“Tzedek” and The Merchant of Venice

A personal response to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “Devarim (5773) – Tzedek: Justice and Compassion,” Covenant & Conversation: Family Edition, July 8, 2013, http://rabbisacks.org/devarim-tzedek-justice-and-compassion/. 

by Christina G. Waldman

Revised March 25, 2019, May 6, 2020

In the captioned piece which I encourage you to read, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that, in Jewish law, the concepts of justice and mercy are bound into a single word, “tzedek.” This Jewish precept is difficult to define precisely, for it is not simply “justice tempered with compassion,” but embodies “shades of meaning” such as “justice, charity, righteousness, integrity, equity, fairness and innocence.” As Rabbi Sacks says, it is “the first precondition of a decent society.”

He points out, as an obvious source for Portia’s “quality of mercy” speech, Deuteronomy 32: 2-4. Here is the King James Version (which Bacon may well have actually had a final hand in editing): “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” Compare it to the translation in Rabbi Sacks’ discourse. They are close.

Christianity is, of course, rooted in Judaism. The Old Testament makes up the bulk of the Christian Bible. Sadly, as the Rabbi observes, the history of Christianity has been fraught with examples of injustice and cruelty. For that matter, the history of humanity as a whole is fraught with such examples. Biblical teachings have not always been followed; nor, for that matter, have the teachings of other religions or rules systems.

Rabbi Sacks points out the unfair “misrepresentation of Judaism in Christian theology until recent times” and the “cruel irony” of putting the famous quality of mercy speech into Portia’s mouth, while perpetuating the “stereotyped medieval Christian” view of the Jew through Shylock. This view of Shylock cannot be denied. Fueled by irrational hatred, the Nazis employed it to justify genocide. The ugly stereotype offends, or should offend, just as Mark Twain’s portrayal, and society’s treatment, of the slave “Jim” in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn offends readers’ sensibilities today.

Is Merchant a play, then, that should be abandoned completely? Or, are there things we can learn from reading and studying it, even if we cannot embrace all aspects of it whole-heartedly? Ironically, even though we see Shylock as filled with hate and a desire for revenge (not historically Jewish attributes, either), audiences end up feeling sympathy for him because it appears, at least, that he has been treated unfairly.

Shylock hates Antonio, and the feeling is mutual. Shylock has a contract with Antonio; Antonio breached it; and now Shylock demands the benefit of his bargain, a contract right protected by the law. That sounds fair; however, the contract would allow him to murder Antonio. Thus was the Roman law once, but now, says Portia, there is a provision which makes Shylock’s own life forfeit for attempting to take the life of a citizen.

As Rabbi Sacks explains, having Shylock stand for strict justice misrepresents the Jewish teaching on “tzedek,” justice tempered with compassion, “doing what is right.” When Shylock tells us, “I stand for justice,” he does not mean “tzedek” (we think). He means his legal rights. He cares not that Antonio has foolishly gotten himself into a jam, trying to help a friend, or that it would be to his benefit to take the money that is offered and spare Antonio’s life. He is driven irrationally by hatred and revenge.

In his book, Shylock, The History of a Character, or The Myth of the Jew (London, 1947), Herman Sinsheimer called this play a satire. Things are not always what they seem in a satire. Often due to censorship, things forbidden to be said had to be “couched,” hidden, and enfolded, so as not to appear subversive.

What if there was a “shadow” reading intended such that, when Shylock said he stood for justice, he could also stand for any “just” man who stood on his religion and took the consequences? This week, it might be a Jew, but next week, a Catholic or Protestant, depending on who was King or Queen that week.

A fair consideration of the validity of this “shadow” interpretation might depend on who we think wrote the play.

If we think the author was William Shaxpere of Stratford, the few facts that are known about him do not suggest that he was a compassionate man. He had, essentially, abandoned his wife and children to move to London where he worked as an actor and became a stockholder in a theatre, grain merchant, and even a moneylender. An order of protection was once sought against him.

What about this person indicates he would he have cared, particularly, about the interplay of Christian and Jewish concepts of justice and mercy? Nothing. It is only when we cloak him in the poetry of Shakespeare that he gains the visage of a compassionate man. That requires an assumption that the two men, Shaxpere and the actual author of Shakespeare, are one and the same.

However, if the real playwright was Francis Bacon, the possibilities for interpretation open up, for he did write about what he called “higher law,” and he did couch his meanings within a veiled style, such that, only those who were willing to dig beneath the surface (in the “mine of truth”) would understand him fully. Whereas Shylock had asked, “Hath not a Jew eyes?” Bacon had once written that we were all made from the same lump of clay.

Whereas some playwrights of the time might have been guilty of perpetuating stereotypes in relative ignorance, Bacon was profoundly learned, thoughtful, observant and sensitive. He was a humanist and a humanitarian. He had taken all knowledge to be his province, but the ultimate goal of his vast scheme for the Advancement of Learning was the betterment of humanity. He saw problems and attempted to propose solutions. He had been charged by Queen Elizabeth to reform the law, and it was one of his chief priorities, as it had been for his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon. At the time the play was being written, Bacon was exploring themes of forgiveness in his Meditationes Sacrae and writing his Maxims of the Law (1596-1598). Also, Bacon wrote works (“trifles,” he called them) for his own re-creation/recreation, a respite from his life of public service. Another biographical fact is that Bacon spent most of his adult life hampered by debt. He once mentioned in his writings a cruel moneylender which whom he had been forced to deal.

Although we are encouraged to view Shaxpere of Stratford as a modern playwright who wrote plays for the public theatre for money, the only recorded performances of The Merchant of Venice during Shakespeare’s lifetime were on Shrove Sunday, February 10, 1605 and two days afterwards, both before the court of King James. While the First Quarto of 1600 reports that the play had been performed “diverse times” by the Lord Chamberlain’s Servants, those would have not have been public performances (Royal Shakespeare Company, Stage History, 2019. https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-merchant-of-venice/about-the-play/stage-history; Amanda Mabillard, “The Merchant of Venice: Q & A,” Shakespeare Online, 1999-2018, http://www.shakespeare-online.com/faq/merchantfaq.html).

Bacon as an influential legal thinker and writer has been largely ignored in modern times. Professor Daniel R. Coquillette has written the first modern book exploring Bacon’s jurisprudence. (Francis Bacon, Stanford University Press, 1992). By his own wish, most of Bacon’s writings were not published until after his death. One important treatise which makes observations on “higher law,” called for short the Aphorismi, has never been published, although it has been translated from Latin in recent times, by Mark Neustadt (see Coquillette, 237-43).

In law school, a hypothetical is a factual set-up proposed to give students a chance to analyze the law and propose a solution. What if The Merchant of Venice were written as such a hypothetical by a legal genius as he wrestled personally with thorny philosophical/theological issues, which yet had the potential to be used as a teaching tool?

While various interpretations are plausible, I believe there is evidence that playwright was Bacon and that he was, in Merchant, intentionally exploring the concept of justice embodying equity–what he called “higher law”–and even expressing his true feelings about cruelties and injustices he did not have the power to stop, such as those he saw in his “Tower work” and/or the torture and execution of Queen Elizabeth’s physician, the converted Spanish Jew, Dr. Roderigo Lopez.

If it was Bacon, what other Jews might he have known, since there were no Jews in England at that time? Emilia Bassano’s family were “Marranos,” Jews from Italy who converted to Catholicism. John Selden, legal historian and reformer, studied Jewish law, but his Treatise on the Jews in England was not published until 1617 (Virtual Jewish Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/selden-john-x00b0.

I was intrigued to learn that the Jesuit order once included Jews. See, for example, Robert Maryks, “The Jesuit Order as a Synogogue of Jews,” Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 146 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), https://brill.com/view/title/15652. Bacon’s good friend Tobey Matthews was either a Jesuit or sympathetic to their teachings. See, for example, “The Life of Sir Tobie Matthew, Bacon’s Alter Ego,” SirBacon.org, http://www.sirbacon.org/tobiematthew.htm.

This is a plea, a hope, that what is good in this play can be gleaned and appreciated, while at the same time its potential for being misused can be stopped short. That, however, brings us to arguments for and against censorship.

I appreciate very much the Rabbi’s making his discussion available online and encourage you to read it, in considering these topics. His point is well-taken.

Post-script of November 11, 2020: I was sad to learn of the passing of England’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on November 7, 2020. “Hespeidem (eulogies) for Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Ha Rav’Yakov Zvi ben David Arieh z”l,” Jonathan Sacks, The Office of Rabbi Sacks, November 9, 2020, https://rabbisacks.org/hespeidim/.