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Kevod HaBeriyot (; literally in Hebrew: "honor of/due the God's creations (human beings)" also variously translated as "individual dignity", "individual honor", or "human dignity" (in a specifically sense which may or may not be the same as the secular concept of human dignity) is a concept of Halakha (Jewish law) originating in the Talmud which permits exceptions to Rabbinic decrees under certain circumstances. This concept has been used in a number of contemporary Jewish religious-law decisions in Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
The nature and scope of the concept is a matter of contemporary dispute.
Kevod HaBeriyot is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud in Berakhot 19b; Shabbat 81b, 94b; Eruvin 41b; and Megillah 3b. The term Kevodo (his dignity) is used in Beitzah 32b.
The Rabbis of the Talmud, when they enacted rabbinic decrees, sometimes limited the scope of those decrees to avoid situations when complying with them might lead to a situation they considered undignified and referred to the concept of kevod habriyot as the basis for doing so. For example, carrying across a private property line is prohibited by a rabbinic prohibition (See eruv), but the Talmud records that the Rabbis created an exception for carrying up to three small stones if needed for wiping oneself in a latrine on the basis of kevod habriyot (Shabbat 81b, 94b). Similarly, the rabbis enacted a prohibition on a Kohen from approaching a coffin or graveyard to ensure that the Biblical prohibition on contact with the dead would not be inadvertently violated, but permitted a Kohen to violate this rabbinic prohibition in order to greet a king, again appealing to the principle of kevod habriyot as the basis of this exception (Berachot 19b). Tractate Beitzah records that the rabbis created an exception of the rabbinic prohibition on creating even temporary structures on Shabbat or major Jewish holidays (to safeguard the Biblical prohibition against building permanent structures) to permit a person alone in a field to align stones to create a temporary latrine, because of kevodo ("his dignity) (Beitzah 36b).
Although the Rabbis of the Talmud created limited exceptions to their own enactments to prevent indignities, they held that they do not have authority to create exceptions to Divine law recorded in the written Tanakh or received as Oral law in the form of Halakha LeMoshe MiSinai. Berachot 19b records a discussion in which a Baraita that rabbis have such authority was explicitly considered but rejected.
The Halakha in the Shulkhan Arukh goes according to Abba Arika:
Shulkhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah 303:1 "That Permissible to remove Shatnez from his friend even in the marketplace:
The scholars stressed the need to guard, in the exercise of such wide legislative authority, against doing undue injury to man's image and dignity: "All these matters apply to the extent that the dayyan shall find them proper in the particular case and necessitated by the prevailing circumstances; in all matters he shall act for the sake of Heaven and he shall not lightly regard the dignity of man... "(Yad, Sanhedrin 24:10; see also Resp. Rashba, vol. 5, no. 238)
In the Encyclopaedia Judaica article on Honor Rabbi Louis Isaac Rabinowitz wrote that "So great was 'the honor of God's creatures' regarded that 'God has regard to the dignity of His creatures' (Sif. Deut. 192) and honor annuls even a negative commandment of the Bible (Ber. 19b), especially the honor of the community (TJ, Ber. 3:1, 6a)."
Most classical poskim, however, maintained in accordance with the opinion in the Talmud that Kevod HaBriyot can only justify overriding rabbinic restrictions. The reference to "annulling a negative commandment of the Bible" refers only to the commandment lo tasur, in other words the command to observe rabbinic restrictions, so the Talmud is in fact saying the same thing but in a deliberately paradoxical way.
Rabbi Aryeh Frimer, author of a number of scholarly works on the status of women in Orthodox halakha including Women and Minyan,Rabbi Aryeh A. Frimer, "Women and Minyan" , Tradition, 1988. wrote a critique of Rabbi Sperber's arguments which he entitled " Lo Zu haDerekh: A Review of Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber's Darka shel Halakha. In Rabbi Frimer's view, the concept of kevod habriyot can override rabbinic prohibitions under relatively narrow circumstances caused by external factors such as excrement or nakedness, but cannot override a rabbinic prohibition in its entirety. He argued that a rabbinic decree cannot itself be regarded shameful or embarrassing, and that to permit a rabbinic decree to be characterized as an embarrassment would give anyone carte blanche to abrogate any Rabbinic prohibition simply by saying "This offends me." He said "in those cases where acting according to halakha...creates the embarrassment, then kevod ha-beriyyot cannot set aside the Rabbinic prohibition. One should be proud to be fulfilling the halakha.". the Seforim blog: Aryeh A. Frimer Review of Daniel Sperber’s Darka shel Halakha A more complete and extensively documented presentation of Rabbi Frimer's position has appeared."Women, Kri’at haTorah and Aliyyot (with an Addendum on Partnership Minyanim)," Aryeh A. Frimer and Dov I. Frimer, Tradition, 46:4 (Winter, 2013), 67-238, online at http://www.rcarabbis.org/pdf/frimer_article.pdf. A Hebrew translation of this article (with corrections and additions) is available at http://rcarabbis.org/pdf/Aliyyot_Wmn_Heb_Rev.pdf
Rabbis Dorff, Nevins, and Reisner wrote a responsum which supported liberalizing Conservative Judaism's view of homosexual behavior. They held that rabbinic prohibitions against homosexual behavior are inconsistent with human dignity as society now understands it. They argued that the Conservative understanding of the principle of Kevod habriyot includes general society's evolving understanding of human dignity and that the rabbinic prohibitions involved were inconsistent with human dignity thus understood. Citing R. Daniel Sperber's view that rabbinic prohibitions can be negated by the kevod habriyot principle, the responsum declared all rabbinic prohibitions restricting homosexual activity lifted. Finding that the principle of kevod habriyot could only override rabbinic and not Biblically mandated restrictions, the responsum left in place what it found to be the only Biblically mandated restriction involved, a prohibition on male-male anal sex.
Rabbi Joel Roth wrote a responsum which supported maintaining traditional restrictions on homosexual behavior, which was also adopted by a majority of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. The responsum analyzed the principle of kevod habriyot and held that the rule only permits overriding rabbinic injunctions out of honor or respect for someone else, but not out of one's own honor. Rabbi Roth argued that the idea that a person's own honor (as distinct from giving honor to someone else) could justify overriding a rabbinic injunction was not only inconsistent with a fair reading of the history of the concept, but theologically unjustifiable. The responsum argued that the principle behind kevod habriyot is the idea that a person can honor God by honoring others, and that this principle does not apply in cases where one's own honor, as distinct from others' honor, is at stake. It held that overriding a rabbinic prohibition because of one's own sense of personal dignity or self-honor would be tantamount to considering one's own honor as more important than God's in matters between oneself and God. The responsum also found the Biblically mandated restrictions involved to be more extensive in scope.Rabbi Joel Roth, "Op-Ed: Law committee in its gay ruling stepped outside halachic framework", JTS News, December 10, 2006
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