Introduction
The story found in Sifra Behar 5.3 and in the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Meṣi'a 62a, about two persons traveling in a desert and having a quantity of water that allows only one of them to reach civilization and survive, is well known and frequently referred to in books and articles dealing with Jewish ethics.Footnote 1 The rabbinic texts raise the question: Should the travelers share the water and die together, or should the person who owns the water drink it in order to survive?Footnote 2 This story reminds one of the case of the two shipwrecked men who grasp a plank that can bear the weight of only one person and therefore enables only one of them to reach the coast, a case referred to in philosophical texts from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The similarities between the issues dealt with in the rabbinic texts and the Greco-Roman ones have indeed been noticed by several scholars working on rabbinic literature (whereas specialists of ancient philosophy generally ignore them).Footnote 3 However, a systematic comparative analysis of the rabbinic tradition and the philosophical texts has not been undertaken so far, nor have previous studies paid much attention to the issues at stake within the Greco-Roman texts themselves, to their inner logic and relationships with one another.
My aim in this paper is to explain the stakes of the debate among the Greco-Roman philosophical schools and to compare the philosophical texts to the rabbinic ones. Moreover, I would like to add two new texts to the debate. The first reason for adding them lies in their intrinsic value in terms of ethical reasoning and for the history of the notions involved. Second, they may help us better appreciate the arguments put forward both in Cicero's treatises and in the discussion between Ben Peturi and Rabbi Aqiba. The first text belongs to the Academic tradition—what may be called Middle-Platonism—and is found in a passage of the Anonymous Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus (henceforth ACT), written in Greek and dating to the first century c.e. The second text is found at the beginning of the eleventh chapter of Qohelet Rabbah, in connection with Qoh 11:1, “Cast your bread upon the waters: for you shall find it in the multitude of days.”
My thesis can be summarized as follows: The philosophical and the rabbinic texts do indeed share related questions and some elements of the answers, which shows that the sages were aware of some aspects of popular ethical debates in the Greco-Roman world. However, the texts examined here differ in several respects, and ultimately do not address the same moral question—an important fact that has generally been disregarded so far, probably because previous scholarship was mainly focused on the issue of the origin of the rabbinic story (and not on a detailed analysis of the nature of the arguments). I shall therefore attempt to clarify the nature of the issues at stake, starting with the Greco-Roman texts.
The Greco-Roman Philosophical Debate
Cicero's De re publica: Carneades and the Polemics against the Stoics within the New Academy
Let us start our inquiry with a passage from Cicero's De re publica (3.17.26), summarized by Lactantius in his Divinarum Institutionum (5.16.9–11), which refers to Carneades's teaching:Footnote 4
9. “It is of course justice,” he [Carneades] said, “not to kill someone, and certainly not to hurt a stranger. 10. So what will a just man do if he happens to be shipwrecked and someone weaker has seized a plank? Won't he push him off the plank so that he can climb on himself and survive by staying on it, especially when there is no witness, in mid-ocean? If he is wise [sapiens], he will; if he doesn't, he must perish himself. If, however, he prefers to die rather than lay hand upon the other, he is now a just man but also a fool, because he fails to spare his own life and spares another's instead. 11. So too, if his own side is routed and the enemy starts a pursuit, and our just man finds some wounded man sitting on a horse, will he spare him, to be killed himself, or will he push him off so that he himself can escape the foe?Footnote 5 If he pushes him off, he is wise but also bad; if he doesn't, he is just but also, necessarily, a fool.”Footnote 6
Carneades was the head of the New Academy (the philosophical school that traced its origin back to Plato) in the second century b.c.e., and a fierce opponent of Chrysippus, who had become the head of the Stoa after Cleanthes.Footnote 7 Carneades's criticism of the notion of justice in the passage summarized by Lactantius consists first and foremost of a polemic against the Stoic conception of justice and against the Stoic idea that altruism was natural and even grounded in the natural instinct of every human being to take care of oneself.Footnote 8 As a matter of fact, the Stoics, at least from Chrysippus onwards, had developed a particular concept called oikeiôsis (appropriation, affinity), according to which every human being since birth has a kind of natural “affinity” with him- or herself (that is, naturally looks for what is good for him- or herself). With the development of reason within the individual, this feeling of benevolence gradually extends from self-love to love for children, parents, friends, neighbors, and all other human beings, on the ground that all human beings share rationality and that one is supposed to have the same affinity with all rational beings.Footnote 9 Thus, Stoic ethics based benevolence towards others, and justice in the sense of an equal treatment granted to all, on what from a Platonic point of view was simply instinct (of self-preservation). This connection between justice (or virtue in general) and nature or instinct was unacceptable from the point of view of Platonic philosophy, for which the Good definitely belongs to the realm of transcendence and has nothing to do with immanence.Footnote 10 The story of the shipwrecked served to show that there is a conflict between wisdom or self-love (implying the desire to save one's life), on the one hand, and justice or altruism (implying a desire of equal intensity to save the other's life, or at least to refrain from harming him in any way), on the other.
Carneades belonged to the most “sceptic” branch of the Platonic school, one that fought consistently against Stoic dogmatism by resorting to dialectical reasoning and aporiai.Footnote 11 Therefore, Carneades's words should not be taken at face value but rather should be understood as a polemical and dialectical argument similar to those found in the famous Platonic dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, in which the latter echoes Thrasymachus's speech against the notion of justice and challenges Socrates to prove that it is intrinsically better to be than to seem just (Republic, Book 2, from 357a onwards).Footnote 12 What Carneades himself would have recommended doing in a situation of shipwreck like the one he describes lies beyond our grasp. One may simply recall that the idea that it is preferable to suffer an injustice than to commit one is already put forward by Socrates, and that Socrates remained a source of inspiration for the New Academy no less than for the Stoics. This Socratic position implies that one should die rather than deprive another of his or her means of survival. However, again it must be recognized that we are unable to make any firm statement concerning Carneades's own teaching in such a case.
