EXOD294 Eleazar Ha-Moda'I says: … "'that they shall do'" -- this means lifnim mishurat ha-din." (Mekhilta) The Midrashic text here lists acting beyond a letter of the law as something on a par with other acts of kindness and sociability, clearly as a value that is to be aspired to. As such it is not defined or illustrated in any more detail. In the Babylonian Talmud the phrase is called upon prominently in the context of the laws of property to describe the demonstrations of uncalled-for generosity by rabbinic sages toward others [B. Bava Metzia 30b, in the story of Rabbi Yishma'el. ben R. Yossi helping the wood carrier; B. Bava Kamma 99b-100a, in the story of Rabbi Hiyya who misjudged a monetary case; and B. Ketubbot 97a, where Rav Papa returns from a field.] or to recommend acts that would entail forgoing monetary advantage [B. Bava Metzia 24b, with regard to returning property that one could leally keep.] It is also cited twice to describe God's merciful quality as a judge of His people. [B. Berakhot 7a and B. Avodah Zarah 4b]. The statement that is often used to demonstrate the weight of the phrase is the one attributed to Rabbi Yohanan that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. "Because they [the Jews] established their lives in accordance with the local law but did not act lifnim meshurat ha-din" (B. Bava Metzia 30b). However, this statement is clearly hyperbolic and is in line with a number of moral failures, such as sin'at hinam ("hatred without cause," B. Yoma 9b) to explain why God punished the people of Israel in that cataclysmic event. From this handful of sources it remains difficult to conclude that the rabbinic sages in charge of compiling the talmudic tradition operated with a principled idea as to the legal or ethical "status" of the concept of lifnim meshurat ha-din. [See Louis Newman, Past Imperatives: Studies in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 33]. None of the sources explicate that acting lifnim meshurat ha-din makes one a better person, a more moral person, or a superior judge. But the fact that the talmudic corpus sites this concept a few times and the suggestive nature of the phrase itself do suggest that time and again the talmudic tradition reminds its students and sage/scholars that being correct and acting correctly in accordance with the halakhic tradition is not necessarily sufficient, that a concern for the disadvantage to other people is something to be considered. Perhaps the sum total of these texts can be described as seeds of a corrective for absolutist legalism. Halakhah is what it mediates human relations in rabbinic tradition, but concern for how it is implemented is part of that same tradition. (By Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, “Ethical Theories in Rabbinic Literature”)