“Doing the Right and the Good”: Thinking Against Mass Incarceration

In 1952, Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg (a member of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of Israel) and Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Chai Uziel (the Rishon LeTziyon and Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel) addressed the question of incarceration in a Jewish state according to the halakhic tradition. A generation later, Rabbi Chaim David Halevi the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo) also addressed this question. Their approaches shed light on the way we should be thinking about incarceration in general, and the overwhelming problem of the current moment in the United States: mass incarceration.     

HALAKHA ADAPTS TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

This article will attempt to shed some light on the phenomenon of the adoption of modern technologies by Orthodox Jews. It examines the debate over the halakhic status of electricity in the early twentieth century, concentrating on two rabbis of that period, Yehuda Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935) of Montreal, and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910–1995) of Jerusalem, who wrote notable works on the subject. The works discussed are Rabbi Rosenberg’s Me’or hahashmal (1924) and Rabbi Auerbach’s Me’orei esh (1935). These works are examined in the context of the development of halakha and its application to new technologies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and also in light of the halakhic strategies of both rabbis. Finally, unpublished letters of Rabbi Auerbach to Rabbi Rosenberg are examined that allow us some insight into the inception of Rabbi Auerbach’s work.     

HALAKHIC CHANGE VS. DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

Many Orthodox Jews, especially the Ultra-Orthodox or “Haredim,” insist that both the Written and Oral Torah as we know them were given at Sinai and that any mention of halakhic development is heresy. This article seeks to highlight change in American Orthodox Judaism from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. The first part deals with cultural change. A series of changes in the halakhah-related sphere that are deemed to be religiously acceptable in the halakhah-observant community are then presented. The issue of the influence of values on the halakhic decision-making process is briefly discussed, after which a number of possibilities—sociological and demographic—are raised as explanations of the basis for the then-Chief Rabbi Brodie's veto of the appointment of Rabbi Louis Jacobs as Principal of Jews’ College and his subsequent refusal to reappoint Jacobs as Minister of London's New West End Synagogue.     

The Role of Theology in Contemporary Jewish Ethical Decision-Making: The Case of Artificial Insemination

Among the stunning achievements of modern medicine have been the advances in reproductive technology. As a result of these advances, new ethical questions have been raised. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, an ultra-orthodox legal decisor, responded to the challenge of difficult moral dilemmas by developing a Jewish response. He argued forcefully against the use of artificial insemination using a donor's semen (AID) and was even hesitant about permitting it using the husband's sperm (AIH). His opposition is based on a combination of kabbalistic, bio-conservative, and epistemological grounds and demonstrates the dominant role that theology plays in Jewish ethical decision-making.     

IDENTITY,POLITICS AND HALAKHAH IN MODERN ISRAEL

The fierce debate over conversion to Judaism raging in Israel today has been fuelled by the Israeli Law of Return and the resulting immigration of large numbers of non-Jews to Israel from the Soviet Union. It has precedents, however, in earlier rabbinic literature. This paper traces the conversion debate from its Talmudic origins, through the nineteenth century halakhic polemic, to the present day. It demonstrates how the processes of secularization and nationalism that have affected the Jewish community have impacted on a changing balance in the roles of religion and nationalism in the definition of “who is a Jew” and “who is a convert?” It also shows how halakhic rulings are affected by social changes and how the ideologies of halakhic authorities impact their decisions.     

