Religious Law between Eternity and Change, on the Dynamism of Jewish Law in Jewish Thought and on Jewish, Christian and Moslem Attitudes Towards Legal Change

1987 ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Ya'akov Meron ◽  
Ze'ev W. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Law ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Religious Law

SageBook: Toward a cross-generational social network for the Jewish sages’ prosopography

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-695
Author(s):  
Maayan Zhitomirsky-Geffet ◽  
Gila Prebor
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Related Data ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Argumentation Analysis

Abstract In this research we devised and implemented a semi-automatic approach for building a SageBook–a cross-generational social network of the Jewish sages from the Rabbinic literature. The proposed methodology is based on a shallow argumentation analysis leading to detection of lexical–syntactic patterns which represent different relationships between the sages in the text. The method was successfully applied and evaluated on the corpus of the Mishna, the first written work of the Rabbinic Literature which provides the foundation to the Jewish law development. The constructed prosopographical database and the network generated from its data enable a large-scale quantitative analysis of the sages and their related data, and therefore might contribute to the research of the Talmudic literature and evolution of the Jewish thought throughout the two last millennia.

scholarly journals Early Engagements with the Constitutive Laws of Others: Possible Lessons from Pre-Modern Religious Law

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Hirschl
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Constitutive Laws ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Interdisciplinary Inquiry ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Rich History

Abstract Constitutional law and religious law are often portrayed as diametrically opposed domains. While there are obvious foundational differences between the two domains, the simplistic portrayal of religious law as altogether irrelevant to contemporary discussions about engagement with the laws of others provides an all-too-easy excuse for contemporary constitutional discourse to blind itself to religious law’s rich history and doctrinal innovation. Alongside other possible new horizons of interdisciplinary inquiry, religious law may provide a fertile terrain for placing contemporary debates in (comparative) constitutional law in a broader context. In particular, few authors have paid close attention to the potential value of legal concepts developed within religious law to meeting the challenge of encounters with foreign law. Even fewer have drawn analogies between the effect of extra-doctrinal factors on interpretation in the two domains. The poignant dilemmas of rejection of or interaction with foreign law yearn for thorough and prompt cross-disciplinary analysis, as their relevance to contemporary constitutional law comes to echo their historic importance in religious law. In this article, I explore elements of early engagement with the constitutive laws of others along two lines: (i) various doctrinal innovations in pre-modern religious law, particularly Jewish law, in respect to engagement with the laws of others; (ii) earthly motivations for change to religious law’s treatment of external sources and practices. I conclude by suggesting that the current liberal constitutional canon’s hostility toward religion, in particular its simplistic portrayal of religion as a monolithically “traditional,” “particularist,” “backward” and outdated domain runs the risk of throwing out the baby (religious law) with the bathwater (religion).

scholarly journals Kobiece micwot – rola i pozycja kobiety w świetle religijnego prawa żydowskiego

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-39
Author(s):  
Szoszana Keller
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Traditional Society ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Purity

Women’s Mitzvot: The Role and Position of Women in the Light of the Jewish Religious Law It is not possible to understand the history and present day of Jewish women without placing them in the Jewish tradition, resulting mainly from religion which for centuries was the foundation of Jewish life, regulating its finest aspects. The article describes how the regulations of the religious Jewish law, halakha, determine the place of Jewish women in traditional society, and how the resulting adjustments relate to Jews according to gender. The analysis covers three so-called special women’s mitzvot, i.e. the lighting of the Sabbath lights, the separation of the challah, and the observance of the laws related to the family purity, as well as the resulting positioning of women within a clear apportionment into female−male, public−domestic, or culture−nature.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Mystification of Maimonidean Rationalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-86
Author(s):  
James A. Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Jewish Intellectual

This chapter points out how modern Jewish thinkers looked back and engaged a foundational Jewish canon of scriptural and rabbinic texts when they staked out their own novel ground and advanced Jewish thought in the twentieth century. It mentions the intellectual and jurisprudential legacy of Maimonides as a major part of the development of Jewish law and thought. It also focuses on Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, who embodies modern Jewish authenticity in the twentieth century. The chapter discusses Jewish intellectual, literary, and activist currents that intersected Rabbi Kook. It explores Rabbi Kook's passionate spiritual and political advocacy of Zionism, and his rabbinic leadership of pre-state Jaffa. It describes how Rabbi Kook was constantly driven by an irrepressible urge to disclose his most intimate reflections, no matter what the consequences might be.

Is Talmudic Law a Religious Legal System? A Provisional Analysis

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-401
Author(s):  
Hanina Ben-Menahem
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
French Law ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
System A ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Shed Light

The claim that talmudic law is a religious legal system has long been, and continues to be, put forward by both traditional scholars of Jewish law and contemporary academic researchers.The question of whether talmudic law is a religious legal system most certainly did not engage the Sages of the Talmud, but addressing it will help us grasp the nature of talmudic law. Furthermore, juxtaposing talmudic law to Biblical law will help us delineate the concept of religious law, and shed light on certain developments in the evolution of Jewish law.Let us consider what this claim entails. Sometimes the assertion that a given legal system is a religious legal system merely seeks to indicate that it is part of a certain religion or was created within the framework of that religion. Such an assertion does not provide any information about the nature of the said system, just as the phrase “French law” says nothing more than that the system is used in France.

