Halakhic Thought – 5783 – Lecture 5

Table of Contents

• The command as what defines Jewish law versus what lies outside it
• The role of the command on the theoretical plane: a basic norm and authorization
• The role of the command on the practical plane: intention, belief, and performing a commandment
• Maimonides in Laws of Kings: the sages of the nations of the world versus their pious ones
• Coercion in matters of belief and the “captured child” in the modern context
• Ahad Ha’am and observance as culture without command
• Maimonides in Eight Chapters: the virtuous person and the one who rules over himself, rational and revealed commandments
• Resolving the contradiction with Laws of Kings: motivation versus inner identification
• A moral person and a servant of God: two commitments that do not invalidate one another
• Value according to Yeshayahu Leibowitz and the mistake that comes with it
• Commitment to a normative system: comprehensive versus particular
• Conflict versus contradiction and the plurality of systems
• Incommensurability of values and Sartre’s dilemma
• An indirect solution: “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths”

Summary

General Overview

The text defines the command as the boundary line of Jewish law and as its binding foundation. It distinguishes between the theoretical role of the command, as establishing a “basic norm” from which authorities and norms are derived, and its practical role, unique to Jewish law, which requires observance out of commitment to the command given at Sinai. It presents Maimonides’ position that an act may be right and moral yet still lack religious value if it is not done by force of command, and it develops a distinction between acting “because of rational judgment” and an inner psychological identification with the good. From there it moves to a discussion of the structure of values and normative systems, the possibility of comprehensive versus particular commitment, and the idea that conflicts and even contradictions between systems become possible specifically for someone who is comprehensively committed. Finally, it presents the problem of the incommensurability of values and the Sages’ indirect route in the topic of saving life versus the Sabbath through the principle, “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” which does not require a direct ranking between the value of life and the value of the Sabbath.

The command as what defines Jewish law versus what lies outside it

The command defines the halakhic category, and wherever there is command, there is a world of Jewish law. Where there is no command, it remains outside the halakhic realm even if there are norms there, as in “And you shall do what is right and good.” The distinction between indicative statements that describe facts and normative statements establishes the difference between description and command or value judgment.

The role of the command on the theoretical plane: a basic norm and authorization

The text adopts Hans Kelsen’s model of the grundnorm as a basic norm that constitutes legal obligation and makes possible a chain of “relations of authorization.” It draws a parallel between the obligation to obey the laws of the Knesset and the obligation to obey the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, which binds the Torah. It brings examples of internal authorization in Jewish law, such as “do not deviate” as authorizing the Sages according to Maimonides, and “he shall not break his word” as authorizing the validity of vows by force of the Torah’s command.

The role of the command on the practical plane: intention, belief, and performing a commandment

Jewish law requires that the command play a role in the manner of performance, and observance must be out of commitment to the command given at Sinai, unlike secular law, which does not concern itself with motives. The text distinguishes between the dispute over whether “commandments require intention” and the claim that “commandments require belief,” and it suggests that an act done without belief in the background does not count as a commandment even according to the opinion that commandments do not require intention. It gives the example of an atheist who puts on tefillin in the street and does not thereby fulfill the commandment of tefillin, and when he later repents he must put them on again.

Maimonides in Laws of Kings: the sages of the nations of the world versus their pious ones

Maimonides, at the end of chapter 8 in Laws of Kings, rules that a non-Jew or resident alien who keeps commandments “because of rational judgment” and not because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them at Sinai, is counted among “the sages of the nations of the world” and not among “the pious of the nations of the world.” The text interprets this as a distinction between the moral value of the correct act and the religious value of a commandment, and it establishes that an act without commitment to command is not a commandment. It adds that according to this claim, someone who is not “in the game” of belief and commitment to command does not fulfill commandments, and by the same token his transgressions are also not transgressions in the same sense.

Coercion in matters of belief and the “captured child” in the modern context

The text argues that the “captured child” of the modern world is a situation “worse than unintentional sin,” to the point of being “complete coercion,” because a person born into a secular situation does not even imagine that there are religious obligations. It gives the example of a professor of Judaism who is expert in the Talmud and halakhic decisors but sees Jewish law as an Indian culture that does not obligate him. It connects this to the Radbaz on “one coerced in matters of belief” and distinguishes it from the classic case of a captured child.

Ahad Ha’am and observance as culture without command

The text presents Ahad Ha’am as someone who supported preserving Jewish law as a cultural skeleton for national cohesion, in the spirit of “More than the Jews kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jews,” without belief in divine command. It states that even if he had observed every detail with complete precision, he would never have fulfilled a commandment, because the component of commitment to command is missing.

Maimonides in Eight Chapters: the virtuous person and the one who rules over himself, rational and revealed commandments

Maimonides presents a type called one who “rules over himself,” who does good but desires evil and feels distress in doing good, as opposed to the “virtuous” person, who is naturally drawn to the good and desires it. The philosophers say that the virtuous person is better and more complete, but the Sages say that one who desires transgressions, longs for them, and rules over himself is “better and more complete,” and they cite “whoever is greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than his,” and “according to the pain is the reward.” Maimonides resolves this by distinguishing between “rational commandments,” such as murder, theft, robbery, and deception, where it is fitting not to desire evil, and “revealed commandments,” such as forbidden foods and shaatnez, where “were it not for the Torah they would not be evil at all,” and therefore one says, “I do desire it, but what can I do, for my Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.”

Resolving the contradiction with Laws of Kings: motivation versus inner identification

The text raises a difficulty between Maimonides’ words in Eight Chapters, which prefer natural perfection in rational commandments, and Laws of Kings, which requires the observance of the seven Noahide commandments by force of command and not because of rational judgment. It resolves this by saying there is a difference between the question “Why am I doing this?” and the question of whether there is “inner psychological identification” with the act. It illustrates this with a person who is naturally repelled by murder yet still refrains from it by force of command. It concludes that the required religious motivation is commitment to the command at Sinai, whereas moral identification is a virtue of human perfection and does not detract from the religious value so long as it is not the reason that replaces the command.

A moral person and a servant of God: two commitments that do not invalidate one another

The text defines an act done only out of rational judgment as a moral act that is not a commandment, and an act done only out of command as a religious act that may point to a moral deficiency if the person has no identification with the good. It presents the ideal of a person in whom both reasons exist simultaneously, so that each of them would be sufficient for action, while commitment to command is preserved as the religious foundation. It connects this to the principle, “Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does,” and to the explanation that the added greatness lies in the very response to command.

Value according to Yeshayahu Leibowitz and the mistake that comes with it

The text cites Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who defines a value as an end and not a means, and therefore as something that cannot be justified externally, and it illustrates this with an article about “Karen” and the discussion of disconnecting from devices. Leibowitz holds that disconnecting turns life from a value into a means and is therefore forbidden, and the text argues that he is mistaken because one value can clash with another without losing its status as a value. The text explains that the chain of “why” stops at “because that’s how it is,” which is not arbitrary but self-evident, and that is the function of a value as the infrastructure for justifications.

Commitment to a normative system: comprehensive versus particular

The text asks what binds a person to a normative system and proposes two foundations: particular commitment, in which each norm is accepted after checking that it is “correct,” and comprehensive commitment, in which the system is accepted by force of an overall commitment to the source of authority. It interprets the midrash, “He went around to all the nations… ‘What is written in it?’” as the nations’ particular examination, in contrast to “We will do and we will hear” as Israel’s comprehensive commitment. It concludes that comprehensive commitment is the condition for a person to find himself in a genuine conflict with Jewish law, whereas someone who accepts only what seems right to him will never reach conflict, because he will simply filter out whatever he does not accept.

Conflict versus contradiction and the plurality of systems

The text distinguishes between contradiction, where a person is committed to a value and to its opposite, and conflict, where two values that are not opposites arise in a situation in which it is impossible to realize both. It gives the example of the Sabbath versus saving a life and states that there is no contradiction between the values but rather a practical conflict, resolved by rules such as “a positive commandment overrides a prohibition.” It argues that between different systems, such as Jewish law and morality, even contradictions may appear, and it gives examples such as killing Amalek or the status of mamzerut as points of tension with morality.

Incommensurability of values and Sartre’s dilemma

The text presents the problem of “the absence of a common measure” as the difficulty of ranking values that have no common yardstick, because a value does not serve some external goal. It brings Jean-Paul Sartre’s story about a student in occupied Paris who is torn between joining the army of Free France and caring for his mother, as an example of an inner moral conflict in which there is no essential contradiction, but there is an inability to realize both values together. It argues that constructing a hierarchy of values requires a shared scale, and it illustrates the lack of meaning in comparison questions without a common measure, such as “Which is greater, human kindness or the water in the ocean?”

