Halacha and Ethics, Lesson 3

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time we started dealing with the relationship between Torah and morality, and basically I said in short that there are three basic approaches. Two of them identify the two systems with each other, only the direction of the identification is reversed. So what we attributed to the Chazon Ish is the identification of morality with Jewish law—basically everything is Jewish law, there’s no category outside Jewish law. What we attributed to Rabbi Kook—actually with Rabbi Kook it’s really not just an attribution—is that everything is morality, and Jewish law is basically the optimal means to arrive at moral behavior or a moral personality. Those are the two opposite approaches that identify Jewish law with morality. And then there’s the more complex approach, which says these are two separate categories, and basically that’s Leibowitz; it seems to me maybe that’s its purest expression. These are two separate conceptions, two independent types of values, and there we spoke a bit about the Maharal and the Derashot HaRan, right? We talked about what the Maharal says about why one has to return—or why one does not have to return—a lost object after the owner has despaired. Did I talk about that? I don’t remember. Right, why one does not have to return a lost object after despair, because morality does require returning it, and you can’t say there’s some Torah morality that’s different from ordinary morality—that too we’ll talk about today—because the Sages themselves say, and so it is ruled in Maimonides and in the Shulchan Arukh, that one must return a lost object after despair; the Maharal brings that one even compels it. So it’s clear that it is moral even in the eyes of Jewish law. So if it’s moral in the eyes of Jewish law, then why doesn’t Jewish law obligate it? So I said that here you can see that there are two planes of discussion. One plane is the moral plane, and on the moral plane you have to return it. And the halakhic plane—or the halakhic-legal plane in this case—determines that after despair the object has been abandoned; in the common understanding it is ownerless.

[Speaker C] Rabbi, in Rabbi Kook’s conception, isn’t it really like the third conception, only terminologically he calls it divine morality and human morality? You could still call it two categories, just both under the name morality, as an assumption?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that certainly could be, but there are places—again, I don’t remember all the places right now—there are places where it’s clear that it isn’t. With Rabbi Kook it’s hard to find coherence; I mean, he has lots of statements in lots of contexts, and I’m not sure they can always really be reconciled. But there are places where he explicitly says that if they explained it to you in depth, then you too would understand that this is connected to what you call morality.

[Speaker C] Not that you would manage to see the divine perspective, so to speak?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. There are places where it’s simply that we don’t understand. Meaning, if we think more deeply, we’ll understand the morality in it—not only understand that this is how one ought to act. That’s what it seems to me. Again, for that you’d need to be a bit more…

[Speaker C] Regardless of Rabbi Kook specifically, a lot of times they call it divine morality and human morality. That’s basically saying the same thing while calling both of them morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. So that’s why I’m saying: I don’t care about the words right now; the question is what is meant. And in the end everything comes down to this: are there principles that are not moral principles? That’s really the question. So if I say—and right now I don’t care what we call it, whether this is Rabbi Kook or not, I’m using it only as a heading—the claim is that there are two value systems: a moral system and, let’s call it, maybe a religious system, and in Jewish law both of them have some standing. I said that according to this conception, and only according to this conception, conflicts can really appear. Because if I recognize the existence of two value systems, then even within one value system there can be conflict; so between two different value systems there certainly can be conflict. Now ironically, there are common mistakes here. Someone who is in conflict—this actually means he is ultra-Orthodox, contrary to what people usually think. I’ll try to make this a bit clearer, because I think this is something I still need to complete relative to what I said last time. Look, there are two possibilities for understanding, or arriving at, commitment to a normative system. You can arrive at a normative system from within identification with its values. Meaning, I look at the set of values that this system demands of me, and they seem right to me, and therefore I am committed to the system. But one can also arrive at identification with—or commitment to—the norms of the system not through a detailed examination of the values the system commands, but through some kind of trust in the source of those values. In this case, say, the Holy One Blessed be He, or morality maybe. Or morality—so I don’t know, however you understand the sources of morality. For example, let me give an example, and I think maybe we did talk about this once: the midrash that says that the Holy One Blessed be He went around to all the nations and asked them whether they wanted to receive the Torah. They asked: what is written in it? Do not murder—not for us. Do not steal—not for us. Do not commit adultery—various things of that kind. And with Israel it was immediately, “We will do and we will hear.” Now this midrash has many difficulties, but first of all, on the face of it, what is it trying to say beyond all the difficulties? It’s trying to say exactly this. Namely, that when Israel took upon themselves commitment to the Torah, they did not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —concretely examine the content of the Torah. Why? Because their commitment did not stem from the fact that they identify with the contents, with what the Torah commands them. We didn’t examine that at all. We have some kind of trust in the source of the contents, or a sense of commitment toward the source of the contents, and therefore we are prepared to commit even without checking the contents. More than that: even when we do check the contents, we may see that some of them perhaps do not suit us, or are not understandable, or even anti-understandable—that is, they arouse resistance. Right? But because we have some kind of trust or commitment toward the source of these contents, therefore we are committed.

[Speaker E] Is that why the examples in that aggadah of the seven commandments are things about which there is general agreement—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Moral things—

[Speaker E] —even among those who are not observant. Right. If they had brought, say, redeeming a firstborn donkey or an eye for an eye, then it would be coherent with what you said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why? What they asked the nations was whether they were willing to accept the Torah. They asked what is written in it, and when they presented them with the wares of the Torah, they presented them with moral wares. So what’s the problem? It wasn’t to Israel, it was to the nations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if the nations say, “That doesn’t suit us,” that means they are evaluating the Torah by its content. What difference does it make that the content presented to them was moral content? On the contrary, maybe if Israel had seen it and after they had presented them “do not murder,” “do not steal,” they would have said, yes, yes, okay, we accept—it would have been a kind of deception, because you didn’t present me with the really problematic values, the ones that don’t so easily fit human recognition; you only brought me the things it’s easy for me to identify with. But the presentation of those things was made to the nations, not to Israel.

[Speaker F] But that’s not what the midrash says.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s why I say—

[Speaker F] They showed them the whole Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Israel weren’t shown anything at all.

[Speaker F] No, to the nations of the world. One nation said, everything suits us, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, they weren’t shown the whole Torah. They asked what is written in it; they said, “Do not steal.” As an example. He knew that—my assumption is that he gave them precisely the example that specifically wouldn’t fit them. Why? Because they wanted to test whether they were willing to commit in blank. Meaning, are they willing to commit not because of substantive identification with what’s written in the Torah, but because of commitment to the giver of the Torah? And that’s really what this whole midrash is saying: that the essence of religious commitment is exactly that—not commitment that stems from identifying with the content, but commitment to the source of these things. We already spoke about Maimonides, that one who worships idols out of love or fear is exempt unless he accepted it as a god. Meaning, unconditional commitment independent of the contents—that is the essence of religious commitment. Okay? And that is exactly what this midrash says. I think that’s the straightforward meaning of the midrash. As for all the difficulties beyond that: I talked about how strange it is that they present the nations with precisely those things they were obligated to observe even without accepting the Torah. “Do not steal,” “do not murder”—those are among the seven commandments that even if they are not willing to accept the Torah, they are still required to keep. So what kind of thing is that? It simply makes no sense. It seems to me this answers that too. Because what they want to ask the nations is whether they are willing to accept obligation—obligation by virtue of the command itself. Therefore they present them precisely with those things one can also identify with even without a command, and they want to know: on what basis are you coming? How will I know on what basis you’re coming? I’ll present you with something whose content you can already identify with. Okay? So that doesn’t mean that if you reject the Torah you’ll be exempt from what was presented to you. That’s not the point at all. You’ll be obligated in it anyway. I’m only checking from what point you are willing to be obligated: from the standpoint of command, or from the standpoint of the content of the command itself.

