For the source text click/tap here: Sanhedrin 73
To download, click/tap here: PDF
On yesterday’s daf we mentioned the concept of a rodef – someone who is chasing after another person to kill him, who can be killed by anyone. The Mishna on today’s daf teaches the law of a rodef, and in explaining the law that allows a rodef to be killed uses the terminology matzilin otan be-nafshun – “these people are saved by their lives.”
Our daf argues that most obvious source – lo ta’amod al dam re’ekhah – neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor (see Lev 19:16) – cannot be used to teach this law, since it is needed to teach the simpler rule that a person cannot ignore his neighbor’s needs if he is drowning, for example. Rather the source is a passage that connects the laws of murder with the laws of a woman who is raped in a field (see Deut 22:26-27) where the Torah frees her of any culpability, since there was no one around to come to her defense.
We apply these rulings to terrorism today.