Freedom of Religion/History/Country sources/Medieval Judaism

Freedom of Religion

What have religious and philosophical traditions contributed to our understanding of this right?

Medieval Judaism

The concept of freedom of religion in Jewish philosophy initially seems to be a modern innovation, especially since the term does not appear in Jewish holy texts. At the same time, however, there is some sense of a freedom of religion in Jewish thought, in a way that could be said to prefigure the secular conception of that idea.

Fundamentally, Judaism teaches that all people are made in God’s image, and its holy texts emphasize the value of tolerance in multiple places. Perhaps most well-known is Leviticus 19:18, which says “love your neighbor as yourself.” Even more prescriptive is Leviticus 19:34, which commands to the people of Israel that “the stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” These lines formed the basis for one of the most famous anecdotes in Judaism, where Rabbi Hillel (active in the first century BCE) summed up all of Jewish teaching as “that which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow. That is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary” (Shurpin n.d.).

Hillel’s dictum is often referred to as the Golden Rule, which is found in one form or another in every other world faith, but his precise wording is unique. The Golden Rule is typically stated as some variation of “treat others the way you want to be treated,” but Hillel inverts this by giving a negative formulation – i.e., how not to treat others. This phrasing is very revealing when it comes to a Jewish freedom of religion: from this, it is easy to see that one should not mistreat others because of their religious beliefs, because one would not want be treated that way by others.

As with any faith that aims to guide people’s spiritual lives, Judaism necessarily tells its adherents what they should believe, so total freedom of religion (the freedom to believe whatever one wants) is not possible within the faith. Judaism holds that anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, so one doesn’t stop being a Jew if, for example, one declares that one doesn’t believe in God, but such a belief would traditionally be considered incompatible with being a “good” Jew. Possibly the single most foundational Talmudic scholar of the Middle Ages, Moses Maimonides (died 1204), outlined thirteen fundamental principles of the Jewish faith, and all concern different aspects of believing in God and other beliefs; they are customarily recited in the format “I believe…” (Chabad n.d.).

Nevertheless, a fundamental idea of freedom of thought can be seen in traditional Jewish philosophy. As far back as the medieval period, Jewish scholars sampled from as wide a range of schools of thought as possible, including classical, Christian, and Muslim thought, in their pursuit of the ultimate truth. Since the greatest intellectual centers of the medieval Jewish world were Muslim-ruled Spain and the Middle East, Jewish philosophers were especially heavily influenced by their Islamic contemporaries, and by extension, by classical Greek texts that they encountered via Arabic translations. One particularly revealing example is Saadya Gaon, who was active in the Middle East over a century before Maimonides’ birth: “Saadya was not committed to any particular philosophical school. Existing philosophical schools were the heritage of a non-Jewish culture, the rich influence of which Saadya did not try to reject. But being a Jew [in contrast to his Muslim contemporaries], he felt free to collect material gleaned from various sources” (Stroumsa 2003, 80). Evaluations of Saadya Gaon’s body of work suggest an overarching commitment to reason over dogma; to the conviction that “the praiseworthy wise person is he who makes reality his guiding principle and bases his belief thereon,” and that “the reprehensible fool … is he who sets up his personal conviction as his guiding principle, assuming that reality is patterned after his beliefs” (Stroumsa 2003, 76). To him, this free inquiry was unquestionably compatible with Judaism. Another example of this intellectual diffusion is the Jewish Neoplatonists, foremost among them Isaac Israeli (Saadya Gaon’s contemporary) and Solomon ibn Gabirol, who both drew from and refuted the pagan worldview that the original Neoplatonist school promoted (Pessin 2003, 91-106). Maimonides himself may have been more discriminating about drawing from non-Jewish traditions, but the profound influence of Aristotelian philosophy on his thought is nevertheless widely acknowledged: even in the many places where Maimonides disagreed with Aristotle, his “philosophical starting point is Aristotle, and it is from Aristotle that he develops his own philosophical positions” (Frank 2003, 145).

Moreover, a major difference between Judaism and other Abrahamic religions is that Judaism is largely unconcerned with what non-adherents believe, and thus affords a strong degree of freedom of religion to those outside the faith. In contrast to both Christianity and Islam, where it has traditionally been considered incumbent upon those faiths’ adherents to work for the conversion of people of other faiths, Judaism is decidedly not a proselytizing religion, so much so that many modern Jews regard trying to convert others to the faith as inappropriate and disrespectful. Conversion to Judaism is deliberately a difficult and drawn-out process, meant to ensure that those who seek to convert are doing so out of genuine belief.

According to Rabbi Reuven Firestone of Hebrew Union College, the Jewish aversion to proselytization came about by necessity, to protect their communities throughout the long history of Jews living as a persecuted minority in Christian and Muslim states. Starting under the Roman Empire and continuing throughout the medieval period, entire communities could be severely punished for proselytizing to the majority faith: “The rule of survival in each context required that Jews not proselytize, upon pain of death. … Such a length of time [as a minority faith] can deeply acculturate an aversion to engaging in an act that could easily bring death and destruction to the community. So proselytism, while not forbidden anywhere in Judaism, came to feel foreign and strange” (Firestone 2019).

