When Rabbis Go Off Script

Abstract This chapter analyzes three Talmudic passages that describe rabbis acting lifnim mi-shurat ha-din in the context of an established personal or business relationship. It argues that this relational context provides the impetus for going off script and shows how the Talmudic editors use this phrase to both explain and legally contain the rabbis’ improvisational judgments. It also demonstrates how the conceptual paradigm advanced in this book of lifnim mi-shurat ha-din as improvisational judgment is better able to account for the textual data than the existing models of lifnim mi-shurat ha-din as either supererogation or a “waiver of rights.” Finally, the chapter shows how the editors differentiate between divine and human decisions to go off script and explains why the human decisions to improvise are more destabilizing.