Time and Tradition as Reflected in the Etz Hayim Torah Commentary

At the beginning of the twenty‐first century, the Conservative Movement in North America published a Torah commentary reflecting its historical and theological elucidation of Judaism. This commentary, Etz Hayim, evinces a number of features that the following essay subjects to critical comment and analysis. These include: the commentary’s emphasis on historical context as critical to deciphering the Torah narratives and its laws; the presupposition that Judaism functions as an organism constantly in flux, open to patterns of progress and decline, with an aptitude for rebirth and self‐renewal; and that the pivotal rubrics of belonging, believing, and behaving are quintessential features of Jewish identity. While these characteristics are relatively uncontroversial, the same cannot be said for the editorial decision to divide, on the same page, the commentary’s 'historical' and 'homiletical' segments – a feature which effectively drives underground the option to integrate spiritual values and lessons using the tools of modern critical scholarship. Another unfortunate feature of Etz Hayim is that its two essays on Jewish law (Halakha) offer contrasting, competitive interpretations of how the halakhic process actually works in the minds of Conservative decisors. Yet these alternate approaches are not sufficiently delineated for the lay reader. Finally, while Etz Hayim does highlight value concepts that function as goads to ritual observance, the various contributors to the commentary and to the appended essays never fully engage why Conservative Jews ought to become serious practitioners of Jewish tradition. These shortcomings notwithstanding, Etz Hayim does offer a template of hope and expectation: through its historical‐religious experiences, the Jewish people facilitates an ethical worldview of particular, and of universal, merit.     

Attitudes to Death during the Holocaust: writings from the ghettos

This study explores perspectives on death from ‘within’ the Holocaust, works written in the midst of suffering which were not tempered by or influenced by survival and its traumas. The focus on thinking during the Holocaust will look at two categories of literature written during the Holocaust, which were hidden or distributed by their authors who did not survive. The first involves secular diarist accounts of life in ghettos and the second is the ‘theological’ writing of religious leaders writing for their followers (Rabbi Shapiro'sEsh Kodesh (The Holy Fire) from the Warsaw Ghetto and Rabbi Tiechtall'sEm Habanim Smecha (The Happy Mother of Children) from Budapest). This literature is studied in relation to a number of key questions: how death was recorded; evidence of religious rituals concerning death; how the rituals helped people to cope with death; and the nature of theological debate at the time.     

Light and Shadow as a Function of the Religious Psyche: The Evil Eye

Psychology today has a tendency to pathologize anything which deviates from the Cartesian medical paradigm. It is a great injustice of the field to rob the psyche of its shadow, its evil side. The late Rabbi Shneerson spoke about this aspect of personality in terms of light and shadow (good and evil) and how we need to allow both in an attempt to create balance which then leads to harmony. This paper is an attempt to look at the ancient struggle of good and evil in terms of the Etz Chayim, or the Tree of Life. The ancient knowledge of Judaism has much to offer the young field of psychology concerning human nature and life cycle. The evil eye as a religious function of the psyche is an attempt to expound on the importance of taking the full spectrum of human nature into account, seeing and understanding the entire picture. Perhaps we can change from pathology to the stories of our monsters or gremlins and what they have to teach us. It is only through allowing the light and the dark to co-exist, that we can create a place for balance and unity. Lectures extensively at universities, to professional organizations, and community groups     

One Question,Two Answers: Rabbinic Responsa as Legal Advocacy in the Medieval Islamic World

Jewish law has long faced the problem of individual litigants seeking multiple answers to a single halakhic question in order to select what they found to be the most favorable ruling. In this article, I examine the role that forum shopping for legal opinions played in the Jewish community of the medieval Islamic world. Individuals often made recourse to multiple juristic authorities, whether those authorities were leaders serving the geonic academies of Babylonia and the land of Israel or local jurists. I discuss some of the strategies the geonim and local jurists used to reduce competition between judicial rulings and how local judges utilized the various responsa composed on their behalf by these authorities or presented to them by litigants to bolster their case before the Jewish court. In so doing, I aim to refine our understanding of the social and legal role of rabbinic responsa in the medieval Islamic world by suggesting that this literature served as expert testimony to support one side or the other in a particular case rather than as the definitive record of the court’s ruling in that case.     

Religious Regulation and the Courts: The Judiciary's Changing Role in Protecting Minority Religions from Majoritarian Rule

Following the 1990 Smith v. Employment Division of Oregon ruling on the limits of religious freedom, many protested that the Supreme Court had opened the door for majoritarian oppression of minority rights. Using data collected on 2,109 court cases on religion from 1981–1996 we document recent trends in court decisions on religion and address questions posed by supply-side theory, legal scholars, and the sociology of law. We find that religious sects and cults were more likely to be involved in court cases and more likely to receive unfavorable rulings. Multivariate models confirm these finding and support the charges of legal scholars that the Smith decision has decreased the rate of rulings favoring religious groups. Finally, we find that the Smith decision had both a period effect and a case precedent effect.     

