[Avodah] Rights in halakhah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 02:38:42PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: What else does the right to life mean?  Someone has to "give" you life?

If I cared about implication, then I would say that rights and duties
are equivalent. What's my right to life but everyone else's duty not to
kill me?

My whole point is what is considered primary, how the legal theory
influences the culture of the people who fall under it. Reducing it to
nafqa mina lemaaseh, and all three are largely the same.

... with one set of exceptions - charity. Charity can be a duty. But
the second you define a corresponding right, it's not longer charity
since it's no longer giving beyond what you owe the other. And within
the law as terms of a beris, there is no charity, only tzedaqah --
from the word tzedaq. As per R' Shimon Shkop in my previous post.

: Who?  Hashem?! ...

Actually, they are G-d given rights. Or, as Jefferson put it "endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha at aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l