David Novak, born in 1941, is a scholar of Jewish philosophy, law (Halakha) and ethics. He has trained with Catholic moral theologians. Trained at Georgetown University, Novak has taught at the University of Virginia and currently teaches at the University of Toronto. Novak has contributed to Jewish ethics by advocating a Jewish social ethics drawn from both the natural law tradition and Halakha. To this end, he interprets the rabbinic approach to Noahide laws as a useful grounding for cross-cultural moral reasoning. He also writes extensively on Jewish-Christian relations. His expertise includes Maimonides, John Courtney Murray, and Paul Tillich. In 1966 he was ordained a rabbi in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and belongs to the Union for Traditional Judaism.
