Courts of Justice
Courts of justice help us to internalize the abstract concept that there is a Creator Who is the ultimate Judge in charge of holding us accountable for following His laws.
The Seven Noahide Commandments, Part 7
6. Establish courts of justice
Courts of justice make concrete the spiritual structure of the universe. This helps us to internalize and concretize the abstract concept that there is a Creator Who is the ultimate Judge in charge of holding us accountable for following His laws. It isn’t enough to know that we will all be held accountable in the world to come, or even by the Creator in this world. We need to make the consequences real in this world.
Here are some basic principles regarding this commandment:
- One must be considered mentally fit in order to be held responsible by a court.
- As individuals we are responsible for knowing the Seven Universal Commandments. Ignorance is not an excuse.
- Murder is seen as such an extreme and serious crime that one is forbidden to pity and therefore be lenient in punishment should the accused person be found guilty.
- Being poor is not an excuse for committing a crime. The law applies equally to the rich poor and everyone in between.
- The judge should give the benefit of the doubt to even a wicked person, assuming them capable of telling the truth and redemption.
- The responsibility to be fair and impartial on the part of the judge is paramount. Judges who fail to take their responsibility seriously, who rush to judgment, or who are intentionally using the court for their own ends could be found guilty of judging un-righteously.
- Cases involving small sums of money are just as important as cases involving large sums of money.
- One may not even attempt to bribe a judge, nor is the judge to accept a bribe.
- Mediation and arbitration are highly desirable in order to reach a compromise that avoids bringing a case to court.
- Taking the law into your own hands is forbidden.
If you are living in a country like the United States, then on a basic level this commandment is being fulfilled. On a deeper level, it behooves all Bnei Noach to behave in a just and righteous manner and to pursue justice for others, to get outside of ourselves and be concerned about uplifting and protecting our fellow man. We need to keep an eye on our justice system to make sure it is functioning fairly and take real steps to change it when it isn’t.
This is a surface treatment of a very complicated subject. Since we learned that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for a misdeed, we need to learn as much as we can about this subject.
(The book The Seven Colors of the Rainbow, by Rabbi Yirmeyahu Bindman, contains an excellent and informative chapter on this topic that goes far beyond this brief article. Other excellent sources are The Path of the Righteous Gentile by Chaim Clorfene and Yakov Rogalsky; and The Seven Laws of Noach by Aaron Lichtenstein.)
To be continued.
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