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In-Group vs. Universal Morality
Forum Discussion
1. Tending the Religious Garden
Thank you for "Love Thy Neighbor: The
Evolution of In-Group Morality" (Skeptic,
Vol. 3, #4) by John Hartung. Having
long since "lapsed" from my Midwestern Protestant roots and having
almost as long sought to combat the divisive seeds sown among my conspecifics
by religion (usually of the Judeo-Christian variety in my part of the globe), I
intend to rely heavily on Hartung's scholarly effort when "tending my own
garden." Nonetheless (and to
continue this horticultural metaphor shamelessly), the Panglossian side of me
hopes that the present congratulatory note will inspire you to broaden the
scope of your tillage in the future to include equally fruitful labors in some
of the other fields of organized superstition within and without our Western
heritage. -Craig Bowe, Ph.D., Needham, MA
2. Before You Throw Out The Religious Bathwater
In his article Dr. Hartung accuses Christianity
and Judaism of being founded on the concepts of genocide, and bases his
argument upon selective quotations from the Bible and other religious
tracts. His main thrust is that the
moral rules at the heart of both religions applied only within the religious
group and that both accept - and even promote - the destruction of people
outside their religious group. Therefore, neither religion can be used for
universal morality. Dr. Hartung's paper
seems to underplay the fact that both religions' mainstreams do indeed believe
the moral rules are to be universally applied. It doesn't matter one whit
whether they were originally intended to be universal, they are now. If Christians and Jews interpret their
religions' proscriptions to be universally applied, they are universal, regardless
of whether they were originally meant to be applied only within particular
ethnic groups or tribes.
Religions are like any philosophy: they evolve
in parallel with a society's social, political, and economic outlook. In the US, the concept of democracy once
only extended to Caucasian males with property. Now the same words, and even the original texts, are interpreted
to mean that democracy includes women and non-Caucasians, as well as the
indigent. While the signers of the
Declaration of Independence may not have intended the Rights of Man listed in
the text to include non-whites, modern Americans apply it in the more universal
manner. Their culture and society have
evolved, and their basic concepts have evolved with them. But if we applied Hartung's thesis to the
concept of democracy, its application as a universal concept is hopeless
because at its formulation it was originally more exclusive. Balderdash.
Second, if Dr. Hartung were correct, then those
who commit genocide in modern times should be able to claim they are only
upholding Christian or Jewish law. It
is interesting that the contrary is more often true. Of the two great 20th-century Western genocidal governments,
neither was Christian or Jewish. One,
the Third Reich, was essentially Paganist (and decidedly anti-Christian as well
as anti-Semitic), and the other, the Soviet Union, was atheist. Indeed, in looking at nations that have
committed genocide in the 20th century, it is noteworthy that many of the most
destructive (Kampuchea, Communist China, and the Soviet Union) were officially
atheist. However, correlation does not
prove causation.
But let us look at just the case of the Third
Reich. Leaders of that system actively
attempted to suppress Christianity among their followers because they knew that
genocide would be difficult for believing Christians to perform. Heinrich Himmler therefore pressured SS
officers to leave the Church and created a muddled neoPaganism as their official
creed. Hitler is also quoted by Speer
as lamenting that Germans were saddled with the weak and timid Christian
religion. According to Speer, Hider
once even wished Germany had long ago become Islamic, as that religion - in
Hider's mind - was more suited to his goals.
Odd the religions that, according to Hartung, are so ingrained with
genocidal concepts are frequently found so wanting by those who actually commit
such heinous acts.
It is easy for skeptics such as ourselves to see
all that is wrong with religions. We
see them as unscientific and used to justify some of humanity's worst
behavior. If such condemnations are
warranted, then we cannot omit our praise for what religions, such as
Christianity, have given us. For
instance, it is a fact that modem democracy arose from Christian states. Democracy, even now, is rare among Islamic
nations, and nations with Confucian foundations. In officially atheist states, it does not exist whatsoever. And what of the concepts of individualism,
rule of law, the secular government, and human rights? It is no coincidence that these great ideas
are associated with the JudeoChristian West.
Before throwing out Judaism and Christianity, we should be aware of what
might go with them. - Chris Centner, Reston, VA
3. The Torah and the Yanomamo: A Rabbi Replies to Hartung
It is one thing to bash a religion; it is quite
another to trump up charges against a religion and to proceed to substantiate
these charges by selectively choosing material that superficially seems to
corroborate these charges. The former
may be right or wrong; the latter is contrived, deceitful, and morally
reprehensible. John Hartung has done the latter in his truth-distorted
article. In it he claims that Judaism
teaches and preaches what he calls an in-group morality. He selectively cites sources from the
Torah-Bible, the Talmud, and Maimonides which, to his mind, support this view.
His understanding of Talmud is so poor that most
of the things he mentions have nothing to do with the issues he raises, while
some of the things actually disprove his very premises. He proceeds to cast aspersions on the
religious leaders of Israel, claiming that they teach the same philosophy as
the Yanomamo Indians of South America, namely, that all other besides their own
kind are subhuman. In a categorical
statement which is utterly baseless, he says, "Rabbis at large accepted
his view [a reference to Rabbi Simeon, to whom Hartung has imputed his in-group
morality] on the point; non-Jews are referred to as not fully human in contexts
other than ritual defilement."
I know little about the Yanomamo, but I do know
something about Judaism and Torah. I am
the dean of a Rabbinical college and have spent the past 40 years of my life as
a student and teacher of Torah. I have
studied under three of the greatest Torah scholars of our time, Rabbi Abron
Koder, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik, and Rabbi Moses Feinstein, and never have I
heard them state or imply that people who are not Jewish are less than
human. Hartung's statements are
glaringly false and prejudicial, and warrant the censure of every decent human
being.
In a case brought before a Beit Din, a Jewish court in which three Rabbis preside, the city of
Pittsburgh won a case against an Orthodox religious Jew without even being
represented. (A city official was
offered the opportunity to represent the city but declined). They won the case solely on the testimony of
the religious Jew himself. The court
was held in a private room above a Yeshiva in Brooklyn with the three judges
and only three other Orthodox Jews present, one of whom was myself. No outsiders were observing the Rabbis. They could have easily rendered a decision
favoring their Orthodox in-group member.
The case was very complex and there was no clear-cut solution. The
decision was dependent on their judgment. They were under no constraint, but
their honesty dictated that they rule against their own Jewish Orthodox
brother. Their concern was only that their judgment should be just in the eyes
of Torah and before God. The Orthodox Jew who consulted the court out of his
own volition had to pay the court for their time spent in rendering the
decision against himself. He walked
away satisfied, knowing that he was doing the right thing according to Talmudic
Law and ethic. The city of Pittsburgh applauded the decision and the story was
carried on the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Sept. 13, 1995, A-I).
Does this sound as if Rabbis consider gentiles
subhuman? Has our society yet reached
the level of justice where one can win a case without even being
represented? In another case reported
in The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 21, 1995, B-1) a gentile took a religious Jew
to a Beit Din and was awarded a
judgment of over $100,000. Does this
sound like in-group morality?
There is a group of gentiles in Athens,
Tennessee who approached me to teach them Torah. They wish to live life according to the Torah's prescription for
the non-Jew. I spend hours each week
preparing and presenting my classes in Torah and Talmud for them which I give
by way of telephone hookup. I receive
no financial compensation; I do it because the Torah teaches that one is not
permitted to turn away another human being who is searching for knowledge. Other Rabbis have done the same.
Hartung knows nothing of Talmudic analysis. His methods are similar to those of the Nazi
historian Julius Streicher who would take statements from the Talmud out of
context in order to show that the Rabbis taught that non-Jews are subhuman. It takes years of Torah study to become a
Talmudic scholar: one cannot just pick up a Soncino translation of the Talmud
and think he understands the intricate issues involved. The Talmud makes it clear that one cannot
master its works without a personal teacher.
Do Torah, Talmud and Maimonides preach an
in-group ethic? Let us begin our
analysis with Torah. In a confused
pseudo-intellectual potpourri of science, history and Bible, Hartung tries to
prove that Torah teaches love only for the in-group and hatred and oppression
for everyone else. What does Torah
really say? In Exodus 22:20 we read,
"And the stranger you shall not vex nor oppress him because you were
strangers in the land of Egypt."
This refers even to a gentile stranger who lives under Jewish
sovereignty (see Ibn Ezra).
If one analyzes the verse properly, one learns
that the prohibition is not only against oppression, which is expressed by the
verb Tilchatzenu, but also against
any sort of verbal abuse which includes any form of unkind speech to the
stranger. This is derived from the verb
Tonu, which according to the Talmud
means to cause emotional pain through speech.
The latter half of the verse gives a reason for the prohibition,
"because you were strangers in the land of Egypt." This teaches that
the Jews must identify with the stranger; the Jews must not feel superior to
him since they too were strangers (compare Exodus 23:9). In other words, Torah teaches that it is not
sufficient to refrain from being unkind to the stranger, one must identify with
him as well. Is this an in-group ethic?
This injunction is repeated many times throughout the Torah.
In Deuteronomy 14:21 the Torah states that Jews
may not consume food that is not ritually slaughtered but should give it away
gratis to the gentile strangers in their midst. From this verse, as well as
from Leviticus 25:35 where the Torah, when mentioning the gentile stranger,
states, "and he shall live with you," the Rabbis infer that one must
support the gentile stranger and give him financial aid if he has difficulty earning
a living (B. Tal. Pesachim 21b, Rashi; Maimonides, Code, Laws of Kings
10:10). Moses taught his people that
their God "loves the stranger to give him food and clothing (Deuteronomy
10:18)." They were taught that
they must imitate this divine attribute, "you shall love the
stranger" (10:19).
Hartung states that Torah punishes idolatrous
nations severely and unfairly since they are an out-group. While it is true that the Torah is severe
against idolaters under certain rare circumstances, some of which were
prevalent in the early times of the history of Israel, it is equally severe
against Jewish idolaters. In
Deuteronomy 13:1319, Moses tells the people, "If you shall hear in one of
your cities... wicked persons have gone out from among you...saying, 'let us go
and serve other gods...' you shall surely smite the inhabitants of that city
with the edge of the sword destroying it utterly and all that is in
it...." Again, after the sin of
the golden calf, Moses says to his people, "Thus says the Lord God of
Israel, 'put every man his sword by his side...and slay every man his brother
and every man his friend and every man his relative" (Exodus 32:27). Again, when the people of Israel worshiped
the idol Ba'al Pe'or, Moses said,
"Slay everyone his men that have attached themselves to Ba'al Pe'or" (Numbers 25:5). Hartung conveniently omitted these
sources. It is abundantly clear that it
is idolatry that Torah abhors, not the gentile.
The biblical ethic is completely universal. The
fathers of the Jewish nation are themselves defined as B'nei Noach, sons of Noah, not as Jews (Letters of Maimonides, Yeshiva University Press, 1977, p.
108). Noah is called righteous and
described as walking with God although he was a non-Jew (Genesis 6:9). Jethro, a non-Jew, is treated in the Torah
with the greatest respect. Moses bows
down to him and kisses him (Exodus 18:7).
He entreats him to join the Jewish people on their journey, praising him
for his indispensable knowledge (Numbers 10:31).
Contrary to what Hartung says, the word Adam - man - is used in the Torah and
not the word Ivri, Hebrew, in order
to demonstrate that the Torah's objective is to perfect man qua man, not qua
Jew. The Torah makes it perfectly clear
that the divine element was imbued by God into Adam, a man, not a Jew. The universal ethic of Torah is quite
clear. (The Rabbis say that the reason
God saw fit to make all of mankind descendants of one couple was to enable them
to identify with each other, fostering harmony, and minimizing strife.)
Only a twisted mind could read Genesis and
conclude otherwise. The prophets were
sent to other nations, the most famous case being that of Jonah who went to
Ninveh to save the Assyrians - gentiles who were some of Israel's worse
oppressors.
But what about the Talmud? Were the Rabbis of
the Talmud prejudiced against non-Jews?
Let us look at some of their
statements (B. Tal Sanhedrin, 59a):
Rabbi Meir was wont to say, "From where is
it derived that even a gentile who studies Torah is as [honorable as] a high
priest? Because the verse in Leviticus
18:5 states, 'And you shall keep my statutes and judgments which a man who
shall do shall live by them.' It does not say Priests, Levites or Israelites,
but 'a man' this teaches one that even a non-Jew who engrosses himself in the
study of Torah is as [honorable as] the high Priest."
The High Priest held the most venerable position
in Israel. The Talmud teaches that
every Jew must accord a gentile who studies Torah the same sense of human
dignity he would accord the High Priest.
This statement is recorded in the Talmud three times (B. Tal. Sanhedrin 59a, B. Tal, B. Kama 38a, B. Tal. Avoda Zara 3a). Regarding this Talmudic text, Maimonides, in
one of his letters, states the following (Letters,
106-107):
Accordingly, our sages declared "the pious
of the nations of the world will inherit a portion in the hereafter" (Tosefta, San. 13), provided they
apprehend what is possible to apprehend of the knowledge of the Creator and
that they perfected their souls by means of ethical excellence. There is no doubt that one who perfects his
soul in the pursuit of ethical conduct and Divine knowledge will gain
immortality as the rabbis further point out.
"Even a pagan [sic] who studies the Torah of Moses may be considered
in the category of a high priest" (B.
Tal. B Kam 38). The essence of the
matter is that the whole object of the Torah is the perfection of the faculty
of the soul to apprehend the Creator.
Rabbis of the Talmud have made themselves
exceedingly clear with regard to dealings with gentiles. In Tractate Chullin 94a, the Talmud prohibits a Jew from giving a gift to a
non-Jew under false pretexts. When one
learns what these false pretexts are, one is amazed. If a Jew has a piece of meat which is not kosher he is not
permitted to give it to a gentile, even an idolater, without informing him that
it is not kosher. Even though it makes virtually no difference to the gentile
whether or not the meat is kosher, the gentile might think that the Jew gave
him something which is of greater value to the Jew than it actually is. He then would feel beholden to the Jew to a
greater degree than the Jew's gift warrants.
In practical terms this means that if a person repackaged an old gift he
received and gave it to another person without informing him that this was an
old gift he would be in violation of one of the most serious laws of the Torah,
fooling another human being.
It makes no difference whether that other human
being is a Jew, a gentile, or an idolater. This law is mentioned in the Talmud
(B. Tal. Chullin 94a) and in
Maimonides more than once (Code, Laws Concerning the Human Personality 2:6;
Laws of Sales 18:1,3) and is canonized in the Shulchan Aruch, the authoritative code of Jewish Law (Shulchan
Aruch, 228:6). According to this same Shulchan
Aruch, if one falsifies one's income tax return and cheats the government
of even one penny, he is in violation of the commandment thou shalt not steal
(369:6,8). How many billions of dollars
would be saved for honest tax payers if this one Talmudic ethic were
upheld? How many of us live up to this
standard of ethic? Does this sound like
an in-group ethic?
Hartung has no comprehension of the Talmudic and
Maimonidean sources that he quotes. For example, he quotes from Maimonides'
Book of Judges 5:9:4, "A Noahide [non-Jew] who kills a person, even if he
kills an embryo in the mother's womb, is put to death. So too if he kills one suffering from a
fatal disease...he is put to death. In
none of these cases is an Israelite put to death." Hartung thinks that this piece of
Maimonidean law confirms his supposition that an out-group member is treated
more harshly than an in-group member. To
the uninitiated in Talmud this would seem correct. However, once one understands the full context of Maimonides' law
one realizes how absurd Hartung's conclusion is. Torah is unique in that it does not believe in evangelism.
A gentile need not convert in order to have a
relationship with God. He must,
however, keep seven basic societal laws, and can attain perfection through the
study of Torah, prayer, proper ethical conduct, and the performance of
commandments on a voluntary basis. One
of the seven societal laws that the non-Jew is bound by is the prohibition
against murder. A non-Jewish society
which sets up a legal system according to Torah would in its statutes prescribe
the death penalty for murder. The
killing of an embryo after it reaches a certain stage of growth is considered
murder. This is true for Jews as well
as non-Jews. The legal systems of the
Jew and non-Jew in so far as penalty is concerned, however, are not the
same. The gentile system, having only
seven laws is more strict in penalty with regard to those seven. The system of the seven laws cannot be
broken on any level. And while it is
true that in the instance of murder of an embryo the gentile system is more
severe, in literally dozens of instances the Jew incurs the death penalty where
the gentile does not. On the whole the
Torah system is far more strict on the Jew than the non-Jew. This is what Hartung left out. Maimonides is listing the few cases where
the gentile system is more severe.
Hartung has committed the crime of distortion by taking something out of
context and telling only half of the story.
It should be pointed out that while the death
sentence is prescribed in many instances in the Torah, it is rarely carried
out. There are many limitations placed
upon the court's execution of the death penalty. The Torah system does not believe it should be a simple matter to
take human life. The Torah frowns on
the idea of one human judging another.
Only God can truly judge man. The
Torah society resorts to human intervention through the judicial process only
when absolutely necessary.
In general, the Talmud contains two systems of
law. One is referred to as Dinai Adam, human law, and the other is
referred to as Dinai Shamaim, God's
law. While it is true that a crime
punishable by the human court is indicative of an evil deed, it is not true that
an act is not evil because it is not punishable by the court. Indeed, there are many crimes that are far
more egregious than those for which the Torah prescribes the death penalty and
yet they are not subject to penalty by the human court (B. Tal. B. Metzia 59a, Maimonides, Code, 1:3:14, 5:12:7). When and
where the human court intervenes is determined by many factors besides the
degree of evil of a deed. This
principle is known to every Talmudic scholar.
One cannot determine the comparative evil of a
deed by simply consulting the Torah penal system. The system of human intervention has its own orbit of operation,
and one must be a genuine Talmudic scholar to understand its determinants. In short, the Talmud includes many systems
of Torah Law. One must know which
system to consult for which information.
To determine the moral status of a deed one must consult the ethical
system of the Talmud. This is something
of which Hartung is completely ignorant.
He thinks he can determine what the Torah considers more or less evil by
simply consulting the penal code and comparing punishments. Torah, which has been the preoccupation of
the greatest minds of the Jewish Nation throughout the centuries, is not that
simple.
Torah always has the highest regard for human
life. It is a custom among Jews on the
night of Passover to pour out a bit of wine from the cup that is to be drunk at
the Seder in order to demonstrate
that although Jews were saved from slavery in Egypt, they cannot totally
rejoice, since their oppressors died and human life was lost. (When the Egyptians were drowning, God told
his court of angels that they may not sing praise since His handiwork is
drowning in the sea (B. Tal. San.
39b). It is for this reason that Jews
do not recite the full praise of Hallel
from the Book of Psalms during most of the Passover holiday. Human life has always been sacred in the
eyes of Torah.
Unlike the evolutionists, the Torah does not
consider man to be nothing more than a complex primate. He has a divine element. This divine element exists in all of
mankind. According to Torah it is an evil of the highest order to take the life
of any human being. Torah recognizes,
however, that man can choose a life which is unworthy. He can become the lowest of all creatures,
evil and corrupt. According to Torah
not every life is worth living. In
certain instances the human court must intervene in order to prevent harm to
innocent people. The worthiness of a
human being, however, does not depend on his being a Jew or a non-Jew.
According to Torah, a given Jew's life may be worthless while a given non-Jew's
life may be as worthy as the most virtuous High Priest.
The Torah, from its very inception, was not an
in-group ethic. Many Egyptians went out
of Egypt with the Israelites. Jews were
enjoined by Moses to treat them as brethren (Exodus 22:20, 23:9). They had to
exert even greater caution when interacting with them than with their own
people. It is a greater infraction of
the Torah to slight the stranger than the born Jew since the stranger is more
sensitive (B. Tal. B. Metzia 59b;
according to the Talmud there are some 36 allusions in the Torah to the ethic
of kindness to the stranger). This is
what Moses taught.
Throughout the ages some of the greatest Torah
personalities were not of Jewish origin.
The prophet Obadiah, according to the Talmud was an Edomite convert,
that is, he was a descendant of Esau.
In every printed Torah the most revered position, right alongside the
Torah itself, is given to the interpretation of Onkelos, which was written by a
Roman proselyte. The teachers of Hillel
were converts. The greatest of Talmudic
sages, Rabbi Akiva, was the son of a convert, as was Rabbi Meir.
Torah law has always been color blind. There is no difference whatsoever between
black and white. According to Torah law
a black person can be the most respected and revered individual on Earth. Our society has a long way to go before it
reaches the high level of Torah morality.
Let us not project our own shortcomings onto the system of Torah which
has served as a model of inspiration throughout history.
I am not an authority on the culture of the
Yanomamo, but I understand that an American anthropologist, Kenneth Good,
married one of the tribe and was quite well accepted among them. If Hartung's critique of Judaism is any
indication of his level of research, I think the Yanomamo might be due an
apology as well. -Rabbi Israel Chait, Yeshiva B'Nei Torah, Far Rockaway, NY
4. Rotten Oranges in the Crate
I was mighty disappointed that Skeptic ran John Hartung's article
evidently without much editorial examination.
Being Jewish, I recognize a hatchet job on Judaism when I see it, and
this is one. Readers should know that
Noam Chomsky has been on the outs with the Jewish community for many years for
his anti-Israel stance and would be inclined to use his erstwhile familiarity
with Judaism to cause the religion the most damage possible. It was under this man's influence that Dr.
Hartung claims most of the inspiration of his article. A bad start.
Like Chomsky and others, he lists an impressive
bibliography. I suspect a dishonest
purpose. By doing such a thing, he
might be seeming to invite the reader to see for himself that everything he
says is true. But really, who is going
to read even a fraction of that bibliography? The longer the bibliography, the
more the reader is put off from investigating it. And Hartung knows this.
He is safe, because that sliver of a percentage of readers who will
actually investigate his references and form a different conclusion, will
probably not articulate their disagreement.
Like a lot of others, Hartung wants the reader to believe that he has
actually read all of those works from cover to cover and discovered that no one
word effectually disputes his opinion.
Hartung wants us to believe that he discovered
that "neighbor" is meant to include only fellow-Israelites, what he
terms as members of the "in-group."
His assertion is not new. In a
commentary by the late British Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz, in 1937, he says:
Though the Founder of Christianity quotes
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" as the old Biblical
command of recognized central importance, many Christian theologians maintain
that the Heb. word for "neighbour" (rea) in this verse refers only to
the fellow-Israelite. Its morality
therefore is only tribal. But the
translation of the Heb. word rea as "fellow-Israelite" is
incorrect. One need not be a Hebrew
scholar to convince oneself of the fact that rea means neighbour of whatever
race or creed. Thus in Exodus XI, 2-
"Let them ask every man of his neighbour, and every woman of her
neighbour, jewels of silver, etc." the Heb. word for neighbour cannot possibly mean "fellow-Israelite," but
distinctly refers to the Egyptians. As
in all the moral precepts of Scripture, the word neighbour in Lev. XIX, 18, is
equivalent to "fellow-man," and it includes in its range every human
being by virtue of his humanity.
During the Passover seder Jews are required to
spill a little wine from their cup at the mention of each plague inflicted on
the Egyptians so as to enjoy the wine that much less. Also, in Rabbinic lore, the story is told that when the Red Sea
crashed together to drown the Egyptian army the angels started rejoicing and
God stopped them saying, "My creatures are perishing, and you are ready to
sing?"
Or what about where it says in Proverbs
"Rejoice not when your enemy falls?"
Or where a Jew is commanded to help his enemy's beast of burden rise
from the ground? Surely Dr. Hartung is not going to tell us that
"enemy" here means "fellow-Israelite."
Dr. Hartung is guilty of sloppy scholarship and
at odds with the professed scientific methods of Skeptic by starting out with an opinion and looking for evidence
which could show his opinion to be false.
This, I am sure, Dr. Hartung did not do. I will leave it to my Christian friends to deal with Hartung's
treatment of that religion. As Bertrand
Russell once wrote, when one sees some rotten oranges in a crate of oranges, he
would be correct in suspecting there are a lot more rotten oranges. -William
Winkelman
5. Throw The Baby Out — Draw New Bathwater: Hartung Responds
Since Rabbi Chait has emphasized the importance
of thoroughly reading and studying the sacred scriptures, let me start off by
saying that for the past eight years I have spent most mornings between 5 and 7
reading the Bible, the Talmud, and related material. Because I am not a believer, I have been able to understand these
works more accurately than most people who have spent much more time with
them. Nevertheless, when I make some
startling argument, many people's first reaction is "I wonder what real
experts think." Of course, I tried
to document "Love Thy Neighbor" thoroughly, but the criticisms
received, especially Rabbi Chait's, provide a forum to show that, contrary to
being "contrived, deceitful and morally reprehensible," the points I
have made follow from an informed and fair reading.
Rabbi Chait and Mr. Winkelman argue that the tolerant,
pluralistic nature of Judaism is evident in the often repeated commandment to
treat strangers kindly. It is important
to realize that the several Hebrew words which are translated as
"stranger" in the Bible and the Talmud, words which are also variously
translated as "sojourner," "proselyte," "alien,"
"resident alien" (the latter being generally specified in the Talmud,
and understood in the Bible), are never translated as "heathen,"
"idolater," "Gentile," "Arab," or "min"
(i.e., Christian, Talmud only). That is because these two groups of people are
radically different — the former were to be respected, and the latter were to
be discriminated against, persecuted, subjugated, or murdered, depending on
their geographical location and the period of history (pre-monarchy, monarchy,
or post-exile to Babylon).
In the Bible, the most frequently used word for
strangers and sojourners is "ger," which also means
"guest." (Genesis 15:13, 23:4, Exodus 2:22, 12:19, 18:3, Leviticus
16:29, 17:8, Numbers 9:14, 15:14, Joshua 8:33, 20:9, etc.) In the Torah (first five books of the
Bible), "stranger," "sojourner" and "sojourning
stranger" most frequently refer to Israelites who were guests in a territory
where they had or should have had full civil rights. In almost all such cases, that territory was the land of an
Israelite tribe other than the tribe of an Israelite ger, or it was Egypt, where the Israelites were inordinately
prosperous and powerful resident aliens before they were enslaved (Genesis
47:20-28).
The admonition to respect Israelites who were
strangers in Israel by virtue of being from a different tribe became critically
important during the period between the massacre of the Canaanites and the
establishment of the monarchy - a period during which the in-group was in
danger of self-destructing because the captured wealth which formed the basis
of cooperation had been depleted and an authority that could impose the rule of
law was yet to be established.
For example, "a certain Levite" made
the mistake of traveling through the land of the Benjaminites, another tribe of
Israel, after retrieving a concubine who had run away. An old man gave him shelter, but things went
badly (Judges 19:20-30):
"Rest easy," said the old man.
"Let me take care of all your needs.
Do not on any account spend the night in the square." And he took him into his house. He mixed fodder for the donkeys; then they
bathed their feet and ate and drank.
While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the town, a depraved
lot, had gathered about the house and were pounding on the door. They called to the aged owner of the house,
"Bring out the man who has come into your house, so that we can be
intimate with [anally rape] him."
The owner of the house went out and said to them, "Please, my
friends, do not perpetrate this outrage."
Look, here is my virgin daughter and his
concubine. Let me bring them out to
you. Have your pleasure of them, do
what you like with them; but don't do that outrageous thing to this
man." But the men would not listen
to him, so the man [the stranger] seized his concubine and pushed her out to
them. They raped her and abused her all
night long until morning; and they let her go when dawn broke.
Toward morning the woman came back; and as it
was growing light, she collapsed at the entrance of the man's house where her
husband was. When her husband arose in
the morning, he opened the doors of the house and went out to continue his
journey; and there was the woman, his concubine, lying at the entrance of the
house, with her hands on the threshold.
"Get up," he said to her, "let us go." But there was no reply. So the man placed
her on the donkey and set out for home.
When he came home, he picked up a knife, and took hold of his concubine
and cut her up limb by limb into twelve parts.
He sent them throughout the territory of Israel.
The ger
in this story sent his concubine's body parts across Israel to protest an
offense that was committed by fellow Israelites. This incited a war against the Benjaminites. By way of revenge, the Levite and his
Israelite allies killed all of the Benjaminite women and left 600 of the men
alive. Then, fearing that Israel would
lose one of its tribes altogether, since the Benjaminite men had no women with
whom to reproduce, the Israelites killed all of the men, women and children of
an Israelite town which had failed to help them defeat the Benjaminites,
sparing only virgin maidens. That
netted 400 virgins, who were given to the Benjaminites along with permission to
steal one woman each from among the virgins of another community, at Shiloh
(Judges 20-21). As is the case today,
animosities and rivalries within the in-group were Israel's greatest threat —
thus the emphasis on treating "strangers" kindly.
The Egyptian gerim
put forth by Rabbi Chait and Mr. Winkelman were proselytes. Exodus 12:48 reads:
"And when a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the passover to
the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, then he may come near and keep it;
he shall be as a native of the land.
But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it." Circumcision was the sign of the covenant
and served as a sufficient indicator of proselytes' loyalty at the time of the
exodus. In contrast, the Talmud tells of a non-Jewish, non-proselyte Syrian who
traveled to Jerusalem to partake of Passover meals until local Rabbis
"investigated his pedigree, and discovered that he was a Syrian and killed
him" (Pesahim 3b).
The passage of Deuteronomy cited by Rabbi Chait
indicating Jewish generosity to "the gentile strangers in their
midst" reads (14:21): "You shall not eat anything that dies of
itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your towns, that he may eat
it, or you may sell it to a foreigner."
And this rule derives from its earlier injunction (Exodus 23:31):
"You shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field; you
shall cast it to the dogs."
Regarding the Rabbi's citation from Leviticus that "gentile"
strangers "shall live with you" and be given financial aid, the verse
reads (35-36): "And if your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain
himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and a sojourner he
shall live with you. Take no interest
from him or increase, but fear your God; that your brother may live beside
you." Here "brother"
means fellow Israelite of local origin, "stranger" is ger, and
"sojourner" is towshab,
which means dweller or local inhabitant.
Gentile is not implied.
Moses' treatment of "Jethro, a
non-Jew" as evidence that "the Biblical ethic is completely
universal" also needs some fleshing out.
Jethro was a Midianite priest, one of Moses' fathers-in-law, the man who
sent him up Mount Horeb to meet the god of the Midianites who then became the
god of the Jews, and the man who advised him to set up the system of judges
which saved Moses' people from annihilating each other. All that aside, when Moses received orders
from his god to "vex" the Midianites because their women had
"played the harlot" with Israelite men (this was an error on the part
of the god of the Bible - the text of which clearly states that it was the
Moabite women who consorted with Israelite men), Moses took this opportunity to
make the Israelites his god's only chosen people by commanding his troops to
murder all Midianite men, boys, and non-virgin women. This netted the soldiers 32,000 virgins who were shared around,
except for 32 who were given "to Eleazar the priest" as an
"offering for the Lord" - i.e., for human sacrifice (see Numbers 31,
RSV).
The King James translation specifies that these
women were to be a "heave offering" (see Numbers 31:29 & 41) -
which means that after dismemberment, various body parts were "heaved
up" (thrown in the air) in celebration.
(Human sacrifice of Canaanites and other non-Jews was common [see 1st
Samuel 15:31-32], but sacrifice of Israelites by Israelites in order to appease
or cajole their god was rare subsequent to recision of the commandment to
sacrifice all first born children [cf. Exodus 13:2; 22:29-30 and Leviticus
27:28-29 with Exodus 13:13 and 34:20] — a commandment for which the god of the
Israelites eventually apologized [Ezekiel 20:26]. Nevertheless, ritual sacrifice of a virgin Israelite woman was
well received and well rewarded [e.g., Judges 11:12 through 12:8]).
Regarding Rabbi Chait's reference to Rabbi
Meir's opinion that "a non-Jew who engrosses himself in the study of Torah
is as honorable as a high Priest," shows that "every Jew must accord
a gentile who studies Torah the same sense of human dignity he would accord the
High Priest," Rabbi Meir's statement in the Talmud is put forth as a
minority argument (his alone) to suggest a modification of one of a set of
majority opinions which include: "A heathen slave owned by a Jew may marry
his daughter and his mother [the slave's own daughter and mother], for he has
lost the status of a heathen, but has not yet attained that of a Jew,"
"If a heathen smites a Jew, he is worthy of death ... He who smites an
Israelite on the jaw, is as though he had thus assaulted the Divine
Presence," "A heathen who keeps a day of rest, deserves death,"
and "A heathen who studies the Torah deserves death." Rabbi Meir's opinion was offered to
ameliorate that last ruling by clarifying that heathens should study the last
seven of the 10 commandments (Rabbi Chait omitted the ending clause -
"That refers to their own seven laws"), though certainly not the
first three nor the remainder of the Torah (as in this footnote: "It is
meritorious for them [heathens] to study these [the seven laws]; but not laws
which do not pertain to them," see Sanhedrin 58b-59a).
Chullin 94a is also a weak argument. The story upon which Rabbi Chait's
assertions are based is that one of the Sages, Samuel, "was once crossing
on a ferry-boat and he said to his attendant, 'Reward the ferryman,'"
which the attendant did by giving him a trefah
(impure, not edible by a Jew) chicken (the ferryman was a gentile). Samuel became angry, but the reason for
Samuel's anger is recorded as a matter of dispute between two Rabbis - one
saying that Samuel's anger was over the attendant's representation that the
chicken was ritually slaughtered and so a more genuine gift, and another
arguing that Samuel was angry at his attendant for having brought a forbidden
thing among his baggage. Even if the
former interpretation is accepted, this does not warrant the edifice of
apologia which has been built upon it.
Each of the above critics has accused me of
using selective, as distinct from selected, quotations. That is, quotes which misrepresent rather
than represent. But the best example of
a selective quote appears in Rabbi Chait's penultimate paragraph. In addition to Maimonides' major effort of
interpreting the Talmud and the Torah for the purpose of explaining what the
law should be when Israel was re-established, he suggested his own codes of
behavior for diaspora Jews. The
quotation in question is such a ruling "in the interests of
peace." Unfortunately, the only
way for readers to judge whether a quote is selected or selective is to read
enough of the original to have a sense of its overall message. In that regard, I recommend reading at least
the first six books of the Bible and relevant portions of the Talmud (the
Tractate Sanhedrin is representative, being long enough to provide a
substantive impression). Even just that
much background reading enables the realization that Maimonides, in addition to
making up rules for diaspora Jews, made a consistent effort to take the hard
edge off of the Torah and the Talmud.
Mr. Winkelman's citation of Exodus 11:2 as
evidence that the word neighbor included everyone "of whatever race or
creed" requires context and a fuller understanding of the word rea. The context is Exodus 12:35-36:
"The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked
of the Egyptians jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing; and the LORD had
given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them
have what they asked. Thus they despoiled the Egyptians." That is, the
Jews stole their "neighbors" silver and gold under the pretense that
it was being borrowed. This is the only
case in which rea translated as neighbor is used in reference to persons
from whom the god of the Jews approved stealing. Rea derives from the
verb ra'ah which means to tend a
flock or to rule. In this case rea might be better translated as other or another, as is frequently done, as in rule over another or steal from another person. (Genesis 11:3 & 7,
15:10, 31:49, 43:33, Exodus 18:16, 21:18, 21:35, Judges 6:29, 10:18, Ruth 3:14,
Esther 9:19, etc.)
Further clarification can be gleaned from the
Talmud in this regard: "With respect to robbery - if one stole or robbed
or seized a beautiful woman, or committed similar offenses, if these were
perpetrated by one goy against another, the theft must not be kept, and
likewise the theft of an Israelite by a goy, but that of a goy by an 'Israelite
may be retained" (Sanhedrin 57a, see also Baba Kamma 37b-338a). This is put more succinctly in Sifre on Deuteronomy: "The Holy
One, blessed be He, did not dispense love to the nations of the world as He did
to Israel. You learn that this is so from the Sages' saying, 'that which was
stolen from a non-Jew is permitted, while that which was stolen from a Jew is
forbidden.'" Or, going to
Maimonides' neighbor: "One may not procure the death of a
heathen against whom we are not at war, or of similar people. It is, however, forbidden to save them from
dying - for example, if any of them falls into the sea, one may not rescue him
- for Scripture says, Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor
(Lev. 19:16), and none of these is thy neighbor" (Torts. 5:11, italics not
added).
Both Rabbi Chait and Mr. Winkelman have peppered
their criticisms with ad hominem
accusations. It is interesting to note
that Rabbi Chait simultaneously believes that his religion prohibits "any
sort of verbal abuse which includes any form of unkind speech to the
stranger." It seems reasonable to
conclude, under the circumstance, that even Rabbi Chait interprets
"stranger" to mean sojourning Jew or resident alien (excluding a
heathen like myself). That, or the
Rabbi has engaged in hypocrisy or impiety – or, I think, all three. This aside, his most objectionable assertion
is that the Talmud cannot be understood "without a personal teacher."
When I began to study the Talmud it did take a few hours of reading before I
began to cut through the disorganization, understand the nonsense that so often
passes for argument, and grasp what its authors thought. Nevertheless, the most rewarding aspect of
the Talmud is the degree to which it confirms a straightforward reading of the
Torah, and one does not need a personal teacher to gain that confirmation.
As for Mr. Centner's objections, when fathers
and uncles make disparaging jokes about women, do boys' minds get polluted with
attitudes that cause them to behave unfairly?
And when children grow up in a racist society, do they become adults who
congratulate themselves for magnanimity when they extend common courtesy to
individuals of another race, or worse?
I suspect so, because I have seen such behavior in myself, and I like to
think that I am not exceptional in this regard.
If informal influences can have such powerful
effects, how strong is the effect of formal efforts to teach children that
there is a god who extends special consideration to people who are members of
His preferred faiths? I remember
standing in front of a butcher shop in Philadelphia's Italian Market when news
of the 1967 Middle East War came crackling over transistor radios. A surge of adrenaline and testosterone
accompanied my knee-jerk presumption that this was the good guys against the
bad, and I wanted to be an Israeli. I
had not read the Bible, but I had read The Diary of Anne Frank and seen Ben
Hur, The Ten Commandments, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Meanwhile, of course, the Israelis were bombing
and strafing the USS Liberty, killing and wounding American sailors, because
they feared that the well-equipped spy ship might find out the truth about
troop movements and so discern Israel's plan for expansion (see Paul Findley's
Deliberate Deceptions, 1993, Lawrence Hill Books). Lyndon Johnson made a frantic cover-up, perhaps more so than
necessary because the vast majority of Americans' knees had already jerked
along with mine. The right of return
was not to be "universally applied," as Centner would have it, and
lebensraum was needed for one of god's chosen people. And we all get points for helping a god get his way.
Is there a connection between Centner's
"mainstream Christians and Jews" who "believe the moral rules
are to be universally applied," and belief in a god who gave his first
followers permission to steal "great and goodly cities, which you did not
build, and houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, and cisterns
hewn out, which you did not hew, and vineyards and olive trees, which you did
not plant" (Deuteronomy 6:10-11)? According to former U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations, George Ball, there is.
America has footed Israel's bill to the tune of $250 billion dollars -
or a bit more than $50,000 for every Jewish man, woman and child living in
Israel today (The Passionate Attachment, 1992, Norton). Centner is right that
"Religions ... evolve in parallel with a society's social, political and
economic outlook." And,
unfortunately, a society's social, political, and economic outlook is
profoundly influenced by its religion.
But Centner's analogy between the Constitution
of the United States and the Bible is wrong.
When the Constitution is amended, the amendment becomes the law of the
land, "valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of this
Constitution" (Article 5, The U.S. Constitution). But when people hold beliefs which differ
from those promoted in the Bible, the Bible is not thereby amended. The original text remains available to
anyone who wishes to follow it and claim authority on those grounds - whether
that be Moses, Joshua, Lyndon Johnson, Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir, or Bill
Clinton.
Centner is also wrong about the United States
being a "Christian state."
The first words of the first article of The Bill of Rights (which was an
Amendment to the Constitution passed on December 15, 1791) are: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Thomas
Jefferson, Tom Paine, and Ben Franklin have been turning over in their graves
ever since "An American Zionist brought him (Harry Truman) two million
dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train"...
thus precipitating "the hasty invention of Israel"... which, in Gore
Vidal's opinion, "has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the
USA." I would add that creating an
expressly religious state is expressly anti-American and has contributed to the
corrosion of America's moral fiber.
As to Centner's delusion that all good things
come from "the Christian West," as distinct from "Islamic
nations, and nations with Confucian foundations," while bad things come
from "officially atheist states," his word "balderdash"
comes to mind. But back to the
hypocrisy of revering the Bible while professing to be a humanitarian. Centner argues that "It doesn't matter
one whit" what the Bible actually says as long as most of the people who
claim it to be the documentary foundation of their religion think that it
implores them to behave themselves. Again, balderdash!