[Avodah] Rights in halakhah

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 12:52:59PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote
on the thread which I doctored to read "Chezkas Kehunah":
: Second: Even if that safek is accepted, there's a much simpler reason
: why a kohen cannot demand payment for pidyon haben: Because the father
: has the right to choose any kohen he likes. Even when Trumah was a real
: d'Oraisa, no kohen could demand any; they were all dependent on the good
: will of the farmers.

A few times on my blog I discuss the difference between rights and
duties, and later between
    - rights
    - duties to another (perhaps contractual, perhaps by fiat)
    - membership in a beris (forming a new whole and having
      responsibilities with it)
as a basis for a legal system. In short, barring a covenant, rights-based
legal systems appear to have the most success preventing people from
eating each other alive. However, halakhah has a different goal, and is
based on a beris. We discussed it here too, so I don't see reason to
give a longer version.

I dont believe that halakhah is based on a philosophy of rights.
However, there are specitic halakhos which clearly imply the existence
of a right.

Phrasing the issur of waking someone else up as "gezel shinah" implies
that a person owns an intangible right to sleep. Not just that I have a
duty to let you sleep if you wish to, but chazal articulate it in terms
usually used for property.

Similarly geneivas da'as.

The only other example I could think of is this right to select a kohein
to whom to give your terumah.

Can anyone else think of others?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha at aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter