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Setting The Table: An Introduction To The Jurisprudence Of Rabbi Yechiel Mikhel Epstein’S Arukh Hashulhan, Michael J. Broyde, Shlomo C. Pill

Center for the Study of Law and Religion Books

This book explains the major jurisprudential factors driving the halakhic jurisprudence of Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein, twentieth-century author of the Arukh Hashulchan—the most comprehensive, seminal, and original modern restatement of Jewish law since Maimonides. Reasoning inductively from a broad review of hundreds of rulings from the Orach Chaim section of the Arukh Hashulchan, the book teases out and explicates ten core halakhic principles that animate Rabbi Epstein’s halakhic decision-making. Along the way, it compares the Arukh Hashulchan methodology to that of the Mishna Berura. This book will help any reader understand important methodological issues in both Jewish and general jurisprudence.