Four Causes for a Destructive Life: I Am an Animal; I Am Worthless; Am Superior; I Lose It

By Rabbi YY Jacobson Parsha Mishpatim
A Journey Through the Four Talmudic Categories of Damagers and Their Psychological Application
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The Torah is not only the history and development of early Judaism; not only an ethical and moral code; not only the philosophy of Monotheism; but also contains hundreds of cases of criminal, civil, and corporate law. One of the six orders of Talmud -- the order of Nezikin, Damages -- is entirely devoted to the Jewish judicial system and all of its intricate details. It analyzes and dissects hundreds of practical, as well as theoretical cases, and was organized later into one of the four sections of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law. This class will analyze these “Four Fathers of Damage” psychologically and spiritually, and show how they are the “fathers” and roots of all spiritual stagnation, emotional paralysis, and self-destructive behavior. The class concludes with the Torah approach of how to deal with these four challenges." Nezikin begins by listing four “fathers” of possible methods of damage: Ox, Pit, Human and Fire. These are four prototypes of damagers that include multitudes of “children,” the legal “offspring”, as it were, of these “fathers.”"