and do the inside workings of a Jewish court. Because we know that even nowadays we have Jewish courts. In every In most Jewish cities where you have a Jewish a larger Jewish population, you have a Jewish court besides the regular secular courts that you have as part of the country's laws. We have Jewish courts. And what we're going to discuss today is the inside workings of a Jewish court, which means we're not going to discuss a specific case that was dealt with in the court, but we're going to discuss the surrounding, the workings of how the court works and what is done, and to see the inside workings of the Jewish court. The whole idea of having a court system, that's a universal law. Obviously, we all know that. Even according to Jewish law, according to the Torah, according to the Bible, there is a In fact, there is an importance and requirement for all other people besides Jews to have their court system. We know that one of the seven Noahide laws, which are universal laws, is to set up a judicial system. So there is the concept of having a court to judge and to have a judicial system. But what we're going to discuss is the specific concept of a Jewish court, which is a specific commandment, and it's one of the 613 commandments that we have, and we're going to discuss it from the Jewish, the Torah, halacha point of view, the Jewish law point of view of how the Jewish court works even nowadays. And it's interesting that even the secular courts not only know about the Jewish courts, but there are many cases that I was involved in that their verdict was to Jewish people, religious Jews, \"Go to the Jewish court. Go to rabbis.\" As a matter of fact, just last week I know of a case that the judge looked into the case, and then finally he said, \"I don't think it belongs to me. I think you should go to your Beit Din, to the Jewish court.\" The whole idea of the Jewish court started in time of Moshe Rabbeinu, in time of Moses. Actually, it was by the advice of his father-in-law, Yitro, and he told him that what you should do is you should set up a system where you will have people judging, because till then it was Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses himself, who did all the judging. And he said, \"You're going to get tired,\" and he advised him to set up a system where we will have different people judging, and that's what's called שרי אלפים, שרי מאות, ושרי חמישים. There was There were people that would judge they would be in control. Their authority was over 1,000, then some authority over 100, over 50, over 10, and that's where the Jewish court system started. Later on, this actually became as one of the 613 commandments that we have to set up a court system, and that's from actually next next week, the beginning of next week's portion of the Torah. You know we divide the Torah, the whole Bible divided into different portions that we read every week, and throughout one year we finish the whole Torah. So next week's portion, which is the parasha of Shofetim, starts with the words שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך, which means that there is an obligation to set up a court system where you will have judges judging according to the Torah. So that's the mitzvah, the obligation, that we have to set up a court system in every city. There are different details of whether it means that every individual city must have, and there's a difference between Eretz Yisrael, Israel, and other places, but the point of this mitzvah is that we have to set up a court system where the judges will judge according to the laws of the Torah, according to the laws that were given by God in the Torah, in the Bible. And then we find later on and many times in the Torah where it refers to going to court. So in other words, it's not only an obligation on the community to set up a court system, but it's an obligation on all individual Jews that when they have a dispute, they are obligated to go to this court. We find in the in the Chumash many times like it says, \"ועמדו האנשים... לפני אלוקים.\" The people, meaning the two people who have this dispute, should stand in front of אלוקים, which normally means God, but in this case it means in front of the judges. So it's an obligation for the people to go to the judges to be judged. We find other expressions where it says ונתן בפלילים, different places where we find that you have to go to court, if you have a dispute. The commandment, this requirement goes even a step further, that when two Jews have a dispute, are obligated to go to a Jewish court and are not allowed to go to the secular courts. And that's taken from the verse in the pasuk where it says, ואלה המשפטים אשר תשים לפניהם, these are the rules that you should put, the laws you should put in front of them. And the word לפניהם in front of them means in front of Jewish judges rather than the secular courts. And that sometimes the secular court would look at the case the same way as the Jewish court. But there's a big difference whether you go to the secular court and you go to the Jewish court, because when you go to the Jewish court who judges according to the Torah, and even if the Torah will say the same thing as the secular court would say, but the reason you're going there is because you know that this is the opinion of the Torah, which is given by God. So, basically you are going to be judged by God, not by a human being. Even though these judges are human beings, but being that they're basing their judgment on the Torah, on the words of God, so therefore what they're doing really is is they're in the place of God. Which is another reason why when the Torah refers to the judges, and it says they shall stand, ועמדו האנשים לפני אלקים, that the people should stand in front of God, which really means the judges, because the judges if they judged it properly according to the rules of the Torah, which was given by God, so really you are judged so to speak by God, because it's the word of God that's going to judge you. In order to qualify to be a judge in a Beit Din, in a Jewish Beit Din, you have to have what you call semicha. And we should not confuse it with the semicha that we have nowadays. The semicha that we're talking about now is a semicha that was an authority given by a person who received the authority from a person who received the authority from a person going back all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses himself, who received the authority to judge from God himself. First person that Moshe Rabbeinu gave semicha, the real semicha and the word semicha actually means when the pasuk says וסמך את ידיו, you would put your hands on his head. So Moshe Rabbeinu was told to put his hand on Yehoshua, Joshua, who was Moshe Rabbeinu Moses' successor, and he gave him semichah and that gave him the authority to judge. And any person that this person who had this semichah would give semichah, would have the authority. And that's how it went on, and this is called סמוך איש מפי איש עד משה רבינו. This means that this person had this semichah, had this right, this authority, this right to judge going back all the way from Moshe Rabbeinu, and there was a chain without a broken link. It was all the way from Moshe Rabbeinu. But this semichah, this process of semichah only lasted till, I would say close to, I don't know exactly what it would be, maybe 1700, 1,700 years ago or something like that. And then for many reasons the semichah stopped. And therefore, because the semichah stopped, theoretically you wouldn't have any person who would have this right to be able to judge because he doesn't have this semichah, and that semichah stopped, there was no more semichah given. But the last people who had this semichah said that we are appointing all rabbis from all future generations, we give them a sheluchus. Sheluchus means a mission. They will serve as our agents to judge cases according to the Torah, and whatever they judge, this is as if we judged it. There is a concept in halachah, in the Torah, and also in secular world called sheluchus, which means you make somebody an agent, and we know the concept of שלוחו של אדם כמותו, that if you make somebody an agent, he takes the place of the person himself, so it's like him. So they gave the later generations, the rabbis of later generations, those that qualify because they have the proper knowledge and they are yirei shamayim, proper behavior, etc. etc., so they have the sheluchus of judging the cases as a mission of the judges from the generations before when the semichah was there. This sheluchus that they gave them, this right that they gave them, really is not concerning all cases. There are cases, many cases that a Beit Din of nowadays, when I say nowadays it goes back all the way from the time when the semichah stopped, have no right to judge. Basically it's דיני קנסות. קנסות means fines. There are certain cases in the Torah, that if a person commits a certain crime, he is fined, besides paying back, let's say if he stole something, besides paying back the money that he stole, he is fined. For instance, if someone stole and was taken to court and was found guilty, because witnesses came and they said they saw how he stole, so this person not only pays back the amount that he stole, but he also has to give כפל, כפל means double. That is called a fine. Now, that fine, a קנס, could only be judged by the people who had the official original semichah. Those that don't have it, which means all these generations from then when it stopped, have no right to judge the cases of קנסות. Certainly not capital cases, certainly not cases that have to do with מלקות. Certain things in the Torah that if a person transgresses he gets the lashes, and obviously this the Beit Din doesn't have any right. The right that we have is for דיני ממונות. That's monetary disputes between people, that's where they gave us the right. And in a few other cases, like for instance, in the case of giyur, when you have to convert, and the halachah is, the law is, that the only way a person, a non-Jew, could be converted to become Jewish, is when he has to go through the whole process, but whatever has to be done has to be done in front of a Beit Din, has to be done in front of a Beit Din. So for that, the Beit Din has the authority given as a sheluchus, as a mission, from the בית דין, the original בית דין. Just as another example, התרת נדרים. If a person makes a vow, you must keep your vow, but then there's a concept that if you go to a בית דין and you find a reason why you are able to nullify that vow, and I'm not going into the laws of a vow so don't take it so lightly that means anybody who wants could nullify a vow, it's a whole process, but that has to be done through a בית דין. And the בית דין that we have now also has the authority of doing this. And a few more things, but the other things that the original בית דין had, we don't have. So basically what I'm saying is that the בית דין now, the judges, have this right as a שליחות from the בית דין when the סמיכה, when we had the סמיכה at the time of the, before the סמיכה stopped. The purpose of the בית דין is that they will judge the cases according to the Torah. Now, according to the Torah means according to the Bible, but according to the תורה שבעל פה, the way we have it in the oral Torah. And not only the oral Torah the way it's in the Mishnah, but it has to be based on the cases that were already codified by the earlier codifiers. And this goes on, earlier meaning earlier than our generation. The Shulchan Aruch, which was written by the בית Yosef Karo, is a basis of halachah. And then you have other rabbis who have written works of halachah, so the פסק דין, the case has to be judged based on all those writings that they had before. But basically it has to be based not on regular human understanding, but it has to be based on the halachah. Now, the halachah many times is based and has a lot of understanding which we call שכל אנושי, regular human understanding, regular knowledge, an understanding, but the basis has to be based on the way it's in the Torah. Now, sometimes, and I'm just going to get into a little bit more soon, sometimes, and maybe many times, it's not that we פסקן according to the way the strict law would be, but it would be פסקנט according to a pesharah. A pesharah means a compromise. And we tell the litigants before, that, you know, that in the בית דין that we're going to be sitting now, we will look into it, and we might want to come up with a compromise. And if both sides agree that the בית דין, the judges, should come up with a compromise, then usually this is what would be done, a pesharah would come up, it would be a compromise. But they have to agree to it.

But I think I would, we'd like to backtrack a little bit and start off with the process of the בית דין. This was just like an introduction to what the whole בית דין is all about. When it comes to a case, there are two, let's say two people have a dispute, a monetary dispute. So the first thing that they try to do is try to sit down between themselves, and see maybe they could work it out, obviously. They could try to find a person who would help arbitrate, and through arbitration they would come to some kind of understanding. But if they don't, then one, the one that's the plaintiff, would obviously want to call a דין תורה, want to go to court. And if he wants to go to court, what the first thing he would do is, he would go to the secretary of the בית דין of the town that he lives in, and I have to tell you nowadays it doesn't even work by cities as it used to work years ago, because now in many cities we have different Jewish communities. You have Lubavitcher community, and you have the Litvishe community, you have you might have the Gerer community, different groups of Yidden, and they have their own בית דין. So whatever group you belong to, you would normally want to go to the בית דין that is appointed according to your group, to the to the people who belong to your group. So the first thing you would do, you would go or call the secretary of the בית דין and tell them that you want a דין תורה. And you have to tell him the, not the details, but the general claim that you have. And the first thing that he would have to do is look in to see whether the claim has any substance, because sometimes you have claims which don't even have no meaning that it's not even worth to waste time on such a case. So what he would do He is qualified to look into and see whether there He doesn't know the details, doesn't know who's right or who's wrong, but what he does is he looks into to see that we say יש בו ממש, there is some substance there. Many times he would not do it on his own, he would discuss that with one of the other rabbis that are part of the beit din. And if he sees that this is a claim that deserves a case, that deserves a hearing, he would send a hazmana, which means a subpoena to the other side, to the defendant, to come to the beit din. And according to halacha, according to the laws of the Torah, if you are called to a beit din, you are obligated to come. You have to come. The problem is if a person doesn't want to come, what do we do? In the secular courts, where they have the authority, they have the police system, they have So then if you're in contempt of court, they could arrest you. What do we do if a person doesn't want to come? So we send them a second hazmana, which is a second subpoena, and a third one. And if the person that still doesn't want to come, then there's a concept called a siruv, which consists of two things. Number one, this would give the plaintiff the right to go to a secular court, and there the other party would have no choice, but he would have to come. And or it gives the person a right to publicize that this other person is not ready to come to beit din. And if a person doesn't want to come to beit din, according to Jewish law, he is in cherem, he's excommunicated. And most people are afraid of that, and therefore most people would not come to such a point where they would receive a ktav, which means a document which is called a siruv, a person who doesn't come to beit din when he is called to beit din. But let's assume a person is ready to come to beit din, then there are two choices. When you want to come to beit din, there are two choices of how to set establish this beit din that you're going to have. Usually, the beit din of a city has more than just three rabbis. A beit din is set up of three rabbis, but in the group there is always more than three rabbis. You have five, you have sometimes 10, a bigger city has 15, 20. And there are two ways it could work. Or you choose you say to the beit din, \"We will take three neutral rabbis who will sit and hear this case.\" So then you would assign three rabbis who have no idea obviously of what the case is about, they just know the claim, but they don't know the details, and these three neutral rabbis would sit down and hear the case. But then there's another way, that if one of the two sides says he would like a זבלא. זבלא is an abbreviation of four letters, זין, בית, למד, אלף in Hebrew, which is an abbreviation of the three of the four words three words זה four words זה בורר לו אחד. That means one side chooses a rabbi who he feels comfortable with, the other side would choose another rabbi who he feels himself comfortable comfortable with, and these two rabbis together would choose a third one who is neutral, who is not chosen by either side, who is the middle one. Now when we say that you're able to have a זבלא to choose a rabbi, it doesn't mean that the rabbi becomes your lawyer. He's not a lawyer! The rabbi is neutral, and even though you chose him and he is basically so to speak representing your side, he is still neutral and he's looking for the truth. It's not like a lawyer that is looking for everything to find that you are right. This is not what this rabbi is supposed to do. He's supposed to look for the truth. But, since the other person, the person who chose him feels comfortable with him, what he is obligated to do is to try to find more reasons to his side. But if he himself sees that the reasons aren't there and in truth the one that chose him is not right, then he is obligated to say that. Actually, I was sitting on a case where I was on one side and then we have another rabbi on the other side and then we have a third person, and after we were sitting for a while, we took a recess and we said that we have to talk about amongst ourselves to see how to continue, how to proceed. So the rabbi who was on the other side turns around to me when we were sitting by ourselves, he says, \"I don't see how the one I'm representing has a case.\" Because he wasn't his lawyer! Not a lawyer, he's the rabbi who's supposed to judge the truth and see the case as and the truth is that other side lost, because he had no case, even though he chose him. That the one that he chose was representing him, but he's not his lawyer. So this is called a זבלא. So again, the word זבלא is זה בורר לו אחד, means he this one chooses one, the זה, the זבלא, זבלא, the זבלא, the זה בורר לו אחד, and this one chooses one, and then the two choose a third, and now you have a beit din that everyone feels comfortable with. Because like this, as human nature is, when you sit down with rabbis, you always say, well, I'm afraid this rabbi, I know him, he's not, he's not going to judge it right, he doesn't like me, whatever you can always find. But here we give a chance to everybody to feel comfortable. You choose the rabbi that you feel comfortable with, you choose the rabbi that you feel comfortable with, and the two will choose a third one, and usually when the two choose a third one, even though the ones that are have the right to choose the third are the two rabbis, but they usually get the permission from the people that they represent because they want everyone to feel comfortable that when the verdict will come out, the פסק דין, which is the verdict will come out, everyone will feel comfortable that there was everything went honestly and there was nothing dishonestly, God forbid. The truth is, the truth is that if there is a set, establi- established beit din, which is Jewish court, established set beit din in the city, then unless both sides agree to have the זבלא, you can't force the other side to have a זבלא. If there is an established beit din, and you're called to the beit din, and let's say the plaintiff says, \"I want three neutral rabbis. The beit din should give us, assign three neutral rabbis, and they should judge the case,\" and the other side says, \"No, I want a זבלא,\" he has no right to demand it, because there is an established beit din. When there is not an established beit din, then even if one side says, \"I would like a זבלא rather than three neutral people,\" then he has a right to force it upon the other. That's how the system of the court works. So he has a right to to to demand it, and the beit din will have to agree to say that you will work with a זבלא. And then you set up the זבלא. And because he set up the זבלא, so now you are obligated to listen to these three people, because these three people become the beit din. Now, this זבלא that set up, because it was set up because one of the people want it, can he change his mind? Therefore, what we do is we make a שטר בירורין, which means there is a document that is signed by both parties, saying that they accept upon themselves these three rabbis, and they will lis- listen to these three rabbis. And then they are obligated, according to Jewish law, to listen to these three rabbis. To strengthen this obligation, we also make what is called a kinyan. A kinyan really means an act of acquisition. It's usually is done by picking up a handkerchief. So the three rabbis would be there and give each one of the parties a handkerchief to pick up, and by doing that, this obligates them 100% to keep what they accepted upon themselves. And when they accept upon themselves, according