Religious Law and Ethics: Studies in Biblical and Rabbinical Theonomy (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS 93 Religious Law and Ethics: Studies in Biblical and Rabbinical Theonomy , by Ze'ev Falk. Jerusalem: Mesharim, 1991. 221 pp. n.p.l. Ze'ev Falk has been a prolific writer on Jewish law. His concern has always been to maintain the centrality of traditional halakhah, but to do so with an eye to its deeper personal or social meaning. As a result, Falk has over the years looked at modern issues and the halakhah through the perspectives of modern legal theory, political science, sociology, and other academic methodologies. This has finally led him to look at the root problem of the relationship between halakhah and ethics, the subject to which he turns in the book before us. There is a polemic in this survey. It is that Jewish law fits neither of two extreme paradigms which are often applied to it. On the one hand, halakhah should not be seen as mere legalism without concern for the personal or moral dimension of the agent. On the other, halakhah should not be reduced without remainder into any of the modern Western metaethical models: eudaimonism or deontology, for example. Instead, Falk claims, Biblical and rabbinic ethics go "beyond a single idea and concept, appealing thereby to a variety of listeners and readers, and speaking to the sophisticated audience as well as to the simple-minded" (p. 7). His point throughout is that]ewish ethics occur between the poles of heteronomous divine and rabbinic rulings on the one hand, and each human agent's autonomous, free choice to accept these as normative objectives, on the other. Casting matters in this way obviously establishes some fundamental methodological parameters. First of all, Falk will have to draw on a range ofnon-halakhic philosophical and metaethical writings in order to establish the frame within which he will situate halakhah. In fact, Falk's footnotes present a remarkably complete bibliography of Jewish and Western writings on moral theory. Second, Falk's statement of the question means that he must to a large extent homogenize the Jewish tradition and treat it as a more or less single whole. In fact, his book breaks Jewish ethics into four major blocks: "Biblical Ethics" (including brief chapters on, among other topics, Biblical Virtues, Social Conventions in the Bible, Choice and Intention in the Bible, The Prophets); "Postbiblical Ethics" (Letter of Aristeas, Ben Sira, 4 Ezra, etc.); "Rabbinical Ethics" (Halakhic Morality, Rabbinical Virtues, Conflict of Halakhic Duties, Emotion and Conscience 94 SHOFAR Fall 1993 Vot 12, No. 1 in Halakhah, etc.); and "Posttalmudic Ethics" (Medieval]ewish Philosophy, Jewish Pietism and Mysticism, Jewish Enlightenment and Ethics). By lumping together into blocks such diverse materials, Falk is forced to give us impressionistic overviews rather than nuanced characterizations ofwhat the sources actually are saying. Take for example Falk's conclusion to his chapter on choice and intention in Biblical ethics. He states (p. 62), ". .. biblical this-worldliness and rejection of quietism explain the appreciation of the physical aspects and effects, sometimes even at the expense of intentionality." By labelling this "biblical" rather than "Israelite," Falk is correctly signalling that this is the view of the texts rather than of all Biblical Israelites. But it will still hardly do to say that this is the view of all of the Bible's texts. Rather, Falk has universalized in extremely broad strokes one theme that is adduceable from some of the Biblical materials. In short, his discussion of Biblical ethies turns out not to be about Biblical Israel, or even about the Biblical texts, but about how the Bible can be read from a certain modern traditionalist perspective. This same critique applies to Falk's analyses in the rest of the book, none of which ought to be seen as scientific analyses of historical Judaic views on ethics. Philo, for example, is accorded 21 lines; Josephus, 17; Avot barely a page; and entire social movements such as Chassidey Ashkenaz not quite three pages. In the end, then, the book must be read as something different entirely. What we have is a portrait by a sensitive and widely read thinker of how the vast literature of the Jewish past can be read so...