Rabbi Shay Schachter - The Halacha's Approach to Filing a Criminal Complaint Against an Aleeged

tonight's year is being sponsored by the nachman family tv and naomi nachman we thank them for their generous sponsorship and dedication and now we will get into our topic for anyone who's been following the news out of israel the last couple of days and i guess the last couple of weeks let's just say that this week and the last few days in this week have been exceptionally discouraging and i guess i would say that it's demoralizing to watch what's been going on i think tragic situations like this i'll explain in a minute are times that afford our community the opportunity to talk about something which should be so obvious and indisputable to all of us and yet there seems to be so much confusion that is out there if you're reading the articles and you're watching the posts and the comments that people are making so this is a very big topic and it is something that i think will take us more than just this week to cover in its entirety tonight's share will be about the general question that many many many people have been asking i am being flooded with emails and texts from people in our shul as we know halafa has a position about everything in our lives every situation that comes up every scenario can be found with an answer in half you just have to know where to look to find that answer so the question that is being raised is what does the say about the possibility of filing a criminal complaint against an individual who is alleged to have been involved in inappropriate sexual activity this year should really end because it's pretty obvious what the answer is but it seems that it's not obvious and it needs to be spoken about again just to remind ourselves so the question first of all is is that simply an act of lush and horror question number two that people are asking is is that something that involves the prohibition of mesira you're not allowed to give somebody over to the secular authorities question number three how can we accept the account of certain witnesses who are more often than not not part of the category of halaphically acceptable witnesses as we know when a couple gets married they need to have two kosher adam standing under the chupa and witnessing the kidushin so we know that there are very careful criteria for that very often the victims that are involved or the alleged victims are really not people that would otherwise be acceptable as adam in the halachic process so how do we move forward what do you say that everything that they're going to tell us is invalid that's impossible but on the other hand how could we accept it number four should a public figure be removed from his or her position just based on an allegation alone before it is tried in a based in or in a court or by the police whatever it may be should that be enough grounds for us just an allegation alone to remove that person from their position number five if an allegation is substantiated or an allegation is corroborated should the books or the swarm of that individual continue to be learned or studied from or would you say that this invalidates everything they've done up until this point and we would have to rid ourselves of all of their influence these are very important questions that have been on the minds of many over the last few weeks and it's certainly something that we need to think about leaving no room for any ambiguity at all because we don't want anyone to come to the mistaken conclusions about this very important topic first of all one needs to understand that these issues are so sensitive and so deeply unsettling because we're dealing with a situation of real pikachu on both sides of the equation so however we choose to handle it you are potentially endangering someone's life in a very very practical and serious way if the alleged victim is not given the proper encouragement and the proper protection and support that they need to move ahead with whatever it is that they need to do their lives can and probably will be destroyed forever and often in the worst case scenario their lives will end by death to suicide so often we see the research shows that that is what happened on the other hand because we understand that each person does have a legal and hallucinate right to defend themselves the torah says that you have to present a claim in the presence of the other individual and the defendant has to have the opportunity to defend themselves so we want to make sure that everything we do is being done in a way that keeps our community safe that minimizes harm to all parties involved and that going above and beyond with just campaigns of slander or harassment or cancellation against one individual are something that we're not really trying to do we're trying to get to the truth we're trying to protect everybody involved and protect anyone in the future from being hurt so these are issues that need to be dealt with not on twitter and not on facebook and not on social media but in a very very serious manner with covet roche and with consideration and with very very careful deliberations so that's what i wanted to begin to discuss this evening i think it's important that these issues be spoken about publicly because they unfortunately rahman al-islam come up all the time make no mistake they come up not only in the secular world they come up in our world in our community unfortunately it happens with community leaders it happens with people who are you know never who we never would have imagined would be involved in such things but yet unfortunately this happens and we need to make it very clear what our position is so we begin with a comment of the nitzif the native rap naftali tv yehuda berlin was one of the great vidolan one of the leaders of pre-war european jewry