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Reading anew: What We Can Learn from Chinese-Jewish Comparisons

Author: Aryeh Amihay, Shanghai Normal University

Article abstract: Chinese and Jewish traditions, both ancient and complex, reveal parallels and contrasts that offer insight into how different cultures address ethics, ritual, and social structure. For Aryeh Amihay, an American-educated Israeli professor teaching at Shanghai Normal University, a visit to the mausoleum of China¡¯s Sun Yat-Sen in Nanjing, by comparison with the grave site of Israel¡¯s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion in the Negev Desert, underscored key cultural differences in how memorials are treated in the two cultures. Chinese sites emphasize harmony, social engagement, and even family enjoyment, whereas Israeli sites lean toward austerity, education, and reflection. These contrasting approaches hint at broader differences between Confucian and Jewish philosophies. In Confucian thought, values like harmony (he) and ritual (li) serve as guides for balanced living, while Jewish practice emphasizes distinctions¡ªbetween sacred and profane, permitted and forbidden. Confucianism pursues balance within opposites; Judaism focuses on clear boundaries. Yet both regard ritual as a means of accomplishing these goals and ultimately shaping ethical behavior. Within the Analects and Liji, ritual is thus regarded as an essential social and moral anchor, resonating with the Jewish concept of Halakhah (religious law), which also governs personal and communal conduct. For example, in the Liji, filial piety and household duties are prescribed with meticulous detail, as they are in the Mishnah. While ritual is deeply valued within both systems, one can find strands in each that point to an ideal of transcending it, envisioning a future where human character might naturally align with moral principles, making ritual unnecessary. Through their unique structures, the Chinese and Jewish traditions provide a profound reflection on human imperfection and the aspiration toward ethical harmony.

Aryeh Amihay is Associate Professor of World History at Shanghai Normal University. He earned a BA in Biblical Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2005), and a PhD in Religion from Princeton University (2013). He has taught at Lawrence University, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Tennessee, and the Academy for Jewish Religion. He is the author of Theory and Practice in Essene Law (Oxford University Press 2017), a groundbreaking study of legal concepts and practice reflected in the Dead Sea scrolls. In 2023 he won the Shanghai Magnolia Award for overseas scholars.

As an Israeli scholar of ancient Judaism, I am ever aware of both the similarities and differences between Israeli culture and Classical Judaism. I believe students of Judaism can benefit greatly from visiting Israel and experiencing firsthand Judaism as a living practice, while keeping an historical eye of how things have changed and reimagined with the residue of the traditions molded among the various communities of the diaspora, as well as secular Zionism. So when I started studying Chinese classics and thinking about possible comparisons to Jewish classics, I obviously wanted to travel to China, too. My initial plans for a brief trip in the summer of 2020 were thwarted by the pandemic, but in return I gained a much better experience than I could imagine, when three years later I was hired to teach at Shanghai Normal University, allowing me to explore China in depth, while delving deeper into the ancient texts of a fascinating culture. That exposure to Chinese classics enabled me to discover striking parallels and contrasts between these two ancient literatures¡ªparallels that do more than illuminate differences; they open new pathways for understanding how each culture grapples with ethics, ritual, and the structure of society. These comparisons reveal layered insights that can reshape our understanding of both traditions, making the comparative study of Confucian and Jewish texts a profound and mutually enriching endeavor. Accordingly, I will begin this essay autobiographically by describing some reflections on the differences between modern China and Israel, before turning to ancient writings, to discuss some thoughts on comparative research on Confucianism and Judaism.

A visit to the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum

During my first year in China, I travelled to visit the Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies of Nanjing University, the first institute dedicated to Jewish Studies in China. It was founded shortly after formal diplomatic relations were established between Israel and China in 1992, and photos of visits from high-ranking officials displayed around the Institute are a testimony to the political significance some saw in the formal recognition of Jewish Studies in China. Jewish Studies span a civilization that is much older than the State of Israel, of course, but it is this very antiquity of Judaism that makes Israel and China curious comparisons.
Nanjing has historical significance in Chinese memory, for being the historical capital of China, and also the painful memory of the massacres by the Japanese here in 1937-1938. When I visited Nanjing, my hosts at the university recommended I visit Zhong Shan, or Dr. Sun Yat Sen¡¯s mausoleum on Purple Mountain. Sun Yat Sen (1866¨C1925) is one of the few figures in the history of modern China who is revered both by the Communist Party and the Republican Kuomintang. A revolutionary who envisioned a secular, non-monarchical state, he is often dubbed ¡°The Father of Modern China.¡± As we were approaching his mausoleum, I could not avoid thinking of the multiple contrasts between this site and the gravesite of David Ben-Gurion (1886¨C1973), Israel¡¯s first Prime-Minister, at Sdeh-Boqer in the Israeli Negev.