Halakhah as Torat Hayyim: the values-conscious visions of Eliezer Berkovits and Emanuel Rackman

In the third quarter of the twentieth century, Eliezer Berkovits and Emanuel Rackman were two of the most articulate spokesmen of an approach to the interpretation and application of Jewish law, in the United States, identified with modern Orthodoxy. Each viewed their understanding of the development of Halakhah as an organic expression of the millennia-old process that is torat hayyim, living Torah. Both Berkovits and Rackman moved to Israel in the 1970s; each was, increasingly, marginalized in the world of organized Orthodoxy.

The tropes sounded by Berkovits and Rackman were remarkably consistent over their careers. One particular area that both recognized as urgently calling for halakhic development was matters relating to women. In this connection, as with other issues they addressed, they maintained that Torah principles of the ethical have a significant role to play in Jewish legal development. This essay focuses on the visions of halakhic development articulated by Berkovits and Rackman during the third quarter of the twentieth century.     

A JEWISH CONCEPTION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

This paper depicts the meanings of human dignity as they unfold and evolve in the Bible and the Halakhah. I posit that three distinct features of a Jewish conception of human dignity can be identified in contrast to core characteristics of a liberal conception of human dignity. First, the original source of human dignity is not intrinsic to the human being but extrinsic, namely in God. Second, it is argued that the “dignity of the people” has precedence over personal autonomy and liberty, which are core liberal pillars. The third characteristic pertains to the potential conflict between personal autonomy and liberty, and God's commandments. The theoretical analysis of human dignity is then examined in light of several Supreme Court decisions in Israel during the 1990s. I illustrate that Jewish religious and secular‐liberal conceptions pull in different directions in the rulings of liberal and religious Justices in Israel.     

Yeshayahu Leibowitz's Axiology

This essay explicates and assesses Yeshayahu Leibowitz's axiology, and its relation to the value he claims halakhic (Jewish legal) practice instantiates: service of God. It argues that, while Leibowitz often affirms a relativist “polytheism of values,” he sometimes implies that the religious value is the “most valuable value.” However, this is not due to its material content, because serving God is objectively best; rather it is because, consonant with his negative theology, it most fully instantiates the formal properties of a value. The essay concludes by assessing the tenability of Leibowitz's metaethics as well as the argument for positing this contentless value as an intention and reason for halakhic practice.     

The rationing of health care: A doctor's dilemma

Physicians are currently presented with very difficult ethical issues regarding who receives what level of medical care and for how long. A meaningful response to these perplexing issues necessitates a collaboration of doctors with others steeped in religious and ethical traditions. This paper addresses the complicated issue of the rationing of health care, and this issue is then addressed by responses from representatives of the religious community. This symposium took place at the New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center in March 1991.The Rev. Curtis W. Hart, M.Div. is Director of Pastoral Care and Education at the New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center.The Rev. Paul Conner, O.P., is Associate Professor and Director of the Master's Program in Public Health Care Ethics at New York Medical College. Larry Rasmussen, Th.D., is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Dr. Harlan J. Wechsler is Rabbi of Congregation Or Zarua and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.     

The Doctor is Just a Messenger: Beliefs of Ultraorthodox Jewish Women in Regard to Breast Cancer and Screening

Screenings for the early detection of breast cancer greatly improve survival odds. Studies of minority groups have shown lower attendance of screenings; however, these studies seldom focused on religious minorities. This study examines perceptions of cancer and cancer screening among healthy ultraorthodox women in order to gain insight about ways to promote screening. In this qualitative-phenomenological study of two focus groups, three main themes were found: faith in God; the Rabbi as a guide; one’s relationship with the community. The study’s findings point to the importance of studying the unique needs of members of certain religious groups.     

