Pragmatic Studies in Judaism 9781463202224, 1463202229

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Pragmatic Studies in Judaism

Judaism in Context

14

Judaism in Context contains monographs and edited collections focusing on the relations between Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture and other peoples, religions, and cultures among whom Jews have lived and flourished.

Pragmatic Studies in Judaism

Edited by

Andrew Schumann

9

34 2013

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2013

‫ܓ‬

9

ISBN 978-1-4632-0222-4

ISSN 1935-6978

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is Available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Foreword .................................................................................................. ix Preface ....................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgments ................................................................................. xiii Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Halakhic Logic ........................................................................................ 11 1. A General Survey of the Halakhic Tradition: From the Creation of the World Until the Giving of the Torah .... 11 2. From Mount Sinai and on: the Development of the Oral Code........................................................................................ 16 3. The Work of the Sages: Types of Halakhah ......................... 18 4. The Anarchistic Character of Halakhah ................................ 19 5. The Way of Settling Controversy ........................................... 23 6. The Understanding of Rules ................................................... 33 7. Autonomy and Authority in Halakhic Decision Making .... 36 8. Should One Expect That There Exists a Logic of the Talmud?.................................................................................. 40 9. Two Important Distinctions ................................................... 42 10. The Methodical Research of the Talmud and Talmudic Logic in the Past ................................................................... 44 11. The Methodical Research of the Talmud and Talmudic Logic in Modern Times ....................................................... 47 12. Our Series ................................................................................. 50 References....................................................................................... 51 Pragmatic Limits of Halakhic Logic .................................................... 53 References....................................................................................... 84 God and the Law .................................................................................... 85 References.....................................................................................111 Theorizing Jewish Ethics ....................................................................115 Acknowledgement .......................................................................133 v

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References.....................................................................................134 Pragmatism and the Logic of Jewish Political Messianism ............135 Acknowledgement .......................................................................177 References.....................................................................................177 A Pragmatic Study of Kol Nidre: Law and Compassion..................179 1. Context .....................................................................................180 2. The Liturgical Forces in Play .................................................186 3. Pragmatics Negate Philosophy .............................................189 4. Meditations of Compassion Compared...............................189 5. A Case Study to Validate Our Pragmatic Analysis ............191 References.....................................................................................194 Rabbi Joseph ben Saul Kim i and his Magnum Opus Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim (The Philosophical Section).....................................195 1. Introduction .............................................................................196 2. Rabbi Joseph ben Saul Kim i, his Stature and Writings...198 3. The Encyclopedic Character of the Mezuqqaq Shiv‘atayim 203 4. Scarcity of Books as a Source of Motivation for the Writing of the Mezuqqaq Shiv‘atayim .................................206 5. Josep ben Saul’s Interpretations to Maimonides’ Philosophical Rulings.........................................................208 6. Popularization of Philosophical Knowledge and the Breaking of Esotericism ....................................................212 References.....................................................................................214 Ethical Religion or Political Religion? On the Contradiction Between Two Models of Amended Religion in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise ............................................................219 1. Introduction: The Problem that Led Spinoza to Write the Theological-Political Treatise.............................................220 2. Spinoza’s Genealogy of Religion ..........................................222 3. Spinoza’s Definition of Religion and t e Distinction Between Existing Religion and Amended Religion ......227 4. The Problem of Amended Religion in the Treatise ..........229 5. The Contradiction between the Reduction of the Religious to the Ethical and the Reduction of the Religious to the Political ....................................................231 Conclusions ..................................................................................238 Acknowledgement .......................................................................244 References.....................................................................................244

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Jewish Traditionalism and Jewish Socialism Between 19th and 20th Century in Europe and in the United States: A Survey 249 References.....................................................................................264 Index .......................................................................................................267

FOREWORD It is written in Deuteronomy (4:6): that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say, Only this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

The traditional understanding of these words expands their meaning by referring them to the Torah as a whole, as well as to the Oral Torah developing for centuries. An important principle may be seen in this statement, allowing us to consider the Jewish doctrine from the outside, from the alien point of view. Such a consideration is not only a way worthy of mention, but also a positive phenomenon. In the Talmudic literature we repeatedly find examples of this “external” view both in relation to the Jewish laws as well as customs, and to Jewish sacred texts. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these examples have a didactic character and a form of discussion, and occur to show case a successful answer to a captious question, but there are also exceptions of this rule. So, in Psachim (94b), during different discussions concerning the definition of the boundary between day and night, which is important for Jewish law as such, there is the dispute of Jewish wise men and wise men of the nations, where it is written at the end: ‘Said Rabbi: “The assertion of the Gentile sages seems to be the more reasonable.’” The tradition of serious consideration of an “external” view in respect to Jewish doctrine was continued by great wise men, such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon and the Rambam (Maimonides). As a result of their efforts, the technique of deducing philosophical conclusions, developed by antique sages and then Muslim philosophers, became the legitimate tool of Jewish thought. This book Pragmatic Studies in Judaism, continues and develops this important tradition ix

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for Jewish culture. The publication of this book is also a joyful event for me personally. First of all, this collection of articles is an important continuation of the recent trend in Judaica where the scientific studying of the Text does not oppose traditional understanding but looks for a fruitful symbiosis with it. In recent years in academic circles an opinion has often prevailed that the deep studying of Judaica is impossible without the authentic studying of Judaism, presented by the internal halakhic view (i.e. the view from yeshivot). The activity of many contributors to this and the previous books led by Andrew Schumann has supported this positive view, which has replaced biblical criticism and developed a new approach to studying of the cultural heritage of Judaism. The present volume turns, in my opinion, a new and important page in Judaica: its authors are not limited to the analysis of logical inference rules of Jewry, but apply modern scientific methods to studying of their practice. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of such an approach just in relation to the Jewish legacy, in which the principle of prevalence of practical keeping the commandments over theoretical studying of the Torah is formulated even in the Mishnah (Pirqe Avot 1:17): ‘Studying Torah is not the most important thing rather fulfilling it.’ Using the techniques considering practical and behavioural skills of Jews executing each commandment will allow for studying those features of Judaism which cannot be conceived by considering this religion only as a collection of holy texts. Finally, I am also pleased that the initiative to publish this collection came from Eastern Europe; lands, where for many decades any manifestation of Jewish culture and Judaism in particular was rooted out. It is to be hoped that the publication of this book will proclaim the awakening of new spiritual powers, and we will appear even more close to the prophetic realisation: ‘the land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea bed’ (Isaiah 11:9).

Michael Koritz 11 Tebet 5773 (25 December 2012), Jerusalem, Israel

PREFACE This is the last volume of my book series devoted to logic in Judaism as well as to logic in religion in general. Knocking on Heaven’s Door was the motto of this endeavor. Many religions, including Judaism, represent special kinds of logical culture, which allow these religions to be studied from the point of view of symbolic logic and analytic philosophy. Pragmatic studies are a part of such logical investigations, where logical conditions of theoretical extraction from practice and practical applications of theory are analyzed. T ese conditions are called ‘pragmatic limits.’ In this way, we can explicate a pragmatic perspective for Judaism, i.e. to define pragmatic limits of Judaic behavior and thinking. The present volume aims to explicate the Judaic pragmatic limits with an emphasis on logic, political studies, ethics, and speech act theory: to define what is logical, political, ethical, successfully uttered for Judaism. Pragmatic studies in Judaism are a new way of reconstructing Jewish culture. This approach reanimates structuralism in social anthropology, and shows that social meanings are produced and reproduced within pragmatic limits through various activities and behaviors that serve as systems of signification. Nevertheless, while conventional structuralists have pointed out that these systems of signification may be analyzed within linguistics first of all, we analyze them within logical tools of pragmatics.

Andrew Schumann 25 December 2012 Rzeszów, Poland

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following people for making this book possible: all rabbis and Judaic teachers who have taught me from my youth about Judaica [‫]יידישקייט‬, especially teachers of Kolel in Minsk (Belarus) who have taught me about middot (Judaic hermeneutics).

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INTRODUCTION ANDREW SCHUMANN WSIIZ, RZESZÓW, POLAND [email protected] Due to t e t irteen rules of Rabbi Yišma’‘el, the Torah can easily be studied from a logical point of view. The hermeneutic approach supported by these rules allows for the development of logical and even symbolic-logical investigations of the Torah. It is, however, less easy to approach the Torah from a pragmatic perspective, centered on the linking of practice and theory including theoretical extraction from practice and practical applications of theory. Any pragmatic approach should satisfy the so-called pragmatic maxim proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, according to which one should regard just effects as having practical bearings and the object as being constructed from these effects. The pragmatic approach also includes logical investigation. Within this approach we postulate practice as human activity fulfilled by means of speech acts and utterances, as well as typically involving logical tools. For example, Rabbi Yišma’‘el’s inference rules have been used not only in Judaic theological argumentation and disputation, but also in Judaic forms of presenting political viewpoints, ethics, and science. Pragmatic investigations assume that we are dealing with the effects of context. Therefore Judaic argumentation constructions can vary from utterance to utterance depending upon contexts and situations. Judaic pragmatics should set up all types of situations faced in everyday practice, including speech activity. On t e basis of Rabbi Yišma’‘el’s rules explicitly involved in Talmudic reasoning we could reconstruct the Judaic logical standpoint as a whole. Nevertheless, it is much more sophisticated to 1

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conceive the pragmatic standpoint of Judaism. One possible way to reconstruct the Judaic pragmatic approach may be presented by the Judaic treatment of controversy and political confrontation. In Judaism the following two basic kinds of controversy are distinguis ed: ‘controversy in the name of Heaven’ and ‘controversy not in the name of Heaven.’ T e first kind is traditionally exemplified by the controversy between Hillel and Shammai and the second kind by the controversy of Korah and his congregation as t ey resisted Moses’ leaders ip. T is second kind of controversy is directed against the Torah and the Jewish community as a whole, and is therefore strongly condemned in Judaism. On the other hand, although the opposition between the supporters of Hillel and Shammai was not any less tense—and even resulted at times in murder and violence—both groups were equally committed to supporting an eternal tradition. The sages claimed that Hillel and Shammai received the Judaic tradition in its purity from the same source originating at Mount Sinai. This means, therefore, that their controversy is contained in the Torah itself. The controversy between Hillel and Shammai may be examined as a prototype of all political confrontations occurring in Judaic communities and may therefore be explicated within the Judaic pragmatic approach. Judaism encompasses different political perspectives, from the Judaic left wing supporting liberal causes or even radical anarchism to the Judaic right wing supporting conservative causes or radical nationalism, and each can find their position rooted in the biblical text. For instance, the Bible indicates that the pre-monarchic Israelite society was anarchistic with a libertarian bent: “In t ose days t ere was no king in Israel: every man did t at w ic was rig t in is own eyes” (Judges 21:25). As a result, many Hasidic and Kabbalistic authorities have described the future society as a libertarian anarchistic community, and have often referred to contemporary radical thought. For example, Rabbi Abraham Chen (1878–1958), who belonged to the Chabad movement, held great respect for the Russian anarchist thinker Petr Kropotkin, whom he called a ‘saint of t e new world,’ w ose ‘soul is as pure as crystal.’ There were also Tolstoyan rabbis in Russia, i.e. Judaic followers of Leo Tolstoy, the Russian writer with some Christian-anarchistic ideas. These Judaic leftists have pointed out that the Talmud contains clearly anti-aut oritarian passages suc as “Love labor, ate mastery over others, and avoid a close relationship with the gov-

INTRODUCTION

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ernment” (Pirqe Avot 1:10). However, this is only one of a number of different perspectives that can be taken on the basis of the biblical text. For example, the Bible also maintains that David was chosen by God as king of the united monarchy and his descendant should become the Messiah, the king of the future society. This reference shows a potency of rightist ideas and conservative standpoint and states that traditional institutions may have only a minimal change in society. The less the world has changed the better it is. While the Torah may support both leftist and rightist ideas, it does not support any particular political perspectives, meaning that the Torah imposes rigid pragmatic limits with regard to politicization in Judaism. For instance, although the controversy between Hillel and Shammai’s parties did not cross beyond these pragmatics limits, the controversy between Korah and Moses did transgress these imposed boundaries. Hence, political studies in Judaism are aimed to explicate pragmatic gates/limits for political behaviors of people obeying the Torah (halakhic men) and then these studies correspond to the subject of pragmatic studies in Judaism. Another subject corresponding to Judaic pragmatic studies is presented by Jewish ethics. On the one hand, many Jewish commandments are of an ethical nature, such as the 289th prohibition according to which Jews are forbidden from killing eac ot er: “Do not commit murder” (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17). Does it mean that the halakhah (Jewish law) is itself a kind of ethics? Perhaps. However, there are commandments that fully contradict Kantian universal ethics, e.g. the 187th positive commandment that Jews should kill and destroy the seven nations of Canaan (Chitti, Emori, Canaani, Prizi, Chivi, Yevusi and Girgashi), and indeed utterly eradicate them, because they are the prime worshippers and original source of idolatry. The battle against t e Canaanite nations is considered a ‘mitzva battle’ (commanded battle) in Judaism: But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee (Deuteronomy 20:16–17).

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From the perspective of Kantian ethics, the killing of nations cannot be accepted as ethical behavior, and this instance can even be described as the first biblical report of genocide. The halakhah, then, surely does not coincide with universal ethics, and it may be considered just a form of applied ethics used for Jews (similar to applied ethics that exist for businessmen, doctors, scientists, etc). For instance, killing is prohibited in universal ethics in general, but within some forms it may appear in applied ethics as an exception to the rule, e.g. we may face the phenomenon of euthanasia in medical applied ethics and ethically accept it. Pre-modern ethical reflections in Judaism have been carried out within the so-called musar (‫מּוסר‬ ַ ) movement founded by Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin Salanter (1810–1883) and developed in the 19th century in Eastern Europe, particularly among Orthodox LithuanianBelarusian Jews. It can be regarded as a starting point for Jewish applied ethics. Several Hebrew books such as Mesillat Yesharim by R. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh by R. Solomon ibn Gabirol, and Chesbon Ha-Nefesh by R. Menachem Mendel Lefin, have become traditional Judaic references on the subject of musar. Thus, ethical studies in Judaism, including traditional musar, are a part of pragmatic studies in Judaism, studying the pragmatic limits of ethical behavior for Jews. This book reconstructs the pragmatic approach in Judaism and defines some of the pragmatic limits assumed in the Torah. It is a continuation of previous work considering Judaic reasoning from the standpoint of analytic philosophy and logic. The three previous books Judaic Logic (Gorgias Press, 2010), Modern Review of Judaic Logic (special issue of the journal History and Philosophy of Logic, 2011), and Talmudic Logic (College Publications, 2012) aimed to explicate the logical approach in Judaism, and two other books Logic in Religious Discourse (Ontos Verlag, 2010) and Logic in Orthodox Christian Thinking (Ontos Verlag, 2012) have aimed to analyze some basic features of logic in religion as a whole. The present volume aims to explicate the Judaic pragmatic point of view with an emphasis on logic, political studies, ethics, and speech act theory, and the contributions encompass several themes and objectives of pragmatic studies:  To regard basic logical notions of Judaic pragmatics, i.e. to define pragmatic limits in Judaic/halakhic deductions (pa-

INTRODUCTION

5

pers by Michael Abraham, Dov Gabbay, Uri Schild, Andrew Schumann)  To sketch Judaic applied ethics, i.e. to define pragmatic limits in the halakhic way of understanding ethical behaviour (papers by Lenn E. Goodman, Alan Mittleman)  To consider Judaic politics with its roots in the Torah from both left wing and right wing perspectives (papers by Peter Ochs, Yuval Jobani, Furio Biagini)  To exemplify pragmatic limits for scientific investigations and discoveries carried out by ‘ alak ic men’ in t e Middle Ages (paper by Aviram Ravitsky)  To exemplify pragmatic limits for speech acts in Judaism which canalize feelings and emotions of Jews within rigid pragmatic gates (paper by Tzvee Zahavy) Pragmatic studies in Judaism are a new way of reconstructing Jewish culture. This approach reanimates structuralism in social anthropology, and shows that social meanings are produced and reproduced within a culture through various activities and behaviors that serve as systems of signification. The main difference is that while conventional structuralists have pointed out that these systems of signification may be analyzed within linguistics first of all, I analyze them within logical tools of pragmatics. Lévi-Strauss proposed to explicate cultural p enomena by applying Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole to elicit the structures that form t e ‘deep grammar’ of society. From out t is distinction formal pragmatics has also emerged. Its logical means allow us now to formally explicate any cultural p enomenon and represent its ‘deep grammar.’ Conventional logic is a system of building up objects by mechanic rules of compounding moleculas (composite objects) from atoms (simple objects). For instance, in the axiomatic approach one has axioms and deduces from them all theorems by inference rules. This approach dislikes and rejects any exceptions to the rule, and expects that each object should be transparent for the mechanic rules. If we see an object and it is well formed, then we will always been able to determine how it was compounded and what it is. Formal pragmatics is a kind of logic. Nevertheless, it is unconventional. This logic is ever being constructed on the basis of exceptions. It does not show what an object is, but it shows what it should be, i.e. we define pragmatic limits outside of which an ob-

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ject cannot exist. It is an apophatic way of defining objects by rejecting, not by accepting as is done in conventional logic. Instead of mechanic rules of compounding from the simplest to the more composite, we have composite objects in advance without any references to the simpliest. In the case of theorems, it means that we have available all of the theorems and do not know what is the minimal number of axioms. In pragmatics we always have the whole before its parts and must define some parts as exceptions. This book is the first attempt to apply formal pragmatics to Judaic studies as a discipline as well as within the broader discipline of cultural studies.

INTRODUCTION

Isaac Bar-Maley.

© A. Schumann

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Kollel. Picture by N. Schumann. © A. Schumann

INTRODUCTION

Jacob’s Ladder. © A. Schumann

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HALAKHIC LOGIC MICHAEL ABRAHAM, DOV GABBAY, URI SCHILD BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY, ISRAEL [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT In this paper we intend to analyse the nature and characteristics of the logic of Halakhah—Jewish law—and in particular the logic of the Talmud, and determine its place within the Halakhic context.

1. A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HALAKHIC TRADITION: FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD UNTIL THE GIVING OF THE TORAH According to Jewish tradition the origin of the Jewish people is in the Ancient East, where Abraham the son of Terach was born and lived. Abraham was the first monotheist. According to the usual time-scale of Jewish tradition he was born in 1812 BCE. Abraham communicated with the Creator, but did not yet know the specifics of the Torah (the Pentateuch) to be given on Mount Sinai several hundred years after his death. Talmudic Midrashim (homiletic teachings on the Bible) state that Abraham fulfilled commands of the Torah, perhaps even all the commands. Formally, however, it is assumed that the Halakhah, in its traditional significance as a set of norms that each Jew must obey, did not exist yet in his time. Nevertheless, first concepts of Halakhah existed even before that. The Halakhic era began two thousand years earlier, when Adam was given six commandments, and a little later when Noah was 11

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given a seventh commandment. These are seven universal obligations for all human beings, whether of the Jewish faith or not, and t ey are denoted in t e Halak ic jargon: “T e seven commandments of Noa ’s sons.” The beginning of Jewish Halakhah is with Abraham, who received the command of circumcision. After him, the process continues with the Egyptian Diaspora, where Amram, the father of Moses, receives some further early commandments. The process continues at Marah, during the wanderings of the Jews in the desert towards the land of Israel. At Marah the Israelites received an additional three commandments from God. (There are different traditions identifying these three commandments). The giving of the Torah by God takes place at Mount Sinai, where Moses receives the Torah from God and passes it to his disciples and on to the Children of Israel in all generations. This is how Maimonides1 describes it (The Book of Judges, Kings and Wars, chapter IX, 1): Six precepts were given to Adam: prohibition of idolatry, of blasphemy, of murder, of robbery, and the command to establish courts of justice. Although there is a tradition to this effect—a tradition dating back to Moses, our teacher, and human reason approves of those precepts—it is evident from the general tenor of the Scriptures that he (Adam) was bidden to observe these commandments. An additional commandment was give to Noah: prohibition of (eating) a limb from a living animal, as it is said: ‘Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood t ereof, s all ye not eat’ (Gen. 9:4). Thus we have seven commandments. So it was until Abraham appeared who, in addition to the aforementioned commandments, was charged to practice circumcision. Moreover, Abraham instituted the Morn1

Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Rambam (Hebrew acronym for “Rabbi Mos e ben Maimon”), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Spain, 1135, and died in Egypt (or Tiberias) on December 12, 1204. He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.

HALAKHIC LOGIC

13

ing Service, Isaac set apart tithes and instituted the Afternoon Service, Jacob added to the preceding law (prohibiting) the sinew that shrank, and inaugurated the Evening Service. In Egypt Amram was charged to observe other precepts, until Moses came and the Law was completed through him [12].

Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, and fifty days after the Exodus the people arrived at Mount Sinai and received the Torah from Moses. It is important to understand that despite the above description of stepwise receipt of the Halakhah, the customary Halakhic assumption is that the Sinaitic revelation gives the validity and creates the Halakhic obligation. This is what Maimonides writes (The Book of Judges, Kings and Wars, chapter VIII, 11): A heathen who accepts the seven commandments and observes t em scrupulously is a “rig teous eat en,” and will ave a portion in the world to come, provided he accepts them and performs them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Law and made known through Moses, our teacher, that the observance thereof had been enjoined upon the descendants of Noah even before the Law was given. But if his observance thereof is based upon a reasoned conclusion he is not deemed a resident alien, or one of the pious of the Gentiles, but one of their wise men [12].

Maimonides states that even a Ger Toshav (a resident alien), i.e. an alien who observes the seven commandments of Noa ’s sons, must do that as part of the Sinaitic tradition. Observance of commandments through logical acceptance of their importance and truth is not of religious merit, but only of moral value. The commentators at that place explain that this principle also holds for Jews, with respect to the observance of commandments in general.

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Maimonides (Commentaries on the Mishna2, Chulin 7:6) states what at first sight seems to be a similar principle (free translation): You must know that whatever we do or refrain from doing today, we do only because of God’s command by way of Moshe, and not because of God’s command to the prophets that preceded him. For example, we refrain from eating a limb removed from a living animal not because God forbade this to the descendants of Noah, but because God forbade it to us when He commanded us at Sinai that a limb removed from a living animal continues to be forbidden… You see t at [t e Sages] said (Makkot 23b): ‘Six undred and t irteen mitzvot were told to Mos e at Sinai,’ and all t ese are included among t e mitzvot.

Here Maimonides states that the commandments including the ones from before the Sinaitic revelation should also be obeyed because of the renewed obligation at that point. Thus Maimonides seems to repeat what he said in the Book of Judges, Kings and Wars quoted above, but a closer observation shows that these are really two different statements. In order to understand this we must mention a concept coined by Hans Kelsen, a jurist and legal philosopher: Positivism. Kelsen, the positivist, saw the legal system as a logical system of hierarchical norms. Each norm depends on a norm higher in the ierarc y. At t e top of t e normative pyramid stands t e “basic norm” w ic gives validity to the entire system. In the context of national laws the basic norm can be the obligation to obey the legislating body, or carry out the wishes of the electors as expressed by the legislation, etc. In the Halakhic context the basic norm may be taken as the Halakhic obligation that Jews took upon themselves at Mount Sinai. The Sages expressed it as follows (Tractate Nedarim

2

T e Mis na or Mis na (Hebrew: “repetition,” from t e verb s ana , “to study and review,” also “secondary”) is t e first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called t e “Oral Tora .”

HALAKHIC LOGIC

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8a and similar places3): “As if we all swore at Mount Sinai to obey t e Tora .” The words of Maimonides in the Commentaries on the Mishna quoted above state that the obligation to obey the Halakhah is founded on the basic norm: What was given by God at Mount Sinai (and not earlier or later). So what about a person who obeys the law, but not because of the basic norm? For example, assume a citizen of Israel crosses an intersection only at a green light and pays his taxes lawfully, but he does this not because he accepts the legislation of the Knesset (parliament), but because he considers the norms as morally correct. Is there a legal defect in his behaviour? Certainly not. Kelsen’s basic norm does not appeal to the citizens but to the government; the basis of a prosecution of a citizen who does not obey the law is the basic law. This is the justification for punishing him. He must obey the law, and it does not matter what his motivation may be. Maimonides in the Book of Judges, Kings and Wars says something else. He states that if somebody obeys the obligations owing to reason and logic and not because of his obligation to the basic norm (The Torah at Mount Sinai), then his actions are not considered as Mitzvot (fulfillment of commandments). A person who puts on Tefillin (phylacteries) without believing in God, or without believing and feeling obliged to Mount Sinai, is not fulfilling a commandment. In principle he must put on the Tefillin a second time. We see that the basic norm is central to Halakhah and more important than in other legal systems. Here there is an appeal to the individual, and not just a theoretical justification for the government to act against the wrongdoer. In Halakhah an action according to the basic norm is necessary for the action to be considered a Mitzva.

3

Where nothing else is stated the reference is to the Babylonian Talmud [11].

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2. FROM MOUNT SINAI AND ON: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORAL CODE The Jewish tradition states that at Mount Sinai Moses received two parts of the Torah: The Written Law (The five books of Moses— the Pentateuch) and additional principles and commentaries called the Oral Law. From that point and on there is a chain of transmission from a teacher to his disciple, as described in the Mishna (Tractate Avot, chapter I, 1–2): Moses received the Torah from Sinai, and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshuah to the Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly ...: Shimon HaTzaddik was [one] of the remnants of t e Great Assembly… Antigenos, leader of Soc o, received [the Mesorah] from Shimon HaTzaddik: Yose ben Yoezer [the] leader of Tzredah and Yose ben Yochanan [the] leader of Jerusalem received [t e Mesora ] from t em …: Yehoshua be Perachyah and Nittai of Arbel received [the Mesora ] from t em …: Ye uda be Tabbai and S imon ben S atc received [t e Mesora ] from t em …: S emaya and Avtalion received [t e Mesora ] from t em …: Hillel and Shammai received [t e Mesora ] from t em …: Rabbi Yoc anan ben Zakkai received [t e tradition] from Hillel and S ammai …: Rabbi Yochanan be Zakkai had five disciples. They were: R'Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, R'Yehoshua ben Chananiah, R'Yose the Kohen, R'Shimon ben Nesanel, and R'Elazar ben Arach [13].

This description is abridged, and in parallel sources one can find more detailed descriptions of the intermediate steps. At the end of the Tannaic4 period it is decided to write down the princi4

Tannaim (plural of Aramaic tanna, = one who studies or teaches), Jewish sages of the period from Hillel to the compilation of the Mishna. They functioned as both scholars and teachers, educating those in the synagogues as well as in the academies. Their opinions are found either in the Mishna or as collected in the Tosefta.

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ples of the Oral Law, and thus the Mishna is written by Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi (at the beginning of the third century CE). After the Tannaic period outlined in the Mishna above, the tradition continues as described in the literature of the Rishonim,5 prefaces by Maimonides, and others: The Amoraim6 created two works of Talmud: The Babylonian Talmud (often called the Gemara) and the Jerusalem (= Palestinian, = Israeli) Talmud. According to tradition, the Jerusalem Talmud was completed by Rabbi Yochanan at the end of the fourth century CE, and the Babylonian Talmud was completed by Rav Ashi and Ravina at beginning of the sixth century CE. It is usually assumed that the finalising and editing of the two Talmuds was done over a period of several hundred years after the date given by tradition. After the Amoraim came the Savoraim,7 then the Gaonim8 and then the Rishonim8 (= sages of the Middle Ages). During the period of the Rishonim there was a large amount of Halakhic activity, mainly interpretation of the Scriptures and the Babylonian Talmud. Exceptional during this period is Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Maimonides. He created a monumental work, the Mishne Torah (the Code of Maimonides). In this book of fourteen parts Maimonides codifies all Halakhic writings from the Talmudic and extra-Talmudic sources and the period of the Gaonim. This is a unique work in the long history of the Halakhah. It is the only work that contains the entire Halakhic corpus in a unified, methodical and organised structure. Other works

5

Rishonim, leading rabbis who were deciders of Jewish law and lived between 1050 and 1500 CE. 6 Amoraim, renowned Jewis sc olars w o ‘said’ or ‘told over’ t e teachings of the Oral law, from about 200 to 500 CE in Babylonia and the Land of Israel. 7 Savoraim (s. Savora, Aramaic “a reasoned”) are t e leading rabbis living from the end of period of the Amoraim (around 500 CE) to the beginning of the Geonim (around 700 CE). 8 Gaonim (also transliterated Geonim) were the presidents of the two great Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in Babylonia, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era.

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do not cover all areas of the Halakhah, and certainly do not classify the material and settle disputes in a systematic manner. The beginning of Modern Times is the beginning of the Acharonim, leading rabbis and Poskim (Jewish legal decisors) living from roughly the 16th century to the present. During the period ending the Middle Ages and the beginning of Modern Times a major Halakhic work, the Shulchan Aruch (‘Set Table’), was created by Yosef Karo9 in Safed and by Rabbi Moshe Isserles10 in Krakow. This work which summarises the major commandments relating to everyday life at the time, does not include commandments that deal with the service in the (no more existing) Temple, with questions of cleanliness and purification (which are not observed today). Halakhic developments continue of course also today.

3. THE WORK OF THE SAGES: TYPES OF HALAKHAH The Halakhah was given by God at Mount Sinai, but it expands and is elaborated all the time, to this very day. The Halakhah is a legal system, and as such it is supposed to supply answers to the legal needs of Jewish society. It follows that each link in the chain of transmission described above is responsible for several tasks: Transmitting the knowledge accumulated so far, making new regulation and rabbinical decrees, responding to questions by ordinary people and passing judgments in rabbinical courts. However, it is true that the Halakhah operated and developed at places and times when it has no full autonomy, under the rule of different legal systems. It is customary to divide Halakhah into two major categories: Halakhah mainly revealed at Mount Sinai (Halakhah DeOraita) and Rabbinical Halakhah. It is a common mistake to believe that this distinction is entirely chronological. Halakhah created by Biblical hermeneutics (to be dealt with below), or interpretation of oral traditions given to Moses at Mount Sinai is Halakhah DeOraita. Hala9

Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro), Toledo, Spain 1488–Safed, Israel 1575. 10 Moses Isserles (also spelled Moshe Isserlis, called the Remah), Kraków, Poland, 1520–May 11, 1572.

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khah created by rabbinical legislation (and not by Biblical exegesis) is Rabbinical Halakhah. This means that Halakhic items are created all through history, join the Halakhic corpus and their status may be like oral traditions given to Moses at Mount Sinai, or their status is as rabbinical legislation. Apart from the theoretical difference there is also a Halakhic distinction between the two kinds of Halakhah. Halakhah DeOraita is more stringent than Rabbinical Halakhah, and this difference has Halakhic implications. Consider for example, the Halakhah of Doubt. If Doubt concerning a Halakhah DeOraita is strict, a person must exceed the bare requirements of the Halakhah: If a person is about to eat meat, and he is not sure whether the meat is pork or veal, he must not eat it. In the case of Rabbinical Halakhah one is more lenient.

4. THE ANARCHISTIC CHARACTER OF HALAKHAH Based on our description above one would expect the Halakhah to become well organised over time, and that fixed and constant Halakhic procedures would develop. Surprisingly, Halakhah has an anarchistic element that has not been eliminated through history. It has even been asserted that a modern legal system cannot be based on the Halakhah because of this anarchistic trait [7]. Many consider this fundamental trait to be part of Jewish identity and nature, which is original, rebellious and argumentative, which is divisive into different lines of thought, and does not accept authority. Judaism in general and Halakhah in particular are based on negotiation more than on a closed set of principles and obligatory specifics. The anarchistic trait of the Halakhah is expressed in several ways. It is found in the dispute among Halakhic experts, but even more so it can be seen in the nature of the canonical works and their stature. We have already mentioned that throughout history we do not find any attempts to edit the various parts of Halakhah and organise them in a classified manner. The attempt by Maimonides is exceptional, and his oeuvre was not acknowledged as binding. His work is considered one of the most important Halakhic sources, but it is not a compulsory canonical codex. If one wishes to speak about a binding canonical codex it must be the Talmud (especially the Babylonian Talmud). But many

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questions arise when the nature of this text is considered. It is not a codex in any sense. It is a collection of fragments (sugiot) that clarify various commandments. Among them are aggadahtic (homiletic) fragments, stories, moral lessons, etc. Also the purely Halakhic parts are formulated as discussion and debate among the Sages. They cite different sources, and only seldom do they state a definitive Halakhah. In most cases the fragment ends by simply stating the different opinions and their Halakhic conclusions. It is a description of discussions at various places, about different topics in different formulations. Sometimes there are contradictions between different Talmudic fragments, and also the textual versions are problematic. The Talmud is open textured, not what one may expect from a canonical text that aspires to be a codex. So the central Halakhic canon is only a collection of discussions and Halakhic arguments, which also include elements that only relate to the discussions in an associative manner. It therefore looks very strange that such a text should be accepted as the central binding canon of a normative legal system. What is gained by this canonisation? What does it mean? As there is nothing final, as the questions remain open, what is canonical about this canon? In order to answer that question we must first consider the historical background leading to the acceptance of the Talmud as a binding canonical text. The history of the Halakhah as schematically described above can be considered as a chain of links; each link is a (not exactly defined) time period, with a name: Prophets, Men of the Great Assembly, the Couples, Tannaim, Amoraim, Savoraim, Gaonim, Rishonim and Acharonim. In some cases there is a Halakhic significance in the passing from one period to the other: Amoraim do not disagree with Tannaim. A Tannaic source that contradicts an Amorai is usually considered a definitive proof against the Amorai. Similarly post-Talmudic sages do not disagree with the Talmud, most of the Rishonim do not usually disagree with the Gaonim (though the feature is less apparent), and similarly with Acharonim and Rishonim. It would seem that this picture reduces the anarchistic nature we described above. However, we must remember that in each period there were several sages, each with his opinions, and they created different sources. Therefore, the general obligation towards a certain period does not mean much from a practical aspect. Nev-

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ertheless, the question remains what is the nature of the prohibition of sages from one period to disagree with sages from a previous period. This is particularly important in the (not too many) cases where the Talmudic fragment ends with a definite conclusion. This conclusion is binding on the following generations. Maimonides (The Book of Judges, Rebels, chapter II, 1) states the following: If the Great Sanhedrin, by employing one of the hermeneutical principles, deduced a ruling which in its judgment was in consonance with the Law and rendered a decision to that effect, and a later Supreme Court finds a reason for setting aside the ruling, it may do so and act in accordance with its own opinion, as it is said: and unto the judge that shall be in those days (Deut. 17:9), that is, we are bound to follow the directions of the court of our own generation.

It would seem that there is no restriction on the sages of one generation to formulate the Halakhah as they wish. Their capability of disagreeing with their predecessors does not require that they are greater than the latter in learning, or any other requirement.11 Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, in his commentary on Maimonides (Kesef Mishne [8]: On The Book of Judges, Rebels, chapter II, 1) considers the question why Amoraim do not disagree with the Tannaim, and why the Gaonim and Rishonim do not disagree with the sages of the Talmud: If there are no limitations on disagreement with previous generations, it is not clear why this does not happen in practice. One might expect the explanation lies in praising the greatness of early generations. Thus we find several times in the Talmud, i.e. (Shabbat 112b):

11

In the next paragraph Maimonides introduces limitations on the capability of disagreeing with previous religious courts, but this relates only to Rabbinical legislation and regulations, and not to Halakhah DeOraita, i.e. Biblical exegesis.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM R' Zeira said in the name of Rava bar Zimona: If the early ones were sons of angels, we are sons of men; and if the early ones were sons of men, we are like donkeys.

But surprisingly, Kesef Mishne (loc. cit.) chooses another explanation. Its argument is that the authority of the Talmud is because we have decided not to challenge it. Thus, it is a technical acceptance only. In principle it could be possible to contradict any sage in any generation, but at the end of the Talmudic period the sages decided to accept the Talmud as a canonical corpus, not to be contradicted. If there is no real Halakhic constraint, why did the sages of that generation decide to stray from the Halakhic anarchism and establish an obligatory text? The answer lies in processes that took place towards the end of the first Millennium CE (the beginning of the Middle Ages). Until then, Jews had been living in the Babylonian Diaspora for about a thousand years, they had legal autonomy, and an organised hierarchy headed by the Exilarch12, who functioned in place of a king or president. At that time, this structure began to crumble. Jews began to spread all over the world, and form small communities at various distant places. There was therefore a danger that the Halakhah would lose its coherence. Every little community, which may not have a person qualified in Jewish law, and no control over the ways of interpreting the law, could create some undisciplined legal interpretations. The Halakhah would disintegrate, and Jewish social and legal cohesiveness would be destroyed. Therefore it was decided at that time to establish a framework for the further development of the Halakhah. This framework is the Talmud. It is important to understand that while the sages of those generations found it acceptable to deviate from the usual custom and establish a binding canon, it seems that they also wished to preserve the open nature of the Halakhah. The decision was there12

Exilarch (Hebrew: Rosh Galut, lit. “ ead of t e exile”) refers to the leaders of the Diaspora Jewish community following the deportation of the population of Judah into Babylonian exile after the destruction of the kingdom of Judah.

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fore to select an open work like the Talmud as a binding canon. This step established a framework for discussion and development of the Halakhah, enabled the discourse among communities and among sages all over the world, as indeed has been observed in all following generations. At the same time there is also room for considerable interpretational freedom. The result of this decision is the flowering of different communities and different interpretations of the sources of Halakhah. During the thousand years since then the sages have acted autonomously, without a central Halakhic authority, and without authority of enforcement. At the same time they have managed to keep up a debate among themselves. We believe this is a unique phenomenon, which has no analogue in the history of human civilisation. Part of the debate is about the method of discussion itself. There are many conflicts about how to deal with controversy and different Halakhic opinions. The debate is open, while at the same time its coherence is kept within the framework of the Talmud. In order to illustrate the tension between the need for coherence and the wish to maintain freedom of opinions and dialectic, we shall describe a critical moment in the progress of Halakhic disputation, which is found in several fragments of the Talmud and parallel writings.

5. THE WAY OF SETTLING CONTROVERSY Tractate Berachot 28a describes the forced abdication of R' Gamliel from the presidency13 and the appointment of R' Elazar ben Azaryah in his stead, and states: And any place w erein ‘on t at day’ is used, it is a reference to that day R' Elazar ben Azaryah was installed as Nasi.

13

T e San edrin (Greek: synedrion, ‘sitting toget er,’ ence ‘assembly’ or ‘council’) was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel. The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members. The Nasi was the president of the Sanhedrin including when it sat as a criminal court.

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Let us attempt to clarify the importance of that day, which the Talmud has singled out in this manner. In the second generation of sages in Yavneh a revolution took place, which has great importance for the further development of the Oral Law. The event is mentioned in several places in the Talmud, usually in a very dramatic way,14 but the historical correspondence between the descriptions is not clear at first sight. The words of Jewish Law are sparse in one place and rich in other places, so let us begin by examining a strange phenomenon in Tractate Avot. As we saw above, the first chapter of Tractate Avot describes the transmission of the Torah from Moses to Yehoshua, to the Elders, etc. This process ends with the fifth couple: Hillel and Shammai (see quote on page 6). After that the Mishna brings sayings of sages from several generations, until chapter 2:9. There the description of the transmission is taken up again with the words: “R' Yochanan ben Zakkai received [the transmission] from Hillel and Shammai.” Immediately after that the description of the transmissions ends. In t e next Mis na it says: “Rabbi Yoc anan ben Zakkai ad five disciples. They were: R'Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, R'Yehoshua ben Chananiah, R'Yose the Kohen, R'Shimon ben Nesanel, and R'Elazar ben Arac ,” and t is is the end of the narrative. Until R' Yochanan ben Zakkai the process is described using t e word ‘received:’ “Moses received from Ye os ua and transmitted...” R' Yochanan ben Zakkai is still described as ‘receiving.’ After t at t e words ‘receive’ and ‘transmit’ are not associated anymore in the Tractate Avot with respect to the process of transmission. The description of the process does not include these words. It should be noted that in the generation after R' Yochanan ben Zakkai there is no single prominent person or couple as before. The process becomes crowded, each sage has several disciples.

14

Tractate Baba Metziah 59, Tractate Berachot 28, Tractate Sanhedrin 68 and 101 and Tractate Chagiga 3.

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R' Yochanan ben Zakkai is considered the first generation of Tannaim. It is well-known that he asked the Romans for Yavneh15 and its sages. The next generation was the generation of R' Gamliel from Yavneh, who was the president, R' Eliezer ben Hyrkanos (R' Eliezer the Great), brother-in-law of R' Gamliel, R' Yehoshua ben Chananyah, his friend and opponent, R' Elazar ben Azaryah, who was younger, and R' Akiva ben Yosef, who was older but still a disciple, first of R' Eliezer the Great and at then of R' Yehoshua. T e c ange from t e times of t e terminology of ‘receipt’ of a disciple from his teacher to the era of multiple disciples learning from a teacher indicates a significant process that the Oral Tradition goes through in the first generation in Yavneh (second generation of Tannaim). The Babylonian Talmud describes a dramatic incident, where R' Yehoshua and R' Eliezer the Great disagree about the law concerning an oven of Achnai16 (Tractate Baba Metziah 59b): On that day R' Eliezer advanced all the arguments in the world, but [the Sages] did not accept his arguments. [R' Eliezer] said to them: If the Halakhah accords with me, let this Carob tree prove it… Let t e water canal prove it… Let t e walls of t e study all prove it … w ereupon a Heavenly ec o went fort and proclaimed: What argument do you have with R' Eliezer, whom the Halakhah follows in all places. R' Yehoshua stood on is feet and declared: It [T e Tora ] is not in Heaven … We pay no heed to a Heavenly echo in matters of Halakhah, because You already wrote in the Torah at Mount Sinai: According to the majority [the matter] shall be decided.

Let us first remark t at t e expression ‘bo bayom’ (‘on t at day’) appears ere. T e meaning is probably not just t e day of t e discussion, but the day when R' Gamliel was forced from the pres15

After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai moved the Sanhedrin to Yavne. The Sanhedrin left Yavne for Usha in 80 CE and returned in 116 CE. 16 The oven of Achnai is assembled rings of earthenware with sand in between them.

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idency. Further evidence for this can be brought from Tractate Berachot, which states that the entire Tractate of Eduyot was learned ‘on t at day.’ Tractate Eduyot, chapter VII, 7 states: They testified about an [earthware] oven, that somebody cut into [horizontal] sections, and put sand between one section and the other, that it is susceptible to become unclean (tamei), because R'Eliezer rules such an oven clean (tahor).

In other words, the question of Achnai’s oven was settled on the same day R' Gamliel was deposed from the presidency. In order to understand the drama that took place that day, we must note that R' Eliezer the Great consistently represent the school that says that the Torah is all tradition, i.e., the law should be determined only by the information reaching us from the times of Moshe at Sinai. We shall show an example of this. In Tractate Sukkah 28a R' Eliezer states that he never said anything he had not heard from his teacher. R' Yochanan ben Zakkai praises R' Eliezer (Avot 2,8): Rabbi Eliezer the son of Hyrkanos is a cemented cistern that loses not a drop.

R' Eliezer imself said about imself: “Were all t e seas ink, all the reed pens and all the men scribes they could not write all that I have studied” (Avot deRabbi Nathan, 80, 25). See also Tractate Sanhedrin 67–68 and 101, and many more examples. R' Eliezer was a great compiler of the knowledge of his teachers, and everything he said was in their name. His approach was one of tradition, he was a ‘receiver.’ In the fragment in Tractate Baba Meziah 59b (Achnai’s oven) R' Eliezer brings arguments that seem irrelevant: He makes miracles through the carob, the water canal, the heavenly voice. He attempts to prove that he is an expert, and therefore his viewpoint should be accepted. He does not prove the assertion itself. He does not bring reasons why his opinion is right, but reasons why he is a great man. This corresponds to his principled approach; with R' Eliezer the Halakhah is decided because of his trustworthiness as conveyor of what he has learned from his teachers.

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But R' Yehoshua, his friend and opponent, disagrees precisely on this point. He believes that the Halakhah should be decided according to logic and wisdom: “[T e Tora ] is not in Heaven” (Deut 30:12). If there is no decision according to intellectual conviction there should be a vote, and the majority opinion should be the decision, as it is said; “yield to t e majority” (Exodus 23:2). He does not accept the tradition that R' Eliezer presents without any reason and logic. The end of the fragment (Tractate Baba Meziah 59a) describes ow God imself says “My sons ave vanquis ed me.” T us, according to the Talmudic tradition R' Yehoshua was victorious and overcame R' Eliezer. Even the Heavenly Voice did not help R' Eliezer, and the sages logically rejected his words. One may conclude t at a ‘Law of Debate’ displaced a ‘Law of Tradition,’ which had ruled until that day. The President, R' Gamliel from Yavneh—friend and brotherin-law of R' Eliezer the Great—seems to have agreed to his concept of a ‘Tora of Tradition.’ T is is w y e, like R' Eliezer, was very careful to examine bearers of tradition. The Gemara tells us how he put guards at the entrance to the study hall (the academy), in order to allow entrance only to persons of like minds. According to R' Gamliel one has to ensure that the Torah is transmitted to persons who are trusted to transmit it on. When R' Gamliel was deposed, R' Elazar ben Azaryah was appointed in his place. He represented an opinion similar to that of R' Yehoshua: When the Torah is examined during a debate, it is not important to screen the participants according to their disposition and personality. Concepts are to be examined according to their nature, and not according to who expounds them. For that reason R' Elazar ben Azaryah decided to open up the study hall, and that day three hundred seats were added. The law of R' Elazar ben Azaryah is more democratic, as he does not examine the character of the disciples. According to him—and this was accepted from that moment and on—the Halakhah is decided by debate and decisions are logical. No weight is given to the holiness and personality of the person expressing the opinion. Apart from the discussion about the oven, the greater significance was t e c ange from a ‘Law of Tradition’ to a ‘Law of Debate.’ T is was a veritable revolution in the understanding of the Oral Code. A discussion about principles cannot be decided when

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t e ruling system is ‘Law of Tradition’—in a debate each side will be faithful to what he received from is teacher—and no conclusion can be reached. In order to understand the timing and significance of this revolution one must consider the historical background. Maimonides in his preface to the Mishna describes how conflicts arose, when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai did not lend sufficient support to their teachers, tradition was lost and controversy arose (Tractate Sanhedrin 88b). There had of course been disagreements before. The first one was in the Hellenistic period between Yose ben Yoezer and Yose ben Yochanan concerning the laying of hands on head of sacrifices on feast days. But in the times of Hillel and Shammai two schools of thought were created for the first time: Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Such a situation cannot be resolved by t e ‘Law of Tradition’ approach. One cannot decide between two schools based on different traditions. At that time the situation looked hopeless. It seemed like the Torah was about to crumble, and be lost to the world as a single and unique expression of Gods will. This is perhaps the way one should consider the account by the sages (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, 81) saying that the disciples of Shammai actually murdered disciples of Hillel. Hillel and Shammai belonged to the generation before R' Yochanan ben Zakkai. In Tractate Avot chapter I, 1–2 we saw that he received from both. In Tractate Sukkah he is described as the youngest of the disciples of the old Hillel. His disciple, R' Eliezer was already known as a Shammaite. So in the first generation in Yavneh a full scale controversy was already taking place. There was a danger of a general disintegration of the Torah. The first generation of sages in Yavneh headed by R' Yehoshua ben Chananyah understood that such a situation warrants a real revolution in the approach to the Oral Tradition. It was necessary to develop a new approach in order to make decisions between the two schools that had arisen. In the case of open questions it was necessary to legitimise debate and decisions reached rationally or by plurality. This revolution, as described above in the case of Achnai’s oven, was led by R' Yehoshua, and he was joined by his friend/disciple R' Elazar ben Azaryah, who as very young was appointed president instead of R' Gamliel.

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The discussion in the case of Achnai’s oven illustrates the type of issues in Tractate Eduyot, whic were discussed ‘on t at day.’ Right after his appointment R' Elazar ben Azaryah brought all the open questions t at could not be decided by t e ‘Law by Tradition’ approach to a decision by debate and voting. Tractate Eduyot is somewhat exceptional in the Talmud as it does not have a definite subject w ic was learned ‘on t at day.’ The tractate has, however, a very central theme, the new Oral Tradition and the decision of the issues that could not be decided before. The Talmud describes how R Eliezer the Great was ostracised by his friends/disciples. Tractate Baba Metzia gives a heartbreaking description of his banishment, R' Akiva, his disciple, who volunteered to convey t e bitter decision says to im: “My Teac er, it seems to me t at your colleagues are removed from you” (Tractate Baba Metzia 59b), and they both wept. As we learn from Tractate Sanhedrin 88b, R' Eliezer stayed in isolation until his death. He stayed in Lud complaining that nobody pays him a visit, in order to learn from the vast amounts of Oral Tradition he knows. It is not clear from the fragment itself what the banishment meant. It is not clear what sin R' Eliezer committed by daring to express a different Halakhic viewpoint concerning the cleanliness of the oven. It is obvious that his demotion symbolises the end of the legitimacy of the Halakhic approach that he represented: The ‘Law by Tradition.’ In view of t e critical situation in t e relationship among the sages (as described above), drastic measures were needed in order to introduce and settle the new face of the Oral Tradition in the study hall. Also R' Gamliel, the brother-in-law of R' Eliezer, who held the same opinions, was deposed from the presidency in an unprecedented step. One may think the reason was the way R' Gamliel shamed R' Yehoshua (see e.g. Tractate Berachot 27b). However, that incident in reality shows the way R' Gamliel wished to impose the ierarc ical approac as part of t e ‘Law by Tradition.’ R' Yehoshua a rebel who went according to the logic and not the authority, gained the upper hand in the end. The Halakhic anarchism was persecuted, but was victorious. The rebellion by R' Yehoshua in parallel to the acceptance by R' Gamliel of his authority (who was forced to desecrate what according to his view was the date of the Day of Atonement), may be denoted a ‘Holy Rebellion.’ R' Yehoshua was not interested in breaking totally with the past, but

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tried to convince his companions of the way of persuasion. In the words of the Mishna in Tractate Avot, c apter V, 17: “A debate for the sake of heaven will endure; but a debate not for the sake of eaven will not endure.” T e Mis na explains t at disagreement and pluralistic views are good and important. R' Gamliel accepted the rules of the game and was reinstalled. He rotated as president with R' Elazar ben Azaryah. R' Eliezer, on the other hand, staid in isolation until his death. He was not willing to change his approach of ‘Law of Tradition.’ The development is illustrated by a fragment in Tractate Chagiga, 3a: There was once an incident involving R' Yochanan ben Broka and R' Eliezer (ben) Chisma, who went to visit R' Yehoshua in Pekiín. [R' Yehoshua] said to them: What novel teaching was expounded in the study hall today? They said to him: We are your disciples and we drink your waters. [R' Yehoshua] said to them: Even so, it is impossible for the scholars of the study hall without expounding a new teaching. Whose week was it to lecture in the study hall? It was the week of R' Elazar ben Azaryah. And on what subject was his discourse today?

R' Ye os ua says t at ‘Law of Debate’ is a living and developing thing. It is not possible that there are no new developments in the study hall. So, while they wish to listen to his teachings, he wishes to learn from them. The fragment in Tractate Chagiga, 3a continues with sayings by R' Elazar ben Azaryah, and R' Yehoshua continues (Tractate Chagiga, 3b): And e also started expounding “T e words of the wise are like goads, and like nails well planted [are the sayings] of the masters of assemblies given from one s ep erd”… Just as t is plant is fruitful and multiplies, so the words of Torah cause one to be fruitful and multiply. The masters of assemblies—these are the wise scholars who sit in various groups and occupy themselves with Torah. There are those scholars who declare a thing ritually contaminated, and there are those who pronounce it clean. Those who prohibit and those who permit. Those who disqualify and those who de-

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clare fit. Perhaps a man will say: How can I ever learn Torah? Scripture states: All are given from one shepherd, one God gave them. One leader proclaimed them from the mouth of the Master, blessed is He. As is written: “And God spoke all these words.” You make your ear like a mill-hopper, and acquire for yourself a discerning heart to hear intelligently the words of those that declare impure, and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who prohibit, and the words of those who permit, and the words of those who disqualify and the words of those who declare fit.

Here we find the entire program of the Yavneh revolution, as carried out by R' Yehoshua and R' Elazar ben Azaryah. Next, R' Yehoshua stresses the importance for the Torah and the People of Israel (Tractate Chagiga, 3b): [R' Yehosua] then said in this language: It is not an orphaned generation that R' Elazar ben Azaryah dwells in.

The same fragment describes a meeting between R' Yose ben Durmaskis with his teacher R' Eliezer the Great (who sits excommunicated in Lud): There was once an incident involving R' Yose ben Durmaskis, who went to visit R' Eliezer in Lud. He said: What novel teaching was expounded in the study hall today? [R' Yose] told him: [The Sages] voted and decided Ammon and Moav must give the tithe of the poor in the seventh year. [R' Eliezer] replied to him: Yose stretch out your hands and darken your eyes. He stretched out his hands and darkened his eyes. R' Eliezer wept and declared: The secret of Hashem is to those who fear him and his covenant to inform them. [R' Eliezer] said to him: Go back and tell them: Do not fret about your voting. Thus I have received from R Yochanan ben Zakkai, who heard it from his teacher, and his teacher from his teacher: A legal tradition to Moshe from Sinai that Ammon and Moav must give the tithe of the poor in the seventh year.

R' Eliezer speaks out against t e sages of Yavne , w o ‘innovate innovations,’ w ile e possesses t e Halak a from the times

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of Moses at Sinai. This is a result of ignorance. If the sages were in need of the tradition that he knows, they did not need to have to debate at all. Historically, and from parallel fragments, it is clear that the fragment from Tractate Chagiga deals with the revolution in Yavneh on ‘t at day.’ T e opposing beliefs of R' Eliezer and R' Yehoshua are here shown reflected in their assessment of what happened in Yavneh of R' Elazar ben Azaryah. Let us now return to Tractate Avot, chapter I, 1–2 (cited above). Receipt and Transmission of the Torah is described only until the times of R' Yochanan ben Zakkai. R' Eliezer is characterised as a ‘cemented cistern t at loses not a drop,’ but eventually he is not the receiver from R' Yochanan ben Zakkai, but R' Yehoshua. He is not presented as a ‘receiver’ or part of a couple. T e study hall is now wide open for everybody, because people are judged by the contents of what he says and not what he is. In the generation of R' Yochanan ben Zakkai the split between the disciples of Hillel and Shammai took place, threatening the Torah and the people. The disciples of R' Yochanan ben Zakkai saved the situation by defining new ways of debating and decision making. T is is t e Yavne revolution t at appened on ‘t at day.’ The continuation is not linear anymore. The Torah transmitted from Yavneh in the following generations is a combination of t e ‘Law of Tradition’ and t e ‘Law of Debate.’ T e process ended in a dialectic synthesis: The two extreme viewpoints were united in one comprehensive whole. This is illustrated in the fragments in Tractate Sanhedrin 68 and 101. They contain parallel descriptions (with some important distinctions) of the visit of the disciples of R' Eliezer the Great on the day of his death. In the Mishna (Tractate Sanhedrin 67a) R' Akiva learns the law of ‘two [people] gat ering cucumbers’ from R' Eliezer. In the Gemara (Tractate Sanhedrin 68a) he receives the law as a tradition, but afterwards he asks R' Yehoshua for an explanation of the law, and only then does he accept it: R' Akiva considers both R' Eliezer and R' Yehoshua as his teachers. Also, in Tractate Sanhedrin, 101a, R' Eliezer remarks that R' Akiva is the only one who asks for his opinion, i.e. inquires about the tradition.

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R' Akiva is the leader of the synthetic method. His style is a combination of tradition (which he learned from R' Eliezer) and debate (which he learned from R' Yehoshua). This approach continues in the following generations. Therefore R' Akiva is considered the father of the entire Oral Law as it has come down to us. The editor of the Jerusalem Talmud, R' Yochanan famously expressed this in the following way (Tractate Sanhedrin 86a): Stam Mishna [an anonymous passage in the Mishna is attributed to] Rabbi Meier, Stam Tosefta17 R' Nechemiah, Stam Sifra 18 R' Yehudah, Stam Sifrei19 R' Shimon, and all of them according [to what they had learned from] Rabbi Akiva.

6. THE UNDERSTANDING OF RULES So far we have examined the question of authority and adherence to binding precedents, but the Talmudic anarchy also expresses itself in other ways. One of the most salient expressions of this is the following example from Mishna in Tractate Eruvin, 26b (it is continued in our second book [5]): We may make an eruvei20 [techumim] and a shitufei21 [mevoot] with all [types of food] except for water and salt. And all [types

17

The Tosefta (Aramaic: Additions, Supplements) is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah. In many ways, it acts as a supplement to the Mishnah. 18 Sifra is the Halakhic Midrash (classical Jewish legal Biblical exegesis), based on the Biblical book of Leviticus. 19 Sifrei refers to either of two works of Halakhic Midrash (classical Jewish legal Biblical exegesis), based on the Biblical books of Bamidbar (Numbers) and Devarim (Deuteronomy). 20 An Eruv is a ritual enclosure around most Orthodox Jewish and Conservative Jewish homes or communities. 21 A S ituf Mevo’ot is similar to an eruv.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM of food] may be purchased with maaser 22 [sheni] funds except for water and salt.

This means that it is allowed to use money from maaser sheni or make an eruv with all foodstuffs, except water and salt. It seems this is a very precise definition, and one would not expect that other foodstuffs would also not be allowed to buy from maaser sheni. But the Gemara immediately brings the following saying (Tractate Eruvin, 27a): R' Yochanan said: We cannot learn [i.e. extract categorical rulings] from general rules, and even where [the rule concludes] by saying ‘except.’

The Gemara brings an anarchistic rule (!), which states that we cannot learn anything from rules, even if they are specific, i.e., they itemise the exceptions. Indeed, the continuation of the fragment lists other foodstuffs that one cannot buy with maaser sheni money. The Gemara later adds further rules to the anarchistic rule (Tractate Eruvin, 27a): Since [R'Yoc anan] said, Even w ere it says ‘except,’ it is implied that the statement does not refer to here [our Mishna]. To w ere does it refer? It refers to t ere: “All positive mitzvot that are time-bound, men are obligated [to perform them] and women are exempted, and those which are not time-bound, bot men and women are obligated.” And is t is an [absolute] rule, that all positive mitzvoth that are time-bound women are exempted from performing? But there are [the positive mitzvoth of] matzah, happiness [during festivals], and assemblage, which are all positive mitzvoth that are time-bound—and [yet] women are obliged. And [is it true that] all positive mitzvoth which are not timebound, women are obliged? But there are Torah study, being 22

The Maaser Sheni, meaning Second Tithe in Hebrew, is a tithing practice in Orthodox Judaism with roots in the Hebrew Bible.

