Fox Law and Ethics in the Case of Moses Mendelssohn

8/3/2019 Fox Law and Ethics in the Case of Moses Mendelssohn

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fox-law-and-ethics-in-the-case-of-moses-mendelssohn 1/14

Law and Ethics in Modern Jewish Philosophy: The Case of Moses MendelssohnAuthor(s): Marvin FoxSource: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 43 (1976), pp. 1-13Published by: American Academy for Jewish ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622541 .

Accessed: 29/06/2011 11:41

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aajr. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

American Academy for Jewish Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aajr

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622541?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622541?origin=JSTOR-pdf




LAW AND ETHICS IN MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY:

THE CASE OF MOSES MENDELSSOHN

by MARVINFox

BrandeisUniversity

Students of modern Jewish philosophical thought have rightlynoted the special concern which is given to ethics by Jewish phi-

losophers since the eighteenth century. Nathan Rotenstreich ex-presses the quality of this concern when he says, "What strikes

us as new is the insistence on the primacy of ethics in the sphere

of faith; traditional religion is divested of its beliefs in transcen-

dence, and pressed into the service of morality."l This insistence

on the primacy of ethics, and on the independent status of the

ethical, represents a radical departure in Jewish thought. It is a

position which is neither in harmony with the Biblical-rabbinictradition, nor with the main lines of medieval Jewish philosophy.Neither the Bible, nor the Talmud knows of an independent realm

of the ethical.2 Law and ethics are one, having a single source,

namely, divine commandment. God, the creator and master of

the world, has made his law known to man through the Torah

of Moses. It is His commandments which obligate us, and his

promise of reward and punishment which makes it prudent forus to observe His law. There is no distinction among the com-

mandments either as to source or authenticity, nor are they dis-

tinguishedby virtue of moral worth. The verse in the Torah which

commands us to love our neighbor, supposedlythe highest of moral

I Nathan Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times (New York,

1968),6.2 Those familiar rabbinicpassages which are regularlycited as evidence

that the rabbis recognizedthe independenceof the ethical, seem to me to

beseriouslymisinterpreted. or a discussionof thispoint,seemy "Maimonides

and Aquinason Natural Law," Dine Israel(Tel-AvivUniversity),III (1972),vi-ix.

1



duties, s followed mmediately y anotherwhichprohibitskilayimandshaatnez.Therabbis,similarly,nstructus to be equallymeti-

culousin the observanceof all the commandments,ince we donot knowwhichmeritsa greateror lesserreward.3

It maybe thoughtthat the situation s differentwhen we come

to the medieval Jewishphilosophers.As is wellknown, Saadia

introducednto ourliteraturehe term"rational ommandments",and thereare those who suppose hatwe have here the beginningof an independent thic.4Careful tudywill show,as I havetried

to demonstratelsewhere,5hat we do not havein Saadiaan ethicbased on reason alone. This is not the place to argueout the

detailsof thatclaim.It is sufficient o takenote of theindisputablefact that Saadiahimself,despiteadmittedambiguitiesn his posi-

tion, consistently reatsthe commandments s divinelaw whose

bindingforce lies in their divine origin. He says explicitlythat

God first commandedus and in so doing, obligatedus to His

will. It was only afterwardswe were able to discover hat someof thesecommandments ad a basis in reason,6but they do not

haveindependent tatus.Moreover,amongthosecommandments

whichhe classifies s rational,not all,by anymeans,wouldqualifyas "ethical" n the usual modernsense.What is true of Saadia

is true of the other medievalJewishphilosophers, espite he ten-

dency of some modern thinkers o invokethe authorityof their

medievalpredecessorso justifyclaims hatJudaism ecognizes n

independent thicapartfromthe law.7

3 M. Abot,II, 1.4 SeferEmunotve-Deot, III, 1, 2, 3 andpassim.5 Cf. my "On the RationalCommandmentsn Saadia'sPhilosophy:A Re-

