Halakha and Ethics, Lesson 4

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:05] Summary and balance regarding the Chazon Ish
[2:01] The nations’ approach: checking the subtitles
[4:51] The case of a kohen’s wife who was raped
[6:25] Saving life on the Sabbath versus keeping the Sabbath
[17:09] Chazon Ish: there is no separate morality
[26:27] The halakhic principle overrides the moral one
[29:02] “You are cutting off my livelihood” and scholarly competition — a halakhic conflict
[37:00] Jewish law and the Chatam Sofer
[48:30] Summary: halakhic rulings and understanding Jewish law
[52:06] The difference between morality and Jewish law in rabbinic sources
[56:38] The topics of a fortiori reasoning and their influence on Jewish law

Summary

General Overview

The text presents three models for the relationship between Torah and morality: a full identification of Torah with morality in the style of Rabbi Kook, the reverse identification in which “there is no morality, everything is Torah,” sometimes attributed to the Chazon Ish, and a more complex model of two binding value systems that both come from the Holy One, blessed be He, yet are different and may clash. It argues that conflict arises דווקא when commitment to Torah is total, accepted “as is” by virtue of the divine command and not by means of personal identification with each value individually; in that case, situations may arise in which a religious value overrides a moral one. It rejects semantic solutions that simply declare that everything is morality, and emphasizes that the Torah itself assumes that human beings have an understanding of what is “upright and good,” so one cannot dismiss a sense of immorality without a real explanation. Later, it reads Faith and Trust, chapter 3, and suggests that the Chazon Ish is not canceling morality, but describing situations in which a moral judgment of the Sages becomes binding as Jewish law.

Models for the Relationship Between Torah and Morality

The text presents a model that identifies the goals of the Torah as moral and attributes this to Rabbi Kook, in a way that leads to the claim that “there is no Torah, everything is morality.” The text presents an opposing model that claims that “there is no morality, everything is Torah,” and that there is no independent moral category because the Torah is the moral command. The text proposes a third model of two different and binding value systems, with no principled contradiction in being committed to both, though clashes may arise between them.

The Type of Commitment and the Possibility of Conflict

The text argues that commitment to values through individual examination of each principle does not allow adopting contradictory values, and therefore does not lead to conflict between systems. The text argues that a “blanket” commitment by virtue of commitment to the Holy One, blessed be He, does allow conflict, because a person accepts the Torah set “as is,” and may then discover within it values that clash with moral values to which he is also committed. The text describes the rabbinic midrashim about the nations asking “What is written in it?” as opposed to Israel not asking, as a model of commitment based on identifying with content versus total commitment to command.

The Source of Morality and What the Holy One, blessed be He, Expects

The text rejects a simple identification with the Euthyphro dilemma and presents morality as a value system different from Jewish law. The text states that from the standpoint of a believing person, morality is binding because it is an expectation that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects of a person to be moral, even though it is not defined as a halakhic “command.” The text argues that both categories come from the Holy One, blessed be He, but they have different purposes and different principles, and therefore may conflict.

Examples of Conflict: A Kohen’s Wife Who Was Raped, Amalek, Sabbath, and a Non-Jew

The text brings the case of a kohen’s wife who was raped as an example of a conflict in which Jewish law requires separation despite personal and family tragedy, and calls this “blatantly immoral” in terms of human morality. The text presents Rabbi Kook’s position as saying that this is “the most moral thing possible” and that “we just don’t understand,” and the position attributed to the Chazon Ish as challenging the very category of morality vis-à-vis Jewish law. The text proposes an interpretation in which the religious value of preserving priestly holiness is not a moral value, yet in a particular case it may override the moral value of not harming a person.

The text describes the wiping out of Amalek as a case in which the conflict is “built in,” and therefore the Torah itself already determines that the religious value overrides the moral problem involved in killing. The text presents saving life on the Sabbath as a “contingent” clash that is not necessarily decided in advance in the same way, and connects this to the discussion of a transgression for its own sake and to the claim that it is not always true that “in a simple way Jewish law overrides morality.” The text also mentions “saving a non-Jew on the Sabbath” as another example of a possible conflict.

“And You Shall Do What Is Upright and Good” and the Limit of Moral Reduction

The text argues that the Torah says “and you shall do what is upright and good” without specifying what that is, which implies that a person understands on his own what is upright and good, and that his understanding therefore serves as a practical criterion. The text rejects an approach that responds to every moral difficulty by saying “there must be some hidden moral principle that explains it,” because this “empties the concepts of content” and gives no answer when no explanation is in sight. The text states that there is value in trying to interpret Jewish law morally “within the bounds of honesty,” but when it is clear that such interpretation is impossible, one should accept conflict as a legitimate state and not as a principled problem.

Faith and Trust, Chapter 3 of the Chazon Ish, and the Reading of “There Is No Morality”

The text presents the passage from Faith and Trust, chapter 3, where the Chazon Ish writes that “moral obligations are sometimes one body with halakhic rulings,” and that Jewish law determines the “forbidden and permitted of the Torah of morality.” The text describes the halakhic example of schoolteachers, where there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” and the description of how the veteran teachers deteriorate into hatred, malicious speech, fights, and revenge, and how the Chazon Ish lists prohibitions such as “do not hate,” “evil speech,” “do not be like Korach,” and “do not take revenge.” The text presents the simple reading often attributed to this passage, according to which there is no independent morality and whatever Jewish law determines is morality.

An Alternative Interpretation of the Chazon Ish: A Moral Decision That Becomes Jewish Law

The text comments on the precision of the word “sometimes” and argues that it need not be understood as a total cancellation of morality. The text emphasizes that the Chazon Ish himself does not cancel the value of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” but argues that “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom” is a loftier principle, so these are two existing considerations and one overrides the other. The text adds that the case itself is not a simple instance of “morality versus Jewish law,” because “you are cutting off my livelihood” is itself grounded in Jewish law, and therefore seems more like Jewish law versus Jewish law, or a moral-social principle versus a religious-social utility principle.

The text proposes that the key lies in the status of the principles in tractate Bava Batra, which is presented as not relying on verses but on reasoning, natural justice, and social logic that the Sages established as Jewish law. The text argues that according to this interpretation, the Chazon Ish is referring to places where the Sages decide a moral-social question, and once that decision is set, it binds not only formally as Jewish law but also “on the moral level” within the binding framework of Torah. The text states that this reading is not dealing with clashes between Jewish law and morality in examples like a kohen’s wife or Amalek, but with questions in which Jewish law itself is created out of a decision in the moral sphere.

Critique of “Hebrew Law” and the Example of Force-Feeding Geese

The text critiques the ideology of “Hebrew law,” which tries to integrate halakhic sources into state law, and argues that a large part of halakhic discussion in such areas relies on moral reasoning and logic that are not uniquely Torah-based. The text gives as an example a position paper on force-feeding geese that cites later authorities (Acharonim) such as the Chatam Sofer and the Rashba, and asks where the reasoning comes from if not from the same source from which it could have arisen for “the non-Jewish neighbor.” The text argues that the fact that a reasoning is printed “in Rashi script” or written by a halakhic decisor does not in itself make it a “realization of Torah values” in an essential sense if the content is general human reasoning.

