Contemporary Covenantal Thought: Interpretations of Covenant in the Thought of David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz 9781618110862

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Contemporary Covenantal Thought Interpretations of Covenant in the Thought of David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz

------------------------------------  Simon Cooper ------------------------------------

Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Series Editor Dov Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University)

EDITORIAL BOARD Ada Rapoport-Albert (University College, London) Gad Freudenthal (C.N.R.S, Paris) Gideon Freudenthal (Tel Aviv University) Moshe Idel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Raphael Jospe (Bar-Ilan University) Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University) Menachem Kellner (Haifa University) Daniel Lasker (Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva)

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Contemporary Covenantal Thought Interpretations of Covenant in the Thought of David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz

----------------------------------  Simon Cooper ----------------------------------

Boston 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this title is available from the Library of Congress.   Copyright © 2012 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved ISBN 9781936235698 Book design by Olga Grabovsky On the cover: Golden Rosa Synagogue, Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine Published by Academic Studies Press in 2012 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

To Dalia

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Contents

Acknowledgments���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xi Chapter 1 Introduction: The Parameters of Covenantal Thought ��������������������������������������������15 1.1 Definition of Covenant������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16 1.2 Rabbinic Developments����������������������������������������������������������������������������������20 1.3 Introduction to Hartman and Borowitz ������������������������������������������������������24 1.4 The Four Key Issues in Contemporary Covenantal Thought��������������������26 1.5 A Note on Approach and Methodology��������������������������������������������������������32 1.6 Overview������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������36 Chapter 2 American Jewish Theology and Society in the Post-Holocaust Period �����������������47 2.1 The Emergence of the Covenantal Discussion��������������������������������������������47 2.2 Denominational Shifts������������������������������������������������������������������������������������58 2.2a Eugene Borowitz and Reform Judaism ����������������������������������������������59 2.2b David Hartman and Modern Orthodoxy��������������������������������������������62 Chapter 3 Covenantal Thought: Its Sources and Contexts��������������������������������������������������������73 3.1 Introduction: The Crucial Sources for the Contemporary Empowerment Model���������73 3.1a Noah and Abraham ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������74 3.1b Sodom and the Akedah ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 77 3.1c Revelation at Sinai: Covenant Ratification and Increasing Mutuality ������������������������������78 3.1d God’s Covenant with Individuals ��������������������������������������������������������83 3.1e Lo Bashamayim Hi: It Is Not in Heaven������������������������������������������������84 3.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Covenantal Empowerment������������������������87 3.3 Tsimtsum and Divine Withdrawal�����������������������������������������������������������������89 3.4 Covenantal Thought and the Nature of God and Divine Perfection��������96 — vii —

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3.5 David Hartman and Imitatio Dei���������������������������������������������������������������������100 3.6 Eugene Borowitz and Covenantal Mutuality������������������������������������������� 105 3.7 Conclusions ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 110 Chapter 4 Contemporary Jewish Philosophy’s Covenantal Framework: The Autonomous Thrust in Judaism ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 113 4.1 Immanuel Kant��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 114 4.2 Biblical Sources ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 117 4.3 Rabbinic Literature �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 122 4.4 Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers ����������������������������� 125 4.5 The Emergence of Modernity ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 128 4.6 Hermann Cohen and Onwards������������������������������������������������������������������� 131 4.7 Martin Buber������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 135 4.8 Conclusions ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 140 Chapter 5 Covenantal Ethics and Covenantal Law������������������������������������������������������������������ 145 5.1 Borowitz’s Understanding of Revelation�������������������������������������������������� 147 5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System������������������������������������������������������������� 153 5.3 Borowitz’s Engagement with the Halakhah��������������������������������������������� 165 5.4 The Supremacy of the Ethical in Hartman’s Covenantal Thought ������� 175 5.5 Conclusions ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 180 Chapter 6 The Boundaries of Covenantal Responsibility: Messianism, the Holocaust, and Historical Progress ������������������������������������������� 185 6.1 Tikkun Olam, Messianism, and the Holocaust����������������������������������������� 187 6.1a Perfecting the Universe: Tikkun Olam and Messianism����������������� 191 6.1b Covenantal Responsibility as the Vehicle for Redemption ���������� 202 6.2 Assertion, Submission, Retreat, and Withdrawal����������������������������������� 208 6.2a Borowitz and Soloveitchik ����������������������������������������������������������������� 212 6.2b Hartman and Soloveitchik����������������������������������������������������������������� 217 6.3 History and Progress ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 221 Chapter 7 Conclusions: The Achievements and Problematics of Contemporary Covenantal Thought������������������������������������������������������������������������� 231 7.1 Situating and Contextualising Hartman and Borowitz ������������������������� 234 7.2 The Achievements and Strengths of Covenantal Thought��������������������� 236 7.2a Achievements Reconsidered�������������������������������������������������������������� 236 — viii —

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7.2b Pluralism and a Meta-Denominational Standpoint ���������������������� 241 7.3 Unresolved Problematics within Covenantal Thought��������������������������� 246 7.3a Covenantal Thought: A Theological Pursuit?���������������������������������� 247 7.3b The Shekhinah and the Partial Conception of God������������������������� 256 7.3c Love at the Expense of Fear in the Covenantal Relationship ������ 262 7.3d Over-Emphasis on the Individual����������������������������������������������������� 272 7.3e The Limits of Specific Social and Cultural Contexts���������������������� 275 7.4 Developing our Subsequent Understanding��������������������������������������������� 282 Glossary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 289 Bibliography ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 295 general Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 310 Citations Index����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 319

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Acknowledgments

This book is an edited version of my doctoral thesis, which I wrote at King’s College in London, under the supervision of both Dr. Daniel Rynhold and Dr. Andrea Schatz. The direction and guidance which they have offered me has been invaluable to my academic development, and I am particularly grateful to Andrea Schatz for showing such enthusiasm for the project from the outset. I would also like to thank Dr Tamra Wright, Professor Oliver Davies, Professor Christian Wiese and Professor Menachem Kellner for their help and support at various stages of my PhD, and to Professor Kellner in particular for first suggesting Academic Studies Press as a suitable home for this book. I was lucky enough to spend time with both the protagonists of this book during the research process. I visited the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in November 2005, and was grateful both for the private time which Professor Hartman afforded me and for his hospitality in having me at his Shabbat table, an experience which I cherish to this day. Professor Borowitz not only met with me at the Hebrew Union College in New York in March 2006, but we have been in regular contact about my research since then, and I was delighted and honoured to accept his invitation to speak at a colloquium on his thought in honour of his 85th birthday in February 2009. I would also like to thank Professor Irving (Yitz) Greenberg for his time both in 2006 and during our more recent correspondence. I have learned a tremendous amount from all three of these towering minds, and have considered it a great privilege to study their work. I am lucky to have taught for a number of years at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS), where I have tested out many of the — xi —

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ideas in this book on the (unsuspecting) philosophy students. LSJS is a wonderfully friendly environment to teach, study and work in, and I am grateful to all of my colleagues there and to the college as a whole for their tutelage and financial support over the past five years. Special mention must go to my friend and mentor Maureen Kendler, without whom the compiling of the footnotes would have been considerably less enjoyable. Finally, my thanks must go to my family. To my brothers Adam and Robert (and their families), neither of whom plans on reading a single page of this book, but whose unwavering support regardless is what being part of a family is all about. To my gorgeous daughter Olivia, who at 17 months old has the excuse to avoid reading the book that my brothers do not. To my parents Stephanie and John, who brought us all up in a loving home and in an environment that fused Jewish and modern values, which (subconsciously) set me on a path that led to the writing of this text. They have been incredibly encouraging throughout my academic career, and they still follow me to far-flung parts of the community to hear me give talks which they have undoubtedly heard before, which I truly appreciate. And to Dalia, my soulmate and partner, to whom this book is dedicated, and whose support throughout is the only reason why I had the strength and desire to write this book in the first place. SC, March 2011.

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Chapter One Introduction: The Parameters of Covenantal Thought

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Covenantal thought impacts significantly on how one reflects upon, and describes, the divine-human relationship.1 Previously, such thought has been primarily occupied with an attempt to come to know God (influenced by mysticism and Maimonides) or an attempt to understand correct human behaviour within the relationship (either in terms of character development — e.g. the musar2 [instruction] movement of R. Israel Salanter — or in terms of proper halakhic behaviour, spawning centuries of halakhic responsa literature and pesakim [legal verdicts] from Alfasi and Maimonides in the medieval period, through Joseph Caro and Yisrael Meir Kagan, all the way to Moshe Feinstein and Abraham Yeshayahu Karelitz in the twentieth century). Covenantal thought is a departure from these previous attempts, if not in terms of what its issues are then in terms of the respective emphases it places 1

Throughout this book I have used the expression covenantal thought as opposed to covenantal theory. I have chosen this terminology in order to try to evoke the style of thinking constitutive of the discipline at hand. Neither Hartman nor Borowitz are engaged in an analytic, philosophical project, which would be better suited by the expression covenantal theory, but both work in an inter-disciplinary field where concepts, themes and sources develop and interact organically in the pages of their written work. That is why I refer to the discipline as covenantal thought. 2 Hebrew terms, such as musar, are defined in the glossary, and are also translated parenthetically the first time they appear in the text. I have deliberately kept the translations in the text brief, and have often used the normative meaning rather than the literal translation (for which the reader should refer to the glossary). The Hebrew transliteration in this work has deliberately differed from the classic academic style typified by Encyclopaedia Judaica.  A transliteration style has been adopted that attempts to remain consistent with the covenantal theology under discussion.  Hence, for example, the use of tsimtsum instead of ẓimẓum , and rachamim instead of raḥamim. — 15 —

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on them. Specifically, the following issues—related to the nature of the divine-human relationship—assume prominence: 1. The precise understanding of the notion of relationship; 2. The idea of covenantal partnership; 3. The proximity of the human partner to the divine; 4. The advent of, and implications of, greater human responsibility, or an increased level of human obligation. This book analyses these four issues in depth within the work of David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz. It also attempts to understand what the implications of these issues are for the age-old issue of individual autonomy and divine authority (in terms of both the Jewish tradition and the Western philosophical tradition).

1.1 Definition of Covenant Covenant is usually defined as agreement, duty, obligation or pact. The biblical covenant is designated by the Hebrew word brit. The Tanakh (Holy Scriptures) has 204 recurrences of the word brit, which has been translated in different contexts as “agreement,” “obligation,”3 or “designation,”4 but the most common translation of the word is “covenant.” Covenants exist in the Tanakh that are made solely between man and man,5 but the emphasis in this work is on those covenants established between an individual, a group of individuals, or an entire people and their God. These divine-human covenants take various forms. There are three principal divine-human covenants in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses): the covenant with Noah and all living flesh; the covenant with Abraham and a line of his descendents; and the covenant with the Children of Israel and their descendents. There is a 3 Lothar Perlitt, “Bundestheologie im Alten Testament,” Dennis J. McCarthy review article, Biblica 53 (1972): 110-121. 4 Ernst Kutsch, “Verheissung und Gesetz,” M. Weinfeld review article, Biblica 56 (1975): 120-128. 5 For example, Genesis 21:27-32, the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech; or Nehemiah 10:1, the agreement between Ezra and Nehemiah. — 16 —

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trajectory here from the universal, to the familial, to the national. All three covenants are established after a cataclysmic event: first the flood in the time of Noah, then the war between the kings in Genesis 14, and finally the exodus from Egypt.6 Covenant as a term originates in the political lexicon of the ancient Near East. Arnold Eisen distinguishes between three types of covenant (biritu in Akkadian) that monarchs of the biblical period entered into with their peers and subjects:7 1. Suzerainty Treaties — the king bound his vassals (subjects) to a set of obligations, which he defined. In return the king promised nothing except (implicitly) his own protection. 2. Parity Treaties  —  these stipulated the mutual obligations undertaken by the two equal parties in the treaty. 3. Promissory Grants — usually undertaken between a ruler and a single, important person. The pact presumed the inequality of the parties, but nonetheless bound the sovereign unilaterally. As an act of love (most commonly), he agreed to the performance of stipulated acts on behalf of his inferiors. The Tanakh has examples of all three of these ancient covenants. The covenant at Sinai is an example of the suzerainty treaty, and the giving of the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, bears remarkable similarities to the Hittite suzerainty treaty form common in the ancient Near East, entered into between the Hittite State and the vassals which owed it allegiance.8 The form of these ancient treaties has been 6

There are several other defining characteristics of the covenantal narratives in the biblical text. For example, blood is a recurring theme in all three covenants. “The blood of the covenant” is mentioned explicitly in the Sinaitic Covenant (Exod. 24:8), and blood is a central factor in circumcision (Gen. 17:10-14)—the sign of the Patriarchal Covenant—and in both the sacrifice offered by Noah (Gen. 8:20) and the prohibition against eating the blood of an animal, which immediately follows the Noachide Covenant (Gen. 9:3-4). 7 Arnold Eisen, “Covenant,” in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs, ed. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York: The Free Press, 1987), 107-8. 8 The Hittites were an ancient people living in Asia Minor from around the eighteenth to the fourteenth century BCE.. The biblical Hittites were the grandsons of Canaan, — 17 —

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carefully analysed by scholars, and their standard six-part structure has several echoes in the biblical text in question. The six part structure is as follows: 1) the preamble — a message from the suzerain to the vassal; 2) the historical prologue, i.e. a description of the previous relationships between the two parties; 3) the stipulations  —  the obligations to which the vassal binds himself in accepting the covenant, defined by the suzerain; 4) the deposit and public reading — both a provision for the deposit of the treaty in the sanctuary of the vassal, and a requirement that it be read in public at stipulated intervals; 5) the list of witnesses — ancient legal documents normally ended with a list of witnesses, which often included the gods of both states; and 6) the blessings and curses — “this consists of a list of goods and calamities which the divine witnesses were called upon to bring upon the vassal for obedience and disobedience respectively.”9 This structure is mirrored in the Decalogue. The preamble (1) is reduced simply to the words “I am the Lord your God” — no further identification is necessary. The historical prologue (2) is similarly brief, and intrinsically linked to the preamble, so that “who brought you out of the land of Egypt” is inseparable from “I am the Lord your God” (both Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:6). The stipulations (3), according to Mendenhall, begin in the biblical text in the same way as was characteristic in the Hittite versions, with the exclusion of relationships to other sovereign powers. “Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me” is therefore the primary stipulation upon which all the others are based, but one can also see the considerable extent to which the stipulations have to do with regulations which preserve the peace within the domain of the sovereign. With the exception of Sabbath observance, the content of the Decalogue  —  prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery, false oaths, false accusations, insubordination of children — “ was not so different from the customary law of the pagan nations in antiquity.”10 Deuteronomy 10:5 (and elsewhere) the son of Ham, from whom Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah as a burial ground for his wife Sarah. 9 George Mendenhall, “Covenant,” in The Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible: Volume 1, ed. George Buttrich (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1962), 714-715. 10 Mendenhall, “Covenant,” 720. — 18 —

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clearly states that the second set of tablets was placed in the ark (4), and there are frequent references to the provision for public reading of the laws throughout the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua (e.g. Deut. 26:1-11; 27). Whilst the list of witnesses (5) could not exist per se in the exclusive covenant between God and Israel, Arnold Eisen refers to the invocation of divine witnesses in the form of heaven and earth.11 And finally, lists of blessings and curses (6) are prominent in the Tanakh, the most detailed being the lists in Deuteronomy 27-28 and Leviticus 26.12 Deuteronomy’s reiteration of the covenant, on the other hand, follows the form of the parity treaty precisely and, by contrast, Noah (Gen. 9:8), Abraham (Gen. 15:18; 17:4) and David (II Sam. 7) are the privileged recipients of promissory grants.13 These promissory grants are typically performed as an act of beneficence on the part of the sovereign, who agrees to act in specified ways on behalf of the designated recipient, despite continued recognition of the inferiority of the recipient in comparison to the majesty of the sovereign. The component of love, crucial to the ancient promissory grant, is also a key factor in the covenants made with Noah, Abraham and David. The arbitrary selection of Noah and Abraham in the biblical narratives (as opposed to their rabbinic interpretations) bespeaks a loving decision by God to befriend and protect these chosen individuals, and the narratives are replete with examples of God’s active protection of them from harm or strife. David’s relationship with God, which appears much later in the biblical narrative, is notably different from the Noah and Abraham examples, but nonetheless remains emphatically a love relationship between one chosen human being and his God, wherein God protects David from numerous threats to his life from, amongst others, his father-in-law Saul (1 Sam. 21-24) and the Philistine warrior Goliath (1 Sam. 17). 11 Eisen, “Covenant,” 108. Compare with Sarna’s understanding of witnesses in the covenant ceremony at Exodus 24, in JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, ed. Nahum Sarna (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1991), commentary on Exodus 24:4, 151. 12 These passages are known as the tokhehah in post-biblical sources. 13 Eisen, “Covenant,” 108. — 19 —

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Consequently, scripture presents Israel’s covenant with God as both a legal document that binds both parties to certain legal obligations (contractual), and a love relationship instigated by God but (in some substantial way) reciprocated by the other party (relational). The biblical picture is contradictory, therefore, as the same Hebrew word brit refers to two divine-human interactions which starkly contrast with one another, and no monolithic portrayal of these divine-human interactions presents itself through a reading of the biblical text.

1.2 Rabbinic Developments The rabbis, writing after the second exile and the apparent shattering of the covenantal promise, “could only articulate the biblical paradoxes surrounding the Covenant, not resolve them.”14 In two famous midrashim (rabbinic expositions interpreting biblical texts) about the events at Sinai, the fundamental nature of this paradox comes to light. On the one hand, God holds the mountain over the heads of the assembled Israelites and informs them that if they do not accept the Torah then “this will be your burial place.”15 On the other hand, God offers the Torah to all the nations of the world before the Israelites, and they all decline it after enquiring as to its contents. Israel, however, accepts it unquestioningly.16 The rabbis highlight the coerced nature of covenantal acceptance in the first instance (the people had no choice but to accept, and such acceptance, argue the rabbis, is surely not legally binding), and the active choice which the people made in the latter instance, which allowed them to stand out from the other nations and be deemed meritorious on account of their choice. Israel freely accepting God’s Torah when all the other nations had declined it is akin to the parity treaty. Israel being forced into it via God’s threatening action is, however, more akin to the suzerainty treaty. There are profound theological implications associated with either approach. With the 14 Ibid. 109. 15 Babylonian Talmud (henceforth BT), Shabbat 88a. 16 Mekhilta 62a / 62b; Sifre 142b; Lamentations Rabbah 31; Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 31; Pesikta Rabbati 99b; BT, Avodah Zara 2b, and parallels. Also alluded to by Rashi in his commentary to Deut. 33:2. — 20 —

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parity treaty, surely God would owe a debt of gratitude to the only people who agreed to enter into dealings with Him, and who trusted in His Torah? And with the suzerainty treaty, does it not offer mitigation for failure to keep divine laws? How can Israel be blamed for the failure to keep laws it had no voice whatever in framing and no real choice in accepting?17 In perhaps their most important contribution to the covenantal idea, the rabbis expanded the doctrine of the eschatological fulfilment of the covenantal promise, which was their way of dealing with the bleak historical situation that they found themselves in. The tension between the spiritual consciousness (the world was created for Israel), and the reality (Israel endures suffering and foreign rule), found release for the rabbis in the belief in redemption.18 This is a reference to Christianity, and the bleak historical situation to which I refer occurs after the destruction of the Second Temple and the emergence of the competing truth claims of Christianity. The New Testament, as it is usually called in English, is more correctly termed the New Covenant, which is exactly what the early patristic scholars taught the Church they were the recipients of. This was a major concern for the rabbis when they were grappling with the issue of covenant in the centuries following the second exile from Palestine in the second century CE.19 17 Arnold Eisen asks the same question in “Covenant,” 109. The rabbis themselves were concerned with the possibility of coercion mitigating failure to keep mitzvot, as evidenced by the discussion in BT, Shabbat 88a, of the children of Israel freely accepting the yoke of commandments in the time of Ahasuerus. 18 Ephraim Urbach, The Sages: The World and Wisdom of the Rabbis of the Talmud, trans. Israel Abrahams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 529. 19 For more on this struggle between the rabbis and the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, see Israel Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), especially “The Late Typology: Edom Id Est Roma,” on pages 10-20. Yuval writes the following: The decisive event leading to the creation of the new typology was the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, in whose wake a far-reaching change occurred in the meaning of the terms Esau and Edom. For the Jews, the quarrel between Jacob and Esau ceased to be a story of a territorial quarrel between neighbouring tribes and was instead converted into a conflict of messianic dimensions between Judaea and Rome. As soon as Edom became synonymous with Rome, all prophecies of future revenge were shifted in one fell swoop from Edom to Rome, — 21 —

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In other words, this eschatological doctrine allowed for a strengthening of the covenantal idea. God’s covenant with the Jewish people was now so strong that even earthly mortality did not affect it. The covenant continued from this world to the next, and any promises made by either covenantal partner in this world could come to fruition, if not in this world then in the next.20 The best example of this approach occurs in the midrash from Sanhedrin which customarily begins a reading of Avot in synagogues during the Sabbath afternoon prayers. The midrash is a commentary on Isaiah 60:21 and the prophet’s assertion that “Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever.” Though this vision must have seemed fanciful to the sages reading that verse while gazing on the ruins of the Temple,21 the midrash prefaces the Isaiah verse with “All Israel have a portion in the world to come.” So the prophetic utterance is not incorrect; rather it refers to a promise that will reach its fulfilment in the next world (when all Israel will be righteous and will possess the land) rather than this one. This achievement of the rabbinic mindset protected the covenant from the destruction that befell the Holy Land and Temple and permitted the process of what Eisen calls “covenantal revision, that is, halakhah.”22 The achievement of the rabbis in protecting and developing the covenant (through halakhic and midrashic revision and interpretation) can be contrasted with interpretive attempts that have taken place since the rabbinic era. The ongoing debates in medieval and modern thought as to the role of reason, the individual, and autonomy have added to this conversation, as have external challenges from Immanuel along with the expectation of its fall and ruin at the End of Days (p. 10).

20 Peter Ochs describes the significance of this rabbinic achievement in terms of the chain of transmission set out in the very first mishnah in the tractate Avot: “Moses received the Torah at Sinai and handed it on to Yehoshua; Yehoshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it on to the men of the Great Assembly” (translation from the Authorised Daily Prayer Book, 525). As Ochs writes, this genealogy “establishes the priestly and prophetic authority of the rabbis.” And one of the foremost teachings to emerge from this new authority is the eschatological fulfilment of the biblical covenantal promises. Peter Ochs, “Covenant,” in Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide, ed. Nicholas de Lange and Miri Freud-Kandel, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 294. 21 Ibid. 294. 22 Eisen, “Covenant,” 109. — 22 —

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Kant,23 the emergence of denominational Judaism (as a response to the Emancipation), and more recently the impact of the Holocaust. Kant’s insistence on the complete autonomy of ethical agents, and on the total supremacy of individual human reason to determine ethical action, shed doubt upon the very legitimacy of events at Sinai. Without autonomous acceptance, which appears lacking in both the biblical narrative and in many of the various rabbinic interpretations, the covenant becomes ethically illegitimate. And therefore contemporary theorists, attracted to the idea of the covenantal ground for obligation but deterred by its initiation, sought to reinterpret covenantal thought for the modern age. Many modern thinkers helped pave the way for the type of contemporary covenantal thought analysed in the present work. In particular, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik played important roles in bringing biblical and rabbinic metaphors into the modern discussion, and their specific impact is discussed at various points in this book. This modern debate continues the struggle for a precise definition of covenant, and illuminates many of the major issues relating to the concept: should it be interpreted as contractual or relational? Transcendent or immanent? Binding only upon the entire Israelite polity, or upon each member of that polity as well?24 Bilateral or unilateral? Autonomous or heteronomous? A covenant of fate or a covenant of destiny?25 If one appends to these issues the confrontation of halakhic and ethical obligations, then one can begin to appreciate the scope of the 23 Eisen argues that Kant was “the direct stimulus for the latter revision [of covenant in the modern era],” but I argue that his work is better understood as a representative of one of a number of challenges which have threatened the longevity of the covenant concept in contemporary Jewish thought. Ibid. 110. 24 Discussed by Joshua Berman in “God’s Alliance with Man,” Azure 25 (Summer 2006): 80. 25 The last couplet on the list—a covenant of fate or a covenant of destiny—is a reference to the distinction made by Soloveitchik in Kol Dodi Dofek. For an introduction to Soloveitchik, who is a formative influence on this work, see note 27 below. He labels the covenant in Egypt a covenant of fate, and that of Sinai a covenant of destiny. The crucial distinction between the two is that fate “signifies an existence of compulsion,” of an individual being subjugated against his or her will, whereas destiny implies “a deliberate and conscious existence” chosen out of one’s own free will. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Fate and Destiny: From Holocaust to the State of Israel (New Jersey: Ktav, 2000). The two quotations above are to pages 42 and 54 respectively. — 23 —

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contemporary covenantal debate. Such debate “assumes, on the one hand, a rabbinic vocabulary in order to legitimate a rejection of divine sovereignty and, on the other hand, asserts a parity between man and God that the ancient rabbis would have found unacceptable.”26

1.3 Introduction to Hartman and Borowitz It is in this contemporary milieu that the two protagonists’ work sits. Both David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz are well known for their use and explication of the covenant metaphor to describe the Jewish people’s ongoing relationship with God. David Hartman was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York. He received an Orthodox rabbinic ordination at the age of twenty-two from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University,27 and continued to study under him until 1960, when he moved to Montreal to become the community rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue there. Hartman and his family made aliyah (immigration to Israel) in 1971, by which time he had a doctorate in philosophy. In 1976 he founded the Shalom Hartman Institute, named after his father, of which he is still a director today. In almost thirtyfive years of operation the Shalom Hartman Institute (henceforth SHI) has furthered academic Jewish studies in Israel and encouraged rigorous and high-level debate on key issues within a pluralistic and 26 Eisen, “Covenant,” 111. 27 Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993) descends from a rabbinic dynasty stretching back several generations. His grandfather, Chaim Soloveitchik, known as Reb Chaim of Brisk, is known for his pioneering efforts in developing the Brisker method of analytic talmudic study in yeshivot such as Volozhin, where he (for a short time) held the position of rosh yeshivah. Soloveitchik, whose work and influence weigh heavily in these pages, grew up in Eastern Europe before university study in Berlin and a subsequent thriving academic and rabbinic career in New York at Yeshiva University’s Isaac Elkhanan Rabbinic Seminary. During his own lifetime, Soloveitchik became recognised as one of the leading twentieth century Jewish theologians, and perhaps the best exponent of a Modern Orthodox position to date. His influence is usually confirmed by the oft-repeated (yet largely unverifiable) statement that, as rosh yeshivah of the Isaac Elkhanan Seminary, he ordained more rabbis than anyone else in history. Undoubtedly, his influence stretches across boundaries and denominations within Judaism today, as testified by his influence upon both Hartman and Borowitz. He is widely and affectionately referred to as “The Rav” within Orthodox circles today. — 24 —

------------------------------------  1.3 Introduction to Hartman and Borowitz ------------------------------------

open-minded context. In many ways, David Hartman has founded an institute which reflects his own ideals about how best to “do” Jewish theology. Eugene Borowitz was born in Ohio in 1924. He received his Reform rabbinic ordination in 1948 from Hebrew Union College in New York, an institution at which he has taught classes on contemporary Jewish thought to rabbinical students since 1962. Famous amongst American Jewry for founding and editing the journal of Jewish studies Sh’ma, and for chairing the committee that wrote the 1976 platform statement for Reform Judaism, Borowitz is one of the twentieth century’s chief exponents of liberal Judaism. At the age of eighty-seven,28 he is still teaching and writing full time, and his most recent book, The Talmud’s Theological Language Game, was one of his most ambitious and wellreceived to date.29 Both Hartman and Borowitz frame their theological worldviews around an understanding of the Jewish covenant. Both protagonists have won critical acclaim with their books on this subject — A Living Covenant by David Hartman appeared first in 1985, and Renewing the Covenant by Eugene Borowitz was published some six years later in 1991. They share an understanding of their corpus as one which has been governed and organised around the overarching theme of covenant. In the preface to Renewing the Covenant, Borowitz writes of three decades of work spent trying “to clarify what it meant to speak intellectually of Judaism as ‘Covenant’, not as law, ethics, ethnicity or nationality.”30 28 A celebration was held to honour his 85th birthday (February 2009). The occasion was marked with a colloquium about his life and work, in which the three doctoral students currently exploring his thought presented papers about their engagement with him, before Borowitz responded to those papers. The three students were Jonathan Crane (Montreal), Rachel Shabbat (Jerusalem), and myself. These papers were published under the title “Three Presents for Gene,” The CCAR Journal 56:4 (Fall 2009): 3-30. 29 Eugene Borowitz, The Talmud’s Theological Language-Game: A Philosophical Discourse Analysis (New York: State University of New York Press, 2006). Borowitz has since published A Touch of the Sacred, but as he was a co-author and it is a less academic text, it is not included here. Eugene Borowitz and Frances Schwartz, A Touch of the Sacred: A Theologian’s Informal Guide to Jewish Belief (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007). 30 Eugene Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1991), ix. Henceforth referred to as — 25 —

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Similarly, Hartman writes in detail of his covenantal framework in the introduction of A Living Covenant: “This book attempts to characterise Judaism in terms of a covenantal anthropology that encourages human initiative and freedom and that is predicated on belief in human adequacy. I argue that a covenantal vision of life, with mitzvah (divine commandment) as the central principle in the relationship between Jews and God, liberates both the intellect and the moral will.”31 Borowitz highlights, in the quotation above, some of the other categories which one could use to define one’s Judaism, and which have been used in the past by thinkers for whom covenant is not a central category. These include law (used by the Mitnaggedim—opposers of the Hasidic movement), ethics (early Reform Judaism) and nationality (Zionism). Both Hartman and Borowitz have wide-ranging theological outputs. Hartman writes about medieval philosophy and contemporary Israeli society. He is a social activist and a political advisor. Eugene Borowitz has written on religious existentialism, on Catholic doctrine, and on sexual ethics. And yet both men frame these diverse religioethical concerns within this overarching covenantal context. Their understanding of covenant informs their choices and decisions vis-àvis sexual ethics, for example, or their stance toward the actions of the government of the State of Israel. Covenant is the most important aspect of their theology in both cases.

1.4 The Four Key Issues in Contemporary Covenantal Thought The four key issues in contemporary covenantal thought (listed in the first paragraph of this introduction), are relationship, partnership, proximity, and responsibility. All four issues are intrinsically linked, but nonetheless I will briefly outline each in turn below. They are dealt with Renewing. 31 David Hartman, A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997), 3. Henceforth referred to as Living. — 26 —

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in order from the most general (the notion of relationship) to the most specific (responsibility and obligation). 1. The precise understanding of the notion of relationship. The expression “covenantal relationship” not only implies but makes explicit the possibility of a real relationship between man and God. There are, of course, sound biblical and rabbinic precedents for this. However, it is the precise definition and understanding of the notion of relation which marks out contemporary covenantal theory. The ability to relate to a God immediately suggests a rather anthropomorphic conception of that divine entity. It would not be possible to relate to the Aristotelian unmoved mover of Maimonides and his school, or any God of that type. Does one relate to the Kabbalah’s (Jewish mystical teaching’s) image of God as a direct organism manifested in the complexity of his varied aspects, the sefirot (spheres)?32 Clearly relationship is neither sought after nor afforded in many of the alternative visions for understanding the true divine nature and our connection to it. However, with relationship comes bond and affiliation, and covenantal theorists insist that by covenanting with human beings (or the Jewish people specifically, depending on whether the covenant in question is Noachide or Sinaitic), God somehow binds Himself to man in just the same way as man binds Himself to God. This is now far removed from suzerainty, for it would be fanciful to suggest that the ancient Hittite rulers bound themselves in any meaningful way to the largely irrelevant vassals who were pledging them allegiance. Precisely what form this divine binding takes occupies a significant part of this book. And what is the consequence of the human binding? As a direct result of man being bound in a relationship with God, he immediately assumes greater responsibility than he had prior to covenantal instigation. The relationship entails responsibility, as discussed in the following paragraph. 32 Moshe Halbertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning and Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1-2. — 27 —

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2. The idea of covenantal partnership. Hartman and Borowitz frequently write in terms of human partnership with God in the covenant. The notion of man’s partnership with God in the covenant represents a seismic shift in understanding the divine-human relationship and creates the opportunity of interpreting such partnership reciprocally, which considerably elevates man’s position within the partnership. Man rarely becomes God’s partner in the biblical text; covenantal agreement leads to increased obligation and responsibility, but nonetheless the biblical covenantal relationship remains more suzerainty than parity. Rabbinic interpretation, as discussed above, oscillates between competing paradigms for interpreting the nature of the relationship. There are rabbinic approaches which suggest partnership between human and divine in the covenant (one might have wrongly assumed that the notion of covenantal partnership is a purely modern development),33 but these approaches are viewed alongside others which decline partnership in favour of divine autocracy. The idea of partnership is one which immediately evokes notions of mutuality between covenantal partners. This notion is discussed and dismissed by Borowitz in Renewing the Covenant, and his understanding of the junior and senior partner is analysed in chapter three. The rare occasions in the biblical text in which man does emerge as a true covenantal partner are those when first Abraham, and subsequently Moses, argue and protest to God. Abraham does so for the people of Sodom (Gen. 18) and Moses does so for the Jewish people in both Exodus 32 and Numbers 14. As Kenneth Seeskin writes, “It is not just that these characters say no to God, but that they rise in our — and presumably God’s — estimation by doing so. In both cases, God backs down.”34 Hartman writes 33 Urbach cites the notion of partnership in rabbinic literature: “Man, who becomes a partner of the Almighty in the work of creation.” Urbach, The Sages, 326, and see also idem. n. 31 828. 34 Kenneth Seeskin, “Ethics, Authority, and Autonomy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy, ed. Michael Morgan and Peter Eli Gordon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 198. — 28 —

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that “The creation of a being capable of saying no to divine commands is the supreme expression of divine love, insofar as God makes room for humans as independent, free creatures.”35 It is this ability to say no to divine commands (and the suggestion that this is encouraged by God) which transforms man from a covenantal agent, doing God’s bidding, into a covenantal partner, engaged in deciphering on his own and in relationships what it is he should do.36 3. The proximity of the human partner to the divine. In any classic theological model, the distance between man and God (sometimes known as an epistemic distance) is great. The ability for man to come close, or closer, to God is both allowed and, at times, encouraged, but closeness is rarely recognised as being that relationship’s default position. Rather, through constant striving and acts of worship, the human being can come closer to God, or (as is the case with the Shekhinah [the in-dwelling presence of God] in many midrashic analogies37) draw God close to them. The idea, therefore, that man occupies a “resting position” in close proximity to God, is a distortion of the traditional picture vis-à-vis man’s position in relation to God. Proximity is required by contemporary covenantal theorists, in order to situate their attempts at relationship and mutuality between the two covenantal agents. Were the distance between man and God too great, then partnership and relationship would be severely hampered by the gap between the two covenantal agents. 4. The advent of, and implications of, greater human responsibility, or an increased level of human obligation. The covenant is understood by both Hartman and Borowitz as being entered into at a moment of empowerment. Simply by virtue of God’s 35 Hartman, Living, 24. 36 See Seeskin, “Ethics, Authority, and Autonomy,” 198. 37 See for example the first aggadah in Pesikta de Rav Kahana (1:1), in which God, having withdrawn from the earth, is returned to it through the meritorious deeds of individuals beginning with Abraham and culminating with Moses. — 29 —

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choosing to enter into this covenantal relationship with man, man gains tremendous and long-lasting feelings of dignity and self-worth. However, man is empowered not in any abstract fashion, but rather by virtue of being given increasing levels of responsibility and obligation. With relationship comes responsibility. According to Borowitz (and in an aspect of his work that is heavily Buberian),38 every relationship engenders responsibility, on both sides. That is to say that responsibility is a key component of being in a relationship, regardless of the precise nature of that relationship or the respective weights of either partner in it. The effect of such a statement as this is to heighten the profile of human autonomy and individual moral sensibility within the covenantal relationship. God would not, according to Hartman, empower humanity, accord them greater responsibility and obligation, and yet forbid them from using their own innate understanding of right and wrong to decipher exactly what form that responsibility and obligation take. And so Hartman writes that “this invitation to full responsibility in history would be ludicrous if the community’s rational or moral powers were negated in the very act of covenantal commitment.”39 The four categories outlined above — relationship, partnership, proximity, and increased responsibility  —  have an impact upon another facet of contemporary covenantal theory, namely pluralism and denominational issues. Both Hartman and Borowitz are distinctly pluralist in their outlook towards Jewish issues. Both men have also drifted as their careers have progressed from standing in the centre of their denominational groupings to inhabiting the peripheries of those same groupings. These concomitant shifts have actually pushed the two thinkers closer toward each other on the denominational spectrum. Hartman’s dissatisfaction with the Modern Orthodox community has led him to a position on the very leftmost border of Orthodoxy, while Borowitz’s emphasis on obligation and messianism has placed him in a position that has been described as “on the left border of Conservative 38 See page 108, note 99 below for the influence of Buber on Borowitz’s thought. 39 Hartman, Living, 98. — 30 —

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Judaism,”40 i.e. on the far right of the Reform spectrum. These denominational shifts have been driven by Hartman’s and Borowitz’s understandings of the importance of these issues. The imperative nature of the increased responsibility engendered by covenantal commitment has forced Hartman to argue against Orthodox rabbinic institutions that do not accord the same level of authority and responsibility to the human covenantal partner. That same imperative has forced Borowitz to rethink the sometimes antinomian thrust in liberal Jewish thought. As a natural by-product of this, both thinkers are largely uninterested in denominational labels. Pluralism is emphasised not least because of its trans-denominational position. A pluralistic platform is one that accords real possibility of worth and value to seemingly conflicting religious approaches, and both Hartman and Borowitz appear to promote it as a consequence of their belief in selfworth and human adequacy in the covenantal relationship. Knowledge of one’s own covenantal relationship does not invalidate someone else’s; covenantal commitment as understood by Hartman and Borowitz is not exclusive on the divine side, for there exists at least the possibility of God engaging in numerous divine-human covenants at the same time, and while that possibility exists the need for a genuinely pluralistic standpoint is evident. Pluralism may also stem from belief in just the one, universalistic covenant. Hartman in particular places great emphasis on the Noachide and Patriarchal covenants, i.e. those made (biblically) prior to the Sinai covenant, with all living flesh or with all monotheistic faiths (descendents of Abraham), respectively. These two covenants were universal and were not made solely with the Jewish people. The traditional interpretation of these two covenants is that they were superseded or engulfed by the later Sinaitic covenant, which was entirely particularistic in that it was exclusively entered into by God with am yisrael (the people of Israel). However, if one emphasises either of the earlier two biblical covenants, one is left with an appreciation of one overarching divine relationship with humanity, which again promotes covenantal pluralism. Finally, and perhaps most 40 Elliot Dorff, The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai (New York: Aviv Press, 2005), 463. — 31 —

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importantly, a universalistic covenantal approach demands pluralism because all of humanity is seen as a divine covenantal partner, with each community and individual member of it being uniquely “adequate” by virtue of covenantal commitment on God’s part, and thus requiring our equal respect and dignity.

1.5 A Note on Approach and Methodology Surveying the previous research carried out on David Hartman’s thought, one notes that it has been largely limited to book reviews of his works. Particularly significant for me in this regard have been Menachem Kellner’s review of Joy and Responsibility,41 in which he places Hartman alongside Berkovitz, Greenberg, and Norman Lamm as a thinker we can “ill afford” to ignore, and David Blumenthal’s review of A Living Covenant.42 There have been longer articles, but these have concentrated on themes distinct from my own. I am thinking here of Abraham Cohen’s article on eschatology in Hartman, and David Ellenson’s review essay, written in 2001 after the publication of Hartman’s last book.43 The notable exception to this trend, of course, is Judaism And Modernity, which is a collection of some thirty essays about Hartman’s life and thought, and which goes some way to validating the interest which I have shown in him in this book. The volume includes several important essays which have helped to shape my understanding of Hartman, by Moshe Halbertal, David Shatz, Harold Schulweis, Hilary Putnam, and Arnold Eisen.44 However, the essays are all quite short in length, and 41 Menachem Kellner, “Open to the Modern World,” Forum 42-43 (Winter 1981): 170-175. 42

David Blumenthal, “Review of David Hartman, A Living Covenant,” AJS Review 12:2 (Fall 1987): 298-305. 43 Abraham Cohen, “God and Redemption in the Thought of David Hartman,” in Modern Judaism 17:3 (1997): 221-251; David Ellenson, “David Hartman on Judaism and the Modern Condition: A Review Essay,” in Modern Judaism 21:3 (2001): 256-281. 44 All five articles appear in Jonathan Malino, ed., Judaism and Modernity: The Religious Philosophy of David Hartman (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). Moshe Halbertal, “David Hartman and the Crisis in Modern Faith,” 25-34; David Shatz, “From Anthropology to Metaphysics: David Hartman on Divine Intervention,” 104-117; Harold M. Schulweis, “The Covenant of Conscience,” 187-197; Hilary Putnam, “The Pluralism of David — 32 —

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none of them concentrate specifically, or in great detail, on the theme of covenant. David Singer’s article “The New Orthodox Theology” offers an early indication of the significance of Hartman’s A Living Covenant for Modern Orthodoxy, and describes the book in terms of “a commitment to a brand of Orthodoxy that stands radically exposed to the modern experience.”45 He also makes an initial connection between Hartman’s work and that of Borowitz in terms of their commitment to a form of autonomy within Jewish thinking.46 There has been more extensive research carried out on Eugene Borowitz’s thought. Not only have there been fruitful ongoing conversations with fellow academics,47 but there have also been significant contributions made by David Ellenson, Leora Batnitzky, Edith Wyschogrod, Peter Ochs, Norbert Samuelson, and Susan Handelman, most of which appear in the excellent volume Reviewing the Covenant.48 Particularly significant for me have been Batnitzky and Wyschogrod’s contrasting understandings of Borowitz’s postmodern turn, and Handelman’s attempt to understand the entirety of his work in a simple and nuanced fashion. Quite clearly, not enough has been done to understand these two important thinkers. Very few scholars have discussed them both Hartman,” 237-248; Arnold Eisen, “Israel and the Creation of Pluralistic Covenantal Community,” 326-344. 45 David Singer, “The New Orthodox Theology,” Modern Judaism 9:1 (1989): 35-54. 46 Ibid. 40. Singer connects Hartman’s Living with Borowitz’s “The Autonomous Jewish Self” (Renewing had not yet been published). 47 See for example Borowitz’s conversations with Elliot Dorff, which began on the pages of Conservative Judaism, and which have now been reprinted in full in Dorff, The Unfolding Tradition, 463-480. 48 David Ellenson, “Eugene B. Borowitz: A Tribute on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday,” Jewish Book Annual 51 (1993): 125-136; Leora Batnitzky, “Postmodernity and Historicity: Reflections on Eugene Borowitz’s Postmodern Turn,” Religious Studies Review 27:4 (Oct 2001): 363-369. The other four articles appear in Peter Ochs, ed., Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000): Edith Wyschogrod, “Reading the Covenant: Some Postmodern Reflections,” 60-68; Peter Ochs, “Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Theology,” 111-144; Norbert Samuelson, “A Critique of Borowitz’s Postmodern Jewish Theology,” 91-107; Susan Handelman, “‘Crossing and Recrossing the Void’: A Letter to Gene,” 173-200. — 33 —

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together, and no one has yet attempted to understand their work in comparison with each other, and with covenant as the central focus and framework. Some scholars approached their work with a philosophical, analytic view. Others did so from a sociological perspective. My approach in this work is through a methodology which I would describe as an intellectual history. It is an intellectual history that is aware of how theology and philosophy have been taken into consideration by the two protagonists, but which nonetheless remains historically rooted. My interest, by contrast, is not predominantly to approach the covenant from an abstract philosophical perspective, which would entail a detached, conceptual, and analytic study. Rather, it is to analyse where the concept of covenant is at the end of the twentieth century. This is achieved by examining what influences moulded the current usage, and what sources (in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts) were significant in its development. This will allow for an understanding of how covenant is being used in theological discussion, how we arrived at the current situation, and specifically how the two protagonists are involved in these developments. This approach is born of my belief that one cannot understand a theological or philosophical theory fully without an understanding of how that theory is anchored in a historical context. So, for example, the Greek emphasis in Maimonides’ philosophy only makes sense in the context of medieval Jewish philosophy’s absorption of the Islamic philosophy of its day, which was in turn rediscovering and translating Greek philosophical texts into Arabic. Similarly, Samson Raphael Hirsch’s writings only make sense in the context of his ongoing battle with his own community over its drifting away from the authentic tradition and towards the emerging Reform movement.49 Without 49 For an example of this kind of contextualised approach to Maimonidean study, see Menachem Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (Oxford: Littman Library, 2006). For a similar approach to Hirsch’s writings, see Isadore Grunfeld’s introduction to Horeb in Samson Raphael Hirsch’s Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, trans. Isadore Grunfeld (New York: Soncino Press, 1962), xix-cxl. See also David Ellenson, Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990) for a introduction to the Hirschian historical context, especially chapter one, “The Man and the Challenges of his Times.” — 34 —

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an understanding of the culture of twelfth-century Spain and Egypt, or of nineteenth-century Germany, it would be extremely difficult to appreciate Maimonides’ or Hirsch’s thought. This historical methodology is more than just straightforward history, because the philosophical and theological foundations of these theories are subjected to proper critical analysis once they have been highlighted and explained.50 Both thinkers are aware of the nuances of their rich religious heritage, and they try to engage at various points in their work with the multiplicity of traditions on offer, be they biblical, rabbinic, medieval, kabbalistic or hasidic. They also openly engage with the Western philosophical tradition and use its methodology and insight in order to further enhance their understandings of covenantal thought. Therefore the current study also has to do justice to this impressive breadth of sources and material. In doing so, I deliberately blur the distinction between sources and themes—see, for example, chapter three, which deals with the central theme of empowerment through an introduction to some of covenantal theory’s crucial sources within biblical and rabbinic literature. I chose this form because it is the way both protagonists approach covenantal thought. For Hartman and Borowitz, the questions, issues, and challenges of covenantal thought emerge from both Jewish and Western philosopical traditions and contemporary contexts. Their major themes emerge from the sources they study and, in turn, determine what sources become particularly relevant for their thought. There is a very strong link between sources and themes at work in this field, and in many cases the sources themselves already betray the themes which the contemporary commentators will choose to highlight in their reading of them. Not only are the sources interwoven with the themes, but the themes themselves are closely intertwined. All the key themes in this thesis  —  empowerment, autonomy, responsibility, relationship, 50 In adopting this historical methodology I am following the type of approach used in Kenneth Seeskin’s book Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), which, in attempting to understand the concept of autonomy in Jewish philosophy, chooses to chart the usage of the term through rabbinic, medieval and modern periods. Seeskin’s work critically reconsiders the history and genealogy of a concept of ideas. — 35 —

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partnership  —  are interwoven. Covenantal relationship entails responsibility. Responsibility is generated by empowerment. Empowerment gives rise to autonomy, and so on. As a result, the linear sequence which one is forced into adopting in a work of this nature is not always reflective of the nuances of the arguments which one is trying to present.

1.6 Overview The problem with any scriptural religion is that scripture is written in the past and we live in the present. Scripture is authoritative, but it has an authority which needs to be interpreted because it comes from a different historical period. Judaism, as a scriptural religion, grapples with this issue. When scripture is reinterpreted, is it diluted? Does it lose some of its majesty and grandeur? More importantly, is the product of successive reinterpretations of scripture through multiple ages and cultures a gradual dissolution of the original message? There appears to be a delicate dialectical interplay between authoritative scriptural utterances and the particular culture of the day. Unless the scriptural utterances are received in the particular culture they are meaningless. But in the process of being reinterpreted for the particular culture, do they lose something fundamental to the scriptural meaning? This question is complicated in the Jewish context because scriptural utterances are not authoritative per se. What is authoritative in Judaism is not only the original scriptural utterance, but also the way in which it has been subsequently interpreted by the rabbinic tradition. The normative Jewish tradition encompasses not only the biblical canon but also the entire gamut of rabbinic literature, a corpus which elucidates, interprets and builds upon the previous biblical foundation. Orthodox and Reform Jews alike testify to the importance of rabbinic literature in defining Judaism (the fact that only one group, the Orthodox, views this importance in halakhic terms does not detract from the significance placed upon the rabbinic enterprise within the non-Orthodox world). This rabbinic canon was written over a period spanning more than five hundred years, and in more than one geographic and cultural setting. So do we wish to suggest that a contemporary reinterpretation needs — 36 —

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to remain true to both the scriptural and rabbinic meaning for it not to lose something fundamental to the tradition? The answer to this question must be no; tradition and culture are not opposed in the way described above. Indeed, the category “fundamental” is also unhelpful in this context. Culture is the domain of the reception of tradition, so the scriptural utterance is received in a particular context. However, it is impossible to make a clear distinction between them. The rabbinic tradition is already handed down to us in many forms, and it manifested itself in Babylon in one way and in Palestine in another. There exist cultural and local variations of the authoritative Jewish tradition. Maimonidean philosophy, which underpins so much of subsequent Jewish philosophical enquiry, is another excellent example of a cultural and local variation of an authentic Jewish tradition, albeit one which attempted to reconcile the tradition with Aristotelian metaphysics. The Jewish tradition cannot be viewed in a vacuum; it was always imbedded in a culture. And the culture too has its own traditions. The category of the fundamental is problematic for a similar reason, since what was fundamental in some traditions was lost in others. There is no guidebook in Judaism to tell you which rabbinic traditions are most significant and which should be avoided; nothing which states that as the Midrash Hagadol was a later Yemenite anthology it has less meaning for me, because I have no known Yemenite ancestry and should therefore pay greater attention to the insights offered in the Babylonian anthology Midrash Rabbah instead. Rather, one should search the entire tradition in the hope of insight and inspiration. The notion of the fundamental is perhaps less appropriate than the notion of the recurrent. It is hard to state with any clarity what is fundamental to a tradition as vast as this one. It is possible, however, to point to themes which recur, and to go so far as to suggest that such recurrence must signify emphasis, and that therefore these recurring themes are of significance and importance within the Jewish tradition. Recurrence is an indication of reiteration, and both are a sign of transmission and strong inscription into Jewish tradition. Covenantal thought, the subject of this book, is a reinterpretation attempt in a modern, predominantly American context. I want to make clear at the outset that I believe that important recurrent themes in — 37 —

---------------------   Chapter One. Introduction: The Parameters of Covenantal Thought  ---------------------

the tradition are lost in the process of reinterpretation known as contemporary covenantal thought. I classify contemporary covenantal thought as a reinterpretation because I believe that it, like many other theories which deal with issues of Jewish duties or beliefs today, is attempting to redefine the significance of the Jewish tradition in the current cultural and historical setting. It is also important to point out that I believe that this is an attempt at a faithful interpretation of the tradition which respects the authoritative nature of the biblical and rabbinic literature. The crucial issue at stake can be summed up by the Latin word aggiornamento, which literally means making things up to date. The word began being used in Catholic theological circles in the late 1950s and was a major thrust at the Second Vatican Council in the early- to mid-1960s, when Pope John XXIII attempted to bring Catholicism up to date by imbuing it with a spirit of change and open-mindedness. This development in Catholicism was not without its detractors, who saw it as a dilution of the tradition and a slippery slope towards accommodation to new and emerging trends in secular culture.51 The Catholic attempt at aggiornamento is indicative of the challenge facing contemporary covenantal theologians, of deciding what is crucial to the tradition, and working out how (or indeed whether) it can be reinterpreted for the current age and culture without diluting the richness of the message or distorting its true meaning. The reinterpretation carried out by Hartman and Borowitz centres on several tenets of modern thought, freedom not least among them. Covenantal theologians want freedom, but freedom brings with it responsibility, and you cannot jettison the responsibility yet keep the freedom. Covenantal theologians also want an attractive conception of God, and yet you cannot have a viable divine command theory without having some understanding of the awesome power and might of God. Finally, covenantal theologians also want a strong human partner, and a strong human partner almost inevitably means a dwindling bit-part role for God in covenantal partnership. There are no easy answers to 51

The rival term used was “ressourcement,” which meant a return to earlier sources, traditions and symbols of the early Church. — 38 —

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these questions of freedom, autonomy, responsibility, and the nature of the Deity and of the revelatory experience, but covenantal theology is certainly a bold attempt to grapple with them. The present work will analyse Hartman and Borowitz’s attempts to tackle these issues. My aims within this book are therefore fourfold. First, I will draw attention to the two protagonists, David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz, and the role which covenant plays in their thought, by situating them within their contemporary framework and in the contexts of Jewish as well as western philosophical traditions. Second, I will reveal what is most promising and most attractive about these theories, paying particular attention to what new opportunities they open up in our understanding of the divine-human relationship. Third, I will point out several unresolved problematics within covenantal thought, categorising them as being either timebound or nontimebound. Finally, I will indicate new directions and ways in which the covenantal thought of both thinkers could be used in developing our subsequent understanding. The book follows a straightforward linear structure, which on occasion betrays the interwoven nature of its central themes. Chapter two explores the background of these theories in their specifically American post-Holocaust context, and highlights some of the crucial discussions and publications which surround this genre. Chapter three introduces the theme of covenantal empowerment, and explores how this theme has its roots not only in rabbinic literature but in the biblical narrative as well. Chapter four discusses the notion of autonomy, and in doing so highlights the western philosophical approach to this issue, previously discussed solely within a Jewish context. The decision to first analyse the Jewish sources (chapter 3) before moving on to look at the philosophical sources (chapter 4) was a deliberate one, in order to prove both that these issues have a long history within Jewish thought, and that notions of autonomy and freedom did not enter the tradition from the outside via Immanuel Kant and the Enlightenment. Chapter five analyses Hartman and Borowitz’s understanding of the notions of ethics and law, exploring how their theoretical exploration of empowerment and autonomy can be enacted to form a serious model — 39 —

---------------------   Chapter One. Introduction: The Parameters of Covenantal Thought  ---------------------

of Jewish duty. Chapter six returns to the timebound understanding of contemporary covenantal thought outlined in chapter two, by analysing the effect that the Holocaust has had on both thinkers, and using this to determine just where they put limits on their perceived notions of covenantal empowerment and autonomy. I endorse the covenantal thought of Hartman and Borowitz as being a determined and insightful attempt to grapple with some of theology’s most intractable challenges. It does, however, have identifiable shortcomings. The five key shortcomings which I will highlight during this book and clarify again in chapter seven (section 7.3) are: anthropocentrism, misunderstanding the nature of God, marginalising an understanding of fear of God, overemphasis on the individual as opposed to the communal, and the limitations of a specific social and cultural context. I label these facets of covenantal thought shortcomings because of my firm belief in the importance of preserving the strong dialectical tendencies present in much of Jewish thought. Covenantal thought opts for a stance on most of the crucial issues under discussion which minimises the dialectical tension in favour of placing a firmer emphasis on any one aspect of the dialectic. Put more simply, in selecting themes and sources to emphasise within their theories, both protagonists have marginalised issues and challenges which I see as recurrent in the tradition, and which I believe it is important to keep. These recurrent themes — fear of God, divine wrath and anger, the communal framework of Jewish life and practice, and a distance between the average man of faith and God — are so important to the tradition because without them it is hard to understand much that appears central to it. Without a strong notion of divine wrath, one cannot really get a good understanding of the notion of divine command. Without a fear of God and divine justice, one cannot truly understand the doctrine of reward and punishment, and the fear of sin and punishment which accompanies it. And without the necessary distance between the believer and his Creator it is hard for the former to contemplate the notion of prayer towards the latter, or understand what relevance it could have — you do not pray to a fellow sufferer, or to a fellow human being. Religious worshippers pray to a powerful and infinitely knowledgeable God because they believe such a God could answer their prayers. Without a strong conception of the — 40 —

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distance separating man and God, it is not likely that man would believe in the worth of prayer. These unresolved problematics within covenantal thought can be categorised as being either timebound or non-timebound. I introduce the distinction between timebound and non-timebound in order to grasp the key difference which modern philosophy has made to this issue. The debate which my two protagonists are entering into is long, and it has a rich and varied history. As I will show in chapter three, the rabbis were already debating these same issues in the centuries immediately following the expulsion from Israel in 70 CE. This multiplicity within the tradition was there since antiquity, and in the Bible itself there are ways of exposing this dialectic between autonomy and authority, between freedom and responsibility, and between empowerment and suppression. The issue, therefore, is clearly not a modern issue. There exists a tension between thinkers and texts, and this tension exhibits itself through different interpretations of the tradition, and via a strengthening and weakening of these dialectical dyads. What makes the case of covenantal theology (and my protagonists in particular) unique is what the theologians choose to strengthen and where they place their emphases. Throughout this work I will attempt to demarcate those areas and explore how and why they choose to interpret the tradition in this fashion. As a result, it makes sense to speak of the shortcomings of these theories in terms of timebound and non-timebound issues, i.e. those which are specific to a post-Holocaust setting, and those which, by contrast, would also have been issues to the rabbis writing during the Babylonian exile. I begin by discussing the non-timebound shortcomings. These covenantal theories appear to exaggerate the role or importance of the human covenantal partner, over and above that of the divine. I refer to this as anthropocentrism. The mere notion of partnership with God is contentious, as is the assertion that such a partnership be understood in terms of mutuality. However, neither of these contentions is as far-reaching as the possibility, discussed at length here, that the covenant both heightens man’s role in the partnership and marginalises God’s. This anthropocentric emphasis leads to what I describe as a paradox — 41 —

---------------------   Chapter One. Introduction: The Parameters of Covenantal Thought  ---------------------

of covenantal distance, discussed in depth in chapter seven. This asserts that covenantal theorists both (a) desire a proximity with God that would be characterised by a lack of distance between man and God, and (b) marginalise the authority of God via their theoretical discussions in such a way that God subsequently all but disappears from the contemporary discussion. The paradox, therefore, emerges because (b) prohibits (a) — the end game — from being successfully enacted. Covenantal theory, therefore, is paradoxical and to a certain extent self-defeating vis-à-vis its understanding of divine-human proximity. Covenantal thinkers actively select from aspects of the Jewish tradition which they find most congenial. Hartman openly acknowledges this selectivity in his writing.52 Rabbinic literature portrays an ongoing struggle between the divine attributes of ahavah and yirah (love and fear), as well as between rachamim and din (mercy and judgment).53 Covenantal thinkers tend to marginalise aspects of the divine, and as a result of this marginalisation certain divine attributes are emphasised, in this case love and mercy. This is indicative of the inherent optimism in contemporary covenantal thought, both in terms of man’s ongoing appreciation of his unique role in God’s plan and in terms of his appreciation of his own advanced stage in the covenantal model. However, such an emphasis on love and mercy is made at the expense of the alternative model, that of fear: fear of divine retribution and justice and everything which accompanies it. This alternative dialectic is arguably more familiar to the biblical reader, and certainly represents a significant thrust within the tradition. Contemporary covenantal thinkers’ seeming failure to incorporate this thrust within their worldviews can, therefore, be understood to undermine these theories quite considerably. Furthermore, the subsequent image of the divine being with whom 52 He writes that “traditional Jewish thinkers give a central focus to certain elements within the tradition, while allowing other principles to be present, but not energising and active.” Hartman calls this a “hermeneutic principle.” David Hartman, “Creativity and Imitatio Dei,” S’vara Volume 2:1 (1991): 37. 53 See for example Genesis Rabbah 12:15 — “Said the Holy One, Blessed be He: ‘If I create the world on the basis of judgment alone, the world cannot exist. Hence I will create it on the basis of judgment and of mercy, and may it then stand!’” See chapter 7, note 68. — 42 —

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one is covenanted is likely to be distorted. An overemphasis on certain biblical and rabbinic allegories and metaphors leads to a view of a God who seemingly acquiesces to man’s every demand while at the same time continuing to protect and nurture his needs and goals. Such a distorted image fails to do justice to the multifaceted nature of the biblical and rabbinic God — a God for whom differing divine attributes and historical situations call for different divine names. The divine image which Hartman and Borowitz shape — that of a God who desires, even requires, our questioning and reasoning — is a far cry from the jealous God of the prophets, the arbitrary God of Job, or the autocratic God of the akedah (whom we see, for example, in the binding of Isaac by Abraham in Genesis 22). The two timebound problematics discussed are the limits of a specific social and cultural context, and the overemphasis on the individual. By introducing the timebound distinction within the identifiable shortcomings of covenantal theory, I intend to add an additional layer to my critique. What I am arguing is this: not only is it crucial to keep a strong notion of this dialectic within Jewish thought because it represents a robust recurrent theme, but it is also specifically important for us today. Our current situation, both in terms of our stage in Jewish history (post-Holocaust, statehood, secularism) and in terms of general trends toward contemporary issues (such as egalitarianism, globalisation and social justice), would be better served by a dialectical theory of religious duty than it would be by a more dogmatic and monolithic approach. It is the latter which better exemplifies the endeavour of Hartman and Borowitz. It is important to point out the historical rootedness of contemporary covenantal thought, which has strong parallels with similar theories of covenant both in the American Protestant movement and in academic political discussion from the late 1960s onwards. As a result of this historical rootedness, these theories occasionally fail to update themselves and thus struggle to speak to a changing cultural context. And so the advent of post-modernism and post-structuralism, coupled with scepticism surrounding the success of the (predominantly American) capitalist and consumerist system, and a general trend away from the middle ground toward either fundamentalism or apathy within religious belief, — 43 —

all combine together to provide a new cultural context which is possibly not well served by contemporary covenantal thought. In particular, contemporary covenantal thought’s overemphasis on the individual is indicative of its historical rootedness. Expressions of one’s individuality and discussions on the importance of individual autonomy and sensibility abounded during the 1960s and 1970s, when Hartman and Borowitz began to elucidate their theories. I contend, however, that such an over-individualising of Jewish thought and practice (which manifests itself in an over-individualising of both the human partner and the divine partner) is slightly alien to the authentic Jewish tradition, which always speaks more in terms of communal norms and frameworks than about individual ones, and where expressions of divine will and wisdom are mediated and institutionalised before they can be enacted by the individual adherent. In light of the unresolved problematics highlighted above, I advocate in chapter seven a transformation of covenantal theory which would allow for an adoption of some of its most pertinent points without the reduction of the dialectical thrust. I use the example of Maimonides to insist upon the importance of both a nuanced understanding of these issues and a balanced understanding of the nature of the divine and of divine-human interaction. As such, Maimonides’s example endorses the project which I set for myself here, to do justice both to Hartman’s and Borowitz’s covenantal thought, and to the intricacies of the rich Jewish tradition which they are heirs to, in order to evaluate the appropriateness and success of their theories.

Chapter Two American Jewish Theology and Society in the Post-Holocaust Period

------------------------------   2.1 The Emergence of the Covenantal Discussion -------------------------------

Both David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz were born and raised in a North American Jewish environment in the 1930s and 1940s. Both men are a product of mid-century American intellectual life. This sociological context is hugely important in understanding their work. I will analyse in this chapter the effect of this shared context on both thinkers, concentrating in particular on what type of academic field they joined, what sort of communal structures were in existence when they entered into the American Jewish philosophical-theological discussion in the 1950s and 1960s, and what subsequently led them both to feelings of discontent with forms of American Judaism in the post-Holocaust period.

