Interview with David Hartman

Covenant and Moral An Interview with Sensibility David { Hartman When Prof. David Hartman’s book A Living Covenant was published in 1985, it marked a revolutionary advance in Modern Orthodox thought. In closely examining the relationship between divine demand and human response, and the tensions between religious tradition and modernity, Rabbi Hartman challenged the view that Judaism necessitates an uncritical obedience to law. A Living Covenant, which won the 1985 National Jewish Book Award, was republished in 1998 and continues to provoke interest and debate. 4 | Vol. 1 Spring 2008 Covenant and Moral Sensibility /// An Interview with David Hartman Covenant and Moral Sensibility HAVRUTA | 5 Today, at the age of 76, David Hartman a passive posture to an activist response to persists in his vigorous philosophical battle history. Although respectful of the spirit for a version of Judaism to which he has of early Zionism, my book argues that one dedicated his life. In a recent interview, he can remain loyal to the tradition while considers both the past and the future in still developing an independent spirit of the unique spirit of inquiry that has always responsibility for the future. animated his work. I am now concerned not so much with confronting the Zionist revolution, but More than twenty years after your rather with tackling the inability of those Q magnum opus A Living Covenant, has loyal to the Jewish tradition to express their the basic philosophy of the book remained individual moral spirit. Abraham’s surrender the same, or have you experienced major to God in the akedah (the binding of Issac) upheavals in your thought? has become the model of genuine religiosity. Abraham’s ability to violate his deepest I was influenced to write A Living ethical values and bring his son as a sacrifice A Covenant as a response to the Zionist to God exemplified for traditional Jews the revolution. The perception of Judaism from need to reject their deepest moral principals Spinoza onwards fostered the claim that when they seem to contradict the halakhah. Judaism develops an obedient person, one While they may feel sympathy, for example, prepared to live with the conditions of for an aguna, nevertheless they surrender history as an unalterable process. The hope their moral outrage to halakhic authority. Yet for radical change was limited to the belief when halakhah violates essential principles in the messianic redemption. The historical of justice, moral outrage is a far more paradigm for Jewish liberation was appropriate response than passive acceptance grounded in the Exodus story, in which the of the authority of tradition. crucial figure that brings about a liberation How can one act on the basis of his/her from slavery to freedom is God. The plagues, independent moral intuitions even if they the confrontations of Moses with Pharaoh seem to negate the halakhic authority and and the escape from Egypt all support the yet remain rooted in the tradition? Does the notion that God interferes in history as tradition demand the quelling of subjective it relates to the people of Israel. Thus, the morality in the face of the objective halakhic heroic-passive Jew believed, regardless of system? These are the questions that now the processes of history, that the suffering occupy me. of the Jewish people would end when, once Abraham, it seems, can be read as the again, God would act as the great liberator archetype of the morally informed, active of Israel and bring them back to their Jew, challenging God’s decision to destroy homeland as a precursor to the messianic Sodom, and also of the submissive Jew era. Jews waited for this historical moment at the akedah. Can we resolve these two with patience, hope and courage. seemingly opposed pictures of Abraham? The Zionist revolution, in contrast, was Or must we be content with accepting the fueled by the yearning to bring about a paradox? change in Jewish history without relying The two models don’t contradict each on the Exodus paradigm. The early Zionists other but give expression to two distinct felt compelled to take responsibility for moments in religious life. The Sodom model the future of the Jewish people. My book, is the empowering, activist model. Here A Living Covenant, offered a religious Abraham is the man who confronts God, anthropology, in which the Jew moves from saying, “Shall the judge of the earth not 6 | Vol. 1 Spring 2008 Covenant and Moral Sensibility /// An Interview with David Hartman do justice?” In the akedah model, Abraham One of your metaphors for the is the submissive person who is not Q covenantal relationship is the critical of God. The akedah stands for the teacher/pupil dynamic. Does your teacher/ unintelligible, tragic moments in religious pupil relationship with your own teacher, life in which one decides to maintain Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, enhance or loyalty to the tradition despite life’s undermine the use of this metaphor? incomprehensibility. When these moments occur, the human being has to call on Well, both. On one level, Rabbi internal resources and declare: “Even A Soloveitchik never demanded though I don’t understand, even though unconditional surrender to his ideas. His history makes no sense, even though teaching was conducted in the spirit of an the Holocaust remains permanently a invitation to think independently, to take tragic, incomprehensible experience, I responsibility for your own philosophical decide to continue to be a Jew and live my worldview. He didn’t want students to covenantal life.” constantly need approval from him in order Incomprehensibility is an important to take an independent path. On the other aspect of life. Not all of life is clear; we are hand, he was not an easy human being; often thrown into experiences in which he didn’t really encourage that sense of the human being stands dumbfounded, independence, so you only developed it if unable to speak. This is the essence of the you had a sense of your own strength. He Job experience. At the end of the Book wasn’t authoritarian, but he inspired terror of Job, Job once again decides to have in the classroom. Nevertheless, he created children even though he experienced the an invitation to intellectual stimulation and tragic death of his first children. Job cannot freedom. He thus had both elements to him. understand the reason for his suffering or the death of his children but, in spite of the It struck me, when reading your book, arbitrary nature of life, he decides to go on. Q how the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Similarly, the Jews decide to continue being Leibowitz, Rabbi Soloveitchik and you, all Jews. Despite history, the Holocaust and students of Maimonides, come to such the vulnerabilities to which membership diverse and even opposed interpretations of within the Jewish people exposes them. The his worldview. Is this openness something akedah is thus the will to go on in the midst built into his texts, or does every interpreter of the unintelligible. It is the deep impulse approach Maimonides with his own worldview that declares: “I am not going to give up in and read it through that lens, or both? the face of tragedy and suffering. Rather, I continue to maintain an open belief in the You can never separate the reader possibilities of life.” Both the Abraham of A from himself. It is important to Sodom and the Abraham of the akedah have understand that Maimonides was very much to teach us about being a covenantal ambiguous, very suggestive, and sometimes Jew. For me, the building of Israel after contradictory. Thus he can invite different the Holocaust expresses the courage of the responses depending on where you want Jewish people to fully embrace all aspects to place your emphasis. Maimonides of life and not be paralyzed by the horrible was a complex thinker; sometimes his tragedy and memory of the Holocaust. halakhic rhythm would dominate, and sometimes his philosophical rhythm would dominate. You never knew what moment of Maimonides’ life you were meeting. So HAVRUTA | 7 in a sense, Maimonides himself was full religious community, so we have a long way of contradictions; this allows for different to go. I still live with the hope, however, responses to his writing. that Judaism will shape a different moral sensibility, a different feeling of the way we In the book you write that - “the task live in the world. We are presently living in a of covenantal Jews now is to show mode of narcissism. This is the “Jew and the Q that we can build a Judaic society not by elephant” problem, whereby we are always resorting to dogmatism and legal coercion, the focus. For example, a rabbi recently told but by means of the compelling example of a newspaper that we Jews do not have a the way we live our daily lives.” The culture responsibility to Darfur. I don’t know why he war in Israel has intensified in the two felt the need to publicly make that statement. decades since you wrote these lines. Are Though I understand that we must look after covenantal Jews doing their part by living our own, this does not necessitate blindness an exemplary life? to the needs of those who are not members of our community. The unique feature No! They are still far from bearing of Judaism has always been its ability to A witness to Torah as the way of create solidarity within the community, pleasantness, as the way of love, as the way without developing a moral blindness to of gentleness and tolerance. A great deal of people who are outside it.

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