More on Spiritual Solipsism (Column 357)
Following my recent classes in Tractate Shabbat (on “we do not tell a person to sin so that his fellow will gain merit”), I realized there is a need to sharpen a distinction I made in Column 236 between two approaches in the service of God, and perhaps also in ethics. Added to this was a question I was asked a few days ago in the site’s Q&A that raised the same issue. So I’m taking the opportunity to return to the matter of spiritual solipsism.
The Question and Its Resolution
The question I was asked was as follows:
| Why is it forbidden to commit murder in order to save the public, but permitted to transgress sexual prohibitions for that purpose (the “sin for the sake of Heaven” of Yael, Esther, and Lot’s daughters)? After all, both prohibitions fall under the rubric of “be killed rather than transgress.” Perhaps they are not equal in their degree? And doesn’t the license to kill a pursuer in a case of a sexual offense indicate equality and equivalence between the two prohibitions? |
As I explained in my answer, there are several imprecise and unnecessary assumptions here. Beyond that, I noted that this question presumes a conception in which my spiritual calculus consists solely of my own commandments and transgressions, and that this calculus—and only it—must lead me to a decision. The questioner assumes that the reason I may not murder one person to save another (or others) is the prohibition of “You shall not murder,” and therefore the crucial parameter is the severity of the prohibition. From here he moves to comparison with other prohibitions of equal severity and wonders how the outcomes can differ.
But that itself shows that the severity of the prohibitions is not the only component in making such a decision. The question of whether to kill one person to save another is not only a question within the bounds of “You shall not murder”; there is something beyond that. Just as an example, what happens if I am required to rob one person to save another? Or perhaps harm someone (humiliate him) to save another? In Column 291 I explained the approach that holds all these to be forbidden. This cannot be understood within the questioner’s conceptual framework. If the key parameter is the severity of the prohibition, then all these prohibitions should be overridden by the value of saving a life (and indeed several medieval authorities and later authorities challenge Rashi’s view in Bava Kamma 60b cited there). I explained that the consideration of whether to harm another does not begin with the halakhic prohibition involved; rather, the reverse is true: the halakhic prohibition exists because of a prior, principled consideration that forbids harming another. I called this “territorial considerations,” and the claim was that I have no right to enter my fellow’s territory, even if my halakhic calculus would justify it. Considerations of harming someone’s territory are not entrusted to me, but only to the owner of that territory. This is an example of a broader phenomenon: the consideration of how to act should not be decided only on the basis of a halakhic accounting (the severity of the prohibitions and commandments involved) but also on the basis of a prior and more fundamental consideration.
I answered the above question in the same way. The prohibition on harming one person to save another is not based on the severity of “You shall not murder,” but on the fact that those lives are not entrusted to my decision. Decisions about another’s life are entrusted to him alone. Therefore, even if there is justification from the perspective of my personal halakhic calculation to do so, that is still insufficient to permit it. Incidentally, this is also one of the problems I saw in the book Torat HaMelekh, which permitted harming the life of a gentile to save Jews. My claim is that even if killing a gentile is a lighter prohibition, since it is not included in “You shall not murder” (but rather “one who sheds human blood”), that does not suffice to permit it. The prohibition on killing so-and-so to save so-and-so cannot be based on comparing the value of their lives; it is absolute. Such a decision is not entrusted to me, but only to the owners of those lives.[1]
Spiritual Solipsism and Spiritual Globalism
What lies at the basis of the prevailing view that hangs everything on the halakhic accounting? Beyond the assumption that sees Jewish law as the be-all and end-all (which itself deserves discussion), there is a conception I called in Column 236 “spiritual solipsism.” Solipsism is a metaphysical view that denies the existence of an external world. The solipsist thinks that only he himself exists, and the rest of the world and people who inhabit it are merely figures or abstract objects within his consciousness, nothing more. The discourse he conducts with other people or with things outside him is in fact a discourse he conducts with figures and objects within himself. In the spiritual realm, too, there is such an approach, which views the service of God as a stance in which a person stands alone before the Holy One, blessed be He, and nothing else matters. Everything else plays no part in his considerations. Even someone with a metaphysically realist outlook can be a solipsist in his halakhic and moral thinking. He can conceive the task imposed upon him as maximizing his own spiritual or ethical benefit. He makes halakhic decisions according to the severity of the commandments and transgressions at stake—that is, according to the question of how he himself will come out best before God.
Such a person sees other people as target silhouettes on a firing range, whose sole function for him is to challenge him—that is, to place before him spiritual tasks and trials from which he is supposed to emerge in the best possible way. For the spiritual solipsist, life is an obstacle course: he is the sole runner, others are hurdles or obstacles, and God is the judge. His goal is to fail as little as possible at the tasks (helping or refraining from harming the various “target silhouettes” around him earns him or costs him points).
Incidentally, one can think of solipsism in the ethical context as well. This is an approach in which a person makes ethical decisions by the consideration of maximizing ethical benefit (how to be as moral as possible). He will decide on a given step according to the severity of the ethical prohibition involved in doing or not doing that step. For him, morality imposes the task of being as righteous as possible, and other people are target silhouettes whose function is to challenge him. He helps them and refrains from harming them, but not for their sake; rather, in order to be maximally morally righteous.[2]
Against spiritual solipsism one can set a global-consequentialist conception, within which a person makes decisions according to the maximum spiritual benefit to the world, or to others, and not necessarily to himself. Although usually this consideration leads to results similar to those that come from the solipsistic consideration (for both types will try to maximize help to others—one to improve his own spiritual standing and the other to benefit others), sometimes there are differences. As an initial example, think about killing one person to save two others: a consequentialist consideration of maximal spiritual benefit, to the world or to others, leads to killing the one to gain two. The solipsistic consideration leads to the view that I may not kill him, because for me, if I kill him, I transgress the prohibition of murder, whereas if I refrain—though two people will die—I remain clean (I did not transgress anything).[3]
Note an interesting reversal here: the prohibition on killing the one—which is ostensibly an expression of a solipsistic approach—actually accords with the conception that leaves the other’s territory outside my domain; that is, it seemingly gives room to the other and not only to myself. To see why this is not contradictory, consider a case in which the one agrees that I kill him in order to save the two others. In such a case, the territorial consideration disappears (for he himself made the decision about himself), and what remains is solipsism versus global-consequentialism. The solipsist will say that even if he agrees, I will not kill him, because I would thereby violate the prohibition of murder. The globalist can say that if there is consent, then I should compare outcomes, and therefore it is preferable to kill one and save two.
Is This a Matter of Self-Interest?
The difference between the two approaches can be portrayed as the difference between self-interested egoism and altruism. The solipsist is, ostensibly, an egoist who cares only about himself and his World to Come, instead of caring for others and the world. At least on the assumption that he does not espouse metaphysical solipsism, there is a moral flaw here (if he is a metaphysical solipsist, then in his view there truly is no “outside” someone else to care for). Thus, for example, when I was in Bnei Brak the saying was popular: “Your this-world is my World to Come,” meaning: I care for your material welfare and thereby earn spiritual reward. Seemingly, this maxim reflects self-interested spiritual solipsism, since I care for others not for their sake but for mine (my reward in the World to Come).
But this identification is not necessary. One can speak of spiritual solipsism in a sense that is not egoistic at all. A person can hold that the task God placed upon him is to maximize his own spiritual state. Assume, for the sake of discussion, that there is no World to Come and that a person receives no reward for all his toil under the sun. Would a solipsistic decision in such a case express egoism? A person gains nothing from his improved spiritual state, but he understands that this is the task God assigned him. Solipsism can be a spiritual conception of the task God placed upon us, and not necessarily egoism.
The explanation for such an approach may lie in the reasoning that if each person focuses on himself or on his close circles, the entire world will thereby benefit. In Columns 188 and 266 I discussed such an argument against universalism. I claimed there that there can be a view that aims to maximize global outcomes (that is, for the whole world) yet favors a non-universalist conception. The assumption of such a view is that if each person cares for himself, his close circles, and only later—and to a lesser extent—for the rest of the world, then the world as a whole will be better off. If everyone is required to care for the entire world, then in the end there will be many people for whom no one cares. As the Sages say (Bava Batra 24b): “A pot that belongs to partners is neither hot nor cold.”
This consideration shows that even a global consequentialist calculus—which ostensibly necessarily leads to universalism—can lead to individualism. The same holds for the question of spiritual solipsism. It can stem from egoism and the desire to improve my standing in terms of my reward in the World to Come, but it can also stem from a sophisticated application of a consequentialist conception. For our purposes here, I will summarize: there are not necessarily “good guys” and “bad guys.” At root, this is a dispute between two spiritual approaches.
On Haredim and Others
It seems to me that in a significant part of the Haredi world (particularly the Lithuanian), the solipsistic approach is prevalent. True, one can interpret the maxim about another’s this-world metaphorically—that material assistance to another is itself a spiritual value for me—and not necessarily as a reference to reward in the World to Come. But it seems to me that usually its meaning there is the simple one. A Haredi person will generally not be willing to endanger his own spirituality or that of his children—for example, to send them to schools where, in his view, there are children in a poorer spiritual state—since his task is first and foremost to care for his own spiritual state and that of his close circles, even if the price is harm to the spiritual state of the rest of the world. Therefore, he will also generally refrain from meeting with other populations and from contributing to society through military service, employment, and higher education, since these threaten his spiritual state. In contrast, Religious Zionist and/or liberal conceptions are more prepared to care for others at the expense of their own spiritual state. And again I must stress: this is not necessarily a critique of Haredi egoism and self-interest. It is a spiritual dispute with two sides, and both can be consequentialist.
Of course, this is not a black-and-white picture. Haredim too will be willing to bear certain costs for the sake of improving others’ spiritual state, and Religious Zionists will not pay any price whatsoever for it. Still, along the continuum between the two extremes (solipsism versus globalism), there is a clear gap between the Haredi conception and the modern-religious one, with Haredim closer to the solipsistic pole. Not for nothing did we (in Bnei Brak) joke that in the absence of paupers on Purim, one should pray to God to impoverish someone and provide us with an “exquisite pauper” in whom to fulfill the commandment.
Bringing Spiritual Solipsism to Absurdity: “Say, I Pray You, You Are My Sister”
On second thought, it is far from clear that this is a joke. Seemingly, it is a necessary conclusion from spiritual solipsism. But precisely for that reason, the very sense that this is a joke indicates that there is something problematic in the approach of spiritual solipsism, even if it is not simple egoism. The other is not a statistic or a target silhouette meant only to challenge me; rather, he is an end in himself. I am supposed to care for him, not only to improve my spiritual state, but to benefit him and the world at large.[4]
In Genesis there appears three times a typological story about a man, his wife, and a lustful king (twice about Abraham and Sarah and once about Isaac and Rebecca).[5] In all these cases, the husband fears that the king will desire his wife and take her, and to that end he will kill the husband. Because of this fear, he asks his wife to say she is his sister so that the king will not have to kill him in order to take her. These stories raise not a few ethical and halakhic problems, and not only regarding the king, of course. For our purposes, I will focus on the classic question: Why would the Egyptians prefer to kill Abraham in order to take Sarah? In so doing they would transgress “You shall not murder.” If they did not kill him, they would transgress “You shall not commit adultery,” which is no more severe.
There are very clever and engaging answers to this,[6] but here I want to focus on the question. This question assumes spiritual solipsism, since the Egyptians’ calculus of what to do should, on this view, be based on comparing the severity of the transgression in each of the two options (to kill or not to kill Abraham). Is such a calculus truly the proper basis for making this sort of decision? Suppose that for the Egyptians the two options are equal—can they truly choose between them as they please? Is there not another consideration involved here, no less important?
In Column 236 I brought a very similar example. I told there of a friend of mine from Bnei Brak (Lithuanian!) who saw by someone a book he had been searching for a long time. He approached him and said: Look, I have two options—either to take the book from you and transgress “Do not steal,” or to leave it with you and transgress “Do not covet.” Since in any case I transgress a prohibition, it’s better that at least I get the book. Let us set aside for our discussion the mistakes in understanding the prohibition of “Do not covet” (which he himself knew well). Is such reasoning legitimate? This reasoning assumes that this decision should be based on a spiritual profit-and-loss calculation of my own. I am to choose the option in which my transgression is the lighter one, and if the two are equivalent, the decision is arbitrary and is up to me. This is a clear expression of spiritual solipsism. The other is nothing but a target silhouette, and my behavior is determined by considerations of my own spiritual profit and loss (my transgressions and commandments and their relative severity).
