K’vod Ha’brios
‘Excluding Where He Was Preoccupied’
(Shavuos 18b-9a)
Our sugya discusses R. Eliezer’s interpretation in the Mishnah (14b) that a person is liable for transgressions concealed from him. If he, for example, unwittingly touches a sheretz and only becomes aware that he has done so later, he still must bring a korban chatas.
He derives this halacha from Vayikra 5:2-3: “Or if a person touches anything that is defiled, whether the carcass of a beast that is defiled or the carcass of an animal that is defiled or the carcass of a creeping creature that is defiled, and it was concealed from him, and he was defiled and he became guilty. Or if he touches a human defilement in any manner of its defilement, through which he can become defiled, and it was concealed from him and then he knew and he became guilty.”
Ketzirah
R. Yehoshua derives from Vayikra 4:23 – “Or if was made known to him that which he sinned…” – that a person can only be liable if he knows specifically what he did wrong. If he was preoccupied (mis’asek), he is not liable. Rashi offers an example of mis’asek (19a s.v. “prat l’mis’asek”): Two plants – one attached, the other detached – are before someone who cut the attached one on Shabbos thinking it was the detached one.
The Temple’s Sanctity
Nonetheless, we follow the view, l’halacha, of R. Yishmael (supra, 14b) that if one entered the Temple either unaware that he was ritually defiled or unaware that he was entering the Temple, he must bring a chatas (olah ve’yored).
Utterly Confused
Rabbi Akiva Eiger (responsa, first edition, siman 8) posits that a person who enters the Temple thinking that he entered an ordinary house is truly in a state of mis’asek because he is entirely unaware of the significance of his act. He notes, though, that the deed is still sinful.
To prove this point, he cites the Gemara (Berachos 19b) that if a person becomes aware that he is wearing kil’ayim, he must remove the problematic garment even if he is standing in the street. The Mechaber (Yoreh Deah 303:1) writes that a person who knows his friend is wearing kil’ayim must tell him even though it will cause him substantial embarrassment. Concern for k’vod ha’briyos (human dignity) does not supercede the active transgression of a Biblical law. Rabbi Akiva Eiger comments that there is no greater mis’asek than a person unknowingly wearing kil’ayim. And yet, what he is doing is considered a sin. Otherwise, why must his friend notify him and cause him embarrassment?
Caught In The Street
The Rema (in his glosses, Yoreh Deah ad. loc.) writes that if the wearer of kil’ayim is acting b’shogeg, his friend need not notify him if they are in the marketplace because of k’vod ha’briyos.
Shabbos
The Magen Avraham (Orach Chayim 13:8) rules similarly regarding someone who notices that his friend is wearing torn tzitzis on Shabbos in a karmelis. Even though a biblical command is not shunted aside for the sake of k’vod ha’briyos, the Torah never states “Do not wear a garment without tzitzis.” Rather, the Torah tells us to place tzitzis on a four-cornered garment.