Friday 27 February 2009

Standards Demands Two Yardsticks

There was an article I recently saw on the Jerusalem Post website, concerning two Orthodox women's organizations sending letters to Bibi Netanyahu requesting that he limit the jurisdiction of batei dinim, religious courts. See http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410717573&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. My initial reaction was: how could an Orthodox organization make such a request? Attendance at batei dinim rather than secular courts is a Torah command. Is it proper for an Orthodox organization to approach a secular power to, effectively, limit this attendance? Then I had my second reaction. What does this say about the batei dinim that these women are referring to? Is there not an obligation on beit din and its dayanim, judges, to be positively perceived by those that they judge? This is not to say that every litigant is going to feel good about the verdict -- but is it not incumbent of a beit din to positively present itself as a place of justice and fairness?

When someone receives a critique, this person cannot always assume that it is do to the yetzer hara of the other, that the other is doing an aveira in critiquing me. While the other may not be totally blameless, there still may be something within your behaviour that led to this critique. One also has to look at oneself. As much as the supporters of these batei dinim can critique these women's groups for challenging a halachic standard, it also incumbent on these supporters to evaluate themselves and the batei dinim they support to see if their is merit to these women's charges. The world is not black and white. Actions generally are neither totally good or totally bad. Its time to see the grey and accept the critique inherent even in action that one will also challenge.

Rabbi Ben Hecht

1 comment:

Hollywood and Sinai said...

The issue outlined in this piece can be expanded to encompass all of Jewish law and thought. Orthodox Judaism has never - throughout history - been a stagnant system. Part of its beauty is its very complexity and the fact that this complexity allows the system to respond well to human complexity. Thus, when new concerns are raised in the community - particularly relating to minorities - it would do the current arbiters of the system well to recall that this is a religion one is meant to live with not die from. Of course there are limits, and I'm not trying to challenge those but ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away and every system - even a Divinely ordained one - benefits well from critique.