Q&A: On Secular Judaism
On Secular Judaism
Question
Through Secularization — a response to Rabbi Michael Abraham
Although I usually avoid getting deep into the weeds of specific debates, both for reasons of time and out of concern about boring my half-dozen loyal readers, sometimes I feel obligated to enter such a discussion—both because of the importance of the discussion itself, and because of the opportunity to demonstrate what a proper discussion looks like (that is, respectful, intellectually honest, etc.).
As a secular Jew, I read Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham’s booklet “Why There Is No Such Thing as Secular Judaism.” Of course, it is unpleasant to discover that your Judaism does not exist, and from such a short booklet no less. To my mind this is also important because if there is one style of discussion I do not like, it is definitional, dictionary-type arguments, because they usually hide the real discussion behind them. Think, for example, of questions like “Is there such a thing as a Palestinian people?” or “Are trans women women?”—usually that discussion conceals the real issue at hand (our attitude toward Palestinians and toward trans women), and I do not much like that lack of honesty. But precisely for that reason, and out of my great appreciation for Michi, I would be glad to answer what secular Judaism is.
Before that, a few points of agreement. First, it is a fact that there are secular Jews—that is, people whose ethnic-national origin is Jewish, and whose worldview is secular. The question is what their secular Judaism consists of, if such a thing exists. By analogy: there can be a communist Jew, but there is no connection between his communist views and his Jewish origin. If he were to claim that his Judaism is communist, he would need to offer further explanations. Second, every definition, in order to make sense, must have positive and non-circular content. Therefore a statement like “Secular Judaism is Judaism that does not recognize the existence of God” is not a good definition—it is partly circular (“Secular Judaism is Judaism…”) and partly negative (“does not recognize the existence of God”). Third, for the concept of secular Judaism to make sense, it must be distinguishable from other kinds of Judaism (otherwise it is not secular; it is just Judaism), while still being connected to them in other respects (otherwise it is not Judaism; it is just secularity).
With those agreements in place, we can move forward. Michael brings four common directions for secular Judaism—sovereignty (a familiar term in the thought of Ari Elon), historical affinity, values, and culture. I will not dwell on the first two because they interest me less, but I definitely will dwell on the next two.
First, regarding Jewish values. Michael’s claim is that the Jewish values people tend to attribute to Judaism—helping others, pluralism, and the like—are not Jewish values, but universal ones, meaning that every moral person holds them. From this it follows that they are not values unique to Judaism, and certainly not to secular Judaism. In Michael’s formulation, “definitions based on values are like defining a Jew on the basis that he wears clothes or has two legs.” True, there are people who see those same universal values as rooted in the Jewish bookshelf and Jewish tradition—repairing the world, “love your neighbor as yourself,” say—but they too came with those values from home. They do not derive values from the bookshelf. So, for example, when they encounter the commandment to wipe out Amalek, they do not derive the moral conclusion that genocide is acceptable, as the text implies; rather, they evade or openly reject the moral conclusion that does not fit their real values.
Here I disagree with Michael. First of all, the Jewish values are the ones that became universal. It is not our fault that Christianity and Islam developed out of Judaism and then spread those same values throughout the world. So perhaps that no longer distinguishes Judaism from the rest of the world morally, but that is the world’s problem, not the Jews’.
Moreover, I am not sure even that is true. There are values that really did not catch on throughout the world—say, concern for the stranger living among you (as opposed to concern for “others” generally, who often also belong to your in-group), or opposition to evil speech. Of course there are also non-Jews who care about the stranger or about evil speech, but I do not think it is a reasonable expectation that Jewish values be shared only by Jews, just as the fact that other peoples also have holidays on which people dress up does not make Purim any less of a Jewish holiday.
Furthermore, even if the values are shared by everyone, their prioritization is not necessarily the same. For example, if one accepts the commandment of “be killed rather than transgress,” then one can say that Judaism certainly establishes a value hierarchy different from others, at whose top stand the avoidance of bloodshed, forbidden sexual relations, and idolatry; and one can certainly imagine other peoples among whom that is not the case.
Finally, values are not only about morality. Think, for example, about striving for excellence, personal development, creativity. All these are not moral values, but human ones, and in my view there definitely are such values that are more Jewish—Judaism, in my opinion, as an ideology, advocates values of truth, creativity, and dispute. These values, which are not merely moral values, are distinctive characteristics of Judaism in my eyes. As evidence: it is no accident that Jews are especially represented in science, art, and law.
Of course, this only shows that these are Jewish values. But where is the secularity here? In what way do secular Jews differ from religious Jews, then? My answer would be: in the specific set of values, in the prioritization among them, and in their implementation. In far too many places in religious Judaism, concern for the stranger has been trampled into the dust, bloodshed has been permitted in the name of other religious commands, and there is suppression of creativity perceived as “not in line with our values.” At that point secular Jews step in and say: this is not our Judaism. Are they secular Jews, or liberal Jews? At that point, in my view, we are already entering dictionary-definition territory. The important point is that one can absolutely pour meaningful content into the concept of secular Judaism—Judaism that advocates values x, prioritization y, and implementation z.
And what about Michi’s second challenge? Do these values really draw from Judaism? Are people not taking their values from another source and then retrospectively searching for them in Judaism? In my opinion, no. First of all, in places where we are dealing with uniquely Jewish values, as I noted, where would they get them from if not from the Jewish bookshelf? Second, moral prioritizations are known to be especially difficult problems, for which there is no good solution even for someone who thinks he has a fixed source of authority. Therefore it makes sense that in such cases people look for inspiration and creative exits within the heritage of their people. In that sense, the values are not “drawn” from the Jewish bookshelf, but the solutions to dilemmas can certainly emerge from it, just as a conversation with a good friend may help me make a decision even if that friend is not a “source of authority.” Finally, it is worth noting that this requirement feels overly strict to me. Religious Jews too, in my opinion, do not really draw their values from Judaism, but often dress Judaism in them after the fact. So there are two options: either give up the strict requirement to take values from the Jewish canon even when they are inconvenient, or apply the requirement but accept that no one really does this, in which case it is unclear what the point of that requirement is.
By the way, it is completely clear that a large part—perhaps even most—of those who define themselves as secular Jews do not share my views on this subject at all. That is, of course, perfectly fine. Michael does not say that the extent to which secular Judaism is accepted among secular Jews is a condition for its existence (and rightly so). But that is already the secular Jews’ problem, not secular Judaism’s.
At the same time, Michi devotes the main part of his book to the cultural question—namely, whether there is such a thing as Judaism as a secular culture. Accordingly, I will devote my next post entirely to that question.
Answer
Many thanks for the response. I will address it relatively briefly.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of my main thesis (perhaps I can spare you the next post). These are not four directions of secular Judaism, but four planes on which one can examine the thesis that there is such a thing as secular Judaism. This is an important nuance, because my conclusion is that there is no problem whatsoever talking about secular Judaism in the ethnic sense, and also in the cultural sense (for some reason it seems to me that you understood from the booklet that I claim there is no such thing. That is what your next post will be devoted to). My main claim is that there is no secular Judaism in the value-based sense (and of course sovereignty is not relevant to the discussion at all). So from here on I will focus only on that.
I will divide the discussion into two parts following your division: A. universal values that originated in Judaism. B. values that remained unique only to Judaism (did not spread).
I claim that type B does not exist. But I will mainly discuss type A and comment on type B.
Even if the source of certain values is in Judaism (which factually I do not agree with at all), the relevant question is whether you adopt them because they are Jewish. Would a non-Jew who acts according to those values be Jewish according to you? That sounds very strange. Judaism is not only a collection of values (even if there were such things, and in my opinion there are not), but also the motivation by virtue of which you are committed to them. If you advocate a proper attitude toward the stranger—which you claim is a Jewish value, and which in my opinion really is not—do you advocate it because it is a Jewish value, or because in your view it is a proper value? Then how are you different from a non-Jew who also thinks it is a proper value? You are Jewish and he is not? At most, you are a gentile of the religion of Moses (metaphorically. I mean an ethnic Jew—in other words, a gentile in his culture who is ethnically Jewish). By contrast, I uphold the values of Jewish law because this is Jewish law, not because they seem right to me. Therefore I am Jewish also on the value level.
Let me clarify regarding values that became universal that I am not dealing at all with questions of blame. It is clear to me factually that values that originated in Judaism and in the Torah have now spread throughout most of the world, and nobody is to blame for the world becoming more moral. On the contrary, I am very happy about that. But to say that you are Jewish because you behave morally and the source of morality is in Judaism is logically ridiculous. A Jew may have invented trousers, and perhaps once only Jews wore trousers. So if I wear trousers today, can that be seen as my Judaism?
If everyone dresses up on Purim, then Purim is indeed not a Jewish holiday. It will be Jewish only if my costume on Purim is done because of my being Jewish (this is not about psychological causation, but about a value-based consideration), and in that I differ from non-Jews. But if I dress up for the same reasons others dress up, and I happen to be ethnically Jewish, I would not define myself as a value-based Jew (or even a cultural one) because I dress up.
The difference between moral values and other values has been discussed on my site at length several times (I spoke about aesthetic values, for example, or self-realization and the like, as values not belonging to the sphere of morality). But even if there are such values, they are not Jewish in any sense except perhaps their source (and even regarding that I have very serious doubts. Most of them are of Protestant origin, as Max Weber rightly wrote). This is because of my arguments above, which also apply to such values: the question is whether they are unique to us—clearly not. And if they are not unique, then you can use them to define your Judaism only if your motivation toward them is your being Jewish and your commitment to Judaism, which of course is not what happens in our case. You are committed to them because you identify with them, just like any non-Jew who identifies with them and upholds them. We are back to the previous discussion.
The examples you brought regarding the difference between a religious Jew and a secular Jew are crude generalizations that do not stand the test of reality or logic. Even if in your opinion many religious people trample morality (I doubt there is a more severe problem there than among secular people), can you define secular Judaism as Judaism that is faithful to morality? That is nonsense. Are there no religious people who are faithful to morality? So in your view are they secular Jews? And if there are non-Jews who are faithful to morality, are they also secular Jews?
I fully agree with your point at the end that there is no requirement that all secular people agree with you. It would have been enough for me if you had succeeded in establishing a coherent and non-empty definition of secular Judaism that is yours (even if not accepted by all secular people). My problem is only that you did not succeed in doing so.
All the best,
Discussion on Answer
If in your eyes a non-Jew who acts according to those values would be Jewish in a value-based sense, then the dispute is purely semantic. You claim that Judaism is whatever Judaism brought into the world in the past, regardless of its present status. According to your method, whoever acts accordingly is Jewish (that is, his values are Jewish). Good health to you. You have simply defined the concept of Judaism differently. I can also say that Jewish values are all the values that begin with the letter yod. In short, we have no disagreement. You opened your first response by saying there is no point in semantic clarifications as such. The question is what the implication is.
If there were values unique to us, the question of motivation would still be important, but I would be willing to accept someone who says that in his opinion it is not important. He could still speak about Jewish values in a way that is understandable and clear. The emphasis on freedom above every other value is not Jewish in any sense. That is your personal emphasis, without a shred of connection to Judaism. By the way, many people share it, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Regarding universal values whose source is in Judaism, you are returning to a semantic discussion. Your intention is to define them as Jewish values. That has no meaning whatsoever; it is just semantics.
