Paul and the Jewish Law

The aim of this paper is to examine the tension between the demands of rational morality(1) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the exclusion of feticide and the killing of a terminally ill individual(2) from the category of culpable homicide in Jewish criminal law. In that law a fetus is not a person for the purposes of the law of homicide,(3) and feticide is not a capital crime. The killer of an individual suffering from a fatal condition is also exempt from the death penalty because his victim was not viable, and capital punishment is imposed only for the taking of a viable life.(4) Jewish criminal law is basically Biblical, and the standard punishment for any crime in the Bible is death.(5) Exemption from the death penalty is, therefore, a strong indication that a particular act does not constitute a crime. This situation is hardly an acceptable one from the perspective of the value of human in Jewish law and the principles of rational morality which constitute a part of it. The aim of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms employed by the halakhah(6) in order to defuse this tension in these two areas of Jewish law. The scope of the paper, however, is not limited to Jewish law sources. Reference is also made to a similar tension between the provisions of the criminal law and rational morality in Islamic jurisprudence and to the defense of necessity in the Common Law. Feticide The Bible stipulates that the killer of a fetus is not liable to the death penalty, and excludes a fetus from the category of legal persons for the purposes of the criminal law. Indeed, the sole consequence of fetus destruction would appear to be the obligation to pay compensation to the husband of the woman whose fetus was destroyed.(7) It is interesting to note that both the Greek and Latin translations of the Bible read the passage in question somewhat differently, with the result that the destruction of a formed fetus does, in fact, constitute an act of homicide for which the perpetrator is liable to the death penalty. A possible explanation for this divergence is that the translations were influenced by Greek thinking on feticide and abortion in which the distinction between the formed and the unformed fetus is a significant one.(1) An exposition of the historical background to this difference between the various versions of the Bible and the divergent paths taken by the Jewish, Christian, and Common Law traditions in this field is clearly beyond the scope of the present article.(9) In analytical terms, however, it is important to note that the Rabbinic tradition does not accept that the stages of fetal development are definitive in the determination of the legality of abortion, especially in the therapeutic context.(10) Although halakhic literature refers to both a forty-day stage and to the first trimester, these stages of development are used only as secondary arguments in cases involving indirect threats to the mother's life.(11) The purely biological issue of fetal formation is not of primary legal relevance in the halakhic tradition relating to questions of feticide and abortion.(12) The non-personhood of the fetus in the criminal law provides a firm basis for therapeutic abortion. According to the Mishnah, the mother's takes precedence over that of her fetus until birth. Once this stage has passed, the life of one person does not override that of another.(13) Clearly, the Mishnah excludes a fetus from the category of legal persons, and this exclusion is cited by the majority of commentators as the reason for mandating therapeutic abortion in Jewish law.(11) Fetal non-personhood also serves as the starting point for a liberal approach to the limits of therapeutic abortion in Jewish law. A striking illustration of the way in which a liberal approach to abortion is anchored in the criminal law notion of fetal non-personhood is a relatively recent decision by R. Eliezer Judah Waidenburg permitting the abortion of a Tay-Sachs fetus until the seventh month of pregnancy. …

