Several years ago I met one of the closest family members of the murderer Yishai Schlissel.
The journalists' senses quickly awakened, and I politely asked him how his relative was doing, and when he was being released.
Behind the guy's back, I noticed a mutual friend who was wildly waving his arm at me, signaling "no.".
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At that time, I apparently lacked the tactful ability, and I asked aloud: "What, no? I'm talking to Schlissel's relative.".
In any case, the relative pursed his lips in surprise and told me that he did not know such a person, and that he was not his relative.
I was surprised. I remembered that they were very close.
Only after he quickly left the room did the friend come up to me and say: "What are you pressing? Don't you know that he denies that he is his relative? That he is unwilling to recognize him, or mention his name"?
I didn't know, honestly.
This short, unpleasant story raised in me difficult questions pertaining to the fields of crime, criminology, and phenology [the theory of punishment]: When giving a sentence to a criminal, does the judge take into account the suffering caused to his family members, who are often not at all to blame for the madness that befell their family member - the Schlissel case, for example?
In other words: Is the judge even capable of doing this, or is this an unattainable ability that exists only with God, the Creator of all worlds?
How do you punish - and who?
The theory of punishment describes the chronology of the development of punishment from the primitive period to the present day: Initially, punitive measures imposed sanctions against all members of the tribe, even those who were not members of the offender's family, and for that matter, the entire Haredi society, "the tribe of Shlissel.".
Later, ostracism was limited to only the family members of the perpetrator. They were denounced, excluded from society, and their fate was sometimes even more miserable than that of the victim of the crime himself, and for that matter, the Schlissel family, and other first- and second-degree relatives.
In the modern era, the accused bears sole responsibility for the punishment, as the court attempts to Also take into account the secondary suffering of the defendant, such as the damage caused to his good name or to his family members, and weigh all of this data in the verdict.
But is this possible? When the name of Yishai Schlissel, the murderer of Shira Banki, was published, was the embarrassing conversation I had with his family member taken into account?
I will conclude with Dr. Itamar Verhaftig's words on the difference between the punishment of exile in the Torah and the modern prison sentence, a difference that also takes into account family members:
It is appropriate to compare the punishment of exile in a city of refuge with the punishment of imprisonment. Although the freedom of the unintentional killer, which is the most serious social offense, is limited by exile to a city of refuge, this does not necessarily mean the prisoner is separated from his family.
Not so in prison: the separation of the prisoner from his family, and especially from his wife, is "a blow not written in the Torah." The family unit, which is based primarily on the bond between a man and his wife and children, is one of the foundations of society.
Without the existence of this cell, there is no existence for society. So, who allowed us to separate the adherents?
Furthermore, I dare say that a long imprisonment, which separates a person from his family, has a certain aspect that is more serious than death, since the prisoner's wife and children are held in solitary confinement, far from the old family building, with no possibility of creating a new one in its place.".
