The Edah Journal

REVIEW ESSAY CULTURAL DIVERSITY WITHOUT MORAL

RELATIVISM: A REVIEW ESSAY OF THE
DIGNITY OF DIFFERENCE: HOW TO AVOID
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, BY RABBI
JONATHAN SACKS

David Shasha

Biography: David Shasha is Executive Director of The Center For Sephardic

Heritage, a grassroots organization devoted to the preservation and promo-
tion of Sephardic Jewish Civilization and Culture. He earned a Masters in
Near Eastern Studies from Cornell University.

The Edah Journal 3:2

Edah, Inc. © 2003
Elul 5763
CULTURAL DIVERSITY WITHOUT MORAL RELATIVISM: A
REVIEW ESSAY OF THE DIGNITY OF DIFFERENCE: HOW TO
AVOID THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS , BY RABBI JONATHAN
SACKS (N.Y.: Continuum Books, 2002) 216pp.

David Shasha

The great classical historian Arnaldo Momigliano, in his cut off from other languages and cultures. Jose Faur, in
book Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization, meditates a particularly trenchant analysis of Momigliano's text,
on the sense of monolingualism that set Hellenistic cul- writes the following:
ture in isolation from other cultures in the Mediterranean.
According to Momigliano: Eventually, monolingualism resolves itself into a
peculiar form of circular reasoning: Western
No Greek read the Upanishads, the Gathas and the thought alone is truly "philosophical," that is, it may
Egyptian wisdom books. It was indeed very diffi- evaluate all other systems but it cannot be evaluated
cult to find somebody non-Jewish reading the Bible by any other system.2
in Greek even when it was made available in that
language. Greek remained the only language of civ- Monolingualism is a co-opting of a pluralistic sense of
ilization for every Greek-speaking man. Even in culture and civilization into a hermetically sealed rubric
the first century AD the author of the Periplus of univocal thought - speech without multiple meanings,
maris Erythaei cannot find a better accomplishment thought without divergent opinions.
for a king of Ethiopia — to counterbalance his
notorious greed for money — than his knowledge This concept of absolute truth has permeated Western
of Greek.1 civilization since the age of Plato.

Momigliano sees that non-Greeks had to adopt a Greek Rarely has the concept of absolute truth been conceptu-
worldview in order to participate in the "universal" alized in contradistinction to a religious framework. I can
Hellenistic civilization. think of few other books than Golden Doves With Silver
Dots2 that have tried to analyze Western culture outside of
The essential challenge of Western civilization has always its own hermeneutical codes and structures. It is quite
been framed by this sense of monolingualism; a predica- true that the movement of Jacques Derrida, Michel
tion of a deep and rich culture that is utterly insulated and Foucault and others to examine and refocus the founda-

1
Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 7-8.
2
Jose Faur, Golden Doves With Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986),
p. 8

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 2

tions of Western civilization has permitted new ways of Religion can be a source of discord. It can also be
thinking.3 But these new ways of thinking have only a form of conflict resolution. We are familiar with
served to rekindle skepticism and forms of nihilism that the former; the second is far too little tried. Yet it is
preclude any possibility of active truths and responsibili- here, if anywhere, that hope must lie if we are to
ties.4 create a human solidarity strong enough to bear the
strains that lie ahead. The great faiths must now
Post-modernism has done a tremendous service to become an active force for peace and for the justice
breaching the walls of Platonic "truth," but it has not and compassion on which peace ultimately depends.
been able to set into place an alternative epistemological That will require great courage, and perhaps some-
system that would account for the manner in which thing more than courage: a candid admission that,
human beings communicate with one another and create more than at any time in the past, we need to
a healthy and strong society. By and large, post-modern search—each faith in its own way—for a way of liv-
philosophy with its critique of foundationalism has not ing with, and acknowledging the integrity of, those
been linked to the concepts of modern liberal democra- who are not of our own faith. Can we make space
cy. This cleavage between Derrida and Berlin, Barthes for difference? Can we hear the voice of God in a
and Rawls, Foucault and Hayek, has been disastrous for language, a sensibility, a culture not our own? Can
the study of modern political theory. we see the presence of God in the face of a
stranger?6
It is into this void that Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi
of the United Kingdom, has published his new and vital Thus Sacks does something unique in the way religious
work, The Dignity of Difference: How To Avoid The Clash of thinkers have presented their ideas in modern times: he
Civilizations.5 Rabbi Sacks has read deeply into the does not assert the finality of any religious construct, but
sources of modern political thought and has created a demands the role of religion in generic terms in our lives.
work that examines all facets of modern life within the Rather than proclaim the tenets of an impervious
context of religious absolutes. Orthodox value-system a, Sacks sees that religious ortho-
doxies can make space for difference and diversity.
But rather than merely set religion in opposition to the
modern secular world, as has been done countless num- This point is a key in the development of a post-9/11
bers of times in polemical works, Sacks looks for the world. Religion, coupled with secular nationalism, has
ways that religion can complement and extract the posi- been at the very core of the issues that divide cultures
tive sense of diversity within the massive changes that and civilizations. Going a step past Momigliano and
have been inflicted upon our world by the traumas of Faur, and a quantum leap away from the relativism of
globalism: Derrida and the deconstructionists, Sacks attempts to

3
For a discussion of Post-Modernism in a Jewish framework see Susan Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic
Interpretation in Modern Literary Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981). A critique of Faur and Handelman
might be found in Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1990), par-
ticularly p. xii.
4
For instance, the arguments of Jedediah Purdy, For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (New York:
Random House, 1999).
5
Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (New York: Continuum Books, 2002).
6
Ibid., pp. 4-5.
7
Orthodox Judaism has continually had a problem with the term "humanism." Jose Faur has written extensively on the relation-
ship between Sephardic Jewish thought and humanistic ideas, highlighting the relationship between the Maimonidean tradition
and the thought of the Italian humanist Giambattista Vico. See his classic formulation of the relationship in "Vico, Religious
Humanism and the Sephardic Tradition," Judaism 27:1 (Winter, 1978) pp. 63-71.

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 3

piece together and articulate a religious humanism7 that is of ethical dimensions in the thought of Derrida. Having
predicated upon justice, ethics and conciliation. In his eschewed any possibility of moral absolutes, post-mod-
words: "If religion is not part of a solution, it will cer- ernism has unwittingly linked itself to the intolerance and
tainly be part of the problem." moral apathy of the marketplace. When there are no
"right" ways to live a life, then anything goes – injustice
Sacks begins his story with the great conundrum inherent and relativism go hand in hand.
in the liberal project: liberal democracies can create free
markets and personal freedoms but they cannot instill a Sacks accepts the salient value of the marketplace and
sense of moral permanence and obligation within their modern capitalism; but he does not accept the totalizing
citizenries. The capitalist free market, perhaps the great nature of the marketplace. He insists that ethical con-
innovation of the modern economic system, a system cerns, truly the provenance of religious thinking, break
that has triumphed over its socialist and totalitarian foes, the monolingual apparatus that has been constructed by
permits the individual to exert a good deal of control the globalist phenomenon: our relations to the environ-
over his own private world. But capitalism is ill-equipped ment, to the poor, to the disenfranchised, must rise in
to redress injustice and inequity; in fact inequity is front- import as the imbalances and imperfections of the new
loaded into the system: global marketplace take root.

The liberal democracies of the West are ill-equipped To relate the myriad points of his argument, Sacks must
to deal with such problems. That is not because first set out the construction of the new market-driven
they are heartless—they are not; they care—but realities. He examines the historical framework of the
because they have adopted mechanisms that mar- new capitalism and contrasts it in temporal terms:
ginalize moral conditions. Western politics have
become more procedural and managerial. Not In one sense, then, the world we inhabit is a logical
completely: Britain still has a National Health outcome of the legacy of our ancestors, the latest
Service, and most Western countries have some stage in a journey begun millennia ago. But there
form of welfare provision. But increasingly, gov- are changes in degree which become changes in
ernments are reluctant to enact a vision of the com- kind. The speed and scope of advances in modern
mon good because—so libertarian thinkers argue— communications technology have altered conditions
there is little substance we can give to the idea of of existence for many, perhaps most, of the world's
the good we share. We differ too greatly. The best six billion inhabitants. The power of instantaneous
that can be done is to deliver the maximum possible global communication, the sheer volume of interna-
freedom to individuals to make their own choices, tional monetary movements, the internationalization
and the means best suited to this is the unfettered of processes and products and the ease with which
market where we can buy whatever lifestyle suits us, jobs can be switched from country to country have
this year, this month. Beyond the freedom to do meant that our interconnectedness has become
what we like and can afford, contemporary politics more immediate, vivid and consequential than
and economics have little to say about the human before.
condition.8
What is missing from the new globalism is a language
This dilemma has been exacerbated by the seeming lack that might be able to help us account for the massive dis-

The Dignity of Difference, p. 11.

8

Ibid., p. 28.
9

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 4

location created by the new technologies; technology is a In this context morality becomes an adjunct to the mar-
value-neutral language. Our languages have lagged ketplace and has affected the way in which we see our-
behind our material abilities to create new and sometimes selves and others. Religion becomes an admixture of
frightening realities that empower us, but also serve to pro-market forces (what Marx once called the "opiate of
destabilize our inherited realities. the masses") or anti-market atavistic forces; the forces
that set into motion the primitivism of Osama Bin Laden
Sacks presents a list of statistics that lay out the massive and other terrorist cadres. These new cells, created by the
inequities that the new global economy has created for us. failure of ethnic nationalisms to take root in the global
The rich are richer; the poor, poorer. Medical care and marketplace, a world that has rejected the particularist
other resources are lavished upon the elites while an ever- identities of the fundamentalists, utilize the technologies
growing global underclass seethes with discontent. and mechanisms of the new capitalism, are funded by
Inbuilt into the economic system is an apathy towards the global market enterprises, but link their cosmopolitan
moral — we might protect our individual concerns for a materialism to an outmoded religious monolingualism
personal social ethic, but generally we seek our own good that eliminates pluralism and tolerance.
— a new and totalizing universal monolingualism, a
monolingualism that has been buttressed by rampant Religion thus has a tricky role to play in modern societies:
materialism and a malignant political hegemonic system it can unleash forces of hate and intolerance as we have
(i.e., the IMF and World Bank). seen; but without it, the moral lexicon of globalism is
utterly impoverished. This is the paradox of religious
Not only has the dominance of the market had a fundamentalisms; on the one hand groups like Hamas
corrosive effect on the social landscape. It has also and Hezbollah and the Protestant Evagelicals provide
eroded our moral vocabulary, arguably the most desperately needed social services and a sense of com-
important resource in thinking about the future. In munity in a spiritually impoverished era. They provide
one of the most influential books of recent times, food for the hungry, clothes to the needy and medical
After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argued that 'We services to those without insurance. On the other hand,
possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue these movements have adopted a hard-line religious intol-
to use many of the key expressions. But we erance, an intolerance that was supposed to have disap-
have—very largely, if not entirely—lost our com- peared since the days of the Enlightenment, a philo-
prehension, both theoretical and practical, of moral- sophical revolution that envisioned the end of religion as
ity.' The very concept of ethics (Bernard Williams a pillar of civilization.11
called it 'that peculiar institution') has become inco-
herent. Increasingly, we have moved to talking Sacks rightly sees a problem in the way that we have
about efficiency (how to get what you want) and blurred the lines between religion and politics and have
therapy (how not to feel bad about what you want). not understood their role in the post-Enlightenment
What is common to both is that they have more to world:
do with the mentality of marketing (the stimulation
and satisfaction of desire) that of morality (what Religion and politics are different enterprises. They
ought we to desire).10 arose in response to different needs: in the one case

Ibid,. p. 32.
10

For a critique of Enlightenment philosophy in a Jewish context see Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-
11

Holocaust Jewish Thought (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, originally published in 1982 by New York: Schocken
Books), particularly chapters 2 and 3.

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 5

 to bind people together in their commonality, in the idea is that truth—reality, the essence of things—is
other to mediate peaceably between their differ- universal. How could it be otherwise? What is true
ences. The great tragedies of the twentieth century is true for everyone at all times, and the more uni-
came when politics was turned into a religion, when versal a culture is, the closer to truth it comes.15
the nation (in the case of fascism) or system (com-
munism) was absolutized and turned into a god. It is in Platonic thought that we find the merging of dif-
The single greatest risk of the twenty-first century ference into sameness. Once merged with religious
is that the opposite may occur: not when politics is thought, most pointedly into the Christian synthesis of
religionized but when religion is politicized.12 Augustine,16 Platonic universalism mitigates against plu-
ralism and tolerance. The world is one, we must all be of
There is a dialectical interrelation between the totalizing the same mind, thus collapsing the multiple languages
systems: religion, smarting from its defeat at the hands of and foci of religious truth as a humanism.
the Enlightenment philosophers, began to remodel itself
along the contoured lines of the new philosophy; religion It is here that Sacks presents the model of Judaism as a
sought to make itself that very model of Enlightenment counter to Platonism:
that had previously been rejected by Descartes and
Spinoza.13 But in this transition, religion absorbed many Against Plato and his followers, the Bible argues
of the responsibilities of politics and served to sever reli- that universalism is the first, not the last, phase in
gious man from the manner in which the new system was the growth of the moral imagination. The world of
able to break man's chains of religious idolatry. the first eleven chapters of Genesis is global, a
monoculture ('the whole world had one language
Sacks traces this political and religious fundamentalism and a common speech'). It is to this world that
back to perhaps the most controversial figure in modern God first speaks.17
thought: Plato.14 Plato, along the lines of Momigliano's
analysis of Hellenistic monolingualism, created a system This world, step-by-step, begins to break down into trib-
that abstracted real life from the ideal life of the philoso- alisms. With the failure of the universal model, Adamic
pher-kings. Platonic philosophy has been the metaphysi- civilization, the Bible fixes its sights on the Israelites, one
cal and theoretical underpinning of Western culture for branch of the human family. God's covenant with the
thousands of years: Israelites becomes a new paradigm of civilization:

It is a wondrous dream, that of Plato, and one that The essential message of the book of Genesis is
has never ceased to appeal to his philosophical and that universality—the covenant with Noah—is only
religious heirs: the dream of reason, a world of the context and prelude to the irreducible multiplici-
order set against the chaos of life, an eternity ty of cultures, those systems of meaning by which
beyond the here and now. Its single most powerful human beings have sought to understand their rela-

12
The Dignity of Difference, p. 42.
13
Jose Faur discusses this turn in religion in his book In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1992). See pp. 142-175 where Faur discusses Spinoza and modern Jewish thought.
14
There is the classic study of Plato by Jacques Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy" included in his Dissemination (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1981).
15
The Dignity of Difference, p. 49.
16
For a lucid exposition of Augustine and the Platonic context see George Foot Moore, History of Religions (New York: Scribner's
Publishers, 1941) Volume 2, pp. 194 ff.
17
The Dignity of Difference, p. 51.

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 6

 tionship to one another, the world and the source Passover—as if to say that only those who know
of being. Plato's assertion of the universality of what it is to be slaves, understand at the core of
truth is valid when applied to science and the their being why it is wrong to enslave others. Only
description of what is. It is invalid when applied to those who have felt the loneliness of being a
ethics, spirituality and our sense of what ought to stranger find it natural to identify with strangers.20
be. There is a difference between physis and
nomos, description and prescription, nature and cul- The concept of the Other, one who is at the periphery of
ture, or—to put it in biblical terms—between cre- things, translates into the philosophical concept of dif-
ation and revelation. Cultures are like languages. ference, a concept which does not have to be divorced
The world they describe is the same but the ways from the certainty of the religious moment (as decon-
they do so are almost infinitely varied.18 struction does), but can be elevated into a religious value
in itself.21
In Sacks' profoundly salient phrase: "This means that reli-
gious truth is not universal."19 As we will see later on, This concept of difference is hard-wired into our post-
this phrase is not merely a rhetorical challenge to current modern existence. The idea of a central philosophical
religious norms, it is a profoundly distressing epistemo- authority that controls the world and its sub-systems has
logical blow to orthodoxy. been rejected. The factors that once anchored our lives
have become unhinged in a maelstrom of market choic-
The breakthrough of this knowledge permits religion to es—a seemingly endless barrage of information and
be multilingual as opposed to monolingual. When reli- technologies. This frightening emergence of multiplicity
gion adopts a monolingualism, inherent to the codes of has not been matched by a concomitant updating of our
scientific thought—a tree is a tree after all—it predicates social network of civic institutions:
its ethics on an morality of exclusion; you are either like
us or you become an unwanted and unassimilable alien. In the past, people were able to cope with change
because they had what Alvin Toffler calls 'personal
In this sense, the concept of the alien and its biblical res- stability zones.' There were aspects of lives that did
onance becomes a major factor in God's teaching to the not change. Of these, the most important were a
Israelites: job for life, a marriage for life and a place for life.
Not everyone had them, but they were not rare.
Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is They gave people a sense of economic, personal
precisely the reason why the Israelites have to and geographical continuity. They were the familiar
undergo exile and slavery prior to their birth as a that gave individuals strength to cope with the unfa-
nation. They have to learn from the inside and miliar. Today these things are becoming ever harder
never lose the memory of what it feels like to be an to find.22
outsider, an alien, a stranger. It is their formative
experience, re-enacted every year in the drama of Modern man has gained the opportunity to be ever freer

18
Ibid., p. 54.
19
Ibid., p. 55.
20
Ibid., p. 59.
21
The concept of the Other in Jewish thought has been masterfully explored in the many works of Emmanuel Levinas. See his
book of essays Difficult Freedom (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) and his classic essay "Toward the Other" in
Nine Talmudic Readings (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 12-29.
22
The Dignity of Difference, pp. 70-71.

The Edah Journal 3.2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 7

and make opportunity for himself. But the things that Compassion links members of a society to one another
made life rich and worth living, the things that once made in a pact of grace. There is a layer of responsibility in this
us happy and secure, the certainties of God and country, covenant that forces us to see that human beings, with
are fast disappearing. their vast differences of culture, are linked by a higher
truth, the truth of God (not that of Plato), that helps us
What once made relationships constitutive of per- to establish networks of interdependence – this in spite
sonal identity and self-respect is precisely the fact of our lack of similarity to one another.
that they stood outside the world of contracts and
market exchange. Family, friends, neighbors, men- If religion is to succeed it must transcend what separates
tors, were people to whom you were bound by us rather than force all of humanity to be cast into a sin-
moral reciprocity. What was important is that they gle mold.
were there in bad times as well as good; when you
needed them, not when you could pay for them.23 This is the logic of our first social relationship: the inter-
relatedness of our economic system. Sacks devotes a
It is Sacks' contention that we are reliving the terrors of chapter showing how Judaism developed its notion of
an ancient time, a time prior to the discovery that we can freedom as freedom from want and need. Objecting to
transcend the ills of nature by creating communities and other systems of thought, particularly the Christian
institutions that can permit individuals to work together monastic ideal, which deny the work ethic, Sacks sees that
and maintain their hope and dignity in the face of the Judaism bequeathed to the world the sanctity of work:
horrors of this world:
Labor elevates man, for by it he earns his food.
Against just such a backdrop, some 4,000 years ago, What concerned the rabbis was the self-respect that
there emerged a different conception of human life. came from work as against unearned income. To
It suggested that individuals are not powerless in eat without working was not a boon but an escape
the face of the impersonal. We can create families, from the human condition. Animals find suste-
communities, even societies, around the ideals of nance; only mankind creates it. As the thirteenth-
love and fellowship and trust. In such societies, century commentator Rabbenu Bachya put it, 'The
individuals are valued not for what they own or the active participation of man in the creation of his
power they wield, but for what they are. They are own wealth is a sign of his spiritual greatness.'
not immune to conflict or tragedy, but when these Jewish law invalidates gamblers from serving as wit-
strike, the individual is not alone.24 nesses since they are not members of the produc-
tive economy. They do not 'contribute to the settle-
It was religion and not the marketplace that created these ment of the world.'25
structures of feeling. It is therefore the job of religion to
inculcate into us a sense of what is just as opposed to This Jewish respect for free markets and the dignity of
what is right. Justice, a key term in the religious lexicon, labor further instills the concept of the "dignity of dif-
is one step above right or truth, but is beneath yet anoth- ference." While Greek philosophy disdained the sanctity
er term, compassion, which elevates our morality anoth- of work and the commonplace life of the laborer, elevat-
er step. ing the life of the philosopher, a man who did not pro-
ductively contribute to society, but lived off of the labor

23
Ibid. p. 77.
24
Ibid. p. 79.
25
Ibid. pp. 94-95.

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 8

of others (thus linking Marx's Das Kapital to the parasitic seen as a cardinal right of Western man. Public morality
culture of the modern speculator and the Judaic under- is seen as a private option. We can choose to give chari-
pinnings of Marx's thought), Jewish sages continued to ty but we are not obligated to do so.
work in trades and professions, forcing themselves to
become at one with the demands and the conflicts of the Hence, our freedom includes the freedom to live without
marketplace. – there is no exclusively moral guarantee that we be
allowed to have the basic elements to subsist physically—
But the advantage of the Jewish economic ideal over its food, clothing, shelter, medical care and the like.
Western counterpart is that it was embedded within a
larger system of ethical morality. The cornerstone of It is here that the object lesson of Judaism and other reli-
Jewish ethics is the value of tsedaqah, a conception of gions comes into play:
charity that is unique to Judaism:
Tzedakah is a concept for our times. The retreat,
The two words, tsedaqah and mishpat, signify differ- set in motion by Reagonomics and Thatcherism,
ent forms of justice. Mishpat means retributive jus- from a welfare state, together with the deregulation
tice or the rule of law. A free society must be gov- of financial markets throughout the world, has led
erned by law, impartially administered, through to increased and increasing inequalities both in
which the guilty are punished, the innocent acquit- developed countries and the developing world. The
ted and human rights secured. Tsedaqah, by con- importance of tzedakah is that it does not mean
trast, refers to distributive justice, a less procedural 'charity.' It is not optional, nor does it depend on
and more substantive idea. 26 the goodwill of those who give it to others. It is a
legally enforceable obligation.28
Sacks then attempts to translate and explain the idea of
charity in the Jewish tradition: It is this counterbalance that makes Sacks' argument so
compelling: On the one hand, he affirms his belief in the
It is difficult to translate tsedaqah because it combines in a bugaboo of the organized Left, the free market. Yet on
single word two notions normally opposed to one anoth- the other hand, he affirms the primacy of a welfare sys-
er, namely charity and justice. Suppose, for example, that tem that makes sure that the wealthy elite has an obliga-
I give someone $100. Either he is entitled to it, or he is tory stance towards the underprivileged. This obligation
not. If he is, then my act is a form of justice. If he is is not the disinterestedness of the welfare state as prac-
not, it is an act of charity. In English (as with the Latin ticed in Western democracies, but is the sense of com-
terms caritas and iustitia) a gesture of charity cannot be passionate interconnectedness of the Jewish system
an act of justice, nor can an act of justice be described as whereby elites are able to integrate the have-nots into the
charity. Tsedaqah is therefore an unusual term, because it system and prevent them from drowning in debt and
means both.27 need.

The Jewish concept of charity is therefore alien to mod- This sense of public welfare is linked to providing not
ern Western civilization in the age of globalism. Western merely for material needs, but to ensure that the individ-
culture has, as we have indicated before, drawn rather ual has access to the market through compulsory educa-
stark lines between the public and the private. Privacy is tion and the acquisition of skills basic to economic inde-

26
Ibid. p. 113.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid., p. 122.

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 9

pendence. Writing was far more than an abstraction; it created a
sense of time and history that permitted its exponents to
It is here that Sacks examines the various technological understand and internalize more clearly a sense of their
revolutions that have undergirded the march of civiliza- own humanity; it created a new sense of consciousness
tion. We are led through the advances in communication that permitted man to be reflective, to look at himself in
that have allowed man to develop his culture and civiliza- a new manner.30
tion.
But the invention of the alphabet took this consciousness
These advances are the following: to a new level:

1. The development of writing The alphabet created the possibility of profound

2. The development of the alphabet social and political change. As already noted, the
pre-alphabetical world was, and could not be other
3. The development of the printing press than, hierarchical. At the apex of Mesopotamian or
4. The development of the global exchange of Egyptian society was a ruler, king or pharaoh, seen
as a god, or child of the gods, or the prime inter-
information mediary between the people and the gods. Below
him and holding much of the day-to-day power was
Writing first began back in the ancient Near East when the cognitive elite, the administrative class. Below
the modes of inscription, cave drawings and the like, them was the mass of people, conceived as a vast
became incapable of representing more complex phe- work- or military force. The cultures of the ancient
nomena. Sacks sees in the development of writing, an world were mythological, or what Eric Voegelin
urbanizing tendency: called 'cosmological.' What this meant was that the
divisions in society were seen as mirroring the hier-
The settlement of populations, the development of archy of the gods or planets or elemental forces.
agriculture and the birth of complex economies They were written into the structure of the universe
with their division of labor and growth of itself.31
exchange, gave writing its earliest and most immedi-
ately practical use, namely to record transactions. Along the lines that he has continued to trace throughout
But the power of the system was soon apparent. It the book, Sacks sees history as an ongoing process of
could do more than keep a note of who owed what forces, created by man, that lead us to breakthroughs and
to whom. It could capture for posterity the great usher us into a greater insight into who we are and a more
narratives— myths, cosmologies and epic histories– precise knowledge of the world we live in.
that explained the present in terms of the past, and
whose telling in oral form had been a central feature The role of Judaism and the Bible is central to the argu-
of ancient religious rituals.29 ment. Judaism is not represented as the initiator of the
discoveries, but is shown to have made some startling

29
Ibid,. p. 129.
30
The most insightful discussion of writing in current philosophical thought comes from Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). See especially "The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing," pp. 3-
26. See also the work of the Egyptian-Jewish poet Edmond Jabes; Jabes speaks extensively about his poetics of writing in From
the Desert to the Book: Conversations with Marcel Cohen (Tarrytown: Station Hill Press, 1990).
31
The Dignity of Difference, p. 132.

