Halakhic Thought – 5783 – Lesson 7

Table of Contents

• The framework of the conflict between Jewish law and morality, and the five possibilities
• Rabbi Kook in Olat Re’iyah and the Binding of Isaac against a Christian reading
• Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling,” and the concept of the “knight of faith”
• The Binding of Isaac as an educational process: demanding commitment before revealing the overlap
• The Chazon Ish: Jewish law decides the “theory of morality”
• The example of schoolteachers, “you have cut off my livelihood,” and the jealousy of scholars
• The shared assumption of Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish, and its rejection
• Three categories of laws: moral, anti-moral, and amoral
• “Overridden, not permitted”: moral costs within a halakhic ruling
• Applying the conflict: the wife of a kohen who was raped, and other examples
• Criticism of the public discussion: Israel Shahak and the claim against “twisting oneself into knots”
• A principled claim about the independence of morality and Jewish law, and “Jewish morality”
• Halakhic examples of non-overlap even within “moral commandments”

Summary

General overview

The text presents the question of the relationship between Jewish law and morality, mainly where there seems to be a conflict between them, and proposes five possible responses to that conflict. It clarifies that a real conflict exists only when a person is committed both to Jewish law and to morality. After presenting views that assume a necessary overlap between Jewish law and morality in Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish, while differing over which one must be “corrected” when a contradiction appears, the speaker argues that their shared assumption of overlap is mistaken. He develops a position according to which Jewish law has religious aims that are not moral, and therefore situations are possible in which a religious value overrides a moral value, while one still remains inside a genuine conflict and without blurring the fact that there is a “moral price.”

The framework of the conflict between Jewish law and morality, and the five possibilities

The text states that the question of the relationship between Jewish law and morality usually comes up in places of conflict, where Jewish law instructs one thing and morality seemingly instructs something else. It defines five possibilities: a mistaken understanding of morality, such that the “real” morality matches Jewish law; a mistaken understanding of Jewish law, such that it really matches morality; rejecting commitment to morality in favor of Jewish law alone; rejecting commitment to Jewish law in favor of morality alone; and recognizing commitment to both while living with the conflict. It clarifies that a state of conflict requires commitment to two normative systems at the same time, and that someone committed only to one side is not in conflict, even if there is a contradiction between the systems.

Rabbi Kook in Olat Re’iyah and the Binding of Isaac against a Christian reading

The text brings Rabbi Kook’s commentary in Olat Re’iyah on the Binding of Isaac and describes a situation in which there appears to be a clash between the moral prohibition of bloodshed and the divine command. It presents Rabbi Kook’s reading of “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” as establishing that there is no practical contradiction between a father’s love for his son and love of God, and that “a father’s compassion and love” are a direct extension of “pure love of God and His compassion for all His works.” It connects this to a critique of a Christian conception that sanctifies living in absurdity under a divine command, and sets against it Rabbi Kook’s claim that it is impossible for the divine command to contradict morality and logic, and that if a contradiction seems to exist, then there is a mistake in understanding either Jewish law or morality.

Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling,” and the concept of the “knight of faith”

The text describes Kierkegaard in “Fear and Trembling” as proposing three levels: the aesthetic level, of flowing after the heart; the ethical level, of subordinating inclination to moral principles; and the religious level, in which Abraham “binds” ethics and aesthetics before the divine command, even in absurdity. It explains that Kierkegaard presents Abraham as the knight of faith who acts against morality and against reason, and describes this as part of a broader Christian conception according to which “the divine command subdues everything,” and faith is specifically action within absurdity. It emphasizes that Rabbi Kook opposes this conclusion and argues that “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy” is not “the end of the story” in the sense of approving the binding of morality, but rather the revelation that the divine command does not require deviating from morality.

The Binding of Isaac as an educational process: demanding commitment before revealing the overlap

The text explains that according to Rabbi Kook, even though there is no principled contradiction between Jewish law and morality, one cannot educate a person from the outset on the basis of the slogan “do what morality says and everything works out,” because that would lead to contempt for Jewish law through “fashionable morality” and constantly lenient interpretations. It argues that one must go through an educational “binding” of uncompromising commitment to the command, and only after the purification of fear of Heaven can one discover that Jewish law and morality are identified with one another and that there is no actual need to bind morality. It applies this also to contemporary examples in which people claim that since morality demands tolerance, “obviously” it cannot be that Jewish law forbids certain things, and in his view this creates a religiosity that in practice covers over an uncommitted lifestyle.

The Chazon Ish: Jewish law decides the “theory of morality”

The text cites the Chazon Ish in Faith and Trust, chapter 3, as arguing that “moral obligations are sometimes one body with halakhic rulings, and Jewish law is what decides the forbidden and the permitted within the theory of morality.” It explains that the Chazon Ish recognizes a category of morality and its binding force, but in a place of contradiction, Jewish law determines what the real morality is, not the other way around. It emphasizes the key word “sometimes” as indicating that there are areas in which Jewish law says nothing explicit, and there morality obligates, connecting this to the idea attributed to the Chazon Ish about “the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh.”

The example of schoolteachers, “you have cut off my livelihood,” and the jealousy of scholars

The text quotes from the Chazon Ish a description of a situation in which veteran schoolteachers in a town are economically harmed by new teachers, and develop hatred, slander, libels, and quarrels in the name of the claim, “you have cut off my livelihood.” It states that seemingly, if Jewish law were on their side, then all their actions would be “cleansed of every sin and transgression” and would even be considered a “commanded war.” But in practice, Jewish law rules that regarding teachers of young children, “he cannot prevent them,” because “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom,” and this principle is loftier than the livelihood of individuals. It shows how the halakhic ruling reverses the moral picture and activates prohibitions such as “Do not hate,” slander, “Do not be like Korach,” and “Do not take revenge” against one who fights the new teachers.

The shared assumption of Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish, and its rejection

The text argues that despite the difference between them—Rabbi Kook reinterprets Jewish law, while the Chazon Ish reinterprets morality—both share two assumptions: commitment to Jewish law and to morality, and a necessary overlap between them such that no contradiction can exist. It accepts the first assumption as what defines the very possibility of conflict, but rejects the second assumption and argues that there is no principled necessity for overlap, and that one can live within a real conflict between a religious value and a moral value.

Three categories of laws: moral, anti-moral, and amoral

The text divides Jewish law into three categories: moral laws, such as do not steal and do not murder; anti-moral laws, such as the obliteration of Amalek and other examples; and amoral laws, which are indifferent to morality, such as the prohibition of pork and redeeming a firstborn donkey. It argues that it is specifically the amoral laws that show that Jewish law is not directed only toward moral purposes, but also toward religious purposes that do not depend on morality. It opposes the attempt to explain that every commandment is moral in some indirect way, arguing that this empties the concept of morality of content and replaces a real discussion with definitions.

“Overridden, not permitted”: moral costs within a halakhic ruling

The text brings an example attributed to Rabbi Dessler about lying “for the sake of peace,” which is then not called a lie, and presents this as an outrageous position that blurs the moral damage of lying. It argues that when one value overrides another, that does not mean there are no costs, and that even when it is permitted or a commandment to perform an action, there is still an element of bad in it that one should remain aware of. It illustrates this through pain in medical surgery and through “He will grant you compassion and have compassion on you” in the case of the idolatrous city, concluding that when there is a halakhic possibility to reduce moral harm, one should strive for it, whereas denying the moral problem causes moral numbness.

Applying the conflict: the wife of a kohen who was raped, and other examples

The text presents the law of the wife of a kohen who was raped and is required to separate from her husband as an example of a moral “absurdity” that cannot be presented as a moral solution. It explains this as a conflict between the moral value of preventing suffering and family breakup, and the religious value of priestly holiness, and argues that the Torah determines that in this case the religious value prevails, even at a moral cost. It adds examples such as the obliteration of Amalek and the beautiful captive woman as situations in which there is no need to look for moral justification, but rather to recognize that there is a clash and that the ruling comes down in favor of a religious value.

Criticism of the public discussion: Israel Shahak and the claim against “twisting oneself into knots”

The text describes publications by Israel Shahak about cases in which religious Jews did not save a non-Jew on the Sabbath or required the separation of the wife of a kohen who was raped, and presents the common response—trying to explain that Jewish law is “moral”—as unconvincing. It proposes an alternative argument according to which the secular critic is committed only to moral values, and therefore does not see the conflict in which a religious person finds himself, committed also to religious values; the criticism therefore ignores “half the value-map.” It compares this to criticism of soldiers who kill an enemy in the name of “disregard for human life,” and argues that the action can be obligatory and still carry a moral cost.

A principled claim about the independence of morality and Jewish law, and “Jewish morality”

The text argues that morality obligates all human beings, and therefore “Jewish morality is an oxymoron,” whereas Jewish law is a particularistic system that obligates Jews. It argues that all Torah commands deal only with the religious dimension, and even “rational” commandments like do not murder come to add a religious layer beyond the moral prohibition that was already known even without a command, as illustrated by the story of Cain and Abel. It concludes that there can be overlap between the religious dimension and the moral dimension in some actions, but the overlap is not identity, and Jewish law can distinguish fine gradations of religious obligation and punishment even when the moral status appears identical.

Halakhic examples of non-overlap even within “moral commandments”

The text brings Talmudic discussions of indirect murder and presents the claim that morally speaking, this is murder to the same extent, while the halakhic distinctions reflect different degrees of a “religious problem” and of liability to punishment in a religious court. It also brings the principle “exempt under human law but liable under the laws of Heaven” in cases of indirect damage, demonstrating a gap between moral responsibility and legal-religious liability. It presents a position according to which there are also religious intuitions in areas such as consecrated offerings and ritual purity within the framework of studying the passages, even though a person has no intuition that would on its own generate a prohibition of pork prior to the command.

So we’re in the middle of Jewish law and morality. We talked a bit about the meaning of morality, moral facts, why one should conduct oneself according to moral principles, and I started touching on the question of the relationship between Jewish law and morality. I said that usually this question of the relationship between Jewish law and morality comes up in places where there’s a conflict. Meaning, in places where Jewish law instructs one thing and apparently that stands against what morality says. And then a few possible ways of relating to this conflict come up. Let’s define five possibilities. One possibility is: we misunderstood morality; true morality simply says what Jewish law says. A second possibility, of course, is that we misunderstood Jewish law. A third possibility: we are not obligated to morality. So there’s a conflict—so what? We’re obligated to Jewish law, not to morality. A fourth possibility: we’re obligated to morality and not to Jewish law. A fifth possibility: we’re obligated to both, and we are in a conflict. No, no, that’s an important point. No, it doesn’t leave us in the first situation; I’ll explain in a moment why not. So, look.

What is it, basically, when we’re in a conflict between Jewish law and morality? The foundation for being in a conflict is that I’m obligated to both sides. Right? If I’m obligated to only one of them, no matter which one, then there is no conflict. Meaning there can also be a contradiction between Jewish law and Christianity, but I’m not in conflict, because I’m obligated to Jewish law, not to Christianity. Or a Christian is not in conflict; he’s obligated to Christianity, not to Jewish law. Right? So when I define my situation as a situation of conflict, that means I’m obligated to both of these systems simultaneously. And we talked about the fact that obligation to two normative systems is possible when the principle of value underlying them is a sweeping principle of value and not a particular one. Remember? That was the previous section we talked about. So therefore I really need to focus on approaches that are obligated to both sides. So I’ve already crossed out two of the five—or not two of the five. “I’m obligated only to Jewish law and not to morality” I crossed out. “I’m obligated only to morality and not to Jewish law” I also crossed out. I didn’t cross them out because they’re illegitimate, but because those are trivial positions—there’s no conflict. You’re obligated only to one side. Okay? It’s not some judgmental deletion I made here; I’m not judging those positions as though they’re improper or something. I don’t agree with them, but that’s not the point. I’m crossing them out because they’re not dealing with the situation—they’re not in conflict.

“I didn’t understand morality,” “I didn’t understand Jewish law.” Exactly. That’s a very important distinction. Meaning, “I didn’t correctly understand morality” or “I didn’t correctly understand Jewish law”—there’s something shared by those two positions: there must be convergence or overlap between Jewish law and morality. In a place where a conflict arises, apparently one of the sides wasn’t understood correctly. The basic assumption is that there must be convergence. The third assumption, the third position, goes exactly against that assumption. It says: no, there doesn’t have to be convergence at all; there can be a gap between them.

Now look. Before I move on, there are two sources I wanted to look at together with you, which apparently lead to the first two conceptions that equate Jewish law and morality. Yes, I’m reading here. The first source is a commentary by Rabbi Kook, Olat Re’iyah, in the prayer book—the prayer book of Rabbi Kook is called Olat Re’iyah—on the binding of Isaac. And there Rabbi Kook says as follows. I won’t read everything, just the important parts.

“And he bound Isaac his son.” The image of the flame of holy fire, of love of God and the soul’s yearning in all its waves and all its mighty currents, rushing to fulfill with all strength the absolute command, grew stronger with all its force, until even if it had joined together with the deep love of the old father for his only son—which by the force of its nature, appointed by the force of its nature, prevents doing this act—even every kind of resistance and refusal in all its mighty strength on the part of Isaac against this action, also from the side of the holy soul of the holy father, he would overcome all this and would forcefully do the word of God, being bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and mighty as a lion, to do the will of his Father in Heaven.”

So there is basically a clash in the binding of Isaac between the moral conception—that a father is not supposed to murder his son, certainly not for no reason—and Jewish law, supposedly, in that context, the divine command. Okay? So we basically have a conflict here. What do we do with it? Again, apparently three possibilities, right? We didn’t understand morality correctly, we didn’t understand Jewish law correctly, or there is no overlap and we are in a conflict. That’s what seems to appear there. We see that he bound his son and went to slaughter him.

Now, one could say that he tells himself: okay, then I didn’t properly understand morality, and morality really says that in this case I should kill Isaac. You could say such a thing—what? No, it really doesn’t sound right, but in a moment we’ll see. Not about the binding, about Sodom, Sodom. Yes, the question is what the relation is between the binding and Sodom. In other discussions—no, I won’t go into that here, because that’s not our subject.

So he says as follows: “And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven.” You see this passage. Most of the time his prophecy came in the form of an angel. Sorry, one passage before that. “And he said: Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him.” The voice of God in power, through His angel that does His word, says: when the absolute command—whether from the side of justice, to refrain from the wickedness of bloodshed, or from the side of nature, to abstain from anything that harms the feelings of a father—do you see? There are two things here. First, morality. Morality says not to murder—not specifically your son, but in general not to murder. Beyond that, there is the natural feeling, meaning a father loves his son and doesn’t want to murder him. That isn’t necessarily connected to morality; it’s a matter of feeling, natural feeling. We talked about the relation between feeling and morality.

