Recent Judaica

Honor Thy Father and Mother.
by Gerald Blidstein.
Ktav. 234 pp. $15.00.

Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest.
by David Hartman.
Jewish Publication Society.296 Pp. $7.95.

Theology in the Responsa.
by Louis Jacobs.
Routledge and Kegan Paul. 378 Pp. $18.75.

Tradition in an Age of Reform.
by Noah Rosenbloom.
Jewish Publication Society. 480 pp. $12.50.

Over the past year or so a number of books have been published in the field of Jewish studies which, although primarily scholarly or academic in nature, address themselves to issues of wide intellectual concern, and are of potential interest to a broad readership. The four I have chosen for brief review—all of them deal in various ways with the halakhah (Jewish religious law), as it affects the moral and intellectual life—are among the more notable such contributions to a growing and increasingly impressive literature.

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Honor Thy Father and Mother is a carefully nuanced study of the fifth commandment by a scholar who is fully at home in the world of halakhah and who possesses a keen analytic mind and a fine literary sensibility. Working within the framework of the history of ideas, Blidstein deals with such broad matters as the scope of filial responsibility, parental initiative and filial response, and conflict between parents and children. Along the way, he makes fascinating observations about the halakhic treatment of a wide variety of particular issues, including the honor that is due to in-laws, the problem of cruel parents, marriage in the face of parental opposition, and the relative claims of parents and teachers upon children.

The central impression that one gains from reading Honor Thy Father and Mother is that the fifth commandment constitutes something of a halakhic balancing act. On the one hand, filial responsibility is regarded as a lifelong obligation that grows in scope as parents and children become older. On the other hand, the halakhah seeks to maintain the personal worth of the son or daughter, and discourages parents from making excessive demands of their children. Similarly, while filial piety is viewed as a basic ingredient of social stability—it is, as Blidstein remarks, the “first of the ‘social commands,’ and indeed the only positive demand upon man in society”—the halakhah is chary of setting down hard-and-fast rules in this area, recognizing as it does the “unique quality of each relationship and . . . the limited effectiveness of legislation.” It was not for nothing that the Midrash labeled the fifth commandment, “the most difficult of all mitzvot.”

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Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest is a fresh and quite fascinating attempt to solve a longstanding riddle: what is the connection, if any, between the philosophical writings of Maimonides, particularly the Guide to the Perplexed, and his massive legal oeuvre, particularly the Mishneh Torah? Was Maimonides, as the late Leo Strauss argued, a philosophical skeptic who cleverly disguised himself as a pious halakhic Jew? Were there two Maimonideses?

It is Hartmans contention that there is but one Maimonides, and that his work as a whole constitutes a sustained effort to integrate the way of reason and the path of halakhah, the universal and the particular, the contemplative and the active. In a series of closely argued chapters, dealing with such topics as “Philosophy in Maimonides’ Legal Works,” “Reason and Traditional Authority within Halakhah and Philosophy,” “The Philosophic Religious Sensibility,” and “Morality and the Passionate Love for God,” Hartman fleshes out his thesis that the greatest Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages “attempt[ed] to show how the free search for truth, established through the study of logic, physics, and metaphysics, [could] live harmoniously with a way of life defined by the normative tradition of Judaism.”

While the fine points of Hart-man’s analysis are open to scholarly debate, the general reader is likely to be drawn especially to the rich sampling of Maimonides’ writings that stud Hartman’s text, and that establish beyond a shadow of doubt the bold, synthesizing originality of his mind.

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Responsa, which play a crucial role in the ongoing development and adaptation of the halakhah, are replies by leading rabbinic authorities to questions about religious matters put to them by other scholars. The vast bulk of responsa deal with issues related to practice; in Theology in the Responsa, by contrast, Louis Jacobs has gathered together those that focus on points of belief. His aim is to demonstrate that the great halakhists were not only academic lawyers but also metaphysicians vitally concerned with the groundworks of faith. In making his case, Jacobs draws upon material ranging from the 10th to the 20th centuries, from Babylonia to Brooklyn.

As for the kinds of questions that are dealt with in the responsa, these vary from the fundamental to the far out. Does man have freedom of will? Are Christianity and Islam idolatrous religions? Are biblical miracles to be understood literally? Will the halakhah be binding in the messianic age? Are dreams divine communications? Is it permissible to practice magic? Is there such a thing as reincarnation? Can a person sell his share in Paradise?

Unfortunately, Theology in the Responsa is limited largely to summary; there is precious little analysis. Rather than organizing his material thematically, Jacobs moves from respondent to respondent in straight chronological fashion. Historical and biographical factors that might have played a role in shaping the theological outlooks of the various rabbinic authorities are hardly touched upon. This is a pity, for Jacobs is an immensely erudite scholar and his topic is a fascinating and important one. As it stands, Theology in the Responsa is but the raw material for a first-rate book, not that book itself.

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Today it may seem obvious that one can be both a fully observant Orthodox Jew and a “modern.” A hundred and fifty years ago, such an idea was nothing less than revolutionary. At that time, rigid traditionalists and radical reformers alike shared a common assumption—that a Jew had to choose between being faithful to halakhah and being a child of modernity. It was the German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-88) who first advocated the harmonious blending of halakhic commitment with secular pursuits. All modern Orthodox Jews are Hirsch’s heirs.

Tradition in an Age of Reform is a solid study of Hirsch’s religious philosophy. After describing the currents that shaped German Jewish society in the post-Emancipation period, and sketching in the main events of Hirsch’s life, Noah Rosenbloom turns to a detailed analysis of Hirsch’s ideas as presented in The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel, Horeb, and the massive Commentary on the Pentateuch. Rosenbloom makes it clear that Hirsch sought to be another Maimonides; that he labored to establish a “validating rationale for [traditional Judaism] in terms of the contemporary universe of discourse.” Leaning heavily on Hegelian thought, Hirsch polemicized against the Reform movement, and put forward an elaborate defense of the halakhah. His own credo, Torah im derekh eretz (“Torah and secular knowledge”) was, he insisted, the proper path for those who sought to be erleuchtet religiös (“enlightened/religious”).

A careful scholar, Rosenbloom sets forth Hirsch’s views as “he intended to convey [them] in his time.” What is missing in Tradition in an Age of Reform is any discussion of Hirsch’s legacy. Although Rosenbloom, for example, asserts that Hirsch believed in the “unqualified coequality and parity of Torah and derekh eretz,” Isaac Breuer—Hirsch’s grandson and an influential interpreter of the master’s teachings—denied this, insisting that Hirsch regarded secular pursuits as distinctly secondary. An examination of Hirsch’s legacy as it has come down to us would reveal a great deal about the ongoing tensions involved in being both Orthodox and modern.