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short (and medium) takes

Yesterday I heard two songs (one from a psalm) from a group with the unlikely name "Ooolites" (or perhaps technically "Malcolm Dalglish and the..."). Very skilled singers (no vibrato! do you know how hard that is?!), nice harmonies, pleasant sound. They seem to have two albums. I don't know how representative these two tracks are of the albums, but I think I'm going to have to find out.

From Slashdot by way of siderea: the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" form letter.

At last night's board meeting I had a wording quibble (a matter of precision and clarity) over a proposed bylaws change. One of the other board members suggested that I was being overly picky because I'm a technical writer. Hello? This is a matter of law. Law should be precise and clear. I happen to be in a profession that emphasizes that; this is an asset. (We have a couple lawyers on the board; I'm surprised one of them didn't speak up.) Sheesh -- amateurs. :-)

Speaking of law, I'm reading from Mishpatim tomorrow morning -- the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" section. We are used to thinking of this as being harsh (sharia, anyone? no thanks), which is why the rabbis reinterpreted it to monetary damages. But with that interpretation, I wonder if this is actually lenient. Consider civil damages today in the US, where payments sometimes seem to be way out of proportion to actual damage, and are wildly inconsistent. And we distinguish based on who the victim is; the torah does not.

Twice within the past couple weeks I've been approached by people on the streets selling raffle tickets. Both conversations began with "would you like to buy a raffle ticket?" and "what for?"; then they diverged. One said "for Hillel Academy"; the other said "for a $5000 drawing". (The latter was from a veterans' group.) I knew intellectually that Judaism (and hence, Jewish culture) approaches charity differently from the world at large (or at least its US instantiation), but it's been a while since the difference has been that obvious. In the Jewish world (at least the parts I've seen), the cause is the important thing. In fact, the word usually translated as "charity" -- "tzedakah" -- doesn't really mean that; it's closer to "justice". I actually haven't even looked to see what the prize is for the Hillel raffle ticket I bought. In the broader culture, though, you have to sell the prize; it's assumed, I guess, that people won't just buy a ticket to support a good cause and you have to make it worth their while. Which partially explains the deluge of mailing labels, calendars, stuffed animals, umbrellas, and such that appear in my mailbox (and serve as anti-motivators).

I particularly like this take on the rainbow meme, shamelessly stolen from xiphias:


My God says "Justice, justice shall you pursue", wants people to work toward a fair and equitable world, and believes in love, honor, and respect. Sorry about yours.

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the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" form letter

Hm, it approaches but doesn't quite include "I cast PKI; your plan founders".

We are used to thinking of this as being harsh (sharia, anyone? no thanks), which is why the rabbis reinterpreted it to monetary damages. But with that interpretation, I wonder if this is actually lenient.

I'm under the impression that that was the idea; the rabbis preferred to give the benefit of the doubt in order to avoid gross miscarriages of justice. (See also how they effectively legislated away almost all of the death penalties specified in Torah by setting the requirements so high that they couldn't be met.)

(Also, I get the impression that harshness was only part of it; several of the Talmudic arguments against its literal interpretation pointed out that e.g. "an eye for an eye" doesn't work literally when the offender is blind.)

raffle tickets

For several years now I've strongly preferred giving only in ways that don't involve returns: I don't generally do raffles (if it's a good cause I'll offer a no-strings-attached check instead), I don't take "premiums" when donating to PBS/PRI/NPR stations, etc. They need the money; they have enough overhead as it is; they shouldn't be wasting money on thanking me, they have better uses for it.

I'm under the impression that that was the idea; the rabbis preferred to give the benefit of the doubt in order to avoid gross miscarriages of justice.

Yes, agreed. What I didn't make clear enough is that even after you get from the original text to monetary damages, it's still more lenient than what we have now in the US. (Also more even-handed.) If you projected the sanhedrin forward to today, I don't think you'd see judgements in the tens of millions of dollars for minor damages. Yeah, that doesn't happen a lot -- we can all cite the McDonalds/coffee thing but can you list ten more? -- but it does happen, and a lot of people (I gather) settle suits for large amounts of money to avoid the risk of getting hit for huge amounts.