“Filled with love for his beloved son, he maintained them in full. The holy, strong recognitions engraved in spiritual nature and in material nature did not descend from their level by even a hair’s breadth because of the supreme vision revealed in the word of God concerning sacrifice and the deepest self-devotion to the living God, which is holy and mighty truth in the power of desire and innocence of spiritual will. Therefore: do not stretch out your hand against the lad—in all the force of the simple and upright prohibition inherent in the matter. And do not think that there is here some practical contradiction between your pure fatherly love for your precious son and the noble love of God that surges in its might through the depths of your profound soul, such that there would be at least some correct aspect in actually doing something that indicates a diminishment of that love. Not so. And do nothing to him. For a father’s compassion and love in a pure soul is itself ablaze with holy fire, proceeding directly from pure love of God and His compassion for all His works, whose appearance in the world increases the splendor and glory of the supreme purposive holiness that elevates life and the entire universe to the height of their level.”

What does that mean? He says: “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” You know there’s a work by a Danish philosopher named Søren Kierkegaard called Fear and Trembling. A Christian. Fear and Trembling, which talks about the binding of Isaac—it’s a whole work on the binding of Isaac. And there, basically, the motto of that work—the philosophy of Kierkegaard, who was one of the earliest existentialists in philosophy, what’s called existential philosophy. Existentialism is existential philosophy. The idea is basically the things I connect to inwardly—that’s what philosophical statements are, things that connect to me inwardly. Let me put that very briefly. In my view that’s not philosophy, that’s psychology. But that’s another discussion.

In any case, what he says there is that there are three levels of human activity. There’s the aesthetic level, the ethical level, and the religious level. The aesthetic level is when a person does what the heart draws him to, just goes with the flow, as they say, what he connects to. Okay? The ethical level—connected to morality—means that you impose moral principles on your natural inclinations. Where needed. If it fits, excellent. If not, still, you make sure that it stays supreme, and you subordinate your natural inclination to moral principles. You remember we saw in Maimonides, in chapter six of Eight Chapters, what is preferable: the upright person, or one who restrains his inclination, or the virtuous person—remember? That’s really his discussion.

And the third level, the highest, is in his eyes Abraham our forefather—he calls him the knight of faith. Abraham is the figure who basically binds both morality and natural feeling, both aesthetics and ethics, before the divine command. In a situation of total absurdity, he still acts in accordance with the divine command. Now, Abraham had excellent reasons not to obey the divine command. Why? First, it contradicts morality. The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself expects us not to murder, and suddenly He tells you: take your son, who did nothing, and just like that. It is utterly illogical. Second, the Holy One, blessed be He, had promised him—and that too is morality, and also logic—the logic says that the Holy One, blessed be He, promised him: “through Isaac shall your seed be called.” So if I kill Isaac, how will my seed be called? Right?

Yes, so he says both logic and morality should have brought him to a state where maybe he would doubt that God is speaking to him. Maybe this is some hallucination, I don’t know exactly what. There are all kinds of questions like this both in midrash and Kierkegaard also talks about it. And nevertheless Abraham bound both logic and morality and everything before the divine command. And this he calls the knight of faith. And indeed, in the Christian conception, in standard Christian thought—Christianity is a very varied thing and there are many shades, but broadly speaking, the classic Christian conception, the Christian mainstream, is that the divine command subdues everything. Meaning, to act according to faith is to live in absurdity.

There’s Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers, who said: I believe because it is absurd. Not despite its being absurd, but because it is absurd. Meaning, if I believe in it because it’s reasonable, that isn’t called faith; that’s a logical conclusion. Faith is always when I act out of absurdity. That’s the accepted definition there—which again entered our world through Hasidism and Rabbi Kook. This is, in my opinion, a Christian conception, and a mistaken one. And that is basically the standard Christian conception, and Kierkegaard anchors it in Abraham. Here is Abraham, the knight of faith—that’s what he calls him—basically the paradigm of faith, the ultimate believer, yes? He acted against logic, against ethics, lived in total absurdity, and yet he did not hesitate for a moment. Meaning, he rose in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went to do the word of the Holy One, blessed be He.

Rabbi Kook goes against this. By the way, there is an amazing correspondence between the description of the binding in Fear and Trembling and Rabbi Kook’s description of the binding. It’s almost the same thing, except for the end. The ending in Kierkegaard is that morality and reason must be bound before the divine command, to live in contradiction. The ending for Rabbi Kook is: “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad” is not, as Kierkegaard understands it, some kind of appendix that just finishes the story. For Rabbi Kook, that is the story. “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” It cannot be, he says, that the divine command contradict the principles of logic and morality. And that is exactly what he wanted to teach him. Yes, exactly. That is what He wanted to teach him. What He wanted to teach him was: don’t be a Christian. Don’t think that the divine command requires you to depart from morality. It cannot be. It cannot be that the Holy One, blessed be He, would ask you to act immorally.

I’m not even talking right now about irrationality, where I completely agree—there is no such thing as acting irrationally. But first of all, immorally. No, logic—there is something here above logic, a contradiction within logic. There is no such thing as a divine command that is contradictory. If a divine command were contradictory, then it says nothing. You know, from a contradiction anything follows; from a contradiction you can derive any conclusion. Right? Basic mathematics. The moment the system is contradictory you can prove from it anything and its opposite, whatever you want. It says nothing. Okay? Therefore these Christian conceptions are nonsense.

But I’m saying, leave logic aside for the moment; I’m talking about morality. Rabbi Kook is basically claiming that the binding of Isaac comes to teach this lesson against Christianity. He is basically saying: don’t think that being religious—being a believer, a knight of faith—requires you to bind morality. On the contrary. What the Holy One, blessed be He, expects of you is moral conduct. And that is the lesson of the binding. Therefore Rabbi Kook writes this in many places: from his point of view there is absolute identity between Jewish law and morality, and on the principled level, if you think there’s a contradiction, then apparently you missed morality; you didn’t correctly understand what morality says.

The virtue of listening to the Holy One, blessed be He, is an important virtue, but in the end it also became clear to him that the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, does not require him to depart from morality. That doesn’t mean there’s no virtue in obeying the Holy One, blessed be He, even when you don’t understand. There is virtue in that. Fine, he says if the Holy One, blessed be He, told him, then apparently it doesn’t contradict morality. He doesn’t understand how, doesn’t understand how—and in the end it turned out: no, no, it does contradict morality, and that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, came to teach you. Okay? This is Rabbi Kook’s conception in many places.

According to Rabbi Kook, yes, because in many places Rabbi Kook identifies Jewish law with morality. For him the role of Jewish law is to bring us to the most moral system possible. In this case Abraham understood correctly. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: correct, you understood correctly, and therefore it is obvious that I would not command you to act otherwise. No—Abraham understood morality; it’s just that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded him something else. “You didn’t understand morality”—no, he understood morality from the outset, and the divine command was not a real command. In the end the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: you are right in your moral perception that it is immoral to kill your son. What I demanded of you was only a test; I didn’t really expect you to do it.

Yes, no—at first he went with it, meaning: if the Holy One, blessed be He, commands it, then apparently that’s what has to be done even though I don’t understand. Maybe, yes. So according to Rabbi Kook there is some kind of identity, identity between the divine command and morality, and he repeats this in many places. In fact he says more than that. In Abraham’s case, Abraham got up and acted, wanted to act, was prepared to act against morality. What about us? For us, he says, if there is something that blatantly contradicts morality in an obvious way, then you did not correctly understand Jewish law. It cannot be that Jewish law says to do such a thing. That’s what Rabbi Kook writes in quite a few places.

