The principles and nature of Jewish law

Abstract

Any attempt to understand the nature and contents of the corpus of Jewish law - known in Hebrew as “Halakhah” - must begin with the awareness that it is a self-contained system predicated upon the axiological assumption that both its contents and canons of interpretation are the product of divine revelation. Thus it follows that man has no legal or moral right to manipulate the system in order to support predetermined conclusions, no matter how appealing or desirable they may seem. To be sure, human intellect may, and indeed must, be employed in order to apply Halakhah to novel or previously unexamined situations. But that process must be both methodologically rigorous and intellectually honest. In applying theory to practice the decisor must pursue the law to its logical conclusion. The underlying nature of the legal system is modified only by the narrowly defined and severely circumscribed legislative powers of properly constituted rabbinic bodies to create “fences” around the law, to promulgate social welfare legislation and to issue emergency ad hoc decrees. (from Introduction)