{"id":56400,"date":"2019-05-29T21:45:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=56400"},"modified":"2022-12-21T11:58:03","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T09:58:03","slug":"we-dont-always-know-the-right-thing-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/we-dont-always-know-the-right-thing-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"We Don’t Always Know The Right Thing To Do"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[762,503,724,543],"acf":{"old_id":"56400","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":49419,"related_cahpter":"230","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"No God, no king, no positive social norms, no moral clarity","content":"

This is where the story starts to get really messy. The second half of this book, basically since the story of Gideon, has had a strong pro-monarchic, pro-establishment message. The repeating trope in this part of the book warns us: “There was no king in Israel at that time, everyone did as they pleased.”<\/span><\/p>\n

This story has an eerie, uncomfortable feeling. The nameless protagonists, the strange prolonged stay with the girl’s father, the encounter with the old man. It\u2019s not entirely clear what’s wrong with these incidents, but they don’t feel right. There are no ‘good guys’ in this story, no heroes to identify with. <\/span><\/p>\n

If only there was a king to tell people how to act, protect the weak, punish the haughty!<\/span><\/p>\n

Maimonides sees the rule of law on the individual level as a manifestation of the strength of the state. In the Guide to the Perplexed, he brings the example of an old, weak and fragile money-changer, who can tell a strong muscular beggar to get lost. This is proof that a king exists! There is a law, it is respected. The opposite of this story.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gibeonites here closely parallel the violent townspeople in Sodom, back in the book of Genesis. But the midrash makes an important distinction: here, the people were lawless and evil, and there, in Sodom, the law itself was evil. So it’s not just a matter of having a strong state: as the twentieth century reminded us, doing the right thing is sometimes above the law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet even that is too simplistic. The messy reality that we live in, and that the Tanach also acknowledges, is that we don’t always know the right thing to do. Surely murder and rape are horrific, but more everyday decisions are often ambiguous. Should the Levite have trusted the Jebusites and stayed in Jerusalem? Should he have stayed with his father-in-law? How should he have appeased his concubine? What’s the right thing to do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Absent from this story is God. Sure, God is mentioned by the Levite, who brags about going to the sanctuary in Bethlehem. But this is using God as an object, a path to status. Perhaps a real relationship with God would have brought moral clarity; at the very least, a perspective touched by this relationship would have brought some modesty and kindness into play, and a tempering of the ego.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Amnon Beker, Concubine of Givah<\/em>, 2000, by courtesy of the artist<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56401,"id":56401,"title":"723","filename":"723.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/723.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/we-dont-always-know-the-right-thing-to-do\/attachment\/723\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"723","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56400,"date":"2019-05-29 18:44:52","modified":"2019-05-29 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