Restorative Justice

Rabbi Melanie Aron

March 30, 2001

Our Interfaith Council has recently been exploring issues within the criminal justice system, and so when I began preparing this week's Torah portion, my attention was captured by its very concluding verses. After describing with great details the various offerings in the ancient Tabernacle, the text turns to deal with what we today would consider criminal issues, in particular punishment for theft, fraud and other forms of illegal possession of another's property. I was struck by the text's stress on restitution and on the need for the criminal to make things right with his neighbor before coming to atone before God.

There is much discussion today about the failings of our criminal justice system. It is extremely expensive yet fails to rehabilitate prisoners. Often in fact it has just the opposite effect creating more crime, providing a recruiting ground for gangs, and promoting violence.

A recent Time Magazine article on criminal justice was headlined, "Each year jails take a large number of hopeless people and turn them into bitter hopeless people".

Many of those looking to reform the criminal justice system, are urging something called Restorative Justice. They suggest that divert those who are not a physical threat to our communities and center the system around criminals being confronted with their victims and made responsible for restitution. In other parts of the world this approach is used with great success and in the United States, and even in Santa Clara County, it has already been introduced to some extent in our juvenile justice system. In this way criminals, with guidance from their communities and strict contracts for compliance, come to repair some of the damage they have done.

We hear in Pesikta Rabbati, a Rabbinic text, that when the nation of the world heard the laws in this week's Torah portion they said: "According to our laws, one who takes so much as a hook belonging to Caesar is to be lacerated with plowshares: but this God is placated by a simple act of restitution".

The torah portion is found on page 777 in the Plaut Chumash.