Parashat Vayera (5761)

With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, Parashat Vayera, 5761

What Is the Difference Between ‘Morality’ and ‘Visceral Morality’

It is commonly thought that in our portion, our patriarch Abraham is presented as the antithesis of Noah. Noah was ‘a righteous man in a fur coat,’

the sort of person who, when he is cold, wraps himself in a fur coat. Abraham, when he is cold, lights an oven, and then everyone

gets warm. When the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals to him that He is about to destroy the world, Noah goes and builds an ark

for himself. Abraham, by contrast, when the Holy One, blessed be He, informs him that He is about to destroy Sodom, argues

with Him with astonishing, seemingly brazen persistence, and tries to save Sodom (and not only himself).

I would like to dwell on a point that, it seems to me, those who use the metaphor of ‘a righteous man in a fur coat’ are not accustomed

to noticing. Abraham did not ask the Holy One, blessed be He, not to destroy the wicked, but the righteous,

and perhaps also to spare the whole city on account of the righteous. He took it for granted that if not even one

righteous person were to be found in the city, it ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. In Noah’s generation, apparently, that was precisely

the situation. The entire generation was corrupt, and therefore it seems that there too Abraham would not have pleaded before God

to spare their lives. Abraham’s basic claim is: ‘Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?’ (Genesis 18:23). Or:

‘Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?’ (Genesis 18:25), that is, not render to a person according to his deeds. It is possible that the

wicked as well would ‘profit’ from the saving of Sodom, but that is not Abraham’s declared purpose in his arguments.

Compassion for the wicked, if at all, is only a byproduct of saving the righteous.

Many of us, had we been in such a situation, would feel that we ought to put forward an argument that demands

that the Holy One, blessed be He, spare His handiwork, and not an argument about divine justice. We would try to save

even the wicked, with claims that they are like ‘a child taken captive,’ and we would pile up one moral argument after another

about the sanctity of human life and the image of God.

These two approaches can be described in terms of ‘morality’ and ‘visceral morality.’ The root of the Hebrew term

for ‘morality’ is chastisement, and therefore moral behavior is sometimes perceived as obedience to the ‘dictate of conscience,’ or

‘pangs of conscience,’ or ‘visceral morality.’ A person does not harm someone because his pangs of conscience prevent him

from doing so. The reason for those pangs of conscience may be that the other person is helpless, innocent, and so forth.

People of ‘morality,’ as distinct from people of ‘visceral morality,’ adopt a moral criterion according to which one does

not harm someone who does not deserve to be harmed, and not a criterion built on their conscience, which torments them when that person

is harmed. For them, conscience is an auxiliary means for moral decision-making, and not its exclusive guide. If

human beings are indeed wicked to an intolerable degree, they should be destroyed from the face of the earth, despite the fact that this

entails terrible pangs of conscience. Abraham argues on the moral plane and not on the plane of

visceral morality.

Such situations arise everywhere and at all times, and of course also in present-day Israel. When

people take part in war, they ‘shoot and cry,’ to use the language of ‘Siach Lohamim’ (1967). This is

a desirable and blessed state of affairs, since every human being must have a conscience. The question is whether at some point

they can no longer live with this (illusory) ‘contradiction,’ and then they stop shooting

and continue only to cry. It seems that this is the situation today. There is no doubt that when a child, or an adult who is

innocent of wrongdoing, is harmed by our forces’ fire, this is a situation that gives rise to severe pangs of conscience. The question is whether we

are prepared to make ‘morality’ prevail over ‘visceral morality,’ and nevertheless to shoot despite the torn heart.

To shoot and cry. Today it seems that in the IDF, as in Israeli society generally, people only cry.

The supreme mission of the IDF is not to defeat the enemy under the constraint of causing minimal harm to innocents,

but simply not to harm innocents. That is generally how military successes are described (if

the IDF has any such successes at all) by officers and soldiers.

‘The ethical code’ by which the IDF operates and which it inculcates is a distorted code of ‘visceral morality,’

and not a moral code. This is Western-Christian sentimental ethics at its best (more accurately:

‘at its worst’). When the country’s residents are harmed (soldiers or civilians), the highest moral obligation

of the IDF is to prevent this, and that may come at the price of harming innocents.

When the terrorist hides in a house with civilians, and from there he shoots and endangers lives, one must destroy the

house, despite the risk of harming innocents. In such a situation, one must ‘sweep away the righteous with the wicked,’ both

for practical reasons and for moral ones. In such situations one must shoot and cry. One who

shoots and does not cry is cruel; however, one who does not shoot and only cries is twice as cruel. An army

of ‘morality’ is a human necessity; an army of ‘visceral morality’ is a guarantee of failure, moral

and practical alike.

In the book ‘Etz Chaim’ (the central work among the writings of Rabbi Isaac Luria), one finds a seemingly surprising formulation. It

argues that both the good inclination and the evil inclination are found in the animal soul of the human being. So too it appears

from a rabbinic exposition: ‘to serve Him with all your heart’—’with both your inclinations’ (the good inclination and the evil inclination, both

on the same psychic plane: in the heart; see Deuteronomy 11:13 and Berakhot 54a). As a result, the author of Tanya proposes at the beginning

of his book nothing less than a genuine revolution in the service of God. Usually it is accepted that a person must make the good inclination prevail over the evil inclination. The author

of Tanya argues that a person is charged with making the rational (=divine) soul prevail over the emotional

(=animal) soul, which, as noted, includes both inclinations. The goal is not to act emotionally in the

positive direction, but not to act on the basis of emotion. Emotion is positive when it serves as an auxiliary

to behavior, and not when it determines it. ‘Visceral morality’ sometimes leads to the very opposite

of ‘morality.’ Perhaps this is what the Torah intends in our portion, when the Holy One, blessed be He, describes our patriarch Abraham and

the way of the Lord: ‘that he may command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice’ (Genesis 18:19).

Have a peaceful Sabbath

It may be placed for respectful disposal in any synagogue or yeshiva. Comments and responses will be gladly received.

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