2.1 The Emergence of the Covenantal Discussion In the 1950s the field of Jewish theology differed markedly from its current form, so much so that Rashkover and Kafka write of the situation in the fifties: “it was not all that long ago that the project of a publicly engaged Jewish theology or philosophy seemed to be impossible within the strictures of North American culture.”1 David Novak highlights this trend by describing his experiences as an undergraduate philosophy student in the University of Chicago in the late 1950s. He was studying Aristotle in his university classes, and the talmudic tractate Bava Kamma with a local rabbi in a private havruta 1

Randi Rashkover and Martin Kafka, ed., Tradition in the Public Square: A David Novak Reader (Michigan:: William B Eerdmans, 2008), xi. — 47 —

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(traditional Jewish learning partnership). He saw similarities between the approaches of the rabbis and of Aristotle and put several talmudic examples into one of his undergraduate essays, only for his university professor to chastise him for it, claiming that “the examples you brought are from a culture that has no place in the modern university except, perhaps, in the department of anthropology, where primitive practices are observed.”2 So for the rest of his university education Novak kept his Torah education and secular learning separated and compartmentalised, an experience which was typical of academic endeavour in the mid-century academic context. Assuming a perceived antithetical relationship between Torah and secular studies was only one characteristic of the philosophy field in America in the 1950s. Another important factor was the evolution of the American Jewish community from the turn of the century. Arnold Jacob Wolf describes the community in the fifties as made up of people who grew up on the American continent (where most of them were born), who were educated in secular university settings, and most of whom had gone on to teach in those same settings. In contradistinction to their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, therefore, this was a Jewish community made up of thorough-going Americans, instilled with the values of the American ideal, and including many who had achieved a high level of secular learning in the American university environment. Wolf, in attempting to describe the effect of these characteristics on the community, talks of “the pragmatism, optimism, and scientism of our century.”3 Borowitz has also described the rationalism and quasi-rationalism of the 1940s and 1950s, in which a certain kind of scientific reasoning was in the ascendancy. He writes of his decision to adopt a form of existentialism because it “provided me and my theological companions with a non-rationalistic way of understanding Judaism that allowed us to speak of God in terms of a living relationship.”4 The rationalism 2 3

4

Ibid. xi-xii. Arnold Jacob Wolf, ed., Rediscovering Judaism: Reflections on a New Theology (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 8. Eugene Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002), 5 (henceforth Studies). Borowitz also writes that — 48 —

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of the mid-century period can be compared to the rising trend toward spirituality which typified the end of the century. The rationalism of the 1950s left little room for the spiritual or transcendent realm, and even less room for God. The increase in spirituality fifty years later— breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, etc.—is indicative of a wider trend away from rationalism, and toward what is sometimes termed getting in touch with oneself, but which is often almost synonymous with getting in touch with a transcendent other. The major shift, then, seems to be in allowing for the possibility of faith in a Creator God to replace some of the hubristic rationalism of mid-century, and this insight, which was gradually articulated by American thinkers in the 1950s and 1960s, is significant in forming a foundation for contemporary covenantal theology. Wolf addresses an issue similar to David Novak’s when he raises the problem of the parameters of the discussion. In an anthology aptly named Rediscovering Judaism: Reflections on a New Theology he discusses the difficulty surrounding the use of the term “theology” within a strictly Jewish context: I am least sure that we are theologians, and least care. While theologians come rather late to Judaism, no scholar would deny the title to Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber in our century, and many would ascribe it to Maimonides and Judah Halevi 800 years ago. To the extent that theology is logos, the science of God, it may be a Greek betrayal of Biblical insight. The greatest modern Christian thinkers are themselves suspicious of theology; we have no desire to embrace theology at the very time it may be jettisoned by the Church. But, to the extent that theology is simply thinking about God in some ordered way, the Jews were the first and greatest theologians and we only wish we could be their proper successors.5

5

Fackenheim was almost solely responsible for introducing existentialism to a mass liberal Jewish audience at the Reform rabbis’ conference at Hebrew Union College in March 1950. He writes of the existentialist view proposed by Fackenheim that “this view makes our modern bewilderment seem less the result of a catastrophic regression than the natural return from an unwarranted optimism. While there was no mass conversion to Existentialism, most of the rabbis agreed with Rabbi Fackenheim that it would be useful to Reform even if only as an antidote to the nineteenth-century idealist interpretation of Judaism” (ibid. 10). Wolf, Rediscovering Judaism, 9. — 49 —

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Wolf here articulates the ambivalent relationship which the early postwar thinkers had with the field of theology. It was a much maligned discipline which bore both Christian and Greek overtones, and which seemed to be greeted by feelings of suspicion as to its rightful place within an authentic Jewish tradition. In 1965, Wolf writes that “what we teach is not called Theology by our schools,”6 who preferred describing it as philosophy, Jewish thought, or the history of ideas. Borowitz describes his surprise at being invited to a conference on “theology” by a Reform rabbis’ group in 1950 (the only time in its history that the group had met to discuss theology). At the time, there was no significant suggestion that either the establishment of the State of Israel or the evidence about what later became known as the Holocaust demanded a rethinking of belief.7 However, there was “a vague sense that the older philosophical ways of talking about God and relating to the Jewish tradition were no longer adequate.”8 This vague sense took ten to fifteen years to develop any kind of precise articulation. There emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s what might be termed a “new school” of Jewish theologians. These thinkers were united by their similar cultural upbringing, and their similar appreciation for the need for change and reform within the existing community. The new school was united in its desire to quest for something more than the rationality of the pre-war and immediately post-war discussion. The question is why were they questing for more? What were the problems which they saw with the existing status quo which led them to push for change and reform? One of the major issues facing this group was a growing sense of realisation that man is not the measure of all things. The sheer magnitude of the Holocaust did not begin to strike the American community until the early 1950s, and the implications of it were not 6 7

8

Ibid. 9. Borowitz, Studies, 4. Incidentally, Borowitz states in his first major published article (which describes the conference of 1950) that Reform rabbis, while their practical maturity had grown, “had neglected to maintain a corresponding theological growth” (ibid. 13, emphasis my own). Ibid. 4. — 50 —

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articulated until several years later. But undoubtedly this was a key factor. The fact that these atrocities could be concocted and committed by what was perceived as an educated and enlightened nation was particularly difficult to comprehend.9 For many thinkers the Holocaust was a watershed which signified the end of the era of unfettered confidence in man and his abilities (an era which began with the Enlightenment), and the beginning of a new era of scepticism, which seriously curtailed the use of unaided reason. Established orders and ways of doing things no longer maintained credibility by right, and the religious realm did not remain immune to this type of critical attack. Something had to take the place of the unpredictable autonomy of human reason, and many of the potential replacements contained an element of transcendentalism or spirituality within them. Another characteristic of this new school is its unashamed embrace of the term “theology” to describe its members’ endeavours.10 The term clearly indicates a thought process with God firmly rooted at its centre, and the new school deliberately attempted to highlight the importance of God in any discussion about the changing shape of either Jewish philosophical thought or future denominational direction. I think there is a new-found, deeply personal, conviction and commitment in the new school that is not present in the more detached rationalism of the older school. That passion paved the way for covenantal thought, which is a far more emotive discipline than other Jewish theological branches. Covenantal thought emphasises the love of God for man, and vice versa, and suggests the possibility of a genuine relationship between God and man. The form for such a discussion almost needs, therefore, to be couched in slightly less 9

10

The starkest example of the educated nature of Nazi Germany is the education levels of the fifteen senior officials who attended the infamous Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942 to plan the Final Solution to the Jewish question. As Mark Roseman writes in The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002): “These were influential and, for the most part, welleducated men. Two-thirds had university degrees, and over half bore the title of doctor, mainly of law” (p. 96). Shame is used deliberately here. Wolf writes that “We may no longer quite know what the word signifies, but we are not ashamed to attempt theology.” Wolf, Rediscovering Judaism, 10. — 51 —

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academic terms, and so it is no surprise to note the ease with which lay readers can navigate their way through, for example, A Living Covenant or Renewing the Covenant. When one attempts a rediscovery of Judaism, and analyses things afresh and in a new light, one is bound to be affected by the consequences of the findings. Even in the 1960s, Lou Silberman writes of his quest that “it has, sadly enough, uprooted loyalties and unwillingly brought about alienation.”11 This is a trend which resonates with my discoveries about Hartman and Borowitz’s relationships to their respective denominational communities. In fact, members of the new school were quite disparaging about the state of the intellectual and communal discussion which they encountered in the 50s and 60s. Silberman writes of “the intellectual desert in which liberal Judaism has set up its tents.”12 The crucial characteristic of the new school was its members’ shared realisation that there was a lack of relevance in the current communal structures and academic discussions.13 They already seemed dated and quickly became outdated as a result of the major upheavals which took place during the middle of the twentieth century. Essentially the members of the new school were attempting to articulate a new programme of study (or, in real terms, open a new discussion to stimulate thought which would ultimately lead to a programme of study) which would pave the way for a meaningful statement of Judaism that was relevant for this new generation of American Jews. Eugene Borowitz writes openly of this shared entry point amongst his younger colleagues: Perhaps the most direct impetus to thinking is dissatisfaction with someone else’s statement of the way things are or ought to be. Young writers generally claim a place in intellectual discussion by their critiques of certain established figures in their field. What passed for Jewish theological thinking at mid-century was generally a watereddown version of Hermann Cohen’s conception of Judaism as 11 12

13

Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. He is particularly scathing of the Wissenchaft movement, which he describes as “a sterile and ineffectual academic pastime” (p. 16). Borowitz’s sentiments about early Reform Judaism heavily echo this understanding. Silberman talks of this “irrelevance” in Rediscovering Judaism, 17. — 52 —

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religion of reason par excellence […] difficulties with the dominant rationalisms caused me and some other young thinkers to seek a radically different mode of conceptualizing Judaism.14

In order to open this new discussion and to stimulate thought on these issues, this new school actually met on more than one occasion in order to facilitate these kinds of developments. Michael Morgan writes of the new school: “The group of young Jewish theologians who met during the sixties to revive the notions of faith and covenant struggled with revelation and halakhah, and sought a renewal of Judaism in America in the postwar period and the sixties.”15 The new school of like-minded theologians included both of this study’s protagonists - Hartman and Borowitz. The shared American mid-century context is paramount in understanding the subsequent theological positions of these thinkers. It is also crucial that so many of these thinkers shared formative experiences at the meetings which Morgan alludes to above. These meetings were convened by Hartman and Irving Greenberg16 in the Laurentian Mountains outside Montreal from 1965 until 1970.17 The possibility for the meetings emerged when Hartman received a generous donation from a congregant of his in Montreal, Meier Segals, and decided, along with Greenberg, that he would use the money to bring together likeminded rabbis and thinkers for extensive discussion. The success of the first meeting meant that the gatherings continued for a further four years until Hartman made aliyah and the group (without its host and one of its driving forces) disbanded.

14 15 16

17

Borowitz, Studies, 3. Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz, 121. Born in 1933, Irving Greenberg was raised in an Orthodox Jewish immigrant family in America. His father was a student of Chaim Soloveitchik, and he went on to study with Joseph Soloveitchik. His career has combined the academic and the communal / cultural, and his influence upon American Jewry in both spheres has been marked. Greenberg’s work is significant for contemporary covenantal thought, and it is discussed and analysed in detail at numerous points below, especially section 6.1. The precise biographical information for these meetings is scarce, but I have been in conversation with several of the attendees who corroborate the evidence which I have presented, and I have included references to works in which the meetings were cited wherever possible. Borowitz recalls these meetings specifically (in private conversation with the author, 5.4.06). — 53 —

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To these meetings were invited not only sympathetic Orthodox rabbis, but also a group of Reform rabbis who were involved in conversations on Reform Jewish theology already taking place at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, along with a group of selected Conservative rabbis.18 Arnold Jacob Wolf writes about the group specifically: Some of us - colleagues and acquaintances - formed a group that met for some years in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec at intervals during the sixties. We debated the very issues that became crucial later from the point of view not only of our separate movements and the commitments that nurtured us, but also from highly personal points of view that, nonetheless, intersected with one another and often influenced distant theologians in an important variety of ways.”19

The group has become known as the I. Meier Segals Centre for the Study and Advancement of Judaism.20 The purpose of the meetings was deliberately vague — facilitating an ongoing dialogue between friends and colleagues, and furthering exploration into crucial areas of Jewish thought, of which covenant was certainly one. The group even produced a joint conversation,21 and 18

19 20

21

The list of people who I have ascertained were present at one or more of these meetings are: Hartman, Greenberg, Eliezer Berkovits, Aharon Lichtenstein, Shubert Spero, Walter Wurzburger (all Orthodox); Borowitz, Arnold Jacob Wolf, Herman Schaalman, Dudley Weinberg, Jakob Petuchowski, Gunther Plaut, Emil Fackenheim, Steven Schwarzschild (all Reform); Seymour Siegel, Wolfe Kelman, Fritz Rothschild, Jack Neusner (all Conservative). Elie Wiesel addressed the group in its first year in 1965. Borowitz himself only recalls attending once — in 1966. Arnold Jacob Wolf, “American Jewish Theology,” Judaism 51:4 (2002): 482. Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections (New York: New York University Press, 1970), v. See also Steven T. Katz, “Irving Greenberg,” in Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century (Washington, DC: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993), 61. Katz writes: “He [Greenberg] worked with David Hartman in the creation of the Segals Centre for the Study and Advancement of Judaism, which brought together for a summer program [sic.] rabbis from all Jewish denominations to learn together.” “Towards Jewish Religious Unity,”Judaism 15:2 (Spring 1966): 131-163, and “Jewish Values in the Post Holocaust Future,” Judaism 16:3 (Summer 1967): 267-299. Towards the end of the former symposium Steven Schwarzschild writes “it was a gathering in the Canadian province of Quebec, north of Montreal, where a number of us, from all over the spectrum of Jewish life and thought, gathered for a week’s intensive study and conversation. It was an experience which we hope to renew and continue, and — 54 —

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participants have acknowledged the role of the group in shaping their own theories.22 I contend that this group had a profound effect upon Hartman and Borowitz, and their presence there set them on a path to creating and expounding the theories studied here, even though those theories might not have been articulated until some years later. Their belief in the importance of such meetings, which were of course interdenominational, also tells us much about their views and subsequent theories, particularly in terms of pluralism. Michael Morgan makes reference to these meetings on more than one occasion in his Beyond Auschwitz, and he highlights the notion of covenant in the list of topics under discussion at one or more of these meetings. Here was a core of like-minded scholars and rabbis, who manifested what Borowitz referred to as “theological seriousness”23 and who, in the latter part of the 1960s, were grappling with the very issue of covenantal commitment. This represented the beginnings of contemporary covenantal thought. The other key feature of the discussion both at these meetings and in the 1960s in general, was the focus on how to adapt denominational Judaism to integrate with the rapidly changing modern American culture. This ongoing communal discussion took place within both Reform and Orthodox settings. The Reform conversation predated the Orthodox one, beginning in the 1950s in Wisconsin. The Orthodox demand for change developed about a decade or so later, in the latter part of the sixties. Irving Greenberg wrote a number of important articles on these issues at the end of the decade, which developed out of discussions held in the Laurentian Mountains. These articles deal explicitly with changing social and ethical conditions within North American life, and how this impacts upon the Orthodox Jewish community. Articles such as “Jewish Values and the Changing American

22

23

which I think was important to all of us” (“Toward Jewish Religious Unity,” 157). Emil Fackenheim writes: “The nucleus of the 1968 Charles F. Deems Lectures here offered in print was a paper given in 1967 to the members of the I. Meier Segals Centre for the Study and Advancement of Judaism. I owe incalculable inspiration to the members of the Centre, who have been meeting for a week in the summer for the past four years.” Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History, v. “Towards Jewish Religious Unity,” Judaism 15:2 (Spring 1966): 159. — 55 —

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Ethic” attempted to build a platform for reform within American Orthodoxy.24 In the article Greenberg portrays an upwardly mobile community with middle-class standards, a new-found affluence, and a new exposure to cultural diversity and openness. Traditional religious commitment is undermined “by making this world so vivid and pleasurable that people have less concern for the next one.”25 Greenberg describes a newly hedonistic culture wherein “that which is enjoyed is good,”26 which leads to “the emergence of a hedonistic orientation and a post-Protestant ethic American.”27 Within this drastically altered socio-cultural context Greenberg urges Modern Orthodoxy to change as well in order to remain attractive. He discusses withdrawal as an answer (popular amongst the Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] elements of the community) but ultimately seeks an alternative to withdrawal, which he sees as a kind of failure. Surely Judaism is not only possible in one particular cultural setting and ethic?28 Having agreed on the task at hand, namely reforming Orthodoxy to remain relevant in the changing American context, Greenberg turns to explaining the central tenets of that reforming exercise. First of all he discusses universalism. He writes that “in most American Jewish communities, the Conservative and/or Reform rabbi is the social justice (or Gentile relations) specialist.”29 Change is demanded in this area so that the Orthodox rabbinate feels an element of religious responsibility in dealing with issues of social justice that do not pertain specifically to the Jewish community, and so that individuals do not feel that they must choose between committed Jewishness and concern for mankind. A second area highlighted by Greenberg is the “unnecessarily authoritarian tone” which permeates the Orthodox Jewish educational system, and which brings with it a judgmentalism which allows “scant 24

25 26 27 28 29

Irving Greenberg, “Jewish Values and the Changing American Ethic,” Tradition 10:1 (Summer 1968): 42-74. See also “Change and the Orthodox Community,” Response 7:1 (Spring 1969): 14-21. Michael Morgan discusses this early phase of Greenberg’s career explicitly in Beyond Auschwitz, 121-124. Irving Greenberg, “Jewish Values and the Changing American Ethic,” 43. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 58. — 56 —

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room for growth, search, or exploration.”30 He discusses at great length the need for reforms in the educational system to remove the sense of divine command from one’s day-to-day living so that the religious adherent can once again feel empowered to carry out a mitzvah not because he was commanded to do so but because he took it upon himself to adopt this particular behaviour in accordance with the tradition. This is why he advocates a “stress on ta’amei hamitzvot [the reasons for the commandments], the relevance and contemporary implications of law and tradition, and the human values in Judaism.”31 Greenberg’s article articulates the feelings of many members of the new school regarding their respective denominations at this time. His position is very similar to that of Hartman, as Hartman expresses in an early article of his entitled “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language.”32 In the article Hartman shares a very similar educational curriculum for Modern Orthodoxy to that suggested by Greenberg. He writes that “an educational philosophy that ignores the challenge of the present opportunity takes a great risk indeed” and goes on to suggest that “religious education must develop a philosophy which equips its students to respond responsibly, but also courageously and effectively, to the challenges of our new historical reality.”33 Hartman’s attitude toward change within Orthodoxy is informed largely by his understanding of the importance of Maimonides’ example in epitomising the balance of Torah and secular learning, and in embracing the culture of the day without abandoning one’s halakhic obligations. Furthermore, as I will show later, both Hartman’s and Borowitz’s covenantal thought leads them to suggest platforms for reform within their respective denominations, in a similar way to that outlined by Greenberg above.34 These attempts have their roots at the very origins 30 31 32

33 34

Ibid. 61. Ibid. 64. David Hartman, “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language,” Tradition 16:1 (1976): 7-40. The article was reprinted under the title “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Political Dialogue among Contemporary Jews,” in Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and its Contemporary Uses, ed. Daniel Elazar (Ramat Gan: Turtledove Publishing, 1981), 357-385. Hartman, “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language,” 32. The similarities between Greenberg’s work and that of the two protagonists, are — 57 —

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of this new school’s discussions about the nature and future of Jewish faith and practice in the 1960s.

2.2 Denominational Shifts Before discussing the position of either thinker denominationally, it is important to point out the inherent difficulty of bringing denominational discussions into the area of theology. In an academic context, a person’s denomination is of far less interest than their thesis. Neither Eugene Borowitz nor David Hartman write for an audience located solely within their religious grouping; rather, both hope for and have achieved a considerably more diverse audience. It must be said that neither thinker is really interested in denominational labels in any case: Eugene Borowitz always writes in terms of liberal non-Orthodoxies, an umbrella term which encompasses all but the Orthodox right, and David Hartman speaks only in terms of traditional, authentic, and halakhic Judaism, and of a Jewish faith which can keep pace with modernity, but steers clear of labels such as modern or centrist Orthodoxy, and avoids giving an answer when asked to qualify his own denominational position. Therefore, although denominational labels are helpful, they are not the primary data in this thesis, and neither protagonist uses them or adheres to them with the clarity or rigidity being applied in the sections that follow.

marked. All three thinkers published a major work on the theme of covenantal thought (and with covenant in the tile) in the nine years from 1982 to 1991. All three share a mid-century American academic context that is described in this chapter as a formative influence on contemporary covenantal thought. Greenberg was a friend and colleague of Hartman for many years and was heavily influenced by his thought. Greenberg’s “Voluntary Covenant” (1982) predates the publication of Living (1985), but most of the foundations of Living were already detailed in Hartman’s earlier publication Joy and Responsibility, which was published four years before “Voluntary Covenant.” In particular, the article “The Joy of Torah,” published in that volume, exhibits most of the key elements of his covenantal thought, in particular the themes of anthropocentrism, human adequacy, “imitatio Dei,” and creativity. All of those themes are also present in Greenberg’s “Voluntary Covenant.” — 58 —

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2.2a Eugene Borowitz and Reform Judaism Eugene Borowitz was born a Reform Jew. He was educated in the Reform and liberal educational system, and has been associated throughout his lengthy academic career with the Hebrew Union College — the bastion of Reform Judaism. He chaired the panel which wrote the centenary platform statements of the American Reform Movement, and he is often the sole Reform or liberal spokesman on cross-communal committees.35 Therefore, he is a Reform Jew and a Reform thinker outright. However, in the last 18 years, since the publication of Renewing the Covenant, his theology has radicalised, and he is no longer representative of a classic Reform position. In my opinion, Eugene Borowitz, without openly leaving the Reform movement, has moved to the margins of that movement as his thinking has become more conservative (with a lower-case “c”). Borowitz has admitted this much himself, when taking issue with Elliot Dorff for reading Renewing the Covenant as “a distinctly Reform theology.”36 In fact Borowitz claims that he wrote his magnum opus from a non-denominational perspective, unlike that of so many of his earlier works. One possible reason for Borowitz’s perspective on the book is his critical position toward the Reform movement generally in its first 70 pre-war years.37 Key adherents of early twentieth-century Reform Judaism, such as Hermann Cohen and Leo Baeck (both of whom were formative influences on the young Borowitz), were wholehearted modernist thinkers. As a result, this type of Reform Judaism — steeped in a modernist milieu — was characterised by what Borowitz sees as a 35

36

37

He has also been a Jewish spokesperson at interfaith events, such as when he was present at the first formal Jewish-Catholic colloquy held in the United States, in Pennsylvania in January 1965. Borowitz, “The Reform Judaism of Renewing the Covenant: An Open Letter to Elliot Dorff,” 70. The category “pre-war” is important, since for Borowitz the Holocaust was the turning point, not so much for him theologically, but for the widespread realisation that modernity was indeed “the betrayer” (the title of the second chapter of Renewing) and that overconfidence in man at the expense of divine reverence was wholly inappropriate given recent historical experience. See the next two paragraphs in the main body of the text. — 59 —

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gross over-confidence in man and his abilities. This Reform Judaism is branded by Borowitz as both insufficient and inoperative in the post-Holocaust, twentieth-century climate, due to a loss of confidence in precisely those Enlightenment values which formed the tenets of modernist thinking, namely scientific truth, reason and empiricism. The assumptions that the likes of Cohen and Baeck took for granted, about mind, self, and human nature,38 now seemed questionable: “Our wholehearted embrace of modernity was a major blunder”39 because it placed the spotlight firmly upon man and marginalised God. In the current intellectual climate, such unwarranted confidence in the inherent goodness and ability of humanity is no longer viable, and consequently Borowitz attempts to redress the balance and to shift the emphasis from the human back to the divine. As Borowitz states, “We can now see that modernity’s self-confident activism tended to let human judgement fully replace God as the ground and guide of human value, a gross overestimation of human goodness and discernment.”40 Moreover, these thinkers are guilty of “letting humanism replace reverence for God.”41 Borowitz’s worldview is diametrically opposed to the kind of modernist outlook outlined above: “Many modern Jewish thinkers […] thought our vastly increased knowledge made us more religiously advanced than our forebears and optimistically taught that each generation knew God’s will better than the prior one, a notion they called progressive revelation. Postmodern thinkers, such as myself, reverse the hierarchy.”42 Crucial to understanding this aspect of Borowitz’s thought is an appreciation of his attitude toward modernity and post-modernity. Borowitz’s dissatisfaction with early Reform Judaism is clearly related to his dissatisfaction with modernity. Hand in hand with the shattering 38

39

40 41 42

Eugene Borowitz, “Future of Reform — More God, More Jewish, More Humble,” Manna 50 (Winter 1996): 18. Eugene Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide (New York: Behrman House, 1983), 207, in discussing Irving Greenberg. Borowitz, “Future of Reform,” 19. Borowitz, Renewing, 72. Borowitz, Renewing, 291. — 60 —

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of modernist confidence comes the impossibility of Reform Judaism being able to navigate its way through the post-Holocaust world without needing to redefine itself. This post-modern redefinition of Reform Judaism is attempted throughout many of Borowitz’s works,43 but perhaps receives the most explicit attention in a lesser-known article entitled “The Future of Reform Judaism: More God, More Jewish, More Humble.”44 The article adopts these three tenets — God, Jewish, Humble — as the three central areas where change must be enacted. “More God” is an attempt to bring an understanding of God and divinity back into the human arena through prayer, humility, and increased Jewish ritual activity. “More Jewish” signifies a return to particularism, associated with a pride in Jewish roots and heritage, rather than an apologetic standpoint which endeavours to explain away parts of the tradition in an attempt to conform with secular society. “More Humble” is a reference to the central character trait needed for this paradigm shift. Man needs a certain realism about his own limits and weaknesses, and a display of such realism requires immense humility. Only the humble man will retreat to make room for God once again. 43

I use the term post-modernism, in its hyphenated form, advisedly. I am of the opinion, shared by Edith Wyschogrod, that Eugene Borowitz is not a classic postmodernist, because his work exhibit crucial characteristics which most postmodernists would eschew. As Wyschogrod succinctly states:



While there can, of course, be no standard definition of postmodernism, a term that folds into itself a repudiation of normative discourse, it cannot mean what the history of the term, its uses in architecture, literary criticism, and French thought, shows it to have explicitly excluded: that there is a foundation for values, that we are selves and can become whole selves by virtue of our relation to a divine ground (Edith Wyschogrod, “Reading the Covenant: Some Postmodern Reflections,” in Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 66.



Although Borowitz is not a classic postmodern thinker, he does enunciate a form of post-modernism, the clearest characteristic of which is his wholesale critique of post-Enlightenment modernist thought, with its emphasis on human abilities and the notion of progressive revelation. Hence my use of the phrase post-modern, which could be defined as “a rejection of a certain brand of post-Enlightenment modernism which has as its central characteristic a humility developed from an awareness of human limitations.” See note 28 from earlier in this chapter.

44

— 61 —

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This triumvirate shows how Borowitz’s dissatisfaction with his own Reform movement led him to a shift to the right of the religious spectrum.45 The ability to make these reforms will lead, according to Borowitz, to Reform Judaism’s succession by a more humble, pious, and overtly Jewish religious denomination. The post-modern phase needs to be tempered by a large-scale humility, to act as a counterbalance to the overstated anthropocentrism of the modern era. One example of Borowitz’s shift in views during his career is his treatment of the “autonomous Jewish self.” His 1984 article “The Autonomous Jewish Self” was dedicated to forging a synthesis between two competing authorities — the self and the corporate Jewish identity. However, by 1991 in Renewing the Covenant, the last chapter is selfconsciously46 titled “the Jewish self,” a departure from the article written seven years previously. The Jewish self no longer has the right to determine its own actions; such autonomy is subordinate to covenantal relationship. The Jewish self no longer gets its duties and obligations from its own utterly individual autonomy, nor from any societal norms, but from covenant, from its understanding of its unique relationship with God and the world. Borowitz himself describes this position as his own “covenantally limited autonomy.”47 “The Jewish self” is more commanded than “the autonomous Jewish self,” and is also a more radical departure from traditional Reform Jewish thought. However, it properly represents the climax of Borowitz’s theology, one which only really comes to full fruition in Renewing the Covenant.

2.2b David Hartman and Modern Orthodoxy Borowitz’s shift bears remarkable similarities to that of David Hartman, and that fact is worthy of analysis. Hartman was born into a strictly 45

46 47

Although the political overtones are inevitable, I have persevered with the usage of left and right to describe the denominational spectrum. I find this terminology persuasive to describe the moves which both protagonists have made away from their own respective denominations, and to explain where exactly they have moved to (having distanced themselves, to a greater or a lesser extent, from their own communities). Borowitz admits as much in “Open Letter to Elliot Dorff,” 470. Ibid. 472. — 62 —

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Orthodox family. After gaining rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, he began his career as a mainstream, Modern Orthodox, Yeshiva University graduate. This was reflected in two of his earliest books — one an edited volume of previously unpublished Maimonidean epistles, and the other an acclaimed volume on Maimonides and his work.48 It is easy to read back into Hartman’s life story and suggest that he has always been radical and marginal within Orthodoxy. Those attempting to do this would look to his philosophy degree at McGill University and his choice of Maimonides, the one man within Jewish history who best exemplifies the fusion between traditional Jewish values and external studies (in his case Aristotelian philosophy), as the subject of his early academic endeavours and admirations. However, in my opinion Maimonides was a reasonably conservative subject choice for the young Hartman, and his radicalisation has been gradual through his academic and rabbinic career.49 By the time of the publication of A Living Covenant in 1985, Hartman was already making halakhic statements that more mainstream Orthodox authorities were uncomfortable with — in particular the statement that “the development of the Halakhah must be subjugated to the scrutiny of moral categories that are independent of the notion of halakhic authority.”50 Yet in the main, that book was a guiding light for Modern Orthodoxy (and was received as such), and that Modern Orthodoxy was the denominational area Hartman occupied at the time of writing. In the last twenty years, however, his thought has radicalised and he has shifted further left in the religious spectrum than his Yeshiva University background would have suggested. This shift can be highlighted by three factors: his ongoing work at the Shalom Hartman 48

49

50

David Hartman and Abraham Halkin, Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985); David Hartman, Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest (Philapelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1976). In other words, he was not born a radical, and was not as liberal in 1976, when the Shalom Hartman Institute opened and his first book was published, as he was in his Lindenbaum Lecture series at the SHI in 2007. Jonathan Sacks criticises Hartman’s use of the notion of moral categories which are independent to halakhic authority. Sacks, “Creativity and Innovation in Halakhah,”in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, ed. Moshe Sokol (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1992), 126. — 63 —

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Institute (SHI); his annual public lecture series at the Institute — the Lindenbaum Lectures; and his affiliation with, and affinity for, Shira Hadasha, the prayer community founded by his daughter in Jerusalem. I will address each in turn below. Since its inauguration in 1976, the SHI has provided research, education, and leadership training for scholars, rabbis, and lay leaders from all denominations of Judaism in Israel and America. Its attractive campus in the German Colony in Jerusalem provides an idyllic setting for the many scholars-in-residence, and the names one sees on the office doors is a veritable who’s who of contemporary Jewish thought. The emphasis at the Institute is firmly on pluralism and cross-denominational work: “Our mission is to revitalise Judaism, strengthen Jewish identity and foster religious pluralism by providing scholars, Rabbis, educators and lay leaders of all denominations with tools to address the central religious challenges facing Jewry today.”51 Since its inception, Hartman has fought for its pluralistic platform, and the refreshing end product is an institute whose members are not sycophants, but the very best in their respective fields who have been brought together for the advancement of academic Jewish studies in Israel, in all its guises.52 Hartman’s exposure to several of the key thinkers at SHI has undoubtedly influenced him (as has his decision to make SHI the kind of institute that would embrace a plethora of religious personalities and backgrounds). From within the Jewish spectrum, current faculty members at the Institute include Alfredo Borodowski (the rabbi of a Conservative community in New York, and a philosophy teacher at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the academic home of the Conservative 51 52

Text taken from the homepage of the SHI website. Aviezer Ravitzky writes the following about Solovetchik: “When we learn from him an orientation towards modernity, we are students; however, when we learn from him what modernity means, we are not students but hasidim — and he never wanted hasidim.” Aviezer Ravitzky, “Hadash Min Ha-Torah’? Modernist vs. Traditionalist Orientations in Contemporary Orthodoxy,” in Engaging Modernity: Rabbinic Leaders and the Challenge of the Twentieth Century, ed. Moshe Sokol (New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1997), 47. Ravitzky’s suggestion that Soloveitchik “never wanted hasidim” suggests that Hartman’s fashioning of the Institute to include students rather than hasidim is in line with the approach of his own teacher Soloveitchik. — 64 —

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movement in America); Melila Hellner-Eshed (teacher of Jewish mysticism in the Reform rabbinic programme at the Hebrew Union College); and Rabbi Rachel Shabbat Beit Halachmi (an ordained female rabbi from the Hebrew Union College). And farther afield, the SHI is also very closely linked to Muslim scholar Muhammed Hourani, a senior fellow at the David Yellin College and a key peace activist, and to the Reverend David Neuhaus, a Christian religious studies lecturer at Bethlehem University. Regular exposure to the work and thought of numerous and diverse religious thinkers (of whom I have mentioned only a few) has contributed to Hartman’s gradual shift away from mainstream Orthodoxy within the last twenty years. Rabbi Hartman’s Lindenbaum Lecture series (now called Pomrenze lecture series), which has been running since 2005 at the SHI, represents perhaps the clearest indication of Hartman’s radicalisation in recent years and his subsequent marginalisation from mainstream Orthodoxy. The lectures, attended by some thirty to forty people each Monday evening, are also available to download via the Institute’s website and can thus reach a much wider audience. In those lectures Hartman pushes the boundaries of his thought: “I want to push the Sodom model further than it’s been pushed before,” as he puts it.53 The Sodom model for Hartman is the empowerment mould, but it also represents a state of enquiry amongst humanity, a state of urgent questioning of divine methodology. He yearns for a “tradition which accepts our right and ability to confront God through our own moral intuitions” and suggests that when the halakhah is in conflict with our own moral intuitions he “will stick [his] neck out, again contrary to many established thinkers.”54 The lecture series comes several years after his last book, Love and Terror in the God Encounter, which was published in 2001. In that book Hartman was slightly critical of his teacher Rabbi Soloveitchik, 53

54

Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 25.12.06 (4:20). This lecture is no longer available to watch online, but is still available on request from the SHI. The brackets in the reference refer to the approximate time in the audio recording (minutes: seconds), and this form of referencing will be used for all subsequent Hartman lecture audio recordings. Ibid. 6:10. — 65 —

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particularly with respect to prayer. Love and Terror has the subtitle The Theological Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Volume 1. Although there was clearly an intention to write a second volume, this has never materialised, which one could attribute to ill health or lack of motivation, or one could argue, as Hartman does, that he does not want to be too critical of Soloveitchik and does not wish to go to print displaying a high level of disrespect for his revered teacher.55 This is interesting for two reasons: first, it proves that Hartman himself acknowledges the radicalisation of his thought over time (at least with reference to Soloveitchik); and second, it implies that although he is uncomfortable going to print with some of his more radical ideas, he is happy teaching them to reasonably modest crowds within the comfort of his own Institute.56 That might explain the lack of publication since 2001, and help to cement the importance of his recent lectures in gaining a comprehensive understanding of his theological legacy. The last factor to consider here is Hartman’s support of Shira Hadasha, which was founded as a religious community with the multiple goals of “Halakhah, tefillah [prayer], and feminism.”57 The community came into existence in 2001 as a result of a halakhic ruling by Mendel Shapiro, who, like Hartman, gained rabbinic ordination from the Isaac Elkhanan Seminary at Yeshiva University in New York. Shapiro’s ruling permitted women to read from the Torah in prayer services with men on Shabbat (the Sabbath) under certain conditions. This prompted the foundation of Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, which was the first prayer group of its kind, and has now been mirrored in both Melbourne and New York, and has prompted extensive debate within the Modern Orthodox Jewish world.58 55 56

57 58

He acknowledged as much to me, in private conversation with the author, 1.11.05. Seemingly, committing these ideas to paper reifies them and makes it easier for people to become hasidim rather than true students (see note 52 above). In this regard Hartman appears similar to Soloveitchik, whose perceived fear of publication has been well documented. See Singer and Sokol, “Joseph Soloveitchik: Lonely Man of Faith,” 231. www.shirahadasha.org.il/english/index.php. For the original ruling see Mendel Shapiro, “Qeri’at Ha-Torah by Women: A Halakhic Analysis,” Edah 1:2 (2001), and for a critical analysis of the ruling (with sources to lots of further articles arising from the controversy) see Gidon Rothstein, “Women’s Aliyot in Contemporary Synagogues,” Tradition 39:2 (Summer 2005): 36-58. — 66 —

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There are a number of very close links between Hartman and Shira Hadasha. Not only is he a key supporter of group, and a regular congregant, but it was founded by his eldest daughter, Tova. Hartman is not the rabbi of the community as such, nor is her father’s name directly mentioned in any of the community’s literature, but his association with it is well known. He can be seen there on a regular basis on Shabbat, and he makes known his love for the community in his public speaking. Shira Hadasha is an excellent example of Hartman’s stance towards halakhah, because it rightly reflects the nuances of a complex standpoint. What Hartman advocates is not a straightforward rejection of the halakhic framework wherever it appears to be in conflict with one’s own moral intuitions; what he promotes instead is a re-definition of the halakhah — a return to the sources to see if current halakhic viewpoints are the best that one can have given the contemporary situation. In the case of women in the synagogue, Hartman is convinced that the halakhah can do better, and hence his promotion of Shira Hadasha. The congregants of Shira Hadasha are (predominantly) halakhic Jews who believe that their community maintains halakhic standards and practices: “We are attempting to create a religious community that embraces our commitment to Halakhah, tefillah and feminism.”59 The community tries to readdress the role of women in the synagogue because they see the current status of women in synagogue life as compromising Orthodox religious integrity. Hartman feels similarly. What does one do when one’s moral integrity is challenged by the halakhah?60 More than his thought or his written word, Hartman’s actions in choosing this synagogue community provide an answer to this question. He is open in his praise not just for his daughter and her achievements, but also the kiddush ha-Shem (sanctification of God’s name) which he sees emanating from the community. Hartman has frequently been asked to what degree Shira Hadasha has halakhic precedents to justify its standpoint.61 He answers in the following 59 60 61

See note 57 from earlier in this chapter. This question is addressed in detail in chapter 5 below. Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 25.12.06 (4:20). — 67 —

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way: “I have found a precedent,” he says. “I have discovered that there were women at Sinai! I have discovered that when God said, ‘I shall be sanctified in the midst of the Children of Israel’ (Leviticus 22:32), He had in mind both men and women.”62 This response reflects Hartman’s deep-seated beliefs about the nature of the covenantal relationship. The covenantal moment at Sinai was made with the total collective of Israel, not just the men. And so Hartman’s decision to pray in Shira Hadasha is not arbitrary, because for him it makes no sense to make gender distinctions in prayer when none were made in the crucial moment at Sinai. The role of women in the synagogue, then, is an example of an issue regarding which Hartman brings his own moral intuition to bear on his halakhic decision-making. It is a category where he displays his highest covenantal category — not submissive (like the Abraham of the akedah) but questioning and demanding (like the Abraham of the biblical Sodom narrative).63 David Hartman’s shift can been seen as concomitant to that of Eugene Borowitz. Both men experienced increasing dissatisfaction with their own movements — Borowitz’s dislike of Reform centred on its anthropocentrism, and Hartman’s dislike of Orthodoxy focused on its rigid halakhic platform — and both made comparable shifts towards each other on the religious spectrum, Borowitz moving to the right and Hartman moving to the left. Greenberg seems to conform with this pattern as well. He has (like Hartman) become disillusioned with his own Modern Orthodox community over what he sees as the failure of that community to confront Haredi pressure — what Greenberg refers to as “surrender to the right.”64 The surrender to the right is also well documented by Haym Soloveitchik, who is famous not just for his familial connections (he is the son of Joseph B. Soloveitchik), 62 63

64

Ibid. 5:10. It is worth noting that many opponents of Shira Hadasha oppose its continued existence not on purely halakhic grounds, but on grounds of social policy. Hartman himself, however, is encouraging a supportive position towards Shira Hadasha which is indicative for him of the kind of innovation and development possible within today’s halakhic system. Irving Greenberg, Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 172. Also discussed by Michael Oppenheim, “Irving Greenberg and a Jewish Dialectic of Hope,” 7. — 68 —

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but for his research into the history of halakhic decision-making in the Middle Ages. His historiography also stretches to the modern era, and includes in particular his important and controversial article “Rupture and Reconstruction.”65 In it, H. Soloveitchik claims that “the orthodoxy in which I, and other people my age, were raised scarcely exists anymore. This change is often described as ‘the swing to the Right.’”66 The predominant reason for this transformation of contemporary Orthodoxy is, for H. Soloveitchik, the centrality of texts in general and the new culture of halakhic literature in particular. Religious life has undergone an audit, and the outcome is that “established practice can no longer hold its own against the demands of the written word.”67 In other words, traditional conduct, no matter how long it has been around, always yields to the demands of theoretical knowledge.68 One might see this as the inexorable result of the massive increase in learning academies and yeshivot (rabbinic seminaries) in the post-Holocaust Jewish world, the outcome of which, according to both H. Soloveitchik and Greenberg, is a swing to the right within contemporary Orthodoxy. The suggestion, however, is that there is something inherent in contemporary covenantal thought which leads one to feelings of dissatisfaction with one’s community or denomination. In particular, amongst Orthodox adherents, the dissatisfaction pushes them to the left of the Orthodox spectrum, which is in contrast to the more prevalent trend toward the right within Orthodoxy today. Both thinkers, who use covenant as their overriding metaphor for understanding the faith experience, have distanced themselves from the mainstreams of their communities. The chapters which follow will analyse in detail the key aspects of Hartman’s and Borowitz’s covenantal thought, and in the final chapter

65

66 67 68

Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradition 28:4 (Summer 1994): 64-130. H. Soloveitchik, “Rupture,” 64-65. H. Soloveitchik, “Rupture,” 69. H. Soloveitchik himself clarifies this central tenet of his thesis in a later essay, when he states that “the only remaining source of authenticity is the sacred text, and its only reliable spokesmen, the masters of the text.” Haym Soloveitchik, “Clarifications and Reply,” in Torah U-Madda Journal 7 (1997): 146. — 69 —

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I will return to some of the issues raised in this chapter. I contend that dissatisfaction with one’s own community, on the one hand, and an inherently pluralist outlook, on the other, are consequences of the specific nature of these theories.

— 70 —

Chapter Three Covenantal Thought: Its Sources and Contexts

3.1 Introduction: The Crucial Sources

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3.1 Introduction: The Crucial Sources for the Contemporary Empowerment Model The covenantal theologies of Hartman and Borowitz display certain thematic tendencies interwoven in their work, which will be examined in the following chapters. Here I will focus on the central category of empowerment. This most fundamental of theses can be explained as follows: Divine revelation constitutes “a radical shift in God’s relationship to human history.”1 It is at this point that God empowers the Jewish people to accept their covenantal mission and join with God as partners in the completion of creation. In that acceptance, and the subsequent empowerment that goes with it, God’s covenantal partners gain a sense of dignity and self-worth—for if God chose to covenant with man, then man must be worth covenanting with. Human adequacy develops from man’s knowledge of the covenant and God’s choice to enter into it. The fact that He could have chosen to enter into a covenant with any of His creations and yet chose us is central to engendering the empowerment mentality discussed throughout this chapter. There are a number of key texts in biblical and rabbinic literature which are adopted by covenantal thinkers in order to promote this empowerment model. Before discussing Hartman’s and Borowitz’s specific models in detail, it is worth highlighting what some of these key texts are and why they constitute fertile texts for use by the protagonists. All five examples offered below are of importance to Hartman and Borowitz. Some are specific biblical and rabbinic texts, 1

Hartman, Living, 231. — 73 —

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and others are motifs which find expression in either biblical or rabbinic literature, as I have exemplified below through the use of a number of their proof texts.

3.1a Noah and Abraham The biblical narrative has a succession of covenants leading up to Mount Sinai. These begin with a covenant made in the time of Noah. This covenant is followed shortly afterwards by the patriarchal covenant, which is initiated between God and Abraham and later renewed with both Isaac and Jacob. The two covenants are remarkably different, as are the humans who take part in them, and this difference can be highlighted by analysing the covenantal signs which accompany them. In both cases the brit is accompanied by an ot ha-brit, a sign or token of the covenant. In the case of Noah, the covenant is reinforced by a visible sign, the rainbow, which God Himself will look at to remember His covenant: “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting Covenant between God and every living creature” (Gen. 9:16). Human beings will see the rainbow and will then be assured that God will be faithful to His covenantal promise and will not bring the flood back upon earth. This sign is entirely instigated by God at His choosing, and man plays no part in its enactment. Therefore, it is fair to say that man is a passive partner in the first biblical covenant, which perhaps mirrors the life of the human party involved in that covenant — Noah — whose relationship with God is passive throughout. On the other hand, Abraham is instructed to keep the covenant through the act of circumcision, signifying more participation and less passivity than the Noachide covenant. Here the sign of the covenant is not a divine action but a human one: “This is My Covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you; every manchild among you shall be circumcised. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the Covenant [ot ha-brit] between Me and you” (Gen. 17:10-11). At this point in the narrative the physical sign of the covenant with the patriarchs is not a divine action which the humans have no part in. It is instead an action which, — 74 —

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although prescribed by God, is enacted by human beings to signify their acceptance of the covenant. Despite the fact that God talks to Noah on numerous occasions throughout the biblical text (giving him precise specifications for the Ark and who should go in it, for example), Noah does not speak to God once. In fact, Noah only speaks once in the whole of his narrated life in Genesis (Gen. 5:29 — 9:28), and that is to curse one of his sons and praise the other two after the drunkenness/nakedness episode (Gen. 9:25-27). His life, despite unprecedented contact with God, is one of listening and obeying orders. This passivity is highlighted and exaggerated in rabbinic thought, where Noah’s righteousness is seriously undermined. According to rabbinic thought, God had already decreed the destruction of the world on account of the sinners but (in a similar fashion to the occurrences in the book of Jonah) His mercy prevailed such that He sent the sinners His emissary Noah to induce them to repent. In accordance with the accepted rabbinic chronology, Noah had a hundred and twenty years in which to persuade his generation to mend its ways, but he was unsuccessful, and only after this 120-year period did God bring the deluge.2 As maintained by this rabbinic viewpoint,3 Noah’s selfishness caused the Flood. He did not attempt to pray for the salvation of the world, or entreat God not to destroy his creation, because he himself was promised safety. The fact that he had so much time to make such an entreaty magnifies his transgression considerably. A variation of this same midrash is found in The Zohar where the difference between Moses and Noah is described. When God tells Moses that he is going to destroy the people and make Moses and his family into a great nation (Exod. 32:10), Moses immediately petitions on Israel’s behalf

2

3

Genesis Rabbah 30:7. For a full list of sources see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1998) vol. 5, 174 n. 19. See for example Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews vol. 1, 165. This particular midrashic strand suggests that on exiting the Ark, Noah bemoans the destruction wreaked by God and questions God’s mercy, at which point God exclaims: “O thou foolish shepherd, now thou speakest to Me. Thou didst not so when I addressed kind words […] thus spake I to thee, telling thee all these circumstances, that thou mightest entreat mercy for the earth.” — 75 —

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and is successful. His motivation for doing so is that: “The world will say that I killed Israel and did to them as Noah did to his generation… for when God bade Noah save himself and his household in the ark from the universal destruction at the time of the flood, he did not intercede on behalf of his generation, but let them perish.” 4 This is by no means explicit from the biblical text, but the rabbis read scripture in such a way as to make a comparison between the various merits of Noah, Abraham, and Moses (amongst others). Within this rabbinic hierarchy, Noah is clearly the least righteous, despite being the only one of the three explicitly referred to by the adjective tzaddik in the biblical text.5 Noah’s greatness is, therefore, understood by many of the rabbis as being only in comparison with his generation. Based on the biblical verse at the start of the narrative — “Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted” (Gen. 6:9), the rabbis make the following assertion: he was righteous, but he was judged according to the low standards of his generation. In other words, Noah was righteous, but had he lived in the lifetime of Abraham, he would not have been conspicuous for righteousness.6 This view is attributed to Rabbi Johanan in the Talmud, whose comment on the biblical verse is, “in his generation, but not in other generations.”7 Frequent comparisons are made between this generation and subsequent ones, and especially between Noah and the patriarchs. Rashi’s commentary on Genesis 6:9 is worth quoting in full in this regard: In the case of Abraham, scripture says, (Gen. 24:40) “[God] before whom I walked”; Noah needed God’s support to uphold him in righteousness, Abraham drew his moral strength from himself and walked in his righteousness by his own effort.8 The rabbis seem to highlight the negative aspects of Noah’s

4 5

6 7

8

The Zohar, Gen. 67b. Moses is referred to by God as humble (Num. 12:3), and Abraham as a prophet (Gen. 20:7), but only Noah as righteous (Gen. 6:9 and 7:1). See Genesis Rabbah 30:9, and Rashi to Gen. 6:9. BT, Sanhedrin 108a. This is compared in the Talmud to the opinion of Resh Lakish, who maintained the view that if he was righteous even in his generation, then how much more so he would have been in other generations. See also The Zohar Gen. 67b. Rashi to Gen. 6:9. — 76 —

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character in order to use them as an opportunity to extol the virtues of Abraham and subsequent generations, i.e. the people of Israel.

3.1b Sodom and the Akedah Another crucial source for the empowerment model in contemporary covenantal thought is the biblical narrative of Abraham at Sodom, in Genesis 18. God decides to confide in Abraham his future plans for the destruction of the city of Sodom along with all its inhabitants: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Gen. 18:17.) Abraham then defends the people of Sodom to God, entreating Him to save them if there can be found any good people in their midst. The crux of Abraham’s defence is, “Shall the Judge of all the Earth not do justice?” (Gen. 18:25.) Seemingly, here God Himself is being held to account by a justice system which Abraham had knowledge of prior to divine revelation at Mount Sinai. This narrative represents the zenith of not only Abraham’s narrated life in the Torah but of man’s relationship with, and ability to influence, God. Hartman uses the example in the opening chapter of A Living Covenant to classify Abraham as “a worthy partner of the Lord of History.”9 It is from this biblical foundation that the rabbis enunciated midrashim which suggest that God and Abraham were friends, and that Abraham had a changing effect upon the nature and role of God on earth: Until Abraham our father came into the world, God, as it were, was king of heaven alone, as it is said: “The Lord, the God of heaven who took me from my father’s house…” [Gen. 24:7], but when Abraham our father came into the world, he anointed Him king of heaven and of the earth, as it is said: “and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth.”10 This understanding of Abraham at Sodom is starkly opposed to the image of Abraham which emerges four chapters later at the akedah. Here Abraham appears as a wholly submissive character, exhibiting the kind of passivity that is usually associated with Noah. The questioning 9 10

Hartman, Living, 28. Sifre, Ha’azinu 313, quoted by Hartman in Living, 29. — 77 —

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that took place at Sodom is conspicuous by its absence, and despite the huge collection of midrashic literature which deals with the gaps and the silences in this seminal biblical text, the biblical story does not contain a single word or thought of Abraham’s that is directed towards God. Abraham does not question the divine command, and instead submits to divine fiat and proceeds towards the mountain to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice, as he was commanded to do in Genesis 22:2. It is worth noting here that the empowerment model favoured by covenantal thinkers is based upon an understanding of Abraham’s character that has been nurtured not by the narrative in Genesis 22, but rather by that of Genesis 18. David Hartman’s chosen paradigm is the Abraham of Sodom, and not the Abraham of the akedah. However, having chosen this paradigm, Hartman does not always qualify it, and so throughout his work there is an underlying assumption that the covenantal Abraham triumphed not on Mount Moriah, but rather overlooking Sodom. It is important to highlight, however, that both paradigms exist within the tradition, and that the biblical character himself superseded these typologies and resisted the temptation to be either assertive or submissive, leaving the reader / believer to struggle with understanding the dichotomy that exists between the two.11

3.1c Revelation at Sinai: Covenant Ratification and Increasing Mutuality After the epiphany at Sinai in Exodus 20 and the first detailed description of mitzvot in chapters 21-23 comes another, rather different, covenant ceremony. This episode seems rather distant from the pomp and circumstance of Exodus 19. Gone are the thunder and the lightning, the

11

This understanding of Abraham’s empowering mentality, emphasised at Sodom, shares similarities with Maimonides’ contention that Abraham found God through rational cognition and not through miraculous or capricious means. For Maimonides, Abraham effectively proves the existence of a monotheistic God. See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (henceforth MT), Laws Concerning Idolatry, 1:3. See also Guide for the Perplexed (henceforth Guide), 1:50 and Genesis Rabbah 38:13. Hartman writes that “Abraham is described by Maimonides as a teacher who convinces through rational argumentation,” in “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language,” 28. — 78 —

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smoking mountain and the piercing shofar (horn) blasts. In its place is an experience which seems infinitely more intense. The episode itself can be split into two parts. The first eight verses echo the covenant ceremony that just took place. Blood is the central motif in this narrative: And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgements; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord has said we will do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent the young men of the Children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the Book of the Covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord has said we will do, and obey (na’aseh venishma). And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the Covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words (Exod. 24:3-8)

In this passage, the people verbally declare their acceptance of the covenant twice (verse 3 and again in verse 7). The passage contains the only reference in the Pentateuch to the sefer ha-brit (book of the covenant),12 and upon hearing Moses’ reading of this book, the people once again reiterate their verbal acceptance, but this time (unlike four verses earlier in Exod. 24:3 and previously in Exod. 19:8) they reply that they will both do and obey (na’aseh venishma). This reiteration seems to signify a deeper level of acceptance and trust on the part of the people, and their answer — na’aseh venishma — has become a motif in rabbinic thought, paradigmatic of the worth of the Jewish people as a whole. In response to this verbal acceptance Moses does the following: he writes down all of God’s words; he wakes up early in the morning; he builds an altar and twelve pillars; he sends the young men to make sacrifices; he collects the blood from the sacrifices - half of the blood he puts in basins and half he sprinkles upon the altar; he then reads 12

The term Sefer ha-brit appears in two other places in the Tanakh: in II Kings 23:2; and in II Chron. 34: 30. — 79 —

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the “book of the covenant” in the hearing of the people, at which point they verbally declare their acceptance of this covenant once again. It is at this point, seemingly in ratification, that Moses takes the second half of the sacrificial blood (that not already sprinkled upon the altar), which he now calls the “blood of the covenant,”13 and sprinkles it on the people. This is clearly a ritual that serves to ratify the covenantal relationship between the parties, and it is more reciprocal than the ceremony that preceded it in Exodus 19, in which there was no such shared activity. Here, however, Moses — the intermediary — splits evenly the blood of the covenant and symbolically sprinkles half of it upon the people, and half of it upon God. This is often overlooked. In this context, where sacrificial ritual is paramount, the altar symbolises God, and the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar signifies God’s personal involvement in the covenant. Moreover, Moses does not sprinkle most of the blood upon either the altar or the people, but instead splits the blood in half — another highly symbolic gesture of the reciprocal nature of this particular covenant pact. Unlike any of its predecessors, this covenant affords far greater emphasis to the human side of the covenant - that of equal partner. There is a mutuality in these proceedings not afforded in previous covenant ceremonies. This is reflected not just in the ratification of the covenant, but also in its sign.14 Several of the defining characteristics of Mendenhall’s six-part structure for suzerainty treaties, outlined in section 1.1 above, can be clearly distinguished in this covenant ceremony, particularly the writing down of the stipulations and the requirement for public reading of those stipulations. The Sefer ha-brit, and its subsequent reading “in the ears of the people,”15 is perhaps the clearest biblical example of this ancient Near-Eastern covenantal method. Nahum 13 14

15

For the motif of blood in covenant narratives in the Tanakh see chapter 1, note 6. The previous covenant ceremonies in the Torah have been consecrated with the signs of a rainbow (Noachide) and circumcision (patriarchal) respectively. One can make a strong case for arguing that the sign of the Sinaitic covenant is the Sabbath itself, in which case the mutuality of the covenant ceremony itself is reflected in its sign — man does nothing for the rainbow, plenty for the circumcision, and even more for the Sabbath (particularly in terms of deciphering exactly how to observe its precepts). An almost identical phrase can be found in II Kings 23:2 with reference to a reading of the Sefer ha-brit. — 80 —

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Sarna suggests that the twelve pillars in this text refer to witnesses, another of Mendenhall’s characteristics.16 The second half of the narrative in Exodus 24, which accounts for only three biblical verses (verses 9-11), is a very rich resource. Moses, Aaron, two of Aaron’s four sons (Nadav and Avihu), and the seventy elders all went up, “and they ‘saw’ the God of Israel.” This is a far more intimate covenantal experience than the one granted to the entire people in Exodus 19. However, its unique and intimate nature is confounded by the extraordinary statement in the following verse: “and they beheld / viewed / gazed at God, and did eat and drink.” However you translate vayekhezu (beheld / viewed / gazed), it represents a particularly intense encounter with God  —  one normally reserved in the Tanakh for Moses alone. This, however, is afforded to some seventy-three other individuals along with Moses. And how is one to understand the conclusion of the story — that after witnessing perhaps the clearest vision of the true nature of God ever afforded to man, they ate and drank? Whilst the prevalent rabbinic conclusion is that they erred in some way in their actions (the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, and indeed the seventy elders, are attributed to this transgression),17 the literal interpretation of this text is more intriguing. Nahum Sarna understands this eating and drinking as a formal element in the conclusion of the covenant ceremony.18 There is strong evidence in several other places in the Tanakh that a meal is an integral part of a covenant ceremony. A feast is mentioned in connection with the pact made between Isaac and Abimelech at Beer-Sheba in Genesis 26:30, and that between Jacob and Laban in Genesis 31:54. Aaron and the Elders also partake of a meal with Jethro and Moses in Exodus 18:12, which could serve a similar juridical function, and Sarna also interprets the meals in Joshua 8:30-35, and in II Samuel 3:20-21 between Abner and David, in a similar way.19 16

17 18

19

According to Sarna a matzevah serves the same purpose in Jacob’s covenant ceremony in Gen. 31:45-54. See chapter 1, note 11. See Rashi’s commentary to Exod. 24:10-11 and to Lev. 10:1-2. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, 153. See also Nahmanides’ commentary to Exod. 24:11. With the exception of the last example, none of those episodes cited by Sarna use the — 81 —

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Part of this covenant ceremony is echoed in the narrative which concludes the book of Joshua: “And the people said to Joshua, The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey” (Josh. 24:24). This phrase is very similar to Exodus 24:7. This narrative serves to underscore the trajectory which the biblical divine-human covenants follow. In Joshua there is not just a preamble, a lengthy historical prologue, and stipulations, but also a far greater level of communal autonomy. The people heard the terms being offered to them by God via His emissary Joshua, and they accepted them. This was followed by an attempted rebuttal on the divine side, and it was only when the people again reaffirmed their desire to serve their Lord that Joshua concluded the ceremony to renew God’s covenant with the people. Here too one can find the witnesses (the people and the stone20), and the deposit, under an oak tree that was near God’s sanctuary.21 The biblical covenants appear to map out a trajectory from lesser to greater human involvement. The initial covenantal protagonist is Noah, whose utter passivity is exemplified both by his lack of speech throughout the narrative and by his lack of involvement in the covenantal sign, the rainbow. The patriarchal covenant signifies a movement towards greater human involvement (with the enaction of the sign of circumcision being carried out by man). However, it is at Sinai, and in particular at the ratification ceremony of Exodus 24, that the biblical divine-human covenants exhibit signs of real mutuality and equality between the covenantal partners. This is undoubtedly extremely significant for the empowerment model, as it provides a biblical foundation for the otherwise audacious suggestion that man and God can be equally weighted within a covenantal relationship.

20

21

term brit and so their link to the theme of covenant is tangential. They are, with the possible exception of Ex. 18, examples of pacts made between man and man which the Torah does not ascribe the vocabulary of covenant to. However, the link to a ratification meal is a strong one and worthy of inclusion here. This is a clear example of the use of a stone in a covenant ceremony (similar to the covenant ceremony in Deut. 27-28, with its lengthy list of curses, where the stones play such a prominent role). Ancient Near-Eastern covenants were traditionally sealed by both parties cutting into a stone, and the common use of the word karat (literally “to cut”) with brit, as opposed to other seemingly more fitting verbs, is often understood as a reference to this ancient ritual. Josh. 24:26. — 82 —

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3.1d God’s Covenant with Individuals Regardless of how empowering the Sinai model (outlined above) is, it still falls short in one crucial way. How does God’s choice to covenant with the Israelites at Sinai empower me personally? I can understand a person feeling a certain amount of self-worth by virtue of being part of the Jewish community and thus one of the “chosen people,” but that does not necessarily equate to personal empowerment. Did God covenant with individuals, or only with the entire polity? This is a question which has troubled biblical commentators for centuries. It has profound ramifications for covenantal empowerment. There are a number of midrashim which suggest the possibility of personal revelation at Sinai, i.e., that God spoke to individuals as individuals, and that who you were had an impact upon what you heard and how you heard it. One such midrash, which occurs in the anthology Pesikta De Rav Kahana, is as follows: So, too, when the Holy One spoke, each and every person in Israel could say, “The Divine Word is addressing me.” Note that Scripture does not say, “I am the Lord your God,” but I am the Lord thy God, [thy very own God]. Moreover, said Rabbi Jose the son of Rabbi Hanina, the Divine Word spoke to each and every person according to his particular capacity. And do not wonder at this. For when manna came down from Israel, each and every person tasted it in keeping with his own capacity.22

This midrash is favoured by David Hartman, who quotes it in A Living Covenant.23 There are several other midrashim which suggest the possibility of individual revelations at Sinai. Exodus Rabbah 34:1 states the following: For know thou, that if God had come upon Israel with the full might of His strength when He gave them the Torah, they would not have been able to withstand it, as it says, If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die (Deut. 5:22). God, however, came upon them each according to their individual strength, for it says, The voice of the Lord is with power (Ps. 29:4). It does not say 22 23

Pesikta De Rav Kahana 12:25. Hartman quotes this midrash in Living, 329-330 n. 20. — 83 —

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“with His power” but “with power,” that is, according to the power of each individual.24

The idea of individual revelation is certainly attractive to covenantal theologians, and Hartman promotes the idea that God actually covenanted with each individual person at Sinai. However, his covenantal theory contains both individual and communal elements. While there are some parts of his thought in which the individual assumes utmost importance, such as with the authority of one’s own moral sensibilities over communal norms, there are other areas of Hartman’s writing where community seems to win altogether against the individual. Menachem Kellner claims that within Hartman’s thought the individual alone cannot find spiritual redemption,25 but I argue that one can develop a convincing case for either side of the argument within his thought. Borowitz, on the other hand, clearly advocates a firm belief in individual revelation. Because revelation is both unmediated and nonverbal, it is a highly personal experience. Borowitz’s theory of divine revelation, which draws heavily upon Buber’s enunciation of the perfect I-Thou encounter, is entirely individual. It is a personal experience between you and God, which leaves little room for the communal Jewish framework. I discuss his theory of revelation in detail in section 3.5 below, but it is clear that both Hartman and Borowitz share an understanding of the enhanced possibility of individual revelation, which only serves to heighten the feelings of empowerment which an individual senses as a result of his or her covenant with God.

3.1e Lo Bashamayim Hi: It is Not in Heaven One final source which is central to the empowerment discussion is the (oft-quoted) aggadic midrash in Bava Metzia 59b surrounding the ritual 24

25

Exodus Rabbah 34:1. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg discusses these and other similar midrashim which suggest the possibility of a revelation “which is both objective and yet fully subjective” in Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 268-269. Menachem Kellner, ‘Open to the Modern World’, Forum 42-43 (Winter 1981): 174. — 84 —

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status of the Aknai oven.26 Although it appears here as the fifth and last source under discussion, it is hard to overemphasise the significance of this midrashic text to promoters of the empowerment model within Jewish thought. The subject matter of the discussion taking place in the Bava Metzia text was one of ritual purity, and there was a heated disagreement between the majority of the sages and one of the greatest of their number — Rabbi Eliezer. While the sages declared the oven to be impure, Rabbi Eliezer maintained that it was pure. After failing to convince the sages through rational arguments, Rabbi Eliezer then invoked supernatural miracles to convince his colleagues that he was right, culminating in the invoking of a heavenly voice, which pronounced: “What is it you want with Rabbi Eliezer? Whenever he expresses an opinion, the Halakhah is according to him.” One would have thought that this would have settled the dispute, but it did not. Upon hearing the heavenly voice, another one of the foremost sages, Rabbi Joshua, stood up and responded by saying “Lo bashamayim hi,” “it is not in heaven.” The words were interpreted in the Talmud to mean the following: “We do not pay attention to a heavenly echo, because You (God) already wrote in the Torah at Mount Sinai ‘According to the majority (the matter) shall be decided.’ And since the majority of the Sages dispute Rabbi Eliezer’s position, his position is rejected in practice.”27 The midrash has an equally famous postscript. Rabbi Nathan met the prophet Elijah at some later date, and asked him what God did at the moment of Rabbi Joshua’s exclamation. Elijah responded by saying “He laughed, saying: ‘My sons have defeated me, My sons have defeated me” (BT, Bava Metzia 59b). There are a number of different ways of interpreting this text. Hartman understands the midrash as a powerful endorsement of his belief in the supremacy of human autonomy 26

27

This is one of Hartman’s best-loved rabbinic texts, which explains its repeated recurrence in his work. See Living 33 and 47-49; “Contemporary Religious Life and Thought in Israel,” 113 n. 29; Conflicting Visions 47. Also alluded to in Heart, 23, and commentated upon in Michael Walzer, Menachem Loberbaum and Noam J. Zohar, ed., The Jewish Political Tradition: Volume One Authority (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 263-269. BT, Bava Metzia 59b. — 85 —

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and freedom within the halakhic and covenantal framework — God, although setting the parameters, has subsequently left the discourse. Even more important for Hartman than the story of the Sages itself is the postscript and God’s response. Hartman views God’s happy response to this situation as vindication of his particular covenantal theory. In A Living Covenant he writes that this response “signifies God’s self-limiting love for the sake of making His human covenantal partners responsible for intellectually developing the Torah.”28 This midrash helps Hartman to formulate exactly what role the human partners in the covenant have to play. The rabbis understood their biblical mandate to involve legal adjudication, even to the point of discounting a divine intervention. For Hartman, then, this is the ultimate expression of divine love, which manifests itself wholly in terms of human empowerment, a central covenantal category. It is also the proof text for the second stage of his three-stage model of covenant — individual, interpretive autonomy of the rabbis — as outlined in detail in section 3.2 below. There are other possible readings of this text, besides the one proposed above.29 One such reading, also propounded by Hartman, champions the midrash because it “decidedly favours the orderly proceedings of legal adjudication above the nonrational intrusions of miracles and heavenly voices in the academies of Torah study.”30 A faith that constantly needed the intervention of miracles and divine signs and wonders would be backward and immature, according to Hartman, a Noah-like relationship with God that could be compared to a son who is incapable even of bathing without the assistance of his father.31 What one must aspire to, on the other hand, is an Abraham28 29

30 31

Hartman, Living, 33. Jonathan Sacks offers an alternative interpretation of lo bashamayim hi and takes issue with Hartman’s interpretation. While “not in heaven” is a principle much beloved by those who argue for halakhic innovation (such as Hartman), Sacks views the very same doctrine as intrinsically conservative. The reason for this is that it is “precisely directed against a revolutionary by-passing of text, precedent and consensus in the name of a ‘heavenly voice.’” Jonathan Sacks, “‘Creativity and Innovation in Halakhah,” in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, ed. Moshe Sokol (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1992), 130. Hartman, Living, 33. I borrow this particular analogy from a midrash about the miracle worker Honi the — 86 —

------------------  3.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Covenantal Empowerment  ------------------

inspired covenantal relationship with God, based upon a belief in the adequacy and supremacy of one’s own intellect. Hartman confirms this in one of his later books, Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: “Rabbinic Judaism loosened the grip of the biblical paradigm by lessening the need for revelation.”32 Human adequacy reaches its peak for Hartman in intellectual (i.e. halakhic) creativity, and this aggadic story of the ritual status of the Aknai oven is undoubtedly the high point of that particular rabbinic art. This midrash sheds light on “the covenantal emphasis on human responsibility,” and, more than any other biblical or rabbinic source (with the possible exception of Abraham at Sodom, discussed above), provides Hartman with his ideal paradigm for man’s covenantal relationship with God.

3.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Covenantal Empowerment Hartman’s covenantal theory is framed by the biblical moment at Sinai. In the generations immediately following the creation of the world, God is unhappy with the creation of man and regrets having created him at all. Hartman refers to this as a “divine self-education.”33 After the flood, God decides to adopt a second approach to the divinehuman relationship — covenant. The relationship moves from creation mode to covenant mode, and with that transition come several essential changes in the nature of God’s interaction with man (most obviously, but not exclusively, his decision not to destroy man in the

32

33

Circle Drawer. In BT, Ta’anit 23a (a shorter version of the story appears in the Mishnah, Ta’anit 3:8 and in BT, Ta’anit 19a) Honi was chastised by the head of the Sanhedrin at the time, Simeon ben Shetach, for making unnecessary oaths to God and forcing God into action (rather like Hannah in BT, Berakhot 31b). He wanted to pronounce nidui upon the charismatic Honi, but refrained from doing so because God clearly granted all of Honi’s requests. This Simeon compares to the acts of a spoilt child who says to his father “Father, take me to wash me in hot water, rinse me in cold water.” Interestingly here Honi and God clearly have a good relationship, the opposite of what one might expect from the Hartman model. David Hartman, Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: An Ancient People Debating its Future (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 111. Henceforth Israelis. Hartman, Heart, 40. — 87 —

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latter mode as he had done in the former). This new approach to the relationship leads to three distinct covenants: 1) with Noah and all living flesh; 2) with Abraham and a line of his descendents; and finally 3) with all the Children of Israel and their descendents. The third and final covenant — between God and the people — is the climax of the covenantal narrative in the Torah, and is the one which Hartman, and indeed most covenantal theorists, concentrate upon. Sinai is treated in this manner because, unlike the previous two covenants, this brit had a Sefer haBrit, a book of the covenant, which was the Torah, either in complete form or a selection of relevant sections. Matan Torah (the giving of the Torah) is the highpoint of covenantal empowerment for Hartman, as it is the moment when man accepts God’s invitation to covenantal partnership — joining forces with God in the successful completion of creation. Hartman’s development of this theory of human adequacy impacts upon his understanding of the nature of the divine-human relationship. Becoming partners in the completion of creation, as suggested above, requires a sufficient maturation of the relationship and of both covenantal partners. Man, especially, has to accept full covenantal responsibility, which only happens gradually as he matures and develops into his expanded role. It is as a result of this that Hartman posits his stage theory of covenant in one of his formative essays, “Judaism as an Interpretive Tradition.”34 This theory is based upon the concept of the covenant as a process comprising three stages. In stage one, man assumes responsibility only for implementing mitzvot. This is the biblical stage. In stage two, man’s responsibilities increase and he can now assume responsibility also for “intellectual, interpretive autonomy,”35 such as the rabbis do when, for example, they invalidate a biblical prescription within their discourse and claim that such a decision by their human court will subsequently be confirmed by the heavenly court. This is the talmudic stage, characterised by the classic dictum “lo bashamayim hi.”36 In stage three, the final stage, man 34 35 36

Ibid. 3-36. Ibid. 34. See the discussion of this phrase in section 3.1e. — 88 —

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finally takes responsibility for history as well. Speaking about stage two, Hartman writes that “while it was true of this phase of covenantal history that ‘Torah was not in heaven’, history, on the other hand, definitely was.”37 What Hartman means by this is that the solution to the exilic condition of the Jewish people’s history remained firmly with the divine partner in the relationship, in so much as historical change was inconceivable but for direct divine intervention (such as bringing about the long-awaited messianic redemption). However, in stage three, expressed best by the Zionist enterprise of the last century,38 the Jewish people finally took responsibility for history by choosing to attempt themselves to bring about an end to their exilic condition. This is interpreted by Hartman as an essential evolution and maturation of the covenantal process. In many ways the stage model of covenant seems to significantly minimise God’s role in human history today. Such a marginalisation of God sits extremely uncomfortably with traditionalists and liberals alike in their attempts to find a suitable place for God in their worship and in everyday life. I will now attempt to decipher whether this conclusion – the marginalisation of God’s role in covenant – is indicative of all of Hartman’s theory, or whether the correct picture is indeed more nuanced than that. I will begin the discussion with the concept of tsimtsum (contraction), which is Hartman’s own starting point for a discussion about the role of God within the divine-human covenant.

