Gratitude: Between Morality and Ontology

Talalei Orot – 5769

Miki Abraham

The author of Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart), as well as several other thinkers, explains the foundation of the service of God as based on gratitude toward God.[1]  Rabbi Amital,[2] raises a piercing objection to this approach:

Is it really possible for a Jew who lost his wife and children to serve God on the basis of gratitude? Can a Jew whose task was to remove burned corpses from the crematoria of Auschwitz serve God when the consciousness underlying that service is gratitude? By no means—no![3]

He then cites the words of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi in the passage in Yoma 69b:

For Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Why were they called the Men of the Great Assembly? Because they restored the crown to its former glory. Moses came and said: “the great, mighty, and awesome God.” Jeremiah came and said: Foreigners are ravaging His sanctuary—where is His awesomeness? So he did not say “awesome.” Daniel came and said: Foreigners are enslaving His children—where is His might? So he did not say “mighty.” They came and said: On the contrary, this is His mighty might—that He suppresses His inclination and gives the wicked patience. And this is His awesomeness—for if not for the fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, how could one nation survive among the nations? But how could the Rabbis do this and uproot the formulation established by Moses? Rabbi Elazar said: Because they knew of the Holy One, blessed be He, that He is truthful, therefore they did not speak falsely about Him. (Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Why were they called the Men of the Great Assembly? Because they restored the crown to its former glory. Moses came and said, ‘the great, mighty, and awesome God.’ Jeremiah came and said: Gentiles are clamoring in His Temple—where is His awesomeness? Therefore he did not say ‘awesome.’ Daniel came and said: Gentiles are subjugating His children—where is His might? Therefore he did not say ‘mighty.’ They came and said: On the contrary, this is His mighty power—that He conquers His inclination and is patient with the wicked. And this is His awesomeness—for were it not for the fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, how could one nation survive among the nations? But how could the rabbis do this and uproot the formula instituted by Moses? Rabbi Elazar said: Since they knew that the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth, therefore they did not speak falsely about Him.)

From this he derives the following principle:

The service of God must be built on truth, not on falsehood and flattery. Therefore prophets who did not feel that expressions such as "great," "mighty," and "awesome" described God refrained from using them, although by doing so they altered both the Torah’s wording and the liturgical formula instituted by Moses our teacher.

So too in our case. We cannot base our service of God on a foundation of gratitude in an era that witnessed the greatest destruction in the history of the Jewish people.

For such a person, the only possible way out, in Rabbi Amital’s view, is a service grounded in faith. This foundation too is based on the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot:

As was said of one of the pious, that he would rise at night and say: My God, You have made me hungry and left me naked, and seated me in the darkness of night, yet You have shown me Your might and Your greatness. If You burn me in fire, I will only love You more and rejoice in You. This is similar to what was said (Job 13:15): “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” And the sage alluded to this matter when he said (Song of Songs 1:13): “My beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh; he shall lie between my breasts.” And the Sages said by way of exposition (Shabbat 88b): “Even though my beloved afflicts and embitters me, he shall lie between my breasts” (Chapter 1, Gate of the Love of God). (As was said of one of the pious, who would rise at night and say: My God, You have left me hungry and naked, You have seated me in the darkness of night, and yet You have shown me Your might and greatness. Even if You burn me in fire, I will only increase my love for You and my joy in You. This resembles what was said: ‘Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.’ And the sage hinted at this matter when he said: ‘My beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh that lies between my breasts’; and the Sages expounded: ‘Even though my beloved distresses and embitters me, he shall lie between my breasts’ [Part I, Gate of the Love of God].)

Yet it is not entirely clear why faith constitutes a substitute for service based on gratitude, and in what sense. If gratitude is indeed the usual basis for the service of God, then when there is no reason for gratitude, apparently the reason for serving God disappears altogether. Why should faith—which at bottom is merely a stance toward a fact (that God exists, or that He created me and the world)—constitute any reason to serve Him? Gratitude is a moral norm, and as such it can ground an obligation to serve God. But a fact in which I believe is only a fact. How can a fact ground a normative obligation?

We should also note that gratitude as the basis for the service of God is itself a problematic thesis, even apart from the difficulties raised by Rabbi Amital (and others that will be raised below). It is very hard to ground our sweeping obligation toward God and His Torah—which under certain circumstances can extend as far as a duty to give up one’s life—on the moral obligation of gratitude. If only because, ordinarily, the duty of gratitude is perceived as weaker than the duty to serve God (and perhaps even derivative of it).

Nevertheless, it seems agreed by all that there is an obligation to be grateful to God, even if this is not the exclusive basis for the service of God (see below). Yet Rabbi Amital’s words negate not only the possibility of grounding the service of God in gratitude, but even the very possibility of being grateful to God. His argument implies that a person in our generation cannot, in general, be grateful to Him. That is of course a harsher conclusion than the explicit one in his words, and a far more problematic one. Are we really exempt from the obligation of gratitude toward God? Is this obligation a time-bound commandment? Is it not part of the Torah’s eternity? And further: is this claim true only of those who themselves passed through that inferno? Put differently: it is unclear whether Rabbi Amital means to exempt a person only because of psychological difficulty, or whether there is here a principled claim: in light of these events, God no longer ‘deserves’ our gratitude from us.

Some have proposed explanations that would allow continued gratitude toward God despite those terrible events. Rabbi Amital himself recounts a conversation with Abba Kovner in which he argues that faith in man suffered a harder blow from those events than faith in God. Taking this one step further, one could argue that those events were the work of human beings, and that God, who entrusted His world to guardians—namely, to us—is not responsible for what human beings choose to do to one another.[4]

In this article I wish to propose a different direction. A consideration of the concept of gratitude in general, and gratitude toward God in particular, yields a different conception of this obligation. Usually we understand the obligation of gratitude as a norm derived from the fact that good has been done to us. The conception I propose here detaches gratitude from the usual basis of reciprocity. I shall call this "philosophical gratitude."[5]

A. The Duty of Gratitude Toward God

The Simple Duty: Moral Gratitude

As already mentioned, the author of Chovot HaLevavot grounds the obligation to serve God in the obligation of gratitude toward Him. He devotes to this the whole Gate of Reflection and a substantial part of the Gate of Service. The gist of his argument is that God cares for all our needs, material and spiritual, and does so for us intentionally (not accidentally or casually). Therefore a moral duty rests upon us to be grateful to Him for this, just as we are grateful to anyone who bestows good upon us. This is a gratitude whose essence is reciprocity and obligation toward one who gives us something and acts for our sake.

Rabbi Dessler likewise writes:[6]

The service of God is built on the foundation of gratitude. This is explicit throughout the sacred books: a person must thank the good God for all the good He does for him, and because of it he must observe all the commandments, statutes, and teachings.

It should be noted that in Rabbi Dessler’s words one can also discern the two elements we distinguished above: the duty of gratitude toward God, and the fact that this duty serves as a basis for the obligation of the service of God in general.

The basis of the obligation of gratitude toward God appears in an explicit verse in the Torah (Deut. 32:6): Will you thus repay the Lord, O base and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Possessor? He made you and established you. (‘Is this how you repay the Lord, O base and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who made you His own? He made you and established you’). Moses himself, later in the chapter, details the many kindnesses God did for us (that He bore us on eagles’ wings and the like) as the basis for this demand.[7]

The liturgical poem Nishmat Kol Chai is likewise devoted almost entirely to this matter: Even if our mouths were as full of song as the sea, and our tongues of praise as the multitude of its waves, we still would not suffice to thank, praise, and extol (‘Even if our mouths were filled with song like the sea, and our tongues with rejoicing like the multitude of its waves, we would still not suffice to thank, praise, and extol’).

Gratitude for Creation Itself

Some see a person’s obligation of gratitude toward God as extending even to the very fact of his creation (and not only to the good that God has done and continues to do for him). In fact this is explicit in the verse itself: He made you and established you (‘He made you and established you’). The demand in this verse for gratitude toward God rests on two foundations: He made you, and He also established you. This idea appears often in works of Jewish thought, and I shall cite only two examples. Nachmanides (ad loc.) writes:

Is not God your Father—for He begot you and raised you? “And He acquired you”—for He made you His possession, since He brought you forth from nothingness and you became something; and every existent has an owner, as in the verse “The Lord acquired me at the beginning of His way” (Proverbs 8:22), and likewise “Possessor of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19), as I have explained there. “And He, your Rock, made you and established you”—as in the phrase “Did not One fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15). (Is He not God your Father—for He begot you and raised you; and He acquired you—made you His possession, for He brought you out of nothing into being, and every existent has an owner, as in the verse ‘The Lord acquired me at the beginning of His way,’ and likewise ‘Possessor of heaven and earth,’ as I explained there. And ‘the Rock who made you and established you’ is like ‘Did not One fashion us in the womb?’)

