MARK WASHOFSKY

IV. A FINAL NOTE

The conversational model of halakhah described here is, to be sure, an ideal picture. I do not mean to suggest that all alakhic communities conduct their legal discourse in this manner. Indeed, we have seen that some Jewish legal thinkers go to great lengths to deny the plurality of halakhic meaning inherent to such a model. I do suggest, however, that the metaphor of conversation accurately describes the halakhah as it has been practiced throughout its long history. It is by ongoing argument, the refusal to be committed to the existence of one exclusively correct answer to every question of law, that Jewish law has preserved the vitality needed to accommodate the never-ending changes and transformations of Jewish life. Orthodox thinkers, therefore, no less than liberal ones, can accept the conversational model(with its attendant indeterminacy) without thereby questioning the validity of the halakhah, because it captures the rhetorical, argumentative process that has for centuries characterized Jewish law. As they inhabit different halakhic communities, different religious worlds than ours, the answers they derive from this argument will of necessity differ from those that we find persuasive. But they, no less than we, should reject any and all attempts to impose "scientific" methods that would arbitrarily force an end to the halakhic conversation on abortion and other questions of legitimate controversy. For Jewish law has always worked best as an argument, the searchor truth conditioned by the humble realization that"the" final truth may always escape us. That is halakhah at its best. And that is how all Jews , liberal or orthodox, who are committed to halakhah ought to conceive and practice it.

Notes

1. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Statement of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives , March 24, 1976.

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