A compelling and generative way to study and teach Jewish ethics.
The field of Jewish ethics is characterized by foundational questions about how to do Jewish ethics—questions that are inseparable from other scholarly work within the subject area. The essays in this collection show that analyzing methods of reasoning is a productive approach for both students and teachers of Jewish ethics. The volume is organized not by standalone essays but by sets of curated conversations between scholars from different time periods, academic subfields, and religious commitments (or lack thereof). These deliberate juxtapositions encourage scholars and students to undertake similar meta-ethical analyses on Jewish ethics as related to theories and methods, communities, constructions of the human, and bioethics. For the editors, Jewish ethics is not just a set of propositions or principles; it cannot be reduced to a single trajectory of thought or abstracted as an elaborate system of ideas. Instead, Jewish ethics is the field of study that engages Jewish texts, ideas, history, and experience in conversations about values and virtues, justice and good judgment, and human relations and responsibilities. This volume, which presents such discussions, is certain to spark many more.
Arvustused
An eclectic selection of writings that should be on all of our bookshelves. The editors cultivate a more nuanced moral languagerooted in the ancient but radically forward-lookingto ensure we advance a more just and compassionate society. -- Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, president and dean, Valley Beit Midrash Scholars of Jewish ethics have been among the most innovative contemporary Jewish thinkers. New methodologies enable us to better understand the Jewish tradition and to think in new ways about Jewish life today. -- Claire E. Sufrin, senior editor at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and editor of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the Volume
Part A: Theories and Methods
1. Doing Jewish ethics
Headnotes
Aharon Lichtenstein, from Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic
Independent of Halakha? (1975)
Louis Newman, from Woodchoppers and Respirators: The Problem of
Interpretation in Contemporary Jewish Ethics (1998)
Michal Raucher, from Conceiving Ethics: Reproductive Authority among Haredi
Women (2020)
2. Forging Modern Norms from Jewish textual sources
Headnotes
Judith Plaskow, from Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist
Perspective (1990)
Elliot Dorff, from Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to
Modern Personal Ethics (2003)
Shaul Magid, from Ethics Differentiated from the Law(2005)
3. Ethics and Law
Headnotes
Robert Cover, from Nomos and Narrative (1983)
David Novak, from Jewish Social Ethics (1992)
Rachel Adler, from Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics
(1998)
Alan Mittleman, from Theorizing Jewish Ethics (2013)
4. Covenant
Headnotes
Emmanuel Levinas, from The Pact (1982)
Eugene Borowitz, from Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Post-Modern
Jew (1991)
Walter Wurzburger, from Ethics of Responsibility: Pluralistic Approaches to
Covenantal Ethics (1994)
Mara Benjamin, from The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish
Thought (2018)
5. Character / Virtue
Headnotes
Jonathan Wyn Schofer, from Self, Subject, and Chosen Subjection: Rabbinic
Ethics and Comparative Possibilities (2005)
Sarra Lev, from Talmud that Works Your Heart: New Approaches to Reading
(2016)
Geoffrey Claussen, from Mussar in a White Supremacist Society (2021)
6. Ethical Values
Headnotes
David A. Teutsch, from Reinvigorating the Practice of Contemporary Jewish
Ethics: A Justification for Values-Based Decision Making (2005)
Tanhum Yoreh, from Waste Not: A Jewish Environmental Ethic (2019)
Part B: Communities
1. Families
Gail Labovitz, from Marriage and Metaphor: Constructions of Gender in
Rabbinic Literature (2009)
Jennifer A. Thompson, from Reaching Out to the Fringe: Insiders, Outsiders,
and the Morality of Social Science (2015)
Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi, from Person-Shaped Holes: Childfree Jews, Jewish
Ethics, and Communal Continuity (2021)
2. Speech
Mark Washofsky, from Internet, Privacy, and Progressive Halakhah (2014)
Matthew Goldstone, from The Dangerous Duty of Rebuke: Leviticus 19:17 in
Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation (2018)
Lena Sclove, from Beyond the Binary of Silence and Speech: What Jewish
Liturgy and Spirals Reveal about the Limits and Potentials of Spiritual
Caregiving for Survivors of Sexual Abuse (2022)
3. Solidarity
Aryeh Cohen, from Justice in the City: An Argument from the Sources of
Rabbinic Judaism (2012)
Amanda Mbuvi, from Avadim Hayinu: An Intersectional Jewish Perspective on
the Global Ethic of Solidarity (2020)
4. Economics
Jill Jacobs, from There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through
Jewish Law and Tradition (2009)
Aaron Levine, from Economic Morality and Jewish Law (2012)
Sam Brody, from Jewish Economic Ethics in the Neoliberal Era, 1980-2016
(2021)
5. Zionism and the Jewish State
Chaim Gans, from A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State (2008)