Nachmanides points to the fact that God made us something from nothing as one of the bases for the duty of gratitude toward Him. He even goes further and argues that the fact that God made us creates a certain property right of His in us. We shall see this in more detail below. Toledot Yitzhak (the adoptive uncle of Rabbi Yosef Karo) elaborates on this further in his commentary on the verse:[8]

Is He not your Father, your Creator? Since the sage says that a father is only an incidental cause of the son, it therefore says: Is He not your essential Father? And since you honor your physical father, who is only incidental, all the more so the blessed God, who is the essential cause. This is what is meant by “and established you”: an incidental father is not the cause of the child’s continued existence, but only the cause of his emergence into the world, or the cause of his birth; but the Holy One, blessed be He, is the cause of his continued existence. (The sage says that the father is only an accidental cause of the son; therefore Scripture says, ‘Is He not your essential Father?’ Since you honor your physical father, who is only an accidental cause, all the more so the Blessed One, who is the essential cause. This is what and established you means: an accidental father is not the cause of the son’s continued existence, only of his emergence into the air of the world, that is, of his birth; but God is the cause of his continued existence.)

Toledot Yitzhak emphasizes that God is the essential and fundamental cause of our existence, and that this itself obligates us to greater gratitude toward Him than toward our biological parents.

B. The Principal Difficulties Regarding Gratitude Toward God

Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, in his book Hakarat HaTov,[9] discusses matters of gratitude at length, both conceptually and halakhically, and he deals extensively with the duty of gratitude toward God as well. Yet for some reason he does not address at all a long series of nontrivial difficulties that this obligation raises. This phenomenon characterizes all the sources known to me that deal with this topic, which take for granted the duty of gratitude toward God. Presumably this stems from discomfort with appearing to deny the goodness of Heaven. Yet precisely in light of the sharp difficulties raised by Rabbi Amital, and additional difficulties that quite a few students have raised to me over the years, I have found it appropriate to discuss the hard questions this approach raises. I shall divide these difficulties into two principal types: the moral and the logical-philosophical. This division will sharpen the basis of the proposal advanced below.

The Moral Difficulties

There is a great deal of evil and suffering in the world even in ordinary times. Is it really true that every Jew has received more good from God than evil? Is it true that each of us ought to thank God for having created us? I am not at all sure that every Jew would answer yes to this question, even if he himself did not go through the Holocaust, and even if the Holocaust had never occurred. Indeed, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai counted and concluded (Eruvin 13b):

The Rabbis taught: For two and a half years, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disputed. These said: It would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created; and those said: It is better for a person to have been created than not to have been created. They took a vote and concluded: It would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created. Now that he has been created, let him examine his deeds. And some say: let him scrutinize his deeds. (Our rabbis taught: For two and a half years Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disputed. These said: It would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created; and those said: It would have been better for a person to have been created than not. They counted and concluded: It would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created. Now that he has been created—let him examine his deeds. And some say: let him scrutinize his deeds.)

Even in ordinary times, the balance sheet of the average person tilts toward evil and suffering, and therefore the question of gratitude toward the One who created us is not so simple.

Moreover, the very comparison drawn by the author of Chovot HaLevavot between the duty of gratitude toward a person who has done us good and our duty of gratitude toward God is problematic. Does God’s benevolence toward us involve any effort on His part? One could say that even a benefit given without exertion entails some gratitude, but it will be hard to derive from this an obligation so far-reaching as self-sacrifice for the observance of His commandments.

One can press the difficulty further. All the good God bestows on us is needed only because we have lacks and needs, and He created those in us as well. Air for breathing is necessary only because we were created in such a way that without air we cannot live. In the case of rescue from illness, the difficulty is even stronger: God gave us the illness too, and only afterward saved us from it. The same applies to traffic accidents and other dangers.

The Logical-Philosophical Difficulties

So far we have dealt with difficulties that lie in the moral sphere. We can now continue and raise difficulties in the logical-philosophical sphere: can one even define a duty of gratitude toward the One who created us? Had He not created us, we would have had no needs, and in any case there would have been no significance to the hardships or benefits we received from Him.[10] Moreover—and this again belongs to the moral sphere—the very fact that He created us morally obligates Him to care for us. How should we regard one who creates some creature and does not care for it? Is this not an elementary moral consequence of the fact that He is our Creator and we are His creatures?[11]

Above we saw that some point to the obligation of gratitude toward God for the very fact of our creation. Can one speak at all of a duty of gratitude for our very creation? The alternative would have been that we did not exist. Gratitude toward a human being is usually defined by comparing the bad state in which the recipient would have been without that person’s giving, to the better state in which he now finds himself after receiving it. But creation does not allow such a comparison. Had we not been created, we simply would not exist. If so, how can one define a duty of gratitude for creation itself, especially in light of the Sages’ statement in the above passage from Eruvin that it would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created.[12]

An Analogy for Clarification: The Problem of ‘Wrongful Birth’

In legal discourse one finds a cause of action called ‘wrongful birth’ (or ‘wrongful life’).[13] This refers to suits brought by a child (usually through his parents) against a doctor, or some other party, whose negligence caused that child to be born despite the expectation of congenital defects. In the legal world there is disagreement as to whether such a suit can be filed. The main dispute centers on whether one can sue someone for having caused a child to be born, claiming that it would have been better for him not to be born—in the spirit of ‘it would have been better for a person not to have been created.’ This problem has legal, logical-philosophical, psychological, and ethical aspects. Here we will focus on the philosophical-logical aspect, for, as we shall see, it is intimately connected to the problem with which we are dealing here.

The basic legal problem in tort claims for ‘wrongful life’ is that the child-plaintiff had no possibility of being a healthy person. At most, his parents could have refrained from bringing him into the world. The accepted view is that the purpose of a tort claim is to restore the post-injury situation, as far as possible, to its previous condition. When one person deprives another of a limb, it is generally impossible to repair the loss physically, but compensation is meant to do the best it can to approximate his current condition to the condition prior to the injury. An ordinary tort action is therefore based on comparison between two states: the person’s or property’s condition before the injury and after it. The deterioration itself is the basis of the claim, and assessment of damages is derived from evaluating the difference between the monetary values (to the extent that these can be assessed) of the two states. But in the case of wrongful birth, the child could either be born with the defect or not be born at all. There is no possibility of bringing him into the world healthy. The question is whether a claim can be brought based on comparison between those two states when in one of them the plaintiff does not exist at all.

Some address this problem at the level of valuation. How are we to assess the damage when damages are supposed to be the difference between the monetary values of two states, but in one of those states the plaintiff does not exist, and so no value can be attached to it at all? The question of the difference between the values of those two states is almost meaningless.

But it is easy to see that the problem is not only at the level of valuation. A person cannot bring a tort claim when, in the state that would have obtained but for the injury, he would not exist at all. The injury did not worsen his condition, and no one harmed him. To harm a person means to worsen his condition in some way: he stands healthy and whole, and someone comes and injures him. But here the alternative state is that this person simply does not exist. That means that before the act there was no injured party here at all. Thus the problem is not only a problem of valuation; the very claim that there was damage here is highly problematic.

In England and in most states of the U.S., the legal system does not recognize the possibility of bringing such claims, but in Israel the Supreme Court recognized, at least in certain respects, the legitimacy of such a claim in the Zeitzov case.[14] It should be noted that there was disagreement among the judges who accepted the legitimacy of the claim. Two of them argued that one cannot compare the values of the two above states (one of which is nonexistence), that is, the value of non-life (= the advantage of nonexistence when existence is impaired), especially when set against the value of life—even impaired life—or existence, which is usually regarded as impossible to quantify (would anyone permit killing an impaired person because the value of his life is negative relative to his nonexistence?). For this reason these two judges held that one must compare the value of impaired life to the value of a fictive life defined for purposes of the discussion, namely the value of the life of a comparable person in a reasonable and healthy condition. Two of the other judges argued that despite the difficulty, there is no escaping a comparison between impaired existence and nonexistence. In any event, a majority of the judges ruled, each for his own reasons, that this cause of action is admissible.

