Quebec Bar Credits Talmud

By Canadian Jewish News

It’s 8 a.m. on a weekday morning, and about 60 lawyers have arrived promptly at an industrial building on Jean Talon Street. For precisely one hour, they will listen to, and sometimes question, Rabbi Moshe Krasnanski on points of law – Jewish law, that is.

The lawyers, some of whom have been in practice for decades, have come to learn what the Talmud has to say about settling disputes between individuals.

Today, the topic is “The Accidental Treasure: Who Gets to Enjoy an Unexpected Windfall?” and chiefly revolves around who should keep something valuable discovered on private property: the current property owner, a previous owner or the finder, perhaps a hired workman who digs up a cache of gold coins no one knew was there.

The lecture was the second in a six-part series titled “You Be the Judge: Explorations in Jewish Civil Law,” presented by Chabad of the Town (of Mount Royal, TMR).

While the centre’s director Rabbi Krasnanski has taught similar classes before, this is the first time he has done so in a program designed specifically for lawyers and approved by the Quebec Bar. The lawyers will receive six hours of continued legal education (CLE) credits from the bar for successfully completing the course.

Since April 2009, all Quebec lawyers have to take at least 30 hours of CLE within a two-year period.

Among the students is Yoine Goldstein, who retired from the Senate last year, and is one of the top insolvency lawyers in Canada.

Each class poses a dilemma that is, Chabad believes, as relevant today as it was 1,800 years ago when the rabbinic sages began codifying their decisions. “Inheriting the Fruits of Sin: Can Murderers Inherit from their Victims?” was the attention-grabbing topic of the first class on Feb. 3.

Jewish tradition is compared to modern-day secular law without making any comment on which is right. They, in fact, often agree. Debate and argument are encouraged by Rabbi Krasnanski.

The other four classes cover the burden of proof, whether one must sell to a neighbour if there is a higher bidder, employee rights, and how much is owed to a “do-gooder.”

The lawyers are paying up to $150 for the series. They are issued work books to encourage further study of the talmudic texts, but there is no homework or testing.

“Lawyers will discover how Jewish civil law developed, its underlying principles and the interplay of law and ethics,” Rabbi Krasnanski said.

“There is no better introduction to the esthetic and possibility of legal thinking than talmudic discourse and Jewish case law… “You be the Judge” allows attendees to challenge conventional notions of right and wrong, and experience firsthand the exhilarating mental exploration that characterizes traditional Talmud study.”

The venue alternates between lunchtime at the downtown Montefiore Club and Chabad’s Beit Ezra Community Centre, next door to Rabbi Krasnanski’s other place of work as an executive of the online jeweller Ice.com.

He was not fazed by the pointed, hypothetical questions the lawyers asked him. After all, it’s clear from the writings left by his rabbinical forebears that they spent years looking at disputes from every angle.

Because the course is adapted from an American program, the case studies cited were adjudicated under common law, which does not apply in Quebec. Each class therefore also includes the point of view of the province’s civil code, given by a lawyer. These presenters come from such well-known firms as Stikeman Elliott and Phillips Friedman Kotler.

On this day, there is a clear divide between the three legal systems. Generally, the Talmud holds that the person who finds the treasure gets to keep it, even if the owner of the property has no knowledge that it was there; common law favours the property owner, while the civil code finds a middle ground that says the treasure should be shared equally between the finder and the property owner.

The reason the Jewish sages hewed to the common maxim “finders keepers” is that if the property owner is not aware of the object’s existence, then they, in effect, never took possession of it, Rabbi Krasnanski explained.

Likewise, if someone unwittingly sells something that actually has a greater value, the buyer is not obliged to return it or compensate him because the former owner was not aware of that worth, suggesting that a person has the responsibility to do their research before they sell, he said.

The possible exception is if the finder is an employee, working for a set period of time. In that case, the treasure is supposed to go to his boss because the Talmud says: “The hand of the worker is like the hand of the employer.” It can get complicated.

“We are told that everything in this world has a divine spark, and when we come in contact with objects, it releases that energy. If you have something, but are not conscious of it, it means it has no connection to you, but it does to someone else if they find it,” he said.

Lawyer Irwin Liebman, who gave the point of view of Quebec law, said he found Rabbi Krasnanski’s lecture, the first lecture under Chabad auspices that he has attended, interesting.

“It’s a wonderful idea that will help us in our day-to-day practice and to be good members of the community. I knew zero about this area of law. Probably there was a lecture on it early in law school, but it’s not something most lawyers do to earn a living. It was an interesting exercise.”

David Franklin found the class to be more than that. “As an international lawyer, I am often confronted with conflicts of law between countries and even within Canada, between common and civil law. Today, we looked at the differences and similarities between systems of law.

“We’ve seen that the ancient rabbis had a lot of wisdom and understanding. They could analyze a factual situation and find a solution.”