Maharal and Religious Coercion

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof

11 Maharal and religious coercion Meir Seidler

Maharal’s thought contains a number of themes which can be regarded as his unique contribution to what might be termed Judaism’s battle for relevance in the modern world. Many of these themes were later taken up in Jewish orthodox thought in order to justify historical (i.e. rabbinical) Judaism and to demonstrate the formidable relevance of the Jewish tradition for the Jew in the modern world. It is no secret that the social and political developments, the scientific progress and the resulting changes of scholarly and also popular beliefs and attitudes which started in the Renaissance and continued in the Era of Enlightenment presented in their radicality as well as in their scope a hitherto unprecedented intellectual challenge for all revealed religions. In terms of Ideengeschichte (history of ideas), it seems that a significant part of Maharal’s philosophical work can, indeed, be viewed as a laboratory of ideas, where new weapons responding to new challenges were tested, weapons which were later reused and even further developed by other Jewish thinkers. Maharal lived at the very beginning of what we term the Modern Era, which as stated presented and probably still presents a considerable challenge to Judaism. Although he died more than half a century before the first radical formulation of this challenge as put forward by Spinoza and his followers,1 since the Renaissance period the signs were already on the wall, even in the Jewish world, and he seems to have sensed and in a certain way perhaps even anticipated the profound changes that modernity would bring about. These changes announced themselves quite clearly in the works of Maharal’s contemporary Azariah de’ Rossi against whom Maharal so vehemently polemicized.2 Maharal’s struggle against Azariah reflects his keen understanding of the challenges that the upcoming Modern Era and the empirical sciences coming in its wake present for religious tradition, in general, and for the Jewish religious tradition, in particular. This is the way I understand some of his central ideas, even those which are not formulated explicitly as direct answers to Azariah or other thinkers announcing modernity. Maharal’s thought, as a whole, seems to aim at providing a basis for the defence against precisely what within the next few generations would turn into a broad intellectual assault on the very core of revealed religion, in general, and of Judaism, in particular.

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof Maharal and religious coercion

177

As is widely known, modern Jewish philosophy – whether orthodox or less traditional – is largely an enterprise of German Jews. While the golden era of mediaeval Jewish thought was in Spain, the undisputed centre of modern Jewish thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was in Germany. In one of his famous essays entitled ‘Apologetic thinking’, which had a great impact upon his contemporaries, Franz Rosenzweig, one of the main protagonists of the last phase of the revival of Jewish thought in Germany, claimed that Jewish philosophy, Jewish thought or, in other words, the attempt to make a consistent system out of the vast Jewish tradition is not and never was a major Jewish concern; it was, in fact, never genuinely Jewish. According to Rosenzweig, in times and places where Jewish life and practice streamed without being culturally, theologically or intellectually challenged from outside, no Jewish philosophy came into being. In those times and places Judaism consisted mainly in Jewish practice and an enormous intellectual effort invested into the study of the Jewish tradition, which, nevertheless, did not assume the form of a philosophical examination of that tradition (i.e. it was a study within the boundaries of tradition, not one which would critically examine its premises). The latter came into existence only in times and places where Judaism was challenged by other powerful theological, cultural or ideological alternatives. Thus, Rosenzweig explained not only the Golden Era of Jewish philosophy in Spain, but also the absence of Jewish philosophy in mediaeval Ashkenaz (Germany), and again its revival in modern times by German Jews who were the first to be exposed to the full assault of modern ideas, concepts and attitudes. Accordingly, to Rosenzweig Jewish philosophy is always apologetic. It is apologetic by definition because it comes into existence only where Judaism is challenged and attacked in order to respond to this challenge, to this attack. To sum all this up: according to Rosenzweig, where there is no challenge, there is no Jewish philosophy.3 In order to understand better the ‘challenge of modernity’, let’s turn to the first consciously modern Jewish thinker, the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786). There are, of course, many facets to this challenge; I want to deal with only one of them which, however, at least according to Mendelssohn’s ‘Jerusalem’, seems to be definitely a major one (i.e. the unanimous modern opposition to any kind of religious coercion). Mendelssohn dealt precisely with this problem, which Maharal already seems to have anticipated: the principal modern opposition to any kind of religious coercion (i.e. the demand for the separation of religion and state) and the general assumption (inherited from Spinoza) that Judaism was exactly the theocracy so much opposed by modern political thinkers. This assumption and Mendelssohn’s bid to invalidate it was one of the main reasons that actually triggered Jerusalem, Mendelssohn’s contribution to modern Jewish philosophy. Jerusalem’s main thrust is thus the refutation of the accusations of religious coercion as raised against Judaism, a refutation which cost Mendelssohn, however, a heavy intellectual price.4

