Do Jewish Values Even Exist?

Tamar, (can I call you that?)
The point is that even though there is a wide spectrum of "Jewish values" there are limits. Certian things are argued about and there is a lot of room for debate and discussion on them, and other things are much more "muskam" agreed upon, but with all of them there is a limit. So for example, in your attempt to posit that maybe the rabbis were talking about Bnot Yerushalayim were not besulot and were sleeping around, like so many Jews do today, is going beyond the pale. Rabbinic sources do not condone women sleeping around before marriage, there isnt room for that within "Jewish values" even though I agree that Jewish values are hard to pin down and determine, we can make some generalizations and conlcusive statements.

Jewish values cannot be codified as they are as diverse and paradoxical as the communities that adhere to them. What may seem ethical to adherents of Humanistic Judaism, could be morally repugnant to those within Hasidic communities. Jews who identify themselves as secular and progressive might be horrified by the patriarchal practices within the Orthodox community.

The difficulty in determining, exactly, what Jewish values are, is directly related to juxtaposition of Judaism as a people, or a religion. Americans have certain common values, as do Catholics. However, Catholic Americans do not share all of the common values of Catholic Spaniards. Nor do American Hindus share all of the common values of their American Catholic counterparts. Values are influenced by
all of the groups to which one belongs and are sometimes compromised by the needs of the whole.

I wonder if the phrase and ill-defined concept both derive from the collapsed distinction between the various Jewish ethnicities and cultural traditions and the theological inheritance, which were were for much of history inextricable.  You make a good point about the advent of humanistic values: the concept of the distinctly ethical (as opposed to the moral) is very important, because the vast majority of Jews, along with a majority of people generally in the West, agree on certain premises about human interaction that are essentially secular, and in some many cases would have been opposed by the Rabbis and pretty much everyone else in the premodern world.  I tend to think that "Jewish" as a serious label of an intellectual position should relate to the religion of Judaism in some way, because otherwise it becomes a meaningless generalization. As someone whose studied Sephardic and Italian Jews, I've been struck by the number of imprecise authors who write of "Jewish values" and "Jewish customs" when they really mean the customs of their Ashkenazic ancestors who emigrated to the English-speaking world.  Without the context of Judaism as a religion (and often even within that context) the label of Jewish is more rhetorical than adjectival...

I think this discussion is far from over and needs to be taken up in earnest.  I thank you for bringing it up.  I often feel as if we are heading to a place where the Haredi gets to define Judaism for the rest of us. Unfortunately, many of us atone for our own perceived weaknesses in not following their Judaism rather than defending the Judaism we understand.

Two issues for Soccer:

1) You say that, "The point is that even though there is a wide spectrum of "Jewish values" there are limits."  Who gets to set these limits?  Only Orthodox?  Only Satmar?  Only Satmar from Boro Park?  Only Shas?  When we start creating limits for our own groups who are consenting to follow, this is wholly different than setting limits for an entire people, one of whom is as Jewish as any other (I realize some may take exception to this last statement).  Unless we are all willing to elect one leader to be the Great Posek and anyone who disagrees can leave the faith entirely, this is an awfully slippery slope. I am not saying that you do not get to decide your values for your family but you do not get to decide it for mine.  

2) You say that "Rabbinic sources do not condone women sleeping around before marriage."  Overall, agreed, however, Ms. Fox was not talking about women "sleeping around" - she was (if I may be so bold) talking about non-virgins and how the revirginization/abstinence craze fits into Judaism.

Thank you again.

Faith

Thanks for debating this, guys.  I'm glad to have some people talking this out.

Soccer-Yes, you may call me Tamar.  Sadly, you are still missing my point.  I wasn't saying it's okay to sleep around, or that bnot yerushalaim are necessarily not virgins.  I was saying that the lack of the use of the word betulot is an interesting choice, and I think it's comforting to know that virginity isn't what was emphasized when there was discussion of choosing a partner.  And I'm interested in the implications that has on the revirginization/abstinence craze going on these days (hat tip, Faith).

I think that there should be limits, but it's not at all clear to me where they are.  We could say common sense, as it's certainly sensible to say one shouldn't sleep around, but then what's Jewish about that?

Hamish--I think your point is great, but I'm not clear on which communities would have their separate Jewish values.  It seems more like orthodox, ultra orthodox, conserv, reform etc, rather than based on nationality.  Right?

Gregory--Yeah, totally.  One of my huge pet peeves is when people say Jewish and mean Ashkenazi.  And I often find that the sephardi community has a totally different take on something, which sometimes means a different underlying value.

Faith-- Rock on!  You're awesome. 

Faith,
Who chooses these values is classical Judaism. Not Stamar or Reform or anyone else. The is a spectrum of Jewish values and that is found in the classical Jewish sources. If some Reform Jews have a value that doesnt fit into the classical sources than it is not a Jewish value, even though some Jews hold it. The same would hold true for Ultra-Orthodox jews, however the fact is that their values TEND to be firmly based in the traditional Jewish sources of the ages (before there were denominations).

Thank You

A thought, and it may be insightful ro banal, but here goes:

There are no "Jewish" values, but a number of constellations of values that either are practiced by or espoused by sectors of Jewish communities, that are called "Jewish values" because they are based on unique Jewish texts or statements of Jewish thinkers, whether theologians or writers or ideologists ... they may also be either based on or decribed as "Jewish values" because sectors of Jewish communities generally refer to these values in the context of either historic events or Jewish religious text[s].

These values are shared by diverse faiths, cultures, individuals, governments, societies. How each faith, culture, indivual or society creates a matrix into which these values are supposed to hang together or make sense determines whether in any way it makes sense to call values "Jewish values."

Family? Respect for education? The elderly? Workers' rights? the Environment?