No, no, meaning if he says—he is a great believer in natural morality. We are not supposed to deviate from morality; there is no other morality that is more correct. Sometimes there is a miss, we don’t understand natural morality. But if you think—if you understand it correctly. No, no, come on, really. I really didn’t understand. We talked about this last time regarding moral realism, that there are moral facts and this is something objective; other people don’t understand it, they’re blind. Fine. Conflicts are something else. Right now I’m talking about deviation from morality, not conflicts. Conflicts are when there are two moral principles that clash and you can’t uphold both. I’m talking about something else: morality says something very clearly, and the divine command or Jewish law says something opposed. This is not a conflict within morality; it is a conflict between morality and Jewish law. Okay? Morality says: there is no such thing. If it is clear that this is what morality says, then you missed Jewish law. Maybe you didn’t correctly understand Jewish law; it cannot be that it says such a thing. That is his claim.

Just parenthetically, I’ll add: why was all this whole exercise necessary? After all, He put Abraham through a traumatic experience. Let Him write, let Him write: don’t worry, everything I command you is morality. Why does He have to drag Abraham around and put him through trauma? We’ll stand or fall, fine—but there He didn’t expect Abraham to withstand the test. He only wanted to teach him this lesson, that Jewish law and morality are not supposed to contradict each other. So say it straight out. Why put him through this whole insane process? Fine, let Him write it: Jewish law should not contradict morality. That’s all. What’s the problem? Why does He have to drag Abraham through this whole experience?

I think Rabbi Kook himself answers something else. He says: “For now I know.” “For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.” Look at section four: “You are the pure, clear light, refined from every dross of limited bodily yearning upon your lucid soul, such that even your love of God—which within love stoops to dwell inside a soul bound to matter and within a spirit limited by some quality of boundaries—needed to be refined in the fire of supreme fear, standing above every image of love and feeling. Only in the height of intellect and supreme recognition, in the strength of its pure might, and in this you filled all the exalted content to which a human soul can aspire in terms of its mighty perfection. For now the great divine knowledge has been engraved in the full reality of your existence and being. For now I know that you fear God—not only that you love, for without the supreme sense of fear, full of preciousness and supreme truth and their purity—but also that you fear God, that your wondrous and innocent love has been refined and purified by the light of pure fear, and in your love for your son there is not a single point lacking the radiance of purity. For you did not withhold your son, your only one, in all the strength of your full love from Me, and you came to the highest level, that your love for your son is itself a direct and firm branch of the love of the Rock of Eternity, the Life of lives, the true God—and you did not withhold your son.”

What does Rabbi Kook mean by this? If the Holy One, blessed be He, were to say to Abraham: don’t worry, the Torah always fits—leave Abraham, let’s talk about us today. When I educate a child, I tell him: don’t worry, everything is fine; really just do what morality says. If you do what morality says, everything will be fine, you won’t make a mistake, you’ll always hit exactly what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects of you. That’s a problematic recipe. It’s problematic because there are so many laws where a person will say: okay, this is not binding because it’s not moral, and that is not binding because it’s not moral—and there is a real educational problem here.

Even though he is right on the theoretical level that Jewish law always fits morality, still, many times you’ll say, for example, there’s some fashionable moral principle around you. It isn’t really correct. Not everything around you, not everything everyone around you thinks, is also right. Okay? But you’ll immediately say: okay, Jewish law goes against it, so clearly Jewish law can’t be correct because it goes against morality, and everything is fine. In the end you won’t serve God this way; you’ll simply do what seems right to you, and you’ll always have justification—yes, yes, this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, because what seems right to me is morality. So you don’t thereby produce a servant of God.

What must be done, even though on the theoretical level it is true—there should not be a contradiction between Jewish law and morality—you must go through an Akedah. You must begin, even in educating a child, with some uncompromising demand to fulfill what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. Doesn’t matter whether it’s against morality or for morality—no. It’s absolute. What the Holy One, blessed be He, says must be fulfilled. After you’ve already gone through the Akedah and been refined and were prepared to subordinate morality and everything that Kook says—you subordinated morality and everything to the divine command—now one can reveal to you that in the end it also coincides. You won’t really have to bind morality for this. But that can only be said to someone who was prepared in principle to bind his morality before the divine command. Because if you spare him that and tell him the conclusion right away—we know such people, people who basically do whatever comes into their heads and always say yes, yes, clearly this is what needs to be done because this is the most humane behavior, the most sensible, the most tolerant, and everything is fine.

Take examples like homosexuality, examples like attitudes toward all kinds of such things, where people say: what’s the problem? It’s obvious that morality says we need to take people into account and be tolerant. Correct. And therefore it’s obvious that Jewish law cannot prohibit this, and everything is fine. Meaning, in the end you raise a person who is obligated to nothing. He will simply behave like any secular or unbelieving person, and will only constantly defend it by saying that what he is doing fits what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, because there cannot be a contradiction between Jewish law and morality. If you’d like, I’ll get to that later, after I present what I think—because I don’t agree with this. Just a second.

So the claim is that you have to go through an Akedah before you allow yourself to understand and act upon this identity between Jewish law and morality. That is basically his claim. Because even Rabbi Kook understands that there are conflicts; not everywhere does it fit. Now if every time it doesn’t fit I simply go over to the side of morality and throw away the side of Jewish law, then no—I won’t really behave correctly. There are situations where you need to rub up against the conflict. You need to internalize within yourself what the Torah says. Then you will also grasp morality correctly, and there too it will coincide with Jewish law—after you shape yourself according to what the Torah says. But if you act according to the morality you were born with, without rubbing against the Torah, without—then you’ll simply act like any gentile. Exactly the same. Only you’ll always tell yourself: yes, yes, this fits what the Holy One, blessed be He, says, because after all this is the right thing. You need this clash between Jewish law and morality, the Akedah. That is basically the Akedah that Abraham went through, but each of us, on a smaller scale, also has to go through such a stage. And only afterward can you say: okay, but this also has to fit in some sense with morality, and then do what needs to be done on the interpretive level and so on and so forth. But it must be based on a very deep fear of Heaven. That’s what he says here—this purification of the soul that he describes, out of the willingness to go against my morality and against everything. And only after that can one say, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” Exactly. And then it will probably be real morality and not just some fashionable morality of this kind or that, that he immediately follows because he doesn’t really care about Jewish law; he only gives it backing after the fact for what he is certain of, and so on.

And it’s not only—you don’t have to reach the level of killing someone. But yes, you need, for example, to educate a child that first of all he is obligated to keep Jewish law. Whether it seems right to him or not—first of all, keep Jewish law. After that, let’s try to think: does this seem right to me, does that not seem right to me? In extreme cases I may also perhaps interpret Jewish law differently, but only after I’m prepared to bind everything can one bring him to the next stage, where you can start looking for interpretations that fit better and so on. And if he starts immediately by looking for interpretations, no problem—interpretations can always be found very easily, and everything will be excellent. In the end nothing will remain of your obligation to Jewish law. We know many such examples today, and these are real phenomena. So that is Rabbi Kook’s conception.

Rabbi Kook is basically assuming here that, at least on the principled level beyond the various educational stages, in principle there cannot be a contradiction between Jewish law and morality. If you see a contradiction, and assuming that the morality really is good morality, you’ve already gone through your purification and your Akedahs and all that, then you did not understand Jewish law correctly. Okay? That’s Rabbi Kook.

Now I move to the next one, and that is—what? Those? That the commandments come to… No, there are commandments—on the contrary, this is Maimonides whom we saw, who distinguishes between rational commandments and revelational commandments. The rational commandments come to… improve character traits perhaps. Improvement of character traits is an advantage there. I don’t know if the commandments come to improve character traits, but there are revelational commandments that have no moral purposes. Like ritual hand-washing, for example. Is ritual hand-washing there to clean your hands? If it’s there to clean your hands, wash them with soap. No, in my opinion not—but let me get there in a moment.

