Halakha and Ethics – Lesson 8
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Jewish law and morality as two parallel systems
- Religious goals and the “realization of the divine matter”
- Anti-moral Jewish laws as a conflict between goals
- The question of how to decide in a conflict, and the claim that there is no sweeping principle
- Criticism of Rabbi Kook and of resolutions based on “higher morality”
- The universality of morality and the difficulty regarding the obligations of gentiles
- “And you shall do what is right and good” and the book of Genesis as the book of the upright
- A radical claim: even moral commandments are aimed at a religious goal
- The commandment as revealing an additional religious flaw beyond the moral one
- Formal boundaries in Jewish law and the example of indirect causation in murder
- David and Bathsheba, “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken,” and moral sin versus halakhic sin
- Concern about belittling morality and a response to the claim of “reducing morality”
- Derashot HaRan: the king’s law versus Torah law and filling the gaps
- The separate roles of rabbis and king, and the claim of anachronism
- The Sanhedrin, the Exilarch, and Babylonia versus the Land of Israel
- Criticism of mixing authorities and of bringing community administration into the Shulchan Arukh
- Authority to correct morality within Jewish law: compelling against the trait of Sodom, and the limits of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim)
- The example of fattened goose liver and the “blurring” of kashrut versus morality
- The Maharal: civic religion versus Torah, and examples from lost property
- Conclusion and presentation of the model as an overall solution
Summary
General Overview
The speaker presents an extreme thesis according to which Jewish law and morality are two parallel systems that are foreign to one another, so that Jewish law is not a subsystem of morality and does not overlap with it. He divides laws into those that accord with morality, neutral laws that are not aimed at a moral goal, and laws that seem contrary to morality, and argues that these categories prove that Jewish law has independent religious purposes such as holiness, impurity, and the realization of the divine matter. He explains that anti-moral laws reflect a conflict between religious goals and moral goals, rather than some incomprehensible “higher morality,” and then goes further and argues that even moral commandments do not come to achieve a moral goal but to repair an additional religious flaw. He relies on Derashot HaRan and on the Maharal to establish a normative duality of “Torah law” versus “the king’s law,” and describes how the absence of monarchy created a historical confusion in which rabbis took on moral and civil-legal roles as well, blurring the distinction between Jewish law and morality down to the present day.
Jewish law and morality as two parallel systems
The speaker argues that there is no essential connection between Jewish law and morality, and he sees them as two separate systems that are not parts of one another. He presents three types of laws: laws that accord with morality, neutral laws that are unrelated to morality, and laws that seem contrary to morality. He emphasizes that the presence of neutral laws proves that Jewish law is not directed only toward moral goals, but also toward religious values.
Religious goals and the “realization of the divine matter”
The speaker defines the goals of Jewish law as including religious goals such as holiness and impurity, and identifies them with what the Kuzari or the author of Derashot HaRan call the realization of divine holiness or the realization of the divine matter—that is, bringing the Divine Presence into the world and elevating the world. He states that these are not moral goals but a religious concern foreign to morality. He argues that once one recognizes the existence of religious goals, one can use them to explain laws that seem contrary to morality as well.
Anti-moral Jewish laws as a conflict between goals
The speaker argues that anti-moral laws do not reflect the wickedness of the Torah and do not require the assumption of some incomprehensible “higher morality,” but rather reflect situations of conflict in which the religious goal demands an action that harms the moral goal. He says that sometimes, in order to achieve one goal, you pay in the “currency” of another goal, and therefore there is no need to justify such laws with moral explanations. He presents this as a minimal solution that fits the facts, similar to his analogy to quantum theory as strange but the only thing that fits the facts.
The question of how to decide in a conflict, and the claim that there is no sweeping principle
The speaker distinguishes between solving the theoretical problem of the very existence of anti-moral laws and the practical question of what to do when there is a clash between Jewish law and morality. He says that his explanation naturally resolves the theoretical difficulty, but does not resolve the question of decision—whether morality overrides Jewish law or Jewish law overrides morality. He notes that he has argued that there is no sweeping principle, but that this is a separate claim requiring further discussion.
Criticism of Rabbi Kook and of resolutions based on “higher morality”
The speaker explains that he understands Rabbi Kook’s efforts to reconcile Jewish law with morality, but argues that reality does not fit such a reconciliation and therefore all the “twisting” will not help. He claims that explanations in moral terms for non-moral laws simply do not hold up. He adds that an explanation in terms of “morality” seems less plausible to him than an explanation in terms of “religious values,” because morality is something he does understand, whereas talk of an incomprehensible higher morality empties morality of content.
The universality of morality and the difficulty regarding the obligations of gentiles
The speaker argues that morality is, by definition, universal, and he refuses to accept one morality for Jews and another morality for gentiles. He gives the example of God’s demand from Cain regarding murder before the giving of the Torah, in order to show that the moral demand precedes commandment and is addressed to all humanity. He asks: if all of Jewish law is meant to achieve morality, then why is not the whole world obligated in all of Jewish law? He presents this as a difficulty that undermines the claim that Jewish law is aimed only at morality.
“And you shall do what is right and good” and the book of Genesis as the book of the upright
The speaker says one cannot ignore morality because of sources like “And you shall do what is right and good.” He cites Rashi’s very first comment on Genesis, explaining why the book of Genesis was written—to say, “He declared to His people the power of His works, to give them the inheritance of the nations”—and he emphasizes the expression, “and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes.” He argues that Rashi hints that the whole book of Genesis justifies the giving of the land not by forceful ownership but by the uprightness of the patriarchs, and this is before the first commandment, so the book teaches a category that is not a halakhic command but a dimension of uprightness.
A radical claim: even moral commandments are aimed at a religious goal
The speaker proposes that even “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Honor your father and your mother,” “Love your neighbor as yourself,” charity, and the like do not come to achieve a moral goal but a religious one. He sets this against Maimonides’ view (chapter six of Shemoneh Perakim), according to which there is a subcategory in Jewish law whose purpose is moral, and explains that his motivation is the question of why the Torah commanded things that are already required by reason. He cites Rav Nissim Gaon in the introduction to the Talmud, that things dependent on reason and intuitive understanding are binding even without commandment, and therefore the descendants of Noah are obligated in much more than the seven Noahide commandments on the basis of plain reason.
The commandment as revealing an additional religious flaw beyond the moral one
The speaker argues that if the prohibition of murder is already obvious from moral reasoning, then the commandment comes to teach that a murderer damages not only the moral sphere but the religious sphere as well. He presents this as the natural answer to the question of why one would command what is already morally obvious. He compares this to Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s idea in Sha’ar 5 of Sha’arei Yosher, that the “law of civil matters” precedes Jewish law and binds even without commandment, and that the prohibition of “Do not rob” adds a dimension of religious prohibition beyond the prior obligation.
Formal boundaries in Jewish law and the example of indirect causation in murder
The speaker argues that halakhic qualifications such as indirect causation and technical nuances of the mode of action do not change the severity of the act from a moral standpoint; rather, they define when the formal religious problem appears. He presents a case in which a person intends to kill and acts through indirect causation as full murder in the moral sense, even if Jewish law does not subject him to execution by a religious court. In this way he explains the sense of absurdity around “formalistic tricks,” and concludes that the moral problem is not resolved even when there is no formal religious transgression.
David and Bathsheba, “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken,” and moral sin versus halakhic sin
The speaker interprets the Sages’ statement, “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken,” as a distinction between a formal halakhic level and a moral level, and argues that David did not sin halakhically but did sin morally in a grave way. He describes Nathan the prophet’s rebuke as a response to the moral wrong of abusing power and sending a man to die for one’s own interests. He argues that the Sages are not morally exonerating David, but are saying that the act is not defined as a formal halakhic transgression.
Concern about belittling morality and a response to the claim of “reducing morality”
The speaker argues that separating the systems does not diminish morality; on the contrary, it strengthens the religious obligation toward it, because a moral transgression is also a violation of God’s will, just in another category. In discussion with participants, he says that a person who committed only a moral wrong is in a better state than a person who committed both a moral and a religious wrong, but he insists that the gravity of the moral wrong itself is not lessened. He compares this to the principle that “greater is one who is commanded and performs” which adds a layer of obedience to command beyond the benefit, and similarly in transgression there is a layer of violating a command beyond the negative outcome.
Derashot HaRan: the king’s law versus Torah law and filling the gaps
The speaker cites the eleventh derashah of Derashot HaRan on the duality of systems: the king’s law is directed toward the repair of political and social order, whereas Torah law is directed toward the realization of the divine matter. He quotes the Ran’s language that sometimes the laws of the nations come closer to political order than the laws of the Torah do, and explains that the Ran says, “we lack nothing in this,” because the king completes what is lacking in social repair. He concludes that a state governed according to Jewish law does not thereby become morally worse, because the king can punish “not according to the law,” and can even punish severely where halakhic law does not allow punishment.
The separate roles of rabbis and king, and the claim of anachronism
The speaker argues that according to the Ran, rabbis deal with religious matters and the king deals with social and moral order, and therefore originally rabbis were not supposed to be the central authority in the moral sphere. He describes a “historical accident” in which the disappearance of monarchy caused governmental and moral authority to flow to rabbis and halakhic decisors, and this situation has continued until today and created a blurring between Jewish law and morality. He explains this with the analogy of a government collapse in which another authority takes over powers in order to prevent anarchy.
The Sanhedrin, the Exilarch, and Babylonia versus the Land of Israel
The speaker offers his explanation for why the heads of the Sanhedrin were from the house of David, as a way in which royal powers rolled over into Torah leadership in the absence of a king. He describes the dispute in tractate Sanhedrin 5 between Babylonia and the Land of Israel regarding authorization to judge, and explains that the sages of Babylonia saw the Exilarch as the governing authority that grants power, while professional ordination remained tied to the Land of Israel. He presents this as proof that these are two different “hats”—governmental and Torah-based.
Criticism of mixing authorities and of bringing community administration into the Shulchan Arukh
The speaker argues that some parts of the Shulchan Arukh are administrative-community decisions that are not Jewish law in the original sense, such as rules of governance and public decision-making, because they were inserted into Jewish law due to the lack of another governing authority in exile. He points to topics such as tax distribution in tractate Bava Batra as evidence that questions of administration were imposed on the sages after the fact. He argues that today, when an independent governmental system exists, it is in principle possible to restore the original division between civil-moral authority and halakhic authority.
Authority to correct morality within Jewish law: compelling against the trait of Sodom, and the limits of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim)
The speaker argues that a great religious court can turn a moral rule into Jewish law through enactments, and he cites “we compel against the trait of Sodom” in tractate Bava Batra and the law of the neighboring field as examples of bringing a moral consideration into halakhic coercion. He argues that medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) do not have authority to establish new moral laws, only to interpret existing Jewish law, and that only an institutional authority like the Sanhedrin can create a new halakhic obligation. He mentions criticism of an article by Rabbi Lichtenstein which, in his view, ignores this distinction.
The example of fattened goose liver and the “blurring” of kashrut versus morality
The speaker cites a report about the Chief Rabbinate intending to grant a mehadrin certification to imported fattened goose liver, and describes this as a moral scandal illustrating the blurring in which “strictly kosher” is perceived as value-superior even where there is a problem of cruelty to animals. He says that the Rabbinate withholds kashrut certification in cases involving things it considers important on a value level, such as opening on Christmas, and therefore the lack of moral hesitation in this case reflects confusion between halakhic formalism and moral responsibility. He also discusses the idea of a “social kashrut seal” and distinguishes between “kosher” in the sense of the laws of eating and the justification for calling something “mehadrin.”
The Maharal: civic religion versus Torah, and examples from lost property
The speaker cites the Maharal in Be’er HaGolah (second well), who distinguishes between “civic religion” and Torah law, and brings the example of lost property after despair of recovery, where the Torah does not require returning it even though morality does. He also brings the opposite example: after many public announcements and years of waiting, civic religion would allow one to use the item, whereas the Torah forbids it forever, “until Elijah comes.” He presents the Maharal as showing that morality is sometimes stricter and sometimes more lenient than Jewish law, and therefore there is no necessary overlap between the two systems.
Conclusion and presentation of the model as an overall solution
The speaker concludes that the picture of two normative systems removes the theoretical difficulties surrounding Jewish law and morality and resolves many questions that arise in traditional discussions. He says the main difficulty is accepting the existence of religious values that are not moral, but he argues that the facts lead to that necessarily. He mentions that he planned to continue to the end of the series in another session and refers to a possible postponement because of Tisha B’Av, and finally responds briefly to a question about an apologetic reading regarding King David and argues that even if the Sages did not mean this, it is the correct interpretation in his view.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll just summarize where we’re up to. At the end of last time I presented the picture as I understand it of the relationship between Jewish law and morality, and the claim was that these are really two parallel systems. Not only do I not identify them, I don’t see one as part of the other; rather, I see them as two parallel systems that are completely foreign to one another. Meaning, there is no connection between them at all—that’s the claim. I’m phrasing it deliberately in an extreme way because it seems to me that basically this really is the right description. I divided things into three kinds of laws that we know, and their apparent relation to morality: laws that accord with morality, laws that are neutral—that is, they are neither related to morality nor opposed to it—and laws that are opposed to it. My claim was that from the neutral laws, first of all, you can see that Jewish law does not strive only for moral goals. It has additional goals; I called them religious goals. Goals connected to holiness and impurity and all kinds of things like that—I think naturally one can classify them as religious goals. There are other things where it’s less clear exactly what they are meant to achieve, but I’ll say again: it’s pretty clear they are not meant to achieve a moral goal. And so I say that at least from this category of non-moral laws, it appears quite clearly that Jewish law has additional goals, at least goals beyond morality. And I called them religious goals or religious values—what the Kuzari or the author of Derashot HaRan calls the realization of divine holiness, something like that, the realization of the divine matter; that is, causing the Divine Presence to dwell in the world, which in other words is basically elevating the world or sanctifying the world. That’s something unrelated to morality, foreign to morality, but something that I think may rightly be called a religious matter. That is really the concern of religion or spirituality.
Now I’m saying: once I reached the conclusion that there is such a category of values or goals, then there is no obstacle to applying this also—or extending it—to the other two kinds of laws. The anti-moral law—this actually offers a very simple solution to all the dilemmas that have accompanied us in this series, because it basically says that anti-moral laws do not reflect some higher morality that we don’t understand, and they do not reflect the Torah’s wickedness or indifference to morality. Rather, they reflect conflict—states of conflict, situations in which the religious goal requires actions that harm the achievement of moral goals. And there’s nothing to be done: you can’t always achieve all the goals together, and sometimes in order to achieve one goal you have to pay in the currency of the other goals, and vice versa. To achieve a moral goal, you pay in the currency of the religious goal; to achieve a religious goal, you pay in the currency of the moral goal. And that is the meaning of anti-moral laws. Then I’m exempt from looking for moral explanations that justify those laws. The Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t come out wicked, I’m not left in distress, and I also don’t need to assume all kinds of assumptions that empty the concept of morality of content—and I gave examples of that—laws or assumptions that speak about some sort of higher morality that nobody understands, Jewish morality, or things of that kind, which in my eyes are just lip service.
So of course that leaves us with the conflict question still intact. Meaning, I solved the theoretical problem—how can there be anti-moral laws—but I didn’t solve the question of what we do when such a conflict exists. Does morality override Jewish law? Does Jewish law override morality? Is there even a sweeping principle in favor of one side? I argued that there isn’t, but that is a separate claim. First of all, I’m saying that the theoretical problem is solved here in a completely natural way, because once I already understand that there are religious goals and not only moral ones, there is no reason—no necessity—to say that they will never clash with moral goals. Why not? Even moral goals clash with each other from time to time. Yes, I’m going back to Sartre and his student. So why shouldn’t religious goals also occasionally clash with moral ones? That’s only natural. I don’t even need excuses; on the contrary, if it didn’t happen, I would be surprised. And therefore those laws that throw us into a dilemma or conflict are laws in which the religious goal requires us to do things that harm moral goals. And then the distress or the conflict is created, but on the theoretical level there is nothing problematic here. It solves the theoretical problem completely, in the most natural, simplest way, without assuming anything unnecessary—because the assumption that there are religious values and not only moral ones, I’m not saying that in order to solve this problem. The existence of such values can be proven independently of this. So I’m not adding any assumption here that I wouldn’t need to reach even without this. That’s why I call it a minimal, natural, compelling solution, and in my view the strongest one.
[Speaker B] There’s a problem with that. There’s a problem in that you’re bending yourself to a system you don’t understand, one that doesn’t stand up to your own test of logic. There isn’t any area of your life where you operate like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true. Of course there are many such areas. Any area of expertise—I defer to people who understand and I don’t. A doctor.
[Speaker B] Yes, but you assume—fine—but you assume there is logic there. No, fine. I don’t understand physics, but I understand that there is logic in physics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And here too I understand that there is logic. So what if I don’t understand it?
[Speaker B] The Holy One, blessed be He, understands it. You don’t have enough evidence that there is logic here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary. I’m saying I have decisive evidence for it. You can’t argue with it. No, this is exactly what I emphasized in the last sentence. I’m not proposing this thesis in order to solve the problems of Jewish law and morality. That’s the whole greatness of this picture. I’m claiming that one has to arrive at this picture regardless, even if there weren’t…
[Speaker B] Fine, I understand. I’m saying the problem is—I very much understand why Rabbi Kook worked so hard and so… because the assumption is that Torah is first of all the good thing, the right thing, and it doesn’t contradict morality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—not the good thing. No, I understand why Rabbi Kook worked so hard. If I could reconcile everything, I’d also be very happy. But it’s like what they say about quantum theory. The theo—yes, this is a quote I like to bring from Michio Kaku, the Japanese writer—or physicist-writer. He says that quantum theory is the strangest, weirdest, most illogical theory he knows. The only problem is that it’s the only thing that fits the facts. Now in this context, I too would very much aspire for everything to fit the principles of morality, which after all are understandable to me and everything would be wonderful. Except that it doesn’t fit. Rabbi Kook can twist himself into knots until the day after tomorrow, it won’t help him. It just doesn’t fit. So I’m saying—not because of the contradictions—I’m talking about the non-moral laws, not the anti-moral ones. To explain them in moral terms seems to me completely unconvincing. It just doesn’t work, it’s not persuasive, it can’t be. And so I say that once I already reached the conclusion that there are non-moral values, then this is already the natural solution to the contradictions between Jewish law and morality. All the more so because in those contradictions, the solutions people offer—and again, this is Rabbi Kook—of course once again don’t hold water. How are you going to prove to me that all these laws are really the highest morality, only we don’t understand? Come on. Is that more convincing? At least morality, I do understand. If you tell me stories about something I don’t understand, fine—what can I do? If I can’t do without it, then I’ll be forced to agree. But when you tell me stories about morality, which I do understand, it seems to me much weaker, or much less plausible. And therefore in my eyes this is the natural solution, the basic solution. I think it involves no difficulties, even though it’s a bit annoying like that. In fact, it involves no difficulties at all. It’s the natural solution, the only solution that fits the facts. Maybe strange, maybe not what we would have expected—just like quantum theory—but what can you do, it’s the only thing that fits the facts.
[Speaker B] That’s not the end of the story, because there are other possibilities, they’re just heretical so we won’t say them here. There are other possibilities. So what? Therefore you’re not… therefore it’s not forced. But fine, let’s leave it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are possibilities like not accepting the Torah, or assuming it’s not from the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine. I’m speaking within the framework of the view—even the minimal one—of commitment to Torah and commandments. Within that, I don’t see other possibilities. You can of course give up and say the whole thing isn’t true, it isn’t moral, it’s unacceptable to me. Fine. I’m trying to clarify what the possible path is within traditional conceptions, even with all the slimming-down I’m doing to them and the attempt to broaden them, but still without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It seems to me this is the only possibility; I don’t know any others. Really. All the others don’t even get off the ground. It’s not that this is better than the others—there are no other possibilities. Even though everyone is working hard, I haven’t found anyone who explicitly says what I’m saying. I simply think it’s because they didn’t think of it, because when you really see everybody twisting around with all the attempts to explain and excuse and reconcile—or to ignore morality, that’s also an option—to ignore morality and say it’s really… that’s also an existing option, to ignore morality and say it simply isn’t binding, doesn’t exist. And that’s somewhat ignoring verses like “And you shall do what is right and good,” of course. It’s also ignoring something, because ignoring morality is not something easy to reconcile with our sources.
But I’m saying: maybe that too is a possible solution. But within the framework of commitment to morality, I know of no other solution—really none. All these proposals simply don’t hold a drop of water. That’s what I think. On this point it seems to me very, very clear. Okay, but that’s the claim, and around this claim basically we need to notice maybe two points. One point is that morality, at least in my claim—I think this is the simple conception—morality by definition is a universal matter. I refuse to accept one morality for Jews and one morality for gentiles. You can argue about morality, of course; even among Jews there are disputes on moral issues, and among gentiles too, and of course between Jews and gentiles as well. But I’m saying: the fact that I’m Jewish, I don’t think that justifies any different behavior from what would be required of a gentile, and vice versa. So my basic assumption is that morality has to be universal. Understand: if I see it this way, then that only strengthens what I said earlier. Morality is not only universal, it is also binding on both Jews and gentiles. Gentiles too are required to behave morally. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground,” before there was any commandment, before the giving of the Torah, before all that. This is a demand addressed to all who come into the world—the moral demand.
Now I ask: if all of Jewish law comes to achieve morality, as Rabbi Kook says, then why isn’t the whole world obligated in Jewish law? These approaches simply don’t even get off the ground; really, they just don’t get off the ground. It’s not that I have some side question, or some—I don’t know—better to assume this than… it just doesn’t get off the ground. No, I see no possibility of upholding these conceptions, really none. On the contrary, the conception that denies obligation to morality even sounds a little more logical. I also think it doesn’t hold water, but somehow it sounds more like it passes the basic tests. If you bring in “And you shall do what is right and good” along with other arguments, it passes the test less. Fine—to say that all of Jewish law comes to achieve moral goals—then first of all explain to me why gentiles are not obligated in Jewish law, in all of Jewish law, not just the seven Noahide commandments. They too are obligated in morality—what do you mean? Besides which, of course, a large part of Jewish law seems indifferent to morality, unrelated to morality. In short, in my eyes this is simply the result of the fact that people are not aware of this option—this option that values are not only moral values. That’s why I gave all those introductions that there are several kinds of values. There are moral values, legal values, religious values, I don’t know, various kinds. And so I see no theoretical problem—I see distress, but not a theoretical problem—in the existence of such conflicts between Jewish law and morality.
There is, of course, as I said before, ignoring morality—that is apparently also an option. But as I said, there is “And you shall do what is right and good,” there is Rashi’s very first comment saying that the whole book of Genesis—what is it there for? I think I already mentioned it. Why was the book of Genesis written, and why didn’t the Torah begin from “This month shall be for you the beginning of months”? In order to say, “He declared to His people the power of His works, to give them the inheritance of the nations.” That the Holy One, blessed be He, made the world, created it, and gave it to whomever was upright—to the Land of Israel, if the nations of the world come and challenge us, then we will say that the Holy One, blessed be He, created it and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes. So I already remarked—I don’t remember if I remarked on this in this series or not—but the question there is: how does Rashi explain the rest of the book apart from the creation story? Seemingly, all that was needed was just the creation story, chapter one of Genesis—if you want, maybe chapters one and two. That’s all. Altogether, just to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner, so He can do what He wants.
I think Rashi senses the issue here, and he explains also the continuation of Genesis. Rashi says the book of Genesis is called the book of the upright. The Netziv talks about this in his introduction. And Rashi says, “and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes.” The book of Genesis also says not only that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner. To say that He is the owner sounds forceful—“I’m the owner, I’ll do whatever I want.” It’s not a forceful matter. I’m the owner, and therefore I decided to give the land to the one to whom it truly belongs, to the one who is upright in My eyes. And that is what the book of Genesis describes—to show that the patriarchs behaved in an upright way, in a way upright in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. And once again, all this is before the commandment. After all, Rashi is coming here to explain why the whole book was given before we even begin the first commandment in parashat Bo. Meaning that the whole book of Genesis comes to say something unrelated to commandments. Another category. That is the moral category. Okay? How one learns morality, and whether one learns morality from the book of Genesis—I’m not going into that here,
[Speaker C] That’s what I was just thinking of saying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I figured that’s why you’re smiling. In any case, I think these are all kinds of indications—very strong ones, in my view—that: first, you can’t ignore morality; second, morality is not conditioned on a command; third, the command does not overlap with morality. At least part of it—at least a clear part of it—obviously does not overlap with morality, does not aim at moral goals. I haven’t yet talked about the moral commandments themselves—that’s what I’m getting to now—but the anti-moral commandments and the non-moral commandments do not overlap with morality. You can twist yourself into knots until tomorrow. What I argued in light of all this is the more radical conclusion. I want to argue even more strongly: even the moral commandments do not aim at moral goals. That’s what I said last time. Because once I already understand this, then at least for now I’m raising it as a possibility—in a moment I’ll also support it—but for now it is certainly a possibility, because what I’m really claiming now is that even “do not murder,” “do not steal,” “honor your father and your mother,” “love your neighbor as yourself,” charity, all these commandments that are indeed connected to morality—even they do not come to achieve moral goals, but religious goals. And at this point it’s only a possibility for now; I’m not yet saying why, what the motivation is for saying this. One could say otherwise, and then we arrive at Maimonides’ view that morality is included within Jewish law. It is not all of Jewish law, but there is a category or subcategory of Jewish law that comes to achieve morality—Maimonides in the sixth chapter of Eight Chapters, which I brought in previous sessions. What is my motivation for saying this even about the moral commandments? The claim is that regarding the moral commandments, yes, quite a few medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) discuss this too: why did the Torah write them at all? The Holy One, blessed be He, comes with claims against Cain for murder even before there was a “do not murder,” so what do we need “do not murder” for? “A matter that comes from reason—why do I need a verse? It is reason,” okay? The homilies of Ran—no, not the homilies of Ran, sorry—Rav Nissim Gaon in the introduction to the Talmud, printed at the beginning of tractate Berakhot in the standard editions of the Talmud, writes there that on the one hand we know there are seven Noahide commandments, and on the other hand we see that there are about thirty that obligate them. So how can that be? Why do we say there are only seven? So he says: because matters that depend on reason and on understanding of the heart, a person is obligated in them from the outset even without a command. Therefore Noahides are obligated in all the commandments toward which reason inclines, not only the seven Noahide commandments. The seven commandments are what they were commanded, but beyond that they are obligated even without being commanded—they are obligated in everything. So of course the question immediately arises: well then why do we need all these commandments? If one is obligated in them even without the command, then the command is superfluous. Why is it needed? I argued, again, that the obvious solution is this: the command is required in order to say that these commandments and these prohibitions also serve religious purposes. I would know the moral purposes even without the command. That murder is forbidden for a moral reason is obvious from reason; you don’t need a command for that. The command says that someone who murders has also caused damage on the religious plane or in the religious sphere, not only in the moral sphere, and for that you need a command. Now again, this is a really obvious solution to questions that many people struggle with. Notice how this picture resolves almost everything that gets discussed around these questions. I think this is a perfect picture in that sense. And therefore what I really want to claim is that, again, these discussions treat—like Maimonides does—this subcategory of moral commandments as something that essentially aims at morality, and then they include morality within Jewish law. Yes, morality is basically part of Jewish law—not all of it, but part of it. In contrast to Rabbi Kook, who says it is all of it, yes. So I say no, what are you talking about—not even that. Even this