[Avodah] Tiqun Olam

[Michael Makovi]

> A positive-historical view of the Oral Law, that halakhah can
> evolve with time - aside from often offering a peshat that differs
> from Hazal's midrashei halakhah
>
> me

A random example pops into my head:

Regarding extending interest to a gentile, Rabbi Hertz draws a
distinction between nokhri and toshav, saying that the Torah permits
extending interest to a nokhri - which he explains as being a
non-Jewish foreign merchant - and forbids extending it to a toshav -
which he explains as meaning a ger toshav. Hertz explains that if the
Biblical Jews were to conduct international trade, the foreign
gentiles (nokhri) would surely charge us interest, and so, for the
sake of equity, it is only fair that we can charge them back. But with
gentiles living in Israel (toshav), he says, living among us, it is
only proper that Jew and gentile be equal, with charging interest
being forbidden regardless. He then perfunctorily notes that the
Talmud explains differently, and that it holds that extending interest
is technically permitted but highly frowned upon.

In Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein's The Jewish Way of Life, Rabbi Epstein
offers an identical Biblical explanation - i.e. between nokhri and
toshav, with the exact same explanation as Hertz and even citing the
Hertz Pentateuch - and then he notes (citing the Talmud more copiously
than Rabbi Hertz did) that the Talmud, not aware of this distinction
in definition of nokhri and toshav, was not sure of how to resolve the
apparent contradiction (i.e. permitted to a nokhri but not to a
toshav, which is indeed a contradiction if one takes both to mean
"gentile" stam), and proposed two okimtas:
1) To give interest to a gentile is permitted, to take interest from
him is forbidden - a gentile can "bite" a Jew, but a Jew cannot "bite"
a gentile;
2) To give and take to and from a gentile is permitted - i.e. each can
bite the other - but only in case of dire economic need.
Rabbi Epstein then notes that Tosafot relied on the second, and Rabbi
Epstein adds that really, we today ought to follow the Talmudic
prohibition of interest with a gentile, but old habits are hard to
break, he says.

(I'm sorry - I'd offer quotations and page numbers, but my library is
packed away in my cramped living conditions.)

It is also of interest to quote Rabbi Hermann Adler's essay "Can Jews
be Patriots?", http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Littell%27s_Living_Age/Volume_137/Issue_1769/Can_Jews_be_Patriots%3F
Rabbi Adler is apparently not aware of the technical meanings of
nokhri and toshav that Hertz and Epstein rely on, but his explanation
comes out pretty much the same regardless:

<<Quote>>
The statement has been made that according to the Mosaic law it was
only forbidden to lend the Israelite at a usurious rate, but that no
prohibition of this nature existed with respect to the non-Israelite.
This opinion is sought to be supported by a verse in Deuteronomy
(23:20) which is translated in the authorized version, "Unto a
stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt
not lend upon usury." The error is, that neshech is supposed to be
synonymous with usury in the present for acceptation of the term. The
word, like usury in old English, simply means interest - any
compensation whatever paid for the use of money. Accordingly the
passage should be rendered: "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon
interest, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest."
With respect to the Israelite it was prohibited both to take and to
give any interest whatever, for it was clearly the design of the
Mosaic legislation to prevent the few growing rich at the expense of
the many, and to maintain the simple primitive conditions of
self-reliant, self-contained industrial support by agriculture and
handicrafts, credit being regarded as an evil and a humiliation to the
borrower. "Thou shalt lend to many nations, but shalt not borrow,"
(Deuteronomy 28:12) is a blessing which sufficiently indicates the
advantage of an internal commerce free from internal credit and
indebtedness. Had the Israelites been allowed to lend to one another
at interest, their lands would have been encumbered, and their
energies as agriculturists would have been crippled. This happened in
Athens and in Rome, where all the landed property gradually fell into
the hands of the rich, and where the poor were so oppressed by the
debts they owed the landowners that a social revolution ensued. The
like condition of things even now exists in India. But this danger
could not arise from lending to the foreigner. It was found necessary
since the earliest times of the Hebrew commonwealth to carry on some
commerce with neighboring countries, in order to exchange the surplus
of their own produce for the commodities of other lands. Solomon sent
to Hiram, king of Tyre, to purchase sandalwood and sycamore for the
construction of the temple. Thus, also, if an Israelite possessed any
capital or produce which he could not utilize in his own country, he
had a right to demand from a member of a foreign state some
compensation for the use of the money or produce lent to him, and if
the foreigner applied that capital to commercial enterprise no Mosaic
principle was infringed by charging him interest. This permission,
however, only applied to sums borrowed for mercantile purposes. When
the Gentile needed the loan of money, not commerce, but for his
subsistence, the Mosaic law made no difference between him and the
Hebrew. "And if thy brother be waxen poor, and his hand faileth with
thee, then thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger and
sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or
increase; but fear thy God." (Leviticus 25:35f). Yes, this "tribal"
law, which we are told "sanctioned a difference of principle between
the rule of dealing with a Hebrew and that of dealing with a
stranger," did not allow the Jew to make any distinction between the
Israelite and the Gentile in the exercise of philanthropy. He was
bidden to visit the sick among the non-Israelites, to relieve their
poor, and to bury their dead, even as those of his own people for he
was bound to walk in the ways of his Lord, "who is good to all, whose
tender mercies are over all his works." (Talmud. Gittin, p. 61; and
Maimonides, Kings, ch. x., p. 12.)
<<End quote>>

Rabbi Adler did not explain based on the terms nokhri and toshav, but
his explanation comes out exactly the same. He says that lending on
interest is permitted to the non-Jewish foreign merchant (which is how
Hertz and Epstein define nokhri), but not permitted to the Israeli
gentile (which is how Hertz and Epstein explain toshav). But Adler
does not note at all that the Talmud differs.

Michael makovi