Jewish Women in Time and Torah

by Eliezer Berkovits

Overview

RABBI DR. ELIEZER BERKOVITS’ FINAL BOOK, Jewish Women in Time and Torah, is a critical examination of the status of women in Halakhah. It offers a coherent theological approach by which the eternal Divine nature of Torah must be upheld, and yet also recognize that the ever-changing status of women, reflected in our sacred texts, is linked to historical and social movements of humanity in the world at large. Berkovits makes several suggestions, based on a thorough examination of halakhic sources, to improve that status. The author’s basic thesis is that the inferior status of women is a vestige of ancient culture. In the course of time, women have gained certain rights. But, Berkovits emphasizes, more remains to be done, especially in the spheres of ritual participation and marital rights, areas in which he makes a number of concrete halakhic suggestions. For example, he suggests that adequate halakhic justification exists for women to take upon themselves the mitzvah of donning tefillin or establishing their own prayer groups, as well as women reciting Shabbat kiddush for men or participating in a mixed-gender zimmun for Grace After Meals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789655243659
Publisher:	Urim Publications
Publication date:	12/15/2022
Edition description:	Second edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits was born in Transylvania in 1908. He received his rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin in the 1930s. After escaping Germany in December 1938, Berkovits served as a communal rabbi in Leeds, England, Sydney, Australia and Boston, before assuming the chair of the philosophy department at the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago in 1958. He moved to Jerusalem in 1975, where he lived and worked until his death in 1992. Berkovits wrote over 50 articles and 19 books, which, while demonstrating an unflagging devotion to Halakhah, nevertheless reflected a sharp dissatisfaction with the dramatic changes that Orthodoxy had undergone during his lifetime. He defines Halakhah as “the wisdom of the application of the written word of the Torah to the life and history of the Jewish people.” His influential books include Not in Heaven, Faith after the Holocaust, With God in Hell, and God, Man and History.