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Can the demand for change in the status of women be halakhically legitimated
Judaism, Fall, 1993 by Tamar Ross
The first passage reads as follows:
"Sometimes, when a need arises to modify a dictate of the Torah, and there is no one in the generation who can show the way, the matter is effected by means of a spontaneous breaking of bounds (hitparzut). Nonetheless, it is best for the world that this outbreak should appear inadvertently, and this is the basis for the dictum: "Better that transgressions be committed inadvertently than wilfully." Only when Israel is blessed by prophecy can such a matter be rectified by temporary edict (hora'at sha'ah). Then the change is legitimized and becomes an evident commandment. But when the light of prophecy is obstructed, this remedial process is effected by a long-term breach of the law which pains the heart because of its external form, but gladdens it because of its inner significance."(15)
The second passage was written in the context of an ongoing correspondence regarding the Torah's implicit compliance with the institution of slavery.(16) In the letter preceding the one which contains our passage, Harav Kook justified this compliance, on the grounds that the Torah necessarily related to a period when people were not yet morally ready to give up slavery; thus, Torah regulations had to be provided to make this institution as just as possible, while weaning humanity to higher levels of morality. On the basis of these remarks, Harav Kook's correspondent evidently drew the conclusion that Harav Kook believed in an evolving Torah that changes with the times. Harav Kook begins his response by vociferously rejecting this contention, making the distinction between an irresponsible, undirected form of evolution, and an evolution that is already directed to a predefined goal, and asserting that his understanding of the nature of Torah attributes to it only evolutionary developments belonging to the latter category. It is for this reason that the truth of Torah can only be revealed when the People of Israel -- the vessel designed for conveying Torah in this world -- resides in its entirety in the land of Israel, equipped with all of the physical and spiritual structures necessary for its existence. These include the revival of the Oral Torah, in the form of a recognized Great Court (Bet Din). Under these conditions, any discrepancy between what -- according to prevalent moral conceptions -- should now be the understanding of any particular ruling of Torah, and what had been previously accepted as the correct interpretation, has every chance of being corrected. If the Great Court truly concurs that the previous ruling was intended for conditions that no longer obtain, Harav Kook has no doubt that it will succeed in finding a source for this in the Torah. He then adds his belief that the convening of the external factors that prompted the new interpretation, and the reinstatement of the power of the Bet Din, and their ability to find a valid Torah source on which the revision can be based, is not a chance occurrence. This insures that the changes to be made are consistent with Torah's eternal goals and values.
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