DANIEL SCHIFF

b Reform Judaism consequently determined to do away with this fimmorality” by ceasing to recognize that any individual could be designated as a mamgzer. The obvious outcome of this dispensation was that the“immorality” of mamzerut was effectively defeated, but a potent combatant against the“immorality” of adultery was also removed from the operational field. Hence, while the uninterrupted Orthodox monitoring of mamzerut continued to con­fribute to the active discussion of adultery in the world of traditional halakhic adjudication, such issues were effectively removed from the Reform Jewish realm.

Still, insofar as the progressive Jewish world never deemed ddultery to be anything less than a very serious matter, one could Well have expected that even if Reform rabbis were not being buf­feted by specific problematic cases, they might well have raised a

Gall for gender equality in this area. After all, the rabbis assembled In Philadelphia in 1869 acted swiftly to equalize various parts of the Marriage service, and later Reform rabbis took further path­breaking steps toward gender even-handedness. Given the clear in­fquities involved in the traditional approach to adultery, one might ftasonably have anticipated explicit reform of these traditional Imbalances. In fact, one could contend for two reasons that the #dultery laws were particularly conspicuous candidates for such eatment: first, a balanced approach to the punishment of adultery for both men and women would serve to strengthen the claim of : fudaism that serious sanctions had to be applied to all adulterers in ie light of their sin against God . Second, the Talmud itself had

published a precedent for acting to bring about a uniform approach

[ utery for men and women. The rabbinic explanation for why

% biblical test of the“bitter waters” for the suspected adulteress™

$ brought to a halt was seen to be motivated by this very aim:

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