Dogmatics – Lecture 31

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We haven’t gotten there yet. We haven’t gotten there yet. One second, I’m still in the middle. If at the end something isn’t clear, or if I say it’s clear to me, then I can explain. Maybe it won’t be clear at all. Let’s just finish understanding what he writes. Okay? So I’ll continue. So basically the claim is that the intellect distinguishes between truth and falsehood; it examines claims, classifies them as true or false, and that’s the intelligibles. And the accepted conventions are the norms of good and bad, disgraceful and beautiful, all kinds of things like that, and those are what are called accepted conventions or conventions. Right? Meaning, yes, because it’s… it’s neither true nor false, but it’s accepted convention, kind of something that you could call a convention. And then he says that before the sin, a person’s intellect was complete, but he did not apprehend the accepted conventions. Okay? That is… he didn’t understand that there was something disgraceful, say, about being naked, or something like that. Okay? And then he said: “And because he rebelled and inclined toward his natural lusts and the pleasures of the senses and bodily pleasures, as it says, ‘that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes,’ he was punished by being deprived of that intellectual apprehension. And because of this he rebelled against the commandment that had been commanded to him by virtue of his intellect, and he attained the apprehensions of accepted conventions and became immersed in disgrace and beauty. Then he knew the measure of what he had lost and what had been stripped from him and in what state he had returned. Therefore it says, ‘and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil,’ and it did not say ‘knowing falsehood and truth’ or ‘apprehending falsehood and truth.’ And there is nothing necessary about it.” The claim is that a person basically lost the intelligibles. I don’t think he… I don’t think the ability of truth and falsehood, or the use of intellect, was taken away from him completely—I hope not, at least—but he became more immersed in accepted conventions. And that suddenly became more dominant for him—disgraceful and beautiful. And that’s what he means when he says there is nothing necessary at all about good and evil. Meaning, good and evil are not connected to truth and falsehood. It’s not a necessary matter; rather, it’s accepted convention, yes, conventions. “And consider his saying, ‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,’ and it does not say ‘and the eyes of them both were opened, and they saw,’ because Scripture says ‘and they knew,’ for what they saw before is what they saw afterward.” The facts—they knew how to judge them both before and after this. Their intellect didn’t improve as a result of the sin, and there was no blindness over the eye that was removed, but rather something else was renewed in him—he came to see as disgraceful what he had not seen as disgraceful before. “And know that this word ‘opened’…” and so on—not foolish in any sense. In short, I’ll stop here; this is enough for our purposes. Maimonides basically says that the intellect existed in man beforehand as well; after the sin there was still intellect, but after the sin he also suddenly acquired a perception of accepted conventions that he hadn’t had before. And then apparently those accepted conventions—the disgraceful and the beautiful—took on some more central place for him, and so the intellect that he still had suddenly became less significant, less sharp, and man became immersed in the disgraceful and the beautiful. That’s basically the point. Now the strange thing about this—and this was the punishment—and that’s why the punishment really was a descent and not an ascent. That answers the difficulty raised at the beginning. The big problem here is that from Maimonides it seems that good and evil are accepted conventions. That good and evil are conventions. There’s no truth and falsehood here with respect to good and evil. In fact, truth and falsehood regarding good and evil are a matter of agreement, conventions, and not a matter of intellect. That’s very strange. Usually we understand that the prohibition of murder is something objective; it’s not a convention. It’s not because society decided not to murder. Murder is forbidden regardless. The Holy One, blessed be He, comes to Cain and says to him, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Society there had not decided that murder was forbidden; there wasn’t even a society yet. Okay? And still the Holy One, blessed be He, demands from Cain the blood of Abel his brother. That means morality ought to belong to the intelligibles, not to the accepted conventions. And Maimonides here writes that good and evil, the disgraceful and the beautiful, belong to accepted conventions, and that this is only after Adam’s sin and not before. So the whole story is a strange one. It seems to me that when you look at what Maimonides is talking about here…

[Speaker E] But again, there are two questions here. First, Maimonides says that the accepted conventions—in Guide of the Perplexed, somewhere, he says that all the last eight commandments, “do not murder,” “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery,” all of them are accepted conventions. He says that explicitly. But beyond that, I’m asking again on the principled level: I don’t understand Maimonides’ answer. Before the sin, Maimonides says he had intellect to distinguish between truth and falsehood, meaning he had the scientific ability to know knowledge. But all that knowledge really can’t teach him any value. So it comes out that in fact, the world of values—he can be a person capable of doing mathematics, understanding biology, but the

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] world of

[Speaker E] values he cannot know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s the question I’m asking. That’s the question I’m asking; it’s not another question. That’s the question I asked.

[Speaker E] The Rabbi asked as though good and evil are accepted convention, okay. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And Maimonides’ claim seems to be that all morality belongs to accepted conventions—good and evil—and basically it comes out that we gained morality as a result of the sin. But morality is surely an elevation, it is supposed to be something objective, not an agreement, not a convention. That’s the question.

[Speaker E] No, Maimonides says the opposite. Maimonides says morality is not a convention; it’s supposed to be objective, like two plus two equals four.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How can it be that we got that as a result of the sin?

[Speaker E] But I don’t think that’s correct. Again, I’m saying there’s a difference between two plus two equals four and “do not murder.” That’s something you can measure, weigh…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no problem with measuring; I’m talking about the question whether this thing is the result of a convention. Obviously you can’t measure good and evil. But the question is whether it’s only a convention. If it’s only a convention, then fine—that’s what Maimonides says, and we got that after the sin, and that’s a decline. Morality became merely an agreement, and that is a decline.

[Speaker E] So it comes out that before the sin we knew no values at all—so what kind of star in heaven were we?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying a thing and its opposite. So I’m asking exactly that question. I said no, what suddenly? Good and evil are not the same thing as truth and falsehood. Right, you agree with Maimonides.

[Speaker E] But he didn’t have the ability to distinguish in the category of good and evil. So since the category of morality, of values, of norms, does not belong to the category of truth and falsehood, and man didn’t have that before the sin, then it follows that Maimonides didn’t answer his own question at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He answered his own question. He answered his own question—you’re repeating the same thing, and I’m answering you. He answered his own question. He said man declined after the sin because after the sin he became immersed in accepted conventions, in good and evil, in disgraceful and beautiful, and abandoned the intellect—when morality is part of accepted conventions. Yes, that’s a decline. Becoming moral is called a decline.

[Speaker E] So then it sounds like the Rabbi answered that this is a good answer?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, and that was exactly my question. Okay? That is, Maimonides answered, but what he answered is problematic. That’s exactly my question. It’s not reasonable to say that when man acquired morality, he declined. Morality is not from accepted conventions.

[Speaker E] I do think it’s accepted conventions. If

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it’s accepted conventions, then Maimonides answered the question and you shouldn’t have any problem with it at all.

[Speaker E] So man before the sin didn’t know that murder is forbidden, and theft is forbidden, and forb…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in fact it’s idiotic that murder is forbidden. After the sin he suddenly thought murder was forbidden for some reason, even though it’s terribly silly, and therefore that’s a decline. What’s the problem? Yes. According to your view. What do you want from Maimonides? He says this. No, but Maimonides…

[Speaker E] I don’t agree with Maimonides that it’s a good answer to say that before the sin knowing

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] truth and falsehood is a decline.

[Speaker E] You do agree. You do agree!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because you’re saying that good and evil are a conventional matter. That’s what you just told me a moment ago. So if it’s a conventional matter, then that’s accepted conventions. Right.

[Speaker E] No, what does “a conventional matter” mean? Again, what does “a conventional matter” mean? It’s something that can’t be proven either through the senses…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that it can’t be proven is obvious; nobody is talking about that. But is it only emotion?

[Speaker E] Since it is only emotion, emotion develops.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, we’re going back to the ancient argument.

[Speaker E] I’m telling you, let’s leave emotion aside, leave aside the word emotion, leave aside the word emotion. But the Rabbi knows that from what is, you cannot know anything about what ought to be. If Maimonides says that before the sin there was only the intellect’s ability regarding what is, then he knew nothing about what ought to be.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if he knew nothing about what ought to be… exactly! Exactly! And therefore you completely agree with Maimonides, and Maimonides gave an excellent answer. That’s all. It means that before the sin he was like an animal. He had a bit of intellect but no conscience at all. Right. Exactly! And the best thing is to be like an animal! Because someone who thinks murder is forbidden is merely surrendering to agreements or to emotions. Exactly—that’s a decline; that’s what you’re saying. No, what suddenly? A thing and its opposite. You say you agree with Maimonides and then you say, wait, how can that be?

[Speaker E] No, I’m saying that Maimonides’ answer—that before the sin he had only the ability to know facts about reality and nothing at all in the sphere of values—means that he was literally an animal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and therefore

[Speaker E] the highest level according to your view.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What suddenly? I don’t agree…

[Speaker E] I don’t agree with Maimonides!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because you claim that morality is just emotions and conventions.

[Speaker E] No, but not just—I’m not… the Rabbi calls it “just.” I’m saying that’s the high level that distinguishes man. The high level is making conventions? Animals also have intellect. They know how to know lots of things that aren’t… Friends, listen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there is a society whose convention is yes to murder, then according to your view one should murder there.

[Speaker E] No, I didn’t say… that’s another issue—where one acquires…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what you’re saying!

