Q&A: Major Open Problems in Judaism
Major Open Problems in Judaism
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I remember that at one point you mentioned the problem of creating the conceptual learning toolbox as a central and open problem in Judaism. I wanted to ask whether there are other such problems that are considered central and open problems in Judaism.
Answer
That is not a problem but a lack. To be sure, underlying it there is a not-so-simple methodological problem: how to create an effective index of categories in conceptual Talmudic analysis (as opposed to content categories, which can be indexed alphabetically). This problem exists not only in Torah study but in many other fields as well (in fact, in almost all of them).
Discussion on Answer
I don’t mean just any open problems (there are probably many of those), but the most central ones (say, the top 3).
It’s hard for me to answer. At the moment, these come to mind:
1. Defining legitimate change in Jewish law and its boundaries.
2. Defining the authority of the early halakhic decisors.
3. Defining the boundary of legitimacy for Jewish worldviews (defining heresy).
4. Restoring the use of interpretive methods and understanding the interpretive methods of the Sages.
5. Creating valid authority for making far-reaching halakhic decisions in our time (I don’t see an agreed-upon solution to this, certainly not one from me).
There are many more problems of different kinds, but it’s hard for me to map them out and give an exhaustive list (like Hilbert’s list at the end of the 19th century in mathematics).