Home Home / Maimonides and the Law of the Mean (199…

Note

July 27, 1990

Maimonides and the Law of the Mean (1990)

Passionate Moderation
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Note

Moderation (1988)

The following Citation comes from an article by Judge Learned Hand, published by the Massachusetts Bar Association in 1942.... This much I think I do know — that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish. What is the spirit of moderation? It is a temper which does not press a partisan advantage to its bitter end, which can understand and respect the other side, which feels a unity between all citizens -­real and not the factitious product of propaganda — which recognizes their common fate and their common aspirations -­in a word, which has faith in the sacredness of the individual. If you asked me how such a temper and such a faith are bred and fostered, I cannot answer. They are the last flowers of civilization, delicate and easily overrun by the weeds of our sinful human nature; we may even now be witnessing their uprooting and disappearance until in the progress of the ages their seeds can once more find some friendly soil. But I am satisfied that they must have the vigor within themselves to withstand the winds and weather of an indifferent and ruthless world; and that it is idle to seek shelter for them in a courtroom. Men must take that temper and that faith with them into the field, into the market place, into the factory, into the council-rooms, into their homes; they cannot be imposed; they must be lived.
Passionate Moderation

Speech

The Theme of Moderation in Modern Orthodoxy (1989)

I begin on two contradictory notes, one apologetic, the other not only not apologetic but anti-apologetic. The apologetic note concerns my uneasiness in using the term Centrist Orthodoxy, but it is a term which I prefer principally for one reason, which I shall elaborate presently. Critics of the term assume that Centrist indicates that we locate ourselves at some midpoint between orthodoxy and assimilationism, and claim that territory as our religious home. But that is nonsense. Only slightly less absurd is the idea that centrist orthodoxy is the mid-point between Satmar and the few intellectuals who occupy the ground called the Orthodox Left. That is also inaccurate. It is no compliment to our intelligence to imagine that we who declare ourselves Centrist walk around the religious terrain with a yardstick, calipers and a calculator measuring the exact distance between Neturei Karta and Humanistic Judaism - so called - in order to locate the exact middle or centre. We are not, and do not aspire to be ideological geographers or spiritual statisticians who search out the exact centre between right and wrong, religious and non-religioua, mitzva and avera, and settle upon that as our religious goal. It may be wrong, but I submit that our centrism is not really that simple minded and religiously asinine.What of the title we have been called all along, Modern Orthodoxy? I am uncomfortable with that label because it is a combination of two highly infelicitous words. One is arrogant, modern: I'm modern, that makes me better than anyone else in the past. The other is inaccurate because orthodoxy implies ideological blindness and constricted thought, and that is not correct.Of course there are those who say that we should do away with all adjectives and simply identify ourselves as orthodox jews, period. It does away with the whole problem of labels, or it seems to. In fact if we did that that would leave 90 percent of this audience and all those who have come to the Sympos…
Passionate Moderation

Outline

Tolerance and its Limits (1997)

This lecture=totally non-political; I have no partisan end in mind, I do not refer at all to the religious/political controversies that afflict both Am-Jy/Israel. Is occasioned by the terribly intolerant acts in recent J history: Baruch Goldstein massacre in Hebron, assassin'n Yitzhak Rabin and, most recently, the shooting by a demented Dati soldier in Hebron.. As result Rabin assass'n, I appointed ...Com on J’sm & Human Values... tolerance/dem'cy/ ethics dissent...fr w-i J sources...Com assiduously at work, should report several months. This present lecture=introduction to the theme; not a systematic treatment, but effort to sketch ideas on role of tolerance in sources of JudaismArnold Toynbee: J'sm, as advocate of monotheism=intolerant; its single-minded rejection of idolatry left it with little patience for other forms of worship. Was he right?Yes, partially. Posit at outset: tolerance=not an absolute. There are things/ideas that= intolerable to any decent/civilized persn. Hence, there are examples aplenty of intolerant attitudes in Tor: (ג״ע שפ״ד ע״ז (״תועבה״; or עיר הנדחת ובן סורר ומורה. So too לה״ר ורכילות Nor should we today tolerate rapists/drug-pushers/muggers. Unlimitd tol'ce betrays intell'l cowardice & =invit'n to soc collapse and the deterioration of all standards.Yet: to tolerate is divine! R. Elijah de Vidas (ראשית חכמה), God tolerates the sinner even at the very moment of his rebellion by continuing to grant him the gift of life.W.V. Quine (Quiddities pp. 206-210): "delicate balance of tolerance." This balance-not easy: ס-ב-ל=root of both suffering and of patience (סבלנות)— & tol'ce (סובלנות)Bec balance=so delicate, is presumpt's offer advance clear direc'n all cases. Most cn hope f =fw guide-lines as examine each case own merits/try f bst accomm'n bth conflict'g theses.Indirect reference to "balance of tolerance": —מינוי יהושע כמנהיג ישראל אחרי משהיפקד ה' אלקי הרוחית לכל־בשר איש על־העדה (פר׳ פנחס, במדבר כ״ ז: טו-כג)-רש״י (פס׳ טו ד״ה אלק…
Passionate Moderation