The Anonymous Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus (ACT): Carneades's Legacy in Middle Platonism
A new text, published in its entirety for the first time in 1995,Footnote 13 sheds additional light on the content of the polemic between the New Academy and the Stoa. Dated from the first century c.e.,Footnote 14 this commentary on Plato's Theaetetus written by an anonymous Academic philosopher alludes to the situation of the shipwrecked in the context of a polemical discussion of the Stoic notion of oikeiôsis, in connection with the passage from the Theaetetus (143d) in which Socrates says that he cares less for the people of Cyrene than for the people of Athens. According to “classical” Stoic ethical teaching, such a hierarchy was not acceptable, since a rational human being was supposed to feel the same “affinity” or benevolence towards all human beings.Footnote 15 The text must be given in full in order for the reasoning to be understandable:
We have an appropriate relationship to members of the same species (ᾠκειώμεθα γὰρ τοῖς ὁμοειδέσι). But a man's relationship to his own citizens is more appropriate. For appropriation (οἰκείωσις) varies in its intensification. So those people [the Stoics] who derive justice from appropriation, if on the one hand they are saying that a man's appropriation in relation to himself is equal to his appropriation to the most distant Mysian, their assumption preserves justice; on the other hand no one agrees with them that the appropriation is equal. That is contrary to plain fact and one's self-awareness. For appropriation in relation to oneself is natural and irrational, whereas appropriation in relation to one's neighbours, while also natural, is not independent of reason. If, at any rate, we charge people with misbehaviour, we not only criticize them but we are also alienated from them (ἀλλοτριούμεθα πρὸς αὐτούς), whereas they themselves, having done wrong, although they do not welcome the criticisms, cannot hate themselves. So appropriation in relation to oneself is not equal to appropriation to anyone else, given that our relationship to our own parts is not one of equal appropriation (ᾠκε[ι]ώμεθα). For we are not disposed in just the same way relative to our eyes and our fingers, let alone to our nails and hair, seeing that we are not alienated (ἠλλοτριώμ[εθ]α) from their loss equally either, but to a greater or lesser extent. If on the other hand they themselves should say that appropriation can be intensified, we may grant the existence of philanthropy (ϕιλανθρ[ωπί]α), but the predicaments of shipwrecked sailors will refute them, where it is inevitable that only one of two survive. Even apart from circumstances, they themselves are in a position to be refuted. Hence the members of the Academy use arguments of the following kind as well . . .Footnote 16
The text consists of a sharp criticism of the Stoic notion of oikeiôsis (appropriation, affinity) and of the link Stoicism establishes between oikeiôsis and justice. According to the argumentation of the author of ACT, since justice implies that one treat every person equally, oikeiôsis could lead to justice only if one could be “appropriated” in the same way towards oneself and towards others. In other words, one would need to be as benevolent towards others as one is towards oneself. Since this is obviously not the case, Stoic ethics are wrong.Footnote 17 The situation of the shipwrecked sailors is used to show that one cannot maintain that it is possible to show benevolence in the same way (which would amount to true ϕιλανθρωπία), since there are cases in which one must choose between saving one's life or saving another's; thus, it shows that there is a conflict between self-love and love for others. True ϕιλανθρωπία would imply that the two shipwrecked share the plank—since one should desire to save the other's life as much as one's own life—even if it meant that in the end both would perish. Now, neither Carneades nor, apparently, the author of ACT, contemplate the possibility that the shipwrecked sailors could choose to die together rather than choosing that only one of them should die. However, the polemical context of both texts prevents one from knowing what these philosophers would themselves recommend doing in such a situation.
As we shall see below, it is usually assumed that the rabbinic story about the two travelers has a Stoic origin.Footnote 18 It is indeed possible that the sages had heard about the way Stoic philosophers answered the question raised by the Academy. But the sages could also have been aware of the debate around these issues without any specific connection to a particular philosophical school. Moreover, an analysis of the original context in which the story of the shipwrecked people was used leads to the conclusion that the very idea of the dilemma of the shipwrecked (or its equivalents) came from the adversaries of the Stoics, the New Academy; the polemical meaning and purpose of the story should be kept in mind. Therefore, the story of the travelers in the desert could have an Academic origin as well; as a matter of fact, Carneades did use other examples beyond that of the shipwrecked passengers, according to both Cicero's De re publica and Lactantius's Divinarum Institutionum.
Beyond the Philosophical Schools: Common Ideas about Moral Behavior in a Situation of Shipwreck
Before we examine the evidence from Cicero's De officiis, a few nonphilosophical texts dealing with shipwrecks are worth quoting, since they shed light on common views of what moral behavior would have consisted of in such circumstances during the first century b.c.e. They basically illustrate the first idea found in Carneades's dialectical teaching, according to which it is unfair and wrong to take the plank (or any means of survival) from the other shipwrecked person. That one should not save one's life at the cost of someone else's life, either by depriving the other of the means of survival or by killing the other, seems to have been a widespread idea at the turn of the era. It can, for instance, be found in an epigram written by Antipater of Thessalonica (first century b.c.e.), in which a shipwrecked person who had succeeded in taking the plank away from someone else by striking him is said to have been punished by Justice (Δίκη) and to have been ultimately devoured by a shark, whereas the other shipwrecked person succeeded in reaching the shore.Footnote 19
Diodorus of Sicily also tells a story that illustrates how widespread these ideas were beyond the purely philosophical circles. In his Historical Library, one finds a description of the eastern African coast, on the Arabian Gulf, starting from Egypt. According to Diodorus, after having passed the area where the Ichthyophagi and the Troglodytes live, “when the gulf begins to become contracted and to curve toward Arabia” (3.40.2), there is a place where ships very often run aground. There “the sea, which runs to shoals, is found to have a depth of no more than three fathoms.” As a consequence, heavy boats, such as the ones carrying elephants,
bring upon their crews great and terrible dangers. For running as they do under full sail and oftentimes being driven during the night before the force of the winds, sometimes they will strike against rocks and be wrecked or sometimes run aground on slightly submerged spits. The sailors are unable to go over the sides of the ship because the water is deeper than a man's height, and when in their efforts to rescue their vessel by means of their punting-poles they accomplish nothing, they jettison everything except their provisions; but if even by this course they do not succeed in effecting an escape, they fall into great perplexity by reason of the fact that they can make out neither an island nor a promontory nor another ship near at hand—for the region is altogether inhospitable and only at rare intervals do men cross it in ships. . .. Now the men who have suffered this mishap, at the outset bewail their lot with moderation in the face of a deaf wilderness, having as yet not entirely abandoned hope of ultimate salvation; for oftentimes the swell of the flood-tide has intervened for men in such a plight and raised the ship aloft, and suddenly appearing, as might a deus ex machina [θεὸς ἐπιϕανεὶς], has brought succour to men in the extremity of peril. But when such god-sent aid has not been vouchsafed to them and their food fails, then the strong cast the weaker into the sea in order that for the few left the remaining necessities of life may last a greater number of days. But finally, when they have blotted out of their minds all their hopes, these perish by a more miserable fate than those who had died before; for whereas the latter in a moment's time returned to Nature the spirit which she had given them, these parcelled out their death into many separate hardships before they finally, suffering long-protracted tortures, were granted the end of life.Footnote 20
As in the epigram mentioned above, here too the decision to cast the weaker passengers into the sea in order to save one's life is condemned, and Justice manifests itself in that the murderers die a more awful death than their victims.