3.3 Tsimtsum and Divine Withdrawal David Hartman draws on an understanding of the kabbalistic doctrine of tsimtsum. In his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem defines tsimtsum in the following way: 37 38

Hartman, Heart, 33, original emphasis. Hartman’s views about the State of Israel and Zionism are largely beyond the scope of the current work, but are most certainly an area for further research. One can make a cogent argument that, just as halakhic man epitomises the covenantal man for Soloveitchik, so the early Zionist pioneer epitomises the covenantal man for Hartman. Hartman’s Zionism is discussed in more detail in section 6.3. — 89 —

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Luria’s theory […] is based upon the doctrine of Tsimtsum, one of the most amazing and far-reaching conceptions ever put forward in the whole history of Kabbalism. Tsimtsum originally means “concentration” or “contraction”, but if used in the Kabbalistic parlance it is best described as “withdrawal” or “retreat.” […] The Midrash — in sayings originating from third century teachers — occasionally refers to God as having concentrated His Shekhinah, His divine presence, in the holiest of holies, at the place of the Cherubim [a form of angelic being], as though His whole power were concentrated and contracted in a single point. Here we have the origin of the term Tsimtsum, while the thing itself is the precise opposite of this idea: to the Kabbalist of Luria’s school Tsimtsum does not mean the concentration of God at a point, but his retreat away from a point. What does this mean? It means briefly that the existence of the universe is made possible by a process of shrinkage in God.39

The kabbalists asked the following question of creation (in contradistinction to the usual scientific formulation of “how can something come forth from nothing”). They asked, how can there be a world if God is everywhere? If God is all in all,40 how can there be things which are not God, and how can the infinite not engulf the finite? The Lurianic answer was the doctrine of tsimtsum, which despite its rather crude formulation assumed huge importance in the history of later kabbalistic thought, and, as shall become apparent, in subsequent theological formulations as well.41 Luria, and later kabbalists, drew heavily upon rabbinic sources in their formulation of this doctrine, particularly midrashim which deal with the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and which describe God’s dwelling within it in terms of 39

40 41

Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 260. Ibid. 261. The importance of the doctrine of tsimtsum in hasidic thought is also apparent. See for example the works of Dov Baer of Mezhirich’s writings on tsimtsum in Norman Lamm, The Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary (New York: Yeshiva University, 1999), essays 15 and 16 — “ Tsimtsum: An Act of Love” and “Tsimtsum: The Descent of Man and the Ascent of Man,” 44-46. The presence of such a Lurianic concept in the Maggid’s writing is unsurprising given the heavy influence of Kabbalah on the works of the hasidic masters. On this see for example Dubnow, “The Maggid of Miedzyrzecz” especially 60, in Essential Papers on Hasidism: Origins to Present, ed. Gershon David Hundert (New York: New York University Press, 1991). — 90 —

--------------------------------------------  3.3 Tsimtsum and Divine Withdrawal --------------------------------------------

tsimtsum.42 According to Luria, God was compelled to make room for the world by giving up a little of the space which He had previously inhabited, or giving a little of Himself, in order to allow for the world to come into existence. Scholem describes this movement of recoil as “abandoning a region within Himself, a kind of primordial space from which He withdrew in order to return to it in the act of creation and revelation.”43 This movement of withdrawal by God is tsimtsum, and according to the Lurianic conception of the doctrine, this was the very first act of the Ein-Sof (the kabbalistic term for describing the God who is hidden in His own self),44 prior to the creation of the world, which was contingent upon it. Hartman is not the only contemporary Jewish thinker to adapt this Lurianic doctrine and bring it within the theological realm. Borowitz also uses it, in a startlingly similar way to Hartman (discussed later in this section), and Hartman’s understanding of it is influenced by his exposure to Soloveitchik, who makes frequent reference to tsimtsum.45 Both Soloveitchik and Hartman remove tsimtsum from its kabbalistic context of dealing with finitude and the infinite and its chronological placement at the beginning of time, and they transfer it into a covenantal context intrinsically connected with the covenantal moment at Sinai. There are problems associated with this approach and its use of a kabbalistic doctrine.46 Tsimtsum in its original context is cosmic, with God’s withdrawal affecting the whole of living flesh. This modern interpretation, by contrast, limits the withdrawal to a purely Jewish context, since God’s act of tsimtsum affects only the Jewish people. This foundational problem could undermine this particular usage of tsimtsum, but since it does not affect Hartman’s understanding of it, I will continue to analyse his understanding and usage of the concept. 42

43 44 45

46

See for example Leviticus Rabbah 29:4, Numbers Rabbah 12:3, and in particular Exodus Rabbah 34:1: “I will descend and even confine [Hebrew tsumtsam from the same root as tsimtsum] My Shekhinah within one square cubit.” Scholem, Major Trends, 261. See ibid. 12. See for example Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1983), 48, 49, 56; also Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” Tradition 17:2 (1978): 35-37. The problem with this approach was first highlighted to me by Louis Jacobs (5.9.05). — 91 —

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Hartman’s understanding of the doctrine of tsimtsum is developed most fully in his A Living Covenant. He writes: “God makes room for humans as independent, free creatures. The mystery of God’s love for them is expressed in this act of divine self-limitation. God limits His power so as to permit human development within the context of freedom.”47 Tsimtsum thus becomes the ultimate act of divine love. The alternative would have been a non-self-limiting God that stifled His creations with a lack of space, both physically and metaphorically. Hartman extends this to the philosophical realm of free will, and tsimtsum takes on a moral significance far removed from the original cosmological context of Lurianic Kabbalah. Most theological understandings of the free will doctrine assume that, for the good of His creations, God does not interfere with people’s choices and thus allows one the opportunity both to perform acts of goodness and lovingkindness and to receive the due reward for instigating these actions entirely of one’s own volition.48 The doctrine also allows for the possibility for people to commit boundless sin — and the merit achieved by virtue of the former category would be meaningless without the existence of the latter category. Hartman’s philosophical understanding of tsimtsum in terms of free will allows him to equate God’s self-withdrawal with the granting of free will to humanity. God withdrew to achieve human free will, and without the withdrawal the notion of free will would be rendered meaningless. Hartman is fond of the analogy which equates the God-man relationship to the parent-child relationship, and he adopts this analogy frequently in his work, not least in this context. He writes the following: Accordingly, divine self-limitation need not be understood only in terms of the cosmological mystery of tsimtsum (contraction) of Lurianic Kabbalism, but may also be understood in terms of a parent’s loving decision to limit his or her intervention in a child’s behaviour so as to allow for the growth of the child’s sense of personal dignity and self-worth. Love for one’s child often demands self-restraint even in the face of failure and errors in judgement. Aside from the 47 48

Hartman, Living, 24. See for example Alvin Plantinga’s version of the free will defence of the problem of evil, in God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 26ff. — 92 —

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issue of moral or legal rights, non-interference is often a requirement of love and concern.49

Understanding the divine-human relationship in this way allows for Hartman to refute claims that tsimtsum was not the ideal scenario. According to his formulation of the doctrine, it is a supreme act of love, similar to that a parent may show a child as that child matures into young adulthood. Hartman removes tsimtsum from its original kabbalistic placement as an event that precedes the creation of the world and transforms it to assume a covenantal context associated with events at Sinai. The chronological placement of tsimtsum at Sinai is essential, because it allows tsimtsum to be a later development in the unfolding of the divine-human relationship, rather than a construct which has been in place since man’s creation. Tsimtsum, therefore, is a sign of maturation; by the time of the Sinaitic covenant the people are ready to adopt this type of covenantal relationship and assume the added responsibility that will inevitably go with it.50 If tsimtsum was not placed in a Sinaitic context then one could not understand it as a moral concept signifying a development in the divine-human relationship, and hence Hartman’s insistence on transforming it from a cosmological-mystical context to a historical-relational one.51 Hartman’s use of tsimtsum is consistent throughout his work, and forms an important aspect of his covenantal thought. Covenant for Hartman entails divine acceptance of members of humankind as they are, without attempting to perfect or elevate them to a transcendent or supernatural status. “The affirmation of human beings, with all their human limitations, is the soul of the covenantal message.”52 These human limitations are not viewed as faults when seen within a covenantal context. This is because Sinai is a covenant of acceptance: “The mitzvot reflect the Divine acceptance of man as he is, with all his limitations.”53 The divine acceptance of human finitude and limitation 49 50

51 52 53

Hartman, Living, 24. I argue for the centrality of responsibility to covenantal thought. It is defined as a key theme in section 1.4, and also dealt with explicitly a number of times in the text below. Ibid. 24. Hartman, Heart, 144. David Hartman, “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language,” 29. — 93 —

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is crucial for Hartman’s covenantal thought and is a direct product of his understanding of tsimtsum, since the withdrawal would be far less meaningful to Hartman if it was nonetheless still accompanied by a divinely-led project for human perfection. Such a project would, for Hartman, always have to be motivated and enacted by man. Borowitz first uses the word tsimtsum in his written work in an essay on contemporary leadership written in 1974.54 However, he had previously used the term when giving a talk about family life at the men’s club of a Reform congregation.55 He had just come to the insight that instead of being a pushy parent it was beneficial to pull back and let one’s children grow, and it occurred to Borowitz that this insight could be developed outside of the familial context too.56 Both Borowitz and Hartman make explicit reference to this Lurianic doctrine in their writing, and both do so by removing it from its original kabbalistic context. Borowitz only associates the word with its opposite, when using the phrase reverse-tsimtsum. Reverse-tsimtsum is a clarion call to the liberal Jewish community to enact some kind of reversal of the process of tsimtsum, for reasons which will be explained. Borowitz’s call for a reversal of the process of tsimtsum is bound up with his understanding of modernity, which can be summed up by his discussion of the Holocaust and the so-called death-of-God theology of Richard Rubenstein.57 Rubenstein famously claimed that after Auschwitz God is dead, i.e. that humanity’s understanding of what God is has changed so much as a result of the Holocaust that particular conceptions

54

55 56

57

Eugene Borowitz, “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contemporary Leadership,” in Studies, 157-170. Borowitz, in private conversation with the author, 5.4.06. It is important to note that Borowitz’s first use of this kabbalistic term occurred in a personal and psychological context, and was only transferred into a theological context at a later stage. The example of the family unit provides an ideal model for Borowitz’s covenantal thought, as it also does for Hartman. Rubenstein’s position was originally enunciated in After Auschwitz: History, Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992). See also the discussion of Rubenstein in Steven Katz, Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought (New York: New York University Press, 1983), especially 184185; and Zachary Braiterman, “Hitler’s Accomplice?: The Tragic Theology of Richard Rubenstein,” Modern Judaism 17:1 (1997): 75-89. — 94 —

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of Him can no longer exist in light of its horrors.58 Borowitz writes that Rubenstein’s God, who died in the flames of Auschwitz, “had long since been reinterpreted in other fashion by modern Jews.”59 Put more simply, he contends that many German Jews were familiar with the works of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche before the war, and as a result they had already altered their conceptualisations of God to accord with these modernist critiques. Rubenstein’s “famous discovery,” therefore, is understood by Borowitz as a response to a somewhat outdated and immature notion of God. What Borowitz asserts in place of Rubenstein’s theory, however, is significant. Being that it was not the God of traditional Judaism that died at Auschwitz (he was killed off many decades earlier in the western European university lecture theatre), what did die at Auschwitz? His answer to this question is “the god of triumphant modernism.”60 What died for us at Auschwitz was humankind as the all-powerful master of history  —  and its death has been confirmed by the continuing horrors of our time, by the Vietnam War, by our resistance to civil rights, by our callous exploitation of our natural resources and our powerless people, by the cynicism of the nations to the legitimate demands of the State of Israel, by the corruption of our culture, our government, and even our family life.61

Borowitz states clearly above that in the post-Enlightenment modernistic fervour, man had put himself in God’s place,62 and it is 58

59 60

61

62

The methodology behind Rubenstein’s formulation is similar to that motivating Irving Greenberg’s working principle that “No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children.” Irving Greenberg, “Cloud of Fire, Pillar of Smoke,” in Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust, ed. Eva Fleischer (New York: Ktav, 1977), 23. Borowitz, Renewing, 36. Eugene Borowitz, “God and Man in Judaism Today: A Reform Perspective,” Judaism 23:3 (Summer 1974): 301. Ibid. 301. Borowitz makes this point again in a later article — “This interpretation of the death of God simply did not apply to the mass of modernised Jews. They had secularised long before the Holocaust and were largely atheistic or agnostic. Those who had liberated concepts of God knew nothing of a God who was ‘the ultimate omnipotent actor in history.’” Eugene Borowitz, “Recent Historic Events: Jewish and Christian Interpretations,” in Studies, 198. The influence of Feuerbach on Borowitz here is marked, and he explicitly names the German anthropologist on a number of occasions. See “Postmodern Judaism: One Theologian’s View,” 42. See also “A Life of Jewish Learning,” 409, where he proposes — 95 —

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no longer possible for man to worship himself in such a fashion. As Borowitz writes, “the ‘god’ who died in the Holocaust was not the God of Israel’s tradition — in Whom few had believed in any case — but the functioning ‘god’ of moderns: humankind, ourselves.”63 So how could one begin to correct this crucial problem of man’s faith and worship? Such a sustained emphasis on man (as opposed to God) within liberal Jewish thought of the last century leads Borowitz to espouse his doctrine of reverse-tsimtsum. His prescription is vague, for he does not advocate any specific actions in order to achieve this reversal. One is left to wonder how exactly contemporary American Jewry can mastermind such a change in worldview, if indeed it wants to. However, Borowitz links this reverse-tsimtsum to humility, for by adopting a more humble approach toward his position in the divine-human relationship, man will enhance the nature of that relationship. For Borowitz, man needs a certain realism about his own limitations, and an acknowledgment of this most basic of tenets would allow for a reverse-tsimtsum, “a sufficient contraction of our human self-importance that would leave room in our lives for our community and for God’s presence.”64

3.4 Covenantal Thought and the Nature of God and Divine Perfection Hartman and Borowitz’s conception of tsimtsum explicitly states that divine withdrawal is a positive factor in God’s relation with humankind. If one understands withdrawal in terms of limitation, then one can conclude both that God has limitations, and that this is a positive characteristic for God to portray to His creations. The possibility of God’s nature being depicted as in some way limited is highlighted within contemporary covenantal thought. Covenant, according to Hartman, represents a second attempt by God to relate to humanity, after the failed creation attempt which culminated in the flood. When God adopts the covenant mode, He makes a choice to portray Himself

63 64

turning Feuerbach on his head, and “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model,” 159, discussed in chapter 5, note 8. Borowitz, “Postmodern Judaism,” 42. Borowitz, Renewing, 169. — 96 —

------  3.4 Covenantal Thought and the Nature of God and Divine Perfection  ------

in a certain way to His covenantal partners. Similarly, when Hartman chooses to portray God as the covenanting God, he is also choosing only to portray a certain side of divine reality. In this aspect of his theory, Hartman is profoundly influenced by Abraham Joshua Heschel, and his understanding of Heschel’s theology is worth quoting at length: The God to whom Heschel refers in his philosophy of sympathetic divine identification is not the transcendent, impersonal deity of the mystics but the more “human” God of the Bible […] Heschel, therefore, unlike Maimonides, was not reticent about attributing human emotions and qualities to God. Maimonides tried to capture the conceptual purity and uniqueness of the transcendent divine reality, whereas Heschel was less concerned with abstract conceptual consistency than with allowing God to become a living reality for modern Jews often embarrassed by religious language and culture. Heschel’s writings are thus full of graphic, anthropomorphic depictions of God. He preferred the experiential intensity of religious narrative to the intellectualism of dogmatic theology.65

Heschel’s anthropomorphic conception of God paved the way for contemporary covenantal thought. A discussion of tsimtsum in its covenantal context would have been completely alien to Maimonides (not to mention anachronistic), but would fit very comfortably into Heschel’s depiction of God.66 The God who voluntarily withdraws, and who chooses to be bound by His own covenant, is clearly a God that is involved with, and influenced by, His creations. Heschel writes that “among the fundamentals of the faith is the idea that the Holy and Blessed One participates in the sufferings of Israel.”67 When the people suffer, God suffers in equal measure, and when the people 65 66

67

Hartman, Heart, 174. Heschel and Maimonides are at opposite ends of the spectrum vis-à-vis man’s ability to define the divine reality. Heschel daringly suggests that God needs man, whereas Maimonides would view such an approach as grossly misguided, and would contend that continuing to worship such an incorrect conception of God would be tantamount to idolatry. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations, trans. Gordon Tucker (New York: Continuum, 2007), 105, based upon Mekhilta de R. Shimon Ben Yachai on Exod. 17:15. See also the rest of chapter six of Heavenly Torah, entitled “Teachings Concerning the Shekhinah, and Abraham Joshua Heschel,” The Prophets (New York: Harper Perennial, 2001), chapter five — “Anthropopathy.” — 97 —

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rejoice in happiness God rejoices with them. This is the bold assertion which Heschel shares throughout his work, based on strong midrashic parallels,68 and which Hartman embraces in his understanding of the nature of the covenant. This understanding of God is far removed from the aloof, omnipotent God of the philosophers, championed within the Jewish philosophical tradition by Maimonides. This discussion of the type of God that covenants with man has a significant impact on the notion of divine perfection. Heschel reminds his readers that the idea of a perfect God is not in fact a biblical notion: The notion of God as a perfect Being is not of biblical origin It is not the product of prophetic religion, but of Greek philosophy; a postulate of reason rather than a direct, compelling, initial answer of man to His reality. In the Decalogue, God does not speak of His perfection, but of His having made free men out of slaves. Signifying a state of being without defect and lack, perfection is a term of praise which we may utter in pouring forth our emotion; yet, for man to utter it as a name for His essence would mean to evaluate and to endorse Him. Biblical language is free of such pretension; it dared to call perfect (tamim) only “His work” (Deut. 32:4), “His way” (II Sam. 22:31), and the Torah (Ps. 19:7). We have never been told: “Hear, O Israel, God is perfect!”69

The nature of God depicted in biblical and rabbinic literature is a far from monolithic one, but according to Heschel, in no way is God portrayed therein as a perfect divine entity. Heschel’s heavily anthropomorphic depiction of God can be referred to as a vision of a limited God, because his is a God who suffers with His creations and who does not always intervene in worldly affairs because He does not have the power to do so. In this understanding of God, Hartman’s theology shares fundamental similarities to Heschel’s. Hartman’s understanding of God in stage three of his covenant model is as a God who cannot intervene in human history without shattering the covenantal relationship. This form of divine powerlessness is self-imposed; God chooses to limit his omnipotence in order to grant human beings free will, and in order to instigate meaningful covenantal relations with humanity. 68

69

For a full list of midrashic sources see Gordon Tucker’s notes on chapter six of Heschel’s Heavenly Torah, 104-126. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, 352. — 98 —

------  3.4 Covenantal Thought and the Nature of God and Divine Perfection  ------

The key similarity between Hartman and Heschel here is in their shared understanding of these supposed limitations as perfections. While a classic philosophical conception of God would understand God as aloof and unchangeable, and would therefore eschew the notion of relationship with Him at all, both Heschel and Hartman audaciously suggest that God desires human relationship and recognition. So limitation, or self-limitation, is a divine gift. Using Hartman’s terminology, God’s ultimate gift to humanity was the incompleteness of creation — He deliberately created an incomplete world in order to allow man to become a divine partner and to complete it. This divine gift is viewed by Hartman in terms of perfection — a total inversion of the classic philosophical understanding of divine perfection in terms of immutability and omnipotence. Hartman contends that a good God creates completely, whereas only a truly great God has the vision and the belief in His creations to create partially. In a recent article, Hartman illustrates the extent of his position vis-à-vis divine omnipotence and the necessity for divine-human relationship. He writes that a covenant reflects “mutual dependency” between God and man, and that, once a covenant is formed, God is unable to fulfill His will without the cooperation of His people.70 God’s historic plan is only fulfilled through humanity accepting responsibility for its completion. God has become, in Hartman’s covenantal thought, unable to carry out His own plan for human history. Instead, He has favoured the transference of ultimate responsibility for the enacting of the plan to man, His covenantal partner. Heschel’s theology goes further on this point than Hartman’s. For Heschel, even God Himself becomes a mediative principle, so God would not be God without worshippers to praise Him. Heschel writes that “in the phrase ‘we need each other’ is embedded the concept of Israel’s power to diminish or enhance God’s might.”71 Borowitz shares 70

71

David Hartman and Yonatan Ben Dov, “The God of the Jewish Community,” in Questions About God: Dialogues, ed. Yizhar Hess and Elazar Shturm (Hebrew) (Or Yehuda: Hed Arzi, 2008), 293. I am grateful to Lindsey Taylor Guthartz for her help in translating this article. Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 113. The quotation “we need each other” is from Pesikta Rabbati 31:5 — see section 7.3b and chapter 7, note 54. — 99 —

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this understanding of divine self-limitation, but emerging from a liberal milieu as his work does, the assertion is less startling. Both Borowitz and Hartman assert a level of parity between man and God which, as Arnold Eisen states, would have made the rabbis uncomfortable.72 Hartman goes beyond parity in suggesting the dependency of God upon man in order to fulfill the divine mission on earth, and although Borowitz’s implicit understanding is similar to this, he would be less comfortable with using the idea of dependency in this context.

3.5 David Hartman and Imitatio Dei Hartman’s understanding of imitatio Dei is an important aspect of his thought. The usage of imitatio Dei in contemporary Jewish thought is far from straightforward,73 and Hartman uses the expression frequently,74 especially in engagement with Soloveitchik’s work. One of Hartman’s main claims about Soloveitchik is that he draws not only normative conclusions from the creation story and God’s role in it, but imbues the story with a prescriptive quality.75 According to Hartman, Soloveitchik’s claim that “as God is a creator, so must the human being be a creator”76 was never understood as imitatio Dei before his teacher’s innovation: “Just as the Almighty constantly refined and 72 73

74

75

76

See chapter 1, note 26. The notion of imitatio Dei and its relevance has attracted much attention in contemporary Jewish thought. I am attracted to the opinion, voiced by Leon Roth (amongst others), that imitatio Dei is not a Jewish concept per se, and the fact that no Hebrew equivalent of the expression exists suggests that it is essentially alien to Jewish thought and is a concept that has been imported from Protestant doctrine. On this subject see Leon Roth, “Imitatio Dei and the Idea of Holiness,” in Is There a Jewish Philosophy?: Rethinking Fundamentals by Leon Roth (London: Littman Library, 1999), 15-28; Warren Zev Harvey, “Holiness: A Command to Imitatio Dei,” Tradition 16:3 (Summer 1977): 7-28; and Howard Kreisel, Maimonides’ Political Thought: Studies in Ethics, Law and the Human Ideal (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999) chapter four — “Imitatio Dei,” 125-158. See for example Living, 65-66; 81-82; 99. See also David Hartman, “Creativity and Imitatio Dei,” S’vara Volume 2:1 (1991): 36-39; and David Hartman, Love and Terror in the God Encounter (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001), especially 81-85. Hartman, Living, 65. See also Love and Terror 82-85, and “Creativity and Imitatio Dei” especially 36-37. Hartman, Living, 65. — 100 —

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improved the realm of existence during the six days of creation, so must man complete that creation and transform the domain of chaos and void into a perfect and beautiful reality.”77 For Hartman, Soloveitchik “is so bold as to claim”78 that God deliberately created an imperfect universe so as to leave scope for humankind to act creatively (and fix it). Furthermore, Hartman goes on to say (and I contend that now this is David Hartman himself speaking and not his teacher)79 that “all realms which express the creative impulse constitute an imitatio Dei.”80 “All realms” includes the ethical realm, and Hartman’s understanding of imitatio Dei is predominantly ethical. This deliberate creation of an imperfect universe is connected to the Soloveitchikian conception of divine tsimtsum and the ethic of retreat and withdrawal defined in “Majesty and Humility”: “If God withdrew, and creation is a result of his withdrawal, then, guided by the principle of imitatio Dei, we are called upon to do the same. Jewish ethics, then, requires man, in certain situations, to withdraw.”81 In Halakhic Man, Soloveitchik uses tsimtsum as an invitation to human beings to join in the task of creation, whereas in “Majesty and Humility” it serves as a reason for accepting a graceful defeat. For Hartman “there is no need to seek to harmonise the discrepancy between the two uses of tsimtsum. In both essays, rather, the concept possesses the emotive quality of making the religious person believe that in some way God’s conduct provides an example for human conduct.”82 For Hartman, ethics

77 78 79

80 81 82

Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, 106. Hartman, Living, 66. Moshe Sokol first drew my attention to the fact that one has to be wary when reading Hartman less the distinction between the views of his teachers and his own theological voice become blurred. Moshe Sokol, “David Hartman,” in Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, ed. Steven T. Katz (Washington, D.C.: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993), 91112. Sokol writes that in Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest, Hartman so identifies with his image of Maimonides “that the distinction between Hartman and Maimonides is sometimes obscured” (p. 94). Blumenthal makes a very similar point. David Blumenthal, “Review of Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest,” Religious Studies Review 5:2 (1979): 107-111. This critique also applies to Hartman’s engagement with Soloveitchik. Hartman, Living, 66. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” Tradition 17:2 (1978): 35-36. Hartman, Living, 82. — 101 —

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are an exercise in imitating Divine perfection.83 This comes across most clearly in “The Joy of Torah” where David Hartman uses a model for understanding the relationship between God and His people that is not found elsewhere in his writing.84 This teacher-student model helps Hartman to articulate his imitatio Dei doctrine. The model states that as God was a teacher of Torah at Sinai, so too must humanity be teachers of Torah: “The teaching of Torah was viewed by halakhic authorities as imitatio Dei, as an imitation of God who is the teacher par excellence.”85 Hartman, as has been shown, makes use of Soloveitchik’s understanding and explication of tsimtsum. On closer reflection, however, it appears that Hartman is only interested in one half of Soloveitchik’s understanding of the concept. As outlined above, Soloveitchik emphasises both creativity as imitatio Dei (part 1) and the ethical mandate of at times withdrawing and accepting defeat (part 2), both of which are crucial to his understanding of tsimtsum. Hartman, on the other hand, has the first part without the second. He advocates promoting acts of creativity as the ultimate act of imitating God, and thus the high point of Jewish ethical endeavour, but he does not really have an ethic of withdrawal in the same way his rabbi and teacher did. This is not only indicative of Hartman’s selectivity (he seems to use only the parts of the theories of influential figures in his life and work which best suit his purpose, without really seeing the need to intellectually justify this selection process), but is crucial for an understanding of the often one-sided nature of Hartman’s thought. At work throughout the Soloveitchikian corpus is a dialectic between conflicting opinions and paradigms, between Adam the first and Adam the second, between cosmic-minded man and origin-minded man, between the halakhic man and the lonely man of faith, between the realms of Halakhah and philosophy. This dyadic thrust is central to 83

84

85

The Maimonidean (as opposed to Heschelian) nature of this assertion is debated in section 3.4, in the discussion of the nature of God and divine perfection. This model differs from the dominant one used in Hartman’s work to represent covenantal love — the love that a husband has for his wife (as opposed to the alternative biblical model of parent-child discussed in section 3.3). Hartman, Joy and Responsibility: Israel, Modernity and the Renewal of Judaism (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Posner, 1978), 20. — 102 —

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Soloveitchik’s theory, as illustrated in Halakhic Man. Inherent within the discussion in that work is the belief that the confrontation (the title of one of his essays which deals with this topic) between competing poles leads to a synthesis inherently superior to anything envisaged prior to the confrontation.86 The most important of the dyads is the ethic of retreat and withdrawal in opposition to the ethic of victory. The Judeoreligious dimension, as depicted by Soloveitchik, contains both of these poles. And guided by the principles of tsimtsum and imitatio Dei, man is to view the ethic of retreat and withdrawal as an imitatio Dei. There are certain situations where withdrawal is demanded by the Jewish ethical system. According to Soloveitchik, these situations tend to be exactly those where the most is at stake. Hence God’s call to Abraham at the akedah to sacrifice his most prized possession, for Abraham “must know how to fight for victory and also how to suffer defeat.”87 After the movement of recoil there is a forward movement, for such is the dialectical thrust. Hence, after the biblical narrative of the akedah comes news of the birth of Isaac’s future wife, Rebecca. Abraham has withdrawn, and now he is able to march forward to victory.88 In Hartman’s thought no such dialectic is in operation. While he advocates an approach to the Jewish tradition that celebrates variant and alternate interpretations, and that champions the possibility for conflicting visions existing within one religious tradition,89 he maintains 86

87 88

89

To say that all confrontation leads to synthesis in Soloveitchik’s work would be misrepresentative. While the thesis (cognitive man) and the antithesis (homo religiosus) synthesize in the character of halakhic man in the eponymous essay, in Soloveitchik’s The Lonely Man of Faith no such synthesis is forthcoming. See David Singer and Moshe Sokol, “Joseph Soloveitchik: Lonely Man of Faith,” Modern Judaism vol. 2 (1982): 243, where Singer and Sokol describe how Soloveitchik “resolutely refuses” to bring together the Adam I and Adam II personality types: “In The Lonely Man of Faith however, majestic man and covenantal man are permanently at war with each other: there is no end to the conflict between them.” Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” 36. Moses was less fortunate, as Soloveitchik writes at the end of the essay, in a particularly powerful footnote — “Moses was less fortunate. He withdrew; he gazed upon the land from afar, but his prayers were not fulfilled. He never entered the Promised Land which was only half a mile away. He listened, though his total obedience did not result in victory. God’s will is inscrutable.” Ibid. 37 n. 21. The titles and subtitles of several of Hartman’s formative works reflect this point. See for example A Heart of Many Rooms; Conflicting Visions; “The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism”; and “Celebrating the Many Voices Within Judaism.” Hartman often attempts — 103 —

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a vision for covenantal Judaism which is steadfastly undialectical. Nowhere in Hartman’s corpus does he describe the God who lies outside of the covenantal framework. One does not gain a glimpse of what the divine-human relationship might be like if tsimtsum and covenantal adequacy are in fact misplaced notions.90 It is perhaps this feature of his thought which limits Hartman’s appeal within an Orthodox framework, since his covenantal thought is not indicative of the whole gamut of the Judaic experience and only representative of certain aspects of it. Tsimtsum and imitatio Dei, therefore, help Hartman to formulate a particular view of a covenant. The subsequent covenantal relationship is mutually binding: God binds Himself as a result of His self-limiting action in order to champion human freedom, and man is similarly bound by his acceptance of the terms of the covenant and its associated responsibilities and obligations. However, the relationship does not appear, in Hartman’s thought, to be mutually limiting. God limits Himself through tsimtsum, but man does not perform an analogous movement. Solveitchik advocates human withdrawal in the ethical arena, but Hartman does not.91 The reason for this is that such withdrawal would threaten to undermine the empowerment model. Man gains his self-dignity and feelings of worth not from any eschatological promise,92 but from covenant — from the comprehension of the full acceptance of the human condition, with all its limitations, by another, our Creator. “A person experiences joy when another moves towards him on a genuine level of acceptance […] he gains a sense of dignity, he experiences himself as one capable of assuming responsibility” 93

90

91 92

93

to incorporate into his work the rabbinic maxim of “these and these are the words of the living Torah” (BT, Eruvin 13b), which he quotes in David Hartman, Conflicting Visions: Spiritual Possibilities of Modern Israel (New York: Schocken Books, 1990), 263. David Shatz has already intimated as such. Shatz writes that “He [Hartman] does not give adequate reason, in my opinion, for denying that the ideal personality is one who experiences a range of dialectics and mindsets.” David Shatz, “From Anthropology to Metaphysics: David Hartman on Divine Intervention,” in Judaism and Modernity: The Religious Philosophy of David Hartman, ed. Jonathan Malino (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 114. This is a theme developed and analysed in greater detail in section 6.2b. In Living Hartman urges his reader to “value the covenant even without the certainty of eschatological redemption” (p. 259). Hartman’s messianism is discussed in detail in section 6.1a. Hartman, Joy and Responsibility, 17. — 104 —

-------------------------------  3.6 Eugene Borowitz and Covenantal Mutuality  -------------------------------

3.6 Eugene Borowitz and Covenantal Mutuality Borowitz’s theological outlook can be summed up in the following sentence, taken from the title and subtitle of his most important book: a theology for the postmodern Jew should centre on renewing the covenant.94 For Borowitz, covenant is crucial to Jewish theological endeavour, the central questions of which are: what exactly constitutes this unique relationship with the divine, and what are the characteristics of the relationship and how does it impact upon both parties? The first adjective used by Borowitz to describe the nature of this relationship is “bilateral.” Bilateral means relating to two parties (and is opposed to unilateral, relating to one party), and while that on its own is not a remarkable statement for a covenant, what is remarkable is Borowitz’s use of bilateral in terms of mutuality, namely that the covenant binds God in the same way as it binds the Jewish people. This, then, becomes my question: does Borowitz really use the term bilateral to signify mutuality? Are both sides of the covenant equally tied into the covenantal relationship? And if so, is this part of the empowerment model of covenant? In his 1984 essay “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” Borowitz claims that humility leads postmoderns to claim that there is a junior and a senior partner in the covenant. However, in Renewing the Covenant in 1991 he writes “were one of the partners dominant, as in Orthodoxy, we would have something like the masterslave relationship.”95 There seems to be a discrepancy here. If covenant presupposes a junior and a senior partner, how does that not lead to the dominance of the senior partner? Not only does Borowitz seem to reject outright the idea of a dominant partner — likening it to the master-slave relationship — but he also suggests that it is the default position of the Orthodox, which would decrease its appeal for his liberal readership. Is this not a contradiction? Borowitz’s response to this challenge hinges on an understanding of his view of relationships in general. Once one understands this 94 95

Peter Ochs, “Covenant,” 297. Borowitz, Renewing, 273. — 105 —

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idea, it becomes clearer how a senior partner can refrain from being a dominant one. Borowitz, in an important link with Hartman’s thought, makes use of the midrashic analogy of the covenantal relationship in terms of parent / child. In such a relationship, a (good) parent, although quite obviously being the senior partner in the relationship with the child, resists the temptation to be the dominant one in order to allow the child a certain amount of room to express his or her own sense of freedom and autonomy and to do what they feel is best in any given situation. Not granting one’s children this freedom makes the parent not only dominant, but (in Borowitz’s eyes, certainly) a bad parent. His use of the terminology of junior and senior partners in the mid-1980s is also notable. Junior and senior partners are a corrective measure used by Borowitz in order to reassert at least some level of disparity between man and God in liberal Jewish theology. This theme, the fear of the loss of God in traditonal Reform Judaism, is a recurring one in Borowitz’s thought. When the human side of the covenant overwhelms the divine, any true sense of covenantal partnership is lost—hence the need to write a book entitled Renewing the Covenant, which expresses and explicates man’s affiliation to and understanding of his covenantal partner. Humility leads Borowitz to assert the existence of a junior and a senior partner. This is a key category in his theological endeavour, as has already been outlined above.96 In his aforementioned essay “More God, More Jewish, More Humble” (an essay which I believe succinctly expresses a number of the fundamentals of his covenantal thought), Borowitz makes the case for the use of this tripartite theological schema in taking Reform Judaism into the third millennium. These three crucial tenets of his thought are all intrinsically linked, as can be seen with this example of the bilateral nature of his covenantal theology. Twentiethcentury Reform Judaism was characterised by a lack of humility toward (or an over-confidence in) man and his abilities, and this in turn demoted the role of God in the ensuing theological discussions. This demotion of God was, unsurprisingly, distinctly un-Jewish. Thus a link is made: more humility will lead to more God, and this promotion of 96

See chapter 2, notes 38-40, and the main body of the text to which those notes refer. — 106 —

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the divine will bring (or return) the Reform movement closer to an authentic “Jewish” position, and so make it more Jewish. Moreover, the development of the categories of senior and junior partners with reference to God and the Jewish people respectively not only redresses the balance as outlined above but also promotes God above the human partner, thus reaffirming a more traditional outlook best exemplified by the parent-child analogy of traditional biblical and midrashic literature. This helps to explain why Borowitz refers to covenant as his “old-new term,”97 incorporating aspects of its traditional biblical meaning along with more contemporary, post-modern elements. Let us now return to the apparent difficulty within Borowitz’s covenantal framework: if covenant presupposes a senior and a junior partner, how does that not lead to the dominance of the senior partner?98 This problem of seniority without dominance can be further highlighted with reference to speech. Following a Buberian model, Borowitz writes that only the human partner in the covenantal relationship is able to speak.99 God does not speak at all. In what sense is God senior if only the junior partner is able to speak? One could mount a strong argument for equating speech with seniority, so if only one of the partners were 97

98

99

Borowitz, “Autonomous Self and the Commanding Community,” 51. This lesser-known article, written in 1984, contains the original old-new statement, which was reiterated seven years later in Renewing, 223. Old-new is a motif in Borowitz’s writings. He uses the term earlier in Renewing in discussing post-Holocaust theologians’ religious doubts (p. 33), as well as the expression “new / old Jewish voice” at the very end of The Talmud’s Theological Language Game (p. 193) to describe the quasi-halakhic theorising of this modern generation. Laura Levitt refers to Borowitz’s “old-new approach to the covenant,” in “Covenant or Contract? Marriage as Theology,” Cross Currents 48:2 (Summer 1998): 178. Borowitz’s theological endeavour comprises both old and new elements, and he sees aspects of his work as oscillating between the two, hence the use of the hyphen or forward slash for old-new or old/new. Borowitz does not agree with my reading of him, and thinks that my interpretation of his terminology junior and senior partner, and particularly my concern about seniority and dominance, is misplaced. See Borowitz’s “Response to the Questions” in “Three Presents for Gene,” CCAR Journal 56:4 (Fall 2009): 27-29. He writes “I do not find that in North American practice and usage ‘senior’ means ‘dominant’ as contrasted to ‘having a status or power that allows for a certain measure of authority’” (p. 28). In A New Jewish Theology in the Making, Borowitz acknowledges the Buberian roots of this concept. According to Buber’s conception of revelation, God “gives no words, but only his presence” (p. 134). I discuss the notion of speech vis-à-vis Borowitz’s understanding of revelation again, in more detail, in section 5.1. — 107 —

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able to speak, it would most likely be the senior partner. However, one could also envision situations, particularly in parent-child or teacherpupil relationships, where not speaking would be indicative of one’s superiority. The child-pupil may speak all they like, but a particular look or a flick of the wrist from the parent or teacher would dwarf all the words spoken by the child-pupil. So the attribute of speech can be suggested as a possible remedy to this problem of seniority without dominance. However, it fails as a solution to the problem because it remains unclear whether it is speech or lack of speech which is better suited to a senior partner in a relationship. The answer would depend very much upon the nature of the relationship in question, and because Borowitz utilises several different metaphors for understanding the covenantal relationship, this problematic remains unresolved. Up until this point I have highlighted the existence of senior and junior partners in Borowitz’s covenantal thought. Furthermore, upon pointing out that God is clearly the senior partner in Borowitz’s conception, I have asked how such seniority cannot but lead to dominance, a trademark (and failing) of the Orthodox position, according to Borowitz. Furthermore, I asked how the senior-junior axis is affected by the issue of speech, since only the human side of the partnership speaks. While speech has thus far been used to problematise seniority in my understanding of Borowitz (because God does not speak) it could perhaps be used more forcefully to explain his notion of non-dominance. In order not to allow the senior partner to dwarf the junior one, the gift of speech is granted only to the junior partner. This guarantees the nondominance of the senior partner, which is such a crucial factor in the liberal theology of Eugene Borowitz. Having established the relative weights and merits attributed to each side of the covenantal partnership, one now has to analyse exactly what that partnership consists of. As I have already pointed out in the introductory chapter, there exist many alternative covenant models stretching from legal codes and contractual agreements to forms of ancient Near-Eastern treaties and preferential relationships with minimal associated stipulations. Borowitz clearly states what type of model he adopts for covenant: “[Covenant is] now less a contract spelt — 108 —

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out from on high than a loving effort to live in reciprocal respect.”100 Borowitz wants to remove the contractual from the covenantal. According to the Orthodox framework, the contractual aspects of the covenant are the covenantal stipulations, namely the Written and Oral Torah. These stipulations have now taken a concrete form in the Halakhah. Therefore a non-contractual covenantal partnership from a Reform thinker is unsurprising in and of itself. But what exactly is a non-contractual covenant? What forms the basis of such a partnership if not the stipulations? In the quotation above, Borowitz states that it is “a loving effort to live in reciprocal respect” but, aside from the requisites of love and respect highlighted, that is a very vague attempt at a definition. What form do the love and respect take? The answer is that for Borowitz the partnership becomes less contractual and more relational. It is a relationship wherein love and respect are demanded. Upon closer inspection, one realises that the apparent vagueness highlighted in this approach is more intimately connected to the nature of the relationship than first expected, and so not accidental. Borowitz proposes an alternative understanding of revelation, one in which God makes known something other than the Halakhah. This understanding of revelation is similarly, and deliberately, vague: “What then, does God ‘reveal’ if not a detailed teaching that legend says has been kept in Heaven since before Creation? God now makes known just what we make known in a relationship: self or, more familiarly, presence.”101 It is God’s Presence which He makes known. This is what Borowitz refers to as unmediated knowing,102 a concept which undoubtedly owes much to Martin Buber’s hugely influential I and Thou, discussed in section 4.6 below. Borowitz’s understanding of revelation is that “God lets Himself be known the way persons are known.”103 And through a revealing of His presence, the human covenantal partner feels a sense of duty and obligation. So despite the relational (and non-contractual) nature of Borowitz’s covenant, the human partner is still duty bound. This understanding of

100 101 102 103

Borowitz, Renewing, 223. Ibid. 274. Ibid. 274, and elsewhere. Borowitz, A Layman’s Introduction to Religious Existentialism, 178. — 109 —

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covenantal relationship transforms the notion of autonomy by creating command without heteronomy. God issues commands, but those commands are non-specific (as they would have to be in a non-verbal communication), and this is Borowitz’s way of ensuring that revelation does not dwarf human autonomy in covenant — God does not tell you exactly what to do, and does not demand that you do certain specific actions if those actions go against your moral sensibilities.

3.7 Conclusions The discussion of command without heteronomy forms the basis of the next two chapters on autonomy and on ethics and law. The delicate balance between authority and autonomy within the Jewish philosophical tradition is examined, and Hartman and Borowitz’s views on the subject are analysed. Both protagonists’ views on this subject are formed by their respective interpretations of empowerment and the importance of revelation at Sinai, which have been discussed in this chapter. As has been shown, an intense dialogue with Jewish traditions from the Bible to Irving Greenberg has led to a central thesis of empowerment within the covenantal thought of both Hartman and Borowitz. This empowerment thesis is so important because of the issue of agency, for empowerment heightens the capacity for responsibility for the human agent. A heightened level of human responsibility is crucial to the relationship as it is understood by both Hartman and Borowitz. The crux of the issue is the link between empowerment and responsibility. Here we see that according to these thinkers, man is empowered to take responsibility for the future continuation of the covenant.

— 110 —

Chapter Four Contemporary Jewish Philosophy’s Covenantal Framework : The Autonomous Thrust in Judaism*

------------------------------------------------------------------------  Imitatio Dei ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The previous chapter highlighted the empowerment model within covenantal thought. This movement to empowerment develops from an engagement with many diverse Jewish traditions. It also leads to engagement with non-Jewish traditions and themes, the most important of which is autonomy, the subject of the present chapter. The link between autonomy and empowerment is critical. Armed with a knowledge of covenantal empowerment, with its accompanying feelings of adequacy and self-worth, the covenanted individual will feel justified in his or her turn to autonomy. Put simply, the divine covenantal partner is more likely to accept or encourage autonomous decision-making from His human covenantal partner within an empowered, mutual covenantal framework than within an autocratic suzerainty treaty. Responsibility is the central factor in the movement from empowerment to autonomy, for the empowerment model leads to heightened human responsibility, and that responsibility manifests itself (through human decision-making) entirely in terms of autonomy. The chapter begins with the work of Immanuel Kant, whose work on autonomy and ethics has fascinated Jewish scholars from the time *

The structure of this chapter is heavily influenced by Kenneth Seeskin’s book Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), henceforth Autonomy. It was upon reading Seeskin’s book that I first made the decision to order the material in this chapter in the way that I present it here — beginning with Kant and then comparing his contribution to existing philosophical models in the Jewish tradition, as well as to thinkers who succeeded him. I also made a conscious decision to place chapter three (on the traditional sources and context of covenantal thought) before section 4.1 on Kant, in order to emphasise that I am discussing a problem — the delicate interplay between authority and autonomy within Jewish thought — which has its origins in the Jewish tradition significantly prior to Kant’s theorising in the eighteenth century. — 113 —

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of the Emancipation, and whose pervasive influence upon contemporary Jewish theology justifies his position at the beginning of this chapter. I then go on to look at three classic Jewish sources which discuss the issues of autonomy and heteronomy in Judaism before Kant. These sources are biblical, rabbinic, and Maimonidean literature, and they prove that Judaism had its own traditions for formulating these problems and dealing with them, and that the Kantian formulation of autonomy is not the only formulation available to the contemporary scholar. It is important to point out that, unlike in the previous chapter, here I am not looking at biblical and rabbinic sources per se, but rather at the specifically philosophical elements of those sources in order to provide a contrast to the work of Kant and the western philosophical tradition.

4.1 Immanuel Kant It may seem odd to start a chapter on contemporary Jewish philosophy’s understanding of autonomy with the work of Immanuel Kant (who was neither Jewish nor overly interested in Judaism) but, as Kenneth Seeskin writes, “no philosopher in modern times had as profound an effect on Jewish self-understanding as Immanuel Kant.”1 Kant’s primary legacy to the Western philosophical tradition is his unwavering insistence on autonomy occupying the central place in moral and ethical life. The exact definition of autonomy, and its impact on the religious life, has fascinated Jewish scholars since Emancipation, and it is this subject which will dominate the opening discussion in this chapter. In the opening sentence of his essay “What is Enlightenment,” Kant tells us that it is “man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage,” where tutelage is defined as “man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.”2 Post-Enlightenment thought, therefore, is characterised by the maxim “Think for yourself.” In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant describes autonomy in the following way: “The will is not merely subject to the law but subject 1

2

Kenneth Seeskin, “Jewish neo-Kantianism: Hermann Cohen,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 786. Seeskin, Autonomy, 1. — 114 —

----------------------------------------------------------------   4.1 Immanuel Kant ----------------------------------------------------------------

to it in such a way that it must be viewed as also giving the law to itself and just because of this as first subject of the law (of which it can regard itself as the author).”3 This famous definition of autonomy outlines the supremacy of the human will in the metaphysics of morals: one must be able to regard oneself as the author of any moral law. Kant insisted that individual moral agents had all the tools they required both to know what morality requires of them, and to act on it. Morality, according to Kant, was both universal and absolute. A superficial glance at Kant’s moral theory seems to preclude the possibility of religious belief, for it appears that he negates the possibility of divine command. How can the individual moral agent regard himself as the author of the moral law if it was revealed to him by God? Seeskin addresses this problem in Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy: He does not deny that God issues commands nor does he object to the idea of some form of divine revelation. His point is that while all duties may be seen as divine commands, the fact that something is a divine command is not a sufficient reason for regarding it as a duty. The only reason for regarding it as a duty is that reason can establish its necessity a priori. This is another way of saying that God’s commands are not unique to God nor are they magically validated by God.4

Seeskin here opens up the discussion of Kantian moral philosophy to incorporate what has been described as the natural law debate. One can believe that God issued all the commands found in the Torah (in fact, Kant did believe in a Christian conception of God), but that fact is not what gives specific commands their legitimacy. In other words, the fact that God commanded something is not sufficient reason for regarding that thing as a moral duty. Moral duties can only come from one’s own reason (“the only reason for regarding it as a duty is that reason can establish its necessity a priori”). This does not preclude divine revelation per se, but it does deny that the divine revelation necessarily has a binding force on the moral subjects it seeks to instruct. The content of the law, not its origin, is what is of primary importance, and what determines its validity. 3

4

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4:431, 39. Seeskin, Autonomy, 12, original emphasis. — 115 —

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This has huge ramifications for the divine-human relationship. In other words, “even if God’s voice could be revealed to all humanity simultaneously, it will still not impose a moral duty because the human being would first have to assure him or herself that it was God speaking rather than a pretender.”5 Considering that the only way to assure one’s self that the voice is God’s is to examine the content of the law, the crucial point remains that it is the content of the law which determines its legitimacy, and that determining factor is considered by the individual moral agent upon entirely moral grounds. To take the most famous biblical example, consider the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. Allowing this principle to guide him, Kant argues that the correct response to the heavenly voice is as follows: “That I ought not to kill my son is quite certain. But that you, this apparition, are God — of that I am not certain, and never can be, not even if this voice rings down to me from (visible) heaven.”6 Clearly, this is not the response of the biblical Abraham in Genesis 22.7 However, Abraham does famously question the divine decree at Sodom in Genesis 18, and (more importantly for the present discussion) Moses is similarly argumentative on more than one occasion: While it is true that Moses answers God at the burning bush with the characteristic phrase “Here I am” (Exodus 3:4), anyone who interprets this response as a willingness to serve at the drop of a hat has gone well beyond the text. In fact Moses puts up every conceivable form of opposition to his call and eventually provokes God’s anger. More important for our purposes are the episodes where Moses objects to God’s decision to destroy the people as a punishment for disobedience.8 5 6

7

8

Ibid. 13. Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary Gregor (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), 115. The rabbis did toy with this type of response in a number of provocative midrashim about events surrounding the akedah. See for example Genesis Rabbah 56:8 where Abraham complains about the oscillating nature of the divine will. The rabbinic provocation is heightened in their interpretations of the conclusion of this biblical episode, with a number of midrashic strands claiming that Isaac was reduced to ashes on Mount Moriah. See for example Tanhuma Vayera 23, Midrash Hagadol to Gen. 22:19, and (for a further analysis of this topic) Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice, trans. Judah Goldin (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993), especially 38-44. Seeskin, Autonomy, 22-3. — 116 —

---------------------------------------------------------------  4.2 Biblical Sources ---------------------------------------------------------------

These biblical episodes are noteworthy. Moses’ first successful plea to save the Jewish people (Exod. 32:11-14) is based upon two distinct arguments: first, that the Egyptians will have justification for thinking ill of God’s intentions; and, second, that God will break His own promise to the patriarchs. In his second successful plea (Num. 14:1319), the potential for God to break His own promise is reiterated: both passages “clearly assume that promise breaking is as wrong in heaven as it is on earth.”9 Put more simply, these episodes of Moses’ successful bargaining with God exemplify the Kantian position that the content of a law determines its legitimacy, not its authorship. In philosophical terms, they also prove that there are independent standards of right and wrong which even God is bound to, and of which He is not the sole arbiter. This, as previously mentioned, is sometimes referred to as a natural law, that is, a law which exists irrespective of God and which man can come to know without the need for divine revelation.

4.2 Biblical Sources As already indicated by the examples offered above of both Abraham and Moses, the bible contains several sources which raise the issue of autonomy as opposed to heteronomy. In particular, the notion of natural law is offered by numerous commentators as one possible interpretation of several key passages in Genesis and Exodus. The natural law argument has been hotly debated within Jewish studies for over two decades.10 It will suffice here to outline just some of the more persuasive examples of the existence of some sort of natural law in the Jewish tradition, as offered by proponents of these theories. 9 10

Ibid. 23. For an introduction to this topic in Jewish studies see the following: David Novak, “Natural Law, Halakhah, and the Covenant,” Jewish Law Annual 7 (1988): 43-67; Avi Sagi, “Natural Law and Halakha — A Critical Analysis,” Jewish Law Annual 13 (2000): 149-195; J David Bleich, “Judaism and Natural Law,” Jewish Law Annual 7 (1988): 5-42; Aharon Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognise an Ethic Independent of Halakha?” in Contemporary Jewish Ethics, ed. Menachem Kellner (New York: HPC, 1988), 102-123; and Louis Jacobs, “The Relationship Between Religion and Ethics in Jewish Thought,” in idem., 41-57. I discuss this topic with specific reference to Eugene Borowitz in section 5.3. — 117 —

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Most, if not all, of these examples occur in the biblical book of Genesis, which canonically predates Sinaitic revelation, and therefore the examples therein represent a level of understanding of morality, or right and wrong, which these biblical characters did not receive from God at Mount Sinai. The culpability of Cain (Gen. 4:4-16) is one example11 — how did he know that the act he committed was wrong when the prohibition against murder had not been articulated to him (or indeed to any man) yet? The punishment for the violence committed in Noah’s generation, which brought about the Flood, is understood in a similar way. Nahmanides writes that “Scripture, however, did not mention the prohibition concerning them [the acts of violence] clearly […] because this is a reasoned concept and does not require the Torah to prohibit it.”12 He goes on to reiterate this point, stating that “the prohibition against violence is a rational commandment, there being no need for a prophet to admonish them against it.”13 Nahmanides here explicitly argues for the existence of an autonomous ethical system which runs independently of either Torah law or divine revelation, and which Jews can draw upon to understand either reasoned concepts or rational commandments, neither of which will necessarily be revealed specifically by God. He is claiming that God does not need to reveal these rational precepts because man could work them out for himself, either appealing to an external independent source (a kind of natural law), or to an internal moral intuition.14 Nahmanides is echoing a famous statement in the Talmud, which interprets Leviticus 18:415 as dealing with commandments which “if they were not written, they should by right have been written,” referring to the prohibitions 11

12 13 14

15

Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken, 1970), 31: “the culpability of Cain rests on an unexpressed assumption of the existence of a moral law operative from the beginning of time.” Nahmanides’ commentary to Gen. 6:2. Nahmanides’ commentary to Gen. 6:13. See Novak, “Natural Law,” 48, where he quotes both of these Nahmanides sources in his criticism of Marvin Fox. He writes: “In denying a place for a natural law theory in Judaism, Fox has ignored evidence to the contrary in Saadyah, R. Judah Halevi, Nahmanides, and R. Joseph Albo.” BT, Yoma 67b. Leviticus 18:4 reads: “Mine ordinances shall ye do, and My statutes shall ye keep, to walk therein.” — 118 —

---------------------------------------------------------------  4.2 Biblical Sources ---------------------------------------------------------------

of idolatry, immorality, bloodshed, robbery and blasphemy.16 Jackson labels this “the major Talmudic passage which may serve as a source for a theory of natural law.”17 The important question here is not whether or not these cited examples offer instances of natural law in Judaism. The term natural law is largely unhelpful for the present discussion, and has in any case been undermined by recent scholars in favour of other terms.18 What is important is whether these examples constitute an independent moral thrust within Judaism  —  some kind of autonomous ethical system unrelated to divine revelation. And if so, does this autonomous ethical system come from within, or without? It seems evidently clear that the above sources are indicative of an autonomous ethical thrust which exists within the Jewish tradition. This autonomous ethical thrust can be located in many of the major sources, and it predates Sinaitic revelation. It is as old as (if not older than) covenant itself. Autonomy, therefore, did not originate in the Jewish tradition with Immanuel Kant and Enlightenment thought. It is a legitimate and longstanding thrust within the tradition, in evidence in biblical and rabbinic sources, in midrashic sources, in medieval Jewish thought, and in traditional biblical exegesis. The more pertinent question then becomes not whether or not the autonomous ethic exists, but what its remit is? How much control does it have? What happens when the autonomous ethic comes into conflict with the revealed law? Which triumphs, and how does the individual moral agent go about weighing up the respective merits of the two in light of their potential to conflict with one another? These questions lead to the very crux of the covenantal discussion. The link between this topic and that of covenant has already been made by Kenneth Seeskin. Returning to the examples of Abraham and Moses arguing with God, he argues that this confirms the nature of the relationship which a human has with God: “Without the ability to say 16

17 18

See Bernard Jackson, “Secular Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Jewish Law,” Jewish Law Annual 6 (1987): 7. Ibid. 7. See ibid. 7, for the difficulty of defining natural law, and Avi Sagi, “Natural Law and Halakha — A Critical Analysis,” 150ff, for a critique of its common usage in Jewish philosophical literature. — 119 —

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no, humans would be an extension of God but could never be partners with God.”19 Central to a description of covenant as partnership is an understanding that man freely accepted the yoke of covenant upon himself, rather than had it thrust upon him. “The clear implication is that unless the people accept the law and enter a partnership with God, there is a sense in which God will have failed.”20 In other words, it is somehow better for God to partner humanity in covenant, rather than for Him to rule them in covenant. If this is the case, then the initial entrance into covenantal partnership needs to mirror that understanding. David Novak addresses this question on several occasions in his work. He asks why the Jews chose to covenant with God21 and offers three possible answers: fear of immediate consequences (e.g., impending death, according to the prevalent Midrash in BT, Shabbat 88a); total caprice (i.e. on a whim, without reason); or a faith in divine goodness and wisdom, to which Novak clearly prescribes. One is bound to find a persuasive answer to this question, says Novak, because otherwise the ancient charge of Jewish capriciousness in accepting the covenant would be valid. If the third option is true, as Novak posits, then where does Jewish faith in divine goodness come from? What tools do the Jewish people use to reach this decision? Novak states that “the Jews experienced God as good and thus judged it right to respond to His commandments.”22 Similarly, in the aggadic passage which describes the Jewish people accepting the Torah after all the nations of the world has declined it, the underlying assumption is that the rabbinic text “implies prior standards of right and wrong which enable the Jewish people to accept the Torah rationally.”23 Central to Novak’s point here is that caprice has “no binding moral force.”24 The Jewish people could only be bound in covenant at Sinai by 19 20

21 22 23 24

Seeskin, Autonomy, 25. Ibid. 44. As a prooftext Seeskin quotes from Midrash Rabbah to Psalms (123:1): “You are my witness, says the Lord, and I am God. That is, when you are my witnesses, I am God, and when you are not My witnesses, I am, as it were, not God.” Abraham Joshua Heschel quotes a variant of the same aggadah, from Pesikta de Rav Kahana 12:6, in Heavenly Torah 110. See sections 3.4 and 7.3b on this idea, and in particular chapter 7, note 53. Novak, “Natural Law,” 58. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. See chapter 1, note 16 on this midrash. Ibid. 64. — 120 —

---------------------------------------------------------------  4.2 Biblical Sources ---------------------------------------------------------------

a rational, rather than a blind, choice, and “rational choice presupposes intelligent judgment.”25 This intelligent judgment (before the giving of the law) itself presupposes the existence of a criterion of right and wrong by which the people could judge acceptance of God’s Torah as right and subsequently receive merit for making the correct choice. The acknowledgment that the people possessed the knowledge to make this choice is, as Novak argues, an unavoidable precondition of a covenant. Therefore, the existence and legitimacy of the covenant itself rests on a prior (autonomous) knowledge-base available to the human covenantal partner, and distinct from Torah law. Seeskin identifies this so-called knowledge-base as conscience: “the covenant assumes, in other words, that everyone at Sinai has a conscience.”26 This understanding of covenant creates a level playing field, as it were, in that it equates God and man as equal partners. It doesn’t matter (from a moral standpoint) that God has vastly superior power and intelligence.27 What matters is that “the laws are such that any rational person would accept them as an expression of his or her own will. In Kantian terms, each of us could regard him- or herself as their author.”28 The sole reason why the Torah emphasises human consent is because it wants to make explicit that man participates in the covenant as a moral agent rather than as a slave. And so Seeskin argues that “rather than authorship the Bible presents the idea of appropriation under the guise of partnership.”29 And so I return to the question of whether autonomy exists in Judaism. If autonomy means being one’s own master and accepting no authority beyond oneself, then no. But if the definition of autonomy is broader than this, in light of the Kantian claim that a free will and a will under law are identical,30 the issue becomes less clear. To quote Seeskin once again, “What I am arguing is that the Biblical narrative revolves around freedom, rationality, and the moral integrity of God, which is to say themes that contributed to the doctrine of autonomy when it was finally articulated […] 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ibid. 58. Seeskin, Autonomy, 48. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 50. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:447, 53. — 121 —

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To my way of thinking, that is not surprising. Given the trajectory on which the Bible puts us, the problem of autonomy is inevitable.”31 The Torah does not present autonomy as an explicit doctrine. However, as has been shown in the examples above, the central themes of the doctrine of autonomy are present in the biblical narrative, and indeed are picked up and expanded upon in much of the subsequent rabbinic, medieval, and modern literature.

4.3 Rabbinic Literature According to the biblical text, future divine revelation is implicitly limited. “Were God to issue additional commandments, on the basis of Leviticus 27:34 and Deuteronomy 13:1, we would be justified in ignoring them.”32 It appears at first glance difficult to reconcile that opinion with the existence of the corpus of rabbinic literature, which maintains that the rabbis’ rulings constituted not changes to the original revelation, but glosses and explanations of that original revelation — elaborating upon enigmatic passages and elucidating the implications of certain texts. And so it states in more than one talmudic source that “even that which an old student finally teaches in front of his master has already been said to Moses at Sinai.”33 This gives the rabbis a considerable remit, or what has been referred to as “an interpretive licence no modern scholar would dream of claiming.”34 This interpretive licence stretches to drastic reinterpretation of a biblical text, such that the rabbinic interpretation differs radically from the plain meaning of the text (e.g., an eye for an eye being taken to mean monetary compensation35), and to major expansion of a biblical text, such that the rabbis themselves could define the laws of the Sabbath as “like mountains hanging by a hair, for they are little Scripture but many laws.”36 31 32

33 34 35 36

Ibid. 64. Seeskin, Autonomy, 66. See also Maimonides, MT, Laws Concerning the Fundamentals of the Torah, 9:1. BT, Berakhot 5a. Seeskin, Autonomy, 69. BT, Bava Kamma 83b, interpreting Exodus 21:23. Mishnah, Hagigah, 1:8. Similar to the Sabbath laws are the laws of kashrut and of tefillin, both prime examples of lengthy rabbinic instructions based on minimal biblical references. — 122 —

-----------------------------------------------------------   4.3 Rabbinic Literature -----------------------------------------------------------

This is important to the present discussion for the following reason: the scripture clearly states that the revelation given to Moses at Sinai is final in the sense that no one, including God, can add or subtract anything from it. But, “under the aegis of the oral Torah,” the rabbis constructed a massive body of laws and decrees “promulgated without textual support.”37 This constitutes a freedom of interpretation unparalleled in other religious traditions. Scholars argue that it also signifies an addition to divine revelation (which Sinaitic revelation itself prohibits). Furthermore, it poses difficult questions about the role of divine authority in this new system of revelation and (expansive) rabbinic interpretation. Put more simply, if rabbinic literature is not to be seen as an addition to Mosaic revelation, then how is it to be properly understood, and what is the complex relationship between the two? Moreover, if rabbinic law does constitute some kind of expansion of revelation, then does that not marginalise divine authority, since God seems to be prohibited from enacting future revelation while man does not seem to be subject to the same prohibition? The oft-quoted proof-text for this line of argument is BT, Bava Metzia 59b and the sages’ argument over the ritual status of the Aknai oven (see section 3.1e above). The text audaciously suggests that all traces of divine involvement have been replaced by rational argument, and that appealing to God for help in legal proceedings is no longer an option open to man. One could certainly argue that such a stance limits divine authority, because God is hampered from any future involvement in the interpretation and clarification of revelation. However, this appears to be a consequence of entering into a covenant with a human partner and pledging to uphold the dignity of that human partner. Therefore, despite beginning from a heteronomous standpoint — the Torah text is the product of external revelation, expressing the direct will of God — the rabbis established themselves as arbiters of the law, “and henceforth some decrees were justified not on the basis of textual exegesis but on rabbinic authority alone.”38 This has profound ramifications for the discussion of autonomy within Judaism: 37 38

Seeskin, Autonomy, 79. Ibid. 85. — 123 —

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One hesitates to say that the Rabbis became a law to themselves because they would never accept that formulation. Recall that the reason for making enactments and decrees is that they are needed to safeguard the original revelation given to Moses. The Rabbis accepted external revelation, which is the crux of heteronomy, but limited it to Sinai. While it is true that the written Torah is not subject to change, unlike a book produced by a human author, it is an obscure text containing a wealth of knowledge that can only be uncovered by using exegetical methods discovered by or passed on to them.39

The rabbis maintain a heteronomous view about the origin of the law, but they claimed “a fair measure of autonomy” when it comes to interpreting it.40 And although this would not be considered autonomy in a strict Kantian sense, it is a kind of autonomy nonetheless. Kant, in fact, provides an important critique of the rabbinic position outlined above. How does one know, based on this legal system, that one is following the words (and intentions) of God, rather than of those who claim to speak on His behalf but who have actually misinterpreted His message? How can the religious believer be sure that they are hearing the voice of God (especially when that voice is ignored when it does speak, as in the Bava Metzia example above)? Kant’s answer, which maintains considerable appeal, is that one looks not at the source of the law but at its content. The rabbis may have a generous licence to interpret the law, but the authority of that law comes neither from its divine source nor its rabbinic extrapolation, but rather from its content. In conclusion, there is a kind of autonomy in rabbinic Judaism, but this autonomy is firmly rooted in the divine authority of Sinaitic revelation. And if one believes that God decreed and subsequently encouraged the rabbinic endeavour, then such autonomy as exists within the system is there by divine fiat. Hartman himself articulates the rabbinic position well when he writes that “the autonomy of rabbinic Judaism was expressed within a framework of divine authority rooted in the revelation at Sinai,”41 thus acknowledging the autonomous nature of rabbinic interpretation while also accepting the divine authority which underpins it. 39 40 41

Ibid. 87. Ibid. 87. Hartman, Living, 40. — 124 —

------------------------  4.4 Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers  ------------------------

The key notion within rabbinic literature is interpretation. Interpretation develops as an inherent part of the authentic Jewish tradition during the rabbinic era. However, the rabbis speak about interpretation without viewing it as a gate for individual, arbitrary approaches. Interpretation is used as a tool with the expressed intention of determining the law. So what makes the interpretation acceptable within the rabbinic context is that it has to be validated within strict existing structures of transmission. This is important to point out because interpretation as understood in terms of rabbinic literature is not akin to the modern definition of interpretation, which suggests a greater level of individuality than the rabbis would permit. Rabbinic interpretation, while exhibiting autonomous characteristics, is actually relatively conservative in that the interpretation only occurs within the frameworks and structures already in place.

