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From the Duty to Redeem the Spilled Blood to the Duty to Redeem Themselves (Repentance)

The Tension Between Customs, Institution and Ideals in the Jewish Normative Experience

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Vindicatory Justice

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 93))

Abstract

In this paper we shall argue the thesis according to which the Jewish normative experience shows a certain degree of friction between at least three levels of obligations. First, the ancient customary obligation to avenge the murdered kin’s blood; we will label this level as customary. Second, the Jewish law’s prescriptions aiming to project into an institutional framework this kind of duty, as well as to reframe it accordingly to the necessity of a fair trial; we will label this level as institutional. Third, the Jewish law’s interdiction to a private vengeance as well as the obligation to repentance for one owns past actions; we will label this level as metaphysical. In that way, we shall outline some main theoretical points, starting from the proximity of the second level of obligation—institutional one—to some aspects of Terradas Saborit’s paradigm. We shall then focus on the etherogeneity of the Jewish normative world, namely on the tension between its different levels: the opposite poles of customary and metaphysical obligations and the intermediate region of the institutional obligations. Albeit these differences we shall recognize the centrality of the concept of ‘duty’ as key feature of the Jewish normative experience. On this ground, and with particular attention to the obligation on repentance, we shall draw a theoretical consideration, through Levinas, about the concept of obligation: its conditions of possibility and its relevance beyond the Jewish experience.

I’m thankful to doctor Riccardo Mazzola for inviting me to write about this topic and to investigate it in more depth at Oñati Seminar (2019), and to professor Paolo Di Lucia, whose teaching was essential to me. Over the space of a year I discussed the topic of the paper with professor Anna Callow, who kindly agreed to present part of it at Oñati Seminar, taking the critical remarks into account. For the references to Terradas which follow I am therefore grateful to her.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This second case would seem to be close to the Grundnorm model of a static-material nature delineated by Kelsen (1934), Italian edition (2000).

  2. 2.

    “The law of blood-revenge […] is the basis of the tribal system”, e “the law of Israel is the law of every well-ordered ancient community”, Smith (1889–1894), pp. 72 and 55.

  3. 3.

    Nussbaum identifies in such a desire for retaliation a “profoundly human […] instinct”, Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2017), pp. 62–63.

  4. 4.

    “But can there be a law without juridical propositions? The answer to the question must be yes because society is older than juridical propositions (…). In the period of the so-called prehistory of law there were no courts as yet; disputes were either resolved in a friendly fashion, by means of compromises, or ended with blood vendettas”, Ehrlich in: Conte et al. (1913 [2013]), pp. 51–55.

  5. 5.

    This distinction between spontaneous social phenomenon and legally constituted social phenomena may be analysed, as we will see, in the light of Kelsen’s notions regarding subjective meaning (or self-interpretation) and objective meaning of the social act, Kelsen (1934), Italian edition (2000), pp. 49–50.

  6. 6.

    From the point of view of Tradition the two teachings – written biblical and oral rabbinical – cannot be distinguished on the basis of chronological criteria and indeed written teachings are joined by a common thread to oral teachings, Banon (1987).

  7. 7.

    On this theme, and for relative bibliographical references related to the theme of performatives within the sphere of the law, see Amselek (2012–2013), p. 273.

  8. 8.

    See Bialik (1917).

  9. 9.

    See Cover (1983).

  10. 10.

    On the concept of grace and goodness [ḥesed], see the final paragraph of the paper.

  11. 11.

    And he who wished to shed the blood of Cain autonomously, in agreement with spontaneous practice would in turn be subject to neqamah, or punishment according to justice on the part of God-judge. Likewise, God asserts his exclusive authority by taking it upon himself to avenge blood in Deuteronomy 32, 43.

  12. 12.

    See Ferrari (2012), pp. 174 and 184–187. The theme of the relation between divine and human authority in Jewish law is complex, see Bali et al. (2010) and Fisch (2016).

  13. 13.

    An analogous process can be found in classical Greece, drawing on the myth of Erinyes, Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2017), pp. 15 and 204 ff.

  14. 14.

    See Targum Onkelos Genesis 9, 6.

  15. 15.

    See Anscombe (1958).

  16. 16.

    See Kelsen (1934), Italian edition (2000), pp. 49–52.

  17. 17.

