Ethics and Jewish Law 9
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Wrapping up the series and moving to concrete questions
- The Euthyphro dilemma and its application in the Jewish world
- Logic, physics, and the idea of the Holy One, blessed be He, being “subject” to something
- The nature of moral laws: relativism versus conceptual necessity
- Deviation from morality, “the nature of the good is to do good,” and human evil versus natural evil
- Morality and logic as a metaphysical principle, and the theological question of “association”
- Abstract morality before the world, and the question of animals
- Halakhic asymmetry toward “the different one” and the conflict between values
- An ox of a Jew and an ox of a gentile: Maimonides, reciprocity, and Meiri
- Requirements for conversion, entry into the group, and built-in asymmetry
- Symmetry in morality: Hillel the Elder versus Kant’s categorical imperative
- “Do not take revenge,” “one who acts as your fellow does,” and defining departure from the moral community
Summary
General Overview
The speaker concludes a series on the relationship between morality and Jewish law, presents the Euthyphro dilemma in a Jewish context, and argues that morality can be seen either as dependent on the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, or as something necessary, like logic. He distinguishes between laws of physics, which one can imagine being otherwise, and laws of logic, which do not depend on a lawgiver and cannot be violated in the sense of a coherent alternative possibility, and he suggests that morality may belong to that same kind of conceptual necessity. He then shifts the discussion to concrete questions of halakhic asymmetry toward “different” groups such as gentiles, mamzerim, and converts, and suggests that part of the moral difficulty comes from anachronism and from ignoring reciprocity and symmetry as conditions for a normative system.
Wrapping up the series and moving to concrete questions
The speaker declares that he is finally bringing the series to an end and that he still has two things left, the first of which he will do briefly without entering into all the nuances. He says that after the Euthyphro dilemma he will move on to more concrete questions, because until now he has spoken mainly in general terms about the practical meaning of the relationship between morality and Jewish law.
The Euthyphro dilemma and its application in the Jewish world
The speaker formulates the Euthyphro dilemma: do the gods want an act because it is moral, or is the act moral because the gods commanded it? He translates that into the language of the Holy One, blessed be He. He argues that even if morality and Jewish law are independent categories and even in conflict, it is still reasonable that both systems originate in the will of God, since otherwise one arrives at a kind of conceptual association of two different sources of normative authority. He emphasizes that this is not the same as asking whether morality is part of Jewish law, because morality can be outside the halakhic system and still be binding by virtue of the expectation or command of the Holy One, blessed be He.
Logic, physics, and the idea of the Holy One, blessed be He, being “subject” to something
The speaker cites the medieval authorities (Rishonim), especially Maimonides and Rashba, who say that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot “do” logical contradictions such as a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side, because such things are simply undefined. He explains that the laws of physics describe how the world operates and can be imagined otherwise, and can even be suspended through a miracle, whereas the laws of logic are principles of thought like the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle, which are not “laws” in the sense of legislation but necessary truths. He presents a debate with a student about whether one can imagine deviation from the laws of logic or mathematics, and distinguishes between changing assumptions in axiomatic systems and deviating from the rules of inference themselves.
The nature of moral laws: relativism versus conceptual necessity
The speaker asks what kind of thing moral laws are: are they the product of a decision by the Holy One, blessed be He, of human society, or something necessary like logic? He presents the possibility that moral laws are an arbitrary construction dependent on changing social decisions, but proposes another possibility according to which there is morality that could not be otherwise—for example, that there is no world in which “it is moral to murder,” because anyone who understands what morality is understands that murder is inherently immoral. He notes that ISIS justifies actions as “the will of the Holy One, blessed be He,” and places that on the side that says morality is determined by command, while clarifying that he tends to see at least a broad objective moral core, even if not everyone perceives all of it and there are historical disputes over details.
Deviation from morality, “the nature of the good is to do good,” and human evil versus natural evil
The speaker defines “deviation from morality” not as the ability to choose evil, but as the claim that there is an alternative morality that turns the immoral into the moral. He notes that there is a view according to which the Holy One, blessed be He, is necessarily moral by virtue of Ramchal’s idea that “the nature of the good is to do good,” but acknowledges that the world in practice includes immoral acts. He cites the story of Rabbi Amital and Abba Kovner: Kovner lost faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, during the Holocaust, while Rabbi Amital lost trust in human beings, and the speaker concludes that there is no point in seeking theological explanations for the Holocaust, because the Nazis chose wickedness; the Holy One, blessed be He, did not cause it. He analyzes natural evil as arising from the laws of nature, and argues that someone who asks “why did the Holy One, blessed be He, do this?” is assuming there exists a better alternative system of laws, whereas it may be that there is no possible system without phenomena like disease and tsunamis, and that a world with no regularity at all would not allow life, learning, or decision-making.
Morality and logic as a metaphysical principle, and the theological question of “association”
The speaker shows how the question of good and evil can be understood as a logical constraint rather than a direct act of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore is not “blamed” on Him in the same way. He presents the side of the Euthyphro dilemma according to which moral laws are like the laws of logic and therefore do not depend on command, but says that on the theological level it is difficult to accept an obligating system whose source is not the Holy One, blessed be He, because that seems like association. He remains uncertain whether the very concept of morality derives from God’s expectation, but says that a person’s obligation to behave morally does derive from God’s expectation.
Abstract morality before the world, and the question of animals
The speaker argues that morality has no practical meaning without a world, but that there may still be an abstract morality not contingent on the existence of creatures, just as the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees in Euclidean space even “before” there was a world. He is asked about morality in animals, and says he cannot decide, mentions Descartes, who saw animals as machines, and raises the possibility that animals may be conscious beings on a lower level.
Halakhic asymmetry toward “the different one” and the conflict between values
The speaker moves to concrete questions in which the halakhic attitude appears unequal toward women, gentiles, animals, or statuses such as an agunah and a mamzer. As examples he brings differences between Jew and gentile in contexts such as murder, returning lost property, and desecrating the Sabbath to save a life, as well as the creation of the status of “mamzer” as a change that defines a person as different. He explains that in cases like mamzer and kohen one should view the issue as a conflict between a religious value and a moral value, similar to a conflict between two moral values, and he cites examples such as Sartre’s student dilemma and the chocolate dilemma to show that deciding one way does not deny the value of the side that was rejected.
An ox of a Jew and an ox of a gentile: Maimonides, reciprocity, and Meiri
The speaker describes the law of an ox belonging to a Jew that gores an ox belonging to a gentile as a ruling in which a religious court uses what benefits Israel, and even applies gentile law when that is convenient for Israel. He presents Maimonides’ interpretation of the Mishnah and argues that Maimonides explains that one should not be surprised by asymmetry, because the gentiles in the historical environment did not behave with fairness and morality, and therefore Israel too are not obligated toward them in the same way. He says this presentation is not racist but contextual, and from it he concludes that when reality changes, Jewish law’s attitude toward gentiles should also change. He cites Meiri as explicitly saying that one should desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a gentile “not because of appearances,” but because the gentile today is “like a Jew.” He argues that the modern feeling that Jewish law is immoral sometimes comes from an anachronistic reading that does not take into account the conditions of reciprocity in the moral world.
Requirements for conversion, entry into the group, and built-in asymmetry
The speaker presents a modern claim of injustice in demanding of a gentile who seeks conversion requirements that are not demanded of a secular Jew who does not observe Jewish law. He compares this to the rules for receiving citizenship versus revoking citizenship, and argues that there is an inherent difference between the conditions for entering a club and the conditions for being expelled from it. He brings an analogy of adopting a problematic child versus throwing a biological child out of the house. He concludes that formal asymmetry is not necessarily injustice, and that sometimes it is a result of context and of the role of the group.
Symmetry in morality: Hillel the Elder versus Kant’s categorical imperative
The speaker presents Kant’s categorical imperative as a principle that obligates one to act according to the rule one would want to become a universal law even if others do not act that way, and argues that this differs from Hillel the Elder’s formulation, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” He says that the Talmud itself identifies a dimension of symmetry in Hillel, whereas the categorical imperative rejects reliance on actual symmetry and requires a principle independent of the behavior of the other. He admits that in principle he identifies with Kant, but argues that considerations of symmetry and reciprocity still carry weight, and he gives the example of returning lost property to a gentile who does not return lost property, along with a distinction between not returning lost property and criminal revenge.
“Do not take revenge,” “one who acts as your fellow does,” and defining departure from the moral community
The speaker connects the question of symmetry to the law of “do not take revenge” and argues that it applies within a community in which the moral commands belong, whereas someone who has left the category of “your fellow” is not owed the same relation. He emphasizes that according to Maimonides and Meiri, this departure is not an ethnic definition but a definition of someone who does not accept moral behavior upon himself. He adds that in the past there was a high correlation between non-Jews and ugly behavior and between Jews and better behavior, whereas today the situation is more symmetrical, and therefore the moral demand for symmetry toward gentiles is more justified. He concludes that properly addressing the historical questions of reciprocity and symmetry resolves a significant part of the moral difficulties attributed to Jewish law, even though he acknowledges the tension with the Kantian principle.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Today we’re finally going to finish the current series. Basically I still have two things left. One thing I’ll do really briefly—there’s no point getting into all the nuances—and afterward I’ll move on to what’s called the Euthyphro dilemma, we need to touch on that, and then I’ll talk about questions that are a bit more concrete, because until now I’ve spoken only in general terms about what this means on the concrete level. Okay, regarding the Euthyphro dilemma: this is a Platonic dialogue where the question is presented, in their mythological formulation, whether the gods want what is commanded because it is moral, or whether those acts are moral because the gods commanded them. Meaning, if we translate this to the Holy One, blessed be He, then the question is this: after all, I said in previous lectures that even if I see morality and Jewish law as two independent categories that are not obligated to one another, and sometimes even conflict, it is still reasonable to assume that both originate from the Holy One, blessed be He. I said that otherwise you arrive at something like association, at least on the conceptual level, where we have two different sources of normative validity, and therefore it makes more sense that both of these systems are ultimately grounded in the will of God. The Holy One, blessed be He, wants us to be moral, and the Holy One, blessed be He, also commands us with the halakhic commandments. Now in the moral context the question arises whether there is any definition of morality at all that is not connected to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, or to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, if you prefer—something that actually precedes the command or the will—and then the claim would be that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it because it is moral. Meaning, it was moral even before the command, and because it is moral, that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, commands or expects. And the second approach says, what are you talking about? It can’t be that there is something independent of the Holy One, blessed be He. He made everything there is here. There can’t be something that doesn’t come by His power. And if so, then obviously the thing is moral because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it—not that He commanded it because it is moral, but rather the command is what grants it its morality.
[Speaker B] After all, Abraham says, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” Does that affect this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that seemingly does. I’ll get to that in a moment, because there are lots of points here to discuss on the theological and philosophical levels, lots of nuances. But the application of this dilemma to the Jewish world—the source of it, as I said before, is in mythology, in Greek paganism—but applying it to the Jewish world really does seem a bit problematic, because many times people tie this question to the question whether morality is part of Jewish law or not. That’s unrelated. Morality really can be an extra-halakhic category and still be rooted in the expectation or the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, we are obligated in it because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to be moral, or commands us to be moral, alongside the halakhic commands, and it still has its foundation in the Holy One, blessed be He, even though it’s not part of the will of God—it’s not part of the Torah, let’s call it that, or Torah or Jewish law if you want in a narrower sense. But even the question itself—how can one even say that there is something prior to the Holy One, blessed be He, or that even the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to it? That He commands it because it is moral? We touched on this a bit, actually in the logical context, not in the moral context. I said that in the logical context the medieval authorities (Rishonim) already write—Maimonides and Rashba and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) write—that even the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to the laws of logic, “subject” in quotation marks. Meaning, even He cannot create a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side, because that is simply logically impossible. The Holy One, blessed be He, can violate the laws of physics and perform miracles, but He cannot violate the laws of logic, because the term “law” in those two contexts—I already spoke about this—the term “law” in those two contexts is used in two different senses. The laws of physics are not something necessary. Our world is built in such a way that it operates according to the laws of physics. We can imagine a world in which the laws of physics were different; there is no principled obstacle. So if the Holy One, blessed be He, created these laws in our world, He could have created a world with different laws. By the same token He could also suspend the laws in our world—meaning, take our world and say, okay, now this law is suspended for a certain time or forever. Doesn’t matter. So with the laws of physics it’s hard to suppose—hard to speak about a state in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to the laws of physics. But with the laws of logic, when we speak about being subject to the laws of logic, that’s a borrowed expression. There is no such thing as being subject to the laws of logic.
[Speaker D] But the laws of logic too—logic…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Hebrew it’s logic.
[Speaker D] Fine, accepted. Finally the correct line.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a big question. I don’t think so, for example. There are people who want to claim that; I don’t think so.
[Speaker E] For example, the relation between a circle’s circumference and its radius—isn’t that a non-Euclidean geometrical issue?
[Speaker D] So,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s something else. That’s an assumption in physics. There’s an assumption in physics that our world is Euclidean. That’s an assumption in physics. But I’m talking in a Platonic Euclidean world. That system of laws is true because it is true, not because we assume it is true. The question of what our world is—whether our world is Euclidean or not—that’s a dispute among physicists. It has nothing to do with mathematics.
[Speaker F] Maybe let’s address the question this way: in a logical system there are assumptions and there are the rules of inference, right? Rules of inference. I’m talking about the rules of inference, not the assumptions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. The assumptions don’t belong to logic. Put in whatever assumptions you want—that’s your input. Logic tells you what to do with the assumptions. The rules of inference. Okay. So in the laws of logic, really what we’re doing is defining them—we call them laws, and that’s what’s very confusing. It’s an unfortunate term to call them laws. The laws of logic are not laws. A law is something that has some lawgiver, and you’re not allowed to depart from his word, so you have to operate within the laws. Here it’s not a question of a lawgiver—it’s just so. A definition. Yes, exactly, you could call it a definition. Not exactly a definition, because this is a true fact. You can define differently; a definition you can also make another way. Here it’s more than a definition. Meaning, it has to be defined this way; there isn’t another possibility.
[Speaker F] I don’t call it the laws of inference, they call it rules of inference. Ah, okay. Rules and laws—both get translated as laws in Hebrew.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, exactly. So maybe in English it’s actually less confusing, but in Hebrew, when we think about it, this expression really is very misleading, and I think many people make mistakes because of this linguistic resemblance.
[Speaker E] Maybe it’s a matter of truths. What? Is it a matter of truths, something like that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Not only are they truths, but even the laws of physics you can call truths. They are truths after they were legislated. Meaning, once they were legislated in our world—our world was created this way—then now this is the truth in the world: that there is a law of gravitation, that there is… Exactly. These are truths. This is their nature—the nature of ideas, of concepts, of things—it cannot be otherwise. It’s like the power—the three basic laws of logic: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle. Those are usually how one defines the basic laws. The law of identity: every thing is identical with itself. The law of contradiction: something cannot be both itself and its opposite, x and not-x. And the law of the excluded middle: either x or not-x, there is no third possibility. Okay, all these things are not something where one could have created a world in which they didn’t exist. They don’t belong to the world; they are simply principles of thought from which one cannot depart.
[Speaker G] When you say that—I’ve heard this from you for the fourth time—and I still don’t hear any argument supporting it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do I have to bring the argument and not you? Can you imagine a world in which the sum of the angles of a triangle is not 180 degrees?
[Speaker G] Yes. But the third law you mentioned—it doesn’t connect for me at all. It’s not necessary. Meaning, it’s convenient to use because in most cases it works, but it’s not…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In which cases does it not work?
