Permanent Court

May a good Jew travel in a commercial airplane on Saturday? Does he commit a sin if, on the Sabbath, he opens the door of an electric refrigerator in which a light automatically switches on? (According to the Law of Moses, no Jew may make a fire on the Sabbath. Good Jewish families get their ovens warm before the Sabbath begins and, because electricity is considered as fire, turn on whatever lights will be needed next day.)

Such vexing questions as these, in which Mosaic law and Talmudic maxims must be applied to modern life, are on the docket of a Jewish Court of Justice (Beth Din), which opens this week in Manhattan. The first permanent court of its kind in the U. S., the Beth Din is composed of three black-capped Orthodox rabbis -- Max Felshin, Benjamin Fleischer, Reuben Maier--and a secretary, Jacob S. Cohen. It will judge divorce cases, slander suits, business disputes, will decide matters of law which might baffle a single rabbi. For certain grave matters, the rabbis will call in 20 colleagues, to form a small Sanhedrin or 100 rabbis, for a large Sanhedrin.

Where permanent Jewish courts do not exist, questions of law are decided, as they arise, by rabbis or councils of rabbis. Any Jew may bring a case before the Beth Din; indeed, it is his duty, if he is bothered about a point of the Law. He pays the court what he can and, as a man of faith, accepts its decisions as binding, /- When the Beth Din sits (daily except religious holidays), the rabbis wear prayer shawls.

/- Civil courts almost always back up religious courts, of whatever kind, insofar as they deal with religious matters.

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