ORTHOPRAXY OR A JUDAISM?

ORTHOPRAXY OR A JUDAISM?

The middle divisions, the third and fourth, on Women and
Damages, finally, take their place in the structure of the whole by
showing the congruence, within the larger framework of regularity
and order, of human concerns of family and farm, politics and
work a day transactions among ordinary people. For without
attending to these matters, the Mishnah’s system would not
encompass what, at its foundations, it is meant to comprehend
and order. So what is at issue is fully cogent with the rest. In the
case of Women, attention focuses upon the point of disorder marked
by the transfer of that disordering anomaly, woman, from the
regular status provided by one man, to the equally trustworthy
status provided by another. That is the point at which the Mishnah’s
interests are aroused: once more, predictably, the moment of
disorder. In the case of Damages, there are two important concerns.
First, there is the paramount interest in preventing, so far as
possible, the disorderly rise of one person and fall of another, and
in sustaining the status quo of the economy of Israel, the holy
society in stasis. Second, there is the necessary concomitant in the
provision of a system of political institutions to carry out the laws
which preserve the balance and steady state of persons. So the
systemic statement comes to expression in law, but it is hardly a
system of orthopraxy, not at all