Sun¡¯s mausoleum has a long approach to it. 392 steps lead up to the mausoleum, symbolizing the 392 million people he united into one nation. How many more have they grown since! Before reaching the long ascent of 392 steps, visitors pass through multiple gates, replicating the experience of visiting a Chinese temple or palace, where the structures leading to the main hall are no less impressive than the center. Prior to the gates, an entertainment center greets the visitors¡¯ approach with shops that offer not only souvenirs of the place, but a variety of shopping and dining experiences. The entire compound is surrounded by stunning greenery.

Sdeh-boqer, by contrast, is austere ¨C to say the least. The two graves of David Ben-Gurion and his wife, Paula, overlook the desert, a barren land as far as the eye can see. Refreshments and souvenirs can be purchased not far from it, but this is a practicality, not a source of entertainment. People visit the grave as part of an educational tour, not as a holiday outing packed with fun. Unlike China, Israel is small and lacks the resources to raise such a huge enterprise. It also does not have the population that could sustain multiple businesses like that for a single tourist site. 

Aside from these pragmatic aspects, there is also a different ethos that can be detected in how memorials are constructed. Judaism emphasizes distinctions: its ritual is predicated on marking boundaries, establishing categories of sacred and profane and the pure and the defiled. Rabbis debate over what is permissible and forbidden. The Sabbath is distinguished as a holy day of rest in contrast to the six days of labor, and it concludes with a ritual that blesses God for separating the holy and the unholy, the Sabbath from the rest of the week, and the Jewish people from the other nations. While this latter category might resonate with Chinese nationalism, the pervasive preoccupation with separation is more complex in the Chinese ethos. The leading traditions that defined Chinese culture, Confucianism and Daoism, were no strangers to the establishment of binary categories. But rather than define clear boundaries between them, these philosophies examine how to balance opposites. Confucianism valorizes he (ºÍ), or ¡°harmony.¡± Indeed, Roger Amers, a prominent expert on Confucian philosophy, has suggested that he is not only an organizing principle of the cosmos, but the very essence of creation within the Confucian system, no less than distinction and separation are the defining features of the Jewish creation narrative in Genesis [1] Both Confucianism and Daoism speak of the yin (Òõ) and the yang (Ñô) not as opposites which must never come into contact with one another, but as complementary contrasts which inevitably work together in the world.[2]

Since I knew I was approaching a mausoleum for a father-figure of the nation, I noticed the shops and revelries with unease: they struck my Jewish sensibilities of separation as inappropriate, verging on the sacrilegious. My surprise would grow when I reached the top of the 392 stairs, and discovered how solemn the mausoleum itself was, so different from everything that was occurring down below. Photography is not allowed. While there is a political impetus to this prohibition, it certainly adds an air of gravity to the inner shrine.

[1] Roger T. Ames, "Confucian Harmony (He ºÍ) as Creatio in Situ." Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (2010): 7517¨C33. For separation in creation in Judaism, see Edward L. Greenstein, "Biblical Law," in Back to the
Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts (ed. Barry W. Holtz; New ¶¶Òõapp: Summit Books, 1984), 83-103 (here 90-95).

[2] For a brief introduction on yin-yang dualism, see Xinyan Jiang, "Chinese Dialectical Thinking - The Yin Yang Model," Asia Major 8.5 (2013): 438-46. For a broader analysis, see Robin R. Wang, Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). See also the sexual symbolism of yin/yang, in Maja Mil?inski, ¡°The Notion of Feminine in Asian Philosophical Traditions,¡± Asian Philosophy 7.3 (1997): 195-205; Michael Puett, "Becoming Laozi: Cultivating and Visualizing Spirits in Early-Medieval China," Asia Major 23.1 (2010): 223-52.

I would be confounded once again later in the afternoon: after a morning at the Sun Yat Sen mausoleum, my host took me to Fuzimiao, the Confucian temple in Nanjing. By now I should have known better, but once again I was shocked to see that the name of the temple is used as a metonym for a plaza filled with shops, an amusement park, a lantern show, and boat rides. A row of people queued up in front of the most famous duck shop to purchase bags of whole roasted ducks to take back home. Across the street were souvenir shops, and my host commented that while the duck shop was selling a local staple food associated with Nanjing¡¯s cuisine, the other shops were a cottage industry offering merchandise that one could find in any tourist attraction throughout China. Wading through this fanfare, I was no longer sure what to expect from the Temple itself.