Examination,"n ModernJewishEthics:TheoryandPractice(Columbus,Ohio

StateUniversityPress, 1975),M. Fox (ed.), 174-187.6 Emunotve-Deot,III, 1; cf., IV, 1 (end).7 A strikingcase is that of HermannCohenwho is so concernedto estab-

lish the rationalityof the commandmentsas a fixed (and correct) doctrine

of the medieval Jewish philosophers,that he manages to close his eyes to

all the contraryevidence.As Leo Straussnotes in his IntroductoryEssay to

the English translationof Cohen's Religion of Reason, Cohen praises Ibn

Daud "who had assigneda verylow statusto the 'prescriptions f obedience'

[2]FOX



[3] LAWAND ETHICS N MODERN EWISH PHILOSOPHY

In contrastwith the classical and medievalposition, Jewish

thinkerssincethe 18thcenturyhavebeen inclined o treatethics

as an entity independentof the law and divinecommandment.Whateverpositivevaluethey may assign o divinecommandments

as revealed n the Torah,they do not generally onsider hem to

be a propersource or foundation or ethics.Moralprinciples,n

theirview, are knownindependentlynd aregroundedn human

reason.As MoritzLazarusput it, "Aninvestigation f theessence

and basis of the moral aw reveals hatJudaism verywherelearly

advances he thoughtthat not becauseGod has ordained t is alaw moral,but because t is moral,thereforehas God ordainedt.

Not by divinecommanddoes the moralbecome aw, but because

its contentis moral, and it would necessarily, ven without an

ordinance,become aw,thereforet is enjoinedby God."8Lazarus

goes on to arguethat all ethicsis autonomous,and could,there-

fore, never derive from a heteronomousdivine commandment.

What is of specialinterest is not the fact that a 19th centuryGermanJewishthinker reflects the deep influence of Kantian

ethics, but rather that he makes a strong point of insistingthat this is the lesson that Judaismhas always taught,and that

he reads biblical and rabbinicstatements so as to make them

conformto this interpretation. hus,he feels no hesitationabout

asserting hat, "Moralitywas not createdby the Sinaiticcode; it

as distinguished rom 'the rationalprinciples'...,Cohen ignoresthe fact that

Ibn Daud says also - and this he says at the very end of his Emunah

Ramah - that the 'prescriptions of obedience' are superior to the

rational ones since they call for absolute obedience and submission

to the divine will or for faith." In his Philosophieund Gesetz(p. 56), Strauss

notes in the work of Julius Guttman the same tendencyto argue that the

medieval Jewishphilosophers dentifiedOffenbarungswahrheitith Vernunft-wahreit.Both Guttman and Cohen managedto close their eyes to the texts

which establish the contrarywith respect to ethics. They also ignored the

inner logic and the structureof the arguments,all of which make clear that,in the strict sense of the term "rational",there are no rational command-

ments accordingto the main tradition of medieval Jewishthought.8 Moritz Lazarus,The Ethics of Judaism(Philadelphia, 1900), v. I, 111-

112.

3



springs from its own and from man's peculiar nature. It could

therefore be said, as it was, that 'Abraham observed all moral

laws.' Reason was the source of his ethical instruction." We needonly note that the text of the Mishnah in question reads that,

"Abraham observed the entire Torah before it was given." For

Lazarus it is apparentlyso clear that the moral law is independentthat he distorts a totally unambiguous statement to conform to

his views by identifying kol ha-Torahkulah with "all moral laws".9

The first great representative of modern Jewish thought was

Moses Mendelssohn, and it is to his treatment of the status ofethics that we turn as our model case. Mendelssohn, as we know,

was anxious to preserve the position of the law which he himself

observed faithfully. At the same time, he was deeply affected by

the dominant ideas of the German Enlightenment, among them

the belief that all men must be granted equal status as moral

agents, a status which should in no way be determined by reli-

gious faith. Mendelssohn set himself the task of bringing togetherclassical Judaism and the Aufkldrung, seeking to guarantee the

particularity of Judaism without compromising in any way the

humanistic universalism which he most admired in the philoso-

phers of his time. To achieve this goal Mendelssohn adopted his

famous slogan that Judaism is not revealed religion but revealed

legislation. According to him, the metaphysical truths on which

Judaism rests are not peculiar to that one faith, nor are theyknown by way of divine revelation.They are eternalverities,known

by way of unaided human reason, and, as such, are equally avail-

able to all men, in all times and places. What is, however, peculiar

to Judaism is the special legislation which is contained in the com-

mandments of the Torah. We must ask exactly what he believes

9 Ibid., 118. The reference s to M. Kiddushin, V, 14. This portion of the

mishnah,as we have it in our printedtexts, is actuallynot partof the original

text, but is an addition from a beraita,as Albeck points out in the notes to

his edition. See also, Albeck'snotes for other sourcesfor the same aggadah.

Any study of the passage makes it clear beyond any possible dispute that

Lazarus'reading is tendentious and forces the text to conform to a pre-

conceptionwhich it in no way fits.

4 [4]OX



[5] LAW AND ETHICS IN MODERNJEWISH PHILOSOPHY

to be the status of ethics, and how he relates moral principles to

the law.

Since the law, which Mendelssohn believes to be directly re-

vealed, includes all the so-called moral commandments, we might

suppose that he would classify ethics as part of the special legis-lation given to the Jewish people. Obviously, this would be im-

possible for him since it would entail that morality was not avail-

able to us through human reason alone, and that the Jews have

access to the saving power of the ethical commandments in a way

that is closed to other people. In fact, Mendelssohn argues that

reason alone is the ground of our moral obligation and the source

of our knowledge of the ethical. This argument takes two forms;one is a systematic philosophic discussion in which the positionis set forth and defended, and the other, an appeal to the Noahide

laws as evidence from within the Jewish tradition itself that there

is a natural moral law.

The philosophical discussion occurs in Mendelssohn's prize-

essay, "Abhandlung iber die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissen-

schaften" of 1764. The fourth section of this essay deals with

evidence for the fundamental principlesof ethics.10 Mendelssohn

begins with the confident assertion that, "It is not difficult to

show that one can demonstrate the general principles of ethics

with geometric rigor and force.'11 He cites as his authority a

statement from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a statement

which, like his own, only asserts that there is a rational natural

moral law, but does not prove it. It is clear, as Altmann pointsout in his superb study of the early Mendelssohn,12 that Men-

delssohn is reflectinghere the thought of John Locke among others,

10Moses Mendelssohn,GesammelteSchriften,Jubilaumsausgabe,Vol. 2,315-330. For extended discussions of this essay, see Alexander Altmann,

Moses MendelssohnsFruhschriften ur Metaphsik (Tiibingen, 1969), Ch. 5,

esp. 341-391, which deal with "Evidenz in der Sittenlehre,"and Alexander

Altmann,MosesMendelssohn, Biographical tudy(Philadelphia,1973), 125-130.

11 Ibid.,315.12 Op. cit., 341.

5



6 FOX [6]

andit maybe instructiveo note thatthoughLockerepeats everal

timeshis claimthat morals are mathematically emonstrable, e

neveractuallyoffers ucha demonstration.Unlikehispredecessors,Mendelssohndoes attempt o demonstrate is claim,or, at least,to show how such a demonstrationwould proceed.The details

of that demonstrationie beyond the limits of our presentdis-

cussion.What we need to know is only that he emergeswith a

'Law of Nature'that reads, "Makeyour own inner and outer

condition,and that of your fellow-man, n properproportion,

as perfectas you can."13 He believeshimself to have provedby severalargumentshat this is a universalmorallaw, applyingwith equalforce to all men,and bindingthem by virtue of their

rationality.

Among his argumentss one which claims to show that this

principle s in full accordwith God's will, but this does not lead

to theconclusion hatwe areobligated o observe hislawbecause

it is God's command.Rather, t is God's commandbecauseHe,in His very nature,is only capableof willingwhat is best, and

we, who are rationalbeings,are, in turn,boundto seek what is

best.As Altmannexpressest, thisargument"proceededrom the

assumptionhat God created he world for a purpose.SinceGod

could have createdonly from wisdomand goodness,his designcould have been none otherthan the perfectionof his creatures.

Hence the 'lawof nature'agreedwith the designof God, andwewere imitatorsof God wheneverwe made ourselvesor others

moreperfect."14So far we have in Mendelssohn n ethicwhichis rationaland

autonomous.As rational, t is knowableby everyman who takes

the troubleto reflect.As autonomous, t is independentof any

externalsource of authority,sanction,or command.It accords

with God's will, but it is not commandedby God in the sensethat it is imposedupon man from without.It is true that Men-

13 "Machedeinenund deinesNebenmenschennnernund aussernZustand,

in gehorigerProportion,so vollkommen,als du kannst," Gesam.Schr.,Jub.