As David Heyd noted,[15] both kinds of arguments are problematic, and indeed most legal approaches in the world do not accept them (see there for an alternative, more coherent proposal for solving the legal problems involved in this issue).

One may perhaps add an even more fundamental problematic point regarding the very nature of the claim: one cannot sue someone for an act by virtue of which the plaintiff exists at all. Had the act (= the birth) not been done, the plaintiff would not exist in the world. In other words, his very ability to sue his parents is based on the performance of the act that is the subject of the suit. A fine parable for this sort of consideration appears in an essay by the Jewish-American logician Raymond Smullyan, ‘Is God a Taoist?’,[16] which presents an imaginary dialogue between man and God, in which the human demands that God take back his free will. In the course of their amusing dispute, God replies that only the existence of that free will enables him to make such a claim.[17]

Beyond the general problem of wrongful birth, there is a far more problematic claim when the child directs the claim against his own parents for having brought him into the world. Here the defendant is not a third party (like a doctor or adviser) but the parents themselves. The reason for the claim may be mamzer status (halakhic illegitimacy), which is indeed a defect they directly caused, or some other defect that they did not directly cause but for which the child sues them on the ground that they failed to prevent the birth, and thus also the suffering that resulted from it.[18]

The legal and ethical literature addresses this problem as well, and usually even those who recognize the legitimacy of a ‘wrongful life’ claim against an adviser or some third party are unwilling to accept such a claim against the parents.[19] In most cases, however, the reason is technical in character, such as the difficulties that would arise in the relationship between parents and children, or the problematic implicit assumption that parents are required to forgo their child if they know he will be born impaired (that is, this would apparently imply an obligation to abort impaired fetuses).

Hence Jelinek argues that, from the logical-legal standpoint, there is no basis for distinguishing these cases, and he maintains that if contemporary law recognizes the legitimacy of a claim against a third party, then it should also recognize the legitimacy of a claim against the parents, at least in some cases.[20] In truth, the reasons we offered above are relevant both to a claim against a third party (the adviser) and to a claim against the parents. Yet intuition says that there is also an essential difference between the two situations, and below we shall spell this out more fully.

Here is the place to note an analogy between this legal-ethical problem and the issue with which we are dealing here. In effect, according to Rabbi Amital, we are ‘suing’ God for having brought us into a world in which our lives are full of suffering. At the very least, we are taking for ourselves the right not to be grateful to Him for bringing us here, and to relinquish our obligation toward Him.[21] We shall return to this question below.

A further aspect of this analogy can be seen from another angle. Like a tort claim, the duty of gratitude is also the result of comparing two states: before receiving the benefit and after. A tort claim arises when the latter value is lower than the former, and a norm of gratitude arises when the latter value is higher than the former. But if those two states cannot be compared at all, then just as there can be no damage here to ground a tort claim, so too there can be no state of affairs that generates a duty of gratitude. Creation is not definable as a benefit to us, for prior to it we did not exist at all. To whom, then, was this benefit given? From this angle too, therefore, it is highly doubtful whether gratitude can be demanded for existence itself.

C. Philosophical Gratitude

Two Kinds of Gratitude

The difficulty regarding the duty of gratitude for creation itself provides an important key to understanding the proposal I now wish to make. Gratitude for existence itself (He made you and established you, ‘He made you and established you’) means that gratitude is not merely recompense for some investment or effort made on our behalf (for it was not done on our behalf, since we did not exist before it was done). There is an obligation of gratitude toward the one who created me, or from whom I came, even though I received nothing from him. This is philosophical gratitude. Such gratitude is not measured specifically by effort or investment. Nor does it require that the creator actually bestow some benefit upon me. It is a function of the very ontological bond between the creature (the potential bearer of gratitude) and its creator (God or his parents).

Nachmanides, whose words were cited above, spoke of the duty of gratitude toward the One who created us ex nihilo. Above we noted the difficulties raised by conceiving the duty of gratitude for our very creation in the ordinary sense. It therefore seems that what Nachmanides had in mind was a different kind of gratitude, which I call here ‘philosophical gratitude.’ This gratitude is not based on a moral duty of ‘repaying’ benefits that were given to us, and apparently not on a comparison between a bad state without the gift and a good state produced by the gift. Hence the problem we described above does not exist with respect to this sort of gratitude.

As we saw, Toledot Yitzhak compares the duty of gratitude toward God with the duty of gratitude toward parents. He argues that the duty toward God is greater because He is the essential cause of our existence, whereas parents are only the accidental cause. From the conventional perspective on gratitude, this whole comparison seems absurd. Parents must invest far more effort in us. They cared for us devotedly, raised us, and gave to us without end despite their limited means. What possible place is there to compare that effort to what God gives us? Why is the formal philosophical comparison drawn by Toledot Yitzhak relevant at all to the concept of gratitude?

It seems that behind his words lies an intuition about philosophical gratitude. This is not gratitude for effort and giving, but the result of an ontological or other bond between us and the object of our gratitude. It is not a function of giving or effort, nor is it measured by the giver’s contribution to improving our condition (the comparison between states), but only by the degree of bond between us and the object of this acknowledgment (Every existent has an owner, in the language of Nachmanides above: ‘every existent has an owner’). From this Toledot Yitzhak concludes that if the bond is necessary and fundamental it entails more gratitude, and if it is accidental it entails less.

A basis for this claim may be seen in the dispute between Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and Rabbi Yehudah brought in Shabbat 33b (at the opening of the cave episode of Rashbi), where we find the following:

And why was he called “head of the speakers in every place”? For Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Shimon were sitting, and Yehuda ben Gerim was sitting near them. Rabbi Yehuda began and said: How fine are the deeds of this nation: they established marketplaces, they established bridges, they established bathhouses. Rabbi Yosei was silent. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai responded and said: Everything they established, they established only for their own benefit. They established marketplaces—to place prostitutes in them; bathhouses—to pamper themselves in them; bridges—to collect tolls from them. Yehuda ben Gerim went and reported their words, and they were heard by the government. They said: Yehuda, who praised, shall be elevated; Yosei, who was silent, shall be exiled to Tzippori; Shimon, who criticized, shall be executed. (And why was he called the foremost speaker everywhere? Because Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Shimon were sitting together, and Yehudah ben Gerim sat beside them. Rabbi Yehudah opened and said: How beautiful are the deeds of this nation! They established marketplaces, bridges, and bathhouses. Rabbi Yosei was silent. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai responded and said: Everything they established, they established only for their own needs: marketplaces—to place prostitutes in them; bathhouses—to pamper themselves; bridges—to collect tolls. Yehudah ben Gerim went and related their words, and they were heard by the government. They said: Yehudah, who praised, shall be elevated; Yosei, who kept silent, shall be exiled to Tzippori; Shimon, who denounced, shall be killed.)

Rashbi argues that there is no duty of gratitude to the Romans, because the bridges, bathhouses, and marketplaces they built were made for their own benefit. Rabbi Yehudah, by contrast, holds that even in such a situation we are obliged to be grateful to them for it. Here, then, we have an approach that sees gratitude as obligatory even when the giver made no special investment for the recipient’s sake; by the mere fact that one derives benefit from him, one becomes indebted to him.

Now that we have clarified the existence of philosophical gratitude, we can understand that the bond between God and us, His creatures, is so essential, and our dependence on Him so profound, that it generates a total obligation, even to the point of self-sacrifice when that is required. This does not stem from the fact that He has bestowed abundant good upon us, but from the fact that He is the most fundamental cause of our existence. He created us and sustains us. As the verse says: He made us, and He also established us. Everything we have is from Him, and therefore everything we have is subject to Him and to the fulfillment of His will.

Back to Gratitude as the Basis for the Service of God

This proposal not only explains the basis of the duty of gratitude toward God, but may perhaps also provide a basis for the obligation to serve God. The problem of proportionality raised above (how can one derive from gratitude an obligation to serve God that is stronger than it and even prior to it) no longer necessarily remains. Against this background, Maimonides’ words at the beginning of his Mishneh Torah shine with a precious light:

• The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First Existent, and He brings every existent into being; and all beings in heaven and earth and between them exist only by virtue of the truth of His existence. The foundation of foundations and pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First Being, and He brings every existent into being; and all that exists in heaven and earth and between them exists only from the truth of His existence.
• And if it could enter the mind that He does not exist, nothing else could possibly exist. Were it conceivable that He did not exist, nothing else could exist.
• And if it could enter the mind that none of the beings besides Him existed, He alone would still exist; nor would He cease to be if they ceased to be, for all beings need Him, while He, blessed be He, has no need of them or of any one of them. Therefore, His truth is not like the truth of any one of them. Were it conceivable that nothing besides Him existed, He alone would still exist, and He would not cease by their ceasing, for all beings need Him, whereas He, blessed be He, needs neither them nor any one of them. Therefore His truth is not like the truth of any one of them.
• This is what the prophet says: “And the Lord God is truth.” He alone is the truth, and no other has truth like His truth. This is what the Torah says: “There is none besides Him,” meaning that there is no true existent besides Him like Him. This is what the prophet says: ‘And the Lord God is truth’; He alone is the truth, and no other has truth like His. And this is what the Torah says: ‘There is none besides Him’—that is, no true being exists besides Him comparable to Him.
• This Existent is the God of the world, the Master of the whole earth, and He guides the sphere with a power that has no end or limit, with a power that never ceases; for the sphere revolves continually, and it cannot revolve without one who causes it to revolve, and He, blessed be He, is the one who causes it to revolve, without hand and without body. This Being is the God of the world, the Lord of all the earth, and He governs the sphere with a power that has no end or limit, with a power that does not cease, for the sphere turns constantly and it is impossible for it to turn without one who causes it to turn; and He, blessed be He, is the one who causes it to turn, without hand and without body.
• And knowledge of this matter is a positive commandment, as it says, “I am the Lord your God.” Whoever entertains the thought that there is another god besides this One violates a prohibition, as it says, “You shall have no other gods before Me,” and denies the fundamental principle, for this is the great principle upon which everything depends. Knowledge of this matter is a positive commandment, as it says, ‘I am the Lord your God’; and whoever entertains the thought that there is another deity besides this one violates a prohibition, as it says, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me,’ and denies the fundamental principle, for this is the great principle on which everything depends.

The knowledge that is the foundation of foundations and pillar of wisdoms is not merely God’s bare existence, but even more so that He brings every existent into being, and that everything exists from the truth of His existence. In halakhah 2, Maimonides is not merely restating halakhah 1 negatively. A crucial clarification is added here: this is a statement of ontological bond. It teaches that the dependence is not only chronological (that He created us at some time in the past, after which we emerged from His power), but synchronous (at every moment we depend on Him, and were it conceivable that He disappeared, we would disappear as well). Halakhah 3 makes clear that the dependence is one-sided and not reciprocal, that is, He does not depend on us; only we depend on Him. Mutual dependence does not obligate the dependent toward the one on whom it depends.

After several more sources and clarifications, Maimonides concludes: ‘for this is the great principle on which everything depends.’ Why, in truth, does everything depend on this principle? According to what we have said, the explanation is self-evident. This is the basis of our obligation toward Him. This ontological bond—this dependence—is precisely the basis of everything that follows in the Mishneh Torah. The obligation to Jewish law and to the entire service of God depends on this principle.

Indeed, after the philosophical elaboration of the principle of knowledge of God throughout the first four chapters of Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, Maimonides arrives at the following practical consequence (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, chapter 5):

• The entire house of Israel is commanded regarding the sanctification of this great Name, as it says, “And I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel,” and they are warned not to profane it, as it says, “And you shall not profane My holy Name.” How so? If an idolater arises and compels a Jew to transgress one of all the commandments stated in the Torah or else kill him, he should transgress rather than be killed, as it says concerning the commandments, “which a person shall do and live by them”—and live by them, not die by them. And if he dies rather than transgresses, he bears liability for his own life. All the house of Israel is commanded concerning the sanctification of this great Name, as it says, ‘And I shall be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel,’ and warned not to profane it, as it says, ‘And you shall not profane My holy Name.’ How so? If an idolater compels a Jew to transgress one of all the commandments stated in the Torah or be killed, he should transgress and not be killed, as it says concerning the commandments, ‘which a person shall do and live by them’—and live by them, not die by them. If he dies rather than transgress, he is liable for his life.
• When does this apply? To the other commandments, aside from idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed. But with regard to these three transgressions, if one is told, “Transgress one of them or be killed,” one must be killed rather than transgress. When does this apply? When the idolater intends his own benefit, for example, if he forces him to build his house on the Sabbath, or to cook his food, or if he forces a woman to submit to him, and the like. But if his intent is only to make him violate the commandments, then if it is done privately and there are not ten Jews present, he should transgress rather than be killed. But if he forces him to transgress in the presence of ten Jews, he must be killed rather than transgress, even if his intent is only to make him violate one of the other commandments. To what does this apply? To all other commandments except idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. But with regard to these three, if he is told, ‘Transgress one of them or be killed,’ he must be killed rather than transgress. This applies when the idolater intends his own benefit—for example, he coerces him to build his house on the Sabbath, or to cook his food, or forces a woman for sexual relations, and the like. But if he intends only to make him violate the commandments, then if this occurs in private, with fewer than ten Jews present, he should transgress and not be killed; but if he is coerced in the presence of ten Jews, he must be killed rather than transgress, even if the coercion concerns only one of the other commandments.
• All of this applies only when it is not a time of persecution. But at a time of persecution—namely, when a wicked king like Nebuchadnezzar and his fellows arises and decrees against Israel that they abolish their religion or one of the commandments—one must be killed rather than transgress, even for one of the other commandments, whether one is coerced in the presence of ten or coerced privately before idolaters. All this applies when there is no decree of persecution. But in a time of persecution, namely when a wicked king such as Nebuchadnezzar and his fellows decrees against Israel to abolish their religion or one of the commandments, one must be killed rather than transgress even one of the other commandments, whether coerced in the presence of ten or in private among idolaters.

This total demand cannot be merely a derivative of the good God has bestowed upon us. The lack of proportionality would be blatant. The only way Maimonides can see to ground such an obligation is on the basis of the ontological bond he described at the outset.

Back to ‘Wrongful Birth’

We can now return and examine the resemblance between the problem of gratitude toward my creator and the problem of wrongful birth. Above we presented wrongful birth as an example of a problematic comparison, similar to the comparison involved in gratitude. But there is a deeper connection between the two problems. At first glance, gratitude is the other side of the coin of wrongful birth. If we treat the good parents do for their child as something that obligates gratitude, then when they do him harm that can constitute grounds for a demand for compensation. If a parent can be regarded as giving me some good by the very fact of creating me, then he can also be regarded as taking that good away from me when he created me in a defective form. By contrast, if in principle no comparison can be made between the two states (because in one of them the plaintiff, or the grateful party, does not exist), then the parent is not regarded as harming me (or taking something from me), and therefore cannot be sued for compensation for wrongful birth. By the same token, gratitude toward the parents cannot be demanded, since they cannot be thought of as having given me something. That was where our previous discussion left the matter.

However, that comparison rests on the conventional conception of gratitude, which makes the duty of gratitude depend on my having received something from the giver. My creation cannot be treated as something I ‘received,’ for before the ‘receipt’ there was no one to receive. The recipient came into being together with the ‘receipt.’ According to our proposal above, by contrast, gratitude is the result of an ontological bond. The very existence of such a bond obligates me toward my creator. As we have seen, this obligation does not necessarily depend on the question how much good he did me, and it may exist even if he harmed me. For that very reason, it would seem that I cannot demand compensation for the fact that he created (or begot) me, since I am obligated to him by the mere fact that he is my ‘father’ in some sense.

We can now understand the heightened difficulty the legal world sees in a child’s suit against his parents for having brought him into the world. The child is obligated to them by the very fact that he is their creation, regardless of whether they benefited him or harmed him. The axe cannot complain against the hewer, and its obligation to him is independent of all else. It therefore becomes clear that he cannot sue them over the fact of his own existence.[22]

Summary and a Further Question

In light of this, philosophical gratitude is not exposed to the two kinds of difficulties we noted above, neither the moral one nor the philosophical one. It seems that if this proposal is correct, it stands even the test of Rabbi Amital’s piercing objections. This gratitude, and only this gratitude, can serve as a possible basis for the obligation to serve God and for the total demand to do so, in some cases even to the point of self-sacrifice. The very life that God Himself gave us (or created for us) is what we are obligated to sacrifice for Him when required.

It is quite possible that this was precisely Rabbi Amital’s intention—and perhaps that of the author of Chovot HaLevavot as well—when they spoke of the obligation to serve God through faith. Above we noted that on its face this thesis is not clear. Why should faith, which is only recognition of a fact, constitute a basis for the obligation to serve God? Is not some further premise required, such as gratitude or something analogous to it (that is, a normative premise in addition to a factual one)? We can now understand that if there is faith that He is the Creator of the world, and especially the One who created us ourselves, then an ontological bond is created here that obligates us to be grateful to Him, at least on the philosophical plane.

Of course, we must try to clarify further the meaning of this strange and novel obligation. After all, the very existence of an ontological bond is a fact. But the duty of gratitude is a norm, or at least some kind of obligation. How can one derive a duty or norm from a fact? Why does the fact that God is the most fundamental cause of our existence lead to a duty to be grateful to Him and to serve Him?[23]

Questions of this kind are very hard to answer. It is easier to point to the existence of such an intuition in different contexts, and through examples to try to clarify a little the significance of the ontological bond and the gratitude that derives from it.[24] We have already seen the widespread legal intuition that a suit against parents for ‘wrongful birth’ has less legitimacy than a suit against a third party. We explained that this intuition is connected to philosophical gratitude (even though the parents did not do the child any good, at least in his own view). In what follows we shall consider two additional examples that illustrate this intuition.

A Note on the Connection to the Concept of ‘For Its Own Sake’

We have arrived at the conclusion that the obligation to serve God can be based on a factor that has nothing to do with moral obligation. In fact, the conclusion may be more radical: this obligation cannot be based on moral obligation (if only because that would place obligation to morality above the obligation to serve God). In truth, this is a specific expression of a more general principle, discussed by my friend Nadav Shenarav in his article.[25]

The root of the matter lies in Maimonides’ ruling in Hilkhot Avodah Zarah 3:6, where he follows Rava (in his dispute with Abaye in the passage in Sanhedrin 61a):

One who worships idols out of love—for example, because he is enamored of this image due to its especially fine craftsmanship—or who worships it out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshippers imagine that it can benefit or harm: if he accepted it as a god, he is liable to stoning; but if he worshipped it in its usual manner or by one of the four modes of worship, whether out of love or fear, he is exempt. One who worships idolatry out of love—for example, because he desired this form on account of its exceptionally beautiful workmanship—or out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshippers imagine that it benefits and harms: if he accepted it upon himself as a god, he is liable to stoning; but if he worshipped it in its customary manner, or by one of the four modes of worship, out of love or fear, he is exempt.

On its face this is highly puzzling. Why is worship out of love or fear not idolatry? What is the alternative that would count as idolatry? Is idolatry specifically worship not for its own sake? Maimonides himself defines the alternative here: ‘if he accepted it upon himself as a god.’ Maimonides defines acceptance of a god as the antithesis of worship out of love and fear, and evidently the reason is that worship out of love and fear is worship motivated by factors concerning the worshipper himself. Worship whose basis is the satisfaction of his own wants and desires—even moral and positive ones—does not count as worship for its own sake.

From idolatry we can learn about the service of God. Serving God out of love or fear is likewise not service for its own sake. Worship grounded in my own motivations is not worship that qualifies as being for its own sake. If so, even worship grounded in the obligation of gratitude is not worship for its own sake, and therefore gratitude cannot serve as the basis for the service of God, just as love of God or fear of Him cannot serve as such a basis. There are, to be sure, sources that seem to contradict this principle (including in Maimonides’ own writings), but this is not the place to elaborate further.

 

D. I Lift My Eyes to the Mountains—to the Parents[26]

Children Who Received Nothing from Their Parents

A good case through which to test our intuitions is the relation between parents and children. Here too there is a clear and agreed obligation of gratitude, and here too there is room to hesitate about its source: is it based on what parents bestow, or on the very ontological bond between child and parents? The practical implication concerns situations in which parents do not care for the child properly, whether maliciously or inadvertently, or the extreme case in which they bring a child into the world and abandon him. In such situations, would we recognize rights they have with respect to their child? Is there an obligation of gratitude toward them in such circumstances?

The common view is that even if a parent gave nothing to his child, he still has basic rights with respect to that child. It is worth discussing precisely a case where the separation occurred against the parents’ will, for if they themselves were to blame there would be a tendency to place blame on them, and some would support depriving them of the rights that the law grants them as a kind of sanction.

Let us therefore take as an example a case like the Yemenite children. It seems that no one would claim, with respect to Yemenite children who disappeared against their parents’ will, that the parents have no rights at all regarding them because they did not raise them. The question is what about the children’s duty toward their parents (gratitude toward them)? Presumably those children too would owe something to their parents, even though they received nothing from them other than their lives. The ontological bond that exists between parents and children is enough to create obligation at some level. For example, with respect to decisions about treatment for those parents, or the obligation to care for them, would we relate to these children exactly as to any other person? Would I, as a stranger, be obliged to care for these parents and be authorized to make decisions about them exactly like their biological children? Presumably not. If so, there is an intuition that treats the very ontological bond as significant on the normative-axiological plane. And thus we find in Sefer HaChinuch, commandment 33:

Among the roots of this commandment is that it is fitting for a person to recognize and repay kindness to one who has done him good, and not to be base, alienated, and ungrateful, for this is an evil and utterly repulsive trait before God and people. He should take to heart that his father and mother are the cause of his being in the world; therefore, he truly ought to accord them every honor and every benefit he can, for they brought him into the world and also labored greatly over him in his childhood. And when he fixes this trait in his soul, he will rise from it to recognizing the goodness of the blessed God, who is his cause and the cause of all his ancestors back to Adam, and who brought him into the world, supplied his needs all his life, set him upon his proper form and the completeness of his limbs, and gave him a knowing and discerning soul—for were it not for the soul with which God graciously endowed him, he would be like a horse or mule without understanding. He will then reflect on how very fitting it is for him to be careful in His service, blessed be He. (Among the roots of this commandment is that it is fitting for a person to recognize and repay kindness to one who did him good, and not to be base, estranged, or ungrateful, for that is an exceedingly bad and loathsome trait before God and man. He should also take to heart that his father and mother are the cause of his being in the world. Therefore, in truth, it is fitting for him to accord them every honor and every benefit he can, for they brought him into the world and also exerted much effort on his behalf in his childhood. Once this trait is fixed in his soul, he will rise from it to recognition of the goodness of God, blessed be He, who is his cause and the cause of all his ancestors back to Adam the first man; who brought him into the world’s air, provided for him all his days, set him upright and complete in his limbs, and gave him a knowing and intelligent soul—for without the soul with which God has graced him he would be like a horse or mule without understanding. He will then consider how very fitting it is for him to be careful in His service, blessed be He.)

Creators as Parents

Another surprising example of the significance of the ontological bond is found in legal discussion of copyright. I will not elaborate here, and will only note the aspects relevant to our subject, since they help clarify our principal thesis.

In legal thought there are two main ways of conceiving a creator’s rights in his creation:[27] (1) the social-utilitarian theory; (2) the property theory. The first sees a creator’s rights in his work as a convention designed to promote social goals and processes of creativity. The second sees those rights as something that is due to him as a matter of justice, grounded in property law. According to this conception, the creation is the creator’s property.

The conception of the creation as the creator’s property is fraught with serious difficulties. From the standpoint of Jewish law, it is commonly accepted that a person does not own abstract entities that have no tangible substance (in fact this is the most fundamental aspect of the difficulty surrounding copyright in Jewish law). Even from the standpoint of general law, it is hard to point to a clear root for proprietary rights of a creator in his creation. Out of these difficulties there arose, in both legal thought and halakhic thought, conceptions that view a creator’s rights in his creation as derivative of seeing the creation as the offspring of the creator.

The father of the property approach in general law is the philosopher John Locke. Locke begins his discussion of what he calls the ‘labor theory’ (from which he derives the creator’s right) by arguing that the earth was given to human beings by God, and that He gave a person ownership of the products of his own body and spirit. This is a kind of ownership different from the ordinary one. Its basis is the simple fact that the work was conceived and born in the creator’s spirit. He did not buy it, and it has no tangible substance, but it is part of him and, as it were, his own flesh; that is enough to define him as its owner. An interesting source on this subject is Plato’s Symposium.[28] There, among other things, he writes as follows about the creator’s ‘children of the spirit’:[29]

Every person would prefer such children to children of flesh and blood, for he would set before his eyes Homer and Hesiod and the other good poets, and envy them for the descendants they leave behind for themselves […] and Solon too is honored among you for having begotten laws.

We find similar approaches in Jewish law as well. For example, in the fourth volume of Emek HaMishpat by Rabbi Yaakov Avraham HaKohen, entitled Copyright, the author argues that the basis of a creator’s right in his creation derives from the birth of the work in the creator’s mind—that is, from the simple fact that they are ‘the fruits of his mind and heart.’[30]

The source of this idea is in the responsa Tzemach Tzedek (Supplementary Gate, no. 4, siman 142, sec. 9), which views the novel insights that arise in the sage’s mind as produce growing in his field. From here the author goes on to compare this to the law that a person becomes owner of property produced from his own property (such as grain that grows in his field or a cow that gives birth), even without any formal act of acquisition. He continues by adducing numerous halakhic sources to the effect that a person’s creation belongs to him by the very fact that it was created or born through him.

In sec. 175 there he cites the author of the responsa Tzafnat Paneach (siman 249), who explained Tosafot’s view in Sanhedrin 68b that even a minor acquires ownership of his creation in this manner under Torah law, even though ordinarily a minor has no ability at all to perform acts of acquisition. It belongs to him by the very fact that it is part of him, even without any act of acquisition whatsoever. Clearly this right is the result of the ontological bond alone. No consideration is given here to how much effort the creator invested in his creation, or how much toil it cost him. The very fact that these are the creations of his spirit or the children of his heart grants him rights in them, in the language of Nachmanides cited above: Every existent has an owner. The implication for our issue arises naturally. Indeed, in sec. 174 he himself cites as a source for his view Rashi’s commentary on Genesis, who explains the words Possessor of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19): “Possessor of heaven and earth” means the same as “Maker of heaven and earth.” By making them, He acquired them to be His. (‘“Possessor of heaven and earth” means “Maker of heaven and earth”; by making them He acquired them to be His own’).

Thus we see that one who makes or creates something has rights in it, or ownership of it. Interestingly, the proof is drawn from God’s relation to His creation, which is precisely our topic here. If so, God too has ‘rights’ over us by virtue of the fact that He made us, even if He expended no effort or labor whatsoever for that purpose.[31] It is important to stress that this argument shows that such rights are well grounded in ordinary human and legal intuition, and are not some sort of biblical fiat, for there is no canonical halakhic source for this beyond the reasoning of those decisors. This fits well with the example we saw above regarding parents and children. There is, however, another important point that must be clarified in this connection, or else the argument will remain incomplete.

From Rights to Gratitude

The problem of copyright does not deal with obligations of the creation itself toward its creator, but with the creator’s rights in his creation. These rights are not directed toward the creation. The creation itself does not owe something to its creator; rather, the issue concerns every third party (who has no right to violate the creator’s rights in his creation). By contrast, our discussion concerns the obligation of the created thing itself toward its creator. Can the latter be derived from the former, or at least analogized to it?

Our assumption is that if Reuven has rights in Shimon because he fathered him, then the one obligated to honor those rights is not only the third party but Shimon himself. The meaning of the statement that Reuven has rights is that Shimon owes something to Reuven (at least the realization of those rights themselves).

Moreover, by comparison between the two issues one may argue that just as birth creates rights for the begetter or creator, it also creates obligations of the one born toward the one who brought him into being. In both cases we are dealing with a normative relation (legal or moral duties) derived from an ontological relation and nothing more. That is, the very fact that a normative relation can be derived from an ontological one receives support here.

And what of gratitude? Here we must uncover another layer in this argument. Why, in truth, does the begetter have rights with respect to the child? Presumably because something of the begetter exists in his child (in the language of the Sages: A son is his father’s leg—‘a son is like his father’s limb’)[32], and something of the creator exists in his creation. If so, the creation owes gratitude to its creator because something of him is present within it.[33]

The Meaning of the Bond: Psychology and Ontology

I cannot enter here into the argument that follows in detail, and will therefore suffice with a brief presentation for our present needs. If we are indeed prepared to define philosophical gratitude as based on the mere existence of an ontological bond between creator or begetter and creature or offspring, then there is room to claim that I cannot sue my parents because I am nothing other than an extension of them (paraphrasing the rabbinic dictum A son is his father’s leg). In such a case there is no plaintiff and defendant here; two such parties cannot stand opposite one another,[34] at least with respect to aspects that touch the bond itself.[35] The reason I owe my parents gratitude is not only the good they did for me, but also the sheer fact that I am their product. Something of them is in me, and the plaintiff here is, as it were, of their very flesh. But that very reason is what prevents me from suing them in a case of wrongful birth over the fact of my own existence.

One might have thought that, on this view, I cannot sue my parents on any legal ground whatsoever, and not only for ‘wrongful life.’ But that conclusion is not necessary (though it is possible). Perhaps this gratitude is not sweeping, and there are grounds of claim that can be raised even against parents. My very existence cannot serve as a ground for a claim, because physically that existence contains an element from the parents; but with respect to other grounds the situation may certainly be different.

Underlying our discussion is the assumption that the relation between parents and children is not located only on the psychological plane, but also has an ontological aspect. There is in the child something of his parents, and he is perceived as their continuation and extension. The claim that some relation, which we usually take as belonging to the psychological sphere, receives ontological significance has many implications and examples. I shall bring only one here for illustration and sharpening.

When a person remembers someone, we treat that as a mental event. But in biblical language the root z-kh-r also has an ontological aspect. The Torah commands us blot out the remembrance of Amalek. What does remembrance mean in this context? Does it mean to erase him from our memory? But there is a commandment from the Torah to remember and mention what Amalek did. Clearly the meaning of that expression is to wipe out every remnant of Amalek, in the physical sense.[36]

If so, Amalek’s remembrance is a part or fragment of Amalek. It follows that to remember someone means to bring some part of him into our consciousness. Something of him exists within us. Memory, which we usually understand as a mental process, here acquires ontological significance.[37]

E. The Relationship Between the Two Kinds of Gratitude

We distinguished between two kinds of gratitude: (1) moral gratitude, whose basis is the kindness or benefit that Reuven bestows upon Shimon. Such bestowal generates in Shimon an obligation of gratitude toward Reuven; (2) philosophical gratitude, whose basis is an ontological bond, that is, the very fact that Reuven begot or created Shimon. Why do we refer to both of these as gratitude? Is the philosophical obligation even worthy of the name ‘gratitude’? What is the nature of this duty? What does it demand of me? These questions require separate and detailed analysis; here I will only suggest some preliminary directions of thought.

The Two Duties Are Similar; Only Their Reasons Differ

In another formulation, the difficulty raised above can be presented thus: does logical gratitude have moral content? It is only a derivative of a fact (that Reuven created or begot Shimon). But clearly it is not pure logic, since the ontological relation is a fact whereas the duty of gratitude is a norm or value. As we already noted, in pure logic a norm cannot be derived from a fact. It therefore seems that the distinction between these two types is not between two kinds of duties of gratitude, but between two different reasons (ontological and moral) for gratitude.

What is the relation between the content of gratitude in the two cases? What does this gratitude obligate in each of them? One can propose several directions regarding the substantive difference between these two duties. For example, there is room to see philosophical gratitude as requiring obedience (as in relation to God or to parents), that is, doing what the begetter wants. If he created me, he also has the mandate to tell me for what purpose he did so, and perhaps even to demand that I carry out his instructions. By contrast, I am not obligated to obey every directive of one who has done me good. At most I am obliged to repay him in some proportion to what he has done for me.

Alternatively, perhaps the difference is one of intensity, of quantity rather than quality. Gratitude for existence itself obligates more, and therefore an obligation of obedience is also derived from it. Ordinary moral gratitude is the result of some act of kindness and therefore obligates less. If so, there is room to treat these two duties as similar, but different in force and degree.

Why, nevertheless, does philosophical gratitude derive moral obligation from a factual (ontological) premise? If there is indeed a common layer to the two kinds of gratitude, then one may view moral gratitude as an extension of philosophical gratitude. When Reuven benefits Shimon, he deposits within him something of himself. As it were, he creates something in him. Therefore a duty of gratitude is generated. According to this, the more effort the benefactor invests or the more he gives me, the larger the part of him that is present in me, and therefore the stronger my duty of gratitude toward him. By contrast, gratitude for the very fact of birth does not depend on the degree of benefit and effort, for the whole of the child comes from the begetter or creator.

A Halakhic Precedent for a Philosophical Conception of Gratitude[38]

In Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner’s Pachad Yitzchak – Rosh Hashanah, essay 3, we find a similar conception of gratitude. He first raises a difficulty with the conventional understanding of the basis of the duty of gratitude. According to the usual view, gratitude is seen as derivative of the idea that one should not receive a gratuitous gift (He who hates gifts shall live, ‘he who hates gifts shall live’). In order that the gift not remain a pure free gift, one recognizes the goodness of the giver. He proves on halakhic grounds that this is not the correct conception. His words there are as follows:[39]

One who has merited to serve true sages knows how severe their insistence was regarding gratitude. A person in whose nature they sensed ingratitude was almost regarded by them as fundamentally flawed. When we come to find the roots of this matter of gratitude, the first conception is that the trait of gratitude is a particular expression of the general trait of “one who hates gifts.” “He who hates gifts shall live,” and by repaying kindness for kindness, the gift-quality of the first favor is diminished; the ungrateful person shows that he is comfortable with bread of shame [i.e., unearned benefit]. But this still does not exhaust the content of the trait of gratitude. We have an example highlighting that gratitude has roots in another domain as well, beyond its roots in the realm of hating gifts. Here is the example: Two people seek help, and a third person cannot help them both. One of those in need has priority according to the laws at the end of Horayot, but toward the second, the third person has an obligation of gratitude—which of them takes precedence? If his father’s lost item and his rabbi’s lost item [that is, when both have lost something and he can return only one of the two], his rabbi’s lost item takes precedence. And it is ruled in the Shulchan Arukh: When does this apply? When the father does not pay the rabbi a fee. But if he pays a fee, the father’s lost item takes precedence. Now it is obvious that regarding honor alone, the rabbi’s honor is greater even when the father pays the fee. Only with regard to the act of kindness of returning a lost item does his father take precedence when he pays the fee. And what does this depend on the payment of a fee? It must therefore be that the principle that “his rabbi brings him to the life of the world to come” contains both: the obligation of honor toward one’s rabbi and the obligation of gratitude toward one’s rabbi. By the father’s payment, the obligation of gratitude toward the rabbi is removed, even though this has nothing to do with the rabbi’s honor at all. And since we see that because gratitude is owed to the father, his lost item takes precedence over his rabbi’s lost item, it follows that the obligation of gratitude overrides the priority rule in the order of the commandment of acts of kindness. This has no explanation unless we say that gratitude is literally an obligation of kindness, meaning that receiving a favor places the recipient under an obligation to repay it through acts of kindness. Only on that basis is it possible that an obligation of kindness should precede a commandment of kindness. Clearly, the general trait of hating gifts is not enough to raise gratitude to the force of an actual obligation of kindness. (Anyone who merited serving true sages knows how severe their insistence was in the matter of gratitude. A person in whom they sensed ingratitude almost became, in their eyes, disqualified as such. When we seek roots for this matter of gratitude, the first conception is that gratitude is a detail of the general trait of hating gifts. ‘He who hates gifts shall live’; and by paying back good for good, the character of gift in the original benefit is diminished, whereas an ungrateful person shows that he is comfortable with bread of shame. But this still does not exhaust the content of the trait of gratitude. We have an example highlighting that gratitude has roots in another realm in addition to hatred of gifts. Here is the example: two people seek help, and a third person cannot help both. One of them has priority according to the laws at the end of tractate Horayot, but toward the second the third person owes gratitude. Which comes first? If the lost object of one’s father and the lost object of one’s teacher are before him, the teacher’s takes precedence. Yet the Shulchan Arukh rules: this applies only when the father does not pay the teacher’s fee, but if he does pay, the father’s lost object takes precedence. Now it is obvious that in matters pertaining merely to honor, the teacher’s honor is greater even when the father pays the fee. Only with respect to the act of kindness of returning a lost object does the father take precedence when he pays the fee. What does this depend on? It must therefore be that the statement that the teacher brings him to life in the world to come contains both: the duty of honor toward the teacher and the duty of gratitude toward the teacher. By the father’s payment, the duty of gratitude toward the teacher is removed, even though this does not affect the teacher’s honor at all. Since we see that because gratitude is owed to the father, his lost object takes precedence over the teacher’s, it follows that the duty of gratitude overrides the law of precedence in the order of the commandment of acts of kindness. There is no explanation for this except to say that gratitude is literally a lien of kindness—that receiving a benefit places the recipient under an obligation to repay it with acts of kindness in return. Only on that basis can a lien of kindness take precedence over a commandment of kindness. Clearly, the general trait of hating gifts is not enough to elevate gratitude to the strength of an actual lien of kindness.)

Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner proves that the duty of gratitude is a kind of lien, and shows that this conception is taken into account on the halakhic plane as well. The gist of his argument is that if gratitude were derived from the concern not to receive gratuitous gifts, then it would be the obligation of the grateful party, not a right of the benefactor. But if it is indeed an obligation of the recipient, it is clear that in returning a lost object he should still have to prefer the one whose honor he owes (or the one whom the laws of precedence require him to place first), for his obligations cannot be fulfilled at the expense of another’s rights. Hence, if gratitude nevertheless alters the laws of precedence, it follows that gratitude is defined also as a right (apparently not legal but moral) of the benefactor, and not merely as an obligation of the beneficiary. In such a case, the father’s right can change his precedence vis-à-vis the teacher (like a lien on land that gives the creditor priority over the rights of one who later bought the encumbered land). The benefactor has a right that gives him priority over the rights of his counterpart, and obligates the grateful party to return his lost object first.

Yet it is fairly clear that there is no formal halakhic obligation of gratitude. It is a moral principle, and as such we would expect it to be presented not as a right of the benefactor but as an obligation of the grateful party. Evidently Rabbi Hutner holds that the benefactor has rights vis-à-vis the grateful party, because the good he has done creates a lien in the one who received it. As it were, something of him is present in the beneficiary, and this creates a lien to return good to him (as it were, to compensate him for the part of the giver that is present within the recipient, similar to compensation as against gratitude in the case of ‘wrongful birth’). Clearly this is a moral debt or lien, not a legal or halakhic one.[40]

From this it emerges that within the halakhic conception, the ontological-philosophical element of gratitude is the more important and fundamental one, rather than the moral element. The moral element is defined as an obligation of the recipient and not as a right of the giver (no one would say that the benefactor has a right to demand gratitude from the beneficiary). By contrast, the ontological element can be expressed as a kind of debt or as a right of the benefactor in the recipient: Every existent has an owner. Thus the moral duty of gratitude is grounded in the ontological bond. According to this approach, ontological gratitude is the more basic one, and it underlies even moral gratitude.

[1]         See the ‘Gate of Reflection’ and the beginning of the ‘Gate of Service,’ and below as well.

[2]         Rabbi Y. Amital, ‘Even Though My Beloved Distresses and Embitters Me,’ in A World Built, Destroyed, and Rebuilt, M. Miya (ed.), Alon Shevut 5762, p. 118.

[3]         In fact two questions are concealed here. The first is essential: the person described has no duty of gratitude toward the Creator. The second is psychological: even if such a duty theoretically exists, how can someone who underwent events such as removing corpses from Auschwitz’s crematoria actually live with such a consciousness? In our article we deal mainly with the first question, though the implications of our approach certainly touch the second as well.

[4]         See on this my book Two Wagons and a Balloon, Kfar Hasidim 5767, p. 485. The same also emerges from the words of Rabbenu Hananel in the passage in Chagigah 5a. The Talmud there addresses the question whether one can perish without judgment. Rabbenu Hananel explains there that such a situation exists only when one person murders another. That is, such an act is an act of the murderer and not the providential unfolding of events from above. See on this Rabbi Mordechai Goodman’s article, ‘Can One Perish Without Justice?’, Tzohar 11 (2002), p. 39.

