Bread of Shame – Another Look at Jewish Thought (Column 278)
With God's help
A General Look at Theology and Jewish Thought
Several times in the past I have explained my reservations about the field of theology and Jewish thought. My sense is that these are usually unsystematic discussions, which do not define the concepts under discussion very well, rely on non-authoritative sources (various books of thought that are nothing more than a collection of the author's conjectures), and yet are treated as sources of formal authority (which one may not dispute). In many cases this is perceived as though these were principles that came down from Sinai, although to the best of my judgment there is no reasonable basis for that. There are more and less plausible arguments, but they are human arguments, and as such they have no authority. In my estimation, none of the writers and thinkers has any special knowledge unavailable to the rest of us, and therefore I do not see these sources as sources of substantive authority either (that it would be unreasonable to dispute because of the author's expertise). At most, these are hypotheses and arguments offered for the learner's consideration.
All this applies to traditional study and to the writings and primary sources of Jewish thought. But a considerable part of the academic discussion in these fields suffers from similar problems as well. And beyond that, precisely because it is academic discussion (and I am entirely in favor of that. See here and here), it usually surveys positions, or clarifies (comparatively or otherwise) the position of one thinker or another, but hardly ever concerns itself with drawing conclusions.
Because of the sense of authority that has been created around these texts and arguments, the situation in contemporary yeshiva study is quite similar to what happens in the academy. Students do not permit themselves to express a position of their own, and they occupy themselves with the approaches of the Kuzari, the Maharal, Maimonides, or Saadia Gaon. Exactly like academics, they survey positions or clarify a particular position, but they do not discuss in order to reach conclusions. At most, students accept the authority of one thinker or another (Rav Kook, the Kuzari, Maimonides, and the like), and all that remains for them is merely to clarify what he says.
I further claim that the very concept of "Jewish thought" is inherently empty, in two senses: source and addressee. There is no meaning whatsoever to the source of a system of thought, that is, whether it comes from a Jewish thinker or not. What matters is whether it is true or not. A correct argument from a gentile, however wicked and antisemitic he may be, should be accepted; and an incorrect argument from a Jew, however wise and righteous he may be, should not be accepted. The same applies to the addressee. If some system of thought is correct, then it is correct for all human beings, Jews and non-Jews alike. And if it is not correct, then nobody should accept it. The fact that this is "Jewish" thought is not a reason to accept anything. Even if our tradition says something, that is no reason to accept it unless it sounds reasonable to us. In short, there is philosophy (true or false), but there is no such thing as Jewish thought.
Behind these remarks stands the claim that there is no authority with respect to facts and matters of thought. Authority can be granted to a value judgment or a normative determination: even if you think that sorting on the Sabbath is permitted, because the Sanhedrin determined that it is forbidden, you are expected not to do it. But of course one cannot expect you to think as they do (that sorting is forbidden), unless they have convinced you that they are right. One may demand behavior from a person even if he does not agree with it, but one cannot demand that he think something if he does not agree with it. Note that this is not a claim from justice, that is, that it is improper to demand this of a person. The claim is that it is logically impossible to demand it of him. This is a conceptual claim. The reason is that even if he mouths the sentence "I think X," so long as you have not convinced him, he is merely speaking but does not really think so. The only way to make a person think in a certain way is to convince him of it.
This projects onto the meaning of the field of thought, since it mostly deals with factual claims (whether God exercises providence or not, over whom He exercises it, whether the Jewish people have special genetics or not, whether or not the messiah will come and when, and the like). There cannot be authoritative sources with regard to facts, meaning that one cannot demand that I think something so long as I have not been persuaded that it is true. Of course, if I am convinced that some thinker has sublime sources or abilities and knows the truth better than I do, or if someone has convinced me that God said this (in the Torah or in the Hebrew Bible), then I will accept it; but here too it is only because I have been convinced that it is true. If no such superior source exists (and in my estimation it usually does not), then what remains is to persuade me. Ultimately, a person is supposed to form his position by himself.
I mention all this because this column deals with a classic topic in Jewish thought: bread of shame. Despite the brevity available, I will take the opportunity to discuss it briefly and also to use it to illustrate my claims about the method and meaning of such a discussion in thought.
Why Was the World Created?
A fundamental theological question is why God created the world. It is hard to assume that the answer to this question is accessible to us, since these are considerations from the inner counsels of the Creator of the world and apparently lie beyond the world in which we live and act. In my book, The First Existent, I argue that it is nevertheless reasonable to say that He had some purpose, and it is also reasonable to say that this purpose lies outside the world itself (it was not done in order to fix something within the world itself, for example for the sake of human beings; otherwise He could simply not have created it, and then there would have been no need for this). I should note that this was also the theological basis for my claim in the book Walking Among the Standing (which also emerges from a general examination of Jewish law) that, generally speaking, Jewish law and morality are distinct categories. The commandments have no moral rationale, and there is not necessarily any flaw in them if they do not conform to the rules of morality. The reasons and values underlying them are outside our world (these are religious reasons. The commandments are intended for the sake of religious values).[1]
Sometimes, in this context, people invoke the idea of "bread of shame,"[2] and here I would like to touch on it a bit. Let me just preface this by saying that I am analyzing the meaning of this idea here, but do not necessarily agree with it. This will become clear below.
Bread of Shame
The principle of "bread of shame" begins from the premise that souls are above, beneath the Throne of Glory (who said that?), and then descend into the world in order ultimately to return to that same place above (for those that merit it). The question it is meant to answer is why the stage of descending into the world is needed at all if in the end one returns to the same condition. The answer given is by means of a parable about a poor person who receives food from a generous man and naturally feels ashamed that he received the bread for free without giving anything in return. God does not want the delight that the soul receives to be bread of shame, and therefore He sends it down into the world to perform commandments. This is the payment we give for the delight we receive from God.
At first glance, this is not an explanation for the creation of the world but an explanation for the descent of souls into this world. But Ramchal, in his book Da'at Tevunot, connects the two:
Here one sees the principle itself, and also its connection to the purpose of the creation of the world. In the accepted view, creation took place in order to bestow good, but for that there must be someone to receive the good. That is why created beings were created. And in order for the beneficence to be complete, they must not have bread of shame, and therefore their souls descended into the world and the commandments were given to them.
Is the Purpose of Creation Outside It?
At first glance, there is a contradiction here with what I wrote above. Above I mentioned my claim that the purpose of creation probably lies outside it, whereas here one sees that the purpose of creation is beneficence toward the created beings themselves.
To this I would answer in two ways: first, the theory of bread of shame is not necessarily correct (who told us so?), so I see no impediment to disputing it. As stated, here I am only examining what it says. Second, the need to bestow good is God's need, and therefore this whole complex – that there are created beings and God bestows good upon them and sends them down into the world so that they will not have bread of shame – is all made for God's sake. God needs to bestow good, and for that purpose He created beings to whom He could bestow good, but full beneficence must be in a way that involves no shame, and therefore the commandments were created. This is what some kabbalists call The secret of worship is a need on high (the secret that worship serves a higher need).[3] Ultimately, although bread of shame ostensibly depends on our need, all of this is done for God's sake.
This structure recalls the distinction between cause and purpose. The cause for sending souls down into the world is that they should not have bread of shame. But the purpose of the whole matter is to enable God to bestow good. This can also be formulated as a difference between the purposes of different agents: a person may perform a commandment in order to achieve some goal (for example, to wear fringes (tzitzit) in order to remember the commandments), but the question why God attached that goal (remembering the commandments) to this specific act (tzitzit) requires a different explanation. This question deals with the purpose of the commandment from God's perspective, not from the perspective of the one performing it. At first glance, we could have remembered the commandments in some other way as well (for example, by writing the list of commandments on our clothes, hanging on ourselves a picture of the Tablets of the Covenant, or carrying such a list in our hands all day long)[4]. God chose tzitzit in order to remind us of the commandments, and therefore it is clear that although, from the standpoint of the person performing the commandment, the reason for the commandment of tzitzit is remembering the commandments, this whole complex serves to achieve something else from God's standpoint. Therefore I claim that when one reflects on the matter as a whole, it is necessarily done for a purpose outside us.
From here one can also learn something about the question of religious values mentioned above. One can say that although the prohibition You shall not murder ("Do not murder") is not disconnected from the moral value (the sanctity of human life), its being a halakhic prohibition means that it contains an additional, religious layer: God Himself gains something from our not murdering (otherwise He could have arranged that we would not succeed in murdering, and would not have imposed it on us as a prohibition)[5]. If so, the commandment does not stand in contradiction to the moral value but adds another layer on top of it from God's point of view. This is the meaning of the statement that the value of human life is not only a moral value but also a religious value.[6]
The mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted (The same mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted)
One may wonder about creatures in the world that are not human beings. These creatures have no choice, and therefore no commandments were given to them, so with respect to them the beneficence is bread of shame. Perhaps because they were not endowed with this characteristic of being ashamed of receiving charity, that is, when good is done to them they do not feel shame, therefore God bestows good upon them without obligating them in commandments. But now the question arises: why did God not create us as well without this characteristic? Instead of sending our souls down into the world in order to solve the problem of bread of shame, He could simply have refrained from creating in us this characteristic. The same mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted.
The Feeling of Shame: Psychology or Philosophy?
The obvious conclusion is that the explanation of bread of shame does not refer to the psychological plane but to the ethical-philosophical one. That is, the claim is not psychological – that without fulfilling commandments we ourselves will feel uncomfortable and therefore the beneficence toward us will not be complete. The claim is philosophical – there is something inherently defective about charity bread. Shame is only an indication that this is something improper. This is not merely a psychological phenomenon, but pangs of conscience that reflect a moral outlook. So too the verse One who hates gifts will live does not speak about our psychology, but about the fact that it is genuinely improper to accept gratuitous gifts (and certainly not to demand gifts! Are you listening, Bibi?).
This conception stands at the center of Rav Kook's comments in Ein Aya, Berakhot, sec. 101:
The exalted feeling of benefiting from the labor of one's own hands is the most complete and finest of all the moral feelings in a person. For since the good feeling is engraved in human nature—that because a person is free in his actions and can, through his own diligence, perfect himself in all his affairs, it is not proper for him to sit idly and wish for others to act on his behalf. And even regarding divine providence, he should fix in his soul that it is not fitting to rely except in matters that he cannot attain through his own effort. For whatever lies within his power—this is the perfection that divine providence has bestowed upon him, giving him the strength to prosper, so that his good may be in his own hands. This moral power leads a person to the loftiness of his stature, for he will also desire to perfect himself in Torah, in wisdom, and in good deeds, all in order to benefit from his own labor and not need to be sustained by charity. It will guide him to even higher virtues than the abstract feeling of fear of Heaven; for although that too spurs him to devote himself to divine service, it can sometimes suffice with only minimal effort, discharging his obligations through good and holy ideas that fill his heart. In truth, the essence of the delight of the World to Come is the enjoyment of the labor of one's own hands, for this is the true perfection and the complete good, known in its truth to its Creator, even though a person does not fully sense it. Therefore concerning fear of Heaven it is said, "Happy is the man who fears the Lord," for happiness is something whose pleasantness is felt, just as the perfection of fear of God is something whose sweetness and preciousness a person can feel. But the advantage of benefiting from the labor of one's own hands—of true perfection, in which a person perfects himself—this is the true good, good because it accords with the supreme integrity of divine wisdom. Therefore this is truly the good of the World to Come, where one comes to recognize what the true good is. Thus, the nature of the good that flows from fear of Heaven is the good of perceptible delight; although it is of the highest order, still its advantage lies in the pleasure itself, and therefore it resembles the happiness of this world. But the good that comes from the holy trait of loving specifically to enjoy the labor of one's own hands, and to perfect oneself through the toil of one's own efforts, depends on the aspect of the true good of the World to Come, where—and only there—the majesty of this perfection will be recognized. And we must know that since this trait of benefiting from the labor of one's own hands, when it reaches its furthest limit, encompasses every desirable virtue, it is therefore highly honored even at its beginnings. Worthy of esteem and honor is the person who has acquired this good trait for himself even in its small beginnings: to support his own body and the members of his household through the toil of his soul, with righteousness and uprightness. This trait will also raise him upward according to its exalted value, into the treasury of the moral life in the way of God. For the power of integrity contained in this good feeling is the foundation of the entire Torah. This is man's portion from God: to be judged according to his deeds through free choice, and this is the purpose of the soul's descent and entanglement in the powers of the body. This vigorous exertion is called by the wise "fleeing from the bread of shame." The meaning of the matter is that the true good is to exist and to be conducted according to the line of true integrity, which is divine justice.
There are several innovations in this passage, and perhaps I will return to it in the next column. But the main point of the passage is to explain that bread of shame is a moral principle and not a psychological one. Our action as compensation for the good we receive is a moral principle, not merely the prevention of psychological shame.
Our conclusion thus far is that the reasoning of bread of shame says that beneficence given without compensation is not complete beneficence, and not only because of our psychological makeup. This is an ethical claim. From here one can understand that if God bestows good upon us, this is only because He Himself receives something from us. The commandments are not intended merely to calm our feeling of shame. They constitute compensation that we give Him, and now, when He bestows good upon us, this is complete beneficence.[7] We have once again returned to The secret of worship is a need on high.[8]
"Bread of Shame" as an Absolute Ethical Principle
In order to solve the problem of why God did not create us without pangs of conscience about charity bread (that is, without shame), in the previous section we moved from the psychological plane to the philosophical plane. I explained there that bread of shame is not a psychological claim but an ethical one. But at first glance one can still ask the same question: why did God not create the world in such a way that morality would not disqualify charity bread, that is, such that there would be nothing ethically defective in bread of shame? Apparently everything depends on Him, and the same mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted. Had He created such a world, there would have been no need to send souls down into the world in order to bestow good upon them. It is not clear what value there is in an explanation that hangs God's actions on a principle that itself requires explanation. In other words, this is an explanation that grounds God's actions in principles that are part of our own world, whereas above I already mentioned that such an explanation should be grounded in something outside our world.
It seems to me that those who offer this explanation assume that the ethical condition for complete beneficence, namely the requirement that it not be given as charity bread, does not depend on the structure of the world and therefore not on God either. In other words, even God Himself cannot create a world in which this ethical rule does not apply, that is, a world in which even shameful beneficence would be complete beneficence. And again, I do not mean a change in human psychology, which is of course entirely within God's power. I mean a change in the ethics of the world, and the claim is that such a change is impossible even for God Himself. A psychological change would at most make us blind to the ethical principle of bread of shame, but it would not solve the problem. On the ethical plane the beneficence still would not be complete. This assumption, of course, takes us straight to the Euthyphro dilemma.
The Euthyphro Dilemma
In Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, the question arises whether the good is good because the gods desire it, or whether the gods desire the good because it is good. The same question can of course be raised with respect to God as well, and Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman, in their book Religion and Morality, conduct a very detailed discussion of it. Their conclusion is that almost all Jewish thinkers advocate the second possibility. Without entering into all the nuances one might propose on both sides (see that book, although in my opinion it contains some inaccuracies), what is mainly at stake is the question whether it is possible for God to be subject to constraints (laws) outside Himself. The first option presents the good as arbitrary, and so too God's will. It is difficult to say of Him that He is good if His will is what defines the good. This is apparently a very problematic conception in conventional theology. But some nevertheless choose it (as noted, mainly Christians) because the second possibility assumes that morality is imposed on God, or at least precedes Him and is independent of His will. Theologically, that seems entirely unacceptable. And yet, as stated above, in Jewish thought the second conception is the predominant one.
If we now return to our issue, as I explained above, if one uses the principle of bread of shame as an explanation for the way God acts, one is implicitly assuming that it precedes God and is imposed on Him. This is essentially to assume the second option in the Euthyphro dilemma. How can there be something that precedes God, and that is even imposed upon Him?
Between the Laws of Physics and the "Laws" of Logic
I have already explained several times in the past that God is of course not subject to the laws of physics, but He certainly is "subject" to the laws of logic. God created the laws of physics, and therefore He can also change them or suspend them. If He decides that an object with mass will stand in the air despite the force of gravity, or decides to abolish gravity, there is no impediment to that. But the laws of logic are "imposed" on God. He cannot make a round triangle, simply because there is no such thing as a round triangle. A triangle, by definition, is not round. This does not result from some legislation imposed on the triangle against its will, but from its very nature. From its very definition as a triangle it follows that it is not round and cannot be round. Likewise, the inability to create a round triangle is not because of an external constraint imposed on God, and therefore it is also not a limitation on His omnipotence, or a deficiency in Him. An omnipotent being is capable of doing everything that can be conceived, even in imagination. But a round triangle is no such thing and cannot be conceived, and therefore God's inability to create such a thing is no deficiency in His power. The term "round triangle" is meaningless. There simply is no such thing.
In the language of modal logic, one can say that there is no possible world (even an imaginary one) in which there is a round triangle, although there is a possible world (perhaps imaginary) in which there is no law of gravitation, that is, one in which objects with mass remain suspended in the air of some planet. God can create any possible world, however imaginary it may be, but He cannot create a contradictory world or an impossible world.
In Kantian terms, one can say that the statement "a triangle is not round" is analytic, whereas the statement "an object with mass falls to the ground" is synthetic. From this, as I explained there, it follows that the term "law" used in both contexts is very misleading. The laws of physics are laws that God legislated into the nature of creation. This legislation is a choice of a certain nature for the world He created from among several different possibilities. But the laws of logic are not "laws" in that same sense. The use of the term "law" in the logical context is borrowed. It is simply the definition of the things and not something external imposed on them. Here God did not choose one logical system out of several possible systems. There is no other logical system.
To understand this better, think about the question whether God can create a wall that is resistant to all bullets and also a bullet that penetrates all walls. The answer is of course no, because if the bullet He created penetrates all walls, then there is no wall that is resistant to it, and therefore there is no wall that is resistant to all bullets, and vice versa. God's inability to create two such objects simultaneously is no defect in His power. On the logical plane, there is simply no such reality. See here for implications regarding the question of the stone that God cannot lift, and here regarding the question of natural evil (see also the second book in the trilogy, No Man Rules Over the Spirit, chapter ten).
The Status of Moral Laws
The question that now arises is the status of moral laws: are these laws of morality (like the laws of physics) or "laws" of morality (like the "laws" of logic)? The claim of the proponents of the bread-of-shame approach and those who advocate the second option in the Euthyphro dilemma is that these are "laws" and not laws, meaning that the laws of morality are imposed on God like the laws of logic. He cannot create a world in which a different morality would prevail (in which murdering or torturing people would be morally positive acts). He can of course create a world in which people enjoy torture (in such a world, would it still be right to call them "tortures"?), and then perhaps there would be no moral problem in causing suffering. But causing people pain is a bad thing in every possible world. A world in which causing pain to people is defined as good is not a world with a different morality, but a world in which people are blind to the rules of morality. One can change any parameter in the nature of the world and create a different world in which it is different. But given the nature of that particular world, the rules of morality are derived from it unambiguously.[9]
Take, for example, the debate about the fate of the elderly. The Eskimos think it proper to send them out into the snow to die, whereas among us it is accepted to care for them in one way or another. This is a moral dispute, but it is clear that both sides in the dispute understand the concept of "good" in the same way. The dispute is only about its application. If the Eskimos and we were using the concept of "good" with different meanings, then there would be no dispute here at all. It follows that this ethical dispute revolves around the application of the concept and not around its very meaning. Even a Nazi who advocates killing Jews probably does so on the basis of some justification. I assume that if we were to ask such a Nazi whether he supports murder, he would answer in the negative. The dispute is about applications and justifications (whether a Jew counts as a human being, whether the Jew brings disasters upon the world, and the like). The concept of equality in ancient Greece was also different from the one that prevails among us. There, the right to vote was granted only to one population group (free citizens), and still it is correct to say that Greece is the cradle of democracy and civic equality. The concept of equality has undergone development, but only regarding application. The value of equality has the same meaning for us and in Greece. The same applies to many ethical norms that develop over the years, and yet one should not infer from this moral relativism.
