Same God, Other God: Judaism, Hinduism, and the Problem of Idolatry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) by Rabbi
Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein
Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim
Klein
Dr. Alan Brill recently posted an
interview with Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein on his blog. I read that interview with
great interest, as I am currently conducting research for a follow-up to my
book God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press,
2018). While my published book focuses on the history of the struggle
between Jewish monotheism and idolatry as depicted in the Bible, my current
research focuses on the theological/philosophical struggle between Jewish
monotheism and what is termed Avodah Zarah. In short, the question of
how to look at Hinduism is quite germane to my line of research.
In fact, one of the issues I hope
to address in my research is the Halachic status of Hinduism. To that end, Dr.
Sperber graciously sent me an advance copy of his hitherto-unpublished book
about the Jewish take on Hinduism, and that has done much to introduce me to
the topic. After that, I read Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein’s book Same God,
Other God: Judaism, Hinduism, and the Problem of Idolatry (Palgrave Macmillan,
2016) which, in many significant ways, overlaps with Dr. Sperber’s work.
However, while Dr. Sperber argues that Hinduism is not considered avodah
zarah, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein seeks to revisit the label of avodah zarah
altogether and almost erase it.
Both Drs. Sperber and
Goshen-Gottstein have done a great service to us by opening up the discussion
and giving us a framework by which we can consider how to approach Hinduism
from a Jewish perspective, but in my opinion their foregone conclusions are not
acceptable.
I have jotted down my reactions
to this discussion and organized them into four sections: First, I will discuss
in which realm this discussion ought to belong (the Halachic vs. the
social/political), afterwards I will engage in the specific sources that Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein cited. Then, I will consider Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s concept of
“religious imagination”, and, finally, I will suggest a way of reformulating
the question with which Dr. Goshen-Gottstein grapples in a way that I would
find it more acceptable and meaningful. Afterwards, I will briefly summarize my
position and conclude this essay.
The Issue of Perspective
As both Drs. Sperber and
Goshen-Gottstein mention, the question of Hinduism’s status is a very practical
one. This is because the ramifications of that question reverberate throughout
the Orthodox world in the so-called sheitel (wig) controversy. It has
been determined that almost all wigs worn by Orthodox Jewish ladies use human
hair which is taken from ritual tonsuring at Hindu temples in India. If
Hinduism is considered idolatrous, then those hairs would be considered
idolatrous contraband by Halacha. Such contraband is not only forbidden from
consumption, but is forbidden from all types of benefit. If Hinduism can be
proven to be non-idolatrous, then the hairs from Hindu temples do not pose a
Halachic problem. The controversy surrounding this question continues to rage
on in the Hareidi world in Israel and abroad. Another practical ramification of
this question is whether or not a Hindu touching wine renders it truly yayn
nesech.
That said, I would like to raise
some questions about Dr. Brill’s introduction to his interview with Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein and about Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s answers. Dr. Brill claims
that Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s work “encourages the reader to bracket out the
technical halakhic questions of foreign worship in order to see a common
religious goal”, yet, it is precisely those Halachic questions which fuel the
question. If Halachic considerations were jettisoned, then we would have no
need for this entire discussion—one can do or believe whatever one wants, there
is nothing holding one back. In fact, I fail to understand how the term avodah
zarah has any meaning when divorced from the Halachic/theological context. Dr.
Brill seemingly advocates taking the concept of avodah zarah out of the
realm of the Halachic and into the realm of interpersonal relationships. This,
of course, is not at all the original intent of the idea.
In his book, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein
writes that refraining from wearing wigs with Indian hair is “but one
expression of a broader tendency to avoid all contact with avoda zara,
and consequently with its practitioners and eventually with all forms of
otherness” (pg. 33). He claims that such “exclusion” is “an important component
of Jewish identity politics” (there). In this, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein ignores the
Halachic basis for restrictions against deriving benefit from idolatrous
sacrifices. Instead, he implicitly accuses the rabbis of fabricating Biblical
prohibitions for the sake of social engineering.
