How to be human - Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt on community and social justice

I’m currently completing a PhD thesis on the topic of Jewish social justice education. I was fascinated by the proliferation of social justice campaigning and educational work all over the Jewish world, and by the surprising absence of any theoretical or academic writing on the subject. The outcome is that while lots of people are trying to do Jewish social justice work, no-one has a clearly defined sense of exactly what this means.

For example, what do we mean by social justice – what is our vision for a just society and how does this inform our critique of existing political and economic arrangements? Are we concerned about human rights, the environment, poverty, the breakdown of community, international development issues, all or none of the above?

What is specifically Jewish about this vision? Does it derive from halacha, Biblical values, Jewish history, modern Jewish political movements – or is it enough to have a universal vision which happens to be pursued by Jews? Either way, is there anything specifically Jewish about the way in which we pursue justice? Can social action itself be recognisably Jewish and what might this mean? If we can’t answer these latter questions, perhaps it would be better to recognise social justice as a universal, political pursuit and throw our lot in with broad-based, secular campaigns and organisations.

My research has focused on interviews with 15 UK-based Jewish social justice educators, including the head of informal education at JCoSS, a freelance educator doing feminist education around gender within Orthodox schools, the directors of Yachad and the New Israel Fund, Citizens UK’s Jewish community organiser, a modern-Orthodox rabbi who specialises in interfaith work, the Reform founder of Tzelem – a rabbinic voice for social justice, our own senior rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, educators from human rights NGO René Cassin and the Jewish LGBT organisation Keshet, and Maurice Glasman, a Labour peer, community organiser and inventor of ‘Blue Labour’.

Despite the diversity of this group, they are united in their understanding that discrimination, exclusion and inequality oppress people by denying them their humanity. The remedy is the opposite of this: enabling all human beings to realise their human potential. But what does it actually mean to be fully human? Different people answer this question in different ways, but it boils down to three key ingredients. First, being human means being involved in critical thinking and action in the world – what philosophers call praxis. This is what distinguishes human beings from all other animals. Second, it means being involved with spiritual concerns – not necessarily God, but non-materialist questions of meaning and values. Finally, it means being in community and relationship.

Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt

But even this final idea raises more questions, as there exist radically different concepts of community and relationship, each of which has a different kind of humanising impact on its members. I’ve been exploring alternative versions of this idea as put forward by two seminal 20th century thinkers – the philosopher and theologian Martin Buber, and the political theorist Hannah Arendt.

In his classic book I and Thou, Buber teaches that human beings relate to each other in two different ways. Most of the time we deal with other people as parties to a transaction or as means to some end we’re trying to achieve. This is most obvious in the case of bus drivers, shop keepers or our tax accountants, but can also be true in the case of intimate relationships: we often use friends and partners to meet our own emotional needs. While human society could not exist without this way of interacting, it also leads us to objectivise other people and can be alienating and ultimately dehumanising. But Buber also holds up the possibility of an alternative way of relating to other people not as ‘It’ but as ‘You’. When we see someone as ‘You’, we refuse to instrumentalise them but instead encounter them genuinely in all their unique individuality. This is the true meaning of relationship.

Buber writes that the evolution of modern, industrial, mass society has made relational encounters more and more difficult to achieve. As a result, we have become progressively less authentically human. His solution is to rebuild society as a network of independent, organic communities, within which genuine relationships can take place and people can reclaim their humanity. It’s no surprise that Buber was among the early supporters of the kibbutz movement and always argued that kibbutzim should remain as small, intimate, community groups.

If Buber believes that being human is the ability to engage in genuine, intimate, one-on-one relationships, Hannah Arendt proposes a very different model of relational, community life. She harks back to classical Greece, where she claims there was a clear division between the private and public spheres. The private sphere or the family was not only the location for intimate relationships but was also the basic unit of economic production and social stability, ruled over in an autocratic style by the head of the household. The public sphere, in contrast, emerged at the point where material wellbeing had been assured and took the form of democratic politics: a process of deliberation among active citizens about the important matters that affected the community.

