Legal Wisdom Through Ages : Lawyers’ Group Debates Relevance of Talmudic Law to Modern Cases

COSTA MESA — A group of lawyers gathered in the conference room of Orange County’s largest law firm recently to engage in a spirited legal debate.

At issue were the rights and responsibilities of people living in gated communities. Should they have to pay for the security of their complexes? Should the fee be based on the income or size of each household? And to what extent should such communities be allowed to exclude the outside world?

The lawyers might have been talking about any of the hundreds of condominium complexes in Orange County. In fact, they were continuing a discussion that took place nearly 2,000 years ago in ancient Palestine. Welcome to Rabbi David Eliezrie’s Talmud class for lawyers.

“For people into zoning,” the rabbi said, “ this is the chapter.”

A complex compendium of Jewish legal commentary written by ancient rabbis and scholars, the Talmud embodies the oral tradition of the Torah, which Jews believe came directly from God. The first part, called the Mishna , was completed in AD 200. About 250 years later, rabbis wrote down the second part, called Gemara , consisting of page after page of interpretation, discussion and expansion of the Mishnah . Taken as a whole, Eliezrie said, the Talmud has been considered the “prime reservoir of Jewish knowledge and (legal) scholarship” throughout the ages.

The idea of teaching it to lawyers, however, didn’t occur to him until two years ago. That’s when the religious institute Eliezrie heads--the North Orange County Chabad Center in Yorba Linda--got into a legal scrap with the county assessor’s office over the issue of taxation. Eliezrie hired Mike Rubin of Rutan & Tucker, the county’s largest law firm, to represent him in the matter. The rabbi’s legal problems were eventually solved, but in the process he and Rubin, who is also Jewish, began talking about the relevance of their shared religious heritage.

“A lot of modern law developed from Talmudic law,” Eliezrie says. “A lot of principles in the Talmud are applicable today.”

Out of the two men’s discussions grew the Talmud class for lawyers. Meeting monthly at Rutan & Tucker’s Costa Mesa headquarters, the noontime class has drawn as many as 40 attorneys--and at least one judge--from throughout Orange County. Although the majority are Jewish, many are not. Munching on kosher pastrami sandwiches and potato salad, they listen to the rabbi expound on the Talmud, interjecting their own opinions freely.

While the Talmud addresses many religious issues, Eliezrie said, much of it also focuses on temporal matters. Recent class discussions have covered such topics as property rights, accidental death or injury, perjury, rights of ownership, definitions of when life begins, and who should be considered a citizen for purposes of taxation.

Many of the jurists say the discussions have relevance to the work they do every day.

“I find the class extremely fascinating,” said Jim Persinger, a deputy counsel for Orange County who was raised Catholic. “It’s a dialogue that goes on and on; the process is instructive.”

Helen Rasner, a lawyer in Costa Mesa, said the classes have helped her understand the roots of American common law.

And Sheila Prell Sonenshine, an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, said that the analytical process followed by the ancient rabbis in reaching their conclusions is similar to the one she uses to decide cases today.

“It’s like exercising,” she said of her participation in the Talmud class. “I work out with weights to exercise my body; this exercises my mind.”

In fact, she said, the 2,000-year-old discussion of gated communities reminded her of a case she decided just last year. At issue was the extent to which residents of such communities can isolate themselves from the outside world; specifically whether process servers can legally serve someone living in a gated condominium complex by handing documents to the gatekeeper outside. Sonenshine decided that they can, provided they have exhausted all other avenues and have been denied admission.

According to the Talmud, the ancient rabbis probably would have agreed; gate houses, they held, were desirable only when constructed in a manner not likely to shut out the pleas of the poor outside. “In other words,” Eliezrie said, “you can’t lock yourself behind a gate to hide from your communal responsibilities. Orange County, to some degree, is a place where (people) want to shut out the world.”

To help assure that the members of their profession, at least, don’t shut out what some consider the wisdom of the ages, the lawyers are planning what they believe will be the county’s first conference on Jewish and contemporary law. Set for March 28 at Costa Mesa’s Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, the event is expected to draw at least 200 participants.

“Here’s an entire body of law that grew up in a way very similar to our own,” said Rubin, the lawyer who helped Eliezrie organize the class. “It’s filled with debates and competing points of view and precedents----the kind of stuff we deal with as lawyers every day. It’s fascinating and refreshing to find (another) society that for thousands of years (went) through the process we are still agonizing over.”

But Andrew Lichtman, an attorney from Laguna Hills, said his Talmud studies only have confirmed one thing: that “three words written in any language can be interpreted by 12 lawyers in 12 different ways.”

“It’s distressing,” Lichtman said, “that we’re stuck with the same system today.”