Cicero's De officiis: Hecato the Stoic and Cicero the Academician
So far we have not heard the voice of the Stoics themselves but only that of their opponents. We shall now turn to the Stoic philosopher Hecato, a disciple of Panaetius. However, because so little is left from Stoic literature before the turn of the common era, we rely once again on quotations in one of Cicero's works and therefore read Hecato through Cicero, who knew Stoicism well but was not himself a Stoic; in fact he belonged to the Academy.Footnote 21 In De officiis 3.23.89–90,Footnote 22 he writes:
89. The sixth book of Hecato's work On Obligations is full of questions like these: is it right for a good man to fail to feed his retinue of slaves when the price of corn goes sky-high? Hecato presents the arguments on both sides, but he concludes by aligning our obligation with what he regards as the useful rather than with humane conduct. Again he asks: if a loss had to be sustained at sea, would it be preferable to lose an expensive horse or a lowly slave? In this case the owner is drawn one way by family property, and another by feelings of humanity.
If a fool lays hold of a plank in a shipwreck, should a wise man grab it from him if he can? Hecato says no, on the grounds that it would be unjust. ‘Very well, but should a ship's owner seize the plank that is rightfully his?’ ‘No, he has no more right to do that than to throw a passenger overboard in mid-ocean, merely because he owns the ship: for until the ship reaches the destination for which it was chartered, it belongs to the passengers, and not to the owner.’
90. Another question: assuming that there is one plank and two shipwrecked passengers, both of them wise men, should each try to grab it for himself, or should one yield to the other? ‘One should give way, yielding to the one whose life is more important whether intrinsically or to the state (Cedat vero, sed ei, cuius magis intersit vel sua vel rei publicae causa vivere).’ ‘But supposing the balance is equal on both sides?’ ‘Then there will be no contest. One will yield to the other as if in a lottery or a game of chance.’Footnote 23
At least three different situations are considered in this passage. The first case (a sage who sees a fool grasping a plank) corresponds to the situation described by Carneades, who, however, emphasized weakness and strength rather than foolishness and wisdom. Hecato's answer is clear-cut: to take the plank away from the fool would be tantamount to committing an injustice. As mentioned above, this is already Socrates's position. Moreover, Stoics considered life to be something one may legitimately prefer to death but which is ultimately unimportant to the wise, whereas justice—a virtue—represented a true good, which was never to be sacrificed for any non-good, including the “preferred indifferent” of one's own life. In this passage from Cicero's De officiis, Hecato does not address the question raised by Carneades—that is, the fact that, according to the latter's polemical affirmation, not seizing the plank means behaving unwisely, because one disregards one's own chances of survival. There is no doubt that, as a Stoic, Hecato believed in the unity of the virtues; thus for him there could be no conflict between justice and wisdom.
Then a second situation is considered, when the issue of ownership is taken into account. Does the owner of the ship have a greater right to the plank than one of the passengers, and may he legitimately take it from the person who had grasped it before him? The answer is negative, since as long as they are on the sea, the ship cannot be considered the property of its owner alone, but that of all the passengers, apparently because their lives equally depend on it.
Finally, a third situation is described, in which two sages hold (or do not hold yet) the plank that can bear the burden of only one of them. It differs from the case presented by Carneades, insofar as the two persons have seized the plank simultaneously or have not seized it yet. The question here is not whether one should take the plank from somebody who had grasped it previously. At this point the principle of usefulness, either to oneself or to the state, is introduced. However, contrary to Saul Lieberman, who speaks about “the Stoic principle of utilitas” (usefulness).Footnote 24 I am not sure that this principle is characteristically Stoic. It may be considered a characteristic of Roman culture in general, since Cicero adheres to this idea as well, as we shall see below. The text does not specify how one is to determine who is more useful to himself or to the state; and the very notion of usefulness to oneself is far from clear. When asked what one should decide if the two wise men are equally important and one cannot differentiate between them (which could be compared to the case when one presupposes that all human lives are equally worthy and precious), Hecato recommends letting chance decide. Wisdom then consists in accepting one's fate, since death is unimportant to the wise, according to Stoic philosophy.
Now, let us compare Hecato's answers to what Cicero writes in another passage of the third book of the De officiis (3.5.25–26), which reflects his personal views.Footnote 25 Cicero affirms that someone who harms somebody else behaves in an inhuman way that is contrary to nature, even if he does so in order to save his own life. Man, if he conforms with nature, can inflict no harm on his fellow-man.Footnote 26 Even taking something that belongs to someone else is forbidden. Thus, for instance, “someone may argue: ‘Suppose that a wise man was dying of hunger. He would surely take the bread away from a person who was no use for anything.’ Certainly not; for my life is not more useful than the cast of mind which commits me to do no harm to anyone for my own profit.”Footnote 27 However, the very last sentence is probably an intrusive gloss,Footnote 28 since Cicero answers this question at greater length in §§ 30–31, in the following way:
30. These examples are very easy to adjudge. If on the one hand you were to rob a wholly useless person to benefit yourself, your action would be less than human, and would conflict with natural law. If on the other hand you are the sort of person who can greatly benefit the state (or: the Republic) and society in general (rei publicae atque hominum societati) by remaining alive, and if with this motive in mind you deprive your neighbour of something, your deed is not blameworthy. But if the circumstances differ from this, we should each and all bear with disadvantages rather than rob another of his advantages. So illness, poverty, and the like do not fly in the face of nature more than laying hold of or coveting another's possession, whereas to desert the path of communal benefit is opposed to nature, because it is unjust.
31. So the law of nature itself, which preserves and protects the interests of human beings, certainly ordains that what is necessary for life (res ad vivendum necessariae) should be diverted from one who is idle and useless (ab homine inerti atque inutili) to one who is wise and good and brave (ad sapientem, bonum, fortem virum), for the death of the wise man will be a great loss to the common good; always supposing, that is, that self-regard and love of self do not exploit this ordinance as a pretext for committing injustice. In this way the good man will always fulfil his obligation by taking account of the interests of society and the fellowship of the human race which I so often emphasize.Footnote 29
May one deduce from this passage of the De officiis that Cicero would have approved of a wise man taking the plank from a fool? At first hand it seems unclear, since there is an essential difference between taking from someone goods such as food or money, which is the case debated by Cicero in §§ 29–31, and depriving someone of his means of salvation, thus condemning him to death (as in the case of the shipwrecked). However, the idea expressed in § 31, according to which the law of nature itself ordains that “things which are necessary for life” (res ad vivendum necessariae) be “diverted from one who is idle and useless” in order to save the life of the person who is more useful to the state or to human society, logically leads to the conclusion that one is allowed to give preference to the life of the wise rather than to that of the fool, with the implication that in some cases the latter may die. In a situation of shipwreck, “what is necessary for life” is nothing other than the plank. Therefore one can hardly escape the conclusion that in Cicero's eyes, it would be legitimate for the person whose life most benefits the state to take the plank from the ordinary citizen, or for the wise to take it away from the fool.Footnote 30 It must be emphasized that this position differs from Carneades's dialectical and polemical argument: whereas Carneades said that it would be wise but unethical to deprive the other person of a means of salvation, in the case of someone who greatly contributes to the common good, Cicero would argue that it is not only wise but also just for this person to take the plank from the other shipwrecked person, provided it is done for the sake of the state and not for personal interest.