Although only Jews are obligated to follow Jewish law, Judaism does have a separate injunction for non-Jews, known as the Noachide Laws (Korn n.d.). Believed to have been given by God to Noah after the Great Flood, the Talmud regards these as universal laws that are binding on all of Noah’s descendants (all of humanity), thus making them the only instance where Judaism claims to prescribe the behavior of non-adherents. Five of the seven Noachide Laws concern actions and not beliefs – the command to establish courts to uphold the law, and the prohibitions on murder, theft, sexual immorality, and eating the flesh of a living animal. The remaining two, which prohibit blasphemy and idolatry, are potentially problematic when it comes to respect for foreign religious beliefs: while traditional Jewish philosophy would not have regarded blasphemy and idol worship to be genuine religious expressions, the practical definitions of those terms can easily expand to encompass the sincerely held beliefs of other people and their cultures.

However, it is still very notable that non-Jews who abide by the Noachide Laws are thought to have a share in the World to Come, the closest thing Judaism has to heaven, despite not believing in the Jewish God or following any of the Jewish commandments (Korn n.d.). Therefore, at least implicitly, Judaism recognizes that other faiths also can guide a person to live a good and virtuous life – that action is ultimately more determinative of personal morality than belief – and this idea can also be found in medieval thought. Particularly interesting is the apologia commonly known as The Kuzari, by Spanish Jewish polymath Judah Halevi (died 1141), which is framed as an account of a Khazar king convening a dialogue between practitioners of different faiths. (The Khazars were an Eastern European empire whose ruling class converted from paganism to Judaism for uncertain reasons; Halevi’s account, written long after their conversion, purports to tell how it happened).

In Halevi’s narrative, the king describes his spiritual crisis following a dream where an angel told him that “his intentions were pleasing to God, but his actions were not” (Kogan 2003, 112). Subsequently, the king tries to “make a more zealous effort to observe the rites of his pagan religion than before,” but the angel keeps returning with the same message (Kogan 2003, 112). Eventually, the king realizes “that God was commanding him to seek out those actions that would be pleasing,” and so he gathers representatives of all the different religions for counsel (Kogan 2003, 112). The Jewish response thus serves as a stand-in for Halevi’s view. In his advice to the king, the Jewish philosopher seems almost unconcerned with what belief system the king follows, but only that he act with reason and justice: “the philosopher urges the king, in general terms, to purify his soul of doubts and pursue knowledge of the true realities, while keeping to the path of justice… if he still wishes, he may either create a religion for himself or follow one of the intellectual nomoi [Greek for laws or conventions] of the philosophers” (Kogan 2003, 113). Overall, Halevi defends tolerance of other beliefs as a Jewish value. With the Reconquista and the Crusades as the backdrop of his life, Halevi seems to have felt the rising anti-Jewish persecution of his time deeply – the full title of The Kuzari is Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion.

Although Jewish thought has not had to contend with a notion of freedom of religion, as such, until relatively recently, traces of the idea can be found going back to the medieval period. While ultimately it is hard to argue that unbounded freedom of religion can exist in Judaism, especially when it comes to freedom of religion within Judaism (as is the case for any belief system), Judaism does stand out in its tolerant attitude toward the beliefs of other religions. More broadly, a certain freedom of thought, including a freedom to hold nonconforming religious opinions, can be found in some of the most renowned Jewish scholars’ commitment to rational and diverse inquiry, and overarching emphasis on action over belief.

References:

Chabad. “The Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith.” n.d. Accessed July 5, 2023. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/332555/jewish/Maimonides-13-Principles-of-Faith.htm

Firestone, Reuven. “Why Jews Don’t Proselytize.” Renovatio. June 12, 2019. Accessed July 5, 2023. https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/why-jews-dont-proselytize

Frank, Daniel H. “Maimonides and Medieval Jewish Aristotelianism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 136-156. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Kogan, Barry S. “Judah Halevi and his use of Philosophy in The Kuzari.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 111-135. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Korn, Eugene. “Noachide Covenant: Theology and Jewish Law.” Boston College Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. n.d. Accessed July 5, 2023. https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/sourcebook/Noahide_covenant.htm

Pessin, Sarah. “Jewish Neoplatonism: Being above Being and Divine Emanation in Solomon ibn Gabirol and Isaac Israeli.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 91-110. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Shurpin, Yehuda. “Is Hillel’s Teaching the same as the Golden Rule?” n.d. Accessed July 5, 2023. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5410546/jewish/Is-Hillels-Teaching-the-Same-as-the-Golden-Rule.htm

Stroumsa, Sarah. “Saadya and Jewish Kalam.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 71-90. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.