To Reshape the World: Interpretation, Renewal, and Feminist Approaches to Jewish Law and Legal Ruling in America and Israel

Abstract

This article explores the writings of three prominent contemporary Jewish feminist thinkers—Rachel Adler, Tamar Ross, and Ronit Irshai—on halakhah (Jewish law) and psak (legal rulings). It employs “On Interpretation,” the classic essay written by Shimon Rawidowicz, to frame their works. Rawidowicz had argued that Jewish thinkers in every generation were required to hear the imperative “Interpret or perish,” if Judaism was to maintain its vitality. In our day, no thinkers have done this more than Adler, Ross, and Irshai. They have attempted to reshape the world of halakhah by exposing many of its assumptions and expanding its concerns. There is a tension between “continuation and rebellion, tradition and innovation,” in their work as they seek to create “a new halakhic story.” They see themselves as bearing responsibility for Jewish continuity and spirituality even as they forthrightly acknowledge the novel turns their writings take within the framework of Jewish textual and legal tradition. By bringing their arguments together in dialogue with one another and by discussing their critics, this essay presents and highlights their views in a way that has implications for the moral shape of the Jewish community and Jewish law now and in the future.