An opposing responsum, that maintained the traditional prohibitions against ordinations and commitment ceremonies, was also approved.

A second responsum by Rabbi Leonard Levy, adopted as a minority opinion by 6 votes, maintained that homosexuality is potentially curable and encouraged people with homosexual inclinations interested in living as religious Jews to seek treatment.

The Roth responsum maintained that the Dorff responsum was untenable, claiming that virtually all classical authorities hold that the Biblical prohibition extends to a wider range of homosexual conduct.

In December 2006, a responsum was adopted by the Committee that approved the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and permitted commitment ceremonies for lesbian and gay Jews ( but not same-sex marriage ), while maintaining the traditional prohibition against anal sex between men.

A responsum by Rabbi Joel Roth, adopted as a majority opinion by 13 votes, reaffirmed a general complete prohibition on homosexual conduct.

In 1973, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voted, without adopting an explanatory responsum, to permit synagogues to count women toward a minyan, but left the choice to individual congregations.

One responsum substantially liberalized Conservative Judaism's approach including lifting most ( but not all ) classical prohibitions on homosexual conduct and permitted the blessing of homosexual unions and the ordination of gay clergy.

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards ( CJLS ) declined to adopt either responsum.

In 2002, the CJLS returned to the issue of justifying its actions regarding women's status, and adopted a single authoritative approach, the Fine responsum, as the definitive Conservative halakha on role-of-women issues.

In his 1954 responsum on relations with non-Orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik developed the intellectual foundations for the way Modern Orthodox Judaism was to approach the issue in subsequent decades.

Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of Machon Shilo offers a unique Orthodox approach: he has published a responsum outlining his opinion that there is no binding custom on Ashkenazim in the Land of Israel as historically this was not the local practice ( which, he explains, is the essence of custom ); in March 2007 he released a ruling that all Jews in the Land of Israel are permitted to eat kitniyot ( see English Article and Hebrew Legal Ruling ).

* Iggeret Shabbat, a responsum on the Sabbath, dated 1158, ed.

In the Roman Catholic Church, a responsum is an answer given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on certain matters pertaining to faith and morals.

The Darchei Moshe ( OC 669: 3 ) cites a responsum from R ' Joseph Colon (# 26 ) who found a geonic responsum mentioning the custom of dancing on Simchat Torah, thus dating the current practice of dancing on Simchat Torah back to the geonic period (' שו " ת מהרי " ק, סימן ט ).

In a responsum written in the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz ruled that the " harkhakot are to be observed as much as possible, but left up to the discretion of each couple ".

A responsum of Hai given in this commentary discloses his opinion on the subjects of divine fore-knowledge and the predestined length of human life.

In Conservative Judaism the death penalty was the subject of a responsum by its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which has gone on record as opposing the modern institution of the death penalty:

This responsum, adopted unanimously by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism, permits women to recite the Mourners ' Kaddish in public when a minyan is present.

His Prayer-Book ( Siddur Rab Amram or Seder Rav Amram ), which took the form of a long responsum to the Jews of Spain, is still extant and was an important influence on most of the current rites in use among the Jews.

The responsum abolished rabbinic laws restricting homosexual conduct other than male-male anal sex, concluding that the CJLS has authority to do this on grounds of the talmudic principle of Kavod HaBriyot ( which it translated as " human dignity ") on grounds that the existence of such sexual restraints represents an affront to human dignity as modern society perceives it.

* On December, 2006, a majority vote of the CJLS ( 13 members for ) also adopted a responsum " Homosexuality Revisited " by Rabbi Joel Roth maintaining the traditional prohibitions on homosexual conduct.

In the 1960s, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved a responsum (" legal ruling ") by Rabbi Israel Silverman on this subject.

An example of how different views of the origin of Jewish law inform Conservative approaches to interpreting that law involves the CJLS's acceptance of Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz's responsum decreeing the Biblical category of mamzer as " inoperative ", in which The CJLS adopted the Responsum's view that of how, in the Conservative view of Halakha, the " morality which we learn through the unfolding narrative of our tradition " informs the application of Mosaic law:

The responsum invoked the Talmudic principle of kavod habriyot, which the authors translated as " human dignity ", as authority for this approach.

In 2002, the CJLS adapted a responsum by Rabbi David Fine, Women and the Minyan, which provides an official religious-law foundation for these actions and explains the current Conservative approach to the role of women in prayer.

The first Sigal responsum used the Talmud's general prayer obligation and examples of cases in which women were traditionally obligated to say specific prayers and inferred from them a public prayer obligation identical to that of men.

He is mentioned in a rescript of Gordian III in the year 240 in connection with a responsum which he gave to the party to whom the rescript was addressed.

Enforcing laws regarding the proper treatment of workers in the food industry has been central to the efforts of Conservative Judaism's Hekhsher Tzedek commission and its 2008 approval of a responsum by Rabbi Jill Jacobs which required paying workers in accordance with Jewish law and treating workers with dignity and respect.

* In December 2006 a majority vote of the CJLS ( 13 members for, 12 against ) accepted a controversial responsum which allows homosexual Jews to become rabbis and cantors, " Homosexuality, Human Dignity, and Halakhah " by Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins, and Avram I. Reisner.

This historical responsum, which is composed half in Aramaic and half in Hebrew, reveals Sherira as a true chronicler, with all the dryness and accuracy of such a writer, though his opinions on the princes of the Exile belonging to the branch of Bostanai, as well as on some of his contemporaries, are not entirely unprejudiced.

Conservative Judaism is more lenient ; in the 1960s, Rabbi Israel Silverman issued a responsum, officially approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, in which he argued that wine manufactured by an automated process was not " manufactured by gentiles ", and therefore would be kosher.

A later responsum of Conservative Judaism was issued by Rabbi Elliott Dorff, who argued, based on precedents in 15th-19th century responsa, that many foods, such as wheat and oil products, which had once been forbidden when produced by non-Jews, were eventually declared kosher ; on this basis he concluded wine and grape products produced by non-Jews would be permissible.

After a further decade of debate, in 1983, JTS voted to admit women for ordination as Conservative rabbis, also without adopting an explanatory responsum.

In 2002, the Committee adopted a responsum that provides an official religious-law foundation for its past actions and articulates the current Conservative approach to the role of women in Judaism.

On May 31, 2012, a responsum was passed permitting same-sex marriage.

The responsum cited several examples of how, in Spitz's view, the Rabbinic Sages declined to enforce punishments explicitly mandated by Torah law.

He cited a responsum by prominent Haredi Orthodox Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef as an example of how the traditional approach works.

The liberalizing responsum, adopted as a majority opinion by 13 of 25 votes, was authored by Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, and Avram Reisner.

The Blumenthal responsum extrapolated from a minority authority that a minyan could be formed with nine men and one woman in an emergency.

The Rabbinowitz responsum sidestepped the issue of obligation, arguing that there is no longer a religious need for a community representative in prayer and hence there is no need to decide whether a woman can halakhically serve as one.

The Roth responsum argued that women could individually voluntarily assume the same obligations as men, and that women who do so ( e. g. pray three times a day regularly ) could count in a minyan and serve as agents.

The second Sigal responsum called for a takkanah, or rabbinical edict, " that would serve as a halakhic ERA ," overruling all non-egalitarian provisions in law or, in the alternative, a new approach to halakhic interpretation independent of legal precedents.