The Open Cannon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse »

About the Author:
Professor Avi Sagi teaches at the Department of Philosophy of Bar-Ilan University. Israel. and is the founding director of its Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Israel

Acknowledgements     vii
Introduction     1
The Monistic Outlook     11
Preface     13
Halakhah Follows Bet Hillel: The Rejected Option in Monism     17
Why does Halakhah follow Bet Hillel?     17
The rejected option as 'words of God'     18
Monism: The 'Valid Decision' Concept     31
Correspondence positions     31
Approximative positions     37
Acceptability as the criterion of the right decision     41
Monism: Dispute and the Concept of Revelation     54
The meaning of dispute     54
Halakhic truth and revelation     60
The Pluralistic Outlook     67
Preface     69
Revelation and Halakhic Pluralism     71
The realistic model     71
The anthropological model     72
The authoritative model     80
The Limits of Halakhic Pluralism and the Nature of Halakhic Inference     88
The limits of halakhic pluralism     88
The ontological status of halakhic decisions     90
The validity of halakhic decisions and the minority position     93
Halakhah Follows Bet Hillel: The Pluralistic Version     100
Following thequantitative majority     101
Bet Hillel's moral advantage     105
The Harmonic Outlook     109
Preface     111
The Union of Opposites     113
Zadok ha-Cohen of Lublin     113
Judah Loew ben Bezalel     114
Halakhah follows Bet Hillel: the harmonic version     116
'Reality Knows No Opposites'     119
These and These Are the Words of the Living God: Halakhic Values     127
Preface     129
The Religious Value of the Quest for Truth     131
Isaac Jacob Reines     131
Hayyim Hirschensohn     135
Hayyim Volozhiner     137
Monism and the value of the quest for truth     141
The religious purpose of halakhic discourse     143
'Torah Shall Go Forth Today... That Had Not Gone Forth Yesterday': The Value of Innovation     146
Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen     146
Hayyim b. Bezalel     149
Moses Samuel Glasner     153
The meaning of halakhic innovation     158
On Dispute and Authority     163
Preface     165
Dispute in Halakhic Culture: Historical Phenomenon or Constitutive Element     167
Dispute as a historical phenomenon     167
Dispute as a constitutive element     176
'These and these': between toleration and pluralism     183
On Authority and the Duty of Obedience     192
The epistemic model of halakhic authority     192
The deontic model of halakhic authority     200
Attempts to reach a balance     205
Authority and the status of dispute     207
Concluding thoughts     210
Bibliography     219
Index     231