Halakha and Ethics – Lesson 7

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying: if that’s what he means, it’s not correct. Because these things were not said to Moses at Sinai. These things are developments of later sages who established this rule. Maybe they hit upon the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, maybe they were right, anything is possible. But to say that this was said to Moses at Sinai sounds to me really absurd and strange. Nobody mentions here that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Usually when the Talmud brings such a tradition, it says: this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Nothing of the sort. The Talmud in Bava Batra is a Talmudic text that arranges relations between neighbors, commercial relations, guilds, all kinds of things of that sort, and there the sages simply determine what seems right in their eyes. None of this was said to Moses at Sinai, in my opinion, and I think the Chazon Ish here is using some kind of… some kind of superlative in order to strengthen the claim. I don’t think he really meant that these things were said to Moses at Sinai.

But I’m saying that beyond the use of what we might call exaggerated or superlative expressions, there’s a deeper problem here. Because when you ask yourself why the sages really established this—why, on what basis? Where did it come from? What is the source? If it didn’t come from Sinai, and I claim it didn’t come from Sinai, then what is the source? On what basis did the sages establish this determination? First, the ability to make the claim “you are cutting off my livelihood.” Second, that in the case of teachers one cannot make that claim. Where did they create these Jewish laws from? Simply put, these Jewish laws are products of the sages’ reasoning. The sages understood that this is how it should properly be determined, this is how one should properly act, and that’s what they did. That’s generally how sages work. Sages enact rabbinic ordinances, or whatever, establish their definitions—they establish them on the basis of what seems reasonable to them.

So in such a situation, it is even more far-fetched to say that Jewish law overrides morality. Because I would ask myself not the question of how I am supposed to act after we already have tractate Bava Batra and my moral intuitions, and maybe there is a clash here and the question is which prevails. I ask: those same sages who established these Jewish laws—how did they see this on the moral level and on the halakhic / of Jewish law level? After all, for them there was no clash between Jewish law and morality. They apparently understood morality this way, because there is no halakhic source saying this. Rather, they understood that this is what is proper to do. So in fact this determination is not a halakhic determination, it is a moral determination. True, the sages took this moral determination and put it into the Shulchan Arukh, and turned it into a binding halakhic determination, and that’s perfectly fine, that happens.

For example, in “we compel in the manner of Sodom”—that too, by the way, is all there in Bava Batra. Bava Batra is the tractate that has the greatest number of examples of these kinds of matters. And still, it is very hard to bring a proof from here of clashes between Jewish law and morality. The sages didn’t sit there and say, “Look, there is a clash here between Jewish law and morality, and we say that Jewish law prevails.” As far as they were concerned, this was also what was morally right to do. Otherwise why would they establish it? After all, they had no other halakhic source that contradicted their morality. There is no such source. What they needed to establish was whatever seemed right to them. Which means that this thing seemed right to them. This is not a clash between what seemed right to them and some directive that came from Sinai.

Therefore the use of the expression that this Jewish law was said to Moses our teacher at Sinai is doubly problematic here. First, because it was not said at Sinai. And second, because since it was not said at Sinai, the whole sting of this example disappears. This example is meant to say that when there is a clash between Jewish law and morality, Jewish law is what determines things. But if that is really so, then I need to see: what is the halakhic source that clashes with morality? There is no such source here. It was obvious to the sages by reasoning that this is what should be done. So this is not a conflict situation. A conflict situation is the killing of Amalekite babies, the wife of a priest who was raped, all kinds of things we brought up. There I say: morality tells me one thing and Jewish law said something else, and now I ask myself which prevails. That is a conflict. So here the Chazon Ish can say that Jewish law prevails. Fine, I understand. But this particular example is really not a good example. It’s not a good example because here the sages established what truly seemed right to them—on the contrary. Here they had freedom, because Jewish law had determined nothing, and the sages determined in Jewish law what really seemed fitting in their eyes, what seemed right to them.

I’ll just say, I’ll qualify that a bit, and say that it is true that this determination is the reasoning of the sages who established it, but it is hard to say that it is a moral determination. Harm to people’s livelihood is of course a moral problem; it is a problem belonging to the sphere of morality. But concern for competition so that study will be of higher quality—I’m not entirely sure I would assign that to the moral sphere. That is the religious world, the world of holiness, a Torah value. We want the study to be good and so on, but that is not a moral value. In the sense that no person is harmed by the fact that the study would be a little less good. The study will be a little less good and there will be fewer Torah scholars—fine, but no person is being harmed here. I don’t think I would connect that to a moral problem.

And therefore, in a certain sense, although there is no halakhic source for this determination and it is incorrect to present this as a conflict between Jewish law and morality—Jewish law in the sense of source, verse, law given to Moses at Sinai, something like that—versus a moral value, still it is true that here, in some sense, there is a conflict between morality… morality and a Torah value. There is no verse. The sages said this from reasoning. It is obvious that we want Torah study to be at the best and highest level possible. And therefore, in their view, that interest overrides the interest in the livelihood of private individuals. So it is not a conflict between a halakhic source and a moral principle, but it is a conflict between a moral principle and a Torah principle, a Torah value. Okay? Which I would not call a moral value.

Let’s say if I did not see great value in Torah study, then no, I would not think there is some issue that it should specifically be taught better. And for example you could ask the same question regarding mathematics teachers. Right? I have veteran math teachers here, and now new math teachers come. It is hard for me to believe that the Chazon Ish would say that here there is a claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood.” It’s like any other business, because this is not Torah study. Even though it is also learning, it is not Torah study. What does that mean? It means that on the moral level there is only the issue of harming the livelihood of the existing workers. The other side is not a moral side, because if it were a moral side, it would also exist in the teaching of mathematics. It is a Torah side. Since Torah study is so important, therefore the importance of competition among teachers overrides the moral injury, the moral value of not harming people’s livelihood.

So maybe there is a conflict here, but it is not correct to demonstrate through this example the superiority of Jewish law over morality, because this is not Jewish law. It became Jewish law after the sages established it. Now from our standpoint it is Jewish law, because it is written in the Shulchan Arukh—but it was merely inserted into the Shulchan Arukh, metaphorical Shulchan Arukh of course, long before that; it was inserted into the Talmud or into the Shulchan Arukh or into Jewish law by the sages as a result of a decision reached through their reasoning. This is really not a good example of a clash between Jewish law and morality. I ask what happens when the sages say that a certain act is immoral—according to them as well it is immoral—but Jewish law nevertheless says to do it. Now I’m in conflict. The Chazon Ish will of course say there too that Jewish law prevails, but this example is not an example that expresses that, because it is not a good example.

But in any case, when we look at this example, we also already understand that I do not think the Chazon Ish really means to identify Jewish law with morality, or to say that there is no moral obligation in the world at all. There is certainly moral obligation in the world, but where Jewish law has determined something, it overrides the moral obligation. So that is actually the second formulation that I put under the heading of the Chazon Ish, and not the first formulation. The first formulation, I said, was that in the world of a Jew there is only Jewish law, and morality is not a binding category, like it was an atheistic category as Leibowitz said. The second formulation said: no, there is also an obligation to morality, one must also be a decent human being. But where morality clashes with Jewish law, there Jewish law prevails. This is not a conflict—the Chazon Ish does not recognize the existence of conflicts. He says that Jewish law essentially always prevails over morality, and more than that, he says it is what determines what is forbidden and permitted in the doctrine of morality. That is to say, morality is determined by Jewish law, not that Jewish law prevails over morality. In that sense there is indeed some kind of identification here. In those places where Jewish law speaks, it’s not that it prevails over morality, but rather whoever thinks otherwise is simply morally mistaken. Jewish law determines what the correct morality is.

And that does not mean there are no other places where Jewish law does not speak, and there we will act according to what morality says; the Chazon Ish would probably agree to that too. So therefore it seems to me that the formulation—if one sees in the Chazon Ish at all the formulations I presented last time—is the second formulation and not the first. Okay, now let’s read a little more from him just to sharpen the points. Section 2: “Among a person’s moral obligations is that he strive to plant in his heart this great principle: that in every case in which he encounters his fellow, he must weigh on the scales of Jewish law who is the pursuer and who is the pursued.” Right? When you encounter a certain situation and you want to judge it, first and foremost what you need is to examine by the scales of Jewish law who is right and who is wrong, as we saw with the teachers. “And moral instruction bequeaths love and compassion to the pursued, and bitter wrath to the pursuer.” After all, morality itself tells me to identify with the pursued.

