Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Shoftim

Holding Court

August 28, 2025

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yosef Greenwald

Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities—which Hashem, your G-d, gives you—for your tribes…

Dvarim 16:18

The Torah commands us here to establish a justice system by building a network of batei din. Although the system cannot be implemented fully today because our dayanim lack smicha (ordination in an unbroken chain from Moshe), the Gemara (Gittin 88a) says that dayanim today represent the dayanim of old in Eretz Yisrael and serve as their emissaries.

But the Gemara distinguishes in this context among different areas of law. Any judgments that relate to punishment—e.g., dinei nefashos (capital cases)—are not adjudicated today, nor are payments that are punitive and assessed as fines (knasos). For example, a burglar may not be compelled to pay keifel (double) today, because such payment exceeds the actual loss.

On the other hand, many cases related to compensation are adjudicated even today. The Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 1:1) says that this includes common cases of theft and unintentional property damage (though not uncommon cases). This stands in contrast to secular law, in which there is a distinction between criminal (e.g., arson) and civil (e.g., car accidents) cases. The Shulchan Aruch also lists shevess and ripui (compensating an injured party for time lost from work and for medical expenses),[2] financial obligations between people, and matters of inheritance.

[1] According to the Rama (1:3), not all cases of theft are considered common.

[2] Here, too, the Rama (1:2) cites views that shevess and ripui are not adjudicated today either, because those obligations stem from bodily injury, which he holds to be uncommon.