Research Fellowships – Halakha
The Halakha Research Fellow will work with Rabbi Dr. Elisha Ancselovits on editing his book How to Read Halakha as Common Sense – A Primer on Listening to an Author via the Text, while gaining familiarity with halakhic sources spanning Biblical law through twentieth-century poskim.
Requirements
- Fluency in Rabbinic Hebrew
- Fluency in Rabbinic Aramaic
- Full-time participation in the Beit Midrash Program and commitment to a full year of study at Pardes
Responsibilities
- Assist in editing How to Read Halakha as Common Sense – A Primer on Listening to an Author via the Text
- Engage with a broad range of halakhic sources, including Biblical law, Second Temple literature, rabbinic literature, and twentieth-century poskim
Award details
- Living expenses grant ranging from $200-$600/month (exact amount determined by financial need)
- Highly subsidized Beit Midrash Program tuition: $3000 discount for those not eligible for Masa Israel Journey funding / $2000 for those eligible for Masa funding, for a full year of study
More about the project
The fellowship centers on Rabbi Dr. Elisha Ancselovits’s How to Read Halakha as Common Sense – A Primer on Listening to an Author via the Text. The volume builds on his previous publications, which argue that Jewish law and other forms of specialized Jewish discourse, including philosophy and Kabbalah, have always been at their best, only common-sense discussions of real-life human issues spoken in a range of vocabularies.
The project also builds on Elisha’s unpublished Wisdom Rules: A History of Jews and Law – 730 BCE–1730 CE. Unlike this more academic work, How to Read Halakha as Common Sense is intended as a practical, step-by-step guide to reading halakhic texts.
The primer aims to help readers identify the common-sense insights that different halakhic authors sought to communicate, even when those ideas are expressed through specialized languages and terminology. At the same time, it seeks to illuminate the original common-sense foundations of key areas of Halakha that remain relevant today, including Shabbat, ribbit (interest), nidda, kashrut, and tefilah.
The volume’s epilogue offers a defense of this methodology and engages with relevant humanities and linguistic disciplines. The fellow may choose to participate in regular discussions of these fields for their own learning, although this is not a required component of the fellowship.
Important: Supplemental fellowship applications will only be considered once a full Beit Midrash Program application has been received.