26 | AUGUST 17 • 2023 

OUR COMMUNITY

T

he 12th Rabbi David & 
Alicia Nelson Legacy 
Event, co-sponsored 
by the Cohn-Haddow Center 
for Judaic Studies, takes 
place Wednesday, Aug. 23, 
and Thursday, Aug. 24, at 
Congregation Beth Shalom in 
Oak Park. 
This year’s guest is Rabbi 
Avinoam Sharon, a Talmud 
scholar and the editor-in-chief 
of the Israeli Supreme Court 
Blog of the Cardozo School of 
Law. He was on the faculty of 
law of the Hebrew University 
and the Israel Defense Forces 
School of Military Law. Sharon 
served as a senior military 
attorney in the IDF. He holds 
an master’s in Talmud from the 
Jewish Theological Seminary.
Sharon, with a great deal of 
knowledge from his legal and 
rabbinic background, will be 
giving two lectures, one on 
each day.
The keynote lecture, 
“Democracy Under Attack: The 
Implications of Israel’s Reform 
of its Judiciary,
” takes place 
Aug. 23 at 7:30 p.m. A dessert 
reception follows. Admission is 
$15 fee in advance, $20 at door, 
$10 for the Zoom link.
The Lunch & Learn lecture, 
“Contemporary Swimming 
in the Sea of Talmud: How 
the Ancient Rabbis Created a 
Legal Theory For Confronting 
Modern Problems and 
Practices,
” will be Aug. 24 at 
12:30 p.m. The $28 fee includes 
program and a kosher lunch. 

Sharon’s first lecture will 
explore the current judicial 
reforms by the Israeli 
government and their possible 
effects on Israeli democracy 
and governance. Through 
covering what’s already 
happened and what could 
happen, Sharon hopes people 
come away with a better 
understanding of the situation 
and what is at stake.
“Now that the amendment to 
the Basic Law has been enacted, 
the question is, how does it 
affect the system? How does it 
affect Supreme Court review 
and, accordingly, how does it 
affect issues of minority rights 

and individual rights, what will 
it allow Israel’s government to 
do that it might not have been 
able to do previously, in what 
way might it impact upon the 
separation of powers, checks 
and balances and so forth,
” 
Sharon said. 
Sharon will also put it all 
into a larger framework of 
comparative law so people will 
understand where these things 
stand in other countries.
The second lecture is not 
in any way political — it is a 
lecture on Sharon’s approach to 
the Talmud. 
“What I’ll be talking about 
is how Talmudic reasoning 

and the legal structure of the 
Talmud is not unlike what we 
find in other common law 
countries and legal systems, 
such as the United States, and 
how Talmudic reasoning is 
often not unlike the reasoning 
of the Supreme Court of the 
United States,
” Sharon said. 
It’s based on a model Sharon 
proposes in regard to how the 
redactors of the Talmud viewed 
the halachic system.
Sharon will connect 
approaches in regard to the 
Talmud when a modern law 
or issue arises to that of a 
constitution of a country such 
as the United States. 
“In such a case, how does 
a court decide that this new 
law or this new situation falls 
within the compass of the 
Constitution? How do we know 
that it’s constitutional when 
the Constitution doesn’t speak 
about it? The rabbis, I contend, 
often faced a similar problem 
already in Talmudic times.
” 
Sharon, based in New York, 
is looking forward to visiting 
Detroit for the first time and 
speaking to a new audience.
The Rabbi David & Alicia 
Nelson Legacy Fund & Event 
celebrates Rabbi Nelson’s 56 
years in the rabbinate. The 
fund provides educational and 
operational support for the 
community, including Beth 
Shalom. 

Register online at www.congbeth-

shalom.org. Reservations required by 

Aug. 17. 

Rabbi Avinoam Sharon will be giving two lectures 
over two days, including one on Israel’s judicial reform. 

Nelson Legacy Event 
Welcomes Talmud Scholar 

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

