114 Joan S. Friedman
both halakhic and historical grounds, however, it is highly suspect. This article is an initial critique of his theory.“The law itself did not create. The people created and the law organized.”
While it is clear that the process of halakhic change involves extensive interplay between the rabbinate and the people, to state categorically that the true creativity in the process comes from the people and not from the rabbinate is a radical assertion. In fact, Freehof’s very first example of popular creativity in response to changed circumstances is none other than the paradigmatic model of rabbinic creativity taught to every elementary school student of Jewish history, namely, the story of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and the sages of Yavneh who, by their daring and creative halakhic activity, saved Judaism in the wake of the destruction of the Temple. No less a historian than Salo Baron refers to R. Yohanan as“the rebuilder of national life during the great crisis”!? to underscore the importance of his leadership and that of his colleagues and the innovations in law and practice with which they are credited. More recent historians tend toward the view that the phenomenon we know as“rabbinic Judaism ” was, in fact, the creation of a small group and only very gradually(with great help from the Abbasid caliphate ’s support for the Gaonate and the Exilarchate) did it become the normative way of life for the vast majority of Jews .'*
Whether one views the rabbis as representing the will of the majority of the people or as a small minority whose form of Judaism was only gradually accepted, neither opinion, however, validates Freehof’s view of the development of rabbinic Judaism after 70 C.E. as primarily a grass roots phenomenon.
We may adduce numerous other examples of rabbinic authorities who issued drastic decisions in response to the needs of the hour: Hillel 's prosbul, Rabbenu Gershom ’s tagqanot, and the Polish rabbis’ decisions after the Cossack uprising’ come readily to mind. In fact, the very phrase“et la’asot lashem heferu toratekha underscores both the ability and the obligation of the rabbinate to initiate change. Why, then, is Freehof so insistent that change comes from the bottom?
The notion that Jewish practice evolves among the people and is then regularized and codified by the rabbinic leadership is, indeed, reflected in the history of at least one significant Jewish movement: Reform Judaism, particularly in the United States .'® Although there were many instances of rabbinically instituted