Halakhah

American  

[hah-law-khuh, hah-lah-khah, hah-law-khaw] / hɑˈlɔ xə, hɑ lɑˈxɑ, ˌhɑ lɔˈxɔ /

Or Halakah,

noun

PLURAL

Halakhahs,

PLURAL

Halakhoth, Halakhot, Halakhos

1. (often lowercase) the entire body of Jewish law and tradition comprising the laws of the Bible, the oral law as transcribed in the legal portion of the Talmud, and subsequent legal codes amending or modifying traditional precepts to conform to contemporary conditions.

2. a law or tradition established by the Halakhah.

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Other Word Forms

• Halakhic adjective

Etymology

Origin of Halakhah

First recorded in 1855–60, Halakhah is from the Hebrew word hălākhāh, literally, way

Example Sentences

Both sharia and halakhah include laws for communal as well as personal life.

From Washington Post

This kind of wide-ranging religious legal code may be unfamiliar to many Christians, but it’s not unique to Islam. There are strong similarities between sharia and Jewish law, or halakhah, which itself descends from legalistic sections of the Bible that both Jews and Christians consider scripture.

From Washington Post

The question of Jewish identity has for centuries been a matter of debate and halakhah, Jewish law.

From The New Yorker

In a well-argued essay, “Vaccination in Halakhah and in Practice in the Orthodox Community,” published in Hakirah, The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought, Asher Bush, a rabbi, made the implicit point that on the subject of vaccines we are in some sense regressing.

From New York Times

Meanwhile, if agadic exegesis was popular in the centuries following the redaction of the Mishna, the study of halakhah was by no means neglected.

From Project Gutenberg