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein bolsters his
position by repeating Dr. Yechezkel Kaufmann’s trope about the Bible not
understanding the true nature of idolatry (pp. 35–36). He uses this trope to
justify his claim that avodah zarah should no longer be something
derided and mocked. In Goshen-Gottstein’s view, it seems, avodah zarah is
really about building a wall and taking the Benedict Option to socially
insulate the Jewish People from their surroundings. Because he fails to see the
value in that, Goshen-Gottstein suggests rethinking our approach avodah
zarah in general in order to conform with the in-vogue concept of global
coexistence.
However, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein fails
to even consider an alternative approach. He does not mention that Dr. Jose
Faur extensively wrote to debunk Kaufmann’s claims decades ago, as did his
protégé Dr. Alan Yuter. In their assessment, it seems that the Bible and the
rabbis were well-aware of the pagan idea that the god-spirit is not quite identical
to the idol, but rather dwells within the idol. (In Faur’s estimation,
this nuance was only understood by the elite, while the masses indeed mistook
the idol for the god itself.) Despite this, the Bible still repudiates
the idea of idolatry. This is not done for social reasons, but because such
worship is objectively immoral/wrong (granted, there is still room to explore
whether this only applies to the wanton idolater and not the inadvertent or
innocent idolater). Dr. Goshen-Gottstein, on the other hand, assumes bad faith
on the part of the Bible and the rabbis, and, to some extent, reduces the
prohibitions of avodah zarah to the realm of the social.
As Dr. Goshen-Gottstein himself
admits (pg. 35), the Hindu conception of the idol is quite similar to the
Mesopotamian idolatry which the prophets of the Bible rallied against. This, of
course, suggests that the Bible would equally oppose Hinduism—a suggestion
which Goshen-Gottstein would rather not consider.
Discussion of Specific Sources
In Part III of his book, Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein follows Halbertal’s model of developing from traditional
Jewish sources multiple definitions of what is considered avodah zarah. I have long felt that the drawback
of Halbertal’s presentation is that he propagates the notion of multiple
parallel definitions of avodah zarah which are mutually exclusive and incompatible
with one another. I am not sure that this approach is the most helpful. As I
will explain below, I prefer to think that, in practice, for something to be
cleared of the accusation of avodah zarah it has to escape all
definitions of avodah zarah; it is not enough to not be considered avodah
zarah according to one authority.
Maimonides: Either way,
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein opens the discussion with Maimonides. According to
Maimonides, since God is incorporeal and does not have a body, He cannot be
depicted by an idol or icon or image. However, Maimonides stops short of
calling one who worships God as a corporeal being an “idolater”. He applies the
term min to such a person. Given this paradigm, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein
argues that there may be room to view Hinduism as non-idolatrous, if we can
prove that the images they worship are actually meant to be depictions of the
same God that we Jews worship. Even though Maimonides would say that such
depictions are wrong/inaccurate because He has no body, those who worship such
images would not necessarily be considered idolaters, but only minim.
This is indeed quite an
interesting supposition and should be considered more thoroughly. I would however
stress that this only works if one could positively prove that the
images venerated by Hindus actually depict the same God that we worship. The
problem with this approach (and indeed this is the tension which
Goshen-Gottstein attempts to alleviate in Part IV of his book) is that we would
be hard-pressed to conclusively prove that we worship the same God. In
my own book (God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry, pp. 37;
129–132), I cited a bevy of traditional sources who contend that even if one
worships a god who is called the name of the Tetragrammaton, one is still
considered worshipping avodah zarah if that worship entails venerating
an image. Many of the sources which proffer this view explicitly do so in
accordance with Maimonides.
Nachmanides: Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein then turns to Nachmanides to help try and justify his stance.
In his interview, he claims that Nachmanides “develops a theory of
permissibility of worship of other beings for non-Jews, provided they remain
aware of the existence of the Supreme Being.” The problem with this assertion
is that Nachmanides writes no such thing. While Nachmanides does set forth “a
theory of distribution of divine providence to nations through their governing
angels”, he never writes as Dr. Goshen-Gottstein does “Non-Jews are allowed to
worship the celestial beings who provide for them. Why should it forbidden to
them? The only thing is that they need to remember that beyond these angels is
the one God who put it all in place.” In truth, Nachmanides simply writes that
while God may use other forces as His tools to influence the various nations of
the world, He influences the Jewish Nation directly. This does not mean that
Nachmanides maintains that non-Jews are actually allowed to worship
those other forces.