166 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 the actual Hasmonean achievement of independence. As it is, the book ends in 161 B.C.E. with the treaty of alliance between the Hasmoneans and Rome-an odd place to end, since Gera himselfadmits that the Hasmonean treaty with Rome lacked practical value (pp. 311-312).The fact is that the Maccabees received a decisive benefit not from events in faraway Rome in 161 but from developments in their immediate international environment in the late 150s; and detailed discussion of the latter would have greatly underlined Gera's basic point about the limits of Jewish power. It was not Judah, Jonathan, and Simon Maccabeus who primarily made Hasmonean Judaea. Though their bravery and military-political skill is beyond question, Judah was defeated and killed in spring 160, and Demetrius Soter soon had Jonathan and Simon completely on the run over the Jordan. The crucial event that created an independent Judaea was, rather, the coalition ofPtolemy VI with the rulers ofPergamum and Cappadocia against Demetrius Soter after 153-Demetrius had managed to alienate them all-with Rome playing a peripheral part in Demetrius' destruction. And he was the last powerful Seleucid ruler. . In the complex Seleucid civil wars that followed Demetrius' death, each side offered the Jews more and more independence in exchange for political and even military support (for with every claimant to the throne so weak, even the Jews counted for something), until by 141 Judaea was no longer a Seleucid province but officially a free state ruled by Simon as high priest and prince in Jerusalem. Less extraneous discussion of international events in the earlier period (when the Jews were helpless), replaced by detailed analysis of the complicated interactions of 153-141-the type of analysis which is clearly Gera's forte, to judge from much ofthe material in this book-would have made Judaea and Mediterranean Politics a much more valuable study. Even as it is, however, readers will certainly benefit from Gera. He removes much romanticism from the story of the ancient Jewish struggle for independence, because he starts from a bitter truth: the fate ofsmall peoples does not often lie within their own decisions and efforts, but depends on broader international developments. A. M. Eckstein Department of History University of Maryland-College Park An Introduction to the History and Sources ofJewish Law, edited by N. S. Hecht, B. S. Jackson, S. M. Passamaneck, D. Piatelli, A. M. Rabello. Institute ofJewish Law, Vol. 22. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. 466 pp. $20.00. For millennia, scholars have engaged, and continue to engage, in the practice and development ofhalakhah. The academic study ofthe halakhic practices and contexts of these scholars, on the other hand, is relatively new. Both the rise of the comparative Book Reviews 167 study of national legal systems and the emergence ofZionism contributed to this new discipline, now termed "Jewish law." The fruit of this discipline has primarily been studies of "the" Jewish law or its principles on various topics, as defined by modem legal systems (e.g., "Jewish family law"). M. Elon's monumental Jewish Law is the most recent addition to this trend. The "Jewish law" approach has generally focused neither on the history ofJewish legal development and institutions, nor on introducing neophytes to the sources upon which their conclusions are based. The current book seeks to do both, with mixed results. This volume contains 16 discrete essays that trace the history of Jewish law from the biblical period to modem day. These essays are: "Biblical Law" (R. Westbrook); "Jewish Law during the Second Temple Period" (D. Piatelli and B. S. Jackson); "Samaritan Halakhah" (M. Corinaldi); "Jewish Law and Hellenistic Legal Practice in the Light ofGreek Papyri from Egypt" (J. Meleze Modrzejewski); "Jewish Law during the Tannaitic Period" (P. Segal); "Jewish and Roman Jurisdiction" (A. M~ Rabello); "The Age of the Talmud" (B. Lifshitz); "Halakhah and Law in the Period of the Geonim" (G. Libson); "Karaite Halakhah" (M. Corinaldi); "Jewish Law in Spain and the Halakhic Activity ofIts Scholars before 1300" (E. Schochetman); "Ashkenazim to 1300" (A. Grossman); "Toward Sunrise in the East 1300-1565" (S. Passamaneck); "Jewish Law from the Shulhan Arukh to...

This book deals with the following controversial issues in Jewish Law: abortion, assisted reproduction, genetics, the obligation to heal, patient autonomy, treatment of the terminally ill, the definition of death, organ donations, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. The book focuses upon the complex interplay between legal and moral elements in the decision-making process, particularly when questions of life and death (such as abortion and treatment of the terminally ill) are involved. The author argues that the moral element in Jewish biomedical law is of a universal, rational nature, and its theoretical basis may be located in a weak form of Natural law theory regarding the value of human life in the Jewish legal tradition. The concept of patient autonomy in Jewish biomedical law is more limited than in contemporary liberal jurisprudence, and is based upon theological as well as strictly legal elements. The influence of scientific thinking upon the decision-making process in Jewish biomedical law is illustrated in a discussion of the contemporary debate concerning the permissibility of heart transplants. In most chapters, Jewish law is compared and contrasted with Canon and Common Law, and the volume also discusses the role played by Jewish biomedical law in modern, secular Israeli law. In this context, it addresses the thorny issue of combining religious law with democratic principles within the framework of a secular legal system.

Jewish law is normally characterized by a pluralist discourse and, even when controversies are acrimonious, the merits of competitive arguments are recognized and receive some legitimacy. By contrast, Jewish family law, especially in the case of marriage annulment, is characterized quite differently, patently diverging from the pluralist hermeneutic discourse normally characterizing Jewish law. This divergence is the subject of this article.From the work of early classic commentators to modern Jewish Law scholars, the character of marriage annulment in Jewish law has been much debated. Questions about both the authority of the Sages to annul a marriage and the meaning of annulment have arisen. Commentators have probed famous passages in the Babylonian Talmud mentioning the concept of marriage annulment (Heb. hafka'at kiddushin), often simply with the words “the Sages annulled the betrothal.” Similarly, discussing a case where a Jewish writ of divorce (get) was formally void but validated by the Sages, the Palestinian Talmud states “their [i.e., the Sages'] words uproot the words of the Torah,” which implies that the Sages have the authority according to Jewish law to annul a marriage in certain circumstances.