Okay, so we continue. My internet apparently got disconnected, I don’t know exactly what happened here. It became wireless—I hope now it’ll be okay, we’ll see. Right, so we were here in section 2. The Chazon Ish is basically saying that in every case we encounter, in every case we encounter we need to weigh on the scales of Jewish law who is in the right and who is in the wrong. Now, morality itself obligates us to identify with the pursued and to act against the pursuer. And therefore, he says, there is a moral necessity that we know who the pursuer is and who the pursued is. It is not only a halakhic necessity; it is a moral necessity. And Jewish law, of course, is what determines who the pursuer is and who the pursued is, as we saw in the previous example. And that is what he says: “And how terrible is the stumbling block, and how great the confusion, for those who exchange the pursuer for the pursued and the pursued for the pursuer.” “And as for knowing the truth of the matter”—that is, who really is pursuing and who really is pursued—“there is no place for this except in the books of the halakhic decisors, which were handed down to us by the mighty ones of the world, our rabbis of blessed memory.”

And here again I return to what I said earlier with the example of the teachers: as I said, it is not a good example. And I think that perhaps what he really wants to say is that halakhic decisors must also determine the moral principles—that is, who is the pursuer and who is the pursued. Not Jewish law in the sense of verses or law given to Moses at Sinai or something like that. The Chazon Ish understood perfectly well that this is not a law given to Moses at Sinai and that these Jewish laws do not emerge from verses. It may be that what he means to say is that once the decisors have stated their position on the matter, then from our perspective that is also the command of morality, because they are the ones who determine who is the pursuer and who is the pursued. And therefore the moral command to act for the benefit of the pursued and against the pursuer is supposed to be implemented according to their determination of who the pursuer and the pursued are. And then perhaps there is indeed some sort of determination here—I don’t know—weaker or broader, that does not speak about conflicts between verses and moral principles, but in a certain sense about “Torah opinion.” That is, the halakhic decisor tells me how it is morally right to act, and then that really is the command of morality. He calls it Jewish law, but I don’t know whether he means Jewish law in its narrow sense, or whether he means that halakhic decisors are also supposed to determine what morality tells us in the situations we encounter.

“And one in whose heart this principle has not been firmly established,” section 3, “the abundance of lessons and the depth of his diligence in acquiring refined traits will not help him.” What is the point of refining one’s traits? After all, when we refine our traits, we become very, very identified with the pursued and very, very opposed to the pursuer. But so long as we do not know who is the pursued and who is the pursuer, we will take all our moral powers and direct them in the wrong direction. And therefore, without the study of Jewish law, all character refinement is essentially worth nothing. Because “when he confronts his fellow in powerful contention”—certainly in legal contention with his fellow—“he will surely justify his own case according to his natural inclinations, and even if these are refined, they will often not accord with heavenly Jewish law,” which determines that the pursued is the new teacher and not the old teacher. “And if the foundation of his judgment is distorted, all its consequences must be foreign offspring and a band of destroyers.”

“Woe, for the schoolteacher of the town”—the teacher of the local children—“will cry out before Him, blessed be He,” before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Save me from my pursuers, for they are stronger than I,” and so on, “and from heaven a heavenly voice will answer him: Woe to those who perform the act of Zimri and ask for the reward of Pinchas; are you not the pursuer? Are you not the one who shows no regard for the Torah? Did I not write in My Torah that a teacher of children may not prevent…” Right, of course this is Rav Huna speaking here, not the Holy One, blessed be He.

This picture basically says that all refined traits are of no help if you do not apply them in the right places. I think that many times even in our own day, in our period and in our regions, we really do encounter such a phenomenon—or at least there is such a feeling. Not necessarily connected specifically to Torah, although often people do connect it to Torah. There is some kind of feeling—say, right-wing people versus left-wing people—the feeling of many right-wing people is that left-wing people genuinely and sincerely aspire to moral aspirations; it’s just that the pursued person they identify with is not the right pursued person. That is, they act with self-sacrifice for the pursued, the miserable, the weak, the vulnerable—whatever you want—but that pursued person is not the right pursued person. The true perspective, basically, says that this pursued person is the pursuer. So what good are all your refined traits and your developed conscience if you are applying them in the wrong direction? Again, I am not expressing a position at the moment; I’m just bringing this as an example of the principle the Chazon Ish is describing here.

Okay, maybe in section 5 there is more to read. “The acquisitions of the exalted trait of submission to judgment”—right, this is the exalted trait. Trait means character refinement, yes? This is a moral virtue: to be submitted to judgment, to Jewish law, right?—“are two. Habit is one acquisition, and study is a second acquisition.” “As is known, narrow faith is not sufficient to restrain a person from doing evil, while he is pursued by his natural desire like a rushing stream. And attaining perfection, such that his deeds and his faith not contradict one another, requires much habit and persistent study, for whose correction many books have been composed and many opinions stated with abundant understanding. And they all agreed that the remedy of the traits is to multiply the condemnation of walking after the free inclinations of the soul on the one hand, and to awaken…”

Now notice the total reversal from Rabbi Kook. That is, our great task—remember the Binding of Isaac, his interpretation of the Binding of Isaac that we read last time in the Chazon Ish—the greatest lesson, the greatest moral acquisition, is not to go with your conscience, but to suppress your conscience and subordinate it to the halakhic determination, to the scriptural decree—to that against which your soul recoils. And with Rabbi Kook, if you remember, “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” was the important lesson of the Binding of Isaac: that in the end your natural inclination is actually correct, and you do not need to subordinate it before the command. I think this passage really presents beautifully the contrast with Rabbi Kook’s approach. “And to awaken the great obligation to heed the laws of the Torah and the great sin of defiance against the blessed Lord through His holy Torah on the other side. Recognition of the disgrace of evil and recognition of the obligation to preserve the good together fit a person to the path of good to walk in all his days.”

Now here, I’m not sure I fully understand that last sentence. The question is whether he means to say that yes, we do need to work on our character traits and identify with the pursued and hate the pursuer, or at least have motivation to act against the pursuer—but always, always to remember to check by Jewish law who the pursuer is and who the pursued is. And character refinement is not unnecessary; character refinement is needed. It’s just that without our listening to or subordinating ourselves to Jewish law, character refinement can lead us to corruption. But that does not mean Jewish law alone is enough. You also need habit—habit meaning to train myself, character work, to train myself to do things according to Jewish law and to act for the pursued and against the pursuer.

“Indeed, the repair of the heart has no remedy except through proper deeds, done at first by compelling force through prior agreement; and through the many good deeds done in struggle and courage against free will, the desire of the heart is transformed from evil to good.” Now look, this is really fascinating. This is a continuation of the antithesis to Rabbi Kook. Let me remind you again what we saw in Rabbi Kook. Rabbi Kook argued—he explained there in the last passage we read—why the Holy One, blessed be He, had to make Abraham go through that whole saga until he reaches the conclusion “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy.” So he said: because we must acquire subordination to the word of the Holy One, blessed be He, and only after that can we trust our simple inclinations, go with our simple inclinations.

The Chazon Ish says something very similar. He says “the repair of the heart has no remedy”—I return to the beginning of section 6, right?—“except through proper deeds, done at first by compelling force through prior agreement.” Meaning, you necessarily have to force your natural inclination to go according to Jewish law. And now he argues that over time—which is basically quite similar to Rabbi Kook, notice—over time “the desire of the heart is transformed from evil to good.” Meaning, over time you will acquire some kind of identification with the halakhic instructions, such that even your natural inclinations themselves will go in the halakhic direction, and you won’t need to be in conflict. And here, although this is very similar to Rabbi Kook, in my opinion it is exactly the opposite. When you look at it with determination and sensitivity—wow, it is exactly the opposite.

