Join author Dr. Elana Stein Hain to discuss her new book Circumventing the Law: Rabbinic Perspectives on Legal Loopholes and Integrity. The book suggests that rabbinic literature presents loopholes as having both positive and negative aspects. Consequently, rabbinic law draws parameters around their use in a way that attempts to preserve the religious integrity of both the Jewish legal system and its adherents' experience. This leads to legal circumventions as a case study of Jewish values in action and offers rabbinic leadership as lawyers working on behalf of their clients, the Jewish People, before God as the all-knowing Judge.
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Dr. Elana Stein Hain is the Rosh Beit Midrash and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she serves as lead faculty and consults on the content of lay and professional programs.
A widely well-regarded thinker and teacher, Elana is passionate about bringing rabbinic thought into conversation with contemporary life. To this end, she hosts TEXTing, a bi-weekly podcast that considers issues relevant to Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts; she also teaches Talmud from the Balcony, an occasional learning seminar exposing the big ideas, questions, and issues motivating rabbinic discussions.
Elana also contributes to For Heaven’s Sake, a bi-weekly podcast with Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi, exploring contemporary issues related to Israel and the Jewish world.
She earned her doctorate in Religion at Columbia University and is an alumna of the Yeshiva University Graduate Program in Advanced Talmudic Studies (GPATS) as well as the Consortium in Jewish Studies and Legal Theory Graduate Fellowship at Cardozo School of Law. She also served for eight years as a clergy member on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at both Lincoln Square Synagogue and the Jewish Center, has taught at the Wagner School at NYU, and sits on the board of Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts.
Elana lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her family.
