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Ethics and Halacha

שו”תCategory: philosophyEthics and Halacha
asked 2 years ago

Good evening!
The rabbi’s view is that the law does not come to establish ethics, but rather has goals beyond this world. So I would like to ask, when the Torah prohibits murder, harm, and commands kindness, etc., is it even then not ethics that its goals are, but rather a law that happens to appear ethical?
In another way, I would ask, is it possible to understand the Torah’s ethical perspective from its laws on ethical issues? Or is it that even in these laws, the Torah does not establish ethics, but only religion?
Thank you very much!


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מיכי Staff answered 2 years ago
I answered this in the Halacha and Morality column and in all the places where I have addressed the issue. There is absolutely no overlap (a murderer in the Grammar, a reducer, and the like will prove it), and this in itself shows the independence between Halacha and morality. There is a parallel, not complete but probably not coincidental, that what is immoral also harms religious goals.

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שואל השאלה replied 2 years ago

It is clear that the rabbi understands that the Torah does indeed sometimes refer to ethics, but not necessarily.
The Rambam writes that everything that the Torah commanded includes the commandments of the Torah, since the obligation does not remain the same (as the rabbi says that after the Torah was given, one should not learn modesty from a cat. And it is clear that this does not necessarily contradict the rabbi's words on financial matters) [incidentally, this is not related to the Rambam's statement in the laws of kings that even the Torah must do because of God, since here he writes that even with us it is still an additional level of rabbi].
That is, apparently the intention is that the ethical commandments of the Torah were also forbidden for additional reasons. Is the intention that they have religious reasons beyond ethics, or is the intention that the Torah redefined ethics, however, towards Israel?

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

No, it does not. In other words, Halacha does not address ethics. The Torah does. The ’moral’ commandments come to achieve religious goals. At the same time, there are also ethical obligations in which we are the same as Gentiles. Therefore, there is a difference between the limits of murder, theft, damage, and the like, in Halacha and ethics.

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