Neither Authoritarian nor Superfluous

This study addresses the project of grounding the legitimacy of halakhic-legal authorities, like rabbis or rabbinic courts. Importantly, this inquiry is distinct from, but related to, investigation into the justification of halakhic norms. I begin by exploring the work of Eliezer Berkovits. I argue that he offers a robust teleological justification of halakhic norms by showing how they are aimed at a moral purpose and how this purpose guides halakhic-legal practice. On this account, the directives of halakhic-legal authorities do not possess any independent normativity, for they only direct individuals to perform actions that they already have reason to do anyway, specifically the reasons that Berkovits indicates in his justification of halakhic norms. I offer a new model for grounding the legitimacy of halakhic-legal authorities that links it to the justification of halakhic norms without reducing it to that effort.

Why Repentance Affects Divine Punishment but Not Human Punishment?

The aim of the discussion in this article is to explore two different Rabbinic explanations for the status of repentance in human and divine punishment, and to emphasize the essential distinction between them. According to the first explanation the source of accepting repentance is divine mercy upon human beings. Since mercy is not a legitimate consideration in conviction or even in determination of punishment in Jewish criminal law there is no wonder why repentance does not have any role during the criminal procedures in rabbinic court. According to the second explanation the acceptance of repentance by God is similar to the acceptance of flattery and bribe by a Roman corrupted judge. God decides to accept repentance and to forgive the transgressors since it better serves God’s interests. This analogy between repentance and flattery and bribery then explains why rabbinic courts do not take repentance into account.

Legal Strategy and Legal Culture in Medieval Jewish Courts of Southern France

From the mid-thirteenth century onwards, the rabbinic courts of southern France (Provence and Languedoc) found themselves dealing with an increasing number of cases in which plaintiffs were using the court as leverage in a struggle that was taking place outside the court. This period also saw the first legal advocates appearing in Jewish courts. These two related phenomena point to a shift in Jewish legal culture, part of a move throughout thirteenth-century Mediterranean Europe towards what Daniel Lord Smail has called “consumption of justice.”

Were the Jews a Persecuted Minority?

This chapter examines the arguments set forth to explain why the Jews became a population of skilled craftsmen, traders, bankers, and physicians and why they created a worldwide urban diaspora. These arguments are grouped into two main categories: ones that highlight exogenous factors (discrimination, restrictions, persecutions, massacres) and ones that emphasize endogenous choices (voluntary self-segregation in order to maintain religious rites, voluntary migration to cities to preserve group identity). The chapter then presents the thesis that in a world populated by illiterate people, the ability to read and write contracts, business letters, and account books using a common alphabet gave the Jews a comparative advantage over other people. The Jews also developed a uniform code of law (the Talmud) and a set of institutions (rabbinic courts, the responsa) that fostered contract enforcement, networking, and arbitrage across distant locations. Thus, high levels of literacy and the existence of contract-enforcement institutions became the levers of the Jewish people.

Judaism is Changing Before Our Eyes

This chapter studies how the author published an article in Ha'aretz that aroused a stormy discussion in Israel and the diaspora. The author noted a new rabbinic ruling requiring everyone to believe in the messiahship of the Lubavitcher Rebbe as well as developments that the author regards as manifestations of avodah zarah. In the wake of the article, there were defences of even the most frightening formulations, but there were also sharp denunciations of the practitioners of avodah zarah emanating from various Chabad circles, including those of committed messianists. It remains to be seen whether participants in extremist publications who have not repented will be removed from their posts as educators, spiritual mentors (mashpi'im), and directors of Chabad Houses. Ultimately, the author argues that anyone who recognizes the authority of messianist rabbis and of rabbinic courts headed by them causes an alien belief to be entwined into the communal structure of Judaism; ensures the utter smashing of a central, millennium-old argument against the Christian mission; and effects a deformation of the Jewish religion with regard to a matter that cuts to the very core.