The same is true of differences between different possible worlds. Even if there were different moral norms in those worlds, they would differ only in application and not in the norm itself. The moral norm is universal and correct in every possible world. Therefore the moral laws in our world are not the product of God's legislation, since He did not choose them from among several possible moral systems. There is only one possible moral system.[10]
How This Fits with the Argument from Morality
In the fourth conversation in my book The First Existent (the fourth booklet here on the site), I presented the proof from morality for the existence of God. The fundamental assumption of the argument is that valid morality is impossible without God. Does this not contradict my claim here that morality is imposed on God and precedes Him, and therefore is not the product of His will? At first glance, there is a frontal contradiction here. Let me say at the outset that until now I have analyzed the position of the proponents of the bread-of-shame approach, but I have not necessarily agreed with them. But I am indeed inclined in principle to accept the second option in the Euthyphro dilemma. So the question applies to me one way or another.
And yet, it seems to me that there is no contradiction between these two claims. One can argue, as I wrote there, that in a world without God (especially if it is materialistic) there is no valid morality,[11] and at the same time argue, as I wrote here, that the rules of morality are necessary and not a product of His will. This can be explained in several ways (which partially overlap).
In the fourth conversation I argued that in the atheist's world, in which according to him a world without God is possible, valid morality cannot exist. That of course says nothing about my own view. As one who thinks that God exists, and indeed must exist (that is, that there is no world without God), I can claim that morality obligates even Him. The meaning of this claim is that He cannot establish different moral laws (or that if He establishes different laws they will not be moral laws), just as He cannot determine that a triangle will be round. What is moral and what is not does not depend on God's will, but moral obligation still requires God as a lawgiver who makes it binding and gives morality its validity.
One may now ask what obligates God Himself morally. After all, with respect to Him there is no external factor that gives morality validity, so why is He bound by it? To this I will answer in two ways: first, it appears that He is indeed not bound by it, but chooses it. He does not choose what morality is (for that is an absolute and rigid datum that is not in His hands), but chooses to want and demand moral conduct from His creatures. It seems to me that the reasonable basis for this picture is the assumption that morality is embedded in God's nature (what Ramchal describes in the words It is the nature of the good to do good). Therefore, although He cannot establish a different morality, still, without God no moral obligation exists.
It seems to me that the compatibilist conception should be applied here, the one that sees no contradiction between determinism and free will. According to this conception, so long as some being does what its nature tells it to do, it is free. On the other hand, if its nature dictates this to it (the term "dictates to it" is borrowed, of course), then that is a necessary result, that is, deterministic.[12] It does what its nature dictates, but there is nothing external coercing it to do so. Note that according to this, morality precedes the divine command but not God.[13] It exists without command, but not without God Himself. In fact, within conventional theology one cannot think of a world without God at all (He is a being whose existence is necessary, and therefore He exists in every possible world one can conceive), and therefore a claim that speaks of something preceding God is an oxymoron. And yet there can be something that precedes His commands (like the "laws" of logic, for example).
Summary: Another Look at Jewish Thought and Theology
I began the column with a critique of the field of "Jewish thought." Now I would like to return to the main points and illustrate them in light of the course of my remarks in this column.
My starting point was that I have something to say about the purpose of creation in a very limited sense: the world was probably created for some purpose, and that purpose probably lies outside it. These are two claims grounded in reason, and I tend to adopt them (of course I have no certainty about them, but they are reasonable). Obviously I would not treat them as authoritative and binding claims. I have such a line of reasoning; another may have the opposite reasoning. If this claim is correct, then it is correct for all human beings. And even if someone else, Jew or gentile, had said it, everyone should form a view on it through his own judgment. Therefore this is not "Jewish thought" in any sense, but a correct philosophical conclusion (at least in my opinion) about the world and God. Any specific claim beyond these general statements (that is, that the purpose of the world is such-and-such) seems to me unreasonable and unreliable speculation, and therefore I will probably not accept it whatever its source may be (Jewish or gentile), unless a clear source is brought for it from Scripture (in a way not open to other interpretations).
Does the claim of "bread of shame" say anything beyond that? At first glance this is already a specific thesis about the purpose of the creation of the world, and therefore it has a speculative dimension. And indeed, I am not sure what my relation to it is. The fact that this or that person says it makes no impression on me whatsoever. The question is whether it seems plausible and well-grounded to me or not.
The next stage in the discussion was the Euthyphro dilemma. There my conclusion is the second option in the dilemma, which accords with the opinion of most Jewish thinkers. Does that make it into "Jewish thought"? Absolutely not. I reached that conclusion not because a Jew or a gentile wrote it, but because that is what seems correct to me. I would adopt this conclusion even if most Jewish thinkers, or even all of them, rejected it.
From the discussion of that dilemma, I reached the conclusion that morality is indeed imposed on God, and the meaning of this is that He is good and that it is His nature to do good. This is a conclusion I reached not because someone wrote It is the nature of the good to do good or the theory of bread of shame, but because I examined the implications for my conception of morality and this is my conclusion (and again, of course, this is my conclusion and obligates no one who has not been convinced of it). Again, it seems to me that this is a widespread conclusion in Jewish thought, but in my view this is not "Jewish thought," since if the conclusion is logical then it is true for every gentile. And a Jew who does not accept it should not adopt it merely because books of Jewish thought write it.
To be more precise, my conclusion from the Euthyphro dilemma concerns ethical principles in general. The question whether bread of shame is indeed an absolute ethical principle, and hence whether it binds God in every possible world as well, is not simple in my eyes. The fact that there are books that wrote it means nothing to me. It is still possible that this is only a psychological weakness and not an ethical principle, and of course in that case the explanation of bread of shame is of no use and is unacceptable. This must be decided in light of self-examination, according to how I myself view this principle (whether there really is a binding ethical principle here or not). The source of this idea may be Jewish (I have not checked), but its being of Jewish origin neither adds nor detracts from the question whether it is true. That alone determines whether I will accept it or not.
The systematic discussion I conducted here, which was of course brief and far from exhaustive, pointed to the connection between different issues and to the implications of the conceptions under discussion. I could not enter here into the details and nuances, but I tried to examine the topic in a relatively systematic and careful way, given the constraints of brevity. This is the beginning of a demonstration of the systematicity required in a discussion of this sort, which to the best of my judgment is absent from many articles in Jewish thought. They will sometimes begin with the question of what each thinker thinks about the thesis of bread of shame and present a survey of the differences between the various conceptions (for example, which question it comes to answer). In many cases, they will lack a conceptual and philosophical clarification of the meaning of the matter itself and of its implications, and as a result the analysis, too, will be deficient.
[1] In the fifth chapter of my book Walking Among the Standing, I argued that even commandments of reason and morality have a religious dimension and not merely a moral one (if they are moral at all). See also column 15 and elsewhere on the site.
[2] Rabbi Yosef Karo expands on this at length in his book Maggid Meisharim. See also the Wikipedia entry 'bread of shame'.
[3] See on this in column 170 and below.
[4] See on this in the responsa section here.
[5] This parallels, of course, the Talmud in Bava Batra 9a regarding charity. See on this in column 236 and 260.
[6] In the fifth chapter of the third book in the trilogy, Walking Among the Standing, I raised these two possibilities. Here there is a more specific explanation of the matter: God's ability to bestow good depends on there being human beings in His world. Therefore murder is also an injury to God and to His purposes.
[7] This conclusion stands in contrast to the prevalent conception according to which God's beneficence toward us is the only genuine beneficence that is given without compensation, unlike any beneficence that human beings bestow on other people. Here, by contrast, we see the opposite: even God's beneficence is not given without compensation. He gains something from it. There may nevertheless still be a difference, since in God's case the purpose for which He Himself acts and which He "gains" from us (His "interest") is the ability to bestow good. That is, this is not a standard interest like that of human beings, but the realization of His goodness and its passage from potential to actuality. But in column 120 (and also 122) I pointed out that human beings, too, can perform altruistic actions (not for the sake of an interest). So once again we return to the point that one can indeed compare human beneficence to God's beneficence. Altruistic beneficence toward others is our imitation of Him.
[8] See on this in column 170.
[9] I assume that some of the readers are wondering whether this claim does not fall into the naturalistic fallacy. My answer is no. I did not say that the evil in murder derives from the mere fact that there was a murder here. Murder is a fact, and the prohibition on murder is a norm. A norm is never derived from a fact alone. The evil in this act is the result of a moral rule, but that rule is rigid, and therefore if in fact there is a murder here, then necessarily this act is evil.
[10] I am not entering here into the question whether every situation necessarily has one correct moral directive. I think not, but if you think about it you will easily see that this does not touch our discussion.
[11] I explained there that this does not mean that people do not behave morally, but that their morality is not valid and not consistent. The Musar masters' homiletic use of the verse Surely there is no God in this place, and they will kill me is interpreted by me not as referring to actual behavior but to the binding moral norms (moral theory).
[12] With respect to human free will, I reject this conception because it throws the baby out with the bathwater (a "free" will in that sense does not provide a basis for moral responsibility), but with respect to God it is certainly reasonable.
[13] Sagi and Statman, in their above-mentioned book, raise the question of what would happen in a world without God. Would there be morality there? The answer to this is of course that God is a necessary being, and therefore "a world without God" is an oxymoron (it is like asking what would happen in a world without logic – a question that of course has no answer, because there is no such world). Hence the fact that the laws of morality are valid in every possible world does not necessarily entail that they precede God. He too exists in every possible world, and in every such world the laws of morality are derived from His good nature.
