Nineteenth Century To Early Twentieth Century
In this period, many responsa deal with problems taken from modern experience. Responsa have been inspired or necessitated by economic growth, social movements, and advances in technology, which wrought sweeping changes in the lives and living conditions of the Jews in different countries, as well as within Judaic streams; e.g., those of Reform Judaism and Zionism.
The movements for the reform of Judaism evoked many responsa in reply to questions concerning the location of the bimah, organ accompaniments, the covering of the head in the synagogue, the seating of men and women together, and prayers in the vernacular.
Jewish settlement in Palestine had occasioned many responsa on questions connected with agriculture and horticulture in the Holy Land, including the problems of the cessation of all labor in the fields during the Sabbatical year and the use of etrogs from Israel.
Following are representative examples:
- In a responsum ("Hatam Sofer, Orah; Hayyim,"No. 28) Moses Sofer discussed the problem of whether the "bimah" might be removed from the center and placed near the Ark, as is now the case in all Reform and even in many Orthodox synagogues, but was then interdicted as an innovation. In another responsum (ib. "Yoreh De'ah," No. 128) he debated whether a Jewish sculptor was permitted by his religion to carve human figures.
- In a responsum Joseph Saul Nathanson discussed the problem of the transfer of a corpse from one place of burial to another ("Sho'el u-Meshib," i., No. 231). In another responsum (ib. iii., No. 373) he replied in the affirmative to a question sent him from New York asking whether a Protestant church might be changed into a synagogue. He was one of the first to permit the use of machinery in baking Matzah .
- Isaac Schmelkes passed judgment ("Bet-Yitzchak," i., Przemysl, 1901, No. 29) on the question of civil marriage, which is permitted by the laws of Hungary between Jews and non-Jews, and he debated also (ib. ii., Przemysl, 1895, No. 31) whether electric lights may be used for Hanukkah, and (ib. No. 58) whether the telephone or the phonograph may be used on the Sabbath.
Read more about this topic: History Of Responsa
Famous quotes containing the words twentieth century, nineteenth century, nineteenth, early and/or twentieth:
“A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious “retreat” of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power’s sake ... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one’s own rules.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)
“The nineteenth century is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of two men, Darwin and Renan, the one the critic of the Book of Nature, the other the critic of the books of God. Not to recognise this is to miss the meaning of one of the most important eras in the progress of the world.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)