Today’s daf discusses how self-defense fits into the rabbinic criminal justice system. Exodus 22:1 states that “if a burglar is found breaking in, and is smitten and dies, there shall not be blood shed on his account.” In other words, if you kill someone who is breaking into your house, you are not liable for murder. The Talmud explains why:
Because he is a rodef.
Rodef is the Talmud’s term for one who pursues another in order to kill them. The rabbis permit anyone to kill the rodef before they achieve their murderous goal. Because a burglar is (presumably) prepared to do violence, they are considered a rodef and can be killed in self-defense. The Talmud next explores other laws relating to the rodef. For example: What if a minor (who cannot be sentenced to execution) is actively pursuing someone to kill them? Can the minor rodef be killed in self-defense?
Rav Huna says: “If a minor was pursuing, the pursued party may be saved with the pursuer’s life.” He maintains that a pursuer does not require forewarning, and there is no difference in this case between an adult and a minor.
For obvious reasons, a rodef cannot be brought to court. In the urgency of the drive to save the intended victim, one can kill a rodef without a formal warning and — as Rab Huna rules — without determining if the rodef is legally an adult. When we imagine a minor rodef, we’re likely imagining an older child. Intuitively, a baby or toddler would not seem to pose a mortal threat. So just how young can a rodef really be?
Rav Hisda raised an objection to Rav Huna from a beraita: “His head has emerged during the birthing process, he may not be harmed in order to save the mother, because one life may not be pushed aside to save another life.” Why? He is a rodef!
Rav Hisda quotes a beraita, an earlier tradition, which implies that a fetus may be killed in utero to save a pregnant person’s life, but a partially-born infant cannot be killed for the same reason. Once the fetus’ head has emerged from the birth canal, their life has the same value as their mother’s life. At this point, if they pose a threat to their mother’s life, says Rav Huna, they are a rodef but they cannot be killed. This demonstrates, he concludes, that we do not kill a minor rodef.
You may have seen this beraita before; it is often quoted in discussions about Jewish approaches toward abortion. Note that in the beraita, the fetus whose existence threatens the life of the mother is not named a rodef — only the partially-born infant is. Centuries later, Maimonides applies the term rodef to the fetus who threatens its mother’s life. For Rav Huna, however, the partially-born child who threatens the life of its mother is the one who is the rodef who is nonetheless spared.The anonymous Gemara responds to Rav Huna:
It is different there, since she is being pursued by Heaven.
The Talmud rejects Rav Huna’s objection, arguing that in this scenario of a mortally dangerous birth there is no human rodef. The pregnant person who is having a difficult labor is being threatened not by the partially-born infant, but by God, who established how children come into this world. Therefore, Rav Hisda’s objection does not stand and a minor rodef may be killed to save the assailed person. This discussion presents two important legal principles for us to consider: the absolute right to self-defense and the importance of understanding exactly who one’s pursuer really is.
Read all of Sanhedrin 72 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on February 27, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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