An Essay on Liberalism and Public Theology
A two thousand year old Palestinian legend tells of a would-be pagan convert approaching the two great sages of the day, Shammai and Hillel, and asking both in turn to capture the essence of Judaism while standing on one foot. Shammai snapped at the arrogant young man and drove him off with a stick....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2000
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 2000, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 229-283 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | A two thousand year old Palestinian legend tells of a would-be pagan convert approaching the two great sages of the day, Shammai and Hillel, and asking both in turn to capture the essence of Judaism while standing on one foot. Shammai snapped at the arrogant young man and drove him off with a stick. Hillel accepted the challenge: "What is hateful unto you, do not unto your neighbor. The rest is commentary—now go and study."Were the exhortation to forebear conduct toward others that is hurtful to oneself not so often ignored in real life, its reiteration here would be wearisome. But phrased as Hillel—or as Matthew—does, it remains mostly an aspiration. In this essay, I place the prescription front and center by asking what it might mean, even in theory, to urge love for one's neighbors as for oneself in a pluralist, liberal democratic society. Is it even theoretically possible to achieve? Does it matter? Could it be realized if we treat everyone in exactly same way, and do so from within the same internally constructed frameworks that we bring to the rest of the world? Such a conclusion hardly seems likely, if love of one's neighbor contains a universal prescription for peaceful co-existence; we seem ill-prepared as a public to facilitate the norm. Hillel's vision, rooted in Leviticus, thus partakes of both the trivial and the majestic: of the trivial because it appears as a vaguely-worded, uselessly abstract appeal devoid of substance; but at the same time there's deceptive majesty because the genuine enduring sovereignty of the idea, though often heavily weighed down by the earth's sometimes dreary trappings, is undeniable. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3556572 |