Rape in the Time of Battle: Jewish Law and Morality (Column 15)

Fox:
[As an aside – in the quotation on Wikipedia (English), it says only that one must allow surrender by a paratrooper who has bailed out of an aircraft in distress.]
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Rabbi:
Thank you. I now saw that indeed this is permitted, and what is forbidden is shooting at a pilot who has ejected and is no longer taking part in the fighting. See here:https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%9F_%D7%91%D7%90%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A8אם because here too, at the beginning of the entry, it is described as drawing inspiration from a practice of chivalry.

Yonatan Levin:
How can one say that raping a woman is a halakhic prohibition like meat and milk? After all, the Torah explicitly said about this: “For as when a man rises against his fellow and murders him, so is this matter.”
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Rabbi:
Hello Yonatan. 1. This comparison does not necessarily refer to the severity of the transgression, but rather to the permission to kill the pursuer. And as is known, that permission does not necessarily depend on the gravity of the offense. 2. Even if this is a severe prohibition, it is still a halakhic prohibition and not a moral one. In fact, the very comparison you brought in your words to the law of the pursuer hints that this is not a moral prohibition. After all, the case there is a betrothed maiden, not a pursuer coming to rape just any woman. If the injury were to the raped woman, what room would there be for such a distinction? Seemingly this is a pursuit of prohibition, and as is known, Rashi’s view in Sanhedrin is that the permission to harm the pursuer is to prevent him from committing a transgression. There is much to elaborate on here, but this is not the place.
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Oren:
According to the view of Rashi you mentioned regarding the permission to harm a pursuer, what would the law be concerning harming a pursuer who is exempt from the commandments (a deaf-mute, an incompetent person, or a minor)?
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Rabbi:
That is exactly what I wrote that I am not entering into due to lack of space. It seems to me that Rashi’s words cannot be interpreted literally for several reasons, especially the law of a pursuing minor or incompetent person (which is indeed disputed among the Amoraim, but halakhically it is ruled that the law of pursuer applies here). In my opinion, Rashi adds this consideration beyond the consideration of saving the pursued person and imposing punishment on the pursuer as if he were a murderer (as can be seen from the law of “kim lei be-rabba minei,” which applies to a pursuer). But that requires entering into the details of the sugya, and this is not the place.

Hizki Deren:
Thank you for the well-reasoned article. As a side note, there were several more in-depth discussions on Facebook. I assume that does not satisfy you, and rightly so. As for the matter itself, the Torah also makes clear (through juxtaposition) that it is not pleased (morally?) with the deed of the beautiful captive. If the basis of the halakhic permission is preservation of life (as with forbidden foods), and not as seems from the plain meaning of Rashi’s wording, why is there a need for a separate permission and a separate passage?
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Rabbi:
Hello Hizki. First, to my shame I am not on Facebook, so I did not see what was happening there. In my remarks I meant the discourse in the public media and among public figures. I did not understand the question. The basis of the permission is not ordinary pikuach nefesh, for otherwise there would be no need for juxtaposition or for a verse permitting it (the Tannaim in the sugya in Yoma also did not bring a source from here that pikuach nefesh overrides Shabbat). The permission can be understood in one of two ways: 1. A more indirect form of pikuach nefesh (that there is a remote danger that they will not win the war. Within the normal parameters of pikuach nefesh this would not permit prohibitions, but public law is different). 2. A concession to people in severe distress, where they are permitted to violate prohibitions (somewhat like the permission for the blood avenger to kill the murderer, according to the view that it is optional and not a commandment).

Itamar:
What about halakhic rulings that apparently stem from moral considerations, such as Rabbi Akiva, who interpreted the verse regarding a menstruant in a way that she would not become repulsive to her husband?
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Rabbi:
Who says this is a moral consideration? The value of relations between husband and wife is also a halakhic value. Beyond that, I am not claiming that there are no moral halakhot, only that not all halakhot have to be such. The separation is principled, but it is certainly possible that within several options that halakhah allows, if indeed there are such, we choose one because it is the most moral. But the very contradiction between halakhah and morality should not trouble us.

A Simple Person:
A nice and interesting article, but I have a few comments/questions.
A. You assume, and rightly so, that there is no [tight or at least necessary] connection between halakhah and morality. In light of what is known today in Jewish studies, and as far as I know you agree with this as well, the halakhah as we have it before us is the result of standardization [you also refer several times to the book of Yitzhak Gilat], meaning that the Written Torah as it is is not really a set of law codes, but rather principled “meta-instructions,” a kind of “constitution,” from which halakhah can, should, and must be developed into the detailed cases that arise in every generation. After this distinction, it is difficult to draw the line between halakhah and morality, since the Written Torah at its core is not like that, but is more morality than halakhah; its style is not halakhic/codificatory, and therefore it is easier and more convincing to see it as a book that shapes morality than as a book that shapes halakhah.
B. The other books of the Prophets and Writings are clearly moral books; they were written primarily to inculcate morality. Even Hazal would readily admit that the books of the Prophets were not mainly intended for halakhic study. [The number of halakhot learned from them is very small compared to the Written Torah, and those halakhot mostly come as supportive or auxiliary midrash.] This view of the Prophets and Writings teaches us something about the Torah itself too, does it not?
C. Many times the Torah itself gives halakhic verses a moral meaning, such as the prohibition against destroying fruit trees in war: “for man is the tree of the field… and from it you shall eat.” Observing Shabbat: “so that your ox and your servant may rest – like you.” Likewise, moral matters are woven throughout the verses, moral matters not tied to halakhic verses, such as the story of Abraham and Sodom, Abraham’s need to pray for them; Moses seeing the sufferings of his brothers, etc. My question: do not all these teach us that even halakhic verses serve to advance moral values?
In addition, one cannot deny that many of the Torah’s commandments have many moral advantages compared to what was customary in that generation, such as forcing a day of rest, the prohibition of taking the young from the nest, preventing animal suffering, the prohibition against sacrificing a son to Molech, the proper treatment of a slave and maidservant, and the like. These halakhot were undoubtedly meant to advance values that the Torah desires. Does this not teach us also about commandments in which no moral reason is mentioned? And does this not teach us, at the very least, that there cannot be commandments whose essence is blatantly immoral?
D. There is no doubt about it, and this is how humanity has worked throughout history, that laws and norms shape the outlook of a people. Jurists [more accurately judges] like to say that the norm of law does not reflect the current morality and level of the people, but rather what they should strive for and what ought to be. Is it not right to say this also about the laws of the Torah, that it too comes to shape a certain moral norm? No doubt kinds of halakhot such as purity, agriculture, festivals, and the like are not for the sake of universal morality [although in my opinion they must have some purpose and benefit for the individual or society, but that is not necessarily called morality], but what about laws of monetary damages or laws of war? Can one detach halakhah from morality there?
In the end, I would have preferred more local explanations, in the style of what you wrote: it was moral for their time; it is not moral but there is no choice. But to detach halakhah [or the verses of the Torah] from morality seems a bit too contrived. It is not for nothing that most rabbis do not accept this. The basic human intuition is that this is not right. True, not everyone has studied logic and can jump and translate their feelings into writing, but this is the simple feeling people have when they read Torah and halakhah. In a case like ours, which is a clear matter of interpretation of verses and halakhah, regarding the intention of the giver of the Torah I am inclined to accept the opinion of the common people over that of learned philosophers, since in the end the author intended to give the book to the simple public so they would understand it, and that is how it is simply understood.
In other words: you opened by saying that you do not accept apologetic explanations, and it seems to me that what you did is a kind of apologetics, just somewhat more sophisticated?
In any event, an interesting and well-written article.
I would be glad for a response.
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Rabbi:
Hello, Simple Person. A. I will not enter here into interpretation of Scripture, since our tradition long ago moved away from it. It seems to me that my description is correct within the accepted halakhic conception. What is the meaning of Scripture itself? That can be debated. B. I do not think so. The Torah is commands of the Holy One, blessed be He (this is the assumption behind Rabbi Moshe ha-Darshan’s question in Rashi’s very first comment, that the Torah should contain only commands). The books of the Prophets do not deal with halakhah and commands. On the contrary, our halakhic tradition teaches that a prophet is not permitted to innovate anything from now on. C. It may be that in certain cases halakhah contains moral elements. Each example must be discussed on its own merits. Still, the categorical distinction remains in place. Clearly the non-halakhic parts of the Torah also contain moral matters, but that is not what I was discussing. These parts do not command us, and therefore we are not obligated by them in their normative sense. They are more a source of inspiration than a source of authority. I do not see how the similarity between certain commandments and moral values teaches that there cannot be commandments that are blatantly immoral. I did not understand that argument. D. You have no doubt, but I in my poverty have great doubt about it (to put it mildly). I do not know which jurists you are quoting, but as far as I understand, the situation is exactly the opposite: law does not establish utopian norms but, on the contrary, only minimal norms for which it is appropriate to punish are included in the law books. Norms beyond the minimum are not entered into the law books (see the debates in the Knesset over the law, “Do not stand by your fellow’s blood”).
In the laws of monetary damages and war there is partial overlap, and still in my opinion they must be detached from morality. That itself is what I tried to explain in my remarks. I do not know what the point of disagreement between us is. Do you see the moral consideration in the rule that for goring one pays half damages, or that for fire one is exempt in certain cases, or that for a pit one is exempt for damage to vessels? I have seen attempts at explanation; they are really not convincing. Not to mention the law of “constraining” and indirect causation in killing, etc. Do all these indicate identity between halakhah and morality? Exactly the opposite is true.
I am sorry that I have to spoil your joy. But what can I do? In my opinion those local explanations are not sufficient and are not correct. In my opinion those who do not detach halakhah from morality are simplistic thinkers and unable to understand that there is a normative category outside morality, and this does not in any way impair moral commitment. Everyone understands that there is a full moral obligation to return a lost object even after despair of recovery (see the article of mine I linked to), and yet halakhic law exempts one from doing so. Why? If morality shapes halakhah, there should have been identity, no?

Oren:
It seems to me there is a grammatical mistake in a sentence near the end of the article: “This is not a deep enough motive to entrust him with power and influence over actual conduct, and certainly not to entrust him with responsibility for educating our youth”; it seems to me it should be corrected to: “This is a deep enough motive not to entrust him with power…” Correct me if I’m wrong.
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Rabbi:
No. I meant to say that his reason for reservation, namely that it is not applicable nowadays for technical reasons, is not a deep enough reason, and therefore one can still understand someone who objects to entrusting him with an educational role.

Oren:
Regarding separating halakhah from morality, apparently all moral commandments become superfluous after such a separation (for murder, for example, is forbidden anyway because of its moral aspect). If so, together with the three reasons you mentioned in the article in the section “Why halakhah does not enter the moral plane,” why does the Torah nevertheless bother to write these prohibitions and not suffice with commandments like shatnez and kilayim? Regarding the legal plane you mentioned, why is there any need to define such a plane at all? Normatively, isn’t the halakhic and moral plane enough to cover all prohibitions/obligations? Regarding the concept of a “legal prohibition,” what is the source of its authority, what is its force, and is there any connection between it and halakhah or morality? You wrote in the section “A look from another angle on raping captive women” that morality must yield to considerations of survival. But elsewhere you mentioned that there is a rule of “be killed rather than transgress” wherever there is injury to another’s rights (for example, stealing from a gentile).
In your article on the right and left’s attitude toward racism, you discussed harm to innocents during a targeted killing and justified it by viewing the Palestinian people as a collective. Why here too can we not justify harming women by viewing the people against whom one is fighting as a collective (assuming the harm helps the fighters’ morale or welfare)?
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Rabbi:
Why superfluous? They come to add a halakhic dimension on top of the moral dimension. As I wrote, there are also practical ramifications between the dimensions (such as causing murder), sometimes leniently and sometimes stringently. R. Shimon Shkop’s civil law is part of morality. The social covenant underlying morality obligates a person to behave according to the rules of his society, particularly the legal rules of property ownership. The question about being killed rather than transgress in the case of theft is a good question. It should be noted, however, that according to most poskim this is not correct (only according to Rashi in Bava Kamma 60b and Responsa Binyan Tzion). But beyond that, where the Torah itself permits it, then of course it is permitted. After all, the Torah also obligates killing one who desecrates Shabbat or worships idols, and also killing myself rather than transgress the three cardinal sins. Only where the Torah did not speak does the consideration of Rashi and Binyan Tzion apply, that one may not violate another’s rights at any price. I did not understand your last question. That itself is what I wrote at the end of my remarks: if the matter is necessary in order to win the war, there is certainly room to permit it.
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Oren:
Regarding adding a halakhic dimension, why add another dimension to something already forbidden anyway? I’ll try to illustrate the question with a parable: Let us imagine a “father” who tells his son the following demands: 1. I demand that you be a moral person. 2. Do not steal from your brother. 3. I specifically permit you to steal from your sisters in times of distress. 4. Three times a day I want you to call me and ask how I am. It seems to me that the very acceptance of the father’s demands stems from a moral consideration (listen to your father who created you; correct me if I’m wrong). So it is difficult to understand why there is any need to state demand no. 1 (“and you shall do what is right and good”), because were the son not to recognize the moral obligation, he would not accept the father’s demands either (for the acceptance of his demands rests on a moral consideration). It is hard to see why demand no. 2 needs to be stated if it is included in no. 1. (That is, it is hard to see why one must mention the halakhic dimension of “do not steal,” if the Torah already stated “and you shall do what is right and good,” thereby giving a halakhic dimension to the moral plane.)
Clearly, demand 3 took demand 1 into account and permitted stealing from the sisters despite the moral demand. As in the case of the binding of Isaac, you mentioned somewhere that despite the prohibition of murder, God made an exception and told Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering, so clearly the exception overrides the general prohibition (likewise with the commandment to wipe out Amalek, and in general with positive commandments that override negative ones). In addition, from the fact that the father has a kind of “creator’s ownership” over his offspring, he can permit (morally) the stealing from the sisters. Seemingly it emerges from here that the permission concerning the beautiful captive woman is a permission on the moral plane too (when God permitted her blood, and it is His right to do so because He created her).
Demand 4 is the only one that apparently does not touch the moral plane, but in fact demand 4 also belongs to the moral realm, because from the moment the father commanded it, there is a moral consideration to obey the one who created you and do his will. Thus one can in effect place all halakhic values as moral values, and the halakhic system as a subset within the moral system.
As for the prohibition on stealing from nephews, which was not explicitly mentioned as part of the demands, that indeed falls under demand no. 1.
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Regarding the last question, I mean a situation in which there is no life-threatening danger (if there were, then the whole discussion would be superfluous, as would the Torah’s permission). Suppose we are dealing with a war that we will certainly win even without raping a beautiful captive woman, and yet if we relate to the opposing people as one body, then there is no such thing as uninvolved persons, and seemingly it is permitted to harm every part of the body, both those who fight (the hands) and those who do not (the belly), because in war everything is permitted. Is that not so?
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Rabbi:
One needs to add a halakhic dimension in order to make this a halakhic prohibition and not merely a moral one. This has two important aspects: 1. Practical significance: as I mentioned, usually there is a practical difference between the halakhic and moral prohibition. 2. The very fact that now it is forbidden both halakhically and morally is important. That is simply the truth, even if it has no practical consequence whatsoever. The prohibitions reflect halakhic truth, and they are not intended only to achieve practical results (to prevent crime).
Beyond that, you assume that obedience to God is founded on a moral duty. I do not agree. The duty of obedience is not necessarily morality. See about this at the end of the fifth notebook and in my article on gratitude here (which is hinted at in your words):
mikyab.net/כתבים/מאמרים/הכרת-טובה-בין-מוסר-לאונטולוגיה/
God’s right to make exceptions to moral prohibitions proves only that He can, not that He in fact did so. My claim is that there is no exception to morality here, only to halakhah. Indeed, if He had done so (as I wrote regarding a raped priest’s wife), then He truly could do so. There is no argument about that. As for your clarification, I again repeat that this is exactly what I wrote at the end of the piece. When the matter is necessary for victory in war, I argued there that indeed it is permitted to do so.
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Oren:
In the clarification I wrote about a case where the rape is not necessary for victory in war. And even though there is no necessity at all, the question is whether the very treatment of the opposing people as a collective would justify harming all its parts (both those who are involved and those who are not). One can compare this to plundering the conquered people: in a case where the plunder is not necessary for the war effort, would we still say that it is permitted to loot them?
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Rabbi:
The answer is no. Even in the ordinary law of a pursuer there is no permission to kill him if one can save oneself by injuring one of his limbs. So too with a collective pursuer: true, all the individuals are the limbs of the pursuer, but there is no permission to kill if it can be done without that. If you can be saved without harming the uninvolved, then it is forbidden to do so. Defining them as pursuers allows killing them if this is required in order to win. That and no more. See about this in my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%99%D7%91%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%98-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%9C%D7%9C-%D7%95%D7%93/

Oren:
Regarding the moral symmetry you mentioned in note 2, it is written in the Rambam’s Commentary on the Mishnah: “If a case arises between a Jew and a gentile, then the manner of judgment between them is as I shall explain to you: if according to their laws we have an advantage, we judge them according to their laws and say to them, ‘Thus are your laws’; and if it is better for us to judge according to our laws, we judge them according to our laws and say to them, ‘Thus are our laws.’ And let this matter not be difficult in your eyes, nor wonder at it, just as you do not wonder at the slaughter of animals, even though they have done no wrong, because one who has not been perfected in human traits is not truly a human being, and his end is only for man; and discussion of this matter requires a separate book.”
Seemingly it appears from here that the Rambam explains that there is specifically moral asymmetry (and not moral symmetry).
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Rabbi:
Here, then, is the source from the Commentary on the Mishnah that I mentioned in the previous response. I see in the Rambam exactly the opposite. There is moral symmetry, and therefore when they do not behave morally, we too do not have to behave that way toward them. That is why he writes that their status is like animals, because of their behavior and not because they are gentiles per se. And after all, his source is precisely the gemara of “He saw and released the nations” – He arose and permitted their property to Israel. Already in the gemara one sees that this permission is not because of their being gentiles but because of their behavior. And that is what the Rambam writes in the passage you quoted, exactly as in the Commentary on the Mishnah that I referred you to regarding returning lost objects, etc.
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Oren:
It is interesting to note that the Rambam in Laws of Monetary Damages, chapter 8, halakhah 5, writes a somewhat different explanation:
“If an ox belonging to a Jew gored an ox belonging to a gentile, whether innocuous or forewarned, he is exempt, because the gentiles do not hold a person liable for damage caused by his animal, and we judge them according to their laws. But if an ox belonging to a gentile gored an ox belonging to a Jew, whether innocuous or forewarned, he pays full damages. This is a fine imposed on the gentiles, because they are not careful in observing the commandments and do not remove sources of harm; and if you do not obligate them for the damages of their animal, they will not guard it, and they will cause loss to people’s property.”

The Meiri adds that this fine applies only to nations that were not careful with the seven Noahide commandments and had no legal system, and it does not apply to them after they instituted laws of justice and righteousness.

Oren:
In tractate Bava Kamma 38a it says: If an ox belonging to a Jew gored an ox belonging to a Canaanite – he is exempt. They said: whichever way you look at it, if “his fellow” is exact, then when the Canaanite’s ox gores that of a Jew he too should be exempt! And if “his fellow” is not exact, then even when a Jew’s ox gores that of a Canaanite he should be liable! Rabbi Abbahu said: Scripture says, “He stood and measured the earth, He saw and released the nations”; He saw the seven commandments that the descendants of Noah had accepted upon themselves, and once they did not keep them, He arose and permitted their property to Israel. Rabbi Yohanan said, from here: “He shone forth from Mount Paran” – from Paran He made their property appear for Israel.
Seemingly from the plain meaning of the gemara it appears there is no distinction between the moral and halakhic aspect. It seems that the Holy One permitted the property of the gentiles to Israel (in all planes). In general, how would you explain this gemara in light of your conception that separates morality and halakhah?
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Rabbi:
According to R. Shimon Shkop, it seems the gemara would be interpreted like this: because of the moral aspect, the halakhic clause was nullified. It may be that the moral prohibition was nullified as well, since the gentiles too do not uphold morality and morality is supposed to be symmetrical. Like the Rambam I mentioned from the Commentary on the Mishnah to Bava Kamma 37b. Incidentally, it seems to me that the Rambam in the Commentary on the Mishnah writes similar things about this mishnah too (but I have not checked now).

Rani:
Just one point concerning Rav Karim’s answer:
In his answer he does not say at all what is quoted in his name: “sexual intercourse with attractive gentile women against their will.”
He was asked how the Torah permitted the beautiful captive woman, and he answers (in the paragraph dealing with the matter after explaining that matters of forbidden foods were permitted): “So too war overrides certain aspects of sexual prohibitions, even though joining with a gentile woman is a very severe matter; nevertheless it was permitted in war (under the conditions under which it was permitted), out of consideration for the fighters’ hardships, since the success of the war stands before our eyes. The Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil inclination under the conditions it permitted, for the sake of the success of the collective.”
1. He is not speaking at all about our own times; he is answering a questioner who directly asked how the Torah permitted it.
2. He does not address at all what exactly the Torah permitted and under what conditions, but explains in general why the Torah did not forbid it.
I assume that what he later apologized for was simply that he dared to answer the questioner without qualifying it with the politically correct caveats customary today (and as there on the Kipa website they have now added a caveat to the remarks).
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Rabbi:
As I answered the questioner above, I did not check the answer in its original source but referred to the things quoted in quotation marks in the article. In the quotation the words “against their will” appear in quotation marks. If there is an error in the quotation, let him sue them for libel and distortion. Here is the quotation (which I brought in my remarks): “To satisfy the evil inclination through intercourse with attractive gentile women against their will, out of consideration for the fighters’ hardships and for the sake of the success of the collective.” Incidentally, halakhically this is not precise. The Rambam explicitly says it is not necessarily with attractive women (as the gemara itself also states).
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Rabbi:
And another note. This caveat is required irrespective of political correctness. If he too agrees that this halakhah does not apply today, he should have stated that for the sake of practical halakhic precision, not for the sake of Zehava Galon. Does he not fear that soldiers might want to act according to the Torah’s eternal guidelines, supposedly relevant to every time and place?
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Rani:
Since direct criticism of Rav Karim is still being heard, I will respond:
1. He did not mention at all “attractive women”; I assume the reporter inferred this from the mention of “a beautiful woman.”
I assume he can sue them for distorting his words, although in my opinion that would be a waste of unnecessary energy and resources.
2. I do not think he needed to fear that soldiers would act this way, for several reasons:
– The Torah does not instruct one to do this at all, it merely does not forbid it. I do not think there are opinions that this is a commandment, and therefore if something is not forbidden in the Torah but is severely forbidden by the law, I see no reason to fear that people will do it (just as we do not see the blood avenger today, where there are even opinions that it is a commandment).
– He did not specify what the Torah permitted, only wrote that the Torah permitted it under the conditions it permitted. Nowhere was it stated what was permitted and how, and the discussion is entirely theoretical.
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Rabbi:
I already wrote that the words are presented as a quotation in quotation marks, and that is what I referred to. If he said something else and the quotation falsifies it, then my remarks should be taken on their own merits and not as criticism of Rav Karim.

Avitar:
Hello. First, thank you for the well-reasoned article. Interesting as always. I wanted to ask something not necessarily related to the issue of the beautiful captive woman, but more to your general approach to halakhah and morality. You often write that our criticism is anachronistic – these are דברים written by people who lived in a world with completely different moral norms, and therefore the criticism is unjustified. That is, you are claiming that parts of the Torah (or most of it?) were not given from heaven. My question is: then from where does our obligation to keep these things come? If much of the halakhah we are commanded with today comes from passages written by human beings, why do we need to observe them? I heard a lecture of yours in which you argued that the obligation comes from the fact that we were commanded to observe the commandments at Mount Sinai. But if most of the commands were invented long after Mount Sinai… why should they be observed? I hope you understand what I mean.
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Rabbi:
Hello Avitar. I understood very well what you meant, and I will try to address it briefly. When I say that the criticism is anachronistic, this can be interpreted in two ways: 1. The values of the Torah are outdated and do not fit what happens today. 2. The Sages’ interpretation of the Torah’s verses is outdated and does not fit what happens today. I was speaking about no. 2, and when I brought no. 1 I emphasized that it has a problem in relation to the eternity of the Torah. You ask why one should obey the Sages’ interpretation. Here my answer is that authenticity is not a condition for obligation. I am not obligated to a halakhic detail because it descended from Sinai or because God commanded it. Most of the details we have do not come from there, but from the interpretation of the sages of the generations. The Torah was given on the understanding that we would interpret it, and that is what binds us. This is one of the lessons of the aggadah about the Oven of Akhnai: even though a heavenly voice came forth from heaven, the Sages did not accept it because they followed their own opinion. Would it enter your mind that the heavenly voice erred? That God got confused? No. The truth was with the heavenly voice, but we are not obligated to what God wants; we are obligated to the interpretation we give to what we received from Him at Sinai. Therefore, even commands that were given (really, it is more accurate to say: interpreted) long after Mount Sinai are binding. Of course, they bind only because of that event itself, as I explained. Yet the Sages’ interpretation, even if it is binding, is human and exposed to errors and to the influence of the times. Therefore, the responsibility falls on us to understand what within it requires adaptation to the times, both from considerations of authority (do we have the authority to do so?) and considerations of substance (is it right to do so?). But that is a sugya that requires separate consideration.

