sacks_ethics of responsibility

8/7/2019 Sacks_Ethics of Responsibility

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Book reviews

Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, Continuum,

London, 280pp, 16.99

Speaking at a recent event on the chances of peace in the Middle East, Britains Chief

Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, could be heard praising a book by a moderate Islamic scholar. After

discussing the thesis of the work (on the compatibility of Islam and democracy) he cautioned

that the author may yet be forced to put out a revised second edition. This comment, which

elicited appreciative laughter from the audience, was a joke at his own expense. By

questioning the reception of a moderate voice within the Islamic world he was also alluding to

the forces of intolerance in his own community. A few years ago the Chief Rabbi published a

book of balance and moderation, The Dignity of Difference (subtitled How to Avoid the Clash

of Civilizations), which examined the role of Judaism within the context of other world

religions. Following its publication there was, amongst certain sections of Anglo-Jewry, an

outcry (almost certainly from people who had not bothered to read his work), thus a book

about tolerance fell prey to intolerance and its author was obliged to put out a revised second

edition excluding the offending passages. Then there was another outcry. If the first edition

angered The Right then his accommodation in the second edition angered The Left. Poor Chief

Rabbi. As the representative of a small but diverse and extremely argumentative community,

it seemed he could please nobody. Indeed, ever since Sacks took over the post of Chief Rabbi

from Lord Jakobovits in 1991, his tenure has been mired by bouts of unsolicited controversy

and blows dealt to him by those on both the left and right of his constituency. This, I suppose,

lands him squarely on the middle ground, a place from which it might surprise his critics to

measure their distance.

On the other hand, as his recent knighthood confirms, the Chief Rabbi has been an highly

successful ambassador of British Jews. In his official capacity he has appeared regularly on

television and radio, written weekly columns in the press, published a prolific outlay of wellreceived books and established strong ties and friendships with politicians, royalty, and the

leaders of other faiths. He has also gone further than any previous leader of British Jewry in

representing not only Jewish interests but Jewish insights in the public arena, bringing, as he

says, a Jewish voice [to] the conversation of humankind. Yet this is precisely what has proven

so thorny. When, as the saying goes, two Jews, three opinions, the idea that one man can speak

with a singular Jewish voice on behalf of roughly 280,000 is bound to get him into some

hot water. Every time he represents Jewish insights there will be those who claim that he is

misrepresenting them.

One does not become a rabbi in order to enter politics, but by the time one has become Chief

Rabbi politics is the name of the game. Nor is Jonathan Sacks a natural politician. When, forexample, in an interview with Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland in 2002, he registered

a mild critique of Israeli policy towards Palestinians, so incendiary did it appear to some that

there were outright calls for his immediate resignation. This in turn prompted Freedland to write

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a follow up article calling on all advocates of peace to rally to his side or no mainstream

leader will ever dare raise his voice again. Whereas, that kind of rallying-around was not what

Sacks wanted, and he evidently regretted the politicisation of his deliberately understated

remarks. It was not in the raised voice of the polemicist that he wished to express himself, but

rather, as he told Freedland, in a still, small voice, such as (one can take it on good Biblicalauthority) reaches many more ears.

Little wonder, then, that, as Michael Lerner (editor of Tikkun magazine) puts it: his new

book veers away from anything that could vaguely be construed as cutting edge or critical of the

organised Jewish communitys politics. For politics, with its raised voices, is precisely what he

is fighting shy of. If the Chief Rabbi has tended to take a conciliatory stance and so faced

accusations of weak leadership, it is because he is profoundly wary of polarisation within the

community. Some of the worst periods in Jewish history, he warns, have been heralded by Jews

squabbling amongst themselves.

The latest book, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, is an exposition ofJewish ethics, which relies on a collation of sources, both religious and secular, including forays

into philosophy, sociology, history, psychology, film, literature and so on. There is no doubt that

Sacks, who has a Cambridge degree in philosophy, is a thinker, but, given the representative

nature of his office and the furores surrounding some of his earlier pronouncements, he may not

quite enjoy the status of a free thinker. Unless his still, small voice is a subtle one. For the

avoidance of polemics does not alter Sacks oft repeated claim that the Jewish faith is

revolutionary in its mission to say truth to power. And his frequent citation of the great

medieval rationalist, Moses Maimonides, as someone who hated controversy but was

unafraid to take challenging stances, intellectual or communal, clearly indicates where he

wishes to situate himself. Maimonides suggests an excellent role model for Jewish leadershipbecause of his worldliness (he was a physician), his exemplary interfaith relations, his

unequivocal endorsement of secular learning (he was an Aristotelian) and a philosophical genius

that tended towards the restatement of basic ethical precepts. I find it moving, Sacks writes,

that at the end of his journey through intellectual space, Maimonides is drawn back to [the]

simple affirmation of kindness, righteousness and justice. And so it is that, at the end of Sacks

intellectual journey (or the one he makes here), one arrives at a series of bullet points in a similar

vein. All of which begs the question: to whom is this book addressed? After all, doesnt everyone

agree that we should feed the hungry, visit the sick, welcome the lonely and love our neighbours

as ourselves?

Maybe sobut a common consensus concerning values leaves no shortage of ethical

underachievers. What does it take to make people moral, Sacks asks, given all the

distractions, temptations and alternatives? And: what difference does religion make to the

moral life even ifwe concede that you dont have to be religious to be moral? These questions

seem to imagine a largely secular readership. Readers who not only doubt that religion is

necessary for morality, but suspect that religion tends more towards the bad than the good. For

which reason Sacks claims to have written this book: because I am troubled by the face that

religion often shows to the postmodern world. extremism, violence and aggression. Here, in

other words, is a defense of faith addressed to the postmodern world; a world which takes

place between the two poles of moral relativism and religious absolutism; and a world in whichfaith is troubled less by heretics that by its own believers. Religion may well have returned

in recent years, but it has done so with such force that Sacks is moved to quote Yeats famous

lines.

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The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

.presumably to demonstrate that he not only understands but sympathises with the sentiment

expressed.That a religious leader would wish to distance himself from fanaticism is hardly surprising,

however, it is rare for a figure from the world of orthodox Judaism to make an intervention of this

kind. Judaism is non-evangelical, so why would Britains Chief Rabbi write a book of Jewish

ethics for an ecumenical audience? Well, in part because Jews have not remained insular out of

choice. For 18 centuries living in the Diaspora they had no civil rights, no vote and no public

voice, whence the Talmudic injunction: Just as one has a duty to say what will be heeded, so

one has a duty not to say what will not be heeded. So we can count it as a positive sign that

Britain today has a Chief Rabbi who believes the time has come when a still, small Jewish voice

might be heard. To which he adds his own proviso: No one should seek to impose his or herreligious convictions on society, but we should seek instead to bring the insights of our

respective faiths to the public conversation about the principles for which we stand and the

values which we share.

Yet despite Sacks assurance that 21st century Jews are invited to join in the conversation,

there remains something slightly disingenuous about his closing remark: This has been a

religious book, a Jewish book, and I make no apologies for the fact. For it would be hard to deny

that this is a work of apologetics and that, as such, it shares a common thread in the history of

religious, Jewish books. We can go as far back as Philo amongst the Greeks or Josephus

amongst the Romans to discover Jewish rituals (such as circumcision or kashrut) explained in

terms (e.g. of health/hygiene) to flatter the cultures they inhabited. And even internally atradition requires its adherents to turn apologist in order to preserve the truth and relevance of its

scriptures over time and change. Frank Kermode has noted the ancient rabbis hermeneutic

creativity in their efforts to eliminate or make acceptable what had come to be unintelligible or

give offense. Deciding, for example, that an eye for an eye must be a metaphor for monetary

reparations. Pacific interpretations of this kind have enabled the faithful to evolve and thus evade

the perennial bugbear of fundamentalism.

Apologetics need not be such a sorry word. Nonetheless, with the rise of existential theology

it did go out of fashion. Consider Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaards powerful reckoning of

Abraham renders the apologist an opponent of true faith. The Kierkegaardian knight of faith

must resist the ethical temptation to provide moral justifications for his actions. He inhabits the

realm of the absurd, beyond reason or explanation, where he must keep silent: The moment I

speak I express the universal, and when I do not no one can understand me. Removed from a

world that cannot comprehend him he wanders alone in an altogether different reality. When, in

the eyes of God, he performs a sacrifice, in the eyes of man he commits a murder.

Distinguishing between the ethical and religious spheres, Kierkegaard also revealed how

they might become enemies of each othera striking insight in the light of recent world

events. And it is against this same backdrop that Jonathan Sacks has penned his response

to the incomprehensible suicide bombers, religiously motivated terrorists and preachers of

hate of whatever faith, by choosing instead to represent a very different faith whoseultimate purpose. is not mysterious at all. This faith is intensely communal. Its ethics

are down to earth. It urges a celebration of life, as in the Talmudic comment: in the world

to come a person will have to face judgement for every legitimate pleasure he denied himself

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in this life. Ethics are portrayed as a guide to happiness, to the life we live together and the

goods we share - the goods that only exist by virtue of being shared.

Sacks extols a very different Abraham too. In Judaism, he writes, faith is a revolutionary

gesture. So the Abraham who challenges God when He decides to wreak vengeance on the

inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah becomes the religious ideal because the faith he initiatedstrove for justice in human terms. By the same token, Job is prized above his comforters: the

comforters who defend the justice of God are condemned by God himself because He asks us not

to take his part but to be human. Noting the temptation of every faith towards theodicy, Sacks

illuminates, through close readings of Biblical and Talmudic passages, a deeply humanising

prejudice within the tradition. If we were able to see how evil today leads to good tomorrow,

he warns, if we were able to see from the point of view of God, creator of all - we would

understand justice but at the cost of ceasing to be human. We would accept all, vindicate all, and

become deaf to the cries of those in pain. To persuade the reader he crafts some beautiful

interpretations of Biblical verses, of which my favourite, from the Book of Exodus, is his

explanation as to why Moses was afraid to look at God (3:6): because seeing heaven would

desensitise him to earth. It is not the ethical temptation, in other words, but the mystical

temptation that so often betrays the religious life.

Sacks plays tribute to a religion of moderation in which faith is not a contemplative state but

an active principleit is by our deeds that we express our faithand thus continuous with its

ethics. The emphasis on practice invites some startling observations such as the Talmuds

insistence that when a good deed is called for one mustnt worry overmuch about the motives of

the one who performs it. A person who does the right thing, regardless of their motive, is to be

regarded as perfectly righteous, say the rabbis. As Sacks explains: Kantian or Kierkegaardian

purity of will is irrelevant. We are not commanded to give to the poor primarily for the salvationof our souls, but for the sake of the poor.

The pragmatic concerns of the ethical life contrast with the sublime but lonely knight of faith

in popular conceptions of piety. For what social good can come of a person made so ecstatic by

religion that he or she can no longer participate in everyday affairs? Sacks infers from the sages a

simple antidote to religious excess: worry less about the state of your soul. And he notes that

Maimonides was prepared to elevate the figure of the sage above that of the saint, precisely

because the former is concerned with the perfection of society while the latter is concerned only

with perfection of the self. If the religious voice has one thing to say above all others it is that

each of us counts, says Sacks, but, at the same time, it would be wrong to see the individual as

the sole source of meaning. Everyone has a part to play, but they should play it within thecollective. The saint may be too extreme an entityunprepared or unable to make the

compromises and concessions that living with others necessitates. The many ways of Peace

(Darkhei Shalom), said the sages, are even greater than the one way system of Truth.

Still, as refreshing as it may be to hear an orthodox voice preaching peace, compromise,

tolerance and reason, there is something distinctly unsexy about moderation. Moreover, doesnt

such a down to earth ethics undermine Sacks further claim that what he has to say is somehow

radical? Not necessarily. Consider, for instance, the concept of tzeddakah; a Hebrew word

meaning both charity and justice. The English word charity, from the Latin caritas, figures as a

form of generosity and a kind of excess: giving is valorised not because one does but because one

does not have to. Tzeddakah, on the other hand, with its strict connotations of rightness andjustice, leaves no option. To be tzaddikis to be righteous or just, or even to avoid error. It argues

Sacks point that the ethical command is given because of its effect on the world, on the other

person, not on the transaction in the soul between the agent and God.

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The Jewish idea oftzeddakah can also be understood as the theoretical basis of the apologetic

approach. A comparison might be drawn between the role of the individual within society and

the role of the interpreter within the tradition. The rabbinic hermeneutic is surprisingly similar to

the hermeneutic principle of charity much discussed in analytical philosophy by the likes of

Davidson and Quine. The principle of charity (also known as radical interpretation) arguesthat the interpreter should try to preserve a reasonable theory of belief. Davidson writes: If we

cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set

of beliefs largely consistent and true by our own standards, we have no reason to count that

creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything. Therefore a good theory of

interpretation. maximizes agreement, since anything else can only lead away from reason.

Charity is not an option, says Davidson, it is, by reason, forced on us.

What is here called radical is simply the decision to assume the best rather than the worst.

In this way, by the principle of tzeddakah, the faithful interpret their tradition and the ethical

interpret society. I can only recommend the same approach to the reader of this religious book.

For there are, needless to say, many potential Judaisms, including some extreme possibilities.

Writing here as a nominally orthodox, British Jew represented by his office, I am therefore

grateful that this Chief Rabbi has chosen to speak in the name of a Judaism that is at once so

reasonable and so radical.

Devorah Baum

5a Kenyon Steet, London, SW6 6JZ UK

Available online 2 November 2005

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2005.09.009

William Stanton, The Rapid Growth of Human Populations 17502000: Histories,

Consequences, Issues, Multi-Science Publishing Company, pp. 230 (Cvi), 25

William Stanton states that All human history is of populations expanding when resources

are available and shrinking when they are not, and he predicts that population reduction willbegin as soon as foreign aid dries up and when basic carrying capacity will become critical. If

it is necessary to read the history of collective human reproductive mistakes in order not to repeat

them, or to avoid continuing to make them, then this is the book that should be read by all policy

makers who have anything to do with famine relief, foreign aid, fertility control education as

well as immigration/greenhouse gas emission. It offers a graphical record of recent population

growth as well as a brief verbal summary of the political history for every nation.

Stantons panoramic history takes us back to the transition from hunter-gathering to

agriculture about 10,000 years ago when he supposes that world population may have been

double the 2 million of 100,000 years ago. The Agricultural and Industrial revolutions in the mid

18th century, and the Green revolution in the mid 20th century increased the ability of society tofeed greater and greater numbers. He points out that before 1750 most of the worlds half billion

people lived on the edge of starvation, confronted with repeated famines, and 250 years later

almost five times as many survive in similar conditions. The increased food produced by the

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