Abstract
A spirit of Jewish religious humanism animates the texts of Rabbi David Hartman, and two primary themes seem to find expression over and over again in his thought. This chapter intends to employ the writings of David Hartman on the nature of Jewish law and the religious import of the State of Israel for the presentation and examination of a responsum the late Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi (1924–1998) issued on the question of pidyon shevuyim. In this 1985 responsum, Halevi specifically addressed the matter of whether the halakhah permitted the redemption of three captive Israeli soldiers in exchange for the release of one thousand one hundred and fifty Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. As Hartman contends that the tradition itself affirms that God grants this warrant of autonomy to the human reader of Jewish sacred texts, it follows that the subjectivity inherent in the human condition guarantees that the texts themselves always remain open to a number of meanings.