| Abstract: | 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. |