Let’s look at the Chazon Ish for a moment. You see the Chazon Ish here? The Chazon Ish has a small pamphlet called Faith and Trust. Okay? The question there is whether you have some kind of trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, faith, and how much effort you need to make—doesn’t matter, that’s the direction. But in chapter 3 he deals with the relation between Jewish law and morality. And it is usually accepted to see the Chazon Ish as the antithesis of Rabbi Kook. Meaning, the Chazon Ish basically claims that if morality contradicts Jewish law, then you didn’t understand morality correctly. Jewish law states the true moral solution. Yes, and then he says as follows:

“Moral obligations are sometimes one body with the rulings of Jewish law, and Jewish law is what decides what is forbidden and permitted in the Torah of morality.” You understand? Meaning, if there is a conflict between Jewish law and morality, Jewish law determines what is most moral. Don’t be concerned that there is any conflict in principle. It is obvious that Jewish law is the more moral solution; you simply didn’t correctly understand morality if there is a conflict. Okay? There are people who want to say that the Chazon Ish is not really committed to morality at all, only to Jewish law. I don’t think that’s correct. He says that Jewish law “decides what is forbidden and permitted in the Torah of morality.” He doesn’t say there is no such thing as forbidden and permitted in the Torah of morality, only that Jewish law determines it. He says that Jewish law determines what counts as moral. Meaning, he does recognize the existence of a category of morality.

More than that, notice a key word here. Yes, right—I said these two conceptions assume there has to be overlap, only here it comes out opposite in terms of what they do. But notice there’s another key word here. Does this have no practical difference? Because in the end—no, it has practical difference in places where morality does not contradict Jewish law, for example. Someone who says, “I recognize no morality, only Jewish law,” then he is free to do whatever he wants. But let’s say there’s a moral principle—I don’t know—women’s equality, okay? And this does not contradict Jewish law. Or say, black slavery. It doesn’t contradict Jewish law; there is no halakhic prohibition to do that. Okay? Now the question is whether I will refrain from doing it or not. If I’m one of those who says: forget it, morality has no meaning at all, I’m obligated only to Jewish law—enslave blacks, don’t give equality to women, everything is fine, I owe morality nothing. According to the Chazon Ish—no, there is such a thing as morality. And in a place where it contradicts Jewish law, then Jewish law determines what morality is. That is exactly the difference: with the Chazon Ish it is incorrect to say there is no category called morality. There is such a category, but it is subordinated to Jewish law where Jewish law has something to say. Okay?

Now there’s another interesting word, and it’s related to what I just said: “sometimes.” “Moral obligations are sometimes one body with rulings of Jewish law.” What does “sometimes” mean? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Why no? In a place where Jewish law has nothing to say. There it is not one body with Jewish law, but it still obligates; morality obligates. What in the name of the Chazon Ish people often call the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh. After all, there are four sections to the Shulchan Arukh. So the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh is the posek’s sense of smell. There are things beyond the Shulchan Arukh where you need to understand what is right and what is not right to do, even if it isn’t written in the Shulchan Arukh. This is an expression attributed to the Chazon Ish; I haven’t seen it written, but people say it often in his name. Okay? That’s exactly this point. There are places where Jewish law says nothing, but morality tells you what is right and wrong to do, and you do not ignore that. It obligates. Therefore I say the Chazon Ish is not the position that says there is no such thing as morality. He does say that where there is a contradiction, Jewish law determines what the moral command actually is. Okay?

And then he says as follows: “How so?” An example, yes? “They said in tractate Bava Batra 21b that regarding teachers of children there is no claim of ‘you are cutting off my livelihood.’” There are teachers in the city earning a living from their work, and suddenly other teachers came from another city, and as is human nature people are not satisfied with the old, so everyone jumped to the new arrivals, and the city’s teachers were harmed. There were teachers here, teachers in the school, yes? Existing ones. At some point teachers come from another city and settle in our city. Now people are always looking for something better than what they have. They don’t like the old, so let’s try the new, maybe it will be better. Everyone moved over, transferred their children to the new school. Okay?

“The deprived ones spread hatred in their hearts toward the new pursuers, and from hatred in the heart they went out to seek claims, defects, and slanders against them, and trained their tongues to speak evil of them, and from bad to worse they went to spread false reports and arouse the compassion of the townspeople against the cruelty of the new arrivals.” The new ones took their livelihood, so the old ones spread slander about them, saying they’re not okay, yes? They spread false accusations about them, accusations and so on. “Until they added quarrels and strife, and at times took revenge against them whenever they had the opportunity.” They harassed the new teachers—they had taken their livelihood. This is what is called the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood.” I make my living from something and you are taking my livelihood, my sustenance. Yes? Someone who opens a store—for example, I have a certain store and you open one right next to mine. So in Jewish law there is a claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood.” You are forbidden to open another store here. How does that fit with free competition? Let’s leave that aside for the moment. Maybe it doesn’t fit. But on the plain level in Jewish law that is what is written. If I have a store here—say as long as my prices are reasonable—someone else is forbidden to open another store here and compete with me. That is called “you are cutting off my livelihood.”

Now with teachers it’s the same thing. We have a school, we’ve been teaching here for years, new people come, set up a competing school, everyone moves to them, and we’ve lost our livelihood. “You are cutting off my livelihood”—apparently a good claim. So what says the Chazon Ish? Everyone looks for ice cream, everyone looks for ice cream in an area where they sell ice cream. You see this in areas—for example furniture sales, Herzl Street in Tel Aviv. There are such areas where all the stores of the same type concentrate in one place. Depends. There are places where yes, places where no. No, it doesn’t matter, but in the end more people will buy ice cream if there is a whole cluster of ice cream sellers—that’s the claim. Fine, but never mind, this is an economic question, it’s not really interesting. Economic psychology. We’re talking about something else.

Here: “All their actions would have been clean of sin and iniquity, if the Jewish law had been on their side, that they could prevent the newcomers, and the newcomers would have been sinners in their souls by violating Jewish law, which was said to Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, at Sinai. There would be no prohibition of dispute, no prohibition of evil speech, and no baseless hatred. And here there would be a commanded war to uphold the religion.” If Jewish law had said that there is a claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood” regarding teachers, then there would be no claim whatsoever against the old teachers who go and spread false accusations about the new ones. That’s what Jewish law says. There would be no moral problem with what they are doing; they would be right, fighting the war of religion. Okay?

But now, says the Chazon Ish, Jewish law ruled that “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom”—free competition, but only with teachers, not in commerce. Free competition, because if a number of such schools are set up, then each one competes and wants to be better, and we have an interest in improving education. Therefore, he says, “the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom,” and “this principle is more exalted than the livelihood of private individuals.” This principle overrides the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” which harms the livelihood of private individuals, because there is a public interest that education be as good as possible. And that is Jewish law. Jewish law says in Bava Batra that regarding teachers there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” unlike stores and commerce and the like.

“Thus the visiting newcomers are ruling according to Jewish law, and those who rise against them are shedding innocent blood. And when they hate them in their hearts, they violate ‘do not hate your brother.’ When they speak evil about them, they violate the prohibition of evil speech. When they gather communities for quarrels, they violate ‘do not be like Korach.’ When they take revenge upon them by withholding benefit, they violate ‘do not take revenge.’” Meaning, once Jewish law determined that there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood” regarding teachers, the moral picture flips. Everything the old teachers do against the new ones is perfectly fine—no, not perfectly fine, they are allowed because there is a claim—sorry, no, not at all, on the contrary, it is not okay. Because there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” and you need to compete, so compete like everyone else, and you are forbidden to fight them with evil speech and false accusations and to hurt them and harass them.

