Hetter Iska, the Permissible Venture: A Device to Avoid the Prohibition Against Interest-Bearing Loans

Author(s):  
J. David Bleich

Biblical law forbids exaction of interest by a creditor and payment of interest by a debtor in loans between Jews. This article focuses on a device to avoid the prohibition against interest-bearing loans. Although in biblical days the economic structure of society was predominantly agrarian and loans were sought primarily for personal purposes, the strictures against usury apply with equal force to loans extended for commercial purposes. Since interest was not permitted, ways and means had to be found to facilitate commercial endeavors without violation of either the letter or the spirit of Jewish law. Keeping this in mind, the hetter iska was drafted. The hetter iska is a document that specifies the terms and conditions under which money is advanced by one individual to another. Its legal purpose is to create a partnership arrangement as distinct from a debtor creditor relationship. A detailed analysis of promissory and mortgage loans concludes this article.

Author(s):  
Eliakim Katz ◽  
Jacob Rosenberg

This article focuses on the law surrounding the biblical law of theft. According to Jewish Law, a thief who is caught and found guilty must return the stolen article and, in addition, pay the owner a fine equal to the value of the article. The thief can avoid this fine by admitting to the theft on his own initiative in a court and returning the stolen article to its owner. This article refers to such canceling of a fine as a pardon. The pardon is explained in the Talmud by the legal dictum “Mode BeKnass Patur,” that is “he who confesses in a fine is exempt”. This article carefully explains economic model with the help of various graphs. This article also explains two issues which require consideration in assessing whether Eliezer acted properly as an agent according to Jewish law. A detailed analysis of concepts of duty in Judaism concludes this article.


1980 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Sinclair

One of the main issues in almost every treatment of abortion in Jewish Law is the legal basis for its prohibition. The recent trend in Rabbinic literature to categorise abortion as a form of homicide, proscribed by Biblical law, seems to constitute a break with the classical Rabbinic view, according to which abortion is neither homicide, nor directly prohibited in the major literary sources of Jewish Law, i.e. the Bible and the Talmud. Moreover, in the few instances in which abortion is discussed in these sources, it would seem that no such prohibition exists.This article will analyse the Biblical and Talmudic passages which deal with abortion, and survey the various Rabbinic opinions as to the legal basis for its prohibition. Particular attention will be paid to the argument that abortion is a biblically-proscribed form of homicide, and to the reasons which may underlie the adoption of that argument by a number of authorities in recent times. We will also analyse the significance in Jewish Law of the stages of foetal development.Our analysis will be both historical and normative, and in this context it will be a valuable exercise to compare the position in Jewish Law to that in the Canon Law of the Church of Rome. Although the Church Fathers held that abortion was a form of homicide, and the contemporary position of the Catholic Church reflects this attitude strictly and unswervingly, the Medieval Canonists adopted the distinction between the formed and the unformed foetus, based on a tradition derived from the Septuagint version of the Biblical passage dealing with the consequences of striking a pregnant woman (Ex. 21:22–23).


Author(s):  
Adam Chodorow

Both Jewish law and U.S. Federal tax law define interest broadly as a payment for the use of money. Nonetheless, the two systems diverge widely when determining whether particular transactions involve interest. This article compares the different approaches to the laws of interest found in these two systems, in an effort to reveal how underlying goals, practical constraints, and the structure of the legal system affects the development of the law. This article explains the laws of interest. The Torah mentions ribbit three times. The first occurs in Exodus the second mention is found in Leviticus and the final occurs in Deuteronomy. Moving forward this article explains the federal taxation of interest which says that interest is not banned under the federal tax laws, but it is often treated differently from other types of payments. A detailed analysis comparing the Jewish and the US approaches to interest concludes this article.


AJS Review ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reneé Levine Melammed

Rabbinic responsa can at times furnish an entree into the private and public lives of individuals involved with the judicial system. The case under discussion provides an in-depth portrait of a marriage in twelfth-century Cairo and of a woman's life–in this instance, a woman struggling to maneuver within the strictures of Jewish law and contemporary Judeo-Arabic society.1 The original Judeo-Arabic of the two responsa under discussion, as well as the Hebrew translations, are, no doubt, well known to Judeo-Arabic, Geniza, and Maimonidean scholars alike, as are the basic details to some English readers. Nevertheless, the case is certainly worthy of a separate study of the text in conjunction with a detailed analysis.


2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-401
Author(s):  
Hanina Ben-Menahem

The claim that talmudic law is a religious legal system has long been, and continues to be, put forward by both traditional scholars of Jewish law and contemporary academic researchers.The question of whether talmudic law is a religious legal system most certainly did not engage the Sages of the Talmud, but addressing it will help us grasp the nature of talmudic law. Furthermore, juxtaposing talmudic law to Biblical law will help us delineate the concept of religious law, and shed light on certain developments in the evolution of Jewish law.Let us consider what this claim entails. Sometimes the assertion that a given legal system is a religious legal system merely seeks to indicate that it is part of a certain religion or was created within the framework of that religion. Such an assertion does not provide any information about the nature of the said system, just as the phrase “French law” says nothing more than that the system is used in France.