and he makes an extremely decisive and instructive comment he leaves no margin for making a mistake no margin for error at all in what he's telling us to do the torah says in parshas in safer vayikra para q test los sales which means there is an israelis which means to slander another individual means you are not allowed to slander another person and the end of the passage is lo mode al-dhamrayafa you cannot stand by while somebody's life is being destroyed explains the natsif the torah is written in a very particular format there's a reason why every word is situated where it is there's a reason why sukim are formulated in the way that they are so why is it that these two seemingly incompatible commandments are put next to each other what do they have any connection at all explains in native i'm going to read his words why is it that the torah puts these two mitzvos one next to the other sha'afa as haralo even though the torah says that you have to be careful not to defame not to smear another person not to slander or libel them meekal nakum the torah also says in the same breath and those two need to be put next to each other because sometimes we have that struggle and we on the one hand say oh it's lash and hara and it's refillas and we're not allowed to do this on the other hand we need to remember that if you don't do what needs to be done it is a problem of salman al-damri what it means is if you know with certainty that another person is trying to devastate and destroy another person's life hares you have an obligation to communicate that information you must caution and notify the authorities other individuals whoever it may be you have to inform them of the danger that is lurking that they are unaware of and the native says this is why these two mitzvos are put one next to the other because sometimes there's a major hesitation due to concerns of those don't be discouraged if you see that there's outrageous behavior that is going on you don't have a right to remain silent you don't have a right to be inhibited and be afraid you need to speak up because if you don't los america is on the other end of the spectrum even more instructive than that is the comment of one of the gedole khafme ashkenaz we're all familiar with the ramo the rama is the guidebook it's the rule book for all of ashkenazic jewry and the rama took many of his pisgah from the truman sadeshin sardashian came before the rama so in the 1300s the rama was in the 1500s in the end of the 1300s the truman sadism passed away in 1460. sir abhisrel island was one of the great kidulam of khafma ashkenaz and he makes a comment in one of his forum which is so significant to this point and he says ra is kirpo i'm reading from his words alvaro sure calls sifrihammuser you look in many of the muslim that teach us how to behave and how to interact with other people they tell us they warn us they admonish us and hara about the severity of somebody who slanders other people and who spreads ill fate ill will about other individuals writes the shuma sadeshin rabbis i go out of my way to warn the world about the opposite consequence avon gadomizer which i believe is worse than the issuer of lash and however so you read the say for him and you learn about how many suram are involved every time you open your mouth and say something negative about another person writes the truman sadeshin i have something that's worse than that and what is that gam humatsu yoser and he says in my opinion this is a bigger problem that is more prevalent than problem number one the who and that is what i think is a bigger problem is that people feel inhibited people are afraid and they hold themselves back from talking when they need to become dover says for example if i see somebody who is sneaking up on his friend and the example that he gives is somebody is breaking into another person's house so it's a very it's it's a much more toned down example than what we're describing certainly would be the case in what we're talking about but he says if i watch something and i see that there's a danger to my friend and he's completely unaware of it after all he's sleeping he's not going to wake up they're breaking into this basement he's not going to hear it he doesn't have an alarm is it possible does it make sense that you're going to hold that information back and not share it with your friend so that tomorrow night the person is going to come back again and steal money from him misum is in her because you're worried about slandering this individual so you're going to hold it back hello avono gadomina so you're going to hold on to that terrible alvera of letting your friends life being destroyed because you're afraid to say something due to a concern of lash and hara says the truma sadashi and that is insane you cannot accept such a position and here he adds the same thing is if you are consulted about an issue that is regarding shidduchim so somebody calls and says i'm looking into this girl i'm looking into this boy and you know very very important information we're not talking about a confidentiality breach if somebody came to you and shared something confidentially you have to be very careful to uphold that sense of confidentiality and that truth if you know you can't call every doctor in the neighborhood and say does the person have this in this illness that that would be insane if a doctor would share personal and private information but if i happen to be the next door neighbor and i know that it's an abusive home where i knew that there's something very very serious going on in that house i and somebody calls me you have to be very careful says the truma sadeshin vahushu ishram if i know that this person is dangerous if i know that the person in question is unstable and i know that they are abusive and it's a terrible