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Rav Kook (Orot, ישראל ותחייתו ג)
Excerpted from Bezalel Naor’s excellent English translation of Orot, published by Maggid.
The center of life of the soul of Israel is in the source of holiness. Through truth and faith we were born and thereby we grow. We do not have disparate values; unity rests in us and the light of the One Lord lives within us. The laws, laws of the Living G-d’s Torah, distinguish us from every other nation. Holiness is at work on us internally, the great aspirations of our life are directed to it. There are inklings of holiness in every nation, but not all of their life values stem therefrom. This is not so in Israel. “In all of your ways know Him” (בכל דרכיך דעהו), that small passage that encompasses the entire corpus of Torah, which is actualized by rare individuals, is actually the inheritance of all Israel. In Israel, every life’s aspiration and life’s desire – acquisition, wealth, honor, dominion, expansion – flowfrom the source of holiness. Therefore, the laws are holy-of-holies in Israel, and therefore the semikhah (institution of rabbinic ordination) that bears the name of G-d is so vital to us and essential to our national character. The evil Syrian-Greeks intuited the value of this great treasure and forbid the semikhah, on pain of death. One of our Sages (Rabbi Judah ben Bava) even gave his life to preserve it, and the effect of that martyrdom redounds, for it deepened the special character of Israel, holy to the Lord.
Moses our Teacher grasped the power of the law when it was first instituted in the nation, and uplifted all the values of law until the end of generations, to the divine content to which the laws of Israel reach, and the search for G-d became inseparable from Israelite jurisprudence. [As we read in Parshat Yitro, when Moshe explains to his father in law,] “When the people will come to me to seek G-d, when they will have a matter come to me, I shall judge between a man and his neighbor. And I shall make known the laws of G-d and His precepts.” (Shemot 18:15-16) The G-d-quest of Law has remained an Israelite treasure…
However, Christianity abandoned law, rooted herself in apparent mercy and love that undermines the world and destroys it. By emptying law of its divine content, the law becomes seized by the grossest wickedness. The poison invades the private law of the individual and spreads through the souls of nations, becoming the foundation of national hatred and the depth of evil of bloodshed, without removing the yoke from man’s neck. The eyes of all must be lifted to the light of the world, the light of the Lord, which will be revealed through the Messiah of the G-d of Jacob. “And He shall judge earth righteously, nations justly.” (Tehillim 9:9)
Food for Thought
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Covenant and Conversation, 5767): just as the general principles of Judaism… are Divine, so are the details. In the 1960s the Danish architect Arne Jacobson designed a new college campus in Oxford. Not content with designing the building, he went on to design the cutlery and crockery to be used in the dining hall, and supervised the planting of every shrub in the college garden. When asked why, he replied in the words of another architect, Mies van der Rohe: “G-d is in the details.”
That is a Jewish sentiment. There are those who believe that what is holy in Judaism is its broad vision, never so compellingly expressed as in the Decalogue at Sinai. The truth however is that G-d is in the details: “Just as the former were given at Sinai, so these [the civil laws] were given at Sinai.” The greatness of Judaism is not simply in its noble vision of a free, just and compassionate society, but in the way it brings this vision down to earth in detailed legislation. Freedom is more than an abstract idea…
The second principle, no less fundamental, is that civil law is not secular law. We do not believe in the idea “render to Caesar what is Caeser’s and to G-d what belongs to G-d”. We believe in the separation of powers but not in the secularisation of law or the spiritualisation of faith. The Sanhedrin or Supreme Court must be placed near the Temple to teach that law itself must be driven by a religious vision….
The Jewish vision of justice, given its detailed articulation here for the first time, is based not on expediency or pragmatism, nor even on abstract philosophical principles, but on the concrete historical memories of the Jewish people as “one nation under G-d.” Centuries earlier, G-d has chosen Abraham so that he would “teach his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, by doing what is right and just.” (Bereishit 18:19) Justice in Judaism flows from the experience of injustice at the hands of the Egyptians, and the G-d-given challenge to create a radically different form of society in Israel…
From earliest times, Judaism expected everyone to know and understand the law. Legal knowledge is not the closely guarded property of an elite. It is – in the famous phrase – “the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.” (Devarim 33:4) Already in the first century CE Josephus could write that “should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls. Hence to break them is rare, and no one can evade punishment by the excuse of ignorance.” That is why there are so many Jewish lawyers. Judaism is a religion of law – not because it does not believe in love (“You shall love the Lord your G-d”, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”) but because, without justice, neither love nor liberty nor human life itself can flourish. Love alone does not free a slave from his or her chains.
Tehillim (147:20): He tells His words to Ya’akov, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He did not do so for any nation, and they do not know the law (lit. mishpatim).
Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier (What Is Jewish Law?): Throughout human history, the realm of law has been given multiple purposes. In some societies, the law is a statement of a society’s values, how one ought to live; among this set of ideals is an account of how society deals with those who violate the law, and the creation of an administrative or executive system. In other societies, there is less of an idealistic view of the law, and law’s function is simply to create order. The goal of law is not to educate but simply to discipline, to put into line those who diverge from its norms, with the goal of creating a safe, organized society. What is the perspective of Jewish law on this issue?
The account of law provided by the Tur (Spain, 1300s) strikes a highly universalist note. For example, the Mishnah from Avot that he explicates establishes that justice is a pillar upon which the entire world stands. He offers a historical trajectory of law that begins with the creation of the world and explains, among other things, why the (pre-Jewish) generation of the deluge failed to properly dispense justice and caused the world to be destroyed. The judge is lauded for his efforts “to break the outstretched arms of evil doers, taking from them their spoils and returning it to its owns,” which “upholds the world.” There is nothing specifically Jewish about this account of the value of law and the judge, although of course Halakhah charges Jewish society to ensure the rule of law. This, of course, is consistent with his position that the goal of Jewish law courts, just like any law court, is to ensure law and order. This is a challenge to society for all times, for all peoples, and Jews participate in it like any other nation.
On the other hand, the Ran (Spain, 1400s) goes out of his way to mention that the court’s role is a special one, unique to the Jewish people and Jewish law. He acknowledges that “the human species” and “every nation” has a need for some form of governance, so as to avoid anarchy and destruction. However, this aspect of governance is not the goal of mishpat, or Jewish law in its classical sense. The Ran is careful to attribute such a role to the king, who does whatever is necessary to create order, regardless of its coherence with Torah, rather than to the Jewish courts, which rule on the basis of Halakhah. While the king is recruited to fill a role “like all the other nations around” Israel (Deuteronomy 17:14, I Samuel 8:5), Jewish law is particularly Jewish, its basis in the Torah, which “is unique among all the laws of the nations of the world as to its laws and commandments.”
For the Ran the goal of applying Jewish law is bringing G-d into the world through implementing G-d’s law. This not only is important in itself, but also because it causes G-d’s will to be manifest in the world. The judge, then, is partner to G-d in the sense that he serves as a conduit bringing G-d’s law from the theoretical realm into the practical, day-to-day world.
Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 26:1): It is forbidden to appear for trial before non-Jewish Judges and in their courts, even regarding a matter that they adjudicate the same as the halacha… And whoever does so is considered a wicked person and is as though he blasphemed, reproached and rebelled against the Law of Moshe.
Questions for Discussion
- Can you think of any instances in Jewish life where love and justice clash? How does the Torah reconcile those competing demands?
- How do the parshiot that come after the narrative of matan Torah emphasize the centrality of law in Judaism?
- Rav Kook argues that Christianity embodies the danger of love untethered from any notion of law. Where do you think he is coming from?
- People often talk about the ‘spirit of the law.’ What does this mean? And how do we determine what it is?
- See the excerpt from Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier above in “Food for Thought.” Which position do you think is more correct?
- What can you do to cultivate a greater appreciation of and understanding for the laws of the Torah?
