Was the Author of Samuel a Political Philosopher?

In The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, published last year, Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes argue that the author of this biblical book is “an uncannily astute observer of politics” and tease out from his words a sophisticated political argument about the perils of monarchy. Sam Brody, while finding much to praise about The Beginning of Politics, also expresses some reservations:

The term “observer” is key here. Working as he did in narrative form, our anonymous writer is of course not to be regarded as a systematic political “theorist” in the Aristotelian mode, but rather as a witness to an experiment, namely the institution of dynastic monarchy in a society to which such governance had previously been foreign, and as a savvy and trenchant commentator on the pitfalls and dangers of that experiment. . . .

[One of the book’s problems] has to do with an attitude not uncommon to political scientists. Halbertal and Holmes argue that the author of Samuel is writing about politics, rather than merely staking out a partisan political position (say, pro-David or pro-House of Saul). The book of Samuel, [according to Halbertal and Holmes], has grander aims; it “sets forth the proper attitude that should be assumed toward the political project as a whole.” “The” political project, as seen here, is the centralization of political and military authority in a hierarchical structure with immense extractive power, including the ability to conscript and to tax. This is what makes Samuel relevant to our times—the dynastic monarchical form is only one historical manifestation of “the” political project; the liberal state is another, which could also be subject to the same critique. The attitude is tragic; horrific flaws are endemic to such politics, and yet they are necessary, as dramatized by God’s decision to abdicate the throne and allow the people to have a human king. “The” political project, then, is all of the following: autonomous, human, necessary, dangerous, flawed, and sovereign.

But we may ask ourselves whether this is, indeed, all that politics is. The decision to abandon the divine anarchy prevailing in [in the previous book of] Judges is presented in two ways that are somewhat in tension with each other: as absolutely necessary, and as a trade-off. “This is because leaderless interregna will inevitably invite attacks by foreign enemies and spark violent succession struggles, civil wars, or even a shattering of the community,” as Halbertal and Holmes explain at the beginning of the book.

But they then go on to explain how the choice for monarchy, itself, invited attacks by and on foreign enemies, violent succession struggles, civil wars, and even a shattering of the community. So why wouldn’t the conscious choice for anarchy—holistic, divine-human, contingent, dangerous, flawed, and non-sovereign—also count as “a” political project? . . . The answer, it seems to me, is tautological and embedded in the self-definition of political science as the study of a practice that can only truly emerge once God is dethroned. The real claim of The Beginning of Politics is that the author of Samuel engaged in such a study.

Read more at H-Net

More about: Hebrew Bible, History & Ideas, Political philosophy, Samuel

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society