Hard Cases: Facing Law’s Challenges in American Legal Theory and Rabbinic Literature
Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment”
With Dr. Sarah Wolf, Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS
How do judges settle cases when there is no clear right answer? How are precedents mined for new rulings? Should laws be the product of a legislator’s own creativity, or are there other sources for legal truth that need to be turned to first? These are all questions that have animated both contemporary American and late ancient rabbinic legal thinkers.
In this session, we will put ideas and concepts from U.S. legal theory into conversation with rabbinic texts to illuminate different approaches to the challenges of legal decision-making. We will discuss some of the ways the ancient rabbis responded to those challenges and the legacy those approaches have left in Jewish thought and culture.
About the Series
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the JTS Summer 2026 Learning Series will explore the rich and surprising intersections between Jewish thought and American life. From baseball and youth culture to constitutional law, storytelling, and democratic theory, leading scholars reveal how Jewish ideas, texts, and experiences have shaped—and been shaped by—the American experiment.
