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Jewish Social Ethics
Judaism, Summer, 1994 by Alan J. Yuter
Novak's treatment of Jewish sexuality correctly locates the monthly separation (niddah) as a "cultivation of (licit) eros," yet he views ideological homosexuality as an intolerable and incompatible assault on Judaism's ethic. For Novak, homosexuality is based on a lie, for either male or female in such a relationship must assume a role not reflective of her/his own being. This insight is well taken, but is not necessarily born by the sources, as lesbianism is forbidden by rabbinic legislation, and male homosexuality by Torah statute. Inasmuch as rabbinic legislation is required to outlaw the former delict, the prohibition of lesbian activity is foundationally conventional in Torah theology. For Novak, one who engages in regular homosexual activity cannot be classified as mumar le-te'avon, a sinner who succumbs to weakness, but as mumar le-hakh'is, a provocative sinner who assaults legal and ethical norms. For Novak, homosexual promiscuity is consistently anti-family. Nevertheless, Novak maintains that those suffering AIDS must be treated with compassion. The job of God is to judge, the job of humankind is hesed, lovingkindness. Novak's insight is corroborated by B. Sanhendrin 104b, according to which the sages considered counting King Solomon as one who forfeited his portion in the eternity to come, and an oracle (bat kol) announced that while the law is surrendered to the human court, God's judgment is not.
In his treatment of the Sabbath, technology, and its threat to God's created order, Novak again concedes that "there is no idea of nature in the classical scriptural and rabbinic texts," and proceeds to demonstrate that for Judaism, unlike Aristotle, the Sabbath is an end, not a means. This comports well with the doctrine that the Sabbath is an instrument of human completeness.
Novak's statement of self-understanding challenges both liberal and traditionalist thinkers. In discussing the place of the non-Jew in Jewish polity, or how a sovereign state of Israel must treat its non-Jewish citizens, he rejects historical criticism because it is a descriptive rather than a normative method, and Jewish prescriptive inquiry may not be "value free." When discussing Jewish values, "only the Torah will suffice." He calls attention to the Maimonidean requirement that in pre-Jubilee Judaism, no non-Jew may reside in a Jewish polity. (This is a view so stark that even the late Rabbi Meir Kahane did not articulate it.) However, when non-Israelites are conquered through war, Israel must impose the moral law upon them.
It must be noted here that Novak takes the Noachide commandments to be a statement of Jewish universal natural law. If, however, this were the case, Maimonides would not claim that the acceptance of these laws as natural law known through reason, rather than as God's (positive law) command, is of no value. For Novak's reading of Maimonides, moral subjugation of the non-Jew is permitted; political subjugation is not. The reader should remember that Saul was deposed for a political sin, for not destroying Agag the Amalekite, and not for any other of his delicts; and God decides to end Ahab's political monarchy when he allows Ben Hadad to live, and not because of any other of his many moral sins. David is punished because of his sin with Bathsheba, but he is not deposed. Unlike Saul and Ahab, David's sin was moral, not political. For Maimonides, politics is state morality. Echoing the quietism of medieval Judaism, Novak is uncomfortable with what he takes to be the active messianism of aggressive religious Jewish nationalists.
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