26 Mark Washofsky

conservatism that marks the“judicial” approach to the halakhah at its creative best. Grounding themselves firmly in precedent and halakhic consensus, the authors endeavor to extend old texts and settled principles of Jewish law to a new and unprecedented political situation. The innovative, groundbreaking nature of their work is readily apparent. The Zionist rabbis have without question created new law, for the classical halakhic doctrines of government never envisioned the rise of a pre-Messianic sovereign state. At the same time, however, no rabbinical activity is more“traditional,” more conservative, more respectful of established ways of legal thinking than the discovery of implicit, inherent meanings in canonical halakhic sources. Such, after all, is what rabbis do and have always done. In this way, the Zionist rabbis demonstrated their faith in the creative possibilities inherent in the traditional halakhic process, their confidence that the halakhah as it presently exists offers the flexibility and the dynamism needed to arrive at the sought-for solutions.

One of the leading Zionist rabbis, Ben Zion Meir Chai Ouziel, formulated what is perhaps the most comprehensive statement of this faith. In the introduction to the first volume of his collected responsa, Ouziel notes that his efforts to derive halakhic answers to contemporary problems are criticized by two distinct groups within the Jewish community. The first group of critics,“the lovers of reform in our generation,” claim that he is wasting his time; in their view, the traditional halakhah is insufficiently flexible to respond to today’s needs. The other group, while firmly devoted to halakhah and Jewish observance, reject the premise of his work on the grounds that today’s posek is forbidden to depart from the decisions of his predecessors. In response to the“reformers,” the critics on his left, Ouziel declares his conviction that halakhah, properly interpreted, can yield fitting and sufficient solutions to the challenges posed by modern life. And while reassuring the critics on his right that he is free of any and all reformist tendencies“I am creating no new law(ein ani mechadesh kelum), nor are we entitled to do so” he offers them the following outlook on the

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