Peter Knobel

memory. And the Tanna of the School of R. Ishmael taught: Scripture says,

Write thou these words,” implying that“these” words you may write but you may not write traditional laws! The answer was given: Perhaps the case is different in regard to a new interpretation. For R. Johanan and Resh Lakish used to peruse the book of aggadah on Sabbaths and explained[their attitude] in this manner:[Scripture says:] It is time for the Lord to work, they have made void thy law, explaining this as follows: It is better that one letter of the Torah should be uprooted than that the whole Torah should be forgotten.”

Et la-asot is both a radical and conservative principle. It can be viewed as supporting amendment or abrogation as well as preservation of Torah (i.e., what is essential to maintaining Judaism ) When amendment or abrogation will call the system into question even if it might be justified on other grounds, then abrogation or amendment would be prohibited. I want to propose a thought experiment. Although the authors of the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform would not have understood themselves as violating the Torah in order to preserve it, it is possible to argue cogently that the history of Reform Judasim can be understood as the abrogation of major sections of halakhah sometimes on a temporary basis, but often on what has been considered a permanent basis, to preserve Judaism and fulfill God ’s will.

If we return to Menachem Fisch ’s argument that there are traditionalist and antitraditionalist“parties” in the Talmud and that there is a twofold concept to Torah study, that is, as undergraduate education and graduate education, we discover that Torah is a potentially open system . One must master the fundamentals, and when those fundamentals are an adequate response to the world and seem to fulfill the divine wil, there is no need for abrogation or amendment. In fact, preservation is the order of the day. However, when ‘traditional’ practice no longer is consonant with the divine will, it is time to act for the Lord by abrogating or amending the understanding of Torah . In current historical juncture, Progressive Judaism is an interim period.” The age that created classical Reform and its immediate successors has passed and the new era, which is sometimes