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I RELIGION 1

A Plea
For More
Not Less
Halachah

We dwell too much on the mechanical,
legalistic aspects of Jewish law, and
should be expanding the personal,
emotional connections

HAROLD M. SCHULWEIS

Special to The Jewish News

M

Bill Aron

54

FRIDAY, NOV. 27, 1987

ost American Jews
encounter halachah
(Jewish law) in rites
of passage—in birth and
brith, in adolescence and bar
mitzvah, in marriage and the
wedding, in divorce and the
get, in death and the funeral.
They see rabbinic energies
and talents concentrated on
the halachah of the rite, not
on the process of the passage.
They see halachah dealing
with the concrete and techni-
cal issue of the milah or cir-
cumcision, more than with
the way in which "covenant"
is to be lived; with the writing
of the ketubah, the rites of the
wedding, not the spritual pas-
sage from single to married
status; with prescriptions and
proscriptions of the funeral
and shivah, not with the emo-
tional and religious dynamic
of grieving and mourning;
with the tevilah and brith of
conversion, not with atten-
tion to the making of a Jew
and the experience indispen-
sable for religious and ethnic
identification. In short, rite
and passage have been bifur-
cated and halachah given
over to the rite alone.
Riteless passages are
countered with passageless

rites. The rite is concrete,
specific, objective, impersonal
and thereby halachah gains
its reputation as mechanical
and legalistic. As experienced
by the laity, rabbinic concern
is not with the how and mean-
ing of the passage but with
the how of performing ritual
acts. From that view, the rite
is "the simple location" of the
halachic mind. This "mis-
placed concreteness" of the
rite deflects from the larger
issues of the passage and
trivializes the majesty of
halachah. The bifurcation
must be joined halachiacally.
Let me illustrate. My Or-
thodox colleagues argue that
the patrilineal issue is far less
serious a concern, from the
halachic view, than the mar-
riage of Jews without a get
(Jewish • divorce). For
patrilineal children, the
halachah offers one available
remedy: Conversion. Forget
for the moment "whose con-
version" would be recognized
by contemporary Orthodoxy.
But for the progeny of a
remarried parent without the
benefit of a -get, there is no
halachic remedy. The stigma
of the mamzer is tragic and
calls for repair.
What has prevented the
Conservative movement, on
halachic and moral grounds
from issuing a takkanah