42
AcAdemic SympoSium:
So we have, broadly speaking, two
models. We have what we might
think of as a medieval model of social
responsibility, which is essentially
the responsibility that one Jew had
to another, a responsibility that
was carried out and discharged
largely, although not entirely, on
a localized basis within discrete
Jewish communities. And then we
have the model of contemporary
social responsibility, a model which is
appropriate to our world – our world
being a global village that Tosafot also
could not have imagined. And this
last is a model of social responsibility
that I’ll call the social responsibility
of the global village. We have these
two models, then, each historically
appropriate to its own time, each
a product of its own time.
I’m not going to engage in a fruitless
line of inquiry as to which is better.
But what I do want to point out
is that there are some unintended
consequences of the social responsibility
of the global village – some unintended,
perhaps unforeseen consequences. And
we’ll want to look to Jewish tradition
to find ways to deal with those
unintended consequences.
I’d like to illustrate those unintended
consequences by talking about portraits
of two types of Jews. The first type
of Jew is one that I met a few years
back. I was speaking to a woman who
described her husband as the best Jew
that she knows – a very happy, warm
sentiment. And then she went on,
“
And he’s a Catholic. He’s the best Jew
I know, and he’s a Catholic.”
Well, at this point, of course, I was
very intrigued. What is her definition
of what a Jew is? For that matter, what
is her definition of “the best Jew” that
she knows? And she went on to explain
that her husband is very deeply and
passionately engaged in human rights
work, in social justice work. And this,
in her view, made her husband the best
Jew that she knows.
Now, there’s some good news in that.
The good news is that among right-
thinking people, we Jews have a good
reputation. We stand for the right
things. On the other hand, there’s
some disquieting news in that. That’s a
rather thin definition of what it means
to be a Jew and of what Judaism is.
I was recently thinking, again, about
my conversation with that woman
as I was reading a book that was just
published by the Catholic religious
writer Joseph Bottum. The book is
called
An Anxious Age
.
Toward the
beginning of the book, Bottum writes
about a phenomenon that he calls
“
thinning up” – how the rich, robust
Protestant Christian culture of an
earlier generation became “thinned up”
in a subsequent generation. The later
generation retained some of the cultural
patterns of the earlier generation, some
of the same values, some of the same
concerns. But over time, the robust,
Protestant Christian frame in which all
that was held fell away. The Protestant
culture of the earlier age was “thinned
up” into something else.
I was thinking that what this lady
represents is really a “thinning up” of
Judaism – a “thinning up” of Judaism
into social responsibility, without more.
Now, social responsibility is key. It is a
mitzvah
,
a divine imperative. But it’s
disquieting to think of the rich, robust,
Jewish religious culture being “thinned
up” this way into social responsibility
and pretty much nothing but social
responsibility.
Well, then, how do we deal with this?
What do we say? How do we thicken
up these “thinned up” Jews? One thing
we could do is take them all for dinner
at my mother’s house. That would be
very effective in the short run. I don’t
think it would be very effective in the
long run, but it would help in the short
run. But there are more substantive
things we can do. One of them is
to stress the priority and primacy of
Jewish study.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself,
I thought we were talking about social
responsibility! Why are we talking
about study? We’re talking about study
because study is the indispensable basis
of everything that happens in Judaism.
It is through study that we immerse
ourselves in the language and culture
of Torah, in the vocabulary of Judaism
as it has historically developed.
It is through study that we really know
the rituals and beliefs and practices
of Judaism. Study means engagement
with a full range of genres of Jewish
writing: from the Bible to the Talmud,
to the mystical tradition, to cultural
genres that may not necessarily have
a religious component, such as novels
and poetry. Study means being willing
to engage with texts and traditions that
will challenge your preconceptions.
Study means that you’re willing to
expose yourself to the multivocality –
the many voices – of the tradition,
and that you’ll be open and willing,
if need be, to change your mind.
Study should be contrasted very
sharply with prooftexting. Study is
not prooftexting, and prooftexting
is not study. Prooftexting is taking a
verse, a Talmudic passage, a Hasidic
story, or what have you, and using it
to support a position you already hold.
At the extreme, prooftexting can be
used to squeeze Judaism into the
Procrustean bed of a particular
ideological perspective.
That is not what study is. Study
properly pursued is a way that we
can help to thicken ourselves up from
any sort of “thinned-up” Judaism.