This book explores the complex relationship between Jewish law (halakhah) and international law, emphasizing the shared characteristics and potential synergies between these two legal systems. Both systems transcend national boundaries and operate beyond territorial constraints, offering frameworks for justice in a globalized world. The authors delve into how Jewish law incorporates local and international legal principles in areas like war, humanitarian law, copyright law, and governance. The manuscript is divided into eight chapters, each addressing a specific aspect of Jewish and international law. It begins by introducing both legal systems and their historical contexts, then moves into case studies where Jewish law has either incorporated or resisted international legal norms. The authors analyze key areas such as the ethical considerations in wartime conduct, the role of copyright and intellectual property, and the broader historical dialogue between Jewish law and international legal standards. Furthermore, the book examines the role of Jewish legal thought in navigating antisemitic legal systems and envisions how future developments in both Jewish and international law could promote justice on a global scale. A major theme of the work is the nonterritorial nature of both legal systems and their reliance on judges and interpretative frameworks. Through this comparative study, the authors encourage scholars from both disciplines to engage in a deeper dialogue, proposing that both legal systems can learn from each other and contribute to a more just global order.

It is significant for the close relationship that exists between Jewish ethics and Jewish law that both emerge from the same source: the religious code. Jewish law is sacred, Divine law. Its basis is the Bible and Talmud. Though both are primary sources for the knowledge of Jewish law, it must be borne in mind that it was the task of the Talmud to interpret God's word as proclaimed in the Bible. The Talmud, on the other hand, not only interprets but also extends the scope of the Biblical teachings in accordance with the social and economic conditions that prevailed during the long period in which this g gantic work came into being. The dominant idea in Biblical law was the lex talionis. Since the first century B. C., however, the Rabbis tried to modify this principle with the result that the Pharisees almost abolished it. Their views became Jewish criminal law. The Sadducees, however, insisted upon its application. It would indeed be strange if the idea of retaliation were missing from ancient Jewish law, for it was prevalent in the very early beginnings of communal existence. It was thus present as well in Egyptian, Indian and Greek jurisprudence and is preserved today. For retaliation is still the first instinc-

Jewish Ethics and Halakhah for Our Time: Sources and Commentary; Equity in Jewish Law: Beyond Equity: Halakhic Aspirations in Jewish Civil Law; Judicial Deviation in Talmudical Law: Governed by Men, Not by Rules; The Method and Meaning of the Mishnah BerurahHerringBasil F. <i>Jewish Ethics and Halakhah for Our Time: Sources and Commentary</i> The Library of Jewish Law and Ethics, vol.

Is copyright a property right? Common law and civil law jurists have debated that issue for over three centuries. It remains at the heart of battles over copyright’s scope and duration today, even if its import lies principally in the rhetorical force of labeling a right as "property," not in any doctrinal consequence flowing directly from that label. In parallel to their common law and civil law counterparts, presentday rabbinic jurists engage in lively debate about whether Jewish law recognizes copyright as a property right. And, as in secular law but for different reasons, that issue has significant repercussions in Jewish law. As discussed in rabbinic court decisions and writings, whether Jewish law accords authors a right of ownership in their works impacts such issues as whether it is permissible, without license from the author or publisher, to copy and distribute software and sound recordings, perform music in wedding halls, make copies for private and classroom use, and download songs from the Internet. There are numerous, and at times profound, differences in the terminology, form of argument, doctrinal specifics, and overarching legal framework of Jewish and secular law. Nonetheless, the arguments within the Jewish law debate have some intriguing parallels with those of secular copyright law. In fact, one finds the direct, if largely unstated, influence of secular copyright just below the surface in the debate in Jewish law about whether copyright is property.

It seems fair to say that Jewish law has “made it” in the American legal academy. While in the 1980s schools were reluctant to run, and scholars were reluctant to teach, Jewish law courses, the 1990s ushered in an era where dozens of law schools incorporated Jewish law courses into their catalogs1—a number that, from a quick perusal of law school course catalogs, appears to be growing with each passing decade. As Jewish law has become an entrenched feature of American law school curricula and scholarship, approaches to teaching2 and writing3 about Jewish law have varied widely—both in terms...

