Abstract
The voice of Jewish tradition differs from that of systematic Jewish philosophy. Jewish tradition came forth in the liturgy, in the interpretation of classic texts, and in sermons and homilies. None of them relies on philosophical language and none pretends to convey a philosophy. The sources discussed in this chapter reflect a conversation with canonic texts and fundamental ideas to which their authors are intimately close, writing for and within the community of the faithful and tracing a faithful picture of Jewish tradition’s fundamental intuitions.
The significant finding emerging from these sources is that Jewish tradition views the autonomous thesis as self-evident, requiring no justification or grappling with alternatives. The dependence thesis, by contrast, emerges as an alien element, absent from the ongoing intergenerational discourse.
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Notes
- 1.
Italy–Jerusalem, fifteenth century.
- 2.
Avot 1:1, s. v. Moshe kibel, commentary of Bartenura.
- 3.
This was apparently the interpretation of Immanuel Jakobovitz, Jewish Medical Ethics: A Comparative and Historical Study of the Jewish Religious Attitude to Medicine and Its Practice (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), ch. 7, note 5, 292.
- 4.
This hermeneutical consideration rests on what is known as “the hermeneutical circle,” stating that our understanding of a text rests on our presuppositions.
- 5.
Poland 1721–Berlin 1800, rabbi of Berlin, father of R. Shaul Levin, author of Responsa ba-Shamayim Rosh.
- 6.
Zvi Levin, Pirke Avot im Arba’ah Perushim mi-Geonei Eretz (Tel Aviv, 1966) [Heb].
- 7.
R. Moshe Isserles, Torat ha-Olah (Prague, 1833), ch. 71, 113a [Heb].
- 8.
Referring to R. Yitzhak Arama, Akedat Yitzhak (Israel, 1974), va-Yishlakh Yaakov [Heb].
- 9.
Ostensibly, Rema’s claims could be interpreted as reflecting a thesis of normative conflict rather than a dependence thesis. According to this interpretation, Rema speaks here of a clash between morality as opposed to good and evil as determined in the Torah, and he means to emphasize that the good and evil of the Torah override those determined by morality. A necessary condition for a normative conflict, however, is the recognition of the moral obligation’s intrinsic validity. Supporters of the conflict claim that, at times, the divine command dismisses what is truly the moral obligation, a condition that in this case is missing. Rema speaks of a situation where the question in dispute is the criterion for determining good and evil and, at first sight, his view appears to be that good and evil are determined by God’s command. This thesis, as will be shown later, does not convey strong but weak dependence.
- 10.
Isserless, Torat ha-Olah, ch. 71, 113a.
- 11.
Ibid., ch. 7, 18b–19a. On Rema’s general approach, see Jonah Ben-Sasson, The Philosophical System of R. Moses Isserles (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1984), ch. 11 [Heb].
- 12.
Spain 1420–Italy 1494.
- 13.
Arama, Akedat Yitzhak, ch. 77, 230a–b. Arama hints here at the issue discussed in BT Berakhot 19b claiming that, since “there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord,” the obligation is to undress even in the market anyone wearing shatnez [mixed fibers] clothing.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
See ibid., section 21. On this issue, see the analysis of Sara Heller-Wilensky, The Philosophy of Isaac Arama in the Framework of Philonic Philosophy (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Bialik Institute/Dvir, 1956), ch. 9 [Heb].
- 17.
A similar analysis applies to the comments of R. Hayyim of Volozhin on Avot 1:2 in his commentary on Avot, Ruah ha-Hayyim (Vilnius: Reem, 1859) [Heb]. R. Hayyim claims “no act is honest unless it is written in the Torah.” The reason, however, is not that honesty depends on the divine command but on the fact that the Torah “comprises all the virtues and, as one who walks in the darkness and a torch lights up the way for him,” so the Torah lights up the way for humans to see moral truth.
- 18.
R. Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, Sefat Emet, Part 2 (Jerusalem, 1971), 110–111 [Heb].
- 19.
See Religion and Morality, 93–96.
- 20.
Alter, Sefat Emet, Part 2, 112.
- 21.
Ibid., 115.
- 22.
Ibid., 116–117.
- 23.
Lithuania 1878–Bnei Brak 1953.
- 24.
Abraham Karelitz, Sefer Hazon Ish al ha-Rambam (Bnei Brak, 1958), 21 [Heb].
- 25.
Ibid. See also his discussion in ibid., 28–29, § 14.
- 26.
This was also Eliezer Goldman’s understanding. See Eliezer Goldman, Expositions and Inquiries: Jewish Thought in Past and Present, ed. Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 294, note 2 [Heb].
- 27.
Karelitz, Sefer Hazon Ish, 27. Cf. 22, § 3, where Hazon Ish contrasts “natural inclinations” with “heavenly Halakhah.” Following one’s natural inclinations leads to evil and corruption.
- 28.
Cf. Aharon Lichtenstein, “Morality and Halakhah in Jewish Tradition,” De’ot 46 (1977), 10 [Heb].
- 29.
For a literary expression of his struggle against these trends, see the novel by Chaim Grade, The Yeshiva, trans. Curt Leviant (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976–1977). Two prominent characters in the book are Tsemakh Atlas, who represents the radical trend in the Mussar movement, and R. Avraham Shaye of Kosov, author of Mahazeh Avraham, who represents the Hazon Ish. The novel presents the contrast between the spiritual religious world of Hazon Ish and the radical Mussar method in the Novardok version.
- 30.
Karelitz, Sefer Hazon Ish, 23.
- 31.
Ibid., 49.
- 32.
Ibid., 28.
- 33.
