Is there anything that a contemporary (post-) modern legal theory could or even should learn from the traditional Jewish concept of law? Before we can look for an answer to this question, we should reply to an obvious objection. Apparently, our question implies that there is “the” Jewish understanding in a problematic singular, which can then be compared to “the” Christian or Islamic concept of law. Thus, in contrast to some attempts to describe the complex idea of “monotheism,” with all its multiple genealogies, transitions and recursive conjunctions, these different religions are portrayed as sharply disconnected, unitary phenomena. Yet we do not intend such an essentialistic perspective. We will neither neglect the fact that one can find totally different conceptions within the Jewish tradition nor claim that our view represents the “actual” Jewish conception, i.e. the conception most adequate in terms of the Jewish belief—not even in the paradoxical form that states that “controversy among authorities” is “the central unit in the study of Jewish law.” Our interest is not one stemming from the concerns of religious studies, but one of legal theory. Hence, what we claim is just this: there is within the Jewish tradition a concept of law which so closely interrelates text and interpretation that it undermines the classical hermeneutic idea of an author and the meaning that he wants to give to his text. This particular understanding of the law focused on the process of reading demonstrates a remarkable resemblance to certain post-structuralist analyses of the connection between a text and its reading. Within the Jewish tradition, we will argue, the constitution of language and the understanding of law are closely interrelated.

Increasingly, the historical significance of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is becoming globally apparent. Within South Africa, debate about this imperfect but undeniably productive, transformative institution continues, long after the TRC formally shut its doors. The design of the many truth-seeking, reconciliatory mechanisms to emerge in Africa and elsewhere in recent years has been informed by comparative discussion in which the South African experience features prominently.

The TRC has been viewed as a groundbreaking confrontation with the challenges facing any transitional society: to discover the truth about the past, to account for it in ways that promote justice, and to develop reconciliation strategies that enable previously divided people to look forward, together. It represents an historic moment in which humane ways of dealing with an atrocious past have been cultivated.

Any reviewer of Tom Shaffer's biography and the list of his more than 250 articles, essays and books, is reminded of the way in which Tom distinguishes a hero from an everyday lawyer. His distinction perhaps fits Tom, but it more surely describes a major character of lawyer fiction with whose name Tom Shaffer's will be forever linked—the person of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The story of a hero, Tom says, has a compelling quality that we are struck by—“we like [heros] and, more than liking them, we find in them something that keeps us from leaving them alone.” Second, he claims, a hero has the virtue of prodigiousness: “The hero goes beyond himself. There is something extraordinary about his effort. There is more in what he does than we can see ourselves doing ….” Third, he notes the numinous: “The hero is in touch with something special, something awesome and fascinating, something that attracts us and repels us at the same time.” Fourth, a hero is useful—“[he]… becomes a hero because his story fits the moral needs of the times.” Finally, a hero “is a person of bravery and insight.” “He understands what is going on … and he acts in reference to what is going on in a relatively clear-sighted, skillful way.”

To say that authority is the cornerstone of any law or legal system is to state the obvious. Authority not only defines the law but in effect constitutes it formally and substantively. There can be no functioning law or legal system without an underlying structure of authority that may in turn derive from another power-based or authority-based substrate, such as a state. This much we take for granted.

Although it is commonplace for the Western lawyer or jurist to view the state as a body wielding and exercising legal authority, such a view is neither obvious nor normative for his Muslim counterpart, and even less obvious by far to the Muslim masses around the world. Yet, paradoxically, the great majority of today's Muslim countries run their legal systems on the operative—and very concrete—assumption that it is the state that produces legal authority. In other words, within the national body politic of each modern Muslim country there lies a source of legal power that presumably legitimizes and enforces both the public actions of the law and the provisions that govern the private sphere.

May a conscientious citizen reasonably seek to have the law reflect his or her moral convictions? My answer is that there are circumstances under which such efforts are reasonable, and cannot be meaningfully challenged except by substantive moral criticism of the moral views in question. However, there are many areas of life in which a morally earnest citizen must not seek to impose his or her morality, but must, instead, respect the fact that a morally defensible legal system should leave room for wide discretion on the part of the individual exercising moral judgment.

To establish these conclusions it is necessary to clarify some aspects of the general relationship between morality and law. In particular, it is necessary to establish the primacy of the moral point of view, for the question about what is reasonable in these areas is fundamentally a moral question.