Elliot N. D
in the form of legislation or judicial rulings, carries with it distinct advantages for any society. It specifies clearly what is expected of everyone. This enables people to live together. It also contributes a sense of security to all citizens: I know that for that I can hold others responsible and, in turn, that for that I myself can be called to account. Law thereby saves me from the threat of Kafkaesque trials, where I know neither the charges against me, nor the rules for determining my guilt or innocence, nor the penalties for my guilt. Law also enables society to articulate its sense of justice in concrete terms, thus giving a moral quality to social norms. Moreover, because law is open to public scrutiny, it
enables people to criticize and improve the rules by that they
live. Finally, because laws generally change less rapidly than popular tastes do, law contributes to society a sense of continuity and rootedness. Jews , who are spread out all over the world, need these aspects of law even more than more geographically concentrated societies do, and so I would be the last to argue for understanding Judaism in our day in ways that deprive it of its traditional footing in law.'® For those who also believe that there is a divine component to Jewish law, as I do, the obligatory nature of it goes well beyond these prudential concerns. Even without that theological component, however, the benefits of law to any society should make anyone think twice before abandon ing law for custom alone.
Living legal systems, though, incorporate not only law, but custom, and each exercises a claim on the members of the society. Sometimes these dual claims pose no problems. On the contrary, law and custom can actually reinforce one another, as, for exam" ple, when customs augment and even beautify observance of the law. Another type of symbiotic interaction between law and cus tom occurs when they complement one another by filling in gap’ in the norm of a community where the other is absent.
Sometimes, however, custom and law oppose each other and then the question of which one takes precedence over the other is not always clear. This is true not only in Jewish law, with its application to widespread communities and its lack of on¢ central authority, but in virtually any living legal system. Amer” ican law, for example, that governs a clearly identified group of people in a relatively coherent land mass(even counting Alaska