Negotiating Law and Ethics in the Rabbinic Tradition

Dear Colleagues, 

We invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of Religions dedicated to Negotiating Law and Ethics in the Rabbinic Tradition. 

While Rabbinic literature—most notably the Babylonian Talmud—serves as the foundational blueprint for contemporary Jewish practice, it is far from a static legal code. Rather, the corpus is saturated with complex legal debates with underlying moral imperatives pervading the development of its most impactful passages. The intersections of law and ethics offer vital insights into enduring issues such as bioethics, commercial integrity, interpersonal responsibility, and the nature of religious obligation. 

At a historical moment where the tension between legal frameworks and ethical demands is increasingly acute within democratic societies, the Rabbinic tradition—extending from the classical period through the Midrashic compilations of the early medieval era—provides a robust framework for navigating these competing forces. With its characteristic prioritization of hermeneutical process over final product, this literature can help to guide contemporary thinking about the challenges between these two powerful interests. 

This Special Issue explores the dynamic intersections of law and ethics—whether in tension, conflict, or synthesis—across the Rabbinic corpus. We invite papers that examine the formation, articulation, or application of Jewish law as it engages with morality, whether that morality is embedded within the tradition as an expression of divine will or functions as an independent benchmark that complicates established rules. We are particularly interested in studies that address topics resonating with contemporary concerns and that embrace the conceptual fluidity of law and morality in the ancient world.

In accordance with the mission of Religions to promote critical, hermeneutical, historical, and constructive dialogue, contributions should transcend the narrow technicalities that can sometimes characterize scholarship on Rabbinic literature. We, thus, request papers that leverage specific textual analysis to participate in broader discourses across religious studies and the humanities, offering insights that speak to the fundamental nature of legal and ethical systems. 

For this Special Issue, we welcome original research articles that employ methodological pluralism, ranging from traditional philological and text-critical approaches to those engaging with contemporary theory and interdisciplinary hermeneutics. We particularly encourage scholarship that bridges these modalities. 

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Conceptual Foundations:
• The tension between Biblical and Rabbinic legal frameworks;
• Philosophical underpinnings of Rabbinic thought, such as realism versus nominalism;
• The inquiry into who defines law and ethics and the nature of those subject to these mandates;
• Assumptions regarding independent sources of ethics versus ethics as a derivative of divine will;
• The nature of abstract principles (e.g., truth and justice) and their function within a legal system.
• Mechanisms of Negotiation:
• The codification of ethical principles into legal mechanisms (e.g., lifnim mi-shurat ha-din);
• Instances where legal formalisms override ethical considerations or vice versa;
• The politicization of ethics through the process of legalization;
• Law and narrative as distinct or overlapping modalities for ethical transmission.
• Beyond the Rabbis:
• The Rabbinic tradition in dialogue with Second Temple, early Christian, or Roman legal systems;
• The manifestation of law and ethics in relation to non-Jewish or non-Rabbinic populations.
• Applied Ethics and Contemporary Resonance:
• Case studies in enduring conceptual categories: speech ethics, commercial integrity, animal welfare, bioethics, the ethics of warfare, etc. 

This Special Issue will situate specialized Rabbinic discourses within a generative dialogue with critical conceptual frameworks. By doing so, we will extend the reach of Rabbinic thought beyond the confines of Jewish Studies, demonstrating its relevance to broader inquiries in legal theory, moral philosophy, and the humanities. 

Accepted contributions will offer sophisticated reflections on the intersections of Jewish law and ethics, providing rigorous analysis that resonates with contemporary societal tensions and the enduring complexity of human governance.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, Dr. Matthew Goldstone (mgoldstone@ajr.edu), or to the Assistant Editor, Dr. Axel Lu (axelrod.lu@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review. 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Matthew Goldstone
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Rabbinic literature
• Jewish law
• ethics and morality
• jurisprudence
• late antiquity
• legal theory
• hermeneutics
• normativity