Word: halakhah
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...problem is that traditionalists in the Conservative branch believe, along with Orthodox Jews, that Halakhah (religious law) clearly rules out women rabbis. According to the Talmud (teachings of religious sages compiled more than 14 centuries ago), women may not perform certain functions reserved to men, such as witnessing betrothals and marriages and leading congregations in prayers. J.T.S. Chancellor Gerson D. Cohen, who presided over the vote, left little doubt that he rejects the Orthodox view and believes that women should be allowed to perform these functions. Said Cohen: "I believe it is incumbent upon us to do away with discrimination...
...Temple Scroll also provides the first thorough look at the Halakhah (religious law) of the Essenes. Compared with the orthodox rabbinical thinking that was later codified in the second century Mishnah, the Qumran rules on ritual cleanliness were superstrict. Only the skins of properly slaughtered animals were to be permitted in the temple city. Blind people, as well as the ill and maimed, were barred as unclean. All sexual relations within the temple city were forbidden. One cemetery was to serve four cities since "you shall not follow the customs of the Gentiles who bury their dead everywhere...
...hiring a caterer or ordering silver. For civil marriage does not exist in Israel, and all Jews-religious and nonreligious alike -must get approval for weddings from the strict Orthodox rabbinate. In many cases the result has been the dismaying discovery that they are considered psulai hitun-"unmarriageable." Under halakhah, the traditional religious...
...Torah ("teachings"), had probably been canonized by Jews as the core of their sacred writings by the 5th century B.C. But even before that, there was growing up along with the Scriptures a body of oral interpretation eventually codified in the Talmud. It includes legal judgments known as halakhah and pious elaborations of biblical stories known as aggadah. Even in matters of law, however, the rabbis were not literalists. An "eye for an eye," for example, was not construed strictly (as it was in the Hammurabic Code). Instead, monetary compensation was deemed lawful. Nor were Jewish commentators troubled...
Many Reform Jews are returning to some of the observances of Halakhah (Jewish religious law), and Conservative Jews are tightening their own practices. The ranks of Roman Catholic traditionalists are growing, especially such militant reactionaries as Catholics United for the Faith. Some run their own schools, eschewing all sex education and teaching the officially discarded Baltimore Catechism ("Why did God make me?" "God made me to know, love and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next"). One of the two major U.S. Eastern Orthodox communions, the Orthodox Church in America, last week...