Judaism Post - yay!

I am currently reading "The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Documentary History", edited by Lynn Hunt*.

I saw this quote by the Abbe Reynal, which really struck a chord with me: "But in man, liberty is the principle of his vices or his virtues. None but a free man can say I will or I won't, and consequently none but a free man can be worthy of praise or be liable to censure. Without liberty or the property of one's own body, and the enjoyment of one's mind, no man can be either a husband, a father, a relation, or a friend. He has neither country, a fellow citizen, or a God."

This passage reminded me a lot of Maimonidean theology, in which the institution of positive and negative commandments, with reward and punishment, is predicated on humanity's free will: If human does not have freedom of choice, there is no point in commanding him anything, since he can not control his actions - if he is going to murder, he is going to murder, and commanding him otherwise won't change anything. Instituting punishment and reward over a person who has not control of his actions makes no sense either, and of course, in such a case, obeying the commandments could not be taken as a sign of one's obedience to God or desire to have a relationship with God, since it was not a choice. Essentially, Maimonides takes the very existence of commandments with rewards and punishments attached as proof of humanity's free will.

It is interesting the scientce zealots sometimes impute humans to not have freedom, because their actions are mostly due to biology - mostly DNA and psychological conditions - that prevent their being able to control their actions. There was recently a case where a person tried to defend themself by arguing they were on a sugar high and thus not responsible for their actions when the crime occurred. To deny a person agency, as these zealots (a very small minority) do, is to deny them freedom, according to the Abbe Reynal.

I was also struck by his comments on the slave not having a family and not having a God: Studies show that the enslavement of Africans in the New World tore apart family structures within the slave community, and I keep on thinking of Shemot, when Pharaoh tells the midwives to kill the babies, and then instructs the nation to throw them into the sea, as well as the exegesis that following decree B, the men did not want to have babies, but the women insisted on having sex with their husbands, and babies naturally followed. I wonder if these stories are all hinting at the human truth that the institution of slavery destroys the family life and natural reproduction cycles of those enslaved - In the Carribean and South America, for example, there was lack of reproduction and carrying babies to term due to hard labor conditions and malnutrition, as well as high infant mortality because mothers could not care properly for babies. Sometimes mothers or midwives also killed babies in birth, making it look like an accident, to rebel against the master and save their child from a life they viewed as unbearable. While it is impossible to extrapolate from one society to another, since Egypt of the Exodus is described as a slave society, it is possible to speculate that family life was disrupted in ways similiar to the slave society of the Carribean and parts of Latin America, which is a more modern and better documented example of a slave society.

I was also struck by the slave-not-having-a-God line, because in the Exodus, God frees the Israelites from slavery so that they may serve him, recognizing that they can not do so when they are enslaved, since their bodies and time belong to human masters. The emphasis in the Passover seder is not just on physical freedom, but on that freedom being a means that enables one to worship God properly, and without which one could not worship Him.**

I find it fascinating when modern (and yes, the French Revolution is usually used to denote the start of modernity, though this document does slightly proceed the revolution itself) philosophy intersects so nicely with Jewish theology.

Related Links:

Here is the Raynal writing: http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/278/

Here is a short article on medieval Jewish theology: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Theology/Free_Will/Responses/Medieval.shtml

* This does not help my attempts to disprove those who label me a nerdette.
** Used because English has no gender neutral pronoun. I do use Her sometimes, as well. I used to use HimHer, but it reminded me too much of Siva statues that engender both sexes, so I stopped. This Siva is called the Ardhanarishvara. Here is the brittanica definition: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/33339/Ardhanarishvara
and an image from the Met: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/60006130