Judaism and Democracy: The Reality
Daniel J. Elazar
This is a crucial time for shaping Israel's democracy, just as it
is for rebuilding Israel's economy. The extreme right has
precipitated a struggle over democracy while the left has embarked
on a struggle over the place of Judaism in the state. These
extremists are distorting Jewish tradition to serve their own
partisan goals. The far right claims that Judaism is antithetical
to democracy, so therefore proposes to jettison democratic
institutions in the Jewish state. Perversely, the far left agrees
with the right's premise, and thus concludes that Israel should
abandon Judaism. There is great irony in this since in the
Western world, especially the United States, it is accepted that
the Bible and ancient Israel were sources of democracy, no less,
if not more than the Greeks, and with good reason. Part of this
paradox can be resolved by a proper understanding of what
constitutes democracy.
Two Dimensions of Democracy
In the recent debates in Israel, democracy seems to have been
equated almost exclusively with pluralism and with its most
individualistic variety at that. That is only half the story.
Democracy can be understood as having at least two dimensions: 1)
self-government, that is to say, meaningful participation of
individual citizens in the establishment of the polity in which
they live and in its subsequent governance; 2) pluralism, that is
to say, the right of every individual to develop for him or
herself a way of life and a set of beliefs and opinions
appropriate to it, consistent with agreed upon common norms, and
to live accordingly, with minimum interference on the part of
others, including and especially, on the part of government.
Both of these dimensions combine issues of liberty and equality,
the twin pillars of democracy. Neither self-government nor
pluralism, nor for that matter, liberty and equality, are
absolute. Living in society requires the tempering of all in the
face of the realities of the human condition but, for those who
believe in them, they remain not only basic aspirations but basic
requirements for the good society.
Judaism and Pluralism
In some respects the relationship between Judaism and democracy is
least strong in connection with pluralism. Judaism is
emphatically pluralistic when it comes to recognition of the
separate identity of different nations. The biblical vision,
regularly reaffirmed in the Jewish political tradition, is that
the nations and peoples of the world have a right to exist and be
autonomous under God. In this sense Judaism, unlike Christianity
and Islam, is not ecumenical. It does not seek a single world
state, an ecumene, in which all national and religious differences
are obliterated. Quite to the contrary, the Jewish vision of the
messianic world order is one in which all nations recognize the
sovereignty of God but retain their separate national and perhaps
even religious characteristics,if monotheistic. This is a view
reiterated by the prophets of ancient Israel, canonized in the
Bible. It is equally a tenet of modern Zionism, which offered a
socialist or secularist variant for God's sovereignty, which while
untraditional, follows the sense of the tradition in this
respect.
Judaism is not pluralistic when it comes to recognizing paganism
among the nations -- it does not believe that anything and
everything goes in such matters -- and classical Judaism does not
accept a pluralism that rejects the Torah. The question in both
cases is one of interpretation. Jewish monotheism is very strict
indeed on the religious level. Rejecting the one God is not
acceptable human behavior.
In fact, Judaism recognizes that humans do have the freedom to
choose, even in the matter of belief in one God, but are subject
to God's response as He chooses if they choose incorrectly. At the
same time Jews were not called upon by their religion to be God's
policemen in this matter, except among themselves. With regard to
the nations, that was God's business. This is a crucial
distinction, one which Judaism is careful to draw. There are many
things in this world which, according to Jewish tradition should
be extirpated, but it is not our responsibility to do God's work
in doing so.
On the other hand, a choice against God represented freedom to
stay outside of the moral order, not to be democratically accepted
as part of it. Such freedom is like the freedom of states in
international relations; it is anarchy, not order, while democracy
implicitly and explicitly reflects the existence of order.
This short article cannot do justice to the problem of pluralism
within Judaism. It is accepted that there is one Torah binding on
all Jews, and a clear halakhic tradition growing out of the Torah.
Still, at the very least, regional and local differences in
customary observance are recognized as legitimate -- some even say
binding. Moreover, since the middle ages, it has been difficult
to overrule local rabbinical courts on any halakhic matter. In
civil matters which are equally within the province of the Torah
and its halakhah in traditional Judaism, there is even greater
latitude. Suffice it to say that Jewish tradition recognizes that
within the four ells of Torah there is considerable room.