A., vol. 2, 317.14 Altmann,MosesAlendelssohn, 27.



[7] LAW AND ETHICS IN MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

delssohnacknowledgeshat individualpracticaldecisionscannot

be made with the same geometriccertainty hat he ascribes to

the generalprinciple,but this is, at worst, a practicaldifficultythat does not affect his generaltheoreticalposition. Moreover,he believesthat even this practicaldifficulty s largelyresolved

through he assurance hat our naturalgood sensewill lead us to

makecorrectpracticaldecisionsn line with the naturalmoral aw.

When we turn to the internalJewish reatmentof this themein

Mendelssohn'shoughtwe encounterveryseriousdifficulties, nd

we becomeawareof the graveproblems n his philosophical x-

position, as well. The Jewishcounterpartof the rational moral

law is, in his view, the seven commandments f the Noahides.

In his correspondencewith Lavater,Mendelssohn xplicitly den-

tified the Noahide laws with the law of nature.15Presumably,

then, these seven commandments re the basic rules of an auto-

nomous rationalethic,the verysame rules which he had asserted

in his prize-essay ould be demonstratedwith the rigorof a geo-metricproof.Whoeverobserves heseis one of the hasideiummot

ha-olamandis assuredof salvation.Now we mustask, as hardly

any commentator eems to have done, just what sense can be

madeout of theclaimthatthe Noahide aws arerationally emon-

strable. Even if we grant to Mendelssohnhis claimed'law of

nature',namely,that we ought alwaysto seek to makeourselves

and othersas perfectas possible,we cannotsee how it would lead

us to the sevenNoahide commandments.What,for example, s

the relationshipbetweenhumanperfectionand not eatinga limb

torn from a livinganimal?Or, how do we move from the prin-

ciple of seekinghuman perfection o the rule that homosexual

relationsare forbiddenon pain of death,or that sexualrelations

with one's sister are similarly orbiddenand on pain of the same

penalty?Two thingsbecome clear once we raise such questions.First, we now see that we have no idea of what it is that Men-

delssohnmeans by "perfection", nd,second, whateverhe does

mean we see no way to move from his theoryof perfection o

15 Jub. A., vol. 7, 11.

7



the specific commandments addressed to all mankind under the

Noahide rubric.

In his 'geometric proof' Mendelssohn has given us little morethan some verbal sleight of hand. He argues that the only true

desire of a rational being can be its own perfection, hence, it is

a rule of reason that we must always seek our own perfection.Unless the idea of 'perfection' has some content, the statement

is a mere tautology. Yet, if we ask what is its content, we are met

either by silence, or by the repetition of moral commonplaces.

When we confront the specific case in which Mendelssohn offers

us an accurate description of the content of a rational moral life,

namely, in the case of the Noahide commandments, we find it

impossible to relate these in any necessary way to the idea of

human perfection.Mendelssohn was deeply disturbedby the fact that Maimonides

had insisted in his Mishneh Torah, that those who observe the

Noahide commandments are truly meritorious, i.e. worthy of olam

ha-ba, only if they observe them out of the faith that they were

commanded by God through Moses.16 Maimonides is saying that,

however pre-Sinaitic generations may have known of the seven

commandments, after the revelation at Sinai the Torah is the

only source through which these commandmentsare known. Men-

delssohn views this as a terrible kind of insularity and lack of

tolerance. It seems to make the salvation of all men dependent

on a particular revelation and to deprive all those who happen

not to know of the revelation at Sinai of any opportunity for

final bliss. In his famous letter to Rabbi Jacob Emden,17 Men-

delssohn pleads with him to clarify this totally unacceptable ruling

of Maimonides. He understandscorrectly that Maimonides makes

this ruling because he holds that moral principles are not subject

to any kind of rational demonstration and that, in fact, they have

16 M.T., H. Mekkhim, VIII, 11. For a discussion of this passage, see

Steven S. Schwarzschild,"Do Noachites have to Believe in Revelation?"

JQR, 57, 4 (April, 1962)and my papercited in note 2 above.17 Jub.A., vol. 16, 178f.

