Makhloket: Anti-Polemics

This article explores the concept of makhloket (dispute, disagreement) as a foundational principle of rabbinic discourse, contrasting it with Western philosophical and political notions of conflict. Beginning with Mishnah Avot 5:17, which distinguishes between disputes “for the sake of heaven” (exemplified by Hillel and Shammai) and those that are not (exemplified by Korah), the essay argues that makhloket is not simply about contesting authority but about constituting a mode of discourse. To situate this, the article engages Heraclitus’s fragment on polemos as the “father of all things,” and traces its divergent readings in Heidegger and Schmitt, who grounded politics in existential struggle. Drawing on Gregory Fried’s analysis, the essay shows how Heidegger oscillated between interpreting polemos as Kampf (struggle for domination) and Auseinandersetzung (productive confrontation), thereby staging a conflict about conflict itself. The rabbinic model of makhloket is then read as an alternative to these traditions: not a war of logoi for supremacy, nor a negation of conflict in the name of unity, but a discourse generated through disagreement. By juxtaposing Talmudic and philosophical notions of conflict, the essay argues that rabbinic makhloket constitutes a polemical poetics that endures by refusing closure, offering a distinct vision of reason, tradition, and political thought.