DEUT1373 Not only does God, according to the Bible, possess justice as a defining characteristic of His being but He enforces His demands of justice on human beings. He hears the cry of those who suffer injustice and responds by punishing the perpetrators. Thus the Torah admonishes (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). From the Torah to our own day, though, Jews have been questioning God’s enforcement, noting that sometimes the righteous suffer and the evil prosper (tzaddik v’ra lo, rasha v’tov lo) B. Berachot 7a. That challenge has become all the more strident in our own time, with some Holocaust theologians denying God’s justice altogether and others, somewhat more moderately, claiming that God failed to enforce justice during the Holocaust and, therefore, our own relationship to God must change (citations omitted). As horrific as the Holocaust was, though, it was clearly the product of human beings, and so morally and even theologically the “free-will defense” must surely carry considerable weight. That is, human free will can be preserved only if God lets us use our powers for ill as well as for good, and so God may have allowed the Holocaust to happen but is not solely or even primarily responsible for it. That defense does not work, though, to explain why some people are born with many more intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and physical gifts than others, and why some people have strong families, schools, and enough money to live comfortably while others suffer from broken families, poor schools, and poverty. Even worse, how can we justify God in the face of, say, a three-year-old child suffering from leukemia? These are, for me, the really hard challenges to God's justice. As I have developed elsewhere, I myself maintain that God is indeed involved in injustice as well as justice, that the fundamental principle of the oneness of God requires that we assert that. Still, while not hiding from the concrete and awesome evidence against God’s justice, I nevertheless affirm that by and large God enforces the rules of justice, grounding that faith in the many times that we do indeed see that individuals and groups reap what they sew. (Dorff, Knowing God: Jewish Approaches to the Unknowable. Aronson. (1992), 129-148.) I have a much harder time wrestling with the inequities that people inherit as their lot in life and even more problems with the child with leukemia and similar cases in which people suffer for no apparent fault of their own. It is such cases that make me resonate with the passages in the Jewish tradition in which Jews have angrily challenged God’s justice and declared it inscrutable. Such people-- Abraham, Job, the Rabbis, and Levi of Berdichev especially come to mind -- nevertheless maintain their faith in God, His link to justice, and the importance of our own efforts to achieve justice. Indeed, while some who lived through the Holocaust lost their faith in God, others who suffered through that same awful experience came to the exactly opposite conclusion -- namely, that the Holocaust proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that human beings could not be trusted on their own to render justice and that, therefore, we must turn to God for that, however many problems we have at times in understanding God's justice.

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DEUT1375 See [[LEV356]] Leviticus 19:13 defraud SACTAB 281-2

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DEUT1374 One who holds back the wages of a hired man transgresses five negative commandments and one positive, viz. (Leviticus 19:13): "You shall not oppress your neighbor," (Sifrei): "You shall not rob," (Sifrei): "You shall not withhold" [the wages], "You shall not oppress a poor hired laborer," (verse 15): "The sun shall not go down upon it," and, the positive commandment, (Sifrei): "In his day shall you give his wage" (Bava Metzia 111a)

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DEUT1376 This teaches us that he must give precedence to a poor hired laborer [who is ashamed to ask for his wage] over an impoverished one [who is not ashamed] (Bava Metzia 111a)

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DEUT1377 The fact that Jewish law requires the exercise of great caution before admitting the stranger to our faith, together with the tolerant and respectful attitude manifested towards devotees of other monotheistic faiths, militates against the theory that Jews are intolerant of other beliefs. The reluctance before admitting the proselyte was only because he was to share Jewish responsibilities as outlined in the Torah. It never meant a hesitancy to help him when he was in need. Once admitted, the laws of the Torah spread their protecting wings over him [this verse, 19-22, xiv. 29, xvi. II, xxvi. II.)

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DEUT1378 We are obligated to pay wages on time. The Torah obligates us to pay employees on time (Chinuch 588). Failure to pay on time is a violation of this positive commandment and also of a prohibition (Vayikra 19:13; Chinuch 230). Below are the essential laws of this commandment as set forth by the Chofetz Chayim: [Author provides details and examples.] ... The Chofetz Chayim used to say that there are two types of merchants. One is so clumsy that even the best merchandise become spoiled when he handles it. Another merchant is adroit at salvaging what others would throw out and is able to make a profit from it. So too with mitzvos. Some people make use of every possible opportunity to fulfill mitzvos, while others let hundreds of opportunities slip by. Take the mitzvah of paying workers on time. There are very many people who do this regularly, but they fail to realize that they are fulfilling a mitzvah. The next time you pay a worker on time, have in mind that your action is the fulfillment of this commandment. (Amud Hachesed).

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DEUT1379 The workman normally expects to be paid on time, as Scripture points out [this verse]: "He sets his heart on it." Hence an employer should never hire a workman where he knows for sure that he will be unable to pay the hire on time, unless he notified the worker before hand and the workman accepted his terms, or else the local usage is to pay workmen on market days when money is abundant--as explained at the end of chapter 9. For this reason, an employer intending to leave on a journey, who will not return to pay wages on time, should arrange, before he leaves, that the hire be available for his employee when payment falls due.

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DEUT1380 See [[LEV358]] Leviticus 19:13 morning TELVOL1 510

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DEUT1382 Scholars have noted that two different approaches, each virtually the opposite of the other, seem to have been employed by the midrash halakhah, the rabbinic method of exegesis, in interpreting the biblical laws (J.M. Guttmann, Bechinat Kiyyum ha-Mitzvot (Jerusalem: Makor, 1978), pp. 19-23). Sometimes what seems to be operating is a policy of contraction, limiting the law in question to the exact conditions specifically mentioned in the text and considering the slightest deviation from these conditions as sufficient to render the law inapplicable. On other occasions, the exegesis seems to be following a policy of expansion, extrapolating the law to similar situations and thereby broadening the area of its applicability beyond the specific terms of the biblical formulation. The observation has been made that the expansion approach seems to be used overwhelmingly in regards to laws grounded in the principle of kindness, justice, and peace, which we have suggested can be considered the essence of the Torah. Therefore, if one can assume that one has insight into the guiding principle behind the law, one can proceed to widen the scope of the law with confidence that one is still within the area intended. This roughly coincides with a group of laws dealing with matters bain adam le-chavero, "between man and his fellow man." Some examples of the method of expansion culled from this area follow. Concerning a "higher servant" who is "poor and needy" we are told, "in the same day thou shalt shall give him his hire." Yet in spite of the explicit reference to his being "poor and needy," the rabbis interpreted this to apply to any hired servant, be he rich or poor (Deuteronomy 24:15, Bava Metzia 111b). On the passage "Thou shall not take the widow's raiment to pledge," the interpretation was, "whether she is rich or poor" (Deuteronomy 24:17, Bava Metzia 115a). The prohibition "Thou shall not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" was understood to apply even when the ox was muzzled from before (Deuteronomy 25:4, Bava Metzia 90b). The injunction "No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone to pledge" was interpreted to apply to any object necessary to produce food (Deuteronomy 24:6, Bava Metzia 115a). The method of contraction, however, was utilized, it would seem, in regard to the ritual laws called chukkim or gezerot ha-katuv, whose rationale was not clear, or to laws that carried with them certain stated punishments. In regard to the former, the approach of the rabbis was to confine the law to the precise conditions mentioned in the text. Not understanding the underlying principles, the rabbis had little choice. Thus, the passage "You shall offer no strange incense thereon" whose intent is quite clear, was understood to mean that the individual person could not contribute any incense (Exodus 30:9, Menachot 3b). However, concerning the oil of anointment, the Torah said, "Upon the flesh of men it shall not be poured." The rabbis restricted this to "flesh of men," excluding animals, vessels, and the dead from the prohibition (Exodus 30:32, Keritot 6b). In regard to the redemption of the first-born, "All the first-born of thy sons [banekha] thou shalt redeem" was strictly interpreted as meaning sons but not daughters, although sometimes the word banim was understood to mean "children." (Exodus 34:20, Kiddushin 29a). Similarly, the biblical prohibition of combining meat and milk was interpreted as applying only derekh bishul, "if arrived at through cooking," in accordance with the wording of the passage: "Thou shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." (Exodus 23:19, Sanhedrin 4b) (Continued at [[NUM411]] Numbers 35:25 deliver SPERO 53).

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DEUT1381 [The same holds true if he is rich] Why, then, is it written: "For he is poor"? To give precedence to the poor [hired laborer] over the rich one (Bava Metzia 110b)

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