[Speaker B] But if they had said, we’re willing with regard to “do not murder”—fine, we’re not crazy about it, but we’re obligated anyway, so we’ll be willing to accept it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then maybe he would have told them, okay, and what about redeeming a firstborn donkey, or killing Amalek, or I don’t know what, various other things. So it’s a filtering process. The first stage says: okay, let’s first see you on the moral plane, on the basic plane. The same thing with the Talmud in Shabbat 88a, where that Sadducee—or heretic, I don’t remember which—saw Rava and said to him, “A rash people, who put your mouths before your ears”; “you put your mouths before your ears”—what do you mean, you say “We will do and we will hear” before you heard? Because that heretic says: I do not accept a system before I have examined its content. First let’s hear what it says, and then—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that sounds terribly sensible, but it really is not correct. It’s not some nice homily—if plain meaning is plain meaning. It’s simply not correct. Halakhic commitment is not conditioned on my identifying with the content of the command. On the contrary, commitment is measured precisely in those places where I do not identify with the content of the command, and then the question is whether I still do it, whether I am still committed to it. Meaning that all these midrashim are really coming to say exactly this point; they’re not just children’s stories. There is some very, very fundamental point here in understanding the service of God: commitment is based on some sweeping principle and not on a detailed examination of the contents. So if I call this commitment on the basis of some principle, some value—meaning, the principle that gives the values meaning—not on the basis of the values themselves but on the basis of some principle that gives the values meaning: commitment to the commandment, commitment to the Holy One Blessed be He. Now let us think—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —about how a conflict can arise. So last time we spoke about several types of conflicts: there is an accidental conflict and there is an essential conflict. I said that killing Amalek is an essential conflict, because every time you kill Amalek you violate “do not murder.” Therefore it is not like saving life on the Sabbath, say, where the clash between them is accidental.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I understand it this way, if I present things the way I just did, there could even be room for an even more essential clash. A clash between “do not murder” and therefore “yes, murder.” Meaning, on the theoretical level, suppose the Torah did not recognize the value of human life at all. “Yes, murder”: it is a commandment to murder everyone you see. Theoretically, okay? And morality says no. That is still something that could exist. Because if I understand that my commitment to morality is commitment to the source of morality, not to the collection of contents, and my commitment to Torah is commitment to the source of Torah and not to the collection of contents, then there is no obstacle to a clash between the contents. If I examine, like the nations, the contents themselves, then the moment I adopt the system only because I identify with its collection of contents, it is impossible that I would adopt two systems with opposite contents. Either I identify with “yes, murder” or I identify with “do not murder.” It can’t be both.

[Speaker B] No, but “do not murder” in the case of wiping out Amalek is still different—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s why I’m taking it even more extremely. I mean, “do not murder” and “yes, murder”—even something like that is possible on the logical level. Why? Because my commitment to “yes” or “no” murder does not stem from identification with that content, but from its source, from commitment to the source of this Torah. Once that is the root of my commitment, there is no obstacle even to a frontal logical contradiction.

[Speaker E] But commitment toward the one who gives this content—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It—

[Speaker B] —also comes with some reason. I mean, if theoretically the Holy One Blessed be He were some cruel god who commands like Baal, or like sacrificing children—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it also could be that not. Right now I’m not discussing that question, because I spoke about three levels of discussion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is first of all the logical level: is such a thing possible at all? I’m saying that on the logical level it is possible. Now you’re asking whether this fits with the philosophical assumptions about the two systems—that’s already the second level, not the logical one. There is no logical contradiction here, but still, does it—? So you’re speaking on that plane. It could be that from the standpoint of how I conceive the factor to which I am willing to be committed, it has to be moral. Not that I commit to it because of identification with the content of its commands, but that’s some threshold condition. Meaning, without that I’m not willing. Fine—that’s already a demand on the second level, the philosophical level, not the logical level, because on the logical level even the opposite identification is possible. It is possible that I identify with the values the Torah gives and it tells me “yes, murder,” and I identify with morality…

[Speaker B] But even on the logical level, what would be the reason that I would accept the source of authority, logically speaking, if I don’t check?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About that we spoke—I don’t remember when, I think quite a long time ago. The reason is: just because. Yes, yes—intuition.

[Speaker B] Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no more basic principle by which I explain the commitment to the service of God. That is the basic principle.

[Speaker B] But “just because” doesn’t fit with logic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? All logic begins with first premises. “Just because” is a first premise. That whoever created me, for example, I must obey him—or whatever, everyone comes to this from his own direction, but always— I gave exactly this example. What happens when someone asks me, say, why do you serve God? And I tell him: just because.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says, what do you mean, just because? And I’ve had this kind of conversation many times. So what do you mean, just because? Be logical, be rational. I said: tell me, why are you moral? What do you mean? It brings a lot of benefit. And if it doesn’t bring benefit? And if I show you a situation in which the greatest benefit you can derive would be by being immoral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, that’s not good—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that’s not moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I tell him, okay then, so what? Why do you do it? He says, because it’s not moral. I say, okay, what does that mean? I behave morally because it is moral to behave morally. So what you told me was: just because. Meaning, there are two kinds of “just because.” We talked about this last year. There are two kinds of “just because.” There is a “just because” that is arbitrary. Just because I feel like it. I flipped a coin, it came up heads, therefore I serve God. Fine? And there is “just because” in the sense that it is a basic principle that does not require a justification outside itself, meaning that it is so self-evident that it is my basic principle, my axiom. Everything else needs justifications in terms of more fundamental principles. But this is the bottom of the chain; this is where everything begins. So by definition I cannot justify that principle, because that is its very definition—it is the basic value.

[Speaker B] Do you have to justify the justifier?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So they ask me: then what is the justification for the justifying principle itself? At some point it has to stop. Where will it stop? It will stop at that place where I am prepared to say, just because. But “just because” not in the arbitrary sense, rather “just because” in the sense that this is the most fundamental thing for me, because it is self-evident to me.

[Speaker C] Self-explanatory.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly, self-explanatory.

[Speaker C] Regarding whether there are laws like “murder” in the Torah and “do not murder” in morality—here there really would be a logical clash. Because if we’re talking about both from the same place, in the end it’s the same category basically: once it wants me to murder and once it wants me not to.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s my next sentence, that’s my next sentence. So on the principled level I’m saying, when I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —look at the logic of normative systems—I once wrote about this, tried to build a kind of logical theory of normative systems. How do we arrive at commitment? What is the meaning of commitment? Things like that. You can build almost mathematical theorems there about different kinds and the relations between them, and so on. So if I understand the foundation of normative commitment not as coming from a detailed examination of the principles of the norms themselves, but rather, as for example with state law, by the way—my commitment to state law is not because all the laws are just or acceptable to me, or because I checked the whole law book before taking this commitment on myself. I accept this commitment because I understand that I am part of the society. And the institution that legislates this is accepted by me as an authorized institution, without my checking everything it said.

[Speaker B] Not because you have no choice?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I have a choice. I’ll just be careful not to get caught, but in principle I have a choice. That’s not—fine, at worst they’ll catch me and I’ll go to prison. That’s not called commitment, that’s called fear. We’re talking about commitment. People think there is commitment, not just fear. There is supposed to be commitment because I feel I am part of the society. There is an authorized institution; that’s what there is. Meaning, that’s—and then I accept it not through examining the law book, going through it all to see whether it seems reasonable to me, whether it appeals to me. No. I accept it because I recognize the source of the law book, the institution that created it. I am committed to the institution that created it, so it is exactly the same thing. So if that’s so, then—say, with morality it’s not exactly like that. Why? Because there is no book that contains the principles of morality. How do I know what is moral and what is not? I simply examine what seems right to me. Therefore in morality we are used to not making this distinction. Although even in morality, in my opinion at least, the commitment is not because I identify with the values, but because I want to be a good person. But what is a good person? There is no book containing what the generator of goodness determines. If there were such a book, it could be that even if values appeared there that did not seem right to me, I would have to obey them. But there is no such book. How do I know what is written in this book? Do you know what the name of that Hungarian mathematician was?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Erdős. Erdős. He was always talking about a proof from the Book, a proof from the Book. “The Book.” Meaning—and now I saw there came out—there came out—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —a book of proofs from the Book, Proofs from The Book. Right? Now the Book is like the book of the Holy One Blessed be He, meaning whoever finds a super-elegant mathematical proof, a really beautiful one, they say: that’s a proof from the Book. As if the Holy One Blessed be He has, in His hidden treasury, a book with perfect proofs like that. Sometimes there’s something you see and… it’s a work of art. That’s a proof from the Book. I downloaded it from the internet. A book came out of proofs from the Book.

[Speaker B] Meaning, there are a lot of collections of things—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that are easy to prove and yet they still manage to prove them. Yes, exactly.

[Speaker B] Very elegantly, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying that on the logical level, once I understand that my commitment to a system does not come from a detailed examination of the principles of the system, but from commitment to the giver or the generator of the system, there is no obstacle at all to a contradiction arising on the logical level. Okay? Now with morality—morality is an exception, say, relative to law or relative to Jewish law. Morality is an exception because in morality this doesn’t happen.

[Speaker G] In morality it isn’t some universal topic, some kind of thing you accept because—you belong to human beings, so whatever is accepted among human beings as—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re already saying that morality is some kind of agreement, some convention. Somehow. I’ll talk about that later. For now I’m not getting into that yet; that’s another question. But morality misleads people here, because in morality it is obvious that you won’t act according to a principle that does not seem moral to you. Because in morality—maybe not the source of morality’s validity, but the source by which I recognize morality, where do I draw the laws from? From my conscience. Meaning, I don’t have a book that I open and see what is moral and what is not.

[Speaker C] Right, theoretically there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You have books, I mean—

[Speaker C] —a professor of ethics, if you know—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Theoretically yes, but in practice for most of us it doesn’t work that way. And therefore people miss this when they think about Jewish law and law in general, because in Jewish law and legal systems it’s not like that. And I think that even in morality, by the way, it’s not like that. I mean not like that in the sense that I’m committed to morality not because the content of the moral command seems right to me, but because I am committed to being moral. There is some sort of principle there from which all the specific norms derive, and to that I am committed. Now true, in that case it always—

[Speaker B] —corresponds, the categorical—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The categorical imperative, the categorical imperative, whatever. Right now I’m not even getting into what that principle is, but there is some principle to which I am committed. For me it is even the Holy One Blessed be He, not the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is the principle that dictates what is moral, but when I ask why be moral, or why am I obligated—not what defines a thing as moral or immoral—then I say, for example, I’m obligated to it because the Holy One Blessed be He demands of me that I be moral, okay? So there is still this distinction that I am making in Jewish law and in law in general, between commitment to the contents and commitment to the source. Therefore, for example, Rabbi Kook is willing to accept—in this sense I agree with him—Rabbi Kook is willing to speak about commitment to moral principles that appear to us immoral. That appear to us immoral—so why do you think they are moral? Because Rabbi Kook argues that I am committed to the generator of morality, to the Holy One Blessed be He. And if He had opened my ears, or if I had understood the matter fully, I would understand why it is moral.

[Speaker C] Are you calling that common denominator what you call the will of God, or are you calling it morality? It’s all the will of God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right. So that’s why I’m saying—you’re going back to your previous comment—but I’m saying, regardless of that question, this conception of Rav Kook, even if I personally don’t accept it, that’s beside the point—but how can such a view arise? It can arise because this same distinction exists with respect to morality as well. I’m committed to the source of morality, and therefore to all the norms that flow from it, okay? Rav Kook also accepts that distinction. It’s just that Rav Kook says: my way of determining what counts as moral and what doesn’t—not the question of why I’m obligated or the source of my obligation, but simply the classificatory principle, meaning what defines something for me as moral or not really moral—that is not found within me; it is found in the Torah, or not only in me, also in me. Rav Kook does recognize our intuition. But it is also found in the Torah. And if the Torah says something that contradicts my intuition, then apparently my intuition is mistaken here, and that is in fact the moral thing. So that itself means that he sees the system of morality exactly like the system of law and Jewish law. Meaning, he is committed to the source of morality and does not examine each norm separately to see whether it seems right to him or not, okay? I, for example, disagree with him regarding morality, because I think that what is moral is what appears moral to me. I’m not willing to accept, as a diagnostic principle—that is, what counts as moral and what doesn’t—I’m not willing to accept that. I do agree with him that the obligation to morality is not because of an obligation to each separate principle, but because of the obligation to be good or moral. There is some sort of overarching principle that I am committed to, and all these are just eruptions of it. Okay. So once I understand that commitment to a normative system is not because of the system’s contents, then on the logical level—and right now I’m still speaking at the first level—there is no reason at all why there couldn’t even be a full frontal contradiction. When the religious principle tells you “yes, murder,” and the moral principle tells you “do not murder,” such a situation could exist. Then I’m in a very difficult dilemma, but that dilemma is not logically impossible. In other words, it’s possible; such a situation can exist. On the contrary, by the way, those nations—the gentiles—whom the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to before giving them the Torah, they could never be in conflict. Even if they had accepted the Torah, they would not have been in conflict. Why? Because why did they accept the Torah? Because they examined the principles. So if a conflicting principle arises, they simply won’t be obligated to it; conflict cannot arise. In other words, ironically—against the usual intuitions—it is precisely the more fanatical religious conception that allows, or only within it can there exist, conflict with morality. Precisely in the supposedly more humanistic conception, the more, let’s call it, modern conception in some sense—the conception of identification—precisely there, conflict cannot exist. It’s a less complex conception. The conception of obligation. That fanaticism.

[Speaker C] Here it’s easy to decide. What? There is a conflict here, but here it’s easy to decide, even someone who…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—there won’t be a conflict.

[Speaker C] He says there’s a clash here, but clearly I’ll go with—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—there won’t be a conflict. A conflict is a conflict between two—not just between two systems, but between two systems to which I’m committed.

[Speaker C] Committed. Let’s say someone very liberal—is he committed to morality, is he committed to the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he’s not committed. He’ll go with the moral system. No, no—that’s a mistake. A mistake. Because if he checks his commitment according to the contents, then he’s not committed. So there is no conflict. By logical definition there cannot be a conflict. Meaning, someone who accepts the Torah out of identification—or morality, or whatever it may be—if both sides are out of identification, by the way. If one is out of identification and one is based on some value principle, then there can be conflict. If both sides are out of… he accepts them out of identification, conflict is impossible. Meaning that in the world of, let’s call him, the Reform Jew, right? Or maybe even—I don’t know, these are generalizations—but a modern religious person often thinks this way too: that basically he accepts the system because it is the best system. Meaning, he examines the system by its contents. He doesn’t accept it like the fanatics just because it is written, or just because we were commanded. Precisely in the world of those who are always talking about conflicts, conflict cannot appear. It cannot. There is no such thing. By logical definition, already on the first level, not the second, there cannot be conflict in such a system. Meaning, conflict can arise only among fanatics. And that’s Leibowitz. I think that’s what people don’t grasp about Leibowitz. Leibowitz keeps saying that morality is an atheistic category on the one hand, and on the other hand he constantly rebukes us about Judeo-Nazis and the corruption of occupation and things of that kind. And the answer is that precisely because of this Leibowitzian stance—because he accepts the Torah not because it is moral; he accepts the Torah because of unconditional commitment to the One who gave it—that’s exactly why with such a person a double commitment can arise, one that leads to states of conflict.

[Speaker F] Only with

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Such a person can it arise.

[Speaker B] Why not with the modern religious person?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, “modern religious” is just a label, but the type I was talking about—because if you evaluate the system through its contents, then you already went through all 613 commandments before deciding to accept it, and they all looked good to you. Right? Now there is another system in which there is a commandment to eat pork, okay? You won’t accept obligation to it, because you evaluate the system in light of an item-by-item examination of the contents, not in light of the generator of the system. So by definition, if you accepted this one, you won’t accept that one, and vice versa. So you will never be in a state of conflict. A state of conflict is always created when I examine the system and accept it blanko.

[Speaker B] Not always with both contents—with this more—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—I’m talking about a frontal contradiction. A content and its opposite. Not like saving life and the Sabbath—that, obviously, I spoke about last time. I mean a content and its opposite in the most head-on way possible.

[Speaker B] What conflict can

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] arise for someone called ultra-Orthodox?

[Speaker B] What conflict would there be? What’s the problem?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He is committed to morality, he is committed to Jewish law, and they issue contradictory directives.

[Speaker B] But that already starts from the assumption that morality is an independent system and not part of the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, wait—I’m speaking now on the logical level. On the logical level, such a conflict cannot arise—cannot arise—for that other person. For the ultra-Orthodox person, such a conflict can arise. Now you’re asking what one does with it. Fine, we’ll discuss that.

[Speaker B] There won’t be a conflict. I’m committed to the Torah; anything that contradicts the Torah is not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re committed to that too. It’s just possible that the Torah overrides it. If you’re not committed, fine, then no conflict has arisen. But I’m saying: someone who is also committed to the moral issue—there the conflict can arise. I didn’t say that everyone who is ultra-Orthodox is by definition in conflict. I know many who aren’t. Not really—but I’m only saying that only there can it appear.

[Speaker C] Like halakhic decisors who issue a ruling and cry.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hm? Yes, exactly—shooting and crying, yes. Meaning, the conflict can appear precisely among the fanatics. That’s what people don’t understand.

[Speaker B] No, but among fanatics—fanatics really means someone who has no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so that’s what Idan said. No, no—so I’m saying, I’m talking about fanaticism according to the definition I gave here. According to the definition the midrash gives: why did I accept the Torah? Just because the Holy One, blessed be He, said that this is what must be done. Not because pork is beneficial and moral and all kinds of explanations—no, but because of commitment to the command. It’s that kind of fanaticism I’m dealing with here. Now there is a second level of fanaticism that says there is nothing besides that. Fine, that’s another discussion.

[Speaker B] There will always be conflict for someone who stands both here and here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so what’s the question?

[Speaker B] Among the few religious people and the religious—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s already a question of what people mean when they say that, but still one has to understand: there is a conception here that is seemingly more fanatical, never mind for the moment whether it is the fanatic conception. A more fanatical conception—and specifically only someone who holds it can find himself in conflict. Liberals cannot be in conflict. They cannot. Not that they solve it this way, not that they’re sloppy—no. By definition, within the conception itself, it cannot happen.

[Speaker I] Leibowitz is the best example.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, Leibowitz is an excellent example. And I think this is one of the things people missed about him, because—as I told you—there’s an article by Eliezer Goldman on this, about this contradiction in Leibowitz. Yes? On the one hand he says morality is an atheistic category and he is committed only to the Holy One, blessed be He, and nothing else and none besides Him; and on the other hand he constantly rebukes us morally. So what is it? So it’s not—he says it’s an atheistic category, but I’m committed to it too. The fact that it’s an atheistic category doesn’t mean I’m not committed to it. I’m committed to the religious category, I’m committed to the atheistic category, and sometimes I’m in conflict. Sometimes. And sometimes not—sometimes it works out.

[Speaker C] Why wouldn’t it make sense to say that it’s an atheistic category?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Fine, I’m saying, but that was his conception. Did he think that? Yes, that’s what he said, that’s what he wrote. I don’t know what he thought; I know what he wrote. And here of course we have to bring in the next layers of the discussion. Because really the question is whether, if morality is—

[Speaker B] A category to which he is committed, the atheistic category?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? He didn’t write that he was committed; that’s what generated all the contradictions. But the fact that he rebuked people on moral grounds—there, he had no halakhic anchor for that rebuke. Morality was constantly a guiding light for him and for his thinking, even though he constantly wrote that it is an atheistic category. That’s what Eliezer Goldman wrote an article about, and that’s how he explained it, and I think rightly so. That really is the correct explanation. Again, I’m not saying this in order to explain Leibowitz, but in order to understand this position—that is, this normative state of duality. There is normative duality: I am committed to two normative systems, so I am liable to find myself in conflict. But if I’m not committed to the normative system, and instead I scan its contents and then conclude that they seem right to me and therefore I do them, then I will never be in conflict.

[Speaker I] It’s not certain that this person

[Speaker B] is religious.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another question—a big question. I also think he isn’t.

[Speaker I] Halivni writes this in his farewell speech to the people—this Armageddon thing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know the speech, but he—

[Speaker I] He parted from them. He spoke to women rabbis: you are people of Jewish law. Today in every confrontation between morality and Torah, we know in advance who wins. So you are not religion. I’m resigning—from everything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Although I’m not sure how sincere he was about that, because it’s ridiculous—that whole thing about women rabbis, to make that the issue. What exactly is the problem with women being—where does Jewish law say they can’t? Fine, I think it wasn’t really that. He felt the whole

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] system was not like that, and he latched onto this issue—that’s how it seems to me at least. Because it really is such an incorrect point. As if you were willing to accept all the nonsense they do, but not this? That they appoint women rabbis? Check what these women know, not whether they’re women or not. Check what they know, or what the men know.

[Speaker I] He meant the process—that the Conservatives reached this conclusion through a moral process and not a halakhic one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, because there is no halakhic problem with this issue. What is the halakhic problem with it? Anyway, never mind. I never understood that. You’d have to ask him sometime—never mind now—Halivni. I never understood that point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, in any case, so—

[Speaker I] Let’s go back to the Talmud from a few years ago, so that’s just completing the point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I was in the middle. So if I understand—but of course if the source of morality is also the Holy One, blessed be He, then I return to what I said last time. If commitment to morality also stems from commitment to the will of God, like halakhic commitment—no, not the Hazon Ish. I do not identify morality with Jewish law. I identify morality as something that is also an expression of God’s will, but it is still two categories. God’s will appears in two systems: there is the halakhic system and there is the moral system, and both obligate me, but both come from one source. If so, then I accept your point that probably the kind of frontal contradiction I mentioned earlier really cannot exist. A contradiction of the frontal kind—the Holy One, blessed be He, tells you “yes, murder” and also “do not murder”—that’s not likely. Though maybe possible, I don’t know. Morally yes and halakhically no, maybe—but that is already far less likely. But I’m saying, for example, in Leibowitz’s position, certainly morality is an atheistic category and Jewish law is of course commitment to the will of God—there is absolutely no obstacle to conflict, and now one has to decide each time what to do. How one decides—that’s another question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But as for the existence of conflict, there’s no problem with it at all. Okay, so that’s a supplement to last time.

[Speaker J] Now—and this is already the second layer. What? The second layer, the philosophical one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the claim is: what is the nature of this system? Am I willing to accept that this system might have an immoral character? That’s the second layer. In principle yes: Jewish law can have an immoral character, and then it will clash with morality. But the existence of such a conflict is possible logically and can also be possible philosophically.

[Speaker B] If it has an immoral character, then basically you’re saying—you allow that Jewish law to be immoral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it isn’t immoral. It has values other than morality. I told you that last time.

[Speaker B] That’s not the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, it’s not the same thing. It has goals besides the moral goal. I said that what I mentioned was that this conception—that morality is the fundamental goal, or the main goal, or the ultimate goal, let’s say—seems implausible to me. Because it’s like the Chinese fellow with the—yes—the two pennies. Morality, in the simple sense, is something instrumental. Not in the sense that it is not of value, but it comes to create a more complete human being and a more ordered society.

[Speaker C] And those are already purposes and reasons.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s why I’m saying: it’s not the goal in the sense of why it was wanted, but overall that is its function, that is what it enables. So to say that there is only that thing sounds less plausible to me than to say that I need an ordered society and a more complete person so that one can begin to work. And those are the religious goals. Meaning, the moral goals build some initial infrastructure such that, once it exists—once the person and society are in order—now one can begin to work. But to say that an ordered society is the goal—that sounds a bit strange, because an ordered society? Then don’t create society at all so that it won’t need ordering. Why did you create the whole story in the first place?

[Speaker G] Proper conduct precedes the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This society has some purpose. Now, in order for that purpose to be realized, you need an ordered society. So I understand morality as floor one, and on top of that, once that is arranged—what?

[Speaker B] Are there two levels in Rav Kook?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: in many places with Rav Kook, you see that there are not two levels. He claims that everything is morality. That’s what he claims. Everything—even what you don’t understand, inside its core is—

[Speaker I] Basically—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] aiming at a moral purpose.

[Speaker I] At a certain level it all comes down to—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ve come back—if he really uses the word “morality” in a different sense, then I said nothing. But I’m saying: in this conception that everything is morality—and there are such conceptions—

[Speaker I] then it’s clear that he doesn’t solve any problem, because if I kill one Amalekite because it’s written in the Torah, as a religious Jew—but on the moral side, maybe I’ll do it together with the rabbi, maybe. But we’ll cry. Meaning, on our moral side, within morality itself there can be conflict. Why would you do it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Why would you do it? Because I accepted… Either there are values above morality, or Rav Kook will tell you that the true moral values are to kill him, and still killing a person is worthy of tears—shooting and crying.

[Speaker I] According to Rav Kook, if the person who acts—who fulfills the commandment against his moral imperative—cries, yes, then that means there isn’t this harmony? I’m not sure.

[Speaker F] Even if you take two

[Speaker I] moral values,

[Speaker F] it could happen.

[Speaker I] Take two moral values—you could have such a clash. I’m sure our public, even before Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s ruling, would see a gentile in danger on the Sabbath and would save him without thinking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s ruling.

[Speaker I] You can make a

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] gesture of

[Speaker I] kindness and cry over the moral burden of the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Hatam Sofer? What? That’s much earlier already. The Hatam Sofer. But that’s not, among the decisors, a moral statement. What? Among the decisors it is not a moral statement—saving a gentile on the Sabbath.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s “for the sake of peace” or tricks of that kind.

[Speaker I] Okay, in any case—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So on this issue of the source of morality, that can indeed have implications for the existence of such conflicts. On the logical level, it is possible. But on the level—and now I’m moving to the second layer—of how I understand moral obligation: if I understand moral obligation as obligation to the source of morality, then it may be that such conflicts really cannot appear. Even there I’m not sure, but it may be they cannot appear, because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants this and also wants the opposite, and somehow that seems implausible.

[Speaker C] So the question arises what the difference really is. The difference is how—two categories that I recognize in different ways? Their purposes are a bit different.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in that conception that’s all it is. Yes, just that.

[Speaker C] No, and also he says the purposes are a bit different.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, obviously. And from my point of view, right—I arrive at them through different routes—

[Speaker C] And this—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] one through leafing through a book, and one through looking inward. Yes, right. Now, one more point—and I’ve been struggling with this for years already. It seems to me theoretically yes, and yet in my gut I feel this goes a bit too far. Meaning, I think the Leibowitzian conception that says morality is an atheistic category—that this is idolatry in partnership. I wonder how literally that should be taken—actual idolatry—or whether only the idea is problematic. Why? Because you are basically accepting two different sources of normative validity. So you’re essentially saying: the Holy One, blessed be He, obligates me, and the atheistic god—the god morality—also obligates me. Two gods obligating me.

[Speaker C] Or does that mean it has no validity at all, really?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—no, but someone who says it does, so that’s why I’m talking about this split.

[Speaker C] Isn’t saying that sentence the same as saying that really it has no validity?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, but it—

[Speaker C] to do what your Goldman says—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] says, what Goldman said earlier—no, not like that. He says: it’s an atheistic category, but it obligates me. And then that means that you are in fact committed to two normative sources in parallel—to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to something else. Now, true, that “something else” is not some idol made of wood and stone. True. What—is there some law that an idol must have mass? What if there is an abstract idol? A non-personal idol—or I don’t know if non-personal, but not massive, not possessing mass, not taking up space? But still, I understand there to be some other source of normative validity besides the Holy One, blessed be He. Is that not dualism? Partnership? I don’t know. Again, theory tells me necessarily yes—unequivocally yes. But again, the feeling is—I know many good Jews who would tell me this, that this is their conception. Either they don’t interpret themselves correctly, or they really are worshipping in partnership, or I’m missing something. I don’t know. On this matter I’m not fully at peace with the conclusion my cold analysis leads me to. But in cold analysis, it seems to me that this is the unavoidable conclusion.

[Speaker B] He never said there is a category—at least as far as I know—he never said he was committed to the category.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said—it’s Goldman.

[Speaker B] It’s Goldman interpreting.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But listen—he rebukes us.

[Speaker B] So why does he rebuke us?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It follows. Why does he rebuke us? Because he is committed to morality. He is committed—come on—he never writes that. That’s exactly it, because he always writes what goes against what everyone wants to hear. To say “I’m committed to morality” is nonsense; it interests nobody. He has to say morality is an atheistic category. And then what—a halakhic category obligates too? No, no, no—unequivocally. He says morality is an atheistic category.

[Speaker B] But many times when he attacks certain actions, he understands from Jewish law the source of the attack?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. That’s a different type of attack.

[Speaker B] When someone else thinks he is in fact observing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different attack. He kept Jewish law, so he—

[Speaker B] He didn’t attack it because of a religious category?

[Speaker H] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Usually his rebukes were not religious rebukes. Sometimes he said—yes—those attacks about omissions of “I am the Lord,” “walk humbly,” and you omit “with the Lord your God,” the Reali school, “walk humbly,” or “and you shall do what is right and good,” things like that—yes, he often attacked the omission of “I am the Lord.” Certainly, certainly yes. Okay. So that’s regarding conflicts. But on the other hand, many times there are situations where we think there is a conflict, and it seems to me that’s not true. Meaning, the other side of the coin. On the one hand, I want to put on the table the conception that says that the existence of conflicts is not problematic at all. Not problematic theoretically. You have to decide what to do with it, but there is no theoretical problem with conflict appearing in my spiritual or moral or religious world, or whatever. No problem with that, on the one hand. On the other hand, there is no commandment to go hunting for conflicts. Meaning, there are quite a few halakhot that seem to contradict morality, and I’m not sure that’s true. In modern eyes we tend to see them that way, and I think here we are somewhat captive to an incorrect way of looking at the sources, and it is not really a conflict. So I also want to place that on the table.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s maybe give an example. Discriminations, say, between Jew and gentile. Discriminations between Jew and gentile look very troubling to the modern eye. Morality is supposed to be universal; meaning, a person as a person, insofar as he is a person—Leibowitz too with the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So these discriminations look irritating to the modern eye. But here I want to blunt the sting a little, if not erase it entirely—at least blunt it somewhat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First, there is Maimonides. Maimonides writes in his Commentary on the Mishnah on Bava Kamma—there is a pretty shocking mishnah there, actually. There are several, but… on 113, there is “thirty-seven”… anyway.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “If an ox belonging to an Israelite gores an ox belonging to a Canaanite, he is exempt; and if an ox belonging to a Canaanite gores an ox belonging to an Israelite, whether innocent or forewarned, he pays full damages.” Meaning, if a gentile’s ox gores ours, he pays full damages even if it is an innocent ox. And if ours gores his, even if it is forewarned, he is exempt—totally exempt. The Talmud there discusses it; it brings that story with the two gentiles who came to examine and study Torah, and then suddenly everything seemed fine to them, everything worked out except this—that when a Jew and a gentile come before a judge, he judges according to whichever legal system is more beneficial to the Jew. Meaning, he judges according to the Torah if the Jew comes out on top in that system, and according to the gentile’s system if the Jew comes out on top in that system. In other words, the gentile gets hit from every direction. So what? Here Maimonides writes: “When a legal case arises between an Israelite and a Canaanite, the procedure between them is as follows: if under their laws we have an advantage, we judge them according to their laws and say to them, ‘Such is your law.’ And if under our laws it is better for us, we judge them according to our laws and say to him, ‘Such is our law.’” By the way, this is a very interesting point. The Mishnah Berurah brings this—actually earlier sources already do, but the Mishnah Berurah is already practically our era—and it amazes me every time I read it. He says: one may not violate a Torah-level Sabbath prohibition in order to save a gentile. Now that’s halakhah, that is the essential law: one may not violate a Torah-level Sabbath prohibition to save a gentile. And he says—he knows, of course, there are issues of appearances, concern for danger to life, that gentiles will kill us if we don’t save them—he says: what are you talking about? They will understand, because they understand that the Sabbath is terribly important to us. And since according to our law it is clearly very severe, you tell them: this is a Torah prohibition, we cannot save you. And what about your friends, whom you do save by violating a Torah prohibition? That he doesn’t write there—and apparently the gentiles are supposed to accept that too. In other words, again, I’m saying: assuming he was not so detached, maybe there’s something to this. Try for a moment to get into that mindset. In a world where people understand that there are binding religious systems—our world today is secular in its general mode of thought, and therefore morality is conceived as something universal. In that older world, even not so long ago—a hundred years ago, but certainly before that—it was a different world. A world in which almost everyone lived within a religious atmosphere: there are religious principles, religious duties, and everyone understands that the other has a different religion of his own. And it may be—I don’t know, it’s hard for me to understand—but if intelligent people say this and they aren’t totally detached, then apparently he thought such a thing really would be accepted. Meaning, if we say: look, we don’t violate the Sabbath because it’s forbidden, it’s a religious prohibition, what can we do? We very much want to save you, but there is a religious prohibition here. And it is not supposed to bother them that for Jews we do violate the Sabbath to save them, because that same religious system says that too. So this conception is interesting, because in our world it would not be accepted, but in that world it would. And this is what, when I read Maimonides now, we say to him: “Such is our law.” A person comes—“such is our law,” this is how we judge. It’s not his law, and he comes out losing, and we say to him, “Such is our law,” and that is supposed to calm him down. Yes, it’s the same idea as in the Mishnah Berurah. And then he says, “And let it not trouble you,” because maybe it calms him down, but what about us? As the students of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai say: “You have pushed him off with straw, but what do you say to us?” So he says: “And let it not trouble you, for one who does not possess the perfection of human traits—meaning the qualities of justice between man and his fellow man that sustain human society—is not truly included within the category of man.” “And this matter would require a discussion of its own.” Meiri also expands on this issue. And basically his claim is that if someone is a gentile, he is not a human being; he does not possess the human traits, he—

