[Avodah] dina demalchuta

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 04:51:40PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Pretty clear -- the reason why their contracts are binding is because
>> DDD includes "hadinim nitzavu benei Noach".

> Not "includes"; is included.  Dinim is the 7th mitzvah.

DDD is the Jewish obligation to follow their dinim, or as Rashi puts it
explaining R' Tarfon, our obligation of uvi'arta hara'ah miqirbekha.

However, this is tangential. You appear to be agreeing that any law passed
under the 7th MBN is included under DDD.

>> The gemara happens to be
>> an application to dinei mamunus, but Rashi's reason for why it works
>> includes everything the 7BMN makes applicable to them in general.

> And this is completely irrelevant.  All Rashi says is that their
> contracts are valid, because the 7MBN obligate them to keep their
> contracts...

No, because 7MBN obligates them in the topic of the contract. A get
is a contract, but they aren't included in the concept of qiddushin,
so that's irrelevent. And notice his rationale is that contract law is
just one small instance and anything 7MBN obligates them to address in
their courts would be included.

> laws, or to a prohibition on breaking them?  You still haven't crossed
> the gap between Shmuel's statement and this proposition.

Rashi explicitly does. You're wiggling a peshat into Rashi was that
neither ever given before nor fits the words. He says the only reason
why gittin are excepted is because they aren't within 7MBN. He doesn't
limit the rule to contracts, he excludes from a general principle those
mitzvos that can't be chal on benei Noach.

>> Not only R' Broyde (whose article I was summarizing in the post I linked
>> to earlier this thread) reads it that way. RHS has a similar understanding
>> of Rashi (Nidah 61a), that had Rabbi Tarfon actually determined the guilt
>> of the Jews who asked them to hide him, he would have been obligated
>> to turn them in.

>            Rashi doesn't mention the idea of turning them in; the only
> options R Tarfon considered were hiding them or not hiding them.  Rashi
> merely explains why, if they were guilty, he would not want to save them,
> and Tosfos explains that he was afraid that if he hid them and they
> turned out to be guilty he'd be putting himself in danger.

That's Tosafos, not Rashi. Rashi doesn't give a pragmatic reason, he
gives a halachic one. RHS points out that this indicates a machloqes
between them.

And it's RHS who says that Rashi would consider it an obligation,
not I. See <http://download.yutorah.org/1981/1053/735655.pdf> pg 120
(18th pg in the pdf) - 122. You take on R' Uzziel, RHS and R' Broyde
without any fear of being wrong. As I said above, it strikes me that
you're wiggling a peshat into Rashi that was neither ever given before
nor fits the words. Perhaps the reason why debating this feels like
you're banging your head against the wall is because indeed, you're
trying to support the unsupportable.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
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