Aptly characterized as the "conscience of Israel,"
Yeshayahu Leibowitz has been, since the early 1940s, perhaps the most incisive
and controversial critic of Israeli culture and politics. His stance has been
characteristically polemical, his criticism trenchant and caustic: government
policies, the religious establishment, shibboleths of Israeli society,
conceptions have all been derided by him in turn. He is hard-hitting, persistent
in argument, and still indefatigable in pressing his views. (At the age of 86 he
thought nothing of flying to Germany to participate in a television panel on an
issue close to his heart and returning the following day to Israel to meet
several appointments.) Because of his highly individual views and uncompromising
adherence to principle, he has never remained attached for long to a political
party – although he was, at least on one occasion, instrumental in founding one.
On specific issue he has small groups of ardent supporters, whom he has
succeeded in goading into effective action. Quite often they disagree with him
on other issues; they may even fail to follow his line of thought. Because his
conclusions are often grounded in idiosyncratic considerations, he is often
admired for the wrong reasons. His views on political questions meet with angry
dissent and often provoke vehement reactions from the general public, but he
seems to enjoy the Socratic role of the gadfly and remains undaunted by an
unfavorable reception of his message.
In a tribute to Leibowitz on the occasion of his
eightieth birthday, Sir Isaiah Berlin remarked: "It is not so much his
intellectual attainments and achievements as a thinker and teacher that have
made so profound an impression on me…as the unshakable moral and political stand
which he took up for so many years in the face of so much pressure to be
sensible, to be realistic, not to let down the side, not to give comfort to the
enemy, not to fight against conventional current wisdom… Professor Leibowitz has
never betrayed the ideals and beliefs which brought him to this country
[Israel]. He was, and is, a Zionist. He holds, so I believe, that it is possible
and right to create a free, democratic, tolerant, socially harmonious sovereign
Jewish state, a self-governing and independent community of socially and
politically equal citizen, enjoying full civil liberties, free from exploitation
of one body of men by another, and, above all, free from that kind of political
control by the majority over minorities which we [Jews] have suffered so long
and so cruelly as defenceless strangers in every land… Of him, I believe, it can
be said more truly than of anyone else that he is the conscience of Israel: the
clearest and more honorable champion of those principles which justify the
creation of a movement and of a sovereign state achieved at so high a human cost
both to the Jewish nation and to its neighbors."[1]
This is a just characterization of Leibowitz, the
political and moral critic. Leibowitz himself does not accept this assessment.
He does not deny his public activity and moral and political positions, but
disclaims the motives attributed to him. Sir Isaiah is a humanist, but while
his political stand may be consistent with the humanist position, his own
reasons are entirely different. In a published letter that that was both an
expression of gratitude and a rejoinder to Sir Isaiah, Leibowitz wrote: "As far
as I understand, humanism, in the spirit of Kant, envisages the human person as
the supreme value and end within any reality which man is capable of knowing. It
follows that all thought and action are to be judged and evaluated in terms of
their relation to this end. From the stand-point of Judaism… man as a natural
creature, like all of natural reality, is of neutral value. His existence can be
meaningfully evaluated only in terms of his position before God has expressed in
his mode of life. Judaism recognized no expression of such a position other than
the "acceptance of the yoke of Kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of Torah and its
Mitzvoth."[2]Leibowitz expresses his indefatigable opposition to the
Israeli occupation of the territories conquered in 1967 in terms of political
and religious considerations, not humanistic ones. Politically, the occupation
is corrupting the state of Israel. All its mental and physical resources are
squandered on dominating the recalcitrant population of the territories. It has
none left for dealing with what ought to be at the center of attention of a
Jewish state. The exigencies of political and military domination are converting
it into a police state with its attendant evils. Power interests of the state
tend to become ends in themselves, thus giving rise to the most insidious form
of idolatry in the modern world.
Leibowitz is especially concerned with the impact of
this situation upon religious circles. As he sees it, the very essence of
Judaism is the denial of inherent sanctity to any natural phenomenon. Only God
is holy, and any sanctity in the human sphere is bound up with the divine
commandments. The conquest of the territories has fanned the ever-smoldering
embers of idolatrous tendencies, the overcoming of which is a constant religious
challenge. One instance of idolatry, prevalent among religious Zionists today,
is to ascribe inherent holiness to the land and even to the state. For
Leibowitz, himself a pious Jew, this is one of the most fearful consequences of
the occupation.
Biographical Note
Yeshayahu Leibowitz was born in Riga in 1903 and
brought up in a home which belonged, in his words, to "a Jewish world in which
Judaism and European culture were interwoven." He received his elementary
education at home, where he continued his Jewish studies after entering
secondary school. During the civil war in Russia in 1919, the family fled to
Berlin, where Leibowitz studied chemistry and philosophy at the University of
Berlin, then one of the great centers of scientific research. After receiving
his doctorate in 1924, he spent several years at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
and went on to study medicine at Köln and Heidelberg. Because of anti-Semitic
discrimination in the German universities after the Nazis came to power, he took
his M.D. in Basel.
In 1934 he arrived in Palestine, where he began
teaching chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Very soon he came to
be regarded as a brilliant teacher. Hundreds of students used to flock to his
lectures on the physiological bases of the mental processes. His teaching
extended beyond the campus to teachers' enrichment courses, adult education
programs, and even youth groups. The subjects on which he lectured reflected the
encyclopedic breadth of his interests. His appearances on television and radio
as teacher, lecturer, and commentator on the weekly reading of the Torah have
brought him to wider audiences. Many Jerusalemites recall the small-study-groups
that gathered regularly to study some classic text of Jewish thought under his
direction. The discussion of one such group on Maimonides' introduction to his
commentary on the mishnaic Tractate Aboth has been published. It is a
sample of give-and-take of ideas which took place at such sessions.[3]With these groups he has completed several cycles of study
of the text of Maimonides' Guide of perplexed. After retirement from his
academic post, he continues lecturing and conducting seminars at the university
of the philosophy and history of science.
The years of intensive teaching and research did not
prevent him from constant engagement with public issues. His views were rarely
popular with the general public and almost never met with approval of the
relevant establishments. This never daunted him. At times he even seemed enjoy
to outraging his audiences. In retrospect, he can claim much greater foresight
than his antagonists. Early in the 1940s, speaking at one of the Kibbutzim in
the valley of Yizra'el, then considered the exemplar of Jewish settlement in
Palestine, he called the entire valley a huge cemetery – referring thereby to
the extremely low birth-rate in the region at the time. His listeners considered
him a crank. Today, few people would deny the critical significance of the
demographic factor for the future of the Jewish state.
During the late 1930s and the 1940s Leibowitz was
preoccupied with the inability of the rabbinical establishment to appreciate the
halakhic implications of the Zionists effort. Political and social Jewish
autonomy was bound to raise religious dilemmas.[4]Leibowitz had been active in organizing a company of
religious observant people within the Hagganah, the Jewish self-defense
organization which eventually became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Force
(IDF). At the time, observant Jews found it difficult to integrate directly into
the Hagganah organization because their insistence on observing the Sabbath
brought them into conflict with the command. However, it soon became evident
that military activity, even within the ranks of the observant, raised difficult
halakhic problems resulting from unprecedented situations. Rabbinic authorities
tended to shy away from taking a stand. They seemed to hint that religious Jews
might keep away from such matters, which could be better-handled by the
nonobservant. This brought Leibowitz up against what he considered to be a
parasitic tendency that boded ill for the future of the Jewish religion in a
future Jewish state. For millennia, religious authorities had not been
confronted with the functions of a sovereign authority. These had been in the
hands of the foreign governments. It was therefore necessary to deal with
questions of internal and external security and the economic needs of an
all-encompassing society, as distinct from those of individuals. Much of
Leibowitz's writing during this period was devoted to pointing out the need for
a novel approach to halakhic decision under conditions of independent statehood.
With the emergence of the state of Israel, such questions became acute.
In the 1950s and early 1960s Leibowitz took up cudgels
in a variety of causes. He was active in a committee of scientists and public
figures which agitated against the introduction of nuclear weaponry to the
Israeli arsenal. His detestation of parasitism in any form led him to join a
heterodox group fighting for a change in the economic order. During the
mandatory period, political parties in Israel engaged in agriculture settlement
and a variety of economic enterprises. This was especially true of the Labor
party, which, through its control of the Histadruth, the general association of
Jewish workers in Palestine, also directed its extensive business operations.[5]The economic effort was funded largely by the Jewish
agency. These moneys were funnelled to their destinations through the channels
of the political parties. After the establishment of the state, many regarded
this system as distorting the structure of the economy. But it continued, with
the government as a primary source of funding. Enterprise, public and private,
became increasingly dependent in this respect upon government. Political
pressures could be brought to bear upon governmental departments to come to aid
of firms which were not economically viable. Appropriations which should have
gone toward development of the infrastructure were doled out directly to various
private and cooperative entrepreneurs, who lost any sense for the genuine
profitability of their operations. Leibowitz and members of the group in
question were convinced that this must lead to political corruption and foster
an economy which was unable to stand on its own legs. Instead of utilizing the
contributions of world Jewry and the aid of foreign governments for developing
its productive resources on a firm economic basis, Israel was squandering them
on maintaining a standard of living which was beyond its own capacity. Much of
the agitation of this group was conducted on the pages of the periodical
Beterem, which published many of Leibowitz's articles on a variety of
subjects. The group was successful in disclosing and ending some particular
cases of corruption. It did not succeed in putting across its massage and
eventually disbanded. Its prognoses were only too well confirmed by recent
developments of the Israeli economy. Pressure of political parties for support
of favored projects has made a travesty of budgetary policy.
The Kibiyeh incident of 1953 directed Leibowitz's
attention to a question which to him seemed ever more pressing.[6]The Zionist armed forces in the period antedating the state
and the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in the early years had always avoided killing
outside the direct context of warfare or self-defense. What change of attitude
made possible the wanton killing of civilians in Kibiyeh? The motive was clear,
retaliation for a series of murders by Palestinian terrorists. But what was is
that removed the inhibitions to the murder of innocent civilians? Leibowitz's
answer was that secular motifs and institutions had been endowed with a sanctity
which is valid only within a religious context. Leibowitz finds no fault with
secular Zionism as such. In fact he considered Zionism, including his own
variety, as being essentially secular, with the clear limitations of secularity.
Imputations of holiness to the secular, however, is religiously a form of
idolatry and morally pernicious. The nation and its state acquire supreme value,
and their interests are considered capable of justifying any action which
promotes them.
In their time these causes seemed to interest a rather
narrow public. It has been quite otherwise with the question of the occupied
territories, which has divided Israeli opinion ever since 1967. for many it is
an issue loaded with emotions that make clear and unbiased thinking very
difficult. Leibowitz's foresight in predicting the consequences of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is all the more remarkable. In
the article which, in slightly different versions, was published in several
periodicals as early as 1968, he attempted to point out the likely effects of
the occupation on Israeli society and government, as well as on its security and
international status.[7]To almost all readers he seemed at the time to exaggerate
matters beyond all proportion, and even today some of his contentions seem too
far-fetched. Yet from year to year more of his predictions appear to be
confirmed. To ignore them requires one to be oblivious to the facts.
Unfortunately, too many Israelis prefer not to have unpleasant realities brought
to their attention. One consequence of the politics of occupation – which
Leibowitz fair to foresee – is an unwillingness to be confronted with
information which runs counter to widespread prejudices. The more reliable the
coverage of the communications media, the more convinced are many people of
their intention to distort.
During the Lebanese campaign of 1982-83, Leibowitz was
not only active in demanding the withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, but lent his
moral backing to members of the reserves who refused to serve in Lebanon and
officers who resigned their posts. At the time, this refusal gathered momentum
and gained considerable popular support owing to widespread public opinion
favoring withdrawal from Lebanon. He still continues his support, now in the
face of public opinion, for the conscientious objectors who refuse to serve in
the occupied territories, especially after the Palestinian uprising of 1987. In
this, his position has not met with sympathy. Even among those who share his
criticism of Israel's policy in the territories, many fell that conscientious
objection is unjustified. The public at large supports the official policy and
favors a strong arm in dealing with the uprising. Nevertheless he continues, in
private conversation and public lecture, to justify refusal to serve in the
territories.
His statements rarely discuss the casuistics of
conscientious objection, which seems to occupy the attention of those who deal
with this issue. The concept he constantly reiterates is that no matter how
important political obedience may be, the state and its politics have only
instrumental functions. Their value is not absolute and their demands not always
overriding. The religious person, for religious reasons, and the humanist, for
moral reasons, may have decisive grounds for disobedience.
Religious-Philosophical Premises
The brief retort to Sir Isaiah Berlin's tribute should
serve as a warning against abstracting Leibowitz's views on current political
issues from the broader context of his thought. Theological considerations
entered even into his opinions on so distinctly political an issue as that of
the occupied territories. His enduring importance as a contemporary Jewish
thinker is associated with his radical theological conceptions and their
implications for Judaism and Jewish nationhood. These, in turn, must be
understood against a background of philosophic premises.
Human knowledge. Two distinct traditions affect
Leibowitz's conceptions of the nature and limitations of knowledge. The first is
the theology of Maimonides, with its emphasis on the absolute transcendence of
God, who cannot be conceived by the human mind. He can be known only through his
works, that is to say, through the natural order of things. The second tradition
stems from the Kantian critique of theoretical reason and supplies an
epistemological underpinning for the agnostic type of theology, but also
radicalizes it. The domain of knowledge is restricted to that which can be a
datum for experience. Not only must the transcendent remain unknown, but even
its existence cannot be demonstrated. Critics of Leibowitz have taken this
theological agnosticism for atheism without realizing that it is but a working
out of the implications of a theology which, like of the Maimonides, insists on
the total transcendence of the divine.
Knowledge, in the proper sense of the word, is the
result of the application of the scientific method. This is the only way we have
of obtaining reliable information about natural reality. But if reality is
understood in terms of a system of functional relations, as it is by those
utilizing this method, and not as a system of ends and materials, as it was in
ancient and medieval times, the natural world is religiously indifferent. Hence
it is absurd to regard revelation as a surrogate or supplement for natural
knowledge. Whatever relation may exist between man and God must be a normative
character.
Radical decision. Leibowitz accept Kant's
dichotomy of factual and normative, but his interpretation of this dichotomy is
more along positivistic lines. His discussion of the subject calls to mind Max
Weber's. Ultimately, all normative obligations and value-imputations are
dependent upon personal decision. A valuation may, of course, be justified in
terms of already recognized values, but one's ultimate values cannot be
validated by anything beyond them. They cannot be the subject of rational
argument. Their validity for a person results from decision, not from
recognition. Since Leibowitz regards religion as an exclusively normative domain
denies that Scripture was intended to be a body of information, this is as true
of religious commitment as it is of all other basic life-values. Factual
knowledge may be forced upon us by experience. There is nothing to compel one
into acceptance of any ultimate value-commitments, including that of religious
faith.
This leads to a curious dialectic of autonomy and
heteronomy. The religious value of an act consists in its being performed
because it is a divine command. Yet the very idea of a divine commandment and
acceptance of any specific system of norms as a body of divine prescriptions can
only follow from an autonomous decision. The very ascription of a normative
force to a divine command is a matter for decision. Like other weighty
decisions, this one may be tacit rather than explicit. In the typical case, one
is committed to halakhic practice as a result of socialization. Only in
situations in which it cannot be taken for granted need the decision enter one's
awareness. The tradition presents the decision to accept the Halakhah as a
unique historical event which committed the future generations of Israel.
However, if we follow out the logic of Leibowitz's position, it would appear
that recognition of the validity of this commitment requires constant renewal of
the basic decision. The heteronomous force of the Torah and its Mitzvoth is
dependent upon continued autonomous commitment (either explicit or tacit) on
both communal and personal level.
Decision is not merely a condition for entertaining
value; it is constitutive of value. Only what is freely chosen – a goal to which
one aspires or a property one seeks to embody in reality – is, properly
speaking, a value. In Leibowitz's opinion, a need cannot possibly be a value
since it is given, not chosen. Freedom of choice is not a value in its own
right, but a condition of all valuation. It is something imposed, part of the
human condition, not an end in itself. Autonomy does not commit one to any
specified norms, not even to "the Moral Law". Hence there is nothing
contradictory about the idea of autonomous commitment to a heteronomous system
of rules.[8]
Religion and morality. Few of the author's
contentions have been as confusing to his readers and audiences as the often
retired statement that morality is an atheistic category. If so, how to account
for the moral criticism to which much of his writings is devoted? To a certain
extant, such statements may be attributed to his penchant for shocking
formulations. It may reflect Leibowitz's failure to organize his ethical
theorizing systematically. However, careful study of the contexts in which
morality and religion are presented as conflicting should make Leibowitz's
position more plausible. He is not claiming that a religious person cannot be a
moral agent. At no point does he maintain that religious demands upon the person
or the community are total in the sense of all-inclusive. On many matters the
Halakhah is silent. At such points, moral considerations may very well come into
play and ought to govern one's actions. The immorality of a religious person
under such circumstances may even reflect upon his religiosity and constitute
what is called Hillul Hashem, desecration of God's name.
Leibowitz does insist that a person acting as a moral
agent cannot be acting as a religious agent and that a religious action cannot
be simultaneously a moral action. This is a corollary of his view that human
actions, as contrasted with natural events, can only be identified in terms of
the agent's intention. The morality of an action is determined not by its
consequences (though this enter into normal deliberation) but by the agent's
intention to perform his duty. The religious character of an action is
determined by the motive of worshipful service of God. The same external act may
on one occasion be moral and on another religious, depending upon the agent's
motivation. The idea of a religious duty to act morally when this seems to be
required would not be a contradiction of Leibowitz's basic position, even if it
may not be consonant with some of his formulations. A moral act done out of
respect for religious duty would be a religious act. The person's proximate
motive would be moral, but his ultimate motive religious. The intrinsic ultimacy
of the religious motive is the point Leibowitz is trying to bring out.
Ends and means. Leibowitz make a large
distinction, drawn by Maimonides and reflecting Aristotelian influence, between
ends-in-themselves and secondary ends, which are ends for us only because they
subserve some further end. The original context of this distinction was a
theological concept of nature according to which things had their natural ends.
As used by Leibowitz, without any reference to such a context, the distinction
is rather similar to the familiar classification of values as instinct and
instrumental. Yet there is a difference. Though there is no natural hierarchy of
ends, some ends, once recognized must be taken as ultimate. They are incapable
of being validated by reference to further ends. But Leibowitz goes further. He
adopts two crucial doctrines of Maimonides on this matter: first, the religious
end is not only an end-in-itself but is the ultimate end; second, an
ultimate end is desecrated when it is made to serve as a means to some other
end.
What is the religious end? For Leibowitz is the
worshipful service of God, or halakhic praxis. It could not affect God, and
bears no comparison with ordinary human values. The religious practitioner will
divorce his religious action from any hope for reward or fear of punishment
other than the status before God achieved in living the life of Halakhah. This
is a religious contention, not a sociological one. One need not deny the
functionality of religious practices for social solidarity or their role in
preserving the national identity of Jews. But these are empirical questions that
are religiously irrelevant. To attempt to justify adherence to Mitzvoth by its
consequences, whether for society, nation, or individual is to take up a secular
point of view which does not recognize the primacy and ultimacy of the
worshipful service of God. Religiously, this is an inversion of the scale of
values.
Jewish Faith
The thesis that Jewish faith is basically the
commitment to observance of the Halakhah as worshipful service of God has a
polemical thrust. Among others, it is directed against Reform Judaism, which
regards the Halakhah as a husk hiding the essential core of religion. Some take
it to be morality, others a set of metaphysical beliefs, or even the inner
religious experience of the individual. On Leibowitz's premise, none of these
would be of distinctly religious significance. However, one cannot argue
effectively with people who reject these premises. Leibowitz, therefore,
conducts his argument at the historical level.
Given the long history of the Jewish religion, the
varying circumstances in which its adherents lived, the movements of Jewish
thought in the course of Jewish history, and the diverse life styles of Jews in
different epochs, what is that fixed the identity of Judaism over the ages?
Leibowitz's answer is: the religious practice determined by the Halakhah? No
other facet of Jewish religion had its continuity and relative invariance.
Jewish theologies were so diverse and so dependent upon the variant philosophic
assumptions of different schools and different ages that they can hardly be said
to present a significant unity. Inner religious experience varies from
individual to individual. Leibowitz seems to feel that it cannot be
communicated.[9]One cannot ignore the fact that the Jewish religion was
practiced by the collective, and that the practice had a highly
institutionalized structure. Systems of beliefs and personal religious
experience can hardly account for the unity of the institutions of the Jewish
religion. Furthermore, at any given point in time, it is the life of Halakhah
that distinguished the Jewish religion from others. Even its monotheism cannot
be said to constitute its identity vis-à-vis Islam or Christianity.
Islamic monotheism does not different from that of Judaism. As for Christian
Trinitarianism, one need only recall that Kabbalists were accused by their
opponents of belief in a decimalian deity. Historically, what definitively
served Christianity from Judaism was its rejection of "the Law".
To understand the meaning of the Halakhah way of life
is to understand Jewish religion. It is a method of orienting one's day-by-day
existence by the sense of one's standing before God, which can be expressed only
in worshipful action. To live with such of orientation involves a normatively
significant decision. This is the basis act of faith: "Acceptance of the yoke of
the Kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of the Mitzvoth," in the idiom of the
rabbinic sages.
To what end?
The very question reflects a misunderstanding of the
religious attitude best summed up in the words of the psalmist: "Whom have I in
heaven (but you) and there is non upon earth I desire but you… But for me to
draw near to God is good" (Ps. 73:25, 28). To stand before God is the ultimate
good, which is to be pursued only for its own sake. But how does one draw near
the absolutely transcendent? By observing his Mitzvoth for the sole reason that
in so doing we are worshiping him. The rabbis denote such motivation by the word
lishma (for its own sake) and distinguish him who serves God lishma from
him who serves not-lishma, that is, for some ulterior good. One who serves God
lishma sets aside all consideration of advantages which may accrue from so doing
or of loss from failing to do so. In the talmudic literature this is a
distinction of rank, of different levels of religiosity.
Two man of faith are paradigmatic for Leibowitz. The
first was Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice what was humanly most valuable for
the sake of God. The other is Maimonides, for whom being motivated lishma
was of the essence of religiosity. This follows from his view that an ultimate
end is desecrated by being utilized as a means. It is no mere theoretical
opinion. It is applied halakhically in his strict prohibition of studying Torah
at the public expense or receiving remuneration for teaching it. Expectation of
reward and punishment trivialized the religious act, which is the highest
attainment of which man is capable. Halakhah is religious practice in the
present; the religion of man in his natural condition. Religion does not bring
about a radical change in the human condition. This is a denial of the concept
of salvation as it is understood by Christians. The religious condition of man,
as contrasted with his technological or cognitive attainment, remains constant.
Although any individual, or the community as a whole, may advance their level of
adherence to the norms of religious observance, their basic religious status
does not change. A recurrent simile for the religious condition is the figure of
the housewife, persisting in her work which begins ever anew. There is no
further goal beyond that of living a halakhic life geared to the service of God.
The religious life is a ceaseless cyclical process. Messianic expectations have
no genuinely religious significance. At best, the messianic idea represents an
ever receding goal. At worst, an anticipation of a nearby redemption, it
disrupts the religious life of the community. In historically typical instances,
it has led to apostasy.
What then can be meant by "Jewish faith" if it is
neither a set of beliefs nor a body of expectations? Leibowitz's answer probably
sounds more plausible in Hebrew than in English, since the word Emunah,
by which the equivalents of the Greek pistis are usually translated,
means, in its biblical usage and in most of its talmudic occurrences,
"steadfastness," "dependability," or "righteousness." Jewish faith consists in
the steadfast commitment to the life of religious observance, to the halakhic
service of God. Since the inner religious experience, according to Leibowitz,
varies from person to person, the inner awareness accompanying such commitment
will also vary, and, as a matter of fact, always was differently perceived by
different individuals and different groups. For a life of halakhic practice to
be religiously meaningful, it must be motivated by the intention to worship God.
It may have no ulterior motive. This does not mean that every halakhic act at
the moment of performance must be accompanied by a subjective intention. It does
imply that one's life of halakhic observance as a whole be intentionally
directed to the service of God. It involves some awareness, however vague, of
living in the presence of the wholly transcendent God, an evaluation of this as
of the utmost importance, and acceptance of the Torah as the divinely ordained,
though humanly interpreted, way of living "before" God.
Purity of faith is most likely to come to those who
recognize the natural world as governed by functional relations which are
indifferent to man's hopes and aspirations, and who do not interpret the
religious idea of Providence as a kind of divine interference with the order of
nature. In our religious observance, our intensions transcend any natural
interest. This great conception means that the concern of the truly religious
person is not with the relation of God to man but with the relation of man to
God.
Jewish Peoplehood
For centuries the Jews existed as a people apart
without any of the attributes which nineteenth-century nationalist ideology
regarded as the marks of nationhood: language, territory, state and so on. Yet
they themselves, as well as the peoples among whom they lived, never doubt their
identity as a nation. That this national identity was determined by their
religion was never questioned. Only late in the eighteenth century, in the
emerging European nation-states and with the urge of emancipation, did the
nature of this identity become problematic for those Jews who rejected the
alternative of complete assimilation. Those who wanted to keep their religion
and at the same time merge with their host-nations attempted to separate
religion from nationality and retain their religious identity in some form,
while relinquishing their Jewish nationality. The wave of secularization, which
spread even to Jews who wished to retain their Jewish identity, raised new
questions and new programs for Jewish existence. Zionism has proved to be the
most viable of these.
Mainstream Zionism set itself the goal of achieving
"normalization" of the Jewish national existence, by acquiring for it the
features which nineteenth-century theory considered characteristic of
nationality. Return to the historic land of Israel, revival of Hebrew as a
spoken language, and creation of the state of Israel were realizations of this
program. Since a common culture was considered to be an important aspect of
national life, an attempt was made to reinterpret the literary sources and the
traditional symbols so as to make them appear elements of a national culture
which were not essentially religious .the Halakhah was represented as a product
of life in Exile. Jewish religion was accorded an historic function as having
preserved Jewish life under conditions of exile. With the reconstitution of
normal Jewish life in the homeland, it became otiose.
Leibowitz strongly derides the idea of a secular Jewish
identity. As a matter of empirical fact, the identity of the Jewish people over
the ages has consisted in adherence to the religion of Halakhah. Moreover, the
very idea of "normalization" is questionable. No particular set of properties is
definitive of nationality. Different factors have determined the nationhood of
different peoples. Whatever, in fact, makes for the national solidarity of a
people may be taken as the essential constituent of its nationhood. In every
instance, this will be a matter of subjective consciousness. As Leibowitz puts
it, a nation is a being of the mind. A group's self-perception as a nation makes
it a nation, and the attributes it perceives as identifying its nationality are
what constitutes its nationhood. In the case of Israel that attribute has been
its religious praxis. Given Leibowitz's conception of the supremacy of religious
commitment over all over values, it follows that evaluating the Jewish religion
in terms of its contribution to Jewish survival is an egregious distortion of
the value-scale. Such a contribution may be a historic fact, but that does not
make Jewish survival the end of Halakhah. Commitment to Halakhah is the
constitutive factor in Jewish nationality; it confers the special
significance upon the existence of the Jewish people. To impute the value of
halakhic religion to its function in providing for the national survival is
sheer idolatry – worship of the nation.
The creed of secularized Jewish nationalism is not the
only current form of idolatry. A type of religious nationalism which has gained
popularity in recent years fosters a more insidious idolatry: imputing an
immanent sanctity to Israel, to the land of Israel, and to the state. In one
sense, it is true, holiness may be predicated of things human or mundane,
namely, as being assigned a special halakhic status or as heightening the
religious commitment. To attribute holiness to a people because of a hereditary
strain of which they are (absurdly) considered the carriers, to a state because
it is the state of that people, or to a piece of land because it is their land,
independently of any halakhic norms applying to it, is mere fetishism. People,
land, or state may, of course, be held precious and valuable. But in attributing
to them, as intrinsic, the specifically religious value of holiness, one is
setting up a false God. The consequences of such attribution are likely to be
morally vicious; ever more so than those of the secular idolatry. Such religious
nationalism leads to the overriding of moral considerations by political
interest, subordination of regard for humanity to irredentist aspirations, and
complete disregard for the claims of others when they conflict with those of the
sacred people. Leibowitz is critical of the attempts to base Jewish nationalism
on a specific Jewish culture which is severed from Jewish religion. In divorcing
elements of Jewish culture from their religion matrix, we deprive them of any
significance. Compared to parallel cultural contributions of others, their value
is negligible. This is not to deny that some elements of culture are
distinctively Jewish. However, insofar as they are authentically Jewish, they
derive their meanings from the religious context in which they originated. Apart
from this context, the cultural achievements of Jews have been either universal
in import, or contributions to the culture of societies within which they were
active. The antecedents of such cultural creativity are non-Jewish, even when
the Jewish writers and artists draw on their personal experience as Jews.
Religion, State, and Society
Many believe that Leibowitz's views on the relation of
religion, state, and society have undergone great changes. Some go so far as to
refer to the early Leibowitz and the later Leibowitz. They find a serious
discrepancy between the earlier emphasis on adapting the Halakhah to conditions
of political independence and the latter call for separation of state and
religion; between the initial concern with the religious significance of the
state and the eventual insistence upon the secular character of the state. This
assessment neglects some conceptual distinctions as well as the implications
which developments in Israeli society and polity have had for Leibowitz.
In maintaining that the state, by its very nature, is a
secular institution, he is applying his criterion of motivation. Has it been
instituted, and does it continue to be maintained, as worshipful service of God
or does it have another end in view? The very functions of the state indicate
its secular nature. This does not preclude the possibility that the Halakhah is
intended to govern the political life no less than that of the individual: many
halakhic prescriptions appear to be intended for regulation of the polity. In
the 1920s and 1930s many religious settlers considered the Torah as practiced in
exile to be a truncated Torah, because it could not be applied to the political
life of the community of Israel. Realization of the Torah in its full scope
became a major goal of their Zionism. The state was still a dream. The tightly
knit and well-disciplined quasi-political organization of the Yishuv (pre-state
Jewish community) was conducted on a voluntary basis. The social as well as
geographical space was sufficiently wide to permit each of various sectors of
the Yishuv to try to realize its own utopia. The society was to be built up from
scratch. In this situation religious pioneers established tightly organized
model communities, guided by the Halakhah in conducting modern economic and
social activities, even in providing for their defense against marauders. These
the considered pilot plants to test and develop ways of application of Halakhah
to the life of a politically independent Jewish society. Their experiment
paralleled the project of the Labor wing of the Zionist movement to create
nuclei of a socialist society. Leibowitz's positions on the public issues of the
time were oriented to this voluntaristic configuration.
One question of both theoretical and practical
significance was how the Halakhah would be applied in an autarchic religious
community, all members of which were Torah-observant. Leibowitz and like-minded
people insisted that any responsible halakhic introduction had to cover all
citizens. Yet nation-wide observance of the Halakhah as it has come down through
the ages could be disastrous. For instance, exemptions of religious personal
engaged in police or security activities involving desecration of the Sabbath
might be feasible, but total abstention from all such activity on the Sabbath
could well be calamitous. The dilemma for the religious leadership was whether
to continue in religious isolation or to work out new halakhic solutions to
these and other problems of statehood.
The official rabbinate in the late thirties did not
meet this challenge. It failed to come to grips with the problems; there was a
good deal of evasion. At times, the implication seemed to be that the observant
should avoid problematic situations and leave them to the nonobservant. Most
rabbis avoided taking a stand on Sabbath observance as it conflicted with
defense activity, and hinted that these matters might be left to others who were
not troubled by questions of Sabbath observance. In answer to farmers confronted
with problems of halakhic observance, some rabbis suggested they might avoid
such problems if they were to engage in commerce rather than agriculture.
Leibowitz felt this was to make halakhic observance by religious Jews parasitic
upon the nonobservance of the secular. On such a basis, halakhic observance by
the totality of the community was impossible. This conflicted with the
conception of Halakhah as intended for realization by the whole Jewish
community.
With his penchant for defining issues in the sharpest
form, Leibowitz posed the question: Was the Halakhah capable of prescribing
forms of life for a politically independent community of Jewish committed to its
observance? His own answer was that, because halakhic life had been conducted
for so long under conditions of political subservience and depended upon
socioeconomic structures over which Jews had no control, such dependence had
become a basic assumption of halakhic observance. The potentially applicable
principles of the Halakhah required restatement. However, the mentality of the
halakhic authorities was so conditioned by the context of life in exile that
they were unable to adjust their thinking to the demands of new circumstances.
The required shape of halakhic observance would have to be developed by the
practice of the general community of those faithful to the Torah.
Another kind of question seemed no less pressing: was
religious relevant to solution of the grave social problems of the time? In the
1920s and 1930s this question was troubling young religious Jews the world over,
in Palestine, Poland, Germany, even in the United States, just at it was
troubling Christian thinkers such as Paul Tillich in Germany, Leonhardt Ragaz in
Switzerland, and Reinhold Neibuhr in the United States. In the Jewish
formulation, if the Torah is truly an encompassing way of life for the people of
Israel, surely it must offer some guidance with respect to the social and
political order.
In the Diaspora individual Jews could voice opinions,
participate actively in political movements, and be politically committed in
their literary and artistic activities. In a Jewish commonwealth, however, they
would have to participate actively in shaping the social and political order of
a Jewish polity. What did halakhic Judaism have to say as to the nature of the
sociopolitical system? One might have expected the religious leadership of
rabbis and scholars to address this issue. For the most part, however, this
community tended to oppose Zionism to the point of regarding it as religiously
illegitimate. Even those who were sympathetic to the project of reconstituting
Jewish national independence were not too well versed in the time and hardly
understood what wanted of them. The matter was taken up by the religious workers
and by members of the religious youth movements.
The typical apologetic response was that, after all, a
body of Jewish civil law operated for hundreds of years in the Diaspora
wherever, as was usually the case, the Jewish community possessed legal
autonomy. Principles of administration and political structure might be culled
from talmudic sources, which Maimonides codified as late as the twelfth century.