to Jewish law, this becomes the law, and they have to listen. As a matter of fact, if the two parties agree, and we call that accepting upon themselves, קיבלו עליהם, they could even accept people who are not qualified. If both parties agree that, \"We want these three people to judge us,\" and these three people are not three qualified judges, but if the two people say that, \"We agree to to accept them,\" and they sign the document, and they make the kinyan, then whatever these three people will say becomes law according to the Jewish law because they accepted upon themselves with the kinyan. The same applies to other things like if there's a relative, one of the three judges that are going to judge the case is a relative to one of the two parties. And the law is you cannot have a relative judge a case. But if the other party, let's say he's a relative to the plaintiff, but the defendant says, \"I don't care if he's your brother. I trust him, I don't mind,\" and he signs for it, and he makes a kinyan, picks up that that handkerchief, then he's allowed to judge it, and whatever the rabbis will say according to halacha, they must listen to. And that this leads us to another thing. When we have this זבלא, when we have the each one chooses one, and they're going to judge the case, can the rabbi that chosen by his party listen to the details of the case before the actual hearing? Normally there is a halacha, which is a logical halacha, it makes sense, that you're not allowed to hear the details of the case from one party without the presence of the other. And it's logical too. But this is halacha besides the logic. We do it not because of the logic, because that's what the Torah says, halacha, but It's logical, too. Because if you hear it from one person, automatically it makes an impression. And if you got the first impression of this side, without the other person to be able to dispute it, or to answer, then that is already an impression and later on your mind is going to work for him. So therefore, you are not allowed to listen to one side without the presence of the other side. The question is by a זבל״א, since this rabbi is representing you, can you discuss with him the details before the actual hearing? So this is actually an argument among the different codifiers, the different poskim. The Aruch Hashulchan, one of the famous poskim, says that in the case of a זבל״א you are allowed, but many, many disagree. In actuality, there are different batei dinim, different batei din's, some allow it, some don't allow it. And the truth is, those that do allow it, it's not only because they follow the ruling of the Aruch Hashulchan and say it's allowed, but because it is known to the both parties that this is going to happen, then it's allowed according to all opinions. Now explain why, because I just explained that if both parties accept something, then you could do it even though according to the original halacha you can't do it, but if they both accept, you could. Just like we said you can't have a relative judge, but if the other side, both sides accept it, it's okay. In this case, too. If one party would say, \"I don't mind if the rabbi that represents you will discuss the case with you,\" then according to all opinions you're allowed to do that. So those courts, those batei dinim that follow this opinion and say that you are allowed to listen to one side, each party, each זבל״א we call them, actually the זבל״א is called a בורר. Each one is called the בורר, the one that was chosen by his party, and the third one is called the שליש, the third. So if one side says that I don't mind if your בורר will listen to your side, then he's allowed to listen to his side according to all opinions. And if the other one will say that I don't mind if yours, if your rabbi listens to your side, so then you're allowed to, according to all opinions. So therefore, there are many batei dinim, many courts, who allow this, and they say it's not because we rely only on the ruling of the Aruch Hashulchan, we rely because since the both litigants are told, and it's known that this court allows it, and they came to our court, so obviously they accepted it upon themselves. And therefore, you are allowed to do. Give me the questions for the...

And this is the process of the hearing. When you come to the beit din, the first thing they do, if they didn't do it before, is sign the שטר בוררין, the document that they accept these three rabbis. And actually, even if it's not a זבל״א, we also make them sign this document to make sure that later on they cannot say that we didn't know, we didn't, you know, no, human nature, you always find excuses. No, the one that loses, obviously, not the one that wins, always. I've never heard a complaint from a person that wins that complains that the rabbi wasn't honest, and this happened, that happened, never. I did hear many times complaints from a party that lost. You know why? The Rebbe once said, this is just a by-the-way thing, I don't want to get off the track, the Rebbe once said that why is it that when a person has a sheilah, a question, a halacha question, that involves a loss of money, and he will come to the rabbi and the rabbi will say it's treif, like in the olden days when you had, you checked a cow, and there was a sheilah, and coming to the rabbi and the rabbi said it's treif, and the cow was worth 300 ruble, and the rabbi said it's treif, and this butcher lost 300 ruble, wouldn't he be angry at the rabbi? So, he asked a shailah and the shailah is treif. How come if he comes to the same rabbi or the same בית דין with a dispute for 300 ruble and he loses, he'll scream and say the rabbi was corrupt and this is corrupt, well, what's the difference? But the Rebbe says, because in this case, the other one wins. In the regular cases, nobody else wins. But besides that, there's another reason also. When you come to a Rav with a shailah, you don't have an opinion. You're coming to hear his opinion. You know that the rabbi is an expert in halachah, and he will tell you what the halachah says, and that's what you want to hear. You don't have an opinion that it's kosher. But when you come to a בית דין, and you claim that the person owes you money, and you feel that it's true, so you have an opinion, and the rabbi says that he doesn't owe you the money, then you feel the rabbi is wrong. But anyway, to make sure that no one has any complaints later, we make everyone always sign a document, the שטר בוררין, we make the kinyan, and then the proceeding starts. I do want to mention that there is a time, what happens if a plaintiff calls him to a, invited him to a certain בית דין, and the other person says, the defendant says, \"I don't like this בית דין, I want to go to a different בית דין.\" Now, there are certain cases where he can't say that and he is forced and he must come to this בית דין if he wants to listen to the halachah. And if he doesn't want to listen to halachah, if he's ready to get a סירוב like we said. But there are many cases where if there is a dispute which בית דין to go to, it's הולכין אחר הנתבע. It is the defendant that has the right. And if he wants to go to a different בית דין, and he gives a logical reason, then he would have to he would force the plaintiff to go to that בית דין. Anyway, getting back to this case, so we come, we sit down, we start the hearings. Nobody else is there, besides the two parties and the rabbis. Even if they have witnesses that they want to bring, so then we keep the witnesses outside, and when they're needed, they're called in. But anybody else, besides, we call them the בעלי דין, the two parties involved in the dispute, no one else is allowed, unless the two parties don't care, \"We want him to watch.