Hogenet: Decency & Society by Rabbi Michael Marmur
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ShareA study on decency from Rabbi Michael Marmur's 2025 book "Living the Letters"
A Chapter from Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought by Michael Marmur
Roman historians recount that in the year 39 or 40 CE, the Emperor Caligula built a pontoon bridge across part of the Bay of Naples. Boats were anchored in a double line in the water and sand poured over them. Upon its completion, the Emperor donned a gold cloak and the breast-plate of Alexander the Great and crossed the unlikely bridge on his horse. News of this account reached the Jews of Palestine and clearly fueled the midrashic imagination.
An ancient parable in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai reads:
(ב) רבי שמעון בן יוחי אומר משל לאחד שהביא שתי ספינות וקשרם בהוגנים ובעשתות והעמידן בלב הים ובנה עליהם פלטרין כל זמן שהספינות קשורות זו בזו פלטרין קיימים
(2) A man brought two ships, tied them to anchors (hagunim) and iron weights, stationed them in the
middle of the sea, and built a palace upon them. As long as the two ships are tied together, the
palace stands firm. Once the ships are separated, the palace cannot stand.
The Caligula anecdote sheds light on what would otherwise be anobscure teaching. The Jews are called upon to leash their boats togetherand make common cause, not for the glorification of a human potentate with divine pretensions but rather so that a platform can be erected on the choppy waters of reality, a place in which the Divine can dwell. The midrashic reworking of Caligula’s folly can also be read as a reflection on political life, striving for a degree of fixity in a sea of indeterminacy. The anchors and weights required to achieve this precarious feat include armies and taxes and realpolitik but also core values. Some heft is required to keep disparate vessels bound together.ּ
(ט) אָמַר רַבִּי לֵוִי אֶחָד נִדְמָה לוֹ בִּדְמוּת סָדָקִי, וְאֶחָד נִדְמָה לוֹ בִּדְמוּת נָוָטִי, וְאֶחָד בִּדְמוּת עֲרָבִי, אָמַר אִם רוֹאֶה אֲנִי שֶׁשְּׁכִינָה מַמְתֶּנֶת עֲלֵיהֶם אֲנִי יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁהֵן בְּנֵי אָדָם גְּדוֹלִים, וְאִם אֲנִי רוֹאֶה אוֹתָן חוֹלְקִים כָּבוֹד אֵלּוּ לְאֵלּוּ, אֲנִי יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁהֵן בְּנֵי אָדָם מְהוּגָנִין, וְכֵיוָן שֶׁרָאָה אוֹתָן חוֹלְקִין כָּבוֹד אֵלּוּ לְאֵלּוּ, יָדַע שֶׁהֵן בְּנֵי אָדָם מְהוּגָנִין.
(9) Rabbi Levi said: One appeared to him in the image of a Saracen, one in the image of a Nabatean, and one in the image of an Arab. He [Abraham] said: ‘If I see that the Divine Presence waits for them, I will know that they are mehuganin. If I see that they act respectfully towards to one another, I will know that they are mehuganin.’
Fair Trade Coffee = קפה סחר הוגן
״וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ עֵלִי עַד מָתַי תִּשְׁתַּכָּרִין וְגוֹ׳״. אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר: מִכָּאן לָרוֹאֶה בַּחֲבֵרוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁאֵינוֹ הָגוּן, צָרִיךְ לְהוֹכִיחוֹ.
On the subject of Eli’s rebuke of Hannah, as it is stated: “And Eli said to her: How long will you remain drunk? Remove your wine from yourself” (I Samuel 1:14); Rabbi Elazar said: From here the halakha that one who sees in anotheran unseemly matter (she-eino hagun), he must reprimand him, is derived.
“Decency” is usually rendered in Hebrew as haginut, taken from the same root as the word for anchor and its associated terms. It is a difficult notion to get excited about since it often smacks of quaint bourgeois morality or a kind of clipped mediocrity. Doing the decent thing may sometimes come at the expense of doing the morally excellent thing. Rather than call for an absolute, abstract, and unattainable commitment to the Other, the dictates of decency set out plausible requirements to be fulfilled by the citizen in keeping with their social obligations...
This abstract term haginut, denoting anchored decency, was employed by Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi, Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, in a 1985 responsum:
The great moral to be derived by every government among the people Israelis that it possesses an obligation to conduct itself with integrity and fairness (haginut) towards its minorities and those who are strangers in its midst. In so doing, it will sanctify the Name of Heaven and the name of Israel in the world.
