Chapter 22

La ordalía en el judaísmo y Derecho rabínico

The power or right to decide the Law in Israel was in the hands of the priests and rabbis, who had the ability, even in doubtful cases, to interpret, modify or expand it, and occasionally, to repeal it.

In Biblical times, the Law was primarily in charge of Priests and Levites and they were the serving judges of the High Court in Jerusalem, the highest institution to decide serious and difficult cases. In the last two pre-Christian centuries and throughout the times of the Talmud, the scribes (“Soferim”), also called “The Wise Men” (“Hachamim”), were the qualified and authorized persons for having received the true interpretation of the Law. according to the tradition of the Elders or the Fathers coming from Moses, the Prophets and the men of the Great Synagogue.

In the first century, there is a great evolution in the legal interpretation of the Law and a greater demand is sought in the rigor and judicial expertise. Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakai is one of the great representatives of this trend, especially around the application of the ordeal of Numbers 5, from Mosaic times, on adultery. The practical abolition of this penalty is a great advance in the search for justice and, at the same time, an advance in the solution of family conflicts, which, in the words of Zakai “does not come to declare clean or unclean and to separate or bring closer together”, at a time when Levitical laws of purity and family matters ruled all Jewish life.