Originally published in the Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 7 (1972), pp. 1156-7; 1161-6. DEFINITION The word “halakhah” (from the root halakh, “to go”), the legal side of Judaism (as distinct from aggadah, the name given to the non-legal material, particularly of the rabbinic literature) embraces personal, social, national, and international relationships, and all the other practices and…