No clear consensus: the sages of a rising modernity

TL;DRAbstract

The halakhic statements relevant to abortion that were written during the greater part of the nineteenth century displayed no evidence whatsoever that a watershed in Jewish history was being traversed. Yet, in almost every significant area of Jewish life, that was precisely what was happening. Monumental transitions were underway. Citizenship, economic mobility, the disintegration of autonomous community, the rise of secular law, the challenge of reason to revealed religion, the development of scientific thought and of a critical study of the past – among many other factors – were all having profound and irrevocable effects upon Jews and Judaism. Eventually the impact of these unprecedented phenomena would be seen clearly in the abortion area, but the early rabbis of modernity were decidedly more engaged in the deliberations of the Acharonim than in responding to their own Zeitgeist. Despite its avowed revolutionary nature, when it came to halakhic matters that were less than pressing,

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