\" Otherwise, but if one party doesn't want a certain person to be there, then he has the right. Sometimes, in דין תורה when it starts, before we even start the hearing of the actual case, a lot of time is spent on the people who are present, that one side will say, \"What is he doing here? He doesn't belong here, he's not part of the dispute.\" And the other one will say, \"What do you mean? Yes, he is part of the dispute because of this.\" And there's a whole argument on the spot whether this person is part of the dispute or not. In that case, it's up to the three rabbis who sit there to decide whether this person is allowed to participate, be present, or not. Whether we allow a lawyer. See, in secular courts, they always have a lawyer. In Jewish courts, usually it's the two בעלי דין, the two litigants themselves that are there. What happens if one person A טוען means somebody who will talk for you, who will bring up the claims for you. In Israel, they call it טוען רבני. They have an עורך דין who is a lawyer in the secular court, because in Israel they have the secular court, and then you have a טוען רבני. Do we allow a טוען? There are different בתי דינים, different Jewish courts. Some do, some don't. For instance, in Israel, the רבנות הראש... the רבנות, the official רבנות of the State of Israel allows a טוען. Many בתי דינים, Jewish courts in America also allow, some don't. But if you do allow a טוען, and one side plans to bring a טוען, plans to bring a lawyer, then he has to notify the בית דין a while before, and the בית דין will notify the other party that this person is bringing a lawyer, and therefore you now have the opportunity, right, if you want, that you should also be able to bring a lawyer. But if the person didn't notify the בית דין before, and when he comes to the דין תורה he sits down with a lawyer, so the other person doesn't object, then why not? Like we said, if he's mekabel, he accepts it upon himself, we don't mind. But the other person says, \"I object, I don't want him to have a lawyer,\" then the בית דין will not allow the lawyer there, because he didn't give ample time for the other side to bring a lawyer too. When we start with the hearings, the first one that speaks is the תובע. The תובע is the plaintiff, comes up with his טענות, all his claims. And we give him a chance to speak basically as long as he wants, unless it gets out of hand. And we don't allow the other party to interrupt. And if he has any questions or any, because sometimes you hear, the other party hears him saying things which cooks up his blood, you know, \"How could he say such a thing? He said this, I did\" So we tell him, \"Calm down, mark it down, and when your chance to talk will come, you will be able to talk. He won't be able to interrupt.\" And then he talks, and after he comes up with all his claims, and he brings up documents if he has to bring up documents, then the other party gets a chance to answer. When he brings up any documents, usually he would give a copy of the documents to all the three to all three rabbis, but he's also obligated to give a copy of the documents to the other party. If he doesn't give the document, let's say there's something he wants to show, he would have to show it to the other party too, because they both have to be equal, have equal time and equal opportunity. And when he's finished talking, then the other party answers, and can go on and back and forth, back and forth. The rabbis during this time ask them all kinds of questions, just to get a good picture of what his side is, and then we ask the other side, the other party questions. There's always a discussion, \"Do we allow cross-examination from one party to the other?\" Usually, it's up to the three rabbis on the spot to decide whether they feel it's right for this person to ask him questions, because sometimes the questions are questions the rabbis themselves need to hear. Many times, in the middle there will be a recess, and the rabbis will discuss between themselves to see how things are going, then we would continue. And this could take sometimes six hours, seven hours, eight hours, I've sat, and sometimes this meeting is not enough, and the next day we sit down again, sometimes it goes into 3 days, and it all goes with the same seder, the same order, that one talks, another one talks, in the middle if they want to bring in witnesses, then we give them the time to bring in the witnesses, and then the other person could answer back, etc., etc. There are certain things that used to be done years ago in a Beit Din which we don't do anymore nowadays, and that is a שבועה. One of the things in halacha that sometimes is that one of the parties, according to the situation, is required to take an oath. And taking an oath was so serious, that if he took the oath with to qualify what he said, that would be a reason to believe what he said and give him the right. But what happened is that unfortunately, it became that even under oath, some people might not say the truth. And then it's not worth it to make him take an oath, because the sin of swearing falsely is so terrible. The Talmud tells us that when Hashem said in the Ten Commandments, in עשרת הדיברות, he said לא תשא את שם ה' אלקיך לשוא, do not mention my name in vain, which really means to not swear false, it says נזדעזע כל העולם, the whole world shook. That's how strict is swearing false, taking an oath and then not and then lying or swearing falsely. So therefore, when the batei din saw that it's possible and it became more common that people would swear falsely, so that stopped. So we don't have a שבועה, but what we do is try to get the information and try to get the documents, and try to verify who is right, who is wrong. And then after the Din Torah, the rabbis would right away sit down between themselves to discuss the matter, in brief of seeing how it's going, and then, I could tell you, hours upon hours upon hours later, and not necessarily Excuse me, the next day, could be days later, the rabbis get together. The problem is many times we have a Beit Din that the rabbis are from different cities, like in the Beit Din that I'm part of, which is the Beit Din of Vaad Rabonei Lubavitch, the official Lubavitcher Beit Din, I'm from Miami, we have a rabbi from Brooklyn, a rabbi from Toronto, a rabbi from Cincinnati, and you have a rabbi from Los Angeles, they're from different places. So what we do is, we do get together sometimes in person, but many times we have conference calls that go on for hours and hours and hours, to come to an understanding of what's happening. And many times we get back to the two parties, and we ask them for more documents, and we ask for verification, and one thing is clear: whenever we speak to one party, we have to have the other party on the line, and whenever we ask for a document to be sent, we always tell them you must send the document to the other party, too. Besides that, the