9/4/2014 Mosaic Magazine Is There a Jewish Political Tradition?

http://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/09/is-there-a-jewish-political-tradition/?mode=print 1/4
IsThereaJewishPoliticalTradition?
Thereis,andonestrainofitneedstobereclaimedespecially
intheaftermathofGaza.
ByYoelFinkelman
DuringtherecentGazacampaign, and into its aftermath, some of the most vocal critics of Israel have been
Jews, and some of these have grounded their criticism in appeals to Jewish values. Theres nothing new in that:
in 1988, as the first intifada raged, the NewYorkReview published an open letter by Arthur Hertzberg, a well-
known rabbi and historian, denouncing Israel for its allegedly brutal response to Palestinian rioters and
chastising its Jewish supportersin particular, Elie Wieselfor their blindness to what the Jewish tradition
commands:
Morally, the Jewish tradition commands us to act justly, especially when [doing so] seem[s] imprudent and
embarrassing, and never to be silent, even to protect Jewish unity. . . . Even in bad times, when Jews were
under fierce attack, their moral teachers gave no exceptions. The prophets knew that Assyria and Babylonia
were far more wicked than Judea, but they held Judea to account.
This statement, taken on its own, bespeaks a limited and quite doctrinaire view of the Jewish moral and political
tradition, a considerably more variegated body of thought than is suggested by such categorical pronouncements
never to be silent, even to protect Jewish unity, no exceptions, and so forth. Even assuming that Hertzberg
is right about the uncompromising nature of the prophetic message itself, that message is one among others
that are equally representative of traditional Jewish reflections on power and politics. Sweeping claims about the
Jewish tradition always and everywhere dictating one or another absolute course of action almost always
oversimplify a multifaceted story.
That the Jewish tradition always values ethical perfection over prudence, for example, is simply not the case.
Sometimes, indeed, the Jewish tradition explicitly prefers prudence to ethical perfection, and even sees the
former as necessary to the latter. The biblical prophets, as Abraham Joshua Heschel stressed, may have
demanded absolute justice and perfect morality, but they were never the only legitimate players in Jewish
leadership. Kings, too, had their roles; and (as Heschel again noted) had the prophets become kings and wielded
political power, they, too, would have discovered the just claims of prudence.
Broadly speaking, one can identify three major modes of thinking about power and politics in the Jewish
tradition: the idealist, the utopian, and the realist. To ignore the creative tension among them, and especially
between the idealist/utopian and the realist, is to fall into an all too common error. Indeed, over thousands of
years of thinking about politics, Jewish sources have not renounced the necessity of political realism and have
very often placed it front and center. These days, especially, that strain needs renewed attention.

9/4/2014 Mosaic Magazine Is There a Jewish Political Tradition?
http://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/09/is-there-a-jewish-political-tradition/?mode=print 2/4
Byrealism,Idonotmean the cynical or Machiavellian suggestion that all political morality ultimately boils
down to interest. Even as politics is inevitably both at least partially corrupt and incapable of solving all social
problems, governance is necessary for a good society. But what is wanted in governance is the sober-minded
awareness that moral goods compete with each otherand so, often, do the dictates of moral good with the
needs of good government. Many Jewish sources would see wisdom in Bismarcks quip that politics remains not
the art of the ideal, but the art of the possible.
Thanks perhaps to the accidents of Jewish history, two of the most astute political thinkers in the history of the
Diaspora hailed from medieval Spain, where a relatively wealthy and well-connected Jewish community enjoyed
a significant measure of self-government before finding itself subjected to increasing persecution. One was the
great 14th-century rabbi and talmudist Nissim Gerondi. In his collection of sermons, Gerondi states forthrightly
that certain aspects of Jewish criminal law, particularly the strict regulations governing testimony and evidence,
are not likely to be effective in deterring criminals. Indeed, he writes, some of the laws and statutes of the
Gentile nations may be more effective in governing the political order than some of the laws of the Torah.
This is an odd admission to come out of the mouth of a medieval rabbi. The Torah of the Lord is perfect,
declares Psalms (19:8). As such, the laws of the Torah should suffice not only to direct individual and collective
morality and the service of God but also to maintain political and social order. But apparently they do not, or at
least not always. As Gerondi explains it, Torah law offers pure justice in itself, the highest ethical standard to
which public life can strive. That is why its judicial system is rightly so sensitive to the overuse and abuse of
coercive power, so obsessively concerned with the rights of the defendant, and so unwilling to punish any
criminal who is not fully deserving of harsh retribution.
