Tikvah Fellow
Academic Year 2011-2012
Berachyahu Lifshitz
Berachyahu Lifshitz studied in a high Yeshivah and served in the IDF. His academic degrees (in law and in Talmud) are from the Hebrew University, where he served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law and as the head of The Institute for Research in Jewish Law. He is the Editor of the "Shenaton Hamishpat Ha'Ivry" and the "Jewish Law Annual."
He wrote four books and about seventy articles on various topics in Talmud, Jewish Law, the history of Jewish law and the Oral law, the history of contract law, and the status of the Supreme Court in Israel.
http://law.huji.ac.il/eng/segel.asp?staff_id=36&cat=441&in=441
Research
Two Concepts of Oral Law (The Sadducees-Pharisees Conflict; Interpretation; Authority; Rabbinic Sources; Maimonides and Nachmanides; Catholic and Protestants; Halachah and Kabbalah)
It is my plan to explore in a more wide-range scope the phenomenon of 'promise' and its status under Jewish law. As it was established in my previous research, the understanding of its history and functioning is still not fully satisfactory. They do not fit the regular path as known to the western modern law of contracts; they show inconsistency, and there are more problems to be solved.
I shall try to answer these questions by exploring legal, textual, historical, religious, philosophical and comparative aspects. The expected results of such a research are methodological and a better understanding of Jewish law, especially with regard to economy and the human beings as 'a promising creatures'.
