The Incredibly Shrinking Conception of Jewish Social Justice

A few days ago I came across the recently published “The Social Justice Torah Commentary,” an anthology of essays by various rabbis and Jewish social justice activists on issues such as racism, climate change, mass incarceration, immigration, disability, women’s rights and voting rights. The book is meant to be a guide for weekly Torah study and is undoubtedly a rich source of material for sermons. I haven’t read all the essays, but the ones I have read provide an interesting take on Jewish texts and concepts. 

As a criminal justice reform and mental health advocate, I especially appreciated Rabbi Joel Mosbacher’s essay riffing on Parashat Acharei Mot, addressing the overrepresentation of people with severe mental illness in our criminal justice system. I do not agree with every point made in the book’s essays but regard such commentary as a completely legitimate way to look at Torah in light of contemporary moral and social realities.

But then I read a Times of Israel article by Rabbi Barry Block, the anthology’s editor, and I was reminded of precisely what’s wrong with contemporary Jewish social justice discourse and, perhaps, with the book itself.  

Referencing the battles over the way race and racism are taught in K-12 schools, Rabbi Block said that as a rabbi he is “troubled by this assault on the concept of social justice, which Jewish religious leaders have been championing for longer than the term has existed.” 

“The truth is,” he said, “that social justice is a noble and worthy concept that has every place in our classrooms and our broader society. At this critical time in our nation’s history—when many Americans have a renewed understanding of the extent to which systemic racism has infected our nation, while many others willfully close their eyes to that harsh reality—embracing our Jewish tradition of social justice has never been so pressing.”

I couldn’t agree more that social justice is central to who we are as Jews and our role in the world. And I couldn’t disagree more with the narrow manner in which some rabbis and activists define that term for the community. 

Last I checked, nowhere in the voluminous commentary on social issues in the Jewish tradition is there a single mention of the term “systemic racism.” To be sure, racism is a perfectly valid explanation of disparity among different groups in society. But it is not the only explanation. Attributing our social ills to “systemic racism” alone ignores the crucial role played by poverty and socio-economic status (especially generational wealth), family structure, and the sheer amount of time it takes for a community that experienced centuries of oppression to rise out of its previous conditions. Indeed, insisting that there is a single way to understand group outcomes and that anyone who disagrees or cites alternative explanations is “willfully closing their eyes” is mind bogglingly illiberal. 

This is gospel, not “commentary.” 

This shrunken conception of social justice—I call it “Tikkun Olam Hakatan” (a small tikkun olam)—excludes from its covenant millions of American Jews who want to make the world a better place but may not agree with this particular formulation about what needs to be fixed or how to fix it. We shouldn’t have to all agree on exactly what ails society or from where it derives in order to be part of the social justice fold.

According to the Pew Survey, 45 percent of politically conservative Jews say that social justice is essential to their Jewishness. Seventy percent of very liberal Jews agree. If social justice weren’t so closely linked to a particular ideological and political agenda, imagine how many more conservatives might emphasize it. Nearly half do already!

My friend Leon is a Jewish political conservative. He is highly engaged in supporting people with disabilities, volunteers an untold number of hours to the cause and donates thousands of dollars every year. While Leon recognizes that American history is replete with racial discrimination and that such discrimination persists in certain sectors, he doesn’t believe—and not for lack of consideration of the evidence—that systemic racism exists in America today. While I do not agree with Leon that there is no systemic racism in society, I know that his heart is in the right place and I honor his support for people with disabilities in the best tradition of Jewish social justice. 

Does Leon’s “wrongthink” on systemic racism bar him from this very exclusive Jewish social justice club for the ideologically pure?    

One can feed the hungry and not agree with the systemic racism explanation of disparity.

One can welcome the stranger and not agree with that explanation of disparity. 

One can work to change our criminal justice system and not agree with that explanation of disparity.

What’s missing from the Social Justice Torah Commentary—not just from the book but from the philosophy—are the multiple ways people can engage in social justice and make the world a better place. The Talmud—the original commentary on Torah—is a collection of thousands of arguments among rabbis, and then even more arguments by later rabbis about what the earlier rabbis were arguing about. 

One would expect that progressive Jewish thinkers would emulate this mode of commentary and argumentation about how to best lift people up. One would hope that their vision of a more perfect world would include people with whom they disagree just like the rabbis in the Talmud did in their time. 

“Nothing about social justice should be controversial,” Rabbi Block tells us. To the contrary, everything about social justice should be controversial. 

It is through controversy and argumentation that we develop both better insights into and more creative solutions to our social ills. The Rabbis in Talmudic times understood this in their own context. Too many in today’s progressive rabbinate don’t.

The problem with modern Jewish social justice discourse is not that it doesn’t have anything valuable to add to Jewish life, but rather that it claims an absolute monopoly on the truth and regards anyone who disagrees as ‘willfully closing their eyes.’  

The problem with modern Jewish social justice discourse is not that it doesn’t have anything valuable to add to Jewish life—it has much to add—but rather that it claims an absolute monopoly on the truth and regards anyone who disagrees as “willfully closing their eyes.”  

We need a bigger, more inclusive vision of Jewish social justice.

David Bernstein is the Founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV.org). Follow him on Twitter @DavidLBernstein.