4.4 Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers42 Maimonides, writing in the twelfth century in Egypt,43 defined the parameters for the discipline of Jewish philosophy. Maimonides and his family were beneficiaries of a golden age for the Jewish community living under Muslim rule at that time. In particular, knowledge of secular studies (especially Greek philosophy) was commonplace, and 42

43

Medieval Jewish philosophy is a loaded term, evoking a Western, Christian context that is alien to almost every philosopher considered one of its number. On the problems of definition and medieval Jewish philosophy, see Alexander Broadie, “The Nature of Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 83-92, and also Daniel Rynhold, An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (London and New York: I B Tauris, 2009), especially “Introduction: What is Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” 1-25. A surprising amount of Maimonides’ biographical information is extant for a scholar who lived in the twelfth century, as a result of the considerable findings in the Cairo Genizah by Cambridge University professors. He was born in Cordova, then a major seat of Islamic learning, but fled Spain with his family at a relatively young age to escape a puritanical Muslim sect known as the Almohads. He lived briefly in Fez in Morocco before travelling and eventually settling in Fustat (Old Cairo) in Egypt, where he wrote both the Guide for the Perplexed and the Mishneh Torah. For a more detailed bibliography see Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader, 1-11. — 125 —

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Maimonides best encapsulates the attempts to synthesise Aristotelian metaphysics with traditional Judaism that typifies medieval Jewish philosophy. Julius Guttman writes in the opening paragraph of his Philosophies of Judaism that “the Jewish people did not begin to philosophise because of an irresistible urge to do so. They received philosophy from outside sources, and the history of Jewish philosophy is a history of the successive absorptions of foreign ideas which were then transformed and adapted according to specific Jewish points of view.”44 Maimonides’ absorption of Aristotle is one of the clearest examples of Guttman’s point. At the core of Maimonides’ philosophy is his somewhat revolutionary attempt to overturn the hierarchy of Judaism to prioritise belief over action.45 Rabbinic Judaism, exemplified by the interpretation and emphasis of na’aseh venishma,46 seems to subordinate belief to action, so pre-Maimonidean Judaism was predominantly an orthopraxy rather than an orthodoxy. This predominance of belief, or dogma, in Maimonides’ worldview, has an impact upon autonomy. Maimonides pursues what Seeskin describes as “a limited form of autonomy.”47 This is because correctly held beliefs are, for Maimonides, the product of rational thought. In a telling passage in the Guide for the Perplexed, he clearly states that people whose opinions are formed by demonstration are closer to God than those whose opinions are based on traditional authority (such as a rabbi’s ruling).48 For Maimonides, 44

45

46

47 48

Julius Guttman, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig, trans. David W. Silverman (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), 3. For an in-depth description of this attempt, see Menachem Kellner, Must a Jew Believe Anything? (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation, 1999), Appendix 1. See also Marc Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation, 2004), and especially Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation, 2004), 39. Exodus 24:7, usually translated as “We will do and we will understand,” is often interpreted to mean that the doing comes before the understanding. One must do even if one does not fully understand, in the hope that the repeated action will lead to increased understanding. Seeskin, Autonomy, 91. Guide 3:51, and the oft-quoted parable of the palace. — 126 —

------------------------  4.4 Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers  ------------------------

love of God is the goal of worship, and such love as one has for God will be a direct expression of one’s knowledge of Him. Worship therefore becomes about the acquisition of knowledge for Maimonides, and the attainment of intellectual perfection is both a key aspect of the Guide and a prerequisite for prophecy.49 Kenneth Seeskin rightly points out the similarity here between Maimonides and Kant. In Maimonides, “as in Kant, rational activity is an end in itself.”50 “As I understand Maimonides,” writes Kellner, “the only criterion he stipulates for inclusion in the world to come is intellectual perfection.”51 As Kellner goes on to state, one must first achieve moral perfection, and moral perfection is most effectively achieved by performing the commandments. However, the possibility exists (at least in principle) of the achievement of a high level of intellectual perfection without the performance of the commandments. Therefore, fulfilment of the commandments is far from submission to the will of God, according to Maimonides. In particular, performing commandments requires the complete opposite of accepting something without understanding it. This places Maimonides within a camp which advocates at least a limited form of autonomy. Clearly the Maimonidean understanding of the role of reason in determining the law (unlike that of either Kant or Descartes) is not spontaneous, but it is certainly autonomous in part, because it “recognises the possibility that a person with extraordinary accomplishments can understand the wisdom inherent in the law and will it for its own sake. He [Maimonides] also recognises that the process of coming to this knowledge takes one beyond appeals to authority and involves the use of reason.”52 Undoubtedly there are aspects of Maimonides’ view which Kant would take considerable issue with — not least the absence of spontaneity and the inability of the multitude to make use of their rational faculties (which for Maimonides remains the privilege of the intellectual elite) — but nonetheless the supremacy of reason over the

49 50 51 52

See MT, Laws Concerning Repentance, 10:6. Seeskin, Autonomy 101. Kellner, Must a Jew, 5. Seeskin, Autonomy, 112. — 127 —

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blind faith of following traditional authority ensures Maimonides’ place at the centre of the discussion of autonomy within Judaism. Maimonides differs here from the rabbinic examples offered above because autonomy, according to his understanding of it, is not so much about interpretation as it is about reason and cognition. Maimonides is speaking about processes which do not need validation within a particular chain of transmission or by particular institutions, and this essentially frees the autonomy from the shackles of authority within which it is contained by the rabbis. In the sections which follow below, I look at modern attempts to integrate an autonomous thrust within a Jewish philosophical framework, and with each thinker considered — Mendelssohn, Cohen, Buber — I will attempt to link back to these two alternative models for integrating autonomy into Judaism: through interpretation (the rabbinic way) or via reason and cognition (the Maimonidean way).

4.5 The Emergence of Modernity One could argue that Baruch Spinoza signals the rise of modernity in Jewish thought and that his work merits discussion here. He is occasionally described as the first Enlightened Jewish thinker. However, as Steven Nadler points out, Spinoza “occupies a somewhat awkward position in the historiography of Jewish philosophy […] presented either as the culmination of the Jewish medieval rationalist tradition (especially Maimonides and Gersonides) or as the father of modern Jewish thought.”53 Despite Spinoza’s similarities to both Maimonides and Kant,54 he is considered by many to have been too marginal within Judaism to be truly influential.55 53

54

55

Steven Nadler, “Baruch Spinoza and the Naturalization of Judaism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy, ed. Michael Morgan and Peter Eli Gordon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 14. Spinoza obviously predated Immanuel Kant. Julius Guttmann writes that “Nowhere can a clearer agreement with Spinoza be found than in Kant’s view of Judaism, which strikes the reader as if it were a brief summary of Spinoza’s theory.” Guttmann, “Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem and Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” in Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German Jewish Scholarship, ed. Alfred Jospe (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 362. Guttmann argues that Spinoza’s philosophy falls outside of the domain of Jewish — 128 —

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It was, however, “only a matter of time before the Enlightenment produced a thinker who remained within the tradition but still defended freedom of conscience.”56 That thinker was Moses Mendelssohn.57 Aside from his landmark commentary and translation of parts of the Bible, his main engagement with Judaism occurs in Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism.58 The book is split into two parts, which deal (as the title suggests) with religious power (part one) and with Judaism (part two). Mendelssohn attempts to prove that there is no contradiction between his continued rejection of religious power and his continued adherence to Judaism.59 In so doing, he argues against the power of either religion or state to coerce its congregants or citizens, and presents a strong case for the liberty of conscience. The book has strong political undertones, as it predates the French Revolution and the beginnings of emancipation for the Jewish communities of Western Europe,60 and the author’s advocacy of “liberty of conscience, unrestricted toleration, and civic equality irrespective of creed” can best be understand within this political milieu.61 In the book Mendelssohn “seeks to safeguard the validity of the concept of revelation side-by-side with the concept of reason.”62 He argues against an understanding of Judaism as a “revealed religion” in favour of what he calls a “divine legislation”: To say it briefly: I believe that Judaism knows of no revealed religion in the sense in which Christians understand this term. The Israelites possess a divine legislation — laws, commandments, ordinances,

56 57

58

59 60 61 62

thought and belongs instead to general philosophy. Seymour Feldman, “Spinoza,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 612. Seeskin, Autonomy, 131. A book appeared too late for me to seriously engage with in this text, but in which the author analyses Mendelssohn’s contribution to the faith-reason debate. See Michah Gottlieb, Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 1983). Alexander Altmann, “Introduction,” in Jerusalem, 3. Jerusalem was published in 1783. Altmann, “Introduction,” in Jerusalem, 3. Guttmann, “Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem,” 363. — 129 —

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rules of life, instructions in the will of God as to how they should conduct themselves in order to attain temporal and eternal felicity. Propositions and prescriptions of this kind were revealed to them by Moses in a miraculous and supernatural manner, but no doctrinal opinions, no saving truths, no universal propositions of reason.63

Mendelssohn offers a remarkable defence of what he calls “natural religion,”64 the central tenets of which are God, providence, and the reward of virtue.65 Mendelssohn’s understanding of natural religion is such that no principles have to be added to a revealed religion that are contrary to, or above, reason: “Thank God, we add to natural religion nothing except commandments, statutes, and righteous ordinances. As for the principles and fundamental tenets of our religion, they are based on reason and agree in every respect and without any contradiction or conflict whatever the results of inquiry and true speculation.”66 Mendelssohn’s understanding of the importance of natural religion as fully compatible with an enlightened sense of rationality leads him to his belief in the superiority of Judaism over other faiths,67 because Judaism posits no principles beyond those which reason dictates. In fact, for Mendelssohn, what characterises Judaism are the actions its laws prescribe. The religion is about acts rather than about a set of creeds or dogmas. Mendelssohn proves his point by referring to “a typology of truths” — truths which were either eternal or historical.68 As a result, he argues that “God had endowed man with a faculty of reason sufficient to give him knowledge of all those truths needed for his temporal and eternal felicity […] Judaism confirmed eternal truths already known but did not confirm ones otherwise unknown.”69 The 63 64

65 66 67

68

69

Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, 89-90. Altmann writes of Mendelssohn’s work that “Here the concept of natural religion was stated with a fervour probably unmatched by any other work of the Enlightenment.” Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), 531. Ibid. 341. Mendelssohn, in ibid. 249. “Herein lies the superiority of our true, divine religion over all other false religion.” Mendelssohn, in ibid. 249. David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (London: Peter Halban, 1996), 128. Ibid. 129-130. — 130 —

------------------------------------------------  4.6 Hermann Cohen and Onwards ------------------------------------------------

hierarchy, therefore, firmly places the strength of one’s own reason above that of any external revelation, for God only revealed truths which were already accessible via man’s (God-given) rational faculty. Mendelssohn writes that “I therefore do not believe that the powers of human reason are insufficient to persuade men of the eternal truths which are indispensable to human felicity, and that God had to reveal them in a supernatural manner.”70 This latter depiction of God would undermine His omnipotence, according to Mendelssohn, for a greater or more powerful Deity would not only have revealed these truths, but also provided His creations with the ability to understand them themselves. His philosophy of religion, then, represents a highly significant “first attempt to justify Judaism before the cultural consciousness of modernity.”71 Here, for the first time, was a conception of reason within Judaism which left no doubt as to its autonomous nature. Despite the fact that Mendelssohn clearly supported a version of heteronomy (as shown by his belief that Jews are obligated to keep revealed laws which they do not understand), he “drew attention to the most important issue of the day: the problem of autonomy.”72 Once attention was drawn to the problem of autonomy, it remained fixed there throughout much of the subsequent two hundred years of modern Jewish philosophy.

4.6 Hermann Cohen and Onwards Let us now return to the influence of Immanuel Kant: On the issue of morality, Kant is often viewed as an opponent of traditional religion. It is well known that, in the Groundwork, he rejects the idea that morality can be derived from a system of divine commandments, and in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, proclaims that everything we do to please God above and beyond morality is religious delusion and spurious worship. Still, there is a respect in which the Kantian revolution in morality not only allows for participation in a religious tradition but encourages it.73 70 71 72 73

Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, 94. Guttmann, “Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem,” 383. Seeskin, Autonomy, 148. Seeskin, “Jewish Neo-Kantianism,” 787. — 131 —

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It appears that one cannot easily dismiss Kant from a religious perspective: many scholars have attempted a revival of Kantian philosophy along exactly these lines. At the forefront of the revival in Kant’s thought and the attempt to make it relevant to a religious worldview was Hermann Cohen. Cohen was one of a number of neo-Kantian Jewish philosophers whose veneration for the sage from Königsberg was deeply felt. Isaac Breuer, another neo-Kantian, wrote “Blessed be God, who has given of His wisdom to Kant.”74 Cohen attempted to ally Kantian moral philosophy with the emerging Wissenschaft movement, trying “to do for Judaism what Kant had done for Christianity.”75 Cohen’s attempted synthesis of Kantian philosophy was part of a greater idealised synthesis of Judaism, Germanism, and ethical universalism.76 God is described by Cohen as “moral legislator,” which is an idea of God which can be easily comprehended by all. Cohen shared Kant’s understanding of the rational character of ethics, i.e., that an ethic must be universal and take the form of a law. As Eugene Borowitz writes, “Any imperative to act which is limited to given classes or races could not be ethical and nothing could be a moral imperative unless one’s sense of what is right could make it a rule for people in a similar situation.”77 Our idea of God (according to Kant), comes not from any external revelation, but rather from our own rational faculty. This leads Cohen (following in the tradition of both Kant and Maimonides) to his view that heteronomous observance of the commandments not only offends human dignity, but has no place in a moral religious system such as the Judaism which he is promoting. God does not want heteronomy; instead he wants rational behaviour. This view is similar 74

75 76

77

Breuer, in Paul Franks, “Jewish Philosophy after Kant: The Legacy of Salomon Maimon,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy, 53. Seeskin, “Jewish Neo-Kantianism,” 789. For a greater discussion of this idealised synthesis, see Andrea Poma, “Hermann Cohen: Judaism and Critical Idealism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy. Cohen lived to see the end of his philosophical school in Marburg, growing anti-semitism in his home country (of which he himself was at times a victim), and the impending defeat of his beloved Germany in the Great War (he died in April 1918 a few months before Germany surrendered). And although he was spared the tragedy of the Holocaust, his wife was not. Martha Cohen died a Nazi victim in Theresienstadt. Eugene Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide, 35. — 132 —

------------------------------------------------  4.6 Hermann Cohen and Onwards ------------------------------------------------

to that presented by Mendelssohn in Jerusalem, discussed above. Both views re-emphasise interpretation as the central area where autonomy can be brought back into the tradition. This leads to a universalistic understanding of Judaism, in which ethics (and monotheism) are emphasised at the expense of more particularistic aspects of the tradition. It makes Cohen’s religion of reason a non-exclusive enterprise (equally possible within Christianity and Islam, although not actually manifest in those religions to the same level as within Judaism).78 However, while Cohen promoted a liberal interpretation of Judaism (typified by this emphasis on its moral teachings), “he vigorously affirmed the value of Jewish law as the vehicle for enabling people to function as God’s co-workers.”79 This idea of becoming God’s co-workers in the work of creation, present in Hermann Cohen’s idealism of the early twentieth century, becomes increasingly important for contemporary covenantal thought as it subsequently develops. The promotion of Jewish law, specifically, made Cohen slightly less liberal than the Reform Judaism of his day, and his Kantian roots are clear in his understanding of mitzvah as both law and duty — “law emanating from God and duty from the viewpoint of human beings.”80 In other words, God issues the commandments to the people, but they take the commandments upon themselves of their own free will. This complex doctrine goes to the very crux of the issue of how (and indeed whether) autonomy can be integrated into a Jewish legal system. It is a doctrine which Cohen’s students — Buber and Rosenzweig - later debate. And it is a doctrine, as espoused by Cohen, which is fraught with difficulties. The issue is not whether autonomy can be integrated into a Jewish legal system, but whether a Kantian understanding of autonomy can and should be integrated into a Jewish legal system. I have shown already how notions of autonomy and heteronomy (and the delicate interplay between them) existed in biblical literature, as well as in rabbinic and medieval literature. One must then question 78

79

80

See Seeskin’s discussion of the claim of exclusivity in Cohen’s thought, in Seeskin, Autonomy, 160ff. Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman, Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 27. Ibid. 27. — 133 —

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what contemporary thinkers did with the Kantian understanding of autonomy, based on the other sources for autonomy which they had available to them from within the tradition. Cohen’s classic Jewish text,81 published posthumously by his wife in 1919, is entitled Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism.82 The title itself alerts the reader to the fact that Cohen rejects a more traditional understanding of Judaism as revealed religion, in favour of understanding it as a religion of reason. The author himself alerts the reader to this fact: “The title written at the head of this book contains the programme for the book.”83 “Reason is the organ of laws,”84 meaning that reason’s share in religion is that it validates it, by providing it with its lawfulness, which is based upon logical thought.85 So if there is to be revelation in religion, then that which is revealed can only be revealed through reason. Cohen here sees himself as heir to a tradition “that began in Deuteronomy, continued with the prophets, received an even greater degree of self-consciousness in the Rabbis, achieved a philosophical sophistication in Maimonides, and now finds its natural expression in him.”86 This is the tradition of lo bashamayim hi. For Cohen, there is a certain logic to revelation, which stems from the fact that God endowed human beings with reason. As he writes, “God’s law does not contradict the autonomy of the moral will. There is a difference only in the method of formulating the concept.87 In a truly Kantian way, reason could see itself as the author of these laws, despite the fact that God commanded them. And more importantly, the mere idea of heteronomy offends human dignity, according to Cohen, for it demeans a humanity which 81

82

83 84 85 86 87

Cohen turned his back on Judaism for much of his career. As Eliezer Berkovits writes, “After a life of estrangement from Judaism, the grand old man of German idealism who had started out in life as a rabbinical student at the Breslau Rabinical Seminary, returned to the faith of his fathers.” Berkovits, Major Themes in Modern Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Ktav, 1974), 1. Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. Simon Kaplan (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1972). Cohen, Religion of Reason, 2. Ibid. 10. Berkovits, Major Themes, 5. Seeskin, Autonomy, 165. Cohen, Religion of Reason, 339. See also Seeskin, Autonomy, 160ff. — 134 —

------------------------------------------------------------------   4.7 Martin Buber ------------------------------------------------------------------

has a rational faculty. In a similar way to Maimonides in the Guide, Cohen does not understand why God would grant man the ability to reason, and then command him to suspend that God-given rationality when worshipping Him. Cohen’s philosophy is a remarkable advocacy of reason and autonomy, and it was unsurprisingly influential for the next generation of European Jewish scholars,88 Buber and Rosenzweig chief amongst them. The crux of the issue is that autonomy in Cohen does not alienate man from God, but rather brings both parties together. It is “the spiritual glue that binds man and God together. Its ultimate expression is the love that God and man have for each other.”89

4.7 Martin Buber Martin Buber’s dialogical philosophy is of more than passing interest to the present discussion. Buber presents the relationship between man and God as the ideal form of what he terms an I-Thou relationship. This I-Thou relationship is typified by its genuine nature. It is a true meeting between two persons, each of whom brings something to the meeting, from which neither can leave unaltered. As Buber states so strongly on the opening page of the work, the I of the I-It and the I of the I-Thou are different — persons change as a result of the relationships which they have.90 The book’s evocative style is noteworthy. Tamra Wright suggests that “the general impression created by this style is that the author does not so much have an argument to make as a vision to communicate.”91 This vision is of the possibility of a relationship with God which belies traditional understandings of God and man in favour of openness, spontaneity, responsibility, and mutual dependence.92 It is 88

89 90 91

92

“Unsurprising” because numerous scholars argue that Cohen was the distinguished Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century. Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought, 30; Berkovits, Major Themes, 1. Guttman writes that “Jewish religious philosophy was renewed by Hermann Cohen” (Philosophies of Judaism, 400). Seeskin, Autonomy, 179. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 53. Tamra Wright, “Self, Other, Text, God: The Dialogical Thought of Martin Buber,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy, 107. Seeskin, Autonomy, 183-4. Compare with Hartman’s use of this expression in chapter 3, note 70. — 135 —

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a unique kind of relationship, and Buber insists on the fact that it does not call for humans to be God’s passive partners in it: Man, while created by God, was established by Him in an independence which has since remained undiminished. In this independence he stands over against God. So man takes part with full freedom and spontaneity in the dialogue between the two which forms the essence of existence. That this is so despite God’s unlimited power and knowledge is just that which constitutes the mystery of man’s creation.93

Full freedom and spontaneity evoke an independence from God the likes of which few Jewish philosophers prior to Buber have suggested. Seeskin writes that “as long as we use the I-Thou relation as a model for understanding revelation, we cannot adopt a heteronomous account of obligation.”94 In other words, Buber’s I-Thou rules out heteronomy completely.95 The reason for the rejection of heteronomy is contained within the understanding of revelation: “What if instead of an isolated being the absolute is experienced as a partner in a dialogical relation? According to Buber, the commands that issue from such a relation are neither imposed from without nor legislated from within, neither mine alone nor someone else’s alone. Rather they derive from the reciprocity that exists in the space ‘between.’”96 Buberian revelation, then, seems to rule out both heteronomy and autonomy. He terms his alternative “theonomy”97 — the true experience 93

94 95

96 97

Martin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957), 105. Seeskin, Autonomy, 184. Buber also makes a strong case for autonomy elsewhere in his written work, notably in the article “Heruth.” Martin Buber, “Heruth: On Youth and Religion,” in The Martin Buber Reader, ed. Asher Biemann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 125-138. In the article Buber argues for the “autonomy of Judaism’s religious development” as opposed to Christianity, which imposed a spiritual principle from the outside. Judaism knows no outside, as it were, since all religious development “sprang exclusively from forces inherent in the people’s own soul” (p. 128), and as a result “no sphere is unconnected with the religious one” (p. 129). Rosenzweig applauds this sentiment in “The Builders” when he states: “You have formulated the goals of our Jewish learning in such a way that nothing Jewish may be excluded as alien.” Franz Rosenzweig, “The Builders: Concerning the Law,” in On Jewish Learning, ed. N. N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 75. Ibid. 190. Buber uses this term at numerous points in his work. See, for example, Eclipse of God, 99, 107; and “Teaching and Deed,” in The Martin Buber Reader, ed. Asher Biemann — 136 —

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of a giving thing given in reciprocity. In Buberian revelation, “man receives, and what he receives is not a ‘content’ but a presence, a presence as strength.”98 Buber is no subjectivist, since he believes that value can only emerge from something discovered in genuine meeting and not from something invented. Still, neither is he an absolutist, since the content of revelation will differ markedly from individual to individual (as will the experience). Value is not to be found in any individual, but rather in and from the meeting itself. However, my understanding of Buber’s revelatory experience is tempered by his startling assertion, in a discussion about the biblical narrative of Samuel and Agag (I Sam. 15), that “always when I have to translate or to interpret a biblical text, I do so with fear and trembling, in an inescapable tension between the word of God and the words of man.”99 Despite the independence from God insisted upon by Buber, and notwithstanding the dialogical nature of his revelatory experience, Buber still finds himself trembling with fear when faced with the difficulty of interpreting complex biblical passages. His understanding of revelation and theonomy appears to preclude genuine autonomy. And yet, on closer reflection, Buber accords a large amount of freedom to the human recipient in deciphering the message being revealed. The human I, in being accepted as a full partner in the relationship, is invited to express him- or herself by finding ways to express the significance of the message which he or she has received.100 This freedom of expression, which ensures that the revelation is a combination of divine and human endeavour,101 is an authentic form

98

99

100 101

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 237. Buber, I and Thou, 158. Buber was of course a proponent of nonobservance of the commandments: “Nonobservance, in Buber’s view, was in fact required for obedience to the divine summons in that case, because acting with anything less than one’s whole self meant turning one’s back on ‘I-Thou’ mutuality and descending into the unspontaneous, uncreative, and completely unfree realm of ‘I-It’”. Arnold Eisen, Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandments, Community (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 189. Martin Buber, “Samuel and Agag,” in Levinas and Buber: Dialogue and Difference, ed. Peter Atterton, Matthew Calarco, and Maurice Friedman. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2004), 31. Buber also discusses the same biblical episode in “Heruth: On Youth and Religion,” 132. See Seeskin, Autonomy, 191. See Buber, I and Thou, 166: “Revelation does not pour into the world through its — 137 —

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of autonomy.102 Not only does Buber’s theory of relation provide us with another example of autonomy within Jewish philosophy, but it also provides an account of revelation and divine-human relationship that is especially influential in the contemporary covenantal thought which this thesis is examining. One pervasive critique of Buber’s theory should be mentioned here. If value is something which one discovers in an encounter with God, then the laws which are formulated as a result of that encounter are human responses and not direct commands. It is difficult to move from a human response to an I-Thou encounter to a binding obligation. This jump, which Buber asks his readers to make, is one which many subsequent thinkers remain troubled by. It is what Seeskin refers to as the “problematics of hearing.”103 How do you know that it is God’s voice you are hearing? According to Kant, you judge the content of the revelation and not the author, so essentially it does not matter whether God is the author or not. Buber would have to disagree with the Kantian theory here, at which point he leaves open the very real possibility that people might abuse his theory and pursue morally dubious paths in the name of a god they believe spoke to them in some prior encounter. Of course this kind of abuse remains a possibility with many theories of autonomy, but Buber’s insistence on the lack of specific content within an I-Thou revelation model makes his theory particularly susceptible. Finally, one could also argue that Buber’s theory suffers from the historical context in which it was written. Wright has already argued that Buber’s I-Thou would have been very different if it were written in

102

103

recipient as if he were a funnel: it confers itself upon him, it seizes his whole element in all of its suchness and fuses with it. Even the man who is ‘mouth’ is precisely that and not mouthpiece- not an instrument but an organ, and autonomous, sounding organ; and to sound means to modify sound.” As Seeskin points out, Buber’s autonomy is clearly not a Kantian autonomy, but it is nonetheless a form of autonomy. Seeskin’s view that Buber’s theonomy is really a form of autonomy is shared by Arnold Eisen, in Rethinking Modern Judaism, 193, where he writes “Deference to commandments meant heteronomy. Personal acceptance of the command addressed to me, and only me, constituted autonomy.” This view is also shared by Eugene Borowitz. See Seekin, Autonomy, 192ff. Seeskin, Autonomy, 194. — 138 —

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the 1960s, in the shadow of the Holocaust, rather than in the 1920s.104 His confident assertion in part three of the book that God is always present, and that if there is an absence of relation with God it is always man’s fault, seem to conflict with the shattering of confidence which accompanied post-Holocaust Jewish philosophy. It is worth briefly revisiting Buber’s celebrated exchange with Franz Rosenzweig on the issue of authority and obligation, which centres around their alternative interpretations of the legal category in the Jewish tradition.105 Both men insist that revelation can never be legislation,106 and that the laws of the Torah reflect a dilution from an intimate I-Thou relationship to that of I-It. Rosenzweig makes a distinction between law (gesetz) and commandment (gebot), urging that law once again should become commandment, regaining its “living reality” and “inner power.”107 He offers a stern critique of Buber’s influential essay “Heruth,” which contains within it what Rosenzweig perceives as a rejection of Jewish law. In “Heruth” Buber argues that “we cannot commit ourselves to an acceptance of Jewish teaching if this teaching is conceived as something finished and unequivocal; nor can we commit ourselves to Jewish law if this law is taken to mean something closed and immutable.”108 Buber here warns against a commitment to an interpretation of Jewish law which remains fixed and stagnant. This acknowledgment entices Rosenzweig to introduce the distinction between law and commandment, which redeems the legal category in Judaism by imbuing the revelation of divine presence with a commanding quality 104 105

106

107 108

Wright, “Self, Other, Text, God,” 116 and n. 34. Buber delivered a series of addresses at the Bar Kokhba student organisation in Prague, between 1909-1919, the last of which was “Heruth.” These addresses appeared together as a volume in 1923, which was when Rosenzweig was first exposed to them. There then followed a series of letters between the two thinkers on the issue of Jewish law, and the correspondence can be found in N. N. Glatzer (ed.), On Jewish Learning (op. cit.). See the discussion of Rosenzweig and Buber’s disagreement on this issue in Neil Gillman, Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 178-184. Franz Rosenzweig, “The Builders: Concerning the Law,” 85. Buber, “Heruth: On Youth and Religion,” 135. — 139 —

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entirely absent from Buber’s interpretation of it. Rosenzweig, therefore, unlike Buber, insists that revelation can have a commanding quality. Command, in contrast to law, “is very much an I-Thou phenomenon, for it is a totally personal and spontaneous expression of the sense of obligation that I feel toward the Thou that reveals Himself to me.”109

4.8 Conclusions This chapter has traced the influence of the autonomous thrust in Jewish sources from biblical and rabbinic texts through medieval rationalist philosophy to the emergence and rise of modernity. The search began with Immanuel Kant, the thinker who has perhaps contributed more to this discussion than any other. Kant’s definition of autonomy (in particular that of the individual agent being able to consider himself the author of the law) and his insistence on the supremacy of the will set the parameters for the modern discussion. However, the history of the autonomous thrust in Judaism stretches right back to traditional sources. The rabbis give themselves a huge level of autonomy in interpreting the biblical text. In particular, the biblical maxim lo bashamayim hi is championed as providing proof of the escalation of man’s involvement in the legal process, and therefore of the importance of human autonomy. Kant’s insistence on the content of the law determining its legitimacy leads to revealed laws being scrutinised for their potential moral worth irrespective of their initiation. The notion of holding God’s laws to account for their moral worth (and then determining their validity) is similar to the natural law argument within Jewish philosophy. In Kantian terms, God Himself is bound by an independent arbiter of moral goodness. That arbiter is the human will. Proponents of a version of natural law theory in Judaism tend to utilise Maimonides in their arguments, since the great medieval rationalist placed more emphasis on the use of man’s rational faculty in worship than any other traditional Jewish thinker before or since. For Maimonides, the amount of love an individual has for God is dependent on their level of knowledge 109

Gillman, Sacred Fragments, 180. — 140 —

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of Him. So Maimonides (and much of the rationalistic medieval philosophy which succeeds him) attempts a rationalistic understanding of all the divine commandments. Contemplation and speculation on the fundamentals of the faith can lead to greater understanding and knowledge of God; never before had such emphasis been placed on reason and rationality. This Maimonidean enterprise was important for the development of autonomy. In particular, Maimonides recognises both the possibility of man desiring to observe the law for its own sake (having come to understand its inner wisdom), and of him coming to this knowledge by leaving traditional authority behind and instead invoking the use of unaided reason. The emergence of modernity only heightened the emphasis upon the autonomous thrust within Judaism. Moses Mendelssohn, one of the earliest synthesisers of Judaism and modernity, reiterated the Maimonidean position that God would not have endowed man with the ability to reason and then commanded him to betray that Godgiven reason by keeping arbitrary commandments. It is worth noting at this stage that a significant proportion of contemporary Jewish philosophy disagrees with this position. The counter-argument is put most succinctly by Joseph B. Soloveitchik in his discussion of the ethic of self-defeat in “Majesty and Humility”: What does man cherish more than the intellect, around which his sense of dignity is centred? Precisely because of the supremacy of the intellect in human life, the Torah requires, at times, the suspension of the authority logos. Man defeats himself by accepting norms that the intellect cannot assimilate into its normative system […] he withdraws from the rationalistic position. In a word withdrawal is required, in all areas of human experience and endeavour; whatever is most significant, whatever attracts man the most, must be given up.110

For Soloveitchik, it is precisely because the intellect is so important to man that the believer is required to give it up at times in order to worship God fully. This counter-argument is anti-rationalistic, and completely contradicts the Maimonidean understanding, which was later championed by Mendelssohn. 110

Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” 37. — 141 —

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Hermann Cohen was the early twentieth century’s best exponent of autonomy within Judaism. For Cohen, reason validated religion. He argued strongly in his Religion of Reason for the view that heteronomy is an affront to human dignity, an extension of the MaimonidesMendelssohn argument. For Cohen, humans have to become partners with God, and in this partnership ethical behaviour is paramount; the divine partner is known as the moral legislator. Cohen saw himself as heir to a tradition beginning in Deuteronomy and extending right through to his own time, and in many ways that tradition was the same one that was charted in this chapter. The chapter concluded with the philosophy of Martin Buber. By radically reinterpreting revelation, Buber made heteronomy a virtual impossibility. Revelation occurs in genuine meeting between two persons; that is the nature of the I-Thou relationship. The content of revelation will differ from individual to individual, but the autonomy of the individual will always be felt in putting his or her own mark on the I-Thou experience and shaping the obligations which emerge from it. Autonomy, therefore, has been a force at numerous junctures in the history and development of Jewish thought from the rabbinic era through the medieval Jewish rationalists to the modern era, as epitomised by Mendelssohn and Cohen. However, autonomy itself is a broad term, and this chapter has highlighted that there are various different understandings of autonomy. There is Kant’s language for understanding autonomy, and there is also the language of the Jewish tradition. Kant’s notion of autonomy was not just accepted in the contemporary Jewish tradition. Each thinker adopts and subsequently adapts the Kantian understanding of autonomy, amalgamating it with other sources which they had available to them from within the tradition. This allows a thinker to develop a notion of autonomy that is not compatible with a Kantian one but that remains nonetheless a highly plausible notion of autonomy. The theme of covenant offers an excellent point of departure to look at the Kantian idea of autonomy from a non-Kantian perspective, which is what I attempt to do in the remaining chapters.

— 142 —

Chapter Five Covenantal Ethics and Covenantal Law

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As a result of the empowerment framework of covenant (chapter three), both the subjects of this book adopt aspects of the doctrine of autonomy (chapter four) within their thought. While chapter four discusses the theoretical roots of the principle of autonomy in Judaism, this chapter looks at the product of this doctrine within the thought of Hartman and Borowitz. Applying the principle of autonomy to covenantal theology leads to a re-evaluation of existing understandings of ethics and law. Both philosophers have attempted this in their thought, and these attempts will be analysed in this chapter. In short, theories of autonomy are most felt in the practical arena in the areas of ethics and law, and so these areas will be emphasized in the present discussion. The chapter begins by discussing Borowitz’s theory of revelation, which assumes an unmediated, non-verbal dialogue between man and God. What does this understanding of revelation do to an understanding of autonomy? It transforms the notion of autonomy by creating command without heteronomy; God commands in revealing His presence, but the commands resist heteronomy and thus allow for individual autonomy in deciphering their specific content and remit. I re-analyse whether Borowitz’s understanding of lack of speech limits God,1 and also examine whether or not Borowitz’s theory of revelation is inapplicable to the majority of its potential adherents. What happens if you are incapable of deciphering the revelatory message, or have trouble hearing it in the first place, and thus get the message wrong? Borowitz’s response to his critics centres on understanding that relationship itself generates responsibility. Obligation develops from 1

The notion of speech vis-à-vis revelation was first discussed in section 3.6. — 145 —

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an understanding of revelation and relationship, and non-verbal communication, which takes place in Borowitz’s understanding of revelation, creates a better duty framework because it allows for individuality. Command from revelation is interpreted differently by each person. Hartman’s understanding of revelation is more traditional. God revealed specific laws and content at Sinai, and these are filtered through to the present day via the rabbinic tradition. Crucially, the divine law is mediated to the individual adherent by the posekim (halakhic decision maker), so despite the specific nature of the revelation, there remains an inherent interpretive thrust to the determination of those laws which derive from the original revelatory moment at Sinai. There is a trend within halakhah today away from mimetic tradition and towards text. Correct practice is ascertained not by following the practices of your father, but instead by searching for them in the pages of a book. This text-centred system leads, according to Hartman, to a lack of direct divine involvement, which is the central problem with the halakhic system today. Hartman’s ideas here exhibit similarities to Eliezer Berkovits’ work on halakhah, in his definition of the ideal halakhic system. It should be a flexible, open system (hence the preference for mimesis over text), and it should lead its adherent towards closer proximity to, and involvement with, God. In this chapter I discuss both Hartman’s approach and some of the main criticisms of it, not least the fact that his understanding of the telos of the halakhic system (proximity to God) is contentious. Borowitz discusses the attempted use of the halakhic category in Reform Judaism in the last hundred years. He sees these attempts as testimony to the fact that Reform Judaism cannot be practiced as a biblical religion alone, with no rabbinic aspects. It is also an attempt by Reform scholars and rabbis to bring in some measure of obligation and discipline. While Borowitz agrees with the attempt to reinvigorate Reform Judaism with discipline, he does not agree with the use of the term halakhah. Halakhah is a poor category for Borowitz, because it suggests a list of pre-conceived duties and obligations, which goes totally against his notion of unmediated revelation. However, his engagement with Orthodox halakhah does lead him to reassert his — 146 —

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own beliefs about ethics and law and the relationship between the two. In a disagreement with Aharon Lichtenstein, Borowitz criticises the Orthodox scholar for not going far enough in his analysis of the autonomous ethical thrust in Judaism. Lichteinstein is happy to assert the existence of this autonomous ethic, but, Borowitz argues, he fails to accord significant authority to it and thus renders it meaningless. Borowitz’s critique is based on the supremacy of the ethical in Reform Judaism, which is an idea he does not see as being shared by Orthodoxy. Hartman, however, would agree with Borowitz on this issue. For Borowitz, the ethical realm is categorical to the point of forcing a change in the law, and that is why he refers to man as God’s covenantal partner, because they are partners in the determination of their religious duty. Hartman also calls for individual autonomy to trump halakhic authority at times when the halakhah is in conflict with one’s own moral conscience. He advocates a non-submissive mentality which gains its credibility from the Sodom paradigm, which accepts man’s right (following Abraham’s example) to confront God through his moral intuitions. Borowitz and Hartman are remarkably similar in their approach to these issues. One operating from within the halakhic system and one from without, both nonetheless share the belief that God empowers man to responsibility when a conflict between his moral conscience and the law emerges. This empowerment is what makes man truly God’s partner in covenant. Furthermore, in the process of exercising one’s autonomy to attempt a reinterpretation of the law, the human covenantal partner is exhibiting intellectual initiative and creativity, which are crucial examples of the maturity of partnership which exists in the covenantal thought of both.

5.1 Borowitz’s Understanding of Revelation The root of Borowitz’s autonomous thrust comes from his understanding of revelation. In a classic version of a liberal interpretation of divine revelation, Borowitz reinterprets the revelatory moment to allow for significant human autonomy in both receiving the revelation and in the subsequent development of duties and obligations which derive from — 147 —

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it. In order to achieve this, Borowitz writes a theory of divine revelation that is unmediated, non-verbal, and takes the form of a dialogue between persons. He writes the following in one of his earliest theological works: What should one expect from an encounter with God if not rapture and ecstacy? Most men seek words. Taking the Bible literally, they assume that if it is indeed God whom they meet, they will hear a voice. In America that generally means a mellifluous baritone or bass, rich with resonance and heavy with passion […] What happens between men in dialogue may begin with words, but if it is limited to words, they may never come to understand each other. What is given when I-and-Thou stand in communion is not verbiage but presence.2

Similarly, in all relationships in which two persons truly meet, God is present as the third, enabling, partner of their relationship. And “because dialogue brings persons most fully into contact, it also most directly issues forth in a sense of duty to other human beings,”3 so although the covenant has become relational and not contractual (in Borowitz’s understanding), the persons in the covenant are still duty-bound. This Buberian understanding of liberal religion as relationship transforms the notion of autonomy, for I-thou involvement creates command without heteronomy:4 “despite all that you and I now mean to one another, neither of us must now surrender to the other our power of self-determination.”5 Now the self both knows its task and understands that task to be God2 3 4

5

Borowitz, A Layman’s Introduction to Religious Existentialism, 176. Eugene Borowitz, “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” in Studies, 218. On this issue I am in agreement with Steven Katz that a paradox emerges in Buber’s thought (see Steven T. Katz, “Martin Buber’s Epistemology: A Critical Appraisal” in Post-Holocaust Dialogues (op. cit.). Buber is known to create command without heteronomy. But if human behaviour is even causally determined by revelation, then of course it is heteronomous and dialogically illegitimate (“Martin Buber’s Epistemology,” 38). It centres on one’s understanding of God’s “Presence.” If knowledge of God’s “Presence” causes man to do x rather than y, the situation is still a heteronomous one because the human agent has acted out of respect for an external consideration (and if a sense of God’s “Presence” in no way determines the choice of a human agent, then this “Presence” is without existential import, as it makes no material difference to human behaviour). The whole discussion of the significance of the revelation of “Presence” for human action is ambiguous. Conversely, Katz argues, “If it is legitimate for God’s “Presence” to influence human conduct, why is it illegitimate for God’s Will to do so?” (Ibid. 38). Borowitz, “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” 220. — 148 —

-----------------------------------  5.1 Borowitz’s Understanding of Revelation -----------------------------------

given. Yet in the process of meeting and commanding, the divine partner has not resorted to heteronomy (the default Orthodox position), and the autonomy of the self has been maintained. Hence Borowitz’s advocacy of Buber, and his assertion that “Buber preserves autonomy while guiding it in terms of a social-Divine involvement.”6 Novak critiques the above view in his engagement with Borowitz. For David Novak, a relationship in which God cannot speak is terribly limited: One fundamental difference [between Borowitz and and myself] is whether the Covenant requires a God who actually speaks. Without a God who speaks I do not see how we can have a durable bridge from revelation to communal norms qua mitzvoth (namely, the commandments of God), and not just universal ethical imperatives as in Hermann Cohen’s theology, or ethnic folkways or religiously significant sancta as in Mordecai Kaplan’s theology.7

How does this kind of relationship differ from a Feuerbachian kind of projection theory where human subjects project their ideal characteristics on to an invented divine figure? If God never speaks, such projection could go undetected, and unless God speaks, we do not have any proof that the covenant is really worthy of any kind of attention.8 David Novak propounds this view, and has an ongoing disagreement with Borowitz about it, the substance of which helps to explains Novak’s decision not to remain within denominational Judaism.9 Novak is uncomfortable with the vague and open nature 6 7

8

9

Ibid. 200. David Novak, “Is the Covenant a Bilateral Relationship? A Response to Eugene Borowitz’ Renewing the Covenant,” Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology, ed. Peter Ochs (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 85. Borowitz acknowledges a position similar to that of Novak when he discusses his affinity with Feuerbach. See “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contemporary Leadership,” in Studies, 159, and see also my discussion of this article in section 3.3. Novak was born a Reform Jew. After moving to the Conservative movement, he subsequently joined the organisation UTJ — the Union for Traditional Judaism, and is currently serving as one of their vice presidents. The UTJ describes itself as a “transdenominational organisation” dedicated to promoting the principles of traditional Judaism. The organisation was started by a group of traditionalist Conservative rabbis who were unhappy about the Jewish Theological Seminary’s decision to ordain female — 149 —

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of Borowitz’s viewpoint. This aspect of his critique is shared by Elliot Dorff, who writes that “my problems with this theory are, in essence, the reasons why I am a Conservative Jew and not a Reform Jew.”10 For both thinkers, what tarnishes Borowitz’s theory is the difficulty that the adherent has in attempting to apply it and in comprehending exactly what his or her religious duties are. Borowitz is critical of Novak’s viewpoint, claiming that Novak wants all the advantages for discipline and serious Jewishness of a God who speaks, without any of the drawbacks of an orthodox halakhah the natural conclusion of a “speaking God system.”11 He wants both a God who speaks, and a system whereby his own ethical sensibilities are upheld. In other words, Borowitz accuses Novak of attempting to gain the best of both the Orthodox and the Reform viewpoints, and remaining true to neither in the process. Why does Novak not take his Reform ethical standpoint to its natural conclusion, and why is he so wary of Borowitz’s conception of a God that does not speak? According to Borowitz, Novak is afraid that if God is not speaking, everyone else will feel the need to fill the silence and speak themselves. This is characteristic of a majority of Reform Jews’ misunderstanding of what autonomy means and what it entails, and such an approach leads to what Elliot Dorff refers to as “autonomy run amok.”12 Borowitz’s approach to this issue is consistent with the tenor of his work generally. He acknowledges that his thought is open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation but nonetheless is insistent that the kind of Buberian relationship which living in Covenant entails

10 11

12

rabbis in 1983, and has continued (despite its trans-denominational stance) to remain institutionally between the Conservative and Modern Orthodox movements, with its rabbinical school — the Metivta — providing graduates for both Conservative and Orthodox communities. See the UTJ’s website - http://www.utj.org/. Borowitz makes implicit reference to the UTJ in one of his writings. See his “The Reform Judaism of Renewing the Covenant: An Open Letter to Elliot Dorff,” in The Unfolding Tradition (op. cit.), 472, in which he writes, “Recently a good number of rabbis and laypeople who took law seriously abandoned Conservatism for a movement of their own.” Elliot Dorff, “Autonomy vs. Community,” reprinted in The Unfolding Tradition, 466. See for example Borowitz, “The Reform Judaism of Renewing the Covenant: An Open Letter to Elliot Dorff,” 473, where, in a comparison between Novak, Elliott Dorff and J. David Bleich, Borowitz implicitly criticises Novak’s position. Dorff, “Autonomy vs. Community,” 468. — 150 —

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is only possible with a God who does not speak. So how does Borowitz reply? He criticises Novak, and others like him, for failing to allow for the possibility that the relationship itself generates responsibility. Because they fail to see this central tenet of Borowitz’s theology, they are left with no choice but to push for a God who speaks, so that He can assert a level of authority and obligation which for them would otherwise be lacking. In Borowitz’s understanding, however, the obligation is no less important (in fact I would argue that it is more important) but it does not require a speaking God for its application. And this is one of Borowitz’s key contributions to the area of covenantal theory — the covenantal relationship itself entails responsibility. It generates its own sense of obligation. In order to further understand this, it is necessary to define slightly better a term that has been used rather freely up to this point — “speaking.” I have been referring to God’s speaking or not speaking in the thought of Novak and Borowitz respectively. What would be more useful at this stage is to redefine speaking in terms of verbal and non-verbal communication. Although Borowitz claims that God cannot or does not speak, speech here is less important than communication. It is his firm belief that the covenantal obligations felt by the human partner in the covenant are gained through non-verbal communication with the divine partner. Non-verbal communication, by its very nature, is much vaguer than verbal communication. Where there is verbal communication, there is the strong possibility of everyone present hearing the same thing.13 Non-verbal communication, however, tends to be more individualistic, and also more open to alternative interpretations.14 This is closer to the Borowitz-Buber view of revelation that was presented above. God does not reveal the kashrut

13

14

There are of course midrashic accounts which conflict with this viewpoint, and which suggest an individual revelation at Sinai. See section 3.1d. This is certainly true for Borowitz. One could argue, however, that a classic postmodern view of language constructs and differing interpretive strategies would allow one to view verbal communication and language in a thoroughly individualistic and alternate way. The fact that Borowitz does not do that, and saves this kind of categorisation for non-verbal communication, suggests that he is not a classic postmodern thinker, as I propose in chapter 2, note 43. — 151 —

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(dietary) laws, for example, but he does reveal His Presence, and with it (according to Borowitz) a general sense of what each person ought to be doing with his or her life.15 This general sense is too vague for many critics of this view of revelation. What is not revealed is what one should and should not eat, for example, and for many traditionalists this lack of detail opens up the serious possibility that one might be transgressing God’s will without knowing it. This general sense will differ from person to person, as will that person’s ability to perceive the non-verbal communication in the first place. Elliot Dorff highlights the central problem implicit in this understanding of revelation when he writes the following: To be a serious Reform Jew along these lines [those drawn by Borowitz in Renewing the Covenant] is a very tall order. One must first learn both the Western and the Jewish traditions thoroughly so that one’s choices can be informed and intelligent. One must also learn how to recognise the voice of God through all of this so that one knows how God wants one to integrate tradition and modernity. I do not doubt that Eugene Borowitz has the requisite knowledge and powers of judgement to make his theory work, but I doubt that many others do.16

In other words, the covenantal life which Borowitz proposes in Renewing the Covenant suffers from being impractical for the majority of the Jewish laity. Not only does one have to develop one’s own senses of “divine voice recognition,” but one has to be able to apply both one’s Jewish and one’s secular learning to non-verbal divine communication in order to actually discern what it is that the covenantal relationship is asking of you. As such, Borowitz’s proposal suffers from many of the objections levelled at arguments which attempt to prove the existence of God from religious experience. Experience is frequently deceptive. We often say that we are aware of x or that we experience the presence of x, when argument 15

16

This offers quite an obvious critique of what can be best understood as Borowitz’s inherent “traditionalism.” Despite the fact that kashrut laws, and many others of the ritual laws within Judaism were not revealed by God at any point to us, Borowitz still observes at least some semblance of them. Why? What is it about the ritual which leads him to cling on to it when his philosophy makes it virtually impossible to believe in its validity? Dorff, The Unfolding Tradition, 466. — 152 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

or further experience forces us to conclude that we were mistaken.17 Mistaken identification, misinterpretation of evidence, and even hallucination can make one’s experience claim suspect. Furthermore, people claiming an experience of God may well be influenced by some psychological or social pressure leading them to believe that there is a God (e.g. their presence in a religious group, cult, or faction). These criticisms can be levelled at Borowitz’s understanding of revelation, as can the larger issue of how the individual deciphers the divine message. Borowitz’s understanding leaves open the possibility of misinterpretating God’s message on a grand scale, and the horror scenario in which people claim they’re doing God’s bidding while carrying out atrocities. Therefore, while the notion of the relationship itself generating responsibility is both unique and highly attractive to liberal sensibilities, it is also a hugely challenging position to uphold.

5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System Borowitz’s understanding of the notion of revelation is unmediated. The individual does not need to interpret God’s revelation before beginning to understand it. However, interpretation becomes meaningful when you attempt to translate the content of the unmediated knowing into a communal context. The community helps to filter the knowledge for the individual, they bring it into the practical arena and take it from an is to an ought — this is what you ought to do with the knowledge that you have received. Hartman’s understanding of revelation differs considerably from this model. Hartman believes in an Orthodox transmission of law from God via Moses to the entire Jewish people, at least some part of which took place at the revelatory moment at Sinai. The ensuing revelation was specific, in that content was revealed as well as just Presence. However, what becomes normative for Hartman is not the precise content which was revealed in that moment to Moses, but rather how that content has been interpreted by generations of rabbis 17

See Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) chapter 7, especially 121. — 153 —

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from the time of Moses right through to the present day. Interpretation is absolutely crucial for Hartman. The content of revelation is, for him, the halakhah, and halakhah is an interpretive tradition.18 So despite the monolithic nature of the revelatory moment, the interpretive tradition opens up numerous possibilities for filtering and understanding that revelation within the normative halakhic framework. In order to understand Hartman’s views on halakhah, I begin with an important article on the halakhic system today, which has already been cited in this book.19 Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction” describes a growing trend within Orthodoxy today toward attributing ultimate authority to text over and above established practice, which has profound ramifications for the halakhic system.20 For H. Soloveitchik, halakhah should be a mimetic tradition,21 since the best way to learn to do something is by imitation, and halakhah is about doing, i.e., it is a way of life. The mimetic religious life is such that, for example, kashrut is learned in the mother’s kitchen and prayer in the father’s synagogue. Therefore, when halakhah ceases to be mimetic and becomes text-based such that conduct has to be learned from texts, conflicting views can arise about exactly how to perform a certain action (words are good for description, but “pathetically inadequate for teaching how to do something”).22 This is of supreme importance because what is at stake is not “fidelity to some personal vision, but to what is perceived as the Divine Will.”23 18

19 20

21 22

23

Hence the title of one of Hartman’s most important essays: “Judaism as an Interpretive Tradition” (in Heart 3-36). See chapter 2, note 65. H. Soloveitchik actually discusses this trend within a greater discussion about the swing to the right which is currently taking place within Orthodoxy. One of the features of the swing to the right is the new centrality of texts over established practice. H. Soloveitchik, “Rupture,” 66, 72, 87, and elsewhere. Ibid. 72. A similar point is also made by Raphael Jospe in “The Superiority of Oral over Written Communication: Judah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari and Modern Jewish Thought,” in Jewish Philosophy: Foundations and Extensions. Volume Two - On Philosophers and Their Thought (Lanham: University Press of America, 2008), 35-61. Jospe analyses the expressions “the purpose of language […] can only be completely fulfilled orally” and “for oral [communication] is superior to written [communication].” Ha-Levi, The Kuzari, 2:72, quoted in Jospe, ‘The Superiority of Oral over Written Communication,” 37. Ibid. 73. — 154 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

I highlight Haym Soloveitchik’s article because I think it lends credence to David Hartman’s philosophy of halakhah. The shift of authority to text, which H. Soloveitchik charts, has far-reaching implications for the halakhic legal system, and he is not the only one to highlight this trend. Menachem Friedman similarly writes the following: “In the yeshivah social system, the literature of halakhic decision-making can ‘defeat’ family and / or community traditions. The book has become a virtually exclusive source of authority, tolerating no substantive conflict with family or community mores.”24 So what has been the outcome of such rupture and reconstruction in the Orthodox world? The shape of religious life has changed dramatically. There are daf yomi (a type of daily Talmud learning) classes throughout America, and free phone lines that one can call in several states for Mishnah and Gemara classes. “The necessity of Talmud Torah [traditional Jewish learning] to Jewish existence […] has become a simple, sociological fact,” and Talmud Torah itself has become “almost axiomatic.”25 Despite this (or because of it), the resultant Orthodoxy is not quite the type of Orthodoxy that one would expect, given the increase in learning and education. H. Soloveitchik sees in the activities of this native-born generation a distinct lack of yirat shamayim (fear of heaven): “What was absent among the thronged students in Bnei Brak and in other contemporary services [..] was that primal fear of Divine judgement, simple and direct.”26 H. Soloveitchik sees a lack in this structure of any direct involvement with or experience of God in one’s everyday life. This may well be a product of the times, for “when a medieval man said that his sickness is the result of the wish of God, 24

25 26

Menachem Friedman, “The Lost Kiddush Cup,” in The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era, ed. Jack Wertheimer (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 183. Friedman also discusses the implication of this trend upon family life. “Haredi parents who sent their children to yeshivas effectively forfeited their role in the socialization of their children” (p. 184), because the yeshivahbook culture held little regard for the continuation of preservation of family mores and customs (and hence contributed to the dying out of such mores and customs, which is the subject of the article). H. Soloveitchik, “Rupture,” 94 - 95. Ibid. 99. — 155 —

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he was no more affirming a religious posture than is a modern man adopting a scientific one when he says that he has a virus.”27 God’s palpable presence and direct, natural involvement in one’s daily life was a fact of life in the East European shtetl only eighty years ago, but it is not so today. This perception of God as a daily, natural force is no longer present today to any significant degree in any sector of modern Jewry, regardless of “religiosity.” And with that distancing of God from everyday life, “the religious world has been irrevocably separated from the spirituality of its fathers.”28 The shift from mimesis to text actually facilitates a shift away from divine involvement in the halakhic legal system. The reason for this is that the logic of the text and its interpretation take on a life of their own, which leaves behind all consideration of the divine and becomes a self-contained and self-justifying system. This self-contained system gives little, or no, consideration to the whole idea of relating to God, unlike its mimetic predecessor, in which familial and communal mores were rooted in fidelity to the (perceived) divine will.29 Halakhah is ceasing to become a divine legal system at all (in any traditional understanding of that phrase). H. Soloveitchik understands the rupture at the heart of contemporary Orthodoxy as being symbolic of a growing divide between man and his Maker. In a paper given at the Shalom Hartman Institute, David Hartman described the crisis which he sees in halakhah in similar terms, i.e., as being a problem relating to the loss of God’s immediate involvement in the halakhic system.30 In fact, Hartman 27 28 29

30

Ibid. 100. Ibid. 103. It is important to point out that H. Soloveitchik’s article did not go unchallenged, as the journal articles of the time testify. Mark Steiner writes, “Seldom does an article provoke such discussion as Professor Haym Soloveitchik’s ‘Rupture and Reconstruction’” (‘The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy: Another View’, in Tradition 31:2, 1997, 41). Particularly noteworthy are the review by Isaac Chavel and the subsequent response by H. Soloveitchik, both of which appeared in the pages of The Torah Umadda Journal (volume 7, 1997). I refer to a lecture given by Hartman to fellows of the Shalom Hartman Institute on November 3, 2005, which I attended. The paper was entitled “Is There a Philosophy of Halakhah?” — 156 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

would agree with the vast majority of Haym Soloveitchik’s thesis, in particular the belief that halakhah should be mimetic rather than textbased. There are two distinct issues raised by Haym Soloveitchik’s paper vis-à-vis the shift of authority to text. The first is the role of the divine in the halakhic system, which, as a direct result of the loss of practical replication (mimesis) H. Soloveitchik sees as diminishing within the new framework. The second is the issue of relationship in general. A shift away from practice and toward text actually inhibits the genuine relationship between man and God within the halakhic framework. There is a strong suggestion that the centrality of text is a barrier to a fruitful relationship. Hartman would agree with both of these issues raised in the paper. Hartman argues against an understanding of halakhah as being like a system of rules. The notion that halakhah provides all the answers one needs, without requiring thought, is an incorrect one. There should be turmoil and anguish during the agonising process of choosing between two equally difficult solutions to a complex halakhic problem. Being granted the answers removes that richness from the individual and contributes to the stagnation of today’s halakhic system.31 He writes this explicitly towards the end of Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: “Presenting Judaism as a closed system with a fixed menu prepared exactly according to divine requirements can stifle and inhibit genuine engagement with the tradition.”32 This view leads to Hartman’s dislike of halakhic codifications like the Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh,33 which give the religious adherent all the “answers” without any reasons or substance behind them. This is in stark contrast to the beauty of the Gemara, in which minority opinions are preserved alongside halakhic rulings, allowing the student of the Gemara to understand far better the 31 32 33

Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 29.1.07 (11:10). Hartman, Israelis, 161. The Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh is an abridged version of Joseph Caro’s sixteenth-century codification of Halakhah. The Shulkhan Arukh (literally “Set Table”) was the most widely accepted codification of Jewish Law since Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, and remains one of the most authoritative compilations of halakhot. The Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh is actually the work of the nineteenth-century Shlomo Ganzfried, who attempted to summarise Caro’s codification into one shorter work, with the expressed desire to make the work accessible to a wider audience than were able to master the original text. — 157 —

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reasons behind the legal ruling than do those who simply go straight to the answer manual. The student of the Gemara would understand Hartman’s belief that the ideal halakhic system is flexible, whereas the student of the Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh might not. Hartman writes: “I would ban the teaching of mitzvot based upon the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, as it distorts the complexity and richness of the halakhic experience […] There is a spiritual adventure and diversity in the ocean of Talmud. There is limiting spiritual monism and religious passivity in the study of the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh.”34 Hartman deliberately attacks the notion that halakhah is not mimetic,35 and makes reference to a well-known debate surrounding the shiurei Hazon Ish. A shiur is a measuring standard, and Hazon Ish is the affectionate name given to Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (1878 — 1953), for the title of the large series of works of rabbinic scholarship he authored. The shiurei Hazon Ish, therefore, is the measuring standard of Rabbi Karelitz which, in a very short space of time during the early 1950s, became entrenched in all sectors of Haredi society.36 The halakhic implications of the concept of shiur are such that, as a measure of volume, area, length or width, it is critical to the performance of major precepts. So, for example, knowledge of the correct shiur is crucial to performing the commandment of kiddush (sanctification) on Friday night, or of eating matzah (unleavened bread) on Passover. The Hazon Ish instigated a major upheaval in Haredi society by suggesting that previous conceptions of a shiur were misguided and had underestimated the measurement. The classic example offered by Menachem Friedman in his article “The Lost Kiddush Cup” concerns the measurement of revi’it (a volume of liquid).37 According to the Hazon Ish, previous generations have miscalculated the exact quantity signified 34 35 36

37

Hartman, “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language,” 17. Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 29.1.07 (49:00). The best discussion of the shiurei Hazon Ish occurs in Menachem Friedman’s article “The Lost Kiddush Cup” (op. cit.). For a detailed biography and sketch of the life and career of the Hazon Ish see Lawrence Kaplan’s article “The Hazon Ish: Haredi Critic of Traditional Orthodoxy,” in The Uses of Tradition (op. cit.), 145-173. Friedman, “The Lost Kiddush Cup,” 180-183. See BT, Pesakhim 109a for how to measure a revi’it. Also discussed in BT, Pesakhim 108b, and identified in solid form as the same size as an olive in BT, Shabbat 77a. — 158 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

by the talmudic measurement of revi’it, and it is actually a far larger measurement than previously thought.38 This leads to the belief that anyone who had performed the mitzvah of kiddush using a measurement of wine smaller than that outlined by the Hazon Ish had not properly fulfilled this mitzvah. Menachem Friedman’s article relates the story of one Dov Genachowski, whose grandfather was a learning partner of the Hazon Ish’s father. Dov Genachowski had been given a kiddush cup which had been handed down from his grandfather, which did not hold a revi’it according to the Hazon Ish’s calculations. When the concept of shiurei Hazon Ish started circulating amongst yeshivah circles, Dov Genachowski took the kiddush cup and presented it to the Hazon Ish, who (though avoiding public denouncement) would not use it.39 Hartman is particularly vitriolic in his attack on this kind of halakhic position, which he sees as totally removed from reality. For centuries the performance of mitzvot was done according to a mimetic tradition (doing what one’s father had done), and suddenly that was deemed unacceptable. Hartman and Haym Soloveitchik share an opinion on this controversial issue, which is that they both consider the mimetic tradition, in this case familial precedent, to be a strong foundation for halakhic law. According to Hartman, halakhah is in a state of crisis. This is an expression of Hartman’s existential problem vis à vis the halakhah, and explains his own personal views on the halakhic system as it stands today and as it has been mediated to him by the Orthodox community in which he lives in Jerusalem. It also helps to explain why he feels

38

39

The discussion centred around the definition of a revi’it offered in the Mishnah Berura (271:68) as being equivalent to the amount of liquid that one and a half eggs can displace. As a result, the size of the egg becomes paramount and the Hazon Ish suggested that it was possible that eggs today are half the size of eggs in the time of the Gemara, so one needs to double one’s quantities of (for example) matzah at Passover in order to continue fulfilling the obligation to eat a certain amount of unleavened bread. Friedman, “The Lost Kiddush Cup,” 180-181. He also relates the story that the daughter of the Hafetz Hayim was heard complaining that her sons would not use their grandfather’s cup for Kiddush because “it does not hold a shiurei Hazon Ish” (p. 181). The Hafetz Hayim was the author of the Mishnah Berurah, the key halakhic codification of the modern era. — 159 —

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choked by the current halakhic framework. Underlying this diagnosis is Hartman’s belief that halakhah is about expressing man’s relationship with God, and that it should be about bringing man closer to God. Hartman’s clearest expression of this occurs toward the end of A Living Covenant, where he writes that “halakhah can be an expressive educational system, reflective of the richness of the individual’s and the community’s longing for God.”40 This explains the reason behind his disdain for the kind of halakhic mindset personified by the Hazon Ish in the above example, as Hartman fails to understand how the intricacies of correct measurement can enhance intimacy with God.41 It is important to point out that, according to most definitions, halakhah is primarily a legal system. Moreover, as such, it is more a rabbinic legal system than it is a divine legal system.42 Therefore, Hartman’s statement that its purpose is to bring us closer to God and to help us formulate a framework for living with God is contentious. I would also argue that as a construct for understanding the halakhic system it is decidedly vague. What constitutes an action which brings us closer to God? If the sanctification of the wine on the Sabbath can bring us closer to God, then, as many Haredi Jews would argue, the shiurei Hazon Ish will bring one closer to God in that it will facilitate the proper fulfilment of this mitzvah.43 The best proof-text of Hartman’s on this issue is in A Heart of Many Rooms, in which he writes: “The danger of emphasising the obligations and prohibitions of halakhic practice to the exclusion of aggadic motifs in Judaism is the risk of losing God at the centre of religious life. ‘Out of sheer punctiliousness in observing the law, one may come to be oblivious to the living presence of the Lord.’”44 40 41

42 43

44

Hartman, Living, 289, emphasis my own. He writes, “How often have I heard it said that Christians talk about God, whilst Jews talk about halakhah,” and his work attempts to correct that distortion (Heart, 201). See section 3.1e above for a discussion of the Aknai oven midrash and lo bashamayim hi. One could respond by distinguishing between primary and secondary actions — primary actions being those which directly bring the human closer to God, and secondary actions being those which facilitate the primary ones. Shiurim would be classified as secondary actions, thus not directly bringing one closer to God, and Hartman’s preference would obviously be for primary actions. Hartman himself, however, offers no such distinction. Heart, 175. Hartman quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Earth is the Lord’s: The Inner — 160 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

While some of Hartman’s thought on this matter has radicalised in the recent past, much of it has been reverberating through his major works for some time. Most revealing of Hartman’s position on this issue is a statement that he made in A Living Covenant over twenty years ago, namely that “the development of the halakhah must be subjugated to the scrutiny of moral categories that are independent of the notion of halakhic authority.”45 Hartman’s reasons for such a strong statement are quite clear. He views, as has been shown in chapter three above, the rabbinic mandate of interpreting God’s laws as the ultimate in divine love and the strongest statement of human adequacy and empowerment. Having established this point, it is quite clear that “this invitation to full responsibility in history would be ludicrous if the community’s rational or moral powers were negated in the very act of covenantal commitment.”46 Hartman’s position is nonetheless a radical departure from the more traditional viewpoint that sees halakhah as an absolute, complete system. This question of an independent ethic, or of the existence of moral categories that are independent of halakhic authority is an important theme in this chapter, as is discussed in more detail in section 5.3 below. Hartman also made the following remarks in 1999 about God’s laws: “God’s laws must reflect, in some way, my understanding of reality and morality. Not sacrificing what I believe to be fair and just is not a violation of my belief in God or divine authority. My moral intuitions have been nurtured by the study of Torah!”47 In examining these halakhic considerations, it is hard to avoid the more than minimal influence that Eliezer Berkovits’ classic critique of

45

46 47

World of the Jew in Eastern Europe (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2008), 83-84. See chapter 2, note 50 and text therein. Donniel Hartman makes a remarkably similar assertion to that of his father above when he writes: “Only a religious system that allows for the corrective mechanism of external moral review can serve as a constructive partner in the civilised moral universe.” For “the corrective mechanism of external moral review,” one could read “the scrutiny of moral categories that are independent of the notion of halakhic authority.” Donniel Hartman, “Judaism: Between Religion and Morality,” in Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, ed. Moshe Halbertal and Donniel Hartman (New York: Continuum, 2007), 53. Hartman, Living, 98. Hartman, Heart, 20. — 161 —

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halakhah in Not in Heaven (published in 1983) has had on Hartman’s position.48 Not only are there obvious similarities in terms of “the one sided educational ideal of the yeshivot in Israel,”49 and the attempt to understand the establishment of the State of Israel as “a new challenge to the halakhic system,”50 but their two expositions of the halakhic system share something far deeper. Berkovits writes the following toward the end of his book: To work for Jewish unity in the spirit of Ahavat Yisrael, love for every Jew, in the interests of Klal Yisrael, the reality of the totality of the Jewish people, is an urgent demand of Torah-realization. It is to be regretted that halakhah, as it is understood today, rather than contributing its share to the striving for Jewish unity, only deepens and fortifies the fragmentation. […] It is our conviction that halakhah has to be stretched to its limits in order to further Jewish unity and to better mutual understanding.51

Berkovits writes here that the halakhah does not participate in “striving for Jewish unity,” and that it must be “stretched to its limits in order to further Jewish unity and to better mutual understanding.” These things are certainly outside of the parameters usually set for the halakhic system, and are undoubtedly meta-legal. Unity and education are not necessarily considered integral parts of a legal system, which is primarily concerned with the following of the law and its due processes in order to impart justice upon those under its jurisdiction. Berkovits 48

49

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51

Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halacha (New York: KTAV, 1983) deals in depth with many of the issues discussed here (not least the Aknai oven midrash). Hartman himself has obviously been highly influenced by his older contemporary, and when I first entered Hartman’s office for my initial meeting with him on November 1, 2005, he had open on his desk a copy of Not in Heaven. Berkovits, Not in Heaven, 93. A classic expression of Hartman’s dislike of the narrow and monolithic curriculum of yeshivot today occurs in “Living in Relationship with the Other,” where he writes: “When we are immersed in a yeshivah framework, we think the world coincides with our dalet amot, our private little shtibl. This kind of ghettoisation of consciousness is, unfortunately, taking hold of Jews in some circles of Orthodoxy today” (page 7). Berkovits, Not in Heaven, 95-97; Hartman, Living, chapter 12; and also Heart xxii. This aspect of Hartman’s work is comprehensively dealt with by Donniel Hartman in his “Judaism in Light of the Rebirth of the State of Israel,” as the title of the article suggests. Berkovits, Not in Heaven, 106-107. — 162 —

-  5.2 Hartman’s Understanding of Revelation and the Ensuing Halakhic System 

discusses Jewish unity, love for every Jew, and Torah understanding under the one heading of halakhah, which would suggest that his understanding of halakhah has shifted rather dramatically from the outset of his project52 to its conclusion. This attitude of Berkovits is in keeping with the vision of halakhah that Hartman espouses. Hartman not only allies himself to Berkovits’s view of the halakhic category, but he even goes so far as to advocate flexibility and experimentation in halakhah.53 Both Hartman and Borowitz share an understanding of halakhah which is far broader than that of most others. Berkovits’s endgame of furthering Jewish unity and Hartman’s of expressing man’s relationship with God are different from each other, but their similarity lies in their optimistic extension of the halakhic realm to incorporate the non-legal aspects of the religious tradition in an attempt to make the halakhic system something like its former self. Hartman points out that within the halakhic system it is not revelation which binds us per se, but how that revelation has been filtered by the interpretive tradition. The outcome of this is that it makes halakhah essentially a mediative and not a revelatory system. What does that mean?54 It means that not only is the halakhic system an interpretive tradition, but that the interpretation is almost entirely performed for the individual halakhic agent by a mediator. The posekim of the generation act as the mediators for the Orthodox community of the day. This understanding of the mediative and interpretive nature of the halakhic system has distinct ramifications. Once you reach the conclusion that halakhah is mediative, you must ask who is mediating it for you. Hartman openly admits that he does not have a community that 52 53

54

Ibid. 1. Hartman, Israelis, 164. This, again, is akin to Berkovits, who offers several examples of halakhic experimentation in Not in Heaven, such as when dealing with the issues of autopsies or suitability of witnesses. Berkovits, Not in Heaven, 94-95. Halakhah becomes mediative as a result of the prior mediative efforts of biblical characters, whose actions were paradigmatic. Speaking about Abraham becoming a friend of God, Hartman writes “God becomes the lord of the earth, i.e., the God of history, as a result of the mediative efforts of human beings” (“Living in Relationship with the Other,” 3). Compare the similarities between Hartman’s view here and that of Abraham Joshua Heschel, described in section 3.4 above. — 163 —

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mediates the halakhah for him today (which is in itself a bold assertion to make in public, and not one he was making twenty years ago). Hartman lacks a frame of reference, i.e. a community to be a part of, and to filter religious life for him. This crisis is crucial for the individual, because the Orthodox community does not give the individual moral agent a halakhah that he or she can work with. The primary reason for Hartman’s insistence that the current Orthodox community cannot mediate the halakhah for him is because it is unaware of the boundaries of his moral obligation. On the very last page of Israelis and the Jewish Tradition, Hartman explicitly states that “halakhah and the rabbinate will change when people concerned with egalitarianism, human rights, and social justice view the Jewish tradition as their natural context in which to express their concerns.”55 Until they do so, the halakhah will not change, and thus it cannot mediate for the sorts of people already asking questions on these topics. At the moment, not enough people in Orthodoxy are asking the gender question, for example. However, Hartman feels very strongly that he cannot leave Orthodoxy altogether for the Reform or Conservative movements, because neither of these movements take the category of halakhah seriously enough for him. As a result, he feels trapped within an Orthodox community that, while remaining loyal to the halakhic system, fails to acknowledge the need for autonomy of the individuals within it. It is worth noting at this stage Moshe Halbertal’s explanation of the Hartmanian usage of the word mitzvah. Halbertal argues (rightly, I believe), that Hartman changes the meaning of mitzvah from its traditional understanding as “divine command,” to a broader definition meaning “an invitation to responsibility.”56 I am suggesting here that this is a feature of Hartman’s work more generally. Donniel Hartman explains how his father uses the terms tolerance and pluralism synonymously, which suggests that in other cases Hartman also slips in his use of terminology;57 he does not

55 56

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Hartman, Israelis, 165. Moshe Halbertal, “David Hartman and the Crisis in Modern Faith,” in Judaism and Modernity: The Religious Philosophy of David Hartman (op. cit.), 33. Donniel Hartman, “Judaism in Light of the Rebirth of the State of Israel,” in Judaism and Modernity, 23 n. 11. — 164 —

--------------------------------   5.3 Borowitz’s Engagement with the Halakhah --------------------------------

always use terms and phrases in a consistent and analytic way.58 I contend that halakhah can be viewed in a similar vein to tolerance, pluralism and mitzvah, and it is clear that (as with the word mitzvah) Hartman’s definition of the telos of halakhah is somewhat removed from traditional definitions of that term. There is nothing untraditional about positing the telos of the halakhic system to be about proximity to God; however, a traditional definition of the term does not suggest a telos at all. Other halakhic thinkers, such as Yeshayahu Leibowitz, would resent all attempts to provide an endgame for the halakhic system, arguing that it provides its own forms of justification. Similarly, it is not clear that viewing halakhah as a legal system is inconsistent with viewing it as having a telos (even one about getting closer to God), but it is apparent that Hartman considers the current halakhic system as lacking direction (and hence a telos), and therefore considers it necessary to expand its remit to include what he would describe as meta-legal categories. I do not share his conviction about the impracticality of providing a purely traditional halakhah-as-legal framework with the ultimate purpose of bringing adherents closer to God.