Ulai:
Interesting article! There is a lot to respond to, but I will comment on only two matters (and I ask sincerely, not attacking):
A) I very much hope there was an editing error and that Rav Karim’s words on the Kipa website were checked. I do not feel comfortable when I hear such rulings, without deep explanation and without guidance that this is “the law, but one does not instruct thus.” However, from what I checked on the Kipa website where his answer was published, he never wrote the words “without their consent”/”rape.” Those words are a lie and falsehood and a very serious defamation. He answered what he answered, not as a practical halakhic ruling but as an explanation of why the Torah permitted the law of the beautiful captive woman, and it does not seem like a military instruction to act accordingly.
B) Why is there halakhah?! Does it not have a purpose? One can agree and accept that there is a distinction between halakhah and morality and they certainly do not overlap (perhaps they intersect at times). Still, we must answer the question: why does halakhah instruct a certain thing? Is there no logic in the words of God who commands His commandments? Are they completely arbitrary? It seems to me that this is the reason for those seeking overlap between halakhah and morality and vice versa – to seek meaning and logic for their daily actions, so that they will not be detached from their souls. Is there another solution? According to your approach, it seems there is indeed no “expounding reasons for the commandments,” because they do not necessarily exist… and we need to accept the Creator’s decree and fulfill His commandments because that is what He commanded – with no reason or logic at all (except where the reason for the command is explicitly written). [I will mention that once Rabbi Breuer zt”l said that he envied some professor who claimed that the Exodus from Egypt never happened in reality but is only a story the Torah tells us. They asked him: why envy him? One should pity him! Rabbi Breuer answered: “If I did not believe in the Exodus from Egypt, I would never have remained religious. But he does not believe, and still observes the commandments, minor and major alike. I envy him.” So perhaps happy are those who walk in the commandments of the Lord and keep His word; and perhaps fortunate are you too, Rabbi Avraham, that you went in the path of a great man.)
If so –
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Rabbi:
A. I hope so too. I assumed what was quoted. I did not check his words at their source on the Kipa website. I referred to the quotations in quotation marks brought in the article, and there it says “against their will.” If that is not true, let him sue Walla. But if you have a link, please post it here. But even if this is merely an explanation of the law of the beautiful captive woman, it is very important to clarify and explain whether this law is relevant to our time or not, and why. B. You are begging the question. Your assumption is that a purpose must necessarily be moral. That is not so, and that itself is my claim. There are other purposes too, and I called them religious purposes. Therefore, when there is no moral purpose, that does not mean there is no purpose. I brought several examples, such as the obligation of a priest’s wife who was raped to separate from her husband. Do you see a moral explanation here? Then why does the Torah obligate it? I also brought in one of my responses the example of returning a lost object after despair of recovery. Clearly morality requires this, and the gemara says so explicitly (and it is ruled so in Rambam and Shulhan Arukh). So why does halakhah not obligate it under the basic law of returning lost property? Necessarily there is a difference between moral rationales and halakhic rationales. The same is true in the general legal system, and I brought as an example the debate in the Knesset over the law “Do not stand by your fellow’s blood.” Even the opponents agreed it was a proper law in value and morality. Yet they refused to put it into the legal system and impose sanctions for it.
As for your compliments, I will only say that one who observes the commandments because they are the most moral is in trouble: 1. This is self-deception, because it does not stand the test, as can be seen from the examples above. If so, this is a transaction made in error and his commandments are void (performed because of a mistake). 2. I indeed would remain obligated even if the Exodus from Egypt never happened at all. Revelation at Sinai is another matter. I addressed this in my review of Rabbi Kula’s book, “Was It or Was It Not?” See here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%95-%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%99-%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%99-%D7%91/
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Rani:
Attached is a link to Rav Karim’s original answer:
http://www.kipa.co.il/ask/show/17251-%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%AA-%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%90%D7%A8-%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94

Dor:
Hello, a fascinating article as usual. 1. You claim that morality by definition is universal. Why? Does that mean it is also objectively true? Let me explain: as you mentioned, the human intuition in biblical times was that women were ornamental objects and objects of pleasure. Can one at all speak of correctness with respect to intuitions? And if it is subjective, why must it be universal? Is it not possible that moral intuition would command a favorable or unfavorable discriminatory attitude toward part of the world? And by what tools can one critique morality at all? 2. And if it is objective, how can one say that the Torah spoke to their time? The Torah is supposed to shape morality as it truly is. (If objective truth applies to it.) Thank you for your articles; may there be many like you in the world of Jewish halakhah. There is an enormous shortage!
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Rabbi:
Hello Dor. You are raising fundamental and general questions about morality. Is there at all an objective and binding morality or not? In my remarks I assumed that there is, and everything I wrote should be read from that point of departure. Why do I think so? I explained this in my book True but Unstable, in chapters 15 and 19 as I recall, and also somewhat in the fourth notebook on the site, in the third section. If these are subjective principles, then there is no room for moral criticism at all. Each person has his own morality. So what sense is there in making moral judgments? Everyone is by definition righteous, for he acts on the basis of his moral understanding. And from the Torah’s perspective, it commands “and you shall do what is right and good”; according to your view this is an empty command. When I say morality is universal, I do not mean that it does not change from society to society and from time to time. Those changes only testify that we do not always understand what the correct morality is, but to conclude from that a relativistic conclusion is a logical mistake. In fact it is a naturalistic fallacy, since you infer a normative conclusion (there are no binding moral rules) from a factual premise (there is a difference between moral conceptions in different societies). When I come to the conclusion that X is a moral duty or moral prohibition, for me that means that every person in the world ought to act that way, and that I ought to act that way toward every person in the world. This is the universality I was speaking about. Is that certain? Of course not. How can a person be sure of anything?! The question is whether one can reach a conclusion about what the correct morality is. In my opinion yes, but not with certainty. Still, all our lives we act under conditions of uncertainty and make decisions according to the best of our understanding. Morality is no exception. As I wrote, the Torah does not shape morality but commands us to be moral. We carve the rules of morality out from within ourselves, not from the Torah. The Torah mainly comes to command halakhot. Everything beyond that is second class, as can be seen from Rabbi Moshe ha-Darshan’s question in Rashi’s first comment on the Torah (that the Torah should contain only commands, and everything beyond that requires explanation). There is more to elaborate on here, and with God’s help I will do so in the theology book I am now writing.

Elhanan:
What does the rabbi mean by “religious purposes”? What point is there in obeying a law without a reason (indeed, what is the reason)? Thank you very much for the interesting article.
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Rabbi:
Each case on its own merits. For example, in the case of a priest’s wife who was raped, the reason is apparently preserving the sanctity of the priesthood. I do not understand why continuing life with him harms that, but that is what the Torah says, and its words are trustworthy to me here. This is a purpose that is not moral, but it is a Torah or religious value. So too regarding the other cases (such as not returning a lost object after despair of recovery, and the other examples I brought). In many cases I do not understand these purposes, but that is not enough for me to conclude that at the root of the commandment in question there are no religious purposes (whose connection to the commandment I do not see).

Tz.:
Rabbi Michi, hello. In the spirit of the well-known Gashash song, when the fanfare of the festivals burst forth, regarding the matter above I knew the rabbi would respond. Who am I, etc., but the rabbi’s interpretation is pleasant and acceptable. And had the whole matter come only in order to receive words of Torah from the rabbi, even in the bein hazmanim, it would have been enough for us. As the rabbi said, when a rabbi goes into exile, his yeshiva goes with him. I fear to open my mouth, but in my humble opinion Rav Karim erred in another respect: seemingly contrary to the explicit mishnah of “one does not expound” these words were not said in the Bar-Ilan kollel but on the website called “Kipa,” which is open to all. One mistake leads to another. Avtalyon says: Sages, be careful with your words. With due respect.
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Rabbi:
As is known, halakhot of “one does not instruct so” appear in Rambam and in the Gemara and in the Shulhan Arukh. So your question is not on Rav Karim. In practice, in my opinion it is not right to conceal things, since today everything is open. On the contrary, it is better to discuss matters openly but carefully explain their theoretical and practical meaning in a substantive and convincing way. And as for all the beasts around who bellow, there is no need to get excited. If they do not bellow about this, they will bellow about something else.

Yagil Henkin:
There is no prohibition in the laws of war against shooting paratroopers in the air. This is a legend, presumably connected to the fact that it is forbidden to shoot at a descending pilot who no longer poses a danger. But combat paratroopers may certainly be fired upon.
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Rabbi:
Hello Yagil.
That was already pointed out above, and I accepted it. There was an interesting addition that one must allow paratroopers in the air to surrender (isn’t that true of every soldier?). I do not really understand exactly how this is done. Do you shout to them through a megaphone? Do they land with a white flag?
In any case, I am throwing out a random example for the principle I was dealing with.

Just a Simple Jew:
A] The rabbi did not explain, or at least did not emphasize, whether the non-halakhic moral obligation, as the rabbi presented it, is also directed by the Torah toward the service of God, except that it has no halakhic boundaries and criteria and also no halakhic essence, only a moral one; or whether morality is an atheistic category, which even for one who believes in God is not affected by the value of serving God but is a separate value that the value of serving God sometimes overrides.
B] The argument itself against “Jewish morality” is not sufficiently clear, for even in matters of morality there is a concept of relying on the expert ethicist [although in my eyes this is strange: if morality concerns feelings, why in other feelings such as love or disgust does consulting an expert have no significance? Apparently the intuition of morality points to its objective existence and not a subjective one, but this is not the place to elaborate], so why should we not rely on the wisdom of the great sage, God.

More power to you for enriching Jewish thought and worldview; may there be many like you in Israel.
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Rabbi:
A. Neither this nor that. Morality is not an atheistic category, and as I showed in the fourth notebook, third section, it cannot be such. There is no atheistic morality. Beyond that, if it had a separate source, obligation to morality would amount to idolatry in partnership (obligation to another factor besides God). That is, morality too is the will of God, and He indicates it in “and you shall do what is right and good.” On the other hand, it is not directed by the Torah. The Torah assumes that we understand it ourselves (it does not explain what is right and good, and apparently relies on our conscience). I do not know what is meant by “influenced by the value of serving God.” As I wrote, morality is universal by definition.
B. There are no experts in morality. At most there are people more skilled in moral analysis. I would rely on the wisdom of the “great sage” if he bothered to tell me something. But he did not. His words do not teach me what the correct morality is, and I explained above why.
Morality is not a feeling (see in the notebook and the section mentioned), yet still there are no experts in it.
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Just a Simple Jew:
[I did not understand why my ability to respond appears before the rabbi’s response.]
I got more confused. Morality, of course, is universal, meaning the feeling that determines not to harm and even to give to another is not clearly influenced by the fact that there is a God. It is a fact that atheists too are moral; likewise it is a fact that people tend to rely on authority in matters of morality. The rabbi can only argue that it is foolish and crooked not to harm a person if there is no God, or to rely on authority in these matters. That itself is already a moral judgment. But the fact remains.
Why is it so obvious that any additional value is idolatry in partnership? As long as the value does not determine subservience to the object of value but rather giving to it and not harming it, I do not understand. Perhaps because value is total, as Leibowitz said. I do not think the rabbi is one of his followers.
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Rabbi:
Simple Jew,
That is how the software is built: responding to any thread is done by clicking “Reply” on the first message in the thread.
Atheists are not moral; they merely behave nicely. And if not, then they are implicit believers (unaware of their belief). See at length on this in the fourth notebook, section C. In general, morality is not a fact, and there is no fact that such-and-such people are moral. This requires an analysis of what morality is and what the motivations behind their deeds are. It is not obvious that every additional value is idolatry in partnership. My claim is that in order to create obligation to morality there must be in the background a belief in some factor that is the source of morality’s validity (see the notebook there). Consequently there is another binding factor besides the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore this is idolatry in partnership. As a rule, I am neither a follower nor an opponent of anyone. If someone says something, one must examine the claim itself and not the person making it. Sometimes Leibowitz is right and sometimes he is wrong (usually he is right but takes things one step too far, and in that he is mistaken, but this is not the place). Therefore the fact that he says something does not determine my opinion on the matter, neither for nor against. The same applies to anyone else. As far as I am concerned, “a foolish pietist” is pleonasm. Note that well.

Rafi:
Interesting and thought-provoking article.
But one point has bothered me a lot since the beginning of the discussion, and I see that for you it is obvious throughout the article. From where is it derived that the Torah also permitted rape of the beautiful captive woman? One could explain the whole passage as speaking of intercourse by consent.
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Rabbi:
Indeed, that bothered me too. But this is the plain sense of the Torah and of the decisors (like conquest in war regarding a slave). No one mentions that her consent is required. In addition, I found among the decisors a discussion as to whether, when he betroths her according to the law of Moses and Israel, her consent is required, or whether even for the betrothal it is done against her will. See Zera Avraham siman 22 and siman 24, se’if קטן א, and Makneh Kiddushin 22a on Rashi, s.v. “Likuchin.” That is, it was clear to them that the first intercourse is against her will, and they are in doubt even regarding the betrothal for the second intercourse, even though as is known betrothal is always with the woman’s consent. See Makneh there, who brings the dispute between Rashi and Rambam as to whether even the conversion is done against her will, and explicitly writes that he has intercourse with her against her will.
What surprised me was that this was so obviously not troubling to any of the commentators that they do not discuss it at all. It was apparently self-evident that this is rape. As I said, it is like the law of conquest in war regarding a slave.
I only note that the quotation brought here from Rav Karim also speaks of intercourse not according to her will (if indeed that was in the original. Some have already pointed out here that it was not, and indeed in the link brought here it does not appear).

Ayin:
Even before this post you hinted in several places that a halakhah-morality conflict is indeed possible (and here you presented it in detail), but you went even further and always used to add in parentheses that you do not know to which system one is more obligated. That is to say, morality overrides the divine command. At this point you usually explain that commitment to a value does not mean it overrides every conflict, but that I am loyal to it in most cases, though sometimes it is overridden by others. Here I ask: does God not demand total commitment from us? A commitment that always overrides every other commitment we have? Is this not what they are constantly trying to teach us through the story of the binding of Isaac? I understand that your opinion is different, but I do not understand the religious picture that emerges from it. That is, is this not the traditional/Reform picture: “I am religious until it touches the things that matter to me”?

As I understand it, the world indeed understands religious commitment as an ultimate, supreme commitment. This fact causes people to interpret the religious command as moral (whether in line with convention or not), because if the command is not moral and clashes with morality, then why indeed should we keep and observe it? Beyond that, how strange to worship the wicked God who commanded this.
Of course, the widespread interpretation of the essence of the religious command is not an argument but only an explanation of reality. Still, failure to identify the religious command with morality casts doubt on the very desire to cooperate with the whole system, and it seems this does require clarification.
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Rabbi:
First, I wrote here in response to one of the comments that morality too is founded on commitment to God’s command (otherwise it is idolatry in partnership). Therefore when there is a conflict, it is within the system of serving God, though not within the halakhic system. God’s will is something broader than halakhah.
Second, to command an immoral command does not mean that the commander is immoral. He has other purposes that override morality. I brought several examples for this, such as the priest’s wife who was raped, where the duty to preserve the sanctity of the priesthood overrides morality. So too, one who commands you to kill the enemy is not immoral. The value of life and the right of self-defense override the prohibition on killing.
For some reason you assume that every duty is moral. But I devoted all my remarks to saying that there are other kinds of duties. Take, for example, the distribution of state resources. According to your view, we ought first of all to treat all the sick and feed all the hungry (= moral duties), and only afterward allocate resources to culture and sports. No state does this, and rightly so. There are other values and other rights (sports and culture are not moral values) that override moral values.

And even if all this were not true, there is a problem in your logic. Suppose the Holy One, blessed be He, demands full commitment. But I am the one who decides whether to comply or not. So if I am committed to His commands but also to other values, I am in a conflict between systems. Does it make sense for one of the systems to dictate that it itself is superior to the other? The decision is always made by me outside both systems, regardless of what each of them demands. That is simple logic.
But as noted, this is only a side logical remark. As for your actual point, it is not true that God demands full obedience to halakhah, but rather full obedience to His will. His will is composed of halakhah and morality together. And when there is a conflict, it must be decided according to the circumstances. There is no sweeping rule. There are examples in the history of halakhah where the decision was made against halakhah and in favor of morality. See in Pahad Yitzhak regarding institutionalized prostitution, and in the ruling of the vast majority of decisors regarding the kiddushin of secular Jews with invalid witnesses, and coercion in the case of the trait of Sodom, and many more.
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Oren:
You mentioned that sports and culture are values, but not moral values. If so, what type of values are they?

In addition, you said that God’s will is composed of morality and halakhah together. Did you mean that it is composed only of these two realms? Or also of additional realms (such as the realm that contains sports and culture)?
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Rabbi:
Sports and the like are cultural values. A society wants people to engage in them, and people see value in them. The same is true of study and intellectual activity, and also of self-fulfillment. All of these are social and personal values, but they do not belong to morality. But these are only labels, and you may choose other labels. Practically speaking, these are values that are not moral.
It is certainly possible that God’s will contains other things too, such as piety beyond the law, going beyond the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law.
However, it is important to distinguish sports and culture from these. Sports and culture are important in the eyes of a person or society, but no one claims there is a sanction on one who does not engage in them. These are values in a somewhat different sense from moral values, not only in terms of their content. Still, one could say these are positive values rather than negative-value prohibitions. But this requires more discussion. For in the background of the matter sits the assumption I mentioned, that commitment to values requires some kind of entity that stands behind it (fourth notebook, third section). Therefore, if one sees this as an obligation, it is difficult to place it outside the will of God, otherwise one stumbles into something akin to partnership. For some time I have wondered whether values for which there is no sanction if one fails to fulfill them also require that or not. On the one hand, one should not descend into a conception that sees them as mere inclination or personal amusement (that is, something non-binding), and therefore seemingly there is some entity in the background. On the other hand, there is no absolute obligation to do them (and therefore no sanctions). This requires further study.
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Oren:
Would it be correct to say regarding values of culture and sport that, on the one hand, they are indeed based on God’s will, but on the other hand, the obligation toward them is softer – that is, similar to the obligation toward areas of “beyond the letter of the law” and “pious conduct,” which on the one hand is based on God’s will and on the other hand is not a full obligation?
Regarding the basis in God’s will, I mean that God probably expects us to realize the potential within us as human beings, just as a father expects his son to realize himself in areas in which he is strong.

On the other hand, why should we not see culture and sport as no more than entertainment?
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Rabbi:
Oren,
That is exactly what I wrote.
Culture and intellectual activity are, in my opinion, values and not merely entertainment. As for sports, it depends on whether there is meaningful self-realization and long-term, serious investment there, or just amusement. In any case, even without entering into that discussion, one can at least see in this an example of values that can exist beyond morality. That was my main point here.

Yehudah:
These things are deep and interesting, but several questions nevertheless arose in me, and I would be glad for your response.
A. Where in the Torah do we find even a hint of this division between the moral system and the halakhic one? I would be glad for a source that is not open to multiple interpretations. [And it is strained to hang this on “and you shall do what is right and good.” The plain meaning of the verse is apparently explained in light of the preceding verse: “You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He commanded you.” (And see Ramban, that this is the plain meaning and Rashi’s words are by way of midrash.) Likewise in other places, “the good” means specifically God’s commandments – “See, I have set before you today life and good… which I command you today to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments.”] In my humble opinion, the Torah more significantly suggests דווקא a conception that posits identity between morality and the command of God.
B. Even if we assume that a moral system exists, I do not understand how it becomes binding without being included under the halakhic umbrella. Even if we agree that “act X is unjust,” I do not understand how from this conceptual definition there is born the determination “and therefore it is forbidden to do it.” Injustice is a description; one can describe an object as bad, just as one can describe it as tasty or beautiful. Deriving a norm from it requires an additional premise: “One must not do injustice.” That is already a command, identical in nature to any halakhic command. Therefore, even if the moral system exists as distinct in its own right, all its force derives from the fact that it unfolds from a primordial command that is halakhic in every respect. [Bava Metzia 83a – “Is that indeed the law? He said to him: Yes, ‘that you may walk in the way of good men,'” meaning that going beyond the letter of the law itself is somehow an obligation. And so too apparently from Rashi on “and you shall do what is right and good,” that he is speaking of going beyond the letter of the law, and seemingly the plain meaning is that this is a halakhic obligation in every respect.]
B1. Similarly, I would be glad if you clarified R. Shimon Shkop’s argument regarding theft. In my humble understanding, the course of the argument is as follows: the concept of “theft” presupposes a world of ownership, preceding the halakhic command of “you shall not steal.” Since the concept of ownership necessitates a prohibition of trespass (the territory of the other, in your wording elsewhere), therefore one may not steal even without the halakhic command.
Again I wonder – why assume that the concept of ownership creates a norm, a prohibition? Ownership is a relation that exists between me and the object; this is an occurrence, a given reality. The assumption that ownership includes more than that – content inherent in the object [R. Shimon Shkop, Hiddushei Nedarim siman 1 compares this to the sanctity of hekdesh] – is an innovation the Torah must teach. Without the command “you shall not steal,” there is no reason for us to think that someone’s ownership of an object prevents us from taking it into our possession and making it ours.
C. If there is no halakhic formulation, what saves morality from relativism? For even you admit it is fluid to some extent and depends on society and time. If “once there was no moral problem with raping a captive, but today there is,” then perhaps “in Israel there is a problem with rape, but in Iraq there is not”? And so on for every individual. Seemingly your whole argument collapses here.
D. I do not think that halakhic formulation diminishes the moral power of the act. The justification can and should remain morality, but the halakhic formulation only makes it binding. Certainly one can demand that the commandments be performed מתוך awareness of their inner meaning, and not only their formal framework. [This relates to the question of nominalism-realism in halakhah, which I saw you addressed in your article, and in my humble opinion both dimensions are needed and exist to one degree or another, but this is not the place.]
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Rabbi:
A. I do not need any hint of this. When I look at the Torah, I see that much of it is not directed toward moral purposes. From this I learn that the halakhic category is not identical with the Torah category. And from this, also in the moral commandments there is such a dual aspect. This also explains the difference in the details of law between halakhah and what morality requires, and I brought several examples of this (also in the comments in this discussion).
These are halakhic facts, irrespective of one verse or another. So at least in the interpretation of Hazal, this is the situation in my opinion. Even regarding the verses one may suggest interpretations that fit this thesis. The Torah sets before us life and good against death and evil. One could say that here there is good versus evil (moral values) and life versus death (religious values). But in interpreting the Torah one can suggest whatever one likes. Practically, it seems to me the halakhic picture clearly points as I said, and so on.
B. Here, in my opinion, there is a philosophical (ethical) and halakhic misunderstanding. “Act X is unjust” is not a merely neutral description but a sentence loaded with normative content. In my book True but Unstable (chapters 15 and 19, as I recall) I explained that this is a different kind of fact. Such a sentence does not describe how people relate to the act but how one ought to relate to it (see on the site here in the fourth notebook, third section). This is what in analytic philosophy of ethics is called the question of description versus prescription. Is a moral claim descriptive or directive/commanding? I do not see such a claim as description, because ethics is a different category of statements. One who understands them should understand from that itself that there is an obligation to do or not to do something (see on this in the last chapter of the fifth notebook).
That is the philosophy. As for halakhah, there are expectations in the Torah that are not commands. Even without that, there is a moral intuition saying that God expects us to behave morally simply because He planted this obligation within us.
“That you may walk in the way of good men” is not a halakhic command but an expectation. Like “You shall be holy,” which demands going beyond the letter of the law, and that by definition is not a halakhic command (otherwise it would itself be part of the letter of the law. This is what is called the “scoundrel paradox”).
B1. The explanation is very similar to what I wrote above. The concept of ownership is saturated with legal content, and one who understands that there is ownership understands from this that there is a prohibition against violating it. This is not a description but a normative claim (a different kind of fact).
You wrote that without the command “you shall not steal” there is no reason to think that someone’s ownership of an object prevents us from taking it into our possession and making it ours. So in your opinion, what is the content of ownership? What does the claim “I own X” mean? C. And if there is halakhic formulation, what saves morality from relativism? After all, no one disputes that it is fluid and subject to interpretation. So what? Why does that bother you? Moreover, it is important to distinguish between factual relativism (there are different approaches and interpretations of morality) and substantive relativism (there are several correct moral conceptions). In any event, I do not see why anything in my argument has to do with what you wrote here.
D. In my opinion, yes, as Rav Kook wrote in his letters.

Shai:
Hello,
Two specific comments –
A. From the impression he has left so far (not necessarily in this issue, where I have not heard his comments), it seems that Bezalel Smotrich is indeed, well, a Torah scholar.
However, one cannot always and on every platform give an interpretation without fearing what dishes will be cooked from it. It may be that Smotrich learned the real lesson from the Rav Karim affair, and it is: “In any situation where you are recorded, documented in any way, or under threat of a leak – avoid any Torah message that is not one hundred percent aligned with the liberal value system.” Of course, this lesson is relevant to anyone aiming for public office and wishing to thread the needle.
B. Most of the reactions I heard indeed matched the description at the beginning of the post. Still, there was in this affair a refreshing aspect, and some of the reactions were not recycled and brought up points that were also discussed in the post above (both in the section on anachronism and in the section on halakhah and morality).

One more question – is morality really universal? Intuitively I agree, but what is the rationale for this claim?

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Rabbi:
A. Perhaps, although usually I am not impressed that he takes care to align himself with the liberal value system.

If you agree intuitively, why is a rationale needed? A rationale is needed where you have no intuition, and you want to ground the claim under discussion on foundations about which you do have intuition. But here you say that this itself is intuitive, so why is a rationale needed? Would you expect a rationale for why one should be moral at all? There our moral intuition suffices. So why should the intuition of universality not suffice here as well?
As for the matter itself: if a certain act is moral, then that is what is required of every person. Therefore the book of Genesis is the Book of the Upright, because uprightness is universal and was binding in the days before Sinai. This is the meaning of the “there is nothing” in Sanhedrin 59 that I mentioned in the post, as well as the Rambam’s words about the seven Noahide commandments, that they are matters to which reason inclines. Matters to which reason inclines bind every rational being, Jew or gentile (and so wrote Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon in his introduction to the Talmud). Only Torah commands that are not based on reason and are not moral bind only those who were commanded. Incidentally, in my conception this itself is proof that the Torah’s commands are not morality, because if they were, they would necessarily be universal, that is, addressed to every person and not only to Jews. If you want to expand on the universality of reasoned propositions, see my article:
mikyab.net/כתבים/מאמרים/סברות-תורניות-ומעמדן-ההלכתי/

Eliyahu Feldman:
Hello Rabbi Michi. A small comment: what you wrote, that morally one should return a lost object to a gentile just as to a Jew, is in my humble opinion incorrect; rather the opposite is true: morally there is no need to return a lost object either to a gentile or to a Jew, since if you found it – it is yours. Rather, the Torah innovates only for a Jew the commandment of returning lost objects, and therefore the gemara says in Sanhedrin 76: “Whoever returns a lost object to a gentile, Scripture says of him: ‘The Lord will not be willing to forgive him,'” because he equates the gentile with the Jew (Rashi), that is – he treats returning a lost object as a moral command and not as a halakhic commandment. If we assume that returning a lost object is morally obligatory, we would have to conclude from these words of Rashi that where there is a moral obligation without a halakhic one, we must abandon the moral obligation in order to highlight the importance of the halakhic obligation. But that is not so. Hazal add that one may return a lost object to a gentile in order to sanctify God’s name, as in the well-known story of Shimon ben Shetah. If I understand correctly, the intent is that the person returning it should inform the gentile that he is returning the lost item because he is a Jew and this is our unique ethic. Such a return, where the person links his being a believing Jew with his behavior beyond the letter of the law from a moral perspective, is a mitzvah, because in this act he highlights that God is also the source of morality.
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Rabbi:
Hello Eliyahu.
From a moral perspective one should return a lost object both to a gentile and to a Jew. Your reasoning that the lost object belongs to the finder is a halakhic argument, not a moral one. Proof of this is that Hazal explicitly wrote that one returns a lost object after despair of recovery (when by halakhah one is not obligated). And the Shulhan Arukh wrote that one even compels this. And if this is a moral matter, then there is no difference between Jew and gentile. Go and see that in every legal system they saw fit to obligate the return of lost property; that is, everyone in the world understands there is a moral issue here.
It is true, however, that regarding the ancient gentiles, who did not return lost objects and did not behave in a human and moral way, the Torah permitted their property, but again, not because there is no moral problem, but because they were not even in the category of human beings toward whom one is morally obligated. But now that they behave like us, we have returned to the original state.
And what Hazal said about returning a lost object in order to sanctify God refers to a gentile who is not moral (the ancient gentile). Even then one should return his lost object in order to sanctify God.

Oren:
Regarding the gemara in Bava Kamma 55b, where it was taught: Rabbi Yehoshua said: There are four things where one who does them is exempt by human law but liable by the laws of Heaven, and these are they: one who breaches a fence before another’s animal, one who bends another’s standing grain before a fire, one who hires false witnesses to testify, and one who knows testimony for another but does not testify for him.

