Briefing the Case

If we look at the Rambam's ספר המצוות we see that he divided all of הלכה into עשה and לא תעשה - do or don't do. The focus of the דין is determining the status of a particular action. Thus the first question we will ask is "What action (פעולה) are we discussing?"

Below is the list of questions to ask about each case. When you first encounter a case not all of the information may be available. This is one of the functions of the גמרא - to fill in missing information. Some of the information will be relevant to the decision making process while some of the information may not. Making that determination is a second stage of the analysis.

1. Facts - (מציאות)
   
   1. What action are we discussing? About what halachic activity in the story are we ruling? (What act generates the דין?)
   2. Who did the action?
   3. When was the action done?
   4. Where was the action done?
   5. With what was the action done?
   6. How was the action done?
   7. To whom or to what was the action done?
   8. What effect does the action produce?
   9. Are there any other relevant conditions?
2. What is the דין in this case? (In one word) See here for a discussion about the possible outcomes of a case.
3. What is the source of the דין? See here for a discussion of the possible sources for a דין.
4. What is the rationale? (סברא)
5. What is the precedent value? (חידוש)
6. Who is the author?

We use these questions to move the discussion from a story line to a legal discussion. The answers to these questions, especially the ones focused on the מציאות, we call the input conditions. This set of input conditions produces the halachik outcome (דין) in this case. The next step will be to determine which of the input conditions are at play in the halachik decision making process.

• Prev
• Next