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Correspondence

November-December 1973

Exchange with Tzvi Berman about Article on Watergate and the Nixon Tapes (1973)

Jewish Law & Secular Law

1. Tzvi Berman to R. Lamm

1. Tzvi Berman to R. Lamm (Nov. 25, 1973)

1. Tzvi Berman to R. Lamm (Nov. 25, 1973)

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Article

The Talmud and the Tapes - article (1973)

Now that the highest court in the land is prepared to study the problem of President Nixon’s refusal to surrender the famous tapes, it is timely to inquire what Jewish law has to say about this historic confrontation between the executive and the judiciary. Can any wisdom be gleaned from the Hebrew tradition, one of the main streams that feed into Western culture and civilization? The Mishnah, (the Jewish legal code redacted by Rabbi Judah in Palestine during the early part of the third century) teaches that a king may not judge and may not be brought to trial; others may not testify against him and he may not be made to testify concerning others. The Talmud (the Babylonian commentary and extension of the Mishnah) limits this law to “Israelite Kings,” i.e. those who were not of Davidic descent. Kings of the House of David, however, are subject to judgment and may be compelled to testify. The Talmud then concludes that fundamentally the law requires that the king should submit to judgment and testimony, but that an exception was made in the case of later Jewish Kings (“Israelite Kings”) because of a historic incident.In the first century of the common era Jannai was King, and the head of the Sanhedrin (supreme court) was the fearlessly independent Simeon ben Shetach. Now it happened that a servant of the King had been accused of committing murder. According to the law, the master had to be present during the trial of the slave. Jannai obeyed, and presented himself in court. But then Simeon informed Jannai that the law required the master to stand while the trial was in session.Aware of the sensitivities involved, Simeon hastened to assure the King that “you are not standing before us, but before Him who by His word created the world.” Here Jannai drew the line and hurled a challenge at Simeon: “not when you say so, but only when your colleagues will tell me so.” The shrewd monarch had made the right move. Simeon turned to his right, and his colleagues “buried their …
Jewish Law & Secular Law

Correspondence

Exchange with Earl Klein about Articles on Jewish Law and the Constitution (1966)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: Although we may have been contemporaries at Yeshiva, I am not certain that we have ever met. I graduated from the College in 1947. As you are probably well aware, an article of yours on the Fifth Amendment and Halakhah was cited by Chief Justice Warren in a footnote to the famous Miranda case. I have been interested for a long time in the problem of confessions in criminal cases and particularly where Jewish law has application.I am interested in obtaining a copy of your article, and I wonder whether you have any reprints or copies available. If there is any expense involved, please let me know or if you have a copy that I might be able to Xerox I would certainly appreciate it.I am a subscriber to Tradition and have enjoyed reading your articles, and look forward to seeing the one on the Fifth Amendment.By the way do you know of any articles on capital punishment and Talmudic law? I would appreciate any help you can give me.With kindest regards to you and to Rabbi Jung, my former professor and a man I greatly admire.Sincerely,Earl KleinEK:ff
Jewish Law & Secular Law

Correspondence

Exchange with Lawrence Kobrin about Project on Talmud and Contemporary Legal Issues (1976)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: This letter is addressed to you in your role as consulting editor for Ktav on the law and ethics series. It is intended to furnish some specific examples of a line of inquiry in public discussion which we have occasionally discussed in general terms, but without specific illustration. While I am not exactly certain as to the appropriate method for following up these ideas, I wanted to share them with you. The pedagogy of Talmud is, for a variety of reasons, frequently "self-centered", in the sense that it is presented as an all inclusive and self-contained system, rather than as a jurisprudential effort to deal with ongoing business, human relations, or similar problems. The refinements of textural analysis and logical deduction frequently exclude any consideration of the actual application of legal rules to practical business for fact situations. The text of atonement and the practice of the authors of Responsa literature demonstrate that this was not the original intention of the masters of halacha. Presumably, it is only contemporary divorcement of halachic literature from practical application that leads to this result.As a result, the teaching of Talmud may frequently be unnecessarily difficult. For, if the student must be convinced that some particular discussion is important for its own sake, it might be easier to engender interest in thought where a discussion was related to a contemporaneous problem, still posed in courts and legal literature.Some recently reported decisions of the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in this state), all of them coincidentally by a narrowly divided court, relate or may be considered analogous to matters discussed extensively in the Talmud. The fact that these problems are still current serve to demonstrate that the jurisprudential problems posed in the Talmud are still very much with us and that the solutions found there may be helpful in dealing with contemporary life, however commercial and compl…
Jewish Law & Secular Law