Instances in Jewish Literature of Extra-judicial Execution of Idol Worshippers, Informers, Apostates, and Heretics

Source of the Halacha; Instances in the Bible, Talmud, Middle Ages, and Modern Period

This article is about the halacha of "Push down and don’t raise up" (מורידין ולא מעלין), based on : מורידין ולא מעלין – ויקיפדיה. See there for citations. For other extra-judicial killings (מיתה שלא בידי בית דין) in halacha, see the entries listed in תבנית:דיני נפשות – ויקיפדיה: 

קנאים פוגעים בו – ויקיפדיה; מוסר (הלכה) – ויקיפדיה; רודף – ויקיפדיה; הבא להורגך השכם להורגו – ויקיפדיה; הבא במחתרת – ויקיפדיה;  נקמת דם – ויקיפדיה (=גואל הדם)

Compare also the discussions in my previous blogposts: “Talmudic Justifications for Biblical Stories that Contradict Halacha: Hora'at Sha'ah and Et La’asot”, Pt. 1, and  Pt. 2 

"Push down and don’t raise up" (מורידין ולא מעלין) is a halachic phrase that states that one should kill an informer, a heretic, and an apostate. The meaning of the expression is that one should push the sinner into a pit to cause their death, and certainly not to assist in getting them out of the pit. 

This is in contrast to the law of "neither push down nor raise up" (מורידין ולא מעלין), which refers to different category of people. For this group, one should not directly cause their death (“push into a pit”), but also should not assist in saving them.

Source of the Halacha

This ruling is first mentioned in the Tosefta, which is also cited in the Babylonian Talmud:

הגוים והרועים בהמה דקה ומגדליה,

 לא מעלין ולא מורידין. 

המינין והמשומדין והמסורות,

מורידין ולא מעלין 

"Non-Jews, those who graze and raise small livestock, 

neither push down nor raise up. 

The heretics, the apostates, and the informers 

are pushed down and not raised up."

— Tosefta, Bava Metzia 2, 13.

There are a number of references to the extra-judicial execution of informers, apostates, and heretics scattered throughout Jewish literature. 

Bible

The Bible recounts several instances in which Israelites who practiced idolatry were executed.

3,000 of the Golden Calf sinners were killed by sword by the Levites on Moses' command.

Eliyahu the prophet killed 450 prophets of Baal, after the famous ‘competition’: “Elijah then orders them to seize the prophets of Baal, which they do, and Elijah kills them beside the River Kishon”

Yehu gathered all the prophets of Baal in his time and executed them.

Yehoyada the priest ordered the execution of Mattan, priest of Baal.

King Yoshiah sacrificed the priests on altars in the cities of Shomron.

Chazal

In Chazal, there were also references to the killing of Samaritans (כותים) and Hellenists. Simeon the Just (שמעון הצדיק) dragged Samaritans by horse tails to Mount Gerizim, and as a result, a fast prohibition was established for the date of the 21st of Kislev in the Scroll of Fasts (מגילת תענית): 

Yoma 69a (see my “Talmudic Justifications for Biblical Stories that Contradict Halacha: Hora'at Sha'ah and Et La’asot - Pt. 2” for the background of this story, and for discussion of a different aspect of this story, namely, the non-halachic wearing of priestly vestments outside the Temple):

אמר להם: למה באתם? אמרו: אפשר בית שמתפללים בו עליך ועל מלכותך שלא תחרב, יתעוך גוים להחריבו? אמר להם: מי הללו? אמרו לו: כותיים הללו, שעומדים לפניך. אמר להם: הרי הם מסורין בידיכם. 

[Alexander the Great] said to the representatives of the Jewish people: Why have you come? They said to him: Is it possible that the Temple, the house in which we pray for you and for your kingdom not to be destroyed, gentiles will try to mislead you into destroying it, and we would remain silent and not tell you? He said to them: Who are these people who want to destroy it? The Jews said to him: They are these Samaritans who stand before you. He said to them: If so, they are delivered into your hands to deal with them as you please. 

