Word: halakah
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...Torah as they celebrated the end of the thanksgiving period of Sukkot.* The dancers were mostly men, but a few congregations allowed women to join in and carry the scrolls-to the bitter disapproval of the Orthodox. Women are forbidden to touch the Torah by an injunction of Halakah, that vast body of law that regulates Jewish life with a sweep ranging from lofty ethical norms to small dietary injunctions. Halakah, which means variously "the law" and "the way" in Hebrew, is considered by many to be the essence of Judaism, the cement that for centuries enabled the Jews...
Jewnitarian Religion? In the current issue of the Conservative United Synagogue Review, Buffalo's Rabbi Isaac Klein affirms the "central and normative role of Halakah in Judaism" but argues that Jewish law "was never intended to be frozen" and "must grow to meet new situations." In fact, as Rabbi Klein points out, Halakah has been significantly modified over the centuries, by such sages as Maimonides and Joseph Karo, in order to adapt the written Talmud to the requirements of everyday life. The Conservative branch of Judaism considers Halakah of divine origin but believes in adapting it to the times...
...Halakah & Aggadah. There is no easy entrance to the Talmud's world. It begins with a question: "From which moment on may one recite the Shema [a prayer based on passages from Deuteronomy and Numbers] in the evening?" Then it plunges abruptly into page after crowded page of rabbinical answers, further questions, disputations. The comments themselves are of two kinds: halakah, or interpretation of the law, and aggadah, meaning sayings, parables, narratives or proverbs with a moral significance. The two kinds of commentary are hopelessly, sometimes humorously, interwoven. Argument is seldom pursued to a logical conclusion. In the midst...
...Rosh Hashanah. During the year, according to the Law, all land owned by Jews in Palestine must lie fallow.* That way lies bankruptcy; so Jews have resorted to the legal maneuver of giving full title to their property to a non-Jew, who is not bound by the Halakah. This enables the Jews to work the land with a free conscience...
...does not keep a kosher kitchen, bacon, purchased from a Jewish butcher, is served only on request. Orthodox rabbis are pleased that there are separate hours for men and women to use the building's swimming pool, which is the only one in Jerusalem that observes the rigid Halakah prohibition against mixed bathing...