[Avodah] Gentiles in Torah

[Michael Makovi]

It doesn't take a genius to realize that nowadays many, especially
Modern Orthodoxy, have been taking at a new, more universalistic look
at gentiles in Torah. However, I realized that while I have happened
across countless incidental and anecdotal references (especially in
Modern Orthodox works) to our loving relations with gentiles (etc.),
whether explicit or implicit, I have not yet seen anyone who candidly
and systematically examines the issue halakhically and sociologically,
tracing the references through Modern Orthodox literature and
analyzing precisely where they stand with relation to historical
halakhic literature.

Does anyone comprehensively and candidly detail such issues of
Jewish-gentile relationships, especially in an academic manner? I have
seen a reference to "A. Sagi, Judaism: Between Religion and Morals
(Tel-Aviv, 1998)", perhaps dealing with this topic, but I know nothing
of this work. Goldstein (http://www.talkreason.org/articles/meiri.cfm)
has done this to some extent, showing that Meiri is in stark contrast
to most of the literature (Rambam and sha'ar haposkim, who view the
Talmud's discriminatory civil legislation as being directed
ontologically at gentiles per se, regardless of their morality), but
he mentions barely anything of what recent authors have made of this
issue, i.e. who has or has not relied on Meiri in recent years, how
they used him or did not, etc. (In fact, he seems almost oblivious to
the fact that any Modern Orthodox authors have advocated the Meiri's
shita or one like it, save Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg.) All I have
been able to gather is anecdotal evidence from Rav Hirsch's writings,
Modern Orthodox writings on the Shahak and Feldman affairs, statements
from miscellaneous authors such as Rabbis J. H. Hertz and Ahron
Soloveichik, etc. But I have not yet found anyone who academically or
systematically analyzes the trends and pinpoints exactly what is going
on. It is all rather helter-skelter; one can easily see that Modern
Orthodoxy is inclined to emphasize the common humanity of Jew and
gentile, but few if any forthright admissions, much less analyses,
have been made, as far as I've seen. The closest I've seen is Rabbi
Eliezer Samson Rosenthal (in an article by Rabbi Benjamin Lau -
http://www.lookstein.org/articles/reflections.pdf), very briefly
admitting that one can either take a primitive and archaic ontological
view, or a modern cultured view of "sefer toldat adam". Does anyone
know if anyone has written what I am looking for?

Unfortunately, I am not in a milieu for whom such topics are of
pressing concern. Shortly before I came to my present yeshiva (Machon
Meir), I happened across an English translation of Rabbi David bar
Hayim's "Atem Nikra'im Adam"
(http://www.come-and-hear.com/supplement/so-daat-emet/en_gentiles1.html),
and suffice it to say, I was rather distraught. I asked one of the
rabbis of the yeshiva about this, and he referred me to Derech haShem.
(Since arriving at the yeshiva, I've gotten the impression that had I
asked anyone else, they'd have referred me to the Kuzari. Either way,
six of this, half a dozen of the other.) Thank G-d I didn't have a
copy of Derech haShem on hand at the time, and thank G-d that no one
referred me to the Kuzari (which I did have a copy of, gathering dust
on my bookshelf). Had either occurred, and I had read either one at
the time, my dilemma would have far from improved. Whatever I have
learned since then, has been pieced together by myself from whatever
I've managed to accidentally stumble
across (no exaggeration).

------------

As an aside, some random thoughts which occur to me:

Professor Moshe Halbertal has written an article,
http://tinyurl.com/3k2bh4 (which in turn links to a PDF at
http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/halbertal.pdf), which
analyzes the Meiri's shita, showing
1) How he systematically applied it to the entire Talmudic gamut, and
2) his philosophical basis.

To elaborate on the second: Meiri holds according to the ibn
Tibbon-ide school that one believing in four matters is one
"restricted by religion", viz. creation ex nihilo, providence,
recompense, and the existence and truth of metaphysical/spiritual
incorporeal reality. Meiri's own hiddush was not that such an
individual is "religious", but rather that a "religious" individual is
exempt from the Talmud's discriminatory civil legislation.

(That a monotheist is exempt from the Talmud's *ritual* legislation
dealing with commerce and relations with an idolater, is no
magnificent hiddush. Rambam himself held Muslims were exempt, and
anyone holding Christians to be monotheists would hold likewise. The
Tosafits, according to Halbertal, did *not* extend this to Christians,
whereas Meiri did, but in any case, this is not a monumental hiddush.
Meiri's real hiddush was in exempting moral monotheists ("nations
restricted by religion") from the Talmud's discriminatory *civil*
legislation. For Rambam, even as he held Muslims to be monotheists,
did not exclude them from discrimination in civil law. Meiri himself
uses two distinct expressions for civil and ritual law: for the
former, "nations restricted by religion" are exempt, whereas for the
latter, mere monotheists are exempt. The two are obviously related,
but even Meiri terminologically distinguishes the two.)

Goldstein points out, that Meiri's shita does not help us today:
Meiri's required beliefs would exclude atheists and polytheists (even
moral ones) alike. His solution is an interesting one: Orthodox Jews
ought to act equitably towards gentiles, and the poskim will follow
suite in their legislation. This solution would indeed work, but is it
necessary?

Here my own thoughts come in: a tentative answer to Goldstein:
Halbertal notes that Meiri required his beliefs because he felt they
were the minimal requirements for one to be moral. In fact, Meiri
excluded philosophers from his requirements, for they had alternate
sources of moral imperatives. In other words, Meiri required the
beliefs that he did, not because they were "obligatory truths", but
rather because they were "necessary truths" (Maimonidean terms which
will be clear to anyone who has read Professor Shapiro's Limits  - the
former indicates the belief is actual bona-fide dogma, while the
latter is a belief that the masses/laity must hold by, in order to
achieve some societal or political aim, and the learned are exempt
from believing it). In any case, Meiri's own requirements were
borrowed from the ibn Tibbonides.

Therefore, I suggest that either:
1) We differ with the ibn Tibbonides and establish our own definition
of "nations restricted by religion", however retaining Meiri's own
hiddush that such nations are exempt from discriminatory civil
legislation.
2) We simply classify moral atheists and polytheists as
"philosophers". As long as someone has some source, any source, of
moral imperative, and does not steal, murder, etc., I (personally) am
not particularly concerned with what his source actually is. Rabbis J.
H. Hertz and Isidore Epstein both make the interesting case that the
prophets spoke against heathenism not for its false theology, but
rather, for its false morality. Rabbi Epstein continues that the first
Noachide commandment does not mandate monotheistic belief, but rather
that it prohibits heathenistic ritual practice.

This Friday, I had some spare time, so I write an article with my
thoughts on the subject, in more detail, and more rigourously sourced.
Attached.

Mikha'el Makovi
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