Tamar Ross

Who is Tamar Ross?

Tamar Ross is a professor of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. She has scholarly expertise in the thought of Abraham Isaac Kook, the modern Musar movement and the ideology of Mitnaggedism, and Judaism and gender. She is the author of books and articles on Jewish ethics and theology, contemporary issues in traditional Jewish thought, philosophy of halakha, and Orthodox Jewish feminism.

As a Modern Orthodox Jewish feminist, Ross attempts to reconcile the idea of "Torah from Heaven" with what she perceives to be flaws in the viewpoint of Halakha and narrative, including both rules which she perceived as biased towards men, and narrative written from an exclusively male viewpoint. One approach she develops to address this problem is the idea of evolving revelation, that is, that we learn more as history evolves and societies develop and mature. She argues against the concept of Yeridat ha-dorot, the idea that knowledge of Torah diminishes with time. She also argues against approaches of more liberal movements which address perceived flaws by challenging the divinity and religious validity of sacred texts and traditions, arguing that such an approach only undermined the foundations faith. She develops the metaphor of "Expanding the Palace of Torah", originally an idea of Abraham Isaac Kook, for an approach seeking to address contemporary concerns by expanding rather than undermining religious tradition.