[Speaker E] That’s exactly what you’re saying, word for word. No, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, there’s a difference between where we acquire conscience—whether conscience contains something embedded in us and we’re born with it—or whether it’s…

[Speaker E] It’s not embedded, nothing is embedded. It’s a convention, right? That’s what you’re saying. Now there’s a society whose convention is not to murder. I didn’t say it’s a convention. I didn’t say it’s a convention; I said it’s not facts. It’s not facts. The naturalistic fallacy that the Rabbi told us about so many times…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true, it has nothing to do

[Speaker E] with the naturalistic fallacy at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly! No, it has no connection whatsoever to the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy says that you can’t prove it.

[Speaker E] But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? It doesn’t belong to the category… certainly it doesn’t belong to the category of truth and falsehood.

[Speaker E] It doesn’t belong to the category; you just can’t prove it

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] on the basis of natural facts. That’s all. That’s the naturalistic

[Speaker E] fallacy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So does the Rabbi mean moral realism? Is that the point? I think one should also be a moral realist, but that’s another discussion. How can… you’re dancing at two weddings at once; this argument comes back every time. You’re dancing at two weddings together. You want to say that this thing contains no truth or falsehood, and still that being this way is higher and more correct than not being this way. That’s a contradiction. Period. That’s it.

[Speaker E] Why, why is that a contradiction?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a contradiction. Because you’re basically saying: because I have such a feeling, or because there is such an agreement, therefore one ought to do it. So if there is another agreement or another feeling…

[Speaker E] No, I have such a feeling. I have such a feeling.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So someone else who has a feeling that one should murder—then according to your view he should murder.

[Speaker E] No, of course not. Because I am convinced one hundred percent. A mistake in the sense that it is evil.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does evil mean? What does it mean that what he’s doing is not right? What is evil?

[Speaker E] It’s a crime, it’s murder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, so you’re saying there is moral truth and falsehood. That’s exactly what you’re claiming. So you’re saying a contradiction; that’s exactly the point. You can’t ignore this point.

[Speaker E] Truth and falsehood are… but truth and falsehood—Maimonides emphasizes so beautifully what truth and falsehood are, whether the earth is round or flat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What Maimonides says I’ll explain in a moment. But what you said is a contradiction. There’s this argument—this is David Enoch’s spinach test, the… you know it? I spoke about it in the past. Yes, yes. The spinach test basically says this. Suppose I say—a child comes and says: How good it is that I don’t like spinach, because if I liked spinach I would eat it, and spinach is yuck. So how good it is that I don’t like spinach. Now why is that funny? Because obviously if he liked spinach, then eating spinach would not be yuck, right? Spinach is not objectively yuck. Right now you don’t like it, so it’s yuck; if you liked it, there’d be no problem with it at all. To say a sentence like, how good it is that I don’t like spinach because if I liked it I would eat it and spinach is yuck—that’s an oxymoron, right? It’s a misunderstanding. But if I said something else—if I said: How good it is that I live today and not in the fifteenth century, because I know relativity and quantum theory. And if I had lived in the fifteenth century, then I wouldn’t know quantum theory. Is that funny in the same way? Not at all. I want to have as much scientific knowledge as possible, and thank God today I can attain more scientific knowledge than in the fifteenth century. Right, that’s obvious. There’s nothing funny there. You can disagree, you can say science doesn’t interest me, no problem. But someone who says such a thing is not saying something funny. He’s not saying something that reflects a misunderstanding. Okay? It doesn’t belong to spinach. Why not? Because science is not a subjective matter of taste. Science is objective. And relativity and quantum theory were true in the fifteenth century too; they just weren’t known, but they were true. In contrast, liking spinach—if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, and if you do, you do; there’s no objective truth there. So the spinach test is a test that can help us distinguish between an objective claim and a subjective claim. Now let’s apply the spinach test to morality. That will help us understand which category moral claims belong to. Now if I say: How good it is that I don’t live in the eighteenth century, because in the eighteenth century I would have enslaved Black people, I would have held them as slaves and abused them, and today, thank God, I understand that it is not right to do such a thing, that one must not do such a thing. Is that like spinach or like relativity?

[Speaker E] It seems to me that for someone who is not a relativist, it’s obvious that it’s not like spinach.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent. Meaning—wait—meaning that the claim that one must not enslave Black people is an objective claim and not a subjective one. That’s what the spinach test establishes.

