Halakha, also transliterated as halacha, halakhah, and halocho, is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandments (mitzvot), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, and the customs and traditions which were compiled in the many books such as the Shulchan Aruch. Halakha is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word is derived from the root which means "to behave". Halakha not only guides religious practices and beliefs; it also guides numerous aspects of day-to-day life.
In Judaism, the Seven Laws of Noah, otherwise referred to as the Noahide Laws or the Noachian Laws, are a set of universal moral laws which, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a covenant with Noah and with the "sons of Noah"—that is, all of humanity.
Jewish ethics is the ethics of the Jewish religion or the Jewish people. A type of normative ethics, Jewish ethics may involve issues in Jewish law as well as non-legal issues, and may involve the convergence of Judaism and the Western philosophical tradition of ethics.
A mikveh or mikvah is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity.
A niddah, in traditional Judaism, is a woman who has experienced a uterine discharge of blood, or a woman who has menstruated and not yet completed the associated requirement of immersion in a mikveh.
The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is the central authority on halakha within Conservative Judaism; it is one of the most active and widely known committees on the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly. Within the movement it is known as the CJLS. The current chairman of the CJLS is Rabbi Pamela Barmash.
Prior to the 20th century, the three major branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism —generally held a critical perspective of birth control. Among Christian denominations today, however, there is a large variety of views regarding birth control that range from the acceptance of birth control to only allowing natural family planning to teaching Quiverfull doctrine, which disallows contraception and holds that Christians should have large families.
Rabbinic authority in Judaism relates to the theological and communal authority attributed to rabbis and their pronouncements in matters of Jewish law. The extent of rabbinic authority differs by various Jewish groups and denominations throughout history.
Quiverfull is a Christian theological position that sees large families as a blessing from God. It encourages procreation, abstaining from all forms of birth control, natural family planning, and sterilization reversal. The movement derives its name from Psalm 127:3–5, where many children are metaphorically referred to as the arrows in a full quiver.
In Judaism, Christianity, and some other Abrahamic religions, the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" is the divine injunction which forms part of Genesis 1:28, in which God, after having created the world and all in it, ascribes to humankind the tasks of filling, subduing, and ruling over the earth. The cultural mandate includes the sentence "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth."
Religious adherents vary widely in their views on birth control. This can be true even between different branches of one faith, as in the case of Judaism and Christianity. Some religious believers find that their own opinions of the use of birth control differ from the beliefs espoused by the leaders of their faith, and many grapple with the ethical dilemma of what is conceived as "correct action" according to their faith, versus personal circumstance, reason, and choice. This article will discuss various views on birth control of the major world religions Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Baha'i.
Conservative Judaism views halakha as normative and binding. The Conservative movement applies Jewish law to the full range of Jewish beliefs and practices, including thrice-daily prayer, Shabbat and holidays, marital relations and family purity, conversion, dietary laws (kashrut), and Jewish medical ethics. Institutionally, the Conservative movement rules on Jewish law both through centralized decisions, primarily by the Rabbinical Assembly and its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and through congregational rabbis at the local level. Conservative authorities produced voluminous Responsa literature.
In Judaism, views on abortion draw primarily upon the legal and ethical teachings of the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the case-by-case decisions of responsa, and other rabbinic literature. While all major Jewish religious movements allow or encourage abortion in order to save the life of a pregnant woman, authorities differ on when and whether it is permitted in other cases.
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unintended pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century. Planning, making available, and using human birth control is called family planning. Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable.
Religious response to assisted reproductive technology deals with the new challenges for traditional social and religious communities raised by modern assisted reproductive technology. Because many religious communities have strong opinions and religious legislation regarding marriage, sex and reproduction, modern fertility technology has forced religions to respond.
Protestant views on contraception are markedly more pluralistic than the doctrine expressed by the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, due to historical divergences of theological thought that began during the Protestant Reformation, including the rejection of an infallible doctrinal authority other than Scripture. The doctrine of various forms of Protestantism as a whole from the Reformation until 1930 strongly condemned contraception as the Catholic Church does, but such opposition has since almost totally been dropped. Since the 1940 Seventh Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, major mainline Protestant denominations shifted their doctrine to accepting contraception. In general, most liberal Protestants, such as the United Church of Christ, hold relatively settled views that accept the use of contraception, while conservative evangelicals denominations mostly also accept the use of contraception; however, some evangelicals are divided on the issue, with a small minority of denominations seeing natural family planning as the only permissible method. Other traditions such as Laestadian Lutheran Churches, do not permit the use of birth control and may teach Quiverfull doctrine, which holds that Christians should have large families.
Jewish traditions across different eras and regions devote considerable attention to sexuality. Sexuality is the subject of many narratives and laws in the Tanakh and rabbinic literature.
The history of birth control, also known as contraception and fertility control, refers to the methods or devices that have been historically used to prevent pregnancy. Planning and provision of birth control is called family planning. In some times and cultures, abortion had none of the stigma which it has today, making birth control less important.
The prohibition of extracting semen in vain is a Biblical prohibition derived from, this is explained in the Midrash and Talmud. The prohibition forbids a male from intentional wasteful spilling of his semen. Unintentional wasting of seed is also a (lesser) sin according to the Oral Torah.
Adoption does not exist formally as a practice in Jewish Law (Halacha), although rabbinic texts were not uniform on whether or not they recognized the validity of adoption and several examples of adoption take place in the Hebrew Bible and texts from the Second Temple Judaism. The Hebrew word for adoption ‘אימוץ’ (immutz), which derives from the verb ‘אמץ’ (amatz) in Psalm 80 verse 16 and 18 meaning ‘to make strong’, was not introduced until the modern age. Jewish perspectives towards adoption promote two contradictory messages towards nurture and nature. On the one hand, Judaism expresses favourable attitudes towards adoption across religious movements and is widely viewed as a good deed (mitzvah). Based on the Talmudic teachings that when one raises an orphan in their home, "scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him," rabbis have argued that the commandment of procreation can also be fulfilled through the act of adoption. However, this interpretation raises a number of questions in relation to lineage and biological status, which is a core value in Halacha.
