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277 C H A P T E R E I G H T Comparisons to the Right and the Left Defining a term or concept involves describing what is included within the term in question as well as what is outside its limits. The Latin root of the word “define” literally means the setting of limits or boundaries (finis) around the thing being defined. (The same is true for the Hebrew word for “define,” “le-hagdir,” which literally means to put a fence [geder] around the thing being defined.) In this chapter , then, I shall briefly point out how my theory is similar to, but still differs from, other theories, especially those closely related to mine on both the right and the left. In the next chapter, I shall illustrate some of the practical implications of my theory of law, for that too helps explain its convictions and its import. Before I explore the sample theories to my right and left, I would like to mention that my theory shares much in its basic convictions and/or its practical results with a number of theories written by others . Specifically, my theory, in whole or in part, has much in common with those of Solomon Schechter, Robert Gordis, Abraham Heschel, and Louis Jacobs. It is informed also by, but somewhat different from, the work of Mordecai Kaplan and Jacob Agus. Because I have discussed these theories at some length in my book The Unfolding Tradition and because the present book is, after all, about my theory and not theirs, I will not repeat that material here. Still, despite the similarities between my theory and those mentioned, I have written this book in the belief that my theory of Jewish law is distinct from others in its presentation, focus, depth on some topics and breadth on others, context, and/or practical implications. My discussion of the aspects of Jewish law that resemble a body (Chapter Two) is altogether lacking in theirs, and my description of the relationship of Jewish law to morality and custom (Chapters Six and Seven) is, in all modesty, both more extensive and deeper than theirs (except perhaps for that of Jacobs). If space allowed, I would explain and justify that claim further, but I will leave it to the reader to make those comparisons, perhaps with the help of the descriptions in The Unfolding Tradition. A THEORY SLIGHTLY TO MY RIGHT: DAVID HARTMAN Some 20 years ago I served as a respondent to Rabbi David Hartman when he was discussing his theory of law as presented in his book A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism. I said then, and believe now, that his theory of Jewish law fits much better within Conservative Judaism than within Orthodoxy. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and called on the next questioner! As the very title of Hartman’s book announces, he puts great emphasis on the covenant theme as central to his understanding of Jewish law. As his subtitle indicates, he understands the covenant to be a living one, based on the ongoing relationship between God and the People Israel that is more like a marriage than the vassal treaties with kings on which the biblical covenant is historically based. This provides ample room for innovation by both parties in the content of its demands, including especially changes based on moral concerns. But the covenant does definitely demand many things of Jews, and so the language of commandment (mitzvah) is central to the relationship between God and the People Israel. Furthermore, he is not willing to limit the commandments to moral ones, as the early Reform movement did; the ritual commandments are important to “structure Judaic particularity and provide a vivid framework for expressing the community’s particular passion for its God. . . . Through them the community builds familial solidarity grounded in a common memory and destiny. . . . They complement and absorb the ethical.”1 Although Jewish law is one good way to be ethical, Rabbi Hartman insists that it is not the only way and that Jews FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND PEOPLE 278 should not see Judaism as superior to other faiths or to secularists’ morals. In all these ways, he and I are in agreement. What, then, distinguishes us? In part, it is what he does not discuss but that I do. He says, “My book does not attempt to work out the way in which ethics can control halakhic development, nor does it try to establish...

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