are more conscious of them. My responsa continue to be written mainly for the American Jewish community; Reform communities in other lands often face different concerns and live in another environment, which may lead to different answers, especially in matters of status, ritual, and interfaith relations. I have always felt that the concern of those colleagues in Israel or Europe should be secondary and should not heavily influence American decisions When, during the last years, I have written some responsa for the central European community, my answers take that environment and its minhagim into consideration.
My efforts have been based on an understanding of the halakhah which I shall briefly outline here; I have partially treated this topic elsewhere and will return to it. For me the origin of the halakhah is divine, but transmitted by human beings and therefore interpreted and reinterpreted by each generation from Moses onward and occasionally radically changed. This means that the ideas which lie beneath the specific human wording reflect divine inspiration. Each generation has interpreted the halakhah according to its understanding. That interpretation has been colored and molded by the times, the issues, and the environment.
I see rituals as less important than other aspects of the halakhah. Some, in a form different than currently practiced, can be traced to the Torah ; others are minhagim, more significant in specific periods, or among Ashkenazim and Sephardim . They remind us of our ethical duties; they are important as they are an emotional and nonrational connection to Judaism .
The Talmud records a debate whether the halakhah was in human hands or should depend on divine guidance.® The fact that the debate took place shows that even on this fundamental matter there was disagreement. However, the majority of the talmudic scholars took as an underlying assumption that the halakhah was to be interpreted by human begins without divine interference. This has remained the basis of halakhic discourse from the Talmud onward. It