In his third lecture for Torah in Motion on the R. Eliezer Berkovitz, professor Marc B. Shapiro says in 2010: “Berkovitz claims that Jewish law changes but the values stay the same. He believes in Biblical values that in prior eras were not able to be realized. But now we can. This is not reform, this is returning to the original intent of the Bible. We’re not updating Torah law to fit society. Only in modern times can we realize these values.”
“Chapter four of Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha is called Halachah in Exile. Jewish law has developed for the diaspora. An example is the Sabbath. There’s always an assumption that there’s a goy around who can help out. What do you do if you’re in a village and there’s no non-Jew? Yeshaya Leibowitz says that all the Sabbath laws need to be rewritten. How do you run a Jewish country? Laws on the book are not adequate for a completely Jewish society. Rav Herzog, Rav Goren did not go this far but Berkovitz sees the problem.”