Ibid., 27.
- 34.
Ibid., 48–49.
- 35.
Cf. ibid., 24, where he identifies reason with the Torah: “according to the directions of reason and the obligation of the Torah.”
- 36.
Ibid., 23.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
For further discussion of Hazon Ish, see Benjamin Brown, The Hazon Ish: Halakhist, Believer and Leader of the Haredi Revolution (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2011) 653–702 [Heb].
- 39.
Poland 1889–1943.
- 40.
On these sermons and on the author, see Mendel Piekarz, Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland during the Interwar Period and the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1990), ch. 12 [Heb].
- 41.
Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, Sermons from the Years of Rage, ed. Daniel Reiser (Jerusalem: Herzog Academic College, 2017), 132 [Heb]. See also 172.
- 42.
Ibid., 132.
- 43.
See Religion and Morality, 49–53.
- 44.
See Patterson Brown, “God and the Good,” Religious Ethics 2 (1967): 269–276. Brown admits that God is good, but only in the sense that God is the criterion of the good. It appears that R. Shapira should also be interpreted in these terms when he writes “and because God, blessed be He, is true, therefore, this is also true.” R. Shapira does not thereby mean truth in the sense that it is independent of God (since he repeatedly stresses that God is the source of truth and justice) but rather in the sense that it is God who determines it.
- 45.
Roland H. Bainton, “The Immoralities of the Patriarchs According to the Late Middle Ages and the Reformation,” Harvard Theological Review 32 (1930): 3–26.
- 46.
Cf. Ronald Green, Religion and Moral Reason: A New Method for Comparative Study (New York: Oxford University Press 1988), ch. 4; Religion and Morality, chs. 6 and 8, and also Ch. 12.
- 47.
Cf. Shapira, Sermons from the Years of Rage, 41, 55, 139.
- 48.
Ibid., 9.
- 49.
Ibid., 106–107.
- 50.
Ibid., 100.
- 51.
See Piekarz, Hasidism in Poland, ch. 12, for a detailed account of the various arguments that R. Shapira raises in his sermons.
- 52.
Shapira, 139.
- 53.
See Religion and Morality, 159–164.
- 54.
Hungary 1883–Jerusalem 1946.
- 55.
Yitzhak Breuer, Tsiyunei Derekh [Landmarks] (Tel Aviv: Am Olam, 1955), 21 [Heb].
- 56.
See Religion and Morality, 23–24.
- 57.
Breuer, Tsiyunei Derekh, 17.
- 58.
Ibid., 13.
- 59.
See ibid., 13–15.
- 60.
Ibid., 16.
- 61.
Ibid., 20.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Ibid., 21.
- 64.
Ibid., 20.
- 65.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Faith, History, and Values (Jerusalem: Academon, 1982), 49 [Heb].
- 66.
Poland 1898–Jerusalem 1995.
- 67.
Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Hazon ve-Hagshamah [Vision and Realization], (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1955), 39 [Heb].
- 68.
See Religion and Morality, 14–15.
- 69.
Cf. Moshe Unna, Bi-shvilei ha-mahshavah ve-ha-ma’aseh [On the Paths of Thought and Action] (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1956), 24 [Heb]: “How can a religious Jew determine that some areas of life are beyond God’s purview?” See also Yeshayahu Bernstein, Ye’ud ve-Derekh [Mission and Path] (Tel Aviv: Hazon ve-Hagshamah, 1956), 146–147 [Heb]: “Jewish religion is unlike others … it excludes no area of life from its domain and authority. The core of its teaching is one’s constant presence within the Lord’s domain. … Judaism, in all generations … neither knew nor acknowledged areas of Jewish life that are not subordinate to the Torah’s supreme authority.”
- 70.
Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Tehumim (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1952), 344 [Heb].
- 71.
Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howard Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 406. For a discussion of this approach, see Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), 171–178. For further sources, see Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1967), § 1843, 2437, and 6902. See also Religion and Morality, 150–151.
- 72.
Shragai, Tehumim, 265–266.
- 73.
For further discussion, see Peter l. Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (New York: Anchor Press, 1979), 10–11; S. N. Eisenstadt, Tradition, Change and Modernity (Malabar, FL: Robert Krieger, 1983), ch.14.
- 74.
Abraham Shapira, “War and Morality: Interview with R. Shapira,” Tehumin 4 (1993), 181 [Heb].
- 75.
In Mikhtav me-Eliyahu, ed. Aryeh Carmel and Alter Halpern, vol. 1 (Bnei Brak: Committee for the Publication of the Writings of Rabbi E. Dessler, 1964), R. Elijah Dessler endorsed the Asherite conception of nature and claimed that “the entire world has no other reason beside the will of God, may He be blessed.” He did not, however, draw a similar conclusion regarding the moral realm and did not claim that moral laws also depend on God’s will (ibid., 177–183). Indeed, he argued that the foundation of worship is gratitude (ibid., 50). In various places, he endorses a weak dependence conception, stating that faith and self-discipline are necessary for a pure heart and for intellectual honesty. See ibid., 52–60.
- 76.
Shlomo Aviner, “Messianic Realism,” Morashah 9 (1975), 65 [Heb].
- 77.
For an analysis of these two interpretations, see Religion and Morality, 21–24.
- 78.
See also Chap. 11.
- 79.
Aviner, “Messianic Realism,” 65.
- 80.
Religion and Morality, 22.
- 81.
Ibid., 23.
- 82.
Ibid., 22–24.
- 83.
Aviner, “Messianic Realism,” 65.
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Sagi, A. (2021). DCM in Jewish Thought. In: Morality and Religion. Jewish Thought and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82242-2_4
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