Fathers Are Not Put to Death for Their Sons

Our Rabbis taught: Fathers shall not be put to death for sons (Deuteronomy 24:16). What does this come to teach? If it teaches that fathers shall not be put to death for the sin of sons, nor sons for the sin of fathers, it has already been said, every man shall be put to death for his own sin (Deuteronomy 24:16). Rather, Fathers shall not be put to death for sons means: by the testimony of sons. And are sons not punished for the sin of fathers? But is it not written, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons (Exodus 20:5)? That case is when they grasp the deeds of their fathers in their hands, as it was taught: and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them (Leviticus 26:39), meaning when they grasp the deeds of their fathers in their hands. Or is it perhaps even when they do not grasp them? When it says, every man shall be put to death for his own sin, you must conclude it is when they grasp the deeds of their fathers in their hands. And are they not? But is it not written, and they shall stumble one upon another (Leviticus 26:37), each man for the sin of his brother, which teaches that all Israel are sureties for one another? That case is where it was in their power to protest and they did not protest.