In his book, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein
(pg. 68) admits that Nachmanides does not explicitly allow gentiles to worship
their governing angels, but instead adduces this view from a responsa penned by
Nachmanides’ student Rashba. The truth is that Rashba too is equivocal in his
stance. The most relevant sentence that Rashba writes is “whoever worships the
astral force that rules over that place is not like one who worships avodah
zarah—as long as he knows and recognizes that that astral force only has
dominion because God made it the ruler of that land”. Even this sentence does
not explicitly say that it is permitted for gentiles to worship their
governing angels only that somehow it “is not like one who worships avodah
zarah”.
[I will also point out that there
is no evidence that this responsum was actually penned by Rashba. In both the
Mossad HaRav Kook and Machon Yerushalayim editions of Rashba’s responsa, this
particular responsum appears with a note that it was originally published before
WWII by Joseph Perles from a manuscript which has since “disappeared”.]
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein takes this
view of Nachmanides/Rashba a step further, and argues that when God apportioned
the gentiles to various other forces, part of the apportioning includes the
imaginative realm in which the various nations can represent their own forces
in philosophical/metaphysical terms. We will discuss this later.
Returning to Nachmanides, Dr.
Moshe Halbertal notes that Nachmanides’ model is quite similar to that
presented by the last Pagan emperor of Rome, Julian the Apostate (331–336 CE):
“Our writers say that the creator is the common father and king of all things,
but that the other functions have been assigned by him to national gods of the
peoples and gods that protect the cities, every one of whom administers his own
department in accordance with his own nature.” If pagan philosophers agreed to
almost the same cosmic order as Nachmanides, then why is Greco-Roman paganism
uniformly considered avodah zarah?
The answer is that while both
Nachmanides and Julian the Apostate offered a descriptive worldview of
how God operates, they differ on the prescriptive implications of that
worldview. Nachmanides understood that even with this worldview in place, one
is only allowed to worship God, while Julian the Apostate obviously allowed for
the worship of a multitude of gods. Nachmanides only described what people did,
not what they ought to do. It seems that Rashba too only meant that
worshipping one’s governing angels is not as bad as full-fledged avodah
zarah, but not that it is permitted.
We cannot differentiate between
modern Hindus and ancient Greeks/Romans by saying that the latter have no
concept of God, while the former have some semblance of God, because it is
clear that even the Greeks/Romans had some concept of a single God. Oxford
University Press even published a book with essays by many scholars entitled, Pagan
Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Clarendon Press, 2009). [Dr. Goshe-Gottstein
(pg. 213) actually mentions this book.] Similarly, it is hard to take seriously
the claims of Hindu philosophers who attempt to justify their cultic practices
with philosophical ideas, just like the Rabbis of yore never took seriously the
Greco-Roman philosophers who offered apologetic justifications for their
rituals.
Tosafos: My next point
concerns the concept of shittuf, first introduced by the Tosafists. This
idea is presented as though Halacha allows a non-Jew to worship any other god
or gods, as long as they do so in tandem with worshipping God. There are
certainly some Halachic authorities who adopt this position, such as R.
Shabbati HaKohen Rappaport (Sifsei Kohen, Yoreh Deah §151:7), R. Aryeh Leib Teomim in Yaalas Chen, R. Elijah Kramer of Vilna (Biur
ha-Gra to Orach Chaim §156:6), R.
Binyamin Wolf Boskowitz in Seder Mishnah, and R. Yaakov Tzvi
Mecklenberg (in ha-Ksav ve-ha-Kabbalah).
However, other authorities
including R.
Shmuel b. Yosef of Krakow, R. Yonah Landsofer of Prague, R. Efrayim Katz
of Vilna, R. Refael Hamburger, R. Yitzchok Minkowski, R. Efrayim Zalman
Margules, R. Shmuel ben Nosson Kellin, and Rabbi Shmuel Landau all understand
that the idea of shittuf only allows a Jew to cause a non-Jew to swear
in the name of other deities, but does not give the non-Jew permission to worship
other deities. More recent authorities such as R. Aryeh Kaplan and R. Moshe
Shapiro argue that shittuf only allows a non-Jew to believe in
other gods, but not to worship them.
