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Jewish Religious Law in the Modern (and Postmodern) World*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Ze'ev W. Falk
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Extract

The end of the 20th century demonstrates not only a series of encounters between different religious and ethnic traditions but also between such traditions and secularism. An example for the latter is the cultural phenomenon of Jewish Religious Law vis-a-vis Modernization and Postmodernism. The following may therefore be seen as a case study illustrating the problems and options arising in such encounters during the next century.

Jewish religious law (halakhah) is that part of Jewish tradition, defining a Jew's duties towards God and fellow human beings. It is part of a more comprehensive concept, the divine teaching (torah), including narratives (agadah) as well as law (halakhah), and morals (derekh ‘erets) as well as matters of faith ('emunah). This teaching is contained not only in the Pentateuch and in Holy Scripture, but even more so in the oral traditions of the sages. Morals and faith are therefore complementaries to Jewish religious law, and rules of the second order to control it.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 465 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1994

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Footnotes

*

Extended version of the Gruss Lecture delivered at Harvard Law School on 11/22/94. The author thanks Professor J.H.H. Weiler for the invitation and hospitality as well as the Editor for her constructive critique of former versions.

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