Halakhah su Deuteronomio 13:7

Rav Moshe goes even further, asserting that extending such an invitation not only violates Lifnei Iveir, but also constitutes violating a more serious sin, namely, meisit, convincing someone to sin (Devarim 13:7-12), which in certain circumstances constitutes a capital crime. Rav Moshe proves that meisit applies beyond cases of influencing someone to worship avodah zarah (idolatry), the case given in the Torah, from the Gemara (Sanhedrin 29a) that classifies the snake of the Garden of Eden (Breishit 3) as a meisit. The snake never attempted to convince anyone to worship avodah zarah; it “merely” convinced Chavah to violate Hashem’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Rav Moshe notes that even though convincing someone to violate a prohibition other than avodah zarah does not constitute a capital crime, it nevertheless is a very severe prohibition, to the extent that the heavenly court will not muster a defense for such action on one’s Day of Judgment, just as Hashem did not suggest a defense for the snake of the Garden of Eden (Sanhedrin 29a).

In the immediately following responsum, Iggerot Mosheh, Oraḥ Hayyim, I, no. 99, a responsum actually authored some two years prior to the preceding responsum, Rabbi Feinstein offers somewhat broader guidance. The question posed to him is whether it is permissible to invite people to attend synagogue services when it is known that they will travel by automobile in order to do so. He responds by ruling that it is forbidden to extend such invitations to people living at a distance from which it is impossible to come by foot on the grounds that the invitation constitutes a forbidden act of "placing a stumbling block before the blind" that is prohibited on the basis of Leviticus 19:14. He further advances a novel thesis in declaring that an invitation of such nature entails an additional transgression in the form of "enticement" (meisit). Deuteronomy 13:7-12 establishes successful enticement to commit an act of idolatry as a capital transgression. Citing the statement of the Gemara, Sanhedrin 29a, declaring the serpent that tempted Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as having had the status of an "enticer," Rabbi Feinstein argues that enticement to commit any infraction constitutes a distinct sin, although only enticement to idolatry constitutes a capital transgression.²Iggerot Mosheh’s assertion that the prohibition against “enticement” is not limited to idolatry is not found in earlier sources and is directly contradicted by R. Meir Dan Plocki, Klei Ḥemdah, Parashat Re’eh, sec. 4. The serpent’s declaration, “You shall be as God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), constituted enticement to deny a fundamental principle of faith. Denial of fundamental principles of faith constitutes heresy which, in turn, is tantamount to idolatry in other areas of Jewish law as well, as shown in this writer’s “Be-Bi’ur Shitat ha-Rambam be-Sheḥitat Akum u-Mumar,” Bet Yiẓḥak, XX (1989), 279-284.

That He prohibited us from preaching for an idol, and [for one] to call people to serve it and to make them enthused about it - and even if the preacher does not do any of the actions [of idolatry] besides preaching about it. And if he was preaching for it to the people, he is called, a instigator (mediach). And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "Ruffians appeared [... and instigated]" (Deuteronomy 13:14). But if he preached to an individual, he is called, an inciter (mesit). And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "If your brother, your mother’s son, incites you" (Deuteronomy 13:7). However in this commandment, we are only speaking about the instigator. And the prohibition that appears about this is His, may He be blessed, saying, "shall not be heard in your mouth" (Exodus 23:13). [And in the Gemara, Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 63b), they said, "'Shall not be heard in your mouth' -] that is the prohibition for the inciter. The inciter? It is written explicitly about him, 'And all of Israel will hear and see, and they will not continue to do' (Deuteronomy 13:12)! Rather it is a prohibition for the instigator." And likewise did they say in the Mekhilta (Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 23:13), "'Shall not be heard in your mouth' - that is the prohibition for the instigator." And one who transgressed this negative commandment is liable for stoning. And the laws of this commandment have already been explained in the tenth [chapter] of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Re'eh; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 4.)