In your opinion, did Hazal mean a moral obligation when they said “liable by the laws of Heaven”? Or did they mean a halakhic obligation that is merely unenforceable?
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Rabbi:
The Meiri there (whose source is the Ba’al ha-Hashlamah) writes that there is a difference between pious conduct and going beyond the letter of the law, on the one hand, and an obligation to discharge one’s duty before Heaven, on the other. The first are moral obligations, and the third is a legal obligation in every respect, except that it is not enforceable in court. The practical ramification is that one who does this is considered a thief (or a damager) and is disqualified from testimony. That is the direction in which I incline.
Incidentally, there is a whole list of things that, although they are not strictly required by halakhah (in the Shulhan Arukh), courts still compel people regarding them: returning a lost object after despair of recovery, the trait of Sodom (see Bava Batra 12 and elsewhere). In light of the Meiri and the Ba’al ha-Hashlamah, there is room to institute coercion in such cases (for damage by indirect causation), and it would be different from those other forms of coercion. It would be coercion that is almost from the law itself. After all, here the law obligates, except that there is no power to compel, and the Sages can add a law of coercion rabbinically.
The difference is that usually if a court mistakenly compels in a case where it has no authority to compel, it is guilty of theft. But in such a case they are certainly not thieves, for he is obligated to pay by law, and if he does not pay he is a thief. More than that: in essence they ought to compel him under the general law of coercing performance of commandments, just not to seize his property as in monetary coercion. Therefore it seems to me that by enactment one could certainly even seize his money, for there is certainly no theft involved.
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Oren:
I came across a puzzling halakhah in Rambam from which it seems that in damage by indirect causation one does pay:
“My teachers ruled that if it was the custom of the locale for every betrothed man to make a feast and feed his friends, or to distribute money to the beadles and cantors and the like, and he acted in the way all the people act, and she retracted – she pays everything, for she caused him to lose his money; and anyone who causes another to lose money must pay. Provided he has witnesses to how much he spent, for this is not a case where he swears and collects.”

How can the contradiction between the two sources be explained?
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Rabbi:
At first I thought there were two possible answers.
1. Initially I thought he was speaking about garmi and not grama, and garmi is liable. For their definitions see the Talmudic Encyclopedia (there are many opinions and not a little ambiguity in this matter). I also saw this in R. Akiva Eiger on the Rambam there (see the Frankel edition).
2. Afterwards I thought perhaps the obligation to pay is itself by force of local custom (and not only the making of the feast itself). Again I found this in Migdal Oz there. However, from the Rambam’s wording this does not seem so (rather it sounds as though the custom is the making of the feast, but the obligation to pay upon cancellation is a separate law).

Hanan:
Regarding the Geneva Convention – the prohibition is on shooting at a soldier parachuting from a downed plane. The picture of an airborne division dropping in and not being allowed to be shot at until it organizes itself has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention.
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Rabbi:
This comment was already received after the post was published. See the first comments.

Elad:
Very interesting, points I had not thought about.
At the same time, I find that this raises a very troubling question: should a religious person choose the halakhic act or the moral one (assuming there is a contradiction between them)?
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Rabbi:
Hello Elad.
By definition, there is no “school answer” to such a question. The reason is simple: assuming you are committed to two systems of values, halakhah and morality, if there is a conflict between them, by which system can you decide? Obviously it is not halakhah that should decide whether it is superior to morality or not, and likewise not morality. You have to make that decision outside both of these systems. You have to think which of them is more important in your opinion, and what moral price you will pay if you do X as opposed to the halakhic price if you do Y. Thus, for example, it is clear that health is more important than pleasure, yet many of us still eat chocolate or smoke a cigarette, because the health cost is small and the pleasure is great.
Still, it seems to me that the obligation to both systems is grounded in obedience to the word of God, meaning that morality too obligates because it is God’s will. According to this, perhaps sometimes it is easier to decide in conflicts, because you need to think what God wants. Thus regarding Amalek, for example, there the command is essentially contrary to morality (this is not an accidental contradiction), and if God commanded it, then apparently in His opinion the religious value overrides the moral price. And if that is God’s view, and the obligation to both systems derives from obligation to Him, then here the religious value prevails. But in an accidental clash, such as pikuach nefesh and Shabbat, or just an ordinary clash between halakhah and morality that is not essential – that is, not present every time one fulfills the religious command – the decision remains in your hands.
I elaborate on this in the third book of the theological trilogy (the one dealing with halakhah) that I am currently writing.
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Elad:
I enjoy your books very much, even though (and perhaps because) I am an atheist and am interested in seeing different worldviews and trying to learn. I connected very much with your point about tolerance versus pluralism, although there is something a bit non-liberal about it (or perhaps just not very nice).
This question troubles me because it opens the door for religious people to consciously commit immoral acts, with the justification being a religious foundation.
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Rabbi:
Hello.

I do not know how you define liberalism, but if you identify it with skeptical nihilism, then I am very much not with you. It seems to me that Shternhell and Bachler already pointed out the danger that skeptical conceptions pose to liberalism (for behold, they presume to allow every idea, no matter how wild, to grow in our garden beds). As for niceness, that really is a matter of taste. I actually enjoy people more when they have positions and fight for them (in a reasonable and proper way, of course). So beyond my opinion that skeptical pluralism is mistaken, it is also less nice and more boring. But as I said, that is a matter of taste.

It seems to me that what may cause people to do immoral things is not religion, but the fact that they have positions and values of their own. Thus, for example, people always speak about the danger of insubordination among religious soldiers, and in my eyes that is an insult to secular people. Don’t they have values for which they would consider refusing orders? What, are they automata (like the Nazis who claimed in the Nuremberg trials that they were following orders)? If that is the case, I would not go into battle with them (once I told my students who went to officer training that I would not go into battle with a soldier if it were clear to me that he would never refuse an order. Both because he is a poor soldier, and because his conduct causes his commander not to weigh his orders, and therefore the orders too will be worse).
For some reason secular people present their own stance as empty, and therefore only religious people have values and positions, so only they pose a danger. Thus after Rabin’s murder they said this was a result of religious faith. And I wondered whether people expect me to be empty of values because they might lead me to wrongful acts. Alternatively, am I supposed to give up my belief in God because it might bring me to murder? After all, factually I do believe in Him. How can one force values upon facts? This is pitiful, pragmatic value-emptiness.
Incidentally, that is not even the case in practice, as I showed in my book God Plays Dice (in the discussion of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler, against Dawkins’s demagoguery). No lesser danger comes from secular people. On the contrary, in the religious world, because of the absoluteness of its values and the mode of thinking of its people, mechanisms of control and restraint against extreme acts have already developed (see the fears of insubordination during the disengagement. A real apocalypse now. And see what came of it in the end), both in thought and in practice.
All this is true regarding refusal of orders or violation of the law. But regarding immoral acts, the situation seems at first sight a bit different. A secular person too has values (naturally, moral values), and their existence certainly will not bring him to immoral acts. Only one who has other values besides morality (as I described here) may be led by them to immoral acts. Not merely may be led; it will almost certainly happen, as I explained here. But as I said, this is a naive picture. Usually the dangers from secular people are no less than those posed by religious people. They too are not a completely empty wagon (thank God. See the end of Alterman’s short clerical poem). And besides, the main dangers do not come from mistaken values but from interests. And that, thank God, we all have.

Elad:
I am not claiming that secular people differ from religious people in their potential to perform immoral acts because of their values, but when a secular person does this (and I am generalizing here), he does it because he believes his values are moral.
You are painting a picture in which the religious person is aware of the difference between the values he believes in and his moral conception.
For example, Hitler believed that his values were moral.
You are describing a world in which values are not always moral and yet people will choose them.
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Rabbi:
That is just semantics. Look at the bottom line: are there more religious murderers than secular ones? I greatly doubt it (it seems to me the opposite is true). In your opinion, do all secular murderers think what they did was moral? In my opinion, absolutely not. Even regarding Hitler, I doubt you are right.
Therefore, when you examine who is more dangerous, it is completely irrelevant whether they do it because of other values or because of interests and impulses. What difference does it make? To the murder victim, does it matter why he dies?

Avrum:
Thank you for directing me to this article; it raises basic questions for me.
1. I do not understand the a priori separation between halakhah and morality. Must morality be universal? Could there not be different levels of morality depending on the factor from whom moral responsibility is demanded? Can one not say that halakhah constitutes a moral level required of the people of Israel and not of the gentiles, just as the righteous are judged to a hair’s breadth while ordinary people are not? Do not the different real-life contexts in which halakhah is expressed change the way it is applied? Even if halakhah does express morality, compromises in relation to existing reality can be moral decisions. The law of the beautiful captive woman can be the optimal moral decision for that era, without which worse things would have happened. Likewise with the other examples above.
2. Morality is dynamic and changes, but so does halakhah. If morality is not the main criterion for determining (and changing) halakhah, then what does change it? Does the claim that the Torah adapted its rules to its era not allow us to extract eternal timeless principles from it, while changing the details in accordance with moral progress and period norms?
3. Finally, my tendency is to say that halakhah should not parallel instinctive morality, but challenge it and offer an alternative in certain places based on its own conception of reality. If so, the tension you present stems from a failure that occurred in halakhah, which delayed its development and neutralized its dynamism, so that for modern man unresolved conflicts were created – but this is a distortion that, more than anything, harms the status of halakhah itself, making it irrelevant for those who seek logic in it and encounter too many morally impossible scenarios. Where am I mistaken?
And again – is this not a Leibowitzian conception? (Without judging…)
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Rabbi:
Hello Avrum.
1. That can certainly be. But such a picture is still universal. There are different levels of morality, and different people reach, and perhaps are also required to reach, each his own level. But the ladder itself is universal. Do you think there is a value in saying a gentile should not eat pork? He is not obligated because that summit of morality is too elevated for him, but surely it is desirable, no? About this Hazal said: “I desire it, and I desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven decreed it upon me.” How could one say it more clearly?
Regarding compromises with reality, I did not understand the claim/question. Of course there can be compromises with reality in moral principles. The question is whether that is indeed what happened here.
2. Morality is not dynamic and changing but fixed and eternal. What changes is our conceptions of it (which I hope are progressing, but who knows). Who said that if the Torah adapts itself to its period, one cannot extract eternal principles from it? I do not recall saying that.
Morality can take part in shaping halakhah, and it indeed does so, but only where there are several halakhic possibilities and we decide according to morality. That is also the place where halakhic change can appear.
3. As I wrote, I do not know of instinctive and non-instinctive morality. There is correct morality and incorrect morality. Regarding whether the Torah parallels morality or not, I wrote what I think about that. You are right that halakhic petrification sharpens the difficulties.
There is certainly a measure of Leibowitzianism here. I admit the facts and deny the charge (which was not laid 🙂 ).
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Avrum:
1. Eating pork is an example of man and God. Are there any revealed-statute commandments in the realm of man and fellow man? One can understand that in matters between man and God one cannot understand everything and that there are dimensions not entirely accessible to our understanding. But in matters between man and fellow man I do not recall parallels.
My claim regarding compromise with reality relates to your statement that there are commandments that do not fit our moral feeling – your solution is to separate halakhah and morality, and I ask whether they cannot be unified by saying that this was the most moral then, and therefore if today it is not the most moral solution then it should be changed. (The eternal principle derived from the commandment, accordingly, is that even in a coarse reality such as war, one cannot give free rein to every desire, while on the other hand one should not be puritanical if that may lead to greater corruption.)
2. You wrote: “No one will convince me that separating the priest from his raped wife or not saving a gentile on Shabbat are moral acts” – here you presumably meant your moral perception and not morality itself. Is it not possible that 3,000 years ago you would not have seen those acts as immoral? Could it be that what you identify as trauma rests on psychological understandings that did not exist then? In any case, I still have not understood what in your opinion drives changes in halakhah besides changes in moral conceptions (and according to your words even prior to them).
3. It may be that all my questions stem from the fact that I never managed to understand or identify with the Leibowitzian approach… Most of the people I know, myself included, act מתוך a desire to do good and repair the world in a way they can understand and identify with, even if this is accompanied by less understandable acts between man and God…
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Rabbi:
1. In my opinion there are revealed-statute commandments between man and fellow man. For example, the prohibition of interest and of overcharging. For example, divorcing one’s wife with a get or betrothing her with something worth a perutah. On the decretal nature of the prohibition of interest, Haym Soloveitchik wrote in his book Halakhah, Economy, and Self-Image. I agree that in morality there are no scriptural decrees. That itself is what I claimed. But there are parts of the Torah that are between man and fellow man and do not belong to morality. (It seems to me the Hatam Sofer already noted this distinction between two kinds of commandments between man and fellow man: where the fellow is merely the means through which my commandment is carried out, and where the commandment is one that is toward him.)
I do not think that even then “that was the most moral,” and therefore that is not convincing to me.
2. Unlikely. Hazal too saw value in a gentile’s life, in domestic peace, and in not abusing raped women and their families. It seems to me there was no phase transition morally between their time and ours.
As for changes in halakhah, often this has nothing to do with morality but with changed factual circumstances or social structure. Value-conceptions that change can alter halakhah where it is clear that the halakhah was created against a moral background. That is not the case in most halakhot. On the contrary, in my opinion when there is a conflict between halakhah and morality there is specifically no need to change. One can operate מתוך the assumption I described here (that these are two parallel normative systems between which one must decide, not change one for the sake of the other). 3. The question is what you do with the “less understandable acts between man and God” (and also toward fellow man; see point 1), as you put it. That is what this is about. If the purpose of the Torah is only moral, what is all that doing there? It seems to me that this empiricism is what caused Leibowitz (and me) to formulate this position. It is not some special fondness for scriptural decrees, believe me. These are simply the facts as they are.
If you want only to do good, then Torah and commandments are quite superfluous. Each of us knows very well what is good and what is not. There is no need at all for halakhah for this. The secular person does no less good than you, with no connection whatsoever to halakhah.
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Avrum:
Rabbi Michi,
1. You wrote, “Many times this has nothing to do with morality but with changed factual circumstances or social structure.” What difference does it make if reality changed in one aspect or another, unless it means that the intention behind the halakhah is no longer being expressed and therefore the halakhah needs to be updated? Is everything not based on the assumption that there is a moral intention that needs to be realized? Can there be an intention that carries no moral charge?
2. I have no doubt that in certain fields there was a moral phase transition, certainly in relations between man and woman. “And she shall be his wife because he afflicted her; he may not send her away all his days” – is this not a halakhah with a moral intention? Is the Torah not seeking here to maximize the good of the raped woman in a way that today would not even cross our minds?
3. The examples you gave at the outset are not incomprehensible. The prohibition of interest to prevent injustice is not understandable? Overcharging? In a world where interest has no macro-economic significance, of course there would be a prohibition on it, including in other religions.
4. You wrote that each of us knows what is good and does not need commandments for that, and I wonder: do not people and nations do so much evil because they think it is good, and if good and bad acts were self-evident there would be no differences between people and moral conceptions. The wide range, changing fashions, and our limited angle of vision certainly allow one to think that a larger and deeper system is needed in order to establish a moral society. Besides, it is hard for me to think of a reason to observe commandments and keep halakhah that does not arise from the belief that this is good and moral.
5. It seems to me that the conceptual disconnection between morality and halakhah mainly allows one to evade discussions that arise all the time, but the basic stance of “what can I do, my God commanded me so” does not make very good public relations for halakhah, to put it mildly. Not that this is the goal, but the people of Israel will hold less and less to halakhah as it becomes harder for them to identify with it – not because of the distance between it and other conceptions, but because of the lack of aspiration to coherence and meaningful reconciliation in it.
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Rabbi:
Hello Avrum.
1. It is hard for me to continue a conversation with such interruptions (I no longer remember what I wrote). When reality changes, the application of the same principles gives a different practical result. I do not see what this has to do with the question whether there are intentions that are not moral. My claim was that in halakhah there are quite a few commandments that have nothing to do with morality in any way, and whoever claims otherwise bears the burden of proof. What do the details of sacrifices have to do with morality? Or the prohibition on eating pork, forbidden fat, or swarming creatures? And so on. From this I conclude that the Torah has additional purposes, not only moral ones. After that I continued that perhaps all the purposes of halakhah are non-moral (which explains the difference in legal boundaries between moral commandments and moral principles themselves. A murderer by indirect causation is no more moral than a murderer not by indirect causation. They are equally immoral. This is only a formal difference).
2. Regarding “she shall be his wife,” this is not necessarily a moral commandment but a halakhic directive beyond morality (which adds a halakhic layer on top of morality), like “you shall not steal.” And even if it is moral, differing circumstances dictate a different application. In your terminology: maximizing the woman’s good today perhaps would not be in such a way. And third, even today this absolutely could cross one’s mind. According to halakhah this is an obligation on the rapist, not on the raped woman. If she does not want, she is not obligated to marry him. What is wrong with that? If because of this act she will not find a match, she has the option of marrying him (if she wants to).
3. It is not a matter of incomprehensibility, but according to the commentators and also by reason, interest does not seem to be a moral prohibition. Both sides are satisfied, so why should he not take interest? The world in which interest has no macro-economic significance is the result of the prohibition of interest, not its cause.
4. Indeed, in my opinion each of us knows what is good and does not need commandments for that. More than that, if I think something is moral or immoral, no commandment will change this. On the contrary, where there is a moral problem Hazal change the commandment. I mentioned that the Torah itself instructs us to do what is right and good without specifying what is right and good. Do you think that in this commandment the Torah is simply repeating the duty to observe commandments? The commentators did not think as you do (unlike “you shall be holy,” where Rambam in the fourth root holds that this is simply an obligation to observe commandments, a general commandment not separately counted, like “and you shall do all My commandments”). So why does it not specify? Because it knows the matter is clear to everyone.
Changing fashions also change the moral approach within halakhah. Halakhah does not establish any moral fashion. I also do not think we are dealing with fashion but with insights newly gained. It does not seem in any way that halakhah is trying to establish a more moral society, and in my opinion, at least in our day, it does not succeed in that either.
Even if you do not see additional reasons (after all, for that you need a command. For the reasons you do see, you do not need one, as above), the facts speak for themselves. A considerable part of halakhah is connected in no way to morality, and therefore there are clearly additional purposes here.
5. This is not a tactic for evading discussion but conclusions that arise from an unbiased look at the facts (= halakhah), as said above. Even if because of this there is emotional distancing, that is the truth. What can be done?! If you deceive the public and explain to them that if they do not eat pork or if they offer sacrifices they will thereby become more moral, have you solved the problem?

