What is the Jewish law, what is its origin, what are the books according to which the law is determined, and who is bound by it?
The source of Jewish law is the Torah, which according to the Jewish faith, was given to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. In detail, some of the Jewish laws are explained or learned from the Bible. Halacha is determined according to the books of the Mishnah and the Talmud, which are a kind of interpretation of the Bible. Over the years, important halakhic rulings have been added that have influenced the Jewish community around the world. The Shulchan Aruch is the book that is found to be binding in law on all the various Orthodox currents in Judaism. Apart from this rabbis rule for their community, those rules bind them. Sometimes the rulings affect other communities. In the Torah, the most binding laws are the Ten Commandments.
The Jewish law in the Torah
The basic Jewish laws that bind every Jew are the laws of the Torah, from the Pentateuch. Sages have found that there are 613 commandments that are binding to every Jew, but over the years different interpretations of these laws have been created according to rabbinic Judaism, such as the Sadducees, Samaritans, and Karaites. Most of the laws are in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Book of Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Genesis is a narrative book for the most part. Some of the Jewish laws appear more than once, sometimes in a different and even contradictory version. Therefore, the Jews developed the oral Torah that later became the Mishnah and the Talmud.
Scholars divide the laws of the Bible into three types: the first two types are the Book of the Covenant described in the Book of Exodus, and the Mishna Torah in the Book of Deuteronomy. Both books include civic guidelines, religious guidelines, and worship. The Book of Deuteronomy also has political guidelines. The third type is the Book of Priests, taken from names alongside another book in Leviticus including a broad description of the worship of God and the Tabernacle.
According to Judaism all the laws of the Torah are of divine origin compared to other laws of other peoples of human origin. Not all biblical laws are learned from the laws themselves. Some of them are learned through the stories told, for example, ancestral stories about alliances and agreements. Certain laws can even be learned from the Books of Prophets.
Hebrew law is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, which contains the laws of supervisors, the laws of slaves, the laws of murderers, and instructions for judges. The story of Judges in the Book of Numbers, speaks of establishing a fair legal system.
The Ten Commandments in Jewish law
The Ten Commandments were given a status of honor because they were revealed to the people of Israel at Sinai when Moses brought the words of the Torah. They are considered the main commandments in the Jewish Bible and Judaism and are binding to every Jew in the Diaspora – Jewish diaspora. The main commandments are, Recognition of God; A decree on monotheism and the prohibition of idolatry; The prohibition of bearing the name of God in vain; Sabbath observance; Honoring father and mother; Prohibition of murder; Prohibition of adultery; Prohibition on theft; Prohibition of false testimony; Do not covet:
1. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.
2. You shall have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: For the LORD thy God is exalted in jealousy: he hath commanded the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of thirty and forty years to hate them, and hath showed mercy unto a thousand, to my lovers and to those who keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not bear the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
For the LORD will not cleanse that which beareth his name in vain. (Meaning not to swear in vain in the name of God)
4. Remember the Sabbath day in its holiness.
Six days you shall serve and do all your work, and on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy cattle. As in thy gates – for six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and he shall rest on the seventh day, and the Lord shall bless the sabbath day, and he shall hallow it.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou Shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
The ten commandments are mentioned for the first time in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 2 through14, Parshas Yetro, and a second time in the Book of Deuteronomy, Parshas “Vaetchanen” (And I will beg). The above wording has several names.
Formally in Judaism, there is no preference for the Ten Commandments over the other fourteen commandments. Therefore there was opposition among the arbitrators to recite the Ten Commandments every day. Maimonides also objected to standing while reading the Ten Commandments, however, the Ashkenazi Jewish custom is to stand up while reciting the Ten Commandments, there are also some Sephardic Jews who do so in some communities. On Saturdays and Shavuot, it is still customary to stand whilst reciting the Ten Commandments and an artistic form of the Ten Commandments is found above the Ark.
Some see the Ten Commandments as a kind of chapter head for all the commandments of the entire Torah and some see them as primary commandments.
The Jewish law in the oral Torah
According to most opinions, Moshe received the written Torah and oral Torah. He gave the written Torah to the people of Israel and the oral Torah was passed on through the prophets to the Sanhedrin and so on. Its purpose is to give commentators the authority to interpret what is not written in the Torah or to learn from it about the events relevant to their time.
In the days of the Second Temple, the oral Torah was the main point of contention between the Sadducees and the Pharisees (in the days of the Second Temple) and today between rabbinic Judaism and the Karaites.
Jewish law, from the Bible to rabbinical rulings, is called Halakhah. Halacha is divided into accepted Halacha, Laws that are written in the Torah or have been accepted from year to year, and laws that are not mentioned in the Torah but have general agreement on them, these laws are called “Halacha to Moshe at Sinai” And with the laws of the Torah “Laws from the Torah” The main mitzvah that derives from the interpretation of verses in the Bible are tefillin from the verse “And you bound a sign by your hand and it was dripping between your eyes” and a tassel. The Torah does not interpret but understands from other sources in the Torah passages that should be in them, however, the color of the tefillin is a rabbinical decision that has no source in the Torah.
Halacha in Jewish law
The word Halacha in Jewish law refers to all the commandments according to which a Jew must abide. A wise discussion of the way one should behave is called a halakhic discussion and the decision is called a halakhic ruling and is a crucial decision.