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 10

uses of them: socioeconomic group can be endowed.33

The politics of ancient Israel begins with an act Once human consciousness took this quantum leap, the
inconceivable to the cosmological mind, namely that idea that interpersonal obligations, obligations that would
God, creator of the universe, intervenes in history in effect mirror the Divine-Human encounter, led men to
to liberate slaves. It reaches a climax in the nine- create unions that would allow them to share power for
teenth chapter of the Book of Exodus with an the greater good that the collective could provide over
event unique in religious history, in which God and above the individual.
reveals Himself to an entire people at Mount Sinai
and enters into a covenant with them.32 And it is here that we run into the paradox that drives the
modern economic system: man must have an internal
Sacks thus links the technology of writing and book pro- impetus, be it greed or something else, that spurs him
duction with the history of ancient Israel, the first real onto his economic and social activity. This impetus is
history inscribed in a book. With the technological abili- encapsulated in the concept of competition – a world
ty to write down what has happened to them, creating an where one man puts his own interests ahead of others.
everlasting trace of this experience, the Israelites are able The paradox is that human progress and creativity are
to inscribe the fact of their encounter with the Divine — linked to mankind's selfish impulses. We have seen the
a Divine presented as absolutely Other — and allow the positive aspect of this in our discussion of labor and
meeting its role in the development of Man's own self- work.
image; the idea that God and Man form a covenantal
bond that grounds the development of science and cul- How then to create a counterbalance to the forces of
ture. greed and selfishness?

It is the emergence of education as an ultimate value that According to Sacks, the market and its impulses are a nec-
destroys the pagan culture of old; a culture that is marked essary good/evil that drives the engine of progress and
by its fear of nature and its mythologization of natural creativity, something that Judaism is wholly supportive of,
phenomena. Under the covenantal system, Man develops but how do we evade the brutal circularity of a world in
his rational sense, a sense that is tied to concepts of stew- which difference is obliterated and support networks
ardship and interpersonal obligation. eviscerated by an economy of greed and brutality?

Thus: Sacks again goes back to the model of Covenant:

Education – the ability not merely to read and write It is this conception of personal identity that lies
but to master and apply information and have open behind the concept of covenant. Covenant is a
access to knowledge – is essential to human dignity. bond, not of interest or advantage, but of belong-
I have suggested that it is the basis of a free society. ing. Covenants are made when two or more people
Because knowledge is power, equal access to knowl- come together to create a 'We.' They differ from
edge is a precondition of equal access to power. It contracts in that they tend to be open-ended and
is also the key to creativity, and creativity is itself enduring. They involve the commitment of a per-
one of the most important gifts with which any son to another, or to several others. They involve a

Ibid,. p. 133.
32

Ibid,. p. 137
33

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 11

 substantive notion of loyalty – of staying together Religion has a significant and decisive role to play in this
even in difficult times. They may call, at times, for regard:
self-sacrifice. People bound by a covenant are 'obli-
gated to respond to one another beyond the letter Every technological civilization faces two opposing
of the law rather than to limit their obligations to dangers. One is the hubris that says: we have god-
the narrowest contractual requirements.'34 like powers, therefore let us take the place of God.
The other is the fear that says: in the name of God,
The realization that we are all in the same boat, the boat let us not use these godlike powers at all. Each
of the universe, forces us to come to terms with the fact technological advance carries with it the possibility
that no man can live alone and that no man can be his of diminishing or enhancing human dignity. What
own universe. matters is how we use it. The way to use it is in
covenant with God, honoring His image that is
The destruction of civil society in the wake of material mankind.36
and technological advances is thus a disaster of the high-
est order. This collapse circumscribes the biblical ethos It is this theme that runs as a constant throughout this
of altruism, an altruism that is, again, not an absolutism. most unique of books: the constant interweaving of dif-
It is a carefully calibrated balance of selfish and altruistic ference(s) to create a plural and variegated – and enriched
tendencies that man must integrate, tendencies that are – reality. The apotheosis of such a pluralistic reality is the
leavened by our sense of difference and multivalence. overarching concept of forgiveness-conciliation.

We have seen no greater need for this counterbalancing At the heart of the concept of forgiveness is the
of human impulses than in the realm of the environ- idea of love– not abstract [i.e. Platonic — D.S.] love
ment. Sacks recounts a number of rabbinical statements but the real, concrete attachment of one being for
that relate to environmental concerns: another. Love distinguishes between the person
and the deed. An act may be evil, but since the per-
One day Honi [ha-Me'aggel] was journeying on the son is free, he or she is not inseparably joined to
road and saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked that evil. Wrongdoing damages the structures of
him, 'How long does it take for a carob tree to bear our world. It creates an injustice. It damages a rela-
fruit?' the man replied, 'Seventy years.' Honi asked, tionship. But these things are not beyond repair.
'Are you sure that you will live another seventy Wrongs can be rectified and harms healed.37
years?' The man answered, 'I found carob trees in
the world. As my forefathers planted them for me, It is this sense of forgiveness and conciliation that ulti-
so I too will plant them for my children.'35 mately recognizes the importance of religion in our lives:

This Jewish sensitivity to the ecological balance of the Forgiveness is, in origin, a religious virtue. There is
world is represented by the startling fact that it was a Jew, no such thing as forgiveness in nature. The ele-
Lewis Gomperz, who founded the RSPCA, the first ments are blind, and the laws of nature inexorable.
world organization to protect the rights of animals. Famine, drought, disease, starvation, make no

34
Ibid., p. 151.
35
Ibid., pp. 169-170, after Maimonides, Hilkhot De'ot 6:6.
36
Ibid., p. 172.
37
Ibid., p. 180.
38
Ibid.

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 12

 exceptions for the virtuous or the penitent.38 A woman stood up at the back of the courtroom. She blurt-
ed out in English, in a loud, shaking voice, 'I forgive Omar
The ultimate success or failure of humanity is dependent for what he did.'
upon the interaction of forces both secular and sacred.
Modern Western culture, increasingly becoming a mono- Forgive? It was my mother. This was not about forgiveness;
lingualism, an array of elite forces arrayed against the didn't she understand? This was my revenge.
concepts of pluralism and tolerance, against the weak
who cannot bridge the material and scientific advances of 'And if the Blumenfeld family can forgive Omar,' my moth-
a progressively alienated elite, needs to rediscover the er continued, 'it's time for the State of Israel to forgive
power of God and of the salient aspects of religion. him.'40

This does not mean, in Sacks' account, that religion is to This extraordinary story ties together the main themes of
become a part of that sense of elitism – as it seems to The Dignity of Difference and provides a coda that is as
have become in much of Western religion – particularly rare as it is enlightening: The ultimate fate of mankind
that of exclusionary Christianity.39 Religion must hear will not be provided by our sense of revenge and its enti-
that faint voice, qol demamha daqqah, the voice of the poor, tlements; our ultimate fate will be in our ability to distin-
hurt and oppressed. guish that we are all different, members of different
nations and languages, members of different classes and
Sacks ends the book with an examination of one moment socio-economic groupings, members of different reli-
of conciliation, a moment that has great import for Jews gions.
and for others who look to solve some of the more
intractable conflicts that we face in these troubled and As Sacks finally puts it:
troubling times. The story is that of Laura Blumenfeld,
whose father was shot and seriously injured by Palestinian The test of faith is whether I can make space for
terrorists in 1986 while he was visiting Jerusalem. difference. Can I recognize God's image in some-
one who is not in my image; whose language, faith,
Encapsulated in the story of Rabbi Blumenfeld and his ideals, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I
daughter's search for justice is a detail as ennobling as it have made God in my image instead of allowing
is compelling: him to remake me in his. Can Israeli make space
for Palestinian, and Palestinian for Israeli? Can
She attends the trial [of the suspects] and persuades counsel Muslims, Hindis, Sikhs, Confucians, Orthodox,
– still without revealing who she is – to let her give testimony. Catholics and Protestants make space for one
On the witness stand she finally discloses the fact that she is another in India, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Kosovo and
the victim's daughter and that she has come to know the gun- dozens of other places in which different ethnic
man and his family so that they can put a personal face to and religious groups exist in close proximity? Can
the family of the injured man and understand that there is we create a paradigm shift through which we come
no such thing as an impersonal victim of violence. In the to recognize that we are enlarged, not diminished,
middle of her cross-examination, she is interrupted by anoth- by the 6,000 languages that exist today, each with its
er voice: unique sensibilities, art forms and literary expres-

39
For a brilliant discussion of the Catholic Church's legacy of anti-Semitism see James Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and
the Jews (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), particularly his appendix, pp. 547-604, a call for a "Vatican III."
Ibid., pp. 188-189.
40

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 13

 sions? This is not the cosmopolitanism of those sources. The malignant impulses that have overtaken
who belong nowhere, but the deep human under- Orthodox Judaism at present, be it in its Zionist or fun-
standing that passes between people who, knowing damentalist variant, have eschewed the literary and scien-
how important their attachments are to them, tific arts — or, worse, have forced those arts to fit into an
understand how deeply someone else's different Orthodox Jewish mold, abusing them in the process.42
attachments matter to them also.41
Rabbi Sacks constructs his argument proudly utilizing the
The Dignity of Difference is a landmark of the first order in humanistic disciplines: evolutionary biology, historicism
modern humanistic studies. There have been other and the social sciences — disciplines anathema to others
works that have treated individual points discussed in the in his position as an Orthodox Jew. And, most signifi-
book, but I cannot think of another book that has cantly, he has courageously articulated his deeply felt
brought together the moral tenets of religious humanism Zionism by defending the rights of the Palestinian Arabs
while keeping at its fingertips the vast and complex liter- who too have suffered in this brutally violent century; a
ature of the modern social and biological sciences. stand that someone such as Elie Wiesel, a man has
espoused the values of humanism, has yet to really come
The Dignity of Difference is a masterpiece that teaches us to terms with.43
not only who we are, but how we got here and where we
should be going. It is unafraid to cobble together the For this he has borne the scorn and ire of Jews in
pieces of its highly sophisticated yet elegantly stated argu- England, America and Israel. Rabbi Sacks has been the
ment from varying and not ordinarily mutually sympa- object of a hate campaign that has become all-too-com-
thetic philosophies. mon in the extremist wing of the Jewish community, but
has rarely been aimed at a fellow Orthodox figure —
As an Orthodox Jew Rabbi Sacks has taken many chances especially one as prominent as the Chief Rabbi of the
by appealing to science and history as authoritative United Kingdom.44
41
Ibid., pp. 201-202.
42
It is crucial to understand that in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the religious significance of the modern State of
Israel has metamorphosed into an activist and exclusivist ideology that has penetrated the ranks of Modern Orthodox Judaism.
This notion, signified by the Talmudic term athalta di-ge'ulah would have it that Jews are now in the throes of the Messianic era.
This ideology, promoted by the late Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook and articulated by a militant political movement following in his
wake, the Gush Emunim, has permeated the precincts of Modern Orthodox Jewish life the world over. For an incisive examina-
tion of this religious phenomenon see Aviezer Ravitzky's Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996) where he states: "The nationalist ideology of Rabbi Kook and his followers views the history of Zionism as
an inevitable and decidedly messianic process, leading to the realization of prophetic predictions: 'the State of Israel as the fulfill-
ment of the biblical vision of redemption.'" (p. 80). In Ravitzky's trenchant and singular analysis, the Zionist movement has
become linked to a fundamentalist messianism that presents itself in modern guise in counterdistinction to the more conservative
messianism of the haredim. For a discussion of the Haredi approach see Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, "Diaspora and the
Ground of Jewish Identity," Critical Inquiry 19 (Summer, 1993), pp. 693-726. For an earlier critique of nationalist Zionism from a
Diasporist point of view see Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History: Essays on Old and New Judaism (Philadelphia: Meridian
Books/The Jewish Publication Society, 1958), especially the letter "Reality and Fantasy in Zionism," pp. 155-166. For a Sephardic
point of view see Ella Shohat, "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims," Social Text 19-20, 1988 ,
pp. 1-34 and Ammiel Alcalay, After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
along with the argument in Laurence J. Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture (London: Routledge
Press, 1999), pp. 47-66.
43
See Norman G. Finkelstein's incisive discussion of Wiesel's approbation of Joan Peters' vicious work against the Palestinians
From Time Immemorial in his Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (London: Verso Books, 1995), p. 48. Wiesel has consistent-
ly maintained his ambivalence towards the Palestine issue within his larger mission regarding global human rights.
44
Prior to the publication of The Dignity of Difference, Rabbi Sacks conducted an interview with The Guardian of London and allowed
the paper to excerpt portions of the book. The article appeared written by Jonathan Freedman entitled "The Prophet of Hope"
August 27, 2002. The controversy has been addressed in two articles, David Landau, "Will Sacks Stand by his Statements

