Dogmatics – Lecture 22

Table of Contents

• Two ways of relating to Maimonides’ last three principles
• Haredim as people of the “World to Come” versus non-Haredi religious Jews as those who repair the world
• Kindness, repentance, and the other person as the object of a commandment
• An explanation of why these group definitions come up in the middle of studying Maimonides
• Chabad within the map: outward activism without “repairing the world”
• The World to Come, for its own sake and not for its own sake, and the gap between ideology and actual discourse
• Corruption, secularization, and the different prices of the two approaches
• One truth, criticism of both sides, and the shifting place of Hardal ideology
• The Sabbatical year as an illustration: the sale permit versus leaving land fallow and importing from gentiles
• “A righteous man in a fur coat,” an advanced training fund for farmers, and “do not show them favor” as a systemic absurdity
• Yehudit Bridge, “do not stand idly by your neighbor's blood,” and the absence of long-term thinking
• Drafting soldiers, commandment-war, obligatory war, and reading Maimonides in Laws of Kings
• “The bridegroom from his chamber and the bride from her canopy,” the chief of staff, and using sources to persuade Haredim
• Suspicion toward democracy and morality, and Haredi duality
• Criticism of “Torah and morality” and of readings of the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook
• The two-story model: universal and particular
• “There is no such thing as Jewish morality,” the seven Noahide commandments, and the connection to a universal religious imperative
• “I’m as Zionist as Ben-Gurion,” column 693, and the end of the lecture

Summary

General Overview

The text proposes two ways of understanding Maimonides’ last three principles of faith: according to one approach they are part of the Torah’s doctrine of reward and punishment, while according to the second they are the goal toward which the Torah is directed. From this follows a fundamental division between Haredi and non-Haredi religiosity regarding the focus of religious life. It describes Haredi life as aimed at “maximum commandments and minimum transgressions,” passing through this world as a “corridor” in order to reach the “banquet hall,” whereas non-Haredi religiosity is aimed at repairing this world. That difference then radiates outward into attitudes toward Zionism, charitable organizations, bringing people to repentance, the relation to risks of “spiritual corruption,” and discourse about the World to Come. It sharpens the point that the gap between ideology and practice creates characteristic “slippages,” and in the end presents an independent position of “two stories”: a universal story of morality and repairing the world, not derived from Jewish law, and a particular story of Torah and Jewish law whose purpose is the service of God, not repairing the world.

Two ways of relating to Maimonides’ last three principles

The last three principles can be understood either as part of the Torah’s doctrine of reward and punishment, or as the purpose for which all creation was created and the goal toward which the Torah is directed. That distinction serves as a starting point for understanding deep differences in the worldview of different religious groups. He uses these principles as a “litmus test” that illuminates everyday reality more than the abstract discussion of the details of the Messiah, the World to Come, heaven, and hell.

Haredim as people of the “World to Come” versus non-Haredi religious Jews as those who repair the world

Haredi life is focused on the question of how to get through this world so that at the end of one’s biography there will be “maximum commandments and minimum transgressions,” with the World to Come serving as the indicator of success on that path. Non-Haredi religiosity is focused on the corridor itself and on the goals of repairing this world, and therefore the World to Come is hardly present in its discourse. The attitude toward Zionism follows from this, because Zionism is a move whose purpose is to repair reality in the world, and Haredi ideology opposes it mainly because it does not see changing and repairing the corridor as a central mission.

Kindness, repentance, and the other person as the object of a commandment

In the Haredi world, bringing people to repentance is meant to ensure that others too will perform more commandments and commit fewer transgressions, and concern for that is seen as part of the commandments of the activist himself. The poor person is described as the object of the commandment of charity, so that the world, people, ideas, and processes are examined through the prism of the possibility of performing commandments through them and avoiding transgressions. He describes this as a kind of “Ringo course,” in which a person is supposed to get through obstacles and receive the best possible score, without the world’s repair being the goal in itself.

An explanation of why these group definitions come up in the middle of studying Maimonides

He says that the move to defining Haredi ideology and Religious Zionism is not a necessary step for understanding Maimonides’ position, but an expansion meant to show how investigating the principles sheds light on current debates. He presents the discussion as dealing with the way groups relate to the principles themselves, not as an attempt to claim that each group has a fully formed scholarly interpretation of what Maimonides meant. He states explicitly that the discussion is meant to illustrate that the theoretical questions underlie everyday questions.

Chabad within the map: outward activism without “repairing the world”

He places Chabad on the Haredi side because, in his view, its activism is about increasing Judaism and commandments, not about repairing the world in senses such as climate, overpopulation, or Zionist sovereignty. He describes Chabad as extreme anti-Zionists theologically, and cites as evidence a story about the Lubavitcher Rebbe agreeing to the printing of Eim HaBanim Semeichah, where it was written that it was important that no one should suspect, Heaven forbid, that the author had been a Zionist. He adds that Chabad may support certain security positions out of considerations of saving life, not out of a Zionist goal of repairing the world.

The World to Come, for its own sake and not for its own sake, and the gap between ideology and actual discourse

He explains that focusing on the World to Come is not necessarily serving God not for its own sake, but rather a sign of a calculus of commandments and transgressions, and that both ideologies can be ideologies for their own sake. He argues that on the Haredi side it is easier to slide into serving not for its own sake, because the discourse of reward and punishment lies closer to the surface, whereas on the Religious Zionist side the World to Come hardly functions as motivation. He adds that when one tries to persuade someone who is not observing commandments, one sometimes uses terms of not for its own sake, as Maimonides describes in chapter 10 of Laws of Repentance, and that does not prove that the person doing the persuading is himself serving not for its own sake.

Corruption, secularization, and the different prices of the two approaches

The fear of being corrupted through army service, work, or going out into the world reflects in the Haredi world the desire to remain within the four cubits of commandments and transgressions, and no other goal justifies risking that. In the Religious Zionist world, the fear of corruption is weaker because repairing the world justifies taking risks, and therefore it is easier to slide into secularization when repairing the world is perceived as a central value shared also by gentiles and secular people. He defines these phenomena as consequences of the underlying outlooks, not as the definition of the ideologies themselves.

One truth, criticism of both sides, and the shifting place of Hardal ideology

He says there is one truth even if disputes exist, and adds that in his opinion both sides are mistaken. He describes how “the penny dropped” for him that the Hardalim are entirely on the non-Haredi side in the essential division he is drawing, even though in the past he thought the Zionist/non-Zionist distinction was no longer relevant. He presents the division not as sociological but as dependent on the question of repairing the world versus focusing on commandments and transgressions.

The Sabbatical year as an illustration: the sale permit versus leaving land fallow and importing from gentiles

He presents the Sabbatical year as a halakhic example that highlights the categorical difference between the two outlooks. He describes the Religious Zionist side as promoting the broad solution of the sale permit, sometimes alongside a court-administered produce framework, out of the view that continued agriculture in the Land of Israel is a systemic matter that cannot be done without. He describes the Haredi side as preferring to abandon lands, buy produce from gentiles, and at times from Palestinians under the label “strictly kosher Sabbatical year produce,” and as opposing the sale permit until, in his eyes, the issue turns into a principle of faith, even though the Sabbatical year nowadays is rabbinic.

“A righteous man in a fur coat,” an advanced training fund for farmers, and “do not show them favor” as a systemic absurdity

He uses the parable of “a righteous man in a fur coat” to describe a solution that protects the individual but does not warm the public, and argues that this is how Haredi ideology operates regarding the Sabbatical year. He describes an initiative for an “advanced training fund for Sabbatical-observant farmers” at the state’s expense and presents it as a tension between talk about “and I will command My blessing” and the need for government funding. He emphasizes the absurdity of rejecting the sale permit on the grounds that it is a legal fiction and violates “do not show them favor,” while in practice strengthening dependence on produce from gentiles, especially Palestinians, thereby effectively giving them an advantage in land over Jewish farmers, without looking at the broader scale.

Yehudit Bridge, “do not stand idly by your neighbor's blood,” and the absence of long-term thinking

He explains that Haredi struggles to prevent Sabbath desecration are presented as an obligation to prevent Jews from sinning, so that the secular Jew becomes the object of a commandment just like the poor person in the case of charity. He argues that systemic considerations and long-term consequences are simply not on the Haredi screen, and therefore decisions are made within the short range of preventing a transgression, without evaluating how the system will function in the future.

Drafting soldiers, commandment-war, obligatory war, and reading Maimonides in Laws of Kings

He cites Maimonides, who lists commandment-wars, but points out that later Maimonides in practice divides between discretionary war and the wars against the seven nations and Amalek, without explicitly including “helping Israel against an enemy who attacks them” in that detailed breakdown. He argues that “helping Israel against an enemy who attacks them” is not a commandment-war but an “obligatory war,” and cites the Jerusalem Talmud in Sotah, which distinguishes between “discretionary war” and “obligatory war.” He interprets obligatory war as a response of survival and a law of a collective pursuer, and therefore as arising from saving life rather than from fulfilling an initiated commandment such as Amalek and the seven nations.

“The bridegroom from his chamber and the bride from her canopy,” the chief of staff, and using sources to persuade Haredim

He argues that quotations such as “the bridegroom from his chamber and the bride from her canopy” are irrelevant to obligatory war, because who gets drafted is determined by the needs of rescue and by reality, not by categories from the laws of commandment-war. He explains that the use of Maimonides and the language of commandment is meant to persuade Haredim in terms they are able to accept, because a discourse of civic responsibility, military necessity, or “otherwise we won’t survive” is not the central consideration for them. He defines this as a distortion resulting from the desire to force everything into halakhic categories, and presents the necessity of enlistment as something that would apply even to a person in Zimbabwe when there is an existential threat.

Suspicion toward democracy and morality, and Haredi duality

He attributes to the Haredi world a deep suspicion toward principles whose source lies outside the Torah, such as morality or common sense, presenting them as “the counsel of the evil inclination” and as ideas belonging to the corridor. He describes a “Haredi duality” in which people are sober and cynical regarding the mechanisms of the “great sages of the generation” and the political fixers, yet still obey political and leadership directives. He argues that in practice “being a mensch” is not the main thing, and the commitment is focused on fulfilling commandments and avoiding transgressions.

Criticism of “Torah and morality” and of readings of the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook

He rejects the claim that the goal of Jewish law is solely to promote morality, a claim he attributes to Rabbi Kook, and calls it absurd. He says that with regard to the Chazon Ish as well there is a widespread mistaken reading, as though Jewish law determines morality, and he stresses that the Chazon Ish is the father of the idea of the “fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh,” which introduces a consideration not written in the four sections of the Shulchan Arukh. He describes a situation in which moral principles enter Jewish law as a rabbinic obligation in certain places, but are not themselves created by Jewish law.

The two-story model: universal and particular

He argues that both groups operate with a “one-story” conception: the Haredim reduce everything to Torah and commandments, while Religious Zionism expands the Torah so that it includes repairing the world as a religious mission. He proposes a model in which the first story is universal and includes morality, common sense, and repairing the world, which obligate all human beings, Jews and gentiles alike, and are not derived from Jewish law. He sets the second story as the Torah-halakhic level, whose purpose is the service of God, fulfilling commandments, and avoiding transgressions, and which is not intended to repair the world. In that sense, he disagrees both with the Haredim and with the Religious Zionists.

“There is no such thing as Jewish morality,” the seven Noahide commandments, and the connection to a universal religious imperative

He states that “there is no such thing as Jewish morality,” and that this is an oxymoron, because there is universal morality and there is Judaism, which is Jewish law. He notes that even before the giving of the Torah, Cain was judged morally for murdering Abel, so morality does not depend on verses such as “and you shall do what is upright and good” in order to be binding. He raises the possibility that the seven Noahide commandments are an expression of a universal obligation, and that even if it has a religious character, it still belongs to the first story that binds the entire world.

“I’m as Zionist as Ben-Gurion,” column 693, and the end of the lecture

He adopts the statement “I am a religious Jew and a secular Zionist,” and presents a Zionism that is not part of the religious outlook but rather a civic-national identity similar to Ben-Gurion’s. He brings the joke about the rabbi of Ponevezh, who on Israeli Independence Day neither recited Hallel nor omitted Tachanun, and explained, “I’m as Zionist as Ben-Gurion,” and argues that this is actually a serious statement that illustrates the two-story model. He refers listeners to “column six hundred and ninety-three” on the definition of Haredi ideology, concludes the discussion, and says, “Good night” and “Sabbath peace.”

Hello. We’re in the middle of trying to characterize two ways of relating to the last three principles of faith of Maimonides—redemption, divine involvement, reward and punishment, resurrection of the dead, and so on. I said that there are basically two ways to view these principles: are they part of the Torah’s doctrine of reward and punishment, or are they really some kind of goal or destination toward which the Torah is directed? And I said that I think this difference actually provides an essential definition of the attitude—or the differences—between Haredim and non-Haredi religious people, maybe Religious Zionists, modern religious people, religious Zionists, I don’t know, all sorts of labels like that that get mixed together. And as part of that I described—really I said that broadly speaking, say, Haredim, you could call them people of the World to Come, people of the World to Come in the sense that for them the World to Come is what’s in focus. Meaning, the thinking that guides one’s conduct in this world is really centered on the question: how do I get to the World to Come in the optimal way? Or in other words, how do I arrive there with the maximum number of commandments and the minimum number of transgressions? How do I get through this world and reach the end of my biography with the most commandments and the fewest transgressions?

And in the non-Haredi world, the claim is that in our conduct in the world we are actually trying to achieve certain goals—to repair this world. Meaning, the corridor, from the Haredi perspective, is a corridor and our purpose is to arrive in the banquet hall in the best possible way; whereas in non-Haredi religiosity the main focus is the corridor itself. I mentioned that matters like the Messiah and the World to Come—the Messiah depends, but the World to Come certainly—is not mentioned at all. It’s simply not part of the discourse. The World to Come, paradise, hell, all kinds of things of that sort—none of that is part of the discourse. And that expresses this difference in attitude between Haredim and non-Haredi religious people.

I tried to show this through various forms of conduct in the world. I said that even the attitude toward Zionism actually stems from this point, because Zionism is a movement whose purpose is to fix something in the world. And in that sense Haredi thought opposes it not necessarily because it is run or led by secular people. That doesn’t help, but that’s not the essential point. The essential point is that we are supposed to survive here, not to change the corridor. We have to get through the corridor in order to reach the banquet hall, not to repair the corridor. And therefore all kinds of moves whose purpose is to change the world, fix the world, turn it into something else—those are not part of the Haredi discourse; that is not Haredi thinking. In contrast, Religious Zionism joins the Zionist project—even if it didn’t initiate it, it joined it—because from their perspective, fixing the world is a religious mission. And therefore they paint the Zionist project in religious colors. Meaning, from their point of view, whatever a secular person does out of some national motive or something like that, the Religious Zionist does out of a religious motive; or nationalism itself, for him, is religious. And therefore he absolutely sees the repair of the world as a religious mission.

I spoke a bit about forms of conduct, about charitable organizations, about what exactly people do in the world, what the goals are, repentance movements, all kinds of things of that sort, and I tried to show that even the kinds of conduct that ostensibly look like an effort to repair the world—repentance movements, for example—actually in the Haredi world are not really intended for that. They are intended to ensure that others too perform the maximum number of commandments and the minimum number of transgressions. Especially since my concern that they do commandments and not transgressions is itself my commandment: “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” And so in effect I am engaged in a commandment, while the other person, for me, is a kind of extra. Yes, we talked about that—that this is a Ringo track, yes? The whole world is a set of goals that I am supposed to get through with the best possible grade. And indeed, the poor person is basically the object of the commandment of charity. I give him charity, and the poor person is basically the object of the commandment of charity. He exists here so that I can fulfill through him the commandment of charity. This is really a view of me as someone destined to fulfill the maximum number of commandments and the minimum number of transgressions, and needs, and the world, and people, and groups, and ideas, and historical movements—all these things are evaluated only through the prism of how I can fulfill the most commandments and the fewest transgressions through them. I have no goal of repairing the world as far as the corridor itself is concerned, meaning the world itself, not in terms of how many commandments I can derive from it.

Rabbi, can I ask something? Yes. I’m trying to understand, on an essential level, why it’s actually important to define these groups. Because until now we went through all of Maimonides’ principles, we tried to understand why each one is a principle and what he is trying to say, and here suddenly for two lessons already the Rabbi has been trying to define these groups. Why is that essential, and how is it connected to Maimonides?

Rabbi, Rabbi, can I try to answer him? Okay, go ahead, ask. Sorry. After all, these voices are already heard in the Sages. We have Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, we have “they abandon eternal life and engage in temporal life,” we have the attitude to labor, I can bring a whole list now. And on the other hand there are the other voices that do come to repair the world and elevate labor. And in Maimonides too, seemingly, there really are two voices here. It’s hard to understand what exactly Maimonides’ position is on this matter. Because on the one hand he says no, no, one should not occupy oneself with the World to Come; all this discussion—what is the World to Come, as little as possible—it doesn’t increase fear of Heaven, neither love nor fear. And he apparently does elevate labor and attacks those who do not engage in labor. On the other hand, his discussion of labor is not ideal from the outset; it’s as if not so that you won’t need charity—it’s seemingly… I’m saying, therefore, I’m saying I hope the Rabbi will eventually say what Maimonides’ position is regarding these two voices in the Sages. It’s very important for understanding Maimonides here.

I’m not sure I have a position, or a fully formed position, about what Maimonides thought. I’ll say in the end what I think. But I’m using Maimonides’ principles as—I don’t know what to call it—litmus paper. The claim, basically, is that there are two ways to relate to these three principles. And in that sense this is an inquiry into Maimonides’ method. We’re trying to understand what Maimonides meant. And when I read the principles, the ones I read, I tried to show the different sides: that one can see them as part of the doctrine of reward and punishment, and one can see them as the goal for which all creation was made—the purpose of creation. From that distinction I moved to defining Religious Zionism and Haredi society—not because it is important for understanding Maimonides, but because for me it is an interesting extension of that same inquiry we carried out in Maimonides.

That is to say, you shouldn’t conclude from the fact that I devoted three lessons to it, or however many, that this means it is the most important issue for understanding Maimonides’ principles. It isn’t. I’m simply opening a kind of parenthesis here and saying: that same inquiry we carried out regarding Maimonides’ three principles can shed light on the reality we live in. That’s interesting. So at the moment I don’t care how central this is to understanding Maimonides’ principles; I’m using it as a springboard to clarify another interesting issue, that’s all.

So basically each such group relates to Maimonides in a different way? To Maimonides’ principles. Again, I don’t think every such group actually developed some academic interpretive position about what Maimonides’ view is. Maimonides’ principles are accepted by everyone, but the relation to those principles is different. Now why is it different? Is it because they think that’s what Maimonides meant, or because that’s simply how they understand it? I don’t know. I’m not familiar at all with discussions on either side about what exactly Maimonides meant by his principles. But I am familiar with ways both sides relate to the principles themselves—how people themselves see the principles, not how they think Maimonides intended them to be seen. Okay? Therefore, the discussion I’m conducting here is not meant to clarify Maimonides’ method. It is meant to take the principles established by Maimonides and see that they project onto issues that occupy us in our daily lives.

