Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part 1: The Monistic Outlook -- Preface -- 1 Halakhah Follows Bet Hillel: The Rejected Option in Monism -- Why does Halakhah follow Bet Hillel? -- The rejected option as 'words of God' -- 2 Monism: The 'Valid Decision' Concept -- Correspondence positions -- Approximative positions -- Acceptability as the criterion of the right decision -- 3 Monism: Dispute and the Concept of Revelation -- The meaning of dispute -- Halakhic truth and revelation -- Part 2: The Pluralistic Outlook -- Preface -- 4 Revelation and Halakhic Pluralism -- The realistic model -- The anthropological model -- The authoritative model -- 5 The Limits of Halakhic Pluralism and the Nature of Halakhic Inference -- The limits of halakhic pluralism -- The ontological status of halakhic decisions -- The validity of halakhic decisions and the minority position -- 6 Halakhah Follows Bet Hillel: The Pluralistic Version -- Following the quantitative majority -- Bet Hillel's moral advantage -- Part 3: The Harmonic Outlook -- Preface -- 7 The Union of Opposites -- Zadok ha-Cohen of Lublin -- Judah Loew ben Bezalel -- Halakhah follows Bet Hillel: the harmonic version -- 8 'Reality Knows No Opposites' -- Part 4: These and These Are the Words of the Living God: Halakhic Values -- Preface -- 9 The Religious Value of the Quest for Truth -- Isaac Jacob Reines -- Hayyim Hirschensohn -- Hayyim Volozhiner -- Monism and the value of the quest for truth -- The religious purpose of halakhic discourse -- 10 'Torah Shall Go Forth Today. . . That Had Not Gone Forth Yesterday': The Value of Innovation -- Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen -- Hayyim b. Bezalel -- Moses Samuel Glasner -- The meaning of halakhic innovation -- Part 5: On Dispute and Authority -- Preface -- 11 Dispute in Halakhic Culture: Historical Phenomenon or Constitutive Element.

Dispute as a historical phenomenon -- Dispute as a constitutive element -- 'These and these': between toleration and pluralism -- 12 On Authority and the Duty of Obedience -- The epistemic model of halakhic authority -- The deontic model of halakhic authority -- Attempts to reach a balance -- Authority and the status of dispute -- Concluding thoughts -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.