מיד נקבום בעקביהם ותלאום בזנבי סוסיהם, והיו מגררין אותן על הקוצים ועל הברקנים, עד שהגיעו להר גריזים. כיון שהגיעו להר גריזים — חרשוהו, וזרעוהו כרשינין, כדרך שבקשו לעשות לבית אלהינו. ואותו היום עשאוהו יום טוב. 

Immediately, they stabbed the Samaritans in their heels and hung them from their horses’ tails and continued to drag them over the thorns and thistles until they reached Mount Gerizim. When they arrived at Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritans had their temple, they plowed it over and seeded the area with leeks, a symbol of total destruction. This was just as they had sought to do to the House of our Lord. And they made that day a festival to celebrate the salvation of the Temple and the defeat of the Samaritans.

Shimon ben Shetach hanged eighty witches extra-judicially, according to a famous story in Talmud Yerushalmi, Chagigah 2:2:6 (cited in Rashi on Sanhedrin 44b):

עמד שמעון נן שחח ביום סגריר ונסב עימיה תומנין גוברין בחירין [...]

 וחענונון ואזלון וצלבונון. 

הדא היא דתנינן. מעשה בשמעון בו שטח שתלה נשים באשקלון. 

[אמרו. שמונם נשים תלה. ואין דנין שנים ביום אחד. אלא שהיתה השעה צריכה לכך.]

[...] Simeon ben Shetaḥ went on a stormy day and took with him eighty select men [...] 

They lifted them, took them away, and crucified ¹ them. 

That is what we have stated: “It happened that Simeon ben Shetaḥ hanged women in Ascalon. 

[They said, he hanged eighty women but one does not try two on the same day.” But the hour needed it.]

Other Talmudic Stories

Another event mentioned is the massacre of the Hellenists, which established a holiday on the 22nd of Elul. 

The Talmud brings a legend about King Hezekiah, who killed his son Ravshakeh because he wanted to offer a sacrifice to idolatry.

During the Talmudic period, in the third century in Babylon, a story is told of a man who wanted to close his neighbor's barn for tax purposes and was killed by Rav Kahana, who was forced to flee to Israel as a result. 

The judge Rav Shila administered lashes to a man who had sexual relations with a non-Jewish woman. The man who had been whipped then intended to inform on R’ Shila for another matter, and was killed for being a rodef (רודף).

Middle Ages

From the Middle Ages, there are more testimonies of the execution of informers and apostates. 

In the 12th century in Lucena, R’ Isaac Alfasi executed an informer on Yom Kippur during the Ne'ila prayer.

Maimonides reported a widespread phenomenon of executing informers in Muslim North African countries (=Maghreb), as well as a phenomenon of killing apostates.

Modern period

In modern times, several incidents occurred. 

In the 16th century in Buda, an informer was strangled. 

In the 18th century, in 1757, R’ Yaakov Emden ruled to the leaders of the ‘Council of Four Lands’ (ועד ארבע ארצות) that the Sabbateans should be killed in any way:

"You have asked me if it is permissible to hand them over to the government for execution, do not be sensitive to your own interests, surely God will agree with you. Blessed are you if you stand firm and eradicate this evil from among you, as obligated and imposed upon you, so that there will no longer be people from this wicked sect as a reminder of sin and a stumbling block for the House of Israel... as they have been conspiring against us secretly for ninety years [or more] to convert the entire kingdom to heresy... and it is already known that the halacha is clear that the heretics in Israel are ‘pushed down and not raised up’ (מורידין ולא מעלין), and to set a boundary for the Torah they are also executed even if they are not deserving of death..."

In the spring of 1772, with the encouragement of the Gaon of Vilna, the opposition to Hasidism began. The Gaon defined the Hasidim as heretics, and applied to them the law of ‘push down and don’t raise up’ (מורידין ולא מעלין):

"They are heretics and are ‘pushed down and not raised up’. ... And he said that it's a mitzvah to repel them and to pursue them and to diminish them and to expel them from the land. ... If I had the means, I would do to them as Eliyahu the prophet did to the prophets of Baal."

In the 19th century, in the town of Novo-Ushits in Podolia, two informers were killed in 1836 by Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin, who was imprisoned for almost two years and then fled to Austria.

1. On the Aramaic root used - צל”ב , translated by Guggenheimer as “crucified”, see צלב - ויקימילון.