I'm impressed and touched that David Ellenson chose to discuss feminist halakhah. It has a rather dodgy reputation currently, and few male scholars have bothered to consider it seriously. Perhaps this article will change that. As it has often been noted, interpretation is a crucial yet slippery issue. Adhering to absolute ahistorical criteria for truth claims traps us in rigid systems where we can neither account for nor effect change; yet once we question absolutes, it is easy to drop precipitously into absolute relativism, where there are no interpretive standards whatever. Feminist halakhah serves as an interesting test case for negotiating the pitfalls inherent in legal (and ethical) interpretation, and thus should be of interest even to scholars who are interested neither in halakhah nor in the welfare of women.
I found it interesting that Ellenson chose to focus on Tamar Ross, Ronit Irshai, and me. I am the odd...
