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Judaism’s Many Rules, and the Hierarchy of Values They Represent

July 20 2017

Drawing on the work of the anthropologist Richard Schweder as well as on rabbinic sources, Moshe Koppel divides the various regulations Judaism imposes on its adherents into three groups, which, respectively, enforce fairness, loyalty, and restraint. Correlatively, violations of these rules are harm, disrespect, and degradation. Although all societies have taboos in each of these categories, today’s liberal cosmopolitans put a disproportionate value on fairness, while Jewish tradition tends to regard them as close to equal. Koppel illustrates his point by referring to two archetypal figures from his own life—a religiously observant Holocaust survivor named “Shimen” and a Jewish graduate student named “Heidi”:

Shimen . . . wouldn’t say kiddush over a stolen bottle of wine. He knows that under certain circumstances one can violate a prohibition in order to observe a positive commandment, but it would never occur to him that this principle would include violation of duties to other people. . . . So, Shimen does not regard the fairness foundation and the loyalty and restraint foundations as being exactly equal.

Likewise, Heidi shares Shimen’s revulsion at disrespect and degradation. She shares Shimen’s instinctive sense that incest [a violation of restraint], for example, is wrong. Similarly, she agrees that speaking ill of one’s deceased father [a violation of loyalty], even if nobody is harmed by such speech, is wrong. She is as revolted by cannibalism, [another violation of restraint], as any conservative would be, even if the deceased has died naturally and willed his body for that purpose.

So Heidi is not completely insensitive to the loyalty and restraint foundations [of morality]. . . . [But] in Heidi’s culture, fairness is given much greater importance than loyalty and restraint. . . . When two different moral foundations rub up against each other, fairness always wins. Thus, if homosexual acts are regarded as dissolute, as they were in Heidi’s culture until recently, while restrictions on such acts are now seen as causing undue harm to homosexuals, the outcome is clear. The very idea of dissoluteness sounds archaic to Heidi. Similarly, if intermarriage is regarded as a betrayal of tribal loyalty, as it was in Heidi’s culture until recently, while restrictions on intermarriage are now seen as intolerant, the resolution is again obvious. The very idea of tribal loyalty sounds bizarre to Heidi.

Read more at Judaism without Apologies

More about: American Jewry, Anthropology, Halakhah, Judaism, Religion & Holidays, Universalism

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic