ABSTRACT
Western legal thinking demands total obedience to the letter of the law, making no allowance for extra-legal considerations. A very good reason underlies this approach. Man is an arbitrary and capricious creature and, therefore, cannot be trusted to rule other men. Justice and legal stability can be maintained only if society is governed by laws and not by men. Talmudic law employs a different approach. It allows judges to deviate from the law if, in their opinion, such a course is justified. Diverse legal systems, such as, Roman law, Islamic law and English law, have at times adopted a dual system of law and equity courts. The phenomenon of a kind of equity court designated to do justice in cases where, for whatever reason, the law court is incapable of doing justice, repeats itself in these and other civilizations. Uniformity of the law and supremacy of legal rules, principles, doctrines and concepts are not regarded as ideal in Talmudic law.