    We might also ask ourselves, to echo J. R. Searle, if we can distinguish here between social act and institutional act. The case seems to resemble that of the case of “war” treated by Searle (1995), Italian edition (2006), pp. 103–104, in so far as the act of shedding the murderers’ blood is, as we have widely seen, an act that has its roots in pre-institutional collective practice and intentionality and yet, as in the case of armed conflict, once this act is disciplined by institutional power, thus creating a division between what is unlawful (blood avenging) and lawful (justice), we are dealing with something that resembles an institutional act, since here too it is perspicuous that “x equals y in z”—the act of killing is equal to justice within the context of a verdict delivered by a presiding court.

  18. 18.

    See Levi Della Torre (2003); Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2017), pp. 249 ff.

  19. 19.

    Genesis 4, 23–24.

  20. 20.

    Indeed, those who, following the birth of the institutional sphere of the courts and hence of administrative justice [neqamah], were to persist in the private practice of blood avenging, might conceive of their own act as being equivalent to what would have happened after sentencing. From this perspective one could point out that an analogous principle is in force in both the private and the institutional act: retaliation in the first case and retribution in the second, the difference between the two being merely one of appearance. See Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2017), pp. 33–37, 42–47; p. 250 ss; pp. 260–262; p. 271.

  21. 21.

    Leviticus; 19, 18.

  22. 22.

    See Kelsen (1934), Italian edition (2000), p. 50.

  23. 23.

    For an analysis of the meaning of the command—precept—to ‘love’, Giuliani (2013), pp. 10–19. On how to understand the noun, and relative concept, of “neighbour”, Cohen (1919), Italian edition (1994), pp. 252 and 557.

  24. 24.

    See Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2000), pp. 104–106.

  25. 25.

    See Foucault (1984).

  26. 26.

    Amedeo Giovanni Conte proposes the term nomotropismo to signify “acting on the basis of rules”, a case in point being the acting on the basis of and in compliance with a deontic rule Conte (2000).

  27. 27.

    See Maimonide (1170–1180), English edition (1990), p. 7, 7.

  28. 28.

    See Nussbaum (2016), Italian edition (2017), pp. 62–63.

  29. 29.

    Not due to an idealised anthropological notion but due to the awareness that the conatus essendi, lacking legal restraints, threatens an individualistic drift. The idea that the Torah subverts the conatus essendi – the pure causal logic of being—is a recurring idea in Levinas. However, from Levinas’s point of view the sphere of Ought introduced by the Torah meets a need that rises in man starting with the intersubjective dimension—where the heteronomy of moral sentiment is formed by the trauma of the encounter with autrui rather than by any law. In this sense the Torah in particular and, more structurally, the law, limits the “hostage” condition in which the subject finds himself when faced with the autrui; Levinas (1974), pp. 192–205.

  30. 30.

    The heterogeneity of the sources of Jewish law brings to the fore a phenomenon that variously cuts through the entire body of legislation—as Lombardi Vallauri highlights in reference to, for instance, Italian law in Medieval communes; Lombardi Vallauri (1967), pp. 188–192. See also Bobbio (1961), p. 5.

  31. 31.

    See Wittgenstein (1953), Italian edition (1967–2009), §19, p. 17.

  32. 32.

    On the centrality of duty and prescription in Jewish law, see Cover (1987).

  33. 33.

    For an analysis of the verb “to forgive” as a “performative”, “factive” and “anairetico” (producing a disintegration of a state of things) verb, Conte (1992).

  34. 34.

    Bava qamma, 27b.

  35. 35.

    Talmud bavli, Yoma 9b; Giṭṭin 55b, identify in discord and gratuitous hatred the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 e. v).

  36. 36.

    Principle of retribution acknowledged to underlie pecuniary compensation that is proportional to the wrong suffered as well as the handling of blood shedding.

  37. 37.

    See Hansel (1998).

  38. 38.

    With the aforesaid notion of legal frame, we mean the primary duty to set up courts, from the perspective of the Torah for all peoples; Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 56; on the concept of Noahide duties, Benamozegh (1914).

  39. 39.

    See Maimonide (1170–1180), Italian edition 1983.

  40. 40.

    Psalms, 104.

  41. 41.

    Talmud Bavli, Berakhot, 10a.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Jewish Philosophy, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Cosimo Nicolini Coen

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Raúl Márquez Porras

  2. Department of Legal Sciences ‘Cesare Beccaria’, Faculty of Law, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Riccardo Mazzola

  3. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Ignasi Terradas Saborit

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Nicolini Coen, C. (2022). From the Duty to Redeem the Spilled Blood to the Duty to Redeem Themselves (Repentance). In: Márquez Porras, R., Mazzola, R., Terradas Saborit, I. (eds) Vindicatory Justice. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 93. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79595-5_13

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