In light of this, even if we were to
determine that Hinduism has the Halachic status of shittuf, this does
not completely close the debate, because the rule of shittuf itself is
not unanimously accepted, and certainly not in a broad enough sense as to allow
a non-Jew to worship multiple gods.
Moreover, going back to the Indian
hair, even if Hinduism can be determined to be shittuf and even if shittuf
allows worshipping multiple gods, the hairs yielded from ritual
tonsuring will still have the Halachic status of idolatrous sacrifices, and
would still be forbidden. This is because, as R. Alexander Sender Schor writes in Tevuos Shor (Yoreh
Deah §4:1), when a gentile “partners” other deities with God, the resultant
sacrifices are still considered idolatrous sacrifices from which Jews are
forbidden from deriving benefit. Just because the non-Jew may have been
Halachicly permitted to worship those other gods, it does not follow that the
sacrifices they offered may be Halachicly permitted to Jews.
In fact, the same Tosafists who suggest that shittuf
is not a problem also discuss whether Christian ritual paraphernalia are
considered idolatrous sacrifices (see Tosafos to Avodah Zarah
50b)—showing that whatever the heter of shittuf entails does not
apply to the realm of ritual sacrifices. The same can be said of Rashba (to Avodah
Zarah 51a) who forbids Christian ritual wafers, candles, and the like—even
though in Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s assessment Rashba allows non-Jews to worship other forces as long as
they recognize God.
Another problem with appealing to shittuf is
that it is an argument that proves too much. If shittuf is okay, then
what was wrong with the Canaanites? From Ugaritic literature, we know that the
Canaanites believed in a Supreme God named El who delegated or gave over
different powers or domains to other junior gods (including Baal). Is that not shittuf,
or at least something which closely follows Nachmanides’ model? Similar
understandings are evident in other ancient cults as well. If shittuf is
not a problem for non-Jews, then those gentiles did nothing wrong. Jewish
Tradition definitely criticizes the Canaanites for worshiping avodah zarah,
and given what we know about the nature of their worship of avodah zarah,
it certainly seems to fit the criteria for shittuf.
I felt the same thing about a certain rabbi in Yeshivat
Ohr Somayach who wrote that believing in a "Great Spirit" like many
Native Americans cults do, is considered sufficiently monotheistic to be
acceptable. Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh and Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz have also written
similar things.
As is well-known, Dr. Kaufmann wrote that all
ancient polytheistic cults believed in some sort of "primordial
realm" which controlled and regulated all aspects of the various gods.
Perhaps this is what the Greeks called "fate". Dr. Faur criticized
Kaufmann's position by essentially arguing that if this was true, then there is
no difference between paganism and monotheism, because paganism can be
compatible with monotheism by saying that all the pagan gods are subservient to
one God/Realm/Idea/Spirit, whatever you want to call. With all that said, I
really think there is a solid case to be made that shitttuf is
forbidden for non-Jews. I can see both sides of the arguments.
I was glad to see that ultimately Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein himself shies away from invoking the concept of shittuf to
justify his most amicable stance towards Hinduism.
Meiri: Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein then attempts to build a new definition of idolatry based on a
difficult passage in the writings of R. Menachem Meiri. It should be noted that
the writings of Meiri are not usually considered “canonical” amongst Halachic
authorities. For the most part, Meiri’s commentaries are used for their clear
elucidation, but are not generally cited as Halachic precedent. [See Rabbi
Moshe Meiselman’s Torah, Chazal, & Science (), p. 656.]
One contributing factor to this
is the mere fact that Meiri was only published recently. Another contributing
factor is that many passages within Meiri’s work were clearly doctored in order
to placate Christian censors. Moreover, the manuscripts’ place in non-Jewish
hands for so many centuries has caused some Halachic authorities to question
their provenance and accuracy. All these factors together should be considered when
using a difficult passage in the Meiri to totally redefine our conception of avodah
zarah.
As Dr. Goshen-Gottstein wrote: “For
Meiri a legitimate religion is one that has some knowledge of God, that by
virtue of such knowledge assures a morally-ordered society and that aids humans
in their overall moral improvement and evolution.” If this is true, then
Greco-Roman paganism should no longer be considered avodah zarah. Were
the Greeks and Romans not “a morally ordered society… that aids humans in their
overall moral improvement and evolution”? To put it in Straussian terms, is
Athens not an integral part of the Western ethos? Why then does the entirety of
rabbinic literature—including the Mishnah, Talmudic, and Midrash—consider
Greco-Roman paganism to be the paragon of avodah zarah in their time?
In summing up Meiri’s position, Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein wrote: “…Meiri’s criterion of the moral life is so crucial. By
your fruits you shall know them, not by their theological declarations.” Does
this mean that the ends justify the means? Does Meiri believe that worshipping
multiple gods instead of God is okay, as long as ultimately your society ends
up “good”? Is there no absolute moral value in Jewish monotheism other than the
perceived benefits it brings to society?
Moreover, Meiri leaves much
undefined in terms of what can be considered a morally-ordered society. By many
reports, Hindus in the outlying villages in India continue to practice such
grotesque and violent rites as ritual laceration and burning widows with the
bodies of their dead husbands. While the British stamped down on many of these
abhorrent practices in Colonial times, they still remain “on the books” in
Hinduism and are reportedly still practiced in many places. Can such a religion
be considered a progenitor of a “morally-ordered society”?
I might have just taken it too
far by repeating unsubstantiated claims about Hindus, but if one apply Meiri’s
model to contemporary Western civilization, can modern-day society claim to be
“moral”? Are allowing two men to get married, or killing babies upon their exit
from the womb, or stealing money from one sector to provide social services for
another considered “moral”? This depends on where one stands regarding such
policies. From a conservative perspective, Western civilization might fail to
meet the criteria for a “moral” society, while from a more liberal perspective,
Western civilization has redefined morality so that it is considered “moral”. Is
there even such a thing as objective morality?
Is a society that does not ban
people from eating limbs off of live animals considered a “good” society? Or a
society that considers it entertainment for a man on television to utter such
blasphemous statements like “g-d d-mn”? How does Meiri define “morality”?
I would have assumed that “morality”
would be defined by what the Torah reveals to us as God’s expectation of the
Jewish People and of the Noahides. Given that avodah zarah is one of the
universal prohibitions which apply to both Jews and Noahides, it should play a
role in defining what is a “moral” society and what is not.
But here we get stuck. If avodah
zarah is one of the criterion for “morality” and moral people are, by
definition, not committing avodah zarah, then we have now entered the
realm of circular logic: The definition of avodah zarah depends on the
definition of “morality”, and the definition of “morality” depends on the
definition of avodah zarah.
Once we have reached this point,
I can no longer accept using Meiri as a legitimate source for helping us define
what is within the scope of avodah zarah and what is not. Everything Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein writes in Part IV and Part V is, at least nominally, built on
Meiri’s approach, which he takes to the nth degree.
Religious Imagination
In his various books and essays
which develop the concept of the Mosaic Distinction, eminent Egyptologist Jan
Assmann explains that the Bible’s view of idolatry is a zero-sum, true-or-false
paradigm. The Bible understands that there is only one God without any
qualifications, and everything else is simply false. This indeed seems to be in
consonance with the traditional Jewish approach found in rabbinic literature,
and certainly with the Maimonidean approach. The fact that Mal. 1:11 says that
other nations recognize God’s existence does not contradict the notion that
what those nations do worship is simply illegal at best, and
false/non-existent at worst. As the Talmud says, they call God the “God of
gods” but continue to worship other perceived entities.
This does not mean that the Bible
looks at God as translatable to the gods worshipped by Israel’s neighbors.
Nowhere is this stated in the Bible. The closest thing to this idea is found in
Hellenistic Jewish sources who conflated the Greco-Roman gods with God. Those
sources, of course, should be out of bounds for this discussion, because those
syncretic Jews do not represent traditional or rabbinic Judaism. Remember, the
holiday of Chanukah celebrates traditional/rabbinic Judaism’s triumph over the
efforts of the Seleucid Greeks and the Hellenized Jews who sought to remold
Judaism into a type of paganism. It seems that once multiple gods are in play,
there is no longer any room for the concept of One God. Monotheism differs in
kind from polytheism and even from henotheism.
