13 texts
Justice in Jewish mythology is documented here through 13 source passages from 1 distinct source names represented in this theme. The strongest clusters come from Rabbinic Midrash (13), with frequent witnesses in Yalkut Shimoni on Torah (13). These texts preserve how Jewish writers, sages, and mystics described justice across biblical interpretation, rabbinic storytelling, medieval compilation, and kabbalistic teaching.
This page is a topic hub, not a single article. Use it to compare how different Jewish sources treat justice: where the theme appears in narrative, how it changes across source families, which figures or symbols recur, and which passages are most useful for citation. Representative entries include Shimon ben Shetach Summons King Yannai to Stand Before Heaven, Rabbi Akiva on Whether a Woman's Damages Pass to Her Heirs, Judging the Stoned Ox in Its Presence and the Question of Intent, Why Eye for Eye Means Payment and Not Mutilation, and The Goring Ox and Liability for Children and Converts Alike. For synthesized anthology narratives, start with How the Kalach Mapped Creation from Eyn Sof to the Receiver, Why Angels of Fire Arrived on Day Two and Truth Was Cast Down, and Why Blueprint Creation Adam and Philo Interprets Whoso.
Law (11), Commandments (6), Oral Torah (3), Divine Justice (2), Oral Justice (2), and Kingship (1)
A king's servant had killed a man, and the law made no exception for royal households. Shimon ben Shetach, head of the court, sent the king word: your servant has shed blood, send ...
When the verse says the ox killed "a man or a woman," Rabbi Akiva asks what new teaching the word "woman" adds, since liability for harming a woman was already stated. His answer i...
The verse pairs the fate of the ox with the fate of its owner, "the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death," and the Sages press that pairing hard. If a guardi...
Few verses have been twisted by outsiders more than an eye for an eye. The sages refuse to read it as butchery. When one person injures another, they teach, the wrongdoer owes five...
The Torah had already declared an owner liable when his dangerous ox killed a man or a woman. But the next verse adds that the same law applies whether the ox gores a son or a daug...
The sages work out how far an owner's liability reaches when his ox gores. The starting question is whether the law treats a child's death like an adult's. Logic alone might have s...
When a dangerous ox kills a free person, the owner pays the victim's assessed worth. A slave was technically covered by that same general law. Yet the Torah pulls the case out and ...
Resh Lakish reads the verse as a tightly linked pair. The owner gives thirty shekels to the slave's master, and the ox is stoned. He insists these two consequences stand or fall to...
A neighbor leaves a sealed jar of oil in your care. You don't pay him; you simply agreed to watch it. Then one day you tilt that jar to pour a measure for yourself. The moment your...
Rabbi Yochanan, through Rabbi Chiyya bar Abba, sets down a sharp ruling. A person who picks up a lost object becomes, in a sense, its guardian. If he then lies and claims a thief c...
One short phrase, "for any matter of trespass," is made to carry several pillars of law at once. First, the sages ask whether it merely separates the rules for cash from those for ...
What happens when a court cannot trust either party? Normally the rule is clean. When one litigant is suspected of swearing falsely, his honest opponent swears instead and collects...
From a single verse the sages draw a sweeping rule. Because the Torah specified here that the guardian's oath uses the divine name, every oath in the entire Torah must be sworn wit...