5.3 Borowitz’s Engagement with the Halakhah Having analysed Hartman’s prescriptions for the ideal halakhic system, I now turn to Borowitz’s understanding of the substance of the revelation, which was discussed in section 5.1 above, namely the duties and obligations which arise from covenant. A consequence of Borowitz’s understanding of non-verbal communication is its incompatibility with a divinely prescribed religious legal system such as the halakhah. However, he devotes some time in his written work to analysing the trend he sees within the Reform movement toward a return to the use of this term: “In recent decades, as freedom has appeared to overstep 58

Although Hartman received a doctorate in philosophy from McGill University, his writing style remains distinctly un-philosophical, in the sense that it eschews a classic analytic philosophical style in favour, I would argue, of a more classic rabbinic mindset, which (in keeping with a prevalent tradition within rabbinic literature) is unsystematic, organic, and often times homiletic, abounding in alternating argument and often times not reaching clear, unequivocal resolutions to the questions which it treats. — 165 —

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its proper bounds, Reform Jews have increasingly used the term Halakhah, Jewish law, in their efforts to redress the balance between their movement’s central affirmations.”59 Borowitz charts the history of halakhah in the Reform movement, and traces the category back to Isaac Mayer Wise’s first presidential address to the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the CCAR). In that speech, Mayer Wise laid out one of the main aims of the CCAR, namely to protect individual rabbis from attacks made upon them by opposers to Reform Judaism by making all future reforms go through the authority of the Conference and making the Conference itself “the lawful authority in all matters of form.”60 However, it appears that the Committee never became the “lawful authority” which Mayer Wise hoped it would,61 and the CCAR instead developed in a rather individualistic vein, with communal rabbis deciding what was best for their own congregations until the instigating of the CCAR Responsa Committee, which Borowitz terms “the closest thing Reform Jews have to a halakhic process.”62 What does it mean to say that Reform Judaism is attempting to redress the balance and insert at least some halakhah into its decisionmaking process? He writes elsewhere that “most American Jews have little sense of mitzvah as commandment (though as good humanitarians they like mitzvah in the sense of good deed).”63 The traditional basis of Reform Judaism has always been biblical (with a particular emphasis placed on the prophetic literature), but the halakhah is obviously a formative aspect of rabbinic Judaism, and so Borowitz sees in this 59

60 61

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Eugene Borowitz, “Halakhah in Reform Jewish Usage: Historic Background and Current Discourse,” in Studies, 415. Mayer Wise, in Borowitz, “Halakhah in Reform Jewish Usage,” 417. As Borowitz writes, Joseph Silverman, President of the CCAR in 1903, specifically called for a Sanhedrin to be set up which might make it possible for the Conference to give a decisive interpretation of Jewish law and practice, implying that such decisionmaking was not taking place within the present structure. Ibid. 417. Ibid. 421. He makes a similar statement when he compares Immanuel Jacobovitz’s halakhic decision-making with that of the CCAR Responsa Committee. Eugene Borowitz, “Subjectivity and the Halakhic Process,” Judaism 13:2 (Spring 1964): 211219. I discuss Borowitz’s engagement with Jacobovitz again below. Eugene Borowitz, “The Chosen People Concept as it Affects Life in the Diaspora,” in Journal of Ecumenical Studies 12:4 (Fall 1975): 563. See also on this issue Elliot Dorff’s Mitzvah Means Commandment (New York: United Synagogue Youth, 1989). — 166 —

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resurgence an acknowledgement that Reform Judaism cannot be practised as a biblical religion alone.64 However, the attempted use of the term halakhic has more profound implications than that. It is undoubtedly an attempt by modern-day scholars to counterbalance the Reform emphasis on religious autonomy with some measure of obligation. Borowitz writes the following: Advocates of this approach do not pretend that their Reform views ought to be given the authority attached to those of a traditional posek, decisor, yet they want it to carry the title “Halakhah,” in their redefinition of its meaning. Nostalgia alone does not, I believe, entirely explain this incongruous passion; one must add to it the unconscious hope that the term will carry with it some small measure of Jewish religious discipline.65

Borowitz does not approve of the Reform use of the term halakhah. That is not to say he does not agree with the sentiment (i.e., the “hope that the term will carry with it some small measure of Jewish religious discipline”), but he would not use such a loaded term to describe it. In Renewing the Covenant, he writes that “the Halakhah is not just something that the rav (rabbi) ‘says’ but a ruling that, once he has specified it, the people are required to do, classically, by God’s own authority. Any concept of halakhah that foregoes this notion of requirement should not call itself ‘halakhah.’”66 He does not support a usage of the term halakhah which attempts to foist greater discipline upon liberal Judaism, and hence thinks that the current Reform use of the term is ill-advised. For Borowitz, the term halakhah is particularly unhelpful because it suggests a pre-conceived list of duties and obligations that is anathema to the notion of unmediated knowing and received authority of his-via-Buber. More importantly, he does not believe that one needs the halakhic category in order to generate the discipline, because the discipline comes from the relationship itself. Every relationship generates discipline, and every relationship entails responsibility. When, for example, you start a new fitness regimen with a training partner, the relationship that develops between 64 65 66

Borowitz, “Halakhah in Reform Jewish Usage,” 422. Ibid. 424-425. Borowitz, Renewing, 282, original emphasis. — 167 —

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partners exhibits both of these qualities. There is discipline, in getting up at 6 am and continuing the regimen in the middle of winter against all your better judgement, and there is responsibility, too, because when you make the sacrifice to be out of bed at that time in the morning you expect your partner to do the same. If you decide that you will not attend one morning, then your decision has ramifications in your training partner’s life as well as your own. Every relationship — even one so trivial as a fitness training partnership — entails responsibility and generates discipline. So, although Borowitz is not halakhic, he is disciplined. Other critics of Borowitz have also found this element in his thought. In his review of Renewing the Covenant, Elliot Dorff writes that Borowitz’s conception of the autonomous Jewish self “automatically and immediately imposes upon us covenantal obligations,”67 a phrase with which Borowitz would certainly concur. And this sense of obligation comes out of his understanding of the covenantal relationship, which itself grows from his understanding of human relationships. In 1965, when he dedicated his first book to his wife, he wrote, “To my beloved Estelle, who has taught me the meaning of existence in covenant.”68 The discipline required in a marriage is exactly the discipline Borowitz wishes to bring with him into the covenantal relationship.69 Borowitz, like Hartman, uses the biblical paradigm of God as the husband and the Children of Israel as the wife in order to further develop this point.70 I have an ongoing difficulty with Borowitz on this issue of the 67 68

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Dorff, The Unfolding Tradition, 466. The dedication of A Layman’s Introduction to Religious Existentialism. Borowitz repeated this sentiment in the dedication to his most recent book, The Talmud’s Theological Language Game, after the death of his wife, writing: “The classic (1965) text updated: To my beloved Estelle (1925-2004) who (for fifty-seven years) [has] taught me the meaning of existence in covenant.” Irving Greenberg chooses a markedly similar dedication for his first book, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (New York: Touchstone, 1988): “To Blu, who has taught me the meaning of covenantal love,” which reinforces this link between marriage and the covenantal relationship. Borowitz writes that “As the pain of trying to create egalitarian marriages indicates, we cannot know early on what forms and processes most people will find appropriate to such relationships. We can, however, accept covenantal relationships as a central ethical challenge of our time and pragmatically learn how we might sanctify ourselves by living it.” Borowitz, Renewing, 223, emphasis my own. Borowitz, Renewing, 223 (covenant as “egalitarian marriage”); 276. — 168 —

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relationship generating its own sense of responsibility. The point Borowitz is making is that responsibility and discipline emerge out of the relationship. He uses the example of marriage, and I have used the example of a fitness regimen. However, in both cases the responsibilities and the discipline are based initially on speech. There are discursive contractual terms, only after which can responsibilities be generated. So does the analogy break down? One cannot imagine a relationship with a fitness trainer in which both parties know their responsibilities intuitively, without first discussing them together, and certainly the same would hold true for a marriage. It seems that no analogy will serve to complement Borowitz’s standpoint here. There is clearly something totally unique about the divine-human relationship which separates it from all other encounters and allows for responsibility and discipline to be generated without an initial verbal communication. Despite the fact that Borowitz is not an advocate of using the halakhic category, he has still been a key contributor to the contemporary debate surrounding the ethical realm of the halakhah. In his regular review column, “Current Theological Literature” in Judaism, in 1964 he discussed the Orthodox procedure for halakhic decisionmaking that he finds in the writings of one of the great modern posekim, the late Chief Rabbi Lord Immanuel Jacobovitz.71 Jacobovitz uses the term “the spirit of the law” on a number of occasions, which Borowitz finds particularly fascinating within this Orthodox context. And in concluding one case he states that “the problems involved are so intimately personal, sacred and grave […] that each question should always be submitted to a competent Rabbi for judgment on the basis of the individual merits of every case.”72 This position leads Borowitz to conclude that even for the Orthodox there is significant emphasis placed on subjectivity within halakhic decision-making — or if there is not, then there should be and there is a precedent for such a stance within the confines of Orthodoxy. Borowitz has, in fact, taken issue with the Orthodox position on the ethical realm within halakhah on a number of other occasions. 71 72

Borowitz, “Subjectivity and the Halakhic Process,” 211 — 219. Ibid. 218. — 169 —

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Most famously, he wrote a response to Aharon Lichtenstein’s article “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?”73 Lichtenstein’s article, written in 1975, defends the view from a staunchly Orthodox perspective which argues that “natural morality is clearly assumed in much that is quite central to our tradition.”74 In arguing for the existence of a natural morality that preceded divine revelation at Sinai, Lichtenstein asks how, for example, Abraham could plead to God, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” (Gen. 18:25) were it not for the fact that Abraham already knew (prior to revelation) what justice was. As Lichtenstein puts it, one cannot even ask the question “unless one assumes the existence of a unlegislated justice to which, as it were, God Himself is bound; and which, one might add, man can at least apprehend sufficiently to ask the question.”75 The crux of the Lichtenstein article is that the halakhah is not always self-sufficient. “There are moments when one must seek independent counsels”76 outside of, or aside from, the halakhah, and he traces these moments to the rabbinic dictum lifnim mishurat hadin, i.e., beyond the letter of the law.77 Lichtenstein’s conclusion on this issue is that “halakhic Judaism demands of the Jew both adherence to Halakha and commitment to an ethical moment that, though different from Halakha, is nevertheless of a piece with it and in its own way fully imperative.”78 Borowitz wrote an open reply to Lichtenstein’s article in 1982, entitled “On the Ethical Moment in Halakhah: A Disagreement with 73 74 75 76 77 78

See chapter 4, note 10. Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?,” 103. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 107. See BT, Bava Metzia 30b, and elsewhere. Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?” 119. These issues have been debated by Michael Harris, who sets up his own analytic framework for dealing with the topic, splitting relevant proof texts into either DCT (Divine Command Theory) or SMU (The Shared Moral Universe of God and Humanity). Most of these proof texts do not fit comfortably into either category, and the main thesis of the book is to prove that in fact the traditional Jewish approach to the issue of the independence of morality from God is significantly more complex and nuanced than most Jewish philosophical literature is prepared to concede, a thesis with which I am sympathetic. Michael Harris, Divine Command Ethics: Jewish and Christian Perspectives (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003). — 170 —

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Aharon Lichtenstein.”79 In this article he discusses the authority given to the ethical imperative within rabbinic literature, an issue which he understands to have been dealt with most thoroughly from within Orthodox circles by Lichtenstein. It is clear that Borowitz feels that Lichtenstein has “not satisfactorily faced up to the issue facing many Jews,”80 an issue upon which Borowitz places more importance than any other.81 This is the issue of the unimpeachable ethical standard which must underlie all of the moral teachings of Judaism. It is this issue which dictates that if traditional Jewish teachings are found wanting by twenty-first-century moral standards, then they must be superseded by more ecumenical and pluralistic teachings which, while maintaining the flavour of the traditional teachings, have departed from them in certain key areas. Borowitz recognises the impossibility of facing these issues from within a traditionalist milieu. Not only would rabbinic Judaism have to recognise a second source of authority to Torah in order to treat the ethical imperative seriously enough for Borowitz, but the rabbinic tradition would also have to admit that God had given only a partial, and not a complete, revelation.82 There would also be significant implications for the posek. If external ethical considerations were a formative factor in determining authoritative Jewish duty, then the posek “would have to transcend his received methodology and learning and become expert 79

80 81

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Eugene Borowitz, “On the Ethical Moment in Halakhah: A Disagreement with Aharon Lichtenstein,” in Exploring Jewish Ethics: Papers on Covenant Responsibility (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 193-203. This article has been reprinted on more than one occasion, and was given a new title, “The Authority of the Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” in Studies, 179-191. All subsequent quotations will be from this version. Borowitz, “The Authority of the Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” 179 A careful reading of the introduction to Renewing explains that the book is part of a bigger project. Borowitz views three of his books as combining to represent the single most important addition to his thought: Renewing (1); Exploring Jewish Ethics (2); and The Talmud’s Theological Language Game (3) - “Its centrepiece was the apologetic theology of Renewing the Covenant, but that was accompanied by a statement of its actional consequences, my writings in the field of Jewish ethics. What was yet missing was the textual study that lay behind it all” (The Talmud’s Theological Language Game 279 n. 4). That textual study was completed in 2006. See Renewing xi. Borowitz, “Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” 180. Hartman does make exactly such an admission about revelation. See Hartman, Heart, 166. Compare also chapter 3, note 89, and (with reference to pluralism) section 7.2b. — 171 —

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in general ethics and its relation to rabbinic tradition.”83 Borowitz is right in concluding that “no established institution would easily accept such a radical challenge to its accustomed ways of proceeding.”84 One can see, therefore, the denominational encroaching on the theological for Borowitz here, since it is only from a liberal (and, Borowitz would claim, post-modern) perspective that one can even begin to attempt to do justice to the ethical imperative within Jewish legal theory. While Borowitz is in agreement with one key part of Lichtenstein’s thesis — “Rabbinic Judaism has a fundamental ethical thrust”85 — his main bone of contention with his Orthodox counterpart is the crucial concluding sentence quoted above, namely that “halakhic Judaism demands of the Jew both adherence to Halakha and commitment to an ethical moment that though different from Halakha is nevertheless of a piece with it and in its own way fully imperative.”86 For Borowitz the central part of this statement is the clause “in its own way.” Lichtenstein does not say “and commitment to an ethical moment that though different from Halakhah is nevertheless of a piece with it and fully imperative.” The “ethical moment” that is “nevertheless of a piece with” halakhah “is “fully imperative” only “in its own way.” Just what is that distinctive way?87 Lichtenstein is happy to assert that a supralegal ethic exists within rabbinic Judaism, but what remains unclear is the precise nature of the supralegal — how it is “supra” and how much authority it has.88 According to Borowitz, Lichtenstein does eventually explain the thorny phrase “in its own way fully imperative” when he states that the ethical moment is “less rigorous” and “less exacting” with respect to force of obligation, and “more flexible” in light of particular circumstances.89 Borowitz’s reply is categorical: “To the average reader, I should think, that provides so many loopholes that it seems to indicate a far less significant sort of imperative.”90

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Ibid. 180. Ibid. 180. Borowitz, “Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” 181. Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize?” 119. Borowitz, “Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” 182. Ibid. 183. Ibid. 185. Ibid. 185. — 172 —

--------------------------------   5.3 Borowitz’s Engagement with the Halakhah --------------------------------

According to Borowitz, if one attempted to apply Lichtenstein’s theory, one would find that the ethical moment was both less rigorous than the din (law), and that it was situational, i.e., to be implemented and followed only in particular circumstances. These type of relativist ethical theories (which make ethical imperatives relative to either the particular situation, or the culture, time or place that an event takes place — so that an ethical maxim can be deemed right in America and wrong in Iran, or right in the fifth century BCE but wrong in the twentyfirst century CE) are renowned for being difficult to apply, for it is often hard for an individual ethical agent to know, at any particular moment, whether the situation they find themselves in merits the application of their ethical maxim or not. An absolute ethic, which contains do’s and don’ts that are unchangeable and absolute, is far easier to follow. Hence one criticism of the Lichtenstein approach to the ethical thrust within halakhah (highlighted by Borowitz) is its inapplicability. This kind of criticism, coming from Borowitz, carries little weight, because (as I have already mentioned) his theory of revelation suffers similarly from inapplicability. How does one apply an encounter with a nonpropositional Buberian “presence” to everyday life? Borowitz’s conclusion is one which many liberal minded thinkers share, and one in which he comes very close to Hartman’s view. At times when the legal and the ethical are at odds with each other, “the ethical must make a case for itself.”91 Using the classic examples of agunot (singular agunah — a chained woman) and mamzerut (singular mamzer — a person born from a proscribed relationship) to support his argument, Borowitz claims that anyone who takes the obligatory character of ethics seriously realises that the ethical impulse in relation to these issues is not only “in its own way” fully imperative, but rather unconditional, to the point of forcing a change in the law.92 Lichtenstein exemplifies how rabbinic Judaism has made the ethical realm felt within the legal system, but “it is of such limited power in the face of law and precedent that it has no supralegal effectiveness.”93 91 92 93

Ibid. 187. Borowitz also discusses agunot and mamzerut in “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” 230-232. Borowitz, “Ethical Impulse in Halakhah,” 188. — 173 —

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Concentrating on the status of women within Judaism, Borowitz insists that one’s own sense of moral obligation forces one to admit first that the ethical thrust of women’s equality within Judaism is fully imperative, and second, that one acts on that thrust in order to “accomplish an ethical revision of existing law and practice.”94 The Orthodox alternatives fail to do justice to this ethical imperative. Of them he writes the following: “Even those of us who know that the universalistic path is unreliable without the corrective guidance of Torah are not willing to forsake the way of ethics entirely for a Rabbinic Judaism which, by construing its ethical concerns as it does, appears to us to vitiate them substantially.”95 According to Borowitz, the Orthodox say that God’s authority “must receive greater credence than the immediate prompting of conscience”; while the non-Orthodox streams believe that “they are partners with God in their determination of their religious duty.”96

94 95 96

Ibid. 188. Ibid. 190. Borowitz, Renewing, 30. Louis Jacobs has also made a significant contribution to this debate. In his article “The Relationship Between Religion and Ethics in Jewish Thought” (op. cit.), he discusses a classic Maimonidean question (first raised in chapter six of the Eight Chapters). The question is thus: who is the better man — the one who has no desire to do wrong (person 1); the one who wishes to do wrong (person 2); or the one who wishes to do wrong but refrains from doing so by exercising constant self control (person 3)? According to Jacobs, the Greeks suggest that person 1 is the better man for he is purer, whereas the talmudic rabbis would favour person 3 for it is unnatural for man not to have a desire to sin. However, according to Jacobs (and to Maimonides) the rabbis and the Greeks are thinking of two different types of laws. The rabbis are thinking of purely religious laws (such as dietary laws) where obedience is paramount. The Greeks, however, are thinking of ethical demands and the rabbis would surely agree that to refrain from murder by exercising self-restraint is to fall short of the ethical ideal, i.e. to produce a “good” character. This exemplifies Jacobs’ view of the supreme importance of the ethical within Judaism. He champions the effective autonomy of ethics within Judaism. There would be no reason for the Torah to say, as the Prophets do, that man should obey God’s will and do good, if God’s will and doing good were essentially interchangeable. That is not a tautologous statement, and hence, God’s will and doing good are not one and the same thing. The autonomous nature of the ethical realm within Judaism, therefore, is the characteristic that assures for Jacobs that it remains fully imperative. — 174 —

--------  5.4 The Supremacy of the Ethical in Hartman’s Covenantal Thought  --------

5.4 The Supremacy of the Ethical in Hartman’s Covenantal Thought Hartman is hugely critical of the overtly halakhic nature of the Orthodox world today, and as a result feels alienated from it. In his recent lecture series he has attempted to outline for attendees his main issues and concerns with the state of current Orthodoxy. Whilst these concerns all fall within the halakhic realm, upon closer inspection it is clear that they all surround ethical issues. The ethical concerns which trouble Hartman within Judaism can be categorised as follows: (1) family law and the perception of the other; (2) gender issues, especially the women’s role in the synagogue; (3) the status of a non-Jew; and (4) the status of the convert.97 It is through careful consideration of these issues that one can see the moral problematics of the halakhic system, and Hartman poses them to make his case that the current halakhic system fails to do justice to the demands of moral integrity. In attempting to resolve this issue, Hartman calls for individual autonomy and individual choice to trump halakhic authority. The question he repeatedly asks of his audiences at the Shalom Hartman Institute today is, “What happens when the Halakhah is in conflict with our own intuitions and our moral sentiments?”98 In other words, what is demanded of the religious man in those situations? Hartman’s teacher, Joseph Soloveitchik, would advocate an ethic of retreat and withdrawal at precisely these times.99 Hartman, however, espouses a different doctrine wherein the highest religious ideal is not submission, but questioning. When Abraham decides to question God at Sodom about the justness of His subsequent actions he had no precedent for doing so. Rather he was trusting in his own (innate) moral judgment, which for Hartman serves as a paradigm for future generations of covenanted individuals faced with moral dilemmas. This is the moral lesson 97

98 99

A slightly different list is presented in Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: the status of women and family law, the borders of the Land of Israel, and the peace process and territorial compromise. Hartman, Israelis, 163. Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 25.12.06 (6:10). See chapter 3, note 81, and the text therein, for an introduction to this ethic in Soloveitchik’s work. — 175 —

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Hartman takes from the rabbis’ marginalising of divine involvement in halakhic adjudication, and also from the Sodom narrative.100 This non-submissive mentality is, for Hartman, paradigmatic especially at times when the most is at stake, such as with the ethical imperatives under discussion. This is an inversion of the Soloveitchikian mentality, since Soloveitchik explicitly states that man is required to withdraw from whatever he desires most: “In what areas of human endeavour does Judaism recommend self-defeat? Self-defeat is demanded in those areas in which man is most interested, where the individual expects to find the summum bonum, the realization of his most cherished dream or vision.”101 Hartman’s case for a halakhic system which empowers the individual to full personal responsibility for maintaining high moral standards is developed from his understanding of certain key aspects of biblical and rabbinic literature, and it is opposed to Soloveitchik’s understanding of this issue. The empowerment model triumphs when a conflict emerges between one’s moral conscience and the law, so Hartman’s moral sensibilities remain fully imperative within his covenantal thought.102 When such conflict emerges, Hartman sees the experience as not draining but enriching. Such experiences are the high point of the halakhic endeavour, the moment when one can bring one’s own sense of moral intuition to bear upon one’s religious consciousness. For Hartman, unlike so many others, faith is not an alienating experience or an exercise in obedience. Faith does not demand that one leaves all of one’s personal belongings at the door before entering. Having a sense of individual responsibility, quite the opposite from undermining a faith system, actually enhances it. This is the thrust of Hartman’s position below: Students of the law must exercise intellectual initiative and creativity to complete the process that began with revelation. When the heirs of Moses feel sufficiently confident to interpret what they received 100 101 102

Discussed in sections 3.1e and 3.1b respectively. Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” 36. This would satisfy Borowitz’s critique of Lichtenstein’s autonomous ethical thrust, which he criticises for only being “fully imperative” “in its own way.” See notes 87 and 88 from earlier in this chapter. — 176 —

--------  5.4 The Supremacy of the Ethical in Hartman’s Covenantal Thought  --------

from their prophets, when students of the law are not overwhelmed by their teachers and do not simply repeat their teachings verbatim, when the content of revelation becomes a living and expanding corpus of law and commentary, only then does the covenantal community emerge as God’s mature partner.103

It is clear here that a maturity of partnership is a key goal, and it is achieved by individuals displaying initiative and creativity to experiment with the law (which is a daunting prospect for many more traditional interpreters of the rabbinic tradition). In A Living Covenant, Hartman writes: “The promise that the covenant of mitzvah shall be eternal is tantamount to God’s promising to respect the inviolability of human freedom.”104 The expression “the inviolability of human freedom” succinctly expresses Hartman’s views on the centrality of independent ethical standards within a covenantal framework. Hartman’s belief in the supersession of ethical over legal, when the two come into conflict with one another, is confirmed in a commentary of his in volume two of The Jewish Political Tradition, where he asks, “Does a halakhically enjoined practice that violates accepted notions of moral integrity and justice not undermine the credibility of the halakhic system itself?”105 The credibility of the halakhic system is determined, according to Hartman, by its ability to confront moral problematics with integrity. Failure to do so undermines the entire system, such is its importance. The problem with the halakhic system for Hartman is that there is such dissonance between reality and what the law requires. There is dissonance between the behaviour of potential converts to Judaism and their treatment within the halakhah. There is dissonance between the role of women in the twenty-first century and their treatment within the halakhah. Hartman finds himself caught between the respective pulls of a reality which he sees in the world around him (and which he embraces), and the halakhic system to which he feels he is still connected. Faced with this dissonance between reality and 103 104 105

Hartman, in The Jewish Political Tradition: Volume One Authority (op. cit.), 206. Ibid. 25. Hartman, in Michael Walzer, The Jewish Political Tradition: Volume Two — Membership, ed. Menachem Loberbaum and Noam Zohar (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 119. — 177 —

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legality, Hartman practices his own form of dissonance reduction.106 This dissonance reduction takes various forms, and means that when the present day reality is in conflict with the halakhic ruling, one has to use one’s moral integrity to challenge the legal ruling. Perhaps the best example of this in Hartman’s case is that of Shira Hadasha, which was discussed in section 2.1b above. For both Hartman and the founders of Shira Hadasha, the moral realm weighs heavily upon the halakhic system, and demands of it answers to problematic moral questions. The failure of the halakhic system to deal with a moral imperative renders the halakhah in need of revision, such as in the discussion of a woman’s role in the synagogue. Hartman’s vision of the halakhic system is not overly involved with intricacies and trifles; it is, rather, a broader, more flexible legal system which never loses sight of its goal, namely proximity to God. So, for example, Hartman wants a halakhah of Shabbat that is tempered by a remembrance of God’s loving action in creating the world and not by thirty-nine restrictions that do not seem to bring one any closer to that remembrance.107 Hartman has no contention with halakhot about Shabbat as such, but he does struggle with those laws which are not tempered by a remembrance of the divine creating act. Inasmuch as this represents a flaw in the halakhic system, Hartman lays blame at the foot of the posekim, since they could have interpreted the laws of Shabbat in such a way as to have prevented what he sees as the minutiae of the law dwarfing the spirit of that law. This leads one to the conclusion that Hartman’s issues with the Orthodox halakhic system are actually contingent, as opposed to necessary. The problems are contingent because they hinge on his dislike for the current decision makers. Hartman views halakhah as primarily a mediative system, and his problems with the current halakhic system are actually problems 106

107

Hartman uses the category of dissonance, but the notion that he is practicing a form of dissonance reduction vis-à-vis the halakhah is my own. See Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 25.12.06 (14:20). For an introduction and definition of the theory of cognitive dissonance see Leon Festinger, “Cognitive Dissonance,” in Scientific American 207 (October 1962), 96-101. A reference to the 39 types of work prohibited on the Sabbath, as outlined in BT, Sanhedrin 101. — 178 —

--------  5.4 The Supremacy of the Ethical in Hartman’s Covenantal Thought  --------

with the current mediators of that system, and not with the system itself. According to Hartman’s own criteria, one could easily envisage a situation whereby, with the right mediators in place in the legal courts, he would once again be comfortable with the Orthodox halakhic system. His problems concern personnel, and hence their contingent nature.108 Hartman’s insistence on maintaining traditional halakhic categories can be closely linked to his emphasis on the Zionist endeavour. He writes, for example, that “the Zionist revolution created a people willing to accept responsibility for its collective actions within history. The halakhic community must now express a spiritual boldness commensurate with the enormous courage reflected in the Zionist revolution.”109 Zionism has sometimes been interpreted as the ultimate paradox, because on the one hand the early Zionists attempted a complete break from tradition (in terms of taking control of their own destiny and removing the shackles of an exilic / rabbinic mindset), but on the other hand they remained inherently conservative by electing to create this national homeland in the Promised Land.110 It was rather like a child throwing a huge tantrum, running to the front door and slamming it shut, but then tiptoeing quietly back up to his own bedroom.111 In some ways, this is akin to Hartman’s halakhic theorising. He disagrees quite fundamentally with central tenets and premises, but he is uncomfortable leaving the halakhic realm behind altogether and so remains a halakhic (and Zionist) Jew.112 108

109 110

111

112

Knowing that Hartman’s problems with halakhah are contingent, one might expect him to be campaigning for new rabbinic authorities to take up position on the bet din, or for setting up a new bet din full of likeminded thinkers who share his humanitarian, universalistic, and pluralistic approach. However no such campaign has ever been mooted. Hartman, Heart, 113-114. See Emmanuele Ottolenghi, “A National Home,” in Modern Judaism, ed. Nicholas de Lange and Miri Freud-Kandel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 54-65, especially 55. This is Hartman’s own analogy, which he uses in both Living (p. 294) and in Heart: “Zionism is like the young adult who rebels against his parents, cries out against their values, rejects nearly everything they stand for, and announced that he is going to leave home, never to return. He goes to the door, opens it with anger, and closes it with a bang — but forgets to leave the house.” Hartman, Heart, 277. One interesting observation for further research - Hartman’s discomfort with leaving — 179 —

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5.5 Conclusions The best example of Borowitz’s ethical standpoint comes in his book Choosing a Sex Ethic, which he published in 1969. In this book Borowitz elucidates a theory for “doing” ethics in what he terms “the modern mode.”113 He writes that “my conclusions as to what people ought to do in their sexual activity do not form the critical part of this book. More important for the reader and me is the method we employ to reach such decisions.”114 Although it is a book about a particular aspect of practical ethics, Borowitz sees any exercise in practical ethics as an opportunity to re-examine ethical theory in order to determine the correct method to undertake when faced with ethical dilemmas. This method, which places ethics at its epicentre, is central to Borowitz’s thought, and to his covenantal approach in particular. In “The Chosen People Concept,” behind the halakhic framework seems to be to be grounded in a non-rational approach. As a result, Hartman’s thought here might fruitfully be analysed with reference to R. M. Hare’s famous category of blik, which he coined in a symposium upon theology and falsification, and the meaning of making religious assertions. See Antony Flew, R. M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell, “Theology and Falsification,” in The Philosophy of Religion (Oxford Readings in Philosophy ed. Basil Mitchell (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Hare writes:

A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons want to murder him. His friends introduce him to all the mildest and most respectable dons that they can find, and after each of them has retired, they say, “You see, he does not really want to murder you; he spoke to you in a most cordial manner; surely you are convinced now?” But the lunatic replies, “Yes, but that was only his diabolical cunning; he’s really plotting against me the whole time, like the rest of them; I know it I tell you.” How ever many kindly dons are produced, the reaction is still the same (p. 16).



Now we say that such a person as the lunatic is deluded. But what is he deluded about? And how do we differ from the lunatic? In answering these questions Hare coined the term “blik.” “Let us call that in which we differ from this lunatic, our respective bliks. He has an insane blik about dons; we have a sane one” (ibid. 16). A blik, therefore, is a state of mind or belief system of a person that will not be changed through rational argument or counter-evidence. It is deep seated, and long lasting (hence its reference to religious and God-based assertions), and based on something other than or more than pure reason. Hartman’s halakhic theory does exhibit considerable similarity with Hare’s categorisation. It is at the halakhic juncture in his theory that Hartman leaves his rational philosophising behind, and such a decision to enter a non-rational framework seems to only take place when discussing halakhah. Eugene Borowitz, Choosing a Sex Ethic: A Jewish Enquiry (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), chapter one, entitled “Ethics in the Modern Mode.” Ibid. 3.



113

114

— 180 —

-------------------------------------------------------------------   5.5 Conclusions -------------------------------------------------------------------

Borowitz writes in great detail about his devotion to the notion that Jewish people ought somehow to exemplify high moral values in their everyday lives, and his subsequent shame when he sees news examples of famous Jews around the world not living up to those high standards.115 Why do those high standards exist? Why does Borowitz expect more from Jewish people than from other people? Borowitz describes it in terms of “a signal of our continuing sense that Jews should live to a standard of transcendent quality,”116 which is essentially an appeal to live by the covenant. As elected recipients of covenantal partnership, every Jew has high standards of ethical behaviour to aspire to. The categories Borowitz uses to discuss the additional responsibilities that accompany existence in covenant are almost always ethical, and for Borowitz the idea that being Jewish has something to do with a certain quality of human behaviour is a foundational aspect of existence in covenant. Borowitz writes explicitly of ethics as “the main area of Jewish practice in which I sought to apply my maturing theological ideas,”117 hence my concentration on it in this chapter. Both Hartman and Borowitz appeal to covenantal categories in adopting liberal ethical stances to key issues, many of which are the same for both: gender; women’s rights and the agunah; and the mamzer. The feelings of dignity and self-worth which a covenanted individual feels by virtue of being chosen to enter into partnership with God allow that individual to challenge morally dubious divine commands. For both thinkers it is the knowledge that they are in a covenantal relationship which gives the individual the strength to challenge prescribed norms and expose unjust laws and customs. That is why ethics is so important: many of the criticism which Hartman and Borowitz level at their own communities are predicated on ethical concerns. Looking back at the chapter as a whole, it is now possible to make several observations. Borowitz’s interpretation of the nature of the revelatory experience serves to heighten autonomy. The human partner is acutely involved not only in the revelation itself at the point where 115 116 117

Borowitz, “The Chosen People Concept,” 565. Ibid. 565. Borowitz, “A Life of Jewish Learning,” 400. — 181 —

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monologue and dialogue differ, but also in deciphering the exact message being revealed and the subsequent duties and obligations which result from it. Similarly, Hartman’s dissatisfaction with the halakhic system and especially with its mediators is a direct result of his desire to maintain individual autonomy within the covenant. On the other hand, however, Hartman’s insistence on the essentially mediative nature of the halakhic system is a guard against unrestrained autonomy, because the individual has his halakhic laws mediated for him by the posekim. In the same way, Borowitz’s desire for duty and obligation (despite the unmediated nature of the revelation) also serves to counterbalance the autonomy of the revelatory experience and to guard against what has been described as “autonomy run amok.”118 Upon closer inspection, therefore, the central theme within covenantal thought is not autonomy per se. Rather, the crucial issue at play in the covenantal thought of both Hartman and Borowitz is the delicate balance between autonomy and authority, and the desire to strike the right balance between these two foundational concepts. Both Hartman and Borowitz’s theories oscillate between these two concepts, frequently struggling to marry them together in their response to a particular moral or legal issue. Siding too much with autonomy runs the risk of de-authenticating one’s theory and its specifically Jewish character, whereas siding too much with authority inevitably de-emphasises the covenantal thrust, in particular in relation to empowerment. Fundamentally it amounts to a shifting of emphasis, and it is my firm belief that both Hartman and Borowitz exhibit a key characteristic of contemporary covenantal thought with relation to this issue: they emphasise autonomy more than non-covenantal theories, and as a result they have a somewhat difficult relationship with authority. Borowitz successfully manages to reinterpret the nature of covenantal authority as a joint effort between dialogical partners; Hartman, on the other hand, attempts to remain closer to an Orthodox position. In so doing, he struggles not to delegitimize God as a result of the inevitable loss of authority which He suffers within Hartman’s covenantal thought. 118

See chapter 5, note 12. — 182 —

Chapter Six The Boundaries of Covenantal Responsibility: Messianism, the Holocaust, and Historical Progress

-------------------------------------------------------------------   5.5 Conclusions -------------------------------------------------------------------

The previous chapter—chapter five—is extremely important to the present work because it is driven by an enquiry of what empowerment (chapter three) and autonomy (chapter four) mean in terms of human responsibility. It outlines the practical application of the theoretical discussions which preceded it in previous chapters. The present chapter, however, has to do with a particular application of this ethical empowerment, namely how their views on ethics and empowerment make Borowitz and Hartman think about tikkun olam (restoration of the world), redemption and messianism. By addressing these related issues, this chapter discovers some significant differences between Borowitz and Hartman in this respect, and then goes on to discuss the impact of their response to the Holocaust in light of these differences. The reason for moving from empowerment and ethics (chapter five) to the themes discussed in this chapter is that covenantal empowerment encourages the use of one’s moral sensibilities, as outlined in depth in the previous chapter. One of the significant aspects of this ethical empowerment is in the realm of tikkun olam. The notion of repairing the world, originally a kabbalistic construct closely linked to shevirat ha-kelim (the shattering of the vessels), has a strong ethical connotation when understood in contemporary Jewish thought. It is linked to a restoration attempt which frequently takes in projects of global hesed (loving-kindness) and tzedakah (foreign aid, social justice, etc). As such, tikkun olam is one of the best examples of heightened ethical responsibility in covenant. The human partner now feels responsibility for global ethical concerns which remain detached from his personal situation. However, it is also particularly in the concept of tikkun olam that the ethical and historical realms — 185 —

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intersect. Tikkun olam has strong messianic qualities: it is the term often attributed to those acts which man can (and must) do in order to quicken the onset of redemption and the messianic era. Heightened ethical responsibility (tikkun olam) can lead to the beginning of the messianic era (redemption); hence the importance of tikkun olam as the bridge between the discussion of ethical empowerment, and the discussion of the possibility of, and importance attributed to, redemption occurring within human history. Both this chapter and the following culminating chapter are concerned with the notion of limitations and boundaries of covenantal empowerment and responsibility. A crisis in the twentieth century—the Holocaust—demands a thorough reexamination of covenantal thought, and by highlighting both protagonists’ approach to the Holocaust I analyse where, if at all, they place limits on responsibility and autonomy. The chapter centres around an understanding of history. Do Hartman and Borowitz understand the covenant as a historical phenomenon? Do they have a conception of human history which dovetails with their understanding of covenantal progression, or are these two at odds with one another? An answer to this question of the symbiosis of human history and covenantal progression will be offered in this chapter, which will explain whether or not Hartman and Borowitz offer a meta-historical perspective to covenantal thought. This discussion is preceded by a detailed analysis of the role of dialectical thinking and dynamic evolvement in Hartman and Borowitz’s thought. Using the dialectical theology of Soloveitchik, and his presentation of the competing thrusts of assertion and submission, I analyse in this chapter Hartman’s distinct preference for assertion and Borowitz’s for submission, and explain how these emphases epitomise their covenantal theories more generally. I suggest that their views on the limitations of unchallenged autonomy and empowerment tell us something quite significant about their slightly different approaches to modern historical events and theories of human progression through history.

— 186 —

-------------------------------  6.1 Tikkun Olam, Messianism, and the Holocaust  -------------------------------

6.1 Tikkun Olam, Messianism, and the Holocaust This section examines how the notion of covenantal responsibility can unfold in history. In doing so, it concentrates in particular on Hartman’s most important contribution to this aspect of the debate, which is his stage model of covenant (outlined in chapter three above and subjected to more critical examination here). Hartman’s stage model of covenant states that man progresses through three phases of covenantal development, each a stepping stone on the former, and each indicative of a gradual maturation of the human covenantal partner. The third and final stage of Hartman’s model sees man take responsibility for history, which means he becomes the author of his own destiny and no longer remains reliant on divine intervention in order to bring about any change in his situation. Hartman’s stage model shares similarities with Irving Greenberg’s conception of covenant. I introduced Greenberg in chapter two as a thinker who shares the same mid-century American intellectual background as both Hartman and Borowitz, and whose Orthodox education under Soloveitchik mirrors that of Hartman. He is reintroduced here because he also presents a model of covenant in three progressive stages. In “Voluntary Covenant” Greenberg asserts his three central premises: (1) “the central teaching of Judaism is redemption”;1 (2) “God respects human freedom”;2 and (3) “the Jewish tradition also asserts that the Covenant binds God.”3 Because the central teaching of Judaism is redemption, the freedom of humans is a great gift given them by God. While He yearns for a messianic consummation with the redemptive qualities inherent in the first premise, He will not force humans to be perfect, and thus the respect for human freedom that is the second. The result of this interplay between the first two premises is what Greenberg terms “a process of voluntary self-limitation” on the part of God, in order to allow humans to participate in redeeming 1 2 3

Greenberg, “Voluntary Covenant,” 2. This is the first sentence of the article. Ibid. 2 Ibid. 5. — 187 —

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the world themselves.4 This is very similar to Hartman’s presentation of tsimtsum, although Greenberg does not use that kabbalistic term. In fact, he rarely uses the term in his published works, despite the Soloveitchikian understanding of it permeating his writing.5 This voluntary act of self-limitation on the part of God is mentioned elsewhere in Greenberg’s writings. In “The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History” he writes the following: “God had, as it were, withdrawn, become more hidden, so as to give humans more freedom and to call the Jews to more responsible partnership in the covenant.”6 In Greenberg’s book For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, this view is again repeated: “The Rabbis understood that God had self-limited to enable greater play for human decisions to shape the outcomes of history […] God had become more hidden to call Israel to a fuller, more responsible partnership in the covenant.”7 This divine self-limitation not only champions human freedom within the covenant, but also inevitably leads to the third and final premise listed above, namely that the covenant binds God. It is a voluntary binding, wherein God chooses to be bound by the covenant’s terms, and in doing so he becomes integrally bound up in the successes and failures of his human covenantal partners. The similarities with Hartman’s thought are marked. In particular, both thinkers stress the view that human freedom is absolutely paramount. I have described this as premise 2 in Greenberg, above, and in Hartman: “The giving of the law indicates that the omnipotent Lord of History does not programme the human individual to become a puppet who cannot but obey the will of God. The promise that the covenant of mitzvah shall be eternal is tantamount to God’s promising to respect the inviolability of human freedom.”8 4 5

6

7 8

Ibid. 27. The only use of the term which I have encountered is in Irving Greenberg, Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 48. One can only assume either that Greenberg is uncomfortable with the kabbalistic connotation of tsimtsum, or that the concept itself has found its way into his thinking organically without the term normally used to describe it. Irving Greenberg, “The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History,” in Perspectives (New York: National Jewish Resource Centre, 1981), 5. Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 191-192. Hartman, Living, 26. — 188 —

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For both Hartman and Greenberg the ultimate reason for God’s choice to covenant with humanity is to create a mutual partnership where responsibility is shared. The clearest discussion of this central point in Hartman is made in his analysis of the biblical characters of Noah and Abraham in the first chapter of A Living Covenant. While Noah was a passive character in his covenantal relationship with God, Abraham was active, a quality best highlighted by his behaviour at Sodom. This midrashic understanding of the two characters leads Hartman to conclude that God’s preferred covenantal relationship (an Abraham-type relationship) is one predicated on mutuality. Not only does “covenantal relatedness presuppose the integrity of the other; it makes sense to speak of a covenant between two parties only if there is mutual commitment, regardless of the relative power of the covenantal partners or the conditions of the covenant.”9 The endgame of covenant itself is to act as a clarion call to greater human responsibility. Greenberg agrees with this endgame when he “call[s] the Jews to more responsible partnership in the covenant.” Moreover, according to Greenberg, God “has invited us to enter into a covenantal partnership — a partnership of committed love — to join fully in perfecting the universe, tikkun olam.”10 Borowitz’s understanding of empowerment offers an interesting contrast to those of Hartman and Greenberg above. The formative covenantal experience for Borowitz is that of relationship. The Jewish people are privileged within covenant to be part of a relationship with God that is similar to the relationship which one would have with a close friend. “It is as commonplace as coming from a chat with the sense that your companion is a real person.”11 Consequently, the knowledge of one’s existence in such a unique relationship, with unprecedented access to the divine realm, empowers the individual to fulfil his or her covenantal obligations, although in this instance these obligations are not the mitzvot, and they have been generated by the relationship itself. Borowitz writes succinctly on this issue in “On Celebrating Sinai,” where he writes that “with all the love and respect I have for 9 10 11

Ibid. 25. Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 187. Borowitz, A New Jewish Theology in the Making, 131. — 189 —

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the Jewish tradition and its wisdom, which regularly far surpasses my own, I cannot believe that God reveals Himself in words.”12 He goes on to say that “even in the moments of which I can say I have been closest and most intimate with my God, I have not found Him to speak words.”13 Borowitz’s preference for non-verbal revelation ensures that the ensuing obligations which are generated within the covenantal relationship are not laid down like the halakhah, but are instead experienced by the recipient via this non-verbal communication. And the ensuing obligations are no less commanding than those which derive from more traditional verbal communication, just (deliberately) more vague in form and content. It is clear from a close reading of Borowitz’s ethical and educational teachings that dignity is a central tenet of his thought. In “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contemporary Leadership,” he writes that “only when God withdraws can he create — if his creatures are to have full dignity.”14 Implicit in this sentence is the predicate that full dignity is a prerequisite of covenantal relationship. Later on in the same article Borowitz again uses the term ‘dignity’ in order to highlight the necessity, in leadership positions, of treating the people of whom you are in charge as persons. This ability to treat the other as a real person is undoubtedly filtered to Borowitz via Martin Buber’s thought, and its existence in the former’s work ensures that dignity remains a central category in his covenantal thought. This section has highlighted the mutual covenant espoused by Hartman (which shares many similarities with Greenberg’s), wherein responsibility is shared between covenantal partners, and where the human partner’s responsibilities increase as one progresses through the stages of covenant. This is a contrasting picture to that offered by Borowitz, whose understanding of covenant primarily in terms of relationship, and whose interpretation of revelation, mean that covenantal responsibility is determined between the partners and without the need for a verbal revelation. 12 13 14

Eugene Borowitz, “On Celebrating Sinai,” in Studies, 102. Ibid. 103. Borowitz, “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model,” 164. — 190 —

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6.1a Perfecting the Universe: Tikkun Olam and Messianism Tikkun olam is a Hebrew phrase which translates as “repairing the world.” This phrase is often used in contemporary discussions in connection with the Jewish concept of social justice and, according to some explanations, the more mitzvot that are performed, the closer the world will be to perfection. It is closely linked to messianism, and has been profoundly influenced by Kabbalah. Gershom Scholem charts the kabbalistic use of the term in his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism.15 In the aftermath of the Spanish expulsion, which was naturally traumatic for the exiled Jewish community, some of the exiles travelled to the small town of Tzfat in Northern Israel, where they wrote “one of the most glorious chapters in the history of Jewish spirituality.”16 One of the foremost of these exiles was Rabbi Isaac ben Solomon Luria, the Ari, whose work has already been encountered here in the form of the doctrine of tsimtsum. However, tsimtsum was only one of the theosophical ideas that Luria contributed to the pantheon of kabbalistic concepts, which emerged from Tzfat in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Another important doctrine of Luria’s was that of the breaking of the vessels, or shevirat ha-kelim.17 According to this doctrine, God, in creating the world, could not leave it devoid of His presence. He therefore sent forth rays of His light, but this light was too intense for its “containers,” which broke, scattering fragments of light throughout the world. This concept of the breaking of the vessels is thus closely linked to the concept of tikkun, which is the restitution, or the “re-integration of the original whole,” as Scholem describes it.18 Therefore, “it is our task to gather up these fragments, wherever they 15

16 17

18

Scholem, Major Trends, 265-268. In his chapter entitled “Mending the World” in To Heal a Fractured World, Jonathan Sacks traces the emergence of the term tikkun olam in Jewish history. Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (London: Continuum, 2005). Borowitz, like Sacks, acknowledges the influence and continuing effects which the expulsion from Spain in 1492 had on Luria. See “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model,” 161. Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 74. Scholem writes that “the influence of these two ideas [Shevirat ha-kelim and tikkun] on the development of later Kabbalistic thought has been as great as that of the doctrine of Tsimtsum.” Scholem, Major Trends. 265. Ibid. 268. — 191 —

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are, and restore them to their proper place. Hence the […] idea: tikkun, healing a fractured world.”19 Tikkun olam is thus understood primarily as a kabbalistic (and essentially Lurianic) concept. There are numerous rabbinic references to tikkun, both in talmudic literature and in the liturgy, but these refer predominantly to elements of the divine will rather than to human action. To cite just the most famous example from the Siddur (prayerbook), the expression tikkun olam appears in the Aleinu prayer, recited three times a day, in the following context: “Therefore it is our hope, O Lord our God, that we may speedily see the glory of Your power, when you will remove the abominations from the earth, and the idols will be utterly cut off; when the world will be set right [le-takken olam] under the dominion of the Almighty, all mankind will call upon Your name, and all the wicked of the earth will be drawn to You.”20 In this context, tikkun olam is understood as a prayer for God to bring about a restoration of the divine order to the world. This is typical of the rabbinic usage of the phrase, which is defined in terms of God carrying out the restitution. Tikkun comes to be endowed with meanings linked to human action only after Lurianic kabbalism, as discussed above. Hence Scholem describes tikkun in the following way: “The task of man is seen to consist in the direction of his whole inner purpose towards the restoration of the original harmony which was disrupted by the original defect — the Breaking of the Vessels — and those powers of evil and sin which date from that time.”21 Joining forces to perfect the universe is fundamental to the covenantal thought of both David Hartman and Irving Greenberg.22 In choosing to covenant with man, God chose to create an imperfect universe, i.e., one that needed the human partner in the covenant in

19 20 21 22

Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 75. Translation from the Authorised Daily Prayer Book, 1992. Scholem, Major Trends, 275. It is also significant in the covenantal theory of Jonathan Sacks, who speaks in covenantal terms throughout his writings. In particular, in a “Covenant and Conversation” article on the Torah portion of Shemini (14.4.07) he writes, “God has empowered mankind to use them to become His partners in the work of creation” — available online at http://www. chiefrabbi.org/UploadedFiles/thoughts/shemini5767.pdf. — 192 —

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order to perfect it. However, only one of the two thinkers uses this terminology explicitly. While Irving Greenberg uses the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam frequently, I am unaware of any references to it in Hartman’s written work.23 Both thinkers discuss at length the human empowerment that flows from covenantal relation, and both also think that God chose to covenant with man in order to allow man to participate in the completion of or the perfection of the universe. However, only Greenberg describes these characteristics in terms of tikkun olam. Greenberg states this explicitly when he writes the following in a crucial paragraph in For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: God entered into covenant (partnership) with people in order to engage humanity in its own liberation. The Lord promised not to complete the redemption by coercion or divine force majeure. This was a remarkable act of love and respect, for in giving humans an indispensable role in perfecting the world, God accepted the inescapable outcome: a considerably longer duration for the process of tikkun olam (repairing the world).24

Why does Greenberg use the term tikkun olam when Hartman does not? Tikkun olam developed as a concept out of the anguish of exile, similarly to how the doctrine of the cosmological importance of the Jewish people (and their acceptance of the Torah) developed.25 Tikkun 23

24 25

Hartman has used the term explicitly in his lecture series. See David Hartman, “Problematics of Tikkun Olam,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 29.6.07. Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 55. As a result of their dramatically changed historical circumstance (exile and loss of sovereignty), the rabbis adapted the biblical notion of the chosen people from a form of arbitrary election (biblical) to a choice which the Children of Israel had to make and upon which huge cosmological significance rested (rabbinic). The people are thus transformed from passive recipients of divine election to active partners with a crucial choice to make (note the similarities with covenantal thought here, and the trajectory from passive to active human partner), and their choice assumes global, cosmological import. Nahmanides writes, “The Sages, of blessed memory, have always stated that if Israel had not accepted the Torah, God would have returned the world to a state of waste and desolation [and] then the purpose of creation of the world would have been voided.” Nahmanides, “Discourses on the Law of the Eternal is Perfect,” 35-36, in Ramban (Nahmanides): Writings and Discourses Volume 1, trans. Charles Chavel (Shilo Publishing House: New York, 1978). See also Song of Songs Rabbah 1:9 (#6). Goshen-Gottstein writes about the attractiveness of this cosmic viewpoint for the rabbis because it was perceived as less vulnerable in their much-changed historical — 193 —

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olam emerged as a result of the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and the cosmological importance of Israel as a result of the expulsion from the Holy Land in 70 CE. If tikkun olam is best understood as a doctrine which developed to counterbalance the pain of the historical circumstance of the community at the time, then Greenberg’s emphasis of it in his postHolocaust theology26 becomes more explicable. Repairing the world seems a rather high priority in the generation immediately following a catastrophic event such as the expulsion from Spain or the Shoah.27 Because Hartman does not have a post-Holocaust theology per se, he does not have a theory of tikkun olam either. Tikkun olam has been described as a catastrophe theory of creation,28 and only seems to develop within the work of thinkers writing in the aftermath of catastrophic events (like the expulsion from Spain or the Shoah). Greenberg, unlike Hartman, has a very profound understanding of post-Holocaust theology, and his famous statement that “no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children,”29 is testament to the centrality

26

27

28 29

circumstance. See Alon Goshen-Gottstein, “The Promise to the Patriarchs in Rabbinic Literature,” in Divine Promises to the Father in the Three Monotheistic Religions, ed. Alviero Niccacci (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1995), 60-97. See also on this issue Gordon Freeman, “The Rabbinic Understanding of the Covenant,” in Kinship and Consent, ed. Daniel Elazar (New York: University Press of America, 1983), 59-86. I am using the term post-Holocaust theology in a broad sense to mean, quite simply, an engagement with the theological implications of the Holocaust by a thinker writing at any point since 1945. The term means more than simple chronology, however, and hence the possibility for a thinker who, despite writing in the post-Holocaust era, does not have a post-Holocaust theology, because their thought does not include an engagement with the events of the Holocaust and the ramifications of those events on faith. Emil Fackenheim set the agenda for post-Holocaust philosophy’s adoption of the concept of tikkun with his To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994). The book attempts to show that recovery was possible after Auschwitz, and uses the term tikkun to refer to “both a recognition of the rupture and a mending of it” (p. 261). The Holocaust limits the tikkun, so that “we must accept from the start that at most a fragmentary Tikkun is possible. This is because we are situated in the post-Holocaust world” (p. 256). See Michael Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz, 181-195. See Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 74. See chapter 3, note 58. I share Michael Oppenheim’s concern about this statement. No thought could be credible in the face of such a scene; the only acceptable response would be action, if such action were possible. Michael Oppenheim, “Irving Greenberg — 194 —

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of the Holocaust within his thought. This helps to explain the use of the phrase tikkun olam in Greenberg, and its absence in Hartman. Moreover, simple consideration of his stage model of covenant will reveal that Hartman cannot favour a traditional messianic redemptive process as envisaged by either Isaiah or Malachi, for example.30 Such a theory of messianism would undermine the trajectory highlighted in the model, which is one of increasing levels of human responsibility as one moves from stage to stage. Moreover, the model itself presents only three stages, the final stage being humanity’s responsibility for history. Were messianism to feature in the model, one might expect a fourth, eschatological stage, but such a stage is not present. One can conclude therefore that either messianism is unimportant in Hartman’s model, or it is somehow reinterpreted to be a part of stage three. Hartman seems to side with the former: “I leave messianism and eschatology to God and try to get on with life as an incomplete, finite human being building a religious life without knowledge of whether there is a secret divine scheme for history.”31 Hartman is posing the following question: would man’s feelings of dignity, gained through covenantal empowerment, be in some way minimised or diluted by an awareness of a traditional messianic vision?32 In other words, does the traditional understanding of

30

31

32

and a Jewish Dialectic of Hope,” Judaism 49:2 (2000): 10 n. 32. For a detailed introduction to the concept of messianism in traditional Jewish sources, see Gershom Scholem’s “Towards an Understanding of The Messianic Idea in Judaism,” in The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 1-36. Scholem emphasises the lack of a concurrent view of messianism in biblical literature: “To be sure, the predictions of the prophets do not yet give us any kind of well-defined conception of messianism” (p. 5). Hartman, Heart, 34. In one of his most recent essays he argues this point more forcefully: “What I am arguing is that the idea of salvation as the yearning to go beyond the human condition is antithetical to biblical covenantal spirituality.” David Hartman, “The Religious Significance of Religious Pluralism,” in Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, ed. Moshe Halbertal and Donniel Hartman (New York: Continuum, 2007), 101. The phrase “traditional messianic vision” is somewhat of a misnomer, as there is no such thing as a monolithic understanding of messianism in traditional Jewish sources. To cite just one example, the prophetic messianic vision put forward by the prophet Isaiah bears little resemblance to the messianic vision outlined by Maimonides at the end of the Mishneh Torah, and yet both are considered “traditional.” See note 30 from — 195 —

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divine redemption (that is, redemption brought about by God’s direct intervention in human affairs) undermine Hartman’s understanding of human responsibility and covenantal empowerment? What would be the point of increasing human responsibility in history (the third stage in Hartman’s stage model of covenant) if the climactic end of history was beyond human involvement? Hartman’s theory eschews a traditional messianic vision wherein human redemption is achieved by God. He does this to protect his understanding of the importance of the doctrine of covenantal empowerment. In A Heart of Many Rooms Hartman writes the following: “My picture of a genuinely religious person is one who is not averse to getting his hands dirty; one who does not await divine intervention but who experiences God’s presence in efforts to discharge the responsibilities he or she feels for the welfare of a total society.”33 A “genuinely religious person” in the Hartmanian mould is an activist. Empowered by the knowledge of their covenantal relationship and dignified by their awareness of the responsibilities that come with that special relationship, genuinely religious people do not sit around waiting for the messianic era, but get their “hands dirty” performing as many mitzvot as they can.34 Hartman’s messianic ambivalence refers to a prophetic understanding of messianism, as opposed to the type of messianism espoused by Maimonides. He acknowledges his “Maimonidean perspective on messianism,”35 which testifies to the complex nature of messianism in Jewish theology, as well as to a more nuanced relationship between Hartman and messianism than one might have thought. Hartman marginalises the messianic and redemptive categories in his work while at the same time venerating the event which contemporary supporters of messianic theories

33 34

35

earlier in this chapter. Hartman, Heart, xxvii. I contend that Hartman’s messianic position is influenced in no small part by Maimonides, with whose work Hartman grappled almost exclusively in the early part of his career. The Guide offers “an understanding of Judaism in which the religious passion of love of God is not conditional on the promise of a transformed human history.” David Hartman, “Current Debate / Human Autonomy and Divine Providence,” Tikkun 2:1 (1987): 121. Hartman, Living, 278. — 196 —

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promote above all others — the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 (discussed in more detail at the end of this chapter). Like many kabbalists of his day, Luria believed that the End of Days was nigh. According to Scholem, he actually prophecied that the year 1575 was the year for the coming of the Messiah: “it seems to be in the nature of such doctrines that the tension which they express demands a sudden and dramatic relief.” 36 Perhaps, therefore, it is Greenberg’s use of the concept of tikkun olam which necessitates his repeated use of messianic categories to understand not just Judaism in general but the covenantal relationship in particular. This marks a crucial point of divergence for Greenberg and Hartman’s theories, since Hartman shuns the use of messianic phraseology in his covenantal thought in much the same way as he avoids the specific phrase tikkun olam. If messianism is a natural product of the tikkun olam doctrine, then the absence of the former is unsurprising given the lack of reference to the latter. Although Borowitz rarely refers explicitly to tikkun olam,37 his theory clearly accords with many aspects of both Hartman and Greenberg here. His articles and books abound with recommendations regarding social action and ethical care and consideration. The crucial aspect of Borowitz’s thought on this matter, however, is his position regarding messianism, which distances his theory from Hartman’s. Above I discussed how Hartman’s non-messianic position is directly 36

37

Scholem, Major Trends, 284 - “It seems that Luria himself believed the end to be near and he entertained the hope that the year 1575 was the year of Redemption, a hope that was shared by many other kabbalists of his generation.” It is not only in Luria’s generation that kabbalistic thinkers have prophesied the impending End of Days. There was widespread anticipation in virtually every Jewish community that the year 1840, corresponding to 5600 in the Jewish calendar, would herald the onset of the messianic era, based upon statements in the Zohar. This was supported not only by the proto-Zionists Kalischer and Alkalai, but also by the students of the Vilna Gaon, many of whom made aliyah (moved to Israel) around this time in anticipation. See Chaim Waxman, “Messianism, Zionism, and the State of Israel” in Modern Judaism 7:2 (1987): 175-192, especially 176. He does make reference to it when discussing Buddhist and Jewish ethics in Exploring Jewish Ethics. Eugene Borowitz, Exploring Jewish Ethics: Papers on Covenant Responsibility (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 466. On tikkun in Borowitz’s work see also Susan Handelman, “‘Crossing and Recrossing the Void’: A Letter to Gene,” 190. — 197 —

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linked to his theory of human empowerment (it is only when man is fully responsible for his own destinies that he will achieve his mission). For Borowitz the situation is somewhat different. Because God has chosen to empower humanity, there must be an endgame towards which humanity is working and, for Borowitz, that endgame is the messianic era. This is best expressed in the pivotal sentence in Renewing the Covenant: “I therefore trust that, despite the tarrying, one day — perhaps today — human and divine endeavour will reach its climax and will redeem in the climactic way our tradition calls the coming of the Messiah.”38 Elsewhere he refers to the covenant in terms of the pursuit of “the larger messianic task.”39 Borowitz here recognises a major development in his covenantal thought, which is a messianic and redemptive thrust that will come to fruition through the combined activity of both the human and the divine covenantal partners. While this vision differs from the messianic era envisaged by the rabbis,40 it is nonetheless a thoroughly redemptive vision which depicts a transition to a new era of covenantal consciousness. The importance of this pivotal sentence in Renewing the Covenant is that it acknowledges a climactic urge in Borowitz’s theory of covenant. Messianism, according to Borowitz, catapults the covenantal moment out of history. The coming of the Messiah is for him the beginning of something beyond history. The crucial similarity between the thought of Hartman and 38 39

40

Borowitz, Renewing, 152. Eugene Borowitz, “A Nearness in Difference: Jewish-Catholic Dialogue Since Vatican II,” in Commonweal, Volume 133, Number 1 (January 13, 2006): 18. This version of messianism, framed as it is in terms of joint endeavour between divine and human, shares similarities with the early religious Zionist outlook. See for example the work of Zvi H. Kalischer, especially his letter to the Berlin branch of the Rothschild family, where he writes that “The beginning of the Redemption will come through natural causes by human effort and by the will of the governments to gather the scattered of Israel into the Holy Land.” Kalischer, in The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, ed. Arthur Hertzberg (New York: Atheneum, 1979), 109-110. There are occasions where Borowitz appears to promote a more passive approach to messianism by the human partner, but these are outweighed by the type of approach outlined above (where human and divine endeavour together combine to herald the messianic era). See for example “The Chosen People Concept,” in which Borowitz writes “We cry out, pray for peace, await the Messiah, and trust in God’s rule” (p. 558). — 198 —

