Where do the boundaries of morality begin and end?
Hello Rabbi Michi.
I’ll start with an introduction because I think it reflects many of my peers.
I remember when I first entered the Hechil Yeshivah Hesder in 1996, I was enchanted by the harmonious teachings of Rabbi Kook, and the charm of his personality as they bothered to tell us about it. After a certain period of time, when I got to know the “man of Halacha” and with a certain sobriety from the harmonies and the search for the sacred everywhere, I thought that it was indeed more correct to place the Torah above Halacha and everything else was nice. Over time, my faith in the correctness of Halacha and its sages also began to weaken, and I thought that first of all, Judaism should be based on moral principles, and it would be best if we managed to derive them from Jewish texts such as Levinas’ work, etc. I also became disillusioned with this, from the moral basis and certainly from his search for it in the Sages.
Personally, I have very basic moral rules that I’ve never thought about too much. I simply don’t murder those who don’t think like me, and the derivatives and sub-clauses that stem from that.
In relation to Torah, I have accepted the tradition of the Toshab, trying to learn as many Shas and Poskim as possible, and accepting the Rashash (I don’t know why, there is something special about this study).
Back to morality. As I began, many of my peers have gone through a similar process and are currently clinging to morality as a foundation. I can’t understand why? In the last 20-25 years (it seems to me that the assassination of Rabin symbolizes a change in trend) a lot of ink has been spilled around the issue: “the other,” “the other,” “otherness,” conscience, values, and so on. It always seems very wise and right.
My basic premise is that if there is something worthwhile and good, it should be done with effort, precision and investment, for example, a literary work like Tzitz Eliezer, not everyone can do. Does being moral really require effort? I’m almost certain that it doesn’t. When I read (almost never read) texts from the aforementioned field, I ask whether my neighbor from my childhood in Sderot, Sultana Cohen, z”l, who wasn’t really educated, is less moral than columnists in the original Rishon and Eretz.? I don’t know. But she was kind-hearted, nice and kind.
When I was in high school, the genocide took place in Rwanda, it’s not like anyone really cared, you can’t deny the facts: 800,000 people were murdered. Where was the West in the story? European statesmen either avoided it or accused each other of not taking responsibility.
President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. Apart from the fact that he’s handsome, I didn’t understand why he won this award. I guess even the 600,000 people murdered in Syria don’t understand, it was precisely Trump the beast (in the sense that he doesn’t make an effort to hide the desires that are usually hidden and are considered problematic by most of us, including me) who helped to a large extent to stop the killings of the Assad regime.
In recent years, your friend Rabbi Yuval Sherlow has been presenting himself publicly as an “ethicist” (does that have a rabbinical ordination?) Apart from the fact that it’s quite annoying that he’s doing this in a rabbinical capacity, as if there’s a connection between the two, I really don’t know why people are so enthusiastic about presenting morality as a winning objective tool on which to criticize Judaism? As I mentioned, I have little faith in the rhetoric surrounding these issues, and to be a decent and nice person, you certainly don’t need to read philosophy or humanistic psycho-philosophy.
In general, what are the boundaries of this discourse that many see as the main point of the main points and everything else is a big addition? When talking about halakhic law, then more or less (mostly more) I know what the rules of the game are (as in Kabbalah) and how to work with them, mainly I think I know how to appreciate a good and reasoned halakhic text that can be discussed and has a clear understanding.
As for morality, I have no idea where it begins and where it ends. It always sounds to me as if most people have nothing left to hold on to, and they go to the moral refuge as a safe place, and dig into it with their thoughts and “do’s and don’ts,” as if they discovered America.
The paradox, as I wrote above, is that sometimes simple, uneducated people are much nicer and more honest than the “educated” white religious-secular liberal.
A little order would help.
Hello Joshua,
There are quite a few questions here. I will try to address them briefly.
First, morality does not depend on knowledge. There are quite a few moral people who have not studied. But it is important for me to emphasize that niceness is not necessarily morality. Morality is tested when there is a dilemma and when a person does not want to act that way. A natural tendency to be nice is not morality (just to clarify: I am not saying here that your neighbor in Sderot was like that).
Literature on morality is not intended to make you moral, but to make you understand what moral duty is. In some cases it is not clear, and then there is value in intellectual clarification of things. In such situations, your neighbor might not have come to the right conclusion.
I assume you know my position on the connection between morality and Judaism, so you burst into an open door. There is no such thing as Jewish morality, and morality is not Judaism. Morality is humanity, and by its very nature it is universal. It is required of every person equally, Jewish or not, and what is required of everyone is the same.
As for the moral discussion, it is based on intuitive assumptions, but in this it is no different from many other areas. I have written in several places (for example, in the fourth conversation in the first book) that moral intuition is the result of observation of the idea of the good (moral realism). In this sense, there is a basis here that can be called “observational.” That is where it begins. It ends with the conclusions you draw from this “observation.”
Is it moral for a person to market themselves as an ethicist on the basis of being a respected rabbi? Maybe tomorrow Asa Kosher will market himself as a Maggid Shiur because his grandfather was a T.A.?
You wrote that the purpose of literature dealing with morality is only to clarify what the moral obligation is, and that morality does not depend on knowledge, you can be “simple with” and behave honestly with people (except for complicated matters in which those with analytical ability will reach more correct conclusions).
There is a huge gap here, what a need to write so much about ethics, to examine what is good and honest, what is the duty of a human being in society, and on the other hand, every person with an average IQ, understands or better yet, naturally knows what is good and what is bad
A person should not market themselves at all. The decision of who is an ethicist should be left to others.
Simply acting honestly can lead you to mistakes in extreme cases. Usually we know what is right, but there are situations where more abstract thinking is required. The complex explanations of morality are intended mainly for these cases. As I wrote, being nice and flowing with honesty and kindness is not morality. Both because it may lead to mistakes in extreme situations and because morality is behavior out of commitment and determination, as I wrote.
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