LEV1067 Rabbi Akiba's interpretation of Leviticus 25:36 is based on a clever sequential reading of the literal Hebrew text. In Hebrew the text reads: V'hai > aheecha > eemach. The first Hebrew word V'hai, means according to R. Akiba: "(your) life." Since the word "(your) life" appears (in the Hebrew order of words) before the Hebrew word > aheecha, "your brother," Rabbi Akiba used this Hebrew sentence structure to indicate that "your life takes first precedence over the life of your brother." More important, however, is the general principle which it presents. It is not an obligation in Jewish ethics to give one's life for another. So, for example, in BT Pesachim 25b concerning a man who came before Raba with the following dilemma: "The governor of my town has ordered me: 'Go and kill so-and-so; and if not I will kill you.' Raba replied: 'Let him kill you rather than that you should commit murder; what reason do you see for thinking that your blood is redder? Perhaps his blood is redder." Rashi explains that according to Judaism it is permitted to sin in order to save another's life, but not to murder. The principle is that there is no criterion for evaluating the "utility" or worth of one individual or another. Jewish ethics does not evaluate the "utility" of the individual and since one life will be lost in any case, two evils cannot be allowed to be perpetrated; i.e., the loss of a human life and the use of a Good person to carry out the first Evil. Clearly, the ultimate triumph of Good over Evil is the struggle which Judaism is concerned with. Only in the defying of Evil can Good be served; even at the expense of human life.

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DEUT243 See [[GEN193]] Genesis 1:31 very FREUND 176-7

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DEUT700 … one sees that the tendency of the rabbis was to revise the biblical law in light of radically different ethical standards. Radical revisionism of biblical texts usually reflects a large "gap" between the ethical setting of the Bible and its ancient near Eastern setting and the new ethical setting of Judaism in the post-biblical era. Other examples of this radical revisionism are reflected in the Taqanat Prosbul (literally: "a legal correction before the council" by Hillel and Rabbi Yohanan's abrogation of the "trial of ordeal" of the Sotah or "errant" wife. In both cases, the gap between the ethical setting of the Bible and that of the rabbis made outright abrogation or radical revision a necessity. In the case of the Prosbul for example, the change involved the common, Israelite agricultural setting of the Bible which demanded communal economic commitment and allowed for the cancellation of all loans at the beginning of every seventh, sabbatical year (this and following two versus). In the post-biblical, new political, social and economic reality of Hellenism this law no longer fulfilled its initial purpose and in fact seems to have created a reluctance among Jews to lend money in the years preceding the sabbatical year. Hillel created a legal fiction whereby the loans were not completely canceled in the seventh year and while this "correction" seems to abrogate the law it indirectly allows for its (at least partial) ethical fulfillment. Mishnah, Sheviit 10.3-4.

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DEUT701 This rule assured that debts (which held as collateral the debtor's land) would not cause the debtor's property to be passed to anyone else. Additionally, it took into account the changing vicissitudes of agricultural life and compensated for it. In the rabbinic period., As the Jews moved from the farm to the cities, their agricultural-based legal system carried with it obstacles to Jewish participation in a competitive free market. The law of debt remission in the seventh year was avoided in the new setting by not lending money in the sixth year! The rabbis, therefore, instituted a "correction" in the biblical law to compensate for the new economic setting. Called the "Prosbul," it was a legal document which allowed the lender to recover his money after the seventh year. Mishnah, Sheviit 10.3-4.

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DEUT982 The Mishnah of Sotah 8.5 states "' And the officers shall speak further to the people and say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted?' [This verse] Rabbi Aqiva says: 'Fearful and fainthearted' is meant literally – – he cannot endure the armies joined in battle or bear to see a drawn sword." According to this mishnah, Rabbi Aqiva was inclined to exempt from the war anyone who could not on principle bear arms ("cannot bear to see a drawn sword"). This appears to point to a volunteer army in which an exemption from participating in a war is granted for a person who by nature cannot participate in active combat. (This is not necessarily a person morally opposed to war but rather a person who cannot engage in active combat for a number of possible reasons (i.e., fear, compassion, etc.).

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DEUT1053 The rabbis often times were forced to find ways of textually revising a biblical standard when it no longer met the standards of their own times. … In the "rebellious son" account of Deuteronomy 21:18-21, for example, the rebellious son is condemned to death by "the elders of the city" and is stoned to death according to the Bible. This law is paralleled in other Ancient Near Eastern accounts, such as the Code of Hammurabi. J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969) pp. 168-169). The implications of this law in both the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern codes seem to be similar. M. Powis-Smith, The Origin and the History of Hebrew Law, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1931) pp. 50 ff. The right of parents, especially fathers, to have children put to death (infanticide) seems to have existed in limited forms throughout the Roman Empire through the fourth century CE when it was made criminal. Early Tannaitic sources devote tens of pages to explaining, fine-tuning, defining and clearly limiting the possibility of capricious application of this law allowing infanticide in Judaism. Attempts to limit the law until it is almost effectively eliminated seems to be the intention of rabbinic legislation.

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DEUT1162 See [[LEV737]] Leviticus 19:19 kinds FREUND 264

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