For the last several chapters, we’ve primarily been focusing on the death penalty. A mishnah on today’s daf demonstrates where the death penalty may intersect with those penalties for lesser violations and describes an unusual form it can take:
One who was flogged and then repeated the violation: The court places him into the vaulted chamber and feeds him barley bread until his belly ruptures.
For many Torah violations, the prohibition for intentional violation is not death, but 39 court-administered lashes. However, this mishnah suggests that perhaps repeated violations of such prohibitions instead incurs incarceration and a more indirect form of execution: The person is placed in an incredibly narrow chamber and fed gummy food meant to clog up their digestive tract until they die.
The Gemara initially expresses astonishment at this ruling:
Due to the fact that he was flogged and repeated the violation does the court place him into the vaulted chamber?
These are viewed as lesser violations, those not meriting the death penalty! How does a simple repetition (the Gemara disputes whether this punishment is incurred upon the second, third or fourth repetition) suddenly merit incarceration and death?
Rabbi Yirmeya says that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: Here, we are dealing with lashes administered for violations of prohibitions punishable by excision from the World to Come. As the man is essentially liable to be punished with death, but his death is not advanced by the court. And in this case, since he surrenders his life through his repeated transgressions, we advance his execution upon him.
There are some violations for which their primary punishment is karet, a form of spiritual excision that is administered by God, but one can also receive punishment from the court if warned before committing the transgression. In the case of Shabbat violations, one receives either karet when performed without witnesses, or stoning when performed in front of and warned by witnesses. For some other violations — such as the consumption of chelev, forbidden fat — a person receives karet for willful violation in any case, but if warned by witnesses before performing the act, they also receive court-administered lashes.
It’s only for such transgressions, Reish Lakish says, that repetition escalates the earthly punishment from lashes to this unique form of death in a vaulted chamber. Since the person has already become liable for death at the hands of Heaven, when they repeat this violation, the court is given permission to take matters into its own hands. But someone who violates a prohibition that is only punishable by lashes, they could repeat it a hundred times and still only merit lashing.
We add another qualification to this halakhah:
Rabbi Ya’akov said to Rabbi Yirmeya bar Tahlifa: Come and I will explain to you: This is the case when he was flogged with lashes for repeatedly violating one prohibition punishable with karet. But if he received lashes for violating two or for violating three different prohibitions punishable with karet, no, as he merely is tasting the taste of prohibition, and he is not thereby surrendering his life to that extent.
We might have thought this punishment is applicable to any repeat offender. But Rabbi Ya’akov teaches that the “repetition” referred to in our mishnah is only when a person repeated the same violation, because they are entrenching themselves in that sin, and essentially giving themselves over to God and the earthly court. But one who violates many different prohibitions isn’t necessarily digging in their heels and becoming an ideological violator — rather, they’re curious about the things prohibited to them, and violating one at a time in an almost exploratory way. While such curiosity is not reason for exemption — such a person still receives lashes — they aren’t seen as thoroughly entrenching themselves as a purposeful sinner, and therefore they don’t merit the harsher punishment of the vaulted chamber.
Read all of Sanhedrin 81 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 8, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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