ההלכה ומגילות קומראן

This is an expanded review article of a recent book by Cana Werman and Aharon Shemesh on Qumran exegesis and halakha. Parts of this book are avialable in Shemesh's recently published Halakha in the Making: The Development of Jewish Law from Qumran to the Rabbis, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2009, as well as in numerous articles by Werman.
The article comments widely on various themes arising from the book, which surveys the main genres of Qumran halakhah and analyzes the authorities for halakhic ruling, whether based on the Torah or external to it. Special emphasis is given to the various ways in which scriptual verses serve an anchor for halakhor. The second half of the book offers a 'Qumranic Mishnah' with systematic discussion of halakhah according to themes: Family and Sex, Tythes Laws of the Community and its members, followed by a long monograph by Werman on Festival Laws. The arguments in the book are thoroughly linked with early rabbinic halakhot, based on the best avialable recent methodology in the study of those sources.
The review article focuses on the festival laws, and in addition offers digressions on the following themes: halakha and ideology; the legal status of various legists towards popular practices which penetrated the official practice. The article concludes with a methodological refelection on the validity of the comparison between Qumran and rabbinic materlias, with at least 200 years separating them.