Hecato and Cicero agree that it is possible to be both just and wise. Cicero's concern about public order and morality led him to be less critical of Stoic positions than Carneades and to look for a more positive or constructive solution to the problem of the conflict between wisdom and justice. On the other hand, they disagree on certain points, as Cicero's critical remark at the beginning of § 89 clearly indicates. As far as the shipwrecked are concerned, Hecato's solution differs from that of Cicero when a wise man and a fool are paired. Whereas for Hecato the wise man has no right to seize the plank, from Cicero's perspective he will be right to do so if it is for the sake of the state or of human society. Hecato is willing to take into account the notion of the interest of society only in the case of two wise men. The situation then is very different, because both wise men will recognize the superior importance of the common good and no violence will be used; therefore no injustice will be committed. The importance of the interest of the state or of human society at large in the argumentation of Hecato and Cicero may be explained by their Roman background and the influence of the mos maiorum (Roman mores).Footnote 31 In the case of Hecato, who was a disciple of Panaetius, this aspect of his thought may go back to the teaching of his master, who was the first Stoic philosopher to take the Roman cultural and political context into account. Moreover, Hecato's work On Duties was apparently dedicated to Quintus Aelius Tubero, and this has led scholars to think that for some time Hecato was associated with the Scipionic circle in Rome.Footnote 32
What must be underlined in conclusion is the fact that the notion of the interest of the state or of human society, equated to the law of nature, may be invoked to declare that one person is allowed to take the plank (or any good vital for life) from another person, either with that person's consent (as in the case of the two wise men, according to Hecato) or without it (as in the case of the wise man and the fool, according to Cicero). The latter's position contradicts the idea found in both philosophical and non-philosophical texts according to which no harm may be inflicted upon someone in order to save one's life. Again, Cicero's argument is that only the interest of society at large, not one's instinct of self-preservation or self-love, may justify the decision to seize from someone else that which is vital for one's life, which in itself constitutes an injustice in his eyes as well. In contradistinction to Hecato, Cicero does not refer to the notion of usefulness for oneself, but he does not tackle the case of two wise men at all. Finally, it must be underlined that no Greco-Roman text prescribes that both shipwrecked men seize the plank or that neither of them does, and that both men die. The questions raised always presuppose that one of them should survive. In this respect they basically agree with the position attributed to Rabbi Aqiba, as we shall now see.
The Story of the Travelers in the Desert in Comparison to That of the Shipwrecked
Sifra Behar 5.3 and b. Baba Meṣi'a 62a
There are two slightly different versions of the story. The first version is found in Sifra, a commentary on the book of Leviticus,Footnote 33 in connection with Lev 25:35–36: “And if your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him—even a stranger or a sojourner—that he may live with you (
). Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God, that your brother may live with you (
).”Footnote 34 In Sifra the commentary runs as follows:
That your brother may live with you (Lev 25:36). This is what Ben Peturi taught:Footnote 35 (Story of) two (persons) who were travelling in a desert, and only one of them has a canteen (
)Footnote 36 of water. If (only) one of them drinks, he can reach civilization [lit.: a human settlement], but if both drink, both of them die. Ben Petiri taught: Let them both drink and die, as it is said: That your brother may live with you. Rabbi Aqiba told him: That your brother may live with you, (means that) your life takes precedence over the life of your companion (
).Footnote 37
And then in b. Baba Meṣi'a 62a, in the context of a discussion about loan interests in which Lev 25:36 is quoted, we find again the story of the travelers:
And Rabbi Yohanan, how does he interpret “That your brother may live with you”? It ought (to be understood) in connection with that which was taught: (Story of) two (persons) who were travelling on a journey (far from civilization), and one has a canteen of water. If both drink, they will (both) die, but if one only drinks, he can reach civilization. Ben Petiri taught: It is better (
) that both should drink and die, rather than one of them should behold his companion's death (
). Until Rabbi Aqiba came and taught (
): That your brother may live with you: your life takes precedence over the life of your companion.Footnote 38
History of Research
As stated in the introduction, the similarity between the story of the people traveling in the desert and that of the shipwrecked was noticed long ago. First in 1884, Wilhelm Bacher, in his Agada der Tannaiten, wrote in a footnote of his chapter on Ben Peturi: “Eine interessante Analogie bietet die ähnliche Frage in Cicero, de officiis III, 23[.89], von den zwei Schiffbrüchigen,” (An interesting analogy is provided by the similar question in Cicero in de officiis III, 23 [.89], about the two shipwrecked people.)Footnote 39 without further comments. Then Judah Bergmann, in the Festschrift published in 1912 in honor of Hermann Cohen's seventieth anniversary,Footnote 40 wrote that the problem of the conflict between self-preservation and altruism was set similarly in Judaism and Stoicism. He referred to Cicero's De officiis 3.15.63 and 3.23.89 but actually presented only one of the cases evoked by Hecato, that of the two wise men who seize the plank simultaneously. Then Bergmann wrote, “Das gleiche Problem wird auch im jüdischen Lehrhause behandelt aber anders entschieden” (The same problem is discussed also in the Jewish Study House, but is decided in a different way.)Footnote 41 but merely summarized the rabbinic story without analyzing it. As we shall see below, the two cases—that of the shipwrecked and that of the desert travelers—are in fact more dissimilar than he thought.
Later on, in 1939, Aaron Kaminka published a long article entitled “Judaea and Greece on the Paths of Sentences and Ethics,”Footnote 42 in which he compared Jewish and Greek ethics and mentioned the issue of the desert travelers and the shipwrecked, referring again to the same texts, and in particular to Hecato's answers according to De officiis 3.23.89. Kaminka formulated the hypothesis that the name Ben Peturi/Petura could have come from the name given to the pupils of Panaetius, Panaetistim,Footnote 43 a rather far-fetched suggestion.Footnote 44 On the other hand, Kaminka was correct in stating that the discussion within the Hellenistic philosophical schools preceded the rabbinic one and could shed light upon it.
In a short but illuminating article, Shlomo Pines showed that the Hellenistic philosophical debate had, indeed, influenced the sages, who had heard about it in one way or another.Footnote 45 Pines was the first to take into account the text by Cicero from the De re publica. Pines was also the first to pay attention to the different situations evoked in the De officiis: the two persons can be 1) a sage and a fool; 2) the owner of the ship and a passenger; 3) two sages of equal value. He was also the first to go beyond a short summary of the content of the texts, even if his article is only three pages long. Moreover, Pines brought into the discussion a medieval text by the Muslim philosopher Abu-Bakr Al-Razi, who knew the story of the people wandering in the desert, but apparently from a lost Greco-Roman sourceFootnote 46 and not from rabbinic literature, since he provides a solution that strikingly resembles the one attributed to Hecato in De officiis 3.23.90: in the desert, the water should be given to the person who is most useful to humankind. This allowed Pines to conclude that, in this case at least, there had been a direct influence of the Stoic philosophical tradition upon the sages. However, Pines did not pay attention to the fact that the answer provided in Al-Razi's story was actually much closer to Cicero's answer in De officiis 3.5.31 than to that of Hecato, who took into consideration the principle of usefulness for human society only when the two travelers were both wise men.
