What’s Divine about Divine Law? by Christine Hayes

Author:Christine Hayes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE GAZE OF THE OTHER

Rabbinic nominalism is a self-aware choice. As evidence for this assertion we may adduce sources that explicitly present and grapple with a relatively more realist alternative to the nominalist position that is ultimately endorsed or adopted. These sources vary tremendously, however, in their treatment of the more realist view. In some cases, the realist position is delegitimized and the nominalist position is asserted. The delegitimation of the realist view is generally achieved by its displacement onto an “outsider”—usually a Sadducee or min (heretic)—whose attitude toward the more nominalist “insider” (Pharisaic-rabbinic) view is derisive and dismissive.72 In such cases, little or no accommodation is made to the mocking outsider’s perspective, and the nominalist position is affirmed despite the ridicule it inspires. In other cases, the realist position is not entirely delegitimized. This is generally achieved by a partial displacement onto a somewhat marginal insider—for example, anonymous “western rabbis” (who serve this function only in the Babylonian Talmud). The attitude of these anonymous “westerners” toward the normative nominalist position is also derisive and dismissive. However, because these mockers are not outside the Pharisaic-rabbinic estate but inside it, some accommodation may be made to their perspective: the nominalist position to which they object may be modified or constrained in response to the ridicule it has inspired. Finally, in some cases the realist position is legitimized. Legitimation occurs when the text “owns” the realist position as a fully rabbinic alternative that expresses incredulity at the nominalist position. In such cases, the realist view will be fully accommodated; the nominalist position that inspired ridicule will be obviated, annulled, transformed, or interpreted away.

Sources in which a realist perspective is fully or partially delegitimized and rabbinic nominalism is fully or partially upheld may be said to engage in a rhetoric of disclosure. By juxtaposing the two perspectives and maintaining the nominalist approach even if only partially, these sources consciously disclose the extent to which the rabbinic conception of divine law tolerates a nominalist orientation. Sources in which the realist perspective is fully accommodated and rabbinic nominalism is dismantled engage in a rhetoric of concealment. By erasing the nominalist alternative, these sources attempt to conceal the extent to which the rabbinic conception of divine law tolerates a nominalist orientation. Both are evidence of a high degree of self-consciousness of the tension between realist and nominalist approaches to the divine law on the part of their rabbinic authors. And both are motivated by a rabbinic awareness that a nominalist legal orientation has a tendency to inspire resistance and even ridicule among its opponents when its results are patently counterfactual, unempirical, or absurd.

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