Above and Beyond the Law: Applying Moral Standards in the Sphere of Private Law in the Jewish Babylonian, East Syrian Christian, and Iranian Legal Traditions

Above and Beyond the Law: Applying Moral Standards in the Sphere of Private Law in the Jewish Babylonian, East Syrian Christian, and Iranian Legal TraditionsDiné IsraelSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/8BHXED5Y/tei

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2024-08-15-04:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.YishaiKielAbove and Beyond the Law: Applying Moral Standards in the Sphere of Private Law in the Jewish Babylonian, East Syrian Christian, and Iranian Legal Traditionshttp://syriaca.org/cbss/8BHXED5Yhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/8BHXED5Yhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/8BHXED5YDiné Israel3520211-34The article centers on a set of rabbinic principles—ve‘asita ha-yashar ve-ha-tov (“you shall do that which is upright and good”), kofin ‘al middat sedom (“we [=a court] may coerce regarding the ways of Sodom”), le-ma‘an telekh be-derekh tovim (“so that you shall walk in the way of the virtuous”), and lifnim mi-shurat ha-din (“[going] within the line of the law”)—which establish a heightened standard of moral behavior in the sphere of private law. It is argued that these principles were developed and systematized mainly in the context of the Babylonian (rather than Palestinian) branch of rabbinic legal culture and are, therefore, reflective of the distinctive cultural and jurisprudential environment of the Syro-Mesopotamian Near East. It is mainly in this context that moral principles and values are said to establish fully-normative, justiciable, and enforceable standards of behavior in excess of the strict law. The rabbinic principles are contextualized with the adjacent East Syrian Christian and Iranian legal traditions, focusing in particular on Īšōʿbōxt’s taxonomy of moral and legal categories. It is argued that the category of “uprightness” (triṣūtā) informs the rabbinic principles of performing that which is “upright and good” and avoiding the “measure of Sodom,” which require good faith and fair dealing, and seek to prevent unconscionable behavior and abuse of rights, whereas the category of acting in excess of the law or short of the law (yatīrūt / hasīrūt dinā) informs the rabbinic principles of acting “within the line of the law” and “walking in the path of the virtuous,” which require altruistic and supererogatory behavior—to the extent of incurring financial loss—and involve a dimension of distributive justice. Kiel, Yishai. “Above and Beyond the Law: Applying Moral Standards in the Sphere of Private Law in the Jewish Babylonian, East Syrian Christian, and Iranian Legal Traditions.” Diné Israel 35 (2021): 1–34. Yishai Kiel, Above and Beyond the Law: Applying Moral Standards in the Sphere of Private Law in the Jewish Babylonian, East Syrian Christian, and Iranian Legal Traditions, Diné Israel 35 (2021): 1–34.IshobochtNestoriansRabbinic JudaismVII-XVIII CEVIII CEethicslawlegal