Hilkhot Nashim Halakhic Source Guides

With much gratitude to Dr. Monique Katz and Gail Katz, Jofa is excited to announce that its Hilkhot Nashim, Volume II, edited by Rahel Berkovits, is now available for order from its publisher, the Maggid Books imprint of Koren Publishers.

Volume I covers Kaddish, Birkat HaGomel, and Megillah.

Volume II focuses on Shabbat-related topics, including Kiddush, Hamotzi, Havdalah, and Sefer Torah.

The series features essays by Rahel Berkovits, Jennie Rosenfeld, Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, and Devorah Zlochower.

Both volumes can be purchased from Koren Publishers, or by clicking on the graphic at right.

Get your copies of these valuable learning and reference guides today!

The Hilkhot Nashim series presents an in-depth look at halakhic topics that affect a woman’s obligation and involvement in Jewish ritual life.

The source guides aim to increase awareness of relevant halakhic issues among women and men so that women can make deliberate choices rather than passive ones about their observance.

By cultivating an understanding of the different views that exist within the halakhic system, we want to enable Jews who are committed to halakha to become more intellectually involved in their practice of mitzvot.

We hope that these source guides will invigorate individuals, as well as the larger community, to a more thoughtful and committed observance.

In the source guides, the rabbinic texts themselves are not presented as references but as the main focus of the discussion. All sources are explained and translated into English to enable the reader with a limited Hebrew language background to also work through the original texts.

The aim of an in-depth analysis of these sources is that the reader will learn not only what the normative halakha is, but will understand how it developed; that under the surface of what is considered normative is a dialectic of multiple and valid attempts at understanding and interpreting our earliest halakhic literature.

We encourage you to invite a friend to study the sources in a havruta partnership, to organize a study group in your community, or to learn the texts on your own.

It is our wish that these source guides bring fervor for a knowledge of the halakhic sources to communities, study groups, classes, and the individuals who learn them.

For additional information, please contact us at jofa@jofa.org.