I think that within all of us there is a sense that such reasoning (even if it were correct) is illegitimate. A person cannot make decisions concerning another solely on the basis of his own commandments and transgressions. So too regarding Abraham and Sarah, the “exquisite pauper,” and similar cases. In all these, our intuition says this is a jest rather than serious reasoning, even though it would seemingly be a straightforward implication of spiritual solipsism. This indicates that spiritual solipsism is not a worthy approach—meaning, that is not the task God assigned us. And again I stress that this is unrelated to the question of egoism, since, as we saw, spiritual solipsism does not necessarily stem from egoism.
Incidentally, this also follows from Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s analysis in Sha’arei Yosher, Gate Five, where he notes that the prohibition on taking another’s property does not derive from “Do not steal”; rather, “Do not steal” derives from the pre-halakhic prohibition (the legal prohibition) on taking another’s property. The fact that I do not take his property is not the result of “Do not steal,” and therefore it applies also to a gentile even though, at least according to some views, there is no prohibition of “Do not steal” regarding him. One implication of this distinction is that, according to the Rashi mentioned above, a person may not save his life at the cost of robbing a gentile’s property. The problem with robbing a gentile is not “Do not steal,” but that the property is his and not mine (that is, it is a decision about someone else’s territory, and it is not proper to make it on the basis of my own spiritual-benefit considerations alone).
[1] Indeed, in my article on organ donation I argued that it is permitted and a commandment to take organs from one who is brain-dead, even if he is not defined as dead, in order to save another person, and I based this on comparing the value of their lives. Seemingly, there I did rely on a comparison of life values; but I qualified this by requiring the donor’s consent. Without his consent, such a comparison cannot suffice to permit the act.
[2] I must clarify that this has nothing to do with the question of emotion. I am not discussing whether one ought to feel moral compassion or to perform the moral act as if compelled. In Column 22 (and briefly here) I clarified my position that emotion has no spiritual or ethical value whatsoever. The question I am asking here is not about emotion but about the ethical and halakhic motivation, even if it is entirely rational and has no emotional component at all.
[3] One can debate the prohibition of “Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow,” which is transgressed by one who does not save his fellow, but for our purposes this is merely an example, so I will not enter into it here.
[4] In the next column I will elaborate further on the distinction between caring for another person and caring for the world.
[5] See at the end of my article on the guilt-offering, a comparative analysis of the three stories.
[6] For example, according to the Ran in Yoma, it is preferable to slaughter for a sick person on Shabbat rather than to feed him carrion (see the beginning of Column 62). Although slaughter on Shabbat is a severe prohibition whose penalty is stoning, eating carrion entails a large quantity of prohibitions (for each olive-sized piece). Quantity, then, outweighs quality. The wags resolve the classic question according to this Ran: the Egyptians held like the Ran. Therefore, in their view, if they did not kill Abraham they would transgress adultery with every act of intercourse, whereas if they killed him, they would transgress murder only once. Hence it was preferable for them to kill Abraham and only then take Sarah.
Discussion
Today I was reminded that a wonderful example of value-solipsism is the NBA player Russell Westbrook. He makes sure to dish out assists (passes to his teammates so they can score), which on the face of it is an altruistic act (caring that his teammates accumulate points). But the common assumption is that he does it so they will count toward his personal statistics.
I thought of another answer to the question about Abraham and Sarah.
The dispute concerns Tosafot on Kiddushin 2b, whether a woman is her husband’s property or not. The Gentiles hold that a woman is her husband’s property, and a person does not stand by while his property is taken; therefore, since Abraham would kill them, they have license to kill him. And if you say they are deliberately putting themselves into a situation of duress, one can answer that they hold like Rabbi Judah ben Beteira, that if a person’s evil inclination overpowers him, he should wear black, go to a place where he is not recognized, and do what his heart desires—showing that there is duress in the evil inclination.
Abraham, by contrast, held in accordance with Tosafot’s view that a woman is not her husband’s property, and therefore a person can stand by in the case of his wife’s rape; so if they murder him, that is intentional and not under duress. It is also possible to say that he held like the Rif, that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven, and therefore there is no duress in the evil inclination, so this is one who deliberately places himself under duress, and that is tantamount to acting intentionally.
And what about Sarah? One could say that Abraham held that a woman is like land, a passive victim, and there is no transgression here. But Sarah, who was not comfortable with this—as Rashi says regarding Abimelech—what did she think? Either she held like Rashi’s view that a person may not save himself with another’s property, all the more so with another’s body, and she disagrees with Tosafot in Sanhedrin regarding the case where a person is told, “Either be killed or be thrown onto an infant and kill him,” in which Tosafot hold that he need not give up his life and may let them throw him. Or she agrees with those who dispute Rashi, that it is permitted, but since there is humiliation in the matter, making her into a woman trampled by all the world like a prostitute—as Simeon and Levi said, “Should he make our sister like a prostitute?”—it is preferable for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace rather than publicly shame his fellow.