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

178

Proof

Meir Seidler

Interestingly enough, we find in Maharal’s thought, which antedated Mendelssohn by nearly two centuries, already a quite elaborated discussion about this topic. Before we proceed to examine Maharal’s unique contribution to the (still) burning question of religious coercion, let’s start with a more detailed explanation of this question, of this challenge. By negation in principal of religious coercion, which is quite obviously part and parcel of modern thought, I mean that what for generations was accepted as God’s undisputed right – namely, to impose a heteronymous legislation upon mankind, became since the advent of the Modern Era despicable and loathsome. The central political demand of the enlightenment was the demand for the separation of state and religion. The philosophical basis for this political demand was the illegitimacy of religious coercion. The state may or, in certain cases, even must resort to coercion; religion definitely must never. Religion should work only by means of conviction, not by coercion – this was the battle cry of the period of enlightenment. This battle cry, which aimed primarily at a change of the status quo in Christian Europe (i.e. was mainly directed against the ruling Christian religion), aimed ultimately, perhaps even more so, at the Jewish religion as well. The factual Jewish political impotence which resulted, finally, even in the cancellation of the inner-Jewish legal autonomy (i.e. in the final abolishment of any form of religious coercion in Judaism) was rightly regarded as imposed upon Judaism from the outside and thus from a traditional Jewish perspective a result of unfavourable historical circumstances. This historical development, which left Judaism without teeth, could not conceal the fact clearly discernible in Jewish sources, that Judaism perhaps even more than Christianity seemed to advocate religious coercion, at least in principle. While the New Testament provided at least in theory a basis for what is often regarded as a rudimentary pattern for the separation of state and religion – in the famous New Testament verse to give the king what belongs to the king and to give the Lord what belongs to the Lord (Matthew 22:21) – in Judaism this pattern did not exist even in theory. According to Jewish tradition, the ideal Jewish state was always conceived as a state where Jewish law, Halakha, would be state law and therefore, as all state law, coercive. Sayings such as ‘Rahmana Liba Bae’ (‘God wants the heart’),5 pointing out the severe conditions as put forward by Jewish law on Jewish witnesses, as well as the factual absence of a Sanhedrin, without which many of the classical punishments as put forward in the Torah cannot be exerted6 – all these might have some alleviating affect, might be able to ‘sooth the pain’, but have definitely not the force to counter a question which is a question of principle. As stated above, much of Mendelssohn’s philosophical and apologetic effort was dedicated to squaring this circle and to neutralizing this theological obstacle to Judaism’s transition into the modern world (the results of his efforts being extremely disappointing7). We will see that Maharal, too, has something to say in this context and that his ingenious answer was later adopted and further developed. Let’s reformulate the question in one sentence: is there a way to defend, rationalize and

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof Maharal and religious coercion

