In Spite Of Unintended Consequences
“There Is Birtha di’Satya In Babylon.”
(Kiddushin 72a)
Our Daf provides us with an opportunity to learn how the great poskim arrive at halachic decisions. In the case in point, there is a debate whether a Jew should be excommunicated if, as a result, he might abandon the faith entirely or even convert. Yet both parties in this dispute base their opposing positions on what the redactor of the Mishna, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (also referred to as Rabbenu HaKadosh or Rabbi), said shortly before his death.
We are told (Kiddushin 72a) that on his deathbed, Rabbi was granted prophetic vision (ruach hakodesh) and revealed to his disciples a number of secrets. Among these secrets was the fact that the inhabitants of the Babylonian town of Birtha di’Satya had abandoned the Jewish faith and become apostates. Rabbi, who lived in Eretz Yisrael, was able to tell them something that had occurred very recently in Babylon, even providing the detail that R. Ahi had excommunicated them because they had, on the Sabbath, caught fish that they trapped in a pond that had overflowed.
Why did Rabbi reveal an event that his disciples would subsequently hear about anyway? Why did he choose to reveal this incidental fact while he was busy sharing mysteries and secrets of the Torah?
A Harsh Punishment
Based on this incident, the Terumas HaDeshen (138), cited by Rema (Yoreh De’ah 334:1), concludes that Rabbi intended to teach his disciples an important halachic principle: if someone commits a grave transgression – such as public desecration of the Sabbath – that calls for excommunication, the transgressor should indeed be expelled from the community in spite of the knowledge that it might lead him to desert his faith altogether, just as R. Ahi had excommunicated the residents of Birtha di’Satya even though it drove them to apostasy.
The Taz, on the other hand (Yoreh De’ah ibid.), maintains that excommunication should be avoided if it might lead the transgressor to apostasy. He claims that Rabbi mentioned what was taking place in Birtha di’Satya to demonstrate that just as this event would become known within a short while when the news reached the Land of Israel, so would the rest of the secrets he had divulged prove to be true as well. He might, perhaps, also have been cautioning his disciples to refrain from excommunicating those who stray if it can lead to such an extreme reaction.
The accepted halacha follows the position of Rema, who notes that someone who does not act in accordance with halacha should be dealt with severely, and the beth din is not required to take into account the possible repercussions of the punishment they plan to impose.
The Shabbatai Zvi Cult
The Chasam Sofer (Yoreh De’ah 322; Even HaEzer 36) adopts a similar position, and touches on a point his predecessors did not mention. He maintains that, based on Rabbi’s remarks, it is to be deduced that even if the wife and children of someone who is excommunicated are liable to abandon their faith following the excommunication of the head of the family, the punishment should still be carried out, just as was done regarding the residents of Birtha di’Satya and their wives and children, who did convert after they were excommunicated.
He mentions, as an example, the followers of Shabbatai Zvi, who were excommunicated by the leading rabbonim of their generation in spite of what was going to happen to the children of the cult members. Ultimately, however, the Chasam Sofer stipulates that this rule only applies when it is clear to the beth din that the individual who stands to be excommunicated would corrupt his children anyway.
