DANIEL SCHIFF

Jewish thinker, is of the view that such a demand would be intolerable:

And shall we agree to the law that after adultery a husband may never take his wife back, ignoring every human consideration as to what brought the act about? Here the law speaks with implacable, impersonal rigor. In the name of community standards of sanctity it calls for depriving the people in the relationship of the right to a positive decision as to what might now best become of it. I do not see that it is a fatal mitigation of the seriousness of adultery to suggest that our modern understanding of persons requires us to introduce more com­passion in dealing with a transgressor in this area than the Halacha did.”

Borowitz is not alone in holding such a view. Progressive halakhic decision makers within the Conservative rabbinate have advocated that not only should the couple be permitted to stay together, but the community should do everything in its power to encourage a process of teshuvah on the part of the guilty party, a reconciliation of the couple, and a continuation of the marriage, thereby following the example of the prophet Hosea rather than the rulings of the rabbis.” Indeed, there is every reason to believe that this position would be the one taken by the majority of progressive thinkers.

When these three highly significant revisions—the cancella­tion of mamzerut, Rabbi Jacob’s decision to allow the Jewish mar­riage of the adulterer and the paramour, and the widespread desire to salvage marriages that have suffered adultery—are considered in conjunction, they lead to an extraordinary result: the effective elimination of all the major traditional sanctions against adultery, at least for Reform Jews. There can be no doubt that, without setting out purposefully to reach this outcome, the determination to respond

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