[Avodah] John Locke and Tzedaqa

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 03:25:46AM +0200, Michael Makovi wrote:
: In fact, according to Locke, the form of government is immaterial, as
: long as it has the consent of the people. (In fact, Locke doesn't even
: require elections; for him, even complying with the government's laws
: grants tacit consent.) ...

I think this is an important point, because you appear to be conflating
two issues. As does Israeli political rhetoric, but that's off topic.
There is the issue of civil rights, and the issue of representative
gov't.

Dealing just with the latter, which I think is a tangent off the
original topic, RMM writes:
: As for my own view of elections: the Torah (in Devarim) says the
: PEOPLE choose the king of Israel (it says "you shall set up a
: king...", i.e. am yisrael will choose the king), but nothing is said
: of elections, and I doubt the technology of the time would permit
: national elections...

The technology allowed for a head count. So why not? Put a ballot box
right next to the pushqa for machatzis hasheqel.

: King David ruled in Hebron over Judah, he was not halakhically a king,
: because the whole nation of Israel hadn't accepted him yet. The
: Yerushalmi is obviously not talking about whether King David had had
: elections or not.

A king has to be accepted by the people. That's how a melekh differs from
a mosheil. But he isn't selected by the people. King is an inherited role,
and when the succession is broken or in dispute, HQBH sends a navi to
annoint the next king.

Look at Shemuel I 9:15-17 -- Hashem's selection of Sha'ul preceeds the
acclamation. Similarly, ibid ch. the annointing of David is before
anyone other than HQBH thought David ought to lead.

If I were to read "som tasim alekha melekh" naively, I would think it's
an obligation to accept (be machniah myself to) the king Hashem selected.
And if I don't read it naively, I need to deal with comparing the
chumash to Shemu'el's mussar shmuess when the masses ask for a king,
fitting in "ein melekh beYisra'el, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh" and
thus the machloqes rishonim.

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 08:11:55PM +0200, Michael Makovi wrote:
: First, Locke derived his concepts from the Tanakh, and prima facie,
: the Tanakh has many democratic ideas (the people choose a king, the
: king must carry a Torah with him and abide by impartial rule of law,
: etc.), so my first presumption is that the Torah and democracy agree,
: until proven otherwise....

But here, we get back to the primary topic... Locke wasn't talking about
democracy, he was talking about rights. My earlier post didn't focue on
democracy at all.

Rather, I pointed out the difference between "live and let live" and
"kol Yisrael areivim". The former comes from the west's focus on civil
rights, and thus giving others their (figurative as well as literal)
"space" to be and do what they wish with what is theirs.

Halakha, I argued, is based on a philosophy of covenant. Meaning, G-d
enters a beris with a group of individuals to create a new corporate
entity and each piece of that entity pledges to further the new common
cause. Thus areivus, and the Rambam calling people "qetzaseinu" in Seifer
haMitzvos when describing MBALC specific to being between two Jews.
This is akin to RJB's notion of the Jewish people as a family (thanks
RAF!). The pasuq's "lo sisna es akhikha bilvavekha" is the Rambam's
"shehizharnu miseno qetzaseinu leqetzaseinu". Marriage, after all,
is also a covenent.

(The third form, that I provided for comparison, is law as duty to the
other. Whether that's contractual -- each side trading promises, or
imposed single-handedly by the powerful on the powerless.)

That's a basic gap in philosophy that makes Locke incompatible with
halakhah. There is no corporate entity in the implied social contract
Locke describes the citizen as entering. Also, meeting as parts of a
whole isn't "the state of nature", either.

: Second, Rav Kook said (as quoted at
: http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm/2009/1/28/Marc-B-Shapiro-Thoughts-on-Confrontation--Sundry-Matters-Part-)
...
: Ke'she-ha-musar ha-tivi mitgaber ba-olam, be-eize tzurah she-tihyeh,
: hayav kol adam l'qabel le-tokho oto mi-meqoro, de-haynu me-hitgaluto
: ba-olam, ve-et peratav yifales al pi orhot ha-torah. Az ya'aleh b'yado
: ha-musar ha-tivi, amitz u-mezuqaq.

: In other words: even if the Torah and democracy are opposed, we might
: have an obligation, according to Rav Kook, to accept democracy and
: Torah-ize it....