Author(s):  
Hanina Ben Menahem

Abstract The claim that Talmudic law is a religious legal system has long been, and continues to be, put forward by both traditional scholars of Jewish law and contemporary academic researchers. The question of whether Talmudic law is a religious legal system most certainly did not engage the Sages of the Talmud, but addressing it will help us grasp the nature of Talmudic law. Furthermore, juxtaposing Talmudic law to Biblical law will help us delineate the concept of religious law, and shed light on certain developments in the evolution of Jewish law.


2020 ◽  
pp. 52-70
Author(s):  
Dmytro Frankiv

The purpose of this article was to comprehensively explore the phenomenon of the narrative of the Decalogue in its fundamental principles in the context of the theological understanding of Jewish law. For this purpose abstract-logical methods, historical-legal, phenomenological, axiological, epistemological methods, method of critical and systematic analysis and method of comparative theology were used. The result is a theological understanding of the basic moral and legal principles and reducing to a single, systematic; a study of the correlation between the normative and the moral side of such a narrative was conducted. Of particular importance is the establishment and isolation of the basic initial principle in the defined context that underlies both Sinai law and all the biblical law. Because with the change of historical realities, which coincided with the destruction of the Temple and the termination of sacrifices, the law has also changed. However, the biblical law was of particular ideological importance, it set the tone and revealed and formed the basic principles for the further development of all Jewish law. Therefore, in our study we have drawn attention to the main ideological features of the biblical laws, because in our opinion, the basic formative essence is hidden in them and only by understanding it − will we be able to understand Jewish law itself. However, the phenomenon of law and even more so of Jewish law, is one of the best regulators and exponents of the educational principle that is designed to raise a person in love. Of course, morality is called for it and it should take precedence over everything else, but the legal part should not be ignored. Law should serve as a socially just, integrative, fundamental, binding, most effective, most respected regulator. Therefore, the problem of combining legal principles and moral precepts for biblical law did not stand basically. The significant part of the adopted legal norms initially was characterized by moral prescriptions, confirmed and expressed by law. Such a transition, the shift from morality to law, and the close relationship between them are one inseparable whole. And apart from Halacha, which was responsible for the legal aspect (the transition from morality to law), there were also the writings of the prophets whose task was to illuminate the transition from law to morality, because precisely morality is the essence of everything. Here is the true meaning of the existence of a legal expression of such an educational principle. Thus, the basic educational principle of the Decalogue, in particular, and of biblical law in general, was to educate a high-moral person who had restrictive precepts that would not allow him to fall into lawlessness (moral law), and the formative commandments that would allow a person to be educated in the search for God, and to stabilize himself in the godlike state commanded by God through Moses. That is the essence of the Decalogue and Jewish law. The educational principle, both basic and effective, though not so familiar to the modern understanding of the nature of law, is precisely the principle that laid down both the basis of the Decalogue and the foundation of all Jewish law at least in its biblical part.


2020 ◽  
pp. 59-82
Author(s):  
David C. Kraemer

Jews continued to live in the Mediterranean region during the first ten centuries of the Common Era, and their diet remained based around the Mediterranean triad of wine, olive oil, and bread. Because the Israelite system of sacrificial worship ended at the end of the first century CE, the role of food in the economy and religion changed significantly. Religious scholars known as rabbis emerged and expanded the biblical concept of Torah and the scope of biblical law and produced an abundant literature—including the Talmud—representing their traditions, opinions, practices, and halakha (practical Jewish law). They developed food blessings and rituals for daily, Sabbath, and holiday observances as well as kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, which restricted food choices, combinations, and foods prepared by non-Jews. By the end of this era, Jews appear to have accepted Rabbinic Judaism and were distinctive in their eating practices and food-centered rituals.


1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 798-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Jackson

I first met Ze'ev Falk early in 1967, when I spent two months in Jerusalem in the course of my doctoral studies (with David Daube, in Oxford). His friendship and generosity to me during that period remain strong in my memory. Not only did 10 Harav Berlin become a home from home; from there he assisted me to meet others (not least, Nahum Rakover) who also became, in the years that followed, close colleagues and associates. His studies in Biblical legal terminology proved of great assistance to me, and hisHebrew Law in Biblical Timesremains a useful starting point for the study of biblical legal institutions. In many respects, his early concentration on biblical law provided the foundations for his later thinking, for which he was perhaps better known in Israel, on the values of Jewish law and the problems presented by Jewish family law in modern times. I offer my tribute in the form of a study of Exodus 21:18–19, a text which, apart from its particular problems and interest, has proved a focus for debate upon the general character of early biblical law, and in particular the casuistic provisions of the Mishpatim.


Author(s):  
Billy Irwin

Abstract Purpose: This article discusses impaired prosody production subsequent to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Prosody may affect naturalness and intelligibility of speech significantly, often for the long term, and TBI may result in a variety of impairments. Method: Intonation, rate, and stress production are discussed in terms of the perceptual, physiological, and acoustic characteristics associated with TBI. Results and Conclusions: All aspects of prosodic production are susceptible to the effects of damage resulting from TBI. There are commonly associated prosodic impairments; however, individual variations in specific aspects of prosody require detailed analysis.


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