iv With regard to civil rights, even the primary definition of the term is different . Contemporary culture tends to use the terms interchangeably with political rights, and “social rights” when referring to the means with which society is supposed to provide its members so that they can live their everyday lives, beyond participation in politics . In European culture, the demand for political rights was a byproduct of the rise of the modern state after the fall of the feudal regimes of the Middle Ages, the kingdoms and empires . Hence, the main focus of European culture, within which modern humanistic, liberal, and democratic thought took shape, is to protect the individual citizen from the disproportionate power of the state and the authorities, and the centralized rule of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the state that came in their wake . In contrast, the traditions of Halakhah and Jewish thought moves from the individual in the direction of society . Because the Jewish people ha...
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