Contemporary Approaches to Jewish Law ~ Spring 2013
Instructors
Office
Office
Hours
Rabbi Yehuda Sarna
Professor Elana Stein
The Bronfman Center
7 E. 10th Street, 5th FL
NYU Center for Spiritual Life –
238 Thompson St., 4th Floor
By appointment only
Phone
212-998-4120
212-874-6100 x229
E-mail
Rabbi.sarna@nyu.edu
Eys221@nyu.edu
Class
Thursdays, 4:55-7:25
Course Description:
In this course, we will study major trends in Jewish legal thinking from
Medieval times to the 21st century, emphasizing what they can teach us
about religious leadership today. From authority and structure to tolerance
and fluidity, we will relate each time period and theme to contemporary
situations.
Class Format:
Each class will contain 4 components:
 Classroom discussion of a primary Jewish text
 Lecture on secondary literature associated with the text
 A five-minute break
 Paired and group discussion about contemporary scenarios in religious
and communal leadership related to that week’s theme.
Course Goals:
1. Students will become familiar with the arc of Jewish intellectual history
from the Middle Ages until today.
2. Students will appreciate diversity of opinion, as well as historical
context and consciousness as factors which shape legal thinking.
3. Students will learn to discuss and form opinions about Jewish primary
texts.
4. Students will learn about universally valuable leadership principles
from local situations.
5. Students will learn to engage with the past in order to be able to lead
in the future.
Texts:
The required text for the course is The Cambridge Companion for
Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. It is available at the NYU Book store
Additional readings will be posted to NYU Classes 2 weeks in advance or are
available on the internet (links indicated on syllabus, or available through
Library Resources on NYU Classes as E-Book or Journal).
There is no language pre-requisite. All primary texts will be made
available in English. All biblical texts can be found in Hebrew and
English at mechon-mamre.org. All texts from the Babylonian Talmud
(BT) can be found in Aramaic and English at halakhah.com. We will
provide all other primary texts in translation as PDFs.
Requirements:
Attendance: Students are required to attend all classes and complete all
assignments on time. A student must notify one of the instructors by email
before class if s/he is unable to attend. Class will begin on time. Lateness
will result in a deduction from one’s class participation grade. If a student is
more than 10 minutes late, s/he will be marked absent.
Oral Presentation: 4 Credit Students Only Each student will give one
oral presentation during the semester related to the readings for a particular
week. Each presentation should last up to 10 minutes only and should
summarize a reading and relate it to an issue in contemporary religious
leadership.
Mid-term AND Final Paper: Mid-way through the semester, each student
will hand in a 1200-1500 word paper highlighting one topic discussed during
the semester. The papers will be graded, and students will revise the papers
and hand them in at the end of the semester for a final grade. Papers will be
graded on a)quality of writing, b)degree of depth and analysis reflected and
c)the ability to discuss texts specifically studied for the course.
.
Evaluation:
2-Credit Students:
40% class participation (Class participation means comments or
questions that reflect having done the assigned readings.)
25% mid-term paper
35% final paper
4-Credit Students:
40% class participation (Class participation means comments or
questions that reflect having done the assigned readings.)
20% oral presentation
10% mid-term paper
30% final paper
Academic Honesty: Academic honesty is expected and required of all
students. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating,
fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty.
Students with Disabilities: New York University is committed to providing
an equal educational opportunity for all students. If a student has a
documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with
Disability Services, s/he may be eligible for reasonable academic
accommodations to help her/him succeed in this course. If a student has a
documented disability that requires an accommodation, s/he should notify
instructor within the first two weeks of the semester so that appropriate
arrangements can be made.
GRADING SCALE
A = 94-100 pts. A- = 90-93 pts. B+ = 87-89 pts. B = 84-86 pts. B- =
80-83,
C+ = 77- 79 pts. C = 74-76 pts. C- = 70-73 pts. D+ = 67-69 pts. D = 6466 pts.
F = 63 or below
Tips for thoughtful and engaged college-level reading:
Give yourself ample time to complete, highlight, and make mental or actual
notes on the readings. Eliminate distractions and allow yourself to be alert
and to become mentally involved in your reading.
If it is difficult for you to absorb new information from reading, do not
attempt to read in one sitting; read portions of the readings at a time.