thing to make a up with this person we know what's going to happen we know how that's going to end says the descendant we would not have a right to keep quiet so he suggests a very loose way to make the rule for when we're supposed to share information and when not so the rule that he gives again it's a very loose definition but it gives us the point is hadover muslim you have to ask yourself a very personal question introspective if my intention in sharing this is simply to destroy the other person then he says that is la shanhara but on the other hand if my intent in sharing it is hashemi if the reason why i'm sharing it is not because i want to get back at this family it's not because i have some some hatred toward them and i want to destroy them but rather because i want to save the second person who is about to be destroyed in such a case he says mitsvarabha i have an obligation to do so so this is just a way to frame the conversation that the acronym tells us very clearly and very explicitly that at the same time that we have an issuer of lashanhara and regiles at the same end of the spectrum we have the prohibition of losamura which is no less important than the first part of the puzzle and there's a reason why they are placed one next to the other now you'll ask what right do i have to humiliate to embarrass or to shame another person by giving over this kind of allegation so we turn to a pussock by the prohibition of sota the torah and safer pamidbar describes what happens when a woman is purported to have an extramarital affair and again it's just an allegation it's an allegation that her husband has that she has been unfaithful to him now the gemara tells us that you cannot go into the whole detail of sota without a really good reason for suspicion so a husband wakes up one day he says you know i think that you've been having an affair with someone it has to come from summer it has to be that he warns her has to be that he sees her going into a private place with another man there has to be a reason for it it can't just be out of nowhere but you have a woman who is explicitly worn and yet we're not a hundred percent sure what happened there's no video camera and now the husband wants to take it forward because he really believes that he has a claim against his wife so the torah describes he has to bring his wife to the base amigos he has to be there as well and everybody's watching and the torah there says upara is rosa we expose this woman we shame her we embarrass her in the amigdas everybody's watching we don't tell them to move away and she is very humiliated and the irish only actually asked that question how are we allowed to do that what are we describing here we're talking about a husband who's not sure whether or not his wife may have done this it's an allegation it's an allegation that comes from a place where he has good reason to be suspicious but in the end of the day it's just an allegation and because of an allegation you're going to allow this man to humiliate his wife in front of everybody how can that be how are we allowed to do that which is exactly the question that people ask in our generation how can i go ahead and put forth a claim when it's going to humiliate someone if after all it's only an allegation it's just a suffolk and the answer that the ushamli gives is that we know that the torah tells us by parshas noah that when there is nus when there is this kind of behavior going around when there is arios that is rampant in our community it brings about a great vulnerability to the community it brings about devastation for all of us the lashon of the gemare is andra malucia a major catastrophe is going to happen physically to the world as a result of god's anger for what is happening in that particular situation and therefore the gemara in the usami says that because this action may jeopardize the lives of many others in our community if it is true we have a right to err on the side of caution for the safety of our community and go ahead and humiliate this person in question that is an amazing source you bring it down to our case and you see that we certainly would have a right for the safety of our community if somebody has a credible reason to believe that this is something that happened even though it may ultimately lead to humiliation or to shame or to some kind of embarrassment of the person that is being suspected of doing such for the safety of the rest of the community this is what they need to do it's no less than the story that we're told in the irish only about a sota who we are medvasa afilu al-hasafi just on a suspicion or just on an allegation now beyond the shame and embarrassment isn't there also sometimes a physical or a tangible kind of loss when an allegation is filed so how can you do that sometimes the person may lose their jobs sometimes they're going to have to suffer financial loss because they're going to have to hire a lawyer or whatever it may be they're going to have to go through all the different steps that are necessary so this is also a question the gemara mustafiz kidushan actually discusses this and the gemara massachusetts kadusan writes in the times of hazel malkin they used to give malchus so there are very clear regulations in the gemara who deserves malcus and who doesn't who's supposed to get lashes what every time somebody does something wrong you hit them no obviously not there's a process of how we do it and yet the gemara and the mesephis kadusan writes malkin alotov if there's an allegation going around the neighborhood and there's enough reason to believe that it's true so it says that the leaders of the community who are the based in are allowed to go and give the person lashes what do you mean but i wasn't tried and nobody gave me any warning and nobody anything and it's