DEUT764 The celebrated case of prosbul (B. Gittin 36a) [Normally, a sabbatical year cancels debts, but when Hillel saw that people were not lending, thus violating a biblical imperative, he created a system known as prosbul by which loans are transferred to the court for collection] easily lends itself to explanation in terms of internal values that coincide with universal ones (the passage states the biblically declared value of people being willing to lend money [this verse]). Likewise, laws whose stated rationale is tikkun olam [lit., "repair of the world" - AJL] , darkhei shalom (the ways of peace), kevod ha-beriyyot (human dignity), derakhehah darkhei no'am (ways of pleasantness) -- these are based on certain Jewish values, even if the latter coincide with universal values and serve as "a conduit for moral considerations." [Lengthy footnote with sources omitted]. Once armed with the distinction between internal and external values, we can declare also that the impetus behind limitations that authorities impose, based on their interpretations of the relevant laws, upon mamzerut, the stubborn and rebellious son, and Amalek, and their hesitation about applying certain laws altogether, was not external values but rather internal ones such as the value of life and the principle of just desert. [Lengthy footnote with sources omitted]. (By David Shatz, "Ethical Theories in the Orthodox Movement"
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