In our Gemara on Amud Beis we find the Rabbis objecting to Rabbi Shimon’s assertion that only up to and including sixty tenths of flour can be properly mixed with a log of oil: Sixty can mix but all of the sudden sixty-one is too much? Rabbi Shimon’s reply is: “All the measures of the Sages are so: For example, in a ritual bath containing forty se’a of water, one immerses for purification, and in a ritual bath with forty se’a less the small measure of a kortov, one cannot immerse in it for purification!”

Essentially, Rabbi Shimon is saying, everything has to have a practical limit, and at its boundary there is going to be a seemingly absurd cut off point.

All law that way. Could a speeder who drives 16 mph over the speed limit argue to the judge, that the police routinely ignore speeders who go only 15 mph over, so actually I am only going one mph over and why such a big fine for one mph? Or if you are one day late on a payment can you argue, why should I receive such a penalty for one day?

Yet, there is a catch. We have a belief that the Torah is more than law; it is a transmission of God’s will, which is perfect. So, the real question is how could such a perfect system have such glaring gaps in fairness? The answer is God is perfect but the Torah consists of laws for humans which are not. Furthermore, there are aspects of Jewish law that are meant only for humans, to execute in limited ways. In this sense, that part of the Torah functions as any other law. And law, and this aspect of Torah that functions as law, is NOT concerned with your spiritual health, only the smooth functioning of society. Otherwise how do we explain the rare instances of capital and corporal punishment - only when a warning is administered by witnesses within moments of the act (Mishna Sanhedrin 40a)? Surely a murderer or a transgressor deserving lashes, who was warned only a few extra moments before the act, plus or minus, is the same murderer or villain! Rather, the earthly court is concerned about society and law and order, and only the most egregious violations are punished. This is also why we can have legal concepts of, “exempt in earthly court but obligated in heavenly court.” (Bava Kama 55b). This is also why, at times when the Sanhedrin fears law and order is being completely abrogated they can make extrajudicial emergency actions and even execute for minor transgressions (Yevamos 90b).

This continues the theme that we began in Psychology of the Daf, Menachos 100. When you take the approach that Torah functions at times as a civil law and other times as a broader spiritual law, it makes these ideas easier to understand. When the Torah is cloaked in the function of a legal system that serves the needs of society it is subject to certain physical limitations such as limits and boundaries, warnings and other issues that define physical limits. That does not diminish the spiritual goals and purposes of the Torah that are personal between man and God and not subject as much to earthly court jurisdiction.

Similarly, we find the Rambam (Laws of Kings 9:10) who rules that a gentile is punishable for violating the Seven Noahide laws with no minimum threshold, unlike in Jewish law that has thresholds such as kzayis (olive volume), a perutah’s worth for theft, and such as we saw discussed on our daf. Therefore, theft of any amount is liable.

We might wonder why the Torah does not enforce matters below a minimum threshold for Jews and not gentiles? This is not just about monetary forgiveness as the same ruling of the Rambam applies to eating a limb taken from a live animal. Both Jew and gentile are forbidden to eat from it, but for a Jew the minimum punishable violation would be consumption of an olive’s volume, but for a gentile there is no minimum.

I believe the answer is based on distinctions in the underlying relationship. A Jew has a covenantal obligation to follow the mitzvos, thus he is subject to legal definitions and parameters. In this regard, at least as far as administration of punishment by Jewish courts, all laws by definition are subject to definitions and limits. However, the gentile must follow the Seven Noachide Laws as a matter of basic obligation and God’s decree of fundamental human morality. There is no threshold for fundamentals, and any break is a transgression. The transgression is not based on a legal stipulation but instead is regarded as deviating from acceptable morality.