Moral and Religious Pragmatism

I am convinced that the ultimate goal of study is to return to or even expand traditional thinking – thinking which instead of being conservative/reactionary or progressive/radical is culturally (or inter-culturally) sagacious.  Even the most Orthodox of any faith or ideology should agree with the Provencal sage, R. Menachem ben Shlomo Meiri (1249 – 1315), who argued that any moral religious system is preferable to the lack of such (Beit haBehira Pesahim 49b).  Or earlier, R. Shmuel HaNagid (b.993) exhorted Moslems not to abandon the path of His prophet Mohammed (Harkavy 1902, 49 n.2).

THINKING CONTEXTUALLY, NOT IDEOLOGICALLY

The point of asking how we can achieve one ideal at least expense to another is made in the following Midrash in which the Divine commands a theoretically ideal action from the perspective of a specific concern but accepts that a human was better at balancing the range of concerns that must be brought to bear in the real world:

Numbers Rabah (Vilna) 19:32	במדבר רבה (וילנא) פרשה יט אות לג
This is one of three things said by Moses to the Holy One, blessed be He, to which the latter replied: 'You have taught Me something!’… When the Holy One, blessed be He, said to [Moses]: ‘Make war with Sihon. Even if he does not seek to make [war] with you, you must provoke war with him’…{based on Deut. 2:24} Moses did not do so, but… sent messengers [to Heshbon, king of Sihon, with words of peace]. {based on Numbers 21:21-22}  The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him ‘By your life! I [hereby] cancel My words and adopt yours’; as it is written: ‘When you come near to a city to fight against it, proclaim peace unto it’ (Deut. 20:10).		זה אחד מג' דברים שאמר משה לפני הקב"ה וא"ל למדתני... כשאמר לו הקב"ה עשה מלחמה עם סיחון אפילו הוא אינו מבקש לעשות עמך את תתגר בו מלחמה... ומשה לא עשה כן אלא... שלח מלאכים [אל חשבון מלך סיחון דברי שלום] א"ל הקב"ה חייך שאני מבטל דברי ומקיים דבריך שנא' (שם /דברים/ כ) כי תקרב אל עיר להלחם עליה וקראת אליה לשלום

However, as I have written and illustrated elsewhere - the context must include all the people involved - both in the present and in the future.  That means, in part, that the decisor must be someone is who is not noge'a ba-davar = stands to gain for him or herself in any way (whether short term pleasure or long term interests).

The Avoidance of Negative Experiences III

(third post)

General Statements that the Ethical Takes Precedence over the Holy

In the course of explaining hukkim, we have seen that Torah culture is defined by its goal of Goodness and its pursuit of holiness and dignity in order to serve that goal, not to supersede that goal.  In the words of Maimonides:

Cleaning garments, washing the body, and removal of dirt also constitute one of the purposes of this Law.  But this comes after the purifications of the actions and the purification of the heart from polluting opinions and polluting moral qualities (Guide 3:33, trans. Pines). [1]

Similarly, Maimonides explained that the reason that critical religious practices do not take precedence over human life is because the laws of Torah are intended to bring mercy, kindness, and peace to the world (Laws of Shabbat 2:3).  In the simple words of R. Juda Loeb (MaHaRa”L mi-Prague, d.1609) avoiding disgusting behavior is holy behavior (Gur Arye, Leviticus 20:8) but avoiding evil yet alluring behavior is even holier behavior (Gur Arye, Exodus 22:32).  In the even simpler words of the tanna, R. Pinhas b. Yair (2^nd century CE), the process of character development merely begins with personal cleanliness (m. Sota 9:15).

The greatest twentieth century analytical scholar of Jewish Law, R. Shimon Shkop (Poland and Belarus, 1860-1940), stated the primacy of the ethical demand most forcefully.  He argued (in his introduction to Sha’arei Yosher) that the Levitical demand to imitate God and be holy (Leviticus 19:1-2) is actually a demand to dedicate all of one’s actions to the public welfare - including those personal selfish actions that one must perform in order to allow herself to function well and to thus serve the public successfully.[2]  R. Shkop argued that this is the only way we can truly imitate God in His holiness; mere asceticism, merely refraining from the pleasures of life, is not truly imitatio Dei inasmuch as the Eternal has no desires from which He refrains.  Although R. Shkop’s read of holiness may sound modernist (cf. Rynhold and Harris 2008, 260-269), it actually fits well with the fact that the short Code of Leviticus to which he refers (Leviticus 19:1-37)[3] opens with a demand to be holy, and closes each of its ethical directives with the words  “I am the Eternal”.[4] 

R. Shkop’s reading redirects our attention to the fact that according to this Biblical Code, other legal and prophetic sections of Tanakh, and leading Jewish sages through the ages, the point of all these norms is for humans to connect to God in their ethical behavior.  As we have seen repeatedly in these chapters, the Jewish tradition has been understood to call upon humans to act Go[o]dly and experience Go[o]dliness as individuals and a people.  It is because this behavior and experience is lost or challenged to varying degrees when individuals commit the unethical, perform the disgusting, or experience the unsettling[5] that such actions are forbidden or curtailed.

CONCLUSION

This understanding that there is a general Biblical proscription or meta-proscription against disgusting behavior led Amoraim to weigh actions by their degree of contemporary repugnance instead of by their formal classifications as Biblical prescriptions.[6]  For example, the Amoraim all agreed that one is permitted to avoid performing a Biblical commandment or to commit a Rabbinic sin in order to preserve personal dignity; the Amoraim only debated whether one may also commit a Biblical sin in order to preserve personal dignity (R. Zeira in y. Nazir 7:1; anonymous debate in y. Kilayim 9:1; Rav and Rav bar Sheva in b. Berakhot 19b).[7]  In fact, one could argue – as did the renowned Hungarian Torah scholar, R. Moshe Shmuel Glasner (1856-1924)[8] – that as regards a person who faces not mere indignity but rather severe shame, all Amoraim would agree that avoiding shameful behavior overrides Biblical religious sins.

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[1] In greater elaboration: “When only the desires are followed, as is done by the ignorant… cares and sorrows multiply, mutual envy, hatred, and strife aiming at taking away what the other has, multiply.  All this comes about because the ignoramus regards pleasure alone as the end to be sought for its own sake.  Therefore God, may His name be held sublime… forbids everything that leads to lusts and mere pleasure.  This is an important purpose of the Law.  Similarly one of the intentions of the Law is purity and sanctification; I mean by this renouncing and avoiding sexual intercourse and causing it to be as infrequent as possible. …And just as the Law designates obedience to these commandments as sanctity and purity, it also designates transgression of these commandments and the perpetration of evil actions as impurity.” (Guide of the Perplexed [trans. Pines], 3:33)

[2] On the role of acknowledging the validity of humans partially meeting their selfish needs (until they overcome them) see: “To shove our impulses underground by the taboo is to force them to virulent and uncontrolled expression. To follow impulse wherever it leads means the satisfaction of one impulse at the expense of all the others. The glutton and the rake can satisfy only their gluttonous and rakish impulses, and that isn't enough for happiness. What civilized men aim at is neither whim nor taboo, but a frank recognition of desire, disciplined by a knowledge of what is possible, and ordered by the conscious purpose of their lives.” (Lippmann 1914)

[3] This miniature code has been recognized as a code and commented upon by various Geonim and Rishonim including Rav Saadya Gaon and Ramban.  For further discussion of its literary contours, see critical Biblical scholarship on the Holiness Code such as Paton 1897 and Krumrei 1985.

[4] This point was already noted by the Tannaim (Sifra Kedoshim, beginning of parsha 2; Sifra Bahar 3:4; baraita b. Kiddushin 32b).

[5] The only explanation I can offer for the poor scholarship preceding this chapter’s psychological definition of tum’a is that “disgust has elicited little attention in any of the disciplines that claim an interest in the emotions: psychology, philosophy [and] anthropology.  It is not hard to guess the likely reason.  The problem is its lack of decorum….  To study disgust is to risk contamination.  Jokes about his or her unwholesome interests soon reach the disgust researcher” (Miller 1997, 5).

[6] See Yere’im #73; Rabbeinu Yona’s Shaarei Teshuva 3:93; Novella of Ritva Makkot 16b; and Beit Yosef YD 116.

[7] For more on this topic, see: ריינס תש"י, 161 and בלידשטיין תשמ"ב-תשמ"ג, 127.

[8] Dor Revi’I al Masekhet Hullin, introduction #2.  [Unfortunately the critical quote for this point is not translated in Elman 1991, 63-69.]

The Avoidance of Negative Experiences II

(second post)


The Ethical has been Considered More Important than the Holy

Until this point, we have seen that hukkim are as readily explicable as the other ritual Halakhot.  They are about maintaining personal dignity.  We will now test that explanation by examining whether such norms can be overridden by an ethical demand.  To be specific, we will examine the law of modesty during sex.

Holy Sex versus Ethical Sex

In the Babylonian Talmud, the main passage discussing the avoidance of sex during the day (b. Nidda 17a) cites the “ascetic” opinion of the Babylonian amora, Rav Huna (3^rd century CE), who follows Leviticus and the Israeli rabbinic tradition in viewing sex during the day as unholy.  The discussion then continues with a citation of the later amora, Rava (270-350 CE), who focused the issue away from a restriction on the time of day to a demand for modest sex in darkness.  Up to this point the discussion can be read as being about holiness through restrain and dignity.  However, the Talmudic passage then cites a different 3^rd century CE Babylonian amora who forbids sex during the day for ethical reasons.  R. Huna’s contemporary, R. Hisda, paralleled R. Huna in forbidding sex during the day, but he raised an ethical argument that a man should not have sex with his wife in the day lest the man violate the Biblical commandment to “Love your fellow as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), lest the wife be emotionally hurt by such conduct.  This conduct could hurt in several ways in a culture of modest dress.  For example, women can feel degraded if they are treated as visually owned sexual objects instead of as dignified people (b. Yevamot 63a) or if they are treated as sexual objects instead of as self-occupied respected mistresses of the house (b. Bava Metzia 59a).  Similarly, Rava’s contemporary, Abbaye, paralleled Rava’s position by focusing on the issue of light instead of on the question of day or night.  However, Abbaye explained in most basic ethical terms that a woman could be concerned that her husband might come to see that she is not physically flawless. 

This second concern with the ethical is in fact so significant that the Talmudic passage closes the discussion by modifying the rules against having sex during the day.  It cites a source that praises those people who do in fact have sex during the day, in order that the marital bond should not be lost due to tiredness at night.  It then explains this anomalous source by pointing out that limiting sex to night can lead to a loss of the marital bond due to fatigue.  As Rashi (ad locum) explains it, limiting sex to the night could cause the husband to come to view sex with his wife as an annoying burden instead of viewing it as a shared sensual experience of relationship.[1]  In fact, the Talmud’s editors structured the material to make an ethical argument: The passage begins with R. Hisda’s ethical concern (to forbid sex during the day), continues with R. Huna’s holiness concern (to forbid sex during the day), limits both positions to be about not having sex in the light as opposed to not during the day, and concludes with praise for the ethical position of the House of Munbaz who had sex during the day due to the considerations of a loving relationship.  To wit, the passage indicates that the desire for holiness in one’s biological activities may be added to ethics and reinforce them, but it must never override ethical considerations.[2] 

This Talmudic passage’s focus on the ethical finds culmination in a halakhic ruling by the leading medieval Provencal Halakhic sage, R. Avraham ben Dovid (RAVa”D, Posquires - d. 1197) that was codified in later generations by R. Yaakov b. Asher (Cologne–Toledo, 1269–1343), R. Yosef Caro (1488-1575), and others.  These rabbis ruled that the ideal, holiest, conscious motivation for a man to have sex – in spite of the obvious necessity for his own arousal without which intercourse would not be possible – is for the sake of the other person, for the sake of his wife and for the sake of his future God-fearing children (Tur OH 240 and Shulhan Arukh EH 25:2).

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[1] .  It is also possible that the stama means that the man will become disgusting to the wife in his tired performance and possibly in falling asleep after sex.  After all, Babylonian rabbis followed their Sassanian counterparts in being concerned about the demon that is drawn to both death and to semen released, especially at night, (Elman 2007, 146-149); in other words, they were concerned about male tiredness following and even during  sex – in contrast to the ideal valorization of the sexually energetic man who has a vigorous sexual relationship with his wife.  Thus the same R. Hisda who called for holiness by abstaining from sex during the day, still called for sex in which a husband engages in serious foreplay and clitoral stimulation until both parties crave intercourse (b. Shabbat 140b [Note: Rashi and Boyarin translate “pearl” as breast and “furnace” as the vulva, but a simpler translation would be clitoris and vagina respectively]).

[2] One might find a direct Biblical parallel for prioritizing the ethical over the aesthetic if one understands that the Torah’s opposition to violent unaesthetic behavior such as modifying the body with tattoos “yields to” the “hygienic (hence) ethical concern” of circumcision (Goodman 1996, 234).  However, I understand the Biblical opposition to tattoos and preference for circumcision differently.