In his article “How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine?,”Footnote 47 Saul Lieberman, who knew Pines's article as well as the other works referred to above, offered further insights into the texts under discussion. He was the first to emphasize the difference between the situation of the shipwrecked and that of the desert travelers and to underline the importance of the issue of property, both in De officiis 3.23.89 and in the situation of the people traveling in a desert (an aspect to which we shall turn below). However, Lieberman did not really take into account the testimony of Cicero's De re publica; neither did he differentiate clearly enough between the different situations mentioned by Hecato in Cicero's De officiis.
In his discussion of Rabbi Aqiba's opinion, Elimelekh HalevyFootnote 48 referred to Hecato and to Cicero's De officiis but not to Carneades and the De re publica. Moreover, Halevy took into consideration only the idea that the person who is most useful to society should get the plank and did not pay attention to the fact that Hecato considers this solution only if the two shipwrecked are wise men. However, he gave further examples of the kind of dilemma found in the De officiis stemming from Greek narrative or poetic texts from the first century b.c.e.
Finally, Ephraim E. Urbach evoked the story of the travelers in his book on halakhahFootnote 49 and connected it with the third situation described in Hecato's book On Obligations: the situation of the two sages who seize a plank that one of them has to relinquish so that at least one of them may survive. Urbach rightly underlined that Hecato's solution corresponds neither to that of Ben Peturi nor to that of Rabbi Aqiba, but he did not compare the two groups of texts any further.Footnote 50
Analysis of the Rabbinic Texts
The first difference between the two rabbinic texts lies in the fact that in Sifra, the possibility that only one of the travelers may drink the water and survive is mentioned first, whereas the opinion expressed by Ben Peturi—that both share the water and die—comes afterwards. However, one has the impression that Ben Peturi's choice was the one originally known and accepted and that Rabbi Aqiba's opinion, which is clearly considered more authoritative, was added later on—even if all versions of the story contain Rabbi Aqiba's words. The version of the story in the Babylonian Talmud actually specifies “until Rabbi Aqiba came and taught . . .” (
), apparently implying that the opinion of Ben Peturi was initially accepted or at least considered acceptable and that Rabbi Aqiba's teaching became authoritative only later on.Footnote 51 The editors of the passage in Sifra clearly adopted the position attributed to Rabbi Aqiba, as can be shown by the passage preceding the one under discussion, in which we find an interpretation of Lev 25:35 that briefly states, “That he may live with you. Your life takes precedence over his life,”Footnote 52 without any attribution or explanation. This comment is fully understandable only if one already knows the story of the travelers and Rabbi Aqiba's position, which is presented only in the following paragraph. All in all, it seems that as far as the literary development of the tradition is concerned, the teaching connected with Ben Peturi circulated at an early stage, probably orally. It seems likely that it already contained the reference to Lev 25:36, which motivated its inclusion in the commentary on this biblical verse in Sifra. However, the editors of this passage disagreed with the view attributed to Ben Peturi and therefore added the response attributed to Rabbi Aqiba. Moreover, they also inserted the short comment inspired by Rabbi Aqiba's response after “That he may live with you” (at the end of Lev 25:35). Later on the discussion about the travelers in the desert was known in connection with the interpretation of Lev 25:36, which explains why it was introduced in b. Baba Meṣi'a in the context of a discussion of loan interests containing a reference to this biblical verse. Note that in the Talmud the story is not at all necessary to the discussion; before the story of the travelers is told, Rabbi Nahman b. Isaac already provides a (rather literal and straightforward) interpretation of the words “That your brother may live with you”: “Return (his money) to him, that he may be able to live with you” (62a). Then, as a digression, Rabbi Yohanan's interpretation of “That your brother may live with you” is mentioned, and he is said to have connected the verse with the story of the travelers and the debate between Ben Peturi and Rabbi Aqiba.
There is no way to prove beyond doubt that the attribution of this teaching to Rabbi Aqiba is historical. However, that he would have commented upon the words 
and debated their ethical implications (beyond the issue of loan interests) is not surprising, in view of his numerous ethical teachings,Footnote 53 as well as the close association, in several rabbinic texts,Footnote 54 of the last part of Lev 25:36 with Lev 19:17–18 and especially 
, the very commandment Rabbi Aqiba considered “a great principle [or: rule] in the Torah.”Footnote 55 Rabbi Aqiba himself is said to have associated Lev 19:17–18 and 25:36, as he taught: “Every man who marries a woman who is unfit for him commits five transgressions. (He transgresses) ‘You shall not take vengeance’ (Lev 19:18aα); ‘or bear any grudge’ (Lev 19:18aα); ‘You shall not hate your brother . . .’ (Lev 19:17a); ‘Love your neighbor . . .’ (Lev 19:18aβ); ‘That your brother may live with you’ (Lev 25:36).”Footnote 56 Rabbi Aqiba's decision in favor of preserving one's life in Sifra Behar does not contradict other ethical statements made by him, and his readiness to disregard the value of his own life and to die as a martyr does not contradict his teaching in Sifra, which pertains to human relationships, and does not conflict with faithfulness to the commandments of God.Footnote 57 To sacrifice one's life for God and his Torah is not the same as sacrificing one's life for another human being, and one should be aware that the option of a complete self-sacrifice—to fully renounce the benefit of the water so as to let the other traveler drink it and survive—is taken into consideration neither by Rabbi Aqiba nor by Ben Peturi.Footnote 58
The second difference between the two versions of the travelers’ story is that in Sifra, Ben Peturi's opinion is directly connected to the biblical verse the midrash is commenting upon—Lev 25:36—and consists of an interpretation of “and your brother shall live with you,” whereas this is not the case in b. Baba Meṣi'a, where Ben Peturi's opinion is told without scriptural support, as if it were a mere philosophical idea. In the Talmud, Rabbi Aqiba's opinion is the only one described as grounded on the biblical verse, even if in fact both opinions have an exegetical as well as a conceptual background.Footnote 59
It is clear enough that Ben Peturi's opinion is based on an interpretation of Lev 25:36 according to which you are not supposed to continue to live if your brother does not live “with you.” Therefore, either both travelers live or they die together. Again, it must be recalled that no Greco-Roman text prescribes that both persons renounce the plank, or whatever means of salvation they may have, and die together. To be sure, one may argue that Ben Peturi's solution rests on the idea that all human lives have equal value—so that it is impossible to choose whom to save—an idea that theoretically is at home in most philosophical schools of thought in the Hellenistic and Roman period. But the fact remains that no Greco-Roman text states that it is preferable that both persons die together. Therefore, Aaron Kaminka is wrong when he considers Hecato's position to be equivalent to that of Ben Peturi:Footnote 60 according to De officiis 3.23.90, even if the two sages are equal in all respects, one of them will surrender the plank to the other; one of them at least should be saved. In this respect, all the Greco-Roman philosophers considered so far are closer to the position attributed to Rabbi Aqiba than to that of Ben Peturi.
Rabbi Aqiba's opinion is based upon an interpretation of Lev 25:36 that puts the emphasis on “with you” rather than on “your brother shall live.” In other words, if you are dead, your brother will not be able to live with you anyway, so that you first have to make sure that you will stay alive. One may also analyze Rabbi Aqiba's position as grounded on the desire to save at least one life, the sanctity of life being ultimately more important than the idea that all men have an equal right to live.Footnote 61 Now, for Saul Lieberman, it is “the factor of ownership which determines the ruling in the Rabbinic case,” the ruling corresponding to Rabbi Aqiba's opinion.Footnote 62 Ephraim Urbach rightly emphasizes that the answer of Rabbi Aqiba would have been very different had the water been the common property of both travelers.Footnote 63 In that case, if one of them had grasped the canteen and kept it for himself to the detriment of his companion, it would amount to a crime, since he would somehow steal the water from him. From the point of view of the “property right” to the material means of survival, if the water was the common property of the travelers, their situation would be somehow comparable to that of the two men in a shipwreck who seize the same plank, one of the cases mentioned by Hecato (but not by Carneades). We do not know what Hecato or Cicero would have answered had the plank “belonged” to one of the shipwrecked. The plank and the flask of water are of course not equivalent—a careful traveler brings water with him that is part of his provisions just as he brings his clothes, whereas the shipwrecked voyager who is thrown into the sea grasps a plank by chance. But the fact that one is not allowed to seize a plank already grasped by someone else may, conversely, mean that one is allowed to keep for oneself the plank that one was fortunate enough to have found.
When one hears the story of the travelers in a desert, three solutions actually come to mind: first, that both share the water and die, in order to preserve the equal value of every human life; second, that the one who possesses the water drink it and let the other person die, so that at least one human life may be saved; third—a possibility not taken into account in the dialogue between Ben Peturi and Rabbi Aqiba—that the one who owns the water voluntarily surrender it to the other person in order to save the latter's life at the cost of his own.Footnote 64 Although this possibility exists at a theoretical level, it must be underlined that the very nature of the biblical verse that prompts the discussion in Sifra, Lev 25:36, excludes it. “That your brother may live with you” can hardly be interpreted as an encouragement to sacrifice one's life for the sake of the other person. However, Kaminka rightly underlines that Rabbi Aqiba's answer does not mean that he was defending selfishness or that he would be opposed to the idea of sacrificing his life for the sake of a friend.Footnote 65 However, sacrificing one's life would amount to particular mercy (ḥasidut) and not to justice (din). Justice, in Rabbi Aqiba's view, does not require a person to give his or her life for the sake of another person. As in the biblical text itself, the rabbinic discussion around the verse from Leviticus has to do with justice, not with love or self-sacrifice.Footnote 66 This is an important point, since in the philosophical texts mentioned above, the issue at stake is the conflict between wisdom and justice.
Another question worthy of attention is whether Rabbi Aqiba's position implies that self-love is to be privileged above altruism. Several commentators have argued that self-love is not the basis for the priority insisted upon by Rabbi Aqiba. Rather, David Novak suggests, “[t]he criterion for whose life is to be saved is not ‘my life over your life’ but, rather, the person whose life is most proximate to the person who can save but one life [italics in the original]. As such, the key term in Rabbi Akibah's opinion is not ‘your life’ but, rather, ‘takes precedence’ (qodmim).”Footnote 67 According to Novak, the word qodmim indicates that proximity or connection with the person is the issue at stake, not the intrinsic value of one's life versus that of the other. However, the affirmation that in such a situation one's life takes precedence over the life of someone else, either “experientially” or “chronologically,” could mean that Rabbi Aqiba did believe that self-love is the origin and foundation of love toward others, even if it does not imply that the intrinsic value of one's life is superior to that of the other. This conclusion coheres not only with Rabbi Aqiba's exegesis of Lev 25:36 (the foundation of which is 
) but also with his exegesis of Lev 19:18 (whose foundation is: 
), at least if one understands EPS28a as an adverb.Footnote 68
In connection with Rabbi Aqiba's view, Saul Lieberman, Ephraim Urbach, and David Novak refer to the story found in b. Pesah. 25b and b. Sanh. 74a about “one who came before Raba and said to him: The governor of my town has ordered me, ‘Go and kill So-and-so, if not, I will kill you.’” Raba answers: “Let him kill you rather than that you should commit murder; what [reason] do you see [for thinking] that your blood is redder? Perhaps his blood is redder.”Footnote 69 The story illustrates the fact that self-love is not the ultimate criterion of choice in rabbinic literature (if such a generalization about rabbinic literature can be made at all, which is doubtful). In that case (in which a crime is at stake), there is no “right” to save one's life at the cost of another person's life, and no question like “Who is the most useful to society?” is asked. In b. Pesah. 25b and the parallel texts, the man who is murdered because he refuses to kill someone else may be morally or intellectually superior to the person whose life is spared, and his life may even be extremely valuable for humankind at large. The answer will nevertheless be that he should let himself be killed rather than kill.Footnote 70 But this is a different situation than the one described in Sifra Behar 5 and b. Baba Meṣi'a 62a, in which the issue is not about killing or not killing another human being. According to De officiis 3.23.89–90, Hecato would certainly have been in agreement with b. Pesah. 25b. Only Cicero may have disagreed if the person's life was of considerable importance to the state or to human society at large.