R. Elijah Benamozegh claims that
the deities worshipped by other nations were actually just descriptions of
Hashem that were given their own independence. In other words, he writes that
El and Baal were understood to be different names that refer to the same entity
(i.e. the One God). He argues that originally, both El and Baal were acceptable
ways of referring to Hashem, but in later times people forgot the true meanings
behind these titles/names, and understood them to be separate entities. Yet,
ultimately, the prophets of the Bible rallied against the worship of Baal. I
don’t see how this might be different from the Hindu gods.
From a Halachic perspective, it
is hard to justify the leeway that Dr. Goshen-Gottstein grants to religious
imagination. Indeed, as Dr. Yechezkel Kaufmann points out Judaism is different
in kind from all other ancient religions in that Judaism’s God does not appear
as an active player in mythological stories about the gods. In Judaism’s
perception of God, there is no room for such myths that are the basis of all
other ancient religions. If one believes in the myth of a god who sells his
hair to pay for a wedding like Hindus believe, then this is totally different
conception of God (even if the myth is only a veneer for deeper
philosophical/theological ideas). It is very difficult to claim that this is
the “same God” that the Jews worship.
The same could be said of any
pictorial means of depicting God. If you can show Him in an idol or icon or
image, then it is very difficult to say that we are talking about the “same
God.” Remember, in Maimonides’ worldview, even a linguistic depiction of
God is hard to justify.
To support his view on the
concept of religious imagination, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein mentions the Chazon Ish
(pg. 179). I will freely admit that after having spent many hours poring over
this passage and discussing it with my colleagues at the Mir Yeshiva, I cannot
make heads or tails of what the Chazon Ish means. Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s
reading of the Chazon Ish is indeed quite intriguing. I’m sure that Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein would be happy to know that his reading of the Chazon Ish is
also assumed by R. Dov Landau (Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka in Bene Baraq). He is
considered one of the foremost living students of the Chazon Ish and, he used
his master’s position, inter alia, to permit the sheitels by
arguing that Hinduism may not be avodah zarah.
Recalibrating the Discussion
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein (pg. 108)
attempts to discard all prior definitions of avodah zarah by noting that
all these methodological definitions were formulated relatively late (i.e., in
Medieval times, after the redaction of the Talmud). This is a very
non-traditional, un-orthodox argument. Jewish tradition understands that all of
these definitions are really part of an Oral Torah that was only put down in
writing later. The definitions must have always been around, because otherwise
the rabbinic term avodah zarah used for centuries before would have been
meaningless. From a Halachic perspective, it would seem that in order for something
to be cleared from an accusation of avodah zarah, it would have to be
excluded from all definitions of avodah zarah proffered by
Halachic authorities throughout the ages.
That said, idolatry is a very
severe prohibition, and as such cannot be taken lightly. One cannot rule permissively
by dint of one or two minoritarian authorities and some flimsy arguments that
Hinduism is not considered avodah zarah. The best one can say is
that according to Maimonides and Meiri it might not be considered avodah
zarah. But when it comes to something serious like avodah zarah, might
is not strong enough.
I would instead propose that if
something looks like idolatry, sounds like idolatry, and smells like idolatry,
then it’s probably idolatry. If one can prove otherwise, then by all means do
so. A time-tested Halachic principle says that the burden of proof is always on
the one who wants to change the status quo. In this case, it is quite daring to
build an entire new theology of Judaism on the lone authority of a single source.
The fact that a proposal is daring does not lend it credence; it might actually
detract from it. For such serious matters, one needs a consensus of
authorities. This is especially true if there is no pressing need to justify
taking a more permissive stance like there was historically.
[When discussing the more recent
rabbinic trend toward adopting Maimonides’ position that Christianity is
considered avodah zarah, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein (pg. 56 and 225) refers to
that trend as “a sad turn”. However, from a Halachic perspective, the more
authorities one can rack up on his side, the more legitimate that position is.