ACCOMMODATING RELIGIOUS LAW WITH A CIVIL LEGAL SYSTEM: LESSONS FROM THE JEWISH LAW EXPERIENCE IN FINANCIAL FAMILY MATTERS

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (03) ◽  
pp. 481-503
Author(s):  
Avishalom Westreich
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Religious Law

AbstractThe discussion of legal pluralism focuses on the coexistence of several legal systems, mainly religious and civil ones. But what happens when a process of assimilation—whether imposed or voluntary—characterizes the relationships between the systems? This article analyzes the fascinating process of assimilation of civil principles into religious law in the context of Jewish law and Israeli civil family law. Assimilation, as the article shows, is not the whole picture. The article reveals a corresponding (both open and implicit) struggle for the preservation of religious law principles despite the continuing efforts of civil law for their curtailment, or sometimes, elimination. The result, which is somewhat internally contradictory, suggests a normative pluralistic framework that enables both regimes—the civil and the religious—to preserve their core principles in family law matters.

scholarly journals Is Talmudic Law a Religious Legal System?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-41
Author(s):  
Hanina Ben Menahem
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract The claim that Talmudic law is a religious legal system has long been, and continues to be, put forward by both traditional scholars of Jewish law and contemporary academic researchers. The question of whether Talmudic law is a religious legal system most certainly did not engage the Sages of the Talmud, but addressing it will help us grasp the nature of Talmudic law. Furthermore, juxtaposing Talmudic law to Biblical law will help us delineate the concept of religious law, and shed light on certain developments in the evolution of Jewish law.

scholarly journals The “Killer Wife” (Qatlanit) in Jewish Law: A Survey of Sources

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Adler Goodfriend
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Mortal Danger

This article traces the development of Jewish law regarding the qatlanit or “killer-wife,” a woman who was twice widowed. The Jewish law examines the dilemma whether she should be allowed to marry again because of the risk that she poses a mortal danger to men whom she marries. Fear of marrying a woman twice-widowed plays a role in the story of Tamar, but Genesis 38 makes it clear that it is God who is responsible for the deaths of Er and Onan, and not the innocent widow. The Talmud prohibits the marriage of a twice-widowed woman, and attributes the demise of her husbands not to any intention on her part, but rather her “source” (sexual organs) or her “mazal” (fate as determined by astrology). Later responsa generally reflect a more lenient attitude towards the remarriage of the qatlanit in response to the tumult and tragedy of medieval Jewish history, as well as the growing influence of rationalism in Jewish thought. Modern rabbis, because of their openness to scientific thought and concern for the loneliness of old age, show a marked leniency towards the remarriage of a twice-widowed woman.

Martin Schreiner and Jewish Theology: An Introduction

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-84
Author(s):  
Tamás Turán
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Religious Philosophy ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Unpublished Work ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Modern Judaism

Martin Schreiner (1863–1926), a rabbi in Hungary and later a professor at the liberal rabbinical seminary in Berlin, was a disciple of David Kaufmann and Ignaz Goldziher, and a prominent scholar of Medieval Islamic and Jewish thought. The present article deals with his little-known contributions to religious thought in the late nineteenth century, utilizing also his unpublished work on Jewish religious philosophy and his correspondence with Goldziher. Schreiner’s unique quest for a combination of liberal, academic Jewish theological inquiry with conservative loyalty to religious law—a precarious stance, a neo-Maimonidean attitude of sorts—confronted and challenged all the religious platforms which evolved in modern Judaism.

Her Pain Prevails and her Judgment Respected—Abortion in Judaism

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Michael Barilan
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law ◽  
Symbolic World

In 1977, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) changed the section on abortion in the colonial criminal code which Israel inherited from the British mandate in Palestine. Like most other Western countries who relaxed their laws on abortion in the 1960s-80s, Israel made abortion legal for almost all women who seek it. Nonetheless, the Israeli law on abortion differs substantially from other nations' laws. In no stage of pregnancy does the woman have an absolute right to abort—she always needs an approval from a special committee; yet, the woman's stage of pregnancy is nowhere a relevant legal criterion for permitting or forbidding abortion. The law does not explicitly grant the fetus any value either, as the law speaks only of “termination of pregnancy.” Indeed, Israel has one of the highest rates of late abortions among the developed countries and one of the most liberal laws on the regulation of infertility treatments and research on extra-corporeal embryos.Jewish religious law (Halakhah) ignores both questions central to the modern ethical, political and legal debate on abortion: the status of the fetus and the autonomy of women. Furthermore,Halakhahis not expressed in the language of rights, such as the rights to life and privacy, but rather in the language of obligations and limitations on action. A rich symbolic world of values and virtues complementshalakhicpositivist formalism by inspiring and demonstrating desirable ways of life and modes of valuing human action. Regarding abortion, the dialectics between Jewish law (the formal law, which delineates right from wrong) and morality (which inspires and portrays ideal modes of action as part of a largely oral tradition of private counseling and synagogue preaching) reach a powerful climax. The religious law prohibiting abortion is one of the most liberal among human legal systems, but the values of procreation and preservation of human life that inform the moral discussion are fundamental.

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