Should the law pierce the mountain? The role of communal narrative in Jewish law

“Let the law pierce the mountain” – this approving Talmudic (rabbinic) view of the role of Jewish law has a harsh ring for those, including many women and queer Jews, who have experienced halacha (religious law) as undermining the rocks upon which we build our lives. Some rabbis have recently written that the Jewish legal system should recognize the potential of broader communal values to trump conventional legal interpretation, drawing upon the work of American legal scholar Robert Cover. What is this narrative-based approach? How does it relate to Jewish tradition? And might it pierce mountains of its own?

Adam Gordon is a civil rights attorney at Fair Share Housing Center, a public interest law firm focused on providing affordable housing in New Jersey’s most desirable communities, and a fellow at NYU Law School focusing on federal land use and affordable housing policy. He also co-founded and is the editor-in-chief of The Next American City, a quarterly magazine about the future of cities and suburbs that the New York Times calls “a subtle plan to change the world.” He is a member of Kol Tzedek, a small Reconstructionist synagogue in Philadelphia.