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June 3, 1975

The Shaping of Halacha in Every Generation - Lecture Notes (1975)

Halachik Method
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A Philosophy of Halacha that Depends on One Letter (1979)

Nat L is pos. L. (=sovereign's common). *NL = absol, univ'l, timeless. Immanent, ontological. *Euripedis (50 yrs before Plato) – discoverable, no gromulgatis *chtz... Islam: rutabila (NL) vs Ashariga *Hal? some – yes; others – no. (Karaites – yes). 2. יומא – אלה המצות – שאללמלא (פתא דין הוא שיינתב) תודותי – שהשטן משיב עליהם. appar'ly – NL – but Fox: after the fact. Saadia – שכלית/שמעית = NL/PL... 3. Rambam. מהר"ל – כן, אבל מתנגד. פוקסופאור – לא. 4. I: yes: guide 3:17 –
Halachik Method

Speech

The Halakhic Person and the Halakhic Process: Excerpts of the Concluding Portion of the Sheur Klali (1997)

His Personality: Civility. It emerges from the responsum that is the subject of this sheur that the local Rav, who referred the problem to R. Isaac Elchanan, had made a mistake; had he given the elderly couple who turned to him for guidance the right advice, the problem that so distressed the wife after her husband’s demise would never have arisen. Yet note how civil, even respectful, R. Isaac Elchanan is of this anonymous Rav: First—he lets him remain anonymous; he has no interest in exposing him to the opprobrium of his colleagues. Second, he does not insult him—no calling him an am ha-aretz, and no blistering attack demanding that he should have consulted him as a higher authority; and third, a special effort to interpret his actions in a favorable light. This is how a true gadol be’Yisrael acts—and how we too should conduct ourselves. The Halakhic Process. An important lesson to be learned from analysis of this responsum of R. Isaac Elchanan concerns the nature of the whole halakhic method. To put it into somewhat extreme forms, abandoning subtlety for the sake of clarity, there are two competing points of view: a) the halakhic process is totally objective and univocal; our purpose is but to discover the single halakhic truth, and to approach the question at hand utterly without prejudice or bias. b) the Halakha is what we want it to be; it is the formal dressing for rabbinic policy, whether explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious. The responsum we studied belies both of these conflicting theses—each in a different way. The second view, that the Rabbis can make of the Halakha whatever they wish, is not only inconsistent with the whole history of Halakha, but it is pernicious in that it contradicts the most basic assumptions of the Halakha. It assumes an almost infinite plasticity on the part of the Halakha, and bears within itself serious antinomian consequences. If indeed, as the early Reformers and later their Conservative followers maintained, and is …
Halachik Method

Note

The Shaping of Halacha in Every Generation (1975)

The encounter of Halakhah with reality is an instance of the confrontation of the changeless with the changing. Every generation poses new problems, and these must be responded to by Halakhah. Orthodoxy today is not lacking in scholarship or in dedication. We are deficient, however, in the forms and emphases of education in Halakhah. Our structure of higher education has not encouraged the development of halakhic respondents and decisors who can operate in that tension between the fixed principles of the Law and the flux of reality.Our best schools have produced practicing Rabbis and knowledgeable laymen, and rashei yeshivah. But we have hardly created any posekim and meshivim. It is analogous to a country which has lawyers and professors of law, but no judges. As a result, the very natural and organic development of a responsive Halakhah has been largely furstrated. Some of our best young scholars are theoreticians who see the Halakhah as a logically consistent, abstract system, but are not sufficiently interested in its dynamic quality of relating to changing situations.The greatest respondents of our day are men of advanced age. It is imperative that we restructure our rabbinic educational system -- as well as our societal system of rewards and recognition — to favor the emergence of scholars who will understand the application of Halakhah to ever-changing realities. What has been done in every generation in the past, and is being done to a large extent in Israel today, must and can be done in the U.S.But this kind of scholar must be fully if painfully aware of the social, cultural, and psychological climate of our times. Legislation and judgments are of little value if pronounced in a vacuum. The decisors for our generation must be sufficiently versed in the culture of our times to understand the technological and social consequences of the issues which they are called upon to judge. They must be aware of the tension between the age-old demand for the integrity…
Halachik Method