Brotherhood, Solidarity, and the Rabbinic Construction of the Commandment to Return Lost Property
In: Journal of Law, Religion and StateSearch for other papers by Adiel Schremer in
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The present article discusses the biblical commandment to return lost property (hashavat aveda) and the manner by which it is treated by the early rabbinic tradition. I argue that it is possible to read the two passages in the Torah in which the commandment is mentioned (Ex. 23:4–5; Deut. 23:1–5) as an attempt at constructing an ethical stance of unselfishness, in which the other and the other’s loss are given priority over one’s selfish instincts. To this end, the Torah uses the rhetoric of brotherhood, intended to stimulate feelings of solidarity and to encourage members of the community to treat each other with empathy, care, and compassion. However, most of the legal discussions of the commandment in early rabbinic literature favored a legalistic interpretation of the Torah rhetoric, according to which the use of the word “brother” was meant to delineate the scope of the commandment, that is, to specify whose lost property a Jew is commanded to return and whose not, rather than to induce sentiments of compassion and solidarity. I suggest that although this line of interpretation stems from a deep rabbinic refusal to accept the interpretive possibility that the commandment to return lost property includes non-Jews, it also reflects a broader rabbinic tendency to deny a role in halakhic discourse to emotions.
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9
See: S.R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 250.
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10
See: Haym Hazan, The Anthropological Discourse (Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1992), 47–48 (Hebrew); Philip A. Harland, “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ in Associations of the Greek East”, 124 Journal of Biblical Literature (2005), 491.
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13
See Menahem I. Kahana, Sifre Zuta on Deuteronomy: Citations from a New Tannaitic Midrash (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2002), 327 (Hebrew).
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
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Brotherhood, Solidarity, and the Rabbinic Construction of the Commandment to Return Lost Property
In: Journal of Law, Religion and StateSearch for other papers by Adiel Schremer in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
The present article discusses the biblical commandment to return lost property (hashavat aveda) and the manner by which it is treated by the early rabbinic tradition. I argue that it is possible to read the two passages in the Torah in which the commandment is mentioned (Ex. 23:4–5; Deut. 23:1–5) as an attempt at constructing an ethical stance of unselfishness, in which the other and the other’s loss are given priority over one’s selfish instincts. To this end, the Torah uses the rhetoric of brotherhood, intended to stimulate feelings of solidarity and to encourage members of the community to treat each other with empathy, care, and compassion. However, most of the legal discussions of the commandment in early rabbinic literature favored a legalistic interpretation of the Torah rhetoric, according to which the use of the word “brother” was meant to delineate the scope of the commandment, that is, to specify whose lost property a Jew is commanded to return and whose not, rather than to induce sentiments of compassion and solidarity. I suggest that although this line of interpretation stems from a deep rabbinic refusal to accept the interpretive possibility that the commandment to return lost property includes non-Jews, it also reflects a broader rabbinic tendency to deny a role in halakhic discourse to emotions.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 338 | 67 | 21 |
| Full Text Views | 187 | 2 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 34 | 4 | 3 |