not following the rules and regulations that the gemara lays out for the person who really deserves malchus and yet the gemara says aloud because there is a terrible story going around and we actually have good reason to believe it the gemara says that we are allowed to give malchus for that which is amazing that's an amazing statement and that is what the gemara tells us so much so that the ram takes it even further and meseth on in hilton sanhedrin and he says if you have a credible base and we're not talking about an ad hoc based and that nobody recognizes that nobody respects that nobody appointed we're talking about a respectable authority in the community who used to be the leadership of the community now again obviously in america we follow dina di machu sadina we can't take the law into our own hands and start beating people up khalil we don't do those things but the ram says in theory if we had our own system and we were running the judicial system of the town in such a case he says in every generation the basin has a right la halco's adam to give malchus to give lashes to a person that we hear terrible things about miranda who over al exactly this case if we have a person in town who we hear is going around and doing terrible things and it hasn't yet been proven but the baisden who is the local authority has a reason to believe that this is true the rambam based on that kimura and conduction says you're allowed to give that man a punishment which is a very severe response all of that being said we now turn to the words of the sky time writes what if i see that there's an individual who is destroying who is wrecking another person's life for example the example that he gives is somebody stealing from another person and the other person is totally oblivious and that's the example he gives a thousand times more so for the situation that we're describing here so he says vinod de la baber and the rights and i know conclusively i know with certainty not that i'm assuming i know with certainty i saw it myself i watched what happened i see that this person is losing out because of somebody else is taking advantage in such a case says the affilora normally we know that you need two witnesses right couple wants to get married you can't have one person being a witness you need two witnesses and that's the case whenever we administer a dintara we always have to have two witnesses present who present the case writes the even if i'm there alone and i'm the only other person who saw this and there's nobody else to back up my claim prophet zhaim says that should not stop me from going ahead and sharing the information with somebody who can do something about what it is that i experience what it is that i saw kade lazer asham in order that i should be able to help the person who was taken advantage of that is what the time says however he does warn us that there are conditions and guidelines when doing so and we need to keep this in mind also you can't just pull the trigger for no good reason just because you think that maybe something happened again we should not be discouraging people who have a real claim but you have to make sure that you have something real before pulling the trigger and moving ahead and the time outlines seven different conditions that need to be met in order for a person to move forward all of them are applicable in the situation we're talking about but you have to think about it very carefully beforehand number one he says you have to have first-hand knowledge it can't be that you heard from someone who heard from somebody else and maybe this and that no has to be first-hand knowledge either i experienced it or he says either i saw it myself i had first-hand knowledge or number two says the that i spoke to somebody who i absolutely trust and it became clear to me that this is true and i corroborated the story and it's substantiated by a well-established individual then i have a right to go to step two and share that information with somebody who can help but without that first step you can't do anything that's number one number two he says izarmyod you have to be careful that you don't draw your own conclusions you have to see something that is factual you can't say oh my assumption is if i saw a and then i saw b it must be putting the dots together must be that this happened no it has to be something that is factual something that is truth and not a conclusion that you drew based on a number of circumstances that you think may have led to what happened you have to know with certainty that this is what's really going on number three he says i first have to try a less destructive way to handle it now he's not talking about a potential abuser because there are very few less destructive ways to do that he's talking about somebody who stole money says a half a time if somebody stole money instead of running to the police right away first go talk to the person and say what's happening i saw what you did i'm going to expose you you may have to then take the next step and go to the police you may have to then take it to the authorities but he says the first step you should take is trying to put the person back in their place without destroying their life again when we're talking about an abusive situation that's not relevant at all but that's the third qualification that he makes number four he says you're not allowed to exaggerate or inflate the story you have to say the facts as they happen and unfortunately this also sometimes is the case that as you tell the story over to one person to another person to the authorities to this to that so sometimes it gets lost in translation and not everything is said over as accurately as it should be and this is number four number five he says my intent in sharing this information has to be to bring about justice to the victim it cannot come from a place of retaliation a revenge that's not what this is about this is saving the victim saving future victims saving other people from getting taken advantage of that has to be what i have in mind when i do such a thing and number seven he says that i have to allow this person to have a fair and legitimate chance to deal with it i have to allow this person the opportunity to stand up and say their side of the story now again sometimes the person won't be willing to go along with it okay so we have to do what we have to do if you call a uh a predator in and you want to cross-examine them and they're not willing to talk okay so we're going to have to move ahead without them but we have to give the person an opportunity in a legitimate forum in a legitimate setting to defend themselves those are the seven qualifications now even if you cannot prosecute but you feel that by sharing the details people will protect themselves writes the khafitzheim so again let's say i don't have enough you know i know that the local government won't take to me seriously i don't know whatever it is but i know that people in my neighborhood respect me and i know that i can save people in my neighborhood from this kind of predator from this kind of abusive personality in such a case even if i cannot prosecute them but i believe that by my sharing this information with a small group of people that will help them because they're the most in danger in such a case he says that is also a toe ellis and that is something to think about as well then he adds another critical component and that is vida you should know you have to follow these seven qualifications and guidelines and it does not matter he says whether you are the person who was personally impacted or whether you are someone else who was not impacted but you watched what happened and he writes it doesn't matter if you're a relative of the victim whoever you may be all of these qualifications need to be met and it doesn't matter whether the person asked you to do this or did not ask you to do it you have an obligation to do the right thing so even if the victim says i don't care you know it doesn't really matter this just stole a few dollars from me let them get away with it well if you're concerned that maybe they're going to continue this kind of destructive behavior and steal and cheat other people then the huffits time writes whether the person whether the victim wants you to say anything or not you need to stand up and do the right thing so let's address one of the major questions that people wonder and that is number one what do we do about the fact that these witnesses are non-halal witnesses and number two what do we do about the fact that there's an issue of misera so those are two very very important questions that we need to think about so number one about the witnesses issue there is a gemara massachusetts babylon bay is a fascinating gemara where the gemara tells a story about none other than rabalazabarab shimon one of the most famous names that we mentioned in the gemara who is hired and he has a profession what is his profession he's not a tana he's not a nambora that was a side job but what he did as a full-time job was he's a he was a police officer not for the jewish police force not for the css he was a police officer for the nassau county police department and what was his job his job was the gemara says that if he found that somebody was doing something wrong he would hand them over to the authorities and the authorities would actually kill them not they would incarcerate them they would kill them so he knew every time he arrested someone that the outcome if the person was guilty was they would have this extreme punishment of being killed that's not a job for a nice jewish boy but that's what he did so the gemara says that rabbishub and karfa is one of his friends and he says i don't understand you are a homets benjayin you are like vinegar that came from wine wine is so delicious and people enjoy it and they appreciate it and you're the vinegar you're the spoiled rotten wine the lousy offspring that came from your father your father was such a holy sadiq and his son goes out and takes a job as a police officer making jews lose their lives it's it's a crazy profession for you this doesn't really make sense and he turns back to him and he says no i'm actually doing the right thing why because we know that if you have a garden you have to take out all of the rotten leaves all of the rotten tomatoes in order for everything else to grow nicely so he says we have a community we want it to be safe we want it to be a good community i have to get rid of all the thorns in order that the rest of our community should function well so i'm actually doing a service to the jews i'm not doing a disservice it just depends how you look at it that was his response to which rabbishub responds to him yavo let god figure out how to get rid of the thorns this is not a job for a nice jewish boy this is god's job he'll figure out how to make sure the community stays safe have we ever heard that before right let's let god take care of the problem you don't go ahead and try to solve the issue that's what the gemara says now the gemara ends off the story without telling us who's right the gemara just says they had this exchange of shimon was prosecuting all these people and ultimately they were killed and his friends were appalled they couldn't believe it so how do we ask him so number one the ritual writes that rebel asarab shimon felt that since he was hired by the nassar county police department since he was hired by the local government the local authority which is an honest government and runs a fair judicial system in such a situation he said that he was allowed to prosecute people