{"id":11989,"date":"2009-04-04T14:16:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-04T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2009\/04\/04\/11989.html"},"modified":"2018-06-11T09:57:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T14:57:08","slug":"pirke-avot-verse-eighteen-just","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2009\/04\/04\/pirke-avot-verse-eighteen-just\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirke Avot, verse eighteen: justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We’re sticking with the Judah Goldin translation of this last verse in Book One:\n

Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: By three things is the world sustained: By justice<\/strong>, by truth, and by peace, as it is said, Truth and justice and peace judge ye in your gates <\/i>(Zechariah 8:16)<\/a>.<\/blockquote>\n

Here is where Simeon ben Gamaliel does something that seems odd to me: he uses Zechariah as a proof text, but instead of using the word mishpat<\/I> that Zechariah uses, he uses din<\/i>. What’s the difference? And if he was going to use a different word, why not tzedek<\/i>? I don’t think I can figure that out. They are used in the context of legal cases, and they are used in the context of Divine judgements. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement is also called Yom Din, the Day of Judgment. So there’s that.\n

In the proof text, Zecheriah does not seem (to me or the translators generally) to be talking about justice<\/i> in the abstract but concrete judgments<\/i>. The RSV says render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace<\/i>; I am not capable of doing my own translation but from what I can see, it seems like the RSV is closer than Mr. Goldin and Rabban Simeon. But that still doesn’t help me with the context in Pirke Avot<\/i>, other than to think that there was some reason for him to choose din<\/i> over mishpat<\/I>, and that it has something to do with his reason for using that proof text in that way. But then I’m stumped.\n

So. I’m left with the English, with truth, justice and peace<\/i>. If I was looking at truth<\/a> as something close to empirical observation<\/i>, can I look at justice<\/i> and being closer to judgement<\/i> and something close to reasoned analysis<\/i>? Well, I probably could, and I don’t think it would be the most outrageous interpretation out there. But I’m not willing to go that far today. I am willing to say that I don’t interpret the verse as being about justice<\/i> in the sense of, well, righteousness, of social equality, of fundamental sharing of the joys of the world. Nor am I willing to interpret it in the sense of Divine Justice, of theodicy and retribution and so on. No, I see this as justice<\/i> in a legal framework. I think that the leg that supports the world is a court system that works by rules and that attempts to render decisions, judgements, in accordance with those rules and with every possible attempt at impartiality and accuracy.\n

Did I before imply that Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel was warning against zealotry and fanaticism? That he was responding to the particular interactions of Rome and Jerusalem? Here I imply that he was warning against the dangers of a court system that is seen to be unjust.\n

To address for the moment our contemporary world, I think that many of us on the American Left (howls of derisive laughter) who consider ourselves interested in justice<\/i> are aware that the US court system (and Justice Department) is badly broken in many ways. But I suspect that I am not alone in thinking that it’s a bit of a low priority, what with, you know, a couple of wars still being fought, a shithole economy, and the carbon in the atmosphere getting too big to fail. I mean, yes, right, problematic, but come on. And, really, given limited resources and all, and the difficulties of finding political levers to move the system, I do think that it’s a bit of a low priority. But I think Simeon is correct in describing it as a pillar of civilization; a criminal and civil system seen to be illegitimate is not just a Very Bad Thing in an abstract sense, but a danger, and a growing one.\n

The question, or a necessary question, when rambling through the wisdom of the Sages, is when to take a particular piece of wisdom as personal advice for personal and spiritual well-being, and when to take it as advice for personal action within the larger stage for the well-being of the community. I don’t mean to say that the Sages couldn’t tell the difference. Or that they tended to favor one over the other. And perhaps the thing to do, as I do with a lot of these, is to read them again and again, taking their context as changing with my own, because that’s why they call it Scripture. But I think it’s easier for us to take this triple personally, and resolve to be truthful and peaceful and just in our own dealing with our families and neighbors, and miss out on the community meaning. And veesey versey, of course.\n

Hm. I feel like I should come up with a nifty concluding paragraph, but I still have all of peace<\/i> to write about and my time for TohuBohufying is almost up. So.\n

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Which Your Humble Blogger would have written a shorter note, but I ran out of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-11989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture","tag-pirkeavot"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18722,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11989\/revisions\/18722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}