8 [8]OX



[9] LAW AND ETHICS IN MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

no truth-value.Consequently,unless one can depend on revelation,

there is no source for morality except social convention. Men-

delssohn's response is that, contra Maimonides, he has "clear andsound demonstrations concerning good and evil, right and wrong,beautiful and ugly, showing that they are all truly rational prin-

ciples." To our sorrow, neither in this letter, nor elsewhere in his

writings, does he set forth for us these demonstrative principles.If the Noahide commandmentsare examples of what Mendelssohn

considers to be rationally demonstratedmoral rules, he completely

fails to show how he arrives at the conclusion that they are, in

fact, rationally demonstrable.

Similarproblems are present throughout his discussion of these

topics in his Jerusalem. On the one hand, he wants to preservehis theory of a natural moral law which is accessible to all men

by way of their unaided reason. At the same time, he wants to

insure the position of Jewish law as the specially revealed legis-

lation directed to the Israelites. He never addresses himself to theobvious puzzle, namely, that the revealed law also contains ethical

prescriptions which he considers, at the same time, to be part of

the natural moral law. Why are they, then, even included in the

revealed law, and what is their status? Are they specially revealed

legislation, or are they natural law? To this there is an implicit

reply when Mendelssohn contends that "natural laws are nothing

but the expression of the divine will," and that for one who under-

stands this "the moral teachings of reason will be as sacred... as

those of religion."18 Surely, in this context "divine will" cannot

mean that which has been specially revealed at Sinai. If it does,

then we have lost the concept of natural law. If it does not, then

there is no significant sense in which the natural law can be spokenof as revealingthe divine will. We are back to the empty argumentthat we noted earlier, namely, that the natural law must coincide

with God's will since both direct man to what is best.

Yet, based on this kind of argument Mendelssohn goes even

I8 Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem and Other Jewish Writings, tr. and ed.

by Alfred Jospe (New York, 1969), 34.

9



further.He strongly nsists that withoutthe conviction hat God

is the foundationof the moral law there can be no truemorality

at all. "WithoutGod, Providence,and a future life," he says,"love of man is nothingbut a congenitalweakness,and humani-

tarianism ittle more than a chimera nto which we try to trick

each other so that the simpletonmay get into troublewhile the

quick-wittedcan enjoy himself at the other'sexpense."19Here,the full depthof the difficultyn whichMendelssohn as trappedhimself is exposed,and his rational ndependent thicsseems lost

completely.It is true that he claims that God, Providence,andthe futurelife are all principlesof reason whose realitycan be

demonstrated.f, however,no mancan be virtuousunlesshe has

first come to know these truths of reason,then mankind as a

wholeis in no bettercondition hanif theywererequiredo know

the Noahidelaws by way of revelation.Whatproportionof men

can one reasonably xpectto workout for themselves,or to fol-

low throughthe effortsof others,demonstrationsoncerning he

existenceand natureof God, the workingsof divineProvidence,and theimmortality f the soul? Sucha conceptionof the natural

moral law solves none of the problems o whichit was directed.

It is notdifficulto see whatmovesMendelssohno thesepatentlyuntenablepositions.He cannotallow a natural aw without God

or he will makeall religionsuperfluous.He cannotallowrevealed

religionwithoutnatural aw, or he willbetray he liberalhumani-

tarianism o whichhe is committed. n bringing hemtogetherhe

has attempted o saveboth ethicsand the law. He hopes to pro-vide us with an independent thic,yet at the sametime, show it

to be intimatelyconnectedwith divinelaw. In the narrowsense,this is the divine aw of the Jewishrevealtion. n the widersense,it is the divine awwhich

everyman can

presumablyome to know

by his unaidedreason.Thoughwe may sympathizewith his ob-

jective,we cannotescapethe conclusion hat Mendelssohnailed

oncehe separated thics rom the law.

Maimonides, he greatestof the Jewishmedievalphilosophers,

I9 Ibid., 38.

10 [10]OX




is completelyclear about these issues. He deniesthat we can

discernanythingat all aboutGod's ultimatepurpose n the world,

in fact, he even denies that the notion of ultimatedivinecosmicpurposecan be made intelligible.He also sees that there is no

independent ationalfoundation or morality.He concludes hat

"allthat existswas intendedby Him... according o His volition.