179

explain to modern Man the very concept of religious coercion which seems to be part of biblical Judaism and, in theory, also of rabbinical Judaism, but which is the very antithesis of everything modern Man believes in, or do we have to explain it away as did later Mendelssohn and his epigones? What does Maharal have to say on this topic, which seems a major point of dissent in the later encounter between Judaism and modernity, and how were his thoughts incorporated within later systems of Jewish philosophy? I will compare Maharal’s thought in this context with the thought of one of the most brilliant Jewish orthodox thinkers of the Modern Era, Isaac Breuer (1883–1946), a grandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888). I hope to demonstrate and to prove some interesting parallels between Breuer’s thought, which Baruch Kurzweil termed the last accord of German orthodox Jewry’s sophisticated encounter with modernity,8 and Maharal’s thought, which could perhaps be defined as the first accord in modern Jewish philosophy. Breuer’s original thought received some scholarly attention during the last decades and his contribution to Jewish modern philosophy is widely acknowledged.9 The parallels between his thought and the thought of Maharal, however, were at least to my knowledge not yet systematically addressed. Maharal, at least in four of his works, Gur Aryeh (on Exodus 19:17), Netzah Israel (Chapter 11), Or Chadash (‘Introduction’) and Tiferet Israel (Chapter 32), relates to a well-known Midrash. The Midrash states that when the people of Israel were standing at Mount Sinai they were actually not standing at the mountain but literally ‘under’ the mountain, as the wording of the relevant Torah verse (Exodus 19:17) suggests: betachtit hahar.10 According to this Midrash, God lifted the mountain up and suspended it over the heads of the Israelites, saying: ‘If you accept my Torah, good, if not, this will be your burial place’ (suggesting that the mountain would be dropped upon the heads of the Jews and thus bury them all beneath it). Maharal’s interpretation of this famous Midrash will serve us as a starting point. I want to explore it by concentrating on the focus I laid forward, which is the following: for modern Man, with his sensibility for religious freedom, this Midrash seems to formulate a very clear and unequivocal case of religious coercion – and this at the very founding moment of the Jewish religion. Although religious coercion did not constitute a problem for the Talmudic Sages or for the mediaeval Jewish scholars – after all, God had the right to be coercive – the Sages already raised a question of juridical importance which is related to the issue of religious coercion, although the focus is not on religious coercion, but rather on the validity of contracts. As the covenant between God and the Jewish people took the form of a contract between two sides, this contract – as any other contract – should be based on reciprocal agreement to claim validity.11 The question was therefore one of binding validity. How can a contract, a covenant which was forced upon one of the sides, claim validity? Moreover, there seems to be an inner contradiction between two different Torah accounts, one of them stating that the Jews accepted the Torah out of

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

180

Proof

Meir Seidler

their free will (the famous ‘Na’ase VeNishma’12) and the other account, the above mentioned Midrashic interpretation of the Jews standing below the mountain, suggesting religious coercion.13 The Talmudic Sages and later commentators deal with these two questions (i.e. the validity of a forced contract and the inner contradiction within the Jewish tradition), and the answers offered by them are outside the scope of this chapter. What concerns our topic is Maharal’s twist of the whole issue. His discussion of the topic may be regarded as touching on a very philosophical vein: the interplay between determinism and Man’s free will – but it also has a significant bearing on the question of religious coercion. Rambam (Maimonides, 1135–1204) states that, interestingly enough, in Jewish tradition, as opposed to other religious traditions, there never was a dispute about Man’s free will.14 Man being endowed with a free will is undisputed in Judaism. While Christianity and Islam wrestled with the theological tension between God’s omnipotence and His omniscience, on the one hand, and Man’s free will, on the other (a tension which, again, is outside the scope of this article), Judaism unanimously opted for Man’s free will, notwithstanding the conceptual problems it generated regarding God’s perfect knowledge and power.15 Taking up this philosophical or theological concern – Man’s free will versus a God-dictated necessity – Maharal turns the above mentioned non-philosophical (i.e. juridical) question regarding the validity of contracts (this was the way in which it was presented in the Talmud) into the philosophical question of contingence (i.e. possibility) versus necessity. This is precisely the twist he gives to the Talmudic discussion of the topic and, as I mentioned before, this twist has a direct bearing on the modern question of religious coercion. Maharal’s reasoning goes as follows: if the acceptance of the Torah had been contingent upon the agreement of the Israelites, then there would have been a possibility that they would not have accepted the Torah. Luckily the Jews accepted – ‘Na’ase VeNishma’ (Exodus 24:7): ‘We will (unconditionally) do and (only ex post try to) understand’, as it is interpreted in Jewish tradition16 – but they could as well not have accepted (after all, they had free will). In this last case the world would have been without Torah. Maharal wanted to rule out the mere possibility of a world without Torah. Again: although the Jews actually accepted the Torah from their own volition, it had to be made clear that the Torah was not dependent upon their will and that its acceptance by the Jews was a necessity and as much part of God’s undisputable plan as the creation of the world. This idea itself is not new in Jewish tradition; but its philosophical reformulation by Maharal (as necessity versus contingence) certainly is. There are several Midrashim in the Talmud and in the Midrashic literature suggesting that without the Torah, the world would not exist.17 According to the line presented in them, the Torah was not given in order to teach us how to behave and to act in a world previously created by God, but rather the other way round, which is much more radical: The Torah antedated the world, and the world had to be created in order to provide a basis, a

