24 October 2010

Property laws go too deep

When the Jews go into exile they forego the possibility of their designing laws to accomplish particular outcomes for the nation. Tradition must therefore be followed slavishly, for the sake of its not being lost. The entire enterprise is reduced to little more than making do. 
Property laws are adopted from the host society, wholesale and without much thought, as dina demalkhuta dina because it doesn't make much sense for the rabbinic regime to try to alter those laws. Property laws go too deeply into the core of sovereignty in the host society for them to be available to diaspora rabbinic influence. Indeed, no-one even thinks about it. 
The problem with the rabbinic regime is not only that the rabbis were really always trying to define their own prerogatives of power; the problem was that the way the rabbis dealt with the power question was shallow and naïve and not sensitive to the biblical teachings. As a result of that insensitivity it means now that they have their own state the Jewish people will have to re-learn the biblical teachings from scratch because the rabbinic regime has not really done much to preserve many of those biblical nuances. 

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