“Halakhah has become another tool in the arsenal of inter-denominal polemics and, even more fiercely, internal Orthodox polemics”

There is, too often, an inverse relationship between the public awareness of a given halakhic issue, and the thoughtfulness with which the issue is treated in the public sphere. Halakhic controversies or aspects of Jewish religious life that are noticed in the public sphere or in the press, tend to be treated in a facile way, as caricatures, and halakhah becomes just another arena upon which political and ideological warfare can be waged. Halakhah has become another tool in the arsenal of inter-denominal polemics and, even more fiercely, internal Orthodox polemics.

Rabbi David Wolkenfeld, “The Complexity of Modern Orthodox Halakhah: Review of ‘A Guide to the Complex’ by Rabbi Shlomo M. Brody” (29 December 2014), 1 [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xGwp0vdYtgcTlZaGhPOHZqR0E]