Minding the Gap: Judaism Between Law and Ethics ©Ariella atzmon
To talk about ethics is no easy task. In contemporary liberal democracies we are witnessing a severe tendency towards dismissing ethics and morality in favor of legal maneuvers. Contrariwise, referring to the ethical judgment as a vigilant act, attributable to the transcendental subject rather than to the empirical individual, hints at the uncanniness of human existence.
In compliance with this position I contend that viewing justice in legalist terms signifies the Westerners’ betrayal of its 'polis' heritage, where the political is bound to ethics. In Sophocles’ Antigone Heidegger presents us with a human swirl, as a reflection upon arguing rightly and thinking humanely[i]. In violating the overpowering limiting power of ‘Being’ poetically, creative thinkers have created ‘the place’ in the polis, where the rhetorician, politician, philosopher, or legislator aspired to convince the public about the 'truth value' of innovative bits of knowledge in order to be won. Physics which epitomizes the fluidity of concepts that once had been defined, their content being constantly altered, reminds us of the ‘empty space’ in the centre of the polis. In Judaism, where ‘truth’ is divine, this ‘empty space’ does not exist! Thus, it is deprived of the ethical whirling experience. The question is: How is it possible for the ethical episode to happen, if science and art are prohibited, and justice is replaced by obedience? Jewish law tolerates neither empty spaces to be filled up by rhetoric, nor disparity to be acted out by the means of theatre or epics.
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Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 4:49PM 
Western cultural heritage provides us with a few interesting fictional characters who may be able to throw light on the current moral state of Israel and the latest organ trafficking affair in particular.