Moreover, any honest look at Jewish constitutional history clearly
reveals that the interpretation of Torah itself has changed
greatly from epoch to epoch. In other words, there have been a
series of reconstitutions, the very fact of whose existence
suggests the possibility of a real degree of pluralism in such
matters. My colleague, Professor Stuart Cohen, and I have traced
these reconstitutions in considerable detail in our recent book,
The Jewish Polity.
Contemporary Orthodoxy, with its effort to develop a monolithic
approach to halakhic and religious matters, is just as erroneous
as contemporary liberal Judaism which claims that there is no
legitimate authority in Jewish life, that any Jew can do whatever
he or she wants to in matters halakhic and religious. In fact,
even the most monistic Orthodox recognize a certain pluralism
within halakhah. That is why today we have a Chief Rabbinate, the
Moetzet Gedolai Ha-Torah (Agudath Israel's Council of Torah
Greats), the Moetzet Hakhmei HaTorah (the Sephardic Council of
Torah Sages), and the various batei din (religious courts) of the
extreme ultras. Whatever the fights among their members and
partisans, the legitimacy of all is more or less mutually
recognized.
In sum, Judaism accepts a degree of pluralism for Jews within the
framework of Torah but not outside of it. With regard to democracy
and pluralism, then, the relationship between Judaism and
democracy is a qualified positive.
Judaism and Self-Government
When it comes to democracy as self-government, the relationship is
very positive indeed. The classic Jewish political tradition of
the Bible makes it clear that sovereignty is God's but that
day-to-day governance is in the hands of the people within the
framework of the Divine constitution. God and the people
established an initial relationship through covenant, and God
played the major role in setting forth the constitution,
especially the religious and moral constitution of the people.
In political matters, the Torah makes it clear that there is no
single preferred regime (not even the Davidic monarchy which later
came to be preferred by many, especially after it no longer
existed), and that it is up to the people to establish appropriate
political systems which must meet the appropriate moral, social,
and religious requirements. Thus an acceptable political system
must be just and pursue justice; it must provide for the care of
the less fortunate (the Biblical "widows and orphans"); and it
must maintain the religious constitution of the Jewish people,
however interpreted by the judges of the time. It must also be
republican, rooted in popular consent and involving the people in
governance.
Let me reiterate: there is no doubt about the republican character
of the classic Jewish polity, nor has there been throughout Jewish
history. The particular character of Jewish republicanism had a
certain aristrocratic tinge because of the prominent role it gave
to notables from leading families, and priests, prophets, and
sages who had responsibilities for interpreting the Torah, all of
whom had to share power in some way. This led to the frequent
appearance of oligarchic rule in the ancient Jewish polity and in
diaspora Jewish communities, as degenerated forms of aristocratic
republicanism, but in every case the regime remained republican.
According to the Torah and halakhically, it must be constituted by
all of the people, including women and children, and it may be
changed by the people. Whatever the problematics of counting
women in a minyan for prayer, the Bible makes it clear that they
were required to be present and counted at the great
constitutional ceremonies establishing the edah (the Jewish
polity) its covenants, and its subsidiary kehillot.
In all of Jewish history, with the possible exception of small
shuls here and there, there are no cases of autocracy, of one-man
rule, certainly none beyond the arena of the local community. The
one possible exception was Herod, who was imposed upon us by the
Romans. He was given power through nominally legitimate processes
and then usurped that power to eliminate the other instruments
which shared power with the king within the constitution.
This leads to the other dimension of Jewish republicanism, namely,
that in the traditional constitution and throughout Jewish history
power has always been divided among three domains, known in
traditional Hebrew as ketarim (crowns): that of Torah, responsible
for communicating God's word to the people and interpreting the
Torah as constitution to them; Kehunah (priesthood), responsible
for being a conduit from the people to God; and Malkhut, which may
be best translated as civil rule, responsible for the day-to-day
business of civil governance in the edah. While there have been
struggles for power among these ketarim and times in which one was
stronger than the other, all three, and particularly Torah and
Malkhut, have always been actively present in the governance of
every Jewish polity from the local arena to the people as a whole.