The Authority of Rulings, Intention, Secular Courts, and the Goals of Jewish Law

The text distinguishes between the religious value of obeying a binding halakhic framework and a claim about essential moral justice, and presents the problem that a halakhic decision made according to tradition, such as following Maimonides for Yemenites and the Rema for Ashkenazim, is not the same as saying “this is the true morality.” The text distinguishes between a result reached by Israel’s High Court of Justice in a given case and the fulfillment of a commandment, and argues that even if the High Court reaches a similar result, that does not necessarily involve a “Torah value,” because the act does not stem from religious commitment. The text returns and emphasizes that Jewish law is aimed not only at morality but also at “religious goals,” and brings the Ran’s phrase about “the secular of the divine matter” as a category distinct from morality.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll summarize a bit, and then we’ll read a little from the Chazon Ish we were talking about, and see what his words mean. I spoke a bit about the relationship between Torah and morality, and laid out a few possible models. One model—or several kinds of models—identifies Torah with morality, and basically says there are two types of identification. Either the Torah, in its goals and at its foundation, is essentially moral—that you see in many places in Rabbi Kook. That’s identification in one direction, and it basically says there is no Torah, everything is morality. There’s another identification that says there is no morality, everything is Torah. Meaning, there really is no such thing as morality; Torah is the moral command. We talked a little about the Euthyphro dilemma, and I said I don’t think it’s the same thing. And the third direction is the one I suggested, a more complex direction, which says that there are two value systems here. Both of them—that is, being committed to both of them involves no contradiction at all. On the contrary: I explained, and this was last time, that if I commit to a value system through a detailed examination of each of the principles within it, then it’s impossible for me to adopt contradictory values. But if I commit to a value system because of some external principle outside the system—such as commitment to God’s command—then I’m committed to it blankly, so to speak, just like they say that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to the nations. I brought the rabbinic midrashim on this, and they asked, “What is written in it?” Israel doesn’t ask what is written in it. Why? Because they don’t examine the values in terms of content—do I identify with this or not? Rather, it’s some kind of commitment to the Holy One, blessed be He: He commanded it, I’m obligated to do it. I don’t stop and check what exactly He commanded. Now suppose there is a parallel commitment to morality, and there too I’m committed to the set of moral principles—then of course a clash can arise. If we follow the nations’ approach in those midrashim, where they check what is written—that means they want to commit to a system only if they identify with all its contents, meaning if the principles seem correct to them—then if you really go through that test, you can’t commit to two contradictory value systems. That’s impossible. Because if you checked principle 17 and it seemed right to you and therefore you committed to it, then in the other system you won’t accept principle minus 17 if it doesn’t seem right to you. Detailed examination can’t allow contradiction. But if you say: I’m committed to the word of God as such, no matter what He says—then it may be that the word of God tells me to kill Amalek, while on the other hand moral principles say you must not just kill people. So there’s a clash here. And that clash arises precisely because of religiosity, precisely because of total commitment to the word of God—that’s exactly when a clash can arise. That’s what I said. If the commitment is not total but specific, to each principle separately, then a clash cannot arise. The commitment of the nations, or the commitment people talk about today—sources of inspiration and all sorts of more contemporary approaches to Torah that say, let’s see whether there are nice things in it and we’ll adopt them, things of that sort—precisely those people, the more liberal ones, cannot end up in a state of conflict. They can’t, because what seems nice to them seems nice, and what doesn’t, doesn’t; they won’t accept a principle that doesn’t fit moral principles, because they are examining the principles themselves. But someone who accepts the whole Torah package as is, simply because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so—well, then it may suddenly happen that when he looks inside, he searches inside, he suddenly discovers some contradiction with a moral principle to which he is also committed. So total commitment to Torah is actually the only thing that makes conflict possible. If you’re not totally committed, there won’t be a conflict.

[Speaker B] And that’s on condition that the person determines what is moral and what is not moral. If the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us to wipe out Amalek, then that is moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. So I said this last time too, and the time before that—I don’t agree. I think, more than that: since I don’t identify this with the Euthyphro dilemma, my claim is that even if I see morality as a value system different from Jewish law, in my eyes it is still a system that reflects what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from me. As a believing person, I think morality—I don’t call it a command, because if it were a command it would be Jewish law—but it is an expectation that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects a human being to be moral. And that is basically why morality obligates me. Now if that’s so, then I’m saying there are two different categories here, both coming from the Holy One, blessed be He, but they are different. They have different purposes, and as a result different principles, and because of that conflicts can arise. For example—we spoke about this, and here it’s easier for me to show it—about a kohen’s wife who was raped, where Jewish law tells her that she has to separate from her husband. The husband doesn’t want it, the wife doesn’t want it, the children are in tragedy, she herself went through a tragedy after the rape, and now they tell her: now you’re going through another tragedy too, number two. That is blatantly immoral. So Rabbi Kook will tell us: what are you talking about, this is the most moral thing possible, we just don’t understand, right? And the Chazon Ish will say: what is morality? Meaning, Jewish law says this, I don’t know what morality is. Those are the identity approaches. And I say: not true. The Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to be moral. It all comes from Him, and still I can be in conflict. Morally, this is really problematic, but there is a value in preserving the holiness of the priesthood. And to preserve the holiness of the priesthood, the Torah tells us that the kohen cannot continue living with such a woman. I don’t know why, but that’s what the Torah says. The value of preserving priestly holiness is not a moral value. It is a religious value. But this religious value, in this specific case, is in conflict with the moral value of not tormenting a person, not harming a person. So this is definitely a conflict that can happen. Now we have to decide what overrides what, but there is no principled problem in being in conflict. In other words, such conflicts can certainly arise, and are to be expected.

[Speaker C] And in your view the same source gave both of them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, right.

[Speaker C] What—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, why did He do that? Because He has two purposes—moral purposes, two kinds of purposes. He has religious purposes and moral purposes. For the moral purpose, in this case you shouldn’t separate the man from his wife. For the religious purpose, you should separate them. Now I want to achieve two goals. So I’m in conflict, I don’t know what to do. One of them has to give. Saving life on the Sabbath—why did He give me both the obligation to preserve life and the obligation to keep the Sabbath?

[Speaker B] Because it’s within the same system.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and that’s within the halakhic system alone—saving life on the Sabbath. Why did He give me both of these if they contradict each other? They don’t contradict each other. There are certain cases where they clash because it’s impossible. I said once—I said in one of the previous sessions, I brought passages from the Ran, and the Maharal writes similarly—that the halakhic system is less moral than parallel legal systems. That’s what they write. Why? We won’t get into that now in the center—Shmuel, don’t give me that look. Why, why, why is it less moral? Because when you have a system that wants to achieve two kinds of goals, by nature it will achieve each one less fully. If you have a machine that is both a washing machine and a dryer, and let’s say it costs the same—if it doesn’t cost more—it costs the same as a washing machine alone or a dryer alone, then either it’ll wash less well or dry less well.

[Speaker D] Or both less well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or both less well, yes.

[Speaker D] That’s less moral. What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning—

[Speaker D] A moral army.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly! It’s a conflict and there’s no choice; morality gets hurt here. But what can you do? I want to stay alive. In other words, I want to achieve two goals: I want to be moral, and I also want to stay alive, and I really am committed to both of them. This isn’t a game, I’m really committed to both. On the contrary. And “shooting and crying,” yes, of—

[Speaker C] Staying alive is also moral. Right. So both of them are moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, that’s why I didn’t bring the example the lady brought earlier, I’m using—

[Speaker C] He’s talking about the army, also the priesthood or something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, priesthood is moral? Preserving the holiness of the priesthood—what—

[Speaker C] Let’s say the determination of the people, that there should be those designated—fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That they should be designated and remain—what, designated for holiness and remain with a woman who was raped? What— There are people who really do try to identify all religious purposes with moral principles. I talked about that the first time. That’s basically Rabbi Kook, who tries to identify all religious purposes with moral principles. Theoretically, of course, you can say that. But then it drains the concept of morality of content. Because if I put absolutely everything into the basket called morality, then fine, I’ve emptied the concept of morality of all meaning and now everything is moral. What have I gained? That’s not what I usually call morality, at least. Okay. So I can say—define this too as morality, and semantically solve the problem—but the substantive problem isn’t solved by semantic tricks. I mean, after all, it clashes with what I understand to be moral. Okay? That’s why I think this is—

[Speaker E] But the problem is that you have the same problem even within what you call morality, between two values.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right! That’s exactly the example I gave. Within morality.

[Speaker E] There’s no problem solving—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a problem to solve, because you need to know what to do. I’m only saying that the existence of the problem is not itself problematic. The fact that such a problem exists is not disturbing in itself.

[Speaker E] What do you mean, a problem? This problem that needs solving exists in every value experience.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Exactly. So I’m saying—there’s nothing special about it. Very true. That’s exactly what I’m trying to say: there’s nothing special here. On the contrary, the existence of such conflicts is to be expected. Fine, you have to know what to do. And I said—this I discussed—that it is not always simply the case that Jewish law overrides morality, and certainly not always that morality overrides Jewish law. Things are subtler than that. Even though there’s a tendency to think that Jewish law always overrides. That’s not true. I spoke about a transgression for its own sake, I spoke about the Chazon Ish’s “fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh,” and all kinds of things of that sort. There are situations where no—when something is very, very immoral, sometimes we even go against Jewish law. There are such situations. Now true, generally speaking, where the conflict is built in, Jewish law will always prevail. For example, killing Amalek. Killing Amalek always involves the moral problem of killing people, but the Torah commanded us to kill Amalek. So the Torah itself already told me that what it wants from me is to kill Amalek—that means that the religious value overrides the moral value here.

[Speaker E] But that’s an especially hard case, Amalek.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, and then it really won’t be built in. It may indeed be—yes, Haman’s descendants studied Torah in Bnei Brak, meaning otherwise you might have said that can’t be. No, no, that’s a different case, but it’s an excellent case. It could be that this is—not another problem, but I’m prepared to permit descendants because otherwise I’m in a moral problem. Even though in principle, from the standpoint of the religious idea, it may be that I ought to have wiped out all the descendants as well. So maybe I draw that line because—maybe—

[Speaker B] But I’m saying, I don’t know, it seems to me that every group defines whether their morality takes precedence—pirates have theirs too. Every group has its known morality.

[Speaker G] If Jewish law tells me to destroy—

[Speaker B] Amalek, apparently Jewish law knows, the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that in Amalek’s genes, in Amalek’s DNA, there is a drive to kill Israel, and maybe it’s “if someone comes to kill you, rise early to kill him first.” It doesn’t seem that way to me, because I don’t know the genes of someone who comes to kill me. So I’m saying that Amalek really is an example—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where one could say: look, it’s like little Nazis. That’s always the example people bring. I think someone sitting in a concentration camp would not hesitate too much about killing the camp commander’s baby. Okay? So if you see Amalek that way, then it doesn’t even look like a moral problem. But separating a kohen’s wife who was raped from her husband—I think that’s a harder problem. Not harder in intensity, of course, but harder to explain in that way. Okay? And there are more examples: saving a non-Jew on the Sabbath. I think we can bring other examples of such conflicts. So I’m saying the conflict is essential—I’m just summarizing—when the conflict is essential, then the Torah itself has already said that it expects me to do it even though it involves a moral problem. But saving life on the Sabbath, for example, or situations in which the clash is accidental, not essential—in other words, a situation arose in which a Torah value clashes with a moral value—in such a case it is not necessarily true that the Torah said this is what should be done. It may be that it didn’t speak about this case; maybe it spoke about another case. Only if every case the Torah spoke about carries a moral problem is it clear to me that the Torah took that into account and told me: nevertheless. But if it’s an accidental clash, like saving life on the Sabbath, then it’s not clear at all, and we talked about a transgression for its own sake and all these kinds of issues. Okay.

[Speaker B] Now—and couldn’t it be that there are laws we don’t understand, that come to prevent maybe—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything could be, but then I empty the concept of morality of content. I can say that. I can say that behind every law you can think of—shatnez, forbidden mixtures, all the priesthood rules, sacrifices, everything, everything—is morality.

[Speaker B] That’s not morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s Torah. The question is in which direction you make the identification.

[Speaker B] Because there’s the girl in the field—he can never divorce her all his days. It’s not enough that he raped her; she has to be his wife for life.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a question. That’s another question.

[Speaker B] Think twice if you’re going to rape, because afterward you won’t be able to divorce her. Well, okay, not everything that seems to us—you can find a deterrent there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but here there really is an explanation. If your explanation is right, then good—you found an explanation, I have no problem with that. But to say there is some explanation when I don’t see anything like that on the horizon—that doesn’t really solve the problem for me. I mean, you can say there is some moral principle that nobody understands and it explains all the problems. Maybe. But I don’t know what to do with that kind of thing; it drains my concepts of content. It doesn’t— We talked about this. I think I mentioned it, that when the Torah says, “And you shall do what is upright and good”—so what is “what is upright and good”? It doesn’t say anywhere what upright and good are. How do I know what is upright and good? It speaks generally: “and you shall do what is upright and good.” The Torah’s assumption is apparently that everyone understands what upright and good are, right? It doesn’t bother to spell out what upright and good are. It doesn’t say—yes, “in the eyes of the Lord,” that’s the ending people always leave out. So how do I know what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord? What I understand to be upright and good. Okay? So that means the Torah relates to what I understand as the criterion for what is upright and good. So I’m not prepared now to say, oh, this seems very bad to me, but surely there is some moral principle that nobody understands that would really explain why I’m wrong here. If I understand that it’s bad, then as long as no one has explained to me why I’m mistaken—I can be mistaken, of course, I can never know with certainty that I’m right—but as long as no one has explained to me that I’m mistaken, then it’s bad, period, nothing will help. And if the Torah told me to do it, then apparently there is some religious value that justifies doing the bad here—I don’t know—in light of the conflict. Fine. I think this is—I don’t know if it’s a solution—but it’s a more persuasive picture to me, a truer one in my eyes, and I think it gives a proper answer to many difficult feelings, both of people from outside and people from inside, who often feel that the system is not moral. The criticism comes from outside, but sometimes also from inside I don’t know what to answer myself. And the answer is: right, because this system has additional goals. I think answers like, no, it’s all maximally moral, it’s just that nobody understands why—they don’t help me much. Maybe it’s true, but it doesn’t help me. I think that what I think is morally right is what is morally right unless proven otherwise.

[Speaker F] Looking for what is moral in it—if you take that as an assumption, it’ll make you work harder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so I do take that as an assumption. Also, as I mentioned when I made the distinction—in the last lecture I talked about this—even though I distinguish between the two systems, that doesn’t mean that every religious value must necessarily be anti-moral or non-moral. On the contrary, I would expect us to try to give a moral interpretation, but within the bounds of integrity. In other words, there are places where it’s clear that this is not what the Torah means. In those places I say: apparently there is some religious value that overrides the moral value. That is exactly the qualification I spoke about last time, when I said that in cases where we do see a conflict, there is no commandment to remain in the conflict or to insist that it’s a conflict. In other words, there are situations where you can find an explanation or a solution or a moral reduction of the Jewish law, and that’s perfectly fine, and then fine—there is no conflict. I’m only saying that I’m also not frightened by a situation where I failed to make such a reduction, and then I really am in conflict. Fine, legitimate. It’s part of our lives. What can you do. Now, the heading I put over the approach of identification in the other direction—there’s Rabbi Kook’s direction, which says everything is morality. The second identification, I said, is often pinned on the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish—Rabbi Kook says there is no Torah—no, there is no morality, meaning everything is morality. And the Chazon Ish says there is no morality, meaning Torah decides. Fine. Why do people pin this on the Chazon Ish? Not entirely unjustly. Because there are a number of places where you can see that it’s not true, that this is not what the Chazon Ish thought. But where is the main source? I brought it with me today, and let’s look a little at the words inside. Faith and Trust, chapter 3, about schoolteachers of course. So look here on the page. I took only the first part of the chapter; this chapter goes on quite a bit more, but you can already get an impression from what’s happening in this section. Maybe one or two people will be missing a copy, so maybe you can look together—I’m not sure I photocopied enough. Good, great.

