Understanding the consciousness of a society from the past in Judaism
Hello Rabbi,
I came across an interesting philosophical issue regarding the ability to understand past societies (understanding a foreign society, in the field of historical thinking). In essence – do we have the ability today to understand a society from the past, or does the great diversity of their reality and consciousness make it difficult to the point of incomprehensibility?
One of the most significant studies was conducted on the understanding of primitive society (Evans, Understanding Primitive Society).
In Judaism – I found in the Gemara Sanhedrin Kabba a reference to the story of Rav Ashi and King Menashe, who said to him, “Are you innocent? He was caught by the hem of your robe.” It can be understood that he was referring to this issue and remarking to him about the inability to understand the people of Menashe’s time. (It can also be explained in a more limited way that Menashe only renewed in him the abolition of the desire to worship idols. But perhaps this is the very problem with understanding a foreign society – one that lives in a different reality and therefore has different consciousnesses than ours.)
Does the Rabbi know of any other sources in Judaism that indicate that the Sages were aware of the difficulty in understanding a foreign society?
I completely agree, and I have also written about this (see my article on Halacha rulings in extreme situations. This will also appear in the next column). Although this is not a categorical statement. You can try to understand, but I will write a warning note on the side. The more distant the situation, the more suspicious we should be about our understandings of it. I also stated this in my articles on the attitude towards infidels (such as the article on the fall of a secular person into a crime).
There was also a debate about this at the beginning of the era of scientific anthropology (?), whether the researcher should observe the society being studied from the outside and form an objective position about it or, conversely, live among them in order to understand their culture and their values.
I can’t remember the sources right now, but there are clearly some. You don’t need sources for that either, it’s completely simple.
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