Beit Din

A beit din (Hebrew for house of judgment, also spelled beth din or bet din; plural batei din) is a Jewish rabbinical court that decides questions under halacha, Jewish law. A standard beit din consists of three judges, each called a dayan. Its work covers personal status matters such as marriage, divorce and conversion, religious matters such as dietary supervision, and civil and commercial disputes between parties who agree to submit to it.

In most countries a beit din has no state-granted judicial power. Its authority in commercial matters comes from the parties' agreement, so that in practice it functions as a religious arbitration tribunal whose awards may be enforced by secular courts. In Israel, by contrast, state-recognized rabbinical courts have legal jurisdiction over Jewish marriage and divorce.

Courts of judges are described in the Hebrew Bible, and the Mishnah and Talmud set out a hierarchy from local courts of three up to the Great Sanhedrin of seventy-one. After the Sanhedrin ceased to function in late antiquity, local batei din continued to adjudicate disputes within Jewish communities. In medieval and early modern Europe and the Islamic world, Jewish communities often enjoyed legal autonomy, and their courts handled contracts, debts, inheritance and partnership disputes as well as religious law.

A beit din is typically led by a senior judge, the av beit din. Its decisions draw on the Talmud, later codes such as the Shulchan Aruch, and rulings by a recognized posek. In civil disputes a common method is zabla, in which each party selects one judge and the two judges select a third. Parties usually sign an arbitration agreement before the hearing, committing to accept the outcome. Proceedings tend to be less formal than secular litigation and may encourage compromise rather than strict judgment.

Traditional Jewish law discourages Jews from bringing disputes with one another before non-Jewish courts without permission, which historically gave batei din a central role in communal commerce. Many Orthodox communities continue to follow this principle.

Several institutions of Jewish financial law involve a beit din directly:

• The prozbul, attributed to Hillel, transfers private debts to the court so that they are not cancelled in the sabbatical year of shmita. It is executed before a beit din or before witnesses acting in its name.
• Disputes over the heter iska, the contract that restructures a loan as an iska investment partnership to avoid ribbit (interest), are decided according to halachic rules that a beit din applies.
• Questions over communal funds, such as a gemach free-loan fund or charitable funds for tzedakah, may come before a beit din.
• Business partnerships, employment disputes, real estate and inheritance can all be adjudicated if the parties agree.

In the United States, a beit din award resulting from a valid arbitration agreement can generally be confirmed by a court under federal or state arbitration law, subject to the usual grounds for challenge such as lack of due process. The Beth Din of America, established in 1960, is one of the best-known such tribunals. In England and Wales, the London Beth Din and other batei din operate within the framework of the Arbitration Act 1996, which allows parties to choose the rules governing their dispute. In Israel, the Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law of 1953 gives rabbinical courts exclusive jurisdiction over the marriage and divorce of Jews, and they may also hear other matters with the parties' consent.

The beit din has parallels in Islamic finance, where religious scholars issue a fatwa and a Sharia supervisory board certifies financial products. The roles differ, however: a beit din primarily adjudicates disputes between parties, while a Sharia board advises an institution on whether its products comply with Sharia. Both illustrate how religious legal systems interact with secular commercial and arbitration law.