DEUT903 Another, important manifestation of the sanctity of the individual over the group in both [i.e., Jewish and American] ideologies is the overpowering emphasis that they both put on the rule of law. Kings, presidents, military leaders, and even individual judges do not determine the rules; There is a law by which even they must abide. (Deuteronomy 17:18-20, 2 Samuel 11-12, and 1 Kings 21. Compare also the talmudic story of the confrontation between Simeon Ben Shetah and King Alexander Yanai in B. Sanhedrin 19a-b). Thus in a poignant passage the Torah requires the King to own a copy of the Torah, to keep it nearby, and to “read it all his life.... Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left.” (Deuteronomy 17:18-20) Similarly, to ensure that judges are not lured into thinking that they are the source of the law, they are advised by the Mishnah not to judge cases on their own. As Rabbi Ishmael, son of Rabbi Yose, said, “Do not judge by yourself, for there is only One who [appropriately] judges by Himself.” M. Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 4:10. Insistence that the law must govern has engendered great effort in both systems to extend it to cover every contingency. Jewish law became, as the Talmud put it, a veritable sea, and American law is now even more extensive. The United States may well be the only nation in the world that has centered its civilization around law as much as the Jews have. (So claims Konvitz (1980) Judaism and the American Idea, New York: Schocken., 53-55; the quotation is from p. 55).

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT910 See [[DEUT903]] Deuteronomy 17:18 Teaching DORFFDRAG 24-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT934 On any given matter, how can we know what the will of God is? A number of the biblical leaders simply asked God and received what were, to their minds, clear and dependable answers. (See, for example, Leviticus 24:10-23 and Numbers 15:32-36, 27:1-11). Already in biblical times, though, people were not sure how to distinguish a true prophet from a false one, for absolutely anyone could claim that a given position was not only his or her own opinion but was rather a message from God. This was not just a theoretical possibility; Jeremiah, in particular, complains often and bitterly of an abundance of false prophets misleading the people. [Jeremiah 6:13-15, 14:4, 23:23-40, 27:9-18, 28:1-17, and 29:21-32. To make matters worse yet, a true prophet might be misled by a false one (1 Kings 13), and a false prophet might even be inspired by God to deceive and entice Israel (1 Kings 22:21ff. God might even seduce a true prophet to deliver a false message (Ezekiel 14:9-11).] The Book of Deuteronomy twice tries to suggest a way to discern the difference between true and false prophets, once claiming that true prophets are known by their ability to predict what will happen (Deuteronomy 18:9-22) and the other time proclaiming that true prophets are those who simply reinforce their traditional adherence to God (Deuteronomy 13:1-6). But the latter criterion reduces prophets to good preachers, for no true prophet, by that measure, can tell us anything new. Moreover, although the biblical prophets certainly do not suggest that Jews worship other Gods, a number of them do announced new rules. 23 The other criterion for true prophecy-- that the prophet foretells events correctly-- also fails as a test, for according to the Bible's own testimony, several of the prophets accepted as true predict things that do not come to be. 24 [Continued at [[EXOD350]] Exodus 20:1 all DORFFDRAG 41-2].

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT962 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT964 See [[DEUT848]] Deuteronomy 16:20 justice DORFFDRAG 114-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT984 We begin with the value of peace. Every major prayer in Jewish liturgy concludes with the plea for peace, including the grace after meals, the Amidah, the priestly blessing, and the Kaddish. (Numbers Rabbah 11:7, Deuteronomy Rabbah 5:14). Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn notes that “Not one single Jewish festival or holiday celebrates the waging or the winning of a war! Not one!” “Judaism on War, Peace, and Conscientious Objection,” Jewish Digest 15, no. 4 (April 1970): 52. (Hanukkah, as the name indicates, celebrates the rededication of the Temple, not the war that preceded it.) From the time that Isaiah revealed his vision of a future when even the wolf shall lie down with the lamb (11:6), peace has been a cornerstone of Jewish Messianism. “Great is peace,” said the Rabbis, for all blessings are contained in it.... great is peace, for God's name is peace.” Numbers Rabbah 11:7. In light of this background, the question of this chapter is: When may the pervasive value of peace be superseded to permit or even demand hostile actions against another country as a matter of justice? Contemporary history offers many examples of political and economic interference in the affairs of one nation by another. Even in the few periods of history in which Jews have had political autonomy, however, the Jewish state was small and hardly in a position to affect another in these indirect ways. Consequently, it should not be surprising that Jewish sources on this are sparse. The Sifrei Devarim, the earliest rabbinic interpretation of Deuteronomy, does include one comment on this issue, and it is rather surprising. The Torah says, “when you approach a town to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace.” Deuteronomy 20:10 Commenting on the introductory clause of that verse, the rabbi said: “‘to attack it’-- and not to make it suffer starvation or thirst and not to make it die the death of sicknesses.” Sifrei Devarim to Deuteronomy 20:10, “Shofetim,” par. 199. On the one hand, this source articulates a manifestly moral stance for our age on the ethics of using chemical warfare to contaminate the food and water supply, to despoil the environment, or to inflict illness as a means of waging a war. On the other, this source seems to require that the only legitimate form of intervention is military. Cutting off the food or water supply of an enemy is clearly a step short of killing them outright, especially since it provides an extended opportunity for the enemy to change its mind and sue for peace, and so one would expect that that would be preferable to direct attack. This source, though, apparently prefers the latter to the former, perhaps to avoid making the deaths of the enemy soldiers any more agonizing than they need be. This source never made it to the later codes of Jewish law, however, and so its authority is questionable. Moreover, in Jewish law, as in other legal systems, killing or injuring a person is always treated more seriously than damaging his or her property, and so one would presume that nonmilitary intervention would generally be considered preferable to military forms. The grounds for political or economic intervention are not spelled out in the tradition, undoubtedly because the opportunity never arose; only the rationales for waging war are discussed. Consequently, one must extend by analogy the justifications for military intervention to political and economic forms. No thorough analysis of that sort has yet been produced. As a result, the only guidance in the Jewish tradition in regard to political and economic interference is that, as a general rule, it is preferable to military means.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT999 See [[EXOD623]] Exodus 22:1 death DORFFDRAG 167-8

