The relationship between religion and state has come under renewed scrutiny in contemporary American political conversation.  In Israel too this issue continues to be hotly debated, touching as it does on fundamental questions as to the nature of halakhah, Judaism, and the Jewish State.

• How does the rise of the modern state affect how we understand the nature of Jewish law?
• How does halakhah evaluate the normative and political status of the modern state?
• How can Jewish and Muslim views of the relationship between religion and state help us frame American debates regarding the separation of church and state?

Session 1 – June 7th     Halakhah in the Shadow of the Modern State – Yonatan Brafman
The rise of the modern state demanded the reconfiguration of central aspects of Jewish life, including community, law, and identity. This lecture will first delineate the two major ways halakhah was reconceived so as to fit within this paradigm: as private religion within a secular state or as established law for a Jewish state. Then, an underappreciated alternative in which Jewish law is recognized as public but not established by the state will be explored and its potential for contemporary community and politics discussed.

Session 2 – June 14th     Separation of Church and State in the Jewish, Islamic, and American Traditions – Shlomo PillAs the United States continues to move towards greater separation between religion and state in some respects while promoting a greater role for religious voices in political and legal processes in other respects, questions about the proper relationship between religion and the state loom large. Both Judaism and Islam are all-encompassing normative traditions; in addition to regulating “ritual” matters, they also prescribe correct conduct in the more mundane spheres of private and public interpersonal relations. While both of these traditions are often thought of as necessitating some form of theocratic government, however, both have historically maintained a relatively strict separation of religious and political authority. In both Jewish and Islamic practice, moreover, this separation of church and state encouraged moderation and accountability in political and religious affairs, leading to better religious doctrine and better state law and policy. As we grapple with these questions in this country, the examples of Jewish and Islamic law and practice offer helpful examples of what models of religion-state relations produce what kind of results in both the religious and political spheres.

Session 3 – June 21st     The Modern State in the Eyes of Halakhah – Adina Levine
The interaction between the American and Rabbinic legal systems has resulted in not only the American code grappling with how to handle halakhah, but also in the development of a discrete corpus on the rabbinic view of the American legal system and the authority of the modern state. In this session, we will analyze contemporary applications of the halakhic concepts of Mesirah and Dina d’Malchuta Dina, exploring the varying ways in which Jewish law views the American legal court system, and ask whether those views are justified, in terms of both history as well as contemporary jurisprudence.