About
Dr. Michael Baris is senior lecturer at the Academic Center for Law and Science (ACLS; formerly Sha’arei Mishpat). Dr. Baris’ research covers Jewish Law, Philosophy of Law, Labor Law and aspects of Family Law that touch on these topics. Dr. Baris is the current editor of Sha’arei Mishpat, the ACLS law review, the head of the committee for instruction advancement, and a member of the committee for student affairs, and in the past served as ethics prosecutor.
Dr. Baris received his LLB (1992; magna cum laude) and LLM (2004; summa cum laude) from the Hebrew University. His doctoral thesis from Bar-Ilan University (2009) explored Maimonides’ strategies for grappling with uncertainty – in Law, Halakha and Philosophy. Dr. Baris has continued to explore these interdisciplinary his recently completed book. Dr. Baris clerked for Supreme Court Justice Dr. Shlomo Levin and for Dan Avi-Isaac, a renowned litigator. Dr. Baris has served as Rabbinic instructor at institutes for higher Jewish studies (Yeshivot) and communal Rabbi – and brings his experience to his academic writing and teaching at ACLS.
Dr. Baris has recently completed a book: Into the Mist: Doubt and Scepticism in Maimonides’ Thought and Jurisprudence
Courses
Jewish Law, Jurisprudence, Labor Law, Law and Religion, Monetary Matters in Family Law, Equity in Jewish Law, Causation in Jewish Law
Selected Publications
‘For I Say’: A Keeper at the Rabbinic Gates of Doubt, forthcoming in Review of Rabbinic Judaism 24 (1) 56-72.
‘I Am the One’: A Monist Looks at the Double Death and Life of Rabba bar Nahmani, The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 25 (2020) 19-50.
“A Skeptic in the Courtroom: Jewish Law Faces the Structural Limits of Knowledge”, forthcoming in New Perspectives in Jewish Law, ed. Suzanne Last Stone and Yonatan Brafman (Brill Publishers, forthcoming: 2021).
Unholy Spaces: The Laws of Ritual Impurity in Halakhic Thought (Hebrew), forthcoming in Death in Jewish Philosophy, Van-Leer and Magnes Press.
Halakhic Strategies for the Sabbatical Year: A Reconceptualization (Hebrew), forthcoming in Hetter Hamechira: Halakha, Law and Zionism.