Upon entry to the temple were inscribed two characters that are central to Confucian thought, ren (ÈÊ), often translated as humaneness, and li (Àñ), often translated as ¡°ritual propriety¡± which I shall explain below.[3] The courtyard of the Temple had colorful lanterns of cartoonish shapes, leftovers from the recent lantern festival, spread among venerable monuments of Confucian scholars. Photography is prohibited within the shrine, as it is in Sun Yat Sen¡¯s mausoleum. At the center of the shrine stood a large textile portrait of Confucius, mounted on a column in the middle of the hall. In front of it, a woman was praying fervently, supplicating in tears. Any attempt of mine to make sense of this in terms familiar to me was destined to fail: Chinese insist that Confucianism is not a religion, so why do people come to pray here? If this is known to be a solemn site for requests and focusing on one¡¯s most distressing moments, why would the Temple permit, or even arrange, all the playful lanterns just steps away from the shrine? I seek cohesion and clear-cut categories, but the temple is a lively site serving multiple purposes for a broad audience. It is a communal center for festivity and frivolity no less than it offers a quiet place for the individual to contemplate their lives and to petition for help. The strict categories of religion and philosophy might be a necessary tool for the outside observer, spoiled by years of academic training, but they are superfluous for the commoner who visits the temple as part of their culture and folklore. I let myself be confused by labels, rather than partaking in the experience as it is.

[3] On the relationship between these two concepts in Confucian thought, see Shun Kwong-Loi. "¸é¨¦²Ô ÈÊ and ³¢¨«  Àñ in the Analects," in Confucius and the Analects: New Essays (ed. Bryan W. van Norden; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 53-72.

Discovering the Liji

My foray into Chinese texts, and the possible benefits in store for a student of Judaism, began through my encounter with international students from China in the United States. They heard me discuss biblical passages and quotes from Plato as classics that any educated person should know, yet were astounded that I was complacent about my virtual ignorance of Confucius. I read some Confucian texts as part of my training in Religious Studies, but did not commit them to memory as I did with other classics. Often, when I made a reference to Plato or the Jewish tradition, those students would comment that Confucius says something similar, and I would shrug, ¡°it¡¯s possible.¡± Being the good Confucians that they were, my students did not criticize me for my complacency, but deferentially and in private urged me to read Confucius, as they believed I would enjoy it very much. Eventually, the message sunk in, and I went to the library to find the Analects.

One of the first things I noticed about the Analects was that Confucius makes repeated remarks about the significance of acting in accordance with ¡°ritual.¡± For example, in the second saying of Book 8, the following is related:

• The Master said: If one is courteous but does without ritual, then one dissipates one¡¯s energies; if one is cautious but does without ritual, then one becomes timid; if one is bold but does without ritual, then one becomes reckless; if one is forthright but does without ritual, then one becomes rude. (Analects 8.2)[4]

Ritual is presented here as a regulating principle, a guide that dominates all aspects of life and allows to keep a balance between various forces so that one¡¯s conduct would always be not only in one¡¯s own favor but also in the service of one¡¯s community. This (along with other statements) seemed very similar to the Jewish concept of Halakhah (Jewish religious law) which is on the one hand treated as law, but its scope extends beyond the common dealings of the law to every aspect of personal conduct and interpersonal exchanges. Around the same time that I was noticing the connection between the all-encompassing notions of Confucian li and Jewish law, a scholar from China by the name of Jiang Zhenshuai was making a similar claim, still unbeknownst to me at the time.[5]

But the similarity I sensed to the Jewish concept of Halakhah only made the Confucian teachings more peculiar: Confucius was repeatedly talking about the merit and value of ritual, but there was no account of the rituals themselves. This seemed so different from the Jewish legacy, starting with the Torah and continuing in rabbinic literature, where the primary focus of the text is the conduct itself, and statements about its significance are left for the margins.

[4] Raymond Dawson, The Analects by Confucius, Oxford World¡¯s Classics (New ¶¶Òõapp: Oxford University Press, [1993] 2000). The Chinese name of the Analects is Lunyu (ÂÛÓï), and it is commonly dated between the late 3rd century BCE to early 3 century CE. Dawson offers a succinct introduction to the text, its historical setting, and major concepts. For other approaches see Frederick Sontag, "The Analects of Confucius: The Universal Man," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 17.4 (1990): 427-38; Wiebke Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010); and Paul R. Goldin, Confucianism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011)

[5] Zhenshuai Jiang, ¡°A Comparative Study of the Concepts of Torah in the Hebrew Bible and Li in Zuozhuan." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 45.3-4 (2018): 175-89.

I decided to explore whether the ¡°ritual¡± Confucius praises is described in detail anywhere else, and this is how I discovered the Liji (Àñ¼Ç), not knowing it was the beginning of a gentle and long fall down an enchanting rabbit hole that would redefine my research interests. 