Make a habit of highlighting or underlining brief passages in the text. If an
idea is new to you, if it confirms what you already know or agree with, if a
passage is confusing, if you do not agree with it, if something is particularly
thought-provoking, highlight it. Highlighting and taking notes or writing your
thoughts in the margins helps you to recall key themes, to remember what
you read, to study for tests and to write papers.
Think of an article or chapter as a story that is being told to you or
conversation that you are having, and make mental connections in your
reading. Is what you’re reading new? Had you ever thought about what the
author is saying before? Is the reading connected with other things you have
read? Do certain ideas in the reading excite or inspire you, make you angry
or sad or confused, confirm what you believe or experience? Do you agree or
disagree with what everything or only certain things the author is saying? Do
you believe what the author is saying is true?—Ask yourself these types of
questions in your mind as you read.
Thurs. Jan. 31
Summary of Fall Semester; Introduction to Requirements and Content of
Spring Semester
Feb. 7 – The Rebellious Wife - Muslim Influence?
PRIMARY TEXT:
Rabbi Sherira Gaon Responsum on “Rebellious Wife”
SECONDARY TEXTS:
Gideon Libson, “Halakhah and Law in the Period of the Geonim,” An
Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law, excerpt only.
Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish
Culture, 249-255·
Norman A. Stillman, “The Jewish Experience in the Muslim World,”
in Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture, 85-112
For further reading:
Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish
Culture, chs. 3,
10, 18 and Epilogue
Feb. 14 - Religious Pluralism? Maimonides and the Karaites
PRIMARY TEXT:
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Rebels 3:1-3
SECONDARY TEXTS:
Yuval Sinai, “Maimonides' Contradictory Positions Regarding the Karaites: A
Study in Maimonidean Jurisprudence,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 11,2
(2008) 277-291
Marc Menachem Kellner, “Maimonides' Disputed Legacy,” Traditions of
Maimonideanism (2009) 245-276
CONTEMPORARY:
Rabbi Dov Linzer, The Discourse of Halakhic Inclusiveness,
http://www.jewishideas.org/articles/discourse-halakhic-inclusiveness
For further reading:
Marina Rustow, “Laity versus leadership in eleventh-century
Jerusalem: Karaites, rabbanites, and the affair of the ban on the Mount of
Olives,” Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics (2008) 195-248
Feb. 21 – Religious Leadership and Tragedy
Haym Soloveitchik, “Halakhah, Hermeneutics, and Martyrdom in Medieval
Ashkenaz,” Jewish Quarterly Review 94,1 (2004) 77-108; 2: 278-299.
Ephraim Kanarfogel, Halakha and Meziut (Realia) in Medieval Ashkenas:
Surveying the Parameters and Defining the Limits, Jewish Law Annual 14
(2003)
CONTEMPORARY:
Joel Gehrke, Pre-Inauguration Sermon Tells Obama He's Pastor-in-Chief,
Washington Examiner, 1/21/13 http://washingtonexaminer.com/pre-inauguration-sermon-tells-obama-hespastor-in-chief/article/2519242#.UQCr3WdA1XU
Further Reading:
Eva Haverkamp, “Jews in Christian Europe: Ashkenaz in the Middle
Ages,” The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism (2012) 169-206
Feb. 28 –Provence: Tolerance
Koryakina, Nadezda, “’Halakha’ and alternative ways of lawmaking in
rabbinic responsa of Provence in the 12th-14th cent., Studia
Anthropologica (2010) 102-111
Moshe Halbertal, “’Ones Possessed of Religion’: Religious Tolerance in the
Teachings of the Meiri,” Edah Journal 1:1 (2000). 1-25http://edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/halbertal.pdf
Further Reading:
Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, chs. 1,2,14
Gerald Blidstein, “Menahem Meiri’s attitude toward gentiles - apologetics or
worldview?,” Binah 3 (1994) 119-133
March 7 - The Status of Conversos – Troubled/Complicated/Dual
Identities
Anna Foa, “The Marrano’s kitchen: external stimuli, internal response, and
the formation of the Marranic persona,” The Mediterranean and the
Jews (2002) 13-25
Benzion Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain, pps 1-22
CONTEMPORARY:
Further Reading:
Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, “Prolegomenon,” History of the Origin and
Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal
March 14 - Who has Authority – Books vs. People
Joseph Davis. “The Reception of the Shulhan ’Arukh and the Formation of
Ashkenazic Jewish Identity” AJS Review 26/2 (2002): 251-276.