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof Maharal and religious coercion

181

matrix, for Torah performance (it’s as if you had written a theatre play and are now in need of a stage to perform it). No Torah, no reason for the creation of the world! There is, hence, no possibility of a world without Torah, and therefore there is no possibility that the Torah would not have been accepted. Maharal’s contribution to this ancient conception is the use he makes of the Midrashic suspending of the mountain above the heads of the Jews in the essentially philosophical discussion about necessity versus contingence. Let’s sum up the discussion until now: in terms of Ideengeschichte, we have seen the following development in the discussion about the famous Midrash on the suspension of Mount Sinai: from an initial Talmudic discussion about the juridical validity (of the Torah law) the focus was turned by Maharal to a metaphysical discussion about contingence versus necessity (of the Torah), which has a direct bearing on the discussion about religious coercion. Yes, the Jews must obey the Torah laws, they are forced to do it; but this coercion is none other than the coercion which is put upon Man by his very existence (which, by the way, is also discussed in the Talmud18). Man’s existence was forced upon him, too (as is widely known, this is one of the main topics of modern existentialist philosophy). Taking a voluntary approach to the Torah, denying its necessity (which involves coercion), is tantamount to denying the existence of the world. In this context we should turn our attention to the nature of the Torah law, as perceived by Maharal. Why is it so necessary for the world? In Tiferet Israel (which can, perhaps, be termed his major theological work), Maharal equates the Torah and its law with a postulated supernatural entity, an invisible order which is a closer emanation of God than our natural world. In this philosophical reformulation of an essentially kabalistic idea, this postulated supernatural order to which there is no empirical access and which is not accessible to the autonomous human intellect has its own law, exactly as our world of nature has its own law (i.e. the law of nature). The law of the supernatural order was handed down to Man who is, thus, the only creature in this world who has some sort of access to this upper world. In terms of this world, these laws do not always seem to make sense, simply because the world where they come from and in which they rule is not here but somewhere else. It’s as if you live in Russia but nevertheless feel obligated to obey the laws and pay taxes according to the law in the US. Why should Man be obligated to do that? Maharal’s ingenious answer is: because he was created in the image of God which gives him, so to speak, a double citizenship. He is also a citizen of an upper world and as thus he has to obey the laws of that world – only by doing so, Man actually participates somehow in this supernatural order to which he otherwise would have no access at all. Man – and, according to Maharal, the Jew is Man par excellence.19 Man is the only creature in the natural world who has the potential and was invited to participate in this supernatural non-empirical order. He does so not by philosophical reasoning about the supernatural order, but by abiding by its laws, which are the laws of the Torah. All of these laws reflect that postulated higher order which

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

182

Proof

Meir Seidler

connects us to the Creator. To quote Maharal when dealing with the Torah law about ritual purity and impurity: In nature there is no impurity of the dead, nor does water purify. There is nothing natural about the Divine Law, it is just decree. One is forbidden to transgress this law and the reason is that the Divine Commands emerge from the Divine Order, and for this reason the dead cause ritual impurity, etc. All is Divine wisdom but for Man it is a fiat and decree.20 Let’s sum this up: the Jewish law is the transcendental spiritual law of ideal Man. Man’s being created in the image of God finds, according to Maharal (unlike Rambam), its main expression not in philosophical reasoning, but in his inborn capability to relate to a supernatural order via its only manifestation on this earth, the Torah (i.e. the Jewish law). Thus, the particular Jewish law is, in fact, universal, as it establishes a connection to the Creator of the universe and constitutes in the Greek sense the very logos of the world. Rambam’s claim that attributes to Judaism finally the same ideal as to Greek philosophy – namely, the attaining of knowledge – is radically questioned by Maharal. As stated above, for Maharal, in contrast to Rambam, God’s image in which Man was created doesn’t mean his intellectuality but rather his capacity to connect to a higher realm by performing religious acts – the Mitzvot (commandments) – which are the only trace of a higher world in this world. Let’s return to the example of ritual purity. As we have seen, for Maharal there is no way of rationalizing the laws of purity and impurity. There never was and never will be a purity-meter (like a thermometer), the defilement a man experiences when he becomes impure (e.g. by contact with a corpse) is not empirical and, hence, will never become measurable by means of natural sciences because it reflects an order which is not of this world. The Jew by the means of the Jewish law is connected to a beyond-world and obligated to establish this connection by re-enacting the laws of this higher world, not by pondering them. In this last part of the exposition of Maharal’s ideas, I deviated from the original topic of religious coercion; but it is nevertheless connected. As the very raison d’être of Man is his connectivity to a higher realm, a higher reality, the possible abandonment of this connection makes his being superfluous; the question of adherence to the Jewish law turns thus into a question of to be or not to be. Without Jews performing the Jewish law, this world will cease its existence and return to Tohuvabohu. What was initially perceived as a question of vital importance for modern Man, the question of religious coercion (the threat to drop the mountain on the Jews’ heads), becomes now secondary. Our strong dislike for religious coercion becomes irrelevant as soon as our mere existence is as stake: our very being depends upon the implementation of Jewish law on earth; without it there will be no world!

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof Maharal and religious coercion

183

In modern times this midrashic–kabalistic conception as expounded by Maharal was taken up again by Isaac Breuer and developed further, this time within the framework of Kantian philosophy. Breuer defined himself as a disciple of Kant.21 As is widely known, Kant’s main contribution to modern philosophy is the drawing of a clear borderline between our empirical world, which is more subjective than we would assume (because it depends upon the very patterns of our perception which are built in our mind rather than founded in objective reality), and a world of objective things inaccessible to our perception and therefore beyond all empirical evidence, which nevertheless exists (otherwise its reflection, the empirical world would not be there). Kant maintains that all the philosophers before him who engaged in metaphysics (i.e. who speculated about the nature of this beyond empirical world) were not aware that they were talking about things to which the human mind has, by definition, no access; they were daydreaming, guessing, and their guess was no better than anyone’s else guess, simply because they were entering an area which is closed to human reasoning. According to Kant, there is no correlation between the things in themselves and the things as they appear to us. Not only are our senses limited; our mind is limited, too (e.g. by the very concepts of space and time, as well as by categories such as causality, which, according to Kant, are rather our concepts and categories than objective reality). This postulated essential unbridgeable limitation of human mind is Kant’s main contribution to modern philosophy in his critical philosophy as it is termed. Though Kant’s philosophy is basically non-religious (except in a watered down form as a postulate in Kant’s moral philosophy, religion has no real function in Kant’s system, certainly not as something which has to be accepted as true), his dichotomous model opened in Breuer’s eyes a backdoor to religion. Breuer actually reformulates Maharal’s assertion regarding the incompatibility of the natural and a postulated supernatural law using Kantian terms. In order to achieve this he only needs to incorporate Kant’s dichotomy between the world of appearances and the world-in-itself within a Jewish orthodox framework, which is not so difficult. He can assert triumphantly that the dichotomy formulated by Kant is precisely what Jewish tradition maintained through the ages: that Man’s autonomous philosophical reasoning is not capable of attaining the absolute truth. Finally, to Breuer, this fact is acknowledged by the gentile philosophers themselves, although it took them a long time. Therefore it is evident that where philosophy ends, the Torah starts.22 Breuer is not the first Jewish thinker to make that claim; during the twelfth century Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi (1075–1141), the author of the Kuzari, made it before him.23 But while Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi formulated this claim in juxtaposition to the utmost philosophical authority of his times (Aristotle), Breuer, in contrast, can claim support by enlisting the most important gentile philosopher of the Modern Era to his ranks: Immanuel Kant. True, Kant would never have subscribed to Breuer’s extension of his own thought simply because he would have regarded Breuer’s equation of Torah and the world-in-itself (which is neither accessible to our empirical