The Liji is part of the Confucian canon known as the Four Books and Five Classics (ËÄÊéÎå¾­, Sishu Wujing). They are all ancient works, but their canonization was a more gradual process. While they are commonly mentioned together, the Five Classics were grouped as such already during the times of the Western Han Dynasty (ca. 202 BCE to 9 CE). By contrast, the Four Books were grouped as a canon only during the Song Dynasty by Zhu Xi (1130¨C1200). It was only later that the Four Books and the Five Classics would be named in this order, as if the collection of the Four Books preceded the Five Classics. This complex history is also crucial for understanding the unique place of the Liji in this canon.[6]

The title of the Liji can be translated as the ¡°Record of Rites,¡± but the translation of Àñ¡°li¡± has been the subject of much debate. In a limited sense it can mean ritual or rite, but it also refers to a broader, and looser, sense of propriety. It can be compared to etiquette, especially when focusing on the notion that one¡¯s demeanor with others should be a performance, regulated by expectations of others, traditions, and social goals. It is not limited, however, to one¡¯s outer conduct. Roger Ames describes it as ¡°a process of personal refinement¡ªan achieved disposition, an attitude, a posture, a signature, and an identity.¡±[7] 

[6] For more on the Four Books and Five Classics see Brook Ziporyn, Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought (Albany: State University of New ¶¶Òõapp Press, 2012); Michael Nylan, The Five ¡°Confucian¡± Classics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001); Daniel K. Gardner, Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition (New ¶¶Òõapp: Columbia University Press, 2003).

[7] Roger T. Ames, "Li Àñ and the a-Theistic Religiousness of Classical Confucianism," in Confucian Spirituality, Volume 1 (ed. Weiming Tu and Mary Evelyn Tucker; New ¶¶Òõapp: Crossroad, 2003), 165-82 (here 173). For the debate on the meaning of li, see Michael Puett, "Ritualization as Domestication: Ritual Theory from Classical China," in Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual, Volume 1: Grammars and Morphologies of Ritual Practices in Asia (ed. Axel Michaels; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 365-76; Kurtis Hagen, "The Propriety of Confucius: A Sense-of-Ritual," Asian Philosophy 20.1 (2010): 1-25; Michael David Kaulana Ing, The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

For English readers, its only complete translation is the first one offered by the pioneering Scottish scholar James Legge, who completed its translation in two volumes in 1885, as part of Max M¨¹ller¡¯s series Sacred Books of the East.[8] Besides the archaic English, the outdated transliteration system, and the inconsistent treatment of certain Chinese characters, the translation also predates some important 20th century discoveries that have changed scholarly views concerning the formation of the text. These are only some of the obstacles that face the English reader approaching the Liji.

The Liji comprises 49 chapters (called ƪ ¡°pian¡±). Two of these are ´óѧ¡°Daxue¡± (¡°The Great Learning¡± and also the modern Chinese word for ¡°university¡±), and the ÖÐÓ¹¡°Zhongyong¡± or ¡°The Doctrine of the Mean,¡± as Legge baptized it.[9] Each of these two sections is considered a book of its own, included in the list of the ¡°Four Books,¡± so by completing the Liji, a reader does not only complete the reading of one of the ¡°Five Classics,¡± but has already covered half of the ¡°Four Books¡± of the Confucian canon. Its date is difficult to determine, as it is mentioned in ancient sources, but it is not at all certain that such mentions refer to its final form. The strong presence of Confucius in the text suggests that the beginnings of the Liji stem directly from the circle of his students, and a major commentary on the text by Zheng Xuan (127¨C200 CE) has led to a traditional dating around the 2nd century CE. However, its present form probably continued to evolve during the Tang Dynasty (618¨C907) and possibly as late as the Song Dynasty (960¨C1279).[10]

[8] James Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism; Part Iii: The L? K?, I-X, Sacred Books of the East 27; and The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism; Part IV: The L? K?, XI-XLVI, Sacred Books of the East 28 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1885). On M¨¹ller and this groundbreaking enterprise see Arie L. Molendijk, Friedrich Max M¨¹ller and the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[9] The principle encapsulated in Zhongyong, of finding the middle road, has also been compared to Jewish ethics. See Zhang Ping, "The Middle Way without a Middle: A Dialogue between the Confucian Zhongyong ÖÐÓ¹ and the Rabbinic Derech Haemtza," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 45.3-4 (2018): 207-21.

[10] For the redactional history and dating problem of the Liji, see Yucai Liu and Luke Habberstad, "The Life of a Text: A Brief History of the Liji ÀñÓ› (Rites Records) and Its Transmission," Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 1.1 (2014): 289-308. More broadly on problems of Chinese textual history, including the Liji, in Martin Kern, ed. Text and Ritual in Early China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).