part does not really come for morality. Morality obligates independently of that; morality obligates because of “and you shall do what is right and good,” because of expectations simply because everyone should understand that one must behave morally. We have a conscience, we have a moral perception, and that is enough to obligate us. Jewish law comes to say that there is also a religious problem here, not only a moral one. And this is somewhat similar to Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s idea in his doctrine of civil law, where he says—for various reasons, he has difficulties that he answers throughout Gate 5—it runs through the whole gate, not only at the beginning where he states it most clearly, but throughout the gate and in several other places along the way he writes this. He resolves various difficulties by saying that there is essentially a doctrine of civil law that precedes Jewish law and obligates even without Jewish law. For example, he speaks mainly about “do not steal,” and then the prohibition against taking someone else’s money is a prohibition unrelated to the Torah’s command; it exists even prior to the Torah’s command. There is just the prohibition of “do not steal” that comes only to say that there is also a religious prohibition in this matter, not only a moral one. That is exactly the statement I’m making here; only he speaks about the relation between Jewish law and law, not between Jewish law and morality, which is not exactly the same thing. Theft has a moral aspect; it also has a legal aspect. So I want to make the same logical move regarding the relationship between Jewish law and morality. And that is basically the claim. Now look: according to this, a lot of other things also become resolved—things the commentators really struggle over, or even if they didn’t struggle, they should have. In the passages in tractate Sanhedrin and elsewhere they discuss—I may have mentioned this, I don’t remember—various qualifications on the prohibition of murder. When you narrow it down to indirect causation, with the left hand, when you do it backward, with your eyes closed, and I don’t know what else. But you killed him. So why are you not a murderer? Why are you not liable to death like a murderer? Why did you not violate “do not murder”? The claim is—my claim—is no. These definitions define when the religious problem appears. The moral problem certainly exists if you killed by indirect causation. You are a murderer in every sense on the moral level. What do I care that you did it that way? Bottom line, you performed an action as a result of which a person died, and you did it in order to kill him. Yes, indirect causation is not lack of intent. Indirect causation is not something where you didn’t mean to kill and it happened by accident. That would be accidental wrongdoing, or being occupied with something else. Indirect causation is someone who intended to murder and did it, only he did it in this way. So what? He is a murderer in every sense on the moral level. Why should I care how he did it? Morality is indifferent to these things, in my view. Jewish law is not indifferent. And therefore I say: all these qualifications and all these things are very hard to understand—very hard to understand. How can you make these formal tricks? Maybe I’ll murder with an unusual method and everything will be fine? What’s the problem? I can afterward go lead the High Holiday prayers after I murdered with an unusual method. What’s the issue? After all, I didn’t violate any transgression. What do you mean I didn’t violate any transgression? I am blatantly an immoral person. I didn’t violate the religious transgression. Yes, it’s a bit similar to what Rabbi Medan says about David and Bathsheba, about David’s sin with Bathsheba—that “whoever says David sinned is simply mistaken.” In my view, that really is the obvious explanation there of the words of the Sages. Otherwise what they say there in the Talmud is really disconnected. “Whoever says David sinned is simply mistaken.” Then what was he? Not only are you disconnected from morality, you’re disconnected from Scripture. The verses say that he sinned. What do you mean? How can one ignore so crudely such explicit verses, simple reasoning, morality? It’s simply unbelievable. So the claim is basically that David did not sin in the formal halakhic sense, but he certainly committed an extremely severe moral wrong. Nathan the prophet did not rebuke him for nothing. An extremely severe moral wrong. Abuse of power, yes? Sending someone to die because of personal interests—the things are horrifying on the moral level. He did not sin in the formal halakhic sense, because everyone who went out to the wars of the House of David gave his wife a bill of divorce, and so he had his trick; he did it with the left hand. Okay, so you solved the halakhic problem, but the moral problem remains fully in place, and nobody addressed that. It is obvious that when Nathan the prophet rebukes him, he rebukes him because he committed a moral sin and a terrible injustice. I don’t think the Sages disagree about that; they only claim that on the formal halakhic level he did not sin. When a person looks for excuses for himself—and I spoke about this last time too—very often a person who is committed to Jewish law has some tendency to belittle the moral command. Because there is: I am committed to Jewish law; morality is some sort of thing—well no, that’s something else, that’s for gentiles, for atheists, I don’t know what. It’s not something really, really important. I know, yes, it says “and you shall do what is right and good”; yes, maybe at best it’s some sort of virtue. But if I am within the boundaries of Jewish law, then it’s more or less fine. This, by the way, is a consequence of the conceptions I reject, because according to my view morality receives a stronger status, not a weaker one. Meaning: I claim that you are absolutely not okay, exactly as if you were committing a halakhic transgression, because a moral transgression is a violation of God’s will exactly like a halakhic transgression, only it is a transgression from a different category. That’s all. It’s simply categorical. It’s not a difference of importance; it’s not a difference that leaves you looking better; it’s simply a different category. That’s all. And somehow it looks as though I’m lowering the status of morality. I think it’s exactly the opposite. I’m not saying this picture in order to strengthen morality or to lower morality; I’m saying it because I think it’s true. But I say, in principle, in my view this also strengthens the status of and the religious obligation to morality and does not weaken it—far more so. So therefore it seems to me that these really are the most obvious solutions. Now I want to show you—I’ll share the screen here with some file I copied. Look, Ran’s homilies.
[Speaker D] Can I ask a question? Okay. I don’t really understand: if from a moral standpoint… let’s take the example of David—he did what he did, and it really is completely immoral. Why exactly am I fighting, or why are the Sages fighting, over the claim that from a halakhic standpoint he did not violate Jewish law? I mean, what are they trying to achieve with this? To go easy on him? To say that he is still a religious person even though he is not moral? I don’t understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think, first of all, yes. First of all, if the transgression is both religious and moral—
[Speaker D] But then it really does reduce morality. No, it doesn’t. Because it comes and says a religious person can genuinely find himself the excuse of saying: listen, I may not be moral, but toward the Holy One, blessed be He, I didn’t violate Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, toward the Holy One, blessed be He, you did violate it! You violated the moral category and not the religious one—two different things. That absolutely does not diminish morality.
[Speaker D] Fine, but what practically happened because I violated the category, while not violating the halakhic category? What did we gain from this? What do we get out of it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So in the end, what did we gain? The Sages tell you there wasn’t a religious problem there, only a moral problem. They didn’t come to gain anything; they simply came to say that there wasn’t a religious problem there, only a moral one. It’s not a matter of gaining or not gaining.
[Speaker D] And if there is no religious problem, what does that say about David? That what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he found for himself—so I’m explaining. The second possibility I meant to mention is really just a continuation of the first. It could be that they also come to describe the train of thought, how David got there. David got there through some kind of Chazon-Ish-style conception. When a person has some urge to do something, he finds himself excuses. What does he say? Wait—from a religious point of view I’m fine, because after all everyone who goes out to the wars of the House of David gives his wife a bill of divorce, and then everything is fine, and I didn’t commit adultery, so I’m basically in the clear. Of course that’s not true, but it is the way of a person to justify for himself acts that should not be done. He finds himself a solution: I did it with my left hand. And then it could well be that they are not even coming to praise David or anything like that, but only to describe the mechanism. On the contrary, maybe even to warn us—to warn us against this kind of thinking. I’m not sure that’s what the Sages meant there, but I’m saying it can at least be interpreted that way: to warn us against this kind of thinking. The fact that you solved the halakhic problem does not make you righteous; you still come out a moral offender. By the way, on the other hand, I do insist on saying that a person who is both a moral offender and a religious offender is worse than a moral offender alone. Worse. Because religious wrongdoing is also wrongdoing. So this does not reduce the moral wrongdoing in the slightest. Therefore I do not accept that this lowers the status of morality. I only say: there is a moral transgression here with all its full severity, but the religious transgression is not here. It’s like—I may have mentioned this, I don’t remember—Tosafot and Ritva talk about “greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” There are many interpretations of why one who is commanded and does is greater. Seemingly it’s the opposite of what people tend to think. Usually people think someone who acts voluntarily is superior. So they say: because one who is commanded and does gains two things. First, he responds to the command, and second, he also gains whatever the commandment is meant to accomplish. Therefore he has two benefits. So you’ll ask me: what do they gain? Fine, let him do it for the benefit even without the command. No! Because if you do both the command and the benefit, then you have two gains. And the same is true, by the way, with transgressions. If you commit a transgression regarding something you were commanded about, then you violated two things: you both created a problematic result and you also rebelled against the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. This does not reduce your criminality in the slightest in the consequential sense; it only adds another layer.
[Speaker B] The context was that they wanted to remove from him the transgression of forbidden sexual relations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. That’s what I’m saying.
