Halakha and Ethics, Lesson 12
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Table of Contents
- Maimonides and Adam’s first sin: intelligibles, conventions, and the proper and improper
- Interpreting the serpent: “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” and the problem of punishment versus improvement
- Post factum and ideally: life after the decline and what is right to do now
- Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 1 chapter 6: the human being as a reflection of the worlds and the mixing of holiness and impurity
- Choice before the sin and the shift from external temptation to an inner impulse
- The mixing of intentions and the imperfection of action: “for there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin”
- Judgment and reckoning in the name of the Vilna Gaon, and the claim that one is held accountable for consequences
- Good inclination and evil inclination, the author of the Tanya, and kelipat nogah as a description of the impulsive dimension
- A good inclination that leads to evil, political examples, and a critique of moral swept-alongness
- The question of sin without urges: how Adam’s first sin is possible
- Asperger’s as a metaphor for the pre-sin state and the connection to the conventions of the “conventional”
- Morality as intelligibles versus morality as conventions: a critique of Leibowitz and the naturalistic fallacy
- Torah and norms: are norms necessarily conventional?
- Value conflicts and incommensurability: how do you rank values?
- Saving life and the Sabbath: two reasons in the Talmud and the relation between means and value
- Who desecrates the Sabbath to save whom: a global reckoning and the rejection of distinguishing between the desecrator and the beneficiary
Summary
General overview
The text presents a reading of Maimonides on Adam’s first sin as a descent from the intellectual state of acting according to intelligibles to a state in which conventions enter consciousness—norms like what is proper and improper. From that comes the common confusion, as though Maimonides were making morality conventional. It then brings the gloss of Nefesh HaChaim about the mixing of the forces of holiness and impurity in the human being and in the worlds following the sin, with an emphasis that choice exists even before the sin, but the tempting impulse moves from outside to inside and creates a constant mixture in actions and intentions. From this an underlying position is built: morality and Torah can belong to the realm of intelligibles in the sense of truth and falsehood, and not only to social agreement. Philosophical implications are then discussed regarding the naturalistic fallacy, the nature of values as axioms, and decision-making in value conflicts such as saving life versus the Sabbath through the two Talmudic reasons.
Maimonides and Adam’s first sin: intelligibles, conventions, and the proper and improper
Maimonides is interpreted here to mean that before the sin, the human being acts intellectually, and after the sin he becomes “one who knows good and evil” in the sense that conventions enter into him in place of intelligibles. Maimonides defines intelligibles as truth and falsehood, and conventions as the proper and the improper. The usual identification of the proper and improper with moral good and evil creates a difficulty, because then the decline sounds as though morality is anti-intellectual. Maimonides himself is presented as holding that a wise person is one who behaves properly, so it is hard to attribute to him the idea that morality belongs only to agreement and convention. In his examples, such as nakedness, the discussion concerns manners and behavioral norms more than prohibitions like “do not murder” and “do not steal.” Maimonides is read here as someone who thinks that “do not steal” and “do not murder” belong to the sphere of intellect and not to the sphere of conventions, and that “good and evil” in the sense of the tree of knowledge describes human norms of propriety and impropriety, not morality in the usual sense.
Interpreting the serpent: “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” and the problem of punishment versus improvement
The text presents an interpretive line according to which the serpent’s words, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” are a true description of an outcome that raises one to a higher level. From here comes the question: why is this seen as a punishment if it improves things? The image of a transgression that brings a “positive” result is presented through the analogy of stealing, which makes one rich and is still a transgression. But it is argued that the question remains sharper here, because in this case there is no “stealing” from the Holy One, blessed be He, and so it is unclear why something that leads upward should be forbidden. Within this, a reading is proposed that reconciles Maimonides: the change is not a “moral improvement” but a shift to behavior according to social standards of manners and the sense that “there is something to hide.” The decline is the very appearance of the artificial dimension, of interests and discomfort around nakedness. The picture that “a nudist village is paradise” is presented as the ideal pre-sin state, and shame over nakedness is a sign of decline, not correction.
Post factum and ideally: life after the decline and what is right to do now
The text states that when a change is the result of sin or decline, that does not mean one should not act accordingly in the given situation. Once the situation has changed, “once we’re inside this situation, then it isn’t right” to behave as if we were returning to the state before the sin. The distinction is presented as a general logic in which what is post factum can become ideal in the new situation, because the decline reflects a change in the person or in the world. An example is brought from Rabbi Kook about vegetarianism: on the one hand, being vegetarian is presented as more complete, but it is argued that in the present state it is not necessarily right to behave that way. The example is used mainly to illustrate the logic. The same logic is described in debates between Haredim and modern religious Jews in both directions, where it is argued that a principled and “more complete” mode of behavior may not be possible or permitted in the current historical-social situation.
Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 1 chapter 6: the human being as a reflection of the worlds and the mixing of holiness and impurity
It is said that Nefesh HaChaim presents the human being as a reflection of the cosmic structure, so a change in the human being affects the worlds and does not merely mirror them. Before the sin, the human being “was included only of all the worlds and the powers of holiness alone, and not of the powers of evil.” After the sin, “the powers of impurity and evil were also included and mixed within him,” and consequently they became mixed into the worlds as well. “The tree of knowledge of good and evil” is explained as a joining and mixing of good and evil together, since “knowledge means connection, as is known.” The explicit references are preserved: “And the matter is explained for one who understands in Etz Chaim, the Gate of Kelipat Nogah, chapter 2… and one should look carefully in Gilgulim, chapter 1.”
Choice before the sin and the shift from external temptation to an inner impulse
It is stated explicitly that “before the sin… he certainly was a complete being of free choice,” able to improve himself or the opposite, because choice is “the ultimate purpose of the whole creation,” and the very fact of the sin proves that there was choice. At the same time, it is argued that choice before the sin does not stem from the powers of evil being included within the person, because the person was “entirely upright” and included only from the powers of holiness, while the powers of evil stood “to the side, as a separate matter,” outside him. The temptation is described as something external, which is why the serpent had to come from outside, whereas after the sin “the inclination that tempts the person is inside the person himself and makes itself appear to the person as though he himself is the one who wants it.” It is said that the serpent “cast contamination into her,” which is “the skin of the serpent” in the language of the Ari, and that this contamination is an entry “literally into them,” creating a “great confusion” and a transition to a state in which every act is mixed and shifts between good and evil.
The mixing of intentions and the imperfection of action: “for there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin”
Nefesh HaChaim describes how, since the sin, every human action is mixed—“sometimes good and sometimes evil.” Even in a good act it is almost impossible that there should not be “some inclination or slight thought for oneself.” On the other side as well, in a bad act there is sometimes some thought for the good, according to the person’s imagination. Even the completely righteous person, it is almost impossible that all his actions should be “in true perfection entirely,” without “lack and defect.” The verse “for there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin” is explained by saying that “sin means lack, as is known.” Therefore, in judgment before Him, one needs “countless reckonings” for all the details of actions, speech, and thought. The verse “God made man upright, but they sought out many calculations” is linked to this, and it is said: “See the Zohar, Emor, where it is explained according to what we have said.”
Judgment and reckoning in the name of the Vilna Gaon, and the claim that one is held accountable for consequences
A teaching is brought in the name of his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, on the phrase “before whom you are destined to give judgment and reckoning,” as the difference between the judgment of a lower earthly court and the divine ability also to make a “reckoning” of all the consequences. The example given is that when one is judged for speaking slander, there is also the question of what could have been done during that time instead, such as Torah study neglected. So one must give an accounting for all the ramifications. The principle is presented as explaining why divine judgment includes an evaluation of the tendencies of actions—“where they were leaning”—beyond the act itself.
Good inclination and evil inclination, the author of the Tanya, and kelipat nogah as a description of the impulsive dimension
The text distinguishes between the choosing human being and the inclinations as the “periphery” within which he operates, and argues that a person is not “righteous” merely because “it feels good to him to do good,” but because of a decision that is not just being swept along by temptation. It says that the struggle is not between good inclination and evil inclination, but between cognitive control and emotion. The author of the Tanya is brought as formulating this as a struggle between the divine soul and the animal soul, where the animal soul is “kelipat nogah,” a mixture of good and evil. It is said that Nefesh HaChaim and the author of the Tanya are saying here “exactly the same thing,” in the sense that the entry of “the skin of the serpent” or “kelipat nogah” is the entry of the impulsive dimension into the human being. The punishment is the blurring of the boundary, so that the inclinations “make it seem” that they are me. It is argued that many people today have difficulty with the language of “stand against your inclination” because they perceive the inclinations as the self, whereas the text insists on a choosing entity that stands opposite the inclinations and does not identify with them.
A good inclination that leads to evil, political examples, and a critique of moral swept-alongness
It is argued that even a good inclination can lead to evil when it pulls a person into action without intellectual examination, and that working against a good inclination is even harder than working against an evil inclination. An example is given of the condemnation of the State of Israel in the world, as an illustration of how people can act out of a desire for good and to prevent injustice, but on the basis of a false picture. Therefore, one needs to stop and exercise intellectual control over moral “outrage.” The claim is that the tendency itself may be healthy and correct, but it must pass through a “filter” of examination. Otherwise, following inclinations in general causes both a habit of letting the inclinations decide and the fact that even the good inclination does not always lead to a genuinely good act in practice.
The question of sin without urges: how Adam’s first sin is possible
An internal question is raised regarding a model in which before the sin there are no inclinations: if there is no urge toward evil, how can one choose evil in a way that is not just a mistake or compulsion? Reservations are raised that presenting the sin as an error in judgment turns it into compulsion, while the verses describe sin and punishment within a discourse of responsibility. A possibility is suggested that the human being was “drawn after the good inclination” rather than after the evil inclination, and it is said that this depends on whether “evil” in Nefesh HaChaim means the evil inclination specifically or the entire mixed impulsive dimension. At the end of the chapter, a possible fit is offered with Nefesh HaChaim’s statement that after the sin there is no pure good act and no pure evil act. The explanation is examined: is this a statistical mixture due to difficulty, or an essential mixture that blurs the distinction between good and evil?
Asperger’s as a metaphor for the pre-sin state and the connection to the conventions of the “conventional”
It is said that a person without impulses might do only what is right, and an example is brought from people with Asperger’s as those who act more according to what is logical and correct and less according to emotional norms. It is argued that “Maimonides’ conventions are exactly what someone with Asperger’s lacks,” and that the pre-sin state can be understood as a state of being “upright,” acting according to truth and falsehood rather than social sensitivities. The decline of the tree of knowledge is presented as the entry of “calculations” and norms that generate sensitivity to what is improper, like shame over nakedness, and not necessarily as moral elevation.
Morality as intelligibles versus morality as conventions: a critique of Leibowitz and the naturalistic fallacy
Leibowitz’s claim is brought that values cannot have an explanation, because a value is an end and not a means, and therefore any attempt to justify a value by utility turns it into a non-value. Against this, it is argued that morality can be understood as belonging to the realm of intelligibles, like truth and falsehood, if conscience is an “instrument of observation” of the idea of the good. Then a statement like “murder is forbidden” is judged in terms of truth and falsehood, not merely as agreement. The naturalistic fallacy is formulated as the gap between a factual explanation of how a moral tendency came into being—evolution and the like—and a normative justification of why one ought to behave that way. Facts do not explain norms. The proposed solution is that there are “facts of a different kind,” norm-laden facts, and awareness of them is not achieved with the eyes but with the eyes of the intellect. In that way, norms can be true or false and not merely conventional.
Torah and norms: are norms necessarily conventional?
The text states that if morality is in the realm of conventions, then Torah as a body of norms would also be conventional, and the discussion moves to the question whether norms in general can belong to the realm of intelligibles. It is argued that “the things themselves” are not intelligibles or conventions, but rather the states of affairs as they are. The distinction lies in the human being and in the way the insights are apprehended: intellect versus publicity and convention. The observation that grounds axioms is presented as the basis of every explanatory system. Therefore both Torah and morality can rest on observation with the eyes of the intellect, which establishes truth and falsehood in the normative world.
Value conflicts and incommensurability: how do you rank values?
It is said that if values are axioms that cannot be rationalized, it is hard to build a scale of values, because there is no “common measure” between conflicting values. This is called incommensurability. Sartre’s example of the student is presented as a conflict between fighting evil and helping one’s mother, and it is argued that deciding requires ranking, which is impossible if there is no shared scale. The proposed solution returns to observation: a person “sees” not only the validity of a value but also its intensity, and can therefore decide even without turning the values into means toward some higher goal.
Saving life and the Sabbath: two reasons in the Talmud and the relation between means and value
The Talmud in Yoma is brought with two reasons why saving life overrides the Sabbath: “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” and “And you shall live by them, and not die by them.” The first reason is presented as a solution that translates two values into a common scale in terms of Sabbath observance, while the second is presented as viewing the commandments as a means to life and not the reverse, which seems contradictory. It is said that both reasons remain normative in Jewish law despite the conceptual tension, and a reading is suggested according to which “Desecrate one Sabbath for him” is a factual statement about the gain of future Sabbaths and not necessarily a claim that life is only a means to the commandments. The Chatam Sofer on Ketubot 15a is mentioned regarding an abandoned infant who is half gentile and half Jewish, as proof that one desecrates the Sabbath to save a life even where there is no certainty that the person “will keep many Sabbaths.” Therefore life has value in itself beyond the instrumental calculation.
Who desecrates the Sabbath to save whom: a global reckoning and the rejection of distinguishing between the desecrator and the beneficiary
It is said that the halakhic decisors flatly reject the distinction according to which it would be preferable for the person being saved to desecrate the Sabbath himself. It is established that the question of who performs the act has no significance if the act itself is justified. A position is presented according to which the reckoning is “global” before the Holy One, blessed be He: if life is worth the desecration of the Sabbath, then another person may also desecrate it to save him. A preliminary suggestion in the Tashbetz is mentioned and rejected, and it is said that the criterion is the justification of the act, not the identity of the one who benefits from the rescue.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s recall what we saw in Maimonides and his interpretation of Adam’s first sin. Maimonides basically says that before the sin—I’m saying this as the conclusion, in the end it seems to me that this is the meaning—before Adam’s first sin, the human being was essentially intellectual, let’s call it that. Following the sin, he became one who knows good and evil. Now, “knowing good and evil”—that was the question Maimonides was asked—what does that mean? Why is knowing good and evil a punishment? Knowing good and evil would seemingly be the opposite; it would be a higher level, meaning to be moral. And in that sense it’s not clear what the meaning of this is, that they became knowers of good and evil after the sin. And Maimonides explains that what happened there as a result of the sin is that the conventional entered into them, whereas beforehand they acted only according to the intelligible. Where the conventional is the improper and the good—or the proper, the improper, and the proper, something like that—as opposed to truth and falsehood, which are the intelligible. Usually people identify the improper and the proper with good and evil, and then it really does look strange that Maimonides explains that this was actually a decline, because it is not behavior according to intellect. If good and evil are the antithesis of intellect, meaning something that points to decline, then it seems odd. It also seems odd because Maimonides himself elsewhere certainly treats the wise person as someone who behaves morally. In many places in Maimonides—the Sages too, by the way—the term wise person describes someone who behaves properly, not necessarily someone with high intelligence. And if morality for him doesn’t belong to the sphere of intellect but to the sphere of agreement, of convention, then that seems strange. And the two examples Maimonides gives are examples that deal more with manners and decency than with morality. There he’s basically talking about walking around naked. That’s one example, one of the examples he discusses there.
[Speaker B] But knowing good and evil wasn’t a punishment. What? Not a punishment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s it—they understand it as if it was a punishment. Meaning, what she’s saying—
[Speaker B] The serpent says—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” That’s what the Holy One, blessed be He, is worried will happen, and these commentators see this as a true description. The serpent didn’t fool her. Meaning, really, when you eat from the tree of knowledge, then you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
[Speaker B] Which is a higher level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, and then what happens? They ate from the tree of knowledge. So if they ate from the tree of knowledge, then they became knowers of good and evil. If you take the serpent’s words at face value, not that he tricked her, then that’s really what happened. True, that’s not how it’s described in the verses, but it’s a punishment. It could be that eating from this tree is a transgression while in fact this tree brings improvement—that’s the same question. In the end, the result of this eating only raises us to a higher level.
[Speaker B] If I steal money, the result is I’m rich, but it’s still a transgression.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rich isn’t like moral—that’s exactly the point. And you’re also not stealing from the Holy One, blessed be He. Why would the Holy One forbid us to eat from it if that really is the result? That’s another aspect of the same issue. But in any case, that’s what they assume. They assume that the result was knowing good and evil, and therefore it seems to me that in Maimonides, the more plausible interpretation is that what happened after the sin is that we began to behave according to certain standards—let’s call them standards of manners or of human behavior—and not necessarily standards of moral good and evil. Not murdering and not stealing, for Maimonides, do not belong to the realm of convention.
[Speaker C] Good and evil is something that’s a descent. It already becomes something self-interested. No—why does that have to do with self-interest? Good and evil aren’t to someone; good and evil are just—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good and evil. When something is evil it can be—
[Speaker B] Bad for me and good for someone else.
[Speaker C] No, no—bad for me—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And good for him is the opposite. You’re assuming that it’s self-interested, and then you ask: whose interest is it? I’m saying no—good and evil aren’t self-interested, and therefore I’m not asking “good or evil for whom?” There is good and evil, period. Like truth and falsehood, say.
[Speaker C] That’s exactly the point. The moment it gets reduced to good and evil, then—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The opposite—that’s the point. That’s the focus. Good and evil in that sense is actually not what Maimonides is calling convention here. The good and evil that Maimonides calls convention here is not ordinary moral good and evil. As you said, for Maimonides that really is truth and falsehood, not good and evil. So what is the good and evil that Maimonides is calling here, the one that marks decline? It’s improper behavior—I don’t know exactly what to call it. Manners is maybe too weak a word. He means accepted standards or behavioral norms, human norms, not in the moral sense. The proper and the improper mean behaving—someone who walks naked in the street, that’s improper. That’s it.
[Speaker C] Why is that improper?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because we declined. That’s the good and evil here. That’s Maimonides in this sense, yes. He calls it the proper and the improper. The proper and the improper, good and evil here—yes, he says regarding the proper and the improper, good and evil. But he means good and evil in this sense. He also uses “good and evil” because the Torah says, “and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Right—that is what happened.
[Speaker D] Were they all stripped?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what was there, yes. That’s what was there.
[Speaker D] And that’s okay? Why did it become something improper? If going naked is improper? No—the opposite.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Going naked is excellent. That’s the ideal state.
[Speaker D] It’s not improper—no, the opposite.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that we think going naked isn’t okay—that’s the decline. Why? Because in the ideal state, a nudist village is paradise. That’s all. That’s what it says here.
[Speaker C] The whole point is precisely that they saw they were naked—that’s what happened. They realized there was something here to hide, that there were motives—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where—
[Speaker C] interests—where—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—what are these interests? They’re naked. It’s just unpleasant to walk around naked, that’s all.
[Speaker D] This belongs to last week’s lecture, the example Maimonides gives about nakedness. This belongs to last week, and some people weren’t there, so they’re raising it again. We already closed that discussion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. In any case, that’s an example Maimonides gives, fine, okay. The point is less important than the principle. In Maimonides, when he talks about decline, he doesn’t mean that—because Leibowitz brought Maimonides in this context. He—and Pascal—were the source for the idea that morality is basically an institutional thing, something of agreement or some kind of institutional determination, and not something true in itself. In Maimonides it says the opposite. The opposite is what Maimonides says. Maimonides says that good and evil are not an institutional matter; they belong to truth and falsehood. Good and evil in the context Maimonides uses here means the proper and improper in a human, mannerly, behavioral sense—I don’t know exactly what to call it—not in the moral sense. “Do not steal” and “do not murder” belong to the domain of intellect for Maimonides, not to the domain of convention. And this is a common mistake. Actually, I also always thought this until I read this chapter more carefully. Leibowitz also assumes that reading, but I think this is what Maimonides actually says. And in that sense he really sees this as some kind of decline, because now we are basically behaving not through things that truly have value in themselves, but only through what seems more or less pleasant to us. Something artificial entered us—something that was not really supposed to be there. What difference does it make? So we’ll go around without clothes—what’s the practical difference? Now of course, this is a point I may not remember whether I mentioned, but it’s obvious: many times, after this decline has already occurred, someone will now say to me, fine, I want to live in a nudist village, let’s return to the state before the sin, because that was the perfect state, so why stay in the fallen one? But no, not like that. Because if something really happened within us, something changed in the world, within us, whatever—in the current state, then it is right to behave this way. Meaning, the fact that this state as such is the result of sin, maybe it shouldn’t have been like this—that’s fine. But once we’re inside this situation, it isn’t right to say, okay, I’ll behave in a more perfect way, because that doesn’t fit this state. You are currently in the human condition after the sin. At least it can be that way—not always—but you have to remember that when you hear that something is post factum or is a decline, that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t do it. Not necessarily. Because if this decline is the outcome of some change that happened in us or in the world, then sometimes, since we really are in that state—like I once mentioned Rabbi Kook’s example about vegetarianism, where Rabbi Kook really says that yes, for free, so to speak, it would indeed be more complete to be vegetarian, but in the current situation it isn’t right to behave that way. For various reasons, whatever they are, but in the current situation it isn’t right to behave that way, even though being vegetarian is, in principle, a more complete world or a more correct, more complete kind of behavior.
[Speaker E] Not that it would be forbidden, and not necessarily that it’s wrong to behave that way. He was vegetarian on weekdays.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, no—
[Speaker E] I’m saying it’s not completely unequivocal, but he says—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If someone did it voluntarily in his own home or something, fine.
[Speaker E] Could be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. I don’t care. I mean to bring an example for the logic. I don’t want right now to get back into the details of that example—I haven’t looked at his words just now. But the logic is this logic. Many times, even in entirely different debates—the debates between Haredim and more modern religious Jews, for example. By the way, in both directions. There are those, say among Haredi people, who understand that in principle—those who are more clear-sighted, it seems to me—understand that in principle it is more correct to be open. They just say: in the current situation it’s forbidden to do that, even though it really is more correct behavior. There are those who don’t think at all that being open is more complete behavior. But there are many who say yes, except that because we are now in a certain given condition, we cannot allow ourselves to behave in the more correct way. Arguments of that kind. And by the way, the reverse too: sometimes in the more modern world there are also people who think the opposite—that the more complete behavior would be to deal only with Torah and not open oneself to anything else. But what can you do? In our world it’s impossible. We also need to deal with other things, unfortunately, and so there’s no choice—livelihood, or whatever, everyone with his own reasons. That’s the other side of the same coin, but it’s the same logic. And on the face of it, that logic can be correct. Meaning, the fact that something is less ideal behavior does not mean that it isn’t what one should do in the given situation. Sometimes the post factum is the ideal. So that’s Maimonides. Now let’s look at Nefesh HaChaim. Nefesh HaChaim says this—this is a gloss in chapter 6 of Gate 1. I took a passage; it’s not even the whole exhausting gloss, but it’s a very well-known passage in Nefesh HaChaim, so this is a good opportunity to look at it. “And this was before the sin: then the human being was not included—then he was included only of all the worlds and the powers of holiness alone, and not of the powers of evil.” Meaning, the whole context in that gate is that he presents the human being as a kind of reflection of the world. And just as in the world there are various kinds of forces, good and evil, everything also exists within the human being in miniature. In other words, the human being is some kind of reflection of the structure of the whole world. Then he goes on to demonstrate this through what happened in Adam’s first sin, and he says that before the sin, the human being was included only of all the worlds and the powers of holiness alone—and maybe the world too, because the human being is not only a passive reflection of the world. Rather, the moment a person changes himself—in this case, ruins himself—the world also descends. Meaning, there is some kind of influence in both directions. It is not just an external equation or a mirror image. There is some causative link of influence here. So before the sin, the human being was included only from the worlds and the powers of holiness alone, and not from the powers of evil. “But after the sin, the powers of impurity and evil were also included and mixed within him, and consequently by this he mixed them also into the worlds. For that reason, since he is comprised of and partnered with them all, they are aroused and changed according to the tendency of his deeds. And this is the matter of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” And here comes the passage parallel to Maimonides: “And the matter is that before the sin, although he certainly was a complete being of free choice, to incline himself to whatever he wished, for good or the opposite, Heaven forbid…” Yes, because there is a tendency to think that if it says that after the sin he became one who knows good and evil, that means that before the sin he had no choice. And then of course the question arises that was asked against Maimonides—the same question: how can it be that the fact that you sinned brings you up to the level of being a creature with free choice? If before that you didn’t have free choice and after that you do, then it cannot be a decline or a punishment for the sin. So he is basically answering Maimonides’ question. Right—just a second, we’ll see. But he really says: that’s not true. Beforehand too he certainly had choice and the ability to incline himself to good or evil, “for this is the purpose of the whole of creation.” It cannot be that the human being was without choice and choice is some historical accident, or that from the time the human being sinned, choice entered into him. Choice is the purpose of creation. “And also because afterwards he sinned.” What does that mean? It’s exactly Job’s argument, right? Meaning, if he had no choice before the sin, then in what sense did he sin? You can’t sin if you have no choice. So that claim collapses from within itself: that before, the human being had no choice, and afterwards he got choice. “However, it was not that the matter of his choice came from the fact that the powers of evil were included within him. For he was an entirely upright person, included only from the ordered powers of holiness alone. And all his affairs were all upright, holy, and purified, and complete good, without any mixture or inclination to the opposite side at all. And the powers of evil stood aside, as a separate matter outside him. And he had the choice to enter into the powers of evil, Heaven forbid, just as a person has the choice to enter into fire. Therefore, when the Other Side tried to make him sin, the serpent had to come from outside to tempt him. Not as it is now, where the inclination that tempts a person is within the person himself, and makes itself appear to the person as though he himself is the one who wants and is drawn to commit the sin, and not that some external other is tempting him.” “And through his sin, in that he was drawn after the temptation of the Other Side, the powers of evil became mixed literally into him, and so too into the worlds. And this is the tree of knowledge of good and evil—that good and evil became joined and mixed within him and within the worlds, together, literally one inside the other. For knowledge”—what does it mean, one who knows good and evil?—“knowledge means connection, as is known.” So “knowing good and evil” means that good and evil connected to him, entered into him. “And the matter is explained for one who understands in Etz Chaim, the Gate of Kelipat Nogah, chapter 2, except that there it is abbreviated. And one should look carefully in Gilgulim, chapter 1.” I’ll first read the whole thing and then talk about it a bit. “And this is what our Rabbis of blessed memory said: when the serpent came upon Eve, it cast contamination into her.” Yes, this is “the skin of the serpent” in the language of the Ari of blessed memory. The skin of the serpent—the contamination that the serpent cast into her—is the skin of the serpent, and this is also kelipat nogah, the Gate of Kelipat Nogah. Maybe we talked about this once when I spoke about the Tanya. I think we read a chapter from the Tanya; I think there I’ll explain some of this in a moment. “That is to say, literally into them. And from then on, by this he caused a great confusion in his deeds.” Yes, good and evil became mixed. “For all human actions are mixed and undergo very many changes, at times good and at times evil, constantly turning from good to evil and from evil to good. And even the good deed itself—it is almost impossible for most of the world that it should be entirely pure holiness, or entirely clean, without any inclination whatsoever toward some ulterior motive or slight thought for himself.” Meaning also intention for oneself, for one’s own good, interests. “And likewise the opposite: in a bad deed too there is sometimes mixed into it some thought for the good, according to his imagination. And even the completely righteous person, who in all his days never did any deed that was not good, nor ever uttered any light speech that was not good, Heaven forbid—even so, it is almost entirely impossible that his good deeds themselves, all the days of his life, should all be in true perfection completely, and that there should not be in even one of them any lack or defect at all.” “And this is what the verse says: ‘For there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin’—that is to say, it is impossible that there should not be, at the very least, some slight deficiency in the very good act that he performs, for sin means deficiency, as is known. Therefore, when a person is brought to judgment before Him, blessed be His name, countless reckonings are required.” This is in the name of his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, of course—a well-known idea—on the phrase, “before whom you are destined to give judgment and reckoning.” The Vilna Gaon says that in an earthly court, and this is topical today, an earthly court judges a person according to the law. Meaning, it gives him what he deserves and not what he doesn’t deserve. But you always also have to make the reckoning. Because many times, when you put someone in prison, say—what about his family? Are they guilty? So how do you give a punishment that fits the legal judgment and also takes into account, also makes the reckoning of, all the consequences? Only the Holy One, blessed be He, can do that—before whom you are destined to give judgment and reckoning. One of the examples people bring—I don’t remember whether it’s the Vilna Gaon himself or not—is if you are sued, say, because you spoke slander. So if you spoke slander, the Holy One also looks at what you could have done had you not spoken—so that is also neglected Torah study. Meaning, there is judgment and after that also reckoning. “Countless reckonings are required for every detail of all his deeds and words and thoughts, and every detail of all his conduct, in the way they were tending and where they were leaning. And this is what the verse says: ‘God made the human being upright, but they sought out many calculations.’ And see the Zohar on the portion Emor, where it is explained according to what we have said.” So what is he basically saying? Let’s now see it step by step. What he is basically claiming is this: before the sin, the human being had free choice and could choose between good and evil, except that the matter of his choice—without external influence he would do only good—but what happened after—
[Speaker D] The sin?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even without—
[Speaker D] external influence he did—so how was he drawn to sin?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It was implanted in him, implanted, but it still isn’t—it’s still really external. The truth is, it’s still external; it only appears to him, as he says, it appears to him as if it’s from within, as if he himself wants to do evil, but it only appears that way, because it’s still external. A person who chooses on his own—that’s not a question of good and evil. This entry of evil from outside inward is basically a psychological process; it’s still something that is not me, it just entered into me, and my feeling is that I actually want to do the evil, and that it’s not something from outside trying to influence me. And so here I think we have to distinguish—and I don’t know, there are places where it’s not clear how fully he really makes this distinction—between the… and we once saw the author of the Tanya, that chapter, in chapter 17 I think, chapter 9, I don’t remember, of the book Tanya, where he talks about what exactly is the dilemma standing before a person. Is the dilemma between good and evil, the struggle between good and evil within a person— is that a struggle between two inclinations, the good inclination and the evil inclination? If that were the case, that would be a very strange situation, because if a righteous person means someone whose good inclination is stronger, and a wicked person is someone whose evil inclination is stronger, then that means it has nothing to do with me at all; it’s just a question of how I’m built. Meaning, if I have a naturally stronger tendency to do good, then I’m righteous, and if I have a naturally stronger tendency to do evil, then I’m wicked—but that’s not reasonable. It’s not reasonable that the difference between the righteous and the wicked is an inborn difference. Rather, we have to distinguish here between two things. The tendency toward good and the tendency toward evil—what we call inclinations, good inclination and evil inclination—are not connected to me at all. They are the periphery within which I operate—by the way, good too, not only evil. Good too: when someone does good because his inclination leads him to do good, he is not a good person. He’s simply built in such a way that it feels pleasant for him to do good. Now okay, that’s a person who is nice to live next to, because he’s a nice person and he’s fine and he doesn’t harm anyone and he helps—everything’s great—but he is not good in the true, authentic moral sense. Rather, he behaves well like a sheep. It’s very pleasant to live next to it because it behaves well. We talked about Amnon Yitzhak. So the same thing here: the inclinations do not reflect the person. A person does not choose because of the inclinations; a person chooses under the influence of the inclinations. But the one who chooses here is someone who is not the inclinations, someone else. And that someone else is not connected to the inclinations; it’s something different—that’s me. I need to choose whether to respond to the temptations of the evil inclination or to the temptations of the good inclination, and both are temptations. I’m deliberately using the same term because I’m supposed not to be tempted. I need to decide for myself what I’m going to do, whether for good or for evil. First of all I need to decide. Afterwards, of course, that also means deciding to do good, but first I need to decide. Therefore, being tempted to do good is not a higher human level than being tempted to do evil, as long as it comes by way of temptation and not by way of my own decision. Of course, responding to the good inclination is an excellent decision. That is, doing what the good inclination is trying to tempt me to do—if I do that out of a decision, that’s perfectly fine; that’s what I’m supposed to do. But choice is not an act of the inclinations. Choice is an act done within the framework of the inclinations. Now, in the teachings of the Arizal, in the section on Kelipat Nogah, which he mentions here in Etz Chaim, in the section on Kelipat Nogah, he distinguishes there between four shells in Kabbalah. There are three shells that are evil—shells are generally associated with evil—three shells that are absolute evil, and Kelipat Nogah, which is evil mixed with good. Now Kelipat Nogah is the serpent’s skin, and when the serpent cast its impurity into man—that’s already language from the Sages in the midrash, not from the Arizal—so the Arizal says that this is Kelipat Nogah, the serpent’s impurity, or this mixture of evil and good. Now what does that mean? It means that the serpent standing outside doesn’t represent the evil inclination; it represents inclination—evil or good, it doesn’t matter, both of them. The entire instinctive dimension of the person was clearly outside, not inside. Both the temptation toward good and the temptation toward evil—it was clear that this was something external. I am some sort of something that today is maybe a bit hard to grasp, because we live after the sin, but I am some sort of something that is not them at all. They try to influence me, but I make the decisions now about where to go, and it’s obvious that they are a serpent standing outside—or two serpents, it doesn’t matter—one trying to tempt me toward good and one toward evil. After the sin, what happens is that the person develops a feeling—again, an imaginary feeling—it appears to him as if it’s from within, as if he himself wants to do evil. That he himself wants to do good and evil. The inclinations are not something outside me; the inclinations are me. And by the way, today it’s very common that people don’t really understand this language of ‘stand against your inclination.’ ‘That’s just who I am.’ Meaning: that’s me. What do you mean, stand against it? The inclinations are me. What do you mean, stand against your inclination? That’s just how I am, that’s who I am. At most I can take a psychiatric pill—maybe that will change me. But not in the ontological sense, not in the sense that says there’s some entity here standing opposite the inclinations, and it has to decide what it does. Okay? That’s a perception that many people just don’t really…
[Speaker C] We say, ‘restrain yourself,’ don’t we?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Restrain yourself—not your inclinations? No, I don’t know who says that, but I don’t. What does it mean, restrain the inclinations? Inclinations are inclinations. Restrain yourself, don’t surrender to the inclinations. Again, the expressions—it’s possible the language isn’t always precise, but that’s…
[Speaker C] What do you mean? To restrain the inclinations?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? That’s only with pills. What does it mean to restrain the inclinations? Restrain what I do, not surrender to the inclinations. That’s what is demanded of a person. What is demanded of a person is not to restrain the inclinations. The fact that he has inclinations is a mitigating argument. Again, today’s issue of the day.
[Speaker F] You can probably also influence the inclinations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I’m saying, certainly. But then again we’re entering the question of what I do, and not what the inclinations are. So fine.
[Speaker F] Is there a demand on a person to restrain the good inclination?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a demand on a person not to restrain the good inclination, but not to let the good inclination lead you around by the nose. Why? Because if the good inclination leads you around by the nose, you’ll do evil. For two reasons. First, because if you’re used to being pulled after inclinations, then the evil inclination will pull you too, if you don’t run it through cognitive control—through intellectual control. And second, the good inclination does not always pull you toward good. There are many people who have a very pronounced good inclination. Think of—I don’t know, I’ll take a political example. Think of the condemnation of the State of Israel around the world. Okay? The whole world is sure and convinced that we are South Africa, if not worse. Okay? Now, if that is the information you have, or if you really think that, then the good inclination leads you to act against that phenomenon. That is a good inclination, not an evil one. That, by the way, is the power of this phenomenon, why it’s so hard to deal with, because it’s not wickedness. On the contrary, it’s an aspiration for good. Now go explain… What you need to do is try to explain that this is not the reality. Meaning that…
[Speaker B] So how did we arrive at such stupidity?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. So many times, something that comes from your good inclination—if you don’t run it through…
[Speaker C] But what you’re saying doesn’t belong to inclinations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, of course. Right, this may not be a perfect example, because there it’s information. It’s an issue of information. But I’m only saying…
[Speaker C] But that’s also concepts, it’s concepts and not… no, but I…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it is connected in this sense… no, but it is connected to this point, in the sense that it is a good example, because if a person is willing to examine the immediate picture that appears before his eyes, he uses his head, he says: wait a second, I understand that the moral outrage tells me I must act against such evil, but wait a second—outrage is inclinations. First let me check. Let’s hear, let’s hear what he says, let’s try to check, maybe my picture is not correct. In that sense, facts too are sometimes parallel to what I’m talking about. Someone who is willing to stop for a second. My feeling is often that the information can in fact be available to someone who looks for it, to someone willing to listen. But the problem is—nobody wants to listen. Why? Because they’re sure that they are now fighting moral jihad. They are fighting for good and morality. So why stop? On the contrary, all the energy should be invested in this matter. Now go tell a person: wait a second, you’re functioning here in a very emotional way, very driven by feeling. Try to listen for a moment. It could be that you don’t understand correctly. And working against the good inclination is much harder than working against the evil inclination. And I think that’s the second dimension in which someone who follows his inclinations without control can do evil. One is that if you follow the good inclination, then you get used to the inclinations determining things for you, and then the evil inclination will take you in the same way. The second is: even a good inclination is not always good. Your tendency to do this is a good tendency. It’s entirely good that these people genuinely aspire to prevent injustice and prevent evil. That is entirely good. You don’t need to overcome that tendency. They are not supposed to undergo a personality change, to suppress their good inclination. Absolutely not. It is a healthy inclination, a proper inclination. What they need to do is say: okay, that’s what the inclination says, but let’s think for a second. Let’s apply intellectual control and see whether that is really the case. Or many times, I don’t know, a person who doesn’t want to kill a murderer, or something like that. That too comes from a good place, from a good inclination. I’m not supposed to—I don’t want to kill a person. But many times that can have very problematic consequences. And the good inclination too has to be passed through a filter, or under intellectual control. Therefore, following inclinations is simply not good. Not even a good inclination. Neither a good inclination nor an evil inclination. So what needs to be done is to decide. And there the author of the Tanya says—not only in that chapter, but in that chapter it’s most sharply formulated—that the struggle is not at all between the good inclination and the evil inclination. The struggle is between what he calls the divine soul and the animal soul. And the animal soul is the instinctive dimension, that is Kelipat Nogah. He himself writes there that the animal soul is Kelipat Nogah. What is Kelipat Nogah? It’s the instinctive dimension, good and evil, the drives toward good and evil, which can carry me away. It may be that I will be perfectly righteous. If I have a strong good inclination, then I will be perfectly righteous all my life. But I will be perfectly righteous only externally. That is, I will behave like a perfectly righteous person; phenomenologically it will look like a perfectly righteous person, but it won’t really be a perfectly righteous person. And the struggle of the person is not to make the good inclination rule over the evil inclination. The struggle of the person is to make cognition rule over emotion. That is, to make thought rule over our instinctive dimension, good and evil. And therefore, when after the sin the serpent’s skin entered into the person—by the way, this is very interesting, because Nefesh HaChaim and the author of the Tanya, from two opposite sides of the divide, say exactly the same thing. Meaning, Nefesh HaChaim was written against that view. So what entered into the person, the serpent’s skin or Kelipat Nogah, is really that same shell in which good and evil are mixed. And that was the punishment: the inclination entered into the person. Now this picture itself is also a very interesting one to think about. We talked about free choice, so we talked a bit about these things, because think about what the situation was before the sin. The situation before the sin was basically that the person had no inclinations, at least not in the sense we’re talking about here. So why did he in fact sin? And try to think about a situation in which a person chooses to do evil.
[Speaker F] I was talking about that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if it’s an error in judgment—no, if it’s a mistake then it’s a mistake. I’m talking about a sin. But choice. One of the senses in which you are a sinner is that you have to understand that you are sinning. If it’s a mistake then you’re coerced. Meaning, there has to be something here that can’t be just a mistake.
[Speaker B] ‘And the woman saw that the tree was good for food’—there’s a description here of inclination, as it were.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, how that fits with the verses I don’t know, we can think about it. But I’m saying, in the psychological or spiritual picture he describes here, it’s a bit hard to imagine how the sin worked there. So he preserves the principled possibility of sin. He says a person had choice even before, clearly. Those who think there was no choice at all and that choice only entered afterward are wrong—no. There was choice before. But if you have no impulse to do evil, and you choose in a completely pure way—like the angels—what are the chances… is there even a possibility that you would choose evil? It’s a little strange. We talked about this, I remember we had debates about it: can there even be a state in which a person chooses evil simply because that’s what he decided to do—not because… he has no impulse, he gains nothing from it, nothing at all, he just chooses evil, what he thinks—again, if it’s a mistake then of course that can happen and he can make a mistake—but to choose something that he too is supposed to understand is evil. Hm?
[Speaker D] Just so that it will be evil?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that’s very strange. I don’t think there really is such a thing.
[Speaker D] His impulse was to be like God, as the serpent told him. But then he had an impulse. But then he had an impulse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether he had impulses. To be like God. He thought it was good. Fine, he thought it was good—but did he have impulses?
[Speaker D] That’s not the inclination.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If a person had no impulses, then he didn’t have that impulse either.
[Speaker F] The serpent tempted him to do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By saying to him, listen… So what does ‘tempted’ mean?
[Speaker F] It didn’t change—if so—why isn’t it an error in judgment, and then he’s coerced, so fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he sinned. So what do you want—why is there punishment? The Merciful One exempts one who is coerced; ‘to the maiden you shall do nothing.’ So what do you want from him? He was coerced. Fine, but there are consequences, that’s fine—
[Speaker F] Coerced is coerced, but something happened here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What is this, mechanics? I mean, if he’s not guilty then what do you want from him? Yes, that’s the consequence. Okay, I don’t think this mechanical view is correct. If the Holy One, blessed be He, has no complaint against him, then why punish him? In that case, don’t build the world in a way that a person is punished without being guilty. There is some sort of claim here, even in the verses—well, that’s explicitly in the verses—that the serpent deceived me and I ate, and he excuses himself for the sin and the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes him. It isn’t just some mechanical consequence. There’s some negotiation there around the concept of sin. It’s not— it’s a little hard to ignore that dimension. So here one really has to understand that if indeed he had no impulses at all, neither good nor evil, then what is the serpent talking about? Did the serpent convince him to do evil in an intellectual sense? Not in the realm of convention, going back to Maimonides, but in the realm of true intelligibles? If so, once again, then he’s coerced; then it’s a mistake. Rather, it is some kind of inclination. Right, so I’m saying, rather it is some kind of inclination after all. So in truth again, if you think about it, nothing essential really changed as a result of the sin. Except that maybe psychologically it became more… harder to fight it, because I have more of a feeling that it’s me and not someone from outside. But in truth, now too it’s someone from outside, and then too it was someone from outside.
[Speaker F] The Rabbi mentioned that the inclinations were outside, but that isn’t written.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He speaks about the evil inclination.
[Speaker F] So he had the good inclination, and as far as I’m concerned that’s what brought him down. Meaning, he was dragged after the good inclination, and for that he got his sin.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Dragged after the good inclination? Yes. That’s what you’re saying. Nice. I hadn’t thought of that, because I really…
[Speaker F] Because people keep talking about the evil. They say that the evil was outside and the good was inside, and he was dragged after the evil.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. But I really did say earlier that I’m not sure how fully he worked through this psychological account, partly because of that very sentence. He talks about the evil inclination. And afterwards I thought maybe, as I said regarding the author of the Tanya, that what he calls evil is not the evil inclination. What he calls evil is the animal soul. The animal soul is both inclinations; meaning, even the good inclination, even following inclinations—that is what he calls evil. And that is basically the animal soul, while the divine soul is good. Not in the sense of doing good and doing evil. Fine, but maybe that too is an interpretation, could be, I don’t know. But the idea is really beautiful. What?
[Speaker B] It fits with after the Flood. That’s what it says: ‘for the inclination of the human heart is evil from his youth.’ Right. So now not. So there he’s talking about inclination.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About an evil inclination, not the evil inclination. The Sages say that ‘better a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king.’ Yes, and there they really interpret it in the usual sense as the evil inclination. But it could be that evil means evilness, the instinctive dimension—that is evil. Now here, on this matter, if I continue the analogy to what Maimonides did—then Nefesh HaChaim does speak about moral good and evil, not about ugly and beautiful in Maimonides’ terms. But the description of the sin is entirely parallel, and so are its consequences. Basically what happened is that what entered into him was the good and evil inclinations. In other words, the instinctive dimension, or this possibility of following inclination and thinking that what the inclination wants or pushes me toward is actually what I want—and that really is a decline. And it really is a decline in the sense that now I think that I myself want to do good or evil, and it doesn’t pass through my intellect. And here convention and true intelligibles perhaps are interpreted almost literally. Before the sin, basically, the person had only true intelligibles, which of course means also ‘do not murder’ and ‘do not steal,’ not only knowledge of God in some philosophical sense, but also as I said regarding Maimonides. But after the sin, what happens is exactly what people think today: that morality is convention and not true intelligible knowledge. Because basically the claim is that I behave morally because that’s how I’m built. When you ask a person why he behaves morally, what gives moral laws validity, he says: because I was born with it. Some say evolution created it. We already talked about this—that evolution created it explains how it came into being. But it doesn’t explain why I must behave that way. And morality means that one must behave that way; it’s not a scientific question. Why a person behaves that way is a factual question, and scientific explanations can be given for that—evolution. But the question why a person ought to behave that way is a normative question. That question has no scientific answers. It is irrelevant to say that evolution created me so that I behave well. Even if it did, that’s not interesting. If someone else was created in a way that makes him behave badly, I can’t come and make claims against him. There has to be something here that obligates me to behave well. Therefore I think that this same conception—which today seems so hard to fight against—the conception of morality as convention, as a social agreement or as an outgrowth of human nature, but not as something that is really a binding principle—the categorical imperative of Kant is very unpopular in contemporary thought—is precisely because of this matter. Because the instinctive dimension, which previously was clearly outside, and good and evil meant my decision about what to do—that was good and evil, good and evil was in the intellect—and suddenly today there is some sense that good and evil belongs to convention, not to true intelligibles. And these are this or that convention, okay, it’s useful, it’s pleasant, it has results we’re comfortable with, each person with his own explanations: we were born this way, evolution did this to us. These are all kinds of things that basically explain how we are built. But explaining how I am built has nothing at all to do with the question why one ought to do it. That is the naturalistic fallacy. Explaining how I am built is an explanation of a factual phenomenon. The question why I ought to do it is a normative question. Okay? And facts do not explain norms.
[Speaker F] Here too, essentially, there is progress. Maybe one could say that before there was choice, but it didn’t really have meaning. Meaning, if we talk about true good—true good is choosing the good. After all, what is good? It’s not the impulse toward good, but choosing the good, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Choosing the choosing of the good—those are two levels.
[Speaker F] Fine, so without the inclinations you can’t really choose the good all that much. You do good through analytical judgment, but… right, you can’t. What was the meaning? Maybe there was choice, but there was no meaning.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, that’s the question I started talking about earlier. What was good? No, okay, it’s a bit of a definitional question, but… that’s what I started talking about earlier. If a person has no evil inclination at all, his choice is…
[Speaker G] The correct choice and its results are correct, so…
[Speaker F] He’s just a robot that functions correctly.
[Speaker G] Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so if you have no theoretical option to do evil—no, there is an option.
[Speaker G] No, there isn’t, there isn’t because there is no reason. No reason. That’s exactly what Maimonides writes. If you choose, if evil was outside, the evil inclination was outside. Then a person had no temptation. He considered everything only by means of intellect and cold decision. So his decisions were always correct.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so what is the meaning of the fact that he has choice? Then he doesn’t really have the option of doing evil. So how is he different from a machine? It’s like once I saw that regarding angels—someone wanted to claim that angels have choice. I once saw the claim that angels have choice, but they have no evil inclination and therefore they always do good. Now the question is whether choice of that type is even relevant, meaning, okay, theoretically you can, but it will never come into expression because there is no reason to do otherwise.
[Speaker D] So we know there is something outside influencing you, and you didn’t exercise enough judgment out of negligence, and it influenced you. So your punishment is that you didn’t use your intellect to the fullest.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is called negligence? How can you be negligent? I chose to be negligent. I was negligent.
[Speaker D] There’s no ‘I was negligent.’ I didn’t say to him, come tomorrow.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but laziness is also a psychic dimension. Laziness is a sin. The question is how you committed that sin. You decided to be negligent.
[Speaker D] Clearly Adam didn’t think about it enough.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so not thinking enough is a juncture where you can…
[Speaker D] It’s not coercion, it’s nothing like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter. So you translated it back into sin in the ordinary sense. Only here the sin is the question of how much you invest in your judgment, but there too you are once again at an ordinary juncture: whether to invest what is needed or not to invest what is needed.
[Speaker D] And in every sin, if you have an evil inclination, you think it will be good for you and you kill someone, take his money. You know that it’s not good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying—do you do it because you made a mistake, or do you do it because you chose evil? If you chose evil, why did you do it? It’s evil, so why did you do it? Because you had an evil inclination. So once again, you were pushed. So you did have an evil inclination. It’s not true that you do it without an evil inclination. So you have an evil inclination not to invest thought—that too is an evil inclination.
[Speaker D] Not when it came to Adam.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, then how did he sin?
[Speaker D] So they told him, listen, here you have the option of being like God. They told him no, but there is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You have the option of being like God, listen, afterwards He’ll say well done. But how did he sin, I’m asking? Was it an evil inclination or a good inclination? Or not an inclination at all, really? It’s an error in judgment.
[Speaker D] They carried it through to the end. But why didn’t he apply his judgment fully? He says, God said, and here there is someone else from outside.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why didn’t he apply his judgment fully? Why didn’t he apply his judgment fully? After all, he chose not to apply his judgment fully. No, I’m asking, but why did he make that choice? How did he do it? Did he have an impulse to make that choice? So he deviated. No, then again he deviated. This is a very subtle point. Either he erred, and then it’s a mistake and he’s coerced, or we have a claim against him that not investing thought fully is itself a decision for which he is now being held accountable. Now regarding that decision, I’m asking how he arrived at it. Did he have an impulse to be negligent and not think it through fully, or did he decide to be negligent and not think it through fully? He doesn’t decide to be negligent. So what is left? He had an impulse. So there you go again—he has an impulse. There is never sin without impulse.
[Speaker H] He committed a transgression for its own sake.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so again I ask—
[Speaker H] It’s an intellectual calculation that brings you to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So again—then he made a mistake, what can you do.
[Speaker D] How did man really move from that phase before the sin, when there was only a good inclination and there were no negative implications, to a situation in which…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I told you how. Eating the fruit of the tree introduced this matter into him.
[Speaker D] Why did he do it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That’s what we’re talking about. That is the question. Meaning, even after Nefesh HaChaim rescued the situation and said that a person had choice before the sin, as long as he has no inclinations, that choice is completely theoretical. And think of a person—think of a person whose every impulse has been cut off, he has no region in the brain responsible for impulses at all. He understands what is good and what is evil, let’s say he understands that, but he has no impulses at all. I don’t know, it seems very reasonable to me that such a person would do only good.
[Speaker E] It seems reasonable that person wouldn’t do anything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean he wouldn’t do anything? If he wouldn’t do anything, then you don’t believe in human choice at all. That’s something else. I do believe in human choice.
[Speaker B] And usually they are very good people. Because their inclinations are much more… people who suffer from Asperger’s are usually very, very good people, very, very positive, they only want to do good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those people? Yes, those are the healthy people. We once talked about the fact that the more Asperger’s you have, the healthier you are. Most of the world is sick because…
[Speaker D] They’re not sick.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He does what is right, does what needs to be done, what makes sense—not… Exactly, that by the way is Maimonides’ conventions. Now I think that’s wonderful. Maimonides’ conventions are exactly what someone with Asperger’s lacks. Adam before the sin had Asperger’s. He does what is right; if it seems right to him, that’s what he does. He has to arrive exactly on time, so he arrives exactly on time, so he runs someone over on the way because he has to arrive on time. No, he’s not impolite—not that he runs someone over on the way—but there is something terribly… I mean, we are a bit messed up about these things. There’s some kind of decline here, that we pay so much attention to norms and sensitivities and various things. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand that, it’s not… he works with what is right and what is not right, and that’s very healthy. I think that’s a person… there you are: God made man upright, but they sought out many calculations. That is the decline of the sin of the tree of knowledge. But for our purposes, what Nefesh HaChaim is basically saying here is that there were influences on the person even before the sin. Otherwise how did the sin itself happen there? Rather, on the psychological level it was easier to deal with the influences, because it was also clear to me that they came from outside. It wasn’t desire, it wasn’t me. So people didn’t say, ‘that’s just how I am.’ It was what I did. Because the feeling wasn’t that this is what I want to do or decided to do; rather, it was clear that there was someone outside trying somehow to pull me to do this thing. After the sin, that entered into me. So it was clear that it was as though not… maybe rationalization.
[Speaker F] There was no rationalization. Today we justify it and then we begin to believe in what we’re doing…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it comes from within.
[Speaker F] He didn’t… there was a different rationalization.
[Speaker E] No, no.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What today is called rationalization means understanding every sin through the circumstances that caused it. That’s what he calls rationalization.
[Speaker E] No, but that’s exactly what happened, what the serpent incited… no, a different rationalization. It’s not… my inclination tempted me…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. The basic model is that supposedly only after the sin did rationalization happen. But I’m saying, if that were the case, then it can’t be, because then how did he sin in the first place? So you have to say that this concept too already existed before. It was just psychologically easier to distinguish between who I am and who the instinctive environment is that is trying to influence me. And we talked a lot about this when I spoke about free choice, about that topographical outline within which the person moves, where people identify that topography with the person himself. Whereas before the sin it was very clear that this topography was not me; I only walked on it.
[Speaker G] But maybe it was that good was good and evil was evil. And now they get confused in a mixture, and the person sometimes doesn’t distinguish, really, sometimes out of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s hard for him to distinguish. If he doesn’t distinguish, then he’s simply mistaken. You have to say there is sin here.
[Speaker G] But it’s harder for him to distinguish. And sometimes he really lets his weakness defeat him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. I… later in the chapter, I think, he writes what you’re saying. Because afterwards he says that one of the consequences of this matter… really it’s not… maybe, you know what, there may be another interpretation here. Because later in the chapter he says that therefore, to this very day, there is no human act that is purely good or purely evil. There is always something mixed in from the other side. Now in the picture I’ve described so far, that should not be the result. In other words, either it comes from your choice, or it is the result of inclination. But why is that connected… the mixture here is not a mixture between good and evil. The mixture I described—the mixture I described is a mixture between the instinctive dimension, which is both good and evil, and me. But from his words all along it seems that he is speaking here about a mixture between good and evil. That connects to your earlier remark, that all along he describes the thing standing outside as the evil inclination, not the instinctive dimension. And afterwards it got mixed together. Therefore it may be that you’re right, and that’s how all the mixture he speaks about should be read. Then maybe it isn’t exactly like the author of the Tanya, as I said earlier. Maybe what he means is that a person can no longer really act in a completely pure way. It isn’t always clear to him what is good and what is evil. But here too one has to be careful, because if it isn’t clear to him in the sense that his judgment is mistaken, then once again he’s coerced. I’m talking about after the sin. So the mixture here is apparently not some mixture in the sense that I’m coerced—what do you want from me? I thought this was the good thing, and in the end it turned out it also had evil in it.
[Speaker E] No, after the sin he is coerced. After the sin even the perfectly righteous person cannot merit that all his deeds be…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s a statistical statement; otherwise there is no claim against a person. There are claims against a person who sins. So as a statistical statement it turns out that there is no one who doesn’t…
[Speaker F] He can’t be perfect, but he’s not coerced to the level of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, but this is called being compelled not to be perfect. Meaning, it’s a statistical bias. In other words, the level of difficulty in acting in a completely pure way is very high. And therefore, statistically, over however many years a person lives… it’s impossible that each of us won’t fail here and there. So there is no perfect righteous person. But on the principled level, it cannot be that sin was decreed upon us, because if sin was decreed upon us, then once again we are coerced; that is, it’s something not reasonable. Okay, that’s more or less the completion of what I wanted to say. I still want, in order to finish this topic already today, so I’ll just do the second part that I mentioned regarding moral conflicts. And about that I think we spoke in previous years, and there too I brought this claim of Leibowitz, that it all revolves around the conventional versus the intelligible. In other words, the question is whether morality is something institutional or whether it is something… I spoke about the alternative, that the alternative is a kind of moral cognition. The question is whether conscience, yes, is a cognitive element; meaning, some capacity we have to observe the Idea of the good. Yes, I spoke about that. Or whether this morality is basically a kind of social convention, some kind of social legislation, a social contract, or something implanted in me. All right? As I said, once again, the social contract is a model that doesn’t really answer the difficulty, because the question is why I am obligated to keep contracts that I signed. Because I signed a contract to keep contracts? That’s an infinite regress. In other words, you can’t justify morality by saying I signed a contract, when the obligation to keep contracts I signed is itself also a moral obligation. So where does that come from? There is something a bit problematic here. But all these solutions stem from the fact that morality is indeed perceived as something conventional. In other words, there is no rational way, no way to ground morality in terms of right and wrong. So what is morality? That’s why people come to all kinds of institutional or natural or naturalistic explanations, as they’re called, or whatever else—and of course they explain nothing. These things really stem from what Leibowitz described in his article: that values cannot have an explanation. Because if I offer an explanation why a certain value is right or not right, then that means it isn’t a value. A value by its essence is the end; it is never a means to something else. When I say that human life is a value—yes, he spoke there about detachment from instruments—so when I say that human life is a value, what that means is that it is not something that serves other things. Because if it serves other things, then you can rationalize it somehow and say, okay, whenever it doesn’t serve them, then human life has no value, so I’ll disconnect it from instruments, for example. But if human life is a value, then that means there is nothing more fundamental than life that life comes to serve; rather, this is the most fundamental thing, and therefore it is a value. A value is basically an ethical axiom. All right? That is basically the claim. In other words, just as in intellectual contexts—say, in geometry—we have theorems, and at the base of this whole big structure of geometry sit axioms. There are certain propositions for which we have no proof, but we assume them, and from them we derive all the theorems. In the ethical context there is the same structure, with the same logic, where the infrastructure, this basic foundation—the axioms—is the set of values. The set of values is those things from which I can derive what is right or wrong to do. The values themselves cannot be derived from anything. And that is precisely the problem. Therefore people come to institutional, naturalistic, and other such solutions, because it’s unclear how values can be justified. And what I said as an alternative is that one can justify this if one understands conscience as a kind of means of observation, yes—that I actually observe the Idea of the good and arrive at the conclusion that this is good and this is bad, and this is how one should act and this is not the right way to act. And then the statement, for example, murder is forbidden, can be judged in terms of true or false, exactly like the statement whether this table is white. Yes, I spoke about this when we discussed Leibowitz. How do I judge, how do I determine whether the claim “this table is white” is true or false? I compare it to reality. Right? The claim describes some state of affairs in the world. I compare the claim to the state of affairs. If there is correspondence, then the claim is true. If there is no correspondence, the claim is false. What happens in ethics? I have nothing to compare it to. In other words, murder is forbidden. Now I want to check whether that is a correct statement or not. Compared to what? There’s nothing. I don’t find anything. With my eyes, at least, I don’t see anything to compare it to. And therefore there is a problem here: these statements are perceived as conventional rather than intelligible. Because this is not something judged in terms of true or false. So what is it? I said: naturalism, institutionalism, or various other things. Now what I claim is that if you nevertheless assign this to the category of the intelligible… intelligible propositions—and we saw that both Maimonides and, I think, Nefesh HaChaim agree on this point, unlike how Leibowitz quotes it—then that means that here too there has to be some comparison in the background: “murder is forbidden” is a true statement, “murder is permitted” is a false statement. In order to say that such a statement is true or false, I need a benchmark to compare it to. How do I decide about an ethical claim whether it is true or false? And my claim is that this comparison is done exactly like with this table being white. I look at the table, see that it is white, and so the statement is true. Yes, I look at the Idea of the good, I see that murder is forbidden, which means that the statement “murder is forbidden” is correct, it is true. All right? In other words, I’m drawing here a completely parallel picture to factual claims, because I want to assign this not to the conventional but to the intelligible. The conventional is something that is not true or false; there is no truth or falsehood there. What is it then? Either convention, or that’s just how I’m built, or whatever.
[Speaker B] According to that approach, would Torah be in the category of the conventional? Torah is norms? Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every norm—Torah is norms. Right. So norms automatically belong to the conventional? That’s what Leibowitz claimed, and I think that’s not correct. But the only alternative to saying that it’s not correct—and I think Maimonides also says it’s not correct—the only alternative is to explain how there too there is meaning to the statement that an ethical claim is true, or that an ethical claim is false. And for that to have meaning I need to perform an act of comparison here; I need a metric. In other words, if it fits what I’m comparing it to, then it’s a true claim; if it doesn’t fit, then it’s a false claim. All right? So that metric is supposed to be some sort of thing outside me, and I check whether this claim is true or false. So that means there is here some kind of— I call it observation, whatever, because it’s similar—but of course it isn’t done with the eyes, rather with the eye of the intellect, as Maimonides speaks about in those chapters of the Guide for the Perplexed: that we have some ability to recognize what moral behavior is and what immoral behavior is, or what is a correct norm and what is an incorrect norm.
[Speaker B] According to that, I can’t compare Rabbi Kook with the Chazon Ish, who say that it’s in the conventional. Why not? Because for both of them everything—everything—is morality; even Torah is morality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does that mean it’s conventional? Maybe everything is intelligible?
[Speaker B] It’s hard to say Torah is conventional.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite. Torah and morality are the same thing from my perspective. Not the same in the sense that all Torah is morality—not in connection with the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook. Torah and morality are the same thing in terms of category. Both are norms and not facts. Now the question is whether norms are conventional or norms are intelligible. That’s what I’m talking about now. And if I arrive at the conclusion that it’s intelligible, then Torah is also intelligible and morality is also intelligible, not conventional. And anyone who says morality is conventional will say Torah is conventional too. Yes? Obviously—it’s the same thing in that sense, regardless of whether the content of Torah and morality is identical. What I’m saying is, in terms of category, the kind of statements or the kind of material you’re dealing with when you deal with Torah or when you deal with morality.
[Speaker B] If it’s intelligible, then you have to give an explanation for every single thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So now I’m saying: what is an explanation? An explanation always rests on assumptions. Where do the assumptions come from? From a kind of observation. I simply see that it’s so. So yes, there are explanations; the explanations begin with observation, and from the results of the observation I can begin to derive, to use logic to derive conclusions.
[Speaker D] But if Torah is intelligible, and what we compare it to is already not intelligible? What do you mean? I compare something to some axiom, to some thing I agree on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that thing is correct, not merely something I agree on.
[Speaker D] Is it correct because it’s intelligible, or because it is…?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “intelligible” and “conventional” always refer to understandings that exist within the person. The question is how the person attained those understandings. Was it through intellect or through social circulation, convention? What are the things themselves? In the things themselves there is no distinction between intelligible and conventional. The things themselves—either they’re there or they’re not. Whether I see them or don’t see them—that’s the question of whether the understandings that exist in me are intelligible or conventional. Because intellect or convention are human faculties—faculties with an f, yes? In other words, that doesn’t touch the distinction in the things themselves. The things themselves, if they’re there then they’re there; in other words, that’s a fact. It’s neither intelligible nor conventional. By the way, I can arrive through the tools of intellect, as I said before, and the result can be a factual claim. That can of course happen.
[Speaker I] Wait, why this distinction between intelligible and conventional? For example, when a person comes to faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, he can come to it either because it is intelligible or because it is conventional. That can happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t accept that. If he comes to it because it is conventional, then he doesn’t believe. “I believe because everyone believes,” then I don’t believe. Unless I claim that what everyone believes is probably true. Fine—then I say, okay, for me that’s an indication: if it’s accepted by many people, it’s probably true. No problem, but then it’s already intelligible. Because then I have a claim as to why it is true. The conventional is not judged in terms of… It’s just customary; this is accepted human civilization, it behaves this way, so I do it too. There’s no right and wrong here.
[Speaker I] A person who was at Mount Sinai and understood that it was true—not through logical understanding but because he sensed…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, it’s the same thing—it’s the observation I’m talking about. The observation I’m talking about is not logic. Logic is always derivation. The question is: where does the derivation begin? Where are the axioms, where do they come from? They come from observation. Observation, again—not with the eyes; observation with the eye of the intellect. And therefore I say that one can establish conceptual normative worlds too, like Torah, like morality, on the same platform as I speak about factual worlds. That is, there too there is truth and falsehood, and therefore it doesn’t have to be conventional; it can be intelligible. And those who think there is no way to ground this, and therefore it is conventional, are mistaken. At least in my opinion they are mistaken, or at the very least what they say is certainly not necessary. I have no proof that I am right, but I only want to claim that their claim also is not necessary. In other words—now what is their alternative?
[Speaker J] So also beautiful and not beautiful, in some sense, can also be in the eye of the intellect.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, correct, I think that’s so.
[Speaker J] And that doesn’t suffer from the naturalistic fallacy where you determine…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the solution to the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy is the problem here. How can this be? After all, a norm can’t have a basis… because facts can’t ground norms, right. So how can that be? A sign that there is no grounding for norms. So I say no—there are facts of a different kind. Facts of the different kind can indeed ground norms, because at root they are facts. The fact that murder is forbidden is not a fact of the same character as the fact that this table is white. I’m not claiming it’s the same kind of fact, but I am claiming it is still a kind of fact. For example, one of the differences is that someone who understands that murder is forbidden cannot say, okay, I understand intellectually that murder is forbidden, but I murder. But this obligates… not only does it obligate, but when you understand that murder is forbidden, it’s not a neutral fact. It is also a fact that says what is right to do. In other words, a fact that moves you to action or forbids action. By contrast, “this table is white”—okay, so it’s white, so what? That’s a neutral fact. Physics is neutral; norms are not neutral. So it’s a charged fact. In other words, it’s a fact of a different kind. Okay, but my claim is still that this is some kind of fact. Now, the implication of this is that if we really see value as something that cannot be rationalized, the problem is—and this really is the problem of detachment from instruments, maybe a reflection or aspect of the problem of detachment from instruments—what do you do in a situation of conflict? In other words, until now I was talking about the question of the relativity of values, or how valid values are. So I say: I have observation. I think conventionalism will not allow me to treat values as something binding. Now I’m saying there is another problem, aside from the question how true or binding values are, how much one can judge someone for non-value-based behavior. The other problem is, even without judging: how do I determine for myself a hierarchy of values? When there is a clash between values, a conflict, then I have to decide. I decide by ranking the values, I build a scale and I say which one stands above which. So the example from Sartre that I brought, with his student: the question whether I prefer the war against evil over helping my mother, or helping my mother over the war against evil. A difficult question. There are two values here facing one another, and one has to decide which prevails. Now if values—if values cannot be placed on something else, cannot be rationalized—then they also cannot be ranked. Because how will you rank values against one another? The only way I can think of ranking two values against one another is when I find a common scale for the two values, and say that both serve some goal: this one serves it more effectively or more dominantly, and that one less, so this one is above that one. But if values do not serve any goal, if they cannot be placed on any principle more fundamental than themselves, then how do you decide whether saving life overrides Sabbath, or Sabbath overrides saving life? What common scale is there for these two values, by which you can now measure both and decide: this one is eight units and that one is six units, so this one is above that one? There is no common scale. This is what is called incommensurability, absence of a common measure. Incommensurable—the absence of a common measure for values. So one cannot build a hierarchy of values in such a situation, and the question is how we decide in value conflicts. So again, in this context I think, once again, that the required solution is the same solution I spoke about earlier. I simply look, by means of observation, and I also see the place or the force of this value, the intensity of this value. That too is a result of observation. Now in this context it’s interesting, and especially in the context of the value of life, that… that in the Talmud itself there is a reflection or expression of this problem. The Talmud in tractate Yoma discusses whether saving life overrides Sabbath. And it brings two reasons. One reason is: desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths. This reason, seemingly—what is it really doing? After all, I have here a problem of incommensurability. I can’t compare the value of life to Sabbath. On what common scale do I measure them? What does the Talmud do? It finds a brilliant solution. It measures the value of life in terms of Sabbath observance. Because it says: if you save the life, then you gain many Sabbaths, whereas here you lose only one Sabbath. We managed to translate both values into a common scale, and then one decides over the other.
