Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The first Republican

With the recent death of William Buckley, there has been a lot of talk about how he was the "father of conservatism". But if we look at Bava Batra 10a, we can see that this movement goes back much earlier.

(Note: It's not clear that Turnus Rufus was an actual historical figure. Most of his Google hits yield references to rabbinic literature. But that doesn't matter.)

וזו שאלה שאל טורנוסרופוס הרשע את ר"ע אם אלהיכם אוהב עניים הוא מפני מה אינו מפרנסם א"ל כדי שניצול אנו בהן מדינה של גיהנם

The wicked Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva this question: "If your God loves the poor, why doesn't [your God] provide for them?" [Rabbi Akiva] said to him: "So that we can be saved through them from the judgment of Gehinnom." [I.e., so that we have the opportunity to give tzedakah.]

This isn't the main point of the post, but I'll interrupt for a second and say that, even though Turnus Rufus is asking a tough theological question that anyone would have an understandably difficult time answering, I find Rabbi Akiva's answer to be especially lame. People in the world are suffering so that I can get mitzvah points? What kind of self-centered worldview is that? This sounds like something we'd expect to hear from a late-seasons Ned Flanders on a day when the writers are feeling particularly bitter towards religious hypocrisy. (Though to be fair, given what we know about Rabbi Akiva's encounters with the Roman authorities, he may have been answering the question under pressure, and his thoughts may have been unusually focused on otherworldly matters.) But anyway.

א"ל [אדרבה] זו שמחייבתן לגיהנם אמשול לך משל למה הדבר דומה למלך בשר ודם שכעס על עבדו וחבשו בבית האסורין וצוה עליו שלא להאכילו ושלא להשקותו והלך אדם אחד והאכילו והשקהו כששמע המלך לא כועס עליו

[Turnus Rufus] said to him: "On the contrary, this makes you liable for Gehinnom! I'll tell you a parable. What is the thing like? Like a king of flesh and blood who got angry at his servant and locked him in prison, and ordered that he not be brought food and water, and another person went and brought him food and water. When the king heard, wouldn't he get angry at him?"

And here we have conservative philosophy in a nutshell. The supreme being (called God in the "religious" manifestations of political conservatism, or called the free market / invisible hand in the secular manifestations) determines everyone's position in society, and messing with this is a sin. Thus, government intervention in the economy is wrong, except insofar as it helps to bolster this preordained social / economic / educational / etc. hierarchy. (In the latter case, government intervention is acceptable, because it is carrying out the will of [fill in the blank].) Even individual intervention is questionable, and should be very limited in scope so as not to arouse the anger of "the king".

The Talmud places this philosophy into the mouth of the wicked Turnus Rufus. Draw your own conclusions.

6 comments:

  1. Even individual intervention is questionable, and should be very limited in scope so as not to arouse the anger of "the king".

    Please cite a non-wingnut conservative source that feels this way. In general, most conservatives I know feel more like the first Rabbi Akiva answer - charity is better distributed and has a greater chance of lifting people out of poverty if it is provided and distributed by people as close to the scene as possible.

    This follows a basic conservative principle - have local issues decided on a local level, and national issues on a national level. The federal government can and should try to influence the economy, but the immediate problem of the poor person in front of you is best dealt with at the local level. The Talmud itself recognizes that one is obligated to give tzedakah first to one's family, then to the resident's of one city, and then ever outward in a growing geographical area.

    I don't fully agree with this approach, but I think you've set up a straw man rather than grappled with a real attitude.

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  2. according to Shtainzaltz, Turnus-Rufus is Tineus "Tyrranos" Rufus

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  3. In general, most conservatives I know feel more like the first Rabbi Akiva answer - charity is better distributed and has a greater chance of lifting people out of poverty if it is provided and distributed by people as close to the scene as possible.

    Bingo. "Charity" (rather than systemic change) is the key word, because it deals with the immediate concern of giving a man a fish while preserving the overall social order. If you want, Rabbi Akiva here represents "compassionate" conservatives (who may or may not exist in real life, but at least his selfish justification is more honest than what we hear from politicians) and Turnus Rufus represents the root ideology of the conservative movement (since "compassionate conservatism" was cooked up mostly as a marketing tool).

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  4. is the mitzvah of individual charity, then, a 'compassionate conservative' mitzvah? after all, the mitzvot of maaser ani, leket, shikcha, and pe'ah imply that i have land and another does not, and that i sustain him with personal benevolence. granted, you can always fall back on Rambam's position that teaching a craft is the highest form of charity, and we're certainly happy to use that formulation rather over a chinese proverb about fish, but the basic obligation of 'tzedaka' remains individual and, alas, inevitable in the biblical worldview.
    having recently moved to a country where 'tzedaka' is imposed (at a rate much greater than 10%) to feed a highly inefficient welfare system, leaving me barely any funds to donate to the worthy recipient of my choice, leaves me viscerally but staunchly in r. akiva's camp.

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  5. Is it possible that this is what Rabbi Akiva is saying:
    "I don't know how God works. What I do know is that it is people's responsibility to alleviate poverty. Now quit asking philosophical questions and invite that person over for dinner."

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  6. is the mitzvah of individual charity, then, a 'compassionate conservative' mitzvah?

    The mitzvah itself (in our imperfect world), no. The assumption that the state of the world that makes this mitzvah necessary is the way that things should be, perhaps.

    after all, the mitzvot of maaser ani, leket, shikcha, and pe'ah imply that i have land and another does not, and that i sustain him with personal benevolence.

    Those don't depend on benevolence (except the specific quantity of pe'ah); they depend on people carrying out their obligations. In that regard, they're the same as taxes (which I support), except for the enforcement mechanism.

    having recently moved to a country where 'tzedaka' is imposed (at a rate much greater than 10%) to feed a highly inefficient welfare system, leaving me barely any funds to donate to the worthy recipient of my choice, leaves me viscerally but staunchly in r. akiva's camp.

    If I lived in Israel permanently, I might move towards that position. :) I don't think chaza"l or anyone else could have anticipated a society in which a significant and growing sector of the population is voluntarily indigent and dependent on public funds.

    Ezra-
    Thanks! I like that reading a lot better than mine.

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