Perhaps the behavior in Haredi society does not stem from spiritual solipsism, but simply from the fact that from their perspective there are no values other than commandments (based on the prevalent claim there that commandments = morality), so from their point of view there are not really two sides at all, because the consequentialist-global calculus is not binding on me, since it contradicts the Torah (spiritual solipsism).
Shlomo Zalman
Line 3 – …is not moral…
With God’s help, 20 Tevet 5781
Someone who has no fear of God can both commit adultery and murder, except that taking a married woman while her husband is alive is a transgression visible to everyone, whereas murder can also be done secretly—poisoning the husband or framing him for something and having him executed, and the like—and thus no one will know that a murder took place here.
With blessings, Prof. Tut-Anil-Limon, Department of Criminology, University of No-Amon
Apparently it was not accepted even among the ancient Egyptians to convene a rabbinical court and retroactively annul the couple’s marriage 🙂
It’s a play on words. Even in the picture you describe, we are talking about solipsism.
Since you already mentioned the “ornate pauper,” the Haredi approach has already reached absurdity with the commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself”… There, your fellow is an object for the fulfillment of this commandment—a ritual accessory. Of course that cannot be, because there is no such thing as genuine love without respect. And seeing your fellow as an object is not respect. This is of course the Archimedean point from which it spreads to all the other commandments, that this approach to them is incorrect. And indeed this commandment is not an especially Haredi commandment, which also explains why prohibitions of the sort of gossip, etc., are not perceived as things that alter your status in Haredi society as a God-fearing person (and fear of Heaven itself is not worth all that much there either. It is for the less successful types—somewhat justifiably. Haredi fear of Heaven is a bit of a type of conservative self-righteousness).
Correction in the third line from the bottom: and this also explains why prohibitions of the sort of gossip, etc., are not perceived as things that raise your status in Haredi society as a God-fearing person…..
With God’s help, 20 Tevet 5781
Abraham’s calculation is simple. If the Egyptians/Canaanites think she is his wife—they will eliminate him immediately. By contrast, if she is his sister, they will prefer to negotiate with him in order to arrange the “match” in a respectable way.
At first they will invite them to parties and banquets of “high society” in order to court the woman and her brother. After that the “marriage proposals” will begin, which Abraham, a shrewd merchant, will reject, and the suitors will think he is asking a higher price; meanwhile several months go by, until one fine morning Abraham gets up and leaves the place, and nothing happens.
This is the “trick” that “worked” in all the places where Abraham and Sarah traveled, until in Egypt something went wrong. The Egyptians gave up on the “respectability,” and instead of beginning with courtship—they went “straight to the point.” A malfunction that also happened in Gerar, and in both cases a miracle was needed to save them. But in the dozens of years that Abraham and Sarah wandered in Canaan, the method worked and prevented abductions.
With blessings, Ben-Zion Yohanan Korynaldi-Radatzky
The risk is also calculated: even if, Heaven forbid, the “trick” does not work—after the rape the woman remains alive and can somehow recover, but from death one cannot rise again.
And so Jacob plans to be saved from Esau completely through gifts, prayer, and war, but he also prepares for the possibility of failure and tries to minimize the damage: “If Esau comes to the one camp and strikes it, then the camp that remains shall escape.”
With God’s help, 20 Tevet 5781
In the Gemara (Pesachim 68b) it is brought that Rav Sheshet would say after reviewing his learning: “Rejoice, my soul; for you I have read, for you I have studied.” The Gemara asks: Does a person study only for himself? But does not the Torah sustain the whole world, as it is said, “If not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the laws of heaven and earth”? The Gemara answers: “From the outset he acts with himself in mind.” In order for his learning to bring blessing to the world, a person must place his personal elevation as his primary aim. When he satisfies his soul’s thirst to increase wisdom and knowledge—then he will have “something to sell” to the whole world.
