Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Mishpatim
The Torah provides the necessary wiggle room to decide exceptional cases and disputes on a more moral and correct basis than the strict interpretation of the law itself would indicate. This concept is called "lifnim meshurat hadin" - an almost extra-legal mechanism that goes "beyond the measure of the law itself" and empowers the Jewish court to decide matters morally and ultimately justly without being restricted by the pure letter of the law itself. Naturally such an extraordinary legal mechanism can only be used sparingly and most wisely, for otherwise it presages the destruction of the entire stability of the law and the legal system of Judaism itself. Nevertheless, the existence of such a mechanism itself is testimony to the balance and general considerations of society generally that are required for judicial consideration in Jewish judicial decisions. Therefore such difficult decisions regarding the right of governmental eminent domain, the displacement of human workers by advancing new technology and sophisticated money and investment schemes are all part of the scope of Jewish law. Jewish law is equipped to deal with all possible questions and problems of human society. I think that is what Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman meant when he stated that the basic principles of Israeli law should be based on the principles of Jewish law as derived from the Torah, the Talmud and the millennia-long challenge met by the rabbis of Israel to create a just legal system for the Jewish people. This is inherent in the opening words of this week’s parsha: "And these are the laws that you shall place before them" - these laws and not other laws and legal systems.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
