In discussing the idea of law, legal scholar Dennis Lloyd (1970) stated that contemporary law in Western society is very much the product of influences emanating from the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, who individually brought a contrast between divine and human life into prominence in ways which have influenced the Western concept of law ever since. Much of what constitutes the origin of American law -- constitutionalism, the English Common Law, the natural law, and various codifications from the ancient world -- is either drawn from early Hebrew law or in synergy with that law (Hall, Wiecek, & Finkelman, 1996).
It is therefore the purpose of this study to examine the ways in which American law and Jewish law, known as the Halakha, are comparable and the ways in which they are different. Three key issues will be addressed in this comparison. These are the approaches of each legal system to the reasons for obeying law, law and change, and the nexus between law and morality. A qualitative review of literature will be undertaken in the course of this study.
Rosenthal (2002), in discussing the Halakha, suggested that from earliest times, Jewish legal scholars and rabbis have called for obedience to the law because of its divine origins. From God, in the form of the original corpus of the oral law, Moses received the fundamental tenets that would thereafter shape all Jewish legal developments. It is the divine source of Hebrew law that is emphasized throughout the entire Torah which Rosenthal (2002) sees as an evolving process with God Himself actively involved in its renewal.
Lloyd (1970) agrees with this explanation for why the ancient Hebrews and the contemporary Jewish world community find it obligatory to honor and respect the Halakha. The unswerving monotheism of Judaism is based upon God's will, which dictates the moral pattern for all mankind. From earliest times, obedience to that will was secured by the divine...