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Halacha is a typological ideal which we desire to manifest in our actual behavior. Inasmuch as life itself has a structure, halacha is contoured exactly to life in its entirety and beyond. Halachic constructs associate with eachother in such intricate ways, forming a vast and complex web of ideas. This reflects a sensitivity to nuanced actual or structural similarities between disparate realms of Halacha being legitimate data for halachic derivation.

These wormholes in the space of halachic constructs which link far away areas together demonstrate different parts of our halachic life are bound together even if not in the space of everyday experience. From the perspective of an anthropologist this would make no sense at all if like the roots of a tree different areas of life each go their own way. In halacha, life is an integrated whole.

Not that I am well versed in academic literature, I'm mainly in the beis medrish, but I'm curious if anyone has come across any pieces whether within mainstream torah or even from western academia which discusses the anthropological reality of jewish society and tries to discern the inner structure of the system from without, or from starting from observing minhag yisroel and decoding the structure of the life system of the torah from that stance.

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    I think that the first half of the "or" in your final sentence describes the Historical School's approach to studying halakhah. It led to Conservative Judaism because if halakhah was consciously or signficantly shaped by sociology then, we would have license to do so now. Nor is study "from without" a recommended way of studying Torah, which is inherently trying to be internalized and made subjective.
    – Micha Berger
    Jun 28, 2020 at 17:18
  • Isaac Moses answer (the only one up at this time; not giving a preference) well answers the second half of that "or". Although I'll be adding a comment there too.
    – Micha Berger
    Jun 28, 2020 at 17:19

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The work you describe sounds a great deal like Horeb, by R' Samson Raphael Hirsch. In it, R' Hirsch attempts to present a grand unified theory of Jewish observance. His methodology included studying all the detailed laws related to a particular commandment and then, using those and the words of the Torah, develop a theory of the commandment that explains all of its expression in Halacha.

This approach to understanding the philosophical underpinnings of Halacha also shows up frequently in R' Hirsch's commentary on the Torah. Many times, his commentary on a legal section first goes through all of the important Halachot related to the topic at hand then presents a philosophical discussion that accounts for both the text and the Halachot. You can see an example of the product of reading one such section in this answer regarding a technical distinction between different types of korban.

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    I think R Aryeh Carmell's Masterplan deserves mention as well. R Aryeh Carmell is the compiler of R Dessler's letters and notes into Michtav meiEliyahu, so his perspective is often closer to the post-war yeshivish approach to life. He was also active in the Assoc. of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, an editor of their book Challenge. So his worldview is founded in R' Dessler's Gateshead but has elements consistent with a YU / RIETS Modern-Yeshivish flavor of Modern Orthodoxy. Speaks to yeshish and MO readers better than the older work. IMHO. If less authoritative than R' Hirsch.
    – Micha Berger
    Jun 28, 2020 at 17:25
  • @MichaBerger I'd encourage you to post that as an answer!
    – Isaac Moses ♦
    Jun 28, 2020 at 17:46
  • Thank you so much both to @IsaacMoses and Micha Berger. I'm from the YU sphere both of your answers are actually very good ideas. Thanks
    – theideasmith
    Jun 29, 2020 at 18:46

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