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fruitful and multiplying, and redeeming a [firstborn] son, which are [all] positive mitzvoth that are not time-bound, and women are [nevertheless] absolved [from these obligations]. So R' Yochanan said: We cannot learn [categorical rulings] from general rules, and even w ere [t e rule] states ‘except.’

Thus, the exemption of women from time-bound obligations is a rule that should be examined carefully. It should not be taken too seriously. At the end of the fragment yet another nonobligatory rule is stated (Tractate Eruvin, 27a): Abayeh said, and some say R' Yirmiyah: We also learned this in a Mishna: also another rule was said about the laws of a zav: “All t e t ings t at are borne upon a zav are tamei, and all things which a zav is borne upon are tahor, except for [things which are] suitable for reclining or sitting [upon], and a person.” And there are no more [exceptions]? But there is an object used for riding. This object for riding what is it like? If he sits on it, it is like sitting. We meant to say thus: There is the upper part of a saddle, [why was it not mentioned?] For it was taught in a Braita23: The saddle is subject to the tumah of moshav, and the pommel is subject to the tumah of merkav. So we learn from this, [that] we cannot learn [by making deductions] from general rules, and even in a place w ere it says ‘except.’

The fragment ends by returning to the Mishna from above: Ravina said, and some say it was Rav Nachman: We also learned thus in our Mishna: With all [types of food] we may make an eruv [techumin] and a shituf [mevoot], except with water and salt. And there are no more exceptions? But there are truffles and mushrooms [also disqualified, but not mentioned]? 23

Braita (pl: Braitot) refers to a statement or passage found in the Talmud that could have been included in the Mishna, but is nowhere to be found there.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM So we learn from this, that we cannot learn [halachot by making deductions] from general rules, and even in a place where it says ‘except.’

As observed above, other foodstuffs not to be bought from maaser sheni money are here mentioned, despite the fact that the Mishna, supposedly, specified all excluded items. The structure of the Talmud is casuistic. It seldom defines rules, and even when it does, it assigns them only limited warranty. The Talmud allows itself to change the interpretation of the Mishna and other Tannaic sources from the literal meaning, according to the judgement of the Amoraim. It distorts the words of the Mishna and the Braitot in such a way, that the declared obligation to these sources becomes almost ridiculous. There are cases where it is explained t at a certain Mis na deals wit a special case (‘okimta’), or missing sentences are added (‘c asurei mec asrei’). All t is is done in order to make the Mishna fit to logic and what is reflected in parallel sources. The conclusion is that the relationship of the Halakhah to obligatory texts and stringent rules is weak. The Halakhah and the Talmud do not like rules, and when such rules do appear, they are of bounded status. It is possible that the reason for formulating rules at all was the need to conserve knowledge passed orally. It is forbidden to write the Oral Torah down (see Tractate Gittin, 60a). This probably shows the wish to leave it open to interpretations and applications. At different times in history the sages decided to diverge from this prohibition, and write the information down in order not to forget it. This happened when the amount of knowledge became too big, and when the convulsions of the Diaspora threatened the capability of the collective memory to store all the oral knowledge. As a part of this aim the rules were created. The purpose was more to safeguard the knowledge, rather than a directive to Poskim (the practical deciders of the Halakhah). Perhaps this is the reason for the contempt in which the rules are held.

7. AUTONOMY AND AUTHORITY IN HALAKHIC DECISION MAKING The anarchism of the Halakhah is also seen in the autonomy that the Halakhah gives the Posek (legal decision-maker). We shall examine some post-Talmudic expressions of this, found in the lack of

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obligation to rules, and the lack of obligation to precedents and decisions by previous generations. This subject was extensively discussed by Rabbi Asher24. He deals with the question whether the Gaonim, who came after the Talmud, have authority over the following generations (the Rishonim). In Piskei haRosh25 on Tractate Sanhedrin 84, section 6) he brings two major opinions: The Raavad26 says that whoever disagrees with the Gaonim, errors in the Mishna, and to diverge from an obligatory canonical source has serious personal implications for the Dayan (judge). The Baal haMaor27 says that whoever disagrees with the Gaonim, errors in his reasoning. They both agree that it is an error to disagree with the Gaonim. The question is the status of this error. But the Rosh himself states that the judge has all the right to make Halakhic decisions according to what he thinks, without building on precedents. Exceptional to this is the Talmud, which, as we have explained above, is an obligatory canon. The Remah establishes the law in Choshen Mishpat28, section 25. He asserts that the Acharonim may disagree with the Rishonim,

24

Asher ben Jehiel (or Asher ben Yechiel, sometimes Asheri) (1250 or 1259–1327) was an eminent rabbi and Talmudist best known for his abstract of Talmudic law. He is often referred to as Rabbenu Asher, “our Rabbi As er” or by t e Hebrew acronym for this title, the ROSH (literally “Head”). 25 Piskei haRosh is a summary of the Halakhah derived from t e Ros ’s Talmudic commentary, compiled by his son. 26 Rabbi Abraham Ben David, The Raavad (1125–1198), born in Posquieres, Provence, France. He was a great commentator on the Talmud, Sefer Halachot of Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi and Mishne Torah of Maimonides. 27 Zerachiah ben Isaac Ha-Levi Gerondi (called the Baal Ha-Maor— author of the book Ha-Maor) was born about 1125 in the town of Girona, Spain and died after 1186 in Lunel. He was a famous rabbi, Torah and Talmud commentator and a poet. 28 Choshen Mishpat (Hebrew for “Breastplate of Judgement”). T e term is associated with one of the four sections of Shulchan Aruch. This section treats aspects of Jewish law pertinent to finance, torts, legal procedure and loans and interest in Judaism.

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and even we are allowed not to accept their rulings, if there is a good reason for it. One should keep in mind that this was written at a time, when autonomous decision making was on the wane. It appears in the Shulchan Aruch, despite the fact that the two authors are strong advocates of precedent based rulings. Much controversy arose at the beginning of modern times (the Acharonim) because of the change in direction (the codification controversy). The Maharal29 writes in Netivoth Olam (“Pat ways of t e World”—a work of ethics) that autonomous decision making has a most important value, even at the price of erroneous judgments. He states that God prefers the one who decides by his intelligence and not by precedent. Even if a judge makes a mistake, he is to be preferred to t e one w o judges according to a ‘book’ (precedent), who may be right. On the other hand, Ri Megas30 was asked whether it is allowed to let somebody decide Halakhah according to the Gaonim, even if he does not know the Talmudic source and procedure. His answer (responsum 114) contradicts the opinion of Maharal: It is better t at somebody decides according to t e ‘book,’ even if e does not fully understand (for he will usually reach the truth), than if he were to decide according to reason (which may be wrong). It would seem that the disagreement is about whether there exists a single Halakhic truth, or whether what the Dayan and Posek gives as a reasoned decision becomes the Halakhic truth. However, if we examine the two sources carefully, we see that they actually agree in principle. The Maharal does not assert that there is no Halakhic truth. He speaks about somebody who makes an error in his judgement (but he considers this preferable to the Posek who 29

Judah Loew ben Bezalel, (c. 1520–17 September 1609) known as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of “Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew,” (“Our Teac er, Rabbi Loew”). He was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in the city of Prague in Bohemia for most of his life. 30 Joseph ben Meir ibn Megas or Megas (1077–1141) was a Rabbi, Posek, and Rosh Yeshiva in Lucena. He is also known as Ri Megas, the Hebrew acronym for “Rabbi Josep Megas.”

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goes according to t e ‘book’). T e Ma aral believes t at autonomous decision making has an intrinsic value, and this is sometimes better, even if in error. This is similar to what the Rosh had to say. On the other hand, the Maharal does not conclude that just anybody can make such decisions. He ends the enquiry by saying that in his generation not many are capable of this. He also limits the recommendation of Halakhic autonomy only to those who are really competent (‘Bar Hac i’ in the words of the Rosh). Examining the approach by Ri Megas we observe the same elements. The Ri speaks about the danger of a Halakhic error, and is not prepared to let just any Posek make independent decisions. On the other hand it is clear from his words, that if somebody is indeed competent (‘Bar Hac i’), e may decide according to is intelligence. But in the estimate of the Ri only few of his generation are qualified. So the Maharal and Ri Megas actually say the same thing, and they only differ in their estimate of the factual situation: Are there or are t ere not competent (‘Bar Hac i’) people in t eir generation. We see that there is indeed a place for Halakhic competence and precedents, but only in a very limited manner. But apart from the discussion itself about this matter among the sages, even the most conservative among them do not believe in an absolute attachment to old sources. The feeling of continuity that accompanies the Halakhic study and debate is complemented by a sense of autonomy. The Posek feels obliged to express his private opinion and fight for it, even if it does not fully overlap the Godly truth. This is illustrated in the words of Rabbi Kook31 on a contradiction between two Talmudic sources that both characterise R' Eliezer the Great. In one source (Tractate Sukkah, 28a) R' Eliezer states that he has never said anything he had not heard previously from his rabbi (see also Tractate Yomah, 66b and other places). The other source is in Avot d’Rabbi

31

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar.

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Natan32 (86), where it is stated that R' Eliezer said t ings t at ‘ ad never been eard before.’ Rabbi Kook explains t at R' Eliezer in t e second source did not say t at ‘t ese were t ings he had never eard’—which would indeed be a contradiction—but ‘t ings t at ad never been eard before.’ T is means t at is rabbi, R' Yochanan ben Zakkai actually said those things, but only R' Eliezer heard them, while other listeners did not. Rabbi Kook here describes the feeling of innovation arising from continuity. On the one hand the sage only discloses the tradition he has received, but this disclosure expands and generalises the tradition. It is full of novelties and new directions. This expresses the dichotomy in Halakhic discourse. On the one hand innovation is recognised and even encouraged, on the other hand continuity and convention are stressed. As we have seen, the attachment to custom is very flexible, and sometimes innovation is greater than tradition.

8. SHOULD ONE EXPECT THAT THERE EXISTS A LOGIC OF THE TALMUD? So far we have seen a picture of a normative system, which varies over time, and goes through several improvements. It does not adopt strict rules or a rigid framework. So the question arises whether there is any purpose in examining the logic of such a system? Or rather, whether a specific logic actually exists. Let us first remark, that in a system where the debate is more important than the conclusions, one would expect a rich logic worthy of examination and analysis. Were the Halakhic canon just a collection of laws, or even directions and values, perhaps there would not be any expectations of a clear logical basis. As we have shown in our fourth book [4] of the series (see the last section), legal systems in general do not seek to apply a specific logic, and the logical research relating to such systems is minimal. One reason for that is that their development is not based on logical deduction 32

Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, usually printed together with the minor tractates of the Talmud, is a Jewish aggadic work probably compiled in the geonic era (c.700–900 CE).

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and debating rules. They aim at specific purposes and the methodical formulation of agreements and social frameworks. The Halakhah, on the other hand, is based on debate and the logical conclusions that arise from this. Hence, contrary to expectation, it would seem that there is a place for logical research. A difficult problem of methodology arises here. The number of sources, periods and sages is large, and the question is whether there exists a Halakhic or Talmudic logic as a unique category enabling separate research. In modern Talmudic research it is assumed that the development is unmethodical, the result of different cultural and intellectual directions and of varying social and environmental pressures. This is why the Talmudic research, in contrast to classical study of the Talmud, does not aim at harmonising among various Halakhic sources. It considers each source as independent, and will at the most compare them. On the other hand, as we have explained in our second book [5] (see the last section), we do not accept the situation described above. The relevant logic is indeed developing through the ages, but our historical and methodological assumption is that this logic is disciplined and consistent. Over time it becomes clearer that this is indeed one logic. Part of it is universal—and this is the part most interesting for us—and part of it is unique to the Talmud and to Halakhah. Our assumption is that examination of the later stages of development cast light upon the earlier stages. We believe that the way to understand the significance of the Talmudic-Halakhic debate is through the prism of its later stages. This is also the assumption of the traditional scholar, but one should not be surprised to discover that only seldom has methodical research been based on this assumption. In order to base our assertion we observe that despite the anarchistic picture described above, there is a continuous historic process, which seems entirely opposed to anarchy. It is a transition to causal and associative thinking, the use of rules and strengthening of methodology in the Talmudic and Halakhic thinking. Modern Talmudic research sees this as a later development. However, we suggest that one here sees a germination of seeds previously sown. Within the historical process each generation of sages decode the principles that form the basis of tradition received from previous generations. They begin to use such rules as more rigid

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rules of interpretation. The concepts crystallise, become formalised and canonised. They are now rules of logic in some sense. The significance of this has been described in detail in our second book [5] in the series (see the last section), and will not be repeated here. The main assertion is that the Talmudic ways of thinking does not change, but become more general, methodical and logical. In later stages earlier types of thinking become systematic. In the second book we have shown that the rule of Klal uPrat, which was one single rule in the times of Hillel the Elder, became three or four rules in the list of R' Yishmael. This is what has happened in general to Halakhic thinking. In this sense, our investigations form a continuation of this Halakhic tradition. We too are attempting to discover the ways of reasoning of our predecessors, to conceptualise and give them a foundation, and analyse them using modern logical tools. The results so far are very encouraging, and show that this process has great opportunities to persist.

9. TWO IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS Before concluding we have to make two important distinctions between Talmudic Logic and Mathematical Logic. First of all, Talmudic Logic has more intuitive characteristics. Prima facie it does not seem to be formalistic, while Mathematical Logic and Natural Science in general are based on formal thinking. This distinction may be understood at two different levels: Essence and Action. Talmudic thinking does not apply formal rules, at least not rules that have been explicitly formulated. That does not mean that such rules do not exist, as we have seen above—later stages of Talmudic thinking conceptualise rules that are based on earlier Tamudic thinking. But there is also an essential difference between standard logic and Talmudic thinking. Standard logic deals mainly with necessary and certain inferences, i.e., deduction. All that is not part of such inferences are not part of classical logic. Logic also considers other types of inference (induction, abduction and analogy), but does not provide a methodical and formal foundation for these types. The Talmud, on the other hand, is almost totally based on uncertain inferences.

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Nachmanides33, in his Milhamot Hashem (‘Wars of t e Lord’) defends the decisions of Alfasi34 against the criticisms of Zerachiah ha-Levi of Girona. He explains that in the Talmud and in the Talmudic debate there are no absolute statements like in Mathematics, and not even empirical evidence like in Physics. There are disagreements about interpretation and what counts. There are not absolute logical proofs, but a criterion of what is or is not reasonable. This is Nachmanides’ characterisation of the Talmudic debate. All fields of knowledge and science, except Logic and Mathematics, belong to the category of domains with uncertain conclusions, like the Talmud and the Halakhah. Hence, traditionally, inferences in those areas are considered outside standard logic. However, as we have shown in our books and papers, this is not true. Also uncertain inferences (like analogy and induction) may be formalised, and this is relevant to all science and human knowledge. Rabbi David Cohen (the Nazirite Rabbi35), the great disciple of Rabbi Kook, devoted his book Kol Nevu’ah, to this idea. He places two kinds of thought against each other. One is the Greek (scholastic) logic, which is material-visual, the other is the Jewish logic (Talmudic-Halakhic), which is spiritual-acoustic. The Jewish philosophy is not single valued as the classical logic, but is based on sound and deep understanding. There is a preference of the reasonable over the less reasonable, and of what is heard over what is not heard well (even without sharp evidence, as also found in the words of Nachmanides). The Nazirite Rabbi also asserts that the Halakhic inferences are the foundation for this alternative logic, like the basic deduc33

Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Nahman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, (Girona, 1194–Land of Israel, 1270), was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator. 34 Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen (1013–1103)—also known as the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif (Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi), was a Talmudist and Posek (decider in matters of Halakhah). 35 David Cohen (1887–1972) (also known as “Rav Ha-Nazir,” T e Nazirite Rabbi) was a rabbi, Talmudist, philosopher, and kabbalist. A noted Jewish ascetic, he took a Nazirite vow after making aliyah to Israel.

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tions in Aristotelian Logic. The Talmud prefers analogy and induction, i.e., softer inferences, in order to reach conclusions. The Talmud does not draw back from conclusions like ‘per aps it is also possible ot erwise?,’ nor from the lack of certainty of the conclusions. It weighs the alternatives against each other, but is prepared to reach a decision where decision is not incontestable. Also obligations relating to doubts have a central place in Halakhic thought, and there is an entire system of rules of decision and behaviour in the case of doubtful situations. The Talmud and the Halakhah live in an atmosphere where doubt is present at all times. They defer sharp conclusions, and prefer decisions based on preferences. The Talmud deals with life in all its complexities, and does not deal with abstract ideas. Its approach is usually casuistic, i.e., it will consider a concrete case and not the abstract idea itself. Generalisations arise from the consideration of the specific case, and do not precede it. Here too one sees the inductivity of Talmudic thought, which goes from the special case to the general one, and prefers this method to deductive thought, which goes from the general to the special case.

10. THE METHODICAL RESEARCH OF THE TALMUD AND TALMUDIC LOGIC IN THE PAST The traditional study of the Talmud is usually not introspective, as we have previously mentioned. One finds only few occasions where the Sages of the Talmud and the Halakhah consider the logical rules that direct their inquiries. However, there are a few exceptions. In the Talmud itself one finds some rules—we have already described the cautious view of those. Among them are found rules for deciding Halakhah and resolving conflicts, rules for viewing multiple opinions and opinions rejected by the Talmud, rules for deciding factual and Halakhic doubts, and inference and interpretative rules about Biblical sources. Systems of inference rules appear in several Talmudic sources. These rules describe the ways of extracting unknown Halakhah

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from Biblical sources. In the Halakhic tradition it is assumed these rules were given at Mount Sinai together with the Bible itself.36 In the time of the Talmud and later the use of these rules waned, and today they are almost never applied. The main reason for this is the lack of knowledge and understanding of how to apply the rules. They are non-deductive and indefinite, and may be considered halfway between logic and art. In addition to the explicit rules there are some further rules forming the basis for Talmudic deliberations. They are not formulated explicitly—they are obligations towards older sources, obligations towards other opinions, etc. So the Talmud itself is only sparingly concerned with its own methods and rules. However, in the Halakhic literature and postTalmudic interpretation methods and rules are widely considered. During the Middle Ages several books of rules are written dealing with this topic.37 This literature was mainly developed in the Sefardic38 Talmudic world rather than in Europe, where the study was more towards precedents ands summaries. In the literature of the Middle Ages one finds several of the books of Maimonides mentioned above. Maimonides was influenced by the Muslim scholasticism and he even studied Aristotelian Logic (as mediated by Muslim sources). It seems probable that the importance he gives to method and systematics are a result (among other things) of his exposure to the development of Muslim Logic. In his youth Maimonides even wrote a book of logic: Milot Hahigayon, where he explains the importance of applying logic to the study of the Talmud.

36

In our second book in the series (described in the last section) we show that the situation is more complex. 37 For a discussion and references see the Ph.D. thesis by Gabriel Chazut, the Department of Talmud, Bar Ilan University, 2012. 38 Sephardi (Hebrew: ‫ ) ְספ ַָרדִּ י‬is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in 1492. Accordingly, the term Sephardic Jew refers to the Jews following the Sephardic Halakhah. T e term essentially means ‘Spanis .’

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Before Maimonides, in the eleventh century, Rabbi Samuel Hanagid39 wrote a book Rules of the Talmud. After Maimonides, in France in the thirteenth century, Rabbi Samson of Sens wrote the book Sefer Hakritut, which is one of the most important books of rules, which was accepted in the world of Talmud scholars.40 The interest in methodology increased during the Renaisance. Rabbi Isaac Kanfinton41 wrote the book Darchei Hagemara, which is considered the foundation of methodical Talmud study according to rules. Books of rules that were written after him are mainly by his pupils and their students. For example Rabbi Yeshua Halevi from Talmisen42, who wrote Halichot Olam writes in the introduction that he was influenced by R' Samson of Sens and R' Isaac Kanfinton. In the sixteenth century Rabbi Yosef Karo43 writes his book of rules: Klalei Hagemara. As R' Yeshua preceded him, he printed his own book as a commentary to the book by R' Yeshua. Two additional sages of this period, Rabbi David ibn Zimra44 and Rabbi

39

Samuel ibn Naghrela also known as Samuel HaNagid lit. Samuel the Prince (born 993–died after 1056), was a Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, poet, warrior, and statesman, who lived in Iberia at the time of the Moorish rule. 40 Samson ben Abraham of Sens (Harash meShantz), French tosafist; born about 1150; died at Acre about 1230. His birthplace was probably Falaise, Calvados, where lived his grandfather, the tosafist Samson ben Josep , called ‘t e Elder.’ Samson ben Abra am was designated also ‘t e Prince of Sens.’ 41 Rabbi Isaac ben Yaakov Kanfinton (1360–1463), head of the Zamora yeshiva (Torah Academy), kabbalist, doctor of medicine and mathematician. Several of the great sages of Spain at the time of the expulsion (1492) were his students. 42 Rabbi Yeshua Halevi bar Yosef of Talmisen, fifteenth century, Algeria 43 Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (also spelled Yosef Caro, or Qaro), Toledo, Spain 1488–Safed, Israel 1575, was author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, which is still authoritative for all Jews pertaining to their respective communities. 44 Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn (Abi) Zimra, also called Radbaz (‫)רדב"ז‬ after the initials of his name, 1479(?)–1573, was a leading posek (legal

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Bezalel Ashkenazi45, wrote books about Talmudic rules, and used them extensively in their Halakhic work and responsa46. We shall not consider the reasons why the study of rules is characteristic of the North African (Sefardic) Talmud study and less so of the European (Ashkenazic) approach (despite the fact that Sefer Hachritut, which is considered the first book of rules, was written in France). The Sefardic literature makes an extensive use of Aristotelian logic47. Outstanding is Rabbi Aharon Even Chaim48, who wrote the book Korban Aharon on Sifra49. In the Preface he introduces an entire book Midot Aharon, which interprets the rules of textual interpretation according to Aristotelian logic.

11. THE METHODICAL RESEARCH OF THE TALMUD AND TALMUDIC LOGIC IN MODERN TIMES In modern times the study of rules and methodology also entered the European Talmudic world. Some of the leading scholars write books on rules, though they use logic to a less extent. Exceptional is Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto50, in his book Derech Tevunot. It is probable that most of the scholars were not familiar with logic, however, R' Luzzatto wrote himself a book on logic: Sefer Hadecision-maker), yeshiva-head, chief rabbi, and author of more than 3,000 responsa (Halakhic decisions) as well as several scholarly works. 45 Bezalel ben Abraham Ashkenazi (Hebrew: ‫( )בצלאל בן אברהם אשכנזי‬ca. 1520–ca. 1592) was a rabbi and Talmudist who lived in Ottoman Palestine. He is best known as the author of Shittah Mekubetzet, a commentary on the Talmud. 46 Responsa (Latin: plural of responsum, ‘answers’) comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by Halakhic scholars in response to questions addressed to them. 47 See [9]. The book also includes a general discussion of the literature of Talmudic rules. 48 Rabbi Aharon Even Chaim, Morocco, seventeenth century. 49 Sifra is the Halakic Midrash (classical Jewish legal Biblical exegesis), based on the Biblical book of Leviticus. 50 Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Hebrew: ‫)משה חיים לוצאטו‬, 1707–1746, also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL, (‫)רמח"ל‬, was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher.

48

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higayon. Later, up to the twentieth century several books were written, that deal with Talmudic method, but not in a systematic, academic manner. It is important to emphasize that in the yeshivaworld only little use is made of this literature. It may be considered as research undertaken in the shadow of the traditional way of study, but not as an integral part of it. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the study of rules becomes systematic and modern. Possibly this is owing to the influence of academic thought in the Humanities, and its introduction into the world of Talmud and Halakhah. Logic becomes central to thought in general and therefore also—albeit only in a limited way—in the literature of Talmudic rules. Most of the work is done by academic writers, or by rabbis and Talmudic sages leaning to modernism51. Those books are of modern form, and their conclusions are formulated in a methodical manner. Nevertheless, the logic is still not formal as in logical work in other areas. When logic is referred to, it is always as syllogisms from Aristotelian logic. In the twentieth century Dr. Adolph Schwarz52 opens up the road, and engages for the first time in systematic logical research of textual interpretation. He does not apply logical formalism, but he was aware of its existence (in Aristotelian form). He publishes several books in German, only a few of which have been translated to Hebrew. Each of the books is devoted to one of the forms of textual interpretation. In our first book [1] (see the next section) we criticize his conclusion that the a fortiori argument is an Aristotelian syllogism, and show that it is a fundamental non-deductive inference. Additional publications have appeared, mainly in the academic world, but with little formal logic. An exception to this is the periodical Higayon (now called BDD53), which began to appear at Bar 51

Rabbi Moshe Ostrowski, Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel and others. Almost all of them were leaders of the religiouszionistic movement with a modern outlook. 52 Rabbi Dr. Adolph Schwarz, the first head of the rabbinical seminar in Vienna. 53 BDD, Journal of Torah and Scholarship, Bar Ilan University Press, Ramatgan, Israel.

HALAKHIC LOGIC

49

Ilan University towards the end of the twentieth century, and articles: Mida Tova by Michael Avraham and Gavriel Chazut, which began to appear at the same time. Today there are certain beginnings of research in formal Talmudic logic. For example, Avi Sion has authored several important publications and maintains a website in this area54. Andrew Schumann has published a book, which has appeared as the sixth volume in our series [10] (see the next section). Three years ago we established the Talmudic Logic Group at Bar Ilan University. Within this framework we attempt to focus and concentrate systematic logical research of the Talmud. We feel that we are in possession of a modern and up-to-date toolkit for this purpose. Other researchers in the world are in contact with us and have joined us in order to promote research in Talmudic logic. It is important to stress, that from the beginning it was clear that there is no single unified logical frame work for the entire Talmud. This has also been born out in our researches. The reason for this is that the Talmud is a combination of different sources, deals with various subjects and this in addition to its anarchistic nature (as described above). Furthermore, the Talmud is a tremendous human effort to understand different aspects of what any human encounters in his life. Thus, the logical tools that the Talmud makes use of are the logical tools from all areas of thought. The Talmud deals with decision and inference, with argumentation and organisation. It deals with questions of time and truth, logical loops, conflicts of value and norms and much more. It is therefore no wonder that the logical tools the Talmud applies are the same tools we apply in any other human field. For that reason our efforts are concentrated on finding the universal logical insights that are found in the Talmud, but not what makes it unique. So far we have learned that the Talmud contains very many logical insights. In many cases it precedes its time, and understands ways of thought conceptualised only in our time. Our research enriches on one hand the general logical world with

54

The Logician website (http://www.thelogician.net) makes available for study, free of charge, the full texts of the published books by Avi Sion.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM

these insights, and, on the other hand, also the understanding of the Talmud. The subjects we have dealt with hitherto in our research are described in the next section.

12. OUR SERIES So far seven books have been published in our series. The two first books deal with rules of interpretation. As we have seen, these rules are the foundation of Halakhic-interpretative deduction. The first book of the series [1] deals with the logical rules of interpretation. It builds a methodical model, which explains reasoning with analogy and generalization in all ways of life. This supplies an explanation of some fundamental problems in the philosophy of scientific generalisation, in jurisprudence and legal interpretation. We believe that this is the first time that a general logical model has been developed for these types of reasoning and their combinations. The second book of the series [5] deals with the rules of textual interpretation. These ways of reasoning may seem specific to the biblical text and Halakhic deduction. However, we show that they are actually universal modes of reasoning. We show that there exists a systematic manner of defining sets in an intuitive manner. This is relevant also in the legal world and in other domains. In the book we present our alternative paradigm to Talmudic research, as explained above. The third book of the series [6] deals with Deontic Logic. We show that the Halakhah has a unique approach to norms. We discuss the distinction between mandatory commands (mitzvot asey) and prohibitive commands (mitzvot lo ta’ase). We show that this distinction does not exist in other normative systems, whether legal or ethical. The formalism we propose solves many paradoxes and difficulties that exist in the usual deontic formalisation. In the fifth book we intend to deal with value-conflicts, that are problematic in the standard deontic logic, and show how they can be overcome with logical methods. The fourth book of the series [4] deals with temporal logic, especially in the context of actions conditional on future actions (Tenayim) and actions involving entities defined in future events (Breira). We deal with ideas of determinism, ideas of going back and inversion of time, also relative to modern Physics. In the last

HALAKHIC LOGIC

51

part of the book we examine one of the reasons why modern legal systems have problems dealing with these concepts. It relates to their practical nature which distances itself from the abstract definitions and logical formalism. The fifth book of the series [3] deals with loops in logic and conflict resolution in the Talmud. We show a systematic approach to different types of conflicts, and propose logical algorithms for dealing with conflicts. Our conclusions are relevant also to general logical thought. We show the association with Kurt Gödel’s ideas about stepping outside the system, and show that this may be done in a systematic manner, which helps solve conflicts that cannot be solved within the system. We also deal with a different kind of normative loops, where the solution can be found in Law and not in Logic. The sixth book of the series [10] is by Andrew Schumann. It deals with an initial characterisation of a General Jewish Logic— and not specifically Talmudic or Halakhic logic. The seventh book of the series [2] investigates the Talmudic approach to Delegation. We develop logical models for the basic Talmudic views of delegation. The Talmudic approaches to the relationships between the Principal and his Agent/Delegate are fundamentally very logical, and deal with questions like chains of delegations, transfer of power, cancellations, death, irresponsible behaviour, change of the terms of delegation, and much more. We highlight the differences between the Talmudic approach and the view of delegation in modern legal systems. Most of the books of the series are written in Hebrew for the ease of the student of the Talmud. However, at the end of each book in the series appears a paper in English, which deals with the logical and mathematical aspects of the topic of the book. These papers deal less with the Talmudic content than with logical assertions. These papers have been published in various journals of Logic.

REFERENCES [1] Abraham M., Gabbay D., Schild U., Non-deductive Inferences in the Talmud (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 1 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2011).

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[2] Abraham M., Belfer I., Gabbay D., Schild U., Delegation in the Talmud (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 7 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2011). [3] _____. Resolution of Conflicts and Normative Loops in the Talmud (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 5 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2011). [4] _____. Temporal Logic in the Talmud (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 4 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2011). [5] Abraham M., Gabbay D., Hazut G., Maruvka Y.E., Schild U., The Textual Inference Rules Klal uPrat (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 2 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2010). [6] Abraham M., Gabbay D., Schild U., Talmudic Deontic Logic (in Hebrew), Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 3 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2011). [7] Ben-Menahem, Hanina, Judicial Deviation in Talmudic Law: Governed by Men, Not by Rules. Jewish Law in Context, vol. 1 (New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991). [8] Kesef Mishne (first printed Venice, 1574). [9] Ravitzky, Aviram, Aristotelian Logic and Talmudic Methodology (in Hebrew) (Magnes Publ., Jerusalem, 2010). [10] Schumann, Andrew, Talmudic Logic, Studies in Talmudic Logic, volume 6 (College Publications, King’s College, London, UK, 2012). [11] Talmud Bavli, The Schottenstein Edition (Mesorah Publications, Ltd, NY, 2008). [12] The Code of Maimonides, Book Fourteen, The Book of Judges (Yale Judaica Series, Yale University Press, 1949). [13] The Mishna, Artscroll Mishna Series, Seder Nezikin, Vol. IV (Avos, Mesorah Publications, Ltd, NY, 2007).

PRAGMATIC LIMITS OF HALAKHIC LOGIC ANDREW SCHUMANN WSIIZ, RZESZÓW, POLAND [email protected] ABSTRACT In this paper, the four Judaic inference rules: qal wa-homer, gezerah šawah, heqeš, binyan ’av are considered from the logical point of view and the pragmatic limits of applying these rules are symbolic-logically explicated. According to the Talmudic sages, on the one hand, after applying some inference rules we cannot apply other inference rules. These rules are weak. On the other hand, there are rules after which we can apply any other. These rules are strong. This means that Judaic inference rules have different pragmatic meanings and this fact differs Judaic logic from other ones. The Judaic argumentation theory built up on Judaic logic also contains pragmatic limits for proofs as competitive communication when different Rabbis claim different opinions in respect to the same subject. In order to define these limits we build up a special kind of syllogistics, the so-called Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics, where it is defined whose opinion should be choosen in a dispute. This paper was first published for free-access in Argumentation under the title Logical Cornestones of Judaic Argumentation Theory.

In Judaism very difficult schemata of logical reasoning adequate for massive-parallelism and concurrency of Jewish religious thought have been developed (Schwarz 1901, 1897; Jacobs 1984; Abraham et al 2010). Recall that the oldest Hebrew commentary 53

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM

tradition (i.e. Tannaitic tradition) recognises mainly three collections of logical inference rules: • t e seven rules of Hillel; • t e t irteen rules of Rabbi Yišma’‘el (they include the six rules of Hillel) for inferring new legislative (halakhic) aspects of the Torah (Hirschfeld 1840); • t e t irty-two rules of Rabbi Eliezer ben Yosi ha-Gelili for inferring new narrative (aggadic) aspects of the Scripture including the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Ketuvim) also (however, there is an opinion that some of these rules were not included into t e rules of Rabbi Yišma’‘el and are aimed for inferring new halakhic aspects of the Torah too) (Hirschfeld 1847). An important fact is that Maimonides (1135–1204), one of the most authoritative rabbis of all periods, asserted that Jewish legal arguments belong to the sphere of dialectics, in particular the thirteen ermeneutic principles of Rabbi Yišma’‘el by which the Torah is expounded, might be treated as Aristotelian topoi and never as deductive syllogisms. Only Karaites suggested to use Aristotelian deductive syllogisms as legal arguments, thus they denied the significance of Judaic logical inference rules. The point is that in Judaism something like Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church has never appeared and the plurality of opinions has ever supposed in respect to plenty of subjects and in many cases it has been even in advance. It is possible to act legitimately even if we follow contrary viewpoints such as Shammai and Hillel’s opposite viewpoints w o ever debated: ‫תני רב יחזקאל עשה כדברי בית שמאי עשה כדברי בית הלל עשה‬ Rav Ye ezkel learnt: If one acts in accordance with the opinion of party of Shammai he has acted [legitimately]; if he acts in accordance with the opinion of party of Hillel he has acted [legitimately] (Berakhot 11a).

Another example, it is allowed to obey the law either according to Rabbi or according to other sages even in cases both opinions are contrary: ‫אמר רבה בר חנא אמר ר' חייא עשה כדברי רבי עשה כדברי חכמים‬ ‫עשה‬

PRAGMATIC LIMITS OF HALAKHIC LOGIC

55

Rabbah bar Hannah said in t e name of R. Hiyya, “If one acted according to Rabbi he has acted [legitimately]; [If one acted] according to t e sages e as acted [legitimately]” (Baba Bathra 124a–b).

Whithin the plurality of opinions we cannot use deductive syllogisms as legal arguments, because syllogistics is developed by means of a holistic standpoint that stands in contradiction to Judaic presuppositions of plurality and to dialectics as a whole. The Christian culture inherits the Roman approach to making decision in disputes in respect to legal subjects, when a final decision should be sole: The answers of jurists are the decisions and opinions of persons authorized to lay down the law. If they are unanimous their decision has the force of law; if they disagree, the judge may follow whichever opinion he chosses, as is ruled by a rescript of the late emperor Hadrian (Gaius, Institutes, 1.7).

Adopting the Roman totalitarian viewpoint allowed the Church Fathers to implement the Roman legal approach in organizing the Ecumenical Councils for making ultimate decisions in religious subjects. On contrary, Judaic reasoning has been presented as a massive-parallel and concurrent proof system that is traditionally called dialectics (Roth 1986; Schumann 2010, 2011, 2012). Thus, Judaism presupposes a plurality of opinions within appropriate pragmatic limits. If we reconstruct the Judaic argumentation theory, i.e. pragmatic limits in using logical tools, we will find out that all proofs of Judaic sages may be classified at least into the following three groups from the pragmatic standpoint: • Proofs as trees. Some premises in reasoning are compatible, i.e. they can be combined in the same deductions. Therefore it has no sense to destinguish, whom (which authority) the premises belong to. • Proofs as parallel processes. Some premises are incompatible, they never occur in the same deductions, but they are concurrent, i.e. used in parallel, disjoint deductive exchanging of input data. For example, the sages maintained that in some cases the inference rule heqeš cannot be involved in the same deduction more than two

56

PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM

times: “t at w ich is learnt through a heqeš does not in turn teach through a heqeš” (Zevachim 49b). In other words, the inference rule heqeš may be used only concurrently. • Proofs as competitive communication. Some inference rules of Judaic logic are competitive, i.e. they have a communication among themselves, though they are incompatible and give different results. In this case we should destinguish, whom (which authority) the premises belong to. As we see, only the first group of Judaic inference rules could find a standard formalisation within the framework of conventional logic. The two others can be formalized only within a version of behavioral logic containing proof techniques for massive-parallel and concurrent deductions. Evidently, this logic should deal with non-well-founded abstract objects. Let us remember that non-wellfounded entities have strucure where the set-theoretic axiom of foundation is not valid (Aczel 1988; Schumann 2008). For instance, infinite trees or threes with cycles are non-well-founded. Behaviors may be formalized as non-well-founded trees. Thus, it is possible to aim obtaining a behavioral (non-well-founded) logic, formalizing the Judaic reasoning. For verifying this formalisation of Judaic proof system it is possible to build up a new version of process calculus and process semantics. In conventional logic (in particular in Aristotelian syllogistics) we have a finite set of axioms and inference rules by using which we obtain all true propositions. In behavioral (non-well-founded) logic the set of premises (axioms) may be infinite, some derivations may be parallel, some others competitive, and some others cyclic, etc. The development of behavioral logic is very promising today. There are lots of its versions suited to discourse and reasoning about sequential behavior: Hoare logic, algorithmic logic, process logic, and dynamic logic. However, extending these logics to concurrent behavior has proved problematic. These logics are unapplied also to analyzing massive-parallel process. Therefore formalizing a Judaic version of behavioral logic could find a lot of practical applications in modern computer sciences. Nevertheless, we will not build up the whole Judaic behavioral logic in this paper; we limit ourselves just to considering logical cornerstones of Judaic argumentation theory.

PRAGMATIC LIMITS OF HALAKHIC LOGIC

57

First of all, recall that a proof (or derivation) of a well-formed formula S from a set of premises U is a finite tree such that: • S is the root of the tree and it is called the end-formula. • T e leaves of t e tree are all axioms or members of U . • Eac c ild node of t e tree is obtained from its parent nodes by an inference rule, i.e. if S is a child node of S1, … , Sn, then S ,  , S 1

n

S

is an instance of a rule. In the Judaic argumentation theory, the set of all propositions (all cases of laws or prohibitions) of the Torah is regarded as set U of premises. Thereby in drawing derivation trees, the following inference rules are most demanded: 1. a wa-homer [‫‘( ]קל וחומר‬para e concurrent deductions’), this rule partly corresponds to the scholastic proof a fortiori (‘a minori ad majus’ or ‘a majori ad minus’), according to t e latter w at applies in less important cases will apply in more important ones too, i.e. this rule allows to entail from the simple to the complex or vice versa (Abraham et al 2009, Schumann 2011). However, there are important distinctions from the scholastic proof a fortiori. The process of deduction in the qa wa-homer is proceeded under the assumption that the inferred statement conclusion may contain nothing more than is found in the premise. This limitation is called the dayo principle. A syllogism implicitly drawn from a minor case upon a more important one: “If X is true of Y and Z is of greater weight than Y, then how much more X must be true of Z (but not more than of Z).” Example: using t e following passage as premise “If t ou meet thy enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to im again” (Ex. 23:4), we can conclude that if that be one’s conduct toward an enemy, ow muc more s ould one be considerate toward a friend. In qa wa-homer two or more parallel deductions concur under the following conditions: (i) they have joint premises (ii) one deduction of the set of concurrent deductions is much more certain. As a result, a certainty of that deduction is expanded to cases of other concurrent deductions. Notice that qal wa-homer does not hold in Judaic criminal procedure, i.e. by using this rule nobody can be sentenced to an execution. We could differ the Biblical case of qa wa-homer described above from the more sophisticated way of its application in the Talmud. The point is that quite often a qa wa-homer is used in the

58

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Talmud as the basic inference rule of metareasoning, i.e. as reasoning about reasoning, in particular it is applied in relation to differet complexes of derivations (as we see a bit later, namely in propositions Q1–Q6). 2. Gezerah šawah [‫‘( ]גזירה שווה‬ana ogy’), this rule can be described as proof by analogy, which infers from the similarity of two cases that the legal decision given for the one holds for the other also. This rule may be valid if we observe the use of a similar phrase, word, or root of word in Hebrew in different contexts. In Talmudic tradition it is claimed that every gezerah šawah must have been handed down from Sinai. No one may draw a conclusion from analogy upon his own authority. 3. Heqeš [‫]היקש‬, this Hebrew word means a comparison based on the close connection of two subjects in one and the same passage of the Torah. According to heqeš, if two particulars are connected in the law by a common general, the same provisions in regard to one of them are under certain circumstances applicable also to the other. For instance, women are free from the performance of all periodical rites and religious duties kept by male Israelites. However, we deduce by heqeš that it is incumbent on women to obey prohibitory commandments, because there is a passage in the Torah: Speak unto the children of Israel, when a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty (Num. 5:6),

where women and men belong to one general in regard to a trespass against the law. Another example of heqeš appears to prove that a wife is taken in matrimony by means of a written contract of marriage. There is a statement: And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife (Deut. 24:2)

according to that the divorse is made by means of a bill of divorcement. In one verse it is talked about departing out of the house and becoming another man’s wife. Hence, this becoming a wife is effected by means of a written document also.

PRAGMATIC LIMITS OF HALAKHIC LOGIC

59

4. Binyan ’av [‫‘( ]בנין אב‬genus’), it unites the third and the fourth rules of Hillel. The example of a genus: “He s all even pour out t e blood t ereof, and cover it wit dust” (Lev. 17:13). This means that all aspects of two actions should be considered in common, e.g. just as the pouring out of the blood is performed with the hand, so must the covering be done with the hand, not with the foot. Let us denote qal wa-homer, gezerah šawah, heqeš, binyan ’av by q, g, h, b respectivelly. Definition 1 The derivation, DerI(A, B), in Judaic reasoning is a two-placed predicate such that A is a child node and B is a parent node of an appropriate inference rule I (where I is one of the rules from the set {q, g, h, b}), whereas either B belongs to U or B is a child node of another inference rule I0 (from the same set {q, g, h, b}). In the second case we can write DerI(A, DerI0(B, C)), where C either belongs to U or is a child node of another inference rule I1 (from {q, g, h, b}) and then DerI(A, DerI0(B, DerI1(C, D)), and so on. The predicate DerI(A, B) is read as fo ows: “the standpoint A is provable by the argument B through I;” in the Ta mudic phraseo ogy: “B teaches A through I” or “A is earnt from B through I.” By this definition, the Judaic derivation supposed in proof argumentation is a reflexive and transitive relation. Indeed, the standpoint A is provable by the argument A and if the standpoint A is provable by the argument B and B is provable by the argument C, then A is provable by the argument C. Formally, the binary relation Der0I of derivation is defined as the least relation satisfying: whenever there is a proof tree containing P in the conclusion and Q among the premises, then Der0I(P, Q) holds. Further, define DerI to be the reflexive and transitive closure of Der0I. Definition 1 allows us to commit all derivations trees to writing. There is no end of possible combinations taking into account the sets of premises (any cases of laws or prohibitions) and inference rules and, as a result, there is a plenty of derivation predicates. However, not all combinations are acceptable from the standpoint of Judaic pragmatic limits. The inference rules q, g, h, b are topoi in the Aristotelian meaning given by him in the Topics. These hermeneutic rules are not deductive, although they may have and have a rigorous logical feature and bear a strict logical derivation sense. Their non-deductiveness

60

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consists just in that they belong to human pragmatics, namely they are parts of Judaic speech acts and concern Judaic behaviors. They are not an abstract game in abstract signs as we have in a deductive logic. Hermeneutic rules of any religious system are topoi in fact. Their goal is to constitute a kind of opinions, the so-called divine standpoint written down in revelation, and a kind of behaviors, the so-called perfect behaviour satisfying divine commandments. On the contrary, the Topics of Aristotle proposes different ways of invention and discovery of arguments in which the propositions rest upon any commonly-held opinions, not only upon divine standpoints. Hence, the Aristotelian dialectics is pluralistic and open for different opposite opinions. All the possible cases of laws or prohibitions that can be associated with the Holy Scripture form an infinite set of propositions. This set may be appreciably reduced by inference rules of appropriate hermeneutics: Judaic, Karaitic, Catholic, etc. Different canons of rules give different results, but not any possible. Nevertheless, this reduced set is enormous enough still. The number of possible premises is too large; therefore we can ever have opposite opinions. It is not the question of Aristotelian dialectics, but this is a real problem of religious hermeneutics, because the latter should deduce and explain divine standpoints and tell how we must behave, i.e. it should support an unambiguous opinion. There are different ways that allow us to solve this problem. The Christian way is that all the fundamental religious standpoints have been accepted in Ecumenical Councils by voting. Their members should have voted unanimously and the minority, i.e. all who were discordant have been anathematized as heretics. There is no place for doctrinal discussions. Only one opinion exists forever. Nomocanons (Greek: Νομοκανών) were collections of ecclesiastical law in Christian Churches and these collections were based on canon law accepted in Ecumenical Councils by voting. Since then in the Catholic Church another mean to introduce canon law has appeared as well, in particular decretals (epistolae decretales), the letters of the Pope that formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law. This mean does not assume an opposite opinion or pluralism too. In Judaism something like Ecumenical Councils or Pope decretals has never taken place. The pluralistic nature of Judaic thought has ever postulated. However, in the same measure as in

PRAGMATIC LIMITS OF HALAKHIC LOGIC

61

Christianity Judaism needs canon law (halakhah) supporting only one opinion. The Christian way is to avoid doctrinal discussions and to anathematize all discordant people. This way of supporting only one opinion in canon law is too simple and not logical. The Judaic way is much more sophisticated. On the one hand, in Judaism doctrinal discussions are ever possible and anathematizing is an extreme case. On the other hand, only one opinion from opposite ones should satisfy canon law (halakhah). This contradiction has been solved by metareasoning, i.e. by a logical analysis of pragmatic limits for eventual opinions. The metareasoning should avoid some derivation predicates, i.e. reduce the number of deductions. In this paper I will consider first how the subject of Talmudic discussion in relation to halakhah affects avoiding some derivations and second how the authority of opinion weighs upon accepting derivations. As we will see these two Judaic means have a rigorous formal-logical meaning. It seems to me that only Judaism has such sophisticated means for deducing univocal canon law. The Judaic way of unifying opinions may be interesting from the viewpoint of modern argumentation theory as an example of formal metareasoning directed towards establishing univocal standpoints within concrete pragmatic limits. Our first example of Judaic formal metareasoning concerns restrictions in composing one inference rule with another when reasoning is about sanctified objects or sacred rites (‫הקדשים‬, all the thinks connected to the Temple). It is known that within other subjects we have no similar restrictions: ‫בכל התורה כולה למידין למד מלמד חוץ מן הקדשים שאין דנין למד מלמד‬ ‫אמר ר' יוחנן‬ R. Yo anan said: everywhere in the Torah we may draw an inference from something which itself has been inferred, outside the realm of the sacred, wherein we may not draw an inference from something which itself has been inferred (Zevachim 49b).

The start point of discussion concerns the most holy sacrifices, consisting of the burnt-offering (‘olah), sin-offering (hat’at), and guilt-offering (’ašam), if they must be slaughtered in the northern part of the Outer Altar and if their blood must be received in a sacred vessel in this northern part. The problem is that the burnt-

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offering is the only sacrifice mentioned in the Torah whose site of slaughter is unambiguously designated as the north (Lev. 1:11). However, this Biblical verse explicitly considers just a flock burntoffering meaning a sheep or goat, and we do not know if cows are also included. On the other hand, Lev. 1:10 concerning a flock offering begins wit t e connective ‘and’ (t e Hebrew letter waw) which is superfluous here. In the previous verse the subject was on a cattle burnt-offering. Therefore by heqeš (appealing to t is ‘and’) rabbis deduce that cows are thus included also as burnt-offering slaughtered in the north. Now that is the question where all sin-offerings and guiltofferings must be slaughtered. The Torah (Lev. 6:18) prescribes that the sin-offering be slaug tered “in t e place w ere t e burntoffering is slaughtered,” i.e. in t e nort ern part. Nevertheless, nothing is said where the sin-offering blood must be collected. But it can be inferred by a qal wa-homer from the burnt-offering as less stringent. We know from the Torah (Lev. 7:2) as well that the guiltoffering is to be slaughtered at the same site as the burnt-offering, i.e. in the north. However, nothing is said again where the blood collection must be. Hence, the problem is that in order to deduce that all three most holy sacrifices (burnt-offering, sin-offering, and guiltoffering) must be slaughtered in the north and their blood must be received there as well, we need to appeal to two-step exegeses, i.e. to apply one inference rule just after another. In Zevachim 49b–51a different two-step combinations of rules from the set {q, g, h, b} are regarded if they may be accepted for the subject of the most holy sacrifices. According to the Talmud, the following derivation predicates are strongly forbidden when the subject concerns sanctified objects or sacred rites: Derh(A, Derh(B, C)) is rejected

(1)

i.e. that which is learnt through a heqeš does not in turn teach through a heqeš.

By (1), we cannot learn by a heqeš the guilt-offering from the sin-offering which was learned from the burnt-offering by a heqeš,

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too. The matter is that as support argumentation it would be insufficient in fact. According to Rabbi Yohanan bar Nappaha’ [‫]רבי יוחנן בר נפחא‬: Derg(A, Derh(B, C)) is rejected

(2)

i.e. that which is learnt by a heqeš does not in turn teach through a gezerah šawah.

Rabbi Yohanan bar Nappaha’ notices that a spreading outbreak of leprosy covering the whole is considered as the deduction Derg(A, Derh(B, C)). However, the phenomenon of spreading outbreak does not fit within the category of sacred rites; therefore this dual derivation cannot be valid. Derb(A, Derh(B, C)) is rejected

(3)

i.e. that which is learnt through a heqeš cannot in turn teach through a binyan ’av.

This deduction cannot be used as well, we cannot infer ‘nort ward’ of guilt-offering from a sin-offering or a burnt-offering by a binyan ’av assuming that these three kinds of sacrifices share the common characteristic of being offerings. The point is that they all are sufficiently different in what they are and who must bring them. Derh(A, Derg(B, C)) is rejected

(4)

i.e. t at w ic is learnt by a gezera šawa does not in turn teac t roug a eqeš.

Rav Papa’ [‫ ]רב פפא‬proposes the derivation predicate Derh(A, Derg(B, C)) for the subject of the most holy sacrifices. However, as rabbis claim, he involves instances in which the gezerah šawah was based on peace and thanksgiving offerings, although in the second step he appeals to tithe (ma’aser šeni), a non-sacred item (hullin). Thus, according to Rav Papa’ we have as follows: Derh(A, Derg(B, C)) is allowed

(5)

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i.e. t at w ic is learnt by a gezera šawa can in turn teach t roug a eqeš.

In the meantime, the universality of qal wa-homer in respect to heqeš is asserted by all sages: Derq(A, Derh(B, C)) is allowed

(6)

i.e. that which is learnt through a heqeš teaches in turn by a qal wa-homer.

Derg(A, Derg(B, C)) is allowed

(6a)

i.e. that which is learnt through a gezerah šawah teaches in turn by a gezerah šawah.

Because of rejecting some derivation predicates in the Talmud, we can define the following four new predicates: Definition 2 The predicate “weak learning of Ii for Ij”, where Ii, Ij from the set {q, g, h, b} means that if we apply the inference rule Ij, we cannot just after apply the rule Ii. Hence, propositions (1)–(4) are expressed by predicates “weak learning of h for ”, “weak learning of g for ”, “weak learning of b for ”, “weak learning of h for g”, respectively. Definition 3 The predicate “weak teaching of Ii for Ij”, where Ii, Ij belong to the set {q, g, h, b}, means that if we apply the inference rule Ii, we cannot just after apply the rule Ij. Obviously that if Ii has a weak teaching for Ij, then Ij has a weak learning for Ii, i.e. “weak learning of Ii for Ij”  “weak teaching of Ij for Ii”. In ot er words, t e predicate “weak learning” is dual to t e predicate “weak teaching”, i.e. these predicates assume t e dual ordering relations on t e set of derivations: “A weak y teaches B” is t e same as “B is weak y earnt from A.” The conditions (1)–(4) can be formulated by predicates “weak teaching of

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h for ”, “weak teaching of h for g”, “weak teaching of h for b”, “weak teaching of g for ”, respectively. Definition 4 The predicate “strong learning of Ii for Ij”, where Ii, Ij from the set {q, g, h, b} means that if we apply the inference rule Ij, we can always apply the rule Ii. T is kind of predicates can be exemplified by “strong learning of h for g” satisfying condition (5), by “strong learning of q for ” satisfying condition (6), and by “strong learning of g for g” satisfying condition (6a). Definition 5 The predicate “strong teaching of Ii for Ij”, where Ii, Ij from the set {q, g, h, b} means that if we apply the inference rule Ii, we can always apply the rule Ij. For instance, “strong teaching of g for ” satisfies (5), “strong teaching of h for q” satisfies condition (6), and by “strong teaching of g for g” satisfying condition (6a). Let us notice t at t e predicate “strong teaching” is dual to the predicate “strong learning”. Following the Judaic sages, we may propose now an ordering relation over the set {q, g, h, b}. On the basis of propositions (1)– (6a), it is possible to order the Judaic inference rules q, g, h, b by predicates of definitions 2–5. The tool of ordering is presented by a traditional Judaic way, qal wa-homer. In the Talmudic tractate Zevachim we face the following six reasoning by qal wa-homer, which order the inference rules q, g, h, b. Q1 If that which is learnt by a heqeš, which cannot teach by a heqeš (1), can teach by a qal wa-homer (6) and something is learnt through a gezerah šawah, which can in turn teach by a heqeš, as follows from Rav Papa’ (5), then this something can surely teach in turn by a qal wa-homer: (‘Derh(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derq(C, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’ & ‘Derh(A, Derg(D, X)) is allowed’)  ‘Derq(E, Derg(D, X)) is allowed’.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM weak teaching for h –

weak learning for h –

strong teaching for q for h

strong learning for g –

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – for h homer Does qal wa-homer have a strong learning for gezerah šawah? This table shows that, on the one hand, q has the property to be a strong learning for h, g has the property to be a strong teaching for h. On the other hand, h has the properties to be a strong learning for g and a strong teaching for q. Taking into account that due to (1) and (6) h is weaker than q, we can infer from minor to major that q has the property of h to be a strong learning for g. Q2 If a heqeš, which cannot in turn teach by a heqeš (1), can teach in turn by a qal wa-homer (6) and a gezerah šawah does teach by a gezerah šawah like itself (6a), then this gezerah šawah can surely teach through a qal wa-homer: (‘Derh(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derq(C, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’ & ‘Derg(A, Derg(D, X)) is allowed’)  ‘Derq(E, Derg(D, X)) is allowed’. weak teaching for h –

weak learning for h –

strong teaching for q for g

strong learning – for g

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – for h homer Does gezerah šawah have a strong teaching for qal wa-homer? According to this table, on the one hand, g has the property to be a strong teaching for g. On the other hand, h has the properties to be a strong teaching for q. Taking into account that due to (1) h is weaker than g, we may deduce from minor to major that g has the property of h to be a strong teaching for q.

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Q3 If a gezerah šawah, which cannot be learnt from a heqeš, as follows from Rabbi Yohanan bar Nappaha’ dictum (2), can nevertheless teach by a heqeš, in accordance with Rav Papa’ (5), and a qal wahomer can be learnt from a heqeš (6), then this qal wa-homer can surely teach by a heqeš: (‘Derg(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derh(C, Derg(A, X)) is allowed’ & ‘Derq(D, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’)  ‘Derh(E, Derq(D, Z)) is allowed’. weak teaching for g –

weak learning – for h

strong teaching for q for h

strong learning for g –

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – for h homer Does qal wa-homer have a strong teaching for heqeš?

As follows from this table, we assume that g is weaker than q (g is a weak learning for h, although q is a strong learning for h). Further, g has the property to be a strong teaching for h. Then taking into account that g is weaker than q, we can entail from minor to major that q has the property of g to be a strong teaching for h. Q4 If a gezerah šawah, which cannot be learnt from a heqeš, in accordance with Rabbi Yohanan bar Nappaha’ dictum (2), can teach by a gezerah šawah and a qal wa-homer can be learnt by a heqeš (6), then this qal wa-homer can teach by a gezerah šawah: (‘Derg(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derg(C, Derg(A, X)) is allowed’ & ‘Derq(D, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’)  ‘Derg(E, Derq(D, Z)) is allowed’.

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM weak teaching – for h

weak learning for g –

strong teaching for q for g

strong learning – for g

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – for h homer Does qal wa-homer have a strong teaching for gezerah šawah? In the table we see that g is weaker than q (indeed, g is a weak teaching for h, but q is a strong learning for h), at the same time g has the property to be a strong teaching for g. From minor to major we conclude that q has the same property to be a strong teaching for g. Q5 If a gezerah šawah, which cannot be learnt by a heqeš, in accordance with Rabbi Yohanan bar Nappaha’ dictum (2), can teach by a qal wa-homer and a qal wa-homer can be learnt from a heqeš (6), then this qal wa-homer can teach by a qal wa-homer: (‘Derg(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derq(C, Derg(A, X)) is allowed’ & ‘Derq(D, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’)  ‘Derq(E, Derq(D, Z)) is allowed’. weak teaching – for h

weak learning for g –

strong teaching for q for q

strong learning – –

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – for g, homer for h Does qal wa-homer have a strong teaching for qal wa-homer? Since g is weaker than q (because g is a weak teaching for h, but q is a strong learning for h) and g has the property to be a strong teaching for q. From minor to major we obtain that q has the property of g to be a strong teaching for q.

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Q6 If a heqeš, which cannot be learnt through a heqeš (1), can teach by a qal wa-homer and a qal wa-homer is learnt through a heqeš (6), then this qal wa-homer can surely teach through a qal wa-homer: (‘Derh(A, Derh(B, Y)) is rejected’ & ‘Derq(C, Derh(A, X)) is allowed’ & ‘Derq(D, Derh(B, Y)) is allowed’)  ‘Derq(E, Derq(D, Z)) is allowed’. weak teaching for h –

weak learning for h –

strong teaching for q –

strong learning – for h

heqeš gezerah šawah qal wa– – – – homer Does qal wa-homer have a strong learning for qal wa-homer?