even though there were no witnesses even though there was not the regular criterion that we normally need in a based in but he was hired by the local government and the local government is trustworthy and honest and if this is the punishment for someone who does something like this then so be it and now is his position and the question is how do we possibly very important question the rashban and raises this issue and he says that the answer is that if you have somebody who is sibo lassos dino mishpa if you have somebody who is put as a police officer somebody who is part of the enforcement team but they are not self-appointed they are people who were appointed by the community meaning we pay taxes right so we obviously if we didn't trust nassau county we wouldn't pay taxes to them we wouldn't live here correct so by the virtue of the fact that we elect our officials and that we pay taxes and that we go along with what goes on in our municipality that means we trust them if we didn't we would move out and go somewhere else we have the option to do that but from the fact that we live here it means that this is something we believe in it's a system that we think is just and if that's the case the rajba addresses this point directly and he says since we need to have an operating and functioning system of the society that we live in and this is the way that it functions that we have a police department and this is what they do and they prosecute people even shallow alpine torah they don't follow the protocols that the gemura describes they don't follow the protocols that the shulhanara mishpa writes but since we have a relationship with the government and this is a government that we trust and this is how the judicial system works we would be allowed to go along with it even if it means that someone's going to lose their life says the rajba how do i know this is true because herbalism shimon was right and he was a nice jewish boy doing the right thing and he was cleaning the community out from all of their potential problems and all the threats that were coming along their way the same sentiment is shared by the tashbates another one of the gdolly harishon who writes in achiva there was a man whose name was let's say his name was rouven he has a friend whose name is shimon by the way rouvein the touch base writes was blind and because he was blind he was always nervous that people were going to take advantage of him so he was afraid he had stones somebody once gave him a few rubies a few beautiful sapphires and he was nervous that someone was going to steal it so how does he make sure so he sewed them into his clothing who's going to steal his his shirt nobody's going to take his shirt off with him so he sewed it into his clothing this way he knew it was safe one fine day he has a friend shimon who's always in and out of his house one fine day after reuven goes to sleep suddenly the uh the stones are no longer anywhere to be found in the clothing of ruvin now how does anybody know that ruvain sewed his clothes sewed his stones into his clothing i mean how would anybody know that unless you're somebody who's always in his house and somebody is very familiar what's going on there so all eyes were pointed to shimon and they said hey shimmer this looks a little fishy you've been in and out of his house you know what time he goes to sleep at night you help him get to bed you help him into the shower you help him get dressed and undressed obviously you're the one who is responsible for this terrible atrocity and this was a case that was brought to the touch base and they asked the touch base but how can we prosecute nobody knows but we all have a very clear assumption that it's him because nobody else has been around it's obvious that it's him and the touch base right in such a situation even though we know that there are no adam and we know that there is nobody who could corroborate the story but it's very clear to all of us that shimon is not innocent it's clear that he's guilty in such a case he says le tova samadina for the betterment of our society in our community we are allowed to prosecute based on our understanding that's the best we can do i but it doesn't follow the rules of adam and hasra and it doesn't follow the rules of to kosher ate him and it has to be over bar mitzvah in this age and and this kind of person it doesn't matter doesn't matter because this is the only way to have a functioning society this is quoted the halacha in the base yosef the basiliosi quotes the rajba and he accepts their opinion that it would not be considered a problem to go ahead and prosecute even though it doesn't follow the halachic protocols that are normally expected to be followed when we deal with the uh based in system itself okay i take an extra five minutes to finish up the this part okay we'll finish the next part next week but now we get to the next issue and that is what about masira and you hear this question all the time people throw around the word mesira oh it's mesira it's meseera what do we do and the answer is as follows to understand that number one you have to look in about the israel of surah and there he says very clearly that we are not allowed to give over an individual who is a member of our community lee day of decochaven the issuer of masira is very clear you're not allowed to hand someone over hang on a minute even if this person is horrible why because we have no trust in the local government that's what the shohan ark says just put yourself back in the 1500s and in the back of the times of the gemara you have pogroms going on you have the crusades you have all this all this hatred toward the jewish community what do you think they're going to do if you bring somebody in who got in a fight in the bar on you know one night and and beat somebody