The Torah commands in Parashat Mishpatim (Shemot 22:17), “Mechashefa Lo Tehayeh” – “You shall not allow a witch to live.” This establishes a prohibition forbidding Bet Din from failing to put to death one who is found guilty of practicing witchcraft. The Sefer Ha’hinuch, who lists this prohibition as the 62 nd Biblical command, clarifies that the Torah refers here to both male and female sorcerers. It mentions specifically a “Mechashefa” (female witch) only because women more commonly involved themselves in such practices than men in ancient times. The reason why the Torah regards witchcraft as such a grievous sin, the Sefer Ha’hinuch explains, is because a sorcerer seeks to subvert or avoid the natural order which Hashem put into place. G-d created the world to follow the laws of nature, and it was His will that the world should run in this fashion, and that we humans conduct ourselves according to the laws of nature. Witchcraft is an attempt to create realities or produce results through supernatural means, utilizing a system that is beyond the natural order. The sorcerer seeks to transcend the laws of nature, in direct violation of the divine will, and he or she is therefore deemed worthy of capital punishment. The Sefer Ha’hinuch’s comments bring to mind a well-known passage in the Ramban’s commentary to the Torah regarding Noah’s ark. The Ramban raised the question of why G-d commanded Noah to construct such a large ark, if in any event a miracle was needed for the ark to contain all the animals. Quite obviously, there was no possibility of building a structure large enough to contain all species in the animal kingdom, and it took a miracle for this occur. Why, then, did G-d command Noah to build a large ark? The Ramban answers that G-d wants the world to run according to the natural order, and so even when a miracle is necessitated, He minimizes the miracle as much as possible. Therefore, although a miracle was needed for the ark to contain all the animals, nevertheless, G-d instructed Noah to create a large ark. The command not to allow a sorcerer to live, as mentioned, is directed to Bet Din, specifically, to a 23-member Bet Din consisting of Semuchim – judges ordained through the line extending back to Moshe – as only such courts are authorized to administer capital punishment. A Bet Din that shirks its responsibility and fails to punish a convicted sorcerer has transgressed a Misvat Lo Ta’aseh (Biblical prohibition). The judges are not liable to Malkut because this prohibition falls under the category of “Lav She’en Bo Ma’aseh” – prohibitions violated through inaction, and not by committing a forbidden act – for which one does not receive Malkut. The Rambam observes in Hilchot Sanhedrin (14:3) that the prohibition of witchcraft is unique in this regard. Normally, when an offender is deserving of capital punishment but Bet Din fails to administer the punishment, Bet Din has transgressed a Misvat Aseh (affirmative command) – the command to punish convicted offenders. In the case of witchcraft, however, as we have seen, a Bet Din that fails to put the convicted sorcerer to death has transgressed a Misvat Lo Ta’aseh. Remarkably, if a person was found to have murdered, or desecrated Shabbat, and Bet Din failed to administer capital punishment, the judges have transgressed only an affirmative command, whereas in the case of a sorcerer, they have transgressed a Misvat Lo Ta’aseh, which is a more severe violation. Later writers noted that the Rambam seems, at first glance, to contradict this statement later in Hilchot Sanhedrin (20:4), where he writes that Bet Din may not refrain from killing a convicted murderer. The judges might figure that since executing the killer in any event will not help the victim or his family, it is preferable to allow the murderer to live rather than have two people killed. The Rambam writes that the court may not make such a decision, and he quotes as a source the verse in the Book of Debarim (1