This article considers Louis Newman's important essay "Woodchoppers and Respirators" and Newman's argument that contemporary Jewish ethicists must be far more cautious in their appeals to classical Jewish texts. In response, this article argues that Newman himself has also neither entirely grappled with the implications of his critique nor recognized its potential as an invitation to a less conventional ethical and intellectual orientation. It suggests that the constraints he identifies ought to be understood as potential virtues of a different approach to the texts, not simply limitations on conventional textual interpretation.
This article addresses the psychological and moral dimensions of offering an apology for offending another individual. An apology repairs a relationship by removing what this article will call a tribunal interruption and restoring the moral foundations of that relationship to one of equality, trust, and mutual goodwill. "Tribunal interruption" here means an episode in the narrative arc of relationship that the arrival of justice brings about. Apologizing can work to restore a bruised friendship to one that can subordinate the value of justice to one of affection and good will. An apology can also reshape how a friendship can envision a shared and promising future. Drawing from Louis Newman on forgiveness, Aristotle on friendship, and Peter Strawson on reactive feelings of resentment in response to ill will, this article offers an ethics of apologizing that is structured by memory, accountability, and hope.
In his foundational essay "Woodchoppers and Respirators: The Problem of Interpretation in Contemporary Jewish Ethics," Louis Newman calls for ethicists to think about their work as a form of dialogue with classical Jewish texts. Centering the work of three scholars who have taken up this call-Rebecca Epstein-Levi, essay explores how the choices that ethicists and poskim (halakhic decisors) make about text selection, the inclusion of different voices, and their use of rhetoric all determine the shape of that dialogue and who is willing to listen to its conclusions. It argues that any adaptation of Newman's approach must account for a third partner within these conversations: not only the ethicists and the texts they read, but also the audience(s) they hope their readings will persuade.
Louis Newman's work on methodologies by which Jewish ethicists derive their ethical guidance from texts is foundational to the examination of modern ethical exegesis. He questions the "legalistic" assumptions that the choice of appropriate texts can ultimately be determined, and that definitive answers lie within the texts themselves. However, while making problematic the assumption that the interpreter derives their answers solely from the text, Newman does not deeply engage with the question of how changing social and cultural currents might profoundly influence the activity of Jewish ethical inquiry. This article, as homage to Newman's important and thoughtful work, offers a sociological reflection on the power of social forces in ethical exegesis.
