I’ll never forget what happened on my first trip to Israel.

            It was the summer I turned 25, and I had been working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. At the time, I had been invited to join a parliamentary fact-finding mission organized by the Canadian Jewish community through the Canada-Israel Committee. 

            I had joined the trip having been raised a Christian in rural Canada—a world that can feel light years away from the Jewish community, let alone the Middle East. It was my first trip overseas and, suffice to say, I would experience many “I’m not in Kansas anymore” moments in our brief but packed time in Israel.

            Of all the remarkable sights, people, and conversations I would encounter, one that still resonates took place at the Kotel. A small group of us—all Canadians who were not Jewish—were standing in the men’s section of the plaza, observing this fascinating world in which we found ourselves. An Orthodox Israeli said something to us, possibly in Hebrew, and our guide responded to him. Apparently, he had asked if we were Jewish and would like to borrow tefillin, to which our guide politely responded that the group wasn’t Jewish. 

            The Orthodox man quickly and warmly responded in English: “Welcome to Israel!”

            Three simple words in an encounter I’m sure he would forget momentarily, and one that he no doubt had experienced many times before. But for me, it spoke volumes. 

            Here we were at a site of extraordinary holiness to a man who, by all appearances, took the holy very seriously. We were tourists soaking it all in and standing out in the crowd with our awkward, cardboard kippot.

            And yet, he made us feel welcome. Like we belonged there.

            When I share my story of choosing to become Jewish, I always speak of the power of that trip—and so many other serendipitous events that would draw me to discover the beauty of Am Yisrael and the beauty of our precious Torah. Little did I know back then that an unexpected moment at the Kotel would be a milestone on a journey into Zionism, Judaism, and ultimately dedicating my career to serving the Jewish people as an advocacy and communications professional. 

            In the years that followed, my spiritual path went hand-in-hand with my career path. I took a job at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA—the advocacy agency of Canada’s Jewish Federations) and, later, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. In a world where Jews and Israel are so often misunderstood, if not outright maligned, I was passionate to make a difference. And I felt that my personal and professional background could make for a unique contribution. 

            So, too, my training in public opinion research—developed at a consulting firm I had joined after Parliament Hill—would give me a window into how Canadians view Jews, Israel, and antisemitism. Over the years, I would have the privilege of working on the research teams conducting some of the most important studies of Canadian public opinion on these issues, uncovering data trends and messaging proven to open minds and win allies for our cause.

            Those years of research, including data gathered in the wake of the heinous October 7^th attacks, revealed a wide range of nuanced findings that are perhaps best left to another essay. But in the context of the title topic of this article, I am reminded of a few findings that offer compelling evidence of the power of the personal model—the power of Kiddush Hashem—in shaping views of Jews beyond our community.

            In Canada, home to the Diaspora’s third-largest Jewish community, Jews constitute roughly one percent of the general population. Broadly speaking, the research is fairly consistent in terms of how Canadians perceive us. 

            When it comes to views of different religions, Judaism is among the most positively regarded, with favorability scores similar to Protestant Christianity. The only religion that typically surpasses Judaism in popularity among Canadians is Buddhism. Every other religion, including Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity, enjoys lower favorability scores than Judaism.

            But to be Jewish is, of course, also to be part of a people. And when it comes to views of Canadians of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds, Jews are similarly seen in very positive terms. The proportion of Canadians who have positive views of Jews is comparable to those who have a positive view of people of British or French origin, the two groups with the highest such scores in Canada (which is no doubt indicative of their relatively large representation within Canadian demography). Across studies, there is a consistent majority of Canadians who feel that Jews make a positive contribution to Canadian society. 

            On the other side of the ledger, the research certainly shows that antisemitism exists in Canada. Based on all of the studies I’ve worked on or reviewed, I would estimate that somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of Canadians hold clearly antisemitic views. Depending on the antisemitic trope being tested by a pollster, the numbers climb disturbingly higher than that threshold on particular questions. Most Canadians have little understanding or opinion either way when asked about antisemitic tropes. The issue is largely tabula rasa to a public that has devoted minimal consideration to a topic that appears to have no meaningful connection to their lives. However, as a general rule, when asked whether a respondent agrees with a particular antisemitic trope or conspiracy theory, for every one Canadian who agrees with such a hateful statement, there are approximately two Canadians who strongly disagree with these views. 

            A two-to-one ratio is, of course, an encouraging sign if one is marketing a product or a political party. But that’s not what we’re doing when we advocate for Jews, Israel, and—for that matter—fundamental human rights. Experience suggests that it doesn’t require a hateful majority for a society to cross an antisemitic Rubicon. It simply requires the forces of moderation to remain silent and preoccupied with other matters, while a loud and aggressive fringe dominates the discourse and shatters the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable—increasingly marginalizing and threatening Jews in the process. Of the many lessons we Diaspora Jews should urgently internalize from the post-October 7^th experience, it’s the danger posed by this dynamic. The question is: How do we combat it? 

            In 2022, I was privileged to be part of a team that conducted a public opinion study as a collaboration of CIJA, Federation CJA of Montreal, and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. In addition to asking Canadians what they thought of Jews, Israel, antisemitism, and various related issues, we asked the question: Do you have a close Jewish friend or colleague? Nearly one in five respondents answered in the affirmative. We examined their views in depth, and the results were remarkable.

            Respondents who had a close Jewish friend or colleague were two times more likely to say that Jews make a positive contribution to Canadian society, as compared to those who did not have a personal connection to Jews. Similarly, those with a close Jewish friend or colleague were twice as likely to strongly oppose antisemitism, again compared to those without a personal relationship to a Jew.

            Prior to my conversion, I once spoke to a group of Jewish students in Ottawa, with whom I shared that they would be wise to see themselves as ambassadors for the Jewish people. Having grown up in a rural area where there are virtually no Jews, I shared with them that they may be the first and only Jew that someone meets—and that this comes with both opportunity and responsibility. Years later, I was seeing this principle come to life in the data before my eyes. The results were a stunning demonstration that, just as they say that all politics is local, the personal is powerful when it comes to how we understand people from different lived realities. 

            “Sanctifying the Name,”[i] a characteristically thoughtful essay by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l, unpacks how the principle of Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying the divine name) has been interpreted by rabbonim throughout history. He notes that martyrdom is, of course, core to our understanding of Kiddush Hashem, citing the willingness of Jews to sacrifice themselves for their faith—be it at the hands of the Seleucid Greeks, the Romans, or the Crusaders. But Rabbi Sacks goes on to cite a passage from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, which has powerful import for our daily lives:

If a sage “speaks pleasantly to others, is affable and gracious, receives people pleasantly, never humiliates others even though they humiliate him and honors others even though they disrespect him…with the result that all praise him, love him, and approve of his deeds—such a person sanctifies God’s name. Of him, Scripture (Is. 49:3) says: “And He said to me: Israel, you are my servant, in whom I will be glorified.”

            Like most of us, I cannot credibly speak of what it means to be a sage. But as Jews who live in a free and democratic society—a society in which we can express our authentic selves to the world around us—we each have an opportunity to infuse the underlying principles of Kiddush Hashem in our daily lives. In this regard, the data seems to paint a compelling picture. By simply being openly Jewish and a good, relatable person, one has the power to strengthen the “brand” of the Jewish people and reduce antisemitism among their peers.

            To be sure, this is not to suggest a singular solution to antisemitism. Nor is it to imply that the same kindness and personal connection that creates allies among people of goodwill can somehow transform a hardened antisemite or protect our community from those who wish us harm. But it is to say that, in the fight against antisemitism, if we are solely focused on those who hate us, we are ignoring those who—with the right outreach—will stand with us and on the right side of history. 

            I would also argue that effective ally-building doesn’t begin by telling people beyond our community what they should think. Rather, as the data suggests, it begins by simply showing up as a good person—as reliable friend or colleague—who is openly Jewish, and therefore brings credit to the Jewish people.

            In today’s environment, it also seems clear that it isn’t enough to simply show up. At a time when antisemites are attempting to defame what it is to be Jewish, we need to own and define our identity—and not only for ourselves. We need to warmly share our experiences—our Passover sedarim, our Shabbat dinners, our Chanukah parties, our family histories, our photos and stories from our last trip to Israel, and so much more—because the humanization of the Jewish experience is a powerful antidote to the dehumanization of Jews. And as someone who has lived that journey of discovering the beautiful world of Jewish life, I have seen firsthand how we look from the outside in—and we need to open those windows wider than ever if we want a society of allies rather than bystanders.

            And last but not least, humanizing the Jewish experience also means humanizing the impact of the hate we’re facing. There is compelling psychological research to demonstrate the power of personal anecdotes. We can and must talk about history, hate crime statistics, and the geopolitical threats facing Israel and Jews. But if we talk in abstract terms—if we fail to share the personal impact of antisemitism on our families and communities—we risk giving the impression that this is an academic matter, rather than a threat that’s harming and hurting the people they care about: their close Jewish friends and colleagues.

            Welcome to Israel. If three simple words from a stranger can shift a paradigm and enter the heart, one can only begin to imagine the power of our personal example—through everyday acts in the spirit of Kiddush Hashem—on the lives of those around us.

On Wednesdays, May 7,14, 21, and 28, from 8:30-9:30 pm ET, Rabbi Hayyim Angel will teach a four-part Zoom series on the biblical book of Ezra-Nehemiah. We will consider the central themes of the book, and consider how strikingly relevant the book is to today's times.

The classes are sponsored by the Jewish Center of New York, and are free and open to the public.

Registration is required to join the class and receive the Zoom links, and sponsorship opportunities are available. To register and for more information, please go to this link:

https://www.jewishcenter.org/event/Ezra%20and%20Nehemiah 

            The High Holiday season—in the midst of which I am writing these words—calls on Jews to examine ourselves, to reflect on our moral and ethical shortcomings, and to seek ways of mending these faults so as to turn, or return, to the right path. Moreover, our tradition makes clear that we are to subject ourselves to this self-examination not just as individuals but collectively. The confessional sections of our liturgy are replete with verbs in the first-person plural. We, like our ancestors who came before us, have sinned. We have turned from God’s goodly laws and commandments. We have sinned against God, willingly and unwillingly. Not to mention entire piyyutim (liturgical poems) of more specific, concrete offenses to which we confess, knowing that we individually have not committed these acts but accepting collective moral responsibility for the possibility that someone in our community has.

            To be sure, Jews are not alone in being called to this effort of self-examination. The Puritans who founded my university and nurtured it in its early years likewise felt the obligation to probe their innermost consciousness, and not just once per year. Calvin wrote, "Let us … unremittingly examining our faults [and] call ourselves back to humility. Thus, nothing will remain in us to puff us up; but there will be much occasion to be cast down.” And in the same vein, “the more severe we are toward ourselves, and the more sharply we examine our own sins, the more we ought to hope that God is favorable and merciful toward us.” For Calvin, of course, and among the Puritans more generally, the emphasis on atonement and redemption that we find in our tradition is largely missing. Reflecting on one’s faults had religious value—“it could not happen otherwise than that the soul itself, stricken by dread of divine judgment, should act the part of an avenger in carrying out its own punishment,” and “those who are really religious experience what sort of punishments are shame, confusion, groaning, displeasure with self, and other emotions that arise out of a lively recognition of sin”—but when it came to possibilities for redemption, the non-elect were the non-elect, and that was that. By contrast, for Jews a large part of the motivation for self-examination is the desire to return: at the individual level to improve one’s personal behavior, and at the community level to repair the world in which it is our lot to live.

            This collective sense of moral responsibility for our world feels especially acute in the wake of the events of the past twelve months. Most obviously, for those living in Israel and in surrounding areas the past year has brought unspeakable atrocities, violence on a horrifying scale, and widespread death. But for us as Jews living in the United States, and especially in the privileged setting of a university like mine, the past year has also brought experiences no one wishes to relive, including repeated and sustained outbursts of raw bigotry of a kind rarely seen in our normally more elevated community. It is hardly surprising that this experience has brought forth a profusion of efforts to understand what has happened, and to search out the flaws in our community’s institutional make-up, and especially that of our universities, that have fostered these failings. More in keeping with the Jewish tradition than Calvinist thought, much of this effort is now devoted to considering changes for which the need is plainly urgent. 

