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.

This book presents a series of authoritative discussions of the application of Jewish tradition to contemporary social and political issues.

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.

New Perspectives on Jewish Law combines the detailed work characteristic of scholarship on Jewish law with an orientation towards its broader academic and cultural significance. It shifts the study of Jewish law from its focus on legal doctrine and history to legal theory, achieving in the process a more sophisticated understanding of law that will benefit both the legal academy and Jewish studies. By employing the framework of legal theory, it similarly corrects an over-emphasis on the metaphysical presuppositions and philosophical implications of Jewish law, which has tended to cast it as exceptional relative to other legal systems. Moreover, it answers to old-new anxieties about law, often symbolized by Judaism, raised by contemporary feminists and by philosophers who are animated by recent interpretations of Paul through actual engagement with the Jewish legal tradition. The volume consists of three parts. The first focuses on the critique of positivism, its implications, and the new directions that it opens up for the analysis of Jewish law. The second part takes stock of recent methodological developments in the study of Jewish legal texts and investigates the relation between Jewish law and the disciplines, including history, literary theory, ritual studies, the digital humanities, as well as traditional approaches to Jewish learning. It concludes with a reflection on these interdisciplinary contributions from the perspective of legal theory. The third part explores the connections among Jewish law, philosophy, and culture critique. It assesses the relation or lack thereof between Jewish law and modern Jewish thought, and examines specific issues of philosophical interest, including truth and normativity. It also investigates the image of Jewish law in the contemporary critique of law as well as how Jewish law could productively contribute to that debate. It concludes with a reflection on these studies from the perspective of philosophy of law.

Designing public policies to meet the needs of a diverse society is challenging, and the variety of necessary perspectives are often clouded by competing ideas about social responsibility, personal freedom, religious beliefs, and governmental intervention. Here, prominent Jewish scholars and commentators address various social issues and public policies from a Jewish perspective, using Jewish sources and documents to elucidate responses and propose solutions that are in keeping with Jewish law as set out by the major documents of the Jewish faith. Abortion, stem cell research, welfare reform, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and other hot-button issues are topics of primary concern to politicians, lawmakers, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens alike. Designing public policies to meet the needs of a diverse society is challenging, and the variety of necessary perspectives are often clouded by competing ideas about social responsibility, personal freedom, religious beliefs, and governmental intervention. Here, prominent Jewish scholars and commentators address various social issues and public policies from a Jewish perspective, using Jewish sources and documents to elucidate responses and propose solutions that are in keeping with Jewish law as set out by the major documents of the Jewish faith. Their conclusions about ways to consider issues of public concern and private consideration, and their adherence to conservative politics, may surprise readers. What emerges is the notion that Jewish thought can contribute to the American political discourse and is available to anyone looking for answers to today's toughest questions. Creating a public policy to address social issues that is both responsible and morally guided can be a difficult proposition for lawmakers. Making personal decisions about these same issues can be even more difficult as people struggle for guidance. Addressing many of the issues that are hotly debated in the media and in the corridors of our government, conservative, reform, and orthodox commentators carefully outline an approach for lawmakers and individuals. This approach incorporates Jewish law into a public policy philosophy that is both conservative-leaning and politically available. Taken as a whole, the essays underscore that Jewish tradition mostly (albeit not invariably) leads one to the politically conservative side of the aisle.