Commentaire de citation sur Ézéchiel 22:5

לא תחוס עינך, “Your eye shall not pity him.” Rashi, (basing himself on Sifri) understands the psychology of such “pity” as the argument that it suffices that one person has been killed, how can the situation be improved by killing another person? Nachmanides writes that the correct interpretation here is that the principal message of the verse is the positive commandment to eliminate perpetrators of evil (compare Nachmanides’ comments on rule 14 of Maimonides’ tractate ספר המצוות, describing why he included what in his list of 613 commandments.) A secondary consideration, added to reinforce the urgency with which observance of the positive commandment is to be pursued, is this negative commandment to refrain from finding excuses for the killer. Moses already offered a similar consideration when he warned the people not to have pity on people who try to seduce others to worship idols. [A crime committed in the privacy of one’s home. Ed] (Deut. 13,9) When the Torah, in Exodus 22,17 legislates bluntly, without further ado, מכשפה לא תחיה, “you must not allow a sorceress to live,” apparently addressing the commandment only to the female gender, this is misleading. Seeing that women are more involved than men when it comes to sorcery, the wording of the commandment reflects the fact that the lawgiver is aware of this. Men sorcerers are equally liable to execution. (Compare Ezekiel 22,5 and Nachum 3,4) [One tends to have more pity with women, even if they committed crimes, trying to excuse their crimes because of valid motives that might have prompted them. By singling out the women as the standard perpetrators of certain crimes, the Torah tries to counter such tendencies. Another example, even more easily understandable, is found in Deut. 25, 11-12 where the wife who came to the assistance of her husband who was in a life and death struggle with another man, is subject to a severe penalty for the manner in which she intervened. Most people would have sided with the wife, whose motive was simply to save the life of her husband. [The Torah teaches that Hashem’s psychology operates on a different wavelength. Ed.] Humans tend to overlook wrongs done when the wronged party did not suffer tangible loss, money, loss of property, loss of limb, etc., but if “only” pride, dignity, embarrassment were at stake there is a tendency to go easy on the guilty party. “Witnesses” who claim to have witnessed a crime who have been found as having lied before their intended victim has suffered retribution for the supposed crime he had committed, are convicted of precisely the harm they meant to inflict on their victim. Once the damage had been done, and their chicanery did not come to light until it was too late to save their victim, their crime is left to Hashem to deal with, seeing that He is the ultimate arbiter of what is just and what is not

THINE EYE SHALT NOT PITY HIM. “This means that you shall not say, ‘The first person has already been killed. Why should we kill him also, with the result that two people will be killed?’” This is Rashi’s language quoting the Sifre.²⁶⁵Sifre, Shoftim 187. The meaning thereof is that you should not say, “Rather than having pity on the blood of the slain it would be better to have pity on the blood of the living one.”
The correct interpretation of the verse is as follows: Scripture has commanded concerning those liable to death, so thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee,²⁶⁶Above, 17:7. this being a positive commandment. But in matters of prevalent danger [to society], He warned further with a negative commandment that [the murderers] not be spared from [punishment at] our hands, neither on account of fear of them nor because we might show them mercy. He mentioned the same in the case of the inciter.²⁶⁷Ibid., 13:9. He also stated, Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live²⁶⁸Exodus 22:17. because of her being full of tumult²⁶⁹Ezekiel 22:5. who sells many through her sorceries.²⁷⁰See Nahum 3:4: that selleth nations through her harlotries. And thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall have no pity²⁷¹Further, 25:12. — this was commanded because the fools praise her for having been a help to her husband [who was fighting with another man], or because embarrassment is common and involves no monetary loss [and therefore the Torah was strict in the punishment thereof]. Similarly in the case of plotting witnesses He commanded that we have no pity on them,²⁷²See Verse 21. [thinking that] because nothing had yet been done to the accused²⁷³See Ramban on Verse 19. [therefore we should not punish them], or perhaps [the strictness is] due to the prevalence of their danger.

THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A SORCERESS TO LIVE. In connection with all those who are guilty of death, He has said above: moth yumoth (he shall be surely put to death),²⁷³Above 21:15-17. meaning he is liable to death, and it is a positive commandment upon us to slay him, based upon the verse which says, And thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee,²⁷⁴Deuteronomy 17:7. Ramban is here intimating that this verse is the basis for the one commandment of the execution of all four modes of death penalties. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam) counted them as four separate commandments. See my translation, “The Commandments,” Vol. I, p. 240. or it may be that this obligation on us is derived from the very expression yumoth (he shall be put to death) which He used in these cases.²⁷⁵This opinion corresponds closely to that of the author of ‘Hilchoth Gedoloth’ which Rambam in his Sefer Hamitzvoth criticised, and Ramban in his notes to that work defended. See “The Commandments,” Vol. II, p. 420. But here, however, He did not say, “a sorceress shall be put to death,” but in this case He warned us in a stricter manner by means of a negative commandment, that we should not suffer her to live.²⁷⁶See ibid., pp. 285-286. The reason for this is that the sorceress is defiled of name and full of tumult,²⁷⁷Ezekiel 22:5. and fools are mislead by her, therefore He was more stringent and admonished us with a prohibition. We find a similar severity in relation to all those who cause snares for many people, such as that which He said in the case of the misleader after idols, neither shalt thou spare, nor shalt thou conceal him,²⁷⁸Deuteronomy 13:9. and in the case of a murderer He said, And ye shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer, that is guilty of death.²⁷⁹Numbers 35:31.