Q&A: Morality Versus Jewish Law
Morality Versus Jewish Law
Question
Hello and blessings, Rabbi.
I read the first book in the trilogy, and I still didn’t really understand why, after we accept that there is a God and that there is some logic by which He created the world for a certain purpose that He demands of us, that thing should not be morality.
Why does the fact that morality also creates social order detract from it being of religious value?
And once I accept it as a religious value, there is no need to look for revelation, because the command reached us not through revelation but in a natural way.
Answer
I explained it there. Morality is a means of creating a healthy society. But it is not reasonable that the Holy One, blessed be He, created a society so that it would be healthy. Better that He not create it, and then there would be no need for it to be healthy. Beyond that, we have a tradition of revelation, and there is no need to look for it.
Discussion on Answer
Because regarding what is not a moral command, we have no intuition about it. Rational living depends on goals. Rationality is choosing the optimal means to reach goals. But what are the goals? For that, revelation is required.
Social order and morality are very different things.
For example, marriage.
Giving a special status to one particular person and placing everyone else in an inferior position is an immoral act.
Another example: preferring your own children over other people’s children is racism, and it is not moral.
But if a command can be received through intuition, like morality, why is revelation needed?
Why can’t one argue, for example, that rational living is the divine command because it comes in a way similar to morality? After all, morality is my test case for something that God commanded, so maybe all the laws He commands come by this route.