The double codes of law composed by R. Joseph Karo during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries mark a watershed in the history of Jewish Halakhah [law]. No further legal project was suggested in later generations. The books suggest a new reading beyond the aspects of positive law. R. Karo continued centuries-long traditions of Jewish erudition, in tandem with responding to global changes in history of law and legality both in Europe, and mainly in the Ottoman Empire. It is a global reading of Jewish Halakhah and modernization of Jewish culture in general.

Contemporary arguments about Jewish law uniquely reflect both the story of Jewish modernity and a crucial premise of modern conceptions of law generally: the claim of autonomy for the intellectual subject and practical sphere of the law. Jewish Legal Theories collects representative modern Jewish writings on law and provides short commentaries and annotations on these writings that situate them within Jewish thought and history, as well as within modern legal theory. The topics addressed by these documents include Jewish legal theory from the modern nation-state to its adumbration in the forms of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism in the German-Jewish context; the development of Jewish legal philosophy in Eastern Europe beginning in the eighteenth century; Ultra-Orthodox views of Jewish law premised on the rejection of the modern nation-state; the role of Jewish law in Israel; and contemporary feminist legal theory.

As a dynamic tradition, Judaism has always relied on experts to interpret sacred texts for modern times. Responding to the questions posed to him from congregants, other rabbis, and Jews around the world, Rabbi Allen blends his special sensitivity with profound scholarship in addressing a wide range of religious issues. This book is a window into how an ancient tradition can still keep its relevance today.

Long accepted as the standard code of Jewish law and practice, the Shulhan Aruch was written by Rabbi Joseph Karo in 1565. Now, in an unprecedented restatement of Hoshen haMishpat, one of the four sections of the Shulhan Aruch, Rabbi Emanuel Quint brings fresh insight, modern scholarship, and succinct explication to this brilliant halachic work that will fascinate the educated layperson and advanced scholar alike. With this effort, Rabbi Quint fills the long-felt need to make this material more accessible. A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law: Volume IX - Laws of the Paid Bailee; Laws of the Lessee; Laws Regarding Labor; Laws Regarding Borrowed Objects; Laws Regarding Stealing; Laws Regarding Robbery; Laws of Abiding by the Laws of the Land, continues to open the Shulhan Aruch to the wider audience it deserves. Rabbi Quint, the co-founder of the Jerusalem Institute of Jewish Law, an institute dedicated to the study and dissemination of Jewish civil law, brings his professional expertise to bear on the vast array of Jewish legal processes, procedures and practices encoded here. The reader may be surprised to discover that such a meticulous legal--yet not overly religious--system fits under the category of Jewish law. And yet it does, clearly illustrating that Judaism is not only a religion, but also a culture and community. Beyond a translation, A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law provides the author's own commentary and also incorporates the four centuries of scholarship since the Shulhan Aruch was written, including commentaries and responsa literature. Ample footnotes help guide the reader every step of the way. The result is a comprehensive, well-organized body of rabbinic jurisprudence available to the English reader for the first time. If the Shulhan Aruch can be said to be the distilled essence of Jewish law, then A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law triumphs as a major judicial-literary landmark of its own.

For more than four centuries, Jewish life has been based on a code of law written by Joseph Caro, his Shulḥan `aruk ['set table']. The work was an immediate best-seller because it presented the law in a clear and concise format. Caro's work, however, was methodologically problematic and was widely criticized in the first generations after its publication. In this volume, Edward Fram examines Caro's methods as well as those of two of his contemporaries, Moses Isserles and Solomon Luria. He highlights criticisms of Caro's legal thought and brings alternative methodologies to the fore. He also compares these three jurists, while placing their methods, and cases in their historical, intellectual, and religious contexts. Fram's volume ultimately explains why Caro's methodologically problematic work won the day, while more sophisticated approaches remained points of legal reference but fell short of achieving the acceptance that their authors hoped for.