halacha and modernerity final

Halacha & Modernity notes for the final

Using elevators on Shabbos

The רמב"ם says that the reason why you can’t ask a non-Jew to do a מלאכה for you on שבת (called אמירא לעכו"ם – “saying to a non-Jew”) is because if you get used to have all the מלאכות done for you on שבת by a non-Jew eventually you will forget that these actions are forbidden and you will do מלאכה yourself on שבת

There are two prohibitions when it comes to asking a non-Jew for a מלאכה and שבת, and so for it to be permissible you need to solve both issues: 1) you may not ask a non-Jew for a מלאכה, and 2) you may not benefit from a מלאכה that a non-Jew does on שבת if his intention is for it to benefit a Jew

One permissible to have a non-Jew do a מלאכה for you on שבת is through the “solves both problems method”: you a) hint to a non-Jew to b) remove an annoyance.  Removing an annoyance includes turning off a light, silencing an alarm clock, turning off the A/C, turning off the heat, opening an electronically locked door.  The reason this works and “solves both problems” is because since you hinted you didn’t violate #1 (asking a non-Jew), and you didn’t violate #2 because since you just removed an annoyance you are not benefitting as defined Halachikly since nothing new that is positive was added.

Hinting is when you say something along the lines of “it’s really light in here, it would be so much better if the lights were out.”

Another option for having a non-Jew do a מלאכה for you on שבת is שבות דשבות מקום מצוה – you may ask a non-Jew to violate a דרבנן if it’s for the sake of a מצוה.  For example if the lights are a דרבנן form of fire and not a דאורייתא form a fire than you can ask a non-Jew on שבת to turn on the lights so that you can do a מצוה – like eat your שבת meal

 So with regard to riding an elevator on שבת, there are two scenarios where it might be allowed: 1) if you walk into an elevator with a non-Jew and don’t ask him to push the button for a particular floor (you just wait in the elevator until someone presses a floor that is close enough to the floor that you want) that is fine because since you didn’t ask for a particular floor the non-Jew pressed the button for himself, and you can benefit from a מלאכה that a non-Jew does for himself – it’s only a problem if he does it for the sake of a Jew.  2) If the electricity of the elevator is a דרבנן violation and not דאורייצא then you can even ask the non-Jew to push a button for you as long as you are using the elevator for a מצוה purpose – like visiting the sick (ביקור חולים).  In this case it should qualify as שבות דשבות במקום מצוה

The שמירת שבת כהלכתה says that if an elevator has an elevator operator than it’s fine to enter the elevator and use it to go up as long as you don’t ask the operator for a particular floor – this way all the מלאכות the operator does is only for the non-Jews

The שמירת שבת כהלכתה says that it is fine to use a “Shabbos elevator” – an elevator that stops and opens its doors at every floor automatically – since you don’t do any מלאכה to operate it

Rabbi Yitzchak Weiss, however, says that one should not use a “Shabbos elevator” on שבת because the more people in the elevator the harder the elevator has to work, so by adding tour weight to the elevator you are increasing the electricity that it is using

Inviting a non-religious Jew for a Shabbos meal

The תורה has a prohibition called לפני עור לא תתן מכשול – “do not put a stumbling block before a blind person” – that you are not allowed to cause others to do an עבירה (to “stumble”).

To violate לפני עור לא תתן מכשול on the דאורייתא level you would need to help them do an עבירה that they couldn’t violate without your help – they need your help to do the עבירה.  However, on the דרבנן level any time you help someone do an עבירה or cause someone to do an עבירה this could be a problem of לפני עור

The שבט הלוי was asked if you can invite non-religious relatives to a בר מצוה that you are making on שבת.  He said that you shouldn’t because 1) if they drive on שבת it is a חילול השם, 2) if they drive on שבת then it’s a problem of לפני עור on the דרבנן level since they are driving because of your invitation.  However, if you really feel that you need to invite them you can send the invitation and say on it “only come if you will walk and not drive”