else up you think they're going to give them a fair trial of course they won't they're going to destroy them they're going to kill him here's an opportunity to kill a jew so that's why there's an israel seerah and so much so that shahnawaz then continues and says if you know that there's a member of the community who is handing other members over to the local government he is considered like a rotsaya and you're allowed to kill him that's how far it goes so the israel of basira is real it's not made up it's real nowadays we have a very different set of circumstances why is that because nowadays we live in a democracy we live with a fair judicial system where people have a right for the most part again obviously there are always holes in the system but for the most part we believe that we're living in a fair country and we're living where people have a fair opportunity to defend themselves and have the opportunity to to have a fair chance at clearing their name and clearing the story and doing what needs to be done and they do not discriminate against jews usually right sometimes you have these aberrations but usually we do not assume that there's going to be a discrimination against this group or that group or this color or that color the assumption is that there's going to be a fair trial based on the judicial system that we have set up here in the united states and therefore the whole issue of nasira is not really as applicable as it once was now you'll ask how dare you say such a thing who are you to argue with the shuffle araf it's not me saying this the shulkhan actually discusses this the hashilhan writes the reason why i think it's important to read all this from the sources is because sometimes you talk to people and they say where'd you get that from how do you know the answer is it's all there you just have to know where to look shulhan writes it very clearly in hoshomishba where he says that in the days of medinas they lived in uncivilized countries and the era says in the days of the gemara they were afraid that the local municipality was going to come and steal their house and steal their money so he says if you're living in such an outrageous kind of society with such a government on top of you of course there's an issuer of mesira however he says nowadays africa there are some african countries says the arthashohan where it's still that way and it's totally uncivilized and you can have no trust in the government at all or in the police force and we know in south africa there are many stories about the the bribery going on and all this all this craziness and therefore he says that is exactly what the israel is however he says when we're dealing with our community who lives here in europe and at the time he says we do have a fair judgment and we do have a fair judicial system that is set up and we do believe that everyone's going to have the opportunity to present themselves in court and to defend themselves as best as they can and to try to be like everybody else and a jew is not going to be discriminated against in such a case he says the whole discussion that the shahana and the gemara have about mesira is irrelevant because it's not at all the set of circumstances that we have today beyond that even if you want to say that there still is an issue of masira and you still have to worry because you don't trust the government and you do think they're going to discriminate you have all kinds of conspiracy theorists who believe in this even if you do believe that that is true there's an additional point to add here and that is the rambam says even when and this is quoted in when you so that somebody is going to be judged unfairly because of mesira if you hand them over to the local authorities they're going to be punished far more severely than they deserve and they're not going to be given a fair chance says the rambam if you're dealing with somebody who is a public menace if we're dealing with somebody who is a danger to the rabbit who's a danger to the community then the rambam says all bets are off the mesira issue is off the table that's what the rambam writes and the shofar quotes it that somebody who is mitsaar somebody was a public danger somebody was a hazard and a threat to the community in a certain sense mutter the most gay even under the old conditions of the uncivilized countries and the unjust judicial system even in such a case the rambam and the shahnarak say the issue of masira would not apply because the stakes are too high think about a potential abuser and as we know the research has showed time and again so clearly that these individuals are repeat offenders it doesn't happen once it's just not the case it does not happen in a vacuum it will happen over and over again and there's no greater example of this rambam than a person who's involved in this kind of activity that is somebody who has made cerebellum somebody who is a danger to the public health a danger he's a hazard to society and we need to make sure that we do everything we can to get this person off the streets the rambam says even if you live in one of those countries where the person is not going to run a fair trial they have to be prosecuted they have to be handed over because the stakes are just too high so that is with regard to that now many people question the rambam where did he get that idea that if somebody is a maidsela robin we should go ahead and be most of them it's a good question but it's what the ram says and that's the way the shuffle on our pass comes i see that we're already over time so we'll continue emir to shem next week if people are interested in this topic i think it's important but for now i think we've gotten a few of the issues out of the way and we can continue with some of the other very pertinent and very relevant issues next week