92 Richard S. Rheins

by reason of a fortiori, since a slave is a transgressor” how much more should a laborer, who is not a transgressor, be treated generously.® Finally, the modern laborer’s severance rights were related to the talmudic exemption of laborers from liability for damages caused by their negligence.’ The exemption was based on the Jewish moral duty to act more generously than the strict letter of the law(lifenim mi-shurat ha-din).** Accordingly, modern Israel ’s former Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel wrote:

A court has the authority to order the employer to

make payments for the benefit of his employees

whenever it sees that this will promote the goal of

“follow[ing] the way of the good and keep[ing] to the

paths of the just”(Prov. 2:20). In exercising its

discretion, it should take into account the manifest

circumstances of the employer and employee, as well

as the reasons why the employer dismissed the

employee or why the employee stopped working for

the employer.”

Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel ’s responsum highlights the importance of acting with a sense of compassion and morality that goes beyond the letter of the law. Perhaps, the best illustration that the body of teaching we call“halakhah” is beyond all the clumsy attempts to define it simplistically as“Jewish law,” is the fact that halakhah is exalted by the principle of lifenim mi-shurat ha-din. That is, the halakhic standard is to strive for the divinely inspired ethic that compels us beyond mere law.® The role of lifenim mi-shurat ha-din is beautifully demonstrated in the following passage from Baba Metzia 83a:

Some porters broke a barrel of wine they were

carrying for Rabbah bar Bar Chanan. He seized their

cloaks[as collateral to ensure he would receive

compensation for his loss]. They came and told Rav.

He said to him[Rabbah]“Give them their cloaks