Rambam Mishneh Torah - Q & A: Hilchos Avodas Kochavim Chapter 4

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi YY Jacobson’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

killing the wives and the children of those who worshipped Avodah Zarah? I understand a woman who worships Avodah Zarah has the same culpability like a man who worships Avodah Zarah. But not a minor, a minor does not, even if he worships. Second of all, here you're killing women who did not worship Avodah Zarah and you're killing children who did not worship Avodah Zarah just because they are the wives and the children. So, the Migdal Oz says it's an order le'ardo'is, in order to threaten, it's a deterrent for the husbands, for the fathers because naturally nobody wants their uh their families to die. Le'ardo'is hagdolim b'harigatam she'ein chavivin aleihem. But it's strange. You're taking the life of an individual just to deter somebody else? That's very antithetical to the whole hashkafah of Judaism. That every single life has independent infinite value. I'm going to remind you Hilchos Shechita perek aleph, remember? If gentiles come to a city and say give us over one Jew to kill, we're just going to kill one Jew, no difference. It could be a little baby, it could be a woman, could be an old man, an old frail man, could be somebody who's not useful for society. Could be a pretty wicked guy. If not, we kill everybody. We kill everybody. What's the halacha? You're not allowed to. Even if you're going to save a whole town. And here we're allowing an innocent person and a child to die as a deterrent to the father? it's very difficult Allah to understand. Extremely difficult Allah. That's That's one of the big questions here. Now, there are other opinions in this is

Jump to a moment

1. 0:32killing the wives and the children of those who worshipped Avodah Zarah? I understand a woman…
2. 5:37penalty not only as the Ir Nidachas worshipping Avodah Zarah, but as an individual Jew worshipping…
3. 10:41Next item. The Rakachover says a gevaldige chiddush, how does the Rambam know that you send…
4. 15:44v'lo yihiyeh l'cha, every single Jew at Har Sinai heard these two mitzvahs from Hashem himself.…
5. 20:53The says something very very powerful happens in the negative sense, but very powerful. And that…
6. 26:00me to spin and I have so it's something where godliness is revealed, so it can…
7. 31:03indivisible. You need a chemical reaction to change things. In other words, the concept of Ir…
8. 36:12out any woman and any child from there. They're not in the darkest. It's over. Nobody…
9. 41:16was destroyed, the men, the women, the kids, the booty, even Lot's booty. This also explains…
10. 46:30I never heard that story. I don't know if the Rebbe said that. I would like…

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