Chapter 4
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Peter Knobel his paper’ addresses three questions.
1)Is there a theoretical place within the halakhah for progressive halakhah?*
2) What are the principles within the halakhah that permit or prohibit changes in established norms?’ 3) What is the role of halakhah or halakhic thinking in a movement that essentially defines itself as non-halakhic?*
Professor Menachem Fisch , in his book Rational Rabbis and in lectures delivered to the Beth Emet Israel Kallah, has argued that
within the Talmud and therefore within rabbinic tradition as a whole there are two tendencies(1) traditionalist and(2) antitraditionalist. The traditionalist stance is characterized by a static understanding of Judaism . The new is permitted only where there are lacunae in what has been handed down. The antitraditionalist stance is characterized by an open understanding of Judaism . What has been handed down must be studied and taken seriously, but evaluation and decision making are the responsibility of the current generation. Talmud torah in Fisch ’s view should be analogized to scientific inquiry. The theories of the past are constantly being tested against new data. When the old theories do not adequately account for the data, then new theories are tested to discover if they more adequately account for the data. Nothing is ever considered finally settled. It is always open to revision. Fisch conceives of talmud torah as consisting of two phases, (1) the undergraduate education where the student acquires the knowledge of the past, and(2) graduate education, where the student submits the knowledge of the past to a process of testing. Talmud torah is not merely the rote repetition of the past but the constant