I will just explain why in my opinion motivation is very important. Someone who gives charity because he wants publicity, or because he was jogging for his health and a few coins fell from him along the way into the hands of a poor person, is not a moral person even though he acts in a way that appears moral. Regarding systems of values and commitment to them, motivation is precisely what determines things (or at least serves as a necessary condition, even if not sufficient). If his motivation is to do so because it is the moral act, then he is a moral person. If he does it for some other motivation, then he is not a moral person. The same applies to commitment to Judaism. Commitment to Judaism is acting according to what Judaism says because Judaism says so. If you happen to do what Judaism says for external reasons—in other words, the correlation is accidental—that is not value-based commitment to Judaism. To my mind not only is this not far-fetched; it is positively trivial.
As for your proposal of a non-consensual secular Judaism—for example, commitment to give charity and keep the Sabbath, and that’s it—this is thoroughly religious proposal. The only difference is that the religion one observes is just part of the religion that I observe. So what? You can of course propose a formal-technical definition like: secular Judaism is commitment not to make shoes with an odd number of nails. That is coherent, even if not agreed upon. Obviously I am not arguing with the fact that this is possible; I would only claim that it is an empty formal move. Because even you yourself do not think that this is Judaism. There is a difference between saying that I do not see broad agreement as a binding requirement and the obvious assumption that the definition must be reasonable and not just empty formalism. Do you really think that any coherent definition of anything on earth can count as secular Judaism because it is coherent even if not agreed upon? Does that sound to you like a reasonable interpretation of what I said? A very strange claim. There are things that are self-evident, such that even if you do not say them, it is obvious that they are in the background. I also did not write that the definition has to be made of words.
Hi Michi,
Okay, so if that is the case, I would be glad to understand what in your view counts as a definition of Judaism (secular or in general) that is not trivial or merely semantic. You are of course welcome to use religious Judaism.
You claim that the emphasis on freedom is my personal emphasis with not a shred of connection to Judaism. I would claim that your emphasis on Jewish law is your personal emphasis, with not a shred of connection to Judaism. How do you propose to decide? As I said, I think I gave a reasonable, non-empty definition, according to which Judaism in general and secular Judaism in particular are expressed in specific value-prioritization (secular Jewish) and specific practices (secular Jewish ones). I would be glad to understand why this is not a reasonable definition, because to me it sounds very reasonable indeed.
Regarding motivation—as noted, I agreed that motivation is important in order to say something about the person’s value-commitment. I still do not understand why it is important in order to say something about the nature of the value itself. Again and again you are essentially bringing the definition of Judaism back to the question of who is a Jew, which is a separate question. If according to the definition of Judaism I gave there is a non-Jew who is Jewish in a value-based sense, I have no problem with that whatsoever and I do not see it as a refutation, just as I can speak German without being German. In any case we also agreed that to the sociological question of who is a Jew one can give an ethnic/national/historical answer, so why in the value-based question must it too be directed toward the sociological question of who is a Jew?
There is a very simple answer to that: there is no such definition. That is exactly my claim in the booklet.
One can claim that cobblers are the real mathematicians, and the fact that mathematicians think that what they do is what mathematics is—that is just semantics, meaning a debate of equal standing between two sides. I have nothing to do with such a strange discussion.
On everything else I have, to my mind, answered well. I do not see what I am supposed to add.
The distinction between the value itself and commitment to it is also semantic. You can also define as a secular Jew someone who keeps the 613 commandments simply because he feels like it (Ahad Ha’am). That is coherent, and in that case it is even true that his values are indeed Jewish values. Except that there are no such Jews. Whereas there are people of every shade and type who uphold universal values whose source is in Judaism; and if you call all of those Jews, good for you. To continue the analogy, the physicist can claim that he is a mathematician because he uses mathematics in his research. But he is not—he is a physicist, not a mathematician, even though the source of his “values” (that is, the tools he uses) is indeed in mathematics.
If there is no definition of Judaism in general, then certainly the whole discussion of secular Judaism specifically is pointless. I will ask again directly: is there, in your view, any definition of Judaism that is coherent? Reading between the lines, it seems to me that you think Judaism is commitment to observance of Jewish law, and a Jew is someone who both feels committed and actually does it, but I would not want to put words in your mouth. Presumably if your definition of Judaism is religious, then the whole dispute is semantic, because you define Judaism as religion and I do not define Judaism as religion—but then why write an entire book?
To use your analogy: if the mathematician insists that he is a mathematician without defining mathematics, then indeed it is a barren discussion. To my mind the difference here is more like a theoretical mathematician claiming about applied mathematicians that he and only he do real mathematics and they do something else that may perhaps be related but is not mathematics, while I am simply claiming that both are mathematicians. Likewise—in my view it is intuitive to say that Judaism is value-prioritization and practices, and secular Judaism is a different prioritization and different practices. I still do not understand what is problematic about this definition. דווקא here I think formalism would help—what, in your view, are the conditions for a good definition of Judaism of type X, and in which of those conditions does my definition fail?
At the same time, I see that again you return to the question of whom we call Jews (I did not understand why; I thought we agreed that this is an ethnic/national/historical definition and not a value-based one), so I will ask directly this time as well: does the definition of Judaism depend on what Jews do? If so, what is the nature of that connection in your view? Correlative? Causal?
That is exactly my claim. One can propose formalistic and empty definitions for anything. So what? That is just a definition. No one would argue with me that my definition of Judaism is a definition with content and not empty formalism. Even if you are secular and do not agree with it, you would admit that it is such. By contrast, the alternatives are empty. That is my main claim in the booklet. It is a claim and not a definition. On the contrary, the alternatives are just definitions. The discussion is not pointless, but comes after we reached the conclusion I propose. After that, indeed nothing can succeed. The question is whether I am right that no alternative can be found that could succeed. In my view, no—but that can be discussed.
The analogy to mathematics is perfect. The problem is not that the mathematician has no definition of mathematics. If only because in fact there is no such definition. But it is clear to everyone that what he does is indeed mathematics. Now someone else comes and proposes an alternative. He must show that this is indeed an alternative worthy of the same name—that is, that it is of the same type and yet different. That is exactly our situation. Even if I have no definition (and I do), it does not really matter. What was called Jewish until now is certainly what I describe and not what you describe. Now you are proposing a different definition. The burden of proof is on you to show that this is something else and yet of the same kind. What it is called is really unimportant. A purely semantic matter.
Therefore the question of whom we call Jews or mathematicians is also relevant, although I am not willing to grant it absolute authority in the discussion. It determines the original meaning of the concept. From that point on, anyone who proposes an alternative bears the burden of proof. In our case, as I explained, everyone would certainly agree with me that what I describe is called Jewish. Now the burden of proof is on you.
I suspect, then, that I do not understand what you mean by “empty” or “mere” definitions. My definition sounds to me contentful and not empty formalism, no less than your definition (which you still have not told me what it is, so it cannot be discussed directly) of Judaism. I truly cannot understand. Even if we set my definition aside and focus on the alternatives in your book, in what sense are the alternatives you describe in your book “mere definitions” or “empty,” whereas your definition is not “just a definition”?
Of course definitions are never perfect, but that does not mean the thing itself does not exist, just as the difficulty of defining mathematics does not mean there is no such thing as mathematics. Or if you want to say that secular Judaism exists in the same way mathematics exists, that is enough for me. But it seems to me you would not wonder why so many people devote their energy and time to mathematics, so there is also no reason to wonder at the number of secular study halls and the like.
By the way, even regarding mathematics I do not understand your intention. Of course it is difficult to define mathematics fully, and still there are definitions that are closer and farther away. Someone who defines mathematics as the study of numbers and relations is closer in his definition than someone who defines mathematics as the liquid that comes from a cow’s udder, and all the more so the former definition is better than “there is no definition.” Accordingly, my definition of secular Judaism sounds to me much better than “there is no definition.”
My definition is very simple. Judaism is Jewish law, and a person who is Jewish in a value-based sense is someone committed to it. What is unclear here?
Your definition is completely empty. It seems to me like someone defining secular Judaism through shoes and the number of nails. It is simply taking something that is not Judaism in any sense (except perhaps its origin in the past) and calling it Judaism. This is an empty formal matter. I gave the example of mathematics, and I do not see what there is to add. This is in no way related to the difficulty of defining mathematics. Whether one can define it or not, it is clear to all of us what mathematics is, and anyone who wants to propose a different definition bears the burden of proof.
I feel I have exhausted this.
If you decide that Judaism is Jewish law and commitment to it, then clearly secular Judaism cannot exist. But that is not an argument; it is a definition. In my opinion (and in the opinion of others), what I describe (values, prioritization, practices) is definitely Judaism as well (and certainly this is nothing like shoes and number of nails), but that too is of course only a definition. The question is whether there is any value in the discussion “which definition is preferable.” If not, then indeed the discussion has been exhausted (and in fact never even began).
From what you have said so far, the impression is that you do think some definitions of Judaism are better than others, since you keep repeating that my definition is “completely empty” and yours is not, but I still do not understand what “empty” means, and by what parameter your definition is better. One can think of all sorts of parameters for a good definition: logical coherence, simplicity, how acceptable it is to the reasonable person, how it deals with borderline cases, and so on. So by what parameter is my definition worse?
As for the burden of proof—I seem to remember that the burden is on the one who seeks to extract from another. You are the one claiming that my definition is completely empty (not even mostly or partly!). That is a fairly strong and non-trivial claim, so it seems to me that the burden of proof is on you.
It seems to me we are close to exhausting the discussion. My feeling is that I have explained everything, and I do not see in your remarks any claim that still requires an answer from me. We are repeating ourselves. Therefore I will summarize my claims with one more comment that adds a little to what has already been said, on the subject of the burden of proof and “the burden is on the one who seeks to extract.”
1. No one disputes that my definition holds water and fits the content of the concept “Judaism” perfectly. The definition is: commitment to Jewish law. Do you dispute that this is a legitimate definition that holds water? (Quite apart from the question whether, in your opinion, Jewish law is binding, of course.) Do you dispute that this was the accepted definition, at least until about 200 years ago? If so, then it seems to me we have a problem in logic or in the historical facts. By the way, this was the situation until just a few decades ago and no more than that (that is, not merely since the Haskalah period). That was the situation until the new trend of secular Judaism arose, a few decades ago. Until then almost everyone (including secular people, even once such people already existed) agreed that Judaism is Torah and Jewish law, except that there were those who did not accept that upon themselves and saw themselves as ethnic Jews and perhaps cultural Jews, but not value-based Jews. That was basically an appeal to universality and not to another Judaism. The only Jewish element in secular Judaism back then could have been Zionism—that is, establishing a state. But the religious also shared in that, and it is hard to see it as secular Judaism (after all, the Belgians also want a state of their own; wanting a state is not a type of Judaism). In any event, only in the last two generations (in my opinion because of frustration and feelings of inferiority) have people begun trying to propose an alternative definition of Judaism, and thus secular Judaism (as distinct from secular Jews) was created out of thin air. With the stroke of a word they decided to replace the cultural and ethnic Jew with Jewish value-content. They simply called it something else (that is exactly what you are doing). My booklet was written against this strange phenomenon.