In essence, the Gemara is teaching us the theory of “spiritual capitalism.” Just as Adam Smith discovered in his book The Wealth of Nations that an individual’s economic success and prosperity do not come at the expense of others, but on the contrary contribute to the welfare of the community: when a person develops his business, he thereby creates employment for many workers, suppliers, and distributors. The competition generated by others who envy him leads to attempts to develop more efficient production methods, and the “jealousy of merchants” will develop the economy. Thus we see that specifically in a capitalist country—the standard of living of the workers rises.
More than a thousand years before Smith, the Sages understood the correctness of this principle in the spiritual world. When a person cultivates his spiritual world with the aim of strengthening his personality through acquiring more and more wisdom and understanding—he thereby contributes to the spiritual strengthening of the entire world. Everyone will benefit from the fruits of his Torah insights, whether by accepting his words or by trying to challenge them and find new and different insights. When each person strives to enrich his own understanding—all are blessed, and their spiritual wealth continues to grow.
With blessings, Soli Psist the Altruist
The Sages also recognized the vital importance of free competition for the cultivation of spiritual life, and therefore the halakhah accepted (in the chapter Lo Yachpor) the opinion permitting free competition among schoolteachers, for “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom.”
However, just as in economic life, although the Torah sanctified a person’s right to private property, and forbade harming it and “favoring the poor in his dispute,” it nevertheless imposed on the rich a duty of responsibility toward his poor brother, to help him with his body and his money, the greatest charity being to provide the poor person with work that will return him to the circle of economic independence.
So too in Torah study, great Torah scholars in our generations recommended that a learner set aside from his time a “tithe of time,” in which he helps those weaker than himself in learning. And here too there exists a process that combines giving with receiving, for “from my students more than from all of them.” When a person must explain words of Torah to someone less familiar and experienced—he must clarify and define the matter in the clearest possible way, and consequently the understanding of the giver also deepens.
Receiving and giving are interwoven with one another and complete one another.
With blessings, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
Is there in fact an opening here for permitting euthanasia? A person is suffering greatly, and instead of taking my own spiritual gain into account (not violating the prohibition “You shall not murder”), I kill him so that he will not suffer.
But here you are not weighing within the spiritual space (between my spiritual interest and that of others), but between one value (life + the act of killing) and another value (suffering). A person is also forbidden to euthanize himself.
With God’s help, 21 Tevet 5781
As I recall, the explanation of the prohibition against preferring one life over another is that if the rationale for overriding the prohibition of “You shall not murder” is saving life, then even if he violates the prohibition there is still a loss of life, and therefore there is no “saving of life” here that would permit it.
That is not so in the case of a pursuer. Since he is guilty and is pursuing his fellow to kill him, his life is not entitled to protection by virtue of “saving life,” and all that remains is the preservation of the pursued person’s life. So too with one pursuing forbidden sexual relations: his life is not entitled to the protection of “saving life.”
The question one should ask is whether it would be permitted to desecrate the Sabbath or commit some other transgression in order to save a woman from rape, or whether the permission is only to kill the pursuer, regarding whom the prohibition of “You shall not murder” has lapsed.
With blessings, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
In Torat HaMelekh the discussion is from the standpoint of the laws of war, where they want to say that just as in a war among the descendants of Noah a nation is permitted to harm its enemies in order to save its own people—so too would be the law in a war between Israel and another nation. And thus it is accepted throughout the world that when people shoot, shell, and bomb—it is impossible to achieve absolute sterility, and during battle innocent people are harmed as well.
I think both of you are right. In principle, a person can make a claim like Yishai’s, but in the post I am dealing with the question of what halakhah says (whether it is solipsistic or not), and here it is clear that the halakhah is that one must not do this. It might perhaps fall under the category of a transgression for its own sake, but not under spiritual globalism.
Quite apart from the content of the article, the opening question compares two cases that are not comparable; the comparison should be whether it is permitted to hand over a woman for forbidden relations in order to save Jews, as in the case of Lot, who offered his daughters to those surrounding his house. In all the cases described (Jael, etc.), those women themselves committed the act of transgression ostensibly with their own bodies, and the comparison to them should be to someone willing to hand himself over and die in order to save others. Such a person certainly did not violate “You shall not murder,” and in the same way those women did not violate any sexual prohibition, for they “committed sexual self-sacrifice.” I claim that Jael, Esther, and Lot’s daughters committed no transgression, even though they did an act that could itself be considered forbidden, and therefore the expression “a transgression for its own sake” really means, in halakhic terms, “I admit the facts but deny guilt”—it is a kind of duress; they volunteered to be raped. In order to commit a sexual transgression, there must be intent to derive pleasure from the act, and we are all witnesses that they did not intend pleasure but some other result. From this it follows that there is no difficulty, and therefore the interesting discussion in the article does not really stem from the borrowed comparison between bananas and Argentina.