Aspects of Jewish Sales Law which may be referred to as the law of warranties are the subject of this article. Only the sale of personalty is dealt with and comparison is made with parallel developments in American Sales Law.The temptation to engage in extensive discussion of the sources of Jewish Law and of its nature and developments has been resisted and only some brief preliminary remarks concerning Jewish Law have been included but the interested reader is referred elsewhere for further discussion of these matters.Unlike the Common law, which developed on a case to case basis, Jewish law developed along several lines. Jewish law developed in part on a case to case basis as exemplified by Talmudic discussions and expositions; in part in an enormous and still growingResponsaliterature; and in the decisions of Rabbinical Courts throughout Jewish history. On the other hand, the development of Jewish law depended in great part on various Codes, the most important for our purposes being those of Maimonides, Asherides and Karo.

Jewish law provides a robust internal rule system that governs commerce and trade. These rules constitute the section of Shulhan Arukh known as Hoshen Mishpat. Yet Jewish law also contains principles of incorporation that ratify external commercial norms of the marketplace—laws, customs, practices–and recognize them as valid. These principles of incorporation displace the internal provisions of Hoshen Mishpat to such an extent that contemporary Jewish courts sometimes decide commercial disputes between Jewish parties exclusively on the basis of these external norms. This chapter surveys the principles of incorporation and examines their conceptual and normative basis. The chapter argues that Jewish commercial law is structured to interact with the norms and institutions of a broader political economy.

Ancient Jewish authors often summarised their law. For this, they mostly used two virtues also known and important for the Hellenistic world in general, εὐσέβεια (“piety”) and δικαιοσύνη (“justice”). Philo of Alexandria was the first to connect these two virtues with the two tables of the Decalogue. And it was Philo who used the ten commandments of the Decalogue as headings and summaries to subsume all Jewish single laws under them. In general, the Decalogue seems to be the essence of the Jewish law as, besides Philo, New Testament authors show, and to some extent also Pseudo-Aristeas shows. A third virtue stressed in the Letter of Aristeas and the New Testament is ἀγάπη (“love”). For Pseudo-Aristeas love is the dynamic of piety that is a preeminent form of beauty, the latter also being an important Hellenistic value. In the New Testament love is the dynamic of piety and justice as expressed by the so-called double love commandment in the synoptics and the so-called royal law in James. For Paul, loving your neighbour has fulfilled the whole Jewish law because neighbourly love is an expression of the will of God. Love is thus a summary of the whole Jewish law because that is what God wanted by means of the Jewish law. For all the exemplary works and authors, the summaries of the Jewish law do not summarise it at the expense of its single commandments. For Paul, however, loving your neighbour supersedes the single commandments. Though this does not mean that the latter are not important for Paul.

Reviewed by: Contrasts in American and Jewish Law Steven Z. Ettinger Contrasts in American and Jewish Law, edited by Daniel Pollack. Hoboken, NJ: Yeshiva University Press, 2001. 255 pp. $29.50. Jewish survival throughout the nearly 2000-year exile has involved the delicate balance between adherence to G-d’s law (the written words of the Bible, together with rabbinic teaching, interpretation, and transmission through the successive generations) and the often oppressive, sometimes benign, legal codes and pronouncements of secular authorities. Putting aside those laws aimed directly at persecuting the Jew (special taxes, conscription into military service, restrictions on property ownership, the outlawing of certain religious practices, etc.), scholarly concern at the intersection of Jewish and secular law has centered, for the most part, on the practical—when does one law supersede the other and how do we resolve conflict? Rarely has the Jewish scholar been afforded the tranquility or luxury to ponder the theory or philosophy behind disparate legal trends and applications and to analyze what these systems teach about the choices that we face both as citizens and Jews. Pollack and his coauthors have used their interdisciplinary backgrounds and scholarship to produce a work that will allow any reader to appreciate that newer is not necessarily better with respect to legal thought concerning a range of legal and social issues at the forefront of public concern, including: wrongful living, search and seizure in schools, the procreative rights of prisoners, liability for environmental damage, and the rights of the mentally impaired. [End Page 150] More impressively, they accomplish this while showing that Jewish scholarship throughout the millennia has maintained a remarkable level of sophistication, albeit without the jargon and phraseology that tends to clutter more contemporary analysis. In his introduction, Professor Michael J. Broyde, who has written extensively on topics of law and contemporary halacha, establishes what ostensibly is the framework or thesis for the rest of the book (which otherwise would just be an anthology of six articles, five of which have been previously published in law journals). He defines the American legal system as primarily concerned with rights and the Jewish system as primarily concerned with duties, with an overlay of a religious belief structure. While reading this introduction, my mind wandered to another analysis contrasting the Jewish legal system with that of a precursor of the American system—Roman law. The Midrash (Ruth Rab. 3;2, Kohelet Rab. 2;8) recounts a debate between Hadrian (emperor of Rome between 117 and 143 C.E.) and R. Joshua b. Hananiah. The emperor challenged Rabbi Joshua by stating that he was greater than Moses, since he was alive and Moses was dead. Rabbi Joshua responded by asking if the emperor could decree that people should not light fires in their homes for three consecutive days. The emperor was certain that he could and he issued an immediate decree. That same evening, the emperor and Rabbi Joshua went onto the roof of the palace together and saw smoke ascending from a chimney in the distance. Rabbi Joshua said “[E]ven while you live your commands are ignored, while Moses commanded many centuries ago that no fire be lit on the Sabbath and to this day no Jew will make a fire on Sabbath.” This simple story highlights some of the themes that underlie Contrasts in American and Jewish Law, albeit themes that appear between the lines of text. One is perspective—understanding who is debating in order to determine the weight, bias, and credibility of the positions that gives the reader the ability to draw objective conclusions about the value of each systemic approach. Despite the lip service we pay in law school to the value of precedent, the typical starting point for much current American legal scholarship and analyses is a recent (within ten years) court decision. For example, the chapters on wrongful living (Chapter 1) and procreation rights of prisoners (Chapter 3) use just such opinions of appellate judges to set out tests and considerations for deciding future variations of the issues. In contrast, the primary Jewish source cited in these chapters is the Talmud, redaction of which was completed in 427 C. E. Of course, the...

