Need for a religious imperative when it already exists in a moral system
Hello Rabbi, according to you, the commandments that are associated with the framework of the ‘moral commandments’ because they concern others and so on belong to this framework only because they add a religious value on top of the existing and natural moral value to which I am already obligated (?), I am obligated regardless not to murder, only now there is also a spiritual problem with it. I wanted to ask, then, what is the purpose of the religious commandment if there is already an ‘objective’ moral offense? I am obligated to morality, why do I need a reminder of what I am obligated to? ‘Moral halakha’ is a system of reminders to know Torah in the context of the given commandment? Just so that we know that halakha also thinks it is important?
I would be happy to clarify if it was not clear.
This is not a question of necessity but of truth. The truth is that there is also a religious prohibition in this, not just a moral prohibition. In other words, whoever commits murder does two harms: spiritual-religious harm and moral harm. The halakhic prohibition is because of the spiritual-religious harm and the moral prohibition is because of the moral harm.
Such are the prohibitions of neshak and taravit. The Gemara itself in R. Izahu neshak says that these are two things, meaning that in every loan with interest there is a prohibition of neshak (to swindle the borrower) and also a prohibition of taravit (to illegally increase the lender’s wealth). They always come together (although the latter have discussed cases where one may exist without the other). So what is the point of having two prohibitions here? Because in a loan with interest, both things really happen: the borrower is swindled and the lender’s wealth is illegally increased.
By the way, regarding the number of commandments, these really do not count as two of the Levites. We see from this that the number of commandments takes into account practice, and if there is no practical innovation in any commandment, it is not counted. But in terms of prohibitions, there is no problem with overlap on the practical level as long as the essence is different.
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