Discussion
A moral rule, however rigid it may be, cannot be analytic in any way. The sentence “Murdering people is good,” for example, is not meaningless, but false, due to the (normative) fact that murdering people is bad. Whereas the sentence “A triangle is round” is meaningless, because by definition a triangle is not round.
If there is an ethical principle that says it is improper to give people things without compensation, then we immediately arrive at the question of setting a price list for that compensation. Many people work menial jobs their entire lives in order to put food on the table. The commandments are no more difficult than any other work, and therefore any reward beyond the minimum for which people would be willing to work is bread of shame in every respect. God is a monopoly in the realm of reward (spiritual and natural), and therefore can pay His workers a minimal wage, and everything beyond that is bread of shame. From this it follows that the possible reward in the World to Come is rather tightly bounded from above. The degree of effort required of different people, and in different eras, to attain similar well-being is completely different, and from this it follows that there is no fixed price list of justified compensation for effort. In addition, this approach seemingly undermines doing work for its own sake. If the purpose of our work is to “enable” God to give us reward, then work even if there were no reward would seemingly be utterly pointless.
What an article! Let his lips be kissed!
Had I come to this site only for this article, it would have been enough for me.
The conception of God presented here is anthropomorphic, applying human categories of thought to the source of all things, which is not subject to such limitations (as they say in Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu: “You are wise, but not with knowable wisdom”). Therefore it seems that any discourse about God is rooted in a philosophical error. All one can speak about is what is revealed to me out of the Godhead. (True, in fact every encounter in reality with any object is perceived by me as it appears to me, but there there is an encounter with a real object, whereas the encounter with the Creator is not through a concrete object but through the totality.)
From this it seems that the Ramchal did not intend to speak of the true reason why God created the world (it seems to me that elsewhere he notes that the reason he gave is insufficient), but rather intended to describe that once a world exists, from our perspective we should grasp the world as a world of beneficence, and that we must merit it.
So too one should say regarding the reason for Hasidism, based on Midrash Tanchuma, that God “desired a dwelling in the lower realms,” and Rav Kook’s reason about perfection and self-perfection: they do not come to give the true reason why God did this or that, for it makes no sense to speak about the Creator in human terms, but only with respect to what is revealed to us. And then their intention is to say that we need to manifest holiness even in lowly places, and that we need to perfect ourselves…
This “error,” as I understand it, accompanies the book The First Being…
From what I encounter in yeshiva, these problems exist even in the study of Talmudic analysis and halakhah. The concepts are actually usually well defined, but most of the discussion is devoted to classifying the views of the various commentators and decisors. It is considered almost illegitimate to ask, “Who is right?”, and every rabbi or book from more than a few decades ago is treated as possessing formal authority.
With God’s help, 29 Shevat 5780 (the 216th anniversary of Immanuel Kant’s death)
To Dvir – greetings,
In line 2, it should be:
… as they say in “Petach Eliyahu” …
“Petach Eliyahu” is a passage from the Zohar, recited mainly in Sephardic synagogues before prayer, especially the Minchah service. There it is explained, as you said, that regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, in His essence “no thought can grasp Him at all,” and the ten sefirot that are described are “arrangements by which to conduct the upper and lower worlds,” the ways in which the Holy One, blessed be He, governs the world.
Best regards, Shtz
According to Ramchal’s explanation, it seems that not only the attribute of kindness, but also the attribute of judgment, is a great beneficence to man, since through it he not only receives kindness as a gratuitous gift, but becomes, כביכול, a partner with the Holy One, blessed be He, in drawing down abundance to the world. And perhaps this is what we say in prayer: “who bestows good acts of kindness” — that the kindnesses the Holy One, blessed be He, brings us are not “bread of shame,” but leave us with the good feeling that we too are partners in bringing them about through our grappling with difficulties.
As I understand Ramchal’s view (mainly in the book The Way of God, with some elaborations), the necessity of the matter of “bread of shame” is not psychological, but neither is it a moral principle; rather, it is a philosophical necessity. If we accept the assumption that “it is the nature of the good to do good,” one can show how it follows from this that good must be received through one’s own work and not through grace.
The basic assumption that “it is the nature of the good to do good” is expanded by Ramchal to say: “it is the nature of the good to bestow the greatest possible good” (which is quite reasonable). And since the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect and is the source of good, the greatest good is to be as similar as possible to the Holy One, blessed be He. However, one of the basic attributes we ascribe to the Holy One, blessed be He, is that He is self-caused and independent of anything else. And the goodness we ascribe to Him is also intrinsic to Him and not given to Him by others. Therefore it is clear that “to create a creature that will be similar to the Holy One, blessed be He” is something that contains an internal contradiction, for that creature receives its entire essence from others (= from the Holy One, blessed be He), and therefore it is precisely the opposite of the Holy One, blessed be He.
And for that reason man was created lacking and incomplete, and given free choice so that by his own powers he would make himself similar to the Holy One, blessed be He (“and you shall walk in His ways,” which encompasses the whole Torah, but I cannot elaborate here). Therefore the reward for the commandments is not something external; rather, the very fulfillment of the commandments makes a person similar to the Holy One, blessed be He, and that is the greatest good.
Yosef, I identify with you; your words clearly bear the impression of Rav Ashlag’s ideas… In the essay “The Giving of the Torah”: “6) However, when we properly understand the essence of the Torah and mitzvot given to us, and what is desired from their fulfillment, to the degree our Sages instructed us, namely that it is the purpose of all the great creation laid out before our eyes, then we will understand everything. For it is a first principle that you have no action without a purpose, and there is no exception to this except the lowliest of humankind or infants. Therefore no doubt at all can be cast upon the blessed Creator, whose exaltedness is beyond measure, that He would, God forbid, do anything, small or great, without purpose.
And our Sages taught us concerning this that the world was created only for the observance of Torah and mitzvot. This means, as the early sages explained to us, that the intention of the blessed Creator in creation, from the moment it was created, is to make His divinity known to another. For this making known of His divinity reaches the creature through the measure of His delightful abundance, which continually grows for it until the desired measure. Through this, the lowly are elevated in true recognition to become a chariot for Him, blessed be He, and to cleave to Him, until they reach their final perfection: ‘No eye has seen, O God, besides You,’ and because of the greatness and splendor of that perfection, even Torah and prophecy refrained from saying even one word about this exaltation. As our Sages hinted regarding this (Berakhot 34b): ‘All the prophets prophesied only for the days of the Messiah, but regarding the World to Come: “No eye has seen, O God, besides You.”’ As is known to those of understanding, and I cannot elaborate here.
And this perfection is expressed in the words of the Torah and prophecy and our Sages only by the simple word ‘devekut’ [cleaving]. And through the rolling of this word on the tongues of the masses, it has almost lost all content. But if you dwell on this word for but a moment, you will stand astonished at its wondrous height. For when you picture the divine matter and the lowly value of the creature, then you can assess the relation of cleaving from one to the other, and then you will understand why we place this word as the purpose of all this great creation.
What emerges from our words is that the purpose of all creation is that the lowly creatures may, through fulfilling Torah and mitzvot, ascend ever upward, developing until they merit cleaving to their blessed Creator.
7) However, here the sages of Kabbalah stood and asked: Why did He not create us from the outset in all that exaltedness desired for cleaving to Him, blessed be He, and why did He, blessed be He, impose upon us all this burden and toil of creation and Torah and mitzvot? And they answered: ‘One who eats what is not his is ashamed to look at the giver’s face,’ etc. Meaning: one who eats and enjoys the labor of his fellow fears looking at his face, because through this he becomes abased until he loses his human form. And since what extends from His perfection, blessed and exalted, cannot contain any deficiency, He therefore left us room to earn for ourselves our desired exaltedness through our own handiwork in Torah and mitzvot.
And these matters are deeper than all depth, and I have already explained them in their proper form in my book Panim Masbirot on Etz Chaim, in the first branch, and in Talmud Eser HaSefirot, Histaklut Penimit, part 1; and here I will explain them briefly so that they may be understood by every person.
8) For this matter is like a certain rich man who called a man from the marketplace, fed him and gave him drink and lavished upon him silver and gold and every delight day after day, and each day his gifts were greater than the previous day, continually increasing. At the end the rich man asked him: Tell me, have all your wishes now been fulfilled? He answered: My desires are still not all fulfilled, for how good and pleasant it would have been for me if all this wealth and these delights had come to me through my own efforts as they came to you, and not as a recipient of your gracious gift. The rich man said to him: In that case, no person has yet been created who can fulfill your wishes.
And this is natural, for although on the one hand he tastes great pleasure, increasing in proportion to the abundance of his gifts, on the other hand he finds it hard to bear the shame of this increasing beneficence, as the rich man repeatedly increases it for him. For it is a natural law in the world that the recipient feels a kind of shame and impatience when receiving a gratuitous gift from the giver because of his kindness and mercy toward him. And from this there follows a second law: it is impossible to imagine anyone in the world who can fully satisfy his fellow’s desires, for in the end he will not be able to give him the character and form of self-acquisition, for only with that is every expansion of all desired perfection completed.
And this applies only with respect to creatures, which is in no way possible or fitting with respect to His exalted perfection, blessed and exalted. And this is why He prepared for us, through toil and labor and through engagement in Torah and mitzvot, to bring about our exaltedness ourselves. For then all the delight and good that come to us from Him, blessed be He — that is, all that is included in cleaving to Him, blessed be He — will all be in the category of our own acquisition, having come to us through our own deeds, and then we feel ourselves as owners of the matter, for without this we have no taste for perfection, as explained.
9) Yet it is proper for us to reflect on the root and source of this natural law, and from whose belly came to us this defect of shame and impatience that we feel when receiving kindness from someone. But this is understood from the law known to natural scientists: every branch is close and similar in nature to its root, and all the matters practiced in the root are desired by its branch as well, and it loves them and covets them and derives benefit from them. Conversely, all matters not practiced in the root, its branch distances itself from, cannot tolerate, and is harmed by them. And this law exists between every root and its branch and is never violated.