The Story of the Ship That Ran Aground in the Middle of the Sea (Qohelet Rabbah 11:1)
Qohelet Rabbah is a rabbinic commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes dating from the end of the sixth up to the eighth century c.e.Footnote 71 In spite of its late dating, Qohelet Rabbah sometimes passes down ancient traditions.Footnote 72 In the section that comments on the verse “Cast your bread upon the water, for you will find it in the multitude of days” (
) (11:1), several stories dealing with ships and shipwrecked are told,Footnote 73 among which is the following:Footnote 74
A large ship was once sailing on the big sea, when a gale caught it and drove it to a place where there was no flowing water. When (the passengers) saw (that) they were in dire straits (of dying from thirst and hunger, because they were stranded), they said, “Come, let us share our provisions, so that if we die we all die, and if we live we all live” (
). (As a reward for this) the Omnipresent enlightened their eyes (with a plan). They took a kid, roasted it, and hung it up on the west side of the ship. A large animal, attracted by the odour, came and began to drag (the ship) until it drew it to a place where the water was flowing, and they went on (i.e., they continued their trip). When they entered Rome, they narrated the incident to Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua, who applied to them the text, Cast your bread upon the waters.Footnote 75
The situation described in this story, no matter how fanciful it may seem at first, reminds us of both the story known from the Greco-Roman texts (with which it shares several elements such as the sea, people travelling on a ship, and a kind of shipwreck) and the story of the travelers in the desert, with which it has in common the issue of water and food supplies that have to be shared or not. However, in Qoh. Rab. 11.1 no question is raised and no dilemma is evoked. Contrary to the philosophical and the halakhic texts referred to above, this narrative text tells us about an immediate and apparently consensual decision of the travelers: to share everything between themselves, so that if they die, they all die together, and if they succeed in surviving until the situation changes, they all survive together. Apparently this is a perfect illustration of Ben Peturi's position. However, there is one slight difference, since the passengers still hope for salvation, whereas in the case of the travelers in the desert their death is said to be certain. Moreover, in Qohelet Rabbah it is not completely clear to whom the provisions belong; but had the provisions been a collective property right from the outset, the issue of sharing would not have been raised. In any case, the story in Qohelet Rabbah expresses an ideal of solidarity, as well as the implicit idea that all human lives are equal. Now, the choice of the passengers is sanctioned by no less than divine approval. God so much rejoices in their decision that he saves them, in a way that is on the one hand presented as a mere stratagem—God inspires them with a clever idea—and, on the other hand, as a quasi-miracle—since the episode with the big fish is fantastic and incredible and shows that the salvation was granted to them by no other than God himself.
Now, within the context of Qoh. Rab. 11.1, the story is told in connection with the biblical verse, and the former illustrates the latter in two ways: one that is very literal and one that is slightly more abstract. The first part of the verse—“Cast your bread upon the water”—may be understood very literally, as referring to the roasted kid they hung on the side of the ship. Then comes the illustration of the second part of the verse, “for you will find it in the abundance of days”: whereas their situation seemed desperate and the days they still had to live could be considered very few indeed, after having tied the kid to the boat their days became abundant again, since they were saved by the big fish and ultimately reached Rome. But the story also reflects a less literal interpretation of the verse, which moves to the ethical level: Since they were ready to share their food and water supplies (their “bread”) with one another, to “cast it into the sea” in the sense of giving it with no prospect of compensation whatsoever (in case they would all have died), they were therefore granted salvation and their days multiplied. As a matter of fact, the interpretation of the biblical verse expounded in the various stories told in Qoh. Rab. 11.1 converges with Cicero's argumentation in the third book of the De officiis, insofar as the midrash tries to show that there is no conflict between what is useful and what is just. At first glance one may think that sharing one's food supplies is contrary to one's self-interest, that throwing away one's bread upon the sea is just foolish, but the story shows that it can indeed be useful, in addition to being just. All the stories in Qoh. Rab. 11.1 are examples of generous and disinterested behavior and argue that such a behavior will be rewarded.
This being said, one should underline that no religious or exegetical argument is used by the passengers to justify their choice; neither are they presented as particularly religious people; actually, nothing in the text indicates that they were from a particular nation. The fact that “they” told the story to Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua when they reached Rome points to the presence of Jews among the passengers, but there were probably Gentiles as well. What they had in common was their ethical standpoint as well as their ability to behave according to the idea that all human lives are equal and equally deserve to be saved. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua are the ones who connect the story with the biblical verse. They apparently praise the passengers, which could mean that they would have agreed with Ben Peturi, had the issue of the travelers in the desert been put forth to them. However, one should keep in mind that the story told in Qohelet Rabbah slightly differs from the story in Sifra and b. Baba Meṣi'a, since the death of the passengers is not certain.
Now, the fanciful story told in Qoh. Rab.11.1 recalls the text of Diodorus. One wonders whether the author of this specific passage in the midrash had heard of a place on the African coast like the one described by Diodorus and was inspired by the stories of the sailors who lost their lives there. Moreover, the idea found in Diodorus 3.40.7 that in some cases men whose ship had run aground were saved thanks to the flood-tide as through a miraculous, divine intervention, recalling the epiphany of a god at the end of a Greek tragedy, is to be compared to the idea in Qohelet Rabbah that they owed their salvation to God's inspiration and help. However, the story told by Diodorus, no matter how exotic it may look, remains a rational one. On the contrary, the rabbinic story is wholly supernatural: first, the idea that there is a part of the sea where water does not flow points to the supernatural character of the place where the scene takes place. Second, God is explicitly said to intervene on behalf of the travelers, and the whole story is miraculous.
Another difference is that the sailors’ behavior in Diodorus's account is based on a spontaneous and unmitigated sense of self-interest that leads the strongest men among them to commit injustices (murders) in order to save their own lives. This behavior corresponds to the first option described by Carneades, that of “wisdom.” As mentioned above, in Diodorus's text it is condemned, since these men do not get saved, either, in the end, and their death is described as more cruel and painful than the one they inflicted on their companions whom they threw into the sea (3.40.7). Thus, again, there is a good deal of agreement between Greco-Roman and Jewish sources upon the idea that, from a moral or an ethical standpoint, one is not allowed to commit injustice—to wrong another person—in order to save one's life. However, the version of the story in Qohelet Rabbah opposes the version of the story found in Diodorus by highlighting people who are willing to share everything and to die together rather than to let someone die before the others from a lack of food and water supplies. Actually, the midrash links the first scenario mentioned by Diodorus—that of divine intervention and “god-sent aid”—to the choice of the passengers, thereby providing a moral and theological explanation for the miraculous salvation that Diodorus merely described as a natural phenomenon (flood-tide).
Therefore the story in Qohelet Rabbah may be seen as a kind of reworking of the story found in Diodorus, which expresses a different point of view while using similar narrative patterns. A direct influence of Diodorus on the authors of the midrash is doubtful, but the stories may have circulated orally and provided a sufficient basis for the rabbinic authors to elaborate on them. All in all, it may be concluded that this chapter of Qohelet Rabbah very probably contains echoes of Greco-Roman traditions and engages in discussing ethical issues that were debated among Greco-Roman philosophers and writers. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that, just after the story of the ship that ran aground there is found the story of Eleazar ben Shammua, who rescues a shipwrecked man on the shore of Caesarea, which shows striking similarities to a story told in one of Dio Chrysostomus's speeches (second century c.e.).Footnote 76 The connections between the two stories in Qohelet Rabbah and specific texts from the Hellenistic and Roman period, which are in both cases narrative and were not written by “pure” philosophers, but rather by a historian and a rhetorician who both have a strong affinity with Stoicism and express views that reflected the common “humanistic” ethics of the time, are all the more striking when put together. The general turn to ethics at the heart of philosophical inquiry from the first century b.c.e. onwards may also help to explain the development of a kind of “popular” ethical teaching, as well as the convergences between the Greco-Roman and the rabbinic texts.