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT1092 Not only is it the downtrodden whose cause the Torah champions as part of its insistence on substantive justice but it is all members of society who must be treated justly. The Torah, therefore, includes lengthy lists of civil and criminal laws for society as a whole, (See, for example, Exodus 21-24 and Deuteronomy 20-25) and the later rabbis developed this area of Jewish law extensively, beginning with the Mishnah’s Order Nezikin. The Torah itself, and the Rabbis even more, appreciated the fact that justice, to become a reality in people's lives, could not be left as a pious hope but must rather be translated into concrete norms. By presenting specific cases, both the biblical and rabbinic traditions made the demands of justice clear and binding. It was not enough to require a person who finds a lost object, for example, to return it (as in Deuteronomy 22:1-3). What if not one, but several, people claim it? How shall you determine the real owner? What happens if you cannot? What should you do, on the other hand, if nobody comes forward to claim the object? Must you keep it? If so, for how long? To what extent must you go to publicize that you have it? If it requires care (for example, if it is an animal), must you spend your own money to provide that care? To what extent? May you use the object in the interim? Returning a lost object is a relatively simple demand of justice. But as these questions demonstrate, even a straightforward requirement such as that easily becomes complicated -- and the rabbis, in fact, devoted an entire chapter of the Mishnah and Talmud to this issue (chapter two of Bava Metzi’a) Without that discussion, the Torah’s imperative to return a lost object would remain imprecise and unworkable, demanding, in some understandings too much, and in others, too little to make this aspect of justice part of an ongoing practice within Jewish communal life.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT1138 See [[EXOD418]] Exodus 20:12 honor DORFFDRAG 244-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT1355 The Dignity of Being God's Creature. According to the Jewish tradition, the dignity of all human beings -- that which raises us above the status of other animals -- derives from the fact that we were created in God's own image: “And God created the man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27 The primary way in which humanity is like God is in our abilities to understand and follow an argument for justice, to know right from wrong, and to choose the right. To do these things is both the privilege and the responsibility of being created in God's image. As Jews, God has given us the Torah to help us make the right decisions, and hence study of the tradition is an aid to good practice. Even without a thorough Jewish education, though, we may not hide from the implications of being created in the divine image. M. Avot 3:18 Thus a variety of biblical and rabbinical sources demand that we preserve not only the lives of the poor but their dignity as well. (Deuteronomy 24:10-11, M. Ketubbot 13:3, S.A. Yoreh De’ah 251:8, Even Ha-Ezer 112:11, B. Ketubbot 43a, and S.A. Even Ha-Ezer 112:16, 93:4) So, for example, if someone injures another person, the attacker must compensate the victim for the injury itself (lost capital value), the pain involved, the medical expenses, the time lost from work, and the degradation. M. Bava Kamma 8:1. When discussing payment for degradation, the Talmud’s basis for comparison is the embarrassment involved in poverty. That is, the clear case of degradation, to which other cases can be instructively compared, is the embarrassment involved in being in need. B. Bava Kamma 86a Since poverty is an affront to the dignity inherent in us as creatures of God, all those who can are obliged to help. By the same token, the poor themselves must take care to protect their own dignity. One way of doing this is to give charity-- no matter what one’s economic state. “Even a poor person who lives entirely on charity must also give charity to another poor person.” B. Bava Kamma 119a, B. Gittin 7b, M.T. Laws of Gifts to the Poor 7:5, and S.A. Yoreh De’ah 248:1, 251:12. Also, the poor who need aid are encouraged to apply to the community fund and are discouraged from door-to-door begging, because it diminishes their own dignity. B. Bava Batra 9a and S.A. Yoreh De’ah 250:3-4.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT