Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law

How the rabbis of the Talmud transformed everything into a legal question—and Jewish law into a way of thinking and talking about everything

Though typically translated as “Jewish law,” the term halakhah is not an easy match for what is usually thought of as law. This is because the rabbinic legal system has rarely wielded the political power to enforce its many detailed rules, nor has it ever been the law of any state. Even more idiosyncratically, the talmudic rabbis claim that the study of...