rabbis themselves do their own investigation. Because there's certain things that they say that this is the way things go, we would speak ourselves to people who are experts in that field to see which way it works. We would also I'll just give an example of what I just said, I just came to my mind, there was once a case that I had, it was over a million and a half dollars, actually it took place in my house, and two rabbis came from New York, and the two litigants, they were both from Miami, so it took place in my house for three days in a row, and it was over perfume that they were partners and then they broke up, and there was a whole bunch of stock of perfume left and the question was how much was it worth, the whole story, and he said it was worth more, and that was very hard hard, you know, to verify. I happened to go to a wedding then to France, to Nice, and I one of the tours we took was to see a place where they make perfume! And it was it wasn't my choice, it was just a tour that we took. When I came there, hey! So I asked for a meeting with the owner or manager, I don't remember who it was, and I sat down with him for a while, and he just explained everything to me, the difference that's the difference whether it's in a glass bottle or in a in a metal bottle or is through a plastic bottle and this and that, and I told him the case, and he told me his professional, professional opinion, and we used that later in our verdict, used that professional opinion, because he was a professional and he knew, because that's what we have to figure out. We also talk to lawyers sometimes if we have to. We talk to lawyers to find out what is the legal law. Now you might ask, what do we care what is the legal law? If you want to pasken according to the legal law, let them go to court! To the secular court. We're paskening according to the Torah. So what do we care what the legal law is? But I'll tell you why. In Torah, in halacha, there is a law, there is a halacha, that הכל כמנהג המדינה, that the halacha is that it depends, a lot of things depend on what is the custom of this place. And it also depends, it says sometimes, how the people, when they made the deal, let's say there's a dispute about a deal that they made, and there's a question what the certain wording of this meant, and they made a legal document. So we, in order to know what they meant, we ask legal advice to tell us what this meant, not because the legal advice will be the one that will govern this halacha, this case, because then if he signed a legal document, he accepted upon himself the legal laws, and therefore according to halacha, we have to follow the legal laws. So we would find out what are the legal laws, what does a lawyer say, and it doesn't mean that always it would follow that because there are so many other details involved, but we would go according this would help us in deciding the case. After a while passes, whatever the case it is, a week, a few weeks, sometimes it goes a long time, we come with a verdict, and usually, always it is that whatever two out of the three rabbis agree upon, that's the verdict, that's the pesak din. We write the pesak din, we give out a document with the pesak din, the document contains the general טענות, claims that they had, the answers that the other side had, and what the pesak din is, signed by all three rabbis. It is forbidden to the one rabbi that that disagreed with this פסק, but nevertheless had to sign because it's the majority, it's forbidden for him to come out later and tell anybody that I was one that that disagreed. The Gemara says, the Talmud says that this is called הולך רכיל מגלה סוד, he's not allowed to tell. The Talmud tells us a story of a student, must have been a rabbi in a case, that 20 years after the case said that I was against it, he was fired from his job, because you're not allowed to do that, because the case is paskent by the three. That's why when you have a זבל״א, the third person is very, very important, because we could assume, or possible, very possible, that the one that represent each side will probably try to feel that this one is right, so the one that will be the deciding factor is that third party, the middle one. That's why you have to be very careful whom you choose as the third person, because he's the one that's going to count. After you finish with the pesak din, we give out the verdict and the person and they have to follow. As I said before, many times it is not strict halacha, because according look into the all the different sources and that's the verdict, but it's a פשרה, it is a a פשרה, a a compromise between the two, and this is halacha again, because when they sign that document, in the document we make them sign, it says that we give the authority, we accept these three rabbis, we give them the authority to pasken according to halacha, or if they feel that a a compromise would be better, we accept it. And the moment they sign that and they made the kinyan, then the compromise is the halacha and they have to follow. If a person does not follow the halacha, then, just like if a person does not come to court, he will get a siruv, which is a document saying that he does not listen to the Beit Din. In this case, too, he will get a siruv, and this would mean that or and that he or he would go give him the right to go to the courts and collect, and that you could publicize it. But a siruv of this nature is much stronger than the other siruv, because in most cases, the psak din of the Beit Din will stand up in court under the law of arbitration. I said there are two types of siruvim. There's one, if you send a subpoena to the to the defendant and he doesn't call, he doesn't answer, and you send a second and a third, then you send give him a siruv. The siruv means he has a right, now the plaintiff has a right to take him to court, and he could hang up this siruv in all the shuls and publicize it, print it in the Jewish Press. Every week in the Jewish Press you see siruvim that they print. You could do that, that's one thing. Then, if he does go to court, and then there is a psak din and he doesn't listen, we give also a siruv, and now the person has a right, the plaintiff who the one that, let's say, won has a right to take him to court. Now here, when he takes him to court, he takes him to court and shows the psak din of Beit Din. The original, the other siruv, he has nothing to show, he just has a right to go to court, and who knows what the court is going to say. But in this case, because the Beit Din already paskent and gave a verdict that he's right, he could take that document to court, and in secular court, in many cases, it'll stand up. And the court will not listen to the case, will not hear it, will say will force the person by the right of the court to listen to this psak din because this is under the law of arbitration, and in most states it works. In the State of New York it works, and I know the State of Florida it works, there's it's under the law of arbitration. This is this the final thing at the end, if the person doesn't listen. Hopefully, the person listens, and then he's doing what the Torah wants him to do, and he listens to the Beit Din. I just want to say that How much more time do we have? Okay, so I'm going to speak for about five minutes, then I'll give a chance for questions.