And in that sense I think this is much more interesting than those abstract questions of Messiah yes or no and how he will be and what will be in the World to Come and paradise and hell. It is much more current, much more present before our eyes, to look at the things around us. We simply see that all the arguments here are being conducted around this. And suddenly you notice—at least for me this is where the penny dropped, which is why I’m sharing it here—that those less interesting theoretical questions actually underlie the questions that occupy us in our day-to-day life. And that’s really the claim. Okay?

So I have two questions. First of all, when we’re talking about Haredim, does that include Chabad as well? Because I think Chabad actually sanctifies the here and now and this world. Someone asked me that on the website. I don’t agree. I think Chabad belongs on the Haredi side of this map. It’s true that they act more outwardly, but there are no projects there to fix the world. There are projects there to increase Judaism and commandments. That, yes. In that sense it parallels the repentance movements of the other Haredi groups. That’s why of course they go to the ends of the earth and send people to I-don’t-know-where to live alone in some jungle. Meaning, the self-sacrifice is of course immeasurably greater, I think, than in many—perhaps all—Haredi groups, or at least many of them. But in the end that self-sacrifice puts commandments and transgressions, Judaism, at the center.

I don’t think there is Chabad activity to fix the climate crisis in the world. Or overpopulation. Or not to mention Zionism—that’s what I answered him on the website too. People maybe don’t know enough, but Chabad are extreme anti-Zionists. Yes. Even though they look very integrated, in their outlook, in their theology, there is extreme anti-Zionism there. Yes. And in that sense, they simply say: there is danger to life, and therefore one has to fight, and they are right-wing, as it were, in the usual categories of our politics—but for completely different reasons, not for reasons of Zionism, but because Jews are in danger and must be defended because it is danger to life. But that is not for a Zionist purpose, in some sense of repairing something in the world. There is a commandment of “and live by them”; one has to defend oneself, and they think that defending oneself optimally means the entire Land of Israel, or I don’t know, political and military hawkishness.

But yes, I once saw in the book Em HaBanim Semeicha—do you know it?—by Rabbi Teichtal, who was from Satmar and during the Holocaust was hiding in Hungary, in Budapest, and wrote there an enthusiastic Zionist book, Em HaBanim Semeicha. And in the introduction—I think his grandson published some new edition—there appears an approbation from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And he writes there that publishing the book is very important, so that people should not suspect his grandfather—or his father’s father, his grandfather, I no longer remember, I think it was the grandson—that heaven forbid his grandfather had been a Zionist. That’s what the Lubavitcher Rebbe writes. And that suddenly made the penny drop for me. I read that sentence and I was stunned. Afterward I became a bit more aware of this tension in Chabad thinking—that they are very anti-Zionist in their thought, in their theology. Yes, there is also the matter that they built for the Rebbe that exact same house in Kfar Chabad and he never agreed to come to the Land of Israel and he never came here. Yes, that I don’t know, I’m not familiar with his reasons, I don’t know exactly why.

Fine, but I’m saying many Chabad people today aren’t Zionists just because of that. I’m saying that’s true. Okay, I’m talking about Chabad thought; I’m not necessarily talking about what the average Chabad person thinks. Very often people on the ground perhaps also don’t make these distinctions; overall they are involved in the public sphere and are right-wing and are not always aligned with the standard Haredi parties. Yes, there was Mizrachi once, some Chabad representative who joined Mapai or something like that. They are not integrated into Haredi politics, but it seems to me that their religious outlook is Haredi. They are a certain shade, some kind of edge of the Haredi map.

Wait, so what is their theological motive that makes them anti-Zionist? Again? What is their theological motive for being anti-Zionist? I don’t know, I have no idea. But they are anti-Zionists. That’s a clear statement. I don’t know exactly what. I have no idea. But where does the Rabbi see this—how does it show itself in the Chabad world? Where do you see it? In the fact that it’s theology; it’s not in the Chabad world. They won’t participate in Zionist projects in the establishment of the state. They won’t participate in that context. They will participate in the security aspects. And that doesn’t mean they are against the state. It may be that they support establishing settlements because that has security value in their view. But not as the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. They couldn’t care less about that.

But does that mean they’re anti? Maybe they just have no opinion. Maybe they’re not. No, no, no. I mentioned earlier the sentence of the Lubavitcher Rebbe: that heaven forbid he should have been a Zionist. Right? So it seems to me that’s a very clear expression of anti. I’m no expert on Chabad, so there’s no point interrogating me. Ask Chabad people; they’ll answer you better. They won’t answer—they’ll get clever and say this and that and so on. Maybe, doesn’t matter. In any case, I think, in my impression, this division still entirely stands. Meaning, Chabad definitely belongs on the Haredi side of the map.

And I’m trying to understand: there are two dichotomies here. One dichotomy deals with the here and now versus the World to Come. That I understood. Now there is a second dichotomy between this world in the material sense and maybe this world but in the more spiritual sense. Because when you give the example of Chabad, they wanted more to repair, but they want to repair in the sense of religion, not in the sense of—for argument’s sake. I’m not talking about the World to Come in the first sense; I’m talking in the second sense. That’s why I mentioned a two-dimensional map, and maybe we’ll talk about that today too. I’m not talking about serving for ulterior motives. I’m not claiming that the Haredim serve God for ulterior motives and the non-Haredi religious people serve for its own sake. I’m making no such claim. These are two conceptions of what serving for its own sake means.

That’s why I’m not talking about serving in order to receive reward. For me the World to Come is an indication, a sign; it is not the reason. Meaning, if you merit the World to Come, that means you successfully passed the obstacle course of this world. You fulfilled the maximum number of commandments and failed in the minimum number of transgressions—and that is the goal. Therefore they look at this world through the lens of commandments and transgressions. That’s what I mean by people of the World to Come.

Rabbi, but the separation you’re making—when you say the Haredim serve for the sake of Heaven even though everything is done around the World to Come—that’s a very hard separation really to accept. Why? That’s why I say, from my perspective the World to Come—maybe really I’m using it a bit imprecisely when I say “people of the World to Come.” I mean people of spirit and not people of matter. Meaning people of commandments and transgressions, and the indication that you fulfilled the maximum number of commandments and minimum number of transgressions is that you will arrive in the World to Come in the best way. But I’m not speaking in the sense of serving not for its own sake, where your whole goal is to sit there and enjoy the World to Come. That is serving not for its own sake. I mean to say that when you conduct your affairs in this world, your calculation is a calculation of maximum commandments and minimum transgressions, with the indication being meriting the World to Come—but not that this is the goal. Okay?

Rabbi, but in everyday conversation with Haredim—and I do this a lot—the discourse is really that when they want to persuade you, they tell you, listen, you can merit—do you know what you can receive? They speak as though that’s the motivation, it’s present in their lives. Where am I going to get? Will I get to paradise or will I get to hell? I think I spoke about this here. I said that obviously there are people who serve for its own sake and people who serve not for its own sake on both sides. I’m not claiming everyone serves for its own sake. I’m claiming that the ideologies—not the people, people are sometimes weak—the ideologies are both ideologies of serving for its own sake. Now there is a correlation. Certain people can certainly say, “I want to get to the World to Come,” but that doesn’t mean Haredi ideology is an ideology of serving not for its own sake. That’s not necessary at all. Not on the principled level.

But on the practical level. No, no, there too. Let’s agree with the Rabbi that on the principled level that’s not necessary, but practically speaking, if we were to conduct a thorough survey, we would see that there it’s… I’ll explain in a moment. I explained it a bit in the previous lesson too and I’ll return to it in another moment. What I basically want to say is that the ideology is an ideology of serving for its own sake. Except that with an ideology that puts commandments and transgressions before one’s eyes, and where the World to Come is the indication, it’s very easy to slide into serving not for its own sake. Exactly. It’s easy to slide there, and in that sense you will definitely hear more language of “not for its own sake” on the Haredi side than on the Religious Zionist side. On the Religious Zionist side no one will tell you, do commandments because otherwise how will you get to the World to Come—it doesn’t interest anyone. Do commandments because commandments need to be done, because the world needs to be repaired, because commandments need to be done because, I don’t know, all kinds of explanations. The World to Come is not present.

Now both are speaking, on the ideological level, in terms of serving for its own sake, but you are right that practically speaking, discourse of the type that places the World to Come at the center—or commandments and transgressions at the center—slides much more easily into discourse of serving not for its own sake. That’s true. In just a moment I’ll elaborate a bit more. But there’s another point here in relation to your question. When you come to persuade someone, as Maimonides says in chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance that we saw, when you come to persuade someone who does not observe commandments, then of course you will persuade him in terms of not for its own sake. That’s what those terms were made for—the World to Come, paradise, hell. What were they made for? As Maimonides says, for women and children and those who serve not for its own sake, because that is what will get them to do commandments. So when you come to persuade someone to do commandments, of course you’ll tell him, listen, after all you’ll receive the World to Come; it’s worthwhile for you, it pays for you, do commandments. That doesn’t necessarily indicate that you, the persuader, also serve for the sake of the World to Come.

And that is another remark on what you said before, Shmuel. Meaning, the fact that they tell you, listen, do this because you will merit the World to Come, because they want to persuade you—or persuade you, heretic, to do commandments because it will help you, you’ll get to the World to Come—that does not necessarily mean that the person speaking to you also serves for the sake of the World to Come. Those are two different things. Therefore I say there are two answers here. First, I’m speaking about ideology, not about people. On the level of people, definitely, because the ideology is such, it is much easier to slide into language not for its own sake about the World to Come, and in that sense that is true. Besides that, I claim that even someone who has not slid into conceptions not for its own sake—he really does serve for its own sake—still, when he comes to persuade you to do commandments, he will use language like “look, you’ll merit this and you’ll merit that.” What will he tell you? “Do commandments because that’s what needs to be done”—I mean, fine, you know that too. He wants to persuade you to do it because it’s worthwhile for you, because you will gain. So therefore he speaks about the World to Come. That doesn’t necessarily testify to his own spiritual world, that of the speaker.