Is there a concept of clemency in Jewish law? In other words, is the power to grant clemency - to nullify the consequences flowing from a criminal conviction - a halakhically valid institution? Through a systematic inquiry, this paper advances a qualified yes to that question. First, this paper explores Jewish criminal law and fleshes out the three separate, though not wholly distinct, jurisdictions within it: the ordinary jurisdiction of the bet din (or religious court), the exigency jurisdiction of the bet din, and the king’s jurisdiction. The interaction among these three jurisdictions is then explored to determine whether a Jewish king may, in some circumstances, exercise the power to grant clemency.Four questions are posed (the third in two parts): (1) May the king grant clemency to a criminal convicted by a royal court? (2) May the king grant clemency to a criminal convicted by a bet din under its ordinary jurisdiction? (3) May the king grant clemency to a criminal convicted by a bet din under its exigency jurisdiction - (a) For a religious offense? (b) For an offense against society? Each of these question is carefully explored, and the answers may be summed up thus: The king may grant clemency only to a criminal convicted by a royal court. The king may never grant clemency in the face of a judgment by a bet din.A final, important insight that this paper offers is the rationale that underpins the king’s exercise of clemency in Jewish law. Modern, secular legal systems permit an executive officer to grant clemency either as an act of grace, benefiting a particular individual, or in the interest of the “public welfare.” This paper argues that the former rationale is foreign to halakhah. Because a Jewish king exists for the well-ordering of society, his exercise of clemency must be justified strictly by the public interest.

Rabbi Joseph Karo (b. 1488–d. 1575—more correctly Caro, as his last name is a form of the Spanish name Castro) was the author of the Shulhan Arukh, a code of Jewish law that was eventually accepted, to one degree or another, by nearly every community of Jews in the world, and that remains even to this day a definitive statement of Jewish religious law. Karo is one of a galaxy of scholars who reconstituted Jewish life after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Karo and the Shulhan Arukh stood at a turning point in the development of Jewish law—what is sometimes described as the shift from “medieval scholars” (rishonim in classic Hebrew terminology) to “modern scholars” (aharonim). Whereas late medieval rabbinic literature was centered in Spain and Germany, Jewish life in the sixteenth century centered in the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and Italy. Furthermore, whereas rabbis before Karo lived in a world of manuscript texts, Karo lived in the new world of printed texts. This bibliography lists a wide selection of the best academic scholarship on Joseph Karo, the Shulhan Arukh, and Jewish law in the sixteenth century. The majority of the scholarly work on Karo and on Jewish law in the sixteenth century has been written in Hebrew, and this bibliography will include many Hebrew items. There is enough material in English, however, to achieve a clear understanding of Karo, his contemporaries, and their place in the history of Judaism and Jewish law.