Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

John Locke (1632-1704), the English philosopher and physician, was widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers. Commonly known as the “father of liberalism”, he was critical of absolute monarchy as well as the authority of the Church. He considered both institutions had a tendency to violate the natural rights of individuals. Notwithstanding this position, he was a deeply moral human being. He would have agreed with the Judaic sentiment that morality is essential to freedom – for freedom is not merely the absence of constraint (chofesh), but the ability to live a life of purpose, dignity and moral responsibility (cherut). In Jewish tradition, true freedom is not the license to do whatever one wants, which can lead to anarchy or tyranny, but rather the capacity to align one’s actions with ethical, divine, and moral norms. This is precisely what Locke meant when he contrasted liberty, the freedom to do what we ought, with license, the freedom to do what we want.

The American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) were undeniably inspired by Locke and many other Enlightenment thinkers, such as Montesquieu, Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes and Voltaire. It was their theories on natural rights, individual liberty, economic freedom, the idea of a social contract and the “common good” that inspired the New World and the Old. The result was a profound change in the way people were governed and eventually a radical departure from the ‘old order’ fostering a shift in society towards secularism, providing the theoretical framework for modern liberal democracies and human rights.

Decades before Camille Desmoulins in 1790 invented the phrase – Liberté, égalité, fraternité (French for liberty, equality, fraternity), Benjamin Franklin drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776, in which he made reference to liberty and the ‘rights of man’.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights – that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Little wonder therefore, that one of the most iconic structures in the United States is the Statue of Liberty. The statue is a figure of a classically draped woman, inspired by the Roman goddess of liberty, Libertas. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tablet on which is inscribed in Roman numerals the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence – July 4, 1776.

With her left foot she steps on a broken chain and shackle, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. Given to the people of America by the people of France, the statue was a tribute to the long-standing alliance between France and the United States, recognising republicanism over monarchy, celebrating the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence and acknowledging the abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom, seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. It was Emma Lazarus, a Jewish-American poetess who expressed this so poignantly in her famous poem of 1883. Written just as mass-Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe was about to begin – her poem was and remains attached to the statue. Here are the closing lines of her poem:

From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Another Jew, however, considered that the Statue of Liberty represented only half the story of Locke and Rousseau, Jefferson and Voltaire. Individualism, according to Victor Frankl, in the post-war period had gone too far – society was in need of repair. Visiting America in the 1970’s in order to give a series of public lectures, he made a proposal, namely that another statue be erected – one that could offer a different narrative to liberty, freedom of opportunity and individual rights – he suggested that this statue be erected on the West Coast and should be known as the ‘Statue of Responsibility’.

The first statue affirmed that the individual has rights – but Frankl argued, in line with Jewish tradition, that the second statue would bear witness to the fact that every individual also carries responsibilities. The individual, as far as Frankl was concerned, was fully entitled to seek a life of happiness, but as he wrote in his most famous work – Man’s Search for Meaning – what gives purpose to a person’s life is the completion of tasks, caring for others and when necessary, facing suffering with dignity; but above all it is the ability to communicate – ideally with other people, but where this is not possible – even with an imaginary friend. The individual, Frankl assessed, is fundamentally a social animal and using almost Biblical terminology he was insistent that humans could not live alone.

What does this mean in Jewish terms? Rabbi Sacks gave his answer most eloquently in his final book, Morality: “Love your neighbour. Love the stranger. Hear the cry of the otherwise unheard. Liberate the poor from their poverty. Care for the dignity of all. Let those who have more than they need share their blessings with those who have less. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, and heal the sick in body and mind. Fight injustice, whoever it is done by and whoever it is done against. And do these things because, being human, we are bound by a covenant of human solidarity, whatever our colour or culture, class or creed.”