What???? By that argument taken ad absurdum, RAYK would ch"v be saying
that if modern society considers it a moral imperative to allow two
consenting adults to do what they wish in the privacy of their own
bedroom, we would have to "Torah-ize" such an ethic as well.

It's only when we can already consider it a "musar hativ'i" that RAYK's
words even start to apply. Nothing opposed to the Torah would qualify.

I'm reminded of our discussion here of copyright law, and the Sho'el
uMeishiv's opinion that copyright law goes beyond DDD. Rather, because
this kind of property was recognized by general society as a moral
imperative, we must perforce extend the concept of baalus to include it
within halakhah as well.

But to do the same in case of conflict? How would such a system avoid
collapsing into Reform Judaism, refitting Judaism to the zeitgeist until
a generation or so later there is little Torah left?

But again, I didn't write about democracy, I wrote about basing law on
rights rather than covenental membership.

...
: So that is why I am interested in democracy, even if the Tanakh and
: Gemara would have been dumbfounded and perplexed. After all, wouldn't
: they be equally perplexed by our revulsion at slavery, or our
: rejection of polygamy?

I'm not so sure. I think slavery when not an economic need would have
shocked chazal as well. We don't find too many polygamous or slave-holding
tannaim or amora'im.

: > I should point out that this is a general problem I have with people who
: > describe MO in terms of the adoption of modern ethics.

: The introduction by David Hazony to Essential Essays on Judaism,
: discussing Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, points out precisely this
: criticism against the Conservative movement...
...
: Alternatively, we could follow Rav Kook, as I have quoted him above.
: Perhaps we might adopt non-Jewish values, but we will let the Torah
: translate them into terms acceptable to us. Or, we will discover new
: Torah values, latent in the Tanakh all along, which we never realized
: were always there the whole time.

I'm okay with the latter, but the rest of it, I agree with Hazony that
that's C, not O.

However, there are those who do define MO that way. Eg RGS writes on
the "First Things" website
<http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/09/when-values-collide>:
    The term "Modern Orthodox" is, in a sense, self-contradictory,
    which makes one wonder why it has been used for so long to describe
    a significant portion of the Jewish community. The "Orthodox" part
    refers to the community's strong commitment to traditional core
    beliefs and practices. The "Modern" part implies a willingness to
    absorb practices and values from contemporary culture. Sometimes
    the two complement each other, but often they conflict.
Notice that "a willingness to absorb ... values from contemporary culture."
(RGS then explores the field and ends up in a more nuanced position.)

Rav Kook is being sorely misrepresented.

: II. Two

: > It appears to be a system for getting people to be just, and not "ish
: > es rei'eihu chaim bal'o".

: > Notice it's not a social contract between people to keep each other safe.
: > It's an obligation imposed by a Third Party to get people to imitate Him
: > (veshameru derekh Hashem).

: I don't think Locke would disagree. Getting people to keep each other
: safe IS a large part of being just.

You comment on the similarlity between the two models I present, and not
the difference. Locke speaks of a social contract to guarantee rights.

Beris Noach is a covenent between the individual and G-d. And it's not
about rights. It's about redemption. The term in the chumash for courts
under the 7MBN is "veshameru derekh Hashem" -- imatitio Dei.

: Additionally, back when Shabbat observance was essential to the
: general moral fabric of society, then coercing another to keep Shabbat
: would be part of getting people to keep each other safe.

Where do you get the idea that beris Sinai is about keeping each other
safe? If that were true, it wold be halakhah, not royal law, that
punishes the murderer who was proven guilty without eidus and hasra'ah.
Yet there is nothing of that sort, even derabbanan.

There is another distinction between beris Noach and beris Sinai that I
couldn't find a better place in this post to spell out. Beris Noach is
between an individual person and G-d. The corporate entity is of two.
Beris Sinai (or again, perhaps that made in Devarim) creates a single
entity out of all Jews together with G-d. It's one beris for the Jewish
people, not one per Jew.

And so, for benei Noach, society exists to serve people. They have a
chiyuv to establish courts to that people don't swallow eachother alive.
A rights-based law does that well, since the law doesn't serve to
mediate between two members of the same covenant. Just to keep people
safe.

A Jew, however, is both an indidicual and part of a whole including
every other Jew since Sinai. Society serves people, and it's an entity
in its own right of which the people are components who exist to serve
it. (Dialectically.) The role of courts is similarly twofold in a way
that Noachide courts do not need to be. Not only can't we eat each other
alive, we also have a vested interest in the others' avodas Hashem.