Arendt’s view of community is summed up by the cut and thrust of deliberation, debate and the exchange of views, through which participants realise their freedom and bring their innate uniqueness as human beings into the world. In this light, Buber is guilty of transplanting the private sphere (family-style, intimate relationships) into the public arena, thereby endangering the autonomy and agency of the participants. Against this, Buber would argue that Arendt’s model of political community risks seeing other people as tools for one’s own self-advancement, thereby destroying any chance of genuine relationships.

For Arendt, humanisation means nurturing the potential within each individual human being. Community is a means to this end. Buber believes that being human means encountering the Other: for him, community and relationships are therefore ends in themselves.

Want to find out more about my research? Please get in touch!

Why Yom Kippur doesn't work - and (maybe) how to fix it

This is the drasha (sermon) I gave on Yom Kippur 5776/2015 at New North London Synagogue.

I remember myself as a 14 year-old, the second Yom Kippur after my bar mitzvah, refusing to go to shul, staying home and demonstratively eating because I didn’t believe in God and I refused to be a hypocrite.

Things have changed – here I am! – but in some ways, while I’m less concerned about inconsistency, have found my place within traditional Jewish observance, and have a more sophisticated view of the problems, nothing’s changed for me.

Here are my problems with Yom Kippur. 

Firstly: the whole construct of the Yamim Noraim (and in some ways Judaism as a whole) is built on an unsustainable anthropomorphism – a judging God who rewards and punishes.

I don’t believe in such a God and, on a deeper level, I reject the underlying assumption which is that the world is in some way inherently just.

Secondly: morality for me as a modern, liberal individual, is about the mitzvot beyn adam le-havero (commandments between people), which I regard as the expression of a binding ethical system.  It’s hard to imagine the observance of the mitzvot beyn adam le-makom (between a person and God) as more than a lifestyle choice, since they don’t affect anyone but me.  And why would I need to repent from a lifestyle choice?  

While the process of teshuva (repentance) relates to both kinds of mitzvot, the rabbis teach that Yom Kippur only repents for sins between people if we’ve already made good the damage, received forgiveness and repented before the day starts.  And if, as the Rambam teaches, teshuva is the essence of atonement, then the rituals of Yom Kippur itself seem to have no essential function.

This problem has another aspect: teshuva means making change, changing ourselves.  This requires a deep process of personal transformation, which we’re more likely to achieve through some kind of long term therapy, working with another person or in a group, than by standing in shul, surrounded by other people, but essentially alone with our thoughts. 

This is recognised in the tradition: the Rambam (Maimonides) writes that true repentance means a change both of behaviour and of attitude, requires a person to avoid negative, habit-forming behaviours and to remove herself from the situation in which the sin is likely to recur, and teaches that true repentance can only be achieved by confessing one’s sins to others.  The confessional prayers we say in synagogue, reciting a fixed formula of words in unison, can hardly be described as an authentic confession of personal sins.

Thirdly, modern, liberal ethics has to be based on autonomous choice.  Not just free will in the sense of deciding whether or not to obey the commandments we’ve been given – this is assumed by the rabbis and implies an a priori acceptance of the commandments themselves – but freedom to think for ourselves and shape our own moral code.  I expect not only to choose how to behave, but also to decide for myself the difference between right and wrong. 

But the vidui (confessional prayer) of Yom Kippur presents us with a list of sins, our job being to accept the framework and judge ourselves accordingly.  Even if we happen to agree with many of the sins we’re presented with, how can this be a framework for proper, autonomous moral deliberation?

So what kinds of answers can I suggest?

Firstly, the tradition provides some justification for my concerns and basic perspective.  This is not something that needs to separate me from Judaism, but something that our thinkers have always grappled with.

As an arch-rationalist, Maimonides – perhaps our most important halachic authority and theologian – clearly could not accept the anthropomorphic view of atonement, nor the idea that the ritual has any kind of magical effect.  But he also knew that the traditional concepts were important to his medieval audience.