So Jewish law determines what the proper moral behavior is. That is basically his claim. “And when they said in the Talmud in Bava Batra there, ‘and Rav Huna agrees regarding teachers of children that one cannot prevent another,’ many moral laws were included in this halakhah, which arise from the results of the halakhah.” Meaning, Jewish law basically turns the moral picture upside down. Come on, you see that he is not willing to accept that morally it is one way and halakhically it is another. No—there is a clash, so what do we do? He says Jewish law doesn’t merely win. Jewish law says what morality really determines. More than merely winning. He says no, it doesn’t win; rather, you didn’t understand morality correctly. True morality is what Jewish law says. That is his claim.

In principle, yes. Now the question is, again, when it is utterly clear to you that this is not moral, and so on—then yes. He says this in many places. Maybe yes, after we have already learned the lesson of the first Akedah. It’s always, always that difference, yes. True morality is what Jewish law determines.

So you see that apparently… you can also see in the continuation of the Chazon Ish’s words that he is not saying that only Jewish law obligates and not morality. He also isn’t saying that we are not obligated to morality at all. What he is saying is that where Jewish law has something to say in the moral context, Jewish law determines what is moral and what is not. Which is apparently the opposite of Rabbi Kook by 180 degrees, with the same basic assumption. The basic assumption says that we are obligated to Jewish law and to morality—that is obvious, it is required for anyone who finds himself in such a conflict. A second assumption, also shared by both of them, is that there has to be overlap. And with that, personally, I disagree—disagree with both of them. On that they both agree, that there must be overlap between Jewish law and morality. From there on they split. Okay, so what do we do when there is a conflict? According to Rabbi Kook, then Jewish law needs to be interpreted. According to the Chazon Ish, morality needs to be interpreted differently. Okay? But the first two assumptions are shared by both of them. Okay, that is basically the claim.

Now what I want to argue against this conception—doesn’t matter which one—is that the shared assumption of both of them—I just don’t want there to be sources here so that… when I need a source I put it on the board. The shared assumption of both of them, in my opinion, is simply not correct. Meaning, Jewish law and morality do not need to overlap—that second assumption. The first assumption shared by both of them, that we are obligated both to Jewish law and to morality, with that I completely agree. And as I said, without that there is no discussion of conflicts; a conflict exists only if I am obligated to both sides. The second assumption shared by Rabbi Kook and the Chazon Ish is that there must also be overlap—not only that we are obligated to both. There cannot be a contradiction between the directives of Jewish law and the directives of morality. That, in my view, is not correct.

Now I’ll try to explain. And here I come to the much-maligned fifth approach. There is a conflict, there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, and I live in the conflict. Now why? What? Wait, and what do we do in practice? We’ll see in a moment. First I want to explain—I did this briefly last time, and I want to explain a little more fully what I mean.

So last time I talked about this. I divided Jewish law into three categories: laws that are moral, that fit morality—“do not steal,” “do not murder,” “honor your father and your mother,” and the like. Laws that oppose morality, like the teachers example here, or killing Amalek—there are a few examples, not actually as many as people paint it, but there are. There are several such examples. And amoral laws, indifferent to morality, not dealing with morality—laws that prohibit pork. It has nothing to do with morality; it is forbidden to eat pork. Okay? Three types.

Now when I approach this question of Jewish law and morality, I actually want not to begin with laws where there is conflict. Everyone deals with that question. I want first to deal with the other two types. And I think that will shed a completely different light on the laws with conflict. So let’s start with the other types.

When I speak about an amoral law—not eating pork, redeeming the firstborn donkey, for example, positive commandments, prohibitions, that are not connected to moral issues—what does that tell us? It tells us, first of all, that Jewish law does not aim only at moral goals. It has additional goals. For the sake of our discussion let’s call them religious goals. Fine? Jewish law has religious goals. Right? And this does not contradict morality at the moment, but in places not connected to morality, Jewish law also has something to say. Unlike morality. Morality has nothing to say about eating pork. Eat it, don’t eat it—it doesn’t matter morally.

Yes, but I’m saying there are those who want to argue this in order to defend the conception that Jewish law comes only to achieve morality. By the way, this too can be found in Rabbi Kook—not only that they are identical, but that there is nothing in Jewish law beyond morality. Rabbi Kook writes this in many places. And then of course we have to arrive at statements such as: if you dig well enough… He even suggests in To the Perplexed of the Generation—he has an earlier work by that name—there he tries to suggest all kinds of explanations for why eating pork is also connected to morality. To my mind these are weak explanations. I think this empties the concept of morality of content somewhat, because it basically says: okay, so everything is morality. That doesn’t help.

No, no, if you say that, then I have no problem. No, I’m talking about the position that says there is nothing but morality, there are no other goals to Jewish law, it only wants morality. Rabbi Kook writes this in several places: basically, it is only the path to the ultimate morality. Okay? Now, that is not moral holiness; in my opinion that is religious holiness. I’m saying it is religious holiness, not moral holiness. No, it does not answer to the moral—that’s my claim.

Look, maybe I’ll give you an example. Rabbi Dessler writes somewhere—I once saw it and then tried to find it again and didn’t really find it—he writes somewhere: after all, there are places where it is permitted to lie according to Jewish law, for the sake of peace, and in three matters Torah scholars lie, basically; in tractate Bava Metzia there is a Talmudic passage that says this. So he says that such a lie is not called a lie at all. Because a lie is something one is forbidden to say, but here this is what you need to say, so it’s not a lie. That statement irritates me. Of course it’s a lie. You can say: fine, there is another value that overrides it. A statement like that is actually parallel to what you said earlier, because it basically empties morality of content. Okay, so pork is morality too and everything is morality—no. Fine, then we’re left with an empty definition.

When I speak of morality I mean what we all understand to be moral directives, okay? Otherwise we empty the discussion of content. Okay, so everything written in Jewish law is morality, that’s it, and then we’ve solved the problem with a definition. What is written in Jewish law is “overridden,” not “permitted.” Meaning, when one value overrides another, that doesn’t mean there are no costs; there are costs. But what can you do? The conflict obligates me to pay that cost for the more important value, okay? We talked about value conflicts. Of course it is not a bad action. No, it’s not a bad action, but it is an action that contains a bad dimension. And when I—no, so I say yes, correct. When you perform surgery and cause the patient pain, I claim that causing the patient pain is bad, but the duty to heal him overrides the prohibition against causing him pain. Yet the fact that you caused him pain is still something problematic. So in the end, of course, that problematic thing is overridden by the duty to save him, all well and good. But there is still a problematic action here. You can’t ignore that.

Likewise with lying. For example, the moral damage to a person’s soul that is caused by lies. Here—since lying is moral damage, to think, as Rabbi Dessler does, that there is some immense moral damage, because it dulls the senses. Okay? No, then it’s just a definition, because you say: yes, it’s a lie, but a white lie has no moral problem at all. That’s the same thing. What’s the difference? It’s just what you call it. I say: a lie causes some kind of distortion in the soul. If you are unaware of this, and you define that thing as not a lie at all or as a white lie with no problem, then there is a distortion here; a distortion is created.

It is like what the Torah says regarding the idolatrous city, when you fulfill the commandment of the idolatrous city: “And He will give you mercy and have mercy on you.” Why? Because when you destroy the idolatrous city you need to understand that you are doing something problematic. True, the Torah says to do it and you need to do it, but you cannot say that what you did was neutral, that there is no problem in killing them and whistling some cheerful marching tune while you kill everyone. No. You are doing something problematic. You need to be aware that there is something problematic here and do it because you must, but you cannot be indifferent to its problematic dimensions. Otherwise you empty the concept of morality of content. You are basically saying: okay, Jewish law is morality, there is no moral dimension; whatever needs to be done according to Jewish law is perfectly smooth, there’s no problem. And to understand that it should hurt you—what you are doing should hurt.

Yes, for example, if you find a way to circumvent that command, circumvent it. If you find some halakhic interpretation that allows you somehow to get around the matter, get around it, find it, because a moral value is being harmed here. If there is no interpretation, then there is no counsel and no wisdom, fine, then you do it. But if there is an interpretation, you should strive as much as you can to uphold the moral value, to minimize the moral harm. There is an interest here, you understand? The moment there is a moral problem, you try to minimize it, work around it. If there is no moral problem, no problem; do whatever you want, everything is fine. In the case of lying too, exactly the same thing. And this is inner work. It is inner work to tell yourself that lying is bad; here I do it because there is a value that overrides it. The bad in this case too—but in this case there is another value that overrides it. A lie is bad, period. The moment you lied, that is bad. Fine, okay.

So for our purposes, the claim in the end is that in the neutral context we see that the commandments have other goals besides moral goals—eating pork and so on. Good. Now I move on. If that is so, then what happens in conflict situations, anti-moral ones? In anti-moral situations my claim is: why do I need to search for a reason why killing Amalek is the moral thing? Or the beautiful captive woman, yes, raping captives—I talked about this last time too—is that the moral solution? No, it’s not the moral solution. It’s blatantly immoral. But the halakhic value overrides the moral problem.

If I already understand that Jewish law has other goals besides moral ones, then there is no principled problem in saying that I haven’t solved the moral problem here. Correct, in this case there is a conflict between the moral value and the halakhic value. And the halakhic value overrides the moral value. After all, there is no principled problem with the existence of conflicts. Conflicts also exist between one moral value and another moral value. So it should not disturb me also when there is a conflict between a religious value and a moral value. There is a conflict, just as there is a conflict between two moral values or two religious values, positive and negative commandments, and all things of that kind. Therefore I do not need to seek any solution at the principled level at all.

Fine, last time I discussed this and showed that there is no problem of incommensurability. The same thing I said there I’ll say here. Now I say: the problem of incommensurability shouldn’t bother us. There is a way to solve the practical problems, but on the principled level this becomes a question of what to do in practice, not something that should trouble me in principle—how can it be that Jewish law is not moral? I say there’s no problem at all. Jewish law aims at religious goals, and religious goals sometimes override moral values. Now the question is what to do in practice. Good question. We talked about conflicts—there are conflicts between two values, and the question is what to do. But that is not a principled problem. The problem of Jewish law and morality is generally perceived as a principled problem: how can it be that Jewish law is not moral? The answer: obviously it can be. Because Jewish law seeks to achieve religious goals, and sometimes this involves things against morality, and that overrides because the Torah tells us that it overrides.

Therefore we should not confuse the principled question—how can it be that Jewish law is not moral?—with the question: okay, but what do I do in practice when there is a clash between a religious value and a moral value? We’ll discuss that in a little while. Fine. I don’t know, I don’t understand, but the Torah tells me that there is such a thing there, and the Torah tells me that there is such a thing there. True—but that’s why we have Torah; Torah tells us what to do.

Think, for example, about the wife of a priest who was raped. This is one of the examples I always bring. A priest’s wife who was raped has to separate from her husband. Now they have children, they love each other, she has already undergone one trauma, and now we put her through another trauma—she has to separate from her husband, and the children have to, I don’t know, be with her or be with him, but it is a whole family trauma. It is clear that this is an immoral thing. You are doing something to people that causes suffering through no fault of their own; she was raped. How can one say that such a thing is really the moral thing? It’s absurd. Clearly it is not moral.

It is clearly a Torah-level law: if a priest’s wife is raped she has to separate from her husband; the family is broken apart. Yes, you cleaned everything up—no need—wait, I don’t know what Rabbi Kook would say; apparently that is what his conception would expect. But I say it is absurd to say that such a thing is moral. Rather what? I say: after all, why does she really have to separate from her husband? The Torah tells us—I don’t know why—but the Torah tells us that if such a woman continues to live with the priest, this somehow desecrates the holiness of the priesthood. It harms the priest’s holiness. Okay? Now there is a value here that is a religious value. It doesn’t belong to morality. The holiness of the priest doesn’t belong to morality; that’s between man and God. No one suffers from it and nothing of the sort. It’s a religious value. Something in the holiness is damaged, I don’t know what, but the Torah told me; that’s what Torah is for. It tells me that it is damaged.

Now I’m in a dilemma, a conflict. On the one hand I need to preserve the value of the priesthood, and on the other hand I do not want to hurt this woman or the family in general. So this is a conflict between a religious value and a moral value. I do not need to search for reasons why this really fits moral rules, because it doesn’t fit. The Torah tells me that in this case I pay in moral currency in order to uphold the religious value. That is what the Torah tells me. There is no principled problem in this; it does not require explanations. We don’t need explanations. That’s what everyone is searching for—wait, maybe I didn’t understand Jewish law correctly, maybe I didn’t understand morality correctly. No. I understood Jewish law very well, I understood morality very well, and they do not need to fit each other. Just as between moral values there isn’t always harmony—there are conflicts between two moral values—so why shouldn’t there be conflicts between moral values and halakhic values? What is the principled problem? What to do is another discussion; in a moment we’ll see. The Torah tells us that the religious value overrides the moral value. Why? I don’t know. That is what the Torah says. I also don’t understand why the religious value says this, but the Torah tells me there is such a religious value and it also tells me that it overrides the moral value.

Yes, there too, there too. About children, yes—children who did nothing, killing a one-month-old baby doesn’t sound to me in line with moral rules. Well, he says once you can say that the existence of such a nation is a moral problem, I don’t know, you can go in some very indirect direction. Indeed the commentators softened this commandment of wiping out Amalek a bit. Maimonides says you first have to offer them peace in war, and if not then you don’t wipe them out. So there are situations where this is moderated. But in principle there does not have to be harmony between Jewish law and morality. This verse—so maybe there there is harmony; that doesn’t matter to me right now. I say: I don’t care, fine, there you’ll find harmony. I say: in principle there does not have to be harmony between Jewish law and morality. There can be conflicts.

You know, some time ago there was a chemist in Jerusalem named Shahak, Israel Shahak. Some professor, very anti-religious. And from time to time he would publish in the newspaper all kinds of provocations against religious people. Among other things he published there some story about religious Jews who passed by and saw a gentile on the Sabbath and did not save him. Or a priest’s wife who had been raped and the rabbis forced them to separate after she had been raped, with heart-rending descriptions of the moral injustice involved. And I had occasion to talk a bit with people about these stories, and everyone tried to twist themselves into explaining why what Jewish law says is terribly moral—and it convinced no one, including the people saying it.

I think the more correct argument goes like this: look, you secular people who criticize this conception are committed to the set of moral values. From your standpoint you are completely right; you are not in conflict. Because you have moral values, and those moral values say not to do such a thing. Now you need to understand that I am committed to moral values exactly like you, not one millimeter less. But in my arsenal of values I have additional values—religious values. And sometimes my commitment to those religious values forces me to pay in moral currency. Just as with you, if there is a clash between two values to which you are committed, sometimes one value will be harmed in favor of the other value.

The only thing is that you do not accept the other values to which I am committed, only the moral values. So you do not understand that I am in conflict. You think I am not committed to morality, but I am committed to morality. I’m just in a conflict. And in a conflict, sometimes one rules in favor of this value and sometimes in favor of that one. Now it is not clever to criticize someone when you believe only in part of his value system. After all, you don’t believe in those values. I am committed to those values. It’s like criticizing soldiers who kill enemy soldiers for disrespecting human life. They are not disrespecting human life; they have no choice. They need to defend their country, so they kill enemy soldiers where that is justified. Okay? It is simply ignoring half the value map.

