Encore Archive

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Over the course of the next month we will be reprinting a series of articles that Sh'ma printed in late 1976 and early 1977 on the nature of contemporary Jewish ethics. Last week we published "The Question of Jewish Ethics" by Steven Schwarzchild. This week and in subsequent weeks we will be reprinting responses to his article.

The Non-Jew in Jewish Ethics

Gerald Blidstein (Sh'ma, 7/125)

I would strip Steven Schwarzschild's "The Question of Jewish Ethics Today" (Sh'ma,- 7/124) down to this: (1) the Jewish ethic with regard to non-Jews has been "demoralized" in modern times. The gentile is denied the love of his Jewish neighbor and has lost his status as a person entitled to the protection and nurture of a Jewish society. (2) But this "demoralization" is not the only - or indeed the most - legitimate reading of the Jewish tradition. Self-sacrificial behavior, demanded by lifnim mishurat hadin and other expansive rubrics, ought to define the authentic Jewish response to the non-Jew. (3) Current Israeli behavior towards Arabs - both citizens and enemies alike - therefore reflects the "demoralization" and contraction to which Halakha and Jewish social attitudes generally have succumbed in modern times. Judaism emerges unscathed if rattled by this barrage, but we Jews don't come off nearly as well.

It is hard to generalize about the position of the non-Jew in Jewish ethics, beyond the bald statement that it is better to be a Jew. There is, first, the wide variety of opinions still found in Tannaitic thought. Whether one may or may not rob a gentile is debated, so too whether one ought return his loss. This variety reflects contending concepts and human relations no less than differing evaluations of the gentile. Both the fact that even those rabbis who extend the protection of the law to the gentile usually argue from specific, exceptional verses rather than from the fabric of the law itself, and the very possibility of the debate make a clear point - if not legal (for a legal system is primarily concerned with its own) then educational: we are habituated to the idea of humanity intrinsically divided into Jew and non-Jew.

Then there are a variety of rationales, most articulated in medieval times. Medieval thinkers often suggest that the bias [against the gentile] is rooted in generalizations from the gentile's behavior rather than in his status as a non-Jew. This perspective is adumbrated, perhaps, by the Talmudic claim that gentiles are justly deprived of rights because they rejected not only the Torah but even the elementary demands of Noahide law: it is raised by Maimonides and the Tosafists, and is utilized by Me'iri, who by evaluating upwards the collective moral personality of the medieval gentile world revises certain Talmudic rulings.

Ethics based on the inequality of Jew and gentile

This blurring of rationales is not only a response to historic stimuli but also reflects another variety in Jewish ethics: the variety of gentiles. The Talmudic experience ranges from a gentile society convicted of violence and even bestiality, to those individuals who abide by the law of morality and religion. A systematic thinker who knows that the Jew is commanded to preserve the life of the latter (ger toshav) and promote his well-being may well ask whether legalized discrimination against the gentile is meant for both sodomite and saint alike. This sort of thinking implies, of course, that ethical responsibilities are placed on a sliding scale parallel to the persons to whom we relate.

Ger toshav provides us with our litmus test - a perfectly decent gentile whose only sin is that he has not converted to Judaism. We know that - ethical questions aside - the Jew enjoys a sacral status derived from his historic charge and destiny; denial of this status to the gentile is not prejudice. But does this sacral status and its absence carry an ethical implication? The fact that murder of a ger toshav by a Jew is not considered a capital crime indicates that ethics become a function of sacrality. So too the ruling that the Sabbath is not to be violated in order to save a ger toshav's life. Over time, a tradition has developed allowing (or demanding) the violation because such refusal of medical treatment, say, on "religious grounds," would imperil the Jewish community itself. Yet when I once asked Rav Soloveitchik whether he was morally (not halakhically!) satisfied with this prudential permission, he answered flatly "no."

