Is Jewish law explicitly, or implicitly, premised on some foundational understandings of the nature of what law is? Are there multiple such conceptions in early rabbinic materials? Have multiple understandings emerged over time and across space, perhaps influenced by non-Jewish jurisprudence? Do competing jurisprudential understandings have divergent implications for legal reasoning and other methods (such as looking to custom) in determining the law’s content? Is there a connection between Jewish analytical jurisprudence (if there is such a thing) and formalism? Is self-conscious consideration of analytical jurisprudence’s application to Jewish law useful, merely academic, potentially pernicious? Why?
Business meeting at program conclusion.