JEWISH ETHICS

One of the ongoing debates among Jewish thinkers today is whether there is a doctrine (torah) of natural law in Judaism. The debate is being largely conducted among traditionalist Jewish thinkers, who need be concerned with the ubiquitous presence of law in Judaism. For anyone who reflects on the meaning of law itself must think about the question of natural law, whether to finally affirm it or deny it. Therefore, the question is being asked: Is the idea of natural law something authentic in Judaism, or is it a foreign import improperly grafted onto it, however ingenious that grafting might be? The way to approach this question might well be to see “ethics” as the mediating term between “law,” which nobody could possibly deny is indigenous to Judaism, and “natural law,” which is the subject of the current debate. In other words, our introduction to the question of natural law in Judaism might very well come from the question of just what is “Jewish ethics.” Whereas in the first chapter we determined just where on the horizon of democratic society there is an opening for a religiously based natural law voice to be heard, here we must see how the “world,” which is the locus of natural law, finds an opening on the horizon of rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism that is the heritage of all traditional Jews even today.

If “ethics” be defined prima facie as a system of rules governing interhuman relations, then “Jewish” ethics is identical with Jewish law.