And we shall seek for it no cause or other final end whatever.

Justas we do not seek for the end of His existence... so do we

not seekfor the final end of His volition,according o whichall

that has been and will be produced n time comes into beingasit is."20All we cando, then,is recognize hat the commandments,like all existence,have their sourcein the divinewill, and that

for this reasonalone,we are boundby them. We can, of course,make effortsto understandhem, as Maimonidesdid, from our

own humanperspective.At best, they may seem reasonable o

us in lightof our ownunderstandingf man'shighestpossibilities.

They can, however,never be rationallydemonstrated.Theycon-tinue to obligateus, reasonableor not, only becausethey have

beencommandedby God.

Spinoza,whomWolfsonhasaptlycalled he last of themedievals

and the first of the moderns,also deniedany notion of divine

purpose,and with it all claimsthat thereis a transcendentGod

who commandsus. There is no room for such a God in a sys-

tem whichprovidesfor only a singleunified orderof beingandconceivesGod as deus sive natura.Strictlyspeaking, or Spinozawhatever s is what ought to be, because n this purelynatural

world one cannot distinguishbetweenis and ought, surelynot

on a cosmic scale.Even on the level of personalhumanexistence

there is no morallaw as such. "Good" s definedby Spinozaas

"that whichwe certainlyknow to be usefulto us" and the evil

as that "whichwe certainlyknow to be a hindrance o us in the

attainmentof the good."21Whatemerges s not a conceptionof

20 Maimonides,Guideof the Perplexed,tr. S. Pines (Chicago, 1963), III,

13,454455.21 Spinoza,EthicsIV, Defs. 1, 2.

11



morality rooted in notions of duty or obligation, but rather a

purely naturalistic scheme in which, as one contemporary com-

mentator puts it, "Man is part of Nature, and therefore the moralistmust be a naturalist; ...We cannot be other than what we are,

and our whole duty and wisdom is to understand fully our own

imperfections, and, havingunderstood, to acquiesce;man'sgreatest

happiness and peace of mind comes only from this full philoso-

phical understanding of himself."22

Mendelssohn, one of the first modern Jewishphilosophers,strug-

gles to retain features of both Maimonides' and Spinoza's worlds.Unlike Maimonides, and in a way closer to the Jewish norm, he

affilms the notion of divine purpose in creation. Like Maimonides,

he holds that God commands us, but unlike him, he believes that

these commands come to us not only through revelation, but also

through the natural law which expresses the divine purpose, and

is addressed to all men. In affirmingnatural law, he comes close

in certain ways to Spinoza whom he ciiticized so severely. How-ever, it is only a closeness in terminology, but not in substance.

For even natural law, in Mendelssohn's system, is connected to

and derives fiom God's purposes, the very notion of which is in-

admissible for Spinoza. In revelation Mendelssohnfindsthe groundof his Judaism, and in nature the ground of his morality. He

brings them together in such a way as to naturalize revelation,

at a certain point, and to deify nature, at another. He sacrificesthe claiity and internal consistency which both Maimonides and

Spinoza achieved, each in his own way. This is the overly high

price he pays in order to be able to live in the world of modern

thought which Spinoza opened up, while still nurturinghis roots

in the pre-modern Jewish world which Maimonides typifies.The problematicswith which Mendelssohn struggledbecame the

center of concern for much Jewish philosophy since his time. It

is a mark of the modern situation that Jewish thinkers feel con-

strained to come to terms with the conflict between Jewish par-

ticularismand Jewishuniversalism.They do so by addressingthem-

22 Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (Pelican Books, 1951), 121.

12 [12]OX




selves to the problem of the relation of ethics and the law. David

Neumark may have been right when he criticized Lazarussharply,

saying that it is wrong to speak about a humanistic ethic from aJewish perspective, since "according to the view of Judaism there

is no place for an ethic that does not derive from divine com-

mandment."23 His criticism of Lazarus can serve as a critiqueof a whole school of modern Jewish philosophy, beginning with

Moses Mendelssohn in the 18th century, and ending with some

of our contemporaries.

23 David Neumark, "Mussar ha-Yahadut," Ha-Shiloah, VI (1899), 91.

13

Documents

Fox Law and Ethics in the Case of Moses Mendelssohn