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

184

Proof

Meir Seidler

senses or to our autonomous reasoning) as still another improvable metaphysical theory which he opposed precisely because of its improvable (i.e. dogmatic) character. However, it cannot be denied that Breuer’s philosophy makes an ingenious use of Kant’s dichotomist distinction between the empirical and the beyond-empirical world. Thus, Breuer, like Maharal, maintains that the Torah actually reflects the laws of a beyond-empirical world which is, by the way, also the reason why he had to abandon24 his grandfather’s (Rabbi Hirsch’s) elaborated system, which aimed at a search for the rationale of the mitzvoth.25 It makes simply no sense to look for explanations for mitzvoth as Rabbi Hirsch did if the rationale of the mitzvoth is by definition ‘not of this world’. Breuer,who had a doctorate in Law, uses, like Maharal, the postulated existence of this beyond-empirical world and Man’s attachment to it by his being created in the image of God in order to give a rationale for religious coercion: in analysing the roots of Western law systems, he dwells on the fact that they are all based on the concept of human rights. According to Breuer, in the Western law systems there are no real human duties (this is why the very notion, ‘human duties’, does not resonate in our ears, quite in opposition to ‘human rights’). If there happens to be a human duty according to the Western law, it is actually only a sub-paragraph of a human right. It is your duty not to violate another’s right, so actually the duty is not independent but dependent upon the conception of human rights. So, while mere humanism for which Man’s natural existence is the only criteria produces only human rights, the Torah, which bases Man on his relationship to a beyond-empirical entity (Man was created in God’s image), produces also human duties. These duties, as any other duties, are basically compulsory; without them Man would lose the right to exist as made in the image of God.26 Why is all of this important? Because even though Judaism is not philosophy, even the most ardent critics of philosophy among Jews in the Middle Ages and thereafter (among them Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi and Maharal) developed, at the end of the day, their own anti-philosophical philosophy (this is no play of words: by anti-philosophical philosophy I mean a coherent system of ideas: philosophy which – while using philosophical language – nevertheless challenges authority or at least defines the borders of Man’s autonomous reasoning). The reason seems to be that when the surroundings become challenging, ‘proste frumkeit’ (‘simple religiosity’), as Rabbi Kook puts it,27 does not stand the test. After all, there are burning questions which will not disappear only because they are not addressed. According to Rambam, there is no essential difference between faith and knowledge, faith being a drawing to be painted carefully in the soul; and when the drawing one paints in his soul becomes more and more elaborate, detailed and accurate (perhaps approaching the quality of a photograph), then faith becomes knowledge.28 For thinking people, this cannot happen without a more or less coherent philosophical framework which addresses the whole. The question of religious coercion in the Jewish religious law seems to me one of the principle questions which modern Man senses when dealing with

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

Proof Maharal and religious coercion

185

Judaism. The tension between the compulsory nature of the law, of every law, and the not less poignant concept of ‘Rahmana Liba Bae’29 is essentially the question put forward already in the Talmud by the two seemingly conflicting accounts of the Giving of the Torah: the ‘Naase VeNishma’ theme (i.e. the voluntary acceptance of the Torah) and the ‘Har KaGigit’ theme (the seemingly coercive character of the revelation at Mount Sinai).30 The tension between these two which might have been of secondary importance to Jews living in the Antiquity or in the Middle Ages became – because of the question of religious coercion involved – of existential importance for each individual Jew in the Modern Era. Maharal’s contribution to the discussion about this theme can be regarded as an important milestone in Jewish philosophy.

