Incorporating Others' Insights in Debates

From: Lekan, Todd. 2003. Making Morality: Pragmatist Reconstruction in Ethical Theory. Vanderbilt University Press.

The… focus on general principles frequently takes people away from careful and intelligent inspection of particular facts of the problem… [and] a focus on general principles tends to foster an attitude of moral righteousness…. In short, if we are too quick to frame moral disagreement in terms of general moral principles, we are apt to be too quick to frame the moral problem as a decision problem – as a problem with those who are either too stupid, selfish, or evil to see their own moral sins.

In… good moral argument (p.115)… when we… provide justifications for action plans, we typically refer to “data” or “facts of the case,” which we take to ground some conclusion…. “Why did you leave work early today?” “Because my child was ill and needed to be picked up early from day care.”… Of course these bare statements do not tell us much. This is because usually the context in which grounds are provided is implicitly understood by all concerned. (p.116) … Such practical arguments do not guarantee that their conclusions follow “necessarily” from their premises. The strength of the conclusion is a matter… depending on the weight of the grounds and warrant offered.(p.117)… Sometimes the problem is merely that of whether D[ata] holds true. Was he really sick?… Sometimes the dispute is over the force of the conclusion in light of rebutting circumstances: “Sure, typically a sick child would be grounds for letting you off work early. However, you could have stayed fifteen minutes longer, couldn’t you? Given the importance of finishing this project and getting it in the mail today, it seems under these circumstances you shouldn’t have left early.” (p.118) …

But… how do we resolve disagreements about warrants when these disagreements are based in divergent interpretive horizons – divergent ideals and “fundamental values” – different “backings”?… (p.122) On the one hand, we should not exaggerate the amount of conflict and incommensurability at stake…. Furthermore, we may assume that at least some of the dispute can in principle be settled by more factual inquiry…. Moreover, the “backings” used to “establish” these warrants are complex conceptions that do not deductively “entail” a certain warrant but rather makes plausible differing sorts of warrants. (p.124)…. Thirdly…if people realize that in some instances conflict over norms or warrants is the result of differing “warrant-establishing interpretive standpoints,” then they will be more likely to work toward mutual understanding in these areas of dispute… assuming that [they]… are willing to accept the claim that moral norms can really become problematic, and therefore that particular moral judgments are fallible. (p.125)

Attempted Clarifications

To clarify: we will see that the leading rabbis discussed in this book felt no need to be loyal to the wording of their legal sources as much as loyal to the insights of the lawmakers who had certain situations in mind.  This has three implications:

a. First of all, they read laws contextually.  This means more than that they merely read law as did Classic Common Law judges[1]  who would have understood, for example, that an unqualified law that says “everyone must vote” need not include a legally incompetent person, a person who is physically incapabale of accessing  the solitary, or even the solitary caretaker of a bed-ridden person.  As a Midrash (Tanhuma, Bo #13) noted concerning the Biblical use of the word “tomorrow”:  sometimes “tomorrow” refers to the next day and sometimes to the long-term future.  Similarly, one of the earliest medieval halakhic responsa – of R. Hai Gaon (Babylonia, 939-1038 CE) – noted that “each [Talmudic use of the term] ‘immediately’ must be defined by its context.”[2]  In contrast to Classic Common law judges, they did not use context merely to reign in the semantic implications of a law.  Rather, they also used context to expand the implication of the law.  They would have understood that a a religious traffic law that directed drivers to stop in accordance with a traffic light and directed a specific right-of-way at traffic circles, implicitly requires drivers to drive safely at ambiguous intersections.  They understood their legal sources to be not semantically comprehensive but rather addressive of typical situations – to be narrative typifications.[3]

b.      Second: they  understood that inasmuch as lawmakers address people who are supposed to understand the shared situations, laws can and do omit critical but culturally obvious terms – not merely terms that define the situations and objects to which the law refers but even terms that express what the lawmaker desires one to do.  Since laws are communications, words must inevitably be omitted[4] – all the more so when the lawmaker provides narrative typifications, in which case one intentionally speaks in “restricted code”.[5]  This means more than that leading rabbis merely understood that a law’s words must be read in context of all its other written details. For example: a law that directs drivers to “stop at a red light” should be read as directing one to stop when the light of a tri-color traffic light has turned red and not every red decorative light strung accross a street.  That would be obvious since the law also permits one to travel when the light is green and these lights will never turn green.  Rather, it means that a law must be read in light of its unstated context even when such reading violates the semantic meaning of the law.  For example (based on American culture and language): a religious/moral authority points to a hatless cranky child on a hot beach and directs an adult with a cooler (an insulated picnic basket) to iimediately give the child chocolate milk to drink.  If the adult discovers that his/her chocolate milk is warm because it had fallen out of the cooler but there is ice-cold water in the cooler, s/he is meant to first offer the child the cold water.  This is the case in  spite of the fact that the drink’s characteristic of cold was never mentioned or even verbally indicated and that many well-hydrated children on breezy beaches may indeed prefer warm chocolate milk.  This is the case because the adult is supposed to understand that the law is based on a narrative typification, on the assumption of a shared understanding that the child must be both hydrated and cooled down and that familial coolers generally hold cold chocolate milk.

c. Third: when they felt a need to prove their interpretation to people who were supposed to share a common narrative understanding, they merely indicated the evidence for their interpretation.  Thus, in the chocolate-milk/cold-water example, they might merely prove that they should have given the hot child cold water becase the the directive was “child”, “drink”, and “immediately” – an urgent call to both hydrate and cool the child.

In addition to viewing their role to be that of wisely apply the insights of the lawmakers who had certain situations in mind, these leading rabbis – as sages of a lived culture – also spoke via the original terms of their internalized sources.  In order to understand what it means to discuss an issue in the original terms of an internalized source, imagine a conversation between chocolate-lovers discussing a newly discovered bean called xcellent that has all the taste and endorphin-triggering properties of chocolate but is pink and grows on sturdier trees.  When a person tastes the powder of the bean and excitedly says to another: “This is chocolate!” she is not necessarily overlooking the fact that the bean looks different and is easier to grow.  Rather she is focusing on the taste and is using the designation that is relevant to the issue at hand, non-reflectively.

We will find that leading sages of Jewish Law spoke similarly but more responsibly than the speaker in the discussion of the xcellent bean.  They read their casuistic sources as decisions that balanced multiple and conflicting binding human concerns[6] – as responses to archetypical situations of varied human needs.  It was the range of those wide-ranging internalized laws-as-stories (which implicitly recognize multiple and conflicting human concerns) that the sages applied to their conditions in an attempt to balance a contemporaneous range of similar conflicting human needs.[7]  These sages did not misread or distort precedent texts.  Rather, they applied the insights of legal texts to contemporary conditions[8] and spoke those insights via the vocabulary of those texts. 

To summarize: we will see that these sages’ decisions were responses that arose from an evaluation of human needs that the sages found in the authoritative legal texts and not in spite of those authoritative texts.  We will see that they read authoritative sources as setting out particular judgments that must repeatedly be rebalanced appropriately under changed conditions.[9]  They did not reject earlier laws that were not currently suitable as much as determine the contemporary suitable law in light of the internalized wisdom of earlier law.[10]    They addressed their contemporary situations both by thinking via earlier norms that they had already internalized[11] and by addressing the contemporary situations via the earlier norms themselves;[12] if they were to have discussed chocolate under the rubric of the religious laws of culinary pleasure they would have simply subsumed xcellent under chocolate[13] when relevant, even as their discussions of the various related issues – so firmly channeled into bites – would reflect the complexity of both the fact situation and the ethical situation.[14]  More importantly, they did not let the law’s semantic wording blind them to its implicit narrative and thus its full implication and application both for new situations that could not be subsumed and for situations which would seemingly fall under its semantic or logico-conceptual purview but which the lawmaker would not have meant address with such law.  In short and in legal-theory terms, one might say that these wise interpreters viewed themselves as interpretive-legislators.

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[1] By this, I mean those who approached Common Law as a source of moral insight, as argued by Sir Edward Coke (Institutes I [1628] s.138).  Suzanne Last Stone has argued thus orally.

[2] Cited in Sefer Ha-Itur # 227.  For another example from Rav Hai Gaon see Groner 1988, 75 n.5.  (In a footnote to the article, Groner noted that Rav Hai Gaon generally defined words by context, but Groner did not cite additional sources such as this one.)

[3] This is a term introduced by Bernard Jackson, who will be discused below.

[4] This is an inescapable human phenomenon (Coppée 1857, 147).

[5] This is an inescapable human phenomenon (Coppée 1857, 147).  For more on “restricted code”, see Bernstein 1971, 1:108f., 123-137; Jackson 1995, 93-95.

[6] Cf. Rackman 1961, 132.

[7] One could say that these sages both realized that they could not avoid the responsibility of evaluating the policy soundness of a decision under their current circumstances and were humble enough to realize that inasmuch as no person “could imagine anew all the probable situations with which he might be confronted and devise his own rules to meet them; … the past is ineluctable as a point of departure for the actions even of original minds” (Shils 1981, 198).

[8] Cf. Waxman 1991, 15.

[9] They did not merely understand that a statute or rule merely “state[s] … a prima facie ‘ought,’ pointing to a reason for an action, not an ‘ought all things considered’” (Raz 1972, 836).  Rather, they understood that each statute is itself a story or part of a story and inherently balances conflicting “oughts”.

[10] Contra Panken 2005, xvii.  Thus history is not determinative of their positions.

[11] In other words, they obviously did analyze intent and function of a law and consider its application to changing circumstances because all comparisons – even subconcsious ones – involve those steps. However, they did not do so by conceptualizing the concepts of intent, function and changing circumstances as much as by their grounded, lived, sense of these considerations that led them to preceive that situation x (now) is sufficiently similar to situation y (then).

[12] They, therefore did not fail to articulate their hunches and feelings in judicial logic language (Frank 1950, 172-173) but rather spoke those implicitly by engaging in law as comparisons instead of as logical deductions.

[13] This claim is made in full cognizance of the differences between particular speech methodologies employed at different periods and cultural locales in the history of Jewish Law (Lorberbaum 2003, 122-123).

[14] We will see in this dissertation that such is indeed possible (contra Kennedy 1991, 350).

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.

The Avoidance of Negative Experiences

(First Post)

Clean Hands versus Dirty Hands

In my future book, I discuss the Biblical and rabbinic desire to control or even avoid negative experiences -- to avoid impurity.  In this post, instead of reviewing all the halakhot of purity and impurity, we will turn to discuss the lowest level of rabbinic impurity, the impurity of hands.  Famously, the Pharisees[1] and later the Tannaim, expected civilized people to clean their hands before eating (m. Hagiga 2:5).  Tannaitically that meant to wash the hands twice in order to remove dirty material found on the hands and to wipe them afterward in order to completely clean them of the dirt and dirty water left on one’s hands (m. Yadayim 2:2-3 and t. Yadayim 1:3).

Since the issue is cleanliness, some Tannaim allowed one who eats a small item to place it in a cloth (m. Sukka 2:5).  That way not only will one’s dirty hands not touch the food (cf. baraita of Beit Menashe in b. Yoma 77b=Hullin 107b) but one’s unwashed hands and food will also not become moistly dirty, “muddy” (as we will discuss shortly).  Similarly, since many poorer peoples in the Hellenist world did not waste their fetched and drawn water on washing hands before eating, the Tannaim did not demand that every Jew wash hands for every-day food (m. Bikkurim 2:1 and more explicit Bavli parallel).  In fact, some Babylonian Amoraim even opposed the haughtiness of washing hands for mere snacks (R. Nahman in b. Hagiga 18b).  As an Israeli Amora expressed it, it is only the snack that is eaten wet that requires clean hands (R. Eleazar in the name of R. Oshaya in b. Pesahim 115a) – presumably in order to avoid having the food get “muddy”.

Similarly to the Tannaim and Amoraim, Medieval German Judaism mandated that people wash their hands not only from contact with objects and events associated with death and mortality but also from dirt.  Its rabbis even posited that one who doesn’t regulate his behavior to be clean finally forgets the Torah he has learned and can lose his sanity or self-control, presumably due to his loss of self-dignity or even fall into nihilism (Mahzor Vitry #524; Tashbetz Katan #276).[2]  This claim persisted.[3]

In short: an examination of both the most severe and most lenient types of impurity show that they are negative emotional states which the Biblical and rabbinic norms try to avoid or at least address, that there is a general Biblical proscription or meta-proscription against disgusting behavior.  As the tanna, R. Pinhas b. Yair, stated: the process of character development begins with personal cleanliness (m. Sota 9:15).

The Framing of Biological Needs

This approach, which calls for behaving in a self-controlled fashion as regards cleanliness, self-dignity and human death - extends into the biological activities that humans share with animals: ingestion, expurgation and copulation.  Thus, the sages also called for eating with manners.  At the very least, Tannaim expected all Jews to minimally sanctify their food consumption by not simply grabbing the food and eating it, by first blessing God.  One who ate without pausing to bless was denigrated as having abused Temple property; the earth and its goodness were to be perceived as holy property that one is expected to use in holiness (t. Berakhot 4:1).  Beyond that, there is a tradition that R. Akiva directed his students to politely tear off their part of the vegetable with one hand and to hold the part that is left behind in place with the mere heel of their hand instead of their whole hand when eating a vegetable from a common dish (Tractate Derekh Eretz, Pirkei Ben Azzai 5:2 ??check alternative versions??).[4]  Similarly, Eretz-Israel sages directed a person both to not hold too large a piece of food in his hands from which he continuously chews and to not drink too much too quickly (Tractate Derekh Eretz, Pirkei Ben Azzai 4:5).[5]  In a further step, the Israeli Amora R. Isaac (3^rd century CE) used to dignify the cultural norm of eating with one’s hands.  He would indicate with his clean fingers the ten mitzvoth that had been fulfilled in preparing the food before he ate with his hands (y. Hala 1:6).[6]

In parallel to these rules of consumption, there are also Talmudic rules about how one should expurgate and how one should copulate.  As regards expurgation, one is expected to attend to personal bodily functions while partially clothed as opposed to as a naked animal releasing its droppings, [7] and R. Tanhum b. Hanilai did in fact exhort to such modesty by pointing out its practical benefits (b. Berakhot 62a).  As regards copulation, Leviticus limits excessive priestly indulgence in sex by impurifying for a whole day the couple that had sex at night (Leviticus 15:16,18);[8] the Israeli Amora, R. Yohanan, declared sex during the daytime – when one can be productive – to be degrading (Bereishit Rabba 64:8); and several Amoraim called upon fellow sages to limit sex to once per week, to the Friday night of rest (b. Ketubot 62a = b. Bava Kamma 82a) when the man should indeed consume an aphrodisiac (y. Megilla 4:1; b. Bava Kamma 82a).[9]  In conjunction, the Amora R. Dimmi (b. Bekhorot 8a) called for sex to be framed as a human relational act by being engaged in face to face as an act between fellow humans who have contact with the Divine.  Face to face is clearly more respectful [especially on a regular basis].[10]

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[1] Mark 7:1-23 = Matthew 15:1-20.

[2] Although we have explained Ashkenazic practices, Maimonides unknowingly condemned some of them as Sabian foolishness in Guide of the Perplexed 3:47.  As he explained there: Although the purpose of such rules is “to keep men away from disgusting things”, these rules should not include “unpleasant restrictions” and “burdensome usages”.  Nonetheless, Maimonides’ son, R. Abraham b. Rambam (Sefer Ha-Maspik Le-Ovdei Hashem, Trait of Humility [p.70]), stated independently but in agreement with his contemporary twelfth century sage, the French‑German R. Eliezer from Metz (Sefer Yere’im #434), that although expensive clothing makes a person haughty being dirty or disgusting degrades and impurifies a person.

[3] It made its way to the Land of Israel and to the Jews exiled from Spain (BY citing his teacher ?? in my source sheets).  It was repeated in the offshoots of Ashkenazic Jewry by diverse rabbinic figures, including the Hasidic R. Nahman of Bretzlav, 1772-1810 (Likutei MoHaRa”N #29; Likutei Halakhot, Tzitzit #1; Sikhot ha-Ra”N #100).

[4] For a less strict version, which merely forbids biting out one’s portion from the shared dish, see the citation in Mishna Berura 170:25.

[5] The definition of quickly, without control, may very well depend on the specific food or drink and on the specific person’s caloric and liquid needs. See the response of R. Yishmael b. R. Yossi in b. Pesahim 86b.

[6] Additionally: the idea that there are ten obligations, both to our fellow humans and to God, that we must and have fulfilled before filling our own bellies also raises our conduct to more than animalistic.

[7] This is especially so in cultures in which one squatted instead of sitting on a seat (see Josephus, War of the Jews 1471-49 and the description of “covering feet” in m. Yoma 3:2), although this rule was not necessarily limited to those situations; it probably included situations in which one used a toilet seat inasmuch as such were continuously found among some people in Israel (cf. m. Tamid 1:1, t. Para 12:17) since the Iron Age (Magness 2002, 107).

[8] Although these laws are understood by many to apply to all Israelites (eg. Halberstam 2010, 20-22), these laws only make sense as directives to priests.  While we do find that the impurity of carrion consumption is to be avoided and the impurity from contact with death is to be overcome, there is no directive here to overcome sexual impurity or to avoid it.  There is simply a description of impurity.  Thus, this descriptive statement would be relevant only to people for whom the attempt to avoid impurity is a directive.

[9] As the Zohar elaborated later, the righteous couple should reframe sex as holy by limiting it to and engaging in it on the peaceful Shabbat when a Jew and the Divine unite (תיקוני זוהר תקונא שתיתאה, כב ע"ב; תיקוני זוהר תקונא עשרין וחד ועשרין, סא ע"א), when the parties are less harried and can reclaim their mutual affection (תיקוני זוהר תקונא עשרין וחד ועשרין, נז ע"א).

[10] This injunction, which is repeated in the Zohar, is clearly not a weirdly specific instruction (contra Beitchman 1998, 33) but rather a call for mutual dignity in sex.