Rabbi Kook claims that after we acquire the trait of submission to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to Jewish law and all that, after that we are supposed to follow our natural traits and not change them. Those same natural traits we always had—the love of a father for his son, as he said regarding Abraham our father, and all that. It’s just that along the way one must also acquire the trait of submission or obligation to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, so that we do not simply do whatever we feel like. But it is clear that in the end Rabbi Kook gives very significant weight to natural inclinations, and more than that: he says it is impossible that the halakhic command should contradict natural inclinations.

The Chazon Ish here speaks about conquest, not harmony. He speaks about conquest. That is, in the end, when you get used to going all the time with Jewish law, your natural inclinations too will stop going in other directions and will in fact already go along with Jewish law. You will find yourself identifying with Jewish law. In effect, you will eliminate your natural morality, not the opposite; you will not allow yourself to use your natural morality—you will eliminate it. Except that from the complete perspective, what comes out is that your natural inclination will lead you in the halakhic direction.

Again, compare this to Maimonides that we read in the sixth chapter of Eight Chapters, where he says that in moral commandments there is value in a person also doing them out of identification, whereas in ritual commandments—in commandments that are statutes, not ordinances—there it is specifically appropriate to say, “I desire it and I desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven decreed it upon me.” Everyone speaks in a very similar way, but each one takes it in a fundamentally different direction. At first glance one could have seen them all in the same way, but these are really three different directions. Really three different directions.

By the way, in passing, this is a widespread phenomenon. It’s a little unpleasant to talk about it, but it seems to me that whoever talks about it is usually seen by people as anti-Semitic. But the truth is that I think there is something to it and one cannot ignore the truth. There is a very widespread phenomenon that people who are truly God-fearing—that is, committed to Jewish law and meticulous in Jewish law—lose their moral sensitivity. Some of them turn it into an ideology, because moral sensitivity is the evil inclination; it comes into conflict with Jewish law, and I need to be faithful only to Jewish law. And this happens every day. I have encountered cases, really—and again, not in a place where…

There was a certain yeshiva student in Yeruham. Dafna always reminds me of this story, that several brothers studied there in the yeshiva, and the parents wanted to gather them for a family reunion, wanted to meet. So three of the brothers were studying in the yeshiva. Two of them were about to go, but the third announced that he was not going. Why wasn’t he going? Because Rabbi Blumentzweig, the head of the yeshiva, said it was not right to go; one should stay in the yeshiva and study. If you were at work, would you go to meet your parents? So in yeshiva it’s like work. Now, there is room for that reasoning. I’m not saying there isn’t room for that reasoning. But somehow the feeling was—at least from what I impressionistically took away, or what we took away—that his heart had grown coarse toward this obligation, toward the importance of the parents, of this family gathering. Somehow what was clear was that there is Torah study, and therefore he had simply lost the sensitivity. He didn’t seem to be in conflict at all. That is, for him it was obvious, simply so: this is Jewish law, and therefore this is also morality, and therefore there is no reason to be in conflict, because on the contrary, what appears to people as morality is the evil inclination.

And I think this is something very common. I have encountered it many times. Very common—specifically among people who are truly committed to Jewish law in all its details and fine points. Very often—not always of course, but very often—it brings about some loss of moral sensitivity. They think there is no room for anything besides Jewish law, and therefore when morality says something else, that only means it is the evil inclination. One must subordinate it to Jewish law and try also to suppress it so that next time it will already reset itself in the right direction. That is basically what the Chazon Ish is describing here. “The desire of the heart is transformed from evil to good.” Evil, of course, is the natural moral inclination, and good is the halakhic determination. Evil is the desire to care for the old teachers, and good is to go with the new teachers. Okay?

And then he says: “A person goes and acquires the good through the habit of overcoming, time after time, the material appetite and the inclinations of the soul, in order to act according to the instruction of reason and the obligation of the Torah, and little by little he accustoms himself to the good by a natural and free inclination.” He basically accustoms himself to the “good,” in quotation marks—that is, to Jewish law—so that for him it also becomes nature. And I remind you again of Maimonides, who says there is no point in doing this in ritual laws. In moral laws maybe yes, but not in ritual laws. “And this is the straight path for acquiring the good by habit, and also acquiring the good by study; and at first in struggle, to afflict and subdue the freedom of appetite, for in most cases one will not find desire in diligent study of books that condemn the craving for pleasures and incline toward modesty and abstinence and hold the youth with a bridle.” A bridle against unruliness. “And there is no choice but to use prior agreement”—that is, coercion; again there is an element of coercion here—“to persist in study…” I’m not sure about these words, probably vigorous coercion of the imaginative nature.

In any case, his formulations are fascinating in how similar they are to what we saw in Rabbi Kook, and when you look at them in higher resolution you see just how unlike they are, how different they are, even though on the surface they look very similar. Everyone talks about the fact that first there has to be the Binding, and afterward “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy.” Only for Rabbi Kook, “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” means return to natural morality; and for the Chazon Ish, “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” means that you will naturally want to bind the boy. You no longer need to subordinate your natural inclinations before the command of the Holy One, blessed be He—which basically, I would say, is Kierkegaard in a certain sense.

Okay, so let’s summarize where we stand. So we saw one conception—which I placed under the Chazon Ish—which is the superiority or exclusivity of Jewish law. I said there are two formulations. Either there is only Jewish law and morality is of no interest, or at least when Jewish law speaks then certainly it prevails and morality has nothing to say—it does not create conflict. Okay, those are the two formulations I placed under the Chazon Ish.

Rabbi Kook says the exact opposite—that is, everything is morality; even Jewish law in the end is supposed to align with morality, and again not to redefine morality. Our natural morality is morality; it is not some different morality, there is no higher morality—this is the ordinary morality. And Jewish law basically aligns with it in the best possible way. We saw Maimonides in chapter 6, who says there are two parts to Jewish law—and I said this is basically the accepted conception. There is the part of ordinances and the part of statutes. The part of ordinances is morality: do not steal, do not murder, honor your father and your mother, love your fellow as yourself, all those things, yes, do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge and all those things, which are moral laws. And besides that there is another part in Jewish law which is the ritual part, the statutes, which is another part. Then according to this conception, morality is in a certain sense included within Jewish law—not identical with Jewish law, but included in it; it is part of it.

The fifth approach: two formulations of the Chazon Ish, one Rabbi Kook, one Maimonides. The fifth approach is Leibowitz, who says that these are parallel tracks. Morality is an atheistic category, I spoke about that, and Jewish law is Jewish law, and the two are basically two parallel planes. And I said that those who say Leibowitz is not at all committed to morality because it is an atheistic category are mistaken; that is not true. What Leibowitz argues is only that he is committed to morality as a human being, not as a Jew. To Jewish law he is committed as a Jew; to morality he is committed like any other human being. A human being is basically built of two stories: the universal, all-human story that is committed to morality, and the second story, which is the halakhic story. That is the fifth conception.

[Speaker C] And if there is a conflict between them according to Leibowitz

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Between Jewish law and morality? I said last time—I’m not one hundred percent sure, in terms of sources, about his position; I don’t remember right now things he wrote—but it’s pretty clear to me that in his view Jewish law overrides morality. At least that’s how it should be; that’s what follows from his approach. From his perspective, basically everything we are supposed to do all the time is only the Binding of Isaac. That is the service of God; in its essence, serving God is the Binding of Isaac, the continual Binding of Isaac. The claim I want to make is that all of these conceptions are problematic. I don’t agree with any of them, and I’m trying to propose a sixth conception. And my conception says, like Leibowitz, that Jewish law and morality are two parallel and foreign categories, completely foreign to one another—not like Maimonides. But with one change: my claim is that Jewish law and morality are both the will of God. Unlike Leibowitz, who said that morality is an atheistic category, I claim that morality is the will of God.

Now, point number one: I’ll mention several points that are difficult for me in the other conceptions, and then I’ll spell out more fully what I’m proposing. Basically, the identification that Rabbi Kook makes, I think, in a certain sense empties morality of content. Because he is essentially saying that when you look at… Jewish law best captures morality. Even though he doesn’t belittle natural morality, our simple feelings, our conscience—that, for him, is morality. In that sense he is not like the Chazon Ish. He recognizes natural morality as something binding; that’s what is called morality. He just claims that Jewish law always fits it. And that is, first, a very strange conception, and second, in a certain sense it somewhat empties morality of content. Because when I now look at killing Amalek, or at what—or even the teachers we talked about earlier—what are you really trying to tell me? That this is the most morally correct determination? That this is true morality? And what I feel—that I actually identify with the old teachers because they are the persecuted ones, or with the Amalekite infant who did nothing and yet I’m told to kill him—that is basically a moral mistake? There shouldn’t be a conflict? It’s simply a moral mistake. Jewish law tells me that I got confused. Morality says something else. That sounds strange.

That basically means that what we are used to calling morality is not what is called morality. Rabbi Kook is really translating it into Jewish law and continuing to call it morality. Morality, I think, by definition is something everyone understands ought to be done. It’s not something up in heaven, some scriptural decree. There are no moral scriptural decrees; there is no such thing. A moral scriptural decree is an oxymoron. Morality is what everyone understands should be done. Sometimes you can make a mistake, you can get confused. Of course you can make a mistake. After they convince me, I’ll be convinced I was mistaken, and then I’ll draw the conclusions. But it’s not some scriptural decree; I simply made an error in judgment. Anyone can make mistakes, that’s obvious.

Maybe I’ll give you an example that sharpens this further. I once saw in Rabbi Dessler’s Michtav MeEliyahu that he claims—the Talmud says that a Torah scholar alters his words in three matters, right? There are cases in which it is permissible to lie, to alter one’s speech, as the Sages call it. So Rabbi Dessler writes that such a thing—for example, with regard to Purya and Ushpiza, where it explicitly says three matters for which a person alters his words, or not saying that the food someone gave me when I was his guest was too good, because then everyone will want to stay with him, all kinds of things—or for the sake of peace, one may alter the truth for the sake of peace. Okay. So Rabbi Dessler says: when you alter the truth for the sake of peace, that is not even called a lie; that is the truth. Why? Because a lie means something that one is forbidden to say. But here, this is exactly what one is supposed to say. Jewish law says one may alter the truth for the sake of peace, or one must alter it for the sake of peace. So if that’s the case, then what you are saying here is the truth; it’s not a lie at all.

Now, you can treat this as some semantic statement. Is it just a semantic statement? Then why is he writing it? What is he trying to teach me—the dictionary? Rabbi Dessler? Obviously he is making a value statement here. And his value statement says: this thing is not a lie at all; there is no conflict. When you lie for the sake of peace, there is no conflict. Both the duty to tell the truth and the duty of peace instruct me to say the same thing. Now to me that is outrageous. It’s outrageous. It empties the concepts of truth and falsehood of content. You are simply identifying the concept of truth with the concept of peace. But the concept of truth clashes with the concept of peace. There are conflicts; that’s life. Very often standing for the truth leads to a lack of peace, and vice versa. Peace requires giving up truth. You can’t tell me, no, you didn’t give up truth, this itself is the truth. That’s just verbal laundering.

So clearly there is a price here. When I lie for the sake of peace—correct, one should do that, that is what the Sages say—but you can’t say there is no price. There is a price. This thing is a lie; it is not truth. A lie is saying something that is not correct. True, sometimes it is justified to say it because the value of peace overrides the value of truth, but you can’t say it isn’t a lie. That’s simply crazy word-laundering. And in a certain sense I feel that some of the approaches that identify Jewish law with morality do not identify Jewish law with morality; they simply redefine Jewish law and call it morality. That’s all. They are basically just telling me: follow Jewish law. Jewish law is always supreme. According to the Chazon Ish, Jewish law is always supreme and overrides morality. And according to Rabbi Kook, Jewish law always hits morality exactly. Bottom line, in practice, you always have to do what Jewish law says. So what difference does it make?

And not only do you always have to do Jewish law, but that is also what both of them call morality. In a certain sense I said that in practice the two of them are ultimately very similar. I gave a few examples where there would still be differences between them, but in practice, in very many cases, they will be very similar, even though their theology is completely different—the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook. And somehow what they share really infuriates me. This verbal laundering that is basically trying to make me alienate myself from my own simple moral feelings. I know what morality is. Don’t tell me stories. I know that killing a baby is immoral. Don’t tell me that killing a baby is moral. Separating a woman from her husband when they love each other and want to stay together, and creating a tragedy because a kohen’s wife was raped—that is a moral wrong, period. I know that, and nobody is going to tell me otherwise. And if in order to preserve the holiness of the priesthood that has to be done, then I’ll grit my teeth and do it, but don’t tell me that this is the moral instruction. That’s laundering, and the words themselves outrage me.

The status of a mamzer—that poor child who was born to his parents and can’t marry anyone because of what his parents did—so what, that’s what morality says? It’s simply absurd to say such a thing. It just turns the word morality into something empty of content, that’s all. You can call it whatever you want—morality—once you’ve emptied it of content. And I haven’t even gotten to the status of women: their inability to divorce, or the fact that they can be divorced against their will, their disqualification from testimony and judgment—all these things are the pinnacle of morality according to Rabbi Kook, and also according to the Chazon Ish, because for him whatever Jewish law says is morality. So they are very similar in that sense.

By the way, Rabbi Kook writes in—I think it’s in his approbation to Piskei Uziel, to the responsa of Rabbi Uziel—against women’s voting rights. I think he writes there—or maybe it’s not there, I no longer remember. He wrote against it; he was very opposed to giving women the right to vote. For him, it was a moral principle not to let women vote. Now you can tell me this goes against modesty, this and that, and therefore there is no choice and I have to deny them the right to vote. But I’m sure that if I had asked Rabbi Kook, he would have said that this is what morality requires. And therefore that approach is an infuriating approach.

Leibowitz’s conception, in my view, is almost correct. My problem with it is what I would call a halakhic, meta-halakhic problem. I spoke about this last time: Leibowitz is basically telling us to practice idolatry in partnership. Meaning, to be loyal to two normative systems that have different sources. One is from the Holy One, blessed be He—that is Jewish law—and the other is morality. And as I said, even if I accept that Jewish law always overrides morality in every case of conflict, it doesn’t matter. The very fact that I am bound to something whose source is not from the Holy One, blessed be He—there is here some dimension, and maybe even an actually halakhic one, I don’t know, of idolatry. You are basically accepting upon yourself the yoke of another source of authority besides the Holy One, blessed be He. And that is a problematic conception from a religious perspective.

There is no logical problem in it. As I said, this is normative duality; it is perfectly consistent logically, especially if one of the principles of value is a sweeping value principle. But from the standpoint of halakhic or Torah thought, it is problematic, because you cannot be committed to a source of validity other than the Holy One, blessed be He, even where there is no conflict. That is what I want to claim—not because you violate Jewish law because of morality; you don’t violate it. For Leibowitz, Jewish law always prevails, so there is no problem; you never violate Jewish law. I claim that the very commitment to morality, if it is an atheistic category, is idolatry.

And therefore I want to make the following claim. Now I’ll expand a bit more on what I want to argue against all these approaches. I want to make a claim that at first glance may not seem very intuitive, but I think it best stands the test of facts and logic. I want to argue against Maimonides, against Rabbi Kook, against the Chazon Ish, and in a certain sense also against Leibowitz—even against Leibowitz—and I want to say that there are two systems that are parallel and completely foreign to one another. There is no connection whatsoever between Jewish law and morality, no connection whatsoever to morality. Not even the laws of “do not murder,” “do not steal,” “honor your father and your mother,” have anything to do with morality in any way. That is my claim. Moral obligation is an independent and entirely extra-halakhic category, a parallel one. In a moment I’ll explain what exactly that means and why I say that “do not murder” is not a moral matter; I’ll get to that in a moment. But that is basically the claim.

And now I want to move toward that claim in stages. So the first stage is that I want to point to three—three halakhic categories, or three kinds of laws, that we can find in Jewish law. The first kind is “moral” law, in quotation marks: do not murder, do not steal, charity, and so on. The second kind is amoral law. Amoral law means the prohibition against eating pork—something that has nothing to do with morality, neither for nor against; it is indifferent to morality, transparent to morality. That is amoral law. And there are laws that are anti-moral. Anti-moral laws are the examples I gave earlier: saving a non-Jew’s life on the Sabbath, separating a kohen’s wife who was raped from her husband, an Amalekite infant, the status of women in various contexts, and so on. All those laws are anti-moral—that is, they clash with morality. Those are the three categories.

Now I actually want to begin with the amoral laws. Rabbi Kook claims that Jewish law is basically the optimal path to arrive at the right moral solution, the perfect moral solution. And from his perspective all of Jewish law is basically intended to achieve or realize moral values. So I ask myself: in the amoral laws, how can you see that? The prohibition against eating pork, forbidden fat, blood, I don’t know what, all sorts of impurity and purity laws, various things like that, sacrifices, I don’t know—how is that meant to achieve moral goals? What moral goals are served by prohibiting pork? So Rabbi Kook has all kinds of explanations—for fringes, phylacteries, whatever. He has various explanations in Lanevukhei HaDor. There was a year when we studied it, and we saw all sorts of reasons for the commandments that he suggests there. And he has all sorts of explanations, let’s say, with a groan. Very dubious explanations—and I’m putting it mildly. And by the way, the same is true of the third part of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed. Stunningly lame explanations for the reasons of the commandments.

And I think those explanations sharpen very strongly just how much the people who try to identify Jewish law with morality fail, or are driven to very, very far-fetched places in order to do so. The simpler and more sensible conception, in my opinion, is that those laws have other purposes, not moral purposes. For the sake of the discussion I’ll call them religious purposes. Okay? The prohibition against eating pork, impurity and purity, sacrifices, I don’t know, all sorts of such things—all the amoral laws, okay? Those are laws whose purpose is a religious purpose, not a moral purpose. Let’s leave the moral laws aside for the moment. Moral laws—do not murder, do not steal—for the sake of the discussion for now, and I’ll soon pull back from this, for now they come to achieve, to realize, moral values. Fine? But the amoral laws come to achieve other values—I don’t know, to repair the eternity within splendor, I have no idea, I don’t know what. Something. Okay?

Now if that really is so, then we get our first conclusion, which begins to lead toward the model I’m trying to propose. The first conclusion says—and this goes back to things we discussed in the introductions to the topic—that when I talk about values, there are several kinds of values. Not all values are moral values. There are other kinds of values, not of the moral kind but of another kind. And here I will call them religious values. Just as there are moral values, there are also religious values. We talked about human values, legal values, all kinds of values of different types, and now I want to add religious values: that there are moral values and religious values. First of all. We see this from the analysis of these three kinds of laws I listed earlier.

Now if that really is so, the next step: let’s go to the anti-moral laws, because that is where the conflict between Jewish law and morality really sits. So all those who say there is no conflict, in my opinion, empty the concept of morality of content. Of course there is a conflict. But the fact that there is a conflict should not frighten us. We already saw in the introductions that conflicts between two systems do not mean I am not committed to both of them. I am fully committed to both of them. On the contrary, it is precisely because I am committed to both systems that I am in conflict. Therefore, when I talk for example about killing an Amalekite infant or about saving the life of a non-Jew—desecrating the Sabbath to save a non-Jew’s life—I say: from the perspective of the moral imperative, these acts are immoral. From the perspective of Jewish law, I am obligated to do them because there is some religious value that these acts are meant to achieve, or some harm they are meant to prevent. Okay? A religious value. But the moral value is harmed by these acts. That is the meaning of the parallelism between the moral category and the halakhic category.

So in anti-moral laws there is a clash, while in amoral laws there is only a religious value, and moral values have nothing to say in those areas. In anti-moral laws both systems have something to say, and therefore a conflict arises. But conflict, as I said earlier, is not a substantive problem. There is absolutely no problem in the fact that a conflict arises. It does not indicate that I am not committed to both systems. Like—remember Sartre’s student? Or saving life and the Sabbath, or… The fact that they clash and I have to decide—does that mean I am not committed to one of them? I am fully committed to Jewish law and fully committed to morality, and precisely because of that there are situations in which I am in conflict, and there is no problem with that. On the contrary, a person committed to both systems should be expected from time to time to land in conflicts. That is only to be expected, and it is perfectly clear that it will happen. There is no problem in that. The big question is what to do. Okay—how do you decide the conflict? What do you do in practice? We’ll see that in a moment.

Now let’s move to the moral laws. Now I want to claim more than that. If these really are two separate categories, Jewish law and morality, why assume at all that part of Jewish law concerns morality? What Maimonides said, yes—that there are moral laws and laws of statutes and ordinances. I want to argue that all laws are intended to achieve only religious purposes. Moral values are not the concern of Jewish law; they are the concern of morality. Therefore, for example, there is no such thing in my view as Jewish morality. There is morality, and if morality says something, all human beings are bound by it. It has nothing to do with Jew and non-Jew. There is correct morality and incorrect morality; we can debate what correct and incorrect morality are. But there is no such thing as Jewish morality. Jewish morality is an oxymoron. Jewish law is Jewish. Morality obligates all human beings, and as such it is universal; it has nothing to do with Jewish law and can sometimes even clash with Jewish law.

And now I want to make the following claim. People often ask: why did the Torah write “do not murder”? After all, it is simple reason that one may not murder. Right? The Holy One, blessed be He, comes to Cain and says to him: “Where is Abel your brother? Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Long before He commanded Cain with “Whoever sheds man’s blood” or “do not murder” or all the commandments that appear in the Torah, there was already a claim against Cain: why did you murder? Meaning, he should have understood on his own that one may not murder. So why was “do not murder” written? Why do I need a verse? Reason alone should tell me. My claim is that “do not murder” was written in order to impose a religious prohibition on this act beyond the moral prohibition that already existed beforehand. But the purpose of the prohibition “do not murder” is to achieve or prevent harm to a religious value, not something connected to morality at all. The moral value exists before the commandment and after the commandment, and it is independent of the commandment.

For example, I’ll give you an example. There are rules in “do not murder,” formal rules: direct confinement, indirect causation, doing it in an unusual manner. You do various technical maneuvers—bringing the object near the fire or the fire near the object. The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin plays with many possibilities, and there are many situations in which you are exempt. You did not violate “do not murder”; you are exempt from execution. The question is whether you did not violate the moral prohibition of murder. Obviously you did. If you murdered someone through indirect causation, morally you are a murderer in every sense. Halakhically, no. Why not? If Jewish law—if the command “do not murder” came to achieve the moral value, then why should I care whether you murdered by indirect causation or not? Who cares? Murder by indirect causation, by the way, is definitely murder; it is certain murder. You just didn’t do it with your own hands, that’s all. So what? The fact that you did it this way, but clearly as a result a person died—why are you not a murderer? You are a murderer in every respect. On the moral level there is no difference at all, no difference in the world. Why does Jewish law make distinctions between direct confinement and indirect causation and things like that? Because Jewish law is not talking about the moral aspect. Jewish law is talking about the religious problem in murder. The religious problem in murder does not exist if you do it indirectly; there only the moral problem exists. If you do it directly, then in addition to the moral problem there is also a religious problem.

When people say there is no “do not murder” regarding a non-Jew—“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”—there is no “do not murder” regarding a non-Jew, then everyone gets upset and complains: how can that be? What kind of discrimination is that? Is the non-Jew’s blood less red? Isn’t he a human being? What kind of immorality is this? That is nonsense. Why? Because the moral prohibition against murdering a non-Jew exists exactly as it does for a Jew. The religious prohibition against murdering a non-Jew is not “do not murder” but “whoever sheds man’s blood”; it is a different prohibition. It has nothing to do with morality. On the moral level there is no difference between a non-Jew and a Jew. The prohibition against murdering a non-Jew and the prohibition against murdering a Jew are exactly the same moral prohibition. The difference between them is a religious difference, and religious differences are meant to achieve all sorts of spiritual matters, not morality. So there are spiritual differences between a Jew and a non-Jew, and in the spiritual sense it does something different. When you murder a Jew, you damage the eternity within splendor; when you murder a non-Jew, you damage the beauty within foundation. Fine? Therefore this one is “whoever sheds man’s blood” and that one is “do not murder.” Okay? But that is not a moral difference—what does that have to do with morality?

The same with stealing from a non-Jew. According to some medieval authorities, stealing from a non-Jew is not prohibited by Torah law. “Do not steal” was not said about a non-Jew, according to those authorities. So what? Rabbi Shimon Shkop says there is still a Torah prohibition to steal from a non-Jew—he means a legal or moral prohibition, because the moral prohibition remains in force. The prohibition “do not steal” is not a moral prohibition; it is a religious prohibition. And again, why does “do not steal” need to be written? It’s obvious by reason. Why do I need a verse? Reason alone should tell me. The answer is: not true. What do you mean, why do I need a verse, reason alone should tell me? That’s not true. Reason does not tell me there is a religious command here; reason tells me there is a moral prohibition. And that moral prohibition really exists irrespective of the Torah’s command. The Torah did not come to state the moral command; the Torah came to say that if you do such a thing, then beyond the moral problem, there is also a religious problem here. And that needs to be written. Without the Torah writing it, how would you know it? Of course it has to be written. It makes no sense to say here, why do I need a verse if reason alone should tell me. A lot of people twist themselves up over the question of why the Torah wrote these things. According to my view, that question doesn’t even get off the ground; it is completely obvious.

Therefore, what I basically want to argue is that even the laws that belong to the category of moral laws also do not belong to the world of morality. They come to say that there is a religious problem in murder, and a religious problem in theft, and a religious problem in failing to honor parents—or a religious benefit in honoring parents. And none of that has any connection to the moral question. Morally, of course, in all these things there are moral issues, and they exist before the Torah and will exist after the Torah, and they are relevant to every non-Jew and every Jew in exactly the same way, because morality by definition is universal. There is no such thing as Jewish morality. What Jewish law says is that with regard to Jews, in certain circumstances, there is also an additional problematic element or benefit, a religious commandment or transgression, besides the moral issue. That’s all.

And now everything falls into place beautifully. Now the whole problem of Jewish law and morality simply disappears, without any strain and without anything. This fits the facts and the logic perfectly, and I don’t understand—the other approaches all seem to me forced, strained contortions that are not clear. And now what I want to claim are basically the following claims, to summarize. Jewish law and morality are two completely separate categories. Jewish law comes to achieve religious goals; morality comes to achieve moral goals, moral values. Both are the will of God. Conflict between them is a conflict because I am obligated to both sides, both to morality and to Jewish law, and both are the will of God.

Therefore, in amoral laws there is only the religious dimension. In moral laws there is the religious dimension that comes out of the verse; besides that there is the moral dimension, but that does not belong to Jewish law. In the same act, in the same thing you do, there will be a moral aspect that is unrelated to Jewish law, and there will be a religious aspect, which is the Jewish law involved in it—whether you do it or do not do it, prohibitions and positive commandments alike. What happens in anti-moral laws? In anti-moral laws there there is a conflict between the religious aspect and the moral aspect. And as I said earlier, there is no principled problem with the existence of a conflict. Conflict is perfectly fine. The big practical question is how to decide the conflict—what do you actually do?

And here I now want to make the following claim. Unlike Leibowitz, I want to be a bigger heretic than Leibowitz. Precisely because I avoid Leibowitz’s idolatry, I become—for the sake of my religiousness—a bigger heretic. Why? Because I have basically argued that morality too is the will of God, and Jewish law too is the will of God. Now if that is so, then it is no longer necessary that when there is a clash between Jewish law and morality, Jewish law automatically prevails. If you say that morality is an atheistic category and that nothing can stand against the will of God—you only think one can also be committed to the atheistic category as a human being, and as a Jew I am committed to the will of God, that is Leibowitz’s claim—then of course when there is a clash between Jewish law and morality, Jewish law prevails, because the will of God obviously prevails over some things of mine, okay? But if I claim that both morality and Jewish law are the will of God, then when there is a clash between them, it is a clash on an equal platform. There is no necessity to say Jewish law prevails over morality. Sometimes morality will prevail; sometimes Jewish law will prevail. How do you determine it? Everything I said at the beginning about ranking and scales of value and intuition, degrees of worthiness, and all sorts of things—how one decides conflicts between two different value systems, Jewish law and morality, or humanity and morality, or humanity and Jewish law, or law and Jewish law, and things of that sort—all that also applies here. There is some kind of intuition here; sometimes there are overriding considerations. We gave various overriding considerations about conflicts. But Jewish law does not always prevail. It is simply not true to determine categorically that Jewish law always prevails. Not true at all.

That is basically a consequence of the conception that says both are the will of God. So why should one prefer one will of the Holy One, blessed be He, over another will of the Holy One, blessed be He? Both are His will. So now I am just in conflict within the will of God. The question of what prevails is a good question. It has to be decided out of some kind of sense. Maybe I’ll say a few more sentences about that just to close this framework.

There are places where at least it is plausible that Jewish law would prevail even according to my approach. For example, killing an Amalekite infant. Assuming I didn’t find some exegetical measure or interpretive way to get me out of that swamp, but let’s say I reached the clear conclusion that this is what Jewish law requires. Now once that is what Jewish law requires, it is obviously clear that when the Holy One, blessed be He, told me to kill an Amalekite infant, He understood that there is a moral problem in it. And nevertheless He told me to do it because of halakhic considerations. So in such a case it is very plausible to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself told me that here the religious value prevails over the moral value. Because here the clash is an inherent clash: every time you want to fulfill this halakhic command, it will clash with the moral value. This is when the clash is essential, every time you come to fulfill this law it clashes with a moral value.

If, as I spoke about—yes—killing a Sabbath desecrator, then every time you kill a Sabbath desecrator that clashes with “do not murder.” And nevertheless the Torah said to kill the Sabbath desecrator. Apparently the Torah took into account the prohibition of “do not murder” and told me that here, nevertheless, one must kill the Sabbath desecrator. The same thing I say about the Amalekite infant and morality. If the Torah told me to kill an Amalekite infant, and it obviously knows there is a moral problem here, and this is not some extreme case—every situation in which you kill an Amalekite infant is a moral problem, meaning, it is built into the situation—then in such a case the Torah took the moral issue into account and tells me that here, nevertheless, the religious value prevails over the moral value. So in such situations it is plausible that the religious value will prevail.

By the way, even that is not certain. I call it plausible, but not certain. Why? Because there are situations in which the Sages, for example, feel that the religious value was written here only to tell me that there is such a religious value, but in the final analysis Jewish law will remove it. And one can say—and on the logical level this is possible—because the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, wrote “kill an Amalekite infant” does not necessarily mean that He is telling me that the moral value is set aside in favor of the religious value. It could be that all He wants to say is: know that there is a religious significance in killing an Amalekite infant. Now, at the same time, there is also a moral significance in not killing him, and now I will make the decision here however I make it. Then I read this commandment not as a practical instruction but as a determination that there is a religious value in killing an Amalekite infant. Okay, so I have learned about that religious value. Fine. That does not mean I will implement it.

For example, the stubborn and rebellious son. The Sages, through all kinds of strange exegeses, completely remove him from practical application. “It never was and never will be and cannot be.” There is no such situation. You need to fulfill impossible conditions—the Talmud there in tractate Sanhedrin. Okay? I assume that what the Sages were really saying there is that killing the stubborn and rebellious son is a moral problem. But halakhically it is correct to do it. It achieves some halakhic value—I don’t know exactly what, okay? But there is a moral problem here. Here the Sages understood—and found the exegetical tools to do this, again, even though to us it seems strange—that here they would indeed say: no, practically as well, we will not kill the stubborn and rebellious son. Practically, not at all. So why was that whole passage written? To tell me that on the principled level, on the religious plane, it would have been proper to kill him. True, there is also a moral prohibition saying not to kill him, and therefore the bottom line is that the moral plane prevails over the religious plane. Therefore I said that it is only plausible that in such situations Jewish law would prevail over morality, but sometimes the Sages did not agree even with that.

Not to mention situations like a transgression for its own sake. In that case the Sages tell me explicitly to commit a transgression because the situation requires it, even though there is no halakhic permission to do so. There is no halakhic permission to commit that transgression, but in this situation it is clear to me that I must commit the transgression. It cannot be that I should obey Jewish law in such a situation. So “a transgression for its own sake is greater than a commandment not for its own sake,” says the Talmud. That too is a situation in which a moral value, or a human value, or whatever—depending on the situation—prevails over the religious value.

When can such a thing happen? Usually when the clash is not an essential clash. For example, saving life and the Sabbath. With saving life and the Sabbath, after all, I can observe the Sabbath and it won’t harm life. I can preserve life and it won’t harm Sabbath observance. There are certain situations in which a clash occurs. By contrast, with killing an Amalekite infant, there is never a way for me to do it without a moral problem accompanying it. Right? The conflict is built in. It is an essential clash, not an accidental one. The clash between saving life and the Sabbath is accidental. A situation arose in which they clash. Okay, so what should I do? I don’t know what to do in such a case. In such cases there is no rule about what prevails. It may be that morality prevails and not Jewish law. For example, in the case of a transgression for its own sake, morality prevails and not Jewish law. But in situations where the clash is essential, there generally Jewish law will prevail. I say again: with the stubborn and rebellious son, my feeling is that the Sages—even though the clash is essential—still preferred morality to Jewish law and somehow interpreted the verses in such a way that the halakhic command is effectively emptied of content.

That is basically my claim about the relationship between Jewish law and morality. The conception is a parallel conception: they are two subcategories within the will of God, and precisely because they both belong to the will of God, in deciding the conflict they also have equal standing, and therefore there is not necessarily any supremacy of Jewish law over morality. I’ll continue this a bit next time; I hope it will become clearer. Okay. Thank you very much. Whoever wants to ask or comment can do so now.

[Speaker E] I have a question, Rabbi. Yes. From this discussion I understood that you do leave some opening for a morality that is not deontological, for moral conceptions that are consequentialist—that’s how it sounds. Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the moment—

[Speaker E] Because if we discuss—because if we see it as parallel, and if there is a moral system, then in the end there are various considerations where the emphasis is not on the motivation that led you to do it, but on all sorts of other things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think I don’t see any connection. You can be a consequentialist and you can be a deontologist. I don’t see any—I mean, in both cases you can state my model.

[Speaker E] Is the discussion—is the discussion—for example, a discussion in the Talmud where someone rents, I don’t know, a cow, and says he’ll lead it through the valley, but he leads it—I don’t remember—over the hill. Is that discussion moral or religious? Halakhic-legal. And both? Sorry?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Halakhic-legal. The question is who has to pay; that’s not a moral question, that’s a legal question. The question whether it is proper to do that is unrelated. It could be that even though you don’t have to pay, morally it was still not proper to do it.

[Speaker E] Okay, thank you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyone? Rabbi.

[Speaker F] Yes, yes. Why can’t we say that morality is a system that came first and is more general, and afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, gave—He gave the system of morality, but then afterward He gave another, more particular system, and therefore it overrides the first system? Why? That seems like the simpler explanation. Just as an example, in programming it works that way too: there’s one line of code, and then the second line overrides the first line. Why not explain it that way?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First, because it doesn’t stand the test of the facts. It doesn’t always override. That’s first. But beyond that—but I’m saying, this parallel model as such, you are accepting it. All you’re really commenting on is what I argued—that when a conflict arises, Jewish law does not necessarily prevail. At this stage that is still a secondary clause. First of all, the parallelism itself—I have no problem with that. You also describe it in a parallel way. You’re saying there is a system of morality, and afterward there is a second parallel system, which is Jewish law. But once you see them as two independent systems, then they are independent. What difference does it make which came first and which came second? They are two systems, and both have something to say about something, and now there is a dilemma. I don’t know—do whatever the dilemma requires, whatever you think. Why assume one overrides the other? Maybe you could say that, but you could also not say it. I don’t see any necessity. The fact that there’s an example in layers in computer science is true—so what? You could bring another example if I wrote the software differently.

[Speaker F] No, that was just to illustrate it, but it sounds like the general morality is more general, and the Torah is something more particular.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More general in what sense? That it applies to all human beings? In terms of values?

[Speaker F] And it is more primordial. It’s the first system, more primordial.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore what? Why should it not prevail? Why should the second prevail?

[Speaker F] Because after that exists, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: okay now, there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] for us something that is tighter—

[Speaker F] more specific to Jews.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s your decision. I could just as well say that after that existed, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us something additional—not something in place of that or that overrides that, but something additional, and this additional thing was given only to you. What happens when there is a clash? I don’t know—then there is a clash. Maybe this prevails, maybe it doesn’t prevail, but a priori I see no reason to say specifically that. I mean, I’m also not claiming that morality always prevails. I’m only claiming there is no necessity to say that Jewish law always prevails. I don’t see any necessity for that.

[Speaker F] One more thing: how did the Chazon Ish interpret a transgression for its own sake?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, that’s not really a question specifically about the Chazon Ish, because almost all the commentators there interpreted it in a way that takes it away from its plain meaning. Of what? That takes it away from its plain meaning. Some claim it was only before the giving of the Torah. Some claim that it is itself a halakhic rule. It is not violating Jewish law; rather, Jewish law itself says that if humanity is in danger of annihilation, then it is permissible to violate forbidden sexual relations. These are all interpretations that do not fit the Talmud at all because of how forced they are. And in my view, one advantage of the model I am proposing is precisely in the topic of a transgression for its own sake. I don’t need to force anything; that is what comes out there, and it is straightforward.

[Speaker G] Rabbi, can I ask a question? Can you hear me? Yes, yes. First of all, I can’t really understand how morality could not come from God—that morality is sort of universal and sort of before Torah, before religion. If morality—the Rabbi said, don’t teach me what morality is, I know what morality is, I know that killing a baby is immoral—but after all, every person can look at morality differently. The Nazis too thought that morality was what they thought it was. How can one sustain morality when everyone thinks according to his own mind?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And Jewish law will solve the problem, I understand.

[Speaker G] If we believe that God is moral and He knows everything and He has His intentions, then I avoid that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It just sounds to me like someone who has seen one or two passages in the Talmud. Yes. There are no disputes there?

[Speaker G] There are, there are disputes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then what’s the difference? I don’t understand. Just as there are disputes in morality, there are disputes in Jewish law. What’s the difference? Why—what advantage does Jewish law have over morality?

[Speaker G] No, okay, but what is the real truth?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is the real truth in Jewish law?

[Speaker G] But if God is good and He wants there to be good, and He lets people act according to their morality, that’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean according to their morality? People argue over what the correct morality is, but there is only one correct morality. The fact that they argue—in Jewish law too they argue, so what? The Holy One, blessed be He, also wants us to follow the correct Jewish law, so why didn’t He give us the final bottom line of Jewish law?

[Speaker G] About that one could say: these and those are both the words of the living God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I say that too: these and those are both the words of the living God.

[Speaker G] Oy, but that could get to situations of whether to kill or not to kill.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in Jewish law it can’t get to such situations?

[Speaker G] I don’t know, I have no idea, I’m not… Of course it can.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are disputes—there are disputes whether someone is liable to death or not liable to death. What do you mean?

[Speaker G] So really I need to… So I need now, when I have a situation, to weigh also my morality, which supposedly has real force just like Jewish law? Yes, obviously. Another point: the Rabbi said that when, for example, God told me to kill an Amalekite infant, He was telling me that the religious value here is higher than the moral value. So in effect the Rabbi also comes back to what they said according to the Chazon Ish and according to Rabbi Kook: that basically both of them serve the same purpose, that both together…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, absolutely not. I’m arguing—I said the opposite. I said that in a case where the clash is essential, where it happens all the time, not by chance accidentally, but always, then in such a case, when the Torah said to kill the Amalekite infant, הרי I know that morality too comes from the Holy One, blessed be He. So if the Holy One, blessed be He, said to kill an Amalekite infant, and killing an Amalekite infant is always a moral problem, then apparently the Holy One, blessed be He, is also telling me that the religious value overrides the moral value. But when there is an accidental clash, when there is an accidental clash, for example… I didn’t understand. Example: saving a life on the Sabbath. Saving a life on the Sabbath, for example. Fine, Sabbath observance versus the value of life. Okay? So when it’s an accidental clash, when it’s an accidental clash, then… preserving life does not mean that it is also at the cost of desecrating the Sabbath. Maybe it said that only when it doesn’t involve desecrating the Sabbath, because the clash is accidental. When the clash is essential, then you can’t say such a thing, because if the Torah said it, and this always tramples the other value, then the Torah has apparently already made the calculation and said that value A overrides value B. But in an accidental clash, that’s the difference between me and Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish, because in an accidental clash they too will still say that Jewish law overrides morality, and I’ll say not necessarily.

[Speaker G] So what would we actually do? What would the Rabbi do in a situation where he had an Amalekite infant?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What would you do in a case of… no, an Amalekite infant is an essential clash. But what would you do in Sartre’s dilemma?

[Speaker G] In the case of what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sartre’s, Sartre’s dilemma.

[Speaker G] What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, were you in the previous classes? I talked about that dilemma of Sartre’s student in Paris under Nazi occupation. He was torn between going to join the French who were fighting the Nazis or helping his elderly mother. What would you do? I don’t know. Good question, right? That’s what I answer you too.

[Speaker G] No, but the Rabbi said that here God already did the calculation for us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, where He did the calculation for us, then the answer is clear. I’m talking about a conflict…

[Speaker G] No, so with a Nazi infant—with a Nazi infant He did the calculation for us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With an Amalekite infant I know… with an Amalekite infant He did the calculation for us, not with a Nazi infant.

[Speaker G] He did the calculation for us, so what—so I’m really supposed to kill now?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Assuming that the halakhic ruling is that one must kill an Amalekite infant, and I was convinced that this is indeed what the Torah says… yes, yes, of course.

[Speaker G] Then yes. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyone else? Rabbi?

[Speaker H] Can I ask a question? I’m trying, trying to understand the division between the two approaches, because if both are the will of God, meaning both morality and religion, religious morality, and also value-based morality…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not religious morality—Jewish law and morality.

[Speaker H] Jewish law and morality. But both come from one source, meaning that if I do something moral then I’m doing the will of God, I’m doing the will of God, so I cause the world to move toward perfection, I cause the world to move toward perfection, I repair the eternity within the foundation or whatever it may be. And also the reverse—when I repair the eternity within the foundation I advance the world, and then I’m doing something morally good for the world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I advance it in religious terms, not in moral terms.

[Speaker H] Any contribution I make to the world, no matter in what sense, is a moral thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. Why?

[Speaker H] Because I helped the world reach its perfection, its…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is that moral perfection rather than religious perfection?

[Speaker H] I helped the world—what difference does it make how?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I helped it, I helped it toward what? Did I help it become more religious, or did I help it become better? That’s the question.

[Speaker H] I’m trying to argue that the very act of helping is… the very act of helping is a moral act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re basically saying that all the commandments are interpersonal commandments.

[Speaker H] That all the commandments cause the world… there’s Rabbi Kook’s idea of perfection and development, all the commandments…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You basically want to say that all the commandments are interpersonal commandments.

[Speaker H] All the commandments cause the world to develop—that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know what you mean by why…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I asked whether all the commandments are interpersonal commandments; don’t play with words.

[Speaker H] No. Why not? I didn’t say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? If I eat pork, does the world become worse? Do I need to ask forgiveness from the whole world as part of my repentance, and without that it won’t be atoned for me? Is that an interpersonal commandment—did I hurt people?

[Speaker H] More—but it’s broader than that. I also hurt people, but I also hurt—hurt the entire universe, the whole destiny.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did I hurt people? Right? So Yom Kippur does not atone until I appease my fellow—even for eating pork?

[Speaker H] That’s by indirect causation and indirectly and all that, but in principle…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By indirect causation and indirectly I harmed someone. Why does it matter if it’s indirect causation and indirect? I harmed someone. Even if you caused harm indirectly, you still have to appease the other person. Seemingly…

[Speaker H] So according to that approach, seemingly yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And according to my approach, no. And also according to the approach of Jewish law, no.

[Speaker H] But there’s no logic to that, it sounds to me…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a lot of logic to it. There is a religious dimension and there is a moral dimension; you insist on identifying them. They are not identical.

[Speaker F] Okay,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine.

[Speaker E] A Marxist view, say—is that also the will of God? Marxist views that are very coherent, and that are moral views…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that it is coherent means it is correct? What does that have to do with anything? Again, I didn’t say there are many moral views… but even suppose there are—then he was mistaken. In Jewish law too there are many views, so what does that mean? That they are all correct? No—one is correct and the others are mistaken. Rabbi?

[Speaker G] Yes. What, the Rabbi doesn’t go with the approach of “both these and those are the words of the living God”? Absolutely not. There’s no such thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that there’s no such thing, but it may be that there are halakhic questions for which there are several correct answers. That can happen, but it is not true essentially for every halakhic question, certainly not in the moral realm.

[Speaker G] What bothers me is that when people are allowed to formulate morality, crazy things happen, because I feel like that’s too much responsibility, and also how can I always be sure about it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Jewish law too I can’t be sure of anything, so what?

[Speaker G] But five hundred years ago, a person who stole a horse would be hanged, and the most sensitive woman in the village would scream “Death, death,” and she would be sure that that was the most correct thing to do, and they would cut off the thief’s hand. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Five hundred years ago no one knew the theory of relativity either, so because of that the theory of relativity is not true?

[Speaker G] No, what I’m saying is that morality changes among people.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morality does not change; we learn more, we advance. Like in science: the theory of relativity always existed; today people know it.

[Speaker G] Right, the world becomes better, people become better, more sensitive, more accepting, but like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The world improves, that’s all. Just as the world improved in its scientific knowledge, the world improves in its moral understanding. That’s it.

[Speaker G] But isn’t it frightening to give us that kind of judgment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean frightening? Take a pill for fear, I don’t know, but that’s reality. Fear is not a consideration; the question is what is true, not what is frightening.

[Speaker G] No, but that’s why I’m saying it doesn’t really seem to me that God would give us that ability, so that’s what’s strange.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to your view, was there no Stalin and Hitler? Do you deny the facts? There were Stalin and Hitler, right? The Holy One, blessed be He, allowed a world in which there would be Stalin and Hitler. That doesn’t depend on what I say; factually that is true.

[Speaker D] Right, right, the Rabbi is correct. I think, to sharpen his point, in my view the argument is the argument of conservative philosophy, which although I know you wrote against it, still—if it works, then wait, let’s see gradually, let’s examine things, don’t so easily suddenly make far-reaching decisions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s true that there too I disagree, but here we don’t need to get to that, because it doesn’t work. Why not? If until now the world behaved in a certain way… what does it mean to preserve what works? Preserve what? The fact that they exploited workers and raped the defeated and raped their women in the past? Is that the morality I’m supposed to preserve, or what?

[Speaker D] No, certainly no one says that every morality has to be preserved; that’s obvious too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course not every morality. So where did this conservative point suddenly get dragged in here? I don’t understand.

[Speaker D] I came to sharpen the claim made here, which it seems to me is basically a person’s fear of taking on responsibility for far-reaching innovations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is nothing here that is different on the essential level between what I say and what he says. In what way does what I say lead to harder problems than what he says? Explain to me what. The facts are facts—Hitler and Stalin existed.

[Speaker D] I’m not sure it leads to different things, but the status quo is the more…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What status quo? Define the status quo for me. Which status quo are you talking about?

[Speaker G] The situation of the Chazon Ish. The position of the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook, that we supposedly… we supposedly don’t have our own morality, we supposedly rely on Him. For example, if I stone a person to death because he desecrated the Sabbath, then I supposedly rely on the fact that I don’t understand, and God did the good and correct act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I agree with that too, so what does that have to do with it?

[Speaker G] No, but I’ve thrown my responsibility and my moral conscience onto God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What does that have to do with it? You’ve thrown onto Him the practical implication. I claim that it is not moral, but it is a religious command, and the religious command overrides the moral prohibition, that’s all. What’s the difference? I don’t understand the difference between them at all.

[Speaker G] The difference is that here weight was given to human morality, and that’s something religious people are not always used to.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let them start getting used to it. What—so what does it mean that they’re not used to it? I said that many conceptions are not like that, so what?

[Speaker G] Right, the Rabbi is correct, I already said that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyone else? Okay, we’ll stop here. Good night.