We know that h is weaker than q (indeed, h is a weak learning for h, but q is a strong learning for h) and h has the property to be a strong teaching for q. From minor to major we infer that q has the property of h to be a strong teaching for q. Reasoning from Q1 to Q6 shows that heqeš is the weakest inference rule and qal wa-homer the strongest. As we see, in the Talmudic inference rules have different pragmatic limits within the subject of the realm of the sacred. The widest limits are borne by qal wa-homer that can be applied everywhere, the most restricted by heqeš. The Talmudic reasoning in Zevachim 49b–51a tells us about pragmatic aspects of logical inference rules involved for inferring Judaic laws. It is prohibited to use inference rules without regarding these aspects. For example, we cannot use a heqeš in one and the same deduction if we face cases (1)–(4). According to these aspects, many Judaic proofs may be drawn up only as parallel processes. The Judaic argumentation theory also contains pragmatic limits for proofs as competitive communication when different Rabbis claim different opinions in respect to the same subject. In order to define these limits we build up a special kind of syllogistics where it is defined whose opinion should be choosen in a dispute. This sys-

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tem is called Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics. While the logical analysis of Zevachim 49b–51a concerns how the topic of Talmudic discussion (e.g. the realm of the sacred) determines restrictions in deducing, Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics shows whose opinions we should follow in Talmudic discussions as such. Definition 6 The alphabet of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics is an ordered system A P = V , Q1, Q2 , L1, L2 , L3 , L4 , K  , where 1. V is the set of propositional variables p, q, r, ...; 2. Q1 is a set of pragmatic-syllogistic variables P, Q, R, … running over different sages (Tannaim as well as Amoraim); 3. Q2 is a set of pragmatic-syllogistic constants including the following 28 sages: Mar bar Rav ’Aši [‫]מר בר רב אשי‬, the sage of Babylon, Amora of the seventh generation, the son of Rav ’Aši, he headed the academy of Sura city. Rab [‫]רבי אבא אריכא‬, the Amora of the first generation, who lived in Babylonia, where he established an academy at Sura. Rabbah [‫]רבה בר נחמני‬, the sage of Babylon, Amora of the third generation. Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e [‫]רבן שמעון בן גמליאל‬, the Tanna of the third generation and president of the Great Sanhedrin, the father of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’. Rabbi ’E i‘ezer [‫]רבי אליעזר‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the second generation, he descended from a priestly family. Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob [‫]רבי אליעזר בן יעקב‬, the Tanna of the fourth generation, the student of Rabbi ‘Akiba’. Rabbi Gama i’e [‫]רבי גמליאל דיבנה‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the second generation, the first person to lead the Sanhedrin as president after the fall of the second temple. Rabbi iyy’a [‫]רבי חייא‬, the Israelite, the Amora belonging to the first generation. Rabbi Me’ir [‫]רבי מאיר‬, the Tanna of the fourth generation, his father was a descendant of the Roman Emperor Nero who had converted to Judaism. Rabbi Natan [‫]רבי נתן הבבלי‬, the Tanna of the third generation, the son of a Babylonian exilarch, then he settled in the land of Israel, where he was made chief of the school at Usha.

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Rabbi Nehemiah [‫]רבי נחמיה‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the fourth generation, attributed as the author of the Mišnat ha-Middot, the earliest known Hebrew text on geometry. Rabbi Šim‘on [‫]רבי שמעון בר יוחאי‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the fourth generation, attributed as the author of the Zohar, the chief work of Kabbalah, he was also one of the most eminent disciples of Rabbi ‘Akiba’. Rabbi Šim‘on ben ’E e‘azar [‫]רבי שמעון בן אלעזר‬, the Tanna of the fourth generation, the student of Rabbi Me’ir. Rabbi Yehošu‘a [‫]רבי יהושע בן חנניה‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the second generation, the Levitical descent, he served in the sanctuary as a member of the class of singers. Rabbi Yehudah [‫]רבי יהודה בר מערבא‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the fourth generation and son of Rabbi ’I a’‘i [‫]רבי אלעאי‬. Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ [‫]רבי יהודה הנשיא‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the fifth generation, the chief editor of the Mishnah, he was of the royal line of King David. Rabbi Yišma’‘e [‫]רבי ישמעאל‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the third generation, he formalized a set of 13 hermeneutic rules by which halakhah was derived from the Torah. Rabbi Yose [‫]רבי יוסי בן חלפתא‬, the Israelite, the Tanna of the fourth generation, the student of Rabbi ‘Akiba’. Rav ’Aha’ [‫]רבי אחא‬, the Israelite, Amora of the fourth generation. Rav ’Aši [‫]רב אשי‬, the Babylonian Amora of the sixth generation, one the first editors of the Babylonian Talmud, he reestablished the academy at Sura. Rav isda’ [‫]רב חסדא‬, the Babylonian Amora of the third generation, he descended from a priestly family, the disciple of Rav and Rav una’. Rav una’ [‫]רב הונא‬, the Amora of the second generation who lived in Babylonia and headed the academy of Sura, the disciple of Rav, he descended from a priestly family. Rav Nahman [‫]רב נחמן בר יעקב‬, the Amora of the third generation, who lived in Babylonia, the student of Šmu’e and then the head of the school of Nehardea. Rav Šešet [‫]רב ששת‬, the Babylonian Amora of the third generation and colleague of Rav Nahman.

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Rav Yehudah [‫]רב יהודה בן יחזקאל‬, the Babylonian Amora of the second generation, the disciple of Rav, he founded an academy at Pumbedita. Rav Yosef [‫]רב יוסף בר חייא‬, the Amora of the third generation, who lived in Babylonia, the disciple of Rav Yehudah, the head of the academy of Pumbedita. Ravina’ [‫]רבינא‬, the Babylonian Amora of the sixth generation, one of the first editors of the Babylonian Talmud. Šmu’e [‫]שמואל‬, one of the leading Babylonian Amoraim of the first generation, who succeeded his father as head of the academy of Nehardea, he mastered the contemporary sciences such as medicine and astronomy. 4. L1 = {}; 5. L2 = {,  , }; 6. L3 is a set containing two unary pragmatic-syllogistic connectives A(…), H(…) meaning “t e statement… is anonymous,” “… is t e final decision (halakhah)” respectively; 7. L4 is a set of binary pragmatic-syllogistic connectives containing five elements …=b…, T(…, …), t(…, …), …*…, excn(…) called the functors “t e statement… belongs to t e sage …,” “t e sage… is a disciple of t e sage …,” “t e sage… is later t an t e sage …,” “t e statement … is followed by t e statement…,” “t e opinion of t e sage … prevails (or is rejected), but not in t ese n named cases” respectively. 8. L5 is a set consisting of the only ternary pragmaticsyllogistic connective agst…(…, …) called t e functor “in respect to t e statement… t e sage … is against t e sage …” 9. K is the set of auxiliary symbols containing two brackets:(,). Definition 7 The language of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics is an ordered system L P  A P , FP , where 1. A P is the alphabet of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics; 2. FP is a set of all formulas formed by means of symbols in A P ; this set FP contains all formulas defined by the standard rules defining well-formed propositional formulas and additionally by the following rules: (d1) if  is propositional formula, then the expression A() is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics;

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(d2) if  is propositional formula, then the expression H() is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d3) if  is a propositional formula and Q is a pragmaticsyllogistic variable (or a pragmatic-syllogistic constant), then the expression  =b Q is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d4) if P, Q are pragmatic-syllogistic variables (or pragmaticsyllogistic constants), then the expression T(P, Q) is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d5) if P, Q are pragmatic-syllogistic variables (or pragmaticsyllogistic constants), then the expression t(P, Q) is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d6) if ,  are propositional formulas, then the expression  * is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d7) if Q is a pragmatic-syllogistic variable (or a pragmaticsyllogistic constant), then the expression excn(Q) is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics; (d8) if  is propositional formula and P, Q are pragmaticsyllogistic variables (or pragmatic-syllogistic constants), then the expression agst(P, Q) is a formula of pragmatic-syllogistics. Formulas that are defined by means of rules (d1)–(d8) are called formulas of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics in the strict sense. They are denoted by P. Definition 8 Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics is an ordered system

S P  A P ,FP , C , where AP ;

1. A P is the alphabet of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics; 2. FP is a set of all formulas formed by means of symbols in 3. C is the inference operation in FP . The inference rules of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics are as follows:

1. the substitution rule, we replace a propositional variable pj of formula (p1, …, pn), containing propositional variables p1, …, pn, by a propositional formula (q1, …, qk), containing propositional variables q1, …, qk (as well as by a pragmatic-syllogistic formula  ( , ) or  ( ) ), containing pragmatic-syllogistic variables or pragmatic-syllogistic constants), and we obtain a new propositional formula ’(p1, …, pj-1, (q1, …, qk), pj+1, …, pn) (as well as a new

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pragmatic-syllogistic formula  ' ( p1 ,..., p j 1 ,  ( , ), p j 1 ,..., pn ) or  ' ( p1,..., p j 1,  ( ), p j 1,..., pn ) ):

 ( p1 ,..., p j ,..., pn )  ' ( p1 ,..., p j 1 ,  (q1 ,..., qk ), p j 1 ,..., pn )

 ( p1 ,..., p j ,..., pn )  ' ( p1 ,..., p j 1 ,  ( , ), p j 1 ,..., pn )  ( p1 ,..., p j ,..., pn )  ' ( p1 ,..., p j 1 ,  ( ), p j 1 ,..., pn ) In the same way, from any pragmatic-syllogistic formula  ( p, P) ,  ( p) ,  ( P, Q) , agst p ( P, Q) or  (P) a new formula  ' ( (q1 ,..., qk ), P) ,  ' ( (q1 ,..., qk )) ,  ' ( R, Q) ,  ' ( P, R), or  ' ( R) agst p ( R, Q), agst p ( P, R ), agst  ( q ,...,q ) ( P, Q ) 1 k follows if we replace a propositional variable p by a propositional formula  (q1,..., qk ) , containing propositional variables q1,..., qk , or a pragmatic-syllogistic variable P by R and Q by R:

 ( p, P )  ' ( (q1 ,..., qk ), P)

 ( p)  ' ( (q1 ,..., qk ))

 ( P, Q )  ' ( R, Q )

 ( P, Q )  ' ( P, R )

agst p ( P, R )

 ( P)  ' ( R)

agst p ( P, Q)

agst p ( P, Q)

agst  ( q1 ,...,qk ) ( P, Q)

agst p ( R, Q)

agst p ( P, Q)

2. modus ponens, according to that if two formulas of pragmatic-syllogistics  and    hold, then we deduce a formula . Now let us consider the axioms Judaic of pragmaticsyllogistics. First of all, they consist of axioms of propositional logic and furthermore of the following additional expressions:

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The axioms concerning the general properties to be a conflict between sages:

agst  (Q, Q)

(7)

agst  (Q, R )  agst  ( R, Q)

(8)

agst  (Q, R )  (  b Q    b R )

(9)

agst  (Q, R )  (  b Q  (  b R ))

(10)

((   )    b Q  (  b R ))  agst  (Q, R ) A( )  agst  (Q, R )

(11) (12)

The axioms concerning the general properties to be a teacher of another sage:

T (Q, Q )

(13)

T (Q, R )  T ( R, Q )

(14)

(T( P, Q )  T (Q, R ))  T ( P, R )

(15)

(  b P  agst  ( P,Q )  T ( P, Q))    b Q

(16)

The axioms in respect to the general properties to be later than another sage:

t (Q, Q )

(17)

t (Q, R )  t ( R, Q )

(18)

(t ( P, Q )  t (Q, R ))  t ( P, R )

(19)

The general properties to be followed by another statement are expressed by the following axioms:

( *  )

(20)

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( * )  ( *  )

(21)

(( * )  ( *  )  ( *  )

(22)

The general properties to be an opinion of a sage are formulated by the axioms:

(  b Q  (   ))    b Q

(23)

  b Q  (  b Q)

(24)

(  )  b Q  ((  b Q)  (  b Q))

(25)

The axioms regarding the general properties to be a final decision (halakhah):

(H( )  (   ))  H( )

(26)

H( )  (H( ))

(27)

H(  )  (H( )  H( ))

(28)

The next axioms describing more specific properties of pragmatic-syllogistic connectives were formulated by Rabbi Samuel haNagid, the Spanish poet and Talmudist, born at Cordova 993 and died at Granada 1055, in his famous book, the Introduction to the Talmud [‫]מבוא התלמוד‬. These axioms are compiled by him from the Talmud and completely accepted in Judaism. D1 One sage against many: the final decision is like the many, i.e. when the opinion of an individual conflicted with that of the majority, we should choose the opinion of the majority:

(agst  (Q, R1 )  agst  (Q, R2 )  ...  agst  (Q, Rn ))  H( )

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D2 The final decision is never like the disciple when in dispute with his teacher:

(  b Q  T (Q, R )  agst  (Q, R ))  H ( )

.

D3 If a later sage is in dispute with an earlier sage, the final decision is like the later sage:

(  b Q  t (Q, R )  agst  (Q, R ))  H( ) D4 Within one tractate of the Mishnah, a dispute followed by an anonymous statement, representing one of the views, means that the final decision is in accordance with the latter:

( *  (   )  agst  (Q, R )  A( ))  H( ) D5 Within one tractate of the Mishnah, an anonymous statement followed by statements containing a dispute means that the final decision is not like the anonymous statement:

( *  (   )  agst (Q, R )  A( ))  H( ) D6 If there is a dispute in the Barayta and an anonymous statement in the Mishnah following one view, the final decision is like the latter:

( from the Barayta   from the Mishnah  (   ) 

agst  (Q, R )  A( ))  H( ) D7 If there is a dispute in the Mishnah and an anonymous statement in the Barayta, we do not say the final decision is like the Barayta, because we say “If Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ did not teach it, how could Rabbi iyy’a, t e editor of t e Barayta, know it?”

( from the Barayta   from the Mishnah  (   )  agst (Q, R )  A( ))  H( ) D8 The compilers of the Talmud were Rav ’Aši and Ravina’ and their colleagues:

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(( = b Q)   = b R1   = b R2  ...   = b Rn )  ( from the Gemara  A( ))  ( b Rav ’ Aši    b

Ravina’).

D9 An anonymous statement in the Mishnah belongs to Rabbi Me’ir:

( from the Mishnah  A( ))  (  b Rabbi Me’ir). D10 An anonymous statement in the Tosefta belongs to Rabbi Nehemiah:

( from the Tosefta  A( ))  (  b Rabbi Nehemiah). D11 An anonymous statement in the Sifra belongs to Rabbi Yehudah:

( from the Sifra  A( ))  ( b Rabbi Yehudah). D12 An anonymous statement in the Sifre belongs to Rabbi Šim‘on:

( from the Sifre  A( ))  ( b Rabbi Šim‘on). Notice that by using axioms (12), (16), D12, we can prove that if the statement  from the Sifre is anonymous, then it belongs to Rabbi ‘Akiba’, because Rabbi Šim‘on is a disciple of Rabbi ‘Akiba’. D13 “Some say” [‫ ]יש אומרים‬means Rabbi Natan: “Some say ”   =b Rabbi Natan. D14 “Ot ers say” [‫ ]אחרים אומרים‬means Rabbi Me’ir: “Ot ers say ”   =b Rabbi Me’ir. D15 Where Rabbi Me’ir is named in a source, and his decision is disputed, either by Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yose, Rabbi Šim‘on or Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob, the final decision is like his opponent:

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( =b Rabbi Yehudah  agst(Rabbi Me’ir, Rabbi Yehudah))  H(), ( =b Rabbi Yose  agst(Rabbi Me’ir, Rabbi Yose))  H(), ( =b Rabbi Šim‘on  agst(Rabbi Me’ir, Rabbi Šim‘on))  H(), ( =b Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob  agst(Rabbi Me’ir, Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob))  H(). D16 Rabbi Yehudah against Rabbi Šim‘on: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah  agst(Rabbi Šim‘on, Rabbi Yehudah))  H(). D17 The final decision is always like Rabbi Yose, even against more than one named Tanna: ( =b Rabbi Yose  agst(Rabbi Yose, Q))  H(). D18 The Mishnah of Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob is “small but pure” [‫]משנת ראב"י קב ונקי‬, i.e. he is not mentioned often, but when he is the final decision is always like him: ( =b Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob  agst(Rabbi ’E i‘ezer ben Ya‘qob, Q))  H(). D19 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabbi Šim‘on ben ’E e‘azar: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’  agst(Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, Rabbi Šim‘on ben ’E e‘azar))  H(). D20 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabbi Yehudah: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’  agst(Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, Rabbi Yehudah))  H().

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D21 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabbi Me’ir: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’  agst(Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, Rabbi Me’ir))  H(). D22 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabbi Yose in words of Rabbi Yehudah: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’  agst(Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, Rabbi Yose in words of Rabbi Yehudah))  H(). D23 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabbi Yišma’‘e in words of Rabbi Yose: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’: ( =b Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’  agst(Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, Rabbi Yišma’‘e in words of Rabbi Yose))  H(). This condition that Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ is not against Rabbi Yišma’‘e directly because of the restriction defined in D2, D3. D24 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’ against Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e : the final decision is like Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e : ( =b Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e  agst(Rabbi Yehudah haNaśi’, Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e ))  H(). From this statement, we can assume that Rabbi Yehudah haNaśi’ is a disciple of Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e , taking into account D2. D25 Wherever Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e appears in the Mishnah and there is no dispute, the final decision is like him: ( =b Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e  agst(Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e , Q))  H(). D26 Rabbi ’E i‘ezer against Rabbi Yehošu‘a: the final decision is like Rabbi Yehošu‘a:

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( =b Rabbi Yehošu‘a  agst(Rabbi ’E i‘ezer, Rabbi Yehošu‘a))  H(). D27 Rabbi ’E i‘ezer against Rabbi Gama i’e : the final decision is like Rabbi Gama i’e : ( =b Rabbi Gama i’e  agst(Rabbi ’E i‘ezer, Rabbi Gama i’e ))  H(). D28 Wherever Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e appears in the Mishnah the final decision is like him, except in four named cases: ( =b Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e  agst(Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e , Q))  (H()  (exc4(Rabban Šim‘on ben Gam i’e )  )). D29 The final decision does not follow the disciples of Rabbi ’E i‘ezer, except in eight named cases: ( =b Q  T(Q, Rabbi ’E i‘ezer)  agst(Q, R))  (H()  (exc8(Q)  )). D30 Shammai’s party against Hillel’s party: t e alak a is like Hillel’s party, except in six named cases of Hillel’s party and in t ree named cases of S ammai’s party: ( =b Q  T(Q, Hillel)  T(R, Shammai)  agst(Q, R))  (H()  (exc6(Q)  )  (exc3(R)  )). D31 Rab against Šmu’e : the final decision is like Rab in prohibitions and like Šmu’e in laws: ( =b Šmu’e   =b Rab  agst(Rab, Šmu’e )  agst(Rab, Šmu’e ))  (H()  H()). D32 Rav una’: ( =b Rav

isda’ against Rav una’ agst(Rav

una’: the final decision is like Rav una’, Rav

isda’))  H().

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D33 Rav Šešet against Rav Nahman: the final decision is like Rav Šešet in prohibitions and like Rav Nahman in laws: ( =b Rav Nahman   =b Rav Šešet  agst(Rav Šešet, Rav Nahman)  agst(Rav Šešet, Rav Nahman))  (H()  H()). D34 Rav Yehudah against Rabbah: the final decision is like Rav Yehudah: ( =b Rav Yehudah  agst(Rav Yehudah, Rabbah))  H(). D35 Rabbah against Rav Yosef: the final decision is like Rabbah, except in three named cases: ( =b Rabbah  agst(Rabbah, Rav Yosef))  (H()  (exc3(Rabbah)  ). D36 Rav ’Aha’ against Ravina’: the final decision is like Ravina’, except in three named cases: ( =b Ravina’  agst(Ravina’, Rav ’Aha’))  (H()  (exc3(Ravina’)  ). D37 The final decision is like Mar bar Rav ’Aši except where he is in dispute with Rav ’Aši: ( =b Mar bar Rav ’Aši  (Q  Rav ’Aši)  agst(Mar bar Rav ’Aši, Q))  H(); ( =b Rav ’Aši  agst(Rav ’Aši, Mar bar Rav ’Aši))  H(). This additional axiom is needed because Rav ’Aši is his teacher (see D2, D3). Models for Judaic pragmatic-syllogistics is defined as follows:

 : O  Q }, I, A , H , Definition 9 A structure M  O  {O 2

 b , T , t ,  , ex c n , ag st is a Judaic pragmatic-syllogistic model iff:

1. O is the set of objects including 28 sages named above. 2. I associates each connective

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o {A, H, b , T, t ,, exc n , agst } over formulas of P with an  ,H  ,  , T , t,, ex c , ag st} . appropriate connective o {A b n 3. A is a mapping from F /  onto {0, 1} satisfying conditions (12), D7–D12. 4. H is a mapping from F /  onto {0, 1} satisfying conditions (26), (27), (28), D1–D7, D15–D37. 5.  b is a relation on (F / )  O satisfying conditions (9), (10), (11), (16), (23)–(25), D1, D2, D3, D8–D37. 6. T is a quasi (less-than) relation on O  O satisfying the conditions (13)–(16), D2, D29, D30. 7. t is a quasi (less-than) relation on O  O satisfying the conditions (17)–(19), D3. 8.  is a quasi (less-than) ordering relation on F such that  is read as “ [ ] is less than [  ] ,” w ere [ ]  [  ] [ ]  [ ]  F /  , it satisfies conditions D4, D5 also. n 9. ex c n is a mapping from O into (F / ) satisfying conditions D28–D30, D35, D36. 10. ag st is a mapping from F /  into O  O satisfying conditions (7)–(12), (16), D1–D7, D15–D37. The truth conditions of Boolean combinations of Judaic pragmatic-syllogistic formulas in a Judaic pragmatic-syllogistic model are understood in the way: Definition 10 M | 

iff

M | 

M |   

iff

M |  and M | 

M |   

iff

M |  or M | 

M |   

iff

M |  or M | 

Thus, Judaic pragmatic-syllogistic allows us to take a final decision within disputes of the sages. It defines pragmatic limits for Talmudic debates. Judaic argumentation theory considers pure formal-logical aspects of three groups of proofs from the pragmatic standpoint: proofs as trees, proofs as parallel processes, proofs as competitive

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communication. All groups can be regarded from the viewpoint of symbolic logic.

REFERENCES [1] Abraham, M., D. Gabbay, and U. Schild. Analysis of the Talmudic Argumentation A Fortiori Inference Rule (KalVachomer) using Matrix Abduction. Studia Logica, 92(3), 2009, 281– 364. [2] _____. Obligations and Prohibitions in Talmudic Deontic Logic, in: Governatori, G. and Sartor, G. (eds.) Deon 2010 proceedings, Springer, LNCS, 2010. [3] Aczel, P. Non-Well-Founded Sets. CSLI Lecture Notes (Stanford, California, 1988). [4] Hirschfeld, H. S. Der Geist der talmudischen Auslegung der Bibel. Der erste Teil. Halachische Exegese. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Exegese und zur Methodo ogie des Ta mud’s (Berlin: M. Simion in Berlin, 1840). [5] _____. Der Geist der ersten Schriftauslegungen. Oder: Die Hagadische Exegese. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Exegese und zur Methodologie des Midrasch (Berlin: M. Simion in Berlin, 1847). [6] Jacobs, L. The Talmudic Argument: A Study in Talmudic Reasoning and Methodology (Cambridge, 1984). [7] Roth, J. The Halakhic Process: A Systemic Analysis (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1986). [ ] Sc umann A. al Wa-Homer and the Theory of MassiveParallel Proofs, History and Philosophy of Logic, 32(1), 2011, 71–83. [9] _____. Non-well-foundedness in Judaic Logic, Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, 13(26), 2008, 41–60. [10] _____. (ed.), Judaic Logic (Gorgias Press, 2010). [11] _____. (ed.), Modern Review of Judaic Logic. Special issue of History and Philosophy of Logic, 32(1), 2011. [12] _____. Talmudic Logic (College Publications: London, 2012). [13] Schwarz, A. Hermeneutischer Syllogismus in der talmudischen Literatur, 1901. [14] _____. Die hermeneutische Analogie in der talmudischen Litteratur (Wien: Verlag der Israel.-theol. Lehranstalt, 1897).

GOD AND THE LAW LENN E. GOODMAN PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, ANDREW W. MELLON PROFESSOR IN THE HUMANITIES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, USA [email protected] ABSTRACT Setting aside the brickbats that challenge theistic subjectivism (on the grounds that they miss the intimate linkage between positive value and the idea of God), and responding to the concerns of liberalism and legal positivism, I argue for critical appropriation of religious values in law and morals—critical, because misprision of values is all too easy, but appropriation because religious experience and religious tradition are too precious to neglect as sources and repositories of insights into the articulation and implementation of higher values that can enhance human life and that are critical in orienting a legal or moral system that protects the human person and pursues the enhancement of the human condition.

If God commanded me to do a thing, I would surely feel obliged to do it. Of what relevance philosophically is so autobiographical a statement? We have a fair amount of persiflage on hand about the things God might command us to do that morals would forbid. God might command me, so it is said, to sacrifice my favorite son. Would I then be obligated to do what morals urgently prohibits? I call this kind of challenge persiflage, because those who make it— and even some of those who go out of t eir way to call God’s commands binding in carefully selected outrageous cases of this 85

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kind are not thinking of God in the same sense when they imagine the imposition of an arbitrary decree as when they commit themselves or ot ers to God’s ordinances and prescriptions.55 Divine imperatives have prescriptive force not merely because they stem from a superior or all-powerful being but because they are the prescriptions of the Good itself, the God who is the uniquely absolute repository and epitome of goodness, truth, justice and mercy. That commands from such a Source would count as obligations is a truism. Rhetorical challenges to such commands do not undercut the claim that we must do what Goodness and Truth demand of us. They are merely ways of calling into question the authority of various seeming representations of God’s will or t e credentials of those who claim to speak for God.56 Such challenges are a natural concomitant of moral life and social change, an inevitable feature of human history. In past eras such critiques were often couched as denunciations of false gods— as they were in the Biblical revolution, and again in Plato’s transformation of the ways of thought. Today, when moral critiques or demands for liberty or license are framed as brickbats against the very idea of God, the real targets once again—the only targets such missiles can strike successfully—are institutions: texts, individuals, offices of authority, charismas, and normativities. But global denunciations are hard to control. Lashing out against the idols of the value marketplace by proclaiming the death of God, even Nietzsche, urging that there are no objective values, since there is no God,57 is undercut by a tu quoque: His call to sincerity and self55

See my Gifford Lecures, Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself (New York: Oxford University Press, 200 ); “Monot eism and Et ics,” in t e book of t e same title, ed. Tzvi Langermann (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Ethics and God, Philosophical Investigations 34 (2011) 135–50. 56 For the theme, see (Goodman 1996), especially chapters 1-3; (Kant 1960), pp. 81–82; (Kierkegaard 1969); (Steinberg 1960); (Outka 1973); (Flew 1966), pp. 186- 7; cf. S alom Spiegel’s modern appropriation of t e poem by Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn in his Me-Aggadot ha-Akedah, translated as The Last Trial and reprinted in (Goldin 1967; 1950); (Zuckerman 1991). 57 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Prologue, 2; “Of t e Pale Criminal”; Part III, “Of Old and New Law Tables,” translated by R.

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acceptance or self-creation, to a stripping away of the false consciousness of moral conformity, sets itself on a moral plane where values make objective claims, the very plane at which, in human consciousness, God lives. Granted mere conformity can never hold in its hands the authenticity of moral creativity. But in morals, as in art, eccentricity is all too readily mistaken for creativity.58 And in morals, as in politics, self-assertion is not t e same as progress. Even as Nietzsc e’s call to sincerity salutes the standard it claims to upset, the words in which that call is uttered become heteronomous—self-serving and self-seeking, posters masking exploitative and destructive modes of sexuality, rapacious and alienating business practices, irresponsible and unresponsive pedagogy, military and militant adventurism, and violent, even terroristic politics. Small wonder that many who witness these bastard offspring of moral liberation come to prefer more civil modes and reconceive authenticity as a quest for roots in place of rootlessness. They welcome traditionalism—at least for others, for their children perhaps—or for themselves. Sterility and nihilism beget fundamentalism and rigorism. Repression, reacting against permissive and licentious mores, feeds the very beasts it fears. When God is banned from moral, political or legal discourse, the aim is to dislodge received norms and doctrines.59 But, then again, w en God’s name is invoked in moral or political or legal discourse, the aim is often the same. What does God contribute to the normative realm? The familiar answer is authority. But that cannot be. The God who can authentically impart authority to a norm is transcendent, not captured adequately in anyone’s merely empiric representation. The very first entailment of God’s call for

J. Hollingdale (1969), pp. 40–41, 65–67, 214–32. The transvaluation of values is the operative meaning of the death of God. 58 See L. E. Goodman, Truth, C apter 6, “Creativity and Discovery,” (Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2001). 59 See, inter alia, (Rawls 1993) and my discussion in (Goodman 2012).

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recognition is abandonment of graven images. Revelation, like creation, is inevitably a compromise, a declension into finitude.60 What if I only thought a command Godgiven? After all, my t oug ts are not God’s t oug ts. T ey are not infallible. If I met someone w o claimed to be God, I’d laug at im, not ang on is words. I might seek help for him, or protection for people from im. But I’d ardly follow w erever e saw fit to lead me. If I met someone w o claimed to speak for God, I’d scrutinize what he had to say. Use of our critical intelligence is not excluded but mandated by our religious obligations.61 Self proclaimed prophets are usually ranters. Most of what they say is derivative; and, typically, confused. Yet, regularly, I read a text t at claims to present God’s word, filtered, perhaps, through hundreds of generations of awed or quizzical inquiry. Neither literalism nor cynicism is much help here. Slavish acceptance loses the critical edge that would find meaning and use for ancient words. Blanket skepticism is equally unhelpful, refusing to find any value at all in an ancient tradition or to exercise the discrimination that skeptics like to boast of, between dross and gold. Between the extremes of blanket skepticism and blanket credence I seek a middle ground. I know, with Levi-Strauss, that modes of transmission can be modes of creation (and not just distortion). So, like the Rabbis, I prize the possibility (but not necessity) of creativity in the very liveliness of tradition. Creation does not end with the In-the-beginning of Genesis; and revelation too may occur in medias res. Adopting a stance of critical appropriation, I add my own voice to the muted but ongoing dialogue, learning from what I read, open to instruction, as one should be to any promising source, but accepting nothing thoughtlessly. For no attribution can 60

Thus the Jewish concept of tzimtzum: The specificities of the Law are a paradigm case of divine accommodation to human limitations. Thus, Exodus Rabbah 34.1: “ ad He come to t em in His full strengt , t ey would not ave been able to endure.” For tzimtzum, see (Scholem 1956), p. 90 ff.; (Novak 1992), pp. 299–318; (Benin 1993). 61 See Deuteronomy 13:2–4. According to Maimonides, a critical response is “obviously t e proper answer to anyone w o claims to be a prop et, until e offers proof” Guide I 63. See Goodman, God of Abraham, pp. 182–184.

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authenticate the authority it cites, and no norm can vindicate its own prescriptivity independently of the values it serves. An authentic reception of revelation or tradition demands critical appropriation. If there are vital messages in scripture— liberating or humane—they will not be found throughout. We must sift critically to discover what we may take to be the authentic word of God. By the same token, we must assay critically what we take to be the messages of liberty and humanity articulated in the secular traditions of liberalism and humanism. Indeed, we must assay what claims to be the voice of reason just as critically as what claims to be the voice of God. Here, as in religions, traditions can grow crabbed and paroc ial, and ere too t ere’s no selfauthentication. Scripture and the cultures of the world can enlarge our understanding of the humanity we hope to cultivate and the liberty we seek to protect and build. Scripture may earn a privileged place in our internal councils as we chart a moral course. But what privileges one canon or tradition over another in those private councils is not mere kinship with its authors or transmitters but the coherence and verisimilitude, fruitfulness and generosity of the message received. Ethnic or cultural affinities matter. They should warrant a full and sympathetic hearing. But they are not an imprimatur. They may facilitate appropriation through the channels they lay down of cultural and communal accommodation, addressing and informing who we are and how we are together, helping build an I and a we. But their worth, in turn, is measured by the calibre of that I or we to which they guide us.62 What values specifically are served by the ancient, sacred texts that we Jews claim and are claimed by as our own? How can any norms or values be made specific by a God whose absoluteness is beyond our comprehension? What, beyond sheer authority, does ascription of a text to such a God add to its message? For openers, I believe, it connotes a claim to objectivity, generality, even immutability, and, minimally, disinterest. Further it claims coherence, even systematicity, since the unity of the God of monotheism bespeaks the unity of all goods and denies the inevitability of tragedy, 62

Cf. (Goodman 1998), pp. 137–161.

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the product of irreconcilable goods. It contributes a claim of service to the highest, a good that orients and stabilizes all the rest. None of these claims is self-validating. But each of them severally and the complex collectively yield powerful hermeneutical tools to those who would make law in dialogue with scripture. Weaving t eir own and t eir community’s insights onto the warp of scriptural themes, inevitably selectively, they take up what can be appropriated and background or disarm what is out of spirit with the rest. Those who work in good faith to frame a fabric of law upon the loom of a religious tradition reach beyond any merely personal claim to authority and rise above mere umpiring of rival and aggressive or ascetic impulses. Traditionalists and would be traditionalists might argue that it is not our place, as mere mortals, to pick and choose among the ordinances of t e living God, to judge God’s will and s ape its decrees to our mental or moral convenience. The point is perfectly sound if it means that our penchant for self-serving renders human preferences suspect. But w at we count as God’s word remains, as it was at Sinai, a matter of critically appraising the authenticity of a message by the authority of its content, not its messenger. If the objection is that we possess authoritative traditions that interpret God’s word for us, one can only respond t at we’ve always ad a welter of such traditions. They too require critical but not selfserving appraisal. Our concern, at the confluence of such traditions, is not blindly to follow or even thoughtfully to choose among them but to acquire, with the guidance of those traditions themselves and our God-given reason, the capacity to nurture and cultivate them in our lives as individuals and communities. For we are not just recipients of ordinances but also makers of traditions from the matter of our lives and practices and the form of our communities and institutions. So philosophy addresses us not just as subjects of the law or even judges or jurisconsults but also as legislators who (perforce) make laws for ourselves and one another in the ways we choose to live. As the Torah says (Deuteronomy 30:12–14): “It is not in eaven... Neit er is it beyond t e sea... But the thing is very near to thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, to do it”—one might even read that quirky last word with its other mean-

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ing: to make it, since the law we live by is the life mask of our own thought and action.63 Legal positivists reject appeals to God for the same reason that they reject appeals to the idea of the good, and even the idea that laws need reasons beyond those the laws themselves create. T ey’re dismayed at t e intrusion into law of ideas so broad and potentially uncontrolled as the general notion of goodness and so potentially arbitrary and disruptive as the idea of God. Even ideas like harm and interest, for the sake of perspicuity if not of naturalism, they expect to see tied down to operational definitions, objectified, as they imagine—even if that objectivity is anchored only by the expedient of defining harm and interest, say, subjectively, in terms of market choices, risk preferences, court decisions, and expectations about the litigiousness of the injured or affronted, and even if the feared arbitrariness is escaped by the arbitrary and unsettling expedient of leaving the good up for grabs, by the highest or most aggressive bidder. It’s true t at bald appeals to t e good would be unconstitutionally and unconscionably vague—but otiose and meddlesome if spelled out in concrete imperatives. Yet purposes and t emes remain indispensable in law, and it’s concrete practice that gives them real operational application. The fear of arbitrary authority behind many a positivistic reservation is not unfounded. The ideas of God and the good are hardly immune to abuse. But what can we say of a state that takes no stand on what is good, or a law that cannot distinguish when harms or wrongs are done? Can any decent law be so purged of spirit that judges, enforcers, and administrators have only inchoate intuition and the vague rumble of proverb to guide them, leaving legislators only bias, custom, inertia and momentum, its counterpart, to show them how they should elaborate a norm and distinguish what would enhance it from what would frustrate its dynamic or curtail its growth? Fortunately, no legal system has ever been quite as positivistic as to cut off all access to individual apprehension of the good and smother all communal debate and deliberation as to the means best 63

See in particular, God of Abraham, C apter 5, “Et ical Monism and Ethical Pluralism,” pp. 141–166.

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suited and most appropriate to its pursuit. Legal positivist theory has little to say to working legislators. But the prejudice persists of thinking governments too directive if they seek to ground policy in some definite idea of the good. Such ideas, in liberal societies, are left supposedly to the individual—although increasingly this means the firm, the foundation, party, union, church or confession. In theory such organs are voluntary associations. So their mediation is not seen as crowding the independence of the individual; and the choices they frame for individuals, by their institutional efforts and perhaps through massive or subtly diffuse media campaigns or carefully concocted Hobson’s c oices, are not seen as manipulative. Manipulation and pre-determination are prominent themes among those who debate, say, free will and determinism. Questions about character and t e open or covert ways in w ic it’s formed tend to be ignored in liberal political and juridical discussions, so long as the state is not the prospective shaper. History teaches us the risks of past attempts at molding character. But what we have before us in liberal societies today is a panorama of the costs of public abdication of that role and responsibility and the injuries suffered by the body public and private when sensate media and private hucksters rush in to fill the vacuum with their unwholesome load merchandise and mind-numbing cults. Consider now a tu quoque: How can liberal societies maintain t e openness for w ic t ey’re justly celebrated if t ey don’t actively sustain it and the idea that it is worth maintaining (i.e., that it is good) against the many forces of market and manipulation that seek to encroac upon it. T e problem, it’s sometimes said, in tones of warm assurance, is solved by distinguishing positive or material rights from negative or formal rights or liberties. It is only in the latter that liberal states or agencies have a just and proper interest. But is that like saying one wants to run the engine without the cylinders, or the circulatory system without the heart? Left liberals know that formal liberties are empty without their material complement. Classic liberals know the same, if they reflect on the logic t at animates, say, Hayek’s argument in The Road to Serfdom: Citizens without property are civilly powerless (Hayek 1944). So socialism doesn’t just dis onor earned deserts. It also disempowers those whom it economically disenfranchises. The point is understood widely and well enough that there are today no living liberal societies where formal rights are not seconded by economic and

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social rights, including rights regarding health and education. Nor are there societies that preserve even the claim or name of socialism that do not foster some form of private property and entrepreneurship ideally based on the incentives of privately appropriated capital and equity interests in the means of production. Lurking behind the logic of the linkage of positive and negative rights, and underwriting that logic, is some image of humanity and the good life. Marxists long argued, with much heated talk of starving babes and bedding down under the bridges of Paris, that economic rights take priority to civic rights64—as if the rivalry they saw were a horse race in which civil rights must always run a poor and fading second, deferred to a utopian future in which, indeed, they would prove vestigial and unneeded. Not even a lexical priority of the material to the formal was canonical. The precedence of the material to the formal was more like the ordering system Lewis 64

Thus in the Communist Manifesto: In bourgeois society living labor is but a means to increase accumulated labor... In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present... the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at... Of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production... Abolition of property in land... Abolition of all right of inheritance... Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels... Centralization of credit in the hands of the state... Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state... gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country... Combination of education with industrial production...

These despotic inroads, which the Manifesto assigned to the beginning, as we now know, lasted until the end and helped bring about that end.

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Carroll mentions, in which jam is served every other day, but never today. Classical liberals, for their part, tend to keep quiet about the nexus of the right and the good, except when claiming that formal rights of a certain sort, that is, market rights, are sure to maximize material gains in the only credible and reliable, indeed the only desirable (albeit inevitably imperfect), manner. To seem to impose any substantive ideal might smack too much of moralism—that is, religion. So the image of man that might guide a social or political program remains a crypto-image. In communism humanity was dehumanized de facto: The Stakhanovite man stood proudly in the present (at least on posters that did not fray and tatter in the wind and fill the gutters to be swept up by not-so-Stakhanovite street cleaning women). But the happier and gentler ideal was projected far into the future. In classical liberal thinking, by contrast, a ghostly internal or private ideal lingered, a highly secular self, its emptiness filled up with the trophies of the celebrity athlete, rock star, magnate, or politician. It’s not because t ey’re wors iped but because t ey’re expected to be lifeless and ollow t at rock stars are called idols. Models and actors may be mout pieces, but it’s considered outre if they—or any surviving monarchs—have ideas. And a firm, thick line is drawn between athletics and the military fields from which they spring: Spirituality on the gridiron is theatrical and branded as bizarre. Self-sacrifice and heroism on the battlefield goes unnoted, although victimhood, captures its share of prurient pity. With spiritual ideals barred from the public forum except in stilted, pro forma rhetorical cliches, what takes the place of a humane ideal, in liberal norms are vacant images, stick figures— Barbie dolls with plastic bodies, empty, complacent faces, large eyes for empathy, and bodies swathed in promises of material well being, and sexual satisfaction. To invoke some moral or intellectual or spiritual ideal of humanity is rarely acceptable in the weekday public world. Yet ghost images of such humans are regularly (but most often tacitly) summoned up in sentimental recollection of parents or grandparents—especially in obituaries—or wishfully invoked in vague talk and projects about education, good citizenship, civility, the student athlete, or the neighborhood eccentric. The humanism that might have animated spirits survives in shreds of rhetorical tinsel. But, like the clip-art pasted into ads for Presi-

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dent’s Day, t ese stock images remain unmotivated and unmoving. The ideas undergirding the nostalgic appeals remain unlimbered. What would a real humanism have do with God? Everything and nothing. The two may be rivals, with humanity declaring independence of its Ground and banning God-talk from the public square. Self-nominated guardians of God return the compliment by trying to suppress all expressions of our umanity, from women’s forms and faces to music, literacy and every innocent amusement. Or they may be allies, with humanity orienting its ideal with the aid of those openings toward transcendence that the human condition presents—and understanding God with help from what we know of human goodness. The secularizing kind of humanism neuters not just theology but itself, leaving a residue of reductionistic naturalism that turns mankind into a packet of chemicals, a bundle of aggressions, or a project of the genes that in the end is no project, since it has no direction and is not acknowledged to advance beyond the constituents from which it began.65 Theistic humanism, by contrast, orients humanity toward the virtues announced in our potential but enlarged by social collaboration and refined, ideally, by culture. The key to the maintenance of liberty here is the diversity of our projects as individuals and communities. Recognition of the variety and dynamism of human life plans enables a theistic humanism to give good counsel in the legislative process without aping the blasphemous notional theocracy of Iran or Afghanistan, or any salafist utopia. The good life is too narrowly and too vaguely construed in cartoon images of the American (or Bollywood) dream that pictures only a certain income level and inventory of possessions. But cultic, monastic, ascetic, chiliastic, or militaristic alternatives miss the promise of creativity and the open future. A good society is one that fosters human capabilities of devising fulfilling life plans. It does not deem every life pattern equally worthwhile. Lives are what theistic humanism cherishes. Lifeplans are what it hopes to see enhanced. Pluralism should not mean nihilism, and liberalism need not mean abdication in favor of libertarianism or libertinage. 65

Thus, (Dawkins 1976; Wilson 1975).

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Isaiah Berlin rightly scored totalitarian movements and invasive ideologies for their eagerness to take over the life plans of individuals: T e freedom w ic consists in being one’s own master, and t e freedom which consists in not being prevented from choosing as I do by other men, may, on the face of it, seem concepts at no great logical distance from each other—no more than negative and positive ways of saying t e same t ing. Yet t e “positive” and “negative” notions of freedom istorically developed in divergent directions not always by logically reputable steps, until, in the end, they came into direct conflict with each other... Have not men had the experience of liberating themselves from spiritual slavery, or slavery to nature, and do they not in the course of it become aware, on the one hand, of a self which dominates, and, on the other, of something in them which is brought to heel? The dominant self is then variously identified wit reason, wit my “ ig er nature,” wit t e self w ic calculates and aims at what will satisfy it in the long run, with my “real” or “ideal” or “autonomous” self, or wit myself “at its best;” w ic is t en contrasted wit t e irrational impulse, uncontrolled desires, my “lower” nature, t e pursuit of immediate pleasures, my “empirical” or eteronomous self, swept away by every gust of desire and passion, needing to be rigidly disciplined if it is ever to rise to t e full eig t of its “real” nature. Presently the two selves may be represented as divided by an even larger gap: the real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual (as the term is normally understood), as a social “w ole” of w ic t e individual is an element or aspect: a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn. This entity is then identified as being t e “true” self w ic , by imposing its collective, or “organic,” single will upon its recalcitrant “members,” ac ieves its own, and, t erefore, t eir “ ig er” freedom... Once I take this view, I am in a position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress, torture them in the name and on be alf, of t eir “real” selves...” (Berlin 1958), p. 17.

Berlin elegantly and courageously pursued the rationales of doublethink by which our penchant for self-renewal can be hi-

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jacked by a corporate tyranny. But the slippery slope he sagely warned of is no entailment but a logically disreputable slide. Selfrenewal still matters. T ere’s still value in distinguis ing our better from our lesser selves, as Kant did in language that Berlin here echoes, as Spinoza did in his own vein, and as Plato and the Stoics did long before. T ere’s still legitimacy in s ared efforts at suc renewal, so long as the means are not oppressive, manipulative, or closed to articulate, dialogical response. For seeing individuals (or societies) as the rightful arbiters of their personal (or social) destinies does not make them the infallible judges of their own good or that of all whom their choices may affect. What modalities remain, that are not oppressive, manipulative or hegemonical? Clearly, those that are educational, not the indoctrination pursued by propagandists of all stripes but a generous and genuine concern for others’ well-being and respect for their powers of judgment in choosing their own good when it becomes visible. The merit (and test) of efforts to foster our human potential for self-creation is the empowerment of persons to make choices for themselves. I take empowerment first in terms of negative liberties, fostering choices of greater moment than that between two brands of toothpaste, freeing persons to make choices not just about means but about ends, developing their own conception of the good—not substituting destructive values for those that enhance our humanity but enlarging the depth and variety of accessible avenues to fulfillment. Second (not lexically but instrumentally, as an adjuvant whose absence can make farce or tragedy of the first), this humanism promotes access to the means that can help us to c oose wisely and effectually. T at’s w ere positive liberty retains its impact. Health and wealth matter. But the critical tool is a liberal education. For a liberal society is an open society. Its denizens and designers never lose sight of the crucial distinction: Open for what—for business or for humanity? A liberal education fosters the creative self-definition that is the raison d’etre of a liberal society, principally by opening up the vision of individuals to their own creative and constructive potentials. T at’s done, in part, t roug t e study of istory and literature. But liberal education can also open up human potential through studies of mathematics and the sciences, or through projects that enhance the human condition, through medicine, economics, and engineering, say, reflectively conceived, with reference

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to the wholesome human ends and the means conducive to and constitutive in those ends. Travel and service, volunteerist or professional, are elements in a life-long education—so long as travel is not mere voyeurism and service does not decline into exploitation. Philosophy can help, even when it insists that God means not Authority but Infinite Goodness, but also when it aids in conceptualizing the good and connecting broad notions to the concrete particulars that ground, correct, and refine them. Literature and the arts, history, anthropology, and sociology enhance our humanity by enriching our understanding of the human situation. A sensibility enriched by study is the best potting soil for a character equipped for piety and ready to grapple with the tasks of ameliorating the human condition. A liberal polity would hardly propose political oversight over teaching and inquiry. Boot camp discipline is no more conducive to intellectual than to moral or spiritual growth. And there is no suppressing the myriad differences of agenda in the intellectual world, any more than there is any chance of suppressing the protean variety of individual uman life plans. Conformity, as I’ve already inted, is hardly the best stimulus to creativity, even if uniformity could be enforced. But t ese ome trut s don’t obviate t e need for thinkers and teachers, counselors and guides, to consider the enormity of their task of freeing and aiding in the refinement of human character. For the facets of a personality are values and aspirations that come together only at the highest order of abstraction—that is, only in the idea of God, where incommensurables meet their Measure and the vast diversity of human projects is timelessly contemplated. For the uniqueness of all human projects, as the Tannaim understood, is part of what Genesis means in saying that humanity is created in the image of God. Human diversity here reveals something of the fecundity of God’s creativity, but also of the evocative and invitational (rather than sheerly directive) force of revelatory dicta in our communal and societal lives. With these thoughts in mind, we can underscore our earlier judgment that anyone who presented words of is own as God’s commands would likely seem an impostor. And an apparition seemingly bearing God’s word would require t e closest scrutiny were it not to be dismissed as illusory. What type of scrutiny or test would be relevant? We’d ave to bring to bear our highest moral and intellectual standards and the deepest insights of the larger

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human community and its humane traditions to assay any proposed revelation. External factors like political potency, rhetorical appeal, or human charisma would have no relevance ultimately. Only contents would count. Paradox, mystagoguery, cosmic light show, would add little to revelatory claims and might well undercut them. For God is transcendent Goodness, not a magician or a genie appearing in clouds of smoke. The still small voice (1 Kings 19:12) bears more credence. Consilience can corroborate a message, by vouching for its coherence with well tested bodies of tradition and experience. For even still small voices have been known to lie or mislead. What a veracious voice tells us, and all that it can tell us, is w at we mig t ave expected if we’d worked at our most creative and responsible toward anticipating what would be worthy of the highest Truth, were It to accommodate our language and address (but not merely serve) our needs: that the norm of all norms is pursuit of perfection. Here the fit to our needs becomes natural, and the language is our language, even if its usages be stretched by the demands of the Transcendent, or its aims deflected by the claims of the here and now. Human perfection asks the amelioration of the human condition, the refinement of human character, and the enhancement of human understanding. As they are won these aims reinforce one another. Human beings with food to eat, bodies and minds in good health, safe and healthful communities, readily learn the tolerance and mutual support that are both the seeds and the fruits of better character. Human beings who respect one another and treat one another with consideration are capable of the intellectual and spiritual growth that is, if not the single goal of human life, then certainly its highest reach. Just what is it that God wants of us? If we remember what a monotheist means by God we can answer clearly. God wants two things, one nested within the other: that we pursue our own perfection and promote one anot er’s well being. In bot cases we can say, with the same anthropomorphic license that permits speaking of God’s will or word, t at God wants us to be like Him. For God is perfection and God’s perfection, as Plato put it (Timaeus 29E), does not begrudge itself to all creatures in the measure of their capacity. Hence Plato’s version of t e logic of our being, an imperative to become as like to God as humanly possible (Theaetetus 176B). We find the same imperative in the Torah, integrated in a

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code that orients an ethos: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (Leviticus 19:2) and thus: Love thy neighbor as thyself (Leviticus 19:18)—thy neighbor, the fellow human being, who is not oneself and not like thee, but morally no less worthy of dignity. And note the Biblical refrain: I am the Lord. For in loving our neighbor as ourselves we pursue God’s oliness by emulating His benevolence and beneficence, and adopting his equal love of all human beings, since there is no perspectival distance or moral myopia in the divine. It was the Talmudic sage Ben Azzai, citing our creation in God’s image, w o s owed us ow t e second of t ese Mosaic precepts springs from the first. The positive obligations summed up under the commandment to love one another, are a critical constituent of the holiness and Godlikeness we seek. But the quest for Godlike perfection that befits our humanity orients those humane obligations and hedges them against collapse into mere selfindulgence or self-pity. Stated in their most general terms, our two broadest Biblical imperatives can be called the core of natural law. Along with all the prescriptions that support and body them forth, the Torah calls them Laws of life. T at’s so in two ways: First, pursuit of perfection is the most general principle of reality at large, what Spinoza called the conatus, the striving for endurance, for being and betterment that he read as immanent providence.66 Second, nature and

66

Spinoza, Short Treatise on God, Man and his Wellbeing, I, chapter v, ed. Carl Gebhardt (1925) vol. 1, p. 40; translated by Edwin Curley in The Collected Works of Spinoza (1985). I translate after Curley: The second attribute that we call a proprium is providence, which according to us is nothing but that striving we find, both in nature at large and in particular things, tending to maintain and preserve their being. For it is evident that no thing, through its own nature, could strive for its own destruction, but that on the contrary, each thing in itself has a striving to preserve itself in its state and bring itself to a better one.

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history alert us to the hypothetical imperatives commanded by our interdependence. The illusion that self-perfection is adequately attained or successfully pursued in an isolated egotism is brought to book, pragmatically or conceptually, by the witness of biology and the experience of history, whether by grasping an implicit justice in events or simply witnessing it when the consequences of actions and omissions are visited on the lives and characters, projects and liberties of all who engage with destiny, or seek to evade it.67 For one need not know t e consequences of one’s actions in order to suffer them. The principles of morals, which are principles of perfection, derive their simplicity from their generality and their generality from t eir simplicity. T ey’re fles ed out by our natures as uman beings. But they acquire the concreteness needed in rules of law or morals by being embedded in legal and cultural contexts. Cultures bring moral principles to bear on the formation of character through the semiotics of praxis. Language, ritual, story and myth, transform ideals into norms. Laws are a subset of these norms of praxis, the ones that societal institutions formally canonize and enforce with sanctions. For we cannot and must not enforce all our norms society-wide. Some are too situational for such treatment; some are too demanding. It’s ere t at we see an answer to t e old canards—antiJewish canards in origin and impact—that seek to drive a wedge between law and morality and thus between the universal and the particular, condemning the Mosaic tradition at once for comprehensiveness of detail and for generality of scope—for the bourgeois sin of cosmopolitanism and the atavistic narrowness of parochialism. None of this is real in the ideals we speak of. A culture and a people, or a confession, can possess and seek to model universal goals while preserving traditions thick with history and the ritual and linguistic particularity of its own distinctive expression of Curley remarks, ad loc.: “Note t at in t is, its first appearance in Spinoza’s writings, the striving is not merely a conservative tendency but a progressive one.” 67 Cf. (Goodman 2008), esp. chs. 3–4; “Ibn K aldūn and T ucydides,” in (Goodman 1999), pp. 201–239.

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those ideals. The notion of incompatibility or even tension here is a vulgar prejudice, egged on by ostility. Ideals ave exemplars. It’s only in practice t at umane ideals are made concrete. And it’s only in the concrete that ideals can be lived. So the cultural or moral instantiation of a humane ideal is not its rival but its expression. There is a shadow between ideals and their instantiation, but that is just the price of finitude. Beethoven and Tolstoy are not at odds, as if one way of pursuing perfection were to exclude another. Nor do the differences in articulating ideals leave nothing to choose between them: Beethoven is not Spohr. Nor does diversity leave any institution above reproach: Weimar is not the Third Reich. A culture of cruelty remains, in that regard, contemptible; a culture of human flourishing remains, in that regard, choiceworthy. We need to distinguish what cultures, confessions, and communities can legitimately expect from what societies, through government, can legitimately demand. We cannot answer the communal question without a profound understanding of the nature and diversity of human individuals. Similarly, we cannot answer the societal question without a profound understanding of the nature and diversity of human cultures, confessions, and communities. For communities are the matrix of individuals, and societies are the matrix of communities. Without individuals communities would be empty, and without flourishing individuals societies would be useless. By the same token, without the particularity of cultures, confessions, and communities, societies would be sterile, their members alienated and dangerous to themselves and one another. Without the overarching formal structure of societal institutions, communities would be smothering, oppressive, anarchic—once again, dangerous. Here is the sensitive point that Enlightenment liberalism tended to miss: Societies and societal agencies, chief of which is government, must preserve cultural neutrality as a bulwark against parochialism, favoritism, racism, chauvinism, xenophobia and the various forms of social cannibalism that have so marred and scarred the face of the twentieth century from the Shoah to the Killing Fields of Cambodia, to the mass graves and charnel houses of Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Somalia. But what humanity is still painfully learning and history is still teaching is how to be neutral enough to be fair without becoming empty or merely arbitrary about values.

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A culture needs values and symbols and cannot survive without them. A society needs a culture of its own. But it also needs to harbor a variety of cultures, for the same reason that those cultures need to harbor a variety of individuals. Indeed, the diversity of cultures is a critical component in the diversity of individuals. All societies, I think, are inevitably pluralistic de facto, even if they conceal their diversity behind large, camouflaging abstractions, oppressive fictions, or still more oppressive practices.68 Societies can create unity within the diversity that is the hallmark of the human condition by focusing on the broad idea of humanity and framing institutions t at foster umanity in all its varied conditions. T is can’t be done without picking and choosing. There needs to be some positive notion of what counts as human betterment or degradation.69 T e world’s religions and t e monuments of religious and secular culture are valuable resources in limning those alternatives, just as the relative formalism and neutrality of societal standards is a valuable check on the tendencies of communities toward tribalism, dynasticism, and an all-controlling obscurantism. But cultures, confessions, and communities can evoke an intensity of particularity that governments must learn to work without. God, I believe, is of the essence in all norms. Yet, God has no formal place in our legislative processes. That point is acknowledged not just where it is obvious, say, in the American Constitution, but also in the normative discourse of Halakhah, where the Biblical dictum that Torah is not in the heavens is normatively taken to mean that we do not defer to oracles nor even textual authorities but must shoulder here on earth the responsibility for instituting and understanding the laws by which we shall be governed, whether we take their ultimate foundation to be human or divine. How can this be so if all norms intend a higher source and indeed aim at the Highest, even when they abjure any theological rationale? The answer is that what individuals and communities 68

See L. E. Goodman, “T e Rig ts and Wrongs of Nations,” in Goodman (1998). 69 T is, I t ink, is t e proper answer to Alasdair MacIntyre’s legitimate concerns about divergences in the ideal of humanity, the goal, vocation, telos or nature of human beings.

