“A rabbinic law is not nullified even if its rationale no longer applies, unless a Sanhedrin nullifies it.” If so, this approach closes off any option of renewing Jewish law and adapting it to our time. But why, when reality has changed, can it not be changed? After all, the Sages could not have foreseen two thousand years ahead how the world would develop. And if today’s reality is different from the time of the Sages, then we are not coming to contradict their words or nullify them, but only to adapt them to reality. I have read quite a few responsa by great Torah authorities from the Middle Ages down to the later generations, and what stood out is that whenever there are complicated issues such as agunot or conversion and the like, the Sages usually found a solution [halakhic acrobatics, but perfectly kosher according to the highest standard]. Why, in this case, is there no solution that meets standards of logic and reason?

It closes off options for renewing Jewish law when there is no Sanhedrin. And even that is only with respect to enactments of the Sanhedrin. Other kinds of innovations have no such limitation. It is true that because of the historical accident we have not had a Sanhedrin for many years, and that is why I wrote to you that the halakhic decisors found workaround methods. But one must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and shatter Jewish law altogether. If you are not changing the words of the Sages but only interpreting and applying them in a way suited to our generation, there is no fundamental limitation on that. I discussed this at length in my article on nullifying and changing enactments and in the third book of the trilogy. In recent generations there has been fear because of the Enlightenment and the Reform movement, and that has unfortunately paralyzed the mechanisms of change. That is what I am trying to fight against.