How to Implement Jewish Law
Jewish Law: Compassion
What is a Jewish Judge?

How to Implement Jewish Law
 

The legal system in Israel today is estranged from the Jewish character of the state. Modern Israel's court system is based on the Western judicial system and values. This is its mandate and motivation. In the name of these values, among them the Christian principle of "turning the other cheek," the Israeli Supreme Court has interfered in crucial military battles, ruled to free terrorists, forbidden to raze buildings hosting snipers -- resulting in the murder of more Israelis -- and tens of other rulings that are foreign to Judaism.

By contrast, Jewish law -- to which Jews throughout the world have turned for millennia -- reflects Jewish identity and values. As it has not been applied in a sovereign state for millennia, the guiding principles in the Torah must be expanded to encompass every facet of modern life.

Torah scholars throughout the centuries have debated on how to implement Jewish law in their societies. Rabeinu Nissim, a medieval Torah scholar (known as the Ran), sets down an important principle subsequently accepted and quoted by the following generations of Torah scholars. In Drashot Haran 11, he writes that the Torah laws do not cover all the diverse possibilities and problems that can arise within the framework of a sovereign state. In order to address these issues, the Torah directs us to appoint a king. The king institutes and presides over laws to govern his people in the areas not addressed by the Torah. The caveat of this principle is that any law passed by the king must be in strict accordance with Torah law. The Sanhedrin presides over rulings dealing with the laws of the Torah.

Jewish Law: Compassion

While the Western justice system is based on strict judgment, the motivating force behind Jewish law is compassion. This compassion is based upon the love of and identification with Israel -- of all Jews -- regardless of their actions or their level of Torah observance. When there is no identification with litigants and no appreciation of them as Jews -- mercy is impossible. (This applies to non-Jews as well. When judged by Jewish law, they are given the benefit of a degree of compassion unknown in non-Jewish legal systems.)

As a balancing factor, Torah law stipulates that we may not turn justice into compassion. When compassion is divorced from the context of justice and allowed to become an end in itself, it corrupts judgment. Yet when we sense that the essence of Jewish law is real, appropriate compassion -- when judges identify with litigants and value them as Jews -- both winner and loser in the litigation rejoice at the verdict, for true justice has come to light.

What is a Jewish Judge?

In Western culture and in modern Israel, each branch of government is seen as its own entity. The modern day judge is expected to fulfill his judicial duties without expressing his opinions on issues outside his branch of government. In Israel it is even forbidden by law to do so.

The Biblical judge, on the other hand, is entirely different. He is expected not only to express his opinion, but also to lead the nation with integrity, taking a stand on all the issues facing society. Maimonides, in the Laws of Jewish Holidays, writes that the Rabbinical court in the time of the Temple would appoint police to patrol the public places in Jerusalem to assure that all the laws of modesty/morality were being safeguarded. This is true judiciary activism.