2. The definition you propose as an alternative is someone who is faithful to Jewish values. When I ask what Jewish values are, you answer in two ways: values whose source is in Judaism, or a value dosage that is unique to secular Judaism. I argue that the first is insufficient and the second does not exist.
There is no dosage characteristic of secular Judaism or of Judaism in general. The same value disputes that exist in the broader world exist in religious Judaism and certainly in secular Judaism. Moreover, even among secular Jews there is no agreement on any shared dosage, so according to that, what is shared by all of them that entitles them to belong to the same group (secular Judaism)?
The first is insufficient because it is historical and not value-based. You are not committed to those values because they are Jewish, but because you identify with them and their source also happens to be Jewish. In that sense I am a secular Eskimo because I wear a coat and am sensitive to the cold. Of course, that describes almost all the inhabitants of the world (there is no principled difference between you and any non-Jew anywhere else—and, by the way, not between you and a religious Jew either. There are also groups among the religious with completely different value dosages).
3. I brought the example of the cobbler and the nails and that of mathematics as examples of what I call an empty definition. You can of course claim that cobbling is another kind of mathematics. One cannot argue with an arbitrary definition. But it is stupid and empty. That is exactly your definition. And now I will explain better why it is empty, and this brings me to the question of the burden of proof.
4. I will begin with a short lesson on “the burden is on the one who seeks to extract.” Before your proposal, if I claim that you owe me one hundred shekels, the burden of proof is on me, because I am claiming that when you deny the debt, you are lying. So I come to extract from you (that is, to claim that your claim is false or mistaken), and therefore the burden of proof is on me. You understand that this empties the principle of “the burden is on the one who seeks to extract” of all meaning. According to that, both sides are extracting from the other. Therefore the sensible and halakhic definition of this is the opposite: the burden of proof is on whoever comes to change the existing state of affairs. You are claiming one hundred shekels—that means you want to change the existing state of affairs, since right now the money is with me. You want it to move to you, and therefore the burden of proof is on you. That is exactly the case here: the existing state of affairs (until the last few decades, as described here in section 1) was the state of affairs I describe. You come to extract from it. Therefore the burden of proof is on you.
To sum up: A. the burden of proof is on you. B. You did not discharge it (your definition is empty). QED.
Then I too will summarize. By the way, in my opinion there is no repetitiveness in this discussion; there is no difficulty at all in seeing exactly where it stands and what is required to continue it:
You claim that there is no secular Judaism in the value-based sense; I claim that there is. From this arise two questions: are there Jewish values at all? And if there are Jewish values, are there secular Jewish values?
Are there Jewish values at all?
I made three claims—there are Jewish values in terms of their source, there is a Jewish prioritization of values (or dosage), and there is a Jewish implementation of values (I touched on each of these only with examples, but they could all be developed into a full argument).
You responded to all three claims with two claims: first, that the Jewishness of values (or their prioritization, or implementation) is determined by motivation and not by source. Second, that the values (or their prioritization and implementation) are not characteristic of Jews at all, and therefore cannot be considered Jewish.
Regarding your first claim about motivation, I answered that it makes more sense to determine the Jewishness of values according to their source, for two reasons: A. the motivation for performing an act testifies about the person, not about the value itself. B. classifying values according to their source allows for a division that is fixed and does not change depending on external factors.
At this point you stopped answering these arguments of mine directly. Instead, you gave your own explanation (which has its place) of why motivation is important for determining the Jewishness of values, but you did not offer an argument against or a refutation of the two reasons above. Instead you argued that I had simply “redefined” what Jewish values are, and that this is only a semantic dispute. I do not think my explanations for why it is preferable to determine the Jewishness of values according to source are any less respectable than your explanation. This is the first point at which the discussion can continue—a direct response to my arguments above.
Despite that, the discussion continued regarding the question of what makes a definition good or appropriate. Here began a sequence of remarks (dismissive, if I may say so) that my definition is “stupid” or “empty.” What I am asking is to understand what these parameters are that, in your view, make a definition better or worse, because “empty” or “stupid” are not clear concepts that explain what you expect from a good definition. That is the second point at which the discussion can continue—clarifying the parameters that make a definition good.
Returning to your second claim, according to which there are no values (or prioritization, or implementation) characteristic of Jews. Sometimes you also present this claim by way of negation: if one accepts the set of values I propose, then one must also define complete non-Jews as Jews, for those values are not characteristic only of Jews.
My response split into two parts. First, those values need not characterize Jews as opposed to non-Jews, but rather Judaism as opposed to other worldviews, or if you like, value-Jews as opposed to value-non-Jews. In that sense, I have no problem with the term “a non-Jew who is Jewish in a value-based sense” or “a Jew with gentile values,” since the distinction between Jews and non-Jews is an ethnic/national/historical distinction, not a value-based one. If these statements are absurd in your eyes and require no answer, nu, so be it. Believe me that they are said sincerely and in complete seriousness. But this is the third point at which the discussion can continue—an explanation of why there is an absurdity here, or why there is a need for the value-based division between Jews and non-Jews to correspond to the ethnic/national/historical division.
Second, I proposed (mainly in the post, but also here throughout the discussion) what I see as a set of Jewish values, prioritizations, and implementations (freedom, dispute, etc.) that are characteristic of Judaism. Each time you claimed that none of them is characteristic of Judaism, but you did not justify those claims; you were satisfied with saying that this is “obvious,” whereas I think it is not obvious at all. This is the fourth point at which the discussion can continue—to examine the set of values, prioritizations, and implementations, and how characteristic it is of Judaism.
Are there secular Jewish values?
Here perhaps the repetitiveness in the discussion appears, simply because the sequence of arguments here is identical. In my opinion, in the same way, and for the same reasons, that one can speak of a set of Jewish values, prioritizations, and implementations, one can speak more specifically of a set of secular Jewish values, prioritizations, and implementations. And it seems to me that for the same reasons you do not accept my general claims above, you also do not accept my specific claims here. Still, this is the fifth point at which the discussion can continue—accepting that there are Jewish values, prioritizations, and implementations, but disputing the possibility of creating a set of values, prioritizations, and implementations that would distinguish secular Jews from religious ones.
Finally, and without direct connection to these, the question arose as to who bears the burden of proof in the context of defining Judaism in general. Your claim is that the burden is on me because I am trying to replace an existing and accepted definition with a new and unaccepted one. Here I will answer directly: your definition of religious Judaism exists and is accepted, but it does not encompass the full concept of Judaism, precisely because of the developments you mention in the last 200 years—the Haskalah movement, Zionism, etc.—and all the more so the recent development of secular Judaism (which, by the way, is certainly not an invention of recent decades; for example, Bialik was writing about the Sabbath more than 100 years ago). Accordingly—had I been trying to give a new definition of religious Judaism, certainly the burden of proof would be on me. But since I am proposing a broader definition that is sensitive to these developments, as against a frozen and problematic definition, I do not think the burden of proof is on me. In any case, even if I accept that the burden of proof is on me, it seems we do not agree at all on what is required to discharge it, since I think I discharged it quite well whereas you think I did not discharge it at all.
If you want to continue the discussion, I have indicated how I think it can continue. If you want to stop, that is also fine. In any case, I wish you a happy Independence Day, and thank you again for your books, which always provoke me to think (even if only rarely to agree with their conclusions).
With great appreciation,
P.S. You wrote that people began trying to propose an alternative definition of Judaism, in your opinion, because of frustration and feelings of inferiority. Of course, that is a psychological explanation and not a philosophical one (according to your distinction, which I like very much). I wonder whether you understand how statements of this kind do not advance the discussion but only damage it.
I thought that all the same it would be proper to make a few comments on your summary, even though I have already written all of them in one form or another (as noted, with us almost everything is already repeating itself).
Of course there are Jewish values: Jewish law.
For the value itself to be Jewish, motivation is not needed. For you to count as Jewish because of your commitment to it, motivation is required. There is a difference between a moral value and a moral person. A person who upholds moral values from a different motivation, such as a desire to become famous and receive honor, is not a moral person, even though he acts according to moral values.
Indeed there is no Jewish prioritization of values that are universal (that is, moral values). The disputes over prioritization exist among non-Jews just as among Jews, and there is nothing Jewish about one prioritization or another. Of course one can define that someone who prioritizes the value of charity over every other value in the world is a secular Jew. There are millions of such definitions. They are empty. Make a combinatorial calculation among all moral values and you will get a number of subsets equal to 2 to the power of the number of values. You can always choose one of them and declare that this is a new type of morality. If you act from moral motivation, then perhaps you may even be right. For our purposes, none of the subsets of moral values—even if I were willing to see one of them as a new kind of morality—can define another Judaism (a secular one). It is simply arbitrary. Exactly like the cobbler with the nails. You choose some subset that does not single out Judaism in any way, and then announce that every non-Jew in the world who acts accordingly is also a secular Jew. These are word games.
A formalistic definition that has no connection to reality in any way (like the example I gave here about charity, or any arbitrary subset of moral values) is an empty definition of Judaism. I have no intention of insulting. The claim is entirely substantive.
There is no explanation in your remarks of what is Jewish about the set of values you chose and your special prioritization (which in my opinion does not exist, that is, it is not special). You can of course always define it arbitrarily as Judaism and then declare that the whole world is Jewish and that this does not bother you. But if the whole world is Jewish, or if an eclectic collection of people in the world who do not see themselves as Jews are called secular Jews according to you, then your definition of Jew is empty. And again, this is not an insult but a logical statement. Disputes over values and different prioritizations exist in many places and among many groups, non-Jews and Jews alike. The same goes for your example of freedom. The dosage you described (in a very general way) exists among a great many people in the world, none of whom sees himself as Jewish, and rightly so. And on the other hand, it also does not exist among many Jews who do see themselves as secular Jews. There is nothing Jewish in it except that you declare it to be a Jewish set of values and prioritization. One can always look in the mirror and declare that what I see is secular Judaism. That is what I call an empty definition—an ad hoc one.
At the end of your remarks you simply assume what is in dispute. You explain that my definition did indeed come first and is recognized by everyone (including you), except that it is not full and exhaustive because it does not include the new developments. That is precisely my claim—that these developments are not Judaism. You claim that they are. Why? Presumably because the mother of the people in question was Jewish (an ethnic-halakhic definition). But we are discussing Judaism and not Jews, and you yourself keep repeating that there is no problem with your “Jewish” set of values characterizing many non-Jews as well. Moreover, if my definition came first and the later developments are the very body of our dispute, then the burden of proof is on you.
To conclude, I truly think the motive behind these strange proposals is frustration and inferiority feelings. I experience this at every moment, and the strongest indication of it is the very weak arguments underlying these proposals, which do not fit the intelligent people who raise them. I really did not intend to insult. I am describing here my factual assessment. As for the place of such statements, I have written more than once that if such statements (= you are acting from this or that psychological motive) are raised as an argument (that is, in place of a substantive philosophical argument), they are illegitimate and of course also unhelpful to the discussion. But after substantive arguments are raised showing that a certain position does not hold water, and especially if an intelligent person raises it, I may conclude that my interlocutor is acting from one motive or another. If this is a conclusion and not an argument, there is nothing illegitimate about it. That is truly how I see things.
All the best and a happy Independence Day.
Where can one read the above-mentioned booklet? Thanks.
It was published by Ivrit, in digital format only.
Hi Michi,
I cannot prevent repetitiveness, but I do try to advance the discussion, that is, to bring it closer to its goals. Of course, a discussion can have several goals—persuading the other side (that is, changing his positions), sharpening the arguments (that is, exposing basic assumptions and the structure of the argument), clarifying points of disagreement that cannot be bridged (that is, what exactly the disagreement is and what the basic assumptions are that prevent resolving it), and so on. It may look as though I am repeating myself, but I am actually trying to understand more deeply your basic assumptions and the logical structure of your argument, and also to clarify the basic assumptions and logical structure of my own argument, because these are necessary for each of the goals of the discussion. This is also why, in my previous response, I took care as best I could to clarify the points of disagreement in the discussion or to understand what you mean by the word “empty.”
It seems to me that your last response—if it is even trying to continue the discussion at all (and it may well not be)—touches on the points I marked as the second way (the nature of the definition), the third (the very need for correspondence to the ethnic division), and the fourth (how characteristic the set is of the ethnic division) of continuing the discussion, as well as on a new point about what Judaism is in general. Precisely on this last point I am not sure there is much to discuss—it seems that you assume Judaism is only Jewish law, whereas I do not assume that. This is the fundamental point of disagreement, and everything else rolls on from there. If you think that for you this is not an assumption but rather a claim based on prior assumptions, I would be glad to understand what they are and what the structure of the argument is.
Regarding the nature of the definition, I understand that for you an empty definition is one that is not connected to reality (or, later in your remarks, “ad hoc.” These are two different things, but never mind). Of course the question is what the nature of that “connection to reality” is that you seek. It seems to me that the connection you seek is: “a definition x is connected to reality if it applies to the people who define themselves as x and does not apply to people who do not define themselves as x.” If I have not understood correctly the connection to reality, please correct me. If that is an assumption for you, fine. For me it certainly is not, since I dispute it directly in the third point—the very need for correspondence to the ethnic division. If it is not an assumption but a claim, then as I said I would be glad to understand the basic assumptions and the structure of the argument. To me this is too strict a requirement, since people have all sorts of strange psychological considerations in their self-definition. So, for example, conspiracy enthusiasts never define themselves as conspiracy enthusiasts. I have no need whatsoever for their self-definition in order to define them as such; it is enough for me to define them as such according to the primary definitions of “what is a conspiracy” and what it means “to like.” Accordingly, once I have defined values (or prioritization, or practice) as Jewish according to their source, I no longer need the self-definitions or social definitions you describe. In this sense it seems to me that the question of the nature of the definition and the very need for correspondence to an ethnic division merge—unless you think there are other parameters by which my definition fails.
Finally, regarding the fourth point (which to my mind is actually the most interesting one) about how characteristic the set is of the ethnic division (of course, detached from the previous question, that is, under the assumption that such a characteristic quality is required)—I think there is room to discuss what “characterizes” means. I will discuss precisely something you do agree with, namely Jewish law. Certainly there are ethnic Jews who are not committed to all of Jewish law; there are also ethnic Jews who are not committed to Jewish law at all. But one can make two claims. A. On average, ethnic Jews are more committed to Jewish law than someone who is not ethnically Jewish. When looked at this way, it actually seems to me that there definitely are Jewish values—that is, values to which ethnic Jews are on average more committed than those who are not ethnically Jewish—such as the value of dispute, which I already mentioned, or Zionism. One can talk about each value separately or about their dosage, but what interests me more is whether you accept the claim about statistical commitment, as opposed to personal commitment. A second, more complex claim would be: B. Statistically, ethnic Jews associate value x with their Judaism more than those who are not ethnically Jewish do. That is: there may be many non-Jews who see freedom as a supreme value, and many Jews who see freedom as a supreme value with no connection at all to Judaism. But the claim is that among the group of Jews who see freedom as a supreme value, statistically they connect it to their Judaism.
Finally, I agree that there is no problem in deriving a psychological motive as a conclusion and not as part of the discussion. But in my opinion even deriving it as a conclusion is problematic, because to me it is intellectually immodest—but that is already a whole other topic. Maybe I will write to you about it on another occasion.
Have a good week,
Hello.
I am a bit exhausted and feel that the main points have been clarified. Still, I will try to address briefly a few points you raised here.
Judaism is only Jewish law, but that is not an assumption; it is the body of my claim. It is a result of the arguments I raised. I do not see what I have to add to that.
An empty definition for our purposes is an ad hoc definition. That is not different from a definition that is not connected to reality. An ad hoc definition is one you set up without connection to existing data in reality. A detached definition that preserves coherence but is empty of relevant content. If you posit it, you can preserve consistency, but you have lost contact with reality.
I do not require the definition to match people’s self-perception, but there does have to be a strong correlation. In our case—there is no such correlation. The connection to reality is not conformity to self-definition but to the historical and common understanding of the concept. Of course there are many who understand it as you do, but the majority does not decide. This definition has no connection to the content of the concept in the past, and it is a change that does not preserve connection to the previous content; therefore it is an empty definition. Even if a majority were to hold it. If most people decide that making shoes with a certain number of nails is Judaism, that is an empty definition. Likewise if most people decide that cobbling, or wearing trousers, is a branch of mathematics (after all, almost all mathematicians wear trousers).