Notes 1 Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise (Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish, MT, 2004), first published in 1670, is widely considered the first substantial modern criticism of revealed religion, in general, and of Judaism, in particular. 2 In the sixth chapter of his Be’er HaGola. Cf. Chapter 5 in this volume. 3 F. Rosenzweig (2000) Philosophical and Theological Writings, translated and edited with notes and commentary by P. W. Franks and M. L. Morgan, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, pp95–99. 4 On Mendelssohn’s problematic solution to this problem, cf. M. Fox (1976) ‘Law and ethics in modern Jewish philosophy: The case of Moses Mendelssohn’, American Academy for Jewish Research: Conference Proceedings, vol 43, p12. For a more detailed criticism of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem, in general, and his unsuccessful attempt at squaring a circle (with regard to religious coercion), in particular, cf. A. M. Arkush (1994) Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, pp226, 264–265. 5 Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 196b. 6 As argued in M. Mendelssohn (1983) Jerusalem or on Religious Power and Judaism, Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, pp129–130, and repeated ever since. 7 See above, note 4. 8 B. Kurzweil (1988) ‘In memory of Isaac Breuer’, in R. Horowitz (ed) Isaac Breuer: The Man and His Thought, Bar-Ilan University Press, Ramat Gan, p154 [Hebrew]. 9 Cf. note 8. Cf. also my Hebrew article, Seidler, M. (2003) ‘Struggling with the challenge of modernity: Meta-Halakha in the teachings of Mendelssohn and Breuer’, in A. Berholz (ed) The Quest for Halakha: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Jewish Law, Yedioth Aharonot, Tel-Aviv, pp313–335, 548–550 [Hebrew]. 10 BT Shabbat 88a. 11 BT Baba Batra 48a–49a. 12 Exodus 24:7 ‘We will do and we will understand.’ The rabbinical exegesis (based on BT Shabbat 88a) interprets this verse as an unconditional acceptance of God’s commandments, their performance (‘we will do’) antedating the human mind’s attempt to understand (‘we will understand’), which comes only later. 13 Midrash Tanchuma on Exodus 19:17; BT Shabbat 88a, cf. Tossafot to BT Shabbat 88a, s.v. ‘Kafa alehen’ and s.v. ‘Moda’a Raba’. 14 Guide for the Perplexed III, 17. 15 Cf. Maimonides, Hilchot Teshuva 5:5 and A. Ibn Daud’s (Ra’avad’s) criticism, Ibid.

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof

Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/05/2012; 3B2 version: 9.0.114/W Unicode (Nov 30 2005) (APS_OT) Dir: //integrafs1/KCG/2-Pagination/TandF/RABB/ApplicationFiles/9780415503600.3d

186 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

Proof

Meir Seidler Cf. above, note 12. Cf. TB Shabbat 88b. BT Eruvin 13b. Ner Mizva, Jerusalem, 1960, p64 [Hebrew]. Tiferet Israel, Chapter 8 (free English translation). I. Breuer, Mein Weg, Mossad Jizchak Breuer, Jerusalem and Zürich, 1988, p57. Cf. my Hebrew article, M. Seidler (2003) ‘Struggling with the challenge of modernity: Meta-Halakha in the teachings of Mendelssohn and Breuer’, pp329–331 and the notes there. Kuzari I:65–67; IV:13–15; V:65–67. In his last Hebrew book, Nahliel, which was published only posthumously (Tel-Aviv, 1951). For an extensive research on Rabbi Hirsch’s system of explicating the Jewish commandments, cf. my Hebrew article, M. Seidler (2007) ‘“Solving the most urgent problems of Jewish consciousness” – Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s symbolism and its historical background’, in B. Ish Shalom (ed) BeDarkhei Shalom: Studies in Jewish Thought Presented to Shalom Rosenberg, Beit Morasha of Jerusalem Press, Jerusalem, pp323–353 [Hebrew]. Cf. my article, M. Seidler (1996) ‘Isaac Breuer’s concept of law’, in E. A. Goldman (ed) Jewish Law Association Studies VIII: The Jerusalem 1994 Conference Volume, Scholars Press, Atlanta, GA, pp167–172. Rabbi A. I. Hacohen Kook (1985) Letters I, Mossad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, pp160–161 [Hebrew]. Guide for the Perplexed, I:50. See above, note 5. BT, Shabbat 88a.

Taylor & Francis Not for distribution

Proof