The relationship between Judaism and democracy has to be judged
whole, not just in connection with specific religious laws, and it
must be judged in light of this classical and continuing division
of powers.
Thus when it comes to the popular constitution of the polity, the
responsibility of the governors to govern, and a proper separation
and distribution of powers among the governors -- the three great
criteria for democracy -- Judaism passes every test. The proof of
the pudding is that in Western civilization the Bible is
considered the foundation of democratic republicanism and has been
so treated by democratic reformers throughout the history of the
Western world. The strong biblical base of American democracy,
which grew out of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and which
remains vital today is a case in point. Our weakness has been in
the inventing of appropriate institutions for the successful
implementation of these principles. Sometimes we did and
sometimes we did not.
Democracy, Liberty and Equality
This bring us back to questions of liberty and equality. The
Bible is a major source of teaching about liberty and equality for
all of humanity; it should not be less than that for Jews. The
Bible emphasizes communal liberty and what the Puritans in the
sixteenth century defined as federal liberty, that is to say, the
liberty to live up to the terms of the covenant (federal, from the
Latin foedus meaning covenant), rather than individual liberty.
Communal liberty stands in contrast to atomistic individualism as
the highest good. The Jews, like the Swiss, have emphasized
individual liberty within the community, not apart from it. This
approach differs from the radical individualism espoused by many
in the contemporary Western world. Hence those espousing the
latter will inevitably accuse Judaism of being undemocratic. Here
we have a confrontation between different understandings of what
constitutes liberty and, by extension, democracy. Despite its
claims, radical individualism is not the only starting point for
defining democracy.
We are helped in this by examining the concept of federal liberty.
Federal liberty can be interpreted rather narrowly as some would
have it or it can be interpreted more broadly. It can be
interpreted as having to do primarily with religious observance,
as the Puritans did in the past and many of the ultra-Orthodox do
today, or it may be interpreted as having to do with the
maintenance of constitutional liberties, as the U.S. Supreme Court
has interpreted it with regard to racial and gender
discrimination. In both cases, judges have relied upon the
principle of federal liberty to modify what would otherwise be in
their eyes, unbridled individualism.
Federal liberty in this sense stands in contrast to natural
liberty, that is to say, the right of every individual to do as he
or she pleases, restrained only by nature. The latter is only
possible outside of society. Otherwise it is both self and
socially destructive to the highest degree. Governments,
including and especially democratic governments, are instituted to
overcome the deficiencies of natural liberty which lead to anarchy
and the war of all against all, whereby the strongest win at the
expense of all others. So, if the biblical teaching stands in
opposition to unbridled individualism, that is a sign that it is
among the best friends of true liberty which is based on
restraining natural liberty through covenant.
So, too, with equality. The biblical teaching is concerned with
maximizing the basic equality of all members of the polity through
sabbatical and jubilee legislation and other equalization
measures. On the other hand, Jewish tradition does not insist
upon pure equality, only upon basic equality, understanding the
difference.
Were all this simply a matter of biblical teachings, we might say
that Judaism has a classic tradition in harmony with democracy but
that it has long since disappeared. That is emphatically not the
case. There is a Jewish political tradition which has persisted as
an integral part of Jewish tradition in which all of these
principles have found expression throughout Jewish history, while
the Jews were in their land and in the diaspora, not without
struggle and not perfectly by any means any more than can be said
of any other people, but in real ways. We at the Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs have been exploring that tradition since our
founding and have compiled detailed evidence for its existence and
influence, citing chapter and verse. We have published the
results of our investigations under the best academic auspices and
in more general form, making them available to a variety of
audiences. Moreover, anticipating public concern with this issue
by nearly a decade, we secured a commission from the Ministry of
Education to prepare a course for high school students on the
subject, emphasizing the importance of the Jewish political
tradition in helping students to become better citizens of Israel.
For us, the tradition offers standards of evaluation of Israel's
political institutions and behavior in proper democratic fashion.
That course is now being tested in the schools.
Both those on the right and those on the left who denigrate and
deny the relationship between Judaism and democracy not only do
both a great disservice but are simply wrong. Each is trying to
manipulate one or the other for their own ends. Unlike them, I
would submit that Israel would be well served to carefully
consider the Jewish political tradition. We can learn much from
it in the matter of building a good polity and society.
