By Rabbi Judith Rosen-Berry

Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof – or an ethics of Jewish justice that originates from ‘the broken middle’ (Gillian Rose)

The imperative continues to resonate – but the meaning and implementation of “justice, justice you shall pursue”, has unravelled. So, rather than offering another literary interpretation of tzedek, tzedek tirdof – I would like to ask how we’re to pursue (into our ‘progressive’ future) an ethics of justice when the very frameworks on which modern Jewish (and Western) justice were constructed now appear to us – at worst utterly exhausted, or at best ill-equipped to address our precariously unjust times? At some point (soon) we have to acknowledge, in an impactful way, that the historic resources that progressive Jews have relied upon, whether that is modern (liberal) ethics and/or elements of (traditional) Torah inspired morality, and anything that has been derived directly from them to construct a modern Jewish justice ethics, are now in a collapsed state and currently lie around us – if not entirely dead then severely damaged. So the big question that we should really be addressing is: what kind of ‘justice’ could/might rise from the ashes of the late modernist presumptions that progressive Judaism adopted in conversation with Torah?

Given that the dark shadow of October 7^th, and the agony of Gaza, are at the forefront of our minds, a ‘new’ Progressive Movement might want to address the root causes of the gradual ‘disappearance of our ethical framework’, reflect on the consequent powerlessness of our calls for justice, and challenge the moral inertia that has inevitably followed on from this – but sadly it seems that we, along with many other liberals/progressives are unable (or unwilling) to do so. This is despite the fact that we know that our ethical discourse has utterly failed to bring about the necessary change in the political and economic structures that now give rise to global injustices. But, as our tradition teaches, this current reality doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t or couldn’t start that work now.

A few years ago British philosopher Gillian Rose remarked at the beginning of her work Mourning Becomes the Law on the strangeness of living in a time in which we have systematically undone the philosophy, theology and metaphysics that have sustained us up to this point – and that critically, we have not been able to replace them with something else, something better – instead we experience a growing feeling of groundlessness.

This feeling of standing on unstable wobbly ethical foundations is partially due to the fact that we have not constructed the new ground works that we need if we are to stand more firmly. Instead we are caught in the un-dynamic situation of being neither able to pivot back to a familiar ‘liberal’ tradition or move forward towards the less acquainted post-liberal – for inspiration. But it’s not all bad. One of the consequences of this impasse might be that we decide to consciously inhabit the risky but possibly creative space that Gillian Rose described as the “broken middle” – a space in which ethical and political tensions are held and debated, if not necessarily or conclusively resolved. An uncomfortable space then, that denies the possibility of arriving at a set of easy or familiar resolutions that might address the ‘ethical’ problems that we are now facing – but nevertheless moves us ‘forward’ (it’s a bit Hegelian but we could work with that in some way).

Of course, we wouldn’t be the first to occupy this broken space, so it’s possible that we can learn something from those who preceded us. And perhaps our teachers could be three women who Gillian Rose identified in her work The Broken Middle. Three modern exemplars – who chose to become denizens of the ‘fractured’ – Rahel Varnhagen, Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt. Each of these women addressed in their particular contexts how this ‘middle space’ of brokenness / ‘diremption’ is also a space of possibility. Each of these women then, could teach us that it’s only when we confront the collapse, or the fundamental brokenness of the theological, ethical and political frameworks that have hitherto guided us that we can begin the real work, the struggle-filled work of constructing new theological and ethical frameworks – imaginative configurations that realise that the way forward is a via a necessarily ‘broken’ (but universal) concept of Jewish justice. Because in the end, as Gillian Rose pointed out, there is no straightforward way to pursue justice, what ever any tells us. Rather what is required “is a trying, failing, learning and trying again” (Gillian Rose, The Broken Middle: 53).

This process comes with the hazards of exhaustion, disbelief, and possibly cynicism – but it is a necessary process – and a new Progressive Jewish Movement is in a good position to recognize that what our ethical frameworks require now is something that transcends both the limitations of modern Western liberalism and its proceeding manifestation in post-modernism. Perhaps this transcendence could be located in the “broken middle”? Probably the only place at the moment in which we could honestly address, debate and counter the failing ethical worldview that we have up until now relied upon, but which no longer works for us (or anyone else for that matter). Then, and possibly only then, we would be in a position to rebuild and pursue new forms of progressive Jewish justice fit for the global challenges that we are all now facing.

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