Against Method 21

declared by rabbinical fiat to be apikorsim, heretics who by definition exclude themselves from the halakhic circle.®* What we have, therefore, is a case study in halakhic pluralism: two widely divergent, contradictory approaches to pesak that coexist within a common intellectual structure, so that the advocates of both approaches claim that theirs is“correct” halakhah, a valid form of halakhic practice. This claim, we shall see, is not based upon any appeal to a halakhic “method” that, when properly followed, yields indisputably right answers.| argue, rather, that the existence of these two schools of halakhic thought demonstrates that no such method exists. The fact of halakhic pluralism and the claim of both sides that their view is the “correct” understanding of Jewish law suggests that we need another, more accurate explanation of the halakhic process.

A“Zionist Halakhah”

The decades of the early to mid-twentieth century witnessed a remarkable burst of halakhic creativity, a flood of books, essays, articles, and responsa that addressed issues surrounding the emerging Jewish state. I call this body of writing“Zionist halakhah,”® because it was largely produced by rabbis associated with the“national religious” or“Mizrachi ” Zionist movement. The slogan of the Mizrachi movement—“the land of Israel for the people of Israel according to the Torah of Israel”— expressed the Orthodox Zionist credo that the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state prior to the coming of the Messiah was fully consistent with Torah and halakhah. This, in turn, implied that the Jewish state should function in accordance with Jewish law and that the halakhah was fully capable of serving as the legal foundation of such a state. Yet to put this belief into practice was a daunting challenge. It was not at all obvious that the halakhah, as it was formulated at the dawn of the Jewish national movement, was up to the task that the Orthodox Zionists set for it." In neither the realm of private law(torts, contracts, property) nor that