Some words resist easy translation. The Hebrew word avel is an example. Its semantic range includes perversion of justice, evil, corruption and more. Twice in Leviticus 19 we are enjoined not to do avel.
In verse 15 the theme is equality before the law: “You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favour the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your fellow person fairly.” Twenty verses later, the emphasis is on precision: “You shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity.”
Typically, these verse are interpreted to mean: when enacting the law, be sure to do so with a strict attention to fairness. The Babylonian Talmud gives an example of inequity in measurement: if two people are dividing a field they have owned jointly, one should not measure one parcel of land during the summer and the other during the rainy season, because the length of the measuring cord will be affected by the weather conditions (Baba Metzia 61b and Baba Batra 89b).
In judging defendants or making measurements, the words of Leviticus call for an honest attempt to stay true to the highest intentions of the law.
There is another, more unsettling way of reading the Bible’s repeated insistence. The phrase can be understood as meaning: do not commit injustice through the promulgation of a law. Here it is not the fear of unwitting error or premeditated bias in interpreting the law that causes concern. Rather, it is that laws themselves that may promote a fundamental injustice.
In modern states, laws reach the statute book through a process impacted by ideological convictions and political trade-offs. In healthy democracies, the hope is that while a piece of legislation might clash with one’s beliefs or sectoral interests, its basic legitimacy would not be challenged.
However, when democracies are infected by populist ailments and other wasting diseases, the prospect may arise of laws which themselves promote avel. For law-abiding citizens, such situations throw up agonising dilemmas and underline the importance of checks and balances. The law should be strong enough to strike down avel which has been passed into law.
This week’s portion makes judges of us all and invites us to consider the difference between the ever-present fear that good laws will be kept unfairly, and the occasional ominous possibility of a law that is in itself wrong.
In light of the recent passage in Israel of a law mandating the death penalty applying to some but not to others, we may translate the phrase: do not make laws a vehicle for injustice.
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