And from here a doorway opens for us to understand the source of all the pleasures and sufferings fixed in our world. Since the blessed and exalted God is the root of all His creatures that He created, therefore all matters included in Him, blessed be He, and extended to us from Him by direct extension, are pleasant and agreeable to us, because our nature is close to our root, blessed be He. And all matters that are not practiced in Him, blessed be He, and did not extend to us from Him by direct extension, but only according to the pole of creation itself, are against our nature, and it is hard for us to bear them. That is, we love rest and greatly hate movement, so much so that we make no movement except to attain rest. And this is because our root is not one of movement but one of rest, and movement, God forbid, does not apply to Him at all; therefore this too is against our nature and hateful to us. Likewise, we greatly love wisdom and might and wealth, etc., because all these are included in Him, blessed be He, who is our root, and therefore we greatly hate their opposites, such as folly and weakness and poverty, because they are not found at all in our root; and this makes our sensation of them repulsive and hateful and also causes unbearable pain.
10) And this is what gives us this defective feeling of shame and impatience when we receive something from others as an act of kindness, for the blessed Creator has no category whatsoever of receiving benefit — from whom would He receive? And since this matter is not practiced in our root, blessed be He, it is therefore repulsive and hateful to us, as stated. Conversely, we feel pleasure and sweetness and gentleness whenever we bestow upon others, for this is practiced in our root, blessed be He, who bestows upon all.
11) Now we have found an opening of the eyes to look upon the matter of the purpose of creation, ‘and to cleave to Him,’ in its true form. For the whole matter of this exaltedness and cleaving promised to us through our own deeds in Torah and mitzvot is no less and no more than the matter of the branches becoming like their root, blessed be He, from which all pleasantness and delight and all sublimity become a natural consequence in themselves, as explained above. For pleasure is nothing but equivalence of form with one’s Maker, and when we become equivalent in our affairs to every practice found in our root, we are in delight; and anything that comes upon us from matters not found in our root becomes unbearable and loathsome or actual pain, according to what that concept entails. It follows by itself that all our hope depends entirely on the degree of equivalence of our form to our root, blessed and exalted.”
A most enlightening article.
There are two points I did not understand: A. You claimed that in an atheistic world there cannot be valid morality, even though you agreed that it is an existing law that God also chooses to obey. So I do not understand why the atheist could not want to obey this law that exists in itself [just as God sees that it is good and chooses it, so too the atheist; what obligates us to the laws of morality if not the recognition of their justice and the choice to fulfill them]. B. What you wrote, that the world cannot exist without God — I would be happy for a reference to a place where you explain this claim, because as far as I know you only prove that there must be a first cause for the world, but I am not aware of any necessity that this cause must remain in existence all the time. Seemingly, after He created and produced reality, He can go home.
P.S. I saw that people above already noted to you that in Da’at Tevunot Ramchal states the reason for the creation of the world in a different formulation, according to which the difficulty does not arise.
Indeed. It will be corrected.
I didn’t say it is analytic in the logical sense. Moreover, an analytic statement is not a meaningless statement. I argued that the statement follows from the very definition of morality. There is no other morality. “Murdering people is good” is an incorrect claim, exactly like the claim that a triangle is round.
You are not distinguishing here between the sentence “The round triangle is a very יפה shape,” which is meaningless (it has no referent), and the claim “the triangle is round,” which has meaning (it is false). Similarly, “Murder is good” is a meaningful sentence (false), but the claim “positive murder is a common action” is meaningless (it has no referent).
By the way, in theories of meaning in analytic philosophy, not everyone would agree that even these formulations are meaningless. For my purposes here, I see them that way.
Many thanks. Had this article been written only for you — it would have been enough for me. 🙂
I’m not sure I followed this whole pilpul, but I’ll try to answer.
First, I do not agree that there must necessarily be a price list. But even if I grant that, why would it depend not on effort but only on the result? Beyond that, I did not say that I work in order to receive reward, but that the Holy One, blessed be He, gives us reward in exchange for the work. That is really not the same claim. Moreover, even the Holy One, blessed be He, should not receive things for free. If I work for Him, it is proper that He give compensation. And that still does not mean that my goal in the work is the compensation.
Indeed, this “error” definitely accompanies that book and other things of mine. I do anthropomorphize the Holy One, blessed be He, to some extent. That is why I added the “apparently.” Our categories of thought are human, and the rule is, “From my flesh I behold God.” We reason according to our own mode of thought. If you do not anthropomorphize, you will not be able to say anything at all about the Holy One, blessed be He, nor interpret the Torah (which is His will). After all, if you were commanded not to plow with an ox and a donkey, that doesn’t mean that you should not plow with an ox and a donkey. Only human beings, when they command, expect the command to be carried out, no?
It is hard for me to elaborate, both regarding thought and regarding halakhah. See the second book at length about this. The fifth conversation there is entirely devoted to it. You are right to a certain extent regarding the prevailing attitude, but not regarding the proper attitude.
Yosef, I have neither the interest nor the knowledge to clarify here what Ramchal meant. I used his words as an illustration. But I disagree with your analysis. Because there is such a moral principle (this is the greatest and most perfect beneficence), therefore there is the philosophical necessity (that the perfect good bestow the perfect beneficence). You yourself write this. And indeed, giving us choice is also part of that beneficence.
I wrote that there are two possibilities: 1. God chooses to obey it. 2. It follows from His nature. According to both, there is no difficulty at all.
1. Indeed, a person too can choose this law but not see it as binding (and condemn one who does not do so). Our eyes see that there are quite a few atheists who choose to act according to the moral law. My claim is that this is an arbitrary choice (which is of course their right), but not morality.
2. Obviously.
As for the claim that God must continue to exist, I have no proof apart from Scripture. And apart from the argument that if He is perfect and omnipotent, then He probably does not perish in any way. But if I believe that this is the nature of morality, and that itself presupposes that God is eternal, then that itself is for me a “theological” argument (in the sense defined in the fourth conversation in The First Being) in favor of His eternity.
If you had quoted the Rambam in his golden language, “Accept the truth from whoever says it,” you could have significantly reduced the verbiage in the article, right? Or another quote from the Rambam: “Whatever has been demonstrated by proof — its truth is not increased, nor is truth strengthened thereby, if all the sages agree with it; nor is its truth diminished, nor is truth weakened thereby, if all the people of the earth disagree with it.” It seems to me this runs like a thread through several of your articles that I have read.
With your permission, I’ll try to spell out my argument more fully. I did not properly understand your answer, and perhaps if I sharpen the question I will understand better. Sorry if I’m burdening you with repetition, but I really still haven’t understood. Regarding acting for its own sake, I understood the answer, thank you.
If I shower someone with candies, then that is a gratuitous gift. But if I arrange the house so that if he pulls a rope candies will rain down on him, is that no longer a gratuitous gift? Half of the first candy is compensation for the effort, and the rest are seemingly gratuitous gifts. That is what I call a price list. From this I conclude that reward in the World to Come is bounded by the “appropriate” compensation for the effort invested (otherwise God could create a world in which people are born for a moment with rope-pulling skills, pull the rope, immediately die into the life of the World to Come, and receive infinite reward. Don’t you agree that in this sense a price list has to exist, otherwise the whole thing collapses?). And since excess reward is a gratuitous gift, one has to discuss how this price list of reward for work is determined. The only way I know to determine wages is at the meeting point of supply and demand (it will always be less than or equal to the value received by the employer [the “result”], and greater than or equal to the effort invested by the worker [the “effort”], and in between supply and demand struggle). That is, in order for the reward not to drift into gratuitous gift, it has to be the minimal wage for which people would be willing to be workers in mitzvot, and no more. To this I add that even in the natural world, every pleasure a person managed to accumulate within the rules of the game God set, when he would have been willing to exert equal effort even for a smaller amount of pleasures, is a gratuitous gift. And since it is clear that people do accumulate pleasures in the world to a greater degree than what they would have been willing to exert themselves for, then as I understand it this is an empirical argument against the claim that God is not interested (or that people are not interested) in people receiving gratuitous gifts.
[This reminds me of a homiletic teaching that I have always wondered about, though I cannot sharpen the parallel and perhaps it is just an association. “And should I not show favor to Israel, for I wrote for them, ‘And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless,’ and they are strict with themselves down to an olive’s bulk and an egg’s bulk.” And what kind of answer is that? In return for that stringency they deserve some reward, like any other reward, and in granting it there is no favoritism whatsoever; and everything beyond that is favoritism as before. It seems there is some idea here that if one side did above and beyond (worked overtime beyond the contract), then to give him above-and-beyond compensation (500%) for what was appropriately due to the above-and-beyond effort (200%) is fitting compensation. But that idea seems contradictory.]
And in the words of the author of the anniversary, Immanuel Kant (who passed away on the 30th of Shevat 5564), that regarding every thing, “no thought can grasp it,” and we do not know the “thing in itself” but only according to its appearance in the world and its being apprehended by our mind.
Best regards, Shtz
Who says that by the term “Jewish thought” one means the method or the authority of those who say it? Perhaps the intention really is the content that deals with the principles and beliefs of Judaism, perhaps especially in connection with Judaism’s foundational texts, and perhaps even the thought of Jews (globally)?
I said what I had to say. This really seems to me like a strange discussion.
As I explained, any such conclusion does not depend on the speaker or the addressee. As far as I’m concerned, define it as Jewish thought if you want. That’s semantics.
With God’s help, Rosh Chodesh Adar 5780
The whole dilemma of whether God is subject to a morality outside Himself seems strange. After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, is by essence good and moral, and He is the source of man’s sense of morality. So how could there be a “morality outside Him”? Even all the moral feelings implanted in man are a “gift” from his Creator.
Regarding “bread of shame” —
It seems that shame before the Creator is not only because there is an “ethical flaw” in needing another. The feeling of shame before the Holy One, blessed be He, is a natural and positive feeling arising from the very fact that man is created and dependent in all his actions on help from his God. There is no “ethical flaw” in man’s being created. He has no possibility whatsoever of being “independent of his Creator.”
Even after all the commandments and good deeds a person may do, there is no real “payment” in this for all the good his Creator has done for him. And even man’s good choice is not one hundred percent “his.” How much help and guidance has he received from God’s Torah and from his parents and teachers. Therefore God demands of man that even if he is full of “doing justice and loving kindness,” there should still be in him shame before his Creator — “and walk humbly with your God.”
There is no “payment” here, but there is a moral debt of gratitude toward the Creator, obligating a person to feel the need “to repay a little” of his debt toward his God. And giving thanks to God and keeping His commandments enables a person to express gratitude to his Creator. The person’s feeling of “kisufa” as a receiver brings him to “yearnings” to act in order to return to God, at least a little, “all His recompense toward him.”
Best regards, Shtz
And in short:
There is no room for the objection: if God wishes to spare His creatures “shame,” why did He not create a world without the recipient’s feeling of shame before the giver? For the feeling of shame is positive at its root. It is what leads a person to the obligation to show gratitude to one who did him a kindness and to repay him with good. Therefore it makes no sense to speak of “a world without the receiver’s shamefacedness toward his benefactor.”
With respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, there is in fact no real possibility for a creature to “repay Him with good,” for He lacks nothing, and even what man would supposedly give Him is in truth “from what is Yours we have given You.” But God did a kindness to man by giving him the commandments, so that in doing them man would feel that he is “doing something” for the honor of his Creator and is fulfilling, at least in part, his moral obligation of gratitude to his Maker.
Best regards, Shtz
Then let Him cancel the feeling of shame specifically toward the Holy One, blessed be He (or provide the benefits of that feeling in some other way).
Cancel the feeling of shame toward the Holy One, blessed be He? For what reason? Surely this is man’s virtue, which God demands of His people: “and walk humbly with your God.” For this purpose there was the revelation at Mount Sinai: “that His fear may be upon your faces, that you do not sin,” and from it we merited the quality of being “bashful,” a quality that leads to the Garden of Eden, as written at the end of chapter 5 of Avot.
Best regards, Shtz
I always enjoy the combinations and connections in your articles and books.
Is the good good in your view (1) because God wills it? (2) because you see that it is good? or (3) because it is good?
As I understand it, your answer would be (3), but (3) is not really attainable, and neither is (1). Apparently only (2) is possible.
“Jewish thought,” in my opinion, is not the fact that it is said by a Jew (righteous or otherwise), but the attempt by thinkers and currents in the Jewish world (such as yourself) to reflect on the foundational concepts of the diverse Jewish tradition — for example, the conception of divinity, the meaning of the commandments, meanings in the conception of time/history, destruction, exile, redemption, suffering, choice, etc.
In Jewish thought there is not really a concept of right or wrong; it is a collection of worldviews, often outright opposed to one another, and usually very influenced by the surrounding culture (and there are many examples of this). We tend to explain ourselves in the conceptual world in which we live.
Seemingly Jewish thought is dogmatic in the sense that there must be foundational principles such that if you do not accept them, you have left the framework of Jewish thought (such as revelation, for example). But even in a concept like monotheism, the unity of God, which is fundamental in Judaism, one can find very strange and varied interpretations.
“Jewish thought” (this is not my definition; I once heard it somewhere and don’t remember where) is when thinkers try to clarify their worldview as Jews through engagement with Jewish sources.
And again this returns to no. (2) above, that apparently even the boundaries of Jewish thought are what thinkers see as such.
Thank you.
As I explained in the column, it is good because it is good (the fact that I see that it is good only reveals this to me), but it obligates because of the Holy One, blessed be He.
You can of course define the term “Jewish thought” however you wish. The question is what it says to me and what I have to learn there. Let everyone explain to himself whatever he wants, however he wants. Good health to him. A worldview is general and not specifically Jewish.
Michi,
Allow me to be pedantic, as is my way.
Moshe’s criticism of your words is entirely justified.
On the one hand, you make an “essential” claim that there is no such thing as Jewish thought. Clearly you mean to say that your claim is not merely “semantics,” but that this is genuinely a confused concept. In your view there is no such creature.
On the other hand, when Moshe points out to you that the question is examined not only from the standpoint of method but also from the standpoint of content, you choose to play innocent and suddenly retreat to “semantics.”
The truth is that I spoke with the rabbi about this matter (“Jewish thought”) a few years ago, but at the time I was too lazy to explain myself. Now I’ll explain a bit.
The term “Jewish thought” (as opposed to the term “Jewish philosophy,” which is simply philosophy about matters of Judaism) is connected to R. Yehuda Halevi (whose view on the matter of Israel’s unique quality I accept). The assumption of Israel’s unique quality (for example, that only Israel can be prophets — for now let us set aside the objections) also means that there are intellectual contents that only Israel can attain. I am talking about Kabbalah. Indeed, there has never been a gentile who was a kabbalist with true attainment (that is, who understood what he was talking about and did not merely study books others wrote without seeing with his own eyes the truth of the matter). And one must distinguish between the wisdom of Kabbalah and mysticism (there are many gentile mystics). The wisdom of Kabbalah is something else, connected to the rectification of man’s desires (whereas ordinary mysticism deals with escape from bodily reality, the wisdom of Kabbalah is connected with rectifying bodily reality). Jewish thought is the intellectual garb of the wisdom of Kabbalah. We find kabbalists such as Ramchal and Rav Kook who also wrote the contents of Kabbalah in the language of thought. These contents were given the name “Jewish thought.” Its source is in Israel and, first and foremost, it is intended for Israel. It deals with rectifying the ego, not with abstract philosophical truths detached from concrete reality. That is the meaning of the name “Israel” in this context.
For my own part, I have never studied this field as a matter of who said what and who thinks what and what disputes there are. That is not study at all. As far as I’m concerned there are no real disputes. My assumption is that with each one (the significant ones — Yehuda Halevi, Rambam, Ramchal, Maharal, Rav Kook, R. Soloveitchik, etc.) there is some truth (he saw reality from an angle others did not see), and I need to find the all-encompassing truth. That is, to synthesize within myself the point of truth in each one in order to reach the most comprehensive truth. And that is also how philosophy should be studied. That is what turns a person into a real philosopher (it’s a somewhat bombastic term that I shy away from as someone with a background in physics — but I mean a thinking, original, authentic person), as opposed to an empty, bespectacled, boxed-in (leftist) professor of philosophy, quoting thinkers whose words he does not understand at all, carrying around a shopping basket of collected opinions and thinkers, puffed up with empty self-importance. Today all the universities are full of such empty balloons. To tell the truth, I would use philosophers as a source of inspiration for my own thinking on topics, not as some body of knowledge to be acquired. I am not interested at all in what Kant says on a given subject unless he has something original to say about it that will inspire me myself to reach the depth of that matter. The wisdom of Kabbalah too (and its philosophical garb — Jewish thought) is in the same sense not intended for people like the rabbi, who do not want to rise and develop and attain the Holy One, blessed be He (knowledge of God), and have no problem remaining within the depressing finite material reality. The rabbi said that he sees no difference between gentiles and Jews, but it is quite clear that he himself would have no problem if he had been born a gentile — that is, just an ordinary human being. But for me, being just an ordinary human being is like being an animal: a talking donkey whose existence has no meaning (and in the depths of the matter, whoever does not want to be an animal already has a spark of Israel in him). So the fact that most Jews today, at least outwardly, are gentiles does not mean that on the collective level the people of Israel are not essentially different from the nations of the world, who are herds of donkeys and sheep (if not wolves).
You really did not understand. Michi made an essential claim about how claims are to be assessed (and he clothed it in the issue of “Jewish thought”). Now you are claiming that “Jewish thought” is a field of study. Well, bravo. How does that relate to Michi’s claim? That is what he meant by semantics.
Levi, I think you are mistaken.
Michi may indeed have wanted to demonstrate a principle by means of an example (“Jewish thought”), but in the process he made an essential claim: “There is no such thing as Jewish thought.”
That is precisely what I was referring to.
By the way, Michi makes exactly this same claim in other places as well.
Of course there is no such thing as “Jewish thought,” because there is no such thing as “Israel.” The people called “Israel” were almost completely exterminated in the 13th century BCE, as attested by the Merneptah Stele, where it is explained: “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.” The “confirmation of the kill” was carried out by Mesha king of Moab, who testifies on his stele: “Israel is destroyed, destroyed forever.”
Even in the fifth century BCE Herodotus testifies that in Coele-Syria there are Egyptians who are particular about circumcision, and “Israel” — who ever heard of such a thing? And Professor Shlomo Sand of Sheikh Munis University already wrote that the “people of Israel” were invented in the nineteenth century for colonialist purposes.
Best regards, Dr. Shatzius von Levinehausen, Institute for the Denial of Judaism, Kubat al-Nijma University
There is no essential creature called “Jewish thought.” To say that these are types of topics is just like saying there is “Har Etzion thought” and “Gur thought,” “Jerusalem thought,” or “Kibbutz Givat thought.” These are just empty statements.
What does that have to do with what I said? I did not claim that there is such a thing as Jewish thought.
I claimed that Michi repeatedly expresses his opinion that there is no such thing, and in his view this is an essential, not a semantic, claim. Afterwards, when Moshe pointed out his mistake and noted that there is indeed such a distinct field,
at least in terms of content, Michi shifts the axis of the discussion and calls it “semantics,” as though the name we give it were just a personal choice — to each his own taste.
If he had said from the outset that he meant only the method, it would at least have been easier for me to agree with him.
In paragraph 2, line 3
… was invented in the 19th century …
I have no way to explain myself better. Let Michi come and explain his (simple) words.
Nor do I.
Hello to the great rabbi Michi, may he live long,
1. I wanted to ask whether you meant that there exists an “idea” of morality in its descriptive sense even “were it not for” God — and God validated it and turned morality into a prescriptive claim?
2. Many Christians, for example William Lane Craig, argue for a third option in the dilemma, namely that the good is God Himself. We are not dealing with two different entities but one essence. What do you think of that?
With God’s help, 1 Adar 5780
To Kobi – greetings,
The author of the Tanya also writes (Likkutei Amarim, ch. 4): “…as it is written in the Zohar that ‘the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one’; that is, the Torah is the wisdom and will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He Himself, is entirely one, for He is the knower and He is the knowledge, etc., as stated above (in ch. 2) in the name of the Rambam.”
Best regards, Shtz
1. As I wrote, in my opinion the expression “were it not for God” is not defined. There is no world without God. But your formulation is very close to one of the possibilities I raised.
2. I do not understand that statement. If the meaning is that it is His nature to do good and to be good, that is exactly what I wrote, and many before me wrote as well.
With God’s help, 1 Adar 5780
For the sake of the virtue of “bashfulness,” the Sages made sure that even after performing the commandment, the doer should not become arrogant and think that “he did God a favor and saved the world.” As they said in the Midrash on Naomi’s words to Ruth: “the man with whom you worked” — more than the rich man gives to the poor man, the poor man gives to the rich man by granting him the merit of the mitzvah. And so too Rabbi Akiva explains in his answer to Turnus Rufus, that God loves the poor person, and even without the donor the Holy One, blessed be He, would provide the poor man with sustenance; the commandment of giving is to bring merit to the giver.
Best regards, Shtz
With God’s help, 1 Adar 5780 (the 116th birthday of my late father, Professor David Shmuel Lewinger)
And thanks to the one who asked, our local master R. M.D.A., who in his insightful question about the concept of “bread of shame,” mentioned by Ramchal, brought about a deeper understanding of the concept, and showed that we have here not only a “psychological” benefit of man’s feeling of satisfaction, but also a moral benefit: making man into a better person, one who aspires to be a “giver” and not only a “receiver” (in the words of Rav Kook), and also leading a person to resemble his Maker to some degree (as Yosef wrote in his comment).
Indeed, the owner of the post has shown here how much depth and breadth of horizon is found in the literature of “Jewish thought”! More power to you!
With blessings for a good month, Shtz
By the way, the first to mention the idea of “bread and shame” were Rav Saadia Gaon and his contemporary al-Ash‘ari (who preceded him by several years). Dr. Y.N. Rubin discussed the subject in one of his responses to Prof. Nadav Shnerb’s article “To Create a Stone and Lift It,” on the “Mussaf Shabbat – Makor Rishon” website. Rubin referred there to a discussion of the matter in his book What God Cannot Do, p. 51. On this issue there is an interesting meeting point between philosophers and kabbalists, and even between Jewish and Muslim thinkers, in a shared effort to understand the ways of the Creator in governing His world.
Thank you,
1. If the formulation is very close to what I said, one could argue that you present morality as having an idea that falls under the factual side (the existent — is), and a normative side (the validated — ought).
2. Therefore, since it sounds very strange to claim that murder is bad in the same sense that 1+1=2 or that a thing and its opposite constitute a defined thing — in the case of logic the issues arise because we are merely stating definitions or nonsense (I think you called it an analytic definition),
but regarding the concept of good and evil, this is supposed to relate to some idea that gives us the ability to measure what is bad and what is good. After all, we are dealing with objective good (I think you call this a factual or synthetic claim).
So one can say that this idea is itself God, and if so God is also the source of the good, because the good is Him (it is not an idea external to Him). And He also legislated in His world that one should become like Him (in the sense of “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” or bread of shame, in that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the cause of Himself and we must become the recipients of our own reward).
The idea is not external to Him somewhere in the universe, floating in one of the upper worlds; rather, it is Him.
The advantage of this approach is also Ockham’s razor, no? Why posit two things if you can get two for the price of one.
Although here we are dealing with necessary beings, where the razor would not apply.
By the way, the rabbi forgot to mention that if we give up God as the source and legislator of the good, we immediately enter your beloved and neglected column 144 on the physico-theological proof, which rises again to life.
Because then we can assume that there exists a simple (infinite) and unified being that created the whole universe, and this time it has a serious reason to create a universe — namely, it wants to do good.
And it wants to create good creatures (for example, bread of shame).
And as Richard Swinburne shows at length in his book.
That is, given that God exists, there is a probability that He would want to create a world, and it would look roughly like this:
P(A|H1) = likely
P(A|H2) = 1 or ε
1 if there exists a universe-generator that will certainly create this universe, epsilon if it is a random generator.
P(B1) = 1 according to Ockham’s razor this is the best hypothesis there is.
P(B2) = ε, according to Ockham’s razor this is a complex hypothesis.
1. Indeed, correct. The idea is the fact, and the normative validity is beyond it.
2. I claim that it really is the same thing, with respect to the norm, though not necessarily to its implementations.
The idea of the good is the source of the definition of the good. If you identify it with God, then fine. It could also be some attribute of His, or an additional idea. I do not see how one can answer that. Indeed, from the standpoint of Ockham’s razor one may say that the good is in God’s nature (or is He Himself or some attribute of His). But that is exactly what I wrote. I just do not see why it matters.
I did not understand the claim at the beginning. As for the formalization, of course everything depends on the assumption that God is good and necessarily wants to do good (or is compelled to do good). But from where do we know that in the first place? From the moral proof. So the moral proof suffices, and I do not see what this formulation adds.
A.
Regarding the question whether the feeling of “bread of shame” is a “psychological” or an “ethical” matter — it should be noted that usually these things go together. Implanted in the human soul are feelings that bring about bodily or emotional motivation toward that to which a person is obligated by intellect and morality. Just as a person has a natural need to eat and breathe, so too there are implanted in him the feeling of satisfaction in doing good and pangs of conscience in doing its opposite.
B.
What was said in the post, that there is an ethical problem in giving without compensation — it would be more correct to say that there is an ethical problem in receiving without compensation. For the giver has a full right to give “free gifts.” Since the Creator seeks to educate decent and moral people, He has an educational consideration not to accustom His creatures to eating for free.
Best regards, Shtz
Apropos “bread of shame,” this was once published in Atzch”ch:
Taxi driver: Oy, life is hard. Look at this — there are no roads in this country, no drivers. Look at him, he almost killed me. They ought to get rid of the one who gave him a license…
Yeshiva guy: Yeah, you’re right. Believe me, if only it were possible….
Taxi driver: Tell me, you’re religious, aren’t you?
Yeshiva guy: Of course! What kind of question is that? Ultra-Orthodox even — can’t you see?
Taxi driver: Forget it, we’re all brothers, the people need unity. But honestly, I’ve got a few questions…
Yeshiva guy: Ask, go ahead…
Taxi driver: But then don’t let your rabbis come with complaints afterwards and say I ruined you or something…
Yeshiva guy: No chance. Trust me. Besides, there are answers to everything.
Taxi driver: Right, life is garbage, isn’t it? No money, no security, no true love…
Yeshiva guy: True, so you see, you’re half religious already. You already understand that in this world, everything is nonsense!
Taxi driver: Yeah, but the point is that the next world is nonsense too. I mean, like, if everything is garbage in this world, then why have this world at all? What’s wrong with making only the World to Come?
Yeshiva guy: And what would you do in the World to Come?
Taxi driver: What now? What do you do in the World to Come? I don’t know, they say it’s paradise there.
Yeshiva guy: Exactly — in the World to Come you get reward, but only if you met the admission requirements. And if you weren’t in this world, how would you be in the next world?
Taxi driver: You’re not getting what I’m saying. I want there not to be this world at all — only the next world, only up there. If God wants, let Him give everyone reward. That way there are no wicked people, no righteous people, no cancer and no AIDS, only good things. Besides, it even says in the Gemara, “It would have been better for man not to have been created,” no?
Yeshiva guy: You’re right, that’s a very good question. Have you ever heard of Ramchal maybe?
Taxi driver: There’s a street by that name in Tel Aviv, I think. Sounds like someone’s name, but I don’t know…
Yeshiva guy: Yes, he was a great rabbi and kabbalist. They study his books all the time in yeshivot.
Taxi driver: So what did the rabbi say?
Yeshiva guy: He said that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want us to be ashamed. Would you want to beg for charity?
Taxi driver: No, why would I want to beg?
Yeshiva guy: Exactly the same thing. If there were a World to Come without this world, and up there you got good things for free, on the house, you’d feel terrible, blushing all day from shame. That’s why the Holy One, blessed be He, created this world — then you get a “salary,” not a free gift.
Taxi driver: Tell me, brother, is it true that you Haredim don’t serve in the army?
Yeshiva guy: And is it true that you secular people can’t manage a single substantive conversation without eventually reaching that topic?
Taxi driver: Hey, hey, don’t dismiss me. Let me finish. Just answer me: do you serve or not?
Yeshiva guy: Well, no, we don’t serve. But you know, it’s not because…
Taxi driver: Forget it for now, not important. Tell me, when are you getting married?
Yeshiva guy: I don’t know, maybe in another year, God willing of course.
Taxi driver: Meaning in another six years. I see you with about four kids.
Yeshiva guy: Honestly, I don’t think of it that way, but with God’s help, could be.
Taxi driver: And how will you bring in money? You know, four kids on your head is no joke.
Yeshiva guy: Haven’t you heard of kollels? It’s a place where you learn all day and get a little money, and most of the money, maybe all of it, the wife brings in.
Taxi driver: Nice…
Yeshiva guy: But why are you drilling me? Army, work, marriage and all that — what happened? You work for the police?
Taxi driver: You don’t get it on your own?
Yeshiva guy: Still no…
Taxi driver: Remember what you said in the name of Ramchal, or whatever his name is?
Yeshiva guy: Of course I remember — that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world so we could receive reward from Him without being ashamed.
Taxi driver: Which means that you don’t like receiving free gifts? Living off other people, right?
Yeshiva guy: Right. Everyone’s like that, no?
Taxi driver: Honestly, I don’t know. You don’t seem especially troubled by the fact that until the day you die you’re going to live off other people… If you ask me, I think God could have left the Haredim up above — you don’t really have a problem with ‘bread of shame.’
