When one remembers reading Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, one may recall Shylock, the merciless Jewish moneylender who has a very strict and rigid idea of justice. Shylock demands a pound of flesh in return for lending the character Antonio money. One may also recall Portia, an innocent yet clever Christian who delivers the “quality of mercy” speech in an attempt to sway Shylock into showing compassion. Shakespeare’s work is just one example of how history has repeatedly interpreted Judaism to see God and the Judaic law as strict, rigid, and merciless. Psychology professor Susan Schept argued against this interpretation and instead stated that Jewish texts speak many times of mercy and care. Schept spoke on her reading of Jewish texts through a feminist lens, and argued that many of the ideas of justice, mercy, and compassion in these works are aligned with Carol Gilligan’s work in the field of “Ethics of Care.” This past Wednesday during the CAL Humanities Forum, Schept left the audience understanding the “Jewish” interpretation of justice, an idea very different from the western interpretation and more aligned with the feminist concept of morality.
Schept named two sources of impetus that drove her interest and research in this particular field. One was the work of psychologist and ethicist Carol Gilligan, who established the foundation of “Care of Ethics.” Prior to Gilligan, ethicist Lawrence Kohlberg wrote about peoples’ levels of moral development. Kohlberg detailed three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. During the pre-conventional level, one’s morality is based on an obedience-punishment system. A person obeys the law because he will be punished if he doesn’t. During the conventional level, one works in an authority and social-order system—a person follows the law because it is the law. Finally, at the post-conventional moral stage, one develops universal ethical principles that can be applied to various situations. Kohlberg concluded that women are stuck at level two and are too emotional to develop a proper sense of justice with universal concepts. Gilligan’s work argues against this interpretation and states that women have different approaches to morality and justice, and that they are by no means under-developed. Women have a more “context-specific approach where they use care as a basis for decision-making rather than overarching principles,” said Gilligan.
The second source of motivation for Schept’s research was her “continuing anger at scholars who misrepresented concepts of God in Jewish sacred texts.” Schept provided many quotes from various scholars that described the Jewish God with words such as vindictive, malevolent, racist, and bully. She also quoted several sacred texts to state evidence of compassion and mercy in the Jewish works. Schept explained that in Jewish scriptures ideas of care and justice are woven together: Justice is based on context rather than universal rules, and there is a focus on repair of relationships and remediation. Schept argued that “feminist ethics align with Jewish ideas of justice, mercy, and care.”
Citing several examples from the Torah and other works, Schept provided evidence that Jewish scriptures encourage the Hebrew term “hesed,” meaning care. For example, Noah’s wisdom was in his focus on the feeding schedule of the animals in his ark. He stayed up all night to make sure every animal ate and therefore was considered just and righteous. Schept also pointed out that statements such as “an eye for an eye” were never interpreted literally by rabbis. In fact, the death penalty was only allowed for a punishment if there were two eyewitnesses that observed the act, and the wrongdoer understood the consequences of their actions. Overall, Schept concluded that although justice is present both in Jewish texts and in feminist morality, it is not the western interpretation of justice that is universal and detached. Instead, feminist ethics and sacred texts state justice is to “be never dispassionate and always context-driven.”