: The Torah wants us to ensure that we are all just and G-d-fearing. But
: nowadays, coercion just doesn't work, and Rabbi Ya'akov Ettlinger's
: omer mutar/tinok she-nishba shita shows exactly why coercion no longer
: works...

The gemara's discussion of tokhachah says the same.

But that doesn't change the philosophy. There is still an areivus --
it's just that coercion doesn't tactically work as an expression of that
areivus.

: Locke's entire source for natural law is that G-d commanded it. G-d
: prohibited murder, and so all have a right to live....

This is correct, but misleadingly phrased. Locke's source for natural
law is that G-d wrote nature, and thus "bestowed man certain inalienable
rights". He has G-d granting a right to life inherently in how He designed
the world. Natural law does not come from his commanding "Thou shalt
not kill".

: commanded one to keep Shabbat, why is Shabbat any less legitimate a
: part of natural law than murder? ...

Again, murder isn't the concept Locke considers primary. It's the right
to live.

And therefore within the Lockian scheme, the nearest equivalent would be
a G-d given inalienable right to shevisas melakhah, qiddush hayom and
oneg Shabbos. But as a right, it's not a mitzvah; it's a choice others
must grant me.

Maybe asserting G-d's right to have me rest would do it, but that's miles
away from Locke and does serious damage to the concept of "right".

: Locke's arguments for religious toleration don't apply to Judaism.
: Locke offers three arguments:
: 1) The government shouldn't concern itself whether you believe in
: Jesus correctly,
: 2) Coercion won't make you believe in Jesus anyway; it'll only make
: you lie with your lips and claim you believe,
: 3) We have to be humble, and realize we don't know which religion is
: the true one.
: But Judaism would reply:
: 1) The government may not care what you believe, but it DOES care what you DO

The gov't does care what you believe. There are issurim that are thought
alone.

Besides, you're denying areivus. Every Jew MUST concern himself with the
welfare of every other Jew. As I wrote above, the fact is that our list of
productively expressing that concern is limited, but the concern is not.

: 2) Coercion may not be effective in compelling belief, but it is VERY
: effective in compelling action

Tell Yoshiahu. He thought he succeeded, but instead he drove AZ
underground.

: 3) We saw G-d on the mountain, for crying out loud! What do you mean,
: we don't know which religion is the true one? We saw Him with our own
: eyes!

Not to many non-O would buy into that. And if you assume you're only
speaking of a believer's response, any believer of any religion would
give a parallel answer. (Unless you're invoking the misnamed "Kuzari
Argument".) We rely on mesorah to believe our ancestors saw Him.

: But before the Reform movement came along, Locke's reasons for
: religious toleration didn't apply to Judaism, and so coercing Jews to
: keep Shabbat was perfectly libertarian...

But not Lockian, since there is no way to phrase it as a right.

: hurts his neighbors by destroying the social fabric. It also gets G-d
: mad, which isn't good for anyone.

Only if you assume we have a shared fate and destiny, that G-d being
mad at him effects me. This gets us back to a unifying covenent.

: G-d doesn't have a desire that we coerce each other, in and of itself.
: He wants us to coerce each other because it'll ensure that we do the
: right thing....

And that's where we part with Locke. QED.

: And the amazing thing is, I've gone from using Locke-ian
: libertarianism to forbid the kehilla to charge tzedaqa, all the way to
: justifying authoritarian religious coercion even according to Locke.
: Judaism has become libertarian and Locke has become authoritarian, in
: my skilled hands. Aren't I talented? ...

Only because you violate Locke by granting society rights qua society,
not granting each of its members' rights.

: The Noahide laws include the obligation to set up courts, which is
: very societal and NOT individual...

The courts exist to protect individuals. There is no entity called
"society" corresponding to beris Noach.

To return to your original question: Notice that nachriim aren't obligated
to give tzedaqah. (Kibud av va'eim and tzedaqah were commonly taken upon
themselves by geirei toshav, but that's not mandatory and not part of
the beris.)

It seems to fit my belief that the Noachide obligation of law can be
satisfied with a rights-based legal system, but the Sinaitic obligation
is neither rights based nor even can be modeled as one.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter