History of responsa in Judaism

Religious legal rulings by rabbis

The history of responsa in Judaism (Hebrew: שאלות ותשובות, Sephardic: She'elot Utshuvot, Ashkenazic: Sheilos Utshuvos, usually shortened to שו"ת Shu"t), spans a period of 1,700 years. Rabbinic responsa constitute a special class of rabbinic literature, differing in form, but not necessarily in content, from Rabbinic commentaries devoted to the exegesis of the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and halakha (the codes of Jewish religious law). The mode, style and subject matter have changed as a function of the travels of the Jewish people and of the development of other halakhic literature, particularly the codes. Formulation of responsa, or she'elot ve t'shuvot, which literally translates to questions and answers, generally involve an individual or group asking either teachers, rabbis, or heads of yeshivot about halakhah (Jewish law) and the party responding via an exchange of letters. which states that Rabbi Gamliel secretly dispatched a messenger with an answer to a question; for if he desired to keep his decision secret, he would probably have sent a letter had such replies been customary at that time. The same experience befell and Mar Ukba and another, unnamed, judge. Particularly noteworthy is his injunction that Jewish law obligates Jews to follow the laws of the land, i. e., to follow the laws of the secular government in which a Jewish community found itself living. This ruling is based on the Talmudic saying: "The law of the land is valid" (ib. responsum No. 50). "A change in phraseology without an alteration of meaning is not surprising. Even in the Pentateuch apparent discrepancies of this kind are found, so that one of the sons of Simeon is called Zohar in Gen. 46:10 (JPS) and Ex. 6:15 (JPS), and Zerah in Num. 26:13 (JPS), but since both names signify 'magnificent', the double nomenclature is explained." In responsum No. 395 he describes his abolition of several superstitious customs, one of which was to kill an old cock, and to hang its head at the door on the occasion of the birth of a boy. Particularly noteworthy is responsum No. 548, in which he gives a decision regarding a marvelous child at Avila, who had originally been idiotic, but later frequently fell into trances during which he composed works whose contents he declared had been communicated to him by an angel. with 315 responsa, while another corpus, which contained 1,022 responsa, appeared under the same title at Prague in 1608. A collection of unedited responsa was issued at Lemberg in 1860, and in 1891 Moses Bloch published at Berlin a new corpus of unedited responsa of Meïr of Rothenburg under the title "Sefer Sha'are Teshubot Maharam". Maharam, famously, rules that a man may not hit his wife, "since,he may not hit another man, despite not owing him honour, whereas he owes her honour ". The special interest of Meïr's responsa is the picture they give of the condition of the German Jews of his time, and of their sufferings from the caprice of princes and from heavy taxation. The collections of the responsa of Meïr of Rothenburg contain also the rulings of other older and contemporary rabbis of the Franco German school. while an enlarged edition was published at Venice in 1607. This collection of responsa is arranged according to 108 subjects, each of which has a special chapter, called "kelal", while at the head of every rubric stands a résumé of its contents and a numerical list of the responsa treating of each subject. This arrangement, however, was not the work of Asher himself, but was made probably by one of his pupils, possibly by his son Rabbi Judah. From the responsa of Rabbi Asher may be gleaned many curious customs of the Spanish communities. To a question addressed to him from Burgos, Asher responded (No. 68, 10) that according to Talmudic law no arrests could be made for debt, even in cases where the debtor had pledged his own person, although, on the other hand, he noted that it was the custom of the communities in Spain to imprison one who had failed to pay his quota of the royal tax until he should discharge his debt. These responsa contain many disquisitions illustrative of the conditions of the times, including rulings on marriage and marital relations in the case of Jews who had been forcibly baptized, as well as other decisions relating to those who had been compelled to accept Christianity (e. g., Nos. 1, 4, 6, 11, 12, 43). Especially interesting are responsa that describe prevailing customs and regulations of the communities of the period, as in No. 158, which contains a noteworthy account of the seven days of mourning after the death of a kinsman. The responsa of Israel Bruna, titled "She'elot u Teshuvot", likewise contain many interesting allusions to contemporary conditions, as in the case of No. 71, which discusses the problem whether the Jews might attend races. discuss whether a converted Jew may be compelled by the provincial court to give his Jewish wife a bill of divorce according to Jewish procedure (No. 75, pp. 136b 137a), and the question of the covering of the head and the concealment of the hair in the case of a married woman (No. 35, pp. 94 et seq.)

In the seventeenth century rabbis of various countries prepared responsa, but the Polish scholars were in the great majority. Of the Turkish authorities the most prominent were Joseph ben Moses di Trani (MaHaRIT) and Jacob Alfandari, whose responsa, titled "Muẓẓal me Esh", were published at Constantinople in 1718. afford a glimpse of the plight of the German Jews of the time. The responsa of Menahem Mendel Krochmal appeared posthumously; the most noteworthy of his rulings is one (No. 2) in which he decided in favor of universal suffrage in the community, making no distinction between rich and poor, taxed and untaxed, learned and ignorant, but giving all an equal share in the choice of the rabbi, the dayan, and the president. Among the many noteworthy Polish scholars are Meir Eisenstadt and Ezekiel Landau. In another responsum he debated whether a Jewish sculptor was permitted by his religion to carve human figures. In another responsum he replied in the affirmative to a question sent him from New York City asking whether a Protestant church might be changed into a synagogue. Isaac Schmelkes passed judgment on the question of civil marriage, which the laws of Hungary permitted between Jews and non Jews, and he debated also whether electric lights may be used for Hanukkah, and whether the telephone or the phonograph may be used on the Sabbath. the "Ketab Sofer" of Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, and the "Be'er Yiẓḥaḳ" of Isaac Elhanan Spektor.

While many of the responsa throughout history have been written down and can be found in various books or anthologies, a lot of responsa today can be found on online databases such as The Global Jewish Database (The Responsa Project) at Bar Ilan University. The Schechter Institute's website also has six volumes of Conservative responsa written by the Rabbinical Assembly.

Conservative Judaism holds that Orthodoxy has deviated from historical Judaism through excessive concern with recent codifications of Jewish law. Conservative rabbis make a conscious effort to use historical sources to determine what kind of changes occurred, how and why they occurred, and in what historical context. With this information they believe that can better understand a proper way for rabbis to interpret and apply Jewish law to our conditions today. Like Orthodoxy, there is no one legal body that speaks for all Jews in their religious community. When defined narrowly as the Conservative movement, Conservative Judaism has two law committees: In the USA there is the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly. The CJLS is the body that sets halakhic policy. There are 25 voting members on the committee who determine whether or not to enact a specific responsa. The responsa are written after a member of the Rabbinic Assembly or the Conservative movement in general poses a question about Halakha. A responsa is deemed approved when at least 6 member of the committee vote to approve it. Despite the fact that CJLS makes decisions about the rulings of responsa, which stands as the decisions for the entirety of the Conservative Movement, individual rabbis can still make their own decision about how to rule on specific circumstances within their communities.