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take to be divine is the embodiment of their highest values and aspirations. Often it’s t e measure of t eir aspirations. An open society can expect its citizens to share ideals only if it leaves room for the continuous reinterpretation and rediscovery of those ideals. A pluralistic society can expect such sharing only if the ideals to be pursued in common are raised to a relatively high order of abstraction so that individuals and communities can partake of the common stock in generic terms without compromising the particularity of their own commitments and articulations of moral value, beauty and sanctity. A liberal society must allow for individual differences and individual growth. God, invoked as an authority, becomes not a guide and source of inspiration but a partisan tool and weapon. T at’s a loss of openness and liberty and a t reat to t e prospects of progress and diversity. It’s also a perversion of t e idea of God. So the Talmudic sages, who engaged on a daily basis in making law on the foundations of a revealed Biblical constitution, issued the stern injunction: Do not make the Torah a spade to dig with (Mishnah Avot 4.7). To exploit God’s word for partisan purposes is not just to impose one version of perfection onto the lives of others who may have elaborated that idea in a different way. It is also a derogation in the purity of that idea. We cannot serve the God who is the highest if we tie the name of God to partisanship rather than an open agenda aiming for human perfection. T e name of God, I’m arguing, is seldom appropriately invoked in the legislative corridors of a free society. To many that means that God has no proper place in such surroundings. This I think is a mistake, albeit a natural one. It is not just in common parlance that issues about religion are confounded with issues about God. The confusion is probably as common among professionals as among the general populace, whose concerns both intellectuals and politicians reflect. But the distinction is critical if we’re to understand the relationship of God to law and morals. Religions, even those that deem themselves God-given, are human institutions. They reflect human needs and limitations. Theology is discourse about the divine in the light of the idea of perfection. When articulations of that idea are brought into the public forum, their clarity as articulations of the highest good, if not manifest, should be visible by its own light and need no parochial badge. To make public discourse dependent on the local emblems of authority is to take God’s name in vain. Religion needs no disguise, and sincere

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religion can brook no coercion. Dogma has no place in our public counsels. But the sustenance of human dignity is the sacred charge of any legitimate polity, and religion is the human institution charged with giving definition to that sanctity. Public policy is rudderless without some idea of a highest, orienting good. But all attempts to articulate such an idea (even those that are notionally secular, secularizing, or secularist) are religious. Those that are monotheistic seek means of coordinating the values that jostle against one another for attention and regard. Those that are secular, taking the conciliation of competing values to be futile, fall back on pagan notions of tragedy: To serve one good is to affront another. But even here claims are made about the values that appeal to us and about the ultimate resolution of their claims. The thesis that tragedy is inevitable is an axiological declaration of bankruptcy, but no less than the monotheistic project of conciliation is it a claim about ultimate values and their roles in human lives. All efforts to crystalize an ideal (or a constellation of ideals) in language and experience resort to myth or ritual and thus invest the ideals they touch with contents that reflect local experience and the unique encounters of individuals and communities with history and with one another. Particularity is neither wicked nor avoidable in all things human. The urge to transcend it does not dissolve its claims but is itself marked with the deep dyes of our locale and experience. Religions are therefore partisan witnesses to the Transcendent. But religions, in the broad sense adopted here, are also our sole witnesses in this case. Hence their inevitable place in the public square—in the gates of the city, as the Biblical prophets put it, w ere t ere’s recourse to judges, as well as prop ets, but w ere neither judges nor prophets are licensed as merchants to hawk their wares. The Good is universal. Too elevated, as Aristotle argued, to be useful in charting a normative course.70 So sheer appeal to the highest good proves as vacuous as a sheerly a priori physics or biology would be. Yet sheer positivity is hardly better at charting a course by fiat or convention. What gives color to legal or moral 70

Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics I 6, 1097a 32–1097b 12.

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positivism is nothing more than the human need for definitive, conflict resolving determinations, as in sports or business dealings. But the need for a final authority hardly warrants any claim to incorrigibility or even merit. Physicians too make decisions that are final, but no fiat can make their decisions right. Relativists are fond of accusing their adversaries of dogmatism and calling fallibilism their own. But logic reverses t ose claims. It’s the relativist who thinks error impossible, seeing no higher authority than personal whim or communal choice.71 It’s t e moral realist who is committed to corrigibility, as the proud, Socratic badge of moral realism and at the same time, of fallibilism. Moral positivists are relativists, since they admit no standard for norms beyond what the norms themselves generate. That makes all norms constitutive and denies any idea of intrinsic value. The rivals whom relativists sometimes call absolutists, so as to suggest authoritarianism in their adversaries, know (or should know and constantly remember) that all formulations are compromised; all institutions, corrigible. Such seekers, if committed, responsible and sincere, are the proper judges and prophets, that is, the social critics and moral gadflies, intellectual guides and spiritual teachers, whose counsels can never without disastrous compromise be placed on all fours with the shibboleths of the marketplace, but whose guidance and teaching can never without equally dire consequence be barred from the public square. States and judges, legislators and administrators, like those whom they seek to govern, need all the help and guidance they can get in seeking to comprehend the Good and implement the varied specific goods that can rightly govern policy and practice. The religions in the everyday, familiar sense are central among the repositories of human efforts to delineate such goods and provide guidance to those who hope to live by such delineations. The practical question is how the rich resources of religious experience can be accessed without succumbing to parochialism, triumphalism, dogmatism, or cultural imperialism.

71

For further reflections on relativism, see L. E. Goodman, Truth, cited above in note 4, especially Chapters 3 and 4.

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The issue here, I think, is one of the generic and the specific: Societies in general exist to serve t e Good. T at’s w y we create, sustain, and tolerate their operations. Generically, a society, is a formal framework that can harbor and foster a wide variety of individual and communal modes of life, thought and expression. Communities and cultures, religious confessions, intellectual, political, moral and social movements can in turn harbor a vast diversity of individuals, all of whom are subject to change as they grow, learn, and interact. Societies are unjust and unstable if they cannot accommodate variety and multi-directional change. Communities too must be open. Mere permeability to ingress and egress is not enough. There must be access, participation, a forum for the interchange of ideas and practices. Yet there must also be a common language, not just in literal sense, although that helps, but in the sense that local chauvinisms need to be stripped away, ideas set on more cosmopolitan footings before t ey’re amenable to public use. In the public forum dogma kills but provincialism maims. Its acolytes limp in the arena, a disability to those whose creativity it stunts, even if they never miss their loss of freedom. I’ve spoken about societies generically. But no one lives in a generic society. All of us live in concrete particular societies with individual geographies and histories, languages and traditions, just as all of us have flesh and blood bodies, biographies, and habits, genetic heritages and psychological penchants, parentage, experience, propensities, strengths and weaknesses. The general task of a society is to serve the general good, but without deracinating the individual and communal constituents whose interests find and seek the content of the idea of the good. The task of those communities and individuals, as citizens and culture bearers is to contribute to the realization of the common good using their individual and cultural resources, but without allowing diversity of vision to degrade the cultural conversation into a babel of crosstalk, and without allowing diversity of experience to degrade the societal collaboration to a conflict or a conflagration. When (and to the extent that) this is done successfully, what results is more than a flourishing society, since coherent conversation and fruitful collaboration yield benefits to the participants as well. Philosophies, literatures, histories, and artistically enlarged visions grow when local ideals are nourished from nearby or remote sources. Local ideals are made more articulate, and more ap-

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proachable, apprehensible, and appropriable, beyond the palings of their original, local appeal. Societies enhance the work of cultures, confessions, communities, and individuals by making their pragmatic nexūs and t eir intellectual, spiritual and aest etic visions specific rather than merely generic or particularistic. The formalism that distinguishes societal from communal institutions sets its mark on the communal as well: The P.T.A. uses Roberts Rules of Order, and the synagogue has a Board and a bulletin that seeks to explain its activities in the language of the common, societal culture. Religions and those other cultural movements that tread the same ground as religions, for their part, give content to the work of societies, filling the vacuity of the formal institutions that Weber (rather optimistically) called “rational-legal” and pus ing open t e doors to variety and change that the sheer formalism of the idea of law or rule or positive policy could never have anticipated. Legal traditions are embedded in the thick realia of local culture and communal sensibility. So law itself, as David Weisstub has argued, inevitably harbors a particularity whose fine grain philosophy is too abstract to capture, even while philosophy itself remains inevitably more local and particular than its abstract language and favored generalities suggest. Does the tension between universality and particularity bar the ethical from the legal realm? I think not. Natural law is not legislation and can never take its place. But universal principles are the test of laws and the goad of legislators; and t e particularity of et ical traditions, as I’ve argued, does not compromise but should instantiate those principles, bridging the ground from abstraction to the thickness of concrete human experience, joys and sufferings, crimes and punishments, lawsuits and reconciliations. Religion, again, can help here. For its primary role and historical experience is in mediating absolutes into particularity and situating insights of universal scope into the realia of human life, as moral imperatives and spiritual invitations. Scriptural religions often couch their norms as divine commands. But to make proper use of the literature that embeds and elaborates such commands, we need not just a filter against the idiosyncratic—and any residue of chauvinism dissolved in such long transported living waters—but also a means of testing traditions for their moral viability and spiritual gravitas. Rival religions, secular traditions, human reason, and the internal dynamics of an active, questing tradition provide the reagents for such tests. The

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Torah itself teaches how its principles are to be applied and tested: It teaches us that love of God orients the Law and that love of man calibrates its aims. It points with celebrated concreteness to one way of pursuing respect for humanity; but it leaves open-ended the individual and communal quest for God. Human perfection is neither monolithic nor arbitrary. Not every human path is worth pursuing, and some need to blocked by the sternest measures of law, because of their destructiveness. But laws can do more than punish or prevent. They can foster and promote, in subtle or unsubtle ways. A law insensitive to the dimensionalities of human perfection, or a legal system built on the assumption that laws have no business with thoughts about the good is laboring in the dark. It has taken the blindfold that belongs to judicial procedures and bound up the legislative eyes that should be keenly focused on matters of principle. The law in a free society cannot be a religion or a morality. But it does need to know the differences between right and wrong, good and evil; it does need to orient itself toward an idea of the highest good and, ideally, to trace a hierarchy of values. The law of nations too cannot be religious, but it can’t afford to ignore religions. Laws can’t ignore t e distinction of religions from businesses and cults, although some who pursue the academic profession of religious studies use their presumptive expertise to deny that meaningful distinctions of this kind can be made—as if it were illiberal to treat any religious claim or manifestation as more or less authentic or legitimate than any other. But liberalism, like the state, exists to protect t e individual. It’s illiberal if it fails to distinguis a spiritual community from a group that blocks access by its members to social outlets and reality c ecks. It’s not protective at all but complicit in fraud and fleecing if it fails to distinguish a church from a Ponzi sc eme. It’s complicit in t e crime w en it covers up sexual abuse. And it’s complicit in t e terrorism and genocide t at it tolerates if it fails to distinguish religious preaching from agitation in behalf of bombings and assassinations, ethnic cleansing, and racial hegemony, whether perpetrated by identity churches or planned by t e likes of S eik Umar and t e Taliban. Here’s an area w ere societal norms rightly oversee communal order. Law needs access, then, to religious ideas and values; and that need, I think, trumps the claims of legal positivism and its longstanding ally/adversary, liberalism. Liberalism is the view that

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individuals should define the content of happiness for themselves. The claim, at once pragmatic and self-validating, is that a society or community that allows such self-definition enhances the happiness of its members. The claim is testable, insofar as it promises outcomes—since liberals assume that individuals are the best judges of t eir own appiness. It’s self-validating, thus unfalsifiable, insofar as it leaves open the idea of happiness and loops itself into a slipknot of tautology, only urging earnestly that the best way to allow people to get what they want is to allow them to get what they want. The happiness promised is then no longer a concrete goal. It’s been fused wit t e liberty of c oice t at was to ave been its means and thus emptied of the content that may have been its chief attraction. Enter positivism with its strong moral claims (perhaps camouflaged in epistemic or political fatigues), urging that morals have no place in the law or even in the hearts and minds of legislators. That appeals to liberals by rejecting any substitution of judgment (although t e positivist can’t s are t e liberal’s belief t at it is good to let individuals decide for themselves what they think good or worth pursuing). T ere’s a moral case to be made for t e positivist stance, at least in somewhat mitigated form. Demanding that laws serve some good risks privileging specific notions of the good and sidelining others. Perhaps more tellingly, the vagueness of general terms like ‘goodness’ or ‘perfection’ blunts t e crisp specificity of law and blurs reasonable expectations, making legal practice a fecund field for opportunism, bias, inconsistency, and slavish service to de facto power or the shifting whims that go by the name of moral intuitions. So it undermines the formal values critical to a legal system—uniformity, predictability, fairness, and decisiveness.72 These two fears, like all bogeys, are readily controlled. For laws themselves are our basic means of establishing publicly acknowledged priorities that articulate moral principles as societal institutions—and of pursuing the liberal aim of ensuring that rival 72

See (Cook 2000) opens a vivid panorama on the uses and interpretations of t e ur’anic imperative to ordain w at is reputable (macrūf) and prohibit what is reprehensible (munkar).

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notions of the good are not cauldrons of invidiousness. But politics is no less rampant, laws are no less in need of interpretation, and legal systems globally or piecemeal are no less subject to intrigues and no less in need of moral or pragmatic critiques when positivist assumptions are in place than when they are absent or ignored. Indeed, the moral push that energizes much of the drive for legal positivism is itself typically partisan: less a sense that God or morals has no place in law than a resentment of specific strictures fathered upon God or morals. Legal positivists may adopt the language of natural science or skeptical epistemology, or even a purist traditionalism. But the cash value of the claims is often the asseveration: ‘We’re in c arge ere.’ T e question t en, as in t e old joke about Tonto, is w om do we mean by “we”? If liberalism is liberal enough to allow us to define we inclusively and if it overcomes the temptation to equate itself with progressivism and then exclude those whose ideas of progress it dislikes, the question remains, ‘W at s all we do?’ It’s at t is point t at we see w y even positivism, with the best intentions in the world, cannot exclude politics from the legislative realm—or morality, or religion, from politics. For politics will always be a process not just of jockeying among rival interests but of reconciling and choosing among rival visions of the good and the good life.

REFERENCES [1] Benin, Stephen, The Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and Christian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). [2] Berlin, Isaiah, Two Concepts of Liberty: An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford, 31 October 1958 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958). [3] Cook, Michael, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). [4] Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). [5] Flew, Antony, God and Philosophy (London: Hutchinson, 1966). [6] Goldin, Judah, The Sacrifice of Isaac: Studies in the Development of a Literary Tradition (New York: Schocken, 1967; 1950).

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[7] Goodman, Lenn E., “Ibn K aldūn and T ucydides,” in Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 201–39. [8] _____. “Naked in t e Public Square,” Philosophia 40 (2012) 253–70. [9] _____. “T e Rig ts and Wrongs of Nations,” in Judaism, Human Rights and Human Values (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 137–61. [10] _____. Ethics and God, Philosophical Investigations 34 (2011) 135–50. [11] _____. God of Abraham (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). [12] _____. Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). [13] _____. On Justice (Oxford: Littman Library, 2008). [14] _____. In Defense of Truth: A Pluralistic Approach (Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2001). [15] Hayek, Frederick, The Road to Serfdom (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1944). [16] Kant, Immanuel, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by Theodore M. Grene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960). [17] Kierkegaard, Søren, Fear and Trembling, translated by Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969); translation first published 1941. [18] Langermann, Tzvi, ed., Monotheism and Ethics (Leiden: Brill, 2011). [19] Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1969). [20] Novak, David, “Self-Contraction of the Godhead in Kabbalistic T eology,” in L. E. Goodman, ed., Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 299–318. [21] Outka, G., “Religious and Moral Duty: Notes on Fear and Trembling,” in Outka and J. P. Reeder, eds., Religion and Morality (Garden City: Doubleday), 1973. [22] Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). [23] Sc olem, Gers om, “Sc öpfung aus Nic ts und Sebstversc ränkung Gottes,” Eranos Jahrbuch 25 (1956) 90 ff.

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[24] Spinoza, Short Treatise on God, Man and his Wellbeing, in Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt (Heidelberg: Winter, 1925); translated by Edwin Curley in The Collected Works of Spinoza (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). [25] Wilson, Edward O., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1975). [26] Zuckerman, Bruce, Job the Silent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

THEORIZING JEWISH ETHICS ALAN MITTLEMAN THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, USA [email protected] ABSTRACT The concept of Jewish ethics is elusive. Law occupies a prominent place in the phenomenology of traditional Judaism. What room is left for ethics? This paper argues that the dichotomy between law and ethics, with regard to Judaism, is misleading. The fixity of these categories presumes too much, both about normativity per se and about Judaism. Rather than naming categories “law” and “ethics” should be seen as contrastive terms that play a role in fundamental arguments about how to characterize Judaism.

The concept of Jewish ethics is chronically ill defined. As a category, what should Jewish ethics include? What should it exclude? How should the concept guide our interpretation of Jewish texts? Indeed, does it have heuristic value or does it misdirect us, prompting us to lay on a Procrustean bed materials that are better suited to other rubrics? Does the concept even have legitimacy? From a point of view external to Judaism, the concept seems unproblematic. Any number of comparative religion books, such as Charles Matthewes’s recent Religious Ethics speak in a descriptive way of Jewish ethics, alongside those of other world religions. Matthewes assumes that the term picks out relevant normative features of the Jewish textual inheritance and that these form a substantial sub-field of Jewis t oug t. He assumes t at ‘Jewis et ics’ is fully comparable to ‘C ristian et ics;’ t at t ese are meaningful and fruitful terms. From an internal point of view, however, matters are 115

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not so straightforward. Consider, as our point of departure, Michael Wyschogrod’s statement, in his neo-Orthodox theological tour de force, The Body of Faith, t at ‘et ics is t e Judaism of t e assimilated’ (Wyschogrod 1989), p. 181. For Wyschogrod, the urge to construct a category of Jewish ethics, to theorize it, and to accord it centrality is typical of liberal, non-halakhic modern Jews. Jewish law, halakhah, should be the authentic category of Jewish selfunderstanding. The Jewish ethics project of liberal modernity is an attempt to substitute something purely rational, universalizing, cross-culturally intelligible and respectable for the highly particular, divinely revealed law to which pre-modern Jews gave their allegiance. Jewish ethics is, on this view, a kind of political statement, a polemic on behalf of a reconstructed non-offensive Judaism. This essentially ideological argument has a point.73 At least since the time of Moses Mendelssohn, Jewish modernists have decentered Jewish law and emphasized ethics as the salient category of Jewish representation both to insiders and outsiders. Any diminution of the central role of halakhah is an historic break with the time honored model of Jewish self-understanding. But this is not to say that pre-modern Jews understood themselves solely within the framework of what we call law. Our concepts of law are no less problematic, when applied to traditional Judaism, than our wouldbe concepts of Jewish ethics. Common modern concepts of law are often positivistic; they are often tied to political concepts, such as sovereignty. They are in many ways ill-suited to map halakhah. How to sort this out constitutes a deeper problem than may be apparent from the ideological polemics of modern Jewish discourse. A number of modern Jewish thinkers have applied themselves to this nest of problems. I want to consider the work of a 73

Wysc ogrod’s complete argument is a great deal more complex than the headline that I am extracting from it. In fact, he condemns the abstraction of a universalizing, rationalistic ethics from Judaism and he condemns seeing Jewish law as ethically irrelevant. Jewish ethics is tied to law but also tied to the Jewish people. The law entails divine commands that can be immoral from t e point of view of “pure et ics.” Jewis et ics becomes a kind of tribal normativity, shaped by God-given Jewish law and the incarnation of divinity in the Jewish people.

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few of them here, assess the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches, and then propose my own approach to any putative concept of Jewish ethics. First, however, let me clarify more fully what is at stake. At stake here is more than traditionalist Jews continuing to assert the indispensability of alak a . Bundled into t e “traditionalist” claim is t e view t at alak a is not only necessary but sufficient; that halakhah comprises all norms relevant to human conduct, at least for Jews. To assert that some other body of norms pertains, indeed, that some non-halakhic ways of thinking about norms are required is to detract from the omni-sufficiency of halakhah. The omni-sufficient view is not just about how we categorize those norms which govern Jewish conduct. It is about the origin of such putative norms; the metaphysical background from which normativity per se emerges. The partisans of an omni-sufficient halakhah claim that the halakhah is God-given. Mere ethics seems to have a lesser pedigree or at least a more circuitous one. At issue then are old and weighty controversies about revelation, reason, and nature. The tension among these terms is not insuperable, but it is deeply felt. Issues of moral anthropology and moral epistemology are also in play. Who is the subject of norms? Why is such a subject so bound? W at relation does t e subject’s own reason and will have vis-à-vis norms? How do we, how can we know what is legitimately normative? If there is an independently cognizable realm of moral normativity over and against the halakhah, then what do we need halakhah for? If ethics is available to critique halakhah or if it serves as the telos of halakhah, then the majesty and sovereignty of halakhah—what a German Jewish philosopher called der Totalitätsanspruch der Thora (t e Tora ’s claim to totality)—is impugned. The scope and embodiment of norms is also at issue. Perhaps halakhah, while irrefragably central, is not sufficient. Perhaps it recognizes its own insufficiency by commanding ethical counterweights, balances, and corrections. Halakhah, one might say, needs ethics as a supererogatory modality; the two complement one another. But then again, if the halakhah stipulates a need for a normative framework in excess of its own standards, ethics remains a creature of the halakhah. If Jews are commanded (as they are) to go beyond the letter of the law (lifnim me-shurat ha-din), and the latter is thought to constitute ethics, then in what sense is ethics really separate from law? Ethics would be a moment internal to halakhah.

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Another kind of consideration that bears on our definitional question invites the perspective of political theory. What kind of social world does the halakhah assume, require, or intend? Spinoza famously argued that Jewish law was law only insofar as it comprised the statutes of an ancient commonwealth. Law requires not only jural agencies but a fully articulated polity. In the absence of that political infrastructure, for Spinoza, Jewish law no longer has legal—or any—authority. Maimonides also framed the halakhah as a constitution. His code, the Mishneh Torah, culminates in the laws of kings and warfare—halakhah ideally requires a full political instantiation. The Princeton scholar, Leora Batnitzky, in her recent book, How Judaism Became a Religion, sees most of the modern Jewish thinkers from Mendelssohn on engaged in a program of depoliticizing Judaism, indeed, of creating “Judaism.” On t is account, the transformation of Torah into religion simpliciter was designed to provide a medium whereby Jews could nullify the political impulses of classical Jewish self-understanding and render their Judaism compatible with the overarching political claims of modern nation states. Given a Westphalian Judaism so to speak, a Judaism qua religion, ethics fills the space where a comprehensive, politically instantiated legal order once prevailed. Even the truncated exilic forms in which Jewish political expression persisted were unacceptable to someone like Mendelssohn. Although Mendelssohn did not seek, like the 19th century Reformers, to abolish the law, he did reframe its significance. Whatever power the law retains, it does so in order to promote moral development and cultivation—Bildung. As Judaism becomes religion and religion is segregated from the political, halakhah is domesticated to ethics. In short, fundamental questions of the nature and meaning of Torah are at stake in the question of Jewish ethics. No wonder the question is so fraught. There are, it seems to me, three broad positions that modern thinkers have taken on the relation of ethics to halakhah/law. The first is that ethics ought to be the dominant category. Ethics forms t e content, point, and purpose of alak a . “Et ics” is given an expansive rhetorical and conceptual role in the representation of Judaism, both to insiders and outsiders. To speak of Judaism is to play a moral language game. The great works of Jewish thought deriving from liberal Jews such as Moritz Lazarus and Hermann Cohen in the 19th and early 20th centuries exemplify this position.

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Let’s call this position the sovereignty of ethics. The second point of view, which arguably arises historically as a reaction to the excesses of the first, is what I have called the omni-sufficiency of the halakhah. On this view, Judaism is all law—ethics, as an independent normative sphere, cannot gain a toehold. All relevant normative reasoning takes place within the four ells of the halakhah. There might well be an independently cognizable or theorizable sphere of ethics, but it is irrelevant for Jews. Talk of a Jewish ethics is, at best, merely a way of speaking about the halakhah as applied to topics the non-Jewish culture calls ethical. There is, for example, a great deal of Jewish biomedical ethics today which consists entirely of halakhah applied to medical topics. On the view that advocates the omni-sufficiency of halakhah there is nothing wrong with calling suc work “Jewis biomedical et ics” as long as we understand “et ics” as a proxy for “ alak a .” T is view assumes t at all et ical problems are resolvable into legal problems and that legal problems can be resolved to greater or lesser satisfaction with the tools of, in t is case, t e rabbinic trade. Here, t e term “et ics” may linger on but its content is attenuated; it is not much more than a verbal gesture. The strongest case for the exclusive dominance of the halakhah was made by Joseph Soloveitchik. Disciples such as Aaron Lichtenstein and Sol Roth, as well as Marvin Fox make the case as well. A third position sees a division of labor between the two categories. Ethics picks up where the law leaves off. This is the view of the great medieval exegete, Ramban, and may also be said to characterize the whole tradition of sifrut ha-musar (the literature of moral exhortation). On this view, halakhah is necessary but not sufficient. Rahmana iba ba’ei—God seeks the heart—as the Talmud puts it. Performance of commandments is not enough. Mitzvot tzrikhot kavannah: the commandments require intention. Intention itself is complex and requires cultivation. The inward dimensions of love, fidelity, enthusiasm, awareness, devotion, and aspiration are required. Some thinkers thus see a natural divide between law and ethics along the lines of outer (action) vs. inner (attitude). The Musar Movement in the 19th century argued that although Torah was studied and obeyed, yirah (fear of God) was absent. Without yirah, Torah study and observance were almost useless. The inner had to be pursued with the same intensity as the outer. Ba ya ibn Paquda made a similar case in the 11th century. This division of labor be-

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tween the inner and the outer is tacitly or explicitly assumed by those like Joseph Dan, who write on the history of Jewish ethics. Dan, in trying to constitute his subject matter, relegates ethics to an attitudinal accompaniment of the performance of mitzvot.74 There is something to be said for this view, of course, but it is also deeply problematic. It assumes, for example, t at “et ics” and “ alak a ” are rather static terms that describe two categorically distinct domains of content, one explicable in terms of intentionality, the other in terms of performance. It probably fails as an incipient theory of action with its rigid dichotomy between act and intent. It also fails to grasp the ethical content of the halakhah, relegating it to the attitude of those who enact it rather than to the inherent qualities of the law per se. Nor does it take notice of the purposes of the law. Its agent-centeredness is both a strength and a weakness. Another way of sustaining a law/ethics distinction, which avoids the inner/outer dichotomy, is to say that law is sustained by coercion and sanction while ethics is sustained by voluntary consent (albeit consent to fully normative imperatives). This is essentially a Kantian approach, distinguishing between perfect and imperfect obligations. Both forms of obligation are necessary for social order. Ethics is a device which acknowledges the limits of law at least insofar as its enforcement mechanisms are concerned. This position, call it ethical-legal complementarity, is exemplified by the work of Shimon Federbush in his Hebrew study, Ha-Musar ve HaMishpat b’Yisrael (Ethics and Law in Israel).

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Dan, in Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics, first argues that it would be rig t to call t e alak a as a w ole ‘a compre ensive system of ethical be avior.’ But e finds t at constitution of Jewis et ics too sweeping and so retreats to the more restrained view that ethics is a supererogatory complement to halakhah. Halakhah establishes a legal minimum while ‘et ics and t e aggada describe t e unending road toward perfection.’ His view thus combines the idea of ethics as a higher, more exigent standard rooted in inwardness with the idea that ethics issues into going beyond t e law in one’s action. He also wants to ground ethics on aggadah, broadly speaking, which complements in classical terms the halakhah (Dan 1986), pp. 3–4.

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The first position is given a paradigmatic expression in a great 19th century work, Moritz Lazarus’s Die Ethik des Judentums.75 Lazarus, a German-Jewish professor of psychology and a leader of Liberal (Reform) Judaism in the Second Reich, was immensely popular among his acculturated German coreligionists in the 19th century but is largely forgotten today. He presents, far more sweepingly and robustly than Mendelssohn, a thorough ethicization (Versittlichung) of Judaism. Judaism is essentially, if not exclusively, ethics. Ethics becomes the master category to which all other aspects of Judaism are ordered or, should that not succeed, discarded (as in the case of mysticism). His main work, Die Ethik des Judentums (The Ethics of Judaism) is the first modern systematic effort to interpret Biblical and rabbinic religion entirely through the prism of ethics. Lazarus is concerned, on the one hand, to show that Judaism qua ethics is in broad accord with Kantian ethics. On the other hand, he is dismissive of those who would equate or subordinate Judaism to Kant.76 He thus walks a narrow line between Judaism as a form of autonomous moral consciousness and Judaism as a heteronymous religious system. He attempts to preserve the naïve, authentic voices of traditional Jewish texts and to relate them to the most compelling contemporary intellectual voices. As a psychologist rather than a philosopher, Lazarus seeks a more or less empirical basis for ethics. Ethical consciousness is not intuitive or naturalistic; it is informed by t e “oug t” not t e “is,” by reasons not causes, as we would say. The concept of ethics signifies an ideal sphere above natural existence toward which human beings, both personally and socially, ought to strive. Nonetheless, Lazarus does not go in a fully Kantian direction and divorce moral imperatives 75

The material on Lazarus is partially taken from (Mittleman 2012), pp. 181–184 and is used with the kind permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 76 As Baumgardt explains, Lazarus followed an early post-Kantian philosopher named Johann Friedrich Herbart. Herbart eschewed the speculative metaphysics of Fichte and Schelling. He provided a more congenial model for a moral p ilosop y, suc as Lazarus’s, that tried to remain anchored in empirical, psychological observation. See Baumgardt, The Ethics of Lazarus and Steinthal, p. 205.

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from human drives, feelings and desires.77 Ethics arises from a drive toward the Good (Trieb zum Guten), from a feeling of obligation (Gefühl der Verpflichtung), which issues into rational assent (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 115. There is no small risk of incoherence in Lazarus’s view; it is also immediately problematic with respect to Judaism. If Judaism is equivalent to ethics and ethics arises from a sentiment of obligation, then the entire theistic framework of Judaism becomes irrelevant. Lazarus therefore attempts to preserve the distinctive monotheistic assumptions of Judaism by making God, the author of ethics, pervasively moral. Lazarus, like Cohen after him, removes all traces of divine voluntarism. That God commands an imperative does not make it right; God commands it because it is right. God too is subject to moral law. For a human being then, to will the moral law of one’s free will is simultaneously to do God’s will. ‘Morally good and pleasing to God; moral law and divine command—for Judaism these concepts are completely inseparable’ (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 85, translation my own. Inseparable but, he adds, not identical. God’s command and the moral law are related through a third term, the concept of holiness. Holiness plays a critical role in Lazarus’s thought. For Lazarus, the Biblical expression for the conjunction of divine command and t e moral law is ‘You s all be oly, for I t e LORD your God am oly’ (Leviticus 19:2). God does not say ‘you s all be oly because I will it’ or ‘…because I command it.’ God’s own being as holiness is morality. The fundamental teaching of Judaism runs: because the moral is divine, therefore shall you be moral and because the divine is moral, t erefore s all you be become like God…. T e ig est form and the final end of all human life is imitatio dei

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Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times, p. 46. The extent to which Kant divorces the noumenal moral law from the phenomenal condition of human psychology seems to me easy to exaggerate. See, for example, The Metaphysics of Morals, Part II, section XII where Kant discusses ‘concepts of w at is presupposed on the part of feeling by t e mind’s receptivity to concepts of duty as suc .’ See (Kant 1996), p. 159ff.

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(Gottähnlichkeit) (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 89, translation my own.

The being or nature (Wesen) of God is not an object of Biblical or rabbinic speculation. W at we are given instead is God’s holiness and holiness is explicated by moral attributes. The call to holiness is a call to participate in the creative power of the moral world-order; a call to bring about the fulfillment of the purpose of creation. T e oly God is ‘primordial form of all morality’ (Urgestalt aller Sittlichkeit). As muc as e invokes ‘God’ as t e giver of t e moral law, ‘God’ also seems to be not ing more t an t e Jews’ way of speaking about ‘t e idea of t e Good,’ ‘t e Spirit of morality’ (Geist der Sittlichkeit) (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, pp. 89–90, translation my own. Similarly, the concept of revelation is deflated into the deliverances of moral reason. Long before the revelation of commandments at Sinai, Abraham kept the entirety of the law (Mishnah Kiddushin 4:14), which he attained through his own reason (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 91. Autonomous moral reason is thus the source of moral instruction. Given his penchant for modernist demythologization, what role other than a notional one does Lazarus reserve for God? The answer is that God and religion provide a conceptual framework which does not infringe the independence and selfsufficiency of ethics (Selbstständigkeit des Ethischen) but rather sharpens (Einschärfung) its authority. Ethics does not derive its authority from God. We are, rather, to take the self-sufficient ethics which our reason discovers and dedicate our lives to the furtherance of ethics for the sake of ethics. We imagine this autonomous, selfsacrificial, total commitment as dedication to God, the highest possible object of our intentionality (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, pp.109–110. Our ethical intentionality thereby never serves our mere selfinterest. As a quasi-Kantian, Lazarus eschews any prudent or hedonistic ground for ethics, insofar as it would compromise the majesty and freedom of the ethical realm. Our moral aloofness from the pursuit of self-interest, which attests to the objectivity and universality of the moral law, is also given a vivid portrayal in the notion of a sovereign God. The idea of holiness, the hallowing of all of life, is the master principle of Jewish ethics. ‘Holiness means not ing ot er t an t e complete ethicization [Versittlichung] of human society, of humanity

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as suc ’ (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 187, translation my own. The principle of holiness directs us to take life seriously and to identify those values which we ought to take with utmost seriousness. In Judaism’s construal of holiness, we find two domains: the ritual and the ethical per se. For Lazarus, the ritual domain—expressed in the numerous Biblical ḥuqim, which he calls, following 19th century Reform usage ‘ceremonial laws’—is not moral per se but nonetheless serves a moral telos. The ritual laws build a notional world on top of the natural world such that they remind the Jews that they belong both to the natural world and to something beyond. Insofar as the ritual laws order and transform natural human functions, such as eating or resting, they have a broad pedagogic role; they are pointers toward both nature and transcendence (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, pp. 191–192. The ethical and the religious are inextricably intertwined. Neither concept is fully intelligible without the other in Judaism although it is clear that the concept of the religious, of religious holiness, is dependent upon the concept of ethics, of ethical holiness. Ethical holiness has its own abstract self-sufficiency. An integrated, flourishing human life, however, requires that ethical holiness be enacted within the framework of religious holiness. Why? Because although we can give ourselves fully to the life of morality, we cannot fully cognize the sublime mystery (erhabenes Geheimnis), that is, the divine, at the heart of that life (Lazarus 1898), Vol. I, p. 196. For Lazarus, it seems, the fully flourishing life is a life cognizant of that mystery. Religion, Judaism, brings us to the conceptual boundary at which the mystery can be acknowledged. Thus, Lazarus tries to preserve the category of religion from assimilation to the category of ethics. At the same time, he orders all of the normative contents of Judaism to an ethical paradigm. The views of Hermann Cohen and Emmanuel Levinas are philosophically muc more complex t an Lazarus’s but they plow, I would submit, the same furrow. Ethics is sovereign. The second position is a reaction to the first. One of its exponents is the famous Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. In Halakhic Man, Soloveitchik sets up a dic otomy between ‘religious man’ and ‘ alakhic man.’ T is sounds a bit surprising, since ordinarily one would think that Judaism is a religion and the halakhah is a religious law. Soloveitc ik’s dichotomy draws from similar dichotomies prevalent in the German culture in which he received his university education. The liberal rabbi, Leo Baeck, for example, wrote

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a famous anti-Christian or at least anti-Pauline polemic called ‘Romantic Religion.’ Baeck contrasted the sober, ethical, rational Apollonian religion of classical Judaism—the essence of which he found in an autonomous morality of a vaguely Kantian kind—to the impassioned oceanic spirituality of t e Romantics. Paul, on Baeck’s account, becomes the Urvater of romanticism. Baeck was in turn using and ‘transvaluing’ Nietzsc e’s dichotomy from The Birth of the Tragedy of Apollonian and Dionysian cultures. Soloveitchik was probably also aware of Christian theologians such as Troeltsch, who in Die Absolutheit des Christentums, exempted Christianity from the category of religion—religion was reserved for everything other than Christianity. From such presumed sources, Soloveitchik constitutes a halakhic sphere that is not only essentially other than the sphere occupied by ‘religious man,’ but it is also ig er. In t is, e follows Kierkegaard, adapting Kierkegaard’s stance of faith vis-àvis the ethical as the stance of halakhic man vis-à-vis religious man. For Soloveitchik, religious man, homo religiosus, is also ethical man. Ethical man construes the world as a domain which one yearns to ameliorate, escape or transcend. Homo religiosus strives for moral perfection; he sees the world as an obdurate obstacle to his moral-religious quest. Halakhic man, by contrast, is unencumbered by such romantic passions. He sees the world as a field of problems to be cognized and of opportunities to be exploited through halakhically defined action. Homo religiosus 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.

By contrast, ‘ alak ic man’s approac to reality… is devoid of any element of transcendence’ (Soloveitchik 1983), pp. 16–17. Halakhic man is not on a quest. He already knows where he will end up because he knows from whence he starts out: with an a priori body of fixed statutes and firm principles… [a]n entire corpus of precepts and laws guides him along the path leading to existence. Halakhic man, well furnished with rules, judgments, and fundamental principles, draws near the world with an a priori relation. His approach begins with an ideal creation and concludes with a real one (Soloveitchik 1983), p. 19.

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Soloveitchik likens this phenomenon to mathematics. Mathematics exists, in his view, in an a priori ideal way but is applied to a correlative, concrete world. Although Soloveitchik as a thinker deeply influenced by NeoKantianism—he wrote his dissertation on Hermann Cohen—is careful not to reify or ontologize the Torah in the manner of mysticism, he does constitute Torah as an a priori transcendental principle of normativity. No independent ethic, certainly nothing answering to t e term ‘Jewis et ics,’ is needed. And yet Soloveitc ik has to allude to ethical considerations. He asserts, for example, that Halak ic man’s most fervent desire is the perfection of the world under the dominion of righteousness and lovingkindness—the realization of the a priori, ideal creation, whose name is Torah (or Halakhah), in the realm of concrete life.

‘T e great Tora giants,’ e tells us, ‘t e alak ic men par excellence, were indeed champions of truth and justice. They glowed wit a resplendent et ical beauty’ (Soloveitchik 1983), pp. 94–95. Is he being inconsistent? How can his view accommodate this assertion of ethical values vis-à-vis the halakhah? In brief, Soloveitchik sees the cognitive activity of halakhic man, which resembles that of the mathematician or the scientist, as tending always toward a normative goal. The astronomer studies the heavens to understand the motion of the heavenly bodies. Halakhic man wants to understand this too—in order to know how to apply the Jewish calendar or sanctify the new moon. The very pursuit of knowledge, both among scientists and halakhic men, has a normative motivation and thrust. Ultimately, the halakhic man wants to cognize the universe in order to know how to act within it; there is a seamless fit between knowing and doing. To know t e world is to know God’s glory, w ic means to know God’s emulable attributes of action— w ic are t e source of ‘t e et ical life.’ W en we fix on t e ‘w ole of being and cognize it’ we implement t e et ical ideal (Soloveitchik 1983), p. 64. Thus Soloveitchik bundles normative, specifically ethical purposes into his philosophical anthropology of halakhic man. He uses terms suc as ‘et ical beauty,’ ‘et ical ideals,’ and ‘et ical life’ but suc terms do not significantly qualify, complement, let alone criticize or oppose the skein of life of halakhic man. They

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arise from that life and are nestled within it. Indeed, Soloveitchik contrasts the resistance of religious man to ethical norms, which homo religiosus feels as external and coercive, with the internal, voluntary, near autonomous acknowledgement of the commandments by alak ic man. T e commandments seem to im ‘as t ough he discovered t e norm in is innermost self’ (Soloveitchik 1983), p. 65. The ethical has no independent standing in Soloveitc ik’s thought despite his pervasive, foundational concern with normativity. A similar view, albeit expressed in a more discursive fashion, is found in his son in law, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein’s important essay, ‘Does Jewis Tradition Recognize an Et ic Independent of Halakhah?’78 Lic tenstein’s argument is highly nuanced. He acknowledges that the rabbinic tradition recognizes a lex naturalis or, more minimally, a natural morality, see Lichtenstein in (Kellner 1978), p. 104. The question is whether that independent preSinaitic ethic has any relevance, legitimacy or authority for a postSinaitic Jew. Lic tenstein’s position is that this independent ethic is effectively aufgehoben in the halakhah. His question is whether the demands or guidelines of Halakhah are both so definitive and so comprehensive as to preclude the necessity for—and therefore, in a sense, the legitimacy of—any other ethic, see Lichtenstein in (Kellner 1978), p. 105.

The answer is yes, given a suitably capacious conception of the halakha . T e p rase ‘any ot er et ic’ is quite deliberate. For Lic tenstein at once asserts t at ‘Halak a constitutes—or at least contains—an et ical system,’ see Lichtenstein in (Kellner 1978), p. 106. He categorically rejects views such as those of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, which anchor halakhah in pure divine command. Such ‘quasifideistic voluntarism’ is not consonant wit t e ‘main t rust of t e tradition’ in Lic tenstein’s view. Halakhah must not be divorced from a recognizable morality. Is halakhah then parallel to morality; is morality a complement or an alternative to halakhah? Lic tenstein rejects t is line of t inking. T e fact is t at t e ‘Halakhah is multiplanar and many dimensional; that, properly con78

This essay is found in (Kellner 1978), pp. 102–123.

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ceived, it includes much more than is explicitly required or permitted by specific rules.’ And t us, ‘we s all realize t at t e et ical moment we are seeking is itself an aspect of alak a ,’ see Lichtenstein in (Kellner 1978), p. 106. Those elements of supra-legal obligation in the halakhah, such as acting lifnim me-shurat ha-din, are themselves parts of alak a . A ig ly textured, ‘multiplanar’ alak a leaves no conceptual space for Jewish ethics. Thus, on the view of the omni-sufficiency of halakhah ethical considerations are not absent, bracketed, or neglected. They are firmly subordinated to an expansive conception of Jewish law which deprives them of any independent standing. The third view is that of complementarity between a halakhah thought to require some additional normative warrant and ethics. As I mentioned, there are at least two ways of constituting this view. The first is based on a presumed distinction between inner attitude (ethics) and outward action (law). The second is based on the fact (and limits) of enforcement mechanisms, that is, ethics picks up where law must, in the nature of human social life, leave off. Nachmanides appears to exemplify this view in his comment to Deuteronomy 6:18: Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD that it may go well with you and that you may be able to possess the good land that the LORD your God promised on oath to your fathers.

Nachmanides takes doing w at is ‘rig t and good’ (ha-yashar v’ha-tov) to mean seeking compromise (peshara) and renouncing one’s full legal rights (lifnim me-shurat ha-din) for the sake of comity. He acknowledges the limits of the law and the need for an internal sense of moral duty or virtue. But note, however, that ethics in this sense is commanded by the law. The imperfect duty, to use Kantian language, of seeking compromise and acting lifnim me-shurat ha-din is a consequence of t e perfect duty of ‘doing t e rig t and t e good.’ Ethics is given a certain standing on the complementarist account but it is consigned to the penumbra of the law. Perhaps its standing is so dependent on the law that this view is simply notional and reverts to the affirmation of the omni-sufficiency of halakhah. A determined effort to keep law and ethics conceptually distinct yet practically related is found in the work of a neglected Jew-

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ish moral and political theorist, Rabbi Shimon Federbush (1892– 1969). In his posthumously published work Ha-Musar ve-Ha-Mishpat b’Yisrael (Ethics and Law in Israel), Federbush argues that law and ethics are identical in content (Federbush 1979), pp. 11–21. The distinction between them arises from the different contexts in which they are employed. Federbush considers that the distinction between law and ethics may be that of act and intention, but he rejects this—rightly, in my opinion—in favor of an integrated view of action. Intention is integral to the description of an act, as exemplified in Biblical criminal law which distinguishes between manslaughter and homicide on the basis of intention. If law and ethics care equally for the integrated expression of intention and performance, then the distinction between them must lie elsew ere. He also rejects Stammler’s distinction between acts that are essentially private, w ic on Stammler’s account constitute ethics and acts that are essentially public, which constitute law. Individuals cannot be neatly distinguished from their social milieus, he argues. Nor do ethics lack a social address. The Biblical prophets, whom he portrays as moral critics, spoke to the public. The Torah intends a social et ics, w ic Stammler’s view must fail to take into account. The view that Federbush settles on distinguishes between acts that are capable of being coerced by an external authority and acts that have no functional sanction other than conscience. Coercion (kefiyah) distinguishes between law and ethics. This is to say that the content of law and ethics is in principle identical; the post facto availability of coercion is what allows for the distinction. Federbush senses that the criterion of coercion is necessary but not sufficient, however. Is there no criterion that allows for an essential distinction between law and ethics, as opposed to an adventitious, contextual one? He holds that there is such a criterion and locates it in social need. In any given human society, there is an underlying dynamic of normativity (ḥoq). Social actors over time decide how much of this normativity must be structured into law and how much can remain rather less structured as ethics. What are the necessary minima for social order? The underlying norms (ḥuqim) without which society cannot survive become laws; the ones that are best left at large are ethics. Context, history, and human interest determine the dichotomization of normativity into ethics and law. This is a rather thin essentialism, which in my judgment is the best kind to have.

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Now all of these views, their differences notwithstanding, share a common interest—to distinguish theoretically between ethics and law and to fix their conceptual relations. All thus presume that the terms designate categories which have in principle independent, identifying features. The categories of law and ethics, whatever the eventual relations between their contents, are prima facie separate and distinctive. It is this assumption that I want to criticize. It is not my purpose to argue in a global way that ethics and law are identical. Rather, I want to expose the presupposition of their categorical difference in Jewish thought to criticism. To begin, Jewish thinkers who ponder the problem of Jewish ethics all seem to assume that ethics in the Western context is a discrete, distinguishable, stand-alone endeavor. Ethics must either rule, be conquered or be yoked in partnership to law. They do not seem to have noticed that modern Anglo-American philosophical ethics is full of criticism of what Bernard Williams mordantly called ‘t e morality system.’ P ilosop ers suc as Williams, MacIntyre, and already in t e 1950’s, G.E.M. Anscombe raised serious questions about whether ethics can be a coherent category. For Williams, t e obsession of ‘t e morality system’ wit obligation, wit w at one oug t to do (in some special sense of ‘oug t’), orients ethics away from questions of how one should live toward questions of what agents must do. It fixes ethics on the judgment of agents, w ic resembles ‘t e prerogatives of a Pelagian God.’79 Both MacIntyre and Anscombe have also tended to construe ethics as a false religion. (Although, unlike Williams, they each want a true one.) MacIntyre would explode the compactness and categorical integrity of ethics and conduct moral enquiry through historical, literary, anthropological and sociological interrogation. He questions the idea that morality is a distinct phenomenon, separable from, for example, the purity taboos of archaic societies. The very act of distinguis ing an identifiable domain labeled ‘morality’ to be studied by a conceptually distinct met od known as ‘et ics’ is a matter of historical contingency. Anscombe found the allegedly unique moral sense of ‘oug t’ inco erent. It is a survival from a 79

(Williams 1985), p. 38. For his sustained criticism of modern ethics as a ‘morality system,’ see C apter 10.

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Christian age, in turn shaped by the Torah. For Anscombe, without a belief in divine law, ‘oug t’ and ‘obligation’ in t e commanding sense ethics ascribes to these terms cannot be sustained. ‘It is as if,’ s e writes ‘t e notion “criminal” were to remain w en criminal law and criminal courts ad been abolis ed and forgotten.’80 Views such as these suggest that the modern Jewish thinkers, whatever their position on ethics and law, have too much confidence in the concept of ethics as such. Kant looms too large for them. Whichever tack they take, they believe that they need to reach an accommodation with ethics. A putative concept of ethics makes demands on them and they must respond. But if ethics itself is a historically contingent category, if it develops meaning only through intensional contrasts with other normative terms and if none of these are fixed, why should Jewish thinkers have to respond to the demand? Rather than assume that the ethics/law dichotomy is a formidable problem, why not see the whole business as a contingent semantic matter? There are several reasons that impede that Wittgensteinian resolution. One reason the dichotomy seems so formidable is because the normative rules and conclusions of halakhah sometimes violate the modern sense of justice, equity, fairness, and so on. Halakhic approaches to the status of women are a leading example of this. Insofar as halakhah is particular to the Jews and ethics is thought to be universal, it is easy to frame this tension as one between law and ethics, a particular norm versus a universal standard. Conceptually, however, it would be just as easy to frame the tension as one between competing impulses, values, principles and goals within the halakhah. The Jewish moral tradition is rich with such tensions and with the resources to negotiate them. Casting conflicts of value into

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Originally in Philosophy, 33 (1958), reprinted in (Anscombe 1981), p. 30. So too (Geuss 2005), C apter 3. On Geuss’s view, the central question of philosophical ethics—what ought I to do?—derives from a medieval world in w ic doing God’s will was the paramount human task. With the loss of that world, a secularized equivalent takes its place. Ethics becomes an ever more total domain, compensating for the absence of the divine. It is difficult, alt oug wort w ile for Geuss, to get ‘outside’ et ics.

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the dichotomous terms of law and ethics can aggravate tensions rather than render them productive. I suspect t at ‘law’ and ‘et ics’ are proxies for Jewis uniqueness and particularity as against the standards, however idealized, of the general culture. The terms are needed rhetorically to protect distinctive Jewish territory or to subject it to criticism, whether internal or external. The real conceptual work that is being done with these terms is pragmatic rather than semantic: there is a fight going on over who represents Judaism, who has authority, what is the normative view. If you are a halakhist, you can be dismissive of a view if you can characterize it as mere ethics. If you are a liberal Jew, you get to critique the harshness of law in the name of somet ing presumably ig er and nobler. ‘Law’ and ‘et ics’ thus seem to be contrastive terms. They derive some of their sense, in these modern Jewish treatments, from their contrast to one another. One member of the pair acts as a foil for the other. If the writer holds to the omni-sufficiency of halakhah, e needs ‘et ics’ as is w ipping boy. If the writer holds to the sovereignty of ethics, she needs ‘law’ to provide t e raw material for er idealizations or criticisms. Rhetorical and polemical needs drive the hypostatization of the terms. In my view, t e better way forward is to say t at bot ‘law’ and ‘et ics’ are terms t at do not map entirely well over traditional Jewish materials. The Jewish tradition did not develop such a categorical distinction in the way that Western thought did. There is a holism about the Jewish normative order. We see that holism expressed along another fault line—the modern distinction between deontic and aretaic ethics. Anscombe is herself too categorical in describing traditional Christianity and the Jewish tradition out of w ic it developed as a ‘law et ic,’ for t ere is far more t an w at corresponds to law going on in Judaism. Like other traditional normative orders, Judaism did not distinguish between obligation and virtue; it did not see an opposition between obeying public norms and cultivating human excellence. The falling out of justice and virtue that marks modern ethics would be wholly unintelligible to a traditional Jewish moralist. It is an obligation of halakhah to cultivate character, as much as it is an obligation to observe the Sabbath. Indeed, Sabbath observance as far back as Deuteronomy 5:12–15 seems intended to develop virtuous dispositions toward sympathy, understanding, and solidarity. While a Western legal sys-

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tem wants to inculcate the attitude of law-abidingness, even lawaffirmation, it is typically unconcerned with dispositions such as love, self-criticism, or awe. Ahavat ha-briyot, ḥeshbon ha-nefesh, and yirat shamayim as these dispositions are called in Hebrew are as much elements of halakhah as kashrut and festivals. It is impossible to decide which Jewish norms should be allocated to ethics and which to law because these categories are ill-suited to those norms. The integration of those norms into a complex whole requires theorizing in its own terms not in terms of borrowed oppositions and dichotomies. What then of theorizing Jewish ethics? Is Jewish ethics a legitimate concept or should we avoid it? To the extent that we want to continue to speak about the normative dimensions of Judaism, and to speak of them in English, the use of such terms is unavoidable. Our aim should be to avoid using them thoughtlessly, using them in such a way as to generate confusion. A capacious and minimalist approach to the notion Jewish ethics would be best. I would suggest t at we employ t e term ‘Jewis et ics’ to indicate ‘reflection on c aracter and conduct.’ Suc reflection occurs in ‘legal’ sources; it occurs in traditional virtue literature (sifrut ha-musar); it occurs in liturgical and secular poetry; it occurs in philosophical texts where it becomes highly reflexive and thematic. Jewish ethics thus directs us to look for thought about a broad range of ethical considerations, but not only those. It cannot be separated from metaphysics, theology, narrative, and streams of authoritative texts descending from the past. ‘Jewis et ics’ s ould not rival, dominate, or compete wit other ways of thinking about the normative in Judaism. It should integrate not isolate those perspectives. It is not, properly conceived, the Judaism of the assimilated. It is that form of inquiry which seeks to evoke the wisdom of Judaism as it pertains to conduct and character, to what is entailed by the quest to live rightly and well.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author wishes to express his gratitude to Prof. Lenn E. Goodman, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University, for his invitation to give an earlier version of this paper at a colloquy of the Philosophy Department at Vanderbilt.

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REFERENCES [1] Anscombe, G.E.M., The Collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Vol. III. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981). [2] Dan, Joseph, Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986). [3] Federbush, Shimon, Ha-Musar ve-Ha-Mishpat b’Yisrael (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 1979), pp. 11–21. [4] Geuss, Raymond, Outside Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). [5] Kant, I., The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). [6] Kellner, Menachem, ed., Contemporary Jewish Ethics (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1978). [7] Lazarus, Moritz, Die Ethik des Judentums (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kaufmann, 1898). [8] Mittleman, Alan, A Short History of Jewish Ethics (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2012). [9] Soloveitchik, Joseph B., Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983). [10] Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). [11] Wyschogrod, Michael, The Body of Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989).

PRAGMATISM AND THE LOGIC OF JEWISH POLITICAL MESSIANISM PETER OCHS UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, USA [email protected] ABSTRACT By the standards of reasoning employed in this essay, Jewish political eschatologies are not disciplined by any fully coherent rules of reasoning, including rules internal to these eschatologies. The one exception is if and when an eschatology is pragmatic, or what I ca a “meantime eschato ogy:” one that designates a this-worldly end to some specific, identifiable conditions of suffering while bracketing any claim about the ultimate finality of this end. Typical of claims in the Chumash, this kind of eschatology is logically comparable to the claims of contemporary empirical science: predicting the likelihood that a certain problem may be resolved in a certain way within a certain time. Such eschatologies are falsifiable. By these standards, modern Jewish eschatological claims tend to appeal to non-rational standards of coherence. One surprising exception is displayed in the later writings of the Hazon Ish, R. Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz: a pragmatic approach that assigns divine promises (havtachot), such as the return to Zion, a different epistemological status than divine commands (mitsvot), such as how to behave when living in the land of Israel.

