[Avodah] Dead-Letter Halakhoth

[Lisa Liel]

(resending)
Back in biblical times, bamot were the classic example of the kind of 
dead letter halakhot you're talking about.  This is hardly a new 
problem.  I think the issue comes up primarily when people are being 
told not to do something that would otherwise be a religious obligation, 
but in the case of examples like Skokie, I think it was an issue of 
assimilation, on some scale or other.

Lisa

On 3/9/2012 1:15 AM, Jay F Shachter wrote:
> A thoughtful taxonomy of these dead-letter halakhoth would be welcome,
> as would be an elucidation of their distinguishing characteristic.  My
> first impulse was to assert that Jews just don't observe halakhoth
> that are difficult (fasting on Yom Kippur is easy; desisting from
> thirty-nine categories of labor on Shabbath is easy; not mourning for
> your son is hard).  But that is a facile conclusion that does not fit
> the facts.  There is nothing more difficult than the laws of nidda;
> and yet, a woman tells her husband that she has seen something that
> resembles a red rose, and he separates from her, which is a marvel,
> more marvelous than the way of a vulture in the heavens, or a serpent
> over a rock, or a ship on the high sea.  It is a marvel that it
> happens even once, and yet it has happened millions of times.
>    
>    
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