The Torah versus human morality

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asked 3 months ago

Hello Rabbi Michi. I’m currently listening to the debate you had with Yaron Yadan, and there’s something I’m not clear about in your perception of morality and Torah. I’ll detail it and be happy to explain.
In the chapter you basically claim that the Torah is a divine command that binds you to some extent, and in addition to that you have a human moral command and sometimes the two are in conflict. I completely understand this issue, and I also agree with it. But you claim that the Torah does not talk about morality at all – my question is why you do not believe that the Torah is the true moral command, but humans are unable to reach an understanding of it on their own because it comes from God, whose understanding we have no say in.
The point of the question is that when there is a conflict between your private morality and the commandment in the Torah, sometimes you, according to your words, will act and side with human morality and not with the Torah. How is that? After all, you would agree with me that private, human morality – my mind – changes according to the times. Your morality is not the morality of Alexander the Great, nor of Aristotle – even though both of them reached moral insights based on their minds alone. In other words, human morality is never absolute. Why do you see it as something meaningful when it sometimes conflicts with the law/the words of the Torah and would you prefer it?

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מיכי Staff answered 3 months ago

The moral command is not human but divine. Without God, moral commandments have no validity (see column 456). Of course, the interpretation of morality is human. All of this is also true with regard to halakha. Its origin and validity are from God, the Almighty, but the interpretation is human. You can of course say whatever you want. The paper tolerates everything. But to say that slaughtering animals is moral is to empty the word morality of its meaning. Fatumi Milli is a fool. We understand very well what morality is, and this does not fall under this concept. By the way, there is no such thing as divine morality or Jewish morality or any other morality. There is morality and that is it. Morality does not change with the times. It is our perceptions of it that change (I tend to think that we are progressing, just like in our scientific understanding). The same is true of Halacha. So I don’t understand what all this discussion means. Even if the origin of morality or Halacha is in God, the interpretation is for our world and it changes over time and is uncertain and prone to errors. There is no difference in this regard between Halacha and morality. On the contrary, I expect many more errors in the interpretation of Halacha than in the interpretation of Morals, because we understand Morals well and Halacha does not. I have dealt in many places in great detail with the question of morality and its relationship to halakha. You can search here on the site, both in columns and in lesson series. If this interests you, you are welcome to listen and read.

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