Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy

Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc, 1992. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, 250 pages. Footnotes. Index. Includes Preface; Daas Torah: A Modern Conception of Rabbinic Authority; Subjectivity in Rabbinic Decision-Making; Eilu ve-Eilu Divrei Elohim Hayyim; Halakhic Pluralism and Theories of Controversy; Creativity and Innovation in Halakhah; Personal Autonomy and Religious Authority; Toward a Sociology of Pesak. Also contains Contributors and Index. This is one of The Orthodox Forum Series, A Project of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, An Affiliate of Yeshiva University. MOSHE Z. SOKOL Ph.D., has been the Morah D' Asrah and Rabbi of the Yavneh Minyan of Flatbush since 1990. He is presently the Dean of the Lander College for Men, a division of Touro College. He has served Touro College in various administrative capacities, including founding and directing the Graduate School of Jewish Studies and a collaborative medical program with the Technion in Israel. Rabbi Sokol received semicha from the Israel Torah Research Institute (ITRI) in Jerusalem followed by two years of post-semicha study at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. Rabbi Sokol received his Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. His undergraduate work was done at Brooklyn College where he graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. Rabbi Sokol has written or edited four books and published over two dozen essays on ethics and Jewish Studies in major British, American and Israeli journals, and lectured at conferences around the world. With the advent of modernity, great emphasis has been placed on the value of personal autonomy. Yet traditional Judaism has historically emphasized the authority of the rabbinic decision maker. The essays in this volume are concerned with exploring the tension between these two poles. Does traditional Jewish life encourage or discourage personal autonomy? To what extent are decisions of Jewish law influenced by subjective factors? Does rabbinic authority extend to all areas of life or does it confine itself to a narrower field of influence? What freedom does a rabbinic authority have to make innovations, and are there grounds for pluralism within the system of Jewish law? These questions cut to the core of Jewish life in the modern world. With the advent of modernity, great emphasis has been placed on the value of personal autonomy. Yet traditional Judaism has historically emphasized the authority of the rabbinic decision maker. The essays in this volume are concerned with exploring the tension between these two poles. Experts from such diverse fields as history, sociology, philosophy, and Jewish law explore the questions raised above. Their analyses are informed not only by their academic expertise but by their deep understanding of the Jewish legal system and Jewish life and their abiding concern for what it means to live that life in the modern world. The contributors to this volume were participants in the Orthodox Forum, an annual gathering of scholars who meet to consider major issues of concern to the Jewish community. Papers presented at the Orthodox Forum, first conference, Sept. 10-11, 1989, at the Jewish Center, New York.