[Speaker E] In my eyes and in the Rabbi’s eyes. In someone else’s eyes he’ll say it’s a great shame we don’t do that, and he’ll be equally convinced. I disagree with him one hundred percent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if you disagree with him, then you have a dispute. There are disputes in science too; the existence of a dispute doesn’t prove anything. So there’s a dispute—so what? But still, from your point of view, the claim is objective. With spinach, when you like spinach and someone else doesn’t like spinach, you don’t say you disagree with him. You don’t disagree with him. You like it and he doesn’t like it—what’s the problem? Here you say that you disagree with him. Why do you disagree with him? Because you think he is mistaken. You think he is wrong, morally mistaken, I don’t care—but he is mistaken. What does that mean? That good and evil are truth and falsehood. Moral truth and falsehood. Not factual truth and falsehood—moral truth and falsehood. I also claim that moral truths and falsehoods are a different kind of facts—that’s moral realism—but that’s another discussion; leave that for now. Okay? Now Maimonides’ claim, apparently, is a problematic one. Because Maimonides says that good and evil basically pass the spinach test. Good and evil are like liking spinach—they are accepted conventions, not intelligibles. And we generally do not perceive things that way. A moral person—and in Maimonides too you can see in many places that Maimonides does not see it that way. Maimonides sees morality as objectively rational things. Someone who does not grasp that murder is forbidden is mistaken. It’s not that he has a different moral position—he is mistaken. It’s like someone who is mistaken about facts. So how are we to understand Maimonides here? The claim I want to make, and I think it is the plain meaning in Maimonides—again, there are contradictions in various places, but when you read Maimonides here, the plain meaning—Maimonides here is not talking at all about moral good and evil. That is not his topic. He is talking about walking around naked. There is no moral problem whatsoever in walking around naked. Walking around naked is a convention. In our society it is accepted that walking around naked is immodest. That’s all. If there were a society with different norms, it could be that there would be no problem with it. For example, at the beach, where people generally wear swimsuits, the halakhic decisors wrote that one can even recite Grace after Meals in a swimsuit. Where would that be unthinkable? In the synagogue, or even at home. Why? Because the norms at the beach are different, and there modesty means that this too is fine. Okay, so that means that when we talk about concepts like modesty—walking around naked is an extreme case, but it still belongs to the world of modesty. In concepts of modesty, it really is accepted conventions. If we were indifferent to the matter, then in principle a nudist beach would be a perfect place according to Maimonides. It is not a perfect place because we are not built that way, because our norms are different, and in our norms it is not right to behave that way. But that is only because those are our norms. If there were a society with genuinely different essential norms, then it could be perfectly fine. Therefore, from Maimonides’ point of view, when he speaks about beautiful and disgraceful, that really belongs to accepted conventions. Good and evil, when he speaks about them here, means good and evil in the sense of beautiful and disgraceful, not good and evil in the sense of murder and theft. The good and evil of murder and theft belong to truth and falsehood.

[Speaker E] And why are the last eight commandments all accepted conventions according to Maimonides?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are statements in Maimonides in various places. I can bring you Maimonides passages that show you morality is among the intelligibles and not among accepted conventions, and there are places that don’t. I’m not now going into all the reconciliations of the issue. In the discussion here it’s quite clear that Maimonides means what I said here, in chapter 2 there. So what does this thing actually teach us? It teaches us that there are three things, three categories. One category is values—this is factual truth and falsehood. A second category is moral truth and falsehood, or good and evil, let’s call it that. A third category is the beautiful and the disgraceful, which are the accepted conventions. Okay? So those are three categories. You could also call the third category—so that you’ll see why this is not such a neutral thing—there’s a book by Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist, I forgot the name of the book, I have it somewhere at home, I don’t remember anymore. And there he talks about—he gives several examples, and I wrote about this in a few columns. He gives several examples. For example, you see that the neighbor’s dog was run over in a car accident; a car passed and ran over the neighbor’s dog. You take the dog, skin it, cook it, and eat it. Most people would be disgusted by that, repelled by it. Chickens—fine, but not dogs, certainly not the neighbor’s dog. Okay? It’s just disgusting. Okay? Or I don’t know what—someone buys a chicken in the supermarket; that one you can eat, it’s not the neighbor’s dog. But before he eats it, he has intercourse with it. A frozen chicken. All right? He has intercourse with it and then he eats it. Sorry that I’m entering into “do not make yourselves disgusting.” Okay? That too—everyone finds it utterly repulsive, right? Completely repulsive. Is there anything immoral in these two acts? No. What’s the problem? Who was harmed? What? Nothing happened. But still it’s repulsive, right? Meaning, it seems that this person somehow is not… it’s more than manners. Manners are holding the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left. Those really are just conventions. Here too it’s still conventions, accepted conventions. But if there were a society that got used to eating the neighbor’s dog, then it would be like how we are used to eating chicken. It wouldn’t disgust them and there’d be nothing wrong; everything would be fine. Same with having intercourse with frozen chickens. It’s just a question of habit, or of accepted social norms. And still, it’s not like holding the fork in the right hand. There is something here—let’s call it aesthetic values, not ethical values. That is, someone who does this is lacking on the human level, I don’t know, something in his aesthetic sense is problematic. It’s not ethics; he didn’t hurt anyone. It doesn’t belong to the domain of morality. But it is a certain kind of values. And our feeling, I think, is that society ought to have values of this kind. I’m not entering into the question whether it must be specifically these values or whether other conventions would also be fine, but there is something more complete in a society if it has some set of binding manners. Okay? And why am I making this whole introduction? Let’s return to the Sefer Ha-Ikkarim; that way I’ll close the last set of parentheses. Let’s go back to the Sefer Ha-Ikkarim.

