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Anne Golomb Hoffman. Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing . SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. 236 pp.

31 ff.), are in dispute, and as a matter of legal philosophy he favors stringency as the safest means to cover all halakhic bases (to be yozei kol ha-de 'ot)1 The evidence is mixed, inasmuch as the matters identified here as "contemporary" already bear stringent rulings by some of Kagan's predecessors. A wider study might help untangle the confusion between Kagan as man of musar and Kagan as the faithful redactor of aharonic halakhic thought. Such a wider study ought to proceed on two fronts, the diachronic and the synchronic. Kagan's conclusions first should be placed within the ongoing context of the work of the aharonim. To what extent are his rulings reflections or logical extensions of decisions and tendencies in their writings? To what extent does he deviate from them, break new ground, chart an independent halakhic course? Fishbane makes a stab at this kind of diachronic analysis, but the pre-Mishnah Berurah state of Eastern European halakhah needs a more detailed and explicit treatment than is provided by this work, which focuses almost exclusively upon the words of the Mishnah Berurah itself. Second, the researcher should compare Kagan's rulings in the Mishnah Berurah against those of his contemporaries. Is he significantly or more frequently stringent than, say, Epstein in the Arukh Ha-Shulhan? Is his work more indicative of "contemporary concerns," and if so, does his response to those concerns differ substantially? In this way, we can best determine the precise contribution of R. Israel Meir Hakohen Kagan to Jewish legal thought. In the meantime, Fishbane has earned the appreciation of all who work in the field. That more can and ought to be done should not obscure the important contribution he has made to the state of research.