Halakha Law

[sean]

This thread is to talk about the religious laws according Jews.

Halakha (Hebrew: הֲלָכָה‎) (Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation) (ha-la-chAH)—also transliterated Halocho (Ashkenazic Hebrew pronunciation) (ha-LUH-chuh), or Halacha—is the collective body of religious laws for Jews, including biblical law (the 613 mitzvot) and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.
Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.[1] Halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Halakha is often translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the path" or "the way of walking". The word derives from the Shoresh that means to go or to walk.
Historically in the diaspora, Halakha served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of civil and religious law. Since the Age of Enlightenment, emancipation, and haskalah in the modern era, Jewish citizens are bound to Halakha only by their voluntary consent. Under contemporary Israeli law, however, certain areas of Israeli family and personal status law are under the authority of the rabbinic courts and are therefore treated according to Halakha. Some differences in Halakha itself are found among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Yemenite Jews, which are reflective of the historic and geographic diversity of various Jewish communities within the Diaspora.

Gentiles and Jewish law
Judaism has always held that people who are not Jews are obliged only to follow the seven Noahide Laws; these are laws that the Oral Law derives from the covenant God made with Noah after the flood, which apply to all descendants of Noah (all living people). The Noahide laws are derived in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 57a), and are listed here:

1. Murder is forbidden.
2. Theft is forbidden.
3. Sexual immorality is forbidden.
4. Eating flesh cut from a still-living animal is forbidden.
5. Belief in and worship of, or prayer to, "idols" is forbidden.
6. Blaspheming against God is forbidden.
7. Society must establish a fair system of legal justice to administer law honestly.

The details of these laws are codified from the Talmudic texts in the Mishneh Torah. They can be found mainly in chapter 9 and 10 of Hilkhoth Melakhim u'Milhamothehem in Sefer Shoftim of the Mishneh Torah.

Some questions:

Should Israel be ruled only by the Halaka?
Should people subjected to Halaka laws obey other secular laws?
What is your opinion about the Talmudic laws and the Halaka for non Jewish?.


I am reading the Talmud and I like it, I am Christian and I think the Christianity laws are very messy and not stric enought. Jewish sources of Law are more organized and better for the life, they fit very well with the original intention of the Christinity before it got corrupted. I have found a group that combines the Christian and talmudic teahings:

[Ubirajara]

You can find (parts of) the Talmud here (Soncino Babylonian Talmud):

http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html

Podcast on portions of it:

http://www.yutorah.org/daf.cfm/6026/Sanhedrin/58/b

[Danielion]

I see you have become Christian again. Define sexual immorality, by the way. Isn't this a cheap way of meddling with the choices of individuals in order to seek total control over people? I think it's a stupid repressive totalitarian law. There are people, however, who call themselves 'Noahides', not necessarily Christians by self-definition.

[sean]

Define sexual immorality, by the way. Isn't this a cheap way of meddling with the choices of individuals in order to seek total control over people? I think it's a stupid repressive totalitarian law.

As far as I know Sexual morality according to the talmudic and rabinic interpretations involve the relations with other person. For example a ban to have sex with drunk person or force someone else, bestiality, etc.

[Danielion]

As far as I know Sexual morality according to the talmudic and rabinic interpretations involve the relations with other person. For example a ban to have sex with drunk person or force someone else, bestiality, etc.

I hope it remains at this, but I somehow keep having doubts.