But, Gerondi recognizes, too much idealism can leave a society vulnerable to its worst elements. Society,
including Jewish society, must be governed by a political system that will protect public safety, even if that
means violating the Torahs own ethical standards. Following earlier talmudic precedents, Gerondi grants a
hypothetical Jewish king the broad authority to abrogate Jewish civil law and replace it, when need be, with less
pure but more effective tools of governance.
Of similar mind was another Spanish rabbi, Don Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1508), one of Judaisms most daring
political thinkers and a man of considerable experience as minister of finance in several European governments.
Writing around the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, Abrabanel insists
that his readers harbor no illusions about the possibility of a fully moral public life. Political ideas in general, he
stresses, must be measured not by their lofty aims or theoretical coherence but by their practical efficacy. As he
observes at one point in his commentary on the biblical book of Deuteronomy, I should not bring purely
intellectual arguments, since experience overcomes theory.
Abrabanels own experience no doubt influenced his thoughts about the best form of government. More alarmed
than Gerondi (and perhaps than any other thinker in the history of rabbinic literature) at the abuse of power by
centralized authority, he rejects the biblical notion of monarchy, instead favoring, in common with some other
Renaissance thinkers, a separation of powers, limited terms of office, and constitutionally limited government.
Although even such measures will not solve the problem of political corruption and overreach, it is the best we
can do, he writes, to mitigate their effects.
Nor do Gerondi and Abrabanel exhaust the fund of Jewish reflections on the numerous factors that inhibit a
societys potential for righteousness: from the inevitability of human selfishness, moral blindness, and cruelty to
the sheer complexity of public life and the unpredictability of eventsnot to mention the inscrutability and
inflexibility of the biblical commandments themselves and Gods at times hidden face. Biblical and rabbinic
9/4/2014 Mosaic Magazine Is There a Jewish Political Tradition?
http://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/09/is-there-a-jewish-political-tradition/?mode=print 3/4
sources alike remind us that leadership can and will fail; that war, disease, and disaster may occur at any time;
that communities will undoubtedly face inequality and unfairness; and that too much reliance on abstract moral
principles without concern for their worldly consequences can do more harm than good.

Examplesareeasytomultiply. In the economic realm, the heteriska, a legal loophole developed by
rabbinic judges, allowed and still allows Jews to participate in a modern economy by effectively circumventing
the Bibles moral opposition to loans with interest. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 19a-b) would welcome a judiciary
that could bring a king to trial for misdeedsbut, it concludes, the resulting potential for anarchy and violence
might be too great a risk. In the view of Maimonides (1138-1204), governments and religions must at times
indulge in noble lies that conduce to social stability even if they are not strictly speaking true (Guideofthe
Perplexed 3:28). The Mishnah (Negaim 12:6) declares woe unto the evildoer and woe unto his neighbor,
suggesting ruefully that in punishing the guilty, God Himself may cause collateral damage to the innocent.
Or take some of the Bibles own reflections on government. Among several models of political leadership, we
encounter Moses, who speaks directly to God, supreme Ruler and Lawgiver; the judges, charismatic leaders who
intermittently appear on the scene to unify the Israelites and save them from military threats; a long-standing
monarchy; and prophets who find themselves either allied with or in opposition to leaders wielding actual
power. Every one of these models is flawed, and the Biblea text that is nothing if not wholly realistic when it
comes to what Kant would refer to as the crooked timber of humanityoffers implicit critiques of each.
Under Moses leadership, the people sin time and again, to the point where God threatens to destroy the
Israelites and start over from scratch. The book of Judges recounts a ceaseless cycle in which sin opens the gates
to conquest by a foreign power, followed in turn by salvation through acts of repentance and the charismatic
powers of the Judgebut all without any apparent sign of progress. At books end, a Hobbesian tale of rape,
moral apathy, and civil war gives way to a final, caustic pronouncement: In those days there was no king in
Israel; each did what was right in his eyes.