Upon discovering the Liji, I did not set out to read it cover-to-cover, but first went to the pian that caught my greatest curiosity, ¡°Neize,¡± which Legge translates as ¡°The Pattern of the Family.¡± The text begins with a description of how children should greet their parents in the morning and attend to their needs while waking up, and proceeds to describe duties towards parents throughout the day, describing in great detail a full daily routine that is focused on the care for parents. It was eye-opening in light of many debates of whether one can consider biblical law an example of law at all.[11] The Ten Commandments include an obligation to honor one¡¯s father and mother, and I always considered this to be a law, and would use it as a prime example in my classes for the ways in which religious law differs from secular law in its moral force and expansive nature.[12] But the contrast between the Liji and the Ten Commandments was illuminating in their approaches to filial piety.[13] The biblical injunction is so broad and vague, and when coupled with a few laws in Deuteronomy it might boil down to a mere prohibition on a challenge to parental authority.[14] The Liji, on the other hand, provides a daily recipe for a deferential treatment of parents so that a son or a daughter is constantly at their service. This seemed to be a binding law much more than the tradition I knew. However, the great detail of the Liji raised its own suspicion: the endless duties one must fulfil when attending to their parents seemed to prohibit any other aspects of life. Their all-encompassing nature made me wonder whether this was a law that people followed at all, or whether it was more of an ideal, a fantasy someone wrote which nobody ever endeavored to follow. I started thinking of how to apply the skepticism of biblical law scholars towards my reading of the Chinese classic.

[11] The Hebrew Bible has three major law codes, addressing a variety of ritual, civil, and moral conduct. There is little evidence that these laws were ever enforced, and in the rare cases where a narrative relates to a biblical law, the events do not follow the legislative ruling. The contrasts between the three codes might indicate that reformulating the laws would bring about a change in common practice, but several scholars doubt whether there was ever an attempt to enforce these laws, or even if they were written for that purpose. The most vocal of these skeptics is perhaps Bruce Wells, as seen in his article "What Is Biblical Law? A Look at Pentateuchal Rules and near Eastern Practice," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70.2 (2008): 223¨C43; for a brief summary see Pamela Barmash, "Biblical and Ancient near Eastern Law," Religion Compass 12.5¨C6 (2018): 1¨C9. For studies focusing on the differences between the law codes and their historical implications, see Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (Tu?bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).

[12] The debate over whether biblical law should be viewed as law at all is intensified in relations to the Ten Commandments since their brief formulation and lack of penalties makes them seem more like moral injunctions than law. See Dalit Rom-Shiloni, "The Decalogue," in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law (ed. Pamela Barmash; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 135-55; and Alan Watson, "Two Early Codes, the Ten Commandments and the Twelve Tables: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Legal History 25.2 (2004): 129¨C49.

[13] I am using here ¡°filial piety¡± as the most widely accepted translation of the Chinese character Т, xiao. Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames have suggested to translate it as ¡°family reverence,¡± but neither they deny the special place of the parent-child relationship in this concept. As one of the defining features of Confucian thought, with implications for both private and public affairs, there is a vast literature on it. See Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Roger T. Ames, The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation of the Xiaojing (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009); Donald Holzman, "The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China," Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.2 (1998): 185-99; Alan K. L. Chan and Sor-Hoon Tan, eds. Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History (London: Routledge, 2004). For a pioneering article on comparisons of filial piety in Confucianism and Judaism, see Youde Fu and Qiangwei Wang, "A Comparison of Filial Piety in Ancient Judaism and Early Confucianism," in Crossing Boundaries: Challenges and Opportunities of Intercultural Dialogue (ed. Peter Jonkers and Youde Fu; Washington, D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2022), 119¨C48.

[14] Deuteronomy 21:18-21 includes a law concerning a rebellious son. Reading this law together with the parent¡¯s authority over marrying their daughter and ensuring her virginity (Deuteronomy 22:13-29), Tikva Frymer-Kensky argues that the ¡°laws of Deuteronomy consistently reduce the authority that heads of household have over the members of their household.¡± See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, "Virginity in the Bible,¡± in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 79-96 (here 93). For more on Deuteronomy¡¯s vision for parental authority see Elizabeth Bellefontaine, "Deuteronomy 21:18-21: Reviewing the Case of the Rebellious Son," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 13 (1979): 13-31; Samuel Boyd, ¡°Deuteronomy's Prodigal Son: Deut. 21:18-21 and the Agenda of the D Source,¡± Biblical Interpretation 28.1 (2003): 15-33; Assnat Bartor, Reading Law as Narrative: A Study in the Casuistic Laws of the Pentateuch (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 98-101.