An indirect solution: “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths”

The text analyzes the two Talmudic rationales for why saving life overrides the Sabbath: “and live by them, and not die by them,” which establishes the superiority of life, as opposed to “Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” which seems to treat life as a means to commandments. It argues that the second rationale does not require a hierarchy between the values but bypasses it through a consideration of dominance: saving him also yields the gain of “many Sabbaths,” whereas not saving him yields the loss of those same Sabbaths, and so the decision can be reached even without deciding in principle which value is more important. It concludes that sometimes a conflict can be resolved without a scale of values, even though in many cases the philosophical problem of deciding between incomparable values still remains.

Okay, friends. We spoke a bit about the meaning of command in Jewish law as what defines the halakhic category, both in the Bible and in the Talmud. Everywhere the question comes up whether we’re in the halakhic zone or in the extra-halakhic zone—something narrative or descriptive that appears in the Torah, or aggadic passages that appear in the Talmud. I said that what distinguishes the halakhic category from the other categories is command. Meaning: anywhere there is a command, you are in the halakhic world. A place where there is no command—even though there may be norms there and not only facts, for example “do what is upright and good,” we’ll still get to that today—that is not part of Jewish law; it is something extra-halakhic. After that we spoke about how command plays a role on two planes with respect to Jewish law. The first plane is the theoretical plane, halakhic jurisprudence. Halakhic jurisprudence basically says—following Hans Kelsen, who was a philosopher of law, or a legal theorist, and he was a positivist—he basically argued that at the foundation of normative legal obligation in general, if we are talking about a normative system, there stands some basic norm. And that basic norm defines the root of the whole system. Say, the obligation to obey the laws of the Knesset—that is the basic norm in the context of Israeli law. Now from there, all kinds of secondary norms can be derived. Every law the Knesset legislates, of course one must obey by force of the basic norm, because one must obey whatever the Knesset determines. If someone authorized by the Knesset can enact some regulation—a minister, a ministry director-general, whoever it may be—the same thing. Or a police officer, it doesn’t matter; that whole chain can keep going. Certain laws can authorize other laws; Kelsen calls these authorization relations. And basically the description of the legal system is like some sort of normative system. It starts from fundamental principles—in this case maybe one principle, the Grundnorm or basic norm—and from there, as in geometry, we have axioms; from them propositions are derived, and from those propositions more propositions are derived, and so on. That is one role of command. As distinct, say, from description: there are indicative statements, descriptive statements, that simply describe facts. Normative statements are statements that do not describe facts but rather command or value. It can also be aesthetic, by the way—that something is beautiful—that too is not a purely descriptive statement. It’s a statement with a judgmental dimension. It’s not that you’re reporting a fact; you’re stating an opinion or some judgment, say regarding a work of art, when you say it’s beautiful, or that a certain act is bad or a certain act is good. All of these, in the broadest senses, can be called norms, as distinct from facts. So regarding that—the first role of command is the theoretical role. The role that says: from here halakhic obligation basically begins. Say, the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, obligates us; and therefore if He gives us a Torah, then what is written in the Torah is also binding. You can see the parallel to what we saw with the Knesset in Israeli law. From the Torah itself there is “do not deviate,” so for example that authorizes the Sages, according to Maimonides at least. So the Sages also have authority. If the Sages establish something additional, then there is more. If the Torah says “he shall not break his word” regarding vows or oaths, then there too this is a kind of authorization saying that if a person vows or swears something, then by the Torah’s command he is obligated to fulfill it. That is grounded in the verse in the Torah, “he shall not break his word,” at the beginning of the portion of Mattot. So there too, that is the theoretical role of command. But there is also a practical role of command, and it does not exist in legal systems; it exists only in Jewish law. And I said that this is the difference between Maimonides at the end of Laws of Kings and Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah in the chapter on the sciatic nerve in Hullin—not sending away the mother bird, sorry, the chapter on the sciatic nerve in Hullin—that command must take part in the way the halakhah is carried out. Meaning, when you observe Jewish law, you are supposed to do so out of obligation to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, at Sinai. That is the way you are required to observe Jewish law. We are not talking here about some theoretical statement of why one must observe Jewish law. That exists in law as well. In law too I can ask why I have to obey the law. But the law does not require me to stop at a red light because the legislator decreed it. It requires me to stop at a red light; it doesn’t care why I do it. As long as I do what I’m obligated to do and don’t do what I’m not obligated to do, from the standpoint of the law there is no problem, everything is fine. The law is not interested in my motives or my motivation. And in Jewish law it is not like that. In Jewish law, the law is also interested in the question of what my motivations are, why I do things. So if a person does things not because of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, then at the very least it is a commandment without intention—there’s a dispute whether commandments require intention or not—and I said it may be that commandments require faith. Meaning, if someone has no faith in the background, then his commandment is not a commandment, even according to the view that commandments do not require intention. For example, an atheist—I don’t know—someone puts tefillin on him in the street, the Chabad people put tefillin on him in the street—he did not put on tefillin. If he repents that afternoon, he has to put on tefillin again. He did not fulfill the commandment of tefillin. Now I’m saying this even according to the view that commandments do not require intention. According to the view that commandments do not require intention, intention is still needed, but it is not indispensable; everyone agrees on that. Intention is not indispensable. But here I’m saying commandments require faith. Meaning, in the end you are supposed to do the commandment by force of your obligation to the commandment—that’s what a commandment is called, right? Therefore if you do it out of that obligation, even if in practice you did not consciously intend—nothing was going through your mind like “for the sake of the unification, I intend for the sake of the commandment of tefillin”—but clearly you are doing it because the context says that you’re doing it because you are obligated in the matter. We spoke about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, right? With fixing the wagon. And then that means you performed a commandment. And then one can discuss whether commandments require intention or do not require intention, but if you’re not in the game at all, then your commandments are not commandments, and in my view your transgressions are also not transgressions. And on that Maimonides says at the end of chapter 8 of Laws of Kings, that a resident alien or a non-Jew who performed commandments because reason compelled him, and not because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded at Sinai, is one of the wise of the nations of the world, but not one of the pious of the nations of the world; rather, one of their wise men. There is a version that reads “and not one of their wise men,” but the more authoritative version is “rather, one of their wise men.” Maimonides, end of chapter 8 of Laws of Kings. We saw that last time. Okay, so Maimonides basically says—in the translation I give to this—that it has value, let’s call it moral value: you did the right act. But it has no religious value. It is not a commandment, because if you are not doing it by force of obligation to the command, then it is not a commandment. A commandment is not only to do or not do some collection of things the way the law commands. In law, if you did what you should and didn’t do what you shouldn’t, you’re fine; nobody comes with complaints. Okay? But in Jewish law it’s not like that. In Jewish law, it also matters why you do it. And notice, this is not the same thing as the theoretical claim. In the world of law too, a person can ask himself why he should obey the law. That is a relevant question in the context of law too, a question any person can ask himself. Again, the legislator doesn’t care why you obey, but the person himself asks that question. But when he obeys the law, the legislator is not interested in whether he is really doing it because of this answer or that answer or some other reason. It makes no difference. In Jewish law it does. Okay. You want a simple answer? Fine. It really has two sides, but I’ll use it in order to ground the claim that the commandments are the good. So here I’ll divide what you’re saying into two parts. Your first claim could be that you don’t do the commandments because they are good, but if they were bad you wouldn’t do them. That’s the weaker claim. The stronger claim that you made is: no, I do them because they are good. Meaning, say if they were neutral, would you still do them? Not good and not bad—commandments, but in your best understanding they do neither good nor bad. That’s the question. You can formulate it this way or that way. Now the question whether you do it because it’s good will be addressed later in this class. But as for the first question, at the moment there is no problem with that at all—then don’t do it if it’s bad. That’s not the discussion. You do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, not for another reason. In a place where it clashes with the good, it could be that you won’t do it because that overrides it. That does not contradict what I’m saying, that when we do the commandments we do them because of the command. About that I said—we’ll still discuss it later—in my opinion, no, but we’ll discuss that later. Therefore I say: I’m answering your first question; I’ll answer the second question later. The first question is really not a question. What you’re basically saying is this: I’m willing to accept that the motivation for why commandments must be observed is because of the command, not because they are good. But despite that, if it is clear to me that a certain commandment is bad—meaning it leads to destructive consequences—then I won’t do it, even though my obligation is only because of the command and not because it is good. What’s the problem? You’ll be in conflict. What’s wrong with conflicts? We’ll talk about that later, okay? That’s the second part. I’ll talk about that later. What? Yes, I claim that this too is not a transgression. Because a captured child—that