I don't take "premiums"

I don't either, but that doesn't stop some organizations from mailing them unsolicited. Even when I write back to them and say "you will get no money from me until you stop wasting money sending this stuff to people who don't ask for it", it keeps coming. And they get no money from me even though I would otherwise support them. That makes me sad, but I will not send the message that wasting money on trinkets is a good tactic.

I always thought of tzedakah as "righteousness" more than "justice." That may be somewhat self-serving; I see tzedakah as related to mercy, and I see mercy and justice as antonyms. After all, no one just convicted throws himself on the "justice" of the court. :-)

Yeah. If you see "justice" and "mercy" as opposed but equally necessary qualities, then the Hebrew words "Din" and "Chessed" probably map better, with "tzedakah" being something of a proper melding of the two.

Well, the McD's thing actually isn't all that one-sided -- when you hear the whole case, it makes a lot more sense.

But the other thing is that the Talmud has a principle, "You shall not favor the poor over the rich in a court of law." It's one of those things that struck me as really weird and kinda unfair as a kid, but I think I sort of get it now.

True. And I think I glitched; I'm pretty sure I normally translate that as "righteousness"; perhaps hearing a long presentation about "social justice" last night influenced me.

Pure mercy (like throwing yourself on the mercy of the court) is "chessed" to me, not "tzedakah". Chessed and din are opposing elements, and tzedakah isn't quite either to me.

Heh. Ok, I hadn't yet seen this when writing my reply. :-)

If you projected the sanhedrin forward to today, I don't think you'd see judgements in the tens of millions of dollars for minor damages.

Sure; that's another gross miscarriage of justice. In fact, I'm not sure "lenient" is the appropriate term; the problem here isn't so much lenience as avoidance of attempts to "play" the system for unjust profit as regularly happens (and often succeeds in one way or another) in the U.S. system.

"So being a judge means your choices are restricted...." (Tocohl Susumo, Hellspark) This was well understood by the Sages, who carefully limited both the actions of judges and the scope of judgements, but sometimes seems not so well understood by judges (and not at all by juries) in the U.S. (I don't include lawyers in this; much as we like to malign them, if people didn't insist on gaming the system, lawyers wouldn't be in the business of doing so.)

"You shall not favor the poor over the rich in a court of law."

That sounds unbalanced taken in isolation, but doesn't the gemara provide the context that of course we shouldn't favor the rich over the poor, so we only need to talk about this case? In other words, wealth is to have no influence.

The main difference (relevant to the discussion here) between US tort law and the law of nezikin in halakha is that US tort law allows punitive damages and halakha doesn't.

But halakha also does not recognize the existence of limited-liability corporations, and it reallocates everyone's real estate every fifty years. (The latter was especially significant during the times when real estate was virtually the only kind of wealth worth having, those times being between the invention of agriculture and the Industrial Revolution.)

If the US tort law were reformed to eliminate punitive damages, but the other laws of property remained intact, then a large corporation could foist all sorts of dangerous crap onto its customers, employees, and neighbors, and treat the occasional damage suit as a cost of doing business. (This is basically the way big brokerage houses treat SEC regulations.)

In a state run entirely by halakha, anyone committing a tort would risk losing a big chunk of his or her wealth in a damages suit, even if they didn't have to pay punitive damages.

I remember a fairly recent discussion where the leader was saying that the eye for an eye thing was actually about mercy and making punishments fit crimes. He (I think it was a he but I'm completely failing to remember the actual context) was saying that part of it was an effort to prevent escalation and feuds caused by retribution. I had never thought about it in that way. I'd think that method of justice usually sounds harsh to someone looking at it from our times. Things like this help bring home the point to me that scripture needs to be interpreted with knowledge of the context in which it was written.

He was saying that part of it was an effort to prevent escalation and feuds caused by retribution.

I was just about to say this: I learned this bit during my studies of the Ancient Near East.

Things like this help bring home the point to me that scripture needs to be interpreted with knowledge of the context in which it was written.

Amen. :)

Excellent point. Thank you for sharing it.

True -- having corporations in the mix really does change things.

Real-estate reallocation: that reminds me of a question. Back when this was still applicable (we knew who was in all the tribes and Jews held the land), how did converts fit in? That is, you convert to Judaism, but not to a specific tribe -- so if a convert hadn't married into a tribe yet come the Yovel, what happened to him?