[Speaker B] Not those bounded by the ways of the Torah—the Meiri parallel to that in Bava Kamma there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the Meiri parallel to this is one of the sources, but there are dozens of places. Meiri also brings this Maimonides, and I thought this was one of the mistakes—wait, maybe I’ll comment on that.

[Speaker F] He disagrees with him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, Meiri does not. Wait—the question whether he disagrees with him or not is an interesting one. I think he does not disagree with him—but in a moment. Maimonides is basically telling us: once they have no moral and legal rules, why should I behave toward them by those rules? Think about us today. Many times there is, again, without taking a political position on sensitive issues, but many times there is a feeling that people—ourselves and others—demand standards from us that the side facing us does not really observe. And the question is whether that is justified. Some will say yes. The fact that they do not observe them does not mean you shouldn’t, but you need to preserve human dignity.

[Speaker C] Maybe they have no choice; I do have a choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And again, in a place where the confrontation is between you and them—then certainly. Why do we prefer to kill animals and eat them rather than—

[Speaker C] A confrontation with them is something else, but as a principle that says they don’t have such an ethic—that’s not a rule, it doesn’t hold.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a place where people tell you that when there is a conflict between us and them, our hand is uppermost. There is a place where they tell you: listen, you can do more, but you are not obligated to. Meaning, of course there are several levels of relating to this lack of morality. There are places where they will tell you, “No—treat them immorally, because they deserve to take a hit for not being moral.” Precisely because they are not animals but human beings who chose to behave this way, so give them a sanction so that they will understand the consequences of their actions. The Talmud says: “He stood and saw and relinquished their property to Israel”—He saw that the gentiles do not observe the seven Noahide commandments and therefore permitted their property to Israel. Yes, this law that robbing a gentile is not forbidden by Torah law—there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), but according to some of them, robbing a gentile is not forbidden by Torah law.

[Speaker B] Meaning, it’s educational robbery?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You could say that. Meaning, there is: if you do not observe this, you cannot expect us to observe this. So first of all, as to your complaint against us—correct yourself first. You don’t observe it, so what do you want from me? Now one can come and argue: fine, not because of their complaints against me, but because I myself want to behave like a human being. That is another claim, one worth considering. But one has to understand that there is something to this issue of reciprocity. Meaning, in a world where gentiles do not return lost property, for example—and that is not the situation today. Today, I don’t know whether gentiles return lost property less than Jews; I don’t even want to say the opposite. But suppose there is a world in which gentiles do not return lost property—that is the world the Sages describe to us. I assume they knew what they were talking about. That was the situation. The Sages and the medieval authorities (Rishonim), yes? Meaning, they do not return lost property, and Jews do. So now what am I supposed to do—take a gentile’s lost object, invest effort in it, guard it—and that requires quite a bit of effort, as the Talmud in These Found Objects says, to care for a lost object and all sorts of things, air it out, and so on and so forth—in order to return the object, when he himself, had he found my lost object, would have just taken it and that’s it? If your neighbor doesn’t return lost objects—

[Speaker C] and you found his lost object, would you return it to him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying: in a place where there is a whole group for whom that is the value—if it’s one person who failed, he failed. If it’s a whole group for whom that is the value, then yes, I can understand a conception that says not to return lost property to such a group. Even as a sanction. Even as a sanction. Meaning, if only as that, but perhaps even more than that. That’s the point. Now often there is a situation—

[Speaker C] I think the opposite would be better education.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hm? Fine, that’s another matter. That’s already a question of educational approach. It may very well be, by the way. And it can also vary from one period to another.

[Speaker C] I think what advanced the world morally was that people saw that this is how one behaves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so I’m saying, that’s an educational question, and it may also be a function of the time. There are periods in which the more appropriate education is with a stick, and periods in which the more appropriate education is by personal example, or with a carrot, yes. Fine, a legitimate argument.

[Speaker C] But this Maimonides you brought—what is his halakhic source? Meaning, where does it come from in the Torah that a gentile—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember whether the Talmud brings a verse here. Reasoning? Maybe the Talmud brings a verse; I don’t remember right now. Ah—here it is, the Talmud I mentioned earlier: “He stood and measured the earth, He saw and released the nations”—He saw that they do not observe the seven commandments… it appears here. I forgot that this is the Talmudic passage here. That He saw they do not observe their seven commandments, and He permitted their property to Israel. So actually you do see here, by the way, that strictly speaking this is not fundamentally true. Strictly speaking, if the gentiles behaved properly, there would be no such rule.

[Speaker B] Only—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—either a sanction or reciprocity. It’s like Rabbi Akiva and Ben Petora, yes? The two who are walking in the desert—“and your brother shall live with you.” And then he says there’s some terribly strange difficulty that Ben Petora asks Rabbi Akiva—Rabbi Akiva asks Ben Petora, sorry. He says, if you yourself will not have water, then you also will not give someone else water…? Or if others won’t give you water, then you won’t give someone else water? It’s not exactly a conception of reciprocity—never mind, there in the Talmud, I need to look at it again. There too there is some kind of reciprocity conception. Meaning, basically you are not giving him the water because you yourself do not have water. It’s some idea that I do not need to worry about my fellow more than my own condition. Even if he is not to blame for it; the standard is my own situation. I do not need to care for my fellow more than my own state. That is a conception of reciprocity even more extreme than what I am speaking about here.

[Speaker C] That’s opposed to turning the other cheek.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay.

[Speaker B] Modern law—this is the problem with international law—that there are supposedly prohibitions—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that are not contingent on the other side and on reciprocity.

