38 Clifford E. Librach

son or his property to the custody of an“oppressor,” who inflicts bodily or financial harm in a manner that is malevolent or entirely extra-legal.’’

One line of explanation for Rabbi Joshua's rebuke of Rabbi Eleazar is that though this conduct(of helping the secular authorities) was generally permitted, it was deemed inappropri­ate for the pious and religious leaders of the community. This understanding is generally based on an inference from the Jerusalem Talmud, Terumot 8:4 as well as the expansion of this principle by Joseph Karo in Beit Yosef, Hoshen Mishpat 388. According to this analysis, it is only the pious of the community who are to avoid assisting the secular police and prosecution authorities, inasmuch as it is undignified and unseemly for this class to hold themselves out as“assistant policemen”—though it is permissible for others to do so. Following this line of reasoning, Rabbi Hershel Schachter says:“There is no problem of“mesirah” [informing] the government of the Jewish criminal, even if they penalize the criminal with a punishment more severely than the Torah requires, because even a non-Jewish government is autho­rized to punish and penalize above and beyond the[Jewish ] law ... for the purpose of maintaining law and order. However, this only applies in the situation where the Jewish offender or crimi­nal has violated some Torah law.” A fascinating application— and apparent contradiction—of this principle occurred in a case involving Rabbi Dr. Moses Tendler, a distinguished professor of Jewish Law at Yeshiva University as well as the son-in-law of the late revered halakhic authority Rabbi Moshe Feinstein .

In this case, a convicted murderer appealed his trial convic­tion on the grounds that his confession of“the brutal stabbing murder of his twenty-three-year-old pregnant wife” to his regu­lar shul rabbi, the esteemed Dr. Tendler, should not have been admitted at trial. Rabbi Tendler testified against the defendant at the trial and fully revealed the confession, which resulted in his conviction. The court determined that“the defendant’s commu­nications to Rabbi Tendler were made for the secular purpose of seeking assistance in the retention of counsel, and in negotiating with the prosecutors office and securing other assistance in con­nection with the preparation of his defense to the charges, and were not made by the defendant in confidence to Rabbi Tendler ‘in his professional character as spiritual advisor.” Accordingly, the communications were not privileged.”'?

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