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A few questions. If a Yid commits a crime (I guess allegedly) and goes R”L to jail, is it a mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim to donate for attorney fees? Is it pidyon shvuyim to donate for attorney fees to help avoid jail? Some meshulachim cry during their presentation – often it is spontaneous but some cry every time at the same point in their presentation so it seems staged. Should that impact on the donation amount?
A non-Jewish court conviction has no validity in Halacha and the Yid remains as innocent in the eyes of the Torah as he was before he was accused.
Aside from the standards of acceptable proofs of evidence being much lower in non-Jewish courts than in halachic courts, oftentimes what the accusations entail aren’t even crimes under Halacha.
And that’s before even getting into the point of taking 12 people off the street, who can easily constitute drunkards, homeless, unemployeds, people rushing to get done with the case paying them $45/day while they’re losing their salary, to decide the guilt of the accused. And prosecutors and judges looking to convict not because of actual guilt but so that the DA or judge can get re-elected and enhance their political career as being tough on crime.
Furthermore, even if he were guilty (which he isn’t and it is impermissible to believe — see above), Halacha does not provide for jailing as a punishment for crimes. As such there is further imperative to engage in pidyon shvuyim to save him for the unjust punishment.
Joseph:
Your message sounds holy. But it is patently inaccurate. The secular courts are supposed to do their job. The Mishna of הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות implies that. The halachos that mandate reporting (misidentified as מסירה) for serious crimes also expects this handing over of these serial criminals to the goyishe authorities also expect their courts and law enforcement systems to do their job. There is nothing about the secular courts that needs to follow the dictates of haloacha regarding testimony, witnesses, etc.
I may not be referring to all forms of crime, but certainly those that require, al pi halacha, the reporting to authorities, do not assume innocence once proven in the court. The halacha requires serial criminals (מצער את הציבור) appropriate for reporting to secular authorities. This includes molesters, thieves, murderers, etc. I defer to the Gedolei Haposkim to clarify the specifics. But I will share that the question about drug dealers has been posed to poskim many times before, and all say the drug dealer is a rodef. There is no halacha that obstructs the requirement to report to authorities, and actually requires it.
In summary, courts need to follow their mandate, and batei din their own. No one claims that a secular court that failed to follow the halacha based rules used to convict results in a conviction that is against halacha. It simply does not need to comply.
TLIK, do you care to share your understanding of the applicability of the halachos of mesira and pidyon shvuyim? I mean according to how the Shulchan Aruch rules, not according to how you’d have written the Shulchan Aruch. Because the S”A is in conflict with your explanation. According to you, unlike according to the Mechaber and other Rishonim and Achronim, mesira and pidyon shvuyim has been repealed from Halacha in the modern 21st century Western world and have been effectively rendered null and void and inapplicable.
Imagine that. 12 potential shikurim being paid $15/day. Those that couldn’t finagle their way out of jury duty or those that $15/day is a good day’s pay for them or those trying to wrap up the case ASAP so that they can get back to their real jobs paying more than $15/day, deciding the life of a potentially innocent man in a system that has a 97% conviction rate that can literally send people to jail for decades.
Every day we hear more stories of people getting out of jail after finally being proven innocent after spending decades imprisoned on a false conviction.
You trust such a corrupt system?!
Joseph: Your comments re: potential jury members are inaccurate. A homeless individual would not receive a jury summons. An obvious drunkard would not be allowed to serve. What is your objection to one who is unfortunately unemployed?
Homeless people are potentially eligible for jury duty, especially if they have a mailing address such as a PO Box. Shikurim are certainly not ineligible and many in fact unquestionably serve on juries. Virtually any low life is eligible to serve on juries and as long as they’re over 18 and weren’t convicted of a crime they can and do serve on juries.
Baltimore,
The sad fact of galus is that sometimes the only way to protect communities from criminals within, is for justice to be administered through the secular courts. Case in point, a number of years ago, the Rabbonim in your community signed a public letter stating that they were not in any position to protect the community from abusers and that if someone had good reason to believe that a person was an abuser, they were obligated to report them to the authorities. This admission came after years of the Rabbonim ineffectively handling this issue, with very tragic results. Similar cases within MO, Yeshivish and Chassidish communities were only effectively dealt with by the secular justice system. Unfortunately, too many abusers and crooks know how to manipulate Batei Din and frum sympathies to further their own nefarious misdeeds.
If Joseph wants to give away all his money for this type of “pidyon shvuyim” and invite these “victims” to stay in his basement, that’s his business. However, he’s a troll and no authority on Halacha, secular law, or anything else for that matter, so you should be asking someone who is.
The Innocence Project, the of the nation’s most respected legal aid programs working on behalf of those wrongly convicted, and with one of the most successful track records in obtaining reversals of prior convictions, estimates that as many as 10-12 percent of felony convictions are candidates for reversal based on procedural error or false information presented to the trial court by the prosecution. It may sound like a small percentage but when applied to the millions in prison, it is a lot of people.
GHadorah: Good post.
GH
As I have stated on other threads I am very liberal about our court system. I think jail is dehumanizing and should only be used for violent offenders.
That said
Procedural error and false information is not the same thing as innocent.I think jail is dehumanizing and should only be used for violent offenders.
How would you punish Bernie Madoff?
Joseph:
You wrote: “According to you, unlike according to the Mechaber and other Rishonim and Achronim, mesira and pidyon shvuyim has been repealed from Halacha in the modern 21st century Western world and have been effectively rendered null and void and inapplicable.”
That is completely untrue, and I did not say anything even similar to that. The halachos of mesira and arakaos are live and well. All I said that was that there are times when halacha specifically mandates use of the secular system, and if you actually learned Shulchan Aruch, instead of just repeating what the street says, you would actually know this. The halachos include the מצער את הציבור that has been applied across the board to serial molesters. There are other instances when this halacha is relevant. There are undoubtedly cases, particularly of various white collar crimes, when this would be debated among poskim. Regardless, there is nothing anywhere that states that secular courts need to use halacha in their mission to convict criminals. There is also nothing anywhere that states that credible facts should be denied because one wishes them to be false.
So I am not arguing against the SA. YOu have just created your own version of halacha, and I dismiss that as nonsensical.
OP
I have yet to see anywhere that there is a chiyuv to give to a specific cause. Just the opposite. We are required to vet tzedakos bf giving and are granted latitude to decide whobwe give to.
Personally I shy away from many popular tzedakas for various reasons, including not liking the percentage that goes to fundraising or administrative costs, feeling that the advertising campaign goes against Halacha etc.
My largest donations go to organizations I have vetted and individuals I know (or my rabbeim know) that don’t have two cents to rub together.
So feel free to be judgemental if you find a particular tzedakah distasteful. Just make sure to give tzedakah.
But remember, just bc you don’t like a particular tzedakah doesn’t mean that giving to that tzedakah isn’t counted as giving. Case in point, the famous Halacha that giving a formerly rich person a Mercedez is tzedakah. Most of us find that a poor usage of tzedakah and would shy away from that gofundme program. But that doesn’t mean Hashem views it any less an act of charity.Besides for those cases where recourse to the secular courts has been permitted by a beis din as the only way to stop a serial offender etc. Joseph is absolutely correct on this, and it is beyond my understanding how this is not obvious to every frum Jew.
The liberal brainwashing of Jewish opinion on this kind of issue was taken to an extreme during the Martin Grossman saga, when I remember being absolutely sickened by some of the comments on the news articles here on YWN condemning the efforts to get him a pardon and effectively saying that since he was found guilty by the law of the land he should rightly be put to death. Unbelievable.
DY: Sell him as an indentured servant.
TLIK: Halacha and S”A, by far, treat the situations where it is permitted to report to secular authorities as exceptional times representing a fringe minority of circumstances whereas the prohibition of mesira being applicable in the vast majority of times and situations. You, otoh, talk about it being applied across the board and minimize the issur of mesira with comments like regarding various white collar crimes “when this would be debated among poskim”. Err, no, if a yid bounces a very large check to you, as bad as he may be even if he did it intentionally and refuses to pay up, there’s not even a hava amina in the S”A or poskim that you might have a heter to press criminal charges against him.
