Peter Knobel
Walter Jacob in his article“The Law of the Lord is Perfect— Halakhah and Antinomianism, ” in Reform Judaism (CCAR Journal Summer 2004 pp. 72-84) writes,“There are some in our movement who have gone too far in their enthusiasm of halakhah and have rejected the rest of Reform Judaism . They have not understood that Reform Halakhah seeks to underpin and strengthen the major ideas of our movement, so important to all of Judaism , along with a good deal else. They have often seen the trees but not the forest of Judaism and so they have begun to ask questions about endless detail, perhaps, appropriate for Orthodoxy, but not us. We intend to recreate a halakhah, but not one that is either static or hidebound, and unchanging or tied principally to ritual. The strength of our movement has been a sense of balance, not always easily attained, but even as we strive for a better understanding of halakhah and incorporate halakhah into our Reform Jewish lives, we must remember its purpose is to strengthen and reinforce the major ideals of Judaism . Social justice, personal piety, the eternal Messianic dream of universalism must always be as central as the halakhic approach. Balance is never easy to achieve but it is always necessary.”(pp. 81-82) The goal is, in effect, to create a nonbinding halakhah.
In recent years there have been increasing attempts in the Progressive movement to utilize halakhic material to inform decision making in both the area of observance(mitzvot bein adam lamakom) and ethics(mitzvot bein adam lehaveiro). The reinvigoration of this enterprise is due in large measure to a changing ethos that has transformed Reform Judaism from a religion that relied largely on the Hebrew Bible, especially on a selective reading of the prophets, to a religion that seeks its authenticity more broadly in the whole of sacred literature. Our move from what might be characterized as a liberal