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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@mcs.drexel.edu>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 19:19:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Note On Parking Violations and Love thy Neighbor

Just a short footnote on Immanuel Burton's position (v29n03) that
people who don't move out of parking spaces are violating the Biblical
commandment "And you shall love your neighbor like yourself".

Indeed it is an established principle throughout Jewish commercial law
that if some act will benefit one party and not cause loss/anguish to
the other party then we do the act. The Biblical verse "And do what
is right and proper" (Dt 6:18) is cited. To avoid doing these acts(which
cause no loss and benefit one party) is to "behave like the Sedomites".

These laws particularly occur in Neighbor laws (Thus eg Rabmam, Neighbors
12:1 Rambam says that if Bob wants half a field near
his property and Simon is indifferent which half he gets then we must
give Bob the half he wants (provided it is of equal quality) since otherwise
we are behaving like the Sedomites. This concept dominates the whole
Neighbor buy-back laws (Ben Mezer) (Chapters 12-14). It also occurs in
many division problems between neighbors (E.g Neighbors 7:8)

Russell Jay Hendel; Phd ASA
RJHendel@Juno.Com
Moderator Rashi Is Simple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/