Sunday, December 31, 2006

Kill him first...

In the Gemara Sanhedrin, 73a (Hat tip, Back of the Hill), there's a discussion over what one should do if he knows that someone is coming up against him to kill him. The final answer: Kill him before he kills you! So...us little people don't have a way to kill Mr. Ahmadinejad, even though he wants to kill us and our people. So what should we do?

Sara Yoheved Rigler at Aish.com looks into our history for when we were in a similar situation, and gives some pretty good ideas for what we can do. Highly recommended.

1 comment:

The back of the hill said...

Din rodef - the obligation to kill a person who imperils the life or property of another person.

Regarding Din Rodef, this: Tractate Sanhedrin, 73a: "And these are the ones whom one must save even with their lives: one who pursues his brother to kill him [rodef achar chaveiro lehargo], and after a male or a bethrothed maiden to rape them."

Al pi Rambam "When one pursues another to kill him, every Jew is commanded to save the victim from the attacker, even at the cost of the attacker’s life" (Mishne Torah, Murderers and Preserving Life, 1:1).

Note two things: the textual implication is that both pursuer and victim are Jewish - but it is further said that animals who pursue are also to be killed. So it applies to anyone. And by the same token, also if a Gentile is being pursued - the rabbonim were obsessed with Jews, naturally, and wrote at a time when there just weren't many Gentiles waltzing around the holy land.

The other thing is that one must be careful thinking about such a solution when there is no immediate threat - saying "he will kill someone in the next ten years" is scant justification. The threat must be such that inaction means murder.

That being said, there are several practical arguments for eradicating mr. Ahmedinejad. And I personally would cheer his demise.