A long mishnah on today’s daf opens with this:
All those liable to receive karet (excision) who were flogged are exempted from karet, as it is stated: “And your brother shall be debased before your eyes” (Deuteronomy 25:3), indicating: Once he is flogged he is as your brother, as his sin has been atoned and he is no longer excised from the Jewish people — this is the statement of Rabbi Hananya ben Gamliel.
The mishnah’s ruling is radical because it overrides divine punishment (karet) with punishment and exemption decreed by a human court (flogging). It asserts human judicial supremacy over God’s judgment.
Rabbi Hananya ben Gamliel then makes a second theological assertion using the classic rabbinic logic of kal va’homer, arguing from a minor case to a major case.
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And Rabbi Hananya ben Gamliel says: Now if it’s the case that a person who commits a single transgression has his life taken from him (by God) on that account, how much more so is it the case that a person who performs a single commandment has his life handed over to him (by God) on that account!
At first glance, this is not a terribly original assertion. It’s founded upon the rabbinic belief that the reward for performing mitzvot is greater than the punishment for committing transgressions. However what Rabbi Shimon does with it is also quite radical:
Rabbi Shimon says: It is derived from its own place in the Torah, as it is stated (at the conclusion of the passage discussing intercourse with forbidden relatives): “And the souls that perform them shall be excised,” (Leviticus 18:29) and it states toward the beginning of that chapter: “That a person shall perform and live by them.” (Leviticus 18:5) It is inferred that with regard to one who sits and did not perform a transgression, God gives him a reward like that received by one who performs a mitzvah.
Rabbi Shimon reminds us that Rabbi Hananya ben Gamliel’s teaching comes in the context of discussing karet-level sins and, by implication, must refer to refraining from such sins. The commandment that incurs reward isn’t just any commandment, but specifically the commandment to refrain from violating any of these severe prohibitions. (The rabbis’ language for this in Hebrew is sheiv v’al ta’aseh, literally, “sit and do nothing.”) At least in this context, refraining from sinning is transformed from a passive state of non-action to an active state of mitzvah performance. This is not how positive mitzvot, those of action rather than refraining, are usually understood.
Rabbi Shimon provides us with textual support for this idea from his close reading of the beginning and ending of Leviticus 18. He then explicitly confirms this unique understanding of refraining from all sin (not just karet-level sins, but even sins like theft, as we’ll see below) as a kind of positive commandment:
… Regarding one who sits and does not perform a transgression, God gives him a reward like that received by one who performs a mitzvah.
This teaching significantly modifies the concept of reward (for commandments) and punishment (for sin). Not only is the reward for doing a mitzvah (being given life by God) greater than the punishment for committing a sin (having your life taken from you by God); merely refraining from sinning is itself a mitzvah which brings a person the greatest reward of life from God.
How could Rabbi Shimon arrive at this seemingly radical interpretation? The last part of the mishnah helps us to better understand his reasoning:
The verse states: “But make sure that you do not partake of the blood; for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the life with the flesh … You must not partake of it, in order that it may go well with you and with your descendants to come…” (Deuteronomy 12:23, 26) Now if regarding blood, which a person’s soul loathes, one who abstains from eating it receives a reward for that action, how much more so is it the case that one who abstains from robbery and forbidden sexual union, which a person’s soul desires and covets, will receive a reward: he, his descendants and his descendants’ descendants until the end of all generations!
Once again, the mishnah uses the logic of kal va’homer to make an important point. Human sinful impulses can be so powerful that it takes all our energy and moral integrity to resist them, to just sit and do nothing. This passive resistance to sin demands of us huge internal action, and it thus becomes, as it were, a unique kind of positive commandment. This entire teaching gently moves divine commands and consequences to the margins of the human moral drama. God tells us what is demanded of us, yet we decide how to deal with the violations of those demands. We also decide how to transform moral self-restraint into spiritual and halakhic activism.
Read all of Makkot 23 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 1, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
