Talk:Conservative Halakha

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This article was nominated for deletion on 13 December 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 Merger discussions 2 Philosophies of Halakha 3 Homosexuality 4 Lead paragraph 5 Location of information in Wikipedia 6 Remove unrelated topics 7 Need an article on Torah commentaries 7.1 Torah commentaries for liturgical use in synagogues 7.2 Torah commentaries for study 8 Mamzerut 9 Halkaha and Aggadah 10 Quotation mining

[edit] Merger discussions

Word. I think it's time we merge in CLJS and get this article up to snuff. --yonkeltron 01:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The CJLS is a major Rabbinical Assembly committee, and needs its own article. Halakha, as interpreted by Conservative Judaism, is not identical to a discussion of this committee. "Conservative Halakhah", if such terminology is appropriate, is based on a very wide variety of sources including the Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Responsa, and various Traditional/Conservative poskim, such as Louis Ginzburg, Isaac Klein, Joel Roth, and more. It is also based on responsa from the CJLS, but also responsa from the Masorti Movement in Israel's legal body, the Va'ad Halakhah. Conservative Jews also accept as valid the responsa of many Orthodox rabbis, even if they do not view them as binding. Therefore we should not totally merge these two articles.

However, there is a great amount of unnecessary overlap, leading to the same topic being described in two different ways. This is being done for no good reason, and is in some measure my fault. I think that I will move some text from the "CJLS" article to "Conservative Halakhah", but leaving most of the CJLS article intact.

The idea is to follow the good pattern of other Wikipedia article: Summarize the major topics, and then link to another article where they are discussed in more depth. I will do this one piece at a time. Please let me know how you think I am doing. Mark3 15:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophies of Halakha

Understanding that this is a new article and represents a lot of work, there is currently a lot of information on specific legal decisions, but relatively little information on philosophies of and approaches to Halakha. The current controversies in the CJLS reflect a clash of philosophies as well as specific opinions, and it would be useful to have an article that goes behind the scenes of the current official stance to articulate the various views of key figures within the recent debates, e.g. Joel Roth, Elliot N. Dorff, Judith Hauptman, etc., as well as figures who believe it should drop the claim to being halakhic. This is particularly true if the intent is to merge all the Conservative Halakha-related articles together. Best, --Shirahadasha 10:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexuality

The tiny paragraph about homosexuality is, in a word, terrible. If you want sources, check out the homosexuality discussion with Rabbis Epstein, Roth and Dorff here, here and here.69.158.65.49 04:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Updated article to reflect this week's events. --Shirahadasha 11:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lead paragraph

Very vague... "it" believes, "it" states that... "as somebody said" conclude... vague terms for a vague non existent subject. The Schechter quotes in all due respect is foolishness, one cant contest a general subject without giving an example, he is contesting the infallibility of Halacha without marking a certain halacha as proof of his claim. Irrelevant quote, should be removed. Discuss. frummer 05:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

For sure. Want to help fix it? :-) --yonkeltron 02:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location of information in Wikipedia

Currently, this article has detailed information about some issues (mainly homosexuality) but only summaries of others. For example, the Role of women in Judaism article has much more detailed information about CLJS deliberations on that issue than this article does, and similarly the Kohen, Kashrut, and other articles have more info about Conservative legal views on their subjects than this one. Suggest making things consistent, either by moving Conservative halakha material from other articles here with only summaries in the other articles, or by doing the reverse and moving detailed information on Conservative responsa from here to appropriate articles (e.g. Homosexuality and Judaism, leaving only a summary here. Best, --Shirahadasha 07:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove unrelated topics

Shirhadasha writes: Hello, I had to revert these edits because they somehow introduced Wiki markup language errors which made parts of the article show mark-up language as text in an unreadable way. Also, most of the content you added appears to describe various Conservative practices etc., but didn't appear to address the specific issue of Conservative Halakha, the article's subject. Conservative Halakha deals specifically with the legal reasoning (or, as some say, lack thereof) behind Jewish-law decisions made by the Conservative movement's rabbinical bodies. The Conservative movement publishes a commentary on the Torah, a siddur, etc., but details about these matters, like details about its youth organization, annual convention, etc. etc., are relevant to this article only to the extent they drive or reflect its Jewish-law decisions and the legal reasoning behind them. Otherwise they should be in other articles

[edit] Need an article on Torah commentaries

We should have an article that briefly discusses Torah commentaries. Mark3 19:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Torah commentaries for liturgical use in synagogues

These are Torah commentaries that are set up not only for reading and study, but also for liturgical useage. The Torah passages are separated by parashiyot, and they have hafatarah readings for eeach parashah.

• Hertz Chumash (Traditional, was/is used by all movements)
• Mesorah Stone Edition of the Torah (Orthodox synagogues)
• Plaut Torah (Reform & Reconstructionist)
• Etz Chayim: A Torah Commentary (Conservative)

[edit] Torah commentaries for study

• Torah (and Tanakh) commentaries, in Hebrew only AFAIK, from Mossad Harav Kook, Israel. I have never read these, but I understand that these are the only Modern Orthodox Tanakh commentaries. They even include some modern day archaeology.
• Soncino Chumash (Traditional, was/is used by all movements)
• Richard Elliot Friedman's Torah commentary (used in study groups in many non-Orthodox synagogues. Is it used by any Orthodox groups?)
• JPS Torah commentary series
• The Artscroll Tanakh series on the Torah
• The Anchor Bible series, by Doubleday. (That is non-Jewish, non-denominational, but occasionally used by non-Orthodox.

An article on each type of Chumash sounds like a good idea. I wrote a section on the Soncino Chumash in the article on the Soncino Press. Best, --Shirahadasha 00:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mamzerut

Removed the following here:

• In Talmud Bavli a remedy for mamzerut is assimilating into a community which does not keep track of this status (Kiddushin 71a.) In practice, people simply stopped observing this distinction between mamzerim and non-mamzerim, such as when money was involved. Rabbi Yehoshu'a ben Levi states in Kiddushin 71a, top that "money purifies mamzerim", "kessef metaher mamzerim". Rashi comments on this that once someone becomes well set in terms of money, then other Jews ignore any blemish on their heritage.

• This view became codified by Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah "If an impure element mixes in the pedigree of a family, and this fact is not generally known, 'once it has assimilated, it has assimilated. Anyone who knows of this is forbidden to publish the information, but must let the family continue in its presumption of unblemished pedigree."

The reason is that I can't find this reasoning anywere in the main text of the CJLS responsum on the subject, at [1]. Footnote 69 appears to be the only reference to the whole argument, and it simply cites Kidushin 71a-b for the parenthetical statement that "a family that has assimilated into the community may remain assimilated" without emphasizing this statement or making the basis of any decision. I can't find the specific quote from Yehoshua be Levi, let alone the commentary by Rashi, anywhere in the responsum. Even if I missed something and the material is in some footnote or other it's simply not anywhere near the main argument. This responsum states very clearly the core basis for the decision and this simply isn't it. This material seems to be nothing more than an editor's personal original research based on what the editor perhaps wished the CJLS had said or would like to offer as support for what the CJLS said.

Thanks for pointing this out. I was relying on what I previously learned from other Conservative (and Masorti) rabbis, and I had not read the Spitz responsum closely enough. I think that the reasoning I suggested was a mainstream Conservative belief before the Spitz responsum, but you are correct to make the changes. I think I might add info adding the view of Louis Jacobs; he wrote a book on flexibility and creativity in halakhah, with the subject of mamzerim as a special section, A Tree of Life, Littman Library. Mark3 21:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

But Wikipedia has to present what the CJLS actually said. The CJLS said, very clearly and prominently, that this is a case where it is abolishing a Biblical law on grounds of evolving morality, and it used this case to develop a whole philosophy for when, why, and how it should resolve Biblical law/modern morality conflicts. I understand it claimed there was precedent for its general approach. But the CJLS expressly claimed that there was no precedent for the abolition of the specific law here, it expressly said it intended to go beyond ordinary Talmudic precedents and do "explicitly" what others would do only "implicitly". What the CJLS itself claims to be doing has to be the basis for the way Wikipedia describes its actions. (unless we bring in sources providing expert comment on the CJLS). An editor's personal attempt to research post hoc precedents and present them as if they were the basis of the CJLS decision strikes as a simple case of WP:OR. Best, --Shirahadasha 19:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough! Mark3 21:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Halkaha and Aggadah

The article says that the Conservative approach balances halakha and aggadah. In light of the fact that (a) The CJLS expressly rejected the Tucker dissent, which relied on this approach, (b) it expressly adopted the Roth responsum, which said the opposite (it said halakha totally trumps aggadah and aggadah has no weight compared with halakha), and (c) the only other responsa it accepted were essentially silent on the issue, does this statement accurately reflect the current CJLS position post December 2006? Best, --Shirahadasha 19:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quotation mining