[Speaker C] By the way, one more thing. I once heard Rabbi Yoel Kahan, the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s repeater, explain this Maimonides, and he gave a nice example. He said that Adam, when he saw the reproductive organs, looked at them the way one looks at the commandment of tefillin. You have to put on tefillin, and you also have to have intercourse in order to produce offspring. And from his point of view it was completely indifferent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And how? It was completely indifferent, totally neutral.

[Speaker C] Yes, completely neutral, and the blow that entered him after the sin of the tree of knowledge caused him to see other things in the reproductive organs. But in truth there really is no difference, from a purely halakhic perspective, between tefillin and intercourse.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the norms were different, then fine, then in fact we would relate to this indifferently. For example, I have a friend, many times—a secular guy—and we talked more than once about various matters. Among other things he said to me: Tell me, what is this religious hysteria about relations between men and women? It actually inflames the impulse; it doesn’t calm it. That is, you’re constantly dealing with the question of where the impulses are and how to block them and how… yes, it’s like the one who came to the Kotzker and said, I’m running away from honor, and I don’t see that it’s chasing me. Right, so he said to him: you keep looking backward. Right? Meaning, it’s the same thing. Meaning, someone who is constantly looking and constantly strict all the time about relations between men and women—that means something inside him is messed up. Something in him is not modest. Okay? Someone whose obsession with modesty points to some kind of inner immodesty. And therefore he says: so what? Let’s adopt the Scandinavian model, right, with this totally free permissiveness, and everything will be excellent, desire won’t bother you, and everything will be wonderful, yes, a nudist village. Okay? So I told him that I think this is a terribly problematic thing. A terribly problematic thing, because the purpose of the laws of modesty is not to extinguish desire. There is no point at all in extinguishing desire. The goal is to regulate desire. Sublimation, regulation, something like that—but not repression and not extinguishing it, absolutely not. The Holy One, blessed be He, created in us—yes, “with both your inclinations,” serve Him with both your inclinations; both inclinations need to be here. They have a role. We just need to make sure that they do their role and no more and no less, and to channel some problematic manifestations of that impulse. But the evil inclination is not really evil. It is an inclination that has the potential to be evil if you don’t control it, okay? And therefore the Scandinavian model—even assuming it works, and that itself is open to debate—but even assuming it works and the impulse is basically extinguished, then what have we accomplished? In the very place where you need to use that impulse, you no longer have it. That is not the ideal model at all. Now there is of course a balance here. Not to chase after it all the time, but also not to be indifferent to it all the time. Meaning, one has to find some healthy balance. And still—yes, exactly. And still the claim is that there is here some sort of human value. It’s not a moral value, but it is a higher human level of some kind. Meaning, a society with manners is still a higher human society. And someone who makes manners into the whole show is an idiot. Hannah Babli and all kinds of idiots of that sort. Fine? So that’s true, but manners are indeed something that point to some basic human level that ought to exist—and that is manners, conventions. Meaning, people can drive on the right side of the road or on the left side of the road. But you have to decide on one side to drive on. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s the right side or the left side, as long as there is a norm that determines it and people behave accordingly. I’m saying all of this in order to return to the Sefer Ha-Ikkarim. He spoke about natural religion, conventional religion, and divine religion. These are exactly those three things. When he speaks about natural religion, he is speaking about morality—that is, so that society should function properly and everything be fine. So what is divine religion? Those are the religious commandments, yes, the commandments of the Torah, revelation, what we received through revelation. What is conventional religion? Conventional religion, he says—he describes it there—is conventions established by the sages of that society or something like that, the culture of that society; that is conventional religion. But he does not treat conventional religion as a neutral thing. The first two religions—both the moral religion, yes, the natural one, and the conventional religion, what is called accepted conventions—both are things that need to exist as a foundation before one arrives at divine religion. Meaning, he recognizes both ethical values and aesthetic values. Both have value, even though the aesthetic values are accepted conventions. The sages established them; they could just as well have established the opposite. But still, something has to be established. Manners accepted in that society have to be established. One set can be established or another set, but it is good that there be such a set; there must be one. Even though it does not belong to morality, it belongs to a human level, a cultural level, I don’t know what to call it exactly. And it’s not manners like holding the knife on the right side or the left side—not taking it too far—but rather reasonable norms of behavior: not walking around naked. Not walking around naked is Maimonides’ accepted conventions. Okay? Now on the one hand this is some kind of decline, because if we could rise above it then maybe that would be excellent—before the sin. But once we are already in the state after the sin, fine, given this state it is indeed important to establish social norms, conventional norms. It may be that had we been perfect human beings like Adam before the sin, perhaps this whole business would really have been unnecessary, and this whole business is a decline. But once we have declined, now we need to be treated as we are. And if we are in this state, it is very important that there be rules of manners, certain conventions by which society conducts itself—even though they are only conventions. We decided this way, so this is the way; we could have decided the opposite. If it’s the opposite, fine. But still we need conventions because we have declined. But—but one has to recognize that we have declined. And if we have declined, there is no point in behaving as if it were before the sin, because that ignores reality. Our reality today is that these things do speak to us. Therefore we are no longer indifferent, as you said before—we are no longer indifferent when we see such things. So one has to understand that it is not right to walk around naked in the street today. Is that a more complete state? No. It is a declined state. It is a declined state. But once we are in this declined state, you cannot ignore that this is our state. People can say, I want to live like Adam before the sin in a nudist village. Yes, the Scandinavian norms I mentioned earlier—supposedly that is returning to a more complete state. No, that is not returning to a more complete state. Because in the state we are in today, it is not right to live by those norms. Even though in a place where those norms were appropriate, that really would be a more complete place. But what can we do—after the sin we declined, so one must recognize that today we are in a state in which there do need to be accepted conventions. So this is very delicate: on the one hand it is a more declined state, but on the other hand, once we are in this state, we need accepted conventions. It is not correct to say, okay, accepted conventions are a decline, let’s try to get rid of them. No—getting rid of them is failing to read reality; it is ignoring reality. The reality today is that we need accepted conventions.

