For the source text click/tap here: Sanhedrin 52
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Our daf is particularly difficult to read. It describes the critical steps of executions and the deaths of those sentenced to death. Our daf presents these morbid description in a few distinct categories with a number of Mishnayot.
The rabbis note that each of these methods of execution are named mitzvot. This is because they are commandments and thus good things to do. Clearly the rabbis also have some discomfort with the descriptions of executions as positive things.
Weexplore early American methods of execution.