Q&A: Understanding the Consciousness of a Past Society in Judaism
Understanding the Consciousness of a Past Society in Judaism
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I came across an interesting philosophical issue regarding the ability to understand past societies (understanding a foreign society, in the realm of historical thought). In brief: do we today have the ability to understand a society from the past, or does the great difference in their reality and consciousness make this so difficult that real understanding is impossible?
One of the significant studies was done on understanding a primitive society (Evans, The Understanding of a Primitive Society).
In Judaism, I found in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 102b, a reference in the story of Rav Ashi and King Manasseh, who said to him: “Had you been there, you would have lifted the hem of your cloak and run after me.” It can be understood that he was referring to this issue and pointing out Rav Ashi’s inability to understand the people of Manasseh’s time. (It can also be explained more narrowly, that Manasseh was only teaching him about the nullification of the urge for idolatry. But perhaps that itself is the problem in understanding a foreign society—that it lives in a different reality and therefore has a different consciousness from ours.)
Does the Rabbi know of other sources in Judaism that one could point to as showing that the Sages were aware of the difficulty of understanding a foreign society?
Answer
I completely agree, and I’ve also written about this (see my article on halakhic ruling in extreme situations. It will also appear in the next column). Of course, this is not a categorical claim. One can try to understand, but with a warning note written in the margin. The more distant the situation is, the more suspicious we should be of our own understanding of it. I also discussed this in my articles about the attitude toward heretics (such as the article about causing a secular Jew to sin).
There was also a debate about this at the beginning of the age of scientific anthropology (?), whether the researcher should observe the society being studied from the outside and formulate an objective position about it, or on the contrary live among them in order to understand their discourse and conduct.
I don’t remember sources right now, but it’s obvious that there are some. It also doesn’t really require sources; it’s completely obvious.