Reform Responsa- 65 ­

Africa, for example, and in southern Europe . Responsa came to be written more and more by local, individual posqim, decisors who had earned for themselves a reputation for scholarship. These posqim could not rely on their office itself to impart authority to their responsa, and so they resorted to argumentation, especially argumentation based on past authority, whether Scripture, Talmud or eventually even other responsa. Their rulings were no longer simply declared, but rather adduced. They had to be made credible in the marketplace of ideas. Further, since, these were local authorities living and working amid Jews in the newly emerging culture of Europe , responsa began to take on a much wider range of issues. Finally, there is good evidence to suggest that it was at this time, the eleventh through fourteenth centuries, that European rabbis first began seriously to collect and preserve the responsa of the Gaonic past. The reason was, no doubt, because these now became precious resources for the creation of new responsa. All in all, with the collection of older responsa, the emergence of individual rabbinic posqim and the increasing area of responsa concern, we can say that responsa in the 10th through 12th centuries became rabbinized.

The parallels with what appears to be happening with Reform responsa are interesting. We see a similar maturation, a sort of Reform­rabbinization, occurring within our own tradition. First of all the responsa have grown from being short and at times cursory proclamations of the Responsa Committee, to fully developed essays which argue their point in detail and tie their results closely to rabbinic sources. Second, the range of literature cited has become wider. With Dr. Freehof, for the first time classical rabbinic responsa are routinely cited along with the old