“Modern Orthodox Jews often express ambivalence about these workarounds”

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Modern Orthodox Jews often express ambivalence about these workarounds. On the one hand, the rabbis’ “judicial activism” is celebrated. On the other hand, there is a perception that such activism comes at the cost of integrity, that this is not really what the Torah wanted.

Moreover, if rabbis refuse to admit that they are free to legislate as they will, and insist that they are heteronomously bound by their most authentic understanding of Torah, they are critiqued as lacking ethical sensitivity. The implicit subtext is that if rabbis have the authority to do so, they should find ways to sideline all areas of Halakhah that are in moral tension with the values of their laities.

Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, “Restoring Challenging Halakhah”, moderntoraleadership (11 May 2015) [https://moderntoraleadership.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/restoring-challenging-halakhah/]

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