DEUT1428 Do not overdo physical punishment. If someone has committed a transgression whose punishment is lashes, the court is forbidden to administer the punishment without first estimating how many lashes the person will be able to endure. The court considers that person's age, strength, physical and emotional health and so on. If the court determines that he is capable of bearing thirty-nine lashes, then this is the number that he is given. If the court estimates that he cannot bear thirty-nine, he is given only the number that it appears that he can bear, and no more. Similarly, the court is forbidden to give anyone any more than thirty-nine lashes. An important teaching: If we are forbidden to strike a sinner, all the more so are we forbidden to strike others. In fact, our Sages forbid us to even gesture that we intend to strike a blow to a fellow Jew. They teach (Sanhedrin 58b), “Anyone who raises his hand to strike his fellow Jew is called a wicked man (rasha).” One should never strike a blow to anyone, except if someone has sinned and the court must give him lashes.