[Speaker B] That solves the problem of incommensurability. Is the question whether it’s a matter of keeping Sabbath, or only a matter of not desecrating it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, one can argue—I’m saying, one can argue with the Talmud because it’s not a correct translation, but that is what the Talmud is doing. I’m not getting into the topic now because I want to finish this issue. So that’s “desecrate one Sabbath for him.” The second reason that appears there in the Talmud is: “and live by them, and not die by them.” And “live by them and not die by them” is a reason whose philosophy is exactly the opposite. Because it basically says: the commandments are intended so that one may live by them. In a place where the commandments lead to my losing life, one need not keep them. In other words, the commandments are a means to life. The first assumption was that life is a means to the commandments, to keeping Sabbath. That is the discussion between the two reasons brought there in the Talmud. And then we actually see that the Talmud itself is trying to deal with incommensurability. It understands that there is no way to decide the conflict.
[Speaker B] Whoever wants to think that way will take this answer, and whoever…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying, once you have a problem of incommensurability, you have to find some translation into a common scale of the two values in order to decide. That’s what the first reason does. The second reason really is not such a reason. The second reason—unless you can see it as a translation—is a reason that says that in fact the commandments are not values. They are means. Something instrumental is not a value. Means to what? Not simply to live, because I don’t think that’s correct. It’s not that without commandments one doesn’t live, but to live correctly. There is something here that somewhat contains within it the concept of the commandment. What does it mean to live correctly? To live by means of commandments. But still, the perception is that the commandments are a means to proper life. All right? Now this is still… so in practice, perhaps life is a means to fulfill commandments?
[Speaker B] Maybe life is a means to fulfill commandments?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that is the first approach: desecrate one Sabbath for him. Because there it says that life—if you save the life, he will keep many Sabbaths. Fine. Now just one point that must be noted: these two reasons seemingly contradict each other by 180 degrees. It cannot be that someone adopts both of them, yet in Jewish law both remain. Both remain in Jewish law. The reason of “desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths” was rejected only because it does not explain why even in a doubt concerning saving life we override Sabbath. But in a definite case of saving life, that reason also remains. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) write this. And the Talmud in tractate Shabbat brings this reason. It discusses a minor, someone who now does not keep commandments but in the future will keep them, so one desecrates one Sabbath for him so that in the future he will keep many Sabbaths. So here it would seem… and there only this reason appears. So it seems that both reasons remain in the conclusion side by side. How do both remain in the conclusion?
[Speaker H] They remain as legal permissions only… in terms of the idea they contradict each other. But their result…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, in the result?
[Speaker H] The problem is when you try to explain it. Here, when you translate the idea and try to explain it in terms of values and things like that, then you run into the problem. But if you see that it’s correct… Why? Is life a means to the commandments or are the commandments a means to life? What do you mean? The idea of many Sabbaths over one Sabbath stands on its own; it can be correct regardless of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But who said that the value of life is measured in terms of Sabbath observance? Never mind—even if the value of life is not measured in terms of Sabbath observance… Who said you need to keep Sabbath if you’re not alive? So why are you measuring life in terms of Sabbath observance? That’s another question, fine. That’s exactly the point.
[Speaker D] You don’t have to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What you perhaps mean to say—that’s what I want to say, if that’s what you mean—is that really, when you say “desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” the plain reading I described earlier is mistaken. Namely, that we are measuring life as a means to keeping Sabbath; we are rationalizing life against what Leibowitz argues. In fact the Talmud here is not against what Leibowitz argues—that’s not correct. Why? What we are actually doing is an обход trick. We don’t need to decide what serves what, because in practice, if we save the life, we will certainly gain many Sabbaths, right? Now it’s true that life may also have value in and of itself. That too is a value. But if that value—I don’t know how to measure it against the value of… then in any case it overrides the one Sabbath desecration I am paying now. Because all in all I gain many Sabbath observances, in addition to the fact that life has value in itself. And therefore the two answers do fit together. Life is not a means to the commandments. In practice, clearly, if you saved the life, then you gained many Sabbath observances—that’s true, that’s a fact. It’s not connected to someone who won’t keep Sabbath? No, those are already the follow-up questions. The question is what this means regarding saving the life of someone who doesn’t observe Sabbath. For a gentile, for example, who does not keep Sabbath, then indeed at least in rabbinic Jewish law one does not desecrate Sabbath in order to save him, because he will not keep many Sabbaths.
[Speaker D] But wait, that’s not the only dilemma?
[Speaker E] Because for a Jew who won’t keep Sabbath, we do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because the assumption with a Jew is that he is obligated to keep Sabbaths, and perhaps he will also do so; you need to make that possible for him.
[Speaker E] Even if he’s like in the example she gave, a Jew expected to die two days later?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another question. So temporary life is one of the difficulties with this claim indeed, and then they say that it’s not only Sabbaths, never mind—and that is precisely the explanation for why with gentiles too one can apply this. I can’t now get into that entire topic, but what I’m trying to get you to notice is that when people mention “desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” that is not a value statement; it is a factual statement. Once you save the life, he will keep many Sabbaths. It is not because life is a means to keeping Sabbath on the value level. I do not see life as something that is a means to fulfilling commandments—no, on the factual level. If you save the life, he will keep many Sabbaths, so why are you worried now about desecrating one Sabbath? You will gain many Sabbaths. But that does not mean that life has no value in itself—not as an instrument for keeping Sabbath, but as a value in itself. Of course it has value. All right? This is the Chatam Sofer in Ketubot. The Chatam Sofer writes on page 15 about an abandoned baby—the well-known yeshiva jokes. They find an abandoned baby in a place half gentiles and half Jews. We do not know his status, so we say he is in doubt. We have a doubt whether he is a Jew or a gentile. So what do you do in such a situation? Usually you go stringently. For a Torah-level matter, say, always stringently. If gentile is the stringent side, then you treat him as a gentile. If Jew, then you treat him as a Jew. Now, what happens with saving the life of such a one, on the assumption that one does not save a gentile, that one does not desecrate Sabbath in order to save his life? So here the question is, of course, how that works there. Here the question is, of course, what that child will do when he reaches the point of Sabbath observance, because regarding Sabbath observance there is no simple solution, since for a gentile it is forbidden and for a Jew it is obligatory. All the things where for a gentile it is permitted and for a Jew it is obligatory—then stringency means to act like a Jew. But here for a gentile it is forbidden and for a Jew it is obligatory, so what does it mean to go stringently? There is no stringency solution. What do you do in such a situation? All right? Therefore, never mind, it seems to me that the Chatam Sofer there wants to argue that he will not keep Sabbaths, and nevertheless one desecrates Sabbath in order to save him. Why? After all, he will not keep many Sabbaths. So from here he proves that this claim is not really a necessary claim—“desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths.” There is also value to life; in my language I say there is also value to life in itself, not only as an instrument for keeping Sabbath.
[Speaker B] I understand that I need to desecrate the Sabbath to save my own life. But suddenly for someone else’s side?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? For another Jew you do desecrate Sabbath.
[Speaker B] That I should commit a transgression in order to save someone else?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says yes, for another Jew, yes.
[Speaker B] Fine, but here the point is that we’re making calculations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I think we spoke about this once, and I said that well, I won’t get into that topic now, but there is no difference at all. The halakhic decisors write—there are a few here and there who raise this possibility, but they reject it out of hand—there is no difference in the question of who commits the transgression. In other words, if one needs to desecrate this Sabbath, it does not matter whether the one who will gain the life commits the transgression, or someone else commits the transgression in order to save him. From the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, the accounting is global. Is the life worth this Sabbath desecration or not? If it is worth it, then you too should desecrate it, even though he will be the one who gains the life. In other words, there is in the Tashbetz some such initial thought, and he too rejects it. None of the halakhic decisors are willing to accept such a mode of thinking. The whole question here is whether the act is justified or not; it doesn’t matter who does it. In other words, if you are the beneficiary and I desecrate Sabbath, there is no problem at all. There is also no preference that you desecrate Sabbath rather than I desecrate Sabbath, even though you are the one who benefits and there is an option that you desecrate Sabbath. But it makes no difference whatsoever—whether this Sabbath is desecrated by me or by you is completely irrelevant. Good.