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Greenberg is a model of covenantal theory in stages. The notion of a three-stage model is present in both thinkers’ work. And although it is not explicit in Borowitz’s work, what we are arguing here is that he also propounds a stage-theory of covenant, a theory of the development and maturation of the divine-human relationship over time. Hartman has a much more refined and developed concept of this stage model (as does Greenberg), with names and details ascribed to each stage, but Borowitz’s messianism, which at first appears difficult to tally with other aspects of his worldview, is best explicated in terms of a covenantal endgame — the development of his covenantal theory to a climactic conclusion. Although present in Greenberg’s published articles, the best description of the fundamentals of his theory of a covenant in stages appears in his unpublished lecture notes, which I quote in full below. This does not demarcate three clear stages, but helps to explicate the rationale behind his promotion of a stage model of covenant: Humans take increased responsibility for achieving the goals and developing covenantal strategies. In the era of divine dominance and intervention, there is little room for human initiative or disagreement. Therefore when two prophets disagree as to what God says / wants from us, then one of the prophets is a false prophet. In the rabbinic era, with significant delegation of authority to humans, Rabbis take over responsibility to make the interpretive judgements as to what God wants. Thus two Rabbis or schools can come to opposite conclusions and both can be the word of the living God. In effect, God has allowed for human judgement; then, in good faith, humans can come to opposing conclusions. However, this pluralism is bounded by a common acceptance of the authority of the covenantal source and text as well as of the fundamental assumptions of the inherited Torah.41

In “The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History,” the three stages are clearly presented as the Biblical Era, the Rabbinic Era, and the Third Era.42 Greenberg’s three-stage model is also set forth in “Voluntary Covenant” 41

42

Irving Greenberg, “Maturation of the Covenant: The Three Stage Theory” 2, unpublished lecture material, reprinted here with kind permission of the author. Greenberg, “The Third Great Cycle,” 2-9. — 199 —

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under three consecutive subtitles in that article: (1) the first destruction and exile; (2) the second destruction and the unfolding of the covenant; and (3) new roles in the covenant,43 and although one could argue that this categorisation represents a departure from the more rigid one of “The Third Great Cycle,” they are both nonetheless examples of a threestage model of covenant. In Hartman’s work, the best explication of his three-stage model occurs in “Judaism as an Interpretive Tradition,”44 where he maps a trajectory within the covenantal framework from the biblical (1), to the rabbinic (2), to the historical (3). In stage one there is responsibility for mitzvah, in stage two for intellectual, interpretive autonomy, and in stage three for history as well. Hartman’s three-stage model rejects the idea of revelation as primary, in favour of human interpretation, and this is predicated on Hartman’s understanding of the talmudic text Bava Metzia 59b (discussed in section 3.1a above as a central text for the development of his empowerment theology), a product of his view of the progressive shift of responsibility from God to man, which underpins his tripartite covenantal model. Why do both Greenberg and Hartman formulate such similar understandings of the covenant in terms of a three-stage model? Certainly, it is not a radical innovation to demarcate three clear eras in Jewish history: biblical, rabbinic, and modern.45 However, both thinkers choose to use these three eras as a springboard for their understanding of the development of the covenantal idea and the covenantal relationship over time. Both Hartman and Greenberg favour the model whereby human responsibility is radically increased as one moves through the stages of the model, and both use God’s voluntary self-withdrawal (defined by Hartman, but not Greenberg, in terms of tsimtsum) as the primary reason for the need for increased

43 44

45

Greenberg, “Voluntary Covenant,” 6-10. See section 3.2 for my initial discussion of Hartman’s stage model of covenant, especially chapter 3, notes 34-37 and the text therein. Nachmal Krochmal posits three eras of Jewish history in his Guide for the Perplexed of the Time. See Jay M. Harris, Nachman Krochmal: Guiding the Perplexed of the Modern Age (New York: New York University Press, 1993). Martin Gilbert also does so in his Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5000-Year History of the Jewish People and their Faith (London: Phoenix, 2002). — 200 —

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human responsibility. Borowitz’s stage-model, if one can call it that, is crucially distinct from these two theories, and it is distinct for reasons other than its undefined form. It charts a trajectory from greater human involvement to lesser human involvement—the exact opposite of the development envisaged in Hartman’s model. Because the messianism described by Borowitz is a partnership between human and divine endeavour, it represents a shift to greater divine input in the relationship and, by extension, in worldly affairs. The covenant, although initially according humans a very broad remit to control, develop and perfect the universe, eventually matures to a later stage where divine involvement is once again felt in all areas of human life.46 There is another crucial distinction between the stage models of Hartman and Borowitz. Borowitz’s vision for a messianic redemption gives his theory a climactic transforming thrust. At the moment of the onset of messianism, the covenantal framework leaps out of history, and begins something new which is beyond history. Borowitz’s model, therefore, charts a development from history to something beyond history. This is the crucial difference between his thought and Hartman’s, because Hartman has no notion of an end of history. The final stage in Hartman’s model of covenant—stage three—is the one where the human partner finally assumes responsibility for history. So while Hartman plots a model of covenant that is entirely in history, Borowitz’s model climaxes in a dialectical leap out of history. Hartman’s model is one of gradual progression, whereas Borowitz’s includes at its very core a critical transformation, a leap, which is less gradual (like the transformations from stage to stage in Hartman’s model) and more revolutionary. 46

The “once again” in this sentence might appear misleading. Why would the divine Presence be felt once again if the trajectory was from little or no divine influence to a steady and pervasive one? “Once again” implies an oscillation of divine involvement from an original position of considerable influence, through an era of little or no involvement and then back again to a similar position to the original one. That model is true for Borowitz, although not covenantally. What I believe Borowitz is stating is that there was a pre-covenantal period which was marked by human subordination to the divine will. However once the covenantal period began there has been a trajectory from lesser to greater involvement on the part of the divine. So the “once again” refers to the pre-covenantal period and not to the early stages of the covenantal one. — 201 —

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6.1b Covenantal Responsibility as the Vehicle for Redemption While Borowitz’s covenant model increases the role of God in the covenant over time, Hartman’s model diminishes it. This is why there is no messianic thrust in Hartman’s thought. The absence of a heightened interest in messianism, for Hartman, is an articulation of his model that diminishes God’s role in the covenant. Hartman’s views on messianism are not the reason for his stage model of covenant; rather his views on messianism are one further expression of his covenantal model. The reasons for the views on messianism, and for the model itself, are located in his different responses to the Holocaust, to history, and to the challenges and dialectics evident in history, which I go on to explain and analyse in this chapter. Hartman does not promote eschatology in his covenantal theory. His theory is about “finding the courage to live with God without expecting God to transform one’s world.”47 The category of messianism is not at the forefront of such a theory.48 In Israelis and the Jewish Tradition, he goes so far as to say, “I argue that justifying our national existence by claiming that we are instruments for realizing God’s messianic redemptive plan is both unnecessary and morally and politically dangerous.”49 This final quote marks a progression in Hartman’s position, because it suggests that his position vis-à-vis messianism has moved from one of ambivalence to one of opposition. Indeed, he sets up the Sinai covenant as an alternative to messianism for a way to evaluate the religious significance of Israel.50 Redemption is also not accorded a high status in Hartman’s tripartite scheme. Hartman uses the stage model to explain the increasing levels of human involvement and responsibility within the covenantal relationship. As one moves from stage to stage in the model, so human responsibility increases and God’s active role 47

48 49 50

Hartman, “Current Debate / Human Autonomy and Divine Providence: A Response to Landes’ Review,” in Tikkun 2:1 (1987): 123. He writes that “I did not adopt a messianic posture” in Heart, xxiv. Hartman, Israelis, 144. This is the main thrust of chapter four of Israelis. — 202 —

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diminishes (until in the final stage humans take ultimate responsibility, for history). In Greenberg’s model, to offer the alternative view, this trajectory of human responsibility is still present, but set alongside another trajectory mapping the redemptive vision that is the ultimate endgame of the covenantal framework. Since covenant is “the vehicle for redemption,”51 as you move from stage to stage in Greenberg’s model redemption appears closer and closer. However, because the redemption is not altogether separate from the human responsibility (the one tempers the other), in the third stage “it is too late for the Messiah to come […] we will have to bring the Messiah.”52 This sentence exhibits a kind of activism with which Hartman too would be comfortable. The conclusion of both of the three-stage models (Hartman’s and Greenberg’s) is a theory of human activism that sees the human partner take full responsibility for the direction of the covenantal relationship, and by extension for human history as well. Borowitz’s stance vis-à-vis redemption is slightly more complex. His theory, as has been shown, climaxes in a messianic vision like Irving Greenberg’s,53 and in sharp contrast to David Hartman’s. The most traditional expression of redemption in Borowitz’s covenantal thought occurs in a discussion of the concept of the chosen people. Borowitz puts forward the idea that belief in the doctrine of chosenness affects the life of a Jew in six ways. One of those ways is as follows: “Jews are confident, despite all historical vicissitudes, that the Jewish people will survive and, at the end of time, be redeemed. Indeed, through them all humankind will reach redemption, and thus the Jews’ loyalty to God and Torah will be vindicated.”54 51 52

53

54

Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 188. Greenberg, “Voluntary Covenant,” 25. Greenberg acknowledges his debt of gratitude to Elie Wiesel’s The Gates of the Forest (New York: Schocken, 1982), where Wiesel was the first to suggest that it is too late for an all-powerful Messiah to come, and that therefore man, or a combination of man and God, will have to bring him. See Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 310. Greenberg’s messianism comes across most clearly in For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, especially page 185, where he writes that redemption is clearly a messianic vision — “The end of days or the Messiah story, which is the culmination and realisation of the process.” Borowitz, “The Chosen People Concept,” 554. — 203 —

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Not only is redemption the vindication of belief in chosenness, but it will occur as a result of Jews’ loyalty to Torah, not just to the Jewish people but to all humanity. This is an example of Borowitz’s universalism, which is a fundamental aspect of his covenantal thought. Although God made the covenant specifically with Israel, he still covenants with the whole of humanity, and therefore they will all be redeemed, either through their own meritorious actions or through the Jewish people’s. Moreover, the ge’ulah (redemption) will not take place at some arbitrary point in history, but at the end of time, at the appropriate and pre-ordained messianic era. Upon closer reflection, therefore, the lack of messianism in Hartman’s thought is significant. Why does Hartman not have an eschatological vision? Why does he never appeal to messianic categories to interpret the covenantal relationship? One might have thought that this is because he exhibits a wholly this-worldly attitude, which would not dovetail well with a strong eschatological thrust. However, this appears to be the case in Greenberg’s theory as well, and yet he still posits a wholehearted messianism. In Greenberg’s discussion on the nature of the redemption he favours as the goal of covenant, he asserts that his theory is “a rejection of the idea that redemption will occur through spiritual enlightenment only.”55 It is the human partner who will have to do the hard work, as it were. Covenant, in the HartmanGreenberg understanding of it, “rules out escape to another world,”56 and both repeatedly highlight the importance of olam ha-zeh rather than olam ha-ba—a “this-worldly” emphasis rather than an “otherworldly” emphasis.57 One can now rule out human adequacy and empowerment, or increased responsibility, as the reasons for Hartman’s lack of

55 56 57

Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 189. Ibid. 189. One could point out the non-rabbinic nature of this position, following the school of thought which sees the emphasis on the world to come as a rabbinic shift to cope with the “feeling of tension that emanated from the discrepancy between the consciousness and the reality” after the destruction of the Temple (Urbach, The Sages, 528). See chapter 1, notes 19-22 and the main body of the text at that point, and compare also with note 25 from earlier in this chapter. — 204 —

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messianism, since the messianism suggested by both Borowitz and Greenberg is either a combination of divine and human endeavour (Borowitz) or a thoroughly human task (Greenberg). Borowitz’s messianic vision is achieved by appealing not to a traditional redeeming act on the part of God, but rather to a partnership between the human and the divine which, if anything, enriches the human empowerment model favoured by Hartman. He would surely not object on the grounds of responsibility to a form of messianism which does not rely entirely on divine intervention and which accords enough emphasis on the human partner to appeal to his modern sensibilities. The difference between the two thinkers finds its most striking expression in the role (or absence thereof) of the Holocaust in their thought. Hartman differs from his contemporaries, as has been shown, in his understanding of both redemption and messianism, but one can also add to this list his treatment of the Holocaust, and the import placed upon it within his thought in comparison to the thought of either Borowitz or Greenberg. Eugene Borowitz is not a Holocaust theologian. As such, his theory is not grounded in an appreciation of the Holocaust, though it is discussed in several places in his written work.58 However, as has already been outlined, the Holocaust was for Borowitz a crucial turning point in twentieth-century thought and understanding. The uncomfortable shift from humanistic confidence to spiritual humility and disillusionment took place as a result of the horrors of the twentieth century, most importantly those that took place between the years of 1938 and 1945. In The Masks Jews Wear, Borowitz writes that “the realism engendered by our recent historical experience has destroyed our naïve confidence in the naturalness of values.”59 And in his essay “Recent Historical Events” he describes the central event in recent history as the emergence of a death-of-God theology in both Judaism and Christianity, which was an academic response to the horrors of the Holocaust.60 Therefore, the 58

59 60

For example, in “The Chosen People Concept” he writes: “We must begin with the reality of anti-semitism. The Holocaust is not mere data, it affects contemporary Israeli lives. And if Nazi scars were not unhealed, there are the regular wounds of Arab terror” (p. 558). Borowitz, The Masks Jews Wear, 224. Borowitz discussed death-of-God theology in many of his works. His primary article, — 205 —

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centrality of the Holocaust in Borowitz’s work can be confirmed in two ways: (1) via his emphasis on the betrayal of modernity and the need for change in one’s understanding of humanity and human limitations; and (2) via his discussion of death-of-God theology. Irving Greenberg is a Holocaust theologian. His theological output has been informed by the events of the Holocaust and his theological responses to them.61 Both Greenberg and Borowitz, therefore, can be said to have a dynamic, self-critical thrust within their thought, which accords sufficient emphasis to the Holocaust to humble their theories and allow for a return to traditional categories of redemption and, by extension, messianism. Hartman, on the other hand, has no such theory of the Holocaust. It is virtually absent in his thought, and as a result one can argue that his theory still exhibits some of the humanistic confidence which Borowitz finds so abhorrent in the post-Holocaust world. The absence of any serious engagement with the Holocaust in the work of David Hartman serves to emphasise the supreme importance of the stage model of covenant in his work, and the empowering mentality which underpins it. I am arguing here that Hartman’s theory, in contradistinction to Borowitz’s (or Greenberg’s), exhibits this characteristic of steadfastness. There is a distinct lack of the kind of self-critical approach which has led Borowitz, for example, to re-evaluate his position toward man’s role in the covenant in the latter part of the twentieth century. The development which Borowitz’s theory exhibits—from traditional Reform modernist to post-modern critic—has no parallel in Hartman. There is no selfcritical evolvement, and no change over time, and the absence of this dynamic in Hartman’s thought leads to what I describe as a quality of steadfastness. His thought has never developed thematically beyond

61

entitled “God-Is-Dead Theology,” signifies his interest in the topic, but deals mainly with the Protestant movement rather than its Jewish parallel. Eugene Borowitz, “Godis-Dead Theology,” Judaism 15:1 (Winter 1966): 85-94. The Jewish movement and its theological implications are discussed, amongst other places, in Renewing (p. 32-43), “God and Man in Judaism Today” (p. 300-301) and “Recent Historic Events.” I agree with Michael Morgan that there are two discernable phases in Greenberg’s work: the period before he thought seriously about the transforming nature of the Holocaust (1965-1975); and the period after (1975 onwards). This sentence, therefore, is directed more to Greenberg’s work post-1975. Michael Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz, 121-122. — 206 —

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modernistic confidence and increased human responsibility, and at no point has he expressed doubts concerning man’s ability to carry out his covenantal task. This is remarkable given the intellectual climate in which he has been writing. His thought process from his very first work on the covenant in 1979 through to Israelis and Jewish Tradition in 2000 has remained steadfast, and there has never been a more developed second stage to his covenantal thought. It is this absence of significant development or self-critique which contrasts so strongly with Borowitz’s shift from modern to post-modern, a shift that took place largely as a result of the implications of the Holocaust. It is important to determine the correct way to approach Hartman’s thought in this regard. Am I suggesting that Hartman’s lack of engagement with the religious implications of the Holocaust has allowed him to emphasise the assertive dimension of covenant? Or am I actually suggesting that Hartman’s emphasis on assertion has led him to engage to a lesser degree with the implications of the Holocaust? I make a strong case in this thesis for understanding Hartman’s approach via the latter suggestion. Hartman elucidates such a strong notion of covenantal empowerment and covenantal progression through time that he has been led to a slightly uncritical approach toward twentieth-century history. The selectivity which Hartman adopts with regard to traditional Jewish sources, as already discussed in this book, is perhaps also at work in his emphasis on certain historical events (the establishment of the State of Israel) as opposed to others (the Holocaust), because some tally with his theory while others do not. Hartman’s lack of a post-Holocaust philosophy is a direct result of his covenantal thought, which places so much emphasis on assertiveness and empowerment that it remains unaffected by the Holocaust. The outcome of these contrasting approaches to covenantal thought is significant. Hartman’s steadfastness and the lack of dynamic evolvement in his thought lead to his view on the limits of human responsibility in covenant. Essentially, Hartman places very few limitations on human responsibility in covenant. This is because his unwavering promotion of assertion, and lack of self-doubt, mean that he rarely considers the opposite thrust within the tradition and thus has little need to suggest a reigning in of human responsibility in favour of a — 207 —

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more humble approach. Borowitz’s critical approach, on the other hand, exhibits characteristics of genuine dialectical tension, which prevent him from allowing human responsibility to go unchecked, and therefore he places more limitations on the human partner than Hartman does. These issues of dynamics, dialectical tension, and self-criticism, and their impact upon the limitations of human responsibility of covenant, are examined in greater detail in the next section, specifically in terms of Soloveitchik’s distinction between the competing thrusts of assertion and submission within the Jewish tradition.

6.2 Assertion, Submission, Retreat, and Withdrawal The section above highlighted the opposite nature of Hartman and Borowitz’s covenantal trajectories. Hartman’s model charts a development from lesser to greater human involvement, whereas Borowitz’s does the exact opposite, progressing from a passive to an active divine partner in covenant. Borowitz’s theory is informed by what was described above as “genuine dialectical tension,” which is a characteristic not present in Hartman. I begin this section with an analysis of Soloveitchik’s work, whose distinction between assertion and submission allows for a more in-depth discussion of these competing aspects of both theories. A classic example of dialectical thinking in Soloveitchik’s work is in the article “The Community,” from the spring 1978 issue of Tradition. In this article, he sets out the dialectical nature of the individual-communal axis within Jewish thought, looking at the creation of man alone and of the community, i.e., the pair.62 According to Soloveitchik, man in Judaism is neither a single, lonely, being nor a thou-related being who co-exists in companionship with somebody else — he is both. He also points out that the entire Jewish community is not a conglomerate but rather an autonomous entity. God pledges the land neither to an individual nor to a partnership consisting of millions of people, but to 62

Based on an interpretation of Gen. 2:18 — “It is not good that man should be alone.” Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The Community,” Tradition 17:2 (Spring 1978): 8. — 208 —

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Knesset Yisrael, “to the community as an independent unity, as a distinct juridic metaphysical person.”63 The reality of Knesset Yisrael, however, is formed by the unique nature of the individuals belonging to it, which explains the dialectical tension between individual and communal within the Jewish tradition (because they are not two distinct unrelated entities). So the corporate body is formed and nurtured solely by and because of the individuals which make up its number: Each individual has a unique message to communicate, a special colour to add to the communal spectrum. Hence, when lonely man joins the community, he adds a new dimension to the community awareness. He contributes something which no one else could have contributed. He enriches the community existentially; he is irreplaceable. Judaism has always looked upon the individual as if he were a little world (microcosm); with the death of the individual, this little world comes to an end.64

Soloveitchik asks why man was created alone at all, and why social man was not created at the very outset? His answer is that the originality and creativity in man are rooted in his loneliness experience, something which is of extreme importance to Soloveitchik’s existential philosophy. Put simply: lonely man is a courageous man, whereas social man is, at times, a coward.65 Soloveitchik’s example, not for the first time in his articles, is that of the patriarch Abraham. Social man would have lacked the heroic quality to stand up and protest against his father’s idolatrous ways — it was lonely man (i.e., the individual) who took the axe and shattered the idols that represented the gods of his father.66 Lonely man and social man are the antithesis of each other, but the synthesis of the two categories is the ideal: “man, in order to realise himself, must be alone, but, at the same time, he must be a member of a community.”67 Social man and lonely man are typologies which Soloveitchik uses in “The Community.” In the more famous text The Lonely Man of Faith, 63 64 65 66

67

Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Compare with Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5 — “The world was created just for me.” Ibid. 14. Soloveitchik is referring to the well-known aggadah of Abraham in his father’s idol shop, in Genesis Rabbah 38:13. Ibid. 14. — 209 —

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Soloveitchik presents two further typologies, two competing depictions of created man, named Adam the first and Adam the second (henceforth Adam I and Adam II).68 There is a strong link between social man and Adam I, and between lonely man and Adam II. This distinction helps to explain Soloveitchik’s dialectical approach to Jewish thought, and it is derived from an interpretation of the creation story (or stories) in Genesis. Responding to modern scholars’ claims that the seemingly conflicting accounts of the creation of man in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 reflect the differing authorship of the two texts, Soloveitchik responds by stating that “the answer [to this perceived problem] lies not in an alleged dual tradition but in dual man, not in an imaginary contradiction between two versions but in a real contradiction in the nature of man.”69 This contradiction is phrased in terms of Adam I, the man created in the first chapter of Genesis, and Adam II, the man created in the second chapter. While Adam I was created at the same time as Eve, in the image of God, and with a divine mandate to fill the earth and subdue it, Adam II was created alone, from the dust of the earth, and with a duty only to cultivate the garden and to keep it. That is why Adam I can be described as social, whilst Adam II remains lonely—Adam I never lived alone, and hence never experienced the loneliness which Adam II felt in the Garden prior to Eve’s creation. Soloveitchik’s elaboration of a dialectical philosophy, which leads concomitantly to an entire ethical system, is born out of these two accounts of the creation of man. As Adam I is driven and creative and resourceful, so are we driven, creative and resourceful, and so are we charged to be in certain Jewish ethical endeavours. However, as Adam II is lonely and reflective, so are we and so must we be in certain ethical situations. In a later article, “Majesty and Humility,” Soloveitchik suggests what those certain situations are which call for this kind of Adam II mentality. He describes the Adam II mentality in terms of an ethic of retreat and withdrawal. Jewish ethics, as I have already pointed out here, require withdrawal from precisely those areas which mean

68 69

Adam I and Adam II are named, but not discussed, in section 3.5. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 10. — 210 —

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the most to us.70 For example, in suspending “the authority logos” (one’s rational faculty) in order to perform hukkim (statutes) which one does not understand, the modern man is, according to Soloveitchik, withdrawing.71 Similarly, when a newly married man does not sleep with his wife during her menstrual cycle, he is exhibiting this same ethic of retreat, and Soloveitchik refers to such a man as a hero.72 One can refer to these moments of retreat and withdrawal as “Adam II moments,” and this is the crucial link between “Majesty and Humility” and The Lonely Man of Faith. The ethic of victory (Abraham at Sodom) is characterised by Adam I: bold, cosmic-minded man. And the ethic of retreat (Abraham at the akedah) is characterised by Adam II: submissive, origin-minded man. Soloveitchik’s ethic of retreat and withdrawal is dialectical.73 Ethical victory and defeat are antithetical; at times we are commanded to be bold and assertive, and at other times to display humility and withdraw, and true faith develops within the ebb and flow of thesis and antithesis, eventually leading for some to a kind of synthesis in faith when one knows what is required of one in that particular situation, be it submission or assertion. Sometimes God requires withdrawal, and at other times the same withdrawal would be highly inappropriate. This brief outline of Soloveitchik’s theory allows us to reconsider Borowitz and Hartman’s theories of covenantal empowerment and responsibility in terms of these competing thrusts of assertion and submission. It appears that Borowitz favours an Adam II mentality, while Hartman opts for an Adam I mentality; Borowitz sides with the

70

71 72

73

See section 5.4 and especially chapter 5, note 101 therein, for the initial discussion of Soloveitchik’s ethic of retreat and withdrawal. Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” 37. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Catharsis,” Tradition 17:2 (Spring 1978): “Suddenly the bride and groom make a movement of recoil. He, gallantly, like a chivalrous knight, exhibits paradoxical heroism” (p. 45-46). It is important to highlight the distinction between Soloveitchik’s dialectical thought and Hegelian dialectical thought. The latter is renowned for its threefold manner, thesis and antithesis leading to a resolution in the form of the synthesis. Soloveitchik’s The Lonely Man of Faith has no such synthesis of Adam I and Adam II, whereas the earlier Halakhic Man does. Cognitive man — thesis — and homo religious — antithesis — reach their synthesis in the eponymous character of halakhic man. See chapter 3, note 86. — 211 —

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submissiveness of The Lonely Man of Faith, whilst Hartman prefers the assertiveness of “Halakhic Man.” This relationship to Soloveitchik’s work is enhanced through an understanding of the engagement of both protagonists with his work. Soloveitchik was, of course, a supreme and formative influence on Hartman in his dual role as his teacher and rabbi for many years. Borowitz, on the other hand, has engaged with Soloveitchik on an academic level on only a couple of occasions.74

6.2a Borowitz and Soloveitchik When faced with the charge of finding something authentically Jewish to write about current theological endeavours, Borowitz turned to Soloveitchik. At that time (1966), Soloveitchik had published relatively few articles, and Borowitz concentrated on the most widely circulated one, “Ish ha-Halakhah”:75 For nearly twenty years the theological fame of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has had to rest, for those who have not known him personally, on the acclaim of his disciples, the eminent positions he holds and, essentially, one long essay, “Ish ha-Halakhah” […] These intriguing glimpses of a major Jewish intellect have aroused interest and anticipation in those who are concerned with contemporary

74



75

The two thinkers certainly met on a number of occasions, and did in fact serve on the same rabbinic panel for a time. Joseph Gruss was a friend and admirer of Soloveitchik who co-sponsored the Professional Advisory Committee of the Programme Development Fund for Jewish Education, which created guidelines for directing large communal charity funds to Jewish education in New York. In order to do so it needed the oversight of representatives of the various religious denominations. Soloveitchik was the main Orthodox representative on this committee from 1973-8, and Borowitz was the Reform representative during the same time. In fact Borowitz and Soloveitchik served together on one other committee, around the time of Vatican II (1965), when they were, respectively, the Reform and Orthodox representatives on the American Jewish Congress, which met to discuss events taking place in Rome at that time. “Ish ha-Halakhah” was published for the first time in 1944 in the journal Talpiot (1:34 pp. 651-735), and was not translated into English as “Halakhic Man” until 1983, by Lawrence Kaplan. Two further articles by Soloveitchik, “Confrontation” (1964) and “The Lonely Man of Faith” (1965), were actually published prior to Borowitz’s article, but his article, although making reference to these new additions (p. 204), deals predominantly with “Ish ha-Halakhah.” — 212 —

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Jewish thought.76

Borowitz’s choice of Soloveitchik as the focus of his column is significant, as it suggests that he was intrigued by Soloveitchik’s theological position. Borowitz writes that Soloveitchik is “more Halachic than Baeck, more sophisticated than Kaplan, more erudite than Buber, [and] more rationalistic than Heschel,” praise indeed from a man who considers these four thinkers central pillars of his thought.77 Indeed, Borowitz has continued to exhibit interest in Soloveitchik at intervals throughout his career.78 I am not the first person to claim that Borowitz’s treatment of “Ish ha-Halakhah” is deserving of attention. Lawrence Kaplan, the translator of the article into English, writes that “perhaps the best description of “Halakhic Man” is that of Eugene Borowitz, who termed it a ‘Mitnagged phenomenology of awesome proportions.’”79 Borowitz’s interpretation of “Ish ha-Halakhah” is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it offers an appreciation of the article from a purely typological standpoint; and 76 77

78

79

Borowitz, “The Typological Theology of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” 203. Ibid. 205. Borowitz’s reverence for Baeck, Kaplan, Buber and Heschel is so marked that references to at least one of them occur in almost every one of his written works. See, for example, the number of references to this quartet in Renewing chapter 8, and see also his explicit use of this quartet to critique what he terms as the three major factors in Jewish faith in “The Problem of the Form of a Jewish Theology” (the article is, essentially, an appreciation of their work). All four also feature heavily in his understanding of “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” especially pages 178-182. One could add to this quartet (of major intellectual influences upon Borowitz) Immanuel Kant, Franz Rosenzweig, and, to a lesser extent, Hermann Cohen. For example, in one of his most recent essays on Jewish-Catholic dialogue, Borowitz uses Soloveitchik’s portrayal of the dangers of inter-faith dialogue in “On Interfaith Relations” to critique Jewish-Catholic dialogue of the last forty years. Borowitz, “A Nearness in Difference,” 17-20 (“On Interfaith Relations” was first published by Soloveitchik as an addendum to “Confrontation” in Tradition 6:2 [1964]). Borowitz also deals explicitly with Soloveitchik’s work in two other pieces — in chapter ten of Choices in Modern Jewish Thought (first published in 1983) and in chapter seven of the considerably earlier book A New Jewish Theology in the Making (published in 1968), where Soloveitchik’s work is analysed alongside that of Abraham Joshua Heschel in a chapter entitled “The New Orthodoxy.” In his most recent book, Borowitz returns to Soloveitchik in his afterword, using him as an exemplar of the ability to give guidance on practical issues based on an aggadic, rather than a halakhic, approach. Borowitz, The Talmud’s Theological Language Game, 191. Kaplan, “Translators Preface to Halakhic Man,” vii. — 213 —

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secondly, it understands the word halakhic in the title in terms of its broader rather than narrower definition, i.e. as a word that defines the whole gamut of Jewish religious experience, rather than merely a legal category within Orthodox Judaism. When Borowitz uses the term typological to describe Soloveitchik’s enterprise, he is applying more than just the dictionary definition of typological to his thought. Typology for Borowitz in this sense means not the world as it is, but the world as it could be; it is a theory of possibilities rather than of facts. He writes: “He does not deal with things as they are, or even with abstractions from things as they are, but rather with pure possibilities of existence. These ideal forms are never found as such in our world, for all historical phenomena are necessarily imperfect manifestations of these ideal types and often the intersection of several of them.”80 In other words, we are not dealing with the world of reality but with the world of the ideal or the pure. Borowitz paints Soloveitchik here with a Platonic brush in the discussion of his movement “from his pure types to the real situation of men.”81 Explained in this way, the typological emphasis is crucial to his definition of the word halakhic in “Halakhic Man,” because this is where most people have misinterpreted Soloveitchik’s meaning in the book.82 Borowitz argues that one cannot remove Soloveitchik from his upbringing; the Brisker tradition83 in which he was raised influenced him to the extent that he 80 81 82

83

Borowitz, “The Typological Theology of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” 205-6. Ibid. 206. The misinterpretation of Soloveitchik as commonplace within contemporary Jewish thought is highlighted not only by Borowitz, but also by Lawrence Kaplan, who highlights a different type of misinterpretation of Soloveitchik in his article “Revision and the Rav: The Struggle for the Soul of Modern Orthodoxy,” Judaism 48:3 (1999): 290-311. The Brisker tradition refers to the tradition embraced by followers of the Soloveitchik dynasty of rabbinic scholars in the Brisk yeshivot, and in particular to the method of talmudic study practised in those yeshivot. It is called this because of the Soloveitchik’s origin in the town of Brisk, or Brest-Litovsk, in what is now Belarus, and the foremost influences on this method are Rabbis Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821), Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (author of the Beis Halevi  —  1820-1892), and Chaim Soloveitchik (also known as Chaim of Brisk, 1853-1918). The latter was Joseph Soloveitchik’s grandfather (see chapter 1, note 27). The Brisker method of talmudic study favours a conceptual style of talmudic analysis, instead of a traditionalist approach that — 214 —

---------------------------  6.2 Assertion, Submission, Retreat, and Withdrawal  ---------------------------

referred to the halakhah as a broader category including most of Jewish thought and practice. This specific kind of Litvak (a Jew of Lithuanian origin) mentality is shared by Eugene Borowitz.84 If one interprets this understanding of Soloveitchik’s world typologically (as Borowitz does), then the purpose and quest of “Halakhic Man” becomes to find the ideal religious personality and not to decipher the best way of living the real Orthodox life. That is a seismic shift in interpretation, and thus the importance of clarifying the precise definitions of these two key terms (halakhah and typology). Borowitz’s emphasis on the ideal religious character as disciplined allies him to Soloveitchik’s “Halakhic Man”, for whom discipline and order are paramount. In general, however, Borowitz’s theory shares more similarities with the Soloveitchikian approach of The Lonely Man of Faith. Borowitz writes that Soloveitchik, “cognisant of the full existential torment of man torn between the two Adams within him, will not accept peace of mind as the goal of religion,”85 and undoubtedly strongly agrees with this sentiment. To Borowitz it is clear that “we will not understand liberalism, at least not the sort which surfaces in my kind of liberal Judaism, without understanding the dialectic of confidence and hesitation which informs it.”86 Borowitz’s dialectic of confidence and hesitation is similar to the dialectical tension which exists in the oscillation between Adam I and Adam II.

84

85 86

advocates absorbing large amounts of talmud before analysing any one topic. The Brisker method, although popular, is not studied in all yeshivot, some preferring to uphold the traditionalist method, which was originally championed by the likes of the Netziv, Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (1817-1893), the long serving rosh yeshivah of Volozhin. Interestingly, that yeshivah came under the influence of Chaim Soloveitchik during his time there and the institution drifted towards the Brisker method. For a detailed analysis of the influence of these two men and their respective teaching methods, and whether they contributed to the closure of the Volozhin yeshivah, see Jacob Schacter’s article “Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892,” Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990): 76-133. Borowitz’s Litvak upbringing has been well documented. See Borowitz, Renewing, 301. See also Jean Bloch Rosensaft, “Dr. Eugene B. Borowitz at 80: A Jewish Spiritual Journey at HUC-JIR,” Chronicle 63 (2004), especially 8, available online at http://www. huc.edu/chronicle/63/borowitz.pdf. Borowitz, “The Typological Theology of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” 208. Borowitz, “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” 233. — 215 —

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As already described above, the dialectical tension in Soloveitchik’s philosophy is closely felt in the complex relationship which an individual has toward his or her community. For Borowitz, the respective pulls of both individuality and community on man’s obligations and duties constitutes one of the greatest covenantal challenges — “a postmodern theology of serious Jewish duty must then take the form of reconciling an effective autonomy with existence in Covenant.”87 Not allowing communal structures and norms to dwarf an individual’s sense of autonomy and moral freedom is one of the foremost challenges for Borowitz’s covenantal thought. In a similar vein, however, not wishing the communal framework to recede into insignificance in comparison to the unequivocal demands of individual autonomy remains a covenantal imperative. A complex challenge therefore emerges for Borowitz in attempting to do justice to both individual and communal imperatives within covenantal responsibility. This challenge is a uniquely post-modern one, since it is the preserve of the modernist to ascribe ultimate authority to the self (hence Borowitz’s statement that “modernity has taught us the spiritual value of locating authority in the individual, not in tradition or community, where Judaism largely lodges”88). It is only a postmodern sensibility that recognises this individual-communal tension. This tension presents a dilemma for Borowitz when understood in its proper covenantal context : does acceptance of the covenant require the lessening of one’s own sense of self-dignity and worth? If the covenant is between God and the Jewish people, what stake do I, as an individual member of that community, have in it? The existential angst which Borowitz exhibits in his approach to, and reconciliation of, these issues shares conceptual similarities with the Soloveitchikian approach to the same problems. There is a second conceptual parallel which I would like to highlight between these two thinkers, which is based on Borowitz’s understanding of the term reverse-tsimtsum, analysed in section 3.3 above. If reversetsimtsum is an effort to redress the balance of the covenantal partners 87 88

Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant, 257. Ibid. 256. — 216 —

---------------------------  6.2 Assertion, Submission, Retreat, and Withdrawal  ---------------------------

to better reflect their respective strengths and capabilities, then how do human covenantal partners go about their task of bringing an understanding of God back into human affairs? The answer is that Borowitz wishes them to exhibit humility in stepping down from their post-Enlightenment modernistic pedestal, and retreat to leave some room for a conception of God to reappear. For Borowitz, what needs to happen is for humanity to take a step backwards. This backward step will reinvigorate proper human conceptions of God. It is not that God needs to take a step forward (such an anthropomorphic misconception of the nature of God would horrify Borowitz), but that man needs to retreat in order to find space for God once again in his life. This backwards step is very similar to Soloveitchik’s ethic of retreat and withdrawal, symbolised as it is by Adam II’s submissive mentality. Borowitz’s prescription to Reform Jews today to enact a reversetsimtsum and retreat is, therefore, akin to adopting an Adam II mentality. Moreover, the driving force behind Borowitz’s retreat is humility, as discussed via his tripartite scheme of more God, more Jewish and more humble.89 Soloveitchik’s ethic of retreat and withdrawal is also tempered by humility, for “in such moments humilitas Dei, which resides in the humblest and tiniest of places, addresses itself to man.”90 Within the retreat-humility-dignity axis, Borowitz and Soloveitchik exhibit considerable similarities.

6.2b Hartman and Soloveitchik Upon analysis, David Hartman’s covenantal theory appears one-sided, its emphasis firmly on adequacy and empowerment at the expense of retreat and withdrawal. In the opening chapter of A Living Covenant, he outlines the two thrusts of Jewish thought in what he labels “Assertion vs. Submission.” His paradigm—that of Abraham at Sodom—is one of assertion. His understanding of the divine-human relationship, and expressly of what God wants from us at times of moral decisionmaking or crisis, is a model of confronting God as an equal. Such 89 90

See chapter 2, note 38 above and the text therein. Soloveitchik, “Majesty and Humility,” 33. — 217 —

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mutuality between partners is at the very centre of the covenantal idea for Hartman, as is his understanding of covenantal partnership. Only when God is viewed as a partner can adequacy and empowerment assume prominence. Covenantal partnership, however, undermines the opposite thrust within Judaism—that of submissive acquiescence before the Almighty. There is no ethic of retreat and withdrawal in Hartman’s thought. Hartman has of course been profoundly influenced by Soloveitchik’s theology, which he quotes at length in his work and to which he has dedicated one of his most thoughtful books.91 However, he chooses to emphasise in his own work only one side of Soloveitchik’s dialectical theology. Crucial to Hartman’s work is an understanding of imitatio Dei as developed via Soloveitchik’s interpretation of the creation story.92 For Hartman, Soloveitchik teaches that man must imitate divine activity in creating the world, in other words, man gains his creative drive from an appreciation of the divine creative act.93 As shown above, Borowitz also enunciates a type of imitatio Dei suggested by Soloveitchik. In Hartman’s view, God withdrew in the act of creation-covenant in order to provide his human partners with the ultimate covenantal gift: that of responsibility for the completion of creation, an act which God lovingly left for us to complete. Hence, guided by the act of tsimtsum, we are called upon to enact an imitatio Dei and become creators. So the imitatio in the Hartmanian context is the act of creation. With Borowitz, however, and his view of reverse-tsimtsum, the imitatio is tsimtsum itself. Just as God withdrew, so must we withdraw in order to bring back room for His active Presence in our lives. Hartman and Borowitz differ in their understanding of the precise nature of the imitation here. Hartman sees the imitation of divine attributes as centring around the notion 91 92 93

Hartman, Love and Terror in the God Encounter. See my initial discussion of this topic in section 3.5 above. Soloveitchik is following a traditional rabbinic position in wanting to understand the depths of the biblical narrative (in this case Genesis 1-2), to elevate it beyond mere storytelling. See Rashi’s commentary to Gen. 1:1. See also Emmanuel Levinas’ “Revelation in the Jewish Tradition,” in The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 193, where Levinas argues for the prescriptive nature of the lessons found in the Pentateuch, which, he says, occupy a privileged position within Jewish consciousness. — 218 —

---------------------------  6.2 Assertion, Submission, Retreat, and Withdrawal  ---------------------------

of creativity, while Borowitz sees it as centring around the notion of withdrawal. It seems to me that the latter view, advocated by Borowitz, is closer to the essence of imitatio Dei than the former.94 Withdrawal is a necessary condition of creating (in terms of the kabbalistic creation story). As a result, withdrawal is more foundational than creating. So Borowitz puts forward both possibilities in promoting withdrawal in order to help create. Hartman is being more selective in his choice of creativity over withdrawal, and this selection is indicative of much of his covenantal thought, and certainly of his engagement with Soloveitchik. Hartman selects some, but not all, of his teacher’s ideas and uses them for his own theory.95 Hartman’s engagement with Soloveitchik is tempered by this kind of selection process, discussed explicitly by Hartman in both Love and Terror in the God Encounter and “Creativity and Imitatio Dei.”96 Fundamentally, Hartman espouses a thoroughly Adam I mentality throughout his theology, sidelining Adam II. He is wholeheartedly concerned with the Abraham of Sodom and not at all with the Abraham of the akedah, and assertion is promoted by him at the expense of submission: “I don’t see Halakhah as creating the obedient personality. The highest ideal is not unconditional submission, irrespective of its rationality or morality.”97 Hartman has an ethic of empowerment and of assertion, one which he acknowledges owes a debt to the influence of Soloveitchik. However, this ethic of assertion is present without its dialectical opposite thrust of retreat and withdrawal, clearly also present in 94

95

96

97

One could argue that imitatio Dei itself is a humble concept, involving as it does an orientation to an other that is already in existence. Originality, or creation ­exnihilo, would be the very opposite of this understanding of imitatio Dei. In which case, Hartman’s insistence on creativity as imitatio Dei is misplaced, since a willingness to adopt this concept should be indicative of a humility of position which is lacking in Hartman’s covenantal thought. One could also argue that Borowitz’s position is more Soloveitchikian than Hartman’s understanding, but that conclusion rests on the premise that the balance in Soloveitchik’s work favours the ethic of retreat and withdrawal. For more on this point see my discussion in note 98 below. Hartman, Love and Terror in the God Encounter, 75-76; Hartman, “Creativity and Imitatio Dei,” 37. See chapter 1, note 52 above. Hartman, “Standing Before God,” Lindenbaum Lecture given on 25.12.06 (1:55). — 219 —

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Soloveitchik. While Hartman favours the former thrust, Borowitz favours the latter more strongly. Hartman openly acknowledges the heavy influence of Soloveitchik on his thought. His lack of an ethic of retreat and withdrawal, underscored here by Borowitz’s well-developed one, seems to undermine the extent of that influence. My use of Soloveitchik’s theological view here has helped to better demarcate the opposite trajectories of the protagonists’ covenantal thinking. David Hartman concentrates on the ethic which emerges from Soloveitchik’s “Halakhic Man,” whilst Eugene Borowitz’s ethic is more closely linked to The Lonely Man of Faith. Just as Soloveitchik himself had two Adams in the Creation story, so too, scholars have demarcated two differing Soloveitchiks, the man who wrote the assertive and halakhic “Halakhic Man” (favoured by Hartman) and the man who wrote the submissive and existential Lonely Man of Faith (which fits in so well with Borowitz’s outlook).98 98

It is now becoming more accepted amongst Soloveitchik scholars to claim that “Halakhic Man” is not the best representation of the Rav’s work, written very early in his career as it was, and to a largely academic audience. See Singer and Sokol, “Joseph Soloveitchik: Lonely Man of Faith.” If this is the case, and later works such as “Kol Dodi Dofek,” “Confrontation,” On Repentence, and The Lonely Man of Faith offer clearer insight into the true nature of his thought, then it opens the possibility that Eugene Borowitz’s interpretation of Soloveitchik is more authentic than David Hartman’s. While this is undoubtedly an area for further study, initial research suggests that this could well be the case; another classic inversion of the preconceived hierarchy, which would certainly have assumed that Hartman’s interpretation of his teacher would be more “Soloveitchikian” than Borowitz’s. One argument in favour of Hartman’s understanding of his teacher, however, is Soloveitchik’s view on repentance as outlined in “Halakhic Man.” In this essay, Soloveitchik demarcates two different types of repentance, known as kapparah and taharah. Kapparah appeals directly to God’s grace and man does little to merit it, whereas taharah is more psychological, introspective and reflective. Soloveitchik is quite scathing in his attack on kapparah as a form of repentence because of the level of human involvement (the human partner has virtually nothing to do aside from fall at God’s feet and beg for mercy). Hartman would undoubtedly agree with both the conclusion — taharah over kapparah — and the method — the best form of repentance is the one with the greatest human involvement. It is a shame, however, that Hartman does not write about this anywhere, as his major discussion of Soloveitchik’s view on repentance was scheduled to appear in volume two of Love and Terror, which never materialised. It is also worth pointing out that in the later work On Repentance, Soloveitchik’s opinion of kapparah has mellowed and his discussion of repentance there is considerably more nuanced than in “Halakhic Man.” — 220 —

---------------------------------------------------------   6.3 History and Progress ---------------------------------------------------------

6.3 History and Progress So far in this chapter I have analysed Hartman’s preference for assertion and Borowitz’s for a dialectic of assertion and submission, preferences which are intrinsically linked to the levels of self-criticism and steadfastness adopted by both thinkers. Hartman’s assertive mentality, and his understanding of history, lead him to adopt a position which lacks self-criticism. Borowitz’s position, which favours the competing submissive thrust, remains in dialectical relation to both thrusts, and as a result his thought does exhibit self-critical tendencies. The way in which both thinkers approach limitations and boundaries within covenantal empowerment and responsibility is affected by their understanding of history and its significance to their theories. Upon close inspection it appears that Hartman and Borowitz have different approaches to modern historical events and slightly different understandings of the significance of theories of human progression through history. Theories of human progression can be very loosely characterised in one of two ways: is the human race constantly marching forward towards new and better frontiers in a typical post-Enlightenment understanding of progress? Or is man, according to a classic religious viewpoint, drifting further and further away from a heavenly starting point so that each new generation is a step further away from their optimum, a step further away from God, and thus essentially dwindling in power and worth as time progresses?99 Both of these characterisations are of course highly stereotypical, and 99

On the issue of generational regression in Judaism see chapter one of Menachem Kellner’s book Maimonides on the “Decline of the Generations” and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996). Kellner surveys the traditional sources which give expression to the idea of generational regression, and suggests that, although it is assumed by many as being a central dogma of rabbinic Judaism, it has never been precisely or systematically stated. See also Norman Lamm, Torah Umadda: The Encounter of Religious Learning and Worldly Knowledge in the Jewish Tradition (New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1990), 89-101, where Lamm cites sources which go against the degeneration thesis. Particularly striking are the words of Maimonides’ son Abraham, who writes that “It is injurious to strive to cause a certain view to prevail because one reveres the one who propounded it and therefore wishes to accept it without pondering and understanding it, regardless of whether it is true or not” (p. 101). — 221 —

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most people’s understanding of human progress would be considerably more nuanced than either, but nonetheless they help to understand the possibilities for conflicting interpretations about the significance and direction of human progress, which forms the basis for the current discussion. Borowitz’s theological worldview, as outlined in this chapter, is firmly rooted in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. His understanding of historical events has caused genuine changes in his theological position. Those events include the Enlightenment and the Holocaust. To take the latter as an example, Borowitz’s reaction to the historical event, which demonstrated human evil in its purest form, was to reassess the default Reform Jewish position toward fellow human beings. The events of the Holocaust prove that one cannot trust fellow man to strive for justice and truth, or to remain as a measure of all things. Had the Holocaust not taken place, it is unclear that Borowitz’s theology would have taken this sceptical turn. Hartman’s position is also, seemingly, influenced by history. The three-stage model of the covenant plots a trajectory from lesser to greater human responsibility over time. The development from stage one, through stage two, and on to stage three, is a development from the biblical era, to the rabbinic era, and on to the modern era; in other words from three thousand years ago to the present day. The stages move forward in chronological order. The final stage is characterised by the human partner finally assuming responsibility for history, and the ending of active divine involvement in human history. This is akin to an Enlightenment-like idea of progress. Hartman places great emphasis on humanity; it is a huge panorama from which God is said to have withdrawn. It is questionable whether humanity can live up to this level of responsibility. Both thinkers seem, at first glance, to have developed theories closely linked to historical circumstance. However, their relationships to history differ considerably. Borowitz’s theology is more firmly rooted in actual historical events (such as the Holocaust), whereas Hartman’s theology, despite a specific, historically-rooted stage model, is less interested in specific historical moments. Just as both thinkers have contrasting views about the Holocaust, messianism, and the ethic of — 222 —

---------------------------------------------------------   6.3 History and Progress ---------------------------------------------------------

retreat and withdrawal, so do they about history and progress. Indeed, in many ways their views on history and progress underpin all those other views. In order to fully develop this point one needs to understand the two different senses in which the word history is being employed here. The first meaning of the word history relates to an attentiveness to specific events in recent human history. The second meaning, however, relates to progressive development over time. They are actually unrelated. Hartman’s progressive stage model is ahistorical (according to the former meaning of history) because it has no relation to history specifically. In other words, there is little understanding of, for example, a Roman context, or a pre-modern period. Hartman’s stage model is actually a development over time, but not through lived human history. It is a maturation process which the human partner had to go through in order to warrant covenantal partnership with God. If one adopts the biblical metaphor which Hartman favours for understanding the relationship, then it is like the education of a child seen through the eyes of a parent. There may be ups and downs, and highlights of that education, which would bespeak specific historical moments, but generally speaking the education would develop as the child matured irrespective of any specifics. Just as sure as the child will grow up, the child’s ability to understand and discern will increase. It is in this sense that Hartman understands covenantal development over time, and hence the stage model. There is an inevitability to the progression through the stages of Hartman’s model which does not exist in real human history. His theory of human progress is unremitting, in the sense that nothing can stop it. Not even the disastrous events of the twentieth century were enough to temper Hartman’s belief in the progression of the human partner to full covenantal responsibility. Of the two thinkers, then, it is Borowitz who is more emphatically historical in his approach, despite having the vaguer stage-model of covenant. Borowitz’s theology has been affected by actual historical events in a way Hartman’s has not, and Hartman does not have a similarly acute understanding of specific historical events. However, Hartman’s relationship to history still exists on some level. I describe his historical consciousness as a religious one. In Hartman’s religious — 223 —

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history, there is an inevitability to human history which suggests it is being seen through divine eyes. The loving parent will have planned to remove and withdraw in order to let the child make his or her own mistakes and learn from them, regardless of what is actually taking place in the child’s life at that time. Hence, talking in terms of progression about that (planned) withdrawal does not actually represent a historical discussion, as such. If the progression under discussion is planned or pre-ordained, then a response to it ceases to be a response to lived historical circumstance. Such, I believe, is Hartman’s relationship to human history. There is, however, one historical event which does not seem to fit in with this analysis, and that is the establishment of the State of Israel.100 Does the establishment of the State represent an anomaly in Hartman’s theory? Is this a lived historical event which caused a genuine change in his theoretical position? At first glance, the answer to these questions would have to be “yes.” Hartman’s theory is so Zionist in its outlook that it would be hard to make a case for his having been unaffected by the events of 1948 and the transformation they achieved in world Jewry. Donniel Hartman writes that “most of his [David Hartman’s] creativity and thought about Judaism and the Jewish people were founded on the reality of the modern state of Israel and shaped by its development,” and that “he views Israel as the central factor shaping the future of Judaism in the modern world.”101 It is certainly the case that Hartman emphasises the importance of Jewish statehood throughout his writings, calling the modern State of Israel “the third Jewish commonwealth.”102 However, Hartman attributes religious significance to the State of Israel without understanding that significance in either messianic or redemptive terms. This approach differs markedly from the traditional viewpoint, epitomised by the reishit tsmichat geulatenu (“the beginning of the flowering of our redemption”) approach of Kook and Soloveitchik.103 100

101 102 103

See the end of section 5.4 above for a brief introduction to Hartman’s Zionism and its relationship to his philosophy of halakhah. Donniel Hartman, “Judaism in Light of the Rebirth of the State of Israel,” 5. The title of the twelfth, and last, chapter of Living, 278-299. See for example Soloveitchik’s explicit formulation of this messianic approach in Kol — 224 —

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For Hartman, the religious significance of the State is manifest in a new moral and spiritual agenda for Jews post-1948. The modern State of Israel gives the covenantal community greater scope for responsibility and initiative, and proves that Judaism is not solely defined by prayer or learning, but rather by action and lived real experience.104 Hartman uses the expression “Israeli normalcy,” which he justifies by saying that “living in Israel is not a substitute for the normative Jewish tradition, but a framework for its implementation.”105 And he goes on to argue that living in Israel is not only a framework for implementing the life of mitzvah, but the ideal framework for doing so, because the combination of living in the Holy Land and living under Jewish sovereignty generates greater responsibility and initiative than were possible in exile. Hartman writes, From my perspective, the religious meaning one gives to events relates not to their divine origin but to their possible influence on the life of Torah. If an event in history can be a catalyst for a new perception of the scope of Torah, if it widens the range of halakhic action and responsibility, if it provides greater opportunities for hearing God’s mitzvot, then this already suffices to endow the event with religious significance, for it intensifies and widens the way God can be present in the daily life of the individual and the community.106 Dodi Dofek, where the first of the six “knocks” which he outlines is the miraculous nature of the United Nations resolution in favour of the creation of the State of Israel in 1947:



104 105 106

I do not know whom the journalists, with their eyes of flesh and blood, saw sitting in the chairman’s seat during that fateful session when the General Assembly decided in favour of the establishment of the State. However, someone who at that time observed matters well with his spiritual eye could have sensed the presence of the true chairman who presided over the discussion — i.e. the Beloved! It was He who knocked with His gavel on the podium. (Soloveitchik, Fate and Destiny, 26).

The different tenor of this work of Soloveitchik to, for example, The Lonely Man of Faith has a lot to do with the different intended audiences of the two works. Whilst the latter was a philosophical essay written for an academic journal, the former was originally delivered as an address to the Religious Zionists of America on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the State of Israel’s Independence in May 1956. It was subsequently elaborated upon and rewritten (in Hebrew) in 1961. See Living, 283ff. Ibid. 328 n. 11. Hartman, Living, 281. — 225 —

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It is clear that Hartman sees the establishment of the State of Israel as such an event. Perhaps his lack of direct engagement with historical events is due to the fact that no previous event prior to 1948 has come into this category. For Hartman, no other historical event, not even the Holocaust, has provided genuine scope for an extension of halakhic responsibility, or for an extension of revelatory experience (providing “greater opportunities for hearing God’s mitzvot”). Only the achievement of statehood has acted as the catalyst described, and its characterisation as such has as much to do with how it was achieved as with the fact it was achieved at all. Hartman sees the secular Zionist revolution as a triumph of covenantal man, and the secular Zionist epitomises the character of mature covenantal man for him. The secular Zionist is no longer dependent upon grace (as the Jews were in the desert), and by taking responsibility for history (the third and final stage in Hartman’s stage model of covenant) he has expanded the panorama for covenantal responsibility. So the late nineteenth century, with its emergence of Zionism, signified the transition from stage two to stage three in Hartman’s model of covenant more than any other point in history. However, I hesitate to use Hartman’s understanding of secular Zionism to alter my former understanding of his relationship to actual historical events. Despite his preoccupation with the modern State of Israel and his (favourable) characterisation of the ardent secular Zionist, there remains an inevitability about Hartman’s understanding of this aspect of Jewish history which is only explicable in terms of a religious understanding of human history. The natural product of the human partner’s maturation in the covenant was the assumption of increasing responsibilities, which characterises stage three of the covenant model, and these responsibilities are specifically described in terms of their goal of shaping human history. So the establishment of the State of Israel had an air of inevitability to it which, despite Hartman’s delight in its achievement, cannot be viewed like any other historical event which forces a response from a religious leader or philosopher at a given time. Hartman has remained essentially silent in response to the Holocaust, but has written numerous articles about the significance of the establishment of the State of Israel, and this says much about his — 226 —

---------------------------------------------------------   6.3 History and Progress ---------------------------------------------------------

rather ambivalent relationship to twentieth-century human history. This understanding of history is particularly important if one believes, as Borowitz does, that a theology fit for the twenty-first century must somehow have dealt with the horrors of the twentieth century in order to be considered adequate. Despite the references and allusions to “history” in Hartman’s work, I hope it is now clear that Hartman’s theology does not really deal with twentieth-century history, whereas Borowitz’s certainly does. However, whereas before I was attributing this to a certain steadfastness in Hartman’s thought, now I understand it in terms of his religious understanding of history. His overarching view of history, progress and development prohibits him from allowing individual historical events to alter the trajectory of his covenantal model. The significance of the progress model overpowers the individual historical moment, and the moment pales into insignificance when compared with the covenantal stage that forms the framework of present human activity and responsibility.

— 227 —

Chapter Seven Conclusions The Achievements and Problematics of Contemporary Covenantal Thought

The Achievements & Problematics of Contemporary Covenantal Thought

--  The Achievements & Problematics of Contemporary Covenantal Thought  --

This book has dealt primarily with the notion of covenant. This has been done not in a conceptual sense, analysing what the concept of covenant could and does mean, but rather as an intellectual history, looking at what the usage of covenant has meant to my two contemporary protagonists, David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz. My decision to write an intellectual history has led me to analyse theological, philosophical and sociological issues in order to get a better understanding of the academic, social and cultural milieu in which the term developed. Throughout this monograph I have dealt with biblical and rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish thought, the emergence of modernity, the western philosophical tradition, and postHolocaust thought. It has become increasingly apparent as the work has progressed that the key themes of covenantal thought, which develop through all of these different genres, are essentially interwoven, and have been drawn from the entire breadth of the Jewish tradition. This has led to discussions on issues which have incorporated philosophical anthropology, theology, law, and ethics. This is representative of the writing styles of both protagonists, who eschew a single analytic framework in favour of an inter-disciplinary approach which they feel is closer to the normative Jewish approach to the issue of covenant, and which will be more attractive to their readership. When studying the work of a philosopher of religion, or a theologian, one of the most pertinent questions to ask one’s self is, “Where does he or she find God?” In other words, what aspect of their thought leads philosophers to the divine? This is a crucial question for students to ask themselves, and its answer gives a real insight into the thought of the philosophers in question. Maimonides, for example, finds God through — 231 —

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philosophical reflection and contemplation, which leads to heightened knowledge of God. In Soloveitchik’s thought, by contrast, one locates God in the intricacies of the halakhah, and specifically in the theoretical determination of the law.1 I am now in a position to suggest an answer to this question for both Hartman and Borowitz. For both thinkers, the answer lies neither in philosophical contemplation nor in halakhic theorisation, but rather in a psychological realisation. I refer to a psychological realisation which accompanies knowledge of what covenant means, that is an understanding that we have entered into, or been entered into, this partnership with God, which is a unique kind of partnership that produces characteristics of a genuine human relationship between partners. It allows for the possibility (however remote) of proximity between partners, and such proximity can even lead to intimacy between man and God. It also imposes significant additional responsibilities upon both partners as a direct result of its instigation and continued existence. That is why I highlighted, in the introduction, the four prominent issues of covenant as relationship, partnership, proximity, and responsibility. Let us now recap on the key facets of the covenantal thought of Hartman and Borowitz. Covenant is understood by Hartman and Borowitz as both partnership and relationship. In neither thinker’s work is the word synonymous with contract, nor does it have specifically legal connotations. Rather, it refers to a relationship between two covenantal partners—God and Israel—which is equally binding on both sides, and equally binding for all generations (an everlasting covenant). The subsequent nature of the divine-human relationship is affected by this understanding of covenant. God empowers His covenantal partners by choosing to form a covenant with them, which gives them feelings of adequacy and dignity. As a result of both this empowerment and Israel’s knowledge that she is a mutual partner in 1

See “Halakhic Man,” 26: “When a person knows and grasps with his intellect this decision [the correct halakhic ruling] in accordance with the law as set forth in the Mishnah, Gemara, or Codes, he thereby comprehends, grasps, and encompasses with his intellect the will and wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, whom no thought can grasp.” — 232 —

--  The Achievements & Problematics of Contemporary Covenantal Thought  --

the relationship with God, man takes a significant role in the ensuing relationship. This significant role is heightened both by God’s active self-withdrawal, which expands the human remit, and by the existence of a maturing model of the covenant in stages. Man is currently in the third stage of the covenant, and thus his role has developed from what it was in the previous stages. The precise nature of this heightened role differs in Hartman and Borowitz (most importantly concerning the extent of God’s role in the latter stages of the model), but the link between the two is obligation. In both theories man is obligated by the covenantal relationship. For Hartman this obligation takes a halakhic form, whereas for Borowitz it remains within the realm of unmediated knowing, a non-verbal form of communication in which God’s presence and, with it, nonspecific obligations, are revealed to His covenantal partner,. Hartman favours an assertive model of human behaviour in covenant, modelled on the biblical narrative of Abraham at Sodom, whereas Borowitz prefers a more submissive model, which preserves what he sees as the appropriate hierarchy within the relationship: the seniority of the divine partner over the human. Borowitz is insistent, however, on not allowing that superiority to lead to dominance, which would undermine the genuine autonomy of the human partner and lead to a master-slave type relationship. Both thinkers use their covenantal consciousness to make ethical demands upon the legal Jewish framework. They attempt to reduce the dissonance between their understanding of covenantal empowerment and existing legislation which undermines a covenanted individual’s sense of dignity and adequacy. Using the same criteria, they argue for a pluralistic position which transcends denominations (each thinker has distanced himself from his denomination) and which incorporates a more universalistic outlook to covenantal election. In my introduction I listed my aims for the current work as being fourfold: 1. To draw attention to the two protagonists, David Hartman and Eugene Borowitz, and the role which covenant plays in their thought, by situating them within their contemporary — 233 —

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framework and in the contexts of Jewish as well as western philosophical traditions; 2. To reveal what is most promising and most attractive about these theories, paying particular attention to what new opportunities they open up in our understanding of the divinehuman relationship; 3. To point out several unresolved problematics within covenantal thought, categorising them as being either timebound or nontimebound. 4. To indicate new directions and ways in which the covenantal thought of both thinkers could be used in developing our subsequent understanding. Each of these four aspects which I aimed to explicate will now be taken up and elucidated further.

7.1 Situating and Contextualising Hartman and Borowitz Hartman and Borowitz have played a central role in the development of contemporary covenantal thought, and their work typifies the mid-century American academic and larger cultural milieu from which it derives. One can now say the following about Hartman and Borowitz’s covenantal thought: David Hartman’s thought remains steadfastly optimistic. This optimism in the human condition stems both from a knowledge of covenantal election and from a unique approach to history and progress. Covenantal election leads to human empowerment, one of the central features of his thought, and this empowerment increases as man progresses through the stages in Hartman’s covenantal stage model. There is no dialectical ebb and flow in Hartman’s theory, and therefore its optimism remains unaffected even by the events of the Holocaust. He includes in his theory the assertive thrust he attributes to Joseph B. Soloveitchik, but not the submissive, which is also found in Soloveitchik’s work. This assertive, optimistic, empowerment model is pervasive in Hartman’s — 234 —

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work, to the extent that he does not accord much significance to messianism because it appears to undermine the maturation of the covenant inherent in the stage model. Hartman’s covenantal thought grapples with the relative weights ascribed to traditional authority and to individual human autonomy, and concludes by according greater significance to individual human autonomy than many Orthodox adherents are comfortable with. This is a direct result of the empowerment mentality which his covenantal thought develops, which encourages belief in personal intimacy with God, and in heightened obligation and responsibility as a result. Eugene Borowitz’s thought, on the other hand, exhibits dialectical tension. At times it is assertive, and at these times it reveals some of the overconfidence of its Reform predecessors. At other times it is submissive, advocating both humility and retreat by the human partner in order to temper the unfettered optimism of the modern period, which Borowitz sees as so misplaced in today’s post-modern climate. On reflection, it is the latter view, the Adam II mentality of Soloveitchik, which is viewed by Borowitz as the more appropriate religious standpoint from which to take Judaism forward. He accords great significance to the Holocaust, although not in any traditional sense. Rather than saying anything new about God as a result of the Holocaust, Borowitz is more confident in saying something new about man. The Holocaust taught man valuable lessons about mankind, most notably that the overestimation of man and his abilities which characterised the modern period was not only unhelpful as a religious standpoint (because it succeeded in marginalising God’s role in human affairs), but also harmful and damaging. Borowitz’s eschatology is surprisingly conservative for a liberal theologian, and stems directly from his understanding of the Holocaust. Because the early Reform approach (characterised by over-emphasising the human mandate in the covenantal relationship) failed, the new post-modern approach has to correct the ills of the earlier standpoint, and therefore has to find room for a depiction of God which allows Him an active role in human affairs. Borowitz’s active messianic vision does just that in ensuring that God, in partnership with man, has the ability to bring about the end of human history. — 235 —

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7.2 The Achievements and Strengths of Covenantal Thought Covenantal thought is an attractive option for contemporary theologians grappling with the Jewish tradition and seeking a framework to situate their theology within. It offers a genuine attempt to delicately balance the competing thrusts of individual autonomy and communal authority, and does so by paying homage to both the rich heritage of the Jewish tradition and that of the western philosophical tradition. Covenantal thought, by virtue of its emphasis on empowerment and the stage model of covenant, is extremely empowering for twentyfirst century religious adherents, who recognise in these theories their pivotal position vis-à-vis both God and the community. In particular, covenantal thought opens up the opportunity for understanding the relationship with God in ways which are far much more comprehensible than alternative conceptions. Seeing God as a spousal partner, for example, can encourage the nurturing of a relationship. Feeling that revelation is like a genuine dialogue with a true friend—a meeting of minds—demythologises the understanding of revelation and makes it seem more accessible, which is a true strength in a modern religious theory.