Joseph,
Please explain why certain notable Chassidim, whom you feel all Jews should emulate, fight their succession disagreements out in secular court.
CG:
I am not sure what the intent of your comment is. The matter at hand, the debate that Joseph launched with me was about what the Shulchan Aruch says. This supersedes and precedes any involvement of batei din. There are cases in which the jurisdiction needs to be delegated to the secular court systems. Halacha does not include imprisonment and has very different rules for evidence and testimony than do the courts. Shulchan Aruch was well aware of that when it mandates the use of reporting to secular authorities and the use of secular courts. And yes, the courts sometimes err, as do batei din. Perfection may be a goal, with the recognition that 100 achievement is not likely.
if a yid bounces a very large check to you, as bad as he may be even if he did it intentionally and refuses to pay up, there’s not even a hava amina in the S”A or poskim that you might have a heter to press criminal charges against him
If he’s likely to do it again, and this is the only way to prevent it, it might be a chiyuv. As Per Shulchan Aruch.
TLIK: Halachicly Goyim do not have to follow halachic process of evidence, etc, when trying their own. But halachicly except in very exceptional cases, as noted, the Goyim do not have jurisdiction to judge Yidden. Even if they assert they do with their laws.
TLIK:
I’m having trouble finding the Shulchan Aruch you keep mentioning mandating reporting to secular authorities and the use of secular courts for various crimes. Could you please quote siman and se’if?
Joseph:
I will stop responding to your ridiculous baseless accusations towards me in your comments. You have demonstrated a propensity to put words into my mouth, then challenge them with the implied accusations of my being anti-halacha. That is pure rubbish, and you should be ashamed of yourself for such gibberish. I am not, not have I ever been, a proponent of secular courts over beis din. I am not soft about mesira and arkaos. I only listen to your accusations with the words of the gemora where the Tanna or Amora states יהא חלקי בין מי שחושדין אותו ואין בו.
Yes, those cases that are ajudicated in courts as per Shulchan Aruch are exceptions, not the rule. I have abserved many cases going to court, and only support that when there has been a direct psak beis din or poskim. Other cases get there with heter via Shulchan Aruch. While these are exceptional, many are not rare occurrences.
Have I ever discussed you scenario of a bounced check? Or did you concoct that to insinuate that I would run to court, and then complain about my anti-halachic behavior? Come on, a bit of honesty here. There is white collar crime that can qualify as מצער את הציבור, and could warrant intervention of the secular courts. personally, I have never had any such involvement, neither directly or indirectly. But it has happened, and I was privy to discussions among poskim on the subject.
So your efforts to paint me on the wrong side of halacha are both dishonest as well as foolish. I will not engage in further dialogue with you on this. My time can be spent on things with real value.
“I will stop responding to your ridiculous baseless accusations towards me in your comments. You have demonstrated a propensity to put words into my mouth, then challenge them with the implied accusations of my being anti-halacha.”
“So your efforts to paint me on the wrong side of halacha are both dishonest as well as foolish.”
Hey, this sounds oddly familiar.
“But halachicly except in very exceptional cases, as noted, the Goyim do not have jurisdiction to judge Yidden. Even if they assert they do with their laws.”
Joseph,
So why then do Chassidishe Rebbes drag each other into secular court?
Who says they’re allowed to?
Daas,
They’re not allowed to. Joseph is always criticizing Jews for not adopting various Chassidic practices so I’m wondering why he’s so against secular court, a favorite venue of Chassidishe Rebbes.
In the real world, authorized goiyeshe law enforcement personnel from the lowly meter reader, to the policeman, prosecutor and ultimately the justices of the Supreme Court certain do have the authority to adjudicate violations of the law by anyone in their respective jurisdictions. If you have any doubts, ask SMR, Madoff, Dwek or tens of thousands of yidden who have spent quality time at a federal penal institution. If you find that upsetting, don’t violate dina d”malchusa or even better, move to EY so you are more likely to be arrested and judged by yidden for the same crime you committed here in the golden medinah.
Dorah; Not sure what your post has to do with this thread.
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