Theology applies decisively to Jewish worship, it establishes the customs of Jewish prayer, the Jewish morning prayer Jewish prayer in the morning, noon, and evening, the Jewish funeral customs Jewish funeral and Jewish burial Jewish cemetery, and Jewish wedding traditions. Halacha in the Oral Torah is distinct from the Haggadah, Halacha is a description of the mitzvot and its interpretation and the Haggadah is an interpretation of biblical stories that are not related to the mitzvot. At first, Halakhah was a concept that described the entire practice of mitzvot, including the discussions and explanations. Over the years, the concept has become unique only to halakhic rulings. The Jewish books of Halacha after the Talmud are mainly the books of the Rif and Maimonides and then the Arba’ah Turim and Shulchan Aruch, in the Ashkenazi communities the book of Hamapa. Other Jewish communities do not accept Halakhah as an unchangeable language and case law, such as the Conservatives and Reforms and in the past the Karaites and Sadducees.
After Shulchan Aruch, interpretations and abbreviations for Shulchan Aruch were written in books, such as The Shortened Shulchan Aruch, Aruch Hashulchan, and Mishnah Berura.
Alongside Shulchan Aruch, a book of questions and answers developed – halakhic questions for Rabbis on certain topics. The answers are binding on the rabbis of the community. In it, you can find questions such as how to behave when a person is ill and which Jewish recovery prayers are appropriate. healing prayer Jewish.
The laws of the Rabbis and the laws of Deorayta (Written in the Torah)
In addition to the laws based on the Torah, the rabbis were given the authority to establish laws adapted to the questions of the believers and the needs of the time, regulations that are not written in the Torah. The rabbis do this by way of analogy, interpretation or reasoning, and other logical means. Laws renewed by sages are called Derabanan (By Rabbis) and laws from Sinai, Deorayta.
The laws of Jewish justice in the Oral Torah are based mainly on the Mishnah: the order of the date the Holy Laws are presented in the Rosh Hashanah Tractate; In the order of women, for example, the laws of the Jewish wedding traditions are presented, along with divorce laws, adultery laws, widows, and laws related to women; In the order of damages, all the laws dealing with property, property, damage caused by a person to his friend and more are presented; The Sanhedrin and Makot deal mainly with the judicial system and the ways of punishment.
Jewish law in the State of Israel
With the establishment of Israel by Jewish secularists, the question arose as to the role of halakhic Jewish law in the Jewish state, and the issue to this day is a complex political issue in Israel, both for legislators, judges, and the general public.
It should be noted that alongside the secular legal system, there is a religious legal system that deals with family law, marriage, divorce, burial, etc., and that all the major religions in Israel have a legal system in these matters.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, the law was largely a continuation of the laws of the British Mandate and the Ottoman regime, there are laws that have not been changed since. However, with the intervention of the legislators and judges, several laws came into force under the direct influence of Jewish law, both in their content and in their names.
For example, the law “you shall not stand on the blood of a neighbor” according to which a person is not allowed to abandon another from the Jewish saying Jewish sayings – “You shall not stand on the blood of your neighbor I am the Lord” (Leviticus, 19). Similarly, the Jewish statement “building wealth illegally” Jewish sayings were taken from the sources, and it describes someone who earns at another’s expense unjustly, and this law appears in Israeli law. Another law from Hebrew law is the return regulation for the rehabilitation of a thief who wants to repent, originally a pardon for a criminal who returns the property he stole.
In legislation in Jewish law, for example, the words “Principles of Jewish Law and the Heritage of Israel” are added to the Basic Law. There are disagreements between judges with religious orientation and judges with a secular tendency as to whether Jewish law is binding and law in Israel or simply inspiration for the arbitrators The discussion between the judges is also whether to include the quotations and influence from Jewish law in the rulings. Some judges in Israel argue that the rulings should be focused and not include incidental comments. Jewish laws in Israel are related to kosher laws, public transportation on Shabbat, the determination of Shabbat as a day of rest, conversion proceedings as well as family laws such as marriage and divorce. In addition to the laws of Halakhah, there are several laws that make Israel a Jewish state, the main one being the Law of Return, which stipulates that only Jews are allowed to immigrate to Israel and who are considered a Jew. Other laws are the prohibition of chametz on Passover and the prohibition of raising pigs.
Examples of Jewish laws
Here are some examples of Jewish law regarding civil matters, the finder of a lost item must return it, based on the verse from Exodus 23: 4. According to Jewish law, even if some time has passed, the return must not be ignored. An item lost without identifying signs that its owner has explicitly stated is considered a nomad and the item may be kept. Another law is the prohibition of interest which appears in several places in the Torah. Today as interest rate loan has become common there is controversy as to whether to allow it in a transaction permitted. Maimonides’ laws mention a promissory note and loan law, according to which it is necessary to lend to witnesses and with a promissory note attesting to the loan. A promissory note is used to this day in loan and rental transactions.
These are of course just a few examples of Jewish law from the time of the Torah to the present day, guiding Jews from all over the world Jewish population. Even on Jewish dating sites for Jews, you can find singles who are looking for knowledge of Jewish law or want to study together. You can always learn more. An excellent way to do this is through Jewish organizations in America. American Jewish Committee