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scholar Itzhak Englard, who aimed an“uncompromising” attack at the very heart of the mishpat ivri enterprise.’ In particular, Englard criticized the efforts of mishpat ivri scholars to locate the “central idea” or principle that lies at the foundation of any given legal institution. The purpose of deducing such an idea or principle was to a pragmatic one, to identify the essence or permanent substance of that legal institution, on the basis of which one could draw conclusions as to how Jewish law ought to develop in the future. Englard denounced this project.“Central ideas” and principles, he asserted, do not exist: Jewish law, properly socalled, contains no substantive content other than the rules and decisions that are mentioned in its literary sources and by its authorized spokespersons.
If Jewish law constitutes the object of study, one has to accept it in its integral entirety. It is totally unacceptable that the modern scholar should reach a legal solution which is different from that of the Rabbi . The decisions of the religious authorities are the very historical data constituting the object of the modern scholar’s study. Modern criticism of the legal solutions’ content as established by any given religious scholar is in the nature of a value judgment.'"®
The term“value judgment” is indicative of Englard’s second broad objection to the work of the mishpat ivri scholars, many of whom engaged in the study of Jewish legal history expressly in order"to
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prepare Jewish law for its reception into the law of the State. This practical goal, in his view, involves an unacceptable mixture of ideology with academic scholarship and casts doubt upon whether the scholars who share it possess“the measure of objectivity necessary for historical research.”'*” The chief offender in this regard was Menachem Elon , one of the leading lights of the mishpat ivri school, who contends that by studying the“complete historical range” of any Jewish legal institution the researcher can locate“its common denominator, its axis, during the various