Israel Salanter: an ethical sketch

Some weeks ago, looking up the general topic of Ethics in Louis Jacob’s The Jewish Religion: A Companion, I came across the entry on Israel Salanter, which begins:

Salanter, Israel Lithuanian Talmudist and religious thinker (1810–83), founder of the Musar movement. Israel’s family name was Lipkin, but he is known as Israel Salanter after the town of Salant  in which he grew up and where he studied to become an outstanding Talmudic scholar (although he sought wherever possible, to conceal his great learning). A gifted teacher, he encouraged his disciples not to rely on him but to work things out for themselves.  

The entry goes on to describe Salanter as having, in some measure, anticipated Freud’s notion (highly debatable in my view) of the unconscious, to the extent at least of identifying — or hypothesising — the existence in human beings of deep or primal drives. Following on from this, he acknowledged a darker side to human nature, and although it may be that there is a pessimistic strain to his thought—as there most certainly is to Freud’s — nevertheless Salanter’s life seems to have been one of urgent enquiry, and of indefatigable effort directed at getting men’s lives onto a sound ethical footing.

One book—by Hillel Goldberg—is listed at the end of Louis Jacob’s entry. It has the rather forbidding title: Israel Salanter: Text Studies Ideas. The Ethics and Theology of an Early Psychologist of the Unconscious (New York 1982). It is out of print, but I managed to get a copy second hand. It’s not, I confess, a book that I would want to read in its entirety. It’s really a book for scholars: Goldberg describes Salanter’s ‘frequent double entendres, his obscure syntax, and his recondite and idiosyncratic terminology . . .’ He also talks of ‘The exegetical burden of Rabbi Salanter’s entangled and elliptical corpus . . .’ Despite this, there are some suggestive, inspiring, and perfectly straightforward pieces to be found in his later—and generally more clearly expressed—work. The following is from his Kovno writings:

. . . Praise God that in our districts injunctions against consuming carrion and terefot [forbidden foods] have become innate in the Jewish soul, so that no man need coerce his nature and lust to keep afar from them; they are foreign to him. Indeed, it would not dawn upon a single butcher to be lax in consulting the rabbinic authority were anything found on the inner organs of an animal that rendered its ritual fitness suspect. Though the butcher sometimes suffer a major loss by consulting the authority [who may disqualify the ritual fitness of the animal], the fear of Heaven rests on the butcher by nature and habit;   far be it from him to do evil, to mislead a Jew [by supplying non–kosher meat]. But in our great iniquity the contrary is true in commercial relations. When their business dealings possibly entail thievery and extortion, most men will not be concerned prior to being sued, and there are some among them who, even after being sued, will employ deceitful devices [to evade the charges] or will be arrogant [in outright denial]. But in the Torah all are equal —  “thou shalt not eat meat rent in the field” ; “thou shalt not eat carrion” ; “thou shalt not extort thy neighbour” ; “thou shalt not steal” —  this is a negative commandment and that is a negative commandment, in the way of torah and her judgements.  

At first one might question the relevance of such strict (nineteenth century Lithuanian) dietary laws to anyone today — outside of orthodox circles. But this is, of course, to miss the point, which is the strikingly illustrated contrast between the perfectly upheld dietary laws, and the disgracefully flouted moral laws in commercial matters — and no  doubt in other areas too. The question is, how does it come about that people are law–abiding in one sphere and corrupt or unethical in another? Or, to give another example, why is it that I would not dream of stealing the least part of someone’s property, yet might not scruple to gossip about them? Well, I have no direct answer to that, but it does seem to me to be a very worthwhile question. And surely, to ask the question—about each of those areas in which we are less than comfortable about ourselves — is bound to have salutary results.

But there is a further strand to Israel Salanter’s thought: he has a kind of ‘ethical calculus’, a way — that seems entirely legitimate — of assessing the relative merit of actions. Hillel Goldberg sets it out, with perfect clarity, as follows:

. . . Our present point of departure, then, is to note that performance or transgression of halakhic precepts (the criterion of reward and punishment) is defined not merely by the objective deed but by one’s existential circumstances, inner feelings, and social pressures. Rabbi Israel offers the following example. In the event that a man on the brink of starvation presents himself to both a wealthy man and a pauper, both are equally obligated to extend their resources to him. Though the pauper himself might not control sufficient funds or food to keep himself alive for two days, he is nonetheless obligated to extend maximum aid to the starveling since the latter’s demise is immediate. The equal obligation of the wealthy man and the pauper notwithstanding, the halakhic merit of the pauper for his contribution far excels that of the wealthy man for his contribution. Conversely, were both to spurn the starveling, the demerit of the wealthy man would far exceed that of the pauper.

This seems to be a precise way of expressing something that most of us have probably half formulated in our minds as being true. Nevertheless its impact arises from its precise and surprising formulation. Of course, the tidiness of the example may seem a far cry from the messiness of everyday life, and we certainly do not want to end up “calculating kindness and measuring out pity.” But that would again be to miss the point, which is to give greater consideration to our actions — to habituate ourselves to holding them up to the light. And it has to be said that the ‘specimen in the jar’ can look pretty gross at times. 

One more quotation from Salanter seems relevant here:

As our sages, of blessed memory, state (Sotah 21a):  “Torah, when a person is engaged in studying it, rescues . . .” Regardless of which words of Torah a person studies, Torah rescues from sin. If a person studies the case of  “the bull that gored the cow,” and the like, it rescues him, even from the sin of slander and the like, though the two have no relation to each other — the sheer spirituality [ruhaniyyut] of the Torah will protect him.

I confess that I would not myself be looking in the Torah for ethical guidance: a bigger mess of literary pottage I have yet to find! Nevertheless, this does not vitiate Salanter’s essential point that effort is required. J B Priestly in one of his essays says that he ‘does not think that a person can stand still for any significant length of time without going to seed. Well, quite so. Cicero even goes so far as to say that, ‘if we would have the truth, the soul must strain every nerve in the performance of all duties; in this alone does duty find its safeguard.’ Not very fashionable this latter view, but then it has nothing to do with fashion, and it remains absolutely pertinent if anything is to get done, and we have no alternative but to force the pace relative to the circumstances we happen to be in.

Anyway, I do not see why we should not propose a toast: ‘To Israel Salanter and the Lithuanian dietary laws!’