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Is Shabbat related to morality?

שו”תCategory: moralIs Shabbat related to morality?
asked 9 months ago

You wrote in one of your columns that Shabbat has nothing to do with morality, but from a study of the verses, it is implied that on a collective level and perhaps even on an individual level, Shabbat also has a moral dimension (even if not a moral obligation):
“(14) And on the seventh day of the week, which is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, you shall not do any of your work, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your ox, your donkey, and all your livestock, and your stranger who is within your gates, for the sake of your male servant and your female servant, as well as yourself .” Is the Rabbi willing to accept that the mitzvah has several reasons?
For example: both morality, also holiness, also a symbol of a covenant with God and recognition of His kingdom, and so on…

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מיכי Staff answered 9 months ago

Where did you see any morality here? Just as you rest, they too should rest. Indeed, there may be several reasons, so what?

יוסף replied 9 months ago

Is it not moral to pity the weak and give them rights like yours?
And did they change the definition of morality?!
After all, giving charity is not a moral obligation either, and yet it is considered a moral act, since it helps the weak. So is “glorifying the face of an old man” and so on. To pity the weak and give them rights, even though it does not benefit your profits, is it not simply that it belongs to the realm of morality?!

יוסף replied 9 months ago

Or alternatively the following verses:
“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, to give rest to your ox and your donkey, and to give rest to your son and the stranger”,
And regarding Shemita:
(d) And in the seventh year, the Sabbath of rest, the land shall have a Sabbath to the Lord’ You shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard:
(5) You shall not reap the harvest of your harvest, nor gather the grapes of your Naziriteship. It shall be a sabbath year for the land:
(6) And the land shall be a sabbath for you, for food for you, and for your servants, and for your hire, and for your hire, and for your sojourners to dwell in it. With you:
It seems pretty clear that the goal here is moral, that even the weakest in society will receive the privilege of rest and grain, which they would not receive if their employers did not pity them.

מיכי Staff replied 9 months ago

You have a serious problem with logic. Murder is also a moral prohibition. And so is theft. Does that mean that you shall not murder and you shall not steal are moral commands? If so, then why did you go to the reasoning of Shabbat and not to these prohibitions?

יוסף replied 9 months ago

I thought it was too simple. I wanted to say this about the commandments that are not clear to us to be related to morality,
that many of them also have a moral dimension. And I didn't understand why you reject that.
Have you seen some examples of commandments that do not deal with morality, or commandments that conflict with morality, and have you concluded that the halakha does not deal with morality?
I failed to understand the argument against…
I tried to show that even commandments that do not necessarily seem moral have a moral dimension (of course, not all commandments)..

מיכי Staff replied 9 months ago

I will explain the structure of the discussion again, because I think you have lost it. The explanation of my position is presented in column 541. You gave me a hard time, and I explained why this is not a problem. I did not reject anything, and if you think the halakha does include morality, then that is perfectly fine. In my opinion, it does not.

יוסף replied 9 months ago

The other reason is that in the place where I read your words, you attributed “Thou shalt not murder” and ”Thou shalt not steal” to the moral realm, while regarding the Sabbath you said it had nothing to do with morality:
“Moral laws are laws that are consistent with moral principles, such as “Thou shalt not murder”, “Honor your father and mother”, charity, and the like. Immoral laws are laws that have nothing to do with morality, such as most of the prohibitions on eating (pork, foreskin, leaven, and the like), impurity and purity, the Sabbath, all matters of holy things, the commandments that depend on the land (perhaps with the exception of gifts for the poor), and the like.” – And here I didn't understand why you excluded the Sabbath from there. The additional discussion regarding the question of whether halakha deals with morality is also an important discussion, but my question follows your statement here, which claims that there are ostensibly halakha that deals with morality.

מיכי Staff replied 9 months ago

I mean, did you comment on my air? I think you're wrong about her too, but whatever.

יוסף replied 9 months ago

That too, but I also fail to understand your leap from the fact that there are anti-moral, or amoral, laws to the fact that all of the law does not deal with morality. After all, even if our intuition provides us with basic moral truths, it remains relatively at a basic level, and that is assuming that we live today. In the pagan world, there was no binding morality, and no proper moral concepts, and therefore the people of Israel also had to be provided with the more basic moral truths. But there are many commandments that have a moral dimension, even though they are not necessarily a moral obligation, that we would not observe if the Torah had not been given: the Sabbath of Avidah, Shmita, Shabbat, Lekt Shecha and Peah, Tzedakah, virtually every section of the Laws, and also a significant part of the Sections of the Holy, and more…
Even the statement that man was created in the image of God, and this gives him inherent and not acquired privileges and honor, are innovations from the Torah, and therefore to judge the values of the Torah and their meaning and initial intention according to the (more revised) moral concept, seems like a serious error. Also, many verses on the path of ’ righteousness and justice, the words of the prophets, “righteous laws and judgments” and the like, show us the poet…s intention‧
So why does the rabbi insist that there is no connection between halakha and morality?

מיכי Staff replied 9 months ago

I explained this there, and I will return to it briefly.
If the halakha strives for other values, and they can of course conflict with moral values, there is no reason to assume that it itself also obscures moral values. There are several indications for this. For example, the need not to murder, even though it is a simple assumption and that we are required not to murder even before that (as with Cain). And so we see that the boundaries of moral prohibitions are not the same as the boundaries of moral prohibitions (murder in the Gemara and in the Mesher, etc.). All indications show that the halakha is not interested in morality. There is much more evidence for this (for example, “and do what is right and good” is not included in the list of commandments according to any of the early ones. For example, Rashi is the first to make it difficult to understand why the Torah did not begin with “this new year for you,” and the entire Book of Genesis deals with human and moral honesty, and so on and so forth).
This does not mean that the content of the commandments is not similar to the moral commandments. For example, "Thou shalt not murder" of course has a similar content, but the commandment is intended to say that murder is also a religious problem, not just a moral one. Halacha deals only with this level, not with the moral level. And so it is with the other moral commandments.
Does the Torah have a moral influence on the world? Of course. But it is not specifically for Halacha, but for the other parts of the Torah. In any case, in my opinion Halacha does not deal with this. And in my opinion, at least today, there is nothing to learn morally from the Torah.

יוסף replied 9 months ago

There is definitely a reason why it overshadows moral values, because sometimes there is a clash of values, and sometimes the religious value prevails over the moral value, or the national value prevails over the moral value (assimilation, for example).
Your statement about murder being a simple assumption may be true today, but even if it was once a natural feeling that murder was forbidden, it was not an absolute prohibition like it became in the Ten Commandments.
The value of man was not so high, and the Torah made it a binding principle.
What is more, it may also be true about murder, but that is because it is the most basic moral value.
In the ancient East, there were many moral distortions, which required a clear statement even in areas that today (in the Western culture in which we find ourselves) seem trivial to us.
Although there is a punishment for Cain, it is not a death penalty as we see that the Torah later commands that it should be for murder, and it is very possible that this is because the prohibition was not yet absolute.

Although the boundaries of halakhah are not always the same as morality, this too often stems from an anachronistic reading of the Torah. One must see what the laws were at the time, and observe the ethical and moral trend of the Torah (in writing) in relation to the cultures of the time. Certainly, there is an attempt here at a very high level of moral correction, especially since, as I said, there are many commandments that do not express a moral obligation, but embody moral values in their content, and a higher moral level than the basic requirements of “Thou shalt not murder” and the like.

“And you shall do what is right and good” It should not be included in the commandments, because it is a general statement such as:
“(e) And you shall keep my statutes and my judgments which you shall do, I am the one who sanctifies them:
(h) And you shall keep my statutes and do them, I am the one who sanctifies them:
(no) And you shall keep my commandments and do them, I am the one who sanctifies them:” – And so on. What is more, I am not at all sure that the commandment “and do what is just and good” is a commandment about morality, since it is written “(18) and do what is just and good in the sight of the Lord” which means that we are probably talking about the commandments that are good in the sight of the Lord, and not according to human intuition.

Although the Book of Genesis deals with morality and simple humanity, it stops there and does not advance. The Torah confirms the existing intuitions, makes them binding, and develops them to a much higher moral level. I am not saying that this is the only thing the Torah does, but it is quite clear that this is one of its main trends.
I am not talking specifically about the details of the law, but about the intention of the Torah and its author. From a simple and honest reading of the Torah, it is quite clear that there are very serious intentions there regarding general moral and social reform. There are many commandments, sayings, verses, that emphasize this, and I see no good reason to deny it, just because at the level of details we do not always know the meaning of the commandment.
The moral revolution of the Torah is tremendous, and I think that to say that it is just a coincidence is to make a mockery of the Torah.
You are right that there is a simple moral intuition, but if religious education is enough – even this intuition disappears. In a pagan world that is governed by the passions of various idols, when we see both from the Torah and from research, that the perception of man in these cultures was so low, endless cruelty, and a distorted moral perception, we must also command the moral rules that seem trivial to us. All the more so after 400 years that the people of Israel have been deep within this culture.
Some examples:
(l) Beware lest you drive them out from before you, and lest you inquire of their God, saying, How shall these nations serve their God? And I will do the same:
(no) You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for all the abominations of the Which they have done unto their gods, that they shall burn their sons and their daughters in the fire unto their gods:
(9) For thou hast come into the land which the LORD hath given thee. Your God has given you this command: You shall not learn to do the abominations of these nations:
(i) There shall not be found among you anyone who practices witchcraft, a sorcer For all these things and because of these abominations, the Lord your God will drive them out from before you:
(13) You shall be righteous with the Lord your God:
It is completely understandable that in such a situation, the people are called upon to make clear statements also in the area of morality. It is unlikely that all this behavior stems solely from a need, but rather from a distorted worldview that requires a change from end to end.

(f) And you shall keep and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who shall hear all these statutes, and shall say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people:
(g) For what great nation is there that hath God so nigh unto it, Our God in all things we call upon Him:
(8) And what great nation is there that hath statutes and righteous judgments, according to all this law, which I set before you this day?

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