The Jewish Political Tradition, Volume 1: Authority
Language: English
Pages: 637
ISBN: 2:00226679
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, Noam J. Zohar (eds.); Yair Lorberbaum (co-editor)
Chosen as a finalist for the 2000 National Jewish Book Awards in the Thought Category given by the Jewish Book Council
This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. Each volume includes a selection of texts—from the Bible and Talmud, midrashic literature, legal responsa, treatises, and pamphlets—annotated for modern readers and accompanied by new commentaries written by eminent philosophers, lawyers, political theorists, and other scholars working in different fields of Jewish studies. These contributors join the arguments of the texts, agreeing or disagreeing, elaborating, refining, qualifying, and sometimes repudiating the political views of the original authors. The series brings the little-known and unexplored Jewish tradition of political thinking and writing into the light, showing where and how it resonates in the state of Israel, the chief diaspora settlements, and, more broadly, modern political experience.
This first volume, Authority, addresses the basic question of who ought to rule the community: What claims to rule have been put forward from the time of the exodus from Egypt to the establishment of the state of Israel? How are such claims disputed and defended? What constitutes legitimate authority? The authors discuss the authority of God, then the claims of kings, priests, prophets, rabbis, lay leaders, gentile rulers (during the years of the exile), and the Israeli state. The volume concludes with several perspectives on the issue of whether a modern state can be both Jewish and democratic. Forthcoming volumes will address the themes of membership, community, and political vision.
Among the contributors to this volume:
Amy Gutmann
Moshe Halbertal
David Hartman
Moshe Idel
Sanford Levinson
Susan Neiman
Hilary Putnam
Joseph Raz
Michael Sandel
Allan Silver
Yael Tamir
Reviews:
“[This book] both introduces a tradition of political thought that has until now been largely overlooked, and . . . at the same time contributes to this tradition. It describes how Jews have thought about governance, communal organization, and authority through the ages, and suggests how Jews ought to think about these things today. . . . The Jewish Political Tradition is remarkable for both what it does and how it does it. It is a splendid achievement. When Jews call themselves the people of the book, this is the sort of book they have, or at least ought to have, in mind.”—Noah J. Efron, Boston Book Review
“An important contribution to understanding the relationship of Jewish traditional sources to political thought as applied to the state of Israel and the diaspora.”—Choice
“In this first book of a four-volume series . . . the political arguments of two millennia are made accessible to a new generation of general readers. . . . Many of the medieval and modern texts are translated into English for the first time. . . . This highly comprehensive and scholarly work is recommended for academic libraries.”—Library Journal
“The Jewish Political Tradition is one of the most ambitious Jewish intellectual efforts of recent years. . . . This book is quite novel—and on a grand scale.”—David Novak, New Republic
“It is not often that one opens a book and knows without question that it will be immediately indispensable in its field. This anthology on authority in the Jewish political tradition and the three volumes to follow (on membership, community, and politics in history) not only will serve as essential references but will develop the contours of a field that is in infancy.”—Benjamin Edidin Scolnic, Perspectives on Political Science
“This is a pioneering work, and one can only hope the next volumes will emulate the meticulous standards of this superb volume.”—Stephen D. Benin, Religious Studies Review
“The Jewish Political Tradition mounts an audacious, erudite, and important challenge to dominant interpretations of Jewish political history.”—Julie E. Cooper, Tikkun: A Bimonthly Jewish Critique of Politics, Culture, and Society
“Mr. Walzer and his collaborators have succeeded admirably, opening a new chapter in our understanding of Jewish experience and offering fresh perspectives on the abiding questions of politics everywhere.”—Mark Lilla, Wall Street Journal
“This work is the most comprehensive attempt that has ever been undertaken to present a thematic compilation of the important texts of the Jewish political tradition. It is a monumental project.”—Jeffrey Macy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century (Critical Theory and Contemporary Society)
Commentary. And just this truth is presumed to inhere in the pentateuchal proclamation that God spoke ‘‘all’’ these words at Sinai—both the words of Scripture and all their subsequent meanings. One may sense that Rabbi Eleazar had more than theory in mind. The parsimony and ambiguity of Torah readily lent itself to diverse exegetical possibilities—without which the text could become a dead letter but with which the student was set loose from authoritative restraint. In this homily the danger of.
De- 7027 Walzer / THE JEWISH POLITICAL TRADITION / sheet 176 of 636 Kings liver you and I will put Midian into your hands through the three hundred ‘lappers’; let the rest of the troops go home.’’ So [the lappers] took the provisions and horns that the other men had with them, and he sent the rest of the men of Israel back to their homes, retaining only the three hundred men. . . . He shouted, ‘‘Come on! The Lord has delivered the Midianite camp into your hands!’’ He divided the.
2003.10.28 10:01 to the peoples with which Israel has been in contact since the going out from Egypt—the Canaanite city kings (whom Abimelech imitated in Shechem) and the territorial kings of Moab and Ammon. Before the demand for a king, Samuel cleansed Israel of Canaanite fertility deities, the be’alim and ashtarot, the most recent examples of Israel’s recurrent lapses into paganism ( Sam. :–). The foreign model they wish to adopt is political, not religious. In the very moment at which a.
Allows the worship of many gods, the God of Israel demands exclusivity, an idea powerfully captured in the biblical metaphor of monogamous marriage between God the husband and Israel the wife. Worshiping other gods is analogous to betrayal, provoking God’s deepest jealousy and anger. But what is the extent and meaning of the metaphor when translated from the human to the theological? What is it that has to be preserved as exclusive on the religious side of the metaphor? The clearest candidate is.
Problem can be formulated in the following manner: At what point does the ceremonial acceptance of authority in politics become actual worship? For enlightened pagans in Rome, the worship of the emperor— even sacrificial offerings—was a matter of mere civil religion, an expression Tseng 2003.10.28 10:01 of loyalty to the state and nothing more. At the other extreme, for the Jewish zealots who led the rebellion against Rome, a routine civic obligation such as paying taxes to the emperor.