There are many ethnic Jews who are not committed to Jewish law, but they are mistaken in this. As far as I am concerned, every ethnic Jew is committed to Jewish law, even if he violates that commitment.
The fact that you are not committed to Jewish law is irrelevant. What I asked was whether you do not concede that the definition of Judaism as Jewish law is certainly not empty and is a legitimate possibility.
That is all.
Hi Michael, and thanks for the answer,
Indeed, the situation regarding the cultural sense is more complex, which is why I also wanted to discuss it separately in the next post (among other things, the relationship between culture and values in this context).
I will answer the questions you raise, but in general I think it is proper first of all to answer regarding Judaism in general before diving into secular Judaism specifically. You ask: “Would a non-Jew who acts according to those values be Jewish according to you?” My answer is that he is not Jewish, but his values are Jewish. As you yourself say, the question of who is a Jew and what Judaism is are two different questions, because one is an ethnic-historical question (and as such, it does not interest me), and the other is a question about a worldview or ideology. There is no contradiction here at all. And likewise regarding your statement: “How is a non-Jew who also thinks this is a proper value different from you? You are Jewish and he is not?”—that is strange. Certainly: I am Jewish ethnically and in my values, and he is a non-Jew ethnically-historically and (perhaps) Jewish in his values. There is no logical difficulty here. This confusion reaches its peak in your statement: “At most, you are a gentile of the religion of Moses (metaphorically. I mean an ethnic Jew—in other words, a gentile in his culture who is ethnically Jewish).” There is no connection here to culture, as we established, but perhaps you meant to say: “You are an ethnic Jew who is a gentile in his values,” and of course I disagree with that, since my values are Jewish, and if a non-Jew wants to share in them, he is welcome to do so. The same answer is also relevant to the cluster of questions at the end—certainly there are moral secular Jews and moral religious Jews. But at the points where there are disputes between religious Jewish values and secular Jewish values, or between a secular implementation and a religious implementation of Jewish values in general, that is where the differences between religious Judaism and secular Judaism emerge.
I would be glad if you would answer me regarding the existence of Jewish values in general and secular ones in particular, because it seems to me that you too admit this is critical. You write: “The question whether they are unique to us—clearly not. And if they are not unique, then you can use them to define your Judaism only if your motivation toward them is your being Jewish and your commitment to Judaism, which of course is not what happens in our case.” That is, to the best of my understanding, you accept that if they are unique to us, the question of motivation is not relevant. If so, I would be glad to know why you do not think there are values unique to Judaism, especially with emphasis on what I said in the post: that even if the general set of values is universal, the uniqueness is expressed in their prioritization and in their practical expression. For example—freedom is a universal value, but emphasizing freedom above almost every other value (as expressed in redeeming captives) is a Jewish value-prioritization (or perhaps nowadays a secular Jewish one), and choosing to express this by hanging a banner may be a secular implementation, whereas a religious implementation would be offering a prayer for the safety of the hostages. Here too I do not see any logical problem.
So regarding universal values whose source is in Judaism:
You claim that the important thing is the motivational question: whether I “adopt them because they are Jewish,” in your words. That claim strikes me as strange in two senses. First, the discussion was about whether there are Jewish values. Why is the motivation for holding a value relevant to the nature of the value? If giving charity to another is a value, what difference does it make whether people do so for tax reasons? One can say (under certain ethical assumptions) about those people that they perhaps do not hold that value, but why does that say anything about the value itself? In the same way, it may be that secular Jews and non-Jews uphold these values for reasons that are not Jewish; that says nothing about the values themselves. In fact, I classify a value as Jewish or not according to its source, whereas you classify it as Jewish according to the motivations for upholding it. To my mind that is a much less logically coherent approach. If tomorrow the State of Israel changes its tax laws, will the value-classification of giving charity to another change? This is not only a hypothetical example—there are countries in the world where the Sabbath is a day of rest, and countries where it is not. Does the value of not working on the Sabbath become Jewish or not depending on the country you are in? Certainly not. People’s motivations change from time to time and place to place; the values remain fixed (it seems to me you told me in our previous conversation that you are a Platonist with respect to morality, so it seems to me you would agree with me on this question). By the same token, I would answer yes regarding trousers—if wearing trousers had a Jewish source, then wearing them would be a Jewish custom that all the inhabitants of the world adopted. There is no logical difficulty here.
Second, and perhaps more importantly—you are smuggling in a requirement through the back door. You claim that all you want is to establish a coherent and non-empty definition of secular Judaism. That is of course not difficult at all—here is one: “Secular Judaism is commitment to the set of values according to which a person is obligated to fight idolatry, bloodshed, and forbidden sexual relations, but not leaven on Passover.” Simple, coherent, and non-empty. Is this definition agreed upon by all secular people? By all Jews? By all humanity? Certainly not—but you yourself said that is not a requirement. Your problem with this definition is not logical coherence, emptiness, or circularity; rather, your problem with this definition is the question whether this set of values is Jewish, and specifically whether it is secular Jewish. My claim is simple: if there are Jewish values—no matter under what definition—it is easy to generate a subset of values in order to give a coherent and non-empty definition of secular Jewish values. Even if you do not accept that there are Jewish values at all, but want to define Judaism only in terms of praxis (a definition with its own problems, but never mind), it is easy to generate a subset of practices in order to give a coherent and non-empty definition of secular Jewish values. The limitation here is not logical, but at most psychological-sociological, namely: “Do you feel comfortable calling a non-Jew who shares those values a secular Jew?”—and here answers from the psychological-sociological realm also suffice (he is not from the same ethnic group, there is no covenant of fate / covenant of destiny between us, etc.).
With great appreciation as always,