On the substance of the matter: if one neutralizes the theological dimension from halakhah—and it is a commandment to do so, as it is said, “It is not in heaven”—then what we have is a jurisprudence, the law of the people of Israel. The entirely secular question here, because it is unrelated to any divine question, is what the source of law is: does it derive from the threat embodied in the law (that is, the prohibition), or does it derive from our desire to do a good act through something pre-legal? This is an ancient legal debate, and in the modern era it is represented by the British scholars Austin and Hart. In the field of property this is exactly the question whether property derives from the threat against thieves, or from the fact that there is a pre-legal concept of ownership and the threat against thieves is meant to reinforce it, since there are, after all, thieves in the world, so property must be protected.
I agree that the idea that property is created by the existence of laws prohibiting theft is a warped idea, since its meaning would be that in a world without thieves there is no private property. On the other hand, the question whether one may save another person with someone else’s property can be interpreted to mean that although there is private property, there is also a right of expropriation like the “king’s highway.” That is, if a human life is at stake, then private property that could be used for rescue is expropriated for the purpose of rescue and therefore ceases to be private property. If it is permitted to expropriate private property for a road that people will pass through, why is it forbidden to expropriate it in order to save one life, which is an entire world? We also find that it is permitted to “expropriate” human life in order to save others, for example when habitual offenders are placed in a cell to die, in order to save the public from them. It seems to me that if we are dealing with a transgressor of the sort who is put in a cell, and Jewish lives can thereby be saved, this would be permitted, because in any case that is his sentence. But when we are dealing with an ordinary person who has a presumption of uprightness, the value of life is greater than the value of property, and therefore in my opinion it is indeed permitted to expropriate property in order to save life, but forbidden to expropriate life in order to save life; that is the answer, and not a question of whether autonomy over the body is equal to autonomy over property.
Omri, your remarks are full of careless comparisons and distinctions, and every single one of them fails to address the question discussed in the post.
The comparison was brought in my remarks as an opening that illustrates a common principle between the two cases. The fact that there are other differences neither adds nor detracts.
As for a transgression for its own sake, you are completely mistaken. It is a transgression in every respect, and there is no duress here. They placed themselves into duress, and in various sugyot it is proven (at least according to most opinions) that this is not duress. Likewise, I have often explained that intention neither adds nor detracts in the matter of a transgression for its own sake.
The source you brought from “It is not in heaven” for the claim that one should not take theological planes into account is your own invention. But in truth my remarks are not connected to theological dimensions. I am speaking about halakhah from the point of view of the Holy One, blessed be He. That has nothing to do with “It is not in heaven.”
The ancient legal debate you cited deals with completely different points: legal realism, nominalism, and natural law. None of these is related in any way to our discussion here. And certainly the threat in the law is not relevant here (if anything, the command is).
The conclusion that in a world without thieves there is no ownership is logical nonsense. Even if ownership was created by the force of “You shall not steal,” the prohibition against stealing exists even in a world where there are no thieves. These two have nothing to do with one another.
And finally, you are conflating the king’s right to expropriate property with the right of a private person to do so. Again, these two have nothing to do with one another. The king acts from a public perspective, and therefore he is authorized to do things that a private person is not.
The carelessness exists only in your eyes because I abbreviated my remarks. The beginning of my remarks does not deal with things raised in the post because from the outset the example is not a good one, since it compares Reuben’s right to place Simeon in danger to his life or sexual violation, with Simeon’s right to place himself in danger.
As for a transgression for its own sake, I am not “completely mistaken”; both early and later authorities determine that in the case of Jael and the like it is not a transgression—this is a major dispute, each according to his own method defining when it is permitted. The moment there are rules permitting it—when those rules are fulfilled, it is not a transgression. Once something is permitted, then it is permitted, just like pork cutlets in houses filled with every good thing. And intention, which you casually dismiss as irrelevant, is in the view of quite a few later authorities (for example the Netziv of Volozhin) indeed important in the matter of a transgression for its own sake.