Jewish and Chinese similarities: seeking new possibilities and contexts

The section called Neize does not describe only filial duties, but extends to other conducts of a household, with several paragraphs describing the gender division that is both a physical separation of quarters and a clear division of labor. This brought to mind a different Jewish text ¨C not biblical law, but the duties of the wife described in Mishnah Ketubbot 5.5¨C6. The Mishnah is a compendium of Jewish law dated to the early 3rd century CE, and divided into six volumes, covering laws of agriculture, festivals, family law, damages, procedural law, and temple matters of sacrifices and purity. As one of the earliest collections of rabbinic law, it is a foundational text of Jewish Law. The Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah in two recensions (from the Land of Israel and from Babylonia), composed in the first few centuries following the collection of the Mishnah.

I began to wonder if comparisons to rabbinic culture would prove more fruitful: the semi-topical arrangement of the Liji was more reminiscent of the Mishnah than the Torah, and like the Mishnah, the specific topical pian were interspersed with other pian which were not arranged by topic, but seemed to reflect older compilations that were gathered earlier. In the words of Yucai Liu and Luke Habberstad, ¡°its chapter titles and order do not constitute a coherent table of contents for a book. Rather, a title might indicate the contents of the entire chapter, just the opening passage or characters, or only a section within the chapter.¡±[15] Some pian were fairly coherent in terms of their topic: in addition to the one on family, there are also pian dedicated to a capping ceremony, to mourning rituals, to music, and even one on the rules of a ¡°pitch pot¡± game, in which a host invites his guests to throw sticks and try to dunk them inside a pot. The range itself is a testimony to the broad sense of ritual in the Liji, one that is not limited to religious ceremonies, but rather to what Michael Puett means when he says that ¡°rituals are best thought of as patterned set of responses operating in tension with the patterned set of responses that usually govern our lives.¡±[16] 

From an organizational point of view, however, it is hard to determine why there are three pian on sacrifices, and what is the organizing principle of each. It did not seem that all three originated from a single author or even a shared redactor. Other pian were philosophical, discussing the nature of the world and ethics, as in the two that I mentioned above, ¡°The Great Learning,¡± and ¡°The Doctrine of the Mean.¡± ¡°Questions of Duke Ai¡± is not arranged by topic or by ethics, but includes a series of questions that were supposedly presented by Duke Ai to Confucius, concerning the significance of ritual, self-respect, filial piety, and other issues. But even this organizational principle is questioned when one finds that other pian include further questions by the duke: a section called ¡°The Conduct of the Scholar¡± (ÈåÐÐ ruxing) presents another challenge from the Duke to Confucius, this time concerning the latter¡¯s attire.[17] The use of a known ruler for a dialogue with a sage, showing the importance of the sage, the significance of the matters at hand, and the intellectual superiority of the sage, is found in rabbinic literature, too.[18] Both in the Liji and in rabbinic texts it is sometimes hard to distinguish where an original text begins, and where a gloss or a later commentary continues.[19]

[15] Liu and Habberstad, ¡°The Life of a Text,¡± 297.

[16] Michael Puett, ¡°Ritual and Ritual Obligations: Perspectives on Normativity from Classical China,¡± Journal of Value Inquiry 49 (2015): 543¨C50 (here 550).

[17] On the historicity of the dialogue between the two, see Christoph Harbsmeier, ¡°The Birth of Confucianism from Competition with Organized Mohism,¡± Journal of Chinese Studies 56 (2013): 1¨C19; Oliver Weingarten, ¡°The Sage as Teacher and Source of Knowledge: Editorial Strategies and Formulaic Utterances in Confucius Dialogues,¡± Asiatische Studien 68.4 (2014): 1175¨C1223.

[18] Jenny R. Labendz, Socratic Torah: Non-Jews in Rabbinic Intellectual Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Lynn Kaye, "A ¡®Great Man¡¯ Said That? The Representation and Significance of Scholastic Failure in the Babylonian Talmud," AJS Review 40.2 (2016): 305¨C34.

[19] Liu and Habberstad, ¡°The Life of a Text,¡± 296¨C99. For an introduction on this issue in rabbinic literature, see David Weiss Halivni, The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud (trans. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2¨C62.

The textual situation and the organization that seems consistent and thematic in some places, and haphazard in others would obviously resonate with a scholar of ancient Jewish law. Another striking similarity is the use of prooftexts from another canonical texts to make an argument. Several pian conclude a paragraph, or even the pian as a whole, with a quote from the Shijing or the ancient Classic of Poetry, which is also one of the Five Classics.[20] Zhang Longxi, in a trailblazing study on the comparison of Chinese and Jewish classics, compared the different approaches to literal and allegorical interpretations of classic texts between the Chinese and the rabbinic use of scripture in the practice of midrash, the most idiosyncratic feature of rabbinic literature.[21] 

In a pian called ÀñÔË Liyun (¡°The Conveyance of Rites,¡± according to Legge¡¯s translation) a disciple named Yanyan asks Confucius whether the rules of ritual (li) are indeed so important. Confucius responds with a quote:

