Weekly Torah Portion

In honor of the memory of Rabbi Mayer Abramowitz Z"L.

Parashat writer by the Rabbi.

1. AYIN TACHAT AYIN  EYE FOR AN EYE  (21;24)

Sometime ago, the headline of an editorial in the New York Times read, “Eye For an Eye” It criticized Israel for seeking revenge against the Palestinians. Using this Biblical phrase has become common practice in the English language. But, about 2,000 years ago, the Talmud explained the legal concept of “eye for an eye” to mean payment for damage inflicted upon a person in tort cases. Legal scholars further point to the fact that Eye for an Eye establishes equality before the bar of justice, indicating that it didn’t matter whether the damage was done to a wealthy person or a peasant. By contrast, the Hammurabi Code rules that if a peasant damages the eye of a nobleman , he can be put to death.

2. WHEN TWO MEN FIGHT AND ONE OF THEM  PUSHES A PREGNANT WOMAN AND A MISCARRIAGE RESULTS -- THE HUSBAND CAN DEMAND PAYMENT. (21:22)

This verse is often taken as an argument against considering abortion equal to murder. Some of our customs point in that direction. For example, no kaddish is recited for a stillborn. And, when a newborn dies before reaching the age of one month, there are no burial rites required. 

3. WHEN A PERSON STARTS A FIRE AND IT SPREADS TO HIS NEIGHBOR’S FIELD AND BURNING STACKED CROPS, THE MAN WHO STARTED THE FIRE MUST PAY DAMAGES (22::30)

At a lecture by a dean of a law school said that this verse was quoted in a case where a farmer sued the government for damages caused by a supersonic test flight whose sonic boom caused the destruction of an electrified barn. In the raging fire all the cows were killed as a result of the fire cause by the sonic boom. The supreme court accepted the moral implications of this Biblical quotation.