It is not unusual, in Israel or in the Diaspora, to read newspaper columns, essays, or books that publicly argue on behalf of a com135

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peting array of Jewish messianisms and anti-messianisms, including varieties of Zionist and anti-Zionist messianism or anti-messianism. By what means, however, can the reading public evaluate these arguments? This essay offers one reply: before asking if such an argument is true or false, the reading public should ask if it is truthfunctional in the first place. This to ask if the argument either acknowledges its readers’ capacities to evaluate it or lends them the tools to do so. Within the frame of this essay, I suggest that we label suc arguments “publicly rational” w en t ey “acknowledge or lend tools to” t eir readers in t is way and “publicly nonrational” w en t ey do not. I add t at publicly non-rational arguments may, in fact, be true or sound, but that, since we have no public means of testing this possibility, it may be prudent to judge their public appearance as either premature or else intended for something other than reasoned engagement with their readers. On the other hand, publicly rational arguments may prove to be utterly false. To label t em “rational” is simply to indicate t at, for better or worse, they have been offered to us for public debate and discussion. For t e rest of t is essay, I employ t e terms “rationality” and “rational” only as abbreviated ways of referring to “public rationality” and “publicly rational” as defined ere. By these standards, I have not yet identified any modern eschatological claim that is publicly rational, including any claim about the finality of the current Jewish return to Zion. I have found that very few eschatological claims come even close to rational coherence in this sense. The claims I have in mind are of three kinds: (a) strictly non-final, empirical claims about ways in which a particular suffering or exile of the Jews can most likely be repaired; (b) strictly final, non-empirical claims about the general character of redemption (geulah) or t e general rules of “returning to Zion” (shivat tsion); these remain coherent until they are attached to time-specific claims about final redemption within this world; (c) what I have found to be the most valuable and powerful type of eschatological claim: one that draws out of the tradition of returnand-redemption a set of time-specific rules about how some particular suffering or exile of the Jews can most likely be repaired. The notion of rationality I employ presumes a scriptural and eschatological context of reasoning. I assume t at “rationality” or “nonrationality” can be ascribed only to modes of inference rather than to beliefs or assumptions. In ot er words, “reason” refers only to a

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movement of thinking from belief to belief (or from premises to conclusion), not to any premise or conclusion within an act of reasoning. I t erefore evaluate an aut or’s standards of reasoning only if and when an author invites this evaluation by claiming to discover or to justify something through inference. In such cases, authors tend to present their claims as if they were rationally coherent. Many of the eschatologies I criticize are highly rationalized: that is, their authors have sought to order some large set of belief and claims into what they consider coherent systems of belief. I criticize these efforts when the activity of synthesis has, at significant points, included incoherent or self-contradictory acts of reasoning. Such authors either fail to recognize these fallacies or else cover them over for the sake of persuading others. I have three goals in the essay. One is to set out general criteria for distinguishing rational from non-rational messianic claims. Rational claims are those for which public argument makes a difference; non-rational claims may be as true as rational ones, but there are no public ways of arguing for them. A second goal is to show that, according to these criteria, the more rational messianic claims are “pragmatic” ones t at identify worldly, or w at I call “meantime” end times. T ere is value in public argumentation and discussion of pragmatic claims. Wholly non-pragmatic claims display their truth or falsity only to self-defined subgroups of people; efforts to demonstrate this truth or falsity publicly are either disingenuous or unintentionally misguided. A third goal is to illustrate how the criteria of rationality may be applied. My two test cases are the more pragmatic claims of the haredi thinker the Hazon Ish and the non-pragmatic claims of Rav Avraham Isaac Kuk. I begin the essay by proposing a set of conditions according to which individual expressions of Jewish religious thinking could be judged “rational” or “non-rational.” Labeling t ese “t e postulates of Jewis religious reasoning,” I set out a few general postulates and then offer detailed sub-postulates for only a single case of Jewis religious t inking: “Jewis political messianism,” w ic , w en it is rational, I label “Jewis political esc atological reasoning.” Bot rational and non-rational thinking can generate truth-functional claims. The difference is that only rational thinking offers criteria according to which any listener could judge its conclusions to be true or false. Non-rational thinking either lacks such criteria or displays them only to a pre-designated set or class of listeners. In

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these terms, I believe we can identify if and when an argument for a given political messianism is misleading: misleading arguments are those that present themselves as rational when in fact they are nonrational. These arguments may mislead intentionally or unintentionally (that is, deceptively); either way, they should be carefully separated from non-misleading statements in behalf of a political messianism. Statements may, to be sure, be utterly false but nonetheless non-misleading. My concern in this essay is not to offer judgments about truth and falsity, particularly in the case of eschatologies whose truth may be known only in the end of days. A statement that is not only non-misleading but also non-rational may, for all we know, turn out to be the truest or most powerful. My concern in this essay is only with something that we can know for sure: how to wade through the often frightening verbiage that collects around messianic claims to identify which aspects of which claims merit further public attention. The best method is to distinguish: (a) Claims that are non-rational: the truth of these is to be judged, not by the character of reasonings brought for them, but by some other means. These means may be empirical, if the claims are about some publicly observable or testable facts occurring in history or and space-time. Or the means may be non-empirical as well as non-rational, in which case I assume they are also non-public. In this case, they may be true or false, but there is no purpose served by promoting public arguments on behalf of their truth or falsity. Such arguments are available only to some self-identified subgroup, whose public arguments, if and when they are offered, should be received either as non-truth-functional or as equivalent to political statements that can be evaluated only according to the strength or weakness of their public effects in achieving some goals of the subgroup. (b) Claims that are rational and non-misleading: the truth of these is to be judged by the character of the publicly testable reasonings that are brought for them. The rationality of such a claim is not a measure of its truth or falsity but only of the availability of public means for measuring that truth or falsity. Rational claims should make reference to these means, so that any listener can evaluate the claims on the basis of those means. (c) Claims that are purportedly rational but misleading: these are to be judged as non-rational and, furthermore, as either purposefully deceptive or

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confused or errant. Such claims call for corrective action. Those who receive them have reason either (a) to be wary of those who offer them; or (b) to treat the claims as meriting clarification and reclassification. The Postulates of Jewish Religious Reasoning: the Case of Jewish Political Eschatology 1. Religious reasoning begins with postulates. a) Postulates are neither true nor false. b) They are evaluated by their success or failure, their strength or weakness in serving as premises of religious reasoning. c) The inadequacies of a given postulate may not become apparent until much time and energy has been devoted to testing it in use. d) Inquirers may therefore prefer to begin with postulates that ave been “proven” t roug longer traditions of inquiry or interpretation. 2. There is a hierarchy among those postulates that derive from antecedent traditions: (i) The primary postulates are Biblical; (ii) The secondary postulates are rabbinic (from the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods), followed by: (iii) Postulates derived by commentaries of the rishonim (the early medieval commentators, through the 15th century) on the primary and secondary postulates; (iv) Postulates derived from commentaries of the achronim (the later commentators, early modern to modern); (v) Postulates derived from subsequent and/or additional sources, depending on t e inquirer’s sub-tradition of inquiry; (vi) Postulates derived from efforts of imagination or through a variety of mixed sources (part tradition, part imagination, part recommendation and so on). a) The hierarchical order provides an order of reliability, where postulates from a higher order are presumed to have proven over a greater span of time and thus to be relatively more reliable than those from a lower or more recent order. The degree of reliability does not imply truth or falsity, however; it suggests only how probable it is that a given postulate will prove to be strong. b) Each rabbinic postulate is suggested by a given verse or trope or pericope within the literature of a given order (Biblical and so

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on) or, in cases of the last two stages, by a given form, concept, image, philosophic or other judgment, and so on. There are several significant and delicate points to add here: i. Almost all inquirers presume that that all verses of the Bible are indubitable, but what does this mean? For this account, it means that no verse is subject to doubt as being a suggesting source for the postulates of religious reasoning. Plain sense study clarifies the meaning of each verse as a suggesting source. But plain sense meanings refer only in most general terms to the subjects of religious reasoning; what postulates any verse will suggest therefore remain indeterminate. This is why the Bible merely suggests rather than dictates the postulates of religious reasoning. ii. For most inquirers, the texts of rabbinic literature also tend to be indubitable but merely suggestive with respect to any particular claim of religious reasoning. They are one step less reliable than the Biblical verses but also one step more determinate with respect to the postulates. Each subsequent order of texts is comparably less reliable and more determinate. The postulate that tells us most clearly what to do in this world is also the least reliable81. 3. Particular acts of religious reasoning are stimulated by space-time specific observations of societal pain or suffering or, secondarily, of problems or challenges perceived within any of the literatures and techniques that serve as resources for religious reasoning. a) The postulates of religious reasoning are sources of specific guidelines for acting in response to such observations. These guidelines, in turn, generate particular directives to act (and/or reason) in response to them. b) An act of religious reasoning may be defined, formally, as a three-part relation among a given set of observations, a given set of postulates, and a specific set of directives (the latter

I am grateful to Benjamin Brown for t is comment: “Furt ermore, as Yishayahu Leibowitz liked to claim, the Oral Law is the source of the Written Law’s aut ority, not t e ot er way ’round, because the Sages are those who decided which books are in the biblical canon and which are not.” 81

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would ideally but not necessarily include an account of the space-time specific way that these were in fact undertaken). 4. Eschatological reasoning is religious reasoning about or in relation to end times. Political eschatological reasoning offers claims about the societal character of a given end time. The elemental postulates of Jewish political eschatological reasoning are suggested by a set of Biblical Types. a) (Type 1) Reparative reasoning: reasoning about “meantime endtimes.” i. Cycles of going down to Egypt: one suggestive source for this Type is t e cycle of patriarc al “descents” to Egypt (Gen. 11–12; Gen. 37–50, Ex. 1–19). Here, some crisis compels the patriarch to journey far from ome to seek relief; t e goal is to “go down” and t en “return,” once t e crisis is resolved. From t is perspective, t e Exodus account simply extends the time of going-down. Distending the time of relief, this account may also suggest subsequent Types, but I shall read it within the limits of this Type. ii. Cycles of attacks against the Israelite tribal amphictyony: the suggestive source is the Book of Judges. Here, t e “descent to Egypt” is replaced wit t e “ascendancy” of a warrior-judge whose purpose is to relieve the Israelites of some shared threat and, therefore, restore them to their previous, decentralized manner of life. iii. Cycles of Chorban (?): the suggestive sources in Tanakh include various accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the First Temple in the 2 Kings 24–25, the prophetic books, Lamentations, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 2 Chronicles. I add a “?” ere because other readers might assign this cycle to one of the other 3 Types. From the perspective of rabbinic accounts of the Second Chorban, the first Destruction may be read as anticipating some ultimate end. Within the canon of Tanakh, however, I believe it is more appropriately read as a continuation of t e “meantime” cycles of “going down to Egypt.” For t is essay a w ole, t is is t e Type of w at I will call a “reparative” and t is-worldly process of geulah (redemption). In a time of famine or terrifying attack or destruction, or exile, Biblical figures may seek divine aid. The purpose and end of this aid is to bring relief from these conditions of distress. If relief comes, the agent of relief may be called a goel, “redeemer.” While this redeemer is an agent of God, the Biblical accounts need not suggest anyt ing “final” about t is redemption. In t e words of t is essay, relief brings a “meantime finality,” by w ic I mean t at

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a particular relief represents a final end to some particular crisis; for one who suffered this crisis, this is the only end in mind. But there is none of w at we mig t call a “double consciousness” ere about the relation of this end to any other one. It fulfills the category of what it is, no less but also no more. b) (Type 2) Monarchical reparative reasoning: reasoning about “t eo-politically institutionalized meantime end-times.” An apparent end to the “Judges cyc e:” t e Books of Samuel offer an account of how warrior-judges were replaced with kings. The prophet-judge Samuel warns Israel against making this replacement. His warning suggests a second Type of eschatological reasoning. While the purpose of the Judge is to provide relief for only a space-time specific source of distress, a king transforms the office of “redeemer” into an institutionalized and, in t at sense, permanent source of protection against any possible distress. In different terms, we could say that this office introduces a theo-political double-consciousness into the Bible’s soteriology. Israel seeks its first king, who happens to be Saul, as if he were a judge mighty enough to turn away the unprecedented threat of the Philistines. But, Samuel warns, in order to become quantitatively and qualitatively this mighty, Saul will have to become a king like other neighboring kings. This means someone who does not return home after the enemy is gone. His institutions of warfare remain elements of daily life, so that the decentralized amphictyony will become a centralized monarchy. Previously, Israel’s cries for elp rose up to God, one might say, only when an enemy threatened and only then would God call a warrior-hero forward from some previously unknown and unidentified place among the tribes. Now, however, even before the enemy comes, one already knows where the potential redeemer lives: it is a central place, ultimately the city of David, in Jerusalem. This means that God will have already chosen a potential redeemer even before Israel calls for one. Individual kings may come and go but, as long as the office of king is retained, Israel’s cries to God will no longer be direct. It is t e king w o cries on their behalf, just as the temple priesthood, once centralized, will offer sacrifices on Israel’s be alf. (T e Book of Psalms may, in fact, be read as ritualized expressions of bot t e king’s cries and t e priest’s Temple service.) And w at of end times? Like t e Israelites of old, the king will cry for what we may assume is a finite end: relief from this enemy or this threat.

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But the institution of the monarchy adds another dimension of consciousness about end times. Before, threats were threats against the nation and relief came from the agent of redemption. Now, however, the king may feel threatened by personal enemies within the nation even when there appears to be no threat against the nation itself. The king may therefore be tempted to pray not only for Israel’s welfare (t e prayer of t e old judges), but also for himself even against the interests of the nation. In this sense, the office of the king may work on behalf of two different worldly ends: the end of this-worldly relief from Israel’s enemies and relief from enemies of the king. But a third level of consciousness may also enter into Israel’s soteriology: independently of this or that king, the institution of kingship may also be threatened, and this may come from either within or without. External enemies may arise who replace the kingship with some other source of institutionalized relief: foreign governors, for example, or foreign emperors. “Internal” enemies may also arise, not necessarily in opposition to this or that king nor to the nation as a whole, but only to the institutionalization of the redeemer in a permanent, centralized office. We may call this the threat of theo-political revolution, which suggests the possibility of a dialectical soteriology. The religion of Israel, as a whole, may nurture competing lines of eschatological reasoning, either as names we may apply to otherwise unidentified structural tendencies within the Israelite nation, or as names of competing parties of Israelites who dedicate themselves, consciously, to competing theo-political ends. On the basis of the suggestive verses considered so far, we might, for example, envision three competing parties or structural forces. We have already named one t e “reparative reasoners,” t ose for w om t e cycles of Egypt and t e cycles of Judges define Israel’s pursuit of strictly meantime end times. We have also named the second: “monarc ical reparative reasoners.” We may liken t ese to t e Israelites who named Saul and then David king, hoping perhaps, for super-Judges even if in the end they got more than they bargained for. We have not yet provided a name for the third party. This party is concerned to protect the institution of kingship itself against the efforts of the first party. Independently of any immediate, external threat to Israel, members of the third party fear that if Israel turns away from the kingship, perhaps returning to models of the earlier amphictyony, then external enemies will arise whom Israel

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will be unable to repel. The third party is therefore a party of monarchists. Like the second party, however, this party will give birth to something other or more than it imagines. The second party campaigned for a king as a source of relief against the immediate threat of an enemy like the Philistines. The second party did not therefore inhabit a level of consciousness that could write something like “t e law of kings.” In effect, t is party was aware only of wanting the equivalent of a mighty, mighty Judge. The efforts of the third party, however, would be accompanied by another level of consciousness, since t is party’s campaign is motivated, not by fear of an immediate threat, but by a political theory. The third party conceives the monarchy as that which, in idea, would protect the nation against the possibility of being overwhelmed by a powerful enemy in the future. This conception is not irrational. One may reasonably suggest that, to some degree of probability, Israel may face such a threat in the future, provided that one recognizes that, to some degree of probability, this may not happen. And that, to cite Samuel, there is some probability that the monarch will be the source of Israel’s problems in the future, not just any external enemy. We may infer, therefore, that the third party would introduce a form of argumentation that exceeded the limits of evidence. They would not merely argue for kingship. They would also introduce a concept of “kings ip,” w ose definition reified t eir desires (t at Israel’s security be assured) as well as institutionalized their political experience and memories (that, in the past, some enemies exceeded the power of the judges and that some kings were able to repel such enemies). We may conclude that the third party would institutionalize a third Type of eschatological reasoning. c) (Type 3) Ultimate, monarchically redemptive reasoning: reasoning about t e “t eo-politically institutionalized ends of history.” i. Divine Promise: One suggestive source is 2 Samuel (where God refers to David as his son and appears to promise his throne in eternal covenant). This account suggests the monarchical eschatology we attributed to a “t ird party” in t e t eo-political dialectic of the period of kingship. For God to love David is to institutionalize t e office of Israel’s eart ly redeemer, indeed, to establis a covenant t at could complement but could also compete wit God’s covenants with Israel. The Davidic covenant could conceivably compete with other monarchical lineages. It is difficult not to attribute to the monarchy an epic of irremediable theo-political con-

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flict within Israel and within the religion of Israel. It is difficult to see how an argument for any one of the theo-political options would not imply a rejection of the others. It is, moreover, difficult to read any simple resolution to this conflict within the plain sense of Tanakh. ii. Prophetic Messianism: The literary prophets articulate types of messianism that could suggest either of our Types 1 or 2 (2a, 2b). But Type 1 can be eliminated, since all the prophets pre-suppose a monarchical redeemer. The words of first Isaiah recommend Type 2: Ah sinful nation, a people laden wit inequity… t ey ave forsaken t e Lord… your country is desolate your cities are burned with fire (Is. 1:4–7).

Type 2 reads empirical-like observations of Israel’s military defeat as signs of divine punis ment for Israel’s sins against God. This reading sets the stage for the eschatological reasoning of Type 2: there are explicit actions Israel may take to repent of its sins and, thereby, seed the possibility that a forgiving God may forgive Israel and restore her wellbeing. Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, t ey s all be as w ite as snow… if you are willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land; but if your refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword (Is. 1:18–20).

Comparable passages abound in the prophetic writings. While these could be read as suggesting Type 3, the plain sense speaks more powerfully of Type 2. Here, as in Type 1, Israel suffers thisworldly distress and is promised this-worldly relief. The main difference is t at Israel’s enemies are no longer merely external. W at appear to be literally external enemies are also agents of divine punis ment, and, t erefore, reflect dimensions of Israel’s inner drama of sin and repentance. In this case, the agent of redemption is a king, not an ad hoc hero. But there is no need to identify this agent as a “king forever.” It is monarc ical but meantime messianism. iii. Ultimate Prophetic Messianism (Type 3): The prototypically suggestive source for Type 3 is 2 Isaiah.

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Comfort ye, comfort ye my people says your God… T e glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together, for t e mout of t e Lord as spoken it. […] T e grass wit ers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. You who bring good tidings to Zion, get yourself up into the high mountains. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength. [...] Behold the Lord God will come with a strong hand and his arm shall rule for him (Is. 40:1–10).

It is not unreasonable to read these verses as suggesting Type 2. While the promised return from Babylonian exile may be thisworldly, perhaps it heralds a moment of universal salvation breaking in within history. Or perhaps this particular cycle of worldly redemption gives final definition to the logic of universal redemption, for all time and places. If so, Isaiah 40 introduces a prototype not only for one particular meantime end time, but also for the logic and structure of all meantime end times. These are reasonable readings of 2 Isaiah for anytime between the times. But tradition has tended to read such verses as also intimating the final messianism we have associated with Type 3. In t e words we used earlier, 2 Isaia may suggest a “t ird level of consciousness” t at crystallizes a concept of melekh mashiach (king messiah) whose identity and work are defined independently of the worldly character of this or that enemy. Note that the movement from Types 2 to 3 is not a movement from this-worldly to other-worldly theo-politics. The king messiah will rule in this world. The difference is that the office of this king is fully defined before the fact and defined for all time. The difference is not that theo-politics leaves this world, but that another world, or perhaps another order of creation, enters this world. This is why 2 Isaiah suggests an ultimate, monarchically redemptive end: God has delivered not only the promise of a redeemer but also a clear conceptualization of t e redeemer’s role in God’s redemptive work. This conceptualization suggests a universal and eternal redemption, because the work of conceptualization belongs to a world or order other than this world of contingent suffering and unpredictable repair. Like Plato’s eide, 2 Isaia ’s “ideas” of the king messiah inhabit a dimension independent of any particular space-time. It remains, however, a dimension of possible

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space-time and, thus, of a redemptive rule that is conceived for his world of history even though its conceptual stuff comes from another world. Prior Biblical literature, through 1 Isaiah, fills its descriptions of this world (of contingency and empirical observation) with language derived from another (let us say, of divine discourse and the imagination). But the unique move in 2 Isaiah and its cognate prophetic literature is to articulate a coherent portrait from out of the stuff of this other world and then re-describe future events of this world within the categories of this portrait. It is in this sense comparable to a Platonic idealism. If this is a reasonable reading, then it may suggest that a theo-political conflict among the three eschatological Types is also analogous to a philosophic conflict. Within such a conflict, Type 3 would correspond to an epistemological idealism and a political utopianism. Type 2 would correspond to a transcendental idealism or philosophic pragmatism and a non-utopian political messianism. Type 1 would correspond to an epistemological skepticism or materialism and a political realism. iv. Messianic Apocalyptic: The Book of Daniel is suggestive of w at we mig t call an apocalyptic and mystical appendix or “upper story” to t e t ird Type. Daniel speaks against t e istorical backdrop of the first Chorban and the restoration wrought through Cyrus and Darius. Like 2 Isaiah, it could be read as suggestive of an appendix to Type 2, but the work of imagination and conceptualization in Daniel presupposes Type 3. Traditional readings tend to vacillate between something analogous to Type 3 and a fourth, more radically apocalyptic Type. 5. There is an irremediable dissonance among three or more Types of Jewish eschatological reasoning. Postulate #2 and its sub-postulates suggest that, within the plain sense of Tanak , t ere is no single “code” for privileging any one of the three major eschatological Types over the other two. This fact suggests that the overall Biblical Type is a dialectical one: that the Biblical canon delivers to the Jewish community a theatre of eschatological difference, disagreement, and contestation. As a social fact or social directive, such contestation would imply something like the political conflict and even civil strife or war historians may attribute, for example, to the conflict of political parties in the Roman period. As a hermeneutical and theological fact, it suggests that, in rabbinic terms, the peshat or plain sense of Tanakh beckons

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an interpreted sense, or derash: not just one interpreted sense, but that each Jewish eschatological judgment requires an active choice among the three or more Biblical Types. There is no knock-down argument that would eliminate two of the choices from the plain sense. 6. The postulates of rabbinic religious reasoning, including rabbinic eschatological reasoning, introduce conditions and criteria for making judgments in relation to the three Biblical Types. a) “P ain sense” postu ates of rabbinic reading: Correlated Poles of Reading i. Peshat vs. Derash: Every word, jot and title of Tanakh is an infallible source of divine guidance but that guidance is unavailable in the peshat (plain sense) of the text. Divine guidance is disclosed only by way of the rabbinic community’s istorically time-bound reading, or derash. For each new time-bound context of reading, such guidance is available only by way of fresh, time-bound readings of the peshat: ein mikra yotse midei peshuto (TB Shabbat 63a, Yevamot 11b, 24a). For this study, peshat is defined as the time-independent meaning of a text in its intra-literary context (t e way t e text is “spread out”). I follow David Weiss Halivni’s usage, but specifically for what he considers the Tannaitic and earlier Amoraic sense of peshat, as opposed to the tendency, developed from the late Amoraic to modern periods, to identify it, increasingly, with the literal sense (Halivni 1998, 2007). I derive t is essay’s definition of t e latter from t e C ristian t eologian, Hans Frei’s term “ostensive reference,” so t at t e literal sense is t at to w ic t e text refers indexically, or by pointing: suc as t e text’s purportedly direct reference to events and things in this world or also, at times, to ideas or conceptual Types treated as realia (Frei 1980). The force of this Postulate is that, as Halivni argues, direct divine authority is available only for the peshat; all halakhic and moral judgments marry divine and human authority in a way that renders each judgment fallible and subject to correction. ii. The Divine Authority of Semantics vs. the Dialogic, Human-Divine Context of Pragmatics: Divine authority attaches to the meaning (“semantics”) of eac item of Tanak only wit in its literary context of peshat. T e performative implications (“pragmatics”) of eac item for human life in this world are displayed only by way of time-

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bound judgments whose divine influence is inextricable from their worldly fallibility. iii. The peshat is “true” (emet) genera y but the derash is “true” on y for its local, time-bound context or possibly true for analogous contexts in other times. A claim about the plain sense is therefore a claim on any reader in any time, and it may be contested for the sake of uncovering its “trut .” T ere are different meanings and measures of “trut .” In t e case of pes at, “trut ” is a measure of t e literary “fit” of a given reading, its “beauty” or “elegance” wit in t e intraBiblical context. In its strong sense, a derash makes time-bound claims on the behavior of some members of a community of readers. For suc claims, “trut ” is a measure of “fait fulness” (emunah) or fidelity to God within the context of relations to the world and to human others. This measure cannot be reduced to less than three terms, which means that it cannot be reduced to the two-valued truth-tables of propositional logic, where the predication of any term x by some term y must obey the principles of both non-contradiction (not x and –x) and excluded middle (x or –x). Instead, the measure can be diagramed only within a logic of relations, which requires a minimum of three terms, x to y to z (yXz): for example, “murder” (x) in this social context (y) means “do not embarrass publicly” (x). The reason and measure for such a claim is necessarily inexplicit, because it is in part time-bound and in part bound to a covenantal relation with God. Both of these “bindings” remove trut -claims of this kind from the limits of twovalued truth-tables. This does not render the claims extra-rational or recondite, however, since the community of readers is guided by inherited traditions of inquiry (called Torah!) that are as communicable and testable as are the traditions of experimental natural science (when interpreted through post-Newtonian logics of science, for which a prototypical alternative to two-valued truth-tables are the many-valued matrices employed in quantum mechanics.) Finally, we may add that, sometimes, a derash is offered only for the sake of education, edification or entertainment. In such cases, the claim is either not a truth-claim, or its truth is measured by ad hoc standards. iv. Empirical (observed) Vagueness vs. Theoretical (constructed) Clarity: This postulate may appear counter-factual to thinkers in the modern west. Although it is time-bound and informed by a logic of relations, an interpretive claim or derash tends to be “c ear and distinct”—defined by two-valued truth tables—for participants in the community of readers to

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whom the claim is addressed. This means that the meaning of any term in the claim may be defined to any degree of completeness that these participants may request. This is possible because clarity and distinctness is made possible only by human intervention: specifically, by a community’s active work of proposing and constructing conditions according to which individual members of the community may make two-valued claims of truth or falsity. We outside the community may (for a project like this, for example) observe t at t e community’s true-false claims are timebound, but everyday participants in the community will tend not to make such relativizing observations. They will tend, instead, to treat their claims as if t ey corresponded to “eternally” two-valued truth-tables built into the structure of Torah itself, in particular, its ethics and halakhah. On the other hand, although they are general and address only the intra-literary contexts of Tanakh, claims about the peshat are never clear-and-distinct, but always incompletely defined and subject to further determination. There are no two-valued truth tables to measure plain sense claims, because the plain sense is unconstrained by any humanly constructed conditions of meaning and truth. In this sense, observations of the peshat are like empirical observations of the created world according to postNewtonian logics of science: they are guided by logics of probability. Truefalse claims about either the laws of the created world or the laws of the plain sense are c aims about rea ia that are known on y by way of humanity’s intimate relations with the Creator and Revealer but that remain, nonetheless, irreducible to measures of knowledge that are strictly humanly constructed. b) “ istorica ” postu ates of rabbinic reasoning: i. “Norma Times”: contexts for conventiona reading and interpretation. Life in normal times is supposed to make sense. Otherwise, we would be hard-pressed to judge t is creation as “good.” We may consider a “good creation” to be one in w ic life is lived more or less as we are created to live it: that is to say, one that has life as well as death, pleasure as well as pain, joy as well as sadness, fear as well as hope, all these the conditions of what I call normalcy. If creation is good, then these conditions are maintained, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse: similar to Aristotle’s golden mean, the scale of better and worse is the scale of creation; it is all “good.”... In t ese terms, we may say t at life in normal times is coherent in the sense that it coheres with the conditions we associate with created life. It coheres, but not in the way desired or imagined by “co erentists.” By coherentism we mean the expectation

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t at life can be lived consistently wit some individual umans’ measures of what life should be: what we might imagine if some finite list of human attributes were stretched to accommodate all possible conditions for living them. Coherentism is what we expect of worlds built of the imagination alone, independent of the give and take, up and down, life or death of this created world. Life in this world is not as coherentists imagine; it is coherent only with life in this world. Guidelines (a Torah) for normal life in this world are guidelines for a life that already makes sense. Since this is a life lived, and not merely conceived, the model for making sense will not be some coherent system of thought, but a coherent life. Without over-thinking, however, I could not say what the latter term means. But I do believe I can see it. What I see that makes sense is not human life, but animal and plant life. I trust that these last few steps of reasoning may reenact the motivations of late 19th–early 20t century “organicist” t inkers, suc as Levy-Bruhl, Whitehead, de Chardin, and the Jewish thinkers stimulated by them, such as Eli Benamozegh and Max Kadushin. The descendants of all these in more recent years are the process thinkers, generic and Jewish, but the model I am seeking lies satisfactorily with the earlier group. On the organicist model, a coherent life is exemplified in, say the life of a healthy dog or elm or oak tree, or for those more skilled in such observation also the lives of colonies of hydra and ecosystems. When the organicists said things like this, they assumed their readers simply knew what they meant by common sense, and I shall assume the same. The second defining mark of organicism is that a coherent life is a life that we do not judge as “i ” or “in crisis” or “suffering.” For this essay, the term suffering will be the primary one. Here, suffering is not equivalent to, but muc more t an w at we call “pain.” Wit a nod to Simone Weil, we may define pain as a component of coherent life, specifically a sign that some action must be taken in order for the organism to maintain coherent life (Weil 1951).82 The assumption 82

I use t e term “pain” as part of w at s e calls “suffering,” and “suffering” as w at s e calls “affliction.” S e writes,

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here is that conditions that promote coherent life also promote all the resources needed for responding successfully to pain. In classical Jewish terms, we might assume that maaseh bereshit, “t e order of creation,” refers to t e order t at sustains co erent life and t erefore includes resources for responding to pain. We may then define suffering as the condition of organisms in persistent pain, from which the organism does not anticipate relief. In these terms, suffering is not a component of coherent life. To be sure, classical Judaism offered a detailed account of our efforts to seek geulah, “redemption” from suffering. But geulah is not necessarily part of maaseh bereshit, or this world as we know it. To articulate religious guidelines (a Torah) for normal times, it is helpful to define geulah as a component of Judaism that belongs to an order other than maaseh bereshit—if, for the sake of this study, we define maaseh bereshit as referring ostensively to the everyday world of experience rather than to every possible world. In these terms, we might distinguish theologies of normal and abnormal times as two complementary genres of rabbinic theology, one that takes its cues from the plain sense of the Genesis account, the other that names the creator (bore olam) as also the redeemer (goel yisrael), to which I would add goel adam (redeemer of humanity) and goel maaseh bereshit (redeemer of creation). In the realm of suffering, affliction is something apart, specific, and irreducible. It is quite a different thing from simple suffering. It takes possession of the soul and marks it through and through with its own particular mark, the mark of slavery. Slavery as practiced by ancient Rome is only an extreme form of affliction… Affliction is inseparable from physical suffering and yet quite distinct. With suffering, all that is not bound up with physical pain or something analogous is artificial, imaginary and be eliminated by a suitable adjustment of t e mind… [But] affliction is an uprooting of life… made irresistibly present to the soul by the attack or immediate apprehension of physical pain (2009, p. 67).

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In these terms, we may say that pain and its healing belong to maaseh bereshit and to a theology of normal times. But suffering is a mark of the limits of this created order and its need for a supplement. The supplement belongs to a world that redeems this one. It is not “anot er world” in t e sense of anot er maaseh bereshit, but, rather, a world alongside this one, peopled by entities that are creaturely but more than creaturely, having feet, one might say, in this world, but another dimension of themselves in another world. In rabbinic terms, this is the world of melakhim (angels), various other kochot hashem (divine powers and agents), and whatever entities or persons of this world are appointed by God to serve as agents of redemption; the prototypical agent is Moses (moshe rabbenu). This world (olam hazeh) persists only if and when it is served and redeemed by another. If suffering is successfully repaired, this other world (olam haba) does not then produce another maaseh bereshit; instead, it affirms the possibility of a new life for this created world. In one sense, to be sure, we might call this world another world when it is repaired, redeemed, and renewed; after all, the sages say that God daily renews the order of creation (hu mechadesh b’ko yom tamid maaseh bereshit). But for the sake of a theological vocabulary, let us not call such renewed worlds other worlds, but simply renewals of this one. In this way, maaseh bereshit marks an indefinite series of former, present, and past renewals of itself. But the other world is visible only as it attends this one as its redeemer. Ontologically, the other world contains no creatures qua creatures nor any element that reiterates or renews itself; all its elements are visible in the way they are for-creatures and for-this world. A prototype for such elements is the divine identity ehyeh imach, “I will be for you” or “I am wit you.” All being in t e second world is being-for. Ironically, the appropriate logic for guiding claims about this world (olam hazeh) is a logic of “vagueness,” w ile t e logic appropriate for t e redeeming work of the other world is a logic that allows a greater degree of clarity. Standard medieval and modern propositional logic is, surprisingly enough, an inadequate resource for guiding trueor-false claims about this world. For our purposes, we may identify this propositional logic wit t e form “x is y,” or “t ere is a condition K with respect to which x is y.” A typical illustration is, “t at cat is black.” To be sure, I am not claiming t at “t at cat is black” is an inappropriate statement to be uttered in this world. My claim is that the statement is uttered by a creature in this world, but that it

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is not a statement about this world per se. It is a statement about one discrete act of judgment by a creature in this world. I assume, however, that, within a theology for normal times, claims about this world are specifically claims about coherent life in this world. The judgment, “t at cat is black” may contribute to a claim about a coherent life, but by itself it represents only an element of such a claim, not the claim itself. To start with an illustration, a prototypical claim about t is world would sound like t is one, “Persian cats tend to sport monoc rome coats, typically grey, black, or tan.” T e claims of contemporary natural science are helpful here, because most biologists, physicists, chemists, and so on now tend to employ languages of science from after the age of Newton, which usually means claims marked by some measure of probability. A probabilistic claim is one marked by w at I am calling t e “logic of vagueness,” because it delivers information t at remains open to further definition or specification. If Persian cats tend to be black 60% of the time, then any general claim we make about cats will be fully defined only with respect to some specific set of data. This is not to say that appropriate claims about this world need be scientific claims. They may also be poetic, theological, and so on. Strictly affective claims provide appropriate data for such claims but are not t emselves adequate to any account of a “co erent life.” In sum, appropriate claims about normal life, the claims that serve everyday common sense, are probabilistic or vague claims, subject to further specification. We may identify two different genres of clear and distinct judgments, one which is appropriate to this world and one which is not. Appropriate to this world are wholly local judgments t at are specific to some individual creatures’ views of the world. These judgments contribute bits of data that generate prototypically probabilistic claims about this world. When, however, clear and distinct judgments are uttered about something purportedly general, then the judgments are deemed inappropriate or fallacious. Consider, for example, the clear-and-general claims “all cats are adorable” or “all Jews are … [fill in ere any claim you like].” T ese claims are appropriate if registered as data for survey of opinion, but their clarity does not correspond to the vague character of coherent lives. ii. “Abnorma Times”: contexts that interrupt the possibility of everyday reading and interpretation

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Abnormal times mark conditions of suffering that interrupt normal times in this world. If, at any specific time, this world is not served by another one, then the interruptions of this world also mark the end for this world; minimally, an end to some coherent life in this world, or maximally, God forbid, an end to this world per se. If this world is served by another, then the interruptions of this world may also mark the other wor d’s point of entry into this one: the other wor d entering as the source of this wor d’s redemption. In this case, we refer to the redemption of some interrupted dimension of this world: the repair and renewal of this particular, coherent life, or perhaps of all this network of lives. Two defining challenges for this essay are: (a) to identify a set of logical norms for measuring claims about or on behalf of this redeeming work; and (b) to determine the degrees of generality that are appropriate to such claims. For now, I will suggest the following guidelines: (i) a logic of being for. As noted above, claims appropriate to a second world are claims offered on behalf of repairing some particular aspect of life in this world. This means that claims offered in and for normal times are inappropriate if they fail to specify the identifiable conditions of suffering they were meant to repair; or if they claim to repair the conditions of suffering that we may ascribe to this world in general (in which case they will have failed to specify particular sufferings in this world); or if they offer means of repairing conditions of pain (for which we may identify sources of healing in this world), or conditions of suffering for which we cannot yet identify failed agents of healing or for which we cannot identify agents of divine action. As introduced above, the essential term for this discussion is ehyeh imach (“I will be wit you” God’s appellation in Exodus 3). In this essay, I employ this term as a name of the category of entities or actions that are known overtly only in their relation to somet ing else: in particular t e relation of “being for” or “being wit .” Our immediate example is t at t e second world is known only as “being for” t e first. T e etiology of t is category-name indicates t at t e capacity and discipline for “being wit somet ing or someone” depends on an ongoing relations ip wit God. (ii) a logic of repair and redemption. T ere are many possible ways of “being for.” Wit in t e context of a t eology of abnormal times, our interest is exclusively in t e subcategory of “being for” t at we will name geulah, “redemption,” w ere t e prototypical reference is to go’e yisrae , “redeemer of Israel.”

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There are three elemental features of a logic of redemption. The first is za’akah, or “cry,” as in Exodus 3:7–8, The Lord said, I have indeed seen the affliction of my people in Egypt; I have heard their cry (tsa’akah) and I know their suffering. I have come down to deliver them ( ’hatsilam) from out of the hand of the Egyptians.

T e “cry” stands for t e category of “suffering” (makhov), w ic represents “t at condition of interrupted life w ose articulation calls for redemptive action.” T e second feature is tikkun, (in t e sense of “repair” or “rectification”), which names the category of all actions that could potentially heal the conditions of suffering t at give rise to “cries.” According to t e distinction between “pain” and “suffering” we introduced earlier, conditions of suffering, per se, are marked by irremediable pain, that is, pain for which a natural remedy appears to be absent. That which heals the source of pain belongs to the category of tikkun. When, however, pain cannot be removed even through innumerable efforts at repair, then we will say that tikkun is available by way of geulah. This means that healing will not be possible unless and until our current capacity to heal is qualitatively transformed in some as yet unknown way. The third feature is therefore geulah as it names the category of actions that, in previously unforeseeable ways, repairs, transforms, and renews the very capacity of our current world to repair pain. Pain t at cannot be ealed defines a condition of “suffering.” Geulah repairs suffering. The distinctive feature of our logic of repair and redemption is that geulah does not refer to some transformation of this world into a wholly redeemed world. Geulah is a “being for,” that is, an activity that is not an end in itself, nor does it generate some other and final world, or mode of existence. Instead, geulah exhausts itself in the repair of some condition of being, transforming a world that cannot heal some pain (that is a world that is no longer functioning as an order of creation, maaseh bereshit) into a world t at can eal t at pain wit in an “order of creation.” Pain is always a sign not only of the interruption of a life, but also of the real possibility of t at interruption’s being repaired. This is why belief in a Creator God is a hopeful belief. It means that the conditions of pain, limitation, and enslavement that surround us will not forever define our existence. We live in an order of creation rather

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t an a “state of nature,” because we live in a world that is selfcorrective, one in which there is bondage, but not forever, because this is a world within which we may be free. When this world appears to give rise to irremediable pain, then the promise of the Creator is to renew this world so that it will once again have the capacity to repair itself. Geulah names the activity of renewal. A renewed world may, for a time, or in various ways, be a world without suffering, that is, a world of pain but also repair. But a redeemed world may at some time become once again a world of suffering. The logic of repairing suffering is thus the logic of a cyclical process. Within any finite period of time and within finite human memory, the story of our moving from life to pain to suffering to redemption may appear to be linear. In this way, the Rabbinic/Biblical tradition refers to an end-time, acharit ha-yamim. And, with respect to this end-time, it refers to a redeemer (goel) who, in theo-political terms, is said to work through the agency of the messiah (mashiach) t e way Moses was agent of God’s redeeming work in Egypt. When conceived as a singular, linear trajectory, movement toward t e end time is w at we mig t dub “end-time messianism.” T e Messiah has a unique name or time of activity. For our logic of repair and redemption, however, there is no basis for presuming the strict linearity of redemptive history or for reifying the agents of redeeming work as the agent of a single historical spacetime. T e commentarial literature concerning “king messia ” (melekh hamashiach) is commonly read as referring to a single end. But the literature can equally be read as addressing only the singular form of geulah and then reifying this form as if it not only defined t e general category of “redemptive action,” but also described the singular event and token of redemptive action in historical spacetime. Our logic of repair and redemption belongs, however, to a theology of abnormal times. As noted earlier, this theology is not served by empirical judgments about the world of existence. This is why it has not displayed the probabilistic and vague judgments characteristic of descriptions of t e current world’s existence. Coherentism is as inappropriate to abnormal times as it is to normal times. In abnormal times, what was assumed without thinking to be the everyday order of things is no longer apparent. In place of the assumed order comes the pursuit of order: searching for it, looking for it, conceiving and imagining it. In such a setting, “co erentism” may name w at is desired at t e tail end of a frus-

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trated search for the coherence that was once known but is known no longer. In these terms, coherentism names the desire to dwell in a world that one remembers having once inhabited: not this broken world but one that cohered. But coherence desired is not the same as coherence experienced. The former adds another level of consciousness and self-reflection to the latter. As noted earlier with respect to the third Biblical Type of eschatological reasoning, coherentism adds to the yearning for non-incoherence a concept of the meaning of coherence and, thence, a desire for what is represented by this concept. In terms introduced in the previous section, it is the desire for an end of suffering rather than for the end of pain. It is, therefore, a desire for what is counter-factual but conceived as if known the way a fact is known. It is a desire to conceive of what the Creator-Redeemer can alone make known and to achieve what the Creator-Redeemer can alone deliver. It is, therefore, desire for what cannot be desired; to pursue it is to pursue fantasy as if actual: illusion. To believe one can pursue and achieve this end and, then, to work for it, is avodah zarah. c) “Interpretive” postu ates of rabbinic eschato ogica reasoning: expanding the Biblical Types For the most part, rabbinic literature articulates what we have called t e t ree “Biblical” Types. But rabbinic reflection on the Second Chorban introduces an additional Type as well. Generating rabbinic Judaism’s most poignant tropes, and t e context for its singular, post-Biblical legislation, this reflection also reframes the three Biblical Types in relation to a new type of eschatological reasoning that I will label Type 4: Type 4: “Messianic Eschato ogy for the Wor d to Come.” Type 4 has two equivocal sub-types. These are of great significance, since they appear to have generated competing commentarial traditions in the medieval and modern periods: one that reaffirms Type 3 and anot er t at as t e force of an “anti-Type 3”:  Type 4A: An ultimate end time without this-worldly monarchy (by far the most widely illustrated sub-Type in rabbinic literature). A suggestive source is: Avot D’rabbi Natan 11-A: […] Rabbi Jos ua looked at t e Temple in ruins and said “Woe for us. T e place t at atoned for t e sins of Israel is destroyed.” Rabban Yoc anan ben Zakkai said to im, “Do not be troubled

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my son. We have another way of achieving atonement: through acts of loving kindness, as it is written ‘loving kindness I desire not t e sacrifice of animals’ (Hosea 6:6)”.

While not evident in the anecdote itself, the text complements rabbinic intimations that this Second Destruction and exile will not, this time, be followed by a return to Zion within the chronology of this-worldly history. There will be shivat tsion and there will be life in and for Israel after it, but it will be an Israel outside of the vicissitudes of olam hazeh. In the meantime, as depicted in this anecdote, the rabbinic community will live its religious life in exile for what may prove to be the remainder of this-worldly istory. “Deeds of loving kindness” will t erefore serve indefinitely as substitutes for Temple-based acts of atonement. That is the halakhah for the rest of life in this world. Comparable are sayings like this one from TB Sukkah 49-B: “Rabbi Eleazar said, ‘doing deeds of c arity is greater t an all of t e sacrificial offerings, as it is said, “doing c arity and justice is more favorable to God t an animal sacrifice’” (Prov. 21:3). If, on the one hand, the sages find solace after destruction in deeds of loving kindness, and, on the other hand, they adopt the language of loving kindness as a trope for everyday virtue, then it stands to reason that the sages must have considered these moral substitutes for Temple sacrifice to define the rest of life in this world. In this case, t e “t ree Oat s” t at t e medieval decisors ascribe to t e rabbis provide a quasi-halakhic fence around this vision of thisworldly life without the Temple. The oaths are read as precluding t e nation of Israel’s return to Zion before t e messianic age and the end of history: The Oaths according to TB Ketubbot 111a: What are the three oaths? One is that Israel will not ascend the wall; one is that the Holy One, blessed be He, bid Israel not to rebel against the nations of the world; one is that the Holy One, blessed be He bid the idolaters not to oppress Israel excessively.

According to the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael: Because God said, ‘t e people may ave a c ange of eart w en t ey see war’ (Ex. 13:17). This is the war of the children

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According to Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 2:7: Rabbi Helboa said, “t ere are four oat s: t at t ey not rebel against the kingdoms, that they not force the end; that they not reveal their mystery to the nations of the world; and that they not ascend as a wall from t e exile.”

As read by later authorities who forbade premature return to Zion, these oaths committed Israel to desist from overturning the condition of exile that began with the Second Destruction. Within the frame of Type 4, such authorities might nonetheless retain elaborate eschatologies somewhat comparable to Type 3. The defining difference is that these authorities are wholly non-activist, often in fact, antiactivist. They may dream of a world that looks like Type 3, but they will not allow any rabbinic action that leads to it. The end comes apocalyptically or not at all.  Type 4B: An ultimate end time with an apocalyptic version of Type 3 monarchy: Within the plain sense of the rabbinic sources, this is the much less prevalent reading. On occasion, however—through medieval and modern times and, of course, intensely in the 19th–20th century religious Zionist literature—this Type is often read into the rabbinic sources. According to this reading, the rabbinic sages did not anticipate a this-worldly return to Zion because they expected the coming return to end this-worldly history. In other words, this sub-Type shares one dimension of plain sense reading with the previous sub-Type: there is no shivat tsion within the limits of thisworldly history. To that plain sense, the second sub-Type has as its apocalyptic qualifier: “because t e return will end istory.” I read this sub-Type as, in some ways, the functional equivalent of Type 3. Whether this sub-Type names a monarchical agent of redemption or not, it presumes some such an agent will lead the people of Israel back to its Holy Land, vanquis Israel’s enemies, provide t e conditions for remaking the Temple and reinstituting Temple sacrifices, and, with all this, usher in the single, messianic age. One suggestive source appears in the traditional daily prayer book as the last of the petitions in the amidah: “Restore wors ip to your sanctu-

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ary.” Another source is in the musaf, or “Additional Service for Sabbat and Holidays”: “May it be your will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, to lead us back in joy to our land and to plant us wit in our borders.” And “restore wors ip to Your sanctuary… May we witness your merciful return to Zion. Blessed are you, Lord, w o restores is Presence to Zion.” In t eir plain sense, suc prayers for restoration envision Israel’s life once again in t e Holy Land with its Temple. The question is only what manner of history this would be and what manner of rabbinic activity would contribute to it or not. For t e activist aut orities, Israel’s actions elp bring about this apocalyptic. For the anti-activists of the first subType, Israel cannot contribute to this actively. Both sub-Types attribute this end to a time after history. But they display very different ways of explaining what that means. Applying the Interpretive Postulates of Jewish Religious Reasoning: The Case of 20-21st Century Orthodox Messianisms In this section, I offer detailed illustrations for the two orthodox theologies that are modeled on the two rabbinic prototypes. I read the Hazon Ish as providing the clearest case of Type 4A, messianic meantime theology, and Rav Avraham Isaac Kuk as providing the clearest case of Prototype 4B, messianic end time theology. I believe the differences between these two, furthermore, display the primary theological issues at stake in all contemporary theologies of Zion, haredi, non-haredi and liberal. In an extended study, I would also illustrate theologies modeled on the Biblical prototypes, alone. From a formal point of view, however, I believe these are secondary since it is difficult for any contemporary Jewish thinker to think independently of the notions of time, infinity, and interpretation that are embedded in the heritage of rabbinic Judaism. Illustrating Prototype 4A: The Hazon Ish, Rav. Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz In this case, I rely on Benjamin Brown’s comprehensive study of the halakhic and theological work of Rabbi Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz (1888–1953) named the Hazon Ish, after the title of his primary work (Brown 2011). That early work was a collection of his

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halakhic commentaries, begun in Lithuania where he spent most of his life and accomplished in the Land of Israel, primarily as a halakhic commentator and decisor. Brown focuses primarily on collections of t e Hazon Is ’s later writings (commentaries, responsa and letters),83 after he moved to Israel in 1933 and gradually became one of the most respected voices in the haredi community. The Hazon Ish was a Lithuanian halakhic pietist, who followed the Hafets Hayim in his manner of seeking a pure faith: a drive to get to the peshat of all things, not the literal or surface truth but the plain truth, unsullied by conjecture (p. 97). His primary focus was on Talmudic law and legal commentary, and there too he sought the plain sense. Like a medieval rabbinic rationalist, he understood human reason to be an instrument for discerning both the order of things in the created world and the order of Torah in human in the human soul and human behavior. In both orders of reasoning he sought what he considered the plain truth beyond conjecture, but he identified intuition (tevi’at ‘eina delibba) as a central vessel for observing the truth. And he associated scholarly searching after wisdom wit pursuit of “t e joy of eavenly knowledge,” or the disciplined effort to search after questions about the theological character of the human being, the nature of human ideals and the work of Torah and for t e sake of fulfilling God’s will (p. 100). Five arguments within the later writings of the Hazon Ish (as Brown cites and comments on them) give evidence of what I consider his pragmatic, or meantime end time reasoning. (1) The active intellect suffices to enable each of us to recognize that the world around us has a creator and guide (100ff, based on Karelitz, 1990 3:10). Since this recognition is not displayed within the bounds of language, the Hazon Ish refrains from any positivist rationalism. Like the pragmatists, and in this sense like Kant as well, he refrains from metaphysical claims but allows for positive claims about human history and about human perceptions of the natural world (natural science). In fact, he argues that humanity is obliged to exert all rational efforts to comprehend this world and how to act in it 83

Most of T e Hazon Is ’s books were edited and published by his brother in law, Rabbi Shmuel Greineman

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and that human intelligence has the capacity to succeed in these efforts (Karelitz 1997, 1:7). We have, however, neither the means nor t e permission to peer into God’s own reasons for acting in the world. For the Hazon Ish, metaphysics is replaced by our knowledge of providence and divine promises, and that is disclosed only by way of Torah (written and oral). Unlike the Rambam, he makes no exception for prophecy (nevua): God alone enabled prophetic reception and only in a time that is now long past. Even then, the intellect of the prophet did not itself participate actively in what it received (Karelitz 1990, 1:15). As we will see, the Hazon Ish therefore subscribed to a limited rationalism, pragmatic and empirical, t at recognizes t e uman being’s profound capacities to examine and understand this world but that denies any human capacity to achieve positive—that is, linguistically disclosed—knowledge of the other world. We are received into such knowledge in a manner that exceeds the bounds of language and thus of clear statements and claims. But what of our knowledge of Torah? It is not disclosed by way of t e “external” forms of natural language (‘letter to a non-Jewish official,’ Karelitz 1990, 172:173:17). I take this to mean that Biblical and rabbinic discourse cannot be translated directly into the manner of speech and writing that we employ in everyday transactions and judgments. It belongs to another manner of speech and writing that, as I note below, contrasts with everyday discourse in the way that the subject of pragmatics (the study of the force and performance of speech) contrasts with that of semantics (the study of conventional meanings).84 Intuition (tevi’at ‘eina delib84

The Hazon Ish writes (Karelitz 1990, 172:173:17):

(

)

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ba) is the vessel of this manner of speech and writing, the medium

of contact with the deepest wisdoms of Torah, delivering judgments, at times, from beyond the limits of the intellect (sekhel) (Ibid, 1:8). (2) The discourse of talmud torah is apprehended first and foremost by way of the halakhah in the broadest sense: that is to say, by way of the pragmatics of Torah rather than by way of the semantic properties of “Torah” when it is identified with the way it is read in natural language. To be sure, the Hazon Ish does not use the analytic language of pragmatics, but I introduce it here as a helpful means of comprehending his mode of esc atological reasoning. In my terms, e offers a critique of “semantics” as an effort to compre end Tora by way of “external” discourse. The goal of talmud torah is to produce talmidei chakhamim, which I will identify in broader terms with those who search after and seek to embody t e “wisdom of Tora .” For the Hazon Ish, this wisdom is delivered through two categories of divine command: mitsvot, or commands to act, and commands concerning beliefs and opinions (emunot v’deot). For the Hazon Ish, in other words, to understand the halakhah in strictly behaviorist terms is to have reduced it to an external discourse, one that we could identify with the semantics of a finite system of action in the world. In the classic terms of Bahya ibn Paquda, God commands not only t e “duties of t e limbs” (chovot ha-eivarim), but also t e “duties of t e eart” (chovot halevavot). To study these duties is to seek wisdom (chokhmah), and, at its deepest level, wisdom emerges from contact with the holy spirit (ruach hakodesh). Such wisdom cannot be articulated by way of everyday speech, nor by conceptual statements, nor by accounts of visible actions per se (Ibid, 1:15), but only through its effects. Prime among these effects is “refinement” or “nobility” (tadinut, atsilut) (Karelitz 1997, 1:7), which, in the Lithuanian tradition of musar, includes the refinement of both the passions and the intellect (sekhel). In sum, to speak of the pragmatics of the Hazon Ish is to speak of how, in his work, the meaning of Torah is displayed in its effects, now and in the long run, in cultivating wisdom and refinement. As e writes, “t e

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mitsvot were given only to refine t e uman being…”85 Or, in Brown’s summary (from ‘Letter to a Non-Jewish Official,’ Karelitz 1990 and other places), that the heavenly goal of the mitsvot is to repair umanity’s religious ethics; only after that comes the heteronomous goal of expressing submission; thirdly, ... the goal of drawing the Tora ’s divine wisdom from the Active Intellect; and fourthly, the kabbalistic goal … of repairing t e upper worlds (p. 121).

(3) Torah delivers promises and commandments. Divine promises (havtachot) are offered only to increase our trust in the divine commandments (mitsvot). For the Hazon Ish, the Torah commands mitsvot and “beliefs and opinions,” and prime among t e beliefs (emunot) are beliefs in the divine promises, such as Resurrection (tichiyat hametim), the Coming of the Messiah (yemot hamashiach), and the economy of reward and punishment (sakhar va’onesh) (pp. 117–126). Consistent with his pragmatics and with his sharp distinction between talmud torah and this-worldly knowledge, the Hazon Ish argues that knowledge of the mitsvot belongs to this world, but that we cannot under any circumstances claim this-worldly, empirical knowledge of the days of Resurrection and of the Messiah and of final reward and punishment. The latter promises are offered to us only as subjects of talmud torah and cannot be articulated in the everyday discourse that bears our empirical knowledge of the world. In the terms I am using, this means that the divine promises do not lend themselves to semantic analysis, but only to pragmatics: they touch our worldly lives through the effects of our belief in them. These effects are to motivate our observance of the mitsvot (pp. 117–119).86 At 85

To cite his full account (p. 121, from a halakhic chiddush by the Hazon Ish):

86

Although Brown demurs, this distinction by the Hazon Ish reminds me of of t e pragmatic force of William James’ “will to believe” as a will

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the same time, while we are obliged to believe in these promises, they do not constitute knowledge of the inner will and purpose of God. The sources of human obligations are heavenly; the province of human knowledge is this-worldly. (4) Our detailed knowledge is of the empirical world before us, not of the heavenly or end-time realms that we encounter only through divine promises. This point introduces the first of several correlations between these claims of the Hazon Ish and Type 4A of rabbinic messianism. Consistent with Type 4A, the Hazon Ish identifies this world and the world to come as two utterly different and unbridgeable spheres that are, nonetheless, complementary and, in a manner of speaking, “coexistent.” For life in t is world, God offers commandments and the freedom to think about them and about all other features of creaturely existence. For life in the world to come, God offers promises and a prohibition against doing anything more than believing in them. If so, what theological claims will the Hazon Ish make about his living in the land of Israel? (5) We are forbidden to strive after knowledge of the days of the Messiah the way we would strive after knowledge of things in this world. Brown cites Tsvi Yehudah’s recollection of what the Hazon Ish taught him several years before: He drew a distinction between two categories. One category was “mitzva ,” t e uman being’s obligation before t e Holy One Blessed be He: that in which you and I should occupy ourselves… T e ot er category is “promise” (havtacha) … t at in w ic you must believe, but w ic is not for you to do… He believed that we are forbidden to busy ourselves with messianic issues, because these are the province of the Holy One Blessed be He alone. We are required, in Maimonides’ words, only to ave fait ... t at “t oug He may tarry, yet we s all wait for Him eac day.” [T e Hazon Is ] was scared to death of messianism.87

whose character is judged by its consequences (here, commitment to the mitsvot) rather than by the way it might express itself linguistically. 87

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The Hazon Ish cited with favor the Talmudic saying, “T ree come unawares: Messia , a found article and a scorpion” (TB Sanhedrin 97a). As Brown reports, even during the dramatic events of the First World War and after, when many rabbinic leaders spoke of these as the days of the coming of geulah, the Hazon Ish remained reserved on the topic, focusing on matters of routine life and, apparently, never wrote at all about matters of geulah.88 Consistent with these arguments, the Hazon Ish adopted a pragmatic approach to life in erets yisrael today and to dealings with medinat yisrael. He moved from Lithuania to Israel in 1933. In Israel, he served the haredi community, in relation to which he dealt (by way of intermediaries) with the State, accepting its practical legitimacy without acceding to the politics or ideology of Zionist nationalism. In other words, he dealt with the social and political and geographic realities of life in Israel as he would deal with any this-worldly matters: as matters to be dealt with according to the demands of Torah and

88

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the discipline of the halakhah. He had no truck with secular or religious eschatological thinking, whether in the manner of socialist or messianic Zionism. Of claims about “t e time of redemption,” e argued that those are matters of divine promise, of which we know only the command to have faith and are otherwise forbidden to ask further. Of claims about how to act in this land in this time, he argued that these are matters of this-worldly halakhah as they would be at any time in this land of which we can speak. There is of course much work to do in relation to the halakhah in this land, and that should be the center of religious discussion and effort today, not discussion of the end-time and efforts to bring it about, strengthen it or hinder it. He objected strongly to efforts by the students of Rav Kuk w o “appear already to know t e place of t e Generation of t e Resurrection,” to w ic e responded “t is is not our business.” To t ose w o argued from Israel’s worldly success, in saving Jews and gathering Jews and winning wars, he argued that worldly success is not halakhah (pp. 120–128). Pragmatism, I might add, is not about worldly success, but about worldly embodiment. The question is “embodiment of w at?” Crass conceptions of pragmatism, as in the common use of the term, are species of utilitarianism, according to which we judge value and truth according to the run of the world. For classic pragmatism, however, and prototypically in the pragmatic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, success is measured only according to the values that are given elsewhere (Peirce 1931–; Ochs 1998). In the case of Torah, pragmatic success would be measured by the embodiment of Torah in those who seek it: perhaps this is close to what the Hazon Ish called edelkeit (refinement or nobility). If life in erets yisrael or elsew ere “succeeds,” t is means t at Tora is embodied. How? Those are judgments made only by way of and within talmud torah, not within the terms of an essay like this. As displayed in the arguments I have attribute to him, the Hazon Ish adopted the following, pragmatic approach to eschatological reasoning: a. Human understanding has the capacity to offer testable responses to any question it raises about the worldly sources or character or consequences of specific actions in this world. (Argument #1 and consistent wit Peirce’s account of scientific reasoning in some ways wit Kant’s distinc-

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b.

c.

d.

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tion between Verstand/”understanding” and Vernunft/ “reason” in Critique of Pure Reason: (Peirce 1931–; Kant 1996) Human imagination has the capacity to display the wisdoms of Torah by way of talmud torah, whose modes of discourse and communication are irreducible to those of t e uman understanding (“external language”). (Argument #1 and corresponding to Peirce’s account of abductive reasoning and in some ways to Kant’s account of Vernunft and inner time consciousness: (Peirce 1931–; Kant 1996) Talmud torah is displayed, first, by way of halakhic reasoning, which examines the practical consequences of limud torah for conducting life in this world. The primary work of limud torah is to nurture refined or noble habits of character and of possible action in the world. (Argument #2 and corresponding to Peirce’s accounts of pragmatics and habit formation and Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: (Peirce 1931–; Kant 2002) Talmud torah is displayed, secondly, in the reception of Biblical accounts and rabbinic reflections on the character of God’s relation to this world, including divine promises (havtachot). Divine promises do not deliver any direct instructions for human behavior in this world. Instead, by way of the imagination, they command the consent of the rational will to acknowledge the distinction of the everyday understanding from the activities of talmud torah per se. This act of acknowledgment introduces the conditions for the practical employment of limud torah. (Argument #3, Peirce and Kant’s critiques of dogmatic metaphysics, Peirce’s “Neglected Argument” and pragmatic account of t e normative sciences, and Kant’s accounts of t e practical employment of the ideals of reason: (Peirce 1931b; Kant 1996) By way of intuition, limud torah therefore delivers rational wisdom about ultimate matters, that is, wisdom about that which is infinite and unconditioned. (“Wisdom” may be employed as a synonym for reasoning conducted within the terms of limud torah.) This wisdom cannot be articulated, however, within the discourses of the understanding (which are discourses of external language). Wisdom about ultimate matters

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f.