7.2a Achievements Reconsidered Chapters three and four examined the key themes of empowerment, relationship, responsibility, autonomy, and authority. A crowning achievement of covenantal thought is its empowering mentality, and the notion of biblical election does not suggest this level of empowerment. Abraham’s chosenness by God as depicted in the biblical narrative exhibits arbitrary tendencies, leaving many interpreters to highlight the capricious nature of the election (which goes some way to suggesting why the rabbis identify ten trials of faith for Abraham, in order to prove that he was worthy of God’s selection). Both Hartman and Borowitz, by contrast, adopt a more overtly rabbinic mentality visà-vis God’s relationship with the Jewish people, using God’s choice to — 236 —

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begin covenantal relations as an opportunity to emphasise the intrinsic worth of the Jewish people.2 This is one of the foundation stones of covenantal thought: armed with knowledge of this covenantal election, the human covenantal partner is empowered to exercise his or her feelings of autonomy, and to exhibit greater responsibility within this new-found covenantal partnership. The notion of a progression of the covenant through stages is extremely attractive to the majority of religious adherents, as a heightened role in the divine plan is more appealing than a diminished one, and offers a response to their questions. It is the kind of mature depiction of religious responsibility which is demanded by the modern believer. According greater levels of responsibility to modern man does, I think, reflect this generation’s perceived feelings of increased knowledge and ethical sensitivity over previous generations. This could perhaps be felt more acutely in the post-Holocaust Jewish world, in which relinquishing any kind of responsibility to God is inherently problematic. This kind of response is at odds with the motivations behind the stage model of covenant, in that it is a religious reading of history wherein divine withdrawal is self-imposed and man’s ever-increasing prominence is orchestrated by God, not man. However, on a sociological and psychological level, the stage model works as an archetype for contemporary religious theories of duty even if the motivation for the heightened role of man is overturned and man’s increasing role is enforced by God’s inability to perform His role successfully. If a man felt that religion in the twenty-first century was more about man than it was about God, a superficial glance at contemporary covenantal thought would reveal a hierarchy 2

As already intimated in this thesis, the “rabbinic mentality” refers to the rabbinic attempt to reinvigorate Judaism after the exile and loss of sovereignty which accompanied the destruction of the Second Temple. The rabbinic reinterpretation of biblical religion was far reaching, but the aspects of it which are of relevance to the current discussion are an other-worldly emphasis, allowing for the eschatological fulfilment of the covenant promises, and a merit-based election rather than an arbitrary one, in order to avoid levelling a charge of caprice on the divine choice to covenant with Abraham in Genesis, or on the human choice to accept a Torah the contents of which were unknown to them. See David Novak, “Natural Law, Halakhah, and the Covenant” (op. cit.), 51ff, and see also chapter 6, note 57. — 237 —

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which places man today in a position of prominence in his relationship with God, and this would retain considerable appeal for him. In short, covenantal thought appeals to existing perceptions of our advanced position over, and superior knowledge to, previous generations. This kind of perception maintains that this generation is cleverer and more advanced than the previous one, which in turn was more advanced than that preceding it, and so on.3 Chapter five introduces an ethical dimension to the ongoing covenantal discussion. This is one of the aspects of covenantal thought which I find most productive, for the following reasons. A theory of Jewish duty which has as its focal point the halakhic system will struggle to develop an expressive moral voice. This is because the theory will have to work within the confines of the existing moral framework in the system. As has already been described in this thesis, there are aspects of the halakhah which many contemporary commentators find morally problematic, but they have not developed theories which are in a position to challenge the moral structure of the halakhah. The success of the high moral tenor of covenantal thought lies in the reasons behind this moral tendency in the first place. Morality does not come first in covenantal thought; rather, it develops from an understanding of covenantal empowerment. Hartman’s continued emphasis on what 3

See chapter 6, note 99. This theory of the progressive advancement of human knowledge is represented by the classic saying “standing on the shoulders of giants,” which suggests that despite the fact that previous scholars may have been giants, by standing on their shoulders we (despite only being dwarfs in comparison) can see further than they could. The expression is prevalent in Western sources, and its origins are unknown, but it has also been used in Jewish sources, the first example of which is by the Tosafist Isaiah di Trani (known by his acronym, the Rid) in the thirteenth century (Teshuvot haRid 301-303). See Shnayer Z Leiman, “Dwarfs on the Shoulder of Giants,” in Tradition 27:3 (Spring 1993): 90-94. Leiman lists many other Jewish thinkers who cite this aphorism, including David Gans, Yom Tov Lipmann Heller and Menachem Mendel Schneerson. However, the theory of progression represented by the “standing on the shoulders of giants” maxim is at odds with the more prevalent theme within rabbinic literature in favour of generational regression. A Talmudic passage states that “If the earlier authorities were angels, we are mortals. If the earlier authorities were mortals, we are asses.” And Rashi writes that “It is not possible for the later generations to be like the earlier generations” (Leiman, 90). As Leiman observes in his article, a definitive answer to this question is elusive; it is unclear whether the normative Jewish tradition supports a theory of progression or of regression. — 238 —

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he calls the Sodom paradigm teaches that God desires man’s moral criticism. Adopting this paradigm empowers man not in an abstract, theoretical sense, but in a practical one, enabling him to speak out against immoral laws and ethical problematics within the Jewish tradition. As Hartman so persuasively writes, it “would be ludicrous if the community’s rational or moral powers were negated in the very act of covenantal commitment.”4 And so it is with covenantal thought generally. An understanding of covenantal partnership and what it entails provides man with the courage to speak out about moral concerns raised (and often required) by covenantal commitment. Although the existing formulations of covenantal thought do not always develop successfully from this initial speaking out to a nuanced conception of how the moral problematics are resolved without damaging the system,5 the existence of a model of empowerment which encourages a heightened moral sensibility in one’s approach to Jewish responsibility remains an impressive strength of covenantal thought. Chapter six discusses the tension between historical and metahistorical thought in the writing of Hartman and Borowitz. One of the central tenets of this chapter is the protagonists’ emphasis on a this-worldly approach to religion rather than an other-worldly one. Religion has often been criticised in modernity for encouraging people to undervalue their lives on this earth because of their confidence in a utopian afterlife which awaits them as a reward for religious obedience and fidelity to the cause. The covenantal approach to this issue is epitomised by Hartman’s use of the expression “the universal sanctity of life.”6 Halakhic Judaism can be said to accentuate this world over and above an afterlife because of the preoccupation with the worldly and mundane. Far from encouraging an ascetic lifestyle which shuns bodily functions and overtly physical manifestations, the halakhic 4

5 6

Hartman, Living, 98. See chapter 1, note 39 above for the initial discussion of this statement. For more on this issue see section 7.3d below. Hartman, Heart, 161 (cf. also the “sacredness of life” in ibid. 164/165). Greenberg accords with this sensibility, and uses the term “the triumph of life” (For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 185). — 239 —

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system brings those seemingly profane realms within the umbrella of the sacred by sanctifying them through the recital of blessings. There is a blessing one says when one uses the toilet just as there is when one drinks a glass of water. This approach to Judaism is one which is epitomised in contemporary Jewish thought in the work of Soloveitchik. Soloveitchik maintains a firm belief in the inappropriate nature of the sacred-profane dichotomy within Judaism. He states that his “optimism concerning the compatibility of the sacred with the mundane, the religious with the secular, is rooted in the thought that Judaism has never distinguished between these allegedly two areas of being.”7 A Soloveitchikian type of Jewish thought, then, will emphasise the mundane and earthly realm in this world over and above an eschatological longing which downplays the significance of the here and now in its desire to transcend this world and achieve some kind of supernatural fulfilment.8 The tension between historical and meta-historical thought in the work of Hartman and Borowitz is more nuanced than the this-worldly approach. I have documented the shared historical and cultural context of the two thinkers. However, only one of them, Borowitz, emphasises the significance of worldly historical events in shaping and transforming his covenantal theory. He does this by placing an emphasis on the necessity of a religious theory to deal with the historical past and face up to current historical reality, arguing that a theory that does not have this characteristic is considerably weakened as a result. Hartman, by contrast, has what I term a religious approach to history, wherein specific historical events are less relevant than the general trends which those events reveal in the grand scheme of human development and human progression, and hence the conflation of lived historical experience and perceived stages of human progression.

7

8

Soloveitchik, public address to parents of the Maimonides School, Boston, given on November 15, 1971. In Mentor of Generations: Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ed. Zev Eleff (New Jersey: Ktav, 2008), 111. This is the crux of the dichotomy between homo religiosus, who yearns to escape to a transcendent other place, and halakhic man, who attempts to bring the transcendent realm to earth. — 240 —

----------------   7.2 The Achievements and Strengths of Covenantal Thought -----------------

7.2b Pluralism and a Meta-Denominational Standpoint Reanalysing the strengths and achievements of covenantal thought, I would like to suggest that a culminating achievement of these theories is their pluralistic, meta-denominational standpoint.9 This is not an aspect which has been discussed in detail thus far, and so this section becomes necessary. The pluralistic outlook of Hartman’s and Borowitz’s thought, while one of the most controversial aspects of their theories, is also one of the most challenging and exciting parts of covenantal thought. It also helps to explain why I have found both protagonists to have made movements toward each other on the denominational spectrum, movements which diminish the distance between them in terms of their denominational affiliation. Hartman and Borowitz account for their pluralism in three ways: the inherent inclusiveness of Sinai; the particularity of divine revelation; and the critical engagement with one’s own community which accompanies covenantal thought and supports individual independence. I contend that there is an inherent pluralism in covenantal theory, and one which struggles against the shackles of a denominational label. One of the best examples of the pluralism of the protagonists is the meetings which took place in the Laurentian Mountains in the second half of the 1960s. The participants in these meetings were from every section of the community, and their mere participation in a cross-communal event such as this (however informal the setting) says a huge amount about the participants. Much has changed in forty years of diaspora Orthodoxy,10 but nonetheless one might still have 9

10

Eisen shares my view of the centrality of pluralism in Hartman’s thought. He defines pluralism as “the most novel characteristic of the covenant to which Hartman invites Israelis of all sorts.” Eisen, “Israel and the Creation of Pluralistic Covenantal Community,” 331. One is immediately drawn to making comparisons with the Limmud conferences, which, originally established in England in the 1980s, have now been exported to over fifty groups internationally. Limmud describes itself as “A global leader in innovative, inclusive Jewish education,” and has been extremely successful, but has been marginalised by large sections of the Orthodox establishment for providing a platform for non-Orthodox and thus (perceived) inauthentic versions of Judaism. http://www.limmud.org/home/. — 241 —

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expected the Orthodox participants to register discomfort with the Reform thinkers’ participation, and to attempt to delegitimize the non-Orthodox views as being inauthentic, but no such attempts are recorded, nor were they remembered by any of the participants with whom I have discussed these meetings.11 Pluralism is not tangential to covenantal thought; rather, it is an inevitable development stemming from a proper understanding of empowerment. The empowerment model accords a level of God-given worth to each and every covenanted human being, which provides a level of divine validation to their religious convictions. If one chooses to place a significant emphasis on the Noachide covenant, then one is reminded that God has entered into a covenantal agreement with all of humanity and not just the Jewish people. Even if one chooses to concentrate on the Sinaitic covenant alone, the events of the biblical book of Exodus significantly predate the emergence of denominational Judaism, and hence the (somewhat anachronistic) assertion that the covenant at Sinai was made with both Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. Pluralism as a term needs defining. Is one referring to all of humanity or only to the Jewish people? As will be shown below, both Hartman and Borowitz maintain universalistic strands to their covenantal theories, but despite this, they still refer only to the Jewish people when discussing the impact of covenantal acceptance by God.12 Pluralism, then, refers to the acceptance of alternative strands of Judaism (rather than alternative religions), and is based upon the understanding that one’s own denomination is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and that other denominations contain at least some truths within them. So a pluralistic viewpoint maintains that two or more religious positions that may conflict with each other can remain equally valid. Although often used synonymously with tolerance,13 which is a position 11

12

13

I have had lengthy discussions about these meetings with Hartman, Borowitz, Greenberg, and the late Arnold Jacob Wolf. Hartman in particular leaves open the possibility of all humanity feeling empowered by the Noachide (universal) covenant. Donniel Hartman’s contention that his father uses the terms pluralism and tolerance synonymously (Donniel Hartman, “Judaism in Light of the Rebirth of the State of Israel,” 23 n. 11) is, I believe, now outdated. While it may be the case that in his — 242 —

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of agreeable co-existence with other denominations, pluralism goes beyond tolerance in according legitimacy to the alternative point of view. Tolerance tends to suggest that, while the other is wrong, it must be permitted (for the benefit of ecumenism). Hartman’s reasons for advocating pluralism, as defined above, are based on his understanding of covenant and revelation: “Revelation is not addressed to humanity in general, but to a particular individual or community. And because of this inherent particularity, it need not invalidate the faith experience of other religious communities.”14 Hartman constantly reminds his reader of the beauty of the rabbinic system in allowing for disagreements and differences of opinion.15 He understands that beauty as carrying a crucial message: “Become a person for whom different opinions can reside together in the very depths of your soul. Become a religious person who can live with ambiguity, who can feel religious conviction and passion without the need for simplicity and absolute certainty.”16 Both Hartman and Borowitz (and indeed Soloveitchik) share the opinion that absolute certainty is a simplistic vision, and inherently less valuable than convictions gleaned from ambiguity and conflict. The emotions which Hartman feel within this deliberately ambiguous religious framework are no less passionate than those within what he terms the more simple, absolute framework. “All intimate love relationships claim exclusivity by their very nature.”17 In other words, one wants to feel that one has God all to one’s self — who in their right mind would want to share their marital partner? But we do, of course, recognise that our parents may have other children who

14

15

16 17

earlier work Hartman blurred the distinctions between tolerance and pluralism, in one of his most recent essays he seems to make the distinction quite clearly himself: “While acknowledging and promoting tolerance and freedom of religious expression as practical norms, they [sceptics] are convinced there is no place for diversity in respect of the fundamental truth claims of religious life […] they believe that pluralism is incompatible with the essential nature of religious faith in general and of Judaism in particular.” David Hartman, “The Religious Significance of Religious Pluralism,” 95. Hartman, Heart, 164. Hartman here is referring, in my view, to inter-religious pluralism and not inter-denominational pluralism. See chapter 3, note 89 above. See also Heart 144, and the “significance of celebrating the partial and the incomplete.” Hartman, Heart, 21. Ibid. 164. — 243 —

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they love just as much as they love us.18 Hartman’s clearest portrayal of his pluralistic approach occurs in “Contemporary Religious Life and Thought in Israel,” in which he writes of its “spiritually redemptive” qualities: “Consciousness of the existence of multiple faith communities is spiritually redemptive. It helps one to realise: 1) that one’s own faith commitment does not exhaust the full range of spiritual options, and 2) that no human being can transcend the limitations of human finitude and comprehend the infinite reality of God.”19 Hartman and Borowitz’s pluralism takes two forms, first a universalistic trend (vis-à-vis the Gentiles) and second a nondenominational position (vis-à-vis the Jewish community). Eugene Borowitz’s universalism (the first form of pluralism) is best expressed in the acceptance speech which he gave at the National Jewish Book Awards in 1974: Self-interest is where our obligation begins. But when, effectively, it stops there, when there is no concern for minorities other than the Jews, when there is little interest in the general welfare of the United States, when international problems are reduced to the needs of the State of Israel, when we show little involvement in the problems of humanity as a whole, then we have lost a dimension of our Jewishness that our rationalist thinkers rightly showed was implicit in our tradition and necessarily explicit in any modern statement of it.20

According to this universalistic outlook, commitment to Jewish faith “does not delimit conscience but expands it.”21 God remains the God of all humanity and not just the God of the Jews. Hartman’s universalism is more pronounced than that of Borowitz. This comes to the fore 18

19 20

21

The German playwright Lessing makes a similar point in Nathan the Wise. The eponymous character tells the fictitious story of a man who lived in the East and who had a ring of unimaginable worth that had been passed down from favourite son to favourite son through his family for generations. This man had three sons who he loved equally and so he had replica rings made and gave “the ring” to each of his sons, not telling anyone which was the true ring. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise, trans. Edward Kemp (London: Nick Hern Books, 2003), 56-59. Hartman, “Contemporary Religious Life,” 113. Eugene Borowitz, “The Career of Jewish Existentialism,” Jewish Book Annual 32 (19741975): 48. Ibid. 48. — 244 —

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particularly in his understanding and interpretation of halakhah, and especially in his understanding of its need for proper mediation. Because Hartman’s vision of the halakhah is as a mediative system, every individual needs a mediator who shares his or her concerns and has a similar value system. Hartman believes that he does not have a mediator who shares his concerns, because the current Orthodox climate is so concerned with the intricacies and stringencies of the minutiae of the law that it fails to grasp the bigger picture. The bigger picture—what Hartman refers to as the boundary of his moral obligation—stretches beyond the confines of the Orthodox Jewish world. On the very last page of Israelis and the Jewish Tradition, Hartman explicitly states that “Halakhah and the rabbinate will change when people concerned with egalitarianism, human rights, and social justice view the Jewish tradition as the natural context in which to express their concerns.”22 In Exodus 19, God covenanted with the whole congregation of Israel. According to both Hartman and Borowitz, the whole congregation does not exclude any one denomination. In “An Open Letter to a Reform Rabbi,” Hartman includes Reform Judaism when he writes that “it is clear in Judaism that God elects a people, not single individuals.”23 The knowledge that you share such a monumental occasion with fellow Jews should, according to both thinkers, create greater dialogue and foster better relations between denominations. I am not suggesting that the protagonists have spent their careers pursuing closer ties between Orthodox and Reform Jews, because they have not. What I am suggesting is that contemporary covenantal thought leads one to a position that can best be described as metadenominational. Neither Hartman nor Borowitz accords much 22

23

See chapter 5, note 55. Hilary Putnam protests with Hartman regarding the closing pages of this book. She argues that Hartman does not go far enough in advocating a truly pluralistic platform in that he does not even mention denominations other than Orthodoxy by name. For Putnam, Hartman’s project “requires the full participation of all ‘the different denominational movements.’ Without that, and without cooperation between the movements, we shall not have a truly pluralistic Judaism.” Hilary Putnam, “The Pluralism of David Hartman,” in Judaism and Modernity (op. cit.), 247. Hartman, Heart, 196. Elsewhere in the same essay he classifies the Reform movement’s determination to remain loyal to their understanding of Judaism in the face of immense criticism by the Israeli establishment as “an act of spiritual heroism” (p. 198). — 245 —

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significance to denominational labels, and both shun traditional categories in formulating challenging theories for their respective communities. There is something inherent in the type of theology they are engaged in which grates against a traditional understanding of denomination. The empowerment framework of covenant emboldens a thinker to feel justified and comfortable critiquing their community. Subsequently, their understanding of the maturation of the covenant leads them to understand their divine remit as allowing for (and in some cases demanding) major changes in current religious belief and practice, particularly in the areas of ethical conduct, treatment of the other, and legal decision-making. Therefore, covenantal thought can be said to lead a thinker beyond their own community, and ultimately beyond denominational Judaism altogether, and instead to a kind of engaged community of covenanted and committed individuals.

7.3 Unresolved Problematics within Covenantal Thought The third aim of this study was to point out any significant issues which I have found with covenantal thought. This is something which I have touched upon at points, but which I want to concentrate upon now. I will deal on the following pages with several unresolved problematics within the covenantal thought of Hartman and Borowitz. These are aspects of these theories which I believe require further clarification before they can be wholeheartedly adopted by modern proponents of a covenantal approach to Jewish thought. They are as follows: (a) Anthropocentrism: an exaggeration of the role of the human being and a subsequent diminution of the role of God leads to critics of these theories classifying them as residing in the field of anthropology rather than theology. (b) Misunderstanding of the nature of God: an overemphasis on a certain set of divine attributes or characteristics leads to a misunderstanding of the nature of God as depicted through the normative Jewish tradition. This is what I describe below as encouraging a mythical miscomprehension about the nature of God. (c) Fear of God: a marginalisation of the emotion of fear, which has always been a characteristic of man’s relationship with God, in favour of love, which — 246 —

-------------------   7.3 Unresolved Problematics within Covenantal Thought  -------------------

serves to distort the true nature of divine-human relationship. (d) Overemphasis on the individual: an over-individualising of both God and religion which warps the traditional understanding of both Judaism and covenant, and which misconstrues the nature of the communal experience in Jewish life and practice as a result. (e) The limits of a specific social and cultural context: a suggestion that covenantal thought was in vogue in mid-century American society, and that its adoption by the protagonists was predictable and therefore less valuable as a result. The problematics are split into two categories: non-timebound (a, b and c), discussed first, and timebound (d and e), discussed afterwards.

7.3a Covenantal Thought: A Theological Pursuit? This section will begin by discussing the nature of God as depicted by the protagonists, and then the role that the depicted God plays in covenantal relationship. Throughout this study there has been an ongoing discussion about the possibility of relationship and intimacy with God. Conceptions of God can differ quite dramatically. The classic philosophical conception of God is as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent. This aloof, immovable deity is unaffected by the trifles of human behaviour and considerably distanced from both the world and its inhabitants. The understanding of God’s nature which one gleans from biblical and rabbinic literature, as already suggested by Heschel,24 differs considerably from this philosophical conception. The God of the Bible is intimately bound up with His creations. He tends to be known by virtue of His deeds as well as His attributes, so He is both the God “who brought you out of the Land of Egypt,”25 as well as the God who is “slow to anger.”26 The question of what kind of God one can worship in today’s postmodern world is central to Borowitz’s writings on the covenant. He 24 25

26

See chapter 3, note 69, and the text therein. Exodus 20:1. This is the historical prologue of the Decalogue — “who brought you out of the Land of Egypt” immediately succeeds “I am the Lord your God” in the first commandment, and reminds the Children of Israel of God’s credentials. Exodus 34:6. This is one of the Thirteen Attributes of Faith which have become so central to the liturgy of the Day of Atonement. — 247 —

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analyses in Renewing the Covenant alternative options to the traditional conception of God offered by, for example, Mordecai Kaplan and A. N. Whitehead.27 Borowitz explicitly states that he finds the doctrine of a limited God, implicit in both of these examples, “ultimately unacceptable despite its great initial appeal,”28 because it easily becomes simple humanism, placing too much faith in man for Borowitz to feel comfortable with.29 Borowitz’s rejection of the notion of a limited God suffers from ambiguities upon closer inspection. Towards the beginning of Renewing the Covenant, he writes that limited God theories “have won wide acceptance because they motivate moral responsibility by their conclusion that human ethics must complete what God’s limited power leaves undone.”30 This would appear to enunciate a classic Borowitzian position—that of joint covenantal responsibility between God, the people, and the individual—which would suggest that a limited God would better fit Borowitz’s understanding of covenant than a traditional conception of God as the God of the philosophers. Why does Borowitz reject the notion of a limited God? Borowitz states that it is hard to worship a limited, finite God because he does not see how such a God could retain sufficient power to bring the Messiah.31 In “A Life of Jewish Learning” he further states that “our confident proclamation that we alone would bring the Messianic Age is ludicrous for people who still cannot get their lives, their families, and certainly any of their great institutions to any near-ideal level.”32 Such a stance from a liberal 27

28 29

30 31 32

These theories of a finite God, or a limited God, are progressive in nature and tend to have developed in line with religious reforms over the last one hundred and fifty years. On the similarities between Kaplan and Whitehead’s process theologies, see William Kaufmann, “Mordecai M. Kaplan and Process Theology: Metaphysical and Pragmatic Perspectives,” Process Studies 20:4 (Winter 1991): 192-203. Kaufmann states that what Kaplan and Whitehead share is, in essence, “the idea of a revisionary or reconstructed concept of God […] a non-absolute God.” Borowitz, Renewing, 124. Paradoxically, it is the Holocaust which causes Borowitz to reject the doctrine of a finite God. The doctrine places too much onus upon man, and if evil is beyond God’s power then in whose control is it? Borowitz, Renewing, 38. Ibid. 124. Borowitz, “A Life of Jewish Learning,” 409. — 248 —

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theologian is remarkable in that it is surprisingly conservative, and Borowitz’s use of messianic categories to judge the relative merits of the doctrine of a limited God is noteworthy. There are several consequences of Borowitz’s conception of God, with its emphasis on the non-limited nature of the Deity. One would expect a non-limited God to be omnipotent, or at least to exhibit several commanding characteristics, but Borowitz’s conception of God does not include these characteristics. He expresses a fear, a desire to avoid “bringing back” or “making room” (via reverse-tsimtsum) for an immature notion of God long since dismissed by thorough-going moderns. One might nonetheless expect the God who has returned to the covenantal arena to have more substance. However, he does not speak, nor does He issue any direct or indirect commands. Moreover, it is only His presence which is felt and not His direct Self.33 Borowitz actually promotes what he calls the “weak absolute” for understanding this kind of a God.34 Borowitz does not depict God as a philosophical Absolute—“a thoroughly self-contained, aloof, immovable reality”—from a reading of the biblical narrative.35 Instead he proposes that the special Jewish sense of God’s absoluteness can only be a weak absolute. Borowitz here is making a distinction between a limited God and a commanding God. He is uncomfortable with a limited God, because of such a God’s perceived inability to herald the messianic era, so he proposes instead a conception of a non-limited God. But this does not have to mean a commanding, non-limited God, which would go against Borowitz’s Buberian understanding of revelation. What fits the Borowitzian model best is the idea of a non-limited, non-commanding God who is powerful enough to command (and to bring the Messiah), but limited enough not to have to command in order to maintain the dignity of the relationship, and to encourage at least some level of individual human autonomy. This position marks the crucial difference between Buber and Borowitz. Borowitz’s God is powerful enough to command (in a traditional understanding of that word), but refrains from doing so. 33 34 35

See Renewing, 274. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 73. — 249 —

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This restraint allows for human autonomy. Buber’s theory clearly states that the traditional propositional command is a lesser form of relationship than its non-propositional alternative, not something which God could do but refrains from doing. In both theories the noncommanding God is the superior God, but the reasoning behind this formulation differs markedly between the two. Borowitz’s theory does not contain within it the negation of traditional command (here as elsewhere Borowitz retains a reverence for traditional Judaism which belies his denominational standing). Rather, the non-commanding nature of God is a necessity for maintaining the autonomy of the human partner (and Borowitz is keen to impress upon the reader that his God is powerful enough to command in the traditional sense if He so desired). Buber makes no such exception. The traditional commanding God has a relationship with His subjects which can never be as intimate or developed as the one with a non-propositional commanding God.36 Borowitz clarifies his idea of a weak absolute in a reply to his critics written after the publication of Renewing the Covenant.37 He denies that he was writing with any conceptual clarity when he described God as an Absolute, stating instead that he was being “midrashic / heuristic.”38 His description of his reasoning is worth quoting in full: 36

37

38

A question on Borowitz’s outlook presents itself at this point. If the reason for God’s noncommanding nature is to maintain the dignity of the relationship (for the human side), then how can messianism not harm the dignity of the relationship? For if a God that constantly commands damages the dignity of the autonomous Jewish self that forms the other side of the partnership, then in the same vein a God who will ultimately redeem and exhibit the saving powers associated with the messianic kingdom will also damage individual dignities, precisely because those individual dignities will be negated through the process of divine redemption. Such an enforcement of the traditional hierarchical structure, with God-the-redeemer towering over His creations, seems totally alien to the mutual covenantal thought espoused by Borowitz. Although this appears to be a valid critique, Borowitz would answer it by clarifying his messianic definition (as highlighted above), namely that although eschatology remains pivotal for him, it is a messianism that will be reached through joint effort by both human and divine, rather than a kingdom of heaven created and achieved through divine endeavour alone. “Im Ba’et, Eyma — Since You Object, Let me Put it This Way” was first published in 2000 in Reviewing the Covenant (op.cit. - all references are to this version). It was reprinted in Studies in 2002. Borowitz, “Im Ba’et, Eyma,” 158. — 250 —

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I wanted a term that, as an old aggadah [legend in rabbinic literature] put the need to penetrate the usual complacency, would “smash into the ear” of the hearer. If relativism is the evil to be opposed, then we need to find its opposite, or at least the ground of non relativism, what is termed in common parlance an “absolute”. Used figuratively, “absolute” usefully marks the rather desperate search of people these days to find something stable to hold on to: to hold on to, no matter how bizarre it may be and no matter how costly (in dollars and cents, too). Jews, those fervent modernizers, show the same phenomenon. By calling God an absolute I only meant to call attention to the importance of the anchoring function of God in our lives. Any postmodern Jewish view of God, in my view, would have to provide for God’s effectively exercising this role.39

In the above description, Borowitz comes close to explaining the pragmatic nature of his depiction of God, which acts as a corrective to modern liberal Jewish thought. This is particularly significant because his thinking on the nature of God represents an inversion of established theological methodology. Thus, one would normally expect a theologian to do the following: analyse the nature of God (this is theology, not anthropology) and then as a result decipher both the type of relationship befitting to such a God and subsequently the nature of the situation on the ground, as it were. However, upon closer inspection, we see that Borowitz does not do this. He first deciphers the situation on the ground and the ideal nature of the relationship, and then paints a portrait of a God which fits that depiction. The situation on the ground is that God has been marginalised, people need “something stable to hold on to,” and Borowitz wants to “penetrate the usual complacency.” Therefore, God must be an Absolute. The ideal nature of the relationship is one wherein human and divine endeavour combine to bring about a redemptive moment akin to the classic messianic vision, and therefore Borowitz’s God is a non-limited but also a non-commanding God. In an article entitled “An Outline of a Modern Jewish Theology,” Emil Fackenheim makes a crucial distinction in the realm of theology. He writes the following: 39

Ibid. 158-159. — 251 —

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The method of modern Jewish theology must differ from that of classical theology. This latter “worked its way down,” i.e. assumed from the start what to modern man is that thing most in question: the actuality of a divine revelation given to man and Israel. Modern theology must “work its way up,” i.e. show, by an analysis of the human condition, that man’s existence, properly understood, forces him to raise the question of the Supernatural, and the existential problem of the “leap into faith.”40

Fackenheim’s distinction is a worthwhile one, and provides an apt conceptual scheme for contemporary covenantal thought. As I have just outlined, Borowitz clearly adopts what Fackenheim terms the modern approach, beginning with an analysis of the human condition, and working its way up to posing (and attempting to solve) theological dilemmas. Borowitz’s theological endeavour can be described, therefore, as bottom-up, rather than top-down, theology. It is clear to me that David Hartman’s theological endeavour fits neatly into this same characterisation, and I will now turn my attention to Hartman’s thought in order to explicate this view. An in-depth view of Hartman’s understanding of the halakhic system sheds light upon a fundamental aspect of his theory. Hartman understands the goal of halakhah as to bring one closer to God. As a result, and in a similar vein to Haym Soloveitchik,41 he bemoans the loss of an active divine presence in everyday Orthodox life today. However, Hartman also understands the situation today as exemplifying the third and final stage of the covenant, when humanity assumes responsibility for history, and when God retreats to allow the human partner ultimate control. There seems to be a correlation between the loss of active divine involvement in religious life today and the maturation of the covenant stage model. In the seminal act of covenanting with the Jewish People, God made the supremely loving decision to withdraw within Himself in order to champion human freedom. As a result, man (and not God) became the major player in the covenantal arena. This loving act of tsimtsum, by its very definition, created a distance between man and 40

41

Emil Fackenheim, “An Outline of a Modern Jewish Theology,” in Quest for Past and Future: Essays in Jewish Theology (Bloomington / London: Indiana University Press, 1968), 101. See section 5.2 above. — 252 —

-------------------   7.3 Unresolved Problematics within Covenantal Thought  -------------------

his Maker. However, it subsequently became man’s mandate to build a framework for existence and divine worship within which one could begin to rebuild this loving relationship and close the gap between the human and the divine realms. So, paradoxically, the event which created the distance between man and God, i.e. tsimtsum, is the same event which, in Hartman’s eyes, set the human task of learning to live with God and attempting to get closer to Him. In short, God retreats,42 and man has to close the gap left by His retreat. However, a problem develops with precisely what Hartman does with this new-found gap, which prevents the closing of it in a manner that would satisfy his existential yearnings. Because of Hartman’s beliefs in the maturation of the covenant, it is extremely hard for man to close the gap between the human and divine realms in the third and final stage of the covenant. By his emphasis on human adequacy and interdependence with God, Hartman inhibits man’s ability to achieve this requisite proximity to God. Two competing strands in Hartman’s thought are here vying for supremacy. On the one hand, there is the endgame of theological endeavour and the highest goal of existence in the covenant, which is heightened intimacy with God, achieved through (perceived) proximity to Him. On the other hand, there is the trajectory of the covenant in stages, which dictates that in this third and final stage in the model humanity has now assumed responsibility for history and God has taken an increasingly minor role in the enacting of the covenantal drama, which presupposes a greater distance between man and God. The desire to be close to God appears to have been heightened in the final stage of the covenant model, when His distance from us is most keenly felt, and hence the two competing strands. There is a paradoxical nature to these competing thrusts, as man yearns for proximity, via covenant, with a divine being whose distance from him has been heightened by his own understanding of that same covenant. 42

I have attempted throughout this book to avoid this kind of anthropomorphic imagery to express the views of Borowitz and Hartman, but here I have deliberately maintained the terminology which Hartman himself would be more comfortable with. According to Hartman, God does retreat. Using alternative terminology here would have unnecessarily diluted Hartman’s point about the nature of divine retreat. — 253 —

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One can understand these two competing strands as representative of the anthropological and theological aspects in Hartman’s thought. On the one hand, with its emphasis on human adequacy and empowerment, and a belief in the importance of lo bashamayim hi, Hartman’s thought adopts a distinctly anthropological orientation. On the other hand, however, his desire to build a framework for expressing one’s relationship with God, and in particular his belief that this represents the endgame of halakhic endeavour, are of a more theological nature. The competing thrusts within Hartman’s thought are, therefore, indicative of a broader struggle between the anthropological and the theological in his covenantal thought. Hartman’s thought cannot rightly be described as wholly anthropocentric, although this charge has been unfairly levelled at him a number of times.43 The reasons for this misconception are clear: a superficial reading of A Heart of Many Rooms will highlight the trajectory from greater to lesser divine involvement as one moves through the stages of the covenant. One has to delve deeper into Hartman’s thought in order to discern the competing desire for proximity with God. Donniel Hartman acknowledges the importance of the theocentric urge in his father’s work. He claims that “those who speak of my father as developing an anthropocentric—as distinct from theocentric—approach to Judaism miss one of the most central aspects of his writing.”44 This central aspect is that God remains firmly rooted as the focal point of all his theoretical endeavours. There is a quietly discernable longing to live in close union with God that pervades some of Hartman’s more subtle writings, which is 43

44

Moshe Idel has already formulated the parameters of this issue in his aptly named article in the Hartman festschrift. Moshe Idel, “In What Sense is David Hartman a Jewish Theologian?,” in Judaism and Modernity (op. cit.), 35-52. Blumenthal in “Review of David Hartman, A Living Covenant,” and Shatz, in “From Anthropology to Metaphysics,” both argue against theocentrism in Hartman. Consistent criticism of Hartman has been that his thought is too focussed upon man, to the extent that this has a detrimental effect upon the role of God. Donniel Hartman, “Judaism in Light of,” 4. In this same article Donniel also makes the rather surprising assertion that his father has had “private conversations with God” (p. 4) which, if it were true, would support the view that Hartman himself has a heavily theocentric bias to his Jewish life and thought. — 254 —

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clearly in evidence in his discussion of the ideal status of the halakhic system (bringing one closer to God). Calling Hartman an anthropologist fails to do justice to this palpable yearning. However, if anthropology is inadequate as a term to describe Hartman’s thought, then so is theology, if one understands that term in its usual sense of beginning with an attempt to understand the nature of God, and then developing a system of thought whereby we can live with, and worship, the God previously described. Like Borowitz, Hartman’s thought can be categorised as bottom-up theology, working its way up from an understanding of the nature of the human situation to positing theological possibilities about the nature of God and the importance of man’s relationship with Him. This analysis of Hartman and Borowitz’s covenantal thought can be applied to the contemporary field as a whole. Covenantal theology, in its contemporary Jewish guise, is bottom-up rather than top-down theology. This categorisation works for Irving Greenberg as it does for both Hartman and Borowitz. Borowitz’s starting point is clearly anthropocentric, as his framework has always been a twentieth-century Reform Jewish one whose emphasis on the bottom-up nature of the theological hierarchy threatened to sever the link between the human and divine partners entirely. The practical application of Borowitz’s attempts to subvert that hierarchy have been analysed, and his theoretical attempts, as I have shown, have been successful, and hence his covenantal theory can rightly be termed theological rather than anthropological. The theological nature of Hartman’s theory has been contested by scholars, but is strengthened by the yearning for proximity and intimacy with God which reverberates through his writings. This section has also highlighted the slightly paradoxical nature of contemporary covenantal thought’s theological makeup, which can be summarised as follows: contemporary covenantal theorists created a framework for understanding divine-human interaction which marginalised God from the human, historical arena. However, they have also (in various guises) attempted to overcome and bridge the gap left by that same marginalisation in order to bring the two covenanted partners closer together again. This attempt at bridging the gap is paradoxical, for had these thinkers not advocated a removal of the divine presence in the human realm in such a thorough fashion, — 255 —

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they may not have felt the need to subsequently attempt to restore His palpable presence. Furthermore, this attempt at restoration is hampered by the confines set by contemporary covenantal thought; anything which goes against the empowerment / adequacy mode is likely to be rejected within the final covenantal stage. Bringing an understanding and appreciation of God back into the human realm and the human mindset would, in the majority of cases, undermine the empowerment / adequacy mode, and hence the paradoxical nature of the continued attempt to do so.45

7.3b The Shekhinah and the Partial Conception of God The second problematic which I wish to highlight concerns the precise nature of God. In the classic Jewish tradition, there are many different divine names. The two divine names occurring most frequently in the Bible are the Tetragrammaton and Elohim, but elsewhere in the Bible, and throughout rabbinic literature, there are many other manifestations of the divine name.46 It is generally accepted that “God’s names bear testimony to His attributes and His relationship to man.”47 This approach is summed up in the following statement of Rabbi Abba bar Memel, who belonged to the first generation of the Palestinian amoraim (singular amora - collective term for rabbinic teachers who flourished during a 300-year period from circa 200-500 CE): 45

46

47

One could interpret Borowitz’s messianic climactic moment as supporting evidence for this view. Borowitz’s messianism, and in particular its necessity for a leap out of history (see section 6.1a) is a form of acknowledgment that the distanced God is not enough. The human covenantal partner needs greater proximity with God which, according to Borowitz’s covenantal model, requires a step outside of history in order to achieve it. Other biblical names for God are: Adonai (Lord); El (the Strong); Shaddai (the Almighty); Elyon (the Most High); Yah (a shorter form of the Tetragrammaton); and Ehyeh (I Am). The most frequent names used in rabbinic literature are: Ha-Makom (the Place of the world, i.e. the Omnipresent); Shamayyim (Heaven); Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, blessed be He); Ribbono Shel Olam (Master of the Universe); Shekhinah (Divine Presence); Avinu (Our Father); Malkenu (Our King); and Gevurah (Power). List taken from “Names of God” in Louis Jacobs, The Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Urbach, The Sages, 37. — 256 —

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God said to Moses: “Thou wishest to know My name. Well, I am called according to My work; sometimes I am called ‘Almighty God,’ ‘Lord of Hosts,’ ‘God,’ ‘Lord.’ When I am judging created beings, I am called ‘God,’ and when I am waging war against the wicked, I am called ‘Lord of Hosts.’ When I suspend judgment for a man’s sins, I am called ‘El Shaddai’ (Almighty God), and when I am merciful towards My world, I am called ‘Adonai,’ for ‘Adonai’ refers to the Attribute of Mercy, as it is said: ‘The Lord, The Lord (Adonai, Adonai), God, merciful and gracious’ (Exod. 34:6). Hence I Am That I Am in virtue of My deeds.”48

God is called according to His work; in other words, the name of God signifies one or more divine attributes. So, for example, the God who wages war is referred to as “Lord of Hosts.” Does the God who forms covenants have a specific name? Which divine name best signifies the covenanted God? In Genesis alone, three different divine names are used to describe God as he enters into covenants with human beings. The God who covenants with Noah in Genesis 9 is Elohim, which is a word usually used in the Bible to refer to God in his relationship with the world in general as opposed to with Israel (Gen. 9:8); the God who covenants with the Patriarchs is usually the Tetragrammaton (Gen. 15:18); and the God who covenants with Abraham in Genesis 17 is referred to as ­El-Shaddai (Gen. 17:1). However, it would seem that in contemporary covenantal thought, one particular divine name is most appropriate to describe the God who chooses to covenant with man, and that is the Shekhinah. Shekhinah is defined as “the in-dwelling presence of God,” from the Hebrew root shakhan, meaning “to dwell.” The verbal form is found in scripture, as in “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell [ve-shakhanti] among them” (Exod. 25:8), but Shekhinah as a noun “is a rabbinic coinage, used in the Talmudic literature and the Targum both for the abiding of God in a particular spot, and as a divine name irrespective of spatial location.”49 The Shekhinah comes to refer to that aspect of God which is not spatially bound—the familiar expression “God is everywhere” actually refers specifically to the Shekhinah.50

48 49 50

Exodus Rabbah 3:6. Louis Jacobs, “Shekhinah,” in The Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion. “The Shekhinah is everywhere” — BT, Bava Batra 25a. — 257 —

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Although the Shekhinah is everywhere, it resides here on earth,51 and often in rabbinic literature it is the divine name used when describing inextricably close links with humanity.52 Given the nature of the coinage and usage of this term for divine Presence, it is unsurprising that it best befits the type of God that covenants with man, according to contemporary covenantal thinkers. In this regard they owe much, I believe, to Abraham Joshua Heschel. In Heavenly Torah, Heschel argues that the Shekhinah actually suffers along with humanity. Based upon recurring midrashic themes, Heschel argues that the Shekhinah represents the most connected, and least omnipotent, aspect of God’s multifaceted personality. Two of the midrashic sources which he quotes are repeated below: “So you are My witnesses — declares the Lord — and I am God” (Isaiah 43:12), if you are My witnesses, then I am God, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am, as it were, not God.53 My Torah is in your possession; the end of days is in Mine. We therefore need each other. Just as you need Me to bring about the end of days, I need you to fulfil the Torah, and thus to bring near the rebuilding of My House and of Jerusalem.54

Inherent in the above two sources is both the non-omnipotent nature of God and the importance of man in having the ability to affect that divine nature. As God suffers and rejoices with man in equal measure, 51

52

53 54

The root link between Shekhinah and Mishkan ensures the close ties between the Divine Presence and God’s resting place on earth, and, in a statement attributed to Rabbi Nathan, he equates the Shekhinah’s position with the position of the Cherubim: “He made thereon two cherubim, which were precious as symbolising the heaven and earth […] so the Shekhinah, which was placed above the two cherubim, that were situated on either side [of the ark cover].” Numbers Rabbah 4:13. It is significant that a large body of material exists which debates whether or not the concept of the Shekhinah is in fact a separate entity from God. While Maimonides associated the Shekhinah with a created glory — one of the first of His works — and thus distinct from God, Nahmanides vehemently disagreed, claiming that if that were the case we would be praying to a created glory and thus be committing idolatry. See Maimonides, Guide 1:54, and see also Urbach, The Sages, 40-41. If the Shekhinah is in fact not God, then contemporary covenantal theories which place it at their centre suffer a considerable blow and open themselves up to charges of idolatry. Pesikta de Rav Kahana 12:6, in Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 110. Pesikta Rabbati 31:5, in Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 112-113. See chapter 3, note 71 above. — 258 —

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our emotional state has a direct affect on divine wellbeing. We have the power to not only affect God’s state of mind, as it were,55 but to actually diminish or enhance God’s might, which, as a statement of the divine nature, borders on the blasphemous.56 Heschel himself acknowledges the problematic nature of these sources by highlighting vigorous opposition to their implementation by some of the sages (especially those of the school of Rabbi Ishmael). How could it ever enter one’s mind that God needs human assistance? We need God, yes, but does God need us? The sheer magnitude of this idea and its profound ramifications, grappled with by the tannaim (sages cited in the Mishnah) almost two thousand years ago, still reverberates today. Heschel’s illustration of the precise nature and remit of the Shekhinah has profound ramifications for my study of contemporary covenantal thought. In Hartman and Borowitz’s work, it appears that man is only covenanted with one of the names of God. He has not entered into a covenant with the Lord of Hosts, for example, or with the Almighty, as these divine names are representative of God when He performs acts 55

56

I use the phrase “as it were” in order to allude to the point that Heschel’s depiction of God is a gross anthropomorphism which would be dismissed outright by the more philosophical or Maimonidean aspects of the Jewish tradition. That, however, does not necessarily make it any less authentic, anchored as it is (as I have shown) in a strong rabbinic trend for anthropomorphic conceptions of God in the aggadah. The phrase as it were is in fact used by both Hartman and Irving Greenberg to preface particularly challenging statements, and so sits more comfortably here. Hartman writes that “God agrees, as it were, to share the stage with humanity, to limit His own freedom and power so at to sustain human freedom and responsibility” (Heart, 158). Greenberg similarly states that “God had, as it were, withdrawn, become more hidden, so as to give humans more freedom and to call the Jews to more responsible partnership in the covenant” (The Third Great Cycle, 5). As it were is a phrase which seems to accompany daring theological statements. Heschel attributes this view to the Akivan school rather than the Ishmaelian school, and in doing so acknowledges the split in rabbinic understanding of the divine nature. In the second century CE the schools of Akiva and Ishmael represented two different systems of midrash, two different ways of interpreting the written Torah in light of the oral tradition. “Rabbi Ishmael’s path was that of the surface, plain meaning of the text. Rabbi Akiva’s path was that of the esoteric meaning.” See Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 34. Hartman acknowledges this potential blasphemousness, and labels it scandalous, in Heart, 155: “However scandalous it may sound to the metaphysician, the biblical tradition maintains that God does not execute His designs for history without the cooperation of at least some part of humankind.” — 259 —

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which transcend the covenantal realm, such as bringing the Flood, for example (when He is operating within a pre-covenantal freamework).57 The understanding of God which emerges throughout Hartman and Borowitz’s covenantal thought is extremely close to Heschel’s depiction of God-as-Shekhinah. However, God-as-Shekhinah is not representative of the fullness of the divine entity, but only one particular aspect of it. Insofar as it almost exclusively emphasises aspects of God that have been associated with the Shekhinah, contemporary covenantal thought is developed upon one particular conception of God. This conception of God has a tendency to emphasize those traits and aspects of Him which relate to and need human beings, and to marginalise those which portray a God who neither cares for nor needs human attention. A second consequence to consider is that the covenanting God loses His omnipotence. As Heschel succinctly states: “Rabbi Akiva and his cohorts believed that it is better to limit belief in God’s power than to dampen faith in God’s mercy.”58 The doctrine that God needs our support, attributed by Heschel to the school of Rabbi Akiva, undoubtedly diminishes His omnipotence, and is remarkably similar to the view that the covenant binds God as well as man, which is consistently insisted on by Hartman and persuasively suggested by Borowitz. In choosing to form a covenant, God voluntarily retreats, and understood in this way the act of tsimtsum is God’s choice to limit His omnipotence in favour of keeping His omnibenevolence. Because of His love for the Jewish people, He decided to recede into the background and avoid playing a continuing first-hand role in the unfolding of events on earth. Hartman and Borowitz do suggest (as of course does Heschel) that God has given up a portion of his power. They reach this conclusion in a variety of ways. Heschel, a precursor to contemporary covenantal thought, follows the Akivan rabbinic school in favouring a merciful non-omnipotent God to an all-powerful and aloof Almighty. Hartman, although never talking specifically in terms of omnipotence, describes God’s decision to

57

58

Hartman writes that “In contrast to the flood, the covenant with God in the desert reveals a God who has given up His fantasies about humanity.” Heart, 146. See also ibid. 157. Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 119. — 260 —

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voluntarily limit His own power in order to champion human freedom, thereby acknowledging that, within a covenantal partnership, divine omnipotence is incompatible with human autonomy. Borowitz, on the other hand, coming from a liberal milieu, was never confronted with a strong notion of divine omnipotence as a starting point. He explicitly acknowledges that, for the vast majority of non-Orthodox Jews, the omnipotent God of tradition died significantly prior to Richard Rubenstein’s pronunciation.59 His theory of seniority without dominance is predicated on a conception of God that does not dwarf the human covenantal partner, thus enabling genuine relation to take place within a framework of mutuality. Asserting a conception of a non-omnipotent God has ramifications in the practical arena, and this is an example of theory leading to practice, rather than the other way round. For example, in the sixties and seventies, post-Holocaust theologians asked “What were his [God’s] attributes in view of the manner of his functioning in history?”60 In other words, if God were mighty, then He would have used His might to protect His people. Because He did not do that, He can no longer be called mighty. The most significant aspect of this discussion, however, is the voluntary nature of any perceived divine action. Did God choose to lose His omnipotence, or did it somehow pass Him by? If the loss of omnipotence was voluntarily chosen by God, then it represents not only a loving action (Hartman) but also a potentially higher plane of relating to human beings than omnipotence (Borowitz). Omnipotence does not equal perfection. Eliezer Berkovits wrote about this in the context of post-Holocaust theology, arguing that “We are introduced to a concept of divine mightiness that consists in self-restraint […] God is mighty, for he shackles his omnipotence and becomes ‘powerless’ so that history may be possible.”61 59 60 61

See chapter 3, note 59. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust (New York: Ktav, 1973), 108. Ibid. 109. Berkovits here practices apologetics, attempting to ‘save face” within an Orthodox framework. Hartman’s view goes further than Berkovits here, because for Hartman the maturation of the covenant proves that the voluntary loss of omnipotence was not only deliberate on the part of God, but was a significant progression in His relationship to man. In this way Hartman avoids the charge of apologetics. — 261 —

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In this quote Berkovits does not equate might with power, leaving open the possibility that God remains mighty despite his self-imposed powerlessness. Ephraim Urbach has already hinted at this dilemma in his discussion of the Shekhinah in The Sages, where he writes, “These literary images and other anthropomorphic expressions were able to convey the consciousness of God’s nearness, but at the same time they could open the door to the infiltration of myth.”62 Urbach is arguing here that the Berkovits quote, and similar expressions within contemporary covenantal thought, open the door to the infiltration of a mythical nearness between man and God that, in reality, does not exist. He suggests that there are two key aims in theological discussion: “The insistence on the purity of the monotheistic idea on the one side, and the vitality of faith on the other.”63 In attempting to preserve the vitality of faith, contemporary covenantal thinkers have lost the former, i.e., monotheistic purity. Urbach contends that the true nature of faith lies within the tension of the two aims but, as has already been shown, such oscillation between dichotomies is absent from much of contemporary covenantal thought. An overemphasis on anthropomorphic expressions breeds mythical miscomprehension about the nature of God, and the subsequent vitality of faith which ensues has sacrificed monotheistic purity to achieve its aim. What Urbach calls “the purity of monotheistic faith” is sacrificed at the altar of “the vitality of faith” within contemporary covenantal thought.

7.3c Love at the Expense of Fear in the Covenantal Relationship The third problematic which I want to highlight is the interpretation developed by both protagonists regarding the emotion best suited to describe covenantal relation: love or fear. One could make a strong case that among Jews the basic position toward this issue is that one should fear God and tremble before Him.64 In the biblical narratives, during moments of divine revelation (such as the burning bush or 62 63 64

Urbach, The Sages, 38. Ibid. 38. See chapter 4, note 99 for Buber’s use of the expression “fear and trembling.” — 262 —

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the giving of the law at Sinai) man is afraid of God. In Exodus, Moses “hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exod. 3:6), and in Deuteronomy Moses retells how “The Lord talked with you face to face in the mountain out of the midst of the fire, (I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to show you the word of the Lord: for you were afraid of the fire, and went not up the mountain)” (Deut. 5:4-5). In rabbinic literature this theme is magnified, and the Sinaitic revelation is interpreted as accentuating the gulf between the Lord and His subjects. According to one particular midrash, after each word God spoke, the souls of Israel departed and had to be restored. According to another, they retreated a distance of approximately one thousand six hundred yards after every divine utterance,65 and according to a third midrash, God’s voice reverberated throughout the world when He spoke, so Israel ran from place to place searching for the voice in the south, the north, the east and the west.66 In biblical and rabbinic thought two contrasting conceptions of God are discernable. While one promotes a covenantal approach to the divine-human relationship,67 the other, more prevalent, conception is of a supremely awe-inspiring, mighty God occasionally interacting (only on His terms) with a submissive human audience. The notion of contrasting conceptions of God is also highlighted by the dialectic between the divine attributes of rachamim and din, which gains considerable emphasis in rabbinic literature.68 The divine attribute of justice is associated with the commanding, awe-inspiring aspects of the divine personality, and hence linked to a fear of God, whereas the divine attribute of mercy is connected to the forgiving, relating-to-humanity aspects of the divine personality, and hence associated with a love of 65 66 67

68

Both these first two midrashim are from BT, Shabbat 88b. Exodus Rabbah 5:9. Such promotion occurs through midrashim and passages which are already familiar to us, and which promote a covenantal viewpoint, such as Abraham at Sodom (Gen. 18) or Rabbi Eliezer in the Aknai oven dispute (BT, Bava Metzia 59b). BT, Berakhot 7a suggests that God prays that in his dealings with humanity his mercy will prevail over his other attributes. See Rashi’s commentary to Genesis 1:1 where he interprets the use of the divine name Elohim (as opposed to the Tetragrammaton) as indicative of God’s decision to give His attribute of mercy precedence over His attribute of justice (for the benefit of His creations). See also BT, Yoma 69b. — 263 —

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God. In the contemporary context, as shown above, the balance has shifted dramatically toward the former viewpoint—that of near parity between covenantal partners. The consequence of that shift is that fear of God, a previously vital theological category, is either undermined or marginalised altogether, and it is replaced by uninhibited love of God.69 Both protagonists promote an understanding of divine self-limitation as primarily an act of love, hence their strong preference for love as the more suitable expression of man’s attitude toward God. Hence, in Hartman one finds, “The mystery of God’s love for them [humans] is expressed in this act of divine self-limitation.”70 For both Hartman and Borowitz the notion of covenant is intrinsically bound up with the divine attribute of love. Borowitz’s understanding of the covenant predominantly as a relationship leads him to assert that it is a model of love rather than fear. The supreme relationship is a relationship between two persons in love, and so Borowitz highlights the parallels between God’s Covenant with man and the covenant of marriage.71 For Borowitz, there is a depth to the divine-human relationship which someone who has never loved cannot properly understand.72 69

70

71 72

One fundamental reason for advocating fear of God over love of God is to preserve the boundaries between human and divine which are erected in the biblical and rabbinic narratives (and which appear blurred in modernity). BT, Pesahim 103b-104a, for example, equates distinctions and boundaries with knowledge — the argument being presented that the more one knows, the more fences one is likely to build. In Exodus 19:12 Moses is commanded to erect boundaries for the people at the foot of Mount Sinai to protect them from the awesomeness of God. Furthermore, in Leviticus 10 Nadav and Avihu offer an alien sacrifice to God and die as a consequence (see Rashi to Lev. 10:2 and Leviticus Rabbah 20:8). Their death is usually interpreted in rabbinic literature as being a punishment for failing to appreciate the importance of boundaries and hence overstepping them (there is a crucial distinction between a sacrifice which was commanded, and one which was unsolicited). In all of these examples there are boundaries in place to protect both the sanctity of the divine partner and the wellbeing of the human partner. Hartman, Living, 24. Irving Greenberg similarly writes “God has summoned humans to partnership in this process of perfecting the world. The divine respect and love for humans eventually leads to a full and equal partnership.” Greenberg, For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, 188. See chapter 5, notes 68 and 69. It is slightly unclear whether Borowitz considers marriage the pre-requisite, or whether being in a loving relationship is enough. In Choosing a Sex Ethic he sets up four alternative ethical standards towards sexual ethics, namely the ethics of healthy — 264 —

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Love is not the by-product of Borowitz’s understanding of relationship; it is the crux. Thus, Borowitz’s treatment of the Holocaust is tempered by his understanding of the relationship as loving. In Renewing the Covenant, Borowitz talks about the “depth of our love” when discussing possible responses to the Holocaust, and claims that “nurtured by that love, we pray to be able to go on trusting God even when we are wounded and do not understand our momentarily unrecognisable Lover.”73 I argue that a fear-driven relationship is equated by Borowitz with a simplistic certainty that is, in his view, uncharacteristic of contemporary thought and the dialectical uncertainties which he promotes. Within the fear model, man’s relationship to God is straightforward—do as one is commanded, beg for forgiveness for one’s sins, rely on God’s grace and mercy, etc. This is relatively uncomplicated in comparison with the uncertainties which accompany the love model, yet it is this latter model which is more fitting for contemporary thought. Borowitz writes: “The kinds of uncertainty it [a love relationship] produces seem characteristic of the most humane forms of contemporary thought. Thus I agree with those who associate maturity not with a consistent set of certainties about the world or history but with an informed openness that allows for growth and change while demonstrating sufficient integrity to avoid the responsibility of relativism.”74 A covenantal relationship is often understood in the Jewish tradition in terms of three paradigms of human relationships: husband-wife; father-child; and master-slave.75 Both Hartman and Borowitz favour the metaphor of marital partners to explain the divine-human relationship.76 The marriage epitomises the

73 74 75 76

orgasm, of mutual consent, of love, and of marriage. While for the purposes of this discussion Borowitz clearly depicts covenant as a model of divine love rather than fear, I think he fluctuates between standards three and four — namely an ethic of love and an ethic of marriage. Borowitz, Renewing, 130-131. Ibid. 275. See Jose Faur, “Understanding the Covenant,” Tradition 9:3 (1968): 50. Borowitz does use the parent-child metaphor to understand seniority without dominance (section 3.6 above), but he relies more heavily on the marital relationship to explain non-verbal communication, unmediated revelation, covenantal obligation — 265 —

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covenantal love model which they describe. Marriage involves significant uncertainty in its initial stages, as well as moments of weakness throughout, and at least some level of unconditional commitment (which, admittedly, varies from couple to couple but which occasionally includes unfaithfulness).77 Both sides need each other in the husband-wife model, and the obligations (however well or poorly defined) are made out of choice.78 In contrast, the last paradigm, that of master-slave, is more indicative of the fear model common in ancient Suzerainty treaties, and likened by Borowitz to an Orthodox conception of divine-human interaction. The fear model has very little uncertainty; the servant does as he is commanded and rarely has any choice over either whether to carry out the commands or how to perform them. Obligation was never an act of choice for the servant and, moreover, the dependency is not reciprocal either, because while the servant may need the master to remain alive, the master is in no way dependent upon the slave. Hartman places love at the centre of his understanding of covenantal relationship, and attributes loving emotions to both covenantal partners. God’s decision to create an imperfect universe, and his charging of humanity with the responsibility of helping to complete and perfect it, is the ultimate divine gift. It represents the depth of God’s love for humanity and the Jewish people specifically. Similarly, Hartman adopts a well-known midrashic school of thought in suggesting that the Jewish people made a decision to form a covenant

77

78

and reverse-tsimtsum. For Hartman’s discussion of this metaphor see Living, 5; “Contemporary Religious Life and Thought in Israel” 104, and David Hartman and Fred Worms, “Living Covenant: David Hartman in Conversation with Fred Worms,” L’eylah 26 (September 1988): 5. The importance of the family unit in Judaism is the subject of another of Hartman’s essays, “Memory and Values: A Traditional Response to the Crisis of the Modern Family,” in Heart, 57-69. Jonathan Sacks alludes to this when he writes, “More than the Jewish people love God, God loves the Jewish people. The history of Israel is a love story between the faithful God and his sometimes faithless people.” ‘Covenant and Conversation: Tazria 5768’ (article available online at http://www.chiefrabbi.org/CR_5768.aspx). The idea of fixed marriages, which is of course still relatively prevalent amongst ultraOrthodox Jews today, contradicts this model, but would not have been formative for either Hartman or Borowitz, and hence does not merit inclusion in the present discussion. — 266 —

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with God out of faith in divine goodness, and this choice is indicative of their love for their Creator.79 Both sides love each other in Hartman’s covenantal partnership. David Blumenthal was the first to point out the possible naivety inherent in this mature love model, particularly as it is put forward by Hartman in A Living Covenant.80 Do lovers ever reach the point where any sin can be absorbed without fear of rejection? Hartman thinks so, and places huge faith in his assumption. God’s decision never to divorce the Jewish people (the golden calf being the paradigmatic example) is the kind of decision Hartman champions as being indicative of the mature love model, of which Borowitz is also a strong adherent. However, while God certainly forgives man’s sins, it is unclear whether He remains within a covenantal framework when He does so, and hence the contention with this viewpoint. Blumenthal argues that God leaves the covenant when He forgives, and enters a trans-covenantal position, i.e. a position not bound by the terms of the covenantal relationship. According to Blumenthal, God, like man, is bound by the covenant. However, after a particularly egregious example of human sin, God is not obligated to forgive / redeem as part of the covenantal promise. His decision to do so, therefore, is indicative of a trans-covenantal position, one which literally transcends covenant and on which man actually relies at vulnerable times in his life. The key theological categories of mercy and forgiveness do not sit comfortably within a model of the covenant as mature love. This kind of position is not given credence within contemporary covenantal thought, which does not recognise moments beyond or outside of the covenant. This lack of acknowledgment of competing models for understanding the divinehuman relationship seems to place undue stress upon the mature love model. While a mature, loving relationship can undoubtedly cope with a certain amount of disappointment and evidence of mistrust on both sides, at some point the relationship may break down. God’s decision

79

80

See chapter 1, note 16 for a full list of sources for this aggadah — of God offering the Torah to all the nations before the Jewish People. Hartman quotes from the aggadah in Living, 5. Blumenthal, “Review of David Hartman: A Living Covenant,” 304. — 267 —

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never to abandon man despite repeated instances of human infidelity must, therefore, be seen to transcend this model.81 However, I take issue with the Blumenthal approach above. Does the mature love model per se necessitate a denial of competing understandings of God’s interaction with humanity, or is it just the mature love model as it is espoused by Hartman and Borowitz? I would argue the latter. There is no reason why the mature love model could not have a stronger emphasis placed upon the parent-child paradigm instead of the husband-wife relationship, but neither thinker advocates such an emphasis. It seems to me that within the parentchild relationship one is ready to forgive almost anything, and certainly more so than in spousal relationships. In many ways the parent-child relationship is more mature than that of the husband-wife. Both Hartman and Borowitz favour husband-wife because the metaphor is more intimate and certainly more reciprocal, but this preference comes at a price. Reciprocity and intimacy are gained at the expense of what Blumenthal calls God’s un-covenanted love. If the parent-child metaphor were the dominant one of the two, there would be little need for a trans-covenantal category. Both sides still need each other (albeit in different ways) in the parent-child relationship, and the relationship exhibits both intimacy and commitment. Undoubtedly, a parent will withstand countless episodes of unfaithfulness by his or her child, while most marital partners would have a considerably lower threshold for such episodes. A shift in emphasis from husband-wife to parentchild would, therefore, allow for the mature love model to withstand this kind of critique. At the same time, I remain unconvinced of the durability of the mature love model as proposed by Hartman and Borowitz. I have already highlighted the absence of a robust response to the Holocaust in Hartman’s theory, which many critics would see as a limitation of that theory.82 This lack of response to the Holocaust is closely linked 81 82

See ibid. 305. I agree with Arthur Cohen’s assertion (which he in turn develops from Emil Fackenheim) that “every Jewish thinker […] must mark their thought before and after their own exposure to the Holocaust.” Arthur Cohen, “On Emil Fackenheim’s To Mend the World: A Review Essay,” Modern Judaism 3:2 (1983): 227. — 268 —

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to Blumenthal’s view of A Living Covenant, namely that he finds the optimism of the human condition expressed throughout the book problematic. This optimism is rare for a thinker writing in his field in the generation after the Holocaust. Moshe Halbertal suggests why Hartman’s thought lacks this more serious, solemn side: “His Jewish education was not imbued with the consciousness of a tremendous fear and trembling, but one of the joy of mitzvah, and anyone who knows David Hartman knows that asceticism and self-denial are not exactly major components of his personality.”83 Blumenthal explains what the repercussions are for this perceived lack in Hartman’s thinking. While Hartman’s emphasis on God’s covenantal love is marked, his theology does not allow any room for what he calls God’s un-covenanted love. “In moments of deep sin or profound terror we can only implore God’s grace, His un-covenanted love. God has a love which is beyond covenant, beyond what we can legitimately expect of Him on the basis of our merits and His recognition of our finitude.”84 This un-covenanted love forms no part of Hartman’s thesis; his thought lacks this theological dimension. When God makes a decision not to abandon His covenant with us despite our continued profligacy, Blumenthal sees this decision as fundamentally transcovenantal; a decision which is incompatible with Hartman’s covenantal love framework. Elsewhere in his own work Blumenthal distinguishes between covenantal justice and the appeal from helplessness (imploring God’s mercy), and states that “total dependency upon God’s mercy is one of the most difficult aspects of the religion for some modern people to accept.”85 In this light, one can understand why mercy could offend the modern sensibilities of both Hartman and Borowitz. It is increasingly difficult to assimilate dependency upon God’s mercy with the covenantal categories of dignity, self-worth or mutual partnership. Total dependency completely subordinates the human partner and renders him useless from the moment he implores God’s mercy.

83 84 85

Halbertal, “David Hartman and the Crisis in Modern Faith,” 31. Blumenthal, “Review of David Hartman, A Living Covenant,” 303. Blumenthal, “Mercy,” in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, ed. Cohen and Mendes Flohr (op. cit.), 592. — 269 —

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Hartman understands divine acceptance of human weakness as an essential element in covenantal theory. Thus “Israel in its limitations is accepted by God, as is Israel who builds a golden calf and Israel who wants to return to Egypt every time water or food is in short supply. Israel in sin and rebellion is still loved because God’s Covenant is based on what human beings really are. If it were based on unrealistic divine expectations I would be frightened of accepting the Sinai Covenant.”86 Hartman’s response to this type of criticism would, therefore, emphasise what he sees as a misunderstanding of moments of human weakness and sin. These moments are not trans-covenantal; rather, they are important pieces of evidence in favour of covenant—for it is God’s acceptance of our poor behaviour and our blatant inability to live up to our covenantal billing which reinforce the covenantal relationship, and are testaments to its uniqueness. Were God to have unrealistic demands of man, or expect more from him than he is able to give, the covenant would become a burden and its continuation through the generations would become increasingly untenable. As this is evidently not the case in Hartman’s thought, he remains comfortable with seeming lapses in humanity’s faith in the divine (as in the golden calf — Exod. 32:1-6), and with God’s continued acceptance of humanity despite these continued lapses. Borowitz’s theory of mature love is slightly more nuanced than Hartman’s: he is more comfortable with incorporating the notions of grace and mercy into his covenantal framework. In his discussion of reverse-tsimtsum he places a greater level of restraint upon man than Hartman would be comfortable with. This restraint, compared in chapter six to the Soloveitchikian ethic of retreat and withdrawal, is not totally misplaced within marital relationships. However, repeated withdrawal and submission from a spousal partner will quickly lead to that partner becoming the junior partner in the marriage (and it is unlikely that the senior partner will not go on to become the dominant force in the relationship). Here, as before, the parent-child relationship offers a better paradigm than husband-wife, because tsimtsum works better with this model. Parents are often required to withdraw in order to be 86

David Hartman, “Judaism Encounters Christianity Anew,” in Jewish and Christian Theologians Assess the Dialogue, ed. Eugene Fisher (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), 77. — 270 —

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good parents and to allow for the full development of their children (a development which inevitably involves making one’s own mistakes and learning the hard way from those mistakes), and the ethic of submission and withdrawal seems far better suited to a parent-child relationship than a husband-wife one, which perhaps also suggests the suitability of the former over the latter as the best paradigm for a mature-love model of covenant. Perhaps better still would be an amalgamation of the two, creating a familial paradigm which encapsulates both parent-parent and parent-child relationships. In support of the mature love model favoured by both protagonists, it is worth highlighting two factors that have been overlooked so far. First, man has forgiven God’s sins in the recent past. And second, Blumenthal’s insistence on a trans-covenantal category might suffer from an anthropomorphic misunderstanding. First, a strong case can be made for arguing that man has forgiven God’s sins. Blumenthal’s critique suggests that man cannot forgive God’s sins in the same way that God can forgive man’s. Yet surely this is precisely what everyone who continues to identify as a Jew after the Holocaust has chosen to do. Greenberg’s theory of a voluntary covenant provides an excellent example to counter Blumenthal’s critique. One would assume that the mature covenant model would break down after repeated instances of infidelity from one of the partners (in this case the divine partner), and that this would signal the end of the covenantal relationship. Surely the human partner can no longer be obligated to fulfil one side of the agreement when God has reneged on His obligation to provide the human covenantal partners with protection? However, the move from obligatory to voluntary covenant suggested by Greenberg does not mirror the move from covenantal to trans-covenantal suggested by Blumenthal, because Greenberg’s theory finds a way of dealing with the perceived infidelity without leaving the covenantal framework. Moreover, the example of the Holocaust proves that examples of infidelity and unfaithfulness exist on both sides of the partnership, so it is not just God whose love can be said to transcend that which one could reasonably expect from a spousal partner. The evidence for a strong, long-lasting human love such as this is absent in Blumenthal’s critique. Second, Blumenthal’s belief that God’s decision to forgive man must — 271 —

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be trans-covenantal, and not part of the mature love model favoured by Hartman and Borowitz, seems to suffer from an anthropomorphic misunderstanding. While both thinkers choose to use the paradigms of human familial relationships to describe the divine-human relationship, they nonetheless maintain that the relationship with God is far greater than any human-human relationship, and hence understand these paradigms as metaphors and not literal parallels.87 The amount of love a spouse has for his or her partner may be great, but the amount of love God has for his covenantal partners is far greater. The love is in proportion to the being that is doing the loving, and this is what Blumenthal’s theory seems to ignore. It is only because God is God that He might be able to love so unconditionally, and to forgive and in due course redeem while remaining within a covenantal framework. While that might seem to transcend a mature love framework from a human perspective, there is no reason to suggest that it would necessarily do so from a divine perspective. Just because the metaphor breaks down does not mean that the actual relationship to which it is referring would necessarily do the same.