[Speaker B] Say they bombard Tel Aviv with dozens of missiles—is it permitted to fire back at Damascus—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To the modern eye, this is hard to understand. But when you look at it this way, and also take into account the factual assumption that the gentiles—at least back then—were in a condition where even basic human behaviors were lacking, then one has to be careful about anachronism. Meaning, today we look at the gentiles around us and with our standards, and we have some criticism of these rabbinic or halakhic determinations. But if we enter the context, it’s not as terrible as it looks. That’s one point.

[Speaker C] A second point—this is a point that most continue even until

[Speaker B] today.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, those who are stuck—that’s another matter.

[Speaker B] To say that yes, once it was like that, today the conditions have changed and therefore we need to behave differently—you can solve it that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here the Talmud itself even says that, so it’s much easier. Although in my opinion you could do it even without that.

[Speaker F] But if they don’t observe the seven Noahide commandments, then you can act this way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That maybe—I’ll continue now with the Meiri, since you brought it up. You said earlier that the Meiri disagrees with Maimonides. I think the Meiri does not disagree with Maimonides. On the contrary: the Meiri is drawn from this Maimonides. Because what does the Meiri say? In many dozens of places, maybe even more, every place where there is some discrimination between gentiles and Jews, he says: all these things apply to the ancient nations, who were not bounded by the civilized norms of the nations. But today, when the gentiles around us are bounded by the civilized norms of the nations, then their law is like that of Israel in every respect. He repeats this many times, in many places. Some say this was out of fear of censorship. I think that’s nonsense. Out of fear of censorship, you write it in big letters on the first page so the censor will see it, because the censor usually doesn’t read the small print. But he specifically did not write it outside in big print, at least not as printed. And within every passage, in dozens of places, he doesn’t write it just to discharge an obligation; rather, in every place he repeats this principle. It is perfectly clear that he means it seriously. And many times—or usually—people learn that the Meiri understood that the gentiles in his time were not idol worshippers.

[Speaker B] He lived in a Christian environment in Provence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He lived in a Catholic Christian environment. Yes, so Catholicism was what there was; there wasn’t anything else. He lived in a Catholic Christian environment and says that the gentiles of his time were not idol worshipers. Now, one of the big difficulties—there are several difficulties with this—one difficulty is that Yaakov Katz has an article about it. So he says: if so, then why didn’t he permit Christian ritual objects? If they’re not idol worshipers, then their ritual objects should also have been permitted. And you don’t find consistently, in all the places that discuss the prohibition of ritual objects, this comment of the Meiri. Then he starts getting into philosophies, saying he didn’t dare go that far because these were implications that were too far-reaching of his philosophical view, and so on, and he constructs some philosophical move there that, in my opinion, has no basis whatsoever. And the reason is much simpler: he thinks they are idol worshipers. That’s why he does not permit the ritual objects. Right. So what is the point? They are idol worshipers, but moral idol worshipers. Yes. Now his great innovation—and maybe it’s an even bigger innovation—is that idol worship is not always moral corruption. In the words of the Sages, it often comes together with moral corruption. They sacrificed their sons to Molech, they committed adultery, they murdered, yes. But who says that everyone who violates the formal prohibition of idolatry is also a morally corrupt person? What—can’t there be an idol worshiper who is a good, moral person? The Meiri says: look, around me I see such people. Now the big question is—and this is an interpretive question—how to understand all the discriminations. Are those discriminations a result of their being idol worshipers, or are those discriminations a rule about immoral people? In Brisker language, right? Is this a rule about idol worshipers, or is it a rule about immoral people? For the Sages, that distinction was meaningless, because the categories overlapped. But in a place where you suddenly discover someone immoral who is not an idol worshiper, or someone who is an idol worshiper but moral, there will be a practical difference. Right. Now the question is—the Meiri says: I think this is a rule about immoral people, not a rule about idol worshipers. Therefore all the discriminations on the human, moral plane are nullified. But ritual objects are forbidden because this is idolatrous worship, and then the whole question and that whole article become entirely unnecessary. You don’t need to get to Yaakov Katz’s explanation. It seems to me that this is what the Meiri means. Now where does he get this from? One of the big difficulties with the Meiri is: why doesn’t he say that he is departing from the path of Maimonides? The Meiri was a clear Maimonidean. Fine, he can disagree with Maimonides, but usually he writes, “the great compilers wrote”—Maimonides is “the great compilers”—and then he disagrees, or brings a dissenting opinion, or disagrees himself. That happens sometimes. But here, to go so fundamentally against Maimonides without saying a word—and he brings Maimonides in this very topic, he does bring Maimonides—so why don’t you say something? Because he is not disagreeing with Maimonides; he is taking his words from Maimonides. That Maimonides who says—and this is Talmud, as I told you earlier, but Maimonides certainly sharpens it. I just read what he says. Why do we discriminate against gentiles? Because they ceased being human beings; they did not keep the seven Noahide commandments. That is exactly the same midrash I brought at the beginning—the midrash about what is written: “Do not steal”—that doesn’t seem acceptable to us, or “Do not murder”—that doesn’t seem acceptable to us. That is exactly the midrash we are talking about: that they do not want to keep the seven Noahide commandments. So if that is so, then we treat them in a discriminatory manner. But exactly, says the Meiri, then what is the obvious conclusion? That if they go back to behaving like human beings—and again, the assumption is that to behave like human beings includes the prohibition of idolatry, which is also one of the seven Noahide commandments—but if they are moral people, then the Jewish law returns to its original state, and then it is forbidden to rob them, and voiding their loan is forbidden, and one must return their lost object. Everything—Torah-level prohibitions. No, he is not talking only about changing rabbinic laws; he is talking about Torah laws, everything. It is a wonderful interpretive reading of the reason for the verse, but the Talmud itself makes this exposition. Therefore the Meiri not only does not disagree with Maimonides—his source is Maimonides. Because Maimonides explains all this by saying that the gentiles do not keep the seven commandments. So if they are in fact moral, then we return to the original place. So he does not need to say that he disagrees with Maimonides, because he does not disagree; he is simply following him—that is where it comes from. That is one point. Second point.

[Speaker B] Is he saying that the Meiri did not say about the… that there is no dispute between the Meiri and Maimonides, whereas according to Maimonides Christians are apparently still considered idol worshipers, and according to the Meiri they are not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no such statement in the Meiri anywhere, anywhere. And everybody keeps repeating and interpreting him all the time as if, in his view, Christians—or gentiles in general—are not idol worshipers. That is not correct. His interpreters fall into the same mistake of identifying idolatry with morality. They fall into the same mistake from the opposite direction. They think that if he says the gentiles are moral, then they are also not idol worshipers. It is precisely against that mistake that the Meiri came out. His interpreters fall into the very same mistake that he came out against. It is not correct to identify idolatry with morality.

[Speaker B] Is this accepted today by halakhic decisors of our times?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Usually not explicitly, let’s put it that way. No, really. I’m not sure it isn’t… let’s say they mentioned Rabbi Shlomo Zalman earlier; I don’t know that this wasn’t behind something he said. Regarding Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, I’m willing to accept that. The Chatam Sofer—that’s nonsense. That’s what Binyamin Lau and Rosenthal wrote, that the Chatam Sofer too was basically motivated by moral considerations and only hung it on “for the sake of peace” and things of that sort. That is simply not true. But yes, let’s say halakhic decisors of our time whose attitude to moral principles and so on we do know, like Rabbi Shlomo Zalman—

[Speaker H] I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I do not rule out that this stood behind what he said, and many times he did not put on the table what he wanted to say. There are places where he even wrote that he does not—

[Speaker H] say what he wanted to say.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He uses halakhic language in order to persuade… to realize the principle that he thought was right from the outset. But by the way, he pays a price for that. Because once you use halakhic language, then in a case where there is no appearance issue and nobody will know and there will be no… nobody will know anything. I’m alone on a deserted island with a gentile.

[Speaker B] There’s a practical difference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s ruling, I would be forbidden to save the gentile on the Sabbath. Even though really, if I’m right, then his moral motivation—if that is his motivation, the Meiri’s motivation—then even on a deserted island I should have to save him. But he is willing to pay that price because it probably hardly ever happens in most cases.

