Law and Truth in Biblical and Rabbinic Literature

4. Theologies of Justice

109 Do you think that he has emerged vindicated from My Court as he has emerged vindicated from yours? (Mek. Kaspa 3) In the last three chapters, we saw that the Hebrew Bible maintains a rhetoric of certainty regarding the enactment of the divine law because it can rely upon divine omniscience as an aid in the pursuit of worldly justice. Conversely, the early rabbis develop a stance of uncertainty when it comes to implementation of the divine law, insisting that divine knowledge is largely inaccessible and therefore irrelevant to jurisprudence. The rabbis develop evidence law as a strategy for constructing legal truth, and thus pursue a kind of provisional justice. At the same time, they gesture toward a higher, more certain truth that cannot be accessed through legal maneuvering but that must, nonetheless, be acknowledged. Yhwh is known as the God of justice in both the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature. So far, I have only hinted at God’s role in the jurisprudence of the Bible and the rabbis, suggesting vaguely that Yhwh himself enforces covenantal law according to the Hebrew Bible, and that God is significant in rabbinic jurisprudence only to the extent that his absence symbolizes a lost, absolute truth. In this chapter I would like to look at this subject in greater detail and explore the jurisprudence of the heavens. Alongside the humanjusticesystemswehavesofarinvestigated,bothbiblicalandrabbinic authorsimaginetheGodofJusticeimplementinghisownrewardsandpunfour Theologies of Justice 110 · Truth and Divine Justice ishments,vindicatinghisownknowledgeofhumanbehavior,andintervening in human history in a purposeful way. Though much has been written aboutthesubjectofdivinejustice,Iwouldliketofocusononespecificquestion :howdoesGod’sroleasanexecutorofjusticeinteract(orinterfere)with thecomprehensivehumanreligiouslegalsystemsoftheBibleandtherabbis? IftheHebrewBibleenvisagesanactivedivineroleforGodinhissupervision of the covenant, is this supervision always executed in line with human notions of appropriate justice? If the rabbis are forced to implement an incomplete , provisional human jurisprudence owing to the limits of their knowledge , how did they imagine God’s role in meting out justice given his omniscience and alignment with ultimate truth? BernardJackson’sarticle“ReligiousLawinJudaism”1 providesaschema for the roles of the divine and human in jurisprudence in both the Hebrew Bibleandrabbinicliterature.Iaccepthisgeneralassertionsabouttheallocation of roles and responsibilities within these religious legal systems, but Jackson’s ambitious goal to elucidate these intertwined and overlapping spheresofjusticesometimesdriveshimtooverstatetheirseamlesscooperation .Ibegineachofmydiscussionsofbiblicalandrabbinicnotionsofdivine justice with Jackson’s astute observations and proceed to illuminate some of the disjunctions and incongruities that Jackson does not fully develop. I argue that it is precisely those moments which disrupt the vision of perfect harmony between divine and human justice that allow human jurisprudence to flourish despite the vision of a more capable, omniscient deity presiding in the heavens. God and Justice in the Hebrew Bible Jackson begins his discussion of religious law in the Hebrew Bible by noting the intersections between its human and divine elements: In Biblical literature the legal roles of man and God have much in common . God is depicted as judge, and the forms of divine law and judgment, whether mediated through Mosaic revelation or prophetic inspiration, owe much to human models. Moreover, the planes of human and divine legal activity interconnect: Abraham acts as advocate in the divine adjudication of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18), and man, not God, is assigned the role of judge as regards much of the divine law. Moreover, Theologies of Justice · 111 divine legal activity is . . . brought to bear only where there is a special need, arising from the limits of human capacity.2 According to Jackson, then, the Hebrew Bible offers us a multifaceted relationship between the human and divine in jurisprudence. First, we encounter a relationship of similarity: the depiction of God borrows from human juridical activity, imagining God as a supreme legislator and judge—human in kind, but greater than human in scale. Second, we witness an interdependence of humans and God in jurisprudence: God may require human advocates to shape his own judgments; he in fact delegates many of these judgments to humans; he acts on his own initiative when humans are hampered by their own limitations. In essence, the Hebrew Bible presents an idea of the achievability of worldly justice because of this divine–human partnership in legislation, judgment, and enforcement. The book of Deuteronomy stresses the importance of human institutions of justice, linking it to earthly reward: You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in all your towns that Yhwh your God is giving you, and they shall render just decisions for the people. . . . Justice and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the...