According to Midrash, Yitro (Moses' father-in-law) converted to Judaism and then went home to Midian to convert his neighbors. I would infer that converts are expected to buy real estate outside the Land of Israel.

Therefore, when the Messiah comes, I can stay right here in Boston with a clear conscience, although I might check out the rates for a good condo in Amman.

Remember that land ownership was the exception, not the rule, back then; a convert who hadn't married into a tribe would not own any land, and his "leasehold" would go along with the land --- and IIRC there's a significant chunk of Talmud dealing with this specific issue of what happens to them at the end of both the lesser (7-year) and greater (Yovel) cycles.

Yitro probably isn't the only convert mentioned in midrash, though. I wonder if it talks about any converts who stayed without marrying? (Rut married, so isn't helpful here.) I haven't made a study of this.

I would infer that converts are expected to buy real estate outside the Land of Israel.

Well, except, all the land is God's; no one really owns any of it. Yet even within Eretz Yisrael, people buy and sell land (and did so when the laws of sh'mita and yovel applied). In the end all Jews are supposed to return to Eretz Yisrael; that's what the ingathering of the exiles is all about, yes? That means there has to be land available for all Jews, and that anyone can get started by showing up at the yovel and going where directed. So it's not clear to me that we're [1] off the hook here.

[1] I am drawing a conclusion about your status from your comment, but of course will not ask the halachically-forbidden question. So there. :-)

Tribes have assigned land, so while an individual might not have owned a particular field, if worse came to worst you could wait until the yovel and then get some land to farm and live on, no matter what "purchases" (really just a lease until yovel, as you said) had occurred. A convert is not similarly protected, but it seems odd that halacha would permit the case of permanently-landless Jews. (I mean, they didn't say that conversion is contingent upon marriage.) So when I get some free time I may go looking for what the talmud has to say about the ger in yovel. (You wouldn't happen to remember any hints like tractate, would you?)

it seems odd that halacha would permit the case of permanently-landless Jews.

It didn't disallow it, but the wording implied that it was considered an odd case (and IIRC ended up involving something like the awl-through-ear-into-doorpost business to become a permanent servant instead of being freed at the end of the 7-year cycle).

I don't remember any tractate refs, and as I'm already running a bit behind this afternoon I doubt I'll be able to dig any up before Shabbat starts; remind me afterward :)

It's ok; I wouldn't have time to chase any references before Shabbat anyway. :-) Thanks.

Feh. The index to this book doesn't include any references to the Yovel at all, although the text definitely does. It'll take some digging to find it since it wasn't covered in the part discussing tenancy.

Completely gratuitous reply here, but it's good to see someone else who's read Hellspark...

Maybe not entirely gratuitous, as quite a few of the things that happen in the book are probably germane to the discussion at hand.

Okay, I found the "reference" finally (it was in the preface!) but it includes no Talmudic reference. It's also not about this situation, but it may generalize. (Behold the power of dissociative memory! :) I managed to hash this both to the question of property across the Yovel and to the awl-through-ear-into-doorpost business.)

Speaking in regards to debts which must survive across a Sabbatical year:

...Hillel disagreed, and contended that a close study of the text would disclose a way out of the difficulty. Starting from the hypothesis that the Torah did not include a superfluous word, he pointed to the phrase "whatsoever is thine with thy brother thy hand shall release" (ibid. 3). [prior ref: Deut. xv. I ff. ed] At first sight this appears to be an unnecessary repetition of the previous verse: "He shall not exact it of his neighbor and brother." That, however, could not be, since there was nothing redundant in the Torah. Therefore the words, "whatsoever is thine with thy brother," must have been added to exclude a certain contingency, viz. the case where "whatsoever is thine" is not with the debtor. By such reasoning Hillel deduced that if the creditor handed to a Court of Law a signed document which made over the indebtedness to its members, it was within his right to claim the debt through the Court even after the expiration of the Sabbatical year.

(Everyman's Talmud, Abraham Cohen, ISBN 0-8052-1032-6; Introduction p. xl)

Possibly more to the point, though: rereading this thread, I see

I mean, they didn't say that conversion is contingent upon marriage.

They didn't need to; marriage and children were considered an obligation on all Jews, and for a man to choose to remain unmarried was considered a major sin. (Cf. Yebamot 62b, 63a among others.)

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