Alan Sokobin
norms, standards and criteria’ by which specific practices, cus
toms and activities can react to changes in culture, technology and attitudes of the general society in which we live and interact.’
There are those who see a significant decline in the effect of halakhah in modern Jewish life. Over four decades ago the doyen of reform Jewish halakhists, Solomon Freehof , wrote about the development of halakhah.” Although the word halakhah does not appear in the book* there is a succinct but sufficient description
of the development and influence of halakhah through the centuries. The conclusion of the volume with regard to the continuance of this vibrant and constructive legal literature expressed pessimism and lack of expectation with regard to the vitality and effect of responsa, on modern Jewish life.”
Of particular pertinence to the theme of this chapter, he noted that the“vigor of the responsa literature depends primarily upon the vitality of Jewish religious life. As long as observant Jewish life continues substantially as it has for centuries, and the people adhere to the inherited laws and customs, then the various circumstances of a widespread religious society are bound to produce a constant stream of questions. But as soon as religious life retreats from a certain field of experience, that field immediately disappears from practical religious Law.”'® He correctly noted that“[flor centuries the responsa of all the lands were dominated by questions of civil law—problems concerning partnerships, contracts, etc. But during the last century such questions have virtually disappeared from the literature. This is simply a reflection of the fact that the Jewish communities are no longer self-contained and self-sufficient, that Jews no longer bring their business disputes to their own Jewish courts, but to secular courts. There are no civil law responsa nowadays, because there are virtually no questions of civil law brought to the rabbis. A vast field of Jewish observance has thus died out, and the responsa literature reflects the change.”"
Dr. Freehof ’s melancholy builds to a dolorous conclusion. “If there is further modern shrinkage in observance, there will be further narrowing of the field of responsa.”'? He perseveres in his distressing analysis:“[a]t present, with widespread nonobservance, and the shrinkage of rabbinic study, the prospects for substantial continuation of the responsa literature are not promising. For the time being‘there is no voice(to ask) and no one answering’.”!3