History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

The principle that the Law must be acceptable to the community as a whole was implicit in Judaic jurisprudence and sometimes explicit: ‘Any decree which the court imposes on the community and which the majority of the community does not accept, has no force.’152 Man was seen both as an individual, with rights, and as member of a community, with obligations. No system of justice in history has made more persistent and on the whole successful efforts to reconcile individual and social roles – another reason why the Jews were able to keep their cohesion in the face of otherwise intolerable pressures. Society required that there should be equality before the law – the greatest of all possible safeguards for the individual – but society, especially one under constant persecution, had its own priorities within that general equality.