I read your column dealing with matters of halakhah and morality, and I wanted to ask about a few things that bothered me after reading it: 1) What is the source of universal morality? Why does it obligate everyone equally? And what is the criterion for morality? Who/what determines whether an act is moral? 2) From the impression created by what you wrote, I understood that you oppose seeking reasons for the commandments. The only reason to observe commandments is because God so commanded, and one should not ascribe to the commandments concerns related to other planes, since halakhah does not deal with other planes. Did I understand correctly? 3) I still do not understand how the Torah can command an act that is not moral. Even if the source of morality is not halakhah, it is understandable why, according to halakhah, one may do an act that is morally forbidden. But that the Torah should command something immoral – that is harder! Even if we say the Torah is not trying to be moral, how can we say that the Torah does not accord with the “truth” in its guidance?

Hello Yuval.
1. I did not understand the question. Are you asking for a source in the Torah, a religious source, or why some person should obey it?
2. No. One can seek reasons, but the reason you found should not be your reason for observing the commandment. The Rambam, who writes at the end of Hilkhot Melakhim that one who fulfills commandments because of rational decision is not among the pious of the nations, himself explains the reasons for those commandments. That is, there are reasons, but performance is not done because of them.
3. You identify morality with truth. But the inclusive truth is a synthesis of morality and halakhah. For example, when the Torah tells us to kill a Shabbat desecrator, that is not moral. But there is religious value in it, and therefore the truth is that he should be killed, because the religious value overrides the moral one. Even within morality itself there are sometimes situations where you act according to one value at the expense of another, and that is the moral truth.

1) You explain that morality does not derive its validity from the Torah, and therefore I ask from what reason we are obligated to morality, and by what is an act judged moral or not? In other words – what is the definition of a moral act, and why must we obey it?
2) For the sake of the discussion, the statement: “The Torah commands us to return a lost object because it is a moral act” is correct, but when we fulfill the commandment we must do so because it is God’s command and not because the act is moral? I do not feel I understood this fully.

1. Morality does not draw its validity from the Torah but from the Holy One, blessed be He. The commands of the Torah deal with halakhah, and morality appears only as an expectation, not as a command: “and you shall do what is right and good.” Just as one must observe commandments because that is what God wants, so too one must obey the commands of morality because that is what He wants.
The distinction between a moral act and an immoral one is by reason. Each of us understands what is moral and what is not. It is implanted within us like other rational understandings (therefore the Rambam calls this “intelligibles” as opposed to “conventionals” in Guide of the Perplexed II).
2. The Torah commands us to return a lost object. Period. It may be that this is for a moral reason. But the reason to fulfill the halakhic command is the command itself. Beyond that there is a reason to return a lost object because of morality, but that is something else. Therefore, for example, returning a lost object to a gentile, which was not a halakhic obligation (for the gentiles of old), still involves fulfillment of a moral obligation (without entering into the views that there is a prohibition against returning a lost object to a gentile. In any case, this is “deferred” and not “permitted”).

What about conflicting positions where each sees itself as moral (for example: is it right to take high taxes from the rich in order to help the poor)? Do we say that each person is obligated to the position he sees as moral?

I did not understand the question. Even when there is disagreement, obviously each person must act according to his own view.

What I meant to ask was: you wrote, “Each of us understands what is moral and what is not.” What if each understands something else?

With God’s help, 21 Heshvan 5777

Judge Joubran said that he looked in the Torah and found no permission for rape. He is right. The beautiful captive woman is transformed from a captive (who according to the laws of war of that time had the status of a maidservant) into a free Jewish woman, the wife of an Israelite with all rights.

In the society from which the ‘beautiful captive woman’ came, it was customary for a king to take women without asking their permission, and thus Abimelech does not understand what God wants from him for taking Sarah as a wife. After all, he is elevating her to the rank of queen, and who would not want that? Only among the Israelites was it accepted then that a woman’s permission was needed, and even the father, who can betroth her as her natural guardian while she is still a minor, is instructed by Hazal to fulfill, “Let us call the young woman and ask her mouth,” that is, ask her what she wants.

Even so, the matter of the ‘beautiful captive woman’ is considered a negative thing, permitted only because “the Torah spoke against the evil inclination.”

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

I said, and I say again: when each person understands something else, each one should do as he understands. So too regarding halakhah (if it was not decided by an authoritative institution).

Regarding the first intercourse – according to Rabbi Yohanan (in the Jerusalem Talmud, Makkot 2:6), first intercourse in war was not permitted at all, only “after all the procedures.” Rashi (Kiddushin 22) explained thus what they said there: “that he not oppress her in war.” Even according to Rabbenu Tam and Rambam, who permitted the first intercourse in war, we have not heard that it is permitted to do so against her will. Rabbi Eliezer of Metz (Sefer Yere’im, siman 20) holds that when the gemara says “he should not oppress her in war,” its meaning is: “that even the first intercourse, which is permitted to him in war before conversion, he should not have intercourse with her except with her consent, and not against her will.”

Regarding taking her as a wife: in Rambam, Hilkhot Melakhim chapter 8, it is explained that her consent is needed for conversion, and afterwards he marries her with a ketubbah and kiddushin, and it is obvious that her consent is needed for kiddushin and marriage like any Jewish woman. According to Ramban in his commentary to the Torah (Deuteronomy 21:12), he converts her against her will, and one may discuss whether taking her as a wife is also against her will. (Regarding the first intercourse, Ramban holds that the plain sense of the verses follows Rabbi Yohanan, that it was only permitted “after all the procedures.”)

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

In my humble opinion, we are not dealing with two conflicting wills. The conflict is within the value system of ‘morality,’ where on one side there is the attribute of justice saying, “let the law pierce the mountain,” while on the other side there is a place for activating the attribute of kindness and mercy, to allow repentance and repair. The Torah, in the words of Maharal of Prague, is the “order of the world,” teaching how to find the proper balance between justice and kindness.
There is a moral side to deterring and punishing transgressors, and there is a moral side to giving the sinner an opportunity for repentance and repair. The balance comes through halakhah, which sets boundaries for the attribute of justice and the attribute of mercy. For example, where there are witnesses and warning and the like, the attribute of justice is carried out; but where there are no witnesses and warning, there is room for repentance and repair.
Thus the attribute of justice requires harsh deterrence toward mortal enemies of Israel such as Amalek, while on the other hand the attribute of mercy requires allowing them a path of repair and welcoming the descendant of Amalek who abandons the path of evil and accepts upon himself the Noahide commandments, to the point that descendants of Haman taught Torah in Israel. And similarly in other such cases.

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

In my remarks I referred to discussions among the later authorities as to whether they permitted it against her will.

A link to Rav Karim’s words on the Kipa website was brought in one of the comments above. There is not one word in his remarks about permission for rape. He spoke about the prohibition of relations with gentile women, which was permitted because “the Torah spoke against the evil inclination.” Rape – who mentioned it at all?

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

S.Z.L., I already wrote that too.

To Rabbi M.A. – greetings,

And I referred to your words. One may also give ‘credit,’ not only disagree!

By contrast, I did not find in this post your reference to later authorities who permitted intercourse with the beautiful captive woman against her will. Among the earlier authorities there is the author of Yere’im, who forbids it, and I have not found anyone disputing him. On the contrary, Rashi in Kiddushin and Ramban in his Torah commentary adopt Rabbi Yohanan’s view, which forbids any intercourse before “he has done all the procedures,” when we are dealing with full marriage.

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

S.Z.L., see my response to Rafi’s question:
Rafi:
Interesting and thought-provoking article.
But one point has bothered me a lot since the beginning of the discussion, and I see that for you it is obvious throughout the article. From where is it derived that the Torah also permitted rape of the beautiful captive woman? One could explain the whole passage as speaking of intercourse by consent.
——————————————————————————————
Rabbi:
Indeed, that bothered me too. But this is the plain sense of the Torah and of the decisors (like conquest in war regarding a slave). No one mentions that her consent is required. In addition, I found among the decisors a discussion as to whether, when he betroths her according to the law of Moses and Israel, her consent is required, or whether even for the betrothal it is done against her will. See Zera Avraham siman 22 and siman 24, se’if קטן א, and Makneh Kiddushin 22a on Rashi, s.v. “Likuchin.” That is, it was clear to them that the first intercourse is against her will, and they are in doubt even regarding the betrothal for the second intercourse, even though as is known betrothal is always with the woman’s consent. See Makneh there, who brings the dispute between Rashi and Rambam as to whether even the conversion is done against her will, and explicitly writes that he has intercourse with her against her will.
What surprised me was that this was so obviously not troubling to any of the commentators that they do not discuss it at all. It was apparently self-evident that this is rape. As I said, it is like the law of conquest in war regarding a slave.
I only note that the quotation brought here from Rav Karim also speaks of intercourse not according to her will (if indeed that was in the original. Some have already pointed out here that it was not, and indeed in the link brought here it does not appear).

And while we are at it, I looked again at the quotation of Rav Karim’s answer: the questioner explicitly spoke about the rape of female captives, and Rav Karim did not respond to this or deny it. It is not clear what one should infer precisely from that. But indeed it is unclear where the quotation “against their will” in the article came from.

It is worth noting that the words of the Yere’im, that “he should not oppress her in war” means that he should not force her to intercourse, are brought by many of the early authorities (Tosafot Rid, Ramban, Rashba, and Ritva), who indeed also bring other interpretations of the verse, but do not object to the law itself and do not reject it on grounds of reason. In any event, the burden of proof rests on one who claims there is a dispute.

The plain sense of the verses too points to love and a desire to marry. It is far more logical and more fitting to the Torah’s way that it commands restraint and postponement of immediate gratification in order to establish proper couplehood through a kind of “adjustment period,” in which the captive on the one hand mourns her father and mother, and on the other hand begins to groom herself, removes her captive’s garment and dresses nicely, and “does her nails,” which in the plain biblical sense means “grooms her nails,” as Ramban explained.

With blessing, S.Z. Levinger

With God’s help, 22 Heshvan 5777

To Major General Hagi Topolinsky
Head of the IDF Manpower Directorate

Abundant greetings and salvation,

Re: My recommendation for handling the problem of IDF soldiers falling in love with beautiful captive women
—————————————————————————-
\
Since this is an acute problem touching many IDF soldiers, I hereby bring before you my recommendations:

Since Rabbi Yohanan (Jerusalem Talmud Makkot 2:6), and following him Rashi and Ramban, completely forbid the first intercourse, and since Rabbi Eliezer of Metz (Yere’im 20) forbids intercourse without consent – their view should be taken into account.

Likewise, on the other hand, one should take into account the view of the Rambam, who requires the girl’s consent to a full process of conversion, and prior intention on the part of the soldier to marry the girl as a wife according to the law of Moses and Israel.

Therefore I recommend completely forbidding any seclusion between the soldier and the captive until the captive undergoes a ‘Nativ’ conversion course and is accepted as a righteous convert through immersion and acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of the commandments before a knowledgeable and authorized court.

So it seems in my humble opinion, and may the Rock of Israel save us from errors and show us wonders from His Torah!

With blessing, Sergeant (res.) S.Z. Levinger

Thank you, Rabbi, for the article.
If we assume absolute independence between the moral dimension and the halakhic dimension, what is the source of the high correlation between them? Is this merely a spurious correlation?
It is clear to me why “you shall not murder” is moral, but what is the halakhic mechanism of “you shall not murder”? In what way does it operate? And likewise for all the “moral” commandments between man and fellow man.

Thank you,
Gilad

This is an important issue that I will discuss in my book (the trilogy), with God’s help. In a nutshell, I would say that there are commandments in which the content is similar, but the commandment comes to say that there is also a religious transgression here and not only a moral one, though the transgression is the same transgression and the purpose is similar. And there are commandments in which the religious content is different. Even where the content is similar, there are differences in the details, as I wrote (for example regarding a murderer by indirect causation and the like).

Hello Rabbi, if I understood correctly, the rabbi separates morality from halakhah, and even claimed there is no halakhic command to be moral. Is the rabbi familiar with the words of the early authorities on the verse “You shall be holy,” especially Ramban’s interpretation? They explain that beyond the halakhic layer there is a moral layer to which every Jew is obligated. Thank you in advance.

Hello Meni.
Perhaps you will be surprised, but the verse “You shall be holy” and Ramban on it (and also “and you shall do what is right and good” and Ramban there) are very familiar to me, and not only did I not miss them, but they are my main proof. After all, these two verses did not enter halakhah but remained outside it, precisely because the moral demand is beyond the halakhic layer. And that itself is my claim: halakhah is one thing and morality another.
Now you come and ask whether I know the statements that there is a moral layer beyond halakhah, and I cannot understand. That is exactly what I wrote: morality is a layer beyond halakhah. Strange…

Rabbi Michael, I think the absolute separation you proposed between morality and Torah is impossible, and I believe you would concede this. There cannot be commandments like “And you shall love the Lord” or “And you shall love your fellow as yourself” without involving natural moral feeling, nor is there any substance to the prophets’ claims about the people’s betrayal of God or about identifying with the suffering of the Shekhinah if our attitude to halakhah is completely detached from our natural moral character, within which alone the word betrayal or identifying with suffering has any meaning at all.
In practice, any observance of a commandment, if done without the feeling that this is the right, good, deep, and moral thing, arising from true and emotional commitment to the giver of the Torah who so often emphasized that out of His love for us He chose us and brought us out of Egypt, but is done out of cold thought, is itself a cold act. “What need have I of all your sacrifices?”
Likewise, you cannot fail to notice that in the Written Torah many of the commands that Hazal interpret as applying only to the gentile lack this emphasis (murder, returning lost objects, for example), and that the Written Torah shows real empathy toward the captive woman. However much one may belittle this, the Torah cries out, “You shall not abuse her because you afflicted her,” and it does have compassion on the captive and also demands that marriage to her not stem from lust.
After all this, you can still ask how there is nevertheless some separation between halakhah and morality, and I would answer, at least regarding the beautiful captive woman and the stubborn and rebellious son, for example, that these are commandments about which Hazal warned us that they are not applicable in practice, and yet the core of truth within them is clear to me.
For holiness has no boundaries. All the beauty in the world belongs to it, even the use of force, and the hint is the Exodus from Egypt, which was done by force, “I will rule over you with an outstretched hand,” and Bathsheba, who was taken by force and from whom the Temple was ultimately built (even if it was in a flawed way). On the other hand, the way of holiness is a total path of zeal and generational continuity, and when a generation arises that does not continue the previous ones it deserves destruction: see the value of God being ready to destroy the people He had just brought out of Egypt, Abraham being required to expel one son and sacrifice the other.
It is not merely that these things are possible on the side of holiness; they have very deep reasons. Just as they are not moral and not fit for implementation, at least in most cases, under the guidance of Hazal, they are deep and important in the same measure.
Another thing – just as there is a parallel between reverence for father and mother and reverence for Heaven (to the point of juxtaposition in the Ten Commandments), there is also a parallel between the law of the enticer to idolatry and the law of the stubborn and rebellious son, for regarding the enticer it is emphasized that even if the enticer is beloved and a family member, one must not have compassion on him.
I think that just as Hazal taught us to beware of practical implementation of the law of the rebellious son by interpretations that greatly limit the law until it has almost no chance of occurring, so too in our generation the sages are very cautious regarding the enticer, by broadening immeasurably the law of the infant captured among the gentiles.

What does one do when morality directs one to do acts that involve violating prohibitions?
For example:
Providing medical treatment to a gentile on Shabbat – is one permitted to desecrate Shabbat in order to fulfill the moral “command” to treat a gentile?

Each case on its own merits. In your case, one is certainly obligated to treat them even at the price of violating a Torah-level Shabbat prohibition. See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%97%D7%A1-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95/

This is a case where there is no conflict at all (halakhah itself says so). But see also the series of lectures on halakhah and morality (in the audio lectures), where there are certainly also cases in which morality overrides halakhah.

Thank you for referring me to the lectures.
Perhaps the example I gave was not good (since it has a halakhic solution), but there are other examples the rabbi brought in the lectures that raise the same problem. For example, a mamzer (and essentially all other marital prohibitions) cannot marry a Jewish woman – in the lecture it sounded as though the rabbi thinks that here halakhah would override morality.
The problem is that the decision whether to prefer morality or halakhah in a case of conflict is subjective. The case of the beautiful captive woman seems immoral to me, so I prefer morality; the marital prohibition on a mamzer seems reasonable to me (personally it does not seem reasonable, but just for the sake of example), so we would prefer halakhah.
Could it be that there is a difference between positive and negative commandments? Perhaps one could say that it is easier to “give up” on positive commandments that are not moral by passive non-performance than to transgress a prohibition?
(In the example of the beautiful captive woman it is even easier, since there is no obligation here at all, similar to sending away the mother bird.)

It is much more complicated than you describe. Decisions are not made simply according to whims. For example, with a mamzer the Torah itself prohibited his marriage, and this is not an exceptional situation or a suddenly created one (what I called an essential conflict rather than an accidental one), and therefore there the prohibition takes precedence. See my audio lecture series on halakhah and morality:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7IeXlqQkljS096Mms
In the trilogy, when it comes out, I will expand on this further.
Incidentally, in halakhah too the decision is “subjective” in the same sense. There are disputes and each person decides according to his reasoning. What is the difference?

1. I listened to the lectures. Thank you.
2. In the case of the “beautiful captive woman” too there is an essential conflict – the act is immoral, yet the Torah explicitly permitted it.
3. Indeed, halakhah too is “subjective” to a certain degree. Thank you.

That is not a conflict. The Torah permits and does not obligate. Therefore there is no obstacle to saying that there is a moral prohibition and a halakhic permission. In the opposite situation, where the Torah obligates something immoral or forbids something moral, that is where the discussion begins about an essential conflict versus an accidental one.

But it seems very mainstream that the Torah’s purpose, beyond halakhah, is to create a person and a society with which the Holy One, blessed be He, will be pleased: “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in His works.”

With your permission I will bring a few references for your words.

A. Similar to your idea that halakhah and morality deal with two different realms – halakhah with the “Jewish religion,” and morality with the universal and human, so that there is not necessarily overlap between them, and when there is a contradiction [that has been clarified as a contradiction] between halakhah and morality, there remains in practice the moral prohibition – something like this [and as a kind of “prototype” for such thinking] is said by Ran in the derashah on “You shall surely set over yourself a king,” namely, that there is no overlap between halakhic law and political needs [social, economic, etc.], because halakhic law handles the religious plane and its concern is the application of the divine matter in our nation, whereas natural human needs are not necessarily handled within its framework. Sometimes there is overlap between them, and sometimes not. The Sanhedrin are entrusted with clarifying, legislating, and applying the religious law; the king is entrusted with clarifying, legislating, and applying the political law. And what happens when there is a contradiction between them? The king’s law prevails, because political existence takes precedence over religious existence.

B. Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon, in his introduction to his book Ha-Maftehot le-Man’ulei ha-Talmud [printed in editions of the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Berakhot], when explaining the source and force of the obligation of the Noahides in their commandments, writes that every axiological / moral / rational command obligates every human being from the day God created man upon the earth and for all generations [a full obligation entailing heavenly punishments, like the Flood, and if I am not mistaken also human punishments]. That is, even the Jews after the giving of the Torah were not uprooted from these rational obligations. [There is discussion of this among the later authorities, perhaps already among the early ones, but such is Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon’s view.] I think that is exactly what you are saying here. [One must examine carefully Rambam in Commentary on the Mishnah, Hullin 7:6, and in Laws of Kings 8:11, and see whether he agrees with Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon on this.]

C. Faithful to this approach, Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon brings in his book Megillat Setarim the question that Rabbi Samuel ben Hofni was asked: why did the Torah write the rational commandments? After all, this is nothing but a superfluous repetition and command concerning something that is anyway morally / rationally forbidden, which, as stated, is a full obligation with full force.

In practice, you raised this question here and answered as you did.

Rabbi Samuel ben Hofni’s answer was that indeed there is no need for these commandments in the Torah to create any new obligation, but rather this is to spur, strengthen, and encourage the matter – as is the nature of the world, that one urges and encourages someone with several modes and reasons, even when the obligation was clear from the first moment / reason.

Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon answers that this is for the sake of reward: to make a person one who is “commanded and performs” even in these matters, so that the reward for them will be due as a matter of law and obligation between employer and worker, with the force of a binding contract, and not as a merely “possible” [optional] decision of God, in which case all reward is neither necessary nor, when given, anything but kindness and charity. See there.

A correction regarding C.

I see that, on the contrary, you asked here why halakhah [the Torah?] does not enter the moral domain, and answered as you did. But Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon’s question is the opposite: it is obvious to him that the Torah [halakhah?] does enter the moral domain, and he asks why that is needed.

That is, on the one hand one sees in his words, as in yours, that the moral domain is independent and valid even after the Torah was given, but on the other hand he says that the Torah did deal with it.

True, both Rabbi Samuel ben Hofni (who gives an answer similar to what you wrote to someone in the comments on column 222) and Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon agree that the Torah’s/religious command adds nothing to the person’s obligation in itself.

And it is also true that you are speaking here about “halakhah,” and perhaps you will distinguish between “Torah,” about which the Geonim above were speaking [and say the meaning is “the Torah’s moral instructions”], and “halakhah,” about which you are speaking. But I find it very difficult to assume this, because their question explicitly refers to rational commandments within the 613, such as “you shall not murder” and “you shall not steal.” See there.

Unless you also distinguish, even within explicit commandments of the 613, between the command/prohibition itself [which you would call an “instruction”] and its halakhot, which are the practical details of the commandment and the court-imposed punishments for it, and say that only these are called “halakhot” and only about them you were speaking. That sounds strained to me, and in any case I would be glad for clarification.

In column 222, in your response [which I will quote at once], I understood from your words that everything on the list of the 613 is halakhah, not only instruction. This was your wording:

“The Written Torah instructs (and does not command. ‘And you shall do what is right and good’ was not counted among the commandments, and not for nothing. See column 15) one to be moral. But the content of morality is universal, what every gentile understands (at least today).”

Incidentally, in response to someone’s comment there in column 222, you wrote several reasons why the Torah does enter the moral domain. True, you distinguished there between “halakhah,” which does not enter the domain, and “instruction,” which does enter the domain, but among the things you brought there were also the commandments “you shall not murder” and “you shall not steal,” which are full commandments and halakhot, and indeed it was about these and the like that the Geonim above were speaking. This was your wording there:

“First, it is possible that without the Torah morality would not have been accepted as it is accepted today. Second, it is certainly important to fix a religious value beyond the moral value, like ‘you shall not murder’ and ‘you shall not steal.’ Third, the Torah does need to tell people to be moral (as I explained above, this is not a halakhic command). Perhaps not everyone would do so merely on the basis of reason. Therefore one tells them that this too is God’s will.”

And see my response there to those words of yours.

I do not understand why clarification is needed.
I distinguish between Torah, which includes many things, and halakhah. The Torah contains a moral demand; halakhah does not. My claim is that the prohibitions of murder and the like are halakhah, and they are needed in order to add a religious layer to the moral command. By an “instruction” that is not a command or halakhah, I mean the moral expectation.

You wrote here in a response: “Beyond that, I am not claiming that there are no moral halakhot, only that not all halakhot have to be such.”
I did not understand – so there are moral considerations in halakhic ruling?
I am not asking about a case where we bring all the options and choose the more moral one – but about a case where from the outset the very reason we arrived at certain options was, among other things, because of moral considerations.

I no longer remember the context and what I wrote. So I will tell you what I think. For my part, I think halakhah is completely detached from morality. It may be that here I did not mean to claim that, but only that there are other categories in halakhah besides morality. When there are two equal options, one may choose between them on a moral basis.

– In the laws of slaves, rest, conditions, and the like, are the considerations not moral?
– In the laws of damages, is there no root-level relation to morality?
– The prohibition on destroying trees in war?

In all these cases, in your humble opinion, are there no moral considerations in the very setting of the halakhic options?

Feinman and Japanese. https://ibb.co/WgSrZ87

As I wrote, to my understanding halakhah is not connected to morality in any way and in any field. A prohibition like murder is defined in halakhah without connection to moral principles. Indirect causation, constraining, and other limitations exempt a murderer, although morally he is a murderer in every respect (what difference does it make that he did it with his left hand?!). Halakhah deals with an additional layer above the moral one. There is a certain overlap between the layers, but even when there is overlap, halakhah comes to say that in murder there is also a religious prohibition and not only a moral one. Therefore, essentially, it is not dealing with morality. These things were detailed at the beginning of the third book of my trilogy.

Incidentally, a side note in the name of Hannah Bavli (the etiquette expert): when you address someone else, you do not say to him, “what, in your humble opinion…?” A modest person says of his own opinion that it is poor, but does not hand out such grades to others. Their humility should be left to them. 🙂
Behold, my word is like fire, poor in deeds and knowledge. I, the humble servant of this holy place, the besieged Lod.

I now saw that this is apparently what Tulginus meant in his comment (I read it after I responded).

But my heart is somewhat doubtful in this matter, just as Rabbi Feinman was doubtful. Many say that the this-worldly welfare of the other is my world-to-come – if that were true, then caring for my own this-worldly welfare would also be my world-to-come. Why should the fact that the doer and the one acted upon are the same make it worse? Likewise in the matter of modesty: if it is good for the other that he be modest, that is, that he recognize his own shortcomings, then why should I not spare him and be modest on his behalf first? Such differences point to a flaw.
Incidentally, there was once an incident with Rabbi Moshe Levi, who in his youth quoted a posek as saying “who wrote that in his poor opinion it seems etc.,” because that is indeed what the posek had written. And Rabbi Meir Mazuz told him that even in such a case, if one quotes the entire language (ending with “thus far his words”), one may copy the phrase “in my poor opinion,” but if one quotes only the content (ending with “thus far his remarks”), then one must say “who wrote that in his opinion it seems.”

There was once a story about Judge Professor Yaakov Bazak z”l, to whom one of the litigants, who thought that “in my poor opinion” is an honorific expression because important people use it, therefore addressed the judge: “In your poor opinion, Your Honor the judge…”

Judge Bazak enjoyed this form of address, in which his opinion was belittled, so much that he named his autobiography: In Your Poor Opinion, Your Honor the Judge. 🙂

With blessing, Yaron Fish”l Ordner

And see Lekah Tov of R. Yosef Engel on the matter of surrounding oneself and the like.
And concerning Rabbi Mazuz’s words I say: well said and well sharpened.

With God’s help, 2 Sivan 5781

To T.G. – greetings,

Modesty toward another comes to balance somewhat a person’s natural tendency to be “close to himself.” When a person develops self-criticism and openness toward the other, the likelihood increases that he will arrive at a balanced perspective.

Even if, as usually happens, the person still continues to hold to his own opinion, that will be after he made a great effort to understand also the opinion of his interlocutor and that person’s reasoning. Such an effort may lead to certain points of agreement, and even if there is no agreement at all, the mutual understanding will at least lead to mutual respect.

And this is the aspect of “Take genius,” that when two disputants each recognize also the “genius” of his fellow, then each takes a bit of the other’s genius, and both emerge enriched.

With blessing, Y.F.O. 🙂

Yfaor. Generally speaking, I do not value modesty, meekness, and the rest of these sly little traits. Someone who has achieved things is welcome to take pride in them appropriately.
The expression “in my poor opinion” in literature has already become a caricature and has no meaning. Manners and openness are not measured by phrases but by content. If, for example, one dismisses someone on the basis of a flimsy inference, that means one does not assign his opinion much weight as it stands, and no dusting of “in my humble opinion” sprinkled from above will cover that. The formulations are supposed to reflect the thoughts, not create a gap. When the Ra’avad writes that something is neither clear nor bright nor lucid, that means he truly held that the contrary reasoning was absurd and far-fetched, not merely deviating by a hair’s breadth from the line of truth. I too sometimes powder my formulations like everyone else, but most of the time I think that sort of cosmetics just gets in the way.

With God’s help, 2 Sivan 5781

To T.G. – greetings,

According to your words, modesty and meekness are “slyness.” Surprisingly, the Creator of the world chose דווקא Moses, “the humblest of all men,” to give the Torah through him, and Mount Sinai, the lowest of all mountains, as the mountain on which the Torah would be given.

And I think not for nothing. Recognition of the limitations of human thought and his ability to err because of the bias that “a person is close to himself” and “a man’s way is right in his own eyes” leads a person to open himself and try to listen to and understand even what seems to him neither clear nor bright nor lucid.

The willingness and desire to understand the opposing opinion enrich a person with a new direction of thought that is for him “outside the box,” so that even if he does not accept the new line of thinking in practice, he will nevertheless find satisfaction in the novel reasoning.

Moreover, it is specifically through this openness, whereby the disputant first presents his counterpart’s reasoning before his own, that he wins the argument, because the neutral listener is impressed that he understood deeply the considerations of his counterpart, but has stronger considerations against them.

Thus the Hatam Sofer explains that the halakhah was fixed like Beit Hillel because they were humble and presented the words of Beit Shammai before their own, for their humility clarified that they were also aware of the counter-considerations, and thus persuaded most of the listeners of their correctness.

With blessing, Yfaor

Regarding the Ra’avad, it should be noted that he was older in years than the Rambam, and therefore he relates to him as a young student whom there is room to rebuke when he errs (as the Rambam also wrote, that if a teacher sees that his student is not exact in his learning, he has permission to shame him with words).

It is not clear whether there is really a disagreement between us. Of course it is worthwhile that a person know his true place and also weigh the words of the other seriously. If that is humility, then I agree.
I wrote against verbal self-belittlement for the sake of supposed politeness when it does not truly reflect the writer’s opinion and feelings, or when the true place simply does not justify self-belittlement. Artificial politeness places the burden on the reader to try to understand what the writer really thinks. Rhetorical force ought to go hand in hand with inner feeling and with the quality of the argument. When the writer is reliable, then if there is great rhetorical force and a weak argument, that is an indication that we have not gotten to the bottom of his opinion – precisely the opposite of the common sneer, “weak argument, raise your voice.”
This is exactly like an institution where the minimum passing grade is 80, so in order to distinguish excellent students one needs finer tweezers. That does not help any student and only places a heavier burden on those who are supposed to judge him at the next stage.
Why did the Ra’avad, like all questioners and critics throughout the generations, vary his language – sometimes “not compelling,” sometimes “and it seems to me,” and sometimes “neither clear nor bright nor lucid”? Let him always write in the same formula. This is not literary variety but as precise as possible a reflection of his opinion. Using the whole range of available expressions is like increasing resolution. Instead of mapping the full set of feelings into a narrow space of politeness, one can also map a strong feeling to a strong expression. Far better than the option in which the writer disguises his opinion in polished British understatement and the reader tries to infer it from hints.

With God’s help, 2 Sivan 5781

To T.G. – greetings,

Bluntness – “rhetorical force” in sanitized language – is as useful as the blast of trumpets on the battlefield. The blast helps raise the morale of the fighters, and conversely to frighten the enemy.

That is also the aim of bluntness and disparagement in argument. They give the user the illusion that he has “won,” and also constitute an attempt to intimidate the opponent and silence him. When the one speaking bluntly also hides his name behind a “nick” – without the danger of exposure – his pleasure is doubled and redoubled.

Insisting on a substantive, respectful, and respect-giving style obligates the user to formulate clearly, which involves orderly thinking. When a person coolly weighs the considerations for and against, grounds his arguments and evidence, and tries to give a substantive and fitting response to the opposing arguments, the discussion brings about mutual broadening of mind, and in a good and calm atmosphere.

With blessing, Yerahmiel Fish”l ha-Levi Zarkin

I agree with you regarding the matter of bluntness and the use of a nickname. (That is why, incidentally, when in arguments between us in the past I sinned in bluntness while you were not hidden behind a nickname, I sent you an email with my explicit name, may he live long and well.)

And indeed your style is improving beyond all measure.

With blessing, P.Z.H.

I hope it is clear that this was purely a slip of phrasing 🙂
My apologies, and thank you for the answer.

Hello Rabbi, and forgive the lack of order in what follows.
1. It seems hard to me to define “the Torah spoke against the evil inclination” as meaning that this is against morality. For forbidden foods too are against the evil inclination (it is not logical to me that we are speaking of life-threatening danger, for if so – what was the initial assumption?), and what moral wrong is there in eating these foods?
2. The paragraph on morality and halakhah is lacking, in my opinion. The rabbi did not define what morality is, and without that much there lacks meaning.
3. How does the rabbi explain “exempt by human law but liable by the laws of Heaven”? Exempt but forbidden? Is this not a moral layer after the halakhic one? (And likewise the inadvertent murderer without witnesses whom they arrange to come to the inn, etc.)
4. What about laws that change because of morality – does that not mean halakhah and morality are one and the same? (Or were created because of morality, as the rabbi brought regarding accepting the kiddushin of his minor daughter.)
5. The rabbi assumes that we all know what morality is. But this is a subject of endless debate… (Even on what the rabbi wrote – murder is immoral but sometimes one must do it. There too there are those who would disagree and say that sometimes it is moral, from the side of euthanasia to the side of killing a soldier in battle.)
6. If morality is not identical with halakhah – what is its place and source? And when it contradicts halakhah?
Good evening,

1. I did not understand the question. What does this have to do with forbidden foods?
2. There is no need to define basic concepts. Whatever each person understands as morality is morality. The Torah too commanded to do what is right and good without defining what that is.
3. Not necessarily. There may also be a religious layer beyond the formal command. See the words of Ramhal in Mesillat Yesharim on the trait of piety, and what I wrote about this in my article here (Mesillat Yesharim appears in chapter 6):
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%95%D7%94-%D7%A1%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%90-%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%9F-%D7%94
4. Where there are several interpretive possibilities, one should adopt the one that fits the rules of morality. Of course the Sages can also enact morality as part of halakhah, such as coercion against the trait of Sodom.
5. See 2.
6. I discussed all this at length at the beginning of the third book of my trilogy. The source of moral obligation is “and you shall do what is right and good” (which is not a command, and proof of this is that it is not counted among the commandments). Alternatively, the command of conscience suffices, teaching us that God wants this. See section C of the fourth discussion in the first book of my trilogy (and in the fourth notebook on the site).

Can we know what the religious purposes are?
Is there even such a thing as religious purposes? What is the analytical meaning of the concept “religious purpose”? If it is a worthy purpose, then it is a moral purpose, and if not, then it is no purpose at all.
What purpose could there be if not social order, protection of the poor, proper management of society, etc.?

You read the first installment. There I explained in greater detail. I have no way of knowing what the religious purposes are (I did not understand what this has to do with analyticity). But it is clear that there are purposes beyond morality and social order. Those certainly cannot be the purposes of creation, as I explained there. Beyond that, looking at halakhah shows that these are not its purposes, and certainly not its only ones (in my opinion, not even at all, as I explained here).

Seemingly there is a contradiction in your words. In the three reasons you gave for why halakhah and morality are separate, you said one reason is that it is trivial, and the third reason was because it changes from place to place – which is puzzling. If it is so obvious, how can it change from place to place? Also, you yourself wrote that there is a moral problem with abortion, so I would be glad for a higher source to tell me what to do in such a complicated case…

I no longer remember what I wrote. But change from place to place does not mean morality is not absolute; rather, it depends on circumstances. As a simple example, in a place where there are no nursing homes and no way to care for the elderly, it is correct to put them out to freeze in the snow. In other places it is more proper to care for them in nursing homes. This is not a different morality but an application of the same morality according to circumstances.
Even if you would be glad for such a source, the question is not your happiness but whether such a source actually exists.

You wrote that once the rape of a captive woman was not problematic. How did that happen? I think today you would not find a single Western person who thinks there is no problem in that, and because of this we coerce and condemn people who do it so that they stop. If morality is trivial, how did it happen that once they did not implement it? And if morality requires deep thought, why should God not command us in order to know what is right to do? With all due respect, it seems foolish to me to start discussing from what stage in pregnancy the fetus is called a “person” in order to discuss whether it may be murdered, unless it turns out that morality is not absolute and not connected to God, in which case half the words of the prophets can be deleted (unless you are Leibowitzian).

In halakhah too you can ask why things were not specified, since there are disputes and development.
Usually this does not require deep thought, but there is gradual development.
I do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore it is hard for me to answer regarding His policy.