89

therefore introduces conditions for guiding the rational will and, thus, for nurturing dispositions of refinement and nobility, but it does not introduce conditions for any this worldly action (which is action according to the terms of the understanding). In sum, within the terms of Biblical and rabbinic eschatology, wisdom about ultimate matters cannot and does not appoint any this-worldly monarch as agent of divine promises. It does not introduce conditions for any change in the categories of everyday understanding or, therefore, in the halakhah (Argument #4 with parallels as noted in item “d.”) Following item “e,” promises concerning t e return to Zion do not introduce conditions for any change in the categories of everyday understanding or in the halakhah. Historical events that effect Jewish life in the land of Israel may, to be sure, transform some of the conditions of everyday Jewish life in the land and outside it, and these transformations will most likely call for new work in the halakhah. But claims to make this-worldly judgments about the messianic return to Zion misdirect the rational will and, out of ignorance or rebellion, violate the conditions of talmud torah.89

In Brown’s words, the dominant debates in religious circles today concern Zionism and whether or not we can know the divine will in history; but halakhah is the primary expression of divine will, and these debates almost never raise questions of halakhah (pp. 120–121). For the Hazon Ish, however, the halakhah is central to all Jewish theological questions as is the distinction between this world, where we know the halakhah as the ow and w at of God’s will, and t e world to come, where we know only the promise of God’s will: to restore and to resurrect. This, says Brown, is the approach of medieval rationalists like Maimonides, who argue that the populace is given divine promises only to motivate observance. The Hazon Ish will not go as far as Maimonides, however, because he considers it elitist to think that only the populace is given this incentive. For the Hazon Ish, not even Maimonides has knowledge of the purposes of the law. T e Hazon Is ’s t eology of Zion is illustrated vividly in is alak ic judgments on shmita (pp. 124–131). He argued, for one, that the rabbinic blessing for shmita was not offered for the sake of any worldly gain, but so that the observance of shmita would not endanger the lives of the poor

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2. Illustrating Type4B: Rav Abraham Isaac Kuk, Orot HaTorah (OH) The OH lays out a prototype for orthodox eschatologies of Type 4B. While the writings of Rav Kuk the son display the broad, worldly consequences of Type 4B, t e fat er’s OH serves as a and consequently so that the practice of shmita could be celebrated without interruption for other obligations (such as to the poor). By implication, if our settling in the land of Israel or instituting the State of Israel served any theological purpose, then our efforts to serve that purpose would be strictly to fulfill God’s commands and not for any worldly gain. The halakhah concerns our actions in this world and these apply as well to our behavior in any state. Were such a state of the messianic epoch, any claims about comportment in that state would themselves belong to the world-to-come, which means to the realm of divine promise, and there is no human knowledge of comportment in that realm. The distinctions between this world and the world of promise are not to be muddied. Because we lack any halakhic knowledge of our specific behavioral obligations in the world to come, we would have no basis for offering judgments about how to comport ourselves in the land of Israel if our settlement t ere were a mark of t e world to come. We “ ave no business” making such judgments (p. 127). The halakhic rules that apply to our comportment in the land of Israel are the same as they have been since the Chorban. For the same token, we have no reason to prohibit settlement in the land of Israel, since this settlement now is guided by these same rules. We are not settling for the sake of any immediate messianic expectation. There is no extraordinary obligation to settle or not to settle. As for the state of Israel, Jews are obliged to protect other Jews beside whom they are living, so the activities of any state—in the land or outside it—will be judged by t eir consequences for “saving a life” more generally and, in this case, for repairing immediate threats to Jewish life. There is therefore no extraordinary obligation toward or against the state. If it has value, it is instrumental, no more or less. Brown notes that the Hazon Ish was particularly perturbed by the efforts of some haredi thinkers to discern the reasons for God’s acting in history in our time—for example in the Shoah and in the migration of Jews to Israel—even though they appropriately refrained from efforts to discern reason for his acting in the rest of creation.

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more helpful prototype because it articulates foundational principles that are at times merely assumed in t e son’s work. In t is section, I will first overview the steps of the argument in OH, according to order of the chapters. Then I will re-outline the argument as illustrating an eschatology of Type 4B. The argument of OH (noting chapter and section) (Kuk 1900): 1.2: “T e first principle is to study Torah ’shma (for its own sake)”—“t roug w ic intimacy wit God is disclosed”—and “deeds performed [for t e sake of Torah ’shma] are garments of divine lig t”. 9.2: Study that is not ’shma distracts the mind (from God) and the words remain dried and at times are filled with inner poison. 10.1: The time to study the secrets of Torah is when the inner longing to approach the nearness of God is strongest: when it grows so intense that the soul cannot rest. 10.2: One cannot always approach the inner sanctums this way. But when the light of the soul breaks out, then it is immediately necessary to give it freedom to continue and expand. This is w en t e intensity of God’s inner presence is available, to enter into the light of the living soul of all worlds, the light of the almighty. 10.3: If one observes that one is in such a state and grows intense in study and action, but, nonetheless one does not see the inner fruit of this study, it is because one has not sufficiently c ased away one’s inner spiritual coarseness (gasut). 10.5: Because they are intimately of the divine, the inner secrets of Torah can enlighten the heart of anyone, including those not as learned. 11.1: All the words of Torah she b’a peh are the wings of wings (of God) all together. 11.3: The Jew (yisrael) is obliged to believe that the soul of God hovers within him, that his bones are a letter of the divine Torah, and that each letter is a whole world that expands limitlessly. 12.4: The Torah literally forms the soul of Israel, and if one looks at the inner soul of humanity, there one finds the spirit of Israel living within it, and within that is the light of Torah. 12.5: The Torah was given to Israel so that its gates of light would become brighter, wider, and more holy than all the gates of

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the light of natural understanding and than all the natural culture and understanding of humanity. 12.7: “T e c osen people,” (am segulah): The congregation of Israel can fulfill its chosenness only in the land of Israel, because a member of the house of Israel is chosen only in the Torah and the Tora is fulfilled only in t e oly land (“T e gold of t e land is good”: t ere is no Tora like t e Tora of t e land of Israel and no wisdom like the wisdom of the land of Israel. Midrash Rabbah) 13.2: “Inside t e land”: In every generation we are obliged to love (lehabev) the Torah of the land of Israel, and even more are we obliged in this generation, a generation of withering and resurrection, a time of darkness and light, humanness and mightiness, because we need a healing drug (elixir of life) [that is found] precisely in the Torah of the land of Israel.

13.2: “Outside t e Land”: Outside t e land one knows only the contingent particulars of Torah; inside the land one knows the general rules t ey illustrate … The Torah outside the land repairs the particularizing soul of its spiritual and material concerns—of the immediacies of everyday life in this world. But not so the Torah of Israel. Its concerns are always with the general rules, the generalities of the soul of the people as a whole. The Torah of the land of Israel sees the general in the particulars.

13.3: The Torah of the land of Israel sees these generalities not only in the aggadah but also in the halakhah: seeing in the details the foundational principles of wisdom and understanding, and not only in scholarly study but also in matters of everyday life. 13.4: …All studies t at, outside t e land, are of mere details, minutia, and pilpul, become foundational in the land of Israel. 13.6 The expansive spirit that contains all spiritual aspirations, hovering in the center of the soul, attends only to universal principles, not to particular (contingent) ones—the same glorious will that lies hidden in the inner soul of the congregation of Israel— that from which all universal and particular principles of Torah are ramified—It falls appropriately only in the land of Israel. Therefore

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only in Israel can the sages enter into the depth of Torah.—The universal intelligence (active intellect) that enlightens the inner holiness, s ines only in t e land of Israel… Sages in t e Land of Israel who do not prepare themselves to receive this light find themselves weakened in wisdom and understanding. Descending near the level of those outside the land, they thereby cause weakening in Israel and thus the world. 13.7: When the congregation of Israel lives outside the land, its life is out of touch with the generative sources. Scholars who study outside the land cannot draw their study from the ultimate sources (of Torah). [Their study turns to material details, to pilpul and logic detached from the generative sources. Within the land, study of these same details is enlightened from the sources and becomes an instrument of divine lig t.]… W en Israel goes into exile, only an external dimension of the holy accompanies them... Only within the land of Israel do the texts and words they study disclose their inner light, the soul of the living God. 13.8: In the land of Israel, scholars may reason from universal to particular. In exile, they can reason only from particular to particular. Irreducible elements of the argument of OH: (1) This reasoning is set within a generation of the congregation of Israel that has known the depths of suffering and exile. (2) Every generation is obliged to return to the depths of Torah, which are available only in erets yisrael. This obligation applies all the more so to this generation. (3) The light of God, the creator and redeemer, shines out of the depths of Torah. From that light, alone, the light of the creator and redeemer re-enters the world. (4) God gave the Torah to the congregation of Israel so that, in studying Torah in its depths, they would uncover and release that light to the world. (5) The only way to study Torah in its depths is to study torah ’shma and to embody this study by observing the halakhah l’s ma and to conduct this study and performance in erets yisrael. (6) If performed ’shma by wise scholars who study with devoted intentionality and purity of practice, within klal yisrael and within erets yisrael, then the study of Torah can open the light of the divine universal intelligence to Israel and, through Israel to the world. This intelligence discloses inerrant universal principles rather than merely local, particular, and fallible rules. (7) Even if performed with utmost

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effort by the wisest scholars, such study will not bring the divine light if the study is (a) outside the land of Israel (ch” ) or (b) performed in erets yisrael but without proper devotion. In this case, the study can disclose only local and particular rules, not universal principles. Type 4B eschatological reasoning as displayed within the argument of OH: 1. Suffering has a redeemer. (i) The Redeemer is God the Creator who redeems Israel and the world through the light of Torah. The light of Torah is the name of God as redeemer. (ii) The agents of redemption are wise scholars among the congregation of Israel who study of Torah ’shmah in erets yisrael. (iii) This is a time of suffering that calls for action by the agents of redemption. They must return from exile to study Torah ’shmah in erets yisrael. Kol yisrael must return to erets yisrael to enable this return. (iv) But is this return a final return or a cyclical one? A response is not necessarily explicit in OT, but it is suggested elsew ere in Rav Kook’s writings. Wit in t e frame of t is project, I would conclude that, while OT preserves some ambiguity on this topic, Kuk’s ot er writings suggest “final return” as t e far more likely option. (v) The work of scholars in erets yisrael is therefore like the rule of King David in t e rabbis’ messianic vision (Type 3iii). Such scholars are agents of repair like the shoftim of the Book of Judges, repairing Israel’s suffering and protecting Israel from its enemies; but they are also like agents of the messianic time, since the suffering they repair is of the spirit (of universals not material particulars) and the repair is timeless (redemption). 3. Does Haredi/Orthodox Eschatological Reasoning Respect the Postulates of Jewish Religious Reasoning? The Hazon Ish and Rav Kuk offered contradictory judgments and arguments concerning the theological significance of a return to Zion. These differences are instructive for clarifying two contradictory implications of rabbinic messianism: that we can or cannot anticipate making empirical judgments about Jewish comportment in the world of promise. For the Hazon Ish, Rav Kuk had no war-

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rant for seeking to look outside the halakhah for evidence of the divine will nor, all the more so, for seeking to see through the evidences of history and human experience to the inner workings of the divine will. The Hazon Ish did not deny the reality of the messianic end but only our capacity to know how it would appear and therefore our access to any behaviors that would be based upon such knowledge. At the same time, he did not exclude himself or members of his community from living in the land and engaging with the bureaucracies of the current State of Israel. In these ways, he displayed a type of pragmatic, “meantine” eschatology and he illustrated Type 4A in our types of messianic theology, just as Rav Kuk displayed t e contrary, “end time messianism” and illustrated Type 4B. Differences between these two orthodox thinkers also help clarify how the rabbinic Type 4A draws on the Biblical prototypes of the shoftim (Type 1) and, to some extent, of King Saul (Type 2); and how the rabbinic Type 4B draws on Biblical prototypes of “Monarc ical Messianism.” Furt er researc may suggest that most contemporary theological responses to the return to Zion will tend to the Types illustrated by either the Hazon Ish or Rav Kuk. Can we judge, therefore, whether or not these two orthodox thinkers respect the postulates of Jewish religious reasoning? The arguments of Rav Kuk tend to be non-rational, which, as we noted at the outset, means only that they do not offer criteria for public evaluation and testing of their truth or falsity. They appear to obey Postulates 2 (being grounded in Biblical and rabbinic sources), 3 (being stimulated by observations of Jewish suffering), and 4 (Type 4B). But they do not obey Postulates 1 (because Rav Kuk adopts his postulates as true in themselves), 5 (because of his coherentism) and 6 (since Rav Kuk generalizes t e trut of is “deras ” beyond any single context, offers clear judgments on the basis of both his empirical and theoretical claims, and coherentist claims with respect to the behavioral meaning of abnormal times). The arguments of the Hazon Ish tend to be rational, which means that they can be publicly evaluated and tested. They appear to obey Postulates 1 (because of their pragmatic basis), 2 (being grounded in Biblical and rabbinic sources), 3 (being stimulated by empirical observations of Jewish life—including suffering—and by perceptions of errant judgments in the messianism of his contemporaries), 4 (Type 4A), 6 (since the Hazon Ish is fastidious in his pragmatic distinc-

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tion between empirical claims and talmud torah and in avoiding coherentism). Failing to respect the postulates is not likely a sign that some judgment respects only some “ ig er reason” or “t at w ic is beyond reason.” It is more likely a sign that the judgment displays to varying degrees the results of non-public, esoteric judgments (which can be offered to and tested by only some particular group), or ad hoc choices and strategic alliances. Respecting the postulates is not a sign t at a given judgment is t erefore “Jewis true,” since a contradictory judgment may also respect the postulates. It is more likely a sign that a given judgment is worthy of public, theological study. I would imagine that, if we followed the postulates, a Jewish political eschatology would be represented by a finite set of contradictory judgments, arguments among which represent the appropriate dialectic of Jewish theological reasoning.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT A briefer and somewhat different version of this essay appeared as a conference paper for the Institute for Theological Inquiry, meeting at Princeton Theological Seminary Fall 2011–Spring 2012. My thanks to Benny Brown for his counsel as well as for his fine work on the Hazon Ish.

REFERENCES [1] Brown, Benjamin. The Hazon Ish. Halakhist, Believer and Leader of the Haredi Revolution (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2011) [Hebrew]. Publications of the Hazon Ish as cited by Benjamin Brown:

[2] Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980). [3] Halivni, David Weiss. Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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[4] _____. Breaking the Tablets: Jewish Theology after the Shoah, ed. Peter Ochs (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), pp. xxiii–xxvi. [5] Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1996). [6] _____. Critique of Practical Reason (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002). [7] Karelitz, Avraham Yesha’ayahu.Kovetz Iggrot Maran HaHazon Ish[Collected letters of Our Master the Hazon Ish] (1-3), ed. Sh. Greiniman (Bnei Brak, 1990). [8] _____. Hazon Ish al Inyanei Emunah, Bittahon Vaod [Hazon Ish on Faith, Trust and More] (Bnei Brak, 1997). [9] Kuk, Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen. Lights of Torah [Orot HaTorah] (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Publishing, 1900) [Hebrew]. [10] Ochs, Peter. Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 3–10, [11] Peirce, Charles Sanders. Collected papers. Vol. 5, “Pragmatism and Pragmaticism,” eds. C arles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1931–). [12] _____. Collected papers. Vol. 6.452–490 “Scientific Metap ysics,” eds Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1931–). [13] Weil, Simone. Waiting for God (San Francisco: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2001 [1951]). Orig. Simone Weil, Attente De Dieu (Paris: Fayard, 1966).

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION TZVEE ZAHAVY TEANECK, NEW JERSEY, USA [email protected] ABSTRACT This paper is a study of the Kol Nidre service using the methods of pragmatics. We show how that service uses legal texts to create liturgy that is designed to be an effective and powerful technology of the sacred for the creation and delivery of compassion. We use pragmatics to examine the context of the liturgy and determine its meaning. We explain the status of the involved worshippers and overcome the ambiguity of the meaning of the prayer by paying special attention to the manner, time and place of its recitation. The ambiguity in the case of the Kol Nidre is whether it is a legal utterance, a magical utterance or a pure liturgical utterance of compassion. We review several previous explanations of the prayer and conclude that with a pragmatic contextual elucidation of the Kol Nidre.

Kol Nidre, recited in the evening at the outset of the solemn fast of Yom Kippur, is one of the best known and most effective liturgies of the synagogue. It is the inaugural recitation of the Yom Kippur service. As such, it stands at the head of the most solemn day of the year, the Day of Atonement. It is sung at a moment when there is maximum attendance and attention in the house of worship. Jews know that Yom Kippur caps off the Ten Days of Repentance. It is t e final day to seek t at atonement for one’s sins. 179

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1. CONTEXT The context of the prayer, the identity of the speakers and their intentions are clear. The Kol Nidre plays a critical role within the Yom Kippur liturgical system in particular, and in the Days of Awe parent system in general. This first liturgical paragraph recited on Yom Kippur eve activates the system for the day. It has the critical attention of all system users. They are present at their pews in the synagogue and their emotions are primed because of the solemnity of the occasion. The best known theological narrative of the day as a whole, articulated in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, tells us that this is the day that God finalizes the verdict, the judgment for every Jew for the coming year. “On Ros Has ana it is written. On t e day of fasting of Kippur it is sealed.” The classic simple plaintiff meditative musical melody of the Kol Nidre service contributes to bolster its effectiveness as a solemn Yom Kippur prayer. The exterior trappings of the prayer in the synagogue context add to its solemnity. In some of our Orthodox Ashkenazi congregations, we enter for an evening prayer and witness a surreal, nearly mystical setting. All the male worshippers are wearing white robes. It appears for a moment confusing, as if everyone in the pews acts as the hazzan of the congregation. Though it is nightfall, the men, in an Orthodox service, and both men and women, in more liberal congregations, wear their prayer shawls as if it were a morning service. To add to the seriousness of the circumstance, the ark is opened and Torahs are brought to the bimah. With heightened focus, the liturgical users await the start of the dramatic action. Their stomachs are full from the pre-fast meal. They start the mental countdown and imagine the hunger that will follow the next day and the breakfast in twenty five hours at the end of the holiday. Access to the Kol Nidre liturgy requires a special contextual script, used only for the one purpose of providing entry to this service. There are several stages of preliminaries that set the context before entry into the liturgy. Stage 1: “In the assembly up on high and in the assembly down below…” Even t oug t e participant does not need to be told to pay attention, the introductory phrases first mystically invoke the heavens and then focus us on our actual surroundings.

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION181 Stage 2: “By t e authority of Omnipresent and by the authority of the congregation, we allow ourselves to pray together with the transgressors.” T is p rase affords t e devotee aut orization to engage in something surely purposeful and potentially transformative. Synagogue participants do not begin any service in the Jewish year with these scripts. These are specific to the Kol Nidre. There are several unknowns and ambiguities embedded in the scripts. Who are these transgressors? Are these the people sitting beside the users? Or perhaps are they are self referential—the users permit themselves to recognize their own transgressions. The scripts are intoned and entered so quickly, that the user may not have the time to be entirely self-aware of the value of this permission. Whatever the case, that preface to prayer is both a prologue and a blunt statement. This context setting action is altogether an odd recitation, a singular liturgy, a one-off with no analogue elsewhere in the synagogue service. To further set t e context, t e azzan intones, “Kol Nidre….” using a simple tune, wit familiar c ords, t at sounds a bit like a finger exercise, an orchestral in a tune-up, with short bursts of music before the overture before the performance. It draws the user-attendees to attention. It announces that something significant is about to begin. The legal script that follows is simple, direct and clear: All vows t at I ave vowed… from t is Yom Kippur until the next, I retract them. Let all of t em be permitted… nonexistent. Let my vows not be valid vows.

Scholars previously assumed that this prayer was a speech act in either a legal mode or a magical mode of expression and that discussion of those modes alone was enough to provide for the interpretation of the service. We insist based on pragmatic study that this is not the case. Jewish liturgy is not a speech act of law nor is it one of magic. No doubt that on the surface, outside of its elaborate context, Kol Nidre is a legal declaration. Stuart Weinberg Gerson in his study Kol Nidrei: Its Origin, Development and Significance (New York, 1977), reviewed the prevailing scholarship and theory on the prayer. Our contention is that he examined the prayer solely as a legal

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text outside its context, as many have done over the centuries, and like previous scholars, he missed the essential pragmatic meaning of the liturgy. Gerson took a straight up approach to the text starting with his premise that Jewis tradition is “grounded in t e seriousness of the power of the spoken word and may be understood only within t at framework.” Gerson focused s arply on “words” to make a point about the release of spoken vows with spoken formulas of the remedial text. Words of power can repair the damages or problems caused by other words of power. This is a good start at resolving how a law formula can be a liturgy. But this characterization does not allow for the different kinds of spoken words, delivered in many forms and idioms within t e composite t at makes up t e liturgical subset of t e “Jewis tradition” namely t e evening service on t e Day of Atonement that forms the actual context of the Kol Nidre. The proper framework for understanding the Kol Nidre is the Yom Kippur Machzor, the service for the Day of Atonement in the synagogue, not the laws courts where vows are made and nullified, not the legal heritage of the Israelite and Jewish predecessors and surely not t e entirety of t e “Jewis tradition.” T ere are specific intentions, emotions and dramas built into, and read out of, those few spoken words within any liturgy that need to be factored into the equation. If they are not, there is no accurate computation of the liturgical intent and power of the prayer possible here. As part of the Evening Service on Yom Kippur, Kol Nidre is not an actual act of vow nullification. Gerson’s analysis treats t e Kol Nidre prayer as if it is suc and it functions as a “powerful ritual.” He sees it as a “ve icle t roug w ic absolution is automatically granted for unfulfilled vows.” But, t ere is anot er ritual of vow nullification that we have in the Siddur and that Jews perform on Yom Kippur eve, before the festival. It is called the Hatarat Nedarim. It is recited prior to the beginning of the holiday, outside of the framework of the service, before the prayers begin. It is a pure formulaic that achieves a true vow nullification. Hence, the formal legal procedure of Hatarat Nedarim, already performed before the holiday, is not what is going on in the synagogue in the Kol Nidre. If it were, that would be redundant. Thus Kol Nidre cannot be a sterile verbal legal remedy for vows, nor can it be a repetition of such a remedy—a variation of

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION183 what went on elsewhere and earlier. If actual vow nullification were the intended action of this Kol Nidre prayer, that would detach it from its liturgical context and treat it as a separate and distinct legal act, unconnected at all to what follows in sacred liturgies of the Yom Kippur eve and day. Nevert eless, Gerson insists t at e sees a problem of “unfulfilled vows” for w ic t ere is a remedy of a “powerful ritual.” The scenario he paints is that there is a problem extrinsic to the end user’s being, t ere is a bug in t e system, and t e supplicant can remedy this by manipulating words, he can fix the spiritual bug with a code change right at the outset of the Yom Kippur liturgy. This does not compute. It does not appeal to us as pertinent to the context, as a healthy moral, religious or ethical dramatic state of affairs for the most solemn day of the year. And this begs for us the most obvious question. Many worshippers will attest that Kol Nidre is the most moving and emotional prayer of the synagogue year. As described just now, this is a violation of pragmatic analysis. Can a bug-fix with new programming code be the state-of-thedrama that they find so moving? Can the recitation of a dry legal formulary be the inspiration to kick off the climax of the ten days of atonement? And so, to try to fix this, to create and justify that there is a drama, Gerson formulates, in his study, that there must be more going on in Kol Nidre saying, “T e spoken word takes on a reality independent of human control, and no vow already in force can be revoked.” But we cannot accept Gerson’s straw man t at t e “word” as its own ontological reality, which in his theory cannot be reverted. Spoken code can be re-spoken, re-said and thus reverted. Prescribed legal formulas can nullify contracts. Gerson creates that artificial context and drama to explain the potency of the prayer. By means of this Kol Nidre legal artifice, the intimidating vow words t at can never be “revoked” are instead retroactively annulled. The vower then can treat them as if they had never “taken s ape,” and t e vower is t ereby spared t e “grave consequences of an unfulfilled vow.” T e clever prayer t us deftly outsmarts the power of the intractable vow. Gerson probes and summarizes opinions about the origins and Halakhic basis of Kol Nidre as an annulment of vows. In the process he does show that many others over the centuries have

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accepted the liturgy partly or wholly on its face value, as a clever script whose performative purpose is to undo vows. And yet, Gerson is not satisfied with this analysis. And neither are we. It is too objective and extrinsic to what is transpiring in the interior life of the Jew in the context. It has nothing to do with prayer service of Yom Kippur eve as a spiritual experience. A second approach of scholarship looking to define the Kol Nidre out of its pragmatic context identifies other forces and purposes at work in the recitation. Some scholars proposed that the legal script formula of Kol Nidre is patterned on a magical incantation. This assertion is based on similar phrases and annulments that appear far outside the context of the liturgy, on the earthenware magic bowls found at Nippur and elsewhere in the Middle East dating from the fourth to seventh centuries. This wholly separate and tangential evidence dates from a period prior to the known entry of the Kol Nidre into the Yom Kippur liturgy (Gerson 1977, p. 123). Gerson points out that, at the minimum, the incantation bowls show that the legal terminology of Kol Nidre was also applied at times in a magical context. The maximalist interpretation of the magical nature of these texts casts them as original incantations, “against demons by annulling t e entire range of curses people bring upon t emselves and ot ers.” In tracing the development of the prayer, Gerson reports that, the Geonim uniformly declined to refer to Kol Nidre as a magical incantation. They described it as a nullification of human vows and expressed their approval or disapproval of it on legal grounds.

Gerson further reports that another scholar struggled with the use of this legal text as liturgy, Keival contends that the Geonim were prepared to accept Kol Nidre as a prayer for divine absolution, but not as a nullification of vows… All these opinions take the Geonic opposition to Kol Nidre on legal grounds at face value. They do not really provide a ‘deeper’ understanding at all (p. 125).

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION185 Hence Gerson intuitively stated a viewpoint in that conclusion of his historical survey that we do endorse, i.e., there is deep liturgical meaning embedded in this prayer that needs to be understood in pragmatic contextual terms. In his survey, Gerson remarked that a host of great rabbis finally and firmly denied that Kol Nidre, “ as any power to annul vows beyond those made with God or imposed upon oneself.” T is points us back to our understanding of t e formula as a liturgy. Paradoxically Gerson concludes t at, “Kol Nidre is not a prayer” (p. 134). “It does not ask God for forgiveness or absolution.” But e says, Kol Nidre was an extremely popular ritual with the Jewish populace of ninth-century Babylonia and Palestine… t e laity refused to let it go (pp. 134–5).

Gerson says it is not a “prayer” because he has a better way to compartmentalize t e text. “Kol Nidre refers to the nullification of curses and spells,” Gerson says. “To use a musical analogy, Kol Nidre is a sonata and we’ve been playing it all along in t e wrong key” (p. 136). It fits best in t e “magic” category e says. We do agree in part with Gerson, that is about his claim of the use of the wrong key. But we think he too does not get it right by invoking “magic” as t e answer. We see t e Kol Nidre neither as a corrective legal instrument nor as a palliative magical spell. Kol Nidre is not new code or script to fix a bug in our programming, legal or magical. These modes of analysis just described are not pragmatic. They intentionally neglect the all of the context and cues of the recitation. Those indicate that Kol Nidre is legal formula transformed into true liturgy. It is situated as the inaugural liturgical recitation for the solemn day that follows. It thus makes pragmatic sense that Kol Nidre articulates a main theme of the liturgy, a central idea for the prayers that continues into the coming evening and through the next day. Using t is mode of study we conclude t at t is “dry” legal text is actually a vivid emotional liturgical declaration of the end user’s meditative intent. T e wors ipper announces t e central theme of Yom Kippur at the outset of a set of long and complex performances that will follow over the next day.

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Is t is a “prayer?” Most certainly and pragmatically, yes. It is the inaugural declaration of the centerpiece of the entire Yom Kippur liturgy. It accomplishes this. Kol Nidre is the declaration of a compassion that the liturgical users will now seek for themselves. This continues in the selihot, which continue as further repetitive declarations of compassion throughout the solemn services. It is not an easy task for worshippers to find this emotional outlet for themselves, along with their entire community, together on the same day at the same time in the same place. As the worshippers go along in their extended meditation of compassion, they ask God to help them attain this empathy and forgiveness. Their process extends into the viduy, the confessions of sin in which they list their shortcomings, forgive themselves and ask for forgiveness from their God.

2. THE LITURGICAL FORCES IN PLAY How does a stoical legal declaration function as a primary part of a warm liturgy? Why do the worshippers say, we release ourselves of our vows? Why do the parishioners start with that form of proclamation? The liturgical performers do so because that is in a scribal idiom a way for saying that they have compassion on themselves, they forgive themselves. Here in this collective house of gathering, they speak about themselves. They emotionally—not legally— annul their own wrong declarations, intentions and acts of the past and of the future. These words in nonfigurative legal idiom are then pragmatically used as a personal meditation of compassion—as clear as any such act in any other religious context. This is a Jewish meditation. There is no clearly known abstraction to which the liturgical users appeal to formulate a “definition” of Jewis compassion. T ey inductively learn what it is from the modes in which they practice it. All the congregation needs to do to begin this meditative analysis and perception is to trigger the first realization that their liturgy in this instance on Yom Kippur Eve is a long diverse set of meditative practices seeking for t emselves and t eir fellow Jews “rahamim” “selihah” “mehilah.” T e wors ippers are preparing to ave remorse, regret and true pain because they are trapped by their shortcomings, their bad deeds, their inability to find peace. They have been disappointed, traumatized and confused by what they see around them.

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION187 They seek after compassion, which is dictionary-defined as, “sympat etic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of ot ers.” In a process t at t ey will call “atonement” t ey turn t is compassion inward to address their own case, to have mercy on their own souls. They perform this liturgy enmeshed in their cultural trappings, simple and ornate. The pragmatic metaphor of choice to start the engine of compassion is the conceptual legal process for the release of vows. The idiom of these most sacred prayers begins wit t at. “Kol Nidre” serves on a basic subconscious emotional level as the ordinal articulation of the Jewish meditation of compassion. This begins the epic Jewish holiday of compassion. The worshippers employ a legal sounding idiom saying that they are releasing vows. They are in fact starting a twenty-five hour marathon of meditative compassion and forgiveness. The Kol Nidre is the anthem that kicks off the liturgical Olympiad. The selihot continue this process in another closely related musical, archetypal key. The Avodah and martyrology, later in the Musaf, change the channels to other exemplary and metaphoric styles. If mode x to achieve compassion does not work for you, then here is mode y or mode z. God will help you achieve compassion, or the priest in the Avodah will assist you to find compassion through the Temple rituals, or the martyrs in the martyrology will show you through their sacrifices, how to find the light of compassion at the end of the tunnel of sorrow. Perhaps these images and liturgies will open your heart and guide you to find compassion, to forgive yourself and your neighbors. This sustained meditation on the emotions of compassion ultimately elps to remove t e wors ipper’s feelings of sin, guilt and suffering. This meditation comes from the hearts and souls of the congregants fully clothed in the cultural garb of their community. It is expressed pragmatically in the way that the meditative masters of that faith think and the way they talk. As we have asserted, the deep emotional utterance of Kol Nidre comes forth in a legal idiom because that is how the rabbinic masters chose to express their meditation, acting in an archetypal scribal mode that is so familiar to them. In the context of the service this is how the Kol Nidre works, expressed in the idiom of the supplicant:

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In a variation from the Ashkenazic performance of Kol Nidre, the Sephardim make the prayer into a declaration and response. The second half is recited by the congregation to answer the declaration of the Hazzan asking to annul his vows, and the congregation responds, “All of t em are permitted… nullified.” Within the rich context of Yom Kippur, the liturgy of the entire day will contain meditations by each individual on his or her own behalf. It is meditation that will need to be assisted first by a group, the community of worshippers. It is so difficult to attain the goal of compassion and forgiveness for one’s own deeds and thoughts by oneself, or even with a visible and supportive group. The prayers do not start by addressing God. He is not the object of the Kol Nidre meditation. He is not mentioned therein. To help this process, the services then do go on to invoke and seek a higher power. Starting with the Selihot prayers, which follow in the Maariv service, the liturgy does spend considerable effort and energy through many of the remaining prayers, to implore God to help the worshipper attain compassion through his or her meditations. That is the crux of the emotional content of this liturgy. It makes some dramatic sense. The many Selihot in the Mahzor over t e next day’s supplications are not merely incessant repetitions. The selected idiom in Selihot is the one of the archetypal meditator. The iterations help the meditator to achieve a true state of meditative compassion for his or her own sins—shortcomings, feelings of anger, hatred, greed, envy. Repetition of formulae is one recognized meditative strategy that the supplicant employs.

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION189 And again, all of this takes shape in that pragmatic context, the immediate liturgical and the larger cultural and religious heritage.

3. PRAGMATICS NEGATE PHILOSOPHY The worshipper seeks emotional release and transformation. There is nothing magical about all of this. And it ought not be camouflaged in too much philosophy or theology. Pragmatic insight allows the emotional content to brightly shine through. The theological labels commonly applied to the performances of the day describe that they are meant to achieve repentance for sin or atonement for transgression. A proper pragmatic analysis does not allow us to take the liturgy out of the meditative realm and put it into a flat cognitive mode of special, but emotionally empty, philosophical religious expression. Philosophical cognition is cold, extrinsic, clean and mental, without the hot, messy, emotional power that one meets in meditation, in one’s innermost eart and soul. That is why, based on our close pragmatic analysis of the liturgy, we want to call Yom Kippur, the Day of Compassion, rather than the Day of Atonement. That is why we want to stop saying that we are repenting of our sins and start avowing that we are having compassion on our own sentient beings. This is compassion in a Jewish key. It is difficult and intricate emotional work.

4. MEDITATIONS OF COMPASSION COMPARED We described just now what we mean by meditation of compassion in the Jewish scribal and meditative idioms, in its emotional trappings and as part of our liturgical drama. That idea, to look for the resonant category of compassion in the drama of Yom Kippur liturgy, jumps out from prominent contents in the prayers. The use of the Hebrew terms of compassion, rahum or rahamim, sit there on the surface, spoken throughout the Yom Kippur davening, as we have reviewed. As a student of religions we know the value of an engine of compassion as it takes shape in other systems. A prime example is found in the major streams of Buddhism, which develop the compassion idea as a main generative philosophical notion and a goal of meditative practice.

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Some time ago, as a meditator, we trained in mindfulness meditation for a period of several years. In that time we practiced as exercises several of the primary meditations of compassion derived from Buddhism. We learned the techniques and the visualizations that contributed to the mastery of these meditations. One encyclopedia entry on “compassion” sums up t e p ilosophical side of the Buddhist notions of compassion with a reference to a few short representative Buddhist traditions on the subject, as follows: Compassion or karuna is at the transcendental and experiential eart of t e Budd a’s teachings. He was reputedly asked by his personal attendant, Ananda, “Would it be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is a part of our practice?” To w ic t e Budd a replied, “No. It would not be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is part of our practice. It would be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is all of our practice.” At the same time, it is emphasized that in order to manifest effective compassion for others it is first of all necessary to be able to experience and fully appreciate one’s own suffering and to have, as a consequence, compassion for oneself. The Buddha is reported to ave said, “It is possible to travel t e w ole world in search of one who is more worthy of compassion than oneself. No suc person can be found” (Wikipedia, Compassion).

It is refreshing to see such a clearly stated definition of the centrality of this emotionally resonant category that we have been calling “compassion.” In our Judaic instance of t e liturgy of Yom Kippur it is fair to say that the way the concept works its way through prayers is not quite as clear and clean. It is more complicated—embedded in a rich set of our religious and cultural matters. Dani Shapiro writes about this characteristic of Judaic belief and practices in her memoir, Devotion. She recalls about a well-known Jewish-Buddhist teacher and writer, “…someone asks Sylvia Boorstein w y s e complicates er Buddhism with her Judaism. Buddhism is so pure and simple—why complicate it? And Sylvia answers by saying, Because I am complicated with my Judaism. It’s where I come from.”

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION191 Many gradations of the powerful emotional operative category “compassion” are t ere in our practice but are concealed by countless cultural wrappers, by layers of expression. We use several distinctive idioms and archetypes and multiple modes of expressing the facets and characteristics of compassion and loving kindness. And so it has taken us significant energy to identify and track the essential emotional content and goals in this service called Kol Nidre and in the prayer services that follow throughout the day. But the payoff is there. Through all of the intricacies of the mahzor, we do expect that the ordinary worshipper, the Davener, is culturally conditioned and accustomed enough to know that the personal goal of Yom Kippur is to receive and to give rachamim and selihah and the array of accompanying emotionally resonant reliefs. And we expect that through the multifaceted variations and repetitions of the liturgy, the typical Jew will derive all the benefits that accrue t erewit , compassion and forgiveness for oneself and one’s community. That is the transformation process that we call repentance or Teshuvah. And that leads to the result that we may call atonement or Kippurim.

5. A CASE STUDY TO VALIDATE OUR PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS We offer an example as a validation of our pragmatic interpretation. In the final series of the Selihot, we utter the catalogue of God’s t irteen mainly emotional attributes over and over again on Yom Kippur in Neilah, the familiar: Lord, Lord, God, Compassionate, with loving kindness, patient, with kindness and truth; keeper of mercy for thousands, forgiver of iniquity, transgression and sin; clearing us. Forgive our iniquity and sin and accept us (cf. Exodus 34:6–7).

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Within this sequence of repeated meditations, the tenth century Italian payetan Rabbi Amitai ben Shepatiah presented in his prayer a direct appeal to the divine attribute of compassion to intercede for us (in the second stanza of the poem, shown in the Hebrew below): Attribute of compassion, pour upon us In the presence of your creator, cast our supplications For the sake of your people, request compassion For every heart has pain and every mind is ill.

(From Goldsc midt’s Yom Kippur Machzor, p. 778 (Machzor Layamin anora’im, 2 vols., Jerusalem, 1970); also said in the Yom Kippur evening prayer and on the 5th day of repentance) Rav Joseph Soloveitchik, our teacher and a noted Orthodox theologian, went out of his way in his monograph, Halakhic Man (Phila., 1984), to comment negatively on this line: The Halakhah views this prayer and other similar prayers as a deviation from legitimate Halakhic prayer, which is fundamentally exoteric in nature (p. 44).

The legal point of view does not know about an ontologically independent entity called compassion. The Rav says further,

A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF KOL NIDRE: LAW AND COMPASSION193 Man needs no outside help or special agents to approach God… A person needs no advocates w en e knocks at t e gates of heaven (J.B. Soloveitchik, Yom Kippur Machzor, New York, 2006, p. 818).

We respectfully emend the words of the Rav and would formulate matters differently. Ordinarily, it is true that we do not find an instance in the authorized rabbinic prayers in which we direct prayer to a divine attribute as if it were an exoteric intercessor. There is this one exception to this pattern in the present piyyut, Ezkerah Elohim, which we recite at the very end of the Neilah, at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. By this time we have spent muc effort to find God’s compassion, our compassion, and to embrace it within us. Rabbi Amitai knows that nowhere else do we deem it prudent to turn to the attribute of compassion and to project it as if it were an intercessor before God. But here at the close of Yom Kippur, we do, and we should, the piyyut tells us. We have earned the right and the duty to address the very compassion that we have brought into being through our strenuous efforts of the past twenty five hours. And we may turn that compassion into our intercessor to God—just this one time. Theological principles must step aside, for in our actual synagogue, that is how the liturgical prayer operates. Accordingly, we deem it preferable to ask those who are concerned here that you slightly modify your legal and Halakhic perspective on principles if you must, defer your philosophical and theological notions, but always to respect the integrity and insight of your liturgy. Liturgy and theology, and the law and the Halakhah, are distinct and highly complementary domains of Judaic expression. In the rare instance when they do conflict, we find instances to opt in favor the great expression of Judaic emotion and drama, the liturgy. We recommend that liturgy be treated in its proper pragmatic performative context. In doing so we will best appreciate the emotionally resonant categories of our liturgy and be able to tap into the enormous power that they offer us: to bring forth compassion into our lives, to help us mend ourselves, our communities and our worlds.

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REFERENCES [1] Stuart Weinberg Gerson, Kol Nidrei: Its Origin, Development and Significance (New York, 1977). [2] D. Goldschmidt,Machzor Layamin Hanora’im (Jerusalem, 1970). [3] Dani Shapiro, Devotion: A Memoir (New York, 2010). [4] Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man (Philadelphia, 1984). [5] Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Yom Kippur Machzor (New York, 2006).

RABBI JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMḤI AND HIS MAGNUM OPUS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM (THE PHILOSOPHICAL SECTION) AVIRAM RAVITSKY ARIEL UNIVERSITY OF SAMARIA; THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM [email protected] ABSTRACT The subject of this article is a commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh torah titled Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim, that was written by a Provençal Jewish scholar in the late 14th century—Rabbi Joseph ben Saul imhi. The book is unique in its comprehensiveness, in its encyclopedic character, and in its historical purpose. Most of the subjects of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim belong to realm of Jewish-Rabbinical law (halakhah). Nevertheless, in the commentary on the philosophical parts of the Mishneh torah, the author displays vast knowledge and scholarship in Aristotelian philosophy and in the medieval sciences. The article portrays the figure of Rabbi Joseph ben Saul imhi, his writings and stature, and mostly, it analyzes the historical significance and pragmatic purpose of the encyclopedic characteristics of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim.90 I would like to thank Mr. Victor Klagsbald for his permission to study the manuscript of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim. I would also like to thank the Professors Warren Zev Harvey, Bernard Septimus, Moshe Halbertal, 90

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1. INTRODUCTION The subject of this article is a comprehensive book that was written by a Provençal Jewish scholar in the late 14th century—Rabbi Joseph ben Saul Kim i. The book is titled Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim (Refined Sevenfold). It can be found in a single manuscript in the private collection of Mr. Victor Klagsbald, no. 70 (hereinafter: MS Klagsbald). The book is unique in its comprehensiveness, in its encyclopedic character, and in its historical purpose. It is organized and edited as a commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh torah and as most of the Mishneh torah, the subjects of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim belong to realm of Jewish-Rabbinical law (halakhah). Nevertheless, in the commentary to the philosophical parts of the Mishneh torah, the author displays vast knowledge and scholarship in Aristotelian philosophy and in the medieval sciences. The interlocking of Aristotelian philosophy and science with Talmudic scholarship that Joseph ben Saul demonstrates in his compilation is part of the long history of the absorption of philosophy by Provençal Talmudic sages. Rabbinical-philosophical activity in Provence started in the 12th century. Many of the Provençal Jewish sages were legal authorities who were well educated in the Talmudic sources as well as in contemporary scientific and philosophic literature. In several instances they even applied Aristotelian philosophy and science to their legal-halakhic writings.91 Hence, the Rabbinical-philosophical literature of medieval Provençal Jewry is significant not only for the history of Jewish law but also for the understanding of the ongoing interaction between particular Jewish

Yom-Tov Assis, Hannah Kasher and Dr. Ram ben-Shalom and Dr. Pinchas Roth for their comments. The study was sponsored by the Fulbright Foundation and by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. I thank them both for their generous support. 91 (Benedikt 1985), pp. 8–11; 17–21; (Ta-Shma 1993), pp. 50–52; (Halbertal 2000), pp. 109–113.

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM197 ideas and tradition, on t e one and, and t e “universal,” namely Aristotelian principles and literature, on the other hand.92 Although the state of research regarding Provençal Jewry in general, has developed in the last several decades, concerning the rabbinical and philosophical literature in Provence in the second half of the 14th century onward, research literature has almost nothing to say. This fact did not change much since Isadore Twersky’s classical survey on the Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry that was written in 1968.93 The Jewish Provençal scholars in the second half of the 14th century remained, for the most part, anonymous, and their works do not take any significant place in historical research.94 Yet there is sufficient literary material to determine that philosophical and intellectual awareness existed in Provençal Jewry until the end of the 14th century and beyond.95 The importance of the study in this paper is therefore in its contribution to an unknown chapter of the history of the unique In addition to philosophical activity—translation of philosophical literature to Hebrew, composing philosophical treatises and philosophical commentaries on the Bible and on the Aggadah literature—the sages of Provence were also involved in controversies on the correctness of philosophical doctrines as well as on the legitimacy of the studying of philosophy and the teaching of it. For a general survey of the philosophical activity of the Provençal Jewry see (Twersky 1968). On the translation of philosophical works to Hebrew in general and by Provençal scholars in particular see (Harvey, Steven 2003), pp. 258–280; (Berman 1967). On the controversies about philosophy, its study and teaching that took place in 14th century Provence, see (Halbertal 2000), pp. 152–180; (Stern 2000); (Stern 2003). 93 Above no. 92. 94 Hebrew sources—medieval and modern alike, do not distinguish between the two areas—Provence and Languedoc—but the distinction is crucial. The famous communities of Languedoc were expelled together with the expulsions (the first in 1306) of the Jews of France. However, the Jews of Provence continued to flourish in the second half of the 14th century onward. 95 Several Jewish sages in Provence in the second half of the 14th century were engaged in philosophy, some of whom were well trained in the Talmud and halakhah, a fact that bears significance for Rabbi Joseph ben Saul’s background. For specific details see (Ravitsky 2013). 92

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character of Provençal Jewry, who made Aristotelian philosophy and science an inherent part of its religious culture and world view.96

2. RABBI JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIM ̣I, HIS STATURE AND WRITINGS Rabbi Joseph ben Saul Kim i97 is no doubt one of the most impressive Jewish figures and prolific writers in Provence in the second half of the 14th century and the first half of the 15th. He lived, most probably, in Avignon,98 in those days a Papal city. His compilation—the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim—was written in 1380, when he was 35 years old.99 MS Klagsbald, 70 that embodies the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim contains 418 dense pages in which vast and varied

There are additional instances of philosophical activity in Provence in that period, e.g. the philosophical circle of the commentators on Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari. Although the members of the circle were not Talmudic authorities they do demonstrate how philosophical activity in Provençal Jewry continued to flourish at least until the 15th century. See (Schwartz 2007), introduction, pp. 7–13. For additional bibliography on the circle see ibid, p. 7, no. 1. The intellectual horizons of the Jews of Provence were not limited to philosophy in the strict sense. There was also scholarship in other fields of science. For a portrait of Jewish Provençal scholars, some of which were active in the second half of the 14th century, who had medical education see (Einbider, Theory 2009); (Einbider, No Place 2009). For other intellectual horizons of 15th century Provençal Jewry see (Ben Shalom 1989). 97 He is known in bibliographic literature also as Rabbi Joseph Mubnir, or Neubner. See (Sussmann 1966), p. 273, no. 9. 98 In Rabbi Moses Botaril’s epistles t at were sent to Rabbi Josep ben Saul (on t e epistles see below), t e aut or mentions: ‘Before I came ere to Avignon,’ w ic implies t at t e addressee resides in Avignon as well. See (Sussmann 1966), pp. 272, 306, and cf. (Ta-Shma 2000), p. 160, no. 29; (Brody 2007), p, 160. 99 As is testified in the words of Joseph ben Saul (MS Klagsbald, 1v): ‘T is awakening ( e‘ara ) [=t e motivation to write t e book] was onto me in my 35t year, in t e year 140 of t e 5t millennium.’ 96

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM199 sources were gathered in connection with Maimonides’ legal rulings.100 Rabbi Joseph ben Saul was a respected authority in his time. A known Kabbalist who resided in Avignon at the beginning of the 15th century—Rabbi Moses Botaril—sent two letters on halakhic issues to Joseph ben Saul. In these letters Botaril addresses Joseph ben Saul with the utmost respect: [To] the Rabbi, the teacher of justice in the world, the sustenance of examination, [the scholar that is] founded on wisdom, and that belongs to the sons of the elite. God filled him with spirit of wisdom and his studying was complete to the degree that he composed a commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh torah, w ic read all t e sciences in t e world […] 101

Moreover, in a treatise on astrology that was written by S emu’el a-qatan,102 who learned his astrology from Joseph ben Saul, the author describes his teacher in these words: T e compre ensive sc olar ( a- akham ha-kolel), the distinguis ed, t e pious ( a- asid), my master, my teacher—Rabbi Joseph ben Rabbi Saul Mubnir.103 Parts of the introduction to the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim were published by A. Neubauer in Magid, 19 (1875), pp. 6–7. The introduction and other samples of the text were published and discussed by (Reif 2005). According to Rabbi Moshe Bloy a fragment of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is contained in MS Paris—Bibliotheque Nationale heb. 357 (JNUL F4343). See (Bloy 1962), introduction, no. 21 (the pages are not paginated). However, Reif’s, ibid, pp. 39, 53–54, tend to conclude that MS Paris contains paragraphs that are parallel to those in the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim or that were taken from it. 101 (Sussmann 1966), p. 29 . It may be t at t e words: ‘w ic read all t e sciences in t e world’ refer to Maimonides. But the context implies that Botaril meant to laud his addressee and not Maimonides. 102 According to (Gross 1969), p. 147, this writer is identified also as Samuel d’Escola. 103 MS Moscow, Russian State Library, Ms. Guenzburg 1080 (JNUL F4 144), 32r. T e term “T e compre ensive sc olar ( a- hakham ha100

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The high stature of Joseph ben Saul can be detected also in the title by which the scribe of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim used to describe t e aut or. He calls im: “Nagid a-ma’aminim” (“t e leader of t e believers”).104 It may also be derived from this respectable title that Joseph ben Saul held a formal rabbinical position in the leadership of the Jewry of Avignon.105 Furthermore, in October 1392 the well known Jewish leader and scholar—Rabbi Hasdai Crescas—wrote a letter in which he described the pogroms of 1391 and the poor state of the Jewish communities in Spain after them. Crescas sent his letter to Avignon.106 The letter was not addressed to a particular addressee but it is reasonable that it was sent to the functionaries of the congregation and to its distinguished leaders, which would have included Joseph ben Saul. It may also be that, as a rabbinical authority, Crescas sent his letter to his counterpart in Avignon. In this case it is possible that the direct addressee of the letter was Rabbi Joseph ben Saul. Hence, if our speculations are correct, Rabbi Joseph ben Saul was not only a respected legal scholar of his time, but he was also considered as an influential leader with whom it was appropriate to share the grief and distress of the Iberian Jews.107 kolel),” can mean a sage wit multi-disciplinary scholarship. This interpretation accords wit Botaril’s words of praise, see above no. 101. However, as was shown by Warren Z. Harvey, t e term ‘beit midras kolel’ in t e words of R. Hasdai Crescas means studium generale, see (Harvey, Warren 2010), p. 128. Hence, it may be that the term ha-hakham ha-kolel means a sage learned in (medieval) scholarship at the university level. 104 MS Klagsbald, 47v: ‘To follow t e leader of t e believers, t e aut or of this book, Rabbi Joseph ben Saul Kim i, may his rock [=God] save him and give im life’. T e blessing implies that the book was copied while the author was still alive. 105 According to Tzipora Brody, Joseph ben Saul was rich and supported scholars. She speculated that Botaril sent his epistles to Joseph ben Saul in order to get financial aid. See (Brody 2007), p. 163. 106 The letter was published in (Ibn Virga 1855), pp. 128–130, and more recently in (Harvey, Warren 2010), pp. 23–24. 107 Harvey, ibid, pp. 22–23, speculates that the purpose of Crescas’ letter was to give the Jews of Avignon information about the pogroms for use of negotiation with the Papal Court to restrain the priests in Spain.

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM201 There is reason to think that Rabbi Joseph ben Saul was a relative of Rabbi Peres ha-Cohen, the known Spanish talmudist who was a colleague of Rabbi Nisim of Girona.108 From Botaril’s letters to Joseph ben Saul we can infer that he was acquainted wit ‘Sen Boniaq Nasi,’ (w ic apparently means Sen or ben Yishaq),109 w om Botaril described as ‘t e compre ensive sc olar ( a-hakham ha-kolel), the casuistic (ha-mefulpal)’ (Sussmann 1966), p. 324. It may be that Sen Boniaq was a teacher of Rabbi Jacob ben Moses of Bagnols.110 In this case, since Rabbi Jacob ben Moses was a recognized Rabbi in 1362,111 Sen Boniaq was probably one of the respectable, older scholars in Avignon at the time Botaril sent his letters. Another person who belonged to Joseph ben Saul’s circle is Maestro Bonit, as can be inferred from the fact that Botaril asked

108

See (Berlin 1861), p. 5r. The Nasiv quoted part of a lost commentary on Rav Ahay’s She’i tot, t at was written by ‘Josep ben Saul,’ w o may indeed be identified as the author of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim. The Nasiv speculated that he [Joseph ben Saul] lived at t e time of t e Ra“n and preceded im […] and in paragrap 26 e [Josep ben Saul] wrote: “my relative (s e’eri) t e Rabbi, Rabbi Peres.” The description of Joseph ben Saul’s commentary on the She’i tot by (Jellinek 1878), p. 21, is based upon the words of the Nas iv. 109 See (Sussmann 1966), p. 272, no. 6; cf. p. 295. 110 In one of Rabbi Jacob ben Moses of Bagnols’ treatises (MS London 551 [Or. 2705] [JNUL F63 2], 57v), we read: ‘T us wrote t e sage, my master, my teac er, Sen Boniaq Nasi.’ However, see (Roth 2012), p. 45, who argues that this paragraph was not written by R. Jacob ben Moses of Bagnols but by the scribe of the manuscript. 111 Rabbi Jacob ben Moses was a recognized Rabbi in Salon de-Provence in 1362, and afterwards he established a rabbinical school (yeshivah) in Anignon, as is proved in MS London 551 (Or. 2705) (JNUL F6382), 145r–v; 155r; 120r.

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Joseph ben Saul to s ow is letter to im. From Botaril’s description, Maestro Bonit was not only a scholar but also a physician.112 It seems that Joseph ben Saul wrote several books and treatises. In the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim he mentioned his book Sori ha-nefesh (The Balsam of the Soul).113 He apparently also wrote a commentary on Rav A ay’s She’i tot,114 and he intended to write a treatise on the enumeration of Jewish laws,115 a treatise that may be identified with the compilation Qol todah that was ascribed by Johannes Buxtorf (the son)—in is additions to is fat er’s Bibliotheca Rabbinica—to ‘R. Josep Moubner,’ t at is Josep ben Saul.116 Furthermore, in a bibliographical list that was made by Jacob ben Roman in the 17th century one can find, besides Commentary on She’i tot, Sori ha-nefesh, and Qol todah—all of which are ascribed to R. Joseph Moubner, also Sefer ha-zikaron, Keter shem-tov, and Nefesh adam, ascribed to the same author.117 The fate of Joseph ben Saul’s works was similar to t at of many of the Rabbinical compilations that were composed by JewSee (Sussmann 1966), p. 342. As was shown by Sussmann, ibid, p. 272, no. 7, a physician by that name lived at the beginning of the 15 th century in Perpignan. 113 MS Klagsbald, 1r. 114 See above, no. 108. 115 MS Klagsbald, 1v. 116 (Buxtorffi 1640), p. 459, and cf. p. 464. However, in the catalogue of the the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, a philosophical commentary on the voices of the Shofar is identified as the treatise Qol todah of R. Joseph ben Saul. The commentary is found in Ms. Jerusalem, The National Library of Israel, Ms. Heb. 28°2033 (JNUL B191), 10r–21r. If this identification is correct it seems that Qol todah is not the treatise on the enumeration of Jewish laws that R. Joseph ben Saul intended to write. An additional treatise that is ascribed to R. Joseph ben Saul in the catalogue of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, is found in Ms. Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense 3155 (JNUL F42), 6r–22v. 117 (Neubauer 1886–1887), pp. 5, 6, 8, 10, 11. Sussmann raised doubts concerning t e credibility of Roman’s bibliograp ical list, since Roman imself testified that he listed books that he did not see but rather just heard of. See (Sussmann 1966), p. 273, no. 9. On Johannes Buxtorf—the son and the father—see (Brisman 1977), pp. 3–8. On Jacob ben Roman see ibid p. 266, no. 20. 112

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM203 ish Provençal authorities—they were lost.118 If it were not for the single manuscript of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim, it would not have been possible for researchers and scholars to acquaint themselves with the interests and methods of this prolific author.

3. THE ENCYCLOPEDIC CHARACTER OF THE MEZUQQAQ

SHIV‘ATAYIM

The aim of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is to collect and organize the literary material that pertains to Maimonides’ rulings: Maimonides’ sources, their interpretation, and all other relevant material. In the conglomerate of sources that is embodied in the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim, there are also paragraphs from books that were lost or citations from sources in a different version then the version that is available to us.119 The Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim enables us, therefore, to reconstruct a certain part, even a significant one, of the Jewish literature that was available to a 14th-century Provençal scholar. Maimonides’ Mishneh torah is a code of Jewish law. Nevertheless, it contains not only Talmudic and legal rulings, but also a lot of philosophical-Aristotelian discussions that Maimonides saw fit to include in his legal Magnum Opus. Rabbi Joseph ben Saul treated the Aristotelian materials in the Mishneh torah in the same vein as e treated Maimonides’ Talmudic rulings. Hence t e Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim includes references, citations and paragraphs, not only from the rabbinical literature, but also from a very wide range of philosophical sources—Greek and Arabic sources (through Hebrew translations), and also genuine Hebrew materials. For example, while perusing the large pages of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim one can encounter astronomers like Ptolemy and al-Farghari, or philosophers like al-Farabi, Avicenna, al-Ghazali, Batalyausi and Aver118

On the predicament of the Provençal Rabbinical literature see (TaShma 2000), p. 160; (Ta-Shma 1993), p. 159, and especially (Halbertal 2000), pp. 217–222. 119 Sefer ha-shalman by Rabbi Gershom ben Shelomo, and Rabbi Jonathan ha-Cohen of Lunel’s responses to t e objections of Rabad to Maimonides’ Mishneh torah—are instances of lost material of which fragments can be found in the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim. Cf. (Ta-Shma 1993), p. 160; (Halbertal 2000), p. 146; (Reif 2005), pp. 61–67.

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roes. Jewish sages are cited almost in every paragraph. For example: Rabbi Abra am bar Hiya, Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah ha-Levi, Samuel ibn Tibbon, Jacob Anatoli, Levi ben Abraham, Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), and many others. In short, the first line of philosophers, scientists and thinkers of the Middle Ages—Jews and gentiles alike—found their way into the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim. Although sometimes Rabbi Joseph ben Saul offers his own novel insights to Maimonides’ sayings, one can treat t e Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim not as an individualistic compilation, but rather as an encyclopedia of rabbinical and philosophical sources. Indeed, Israel M. Ta-Shma characterized the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim as a ‘ uge encyclopedia.’120 We should however examine Ta-S ma’s c aracterization. What is an encyclopedic compilation? What are the qualities and traits of a medieval encyclopedia? The answer to this question is not decisive. Steven Harvey tried to describe the general characteristics of the medieval encyclopedia. According to Harvey: The medieval Western encyclopedia is a well-ordered, easy-touse, comprehensive account of already existing information (Harve, Steven 2000), pp. 5, 7, 9.

From this perspective the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim indeed can be considered as an encyclopedia. The interest of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is to give an ‘account of a ready existing information’— rabbinical information and philosophical alike. The gathering of the information in the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim can be certainly considered as ‘comprehensive’—to the limits of a 14th-century Hebrew scholar. And lastly, it seems that at least part of the reason that Joseph ben Saul chose to write on Maimonides’ Mishneh torah, was to organize the knowledge in an ‘easy to use, ogica order’. The gathering of the information and the usefulness of its organization is expressed in Joseph ben Saul’s desire to write is book following both the method of Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi (‘Rif’), who summarized the legal content of the Talmud in accordance with the order of the Talmudic tractates, and with the method of Maimoni120

(Ta-Shma 2000), p. 160, no. 29.

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM205 des who innovated a new and much more useful structure of Jewish law. Joseph ben Saul thus says in his introduction: I wish to follow the method of the Rif, of blessed memory, in one thing, and that is to mention the name of the Tannaites and Ammoraites and the exact reference in the Talmud, to bring the title of the tractate and the chapter and the laws that were analyzed in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Tosefta […] or ot er books like the Sifra and Sifrei and Mekhilta and Rabbah and Midrash azita and Pesiqta […] and in a different matter I wis to follow the method of Maimonides, of blessed memory, to elucidate the particulars of every commandment in itself. I will tell you, for example, when I would like to elucidate the Commandment of Prayer I will gather in one place all that was said by the Sages of blessed memory in the Sifrei and in the Mekhilta and in all the Talmud—the Babylonian and the Jerusalem—and the Tosefta, all the particulars of this commandment in total (MS Klagsbald, 1v).

Joseph ben Saul’s description of t e met od e endorsed in writing on ‘Prayer,’ seems more as a description of a met od to edit an encyclopedic entry on prayer, rather than a method to write an interpretative commentary on Maimonides’ rulings on prayer. In a way, then, we can say that the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is a kind of encyclopedia that was edited or formed as a commentary on Mishneh torah. Nevertheless, the gathering of the relevant sources around Maimonides’ rulings puts t ese rulings in a certain context and hence it functions as an interpretation of them. Moreover, in many instances Joseph ben Saul analyses Mamonides’ words in detail and it is also apparent that he introduced into his compilation not only material from the vast literature that was available to him, but also his own opinions—legal and philosophical ones. For example he rejected Maimonides’ stance against astrology and enumerated Talmudic texts that demonstrate the legitimacy of astrology from the Jewish perspective.121 The encyclopedic character of the MeSee MS Klagsbald, 23r–v. Joseph ben Saul’s inclination towards astrology aligns with the rationalistic and scientific stance of both Provençal 121

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zuqqaq shiv‘atayim must therefore be qualified. It is not an encyclopedia in the strict sense. It is an encyclopedic commentary on Maimonides.

4. SCARCITY OF BOOKS AS A SOURCE OF MOTIVATION FOR THE WRITING OF THE MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM The gathering of knowledge was not the only reason that motivated Joseph ben Saul to write his book. Among the reasons that motivated him, he enumerates also the fact that in his time knowledge and information were unavailable because people refrained from lending their books. He thus testified: And many are being stingy122 in our nation [they] do not wish to lend books to others, in order that they [=the others] will not know the rulings and laws. And they [=the stingy ones] take the credit of what the Ancients of blessed memory had done, for themselves (MS Klagsbald, 1v).

The wording of Joseph ben Saul implies that the concealment and hiding of books granted the owners of the books power and authority. This explains why the contemporaries of Joseph ben Saul refrained from lending their books. If everyone would know the rulings and the laws, what would be their advantage? Furthermore, according to Joseph ben Saul, hiding of knowledge enables plagiarism. The owners of books in his time attributed to themselves the knowledge that actually belonged to previous scholars. The consequence of concealment of books is the inability of the public, and of scholars, to authenticate knowledge. When there is no access to the sources of the knowledge, there is no way to determine if it is genuine, who is its discoverer, or who decided it. and non Provençal scholars of his time. On the place of astrology in medieval Jewish thought see (Schwartz 1999). 122 T e Hebrew is: meqan’im, w ic can also mean: jealous (t ey are jealous in the knowledge and literature of others and refrain from lending their books), or it may mean: zealous (zealous of preserving their books and hence they do not lend them). However, it seems that the most appropriate translation in context is the one that is offered above.

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM207 Indeed, the efficient solution for the problem of the unavailability of books in the Middle Ages was later the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, but until then Rabbis had to solicit, in varied ways, the members of their Jewish community to lend their books to scholars and students in order to enable wide education and scholarship.123 Apparently, Joseph ben Saul thought that an encyclopedia (or encyclopedic commentary on Mishneh torah) of philosophy and Jewish law would help to solve the problem. Popular knowledge in an encyclopedic style encourages literary and historical criticism and increases the credibility and reliability of prevailing knowledge. Hence, Joseph ben Saul had an agenda of publicizing knowledge. If we remember the high prices of books in the Middle Ages,124 and that only those who were financially wellestablished could afford to purchase books, we might add that Joseph ben Saul had also an implicit social agenda—to break the monopoly over knowledge, by making it public. In this context the figure and writings of Joseph ben Saul’s correspondent and colleague—Rabbi Moses Botaril, should also be considered. Botaril’s works contain a uge and very impressive bibliography. He cited all sorts of authors and treatises, many of which are totally unknown. His commentary on Sefer Yesirah (Book of Creation) for example, is full of unknown sages and titles. In a way, Botaril’s writings give t e reader t e impression t at t ey are based upon unavailable, but still very convincing, writings, or in other words, as if they are supported by unusual, mysterious, and unknown sources. As a matter of fact, researchers and historians, among them Gershom Scholem, Simhah Assaf and Yaacov Sussmann, have demonstrated that Botaril was nothing but a deceiver. Many of the titles and authors that he cites are forgeries, and invenOn the topic of lending books in medieval Jewish society see (Assaf 1943), pp. 3–6; (Habermann 1945), pp. 13–15; (Yaari 1958), pp. 181–183; (Baruchson-Arbib 1993), pp. 50–51. Public libraries could have been very useful in making knowledge available to scholars and students. However, the question of whether Jewish public libraries existed in the Middle Ages is under debate by historians. See (Beit-Arié 2006); (Hacker 2010). 124 On the high prices of book in the Middle Ages see (Baruchson-Arbib 1993), pp. 45–67. 123

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tions of his imagination.125 Nevertheless, it is obvious that according to Botaril, and probably also according to his contemporary readers, a serious work must contain a significant bulk of references to a long list of titles, and if the works that are cited are unavailable to anyone except the author—his book is even more prestigious.126 It is reasonable to assume that the forgeries of Botaril and the plagiarism of Joseph ben Saul’s contemporaries were able to be successful due to the scarcity of books. When the public can not c eck an aut or’s sources one can write almost anything one wants, and cite from, or refer to, materials that do not exist. In a way then the dozens of citations and references that are found both in Botaril’s works and in t e Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim, are connected to the same historical circumstances—the unavailability and scarcity of books. Botaril took advantage of these problematic circumstances while Joseph ben Saul tried to correct them, or at least to overcome them.

5. JOSEPH BEN SAUL’S INTERPRETATIONS TO MAIMONIDES’ PHILOSOPHICAL RULINGS Let us analyze some examples of the contents and methods of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim, all of which are taken from the commentary on the first book of Mishneh torah—The Book of Knowledge. An example of the encyclopedic character of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim can be given from the commentary on the second set of laws in The Book of Knowledge—Laws of Ethical Traits. In the fourth chapter of this set of laws Maimonides gives medical instructions to his readers, in order that they will be physically healthy to serve See (Scholem 1963), pp. 259–261; (Assaf 1955), p. 326; (Sussmann 1966), pp. 277–295. For additional bibliography cf. (Brody 2007), p. 162, no. 29. 126 Interesting to note that in the beginning of Don Quixote, Cervantes makes fun of the authors who try to show their wisdom by filling their books with references to all sorts of exclusive literature. It seems that the notion that the quality of a book should be evaluated by looking at the amount and variety of its references, influenced the literary style both of the 17th century—the time of Cervantes, and that of the 14th century— the time of Botaril. 125

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM209 God. These medical instructions gave Joseph ben Saul an opportunity to cite a long paragraph from the Secretum Secretorum—The Secret of Secrets. The Secretum Secretorum was probably composed in Arabic in the 10th century, titled Sirr al-asrār, but in the Middle Ages it was thought to be an authentic letter that was sent by Aristotle to his student—Alexander the Great. In t e letter, “Aristotle” gives his student advice and instruction regarding politics, ethics, and many other fields, and also in personal medicine and hygiene—all of which is needed in order to be a good and successful king. In his commentary Joseph ben Saul quotes from the Hebrew version of the Secretum Secretorum, with several deviations (some of which have textual significance) from the Hebrew version that was published by Moses Gaster.127 It is interesting to note that among the sources of Laws of Ethical Traits the Secretum Secretorum does not bear any apparent significance. Indeed, it is clear that the long paragraph that was cited in the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim from that treatise does not play an explicit role of interpreting Maimonides. It just deals with the same topics that Maimonides dealt with. This is a clear case of encyclopedic writing that gathers literary material appertaining to Maimonides’ rulings. There are, however, instances in which Joseph ben Saul not only gathered relevant material about the rulings of Maimonides, but he also interpreted Maimonides through these sources. Let us give two examples for this method, from which we can also extrapolate Joseph ben Saul’s own opinions. The first set of laws in The Book of Knowledge is Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, in which Maimonides summarized in a very concise style Aristotle’s metap ysics, astronomy, and physics. According to Maimonides, these teachings are the theoretical basis of Jewish law, and hence, they should be included in his legal code. In the first chapter, paragraph 3, Maimonides says:

See (Gaster 1907), Heb. section, p. 27. The Hebrew translation of the Sirr al-asrār is sometimes attributed to Rabbi Judah al-Harizi. However, this attribution should be refuted. The translation is anonymous and it was done probably at the end of the 13th century or early 14th. See (Spitzer 1982), pp. 35–36. 127

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM If, however, it were supposed that all other beings were nonexistent, He [=God] alone still exists. Their non-existence would not involve His non-existence. For all beings are in need of Him, but He, blessed be He, is not in need of them nor of any of them (Hyamson 1937), p. 34a.

Apparently, this paragraph should be explained through the teaching of Avicenna who distinguished between the universe (i.e. the realm of physical of objects and of the sepatate intellects) and God. According to Avicenna the existence of the universe is conditional and hence it is contingent: if its cause exists—it exists, and if not—t e w ole universe does not exist. God’s existence, on t e other hand, is not conditional. It is a necessary existence.128 This course of explanation can be found in the anonymous commentary on Laws of the Foundations of the Torah.129 Joseph ben Saul however interpreted this passage differently, by citing a paragraph from the 11th century treatise Kitāb a -hada’iq that was translated to Hebrew as ‘Agu ot ra‘ayoniyot. Thus Joseph ben Saul says: And so wrote Abū-Hāmid [al-Batalyausi] in the book ‘Agu ot ra‘ayoniyot, and t ese are is words: “For just as t e ‘one’ is t e cause for the existence of the number and it is not a number, so the Creator, may He be exalted, is the cause for the existence of t e world and He is not a part of t e world. And if t e ‘one’ was to depart and vanish, the numbers were to depart and vanish, so the Creator, may He be exalted, if it will be imagined that He will depart and vanish, there would not be anything in existence. And if all the numbers would vanish, it would not 128

For an analysis of the distinction between necessary and possible existence in Avicenna’s works see (Hourani 1972). Maimonides endorsed Avicenna’s distinction explicitly in The Guide of the Perplexed, 1, 57; introduction to the 2nd part, premises 19, 20. 129 See the anonymous commentary on Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, 1, 1 s.v. ve- odi‘anu; 1, 3 s.v. lefik ak . T e aut or of t e commentary may be identified with the commentator on Laws of Sanctification of the Month—Rabbi ‘Ovadya ben David. See (Boym 1990).

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM211 necessitate t e absence of t e ‘one’, so if all existent t ings were absent, it would not necessitate the absence of the Creator, may 130 He be exalted” (MS Klagsbald, 5r).

Interpreting Maimonides by quoting the ‘Agu ot ra‘ayoniyot shed deep Neoplatonic light on the Avecinnean-Maimonidean distinction between God and the universe. Indeed, Joseph ben Saul had a distinctive inclination towards Neoplatonism, a fact that aligns him with known trends in the Jewish philosophical realm in Spain.131 This Neoplatonic inclination can be demonstrated from Joseph ben Saul’s commentary on paragraph 5 of the first chapter of the Laws of the Foundation of the Torah. In this paragraph Maimonides rules according to the Aristotelian idea that God is the unmovable mover of the orbs—the astronomical spheres. However, the question if God is the mover of the supreme orb and hence He is indeed the proximate cause for t e revolution of all orbs, or w et er He is t e “necessary existence” t at is elevated from t e metap ysical and astronomical mechanism and not t e proximate cause of t e orb’s spin, was in debate between Avicenna and Avorroes.132 In accordance with his Neoplatonic approach, Joseph ben Saul held the second option, t at of Avicenna. He t us commented on Maimonides’ ruling: And here there is a place to speculate. For all the great philosophers agreed that God, may He be exalted, is not the mover of the orb. And so wrote Aristotle, that from the one there will 133 not be but one. And based on t is notion, Abū-Nāsir [alFarabi] and Avicenna elucidated that it is a profanity [to say] that God, may He be exalted, is the mover of the orb without a 130

The quotation in the paragraph is from the translation of Moses ibn Tibbon. See (Kaufmann 1880), Hebrew section, p. 33. 131 On this Neoplatonic trend see (Schwartz 1996). 132 See (Hyman & Walsh 1983), p. 294. Maimonides is not decisive regarding the issue. See (Pines 1963), pp. cxiii–cxv; (Harvey, Warren 1997), pp. 150–151. 133 On this Neoplatonic principle and its applications in medieval philosophy see (Hyman 1992).

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM mean.134 And indeed Averroes admitted this at the end of his life. And also Maimonides wrote thus in the second part, chapter 2,135 of The Guide of the Perplexed. Indeed, we can interpret that the Separate Intellect that moves the orb receives its power from God, may He be exalted, and for that reason he [=Maimonides] attributed this power [=the power to revolve the orb] to Him (MS Klagsbald, 5v).

The summary of the philosophic opinions serve Joseph ben Saul here as a background for interpreting Maimonides with accordance to Avicenna’s stance.136

6. POPULARIZATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE AND THE BREAKING OF ESOTERICISM Through different methods of gathering sources and teachings Joseph ben Saul tried to solve the problem of the unwillingness of book owners to lend them. Essentially he intended to solve the obstacle of the scarcity of books by popularizing knowledge. However, popularization of philosophical-Aristotelian knowledge has its price. The price is breaking the restrictions of esotericism. Jewish tradition, as well as the Aristotelian one, emphasized that there is a realm of knowledge that must be contained. It must be treated as an esoteric knowledge, meaning knowledge that is known only to a few, and not to every scholar, not to mention the general public. Maimonides absorbed these two traditions, combined them, and

‘Profanity’—probably due to the opinion that if God is the proximate mover of the sphere He is, in a way, a part of the universe. 135 The correct reference is to The Guide of the Perplexed, part 2, chapter 4. 136 A unique piece of information in Joseph ben Saul’s summary is t at Averroes imself endorsed Avicenna’s metap ysical teac ing in is old age. The explanation of this uncommon approach can be that although Joseph ben Saul gave primacy to the Neoplatonic world view of Avicenna he still considered Averroes as a philosophical authority of which its approval to Avicenna’s metap ysics is needed. 134

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM213 ruled as a halakhic law, that the Aristotelian philosophy (or at least certain parts of it) must be kept as an esoteric knowledge.137 The Maimonidean restrictions of esotericism are connected to the famous controversy over the legitimacy of philosophy that took place in Provence and in Spain in the early 14th century. The controversy concluded with a ban that was issued by Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Adret (Rashba) from Barcelona, in 1305, against the study of philosophy. As was demonstrated in recent research, the controversy was not between rabbinical scholars who rejected Aristotle’s teac ings, and t e ‘enlig tened’ Aristotelian sc olars. T e debate was, rather, between the Provençal Aristotelian philosophers who argued that it was appropriate to teach philosophy publicly, and their colleagues, who followed a more Maimonidean teaching, thinking that Aristotelian homilies in Synagogues, and books that make philosophy available to all, are dangerous and consequently forbidden. The scholar, who was persecuted in the polemics by the so called ‘objectors of p ilosop y,’ was t e Provençal scholar Rabbi Levi ben Abraham of Villefranche. Levi ben Abraham was not just a scapegoat. Something in his works was seen to the esoterians— those who thought that philosophy should not be publicized—as a very serious transgression. Levi ben Abraham was the author of a huge book called Livyat hen (The Companion of Grace). The book is a comprehensive encyclopedia of Aristotelian science and philosophy, and also of allegorical-philosophical interpretations to Jewish sources—Scripture’s verses and Talmudic paragrap s alike. Warren Z. Harvey, in his analysis of the Livyat hen, claimed that by rendering philosophy in an encyclopedic style, Levi ben Abraham made philosophy a popular knowledge—like Socrates in his time. And like Socrates in his time, Levi was persecuted because of this popularization.138 The Livyat hen and the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim have several points of similarities. The most significant points are the encyclopedic See Mishneh torah, Laws of Foundations of the Torah, 2, 12; 4, 13; cf. (Klein-Breslavi 1996), pp. 15–38. 138 (Harvey, Warren 2000), p.179, 188, but cf. also ibid. p. 183. on Levi ben Abraham and his works cf. (Kreisel 2007), introduction, pp. 13–80. 137

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style of the two books, and the way both of them address the public as a whole, with their philosophical teachings. The encyclopedic and public style of the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is of significance for the history of Jewish philosophy in Provence. What caused a social debate and ideological controversy at the beginning of the 14th century was, at the end of that century, a practice that a rabbinical authority could follow. Philosophy and the principles of its study changed their character in Provence during the 14th century. Esotericism was no longer an issue under discussion. Philosophy had gone public,139 and the Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim is an illuminating representation of that trend.

REFERENCES [1] Assaf, Sim a, ‘‘Am a-sefer ve-ha-sefer’, idem, Be’oho ei ya‘akov: Essays on the Cultural life of the Jews in the Middle Ages. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1943), pp. 1–26. [2] _____. Tequfat ha-geonim ve-sifrutah (Jerusalem, 1955). [3] Baruchson-Arbib, Shifra, Books and Readers: The Reading Interests of Italian Jews at the Close of the Renaissance. Hebrew (Ramat Gan, 1993). [4] Beit-Arié, Malac i, ‘T e Private Nature of t e Hebrew Medieval Book Production and Consumption’, Y. Kaplan and M. Sluhovsky (eds.), Libraries and Book Collections. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 2006), pp. 91–103. [5] Benedikt, Binyamin Z., Merkaz ha-torah bi-provans: asupat ma’amarim (Jerusalem, 1985). [6] Ben S alom, Ram, ‘Yishaq Natan “Me’or galutenu”: hanhagah, pulmus vi-yesirah inteleqtu‘alit be-merkaz hayeha shel yahadut provans ba-me‘a a-15”, M.A. dissertation (Tel-Aviv University, 1989). [7] Berlin, Rabbi Naftaly Svi Ye uda (NaSiv), Petah ha-‘emeq (Vilna, 1861). [ ] Berman, Lawrence V., ‘Greek into Hebrew: Samuel ben Judah of Marseilles, Fourteenth-Century Philosopher and Transla-

139

Cf. (Kreisel 2006), pp. 165–183.

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM215 tor’, A. Altmann (ed.), Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 289–320. [9] Bloy, Rabbi Moshe, Pirush ‘a masekhet yevamot e-rabenu Abraham min ha-har (New York, 1962). [10] Boym, Ye iel, ‘Le-zihuy ha-mefaresh le-hil[khot] yesode ha-tora ’, Sefunot, 2, 1990, p. 109. [11] Brisman, Shimeon, A History and Guide to Judaic Bibliography, volume one of Jewish Research Literature (Cincinnati-New York, 1977). [12] Brody, Tzipora, ‘Rabbi Moses Botarel: His Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah and t e Image of Abu A aron’ (Hebrew), J. Dan (ed.), Gershom Scholem (1897–1982): In Memoriam (=Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, 20), (Jerusalem, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 159-206. [13] Buxtorffi, Johannis, de Abbreviaturis Hebraicis (Basileae, 1640). [14] Einbider, Susan L., No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (Philadelphia, 2009). [15] _____. ‘T eory and Practice: A Jewis P ysician in Paris and Avignon’, AJS Review, 33 (2009), pp. 135–153. [16] Gaster, Moses, The Hebrew Version of the Secretum Secretorum: A Medieval Treatise Ascribed to Aristotle (London, 1907). [17] Gross, Henri, Gallia Judaica (Amsterdam, 1969). [1 ] Habermann, Abra am M., ‘Ha-sefer ha-‘ivri qodem matan torat ha-defus’, idem, Toldot ha-sefer ha-‘ivri (Jerusalem, 1945), pp. 9–20. [19] Hacker, Josep R., ‘Public Libraries of Hispanic Jewry in the Late Medieval and Early-Modern Period’, idem et al. (eds.), From Sages to Savants: Studies Presented to Avraham Grossman. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 263–292. [20] Halbertal, Moshe, Between Torah and Wisdom: Rabbi Menchem ha-Meiri and the Maimonidean Halakhists in Provence. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 2000). [21] Harvey, Steven, ‘Arabic into Hebrew: T e Hebrew Translation Movement and the Influence of Averroes upon Medieval Jewis T oug t’, D. H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 258– 280. [22] _____. ‘Introduction’, idem, (ed.) The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (The Netherlands, 2000), pp. 1–28.

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[23] Harvey, Warren Z., ‘Levi Ben Abra am of Villefranc e’s Controversial Encyclopedia’, in S. Harvey (ed.), The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (The Netherlands, 2000), pp. 171–188. [24] _____. ‘Maimonides’ First Commandment, P ysics, and Doubt’, in Y. Elman and J. S. Gurock (eds.), Hazon Nahum (New York, 1997), pp. 149–162. [25] _____. Rabbi Hisdai Crescas. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 2010). [26] Hourani, George, ‘Ibn Sīnā on Necessary and Possible Existence’, Philosophical Forum, 4, 1972, pp. 74–86. [27] Hyamson, Moses, The Mishneh Torah by Maimonides, Book 1, (New York, 1937). [28] Hyman, Arthur, & James J. Walsh (eds.), Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Indianapolis 1983. [29] Hyman, Art ur, ‘From W at is One and Simple Only W at is One and Simple Can Come to Be’, Lenn E. Goodman (ed.), Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought (Albany, 1992), pp. 111–135. [30] Ibn Virga, Rabbi Shelomo, Sefer Shevet Yehudah (Hanover, 1855). [31] Jellinek, Aaron, untres ha-magid (Vienna, 1878). [32] Kaufmann, David, Die spuren al-Batlajusi’s in der Jüdischen religions-philosophie (=Jahresbericht der landes-Rabbinerschule in Budapest, vol. 3), (Budapest, 1880). [33] Klein-Breslavi, Sara, King Solomon and Philosophical Esotericism in the Thought of Maimonides. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1996). [34] Kreisel, Howard, “Esotericism to Exotericism: From Maimonides to Gersonides,” idem, (ed.), Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought (Beer Sheva, 2006), pp. 165–183. [35] _____. Levi ben Avraham, Livyat en: The Quality of Prophecy and the Secrets of the Torah. Hebrew (Beer Sheva, 2007). [36] Neubauer, A., ‘Jacob ben Roman’s Buc erverzeic niss’, Israelitische Letterbode, 12, 1886–1887, pp. 1–13. [37] Pines, S lomo, ‘Translator’s Introduction’, in Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, translated by Shlomo Pines (Chicago, 1963). [3 ] Ravitsky, Aviram, ‘Philosophical Aspects of a Late Fourteenth-Century Commentary on the Mishneh Torah: A Chapter in the History of the Jews of Provence’ (Hebrew), Daat, 50, 2013, (in press)

JOSEPH BEN SAUL KIMHI AND HIS MEZUQQAQ SHIV‘ATAYIM217 [39] Reif, Eliezer, ‘Sefer Mezuqqaq shiv‘atayim le-Rabbi Yosef ben S aul: aqdamat a-sefer u-miv ar qeta‘im’, Z. Haver (ed.), Maimonidean Studies to Mark the 800th Anniversary of the Death of Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon (=Me‘a iyot, 25). Hebrew (Ma‘ale Adumim, 2005), pp. 37–67. [40] Roth, Pinchas, ‘Later Provençal Sages—Jewish Law (Halakhah) and Rabbis in Southern France, 1215-134 ’, P .D. dissertation (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012). [41] Sc olem, Gers om, ‘Has t e Legacy been Discovered of Mystic Writings Left by Abu Aaron of Bag dad?’ (Hebrew), Tarbiz, 32, 1963, pp. 252–265. [42] Schwartz, Dov, Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought. Hebrew (Ramat Gan, 1999). [43] _____. Commentary on the Kuzari—Heshek Shelomo—by R. Shelomo ben Yehuda of Lunel. Hebrew (Ramat Gan, 2007). [44] _____. The Philosophy of a Fourteenth Century Jewish Neoplatonic Circle. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1996). [45] Spitzer, Amitai I., ‘T e Hebrew Translation of t e Sod Ha-Sodot and its Place in the Transmission of the Sirr al-Asrār’, in W. F. Ryan and Ch. B. Schmitt (eds.), Pseudo Aristotle: The Secret of Secrets, Sources and Influence (London, 1982), pp. 34–54. [46] Stern, Gregg, ‘P ilosop ic Allegory in Medieval Jewis Culture: The Crisis in Languedoc (1304–6)’, J. W itman (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000), pp. 189–209. [47] _____. ‘P ilosop y in Sout ern France: Controversy over Philosophic Study and the Influence of Averroes upon Jewish T oug t,’ D. H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 281–303. [4 ] Sussmann, Yaacov, ‘S ene quntresim ba-halakhah me’et Rabbi Mos e Botaril’, Kobez Al Yad: Minora Manuscripta Hebraica, 16 (n.s. 6), 1966, pp. 271–342. [49] Ta-Shma, Israel M., Rabi erahyah ha-Levi ba‘a ha-ma’or uvene hugo: le-toldot ha-sifrut ha-rabanit bi-provans (Jerusalem, 1993). [50] _____. Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa: Literary History, part 2. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 2000). [51] Twersky, Isadore, ‘Aspects of t e Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry’, Journal of World History, 11 (1968), pp. 185–207 (= idem, Studies in Jewish Law and Philosophy (New York, 1982), pp. 180–202).

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[52] Yaari, Abra am, ‘Has ’alat sefarim’, idem, Studies in Hebrew Booklore. Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1958), pp. 179–197.

ETHICAL RELIGION OR POLITICAL RELIGION? ON THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN TWO MODELS OF AMENDED RELIGION IN SPINOZA’S THEOLOGICAL-

POLITICAL TREATISE YUVAL JOBANI

TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY, ISRAEL [email protected] ABSTRACT In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza carries out one of the boldest and most comprehensive attacks in modern philosophy on the traditional religion. But Spinoza did not wish to destroy the existing religion, but merely to reform it in the model of an amended religion. For in his opinion, only an amended religion can assure the stability of society, in that it alone can guide the irrational masses to adopt norms of behavior consistent with rationality. However, the basic characteristics and organizing principles of the amended religion proposed by Spinoza as a substitute for the existing religion are veiled. For in addition to the esoteric style of the Theological-Political Treatise,140 Spinoza devoted the bulk of the Treatise to a poignant critique of

140

All quotations and citations of this work are taken from [29]; henceforth: the Treatise; the bracketed figures refer to t e pages of Geb ardt’s edition, Spinoza Opera [27].

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM existing religion, without offering a thematic and ordered discussion outlining his model of amended religion Contrary to the common reading of the Treatise, my central argument will be that in the Treatise Spinoza presents, if only implicitly, two different and contradictory models of amended religion. In the first part of the Treatise (Chapters 1–15), he presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the ethical, wherein obedience to God is reduced to obedience to the laws of morality. In the second part of the Treatise (Chapters 16–20), however, Spinoza presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the political, wherein obedience to God is reduced to obedience to political law. My discussion will focus on the study of the far-reaching consequences of this deep-seated contradiction between the two models of amended religion that Spinoza offers in the Treatise.

1. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM THAT LED SPINOZA TO WRITE THE THEOLOGICAL-POLITICAL TREATISE In the autumn of 1665, after the first draft of the Ethics had already been sent to his philosopher friends in Amsterdam, Spinoza decided to interrupt the writing of his opus magnum in order to deal with a problem that was troubling him. This problem was not an ontological or epistemological problem of the kind that Spinoza deliberates in a large part of his work. Rather, it was an existential problem in the most basic and primary sense of the word: how is the philosopher (in this case Spinoza himself, who saw the liberal regime of De Witt collapsing before his eyes) to assure his own personal safety and freedom to philosophize in a society in which religion occupied a central place?141 141

Even if Spinoza was troubled by other problems when he set out to write the Treatise, the central issue he wished to confront was that of philosophical freedom. The other problems mentioned by Spinoza in Letter 30, to Henry Oldenburg, are accusations of heresy by the masses and the

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Spinoza’s problem as plagued Western p ilosophy since its earliest days. During the second half of the fifth century BCE, Anaxagoras and Protagoras were expelled from Athens in the wake of accusations of heresy against the accepted religion; Socrates was put to death for the same reason, coupled with charges of corrupting youth. In practice, when Plato set out to write The Republic (Politeía) he was troubled by a similar problem: how is one to establish a state that will not execute its philosophers as Athens executed Socrates? Plato’s solution was a radical one: in order for the state not to harm the lives and speculative freedom of philosophers, the latter must be the rulers of the state. But Plato’s solution of t e p ilosopher-king was subjected to a barrage of realistic contempt on the part of Spinoza, who proposes a new solution to this old problem.142 Spinoza thought that, given that the stability of the state is a necessary condition both for the personal security of the philosopher and for his freedom of thought, and as this stability cannot be taking root of prejudices among potential philosophers; see [30], pp. 185– 186. But these issues were secondary to that of philosophical freedom, for two reasons: First, because Spinoza himself, in presenting the purpose of the work on the title page of the Treatise, only relates to the matter of philosophical freedom and not to the other two problems. Second—and this is the primary reason—because only the theological-political issue, which is an offshoot of that of philosophical freedom, overlaps the discussion in the Treatise in its entirety, as we shall demonstrate below. 142 In the Treatise, Spinoza mocks the Platonic political aspirations of such medieval philosophers as Maimonides (ibid., p. 114 [114]). To quote Pines: Apparently he [Spinoza] considers philosophers of this kind as megalomaniacs whose dreams of grandeur could not in the nature of things materialize; an impossibility which he evidently did not deplore. As against this, organized superstition was an indubitable reality; Spinoza was its opponent, but it aroused in him an incomparably greater interest than Platonizing political doctrines [20], pp. 12–13.

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attained until the conflict between the institutions of religion and those of the state is resolved, his first obligation was to deal with the theological-political problem. Hence he devotes an entire philosophical work, the Theological-Political Treatise, to discussing the ageold conflict between religion and politics that imposes its shadow upon philosophers and philosophy.143 The conflict between religion and politics is a result of their respective demands for supremacy. Religion’s claim for supremacy is based upon the Divine source of its authority, whereas the state apprehends its own supremacy as a factual and conceptual matter. Just as an object cannot be considered a chair if it is not intended for sitting, similarly a social institution cannot be considered a political entity if it does not demand supremacy for itself and if it is unable to realize it.144 But the conflict between religion and politics is not merely a conceptual matter; it is also, and primarily, a result of the long and convoluted relationship between the two. Hence the resolution of the conflict between religion and politics must be based, not only upon a theoretical analysis but also, and primarily, upon an investigation of the concrete roots of the conflict between them. Spinoza offers such an investigation in the context of what might be called his genealogy of religion.

2. SPINOZA’S GENEALOGY OF RELIGION At the beginning of the introduction to the Treatise, Spinoza presents a kind of genealogy of religion (Treatise, pp. 3–8 [5–9]), in which he seeks to uncover the psycho-philosophical roots of the

143

To a certain extent, as argued by Smith, the entire history of politics and political philosophy in the West has been concerned with attempts to resolve the theological-political problem. See [26], p. 2. One of the first Western philosophers to undertake a philosophical critique of religion was Epicurus, who enjoyed the rare appreciation of Spinoza. See Letter 56, to Boxel, in [30], pp. 276–279. See also [31], pp. 152–153. 144 Spinoza relies upon this approach when he refers to the political authority by the term summas potestates. See, for example, the heading of Chapter 19 of the Treatise, p. 238 [228]

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religious phenomenon by means of a four-stage model reflecting the human attempt to achieve stability. 2.1. The Feeling of Instability Confronting Nature In the first stage of the genealogy, Spinoza portrays man’s oscillation between fear and hope as an expression of his existential situation (Treatise, pp. 3–5 [5–6]). This oscillation is a consequence of his ignorance of the causality that dominates nature. This ignorance prevents man from harnessing nature to his own ends and imbues him with a feeling of instability and fear that intensifies in proportion to his false expectations from nature. As we shall see below, most of man’s attempt to free imself from this feeling of instability end in its further exacerbation. 2.2. Oscillation Between Superstitions In the second stage, Spinoza states that the existential fear described in the first stage creates, maintains and cultivates superstition, which is no more than a network of imaginary causality that man imposes upon nature in order to attain a feeling of security and to dispel his fears. According to Spinoza, “everyone is naturally prone to superstition”;145 hence, an examination of superstition is essential for the understanding of human nature. In practice, since the realm of superstition is that within which philosophy is conducted in the Treatise, one might say that in the Treatise Spinoza proposes a philosophy of superstition. The non-philosopher cannot live without superstition, which derives from t e very nature of man’s situation in t e world as a limited creature who attempts to transcend his limitations. The more human beings fail in their attempts to achieve their goals, the more they are overcome by fear. The greater the fear that leads to superstition, the greater the falsehood involved in the supersti145

Treatise, p. 5 [6] (translation slightly modified). This statement is problematic with regard to the philosopher. Even if he does not always live a philosophical life, the philosopher does not revert to superstition, but is only drawn by his affects. See Ethics VP20S, in [32], pp. 605–606.

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tion—that is to say, the greater its distance from reason. This distance from reason in turn breeds a variety of superstitions at whose basis lies the claim of the existence of a God who acts toward human beings in accordance with a fixed lawfulness of reward and punishment. In other words, according to the Treatise, superstition is none other than the fabrication of a concept of God intended to provide human beings with the feeling of stability for which they long.146 This feeling of stability derives from recognition of the fixed lawfulness t at governs God’s relation to uman beings, and includes two factors that present human beings with a clear accounting of “t e rules of t e game and its limitations.” The first of these is the ability to maneuver (for example: in order to free oneself of A or to attain B one needs to do C), while the second is the recognition of limitations (for example: it is impossible to attain D and E simultaneously). To live under the shadow of superstition means to enjoy a certain kind of stability. However, being false by its very nature, a creation of human illusion, superstition ultimately disappoints those who attach themselves to it. In the hope of improving their situation, the masses exchange a superstition that has disappointed for a new one that will disappoint in the future—and so the cycle continues. In this way the feeling of instability returns: fear of nature is replaced by the feeling of fear arising from the illusion imposed by man upon nature. The person who flees from the fear imposed upon him by nature into the bosom of superstition shall ultimately be filled with an even greater fear. 2.3. The Establishment of Religion Spinoza presents the establishment of religion as a result of man’s attempt to extract imself from t e vacillation among t e various superstitions described in the previous stage of the geneal146

By contrast, from the viewpoint of the Ethics, one would say that superstition is a distortion of the true concept of God. And indeed, the Appendix of the First Part of the Ethics is devoted to an analysis of the falsehood involved in the popular concept of God.

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ogy. The following passage, in my opinion, summarizes Spinoza’s entire understanding of religion as given in the Treatise in capsule form: … it is easy for people to be captivated by a superstition (superstitio), but difficult to ensure t at t ey remain loyal to it … Such instability of mind has been the cause of many riots and ferocious wars … “not ing governs t e multitude as effectively as superstition” ( uintus Curtius, History of Alexander, 4.10). Hence people are easily led, under pretence of religion, sometimes to adore their kings as gods and at other times to curse them and detest them as the universal scourge of mankind. To cope with this difficulty, a great deal of effort has been devoted to adorning religion (religio), whether true or false, with pomp and ceremony, so that everyone would find it more impressive than anything else and observe it zealously with the highest degree of fidelity (Treatise, p. 5 [6–7]).

The emotional instability and inner conflict characteristic of the stage of vacillation among various superstitions (Stage 2) eventually extends itself outwards into the political realm. The masses, gripped with fear and incited by corrupt manipulators, construct political entities and destroy them. In order to suppress this instability in the public realm, which is no more than an externalization of instability in the private realm, fixed cults and rituals are created for the superstitions, designed to impress them upon the soul of the masses so as to assure the stability of society. It is important to note here that Spinoza draws a clear and principled distinction between superstition (superstitio) and religion (religio). The former challenges the stability of society, while the latter is directed towards assuring that stability. 2.4. The Deterioration of Religion into Superstition In the concluding stage of the genealogy, Spinoza portrays the relapse of religion into superstition (Treatise, pp. 7–8 [8–9]), which culminates in religion losing its capability to assure the stability of

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society. The motif of relapse is an explicitly medieval one.147 But, in principle, Spinoza does not use it in order to provide a historical rendering of the human condition,148 but rather to advance his own conception of religion as a political project, by presenting his conception as the primary and original conception of religion.149 Spinoza attributes religion’s inability to assure t e stability of society—that is, the loss of its essential nature—to the institutionalization of religion as an independent entity. Religious corruption is only the tip of the iceberg of this process. Since the essence of religion lies in its stabilizing the political realm, it is by its very nature a dependent entity, based upon the creation of stability in the political sphere. The moment that religion becomes institutionalized as an independent entity, demanding for itself an independent sphere within the political realm—that is the moment at which religion begins to relapse into superstition.150 The establishment of religion as an independent entity transforms it from a stabilizing factor in society to a destabilizing one. The religious establishment challenges the stability of society on two levels. The first of these is that which drives a wedge between the religious establishment and all other realms, primarily the political and the philosophical. A second line of confrontation is that which passes through the religious establishment itself in which, as 147

Maimonides also represents idolatry as the result of degeneration. See Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim ve-hukoteihem, Ch. 1. For a discussion, see [8], pp. 42–45. 148 On Spinoza’s reservations regarding t e p ilosop y of history, see [2], p. 145. On the significance of historical criticism of Scripture in the Treatise and the relationship between it and Spinoza’s conception of istory in the Ethics, see [26], pp. 57–58. 149 Regarding this matter, Spinoza follows not only Maimonides, as shown by Pines [20], pp. 8–13, but also Hobbes, as argued by Halbertal. See [9], p. 138. For a comparison between Spinoza’s political t eology in t e Treatise and that of Hobbes in Leviathan, see [14], pp. 80–84. 150 On the establishment of religion as an autonomous entity and its encroachment upon the politic sphere in the ancient Hebrew state, Spinoza writes t at “as a result, religion degenerated into fatal superstition…” (Treatise, p. 231 [222]). It is important to note here as well the principled distinction drawn by Spinoza between superstition and religion.

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a result of the tremendous power channeled into the religious establishment, personal struggles transform it into a perpetual focus of instability.

3. SPINOZA’S DEFINITION OF RELIGION AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN EXISTING RELIGION AND AMENDED RELIGION Spinoza does not define religion in the Treatise but, from his genealogy of religion as presented in the previous section, one may derive the following definition: Religion is nothing but a false belief, a superstition, distorting the real concept of God for the purpose of achieving social stability.151 The core of religion is thus the creation, preservation and cultivation of stability, which is also the ultimate goal of politics.152 Religion, according to the Treatise, is thus distinct

151

The project of amending existing religion led Spinoza to adopt a more limited definition of religion in the Treatise than that presented in the Ethics: whatever we desire and do of which we are the cause insofar as we have the idea of God or insofar as we know (cognosco) God, I relate to Religion (religio) (Porrò quicquid cupimus, et agimus, cujus causa sumus, quatenus Dei habemus ideam, sive quatenus Deum cognoscimus, ad Religionem refero) (Ethics IV37S1; [32], vol. 1: p. 565). While the definition of religion in the Ethics relates to all three kinds of knowledge, that of the Treatise is limited to the first kind of knowledge alone. This is so, because in the Treatise Spinoza focuses upon correcting the damage caused to society, and not the cognitive damage caused by existing religion, which is located on the first level of cognition alone. Indeed, within the framework of the definition of religion adopted by Spinoza in the Treatise, not every activity based upon cognition of God on the first level is understood as religion, but only those actions intended to stabilize society. 152 Nietzsc e’s critique of bot religious and political stasis indicates t at he concurred with this statement. But whereas Nietzsche sought to suppress this stasis, Spinoza wished to strengthen it. See on this [24], p. 57.

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from superstition, not by dint of the truth of its concept of God, but only by virtue of its ability to stabilize society. Spinoza perceives the relationship between religion and politics as one of mutual dependence; in his opinion, neither religion nor politics is able to exist autonomously. On the one hand, as the masses require false beliefs which by their nature are not stable, religion, whose purpose is to bring the masses to adhere to a single superstition for a length of time, is necessary to stabilize the state. A political project without religion is doomed to failure. On the other hand, it follows from the definition of religion that an autonomous or independent religion is a contradiction in terms, as any religion that is not dependent upon the creation of stability in the political sphere degenerates and reverts to superstition. The definition of religion as a political project thus serves as the Archimedean point for all of Spinoza’s discussion of religion in the Treatise. The following are the main points that emerge from this definition: i. The act of establishing religion is a political act, given that religion is founded in order to assure political stability. ii. Religion is understood as a means, and not as an end in its own right. The ultimate purpose of religion is to be found outside of itself, in the political realm. Hence religion, like every other instrument, is to be judged on the basis of its ability to fulfill the function for which it was intended. iii. However great the costs of the existence of religion, it is not allowed to exist at the expense of social stability, as this is its ultimate purpose. But Spinoza’s definition of religion relates to the ideal, not to the actual. What we generally think of as religion is to Spinoza nothing more than a mélange of superstitions, as it is not aimed towards the stability of society. I therefore propose that we distinguish between the terms of existing religion and amended religion. Existing Religion: By this term I refer to that religious model against which Spinoza directs the arrows of his criticism. The definition of existing religion is not specific to any historical situation: it does not refer specifically to the religion that existed in seventeenth century Holland, any more than it relates to religion as it exists today. T e term “existing religion” refers to religion as counterpoised to the state, thereby challenging the stability of society. I use t e adjective “existing” because t e point of departure of Spi-

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noza’s project in t e Treatise is that existing religion is an improper form of religion that requires amending. If we do not accept the assumption that existing religion is imperfect because it threatens the stability of society, we remove the ground beneath the entire project of correcting or amending religion as proposed by Spinoza in the Treatise. Amended Religion: By this term I refer to that model of religion intended to assure the stability of society. According to Spinoza, the establishment of amended religion will provide the solution to the theological-political conflict. Notwithstanding that Spinoza imself uses of t e term “universal religion” (religio catholica), see, e.g., Treatise, pp. 9 [10], 241 [231], I prefer t e term “amended religion” because of the dual meaning of this term. The term refers both to something that has been changed or revised, and that has been corrected or improved after having been spoiled. In the Treatise Spinoza wishes to amend religion in both senses of the word.

4. THE PROBLEM OF AMENDED RELIGION IN THE TREATISE Despite t e fact t at t e question, “W at is amended religion?,” is the pivotal question of the Treatise, it is not at all clear how it is resolved within the framework of the Treatise. This lack of clarity stems primarily from two factors: i. The esoteric nature of the Treatise, in whose framework Spinoza deliberately contradicts himself and makes numerous statements for form’s sake, creates difficulties for the reader, as critical and as alert as he may be, in following Spinoza’s solution to t e theological-political problem.153 ii. With the exception of Chapter 14, in which he discusses the principles of faith of the amended religion, Spinoza does not undertake a systematic, thematic discussion of amended religion. He does not directly explain the means by which it is to be established, 153

A particular focus upon Spinoza’s esoteric style of writing in t e Treatise and the difficulties this presents to the reader may be found in the chapter on Spinoza in Leo Strauss’s classic work, Persecution and the Art of Writing. See [31], pp. 142–201. See also [26], pp. 38–44; [15], pp. 203–223; [34], pp. 128–152

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the manner in which it justifies itself to the masses, who the inspiring role models may be, and what their attributes are, which excellence (virtus) it aims to cultivate,—nor other matters that ought to be at the focus of any project that claims to introduce changes, not to mention improvements, within an existing religion. Rather than presenting a well-articulated solution to the theological-political problem,154 Spinoza devotes the major part of the Treatise to a critique of revealed religion in general, and of Judaism in particular.155 This focus upon presenting the existing religion as faulty—valid as it may be—raises a poignant question: does Spinoza, beyond identifying the problem, also present a solution? Does he, in addition to harsh critic against existing religion, propose an alternative program for amended religion? To argue t at e doesn’t implies t at t e Treatise (notwithstanding it being a book whose writing Spinoza concluded and which he even published) raises a serious question that affected his and ot er p ilosop ers’ personal security and freedom to p iloso154

The Treatise and the Ethics are diametrically opposed in terms of writing style. Unlike the esoteric style of the Treatise, in the Ethics Spinoza presents his philosophy (at least prima facie) using the geometrical model, committed to transparency and lucidity. Thus, in practice, in the Treatise and the Ethics Spinoza is revealed as a master both of clarity and rigor and of equivocation and dual language. See [34], p. 141. See also Ran Sigad’s discussion on the misleading writing style of the Ethics in his Philo-Sofia: On the Only Truth, [23], pp. 56–57; and in his Truth as Tragedy: Nietzsche, Spinoza, Kierkegaard and Marcus Aurelius, [25], pp. 124–130. 155 In the Jewish context, there were those who accused Spinoza of antiSemitism due to his strident religious critique of Judaism. See, for example, [4]; [7], p. 223. According to Cohen, Spinoza, notwithstanding his self-representation as a man of reason, was completely dominated by his emotions. Spinoza—thus he argues—wished to take revenge upon the rabbis of the Amsterdam community due to his excommunication. Towards this end, he used his great erudition in Scripture to present a distorted, if not an anti-Semitic, picture of the Jewish religion. On Hermann Cohen’s critique of Spinoza, see [19], pp. 111–124. With regard to Spinoza’s ars style in t e Treatise, directed against both religion in general and Judaism in particular, it is worth noting that Hobbes, after reading the Treatise, said to Jo n Aubrey t at “He [Hobbes] durst not write so boldly.” See [1], p. 357.

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phize, without even attempting to propose a solution. And, as if this absurd conclusion were not sufficient to confute the claim that Spinoza does not, in the Treatise, offer an alternative to existing religion, one might add the following, additional argument. The danger in which Spinoza—a cautious man, w ose seal spelled “Beware!” (caute)—placed himself in publishing the Theological-Political Treatise, given the theological-political climate in contemporary Holland, strongly suggests that Spinoza was convinced that the Treatise e publis ed is not “merely t eoretical or t e kind of speculation t at can never be useful,”156 but rather a work that offers a practical and effective solution to the theological-political problem.157 The problem of amended religion in the Treatise is created, therefore, by a confrontation between the two claims that have been presented thus far: On the one hand it is clear that Spinoza conceived of the Treatise as work that includes a solution to the ills of the existing religion through establishing an amended religion, but on the other hand, what that amended religion may be is not at all clear.

5. THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THE REDUCTION OF THE RELIGIOUS TO THE ETHICAL AND THE REDUCTION OF THE RELIGIOUS TO THE POLITICAL It is possible to partially dispel some of the ambiguity that characterizes Spinoza’s way of dealing wit t e ills of t e existing religion if one takes into account that considerable parts of Spinoza’s solution are imbedded in discussions aimed at invalidating the authority

156

Treatise, p. 247 [237]. Although Spinoza attempts to dispel there the suspicion t at C apter 19 is “merely t eoretical,” e clearly attempts to assure that the Treatise as a whole will not belong to this category. 157 On Spinoza’s awareness of t e danger entailed in publis ing t e Treatise and the steps he needed to take in order to protect himself and the publisher, Rieuwertsz, see [18], pp. 269–270. But even the fact that the Treatise was published anonymously was unable to conceal Spinoza’s identity as its author. See [18], p. 292. On anonymity as a democratic protocol in Spinoza’s t oug t see [5], pp. 91–114.

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of the religions of revelation.158 Hence, one must read Spinoza’s critique of existing religion carefully and extract from it, as in the development of photographs from negatives, the contours of the amended religion. In other words, given that Spinoza’s negative critique of existing religion is interwoven with his positive alternative, a careful reading of the former may help to overcome the difficulties posed by the lack of clarity in the latter. The attempt to clarify Spinoza’s overall argument in t e Treatise using this exegetical method leads us to the following conclusion regarding the structure of the Treatise. From the viewpoint of the project of amending religion, the Treatise may be divided into two distinct sections, representing two different and even contradictory models of amended religion. i. In the first part of the Treatise (Chapters 1–15), Spinoza presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the ethical, wherein obedience to God is reduced to obedience to the laws of morality. ii. In the second part of the Treatise (Chapters 16–20), Spinoza presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the political, wherein obedience to God is reduced to obedience to political law. As the discussion progresses these two models of the amended religion will be clarified and developed through a textual analysis of the Treatise. Yet already it must be emphasized that in the very same work Spinoza presents two mutually exclusive models of amended religion, if only by implication. During the course of the Treatise, he further involves himself in a series of deep contradictions regarding his project of amending religion. The central contradiction between the two parts of the Treatise (from which derive 158

For, as demonstrated by Lorberbaum: The agenda of the TTP is hence twofold: it seeks to destroy, to the extent possible, the theological foundations of institutionalized religion, and concomitantly to salvage a significant kernel that would enable the channelling of the elements of existing historical religions for the purposes of the sovereign [15], p. 207.

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all the other contradictions enumerated below) lies in the definition of the key concept of amended religion: namely, obedience to God. In the first fifteen chapters of the Treatise Spinoza firmly states that the only point of contact between man and God, upon which obedience to God is based, is ethical activity, for it is only regarding this point that man stands alone, without mediation, before God.159 Spinoza’s basic premise in the first part is that contrary to metaphysical knowledge, which is limited to a handful of philosophers, knowledge of the ethical law is a gift common to all people (Treatise, p. 174 [168]). The laws of ethics are the word of God engraved on eac and every person’s heart, in that they are based on basic human intuition (Treatise, p. 167 [162]). The non-mediated nature of obedience to God, characteristic of Spinoza’s position in t e first part of t e Treatise, is completely negated in the second part. In the second part of the Treatise, Spinoza places the political realm between the individual and the God, stating explicitly t at “no one can rig tly cultivate piety or obey God, without obeying all edicts of t e sovereign aut ority” (Treatise, p. 243 [233]). The change in form of t e “obedience to God,” i.e., switc ing from a direct relation between man and God with no intermediate 159

Testimony as to the religious significance of the non-mediated situation of the individual facing God may be found in Spinoza’s interpretation of the verse that he chose as motto for the Treatise: “By t is we know t at we abide in Him and He abides in us, because He has given us of His own Spirit” (1 John 4:13): … ence e concludes… t at anyone w o as love truly as t e spirit of God. He even concludes, because no one has seen God, that no one recognizes God or is aware of him other than through love of his neighbour, and hence that the only attribute of God that anyone can know is this love, so far as we share in it (Treatise, p. 181 [176]). Further on in the Treatise, Spinoza pushes this position to further extreme, w en e argues t at “t e [Holy] Spirit is in true simply t e mental peace w ic arises in t e mind from good actions” (ibid., p. 193 [1 ]). Here Spinoza approaches an identification of God with moral activity as such.

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agency to a relation requiring the mediation of the political authority, is accompanied by a change in content, too. Obedience to God, which in the first part of the Treatise was identified only wit “love of [one’s] neig bor” (Treatise, p. 181 [176]), is identified in the second part with blind obedience to the political authority.160 In the second part of the Treatise, Spinoza demands in no uncertain terms that orders issued by the political authority be obeyed even when these orders are blatantly unethical (Treatise, p. 200 [193–194]) to the extent that one who fails to do so unconditionally is accused of desecrating the religion (impium), Treatise, pp. 253 [242]. This contradiction between the two definitions of the term “obedience to God,” w ic serves as a pivotal term for Spinoza’s amended religion, entails five additional contradictions. Each of these contradictions—and all the more so all of them taken together—indicate that in the Treatise Spinoza proposes two different, mutually exclusive models of amended religion. 5.1. Contradiction in the Concept of the Biblical Prophet In the transition from the First Part of the Treatise to the Second Part, Spinoza changes the valuation amended religion seeks to cultivate among its faithful in relation to the biblical prophet. In the first part of the Treatise, in the course of the reduction of the religious to the ethical, despite Spinoza’s denying the prophet the philosop er’s cap, he grants him the robes of an ethical hero.161 As such, Spinoza presents the biblical prophet as the role model of amended religion. In contrast, within the reduction of the religious 160

“We are obliged to carry out absolutely all t e commands of t e sovereign power,” argues Spinoza, “ owever absurd t ey may be” (Treatise, p. 200 [194]). 161 In the first part of the Treatise Spinoza states of the prophets that: “… they taught nothing out of the ordinary about the divine attributes, but rat er ad t oroug ly commonplace conceptions of God” (Treatise, p. 35 [37]). Nonet eless, e notes t at “t e minds of t e prophets were directed exclusively to what is right and good” (ibid., p. 29 [31]). “… t ey are so highly praised and commended was not for the sublimity and excellence of t eir intellects but for t eir piety and constancy” (ibid., p. 35 [37]).

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to the political, when Spinoza’s interest is to ensure absolute obedience to the political authority, he derides the biblical prophets who “antagonized rat er t an reformed people by means of liberty w ic t ey usurped to admonis , scold and rebuke” (Treatise, p. 232 [223], translation slightly modified). And when Spinoza discusses the opposition posed by the biblical prophet to the king as such, that is, as one who holds in his hands political power, he denounces the position of the prophet and prefers to adopt the viewpoint of the king. Thus, the prophets, who were presented in the first part of the Treatise as the dependable representatives of grace, honesty and goodness, are presented in the second part as a group of capricious, troublesome rebels who harm rather than benefit both religion and state.162 5.2. Contradiction in the Nature of the Role Models Posed by Amended Religion and the Kind of Excellence that Amended Religion Wishes to Cultivate Among its Faithful In the first part of the Treatise Spinoza places Jesus, as religious-ethical reformer, at the head of his amended religion, and aims to cultivate the ethical qualities among the faithful (see, e.g., Treatise, pp. 19, 63–64, 69–70 [20–21, 64–65, 70–71]). Conversely, in the second part Spinoza prefers citizens who display an exceptional propensity to obey those in office, whose exemplary figure is the Roman military leader Torquatus, who slew his son with a blow of an axe for violating army orders.163 The blatant contradiction 162

In the first part of the Treatise; see pp. 29–30, 35 [31–32, 37]. In the second part of the Treatise, see pp. 228–229, 232, 234–235 [219–220, 223– 224, 226]. 163 Treatise, pp. 242–243 [232]. Titus Manlius Torquatus, 4th century BCE, was celebrated in the Roman tradition as an outstanding example of a military hero; e received t e epit et “Torquatus” after e succeeded in tearing a necklace (torques) from the neck of a large Celtic soldier. In the Treatise, Spinoza alludes to an event that occurred in 340 BCE in which his son, a Roman military officer, decided, in explicit opposition to the command of his father, the consul—the supreme commander of the military—to set out on an attack against the enemy. In response, Torquatus executed him with an axe. Cicero, in his book On Moral Ends, places in the

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between a religion whose role model is a military leader, and a religion whose role model is a moral reformer, is exacerbated in view of the fact that the soldiers of the Roman Empire were the ones who crucified Jesus. 5.3. A Contradiction in the Role Assigned to the Ecclesiastics In the course of reducing religion to the ethical, Spinoza positions ecclesiastics as teachers of morality who derive moral lessons from Holy Scripture for the common people.164 In the course of reducing the religious to the political, however, Spinoza turns ecclesiastics into state officials w o “teac t e people piety by t e aut ormouth of the representative of the Epicurean school, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, praise for the act of his ancestor, Titus Manlius Torquatus. The latter is depicted there as one who preferred the principle of obedience to those that bore the burden of office over t e natural emotion of love for one’s own son, and one who was bringing pain upon himself as a consequence of the need preserve the authority of his military command … providing for t e security of is fellow-citizens, and thereby—as he was well aware—for his own [3], p. 15. This praise is consistent with the manner in which Spinoza chose to present Torquatus in the second part of the Treatise. 164 In Spinoza’s view, given t at t e masses lack t e necessary abilities for rational cognition—“great caution and perspicacity and supreme mental discipline” (Treatise, p. 76 [77])—the Holy Scriptures, which were written for an entire nation, and thereafter for humanity as a whole, needed to provide examples rather than theoretical explanations of ethical truths. However, the stories alone are not sufficient, for the common people get more pleasure from stories and from strange and unexpected events than from the actual doctrine of the histories. This is why, in addition to reading the histories, they also need pastors or church ministers to explain these to them, owing to the weakness of their understanding (ibid., p. 78 [79]).

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ity of the sovereign powers and adapt it by their rulings to the public interest” (Treatise, p. 247 [236]). Clearly, t e addition “by t e aut ority of t e sovereign powers” and “[adapted] by t eir rulings” (Ibid.) completely changes the designation of ecclesiastics, turning them from independent critics of the political authority into its agents and messengers. 5.4. The Contradiction in Granting the Right to Interpret the Foundations of Faith In the first part of the Treatise Spinoza asserts that everyone has the right to interpret the foundations of faith as they wish.165 In the second part, however, he asserts that the right to interpret the foundations of faith is granted to the sovereign only.166 Spinoza is 165

Treatise, p. 183–184 [178–179]. While Spinoza quite clearly states the seven principles of amended religion (see there, pp. 182–183 [177–178]), he rejects a dogmatic position towards their interpretation and understanding in which such matters are simply accepted as fiat. Moreover, according to Spinoza, the existence of different interpretations of the principles of faith is not merely optional; rather, each person has an obligation to adapt the principles of faith to his own world-view. The principles of amended region are not as such either true or false; rather, they allow, with a deliberateness that finds expression in their vague and noncommittal formulation, both a false interpretation that suits the comprehension of the masses, as well as a true explanation matching that of the philosopher. Pines sees in the principles of faith of the Treatise a new beginning for philosophy of religion or, in his words: As far as I know, he [Spinoza] was chronologically the first philosopher who affirmed on doctrinal grounds that the dogmas which he propounded and recommended, but in no way considered as supra-rational, do not and should not fall under the jurisdiction of theoretical reason [20], p. 35. 166

Treatise, p. 238 [228]. Spinoza argues that in ancient times, in order to gain full recognition of t eir rule, kings were accustomed to “tried to persuade their people they were descended from the immortal gods” (ibid., p. 211 [204]). However, in our day “only w ere men become w olly barba-

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consistent in the two parts of the Treatise only in his assertion that the right to interpret the foundations of faith should be taken away from the various ecclesiastics (see, e.g., Treatise, pp. 178, 238–239 [173, 228–229]). 5.5. The Contradiction in the Definition of Justice In the course of the reduction of the religious to the ethical Spinoza defines justice as “a constant and perpetual will to assign to eac man is due.”167 In the course of the reduction of the religious to the political, however, Spinoza defines justice as “a fixed intention to assign to each person what belongs to them in accordance wit civil law.”168 It is impossible to ignore the blatant grafting on of t e “accordance wit civil law,” w ic renders t e definition of justice in the second part of the Treatise completely different from the definition of justice in the first part. Whereas in the first part justice is defined strictly according to ethical standards, in the second part it is defined strictly according to political standards.