In his Hilkhot Teshuva / Laws of Repentance, he says: ‘at present, when the Temple does not exist and there is no altar of atonement, there remains nothing else aside from teshuva.’ He also says, ‘the essence of Yom Kippur atones’ but only ‘for those who repent.’

The anthropomorphisms and the rituals are a means to an end, a way of focusing our minds, of bringing people to the correct psychological state to engage in confession and soul-searching.  The essence is the internal process of repentance itself.

Maimonides helps affirm my basic perspective that the real work of repentance has to be done outside of shul, with people, over a long period, and that I don’t need to adopt a simplistic theology in order to engage with it.  Yom Kippur is a moment of introspection, reflection and making personal commitments about the change I want to create.

A practical solution might be to change what we do in shul, building in a process of facilitated, group-based introspection and reflection over the yamim noraim – the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  (For more on this see, this article by Donniel Hartman: http://bit.ly/1iNB8tt).

But the Rambam doesn’t help with my fundamental problem: the clash between the vidui, the framework of the mitzvot, and my aspiration to be an autonomous moral agent.

I want to address this through an article by the one of the most important modern Jewish philosophers, Emil Fackenheim (click here to read extracts from the article: http://bit.ly/1LyBsad).  Fackenheim agrees that we cannot stand before God and respond affirmatively to the commandments without free choice.  Recognising and living out our freedom is a necessary condition for any relationship with Judaism. 

But at the same time, freedom to make choices about our relationship with the tradition, means standing in the presence of God and hearing that commanding voice. 

Freedom and service or obedience need each other.  We can’t shape our relationship with the mitzvot unless we accept the framework of mitzvot as our starting point. 

Perhaps this is the function of the vidui, the Al Het prayer we recite throughout Yom Kippur.  It confronts us with this framework, and with the underlying commanding voice of God (alternatively the voice of the tradition or the idea of an objective moral code).  This is the precondition for any meaningful, authentically Jewish, process of deliberation, soul searching, teshuva, and choosing, freely, to be different.

Gmar hatima tova.

Wrestling with the moral dilemmas of Gaza: Martin Buber’s ‘Hebrew Humanism’

I’ve argued in a previous post that our challenge during Israel’s war in Gaza is to sustain our solidarity with the Jewish people while simultaneously expressing our commitment to the Jewish value of human life and the idea of universal human rights.  Now I want to explain why this challenge is so difficult, and – perhaps – to suggest a way through the dilemma.

The problem is harder to negotiate than many of Israel’s advocates would have us believe.  Let’s assume for a moment (and I think this is a correct assumption) that it’s legitimate for Israel to defend its citizens by attacking Hamas’s rocket launch sites and tunnels in the Gaza Strip, even when Hamas intentionally locates these in densely populated areas.  Let’s also assume that Israel does its best to comply with international humanitarian law by not targeting civilians, giving warnings before each attack, and trying to minimise civilian casualties. 

None of this means that a Palestinian civilian whose home is destroyed or who is killed or injured has not had her human rights infringed.  This is true even if we argue that Israel’s actions are legitimate specifically because their aim is to protect the human rights of Israeli civilians.  And if Palestinian human rights are being infringed as the result of Israeli actions, then Israel has to take responsibility for this, even if every act carried out by the IDF is morally and legally justifiable. 

(The same goes for Hamas, of course, the difference being that no-one could argue that Hamas makes any effort to avoid civilian casualties of Israelis – or of their own people).

The internet is awash with one-sided, simplistic responses to this dilemma.  Half the responses justify Israel’s behaviour and, as a logical next step, either deny Palestinian suffering or blame it on Hamas.  The other half bewail the abuse of Palestinian rights and draw the conclusion that Israel’s actions are therefore morally illegitimate.

To me it’s clear that both sides only have it half right: it’s entirely possible for legitimate actions to lead to terrible suffering.  This is the paradox: the fact that Israel’s actions may be defensible does not absolve us from responsibility for their indefensible results. (Disclaimer: I’m not making a moral judgement about specific Israeli actions as I don’t have the necessary military or legal expertise to do so.)

