Peter Knobel

Before turning to an analysis of the principles and circumstances under which a rabbinic authority can abrogate matters, a topic to which Joel Roth devotes an entire chapter,'* 1 want to share with you what I believe is at stake for the Reform movement in its attempt to revitalize halakhic thinking as a methodology of Reform Jewish decision making. At the beginning of its history in Europe , Reform Judaism sought to link its proposed changes to precedents found in the classical texts. Some of the early responsa and essays make interesting reading.'* Reform in North America has come to understand itself as a non-halakhic movement. We often hear Mordecai Kaplan ’s famous statement quoted as follows:“The halakhah(the tradition, the past) has a vote but not a veto.” This has encouraged the neglect of a serious examination of the sources as means of contemporary decision making. 1 know that my education at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion did not anticipate that I would need more than a cursory exposure to Talmud and codes. The responsa literature was ignored completely. Iam told that rabbinic education has changed greatly since I was a student. The late Solomon B. Freehof , Walter Jacob , W. Gunther Plaut , Moshe Zemer , and Mark Washofsky and an active Central Conference of American Rabbis Responsa Committee deserve our gratitude for preserving and renewing halakhic thinking. While in recent years many responsa have been written, we are still at the beginning of efforts to explicate the theory behind our methodology.

Among the important questions that must be answered are: What distinguishes our methodology from that of the Orthodox ? From that of the Conservative? Clarity on these questions will aid us to better understand the role of textual analysis as a source for decision making and enhance our ability to articulate the authority of Torah as an expression of the Divine will. The theological underpinnings of halakhah require explication. The lack of serious theological work on the meaning of revelation tends to reduce textual discussions to a semantic game. Text analysis is therefore taken

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