 CHAPTER
FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status
in Judaism and the Jewish World
8. Summing Up the Situation: The View From Now
This chapter has addressed a number of different challenges and threats
to the traditional Jewish view of the “normal” family:
- We have seen to how great an extent the reality of the modern Jewish
world has complicated the traditional assumptions on which the traditional
Jewish world view has been based.
- We have seen how the choice, in many cases, lies between an adherence
to traditional attitudes / social values and a new flexibility in the
Jewish world - the latter either inside or outside the framework of
Halachah.
 Many adherents
of tradition believe that the future of Judaism can only be assured by
the close adherence to traditional standards: that only by sticking to
traditional attitudes will the Jews continue as a people ruled by standards
of behaviour that come, not from humans, but from G-d.
However,
within this world there are those who seek new Halachic ways of going
forward within the tradition, in order to help - especially the singles,
the widows and the divorced, these becoming ever larger groups, with ever
more pressing problems.
Others would
like to see in a new flexibility of standards, with still others believe
there should be a break from Halachic standards, in an attempt to confront
the problems of modern Jewish reality.
It is apparent that the Jewish family structure is changing,
but it is still unclear exactly how the modern Jewish world will choose
to answer those challenges and how this will impact on the Jewish community,
its fabric, and its viability into the future.
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