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Kenneth Seeskin
Starting with Amos and continuing through most of the literary prophets is a theme that hits hard at its audience: Israel (taken as the Northern Kingdom or the Jewish people as a whole) has reached the nadir of human behavior. The people defraud the poor and rob the needy. They take bribes and use false weights and measures in the marketplace. They impose high taxes on the poor. Although they take off from work on the Sabbath and festival days, instead of focusing on the religious significance of these days, all they can think about is getting back to the marketplace and continuing to cheat people. In fact, Israel is no better than Sodom and Gomorrah. Its depravity is not limited to the streets or the marketplace but extends even to the priests in the Temple. Was this really true or did the prophets exaggerate the extent of Israel’s moral decline? Or, to put it another way: Was Israel’s behavior that much different from the nations around it? If the answer is no, then the prophets are holding Israel to unrealistically high standards. This raises a deep philosophic question: Should ethical standards be set at idealistically high levels or should they take human fallibility into consideration. Using rabbinic as well as philosophic texts, I will examine this question and defend a modified version of moral idealism.