I think a lot of what is written here is essentially a form of data mining. You have mined the papers of the Conservative movement for quotations, selecting ones that appear most shocking from an ultra-Orthodox perspective, but without really understanding them. This is a very uncritical kind of reading. I would not recommend this article to anyone who is really trying to understand Conservative movement's approach to Jewish Law, and the debates that are going on within the Conservative Movement at this time. Someday, when I have the time, I want to work on this article. My approach will be to delete much of this material and write a much shorter article that is actually informative about Conservative Judaism. --Metzenberg 11:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are perceptive but I do not think it would be a good idea (and might possibly be a violation of policy) to delete the cited material. The CJLS has several (paper) publications of responsa. A more extensive sampling of these responsa, not only the most "shocking ones", could be added to this page. If it gets too long, the article can be split into "Conservative Halakah - Shabbat", "Conservative Halakah - Kashrut", "Conservative Halakah - Family", "Conservative Halakah - Festivals", etc. If you want to write a better summary, focus on the introduction but don't delete material. EqualsMCSquared 04:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the article has taken the perspective "conservative halakha is like Orthodox halacha except where it's different", and this approach has tended to focus on highlighting the differences. --Shirahadasha 06:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The perspective "conservative halakha is like Orthodox halacha except where it's different" would generally be the Orthodox point of view. EqualsMCSquared 19:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no wikipedia policy against deleting material. Not all material that somebody happens to write for wikipedia belongs in wikipedia. Somewhere, we have to redact and make an article short enough and succinct enough so that people can actually learn something from reading it. --Metzenberg 07:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The relevant policy that might apply suggests "try to preserve information. Reasons for removing bits of an article include..." things like patent nonsense or inaccuracy which are not being alleged here. EqualsMCSquared 19:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

As I recall this article was created in no small part by taking bits of material out of other articles -- Role of women in Judaism, Shabbat, etc. -- and centralizing it here. However, the centralizing principle is not being kept, for example, material on a series of recent decisions on Niddah was recently added to the Niddah article but not here. If the desire is to have a shorter and simpler article describing philosophies etc. without getting into specific decisions, perhaps the material on specific decisions should go back to the individual articles. If the desire is for a more informative result, perhaps a better introduction could be added, perhaps along with sections on history, philosophies, etc. to help give better background and avoid immersion in a jumble of decisions. However, if the intent is to remove material perceived as overly critical, I'd suggest a pause for reflection before acting. If this material accurately describes these decisions (at least from this perspective), why should it be deleted entirely? It can always, after all be supplemented by material from currently under-represented perspectives. I would comment that, acknowledging myself to be a critical outsider with my own biases. Joel Roth and others criticised some of these decisions -- not sure that characterizing the criticism involved as "Ultra-Orthodox" in character accurately reflects the subject. Given that e.g. Gordon Tucker and Joel Roth wrote opinions publicly claiming that each other's ways of thinking weren't genuinely Conservative, I have doubts about whether a short simple article presenting a single, unified perspective could be made either consistent with WP:NPOV or reliably accurate. It's very easy, and often tempting, to use ones powers as a Wikipedia editor to put in material reflecting only ones own point of view and remove material for no other reason that one disagrees with it. It might be helpful to explain how your proposal will avoid doing that. Best --Shirahadasha 20:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the big mistake here is to think of Conservative Halacha as being something you can define by showing how it is different from Orthodox Halacha. By adopting that as the framework for the article, we have ended up with an article that isn't really about Conservative Halacha. I've been working on the article about Rabbi Gordon Tucker. I've been trying to show what his historical antecedents were, what his philosophy is, where he fits in the spectrum of Conservative views, and so forth. Conservative Judasim has a distinctly different institutional framework and philosophy. You can't show what Conservative Judaism is simply by mining a few of its recent documents for quotes to show that it rejects Orthodox positions. And when that process of quotation mining is carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jews, the result is very predictable. --Metzenberg 08:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Terrific! Sounds like you are motivated and able to add a lot of good material to this article. EqualsMCSquared 16:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that you're proposing a complete rewrite on a controversial topic, why not write a proposed revision on a sub-page on your userspace and add a link on this talk page. That way it can be vetted and discussed and hopefully agreement reached without messing up the main page in the event there's disagreement and a discussion. Best --Shirahadasha 19:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

On most issue-by-issue comparisons, I would add the conservative movement's halakhic positions on the issue as a section within the article, rather than have a long exposition on specific issues here. I would devote this page instead to a discussion of the process (institutional) and its history, with some examples. As an example, I just added a relatively brief subsection to the article on agunot. Since the issue was treated already in the article on Rabbi Saul Lieberman, it didn't have to be a very long subsection. --Metzenberg 08:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)