Jewish Law

An introduction to the works of the aharonim.

In the wake of emancipation, various strategies emerged to stem and possibly reverse the tide of modernism.

Some perspective for beginners

The Tosafists continued the conversation with their glosses on the text of the Talmud.

Over time the rabbis increased the wife's power in a marriage, yet maintained the absolute right of the husband to grant a divorce.

There are 613, not just 10, commandments, or mitzvot.

The earliest exchange of halachic questions and answers.

During this time Babylonia was the spiritual and political center of Diaspora Jewry, and Jewish communities looked to the Geonim for authoritative teachings on halachic matters.

The various ways Jewish law distinguishes between Jews and gentiles.

The Oral Torah reflects an attempt to create an eternal Judaism, unaffected by the setbacks that had afflicted the Jewish people in the preceding two centuries.

In the early Middle Ages, leading scholars across Europe and North Africa produced different genres of legal writings.

A legal code for the Jews of medieval North Africa and Spain.