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 14

But, contrary to the warped visions of religious funda- its climax when Ruth says to Boaz (her 'redeemer')
mentalists of all stripes, the principal argument of The 'Why have I found favor in your eyes such that you
Dignity of Difference, a book that should become mandato- recognize me though I am a stranger?' The human
ry reading for everyone is that we all have a moral obli- other is a trace of the Divine Other. As an ancient
gation to protect one another and in so doing will bring Jewish teaching puts it: 'When a human being makes
peace and prosperity to our universe. many coins in the same mint, they all come out the
same. God makes every person in the same
Such a universal message, leavened by the religious foun- image— His image — and each is different.' The
dationalism that is so crucial to Sacks' prophetic message, supreme religious challenge is to see God's image in
is a radical reconstruction of the way in which we have, one who is not in our image. That is the converse
since Platonic essentialism, been taught to think of the of tribalism. But it is also something other than
state of humanity. This radical reconstruction is an universalism. It takes difference seriously. It recog-
assemblage of ideas – from the Bible to Maimonides to nizes the integrity of other cultures, other civiliza-
Karl Marx to Isaiah Berlin to Robert Reich and Francis tions, other paths to the presence of God.45
Fukuyama – that focuses on the essential dissimilarity
between human beings and the need for us to bridge Elegantly written for the common reader, The Dignity of
these differences with respect and tolerance. Difference will proudly take its place in the rich library of
Hebrew humanism. This library has been made relevant
The final word must come from Rabbi Sacks himself: for our own times by Primo Levi,46 Abraham Joshua
Heschel,47 Leo Baeck,48 Edmond Jabes;49 writers who so
We encounter God in the face of a stranger. That, deeply understood and internalized the dignity of differ-
I believe, is the Hebrew Bible's single greatest and ence. It is in this spirit that I publicly endorse the central
counterintuitive contribution to ethics. God creates ethos of this brilliant work and recommend it to anyone
difference; therefore it is in one-who-is-different who respects their place in the circle of life, a circle that
that we meet God. Abraham encounters God when is maintained by the interaction of all living forms and
he invites three strangers into his tent. Jacob meets which has been bequeathed to us by our Father in heav-
God when he wrestles with an unnamed adversary en.
alone at night. The Book of Ruth, which tells the
prehistory of David, Israel's greatest king, reaches

on Israel?" Ha'aretz, September 2, 2002 and Gerald Kaufman, "The Chief Rabbi Must Not Back Down on Israel," The
Independent (UK), September 3, 2002. The controversy centered around Rabbi Sacks' critical remarks concerning the IDF's occu-
pation forces on the West Bank and Gaza. He states: "You cannot ignore a command that is repeated 36 times in the Mosaic
books: 'You were exiled in order to know what it feels like to be an exile.' I regard that as one of the core projects of a state that
is true to Judaic principle. And therefore I regard the current situation as nothing less than tragic, because it is forcing Israel into
postures that are incompatible in the long- run with our deepest ideals." Sadly, Rabbi Sacks wrote a letter to Israel's Chief Rabbi
Meir Lau rescinding the comments and defusing the controversy. But in the opinion of this writer, the statements originally
made in The Guardian are in perfect consonance with Rabbi Sacks' ideas of pluralism and diversity. It is thus lamentable that the
monolingualism that we have discussed in this essay has been carried out with a vengeance in the Modern Orthodox Jewish
world by its vicious behavior toward Rabbi Sacks.
45
The Dignity of Difference, pp. 59-60.
46
The Periodic Table, (New York: Schocken Books, 1984).
47
Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1951) and God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of
Judaism, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1955).
48
The Essence of Judaism, (New York: Schocken Books, 1941)
49
The Book of Questions (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1976-1984), Seven Volumes.

The Edah Journal 3:2 / Elul 5763 Shasha 15