Quotes about Halakhah

Majoriie Ingall

The Talmud. the compendium of Jewish Law. is pretty much a bunch of dudes contradicting on another...

The Torah, the first 5 Books of the Bible, are the statement of Jewish law. The Talmud is a compendium of commentary on Jewish Law—–reflecting the views of a number of learned Rabbis of old. In a sense, they are much like legal opinions from many different judges. They are disparate views and often contradict on another. Few if any other religions, have an official document like it. Other religions key documents are prescriptive, and where there are occasional contradictions , effort is made to rationalize. However Judaism has the strong religious tradition of dissent from singular dogma. Different Jewish sects and groups differ in what in the Talmud they follow, and Reform Jews, the largest group in America, assume a continuing discussion of the Talmud with the ancient Rabbis having no more weight in their opinions that modern thinkers—–theologians, philosophers, and others.

Arthur Hertzberg

I argue that the Talmud is about the constant struggle to understand.

Yair Lapid

Yeshivas barely teach any Bible, only Talmud.

James Carroll

Though based on the Law of Moses, Judaism had emerged as a community ordered not by legislation or decree but by the influence of its interpreters, reflecting on a compilation of the commentary of ancestral masters. This is the culture of Talmud, a culture not of codification but of conversation, written and oral; a culture not of hierarchy but of mutuality.

Ron Ben-Israel

Just like I am a food snob, I am also a rabbinical snob.

David Novak

A traditional rabbi is the man to whom the community and its members turn to rule on what Jewish law requires of them, particularly in cases of doubt.

Meir Soloveichik

Jews seek to cleave to the will of God as set forth in the Bible and, particularly, the Pentateuch, with its rabbinic commentaries, the Mishnah and Talmud.

David Novak

All the questions discussed in the Talmud and related rabbinic literature are normative questions: either they are questions of what one is to think or what one is to do. Every prescribed thought has some practical implication; every prescribed act has some theoretical implication.

Halakhah Quotes