• It is said in the Book of Poetry, "Look at a rat ¨C how small its limbs and fine! Then mark the course that scorns the proper line. Propriety's neglect may well provoke; A wish the man would quickly court death's stroke." Therefore those rules are rooted in heaven, have their correspondences in earth, and are applicable to spiritual beings.[22]

The quote is presented in full, and then with attentive reading finds parallels between the poem to the discourse of the day. The quoted poem begins with the rat and an observation of its course, then speaks of ritual, and finally speaks of humans and their mortality. Confucius reads in those elements an axis: the ritual originates in heaven, and hence human observance of it is what connects the humans to heaven by corresponding their ritual to heavenly matters. The addition of the spiritual beings, referring to Confucian ancestor worship, is directly paralleled to the conclusion of the poem with the topic of death.[23] The structure of the poem, placing propriety between the rat and the human, is interpreted by Confucius to show that the ritual is what connects earth to the heavens, and also what separates humans from animals.[24]       

Similarly, the first chapter of tractate Avot in the Mishnah, concludes with the following statement:

• Rabban Shimon son of Gamaliel says: the world is sustained on account of three things: judgment, truth, and peace, for it is written [in the Book of Zechariah 8:16] ¡°Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates.¡± (Avot 1.8)

Rabban Gamaliel reads three elements in the verse, and deduces from it something about the world, even though the verse never claims that this is a general teaching about the state of the world. This is the midrashic process of the rabbi who adds a layer that was not found in his classic of reference, in the same way that Confucius takes the lines from the Classic of Poetry and draws from it three elements that were not explicitly stated in the verse.    

[20] For an English translation of this remarkable collection of poems, see Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs, with additional translations by Joseph R. Allen and a foreword by Stephen Owen (New ¶¶Òõapp: Grove Press, [1937] 1996).

[21] Longxi Zhang, ¡°Cultural Differences and Cultural Constructs: Reflections on Jewish and Chinese Literalism,¡± Poetics Today 19.2 (1998): 305¨C28. See also in his book Allegoresis: Reading Canonical Literature East and West (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005), 62¨C110.

[22] Translation quoted from Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism; Part III: The L? K?, I¨CX (Sacred Books of the East 27), 367. 

[23] On ancestral worship in China in general, and in Confucianism in particular, see Robert P. Weller, Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987); Xinping Zhuo, Religious Faith of the Chinese (trans. Dong Zhao; Singapore: Springer, 2018); Heming Wang and Cheng Wang, The General Theory of Ancestral Temples in China (Trans. Jun He et al.; Adelaide, South Africa: AACPT Pty, [2013] 2015).

[24] The claim that ritual is what separates humans from beasts is stated explicitly in the opening pian of the Liji, called the Quli (¡°summary of li¡±). See Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism; Part III: The L? K?, I-X (Sacred Books of the East 27), 64.

Conclusion: The challenges of comparison       

Despite having considered the multiple parallels between rabbinic literature and the Liji, there are still elements that make the Hebrew Bible a better parallel to this Confucian classic. The sacrifices described in the Liji are a living reality, closely linked with the imperial palace and the governance of the kingdom. The first pian concerning sacrifices, ½¼ÌØÉü Jiaotesheng, states that the Son of Heaven would conduct inspection tours in the four quarters of his kingdom and upon arrival the first thing he would do was to set a ritual fire.[25] The strong connection between the court and sacrifices is much more similar to the reality reflected in the Hebrew Bible than to the detailed Temple laws the rabbis discuss concerning an institution that is no longer in existence.[26] 

The pian called ¡°The Conveyance of Rites¡± (Liyun), from which I quoted above for its use of the Classic of Poetry, is also noted for a brief and opaque paradisial myth. It describes a primordial time, called ¡°the Grand Course,¡± (´óµÀ) before everything fell into disarray. This is not a creation myth as appears elsewhere in Chinese folklore, but it is a myth nonetheless, justifying the need for law not as an ideal, but as a response to the chaotic state of the world. As Michael Ing shows, this complex approach to ritual as a vital necessity that responds to the world rather than being an integral part of it is quintessential Confucian, in its constant quest for harmony in a disharmonious universe.[27] 

[25]  Liji, Jiaotesheng, section 2. See Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism; Part III: The L? K?, I-X (Sacred Books of the East 27), 426.

[26] While the rabbinic movement arose while the Temple was still in existence, it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE and the overwhelming majority of rabbinic literature is created in its absence, despite so much of the law being focused on Temple practice. See Mira Balberg, "Ritual Studies and the Study of Rabbinic Literature," Currents in Biblical Research 16.1 (2017): 71-98 (here 82-84); Ishay Rosen-Zvi, The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple, Gender and Midrash (trans. by Orr Scharf; Leiden: Brill, 2012), esp.153-81.

