The Olam Haba of Psycho-Halachah
Shalom, u-vracha / Greetings and blessings.
A blogger named Dauer has been very interested in Reb Zalman’s vision for Psycho-Halachah for some time. This Hanukkah, he and I have blogged on this subject and I want to share this discussion with the rest of you. We’ve been struggling with an understanding of Psycho-Halachah.
Psycho-Halachah is a concept that Reb Zalman has written about to describe the process by which Jewish law and practice gets updated by Paradigm Shift. With the advent of developments in Psychology over the past 150 years, there is a corresponding impact on the way Halachah evolves. Reb Zalman coined this term, Psycho-Halachah, to describe this impact, as well as the impact of other aspects of Paradigm Shift on the process of halachah.
Dauer wants a clearer picture of how Psycho-Halachah fits in with Halachah. Is it a new Halachah? Is it something specifically for a Jewish Renewal denomination, or is its influence greater? How does it fit in with what we’ve inherited from hazal (our Sages)?
Click here to read our discussion.
For the most comprehensive treatment to date on this subject, please read Reb Zalman’s book, Integral Halachah: Transcending and Including, available from Aleph.
If you would like to participate in this dialogue, please add comments to our dialogue on Dauer’s blog or in the remarks section below. Blessings, Gabbai Seth Fishman (BLOG Editor)
December 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Hi Seth.
Just one point of clarification. C-R.com isn’t a blog. It’s a comparative religion discussion forum. I think it’s very cool you’re featuring our discussion here and I think it would be great to see more voices and perspectives joining us, although I think at this time our dialogue may have reached a point where it’s starting to die down as you have your perspective and I have mine.
Kol tuv.
— Dauer