[Avodah] Rights in halakhah

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Tue, 2010-02-09 at 09:47 -0500, Micha Berger wrote:
> 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?

If you're listing "gezel sheinah" and "geneivas da'as", then stam gezel
should also be on the list. Tangible property rights are so obvious that
I think we frequently forget that they're rights.

--Ken