 What is one to make of this concession? While there might be strong arguments for drawing such a distinction on both textual and common sense grounds, the question is whether Leibowitz’s system can consistently allow such external concerns to intrude upon religion without usurping it. The meta-halakhic issue, as Leibowitz terms it, regarding the status of women in the Jewish community, drives specific halakhic changes. And ultimately what appears to be driving these changes is an ethical assumption regarding unjustified gender inequalities. But if one is allowing religious norms to be subordinated to human values, then by Leibowitz’s standards one is serving man rather than God – if the motivation here is ethical or more broadly social, then surely by his intentional definition of mitzvoth, they cease to be religious acts.