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danger of the world being laid waste. Leaving robbers who are heart
patients at large without judging them also poses a danger, and this is
actually a public danger, which is more serious.

The Ritva (Bava Metzia ibid.) writes: “Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi
Shimon who judged capital crimes which occurred without witnesses
and without prior warning, at a time when there was no Sanhedrin,
was acting as the emissary of the ruler, according to whose laws the
death penalty could be imposed without witnesses or warning, in or-
der to chastise society. We find similarly that David Hamelech killed
the Amalekite ger (convert) [for killing Shaul Hamelech and did so
without witnesses or warning] (Shmuel II, 1:15) and the king’s emis-
sary is considered like the king himself.” The Ritva concludes,“In any
event, wherever the king is not licensed to do so [i.e. to hang robbers]
by virtue of his royal powers, neither is his representative authorized
to do so and should the king instruct him to do so he should allow
himself be killed rather than transgress.”

According to these comments of the Ritva we do not find explicit
permission to hand him over to the police since there is no king here
who permits killing of robbers. It may therefore be forbidden to hand
over a criminal who is ill to police investigators if there is concern that
he may die [as a result].

But perhaps since the police are careful not to cause a suspect’s
death and if they know that he is sick they will refer him to a physi-
cian, it is permitted to hand him over. Since the Rashba writes that it
is permitted to hand him over to actually be put to death, in our case
we can be lenient at any rate in handing him over to the police who
will not kill him but only interrogate him, so that the world should
not be desolate.

From his comments, the Meiri’s view too appears to be that hand-
ing robbers over to be killed by the ruler is forbidden; he implies that
this is also forbidden for an emissary appointed by the king. The
Meiri writes, “It is appropriate that Torah scholars, men of piety and
of sterling reputation should anyway avoid making the acquaintance
of the authorities and should certainly not accept from them any
appointment to catch robbers and bandits and menaces to society, to

286 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein