Systematicity and its Limits in Lithuanian Talmudism: Patterns of Justification in the Thought of Hayyim Soloveitchik and Shimon Shkop

This paper analyzes two variants of Lithuanian Talmudism with the aim of reflecting on the relation between normative justification and systematicity as well as the constitution of boundaries between legal thought and philosophical reflection. Exemplary texts by Hayyim Soloveitchik and Shimon Shkop are examined to reconstruct the patters of justification that they offer for halakhic norms. It is argued that while they both rationalize halakhic norms and their details through the construction of conceptual structures, Shkop purses this goal more explicitly and thoroughly than Soloveitchik.

Indeed, while Soloveitchik may be described as pursuing a classificatory approach to justification, Shkop may be described as pursuing a systematizing approach. Then, engaging with the recent work of Peter Berkowitz on the legal philosophy of G. W. Leibniz and its legacy, the approaches of Soloveitchik and Shkop are assessed in order to determine the extent to which, in the course of justifying halakhic norms, they render halakhah a discrete intellectual domain and thus separate it from philosophical reflection. In contrast to Berkowitz’s claim that a focus on systematicity ineluctably leads to the separation of law from ethics, it is argued that Shkop’s systematic approach leads him to reflect on the deep structure underlying both Jewish and non-Jewish law, while Soloveitchik’s classificatory approach relies on an implicit positivism that does isolate Jewish law and its analysis from broader reflection. In conclusion, it is suggested that the aim of systematizing Jewish law through conceptual analysis is consistent with critical philosophical reflection on it.