Not always is it a dispute over actual money. Sometimes it is dispute over rights, just like in a secular court. I actually had a case of a person who was hired to do things by two companies, and I'm using the word companies, really it's not companies, by two institutions, and later the two institutions broke up, and there was a question under who is he now? Who is his boss and who is he supposed to answer to? And he said, \"I have to answer to this one,\" and the other party said that, \"No, you have to answer to us,\" and there was a whole discussion and it was a long case, and finally we came with a verdict, that we saw from all the documents who hired him first, and who is second, and and it took a while, and we figured out that he was hired by this this person first, and therefore he belonged to him and he had the he had the rights over him. Then I just want to add that one more point, that sometimes the whole dispute is that the monetary dispute, but the whole basis of the claim is only halacha and Torah. So usually the basis of the claim is not halacha. I I'll just give a simple elementary case, if you tell somebody you \"I take you to Beit Din because you borrowed $100 and you didn't pay me.\" The basis of this claim is not halacha, is he owes him the money he borrowed. You damaged, you did caused me damage, whatever it is. But sometimes you can have a case which the case to begin with starts with halacha. Now use an example of דינא דבר מצרא, and why do I use that example, that's a case I had not long ago. דינא דבר מצרא is a din, it's a halacha, it's not a secular there's no I don't I don't think there's any legal law to that, there that if two people are neighbors, it's originally concerning a field, the same thing is by houses according to most opinions, if you have two fields, one is owned by Reuven let's say, one is owned by Shimon. And then Reuven wants to sell his field, the first right have to go to Shimon. He has to sell it to Shimon if Shimon wants to buy it. As a matter of fact, the halacha is, if he sold it to a stranger, to a third person, Levi, Shimon has a right to go to Levi and take the field away, he has to pay him whatever he paid, and he doesn't even have to do an act of acquisition according to halacha with the original owner, because it turns out that the one that bought it is as if he's an agent of the neighbor, because the halacha is it belongs to the neighbor. Unless the neighbor foregoes and says, \"I don't mind, I don't need it,\" fine, but otherwise, this is halacha, דינא דבר מצרא. So I had a case lately where there was a person who sold a house next door to him. He sold that house to a third person, and the neighbor came later complaining that, \"I would like to buy the house, and first right go to me, and even though you sold it already, I have to take it.\" And we looked into this, and what turned out, that he brought witnesses that at the time before, when he was looking when the stranger was looking into buying this house, he once was standing outside the house and he saw this neighbor, and he said to the neighbor, \"You're a neighbor here, I see this is for there's a for-sale sign, are you interested in buying this house?\" He said, \"No, I don't have the money, I'm not interested,\" and this and this was months before, and he forgot about it, or he made as if he forgot, I don't know. Came to the דין תורה, he said, \"I have first rights.\" But after this person brought the witnesses and we examined them and so on and, he said that it's true, he told him, and there were witnesses, it was in front of two people, they happened to be standing there, so he lost the case. The בר מצרא lost the case. But here is a case where legally I don't think you would have a case to begin with. Is there any legal I'm not familiar with legal law, is there any legal law that you have to sell it to your neighbor? No, but in halacha there is. And if he would not have foregone by that, if he would not have the witnesses, he would have lost the case. The buyer would have lost the case, and he would have to give it away to him. So I'm just saying that sometimes it starts off with halacha, and that's certainly something you can't go to court, and in this case a סירוב wouldn't have helped, because if he'd gone to court, he would have lost. But Baruch Hashem, the person listened, he said, \"Okay, you're right. I I did agree,\" and so on, and then it stayed with the person. But one point I do want to bring out is that according to halacha, it is very very important for a Jewish person to go to a Jewish court if only possible. Sometimes it's not possible if you're dealing with a non-Jew. You can't call a non-Jew to court to to Jewish court, so you have to go to court. Or what happens if the other person is a person that's not religious, and to him the Jewish court means nothing? So then you need permission from the beit din to go, but they will give it to you right away. They know that there's no use in calling him to court. Why go through the motions and call him to beit din and he won't come, and then you'll give him a note that he's able that he is able to go? So they would give permission right away, but you do need permission. Or sometimes, even when the person we call גברא אלמא, we know that the person that you're dealing with, the other party, is a nasty person and we had cases already before that he didn't listen and there's no use in bringing him to beit din, then also you could go to the beit din and get permission, and the beit din will pasken that you're able to go, and you go right away to court. But otherwise, it is very important to go to Jewish court because, according to halacha, the Jewish court has the right. And if they're honest dayanim, honest judges, which we hope they're all are, and it doesn't mean that they they're only human beings, sometimes that they could make a mistake, or sometimes that you could find the one that's not so honest, but usually I the majority of the majority are all honest, so when they pasken the din, whichever way they they do do it, whether it's through three mutual ones or a זבל״א, this is the word of God. This is ועמדו האנשים לפני אלוקים. They are paskening according to the Torah. Even if they pasken because the lawyer told them according to legal law, but they didn't do it because of the lawyer. Because the lawyer said so, it became the minhag of the place. If it's a minhag of the place, halacha says that's the law, so they pask-- it's the word of God, and that's Elokim. That's how important it is. And we hope that just like it says that when we have a case, a judge judges a case, it says אלוקים ניצב בעדת-אל. God stands in the community of of judging when there's a beit din going on, God is a participant. So if He's there, so certainly it's important to go to a Jewish court. And we just ask Hashem that God should not judge us, He should look at us without judging us, but give us everything that we need, give us now, this time of the year it says from after חמישה עשר בשבט you could already wish a happy and healthy New Year. So, we should have a happy and healthy New Year, both till the end of the year and then from Rosh Hashanah on for the whole year, and we should have the coming of Mashiach very, very soon.

