Electronic Eavesdropping 103

through criminal activity or considerable financial loss, must be presented. This is based on a Biblical statement(Lev. 19.16) as well as later authorities(Yad Hil. Rotzeah 1.13; Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 426.1; Elijah of Vilna Biur Hagra, Hoshen Mishpat 425.20; Isserles to Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 388.11). Further­more, in a criminal case every witness is obligated to testify if he possesses personal knowledge of the events(Lev. 5.1; B. K. 55b; Isserles to Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 28.1).

It is also clear that a person is obligated to testify before a Jewish or non-Jewish court in order to save himself from threat­ened punishment. Under such circumstances, one is moser beones (Tur Hoshen Mishpat 388; Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 388.8ff; Yad Hil. Hovel 8.2). We should note that there is no problem of testifying before a non Jewish court. We have records of a Jewish community handing a Jewish criminal who had injured a non­Jew to a gentile court as early as the Gaonic Period(700-1000 CE.; J. Mueller, Mafteah, p. 182).

It is quite clear, therefore, that Jewish law requires an indi­vidual to testify and that there is no reason to hesitate.

Electronic Eavesdropping

and Jewish Law Reform Responsa for Our Time(Cincinnati , 1977),#6

Solomon B. Freehof

QUESTION: May information obtained through electronic ®avesdropping be used as evidence in Jewish law?(Asked by Rabbi Richard F. Steinbrink, Saint Louis , Missouri )

ANSWER: Jewish law is basically religious(canon) law, and there­Ore it is not surprising that many of its rules are widely different