Focusing on the spheres of marriage and parenthood, the course engages in an internal halakhic consideration of topics impacting the world of the Jewish couple. The course will examine the couple’s mutual rights and obligations, children’s rights, and their preservation in crisis situations. The relevant halakhic mechanisms will be treated diachronically, from ancient written sources, to Talmudic literature, pesika, responsa literature, to modern rabbinic verdicts. Although the focus is on the halakhic corpus, aggadic material, civil verdicts, and psychological and sociological studies relating to couplehood, parenthood, and divorce will also be consulted.

            During the semester the students will gain familiarity with the relevant concepts and analyze agreements and contracts. The course will treat the underlying rationales for various laws and customs (such as marriage ceremony customs), explain changes that have taken place over time regarding marriage and parenthood, and address dilemmas related to these spheres. It will treat the processes for creation and conclusion of marriage, present the steps that can be taken by agencies outside the nuclear family in cases of divorce or death, dysfunctional families, and will also touch on adoption and fostering. With respect to each topic the course will identify the leading principles that direct pesika, analyze cases brought before the rabbinic and civil courts, and note the solutions at which they arrived. It will also analyze the arguments of the litigants, weigh the legal force of the proofs offered, treat main aspects of the negotiations and decision-making process, and will indicate the complexity of the considerations that guide pesak.