Aryeh (Robert David)[2] Klapper is a leading American rabbi and Jewish thinker who serves as dean of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership.

[3][4][5] , co-founder of the Boston Agunah Taskforce, and rosh kollel of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership's student fellowship program, the summer beit midrash.

Students study daily, from morning prayers until late at night, and spend the final week writing an amateur responsum in response to that summer's designated question.

[38] In 2004, Klapper left Harvard Hillel to launch the Center for Modern Torah Leadership,[32] which is a registered non-profit which describes itself as "the intellectual catalyst of Modern Orthodoxy" and aims "to make halakhah the shared spiritual language of the Jewish community, and to make Jewish discourse an essential contributor to the moral conversation of humanity.

[42] In his lectures, Klapper "relates Jewish tradition substantively to labor laws, human rights, torture, and many other contemporary public policy issues.

He doesn’t belong here at all.”[22] Dean of RIETS Menachem Penner defended Schachter's actions (though he later said he did not blame Klapper) and other signs were later removed by students.

[44] Penner addressed students the following day, saying "putting up signs can also be a provocative act" and blaming the school newspaper for reporting Schachter's comments.

[44][51] Many rabbis disagreed with the article and disapproved of its publication[52] because it pointed out that "Torah has a sacrifice that is brought for when the greatest sages of the day make a grievous error that causes mass sin" and argued that "[H]alakhah is not intended to enable avoiding responsibility," but it has also attracted widespread support and citation.

[53] Klapper's oft-cited[54][55][56][57][58] 2012 article The Moral Costs of Jewish Day School[59] "placed the spotlight on communal tuition policies and the moral dilemma that the Jewish community faces from a tuition system that has transformed nearly half of participants from community contributors to charity recipients"[60] and "pointed out some of the deleterious results of such a lifestyle.

"[65] Klapper's 2021 statement on rape allegations against children's author Chaim Walder, in which he ruled that the books must be removed from shelves, was hailed as part of a "watershed moment" for the Orthodox Jewish world.

[3][35] Klapper has sat as a judge on the Boston Beit Din, an Orthodox Jewish court which hears (among other kinds) approximately 40 divorce cases a year, since 2001.

The book is composed of essays on three main themes: the primary foundational commitments of Modern Orthodoxy, selected responsa, and biblical exegesis.

In a review for the Jewish Press, David Wolkenfeld wrote that the book "is thought-provoking and has great merit" although the essays "are too short to do justice to the fullness of Rabbi Klapper’s thought".