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Courts of Gentiles

שו”תCategory: Meta HalachaCourts of Gentiles
asked 5 years ago

There are the famous words of the Rabbi (in Sermons 11), that a man’s laws to his fellow man in the Torah are for the sake of ‘the divine cause’ and not necessarily for the sake of a proper and just social order – and therefore I believe and it is worthy of belief that just as the laws have no introduction at all in the correction of the political arrangement, and are a self-cause close to the divine abundance, so the Torah’s laws have a great introduction, and as if they are shared between the cause of the divine cause in our nation and the correction of our collective matter. And it is possible that they would have turned more to the matter, which is more sublime in elevation, than they would have turned to the correction of our collective matter, because that correction, the king that we will set over us, will complete our affairs, but the purpose of the judges and the Sanhedrin was to judge the people with a true and just judgment in itself, from which the divine cause in us will continue to be adhered to, from which the arrangement of their collective affairs will be completely completed or not completed. And because of this, it is possible that some of the aforementioned laws and laws of the nations will be found, which is closer to the correction of the political system, than it will be found in some of the laws of the Torah. So. This explains a lot. But it seems to me that the BG perceived these laws as being appropriate for a proper social order. For example-
In the book (BK 15) that dealt with half the damage – I will say: a loss of a portion – Rav Papa said: From Mona, Rav Huna, son of Rabbi Yehoshua, said: a loss. Rav Papa said from Mona, from Kasber: Just oxen are not considered to be a permanent preservation, and in law he owed it for the welfare of his whole family, and mercifully he pressed upon her that I did not appoint a Torah; Rav Huna, son of Rabbi Yehoshua, said: a loss, from Kasber: Just oxen are considered to be a permanent preservation, and in law he does not have to pay at all, and mercifully he is from a loss because he is a detractor from the Torah. So.
And so in the Tahchumah Mishpatim – before them, before Israel, and not before the Kutites. Anyone who ignores the judges of Israel and goes before the Akkadians, first atones for the Holy One, blessed be He, and then atones for the Torah, as it is written (Deuteronomy 22), for it is not as our condition is severe and our enemies are criminal. In the Law = a parable of what this is like: to a sick person who comes in to visit the doctor, he says to his family, “Feed him and give him to drink whatever he wants, do not withhold anything from him.” He goes in to another and says to his family, “Be careful that he does not eat such and such a thing and that he does not drink such and such a thing.” They say to him, “You told this one to eat whatever he wants, and you told this one not to eat.” He says to them, “The first sick person is not of life, therefore I told them not to withhold anything from him, meaning whether he eats or does not eat, he will die. But to the one who is of life, I said, “Do not withhold anything from him, lest it aggravate his illness.” And so are the laws of the Akkadians, as it is written (Jeremiah 10), “For the laws of the nations are vanity, and it is written, and I also gave them laws that are not good, and laws by which they will not live.” (Ezekiel 10:11) 20) But I gave to Israel commandments and good statutes, which are as follows: (Leviticus 18) And ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments, which a man shall do, and live in them for ever.
And I suppose if I tried harder I would find more (in terms of guards, etc.)
How do you think the Rabbi would explain these sources? Doesn’t it just require that a social arrangement emerge from them? If so, why does the Rabbi assume that it is probably logical and that we can learn from these explanations whether a חנן is money or a fine?
 


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מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
Take, for example, the prohibition, “Thou shalt not kill.” It is clear that it is intended to prevent murder, but preventing murder is not only a moral-social value but also a religious value. Therefore, all these examples say nothing about the question of whether we are dealing with a moral-social or religious value. For example, half the damage of a fine because it is illiterate according to the Torah, is intended to ensure that a person preserves his innocent ox. But this preservation itself has a religious value and not only a moral value. Sometimes even the definitions turn out to be the same and sometimes not. And in general, repairing society is a religious value and not only a moral value. By the way, the Rabbi himself, in the passage you cited, writes that in the Torah laws, the social value is mixed with the religious value, and therefore there are “holes.” But he also sees it as a moral-social value. I think there is no need to get to that, since one could say as I said (that it is only a religious value, but Shamir says that society is the religious value). And perhaps that is what he actually means.

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