Elliot N. Dorff: In Search of the Good Life PDF
Preview Elliot N. Dorff: In Search of the Good Life
Elliot N. Dorff Library of Contemporary Elliot N. Dorff Jewish Philosophers In Search of the Good Life Editor-in-Chief Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes Editor Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester VoLumE 5 LEIDEN • boSToN The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lcjp 2014 Elliot N. Dorff In Search of the Good Life Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes LEIDEN • boSToN 2014 The series Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers was generously supported by the baron Foundation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Elliot N. Dorff : in search of the good life / edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes. pages cm. — (Library of contemporary Jewish philosophers, ISSN 2213-6010 ; volume 5) Includes bibliographical references. Summary: “Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, the Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Rector of American Jewish university in Los Angeles, is one of today’s leading Jewish ethicists. Writing extensively on the intersection of law, morality, science, religion, and medicine, Dorff offers an authoritative and non-orthodox interpretation of Jewish law. As a leader in the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, he has shaped the religious practices of Conservative Jews. In serving on national advisory committees and task forces, he has helped to articulate a distinctive Jewish voice on contested bioethical and biomedical issues. An analytic philosopher by training, Dorff has endorsed pluralism, arguing that Jewishness best flourishes in the context of American pluralism, and he has worked closely with non-Jews to advance religious pluralism in America”—Provided by publisher. ISbN 978-90-04-27901-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISbN 978-90-04-27902-5 (e-book) 1. Jewish law—Philosophy. 2. Jewish philosophy—20th century. 3. Dorff, Elliot N.—Teachings. 4. Conservative Judaism. I. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 1950– editor. II. Hughes, Aaron W., 1968– editor. bm520.6.E45 2014 296.1’8—dc23 2014018701 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see http://www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 2213-6010 ISbN 978-90-04-27901-8 (hardback) ISbN 978-90-04-27902-5 (e-book) This hardback is also published in paperback under ISbN 978-90-04-27903-2. Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke brill NV incorporates the imprints brill, brill Nijhoff, Global oriental, and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, mA 01923, uSA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CoNTENTS The Contributors ............................................................................................. vii Editors’ Introduction to Series .................................................................... ix Elliot N. Dorff: An Intellectual Portrait .................................................... 1 Jonathan K. Crane In Search of God ............................................................................................. 35 Elliot N. Dorff Applying Jewish Law to New Circumstances ......................................... 49 Elliot N. Dorff The Interaction of Judaism with morality: Defining, motivating, and Educating a moral Person and Society ....................................... 61 Elliot N. Dorff Donations from Ill-Gotten Gain: A Jewish Legal Perspective ........... 93 Elliot N. Dorff Interview with Elliot N. Dorff ..................................................................... 121 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson Select bibliography ......................................................................................... 189 The ConTribuTors Jonathan K. Crane (Ph.D., university of Toronto, 2009; rabbinic ordi- nation, hebrew union College-Jewish institute of religion, 2003) is the raymond F. schinazi scholar in bioethics and Jewish Thought at emory university’s Center for ethics. he is the author of Narratives and Jewish Bio- ethics, co-editor with elliot Dorff of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality, founder and co-editor of The Journal of Jewish Ethics, and cur- rently serves as president of the society of Jewish ethics. hava Tirosh-samuelson (Ph.D., hebrew university, 1978) is irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, the Director of Jewish studies, and Professor of history at Arizona state university in Tempe, AZ. her research focuses on Jewish intellectual history, Judaism and ecology, sci- ence and religion, and feminist theory. in addition to numerous articles and book chapters in academic journals and edited volumes, she is the author of the award-winning Between Worlds: The Life and Work of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon (1991) and the author of Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being in Premodern Judaism (2003). she is also the editor of Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World (2002); Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy (2004); Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life: The Legacy of Hans Jonas (2008); Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism (2011); Hollywood’s Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (2012); and Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century (2014). Professor Tirosh-samuelson is the recipient of several large grants that have funded interdisciplinary research on religion, science, and technology. Aaron W. hughes (Ph.D., indiana university bloomington, 2000) holds the Philip s. bernstein Chair in Jewish studies at the university of rochester. hughes was educated at the university of Alberta, The hebrew university of Jerusalem, and oxford university. he has taught at Miami university of ohio, McMaster university, the hebrew university of Jerusalem, the university of Calgary, and the university at buffalo. he is the author of over fifty articles and ten books, and the editor of seven books. his book titles viii the contributors include Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History (oxford, 2012); Muslim Identities (Columbia, 2013); The Study of Judaism: Identity, Authenticity, Scholarship (sunY, 2013); and Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism (oxford, 2014). he is also the editor- in-Chief of Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. eDiTors’ inTroDuCTion To series it is customary to begin studies devoted to the topic of Jewish philosophy defining what exactly this term, concept, or even discipline is. We tend not to speak of Jewish mathematics, Jewish physics, or Jewish sociology, so why refer to something as “Jewish philosophy”? indeed, this is the great para- dox of Jewish philosophy. on the one hand it presumably names something that has to do with thinking, on the other it implies some sort of national, ethnic, or religious identity of those who engage in such activity. is not phi- losophy just philosophy, regardless of who philosophizes? Why the need to append various racial, national, or religious adjectives to it?1 Jewish philosophy is indeed rooted in a paradox since it refers to philo- sophical activity carried out by those who call themselves Jews. As philoso- phy, this activity makes claims of universal validity, but as an activity by a well-defined group of people it is inherently particularistic. The question “What is Jewish philosophy?” therefore is inescapable, although over the centuries Jewish philosophers have given very different answers to it. For some, Jewish philosophy represents the relentless quest for truth. Although this truth itself may not be particularized, for such individuals, the use of the adjective “Jewish”—as a way to get at this truth—most decidedly is.2 The bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and related Jewish texts and genres are seen to provide particular insights into the more universal claims pro- vided by the universal and totalizing gaze of philosophy. The problem is that these texts are not philosophical on the surface; they must, on the con- trary, be interpreted to bring their philosophical insights to light. Within this context exegesis risks becoming eisegesis. Yet others eschew the term “philosophy” and instead envisage themselves as working in a decidedly 1 Alexander Altmann once remarked: it would be futile to attempt a presentation of Judaism as a philosophical system, or to speak of Jewish philosophy in the same sense as one speaks of American, english, French, or German philosophy. Judaism is a religion, and the truths it teaches are religious truths. They spring from the source of religious experience, not from pure reason. see Alexander Altmann, “Judaism and World Philosophy,” in The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion, ed. Louis Finkelstein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication society of America, 1949), vol. 2, 954. 2 in this regard, see norbert M. samuelson, Jewish Faith and Modern Science: On the Death and Rebirth of Jewish Philosophy (new York: rowman and Littlefield, 2008), e.g., 10–12. x editors’ introduction to series Jewish key in order to articulate or clarify particular issues that have direct bearing on Jewish life and existence.3 between these two perspectives or orientations, there exist several other related approaches to the topic of Jewish philosophy which can and have included ethics,4 gender studies,5 multiculturalism,6 and postmodernism.7 Despite their differences in theory and method, what these approaches have in common is that they all represent the complex intersection of Judaism, variously defined, and a set of non-Jewish grids or lenses used to interpret this rich tradition. Framed somewhat differently, Jewish philoso- phy—whatever it is, however it is defined, or whether it is even possible— represents the collision of particularistic demands and universal concerns. The universal or that which is, in theory, open and accessible to all regard- less of race, color, creed, or gender confronts the particular or that which represents the sole concern of a specific group that, by nature or definition, is insular and specific-minded. because it is concerned with a particular people, the Jews, and how to frame their traditions in a universal and universalizing light that is believed to conform to the dictates of reason, Jewish philosophy can never be about pure thinking, if indeed there ever can be such a phenomenon. rather Jewish philosophy—from antiquity to the present—always seems to have had and, for the most part continues to have, rather specific and perhaps 3 see, e.g., strauss’s claim about Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, perhaps one of the most important and successful works of something called Jewish philosophy ever written. he claims that one “begins to understand the Guide once one sees that it is not a philosophic book—a book written by a philosopher for philosophers—but a Jewish book: a book written by a Jew for Jews.” see Leo strauss, “how to begin to study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. shlomo Pines, 2 vols. (Chicago: university of Chicago Press, 1963), vol. 1, xiv. Modern iterations of this may be found, for example, in J. David bleich, Bioethical Dilemmas: A Jewish Perspective, 2 vols. (vol. 1, new York: Ktav, 1998; vol. 2, new York: Targum Press, 2006). 4 see, e.g., David novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1998); elliot Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (new York: Jewish Publication society of America, 2006). 5 e.g., the collection of essays in Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, ed. hava Tirosh-samuelson (bloomington, in: indiana university Press, 2004). 6 e.g., Jonathan sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid a Clash of Civilizations (London: Continuum, 2003); Jonathan sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (new York: schocken, 2007). 7 e.g., elliot r. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (new York: Fordham university Press, 2004); elliot r. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (new York: Columbia university Press, 2009); elliot r. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (new York: Zone books, 2011).
The list of books you might like
