Halakha
Halakha (/hɑːˈlɔːxə/;[1] Hebrew: הֲלָכָה, romanized: hălāḵā, Sephardic: [halaˈχa]), also transliterated as halacha, halakhah, and halocho (Ashkenazic: [haˈlɔχɔ]), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah.
Halakha is based on biblical commandments (mitzvot), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, and the customs and traditions which were compiled in the many books such as the Shulchan Aruch. Halakha is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation of it might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word is derived from the root which means "to behave" (also "to go" or "to walk"). Halakha not only guides religious practices and beliefs, it also guides numerous aspects of day-to-day life.[2]
A full set of the Babylonian Talmud
Historically, widespread observance of the laws of the Torah is first in evidence beginning in the second century BCE.[3] In the Jewish diaspora, halakha served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious, since no differentiation of them exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) and Jewish emancipation, some have come to view the halakha as less binding in day-to-day life, because it relies on rabbinic interpretation, as opposed to the authoritative, canonical text which is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. Under contemporary Israeli law, certain areas of Israeli family and personal status law are under the authority of the rabbinic courts, so they are treated according to halakha. Some minor differences in halakha are found among Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Yemenite, Ethiopian and other Jewish communities which historically lived in isolation.[4]
Etymology and terminology[edit]
A full set of the Babylonian Talmud
The word halakha is derived from the Hebrew root halakh – "to walk" or "to go".[5]: 252 Taken literally, therefore, halakha translates as "the way to walk", rather than "law". The word halakha refers to the corpus of rabbinic legal texts, or to the overall system of religious law. The term may also be related to Akkadian ilku, a property tax, rendered in Aramaic as halakh, designating one or several obligations.[6] It may be descended from hypothetical reconstructed Proto-Semitic root *halak- meaning "to go", which also has descendants in Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, and Ugaritic.[7]
Halakha is often contrasted with aggadah ("the telling"), the diverse corpus of rabbinic exegetical, narrative, philosophical, mystical, and other "non-legal" texts.[6] At the same time, since writers of halakha may draw upon the aggadic and even mystical literature, a dynamic interchange occurs between the genres. Halakha also does not include the parts of the Torah not related to commandments.
Halakha constitutes the practical application of the 613 *mitzvot* ("commandments") in the Torah, as developed through discussion and debate in the classical rabbinic literature, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud (the "Oral Torah"), and as codified in the Mishneh Torah and Shulchan Aruch.[8] Because halakha is developed and applied by various halakhic authorities rather than one sole "official voice", different individuals and communities may well have different answers to halakhic questions. With few exceptions, controversies are not settled through authoritative structures because during the Jewish diaspora, Jews lacked a single judicial hierarchy or appellate review process for halakha.
According to some scholars, the words halakha and sharia both mean literally "the path to follow". The fiqh literature parallels rabbinical law developed in the Talmud, with fatwas being analogous to rabbinic *responsa*.[9][10]