PEOPLE OF THE LAW:

Accountability to the spirit---and man (Rabbi Berel Wein, 3/07/03, Jewish World Review)

The stirring events of the Exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the revelation at Sinai, the disaster of the Golden Calf, the war with Amalek, all do not appear in the report at the end of the book. Instead we have an accounting of monies and goods and services donated by the Jewish people in order to build the Mishkan (Tabernacle).

There is nothing as boring and undramatic as an accountant's report, a statement of profit and loss and of budgets raised and spent. Yet an accurate accounting of money lies at the heart of all civilized societies. Cooking the books, filing false financial statements destroys confidence and eventually leads to far-reaching negative consequences. Remember Enron and Arthur Andersen? The Torah therefore prefers to end this stirring book on the somewhat mundane note of honest and open accountability. And this is a great lesson in life.

Accountability is the name of the game in Jewish life. The Torah teaches us that "adam muad lolam" --- a person is always liable and responsible for one's actions and behavior. Corruption in monetary matters is a symptom of the corruption in one's heart and soul. [...]

Accepting the Torah at Sinai is dramatic and inspiring. Maintaining its precepts and living its values in a dangerous and inimical world is taxing and many times uninspiring. People crave excitement --- "spirituality." But oftentimes people think that such spirituality comes without the necessary price tag of inhibited human behavior and personal accountability.

It is only the message of accountability that this parsha stresses that can give us the courage and fortitude to continually rise in the face of adversity and proclaim "chazak, chazak, v'nischazek" ---" Let us be strong, let us be strong and let us strengthen others as well."

Jean Bethke Elshtain refers to modern citizens as "rights-bearing individuals", a term that is not intended to be complimentary, and contrasts the idea of individuals entitled always to make claims upon others with the idea of democracy as "a mode of participation with one's fellow citizens animated by a sense of responsibility for one's society." Unfortunately, both the Left and the libertarian Right are opposed to the concept of citizenship imposing such limitations, responsibility, and accountability, while Ms Elshtain and other Communitarians too readily identify society with the State. Conservatism's role, perhaps inherited from Judaism, must be at least in part to steer us between these philosophies that lead to Statism on the one hand (the Left and Communitarians)and atomization on the other (Libertarianism).

MORE:
-ESSAY: Rights, Responsibilities, and Communitarianism (Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D., friesian.com)

UPDATE:
Speaking of Communitarianism, one of its fathers has started a blog:
Miscellaneous (Amitai Etzioni, March 03, 2003, Amitai Etzioni Notes: Personal and Communitarian Reflections)

Until a few months ago I did not know a blog from a hole in the wall. Then I joined Lawrence Lessig at a Catholic University Law School symposium in which he laid out his opposition to copyright laws. He favored free access to cultural products in cyberspace for the common good, which he defined as creativity and innovation. I shared that characterization of the good, but wondered if the best way to protect the vary same good would be ensuring that innovators and creators receive some benefits for a reasonable period. I asked Lessig for examples of damages that creative people incurred because access to music, texts, films, and other cultural material in cyberspace is not unencumbered. Lessig did not have a sizeable list, but he suggested that the creators of blogs would be unable to incorporate, say, Disney images into their web logs, as many like to do. (He was quick to note that this matter could be readily handled by extending the fair use laws that exist in the rest of the world to cyberspace, still maintaining copyright laws).

I had no idea what Lessig was referring to, but soon I found a whole slew of blogs. Many of them seem to be on the light side; quite a few are even hacking products, anything from digital cameras to underwear. But then the "wonder kid" of the UCLA law school, Eugene Volokh, invited me to what is known as the "Volokh Fest"; when he snows into town, he invites some of his considerable number of friends to a Dutch dinner. Turns out, he has a highly regarded blog site, the Volokh Conspiracy; and he introduced me to others, including the most popular one, Instapundit. These blogs inspired me to form one. I would love to have comments on my attempt to use this new medium to share pieces of information, sources, and ideas in which I naively believe everybody must be interested. And I promise you that in my case .com means communitarian, not commercial.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2003 9:18 AM