Divine Will and Human Experience

"Divine Will and Human Experience" illuminates every stage of the halakhic process in a wide variety of contexts and genres. This book is for everyone who wants to understand halakhah deeply and share responsibility for the Torah's role in constructing and governing personal and communal religious lives.

Wallace Stevens wrote that poetry is generated by the pressure of reality on imagination. Along the same lines, practical halakhah, at its best, is generated by the pressure of reality on the Torah. "Divine Will and Human Experience" illuminates every stage of that process in a wide variety of contexts and genres. Readers will find the halakhot of art and the art of halakhah. In this book, Rabbi Klapper discusses an authoritative responsum, a psak that failed, an explanation of how a beit din practice became oppressive, and an explanation of how rabbinic powerlessness enables oppression. This book is for everyone who wants to understand halakhah deeply and share responsibility for the Torah's role in constructing and governing personal and communal religious lives.

Aryeh Klapper is a posek, lamdan, and thought leader who serves as dean of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership (CMTL). He was previously Orthodox Rabbinic Advisor at Harvard Hillel, Talmud Curriculum Chair at Maimonides High School, Instructor of Rabbinics and Medical Ethics at Gann Academy, and Senior Dayan on the Boston Beit Din. As Rosh Beit Midrash of CMTL's Summer Beit Midrash for the past twenty-five years, he has helped develop an astounding array of men and women develop into halakhic scholars and Torah leaders. You can sign up for his Torah essays at www.torahleadership.org and follow him on the podcast "Taking Responsibility for Torah."