So how should we respond?

The religious philosopher, Zionist and peace activist, Martin Buber, has profound advice to offer on this difficult topic.  In his essay ‘Hebrew Humanism,’ published in 1942, Buber argued that the Bible is the most important moral and spiritual resource for the Jewish national movement.  But the function of the Bible is not (as most Zionists had it) only to teach us about our history and our right to the Land.  Rather:

“What it does have to tell us, and what no other voice in the world can teach us with such simple power, is that there is truth and there are lies, and that human life cannot persist or have meaning save in the decision in behalf of truth and against lies; that there is right and wrong, and that the salvation of man depends on choosing what is right and rejecting what is wrong; and that it spells the destruction of our existence to divide our life up into areas where the discrimination between truth and lies, right and wrong, holds, and others where it does not hold, so that in private life, for example, we feel obligated to be truthful, but can permit ourselves lies in public, or that we act justly in man-to-man relationships, but can and even should practice injustice in national relationships.”

For Buber, Judaism teaches that morality is absolute.  There is a difference between right and wrong, and this difference holds in every area of life, the political and the military no less than the private and the interpersonal.  But Buber is not naïve about the difficulties of this position.

“It is true that we are not able to live in perfect justice, and in order to preserve the community of man, we are often compelled to accept wrongs in decisions concerning the community.  But what matters is that in every hour of decision we are aware of our responsibility and summon our conscience to weigh exactly how much is necessary to preserve the community, and accept just so much and no more; that we do not interpret the demands of a will-to-power as a demand made by life itself; that we do not make a practice of setting aside a certain sphere in which God’s command does not hold, but regard those actions as against his command, forced on us by the exigencies of the hour as painful sacrifices; that we do not salve, or let others salve, our conscience when we make decisions concerning public life, but struggle with destiny in fear and trembling lest it burden us with greater guilt than we are compelled to assume” (my emphasis).

Statehood means we’re not always able to live up to the demands of justice.  Sometimes we have to act for the good of the community in ways which do not accord with textbook ethics.  Shelling rocket launchers in civilian areas of Gaza would seem to be one of those times.  Buber makes two requirements of us in such situations.  First, that we do what is needed to preserve the community and save life, and no more.  We must never allow ourselves to be guided by the desire for power and certainly not by the need for revenge. 

Second, when self-preservation leads us to use force, we must retain absolute clarity about the moral status of our acts.  When we’re forced to do something wrong, under no circumstances must we convince ourselves that we’re in the right.  Morality, or God’s command, is absolute and universal.  We have to look our existentially necessary but immoral acts in the face. 

The recent controversy over the publication of the names of Palestinian casualties of Israeli shelling is a case in point.  Buber would argue that while the IDF’s actions may be justified in terms of national survival, there’s an accompanying moral imperative to recognise the harm that we’ve done and the people we’ve hurt.  Refusing to publish the names of the victims is the start of a spiral towards redefining morality in a narrow, chauvinistic way.

Our job is to understand the complexity of Israeli military actions, defend them when we believe they are necessary to protect Israeli lives while squarely acknowledging the suffering and the immoral results that flow from them, and to work for the realisation of the Judaism’s – and the State of Israel’s – values of peace, justice and human dignity.

Why is this important?  Buber believes that without a moral, spiritual vision at its core, the Jewish state will not survive:

“By opposing Hebrew humanism to a nationalism which is nothing but empty self-assertion, I wish to indicate that, at this juncture, the Zionist movement must decide either for national egoism or national humanism.  If it decides in favour of national egoism, it too will suffer the fate which will soon befall all shallow nationalism, i.e. nationalism which does not set the nation a true supernational task.  If it decides in favour of Hebrew humanism, it will be strong and effective long after shallow nationalism has lost all meaning and justification, for it will have something to say and to bring to mankind.”

All quotes from Martin Buber, ‘Hebrew Humanism’ (1942), reproduced in Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, pp 457-459.