Normal Mysticism : an Interdisciplinary Study of Max Kudushin's Rabbinic Hermeneutic

Edith Cowan University Research Online Theses: Doctorates and Masters Theses 2013 Normal mysticism : an interdisciplinary study of Max Kudushin's rabbinic hermeneutic Thomas L. Head Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Head, T. L. (2013). Normal mysticism : an interdisciplinary study of Max Kudushin's rabbinic hermeneutic. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/541 This Thesis is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/541 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Where the reproduction of such material is done without attribution of authorship, with false attribution of authorship or the authorship is treated in a derogatory manner, this may be a breach of the author’s moral rights contained in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Courts have the power to impose a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions for infringement of copyright, infringement of moral rights and other offences under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. USE OF THESIS The Use of Thesis statement is not included in this version of the thesis. Normal Mysticism: An Interdisciplinary Study of Max Kadushin’s Rabbinic Hermeneutic A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Interdisciplinary Studies at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Thomas L. Head 2013 ii Abstract Max Kadushin (1895-1980) was a rabbi, professor, and preeminent figure in the history of American Conservative Jewish rabbinic thought. His hermeneutic system, which centers on the idea of organic religious value-concepts, has had a significant influence on the emerging Textual Reasoning movement. In chapter one, I describe the intellectual climate in which Kadushin's system took shape—providing a short history of the 19th-century reform and haskalah movements, discussing the general outline of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy tradition, and placing new focus on the tension between Conservative Judaism and Mordecai Kaplan's emerging philosophy of Reconstructionism as a critical factor in the origin of Kadushin's system. In chapter two, I summarize and explain Kadushin's philosophy itself—the anatomy and physiology of the organismic complex, the content of his six volumes of published work, the rabbinic texts that attracted his most focused attention—and place it within the context of what Peter Ochs describes as the aftermodernist movement. In chapter three, I address the relationship between Kadushin and secular Western philosophy. Of particular interest, I argue, is the relevance of his work to philosophical hermeneutics. After outlining how Continental hermeneutics emerged from the largely religious hermeneutics of 19th-century thinkers such as Dilthey and Schleiermacher, I contrast Kadushin's approach with that of Hans-Georg Gadamer and detail the ways in which each of them attempted to describe what Augustine described as the verbum interius—an endeavor that, Gadamer argued, ultimately defines the hermeneutic enterprise. In chapter four, I reassess Kadushin's work from the disciplinary perspective of religious studies. After interpreting the degree to which Kadushin felt his own work relevant to other faith traditions, I examine previous attempts by Christian theologians to adapt the rough outline of his hermeneutic within their system, and contrast his rabbinic hermeneutic with those religious hermeneutic traditions with which his work is most often compared. I also examine the degree to which Kadushin's populist approach to mysticism and value-concepts reflects that of other contemporaneous Western religious thinkers. iii In chapter five, I examine the moral and social implications of Kadushin's priorities. Taking into account how Kadushin evaluated contemporaneous ethical controversies, I argue that while his endeavor is itself descriptivist, the system he asserts bears a strong resemblance to contemporary virtue ethics. In doing this, I show that Kadushin's system of religious morality cannot be accurately classified as a traditional form of consequentialism, rule-based ethics, prescriptivism, or divine command theory. I also examine the implications of Kadushin's system as they pertain to authority, power, and tradition. In conclusion, I argue that his moral system is, in keeping with its rabbinic roots, highly flexible—a trait that can be both an asset and a liability. This interdisciplinary thesis presents Kadushin's organic hermeneutic in a systematic way, assessing its relevance to the disciplines of philosophy and religious studies. In this thesis, I show that his system of thought rewards serious interdisciplinary study and raises far more general questions than those he specifically intended to address. iv Declaration I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my knowledge and belief: i. incorporate without acknowledgment any material previously submitted for degree or diploma in any institution of higher education ; ii. contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of this thesis ; or iii. contain any defamatory material. ___________ signed 8 March 2013 Thomas L. Head v Acknowledgments Conventional wisdom suggests that a doctoral thesis presents an opportunity for a candidate to demonstrate his or her individual merit—but if there is one lesson that this thesis has reinforced for me, it is that individual merit, if there is such a thing, has never produced anything of substance on its own. Academic writing is, much like the rabbinic corpus to which Rabbi Kadushin dedicated his life of scholarship, a product of apprenticeship and community. This doctoral thesis is the work of a grateful and fortunate man. I dedicate this work to the memory of my grandparents, Maybelle Bozeman Carwile (1917-2011) and Robert Serrell Carwile (1907-1998). To my parents, Carol Head and Cappy Page, I am grateful for a lifetime of love and support. They have made this thesis, and everything else I have ever produced, possible. To my supervisor, Alan Tapper, I owe a world of thanks. He has been patient when I have needed patience, and appropriately stern when I haven’t. I could not have produced this thesis, under any circumstances, without his steady wisdom, guidance, and support. To the staff at Edith Cowan University with whom I have interacted during my time as a student, most notably Sarah Kearn and Mark Hackling, I extend my gratitude and appreciation. I would also like to thank Charles Kadushin and Jacob Neusner, who directed me to some very helpful resources, and David Kweller and Rebecca Laskin, who so patiently taught me Hebrew many years ago. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Rabbi Max Kadushin himself, whose work still has many new things to tell us. In a very real way, this thesis belongs to him. vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Declaration iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vi Chapter 1: Kadushin in Context 1 1.1 Purpose of Study 1 1.2 Enlightenment, Reform, and the Conservative Response 7 1.3 Mordecai Kaplan and the Survival of Jewish Culture 14 1.4 The Early Life of Max Kadushin 19 Chapter 2: The Conceptual World of the Sages 27 2.1 From Reconstructionism to Aftermodernism 27 2.2 Value-Concepts and the Physiology of the Organic Complex 43 2.3 Kadushin’s Defense of Rabbinic Methodology 48 Chapter 3: Kadushin as Philosophical Hermeneuticist 58 3.1 The Reluctant Philosopher 58 3.2 The Philosophy of Organism 69 3.3 Philosophical Hermeneutics in the Western Canon 77 3.4 Kadushin, Gadamer, and Effective Historical Consciousness 85 Chapter 4: The Normal Valuational Life 89 4.1 Textual Reasoning and the Religious Documentary Tradition 89 4.2 Kadushin and the Sciences 93 4.3 The Scalability of Kadushin’s Religious Hermeneutic 102 4.4 Process Hermeneutics and the Christian Imagination 107 4.5 Normal Mysticism and Religious Experience 112 Chapter 5: Metaethics and the Moral Implications of Organic Thinking 120 vii 5.1 The Drive to Concretization 120 5.2 Kadushin and Virtue Ethics 125 5.3 Authority, Obedience, and Tradition 133 Bibliography 141 Appendix A: Glossary of Terms 168 Appendix B: A Chronology of Max Kadushin’s Life, Work, and 173 Contemporaneous Influences 1 Chapter 1: Kadushin in Context 1.1 Purpose of Study Described by Jacob Neusner as “the only scholar who has forthrightly and articulately asked the theological question of Judaism in the correct, academic mode,”1 Max Kadushin (1895-1980) was a preeminent rabbinic hermeneuticist in the Conservative Jewish tradition whose work laid the groundwork for the contemporary Textual Reasoning movement. This is the first volume-length secular study of Max Kadushin’s life and work.2 Shortly before Kadushin’s death in July 1980, the first wave of public scholarly interest in his work had begun to emerge. Theodore Steinberg had finished the first English volume-length study of Max Kadushin’s system of thought,3 in the form of his unpublished doctoral dissertation at New York University, less than a year earlier; during the same year, Avraham Holtz’s Hebrew summary of Kadushin’s system of thought, the first secondary volume on Kadushin ever published, went to press in Jerusalem.4 Holtz had also contributed an entry on Kadushin to the Encyclopedia Judaica in 1972,5 and Pamela Susan Nadell profiled him in her Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary (1988);6 he also profoundly influenced Simon Greenberg, who would go on to become an influential scholar and theorist in his own right.

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