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Category Archives: R. Shlomo Goren
The Question MO Will Not Ask
Do you accept historicism (that everything is a product of a time and place)? If not, on what grounds? The question is simple to state. It is difficult to answer. It is the question Modern Orthodox scholarship will not ask, … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro, Modern Orthodox, R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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When History Becomes Revelation: Goren, Freyer, and the Historicist Problem in Modern Orthodox Halakha
R. Shlomo Goren (1917–1994) developed a theology of history that placed the State of Israel within a redemptive historical narrative he treated as halakhically operative. The wars of 1948 and 1967 are not merely military events to be processed by … Continue reading
Posted in Hans Freyer, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘Zionist-Messianic Halakha’
Aviad Hollander’s chapter “Zionist-Messianic Halakha” reconstructs Rabbi Shlomo Goren (1917-1994) as a theorist of sovereign Jewish existence. Hollander shows that Goren’s halakhic rulings emerge from a theology of history. The establishment of the State of Israel constitutes for Goren a … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘Danger, Slippery Slope!’
R. Aviad Hollander’s essay “סכנה, מדרון חלקלק!” (“Danger, Slippery Slope!”) exposes the structural tensions the return of Jewish sovereignty generates. At first glance, the essay seems to address a familiar controversy inside contemporary Religious Zionism: the integration of women into … Continue reading
Posted in IDF, R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘Dual Loyalty to Halakha and the State: Rabbi Goren’s Ruling as a Test Case’ (2015)
Aviad Hollander’s essay about halakhic decision-making in the Religious Zionist world is also an inquiry into the constitutional and theological crises generated by modern Jewish sovereignty: can Halakha function as the governing moral and legal language of a modern democratic … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘National Movements and International Law: Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s Understanding of International Law’ (2014)
The intellectual significance of Rabbi Shlomo Goren lies not simply in his attempt to reconcile Halacha with modern international law, but in the much larger civilizational problem his work confronted: the reconstruction of a sovereign Jewish jurisprudence after nearly two … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘The Relationship Between Halakhic Decisors and their Peers as a Determining Factor in the Acceptance of their Decisions – A Step in Understanding Interpeer Effects in Halakhic Discourse’ (2010)
Aviad Hollander’s paper is ostensibly a contribution to the sociology of halakhic decision-making, yet the essay’s true significance extends well beyond the relatively narrow problem it formally addresses. Beneath its careful comparison of two twentieth-century rabbinic controversies lies a broader … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘The Halakhic Profile of Rabbi Shlomo Goren: Studies in the Adjudicatory Deliberations and Modes of Substantiation in his Halakhic Writings’
Aviad (Yehiel) Hollander completes his PhD dissertation in 2011 at at Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Talmud: “The Halakhic Profile of Rabbi Shlomo Goren: Studies in the Adjudicatory Deliberations and Modes of Substantiation in his Halakhic Writings.” The work examines how … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aviad Hollander, R. Shlomo Goren
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‘In the Eye of the Storm: The Public Persona and Torah Work of Rabbi Shlomo Goren in the Years 1948-1994’
This is Shifra Mishloff’s 2010 Bar-Ilan doctoral dissertation consisting of 265 pages in Hebrew, submitted Tammuz 5770, advised by Prof. Meir Hildesheimer of the Kushitzky Department of Jewish History. From the acknowledgements, Mishloff got access to Goren’s (1917-1994) personal archive … Continue reading
Posted in R. Shlomo Goren
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‘The New Haredism: Revolution in the Seventies’
I first heard about this Israeli historian of Haredi Judaism, Yair Halevy, from Marc Shapiro’s lecture series on the Langer Affair. Halevy’s dissertation is titled מהפכת החרדיות החדשה בשנות השבעים, “The New Haredism: Revolution in the Seventies.” He submitted it … Continue reading
Posted in Haredi, R. Shlomo Goren, R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv
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