Theology in the Responsa

Responsa are replies given byprominent rabbinic authorities to questions put to them by other scholars,asking for rulings on specific issues, generally of a practical nature. Theresponsa literature is thus a repository of the learning and sound sense ofsome of the greatest rabbinic authorities over a period of more than a thousandyears down to the present, and relates to all the countries where Jews havelived. Although most of the emphasis in the responsa literature is undoubtedlyon practice, ne