Thinking about Good and Evil (Rabbi Wayne Allen) - A Review
Theodicy
(the defense of God in the face of evil) remains a central area of concern of
religious folk, no matter their religious tradition. In fact, the question of
the existence of evil, whether natural or not, is perhaps the biggest reason
for people to reject the idea of the divine. Each religious tradition offers its
own answers, which may or may not resolve questions. Theologians and
philosophers have devoted significant ink to explaining the existence of evil
and how that might fit a particular theological position. Interestingly, it
doesn’t seem that people are concerned about the good. It’s the evil that
they’re concerned about.
As a
Christian, I have read my share of Christian engagements with the question. There
are those who suggest that what we consider evil is simply a working out of
God’s ultimate plan for the world. Others suggest that we will need to adjust
our thinking about the nature of God. Perhaps God is not all-powerful and thus
can’t prevent evil from happening. Instead, God is a fellow sufferer, offering
comfort to us as we experience tragedy, suffering, and the reality of evil. While
it is good to hear from our own traditions, it can be helpful to hear other
ways of thinking. What do other faith traditions offer as explanations for the
way things are?
As is
true of most religious traditions that have any longevity, there will be more
than one way of answering the question of the nature of good and evil. That is
true for Christianity, and it is true for Judaism. We see this reality present
in Rabbi Wayne Allen’s book Thinking about Good and Evil. Rabbi Allen is the co-chair of the Rabbinics
Department at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto.
He is the author of several books besides the one under review.
Thinking about Good and Evil is Allen’s contribution to the JPS Essential Judaism
Series. As Allen notes in his
preface, this series is designed to cover “essential topics in Judaism for a
general yet sophisticated readership” (p. xi). The emphasis needs to be placed
on the word sophisticated. Allen writes for a lay audience, but this is a deep
and comprehensive look at one of the most challenging issues faced by every
religious tradition. Since this is written from a Jewish perspective, the
reality of the Holocaust is a central part of modern Jewish thinking on this
issue. It’s not just a scholarly exercise, it is an existential area of
concern. Having noted that in his earlier studies what he encountered largely
failed to satisfy his own questions. Therefore, in this book, he wants to help
the reader (primarily Jewish readers) pursue their questions. He recognizes
that he cannot offer an exhaustive presentation or a “conclusive solution to
the problem.” That is because “the problem of good and evil in Judaism has
proved to be both intractable and insoluble. Therefore, he offers here “a
guided tour through selected important sources in the Jewish tradition that
explore good and evil” (p. xvii). The goal then is to provide resources to the
reader so they can better understand the reality of good and evil in the world.
With that in mind, he also notes that his focus isn’t on the writings of Jewish
philosophers, but on ideas and then the sources in which these ideas are
discussed. So, the figures and sources he draws into the conversation are meant
to be representative and inclusive when it comes to modern thinkers—thus, he
draws on thinkers from Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist
movements.
With
this in mind, Allen begins the tour. He does so chronologically, beginning with
Genesis and moving forward through time. He covers all the major biblical
areas, as well as the apocryphal writers, and then a wide variety of Jewish
thinkers who have contemplated these questions down through the centuries. Thus,
chapter one focuses on the biblical and apocryphal texts. Chapter 2 explores
Rabbinic approaches. Included in this chapter is a discussion of the approaches
found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Philo. Moving forward from there, in chapter
3, Allen looks at how the subject of good and evil was dealt with by medieval
philosophy. This section includes discussions of figures such as Abraham ibn
Daud, Maimonides, and others, most of whom were previously unknown to me. If
chapter three focuses on medieval philosophy, the next chapter focuses on
mystical traditions, including Kabbalah. From there, Allen moves to the Hasidic
Masters. Chapter 6 takes a look at early modern thinkers such as Spinoza and
Mendelssohn. Finally, in chapter seven we come to the modern thinkers such as
Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, and Judith Plaskow, among others. With each step
forward in time, we see how diverse the perspectives really are. Some writers
emphasize God’s sovereignty while others question it.
When we
get to chapter seven, we’ve come to the modern age, but Allen is not finished
with the conversation. Chapter 8 focuses on “The Special Problem of the Shoah.”
He writes of the Shoah that it “has profoundly affected the Jewish
understanding of the nature of evil. Likewise, the Shoah presents the problem
of reconciling that revised understanding of the nature of evil with the
traditional conception of God” (p. 273). This is a chapter that Christians will
want to pay close attention to because it raises questions that are bigger than the ones we often consider. After all, the Holocaust/Shoah/Hurban involved
an attempt to exterminate a particular people. Should it surprise us that even
the vocabulary used to describe and define this reality is contested? Allen
helps us understand why the terms and labels used are contested. Besides the
labels used and the difficulty determining which one fits. Besides the question
of labels, there is the question of exceptionality. How is the Jewish experience
of genocide different from other forms of oppression experienced by Jews
throughout history? What is perhaps most interesting here is the difference in
perspectives. There are traditionalists, some of whom perished in the camps,
who defended the traditional view of God's sovereignty. Then there are the
radical revisionists such as Richard Rubenstein who found it necessary to
rethink the nature of God and even whether God exists. Finally, there are what Allen
calls the Deflectors, those who found it impossible to continue embracing
traditional views of God but at the same time not willing to follow the
Radicals.
Allen concludes
his thorough study of Jewish perspectives on the challenge of holding together belief
in “an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God and the simultaneous
existence of evil in the world” (p. 323) Jews ask the same questions we all ask,
why do the righteous suffer and the wicked seem to prosper. If God is expected
to protect the innocent and punish the wicked, why do we see evil continue to
be with us? How does one believe in God in light of reality? That is the question
being asked down through the ages. There is no consensus when it comes to
answers. So, in the conclusion, he lists thirty-five Jewish answers to the
question of why there is evil in the world and twenty-two reasons why we suffer
which summarizes what we encounter throughout the book. As for a definitive
answer, that is still not forthcoming. But, as Allen notes, “the plethora of
theodicies demonstrate that thinkers past and present fixate on two quintessential
Jewish values: justice and goodness” (p. 332).
The two
values Allen speaks of—justice and goodness—along with a Jewish commitment to holding
God accountable to these values is enlightening and instructive not just for
Jews but for others, especially Christians who see themselves rooted in the
Jewish tradition. We draw from the same biblical texts for guidance. We affirm
the message of Micah 6:8, that God expects of us that we do justice, love
goodness, and walk humbly before God. So, here we have a rather comprehensive
look at how our Jewish friends and neighbors have wrestled with this principle
of justice and goodness even as they and we struggle with the reality of evil
in the world. Thus, Rabbi Allen’s Thinking about Good and Evil is a most
fruitful resource to be consulted whether one is Jewish or not.
Comments