16.

Elliot N. Dorff

division between what women were required to do and w hat they were not is the home /community distinction—namely, that women were required to do everything that takes place in the home, but not that that takes place in the community, because the place of the woman was construed to be at home. Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law, New York , 1984, 17

In the Bible , Abraham , Jacob, and a number of kings have more than one wife. The Talmud permits a man to marry more than one wife, provided that he fulfills all his obligations, including his sexual ones, to each of them B. Yevamot 44a(where the recommended maximum is four!); B Kiddus 7a. Here again, though, there was apparently a discrepency between what the law allowed and what custom dictated, for no case is recorded in the Talmud of a rabbi or a plaintiff in a case w ho had more than one wife. See Biale, Women and Jewish Law, 49-51

See Avraham Grossman ,“Medieval Rabbinic Views on Wife Beating 800-1300,” Jewish History, 5:1,Spring 1991, 53-62, esp. pp. 57 and 59-60.| discuss these precedents and how we should read and apply them in our day at some length in my reponsum entitled“Family Violence, ’ approved bv the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards on September 13, 1995.

See n. 7 above regarding one such possible role, namely, being called to the Torah

M. Megillab 4:3 and Yad, Hil. Tefilah 8:4 both mention only a requirement for ten. See, however, Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 55:1, 4, that specifies that males are required and that a woman may not count when there are fewer than ten men

Mordecai on B. Berakhhot, note 173. Rabbi Philip Sigal seems to put much weight on this text in justifying the counting of women for a prayer quo rum, although he states other arguments as well. See Philip Sigal,“Women in a Prayer Quorum,” Judaism 23:2(1974); reprinted in Seymour Siegel, Con servative Judaism and Jewish Law, 281-292; see especially 287 and n. 20 on 292 For a more thorough discussion of the functioning of custom in Jew ish law see Elliot N. Dorff and Arthur Rosett, A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law, New York , 1988, 421-434

Rabbi Eugene Borowitz specifically takes Rabbi Neil Gillman and me to task for our common commitment to Jewish law, and Rabbi Neil Gillman himself describes“the Dorff/ Roth position” as“the classical Conservative ideology and rhetoric” which, he says,“has had minimal impact outside of our own rabbinic circles.” Although Rabbi Roth and I do not always agree on specific issues, Rabbis Borowitz and Gillman are right: Rabbi Roth and I share a commitment to a form of contemporary Judaism that preserves Jew ish law as a central, organizing feature, however much we may differ on its content in specific matters, and that common commitment differentiates us both sharply from both Kaplan and Borowitz . See Eugene Borowitz , Rene ing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodcrn Jew, Philadelphia , 1991, 282 Neil Gilman,“A Conservative Theology for the Twenty First Century,” Pro ceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly , New York 1993, 20f

Uniform Commercial Code, see 1-205; reprinted in Dorff and Rosett Op Cit., 434.