DEUT703 (Continued from [[DEUT45]] Deuteronomy 4:2 add LEHRMAN 181) … Did not Hillel re-interpret the laws of the Shemitah [this verse, Leviticus xxv. 1-7)] with its remission of debts by introducing the Prozbul, when he saw the spirit of this humane institution thwarted by cunning and deceit? This document, drawn up by the Beth Din, made it possible for the lender to reclaim the debt from a fraudulent borrower even after the seventh year of Release had passed. When the aim of a Rabbinic command is to enforce Biblical ruling in monetary assessments of damage, or to strengthen the claims of a hired servant, the Rabbis are vested with full authority to read a new meaning into the command, as in the case of the Lex Talionis (Exodus xxi. 22-25. The compensation for an injured limb was an assessment in money, amounting to the difference between a man possessed of all his limbs and one bereft of the part of the body which had been injured. This difference in value was ascertained by the market value of a slave, possessed of that limb, or not.) Even in matters not strictly monetary such Rabbinic power was made manifest. Take the case of the Agunah, the anxious widow, whose remarriage was allowed on the corroboration of one witness only testifying that her lost husband was found dead. Even if that witness be a woman who elsewhere was incompetent in the eyes of the law to act as a witness, her evidence here was considered valid. The plight of such hard examples forced the Rabbis to re-interpret some of the Biblical laws on the grounds of the humanitarian reasons advocated by the Torah. (Yeb. 88a; Gitt. 3a) The Rabbis did not go beyond their constituted authority by their adjustments and correlation of life to Torah. They had as rooted an objection to reform as the most conservative in our ranks at any time. They felt no compunction, however, in adding new regulations and setting aside existing ones if these helped to clarify the Biblical injunctions and to foster the spirit intended, to a generation far removed from the period in which the commandment was first given. (Continued at Deuteronomy 21:3 heifer LEHRMAN 183-4)