Leibowitz was not alone in pointing out that this could not answer the need of
the hour. A civil code does not institute a social order; it regulates
transactions within it. The supposedly relevant Halakhah was adapted to a
technological and social milieu quite different from ours.
Another common suggestion was to have recourse to
general principles of justice and equity. This idea was justified by various
authoritative rabbinic pronouncements to the effect that the formality of
halakhic law required supplementation by ethical guidance. Leibowitz pointed
out, however, that the ethical guidelines were applicable to a variety of social
orders. Even in a system based on slavery, relations between master and slave
could reflect higher or lower standards of justice. What is called for is
halakhic legislation. Again, free decision is unavoidable. We could only try to
surmise what kind of sociopolitical order, given the circumstances of our time,
would be most consonant with what appears to us to be the intention of the
Torah. In view of the relative alienation of the community of rabbinic scholars
from the contemporary world, this must be undertaken by the general community of
Torah observers on the basis of their understanding of the implications of the
broad aims of Halakhah for our times.
The foundation of the state of Israel brought about
complex changes, with implications that were barely perceived by the
intellectual and political leadership of religious Jewry in Israel. Within the
Zionist Organization and the administrative and political institutions of the
Yishuv under the mandatory regime, a modus vivendi had been attained in
religious matters. This resulted partly from the need for voluntary cooperation
between the religious and secular sectors in the Zionist Organization, but more
considerably from the mandatory power's having taken over many of the provisions
governing religious minorities under Ottoman rule. The local Jewish communities,
all of them composed of voluntary participants, were empowered to tax members
for the maintenance of schools. Such community-supported schools might be
religious or affiliated with one of the existing secular educational systems.
The local communities were united in an overall organization called Knesseth
Israel, which de facto constituted the political organization of the
Yishuv. All members of Knesseth Israel were subject to the rabbinic courts,
which had jurisdiction in matters of personal status and were supported by the
local communities who were empowered to levy taxes for this purpose.[10]The Chief Rabbinate was established as the highest
rabbinic instance, and the Great Rabbinic Court was a rabbinic court of appeals.
The modus vivendi in question also included a modicum of religious
observance to be maintained in the public sphere and by enterprises conducted by
the Zionist Organization. The Sabbath was the recognized day of rest. In Jewish
townships such as Tel-Aviv places of business were closed down on the Sabbath,
and public transportation suspended.
The transformations under the state of Israel did not
so much change the substantive nature of the modus vivendi as modify the
institutional structure of the religious establishment. The rabbinic courts,
which had previously functioned within the framework of a voluntarily organized
community, became official judicial organs of the state. Their jurisdiction,
which had been limited to members of that community, was now extended to all
Jewish residents of Israel. Moreover, The Halakhah was established as the only
law applying to marriage and divorce among Jews in Israel.[11]The Sabbath became the legal day of rest, with Friday an
option for Moslems and Sunday for Christians. The state funded and supervised
two school systems, one of secular and one of religious schools. A Ministry of
Religious Affairs was set up to take care of religious needs. In fact,
principles of the welfare state were applied to religious matters. The
government subsidized religious services, building of synagogues, mosques and
churches. Salaries of religious functionaries were paid by the state or the
municipalities. A vast body of vested interests developed within the religious
establishment, dependent on the government apparatus and part of it.
Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that various
religious groups – even those that had previously opposed Zionism and, in a
sense, continued to consider the state religiously illegitimate – came to regard
government as a constant source of fiscal benefits. Religious parties tended to
become pressure groups for the interests of a variety of religious organizations
and institutions.
The deeper problems following the transition from the
voluntarily organized society of the mandatory period to statehood may be
illustrated by two incidents which occurred in the early fifties. The first of
these was the debate over the constitution. The first Knesseth (legislative
body) was elected as a constituent assembly empowered to adopt a constitution.
In accordance with European political tradition, most participants felt that the
constitution ought, first of all, to be declaratory of the principles on which
the state was to be conducted. The various parties strove to have their
ideologies incorporated into the constitution. Only a handful of participants in
these debates appreciated that the chief purpose of a constitution was to create
the framework of a polity within which groups committed to clashing ideologies
might be able to work together. All the religious parties opposed a
constitution, some for opportunistic reasons – fear that it would severely
restrict introducing halakhic principles into the law of the land – other of
grounds of principle. The latter argued that the people of Israel already had a
binding constitution, the Torah, and the adoption of any other constitution by
the state of Israel would be an abrogation of the authentic constitution of
Israel. These debates were replete with conceptual confusion. Many failed to
appreciate the function of basic law in pluralistic society. As Leibowitz held
in other contexts, the community organized in the state of Israel ought to be
the forum where basic issues of Jewish identity and of the norms of Jewish life
would be fought out. It was not the function of the state to decide such
matters.[12]
The other affair illustrative of the problems of
statehood had to do with the education of children in the transition camps for
new immigrants and later in their settlements. In the fifties massive
immigration came to Israel from the Moslem countries. The vast majority of
immigrant families were from a traditionally religious milieu. The parents were
not yet used to their new surroundings. Without many qualms, the officials
responsible for immigrant absorption set up secular schools in the transition
camps in later in a good many of the villages in which these immigrants settled.
At the time Leibowitz was a member of the executive committee of the Histadruth
(General Federation of Jewish Workers), and he endeavored to convince his
colleagues that this required rectification. He was dismayed by the utter
disregard for the traditional religious background of the new immigrants. In his
estimation, power consideration made it politically convenient to alienate them
from their tradition. He was impressed by the etatism of David Ben Gurion, who
would have the life of the nation center about the state and regarded religion,
especially deep religious concern with the manner in which the state was
conducted, as a nuisance.
The Kibiyeh incident of 1953 seems to have marked a
turning point in Leibowitz's political thought.[13]It showed him that the state had become virtually an
object of worship and, as a result, raison d'etat would be a likely
excuse for knavery of all kinds. In this situation, the task confronting
religious Jewry was to constitute a bulwark against deification of the state and
to conduct a struggle within the state over the religious national identity of
the people of Israel. This did not imply that the demand for restatement of
Halakhah so as to offer viable guidance to the conduct of the state was no
longer valid, but its urgency was diminished by the need of the struggle over
the substance of Jewish peoplehood. The battle was thwarted, however, by the
status of the religious establishment as part of the machinery of the state,
which prevented it from acting as a countervailing force within the community.
Its efforts were spent in protecting narrow sectional interests. Problems of the
Jewish people as the bearers of Judaism were beyond their concern. But precisely
these problems were of the utmost importance. It was perhaps the supreme
function of the state of Israel, as a Jewish state, to supply a framework in
which the struggle over the identity of the Jewish people could be conducted.
Integration of the religious establishment of the political structure tied its
hands and limited its motivation. Concern with official status, fiscal benefits,
and political influence made it vulnerable to corruption. In the interest of the
integrity of Jewish religion, separation of religion and state now appeared to
be a desideratum.
Zionism, the Arabs, and the Occupied Territories
The Arab-Jewish conflict, in Leibowitz's view, results
from the clash of rival national aspirations. Both parties consider Palestine
their homeland, each for good historic reasons. Neither is willing to live under
the other's rule. One can hardly envisage a solution which would be entirely
satisfactory to both sides. Thus Leibowitz is pessimistic about the prospects of
resolving the conflict within the foreseeable future. Even if a settlement is
reached, it is hardly likely to be a durable peace like that which obtains today
between neighboring nations in Western Europe.
To construe the issue as one of conflicting
rights is confusing and misleading. Talk of a right to a piece of
property or a territory implies the existence of legal norms which confer the
right, and of machinery for enforcing valid claims to such a right. Such rights
pertain only to persons or to corporate bodies recognized as persons by law.[14]They do not apply to collectives as such. Zionism was
never a violation of Arab "rights" to Palestine, thought it came into conflict
with the national aspirations of the Palestinians. Equally, the historic ties of
the Jewish people to the land of Israel do not confer rights of sovereignty over
the territory.
Partition appeared to be a feasible solution. As a
matter of historic fact, the resolution of the United Nations was accepted by
the Zionists but rejected by the Arabs, who attempted to thwart its realization
by military action. Partition would not have satisfied the territorial
aspirations of either Jews or Arabs, but it would have granted the Palestinians
political independence just as it offered Jews the opportunity to establish the
state of Israel. The current attempt to coerce the Arabs of the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank into submission to Israeli rule can only lead to a permanent
struggle for their independence. The adversaries, like all who undertook such
struggles in the post-World War II era, will not be squeamish about the means
employed. Another all-out war between Israel and the Arab states is likely.
Hence repartitioning the land of Israel between Jews and Arabs is a
necessary condition for peace, even though not a sufficient one.
In his assessment to the situation shortly after the
war of 1967, Leibowitz exhibited remarkable foresight. He predicted that after a
few years of occupation not a Jewish worker or a Jewish farmer would be left.
The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators,
inspectors, and officials. A state ruling a hostile population of a probable two
million foreigners would necessarily become a police state with all this implies
for education, free speech, and democratic institutions. The corruption
characteristic of every colonial regime would also infect the state of Israel.
The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and
acquire Arab Quislings on the other. Leibowitz found good reasons to fear that
the Israel defense Force, which had been the people's army, would degenerate as
a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, and its commanders,
who will have become military rulers, will resemble their colleagues in other
nations. Twenty-one years later, in an overview of the state of the nation after
forty years of political independence, Leibowitz could ruefully indicate that if
his prognosis had not yet been confirmed in all its details by actual
developments, its realization was close.
His gravest apprehensions concern the survival of
Israel as a Jewish state. Unlike many other Zionists and especially
religious Zionists, Leibowitz clearly discerns the implications of the modern
state's territorial principle. A state can bear a national character by virtue
of either of two factors. It may have a strong indigenous national culture to
which newcomers tend to assimilate. This is obviously not the case in Israel,
where the Arabs are not newcomers and have no wish to assimilate. Or the state
may reflect the characteristic of the demographically predominant nationality.
This indeed was the case in Israel before 1967. It would obviously no longer be
so if Israel were to annex the occupied territories.
Even now, however, Israeli presence in Gaza and the
West Bank undermines the capacity of Israel to fulfill the role of a Jewish
state. In Leibowitz's view the Jewishness of the state could only consist in its
concern with the problem with the Jewish people, both in the land of Israel and
in the Diaspora. A state constantly engaged in suppressing potential or actual
insurgency is focused on considerations of power which consume its material and
organizational resources and distort its spiritual perspective. Most disturbing
for Leibowitz himself is the debasement of religion by its use as a
rationalization for vicious chauvinism and fetishistic irredentism.
Leibowitz is pessimistic about the prospect of genuine
peace. Awaiting the agreement of the Palestinians to what the Israelis consider
acceptable terms would result in its indefinite postponement. A continuing
status quo will lead to progressive corruption of Israeli society,
alienation of Jews in the Diaspora, and, in all likelihood, to out-and-out,
possibly catastrophic warfare against a broad coalition of Arab countries.
Meanwhile the military balance is shifting in favor of the Arabs, and continued
occupation of the territories by Israel results in the constant deterioration of
its standing in the international community.
This evaluation points to unilateral withdrawal of
Israel from the occupied territories as the way to extricate Israel from the
morass of occupation. As early as 1968, Leibowitz was arguing that the strategic
benefits of occupying the territories have been exaggerated and that the
occupation has, in fact, strategic disadvantages: the need to quell internal
belligerence while facing the enemy across the borders. Only recently has his
position come to be accepted by growing numbers of military experts.
Though many would agree with Leibowitz's diagnoses, few
are ready to accept his proposal for a one-sided withdrawal. A common rejoinder
is that withdrawal may be desirable, but is feasible only if certain safeguards
are guaranteed. These require some kind of preliminary agreement between the
adversaries. Certain questions, such as control of the water sources, which are
not pressing at the moment, would constitute a casus belli if not settled
prior to withdrawal. Furthermore, while such a withdrawal may have been possible
in the early years of the occupation, today the vested material and ideological
interests are so strong that it might be well-nigh impossible to implement such
a policy even if the Knesseth and government were to adopt it. Leibowitz himself
seems to feel that only strong external pressure of the powers, as in 1956 and
again in 1973, could bring about some form of agreement.
Christianity
Leibowitz's view of Christianity as a form of paganism
is not new. One can adduce good halakhic authority for such an evaluation, in
particular that of Maimonides, just as it is possible to cite halakhic opinion
to the contrary. However, is image of Christianity as the great historic
adversary of Judaism, not merely its competitor, follows from his conception of
the halakhic life as the essence of Judaism. If, as he believes, the founding
documents of Christianity are the Pauline epistles rather than the Gospels, then
Christianity originated with the abrogation of "the Law," in other words, with
the negation of Judaism. He goes so far as to argue that in no true sense can
Christianity be regarded as an offspring of Judaism. It originated in entirely
different spiritual milieu and the supposed ties with Judaism merely follow from
the origin myth. But this myth had far-reaching effects. The caustic historic
antagonism between Christianity and Judaism results from the claim of
Christianity that it is the legitimate heir of Judaism. As Leibowitz puts it,
the heir cannot admit that he testator is still alive. The very existence of
Judaism is a scandal from this standpoint.
Leibowitz is not conducting a polemic against
Christianity as a religion. Had the Marcionite heresy gained the upper hand and
the Church repudiated the Hebrew Bible, coexistence of the two religions would
not have involved the tremendous tension that has always characterized their
relations. They would have been two separate and very different religions each
going its own way. The stresses exist because Christianity claims to offer the
true interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, and the Church contends it is the true
Israel. Not only do Jews deny this claim, but the very survival of Judaism as
practiced by Jews tends to refute it. It is a veritable stumbling-block. This
ressentiment toward Judaism is deep enough to affect the thought even of
the great Christian theologian Karl Barth, who certainly cannot be accused of
anti-Semitism in the ordinary sense. A felt antipathy to Judaism is shared by
many intellectuals, who can hardly be accounted Christian by faith but have
absorbed the attitude from the Christian tradition.
The real butt of Leibowitz's polemic are what he calls
Christianizing Jews, proponents of a liberal Judaism that would divorce their
religion from the halakhic tradition. In his opinion, a Jew true to the spirit
of Halakhah could have no interest in the Judeo-Christian dialogue which these
representatives of liberal Judaism are keen on promoting. Such a dialogue is
possible only between Jews who have become de-Judaized and Christians who have
become de-Christianized. He is careful to note that his words apply to
coexistence between Judaism and Christianity, not to coexistence and mutual
communication between Jews and Christians outside the concerns of religion.
The discussion of "Hochhut's error" is an interesting
projection of Leibowitz's tendency to carry an argument to its logical
conclusions. This is certainly an intellectual virtue. But do people act
under the guidance of such logic? As depicted in this discussion, the line of
thought of Pius XII was as follows: Christian faith demands the annihilation of
Judaism, not, of course, of Jews. But almost two thousand years of history
indicate that, so long as Jews exist as a people, Judaism will not disappear.
The Church would never initiate an extermination of Jews, but if another agent
was doing this, the church would not intervene to prevent an action which would
bring about a result to desirable from its standpoint. If this was Pius's
line of thought, it would explain his action, or rather inaction. But was this
really his line of thought? And if it was, was it certain that he was prepared
to carry it out?
The Leibowitzian Pathos
To the public, Leibowitz appears as the cold
intellectual, oblivious of the deep emotional overtones of the issues he takes
up, disregarding the nonrational elements of human situations. It is easy to see
what promotes such an impression. Speaking from his extreme halakhic position,
he dismisses the feeling-contents of the religious experience and the
aspirations to salvation as peripheral, even misleading. He represents the ideal
type of the Lithuanian misnagued, the opponent of the Hassidic
"enthusiast", engrossed in the study of Torah and its application in life. His
conception of halakhic religion as belonging to the "prose" of man's every day
natural life and the disparagement of the religiosity of moments of uplift seem
to confirm this picture. So do his affirmation of the life of halakhic praxis as
itself the ultimate religious end and his denial of the religious value of the
aspirations often associated with religion.
Most annoying to many is his capacity for thinking
politically about politics: the ability to detach himself from the immediate
emotional impact of the data, to take into consideration their practical
implications for all affected, to assess policies from a long-range point of
view. His readiness to attack "national policy" is taken to reflect lack of
attachment to national values and goals. Objects of fetishistic worship such as
the historic land of Israel are for him, when he is assessing them politically,
elements in a rational calculation.
The assessment of coldness would be an extreme
misrepresentation of the man. The most patent evidence against it is the
vigorous nature of his polemic, which reflects the deep personal involvement in
the issues he takes up. When he comments on instances of parasitism or
corruption, one easily senses his indignation. The Lithuanian misnagued
is no mere student. Much of what he studies has to be applied in life. His
intellectual interest is never completely severed from real life. His
conclusions drive him to action. No one has been more emphatic than Leibowitz in
urging that a life of Torah is not just study of Torah but its practice. His
theoretical conclusions are implemented on the practical level, in speech and
writing, at every opportunity.
He has been accused of no longer being a Zionist by
people for whom manipulations of meanings is part of their political arsenal. As
Sir Isaiah Berlin so clearly perceived, his Zionism is deeply ingrained. On
Leibowitz's own admission, the source for his conviction is emotional: as a Jew,
he had enough of being ruled by Goyim. Zionism today calls for
safeguarding the existence and welfare of the state of Israel. This requires
careful analysis of the political situation, working out the consequences of
alternative policies, and assessing the probable moves of the parties involved.
The objective will not be attained by blind attachment to slogans or fixation on
certain particulars, whatever the cost. Attachment to the state may be very deep
even when its real interests are defined with critical deliberation.
On the purely religious level, Leibowitz himself points
out the deep pathos animating the nonpathetic religiosity. There can be no
deeper love of God than to forego human values in order to serve God. The
rejection of hope for any radical transformation of the human condition, the
readiness to conduct this service as part of man's humdrum existence, is a high
peak of sacrificial religion. Whatever is attained is negligible in terms of
ordinary human valuation. In the religious sense, it is the recognition of man
by God and the sanctification of his drab natural life. Ironically, his
discussion of the religiosity of the prose of life brings out a romantic streak
in Leibowitz, incorporating Lessing's idea that the eternal search for the true
is preferable to the true itself. To cap the irony, Leibowitz returns to the
words of a Jewish mystic to say that the effort to attain the end is the only
true end for man, since the end itself is God Himself.
[1]A Hebrew translation of Sir Isaiah's tribute appeared in
Ha'aretz, March 4, 1983.
[2]Ha'aretz, April 15, 1983
[3]Yeshayahu Leibowitz, with student-colleagues, Conversations
about the "Eight Chapters" of Maimonides (Jerusalem, Keter Publishing House,
1986) (Heb.).
[4]The Halakhah is the body of Jewish religious law as set forth
in the talmudic sources, elaborated over the centuries in the rabbinic
literature, and exemplified in the practice of the Jewish communities.
[5]The Histadruth, to this day, is a trade union organization on
the one hand and a conglomerate of cooperatives, agriculture settlements,
banking and business concerns on the other.
[6]For a brief description of the incident see the prefatory
remarks to chapter 17.
[7]See chapter 22 of this book.
[8]The belief of some critics that Leibowitz is inconsistent in
this respect stems from their taking it for granted that autonomy must be
valuable in itself. Certainly nothing in Leibowitz's views is inconsistent with
regard for freedom from external coercion (Isaiah Berlin's negative freedom) as
a most important instrumental value – a basic condition for the possibility for
men's striving to realize any value whatsoever.
[9]Leibowitz's failure to make this point in more than one or two
explicit statements has misled some critics as well as some followers into
attributing to him a total rejection of the inner religious experience. It
should have been clear that his conception of worshipful motivation of religious
praxis (lishmah) necessarily involves an inner dimension. But the
specific content of such an inner experience is unique to each individual and
cannot be socially shared.
[10]The relevant clause of the King's Order in Council of 1922
read: "the rabbinical courts of the Jewish community shall have exclusive
jurisdiction in matters of marriage and divorce, alimony and confirmation of
wills, of members of their community other than foreigners."
[11]It is worth nothing that the Kadi Act of 1961 granted the
Moslem courts a status similar to that of the rabbinical courts.
[12]For a concise description and analysis of the Knesseth
debates over the proposed constitution see: Eliezer Goldman Religious issues
in Israel's Political Life (Jerusalem: World Zionist organization, 1964),
pp. 47-66.
[13]See note 4 above.
[14]This does not exclude moral considerations, corresponding to
what ate usually called "human rights". But in the present context the
terminology of legal discourse is more confusing than enlightening.