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Morris R. Cohen's Absolutisms in Law, Morals and Judaism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2016

Ze'ev W. Falk
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Extract

The following critique of Morris R. Cohen's paper on Absolutisms in Law and Morals, first published in 1936 in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and reprinted in his book Reason and Law, may be opened with an example of absolutism which appears in a passage of Scripture read in the Synagogue.

In the levitical law of the Sabbatical Year (Lev. 25:1–7) we read in the introduction that “God said to Moses on Mount Sinai, speak to the people of Israel” … The Rabbinical interpretation in Sifra, ad loc, remarks:

“What is the reason for mentioning the fact that the commandment was given at Mount Sinai especially in the passage on the Sabbatical year. Do we not ascribe all commandments to Mount Sinai? Precisely as the specifics as well as the generalities of the Sabbatical Year were revealed at Mount Sinai, so the specifics as well as the generalities of all commandments were revealed at Mount Sinai”.

Type
The Philosophy of Morris R. Cohen - A Symposium
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 324 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1981

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References

1 (1936) 84 U. Pa. L. R. 181.

2 (Glencoe, Ill., 1950) 63ff. Quotations in this article are from this version.

3 Cf. Cohen's, Law and the Social Order (New York, 1933) 6.Google Scholar

4 (Leiden, 1971).

5 Cf. Genesis Rabba 12:15.