Before the destruction of the first and second Beit Mikdash, which was the center of worship for Jews during the first and second temple period, the Jewish people only knew how to follow Halacha (Jewish Law) according to what was written in the Torah. However, since the destruction of the second Beit Mikdash and the adaptations that were made in order for Judaism to continue on, a new kind of Jewish Law was developed: the Torah shebaal peh, or oral law. Both the written law and the oral law contain positive as well as negative aspects, which means the people of the modern Reform movement should take into consideration both types of law when deciding how to follow Halacha because, although they are different, they are both equally important.
In comparison to any kind of oral law, written law is more set in stone which diminishes the ability to change it. This aspect of the written law can be viewed in both a positive and a negative perspective; some may say that the law should never be changed anyways, but others may say that the law must be changed in order for it to apply to modern day society. A beneficial aspect of the written law includes that fact that questions such as, "who was there?" and, "what happened?" are easily answered by simply looking back in the Torah. Another positive facet of written law is that it was "Halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai" or "the law given to Moses at Sinai" which means that it is considered the law that God gave to the Jewish people to follow. On the other hand, because written law can't be changed or adapted, the rules that we are required to follow as Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) are harder to obey due to the dramatic societal changes that occur between time periods. The Reform movement should definitely consider what is required in written law because it supposedly contains what God commanded on the day Moses stood on top of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. We, as the people of Reform Judaism, cannot just throw away what our religion is solely based on. However, following exactly what the written law tells us to do may be slightly more difficult than what the oral law tells us to do.
While written law is more set in stone, oral law has the ability to be changed, leaving room for interpretation as well as modernization. In other words, oral law is slightly more controversial under the circumstances that people were better able to bend and twist its interpretation whether it was by accident or on purpose. Late in the first century, Rabbi Akiva adopted the responsibility of organizing the newly formed oral law into six books; this strategy made it easier for the Jews to find a specific law that they were looking for when trying to determine how to follow it. Then around 200CE, Yehudah HaNasi finalized Rabbi Akiva's organization and wrote down the oral law into what we know as the Mishnah. About 300 years later, a man named Rav Ashi wrote the Babylonian Talmud, which is a combination of the Mishnah and the Gmarah (commentary on the Mishnah). The Talmud is used by Am Israel to discuss Halacha and interpret what it means and what we need to do in order to follow it. For example, in the Torah it says that God told Moses, "Do not boil a child in its mother's milk." One way to interpret this statement is to believe that keeping Kosher only involves not mixing red meat with dairy, but not necessarily to not mix all meat and dairy. However, the topic of keeping Kosher can be interpreted in many different ways. Of course there are other stories included in the Torah that talk about different rules of keeping Kosher, such as those that relate to eating pork and shellfish, but even those stories can be interpreted in several ways. From a positive, and especially a Reform perspective, its considered a good thing that halacha can be interpreted in multiple ways because all people are able to take what they personally think is important out of the oral law and follow it the way they see is best fit for themselves, while still keeping Jewish tradition. In contrast to this positive look on oral law, others, such as Orthodox or maybe even Conservative Jews, may find it a very negative aspect that it is able to be interpreted in several ways because if everyone is following one law in hundreds of different ways, how can we, the Jewish people, define ourselves as one religion, one nation? The flexibility itself contains both the positives as well as the negatives of oral law.
One day in Jewish History class, we were discussing whether or not interpreting and modernizing Halacha is okay to do. Personally, I believe that as long as we, the Reform Jews, don't drift too far from the law given to Moses at Sinai, or what is written in the Torah, then we should be adapting Halacha in order for us to keep tradition while also making it easy to live in modern-day society. Reform Judaism is all about allowing people to be Jewish in the way that they see is best fit for them, without forgetting where we came from. Besides the fact that there are several varying streams of Judaism, we are all still one people, one religion, one nation. Whether or not we agree or disagree about the modernization of Halacha is not nearly as important as recognizing the fact that we all believe that, as Jews, our goal is to better the world and help those in need. Therefore, if the Reform movement decides that we can better follow Halacha if we adapt it to the society in which we all live, then why shouldn't we do exactly that? After all, without reforming the Jewish Law, how can we consider ourselves "Reform" Jews?
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