[Speaker G] Because sometimes there are additional dimensions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, additional dimensions are something else. That will never contradict logic. That’s exactly the point. When you create additional dimensions, you’re showing that you don’t need to violate the law of the excluded middle in order to create a third possibility. That’s exactly what we discussed in Petah Tikva. You can’t—there’s no way—you can’t depart from that.
[Speaker G] But how do you determine that? It’s an axiom, it’s a law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you determine that there’s a wall here? I have no proof that there’s a wall here, I simply see it. I don’t have anything to say. Why is the burden of proof on me and not on you?
[Speaker G] No, you’re saying it can’t be otherwise, right? How… why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because I see that it can’t be otherwise. It’s obvious.
[Speaker G] That’s the nature of things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also see… Can you imagine a square that doesn’t—? You can raise an argument in physics, but not in physics. Exactly the point: in physics I don’t see the necessity in it, I see the law, but I don’t see the necessity in it. Here too I don’t see the necessity.
[Speaker G] Fine, but I do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, you think—it’s a bit hard for me to accept that you think you can imagine a world in which there would be a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side.
[Speaker G] First of all, certainly. Really?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s non-Euclidean, then your imagination is much more developed than mine. First of all, it’s a concept that can’t even be understood. It’s not just that you can’t picture it—there is no such thing.
[Speaker G] When people talk about a square, its diagonal is longer than the side.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? That does belong. Mathematics, for me, is part of logic; it’s the same thing.
[Speaker G] Fine, so let’s say you’ll accept that and that’s it in this case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, whoever doesn’t accept it doesn’t accept it. You don’t have to accept anything. I’m saying this is my view; it seems obvious to me. But whoever doesn’t accept it, fine, what can I do? You don’t have to accept something just because someone says something I say. Now, if this really is a necessity—a different kind of necessity, not like the laws of physics—then there is no obstacle, or not only is there no obstacle but it is actually correct to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to them, because it’s not subjection. To say that the Holy One, blessed be He—we spoke about the stone He can’t lift and all those things—that saying the Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent means saying that He can do everything that can be done. But there are things that are simply undefined; they include an internal contradiction. So to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot do that—it’s not because He can’t do it. There are no such things.
[Speaker G] Explain to me what that is.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Explain that thing to me, and I’ll answer whether the Holy One, blessed be He, can do it or not. You can’t explain that thing to me. It makes no sense to say about it can or can’t. Right—it doesn’t exist at the level of definition, not at the level of realization. That’s the difference. In physics it’s realization. At the definitional level I can propose a different law of gravitation, or no law of gravitation at all. There’s nothing—this is not an analytic matter—there’s nothing in the definition of the concepts that dictates that the law of gravitation applies to them. Someone who understands what mass is cannot necessarily derive from that that there is a law of gravitation. There could be a world where there is mass—say in the sense of inertia, or of Newton’s second law, whatever—and there is no gravitation there. What’s the problem?
[Speaker H] There would be, or a different function, yes, a different function,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter, there’d be another law, exactly. So there’s no problem imagining such a thing; it is well-defined, everything is fine. But how would you describe to me a mathematics of a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side? In Euclidean space, of course, always. There is no such thing. It has no description at all—not that it’s false, there is no such description; it’s an internal contradiction. Okay, so therefore the opposite: usually when people bring the example of non-Euclidean geometries as an example showing that one can deviate from the laws of mathematics or the laws of logic, that’s a mathematician’s way of thinking; they’re mistaken here. Because when you ask physicists, they’ll tell you—
[Speaker F] —that from the standpoint of the laws of logic they are not deviating.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Mathematics, for me, is like logic. These are only assumptions.
[Speaker F] Exactly. Meaning, basically not different rules of inference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. But I’m saying, take the proposition “the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees”—is that true in Euclidean space or not? Yes. You can’t assume otherwise, understand? That’s exactly the point. Meaning, physicists actually, when they look at such a thing—it’s true, mathematicians know this too, but often mathematicians are trapped in the perspective of axiomatic systems. Physicists, when they look at such a thing, it’s obvious to them that when the basic conditions of geometry do not hold, we’re talking about a non-Euclidean space, a different kind of space. So yes, obviously I can think about a different kind of space. I can think about a world that is entirely red and a world that is entirely green. So does that contradict the fact that if it is green then it is not red? No. Two different worlds. There is a red world and there is a green world; there is a Euclidean world where these laws apply and a non-Euclidean world where those laws apply. That doesn’t mean you can deviate from the laws of geometry, say—it only means there are—
[Speaker E] —other worlds in which the geometry is different, that’s all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The place of the Ark was not included in the measurements”—that doesn’t fit with this. Okay, so that really is one of the hard questions. If the place of the Ark was not included in the measurements, maybe that was hypnosis for human beings and not a change in the world. But I’m saying, Maimonides and Rashba themselves speak about the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot make a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side. The Holy One, blessed be He Himself, cannot do that. He cannot do it because there is no such thing. I said—think about what happens when the bullet that penetrates every wall meets the wall that stops every bullet. What happens there? The Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent, so He can surely give us the answer to that question, right? Omniscient. Nothing happens, because there are no such things. Either there is no wall that stops every bullet, or there is no bullet that penetrates every wall—one of the two. The existence of one logically contradicts the existence of the other. Not physically contradicts—logically contradicts. So the answer to that question, even the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot answer, simply because the question asks nothing. It’s not that He can’t; the phrase “can’t” here is a misuse. The question asks nothing, so of course even the Holy One, blessed be He, won’t answer it—not because He cannot answer it. But we call that “it contradicts the laws of logic” and “the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to the laws of logic” because we are borrowing usage from the laws of physics to the laws of logic. It’s not the same thing. Now the interesting question is: what is the nature of moral laws? And about that we spoke right at the beginning. Are moral laws rooted in a decision of the Holy One, blessed be He? Rooted in a decision of human society? What exactly are they? So if we view it that way, then certainly moral laws are something that does not say anything objective. Meaning, we decide this way, another society can decide differently. And then even so, I think it’s still not correct to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, created moral laws. We created them, or He created them arbitrarily, it doesn’t matter. But there is also the possibility of seeing moral laws as a kind of logic too. There can’t be a different morality. There is no such thing as a world in which it is moral to murder. Murder is inherently immoral; that is not the result of observation, not a scientific result, it’s a conceptual result. So someone who understands what morality is understands that murder is not moral. Now if I understand moral laws in this way, then obviously the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot deviate from moral laws either, just as He cannot deviate from the laws of physics. The Holy One, blessed be He, cannot—what do you mean, cannot deviate? He can act immorally, but He cannot still be considered moral and murder. That’s what I mean by deviating from moral laws. Anyone can act immorally; I can too. Deviating from moral laws in that sense—anyone can do that. On the contrary, that’s the whole idea that we have free choice.
[Speaker B] On the other hand, ISIS, who behead people, say that this is the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that it’s moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They probably, in the Euthyphro dilemma, hold the other side. Fine, assuming they’ve heard of it. But okay, some of those who came from Europe may have heard of it. In any case, fine, I’m presenting one side of the dilemma here. One side is that moral laws are basically like the laws of logic. And if that’s so, then one need not be so alarmed by the statement—which sounds problematic on the theological level, right?—that there are laws that precede the Holy One, blessed be He, meaning that He is subject to them, that they do not depend on Him.
[Speaker H] But moral laws—meaning, anyone who knows how to think will tell you that it can’t be that something is both x and not-x.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone—
[Speaker H] —who knows how to think, everyone who knows—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —how to think.
[Speaker H] Whereas if we take morality, then let’s take something that is developing throughout history. Is it moral or immoral to kill animals? Once it was everyone’s intuition that there was no problem killing animals; today that’s no longer so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There used to be mistakes in physics too. No, I’m saying, there used to be mistakes in physics too.
[Speaker H] And in logic there were mistakes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? What do you mean, people don’t make mistakes in logic? Of course they do. They still make mistakes in logic today.
[Speaker H] But after you explain it to them… No, but that’s the point: after you explain it to them, they’ll understand that they were mistaken.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe here too, after you explain it to them, they’ll understand. Maybe the problem is your ability to explain, if you don’t succeed. That’s not a simple question. The question is—again, I’m saying—if you’re a moral relativist, then that’s the conclusion. It basically means that morality is a product of our decision; we could have decided otherwise, and in the past, at least on certain questions, people indeed decided otherwise, and therefore this whole thing is just an arbitrary construction.
[Speaker H] But it’s intuition. I feel that it’s moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not deciding—
[Speaker H] I didn’t sit down and say, let’s decide…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s exactly the point. If you understand it as intuition, then the simple meaning is that there was a mistake and now we are more correct, or maybe in the future people will be even more correct. I’m not saying we’re at the end of the road. But I’m saying yes, we do understand that this is moral, and someone who behaves that way is not moral. Otherwise, if you make the whole thing arbitrary, then—
[Speaker H] Maybe we too are not correct, and the people in the future will be the correct ones. There will be people who say that both x and not-x are possible.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Could be. But in the meantime, I don’t think so.
[Speaker D] Maybe the approach is that one must be moral, but it’s given to human beings to determine what morality is. Meaning, that’s a bit different—like establishing a religious court. There are the seven Noahide commandments. To establish a religious court—that’s not determining exactly what…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say—on the details, I completely agree. Details may be—not only may be, it’s obvious that they change from society to place to time and so on. That’s obvious. But clearly you can’t empty the basic moral expectation of all content, so that all the details can change. Because then what does that expectation say? It has to provide some kind of framework. I expect you to be moral. Now, within that expectation there are several possible ways to act, and they depend on place and time—no problem. But if there is no framework at all that derives from my expecting you to be moral, then it says nothing. You can do anything and still be called moral. So the concept “moral” says nothing; I’m not expecting anything of you.
[Speaker I] What’s the definition of moral?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What everyone understands—what is it?
[Speaker I] No, that’s not fixed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “What everyone understands” is not fixed? What does fixed mean? What’s the definition of existent? What’s the definition of existent? I don’t know how to define it, but it’s completely obvious—we all understand what existent means. So is that arbitrary?
[Speaker I] What is moral אצלנו isn’t moral for someone else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t agree with that. It’s not true. True, there are certain questions on which there are disagreements. Fine, we already discussed that. There are disagreements about them—so what? There are disagreements in physics too. Does that mean there isn’t one truth there? They just haven’t found it yet, they haven’t reached complete knowledge yet. The fact that there are disagreements proves nothing.
[Speaker G] In China until not long ago, because of the very strong moral demand that everyone has to eat—and that’s a very moral demand—it was customary that a woman who brought a sixth child into the world, inside the clinic they would kill it during birth. The doctor would do it. Second.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now it’s sixth—they changed the law now. Yes.
[Speaker G] So the doctor kills the child—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —as it emerges from the womb.
[Speaker G] Outright murder. And he does it for super-moral reasons.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, from his point of view.
[Speaker G] But you just said that murder is obviously immoral to everyone. Murder—it’s not murder; murder is not just killing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the difference between “do not murder” and killing? The difference is that under certain circumstances killing is immoral, and in those circumstances it’s called murder. Is killing a Sabbath desecrator murder? In a case with legal process and warning, all the conditions fulfilled. No. Why not? Because it’s a person. Now that’s a moral concept. When you use the word “murder,” that’s already a word with a connotation. Let’s talk about killing. Killing can be moral—it depends on the context. Usually not, but there are contexts where yes.
[Speaker E] And Amalek is even recommended.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you’re in a situation—just think of a more specific situation, from the point of view of the Chinese prime minister, say. It’s hard for us to enter into that because we’re ordinary citizens of a state. But think about something very specific. You’re with a very small group, even a family or I don’t know, a small group. It’s a terrible scenario to think about, but you’re there. Suppose you’re there. There isn’t enough food for everyone. The Talmud talks about such a case, right?
[Speaker C] That’ll be in this week’s Torah portion, that in years of famine people refrain from procreation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but procreation is not murder. It’s not the same thing. It’s a different discussion. It’s also refraining from procreation.
[Speaker C] In the famine portion, Joseph only fathered Ephraim and Benjamin.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that has nothing to do with us.
[Speaker C] We’re talking about murder, not about China.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s not murder. That’s refraining from procreation. Wait, did I rule here? After all, making a baby is murder. Yes. There’s a passage in the Talmud about that. Obviously. The Talmud says: if two are walking in the desert and they have one flask of water, right? So seemingly, what you’re saying is, they should share it. No, I didn’t say that.
[Speaker G] I’m saying there’s almost no act you can determine is universally agreed to be moral.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I completely disagree with you. In my opinion, on most things we agree; on most actions we agree. True, there are cases where not, and there are disputes—so what happened? But still, on most things we agree. And in these disputes, by the way, sometimes you can persuade. Not always. Fine. But that doesn’t mean the whole business is just some arbitrary decision. I really disagree.
[Speaker G] I’ll give you another half-example. Incest within the family. Between societies there’s less drama over whether it’s within the family or not within the family. Take Judaism: an uncle can marry his niece. And in many European cultures that’s considered the height of immorality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s crazy, right? Same thing with homosexuality, same thing with other things. What does that have to do with morality? Who said that’s a moral prohibition?
[Speaker G] I’m asking you: is that a moral prohibition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not at all sure. I’m not sure that you don’t think it’s a moral prohibition. In my eyes, it is not a moral prohibition. All the prohibitions of forbidden sexual relations are not moral prohibitions—maybe with the exception of a married woman, because with a married woman there is damage to another person’s pair-bond, the marital unit of another. Yes. I don’t think these prohibitions are moral prohibitions. It’s called “kindness.” Yes. No, but there “kindness” also has another meaning, in my opinion. “Kindness” there means an exception to the rule. Kindness is as opposed to law. Law is the rule—what one should do in every situation. When there are rules, that’s legal behavior. Kindness is—yes, sleeping with his sister there, or with an animal, I don’t remember—so “kindness” means it’s something against the rules. It simply doesn’t fit with normative behavior. At least that’s how I think. In any case, what I’m saying is: fine, but even if there are disputes about certain cases, I’m not talking about that. Fine, there are disputes; there are disputes in physics too. So the disputes prove nothing. In the end there are fairly broad agreements; I don’t think one can deny that. And not only that—the agreements, by the way, are becoming broader and broader. Meaning, in the end it seems to me that humanity really is progressing toward a morality that is more uniform, and the disagreements are more and more at the margins than they once were. But fine, in any case I think that the fact that there are disagreements on certain questions proves nothing. I’m not claiming that all morality is something objective that all of us see. Rather, it may be that all morality is objective, but not all of it is seen by all of us. And there are disputes. Fine. In any case, so for our purposes, what is the point of presenting the second side of the Euthyphro dilemma?
[Speaker F] I want to understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that morality is basically completely universal, we just haven’t arrived at the truth yet, or are you saying that the core is universal but there’s some relativism, some relativity, at the edge or in everything else? I don’t know. Both possibilities could be true. What I’m saying is that at least there is a core. Both possibilities could be true. Both are possible options.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, meaning, I
[Speaker H] don’t
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know, I don’t have—I can’t say which of the two is correct. As far as I’m concerned, both could be true. I don’t know how to decide that. I am convinced that there is a core, even quite a broad core, of the basic moral principle. It is like logic—or not like logic, but still something objective.
[Speaker D] And it can be very, very abstract, very conceptual. Yes, like not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I’m saying, but still there’s fairly broad agreement overall. But I’m saying, that’s not important. Even if not. It doesn’t matter. On the principled level, whatever morality is, the question is whether the Holy One, blessed be He, can deviate from it, whether He precedes morality, whether He could have commanded a different morality. That’s the Euthyphro question. And I’m saying, maybe not. And that doesn’t contradict any theological principle, just as with the laws of logic He cannot deviate from them. Because inability to deviate from them is a problem—let me phrase that differently. Obviously He can deviate from them. He could have commanded us to be immoral. He can. And then He would, as it were, be choosing evil, the way we can choose to behave badly. That’s not what I call deviating from morality. What I call deviating from morality is a different morality. Exactly. Meaning, commanding a morality opposite to our morality, and that would be the morality. That’s called deviation from morality. Now here I go back to logic. That’s already a problem in logic, not a problem in… It’s like saying to create a world in which there is a law of gravity but objects still won’t fall to the earth. Can He do that? That’s already a problem in logic, not in physics. Because if there is a law of gravity, then all objects with mass fall to the earth. You can’t say there is a law of gravity but objects won’t fall. Then you’ve moved into the domain of logic. Now with morality too, according to this view, you can’t say that there is a different morality. You can say, “I don’t want you to behave morally,” just as any person can choose to behave immorally. Fine. But that isn’t called departing from morality. There are those who want to claim that by His very nature He is moral—the nature of the Holy One, blessed be He—“the nature of the good is to do good,” as Ramchal says. And therefore, from His point of view, it would be impossible even to be a wrongdoer, not only to command an alternative morality, unlike a human being, who can decide to be a wrongdoer.
[Speaker D] But He can create a world in which immoral things are done.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He created such a world; I know one like that.
[Speaker D] Right, so He caused immoral things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, He didn’t cause them. I think we talked about this—He didn’t cause them, we caused them. We talked about Rabbi Amital and Abba Kovner, remember? Rabbi Amital tells that he met Abba Kovner, one of the political commissars of the Palmach, who had been a partisan, and he told Rabbi Amital that he lost his faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, in the Holocaust. And Rabbi Amital told him that he lost his faith in man in the Holocaust. Meaning, the secular person attributed the Holocaust to the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, so he says, “If that’s what He does, then I lose my faith in Him.” And Rabbi Amital—the rabbi, yes—attributed the Holocaust to the deeds of human beings. We would have expected the reverse. And he said, “And therefore I lost my trust in human beings.” Basically he was taking a jab at him over humanism, right? So instead of the Holy One, blessed be He, now you have humanism, and in human beings you didn’t lose trust? That’s fine. Meaning, the Holocaust is only the Holy One, blessed be He—it has nothing to do with human beings.
[Speaker B] There was that debate about the Binding of Isaac. Some understand that Abraham should have said to the Holy One, blessed be He, “This is immoral—how can You do such a thing?”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, we discussed that when I brought Maimonides there, with the intelligibles and the conventional notions.
[Speaker D] But I’m not talking about human actions, I’m talking about diseases of an eight-year-old child—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suffering. So there really… I think we talked about that too. I think the answer comes before human actions, and then, of course, we can choose good or choose evil, but the one who does evil—“no evil descends from above”—the ones who do evil are us. I’m speaking about human evil, not morality, we’ll see that in a moment. But human evil is done by us. The ones who carried out the Holocaust were the Nazis, not the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore there’s no point in looking for theological reasons why six million Jews were murdered. Neither Zionism nor anti-Zionism caused it. What caused it was the Nazis’ choice of wickedness. That’s all. It has nothing to do with Zionism or anti-Zionism or anything else. That’s regarding human evil. What about natural evil? There, what we said about it is exactly what brings us back to the point I made here. Because natural evil is really the result of the laws of nature. Right? Accidents, diseases, I don’t know, the laws of biology, the laws of gravity, climate, whatever. It’s all laws of nature. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, created these laws of nature, and within them there are these side effects, meaning these problematic outcomes. Whoever asks the theological question here and says, “Wait, why did the Holy One, blessed be He, do this?” is assuming it could have been done better. Right? Because if there is no other option, then what can you do—He can’t do something better. Now, what is the better something? So of course, every time something like this is about to happen, He could freeze it, perform a miracle. Yes, perform a miracle—that’s possible. The question is whether there is some system of laws that creates a different nature within which there wouldn’t be such problems. Or also no other problems in their place, whatever, that there simply wouldn’t be problems. Okay? I’m not sure that’s possible. Maybe yes, maybe no. And if the decision of the Holy One, blessed be He, on the principled level—
[Speaker K] the metaphysical level, and that already is…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. That’s not physics, that’s logic. Physics is choosing among the possible systems of laws. Which system of laws do I want in this world? That’s creating the laws of physics. But when there is a system of laws that is impossible—you just won’t be able to formulate its mathematics—that’s logic. There is no such system. It doesn’t exist—not only does it not exist, it cannot exist.
[Speaker G] No, you’re claiming that there is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t prove that—can’t prove anything. But what I’m saying is that whoever asks this question assumes there is. You’re asking a question, right? So show me that there is a question. I’m saying, first of all, who says there is such a system? Maybe there isn’t. And then what follows is that the decision of the Holy One, blessed be He, that the world be run according to laws—that’s His decision. He could have decided otherwise, that at every moment in reality He would determine what happens. As Nachmanides says at the end of the portion of Bo—we also talked a little about this Nachmanides, I think, I already don’t remember. It’s a difference among believers. Yes, right. I think they’re mistaken on this point. And therefore I think they’re mistaken on this point. It’s not true. The Holy One, blessed be He, created the laws, and the laws have their own nature. The world operates according to the laws. The fact that it always works, whether we test it in a lab or not in a lab, the thing works. It doesn’t depend on the prayer we prayed this morning. Right? A physics experiment does not—I think at least—it doesn’t seem that there’s some correlation between great physicists and religious physicists, or religious Jews.
[Speaker E] That’s what Maimonides says—that there is individual providence; He created the laws in such a way that every single one of us—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides even talks like that about miracles. Huh? Maimonides explains even miracles that way. He says that miracles are embedded in nature before creation, and that this is really the law that includes them too.
[Speaker E] But I’m saying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave it, that’s a debate about miracles. But regarding the laws, ordinary conduct—not exceptions. Because with exceptions it may be that He departs from them, but ordinary conduct is conduct according to laws, and those laws work. And you know what? I don’t even care if He does it at every moment—but He does it at every moment in the same way. So the same laws work all the time. That’s enough for me. Because once He wants the system to operate with rigid laws, there may be no choice but to have tsunamis and diseases and plagues and all kinds of things like that. There may be no system of laws without this. He does have the option of doing without a system of laws altogether. But understand that in a world with no system of laws at all, we couldn’t live. You need to make decisions about what to do when the situation is such-and-such. If you don’t know what will result from your decision, you can’t analyze anything—how can you make a decision? How do you know that if you eat you live and if you don’t eat you live? After all, there are no laws. Meaning, one time it will be this way, another time that way. So you wouldn’t eat. Or maybe you would eat, by luck. I don’t know. In other words, it’s impossible to function without laws. So one of the kindnesses the Holy One, blessed be He, did for us is that this world operates according to laws, within which we can function, learn from experience, make decisions, and so on. But the price is that within such a system of laws, which has to govern the whole world—a system of a few basic laws from which the whole nature of the world is derived—there is no way around the fact that in certain places there will be things that are not good. What can you do? And therefore I think this question is not necessarily so difficult, even the question of natural evil. How did we get into all this? I don’t even remember anymore. Ah—so this brings us back, really, to the fact that there is a logical dimension here. You now see how good and evil are basically translated into logic. When you ask yourself why the Holy One, blessed be He, does evil in this case, you say: it’s a logical result. He didn’t do it. Right? So we see, in effect, that when there are things that are a logical consequence, I don’t attribute them to the actions of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, too is subject to the laws of logic. But here the laws of logic mean that there will be diseases. Usually you won’t perceive that as laws of logic. Logic is that two diagonals equal to a third quantity are equal to each other. I’m showing you that these things too can be translated into logical necessities, into logical constraints. And if I can translate it into a logical constraint, then you can say that it precedes the Holy One, blessed be He, that it is not contingent on His command, and on the contrary, He too is subject to it. And that is the other side of the Euthyphro dilemma. The question is whether we really understand the laws of morality that way. I tend to think yes. But I’m saying that at least there is such a side to the Euthyphro dilemma that could also be applied in our world. What I said just before is that at least—not necessarily on the logical level, but on the theological level—it is very hard to accept that there is some binding system of laws whose source is not the Holy One, blessed be He, because then that means there is some kind of partnership here. There are things we already talked about. And because of that, it seems to me that in the Euthyphro dilemma, maybe on the logical level one could define these laws as preceding the Holy One, blessed be He, meaning that He is subject to them. But I think on the theological level it is hard to accept that. On the theological level it is more likely that because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to be moral, therefore we need to be moral. But again, the concept of morality itself—is it the result of the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects it? I don’t know exactly. My obligation to behave morally is a result of the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to behave that way. Here I’m no longer sure, I don’t know. There’s some…
[Speaker G] He makes it very clear, like Yirmiyahu Yovel.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—again, you’re going back to Sinai.
[Speaker G] You’re going back to Sinai.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? He didn’t claim that this was an alternative morality. We talked about that. He said that there is a religious principle that here overrides the moral problem, supersedes it, but that doesn’t mean the moral problem doesn’t exist. That’s not the same thing.
[Speaker G] I think that with Amalek, it’s more a matter of—it’s more, it’s more than circumstantial. Amalek is, as it were, exempted from the standard category of human beings whom I am obligated not to murder. He’s like a different kind. Roughly the way the Christians, when they traded in Blacks, decided they had no soul. It’s convenient, because then you can kill them, sell them, and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s convenient because then you can kill them, and so on.
[Speaker G] But I’m not saying that’s the reason, I’m just asking. Assuming there is such a concept as Amalek—a person genetically compatible with me—but to whom the laws of morality that bind me do not apply.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what does that mean? That I’ll answer in a moment. That’s my second topic, but it’s exactly this point. Fine, that’s regarding the Euthyphro dilemma. We could keep philosophizing here much more, but—
[Speaker E] Let’s just ask whether one can construct—after all, morality has no meaning without a world. Before, before the Big Bang, before creation, there is no morality and no one to observe it. Is there abstract morality? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is there no geometry before there are concrete triangles? If there’s no world at all, does geometry exist? No world—the world hasn’t been created.
[Speaker E] Geometry exists? Why? Morality basically says that morality is really a law governing the behavior of creatures.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But no—when there are creatures, that is the correct way to behave. It doesn’t depend on there being creatures. Its realization depends on that, but not the moral law itself. This moral law wasn’t realized because there were no creatures, but it’s exactly like geometry. In geometry, the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees even before there was a world and before there were triangles. In the abstract Platonic concept of Euclidean space, the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. When man was a Platonic concept—when Plato himself was a Platonic concept—still morality, or the correct moral laws, were the same laws. It’s just true that they were not actually realized, because the circumstances requiring realization did not exist. Yes.
[Speaker L] Animals—is there such a thing as morality there?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think—I’m not… It’s commonly assumed not, but I don’t know. I don’t know how to test such a thing.
[Speaker L] So why aren’t they subject to it and we are?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know—who says they aren’t subject to it? I have no idea. I don’t know how to decide that. I’ve never been… I don’t know the consciousness of an animal, I don’t know. I find… Descartes thought that an animal is basically a biological machine. There are those today who want to claim no, it’s a developed creature like a human being, just on a lower level. If they’re right, then maybe there too there is something like this. I don’t know. I don’t know how one decides such a thing. The thought that this also affects morality there. What?
[Speaker G] There is animal suffering today, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. So actually I want—I wanted to move into a few concrete questions that will wrap up this topic, though they may open the next one. There are often questions—when people talk about morality and Jewish law, or morality and Torah, so until now we’ve spoken generally. But if I speak now about concrete problems, many times it hinges on, it brings us to, relations to the different other. Right? Women—once they were considered at least the different other. Right? Or gentiles. Some will say animals, whatever. And often the halakhic / of Jewish law attitude appears unequal toward the different other. And this is a big part of the moral problems people have with the halakhic / of Jewish law world. The most prominent examples are between Jew and gentile: that there is no “you shall not murder” prohibition when killing a gentile—there is a Torah-level prohibition, but not the specific “you shall not murder,” and there is no death penalty for it. Returning lost property of a gentile, which one is not required to do; desecrating the Sabbath to save his life; all kinds of things of this sort. The question is how, how does one actually address the asymmetry that today seems very problematic on the moral level?
[Speaker F] Sometimes they turn someone into the different other, like an agunah or a mamzer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, they turn someone into the different other?
[Speaker F] Meaning, you take a person and determine that he’s a mamzer, and now he’s different.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Every halakhic / of Jewish law status defines some kind of differentness. A kohen is different too.
[Speaker F] But that also raises problems…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A kohen has problems too—he can’t marry a divorcée. He’s in trouble. For example. Fine, I… obviously the statuses of… Hello everyone, now. The answers may be different. In the context of the mamzer I think one has to look more for the answer in the planes I spoke about earlier—namely, when there is a religious principle that clashes with a moral principle. And then Jewish law, whose tendencies are religious tendencies, sometimes tells us that the religious principle or religious value overrides the moral value. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a moral problem here—that’s what I spoke about—but rather that this value is overridden by another value. Now this is also true in conflicts within morality itself, between two moral values. We talked about Sartre’s student, right, who was torn over whether to join the Gaullists to fight against the Nazis—he was in occupied Paris—whether to join de Gaulle’s Free French army to fight the Nazis, or stay and care for his elderly and lonely mother. Right, her husband had collaborated with the Nazis, her one son had been killed by the Nazis—the other son—and he was left effectively alone with her. So that is a dilemma within the moral world, not between religion and morality. There are conflicts within the moral world. Now whatever that student would decide does not mean he is not committed to the other moral value. It only means he thinks this value overrides the other value. Like the chocolate example I’ve brought more than once, where the dilemma is whether to eat it because it tastes good or not eat it because it’s unhealthy. So someone who decides to eat or not eat does not deny that it is unhealthy or that it is tasty, but you have to decide. There’s a conflict, and you have to decide which one prevails. So in the context of religion versus morality there are also conflicts, and one has to decide which one prevails. And as I already said, it is not necessarily the religious that prevails over the moral; sometimes it’s the reverse. I brought the examples of sin for its own sake and so on—I’m summarizing now many, many things we discussed previously—but yes, it’s a conflict.
[Speaker F] It could be that this conflict reflects some original immorality of Jewish law. Clearly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only could it be—clearly that’s how it is. I just argue that this is not immorality.
[Speaker F] But you define—
[Speaker D] it that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t think that’s right. What do you mean?
[Speaker D] If so, then you told me earlier that the Holy One, blessed be He, is bound by morality, right? So how did He create Jewish law when there’s a moral conflict?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you saying? A conflict between two moral values—leave Jewish law aside. He created morality, just morality. No, there too it can’t be otherwise. Here too it can’t be otherwise. There is a religious value on one side and a moral value on the other. What can you do?
[Speaker D] Meaning, then too it was determined that Jewish law is also a sacred concept.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. Jewish law is something the Holy One, blessed be He, wants no less than morality. He wants both. That does not mean there is identity between them. I talked about that—all the models I discussed in Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish and the Melamdim and all those things. And the claim is that these are two different things, and He wants both. So just as there can be conflict within the moral world between two values, there can be conflict between a religious value and a moral value, and in both cases decisions have to be made. And the decision is always to uphold one at the expense of the other—what can you do? But that does not mean Jewish law doesn’t care about morality. It means that when there is a conflict, one has to decide. Sometimes it is decided this way and sometimes that way. It seems to me that in the context of mamzerim I would lean more in that direction—or a kohen who marries a divorcée, or the wife of a kohen who was raped, which we also discussed, a kohen’s wife who was raped and is forbidden to her husband, and the like. In the context of gentiles there may be another plane. Maimonides, in his Commentary on the Mishnah—there is a Mishnah in Bava Kamma, a Mishnah one is not supposed to say out loud, although it is told that two gentiles came and studied it אצלנו—studied it with us. They studied the whole Torah until they got to this Mishnah, and then they couldn’t make sense of it. Two Romans. The Mishnah about an ox belonging to a Jew that gored the ox of an idolater. So how do you judge that? Right, what’s called private international law. Private international law means what happens when a citizen subject to legal system A encounters a conflict with a citizen subject to legal system B—a private conflict, not between states, between people. Okay? The question is how you judge it, according to system A or system B. So in Jewish law too there are discussions like this. What happens when a Jew’s ox gores an idolater’s ox? Fine, obviously something has to be determined, right? Jewish law determines something very interesting: whatever is better for us is what we do. Meaning if our law works better for us, we judge by our law; if the gentiles’ law works better for us, we judge according to—we judge according to the gentiles’ law. We don’t send him to a gentile court; the religious court judges according to gentile law. It says to him: you’re a gentile, I need to judge you by your laws—when that hurts him. But when it suits us, then no—we’re Jews, we’re subject to Jewish law. So that is problematic. Now you’ll say that this troubles modern people, and didn’t trouble people in the past. Already in the Talmud itself I feel there is some note, a note of discomfort. But Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah himself writes about this: and do not be astonished that Jewish law tells us to do something like this, which is not moral—I don’t remember the exact wording.
[Speaker J] Who determines Jewish law? Who determines Jewish law?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, every Jewish law—there are laws whose source is verses, a law given to Moses at Sinai, derivations, enactments, decrees.
[Speaker J] Right, there are the verses, but who determines the Jewish law? Who receives—who understands the verse?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sages, the Sanhedrin at that time, for the purpose of this discussion.
[Speaker J] All the laws? From the Sanhedrin?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If they’re not from the Sanhedrin, then they’re not binding. From the Sanhedrin or from the Talmud, which has a status like the Sanhedrin. That’s how it’s been accepted by us. Everything else—you really can argue, if you have good reasons, by all means. The Rosh writes this. Maybe we’ll talk about it sometime too.
[Speaker I] There was a debate this week whether, if there’s a severely wounded terrorist and a more lightly wounded Jew, whom should you treat first.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that’s a specific question. In my opinion, leave him there to die—whether he’s badly wounded or not badly wounded, don’t treat him. That’s my personal opinion. I don’t see any moral problem with that. He should have been shot in the head, and certainly at least left there to die. I don’t understand what the moral problem is in that. There’s a bit of a public-relations issue. Again, I’m not sure that’s the right practical thing to do, because in the world I’m not sure it would pass. But I’m saying, if you ask my personal opinion: leave him there to rot. Yes. So then Maimonides writes there: don’t be surprised, because these people do not behave decently, they do not behave in a civilized and moral way, and therefore we too are not obligated toward them to behave morally. That’s what Maimonides writes. Now, when you read this with today’s eyes, some people will say that this is Jewish law and don’t show this Maimonides to anyone because it’s very racist, right? That the gentiles behave immorally. But I think it’s exactly the opposite. This Maimonides should be shown to everyone possible, and what this Maimonides is saying is that when—exactly—that the gentiles who were apparently in his surroundings, in the surroundings of the sages who established this law, were apparently like that. I assume so—I don’t think they just did things arbitrarily. At least whoever claims they did should prove it. The gentiles, at least from the descriptions—and you also see it in the Bible—they did terrible things on the human and moral level. Once you see these gentiles standing before you, then you say: fine, these are people for whom—will you return a lost object to someone who doesn’t return lost objects at all, who even takes your property, not only doesn’t return your lost object? And you, like a good Christian, will offer him the other cheek—found his phone? Here, sir, I found it for you, with identifying marks or without identifying marks, take it—why not? It’ll be a gift to someone else, even though it belongs to him. If he doesn’t behave according to these rules, then I too—there is some kind of reciprocity in the moral world. And if you—and this is why I said I would get to this—when certain populations are defined as populations not subject to moral imperatives, then it depends: in a place where symmetry truly does not exist in an essential sense—not that someone sinned once, or a person who always slips, but a group that does not accept moral conduct upon itself at all—then I don’t see anything so improper in saying, okay, then we too won’t behave morally toward them. The gentiles, all throughout history, that’s exactly what they did to us. Everybody forgets that. They did not judge us by the standard of absolute justice. They judged us according to whatever law suited them in each case—never according to ours—and it always suited them. Almost always. Today it’s no longer like that; there are more decent legal systems. I mean throughout history.
[Speaker K] It’s still like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, maybe, I don’t know. But in more decent places, maybe—I don’t think it has to be like that.
[Speaker K] They just justify it, but it’s still like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I don’t know. I’m not familiar enough, so I don’t know. In any case, I’m saying it is certainly improving—you agree, right? Fine, it doesn’t matter here. Okay, so I’m saying, once you see a world around you that behaves toward you this way, why on earth offer the other cheek and start judging it in an enlightened and objective way? We’re looking at this today through today’s eyes. But this Maimonides is exactly the basis for saying: fine, if today the situation is different, then this law too should be different today. There is Meiri, right, who says that the attitude to gentiles—all the laws concerning discrimination against various gentiles, right? Apart from the prohibition concerning objects of idolatry, ritual objects, or things like that—returning lost property, desecrating the Sabbath to save a gentile—the Meiri explicitly says: one must desecrate the Sabbath to save a gentile, a Torah-level Sabbath desecration, not because of appearances, not because of suspicion, not because of anything. But because today’s gentile is like a Jew. That’s what he writes. In many places he writes this; in dozens and dozens of places he writes this. And basically it seems to me that he is following this Maimonides, as is usually his way—following Maimonides. The Meiri was a Maimonidean. And Maimonides here is really charting that path. He is basically saying that all these discriminations that look so bad today to the modern eye—that’s anachronism. You need to understand that in the reality of then, in a period when there was such blatant asymmetry from the other side, you too would think that way. Today you live in a world where the situation seems more symmetrical. The gentiles too often behave like human beings, and the Jews too often don’t behave like human beings—everything’s fine, we’re already completely egalitarian. And therefore there truly is no place for these discriminations, and there shouldn’t be. Jewish law doesn’t demand them either. Very often the feeling that Jewish law is immoral comes from an anachronistic perspective. That’s what I want to say. And this really takes us to the plane of reciprocity—understanding what role reciprocity plays in the moral world. And that’s a question that, well, we could open it up, but I’m not sure we have time for it. So I’ll maybe just give one more example and one more sentence to close this matter. One example is, for instance, the demands made of converts. Many people today claim: look, I’m a secular Jew, nobody questions that I’m Jewish. I observe nothing in Jewish law. Right? But a gentile who wants to come and convert—a resident of the country, whatever, Hebrew speaker, reads Amos Oz, everything’s fine. And he wants to convert through the army, pays taxes, so he wants to convert, and you demand from him requirements that you don’t demand from an ordinary Jew. So again, there’s some feeling of injustice here. And again I’m saying one has to notice: this situation is not symmetrical. There is asymmetric weight here. Think about the United States. Someone comes and wants citizenship, and he is a polished thief, a mafia boss in another country. Wants American citizenship. I assume that if they know his role, they won’t give him citizenship, just as we won’t give it, I hope. Right? Does someone who is a mafia boss in the State of Israel lose his citizenship because of that? Unfortunately, no. But he doesn’t lose it. Why not? Because there is a difference between people you want to annex to yourself—between the requirements for being admitted to the club and the requirements that have to be met for us to throw you out of the club. It’s not the same thing. I think in our own lives too it’s not the same. There is no symmetry between entering a group and saying… when I want to adopt a child, I can completely understand someone who, if the child is terribly, terribly problematic, won’t adopt him—he doesn’t want trouble. Whoever does so is blessed, but I can understand someone who doesn’t do so; that’s not immoral. But if someone has a child, his own child, and that child is problematic, what—will he throw him out of the house? Would we react to that with indifference? There is a difference between accepting someone into my life and deciding that he does not belong—he is with me—no, he doesn’t belong because he doesn’t observe the… Again, this is a question of symmetry. Meaning, I think that very often we apply symmetry too formally, too mathematically. We ignore the context. Very often there is some asymmetry that is genuinely built in. That’s one point. And the second one really requires—we talked about the categorical imperative, right? So that’s it: this question really raises, the question of the role of symmetry in morality, raises exactly the question of the categorical imperative. Because here people usually connect the Kantian statement, right—do what you would want to become a universal law—that’s Kant’s categorical imperative, and that defines moral acts. And people ask why this isn’t the same thing as what Hillel the Elder said: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” That’s basically the same thing. But it’s not the same thing. It’s a mistake to think it’s the same. Because with Hillel the Elder, in the Talmud itself it is explicitly written that there is a certain dimension of symmetry. What does that mean? “Love your neighbor as yourself”—the Talmud asks, can it be that if he does such-and-such to you, then you also do… no, that you should not do that to him, because “love your neighbor as yourself.” And the Talmud itself—I can’t get into all the details now—sees in Hillel the Elder’s statement, in the Torah and in the interpretation Hillel gives it, some dimension of symmetry. Now Kant’s categorical imperative completely rejects symmetry. Kant’s categorical imperative essentially says—we usually understand it as: don’t steal from the other person because otherwise he’ll steal from you. What you would not want to be a universal law, do not do. But then it turns into a rule that is half practical. If you steal from him he’ll steal from you—symmetry, right? But that’s not what Kant means. Kant says: perform your actions according to how you would want there to be a universal law, not according to what in fact prevails as a universal law. Meaning, if you would want all human beings not to steal, you are forbidden to steal even if others steal. Since you would want the universal law to be not to steal, then you must not steal no matter what others do. The categorical imperative, in a certain sense, is really the opposite of this symmetrical outlook in which I do to you as you do to me. And therefore this identification between Kant and Hillel the Elder is mistaken. It’s not correct. Now really think about where you stand—that’s an interesting question. Is symmetry really a meaningful moral rule? My tendency is to think yes, even though I identify with the categorical imperative in principle. But still there are also considerations of symmetry. In a place where gentiles do not return my lost objects, I do not. In a place where gentiles do not return my lost objects, I’m not going to go and return something to a gentile—chase after him and return the lost object and hold onto it and announce it and make all that effort. Why should I? Why should I do that? He doesn’t do that for me—why should I do it for him? Now, would I want there to be a universal law that everyone returns lost objects? Of course I would. So the Kantian principle says you still need to return the lost object, especially since returning that lost object itself is not offering the other cheek—you’re not going to get slapped for it. Returning lost property, nothing happened, fine, hello. You just know that in principle he would not return your lost property. But the act itself does not harm you. If it itself would bring you harm, I assume Kant too would say don’t do it. But here, no. I’m only saying: look, they don’t return lost property, why should I return theirs? That’s what Maimonides writes: after all, they don’t behave like human beings—why should we behave like human beings toward them?
[Speaker G] But that still doesn’t tell me that because they stole my car, I steal another car. No, right. The question, the question is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] whether, in order not to steal the car of the one who stole from me, am I stealing from a thief?
[Speaker G] You’re getting to “do not take revenge.”
[Speaker H] What? “Do not take revenge.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay. So I’m saying, the interplay between considerations of symmetry and the categorical imperative—it’s clear that neither one rules the roost; both are on the field. The relationship between them is more complex. But symmetry considerations certainly carry weight. It’s not that there is some universal law and I don’t care what’s going on around me.
[Speaker D] This complication is very dangerous. Because once you always go downward—meaning, you won’t do this to me so I—then it deteriorates. If you establish that there are norms that should be followed, even if you don’t do them to me, I do the right thing, maybe eventually the whole story will rise to that place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes and maybe no. And someone who doesn’t believe that it will eventually happen—do you think he is immoral if he doesn’t behave that way? So it may be that you’re right. But this moral principle that does hinge on symmetry is not so absurd. Meaning, it’s not something so…
[Speaker H] But “do not take revenge” is exactly not to behave symmetrically.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not take revenge” is within a community to which the moral imperatives apply. If someone harmed you, he did it accidentally, temporarily, locally. But if someone has gone outside the category of “your fellow,” then you are not bound by “do not take revenge” and “do not bear a grudge,” because that applies only to one who acts as your people do. He has gone outside the category of your brother. That’s exactly the point. What does “gone outside the category of your brother” mean? It’s not a chauvinistic definition. Now, according to Maimonides and Meiri, “gone outside the category of your brother” means gone outside the category of those who behave morally. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, whether he is a Jew or not a Jew. It’s just that once there was a very high correlation, almost identity, that non-Jews behaved very badly and Jews apparently behaved better—though not clear how much better, but better. So I’m saying, that was once, and therefore one must understand that in an asymmetrical situation, moral rules too can be somewhat asymmetrical. And the criticism we know today is because today the situation really is symmetrical. Today I really don’t think there is that much difference between the behavior of gentiles and the behavior of Jews, if there is any difference at all. And therefore people rightly demand symmetry in moral relations. But one has to beware of anachronism. So many of these problems of the immorality of Jewish law are solved if we really bring in the concept of symmetry, even though that certainly harms Kant’s categorical imperative. Meaning, there’s some…
[Speaker E] Kant’s categorical imperative at all is brought up by the question of the convert in the first place. The very fact that the convert says, tell me how I should behave according to Kant and the categorical imperative—he’s not challenging, he’s not asking whether there is a categorical imperative.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is the convert connected to the categorical imperative? I didn’t understand.
[Speaker E] The very fact—the categorical imperative basically says: behave according to what you would want to be a universal law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By the very fact that you want there to be a universal law—
[Speaker E] that’s the categorical imperative.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the categorical imperative says that you should behave according to how you would want there to be a universal law. It guides you how to behave. Think what you would want to be a universal law—that’s what you should do. That is the Kantian claim. And it has nothing to do with conversion.
[Speaker E] The question behind the Kantian claim is even earlier—it says that there is a universal law, that there ought to be a universal law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are major debates surrounding the interpretation of Kant. Because what if someone wants a different universal law? He wants there to be a universal law that everyone steals, because he’s the biggest bully in the neighborhood, so he’ll steal and others can also try to steal and won’t succeed.
[Speaker E] He still doesn’t want a universal law, because one can say that there isn’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then to want a general law, while detached from what the content of that general law actually is, it’s hard to see that as morality. And therefore many interpreters of Kant want to argue that, in effect, through the back door Kant does bring in specific moral principles, even though he tries to escape that into some empty general structure. But yes, he would not accept someone who says: I would want the whole world to be thieves, and therefore I am obligated to steal. Not only am I allowed to steal, I am obligated to steal. A father of a large family would very much want the whole world to receive high child allowances, and an elderly person in need of nursing care would very much want services for the elderly. Meaning, another discussion is the question of whether the general law really has to be universal in itself. Because it could be, for example, Kant… to lie to someone in a situation where, I don’t remember, I’ll gain some sort of benefit. So he says it’s forbidden, because I would not want there to be a general law that lying is permitted. But I can formulate it differently: I would want there to be a general law that one may lie if someone is threatening to harm me. That too is a general law. And then it’s fine, so then I actually can lie. So the question is what counts as a general law. You can always define a general law in some ad hoc way like that, and well, I’m saying on the level of principle, we’re not going to get into those details right now.