Relying on minoritarian opinions is only justified in the direst circumstances.
In this case, while historical circumstances once dictated the necessity to
adopt a more lenient approach, nowadays those factors are almost totally
irrelevant, and it makes sense that the prevailing Halacha would tend towards stringency.]
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein raises
another important question: “The question at hand is thus not simply whether or
not the specific case of Hinduism is or is not covered either by the narrative
presentation of Avoda Zara…or by its core legal definition… The question
is really to what extent we can import criteria from one religious system to
another system that thinks in entirely different ways.” Indeed, this is a
question that has to be taken into consideration, but that does not mean that
if the data is inconclusive the default must be that it is not considered
avoda zarah. On the contrary, given the severity of the issue, the
default should be that something that appears to be avodah zarah ought
to be considered avoda zarah unless proven otherwise.
From what I understand, Hinduism
as a religion is not monolithic and is actually comprised of many different
sects, each with their own slightly different worldview. One would have to
explore all the different possible sects before concluding whether or
not Hindus believe in one God or many gods, and whether they believe in the
“same God” as us or not.
In addition, philosophers or
theologians of Hinduism or Westernized/Academic Hindus sitting in their ivory
towers do not and cannot dictate to the masses what their beliefs are. Indeed,
this is the crux of Dr. Martha Doherty’s critique of Dr. Sperber’s unpublished
book. Any proper assessment of Hinduism must take those folk into account. Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein (pg. 88) cites R. Adin Steinsaltz and R. Menashe Klein as
preferring the authoritative explanation of Hinduism over the popular
understanding; however, other Halachic authorities, notably R. Yoel Ashkenazi
(cited by Sperber), argue that one must take the whole picture into account. I
think the latter is more intellectually honest, and my friend Moshe Efrayim
Indik made this case in his missive Pe’at Keidmah. [And yes, I am aware
of the embarrassing consequences that can be yielded by applying this standard
to assessing Judaism internally, especially when it comes to Meron or Uman.]
Moreover, even if just one group
of Hindus would be considered idolatrous, then all hairs coming from temples in
which members of that group might be tonsured become forbidden. This is because
according to Halacha, the ban on deriving benefit from idolatrous sacrifices is
so severe, that the rule of majority cannot be applied to allow benefit from a
mixture of hairs.
Dr. Goshen-Gottstein noted
multiple times in his book that the early rabbinic authorities never spoke
about Hinduism explicitly. I am not so sure about that: Maimonides in his Guide
for the Perplexed (3:29) explicitly writes that the Hindus are the last
remnants of the ancient idolatrous Sabians. That is quite explicit. Moreover, Radak
(to Isa. 2:18) writes that even though idolatry has already disappeared from
most nations of the world, idol worshippers continue to exist in the East.
Therefore, he concludes, those prophecies that foretell the destruction of
idols in the Messiah’s time refers to the idols in the Far East (see my God
versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry, pg. 272). To me, these seem like
pretty clear references to Hinduism, but for some reason Drs. Sperber and
Goshen-Gottstein were unaware of these sources.
Conclusion
The truth is that Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein mentions and even addresses most, if not close to all, of the
concerns I have outlined in the previous paragraphs. In most cases, he simply
rejects them without seriously entertaining or developing them. In fact, while
maintaining a semblance of neutrality and open-mindedness about the topic, Dr.
Goshen-Gottstein adopts the more lenient/permissive position at every possible
juncture (not to mention his obvious disdain from the rabbinic establishment).
I think that a more honest discussion of the issues at hand might look very
similar to Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s book, but would ultimately come to the
opposite conclusion. In my assessment, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s conclusion
requires too many “leaps of faith.” To his credit, Dr. Goshen-Gottstein is not
too forceful with his conclusion, still leaving open the possibility that the
matter can be reconciled differently.
At the end of the day, my answer
to the question of whether Hinduism is avodah zarah remains a bold
question mark. With Dr. Goshen-Gottstein’s book and Dr. Sperber’s upcoming
book, we can now discuss the matter more intelligently, but it is certainly not
as open-and-shut as some would have us believe.
