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April 1969

The Ethics of Protest - Draft (1969)

General Jewish Thought
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Student Notes on Philosophy 78 (1969)

ספר התניא - every man has an animal soul, a נפש הבהמתית, vital principle in the body – הנפש הבהמתית, הגוף, ואת הצד האנושי שבאדם. הנפש האלקית – only jews have it, has three parts (1) נפש (2) רוח (3) נשמה – highest of three parts. כמו שהאלוקות מתגלה בי ספירות, כמו כן האדם מתבטא רוחניותו בעשר הספירות. החידוש המיוחד שבתניא
General Jewish Thought

Article

The Ethics of Protest (1969)

Almost overnight the placid and complacent American has burst into social and political frenzy. For example, the students with whom David Riesman and his colleagues pleaded only a few years ago to aspire once again “to set the world afire,” have gone ahead and done just that: they have put the torch of disillusionment and agitation to the cheerfully tranquil and compact world of middle-class America and its optimism of mild meliorism and individualism. Social scientists have not yet provided an adequate explanation of this sudden eruption of activist students, the poor and the Blacks. But it is time to formulate some general guide-lines for a society in which unrest, agitation, and activism have become rampant. What is needed, in short, is to make a beginning in developing an ethics of protest. Judaism has always been protesting. It has been said, whimsically, that Judaism is both “catholic” and “protestant”—provided those words are not spelled with capital letters. Judaism’s interests are “catholic” in that they are universal and extend to the entire human family. They are “protestant” in that Judaism has, from its very inception, protested against greed and hate and brute force and the theory that “might makes right.” It has never consented to passivity in the face of evil. It has always refused to turn the other cheek, even to Caesar, and has preached resistance to wrong and to injustice. Sometimes the will to resist has been attenuated, but when that occurred it was the result of relentless and inhuman pressure, not the readiness of accepting evil as a legitimate fact of life. Biblical history, especially as interpreted in the Rabbinic tradition, abundantly documents the Jewish approval of protest. Noah was rebuked by the Rabbis because he was concerned only with his own moral integrity and failed to reproach his contemporaries Rabbi Lamm (The Jewish Center, N. Y. C.) founded and served as editor of Tradition, the journal of Orthodox Jewish thought. He has cont…
General Jewish Thought

Speech

The Role of Orthodox Judaism in the Protest Tradition of America (1969)

This past week, I made a very brief trip (I say brief, so that any of my baalei batim hear me, they shouldn’t think I’m only out-of-town) to the Pacific Northwest and met with two communities. In the course of lecturing there, I also met with college groups in both communities. This was for me the first opportunity to meet, in the flesh, the Jewish New Left, West Coast variety. I didn’t find it exhilarating; I was repelled. One of them said: "Do you really think Israel is always right?" No, I don’t think Israel is always right; I am a believer in Judaism and the whole literature of Judaism and the Prophets shows that Israel is not always right. He said to me: "in that case, would you join in publicly condemning Israel for its attitude on Viet Nam?" I found in general an attitude of moral disdain for Israel, for Jews; and for Yiddishkeit. It is not an immoral dissent. The same moral impulse which brings the members of the New Left to protest the barbarism of the Viet Nam policy of our government (assuming you call them barbarities), which brings them to protest the starvation of Biafrans,or the various underprivileged classes in different countries around the world^ this moral impulse, I felt, despite the ugly way in which it was expressed, fundamentally spoke of something of the Jewish background of these young men and women^ Because- I find it fascinating that Jews have almost always been in the forefront of radical movements in this country and in Europe. Somehow, despite the fact that they have been cut off from the Jewish tradition, sometimes a generation or two or three, poooooo oome interest they are still collecting on the old capital. The passion for just causes, even when it is expressed in dangerous fashion, betrays some kich of Jewish element deep down in them. Since protest is in the air today, since protest really defines the spirit of this country in fact, it may be the element which will tear asunder the whole fabric of America and leave it a complet…
General Jewish Thought