[Speaker C] Bench culture from the study hall. Fine? Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So this is the famous Chazon Ish on which the conception is based—the conception of identification, that there is really no such category as morality. I said that Leibowitz too basically expresses himself in a fairly similar way; he says morality is an atheistic category. But he doesn’t mean that. I brought Eliezer Goldman and Eliezer Goldman’s explanation. I don’t think Leibowitz certainly means that. I think the Chazon Ish doesn’t either—we’ll see in a moment. “Moral obligations are sometimes one body with halakhic rulings, and Jewish law determines the forbidden and the permitted of the Torah of morality. How so? They said in Bava Batra 21b that in the case of teachers of children there is no claim of ‘you are cutting off my livelihood.’ Behold, there are in the city teachers who make their living from their labor, and suddenly other teachers come from another city, and as is human nature people are not satisfied with the old, and everyone jumped to the new arrivals, and the city’s teachers suffered loss.” Right? So basically, “you are cutting off my livelihood” is a claim someone can make against another person who has a business in the city or in a place, and then someone else comes and opens the same business, competing with him. Then the first has the right, under certain conditions, to claim “you are cutting off my livelihood,” meaning: you are depriving me of my income. By the way, in Israeli law too, for example with pharmacies, there is something like this, from what I heard. Pharmacies aren’t allowed to open except with special permission if they’re too close to each other, or at least that’s how it used to be, I don’t know if it still is. What? It used to be. Yes, there is some such distance requirement, but in Jewish law this applies to every business except teachers of children.

[Speaker H] He has a brilliant addition: “and as is human nature people are not satisfied with the old.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. Always the new thing, yes. Right. So now there are teachers in town, veteran teachers who have already been teaching here. New ones come, open a new classroom, okay? Now all the people move their kids to the new classroom because they’re always looking—there’s criticism—they’re always looking, maybe the new one will be better. They’re not satisfied with the old. Okay? And then it turns out that the old teachers lose their livelihood. “The aggrieved ones spread hatred in their hearts against the new arrivals”—the old teachers—“and from hatred of heart they went out to seek claims, faults, and slanders against them, and trained their tongue to speak evil of them. And from one evil to another they went out to spread false reports and stir the compassion of the townspeople against the cruelty of the new arrivals, until they increased quarrels and fights, and at times took revenge on them when the opportunity arose.” Right, this is a decoding from Otzar HaChochma, so there are probably some glitches here that I still haven’t managed to sort out with the bit about taking revenge, so I’m just filling it in. “Now all their actions”—the actions of the old teachers, those protesting against the new ones—“would have been cleansed of all sin and transgression had the Jewish law been in accordance with them, that they could prevent the newcomers. And the newcomers would be the sinners against themselves in rebelling against the Jewish law that was said to our teacher Moses, peace be upon him, at Sinai. There would be here no prohibition of dispute, no prohibition of evil speech, and no baseless hatred. And here there would be a commanded war, to restore religion to its proper standing. But now that Jewish law has ruled that the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom”—we do indeed want there to be competition, the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom—“and this principle is loftier than the livelihood of private individuals”—the principle of competition in Torah study is more important than concern for the livelihood of the private individuals involved in this matter; that’s what Jewish law determines—“behold, the arriving guests acted according to Jewish law. And those who rise against them, the ones protesting against them, the old ones protesting against them, shed innocent blood. And when they hate them in their hearts they transgress ‘you shall not hate your brother.’ And when they speak evil of them they transgress the prohibition of evil speech. When they gather groups for quarrels they transgress ‘do not be like Korach.’ And when they take revenge upon them for the lack of benefit they transgress ‘do not take revenge.’” So what is he saying here? We’ll continue in a second. He says that Jewish law—at least apparently—is what determines what is moral and what is not moral. There is no independent moral category. It may seem to us that this isn’t right. Okay, so what is he saying?

[Speaker C] He’s saying it overrides it. Huh? He’s saying it overrides it. Yes. He’s not saying it doesn’t exist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so here you’re already getting to my comments. But I’m presenting the Chazon Ish at the moment the way those who attribute the identity conception to him read him. I said that I don’t think the Chazon Ish said this, not only here—there are other places where you can see he didn’t say it—but even here I think you can really see it. So in a moment I’ll indeed get to these comments and others. But that’s the claim. In other words, they say: anyone who comes with the moral argument—what do you mean you’re opening a business here at my expense?—since Jewish law ruled no, then he is mistaken and wicked and causes the public to sin and violates all the prohibitions listed here, and so on. If Jewish law had not ruled this way, then none of these prohibitions would exist and he would be absolutely fine; on the contrary, the new ones would be the offenders. Right? Then this reading of the Chazon Ish, which I mentioned earlier, basically says that this is one body with halakhic rulings, yes? The first sentence is the key sentence here, basically. The example afterward, it seems to me, is really not a good one, but the first sentence apparently does seem to say that moral obligations are one body with halakhic rulings. What does that mean? Don’t tell me there’s a category called morality and then there’s Jewish law. No, there is no such thing as morality. What Jewish law says—that is morality. That’s the straightforward reading of the Chazon Ish. But I have a few comments about this. First comment: I don’t know, this is a linguistic nuance, and I’m not sure how much one can really infer from it—what’s this “sometimes”? “Moral obligations are sometimes one body with halakhic rulings.” What does “sometimes” mean? They are one body with halakhic rulings? There are no moral obligations. Fine, so I don’t know, maybe it’s just a literary turn of phrase. You could also explain it differently, by the way: that some laws determine morality, while another part of Jewish law does not touch moral questions. Not eating pork has nothing to do with morality. That part which deals with interpersonal matters, with morality and so on—that’s the “sometimes,” yes? Some of the laws are one body with the moral issue. There’s another part of Jewish law that doesn’t deal with moral matters but with other things. Okay, so I wouldn’t build too tall a tower on that “sometimes.”

[Speaker B] So in this case both moralities—I don’t know if morality is plural here—both are halakhic. What do I mean? The newcomers too—they came, in effect, to damage someone’s livelihood. And that too is a prohibition. And the old ones who start speaking evil speech to protect themselves—that’s a prohibition too, and that’s a prohibition too. So it’s not morality against Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, not morality against Jewish law; it’s Jewish law against Jewish law.

[Speaker B] And then he says “sometimes”—that’s how I see it. If there were a question, say, of morality: the Torah was so compassionate that it invented slaughter so the animal wouldn’t feel so much. But today you also have another option, so let’s anesthetize it and eat it. So that would be pure contemporary morality versus Jewish law. But here they’re both Jewish law and Jewish law here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I think that’s a correct comment. I’ll come to it in a second. There really are a few comments to make here. The first is the comment Shmuel made earlier. The Chazon Ish—I think, at least—does not write here that the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood” has no weight. He explicitly does not write that. Rather, he writes that the claim that “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom” overrides the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood.” In the language I described earlier, the one I just summarized, what is he basically saying? Two values exist. Morality too—exactly. The moral principle is certainly important, and the halakhic principle is also important. Jewish law determines that the halakhic principle overrides the moral principle. In a moment I’ll get to your comment, which is correct, but for now, even before that: the halakhic principle overrides the moral principle.

[Speaker E] Jewish law can’t determine that. What? No, Jewish law can’t determine—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I said, since—no, I do think it can.

[Speaker E] Jewish law can determine that it overrides morality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I’ll tell you why. What I said earlier is that if I understand that morality too is rooted in the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, then where the clash is essential, like with Amalek, then when the Holy One, blessed be He, tells me halakhically to kill Amalek, He is also telling me that this overrides the moral problem.

[Speaker E] He also tells me about the moral problem in other ways. He reveals it to me, He created the self, the capacity to see morality. Right, so that’s my answer. So morality also claims that it wins.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but morality—

[Speaker E] Which of them do I listen to?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said: this is lex specialis, always lex specialis. Meaning, what prevails is always the more specific principle. I talked about this in… that what prevails is always the more specific principle. Like wiping out Amalek versus the prohibition “Do not murder.” Okay? Which prevails? Two principles—”Do not murder” is also written in the Torah, this isn’t morality, it’s Jewish law. It is forbidden to murder. And there is a commandment to wipe out Amalek. Which prevails? Obviously wiping out Amalek prevails. Why? Because wiping out Amalek is a more specific principle than “Do not murder.” The specific always prevails. And the idea here is a simple one; it’s an interpretive principle. It says that if I say “Do not murder” prevails, then the command to kill Amalek is emptied of content. You could never fulfill it. So what did the Torah write there? After all, it wrote that Amalek must be killed. But if I say that killing Amalek prevails, “Do not murder” is not emptied of content. In a context that is not Amalek, then “Do not murder” applies. So there’s no problem; no verse is left empty of content. Therefore this interpretive principle is correct, by the way, in every legal system, not only in the Torah: the more specific principle prevails over the more general one. And I think this is true in many other collisions as well. So here too, if competition always comes at the expense of the other person, then the moment I say there has to be competition, by that I’ve already said no. But on the other hand, preferring one over the other where competition has no value—that really remains intact, it isn’t value-free. The fact that a person needs to make a living. Okay? So basically what the Chazon Ish is saying is that there are two principles here standing one… really the complex picture, the third one. Not either of the first two. The picture that says there are two principles here; if we’re speaking at all in terms of morality and Jewish law, then there are two principles here, both important, and Jewish law says that in certain cases one prevails over the other. That doesn’t mean the other has no basis. That’s the first remark. The second remark is really Shmuel’s point, that this whole business looks strange. Because the claim “you are cutting off my livelihood” is also a claim grounded in Jewish law. This is not morality versus Jewish law. “You are cutting off my livelihood” is also Jewish law, or at least Jewish law recognizes the right to make that claim. So what is this—Jewish law versus Jewish law. What does that have to do with… why do people see here a conflict of morality with Jewish law?

[Speaker E] He calls it a moral obligation. So what, yes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Chazon Ish himself says moral obligations—he himself presents it as a conflict between morality and Jewish law. Why? They’re both Jewish law and Jewish law. Now true, you could say that competition among scholars is not a moral principle. Because what is the result of competition among scholars? That Torah study improves. That Torah study improves is a religious principle; it has nothing to do with morality. “You are cutting off my livelihood” is a moral principle within Jewish law. Meaning, both are halakhic principles, but this belongs to the moral wing of Jewish law, and that belongs to the religious wing of Jewish law. Maybe that’s what the Chazon Ish means, and then the claim is—but then really… so what is the discussion? Then it isn’t a dispute between morality and Jewish law, but a conflict between two halakhic principles, and Jewish law says what it says—but then what? Then you don’t have this statement that moral obligations are one body with halakhic obligations. So what are you saying? Here it’s just… it isn’t. Therefore I don’t think that’s his intention. Maybe his intention is something entirely different—really, I think, in a totally different direction. The big question is what the status is of determinations of this kind, both “you are cutting off my livelihood” and “competition among scholars increases wisdom.”

[Speaker H] Excuse me, isn’t this no different from the moral problem of wiping out Amalek? There too it’s a question of killing someone, right? It’s also a halakhic question, and then they tell you: in this case, kill him. But here they’re saying that this rule of free competition simply does not exist in this area. So in practice you’re canceling the question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m not canceling the question. Regarding Amalek too I noted earlier that it really is hard to present it as morality versus Jewish law, because “Do not murder” is also Jewish law. But in the case of a priest’s wife who was raped, it’s already easier. You can tell me “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or things of that sort, but you won’t be able to find a formal halakhic prohibition in my saying that they have to separate. There is no formal halakhic prohibition here; it is only a moral problem to tell them to separate. Therefore that example is much more convenient for me than the other examples. Maybe it’s less dramatic, but it is.

[Speaker H] There too empathy is a general principle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or things like that.

[Speaker H] Halakhically in this case, no, so there’s no problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, then also “and you shall do what is right and good”—if you put all morality into Jewish law through “and you shall do what is right and good,” then everything is Jewish law anyway.

[Speaker H] That’s what you did when you answered Shmuel.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because “Do not murder” is specific; it’s not general things. “Do not murder” speaks about murder. Here I’m saying “and you shall do what is right and good”—that is right and good in a general sense. “And you shall do what is right and good” is some kind of catch-all clause. It isn’t really—”Do not murder” is much more concrete. So I think there it’s easier to do that, but I accept the point; it can be presented that way. I really want to take this in a somewhat different direction.

[Speaker H] And sorry for going on, but one more thing: who says that in a real test the Jewish people would kill Amalek? This is all theoretical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that’s what they are supposed to do. At least it seems to me that this is the halakhic view—that this is what they are supposed to do from the standpoint of Jewish law. Yes, you’re saying: what if we won’t live up to it? It may be that we won’t live up to it; that doesn’t matter. I’m asking what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects of us. Whether we live up to it or not. After all, even with Sabbath observance we don’t always live up to it, or eating kosher, or honoring father and mother. Fine, but we are expected to do it. There’s a point here that I think is worth paying attention to, another point: what is the status of the two principles that he presents here as halakhic? “You are cutting off my livelihood” and “competition among scholars increases wisdom.” What—there’s a verse about this? Encroachment? There is a verse about encroachment. Clearly this is not the basic law of encroachment. The basic law of encroachment is in the Land of Israel, on land; meaning, this is not encroachment in the way the commentators and halakhic decisors apply it in these contexts. So what is the source of these two laws? Which verse in the Torah is the source of these two laws? There isn’t one. It’s well known—it’s a Talmudic passage in tractate Bava Batra. In the yeshivot it’s well known that Bava Batra is a tractate without verses. Bava Batra is all principles of natural justice, as it were; meaning, it doesn’t come out of verses. When the Sages established the principles in Bava Batra—neighbor relations, relations between members of a community, things of that sort—they established principles according to what seemed to them moral and sensible, just. Meaning that actually the terminology the Chazon Ish uses, that we are speaking here of halakhic principles versus morality—I’m not entirely sure that it’s accurate. Because what do you mean halakhic? When the Sages established this, their purpose was not to interpret a verse in the Torah; rather, they were saying: this is morality. Meaning, the Sages are telling us: this is moral conduct.

