Exile and Otherness

In Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides, Ilana Maymind argues that Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu), and Maimonides (1138–1204), a Jewish philosopher, Torah scholar, and physician, were both deeply affected by their conditions of exile as shown in the construction of their ethics. By juxtaposing the exilic experiences of two contemporaries who are geographically and culturally separated and yet share some of the same concerns, this book expands the boundaries of Shin Buddhist studies and Jewish studies. It demonstrates that the integration into a new environment for Shinran and the creative mixture of cultures for Maimonides allowed them to view certain issues from the position of empathic outsiders. Maymind demonstrates that the biographical experiences of these two thinkers who exhibit sensitivity to the neglected and suffering others, resonate with conditions of exile and diasporic living in pluralistic societies that define the lives of many individuals, communities, and societies in the twenty-first century.

A timely and yet history-rich reflection on the nature of exile and the refugee experience, Maymind’s book is a keenly conducted exercise in drawing insights interculturally about the origins and effortful perfecting of empathy. Engaged through the lenses of Shinran’s and Maimonides’ biographies of exile, the concept of human nature is shown to have an often unsettling depth of relational complexity which Maymind then skillfully weaves into broader reflections on the ethical necessity of exile from familiar patterns of presupposition and prejudice. Exile and Otherness builds a case for embracing strangeness in the pursuit, not simply of greater tolerance for difference, but of achieving ever greater qualities of mutual inclusion.

Ilana Maymind, PhD, teaches in the department of religious studies at Chapman University.