A New Halakha of B'tzelem Elohim that Responds to our Current Reality

By Sofia Freudenstein
Smol Emuni Conference
March 30, 2025

In his work Halakhic Man, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik describes his vision for what halakhah should be. He writes: “There is no phenomenon, entity, or object in this concrete world which the a priori Halakhah does not approach with its ideal standard.”  Halakhah is a system that is able to speak to every detail, intricacy and complexity of life.

For most of my life, this is how I understood Halakhah. Every aspect of lived experience has a halakhic corollary, and in reverse, imbues legal and theological weight into everything that we do. 

However, over the past year and a half, it has felt like halakhah has not responded to the "concrete world" that I have witnessed - that being, the ongoing mistreatment of Palestinians. 

Where was the source for my halakhic imperative to pack food boxes for Palestinians in Area C, who had lost their jobs due to the war and now were struggling to feed their families? 

Why wasn’t halakhah stopping settlers from assaulting elderly Bedouin and Palestinian shepherds – throwing stones at them, killing their flocks, destroying their property, sabotaging  their water sources?

Why wasn’t halakhah stopping settlers from attacking my Jewish friends doing peace work with these shepherds?

Where was the halakhic moral cry over soldiers trying on stolen clothing of civilians, desecrating abandoned and bombed mosques, and filming videos of themselves dancing and laughing over Gazan ruins? 

Where was the halakhic moral cry for preservation of human life addressing mass destruction and displacement of an entire people?

Rav Soloveitchik said no real phenomenon is unacknowledged by Halakhah. And yet, I saw the phenomenon of hatred towards, and mistreatment of, Palestinians ignored by Halakhah. Halakhah’s power comes from its ability to meet real issues in the world. Halakhah ought to be able to rise to the challenge. Why then, has it fallen short?

Well for many in our communities, halakhah has not fallen short, because halakhic decisors see a different reality to the one I laid out before.

Differences in perception of reality can stem from differences in understanding regarding who we are as Jewish people in the world, and this is where ideas of am segula and b'tzelem elohim come in.

In a world where am segula is our guiding principle, ישוב הארץ, Jewish supremacy, an us vs. them mentality, runs awry. It keeps us locked in a messianic framework, unwilling to question if the time of redemption has truly come.

With this worldview, there has been halakhic discourse – contemplating if Gaza fits under the category of Amalek – thereby entailing religious imperative to wipe out an entire nation. 

There has been halakhic discourse – if the horrors of October 7 make this war a מלחמת מצווה – which would mean there are which no innocent civilians.

This is the reality of many in the Religious Zionist world today, and their halakhic response is reflecting their reality. However, it does not reflect mine.

Rav Soloveitchik describes halakhic man as “[...]approaching  the world … not only motivated by a deep piety but also by a passionate love of truth.” (79). When we see the world differently, we are called upon to respond – to articulate a halakhic vision that corresponds with the reality we perceive.

In a world with tzelem elohim as a guiding principle, tens of thousands of souls have left us in the past 18 months. The lives of the hostages are intertwined with the lives of Gazan civilians. It is a worldview that is baffled by the damage caused in the name of Torah and halakhah. 

We need a halakhah that responds to this reality.

“Halakhic man is a spontaneous, creative type. He is not particularly submissive and retiring,” continues the Rav. For “Halakhic man received the Torah from Sinai not as a simple recipient but as a creator of worlds, as a partner with the Almighty in the act of creation.” 

This mandate demands of us something different than what we’ve seen coming from our halakhic frameworks. We must figure out a halakhah that properly accounts for a perceived reality of humanity that is of b’tzelem elohim, in which treatment of Palestinians is not only considered, but is an obligatory aspect of the framework.

Not only that, but halakhah in its current iteration speaking to the reality of b’tzelem elohim might not be enough. Values of tzelem elohim do give us moral arguments, but we also have to reckon with our current halakhic system – which at its heart is not built to hold non-Jews deeply in relationship with us, alongside us. We have laws about land seizing, but they only apply to Jews. We have laws about tort law and damage of oxen and property, but ultimately still only for Jews. And when we do have halakhah that makes us ethically intertwined with non-Jews, it is often משום איבה/out of fear of what they might do to us otherwise, as opposed to out of affirmative ethical obligation. What does a halakhah that takes b’tzelem elohim  seriously look like, when Halakhah can only be imposed on a halakhic subject, which Palestinians, are not? 

Halakhah doesn’t just respond to reality, it creates it. Undervaluing non-Jewish life in halakhah  bleeds into our everyday discourse. We no longer see the image of God in every human being. And it leads to a supremacy that is actively harming others, and even ourselves. 

We need a new halakhah – one that, as Soloveitchik would put it, is a new “set of ideals” mapped onto our “concrete world.” We need a halakhah that responds to a guiding principle of tzelem elohim, and we must get creative – just as Rav Soloveitchik charges us – before more harm is done in the current halakhic frameworks we have.