CONTEMPORARY:
Robert Wuthnow – America and the Challenges of Religious Pluralism, pages
TBA
March 21 – Spring Break
March 28 – False Messianism
Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: Mystical Messiah, pps 1-21 (The
Background of the Sabbatean Movement)
CONTEMPORARY:
Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails, Foreward, pages TBA
April 4th – Critical Methods vs. Traditional Religious Beliefs…
David Ellenson, “Scholarship and Faith: David Hoffman and his relationship
to ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums’”, Modern Judaism 8,1 (1988) 27-40
Baruch Spinoza and the Naturalization of Judaism, Steven Nadler
(Cambridge Companion)
CONTEMPORARY:
Benjamin D. Sommer, “Two Introductions to Scripture: James Kugel and the
Possibility of Biblical Theology,” JQR 100:1, (2010), 153-182
http://www.academia.edu/1819228/Two_Introductions_to_Scripture_James
_Kugel_and_the_Possibility_of_Biblical_Theology
April 11th – Dissolution of Religious Authority
Michael K. Silber, “The emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy : the invention of a
tradition,” The Uses of Tradition (Jack Wertheimer), 23-84
The Liberalism of Moses Mendelssohn, Allan Arkush (Cambridge Companion)
Eliyahu Stern, The Genius, chapter 5 (The Biur and the Yeshiva)
CONTEMPORARY:
Chief Rabbinate of Israel reading: TBA
April 18th - Denominationalism and Post-denominationalism
Kaplan, “Contemporary Forms of Judaism,” Cambridge Guide to Jewish
History, Religion, and Culture, 445-464
David Ellenson, “Modern Orthodoxy and the Problem of Religious Pluralism,”
Tradition 17 (1979), 74-89
CONTEMPORARY:
Jack Schechter, “Jewish denominationalism: (are we in a postdenominational era?),” Conservative Judaism 61,4 (2010) 58-66
Further Reading:
Joseph Soloveitchik and Halakhic Man, Lawrence J. Kaplan (Cambridge
Companion)
April 25th – Zionism – Extremes meeting in the middle?
Jacob Katz, “The Forerunners of Zionism,” Essential Papers on Zionism, 3345
Yosef Salmon, “Religious Zionism between tradition and
modernity,” Jerusalem Quarterly 53 (1990) 127-136
Gershon Mamlak, “The roots of ‘religious’ anti-Zionism,” Midstream 44,4
(1998) 10-15
CONTEMPORARY:
Dov Schwartz, “Ideas vs. reality: multiculturalism and religiousZionism,” The Multicultural Challenge in Israel (2009) 200-225
May 2 – 20th century – Gender and Fluidity
Feminism and Modern Jewish Philosophy, Tamar Rudavsky (Cambridge
Companion)
Women’s Roles in Religious Leadership
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jofa.org%2Fuplo
adedFiles%2Fsite%2FAdvocacy%2FResponsa%2520on%2520Ordination%25
20of%2520Women.pdf
Elizabeth Richman, Ordaining Gays and Lesbians: Denominational
Approaches http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Sex_and_Sexuality/Homosexuality/G
ay_Communities/Rabbinic_Ordination.shtml
Rabbi Joel Roth, Homosexuality Revisited
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rabbinicalassem
bly.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fpublic%2Fhalakhah%2Fteshuvot%2
F20052010%2Froth_revisited.pdf
Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins, Avram I. Reisner, Homosexuality,
Human Dignity and Halakhah
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rabbinicalassem
bly.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fpublic%2Fhalakhah%2Fteshuvot%2
F20052010%2Fdorff_nevins_reisner_dignity.pdf
Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, Statement of Principles
http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/
Rabbis Yoel Bin-Nun, Daniel Sperberg, Joshua Maroof, Responsa on
Further Reading:
Rabbi Steven Greenberg, Wrestling with God and Men
Dr. Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism
May 9 – Rupture and Reconstruction – Holocaust/Technology
Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of
Contemporary Orthodoxy”, Tradition 28 (1995): 320-376.
Emil Fackenheim, the Holocaust and Philosophy, Michael L. Morgan
(Cambridge Companion)
Further Reading:
Nadell, “Jews and Judaism in the United States,” in Cambridge Guide to
Jewish History, Religion, and Culture, 208-232