Four Fathers of Damage - Parshat Mishpatim

This week on Yeshiva Net  Rabbi Jacobson discusses damages ... to your neshoma:

The Four Causes of a Dysfunctional Life
A journey through the four Talmudic definitions of a damager, and their psychological application.

"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.

"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.”"

Anger and Rage are fire. There are fires burning in many countries of the world. Why you even may know someone with a volatile nature. You can learn how to identify the problem and what the Torah says about these individuals, and perhaps how to control this tendency.

Always interesting and challenging, you can listen to this in-depth analysis online or download the mp3, and there is an accompanying Curriculum.