Book review – Kinyan Halacha: From Pesukim to Poskim

Mark Twain understood the human condition when then said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Twain recognized that writing a concise message takes much more thought and effort than writing a long one. It also requires the writer to master the subject to convey the idea in such a brief format.

Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz is the director of the semicha program at Yeshiva University and a congregational rabbi in North Woodmere, NY. While he doesn’t write short stories, he has the equivalent with over 4,000 ten-minute halacha shiurim.

In these ten-minute halacha shiurim, one gains a tremendous overview and understanding of the topic. Rabbi Lebowitz conveys complex and intricate halachic ideas in a most understandable manner. The listener comes out feeling enlightened and never talked down to.

One of his students, Rabbi Yehuda Balsam (now the Rosh Beis Medrash at MTA), did the reading public a tremendous service by putting many of these ten-minute halacha shiurim into writing. He arranged them according to the weekly parashah in Kinyan Halacha: From Pesukim to Poskim (RIETS Press). This will ultimately be a five-volume set, and it is currently in print for Bereishis and Shmos.

Rabbi Lebowitz’s mastery of the Talmud, halacha, and Jewish thought enables him to articulate his ideas in just 10 minutes. Getting all of that in written form is not an easy feat, and Rabbi Balsam has done a wonderful job of doing that.

As the title indicates, Rabbi Lebowitz takes the reader from the Biblical verses, the Pesukim, to their modern-day application, Poskim. That is not a trivial endeavor in the least. Traversing that aspect of Jewish law and doing it sensibly requires dedication to the mesora and mastery of the Talmud. It’s a huge divide between the posuk and the pesak, which many stumble in if they are not intellectually honest or dedicated to the halachic tradition.

Rabbi Lebowitz quotes often from his Rebbe, HaRav Hershel Schachter. To which Rav Schachter said in a shiur last month, talmidei chachamim need to know every line of Shas. And that is a common theme in these volumes – that it is now quite easy with the Internet, Google, and Halacha databases to find what one thinks are answers.

However, going from Pesukim to Poskim requires much more than finding an obscure source in the Bar Ilan Responsa Project. It requires seeing the halachic process from start to finish and knowing that trajectory to come to an honest answer. That is what Rabbi Lebowitz does extraordinarily well.

These two volumes cover the gamut of halachic topics. From the more mundane topics such as birthday celebrations and donor names on buildings. To very serious issues such as abortion and a father receiving a kidney donation from a developmentally disabled child. Rabbi Lebowitz does not shy away from controversial topics, such as prisoner exchanges in halacha, and honoring wicked parents.

Every topic in these two volumes is engaging and inspiring, leaving the reader wanting more. For those looking to bring engaging topics to their Shabbos table connected to the parasha, that will start significant dialogue, this is your series of books.

My friend Meyer Mandel said that the definition of a good shiur is one that, after it’s over, makes you want to go and open up a sefer. Rabbi Leibowitz has a lot of really good 10-minute shiurim. And in Kinyan Halacha: From Pesukim to Poskim, these are the really good seforim you really want to open.