[27]  Michael D. K. Ing, "Ritual and Vulnerability of a Prosperous World: A Reading of the ¡®Liyun¡¯ Àñß\," in The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy (ed. Alexus McLeod; London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019); 87-111. Ing expands on this point in its broader Confucian setting in two important studies, one that is focused on ritual, and the other on harmony. See idem, The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Comparing this to Judaism, one may consider both parallels and contrasts: the central theme of Covenant, which leads the narrative in the Torah, or the first five books of the Bible, is God¡¯s attempt to create a relationship with humanity in order to address their failings. His first Covenant is with Noah (Genesis 9:8¨C17), establishing a relationship with the father of all humanity, after the flood. The next Covenant is with Abraham, creating a chosen people through him (Genesis 15:18; 17:1¨C19). When Abraham¡¯s descendants grow to the size of a nation, God makes one more covenant with the nation, one that is grounded in law (Exodus 19:1¨C6, 24:1¨C8). The law then is given against God¡¯s general disappointment with humanity, and in an attempt to elevate the human spirit. The laws repeatedly state that the Israelites should not behave like the nations around them. 

This idea led some thinkers to view the Law as an imperfection, precisely because it was given as part of a gradual covenant, a process that was understood as a divine response to humanity¡¯s sins. Salvation would then mean a radical change in the circumstances of the world, a change in which righteousness would be the fundamental principle of existence so that the law would no longer be necessary. The sixteenth-century mystic Isaac Luria viewed God¡¯s act of creation as a tragic event in which the perfect and divine infinity that encompassed the universe was diminished and limited in order to make space for a physical, natural, and human world to be created. Limits were the source of evil, and therefore the commandments, too, were viewed as standing in contrast to the unrestrained nature of God.[28]

In accordance with the paradoxical nature of mystical thinking, the commandments are never condemned as completely evil, since performing God¡¯s commandments produces a positive effect in the divine realm. The consequence is a certain tension, reminiscent of yin and yang dualism: following Jewish law has both a positive effect in the divine realm, as well as a negative one, since it perpetuates a world that is not defined by God¡¯s unrestrained infinity. Conversely, violating the commandments is primarily an evil thing, but it has a positive potential, to liberate the world from the limiting constraints of the law.[29] This would lead some mystics, most famously the false Messiah Shabtai Zvi, to violate Jewish law in an attempt to bring about the dawn of a new age, where all limitations of the law would be overcome.[30] 

The Confucian myth of the Grand Course shares this apprehension of the law: li preserves family relationships, loyalty to ruler, chastity, and more. But there was a world where it was unnecessary. Rituals were constructed in response to the deterioration of the world, and this implies a yearning for a time when they will once again be superfluous. Both Confucianism and Judaism showcase an ambivalent approach to laws and ritual: on the one hand, they emphasize the significance of strict observance of rituals as a way of regulating human faults and unbridled desires. On the other hand, they continue to dream of a world where they would not be necessary.[31]

There is much more to say about the Liji and the way Jewish Studies can contribute to its interpretation, just as the Liji and other Chinese classics can shed new light on Jewish texts. The similarities first of all reassure my faith in universalism, i.e., in a shared human experience that is found in multiple manifestations. But more importantly they also allow better understanding of themes that are sometimes implied or left unstated, and can be uncovered through comparison with another culture. The differences invite us to consider what makes each of these cultures distinct, what are essential features that define each tradition alongside the universal elements that have made it a venerable inspiration for the world. For me, this comparison is a project in its cradle, that has been destabilizing, eye-opening, and humbling. Whatever I thought I knew of religion is being challenged, reconsidered, and reinterpreted, as I continue to study these two great traditions side by side.

[28] For an introduction to Luria¡¯s thought, see Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New ¶¶Òõapp: Schocken, [1941] 1995), 244-86.

[29] For more on the complex approach of Jewish mystics on the law, and not only Lurianic mysticism, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (New ¶¶Òõapp: Oxford University Press, 2006); Maoz Kahana and Ariel Mayse, ¡°Hasidic Halakhah: Reappraising the Interface of Spirit and Law,¡± AJS Review 41.2 (2017): 375-408.

[30] Boaz Huss, "'For the Letter Kills, but the Spirit Gives Life': Halakha Versus Kabbalah in the Study of Jewish Mysticism,¡± Modern Judaism 41.1 (2021): 47-70; Stephen Sharot, "The Sacredness of Sin: Antinomianism and Models of Man," Religion 13.1 (1982): 37-54. On Luria¡¯s complex approach to the law see Lawrence Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 187-219.

[31] For other points of similarity between Lurianic literature and Chinese classics, see Jianyu Shen, "The Gods among Us: A Shared Recipe for Making Saints in Early Jewish and Daoist Hagiographies." Religions 15.2 (2024): 1-26.