Reform Responsa- 39 ­

responsa-writing see the evolution of a new form of responsa composition that takes account of the radically new meaning and purpose of what they contain. One group of such responsa was published in Germany during the early 1840's. They make up our second epoch. Included here are two collections that appear, significantly for our purposes, in the vernacular- Theologische Gutachten ueber das Gebetbuch nach dem Gebrauch des Neuen Israelitischen Tempelverein in Hamburg (2)! and Rabbinische Gutachten ueber die Vertraeglichkeit der freien Forschung mit dem Rabbineramte.(3) With the publication of the latter, German Reform responsa cease to be written, and our second epoch has played itself out.

The third epoch takes place in America . It begins with the position papers that were published in the Yearbook of the CCAR under the imprimatur of the so-called"Responsa Committee." The first of these appeared, if I am not mistaken, in 1913(4) and continue to be written in our own day. They have achieved by now more than a mere in-house readership with the prolific publications of Dr . Freehof who chaired the CCAR Responsa Committee from 1954 to 1976 and with a collection of pre-Freehofian American Reform responsa by Walter Jacob in American Reform Responsa.(5) While the second epoch, that of the German Reform responsa, enjoyed but a short lifespan, the American Reform responsa tradition is approaching its centenary(the Responsa Committee was appointed in 1906)(6) and appears to be still gaining in energy. This suggests that traditional modes of halakhic discourse- responsa- on the one hand, and Reform Judaism(at least in its American style) on the other are not incompatible. Yet the successful Reform responsa of America do represent a particular style or form of responsa­