[Speaker E] But they established it as Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s why I say—I accept the point, and it was also raised earlier—you can say that in the end everything is Jewish law. That is true at the formal level; it is binding. But this Jewish law, say in the context of a priest’s wife who was raped—there I need to get to a point where I say: look, the sanctity of the priesthood is a religious value, not a moral one, and it prevails over the moral value. Here I wouldn’t phrase it that way. The Sages are not coming here to discuss religious values; they’re discussing moral values. They are only determining what in their eyes is called moral, what appears moral, and that is what binds in Jewish law. True, they already established it as a binding rule, and it entered the Shulchan Arukh and now it is binding—again, although the practices of the country can of course change these things—but in principle, for the sake of the discussion, let’s say it was fixed as a binding rule. But is that rule Jewish law or morality? It is Jewish law—it is halakhically binding—but it is a moral determination. That is, I once wrote an article on the question whether Jewish law is Hebrew law. Whether it is a legal system, as many today call Jewish law “Hebrew law” and try to integrate it into Israeli legislation and so on and so on. And my claim was that there is some feeling—at least my feeling—that there is a kind of pathology in the way these jurists think, the ones who belong to this wing of Hebrew law, I mean the ideological wing, not the field of study but the ideology of Hebrew law, yes, Hacohen and his gang, who want to bring sources for some legal question under discussion. So they bring a responsum of the Rashba, from the Chatam Sofer. The High Court case of force-feeding geese is a nice example of this, and I’ll bring it sometime. So Vigoda wrote some article or position paper on the view of Jewish law regarding animal suffering and force-feeding geese. Now where does he bring it from? He brings that the Chatam Sofer says such-and-such a reasoning, and the Rashba says such-and-such a reasoning. Where did those reasonings come to the Rashba and the Chatam Sofer from? From the same place they come to any other gentile. Their two kidneys became for them like two rabbis. Obviously. Where did they get these definitions of animal suffering from? It’s not even clear that animal suffering is of Torah origin at all; there is a discussion in the Talmud whether animal suffering is Torah-level or not. Deriving it from the Torah is not so simple. But even if I derive it from the Torah, what is the definition of animal suffering? What does animal suffering require and what not? Before what is it overridden? By what human needs or other needs is it not overridden? On what basis did they determine this? On the basis of reasoning—what seemed reasonable to them, what seemed right and moral and sensible. Obviously. Anyone who reads this knows it. So what? So why is that called Hebrew law? Because the person who said it wears a black coat? His gentile neighbor would in principle have said the same thing, and if not then he would have said what his disputant said. So what is it? If I had brought it from the books of his neighbor, those books aren’t printed in Rashi script and bound with gold letters, so that isn’t Hebrew law. But it’s the same thing. The reasoning comes from the same place, the same mode of thought. If he had made it an interpretation of a verse—if he had shown a verbal analogy or I don’t know what, if he had shown that the verse’s definition of animal suffering is such-and-such—that might have been Hebrew law. Meaning, there it wouldn’t be his own reasoning; he would be interpreting what the Torah says. But in most cases that’s not what’s happening. In most cases the Chatam Sofer says what seems logical to him. There are things—just a moment—certain levels of suffering for animals are justified for the sake of one or another human purpose, and certain levels are not. And the Chatam Sofer said what seemed right to him. No problem; that’s perfectly fine, that’s how we work. But why does that have Torah value? The gentile neighbor of the Chatam Sofer could have said exactly the same reasoning. And someone who disagrees with the Chatam Sofer is no less Torah-oriented than the Chatam Sofer. So what if the Chatam Sofer wrote this? Meaning, there is no connection between these reasonings and Torah, or Jewish law, or Hebrew law. Now this does not mean—by the way, here it already relates to our conceptions of Jewish law—that after the Chatam Sofer said it, it is not binding. It may be that after the Chatam Sofer said it, it is binding too. Someone who believes that the Chatam Sofer is some kind of canon whose determinations must be accepted like the Great Court, let’s say—that’s not important; here one can argue within halakhic theory. But even if that is true, you still can’t call it an implementation of Torah values. Meaning, rather, it is the reasoning of the gentile who was the Chatam Sofer’s neighbor; he convinced the Jewish rabbi, the halakhic decisor, that this was a logical reasoning, and now he wrote it in Rashi script. Like Maimonides from Aristotle.

[Speaker E] The claim is that a Torah scholar who is expert in Torah and studied Talmud—his way of seeing is aligned with the way of seeing of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the one who disagrees with him, and says like the other gentile—is he also aligned with the Torah’s way of seeing?

[Speaker E] Someone who is within the framework, someone who is within the measures, someone who is within the measures—but there are existential opinions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But as long as…

[Speaker E] So what is the value of Hebrew law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if you want to say law—if you want to—you yourself said, what is Vigoda there for? Today he is responsible for the field of Hebrew law in the Ministry of Justice, an excellent fellow, I know him, a wonderful person. No, no, certainly I do not mean to disparage his honor. I’m saying: what is this institution for? This institution exists to try to have the State of Israel implement Torah values, right? That’s basically the attempt: to have the State of Israel implement as many Torah values as possible. Now if the State of Israel does the same thing, only without citing the Chatam Sofer, does that count as implementing Torah values or not? It will do the same thing. In the end that position paper concluded that the High Court was right. That the High Court was right—only with lots of Rashi script along the way. So what does that mean now? So now the State of Israel is indeed implementing Torah values? Because a few people wrote it in Rashi script? And if the Chatam Sofer hadn’t written it, and the High Court said the same thing, would that not also be an implementation of Torah values, even without the Chatam Sofer having written it?

[Speaker H] The Rabbi gave a lecture some time ago about a bound slave in the case of a bill of divorce, and said that the atmosphere—the atmosphere, even if not yes—the atmosphere also leads our Sages, the halakhic decisors; that’s how I understood it. No, no, I didn’t say that, I didn’t say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean by atmosphere? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker H] The atmosphere—the Talmud brings strange interpretive setups, right? And I understood the Rabbi to be saying that the atmosphere is also important. Out of all those examples, a decisor has to understand how to rule, even if it isn’t written exactly how he rules.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They teach him…

[Speaker E] …how to think.

[Speaker H] Wait—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s mixing up two things. Those interpretive setups are another issue; it’s not in this context. You mean what I said about giving a bill of divorce.

[Speaker E] So it teaches him what the Torah wants without giving him the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—that’s exactly the point. In a place where, for example, in the topic of giving a bill of divorce that I discussed there, I said that after we go through all the examples of what counts as a valid and invalid giving of a bill of divorce, some intuitive understanding develops in us for other cases that do not appear in the Talmud, even though I don’t know how to formulate explicit criteria—a clear criterion that would help every ignoramus or a computer decide whether this giving is valid or invalid. But that is in the context of legal categories—yes, exactly, in the context of legal categories, not the interpretive setups. But what I’m saying here is: I do accept that this is an interpretive process. The fact that it isn’t formulated explicitly doesn’t bother me; it is still an interpretive process of what appears in the Talmud, and that’s perfectly fine. But I’m talking about animal suffering, where you are not taking examples from the Talmud and trying—or from the Torah or the Talmud, doesn’t matter—trying to distill from them what the definition of animal suffering was. You just see him weighing it by reasoning: this seems moral to me, this seems immoral to me.

[Speaker B] And regarding what you said about the Chatam Sofer: as far as I remember, he did not disqualify—he did not declare the force-fed geese non-kosher because of animal suffering and morality, but because they inserted corn there with a bamboo tube and it injured the esophagus and made them non-kosher, not because of morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re right, but the Chatam Sofer they cited there was a Chatam Sofer about animal suffering, not about the geese.

[Speaker B] The Chatam…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …Sofer they cited there was the Chatam Sofer on the parameters of animal suffering. I don’t remember what he said there, but I remember that they cited the Chatam Sofer.

[Speaker B] Morally, it seems to me that Jewish law—the tools given to judges—are very moral, and many times they can even uproot Torah-level prohibitions. A fact: they retroactively annulled the betrothal. That’s very moral. The Torah says there should be mamzerim, and by means of the tools the Sages were given, they annul.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not clear; that’s a different discussion.

[Speaker B] The concept of “they annulled” is a different concept. Maybe the priest’s wife was not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …married?

[Speaker B] Of course she’s married. She leaves by a bill of divorce—what are you talking about?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They don’t annul her betrothal—

[Speaker B] —hers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If they had annulled her betrothal, the whole problem would disappear. She wouldn’t be the priest’s wife, so why should I care that she was raped? If they could annul it, that would solve the whole problem.

[Speaker B] But they gave judges tools to be moral even though the Torah said…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, these are tools. The Ran also talks about this—that we can use one tool or another to ultimately implement the moral command. But that doesn’t mean that this is the pure Jewish law. Pure Jewish law does not always aspire to implement morality. Pure Jewish law also has religious goals—what the Ran calls the divine concern, that’s what he calls it—as distinct from morality. Not its morality. As distinct from morality and justice and fairness and things like that, there is the divine concern. Language like the Kuzari, yes, and the Ran. That’s where he goes with this. This is what we, in simpler language, call the religious aims of Jewish law, not the moral ones.

[Speaker G] The example you gave—that it’s fine that the High Court is right according to Hebrew law—is like the concept of charity. If I give charity without intending to give charity, I have not fulfilled the commandment of charity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The High Court does not intend to fulfill the words of the Chatam Sofer even after reading that position paper, so don’t worry. Meaning, if the High Court fulfilled—

[Speaker G] —the legal values, we’re not talking—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that it will fulfill a commandment, the High Court won’t fulfill a commandment. It doesn’t intend to; commandments require intention. It doesn’t intend that. But if by chance or not by chance it hits upon what the Torah says, then there are those who would say that has value. After all, that’s what the Torah wants us to do. So true, the High Court did it without intending to, but now practically this is what we will do—so what’s bad about that? It’s very good. But now I’m saying: in this case am I really willing to make that claim? In this case really, after all in this case gentiles also do these things. It’s the same logic; in nothing are they different. If you persuade the High Court that you are right, you persuade them not because it is written in the Torah, but because it is logical. But if it is logical, then you can persuade them without bringing the Chatam Sofer either. Tell them: look, friends, this is immoral, this is moral.

[Speaker E] That’s a conception that the Torah straightens a person out, and Torah study straightens a person out morally as well, in some automatic sense, even not because he studied this specifically.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying there are sides here—that’s what I told you—halakhic decisors say contradictory things about this matter of animal suffering. Fine, so the High Court chooses one of the two sides—so how does that help? So they are both straightened out, but in two different directions.

[Speaker E] But this is an example—not like in every question. There are also halakhic questions, as Baruch said, and Jewish law is ruled.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Therefore I’m saying: what is this internal straightness relevant to?

[Speaker E] It’s not a good example. But let’s say there weren’t contradictory positions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a place where everyone—

[Speaker E] —agrees, let’s say, in some moral area, it’s not even a religious question at all but a question of Torah expertise. So maybe. Then I trust Torah scholars, or I don’t know what, I have trust in the Sages that they see the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Their intuition is good. But where all the sages think the same thing, and for some reason all the gentiles also think differently, then it sounds reasonable that this really emerged from their learning, from their…

[Speaker E] Even if the sages disagree, there are rules, just as in a halakhic question, according to whom…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but those rules have nothing to do with Torah-straightness. Those rules are rules for deciding Jewish law so as to know what to do, what Jewish law requires. To know who is right—that’s another question. No, no… Ah, okay, no, it isn’t to know who is right.

[Speaker E] For the purpose of circumcision on the eighth day—

[Speaker B] It’s moral because the Torah says so, so—

[Speaker E] Here it’s to know who is right, okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s exactly the point—

[Speaker E] Here it’s to know who is right. Most of the Sages said that force-feeding geese is immoral, or that great Torah scholar of the generation, Maimonides, said it is immoral—so here it’s to know who is right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you decide Jewish law because you follow Maimonides because you are Sephardi or Yemeni, then because of that Maimonides is right because you are Yemeni?

[Speaker E] So in the moral question…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about a moral question, in animal suffering. So the Yemeni will rule like Maimonides and the Ashkenazi will rule like the Rema. So because he is Yemeni, Maimonides is right? I’m talking about a moral question. The medieval authorities are talking about moral questions.

[Speaker E] It’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —not right and not not-right. Fine, he made his judgment, now I am halakhically bound by him so I go with him, no problem. But the question is whether there is value in this thing appearing in the laws of the State of Israel. So maybe there is explanatory value, atmospheric value, maybe, fine—that we appear connected to the sources and so on.

[Speaker E] But the State of Israel does not take Professor Kasher as a moral figure; it takes the Chatam Sofer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it will take the Chatam Sofer only where Kasher says that the Chatam Sofer is kosher.

[Speaker E] So that’s the problem, that’s exactly the problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I agree, but you won’t solve that with any position papers.

[Speaker E] No, it’s like a tactical question. The principal question here…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole discussion is about tactics.

[Speaker E] No, the principal discussion is whether it is right to say that I want the State of Israel to go according to the Chatam Sofer and not according to Asa Kasher.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. But I want it to go according to the Chatam Sofer by having Asa Kasher say that the Chatam Sofer is the most moral. That’s how you achieve it. After all, how do you achieve it? I don’t care about Asa Kasher, yes, but the High Court, the judge on the High Court, whatever, that’s how you achieve it.

[Speaker C] But do you hold that it is forbidden to go to secular courts?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Their law is their law, yes—Jewish secular courts.

[Speaker C] Same problem. The ruling itself doesn’t matter; what matters is where you take it from. Fine, so that’s okay; what that means is that the fact that it comes from the Torah or from the Holy One, blessed be He—that’s what has to be, and not just morality that comes from anywhere.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly the opposite—it means exactly the opposite. It means that I don’t care about your ruling; I care who you are. Right.

[Speaker C] So—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the High Court rules according to Torah law, it is still the High Court.

[Speaker C] If you go to secular courts—what do you mean—you’re going to someone whose whole inspiration is not the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. And now if that person there in secular court rules according to the Chatam Sofer because Vigoda persuaded him, does that solve the problem? After all, what you’re saying is exactly the point: even if he takes the Chatam Sofer and applies him as is, it’s still the High Court and there is still a prohibition of secular courts. But again, they’re not trying to solve the prohibition of secular courts; that isn’t the point. The question is how a state ought to conduct itself—not the problem of the prohibition of secular courts, but what ought to happen here.

[Speaker B] But—

[Speaker I] What value is there within Jewish law—

[Speaker C] —if—

[Speaker I] —I act according to one rabbi and you act according to another? In Jewish law that has value; that is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, that’s your halakhic conception; that is what you do because Jewish law says so.

[Speaker I] But you do the opposite of me, and Jewish law also says so. So basically, since there is no Great Court, then really there is nothing… not necessarily about the High Court.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It has value in the religious sense because you are obeying what the instructions of Jewish law tell you.

[Speaker I] But that’s my Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter—from your standpoint. But it has no value when someone does it not because of that, but just happens to fit what you say as well. Then it’s a coincidental match. The question is whether such a thing has value, because such a match would happen in Belgium too.

[Speaker I] Why do I need to resort to the High Court when within Jewish law one person acts one way and someone else… when he hits upon some such view? No—within Jewish law I don’t accept that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because within Jewish law, when I follow the Chatam Sofer—let’s say my halakhic conception is that what the Chatam Sofer says binds me—then that has value in the service of God. I fulfill what Jewish law requires me to fulfill. That’s fine. But the High Court in any case does not do that. Right. The High Court just happens to do something that fits what the Chatam Sofer wrote. Precisely because of your consideration, that has no value.

[Speaker I] So there’s no need for the High Court in the Ministry of Justice—simply because in any case they don’t do it from a religious standpoint.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. That’s what I said. That’s my point. So now let’s return for a moment to the Chazon Ish. If we now look at the halakhic principles the Chazon Ish is talking about—what are they? “You are cutting off my livelihood” and “competition among scholars increases wisdom.” These principles are principles of common sense, those same principles of morality, of social order, or things of that sort. Now the Sages established them as Jewish law. It also appears in the Shulchan Arukh, yes? The Sages established them as Jewish law. So the Chazon Ish says: moral obligations are sometimes one body with halakhic rulings. What does he mean to say? That in these areas, in moral areas, when the Sages determine the Jewish law, they determine what is moral according to our approach. A completely different statement from all the interpretations I suggested earlier. He is speaking specifically about these laws, not about the collisions of Amalek and saving a gentile on the Sabbath and all those things. That is not the discussion here at all. He is speaking about places in Jewish law that come to clarify a moral issue and reach the conclusion that, halakhically speaking, Jewish law determined that the morality of competition in the area of Torah—the morality, not exactly morality, no matter, the utilitarian values of competition in the area of Torah study—prevails over the moral values of not harming an individual person’s livelihood. That is a moral decision. The Sages fixed that moral decision as Jewish law. Once it was fixed as Jewish law, it is Jewish law. So if someone comes and says: in my view the moral principle of not harming a person’s livelihood is more important than competition among teachers in Torah study—he may be right on the moral level, perhaps. But the Sages decided the moral issue here, not only the halakhic issue. And that is what he says: moral obligations are sometimes—and I think that is also the meaning of the “sometimes”—one body with halakhic rulings. Those topics in which the discussion from the outset is basically a moral discussion, not a halakhic one. The discussion of Sabbath observance is not a moral discussion. Sometimes it collides with saving life and then I have a problem. The discussion of separating a priest’s wife from her husband is not a moral discussion; it is a religious discussion. It collides with a moral principle. Here the entire discussion, through and through, is in the moral sphere. And when the Sages established the law, they established what morality says in their opinion.