Rav Moshe Feinstein was asked about the following scenario: people were starting a new מנין on שבת and they wanted to put up posters announcing the new מנין and that there would be a קידוש after davening.  The concern was that people who are not religious might drive to מנין on שבת.  He answered that the best thing to do is to only put up posters in areas near the Shul that are within walking distance and also to put on the poster that the קידוש is only for those who come on foot

The ש"ך says that there is only a דרבנן problem of לפני עור when you help / cause someone to do an עבירה who can do the עבירה even without your help if we’re dealing with a religious Jew.  However, if we are dealing with a מומר (a Jew who doesn’t keep הלכה) or a non-Jew then it is only a problem of לפני עור if he needs your help to do the עבירה

Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach says what you can do is you can invite a non-religious Jew to join your for שבת and tell him “we have a place for you to sleep locally so you don’t have to travel on שבת”, and this way if he chooses to drive that was purely his own choice – you didn’t cause or encourage it and so there is no problem of לפני עור

The שולחן ערוך says that you cannot give food to a fellow Jew if you know that he is going to eat the food without making a ברכה because it is a problem of לפני עור (on the דרבנן level) – you are causing / helping him to eat without a ברכה

The שולחן ערוך says that an exception to this is you can give food to a poor person as צדקה even if you know they won’t make a ברכה on it

The משנה ברורה says that if the poor person will not say a ברכה because he is rebelling against ה' then you shouldn’t give him any food.  But if he won’t say a ברכה because he doesn’t know how to say a ברכה then you should give him food

The מנחת שלמה says that if you have a guest who will not make a ברכה on the food you should still give him food because the whole reason you shouldn’t give him food is because it’s לפני עור on not saying a ברכה.  But if you don’t give him food then it will be לפני עור on hating a fellow Jew since he will be resentful if you don’t give him food, and that is even worse

Informing on a fellow Jew to the non-Jewish authorities

The גמרא tells us that ר' אלעזר would catch robbers and turn them over to the non-Jewish authorities.  ר' יהושוע criticized him for doing this, but he responded to ר' יהושוע that he is doing the Jewish community a service by removing troublemakers

The גמרא says that you are a מוסר (Moser – informer) if you voluntarily help a non-Jew extort money from a fellow Jew, like if you tell him “ראובן has a lot of money, so if you are looking for a rich target go after ראובן”

The גמרא says that if someone is a מוסר then we don’t save him if he is in trouble – like if he fell down a well we don’t help him get out

The רמ"א says that if someone is forging documents and there is a concern that he is harming the public then we should warn him, and if he doesn’t stop after the warning then you may hand him over to the non-Jewish authorities

Rav Moshe Feinstein was asked what to do about a Jewish thief who stole a ספר תורה and some silver from a Shul.  Rav Moshe Feinstein said that he should not be turned over to the non-Jewish authorities since the authorities would put him in jail when the תורה punishment is that he would have to pay back – you shouldn’t turn over a Jew to the non-Jewish authorities if they will give a punishment that is harsher than what the תורה prescribes

Rav Shachter says that there is no problem with turning over a Jewish criminal to the non-Jewish authorities – even if he will be punished more severely than what the תורה says, because the תורה allows people to be punished beyond what the usual penalty for their crime is if that is what is necessary to maintain law and order

The ציץ אליעזר says that the prohibition of informing on a fellow Jew to the authorities or handing over a Jewish criminal to the non-Jewish authorities only applies in a country where the authorities are there to keep themselves in power and subdue the general populace.  But in an enlightened democracy where the authorities are trying to do their best to make a society where everyone can thrive in peace and prosperity you can inform and hand over fellow Jews to the authorities if they did something wrong

Taking a census in Israel

The תורה tells us that when you want to count the Jewish people you need to count them using a מחצית השקל – every person gives a ½ שקל.  If you don’t do it this way then there will be a plague

The קיצור שולחן ערוך says that if you want to see if you have 10 Jews for a מנין you should say the פסוק of הושיע את עמך while looking at a different person for each word – since there are 10 words in the פסוק if you get to the end you know you have a מנין

The רמב"ם says that the reason why in the בית המקדש they would give out the עבודה honors to כהנים suing a lottery where each כהן would put out one or two fingers is because you can’t count Jews, so instead they counted fingers

One possible reason why the תורה forbids us from counting Jews is because ה' told us that we will be like the stars and the sand – that we would be “uncountable”

דוד המלך told his advisors that he wanted to count how many people were in his kingdom.  His advisors told him “don’t do it”, but he went ahead and did it anyways.  Afterwards ה' told דוד המלך that he did a terrible sin and that בני ישראל will be punished with a plague as

The רמב"ן says that there is no prohibition when you count בני ישראל for a constructive purpose.  The reason why דוד was punished for conducting a census is because he did it only to see how glorious his kingdom was.  (He was not about to go to war or something like that.)

There are several different opinions given as to why it is מותר to take a census of the Israeli population:

Rav Bentzion Uziel says it is allowed because you are not counting people directly – you are not sending government officials to go house to house and count.  Instead people fill out forms on paper or a computer and then we tally them up, and this is considered an indirect form of counting (like taking a ½ שקל)

The Sridei Eish says that the reason the Israeli government can take a census is that they are doing for a constructive purpose – to see how many soldiers they can draft and so on.  It’s only a problem to count Jews if it is for no purpose

Rav Menachem Kasher says that the census is not a problem because 1) it’s not really a count of Jews since the Israeli government is counting both its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and 2) it will only be an approximation but it won’t be 100% accurate since people are getting born and dying as the census is being conducted and they always miss people

The ציץ אליעזר says that if you are counting for a good reason (like to see how many soldiers you can rely on or where to send money for education) then you are allowed to count indirectly (like using ½ שקלs), but if you are counting for no reason then even counting indirectly is forbidden

Your Halachic Obligation to Health

The תורה requires you to build a fence around your roof

The רמב"ם says that we see from this מצוה that you have a Halachic obligation to keep yourself healthy.  This is why it is forbidden to drink water from a swamp or from a river at night – there might be a parasite in it and you can’t see it

There is a rule חמירא סכנתא לאיסורא which means “we are more strict about danger then about something אסור”.  For example, we are very strict about danger – you can’t drink from a swamp even if there is only a 1% chance the water will harm you.  But you can eat a food that is maybe non-Kosher if there is only a 1% chance that it’s non-Kosher

The ספר החינוך says that most people are subject to the laws of nature – if they are in a fire they will get burned, if something falls on them they will get hurt.  However, there are some people who because of their incredible righteousness are protected from nature, like אברהם who was thrown into the fiery furnace (כבשן האש) but didn’t get hurt

Because most people are not on the level of אברהם we have a requirement to stay away from danger and stay healthy.  This is also the reason behind the principle אין סומכין על הנס – “we don’t rely on a miracle” because only great צדיקים can expect a miracle to save them

The גמרא says that there is a principle "שומר פתאים ה'" – ה' watches over those who don’t know any better.  What this means is that if there is something that a) people don’t realize is dangerous and b) everyone does it then people get a special protection from ה'

Rav Schachter says that there is a debate if vaccinating is a Halachic requirement or not.  The logic to say that it is not a requirement is that the odds of getting sick if you don’t vaccinate are pretty small.  The logic that you are required Halachically to take the vaccines is that since we know these diseases are dangerous and most people get vaccinated you would not be protected through שומר פתאים ה'

Rav Moshe Feinstein was asked if there are people in a בית מדרש who are bothered by the smoke, is it permissible to smoke cigarettes.  He answered that even if the smoke was just annoying it would be forbidden, and since the smoke can cause illness it is for sure forbidden

People asked Rav Moshe Feinstein if it is מותר to smoke cigarettes.  He said that people should not smoke because there is no upside but it could cause health problems.  However, he said that he does not want to proclaim it to be אסור because 1) for many people it doesn’t cause health problems and maybe it’s covered by שומר פתאים ה', and 2) since people are addicted to it many won’t listen and stop smoking even if he proclaims it to be אסור

The ציץ אליעזר says that smoking is אסור.  He says that you can’t apply the rule of שומר תפאים ה' to smoking because we know that it is dangerous

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Women fighting in war

The גמרא in קידושן says that “it is the way of men to fight wars but not the way of women to fight wars”.  The question is if the גמרא is being descriptive (both men and women are allowed Halachically to fight, but normally it’s the men that fight) or is telling us a Halachic rule (only men are allowed to fight)

The ספר החינוך says that the מצוה to remember what עמלק did to us only applies to men and not to women because the מצוה to remember עמלק is connected to the מצוה to destroy עמלק and since only men fight wars and not women, only men are obligated to remember and destroy עמלק

There are two categories of war in Halacha: מלחמת מצוה – a war that has to be fought (like a defensive war or a war to conquer Israel) and a מלחמת הרשות (an “optional war”)

The רמב"ם says that by a מלחמת הרשות we have the rule that the כהן announces that if someone built a house but didn’t yet move in or planted a vineyard but didn’t yet harvest it that he can go home and not fight.  But by a מלחמת מצוה “even a חתן and a כלה need to leave their wedding” to go fight

The רדב"ז says that we don’t have the כלה actually fight in a מלחמת מצוה, rather the women work in a supportive role during the war and help provide food and other provisions to the soldiers

Kashrus on Pesach

There are two main methods for Kashering things in general:

1. הגעלה – immersing it in a pot of boiling hot water, used for things that touch hot food but aren’t used with food while fire is present, like silverware and metal cups

2. ליבון – passing it through fire – nowadays normally by using a blowtorch.  Used for items that are used directly with fire, like a grill or oven

Normally non-Kosher food is בטל בשישים which means that if you have 60 times more Kosher than non-Kosher food (and you can’t taste any trace of the non-Kosher food) and it’s mixed together you can eat the mixture.  But on פסח we say that חמץ is NOT בטל בשישים – even if you have 60x times כשר לפסח food than חמץ in the mixture the mixture is still forbidden

רש"י explains that there are two reasons why we are more strict by חמץ than by regular non-Kosher food:

1. The punishment for eating it is כרת

2. We’re used to eating חמץ all year round, so we need to be extra careful to separate from it on פסח

The idea behind הגעלה and ליבון is that if taste of חמץ (or non-Kosher) can get in it can also get out, called כבולעו כך פולטו (the way it absorbs taste is also the way the taste gets out)

Some materials can never be Kashered, like clay, and the reason is because they absorb taste but never release it

Because of the rule of כבולעו כך פולטו (the way it absorbs taste is also the way the taste gets out) you should Kasher countertops in the kitchen for פסח by pouring boiling hot water in the counters (because the way these counters get חמץ tastes is from hot חמץ spilling on them)

Similarly the way you should Kasher a metal sink for פסח (like a stainless steel sink) is by heating up water in a pot to boiling and pouring it over the surfaces of the sink

For Kashering ovens, if you have a self-cleaning oven then you can make it Kosher for Pesach by not using it for 24 hours and then running the self-clean cycle – the self-clean cycle will burn / destroy any חמץ to a crisp

The אגרות משה says that it is hard to Kasher dishwashers because they often have some earthenware / clay parts, and earthenware / clay can’t be Kashered

When it comes to the grates on top of the oven the אגרות משה says that normally (to Kasher them from non-Kosher tastes or from milchig / fleishig) you don’t have to do anything to them at all because the fire from the stove constantly purges them of any tastes within.  But for פסח you should be stricter (which is why many people cover them with foil)

חמץ is only a problem if it is edible – wallpaper that is made from חמץ materials is not a problem to own on פסח.  If it’s אינו ראוי לאכילת כלב – if a dog wouldn’t eat it – then it’s considered to not be food and you may own it on פסח

