Yes (Presumptively)

10 thoughts on “Yes (Presumptively)”

1. How can she get skilah without hasraah. If the aidim warned her and she didnt scream and furthermore said that she doesn’t care then isn’t it clear it isn’t a rape – regardless of whether it was in city or field?

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2. In the cited passage of Ramban, he explicitly states that התראת עדים occurred, but the question of קבלת התראה is an interesting one.

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3. Nice try. But the Ramban makes the stipulation that there were witnesses there that warned her. If there were witnesses who were there able to warn her that if she didn’t ask for help, she would be liable to death, and she didn’t ask for help… Then we call that a seduction not a rape.

   What is your case? I mean really, two Orthodox Jewish males are walking down a street in New York. They see a guy trying to drag a woman into a an alleyway in order to abuse her. They walk up tell her that if she doesn’t cry out for help, she will be liable to death. Then they physically try to prevent her from going through the aveira, but she manages to fight them off so that she can be raped. So they stick around to witness the the full event…”

   Yeah that works. It seems to me that there are two options…
   1)the Ramban is saying that in the above case the woman cannot say that she was forced against her will, as it is rather obvious that it was her will.
   2) the Ramban, unlike the Rambam, requires constant and consistant resistance, whereas the Rambam permits that a woman may be overcome by passion in the midst of the act(unlikely from what I understand of the psychology of the event) and thus need only resist/cry out at the very beginning, the Ramban may consider that constant resistance is necessary.

   All of that aside the Ramban’s commentary to the Torah was not one of his Halkhic works, nor is it even one of commentaries on the various places that this is brought in the Gemarra. The Arizal(Etz Haim Hakdamah 2) and the Ben Ish Hai(Da’at U’Tevunah Peticha 1) both state that without Ruah HaKodesh it is impossible to comprehend what the Ramban’s commentary on the Troah because of its incredible depth. I don’t know about you… but I haven’t attained that level. Taking this one step further… since when to we decide psak halakha according to a commentary on the Torah?

   So considering the many problems with your argument(Eidim being a huge one), unless you can bring a halakhic work, or even a commentary on the relevant passages of the Gemarra… I am going to say that you misunderstood this Ramban.

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4. I don’t really know what your point is in the first half of your lengthy comment. You have wrongly claimed regarding

   a woman not attempting to fight off her attacker or “crying out”

   that

   No one has ever conceived of actually punishing the woman.

   As I have shown, this is simply false. Does there remain a condition that there are witnesses to the incident? Of course.

   Regarding your statements that the Commentary to the Torah is not a Halachic work and that the citation in question does not appear in Ramban’s commentaries to the relevant Talmudic passages: these facts are entirely irrelevant; the Commentary is frequently invoked in Halachic contexts. Moreover, in this case he is explicitly referencing a Halachic Talmudic passage.

   You write:

   since when to we decide psak halakha according to a commentary on the Torah?

   An utter straw man; I never attempted to decide the issue; I merely demonstrated the falsehood of your assertion that “no one has ever conceived …”

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5. If you are going to quote me, I would thank you to do it accurately. What I actually said was, No one has ever conceived of actually punishing the woman, just because her cries were insufficient to bring help.

   What you have done is insinuate yourself into a long running debate between myself and a troll as to whether there is a mitvah of yihareg v’lo yaavor with regard to rape, and whether failure to do so results in one attaining the status of a Zona, all of that in the meta-context of whether or not the rulings of the Hazal are abusrd and backward, a trap of that person’s into which you have fallen quite nicely with your post here.

   As I said above if there are two witnesses to the event, who actively try to warn and restrain the woman… you are not dealing with a rape. It is just that simple.

   Also as I stated there is no one who rules that just because her cries were insufficient to bring help that she should be put to death. As there would be the need for the two witnesses.

   Finally that the Ramban’s commentaries on the relevant Gemarra’s omit the above stipulation, I think you quite necessarily have to wonder as to why he would say one thing in his commentary on the Torah and different thing in his commentary on Gemarra. See the Simchat Kohen(Rabbi Massoud Alhadad HaKohen) Helek two where he deals with this at length(it is to him that I owe the citation of the Eitz Haim saying that the Ramban’s pirush on the Torah is a closed book to those who have not attained Ruah HaKodesh).

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6. If you are going to quote me, I would thank you to do it accurately. What I actually said was, No one has ever conceived of actually punishing the woman, just because her cries were insufficient to bring help.

   No; I am fairly certain that you actually initially wrote exactly what I cited, no more and no less (in the quoted paragraph). You seem to have subsequently edited your comment and added the last clause (“just because …”). While I cannot prove this if you choose to deny it, I note that I copied and pasted the paragraph, which ended with a period, and I’m pretty sure did not contain the final clause.

   The question about contradictions between the Commentary to the Torah and those to the Talmud is not really relevant here, since as far as I know there’s no actual contradiction between his respective positions, even if he does not mention in the latter the point he makes in the former.

   As to our basic disagreement, I have nothing further to say; הרואה יראה והבוחר יבחר.

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7. You distorted the Rambam above. Nowhere does he say it is grounds for execution. The law there is specifically dealing with a Betulah.

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   1. Nowhere did I say that Rambam considers her silence sufficient grounds for her execution; indeed, I said exactly the opposite, citing Maharam De Boton who infers from Rambam that he does not consider it such. All I sad was that “strong>the Biblical passage that is his source is discussing capital punishment for adultery.

      Additionally, it should be noted that for all your hand-waving, name-dropping and references to Kabbalah and deep meanings, you have failed to propose an alternate reading of Ramban, or to acknowledge that Maharam de Boton, an important seventeenth century Sephardic authority, reads Ramban as I do.

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8. Not true. You said, Although Rambam situates the distinction between ‘field’ and ‘city’ in the context of the penalties assessed upon the perpetrator, the Biblical passage which is his source clearly implies that the presumption of complaisance consequent to the woman’s failure to cry out in an urban environment is sufficient grounds for her execution.

   You were also quite selective with the Ramban. why you only took the first third of his comment, and not the rest where he explains it is quite problematic. You seem to have a habit of misquoting people to fit your needs.

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9. “You seem to have subsequently edited your comment and added the last clause”

   This seems highly plausilbe to me. This blogger has had this kind of intellectually dishonest attitude in the past.

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