps the very fact that they wet/soiled themselves indicates that the one getting lashed had a sufficient amount of pain/discomfort, to attain kapparah.
    – user9806
    May 23, 2019 at 15:31
  • 1
    @alicht i think our ideas are slightly different, in other words his kaboro is achived by bing hit and being degraded (by the hit itself not afterwords), for the sin, this degradation which and happen in 3 ways 1. by 39 hits, 2. by the maximum hit he can take, or 3. Even by one hit if it couses him to soil himself on the spot
    – hazoriz
    May 23, 2019 at 17:11
  • 1
    @alicht yes that is how i see it, but i need to correct myself, it seems that he should be degraded but, not severely degraded ( sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.25.3 ) 40 hits makes him severly degraded so he needs less than that (39 or as much as he can take), soiling himself makes him severely degraded so one can be sure that he had enough (but this is only if the soiling had to do with the hit)
    – hazoriz
    May 23, 2019 at 17:59

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .