In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, the Israeli academic Yuval Noah Harari attempts to squeeze all of human history into fewer than 500 pages, from a perspective based on a rejection of religion, liberal humanism, and most of the Western philosophical tradition. In Human Nature & Jewish Thought: Judaism’s Case for Why Persons Matter, the Jewish philosopher Alan Mittleman attempts the no less daunting task of assessing the ethical implications of over 2,000 years of Jewish thinking about human nature in fewer than 300 pages. Allan Arkush writes in his review of the two books:
It is not only religion that separates Mittleman from Harari but the humility that follows from it. While Mittleman believes that the main human task is to imitate God, primarily through engagement in moral action, Harari sees Homo sapiens standing “on the verge of becoming a god, poised [because of technological advances] to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.” This is a challenge that Harari wants humankind to accept, even if he is unsure whether we are up to it. “Is there anything more dangerous,” he asks at the very end of his book, “than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?”
For Mittleman, human beings, who are not and will never be divine, must know more than just what they want. They must attempt to discern the will of God, which on matters pertaining to the new technology is far from transparent. But Judaism’s basic message is nonetheless clear to him. “Our own survival,” [writes Mittleman], “might well depend on cultivating anew a sense of limits.”
Read more on Jewish Review of Books: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1960/oh-the-humanity/