[Speaker D] Because for an individual that is an elevation, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.

[Speaker D] As an individual, for a single person, that is an elevation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not as a single person—even as a society. But for society, that is an elevation if its condition really allows it. But if society is in a condition that does not allow it, and still it lives that way—that is not the right thing to do.

[Speaker D] No, I mean if someone withdraws from society, then obviously there it won’t be…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it suits him—if for him personally it really creates no problem even on the human level—then let him walk around naked. Fine, it’s a question of how you’re built and whatnot; everything’s fine, maybe that’s possible. So the point is that this leads me to what is written in the Ikkarim. That is, he says: there is natural religion, which is morality; conventional religion, which is conventions, the norms that were created after Adam’s sin; and divine religion, which is the giving of the Torah. So morality and facts—yes, factual truth and falsehood, scientific truth and falsehood, let’s call it that—and moral truth and falsehood existed before Adam’s sin. That is natural religion. After Adam’s sin, conventional religion was created. That is accepted conventions. And again, accepted conventions are conventions, but that does not mean one can do without them. No, it is important that there be conventions. It is not so important what the conventions are, but it is important that there be conventions so that we deal with our actual condition. After many years, two thousand years, they arrive at Mount Sinai, and there they receive divine religion. That is the third religion. And this is not accidental, because the first two religions are conditions for our being able to receive divine religion. And this is Rabbi Chaim Vital, whom I quoted earlier, who says that if you work on your character traits, then you are fit to be commanded—you are not an animal. Now one can give you commandments of divine religion. But you need to go through the first two stages of natural religion and conventional religion. In principle, as far as the hierarchy is concerned, I would reverse the order: first conventional religion—yes, accepted conventions, conventions, manners and conduct—then morality, which is ostensibly higher, and then divine religion. But he writes: natural religion, conventional religion, and divine religion. I think maybe because chronologically that really is the order, because before Adam’s sin there was natural religion; there was no conventional religion. They walked around naked. There was no conventional religion. Conventional religion is a result of our decline, but after we declined, we need that too. Therefore it is second. And once we have those two, then comes divine religion—that is the revelation at Sinai. That is command. The first two we do not receive by command. Good and evil we understand on our own; truth and falsehood we also understand on our own. Conventional religion is convention—we do not understand it on our own because there is nothing to understand; it is a convention that we establish, agree upon among ourselves, and uphold. And divine religion is the result of revelation. Three different sources for these three religions, or these systems of law, and the first two are conditions for the third. He writes all this in the Sefer Ha-Ikkarim. Therefore I think that this Maimonides in the Guide is a very important condition for understanding the structure that the author of the Ikkarim describes here. Now that we have this structure, one can make several comments about it; I don’t know how much I’ll get to. One can make several comments about it—maybe I’ll just begin and we’ll continue next time. First of all, there really is here a very clear separation between Jewish law. Once we have this structure, one can make several comments about it. I don’t know how much I’ll get to. One can make several comments about it. Maybe I’ll just begin and continue next time. First of all, there really is a very clear separation between Jewish law, or between the Torah given at Sinai, and morality. Even though morality is truth and falsehood. It is not good and evil. It is not accepted conventions, conventions. And still it is a different category from Jewish law. Jewish law belongs to divine religion; morality belongs to natural religion. And that brings me back, yes, to my old thesis, which surely most or all of you have already heard from me a million times: I claim that there is complete independence between morality and Jewish law. Two independent categories. Jewish law deals with religious values—what he calls divine religion—and morality deals with natural religion. And both are the will of God. Both are the will of God, but the revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, gives us only divine religion. Natural religion, morality, we understand through immediate perception. We have a conscience and we grasp that this is moral and that is immoral. We don’t need revelation for that. That’s why the Holy One, blessed be He, demands it from Cain, even though Cain had no revelation whatsoever. He was supposed to understand on his own that murder is forbidden. So I think this presents this model very sharply—the model everyone argues with me about. This model that says there is complete independence between Jewish law and morality. Two different kinds of religion. Again, not religion in the sense of Christianity and Judaism, but two kinds of legal systems. In my view both come from the Holy One, blessed be He; in the view of the author of the Ikkarim too it is clear that this is so. But the one does not require revelation—it is universal; everyone understands it. Jewish law was given to us through revelation. By the way, one conclusion is that there is no such thing as Jewish morality. Morality is morality is morality. There is no Jewish morality and Belgian morality or gentile morality. Morality is morality. Jewish law is the only thing particular to Judaism. Why? Because morality is not the result of revelation. We did not receive it from the Holy One, blessed be He, through revelation. It is morality, something that we as human beings understand to be moral or immoral. Every human being has that understanding. Revelation was only to us. But every human being has that understanding. And therefore morality by definition is universal. What is right for me is right for a gentile too. What is not right for a gentile is not right for me morally either. Halakhically, these are commands directed only to me and not to him. Therefore there is a difference between divine religion and natural religion also in the sense of the source: where do I know that this is moral and that is not, where do I know that this is halakhic and that is not? The first is from my own understanding; the second is from revelation. Another implication, another conclusion, is that morality is universal. Gentiles too have a natural religion exactly like our natural religion. The difference between us is only in divine religion. The religious, halakhic commandments were said to us and not to gentiles. I think that this whole conception of the independence between Jewish law and morality, which I have repeated many times, is written here in a very systematic and clear way in the Sefer Ha-Ikkarim. Good, I’ll stop here, and next time we’ll continue.

