Sanhedrin 105

1:
The basis of our mishnah is in two places in the Torah. Exodus 22:17 states that "A witch shall not be suffered to live". Deuteronomy 18:10 enlarges the scope of the ruling to include males: "There shall not be found among you … a wizard". (The Gemara [Sanhedrin 67a] explains the ruling in Exodus as indicating that it is women who are mostly involved in the occult.) That practicing magic and wizardry is a capital crime is learned from the fact that necromancy, as we have already seen in Mishnah Eight, is explicitly labeled as such; and necromancy is just one branch of wizardry in general.

2:
Mishnah Four of our present chapter, a mishnah that we have referred back to many times, includes the practitioner of the occult as punishable by stoning. It is clear that the earlier sages accepted the possibility of witchcraft and wizardry, or at the very least saw in the actual practice of occult arts, regardless of their effectiveness, a punishable offence. It is a fact, noted and related in Sanhedrin 080, that Shim'on ben-Shataĥ, during 1st century BCE executed 80 women on one day for practicing witchcraft! Our present mishnah, I believe, reflects a later understanding that "wizardry" is simply a kind of "slight of hand" in which people can be made to believe that something has happened "by magic". Thus our mishnah once again reduces the number of instances where the death penalty can be applied, by carefully distinguishing the practice of occult arts from mere prestidigitation.

3:
The practice of the occult involves the recognition (and worship) of occult powers, which is idolatry; conjurors and the like certainly do not! Thus the actual practice of the occult, regardless of whether it is held to be effective or not, is a capital crime while conjuring and so forth is not. It is interesting that in the Middle Ages, when belief in the occult was once again in vogue, that Rambam [Moses Maimonides, North Africa 12th century CE] states in his commentary on our Mishnah that even though conjuring and prestidigitation are not capital crimes they are nevertheless forbidden.

4:
Rabbi Yehoshu'a (quoted by one of his star pupils, Rabbi Akiva) does not disagree with Tanna Kamma, but is only giving an example. One person might lead people to believe that a field of cucumbers was harvested by calling upon the occult powers, while another might pretend that it was done "by magic". The difference between the two is that the target audience of the latter know that it wasn't really so, nor did he really mean them to believe otherwise; he merely wished to trick or entertain them. The former wishes his target audience to believe that he really does have powers conferred upon him from the forces of the dark and that it was by these powers that the cucumbers were harvested. The latter is not liable to death by stoning, the former is. The etiology of this distinction is made clear by the Gemara [Sanhedrin 67b]: [The great Amora of Eretz-Israel] Rabbi Yoĥanan says that wizards [Mekhashef in Hebrew] are so called because they contradict [Makĥish] God.

5:
The Gemara [Sanhedrin 67a] brings a most curious story, which I quote merely because of the curious nature of it's content. In reference to the Seducer to Idolatry, who is the subject of our previous mishnah and who is liable to the death penalty, there is the following altercation:

And so on… The curiosity is that this passage was completely censored by the medieval church. The reason must be twofold. First of all the story is concerned with someone accused of seducing the masses to idolatry whose corpse was hung one year on Erev Pesaĥ. That must have rung a whole series of warning bells! The other reason is because of the complete misreading of the text by the church fathers: this unfortunate man's mother is named as Miriam [Mary], and the Aramaic for "the womens' hairdresser" is Megadla neshaya. The two words in juxtaposition "Miriam Megadla" were understood as referring to Mary Magdalene! Thus the whole passage was censored as being anti-Christian. The facts, of course, are clearly otherwise. Neither the name Setada nor the name Pandira have any relationship to any name at all mentioned in the Christian scriptures; Pappos ben-Yehudah was an historical figure a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, which places him in the 30's of the second century CE – about a century and a half after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth; this person was executed by stoning, not by crucifixion (we have learned [Chapter Six, Mishnah Four] that after being stoned the victim's body was briefly displayed).

What a strange story.

6:
Only one more item remains from the eighteen offences punishable by stoning listed in Mishnah Four: the rebellious son. The rebellious son is the subject of most of Chapter Eight. Thus we have now successfully concluded our study of Chapter Seven.

Ze'ev Orzech writes:

We were discussing here capital punishment and I was presenting your point as to the extent rabbinical reinterpretation was able leha'avir et ro'a hagezerah. However, someone claimed that to cause a loss of hearing (!), would inevitably bring about capital punishment. Can that possibly be so?

I respond:

Rubbish! And I cannot even guess as to what your interlocutor had in mind. Why don't you ask him or her to bring you their sources?

Ĥodesh Tov and Shabbat Shalom to everybody.