iversities. This didn't work. Rabbis suggested that observance might have to be changed in order to appeal to the Jew living the modern world. They realized that every now and then old practices and new ones were introduced, resulting in a different lifestyle then 4000 or even 2000 years previously. They fathomed that these changes often made life easier for the Jew. They concluded that in order to make Judaism attractive to all Jews this change had to continue. A group of Rabbis assembled in Germany, and changes began, thus developed the start of Reform Judaism. Holdheim a reform Rabbi himself felt that the Jews living during his time period should change the laws given to them at Mt. Sinai and the halacha that the Talmud and Mishna state. Holdheim believed that the laws of the Torah and the Talmud that were in effect when the Jews had their own country and government have lost theirlegitimacy. Judaism now had to be in accord with both the letter and the spirit of laws of the nations they were living among. Even the laws of the Torah whose source was God had to be regarded as valid for certain times and places as he said " with the change of the circumstances and conditions of life for which God once gave those laws , the laws themselves cease to be operative, that they shall be observed no longer because they no longer can be observed". Thus , Holdheim said that the biblical and Talmudic laws concerning marriage, divorce and personal status are no longer relevant and the Jews in these cases should be ruled by the state government (Sasson 835). He concluded that laws between man and man should be left to the ruleof the state they lived in but questions of prayer and religious institutions should be left to the Rabbis because prayer was themost important part of religious life. Holdheim denied the authority of the Talmudic dicta, the oral law. He says that it was written by the hand of man but was divinely inspired. His c...
