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I know that the prohibition against placing stumbling blocks before the blind has been understood to be a prohibition against misleading or causing people to sin, but the simple meaning of the text is to not put an actual physical stumbling block in front of a blind person.

All rules are written for a reason. Torah rules even more so. Many were written to separate Jews from other ancient Near Eastern peoples. Is this an example of one: did the Jews' neighbors literally place stumbling blocks before blind persons? Even if there's no external historical evidence of this, are there Talmudic references to these practices of non-Jews or pre-Jews (or G-d forbid, of Jews)?

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Note that the Minchas Chinuch says that literally placing a stumbling block before a blind person is not a (Biblical, at least) violation of this avera (according to what I read in the "Torah Lodaas" weekly sheet by Rabbi Matis Blum; I didn't look up the MinCh myself). –  msh210 Jun 1 '12 at 20:53
Why are you so confident that the simple meaning is a hyper literal one rather than the phrase being an idom in the same way we might use it as such now? –  Yirmeyahu Jun 1 '12 at 22:48
...I'm not. But in context, it's paired with cursing the deaf, which sounds like something entirely literal. Also, why leave that to idiom and not say, "don't mislead the ignorant" which would be much more literal? –  Charles Koppelman Jun 3 '12 at 2:39
see my discussion here. i think that it both instances (blind and deaf), it is obviously idiomatic. parsha.blogspot.com/2008/05/kedoshim-do-not-curse-deaf.html –  josh waxman Jul 12 '12 at 4:24
I would say that although it is primarily there to warn us about acting dishonestly. It can also be taken literally. Just like a Ben soreh U'Moreh which is a case that is nearly impossible yet teaches us about a lot of other cases. –  shachna Jul 12 '12 at 14:46

3 Answers 3

I think that it is fair to say that actually placing a physical stumbling block in front of blind people is not something that used to happen. If this had been a regular occurance, then the negative mitzvah not to do it would be interpreted as prohibiting a very specific action that the people might otherwise do. The next time they wanted to trip up someone who was blind, they would think to themselves, "Nope, I can't do that. There's a mitzvah against it." Meanwhile, the mitzvah would not come to mind before someone gave an unwary tourist bad directions (because he hates tourists, or something like that).

If, however, putting stumbling blocks before the blind was not something that literally used to happen, the mitzvah has the analogical meaning with which we associate it (which, of course, also literally prohibits putting stumbling blocks before the blind).

So unless you would argue that the mitzvah refers only to literally tripping people who are blind, it's fair to say that this was not something that actually happened.

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Perhaps tripping blind people was common, and the Torah is telling you not to do that AND not to do parallel things such as misinforming people. This seems like a false dichotomy. –  Double AA Aug 15 '12 at 16:52
@DoubleAA Of course, not tripping blind people is included in our non-literal interpretation of the mitzvah. But if this were something that was common, the mitzvah would be interpreted literally like "Do not murder" is interpreted literally. –  Daniel Aug 15 '12 at 16:56
@DoubleAA In other words, I am arguing that if people did trip blind people, then this commandment WOULD NOT be prohibiting parallel things. –  Daniel Aug 15 '12 at 17:00
How would 'Do not murder' be interpreted non-literaly? And also not everyone agrees that physically putting a stumbling block in front of a blind person is forbidden because of this lav. –  Double AA Aug 15 '12 at 17:17
@DoubleAA If people actually did put stumbling blocks before the blind, and the mitzvah doesn't prohibit that, then why would it use those words? Anyway, my point isn't whether the mitzvah does or doesn't prohibit doing so. My point is that if people actually did that, then logically the mitzvah would not prohibit other things that we generally consider it to prohibit. –  Daniel Aug 15 '12 at 17:33

While the rules were written in the way that they were for a reason, that reason doesn't necessarily mean that people actually placed stumbling blocks before the blind, that could just be a concise and precise way for the Torah to express the idea of misleading someone. (I wrote about that here and here.) The reason for these kinds of phrases may be to differentiate the Torah from other Near Eastern people (as this article posits), but it might also just be using the language of it's time and place. (See here, if you can access it, in the discussion of line no. 9). @josh waxman shows here that this is how the Ibn Ezra and Shadal have interpreted the phrase, as a common idiom.

By the way, though, it should be noted that the Ramah (that's R. Meir Abulafia, in Yad Ramah to Bava Basra daf 26 - letter 107) suggests that this verse in its literal interpretation does have halakhic validity in that it's the source for the prohibition to cause damage to another person (or another person's property).

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I can't seem to remember where I heard this, but I remember something about using this idiom specifically to represent "מדת סדום", the prime example of it being placing a block before a blind man, instead of just knocking him down. so after they can say "I did not do anything, he did it to himself". if anyone can find a source to this, would be great. –  Zally Ikester Jul 24 '14 at 19:38
@ZallyIkester feel free to ask that as a separate question, but in the Gemara, מדת סדום means refusing to help someone even when you don't lose by helping him –  Matt Jul 24 '14 at 20:53
Correct, thanks for clearing it up. I do not know the proper term for it, but the sort of behavior I described was attributed to סדום as well. –  Zally Ikester Aug 1 '14 at 14:24
@ZallyIkester that kind of behavior is called 'gerama benezikin' (indirectly causing damage) which is discussed in the Yad Ramah quoted above. I've never heard of that attributed to the people of Sedom, but you can alway ask here –  Matt Aug 3 '14 at 14:26

have you never witnessed someone trip another while they were unaware? I'm sure you are aware of scams that take advantage of the elderly and disabled? there a quite a lot of occurrences to which this verse can be applied to in a more literal way than simply not causing another to sin.

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