So what is the claim in the end? Sorry, if I understand, this isn’t only a matter of ideology. Because ideology, in the end, a person can be faithful to a certain ideology and over the course of his life change his opinions and attach himself to another ideology, like you described it in the previous lesson. This is part of the whole worldview, of the language, and it’s also super-apologetic toward that Haredi public. It’s not at all something that can be changed. It’s not an ideology that a person can move through in the course of his life from being left-wing to right-wing, but rather it’s— I won’t use the word DNA—but it’s so deeply in the DNA that it can’t be changed at all. No, what do you mean it can’t be changed? But are you talking about moving from not for its own sake to for its own sake? Or from… No, I’m talking about what… about their worldview that sees the corridor as unimportant. Fine, no, I agree that this is a very deep conception. I don’t know whether it’s unchangeable; that’s too extreme a statement. But yes, it is a very deep conception.

If they see the world that way—and I say, in that sense there is a lot to judge them favorably on—because when we look at them it seems bizarre. Meaning, how do they manage—noticing all that’s going on around them—to remain so egoistic, so uninvolved and so unaccountable toward the world around them? So I spoke about the fear of corruption. The fear of corruption through military service, through work, through entering the wider world—that fear of corruption precisely represents the fact that I am supposed to separate myself from the world and remain within my four cubits of commandments and transgressions. And if something will damage that, nothing in the world is worth it. By contrast, in the Religious Zionist world, the fear of corruption is much weaker—not because fear of Heaven is less, or not necessarily because fear of Heaven is less—but because the obligation to repair the world justifies taking risks of corruption, because we have to repair the world. And sometimes repairing the world entails corruption or the danger of corruption.

And therefore in the Religious Zionist world, just as in the Haredi world it is much easier to slide into serving not for its own sake, in the Religious Zionist world it is much easier to slide into secularization. Why is it easier to slide into secularization? Because we place before our eyes the task of repairing the world. Now when you educate a person to repair the world—and repairing the world, after all, are things the nations do too, things that secular people do too—you want to be more moral, establish a national home, it doesn’t matter, these are things secular people do too, non-Jews do too, etc. So he basically says: wait a second, then what distinguishes me from them? So I’ll go with those values and leave me alone with redeeming a firstborn donkey. Why is that interesting? In other words, those are really the important things. And therefore I say each side slides very quickly into the stumbling blocks that characterize it. But one has to notice that this is a slide. Meaning, it’s not that the Religious Zionist world advocates secularization. It doesn’t advocate secularization. It simply slides more easily in the direction of secularization. The Haredi world too does not advocate serving not for its own sake. But it slides more easily into serving not for its own sake.

That is why I say the phenomena we see before our eyes—that there is more secularization on the Religious Zionist side and more language of not for its own sake in the Haredi world—do not define the conceptions of the two sides. That is a result. The conceptions are conceptions that are both pure conceptions of serving for its own sake, and everything is fine. No one wants either to secularize or to serve not for its own sake. But the basic ideological conceptions project or lead to slippages of different kinds.

Rabbi, I think what’s important in this discussion is also… it reminds me of the series from last year that the Rabbi gave at Bar-Ilan, “Dispute and Truth.” Because in the end there are all these groups, and a person has to ask himself what the truth is in the end. And is there one truth? So there’s the very politically correct answer—seventy faces to the Torah, these and those are both the words of the living God, and all those things we know. But in the end this also has an impact on the daily life of Jewish law. Say, for example, around the army—this is the hottest dispute right now. One has to know—so it must be that someone here is right and someone here is wrong. It cannot be that everyone is right regarding the army.

I’ll get to that in a moment—that there is some halakhic dispute here—but yes, of course it has an impact. So what? But it’s a dispute like any other dispute. What do you want? No, but it means that essentially a very large group here—not “it could be”; it must be—a very large group here is mistaken. But there’s also a dispute about the rival wife of one’s daughter between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel. So what? There is one truth, and there is a dispute about it—what can you do? No, I mean that this whole conception, this whole foundation based on the World to Come or not the World to Come, ultimately really has very great implications for… Right, it has implications, and there you are, I’m describing them. So what? No, I’m saying this is not only ideology, not only theory. In practice too it has… My whole thesis is that it’s not only theory. Everything I’m trying to show here is that it begins with a certain theory—how do I relate to Maimonides’ principles—but in the end it enters all the current disputes within which we live. Yes, in everyday life. Right, exactly. That’s the whole point I’m trying to show here.

So again I return to the question, sorry. Going in your direction, Uriel—adding to what Uriel said—before the Rabbi hung the distinction on the World to Come, at the beginning you put the Hardalim in the same group, the same group as the Haredim. And here there is the point that I think Uriel also touched a bit—that Uriel asks: the split, the meaning, the implications are so deep and produce such terrible things that it’s hard to leave Hardalim and Haredim in the same group. That’s how I started the first lesson before last. Yes, yes, yes. No, I’m saying that now that you hung the distinction on the World to Come, then the Hardalim—the Haredi non-Haredim—returned to the second group, and only the Haredim remained in this group.

I said this last time, and I’ll say it again here. That is exactly the point that was renewed for me here, because I was sure that this division of yes-Zionist or not-Zionist was no longer relevant. And that Hardalim are like Belz—in other words, just another Hasidic court on the Haredi side. And that is true in several respects. But in the essential division I am presenting here, absolutely not. The Hardalim are entirely on the non-Haredi side, entirely. That is exactly the point. And that’s why I said that this penny that dropped for me changed all the divisions I had in mind. I was sure this was a sociological division, but the Hardalim really belong completely to the Haredi side—and no. In this perspective it really changes. Right, that is exactly what I am claiming.

Wait, and does the Rabbi think there is only one truth in these matters? Yes, I think there is one truth, and I think the truth is—well, I’ll explain what I think the truth is. Of course there is one truth, though there can still be disputes about it. What can you do? Okay, so if there is one truth, then most of the public is wrong, basically. I don’t know if most of the public—depends where the majority is. A large part of the public, a large part of the public is mistaken. Yes, certainly. I’ll say more than that: the one truth I believe in says that both sides are wrong, as always in every dispute. I don’t agree with either side. So indeed most of the public is wrong. I don’t agree with both sides—that is, the whole public is wrong, not most of the public. The whole public except one is wrong. Fine, so that’s the truth. We’ll get to that later.

Rabbi, may I still make just one last comment? When I talk with Haredim—and I believe the Rabbi also talks with Haredim—they are not trying to convince me to repent. They know that I observe Torah and commandments and so on. It’s a Torah discussion between us, and the issue of the World to Come is never brought up from there as an essential and central reason. And the Rabbi should ask himself: when the Rabbi talks with Haredim, just casually, and asks, somehow manages to slip in the question why are we doing this whole project—there’s no way they’ll tell the Rabbi “also the World to Come.” So yes, I accept the Rabbi’s principled distinction; in practice it is not for its own sake. Fine, there’s no point arguing; that’s a question of practice. Empirically it can be checked. Not about practice. In any case, it does project onto practice, but I’m claiming there is a gap between the thought and the practice. So either there is or there isn’t—we can argue about it.

Anyway, I want to add one more comment, an example that occurred to me last time—think, for example, about the Sabbatical year, because it slipped my mind, literally and figuratively. Look. Look, for example, at the Sabbatical year. The Sabbatical year is an unequivocally halakhic religious goal, right? And notice the ways this goal is handled on the Haredi side and on the Religious Zionist side. The Religious Zionist side is basically pushed by the sale permit, with other side-solutions—otzar beit din and so on—but the main principle is the sale permit. The Haredi side strongly opposes this; it has become a principle of faith. And the Sabbatical year nowadays is rabbinic-level, and with the sale permit I don’t understand at all how one could even question it. Not only is it at most some kind of rabbinic doubt, it has become some sort of principle of faith, one of those “be killed rather than transgress” issues. That’s the nature of political disputes.

But still, let’s leave aside the exaggerations for the moment. Beyond the exaggerations, the conception is that really the way of dealing with the Sabbatical year is through leaving the land fallow, right? Making it lie fallow. Basically, trying as much as possible—again, how many Haredi farmers are there? Almost none. But whomever you can somehow get to do this properly, that means making the land lie fallow, buying produce from non-Jews, preferably from Palestinians—and this is called premium Sabbatical observance, ironically enough. In Haredi stores they have “premium Sabbatical year.” In the Religious Zionist world the whole treatment is the opposite. The treatment is the sale permit. Again, alongside the sale permit there are those who want to use otzar beit din, which may be better; there are some disputes about that, doesn’t matter. But clearly no one denies that one has to use the sale permit and that that is the broad solution. On the margins of that solution, whoever can—and with those fruits and vegetables for which he succeeds—uses otzar beit din. But the broad solution, the central solution, the solution no one will give up on, is the sale permit.

Now what is the difference between these two solutions? Both come to solve a halakhic problem. Ostensibly this is a thoroughly Haredi dispute—as though we are really speaking about the question of how to avoid transgressions and do commandments. But notice—this is what the Hasidim call it, do you know the difference between Abraham and Noah? So I don’t know who the first source is, the Sefat Emet, I no longer remember—but they have what they call a “fur-coat tzaddik.” What is a fur-coat tzaddik? He says: you’re sitting in a cold room. Fine, you have two options for protecting yourself from the cold. You can put on a fur coat, and then you get warm but everyone else keeps freezing, or you can light a stove. If you light a stove, it will warm everyone, not only you.

Now the Haredim put on a fur coat, because they need not to get corrupted. Meaning, they need to be premium in terms of the Sabbatical year. Ah, it’s impossible to maintain an economy that way? The farmers will go bankrupt, it’s impossible to run agriculture that way. Haredim themselves—I wrote about this too in one of my columns—wanted to pass, and I think it even passed a first reading, I don’t remember exactly where it stands right now, an advanced-study fund for farmers who keep the Sabbatical year. They passed an advanced-study fund, of course at the state’s expense—not that they themselves would put money in the way people normally contribute to such a fund, but “advanced-study fund” meaning that the state will give funding or salary or whatever to farmers who let their fields lie fallow.

This of course comes together with the claim that of course there is divine blessing and everyone who observes the Sabbatical year will only profit from it economically. Alongside that, we make sure that the state will pay him, lest the Holy One, blessed be He, not take care of him after all. But beyond the contradictions here, the policy is that the state has to take care of ten or so farmers who let their fields lie fallow and give them this fund, and the fruits and vegetables we’ll bring from abroad, and that’s it. Now you understand that if the entire world were like this—if all Jewish farmers in the Land of Israel did this—there would be no agriculture in the country today. Not because secular people don’t want to do it; you need the sale permit. If all the farmers did this, there would be no agriculture in the State of Israel today. Therefore one must not do such a thing. It’s not just that secular farmers don’t want to. This solution is not a workable solution. It simply cannot be. It’s not really a solution that solves the macroscopic problem of how we deal with the issue of the Sabbatical year. What Rabbi Lichtenstein called a halakhic tragedy—that the Sabbatical year turned into a concern, turned from a commandment into a concern—“without concern for the Sabbatical year.” It begins as a commandment, after all, the Sabbatical year. Even according to Nachmanides there is perhaps even a commandment to eat Sabbatical produce, and so on. Here it is “without concern for the Sabbatical year.” The Sabbatical year has turned from a commandment into a concern, and I think this is a wonderful expression of this distinction.

Now in the Religious Zionist world they say: we will use the sale permit because without it it is impossible to sustain agriculture in a world like ours, in a modern world. It is simply impossible; there will be no agriculture in Israel. Now what do the Haredim say about this? They say nothing about it—they never thought about it. They do not speak on the scale of whether there will be agriculture in Israel. That does not interest them at all. What they need, again—I’m not speaking critically, I’m speaking descriptively—they simply need to make sure that I do not eat something that carries concern of Sabbatical sanctity, or do something problematic, that I get through this obstacle of the Sabbatical year, this concern of the Sabbatical year, in the optimal way. What do you do with the overall structure of the state? How do we maintain agriculture while also making sure people don’t transgress the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year and the like? That is not the scale that interests them.

And therefore they will fight bitter wars against the Chief Rabbinate, which saves agriculture and the Sabbatical year in Israel. It’s hard for me even to say those words, because the idea that the Chief Rabbinate saves anything is almost an oxymoron. But yes, in this case of the Sabbatical year, the sale permit—yes, to the displeasure of most chief rabbis in recent terms—but in practice they keep it going. They are basically saving our ability to maintain agriculture on the one hand and keep the Sabbatical year on the other—or at least not to stumble over concerns, over the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year. Okay? That’s the only rescue; there’s no other rescue.

Now the Haredim, first, fight to make the chief rabbi Haredi, and then they fight so that he won’t use the sale permit. Why? Because we have to make sure that we are premium, that we arrive in the World to Come clean and whole. Ah, only two percent of us will arrive that way in the World to Come, and it may be that many others of us will arrive too quickly in the World to Come because they will die of hunger—there will be no agriculture here. That doesn’t matter. They don’t think on that scale. And again, I say, I also blame them for this, but here I’m bringing it only as a description. This is not an accusation; it is simply a way of looking. You need to make sure you don’t fail with the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year, that’s all. Bring fruit from abroad.

Now understand the absurdity. They pile up all the prohibitions. Why do they reject the sale permit? So first of all they say it’s a legal fiction; I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t solve the problem of the Sabbatical year. Beyond that there is “do not show them favor.” There is a prohibition against selling, against granting non-Jews a foothold in the land. Okay? So if you sell the land to a non-Jew, then you violate the prohibition of “do not show them favor.” We do all sorts of tricks to sell the trees and so on—there are all kinds of maneuvers so as not to violate “do not show them favor” even on the side of the one making the sale—but never mind, there is some concern here about that prohibition. So what do they do as a result? They say, fine, then we oppose the sale permit, sell nothing, and from our perspective let the fields lie fallow and bring produce from the non-Jews. Which non-Jews? Many Palestinians. Do you have any greater case of “do not show them favor” than that? In the end what you are doing is giving the Palestinians a foothold in the land at the expense of Jewish farmers in order not to violate “do not show them favor.” Do you understand what absurdities we arrive at? It’s unbelievable.

Your goal is not to give them a foothold in the land, therefore it is forbidden to sell the fields to a non-Jew. Now if you don’t sell the fields to a non-Jew, then in the end the foothold in the land will be only theirs. Yes, but on the formal level, right now I didn’t sell a field to a non-Jew. In the global view, on the larger scale, they don’t look that way. That scale is not at the center for them at all. What—worry about how the State of Israel will function, even on the level of commandments, to keep the Sabbatical year? That isn’t on the scale at all. What do you mean, keep the Sabbatical year? Let everyone abandon the fields. The Holy One, blessed be He, already promised, “and I will command My blessing,” everything is fine, we’re all set, don’t worry, we’ll have wonderful agriculture. Ah, those who abandon the fields—you arrange state funding for them, not relying on the Holy One, blessed be He, to command His blessing for them, because we’re winking at ourselves, we don’t really believe it ourselves, obviously. So what is it then? We somehow have to explain the nonsense we are doing, and we are not really taking account of the bigger scales, and we are trying to get the private individual through with maximum commandments and minimum transgressions in the best possible way, and let the world be destroyed afterward. I don’t care if the world is destroyed. We are not thinking on the scale of how the world will be built, or not destroyed, or run better. That simply is not on the Haredi screen.

And one has to understand that they really do see reality and the Torah that way. Meaning, this is not—there is a real argument here. Beyond slander and criticism and so on—and I have lots of criticism of this—first of all one has to understand the way of looking. This is real; it is an authentic way of looking. They really see reality that way.

So why do they nevertheless find the time and energy and desire to fight over when to build the Yehudit Bridge there on Kaplan Street, so that it won’t be on the Sabbath? We want to prevent a Jew from desecrating the Sabbath, what do you mean? There is the commandment “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” The secular person here is the object of the commandment “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” just as the poor person is the object of the commandment of charity. I have a commandment to ensure that Jews do not commit transgressions. And indeed, in the short term, at that short range, they will take care of that. But think: there may be other implications that could perhaps also lead to transgressions—or beyond transgressions, this entire story may not be able to function. That is not a calculation they make.

Meaning, the question of when to build the Yehudit Bridge and so on, on the Sabbath or not on the Sabbath—that is not… there are weighty considerations in favor of doing it on the Sabbath, even though at first glance that sounds very problematic. Now I don’t know; I haven’t formed a position because I haven’t examined the matter closely. But that type of consideration is simply not on the Haredi screen at all. Because that scale is too large, it’s too long-term, it’s what will happen to the whole people in twenty years. We don’t think that way. We need to examine right now: someone is desecrating the Sabbath, we will try to prevent it. There is “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” Exactly like they run seminars for repentance—they do act to prevent Jews from committing transgressions, that’s obvious. I’m not claiming they don’t do that. I’m claiming they do it from that same narrow, personal, particularistic outlook, without looking at the larger scale. Because they are not repairing the world; they are seeing to it that people do commandments. That’s the point—or refrain from doing transgressions.

By contrast, in the Religious Zionist world we repair the world. In the case of the Sabbatical year, we are trying to repair the world in such a way that people also keep Jewish law, but still you can see that the scale on which we are dealing with it is the scale of how the world functions, not how so-and-so won’t eat something with concern of the Sabbatical year. Rather, how the system will function. And not only that, but the interest is twofold: also to keep the Sabbatical year, but on the other hand not to lose all the agriculture here in the country—which… there’s no commandment like that. That agriculture should be lost—what do I care? Is there a commandment that there should be Jewish farmers in the land? So the second consideration is not even a scale consideration; it’s simply… it’s not a consideration of commandments and transgressions, so it doesn’t interest them.

Now this is an example—I think a wonderful example—because it is a halakhic issue, the question of the Sabbatical year. And you can see the attitude, not of slackers, but the ideological attitude to a halakhic problem, and it is categorically different between the two sides. And once again, here too, the Hardalim are on the non-Haredi side. They may try to eat otzar beit din, but under no circumstances will they abolish the sale permit. Well, besides the fact that Rabbi Kook also established it and they don’t deviate from his words—but I’m saying even in conception they will not abolish the sale permit. In that sense they are definitely on the non-Haredi side. Because they do think on the large scale, they do ask themselves how there will be agriculture here, and not only how Jews will emerge safely from the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year. In that sense they are not Haredi.

That is to say, the issue of the Sabbatical year is a wonderful example precisely because it is a halakhic issue. And we see that nevertheless the solutions are opposite, contradictory. Incidentally, I once wrote an article about the categorical imperative in Jewish law, and the trigger for it was some debate that took place on Tzohar. There was a debate between Rabbi Nehorai and Rabbi Yehuda Amichai. Rabbi Yehuda Amichai is from that institute of the commandments dependent on the land—I forgot what it’s called—Otzar HaAretz, yes. Otzar HaAretz is already their otzar beit din. Never mind. So Rabbi Yehuda Amichai wrote in an article there that one should try to consume otzar beit din, but if that isn’t possible, then there is the sale permit—of course not to cancel the sale permit. And Rabbi Nehorai, who is the rabbi of a kibbutz, wrote: what do you mean? But you don’t really think the whole public can consume otzar beit din. So Rabbi Yehuda Amichai said to him: true, but whoever can, why shouldn’t he do something more meticulous? And the rest who can’t, they’ll use the sale permit.

He said even more than that: suppose that I… we, the minority for whom this matters a lot, consume otzar beit din. That is one percent of the population in the country. It has no significance. All the people of the sale permit will have someone to sell their produce to. Most of the public in the country consumes produce based on the sale permit, not otzar beit din. So there is one percent who want to be more meticulous and consume otzar beit din. So what’s the problem? Why do you care if I tell them to do that, while the sale permit remains entirely fine? So they just kept going in circles and couldn’t make clear to themselves where the point of disagreement was. Because Rabbi Nehorai kept returning to the point: but look, if everyone did otzar beit din, then in reality it’s impossible—it isn’t a real solution. And Rabbi Yehuda Amichai agreed with that. He said, true, but not everyone will do otzar beit din. Most of the public doesn’t want otzar beit din; it wants the sale permit. So what’s the problem? The people who sell their fields will have someone to sell the produce to. And those who want otzar beit din—they want to travel first class. So let them travel first class; what’s the problem?

And what I wrote there in that article is that their debate is about the categorical imperative. And what Rabbi Nehorai, in my opinion, did not manage to sharpen in that article—I didn’t clarify with him afterward whether I had indeed captured his view—but I think this is what stands behind what he said, was this: true, only a small minority wants otzar beit din. But the Kantian test for the morality of a step is: what would happen if this were a general law? Not because practically it will become a general law, but as a hypothetical question: if the whole world chose the solution of otzar beit din, could this hold up? The answer is no, and Rabbi Yehuda Amichai also says no. It cannot. So the claim is that if so, then it is forbidden to consume otzar beit din. One must specifically use the sale permit. I, for example, am careful to use only the sale permit. I do not use otzar beit din. Because of the categorical imperative.

And when I say that otzar beit din is built on the assumption that the others will be sinners—they will consume produce from the sale permit. And a halakhic solution that cannot be a general solution, but is built on the assumption that there will be others who will be sinners, so to speak, is not a correct solution, and no one—not even the more meticulous—may adopt that route. And similarly—I could expand on this, but I don’t want to get into it here—I’m using this as an example in order to clarify the more general dispute between Haredim and Religious Zionists. Because the Haredim are not looking for general solutions. They are looking for solutions for each individual separately, so that he will perform the maximum commandments and minimum transgressions. And in the Religious Zionist world, in varying degrees, like the two conceptions I mentioned earlier, they still seek a solution that provides an answer for the entire public. First of all there has to be such a solution. Whether within that some people will also be more meticulous or not—the argument about the categorical imperative is another story. But first of all, clearly there must be some kind of systemic solution, meaning a solution that says there will continue to be agriculture here and people will not stumble in the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year.

So I’m looking for a solution on a different scale. Haredim don’t look for such a solution. If I make sure that I eat fruit properly, bring it to me from Australia or from Gaza or from Shechem. It doesn’t matter from where, and everything is fine—I’m all set. The Jewish farmers will go bankrupt and the Palestinian farmers will only become more entrenched, and of course in this way you will also violate “do not show them favor”? That scale is too big; I don’t deal with scales like that. In other words, I want the fruit I eat to be clean, free of concerns. Okay, so that’s one example.

A second example is actually the discourse about military enlistment. You mentioned military enlistment earlier; I said I’d get to that later. The discourse about enlistment is very interesting in this context, because it is conducted in a very strange way. There is a Maimonides—here. “The king does not wage war first except…” “He wages discretionary war, and that is a war he wages against the other nations to expand the border of Israel and increase his greatness and reputation.” Okay? So apparently in Maimonides here it says there are three obligatory wars: the war against the seven nations, meaning the conquest of the land; the war against Amalek; and helping Israel from an enemy that attacks them. Okay. Now the wars we are dealing with today, including the current war but not only that—all the wars, I think, since the establishment of the state—these are not wars for conquering the land, contrary to how it is often presented, but wars for helping Israel against an attacking enemy. Meaning, we do not go out to conquer territory from the outset; territory may be conquered during the war, but the purpose of the war was not to conquer territory. The purpose was to defend ourselves, to remove dangers. Okay? So here in Maimonides one apparently sees that helping Israel from an attacking enemy is an obligatory war.

Well, I’m not getting into all kinds of additional sources right now. This is my ruling on enlistment. Look at this Maimonides. This was in chapter 5 of the Laws of Kings. This is in chapter 6, law 1. “And if they did not make peace, or they made peace…”—this is speaking about calling to a city in peace. If they made peace, fine; and if not, or if they made peace but did not accept the seven commandments, one wages war against them and kills all the adult males and plunders all their property and their children, and one does not kill a woman or a minor, as it says, ‘the women and the children’—that refers to the children of the males. In what case is this said? In a discretionary war, which is with the other nations. But the seven nations and Amalek—if they do not make peace, one leaves none of them alive, as it says, ‘thus shall you do to all…’” What about helping Israel from an attacking enemy? Here there are two obligatory wars: the seven nations and Amalek. And there is discretionary war. What about helping Israel from an attacking enemy? It doesn’t appear here. In the previous chapter there were three obligatory wars; here only two are brought.

Maybe those are only examples? If he already defined what the difference is between obligatory and discretionary, and here he brings only two examples. No, he says “discretionary war, which is with the other nations.” Every war that is with the other nations is discretionary war—except for the seven nations and Amalek, which are obligatory war. Meaning, helping Israel from an attacking enemy, when it is not against the seven nations and not against Amalek, apparently falls under discretionary war. That would be an imprecise formulation if he only meant to bring examples. And there is also no point in bringing two examples when the whole thing consists of only three—so just bring all three.

You know how the Talmud says “he taught and omitted,” right? The Talmud often brings a list in the Mishnah, but then there’s another example not included in the Mishnah, so the Talmud says “he taught and omitted.” The Talmud asks: what else did he omit that he omitted this? What does that mean? He omitted one thing—where is another thing he omitted? Why does he need to omit another thing? He omitted only one thing. What? In the Talmud it’s clear that if something was omitted, there has to be another omission. What’s the idea? The idea is that if there is just one example that you omitted, then don’t omit it. So if you want to save space and you’re just bringing examples, then I understand if you left out two, three, ten examples and brought one or two. But if you bring two out of three, then just bring all three. Okay? There are only three in total. So what is this? Why didn’t he bring it?

I claim that helping Israel from an attacking enemy is not an obligatory war in the halakhic sense. All this nonsense people keep repeating is nonsense. It’s not an obligatory war of that type. It is what I later bring—later on there in the Talmud there is a very nice expression. You can really see it in the course of the Talmud, but one moment. But in the first Maimonides that the Rabbi showed us, Maimonides says that it is an obligatory war. Wait, wait, I’ll explain in a moment. In the Jerusalem Talmud in Sotah, look here: Rabbi Yehuda would call a discretionary war, for example, when we go against them; an obligatory war, when they come against us. What does that mean? If we attack the non-Jews, it is discretionary war. If they come against us, it is obligatory war. Now notice: obligatory, not commandment. Meaning there is a third category: there is discretionary war, there is war of commandment, and there is obligatory war. What’s the difference? So I want to claim—it depends on different approaches and so on—but I want to claim that helping Israel from an attacking enemy is obligatory war. What does that mean? The seven nations and Amalek are wars carried out in order to fulfill a commandment. One must destroy Amalek; one must conquer the land and kill the seven nations, and for the sake of implementing or fulfilling that commandment we go to war. In other words, the purpose of the war is the fulfillment of some commandment. That is what is called a war of commandment.

Helping Israel from an attacking enemy is not a war conducted in order to fulfill a commandment. It is a war conducted because I want to live. I am defending myself against attackers. This is not a war of commandment. This is what in that context is called obligatory war. What is “if someone comes to kill you, rise early to kill him first”? Is that a commandment or an obligation? An obligation. An obligation. Meaning, you need to defend yourself. There is a commandment of “and live by them,” but that’s not the point. Even if there were no commandment of “and live by them,” there would still be a war of helping Israel from an attacking enemy. It’s not because of the commandment. On the contrary, the commandment exists because you need to stay alive. You conduct that war in order to stay alive, not in order to fulfill a commandment.

What is the criterion of discretionary war? Discretionary war is a war in which you go out and attack non-Jews in order to conquer territory, in order to accumulate some property or food or—as King David says, “stretch out your hands against a troop”—without their having attacked you. That is called discretionary war. War of commandment is a war undertaken in order to perform a commandment. That is called a war of commandment. Helping Israel from an attacking enemy is what, in this context at least in the Jerusalem Talmud, is called obligatory war. What does that mean? It means that this is not merely a war one is permitted to wage. If you want to conquer more territory, that is optional. You want to conquer more territory, go to war; you don’t want to, don’t. Not the conquest of the Land of Israel itself, but beyond that—like David’s Syria and so on—that is discretionary war. Okay? David’s Syria, yes, not our Syria.

So that is discretionary war. War of commandment is war to perform a commandment. The war of helping Israel from an attacking enemy, when someone rises against us to kill us, is obligatory war. It’s not discretionary. You have to go out to this war. But that obligation is not because of a commandment. You are not conducting this war in order to fulfill a commandment. You are conducting this war because you need to defend yourself and stay alive. Now here, for example, Maimonides writes that wars of commandment apply only in Temple times. You need a Sanhedrin and a prophet and the Urim and Tummim and all kinds of things like that, and a king and so on. But what about helping Israel from an attacking enemy? That too is war of commandment, no? So does that also not apply today? Helping Israel from an attacking enemy? Meaning, if they come upon us today to kill us, are we not supposed to defend ourselves? Of course we are. Why? Because this is from the laws of danger to life; it has nothing to do with the laws of war. There is danger to life. If there is danger to life, one has to defend oneself. One must kill a pursuer; it is the law of the pursuer.

In the collective context, when one nation pursues another nation, the law of the pursuer is called war. But it is not war in the halakhic definition of the laws of war. It is simply collective pursuit. It is pursuit on the level of nation against nation, not person against person. But this is plain danger to life, that’s all. For example, because of this I claim that when people say “a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy,” it’s all nonsense in tomato juice. “A groom from his room and a bride from her canopy” has nothing at all to do with these matters, in no way. “A groom from his room and a bride from her canopy” is a halakhic rule saying that in a war of commandment everyone goes out. But in obligatory war, it is not Jewish law that decides who goes out. Considerations of danger to life determine who goes out. So if, from the standpoint of danger-to-life considerations, one also needs the groom from his room and the bride from her canopy, then of course they will go out. But if not, then not. The one who will determine whether they go out or do not go out to this war is not Jewish law, but the practical considerations of how to survive the threat.

If I need the grooms and brides too, then they will come. And if not, then not. Therefore all these quotations people bring—that this is a war of commandment and “a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy” and all kinds of things of that sort—are simply irrelevant to the discussion. Now why does everyone quote it this way? First of all because, in my opinion, they don’t know how to read Maimonides properly. But beyond that, people have some inclination to fit everything into halakhic templates. Everything has to emerge from the Torah or from Jewish law, and therefore we discuss the halakhic definitions of everything we do.

More than that: when we come to tell Haredim, friends, you need to enlist, what do we need to tell them? That otherwise we won’t live here? Of course not. There is an obligatory war of helping Israel from an attacking enemy; there is a Maimonides. Ah, if there is a Maimonides, then excellent—they will all come in droves, because there is a commandment and one must fulfill commandments. But the concept of obligatory war is a concept that exists also in Zimbabwe. If we lived in Zimbabwe and there was someone threatening us—incidentally, if I were the only Jew among non-Jews in Zimbabwe, and I’m sitting in a kollel studying, and now there is a danger of helping Zimbabweans from an attacking enemy, okay?—I must enlist. Not because there is a war of helping Israel from an attacking enemy, but because there is danger to life. If the Zimbabwean army needs me and I am a resident of Zimbabwe, I must enlist. It has nothing at all to do with helping Israel, or helping Israel from an attacking enemy, or with the bride from her canopy, or the groom from his room, or any of these halakhic definitions. They are simply irrelevant.

But Rabbi, why can’t it be both—both war of commandment and danger to life? Where is it both? Where was such a commandment stated? Nowhere. In the entire Talmud, if you check what war of commandment is, you will find either Amalek or the seven nations. Helping Israel from an attacking enemy is Maimonides’ innovation. Not for nothing does everyone bring this Maimonides as the source, because there is no other source. And I claim Maimonides inserted it there because he says these are all the wars that are not discretionary. That’s why he included it in the list. But that doesn’t mean these three wars are of the same kind. There is obligatory war and there are two wars of commandment.

And in wars of commandment there are definitions. For example, today there is no war to kill Amalek or conquer the seven nations. Because there is no king, and no prophet, and no Urim and Tummim, and no Sanhedrin, and all the conditions needed for a war of commandment are missing. But helping Israel from an attacking enemy certainly exists today. If people rise up against us, we have to survive, we have to defend ourselves. And who will decide who goes to war and who doesn’t? The chief of staff. Not the Sanhedrin and not Jewish law and not the Mishnah and not Maimonides. Whoever is needed to participate in order to win the war must show up. That’s all. Why? Because otherwise we won’t survive here. Not because there is some Maimonides or a Mishnah in Sotah about a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy.

Even if we were in Zimbabwe, I say again, every citizen would be obligated to enlist if there is danger to his state. You are a citizen of the state, there is danger, you need to do your part in the army and enlist. This has nothing to do with helping Israel from an attacking enemy. Again, it does have to do with it, because helping Israel from an attacking enemy is a particular case of that, but it has nothing to do with war of commandment. But Rabbi, beyond the practical side, here what you said earlier about Immanuel Kant, the categorical imperative—so that too is some way of examining the… True enough, but it is not a halakhic way. Not halakhic. When you want to persuade Haredim to enlist, you have to bring them a Maimonides. Because if you tell them the army needs such and such number of soldiers and otherwise we won’t manage, that’s not their kind of consideration. It’s like saying there will be no agriculture if you don’t use the sale permit. That isn’t the scale they speak on at all. You have to explain to them that there is a commandment to enlist. So you need to bring a Maimonides that helping Israel from an attacking enemy is war of commandment, and “a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy,” and sources, and all those things. It’s all nonsense in tomato juice. It has nothing at all to do with the issue; it’s ignorance.

And this discourse is a strange discourse. I understand why people use it when addressing Haredim, because that is the way to persuade them. You need to explain that there is a commandment or that there is a transgression in not coming. And for that you need to bring Maimonides, commandment, Mishnah, I don’t know, something like that. But if you tell them, listen, you’re a citizen of the state; a citizen of the state must do his part. Otherwise we will all die, and the categorical imperative, and all that—you’re talking to the wall. That is not the kind of discourse with which you can speak to them. Again, as a conception. I have criticism too, I say again, but for now I am only describing. In their conception, that is not the sort of consideration that is at all relevant.

Now this really brings me to what I said at the end. I don’t want to need yet another lesson on this issue, so I’ll really jump to the end. What I basically want to claim is that the opposition, for example, the opposition to democracy and to morality, or the lack of sensitivity to morality in the Haredi world, also stems from here. Anything that doesn’t come out of the Torah comes from the world—it’s external ideas, it’s the counsel of the evil inclination. And therefore, for example, the Haredi double standard that I have spoken about more than once—people know one thing, think one thing, but behave differently. They understand that what is called “the great sages of the generation” is manipulation by political operatives, but then they obey what the sage of the generation says—whom to vote for or what to do, with payot like this or payot like that. Even though they are all very clear-eyed and cynical and laugh at how these things are run. Or never mind, the Haredi parties—everyone understands that the public they damage most is the Haredi public itself, and still most of them will vote for them. Even though they understand perfectly well that they harm them. Why? Because that understanding—common sense and morality—that is the counsel of the evil inclination. Common sense and morality are external ideas; that is not written in the Torah.

So there is a great suspicion toward principles that come from outside. Even though morality, ostensibly, every person should be committed to it—“and you shall do what is right and good,” etc. Fine, “and you shall do what is right and good” is a wonderful verse. But in the end, if there is something for which you cannot bring a source from the Torah, a Haredi person will not do it. Being a decent human being—there are often quotations from various important rabbis who said one should be a decent human being—but in practice, in Haredi conduct, no, one does not need to be a decent human being. One needs to fulfill commandments. Even Leibowitz says if there is no difference between morality and—no, that’s a different distinction; I don’t want to get into it. Many people misunderstand Leibowitz. Sometimes I suspect that even he himself misunderstood himself. Because he says something else. Never mind, that’s a topic for a lesson of its own. I spoke about it in the series on Torah and morality.

Rabbi, how will morality bring us to the World to Come? Exactly. That is why I say that common sense, morality, ideas drawn from different sciences, from various studies—these are not the kinds of considerations that are taken into account. On the contrary, they are the evil inclination, they are ideas of the corridor. We are only people of the banquet hall. From our perspective, the Torah is everything. What does not appear in the Torah does not exist. Now of course, in theory, “turn it and turn it, for everything is in it”—everything is there—but that is theoretical; no one has ever found anything there. So in the end, when you stand shocked before this moral indifference, you say no—because morality doesn’t play a role. You have to explain to them that this is helping Israel from an attacking enemy; there is a Maimonides for that. That is the only way to move them. So in that sense, I think the relation to the world as an oppositional relation—we stand opposite the world—is very fundamental to many of the issues we are dealing with today. And that, I think, is the root of this whole story.

And I really want to conclude with the distinction I mentioned earlier, about why I don’t agree with either side. Look: in the end, in the Haredi world and also in the Religious Zionist world—or the modern religious world, I don’t know what to call it—the conception is a one-story conception. In that sense both sides share something. Meaning, in the Haredi world there is only Torah and commandments. And if you manage to bring morality in too, fine, then it too will be part of the matter. But in the end there is only Torah and commandments. It is a one-story world.

In the Religious Zionist world people engage in repairing the world, but they engage in repairing the world because they conceive of it as a religious goal, as a command of the Torah—and some will define it and say of Jewish law. That’s how they understand Jewish law and the Torah too: their purpose is to repair the world. Rabbi Kook is the father of the view that all of Jewish law comes only to advance moral matters. A completely baseless claim—I simply cannot see at all how one can say such nonsense—but I don’t know, he repeats it many times. And in that sense, the Religious Zionist side or the national-religious side also really looks at the world through the prism of one story. There is only Torah, except that their Torah is broader. The Torah also demands repairing the world, and not only commandments and transgressions in the narrow sense.

And I want to make a claim that agrees with neither of those sides. I want to claim that the correct model is a two-story model. The first story is the universal story. This is the story that speaks about repairing the world, morality, common sense, all the things that exist among all human beings, among non-Jews too, not only among Jews. This is the universal story. On top of it there is the Torah story, which contains only Jewish law. Nothing else. The first story is shared by all human beings. The values for which I fight are the same values that a non-Jew too will fight for. Up to the point of disputes—there are of course disputes within the world of morality too, and there can be disputes between two non-Jews or between two Jews. But there is no principled difference here between a Jew and a non-Jew. As I’ve said more than once, there is no such thing as Jewish morality. That’s an oxymoron—Jewish morality. There is morality. Judaism is Jewish law. Morality is universal. There is no such thing as Jewish morality; that’s an oxymoron.

