The CJLS met this past week at JTS. During the meeting, the committee approved three teshuvot:
- The first teshuvah was on the permissibility of physician strikes by Jay Stein. Apart from responding to issues of changing health care, he collects sources about the role and importance of doctors in the Jewish tradition.
- The second teshuvah was about the tradition of post-mortem circumcision by Baruch Frydman-Kohl. He traces the history of the practice noting the shift from a folk ritual to codified law in the Shulhan Arukh. He identifies that the custom is not a requirement for burial in a Jewish cemetery.
- The third teshuvah was by Amy Levin and Josh Heller in which they argue that non-Jews should not open the ark during the Torah service. This teshuvah was an adaptation of a dissent to David Booth's paper on the topic.
The committee voted on, but did not approve a teshuvah that permitted the use of e-readers on Shabbat by Elie Spitz. The committee will continue to discuss issues of technology and Shabbat over the coming meetings.
The committee continued discussion on teshuvot relating to the status of Non-Jews in Jewish law by Reuven Hammer, zimmun and birkat hamazon for meals which do not include bread by Pamela Barmash, and reinterpreting tzniut for the 21st Century by David Booth, Baruch Frydman-Kohl, and Ashira Konigsburg.
Miriam Berkowitz presented a first draft of a teshuvah on the requirement to where a tallit on the bimah, and Jeremy Kalmanofsky presented a draft on green burial and new alternatives to burial.