Yeshiva guy: Stop here, we’ve arrived. I need to get out.
That is demagoguery. One who studies receives payment for his engagement in Torah. How is that different from a writer who receives money for his book, or a researcher for his research? That is not charity. Making a living from charity means receiving gifts for doing absolutely nothing.
Does bread of shame have any practical implication for the ontological proof?
After all, if we argue that a person who attained his existence by his own powers (or more precisely, his reward) is preferable to someone who did not attain the reward by his own powers, because God is a necessary being and receives nothing —
does that mean they took necessary existence to be a property?
I didn’t entirely understand the sentence you wrote:
“I claim that it is indeed the same thing, with respect to the norm and not necessarily to its implementations.” What is the “same thing”?
It is very significant in order to know whether you think God is the source of the concepts and everything, or whether there is an external world of ideas.
A practical difference for monism, no?
Isn’t there something slightly objectionable in saying that there is something external to Him?
With God’s help, 3 Adar 5780
From the explanations and sources that the author brought, and that others brought, to clarify the matter of “bread of shame,” the opposite emerges from the post author’s attempt to claim that “there is no such thing as Jewish thought.” On the contrary, it is plainly evident that the words of the sages of Israel in aggadah contain great depth.
And this is not surprising. After all, the sages of aggadah and thought are the same great men whose Torah we know from their halakhic writings, distinguished by depth and straight reasoning. Is it conceivable that when they dealt with the foundations of faith and the duties of the heart, their analysis was inferior to what it was in the fields of Talmud and halakhah?
It is Torah, and it requires study. And the more one inclines one’s ear and strives to delve into the words of the ancients, the more our understanding broadens and straightens, and דווקא study and attentiveness to the words of the early sages are what sometimes open the heart even to true innovations.
And R. Chaim of Volozhin already explained the saying of our Sages, “Be dusted in the dust of their feet,” deriving it from the word “struggle,” that there is room to question and argue and raise lines of thought different from those of the ancients, but the study must come מתוך הפנמה of the greatness of the ancients, which obligates us to examine their reasoning with great caution and not dismiss their words with “the thickness of a wheat stalk.”
Best regards, Shtz
Whereas you can explain why a triangle is not round, by definition (you have a definition of triangle and of circle), you cannot explain why murdering people is bad by definition (you have no definition of evil). You assume there is probably a definition of morality, but as long as you have not given a definition, and have not explained how murdering people contradicts that definition, you cannot say there is no other morality (no other what?)
I didn’t understand the question.
I explained in the column that the sentence “murder is bad” is like the sentence 2+3=5 or “a triangle is not round.” But implementations of that sentence (such as what counts as murder, and whom it is forbidden to kill, and the like) can vary under different circumstances and in different possible worlds.
Indeed it is more plausible that the good is not something external to the Holy One, blessed be He, but part of His nature, and that is exactly what I wrote in the column. But this is not connected only to Ockham’s razor, but to the definition of the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the fact that there should not be something besides Him that is independent of Him. What I wrote here is not that this is incorrect, but that this discussion does not seem to me to change anything for our purposes.
A small correction: just as I need not explain this, I need not explain that either. Have you ever heard an explanation of why murder is bad? I never in my life have heard such an explanation, and if someone tried, his words would be lame and incorrect/unconvincing. So why is there agreement about it? Because it follows from the definition of the good and requires no explanation.
And by the way, none of this depends on the existence of a definition. Even undefined concepts have meaning, and they too have consequences that derive from that meaning, even if you cannot formulate an argument that shows it. The assumption that an unformulated argument does not exist, or that an undefined concept has no meaning and nothing can be derived from it, is a baseless assumption (if only because definitions themselves always rely on a primitive system of concepts that are themselves undefined).
Rabbi Michi.
You wrote that one cannot be obligated to believe or think in a certain way, but in practice the vast majority of human beings do not try (or are not able) to investigate and prove every domain of their worldview. On the other hand, they live and guide their lives according to certain views (most decisions are not connected to the fulfillment of a commandment). Therefore there is importance in inculcating a worldview that will guide society, even if not everyone will be fully convinced by it. What is wrong with my relying on others, whom I regard as trustworthy and who have investigated the issue and whose opinion is close to the truth? Does that mean I cannot adopt their worldview?
That is the importance of studying Jewish thought. Beyond that, we are talking about many generations of sages who discussed the views of their predecessors and clarified them, and there is great value in that (somewhat analogous to a scientific community).
And still, one cannot obligate. If someone wants to rely on someone else — good health to him (though he of course chooses whom to rely on. In the end, you are always the one responsible for your views). My claim is that one cannot obligate someone who does not want to.
Beyond that, the same importance exists in studying general philosophy. There is nothing special about Jewish thought except that the thinkers are Jews. So what?
With God’s help, Motza’ei Shabbat “And let them make Me a sanctuary” 5780
To Eilon – greetings,
It seems to me that the distinction between “Jewish thought” and general philosophy is that Jewish thought is based not only on human judgment but also on things we received in the Torah. There are things that contemplation and investigation of reality can prove, but there are things we know only from the word of God revealed to us in the Written Torah and the transmitted tradition.
The thinkers whose thought is included in Jewish thought attached great importance to reason and logic, but many things we know only from the testimony of the Torah and the prophets. For example, Rambam writes about providence (Guide for the Perplexed, III:17) that it cannot be demonstrated by philosophical proof; our certainty of its existence comes from the testimony of the Torah and the prophets.
Likewise, principles of faith dealing with the future of Israel and the world cannot arise from research, which can teach us about the present and the past. But to know what the goal of the world is and where it is headed — only the Manufacturer can know, and only from what He revealed to us through the Torah and the prophets do we know that there will be redemption, a World to Come, and resurrection of the dead.
Thought based on the words of the Torah, the prophets, and the holy writings, and on their interpretation by the authorized “transmitters of the tradition” — that truly is “Jewish thought,” and the more the one engaged in it approaches the divine source with faith and loyalty, the greater his chances of hitting the truth..
With blessings for a good week,
Shtz
Hi Eilon,
A fascinating topic.
I think the position you are expressing here is more or less the opposite of Michi’s position, and in both cases these are problematic positions.
Whereas Michi insists on claiming that the concept “Jewish thought” is utterly meaningless (and only afterward, when it is shown to him that this is not only a matter of method but also of contents, does he retreat — he simply does not admit it), you choose to single out — and it seems to me also glorify — the “Israeli/Jewish” method. As though there were some special “Jewish” capacity for attaining truth (“the divine matter,” etc.), but I definitely think that whoever claims such a thing bears the burden of proof.
It is worth noting that the claim that there is a special “Jewish method” is a claim that can also be made by someone who does not possess those same special capacities — for example, someone who is not Jewish. In any case, such a claim — if it purports to be true (as in your view) — competes for its standing in the arena of universal reason, that is, in the field of philosophy.
So you have returned to the “regular” kind of debate in which you must defend your claim.
Quote: What is moral and what is not moral does not depend on the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, “but the moral obligation still requires God as a legislator who obligates this and gives morality validity.”
Quote (294): The matter is similar to someone who wonders what the connection is between the claim that murder is immoral and the prohibition against murder, or between the claim that helping another is a moral act and the claim that there is a moral duty to do so. Someone who raises these questions will not receive a good answer. It seems to me that if he wonders about this, he does not really accept or does not understand the claim that the act in question is moral. One who understands the meaning of the claim that act X is moral does not ask whether there is an obligation to do it.
Question: Is there not a contradiction here? If morality obligates in and of itself, why is there a need for validation from God?
What is the question? Morality originates from God, and one who understands what morality is is obligated by it.
Now I understand, thank you. I still have difficulty with the very need for a command. If morality exists and there is no possibility that it not exist, then there is no need to command it. That is also what the atheist says: it exists and obligates me without any command.
Who said there is no possibility that it not exist?
The Holy One, blessed be He, created/legislated morality exactly as He created the law of gravity. But unlike the law of gravity, which is grounded in observation, the validity of morality draws from God’s command.
There could be a different world in which there is no gravity and the relation between bodies is the reverse, such that they repel one another. Regarding morality, I understood you to be saying that it obligates even God, and there cannot be another world without it, just as there cannot be a square triangle. Does the fact that there is no square triangle require creation or legislation? I thought that according to your words it is the same with morality. From your answers to me I understand that you think I do not understand the point; I would be glad to understand.
In a world like ours this is apparently the ultimate morality. If one creates a world like ours, then apparently it is impossible that it have a different morality. But another world is possible in which the rules of morality are different, or in which there is no morality. And even in our world, the moral rule has no validity unless there is a command/legislator behind it.
“Bread of shame” as an absolute ethical principle:
If this is not a psychological matter but an ethical one, then why are there commandments only for human beings and not for the other creatures? After all, this is an absolute ethical principle, and it is ethically improper that they receive good without effort on their part.
And whether this is a psychological matter or an ethical one — why should there be differences in commandments among human beings (priest, Levite, Israelite, woman, slave, gentile)? If there is a need to exert oneself in order to receive good from God, then why is one person obligated in only 7 commandments for this and another in 450?
And in general, there were and are people (gentiles and Jews alike) throughout history who never even heard about the existence of God and His commandments. How can bread of shame even be solved for them??
I did not understand the question. What does “a psychological matter” versus “an ethical matter” mean? I also do not understand what it means to command other creatures, who are not beings with free choice. You can program them, but not command them in the usual sense.
But your premise in the discussion is that the whole purpose of the commandments is to prevent bread of shame. In my opinion this is nonsense — illogical and without basis. Whoever invented this on his own invented it from his own reasoning (a very dubious one), and even he did not necessarily say that this is the entire purpose of the commandments. Therefore this discussion seems to me completely unnecessary.
Thank you for the answer… I agree with you.
What is your actual reason for saying that bread of shame is not the purpose?
Why should it be? From where does it follow that this is the reason? It is just an invention.
Note: “He who hates gifts shall live” is a verse in Proverbs.