Therefore I say: I understand, and I think both sides are mistaken here. There is a two-story model. And one must repair the world—in that sense I do not agree with the Haredim. But I also do not agree with the Religious Zionists that the need to repair the world is a Jewish command and part of the Torah, certainly not part of Jewish law. Rather it is a universal command. The whole world—I, as a citizen of the world, I am Jewish, but besides that I am also a citizen of the world—and as a citizen of the world I am supposed to repair the world. I am not exempt from that because I am Jewish, just as every non-Jew must do that.

On top of that there is the second story, which is a particularistic story, the story of Jewish law, which obligates only me. But it truly—in that sense I agree with the Haredim—is not intended to repair the world. I do not think Jewish law is intended to repair the world. Jewish law is intended for serving God, fulfilling commandments, and avoiding transgressions. In that sense I hold like the Haredim. And therefore I think that in this model—you asked me earlier what I think the truth is—in my opinion this is the truth. And in that sense I think not most of the world is wrong, but the whole world is wrong. I disagree with both sides. Neither with the side that sees only Torah and commandments as the whole picture, nor with the side that sees Torah and commandments as part of repairing the world and basically sees repairing the world as a Jewish and religious goal, a goal rooted in the Torah, toward which the Torah is directed. No. The Torah is directed where the Haredim say, in my opinion. But that doesn’t mean we are exempt from repairing the world. We are not exempt from repairing the world not because the Torah says one has to repair the world, but because every person—every non-Jew, and of course a Jew is also a human being, or at least should be—so he too must repair the world. That is a moral obligation, a social obligation, a human obligation. So of course Jews too are not exempt from it. But not because it is written in the Torah or because of this or that, but simply because it is a universal human obligation, and therefore Jews too are not exempt from it.

But I do not see that as Judaism, unlike the national-religious conception or something of that sort. In my eyes that is not Judaism. Therefore—yes, someone remarked to me afterward that I copied this from Leibowitz; I simply didn’t remember when I said it the first time, I must have seen it in him—that I am a religious Jew and a secular Zionist. I am a Zionist, but my Zionism is not religious. I am a Zionist like Ben-Gurion. There’s the famous joke about the Ponevezh Rabbi, that on Independence Day—and this is apparently true—on Independence Day he neither said Hallel nor said Tachanun. His students asked him: whichever way you look at it—if you are a Zionist, you should say Hallel; if you are Haredi, you should say Tachanun. How can you neither say Hallel nor say Tachanun on Independence Day? So he said to them: I’m a Zionist like Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion too doesn’t say Hallel or Tachanun on Independence Day. Of course he says nothing—he doesn’t pray. So I’m a Zionist like Ben-Gurion.

Now all the Haredim—I was in Bnei Brak, I know—tell this as a joke at the expense of the Religious Zionists, and they don’t understand that it’s a joke at their own expense. What the Ponevezh Rabbi said there is a completely serious statement; it’s not a joke at all. He said: I am a Zionist the way Ben-Gurion is a Zionist. I am a secular Zionist. Zionism is not part of my religious worldview, but I am a Zionist. That doesn’t mean I won’t be a Zionist. I just don’t think it is part of my Torah. I have Torah, and besides that I’m also a Zionist like Ben-Gurion. And in that sense, it is neither Haredi nor national-religious. And this is exactly the expression of the conception I described earlier: that I share with the national-religious camp the idea that there is an obligation to repair the world and that it is not right to look only at Torah and commandments in a narrow way. I share with the Haredim that the Torah’s purpose is to fulfill commandments and avoid transgressions, not to repair the world. But I think both sides are right. We need the Torah in order to fulfill Torah and commandments, and we need to repair the world not because of the Torah or Jewish law, but because the world needs to be repaired. Because there is morality and there are values, and just like every non-Jew, a Jew too must understand that this is how one should act. And in that sense it is exactly like the Ponevezh Rabbi.

Rabbi, if they insert morality into “and you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord,” then morality too becomes Torah-based, let’s say. As you mentioned regarding Rabbi Shimon Shkop, who says that on top of the level of the universal creature there is… Right, I spoke about this in the lessons on Jewish law and morality. After all, the Torah says “and you shall do what is right and good.” None of the enumerators of the commandments count this as a commandment. Meaning, “and you shall do what is right and good”… Nachmanides says it includes everything. Includes everything, but it is not a commandment. What does that mean? It means that there is here an obligation—I don’t know, an obligation, an expectation—of the Torah that we behave morally, but it is not part of Jewish law. Therefore the claim is that the expectation that we behave morally is not part of Jewish law, though true, it appears in the Torah. Would I do it without it appearing in the Torah? Certainly yes. It doesn’t need to appear in the Torah. The fact is that Cain was reproached: “Where is Abel your brother?” “Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” He had not yet been commanded “you shall not murder.” And it was not yet written in the Torah, “and you shall do what is right and good”; there was not yet any Torah. And still they reproached him: what, are you a murderer? How can you behave immorally? Moral behavior does not really rest on “and you shall do what is right and good.” I dispute that.

That’s true, but a religious dimension is added by the verse. Okay, so you can add a religious dimension to it if you want. But in the end, the non-Jew too is commanded to behave morally. And that command—you can call it a religious command if you like—but it is universal, not particularistic, even if it is religious. I spoke about this in the series on Torah and morality, that there is no such thing as morality without God commanding it. Morality cannot be valid without a lawgiver who legislates it. On that I completely agree on the philosophical level. But that is true for the non-Jew too. And it is not part of the Torah in the sense that it addresses Jews. It is a religious command because there is no command that is not religious.

And are the Ten Commandments on the first story or on the second story? What? Are the Ten Commandments on the first story or the second story? The second, certainly. “You shall not murder” is a religious command. The moral prohibition of murder does not appear in the Torah. Fine, but one could say that the seven Noahide commandments are the second story for non-Jews? Yes, that’s an interesting question. I once wrote about it in an article in BeShalah Sharshav. Are the seven Noahide commandments really the first story, or do they come to give religious character to the first story also for non-Jews? Fine, but that’s not a question with many practical ramifications. Because in the end it is clear that the seven commandments obligate the whole world. So in that sense, even if you call it religious, it belongs to the first story, and I join it like any non-Jew, not as a Jew.

Rabbi, sorry—regarding what you mentioned, what Rabbi Kook says several times, that Jewish law only advances morality: from what I understood—and this really bothered me—the Chazon Ish in Faith and Trust says that Jewish law determines morality, and mentions the example of… That too is a mistake in reading the Chazon Ish. In the series on Jewish law and morality I explained why even the Chazon Ish, whom people usually place as the antithesis to Rabbi Kook—there too people are mistaken. Yes, because it really bothers me, because it’s not moral… Yes, okay, fine. In a place where Jewish law determines something, then it overrides morality. But the Chazon Ish does not hold that Jewish law determines morality. That is simply an incorrect reading of Faith and Trust. Doesn’t he say that? Isn’t that his intention? No. I can show you there. That is not a correct reading of his words.

Fine. The Chazon Ish is the father of the expression “the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh.” What is the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh? It is what your moral intuition tells you, and that becomes Jewish law. Where does that come from? From morality. When you understand that something is right to do, it becomes Jewish law—not that Jewish law determines morality. If Jewish law determined morality, there would be no place for a fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh. There are the four sections—that is the law and that determines everything, and there is nothing besides it. Meaning, he understands that because regarding the schoolteacher, if there is another one who teaches better, then it is moral to give him the position, to fill the place, and therefore Jewish law rules that way? No, isn’t it the opposite? Exactly. And after Jewish law has ruled that, then even if you think it is not moral, that is how you have to behave. Like “and you shall do what is right and good,” or the law of the neighboring field owner, or “we coerce against the trait of Sodom”—there are all kinds of places in which the Sages take moral principles and insert them into Jewish law as binding law. But that doesn’t mean they invented those principles. Those principles were moral principles. At a certain point the Sages decided that they would also enter Jewish law and turned them into rabbinic law.

Okay, because there he mentions, from what I remember, that all the claims, all the protests that were raised against the replacement teacher would have been justified were it not for Jewish law’s ruling… Were it not for Jewish law’s ruling, correct. That he does write. Yes, yes, but it sounded as though Jewish law determined that that is what morality truly says. But there is morality. Okay.

Rabbi, Rabbi, but there’s also a fourth option, I think. It’s very close to what the Rabbi says, but still different. It says that there is a matter of repairing the world and all that, but the world is vanity. It’s repairing the world, but the world is vanity. And that doesn’t contradict; it’s a dialectic, but it doesn’t contradict. It’s very close to what the Rabbi says; I don’t know why… I don’t know if there is a real difference here. Fine, so you’re basically saying one must both repair the world and fulfill commandments and avoid transgressions. Okay. No, I don’t separate between them. And therefore I say it doesn’t contradict. You need to have compassion on your fellow even though the object of your compassion is not your fellow—not the person and not the world. And in this respect you recognize that both things exist. The question of what is primary and what is secondary—I don’t know how one determines such a thing. No—what is essential. It is essential. Both things exist, you say. No, God appears to me in a demand to have compassion on a person. He does not appear in any other way. So that does not contradict; that is the only expression, the only grasp we have of divinity. So you are basically saying that one must both repair the world and serve God. What difference does all the rest make now? To that I agree. Okay.

We’ll stop here. That’s it, I’ll finish here. There is my column on this issue; you can read it there. It’s… Which column, on what? 693. On defining Haredi society. Yes, yes. Column 693. Okay. So we stop here. Good night. Thank you, Rabbi, Sabbath שלום. Sabbath שלום.