[5]         It should be noted that on the psychological plane it is difficult to feel gratitude toward one who has not done us good. Our claim, however, is that on the philosophical plane such a norm does indeed exist. As noted above, our concern here is the philosophical plane, not the psychological one.

[6]         E. Dessler, Michtav Me-Eliyahu, vol. 1, Jerusalem 5755, p. 50.

[7]         See also the commentators ad loc.

[8]         Toledot Yitzhak, Vagshal edition, Jerusalem 5754.

[9]         Jerusalem 5704.

[10]        And note well: this is not the moral difficulty noted above. It is a difficulty whose basis is logical.

[11]        This point sharpens the fact that some of these difficulties arise as well with respect to children’s duty of gratitude to their parents.

[12]        But this very statement is itself problematic for the same reason. If one cannot compare the condition of a person who was created with his condition had he not been created, what meaning can this strange claim have? In what sense is it preferable not to be created rather than to be created? And note well: the difficulty does not arise from weighing the suffering against the good in our lives, but from the inability to compare the two states.

[13]        See S. Jelinek, Wrongful Birth—Rights of Action and Compensation, Jerusalem 5757. And in the Jewish encyclopedia on the ‘Da’at’ website, under the entry ‘Wrongful Birth,’ also written by Jelinek. See also O. Shapira, ‘The Right Not to Be Born Defective: Disputes of Logic, Values, and Legal Policy,’ in Dilemmas in Medical Ethics, Rafael Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Jerusalem 5762, pp. 239–254.

[14]        There a genetic counselor was sued by one born impaired for negligence in the scientific opinion he gave the parents; see CA 540/82, 518/82, Zeitzov v. Katz, P.D. 40(2) 96.

[15]        In his article ‘The Right Not to Be Born Defective?’, in Dilemmas in Medical Ethics (above, note 13).

[16]        In his book The Tao Is Silent, translated by Ofer Shor, Tel Aviv 1997. The essay in its English version also appears in the wonderful anthology by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, The Mind’s I, 1981.

[17]        In both cases there is no logical problem in the severe formal sense. One can ask to have one’s free will taken away even if that request itself could not have been made had free will not been given to us. Likewise, on the purely logical plane, one can sue one’s parents for the act thanks to which the plaintiff himself exists. This is a situation in which, after climbing the ladder, we throw it away (or want to throw it away). And yet there is a strong sense that something problematic is present here, even if it lies beyond the logical plane.

[18]        An ordinary defect that the parents caused their son through negligence, such as the mother’s use of drugs during pregnancy and the like, does not concern our subject, for that is an ordinary tort claim. We are dealing with a claim that demands that the parents not bring the plaintiff into the world, or that demands compensation from them for having done so.

[19]        See also the sources on ‘wrongful birth’ cited above.

[20]        It should be noted that in light of the determination of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel above, every person could sue his parents for having brought him into the world, since in everyone’s case suffering is greater than good and ease, and it would have been better for a person not to have been created than to have been created.

[21]        An interesting question is whether there is a difference between God and parents in a case of wrongful birth. As mentioned, the parents could not have brought the child into the world perfect, and certainly did not cause the defect. At most, he expects them not to bring him into the world in such a condition. God, by contrast, Himself created the defect, and certainly could have brought him into the world healthy and whole.

From a philosophical point of view, however, one might ask whether if he had been created whole, that would still have been the same person in a healthy condition, or whether the defect is part of his definition, so that without the defect we would be speaking of a different person. From this consideration it may follow that even God Himself could not have created a whole alternative that would allow us, as it were, a tort claim against Him.

[22]        This does not mean that he cannot sue them with respect to aspects other than the fact of his birth itself. There is room to discuss even that, but this is not the place.

[23]        It should be noted that the duty of gratitude based on giving and investment (moral gratitude, not only philosophical gratitude) requires a similar justification. The fact that Reuven invested effort in order to give me something is a fact. The duty of gratitude toward him for that is a value or norm. How can one ground a norm on a fact? This is the fallacy known in philosophy as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ (associated with the Scottish philosopher David Hume). Without entering the analytic thicket of this issue, one may say that there is an intuition bridging this gap between facts and norms. Our ordinary moral intuition tells us that if someone did us good, we ought to return good to him. If so, if we can show that a similar intuition exists with respect to philosophical gratitude as well, that will suffice to ground this renewed obligation.

[24]        In the previous note we pointed out that even in the context of moral gratitude there is no compelling explanation, but there the intuition is self-evident to any reasonable person. Our aim here is to show that such an intuition exists with respect to philosophical gratitude as well.

[25]        N. Shenarav, ‘Thoughts on Idolatry,’ Akdamot 19 (2007), pp. 47–64.

[26]        See Bereishit Rabbah, parashah 68, s.v. ‘Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman,’ where the verse ‘I lift my eyes to the mountains’ (Ps. 121:1) is expounded as ‘to the parents.’

[27]        See on this my article ‘The Meaning of Ownership of Property: Between Jewish Law and Law,’ Shnot Chaim, Petah Tikva 5768, pp. 13–38, and the sources cited there; see also my article, ‘Misrepresentation and Intellectual Property,’ Tehumin 25 (5765), pp. 350–366.

[28]        Liebes edition, pp. 137–138.

[29]        My thanks to my friend R. Menachem Teitelbaum for this source and for additional references.

[30]        See there at the end of siman 15 and especially throughout siman 16, and also in siman 23, sec. 38, and many more places. This is his main thesis in grounding the view that there is ownership of copyright.

[31]        He cites there, from the responsa Tov Ta’am Va-Da’at, first edition, siman 181, which explains in this way the rule that an artisan acquires ownership through the enhancement of a vessel. See there, sec. 176, also the words of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, as cited in his novellae to Gittin, siman 4, s.v. ‘Ve-im’ (p. 38 in that volume), in the name of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk.

[32]        A similar principle is ‘the fetus is its mother’s limb.’ In both cases, however, the point is that the fetus or offspring is part of the parent and not vice versa.

[33]        Or because he gave the creation those things, for which there is an obligation of gratitude; or because of the very fact that something of his is present in it, or something of himself.

[34]        A similar argument appears in my article ‘Is Halakhah Jewish Law?’, Akdamot 15 (2004), pp. 141–163, where I cited from the responsa of the Ritva an explanation of the disqualification of relatives as witnesses. According to him, the basis of the disqualification is similar to Rashbam’s explanation of the disqualification of a witness who becomes a judge. According to these explanations, two different functions may not be mixed in the court, and therefore the plaintiff and defendant cannot be one entity, just as witness and judge cannot exchange roles. If so, just as a person cannot sue himself, so a child cannot sue his parents. For that same reason, according to the Ritva, the child also cannot be a witness with respect to his parents (and regarding this the Sages said: ‘Fathers shall not be put to death through the testimony of sons’). The parent-child relation is the paradigm for the ontological bond that exists between all relatives, and by virtue of this bond all are disqualified from testifying about their relatives.

[35]        It is clear that a child can sue his parents for damage they caused him during his life, like any other person. Our concern here is with claims that touch the very creation of the bond between them (the birth).

[36]        I am not addressing here Hasidic-moral homilies about erasing the Amalek within our hearts.

[37]        An example of a similar argument may be found in my book Two Wagons and a Balloon (above, note 4), in the discussion of the relation between the individual and the collective. There we noted that placing the individual at the center in the evaluative sense is derivative of an ontological conception, and likewise with placing the collective at the center.

[38]        This subject is discussed at length in my book Enosh Ke-Hatzir, Kfar Hasidim, in the sixth gate, chapter 2.

[39]        A still stronger formulation of this argument appears in Rabbi Hutner’s letters, Letter 15.

[40]        On this point see also Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner’s Pachad Yitzchak – Hanukkah, Brookline 5724, essay 2, sec. 5. There he discusses the double meaning of hoda’ah, whereby every act of thanks includes an acknowledgment (as in a litigant’s admission) of the recipient’s indebtedness to the giver. It should be noted that the source of these remarks is in Rabbi Kook’s commentary in his prayer book Olat Re’iyah on ‘Modeh Ani Lefanecha’; as is well known, Rabbi Hutner studied with Rabbi Kook in his youth in Jerusalem.