The Responsa of Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof
wrote a number of seminal works on halakhah and served as chairman of the Responsa Committee of the CCAR(1922-33), for which he wrote some important responsa.’
Freehof joined the Responsa Committee of the CCAR ca. 1923. He began to publish responsa in the Rodef Shalom Temple Bulletin in 1937, where he tackled topics such as“Is Visiting the Cemetery a Fixed Jewish Custom?”,“Why Are the Candles Lit on Friday Night?”, and“Why Is It Customary to Refrain from Celebrating Marriages Between Passover and Shavouth ?”® In 1944, Freehof published the first volume of Reform Jewish Practice and Its Rabbinic Background, which is an apologetic work explaining the talmudic and rabbinic background of Reform Jewish practice. The second volume appeared in 1952.
Beginning in 1942, Freehof served as chairman of the Responsa Committee of the Commission on Chaplaincy of the National Jewish Welfare Board, along with Rabbi Milton Steinberg (Conservative)’ and Rabbi Leo Jung(Orthodox ). Freehof authored all of the responsa, though occasionally there is an Orthodox alternative answer at the bottom of the page. The first volume, Responsa in War Time, appeared in 1947 and the second volume, Responsa to Chaplains, in 1953.
It is worth noting that Freehof’s first volume of responsa appeared in 1947 when he was 55 years old, though he later made up for lost time! It is also worth noting that all of his responsa were written in English , a phenomenon I have discussed elsewhere."
In 1955, Freehof became the chairman of the CCAR Responsa Committee, a position he held until 1976, and this position led to his major publications on responsa, which continued for the next 35 years until his death. In 1955, he published The Responsa Literature, which remains the best English introduction to that vast literature. In 1961, he published his supplement of 570 titles to Professor Boaz Cohen’s classic bibliography Kuntress Hateshuvot."' In 1963, Freehof published 4 Treasury of Responsa, which is an English translation of