In his view, being in exile makes one a perpetual stranger and sharpens one’s ethical stance. He further suggests that “only by resisting the comforts of home (or homeland) is it possible to exercise one’s moral judgment.”2 Similarly, Lithuanian-born French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) interprets exile as holding ethical implications. Levinas questions Western ethics and provides a conceptualization of ethics as being intricately connected to exile. In his Totality and Infinity, Levinas argues that the moral blindness that led to the absence of resistance to Nazism resulted from lack of concern for the “stranger.” A similar critique was offered by Horkheimer and Adorno in their Dialectic of the Enlightenment when they argued that “For Enlightenment, anything which cannot be resolved into numbers and ultimately into one, is illusion.”3
For Levinas, ethics is not a result of maxims but a consequence of human ability to empathize with the other. This other is often the one who becomes exiled or displaced. Levinas’s view of exile incidentally is in line with that of Hebrew thought which considers exilic experience as God’s punishment. The Hebrew view of exile as a mark of God’s punishment is complemented, however, by a theory of redemption that has ethical possibilities. Indeed, Saadia Gaon in The Book of Beliefs and Opinions considers exile a means of purification.
Historically, exile has become a political act since the inception of this entwinement.4 Biblical accounts of Abraham and Moses highlight the very first examples of exile. In most cases, exile reflects the dissident mood which results from “major differences of political allegiance between the most powerful in the state and the person being exiled.”5 Exile itself has often been used as a means to silence any dissidents by placing them either outside of their own country or, tucking them away from their supporters and followers. This separation from a familiar place, from friends and supporters, often produces a sense of alienation. In the Roman world, exile was a substitute for physical death. In some cases, voluntary exile was chosen as an option to avoid unfavorable political, religious, or cultural conditions. For instance, some noble Roman exiles preferred exile to the compromise of living by abiding with political conditions which they strongly disfavored but were unable to influence or change.
An exilic condition is often linked to being in diaspora. Diaspora is defined as the process of scattering.6 Conditions of diaspora lead us to consider the complexity of a “diasporic” identity. The diasporic identity has a potential of heterogeneity and diversity: “a conception of identity which lives and through, not despite, difference: by hybridity.”7 Living in these conditions engenders one with “double (and even plural) identifications that are constitutive of hybrid forms of identity.”8 Diasporic people often conceive of themselves in terms of powerlessness, longing, and displacement. This identity often encapsulates an awareness of a minority status. Yet, in some cases this powerlessness becomes transformed into political empowerment.
As already alluded, the Hebrew conception of exile is profoundly different from that of a Western view. Specifically, the Hebrew tradition came to see exile as a concept “laden with positive significations and possibilities.”9 Hebrew thought in relation to exile is articulated in the words of the Psalmist: “I am only a sojourner in the land; do not hide Your commandments from me” (Ps. 119:19). These commandments attach themselves to the stranger as one who remains on fringes of existence and as such become central to continual survival. The Hebrew prophets always appealed to the senses rather than the intellect. This appeal to the senses is exhibited in concern for those who for one reason or another might be overlooked or neglected. Abraham Heschel stated: “Instead of dealing with timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and forms, of definitions and demonstrations, [the prophet] is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the marketplace.”10 By focusing on the downtrodden, exile becomes a means of attuning sensibility and attention to the stranger.
Historically, with the exclusion of Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist conception of exile is not addressed. Perhaps the closest we can get to the concept of exile is by looking at the wandering monks. In Buddhist literature, a “wanderer” is defined as someone who is free from worldly attachment. Buddhist monks’ wandering mode of living without a settled home and the practice of pilgrimage contributed to the spread of Buddhism. In medieval Japan, from the eight century on, the hijiri became wanderers in the mountains and from village to village and city to city as protectors of the common people. They followed three religious practices: the invocation of the name of the Buddha Amida (nenbutsu); Shungendo (mountain asceticism of Tantric Buddhism and Shinto shamanism); and yin-yang magic. Nenbutsu practice was the most prominent among the three practices.11
In this work, to address the issue of the implications of exile, I place into a hypothetical conversation two medieval thinkers: Shinran (1173–1262), founder of Japanese Shin Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu) and Maimonides (1136–1204), Jewish philosopher rabbi, community leader and physician, to point out that their respective environments of displacement accentuated and sensitized their construction of ethics in terms of otherness. I maintain that their views, while continuing the trajectory stated in antiquity, exhibit significant contemporary relevance with respect to such issues as exclusion, inclusion, and tolerance.
The choice of focus on these two thinkers is not predicated merely upon their being contemporaries, though divided by a vast geographic distance, but is informed by their respective statuses within their communities. Both Maimonides and Shinran faced political environments that placed them either into the position of a dissident in Shinran’s case or of an unwelcome minority (and dissident) in Maimonides’ case.
While philosophy and consequently philosophers are often treated in terms of “a continuation of Plato’s enterprise,”12 which is the life of a withdrawal from everyday social life, viewing any thinkers and their thought outside of their respective environments means overlooking the fact that some of their views are directly affected by these environments. Any peoples’ thought cannot be fully understood if it is abstracted from the history of their lives as a whole. In the case of Shinran and Maimonides, their thought cannot be fully comprehended if their respective exiles are not taken into account. Consequently, rather than viewing Shinran and Maimonides as Plato’s “cave philosophers,” we hold that their thought demonstrates direct applicability to the concepts of integration and acceptance into a new environment.
We recall that for Jews, the conditions of exile did not allow the political control of a state; one could only control one’s own community. In some cases, a given community is forced to exercise a certain level of exclusivity. This exclusivity is connected to the concept of the boundary, which encapsulates the identity of a given community and makes that community distinct from other communities. Yet, Jewish diasporic culture, in its best circumstances, that is, Muslim Spain, allowed for “a complex continuation of Jewish cultural creativity and identity.”13 This contention can be illustrated through Maimonides’ ability to be “simultaneously the vehicle of the preservation of traditions and of the mixing of cultures.”14 As an “in-between” status, the cultural space situates one on both sides of the boundary. This creative mixture of cultures has its own price but also attunes one to the inadequacies and imperfections of human life and human functioning.
A diasporic existence, as already mentioned, requires a certain compromise. Maimonides’ existence would have been intolerable if he had completely isolated himself from the Islamic community. What testifies to his diasporic “hybrid identity” is that despite Maimonides’ commitment to maintaining the commandments, the Muslim world was more than “a mere background to the life of the Jewish community.” Rather, it represented “the larger frame of which the Jewish community was an integral part.”15 And yet, this ability to adjust does not negate his sense of displacement from the land of his birth and nostalgia for the familiar images. I view Maimonides’ diasporic existence in terms of a displacement from the familiar place of his birth and childhood. I view Shinran’s diasporic existence in terms of a displacement from