[Speaker F] Sorry, a question please. If there is independence—assuming I adopt your thesis, yes—between morality and Jewish law, and when they meet head-on, then does that mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, contradicts Himself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. What do you mean, contradicts Himself? There is one aspect because of which it is important to do this act, and another aspect because of which it is forbidden to do this act. Both are true. Yes, the chocolate example that I always bring—that’s an example of this. It’s both healthy and unhealthy and tasty.

[Speaker F] Yes, but that example is less disturbing than the beautiful captive woman. The beautiful captive woman is… because there it is permitted, the Torah permits it. Yes. And morally it is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a religious prohibition and a moral prohibition—what’s the problem?

[Speaker F] So what does the Holy One, blessed be He, want? Both come from Him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He wants both Jewish law and morality.

[Speaker F] But here it’s head-on; one contradicts the other.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And within Jewish law itself there are no head-on clashes? A positive commandment overrides a prohibition—isn’t that a clash within Jewish law? You have to find a solution when there are clashes: which one prevails.

[Speaker F] Here there is a rule, it’s a technical rule.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A positive commandment overrides a prohibition. These rules help me deal with conflicts, but conflicts also exist within Jewish law itself. Even when I have a conflict within Jewish law, I need to think about which one overrides which, and even when there’s a conflict between Jewish law and morality, I need to think about which one overrides which. But the very fact that there is a conflict—there’s no problem with that at all. There are conflicts within Jewish law itself and also within morality itself. There are also conflicts between moral principles within morality itself. There’s no fundamental problem with that. Sometimes it’s hard to decide, fine, but there’s no fundamental problem in the fact that a conflict exists. Okay? Good, I don’t really want to get into this whole Torah of Jewish law and morality here; there’s a lot to expand on. I already gave several series on this, and I also wrote about it and so on—you can find it. That’s not the topic. I just want to show that the model that Sefer Ha-Ikkarim assumes is basically this model. These are exactly the different religions that he lays out here, and now you can see why it was so important to him to define all these religions. All of these are important things, conditions for receiving the Torah, what Rabbi Chaim Vital said, yes—conditions for being commanded. Okay, but all of this is the service of God. Fine, next time we’ll continue.

[Speaker G] Questions? One: why, if according to Maimonides moral facts are true and false, then when he spoke about what Adam had before the sin, that he knew how to distinguish between truth and falsehood, why does he bring up whether the earth is flat or round? Why didn’t he say that it’s forbidden to murder, that it’s forbidden to steal? Why mislead me after that whole picture?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You know, it’s like what you find in the Talmud: you can infer from the first clause this way, and from the second clause that way. It’s a good question you have; I don’t have an answer. But I have another good question too. Why, in the examples of commonly accepted notions, doesn’t he bring the prohibition against murder, but rather the prohibition against walking around naked? You understand that that really points in the opposite direction.

[Speaker G] Because that’s what the Torah says he did. It doesn’t say that he learned not to murder; he wasn’t considering murder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s irrelevant. You’re trying to explain to me what commonly accepted notions are and what was revealed to him after the sin, right? So say, “Do not murder,” not “don’t walk around naked.” That’s really the most obvious thing.

[Speaker G] He doesn’t want to explain the first man.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not explain the first man—by using the first man, he’s coming to explain to you an idea, that there are commonly accepted notions and there are intelligible truths, so I would have expected him to say that. So you can infer from the first clause and you can infer from the second clause, and the inferences come out opposite.

[Speaker G] Later in the Guide he really does say it explicitly. But another question: Rabbi, are you basically saying that before the sin, according to Maimonides, a person was exempt from the burden of culture, right? All the conventions, culture—he was exempt from them. So did the first man know that slavery was forbidden? Did Adam know human rights?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Please, that’s not—that’s not culture.

[Speaker G] Did he know that in advance?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, know? He should have known. Whether he knew or not, I don’t know. The fact is that people thought enslaving slaves was right in the eyes of many, many people—good people.

[Speaker G] Right, so that means it’s a cultural fact that spread after hundreds of years.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a cultural fact. It means that morality progresses exactly like science.

[Speaker G] Where does it come from—do they suddenly sit with a microscope and see that it’s forbidden to enslave?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A spiritual microscope, yes.

[Speaker G] Exactly like science, it progresses like—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Science.

[Speaker G] But there’s decline of the generations. Supposedly the medieval authorities were like angels; supposedly they should have seen these moral facts much more clearly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In practice, if you want to talk about decline of the generations, talk to someone who believes in that.

[Speaker G] Fine, I don’t believe in that either. But I’m saying, there’s no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Reason to think that Abraham—why are you asking me about something you don’t believe and I don’t believe either?

[Speaker G] Fine, but why really—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The great—

[Speaker G] Scholars of the generation from a thousand years ago didn’t know?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, ask them. I’m telling you what I think.

[Speaker G] Why didn’t Maimonides know that it’s forbidden to own slaves?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ask him. I’m answering for what I think.

[Speaker G] According to our approach, if we say that culture is so unnecessary, and after all it’s clear that culture is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it’s unnecessary; on the contrary. This whole model comes to say that it’s not unnecessary.

[Speaker G] But before the sin, man was exempt from it—that’s what you said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because you were in a different state. But all of us, including Maimonides, are after the sin, and after the sin culture is not unnecessary.

[Speaker G] What did man have before the sin that exempted him, so that he didn’t need culture?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, exempted? Fine, in the name of Immanuel Kant. Right, he saw this nakedness, and from his perspective it was a kind of—like, you know, like people who look in a museum, wander around in a museum and see nude paintings, and if that reached Bnei Brak people would tear their clothes and jump off the roof. And these people walk around there and it doesn’t move them in the slightest. Why? Because from within the context, in an artistic context, they see nudity and it’s perceived differently; it does something different to you. So the first man before the sin, from his point of view, it was an artistic matter.

[Speaker G] First of all, I have no problem with that. But I’m talking about cultural achievements—I’m not talking about conventions of courtesy and manners, I’m talking about moral conventions, and that I think was an achievement—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, social conventions, conventions—I’m saying again, you say these are conventions, I disagree. Here too, conventions—I disagree with you about them.

[Speaker G] Does the Rabbi believe that the first man before the sin knew all the moral achievements that exist today?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I believe he should have known; he was obligated by them. But things progress. Do you believe quantum theory was true before the sin of the first man?

[Speaker G] Yes, if he knew it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But did he know it?

[Speaker G] If a slave had happened to come his way, would he have known not to keep him and not to abuse him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, maybe not. But quantum theory too—if he had seen tunneling, the phenomenon of tunneling, he still wouldn’t have known quantum theory even if he had seen it. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t true then. It was true. There is progress in our grasp of what is true, but it was true from his standpoint as well. It could be that he also knew everything—I don’t know—but it doesn’t have to be so. That’s the point. I’m only claiming that it was true. Even then. What he knew? I have no idea.

[Speaker G] Again, another minus one for this approach, which makes morality finite. As if there’s some thing, some set of knowledge, that could be summarized in some way. Whereas in another approach, morality is infinite.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Morality is not infinite; it is determinate.

[Speaker G] No, no. I told you, I’m not a relativist, Rabbi. No, absolutely not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can say that, but it’s self-contradictory.

[Speaker G] I don’t think so. Okay. How, how—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, let’s not get into that. Okay. Anyone else? A comment or a question or something? Fine, so have a peaceful Sabbath. Thank you very much. Greetings to Yemen and to Israel.

[Speaker E] Thank you.