is not the situation we’re talking about. A captured child is not the atheist. In the world of today’s “captured child,” obviously he is liable to a sin-offering because he is unintentional. I’m talking about a captured child who is below even one who is coerced. Meaning, it depends on the contexts. In the context of Maimonides’ period, it was clear to everyone that there is a God and one has to be religious. What exactly “religious” means or which religion—fine, one has to examine what the correct religion is or the one relevant to you or whatever. In our world, for example, it is not like that. In our world a person doesn’t even imagine that there are religious obligations at all. Therefore in such a situation the law of a captured child does not apply; it’s worse than a captured child. A captured child is still considered unintentional—and even that is a dispute in the Talmud. In practice we rule that he is considered unintentional, but in our context this is worse than unintentional. Yes, yes. It is simply complete coercion. Meaning, it is obvious that this is complete coercion and not unintentional error, right? Just look—that’s simple reasoning. Forget all the innovations. The simple reasoning is that a person born into a totally secular situation, with no connection to anything, does not even imagine that there is anything here at all. Look at him like an Indian. In a village of gentiles, after all, it is clear to everyone—in a village of gentiles everyone understands that one must worship God; the only question is whether the Holy One is this god or whatever he’s called. The only question is what one needs to do, where do I belong. It’s not even what one needs to do, but where one belongs. He didn’t know he belonged to the Jews; he thought he belonged to the Christians. Had he known that he belonged to the Jews, then it would have been clear to him that he had to do this. Today, if he doesn’t know that he belongs to the Jews, will it be clear to him to do this? It’s not only a lack of information. When there is just a lack of information, all right. But here it’s not a lack of information—it sounds absurd to him. I said that in a place where—well, this is our topic, so I’ll only say it briefly—but say in a place where there can be a professor of Jewish studies who knows the entire Talmud, the whole corpus, medieval authorities and later authorities, Shulchan Arukh, the commentaries on it, everything backward and forward, world champion in Jewish law, could even be a certified rabbinical judge, okay? But from his perspective this whole business is Indian culture. He studies that culture the way people study Indian culture; it never crosses his mind that a normal person thinks these things obligate him. Right, this is the well-known responsum of the Radbaz about someone who thought that our master was God. They asked him what to do, and that is exactly the notion of one coerced in matters of belief, and therefore one coerced in matters of belief is not a captured child. Because the Radbaz does not say he is a captured child—fine, so he is unintentional—but rather that he is coerced. Anyway, in short, there are two roles for the concept of command, okay? But in the end, as far as we are concerned, what is unique—beyond the theory of Jewish law—what is unique to halakhic practice is that the command is supposed to take part in the way I observe the commandments. Meaning, I have to observe the commandments by force of the command. If I did it for another reason, that is not a commandment. Ahad Ha’am—right, what we spoke about regarding Ahad Ha’am—who said that more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel, and therefore although he didn’t believe in the whole story, he said that one must keep the commandments as part of culture, national cohesion, I don’t know, defense, whatever. He never performed a commandment, even if he observed every detail—let’s say even if he observed every detail meticulously—he never performed a commandment. What? What’s the law? Yes, there is some such approach, of preserving culturally some part. No, but Ahad Ha’am was more extreme in this respect. He spoke about preserving Jewish law, not preserving some day of rest unrelated to Jewish law and calling it Sabbath. No, all of Jewish law is exaggerated, but yes, he wanted some sort of halakhic skeleton to remain. I’m not sufficiently expert in his thought either, but he wanted some sort of halakhic skeleton to remain; he argued that it should continue because this is our link to earlier generations and so on, but without any connection to obligation to a divine command and faith in God and so on—he never performed a commandment. One of the founding fathers, perhaps, of cultural Zionism. There is political Zionism, cultural Zionism, and various things. Okay. Now I just want to complete this section with the words of Maimonides, because apparently we saw many passages from Maimonides in this context. I’ll bring one more source from Maimonides. In Sanhedrin—and in Maimonides this is Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, law 6. Look there in the commentaries on Maimonides, or section 2, I think; I no longer remember exactly. But look there in chapter 3, law 6, Laws of Idolatry. Here we are with the biography of Ahad Ha’am. Fine, so in the Commentary on the Mishnah, in the introduction to the Commentary on the Mishnah—I’ll share the screen—chapter 3, law 6. “The philosophers have said that one who governs his soul, although he performs the excellent deeds, still he does the good deeds while desiring the bad deeds and yearning for them, and he wrestles with his inclination and opposes in his actions that toward which his powers, his desire, and the disposition of his soul would arouse him; he does the good deeds and is pained in doing them.” Right, so here he defines two types. One type is the one who governs his soul—yes, that’s what he writes above; you see, “on the difference between the excellent person and the one who governs his soul.” So: the excellent person versus the one who governs his soul. Up to this point he has defined what “the one who governs his soul” is. What does that mean? This is basically a person—what is called the intermediate man in the language of the Tanya, right? This is basically a person who does only good and refrains from doing bad, but he has not broken his evil inclination. He has drives, he struggles with them, and he succeeds. So psychologically he is not completely identified with what he does, but he does only good and refrains from doing bad. Of course this is typological; these are not concrete things. He’s defining two types here, okay? So this is “he does the good deeds and is pained in doing them,” right? Meaning he is pained, but he does them, he overcomes, he knows that this is his duty. That is the one who governs his soul. “But the excellent person, on the other hand, is drawn in his action after what his desire and disposition arouse in him, and he does the good deeds and desires and yearns for them.” Meaning, this is someone who does it out of complete identification; he does not fight his inclination, his inclination by nature is as good as can be, he simply tends to do good and recoils from doing bad in a natural, emotional, instinctive way—however you want to call it—he has no inner wars in order to do this thing. What? No, listen, I’m not talking to you about—this is all typological. He is defining two abstract types; I don’t care right now whether such a person ever existed. He’s defining two such types that I place opposite one another, and theoretically, let’s say, we want to understand who is better, what one should aspire to. None of us will probably be fully here or fully there, but the question is where our orientation should be directed, yes, what one should aspire to. So there is the excellent person, who identifies with what he does, and there is the one who subdues his inclination or governs his soul—the one who subdues his inclination—who fights against his inclination, but both of them do only good and refrain from doing bad. Okay? In short, the question is whether having an opposing inclination is better or worse. Right? That is essentially the question. And he says as follows: “And the philosophers are agreed…” Wait, wait—why speculate? Now let’s read what he says. “And the philosophers agree that the excellent person is better and more complete than the one who governs his soul.” Fine? Meaning the one who is excellent is more complete than the one who governs his soul, because he naturally does good—that is, he is completely whole inwardly too; he is identified with what he does externally. The heart is identified with the deeds. Okay? “But they said that it is possible for the one who governs his soul to perform, in many matters, what the excellent person performs.” Right, it may be that he will do the same thing, reach the same very high level, “but his level is necessarily lower, since he desires the bad act. And his craving for it is an evil disposition in the soul.” And Solomon already said something like this, saying, “The soul of the wicked desires evil.” Right, a soul that desires evil is a kind of wickedness; yes, that is not a whole person. “And he said of the joy of the excellent person in doing good deeds, and of the pain of the one who is not excellent in doing them, this is the verse: ‘It is joy to the righteous to do justice, and destruction to the workers of iniquity.’” Right, the righteous person is basically the excellent person; he rejoices when he does good and is pained when he does evil. Meaning his natural tendency goes in the right direction. “This is what appears from the words of the Torah, and it accords with what the philosophers mentioned. But when we investigated the words of the Sages on this matter, we found that in their view the one who desires transgressions and yearns for them is better and more complete than one who does not desire them and does not feel pain in refraining from them.” Right, so the philosophers say that the excellent person is better, but the Sages say the opposite. Hazal, right? They say the opposite: “that one who desires transgressions and yearns for them”—meaning, not the excellent person, but not one who actually does the good deed, just desires them—“is better and more complete than one who does not desire them and does not feel pain in refraining from them. So much so that they said that the greater and more complete a person is, the stronger his desire for transgressions and the stronger his pain in refraining from them.” And they brought a story about this, and they said, in a practical way, “Whoever is greater than his fellow, his inclination is greater than his.” And not only that, but they said that the reward of the one who governs his soul is greater according to the measure of his pain in governing his soul, and they said, “According to the pain is the reward.” Even more than that, they commanded that a person govern his soul and warned against saying: “In my soul I have no desire for this transgression, even had the Torah not forbidden it.” Rather, as Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: “A person should not say, ‘I cannot bear to eat meat and milk together; I cannot bear to wear wool and linen mixed together; I cannot bear to have forbidden sexual relations.’ Rather: ‘I do desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.’” So all of these are sayings of Hazal that show us that the one who governs his soul is better than the excellent person. Against the philosophers. Okay, now already here this is an interesting point—we saw this once—that sometimes the question is more interesting than the answer. The way Maimonides sets up the question here is itself an interesting point. Usually when you see something like this, the rabbi would say to you: fine, the Torah said this, the philosophers say the opposite, therefore they are wrong, goodbye, let’s move to the next page. Right? We proved the philosophers are wrong and everything is fine. But not with Maimonides. Meaning, he says: the philosophers say this, Hazal say that, okay, so I have a problem—what do we do? We have to reconcile it. Meaning, for him the result of wisdom or philosophy has standing. It’s not something you can just throw out because Hazal say the opposite. The way he poses the question interests me even before the question itself and the answer afterward. The very framing of the question reflects his attitude toward wisdom and logical or moral considerations—yes, it is a respectful attitude. That is, he does not disparage such things, and if they run against certain sources then you have to reconcile it. It is not something you just throw away. Yes. Yes. A lot. True. Good point. In various places—mysticism, the evil eye, whispering over a wound, over a scorpion bite on the Sabbath. There is the Vilna Gaon in Yoreh De’ah there regarding whispering over a wound on the Sabbath, whether a scorpion bite on the Sabbath—right? Maimonides says that anyway it does nothing, so you can do it on the Sabbath too; it may be forbidden as medicine. Maimonides says there is no problem; it isn’t medicine, because in any case it does nothing. So the Vilna Gaon says: what do you mean it does nothing? There is Hazal, there is a passage in the Talmud. “Accursed philosophy misled him”—that is what the Vilna Gaon writes there. “Accursed philosophy misled him,” meaning it led him astray from the words of Hazal because of some philosophical consideration. This is exactly what we saw here. Okay, “And according to the simple apparent meaning of the two statements, at first thought they contradict one another.” Right, he also said that King Solomon supports the opinion of the Sages; that is not entirely so, but King Solomon is brought here, I think, as part of wisdom, Proverbs—as part of wisdom, not necessarily as a Torah source. “But it is not so,” says Maimonides, “rather, both are true, and there is no disagreement between them at all. The evils that are evils according to the philosophers are those about which they said that one who does not desire them is better than one who desires them and governs his soul away from them. These are things that are universally recognized among all human beings as evil, such as bloodshed, theft, robbery, fraud, harming one who did not harm him, repaying evil to one who did good, dishonoring parents, and the like.” “And these are the commandments that…” Some of our later Sages, who contracted the disease of the theologians, called them rational commandments. It may be—the mutakallimun are a Muslim school; “the theologians” here means the mutakallimun. “And there is no doubt that a soul which desires any of these things and yearns for them is a deficient soul, and that the excellent soul will not desire any of these evils at all, nor be distressed by refraining from them. But the things about which the Sages said that one who governs his soul in relation to them is better, and whose reward is greater, are the revelational commandments. And this is correct, because were it not for the Torah, they would not be evils at all. Therefore they said that a person should set his soul upon desiring them, and only the Torah should restrain him from them.” Meaning, he has a resolution. What the philosophers say—that the excellent person is better—applies to rational commandments, to moral commandments, let’s call them that. So if you have a natural tendency in that direction, you are a more whole person. One who has a natural tendency toward evil is a less whole person, although he does only good; still, the natural tendency matters there. With commandments that are revelational, the Torah innovated them, and without the Torah we would not think that they are bad—there, precisely the one who governs his soul is preferable to the excellent person. There, Hazal really tell you that it is preferable to overcome your inclination: do not say, “I do not want it,” but rather, “I do want it, and what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.” That is the reconciliation he proposes. What do you mean? Yes, here this appears in a tractate—not only in one tractate, but simply in duties of the limbs and duties of the heart. Yes, in chapter 11 of tractate Kindness. I don’t know who says that; whoever says it, ask him. Maimonides doesn’t say it. Fine, okay. “Do not say ‘I do not desire it,’ ‘I do not desire it,’” as he brings here. “And consider their wisdom, peace be upon them, and what examples they gave.” Now he proves his distinction: “They did not say, ‘A person should say: I cannot bear to murder, I cannot bear to steal, I cannot bear to lie, but rather: I desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.’” The examples given there are not examples of murder, theft, lying, and the like. The examples given there are all revelational commandments. “And indeed they cited only revelational matters: meat and milk together, wearing wool and linen mixed together, and forbidden sexual relations.” Interesting—for him forbidden sexual relations count as revelational. Just interesting, but that’s what he says. “And these commandments and others like them are those that Scripture calls ‘My statutes.’ They said: statutes that I decreed for you, and you have no permission to question them. And the nations of the world object to them, and Satan attacks them—such as the red heifer and the scapegoat. And those which the later thinkers called rational are called ‘commandments’ as distinct from ‘statutes,’ as the Sages explained.” So the examples Hazal give for “do not say ‘I do not desire it,’ but rather ‘I desire it, and what can I do’” are all revelational commandments and not rational commandments. That is Maimonides’ proof that his distinction is correct. “And it has now been clarified from all that we have said with regard to which transgressions the person who does not yearn for them is better than the person who yearns for them and governs his soul away from them, and with regard to which the opposite is true. And this is a wonderful innovation and an extraordinary harmonization of the two statements, and the wording of both statements indicates the truth of what we have explained.” Now what emerges here is that with rational commandments, from Maimonides’ perspective, it is preferable if a person has a natural motivation to do them. He doesn’t do them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded; rather he does them because he has a natural tendency to do good. In revelational commandments, there the excellent one is indeed the one who overcomes his inclination, governs his inclination. Fine, okay. What do you mean? He is basically moving things from statutes to commandments. Yes, if they are revelational commandments, I suppose. But the fact that he still draws a distinction between revelational and rational—that’s what slightly undermines it after you hear all the reasons, and it still undermines it. Yes, but I think he explains it better than I did. I’m not sure about that. I didn’t see why, why it undermines it. No, why “there is no reason”? There is a reason—he wants to explain to you the good, but that doesn’t mean that because there is some internal logic here… No, no. Internal logic is not the same thing; first of all, internal logic is not always morality. These are different things. The question is whether what he writes here applies to everything that has internal logic, or specifically to moral matters. In moral matters there is some tendency toward good, a natural tendency toward good, which really is good, and if you don’t have it, then that’s less good. It could be that in logical matters too, if you don’t have a natural tendency toward them—so what? They’re logical, not moral. Logical matters. There is logic that has nothing to do with morality. Is love of God morality? But it’s logical. You can argue that it’s logical. He created us, he takes care of us, I don’t know exactly what—so that’s not… Fine, that can be discussed. I once wrote an article about it; I think it isn’t related to morality. It’s gratitude of another kind. There are two kinds of gratitude, and this… we won’t get into it now. The Holy One, blessed be He, also didn’t invest energy in it, in that sense, so this isn’t gratitude in the same sense in which we owe something to another person. It cost Him nothing. More than that: He probably did it because He wanted us; otherwise why would He do it? Meaning He did it for reasons that do not require… Fine, so I’m saying let’s not get into that now. In any case, for our purposes… What? What is called morality for Maimonides? Fine, what is called morality for Maimonides? Morality is morality. I don’t know what… What? Not to be a murderer, not to steal, not to lie. He gives examples here, what we all understand. Not… Fine. In any case, yes, and this relates directly to the Noahide commandments, and I’m getting to that now. So what seems to emerge from this, according to Maimonides, is that one has to distinguish between two categories of commandments. One category is rational commandments—or, if you like, the moral ones—and all the rest, in which the one who is better is specifically the excellent person, not the one who overcomes his inclination. And in the revelational commandments, there the one who is better is the person who overcomes his inclination, who governs his soul, subdues his inclination, governs his soul. Okay. On the face of it, that contradicts what I said earlier. Because Maimonides in chapter 8 of Laws of Kings, when he says that one who did these things because reason compelled him and not because of the command at Sinai, is not one of the pious of the nations of the world but rather one of their wise men—that is not a commandment. And which commandments is he speaking about there? Clearly the rational ones, because otherwise how could you do them because reason compels you? More than that: he is speaking there about the seven Noahide commandments, in those laws of the resident alien. The seven Noahide commandments—and Maimonides himself writes there that these are things toward which reason inclines. And those are exactly the commandments he is speaking about here. Right? What the non-Jewish philosophers talk about. The non-Jewish philosophers do not talk about redeeming the firstborn donkey; they don’t have that. They talk about moral obligations. That’s what they have. And about that Maimonides says they are right: the excellent person is better than the one who subdues his inclination. But in chapter 8 of Laws of Kings he writes otherwise. About the seven Noahide commandments he says that one must do them only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them at Sinai and not because reason compels it. Not because it is logical, not because it is right—only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. How does that fit with what he writes here? And we saw this in other places in Maimonides too; I won’t now go into all the passages we saw. The answer is that there is no contradiction at all. There is a difference—and we spoke about this, I think I brought you the introduction to the Eglei Tal, right?—there is a difference between a situation where… between the question why I do something, say whether I do it because reason compels it, and the question whether I have psychological identification with the thing. For example, say I don’t murder. Now, I also recoil from murder naturally. Okay? But do I refrain from murder because of that recoil, or do I refrain from murder because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded? That’s not the same as saying: listen, if you have no recoil, then something in you is morally defective. If you have no recoil from murder, that doesn’t mean that when I don’t murder, I don’t refrain from murder because of the recoil. Say I took a pill and the recoil disappeared—so now I would murder? No. I still wouldn’t murder because there is a command. Maimonides says: fine, if so, first of all you have to refrain from murder because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. If you want it to have religious value. Not moral value—fine, don’t murder because it’s wrong—but if you want religious value, you don’t murder because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. Beyond that, however, a whole person ought also to understand morally that one must not murder. Therefore even without the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, he would not murder. But even without the moral prohibition he would not murder because of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. And this is what I spoke about one of the previous times: I said that the fact that one needs to do it because of the command does not mean we have to be detached from our natural feelings. It only means that our natural feelings are not supposed to be the motivation for the action. The motivation for the action is the command, but that does not mean that I also should not identify with it psychologically. Why not? Perfectly fine. There is no problem with that. One need not be alienated from the commandments in order to be a better person. Certainly not. But he must be obligated by virtue of the command itself even without his natural feeling, because then that really is the complete picture. There is a difference between saying whether I identify with the commandment and saying that I do it because of that identification. And I brought Maimonides who writes that there are those who mistakenly think that one who enjoys Torah study is studying not for its own sake. And there is no greater mistake than that. We say and bless every morning: “Please make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths.” Of course one should enjoy it. But he goes on to say: one who studies because of that enjoyment, his study is not for its own sake. Because you have to study because there is a commandment to study, because of the value in it, not because of the enjoyment you derive from it. That does not mean you shouldn’t enjoy it. On the contrary, if you enjoy it, you study better, you connect to the material better, it enters into you. Everything is excellent. But you should study even when there is enjoyment—but it is not the reason why you study. Those are two different things. The same thing is what we have in Maimonides here; there is no contradiction at all. Maimonides says the motivation for acting should be the command we received at Mount Sinai. But that does not mean that we should not have natural identification, or that we should not be moral people who would do it even without the command. Now of course, once each of these motivations is a sufficient condition—meaning I could do it because of the command alone, even if I did not have the natural identification, and the natural identification would also be enough to cause me to do it even without the command—then fine, that is no flaw, that is perfectly okay, so long as I am also obligated by the command. It does not disturb me that, hypothetically, if I did not believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, I still would not murder. That means I am also a moral person. When Maimonides writes that such a person is not one of the pious of the nations of the world but one of their wise men, a person who does it because reason compels it is a good person, a moral person, a person doing the right thing. He is also doing it for the right reasons; it’s just not a commandment—it’s a moral act. If you want it to be a commandment, you need to do it because you are obligated by the command. That is the point. Okay? Therefore there is no contradiction between what Maimonides writes here in chapter 6 of the Eight Chapters and what we saw last time or the previous times. Okay. Question? Is one who does it because of the command greater than one who does it because of morality? No, I didn’t say greater. This is a commandment and that is morality; I didn’t enter the issue of who is greater. But for this thing to be a commandment, you have to do it because of the command at Sinai—that’s what we spoke about regarding the basic norm. Right? You have to do it because of the command at Sinai, otherwise it isn’t a commandment. But besides that, if you want it to be a moral act, you also need to do it—say one who does it because of the command but would not do it because reason compels it, if there were no command he would not do it—that person is lacking. He is lacking in that he is God-fearing and performs commandments, everything is excellent, he is a servant of God. But he is not a moral person. A moral person is supposed to do it by force of moral motivation. And a religious person will do it by force of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. And a person who is both—each of the reasons alone could suffice for him to act this way. And that is perfectly fine; it does not disqualify one another—on the contrary. That is the complete person. The complete person is the one in whom both things exist, not one in whom Maimonides rejects one or both. He says: one who does it only because of the command, but is alienated from it on the level of natural identification—he is, let’s call it, one of the pious of the nations of the world but not one of their wise men. And one who does it because of identification but not because of the command—he is one of the wise of the nations of the world but not one of their pious. One who wants to be both a moral person and a servant of God must do it both because of the command and because the thing itself is the call of morality. Okay? We’ll still talk about the question whether morality is detached from the Holy One, blessed be He, or not, and what its relation is to Jewish law—that will come shortly. Lower? No, it isn’t lower, so long as that is not the reason because of which he refrains from meat and milk together. Because if he refrains from meat and milk because there is a prohibition, then it does not matter to me that he also feels identified with it—that’s fine, that doesn’t disqualify it, on the contrary. But no, he does not make that distinction. He says one who does it because of the command is more complete. Because in commandments that are not understood there is value in overcoming the inclination. And if you have an inclination, then overcome it; but if you have no inclination, you don’t have to create an inclination just in order to be more complete. The reward is not a function—fine. Let’s put it this way: there is no moral value in revelational commandments. In rational commandments there is moral value in psychological identification. There is no religious value in it; there is moral value. Therefore the person who identifies is more complete. Why? Because he is both religious and moral. Now in a somewhat rough way, okay? In revelational commandments, not rational ones, if you have identification that does not add anything, raise anything, or lower anything. It is just a fact: you identify. Fine, you have a right to identify, but it has no value. Yes, because it is not morality; it has nothing to do with morality. So why should I care that you identify? It is not interesting. There there is only this aspect of obedience to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Remember what I brought from Tosafot Yom Tov and the Ritva? “Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” And they explain why greater is one who is commanded and does. Because one who is commanded and does—not only does the commandment he performed bring the benefit for which we were commanded, but he also answered the command. That itself is an advantage. One who is not commanded and does—if he fulfills it, then there is the benefit for which we were commanded, but he was not commanded, so he does not have obedience to the command. So he is lesser. Now in the rational context—say in the revelational context, sorry—there is no such thing as one who does it like someone not commanded and yet does. There is no reason to do it. It’s not rational; there’s no logic in it. Right. Obviously commandments require intention—religious intention. I know, people don’t stand by this, but to me it’s obvious that commandments require intention. For them to count as commandments, they require intention. Huh? Faith. No, not intention—yes, faith. Meaning, say an atheist who observes commandments—even according to the view that commandments do not require intention—in interpersonal commandments there will be no commandment. He is a good person, everything is fine. But he has not fulfilled a commandment. The question whether commandments require intention applies within the world of believers: to what extent it has to be conscious in your mind. If you are not conscious of it, then it is like any other commandment, fine, you can discuss it. Okay. No, I claim not. According to the view that commandments do not require intention, and according to the view that commandments do require intention, in interpersonal commandments you might perhaps say that commandments do not require intention, but commandments still require faith. And based on that I qualify what I said. That is a correction, and it is correct. With respect to Heaven—fine. Commandments require faith, not intention. And intention I can accept. I don’t think that’s right. Say commandments do not require intention in interpersonal commandments—that does not contradict the fact that commandments require faith even in interpersonal commandments. And the question is whether you apply that throughout the board. Yes, for me there is no difference between interpersonal commandments and commandments between man and God. I see it in the context of interpersonal commandments. One who doesn’t have the desire to do it—right, but he still has to do it because of the command. Even if, hypothetically, he didn’t have that desire, he would still do it because there is a command. Okay? Now I want to move to the next chapter. And while we’re at it, a question—I’m heading toward Jewish law and morality, and before that I’ll make a logical introduction. We can discuss the question of what a value really is. What is a value? When I say I am obligated to some value—is helping others, loving the good, all sorts of values you know—what does it mean to be obligated to a value? Why be moral? Why not murder? I don’t murder—why? There is a value, the value of life. One may not murder. And on what is that value based? How do I explain it? Why is there value to life? Why may one not murder? Right, there is no choice. The approach is Leibovitzian. Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote an article in the book History and Values—it’s a collection of essays—and in the last article in the book he discusses a case that caused a great uproar in his time, of some American girl named Karen, who was terminally ill, and her parents requested to disconnect her from the machines. There was a stormy controversy—today this is obvious to us—but there was a stormy controversy whether such a thing is permitted, because it is murder. Okay? He wrote there in the article that in his opinion it is absolutely forbidden. And why? He says: when I disconnect someone from the machines, I am basically saying that life is not a value but a means to something. Now, if that life enables me to do various things, then it has value. But that girl, who was unconscious and can no longer do anything with her life—her life has no value, and therefore one may disconnect her from the machines. So what you are really saying here is that life, in your view, is not a value but a means. Yes, life is only a means of doing various things, and if it does not achieve the purpose for which it was intended, then it has no value. But a value means something that is not a means but an end in itself. Therefore, when I ask you why life has value, there cannot be an answer to that. Because if there were an answer to that, it would mean that life was a means and that answer would be the value. Now, as I said in the previous class—remember the two kinds of “because”?—when you ask yourself “why” questions, you always recruit another principle that explains this principle, right? And then I ask you about that one—why?—and you recruit another principle to explain that principle. In the end, where will you stop? At “because.” Exactly. You stop at that principle that is self-evident. It does not require grounding in some principle outside it. That is called a value. A value is that thing that does not require something else to explain it; rather, it is the infrastructure from which the chain of ethical-moral reasoning begins. That is where it starts. Yes. Nobody said that a value is something you never violate. What do you mean? Is keeping the Sabbath not a value? We violate it for saving life—what can you do? A positive command overrides a prohibition; there are things like that. No, value—I didn’t say absolute. We’ll also get to the question of conflicts. So this is basically Leibowitz’s definition, briefly—the definition of a value. A value means that thing which explains other things and nothing else is needed, or can explain, it. Now this does not mean it is arbitrary. That’s the two kinds of “because” we talked about. If you ask me why life has value, my answer is: because. But that is not “because” in the sense that I flipped a coin and that’s what came out. Rather, it is “because” in the sense that it is self-evident. I don’t need to explain it by means of something else. It is something understood from within itself. Okay—that is what is called a value. My set of values is the set of those fundamental things by means of which I explain other things, and they themselves cannot be explained on the basis of something more fundamental. The most fundamental things in the ethical world—that set is called the set of values. Okay. Now Leibowitz continues from there and argues that therefore, because of this claim, we have this case with the machines. If you say that a value is—by definition—you cannot give an explanation of why it is good, because to say why it is good is basically to say that it serves some purpose outside itself. But a value cannot be explained, and therefore it also cannot be qualified. And consequently you cannot disconnect her from the machines, because even if life serves nothing, it still has value. And here he is wrong in defining value. This is exactly the comment you gave me earlier, Boaz, what you said before, yes. Exactly. Meaning, what Leibowitz overlooks is that it is true that a value is something that has no need of a more fundamental foundation to explain it; it needs nothing else. But that does not mean one always fulfills it, if there is a conflict between two values. Neither one of them is—both are absolute. And neither requires anything else. Still, one has to decide whether we prefer this value or that value, and it will always come at the expense of the other. So the fact that you define value as something that is not a means but an end does not mean one can never violate a value. That’s what I answered you earlier. These are different things. In a moment I’ll get to the fact that that statement too is not simple, but on the face of it that is the answer. Right. So I basically ask myself: let’s now talk about a system of several values, not one. Even if a value is absolute, it is not something singular. There are many values. I have some set of values which are my basic values, all sorts of them. And they can also clash, and then perhaps one will override the other, but I have a set of values. What obligates me to obey, or to be obligated to, this set of values? I can raise two possibilities. Now this set of values can be morality, it can be legal values, religious values, I don’t know, the ethical code of lawyers, whatever it may be. Each person has some set of values to which he is obligated. Here “values” are not necessarily moral values specifically. A collection of norms of do and do not. Fine, I don’t care at the moment exactly how. And then I ask myself: on what basis should I be obligated to the value system—I’ll call it a value system, okay?—a normative system. This is no longer a single value; it is a collection of values, and soon we’ll see that there is also ranking among them, a scale determining what is more important and what overrides what. Right, within the value system there is also a hierarchy. Yes, but I’m leaving that aside for now. But I have a collection of values—apparently with a hierarchy among them—but for now, a collection of values. What is the thing that obligates me in that value system? We spoke about this—I think we spoke about it—that when you ask yourself why obey the law—yes, do you hear? Right. It can’t be that the reason to obey the law is that there is a law. Right? Obviously the reason has to be outside the system in question. We spoke about—I think I mentioned—the Eben HaEzer… or Avnei Nezer… who asks there: how can the Holy One, blessed be He, impose an oath upon us—“already sworn from Mount Sinai,” the Talmud says. How are we already sworn from Mount Sinai to accept the Torah, when the obligation to keep oaths is part of Jewish law? So how can He impose an oath on us? Exactly, exactly the same question. The exact same question. So the question is: how can He make me swear to keep the commandments, when my obligation to keep oaths is part of the system of commandments? Part of the set that tells me to obey laws. Right? He asks there, and he answers that the obligation to obey an oath does not derive from Jewish law, but from a prior obligation. One sees that when a person commits himself—an oath, right?—there is a moral obligation, call it human, I don’t know, to keep the oath. In itself, you have to keep it. What? Human religion. Maybe… yes, between us. Yes. Those values are our compass. Yes, but everyone can decide for himself what his compass is. Be obligated to UNESCO, be obligated to whatever you want; decide for yourself whether you are obligated to it or not. You decide your values. You are your own master. No, no, no. There is a value system, and Jewish law brings me the values, it arranges them for me. Before Jewish law did I not know there were these values at all? Before the giving of the Torah? Of course I knew. Of course I knew. A value—refraining from pork is a halakhic value. Again, I said: for me value is not only a moral value. There are many values. Norm. A normative system. You reserve the word “values” only for moral values. But no—there are all kinds of values. There are halakhic values, legal values, ethical values, yes, and moral values. Fine, it’s terminology. That is what I call a value. Let’s call it something else. Let’s call it a norm if you prefer. It doesn’t matter. So just so we synchronize the terms: that is what I call a value, not specifically moral values. Okay? Fine. And I say: where is my basis for observing the normative system? There can be two kinds of basis, what I call value principles. There can be a sweeping value principle and a specific, particular value principle. What does that mean? I can say with respect to the Torah that I can be obligated to the Torah simply because I examined each and every commandment and it seems right to me that this is how one should act. Then I am obligated to it on the particular level. Simply, each of the commandments seems right to me, and therefore I am obligated to it. If one of them did not seem right to me, then I would not be obligated to it. Okay? And there can be what I’ll call sweeping obligation, a sweeping value principle. What does that mean? I am obligated to the Torah not because I examined—exactly. What the Talmud itself describes. It says: the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to all the nations, right? Asked them if they wanted to receive the Torah. They asked Him what is written in it. He said: “Do not murder.” Not for us. He came to others: “Do not steal.” Not for us. “Do not commit adultery.” Not for us. What lies behind that? It’s a story, but what is that midrash saying? The midrash is saying that the nations wanted to evaluate the Torah through particular value principles. And you were willing to accept only parts of the Torah—whatever passes the test, whatever seemed reasonable to them, a matter of reason or morality, because it seemed right to them. And the people of Israel—“We will do and we will hear.” “You put your mouths before your ears,” and so on and so on. You didn’t hear what would be said; you already said “We will do and we will hear.” What, fools? No, they are not fools. Because they are obligated to the system of commandments not because each and every commandment sounds to them reasonable and logical or moral or whatever, but because they have some sweeping obligation to whatever the Holy One, blessed be He, says. If the Holy One, blessed be He, says it, then it must be observed. So it is not conditional on a specific examination of each commandment. Okay? Now this difference has implications. Let’s try to think about a situation in which I am obligated to two normative systems, to several normative systems. For example: I am obligated to the laws of the state and to Jewish law. And to morality and to Jewish law and to the laws of the state and to several other systems in parallel. Can such a thing exist? And if it can exist, can it exist even when there is a contradiction between the systems? The dilemma of democracy versus Jewish law—what do you do when there is a contradiction? Or morality and Jewish law, or morality and democracy, or—there is some contradiction here between two systems. Now look at something that may sound surprising. Right? Who is more observant? The one who accepts the system wholesale or the one who accepts the system item by item? Wholesale. Obviously wholesale. One who accepts item by item is basically accepting only what seems right to him; he has no obligation simply because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. Truly observant people—they are obligated only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, right? Now I’ll ask you: tell me, someone who lives with two systems that contradict one another and is obligated to both—is he more observant than one who is not willing to accept that, or less observant? Say I am obligated both to Jewish law and to morality, even though there is a contradiction between them. And it is not automatic that Jewish law wins. Am I more observant or less observant? Supposedly less observant. Because it doesn’t fit with what was said. The place where—say—how is it possible that I have two normative systems with a contradiction between them? Say I have normative system A and normative system B. In system A, one of the principles is X. In system B, one of the principles is not-X. Now I’m in conflict, because from the standpoint of morality I must