Agus attributes the power and attraction of cabalistic thought to the oppressive situation in which Jews found themselves in the late medieval and early modern eras. Amid the brutality and persecution, cabala provided a “pious fantasy” that consoled the Jewish people while they waited “supinely for the Messiah” (2:289). Agus’ understanding of cabala is not flattering, and there is more to be said about the nature of cabalistic teachings than Agus says, but he is certainly correct in his historical judgment that
Qabbalah . . . aided the Jew in his struggle for survival under adverse conditions, but it also separated him from any intellectual-ethical communion with the emerging society of mankind. It provided an exciting mythology, elevating every Jewish custom and every nuance of the liturgy to the rank of a world-saving enterprise. At the same time, the speculative notions and the debris of ancient philosophical systems contained within its volumes offered substitute satisfactions to the insistent quest of the intellectuals. But these services of Qabbalah were purchased at the high price of deepening the isolation of the Jew. The ritual barriers were raised higher. Even more important, the division between Jew and Gentile was now univerally assumed to be one of metaphysical substance and origin. It was no longer a matter of belief that separated the Jew from “the nations,” but the fact that the Jewish soul’s were derived from the Divine Being, while the soul’s of the nations were sparks from the satanic Pleroma of shells, the so called “other side” (Sitra Ahra). On this basis, there could not possibly be any kind of intellectual contact between Jews and Gentiles. (Meaning, 2:295)
In his treatment of the modern period, Agus begins by tracing the influence of cabala in Sabbatianism (seventeenth century) and Hasidism (eighteenth century). He then turns to the process of emancipation in Western Europe and retells the familiar tale of Spinoza; Mendelssohn; the Haskalah; the “Jewish Question” before, during, and after the French Revolution; early Zionism; bundism; Napoleon; romanticism; Reform Judaism; Dubnow’s “autonomism”; and the rise of modern anti-Semitism. Agus has read widely on all these matters, makes sober judgments (whether or not one agrees with all of them), and is, in general, a reliable guide to this complex historical development. What make the exercise interesting are Agus “opinionated” views on nearly every subject reviewed. He knows who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are—and he has thought through the merits of the various ideological positions reported on.
In the “Epilogue,” Agus discusses the rebirth of the State of Israel and the state of Jewish life in America. One must remark that the thirty-odd years since the publication of the The Meaning of Jewish History have shown Agus to be about half right in his view for the future of Arab-Israeli relations and of American Jewry—half right on the former because, while his insistence that peace was achievable has been proven true in the peace with Egypt, Jordan, and the accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, his idealism that caused him to counsel:
At this writing, we cannot foretell the course of Israel’s development, nor can we outline a specific policy for immediate implementation. But this can be said with certainty, the moral health and the very life of Israel depend upon its finding ways to win over the Arabs. The task is not one of concluding pacts with the neighboring governments, but of achieving true bonds of fraternity with the Arab people. To this end, the Arabs within Israel’s borders and those encamped on its periphery must be converted into a bridge of friendship between the two ancient peoples. By working for them and with them, smoldering hates can be transmuted into a new blaze of amity and unity.(Meaning, 2:466)
still seems out of touch with the harsh mass situation on the ground.
Likewise, Agus’ optimism vis-a-vis America was largely correct. The United States has proven to be a “golden land” of unlimited opportunities for Jews, especially in the last thirty years. Yet the corresponding erosion in commitment to the identity and precepts of Judaism—indicated most clearly by the rate of intermarriage—within the American Jewish community is unprecedented and threatens the very shape and enduring vitality of the community.
In 1966, Agus published his mature views on Jewish ethics in The Vision and the Way. Polarity again dominates his thought. Ethics is born of two sources, the intellect and feeling. Jewish ethics is notable, commendable, by virtue of the fact that it manages to hold these two “pillars” in creative tension. In consequence, the transrational vision which asserts that God is the source of all goodness and beyond human judgment is balanced by “the Way of ‘justice and righteousness,’” that is, a rational, universal ethic which requires that ethical norms be subject to human investigation and judgment: “To believe in God, Who is beyond Nature and unlike all things, and, at the same time, to insist that the moral-rational Way, as it is manifest in the light of reason, is a revelation of His Will—this dual conviction establishes the central polarity in biblical religion” (Vision and Way; 33).
Agus traces this fruitful polarity through the main ethical categories of Jewish thought and life. He draws a rich picture of Jewish ethics from the talmudic texts that provide an image of an “Ideal Society”—with its concern for social justice, the poor, and the oppressed; its “massive philanthropic enterprises” (Vision and Way; 63); and its hope for messianic perfection, brought on by human deeds, at which time evil will be finally eradicated and the good vindicated—and an “Ideal Personality” (chapter 4) in which the moral “hero is the incarnation of the ideal(s)” (73), an heir of the prophets, a person who blends priestliness and the virtues of the “Disciple of the Wise” (78):
Unlike the saint, he never forgets the claims of humanity—of family, of work, of innocent delights. He is aware of the “Evil Desire” and of the many ways in which it corrupts man’s best intentions, but like the philosopher, he reveres the regenerative and intellectual qualities of human nature. (Vision and Way, 79)
In addition, Agus deciphers “The Virtue of Obedience,” “The Infinite Dimension of Purity,” “The Ethics of Self-Realization,” and “Freedom and Determinism.” For each topic, he presents the tradition in its variety, its strengths and limits. In sum, the book is, through his extensive quotation of primary materials, mainly an anthology of rabbinical doctrines on the good life, compiled by a master anthologizer.
In regard to the contemporary situation in comparative historical perspective, Agus makes the important observation that
looking at the total spectrum of Jewish ethics, one sees that the popular notion, that the Law governs every question in Judaism, is a fallacy. As has been pointed out, there were indeed times when nearly all creative principles were locked into the rigid categories of an all-embracing law that was presumed to be God-given. But pan-halachism is more characteristic of extremist Orthodoxy in the modern period than of the premodern tradition. In the Talmud the cast-iron logic of legalism was balanced by several factors—the projection of an ethical domain “beyond the law” (lifnim mishurat hadin), the recognition of the validity of the mores and morals of civilized humanity (derech eretz), and by the mystical or philosophical notions that were cultivated in esoteric circles. As late as the sixteenth century, when the Shulhan Aruch was codified, the realm of Perfection beyond the Law was cultivated in pietistic and mystical literature. (Vision and Way, 321)
He goes on to argue:
An analysis of the inner dynamics of Jewish ethics does not reveal a monolithic philosophy of life. It is possible to resolve the tension between the Vision and the Way by choosing any one of many positions within the ethical-religious polarity. Tolerance of differences is a marked characteristic of rabbinic discussions—“these and these are the words of the Living God.” A broad consensus on any one issue may emerge at any one time, but we can hardly dignify any one synthesis as being the Jewish, or the “normative” one. (Vision