Q&A: The Proper Attitude Toward Emotions
The Proper Attitude Toward Emotions
Question
Hello Rabbi, I read your column about human morality versus the Torah (whether Jewish law and morality depend on one another or not).
I understand why they are not dependent on one another; I just didn’t understand why we also act according to human morality.
Why not view the Torah and the commandments as values that the Torah set forth, and those are what are right for man and for the world—and therefore we should nullify incorrect feelings exactly the way we nullify incorrect actions?
I understand that there is a human place for not erasing yourself, but practically speaking the whole Torah is basically a statement that guides you how to live, so I’m sort of asking for a source from the Torah that says I can listen to my feelings. After all, if I hated God or entertained sexual fantasies, they would tell me that this is forbidden, because that feeling is a sin. So if so, I’m looking for a source permitting feelings (it feels a bit like something is messed up in me..)
It seems that the question rests on the basic assumption that the Torah guides all of life, so that even if the Torah does not forbid me from listening to my feelings, I am still looking for a source that permits them.
Answer
I don’t know which column you mean. The obligation to act according to morality is based on two sources: reason and the Torah. Reason says that a person should be moral, and philosophical reflection shows that at the foundation of morality stands the will of God (He is the legislator of morality and expects us to act accordingly. See the fourth notebook). The second basis is verses in the Torah that teach that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to behave morally, such as, “And you shall do what is right and good,” and more.
As for your very assumption that without the Torah there is no basis for obligations, Rabbi Shimon Shkop already addressed this at the beginning of Sha’ar 5, and wrote that this is a mistake. The opposite is true: the obligation to obey what we were commanded in the Torah is by force of reason, and therefore reason is the more fundamental obligation.
Discussion on Answer
Who told you that the values of the Torah are eternal? Reason?
Morality is what reason requires you to do (between one person and another). Therefore the question of why reason says to follow morality is an oxymoron.
The fact that there is disagreement about one question or another does not matter for our purposes. Reason says that one must be moral, and now go and think about what morality requires of you (and there are disagreements about that, though usually at the margins).
Beyond that, you present a conflict of Jewish law versus morality and argue that Jewish law takes precedence. I argue that there is an obligation to both.
https://mikyab.net/posts/788 That’s the column.
I didn’t understand why reason says that one must be moral. Human morality is something that changes according to each person’s own outlook, and that means it could be that at one time you think something is right, and later you think it is wrong.
So reason would דווקא say that you should follow something fixed, like the values of the Torah, which are eternal.