Jewish Law Responds to American Law 169

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9. 10. 1.

n

13. 14.

16.

17.

applicable to changing circumstances, is not subject to change by lobbying or by the exertion of pressure in any guise or form. Nor may independently held convictions, however sincere, be allowed to influence our interpretation of halakhah. Normative Judaism teaches that halakhah is not derived from any temporal‘worldview’ or‘social situation’ but expresses the transcendental worldview of the Divine Lawgiver.” Ibid., 83.

Solomon B. Freehof , The Responsa Literature, Jewish Publication Society , Philadelphia , 1955.

There is no reference to halakhah in the index. The equivalent term utilized is “rabbinic literature.” Ibid., 13.

Ibid., 268 ff.

Ibid., 269.

Ibid.

Ibid., 270.

Ibid., 271.

A preeminent orthodox halakhist also comments upon this change in atti­tude toward halakhah in The United States . Bleich, op. cit., vol. 2, p. xi. It has been said that the page of a Gemara represents in capsule form the long his­tory of Jewish exile.“ The Mishnah was composed in Erez Yisra'el; the text of the Gemara which follows was written in Babylonia ; Rashi ’s commentary hails from France ; the Tosafot are the product of French and German schools; the marginal glosses represent Polish and Lithuanian scholarship; and finally, the blank space of the margins represent the American contribution to talmudic scholarship. Fortunately, this categorization of the American con­tribution is no longer correct. Akhshar dara; this generation has attained a level of Torah scholarship which far surpasses the fondest anticipations ofa previous age.”

His seminal works dealing with reform Jewish practice are the two volumes of Reform Jewish Practice, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York , 1955. They thus predate The Responsa Literature by two years. It is instructive to note his themes for those volumes. They include marriage and burial customs, synagogue architecture and ornamentation, women and chil­dren’s participation in the religious services as well as relationships with Christians . Dr. Freehof notes:“[Reform Judaism] has not been creative in such great fields of Jewish law and practice as the dietary laws and the laws of Sabbath observance. This difference can hardly be accidental. The dietary laws and the laws of Sabbath observance, once so vital to Jewish life, have already dropped away from the lives of almost all Jews in the western os There is still a small percentage of Jews which fully observes them, oy a somewhat larger percentage which partially observes them, but at ey J oy play only a minor role in the actual living of modern Jews .” Solomon B. Free hof, Reform Jewish Practice, Vol. 2, p. 4.

In largest measure the responsa dealt with those areas w i i issues found in three of the four sections of the Shulhan Arukh: Orah Hayyim

which deals with the observance of the Sabbath and the Festiy als, You e and Even ha-Ezer, which deals with mar­

hich parallel the

which concerns mourning customs, riage and divorce.

For lists of approved responsa de. official correspondence containing Law Committee rulings,

cisions of the Law Committee as well as see“The Sum­