7.3d Over-Emphasis on the Individual The fourth issue which I wish to discuss in this section is the delicate interplay between the individual and the community within covenantal thought. The attempt to balance the individual and communal thrusts in Judaism is a significant challenge for any theory of Jewish duty and responsibility. I argue that covenantal thought has over-emphasised the individual nature of both the human and the divine covenantal partners. The individualising of the human covenantal partner (what Borowitz refers to as an effective autonomy) signifies an over-emphasis which makes it difficult for empowered, autonomous individuals to fit into their faith community (which Borowitz terms “existence in covenant”).88 The individualising of the divine covenantal partner refers to an attempt by covenantal thinkers to over-emphasise a personal understanding of God at the expense of a broader depiction of God 87 88

Hartman refers to them as covenantal metaphors in Living, 4. Borowitz, Renewing, 257. See chapter 6, note 87. — 272 —

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which corresponds better with the portrayal of Him in biblical and rabbinic literature. Both individualising attempts are part of the same thrust within covenantal thought, for the reasons described below. Covenantal thought’s over-emphasis on the individual is undoubtedly indicative of its historical roots  —  expressing one’s uniqueness and individuality were major trends in the 1960s and 1970s. This individualising is also a natural consequence of the trends within covenantal thought which have been analysed in great detail in this monograph. The feelings of adequacy and worth which accompany covenantal empowerment are felt on an individual level. The examples which both thinkers use to explain the underpinning notion of empowerment are individual: Abraham at Sodom; Moses immediately after the Golden Calf, etc. It is hard to imagine a communal empowerment that could carry the same degree of authority. Both thinkers state that God chose to enter into a covenantal relationship with individual Jewish people, and not only with the community as a whole.89 This ensures a greater degree of individuality within the covenant and a higher level of participation by each individual agent. Hartman’s criticism of the halakhic system (see section 5.2 above) is a good example of this tendency toward over-individualising the human partner. Hartman insists that, as a mediative system, halakhah can only work for the individual if he or she is confident that there exists a mediator who shares his or her understanding of what the system should be about and which aspects of it should assume prominence. Without that, the mediative system breaks down. This is a hugely individual approach to the halakhah which is in my opinion an unworkable model for halakhic development. The halakhah is a framework for a shared, corporate system for the worship of God. There will always be individuals within the community that struggle with aspects of this framework, but they continue to struggle from within because they appreciate that Judaism is about a communal relationship with God more than 89

See in particular the significant footnote in Living, where Hartman suggests that mitzvah can be understood not merely as a formal duty but also “as expressive of the particular individual’s relationship to God” (n. 20, 330). This is a comment on a favoured midrash of his, Pesikta de Rav Kahana 12:25, which is introduced in section 3.1d above (and chapter 3, note 22 in that section). — 273 —

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it is about an individual one. The individual has to find his or her own voice within the communal structure, and I do not find evidence from elsewhere within the normative tradition to suggest that the individual can use his or her own moral sensibilities to, for example, enact a change in a communal structure such as the halakhic system. In a similar vein, Borowitz’s understanding of the revelatory experience suffers from the same critique. How can Borowitz’s unmediated, non-verbal revelation get communicated and become the basis for a community? I do not think that it can, and hence I maintain that Borowitz’s emphasis within his covenantal thought is overwhelmingly individual. This discussion hinges on whether one thinks that God entered into specific covenants with each individual at Sinai, or whether He covenanted with klal yisrael as a whole (with individuals included in the covenant only inasmuch as they are constituent members of the community). While there are rabbinic sources which suggest the former, this is a minority opinion in comparison to the latter view, which remains truer to a literal reading of the biblical narrative of events at Sinai. Furthermore, the over-individualising of the human partner by covenantal thinkers grates against those many aspects of the tradition which speak more in terms of communal norms and laws than they do about individual ones. Expressions of the divine will are always mediated and institutionalised by the prophets and / or the rabbis long before they can be enacted by the individual adherent, to the extent that one can say with some certainty that the individual believer in Judaism is rarely, if ever, enacting the revealed word of God. Rather, he or she is enacting a human interpretation of God’s revelation. Hartman agrees with this understanding of the relationship between the individual and divine revelation in the two examples offered below: In the rabbinic tradition, the Jew is claimed by the revealed word of God, yet that word is filtered through the minds of finite human beings whose arguments, interpretations and decisions largely determine the substantive content of God’s word in daily life. Rational persuasion, rather than dogmatic certainty, mediates the covenantal word of God.90 90

David Hartman, “The Religious Significance of Religious Pluralism,” 103. — 274 —

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If one cannot accept a spiritual way of life mediated by limited, finite human beings, then one cannot live within an Orthodox halakhic framework.91

Within this understanding of the way Judaism is filtered to the individual—through quite a rigid communal structure—some of the attempts at individualising covenantal commitment appear to create unresolved problematics for covenantal thinkers. The question remains of precisely how these individualised visions can be incorporated into the communal experience. The over-individualising of the depiction of God presents a similar problem. One of the consequences of a dialogue spanning some forty years, which refers to God as, at various times, a friend, a lover, a marital partner, a parent and a teacher, is that one will come to view God in overly anthropomorphic terms. The dialectical thrust which I argue is requisite to challenging contemporary Jewish theology, and which at times is missing from covenantal thought, would ensure that such a depiction of God is prevented from being the solitary conception of the true nature of the divine entity.

7.3e The Limits of Specific Social and Cultural Contexts The final issue which I wish to highlight is the specific contexts within which contemporary covenantal thought emerged in the middle of the twentieth century. Hartman and Borowitz’s theory forms a major part of the discipline defined here as contemporary covenantal thought. The discipline, however, predates the arrival of their work, as Elie Wiesel had already defined it in 1967.92 However, one could argue that the discipline predates even Wiesel and the conversations he participated in taking place in the Laurentian Mountains and Wisconsin. To do 91 92

Hartman, Heart, 151. “The Jewish people entered into a covenant with God. We are to protect His Torah, and He, in turn, assumes responsibility for Israel’s presence in the world.” Emil Fackenheim, Richard Popkin, George Steiner, Elie Wiesel, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future: A Symposium,” Judaism 16:3 (Summer 1967): 280. Wiesel goes on in that article to suggest that for the first time in man’s history, the covenant was broken (by God). This line of reasoning made a deep impression upon Irving Greenberg, who went on to posit the shattering of the Covenant in “Voluntary Covenant” (which quotes the above statement by Wiesel on page 15). — 275 —

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this, one would point to the fact that covenant became something of a zeitgeist in American mid-century academic circles, and that this undoubtedly helps to explain its emergence in contemporary Jewish thought.93 During the nineteenth century, for example, there was little or no discussion of the covenant within Jewish academic circles. Central themes under discussion instead were synagogal reforms and issues of liturgy, dogmatics, ritual law, eschatology, exile, and redemption, but not covenantal theory. The preoccupation of Jewish thinkers with concepts of the covenant actually mirrored the preoccupation of other academic thinkers in America in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Christian thinkers became interested in the covenant,94 as did legal theorists, and Jewish thinkers quickly followed suit. Whether, however, these social and cultural contexts amount to either an import or a Christian influence is debatable.95 93

94

95

Irving Greenberg further propounds this view about Hartman and Borowitz. All three men chose covenant as their leitmotif, and all three men were born and raised in the same American culture within one decade of each other. I am thinking here specifically of George Mendenhall and the American scholars whose work emerged at a similar time to his. Mendenhall’s work was discussed in section 1.1 above — his link between biblical covenant ceremonies and Ancient Near Eastern suzereinty treaties was hugely significant, and began a discussion about the concept of covenant within American Protestant circles. Meredith Kline, in the 1960s and 70s, expanded on Mendenhall’s discussion about suzerainty treaties. See in particular Meredith Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy — Studies and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), and Meredith Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of the Covenant Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968). One can also add to this list of American Protestant academics interested in covenant in the 1960s and 1970s John Murray and Norman Shepherd, both of whom are associated with the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Shepherd’s teaching (and his reading of Murray’s work in particular) led to a controversy at the Seminary in the mid-1970s. See David Van Drunen, “Justification by Faith in the Theology of Norman Shepherd,” Katekomen 14:1 (Summer 2002); and on the theological justification behind the controversy, and its link to covenant, see Cornelis Venema’s review of Shepherd’s “The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 13 (2002): 232-248. Abraham Cohen suggests that Hartman borrows from Christian theology in his use of specific terminology in Living. Abraham Cohen, “God and Redemption in the Thought of David Hartman,” Modern Judaism 17:3 (1997): 251, n. 5. I find the category “foreign” decidedly unhelpful to describe the Jewish tradition. Any tradition which has existed in dispersion, without a homeland, for so long is bound to adopt large aspects — 276 —

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There are other examples of Hartman and Borowitz sharing a similar mentality, indicating that their upbringing in the same midcentury American academic environment affected them in similar ways, and at similar stages of their career. One such example of this is the Six Day War of 1967. Hartman writes throughout his work of the Six Day War as the catalyst for his decision to uproot his family from North America and move to the Holy Land. In the introduction to A Heart of Many Rooms he writes “in the aftermath of the victory of the Six Day War, I felt compelled to come to Israel to find a way of appropriating the reality of the Jewish State.”96 In doing so, he attempts to explain the unique status of 1967 in the minds of American Jewry. This is something which Eugene Borowitz describes in much the same way in his essay “Recent Historic Events”: This mood was intensified by our first experience of war by television. Those experiences were sufficient to arouse Jewish ethnic concern to levels previously unprecedented. They were then heightened by the details of an incredible victory — deliverance — and, even more miraculously, by seeing Jews enter old Jerusalem and, for the first time since the State of Israel had been established, being permitted to pray before the Temple Mount Western Wall. The effect of those weeks on American Jewry was profound, lasting, and utterly unanticipated.97

Acknowledging the crucial role that pivotal twentieth-century events such as the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the Six Day War had on the American Jewish psyche, Borowitz describes the subsequent trends which took place within different Jewish communities.

96 97

of its host culture and, over time, claim it as its own. The boundaries of authentic and alien are, then, considerably blurred in the case of Judaism, and hence the difficulty with the category “foreign.” Hartman, Heart, xxii. Borowitz, “Recent Historic Events,” 194. He makes a very similar point in the later article “A Life of Jewish Learning”: “The living significance of the State of Israel in the New York suburbs where I resided in the fifties and sixties was modest indeed. Only when the Six-Day War evoked the possibility of the destruction of the State of Israel did anything approaching passionate identification with the Israelis come into being” (p. 401). On the significance of the Six Day War for Judaism (and the immediate recognition of it by scholars), see the symposium entitled “The Religious Meaning of the Six Day War,” Tradition 10:1 (Summer 1968): 5-20. — 277 —

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Both the Reform and the Orthodox movements swung to the right, Reform by reemphasising traditional categories of both the divinity of God and the notion of religious duty and Orthodoxy by re-emerging as an option for modern Jews desirous of living an authentic Jewish existence. According to Borowitz “both movements have parallels in the general American turn to the right.”98 How authentic are they, then? Does the fact that these shifts in Jewish denominational awareness reflect larger cultural trends within American society undermine or reinforce them? Similarly, does the preoccupation with covenantal concepts by nonJewish thinkers in the immediate post-war years somehow lessen their relevance to Hartman and Borowitz’s readership? When one analyses the covenant in a similar way, it is hard to overemphasise the degree to which its current usage is filtered through a modernist lens. Not only is the field of covenantal thought itself filtered through this historical lens, but the categories of autonomy, human dignity, and empowerment (foundational to both covenantal theories examined here) are classic modern categories. Therefore, Hartman and Borowitz’s formulation of these issues within covenantal thought, despite the issues themselves stretching back to the biblical and rabbinic era, would be inconceivable in a pre-modern context. Borowitz takes this view even further in ultimately vindicating the open engagement with history that seems to accompany contemporary covenantal thought. For him it seems that abstract, academic themes dominate contemporary Christian theology, whereas Jewish thinking “overwhelmingly centers on living social questions prompted by recent historical events,” hence the name of his article.99 Therefore for Borowitz it is clearly both a characteristic trait and a strength of Jewish theology that it deals with, and focuses on, living social questions and recent historical events. There is something mundane and earthly about Jewish theological discussion which is far removed from the abstract theorising of general religious discussions,100 and this is an enduring, 98 99

100

Borowitz, “Recent Historic Events,” 196. Ibid. 197. The notable exception amongst contemporary Christian theologies is Liberation theology, which Borowitz himself discusses later in the article (see 203ff). Borowitz’s point here echoes Soloveitchik’s distinction between halakhic man and homo religious in “Halakhic Man,” and his strong preference for the former as the — 278 —

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positive quality of contemporary theories of Jewish philosophy. I have already shown in chapter six how Hartman’s relationship to recent historical events is more complex than Borowitz’s, but nonetheless the impact of the establishment of the State of Israel on his thought proves that his theory has in some way been affected by modern Jewish history. In this light, one can argue that both protagonists would see it is a strength, not a weakness, that modern Jewish theology has found a way of adopting a prevalent concept in the wider philosophical and theological world and making it relevant to its own community. The concept retains its validity regardless of its origins and influences. Growing up in mid-century American society, these thinkers were faced with mounting dilemmas of exactly how to amalgamate their new-found social and cultural mores with their traditional belief system. The age-old concern of autonomy versus authority assumed vital importance. In an era when the cultural American ethic promoted affluence, productivity and the immediate availability of commodities, the Jewish community’s sense of rule and obligation was being eroded.101 Irving Greenberg wrote about this in the late 1960s,102 as did Borowitz, and both Borowitz and Hartman debated it openly together in the Laurentian Mountains as early as 1965. For both of them, and indeed for the assembled representatives of each denomination, withdrawal and isolation did not represent legitimate responses to this new cultural phenomenon, which therefore demanded a different dynamic between the normative Jewish tradition and the new culture, one that did justice both to the authority of Torah and halakhah, and to the everincreasing importance for individual autonomy within any system of laws or norms. Seen against the cultural and academic milieu, the covenant provided

101 102

ideal Jewish religious personality type. Halakhic man “explores every nook and cranny of physical-biological existence” (p. 22) in an approach which is “devoid of any element of transcendence” (p. 17), whereas homo religious “longs for a refined and purified existence. The riddle in existence and the eternal problem that hovers over the face of being leads him beyond the bounds of concrete reality” (p. 16). See Michael Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz, 121-123. See especially “The Cultural Revolution and Religious Unity,” Religious Education 62:2 (March-April 1967): 98-103, and “Jewish Values and the Changing American Ethic,” Tradition 10:1 (Summer 1968): 42-74. — 279 —

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a vehicle for attempting this post-1960s amalgamation of authority and autonomy. It was a vehicle which attempted to provide increasing (and hitherto unprecedented) levels of autonomy to the human partner, while at the same time remaining true to traditional understandings of law, obligation, and revelation.103 However, as the rationale behind the emergence of the contemporary covenantal discussion has gradually decreased in significance, the perceived rootedness of these theories to specific cultural and academic contexts threatens to lessen the importance of the work of Borowitz and Hartman. Forty years on, the cultural context has dramatically changed. Some concerns remain, such as the continued erosion of ethical values in an increasingly consumerist society. Others, however, are new, such as the concern over the long-term viability of a capitalist, consumerist system (especially considering the global economic downturn), the shift within academia toward increasing levels of specialisation within subject field, or the postmodern, or postpostmodern turn, with its denial of absolute values and rejection of aspects of structural and analytic thought. These new concerns, typical of today’s cultural context, do not typify the endeavour under discussion. The 1960s and 1970s context to which I refer manifests itself within contemporary covenantal thought in three specific ways: 1. Historical proximity to the Holocaust. The new school of Jewish theologians which I discuss in the introduction were the first generation of Jewish thinkers to have to grapple with the enormity of the Holocaust, and finding apposite ways of doing so inevitably superseded any other potential conversations taking place between them. 2. The way in which the context supported an emphasis on autonomy. The culture of 1960s America supported an optimism in one’s fellow human being and fostered a belief in the progression of human development through the second half of the century. This optimism cultivated a heightened emphasis on the supreme importance of individual autonomy, which was 103

This vehicle shares similarities with the Catholic attempt at aggiornamento, as I mentioned in the introduction. See chapter 1, note 51, and the text therein. — 280 —

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not necessarily shared by the rest of the Western world, making America the most likely location for the initial development of contemporary covenantal thought. 3. The significance of the Six Day War. Post-1967, American Jews awakened to their important role within the global Jewish community. They saw themselves as recipients of an almost divine deliverance from enemy forces and began to associate more strongly and proudly with the State of Israel in the immediate aftermath of the war. The relevance of these three specific contexts has undoubtedly lessened over the past forty years. The significance of the Holocaust in particular has diminished, as a new generation of thinkers attempts to step out of the shadow of their predecessors and find new ways of appropriating Jewish faith other than explaining it in light of one of its greatest tragedies. However, rather than leading to an increased optimism, the former optimism of mid-century American society has been replaced by pessimism and scepticism,104 both within the American context and, more significantly, toward it. The first decade of the twenty-first century will be remembered for the mass media’s portrayal of an anti-Americanism which is gradually having an affect on the American psyche. Finally, the historical proximity to the Six Day War, which led to a belief in Israeli supremacy and to the instigation of close political and charitable links between the American and Israeli Jewish communities, has been replaced by an erosion of confidence in the Israeli government and an awareness of the seeming unresolveability of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Does covenantal thought’s historical rootedness in the cultural context of its day undermine it? In my opinion it does. That does not mean to say that contemporary covenantal thought has no place in the 104

It is an interesting facet of the three manifestations I outlined above that they contain within them a dialectic of confidence and hesitation — the confidence of the post-1967 optimism contrasting with the hesitancy of beginning to reappropriate Judaism in the wake of Auschwitz. It would be incorrect, therefore, to suggest that the situation is as simple as a replacement of the 1960s optimism by a current-day pessimism, because both inclinations are identifiable in the mid-century context. — 281 —

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twenty-first century; it just means that, as western culture has moved from one zeitgeist to another, academic discussions that remain rooted to an earlier cultural phenomenon will undoubtedly lose at least a certain amount of relevance along the way.

7.4 Developing our Subsequent Understanding As I conclude the present work, it is important to indicate new directions in which this study could be taken in the future, and ways in which the covenantal thought of both Hartman and Borowitz could be used in developing a subsequent understanding in the field of contemporary Jewish philosophical-theological theorising. Although it is not the point of this study, I nonetheless think it is relevant to pass comment on whether these theories have longevity and how significant their impact will be on subsequent generations of students of Jewish studies. There are a number of aspects of Hartman’s and Borowitz’s thought which I think one will want to avoid. These problematic aspects do, I think, undermine the strengths of these theories and, by extension, the field as a whole. The general over-emphasis on divine pathos is one such problematic aspect. Contemporary covenantal thought presents a one-sided vision of the divine entity which does not seem to take into account all aspects of the divine as it comes across in biblical and rabbinic literature. Another questionable aspect of these theories is their historical rootedness, or what could be termed their “zeitgeistmentality.” Borowitz explicitly vindicates the open engagement with history that seems to accompany contemporary covenantal thought, and Daniel Landes has already pointed out “Hartman’s reluctance to criticise directly or by reference any modern value.”105 This wholehearted embrace and adoption of modern values, whilst appearing attractive to some readers, is already appearing to date these theories as being indicative of a certain cultural and historical context, and thus limiting their ability to transcend that context and speak to a broader audience in subsequent generations. A third limitation of these theories is their undermining of the 105

Landes, “A Vision of Finitude,” 111. — 282 —

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notion of fear of God. Implicit in an understanding of the mature love model espoused by Hartman and Borowitz is the active selection process at work in its promotion. Both love and fear are presented within the normative tradition as authentic responses to divine-human interaction, and the sole emphasis of one (love) and marginalisation of the other (fear) represents a distortion of the correct, more nuanced picture. This has a knock-on effect for an understanding of the type of God whom one is covenanted with. According to the protagonists, humanity enters into a loving relationship not with a jealous, arbitrary or totalitarian God, but rather with the God of the Sodom narrative, an explicable, relatable and ultimately lovable divine entity. The final limitation is closely linked to this undermining of the notion of fear of God. Covenantal thought has tended to encourage too much intimacy between man and God. I contend that there is a proper distance between man and God which contemporary covenantal thought minimizes. At numerous points in biblical and rabbinic literature one is informed that proximity with God can be dangerous;106 people can get hurt when they get too close to God. Boundaries are erected on a number of occasions to protect both the sanctity of the divine partner and the wellbeing of the human partner. What is it about the contemporary situation that allows present-day thinkers to dispense with these prescribed boundaries and audaciously suggest that the gap between man and God is far smaller than previously conceived? This can serve to put man at great risk of not only getting injured by his proximity to God, but also of damaging our conception of God by undermining His sanctity. These limitations of contemporary covenantal thought are representative of legitimate concerns of adapting these theories for use in subsequent conceptions of divine-human relationship. However, there are a number of other aspects which remain appealing and which I would encourage scholars to keep and develop wherever possible. Foremost on this list would be the psychological realisation

106

See note 69 from earlier in this chapter. Consider also Deuteronomy 4:24 “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire,” and BT, Sotah 14a which equates that verse with a warning to imitate divine attributes but not to imitate God Himself. See also BT, Shabbat 133b, and Daniel 7:9 — “His Throne was fiery flames.” — 283 —

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which I described at the start of this chapter as being indicative of the strength of covenantal thought. As a result of the empowerment model, the human partner is consistently encouraged by this ongoing psychological realisation that God cares about their life, that the possibility of relationship and intimacy with Him exist, and that He has further chosen to be bound by his or her future choices. A life lived through this realisation will, I believe, yield a courageous religious personality who, while remaining a loyal divine servant, will not always feel like an insignificant member of a faith community but will dare to feel like a crucial partner of the divine, and may take his or her religious obligations considerably more seriously as a result. A central aspect of covenantal thought has been the striking of a delicate balance between autonomy and authority, and this balance will have to be struck anew by any subsequent theory. The success of covenantal thought seems to hinge on its ability to accord enough significance to both sides of this dichotomy without undermining either. The deference to revelation and divine involvement is not diluted at the expense of the perceived importance of individual moral sensibility, which is an achievement of note. This equilibrium is achieved by championing the normative Jewish framework, so biblical and rabbinic references pepper the pages of contemporary covenantal thought. It is also achieved by emphasising the significance of the revelatory moment (regardless of the considerable differences between the two protagonists’ interpretation of revelation), which allows for significant human involvement but does not allow for the human partner to create his own set of responsibilities without any divine input. The promotion of responsibility is in itself a huge strength of contemporary covenantal thought, because one can retain the notion of responsibility without needing the halakhic framework per se, and the choice of the term responsibility carries with it both weight (in its hefty obligation) and attraction (in not being seen through the confines of a fixed set of pre-ordained rules). Ethics are crucial to the thought of both Hartman and Borowitz, and should remain so in any subsequent theory. Ethics has perhaps taken the place of legalism for them. The move away from the law is made central at the very outset of this endeavour by the definition of covenant by both protagonists — 284 —

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as something other than, or more than, a legal contract. And finally, one of the by-products of contemporary covenantal thought, a metadenominational pluralism, will I think increase in appeal as the Jewish community begins to take more seriously its role in the modern world and recognize that it encompasses the need to address social and moral concerns outside the confines of its own community. A pluralistic, universalistic platform seems best suited to take on this new challenge, and it has been explicitly set by both protagonists, who see issues of social justice and charity in the non-Jewish community as an absolutely necessary part of covenantal consciousness. How will this be achieved? Is it possible to extract the desirable elements from these theories without necessarily having to adopt the less attractive aspects also? This is a legitimate concern, as, for example, it would appear that the limitation of misunderstanding heightened intimacy with God (which I labelled as a weakness) is a by-product of the psychological realisation of what covenant means (which I labelled as a strength). Clearly these issues are intrinsically related. However, I think that an alternative approach could both separate these linked elements and point toward a more successful adoption of the several truly promising aspects of contemporary covenantal thought. Blumenthal points out that contemporary covenantal thought has been criticised for not acknowledging the non-covenantal aspects of the tradition. An understanding of his criticism can help us to adapt covenantal thought and strengthen it. In my view, there are aspects of the tradition—such as the notions of fear of God, divine grace, and human infidelity to the divine will—which grate against their understanding of covenant. What is needed is an appreciation that the covenant is one paradigm for understanding the divine-human relationship, but that there are others also. Without the recognition that the covenant is one of a number of competing paradigms for understanding the complicated nature of man’s role vis-à-vis the divine, covenantal thought can seem inappropriate and unhelpful. The appreciation of competing paradigms will redeem the covenantal category and allow it to speak to us at times when we most desire it. It will lessen the significance of some of the problematics which I have described and will at the same time take some of the central aspects—empowerment, responsibility, intimacy— — 285 —

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and allow them to nurture our ongoing sense of what being in a relationship with God could mean. At times in our lives when anxiety and sorrow set in, or when we rely on God’s grace to deliver us from sin (as the Jewish people do every year on the Day of Atonement that marks the climax of the Ten Days of Repentance), we will not feel the need to jettison the covenantal category, but can instead temporarily marginalise it in favour of an alternative conception of God which does justice to a different facet of the divine and which demands a different understanding of our interaction with Him. This understanding would undoubtedly differ from relationship and partnership and veer instead toward subjection and humble servant, which are no less typical of the portrayal offered at times in biblical and rabbinic literature of the default position of the Children of Israel to their God. The religious adherent would then be faced with a kind of Soloveitchikian dialectic of competing paradigms for interaction with God, and would struggle to know which paradigm to adopt in which situation. And one may just find that the angst which would accompany the difficult decision of choosing which paradigm to adopt would elevate the man of faith to a position higher than that which he previously would have occupied when no such tension existed. As a result of this study, and particularly in light of the problematics highlighted in this chapter, I advocate a transformation of covenantal thought. It is important to point out that this transformation differs dramatically from a complete abandonment. The covenant is an extremely important tool to think with when theorising about contemporary Jewish theology, because it brings to the fore crucial aspects of the human condition. However, it is similarly crucial not to view covenantal thought in isolation, and instead to see how it can (and should) be viewed in conjunction with other theories describing the divine-human relationship, and with other philosophical-theological models for understanding and interpreting the human condition. This is not the task of the present work; rather, it is a task which this study presents, and which will hopefully be picked up by subsequent scholars. The outcome of this study is an insistence on a more dialectical understanding of the covenantal relationship, one which incorporates aspects of both ahavah and yirah, aspects of both the parental — 286 —

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relationship and the king-subject relationship, and ultimately both the covenantal and the trans-covenantal thought within the Jewish tradition. Such a dialectical understanding would, in my opinion, be a huge strength, and through this kind of understanding the significant advances made by Hartman and Borowitz in the field of covenantal thought would be emphasised and not marginalised. Contemporary covenantal thought, viewed in isolation, is a reduction of the richness of the Jewish tradition; viewing the God-man relationship solely as parent-child, or solely as husband-wife, inhibits the relationship by forcing it to be contained within any one biblical-rabbinic metaphor when a more nuanced understanding would make for a better (and more informed) kind of relationship. The importance of this more nuanced understanding is outlined for subsequent strands of Jewish philosophy and theology by one of its foremost predecessors, Moses Maimonides, when he writes, “One only loves God with the knowledge with which one knows Him. According to the knowledge will be the love. If the former be little or much, so will the latter be little or much. A person ought therefore to devote himself to the understanding and comprehension of those sciences and studies which will inform him concerning his Master.”107 If love of God is the goal of true worship, then (according to Maimonides) one can only love Him in accordance with one’s knowledge of Him. Maimonides essentially raises the bar for contemporary theologians; misconceptions about the true nature of the divine-human relationship can genuinely inhibit one’s quest to seek God in one’s everyday lives. Understood alongside a more dialectical appreciation of the relationship, as advanced by this study, Borowitz and Hartman’s thought will help to achieve this goal.

107

MT, Laws Concerning Repentance, 10:6. — 287 —

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Glossary of Hebrew Terms

Aggadah: Legends and lore in Jewish literature, though now sometimes used for all non-legal material, including philosophy and mysticism. Agunah (pl. agunot): Literally a “chained woman,” the halakhic term for a woman who has not been granted a religiously valid divorce document by her husband. Ahavah: Love. Ahavat Yisrael: Love of Israel, that is of the Jewish people; a major Jewish virtue. Akedah: The binding, refers to the binding of Isaac by Abraham in Genesis 22. Aliyah: Literally “ascent,” refers to a Jewish person’s immigration to Israel. Am Yisrael: The people of Israel, that is the Jewish people. Amora (pl. amoraim): Rabbinic teacher of the period between the closure of the Mishnah and the first compilation of the Talmud, approximately 200–500 CE. Ani ma’amin: I believe. The name of a prosaic rendition of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith. Bat kol: Heavenly voice, a divine communication. Bet din: A court of Jewish law. Brit: Covenant. Cherubim: A form of angelic beings mentioned several times in the Bible, which are symbols of God’s presence, for example in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24) and inside the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:18). Daf yomi: A specific type of daily Talmud class where one learns a page a day and thus completes the entire Talmud in approximately seven years. Dalet amot: Four cubits (a cubit is a measurement of length not dissimilar to a stride), the rabbinic calculation for one’s personal space. Din: Judgment, law. El Shaddai: The Strong Almighty, one of the biblical divine names. Ein-Sof: “Without End,” the kabbalistic term for describing the God who is hidden in His own self. Gemara: Commentary on, and exposition of, the Mishnah, which together form — 289 —

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the Talmud. Ge’ulah: Redemption. Halakhah (pl. halakhot): Jewish law. Refers either to the authoritative, decided law of the rabbis in a particular case, or to the entire body of rabbinic law. Haredi: Ultra-Orthodox, used to refer to the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. Hasidim: Followers of Hasidic Judaism, a pietistic branch of Orthodox Judaism that began in Poland in the eighteenth century. Hesed: Loving-kindness, or benevolence; an attribute of God and a prime Jewish virtue. Havruta: Study partner, or the traditional Jewish practice of learning with a partner. Hukkim: Statutes. Used to denote commandments that appear to have no rationale that man can understand. Hutzpah (Yiddish): Audacity, or impertinence. Kabbalah: Literally “reception” and thus its early use to mean “tradition.” Now more commonly used to describe Jewish mystical teaching. Kapparah: Atonement. Karat: Verb “to cut.” Kashrut: Abstract noun meaning “the concept of that which is kosher,” that is, fit to be eaten in accordance with the dietary laws. Ketubbah: Marriage document. Kiddush: Sanctification. Used specifically to refer to the blessing over the wine on Shabbat and festivals. Kiddush ha-Shem: Sanctification of God’s name. This is the classic rabbinic term for laying down one’s life rather than transgressing certain Torah prohibitions (martyrdom). Klal Yisrael: The congregation of Israel. Knesset Yisrael: Literally the “gathering” of Israel, refers to the entire congregation of Jewish people. Lifnim mishurat hadin: Literally “within the line of the law.” Going beyond the letter of the law. Litvak (Yiddish): A Jew of Lithuanian origin. Lo bashamayim hi: It is not in heaven (Deuteronomy 30:12). Machloket le-shem shamayim: An argument for the sake of heaven. Malkhut shamayim: The Kingdom of Heaven. Mamzer (pl. mamzerut): The legal category referring to a person born from certain proscribed relationships, or the descendent of such a person. Matan Torah: The giving of the Torah. Matsui Rishon: Primary Being, one of the divine names (used by Maimonides at the start of the Mishneh Torah). — 290 —

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Matzah: Unleavened bread, eaten on Passover. Matzevah: Literally “pillar” or “monument.” More commonly used to refer to a gravestone. Midrash (pl. midrashim): Literally “exposition.” A term that can be used for any rabbinic interpretation, but specifically used to denote certain rabbinic collections of biblical exegesis. Minyan: A quorum of ten men over the age of bar mitzvah, required for certain religious obligations. Also used to refer to any communal prayer gathering. Mishkan: Literally “dwelling place,” refers to the Tabernacle built by the Jews in the desert to be the portable dwelling place for the divine Presence. Mishnah: The first written compilation of Oral Law, redacted by Judah the Prince in around 200 CE. Mishpatim: “Judgements.” Used to refer to commandments that can clearly be understood as rational by human beings. Mitnagged: Of, or relating to, Mitnaggedim (see below). Mitnaggedim: Literally “the opposers,” members of the movement which developed in Lithuania in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in opposition to Hasidism. Mitzvah (pl. mitzvot): Commandment, precept. Musar: “Instruction.” Self-scrutiny with the aim of character improvement, hence the nineteenth-century Lithuanian mussar movement which developed around this concept. Na’aseh venishma: We will do and we will listen (Exodus 24:7). Nidui: A ban. Olam ha-ba: The world to come. Olam ha-zeh: This world. Ot ha-brit: A sign of the covenant. Pesakim: Halakhic verdicts. Piyyut: A Jewish liturgical poem. Posek (pl. posekim): One who renders decisions in halakhic law. Rachamim: Mercy; an attribute of God. Rav: Shortened form of rabbi. Reishit tsmichat geulatenu: “The beginning of the flowering of our redemption.” Phrase used to attribute messianic significance to the establishment of the state of Israel. Revi’it: A volume of liquid used frequently in the Talmud. Rosh yeshivah: The principal of a rabbinic seminary. Sanhedrin: Assembly of judges that formed the Supreme Court in ancient Israel. Sefer ha-brit: Book of the covenant. Sefirot: Spheres. Used to refer to the ten nodes of God’s power and functioning, — 291 —

-------------------------------------------------------   Glossary of Hebrew Terms -------------------------------------------------------

a unique and essential part of kabbalistic theory. Shabbat: The Sabbath. Shekhinah: The indwelling presence of God, from the Hebrew root shakhan, meaning to dwell. Used to refer to the divine Presence on earth, or the indwelling of God in the world. Shema: Hear. The first word, and the name, of one of the central prayers of the liturgy, recited twice daily, and consisting of three biblical extracts from Deuteronomy and Numbers. Shevirat ha-kelim: The shattering of the vessels, an essential doctrine of Lurianic kabbalism. Shira hadasha: Literally “new song,” the name (taken from the liturgy) chosen by the prayer community founded by Tova Hartman in Jerusalem. Shiur: A measuring standard, but more commonly used to refer to a lecture given in a yeshivah or elsewhere on traditional Jewish topics. Shoah: Literally “whirlwind,” the term preferred by many Jewish scholars to “the Holocaust” to connote the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis during the Second World War. Shofar: A horn, usually that of a ram, used as part of the prayer services from the beginning of the month of Elul until the end of the Day of Atonement. Shtibl (Yiddish): Literally “small room.” The name for a house of prayer, or a type of prayer community in the Haredi (and especially Hasidic) community. Siddur: Prayer book. Ta’amei hamitzvot: The reasons for the commandments. Taharah: Cleanliness, purification. Talmid (fem. Talmidah, pl. talmidim): Student. Talmud: Compilation of the Oral Law, composed of both the Mishnah and the Gemara. There is a Babylonian Talmud and a Palestinian Talmud. The former was compiled later and has become authoritative. Talmud Torah: Literally “Torah learning,” refers to the study of all sacred texts. Tanakh: The Hebrew Bible. Formed as an acronym of the three works of which it is composed. Torah (the Pentateuch), Nevi’im (the Prophets) and Ketuvim (the Writings). Tanna (pl. tannaim): Sages cited in the Mishnah. Tefillah: Prayer. Tikkun olam: Restoration (or repairing) of the world, a central doctrine in Lurianic kabbalism. Tokhehah: Rebuke or warning. Torah: Literally “instruction.” Can refer to the five books of Moses, the entire Hebrew Bible, or all normative Jewish teachings. Tsimtsum: Contraction. The process by which Lurianic kabbalah explains the first phase of Creation. — 292 —

-------------------------------------------------------   Glossary of Hebrew Terms -------------------------------------------------------

Tzaddik: Righteous person; leader of a Hasidic group. Tzedakah: Literally “righteousness”; used to refer to the specific duty of giving charity. Vayekhezu: Beheld, gazed. Yeshivah (pl. yeshivot): Rabbinic seminary. Yetzer hara: Evil inclination. Yirah: Fear. Yirat shamayim: Fear of heaven, fear of divine justice.

— 293 —

------------------------------------------------------------------   Sources—Books: ------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sources—Books: Borowitz, Eugene. Choices in Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide. New York: Behrman House, 1983. ———. Choosing a Sex Ethic: A Jewish Enquiry. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. ———. Exploring Jewish Ethics: Papers on Covenant Responsibility. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990. ———. A Layman’s Introduction to Religious Existentialism. New York: Delta, 1966. ———. The Mask Jews Wear: The Self-Deceptions of American Jewry. Port Washington, NY: Sh’ma, 1980. ———. A New Jewish Theology in the Making. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968. ———. Reform Judaism Today. Vol. 1, Reform in the Process of Change. New York: Behrman House, 1978. ———. Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991. ———. Studies in the Meaning of Judaism. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002. ———. The Talmud’s Theological Language-Game: A Philosophical Discourse Analysis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Borowitz, Eugene, and Frances Schwartz. A Touch of the Sacred: A Theologian’s Informal Guide to Jewish Belief. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007. Hartman, David. Conflicting Visions: Spiritual Possibilities of Modern Israel. New York: Schocken Books, 1990. ———. A Heart of Many Rooms: Celebrating the Many Voices within Judaism. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1999. ———. Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: An Ancient People Debating its Future. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. ———. Joy and Responsibility: Israel, Modernity, and the Renewal of Judaism. — 295 —

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Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi-Posner, 1978. ———. A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997. ———. Love and Terror in the God Encounter: The Theological Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Vol. 1. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001. ———. Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1976. Hartman, David, and Abraham Halkin. Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.

Sources—Articles: Borowitz, Eugene, “Abraham Joshua Heschel, Model.” Sh’ma 3, no. 46 (January 1973): 41–42. ———. “Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophet of Social Activism.” In No Religion is an Island: The Nostra Aetate Dialogues, edited by Edward Bristow, 153–80. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998. ———. “Abraham Joshua Heschel: Thinking about our Teacher.” In Judaism After Modernity: Papers from a Decade of Fruition, edited by Eugene Borowitz, 343–48. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999. ———. “The Autonomous Jewish Self.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 215–33. ———. “The Autonomous Self and the Commanding Community.” Theological Studies 45, no. 1 (March 1984): 34–56. ———. “The Career of Jewish Existentialism.” Jewish Book Annual 32 (1974– 1975): 44–49. ———. “The Chosen People Concept as it Affects Life in the Diaspora.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 12, no. 4 (Fall 1975): 553–68. ———. “Emil Fackenheim as Lurianic Philosopher.” Sh’ma 13, no. 254 (May 1983): 109–11. ———. “Future of Reform—More God, More Jewish, More Humble.” Manna 50 (Winter 1996), 18–22. ———. “God and Man in Judaism Today: A Reform Perspective.” Judaism 23, no. 3 (Summer 1974): 298. ———. “God-is-Dead Theology.” Judaism 15, no. 1 (Winter 1966): 85–94. ———. “Halakhah in Reform Jewish Usage: Historic Background and Current Discourse.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 415–33. ———. “Im Ba’et, Eyma—Since You Object, Let me Put it This Way.” In Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish — 296 —

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Theology, edited by Peter Ochs, 145–70. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000). ———. “The Legacy of Martin Buber.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 22, no. 1 (November 1966): 3–17. ———. “A Life of Jewish Learning: In Search of a Theology of Judaism.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 379–414. ———. “A Nearness in Difference: Jewish-Catholic Dialogue Since Vatican II.” Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics, and Culture 133, no. 1 (January 2006): 17–21. ———. “On Celebrating Sinai.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 101–14. ———. “On the Ethical Moment in Halakhah: A Disagreement with Aharon Lichtenstein.” In Borowitz, Exploring Jewish Ethics, 193–203. ———. “Postmodern Judaism: One Theologian’s View.” In Ochs, Reviewing the Covenant, 35–45. ———. “Recent Historic Events: Jewish and Christian Interpretations.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 193–213. ———. “The Reform Judaism of Renewing the Covenant: An Open Letter to Elliot Dorff.” In The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai, edited by Elliot Dorff, 469–74. New York: Aviv Press, 2005. ———. “Response to the Questions in ‘Three Presents for Gene.’” CCAR Journal 56, no. 4 (Fall 2009), 27–29. ———. “Subjectivity and the Halakhic Process.” Judaism 13, no. 2 (Spring 1964): 211–19. ———. “The Typological Theology of Joseph Baer Soloveitchik.” Judaism 15, no. 2 (Spring 1966): 203–10. ———. “Tzimtzum: A Mystic Model for Contemporary Leadership.” In Borowitz, Studies in the Meaning of Judaism, 157–70. Hartman, David. “The Breakdown of Tradition and the Quest for Renewal: Reflections on Three Responses to Modernity—J. B. Soloveitchik, Mordechai Kaplan, A. J. Heschel.” Forum 37 (1980): 9–24; 38 (1980): 43–64; 39 (1980): 61–75. ———. “Contemporary Religious Life and Thought in Israel: On the Possibilities of Religious Pluralism from a Jewish Viewpoint.” Immanuel 16 (Summer 1983): 101–18. ———. “Creativity and Imitatio Dei.” S’vara 2, no. 1 (1991): 36–39. ———. “Current Debate—Human Autonomy and Divine Providence: A Response to Landes’ Review.” Tikkun 2, no. 1 (1987): 121–26. ———. “Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language.” Tradition 16, no. 1 (1976): 7–40. ———. “Judaism Encounters Christianity Anew.” In Visions of the Other: Jewish — 297 —

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and Christian Theologians Assess the Dialogue, edited by Eugene Fisher, 67–80. New York: Paulist Press, 1994. ———. “Living in Relationship with the Other: God and Human Perfection in the Jewish Tradition, Implications for Jewish Communal Professionals.” Available online at . ———. “The Religious Significance of Religious Pluralism.” In Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, edited by Moshe Halbertal and Donniel Hartman, 95–104. New York: Continuum, 2007. ———. “Yeshayahu Leibowitz.” In Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, edited by Steven T. Katz, 189–204. Washington, DC: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993. Hartman, David, and Yonatan Ben Dov. “The God of the Jewish Community.” In Sheelot ‘al Elohim: Dialogim, edited by Yizhar Hess and Elazar Shturm, 291–98. Or Yehuda, Israel: Hed Arzi, 2008. Hartman, David, and Fred Worms. “Living Covenant: David Hartman in Conversation with Fred Worms.” L’eylah 26 (September 1988), 6–10.

Sources—Digital Media: Berrin, Susan, Shaul Magid, Simone Schweber, Abraham Socher, Rachel Sabbath Beit-Halachmi, and Eugene Borowitz. “Pressing the Boundaries of Pluralism: A Roundtable Discussion in Honor of Eugene Borowitz.” Recording of the session at the 37th Annual American Jewish Studies Conference, December 2005 (Session 5.1). Hartman, David. “Problematics of Tikkun Olam.” Lecture given on June 29, 2007. Audio recording available on request from Shalom Hartman Institute archives. ———. “Standing Before God: Images of Man and God in Classical Jewish Thought.” Lindenbaum Lecture given on December 25, 2006. Audio recording available on request from Shalom Hartman Institute archives. ———. “Standing Before God: Images of Man and God in Classical Jewish Thought.” Lindenbaum Lecture given on January 29, 2007. Audio recording available on request from Shalom Hartman Institute archives.

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Berkovits, Eliezer. Faith After the Holocaust. New York: Ktav, 1973. ———. Major Themes in Modern Philosophies of Judaism. New York: Ktav, 1974. ———. Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halacha. New York: Ktav, 1983. Biemann, Asher. The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Braiterman, Zachary. (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Buber, Martin. Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy. New York: Harper & Row, 1957. ———. I and Thou. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Cohen, Arthur A., and Paul Mendes-Flohr, eds. Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs. New York: Free Press, 1987. Cohen, Hermann. Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism. Translated by Simon Kaplan. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1972. De Lange, Nicolas, and Miri Freud-Kandel, eds. Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Dorff, Elliot. Mitzvah Means Commandment. New York: United Synagogue Youth, 1989. ———. The Unfolding Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai. New York: Aviv Press, 2005. Eisen, Arnold. The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. ———. Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Eleff, Zev, ed. Mentor of Generations: Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2008. Ellenson, David. Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990. Fackenheim, Emil. God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections. New York: New York University Press, 1970. ———. The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. ———. To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Farber, Seth. An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s Maimonides School. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2004. Frank, Daniel, and Oliver Leaman, eds. History of Jewish Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1997. Freeman, Gordon M. The Heavenly Kingdom: Aspects of Political Thought in the — 299 —

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Talmud and Midrash. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986. Gillman, Neil. Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Gottlieb, Michah. Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Greenberg, Irving. For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter Between Judaism and Christianity. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004. ———. The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988. ———. Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. ———. The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History. New York: National Jewish Resource Center, 1981. ———. Voluntary Covenant. New York: National Jewish Resource Center, 1982. Guttman, Julius, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig. Translated by David W. Silverman. New York: Schocken Books, 1973. Halbertal, Moshe. People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Halbertal, Moshe, and Donniel Hartman. Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life. New York: Continuum, 2007. Harris, Michael. Divine Command Ethics: Jewish and Christian Perspectives. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Hertzberg, Arthur, ed. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. New York: Atheneum, 1979. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Earth is the Lord’s: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2008. ———. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. ———. Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. Translated by Gordon Tucker. New York: Continuum, 2007. ———. The Prophets. New York: Perennial, 2001. Hirsch, Samson Raphael. Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances. Translated by Isadore Grunfeld. New York: Soncino Press, 1962. Jacobs, Louis. Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. ———. Their Heads in Heaven: Unfamiliar Aspects of Hasidism. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005. — 300 —

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Kadushin, Max. A Conceptual Approach to the Mekilta. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1969. ———. The Rabbinic Mind. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1952. Kant, Immanuel. The Conflict of the Faculties. Translated by Mary Gregor. New York: Abaris Books, 1979. ———. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Kaplan, Mordecai. Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of AmericanJewish Life. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Katz, Jacob. Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages. Translated by Bernard Cooperman. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Katz, Steven T., ed. Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century. Washington, DC: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993. ———. Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought. New York: New York University Press, 1983. Kellner, Menachem. Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. ———. Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006. ———. Maimonides on the “Decline of the Generations” and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. ———. Must a Jew Believe Anything? London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999. Lamm, Norman. The Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1999. ———. Torah Umadda: The Encounter of Religious Learning and Worldly Knowledge in the Jewish Tradition. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1990. Leibowitz, Yeshayahu. Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State. Translated by Eliezer Goldman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Nathan the Wise. Translated by Edward Kemp. London: Nick Hern, 2003. Malino, Jonathan. Judaism and Modernity: The Religious Philosophy of David Hartman. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004. Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem, or, On Religious Power and Judaism. Translated by Allan Arkush. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1983. Morgan, Michael L. Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Morgan, Michael, and Peter Eli Gordon, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. — 301 —

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Novick, Peter. The Holocaust and Collective Memory: The American Experience. London: Bloomsbury, 2001. Ochs, Peter, ed., Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Rashkover, Randi, and Martin Kafka, eds. Tradition in the Public Square: A David Novak Reader. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans, 2008. Rosenzweig, Franz. Philosophical and Theological Writings. Translated by Paul Franks and Michael Morgan. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2000. ———. The Star of Redemption. Translated by Barbara Galli. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Rubenstein, Richard. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merill, 1966. ———. After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary Judaism. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Rynhold, Daniel. An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009. Sacks, Jonathan. To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility. London: Continuum, 2005. Sagi, Avi. The Open Canon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse. Translated by Batya Stein. London: Continuum, 2007. Sarna, Nahum. The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991. ———. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. ———. Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. Schechter, Solomon. Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1909. Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1995. Seeskin, Kenneth. Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Shapiro, Marc. The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. Soloveitchik, Joseph B. And From There You Shall Seek. Translated by Naomi Goldblum. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2008. ———. Fate and Destiny: From Holocaust to the State of Israel. Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 2000. ———. Halakhic Man. Translated by Lawrence Kaplan. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983. — 302 —

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———. The Lonely Man of Faith. New York: Doubleday, 2006. Sorkin, David. Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment. London: Peter Halban, 1996. Spiegel, Shalom. The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice; The Akedah. Translated by Judah Goldin. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993. Strack, H. L., and G. Stemberger. Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. Translated by Markus Bockmuehl. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1991. Urbach, Ephraim E. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Vermes, Pamela. Buber on God and the Perfect Man. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1994. Walzer, Michael, Menachem Loberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar, eds. The Jewish Political Tradition. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000–2003. Waxman, Zoë. Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation. Oxford University Press: New York, 2006. Wiesel, Elie. The Gates of the Forest. New York: Schocken Books, 1982. Wertheimer, Jack, ed. The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Wolf, Arnold Jacob, ed. Rediscovering Judaism: Reflections on a New Theology. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965. Yuval, Israel. Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus. New York: Doubleday, 2001.

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— 309 —

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX

Akiva, rabbi Albo, Joseph Alfasi, Isaac Alkalai, Judah American Jewish Congress Aristotle

259n56, 260 118n14 15 197n36 212n74 47, 48, 126

Baeck, Leo Batnitzky, Leora Beit Halachmi, Rachel Shabbat Berkovits, Eliezer

59, 60, 213, 213n77 33, 33n48, 303 65, 298 54n18, 134n81, 134n85, 135n88, 146, 161, 162, 162n49, 162n50, 162n51, 163, 163n53, 261, 261n60, 261n61, 262, 299 162, 162n48, 162n49, 162n50, 162n51, 163n53, 299 32, 32n42, 101n79,254n43, 267, 267n80, 268, 269, 269n84, 269n85, 271, 272, 285, 303 64

— Not in Heaven Blumenthal, David

Borodowski, Alfredo Borowitz, Eugene — Biography — Choosing a Sex Ethic: A Jewish Enquiry — Ethical Impulse in Halakhah — Renewing the Covenant

— 310 —

25 180, 180n113, 264n72, 295 171n79, 171n80, 171n82, 172n85, 172n87, 173n93 25, 25n30, 28, 33n46, 52, 59, 59n36, 59n37, 60n41, 60n42, 62, 95n58, 96n64, 105, 105n95, 106, 107n97, 109n100, 149n7, 150n9, 150n11, 152, 167,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

167n66, 168, 168n69, 168n70, 171n81, 174n96, 198, 198n38, 206n60, 213n77, 215n84, 216n87, 248, 248n28, 248n30, 249n33, 250, 265, 265n73, 272n88, 295 33n46, 62, 105, 148n3, 148n5, 173n92, 213n77, 215n86, 296

— The Autonomous Jewish Self

— The Future of Reform Judaism: More God, More Jewish, More Humble 60n38, 60n40, 61, 296 — The Reform Judaism of ‘Renewing the Covenant:’ An Open Letter to Elliot Dorff 59n36, 150n9, 150n11, 297 — The Talmud’s Theological Language Game 25, 25n29, 107n97, 168n68, 171n81,3213n78, 295 Breslau Rabbinical Seminary 134n81 Buber, Martin viii, 23, 30n38, 49, 84, 107, 107n99, 109, 128, 133, 135-140, 142, 148-151, 167, 173, 190, 213, 213n77, 249, 250, 262, 297, 298, 299, 303, 304, 309 — I and Thou 109, 135n90, 137n98, 137n101, 299 Caro, Joseph 15, 157n33 — Shulkhan Arukh 157n33 Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) 166 Central Conference of American Rabbis Responsa Committee 166, 166n62 Chaim of Volozhin 214n83 Cohen, Hermann viii, 23, 52, 59, 60, 114n1, 128, 131-135, 142, 149, 213n77, 299, 307, 308 — Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism 134, 134n82, 134n83, 134n87, 142, 299 Cohen, Abraham 32, 32n43, 276n95, 304 Cohen, Arthur 17n7, 268n82, 269n85, 299, 303, 304 David Yellin College Descartes, Rene

65 127 — 311 —

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dorff, Elliot

31n40, 33n47, 59, 59n36, 62n46, 133n79, 150, 150n912, 152, 152n16, 166n63, 168, 168n67, 297, 299, 304 31n40, 33n47, 150n9-10, 152n16, 168n67, 297, 299, 304 90n41 90n41

— The Unfolding Tradition Dov Baer of Mezhirich Dubnow, Simon Eisen, Arnold

17, 17n7, 19, 21n17, 22, 32, 33n44, 100, 137n98, 138n102, 241n9, 299, 304 32, 32n43, 33, 33n48, 34n49, 299, 304

Ellenson, David

Fackenheim, Emil 4

9, 49n4, 54n18, 54n20, 55n22, 194n27, 251, 252, 252n40, 268n82, 275n92, 296, 299, 304, 305 — An Outline of a Modern Jewish Theology 251, 251n40, 304 Feinstein, Moshe 15 Feuerbach, Ludwig 95n62, 149, 149n8 Friedman, Menachem 155, 155n24, 158-159, 305 — The Lost Kiddush Cup 155n24, 158, 158n36-37, 159n39, 305 Gans, David Ganzfried, Shlomo — Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh Genachowski, Dov Gersonides (Levi ben Gershon, Ralbag) Gilbert, Martin Greenberg, Irving

— The Third Great Cycle — For the Sake of Heaven and Earth

— 312 —

238n3 157n33 157, 157n33, 158 159 128 200n45 xi, 32, 53-57, 60n39, 68-69, 95n58, 110, 168n68, 187190, 192-195, 197, 199-200, 203-206, 239n6, 242n11, 255, 259n55, 264n70, 271, 275n92, 276n93, 279, 300, 305, 306, 307 188, 188n6, 199, 199n42, 200, 259n55, 300 188, 188n7, 189n10, 193, 193n24, 203n51, 203n53,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

204n55, 239n6, 264n70, 300 — Jewish Values and the Changing American Ethic — Voluntary Covenant Guthartz, Lindsey Taylor Guttman, Julius

Halbertal, Moshe

56n24-25, 279n102, 305 58n34, 187, 187n1, 199, 200n43, 203n52, 275n92, 300 99n70 126, 126n44, 128n54-55, 129n62, 131n71, 135n88, 300, 305 27n32, 32, 32n44, 161n45, 164, 164n56, 195n31, 269269n83, 298, 300, 305, 306 49, 118n14 33, 33n48, 197n37, 305 180n112, 305 170n78, 300

Halevi, Judah Handelman, Susan Hare, R. M. Harris, Michael Hartman, David — Biography — A Heart of Many Rooms — A Living Covenant

24 103n89, 160, 196, 254, 277, 295 25, 26, 26n31, 32, 32n42, 33, 52, 63, 77, 83, 86, 92, 160, 161, 177, 189, 217, 254n43, 266n76, 267, 267n80, 269, 269n84, 296, 298, 303, 306 42n52, 100n74-75, 219, 219n96, 297

— Creativity and Imitatio Dei — Halakhah as a Ground for Creating a Shared Spiritual Language — Israelis and the Jewish Tradition — Joy and Responsibility — Judaism as an Interpretive Tradition — Love and Terror in the God Encounter Hartman, Donniel

Hartman, Tova Hebrew Union College — 313 —

57, 57n32-33, 78n1193n53, 158n34, 297, 309 87, 87n32, 157, 164, 175n97, 202, 245, 295 32, 58n34, 102n85, 104n93, 295 88, 200 65, 66, 100n74-75, 218n91, 219, 219n96, 220n98, 296, 306 161n45, 162n50, 164, 164n57, 195n31, 224, 224n101, 242n13, 254, 254n44, 298, 300, 306 67, 292. xi, 25, 49n4, 59, 65

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Heller, Yom Tov Lipmann Hellner-Eshed, Melila Heschel, Abraham Joshua

95, 211n73 238n3 65 23, 97-99, 102n83, 120n20, 160n44, 163n54, 213, 213n7778, 247, 258-260, 296, 297, 300 97n67, 98n68, 99n71, 120n20, 258, 258n53-54, 259n56, 260n58, 300 34, 34n49, 300 65

— Heavenly Torah

Hirsch, Samson Raphael Hourani, Muhammed I. Meier Segals Centre for the Study and Advancement of Judaism Idel, Moshe Isaac Elkhanan Rabbinic Seminary of Yeshiva University Isaiah di Trani (Rid) Ishmael, rabbi

54, 54n20, 55n22 254n43 24n27, 66 238n3 259, 259n56

Jacobovitz, Immanuel Jacobs, Louis Jewish Theological Seminary of America John XXIII, pope Jospe, Raphael Kafka, Martin 4 Kagan, Yisrael Meir (Hafetz Hayim) — Mishnah Berurah Kalischer, Zvi Hirsh Kant, Immanuel

166n62, 169 91n46, 117n10, 174n96, 256n46, 257n49, 300, 306 64, 149n9 38 154n22, 306

7, 47n1, 302 15, 159n39 159n39 197n36, 198n40 viii, 23, 23n23, 39, 95, 113-117, 119, 121, 121n30, 124, 127, 128, 128n54, 131-134, 138, 138n102, 140, 142, 213n77, 301, 305 — Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 114, 115n3, 121n30, 301 — Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone 131 — The Conflict of the Faculties 116n6, 301 Kaplan, Mordecai 149, 213, 213n77, 248, 248n27, 297, 301 — 314 —

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karelitz, Abraham Yeshayahu (Hazon Ish) Katz, Steven Kellner, Menachem

Kelman, Wolfe Kline, Meredith Kook, Abraham Isaac Krochmal, Nachmal Lamm, Norman Leibowitz, Yeshayahu Leiman, Shnayer Z. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim — Nathan the Wise Levinas, Emmanuel Lichtenstein, Aharon

15, 158-160, 306 94n57, 148n4 xi, 32, 32n41, 34n49, 84, 84n25, 117n10, 126n45, 127, 127n51, 221n99, 301, 306, 307 54n18 276n94 224 200n45 32, 90n41, 221n99, 301, 309 165, 298, 301 238n3, 306 244n18, 301 244n18, 301 218n93, 307 54n18, 117n10, 147, 170-173, 176n102, 297, 307

— Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha? Limmud, groups Luria, Isaac ben Solomon (Ari)

Maimonides (Moshe ben Maimon, Rambam)

McGill University Mendelssohn, Moses — Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism Mendenhall, George Metivta, rabbinical school Morgan, Michael

— 315 —

117n10, 170, 170n74, 170n78, 172n86, 307 241n10 90-92, 94, 191, 191n15, 192, 197, 197n36, 292 viii, 15, 27, 34, 35, 44, 49, 57, 63, 78n11, 97, 97n66, 98, 101n79, 122n32, 125-128, 132, 134, 135, 140-142, 157, 174n96, 195-196, 221n99, 231, 240n7, 258n52, 287, 289, 290, 296, 301, 302, 304 63, 165n58 129-131, 133. 141, 142, 298, 300, 301, 303, 305 128-131, 133, 301, 305 18, 18n9, 80, 81, 276n94, 307 150 28n34, 53, 53n15, 55, 56n24, 128n53, 194n27, 206n61,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

— Beyond Auschwitz Murray, John Nahmanides (Moshe ben Nahman, Ramban) Neuhaus, David Neusner, Jack Nietzsche, Friderich Novak, David

Ochs, Peter

279n101, 301, 302, 305, 307, 308, 309 53n15, 55, 56n24, 194n27, 206n61, 279n101, 301 276n94 81n18, 118, 118n12-14, 194n25, 258n52 65 54n18 95 47, 47n1, , 48, 49, 117n10, 118n14, 120, 120n21, 121, 149151, 237n2, 302, 307 22n20, 33, 33n48, 105n94, 149n7, 297, 302, 306, 307, 308, 309 68n64, 194n29, 307

Oppenheim, Michael Petuchowski, Jakob Plaut, Gunther Professional Advisory Committee of the Programme Development Fund for Jewish Education in New York Putnam, Hilary Rashkover, Randi Rosenzweig, Franz

Rothschild, Fritz Rubenstein, Richard Saadyah Gaon Sacks, Jonathan

54n18 54n18

212n74 32, 32n44, 245n22, 307 47, 47n1, 302 49126n44, 133, 35, 136n95, 139, 139n105-107, 139, 213n77, 300, 302, 305, 308 54n18 94-95, 261, 302, 304 118n14 63n50, 86n29, 191n15-16, 192n19, 192n22, 194n28, 266n77,302, 308 33, 33n48, 308 19n11, 81, 81n16, 81n18, 118n11, 302 54n18 238n3

Samuelson, Norbert Sarna, Nahum Schaalman, Herman Schneerson, Menachem Mendel — 316 —

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scholem, Gershom — Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism Schulweis, Harold Schwarzschild, Steven Seeskin , Kenneth

— Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy

Segals, Meier Shalom Hartman Institute Shapiro, Mendel Shatz, David Shepherd, Norman Shira Hadasha, congregation Siegel, Seymour Silverman, Joseph Singer, David — The New Orthodox Theology Sokol, Moshe

Soloveitchik, Chaim (Reb Chaim of Brisk) Soloveitchik, Haym — Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy Soloveitchik, Joseph Baer

— Halakhic Man

— Majesty and Humility

— 317 —

89-91, 191-192, 195n30, 197, 197n36, 302, 308 89, 90n39, 191, 302 32, 32n44, 308 54n18, 54n21 28, 28n34, 29n36, 35n50, 113115, 119-123, 126-127, 129n56, 131-138, 302, 308 35n50, 113-116, 120-123, 126127, 129n56, 131n72, 134-138, 302 53 xi, 24, 63n49, 156, 156n30, 175, 298 66, 66n58, 308 32, 32n44, 104n90, 254n43, 308 276n94 64, 66-68, 178, 292 54n18 166n61 33, 33n45, 66n56, 103n86, 220n98, 309 33, 33n45 63n50, 64n52, 66n56, 86n29, 101n79, 103n86, 220n98, 308, 309 24n27, 214n83 68, 69n65, 69n68, 154-157, 159, 252, 304, 309

69, 69n65-67, 154-165, 309 23n25, 24, 24n27, 66, 68, 91n45, 101n81, 141, 186, 208n62, 210215, 234, 240n7, 296, 297, 299, 302, 303, 306, 309 89n38, 91n45, 101, 101n77, 103, 103n86, 211-215, 220, 232n1, 278n100, 302 91n45, 101, 101n81, 103n87, 141, 141n110, 176n101, 210,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

211, 211n71, 217n90, 309 66n56, 103n86, 209, 210n69, 210-212, 215, 220, 220n98, 225n103, 303, 309 214n83 54n18 128-129, 305, 307

— The Lonely Man of Faith

Soloveitchik, Joseph Dov Spero, Shubert Spinoza, Baruch Union for Traditional Judaism Urbach, Ephraim — The Sages Vilna Gaon Volozhin yeshiva Weinberg, Dudley Whitehead, A.N. Wiesel, Elie Wolf, Arnold Jacob — Rediscovering Judaism: Reflections on a New Theology Wurzburger, Walter Wyschogrod, Edith Yeshiva University Zohar

— 318 —

149n9 21n18, 28n33, 204n57, 256n47, 258n52, 262, 303 21n18, 28n33, 204n57, 256n47, 258n52, 262n62 197n36 24n27, 215n83 54n18 248, 248n27 54n18, 203n52, 275, 275n92, 303, 305 48-51, 54, 242n11, 303, 309 48-52, 303 54n18, 309 33, 33n48, 61n43, 309 24, 24n27, 63, 66 75, 76, 76n7, 197n36

-------------------------------------------------------------------   CITATIONS INDEX --------------------------------------------------------------------

CITATIONS INDEX

1. Bible 1:1 2:18 4:4-16 5:29-9:28 6:2 6:9 6:13 7:1 8:20 9:16 9:3-4 9:8 9:25-27 15:18 17:1 17:4 17:10-11 17:10-14 18 18:17 18:25 20:7 21:27-32 22 22:2 24:7 24:40 26:30 31:45-54 31:54

Gen.

218n93 208n62 118 75 118n12 76, 76n5, 76n8 118n13 76n5 17 74 17n6 19, 257 75 19, 257 257 19 74 17n6 28, 263n67 77 77, 170 76n5 16n5 43, 78, 116, 289 78 77 76 81 81n16 81

3:4 18:12 19 19:8 19:12 20 20:1 20:2 20: 21-23 21:23 24 24:3-8 24:4 24:7 24:8 25:8 24: 9-11 24:10-11 24:11 32 32:1-6 32:10 32:11-14 34:6 12:3 14 14:13-19

— 319 —

Exod.

116 81 78, 80, 81, 245 79 264n69 78 247n25 18 78 122n35 19n11, 81, 82 79 19n11 82, 126n46, 291 17n6 257 81 81n17 81n18 28 270 75 117 247n26, 257

Num.

76n5 28 117

-------------------------------------------------------------------   CITATIONS INDEX --------------------------------------------------------------------

Lev.

10 10:1-2 10:2 18:4 22:32 26 27:34

Deut.

4:24 5:4-5 5:6 5:22 10:5 13:1 26:1-11 27 27-28 32:4 33:2

8:30-35 24:24 24:26

79n12, 80n15

1Sam.

15 17 21-24

81 19 98

Isa.

43:12 60:21

258 22

Ps.

19:7 29:4

Dan.

7:9

98 83 283n106

Neh.

10:1

81 82 82n21

137 19 19

2Sam.

3:20-21 7 22:31

283n106 263 18 83 18 122 19 19 82n20 98 20n16

Josh.

2Kings

23:2

264n69 81n17 264n69 118, 118n15 68 19 122

2Chron.

34: 30

16n5 79n12

2. Mishnah Hagigah

1:8

Sanhedrin

4:5

122n36

Ta’anit

3:8

87n31

209n64

3. Midreshei Halakha 62a- 62b

Mekhilta

20n16

Mekhilta deRashbi

Exod. 17:15

97n67

142b 313

— 320 —

Sifre Sifre Ha’azinu

20n16 77n10

-------------------------------------------------------------------   CITATIONS INDEX --------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Babylonian Talmud 2b 25a 83b 30b 59b

5a 7a 31b 13b

Avodah Zara Bava Batra

20n16 257n50 122n35

Bava Metzia

170n77 84, 85, 85n27, 123, 200, 263n67 122n33 263n68 87n31

Eruvin

104n89

76n7

Shabbat

77a 88a 88b 133b

158n37 20n15, 21n17, 120 263n65 283n106

Sotah

14a

Berakhot

264n69 158n37 158n37

Sanhedrin

108a

Bava Kamma

Pesahim

103b-104a 108b 109a

283n106

Ta’anit

19a 23a

87n31 87n31

Yoma

67b 69b

118n15 263n68

5. Midreshei Aggadah 12:15 30:7 30:9 38:13 5:9 34:1 20:8 29:4 4:13 12:3 123:1

Gen. Rabbah

42n53 75n2 76n6 78n11, 209n66

Exod. Rabbah

263n66 83, 84n24, 91n42

Lev. Rabbah

Num. Rabbah

Ps. Rabbah

264n69 91n42

Lam. Rabbah

31

20n16

Song of Songs Rab.

1:9

193n25

Pesikta deRav Kahana

1:1 12:6 12:25 31:5 99b

29n37 120n20, 258n53 83n22, 273n89

Pesikta Rabbati

99n71, 258n54 20n16

258n51 91n42

Vayera 23

120n20

Gen. 22:19

— 321 —

Tanhuma

116n7

Midrash HaGadol

116n7

-------------------------------------------------------------------   CITATIONS INDEX --------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Commentators Maimonides (Guide)

78n11, 126n48, 258n52

Nahmanides

81n18, 118n12, 118n13

Rashi

20n16, 76n6, 263n68, 264n69

7. Poskim

1:3 10:6 9:1

Mishneh Torah Laws Concerning Idolatry Laws Concerning Repentance

78n11 127n49, 287n107

Laws Concerning the Fundamentals of the Torah

122n32

— 322 —