Taking Precedent Seriously 53
challenges that arise all the time. Seen in this way, a tradition is not to be identified with“stability,” with“eternal verities” to be contrasted with the evanescent fads and fashions of the contemporary world. MacIntyre’s tradition is rather a dynamic thing, in which a community's self-definition—that is, the understanding and interpretation of its texts—is always up for grabs, always in flux, and constantly tested in the crucible of the community's life and experience. To participate in the tradition of halakhah is to discover, as did Rivash , a rich and ample treasure-house of resources for argument, materials out of which new meanings are constantly proposed and frequently accepted. Liberals need not fear, therefore, that adherence to this tradition necessarily stifles their creativity. On the contrary: the halakhic tradition has long been the proving ground for creative legal thought and response. This creativity, however, does require that we see ourselves not as revolutionaries or as-inventors of a new language that is all our own but as participants in the ongoing historical argument that is the language of halakhah.
Conclusion
Precedent, the tendency to decide disputed questions on the basis of earlier decisions, is an endemic feature of every legal system. While the precise role of precedent in Jewish law is a matter of controversy, there is no question that respect for the interpretations of the past is a central element in halakhic practice. No normative statement can make an authentic claim to the status of halakhah unless it pays deference to the role of precedent, unless it is characterized by the three values of constraint, language, and tradition. While those may sound like conservative values, halakhic history reveals that adherence to precedent does not deter the creative posek from innovating within the law, from discovering plausible alternative readings of the texts of the past. This last point is of critical importance to our liberal halakhic endeavor. If our own work is to lodge a believable claim to the status of halakhah, it must be truly halakhic; it must follow the path that has always defined halakhic practice. That path is not hidebound to old ways and established interpretations. It is the way of constraint and innovation, a respect for the past coupled with the readiness to find new meaning in old texts. We