[Speaker B] Why would you save him? What is a Jew doing on a deserted island?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or with a gentile woman. In any case, that is one principle. The second principle—no, the gentile will tell. The gentile is an idiot; he doesn’t understand that you’re not supposed to talk. In any case, there is an additional principle, and that principle is what you might call—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] maybe circles of identity, or moral circles, moral peripheries. This is an argument I’ve had with my sister for many years. She is from the universalist camp, and I told her that… this was the argument around her son’s bar mitzvah. I spoke there kind of… without explosions? Anyway, we parted as friends; to this day we’re friends in that kind of… yes, friends with… exactly.

[Speaker B] So—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] so I decided to put it on the table and discuss the issue, because I argued that there is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] something very problematic morally about universalism. Because… this is a claim of Rabbi Kook, for example: once you relate to all circles at the same level, that necessarily harms the level of morality with which you relate to people. You cannot treat the whole world the way you treat your family. And if you decide that the same standard must apply, then you necessarily lower the standard. You can’t, because people are not built that way… yes, because people are not built that way, but you have to take that into account—it’s human nature. It’s not all or nothing; whoever can, can. Right, if the world could work that way…

[Speaker B] So I’m saying: you lower the standard toward those close to you, but raise it toward those far from you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. Now the question is what actually produces—if I measure it consequentially—the question is what produces… and in my opinion what produces better results is specifically the chauvinistic approach. I think it leads to better moral results.

[Speaker B] What do you mean? According to what are you comparing—meaning, it leads to a result?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Evaluation—what do you mean, according to what am I comparing?

[Speaker B] No, in principle, in terms of what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that if—exactly—if I take care of my children absolutely, let’s say, and sometimes even at the expense of others, as opposed to saying no, I’ll look at everyone equally, I think the world—again, the world as it is today—the world will look better with the first approach.

[Speaker B] It will look better in what sense? What, as a group?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More will be saved; our lives, for example, will be saved more. More will be saved. No child will die of hunger and no child will die from a terrorist. Supposedly there will be less?

[Speaker B] Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I don’t know how to quantify it; it’s an assessment. But there is—maybe I’ll give a conceptual example. Look, we usually distinguish between human rights and civil rights. What is the difference between them? Civil rights are rights that we grant to citizens of the state; every state grants them to its citizens. Human rights are rights due to every person simply insofar as he is a person, right? That’s the difference. Now, what is that distinction? That is exactly the distinction I’m talking about here. If every state protects its citizens even at the price of harming the enemy or the other side or something like that—harm, again, proportionate harm, I’m not getting into how far one may go and so on right now—the situation will look better than if all of us take care of all of us. If all of us take care of all of us, then “a pot owned by partners is neither hot nor cold.” I would not want the UN protecting me. Okay?

[Speaker C] The point is that this—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it can’t really happen, that all of us… yes, right, in a utopian world, fine—

[Speaker C] then the categorical imperative—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in a utopian world, fine, then even the categorical imperative—I think its limitations also have to be taken into account. In a given world, you can’t ignore the nature of the world. True, if the world were cosmopolitan and anarchistic, but everyone were anarchists of the moral kind—because anarchism, at root, is a moral thesis, right?—then maybe that would be a more perfect world. I am an anarchist in every fiber of my soul in the principled sense. But that is not… yes, communism, whatever, right. There are lots of very beautiful ideas, but fine—you have to face reality. And therefore, in this conception too, the world recognizes, at least de facto, that there are certain circles. Now a person—I care for my children not as I care for my neighbor’s children or children in Rhodesia, even though one really ought to care about everyone, not out of contempt. But there are these circles of moral periphery, such that the closer something is to me, the more priority it has—“the poor of your city come first,” in the language of the Sages. The poor of your city come before those of another city; the poor of your land come before another land, and so on. This is exactly that conception of concentric circles that universalism, in my opinion, is a bit utopian and misses in this sense. It leads to a world that is less moral, even though the basic conception is a moral one. But it leads there, at least given current human nature. Not in principle? Fine. But we live in this world. So there is something very problematic here. When you treat a Jew and a gentile exactly the same, that sounds terribly moral. But our eyes see that very often those who treat Jews and gentiles exactly the same—their attitude toward Jews is a little problematic, and maybe toward gentiles too on the personal level, not on the declarative level, but on the level of what happens when he’s your neighbor. Okay? All those people who care for every poor and downtrodden person—when they actually arrive, yes, here you already can’t talk after there were petitions about that institution in North Tel Aviv, the Aleh institution. Right, but there are many people who perhaps have the exaltation of universal morality on their lips, and when it gets down to pennies, to how he treats his neighbor, it does not look exactly the same. And many—and my feeling is that many times there is even a correlation between these two things. Not only that they are independent. Sometimes they are independent, fine; there are people who are better and less good, but at least the values will be good values. Sometimes I feel it almost dictates it. Because once you say, ‘I care about the whole world,’ then you don’t see your neighbor. And I’m saying that if each person sees his neighbor and takes care of his own surroundings, then in our world at least it will work better. Therefore the fact that we prefer our own people, or grant civil rights, is not necessarily a moral flaw. Because there is something due to citizens, or to family, or to townspeople—it doesn’t matter, different circles—that is not due to people outside, and that is not necessarily anti-moral. True, now the question is what kind of case we are talking about. Meaning, say, killing someone in order to save my children—exactly. A human right you may not violate, because a human right by definition is universal. But denying someone a right that is considered a civil right in order to give it to a citizen—that is basic. Every state should do that. Why do I harm innocents when I have no alternative? Meaning within warfare. International law accepts such a thing at one level or another, and morality also accepts such a thing, because you cannot detach yourself from that concentric structure. And I think that many times these accusations against Jewish law are unjustified. That’s the point I wanted to make: they are unjustified, because Jewish law is basically talking about the question of what you do for your inner circle, and it is not always true that this comes at the expense of the other. Here in this case it is a Mishnah that comes at the expense of the other. You’re harming him; you apply the legal framework that will always disadvantage the gentile who comes before you for judgment. And therefore Maimonides finds it necessary to apologize, because Maimonides says: look, it’s because… But in a place where I prefer the Jew over the gentile, Maimonides will not write that. There is no need to apologize. It is obvious that I treat my family differently from how I treat other people. And this is an extremely common mistake today, that people see such a thing as someone who is not moral. That is not true. Now on the other hand, obviously those who derive from here some conclusion that the Jew is some different kind of human being and superior, and only he deserves things, and “you are called man and they are not called man,” and all sorts of statements of that kind—that is the same mistake too, just in the other direction. It is the same confusion between human rights and civil rights, only now in the opposite direction: if the Torah gives civil rights only to Jews, then he thinks human rights are also only for Jews. Again, that is not true. Meaning, the same mistake on both sides stems from the same failure to distinguish between relating to concentric circles—which is legitimate—and trampling the outer circles—which is illegitimate. Those are two different things. Therefore many times this feeling that Jewish law is not universalist and therefore not moral—so it is true that it is not universalist, but that does not mean it is therefore not moral. The fact that I am willing to accept a conflict between Jewish law and morality—I am willing to accept that—but I am saying that the extent or quantity of such conflicts is not as great as people usually think. There are places where it appears; in very many places it is not like that. And I think this is a point that, at least in our minds today, is very important to understand. And what does it mean not to return a lost object to a gentile? Today people look at it and say: Jewish law says not to return a gentile’s lost object, only a Jew’s. They do not take into account that the gentile of old not only did not return lost objects—he robbed me, murdered me, committed adultery with my wife—or not with my wife, with a woman—and did not return lost objects. You have to look at the person standing opposite you when you make this anachronistic critique through today’s lenses. Through today’s lenses you can criticize, and rightly so. And again, the opposite mistake is that of the ultra-Orthodox—those who take norms that were correct then for the reality of then and see them as binding norms also for today’s reality, and that is the very same mistake. I’m saying it is the same mistake: the critics and the ultra-Orthodox are making the same mistake on this issue.