Something can only become חמץ if it is made from one of the 5 grains – wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt.  Something made from other grains (like rice, millet, corn, or sorghum) isn’t capable of become חמץ

 The רמ"א says that the Ashkenazi מנהג is that it is prohibited to eat קטניות on Pesach.  קטניות includes rice and corn.  קטניות is treated differently from real חמץ in 3 ways:

1. You can own קטניות on פסח, you just can’t eat it

2. You can benefit from them in non-eating ways – like you can burn קטניות for heat

3. If קטניות mixes with food that is Kosher for פסח it can be nullified (בטל)

The משנה ברורה gives two reasons for אשכנזים decided to forbid the eating of קטניות on פסח

1. קטניות often grow near wheat and barley (or wheat and barley often grow wild in קטניות fields) and so if you mix the קטניות with water without checking first the wheat / barley grains mixed in will turn into חמץ

2. You can take קטניות and grind them into a flour and then make a dough and varieties of bread out of them.  People will see you making rice bread or corn bread and they might then get confused and think that it is okay to make wheat bread or barley bread

The רמב"ם says that the מצוה to eat מצה is only at the night of the סדר

The מצה you use for the מצוה at the סדר needs to be "שמור" = “watched.”  The שולחן ערוך says that the מצה used at the סדר should be שמורה משעת קצירה – it is watched from the time the wheat is cut from the ground to make sure that it doesn’t have any water come into contact with it

Also, the מצה that is used at the סדר needs to be made by adult Jews 

The wheat that is used for the מצה should be ground into a flour a day (or more) before they are used for baking.  This is because the grinding process makes the wheat / flour warm, and if it’s warm then it can turn into חמץ in less than 18 minutes

The water that used for making the מצה dough should be taken from the well the night before (or earlier) that you use it because this way it will be the right temperature (if it’s too warm then it can create חמץ in less than 18 minutes)

 Because of the concern of the water or flour getting warm (and then the dough turning into חמץ in less than 18 minutes) you cannot bake מצות outside because the Sun can heat everything up

The 18 minutes start when the flour and water are mixed (to create dough) and from that moment you have 18 minutes until the מצה is baking in the oven

Any חמץ that is owned by a Jew during פסח is called חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח, and it is אסור for a Jew to eat it or derive any benefit from it after פסח.  If you sell your חמץ to a non-Jew before פסח begins and buy it back afterwards then it’s no חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח provided that there were no strings attached to the sale – for example it would be an invalid sale if he stipulated that he must sell it back after פסח

The רמב"ם explains that the reason for why the Rabbis made חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח forbidden is to be a penalty for violating the prohibition against owning חמץ on פסח

The רמב"ם says that you are not allowed to eat מצה on ערב פסח because we want to make it clear that we are eating מצה at the סדר for a מצוה and not because we always eat מצה every day

The רמב"ם says that the מצוה of סיפור יציאת מצריים is to feel like you yourself are now leaving מצריים – that’s why it’s not enough to just talk about it, but you also need to feel it – which is why we eat מצה, מרור, כרפס and so on

When you eat מצה, כורך, and drink the four כוסות (cups of wine) you need to lean on your left side (left side so it goes down the food pipe and not the wind pipe).

The שולחן ערוך says that while all men should lean, women should only lean if they are important

The רמ"א says that all of our women are important so they should all lean

משיח

The Navi צפניה says that there will be a day he calls “יום ה'” (“the day of ה'”) when ה' will search ירושלים and take retribution against those who say that ה' doesn’t control the world

The גמרא says that there are two opinions as to how to relate to the time of משיח:

Opinion 1: the era of משיח is going to be completely different from the world that we know and live in now

Opinion 2: the only difference between the world we live in and the days of משיח is that in the days of משיח we will not be subservient to other nations

The רמב"ם says that in the days of משיח the laws of nature will be the same as they are in our world.  However, what will change is that 1) the בית המקדש will be rebuilt, 2) everyone (Jews and non-Jews) will acknowledge ה', 3) there will be global peace, and 4) there will be no theft

The רמב"ם adds that many of the details about משיח coming (for example whether the war of גוג ומגוג happens before אליהו הנביא comes or after) are unknown to us because the נביאים didn’t tell us what exactly will happen

The רמב"ן says that the era of משיח will be fundamentally different than the world we live in currently.  First of all the יצר הרע will be defeated and people will naturally be inclined to follow their יצר טוב.  Because there is no temptation to do the wrong thing in the days of שמיח we will not get rewarded or punished for our actions in the days of משיח

The Navi ירמיהו says that the coming of משיח will be even greater than יציאת מצריים to the point that right now when we refer to ה' we say “ה' who took us out of מצריים”, but after משיח comes when we refer to ה' we will say “ה' who brought משיח”

The גמרא says it’s not that we won’t mention יציאת מצריים at all in the days of משיח – we will still mention daily that ה' took us out of מצריים.  Rather the primary way we will praise ה' in the days of משיח is “ה' brought משיח”, and the secondary way that we will praise ה' in the days of משיח is “ה' took us out of מצריים”

Saving a fellow Jew from harm

There is a מצוה לא תעשה in the תורה of לא תעמוד על דם רעך – don’t stand by as your friend’s blood is [in danger]

The רמב"ם says that any time you are in a position to save a fellow Jew yourself or by hiring others and you don’t do it (like you see a fellow Jew about to drown or about to be attacked and you choose not to do anything you are in violation of לא תעמוד על דם רעך

There is a פסוק in the תורה that has the phrase "וחי בהם" – “you should live doing [the מצוות]”.  We see from this פסוק that in general doing the מצוות should be something that provides life and you should not risk your life in order to do a מצוה or avoid doing an עבירה except for a few exceptions (like the big three)

If a group of bandits come and say “hand over to us one person from your village so that we can kill him or we will kill the whole village” you cannot pick someone to hand over to them – because who are we to decide to have an innocent person killed – even though they are threatening to kill everyone.  However, if they say to the village “give us ראובן so that we can kill him or we’ll kill all of you” then you can hand over ראובן if ראובן has committed a crime that makes him חייב מיתה.  So we see you can only hand someone over to be killed to save the village if both 1) they specify which person they want AND 2) that person has committed a crime that deserves capital punishment (so you are not choosing who dies and you are not handing over an innocent person)

Because you are not allowed to violate the big three (שפיכות דמים, גילוי עריות, and עבודה זרה) to save your life, you are not allowed to take medicine that is עבודה זרה (like if the medicine was used to worship עבודה זרה) to save your life

The תורה has a מצוה of "ועשית מעקה לגגך" – you should make a fence around your roof

The קיצור שולחן ערוך says that our roofs don’t need to have a fence around them because we don’t use our roofs for anything – we never go up there

The גמרא says that if you see a body stuck in rubble on שבת and the person might still be alive and you are not sure if the person is Jewish or non-Jewish you can dig him out to save his life.  This גמרא implies that the reason you can violate שבת is because maybe the person is Jewish, but if you knew for sure that the person is not Jewish you would not be allowed to violate a מלאכה to save him

The גמרא had given two suggestions for why one can violate שבת to save a life: 1) you should violate one שבת so that you can keep many future שבתות, or 2) the תורה says "וחי בהם" – you should live doing the מצוות and not die.  Both of these suggestions only seem justify doing a מלאכה to save a life of a Jew – because they keep future שבתות and they do מצוות

The later פוסקים say that you can even violate שבת to save the life of a non-Jew when there is the possibility of איבה (“hate”) – if we don’t save the life of the non-Jew then the non-Jews will think that we hate them and this can lead to antisemitism (and ultimately to the lives of Jews being in danger)

The מגן אברהם says that a Jewish doctor can violate a דרבנן on שבת to save the life of a non-Jew where there is a possibility of איבה, but he should not violate a מלאכה דאורייתא to save the life of a non-Jew

 The חתם סופר says that a Jewish doctor can even do a מלאכה דאורייתא to save the life of a non-Jew on שבת, but they should first try whenever possible to have a non-Jewish assistant do the any action that would be a מלאכה דאורייתא (for example have the non-Jewish assistant do the actual cutting or grinding the medicine or writing things down)

The אגרות משה says that if you are a Jewish doctor, if you live in a city where there are many doctors and it’s common that doctors work 6 or 5 days a week then you should be closed on שבת and let other doctors handle the medical emergencies that happen on שבת.  However, if there is no non-Jewish doctor available to cover on שבת or if on שבת a non-Jewish patient comes to you and needs life-saving treatment you can do it even if it involves מלאכה because of איבה.  Also, if you are walking down the street and a medical emergency happens near you, you should treat the person because there would be איבה if it gets out that you were there and didn’t do anything

The מאירי says that the גמרא’s that talk about how you should not save a non-Jew who is in trouble is talking about non-Jews who are immoral, but the non-Jews nowadays believe in morality and are trying to do the right thing (as they understand it), so we should help save them

Injuries

The תורה says that if you injure someone then it’s “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”

The גמרא says that this פסוק should not be taken literally (that we knock out your tooth if you knock out the tooth of someone else).  We know that the פסוק should not be taken literally because the פסוק also says that you should pay to heal him, so we see that “an eye for an eye” really means that you need to pay – you need to pay for the damage to the eye

The rule is that when you injure someone you have to pay 5 things:

1. Damage

2. Pain

3. Doctors bills

4. Missed work

5. Embarrassment

The way that “damage” is calculated is you see how much the person is worth as a slave before being injured and how much he is worth as a slave after being injured and you pay the difference between the two

The way that pain is calculated is how much a person would pay to have the same injury happen to him but without any pain.  For example, if a person’s finger was cut off we evaluate how much a person would pay to have his finger cut off in a painless way instead of in the way it was

Calculating the doctors bills is self-explanatory – he has to pay however much it costs to get the medicine and treatment he needs to get healed.  The שולחן ערוך says that one detail you should be aware of is that we calculate it based on how much it looks like the doctor’s bills will be at the time of the injury – if as time goes on in turns out that treatment will take longer than expected or be more expensive than expected we do not make the person pay more

Paying for missed work goes as follows: if the person can’t do his usual job for a month, then we calculate how much such a person would agree to be paid to rest at home instead of doing his regular job for a month and pay him that (the reason we don’t pay him his usual salary is because he is not actually working, and people are usually willing to be paid a little less to sit at home and not work than to actually work)

The שולחן ערוך says that when it comes to embarrassment, it depends on who it was that injured you – if someone important injured you then they pay very little for your embarrassment, but if you were injured by a “nobody” then that is very embarrassing and he would have to pay a lot

The שולחן ערוך says that you only pay for embarrassment when you physically injure someone – you do not pay anything if you just insult someone with words

The שולחן ערוך adds that even though there is no monetary punishment for embarrassing someone with words, it is a big sin and ה' punishes it very harshly

The שולחן ערוך also says that you only pay for embarrassment if you intentionally embarrassed him – if he did it by accident then he does not pay for embarrassment, bust still pays for damage, pain, doctors bills and missed work

If two people injure each other, if they are equally at fault then whoever did more damage to his fellow man pays the amount he injured the other person minus how much he got injured

If you are acting in self-defense you aren’t liable to pay anything at all.  So if in defense of yourself you hurt your attacker more than he hurt you, you do not pay at all

 You are not allowed to injure someone else – even if they give you permission (and certainly you are not allowed to injure them having in mind “it’s okay to injure them because I will give them money”), and you are not allowed to intentionally injure yourself

The מדרש says that משה called a man who had lifted his hand to strike a fellow Jew (and didn’t yet strike him) a רשע because even lifting your hand in anger to strike someone else is forbidden