CONCLUSIONS Spinoza contradicts himself in his response to the pivotal question of the Treatise, “W at is amended religion?” In the first part of the Treatise (Chapters 1-15), he presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the ethical, wherein obedirous (prorsus barbari) that they allow themselves to be so openly deceived” (ibid. p. 212 [205]). Hence, political rulers are today forced to use more sophisticated and less coarse versions of this argument. But the common denominator of them all is an interpretation of the principles of faith in such a manner as to allow obedience to God to be identified with obedience to the sovereign, and the reward (or punishment) of those citizens who obey (or do not obey) the authorities with Divine reward (or punishment). 167 Treatise, p. 59: “Justitia enim, ut communiter definitur, est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi,” p. [59]. See also Letter 23 to Blijenbergh, [32], p. 389. 168 Treatise, p. 203: “Justitia est animi constantia tribuendi unicuique, quod ei ex jure civili competit,” p. [196].

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ence to God is reduced to obedience to the laws of morality. In the second part of the Treatise (Chapters 16–20), however, Spinoza presents an amended religion that is founded on reduction of the religious to the political, wherein obedience to God is reduced to obedience to political law. True, Spinoza’s esoteric manner of writing in t e Treatise in fact requires that it be read with particular care. But, ironically, the more carefully one reads the Treatise, the more apparent and mores striking the contradiction becomes. A careful reading of the Treatise exposes a significant number of offshoots of this deep contradiction, with far-reaching implications for the image of Spinoza’s amended religion: beginning with their respective understandings of biblical prophecy, the nature of their role models and the meaning of religious excellence, through the intended function of religious functionaries and the right to interpret the principles of faith, and ending with the definition of justice within the framework of amended religion. After one has completed reading the Treatise in its entirety, a thick cloud seems to rest over the image of amended religion. Yet it is precisely there, on that point which more than any other in the Treatise seems to cry out for clarification on the part of Spinoza, that it becomes clear that we are left to our own devices. Not only does Spinoza fail to explain to us the meaning of the contradiction inherent in the heart of the Treatise, but there is not so much as a single solid textual indication that Spinoza was himself aware of the existence of such a contradiction. Spinoza confronts us here with a thunderous silence. Yet together with this, it is very difficult to assume that Spinoza, the sophisticated author of the Treatise who wrote this work in many layers and who knew, on the basis of different esoteric considerations, how to place deliberate contradictions within the Treatise, was unaware of the glaring contradictions between the two parts of the Treatise. And, assuming that he was indeed aware of this contradiction, it is difficult to imagine that this implies a simple vacillation on Spinoza’s part between two alternative models of amended religion, between which he was unable to decide. The Treatise, as noted earlier, is a complete work that Spinoza published notwithstanding the danger involved therein. Moreover, even if Spinoza placed within the Treatise various passages that were written during different periods and in different

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contexts (the earliest of which was evidently the lost apologia written close to his excommunication in 1656),169 Spinoza’s tendency was to rework and to incorporate these passages within the framework of a new and consistent work [33], p. 8. The problem of amended religion thus presents itself to us once again, albeit this time in more disturbing form. For t is now clear to us: i. that Spinoza was aware of the contradiction between the first part and the second part of the Treatise; ii. that Spinoza deliberately refrains from revealing to us the solution to this contradiction; iii. Spinoza understood the Treatise, including its built-in contradictions, as a work that incorporated a solution to the problem of amended religion. It is beyond the framework of the present discussion to suggest a possible exegetical solution to the contradiction between the two models of amended religion proposed by Spinoza.170 My purpose here was only to demonstrate that any analysis of Spinoza’s project of amending religion as given in the Treatise must confront, in one way or another, this deep contradiction. The conclusion at which we have arrived is opposed to the conventional reading of the Treatise, which does not identify this 169

[18], pp. 247–249. See also [12], pp. 111–113. And, especially, Akkerman’s Introduction to t e Latin-French edition of the Treatise [33], pp. 4– 10. 170 For a possible exegetical solution proposal connecting the meaning of this contradiction with the principled metaphysical status of logical contradiction in Spinoza’s system, see [11], pp. 104–126; [10], pp. 62–72. There, relying on Spinoza’s rigorous and meticulous analysis of the ancient Hebrew state, I attempt to demonstrate how the contradiction between the reduction of the religious to the ethical and the reduction of the religious to the political does not destroy the concept of God in the first kind of knowledge but rather serves to construct it: for the practical effect of this theoretical contradiction simultaneously ensures both religion’s obligation to the political authority and t e political aut ority’s obligation to the laws of morality. By means of this contradiction, Spinoza’s emended religion stabilizes society and, by doing so, completely fulfils its role in the first kind of knowledge.

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contradiction at all. Within the framework of the accepted reading of the Treatise, it is customary to obscure the model of ethical religion proposed by Spinoza in the first part of the Treatise, and to assert, on the basis of the second part alone, that Spinoza’s amended religion is no more than religion seen as an auxiliary means of fulfilling the aims of the political authority. For that reason, the widespread exegetical tendency is to criticize Spinoza for glorifying the sovereignty and supremacy of the state and failing to restrain it or place any checks upon it. According to these arguments, and to the displeasure of those exegetes who share in this reading, Spinoza provides justification for every government as such, even one that is tyrannical.171 171

Yovel presents this critique as follows: Such a program has its dangers. Spinoza leaves too vague the difference between educating and manipulating the multitude; he gives far too little thought to the need for checks and balances that would disperse the concentrated power of the state without compromising its authority or dividing its sovereignty. More generally, he pays little heed to the danger of a despotism of reason, a concept that Spinoza must have deemed incoherent, but which historical experience has since validated and to which Spinoza’s t eory is not sufficiently immune [34], pp. 197–198.

Edwin Curley, who sharpens this critique by focusing upon the reduction of the right to power in the Treatise, summarizes one of his studies of Spinoza’s political p ilosop y wit t e following statement: That the notion of natural right (not coextensive with power) disappears in Spinoza seems to me still to be a defect in his political philosophy, sympathetic though I may be to the arguments which lead to that result [6], p. 335. This position was shared by Motzkin, who states in reference to Spinoza t at “No one as declared wit greater freedom or clarity t at justice (i.e., rights) and power are the same: ‘W oever is violent is t e victor.’” [17], p. 73. A more radical formulation of this critique may be found in Eviatar

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Moreover, our conclusion, according to which Spinoza’s project of amending religion in the Treatise is based upon a contradiction, is opposed, not only to the accepted interpretation of the Treatise, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to the principled consistency that is generally attributed to Spinoza’s p ilosop ical system. For Spinoza’s choice in presenting his philosophy in the Ethics according to the Euclidean model instills in the reader the impression that he is facing a strictly consistent philosophy that necessarily follows from itself.172 However, the tendency to attribute consistency to Spinoza’s philosophy is common not only among readers of the Ethics but Levin, who concludes his paper on obedience to law in the Treatise with the following words: A brief twenty years after the publication of Leviathan by Hobbes, Spinoza links t e aut ority of t e legislator to a ‘social covenant with the grace of God.’ Unlike Hobbes, he does not permit under any circumstances an act which is inconsistent with it. Shaking off of the absolute rule of the Church comes about at the price of absolute subjugation to the supreme secular authority, to the ruler and the state: to the law as it is. Spinoza generated, alongside t e ‘ability,’ t e obligation to absolute obedience. Everything is forbidden, unless it is permitted by law, including rebellion, protest and criticism—all this, as opposed to the true goal of Spinoza, as defined on the title page of the Treatise [13], p. 296. Readers as early as Spinoza’s correspondents have been guided by the instinct of consistent reading of his texts. One of those correspondents, Blijenbergh, has left us an apt formulation of this instinct; For although he pinpoints a logical contradiction in Spinoza’s philosophical stance, Blijenberg writes to im, “I fear t at ere I must not properly understand your meaning, for your conceptions seem to me too penetrating for you to commit suc a grave error” (Letter 20, [32], p. 367). Oldenburg also, in a similar spirit, writes to Spinoza, “I approve very muc of your geometric style of proof, but at the same time I blame my own obtuseness that I do not follow so easily the things you teach so exactly” (Letter 3, [32], p. 168). 172

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also among readers of the Treatise. For Spinoza’s adoption in the Treatise of a method of writing whose object is to obscure— involving calculated contradictions and numerous statements for form’s sake—reinforces in the reader, albeit from an altogether different angle, the instinct of consistent reading. For in the atmosphere of concealment that reigns in the Treatise, t e reader’s tendency is to view the contradictions he comes across as nothing more than measures of precaution that the author employs in order to protect himself. And indeed, the conventional reading of the Treatise adopts as a basic premise the assumption that all contradictions that issue from the Treatise belong to the rhetorical façade of the work, which serves Spinoza to veil his logically consistent alternative to theology’s concept of God.173 However this assumption too cannot be accepted so long as it is not based on the text itself. For even if Spinoza’s writing is indeed intentionally obscure and, as such, adopts the style of contradiction, we have no a priori guarantee that Spinoza’s concealed standpoint is not itself founded upon contradiction. Moreover, this assumption—and this is the main point I have attempted to prove here—is refuted by the Treatise itself. Thus, whatever embarrassment the contradictions that issue from our study may cause us, we must not blame our obtuseness, out of an unshakeable belief in the rigorous consistency immanent in the canonical text laid before us. For then we would be consecrating Spinoza’s text, while subjugating, like the theologians of whom Spinoza disapproves, “reason, t e greatest gift and t e divine lig t, to the dead letters [mortuis literis] which may well have been adulterated wit malicious intent”.174 For indeed no philosopher in the 173

Even Strauss, who focused particularly on the contradictions within the Treatise, did not see in them anything more than a means of concealing Spinoza’s consistent and un-contradictory position. See [31], pp. 142–201. Strauss passed on this convention to the exegetes who came in his wake, such as [20] and [21], p. 143 ff. 174 Treatise, p.188 [182], slightly rephrased. This is the language used by Spinoza in opposing Rabbi Jehudah Al-Fakhar, who states that reason “s ould be subordinate to Scripture and indeed w olly subjected to it”

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history of philosophy has exceeded Spinoza in denouncing the consecration of texts, canonical though they may be.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This paper was first published in Hebraic Political Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Fall 2008), pp. 396–415. Its earlier version was presented at a workshop on the Theological-Political Treatise conducted by the Department of Philosophy of the University of Leiden in May 2008. I thank the participants in that workshop and the members of the Dutch Spinoza Society for helping me to clarify the arguments presented here; in particular, I wish to thank Eric Schliesser, Ed Curley, Ursula Goldenbaum. I likewise owe a debt of gratitude to Ran Sigad and Menachem Lorberbaum for many years of conversations about Spinoza. The paper was completed while I was a Fulbright Post-doc at the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced in Princeton, New Jersey. I learned a great deal from the comments of Michael Walzer, Uriel Menuhin and Gideon Katz on the earlier drafts of this paper.

REFERENCES [1] Aubrey, John. Brief Lives, vol. 1, ed. A. Clarke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989). [2] Ben S lomo, Josep . “Reply to Professor Hamps ire,” in Spinoza—His Thought and Work, Entretiens in Jerusalem, eds. N. Ro-

(ibid. p. 187 [181]). T e expression, “dead letters” (mortuis literis) is an explicitly Pauline expression, which represents Judaism as being subject to t e “letter t at kills” (littera enim occidit; 2 Corinthians 3:6). See [22], p. 31 n. 13 and also p. 35. Moreover, in my opinion, by using t e expression “dead letters,” Spinoza relates to the fact that the Jewish Torah scrolls are written without vocalization. In his Latin book of Hebrew grammar, after explaining to his readers that in the Hebrew language vowels are not indicated by means of letters but by means of diacritical markings, Spinoza notes that: “Among t e Hebrews vowels are called souls of letters,’ and letters wit out vowels are bodies wit out souls’ (corpora sine anima)” [2 ], p. 588. For a discussion of possible Kabbalistic sources for Spinoza’s statement in this context, see [16].

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tenstreich & N. Schneider (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1983). [3] Cicero, Marcus Tullius. On Moral Ends, I.35, trans. R. Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). [4] Co en, Hermann. “Spinoza über Staat und Religion, Judentum und C ristentum,” Jüdische Schriften, ed. B. Strauß (Berlin: Schwetschke, 1924), 3: 290–372. [5] Cooper, Julie E. “Freedom of Speec and P ilosop ical Citizenship in Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” Law, Culture and the Humanities, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2006), pp. 91–114. [6] Curley, Edwin. “Kissinger, Spinoza, and Geng is K an,” Don Garrett, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996). [7] Guttmann, Julius. Religion and Science (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955 [Hebrew]). [8] Halbertal, Moshe, and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, trans. N. Goldblum (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). [9] Halbertal, Moshe. People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). [10] Jobani, Yuval. “T e Political T eology of t e Ancient Hebrew State According to Spinoza,” Zemanim: A Historical Quarterly, 103, (Summer 2008), pp. 62–72 [Hebrew]. [11] _____. Spinoza’s Emendation of Religion—On the Statusof Contradiction in the Concept of God, Doctoral Dissertation (Tel-Aviv University, 2008 [Hebrew]). [12] Kas er, Asa, and S lomo Biderman, “W y was Baruc de Spinoza Excommunicated?,” in D. S. Katz and J. I. Israel (eds.), Skeptics, Millenarians and Jews (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990). [13] Levin, Eviatar. “A Note on Obedience to Law According to Spinoza’s T eological-Political Treatise,” ‘Iyyun 28 (1978) [Hebrew]. [14] Lorberbaum, Menac em. “Making Space for Leviat an: On Hobbes’ Political T eory,” Hebraic Political Studies 2:1, (Winter 2007). [15] _____. “Spinoza’s T eological-Political Problem,” Hebraic Political Studies, 1:2, (Winter 2006), pp. 203–223. [16] _____. “T e Republic in Hebrew: On t e Hebrew Translation of the Political Terminology of Spinoza,” ‘Iyyun 53, (2004 [Hebrew]).

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[17] Motzkin, Arye Leo. “A Note on Natural Rig t, Nature and Reason in Spinoza,” ‘Iyyun 28, (1978 [Hebrew]). [18] Nadler, Steve. Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999). [19] Nauen, Franz. “Hermann Co en’s Perception of Spinoza: a Reappraisal,” AJS Review 4, (1979), pp. 111–124. [20] Pines, S lomo. “Spinoza’s Tractatus T eologicoPoliticus, Maimonides, and Kant,” in Further Studies in Philosophy, Ora Segal, ed., Scripta Hierosolymitana, XX (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1968). [21] Ravitzky, Aviezer. Religion and State in Jewish Philosophy: Models of Unity, Division, Collision and Subordination (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2002). [22] Seidler, Meir. “Benedictus de Spinoza: The Shaper of European Enlig tenment’s Image of Judaism,” Da’at 54, (2004 [Hebrew]). [23] Sigad, Ran. Philo-Sofia: On the Only Truth (Devir: Tel Aviv, 1983 [Hebrew]). [24] _____. Studies in Existentialism (Tel Aviv: Mossad Bialik, 1975 [Hebrew]). [25] _____. Truth as Tragedy: Nietzsche, Spinoza, Kierkegaard and Marcus Aurelius (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1990 [Hebrew]). [26] Smith, Steven B. Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). [27] Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, vol 3. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1925). [28] Spinoza, B. Hebrew Grammar, in Spinoza, Complete Works, S. Shirley, trans. (Indianapolis-Cambridge: Hackett, 2002). [29] Spinoza, Benedict de. Theological-Political Treatise, ed. & trans. J. Israel, trans. M. Silverthorne (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007). [30] _____. The Letters, trans. S. Shirley. (IndianapolisCambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995). [31] Strauss, Leo. Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago— London: University of Chicago Press, 1988). [32] The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. & trans. by E. Curley, vol. 1. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). [33] Traité Théologico-Politique. Texteétabli par F. Akkerman. Traductionset notes par J. Lagrée et P.-F. Moreau. Spinoza. Oeuvres III (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999).

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[34] Yovel, Yirmiyahu. Spinoza and Other Heretics, vol. 1. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

JEWISH TRADITIONALISM AND JEWISH SOCIALISM BETWEEN 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY IN EUROPE AND IN THE UNITED STATES: A SURVEY O, gute freind! Ven ikh vell shtarbn Trogt tzu mein kever unzer fohn – Die freie fohn mit die royte farbn, Bashpritz mit blut fun arbetsman!175

Dovid Edelstadt

FURIO BIAGINI DIPARTIMENTO DI STUDI, FACOLTÀ DI LINGUE E LETTERATURE STRANIERE, UNIVERSITÀ DEL SALENTO, ITALY [email protected] ABSTRACT A large number of Jewish socialists at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century is of historical interest to both those interested in socialism and in Jewish history. Until now, there have been no systematic and thorough studies of the convergence of two apparently distinct traditions and the Jewish socialism remained unknown for Good friends, when I am dead, bear to my grave/ Our banner, freedom’s flag of crimson hue,/ Stained with the blood poured from the toilers’ veins. 175

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PRAGMATIC STUDIES IN JUDAISM the great reading public. This convergence was linked to a particular historical period and a relatively precise social context. It first appeared in the Pale, that immense area of Eastern Europe, the cradle of Yiddish culture, where Jews were forced to live under Tsarist laws. There it was the stronger attraction between the Jewish tradition and the socialist ideology, which became clear among Yiddish emigrants in England, United States and at last in Argentina. In those countries, the driving force behind the emerging Jewish workers movement, made up primarily of immigrants from Eastern Europe, were the young who had been brought up in the fear of God and respect for religious tradition, only later caught up in the great wave of revolutionary utopianism. They represented the radicalism of a proletariat for whom the Messiah was one of the spokesmen of socialist ideology. The very ethics of Jewish spirituality and Messianic thinking with their eschatological aspirations to a radically different future urged a number of Jews towards socialist ideas.

Out of ten million Jews living in the world, Russia gives hospitality to more than five millions, of whom just one tenth scattered in the countryside and out of the Zone and four million and half amassed in towns and in the villages. Behind the double wall of this territorial ghetto lived, thought, suffered and bustled the Jewish masses, a whole world, a complete society with the necessary diversity of its elements—workers and intellectuals, wise men and financiers, managers and labourers. On top, a financial bourgeoisie, like in the west countries, but without any influence, in the lower part an intellectual and commercial middle class, and finally an immense proletariat. An unknown proletariat. As a stronger, more homogeneous social class, the most characteristic mass in the nation, the Jewish proletariat was ignored for a long time. Jews have always been considered in their bourgeois class—said Bernard Lazare rightly— and Jewish historians have always made the story of the Jewish bourgeois and for use of the same in their time. The Jewish traders, who manipulate money, and the Jewish business bour-

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geois earn the stage of history on their own. Anti-semitics attack them, the Jewish historians look for extenuating circumstances. But we normally refuse considering it, we go on without recognizing it [6], p. 13.

Still today, the Jewish working class in Eastern Europe is a blank page, a disappeared Atlantis. This working class, this miserable mob, over-exploited, concentrated, homogenous as for its living conditions, its traditions and cultural references, its language, consisting of millions of people, only exists through its survivors and their memories. It seems the Jewish workers to have consciously obeyed t e biblical injunction “z’K or,” “remember.” However, since their documents had been written essentially in Yiddish, they have remained inaccessible for the great reading public and experts in social history176. The existence of such a class began to be noted by ideologists only at the end of nineteenth century. Socialist tradition did not include the Jews in its roster of class and ethnic groups who were potential bearers of the revolution. Radical leftists saw little need, therefore, to concern oneself with Jewish interests and sufferings, for these were of no historic importance. Indeed, the record of early socialist attitudes towards the Jews is a virtually solid history of hostility and contempt. Nineteenth century agrarian populist and socialist proletarians, witnessing the legendary eminence of the House of Rothschild, assimilated this figure of menace to traditional anti-Jewish folk images [10], p. 220. One of the first historians of the Jewish labour movement, Leonty Soloweitchik, recalled the words of the Swiss professor to whom he had expounded his doctoral thesis to in 1 97: “It’s curious, I believed all Jews were bankers.” Socialist t eoreticians agreed in defining the Jews as the classic embodiment of t e capitalist spirit. Nor did it elp t e Jews’ cause among radicals t at t ey were undoubtedly one of Europe’s oppressed minorities. What defined them as a minority was primarily the uninteresting criterion of religion and, at that, a religion long left behind in the march of history. On the subject, see: [13]; [23]; [19]; [27]; [3]; [7]; [12]; [17]; [30]. The most comprehensive book on the topic is: [8]. 176

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There was another possibility, one might classify them as an oppressed nationality. But if so, they clearly belonged to the class of small, retrograde, economically insignificant ethnic fragments that only cluttered the machinery of progress and who ought to be absorbed into large, economically progressive and politically viable, national states. This attitude was not altered but, if anything reinforced, by the fact that Jews played a significant role in the progressive and revolutionary movement. A roster including Heinrich Heine, Karl Ludwig Börne, Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trockij, obviously stands comparison with any other ethnic contribution to the history of the left. In any case, Jewish leaders were equally numerous in the leftist parties of every European country. However, until the rise of Jewish nationalism, such leftist intellectuals found no real place for themselves within a Jewish community that remained staunchly conservative in Eastern Europe and became solidly identified with bourgeois liberalism in the West. Nevertheless, as Pierre Vidal-Naquet writes, Judaism in eastern countries as been “t e bank of blood” of t e international revolutionary movement, thus hinting to his availability to support the hardest battles and to his sense of sacrifice. I. After the first Babylonian exile, five centuries before the Christian Age, Jews left their land for the Path of Diaspora. After being banished from England and France, after the crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, most Jews sought shelter in Eastern Europe where they underwent further persecutions. The bloodiest one will be run by the Cossack chief, the Ataman Bogdan Chmielnicki in the 17th century, period when, according to the accounts, more than 100,000 Jews were slaughtered. At that time Cossacks rebelled against the Polish nobility that administered Ukraine. Here is what a chronicler of the time recounts: In 1648, in Nemirov, hundreds of Jews were tied together to be drowned and [the Cossacks] enjoyed themselves to split the Jewish children into two halves. In this town, more than 6000 Jews were slaughtered. In Talchin, in the same year, all Jews were gathered and ordered to be converted. All of them refused and repeated t eir profession of fait in full agreement: ‘S ema

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Yisroel Adonai Elo einu Adonai Ec ad.’ Consequently t e Ukrainians started to cut their arms and legs, raped the women before their husbands, the daughters before their parents and later cut t eir t roats; t ey opened t e pregnant women’s abdomens putting cats inside and sewed them; afterwards, they seized the children and crashed them with their chariots [21].

Ten centuries later, the echoes of these crimes still were still present in Great Russia and Gogol will write in his Taras Bulba: “Jews were seized by t eir arms and t rown into t e water. Weeping and screams were heard everywhere, but the impassive Cossacks did not ing but laug ing.” In contemporary age, t e first wave of anti-Semitism follows Alexander II’s murder dated Marc 1st 1 1. It’s in t is period t at migration towards America starts: 17,000 people in 1883, 15,000/17,000 between 1884 and 1886, 30,000 about from 1887 to 1889 and 100,000 in the years 1891– 1892. The migratory wave will settle, afterwards, around 30,000 units a year till 1900 (see [1], [21]). Oppression and coercive measured increased for those who decided to remain. Racial persecutions, social manifestations of anti-Semitism resembled an accusation of ritual murder, derived from the legend of the necessity of Christian blood to sprinkle the interior of houses on Easter Eve or to make the unleavened bread, or pogrom, often connected one to the other. The accusation of ritual murder resisted despite the rational confutations till the years of t e First World War. Medieval superstitions and “t e fools’ anticapitalism,” using t e expression by August Ferdinand Bebel, followed one upon the other or combined in these cruel inrushes that often coincided with Eastern feasts. Pogroms obeyed to similar sceneries. They could be isolated, such as the ones in Odessa in 1821 and 1871, occurred in waves with an anti-revolutionary peculiarity as in 1881–1884 or in 1903–1906. Besides humiliations and daily affronts, residence was required, restrictions for the University admittance (numerus clausus) were added, then the pogroms. Previously, the best-known among the coercive means had been the introduction, in 1827, of the military service lasting 25 years, an enlistment carried out according to lists stated by organs of community administration put under their responsibility. From the age of to 1 t e young conscripts were “cantonate” ( ere derives their name as cantonisti), like those of other nationalities, in special

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preparatory barracks for military service where their underwent heavy pressures so that they became converted to orthodoxy. The recruitment was suppressed in 1874 thanks to the new regulation about t e compulsory military service. For restricting t e Jews’ demographic growth precocious weddings were forbidden, while to diminish their visibility traditional clothes were also forbidden so as the use of Yiddish in favour of other languages spoken in the Empire as Russian, German or Polish [11], p. 91. Czarist policy towards the Jews, above all founded on coercion, was based in the whole 19th century on the alternative exclusion, integration, assimilation. Moreover, Konstantin Pobedonoscev itself, procurator of the Holy Synod, proclaimed that the Jews in the Empire had to disappear by means of assimilation (for the czarist state synonymous of conversion), emigration or extermination. The change between the diffusion of Jewish Enlightment, the Haskala, and the absence of emancipation made impracticable the confessional option which had prevailed in Western Europe and allowed the German Jews, for example, to be included in the wave of historicism, claiming the membership to German history. The perception of Jewishness as a nation, catalysed by pogroms, seemed at the same time to be the way back to a pre-modern status and as the accomplishment of a secularization process like that the one wich the nations in the making, in the course of 19th century, were engaged in. So t e ‘regeneration’ didn’t concern only t e fellows to take away from t e Jewis nation, t at is to ‘de-nationalize’ according to the version become effective during the French revolution, but it further pointed out what Otto Bauer, undoing Frederic Engels’s predictions who foresaw the disappearance of small peoples, absorbed by stronger nations, defined the “ istoriless nations’ reawakening”, even though the absence of a istory can seem to be paradoxical referred to ‘t e people of t e Book’ [2 ], pp. 10–11.

Pogroms were a further obstacle for the Russian integration of Hebraism as it happened later in the countries of immigration, in particular the United States. But also the resolute perception, for a lot of Russians, of Jewis ness as absolute ot erness, “t e born elsew ere,” was an obstacle for t e assimilation. T e conversion to

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open a way in the majority society, a choice that attracted lots of Jewish intellectuals, never exercised a particular attraction for the Jewis masse, always tied even after break c oices, to t e fat ers’ religious traditions. Even the use of Yiddish, a choice diametrically opposed with regard to those who made use of the Russian language in order to fit in, implied the acceptance of Jewishness as a nation and included Jews into the multinational society of the Empire. All this will lead the partisans of integration to serve in the Russian socialist parties while the others will try to restrict and establish the Jewish nation and to provide it with political representation inside the multi-ethnical state. This attempt contributed to the nationalisation of Jewishness that took shape in a request for extraterritorial self-government inside the state, or in the strictest version, in the return to Sion so as in the creation of a Jewish state on any of the territories in the world. II. A lot of rightsless individuals, despised and trampled on, were attracted by socialist ideals t at proclaimed mankind’s rescue. Socially overwhelmed and discriminated in consequence of their Jewishness, they developed a feeling of rebellion and a strong will of struggle. We add the marginal condition which is sign of Jewishness. Together with Isaac Deutscher, we can suppose that, living on the border of two worlds, Jewish labourers and intellectuals were more disposed to relativize the got truths, to make a comparison among the different doctrines, to bring everything forward, because the Jew, nearly by definition, is at the same time integrated in the surrounding environment and a member of an out-group. The popular religion explained persecutions as the result of the divine Will and from the 17th century, Jewish mystics radically interpreted them in the sense of an apocalyptic Messianism. Persecutions are considered by t em as t e omen of Messia ’s coming w o will free is people. In t is way it’s interpreted S. Zevi’s event, whose movement, before spreading with the speed of fire to Eastern Galizia, Podolia, Moravia, then to Germany, grew at the beginnings in the Balkans, in the territories under the rule of the Ottoman Empire [25]. Really, it’s not S abbatai’s controversial personality, proclaimed Messiah by Nathan of Gaza before his abjuration in front

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of the Sultan, that we intend to show, but the great hopes he had given rise in a period shocked by Cossack massacres. In Gershom Scholem’s opinion, Sabbatics and t eir emulators turned “t e popular conception of Messianism and national reinstatement into a cosmic drama” [24]. T ese “mystic eretics,” as Sc olem defines t em, were forced to suffer from t eir Messia ’s apostasy, but t is didn’t prevent t em from continuing to ope in redemption. On the contrary, they built the centre of their doctrine starting from t eir master’s betrayal. Like crypto-Jews of the Spanish Inquisition, forced to be converted to Christianity, they went on practising their faith secretly and considered the abjuration of Messiah as a necessary step for going into the depths of evil to be able to fight it tooth and nail. The apostasy and antinomy that characterized this experience was got ahead by Jacob Frank who, at the beginning of 18th century, gave birth to an original movement that combined Messianism, militarism and sexual freedom. A century later, Scholem notes: T e influence of t ese elements t at don’t openly feel at ease in the rabbinic Judaism, played an important role in the growth of the movement towards the reformation, the liberalism and the ‘rationalism of Enlig tenment’ in various Jewish circles.

Somebody might object that socialism in the whole, after the first Utopians like Tommaso Campanella, is inspired by a biblical vision, coloured with the fervent hope to see the coming of a new Age. It’s enoug , in fact, to look up in t e work by Edward Palmer Thompson about the origin of the British socialism to grasp the influence of Methodist Protestantism on the formation of the English working class [26]. And one might easily discover similar influences in the genesis of the working conscience in other European countries. Anyway Messianism isn’t lived by Jews as a far-away horizon. On the contrary, it takes up the everyday life and breaks in the present. Future, as Walter Benjamin writes, violently collides wit t e present and it’s not a far-away and empty prospective by no means: “Because every second is t e small door t roug w ic can enter t e Messia ” [2], p. 634. In 1 90, t e Russian socialist Petr Lavrov had emphasized the filiation ties between the Jewish religious tradition and the Jewish working-movement:

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I’m going to end by observing t at t e traditions established in the Jewish people, in the course of thousand years, and also the sad persecutions a millenary history imposed on them, perhaps have generated certain circumstances that are favourable to the socialist propaganda in its base. If the Jews in ancient times, clenched to their old fanatic beliefs, waited for the Messiah—a Messiah that had to extend his reign to all peoples—this conviction wasn’t it an unaware preparation for a rationalist? T e new Jew, w o as ad ered to socialism, asn’t e replaced the legendary Messiah for a real Messiah proclaiming the reign of work that will abolish the golden calf of capitalism? The Jewish scattering throughout the whole world and in any corner of the globe, the fact they had been suddenly deprived of a personal territory, asn’t it immediately abolis ed any resistance to internationalism [...]? The nation that gave birth to Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle in t e 19t century, doesn’t it contain in itself an innate or istorically conditioned attraction for the socialist principles? [16], p. 286.

In the heart of Eastern Europe, Shabbatai Zevi’s doctrines quite soon were substituted by Chassidism. The expectation for redemption crystallizes at the juncture of these two mystic currents: on one hand, Sabbatianesism, at the same time absorbed in the affliction of massacres and tending towards Messianic times, on the other, Chassidism, gay and enthusiastic. Later, the expectation for rebirth will rely on the immense hope born in consequence of the Frenc revolution. Messia ’s coming is contemporary to wars and destructions t at are foretold at t e beginning of 20t century. “It’s t e labour pains,” repeat some inspired commentators. T ey anticipate Israeli tribes’ return to t eir ome land, t eir ancient native land towards which all hopes of freedom draw together. AntiSemitism which is spreading all over Europe, the murderous insanity of the first world war, the revolution which is to free mankind, pogroms’ resumption on a large scale, in t e Ukraine of Petlioura, do nothing but justify and corroborate this vision of a redeeming chaos. This belief will play a specific role in the initiation of a new Jewish generation that leading the values of redemption to whiteheat, becomes revolutionary, socialist and anarchist [18].

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A tension to be found in great figures of Central-European Judaism, as Michael Löwy reminds us, among them we can quote Gregory Lukacs, a partisan of the working councils, who defines imself as “a religious at eist,” Eric Fromm, psychoanalyst critical to Sigmund Freud who never concealed how Bible was source of inspiration for him, Martin Buber, who referred at the same time to Chassidism and socialism in t e kibbutz. It’s t e messianic mystic disposition w ic is at work ere, t e sabbatians or c assidims’ one, a critical will and acting to create new and irreversible situations that prevent any return to past times and open to the complete revolution of reality. In this revolutionary constellation, Junius Frey, one of t e frankists’ eirs, dies on t e guillotine during t e French revolution, Lukacs, aforementioned, who was one of the executives of Commune in Budapest in 1919, Gustav Landauer, Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction in the Soviet Republic of Bavaria, that was arrested on 1 May 1919 and stoned to death by troopers one day later in Munic ’s Stadelheim Prison. Many are attracted by the anarchical version of socialism. Among them, artisans are more numerous than labourers, suffice it to think of Giura Federation close to Bakunin. What leads lots of Jews to become anarchists is also explained by the doctrinal oppositions between centralism and federalism, a political system always adopted by anarchists. In this controversy, Jewish inclination for federalism and direct democracy comes from their story: the Jewish communities closed in ghettoes or in shtetls have always been restricted territorial units, each village maintained a self-autonomy in the management of current affairs. Surely, others have been fascinated by the Bolshevik state. But the Jewish trends are numerous like rivers on earth. III. As we wrote, the sudden economic and political shifts of the middle decades of the nineteenth century in Russia severely shook established Jewish settlement and occupational patterns. The emancipation of serfs and the expulsion of Jews from rural areas destroyed traditional Jewish livelihoods and produced a stream of migrants. A small part of the movement was made up of entrepreneurs and professionals who found their way into the higher reaches of culture and power at home or abroad. The mass of displaced

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Jews, resettling in metropolitan centers of industry, commerce, and administration like Lodz and Bialystok, Vilna and Minsk, Odessa, Budapest and Vienna, as well as London and New York, emerged as a new, Jewish working class. The Jewish working movement gets organized between 1870 and 1880 to reach its maturity in 1897, birth-year of Bund, the General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland and Russia177. Its influence is important until the period between the first and Second World War despite the Shoah, that physically cancelled East-European Judaism, and Stalinism, which stifled the Jewish working-movement in the USSR. Its characteristic was to organize Jewish labourers keeping in mind their specifiticy with reference to non-Jewish sphere. This activity gave birth to a series of political, cultural and trade-union organizations that established a real counter-society characterized by the use of Yiddish, sign of a life-style kept specific even though with regard to the surrounding environment. The use of Yiddish works as a thermometer that records the degree of assimilation in the surrounding society. It’s not strange t at once adopted t e language of t e immigration countries, t ey didn’t feel t e need of a specific organization outline any longer. Despised by Jewish élite that considered Yiddish as a coarse language spoken by common people, on the contrary it was turned to account and heightened by the Jewish working-movement; it’s not a mere c ance if t e first Jewis socialists regarded t emselves as “socialists of Yiddis language.” At annual conventions of the Jewish section of the Socialist Labor Party between 1 91 and 1 95, a banner was displayed reading: “We are not Jewish socialists, but Yiddish-speaking socialists.” The Jewish socialist re-evaluated Yiddish as a means of political education and debate. The lingua franca of the community, Yiddish, was a language that in the past had been disdained in favor of Russian culture and politics. Yiddish, reinvigorated by the American experience, was used by the intellectual vanguard not only to establish links to the Jewish community but, in the words of the historians Paul Buhle and Hadassa Kosak, to symbolize “a sort of realm of imagined liberation—a mental omeland” [15], p. 135. 177

On the Bund, see: [9]; [20].

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The political content of that homeland was communicated powerfully through the Yiddish press, oratory, poetry, political activism, and the Yiddish theater178. The everyday living experience was transformed through the artistic expression of major poets, whose work was indissolubly linked to the community by virtue of its subject matter and its use of language. Many poets, like Dovid Edelstadt or Morris Rosenfeld, worked in the garment industry and wrote about their experience [5]. Addressing the world with a distinctive voice of common experience, these poets spoke for the people, striving to represent more than just their own feelings. Truly working-class poets, they were the interpreters of plebeian realities who created, as write Hadassa Kosak, “imaginary omeland of a people who could not imagine a secure home without the victory of world socialism” [15], p. 135. T e Yiddis press, above all, was a premier medium of education and communication on issues concerning Jewish workers. No less important to the paper’s standing and popularity was its support for the numerous strikes. The ability of the editors to communicate their political priorities and socialist principles, using familiar and often traditional idioms in simple Yiddish, assured its growing popularity. The primary goal of the Yiddish socialist press, to educate worker-readers, was central to the aspirations of the leaders of the Jewish socialist. They wished to enlighten the Jewish mass. They wished not merely to educate the ignorant masses of the people in the doctrines of socialism, but to teach them the rudiments of science and literature. An aspiration t at was rooted in t e Russian populist tradition of “going to t e people,” now transferred to t e Jewis proletarians. T e widespread conviction that only enlightened workers would seek the goal of true socialist liberation inspired the educational project. Bringing to the Jewish masses the rudiments of secular learning with a universalist and socialist message through the medium of journalism became the main project of the Jewish socialist leadership. The ability of the editors, writers, and poets to convey the gospel of socialism; to express succinctly, in poetic language, sorrow and misery; to agitate and to arouse to action were legendary. 178

About Yiddish theater, see: [24].

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IV. In Eastern Europe, Jewish proletariat underwent a process of deep social down-grading. Detached from the religious tradition, Jewish workers tended to become a shapeless mass devoid of any social rule and attracted by criminality that infested the slums of the great urban centres. What restores a dignity, ideals and moral values to these labourers is the Jewish working movement. Organized by Bund, Jewish labourers change their life-style, acquire sanitary measures, cultural notions and instruction, shortly they become mentshn, that is men. As Nathan Weinstock asserts: The everlasting search for dignity and the statement of the wage-earners’ self-love are moreover a constant of the Jewish working-movement and cross, like a red thread, the story of this movement. So the organized Jewish working current proves itself as a factor of integration—as it approaches Jewish labourers to non-Jewish ones—by accomplishing this integration in such a specific way that gives its supporters an expression of identity inside the integrative process itself. In other words, the same existence of the Jewish working-movement witnesses a certain ambiguity as the integration process hides the wish to remain itself, so that the welding with the indigenous working class isn’t deprived of t e will to maintain a self-autonomy [29], p. 11.

Even in the immigration countries the same process occurs and the Jewish labourers of the first generation, without traditions and considered as unlikely to be organized, are unionized with a lot of difficulty. Abe Cahan, pre-eminent figure of the America Jewish socialism recalls in his memories that Jewish labourers in the United States before the First World War were unable to adapt themselves to t e exigencies of works op and exposed to an “interior enemy” t at was not ing but t eir own backwardness and t e abits inherited in the shtetls in Eastern Europe [4] , p. 292–294. Even Saul Yanovsky goes into the Jewish workers’ terribly uncultured level, the Jewish workers generally illiterate present in England [31], p. 151. W en t e Jewis workers weren’t prey to t e social demoralization, Socialists had to discover them in the small oratories, the shtibels, trying to approach them by appealing to topics based on

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t eir familiar traditions. In t e Yiddis socialist literature, it isn’t difficult to find references to Moses as the first trade-union delegate or to Sanhedrin as the first trade-union executive. T is doesn’t prevent that initially, however, the Jewish and socialist labor movement abandoned itself to a violent anti-religious campaign that was not free from some ambiguity. As stated by Nathan Weinstock, defamatory parody of religious rites is understandable only for the initiated. As if the sense of one of Yom Kippur dances (desecration of an austere Jewish feast) can be grasped by everybody, the image of the ritual has no sense for the one who has no familiarity with the original one.

This particular propaganda had its own effectiveness because the public, that the socialists applied to, any tendency they belonged to, was formed by people who were well up to date of the religious traditions. Moreover, religiousness is found in many Jewis socialists’ be avior suc as, for example, t e admiration for t e working leaders, called novi, prophets, or gaon, common name assigned to the most prominent rabbinical figures, which retained somet ing of t e C assidics’ reverence for t eir Rebbe. It’s not a case then if Abe Cahan headlined his daily page The Weekly Sidra (Sidra is the portion of the Torah read on Shabbat day), and signed wit t e pseudonym “Der proletaris er Magid,” t e proletarian preacher [4], pp. 28–29, while Isodore Kopeloff called his column Haftoyre, deriving from t e Jewis word “Haftara”, a part of t e Prop ets and Hagiograp ers’ Books read in synagogue after t e Sidra [14], pp. 27–28. V. Except a few exceptions, the majority of Jewish socialists, whatever current they belonged to, proved the experience of exile, and perceived as undesirable foreigners, were convinced once more that universalism, peculiar feature of Jewishness, was the only possible answer to discrimination and oppression. For this reason, they opposed to Zionism, conceived as a withdrawal into themselves on the basis of a reactionary ethnic nationalism, and perceived cosmopolitanism as an entirely Jewish specificity. Nowadays, the new

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Jewish identity develops according to a trend opposed to that which inspired the militant socialist Jews, before the story of the last century turned into tragedy. The Jewish specificity does not open more onto the Whole, but once again it becomes something t at distinguis es and separates, confirmation of Jews’ tragic destiny. Jewishness is perceived as essential and unshakeable, and the non-Jewis world, t e goyims’ universe, comes again to represent pre-eminently the other one, hostile and threatening. Thus we can understand the particular relationship that the Jewish socialism had with Israel since its birth. It claimed the right to live in the Diaspora and didn’t t ink to support unconditionally t e State of Israel, but it avoided any public censure of t e government’s various policies t at led it. Of t e utopian spirit and t e “principle of ope,” by using Ernst Bloch’s words, which enlivened the Jewish socialism, today remains nothing but a distant echo. Jewish presence in Eastern Europe, with its parties and its associations, has disappeared, destroyed by Nazism and Stalinism. Even those who will run the Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, London or New York, will rarely find traces of the Jewish proletariat and its leaders, but will be able to read, today in the online version as well, the Forverts, the Yiddish-speaking socialist newspaper founded in 1897 by dissenters of the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel De Leon. It only remains the remembrance of a tradition of selfsacrifice and heroic deed, the obstinate defense of freedom and human dignity. Ir kent undz dermordn, tiranen, Naye kemfer vet brengen di tsayt; Un mir kemfn, mir kempfn biz vanen Di gantse velt vet vern bafrayt, Di gantse velt vet vern bafrayt.179

Dovid Edelstadt

You tyrants can try to destroy us;/ New soldiers will answer the call./ To battle, to battle till that day/ When we have brought freedom to all,/ When we have brought freedom to all. 179

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REFERENCES [1] Antonovsky, A. The Early Jewish Labor Movement in the U.S. (New York, 1961). [2] Benjamin, W. Sur e concept d’histoire, “Les Temps Modernes”, n. 25, (1947). [3] Bunzl, J. Klassekampf in der Diaspora (Wien, 1975). [4] Cahan, A. Bleter fun mayn lebn, vol. III. (New York, 1928). [5] Dobzynski, C. (ed.), Le mirroir d’un people (Paris, 1987). [6] Eberlin, E. & G. Delahace, Juifs russes, “Le Ca iers de la Quinzane, december 1904. Quoted in A. Brossat, S. Klingberg, Le yiddisland révolutionnaire (Paris, 2009). [7] Fishman, W. J. East End Jewish Radicals (London, 1975). [8] Frankel, J. Prophecy and Politics (Cambridge, 1981). [9] Gilbert, C. The istory of the Jewish Workers’ Bund (London, 1987). [10] Halpern, B. & J. Reinharz, Nationalism and Jewish Socialism: The Early Years, “Modern Judaism”, vol. , n. 3, (1988). [11] Hauman, H. Storia deg i ebrei de ’Est, Milano, (1990). [12] Howe, I. The World of our Fathers, New York, (1976). [13] Johnpoll, B. K. The politics of futility, Ithaca, (1967). [14] Kopeloff, Y. Amol in Amerike, Varsovie, (1928). [15] Kosak, H. Cultures of Opposition: Jewish Immigrant Workers, New York City, 1881–1905 (New York, 2000). [16] Lavrov, P. Letters to t e newspaper “Der Vekr”, London 1890, quoted in Historishe sfriftn fun Yivo, vol. III. (Vilna-Paris, 1939). [17] Levin, N. While Messiah Tarried (New York, 1977). [18] Löwy, M. Rédemption et utopie: Le judaïsme libertaire in Europe centrale (Paris, 1988). [19] Mendelsohn, E. Class Struggle in the Pale (Cambridge, 1970). [20] Minczeles, H. Histoire générale du Bund: un mouvement révolutionnaire juif (Paris, 1995). [21] Moses, N. B. Yeven Mezulah (The abyss), (Venice, 1653). [22] Rischin, M. The Promised City: New York’s Jew, 1870–1941 (Cambridge, 1978). [23] Sanders, R. The Downtown Jews (New York, 1969). [24] Sandrow, N. Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theatre (New York, 1977). [24] Scholem, G. Le grands courants de la mistique juive (Paris, 2002).

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[25] _____. Sabbatai Tsevi: le Messie mystique, 1626–1676 (Lagrasse, 1983). [26] Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class (Toronto, 1991). [27] Tobias, H. J. The Jewish Bund in Russia (Stanford, 1972). [28] Weill, C. Les cosmopolites: socialisme et judéité en Russie, 1897– 1917 (Paris, 2004). [29] Weinstock, N. Le pain de misere: histoire du mouvement ouvrier juif en Europe, 3 vol. (Paris, 1984–1986). [30] _____. Preface to F. Biagini, Nati altrove: il movimento anarchico ebraico tra Mosca e New York (Pisa, 1998). [31] Yanovsky, S. Ershte yorn fun yiddishn frayhaytlikhn sotsialism: Zikhroynes (New York, 1948).

INDEX ‘olah, 61 ’ašam, 61 a fortiori, 48, 57 Aaron Lichtenstein, 119 Abe Cahan, 261, 262 Abraham ibn Ezra, 204 acharit ha-yamim, 157 Acharonim, 18, 20, 37 Adolph Schwarz, 48 Alan Mittleman, 5 Alfasi, 37, 42, 43 algorithmic logic, 56 am segulah, 173 amidah, 160 Amoraim, 17, 20, 21, 35, 70, 72 Andrew Schumann, 5, 49, 51 Aristotelian dialectics, 60 Aristotelian logic, 43, 45, 47, 48, 52 Aristotelian philosophy, 195, 196, 198, 213 atsilut, 164 Avi Sion, 49 Aviram Ravitsky, 5 avodah zarah, 158 Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz, 135, 161 axiom of foundation, 56 Baal Ha-Maor, 37 Ba ya ibn Paquda, 119

Baruch Spinoza, 97, 100, 101, 113, 118, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247 behavioral logic, 56 Ben Azzai, 100 Benjamin Brown, 161, 177 Bernard Williams, 130 binyan ’av, 53, 59, 63 bore olam, 152 breira, 50 Bund, 259, 261, 264, 265 burnt-offering, 61, 62, 63 Charles Matthewes, 115 Charles Sanders Peirce, 1, 168 Chassidism, 257, 258 chavav, 173 chokhmah, 164 chovot ha-ibarim, 164 chovot halev, 164 controversy in the name of Heaven, 2 controversy not in the name of Heaven, 2 conventional logic, 56 critical thinking a religious obligation,, 88 Dani Shapiro, 190

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Daniel De Leon, 263 David Weisstub, 108 dayo principle, 57 deductive logic, 60 deontic logic, 50, 52, 84 derash, 148, 149, 176 dimayon, 162 Dov Gabbay, 5, 11 Dovid Edelstadt, 260, 263 dynamic logic, 56 edelkeit, 168 edinut, 164 Edward Palmer Thompson, 256 ehyeh imach, 153, 155 Eli Benamozegh, 151 Emmanuel Levinas, 124 emunah, 149 emunot, 164, 165 emunot v’deyot, 164 erets yisrael, 167, 168, 174, 175 Erich Fromm, 258 Ernst Bloch, 263 Forverts, 263 Friedrich Nietzsche, 86 Furio Biagini, 5 gaon, 262 Gaonim, 17, 20, 21, 36, 38 gasut, 172 Gavriel Chazut, 49 Gershom Scholem, 207, 215, 256 Gersonides, 204, 216 geulah, 136, 141, 152, 155, 156, 157, 167 gezerah šawah, 53, 58, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 goel, 141, 152, 157 goel adam, 152 guilt-offering, 61, 62, 63 Hadassa Kosak, 259, 260

halakhah, 3, 4, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 48, 50, 61, 71, 72, 76, 81, 103, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 124, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 150, 159, 164, 168, 170, 173, 174, 176, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 217 halakhah de-oraita, 18 halakhic deduction, 50 halakhic law, 213 halakhic logic, 51 halakhic man, 124, 125, 126 Harash meShantz, 46 haredi, 137, 161, 162, 167, 171, 176 Haskala, 254 hat’at, 61 havtachot, 135, 165, 169 ha-yashar v’ha-tov, 128 Hazon Ish, 135, 137, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 175, 176, 177 heqeš, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 Hermann Cohen, 118, 124, 126, 230, 246 Hillel, 2, 3, 16, 24, 27, 28, 32, 41, 54, 59, 81 Hoare logic, 56 homo religiosus, 125, 127 ḥoq, 129 hullin, 63 humanism, 89, 94, 95, 97 ḥuqim, 124, 129 Isaac Deutscher, 255 Isadore Twersky, 197 Isaiah Berlin, 96 Israel M. Ta-Shma, 204

INDEX Jacob Anatoli, 204 Jewish biomedical ethics, 119 Jewish ethics, 3, 4, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 123, 126, 128, 130, 133 Johann Friedrich Herbart, 121 Johannes Buxtorf, 202 Joseph Dan, 120 Joseph Soloveitchik, 119, 192 Judah ha-Levi, 198, 204 Kantian ethics, 121 klal u-prat, 41, 52 kochot hashem, 153 Kol Nidre, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191 Kurt Gödel, 51 law by tradition, 28, 29 law of debate, 27, 30, 32 learning, 59 Lenn E. Goodman, 5, 133, 216 Leon Trockij, 252 Leonty Soloweitchik, 251 Leora Batnitzky, 118 Levi ben Abraham, 204, 213 Levi ben Gershom, 204 Lewis Carroll, 94 liberalism, 85, 89, 95, 102, 109, 111, 252, 256 lifnim me-shurat ha-din, 117, 128 limud torah, 169 ma’aser šeni, 63 maaseh bereshit, 152, 153, 156 Maharal of Prague, 38 Maimonides, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 27, 37, 45, 52, 54, 88, 118, 166, 170, 195, 196, 199, 203, 204, 205, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 216, 221, 226, 246 makhov, 156

269 Mar bar Rav ’Aši, 70, 82 Martin Buber, 258 Marvin Fox, 119 mashiach, 157 Max Kadushin, 151 mehilah, 186 melakhim, 153 melekh hamashiach, 157 melekh meshiach, 146 mentshn, 261 Messianism, 145, 176, 255, 256 Michael Abraham, 5, 11, 49 Michael Löwy, 258 Michael Wyschogrod, 116 mitsvot, 135, 162, 164, 165 mitzvah battle, 3 mitzvot asey, 50 mitzvot lo ta’ase, 50 Moritz Lazarus, 118, 121 Morris Rosenfeld, 260 Moses Mendelssohn, 116 musaf, 161 musar, 4, 164 Musar Movement, 4, 119 Muslim logic, 45 Nachmanides, 42, 43, 128 Nathan of Gaza, 255 Nathan Weinstock, 261, 262 Nazirite Rabbi, 43 nevua, 163 novi, 262 olam haba, 153 olam hazeh, 153, 159 peshara, 128 peshat, 148, 149, 150, 162 Peter Ochs, 5, 178 Petr Lavrov, 256 Pierre Vidal-Naquet, 252 Plato, 86, 97, 99, 146, 221 Pogroms, 253, 254

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pragmatism, 135, 147, 168, 178 Prince of Sens, 46 process logic, 56 prophets, 14, 88, 105, 106, 129, 145, 234, 235, 262 qa wa-homer, 53, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 Rab, 70, 81 Rabbah, 55, 70, 82, 88, 160, 173, 205 Rabba bar Hannah, 55 Rabban Šim‘on ben Gamli’el, 70, 80, 81 Rabbenu Asher, 36 Rabbi ‘Akiba’, 70, 71, 78 Rabbi ’Eli‘ezer, 70, 78, 79, 80, 81 Rabbi ’Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘qob, 70, 78, 79 Rabbi Abraham bar Hiya, 204 Rabbi Abraham Ben David, 37 Rabbi Abraham Chen, 2 Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, 39 Rabbi Aharon Even Chaim, 47 Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, 127 Rabbi Akiva, 25, 29, 32 Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef, 25 Rabbi Amitai, 192, 193 Rabbi Amitai ben Shepatiah, 192 Rabbi Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz, 161 Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi, 47 Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, 48 Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn (Abi) Zimra, 46 Rabbi David Cohen, 43 Rabbi David ibn Zimra, 46 Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, 24 Rabbi Eliezer the Great, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 39 Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, 86 Rabbi Gamali’el, 70, 81 Rabbi Gamliel, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Rabbi Gershom ben Shelomo, 203 Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, 200 Rabbi Hiyy’a, 70, 77 Rabbi Hiyya, 55 Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi, 43, 204 Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi haCohen, 43 Rabbi Isaac ben Yaakov Kanfinton, 46 Rabbi Isaac Kanfinton, 46 Rabbi Jacob ben Moses of Bagnols, 201 Rabbi Jonathan ha-Cohen of Lunel, 203 Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, 124 Rabbi Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, 18, 46 Rabbi Joseph ben Meir ibn Megas or Megas, 38 Rabbi Josep ben Saul Kim i, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212 Rabbi Joseph Mubnir, 198 Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, 38 Rabbi Leo Baeck, 124 Rabbi Me’ir, 70, 71, 78, 79, 80 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lefin, 4

INDEX Rabbi Moses Botaril, 198, 199, 207 Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel, 48 Rabbi Moshe Bloy, 199 Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, 4, 47 Rabbi Moshe Isserles, 18 Rabbi Moshe Ostrowski, 48 Rabbi Natan, 39, 70, 78 Rabbi Ne emiah, 71, 78 Rabbi Nisim of Girona, 201 Rabbi Peres ha-Cohen, 201 Rabbi Samson ben Abraham of Sens, 46 Rabbi Samson of Sens, 46 Rabbi Samuel ha-Nagid, 76 Rabbi Samuel ibn Naghrela, 45 Rabbi Shimon Federbush, 129 Rabbi Šim‘on, 71, 78, 79 Rabbi Šim‘on ben ’Ele‘azar, 71, 79 Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Adret, 213 Rabbi Solomon ibn Gabirol, 4 Rabbi Yehoshua, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah, 24, 28 Rabbi Ye ošu‘a, 71, 80, 81 Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi, 17 Rabbi Yehudah, 70, 71, 77, 78, 79, 80 Rabbi Yehudah ha-Naśi’, 70, 71, 77, 79, 80 Rabbi Yeshua Halevi bar Yosef of Talmisen, 46 Rabbi Yeshua Halevi from Talmisen, 46 Rabbi Yishmael, 42, 159 Rabbi Yišma’‘el, 1, 54, 71, 0

271 Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin Salanter, 4 Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, 24, 26, 28, 31, 32, 40 Rabbi Yo anan bar Nappa a’, 63, 67, 68 Rabbi Yose, 71, 78, 79, 80 Rabbi Yose ben Durmaskis, 31 rabbinical halakhah, 18 Radbaz, 46 rahamim, 186, 189 Ramban, 42, 119 RaMCHaL, 47 Rashba, 213 Rav ’A a’, 71, 82 Rav ’Aši, 70, 71, 77, 78, 82 Rav A ay, 201, 202 Rav Avraham Isaac Kuk, 137, 161 Rav Hisda’, 71, 81 Rav Huna’, 71, 81 Rav Kuk, 168, 171, 175, 176 Rav Na man, 71, 82 Rav Papa’, 63, 65, 67 Rav Šešet, 71, 82 Rav Yehudah, 72, 82 Rav Yosef, 72, 82 Ravina’, 72, 77, 78, 82 religio catholica, 229 Ri Megas, 38, 39 Rif, 204 Rishonim, 17, 20, 21, 37 ruach hakodesh, 164 Sabbatianesism, 257 sakhar va’onesh, 165 Samuel ibn Tibbon, 204 Saul Yanovsky, 261 Savoraim, 17, 20 sekhel, 164 selihah, 186, 191 selihot, 186, 187

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Shabbatai Zevi, 255, 257 Shammai, 2, 3, 16, 24, 27, 28, 32, 54, 81 Shimon Federbush, 120 shivat tsion, 136, 159, 160 Shoah, 102, 171, 178, 259 shoftim, 175, 176 shtibels, 262 sifrut ha-musar, 119, 133 Sigmund Freud, 258 Simhah Assaf, 207 Simone Weil, 151, 178 sin-offering, 61, 62, 63 Šmu’el, 71, 72, 81 Socrates, 213, 221 Sol Roth, 119 Steven Harvey, 204 strong learning, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 strong teaching, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 Stuart Weinberg Gerson, 181 syllogisms, 48, 54, 55 talmidei chakhamim, 164 talmud torah, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 177 Talmudic logic, 40, 49 Tannaim, 16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 35, 70, 98 teaching, 59 tenayim, 50

The Weekly Sidra, 262 Theological-Political Treatise, 219, 222, 231, 244, 245, 246 tichiyat hametim, 165 tikkun, 156 Tommaso Campanella, 256 topoi, 54, 59, 60 Torah ’shma, 172 Torah she b’a peh, 172 Tsvi Yehudah, 166 tzimtzum, 88 Tzvee Zahavy, 5 Uri Schild, 5, 11, 53, 85, 115, 135, 179, 196, 220, 250 Warren Z. Harvey, 200, 213 weak learning, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69 weak teaching, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69 Yaacov Sussmann, 207 yemot hamashiach, 165 yirah, 119 Yom Kippur, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 262 Yosef Karo, 18, 21, 46 Yuval Jobani, 5 za’akah, 156 Zerachiah ben Isaac Ha-Levi Gerondi, 37 Zionism, 168, 170, 262 Zionist nationalism, 167