Platform and prophecy: the rise and fall of Rabbi Stuart E. Rosenberg as foreshadowed in his early Toronto sermons on leadership

Stuart Rosenberg, who served from 1956 to 1976 as rabbi of Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto, enjoyed a meteoric rise and suffered as precipitate a fall. A charismatic speaker with a powerful personality, Rosenberg presided over Beth Tzedec as if he were the chief executive of a corporation. The activities he initiated in the synagogue and his high profile in the Jewish and general communities put Beth Tzedec “on the map,” making it, for a time at least, Canada’s premier Jewish religious institution. During his early years at Beth Tzedec, Rabbi Rosenberg published two books of sermons: Man Is Free: Sermons and Addresses and A Time to Speak: Of Man, Faith and Society. Both were widely distributed to colleagues and congregants. His only collections of sermons can be viewed as his written testament. Read from the perspective of a half-century later, the sermons are clearly documents of their time and place. They reflect the well-known, mostly sociological literature on religion, Toronto, and the Conservative Movement written during the 1950s and earlier, as well as the history and mood of the congregation itself. Read in the light of Rabbi Rosenberg’s rise and fall at Beth Tzedec, these sermons appear to be both his platform for early success and a prophecy of his sudden downfall.     

The aborted candidacy of Rabbi Asher Ginsburg: A failed attempt at modernization

The Napoleonic edict of 1808 that established theconsistorial system for French Jewry created a new rabbinate thatwas intended to differ from the ``old' both in terms of itsauthority and its mission. When the first vacancy occurred in therabbinical triumvirate that, together with two lay leaders,constituted the Central Consistory, it afforded the leadership anopportunity to shape the future of the French rabbinate andJewish religious life. Their choice of Rabbi Asher Low Ginsburg,son of the late and distinguished rabbi of Metz (the ShaagatAryeh), signals an attempt to endow the new rabbinate withprestige and legitimacy. In addition, the consistorial leadershipmay have chosen R. Asher, a man with positive views on haskalahand secular learning, in the hope that his candidacy would helpmodernize the rabbinate and further the goal of ``regeneration'for French Jewry set by both the French government and theenlightened Jewish leadership. Seen in this light, R. Asher'sultimate rejection of the post, followed by the appointment ofRabbi Emmanuel Deutz, was a setback for the consistory and theprocess of modernization.     

COLLECTIVE RELIGIO‐SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSIONS ON ISLAM AND HIV/AIDS: I. BIOMEDICAL SCIENTISTS

During the 1990s, biomedical scientists and Muslim religious scholars collaborated to construe Islamic responses for the ethical questions raised by the AIDS pandemic. This is the first of a two‐part study examining this collective legal reasoning (ijtihād jamā‘ī). The main thesis is that the role of the biomedical scientists is not limited to presenting scientific information. They engaged in the human rights discourse pertinent to people living with HIV/AIDS, gave an account of the preventive strategy adopted by the World Health Organization, and offered an (Islamic) virtue‐based preventive model. Finally, these scientists tried to draft a number of Islamic legal rulings (a?kām), usually seen in Islamic jurisprudence as the exclusive business of Muslim religious scholars. This multilayered role played by the scientists reflects intriguing developments in the Islamic religio‐ethical discourse in general and in the field of Islamic jurisprudence in particular.     

Law,social science and the “brainwashing” exception to the first amendment

Litigation in the “cult wars” has shifted from “deprograming” cases to civil suits by ex-converts based on “brainwashing” claims, and to criminal defenses claiming incapacity due to cultic brainwashing. Early cases were decided on the basis of first amendment derivations barring judicial inquiries into conversion processes and religious authenticity. In 1988 the California Supreme Court carved out a narrow exception to this doctrine to be applied to circumstances where “coercive persuasion” is combined with concealment of a group's identity. The Court's opinion entailed characterizations of the process and consequences of brainwashing which are problematic from the standpoint of social science. Several key questions must be resolved before brainwashing theories can make a constructive contribution to litigation involving religious groups. These questions relate to broader issues involving the nature, causes and indicators of involuntariness, and the closely related problem of drawing the line or identifying the exact point on a continuum beyond which the means or intensity of indoctrination becomes incapacitating. Although the 1988 California decision did not resolve these issues, they were considered from 1988-91 by several courts making procedural rulings on the admissibility of “expert” testimony on brainwashing/psychologicd coercion. A concluding section relates this legal to the duality of ‘soft’ vs. ‘hard’ determinism in social science.