            The twentieth-century theologian Langdon Gilkey observed that “what we believe is largely determined by where the evil seems to lie.” Over the past year we, meaning Jews but also the American polity more generally, have gained a new understanding of where the evil lies that has so devastatingly infected our lives. Although I hesitate to place too positive a gloss on this new understanding—to repeat, it has emerged as a consequence of events no one would choose to relive—there is moral value in seeking to make our world better, and to the extent that knowledge of our collective and institutional shortcomings is a necessary precursor to undertaking that improvement then it too has value. Gilkey was a theologian and I am not, and so I may well be using the word “believe” in a different sense than what he had in mind. But I am comfortable nonetheless with the notion that what we have learned has shaped our understanding in ways that signal what is to be done.

            I think we can apply this new understanding in two distinct areas. One concerns us directly as Jews. The other concerns our universities, but it turns out that we as Jews have something specific and important to bring to that effort as well.

            To begin with the Jewish world, following the events of the past year we now have a different sense of where the salient threat lies—not the armed threat to Israel, but the threat to the wellbeing and security of our own community here. Groups of fellow-citizens whom Jews have overwhelmingly supported in the past, and with whose fundamental goals we still feel resonance, have actively and aggressively arrayed themselves against Jewish interests and derisively dismissed Jewish concerns. Nor were these reactions a response to the violence of Israel’s response to the October 7 terrorist attack. Numerous groups were willing to proclaim their total lack of sympathy for the victims on the day the attack occurred, before Israel had launched any response whatever.

            What kind of values, we are entitled to ask, do these groups hold? And given whatever values they do hold, are we really obligated to support these groups? Simply seeking to promote one’s own interest, or one’s own group’s interest, is hardly a valid moral principle. That requires some broader, more universalistic basis. For all the reasons that our tradition so eloquently teaches, we sympathize and seek to ally ourselves with people who meet persecution, or discrimination, or other forms of unfair treatment. “You shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country” is a valid moral principle and we are right to adhere to it, whoever is the “stranger” in question. But institutionalized groups who insist on this principle for themselves while denying it for others are not, in fact, principled. They forfeit their claim to our support on moral grounds. 

            In a similar vein, we have learned that familiar principles of civic engagement, most obviously free speech, are likewise subject not only to abuse (Jews have known this for centuries) but to misappropriation for self-serving purposes. As we look back on the past year, it is breathtaking how rapidly many in our universities have pivoted from full-throated advocacy of trigger warnings and safety zones to the notion that any verbal or written statements, even the vilest calumnies deliberately designed to provoke, humiliate and offend, are sacrosanct. Moreover, many of our students, and their supporters, now exhibit an understanding of free speech to mean not only that they are entitled to say whatever they want, about anything or anyone they choose, but, further, that there should never be any consequences to them for the content of that speech: freedom of speech somehow has come to encompass freedom from criticism for whatever one has said. Members of the Jewish community cannot help but notice that this stunning pivot from over-protection to anything-goes took place only once the identity of the people who might benefit from the protection against unlimited free speech, including hate speech, shifted from the traditionally shielded groups to Israelis, Zionists, and Jews. 

Yet more troubling at a practical level, and especially visible at our universities, is today’s invocation of the principle of free speech to defend acts that would plainly be prohibited if they were to be committed in a different context. Is someone impeding your ability to walk from one building to another? In the eyes of many of my faculty colleagues at Harvard, he’s merely exercising his right to free speech. Is someone blocking students from entering their classroom? Again, merely exercising free speech. Is someone shouting into a bullhorn so that our students can’t hear either the instructor or one another? Here too, all merely free speech. Roughly a half-century ago, as a then-young member of the Harvard faculty, I served on a committee that considered, among other questions, whether the university should have a separate disciplinary code for political offenses—in effect, analogous to the long-ago practice in Tsarist Russia. Suppose, for example, some student threw a brick and smashed a shop window on the street: should there be one penalty if he was simply drunk, and a different penalty if he meant the act as a political statement? Our committee voted not to have separate disciplinary systems; a violation was a violation, regardless of what inspired it. I thought that decision was right then, and I think it’s right now. Preventing other people from going about their everyday activities is not merely exercising free speech, no matter what the person doing the obstructing is saying.

In this context too, we as Jews do well to take notice of the different principles that many, again especially at our universities, seek to apply depending on the content of the speech. I am confident that most faculty members at most universities would sharply condemn disruptive actions by students and others calling to end affirmative action admissions while concealing their identity by placing over their heads white pillowcases marked with gold crosses. Today all too many of them, I fear, would view differently the identical disruptive acts committed by people calling for an end to the admission of students from Israel, while concealing their identity with white-and-black checkered dishtowels. 

Most urgent, I believe, is the need to prevent our public spaces, in the universities and elsewhere, from becoming areas where Jews do not feel comfortable going. In the 1930s, in Germany, Austria, Poland, and other European countries, everyone understood that urban public spaces were places where Jews were not welcome and should not go. We must not allow the public spaces of our American cities to become Jew-free zones. Here too, Gilkey was a theologian and I am not, and so all this may not constitute “evil” in the sense that he had in mind. But it constitutes an existential threat to our community, and for our purposes learning what that threat is and where it lies rightly shapes what we believe.

The second area in which what we have learned over the past year has changed our beliefs concerns our universities more specifically. At Harvard, I am glad to say, our leadership has at least voiced an intent to set the university on a path to useful reform. There is now widespread acknowledgement, as reflected in the recent report of the university’s working group on “open inquiry and constructive dialogue,” that in fact too much of our inquiry is not open and too much of our dialogue is not constructive. Many ideas that are widely held among the American population are, for practical purposes, impossible to express on our campus. The result is to circumscribe not only everyday conversation but the content of both teaching and research.

There is also now recognition that we too often fail to expose our students to ideas and even facts that challenge or extend the preconceptions with which they arrive here. In an earlier era, it was widely accepted that part of the purpose of a university education was precisely to lead students to question their pre-college perceptions. Max Weber wrote that “the primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize ‘inconvenient’ truths.” In more recent times such notions have faded from view. In his address to our entering class at this year’s fall convocation, Harvard President Alan Garber recommended that each student make it a point to take at least one course that would likely make him or her feel uncomfortable. He likewise recommended that students deliberately place themselves in settings, either in the classroom or elsewhere, where they would encounter views with which they disagree. The contrast to the recent commitment to trigger warnings and safety zones is self-evident.

Part of the underlying problem, I believe, is the atomization of our society that our universities simply mirror. We attach enormous value to the diversity of the student body, at least in some dimensions, so much so that at my university we engage in hugely expensive and time-consuming litigation to preserve it. But once students are here, there is little effort to prevent their separating themselves into highly homogeneous enclaves. Our universities are, in microcosm, an example what my Harvard colleague Michael Sandel calls the “sky-boxification” of America—except that in this case it is not merely the wealthy and privileged who seek to separate themselves. None of this is new, and it is probably less true today than it was in the past. But it remains true nonetheless, and we now have a deeper understanding of the harm it does. Specifically, it shields our students from awareness of ideas and concerns from outside their narrow circles. It thereby blunts our efforts to educate them to become effective citizens of the republic.

Further, to the extent that views held in one circle may have as much claim to validity as those in another, this segmentation thwarts yet another aim of the education we seek to impart, namely the difficult and sometimes uncomfortable ability to cope with conflicting ideas. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Over the past year we have seen the harm done by the lack of that ability. A building in Gaza is a Hamas arsenal? No, it’s a hospital. Jews have a right to self-determination in their own independent country? But Palestinians have a right to self-determination in their independent country. If two ideas are in tension, at most one can be right. The examples are endless.

The solution to this intellectual limitation surely does not rest on perfunctory training sessions administered to students by a constitutionally unsympathetic DEI bureaucracy. What is required is a more serious form of engagement, in which students and others do not simply hear about the value of considering competing world views but actively participate in doing so, both in the classroom and in other settings. One of the most rewarding pedagogical experiences I’ve had in my more than 50 years of university teaching was a course that for many years I co-taught with a close friend in the English Department. The object of the course was to explore how people from different intellectual disciplines view topics of common interest; I represented the social sciences, my colleague the humanities, and we had numerous guest speakers from the natural sciences. Our aim was not to cover over differences in viewpoint but instead to highlight them and explore them. Some of our disagreements were sharp. I recall, for example, that my English professor friend was (as he remains) a committed devotee of Henry David Thoreau. I find much of Thoreau not just wrong but wrong-headed. We sometimes had that debate in class, and it was a vigorous one. For the students who watched it, realizing that the two of us were, and remained, close friends was probably more educational than whatever either of us actually said.

And here I think we as Jews have a particular contribution to make to this effort. Jewish learning has always, and perhaps uniquely, emphasized the value of debate and disagreement.  The Talmud tells us that for three years the house of Shammai and the house of Hillel disagreed: these said the halakha is in accordance with our opinion, and those said the halakha is in accordance with our opinion. Ultimately, a divine voice emerged and proclaimed “both these and those are the words of the living God” (Eruvin 13b). The fact that the voice went on to say that halakha is in accordance with the opinion of the house of Hillel is almost beside the point. The Tosefta instructs us to “make for yourself a heart of many rooms, and enter into it the words of the house of Shammai and the house of Hillel.” 

The value Jewish learning places on disagreement also emphasizes the interpersonal aspect of the learning process. The education our universities provide should not be parallel play in a sandbox. We need to encourage our students to regard one another as partners in learning. The value Jewish tradition places on debate and disagreement as essential to the learning process appears perhaps most dramatically in the poignant and ultimately tragic story told of Rabbi Yohanan, one of the leading amoraim of the second generation, and his friend and study partner (as well as his brother-in-law) Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish—commonly called Reish Lakish—whom Rabbi Yohanan raised up from an unsavory background to become also one of the leading Torah scholars of the time. According to the Talmud (Bava Metzia 84a), one day, during the course of arguing a point of halakha, Rabbi Yohanan said something that offended Reish Lakish. The two men quarreled, which so affected Reish Lakish that he died. Rabbi Yohanan’s colleagues, recognizing the void left in his life, chose Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat as his new study partner. The story continues,

Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat went and sat before Rabbi Yohanan. With regard to every matter that Rabbi Yohanan would say, Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat would say to him, there is a ruling taught in a Baraita that supports your opinion. Rabbi Yohanan said to him, in my discussions with the son of Lakish, when I would state a matter he would raise twenty-four difficulties against me in an attempt to disprove my claim, and I would answer him with twenty-four answers, and the halakha would become broadened and clarified. And yet you say to me, there is a ruling taught in a Baraita that supports my opinion. Being rebutted by Reish Lakish served a purpose. Your bringing me proof to my statements does not.

Soon thereafter, Rabbi Yohanan went insane and then died.

The value of entertaining conflicting opinions, and of engaging in debate, reflects a further core principle that also belongs at the center of the education we seek to provide: The uncertainty that results from our innate human limitations. This principle, too, is essential to Jewish learning. Even for those who take the written Scriptures to be the sure words of the divine, the interpretation of these words is necessarily a human endeavor, and therefore subject to uncertainty and error. Learning about one’s own ignorance is also an important part of a university education. In Jewish learning, it is that essential human ignorance, and the inescapable uncertainty to which it gives rise, that renders disagreement and debate worthwhile. This does not mean, of course, that any claim, no matter how absurd or offensive, must be entertained. A community is entitled to rule some ideas out of bounds, and the community that gave us the Talmud did so. But disagreement and debate are key to how we learn, and not just when we are students in the narrow sense. They are also part of how we humans make intellectual progress.

The past year has been a difficult one for all of us, and unbearable for many. It has taught us some things we would prefer not to have known.  But we have lived through this experience, and we have learned from it. We now know that we can no longer count on what we thought we could count on. It is now our obligation to act accordingly. 

Devarim 4:5–8 paints an idyllic word-picture of how Gentiles will perceive Torah-observant Jews:

Behold, I have taught you statutes and regulations, as Hashem my God commanded me, for you to do them in the midst of the land which you are coming to inherit. You will preserve them and do them, because they are your wisdom and discernment in the view of the nations, who will hear all these statutes and say: “Indeed this great nation is wise and discerning.”

History has rarely corresponded to this picture. Moreover, rabbinic literature is fully aware that some biblical commandments arouse mockery or disdain among many non-Jews. Dismissing those non-Jews as shallow does not resolve the problem that the Torah seems descriptively false. Claiming that the Torah’s description applies only to a perfectly observant community, and thus blaming Jews for incomplete observance, seems disingenuous and victim-blaming.

And yet there was an exception. American Jews in the late twentieth century could reasonably perceive themselves as living mostly in the Torah’s world. The phrase “Judeo-Christian values,” however problematic historically and fraught politically, amounted to Gentile recognition and endorsement of what they perceived as the values of the Torah. Laws such as kashruth were seen as legitimate and praiseworthy means of preserving identity while expressing universal values, rather than as illegitimate and blameworthy separatism. Even the ban on intermarriage was tolerated by the broader society, although I suspect only because it was honored mostly in the breach.

Nonetheless, the logically inescapable truth is that on any issue that is controversial in Gentile society, Jews and Judaism cannot take a firm position without earning praise from the Gentiles on one side and criticism from those on the other. The substance of Torah can be universally admired only in a consensus society, or else if Torah refracts into multiple and mutually exclusive positions corresponding to the broader society’s moral/ideological factions. 

If America was a consensus society, it is no longer; and of course, one can argue that the supposed consensus was always an illusion fostered by an elite. Political data suggests that we are consciously or unconsciously adopting the refraction strategy to meet the new polarized reality. Orthodox Jews are increasingly going with Republicans or MAGAism, and non-Orthodox Jews with Democrats or progressivism. Anecdotally, this sorting is self-reinforcing, as Jews are also switching or dropping out of denominational life because of political discomfort. 

It's entirely reasonable for the Jewish community overall to have roughly the same political spectrum as the society around it, and for Orthodoxy and non-Orthodoxy to favor different sides of a major cultural conflict. And it is natural that some Orthodox Jews will have different sympathies than most of their peers and as a result feel isolated. But I think what particularly troubles sincere, idealistic Orthodox Jews is when the moral positions of their shulmates or religious institutions seem to be changing to justify their political affiliation rather than developing autonomously out of the tradition. They want to belong to a Torah community that serves as a light rather than as a mirror to the nations. 

How can we best create such a community?

Because Jewish tradition is genuinely multivocal and legitimately responsive to changes in the world, I don’t think that drawing objective red lines, i.e., trying to rule specific positions out of bounds, is likely to be an effective strategy for preventing moral followership. 

It’s also important to recognize that reaction can be as inauthentic as conformity. If anti-Semitism continues to become more prevalent and more socially acceptable, there may be a natural internal Jewish reaction to ascribe greatest Jewish authenticity to those aspects of Torah most criticized by anti-Semites, especially to those who are on the other side of a polarized political space. Similarly, where the Torah can be interpreted in multiple ways, there may be pressure to demonstrate authenticity by adopting the interpretations that most annoy the anti-Semites on the other side. These pressures may manifest on both sides in areas as diverse as Middle East politics, gender/sexuality, public health policy, and more.

Rather, I suggest that we need to collectively develop a procedural/epistemological checklist that lets us challenge ourselves and each other whether we are making a sincere attempt to authentically represent Jewish tradition, and to meaningfully discuss across party lines whether a position of ours meets that challenge. 

For example: If you are making a claim about Jewish tradition, do you know the most common traditional sources used to challenge your position, and can you convincingly explain them? If your application of Jewish tradition rests on a claim of fact, have you seriously engaged with scholars who reject that claim? If you are arguing from contemporary authority, have you discussed these issues with respected scholars who are not public figures and/or are politically uninvolved, to make sure that you are not just listening to the loudest voices or aiding a campaign of intimidation?[1]

Let’s suppose—a huge if—that we can accomplish this. I want to be clear that this is not enough to meet our Torah obligation vis-a-vis the human societies we participate in. In fact, my use of autonomy and authenticity as lodestars for developing positions might create the false impression that we are indifferent to what non-Jews think of Torah.

One standard Jewish expression of an obligation to care about what non-Jews think is or laGoyim, “light unto the nations.” I have trouble using this phrase because it seems to result from what is known as a Mandela effect, a collective false memory. That expression does not appear in Tanakh. Rather, Yeshayahu 42:6 and 49:6 each say that God will make the Jewish people l’or goyim. It’s possible that the meaning remains the same, but I have heard various efforts to argue for fundamental differences.

My preference instead is to use the categories kiddush Hashem (sanctification of the Name) and hillul Hashem (desecration of the Name). My argument is that these categories legitimately place pressure to make halakhic choices and interpretations that inspire non-Jews to value Torah. My argument is grounded in the following two texts from the Jerusalem Talmud.

1. Yerushalmi Bava Metzia 2:5 (translation modified from Guggenheimer)

Simeon ben Shetacḥ was in the linen trade. His students said to him: Rebbe, to make it easier for you, we will buy you a donkey so you won’t have to work so hard. They went and bought him a donkey from a Saracen; a pearl was hanging on its neck. They came to him and said: From now on you will not have to work anymore. He said to them: Why? They told him: We bought a donkey for you from a Saracen and a pearl is hanging on its neck. He asked them: Did its owner know about this? They answered: No. He told them: Go return it! 

But did not Rav Huna Bibi bar Gozlan in the name of Rav say: 

“They objected before Rebbe: ‘Even according to the position that an object robbed from a Gentile is forbidden, everybody agrees that his lost object is permitted!?’” 

What do you think, that Simeon ben Shetacḥ was a barbarian? Simeon ben Shetacḥ wanted to hear: “Praised be the God of the Jews” more than any gain in this world.

It’s not clear whether the last two elements of the passage are an editorial reflection on the story, or rather an anachronistic recreation of the dialogue between Shimon ben Shetach and his students (they quote rabbis who lived many centuries after their time). Regardless, the text is explicit that only a barbarian would keep a Gentile’s lost object, even though all halakhic positions are understood to permit keeping it. 

This implies that the permission can be kept on the halakhic books as-is only because Gentiles don’t know about it. I contend that Shimon ben Shetach fundamentally argues that the permission codifies a lost opportunity to make Gentiles think well of the Torah of the Jews—for kiddush Hashem—and therefore cannot be sustained as practical law. 

It makes little sense to say that our interest is in having Gentiles think well of Torah that is not actually Torah. That might even be a violation of the prohibition of geneyvat daat, which includes gaining goodwill under false pretenses). Possibly, however, the law would remain on the books for hypothetical societies (think Sodom and Gomorrah) so stuck in selfishness that people returning valuable lost objects would be regarded as fools rather than as moral heroes. Nonetheless, that context would have to be provided whenever the law was taught.

2. Yerushalmi Bava Kamma 4:3 (Translation mine)

A story: The government sent two investigators to learn Torah from Rabban Gamliel. They learned from him Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, Halakha, and Aggada. In the end they said to him: “Your entire Torah is attractive and praiseworthy except . . . that you say . . . “objects stolen from a Jew are forbidden, but objects stolen from a Gentile are permitted.”

Immediately Rabban Gamliel decreed that objects stolen from a non-Jew would be prohibited to prevent desecration of the Name. 

This text explicitly endorses a change in halakha for the purpose of preventing non-Jews from thinking badly of Torah, which is termed “desecration of the Name,” or hillul Hashem.

My bottom line is that Gentile moral evaluation is a legitimate factor to consider when deciding halakha. 

            Readers are strongly encouraged to challenge my argument via the procedural/epistemological checklist above. I fervently hope this will lead to a conversation in which we together seek to figure out the limits of this principle, and which opinions in which societies we honor and which we proudly flout. Only in that way can our Torah become a genuine source of light for the world. 

Note

Torah versus Prejudice

To the sacred memory of those driven by societal prejudice to take their own lives.

©

Rabbi Isaac Sassoon[1]

            Potiphar was no muggins. The trust he places in Joseph bespeaks a man possessed of astute discrimination and sound instincts. If he sized up the newcomer Joseph, his wife he must have known like a book. It is therefore highly doubtful that Potiphar fell for her ladyship’s concoction. To be sure, Genesis 39:19 reports Potiphar’s anger; but significantly, Joseph is not said to have been its butt. “When his [Joseph’s] master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him saying such and such has your servant done to me he became angry”. We are then told that his master ‘took Joseph and put him’ in prison. Not sentenced to death nor shoved into a pit (as he was by his brothers; Gen 37:22, 24), Joseph is taken and put like the Testimony. For the identical pair of verbs – taking and putting - describes the depositing of the ‘edut (Testimony) in the Ark (Exod 40:20). Commentators interpret the ‘edut’s taking and putting as deferential, kid-glove handling. The phrase’s presence at Genesis 39:20 adds to the picture of a Potiphar skeptical of his wife’s slander. But if Potiphar doubts Joseph’s guilt, why jail? The answer is a single, tyrannical word: respectability. Potiphar dreads the obloquy that awaits a man seen to believe his servant above his wife. It could cost him his prestige; not a pretty prospect for anyone whose self-esteem hangs on the establishment’s approval. 

            Today honor and respectability may have lost their former leverage, but public opinion still counts, and people are still blacklisted for failing to toe the line. This holds even in the arena of Torah. Thus, non-partisan Torah students, unwilling to play to the gallery, must be prepared for criticism all round. The charges may range from obscurantism and fuddy-duddyism, hurled by so-called progressives, all the way to heresy and schism thundered forth by the anachronistically grandiloquent. Speaking from personal experience, a well-intentioned friend tried hard to discourage the present essay. “It will come back to haunt you” he warned. “People with a reputation to sustain, do not touch this kind of taboo with a barge pole”. 

            Taboo, of course, loomed large once upon a time. That was prior to the demythologizing process begun in the Bible and carried forward by hazal. But though taboo waned, its congener, bias, especially ingrained bias, persisted. Unconscionably, biases invaded Torah, infesting it like a maggot that, once inside, would turn Torah into its home and sanctuary. Most notorious, is the infestation that parasitized Genesis 9:22-27. As recently as 1861 a leading Orthodox Rabbi by the name of Morris Jacob Raphall, preached in defense of slavery quoting, among other scriptures, Genesis 9’s Curse of Ham. Having cited the texts that allegedly sanctioned slavery, the rabbi went on “I find, and I am sorry to find, that I am delivering a pro-slavery discourse. I am no friend to slavery in the abstract, and still less friendly to the practical workings of slavery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel, not to place before you my own feelings and opinions, but to propound to you the word of G-d, the Bible view of slavery ….”. Rabbi Raphall was declaring his hands to be tied; his commitment to Torah, as he understood it, did not give him leave to condemn slavery outright.

        Parallel to racism’s appalling exploitation of Ham’s story, homophobia found to‘ebah at Leviticus 18:22 and hijacked it. While bigotry got away with profaning Torah, many of us sat idly by instead of toppling homophobia from its Torah perch. And make no mistake: in select circles it retains its dominion. Exodus 23:13 deters mentioning the names of idols. Yet one comes across people who treat homosexuality as if it were an idol, referring to it only by epithets such as perversion or toeivah. Their purpose, they claim, is to instill revulsion and horror for something unmentionable.[2] The connotation of to‘ebah (or to‘abat hashem) in its varied Torah contexts is clearly negative; but the very diversity of those contexts precludes a narrow definition. Let’s see what light the sources can shed on to‘ebah; we all probably agree that hazal’s ideas deserve more attention than the bigots’. 

R. El‘azar ben Azaryah taught: a person should not say Wearing kil’ayim [linsey-woolsey] is repugnant to me, eating swine’s flesh is repugnant to me, the ‘arayoth [incest; illicit relationships in general] are repugnant to me. Rather should one say: These things are not distasteful to me, but I avoid them in obedience to the commandment that my Father in heaven has laid upon me ... .[3]   

            R. El‘azar can be seen to replace disgust with submission to the divine will as the proper motivation for eschewing kil’ayim, swine’s flesh and ‘arayoth.  Whether these three precepts were picked by way of illustration or by virtue of some intrinsic peculiarity, in either case, their very linkage speaks volumes. ‘Arayoth are classified as to‘eboth (Lev 18:26-30; Yeb. 21a, etc.) and non-kosher foods (of which swine’s flesh is the standard exemplar) are generically labeled to‘ebah (Deut 14:3; Hul.114b, etc.). Kil’ayim, never characterized to‘ebah, is the odd man out. Yet, for purposes of right motivation, rather than distinguish the two to‘ebah categories from non-to‘ebah kil’ayim, R. El‘azar equates them. Thus we learn that whatever the Torah’s objective in attaching to‘ebah to certain prohibitions, it was not the enshrinement of primitive aversions. After R. El‘azar, it comes as no surprise to find the Talmud endowing Leviticus 18:22’s to‘ebah with moral and reasoned purport, rather than treating it as code for ‘go ahead and indulge your homophobia’. 

“Bar Qappara asked Ribbi [Judah the Patriarch] ‘What does to‘ebah mean?’ Every explanation that Ribbi offered he refuted. So Ribbi said to him, ‘You explain it!’. He [Bar Qappara] replied... ‘This is the meaning of the Torah. To‘ebah means: You stray by this [to‘eh-attah-bah]’ …” . The commentary attributed to Rashi[4] elaborates: “such a man leaves his wife who is permitted and takes hold of that which is zenuth [harlotry, any illegitimate relationship]” (Ned.51a). Inserting a wife into the scenario, reminds us that the addressees of Leviticus 18 are men of, ostensibly, heterosexual proclivities - insofar as the ‘arayoth listed are mostly relations with women. Verse 22 is directed at that selfsame adult, male, heterosexual audience; not a few of whose members are likely to be married. Could one say, then, that for Bar Qappara the chief concern of Lev 18:22, is the wife’s humiliation caused by her husband’s ‘straying’? Or did Bar Qappara perceive homosexuality as posing a threat to married life and, ultimately, to human reproduction; a top priority both instinctively and halakhically?[5] Some extrapolate from this טעמא דקרא,[6] that since the risk to human survival from lower birthrates is no longer as dire as in bygone ages, homosexuality’s threat-level might drop concomitantly. Moreover, gay-oriented people tend not to marry spouses of the opposite gender or to reproduce biological offspring; making their impact on population size inconsequential. However, one has to wonder whether such individuals were even within the purview of former generations. A theory has been floated that Jews of gay orientation were unknown, or at any rate unacknowledged, by halakhah. This theory might explain legislation such as the following: “A man who has passed the age of twenty and does not want to marry, the authorities force him to marry in order to fulfill the mitsvah of פריה ורביה”.[7] Had gay orientation been recognized, the suffering of a wife trapped in marriage to a man thus oriented, would surely have given pause before coercing all and every reluctant male.[8] Firmer evidence for the ‘floated theory’ would appear to transpire from the teshuvah of a foremost twentieth century halakhist: 

It is incomprehensible that this thing could involve desire. For in the creation of the human being [or: man] there was no desire in his nature to lust after mishkav zakhur.[9]  That is why Bar Qappara said to Ribbi that it means to‘eh-attah-bah… It is G-d’s scriptural admonition to the wicked: For this transgression behold there is no lust whatsoever, as the lust I created in them was for women because without it human continuity would be impossible as taught at Yoma 69b and San. 64a… But for mishkav zakhur there is no lust whatsoever … Only because it is something prohibited does he do it as an act of defiance … In any event, lust for mishkav zakhur goes against the very nature of lust itself. Therefore any desire for this is only because it is forbidden and the evil inclination entices him to disobey G-d’s will.[10]

Obviously, gay orientation does not exist for this responsum. If such a construct served as a working premise in halakhic deliberations, it opens the door to the application of a classic strategy, or legal fiction, called  הטבעים השתנות. Recognizing changes in nature (and possibly in culture), that strategy re-examines views that may have rested upon an earlier state of affairs before the change – whether real or fictive. In the case of homosexual orientation, it is contended, that since it formerly had no halakhic existence, Providence must have seen fit to intervene by granting many contemporary human beings an unprecedented kind of orientation. And if so, it may be time to revisit judgments based on a reality (or perceived reality) that predated the ‘intervention’.

All the above theories, however cogent, are extraneous to the beth midrash, inside whose walls students seek guidance from the extant talmudic corpus. In that corpus Lev 18:22 is understood to prohibit categorically a specific act between two men. No rationales are formally offered in that literature other than incidental ones of which two have already been noticed – namely, R. Elazar’s concept of blind obedience to a peremptory fiat and Bar Qappara’s תועה אתה בה. 

That said, we must not overlook the amply documented resource whereby the rabbis appealed to one scripture in order to override the literal sense of another scripture. Take, for instance, Leviticus 11:8. Referring to the four animals itemized in verses 4 through 7, verse 8 continues: “Their flesh you shall not eat and their carcasses you shall not touch they are unclean unto you.” Logically, the two - eating and touching - demand parity; either both are absolutely proscribed or else neither is. But the Rabbis on confronting this text, whose literal meaning forbids touching the cadavers of the camel, cony, hare and pig, responded as follows. “Can lay Israelites really be prohibited to touch carrion? Scripture says [Lev 21:1] ‘Speak unto the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, none shall defile himself for a dead person among his kin.’ It is Aaron’s sons that are prohibited, not the children of Israel. If a potent generator of defilement [i.e., a human corpse] had to be avoided by priests alone but not by lay Israelites, a fortiori a lesser generator of defilement [i.e., dead animals]. So what is the meaning [of ‘their carcasses you shall not touch’]? Its meaning is Do not touch the carcasses on the festival.” (Rosh Hashanah 16b; cf. Sifra). 

More famous is the fate of the lex talionis: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth etc. (Exod 21:24-25 cf. Lev 24:19-20, Deut 19:21). At Numbers 35:31 the rabbis uncovered their cue for commuting these corporal penalties to monetary restitution. Numbers 35:31 ordains “You shall not take a ransom for the life of a murderer” - whence the Talmud deduced “For a murderer’s life you may not take ransom but you may take ransom for limbs” (BQ 83b).         

Where is the counter scripture with the potential to mitigate Lev 18:22? Actually we believe such a scripture to exist; but neither the text we have in mind nor, for that matter, any alternative is brought to bear by the Talmud. Therefore, unless - or until - the Talmud-faithful can be persuaded otherwise, received meanings stand. When it comes to Lev 18:22, the received meaning of that verse is unequivocal and precise. As noted, it names a very specific act which it outlaws; neither more nor less. Thus, there seems little leeway for the conscientious stalwart of traditional halakhah.

            Those whose view of halakhah is less than sanguine, may feel that view reinforced by our last, unapologetic, paragraph. Yet, how can one apologize for reporting a straightforward reading of the relevant texts? By the same token, one is duty-bound to show the other side of the coin. Because the Talmud, that proscribes a particular behavior, does not doom anyone to a life of enforced desolation. Quite the contrary: it leaves room, as we are about to see, for two individuals of the same gender to experience intimacy with one another without having to infringe Lev 18:22. 

            The crucial text occurs in Yerushalmi Sanhedrin. It deals with the question of why forbidding an integral act between men requires two scriptural sources - one each for the active and passive roles. The Talmud knows R. Ishmael and R. Aqiba to have deemed Lev 18:22’s wording (as masoretically vocalized), inadequate to take care of both. To appreciate the anomaly of requiring twofold scriptural authority, one must remember how the rabbis approached the other ‘arayoth injunctions of Leviticus 18. Although those injunctions also address a single party, invariably the male, the rabbis read them as targeting both male and female partners. The clearest enunciation of this principle - that the ‘arayoth laws in general are intended for the absent woman no less than for the directly addressed man - occurs in Sifra.

            Leviticus 18:6 launches its ‘arayoth laws as follows: “Man, man! ye shall not draw near to any sh’er basar (near of kin; literally, flesh of flesh) of his to uncover nakedness...”.  Sifra notes that the mention of man might suggest that women are not being charged to keep these laws. Such an inference, Sifra continues, would be erroneous “because plural ‘ye’ (in lo tikrevu, 'ye shall not draw near') indicates that both men and women are being addressed”. This teaching of Sifra is axiomatic to all rabbinic discussions of ‘arayoth, and underlies the question of R. Bun bar Hiyya. 

R. Bun bar Hiyya asked R. Zera “Why did R. Ishmael and R. Aqiba treat relations between two males and relations between a person and a beast differently from all other illicit relations [for in all other illicit relations both parties are made liable by a single scripture]?”  He [R. Zera] said to him “In regard to all other illicit relations there is a general and inclusive reference to sh’er basar (Lev 18:6) while in the present cases there is no such reference to sh’er basar”. An objection was raised: “Lo, there is the case of relations with a niddah which is not a sh’er basar relationship [and therefore not covered by Lev 18:6]. Yet, did they [Rabbis Ishmael and Aqiba] treat them [the man who has relations with a niddah and the niddah] as liable [without any additional verse]?” R. Jeremiah [said] in the name of R. Abhu: “Since it is written ‘drawing near’ [at Lev 18:6] and ‘drawing near’ [at Lev 18:19] it is as if all the rules pertaining to the one apply to the other”.[11]

            As so often, the Talmud astounds by the closeness of its reading. In this instance, R. Abhu notes that ‘drawing near’ in combination with ‘to uncover nakedness’ occurs but twice in Lev 18 - once in the preamble (v.6) and again in connection with niddah (v.19). Individually, neither ‘drawing near’ nor ‘uncovering nakedness’ is unattested.[12] But conjoined to form a single phrase קרב+גלות ערוה appears nowhere else. R. Abhu further implies, that the phrase’s distribution is not random. Its first occurrence governs the sh’er basar ‘arayoth; its second is called for by niddah. The latter stands apart from sh’er basar ‘arayoth inasmuch as it is not incestuous (i.e., not ‘flesh of flesh’). Indeed, niddah applies to parties that are lawful husband and wife. That would appear to leave the rest of the pericope’s prohibitions outside the ‘drawing near’ loop. In any event, as regards the prohibition of verse 22 the Yerushalmi is unambiguous: neither the first nor the second ‘do not draw near’ extends to verse 22. Now the meaning of ‘drawing near’ in Lev 18 is disputed by rishonim. Maimonides defines it as any physical contact of an intimate kind that leads to carnal knowledge.[13] For Nahmanides, on the other hand, the phrase is a euphemism for actual cohabitation between man and woman.[14] But irrespective of its meaning, the Yerushalmi sets the parameters of לא תקרבו, and 18:22 falls outside those parameters.[15]

            As an Orthodox Rabbi, one would be remiss not to give prominence to a source as weighty as this Yerushalmi, especially when its conclusions are so demonstrably rooted in the Written Torah. Furthermore, it is a source that corroborates the Talmud’s assertion: “Everything that the Merciful One has forbidden us, He has permitted us its counterpart” (Hul. 109b). Being able to advise people of homosexual orientation about the counterpart that the Merciful One allows them, adds credence to halakhah’s interdiction. For what it interdicts is precisely and graphically demarcated by Rabbis Ishmael and Aqiba as an act whose performance involves an active and a passive partner. Delineating so exactly the prohibited conduct, hazal exclude by implication interaction short of penetration. To be sure, Rambam - as we have seen - derives fromלא תקרבו  a ban on lesser degrees of interaction. But this is where the Yerushalmi comes in: תקרבו  לא does not apply to Lev 18:22. So to reiterate, the Torah relegates no human being to a life of loveless solitude. This information may relieve the pressure from rabbis and religious counselors; they who agonize over “Vainly paining the heart of the righteous when I had not pained it…” (Ezek 13:22). If, as hypothesized above, halakhists of yore were oblivious of gay orientation, they could discourage, as they often did, all bonding between men without compunction about causing pain. Today we know: and that knowledge deprives us of the luxury to insouciantly condemn fellow Jews to a monastic life on the pretext of ‘being on the safe side’.[16] 

       Acquaintance with the complementary rulings, and with where halakhah draws the line, could also empower the decision-making of homosexually inclined women and men who cherish halakhah. In turn, their peers will have to ask themselves: What right have we to be חושד בכשרים or במי שמעשיו סתומים? For once R. Abhu’s Yerushalmi teaching is out there, the mere fact two gay individuals live together will not license an honest bystander to automatically assume that they are in breach of halakhah. Because as Jews familiar with this nuanced halakhah, they will have the presumption of faithfulness to its guidelines. The Talmud depicts a marriage, albeit a heterosexual one, in which the two parties lived together as a couple in all respects except cohabitation, on account of halakhic qualms (San.19b). Huge praise is heaped upon the couple for their heroic abstinence. But how did the rabbis know what went on in the couple’s bedchamber? Either the couple revealed it or, more likely, the rabbis relied on the assumption that observant Jews make every effort to adhere to halakhah.

Are these assumptions compromised when two men publicly proclaim their partnership a marriage? While prying is abhorrent, recent debates have brought the question into the limelight. Surely it depends whether or notבלשון בני אדם  ‘marriage’ is, by definition, a relationship that flouts halakhic boundaries. In other words, if society recognizes in a declaration of marriage the conscious intent of the parties to engage in the specific conduct disapproved by halakhah, then that declaration would tacitly seem to fall under the strictures of ‘writing a ketubah for males’ (see Hullin 92a-b). The ketubah, of course, includes the pledge למיעל... כאורח כל ארעא ; and if a comparable pledge were implicit in ‘marriage’ it would be tantamount to the writing of a ketubah. On the other hand, if ‘marriage’ is adopted to denote sincere commitment, then notwithstanding the public announcement, the presumption (explained above) need not necessarily be undermined.[17] Mutatis mutandis, halakhically-educated heterosexual couples are assumed to observe niddah separation, even though the wife neither moves out of the house for the duration nor is she expected to wear distinctive niddah clothing as was customary among certain Jews in the distant past. Needless to say, we do not venture to advise any individual how to live her or his life. Our mandate is strictly academic; setting forth as best we can the germane texts. 

            “R. Qatina said When the pilgrims came [to the Temple] on the festivals, they [those in charge] would roll back the veil to let them see the cherubim intertwined with one another.  They would say to them: ‘Behold your endearment before G-d is like the endearment of a man and a woman’” (Yoma 54a). But were the cherubim male and female? Elsewhere the Talmud portrays them as having the faces of young lads (Suk. 5b; Hag. 13b; cf. Torah Temimah on Exod 25:18). So as it turns out, the divine love towards Israel was symbolized by two lads locked in a tight hug as if husband and wife. The image of this aggadah speaks for itself. Like the halakhic passage we saw in Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, it reminds us that love is not condemned, but only its expression in the one way interdicted by Torah. Is it naive to find a modicum of healing in such a message?

            Some day, more reverential and prayerful study will perhaps yield unforeseen results. When Esther and Mordecai sought to institute the new feast of Purim, the Elders were greatly perturbed. “Moses said to us no other prophet is going to innovate anything henceforth. Yet Mordecai and Esther seek to innovate. They did not stop debating until the Holy One blessed be He lit up their eyes and they discovered it written in the Torah, in the Prophets and in the Writings”.[18] 

I am happy to be a Jewish Israeli who prefers to be liked by others, but I know that a healthy person ought not to overly worry whether they are liked by others. As my friend Eli Schonfeld says, “The ‘Jewish Question’ is not a Jewish question.” Let non-Jews worry about it. As a Jew, I think I should worry about philogoyyism. How ought I relate to non-Jews?[1]

The question is new. For at least two millennia Jews indeed had to worry about what non-Jews thought of them. Even today Jewry’s enemies force themselves upon our attention, be it through plain old-fashioned Jew-hatred, widespread Muslim antisemitism, or the immoral stupidity of so-called progressive forces that identify with Hamas. Anti-Zionists (Jewish and non-Jewish), unless they reject all nationalisms, are culpably ignorant and thus immoral. In practical terms they must be opposed and resisted, of course, but they do not represent a threat to Judaism.

The real threat to Judaism today comes from within, from circles that take advantage of current recrudescent Jew-hatred to justify disdain for and often hatred of goyyim (Gentiles).[2] There are, of course other internal threats: “Gedolim” who urge their followers to reject army service in Israel is one that particularly outrages me, but I see it as a temporary problem. As soon as our government stops underwriting draft evasion more and more young haredim will choose to get a modern education and to serve Israeli society in a variety of ways, including through enlistment.

What do I mean by “philogoyyism”? Historically, as the old Jewish joke has it, antisemitism has meant disliking Jews more than is really necessary. Its opposite, philosemitism, has not meant liking Jews more than is really necessary. For me, philosemitism need not mean admiring or loving Jews more than other people. Ideally, it should mean treating Jews no differently than one treats other people. That is what I mean by “philogoyyism”: treating goyyim the way the Torah treats them—as human beings created in the image of God. Some goyyim (like some Jews) are likeable, some (like some Jews) are impossible, both without respect to their Jewishness or their goyyism.

What does the Torah teach us about the nature of Jews vis-à-vis the nature of goyyim? Nothing. There are no passages in the Torah that impute to the Jews as such characteristics missing in other peoples. The Torah is careful to delineate family trees, of course, but that may be only to emphasize, as R. Josef Kafih pointed out, that we are all descended from the same antecedents (Adam and Eve, Noah and Mrs. Noah), and are all of us are thus cousins.[3] Before Sinai, all human beings are Noahides, including the Patriarchs and their descendants. Indeed, the Torah seems to go out of its way to emphasize that the future messiah would descend from two non-Jewish women (Tamar and Ruth). 

The issue of philogoyyism is particularly pressing today in Israel. Our government is dominated by parties that deny that Jews and non-Jews are equally created fully in the image of God and are equally beloved by God. These parties represent a trend in Judaism that clearly exists (sadly), but they present it as the only legitimate form of Judaism. That is false. It is also dangerous to Israeli democracy.

The doctrine of the chosen people, while certainly central to Jewish self-understanding, is not unique to the Jews.[4] The Jews, however, may be the only people to ground their chosenness in a covenant with God.[5] Why did God enter into the covenant with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants? There is surprisingly little discussion of this point in the Torah itself. There are many iterations of the idea that God chose the Jews (“How odd of God to choose the Jews…not so odd, the goyyim annoyed Him”) out of love for their ancestors, but why did God love their ancestors? That is a question that generated an on-going debate between Judah Halevi and his followers and Maimonides and his followers.[6]

The Torah teaches that the Jews were God’s am segulah, treasured (chosen) people. What does it say about the “unchosen”? About the vast run of humanity, the Torah has little to say. There are clearly “others,” first and foremost those who are to be exterminated: the seven Canaanite nations and Amalek.[7] Other others include those with whom Israelites may not marry (Moabites and Amonites). There are other others, of course, about whom the Torah does not have much to say, beyond acknowledging their existence: Edomites and Egyptians primarily. There are also Abraham’s other progeny, Ishmael assuredly, but also those born to him after Sarah’s death by his wife Keturah. Here it is very useful to bring into play Jacob Kaminsky’s distinction between the elect (God’s chosen people), the “anti-elect” (Amalek and the “Seven Nations”), and the vast run of humanity whom Kaminsky calls the “non-elect.”[8]

Alexander  Altmann put this matter well:

[Judaism,] it may be said, in general, is intolerant of Israelites falling away from the God of the Fathers and of the Covenant. It shows no trace of intolerance of heathens following their customs and traditions. Ruth the Moabite is welcomed as a proselyte, but Orpah, her sister-in-law is not reproved because of her return to her native paganism. David and Solomon extended their kingdoms far beyond the Israelite borders, but they did not impose their religion on the subjugated peoples.[9] 

The Biblical story opens, of course, with the creation of all that is. Abraham, the progenitor of those whom we now call Jews, does not show up until 20 generations have passed. For many traditionally oriented Jews today (influenced by R. Judah Halevi and those who follow him), Abraham was literally and specifically chosen by God. For Maimonides and those who follow him, on the other hand, Abraham chose God.[10]

Returning to Halevi, Abraham belonged by descent to a special subset of humanity capable of achieving prophecy. This special subset of humanity continued to develop through Abraham (but not through his brother Haran, or his nephew Lot, or the children of his second wife, Keturah), through Isaac (but not through his brother Ishmael), and through Jacob (but not through his brother Esau) and finally to all of Jacob's descendants, the children of Israel/Jacob.[11]

The Torah itself seems to support a view later to be held by Maimonides rather than that later to be held by Judah Halevi. The clearest expression of this might be Dt. 7:6–8:

For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people. It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the Lord set His heart on you and chose you—indeed, you are the smallest of peoples; but it was because the Lord favored you and kept the oath He made to your fathers that the Lord freed you with a mighty hand and rescued you from the house of bondage, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.[12]

God chose Israel as a special treasure for no characteristic of theirs, but, rather, to keep a promise made to the Patriarchs, their ancestors. This and similar verses can be read differently, but this seems to be the simple sense, and it is certainly the way that Maimonides (but not Halevi![13]) read them.

Thus, for example, in Guide iii.51 we find Maimonides stating:

It is also the plane our Patriarchs reached, coming so close to God that He became known to the world through them: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob…This is my universal name (Ex. 3:15). One result of this union of their minds with thoughts of God is His eternal covenant with each of them: I shall remember my covenant with Jacob [---and also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham shall I remember] (Lev. 26:42). For these four—the Patriarchs and our Teacher Moses—were plainly united with God by love and knowledge of Him, as our texts proclaim. Another result was his Supernal providence over them and their seed after them…[14]

For Maimonides the election of Israel is a consequence of the antecedent covenant made by God with the Patriarchs. This covenant is a consequence of their love and knowledge of God, not a consequence of any special characteristic found in the Jewish people—zekhut avot (ancestral merit) indeed!

So what is the relationship between the efforts of the Patriarchs and the Jewish People? Maimonides continues (p. 521):

For the object of their efforts, lifelong, was to found a nation that knew and served God: For I have know him, that he may charge [his children and his house after him to keep the way of the Lord, by doing right and justice] (Gen. 18:19). Their every endeavor, you can see was devoted to spreading monotheism through the world, guiding people to the love of God. So they earned the rank they reached [emphasis added].

In this crucial passage Maimonides informs us that the object of the Patriarchs was to found a nation that knew and served God, a nation educated to keep the way of the Lord by doing right and justice. The overall aim of the Patriarchs, and one assumes Maimonides held, of the Jewish people also, was to spread monotheism throughout the world. We also learned that the Patriarchs earned their rank; it was not inherited as Halevi would have it. So, too, their descendants have to justify their chosenness by earning it.

This is a doctrine of election far from those of Halevi, Zohar, Kabbalah, and of far too many Jews today.

It turns out that Bible (and rabbinic texts) do not offer clear answers to questions concerning the reason for election and the nature of the Jewish people. This is not surprising: These texts are not overtly theological in nature and rarely address abstract theological issues straightforwardly, if at all. Was the Torah given to Israel in consequence of God’s choice or was the giving of the Torah the mechanism of God’s choosing (as Halevi and Zohar would have it)?  Deuteronomy (7:6–8) as we just saw appears to answer that question by de-linking God’s choice to some quality of the Jewish people. Others could have been chosen but weren’t. On this view, The Torah is a record of what “happened to happen,” not a record of what had to happen.[15]

Election—Torah

The Book of Genesis is largely devoted to the history of God’s relationship with the Patriarchs, but the reason behind that relationship is never made clear. God chooses Abraham by commanding: “Go forth…” (Gen. 12:1) but no explanation for that choice is found.

The ancestral patrimony is not raised in a passage from Deuteronomy dealing with what came to be called the election of Israel, 14:1–2:

You are children of the Lord your God. You shall not gash yourselves or shave the front of your heads because of the dead. For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: the Lord your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be His treasured people.

That these verses teach that God chose Israel from among all the nations is clear. Why? These verses do not tell us.

Similarly, in a further passage in Deuteronomy (26:16–19):

The Lord your God commands you this day to observe these laws and rules; observe them faithfully with all your heart and soul. You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God, that you will walk in His ways, that you will observe His laws and commandments and rules, and that you will obey Him. And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as He promised you, His treasured people who shall observe all His commandments, and that He will set you, in fame and renown and glory, high above all the nations that He has made; and that you shall be, as He promised, a holy people to the Lord your God.

“High above all the nations (elyon al kol ha-goyyim)”—many will want to read that as a claim of Israel’s inherent superiority. Nevertheless, the verse itself speaks of superiority in fame, renown, and glory, nothing else. Here the connection between election and obedience to the commandments is made clear.

The prophet Amos seemed to be conflicted about the nature of the election of Israel. On the hand one, he wrote (1:1–2):

Hear this word, O people of Israel,
That the Lord has spoken concerning you,
Concerning the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt: You alone have I singled out
Of all the families of the earth—
That is why I will call you to account
For all your iniquities.

On the other hand, six chapters on, he states (9:7):

To Me, O Israelites, you are
Just like the Ethiopians
—declares the Lord.
True, I brought Israel up
From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor
And the Arameans from Kir.

But the following verse makes clear that unlike the Philistines and Arameans,

Behold, the Lord God has His eye
Upon the sinful kingdom:
I will wipe it off
The face of the earth!
But, I will not wholly wipe out
The House of Jacob
—declares the Lord.

For Amos, being the apple of God’s eye, as it were, can have negative consequences—unique attention and unique punishment—but the House of Jacob will never be wiped out.

One thing is clear from this brief survey: There is no obvious biblical doctrine of election. Given the nature of the Bible itself, this is not surprising, even if it would surprise many Jews today.

Continuing with the issue of theological surprises, there is very little doubt that most Jews raised in a traditional context would be surprised to discover that rabbinic texts contain a variety of positions concerning God’s choice of Israel.[16] Many of them would be even more surprised to discover that many such texts imply the view (later adopted by Maimonides) that God might have chosen other nations, and that the choice of Israel reflects no special qualities found in the Jewish people. 

This may be the message of the following oft-cited passage (AZ 2b): “R. Johanan says: This teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, offered the Torah to every nation and every tongue, but none accepted it, until He came to Israel who received it.” The point of this passage is not to teach history, but to praise the ancient Israelites, who accepted the Torah unconditionally.[17] However, the praise makes no sense had the Torah been predestined for the Jews.

Menachem Hirshman has analyzed in detail the many texts that ask why Torah was given in the Wilderness of Sinai as opposed to the Land of Israel. Hirshman demonstrates that these texts teach that God chose to do so in order that the Torah could have been available to all the nations.[18] It should be no surprise that thinkers who hold such a view expect the Torah to be accepted by all nations in the fullness of time.[19]

These few paragraphs do not do justice to the rich variety of rabbinic opinions on the nature of the election of the Jews. What they do indicate is that the variety of opinions available to the post-rabbinic Jewish tradition is certainly more variegated than many Jews today have become accustomed to think. This is particularly true in Israel, among Orthodox religious Zionists who are raised to believe that Halevy, Zohar, Ramban, Maharal, and following them Rav Kook, represent “authentic” Orthodox Judaism. It is equally true among Haredim, whose Judaism is deeply inflected by Kabbalah (obviously in the case of Hasidim, but no less so in the case of non-Hasidim for whom Reb Haim Volozhin’s Nefesh Ha-Hayyim is a core text).

Election—Liturgy

The Jewish liturgy may be no more interested than the Bible in theological consistency, but it surely emphasizes the election of Israel in the context of God’s love for the Jewish people.

A text well known to all Jews who attend traditional services on the three pilgrim festivals and on the High Holy Days states:

You have chosen us from among all nations, loved us, desired us above all other tongues; You have sanctified us with your commandments and brought us close, our King, to your worship; you have called us by your great and holy name…

Here we see God’s love for the Jewish people and the election of Israel directly connected. Sanctification by the commandments,[20] the privilege of worshiping God, and having God’s name (El) made part of the peoples’ name (Israel) all appear to be consequences of that election, even if we are not told why God loved the Jews.

The motif of love finds emphatic expression in a central place in the daily liturgy, the blessing preceding the recitation of the Shema:

With great love have you loved us, our Lord and God, with great and boundless compassion have you been compassionate to us. Our Father and King, because of our ancestors who trusted in you… Blessed are you, Lord, who chooses his people of Israel in love.

Here the motif of ancestral merit takes pride of place. Followers of both Halevi and Maimonides accept this idea. For Halevi the patriarchs of the Jewish people were chosen for God’s special interest because of their descent—no one else could have been chosen. For Maimonides it was the historically contingent fact that Abraham chose God and raised a son and grandson who followed in his footsteps that gained for them the special merit in light of which God promised to elect their progeny.

We have examined examples from the liturgy expressing God’s special love for the Jewish people. However, the liturgy also teaches that God is concerned with the well-being of all human beings, apportioning reward and punishment to them all. Thus, for example, in a hymn traditionally given pride of place in the Ashkenazic liturgy of the High Holy Days (“Unetanah Tokef”) we find:

We acclaim this day's pure sanctity, its awesome power. This day, Lord, Your dominion is deeply felt. Compassion and truth, its foundations, are perceived. In truth do You judge and prosecute, discern motives and bear witness, record and seal, count and measure, remembering all that we have forgotten. You open the Book of Remembrance and it speaks for itself, for every man has signed it with his deeds. The great shofar is sounded. A still, small voice is heard. This day even angels are alarmed, seized with fear and trembling as they declare: "The day of judgment is here!" For even the hosts of heaven are judged. This day all who walk the earth [kol ba'ei olam] pass before You as a flock of sheep. And like a shepherd who gathers his flock, bringing them under his staff, You bring everything that lives before You for review. You determine the life and decree the destiny of every creature.[21]

Despite what many traditionalist Jews mistakenly believe,[22] this hymn means what it says: On Rosh ha-Shanah God examines and judges all human beings, Jew and non-Jew. 

This duality, God’s particular love for the Jewish people, allied with concern for all humanity, finds dramatic expression in one of the core elements of the Jewish liturgy, the aleinu prayer, the first paragraph of which emphasizes the election of Israel while the second anticipates a universalist messianic era.

Election—Judah Halevi and Maimonides

Judah Halevi and Maimonides essayed answers to the question why God chose the Jews, answers that reflect very different understandings of what the Jewish religion actually is.[23] For Halevi, God really had no choice, as it were, in the matter of choosing the Jewish people: The choice of the Patriarchs and their descendants after them was determined by their special qualities. As noted above, for Maimonides God did not choose the Jews; rather, the Jews (or, more precisely, their progenitor, Abraham) chose God. The covenant with Abraham’s descendants was both a fulfillment of a divine promise made to Abraham and a reward to him for having chosen God. As we have seen, the Torah itself offers no conclusive support to either view.

Maimonides and Halevi et al. all agree that the nation that came to be called Jewish was chosen by God. For Halevi, this is a function of the special nature of the Jewish people, determined from creation. For Maimonides this is basically a function of an historically contingent event; it did not have to be the ancestor of the Jews who rediscovered God.

The Bible is, of course, a complex document, but until the Book of Ezra there appear to be no texts that clearly support Halevi over Maimonides, i.e., that support the claim that the Jewish people are in some inherent fashion innately superior to non-Jews, to the other.[24] Indeed, Christine Hayes, in an important article,[25] opines that

The rabbis seem eager to disassociate themselves from Ezran holy seed rhetoric and related Second Temple traditions that denounced even casual interethnic unions as capital crimes, subject to the vengeance of zealots. They rule that those who read a universal prohibition of intermarriage into the Bible are to be severely suppressed (M. Megillah 4:9). The rabbis' failure to take up Ezra's ban on foreign wives and their children—indeed, their very reversal of this program by allowing conver­sion—is all the more remarkable in light of the rabbis' general perception and presentation of themselves as Ezra’s (indirect) successors.

Assuming that Hayes is correct, we might have here an example of a rabbinic attempt to resist the conversion of universalist aspects of the Bible to a hard-edged particularism. The very fact that the laws of conversion were codified in Talmud and later codes indicates that the Rabbis resisted Ezra’s attempt to harden the distinction between Jew and non-Jew. Non-Jews can become Jews because, in the final analysis, there is no difference between them so far as their humanity is concerned. This is a message which many Jews today would be well advised to learn.

Election Tomorrow—A Modified Maimonideanism

According to the twelfth of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith, Jews are bid to anticipate the coming of the Messiah, “even though he tarries,” (as the popular Ani Ma’amin poem puts it) and pray for his coming.[26] Why? Not in order to enjoy power and dominion, or this-worldly pleasures, but in order to be free to devote themselves to the Torah and its wisdom.[27] Such devotion will make those wise enough to engage in it "worthy of life in the world to come." In such a well-organized and enlightened world, in which its natural riches are shared among human beings rationally as opposed to selfishly, not only will war disappear, but delicacies will be as common as dust. This is not a function of miracles, but of proper organization and the self-restraint of a population focused on important matters. Is it any wonder that in such a world human beings (not just Jews) will achieve great wisdom? The point of the Messiah's coming is thus to help human beings bring about a peaceful society enjoying the just allocation of resources and devoted to the cultivation of the intellect.[28]

Maimonides brings his most extensive discussion of the messiah to a dramatic summation in “Laws of Kings,” xii.4. With this text, he ends the entire Mishneh Torah:

The Sages and Prophets did not long for the days of the Messiah that they might exercise dominion over the world, or rule over the nations, or be exalted by the peoples, and not in order to eat and drink and rejoice, but so that they be free to devote themselves to the Torah and its wisdom, with no one to oppress or disturb them, and thus be worthy of life in the world to come, as we explained in 'Laws Concerning Repentance'. [29] Then there will be neither famine nor war, neither jealousy nor strife. Good things will be abundant, and delicacies as common as dust. The one preoccupation of the whole world will be only to know the Lord. Hence they[30] will be very wise, knowing things now unknown and will apprehend knowledge of their Creator to the utmost capacity of the human mind, as it is written: For the land shall be full of the knowledge (de'ah) of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9) [emphasis added].[31]

Maimonides provides a parallel description of the messianic world in a very short chapter of the Guide of the Perplexed (iii.11; Pines, 440–441). Zev Harvey has pointed out that this chapter of the Guide is a kind of poetic and philosophical rendition of the last paragraph of the Mishneh Torah, glossing it in the way Maimonides meant it to be read.[32] Here is the chapter in its entirety:

These great evils that come about because the human individuals who inflict them upon one another because of purposes, desires, opinions, and beliefs, are all of them likewise consequent upon privation. For all of them derive from ignorance, I mean from a privation of knowledge. Just as a blind man, because of absence of sight, does not cease stumbling, being wounded and also wounding others, because he has nobody to guide him on the way, the various sects of men—every individual according to the extent of his ignorance—does to himself and to others great evils from which individuals of the species suffer. If there were knowledge, whose relation to the human form is like that of the faculty of sight to the eye, they would refrain from doing any harm to themselves and to others. For through cognition of the truth, enmity and hatred are removed and the inflicting of harm by people on one another is abolished. It holds out this promise, saying: And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and so on. And the cow and the bear shall feed, and son on (Is. 11:6–8). Then it gives the reason for this, saying that the cause of the abolition of these enmities, these discords, and these tyrannies, will be the knowledge that men [al-nas] will have then concerning the true reality of the deity. For it says: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Is. 11:9). Know this.

There is, of course, much more to be said about Maimonides’ view of the messiah and of the messianic era, but the texts cited here should be enough for me to be able to conclude this essay with the following argument. I assert, following what I learned from Steven Schwarzschild (who always insisted that he was only following Hermann Cohen), if not necessarily from Maimonides himself, that ends should determine means.[33] That being the case, if we can show that Maimonides anticipated a messianic era characterized by enlightenment and (therefore) peace, we can then point out to him (whatever he himself may have thought in the midst of the crusades) that war and discrimination among human beings will never achieve that end. This position is Maimonidean, if not necessarily that of Maimonides himself.[34]

Judaism, Maimonides would insist, has something important and valuable to teach the whole world even for those who deny the truth of the Torah as adumbrated in the rabbinic tradition. I refer to aspects of the messianic hope as expressed by Maimonides, especially as that hope was understood by Hermann Cohen and by Steven Schwarzschild after him.[35]

Two aspects of Maimonides’ messianic teaching are relevant to us here are: universalism and naturalism. This is not the place to defend an interpretation of Maimonides according to which by the time the messianic process reaches its completion all human beings will worship God from a stance of religious equality.[36] In Maimonides’ view, the point of the messianic era is to bring the Torah lekhol ba’ei olam, to all human beings. One can easily derive from Maimonides the understanding that the Torah in question is Abrahamic, not Mosaic; i.e., a Torah of ethics, science, and philosophy.[37] Maimonides’ messianic naturalism is admitted even by those made uncomfortable by it.[38]

This messianic vision offers us a goal at which to aim, an ideal by which to regulate our behavior. That goal is the realization of the opening chapters of the Bible: all human beings are created in the image of God and should be treated, therefore, as Kant would later put it, as ends also, never as means only. Maimonides’ naturalism means that this goal can be achieved by human beings, without divine intervention, miraculous or otherwise.

Kant insisted that ought implies can: if I ought to do something, I must be able to do it. Steven Schwarzschild insisted on a Jewish corollary to that Kantian teaching: If I can achieve some worthwhile goal, then I ought to try to achieve it. Getting ever closer to a messianic world is surely a worthwhile goal. Actually reaching that goal may not be possible, but getting ever closer is.[39] Since we can, we should make every effort to make the world a place in which all human beings are treated as creatures made in the image of God. In effect, Maimonides, Cohen, and Schwarzschild teach us that we ought to devote ourselves to the project of creating a messiah-worthy world.[40]

There is something else that Maimonidean messianic universalism and naturalism teaches us: hope. We can hope for (and work toward) a world in which different nations and cultures can value their own contributions to the human mosaic without diminishing the value of others—without wholly “otherizing” the other. If we can hope, we need not despair; the human condition is not necessarily tragic.[41] That message alone justifies the continued allegiance of the Jewish people to the Torah of Israel and to their destiny.

Notes

Even a father and his son, a teacher and his student, who are studying Torah together in one gate, become enemies to each other but do not leave there until they love each other. (BT Kiddushin 30b)

This aphorism, the end of which is more properly translated as “do not leave there until their love for each other increases,” seems counterintuitive to someone whose academic experience lies exclusively in the world of secular academia. The Torah, however, is studied in a Beit Midrash that inheres an intense environment of passionate study, often in the dyad format of havruta study. Two people, young or old, engage in reading and understanding a text together. Since they are different people, each with a unique perspective and experience, their interpretative perception is almost assuredly going to differ with that of the partner. One might think that, given the emphasis that our tradition places on manners, on respect for a fellow—especially for a parent and teacher—that intellectual fire would be stilled by reverent acquiescence. Yet, as any member of a serious Beit Midrash can attest, the opposite is the case. Indeed, the more revered the sage, the more likely the students are to challenge him in a nearly uninhibited, vociferous manner. This has the potential—at least to the outside observer—to create enmity between these study partners, with the intense frustration of the partner (or student—or teacher) to see what is obvious to the other. A casual observer would be surprised by this intensity. This can be cured by spending a few days in a Beit Midrash, engaging in study. If nothing else is gained (and much can be gained from every Beit Midrash session), this experience will make it clear that to a serious student of Torah, study is lifeblood and the intellectual battle over its truth, its meaning and its application to our lives is a fight “to the death,” as it were—“take no survivors.” What true study partners, even be they of inequal status, background and knowledge, find when they conclude their study session is that the intensity of this battle over the truth has, miraculously, brought them closer together. 

In this article, I hope to explore this unusual phenomenon which has been a blessed reality of traditional Jewish scholarly life[1] for at least 1,500 years. It is my contention that in these contentious times, where political alliances are exclusive, where friendships and even families are threatened by party alliances and by demagogic positioning, the Western world has much to gain from learning about how mahloket—dispute—can be not only healthy but may be the source of a great blessing of healing these rifts. 

Before doing so, I’d like to explore several modes of “unity” as proposed, sometimes urgently, both in the national political arena as well as in the religious world—where we call it ahdut. 

            Calls for unity usually come in three variations. I will term them “Unity of Compromise,” “Unity of Emptiness,” and “Unity of Resignation.” No leader would propose a healing process using any of these monikers, but we will see that at the essence of each mode these descriptions are accurate. 

Some call for unity by identifying the testiest areas of disagreement and trying to convince the two sides to remove that particular position from their platform. This is a valuable and laudable method in the political arena and is at the heart of most bipartisan attempts to pass legislation. It has proven to work—with two willing sides—but for legislative purposes only. In other words, it does nothing to bring the two sides together on the national (or local) scene in any meaningful way. In other words, this is a successful model for promoting the common good. However, on the social plane, it avoids the most critical issues which sit at the heart of the national divide. 

The second type of unity is not of a legislative or political context and is usually found in social or religious settings. The idea proposed is that all sides agree to disabuse themselves of those positions and beliefs which are unique and opposed to by any of the other groups. This can be found in some of the large social movements of the last few decades, where anyone who wishes to participate must relinquish—at least publicly—any position or belief that is not acceptable to the rest of the group (or, more accurately, the leadership). An example of this is a group of Jews committed to the welfare of the State of Israel who agree to not bring religious sentiments into the discussion—thus allowing Orthodox and non-Orthodox to work together. These approaches are temporarily successful in meeting the needs of the organization but do nothing to bring people together in anything but a fragile and inherently temporary manner. 

The third type of call for unity is what I term “Unity of Resignation.” One position has become dominant in the given social or political group and its leaders try to prevail upon their ideological opponents to admit defeat, so to speak, and join the majority (to become a “supermajority”). This type of call is usually met with derisive opposition from the minority group, who is convinced that its relatively unpopular stance represents a non-negotiable truth. In those cases where the embattled few agree to join the broader group, if their iconoclastic positions have any merit, this abandonment can be viewed as a shame—or it may fester and cause further dissension within the newly broadened ranks of the majority. We have seen this happen with several political splinter groups which were corralled into one of the two major parties in the United States. The resentment felt among those who acquiesced inevitably finds its expression in internal strife and, in some cases, leads to a repeat of the original divide. 

Note that in the observant Jewish world, each of these has been proposed in a call for the much needed “ahdut” (unity). Examples of each abound—usually a call for ahdut means that everyone should agree to follow the direction laid out by the one calling for such unity—in other words, a Unity of Resignation. 

What all three of these methods have in common is not what they are but what they are not. In every case, the differences between the groups are ignored, avoided, or (theoretically) discarded. Practically, this may be the only way to get groups to work together, to march together or to vote together. But it sidesteps the real issue that, I suggest, sits at the heart of our current social crisis—both in the United States and in Israel. Put simply, people are unable to tolerate, much less debate, those who hold opinions with which they disagree. Stereotyping, vilification, and shaming become the knee-jerk reaction to dissent. 

But the Beit Midrash may hold a golden key to the current crisis of polarization. Entering the Beit Midrash is a glorious way to luxuriate in the passionate combativeness over the meaning of a common text, a common concept or common practice. I would like to take you into the Beit Midrash and see how the method of dispute can shine a salvific light on our current moment of dissent and division. But to do so would mean that the various players would have to agree that there is, indeed, a common text, a common concept or a common practice which is to be examined and to set some basic ground rules for how that analytic inquiry is to take place. This is, I believe, well within our reach once we admit that we are all interested in the same outcome—for instance, a society governed by norms of fairness, common human rights for all—but informed by an overall sense of morality. Numerous descriptions of the beauty of hard-fought disputes in the Academies of Yavne, Sura, Mainz, and Volozhin—to name just a few—have the potential to launch an era of passionate dispute and debate that can pit side against side as “enemies” but that ultimately will bring them together in a majestic “real” unity which embraces the whole person, dissent and all. 

I would like to suggest that in spite of the vociferous and well-documented disputes between the schools of Shamai and Hillel in the first half of the first century, the type of healthy and nurturing disputatious academy environment was launched in the shadow of destruction, at Yavne. 

One prefatory note. There is a well-known story, reported in B. Berakhot (27b–28a) as well as in Y. Berakhot (4:1) and Taanit (4:1) about the ouster of Rabban Gamliel and the installation of R. Elazar b. Azariah as head of the Sanhedrin. According to the report in the Bavli, the accommodation made with Rabban Gamliel after he was returned to a position of leadership, was that he and R. Elazar b. Azariah would split the leadership—one week a month for R. Elazar and three weeks to Rabban Gamliel. This background is vital for understanding not only an odd phrase at the beginning of the story, but also the entire thrust of the series of homilies presented by our protagonist, R. Elazar b. Azariah. The Yerushalmi’s conclusion, that each of them held leadership roles simultaneously, is an equally compelling backdrop to the story and its ultimate message. 

The Tosefta (Sotah 7:8–11) shares the following rather long anecdote about that first generation of post-Hurban teaching: 

It so happened with Rabbi Yohanan ben Berokah and Rabbi Elazar ben Hisma, that they were traveling from Yavneh to Lod, [and they stopped] to pay a visit to Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki'in. Rabbi Yehoshua said to them, "What news do you have from the house of study today?" They said to him, "Rabbi, we are your students, and from your waters we drink." He said to them, "It is impossible that there nothing new was discussed in the house of study. Whose week was it?[2]" They said to him, "Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah." He said to them, "What did he discuss?" 

1. They said to him, "[He discussed the commandment of Hakhel, to] 'Gather the people, the men, the women, and the little children'" (Deuteronomy 31:10–12). He said to them, "What did he expound about it?" They said to him, "He expounded thus: If men came to learn [and] women came to listen, why did the little children come? In order to bestow a reward upon those who brought them. 

2. And another thing that he expounded (Deuteronomy 26:17–18), 'You have declared today for Hashem [to be your God] ... [and] God has declared today for you [to be his treasured people].' The Holy One Blessed be He said to Israel, just as you have made me your only object of love in this world, so too I will make you my only object of love in the World to Come." 

3. And he (i.e., Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah) also expounded (Ecclesiastes 12:11), "The sayings of the wise are like goads, like nails fixed in prodding sticks. They were given by one Shepherd." Just as the goad directs the cow so as to bring life to the world, so too words of Torah are only life for the world, as it is said, “It is a tree of life . . .” [Proverbs 3:18]. Or, just as the goad is movable, might it be so for words of Torah? Scripture says, “And like nails firmly planted.” [Or, might (words of Torah like nails) neither diminish nor increase? Scripture says, “firmly planted.”] Just as a plant flourishes and grows, so too words of Torah flourish and grow. 'Masters of Assemblies' these are students of the wise that enter into multiple assemblies and declare what is impure [to be] impure, and what is pure [to be] pure; what is impure [to be] in its place and what is pure [to be] in its place. Perhaps it will arise in one's mind that since Beit Shammai [declares] impure and Beit Hillel [declares] pure, so-and-so prohibits and so-and-so permits, [Why] should I henceforth study Torah? Scripture teaches "words" "the words" "these are the words" [see Exodus 19:6–7] all of these words were given by "one Shepherd" [Ecclesiastes 12:11]. One God created them, one Benefactor gave them, the Master of all deeds, blessed be He, said them. Now make for your heart chambers within chambers and bring into it the words of Beit Shammai and the words of Beit Hillel, the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure. [After hearing what had been expounded in the house of study, Rabbi Yehoshua] said, "There is no generation that [can be considered] orphaned, if Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells in its midst."

    

According to this report, Rabbi Elazar b. Azariah presented three homilies (marked “a,” “b” and “c” above), concluding with his charge to his audience to learn how to hear both sides of a dispute. This Tosefta is quoted in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Sotah 3:4; Hagigah 1:1) but only the first homily is brought; in Avot d’Rabbi Natan (version A, chapter 18), the middle homily is elided, but the adjuration to his audience is included. The Bavli (Hagigah 3a–b) has all three homilies in this sequence, with added supporting verses. 

I would like to suggest that the entire story as recorded in the Tosefta, which is evidently the original report with all three homilies in sequence, provides a pedagogic and anthropo-theological weltanschauung that not only allows for dispute, but elevates it to a desired and potentially sanctified state of study. 

It is prudent to note, before examining this text, that R. Elazar b. Azariah’s approach to dispute is not the only voice heard. R. Yossi is famous for his nostalgic and wistful recall of the day when there were no disputes—and lays the blame for the amplification and proliferation of Halakhic disputes at the feet of the students of Shamai and Hillel, “who did not serve their masters diligently” (i.e., did not apply themselves to their study with the requisite commitment and focus).[3] But that is as it should be—what would a position glorifying dispute mean if someone didn’t challenge it?

 To put this series of d’rashot into their proper context, we must keep in mind that, per the report of the Bavli,[4] the newly inaugurated Beit Midrash at Yavneh was an exclusive academy. R. Gamliel, the Patriarch and undisputed (for a while) head of the yeshiva, maintained a policy of only allowing the finest and purest students to participate in the discussions and deliberations in the Beit Midrash. R. Elazar b. Azariah, according to the report in the Bavli, opened the doors and “popularized” the study of Torah. He engineered a revolution in which the value—not just the toleration—of dissent would play a central role. 

Before examining the homilies, we ought to note that the setting for this conversation is already one of dispute. R. Yehoshua wants his students to share the new teachings that they undoubtedly heard in the Beit Midrash—but they protest that they have come to learn from him, their master. His insistence is rewarded, per the expanded report in B. Hagigah 3, with a “jewel” of a homily, that they had conspired to keep from him. In other words, the dispute itself led to greater intellectual wealth on his part. At the conclusion of the students’ retelling, their master exclaims that this generation, which had every reason to feel abandoned and forlorn (having just experienced the destruction of Jerusalem, the loss of any semblance of sovereignty and the burning of the Mikdash), could not be considered an “orphaned generation” due to the personality of R. Elazar b. Azariah. Although this consoling coda may be read as expressing the extent of R. Yehoshua’s regard for his younger colleague’s rhetorical brilliance, I believe that this approbation reflects a more profound message which emerges from this series of homilies. And it is to those homilies that we now turn our attention. 

The first homily is anchored in the commandment of Hakhel (Deuteronomy 31:10–13), wherein the entire nation is commanded to gather once every seven years on Sukkot, as they all come to be seen before God. While gathered, they are to hear the reading of (select sections from) the Torah. Note that the Torah identifies three distinct groups among the assembled—“men, women and children” and provides two related purposes—“in order that they may hear and they may learn” but the text continues with what they are to learn and what those lessons ought to lead to: “and will fear Hashem your God and will observe to fulfill all of this Torah.” R. Elazar seems to pick up on the specificative wording of the text—“the men, the women, and the children” and matches that with the doubled goal “in order that they may hear and that they will learn” and understands that the text is directing us to what we, in our modern era, refer to as “differentiated learning.” In other words, a single educational experience can operate simultaneously in various modes and on various levels in order to meet the pedagogic needs of all of the target audience. 

The use of Hakhel as the inspiration for his homily speaks to his programmatic upheaval in the tenor of the Beit Midrash. For anyone who has come into the newly opened study hall, who was not welcome before this due to their lack of experience (or other limitations), must be struck by the theme of the great rabbi’s talk. Everyone must gather, and there will be a modality for each that will allow young and old, experienced and neophyte, to participate in the exciting life of this newly revamped Beit Midrash. 

Note that his explanation of the value of bringing little children—“to give reward to those who bring them” suffers from reification. If the only reason that the Torah commanded parents to bring their children was to give those parents a reward for following this command, this all begs the question, and we are still left wondering what the reason behind the command is. (After all, if the reason for the command is merely to give them a reward for fulfilling it, any random act could have been commanded with the same outcome). I’d like to suggest that latet sakhar le-mevi’eihem should not be seen as a purely technical explanation. Rather, the parents indeed are rewarded by exposing their children—from their earliest days—to the environment of the Beit Midrash. Knowing that they always can find a home there and gaining a nearly inborn familiarity with the air of learning and inquiry is itself a great guarantor to their richer future as denizens of the Academy.[5] This observation also increases the types of value that the Beit Midrash can confer on its participants. The men come to study—i.e., to engage in the exchange of information. The women come to hear, to gain from the experiential and spiritual benefits that the Beit Midrash offers.[6] The children come and at whatever age they are not yet ready for either of these, are enriched by “just being there.” 

Thus, R. Elazar b. Azariah’s first homily serves as a welcome to all those assembled to join in the exhilarating experience of this newly fully opened academy. 

A priori, it is difficult to see the connection between the Hakhel lesson and the one that follows. R. Elazar expounded on a difficult word which appears twice in sequential verses: he’emarta/he’eimirkha. The simplest reading of this word is “to raise up”[7]—to wit, “you have raised up Hashem today, to be your God…and Hashem has raised you up today to be His treasured nation….” For homiletic purposes, however, the master reads that hapax legomenon (it only appears in this form in these two related verses) as a form of amar—say. He interprets the verse as “You have declared regarding Hashem…and Hashem has declared regarding you.” He then goes on to read a symbiotic pair of declarations—that just as we declare God’s unity in this world, so does God affirm our unity. The expanded version of the Baraita in BT Hagigah adds markers for each. We declare God to be one when we vocalize the “Shema Yisrael…” and He affirms our unity (or uniqueness) when He states “Mi ke-amkha Yisrael, goy ehad ba-aretz”—“who is like Your people, Yisrael, a singular nation in the land.”[8]

I’d like to suggest that this second homily is part of a larger argument that R. Elazar is formulating. We affirm that God, despite the multitudinous and differentiated manifestations of His power and grace that we experience, is One. The thunder, the gentle rain, the sunset and the sunrise are distinct phenomena. Yet we see in those distinct miracles One God, understood as all the more glorious for His multi-faceted modes of interaction with His world. In the same way, the master teaches us, the unity of the Jewish people, not in spite of but on account of the many differences that distinguish us from each other, is worthy of God’s affirmation. 

At this point, the essential message which the new “Rosh Yeshiva” is formulating is not yet apparent. The final homily will bring that home. 

This odd verse towards the end of Kohelet (12:11) reads: “The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one shepherd” (ESV).

This reading, like any of the other versions, is cryptic. However, we might work with the peshat, R. Elazar b. Azariah uses these disparate descriptors of the Law to put the final prong in his argument. 

The words of the wise are compared to a painful instrument, used to goad the cattle in their work, to plow the field, which enables planting, reaping, and…eating. As such, the counsel of the sages, while painful (?) are the necessary vehicle for sustaining life. 

But these words are not, like a cattle prod, something light that can be used or disposed of—they are “like nails”—firmly planted. In other words, the teaching of the sages have a fixed property and are reliable and, essentially, eternal. 

Yet, the comparison to “nails” implies not only a fixedness, but also a rigidity and an inherent limitation of growth. To that end, he reads the word netu’im—which is contextually translated as “fixed,” as the opposite—“planted,” implying something that grows, develops and, again, nurtures. The metaphor is not only wildly mixed, it also presents seemingly contradictory messages about the words of the Sages—they are fixed and firm, yet they have the organic ability to grow and develop. At this point in his derashah, R. Elazar shifts his interpretative scheme from the words of Torah to those self-same sages whose words are the focus of the verse—and the homily. In peshat, we may read ba’alei asuppot as a synonym for divrei hakhamim—the words of the wise. But in his derashah, he reads it as a unique descriptor of the wise men themselves—the sages of this newly (re-)opened communal Beit Midrash. They are the rabbis and their students who gather there and discuss and debate the law, coming to diametrically opposed conclusions—“pure” vs. “impure,” “owing” vs. “exempt,” “permitted” vs. “prohibited.” This is where the larger program of his derashah becomes evident. He turns directly to his audience, those who until Rabban Gamliel was ousted, were not privy to these exciting and confusing debates:

Perhaps it will arise in one's mind that since Beit Shammai [declares] impure and Beit Hillel[9] [declares] pure, so-and-so prohibits and so-and-so permits, [Why] should I henceforth study Torah?[10]

He is addressing the understandable confusion that anyone who is uninitiated in the ways of the Beit Midrash would feel when first encountering the spirited, passionate and intellectually dizzying arguments pro and con on an infinitely broad range of issues. This new audience is adjured to: 

Now make for your heart chambers within chambers and bring into it the words of Beit Shammai and the words of Beit Hillel, the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure.

Or, in the words of the Bavli tradition of this homily: 

So too, you (the student), make your ears like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear both the statements of those who render objects ritually impure and the statements of those who render them pure; the statements of those who prohibit actions and the statements of those who permit them; the statements of those who deem items invalid and the statements of those who deem them valid. (B. Hagigah 3b)

And he anchors his argument in the end of the verse: nittenu me-ro’eh ehad—given by one shepherd. One God gave us the Torah, one shepherd (Moshe) taught it to us. In other words, the Law, in its essence, is a pure light, radiating Divine knowledge which, by definition, must be unitary and of a single truth. Yet, as happens when pure light is refracted through a prism, it becomes differentiated and takes on the appearance of various colors and shades, at odds with each other. Behind the opinion of Beit Shammai is the same essential light as informs Beit Hillel. It is the student’s job to hear the opposing opinions and applications - the refractions of that light—and to learn how to recognize the validity of each side and, ultimately, to discover the unified light which informs it all. 

We can now revisit the entire homily and detect a deeper message, one which not only empowers the new students and provides some initiative guidance for them in the ways of the Beit Midrash but makes a larger point about the inherent value of dispute and of the opening of those hallowed doors. 

R. Elazar b. Azariah, presenting his new public policy platform, begins by invoking the great gathering of all—men, women and children—to the central place of worship as a valuable addendum to the pilgrimage festival of Sukkot. At that gathering, when all of the people have come to appear before God and to be seen by Him, part of that monumental event is the public reading of the Torah—the source of that great light—at which a deliberately differentiated audience participates, each in his or her own way. He underscores even the value of “just being there,” for the infants and the great reward that that brings to the parents. 

He continues by highlighting the reciprocal and—if it can be said—symbiotic relationship between the Jewish people and God, each with infinite expressions yet all anchored in a singularity and Oneness. His derashah may be understood on a deeper plane. Not only is there a parallel between these “Ones”—but it is the task of Yisrael to reflect, through their ultimate unity, the Unity of God. 

R. Elazar’s denouement is the hard-hitting description of the disputatious nature of the study of the Law and the opportunity and obligation that all must enter into the Beit Midrash, to accept the nature of the Law as arguable and to discover the intellectual ability to wrestle with both sides of an issue. This is not only an invitation, but also an exhortation. Now that the Beit Midrash doors have been flung wide open, no one has an excuse to avoid engagement. And that engagement takes place at the transformed “place where Hashem chooses to place His Name”—and it is here, right here, that we hear the historic calling to create a society that will reflect, in its unity of purpose arising from the passionate disagreements about how to achieve that unity, the Unity of God. 

We live in highly disputatious times. We have seen friendship, work relationships and even families broken apart over severe differences in opinion. If society around us can take a clue from this great homily—one which gave the aged R. Yehoshua comfort that the generation after the destruction was, indeed, not orphaned—we may be able to go back to basics. We can start with what we agree on and then, vociferously and passionately, disagree about how to get there. If we keep the bigger picture not only in mind, but also as part of the conversation, we can end up as greater friends and co-seekers:

Even a father and his son, a teacher and his student, who are studying Torah together in one gate, become enemies to each other but do not leave there until they love each other.

Notes

Biography of author 

Dr Daniel Davies PhD is from Manchester, UK. After studying at Yeshivat ha-Kibbutz ha-Dati in Israel, he read Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Birmingham and pursued postgraduate work at Cambridge University. He has written extensively on the history of philosophy and theology.

His first book on Maimonides, Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed (OUP, 2011), received an honorary mention from the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards. 

Together with Charles Manekin, he edited Interpreting Maimonides (CUP, 2020). He has worked as a Research Associate in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unity at Cambridge University Library, at the University of Hamburg, and at Bar-Ilan University. 

At present, he is a visiting researcher with the Averroes Edition project housed at the Thomas Institute of the University of Cologne. He is currently translating Abraham Ibn Daud’s Exalted Faith and preparing an edition and translation of New Heavens by Isaac Abarbanel. 

Review of book

Daniel Davies, Maimonides. Cambridge: Polity, 2024. Hardback £55, Paperback £17.99, ebook £16.99.

Polity’s Classic Thinkers series aims to provide serious introductions to “the greatest thinkers of history.” Daniel Davies’s contribution on Maimonides is a high-level presentation of the Rambam’s treatment of major philosophical themes. 

It focusses mostly on doctrines that are common to the Abrahamic faiths and continue to be discussed today by theologians and by scholars of medieval thought. It is not merely an introduction, however, but a serious contribution to scholarly debates about how to interpret Maimonides, in particular his Guide. 

Davies addresses highly contested questions in ways that are both original and sensibly grounded in Rambam’s text. Studies often divide between layers of the Guide and, inspired by the many works of Leo Strauss, including Persecution and the Art of Writing (The Free Press, 1952; reissued Chicago, 1988), claim that Maimonides’ true beliefs are ‘esoteric’, meaning that they are hidden behind simplistic, ‘exoteric’ religious doctrines. 

Such studies often justify their approaches by noting that Maimonides says he intentionally contradicts himself. They argue that philosophical understandings of things like the creation of the world differ from religious ones. Maimonides’ ‘exoteric’ opinion that the world is created is therefore contradicted by his ‘esoteric’, real opinion that it is eternal. 

Rather than following this well-trodden path seeking out hidden heresies, Davies instead focusses on explaining the arguments that Maimonides sets out. In the final chapter, after an excellent thumbnail sketch of the reception of Maimonides’ work in subsequent centuries, Davies offers a methodological defense. He claims that the contradictions do not hide real philosophical beliefs but are part of the Rambam’s strategy of hiding his interpretation of Ezekiel’s famous chariot vision. Furthermore, Davies’s interpretations of the issues themselves show that Maimonides’s supposedly ‘exoteric’ arguments are not simplistic and dogmatic but are philosophically serious. 

Generally, the book stands out for its philosophical approach. It focusses on explaining the arguments and the assumptions behind them, trying to clarify why Maimonides and others of the period found them compelling. 

For example, why did they speak about parts and faculties of the soul? What questions were they trying to answer when they said that everything in the world is composed of matter and form? 

It also addresses the issues arising from some of Maimonides’ arguments in ways that make them accessible and relevant to philosophers today. For example, Davies is able to explain why talk about ‘possible worlds’, (which is currently a common way of framing the difference between ‘necessary’ and ‘possible’) fails to capture what Maimonides means when he writes that God is a necessary being. 

Furthermore, after explaining how Maimonides presents his negative theology and arguments about religious language, Davies addresses problems that have been raised by philosophical theologians in recent decades to the idea of God’s necessity. In doing so, he is able to clarify and defend it. 

This book is philosophically sophisticated, but its amenable style is attractive for the serious reader, whether specialist or non specialist. It is open and inclusive, and it fully deserves Yitzhak Melamed’s blurb, which states that it is “one of the best works of Jewish philosophy of recent times.”

 https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=maimonides--9781509522903