As for the kings, some are better than others, but even Davidthe standard by which the Bible measures other
biblical monarchscomes in for his share of serious criticism. He gallivants with a married woman in Jerusalem
while his army fights in the distance; he spoils his sons, who rebel against him and rape his daughter; he is
forbidden to build the Temple on account of the blood he has spilled (in, be it noted, wars that God ordered him
to fight). Finally, there are the essentially powerless prophets, who virtually without exception fail dismally in
their mission of transforming society in the spirit of piety and goodness.

Bynowwehaveseen enough to understand why realism is not only one of the most consistent themes in the
biblical and rabbinic conversation about government but also not the only one, and indeed why there is no single
or homogenous Jewish political theory. Realist themes are tempered, for instance, by sources infused with the
spirit of idealism. Judaism calls upon its adherents to do what they can to improve society and bring about
fairness, righteousness, piety, and justice. In this register, the moral use of political powerwhat Maimonides
calls welfare of the body (Guide 3:27)can result in a community pushing toward welfare of the soul, that is,
spiritual perfection for the individual. And then, along with and sometimes in contradiction to both realism and
idealism, there come those Jewish sources that speak in utopian-messianic tones, articulating not only the
prophetic demand for perfection but perfections actual realization.
The three registers are tautly connected. Without the idealism, politics would remain nothing but a scrimmage of
nations and groups vying for power. The failings of human politics oblige people of God to help the suffering and
9/4/2014 Mosaic Magazine Is There a Jewish Political Tradition?
http://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/09/is-there-a-jewish-political-tradition/?mode=print 4/4
the weak. Social policy and even a degree of social engineering have their place precisely because the problems of
human society are innate and perennial. But the effort would be Sisyphean and pointless without the prospect of
eventual success. Idealism competes with and bridges the gap between sober realism and messianic utopianism.
In the contemporary context, some have been intent on severing these connections. The tendency on the part of
some Jewish activists and theorists is to neglect or deny the realist and idealist traditions and replace them with
starry-eyed utopianism as the Jewish approach to the exercise of power. Compare, for example, the way in which
the resonant term tikkunolam is used in todays discourse with the way it was invoked by the rabbis of the
Talmud. For them, it meant plugging existing legal loopholes in order to avoid divisive economic or social
outcomes. By contrast, for many of todays Jews, it denotes wholesale social-engineering projects of wide scope
and dubious workability. Tikkunmagazines core vision enthusiastically looks forward to complete global
disarmament and the elimination of nation-states and national borders. Tikun Olam, an American blog,
publicizes classified Israeli security information, privileging its self-proclaimed moral high ground over the
safety of Israeli citizens.
Indeed, the most flagrant examples of abandonment of Jewish political realism stem from various Jewish
opponents of the state of Israel. On the Right, we hear of Israels hilltop youth and other elements on the
borders of religious Zionism who turn against the Jewish state for its failure to live up to their own version of
messianic expectations. On the more vocal Left, especially in the Diaspora, post-Zionist and post-colonial
academics and opinion makers reject Zionism altogether in favor of some imagined supra-national or post-
political utopia. For figures like the philosopher Judith Butler and the scholar Daniel Boyarin, for example, a
true Jewish politics would embody what Butler calls the superior ethical substance of Diasporic Jewishness
i.e., political weaknessthereby saving Jews and Judaism from the inevitable moral imperfections that come
from wielding sovereign power. Musing on the supposed anachronism of the modern nation-state, Jewish
advocates of a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict work to create a political arrangement on the
ground that would, certainly, deteriorate rapidly into a bloodbath.
Such are the rewards of embracing the imagined perfect at the expense of the good, and of ignoring the many
voices within the Jewish tradition that warn against doing so. That larger and more encompassing tradition not
only exists; it is robust, urgently in need of reclamation, and firmly grounded in the authoritative teachings of
Judaism. In those same teachings, messianic utopianism is most often relegated to the end of days: a time when
God Himself will bring about a transformation in culture and human nature. The lion may then lie down with
the lamb, but not because humans have been so deluded as to place them in the same pasture.
_________________
YoelFinkelman,alecturerintheinterdisciplinarygraduateprogramincontemporaryJewryat
BarIlanUniversity,istheauthorofStrictlyKosherReading:PopularLiteratureandthe
ConditionofContemporaryOrthodoxy(2011).
Readonlineathttp://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/09/isthereajewishpolitical
tradition/ | Copyright 2014 Mosaic Magazine.