Rabbi Klapper is Founder and Director of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership, based in Boston. Author of articles in the area of Jewish law, his essay on end-of-life issues appears in the Articles section of our website, jewishideas.org. This article on Modern Torah Leadership appears in issue 3 of our journal, Conversations.
What
should I do when my best and most honest reading of halakhic texts contradicts
my deepest sense of right and wrong? Can I relate with reverence to talmudic
rhetoric that, if used by a contemporary, would fill me with disgust or
outrage? What should I think when I am intellectually convinced by historical
or philosophic positions that seem to contradict significant elements of Jewish
tradition?