[Speaker E] What do you mean, a moral question? “Competition among scholars increases wisdom”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said: in this case it’s not morality but social utility, let’s call it that. And the question is whether, for the sake of increasing Torah, it is worthwhile to harm the person’s right to make a living there.

[Speaker E] Increasing Torah is a religious question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No question. But it is still the arrangement of social life; meaning, there is some legal determination here. It isn’t just a purely religious matter.

[Speaker E] That’s what he wanted to say, and it’s not only the best example. Why? I don’t know—you brought two examples here that are moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how many such cases there are. It’s not a bad example. “You are cutting off my livelihood” is certainly a moral principle. And competition is a social principle that every social system wrestles with; after all, we too in the State of Israel wrestle with this question. To what extent to allow free competition and to what extent to protect people’s livelihoods. There’s a dilemma here, and it’s a moral dilemma—well, social-moral. Yes, exactly. So it’s a dilemma—really, it’s a dilemma that belongs overall to the sphere of morality and regulating relations between individuals in society. Fine, when the goal is to increase Torah, of course. Fine, it’s obvious that there’s a religious assumption here, but still this is a question that in essence is moral. What prevails over what? And one person may say this prevails and another person may say that prevails. The Chazon Ish says: don’t think this is a moral question where you can do something because it seems more moral to you. Once the Sages established the Jewish law, then the law—the moral obligations are one body with halakhic rulings. Once the Sages established the Jewish law, that is what binds also on the moral level. That is what the Chazon Ish says. And then he isn’t speaking at all about the clash between these two things. As though religious competition, the competition among teachers, is a religious value and “you are cutting off my livelihood” is a moral value, and the question is which prevails. He is not speaking about that, if I am right in this interpretation. He is speaking about both sides of the equation. Both together, he says—in each of them there are two layers. There is the moral layer, but once the Sages determined it, it also became halakhically accepted. So now—after the Sages have already determined the Jewish law—you are no longer left open with the moral question, in which you decide as you decide in moral questions, doing what you think, what seems right to you. Once the Sages determined it, then sometimes, when the Sages determined it, moral obligations are one body with halakhic rulings. So he is not addressing the conflict at all—

[Speaker C] —between a halakhic ruling on a moral subject?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example. On the one hand. On the other hand he is also not dealing with questions of Amalek and the priest’s wife and things like that. He is not talking about a clash between Jewish law and morality. He is talking about the places—if I am right, and this is a suggestion—he is talking about places where Jewish law established a moral principle, and did not do so on the basis of a verse, but where the whole discussion itself was also a moral discussion among the Sages. They had to decide what really was more just. So they decided that this was more just. Once they decided that, that is what binds us both morally and halakhically.

[Speaker B] Then all the more so. Right? Then all the more so. Therefore the “sometimes” here is very precise. So if what the Sages ruled is also supposedly the moral side, because that’s what they decided was moral, then all the more so with Torah-level rulings that the Sages didn’t even get involved in—then certainly that is the most moral of the moral of the moral. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Certainly not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That a fortiori argument has refutations.

[Speaker B] So I’ll tell you: if the Sages deliberated what is moral and decided that moral is to do this and not that, and then the Jewish law is as they decided because that is morality, then in Torah-level matters that the Sages didn’t get involved in at all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They thought—this—

[Speaker B] —all the more so in Heaven they also deliberated what morality is. That’s what I said: morality is what the Torah says.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that a fortiori argument has ten refutations. Why? I’ll give you one of them, for example. I have several more, but I’ll give you one. Meaning: when the Sages discuss this topic, only moral considerations are involved in this topic. Religious considerations are not involved—or moral in the broad sense, because increasing Torah study is not exactly a moral consideration.

[Speaker B] Was someone in Heaven—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —when the Holy One, blessed be He—

[Speaker B] —decided about slaughter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So He too deliberated?

[Speaker B] Wait, wait, just a second.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll answer you; listen.

[Speaker B] He deliberated much more—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —until He decided that this is morality. Perhaps. I’ll offer you another alternative, okay? So I’m saying: the Chazon Ish is basically saying this. Here there is a discussion that is entirely in the moral sphere. There are no verses here, no religious principles, nothing of that sort involved. What is involved here is what is more just than what. Which value prevails over which value. A question each of us could ask ourselves too. The Sages sat over it because they understood that this was a question requiring a decision, and they decided: competition in the field of Torah study prevails over the value of livelihood. In other fields the opposite. Fine, that’s what they decided. Once they decided that, then that is the moral determination that binds at the halakhic level. That’s one side. That’s what he’s talking about. Now let’s move to Torah-level law.

[Speaker C] But it’s not only regarding Jewish law. What if there were a case resulting from the fact that there is a store selling in the marketplace?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so the Sages can determine that. By the way, it also appears in the halakhic decisors.

[Speaker C] So again, that no one should sell—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That qualification appears in the decisors themselves. Certainly. This discussion goes on further. The Sages try. Right, but the discussion continues because the Sages didn’t finish the job. The Sages continue the work later as well. There are sometimes additional situations. Fine, so I’ll include those things in the discussion too—it isn’t important, it doesn’t change the principle. But the other side of the a fortiori claim—you say Torah-level laws are certainly moral. Who says? My claim earlier was that in Torah-level laws, when the Torah determined that a priest’s wife must separate from her husband, what was under deliberation there was not a deliberation between two moral values, but a deliberation between a religious value and a moral value. And the Torah decided that the religious value prevails. The Holy One, blessed be He, decided that the religious value prevails over the moral value. Now there I do not see why one should infer from the Chazon Ish that one must say that there too this was really a deliberation that was entirely moral, and the decision was in favor of the morality that they separate rather than the morality that they remain together. There is no reason; that a fortiori argument does not emerge from here. It is not a valid a fortiori argument. Because there, openly, dimensions are involved that are religious and not moral. So there it really is a conflict between Jewish law and morality. Here, the entire discussion from A to Z is only about morality, about justice. Except that the Sages determined concerning it this point: don’t think it remains morality, but rather morality becomes one body with halakhic rulings. That is what the Chazon Ish says—after they fixed it. That’s all. It has no connection with a conception of the relationship between Jewish law and morality. And you can see—I said earlier, I don’t accept this in the Chazon Ish on the basis of other passages—but it seems to me that even when you read his words here, that isn’t what he says. Okay, I think we’ll stop here.

Halakha and Ethics, Lesson 4

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Models for the Relationship Between Torah and Morality

The Type of Commitment and the Possibility of Conflict

The Source of Morality and What the Holy One, blessed be He, Expects

Examples of Conflict: A Kohen’s Wife Who Was Raped, Amalek, Sabbath, and a Non-Jew

“And You Shall Do What Is Upright and Good” and the Limit of Moral Reduction

Faith and Trust, Chapter 3 of the Chazon Ish, and the Reading of “There Is No Morality”

An Alternative Interpretation of the Chazon Ish: A Moral Decision That Becomes Jewish Law

Critique of “Hebrew Law” and the Example of Force-Feeding Geese

The Authority of Rulings, Intention, Secular Courts, and the Goals of Jewish Law

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

Models for the Relationship Between Torah and Morality

The Type of Commitment and the Possibility of Conflict

The Source of Morality and What the Holy One, blessed be He, Expects

Examples of Conflict: A Kohen’s Wife Who Was Raped, Amalek, Sabbath, and a Non-Jew

“And You Shall Do What Is Upright and Good” and the Limit of Moral Reduction

Faith and Trust, Chapter 3 of the Chazon Ish, and the Reading of “There Is No Morality”

An Alternative Interpretation of the Chazon Ish: A Moral Decision That Becomes Jewish Law

Critique of “Hebrew Law” and the Example of Force-Feeding Geese

The Authority of Rulings, Intention, Secular Courts, and the Goals of Jewish Law

Full Transcript

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