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David Roytenberg's avatar

Thanks for this book review. I like the way you bring the idea of a moral landscape to bear on the ideas in "Lodestone" and I'm encouraged to hear the extent to which the idea is respected in the book. As a Conservative Jew who has become increasingly observant over a period of many years, the idea of "seeking loopholes" resonates with parts of the Talmud that I've read over the past three and a half years in the present Daf Yomi cycle.

It also evokes some of the arguments I've read from Conservative Poskim in defence of some of the more far reaching changes that Conservative Judaism has made over the past few decades, particularly in the area of women's participation and the understanding of LGB individuals. The more Talmud I learn, the more I am also engage in the way the Conservative rabbinate finds halachic (at least to this lay person) solutions to contemporary issues.

When you mention the idea that the Torah is a minimum, I immediately thought about the process described in the Talmud whereby the rabbis deal with some of the things that seem wrong to us, but are permitted by Torah. A striking example: Just recently we learned in Kiddushin that the Torah would allow betrothal of a girl between 3 and 12 via intercourse if her father agreed, but the commentaries indicated that the rabbis forbid it.

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Matt Austerklein's avatar

Are you sure that the call to “search for loopholes” is intended to b applied to all Jews? My experience of Chabad is that they don’t believe that non-FFB people are equally obligated in mitzvot. This allows them to take a generous posture in outreach. I would have a hard time imagining this same book in print in the Rebbe’s Yiddish.

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