How to make a universal ethic "right" not "saintly"

Jewish law will probably continue to provide practical solutions of this type, and we ought not haughtily belittle them. After all, the Sabbath may be violated (as Torah law) to save even a Jewish limb only by virtue of formalistic argument; so too, according to some, the life of a Jewish fetus. And one hardly need be ashamed of the performance of either Jewish law or Jewish society vis-a-vis the gentile; the balance sheet, as is well known, carries a massive debt in our favor. But we are here interested in ideology. On this level I suspect that the crucial issue is the nature of Jewish peoplehood, whether we can believe in a chosenness that is not tied to a judgment of the non-Jew that carries ethical/legal implications. The covenantal community of Sinai projects, I believe, the Jewish ideal of human community; and Sinai is a universal option, open to all men. But can we have a functioning concept of community that adequately includes all men irrespective of their acknowledgment of Sinai? Does the logic of Sinai commit us to a dual ethic? If we argue that our "love" can rightly be bestowed only within the covenantal family, what are the consequences of "non-love"?

Schwarzschild's solution - a blend of piety and hassidut - is unacceptable. The use of categories like lihim mishurat hadin in this context is only slightly less insulting than the prudential course outlined above. The question is one of right, not of generosity. And if we claim (as we often do) that the nature of Judaism is best revealed in the practice it commands the community, it will not do to abandon the ship of law and load everything into the lifeboat of piety, even if a required piety. Lihim mishurat hadin is law in the sense of being required, but calling all this "law," a term that "drips with ambiguity" (Frank), does not conceal the fact that we are dealing with very different sorts of standards. If Jewish law is immoral (and not merely minimal) it cannot be salvaged by lifnim mishurat hadin. Some of the categories used are, in addition, considerably exaggerated. Kavod Habriyot, for example, is limited by the Babylonian Talmud to instances of rabbinic ordinances or passive behavior - it does not displace "any" law of the Torah.

Absolutes work better in theory than in practice

One can argue, furthermore, the authority of Ben Petura over Rabbi Akiba, but why assume that the equal certain death of two men is so morally superior to the survival of one as to provide a commendable model of self-sacrifice to the community? Schwarzschild implies that self-sacrifice is itself the pre-eminent virtue; I would prefer to examine its object or goal. Are we quite so simplistically in the situation of the two comrades threatened by the desert itself - or is one man pursuing the other? The latter third of the paper turns to the real world, but its perception of reality is very debatable.

The Aggadic range is wider, generally, than the Halakhic. Articulating values and principles, it is phrased in absolute terms and never faces the threat of death by a thousand qualifications. The significance of an aggadic view is weighed when it crystallizes into halakha by contending with other values and gaining a place in a hierarchy of priorities. What normative role has the claim that every man is as significant as a whole world carved out for itself? The moralistic-aggadic bombardment is not completely beside the point, of course. "Yesterday's moral-but-not legal right frequently becomes today's moral-and-legal right" (Cahn). But given the patterns indigenous to Jewish law, I suspect that shifts in attitude would center on the medieval techniques. This, after all, has occurred with respect to the halakhic attitude towards non-observing Jews as well.

Israel's existence alters Jewish-gentile relations

I do not pretend to have a "solution"; my comments above, indeed, reflect hurried impressions rather than serious study. But I would suggest a historical model (Schwarzschdd avoids all history except that of the present!) that is just the opposite of "Jewish Ethics Today." There the claim is-made that the major villain is contemporary power-sated chauvinism, i.e., Israel. Historically, though, the specifics of the law discussed are Talmudic. The point is not merely chronological. For by identifying the proper historical context, we see that it was powerlessness that provided the background to our phenomenon, not an overabundance of power; insecurity, alienation, catastrophe - these pointed the finger at the non-Jew in an incrreasingly dualistic Second Commonwealth. "Abraham on one side, the rest of the world on the other"; examples could be multiplied. Even in modern times, most Jews distrust the gentile world because of what happened in Europe, 1933-1945, not because Israel has defeated the Arabs. (Incidentally, hassidism - a sacred cow nowadays - is much more systematically goy-rejecting than both halakha or Zionism!)

So it is not the golus (exile) that can provide a healthy re-drawing of the relationship of Jews to gentiles. Will Israel provide the conditions for a re-evaluation? Israel, too, is in golus; the messiah has not come and we too are underdogs confronting, classically, a powerful gentile world. But there is a difference, and the possibility exists, here, for a different development. All this is speculative, of course. I also realize that Adam and Abraham present two distinct human models, that the issues discussed go deeper than the historical background I have raised. Nonetheless, the existence of the state introduces a new and significant factor, over and above the Western experience. Steven - may-az yetze matok? (Will sweetness come out of strength?)