Yes, there was somebody who had a question before and then you're next, yeah. Du kannst... Yes, sometimes. Right. I do want to add that there is a possibility for the parties to later on ask what we call מהיכן דנתוני, to ask to ask what was the basis of your פסק דין, and they'll have to answer them. But it is final and many times it's referred to, exactly. Okay. The truth is I was waiting for a question like that, not from the costly part, but how much do the rabbis get paid? But I tell you the truth, it costs, I mean, much less than in secular courts. I'll tell you the whole region this thing the way and as prices go up, this goes up too. But to send a הזמנה, when a person a plaintiff comes to beit din, he said, \"I want to send a הזמנה,\" which means a subpoena, it's $100 or $150, that's all it is. Then they tell them that it's for the first hour no, no, now it changed already. For every hour each rabbi gets $100 an hour, which for professional work like this, is very, very cheap, $100 an hour. And if the goes on for 10 hours, so each rabbi will get $1,000. And then there are other costs like flying in the rabbis, expenses. So, if it's if it's a זבל״א, then the one that you're flying in, you have to pay his expenses. But otherwise, each one pays equally. We're not allowed to take from one more than the other. So, each one gives, except expenses that are paid. Then some batei dinim, later on when the rabbis have to spend a lot of time later researching and also get paid. I feel like this beit din on my end so far doesn't do that. We're planning it, hoping it's going to happen. But those are basically the expenses. Or if expenses of making copies or sending overnight, things like that, that's Okay. Yes. So, far what does he want to do? Right. I don't want I don't want to call him to beit din. The the plaintiff? Right. But then he would pay has to pay all the expenses that was occurred. Yes. Yes, yes. That's basically the same question and that they do. Okay. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. You can call, yeah. You could call, you know, this person that you're talking about belongs to a certain community, you could call up the beit din, or one of the rabbanim, one of the rabbis of that community, of that beit din, and ask, \"Do you know anything about this person?\" Sure, sure. It's advisable to do it. And I would also advise a person is going into a business partnership and things like that, and you write up you make up your documents, and you have always a lawyer look it over, and if they're true religious people you know that if ever there'd be a dispute or go to a beit din, it's good, it's advisable that a rabbi should look over too. To see that it, halachadik, it's fit. Very hard. The truth is, the Sanhedrin, there's a question whether the Sanhedrin will come back before Mashiach or after Mashiach. If it comes back after Mashiach, then Mashiach will be the one to choose. But if it's before, Eliyahu Hanavi, it says, will be there before, and he will be able to choose. And then, besides that, there are certain people, rabbis in the world, that we assume will fit into the Sanhedrin. I'll tell you a story, and it's not even the presenting of a Lubavitcher rabbi, a different rabbi, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who is one of the top רב-rabbi. So, they tell a story that in his older age, the doctor said he has to put in a pacemaker. So, he said, \"I have to think about it. Give me a few days to to decide.\" After a few days, he came back, and he decided, \"I'm ready to do it.\" Someone later asked him, \"What was your question? The doctor said that you need it. What was your question?\" This is what he said, \"We know Mashiach is coming soon. The Sanhedrin will be back. I assume,\" he says, \"I probably will be chosen as a member of the Sanhedrin, and there's a law that a member of the Sanhedrin cannot have any blemish, any mum. I investigated in halacha if putting in a pacemaker would be considered a blemish, and I came to a decision that it's not, so I accepted to do it.\" Yes. Right. Right. There There is There is no clear-cut law in this, and usually what's done, from my experience, is that first the plaintiff speaks, and if he has witnesses, we tell him to wait till after he's able to reply. After the first round, then we call in the witnesses. Even though he might say, \"I still have more to add,\" after the first, we call in the witnesses, and then you continue. But not in the middle, because we want that he should be able to answer before we call in the witnesses, so we should know how to accept what the witnesses say. Because sometimes what the what the defendant is going to answer will have a big make a big difference in how to even when we question the witnesses, what to question. So, that's why we leave the after the usually. But sometimes, it's not like that. Yes. No, no. No, like Israel, you would say. In Israel, they have a much better official, set, established beit din system. But others, there's nothing We are not obligated because of what they said and not what we say. We take in consideration what another beit din said as always a precedent, but there is no such thing as one sitting over another. If anything, it would be maybe over the individual people. If you heard that there was a beit din where Rabbi Moshe Feinstein sat, and he pas ken't one way, then usually you'd look at it differently. But not because if the beit din in this place or at that place. Or if you hear a great Lubavitcher Rav who he knows is very respected, and he is a big expert, so you do that. But it's only if it's not cases anything that has to do with the person himself. I just want to tell you that a a person, a rabbi, who could be the biggest expert, but when it comes to himself, he cannot judge a case. He cannot you know, he's called a נוגע בדבר. A נוגע בדבר, how would you say it in English, if he has his personal connection to it. I'll tell a story of the Shach. The Shach was one of the great, great poskim, lived about 300 years ago, and he wrote a sefer on Choshen Mishpat. Choshen Mishpat is the part of the Shulchan Aruch which deals with monetary disputes, which a dayan would have to be well-versed in. And he wrote a commentary called Shiftei Cohen, the Shach. And this commentary is accepted, and all his ideas and his halachot are all accepted by everybody. So, when he was still a young man, and he just just printed his sefer, he once he himself had a dispute with somebody. And they didn't know where to go, because everyone knew the Shach. Which רב would take a case of the Shach against somebody else? So, he went to some far, far away little shtetl where the רב was an an expert, but he probably never saw the Shach, never Those days, without internet, you know, never saw him, so he wouldn't know. They came in as two individuals, and he he accepted it, his beit din accepted it. In the middle, when it came to pas ken, he said an idea that, \"I think that the other side is right,\" and he said why. So, the Shach says to him, And started discussing, where did you get this idea from? Says, well there's a new book that just came out called the Shiftei Kohen. Right? Okay. Okay? I think this is the last question, cuz... Okay. Yeah. Right, as a and if the if the custom is that you're able to talk to him before? What? Yeah, and one says not. So those places, those בתי דינים that follow the opinion of the Aruch Hashulchan tell the other person, sorry, we paskan that you are allowed to. You can't stop the other per- you can't stop him from talking because the halacha is you're allowed to. Those places that don't follow the Aruch Hashulchan, and the only reason they allow it is because people accept it, then he wouldn't be able to do it. But then you know, the bet din would say to him, if you don't want to allow it, go to a different bet din, because our bet din does allow it. And you know, you have a right to say no, so then, but that's not our custom. Yes. Well, this has nothing to do with the bet din. It's a, the question not really on this subject, but I will answer it anyway. If people are getting divorced, are they required to get a civil divorce? Required legally, sure. And even according to halacha. In other words, I'll tell you in a case somebody came to me, I should be mesader kiddushin, couple, I should marry them. This is a second marriage, and they got a get, religious people, they have a get. I asked him, did you get your civil divorce yet? It was a husband asking whatever. I said, did you get your civil divorce yet? He said, no, I got my get, they're in middle of proceedings or half you know there's a discussion over I think custody of a child, I forgot what it was. And he said he didn't get his civil divorce yet. I told him I'm not mesader kiddushin. Now it doesn't mean that according to halacha you're not allowed to, but definitely we tell the person you should get a civil divorce. Now it doesn't mean that if he does it, but halachically, you cannot get married. A person who is married cannot marry somebody else. But if he got the get, halachically you're allowed to marry, even though we advise them and we tell them you should get a a civil divorce. But if you're asking me, a person is considered married without a civil divorce halachically? No. But definitely we would not advise anybody to do that way. Yes. Oh, oh, somebody had her hand up. Oh, okay, go ahead.