It was Harvard scholar, Robert Putnam who explained that over these past few hundred years there has been a violent conflict – not on the traditional battlefield, but within our homes, our places of work and worship, our institutions of recreation and education – in the battlefield of ideas. The battle has been between two competing forces –the ‘I’ and the ‘We’, the singular and the plural, the individual and the assembly. The philosophers fought for individual rights, and they have been winning. Putnam showed that using an online search mechanism it was possible to chart the frequencies of the words ‘We’ and ‘I’ in all English and American books throughout the 20th century. It was relatively stable and the two words remained fairly equal in usage up until 1965, at which point the ‘I’ began a steep rise, and from that moment on, the singular dominates. We see it in today’s world where, compared to years ago, many more people elect not to marry and share their life with another, or they decide with their partner not to have children – an entire generation of unborn babies, who would otherwise grow up and eventually support those who had preceded them as well as bearing the next generation of human beings – for this is the only way to progress the human species. Another example undoubtedly would be the nature of social media. These platforms are strange creatures; users proudly proclaim that they have hundreds, if not thousands of friends and followers – but they don’t speak to these friends, they don’t socialise with these friends, they don’t support these friends – these friends are for one purpose only, to be available to read the other person’s profile, to appreciate their projected image and self-promotion, what Norman Mailer used to call – “Advertisements for Myself”.

The individual most certainly seems to be gaining ground over the collective in modern society. But do we find the same tension in Judaism and if so, what is its response? The truth is that unlike modern liberal theory, Judaism of the Tanakh and later Jewish teaching rarely speaks in the language of rights; instead, they frame life as a network of duties. Precisely because of that, conflicts between the individual and the collective are especially sharp and revealing.

Here are but a few examples. The Bible begins with a remarkable dichotomy. While the animal world in general is created en masse, human beings are created one by one – first Adam, then Eve, followed by their children – illustrating, it seems, the importance of the individual as opposed to the group.

Genesis adds to that revelation by informing its readers that each human is made in the image of God – strengthening the sense of individual rights. But almost immediately there is conflict between their right to choose what they want to eat, and their responsibility to refrain from certain prohibited food. Adam and Eve’s decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge is a profoundly individual act—rooted in desire, curiosity, and autonomy. Yet its consequences are collective and universal: exile, mortality, and suffering for all humanity. Individual choice is real, but it reverberates beyond the self for generations to come. The Bible moves on immediately to a different story, but with fundamentally the same message: Cain’s personal autonomy versus his moral and social obligation. Cain asks: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Could this be the first explicit claim of radical individualism in the Bible?

A few chapters later and Abraham is disquieted at the challenge of moral individualism as it confronts collective judgment. Abraham challenges God over the fate of Sodom: “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” He argues that righteous individuals should not perish with the wicked majority. In this case, the individual conscience resists collective punishment. Abraham argued that this was wrong, just as we know it is wrong when a tyrannical government punishes an entire group for the failings of an individual. How many times have school children objected to their teacher – “It’s not fair!” when one pupil does the wrong thing – but then the entire class is punished?

Another example is found in the second chapter of Exodus. The Torah describes Moses venturing out to witness the plight of the Israelite slaves. He is shocked to the core by the brutality he sees as an Egyptian taskmaster mercilessly beats an Israelite slave. The Bible then says something quite remarkable:

וַיִּ֤פֶן כֹּה֙ וָכֹ֔ה וַיַּ֖רְא כִּ֣י אֵ֣ין אִ֑ישׁ וַיַּךְ֙ אֶת־הַמִּצְרִ֔י וַֽיִּטְמְנֵ֖הוּ בַּחֽוֹל:

Moses looked around and with no one else nearby to observe him and perhaps report him to a higher authority – he slew the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. But this doesn’t make any sense – Moses was in the middle of a building site where there would have been dozens of Egyptian taskmasters and hundreds, if not thousands of slaves. So what do these words really mean?

Moses looked around him in the vain hope that someone else would step forward and take responsibility, act morally – but אֵ֣ין אִ֑ישׁ – no one came forward, so Moses was left with a choice – do I follow or do I lead, do I take a moral position or do I look the other way?

Exhibiting extra-ordinary courage and a singular moral outlook, Moses chose to act where others chose to do nothing. Cognizant that Hebrew tradition taught that every human being is created in the image of God, Moses stepped forward to save a solitary Israelite slave, for he understood that every person’s life has infinite value and wherever possible should be defended and protected.

One further example is found in this week’s sidra of Terumah. God instructs the Israelites to construct a Mishkan or Tabernacle. At the outset the command is in the plural – this is to be a group activity – the opening command is addressed to the entire nation: וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָֽׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם they shall make for me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them (Exodus 25:8). But the truth is that individuals can easily be lost within the collective, and God wished every Israelite to be involved in this sacred endeavor – so the language changes and instead of the plural form of the verb – the Hebrew uses the singular form for the most part. In fact on 32 separate occasions the text uses the word – וְעָשִׂיתָ and you shall make as opposed to the plural form – וַעֲשִׂיתֶם and you (plural) shall make.

Thirty two of course is the gematria or numerical value of the two Hebrew letters – ל lamed and ב bet and when placed next to each other they form the Hebrew word לֵב meaning ‘a heart’. Little wonder that when the Israelites stood at the foot of Mt Sinai about to receive the Torah – Rashi wrote in his commentary that the entire people stood as one – כְּאִִישׁ אֶחָד בְּלֵב אֶחָד like one person – with one heart.

Hundreds of thousands of people, yet acting not like a normal group with diverse cultures, attitudes, approaches, likes and dislikes – but as if they had coalesced into a single unit with a common purpose heading in a single direction.

From such ideas, and noting that the Ten Commandments were also written in the singular even though the instructions were to be obeyed by the entire people, the Talmudic sages expressed the view – כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה that all Israel is responsible for one another (TB Shevuot 39a). This principle undercuts radical individualism for it signifies deep communal solidarity, a shared destiny and the obligation of Jews to care for, support, and be accountable for each other’s well-being. Such theology is reflected in Jewish prayer – the Amida, the central prayer of each service has to be recited privately, silently by the individual – but in synagogue it is never said alone and in most cases it is also repeated publicly by the Sh’liach Tzibbur – the leader of the minyan.

In Jewish Law the tension between the I and the We is found most clearly in the single most important instruction in halakha – that of Pikuach Nefesh – the obligation to save the life of another in mortal danger – and yet, while we should make valiant efforts to protect human life, it does not include sacrificing one’s own life. Judaism may well reject absolute individualism, and it may stress over and over again the obligations and responsibilities that automatically come from living a Jewish life, but it still affirms certain rights to the individual, including his or her own right to life.

Maimonides spoke of the “Golden Mean”, the centrist position that excluded extremes to the left and right. Blending rights and responsibilities, duties and obligations is exceptionally difficult – but like a seasoned mediator, Judaism has sought and often found resolution and settlement.
Illustrative of this point was the response by Catholic historian, Paul Johnson to the question put to him as to what aspect of Judaism had particularly impressed him as he researched and then published his brilliant book, A History of the Jews.

He replied in roughly these words: There have been, in the course of history, societies that emphasised the individual – like the secular West today. There have been others that placed weight on the collective – Communist Russia or China, for example. Judaism, he continued, was the most successful example he knew of that managed the delicate balance between both – giving equal weight to individual and collective responsibility. Judaism was a religion of strong individuals and strong communities. This, he said, was very rare and difficult, and constituted one of Judaism’s greatest achievements.

Perhaps without even realising it, Johnson had paraphrased one of the most famous lines in all of rabbinic literature taken from Pirke Avot Chapter 1:

אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו אֵימָתָי

The sage Hillel said – “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” (Individualism personified) “But if I am only for myself, what have I become?” (A description of collective responsibility) To this Hillel added, to emphasise the need for urgency, “And if not now – when?”

The earliest building project in the history of our people – was a national undertaking – but וְעָשִׂיתָ – each Israelite was expected to participate and play a role in its construction. Since the days of Moses – nothing has changed, we are all individuals – but we are also part of a Jewish confederacy of effort and enterprise and of faith and fidelity – and that will never change.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman