Studies in the Meaning of Judaism (JPS Scholar of Distinction Series)

18 / Hillul Hashem: A Universal Rubric in the Halakhah

18 / Hillul Hashem: A Universal Rubric in the Halakhah The need to rethink the theory of modern Jewish ethics arises from the loss of the meaning the liberals assigned to the words “Jewish” and “ethics.” For Hermann Cohen and the many who utilized his ideas, the neo-Kantian definition of ethics determined the meaning of the word “Jewish.” Today, the several competing versions of philosophic ethics all operate under a cloud of uncertainty, as Alasdair MacIntyre’s widely discussed After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) makes plain. Thus, one mode of reestablishing a compelling theory of Jewish ethics involves studying contemporary options in ethics and applying the most appealing of these to Judaism. An alternate path explores the independent meaning the term “Jewish” should have in such a theory. Self-respect demands that it be given at least equal weight with Hellenic or Germanic philosophy, specifically, that they not be allowed to dictate what Judaism properly understands to be “the good and the right.” From this perspective, mediation between Judaism and ethics begins from the Jewish side and does so in terms of authoritative Jewish teaching, namely, with concern for the halakhah. Orthodox and postliberal Jews can easily share this approach to Jewish ethics though they are likely, in due course, to come to different conclusions about contemporary Jewish responsibility.1 In doing so they must face the continuing difficulty generated by this procedure: how to reconcile a particular people’s legal system with the sense of goodness available to all human beings. This study arises as a continuation of my interest in this approach evidenced recently by a response to Aharon Lichtenstein’s much-discussed 241 1986 paper, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?”2 There I pointed to the ambiguous and subordinate status of the “ethical moment” in halakhah, thus impugning the commanding power of Jewish ethics. Here I propose to study a specific halakhic provision which illumines Jewish law’s relation to universal human moral judgment, namely the category hillul hashem, insofar as it shapes Jewish duty in terms of gentile opinion. An inner theological dialectic lies behind the legal tension to be explored. God has given the Torah to one particular people, the Jews, and its rules distinguish between those who do and those who do not participate in the system. The same Torah indicates that God stands in a similar relationship, if a legally less demanding one, with all humankind, the children of Noah. Hence they may be said to have a legitimate basis for judging Jewish conduct.3 The potential tension between what the Torah permits to Jews and a harsh evaluation gentiles might make of it creates the subset of the laws of hillul hashem to be studied. (On its meaning, see below.) While the term hillul hashem does not occur in the Bible, its equivalents are found in several biblical books, with heavy concentrations in Leviticus and Ezekiel. The peshat, simple meaning, of these texts may be classified as moving from concrete acts of profanation, to those which directly or indirectly cast aspersions on God, and finally to an abstract sense of hillul hashem. Since the book of Leviticus pays considerable attention to cultic acts which sanctify God—to the extent that various items can be called God’s “holy things”—so, by extension, mishandling them profanes God. (Thus Lev. 21:6, 22:2, 32; Mal. 1:12; and perhaps Ezek. 20:39.) Idolatry— specifically, sacrificing one’s child to Moloch—is a desecration (Lev. 18:21, 20:13). Ezekiel accuses certain women prophets of equivalent sacrilege (Ezek. 13:19). The theme also encompasses noncultic violations, of which swearing falsely by God’s name is a similarly direct profanation (Lev. 19:12). And it includes unethical acts like a father and son having sexual relations with the same girl (Amos 2:7) and the Jerusalemites reneging on their solemn pact to free their Jewish slaves (Jer. 34:16). Ezekiel envisages this notion abstractly, and four times, in consecutive verses, proclaims God’s determination to sanctify the Divine name which the people of Israel has profaned through its sinfulness (Ezek. 36:20–23). The social dimension of several of these acts of profanation deserves particular attention. The heinousness of the sacrilege derives as much from what the act says about God to others, a public, as from its intrinsic 242 A Way profanity. The...