5 thoughts on “Radicalism and Jewish Values

  1. This article is, pardon my language, complete and utter bullshit. It deserves a proper fisking, but I’ve already wasted more than my fair share of time debunking Bradford Pilcher’s argument that Jewish values necessitate leftist ideology. Many of the arguments this author makes have already been addressed in my Jewsweek article.
    A few points though:
    One thing the article does demonstrate is the irrelevance of the conservative/radical dichotomy. Either a given policy or ideology is a good idea or a bad idea; whether it is currently represented by the status quo has no bearing on the validity of the policy or ideology itself. Conservatives, whether they be left or right, who believe that the current situation should be preserved simply because of familiarity or tradition are not interested in “justice”. Justice is independent of the status quo. These Jews should be honest and drop the euphemisms: they are not interested in “social justice” – they are interested in socialism.
    Second, I find it interesting that almost everyone who argues for leftist politics by pointing to Jewish values do not themselves follow Halacha. If they did, they might realize that Judaism is a religious philosophy, not a political philosophy. These same people who (rightly) embrace a strong separation of Church and State are hypocrites when they try to use Judaism to justify their preferred political predilections. If you don’t like what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson do, don’t do the same thing yourself.
    Third, one of the reasons why I have much more respect for completely secular Jews than for Reform and Conservatives is that at least secular Jews are honest: they simply don’t care about Judaism. What I cannot stand is when people pick and choose, and then think that they are somehow righteous for doing so. If the Torah is just a smorgasbord, a menu, or a buffet, then it becomes meaningless. It simply reinforces what we already believed anyway, and we can ignore the rest. Just as Christians have used the Bible to justify almost anything and everything, including some of the most unimaginable crimes against humanity in history, so too Jews can (but should not) do the same.
    These Jews have replaced their love of Judaism with a devotion to state socialism, a failed ideology that has caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent civilians over the past century, far more than fascism. If they wish to ignore this failure and continue to err on the side of socialism, fine. But they should not claim that they are doing so out of some imaginary respect for Jewish values.

  2. Micha, you’re of course right in saying that Judaism compels no one modern political philosophy over another.
    A couple of slightly nitpicky points.
    First, where you say that a given policy or ideology is a good idea or a bad idea. I don’t know. A lot of stupid arguments about dumb policies get made, granted. But ultimately we’re not omniscient, and honest people can disagree about how best to solve problems. (Even if they constantly end up spending more time arguing about what problem it is they’re trying to solve, than how best to solve some agreed-upon problem.)
    Second, where you say that Judaism is a religious philosophy, not a political philosophy: I don’t think that’s quite accurate, in two ways.
    On religion, Judaism is more of a religious tradition than a single philosophy, as there are some quite violent disagreements within that religious traditions. Though this may be a semantics issue.
    And, on politics, there is certainly a Jewish tradition of political thought, even if — again — there isn’t exactly one doctrine or one way of thinking within that tradition. That has much to do with Jewish ethics, which are not exactly incidental to halakha, but with other thought traditions within Judaism as well. Thinktanks like the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (jcpa.org), Shalom Hartman Institute (hartmaninstitute.com), Israel Democracy Institute (idi.org.il), and others seem quite hot on it. One might or mightn’t agree with the way in which they characterize this tradition, but few would accuse of not being uniquely Jewish.

  3. First, where you say that a given policy or ideology is a good idea or a bad idea. I don’t know. A lot of stupid arguments about dumb policies get made, granted. But ultimately we’re not omniscient, and honest people can disagree about how best to solve problems.
    Of course, but I think you missed my point. Honest people can and do disagree about how to solve problems, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, arguments from tradition or familiarity are unpersuasive when we are primarily concerned with justice. In other words, if we wish to pursue the most just policies, we must do more than simply look at the past and the status quo. Conservatism may be a good pragmatic philosophy in that it helps us avoid radical changes that might risk detrimental social upheavels, but it is not a useful philosophy for discovering what is right and wrong.
    On religion, Judaism is more of a religious tradition than a single philosophy
    Sure, I agree. My comments were necessarily short and incomplete, but my basic point is that Judaism is intended to be a religious ideology/philosophy/tradition/etc., and not a political one.
    there is certainly a Jewish tradition of political thought
    There is, and I argue, as I did in my recent Jewsweek article, that this is a bad idea, at least in a secular pluralistic America. We should enter the political arena as individuals with individual values, not as a collective religious minority hoping to implement our minority religious values.

  4. “Conservatives, whether they be left or right, who believe that the current situation should be preserved simply because of familiarity or tradition are not interested in ‘justice.’ Justice is independent of the status quo.”
    Couldn’t have said it better myself: Conservatives such as GW Bush & Co. have no insterest in justice but rather in preserving the narrow-minded status quo of a pre-integrated America. They believe in revoking a woman’s right to choose, pushing gays back in the closet, disenfranchising black voters, and going back to a Cold War era style arms race.
    However, by Larry Bush’s definition of conservatism, conservatives are ALL about justice and preserving status quo of progress this country’s undertaken in the last 50 years.
    GW Bush is turning back the clock on all the progress we’ve made. Larry Bush is calling for continued progress. He wants to conserve our progress, not throw it away.
    Again, as Larry Bush wrote, “We are now the conservatives, the ones dedicated to conserving the rights, opportunities and minimum concessions to equality and equity that our struggles won. We are the conservatives, dedicated to preserving a sense of human community and human interdependence against the alienation and dehumanization caused especially by the vast gap between wealth and poverty. We are the conservatives within Jewish life as well, for it is we who are seeking to preserve Jewish commitments to social justice, equal opportunity, an end to racism, a peaceful and visionary state of Israel, an idealistic vision of a kinder, more beautiful world.”
    “These Jews should be honest and drop the euphemisms: they are not interested in ‘social justice’ – they are interested in socialism.”
    I will grant you that the theme of Jewish Currents magazine is secularist with socialist leanings. However, I take issue with your treatment of the word ‘socialism’ as though it was something lecherous or evil. You’ve obviously bought into the American demonization of socialism and have no appreciation for its finer qualities. Such knee-jerk anti-socialism is a result of years of propaganda created to bolster support for the Cold War and your personal hatred of the philosophy is merely a result of your indoctrination into an American society which places more value on individual success in competition (a capitalist ideal) than on mutual aid.
    Socialism necessarily implies social justice. PERIOD. It implies equality amongst all peoples, indiscriminate of professional ability, economic stature, race, faith, gender, or sexual orientation. If you can’t see that, consider that the sources for your understanding of socialism have likely all been biased in favor of capitalism and skewed against the socialist ideal. You are not being “Fair & Balanced.”
    “Second, I find it interesting that almost everyone who argues for leftist politics by pointing to Jewish values do not themselves follow Halacha. If they did, they might realize that Judaism is a religious philosophy, not a political philosophy. These same people who (rightly) embrace a strong separation of Church and State are hypocrites when they try to use Judaism to justify their preferred political predilections. If you don’t like what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson do, don’t do the same thing yourself.”
    First of all–that’s a brash generalization and mighty presumptuous of you. How do you know whether or not I follow halacha? You’ve got your eyes on me all the way down there in Atlanta? How the hell do you know what I, or any other left-leaning Jew does with our practice? That is mighty arrogant of you and I resent that statement.
    Judaism is not just a religious philosophy: It is the culture of the Jewish people and the religious philosophy is merely one aspect of the sum total of Jewish cultural contributions, albeit its greatest.
    As far as Jewish political philosophy, contrary to your opinion, socialism evolved out of Jewish values. The majority of great socialist and anarchist thinkers throughout history were all Jews. Many of them were secular yes, but most Jews are and have mostly always been secular. You act as though once upon a time in history, every Jew was religious. Don’t kid yourself. Israel, you might consider, also began as a socialist democracy. In fact, it was the world’s first successful socialist democracy (as all we’d seen up until that point had been socialist dictatorships), and it would’ve succeeded if that capitalists hadn’t come and spoiled it. Now the kibbutzim, once the strength of the nation, are struggling to stay alive.
    “Third, one of the reasons why I have much more respect for completely secular Jews than for Reform and Conservatives is that at least secular Jews are honest: they simply don’t care about Judaism. What I cannot stand is when people pick and choose, and then think that they are somehow righteous for doing so. If the Torah is just a smorgasbord, a menu, or a buffet, then it becomes meaningless. It simply reinforces what we already believed anyway, and we can ignore the rest. Just as Christians have used the Bible to justify almost anything and everything, including some of the most unimaginable crimes against humanity in history, so too Jews can (but should not) do the same.”
    Okay, now you’re just being a completely intolerant asshole and I’m really going to lose my patience with you. Have you ever been to a reform or conservative shul? Do you actually know any reform or conservative people? Like–really know? I grew up in a frum household; my family is mostly hareidi. Most of my frum friends are Chabad Lubavitch. And ya know what, some of the reform and conservative people I know are even more religious, more spiritual, and more holy than most of the frum people I know in life. For them the rituals are not rote routine that they do because they’re supposed to–they peform rituals because they are meaningful to them and inspire their spiritual growth. They study torah & talmud dilligently; they study hebrew & aramaic; they lust for yiddishkeit, moreso than any frummie I know–it is the only thing that means anything to them… but they aren’t Orthodox. Does that make them less of a Jew, because they have the capacity to decide for themselves what Judaism means to them, rather than allowing ancient dead people dicate the terms of their spiritual existence?
    Besides, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Do you really expect to keep every single one of them? And for how many of them have the Rabbis created loopholes to catch up with modernity? If we followed halacha, we’d actually be stoning people to death for everything and anything. You really deserve a zets upside the kop for that drivel. Your arrogance, insensitivity, and religious intolerance is glaring like the fires of gehonim right now and I really wish you would shut up. You are a perfect example of a person who turns me off to Orthodoxy.
    “These Jews have replaced their love of Judaism with a devotion to state socialism, a failed ideology that has caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent civilians over the past century, far more than fascism. If they wish to ignore this failure and continue to err on the side of socialism, fine. But they should not claim that they are doing so out of some imaginary respect for Jewish values.”
    All we’ve seen, historically, are socialist dictatorships, not socialist democracies. Socialist democracies haven’t had a chance to prove themselves yet. Capitalists–greedy pig fuckers who want it all for themselves–keep taking over and screwing it up for everyone else. Does that mean socialism failed? No, it means humans failed.
    Further, you’re generalizing again. Most of the socialists I know are libertarian socialists–anarchists–who are opposed to the state, let alone state socialism. Socialism should be a voluntary committment by free-thinking people, not something you’re forced into at the barrel of a gun.

  5. However, by Larry Bush’s definition of conservatism, conservatives are ALL about justice and preserving status quo of progress this country’s undertaken in the last 50 years.
    But again, who cares? The status quo is not an argument. The status quo simply is. The George Bush type conservatives want to conserve some mythical 1950’s style society. So what? Is that society good or bad? That is the question to ask, not whether it existed in the past or currently exists in the present.
    GW Bush is turning back the clock on all the progress we’ve made.
    You know, I dislike GW Bush as much as the next guy, but these sorts of claims are just ridiculous. GW is bad, in my mind worse than Clinton, but the sky is not falling and the clock is not spinning backwards. Be reasonable in your criticisms and people will tend to take your criticisms seriously.
    However, I take issue with your treatment of the word ‘socialism’ as though it was something lecherous or evil.
    I qualified my use of the word socialism on Jakeneck but forgot to do so here. When I criticize socialism, I am speaking of state socialism, which I certainly do consider lecherous and evil, perhaps one of the most lecherous and evil things in human history. However, as far as socialist values are concerned, and depending on how broadly one defines such values, I am all for them. A healthy society cannot thrive without people who care about each other and are willing to help each other even when they know they will get no financial reward in return. As long as those relationships are voluntary, i.e. without the coercion of some authority forcing people to do what they do not wish to do, you can call me the biggest socialist on the block.
    How do you know whether or not I follow halacha?
    I wasn’t speaking about you because I don’t know you. I was speaking about the things Larry Bush said, such as:
    “They are interested not only in Jewishness but in Judaism: a non-theistic reading of Judaism, of the kind presented by this year’s Moishe Katz Award winner, Judith Seid, in her book, God-Optional Judaism.” and “I know that there are many secular Jewish values, formed in the course of our struggle, our suffering and our survival, that we might invoke in support of our politics without resorting to theology. There are even Biblical passages that secularists already consider kosher.” and “Of course, few secularists, myself included, show up in synagogue on Yom Kippur.” and “There’s a world of difference between examining religion as a potential source of values and becoming religious. I would not ask anyone at this luncheon to say a brokhe before or after our meal.”
    Even the thought of Halachik Judaism seriously offends these people, which as I said before, I have no problem with, as long as they are honest about it. But to viscerally reject the Torah in such a way, while choosing to keep bits and pieces that they already agreed with anyway, in order to justify their personal political predilections, strikes me as the height of hypocrisy.
    As far as Jewish political philosophy, contrary to your opinion, socialism evolved out of Jewish values. The majority of great socialist and anarchist thinkers throughout history were all Jews.
    Guess what? The majority of great capitalist and anarcho-capitalist throughout history were all Jews: Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Milton and David Friedman, Karl Popper, Randy Barnett, Richard Epstein, Richard Posner, Israel Kirzner, and the list goes on. It’s actually pretty difficult to compile a list of non-Jewish libertarian thinkers.
    Does this mean that capitalism is inherently Jewish or that Jews should all become capitalists? No more so than it implies the same thing about socialism. As I’ve argued again and again, Jews should not choose their politics based on their religion. Their religious values will certainly inform their political values, but Judaism is not a political philosophy and it is dangerous and false to think that it is.
    You act as though once upon a time in history, every Jew was religious. Don’t kid yourself.
    Don’t kid myself? Please. I may not be an expert in Jewish history, but I know enough to recognize BS when I say it. Whether or not every Jew believed in or followed halacha as individuals at any point in history, I don’t know. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Jewish history knows that since the giving of the Torah until only a few hundred years ago, Jewish societies were governed by Halacha, and it was the exception, not the norm, for individual Jews to stray from their adherence to Halachic rules, at least publicly. Personally, I prefer a situation where Jews a free to live in a secular society if they choose to do so without fear of persecution from both inside and outside their communities. I also prefer a situation where governments, if they are to exist at all, are secular, even if that means that many Halachas is not legally enforceable, other than through shunning and excommunication.
    In fact, it was the world’s first successful socialist democracy (as all we’d seen up until that point had been socialist dictatorships), and it would’ve succeeded if that capitalists hadn’t come and spoiled it. Now the kibbutzim, once the strength of the nation, are struggling to stay alive.
    Laughable. Let me guess: the failure of the kibbutzim can be blamed on those evil capitalists as well, eh? You know that reminds me of something Ayn Rand once said (and note that while I am not an Objectivist, she did get a few things right):
    “Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”
    When my Grandfather immigrated to Israel around 40 years ago, he and a group of fellow immigrants agreed to share whatever earnings they could muster and distribute them equally amongst themselves. Only one small problem: my Grandfather was the only one with a real job that actually paid any real money. Let’s just say that little arrangement didn’t last very long. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a nice little catch phrase, except when you are the one with the job and every one else takes advantage of that by not bothering to get one of their own.
    Later, when my mother grew older, she tried living on a kibbutz for a while. She was told to pick a row of vegetables in a field, along with her fellow “comrades”. While she focused on her work and tried to move as quickly as possible to get the job done, the other workers took it slowly, singing and chatting and having a gay-old-time. When my mother finished her row and sat down under a tree to take a break and wait for everyone else to finish, she was told by the group leader that since she finished her row so nicely, she can go help the others finished theirs.
    Let’s just say that little arrangement didn’t last long either.
    So if that is that type of socialism you want, I won’t stop you from forming your own communes, but leave me out please. I don’t have a problem supporting my fellow man when he is in need, but as a student of economics and human nature, I’ve come to strongly believe that an economic system any larger than an extended family, and even that is pushing it, is doomed to failure if it ignores rational self-interest.
    Have you ever been to a reform or conservative shul? Do you actually know any reform or conservative people? Like–really know?
    As a matter of fact, I’ve been intimately involved with both Conservative and Reform shuls, organizations, and Rabbis for most of my life. My Jewish elementary school consisted of children coming from primarily Reform, Conservative, and secular families. I’ve worked as a mashgiach in numerous Conservative synagogues for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other social events. I even worked as a mashgiach at Camp Ramah for a summer, which did not go over too well, I must say. My father is a Funeral Director, and I’ve been worked with Conservative Chevra Kadishas, Conservative and Reform Rabbis officiating at funerals, etc. My Father’s side of the family, at least those who are not completely secular, attend lifecycle events at Reform synagogues.
    And ya know what, some of the reform and conservative people I know are even more religious, more spiritual, and more holy than most of the frum people I know in life.
    That could very well be, but it is completely beside the point. If they pick and choose the parts of Judaism that they like and ignore the rest, then Judaism simply becomes a reaffirmation of the views that they would have held anyway; in others, it loses any meaning except for the meaning that they feel like giving to it on whim. Torah goes from being an objective set of rules and guideline by which to live life and instead becomes a set of possible suggestions, like a self-help book found in a trendy book store/coffee shop. Perhaps that is what people want, but they should fool themselves into thinking that it is Judaism.
    Does that make them less of a Jew, because they have the capacity to decide for themselves what Judaism means to them, rather than allowing ancient dead people dicate the terms of their spiritual existence?
    Being Jewish is like being pregnant or being dead – you either are or you aren’t. I don’t disparage the validity of their Judaism, assuming of course, that their mothers were Jewish and/or that somewhere up the tree, they or their ancestors received an halachically valid conversion.
    But I find your comment about those “ancient dead people” very interesting. For one thing, it reminds me of those who claim that the U.S. Constitution is a “living document”, subject to the whims and wishes of the current set of Justices, and not to the actual rule of law defined by the original meaning of the document itself. If we are to believe that the Written Torah is true, then we must also believe that Oral Torah is true, and that God intended it to be passed down, from generation to generation, even though some of those generations now consist of “ancient dead people.”
    I could go further into a Rushkoff Rant, but that’s so last week.
    Regardless, as I have said repeatedly, I am not here to bash secular Jews. Rather, my purpose is to criticize those secular Jews who pick and choose the parts of Judaism they like, and they try to use those parts in a political argument to convince other Jews to adopt their policy proposals. That strikes me as terribly dishonest, especially when the parts of Judaism they ignore completely contradict their political ideology.
    Besides, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Do you really expect to keep every single one of them?
    Well technically, as far as I know, it’s impossible for any single Jew, at least one living in an era without a Beis Hamikdash, to keep “every single one of them,” since many are Beis Hamikdash dependent, and so forth. But again, if we are to believe the Torah as true, then we must do what we are obligated to do. If we do not believe that it is true, then we have no moral obligation to keep any of them. To say that only some are binding, and those – surprise! – just happen to be the ones we like, or the ones we would have kept anyway, is absurd.
    If we followed halacha, we’d actually be stoning people to death for everything and anything.
    See, remarks like these make it difficult for me to take your religious arguments seriously. We (a) no longer have any Rabbis with the valid smicha necessary to be on a Beis Din of 23, required for capital cases, (b) don’t have a Sanhedrin that would be necessary to reinstitute such a Beis Din or smicha, and (c) don’t have, or have been unable to get a consensus of Rabbis together in order to reinstitute these necessary procedures and structures. Such is the way of galus, but that does not mean that we should simply ignore the halachas that we are able to follow today, assuming we believe the Torah is true.
    You really deserve a zets upside the kop for that drivel. Your arrogance, insensitivity, and religious intolerance is glaring like the fires of gehonim right now and I really wish you would shut up. You are a perfect example of a person who turns me off to Orthodoxy.
    Well, first of all, I don’t speak for Orthodoxy any more than you speak for socialism. And I have my own struggles with religion and Orthodoxy, so I am not trying to condemn anyone else for their religious difficulties. The only thing that I am criticizing is the practice of using some of the Torah to support a political ideology while ignoring the rest that contradicts that same political ideology. I don’t much agree with organizations like Agudath Israel, and I don’t think they should be trying to influence government policy, but at least they are consistent.
    All we’ve seen, historically, are socialist dictatorships, not socialist democracies.
    I thought you said Israel was the shining example of socialist democracy, until, of course, us evil capitalists got our money grubbing hands on the situation and spoiled all the fun.
    Socialist democracies haven’t had a chance to prove themselves yet. Capitalists–greedy pig fuckers who want it all for themselves–keep taking over and screwing it up for everyone else. Does that mean socialism failed? No, it means humans failed.
    A wise observer might say that perhaps this demonstrates that socialism is too good for humans. I wiser observer might say that humans are too good for socialism.
    Most of the socialists I know are libertarian socialists–anarchists–who are opposed to the state, let alone state socialism.
    Strange though, since most of these socialists I come across support things like progressive taxation, socialized health care, socialized education, socialized retirement funding. Many of them say that they only want to implement these things voluntarily, which I find encouraging, but history has demonstrated over and over that when the socialists get in power, the state consistently fails to wither away, as Marx promised us. If there was one thing Marx was, he was consistently wrong. Which is impressive, considering that Das Kapital is still well respected among many members of academia, while Mein Kampf, thankfully, is not.

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