[Speaker B] So in their hierarchy, forbidden sexual relations is more severe than—okay, so he wasn’t some great moral refinement, he exploited that. But he didn’t commit a transgression punishable by karet.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m willing to agree with your first formulation; with the second formulation I’m less inclined to agree. Nathan the prophet said his piece very clearly—that’s not just “not morally refined.”
[Speaker B] Right, right, I’m explaining the Sages, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The first formulation I agree with, because in fact yes, I accept that too. That is what I’m arguing against what Ezra said earlier. On the one hand, I don’t think one should reduce the severity of the moral transgression here in the slightest. On the other hand, if the person committed only the moral transgression and not the religious one, his condition is better than that of someone who committed both the moral transgression and the religious transgression. Whoever at least accepts halakhic obligation cannot ignore the fact that there is also that side here. It certainly does not leave him innocent—not at all. And to declare him innocent would run against—
[Speaker D] But really, what you’ve just said—that there can be a person who commits the moral transgression but does not commit the halakhic transgression, and that this is less severe than when he commits a moral transgression that is also a halakhic transgression—you have already made room to reduce responsibility in the moral realm, because you are saying that one must distinguish between one person and another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ezra, absolutely! Correct! Of course!
[Speaker E] And I want to add—
[Speaker D] No, no, no. Then that’s very bad!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then that’s very bad—for what purpose? Now I ask you, I ask you: what level of barriers stands before a non-religious person or a gentile when he comes to murder? What is the barrier? The moral barrier, right? Only that. Not the religious one. Right. Meaning that he himself is less restrained than I am, because he will get to the sin faster than I will, since what blocks him is only the moral barrier, whereas I am blocked both by the moral barrier and by the religious barrier. All the Sages said was that King David, all in all, was a criminal in murder the same way a gentile or secular person would murder. The same thing. He is a moral offender in every sense. The religious trick he managed to find. So what? That merely makes the religious person like the secular person—not less than him, but like him, and no more than that. At most. And even that is not true, because this is still bad judgment. I criticize that judgment. I tell the person: the fact that you solved the religious problem does not exempt you from the burden of the moral problem. You have both these problems. Therefore this does not lower morality in any way whatsoever; on the contrary. It only says that standing before you as an additional barrier against immoral action is also the religious barrier, besides the moral barrier that stands before all human beings.
[Speaker D] Those things are true only when he really has both barriers—the moral one and the religious one. I agree with you one hundred percent that then he is in a much more demanding situation than the secular person or the gentile. But when Jewish law contains elements that ease the matter of the moral obligation and say to him: listen, if you did it in this way or that way, then as far as Jewish law is concerned you did not transgress—then you have necessarily reduced the moral obligation. You reduced it because you gave him the possibility of coming and saying: I am a good Jew, I am okay with the Holy One, blessed be He, despite the fact that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ezra, you are saying a contradiction in the very same sentence. On the one hand you agree that the barrier is higher, and on the other hand you say that when I exempted him from the religious problem, I lowered the moral problem. Your first sentence said that if we solved the religious problem, the moral barrier still remains, just like for any gentile or secular person. So now explain your second sentence to me: how did I lower morality?
[Speaker D] My first sentence starts from an assumption that you apparently do not agree with, but my assumption is that at some level there is a total separation between morality and Jewish law. And when that exists, then there really are two walls for that believing person: he violates both Jewish law and morality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim that there is no separation. There is no separation.
[Speaker D] Therefore I say that if there is no separation, and in the religious section you have elements that reduce moral responsibility—sometimes they reduce it, sometimes they add to it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Jewish law can both intensify and ease. Sometimes what? Sometimes they reduce it, sometimes they add.
[Speaker D] I’m in favor when they add. So I’m saying: when they add, that is much clearer to me, because then they come and say: not only must you be moral, you also have an additional obligation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s more comfortable for you, not clearer to you.
[Speaker D] More comfortable for you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You want there to be a higher barrier against immoral acts. You want that. But the fact is that the barrier is this way and not some other way. Those are the facts.
[Speaker D] And do you have a reason, an explanation, for why the religious barrier should be lower than the moral one in cases where that exists? What’s the point? Why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Since that is the fact. When I murder with my left hand—I’m joking, of course—with an unusual method, okay? There is no exemption for murder done in an unusual way, but suppose there were such an exemption. Fine? So what? The moral transgression is murder in every sense. Its severity does not decrease in the slightest. So what is the point? The religious blemish is not there. So now I am merely like the gentile. That’s all. How does that reduce anything? It reduces nothing whatsoever. All I am telling you is that the religious dimension is not damaged if you do it with the left hand. Fine? I don’t know how this religious dimension works, but if you do it with the left hand then it is not damaged. But the moral blemish, just as with any gentile, is a full-fledged blemish. And what is… I don’t understand what the problem is with that. On the contrary. It means that Jewish law demands of the people obligated by it much more, including in the moral realm, than what is demanded of a gentile. Because it demands of a person to be both moral and religious, and after all there is at least partial overlap. For the gentile, even that part is absent. I really don’t understand what the problem here is at all.
[Speaker E] Rabbi, can’t the difficulty be formulated differently? Let me formulate the difficulty differently. A state that would be run according to Jewish law—a person… who violates a moral command but does not violate a religious command, would he not be punished? No? Would he not be punished? In the courts they wouldn’t punish him?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not correct. So now I’m getting to the next stage, where I stopped before this discussion began. Look, I’m answering you, yes, Doron, just a second. Okay. The Derashot HaRan. In sermon 11, the Ran says that yes—his famous thesis about the duality of the legal systems and the normative systems in Jewish law, or in the Torah, maybe not in Jewish law—that there is the law of the king and the law of the Torah. Or what is called the law of the Torah is Jewish law. Meaning, the law of Jewish law and the law of the king. And he says this is a double system. The king judges, and the religious court also judges. By the way, over the very same actions the king can judge and the religious court can judge. And then he explains that the law of the king and the law of Jewish law are two different things. And that is exactly my thesis. He foresaw it, by divine inspiration. The law of the king comes to achieve social and political order, or in other words, moral goals. And Jewish law comes to achieve the application of the divine matter. In my language, that means religious goals. Exactly this thesis. It appears in Derashot HaRan in a very beautiful way throughout sermon 11. Now look at the conclusion—I brought only one passage from his words, though it’s worth reading all of them. So he says like this: Therefore it is possible that among some of the laws and judgments of those nations—other nations, not the Jewish people—there may be something closer to the repair of the political order, meaning the social-moral order, the goals of a regular legal system, than in some of the laws of the Torah. He says sometimes a foreign legal system will be better ordered in the moral sense than the halakhic system. Why? Because the halakhic system comes to achieve not morality but the application of the divine matter. The one who comes to achieve and ensure morality and enforce morality is the king. And then the Ran says: We lack nothing in this—in response to the questions of Ezra and Doron and others. We lack nothing in this. Why? Because whatever is lacking in the repair just mentioned would be completed by the king. What does that mean? I return to Doron’s question. If there were a state run according to Jewish law, and someone murdered with his left hand, he would go to prison for the rest of his life. They would not execute him by stoning like they execute… or by the sword, as they execute a murderer, because that is a halakhic punishment. He would receive the legal punishment of the king’s law, which is of course what happens in all the countries of the world. So the halakhic state would not be worse than any of the states in the world. The fact that you pull Davidic tricks and murder with your left hand won’t help you. It will exempt you from the halakhic punishment, but what about the social-legal-moral punishment? You’ll get hit with it just like any non-Jewish murderer gets hit with it, who has no halakhic aspect at all, only the legal-moral one. And therefore there is no problem here at all. The fact that there are moral lacunae in Jewish law—the Ran says this raises no problem whatsoever. It’s exactly what I said; I’m only saying it in the Ran’s language. There is no problem here at all. Why? Because the law of the king comes to solve that problem. If the king sees that Jewish law creates some lacuna or looseness, if you like, morally, then the king will punish outside the formal law. He can also kill, by the way, not only imprison. I’m using the term imprison because I want to compare it to today’s legal system. But in principle it can be according to the king’s discretion. He can kill, he can imprison, he can do whatever he wants if someone commits a moral offense. Why? Because Jewish law is interested in another aspect, in the application of the divine matter, in religious goals. And notice, he is talking about the moral laws. That is exactly what I’m saying. The whole front of the issue appears there. And then he says: But we had a great advantage over them. No, the nations have no advantage over us, because the king fills in all the lacunae. But we have an advantage over them, because insofar as they are just in essence—that is, the law of the Torah, as Scripture says, “And they shall judge the people with righteous judgment”—it follows that divine abundance will cleave to us. We have an advantage over the nations. Why? Because the moral commandments—even anti-moral ones, those that diverge from morality—those extra commandments that we have and other systems do not, help us attain the religious values, that divine abundance will cleave to us, which is the goal of Jewish law. Therefore we do not give this up, we do not unify them. Otherwise one could say: okay, then just have the king’s law. What’s the problem? The king’s law will solve all the problems. It will solve all the moral problems, with the lacunae, with everything, and all will be fine. So why do we need Jewish law at all? He says no, because if you have the king’s law and there is no halakhic dimension, then where is the application of divine abundance? In other words, there are religious goals to attain. Therefore, says the Ran, there is no escaping such a dual system, and there is no need to be troubled by the fact that the halakhic system is sometimes inferior in the moral sense compared to non-Jewish systems. Correct—absolutely correct. And the king has to do this to complete the matter, because a Jew is required both in morality and in Jewish law—two systems. And sometimes one comes at the expense of the other, sometimes there are complementations. The rules here, of course, are not rigid rules, but it is clear that we operate in the shadow of two normative systems and two kinds of goals: religious goals and moral goals. And maneuvering between them is an art. An art that in the end, in practice, comes to the halakhic decisors, although originally—and I’ll say a word about that now—it was not the decisors’ role at all; it was the king’s role. The king had to take care of law, what we today call law, right? The law that comes to achieve social order, prevent moral wrongs, or things of that sort. And Jewish law came to achieve religious matters. Rabbis deal with religious matters, not morality. The king deals with morality. If I take what I’m saying and what the Ran says all the way through, then in fact rabbis are not supposed to be figures who speak in the realm of morality at all. That is not their field; they speak in the realm of religion. In the realm of morality, that would be the king or, I don’t know, professors of ethics or people of character if you like, no matter—public intellectuals. It does not have to be the rabbis’ business. What happened? Why today did this all get mixed up? And I think part of that has to do with what I’m about to describe now, part of the confusion between Jewish law and morality in general. That is why I’m now devoting a few minutes to it. I also spoke about this, and wrote about it, in at least two columns on the website. There I spoke about the historical accident that happened. The Ran’s words seem very strange to people when they first encounter them. First, you see that Jewish law is morally less good, inferior compared to other legal systems. And second, what is this—the king judges and Jewish law also judges? This is a dual system? Where does this even come from? We are used to the fact that sometimes a religious court really does punish outside the formal law—they administer lashes and punish outside the formal law. But that is all within Jewish law; that is the role of the religious court. Where does the king come in here? What does it have to do with this? Of course, we simply forget that today we have no king. There is no one to do this. Today perhaps there is something parallel to the king: the government of the state. But I’m saying that throughout the history of Jewish law, until seventy years ago, there was no king to do this—unless there was some non-Jewish king under whom Jews lived—but there wasn’t. So the ones who did it were the decisors or the rabbis. And then the Ran’s claim is actually an interesting claim that points to a kind of anachronistic thinking in people. Notice what used to be. Once there was in fact a total duality, complete two-ness. The king was responsible for morality and for achieving justice and social order and morality and everything, and Jewish law was responsible for religious matters. That’s it. Those were the two sides. Once kingship ended, there was no choice: we had to transfer the powers to another governing factor. The analogy I gave also in my books—in the trilogy I talked about this—the analogy I gave there was, say, that there was such a story in Poland, right, where a plane crashed and half the government, or the whole government, I don’t know, died there in that plane. What happens in such a situation? Clearly, so that there won’t be chaos, so that there won’t be anarchy, one of the other branches of government takes the government’s powers into its hands. The Supreme Court, the parliament, it doesn’t matter who—and temporarily, until another government is established, they run things. Right? That’s obvious, almost self-evident. There should be separation of powers when there are different branches. But if one branch goes kaput, then another branch has to run that business in the meantime until we restore the original situation. What happened in Jewish law is an accident that somehow we can’t fix. Or we can’t fix it. Kingship disappeared, and then the powers actually flowed into the rabbinic authorities. There are hints of this, by the way, even in the Talmud itself. Why were the presidents of the Sanhedrin from the house of David? Including Rabbi—Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi—Rabban Gamliel, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi, that whole dynasty. They were all from the house of David, and this already began with Hillel the Elder. Why? Where did we ever find that the house of David has to run the Sanhedrin? Where does that even come from? Rather, what? Clearly, in that period there was no king in Israel. This is the Second Temple period, the second half of the Second Temple period. Okay? So when there is no king in Israel, the president of the Sanhedrin receives the powers of a king, to the extent that there was autonomy of course, and so on, but the secular powers too flow into the rabbinic, religious, spiritual authority. And then what happens is that Rabbi actually becomes—or the whole dynasty, not only Rabbi—becomes the king. “Torah and greatness in one place,” as the sages say, right? Meaning he is Torah and he is greatness. Meaning he is the king and he is—right—“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet”; the Talmud says: “These are the exilarchs in Babylonia who rule.” They rule the people with a rod. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.” The scepter is a stick, right? The rod of kingship, the royal staff, the royal scepter. So that belongs to Judah, from the house of David. And “the ruler’s staff” is from between his feet—that has nothing to do with the house of David at all. Rather, ordination or legislation needs the king’s approval, because he is the governing authority. So ordination in the professional sense is ordination done by a court. And the king gives the governmental authority. Like appointing judges today. First of all they have to pass professional exams, to see that they meet the professional threshold of jurists. After that the parliament or the government appoints them to serve as judges. Right? You need both authorities: one authority checks professionally that you are fit for the role, and the other authority gives you the enforcement power, the governmental authority. Okay? A judge is not just a legal scholar. He needs to be a legal scholar, but that’s not all—he has authority. He is a governmental functionary. Okay? And in that sense he is the arm of the king. And on the other hand he is the arm of the Torah. Okay? Therefore, what happens when there is no king is that the president of the Sanhedrin combines both hats: both the scepter and the ruler’s staff. The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin 5a is really fascinating when you read it through this prism. There a fierce dispute arises between Babylonia and the Land of Israel. Who has the upper hand? The Land of Israel claims: what is the exilarch of Babylonia? The president of the Sanhedrin is the king, and he gives permission and ordains all the sages for the whole world. And the sages of Babylonia disagree. The exilarch in Babylonia is responsible for ordination, not the president of the Sanhedrin. The exilarch, by the way, was not necessarily a great scholar. He was the secular, governmental authority, the king. How is that? Since in Babylonia there was kingship, there was almost governmental autonomy, very high autonomy, for the Jews, and the exilarch really had high governmental standing, also on behalf of the non-Jewish monarchy. And in the Land of Israel there was nothing like that. So the Babylonians say to the sages of the Land of Israel—and read Sanhedrin 5a, it’s fascinating when you see that this is the dispute—they say: with us there is a king. Reality has returned to its original state. You have already gotten used to the idea that both hats sit on the head of the president of the Sanhedrin, and you forgot that these are two different hats. But they are two different hats. The president of the Sanhedrin is responsible for Torah, and the king is responsible for government. And authority has to be given in two forms. The Babylonian sages, by the way, agree that ordination exists only in the Land of Israel. You need ordination from the Sanhedrin in the Land of Israel in order to be ordained. But the permission to judge—the making of you into a judge, not into a legal scholar—that is given by the exilarch. Because he is the government, he is the king. In the Land of Israel at that time there was no king. There was no secular governing authority at that time. Okay? And that was the whole dispute there. And by the way, as a matter of Jewish law they ruled like Babylonia. The exilarch was the one responsible for granting the authority to judge, not the president of the Sanhedrin. So the point is that originally, says the Ran, we have lived for so many years with both authorities being in the hands of the decisors, the religious courts, the rabbis, that we have forgotten that they are two different authorities. There is governmental authority—which is also responsible for morality, not only for paving roads and all that. The supposedly secular, governmental authority is responsible for morality. Why? Because morality does not belong to Jewish law at all. Morality is also a matter for non-Jews. It is part of governmental authority. That is why it also exists among non-Jews. That is the non-Jewish dimension within us. It is not our religious dimension. It is required of us; the Holy One, blessed be He, of course expects moral behavior from us and effective government. All true. But that is the universal dimension, that the Jewish people are a nation like all other nations, and they too need a government and they too need to behave morally. All true. But that is the universal demand. Beyond that, there is also a religious demand upon us to conduct ourselves according to Jewish law, to be committed to Jewish law. And there are two different functions, there is a separation of powers. There are two different functions, each responsible for a different aspect of these obligations. And from the moment that historical accident happened, that kingship ended, both authorities flowed into one authority, and somehow we forgot that they were two. And now, basically, the decisors determine everything. So I also wrote there in the column that people do not understand this. There are entire sections in the Shulchan Arukh that in my view are simply not Jewish law. The Shulchan Arukh did something there that should never have been done. It inserted into the Shulchan Arukh rulings of medieval authorities and later authorities—later authorities didn’t yet exist in his time, so medieval authorities—that determined how decisions are made, how decisions are adopted in a community. This is none of Jewish law’s grandmother’s business. It is not a halakhic question. Whether one follows the majority, or one person, and whether they can coerce the minority—Jewish law has no authority there, no significance there. Those so-called laws have no halakhic significance at all. Rather, what? At that time there was no secular authority, certainly in exile, when the Jewish people were scattered. So to whom do people come with questions of proper governance? To the rabbi, to the decisor. There is no one else. The one who knows Jewish law is also the one they ask these questions. So if they ask you these questions, then you also produce the answers. What can you do? And rightly so. I have no criticism. Rightly so, because there is no other governmental authority. What can you do? It’s like Rabbi. So you actually become both the secular authority and the religious authority and the moral authority. And they ask you everything—the moral questions, the halakhic questions, the questions of proper governance, administration, everything. How to distribute taxes, including in Bava Batra chapter 1, how to distribute the taxes there among the population. What on earth does Jewish law have to do with how to distribute taxes? What does that have to do with Jewish law? Where did they get these things from Jewish law in the first place? Where is there a halakhic source for these things? There isn’t even the slightest source. Rather what? Simply that at that time there was no king. So rightly the sages said: fine, then we’ll manage it. Okay. But we have to remember that this is basically a bediavad situation, a post-facto situation. Originally these are two different authorities and two different systems. And now, for example, that we have returned to a situation where there is an independent governmental system, secular—secular not necessarily in the sense that they don’t wear a kippah, but in the sense that they are responsible for the secular aspects and not the halakhic aspects—in principle, one can now speak of their having resumed responsibility for the administrative and moral management, also the moral management, of our lives. And what remains in the hands of the decisors and the religious courts and so on is management of the halakhic realm. That doesn’t mean they are supposed to ignore morality, the religious courts, of course. I’m only saying that they are not really the ones responsible for it, and not the ones who determine it. If a religious court determines what is moral and what is not moral, it has no authority to do so. If the Sanhedrin determines it, it can do so—that I’ll get to in a moment. If the Sanhedrin determines a moral principle and inserts it into Jewish law, no problem—they can institute enactments, so they can also institute moral enactments and thereby bring them into Jewish law. That will then be rabbinic law, okay? At first it was binding as a moral rule, but sometimes sages feel—as Ezra, as was noted here earlier—that once it is only a moral rule and not a halakhic one, people begin to treat it lightly. So what do they do? They say: okay, from now on we determine that this moral rule also becomes halakhically binding. That is the concept of forcing someone not to behave in the manner of Sodom. The Talmud in Bava Batra—by the way, that same first chapter of Bava Batra—on 12b says: we compel against the trait of Sodom. What does that mean? We’re talking about actions that are not in themselves halakhically prohibited or halakhically required, and the Talmud asks there whether one compels it anyway because it is a moral matter. For example, the law of the adjoining boundary. If two brothers divide their father’s field, and one of them has a field adjacent to their father’s field. The father dies; it’s an inheritance. And one of them has a field adjoining the father’s field. Now that brother says: give me the half that is next to my field. It’s more convenient for me to work them together. And the other brother says: absolutely not, let’s draw lots. And let’s say there’s no better half and worse half here, just arbitrary choice. But that is his right, because he has the right to make it a lottery; each half belongs to both of them. So the Talmud discusses the law of the adjoining boundary there and says that we compel against the trait of Sodom. What does that mean? Halakhically he has the right to do this; there’s no halakhic problem here. There is a moral problem. But when the sages say we compel against the trait of Sodom, they are basically saying: we are now taking this and bringing it into the halakhic framework, and now we compel it. This is the trait of Sodom. When an authorized court does this, it can become Jewish law. When medieval and later authorities do this, it has no validity whatsoever, no validity whatsoever. If I do not accept what they say in the moral sense, then I simply won’t do it. I don’t accept it; they have no authority. They have authority to interpret Jewish law for me; they do not have authority to legislate new laws for me. Only the Great Court can do that. Okay? So this is an important point. Because Rabbi Lichtenstein has an article—I can already see I won’t get to it—but he has an article on Jewish law and morality, and there he talks about compelling moral matters and compelling against the trait of Sodom, and he completely ignores this distinction—both the Ran’s distinction and also the distinction that all this is really not a halakhic matter at all. The fact that one compels it—so what? That does not make it a halakhic matter. After the sages enact it, they can bring it into Jewish law—that is the authority they were given under “do not depart.” Look, for example—wait, let me just finish this description—so this historical claim, that kingship ended and all the powers flowed into the rabbinic halakhic authorities, accompanies us to this day. And to this day we are stuck in this anachronism. Because it is clear to everyone that these are questions one should ask the rabbis about. They are the people supposed to answer them. And I’m trying with all my might, in all kinds of places, to say that this is simply not true—not true halakhically. We got used to this situation, and by the way it is a perfectly okay situation when there is no other authority. Because in the end, things have to be run; when the government crashes, someone else has to take its powers. But once there is a way to run things differently, then we have returned to the original state. There is a secular authority and there is a halakhic authority, and they do not overlap; these are two different things. And each is responsible for its own domain. By the way, just today someone sent me—or yesterday, sorry—someone sent me an article saying that the Chief Rabbinate is about to grant a mehadrin certification to foie gras—fattened goose liver—imported from abroad, since force-feeding geese is illegal in Israel, and the Rabbinate is going to give a mehadrin certification to goose liver from force-fed geese abroad and imported into Israel. I exploded. I simply exploded. I wrote some kind of letter about it; I hope they’ll send it there. I don’t know what is better to send the Rabbinate—a letter from me or a letter from Animals. Those are two parties—those two parties are not exactly the ones likely to influence what the Rabbinate decides—but it’s simply a scandal. Truly. And it illustrates very nicely all the previous phenomena that Ezra raised, not correctly, but in practice this really does happen. People feel that if halakhically we have no problem—and here there is also an issue of animal suffering, but never mind—if halakhically there is no problem with eating it, not with producing it by force-feeding, but with eating it, then there’s no problem, it’s kosher. Even mehadrin kosher. Not just kosher—mehadrin kosher. If it’s mehadrin kosher, then whoever does this is a righteous person. Meaning whoever eats it, yes, it’s mehadrin kosher. This is simply intolerable to the mind. These are insane torments—far beyond what happens to chickens and all kinds of other things where horrible things also happen, and to calves and things like that. But force-feeding geese is really an insane peak. It is terrible corruption. Well, we’ll see—maybe they’ll manage to stop it, I don’t know. In any case, back to our subject. The point is that this historical accident also affects the point I’m talking about, the mixing of Jewish law and morality. That is the claim I want to make. In other words, the fact that we see Jewish law as overlapping with morality, or converging with it, or whatever, in my view—or even including morality, which I also don’t agree with—in my view that is part of the same outlook. Because once there developed a perception that the rabbis are the ones who determine what is moral, and authority is also in their hands, the road is very short to saying: okay, then Jewish law and morality are basically overlapping categories, identical categories.
[Speaker B] The example of foie gras is really a very good example of blurring. Because what’s the connection—why shouldn’t you give it a mehadrin certification if according to all the stringencies it was slaughtered properly and whatever? There’s a similar good example—there’s such a thing, you’ve probably heard of it, a social kashrut certification. A social certification mark.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The same question.
[Speaker B] Suppose there is one, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So suppose there is—the same question. I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why. In principle one could certainly say that it is mehadrin kosher in terms of kashrut, in terms of the laws of eating—it does not violate a prohibition of eating—but first, by buying and eating it you are actually assisting animal suffering, and here there already is a problem in the buying and eating, not only in the force-feeding, because it is assistance—or even “do not place a stumbling block,” not merely assistance. In my view it’s a Torah-level tereifa. So first of all there is indeed a problem here. And second, the Rabbinate itself—if someone opens the hall on Christmas, they revoke his kashrut certification. What is the prohibition on eating in such a hall that is open on Christmas? Rather, when something matters to them, then they say: at least it won’t be mehadrin kosher, even if it is kosher. I say, to say it is not kosher—I don’t think they can say it’s not kosher. They can decline to certify it. They can’t say it’s not kosher, because it is kosher. But to say that it is not mehadrin kosher, at least…
[Speaker B] But you feel—there is a blurring here. Suppose there’s a restaurant that isn’t accessible to the disabled, they disrespect the waiters there, I don’t know, I don’t remember what the criteria are there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I would expect them to claim that one may not give a mehadrin kashrut certification to such a place. Mehadrin—again, understand, the concept mehadrin, I’ll say again, depends on how you interpret the term mehadrin. Don’t interpret it in a completely formal sense.
[Speaker B] Not only the Chazon Ish’s view, but also the view of three other rabbis.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that it is valid according to all opinions in the laws of prohibited foods. Fine, that’s true. But mehadrin kosher conveys something else. I would expect some sort of warning label. I would say, first of all, know that mehadrin kosher is only in the sense of the laws of prohibited foods, but there is still a prohibition on eating and consuming it because it is “do not place a stumbling block.” Therefore I say, to call a person like that mehadrin is simply unreasonable. Call it glatt certification. The term glatt I can more easily accept, because glatt means smooth—smooth meaning there’s no question about it, no issue there, fine. But to say that a person who does this is enhancing the commandment—come on, there’s a limit. So I’m saying this is an example I literally came across yesterday, so it fits very well here. And I think that this blurring partly stems from that same historical accident I talked about here, even though on the face of it it is only a governmental question. We lost the kingship. And the way powers throughout history flowed into halakhic authority and into rabbis and decisors, and somehow suddenly the moral category also flowed into the halakhic category. And then somehow we lost this picture of duality that I’m describing here, which as the Ran describes is the original picture. I am not innovating anything; I’m simply claiming what was once self-evident. It’s just that people are trapped inside the results of that accident, and they forget that it is only the result of an accident. Like those who keep wearing the shtreimel after the decree, right? They decreed that everyone should wear a shtreimel, Jewish dress of a shtreimel, and ever since it became a Torah commandment to remain with a shtreimel. In other words, Jews have a tendency to turn a post-facto necessity into an enhanced ideal from the outset and never abandon it. So here something very similar is happening, I think. I don’t know if that’s all of it, but there’s a lot of that in it. I think this factor also has influence. I want to read one more thing, at least manage this as well—also a very beautiful and very similar statement by the Maharal. Precisely because my points somehow seem a bit novel, I don’t know, call them radical—in my view, not at all. I think this is simply the ultimate explanation for all the difficulties of all kinds. To my mind it is simply perfect. I’m really enthusiastic about this model, and surprised that no one says it in discussions of Jewish law and morality, even though in my view the Ran and the Maharal say it. The Ran is what we just read. Look at the Maharal. In Be’er HaGolah, second well, he writes as follows: In chapter 2 of Bava Metzia they said there that one need not return a lost object after the owner has despaired of recovering it—yes, I’m reading here. And this matter, yes, if the owner despaired, one does not have to return it. And this matter seems far-fetched to people, as though strained—what do you mean, just because he despaired? Can a person take what is not his, though he did not labor and did not toil, and covet another person’s money? You found someone’s lost object, and he despaired of recovering it. But you know it’s his. He comes and gives you identifying signs—after the despair already. Something swept away by the sea, okay? So there is despair even though we know whose it is. I rescued the lost item, okay? I can take it; he despaired. The Maharal says: why? You didn’t toil over it, you didn’t labor over it, it’s his. This is just coveting someone else’s property. How can Jewish law permit you to take such a thing? So he says: And this is not according to civic law. Civic law here of course does not mean etiquette, but morality. It’s connected a bit to the very first lecture in the series, where I spoke there about conventions and rational truths. So “civic law” for him means the moral code, that is, according to ordinary human morality. Because civic law requires returning a lost object even after the owner has despaired of the lost object. What difference does it make whether he despaired or not? So what if he despaired? He despaired because he thought he’d never get it back. But it’s his; he bought it with his hard-earned money, the labor of his hands. Why are you taking it? At most you worked hard to rescue it from the sea—ask him for compensation for your labor, fine, no problem. But by what right does this lost object become yours? Why? So he says: And the reason for this—look at the interesting wording of the Maharal. The reason for this is that civic law requires what is fitting to do for the sake of repairing the world. Morality, or social and legal justice. Even though reason does not require that thing, only that this is what repairs the world. Here the term reason is not what we call reason. We call moral reasoning reason. Reason says it’s his—why are you taking it? Okay? No. For him that is called civic law, meaning morality. What he calls reason means what truth requires, religious truth. Okay? That is what he calls reason. We’ll immediately see more. Continuing. Therefore civic law sometimes has greater stringency in some matter—there, Derashot HaRan. Exactly like Derashot HaRan. Therefore civic law sometimes has greater stringency in some matter, meaning morality is stricter than Jewish law, even though according to reason and straight justice there would be no need to do so. Reason and straight justice say one need not return a lost object after despair. Morality says yes. Understand—so for him Jewish law, what I called religious values, that is reason. We can also talk about that, but I won’t go into it here. For now I’m just translating. And sometimes civic law is much more lenient. Morality is not always stricter than Jewish law. That’s what I answered Ezra earlier. Morality is not always stricter than Jewish law; sometimes it is more lenient. Right? When the thing need not be done for the sake of repairing the world, even though according to reason it is not fitting—only according to civic law. And now he brings examples; look at these nice examples. This really is perhaps the clearest passage I have seen on this duality. Therefore, according to civic law, one should return the lost object after the owner has despaired of it. And this is a stringency. Morality—sorry—requires returning the lost object even after despair. Jewish law exempts you from returning it. Right? So here morality is stricter than Jewish law. And conversely, if one found silver vessels or gold vessels and announced it once and twice, and no one claimed the lost object for a year or two. Yes? I announced silver vessels or gold vessels and no one claimed them, but they have identifying marks, right? They are not ownerless. No one claimed them. What does morality say? It says he may keep them for himself and use that vessel, because there is no social benefit in refraining. After he announced it several times and waited a year or two or more, the person is not going to come anymore. So why shouldn’t I use it, at least so that someone benefits from it? So what does the moral rule say? Use it. And this matter—I continue now into the next paragraph—and this matter is not according to the Torah. For if one found silver vessels or gold vessels and announced it many times, they are forbidden to him forever. Rather, they shall remain lying there until Elijah comes; he may never touch them. So you see that they were very stringent. What is he showing here? He is showing that morality is sometimes stricter than Jewish law, but sometimes Jewish law is stricter than morality. There are no rules in this matter. And why? Since morality comes to achieve moral and social goals—justice, fairness, and so forth. Jewish law comes to achieve law, legal truth. And there is no necessary connection between these two things. Sometimes this is stricter, sometimes that is stricter. Exactly what Derashot HaRan said. And here we also see examples in both directions: in the direction where this is stricter and in the direction where that is stricter. And look at his explanation. And all this because the words of the sages are according to the Torah, for all words of the Torah are measured by reason, and as it is fitting according to reason, so it is fitting to do. Again, for him reason means understanding what true law is, not morality. What the real legal truth is. By the way, on this point it’s an interesting point, and I’m saying it needs separate discussion. I actually agree with him on this point. I think there is reason behind scriptural legal decrees. They are not just scriptural decrees of verses alone. There is legal reasoning that does not overlap with moral reasoning, not necessarily. There are legal propositions—I wrote a whole booklet on this—legal reasoning as opposed to other kinds of reasoning. And that is his claim. So therefore it is fitting to do so, as the Torah said: “And you shall keep and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples.” By the way, interestingly, Maimonides brings this verse—“for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples”—about matters that anyone in the world will understand that what we are doing is right. About moral matters. He brings it specifically about legal matters, not moral ones. And about that it is said, “for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples.” And that is interesting, meaning that all the nations have to understand that when we do something that is not moral—not returning after despair—oh, they see that this is our wisdom and understanding in the eyes of all. On the contrary, they condemn us on moral grounds. He assumes that law too has logic, and non-Jews also understand legal logic. And by the way, that is true. There are legal rules that do not come to achieve moral goals, and yet it is clear to everyone that they are right. And about that I wrote there in the booklet on legal reasoning; I won’t go into it now. And as she said, yes, and civic law does not arrange things according to proposition and thought. And the Torah is entirely rational, and the Torah does not turn to proposition. Again, one has to synchronize the terms. “Entirely rational” here means the opposite of proposition and thought. We identify reason with proposition and thought. For him “entirely rational” means the spiritual or legal grasp of legal truth. Proposition and thought mean morality, social justice, legal efficiency in ordinary legal considerations. Okay, so here too I think one can see very clearly this conception of duality. Therefore I say: according to this approach of the Maharal and Derashot HaRan, all the questions that have accompanied us all along simply disappear. Really disappear. Everything settles beautifully. But one has to make one assumption—which Haya rightly said is a bit hard to accept. There are some such moral values that we do not quite understand, and the Torah is aiming at them. I only claim that factually there is no escaping it. I would not assume this if I were not compelled to, of course not.
[Speaker B] Religious, not moral. Sorry? Religious, not moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You had a slip—religious, yes. I’m only saying, the facts lead there; there’s nothing to do. Quantum theory. It’s not understandable, not logical, fine—but there’s nothing to do, the facts dictate that result. And therefore I think that once one sees it through these lenses, then I think the Maharal and Derashot HaRan definitely describe such a picture. Then I say that all the discussions around Torah and morality, which get pulled in this direction and that direction—I brought six possibilities—are all unnecessary, and all don’t hold water, and rightly so they don’t hold water. Okay, I’ll stop here. We still have one more session in this series, by my count. So next Thursday is still possible, right—it’s the day after Tisha B’Av. So on Thursday I think I’ll finish the series.
[Speaker B] The evening after Tisha B’Av?
[Speaker C] Yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thursday is the evening after Tisha B’Av. The evening after. Ah, Thursday is Tisha B’Av? Not Wednesday? No. Thursday. Ah, that’s not so convenient. It’s a bit—people will be a little…
[Speaker C] The fast only ends at…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We won’t do it then. So maybe we’ll do it on the following Sunday or something like that.
[Speaker B] Okay. Maybe it can be pushed off a bit to nine-thirty, no? Something like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’ll think about it some more. On Sunday I’m also starting something after Tisha B’Av, I don’t remember, I think. Fine, I’ll let you know. Okay. Any more questions now? Or something someone wants to comment on or ask?
[Speaker F] Rabbi, regarding King David, what the Rabbi spoke about—yes—can’t one say that the sages, after the fact, once David received the status of a kind of messiah and king and all that, sort of came to see how to use apologetics to make him come out well?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s how people usually think, but I say: to come out head-on against the Hebrew Bible, a passage so plainly before everyone’s eyes, does not sound reasonable to me. It could be, but it doesn’t sound reasonable to me. In any case, even if the sages did not mean that, I say that this is the correct interpretation. Okay. That’s it? Anyone else? More power to you. Okay, so we’ll stop here.