Re: Hypothetical Jewish Minutia

Karl Johanson wrote:


If potential starvation makes it quite okay [...]
, then why isn't that made perfectly clear?


It is.  "These are the commandments that a person shall do and live by
them" (Lev 18:5) - "and not that he shall die by them" (Yoma 85b).
"If [on Yom Kippur] someone is seized by <some sort of hunger-induced
seizure> one feeds him, even unclean things, until the light returns to
his eyes... Any possibility of danger to life overrides the Shabbat"
(Mishna Yoma 8:4).  "Shabbat is overridden by danger to life, as are
all laws" (Maim. Shabbat 2:1).   Your mistake is in expecting everything
to be explicit in the written Torah, which would be impossible - that's
what the oral Torah is for.


Remember, ignorance of these laws isn't considered an excuse here. 

Sure it is.


Moses (according to the story) had thousands of his own people killed, for disobeying one of the commandments he hadn't even gotten around to telling them about yet! 

God Himself had told them about it just 40 days earlier.  With all
sorts of pyrotechnics and sound effects, of the sort they were not
likely to have forgotten.


Consider that circumcision is a life threatening procedure, when done on
a baby using BCE technology & notions of 'cleanliness'. The danger is
statistical, some babies die from the procedure, some don't. One could easily
argue that not circumcising a baby under such circmstance should clearly
be considered okay, due to the risk of death. But guess what... 

Which proves what sort of risk is acceptable.  Any risk that is no
greater than what circumcision carried in those days is clearly an
acceptable risk, and not one that justifies breaking the law.
(Nobody but an idiot would say that *all* risk whatsoever must be
avoided, or we'd never get out of bed in the morning.)



Working on the Sabbath is a capital offence, so if you need to do some work to avoid dieing on the Sabbath (say gathering wood for a fire, as you're about to starve & all you have for growlies is some carrion you happened upon and you figure you're less likely to die if you cook it), you get stoned for your troubles. Dead or dead. Quite a pickle. 

Not at all.  See above.  It's quite explicit if you know where to look
(and any court that would be carrying out such a sentence *would* know
this).

--
Zev Sero             Security and liberty are like beer and TV.  They go
zev@xxxxxxxxx        well together, but are completely different concepts.
                                                        - James Lileks
.

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