‫בס"ד‬

Death penalty in Judaism.

By militaryedit87

The reader of the Torah may get the impression that in Judaism mass executions take place
every Monday and Thursday. The Torah is full of death penalties for various offenses, and the
Sages dealt at length with the details of the four death penalties - stoning, burning, killing
and strangulation. Some of the offenses for which the Torah requires death seem like trivial
things; one can indeed understand the death penalty for a murderer, but why Anyone who
desecrates Shabbat with light work must be stoned? Doesn't this turn Judaism into a violent
and cruel religion, similar to ISIS, God forbid?

THE ORAL TORAH

This question would be correct if Judaism included only the written Torah. However, as we
know, there is also the Oral Torah, which greatly limited the application of these death
penalties. According to the Halacha, a person commits to the death penalty only if two kosher
witnesses saw him at the time of the act and agreed that he would commit death to him, and
that person made it clear that he did not care, and committed the offense immediately after
being warned. Of course, cases in which all of these conditions are met, and indeed it is a
crime that is forbidden by the Torah and by all accounts must be put to death, are extremely
rare. The words of the Mishnah in Makkot (1:10) are known: "A Sanhedrin that executes a
transgressor once in seven years is characterized as a destructive tribunal. Since the
Sanhedrin would subject the testimony to exacting scrutiny, it was extremely rare for ao
defendant to be executed.

Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya says: This categorization applies to a Sanhedrin that executes a
transgressor once in seventy years. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say: If we had been members
of the Sanhedrin, we would have conducted trials in a manner whereby no person would have
ever been executed. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: In adopting that approach, they too
would increase the number of murderers among the Jewish people.

The death penalty would lose its deterrent value, as all potential murderers would know that
no one is ever executed."(Mishnah Makkot 1:10)

From this we can see that the actual death penalty was an extremely rare thing, and some of
the sages even aspired to abolish it completely. This description is of course very far from ISIS
and its alike. The death penalty also exists in the laws of the State of Israel today. A district
court can impose the death penalty by hanging for crimes of treason against the State of
Israel, which includes harming Israel's sovereignty, waging war, and aiding the enemy in war,
as well as for crimes against Israel or humanity or war crimes during the Nazi regime. A
military court can sentence a soldier to death by firing squad who betrayed, left the campaign,
aided the enemy or gave him information, provided that such an act was done during combat.
Terrorists can also be sentenced to death. Reading these laws in isolation from reality, while
giving an extensive interpretation to the acts described in them, could lead to the conclusion
that in the State of Israel there are active gallows in the city squares; In practice, as we know,
the only one who was executed according to the court's ruling in all seventy years of Israel's
existence is the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. Like the state, the Torah must also be
discussed not according to the dry language of the law but according to the procedures used in
practice, determined by the sages according to the Oral Torah.

The meaning of life and death

However, even after reducing the applicability of death penalties to a minimum, the question
still remains, why the Torah decrees the death penalty for offenses such as desecration of the
Sabbath. Even if only one in seventy years is executed for violating Shabbat, one still needs to
understand the moral logic of that.

To this it must be said that the Torah treats life and death in a different way than is accepted
today in the secular world. The secular concept does not recognize the existence of the next
world, or at any rate does not give practical expression to the possibility of its existence. For
her, life in this world is the only life there is. From this, life becomes a supreme value, and
death is considered the most terrible disaster.

Judaism, on the other hand, does recognize the value of life, and soul control rejects almost
the entire Torah, but its point of view is completely different. According to Judaism, life in
this world is a corridor leading to the next world, which is the place of eternal life and true
reward. The purpose of life is not life itself, but the utilization of it for the sake of God's
worship, observance of mitzvot and spiritual ascension, so that through it man will be entitled
to the life of the next world. Death is not the end of existence but a transition to a higher
existence, in the world of truth.

It is understood that man did not come to this world just to spend a few decades, but to fulfill
his role and destiny for which he was created. Something similar to an astronaut sent on a
scientific research mission on the moon, or an agent sent on a secret mission deep in the
enemy. Although they are also allowed to enjoy themselves as part of their duties, the main
thing is the fulfillment of the duties themselves, and if they are raised in a harsh manner, this
may lead to the immediate termination of their stay there and their return to their home.
 We do not fully understand the flavors of the commandments, and how they affect reality, but
it is clear that they were given to us as instructions that guide us on how to conduct ourselves
as part of our mission in this world. Even the astronaut does not necessarily understand how
the spaceship operates, but he must know which buttons are allowed to be pressed and which
are not. Deviating from these instructions can cause disasters that will only become clear to
him later.

Similarly, we don't know what is so serious about things like lighting a fire on Shabbat,
meshab zakor or other offenses, but that's because we don't see the full picture. We don't
know what "buttons" these acts push, and what damage they cause. A person who commits
such serious offenses, and refuses to desist from them even in the presence of witnesses and a
warning, cannot continue his mission in this world; He has finished his duty, and must be sent
back to the upper world to give judgment for his actions. This is why capital punishments are
sometimes necessary. In our limited view, murder is a terrible thing and Shabbat desecration
is a trivial thing, but if we saw the full picture from God's point of view, we would understand
the reasoning behind the law, and why not only a murderer deserves the death penalty but also
other sinners.

Judaism therefore balances between the divine commandment in the written Torah, which
expresses the full seriousness of the transgressions, and the consideration of human
weaknesses and other principles and considerations, which the Oral Torah expresses. The
result is, on the one hand, an awareness of the great seriousness of certain offenses, and on the
other, a reality in which actual executions are extremely rare, and were completely abolished
with the abolition of the Sanhedrin thousands of years ago.

Summary
The written Torah does specify many death penalties, but the Oral Torah limits their actual
implementation to a minimum. The death penalty stems from a concept according to which
man was born into the world to fulfill a certain role, and certain crimes constitute a serious
abuse of his role that necessitates his termination. However, other considerations come into
play during the trial, so that in fact very few are executed, if at all. The laws of the Torah
express a principle that must be learned and understood, but when things come to fruition
there is also room for additional principles. In any case, there is no doubt that the conduct of
Judaism is very different from the impression one can get from a superficial reading of the
Torah, and there is no room for comparison between it and ISIS and its alike.