ESCALATION IN DISPUTE
Shemos 2.13
ויאמר לרשע - We are all familiar with the Rashi based on the gemara Sanhedrin 58b, that one who lifts his hand to hit another Jew is called a Rasha even without actually hitting his victim.
This always seemed a bit extreme and thus difficult to properly digest and learn from.
However, it is brought in Shulchan Aruch חו''מ ל''ד ד' as psak Halacha from the Rema, that one who does so is disqualified מדרבנן from testimony!
One who actually hits another Jew is disqualified מן התורה as he pro-actively transgressed a לא תעשה that would be deserving of makkos. This renders the title רשע upon him and he is therefore passul for eidus.
However, R' Yechiel Michel Stern asks why the Rasha in our case is only Rabbinically disqualified? One who raised his hand against another is unequivocally called a Rasha by the Torah itself, without having to come onto the normal route of transgressing a lo sasseh to get there!
I would like to suggest a new approach that also has a very clear lesson to learn as well.
We find a concept of צדיק באותו דין regarding the judgement of Rosh Hashanah. In which a person who may generally be considered a Rasha, but in the specific judgement of חיים or מות of that year he is deemed Tzaddik and lives. The reverse is true as well. Similarly, the concept is clear in the passuk which the gemara makkos 2b uses as a hint to עדים זוממים defaulting to get makkos - והצדיקו את הצדיק והרשיעו את הרשע… . The simple understanding of this passuk is in a dispute between two individuals and one is found to be in the right and the other is found to be in the wrong. This is not a general description of character, but a relative title in the specific dispute.
Based on this we can safely explain that our passuk is not extreme at all and is informing us of a very practical lesson.
When two people are arguing it may be that one is right and the other wrong, both may have valid points or both may be wrong. But as soon as one lifts his hand to hit the other, he has escalated the dispute from just verbal to the realm of physical. And even without actually harming the other, his escalation deems him the wrong one in this dispute and the other is in the right since he remained in the realm of just arguing with words.