Jewish Values VS. Torah Values?

Understanding Jewish Values means more than citing chapter and verses (or, daf and amud).

Jewish cultural values and the values of Torah and tradition are often in harmony but sometimes are at odds. Ambivalence toward our traditional religion is part of our cultural heritage. Rabbis and apikorsim, devout and secular, all are part of the Jewish experience; and the Jewish experience is what makes Jewish values, Jewish.

A value is simply that which an individual holds as valuable. That which a person will work to achieve, or to avoid losing. That for which a person will trade their life-energy. Generally, a value will be expressed by an abstract noun, such as Love, Community, Family, Honesty, Dignity, etc. A big screen TV can be a value, I suppose, but we would normally speak of Entertainment or Status as the values (worthy or unworthy). The big screen TV is the instrument for obtaining those values.

Values that are informed by the Jewish experience can, usefully, be called "Jewish values." Values which are intended to enhance Jewish survival and happiness are also "Jewish values." Since there are many Jewish individuals, there can be diverse and even contradictory Jewish values. Individuals' appraisals of the value of the Jewish traditional religion will differ and contradict as well.

Values taught in the Torah tradition and otherwise supported by Jewish experience will, of course, be Jewish values. There may be values taught in the Torah tradition that are not validated by the larger Jewish historical experience. In other words, there may be a Torah value that is not a Jewish value – at least not for some Jews. I assert that this is the case. The area of partial non-intersection between Torah values and Jewish values is the impetus for this article.

The values expressed in the Torah tradition were, of course, indicative of a certain sector of the Jewish experience at the time they were articulated. With the march of time, those experiences gained a larger context and those values may need to be revised.

Anyone but the most cynical must acknowledge that there is an area of overlap between religious values and rational values. The perceived size of the overlap will vary from appraiser to appraiser.

Also, even the hyper-rationalist or hyper-religious can acknowledge that there is a vast realm (everything outside the diagram) of bad, unworthy, irrational and untraditional values.

For the present discussion, we are most concerned with the realm of Traditional Values (i.e., values of the Torah tradition), which fall outside the realm of Rational Values (i.e., values borne out by experience).

Example #1. Genocide. Through long experience of persecution culminating in the Nazi holocaust, the Jews as a people have developed the value that Genocide is undesirable and should be prevented when possible. This differs from the values of the Torah which advocated the complete annihilation of several "nations" of Canaan.

Example #2. Freedom of Religion and Thought. Through long experience of religious persecution which ended only with the appearance of a free State with pluralism and freedom of religion, the Jews as a people have come to cherish the value of religious freedom, not only for ourselves, but for everyone. (G-d bless America.) Indeed, we tend to cherish freedom of thought in general. This differs from the values of the Torah which advocated the death of idolaters and seducers to idolatry, and of the Tradition which advocated the corporal punishment or excommunication of heretics and rebellious community members. To affirm the old values of the Torah tradition would be to transgress values of the Jewish people based on a fuller bank of experiences.

It is necessary to articulate these principles, lest, by teaching classical Jewish texts to young people, we give them the erroneous impression that the texts are to be believed and practiced, uncritically. G-d forbid I should play a part in so binding the conscience and restricting the developing mind of those who are our future. On the contrary, we share with them the heritage of our cultural experiences (including religion), along with what we and humankind have learned about critical thinking and political philosophy. Our youth will then be in a position to lead us forward into better days when wise values can be nurtured and achieved, and unworthy values can be rejected and supplanted.