Conclusion
Let us review the different cases contemplated within the texts and compare the philosophical and the rabbinic answers in each case. The first situation described in the Greco-Roman texts corresponds to the person who is deprived of any means of salvation but could appropriate someone else's means of salvation. In this case all “schools” basically agree that to seize the plank or the bottle from one's companion by force represents an injustice. Only Cicero, with his pragmatic Roman approach, goes so far as to say that in some cases, when the interest of the state or of human society is at stake, one is allowed to appropriate someone else's goods, even if it implies depriving him of his means of survival. In the rabbinic texts, this choice is never considered legitimate. Moreover, no one is entitled to decide for oneself that one's life is worth more than the life of one's fellow; as stated in b. Pesah. 25b, “what reason do you see for thinking that your blood is redder? Perhaps his blood is redder.” However, the question of who is more useful for society can be found in rabbinic literature, too, as in the case of the discussion about the respective importance of the high priest anointed for war and the high priest performing the cult in the temple. But then the question is “who should be saved first (by a third person)?,” not “does the former have the right to deprive the latter of his means of salvation?”
The second situation is when two persons seize the plank at the same time, which would correspond to the travelers having food and water in common. Then, the choice consists either a) in sharing equally, with the risk that they all die, or b) in having one of the travelers (or part of the group) decide to let the other(s) use the means of salvation (be it a plank, water, or food) for his or their own sake. The first solution a) has different implications according to the exact situation taken into consideration: the plank cannot save two persons, so that both will die for sure; in the desert, the decision to share the water also implies that both will die; whereas in the case described in Qohelet Rabbah, sharing one's water or food supplies may grant time and allow help to reach the people stuck on their boat. Now as far as the second solution b) is concerned, Hecato recommends it when the two persons grasping the plank are both wise; then the decision of who should be saved relies on considerations of worth and usefulness either for oneself (a point which may be rather difficult to assess in an objective way) or for the community, or, if both persons are equally worthy and useful, is to be determined by chance. The fact that, for Stoic philosophers, death is unimportant to the wise strongly differentiates Stoicism from the rabbinic worldview. Finally, as far as rabbinic literature is concerned, none of the texts dealing with the dilemma of the shipwrecked or the desert travelers advocates that, when the means of salvation is held in common by all, one should decide to give it to the person who is the most useful for the community.
The third situation considered in the texts is when one person is the legitimate owner of the means of salvation. However, the case differs in the philosophical and the rabbinic texts: whereas the ship and its parts cannot be considered the property of the owner of the ship alone as long as the people are on the sea, water and food supplies may indeed be considered the legitimate property of one of the fellow travelers according to the rabbinic texts, even in the case when it is an issue of life and death for the other traveler(s). Therefore, in Rabbi Aqiba's view, it is legitimate for the owner of the bottle to keep it for himself. One may add: even if he is less worthy than his companion. In this case, one's own life simply comes first and takes precedence over the life of the other person, since justice does not command someone to sacrifice himself for the sake of another person.
However, a fourth case could indeed be thought of: the person who possesses the means of salvation could freely decide to sacrifice himself in order to save the other's life, even if he legitimately owns the means of salvation, apart from considerations of personal worth or usefulness for the community. Neither the philosophical tradition nor the rabbinic one advocates this kind of sacrificial behavior, but they certainly do not exclude or forbid it, either. At least in some cases, giving one's life for a true friend or a revered teacher would probably be considered worthy of praise in both the Greco-Roman world and the rabbinic tradition, but it is never an obligation, neither moral nor halakhic. Many Christian writers would probably be in favor of sacrificing one's life for one's neighbor, because of the centrality of the imitation of Christ's sacrifice in Christian ethics, but even they would probably not make it an obligation.Footnote 77
The differences between the Greco-Roman texts and the rabbinic ones are to be explained at least partly by their original contexts and genres: philosophical and polemical debates between philosophical schools, on the one hand; exegetical works with halakhic or theologico-moral agendas on the other. True, the anonymous commentary on Plato's Thaeatetus is also an exegetical work that could be considered to have a theologico-ethical agenda as well as a philosophical one. But even if the discussion of the concept of oikeiôsis is driven by the necessity to interpret Socrates's affirmation that he prefers the young people of Athens to those of Cyrene, the discussion that follows remains a philosophical one and the ideas of the commentator are in accordance with the teachings of the Academic tradition at large. In the rabbinic texts examined here, the ethical stance seems to depend on the interpretation of the verse in a more predominant way, even if there is also a conceptual background to the respective positions of Ben Peturi and Rabbi Aqiba.Footnote 78 The sages were not interested in debating the positions of the Greco-Roman philosophical schools (as Philo sometimes did), but the rabbinic texts contain echoes of apparently popular examples used in the field of ethics, which show that the sages were aware of the ethical questions that were discussed in their non-Jewish environment.Footnote 79
However, their way of dealing with such issues ultimately remains distinct from both the Stoic and the Academic approaches, and the rabbinic texts differ from the Greco-Roman ones in three significant respects. First, whereas for some Greco-Roman authors it is acceptable and even legitimate that the wise man or the person most useful to the state or human society at large consider his own life worthier to be saved than another person's life, in the rabbinic texts tackled here such a possibility is never taken into consideration. As underlined above, a person cannot pass such a judgment on himself; only uninvolved people discuss whether a particular human being should be saved rather than or prior to another one.
Second, no Greco-Roman text considers the possibility that the travelers could choose to die together rather than let one of them survive at the cost of the life of his fellow, whereas in the rabbinic texts this is a legitimate option, even if it may not reflect the majority opinion. The reason why no Greek or Roman author took this possibility into account probably has to do with the premises of the philosophical debate: the issue raised was the conflict between wisdom and justice, and it certainly did not seem wise to these authors to let both men die; they probably did not consider it just, either, but rather thought that one obviously had the right to use one's property in order to save one's life.
Third, and most fundamentally, the Greco-Roman texts and the rabbinic texts do not deal with the same moral problem. The Greco-Roman texts originally raise the question whether it can be legitimate to seize the means of salvation of another human being in order to save one's own life; the choice consists in saving one's life by committing an injustice or dying rather than committing one. The rabbinic texts tackle a different issue, insofar as the choice consists in keeping one's goods for oneself in order to save one's life, or in sharing them with one's fellow traveler(s) although it implies (or may imply) that both persons (or all the passengers) will die. Nowhere in the rabbinic texts examined here is the question raised whether it can be legitimate to actively do somebody wrong in order to save one's life—for instance, by seizing the other traveler's flask of water by force. The ethical problem that interested the sages was not the conflict between wisdom and justice—they certainly did not think that such a conflict existed, and the question was irrelevant to them. Rather, they were concerned about how to use one's goods in an ethical way, including in extreme cases, when life and death are at stake.
