Mark Washofsky

a concept that was a new development in other legal systems has existed from the very beginning in our sources, which established rules and principles that protect one’s spiritual as well as his material interests..."

The general rules protecting privacy are neither fixed nor static; they were not meant for their own time alone. Rather, that which is prohibited or permitted is determined by fundamental principles(ek’ronot b’sisi’im) concerning love of one’s neighbor, human dignity, and the safeguarding of one’s good name. In this way, the rules are sufficiently flexible to be applied to changing reality and to the prevailing human sensibilities in every age. B

Again, Rakover’s analysis tracks that of Warren and Brandeis . Where they identified the principle of the“inviolate personality” (rather than that of“private property”) as the foundation for deducing a common law right to privacy, Rakover bases his claim of a general halakhic value of privacy upon four fundamental Jewish legal-moral principles: 1) the human being is created in the divine image(Genesis 1:27); 2)“you shall love your neighbor as yourself”(Leviticus 19:18); 3) the desire to preserve one’s good name(Ecclesiastes 7:1); 4) and human dignity(k'vod hab riyot, B. B’rakhot 19b). There are, of course, differences between the approaches. Warren and Brandeis framed their account as a story of the law’s development from an exclusive focus upon material interests toward the protection of more spiritual concerns such as privacy, while Rakover prefers the traditional narrative of Jewish law as eternal and unchanging: the Torah has always sought to protect the privacy of the individual. At the same time, “unchanging” does not mean“fixed or static.” Thanks to the generality of the fundamental principles that lie at its core, the definition of“privacy” is not etched in stone but is capable of keeping pace with the times. To utilize the terminology of American jurisprudence, the“original intent” of the act of revelation was precisely that the value of privacy be capable of