The Talmudic doctrine of "The Benefit of a Pleasure": psychological well-being in Talmudic literature

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  Oct, 2007  by Roman A. Ohrenstein

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I

What Is the Talmud?

BEFORE WE EMBARK UPON OUR INVESTIGATION, a few words about the Talmud might be useful. The Talmud (1) ("learning" in Hebrew) is a veritable encyclopedic library of Jewish law, literature, and science. It encompasses an entire antique civilization, extending from ca 300 BCE to ca 500 CE. In this storehouse of knowledge, almost every facet of human endeavor is reflected. The subjects discussed include ethics and law, history and economics, philosophy and theology, psychology and science, medicine and mathematics.

There are two Talmudim (Hebr. plural): the Palestinian (Yerushalmi), ca. 100 BCE-425 CE, and the Babylonian, ca. 300 BCE-500 CE. About one-third is Halakha (legal) and two-thirds Aggadah (narrative). Outside the Talmud itself, the Talmudic tradition includes important material such as Tosephtah ("Additions"), Midrash ("Expositions"), and Baraitot (i.e., a reservoir of Tannaitic tradition).

Inasmuch as there was regular intercourse between the Palestinian and Babylonian academies, much that was taught in Eretz Israel passed on to the Jewish schools in the East. Since Aramaic was then the language of discourse, both Talmudim are in Aramaic; however, each is in a different dialect.

An outstanding feature of the Talmud is that it encouraged freedom of thought. As put by Adin Steinsaltz (1976: 3-23), "every type of inquiry is permissible and desirable ... the more the merrier. No inquiry is regarded unfair or incorrect as long as it pertains to the issue in question." Indeed, "it is remarkable what freedom the Rabbis allowed themselves in their speculation" (Hirsch 1977: 15). Although the Talmud is the primary source of Jewish law, it cannot be cited as an authority for the purpose of a ruling. Its emphasis is on understanding, not on acceptance (Steinsaltz 1976). (2)

II

Background of Hedonic Psychology

ACCORDING TO WEBSTER'S NEW UNIVERSAL UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY (1989), "hedonics" is a branch of psychology that deals with pleasurable and unpleasurable states of consciousness. It is a subject that challenges the "objectivist" approach to human behavior. Let me elaborate a bit.

Standard economic theory maintains that only observable choice is the criterion of human well-being. It presupposes that individuals will choose the greatest amount of utility for themselves. And by knowing a person's utility value, we are able to predict the individual's choice behavior. (3) In the 1930s, John R. Hicks demonstrated that human satisfaction can be explained on the basis of ordinal utility, in that the highest utility is ranked above the good with the next highest utility and so on.

Although utility refers to the subjective pleasure that a person derives from consuming a good or service, still, according to Samuelson and Nordhaus (1992: 83), "we should not identify utility with any precise psychological function or feeling that can be observed or measured." Following that reasoning, the "objectivists" reject subjective experience as "unscientific." They do not include in their mathematical models psychological phenomena such as emotions and passions, simply because the latter cannot be observed.

This no longer seems to be the case. The existence of a close relationship between economics and psychology is by now well-established. The proponents of "hedonic psychology" readily include in their research human characteristics such as happiness, well-being, enjoyment, suffering, moods, self-esteem, feelings, and passions. As stated by Daniel Kahneman (1999: ix), "our aim is to bring these threads together to facilitate an integrative view of hedonic experience in all their instantiations." (4) In doing so, they put behaviorism at the center and mathematical models at the fringe. Indeed, the validity of this research is now gaining wide recognition. (5)

III

The Notion of Happiness in Antiquity

HAPPINESS IS ONE OF THE MOST ELUSIVE GOALS in the realm of human experience. The more one chases after it, the more it eludes the pursuer. Shakespeare pointedly described such drive as "all things that are/are with more spirit chased than enjoyed." (6) And yet, everyone wants to be happy. There are few strivings in life shared by so many people . (7)

Historically, the psychological phenomenon of man's striving for happiness is probably as old as recorded history. It found its expression in the annals of the biblical Hokhma, (8) the Greek Sophia, the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, and in other antique writings in the Near East.

Thus, the biblical Kohenlet (Ecclesiastes), the Sage of Jerusalem (275-250 BCE), grasped the nettle of life's perplexing problems as he wrestled with the amorphous nature of happiness and unhappiness. He was desperately searching for some standard with which he could "measure" the level of satisfaction in life. (9) After having found all the "wisdom" in man's endeavor to be wanting, he turned with a passion to the worldly pleasures of wine, women, and song as attainable goals. Upon calculating all the odds, he arrived at the conclusion that happiness, however inadequate it may be by an absolute standard, is still the only sensible goal in life (Gordis 1951): (10)