According to Maimonides, “It is not in heaven” means that a prophet cannot innovate anything in matters of Torah; that is, the thinking involved is rational and not prophetic, and this is my point in saying it is not theological—the process of halakhic inference is purely legal reasoning. In Torah, alongside public and private law, there is also law between man and God, but here too the analysis is rational-legal. I do not mean erasing the commandments between man and God when I say the law is not theological, but rather that the tools of legal analysis do not include questions of reward and punishment in the World to Come and the like. Therefore you could erase even in the commandments the phrase “the command of God” and replace it with “a convention that this is correct for hidden reasons” or “this is how we behave and we do not ask why,” and you would still get the same legal results.
The dispute I brought between Austin and Hart deals precisely with the question whether the source of law is threat (human punishment) or the desire to do good (human commandment). If in your post you replace the desire to receive reward with the desire to quiet one’s conscience, you can arrive at exactly the same dispute between Austin and Hart. I thought the analogy was self-evident.
There cannot be a prohibition in a world where there is no possibility that a wicked person will arise and violate the prohibition. A world without criminals is a world without criminal lawyers and without criminal law. That is why the Sages had to look for an explanation of why the Torah spoke about the stubborn and rebellious son when no such thing exists in reality—there is no place to prohibit something that never occurs. A prohibition cannot generate reality even in the conventional sphere. It is like saying that the fact that a chicken does not howl is due to there being a prohibition on chickens howling, or that people speak because there is a prohibition against remaining silent one’s entire life. The concept of a “prohibition” on the behavioral plane derives solely from an existing and real possibility of violating it, unlike, for example, a physical prohibition.
I am not conflating anything. The fact that the king has authority to expropriate means that for certain reasons private property is expropriated. And what about the prohibition of leaven before the biblical time of prohibition? The Sages expropriated a person’s property merely in order to prevent a person from committing a transgression, and this for his own good. That means that with regard to private property there are reasons (the public good, avoidance of transgression) that make its expropriation possible. Now the question is this: can a king expropriate a person’s property in order to save another person? May a court expropriate a person’s property in order to save another person? If it may, then why should Simeon’s power be lessened when we are all witnesses that the court would have expropriated Reuben’s property in order to save Levi, such that Simeon too may do so and execute the law himself? If you like, this is the true meaning of “He turned this way and that way and saw that there was no man”—Moses did not check whether there were no witnesses to the act, but saw that there were not two men to join him in establishing a court to sentence the Egyptian to death, and in that situation he appointed himself as a court and killed him. And therefore the meaning of “Who made you a man, a ruler, and a judge over us?” is: how do you appoint yourself to a court of three—”a man” (a decent person), “a ruler” (one with authority), and “a judge” (a Torah scholar)—such that you determine who is wicked (“and he said to the wicked one,” meaning he judged him), and when it says, “Indeed the matter is known,” it means that it became known that Moses had taken upon himself the role of a court, and that is why Pharaoh sought to kill him. Pharaoh would not have cared that Moses was killing Egyptians, but he was doing it as a sole judge without royal authorization—that is rebellion. The upshot is that when there is no court available and immediate judgment is required, as in a case of saving lives, a person may turn himself into a court, expropriate property, and save whoever needs saving if there is no other way, and this is very simple for anyone who does not think that Reuben’s property right overrides Simeon’s right to life, which is a puzzling conclusion.
P.S. I would even put it differently—”a transgression for its own sake” = “an act that would have been considered a transgression were it not for special circumstances that validate it, so do not learn from this act, because in 99.99% of cases it is forbidden to act this way.” From here one may dispute the circumstances: intent to derive pleasure or not (the Netziv of Volozhin), a greater purpose, and so on. Again, this is a rule that is not necessarily theological; Israeli criminal law has this too in sections called justification, necessity, etc.
It is very easy to slide from spiritual solipsism into self-interested egoism, in which even the Holy One, blessed be He, is nothing but a means to my own success. In His abundant kindness, the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed how I can maximize my spiritual state, and now in practice I no longer need Him. In such a situation I am not really serving God, but serving myself (with the assistance of the Holy One, blessed be He, of course).
A conception of service for a higher purpose frees me from that stance. My performance of the commandments is meant for Him and not for me. Reward for the commandments is meaningless. I perform commandments out of duty, as a mature human being, and not out of self-interest, even if it is spiritual.