Ruth Gavison, from Reflections on the Meaning of Jewish in the expression a
Jewish and Democratic State (2014)
Julie Cooper, from A Diasporic Critique of Diasporism: The Question of
Jewish Political Agency (2015)
6. State Power & Violence
Levey, Judaism and the Obligation to Die for the State (1987)
Michael Broyde, from Only the Good Die Young? (2006)
Melissa Weintraub, from Does Torah Permit Torture? (2007)
Beth Berkowitz, from Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in
Early Rabbinic andChristian Cultures (2016)
Nadav S. Berman, from "Jewish Law, Techno-Ethics, and Autonomous Weapon
Systems: Ethical-Halakhic Perspectives (2020)
7. Environment
Michael Wyschogrod, from Judaism and the Sanctification of Nature (1991)
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, from Religion and Environment: The Case of Judaism
(2020)
Ariel Evan Mayse, from Where Heaven and Earth Kiss: Jewish Law, Moral
Reflection, and Environmental Ethics (2019)
Adrienne Krone, from Ecological Ethics in the Jewish Community Farming
Movement (2019)
Part C: Constructions of the Human
1. Animals
Aaron S. Gross, from The Question of the Animal and Religion: Theoretical
Stakes, Practical Implications (2015)
Rafael Rachel Neis, from All That is in the Settlement: Humans, Likeness,
and Species in the Rabbinic Bestiary (2019)
2. Gender and Sexuality
Headnotes
Daniel Boyarin, from Dialectics of Desire: The Evil Instinct is Very Good
(1995)
Tamar Ross, from Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism
(2004)
Laura Levitt, from Love the One Youre With (2009)
Max Strassfeld, from Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic
Literature (2022)
3. Genes
Headnotes
Paul Root Wolpe, from If I Am Only My Genes, What Am I? Genetic
Essentialism and a Jewish Response (1997)
Robert Gibbs, Mending the Code (2015)
Sarah Imhoff, from How American Jews Imagine Community, and Why That
Matters (2020)
4. Disability
Judith Abrams, from Judaism and Disability: Portrayals in Ancient Texts from
the Tanach through the Bavli (1998)
Tzvi C. Marx, from Disability in Jewish Law (2002)
Adrienne Asch, Recognizing Death while Affirming Life: Can End of Life
Reform Uphold a Disabled Person's Interest in Continued Life? (2005)
Julia Watts Belser, Improv and the Angel: Disability Dance, Embodied Ethics,
and Jewish Biblical Narrative (2019)
5. Race
Lewis Gordon, from Afro-Jewish ethics? (2018)
Judith Kay, from Jews as Oppressed and Oppressor: Doing Ethics at the
Intersections of Classism, Racism, and Antisemitism (2020)
Annalise E. Glauz-Todrank, from Jewish Critical Race Theory and Jewish
Religionization in Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb (2020)
Part D: Bioethics
1. Medical ethics
J. David Bleich, from Using Data Obtained through Immoral Experimentation
(1993)
Benjamin Freedman, from Duty and Healing: Foundations of a Jewish Bioethics
(1999)
Noam J. Zohar, from Is Enjoying Life a Good Thing? Quality-of-Life Questions
for Jewish Normative Discourse (2006)
Toby Schonfeld, from Messages from the Margins: Lessons from Feminist
Bioethics (2008)
Jason Weiner, from Are There Limits to How Far One Must Go For Others?
Toward a theoretical model for healthcare providers (2020)
Laurie Zoloth, from Second Texts and Second Opinions: Essays Toward a Jewish
Bioethics (2022)
2. Reproduction
Fred Rosner, from In Vitro Fertilization and Surrogate Motherhood: The
Jewish View (1983)
Elie Spitz, from Through Her I Too Shall Bear a Child: Birth Surrogates in
Jewish Law (1996)
Don Seeman, from Ethnography, Exegesis, and Jewish Ethical Reflection: The
New Reproductive Technologies in Israel (2010)
Sarah Zager, from Water Wears Away Stone: Caring for Those We Can Only
Imagine (2020)
3. Abortion
Dena Davis, from Abortion in Jewish Thought: A Study in Casuistry (1992)
Rebecca Alpert, from Sometimes the Law is Cruel: The Construction of a
Jewish Antiabortion Position in the Writings of Immanuel Jakobovits (1995)
Alan Jotkowitz, from Abortion and Maternal Need: A Response to Ronit Irshai
(2011)
Ronit Irshai, from Response to Alan Jotkowitz (2011)
4. Aging/Ends of Life
Byron Sherwin, from Jewish Views on Euthanasia (1974)
Ruth Langer, from Honor Your Father and Mother: Care Giving as a Halakhic
Responsibility (1998)
Jonathan K. Crane, from Narratives and Jewish Bioethics (2013)
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, from Can a Goses Survive for More Than Three Days?
The History and Definition of the Goses (2016)
Jonathan K. Crane is the Raymond F. Schinazi Scholar of Bioethics and Jewish Thought at the Ethics Center at Emory University, where he is also professor of medicine and affiliated faculty in the Department of Religion. He is the coauthor of Ahimsa: The Way to Peace and the author of Narratives and Jewish Bioethics and Eating Ethically: Religion and Science for a Better Diet. Emily Filler is assistant professor in the Religion Department at Washington and Lee University. Mira Beth Wasserman is the director of the Center for Jewish Ethics and associate professor of rabbinic literature at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is the author of Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud after the Humanities.
