Book Description

Long accepted as the standard code of Jewish law and practice, the Shulhan Aruch was written by Rabbi Joseph Karo in 1565. Now, in an unprecedented restatement of Hoshen haMishpat, one of the four sections of the Shulhan Aruch, Rabbi Emanuel Quint brings fresh insight, modern scholarship, and succinct explication to this brilliant halachic work that will fascinate the educated layperson and advanced scholar alike. With this effort, Rabbi Quint fills the long-felt need to make this material more accessible. A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law: Volume IX - Laws of the Paid Bailee; Laws of the Lessee; Laws Regarding Labor; Laws Regarding Borrowed Objects; Laws Regarding Stealing; Laws Regarding Robbery; Laws of Abiding by the Laws of the Land, continues to open the Shulhan Aruch to the wider audience it deserves. Rabbi Quint, the co-founder of the Jerusalem Institute of Jewish Law, an institute dedicated to the study and dissemination of Jewish civil law, brings his professional expertise to bear on the vast array of Jewish legal processes, procedures and practices encoded here. The reader may be surprised to discover that such a meticulous legal--yet not overly religious--system fits under the category of Jewish law. And yet it does, clearly illustrating that Judaism is not only a religion, but also a culture and community. Beyond a translation, A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law provides the author's own commentary and also incorporates the four centuries of scholarship since the Shulhan Aruch was written, including commentaries and responsa literature. Ample footnotes help guide the reader every step of the way. The result is a comprehensive, well-organized body of rabbinic jurisprudence available to the English reader for the first time. If the Shulhan Aruch can be said to be the distilled essence of Jewish law, then A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law triumphs as a major judicial-literary landmark of its own.