Talmud Study, Ethics and Social Policy: A Case Study in the Laws of Wage-Payment as an Argument for Neo-Lamdanut

25 Jewish Law Association Studies 225-261 (2014)

Villanova Law/Public Policy Research Paper No. 2016-1024

38 Pages Posted: 9 May 2016

See all articles by Chaim N. Saiman

Chaim N. Saiman

Villanova University School of Law

Date Written: 2014

Abstract

From Jesus and Paul down to the present, critics have long argued that the Talmudic tradition contorts Biblical commandments into a complex maze of rules, sub-rules and exceptions that looses touch with ethical spirit and purpose that underlie the Bible’s legislation. By taking a deep dive into the Jewish legal analysis of the laws of worker’s wage-payments (halanat schar sachir), this article investigates the gap between legal rules, moral intuitions and social policy in a discrete area of Jewish law (halakhah). As a case-study, the wage-payment laws offer an example of halakhah that should be easy to assess from an ethical and comparative perspective. Wage-payment undoubtedly qualifies as one of the Bible’s “rational” commandments that is intended to ameliorate the plight of downtrodden workers, and which finds expression in other legal systems. Nevertheless, examination of the sources shows that even in the “easy” case of wage-payment, Talmudic elaboration yields a number of incongruous rules which challenge the law’s apparent purpose. The article surveys the four prevailing methods employed to deal with this tension. First, the medieval rationalizers who explicitly worked to fit halakhah into a philosophical and ethical framework. Second, the classical lamdanim (analytic formalists) who denied that any such gap exists, since they held that the study of halakhah requires sublimating any ethical critique or jurisprudential comparisons. Third, the aggadic pietists who argued that halakhah must be buttressed by aggadic conceptions of piety and righteousness. Fourth, authorities from different eras who tended to implicitly mediate such tensions though acts of legal interpretation, though rarely confronted such question directly. The article concludes by pointing to an emerging trend termed neo-lamdanut, which aims to affirmatively employs ethical and jurisprudential analysis, yet insists that halakhic inquiry remain centered on the analytic and doctrinal material that typifies is classical sources.

Keywords: Jewish Law, Labor and employment law, Jurisprudence

Suggested Citation

Saiman, Chaim N., Talmud Study, Ethics and Social Policy: A Case Study in the Laws of Wage-Payment as an Argument for Neo-Lamdanut (2014). 25 Jewish Law Association Studies 225-261 (2014), Villanova Law/Public Policy Research Paper No. 2016-1024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2777645

Chaim N. Saiman (Contact Author)

Villanova University School of Law ( email )

299 N. Spring Mill Road
Villanova, PA 19085
United States
610-519-3296 (Phone)
610-519-6282 (Fax)

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