not do this, and from the standpoint of Jewish law I am obligated to do it, and vice versa, it doesn’t matter. Okay? This is called a state of conflict between systems, right? Can such a state exist? Here Kant enters. If my value principle is a particular value principle, it cannot. Because after all, I am obligated to the system because I examined each of its principles and it seemed right to me. Okay? So it cannot be that I am obligated to two systems in a particular way if there is a contradiction between them, because one of the two—one of those principles that did not seem right to me—I should have rejected. When can a person be obligated to two systems that contradict one another? Only if his obligation is based on a sweeping value principle. Only truly observant people can be in conflict with Jewish law. One who is not truly observant will never be in conflict; he simply is not obligated. Right? Although this somewhat contradicts the initial intuition, it is obvious. Do you understand what I’m saying? So now I want to make the following claim: ultimately, accepting the Torah presupposes acceptance on the basis of a sweeping value principle, not a particular one. But that itself means, automatically, that there can be situations in which I accept upon myself obligation to two systems even though there is a contradiction between them, because I do not test each and every principle the Holy One, blessed be He, gives me and ask whether I like it or not. I accepted it because I am obligated to everything He said, and suddenly I discover that He tells me to kill Amalekite babies, or that children born from forbidden sexual relations are mamzerim—it’s not their fault; what did they do? That’s the reality. Okay? So that contradicts my morality. Now I am obligated to morality too, just as I am obligated to Jewish law, so I am in conflict. We’ll see later what that means, but at the moment I am in conflict. Such a conflict can exist only among the truly observant. This commandment—not really, it doesn’t sit right with me—he examines commandment by commandment. He will never find himself in conflict, because there will never be a principle to which he is morally obligated but not halakhically obligated, or vice versa. Simply one of the two, whichever does not seem right to him, he will not accept. Okay? So he cannot find himself in a substantive conflict. There are no conflicts for one who is not obligated in a sweeping way. Meaning—right—there will never be a conflict like the one you describe, no. What there will be is what is called a contradiction, not a conflict. A conflict is when I have two values, both of which are correct and there is no contradiction between them, but a situation arises that forces me to choose according to which of the two to act. Take an example: saving life and the Sabbath, say within Jewish law, or within morality—the same thing. Saving life and the Sabbath. Is there a contradiction between the obligations to those two values? Not a contradiction. But does keeping the Sabbath contradict the value of life? No. Rather what? Specific situations can arise in which in order to save life I have to violate the Sabbath. So that is not a contradiction between the two values, and therefore I can adopt both of them; even on a particular basis I can adopt both of them. But there are situations in which I cannot fulfill both; I have to choose either this or that, and that is what I call a conflict, not a contradiction. Because a contradiction means both being obligated to the value of life and not being obligated to the value of life—that cannot be. Moral conflicts never mix a value and its opposite; there is no such thing. I cannot be obligated to the value of life and also obligated to not-value-life; that is simply a contradiction. I can be obligated to two values which in certain cases will put me into conflict, because if I adopt A it will harm value B, and if I adopt B it will harm value A, and I cannot fulfill both. That is a conflict; one has to decide what to do. But there is no contradiction between the two values. As an example, there are 613 commandments here—are there values that truly contradict one another? There is no such thing. Okay? So… each of the two systems—well, there that is a question, an interesting question. You can say that those principles which contradict the sweeping system he simply will not accept. So he will filter the particular system. The sweeping system is of course sweeping. The particular system—he will filter out everything that contradicts, and he will remain without contradiction. But that is not exact, because you can say: no, I don’t filter it out, because I truly am obligated to it. Too bad that there I obligated myself despite not identifying with it, because it is sweeping. So I am in conflict. Then it may be that one can be in conflict even if only one of the systems is sweeping. And that depends on how you test the particular system. There is an interesting logic at work here. In any case, the claim is basically—what I want to say is—that if I am obligated to this normative system in a sweeping way, then built into the whole business is that contradictions can arise, and certainly conflicts can arise; certainly conflicts, but even contradictions. Okay? Contradictions meaning, for example, killing Amalek and the value of life, that one does not just kill people. Okay? That is not a conflict; that is a contradiction. But if I am obligated in a sweeping way to both systems, then I am in contradiction—what can I do? I need to see how to deal with it, but I truly am obligated to both sides. Okay? I can see conflicts, but conflicts can also exist, for example, within the moral system itself, within the halakhic system itself, not only between Jewish law and morality. Okay? For example saving life and the Sabbath, a positive command overriding a prohibition. Fine? A positive command overrides a prohibition—you have a collision between a positive command and a prohibition; one has to decide what one does. Here the rule is already fixed for us—a positive command overrides a prohibition—but on the conceptual level, before that rule was formulated, I was in conflict between these two values. And that is always not conflicting values but conflicts. The positive command never overrides the prohibition in the sense of contradicting it; it never contradicts the prohibition. Rather, there is a situation in which fulfilling the positive command entails violating the prohibition, and conversely, refraining from violating the prohibition entails neglecting the positive command. Fine? So that is with regard to what I call, say, polynormativity—a plurality of systems, obligation to several normative systems in parallel. We’ll get there, we’ll get there, we’ll get to what we do with conflicts and contradictions and so on—I’m building this step by step. Okay? So now let’s focus more specifically on… you know what—not Jewish law and morality yet. Let’s talk about what you described, let’s do that first. What does one actually do in a case of contradiction or conflict? On the face of it, this looks like a dead-end problem. What happens when I have a contradiction between two values, or at least a conflict, such that in a certain situation I cannot fulfill both? Apparently it is a dead-end problem. And why? This is what is called in philosophy, in analytic ethics, the incommeasurability of values—“incommensurable,” no common measure. Incommensurability, in English. So what does “incommensurable” mean? There is no common measure. Yes. So what does that mean? Look: earlier I defined the concept of value in such a way that a value is not a means but an end, right? Now let’s look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s example. The French philosopher tells of occupied Paris during the Shoah, occupied by the Nazis. One of his students came to him and consulted him about a moral dilemma he had. So what was the story? He was living with his elderly mother there in occupied Paris. His mother was unwell and needed help. His father was collaborating with the Nazis. His brother had been murdered by the Nazis. He was left alone with his mother. Now he was torn between going to the Free French forces, de Gaulle, and fighting the Nazis—thereby leaving his mother—or staying to help his mother, because she needed his help. So this is a dilemma between two values; basically this is a conflict, right? It is not a contradiction, because the obligation to fight evil does not contradict the value of helping your elderly mother, right? There is no inherent contradiction between them. But you are in a situation where you cannot fulfill both of those values. And those two values, by the way, are moral values. So this is an internal contradiction—well, conflict—within the world of morality itself, not a relation between Jewish law and morality or something like that: within morality itself. Exactly, a conflict. Right. Okay? What? Right. But I am deliberately entering a single world now, because there really there are no contradictions, only conflicts. Between worlds there can also be contradictions. Okay? Now look, there is a principled problem in deciding such a dilemma. Why? Because if indeed—after all, how should I decide such a dilemma? One ought to construct a value scale. Fighting evil as opposed to helping one’s elderly mother, or whatever it may be. Which is higher on the value scale? Once I arrange the values in some hierarchy, then I already see what overrides what. In principle, in order to decide these dilemmas I need to arrange a value scale for myself. The problem is that one cannot do that. Logically, philosophically, it is impossible. Why? Because when you arrange a value scale you have to find some common criterion for all the values, and determine for each value what its significance is in terms of that criterion. This one weighs ten kilos, this one weighs nine kilos, this one weighs five kilos. So ten is above nine and above five. Then I know how to make a scale; I can determine what is more than what. But you cannot determine, say, what there is more of: human kindness or water in the ocean. What do you say—what is there more of? You can’t answer such a question, not because we don’t know, but because the question is meaningless. It’s not that I don’t know the answer because I lack the tools to find it. The question itself is meaningless. Why? Because you are comparing things here that have no common measure. In order to compare two things, there has to be some criterion—say, this is ten meters, this is three meters; ten meters is longer than three meters. One and the square root of two are incommensurable in mathematics, but they do have a common measure in measure theory. But the claim here is philosophical; that’s something else. The claim is that you are comparing values. Things need to have a common measure. They have to be measured by the same criterion. You say this is tastier and that less tasty because both are on a taste scale. Or this is longer and that shorter because everything is measured in centimeters or meters, so then you can establish a hierarchy between them. But values as we defined them—a value does not come to serve anything outside itself. So on what basis will you measure it? Meaning, if both of these things serve something else, then I say: aha, this serves it significantly, so it’s worth eight; this serves it less significantly, so it’s worth five. Eight is more than five, so I built a scale. But if I have no—they are not serving anything, I have no way to measure them. So how can I rank them? How can I establish a scale? In order to establish a scale you need some common criterion. And what is a scale? A scale says this is five, this is six, this is seven, this is eight, this is nine, this is ten. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—what? What’s the criterion? What’s the scale? There isn’t one. There is no common scale. If you ask me, say, what is preferable with an ambulance: an ambulance drives fast on the road, it is dangerous to drive fast on the road, but on the other hand the patient needs to get quickly to the hospital, right? Here it’s easy. That’s a relatively easy decision. Why? Because both of those things are about the value of life. Meaning, if there is a car accident, that harms the value of life; if you don’t save the patient, that too harms the value of life. So you need to examine what the chance is that someone will be harmed here, what the chance is of harm there, how many will be harmed, and make the calculation. In principle this is something that can be decided when the two things are on the same scale. No—I said, I’m not yet discussing how one does this in practice—but on the philosophical level there is no philosophical problem here. Right? The two things have a common scale, and in principle one can rank them if I have the data: what is the chance of an accident, how many will be harmed, and on the other side how many casualties there will be—that is basically the metric. So there is no conceptual problem here; the issue is straightforward at the conceptual level. Okay? That’s regarding… and why is it straightforward? Because both driving according to the law and driving fast are not values; they come to serve a value, and the value is human life. So you can measure both of them in terms of the value they come to serve, right? How important is this for saving life? But what is more important? What is the criterion? If it serves nothing, then what? How can you rank it? Who determined that one value is more important than another? Only if you say that it serves something can you rank it. But the philosophical problem here is that apparently I have no way to measure any value by itself, and certainly not one value against another. Because by definition a value is something immeasurable—that is the claim. Therefore you cannot determine its importance and perhaps override it because of—I don’t know—the suffering of that girl who wants to get on a plane in China. Yes, there is an absolute value, the value of life; there is no way to classify it, no way to rationalize it, no way to rank it against other things. So there is a real philosophical problem here, one that many moral philosophers have struggled with: how do we build hierarchies? How do we decide conflicts or dilemmas of this kind? Okay? Where you are talking about two different systems, say a clash between morality and Jewish law, it is even worse. Because in morality there is some common infrastructure and in some sense everything there is measured—but how can you even measure that against a halakhic value like not eating pork? This is the world of morality, that is a halakhic prohibition. How can you measure that against universal morality of this or that sort? What? It is even more distant. Even within the same system, a clash between two moral values is hard to measure. Between morality and Jewish law it is even harder. Two levels, two scales of values. Now what do we do in such a situation? What kind of solution is there? There is one possibility, which you mentioned earlier—yes, the camera keeps turning itself. One possibility is indeed to bypass the problem. For example, there is a passage in tractate Yoma. The Talmud discusses violating the Sabbath to save life, that saving life overrides the Sabbath. The Talmud’s conclusion, after bringing several sources, is basically two arguments. One argument is “and live by them, and not die by them.” The second argument is “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths.” Okay? Right, apparently in both cases violating the Sabbath is permitted and perhaps even obligatory in order to save life. Let’s think for a moment. When you say “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” what are you basically saying? That life is not a value—it is a means to keep the Sabbath. Life is not a value. When you say “and live by them, and not die by them,” that is exactly the opposite. Keeping the Sabbath is not a value; it is a means to life. If it harms life, don’t keep the Sabbath. It seems that here keeping the Sabbath serves life. “And live by them, and not die by them.” If you are going to die because of it, don’t do it. So these are really opposite conceptions. What is interesting is that these two opposite conceptions appear together in the sources. The Mishnah Berurah, for example, in section 328 in the Shulchan Arukh, brings both of these principles together. It’s contradictory. Does life serve the commandments, or do the commandments serve life? See an interesting solution. What is “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths”? How does that work? I claim that it is not true that this principle reflects a view that life is a means to commandments. Not true. Why? Let’s see. I now have a dilemma: saving life versus the Sabbath. I am making a profit-and-loss table of two possibilities. Either violate the Sabbath and save his life, or do not violate the Sabbath—keep the Sabbath and lose his life. Those are the two possibilities. Let’s make a profit-and-loss account of each of these two options and compare them. One option: violation of the Sabbath and rescue. Second option: no rescue. Let’s see. In the rescue option, the gain is rescue—life plus n Sabbaths. And the loss: one Sabbath that we violated. What happens if he is not saved? If he is not saved, then we lose the life. And wait, that’s actually not right. I’ll write it here. Here I gain life; here there are no Sabbaths; and here there aren’t the n Sabbaths. That counts as a loss. And in non-rescue, what is the gain of non-rescue? One Sabbath. Now I say: basically, let’s compare this. Rescue—let’s say the value of life is X, and the value of keeping the Sabbath is Y. So in rescue I gain life and lose one Sabbath. And in non-rescue I gain one Sabbath and lose n Sabbaths. Wait, I don’t want the life twice. If I didn’t save him, then I lost life, and I can put life in here, but then I’ll need to stop here. Non-rescue is the loss of life. Let’s see: if I want to compare profit and loss—if I saved him, then I gained life and lost one Sabbath relative to that. If I don’t save. That Sabbath I gained. If I saved him, then I gained life and also Sabbaths. If I didn’t save him, then there is no life and I lost Sabbaths. I gained one Sabbath, but I lost Sabbaths. Now if I saved him, then I gained life plus I also gained the Sabbaths. And if I didn’t save him, I lost Sabbaths, so I gained one Sabbath. Meaning, do you see that it is always preferable? There are two values here that are not commensurable; they are not comparable one against the other. It will always be dominant. Do you understand that the reasoning of “violate one Sabbath for him” does not presuppose anything about the relation between the two values? Which is preferable—keeping the Sabbath or saving life? It doesn’t matter. Exactly. So what did we do here? First of all, we bypassed the need to rank these two values against each other, the value of life against the value of keeping the Sabbath. Because even without ranking them I can show that it is preferable to save. Now you understand that what is really happening here is that even though X and Y are incommensurable—I do not know what the relation between them is, there is no way to compare them—it doesn’t matter. This is what I can do. So that means that here they managed to solve the value conflict without constructing a value scale. No need to construct a value scale. Right? Obviously this is not a general solution. Here they found some trick, some device, that renders unnecessary the need to construct a value scale—the impossible need, because one cannot construct a value scale. And if I show you that one can decide this dilemma even without constructing a value scale, that means one cannot infer from this reasoning of “violate one Sabbath for him” that life is a means to keeping the Sabbath. Not true. Even without assuming which is a means to which, or which is more important than which, I can decide that it is preferable to violate the Sabbath and save life. Exactly. But now there is no contradiction. Because in the second argument there really is no trick. The second argument really says that the value of life overrides keeping the Sabbath. Exactly. Yes, true, but I’m saying more than that: even “violate one Sabbath for him” does not contradict that. That is what I want to claim. Because “violate one Sabbath for him” does not mean that the value of life is less important than keeping the Sabbath. It means one need not even reach the relation between the value of life and the Sabbath in order to decide the conflict. Therefore there is no contradiction between these two principles. You can be—if I had to draw a conclusion from this entire sugya—it would be that the value of life is a value in itself; it is not a means to anything. And “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths” does not say the opposite. It leaves that question open; it bypasses it. Right. Therefore I say: clearly, the Torah says—the Torah says that the value of life overrides keeping the Sabbath. “And live by them, and not die by them.” Right. Yes. And really now, perhaps I’ll finish on this point. Look—suppose I asked you what there is more of, human kindness or water in the ocean. And then perhaps I would look for a verse to decide that question. I don’t know the answer, but maybe the verse will teach me somehow. Do you understand that this is impossible? It is impossible because a verse can teach me only answers that exist; maybe I’m not wise enough to arrive at them. But here there is no answer; the question is not defined. A verse too cannot solve the problem for me. Right? A verse won’t help here; the question simply is not defined. Now if I say there is a verse that says “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths,” that means there is an answer to this question, because otherwise the verse too could not reveal it to me. Meaning the question is defined. Fine? And that basically means that if in general… because the verse revealed it to me. I myself would not know it, but the verse revealed it to me. And “violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths” does not contradict that. There I receive the decision without needing to determine what is more important or what serves what. Okay? So this basically means that one way to decide conflicts is to try to find some common scale, even though they are still incommensurable. Notice: I did not find a common scale for X and Y; I found a common scale for my two decisions—save or not save—because I said this equals X plus two Y’s, and this equals X, and this is greater than that, without making any decision about what the common scale of X and Y is. There is no common scale. It doesn’t matter. There need not be one. Because the decision is made with the Y’s alone; the Y alone decides the matter, the X contributes nothing here. Okay? I said: this is a particular case in which they found a solution. In most cases this really is not possible. In most cases, apparently, one really needs to construct a value scale, and therefore this does not really solve the problem for me. But after all we know that there are people with a value scale. We do rank values one above another. How can that be? What about water in the ocean and human kindness? I mean, apparently it isn’t possible. That is about this whole issue.