Morality & Ethics

Celebrating the “Time of our Freedom” with a look at the of problem of non-Israelite slavery in the Torah.

In the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School

Using Source Criticism to Disentangle a Moral Problem in the Torah

The rabbis claim that a “subverted” or “apostate” city, which Deuteronomy (13:13-18) condemns to destruction, “never was and never will be” (t. San. 14:1). Yet the account in Judges 19-21 of the destruction or ḥerem of Gibeah, its inhabitants, animals, and property, suggests that such “internal ḥerem” was an Israelite practice, and that Gibeah is being presented as a subverted city.

Morally problematic halachot remain on the books despite rabbinic attempts to transform or reinterpret them. How do we relate to these texts as Torah from Sinai, coming from God?

How the biblical law makes use of a martial idiom to forbid Israel from being cruel to a mother bird.

A Historical-Critical Reading 

The Bible already expresses ambivalence about Hebrew slavery, the rabbis expand upon it and Maimonides takes the next step, applying the negative evaluation of slavery even to non-Israelites.

The Torah and Bavli vs. the Prophets and Yerushalmi

A Time-Honored Tradition

The anomalous and paradoxical nature of the twelfth curse (Deuteronomy 27:26).

The Torah describes a practice of declaring people cherem, which means that the person, and—in some cases—his family, would be annihilated, and his possessions donated to the Temple. The rabbis were unhappy with this law and used their homiletical approach to “obliterate” it.

Tanakh as Beyond the Sum of Its Parts

Confronting the description in Megillat Esther of the Jews killing 75,000 including women and children

A Test Case in Dealing with Morally Problematic Biblical Laws