To follow up on the parallel between justice and compromise, and their possible meaning with regards to today's situation, does the Talmud make any distinction according to the nature of the matter at hand, whether it's civil law or international law?
Good question. I don't want to force the parallels with today's situation, and I'm mot sure the Torah has exactly a notion of "international law", but I'll just give a few more concepts that could be interesting for us:
1. The seventh of the Noahide laws is "Dinim", the establishment of courts along principles of justice which may or may not be identical with the principles in parashat Mishpatim. So there is a shared law system in theory for different monotheistic civilisations.
2. In Jewish tradition, civil cases were tried by 3 judges, anything with the death penalty was tried by 23 judges, and cases with a national or military aspect were tried by the Sanhedrin of 71 judges.
3. Although a judgement needs the majority of judges to agree (2 against 1, or 13 against 10, etc.), when negotiating a compromise deal the judges have to agree unanimously.
Don't know what to do with all these data-points, but just sharing them here!
Thanks for your words.
To follow up on the parallel between justice and compromise, and their possible meaning with regards to today's situation, does the Talmud make any distinction according to the nature of the matter at hand, whether it's civil law or international law?
Good question. I don't want to force the parallels with today's situation, and I'm mot sure the Torah has exactly a notion of "international law", but I'll just give a few more concepts that could be interesting for us:
1. The seventh of the Noahide laws is "Dinim", the establishment of courts along principles of justice which may or may not be identical with the principles in parashat Mishpatim. So there is a shared law system in theory for different monotheistic civilisations.
2. In Jewish tradition, civil cases were tried by 3 judges, anything with the death penalty was tried by 23 judges, and cases with a national or military aspect were tried by the Sanhedrin of 71 judges.
3. Although a judgement needs the majority of judges to agree (2 against 1, or 13 against 10, etc.), when negotiating a compromise deal the judges have to agree unanimously.
Don't know what to do with all these data-points, but just sharing them here!