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May 21, 1989

The Theme of Moderation in Modern Orthodoxy (1989)

Passionate Moderation
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Centrist Orthodox Judaism and Moderationism - Definitions and Disederata (1989)

Critics of the name “Centrist Orthodoxy” assume that it indicates that we locate ourselves mid-point between Orthodoxy and assimilationism and claim that territory as our religious home. That, of course, is nonsense – such an implication would effectively be tantamount to abandoning Torah Judaism in favor of some compromise of basic principles. Only slightly less absurd is the idea that Centrist Orthodoxy is the “center” between Satmar and the few intellectuals who presumably constitute the Orthodox Left. It is no compliment to our intelligence to imagine that in the name of Centrism we advocate walking about the religious terrain with a yardstick, calipers, and a pocket calculator, measuring the exact distance between Neturei Karta and “Humanistic Judaism” in order to locate the exact middle or “center.” We are not, and do not aspire to be, ideological geographers or spiritual surveyors who search out the exact point between right and wrong, religious and non-religious, mitzvah and aveirah, and settle upon that center as our religious goal. Centrism may be wrong-headed, but it is not that spiritually simple-minded or religiously asinine. Whatever one may think of the term “Centrist Orthodoxy” and its merits relative to “Modern Orthodoxy” or “Dati Orthodoxy” (a designation that has much to commend it) or no name at all, what it says is something vastly different from the infantile inference I have described. I begin with these prologomena about our identification not because I attribute any significance to it per se, but because the name does indeed indicate a definite point of view, and that is the question of moderation which I take to be so fundamental a characteristic of our hashkafah that we can rightly refer to it as “moderationism.” Of course, one of the difficulties with this self-definition is that the crown is claimed by many pretenders. Most religious movements in our contemporary Jewish community consider themselves moderate and can point to rival posi…
Modern Orthodoxy Passionate Moderation

Note

Maimonides and the Law of the Mean (1990)

The following material is abstracted (with my own comments in parentheses) from Marvin Fox's Interpreting Maimonides; Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), primarily chapter 5, entitled "The Doctrine of the Mean in Aristotle and Maimonides: A Comparative Study," pp.93-123.This is meant for further work on the law of the mean or "Modera- tionism" and, especially, in conjunction with my Hebrew article in the Belkin Memorial Volume on "The Sage and the Saint in Maimonides."Fox begins by showing that there are two exegetical schools concerning Maimonides' vision of the law of the mean: those who consider nothing but a rehash of the view of Aristotle, and those who deny that it bears any but the most remote and insignificant resemblance to Aristotle. Fox concludes the chapter by saying both are wrong. In his general theoretical formulation, Maimo- nides does indeed accept the structure of Aristotle, but in establishing the rationale for it and applying it to the particu- larities of the human situation, he is completely the Jew and departs from the Greek philosopher.Although the doctrine of the mean is one of the most popular of Aristotle's teachings, it widely misunderstood. Standard criti- cisms: the doctrine of the mean is nothing but Aristotle's adap- tation of an old Greek folk rule ("nothing to excess"); it is not at all a philosophical principle but rather a restatement of the common sense of the ages; it is merely an affirmation of the proprieties of social convention; it leaves the solution of every problem to "positive morality and positive law." Kant contemptu- ously dismissed it as tautological.Another objection cited by Fox (p. 97) is that it is lacking in an objective standard, and this is evident from the fact that the mean is not determined arithmetically and thus is not the same for all, but must be applied only with full cognizance of the pa…
Passionate Moderation

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