Igrot Moshe אגרות משה
Rav Moshe Feinstein's responsa: the law meeting electricity, the hospital, the lift and America.
The responsa were written over decades, in answer to questions coming from all over the world, and are collected in nine volumes. The chapter headings speak for themselves: artificial respiration and the definition of death, the Sabbath lift, the microphone in the synagogue, milk drawn without supervision, work in a non-Jewish firm, blood transfusion.
His manner is recognisable: first state plainly what is being asked, then work through the sources, then decide—and often add what he is not deciding, and why. It is that readiness to name the limit of his own ruling that made the Igrot Moshe the central body of responsa of twentieth-century American Jewry.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah II:174 — the definition of death
- Igrot Moshe, Orach Chaim IV:91 — questions of modern life
Basis: documents and evidence.