Now you can tell me: look, I disagree with you, I don’t think the religious values obligate. Fine—that’s another argument. But when you criticize me on my own terms, you have to understand that this does not stem from moral insensitivity. It does not stem from my not being committed to morality as you are. I am committed to morality exactly like you. It’s just that I am committed to additional values, and sometimes they can clash with moral values. So I am in a conflict where you are not in a conflict. And one needs to understand that my behavior does not indicate a lack of commitment to morality. That is the important point here.

And this is also basically—I don’t know—serve God with joy, and be sorry for the moral wrong this causes you to do. That’s not a contradiction. You are happy about it and sad about it. As they say, the decisors say: what does it mean to hate a wicked person? Many decisors talk about this. There is a commandment to hate the wicked, okay? So they say: no, no—hate the wicked dimension within him, but love him as a Jew. There are times even in our emotional dispositions where we make these analytical distinctions. I hate him because of that, but I love him because of something else in him. And I can, and am supposed to be able to, live with both of those emotional states in parallel. You are happy that you are fulfilling God’s commandment, and you are sad that you are committing this moral wrong or this moral problem. It is possible to live with both. It is difficult? Okay.

He understood that killing is not okay even where it is justified. What does “not okay” mean? It is what has to be done, but there is a moral price when you kill human beings. But you always say—the Talmud says that one born under Mars should become a slaughterer or a circumciser, because he has murder in his soul, so let him channel it in appropriate directions. Meaning, there is something cruel even in someone who does things permitted by Jewish law and even commanded. Fine, and there is something cruel in him. He, he, he—no, no, no. He is not deterred by the sight of blood. A normal person should be deterred by the sight of blood—both the blood of a baby’s circumcision and the blood of slaughtering, which is permitted according to Jewish law, and in the Temple even a commandment. Okay, fine. But there is still something cruel here, and one needs to be careful that this cruelty does not enter into the action. This means that morality has independent standing. Even when it is overridden by Jewish law, that still doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It is “overridden,” not “permitted.” Meaning, it is overridden by Jewish law, not that it disappears and there is no such thing and Jewish law says the opposite.

What I basically want to say is that in anti-moral laws I am exempt from searching for moral explanations or interpreting Jewish law differently. No, there doesn’t need to be harmony. It doesn’t have to be there, at least. When I don’t find harmony, then there isn’t any. There’s no need to play games and sell yourself stories: no, no, lying is wonderful and murder is marvelous and there is no problem, this is the highest morality. No. It is not the highest morality. But the halakhic value overrides the moral value. What can you do?

Wait, I’m already… you’re now bringing me to the third category that we haven’t covered yet. In the meantime I talked about amoral laws, where I showed that there are religious goals to Jewish law, not only moral goals. I moved to anti-moral laws and said that in light of what we saw in the amoral laws, in anti-moral laws we are not obligated to search for explanations that reconcile Jewish law with morality. It may be that this aims at a religious goal, that aims at a moral goal, and sometimes one comes at the expense of the other. What happens now in moral laws? That’s what you’re asking. In laws that do fit morality—“do not steal,” “do not murder,” “honor your father and mother.” Wait, now I’m talking about the rational commandments.

The rational commandments are the commandments in which there is harmony. I claim that even there there is no harmony. Even there, too, there is complete independence. Okay? I’ll give you an example. They ask: with Cain, after all, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “Where is Abel your brother?” “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” There had not yet been a command, right? So how was he supposed to know that murder is forbidden? Morality, right? Not connected to Jewish law; there was not yet Jewish law, there had not yet been a command. But morality was already a basic demand; he was supposed to recognize it, right?

Now if that is so, why does the Torah command about murder? We knew that even before. Why does the Torah need to command about murder? The answer: in order to tell me that when you murder, it is not only a moral problem; it is also a religious problem. If there had been no command concerning murder, I would still know that murder is forbidden, but I would think this is a moral obligation of every person. The Torah tells you: know that if you murder, this is not only a moral problem, it is also a religious problem. It adds the religious layer to that problem.

Now look at the implication. The Talmud in Sanhedrin discusses, in several passages in Sanhedrin and elsewhere, what happens if someone murders indirectly—constriction, bringing the object close to the fire, bringing the fire close to the object, the sun will eventually come, constriction, all kinds of ways of killing in an indirect causation or another. And there are cases where he is exempt and cases where he is liable. Now understand: in all of these cases the man is equally a murderer in the moral sense. What difference does it make whether he ties a person in a place where in the end the fire will get there and burn him, or the sun will dry him out to death, as opposed to shooting him in the head? In the end he does an act that clearly causes a person to die, only he does it like this. Exactly. So everyone struggles greatly with this matter: after all, it is clear that on the moral level he is a murderer in every respect. Completely. He performs an action that certainly brings about murder with no problem, only he does it like this. Of course there is a difference. What? No, no, no, no. He is definitely going to die. “The sun will eventually come.” It will definitely come, yes, definitely dead. That’s it.

And I claim: why should there be a difference? Your question is a question in the moral domain. You are right—in the moral domain there is no difference; he is equally a murderer. But the religious problem in its full sense—there is a religious problem also in that case—the full religious problem is absent; there is only the moral problem. And that is a very important point. Meaning, one needs to understand: all the explanations that try to explain there why really this is a less severe murder and so on—again, unnecessary explanations. He is not a less severe murderer on the moral level; it is the same thing. On the… religious level. The religious problem does not exist, or exists to a lesser degree, if you do it indirectly or with your left hand or by bending the stalk before the fire or by constriction or by I don’t know what—all kinds of things of that sort. Fine, in the religious sense it is different, because you need to do it directly with your own hands in order to violate the full religious problem. If you do not do it directly by hand, then the full religious problem is absent. There is probably some religious problem too, but not the full religious problem. But morally you are fully a murderer.

How do we learn? Each place according to its own source, not important right now. No, no—not everything that doesn’t appear explicitly in the Torah comes from itself. Sometimes there are expositions, things in verses, all kinds of things. Not from themselves; we learn them from the verses. What do you mean? Even if it isn’t written explicitly, we learn it from the verses. There is a verbal analogy, there are general and particular rules, I don’t know what, all kinds of hermeneutic principles by which the Torah is expounded. Okay, fine. So some of these things do appear.

And regarding some of these other things, the claim is that there is intuition also regarding religious values. There too there is intuition about what exists, what is right and what is not right. Not only moral intuition. There is also intuition regarding questions like the laws of ritual impurity and purity or sacred offerings. It seems completely detached from our everyday life. Why would we have intuition there? But there is such intuition. Anyone who studies sacred offerings and purity sees that all the time we have intuition: this is the right way to define it, this is not the right way to define it. There are no verses. You have a sense, you understand from the verses, from the sugyot, from the discussions, what is right and what is not right. There are intuitions also in domains that are not moral. That is what turns out.

Correct. Punishment in court is punishment for the religious problem. The moral punishment is either in the heavenly court, or sometimes courts punish not according to strict law if you deviated severely from morality, even if Jewish law in principle does not obligate you; the court administers punishments beyond the strict law. No, that’s not what the Talmud says. There it’s talking about concealed damage—exempt. Exempt for that reason. That’s something else. One who causes damage indirectly—let me just ask you—one who causes damage indirectly? He opens the dam and the water floods his fellow’s field. Indirect causation. Exempt. Exempt in human courts and liable in the heavenly court. Why? Doesn’t he have to pay? Yes, of course. Intentionally. No—indirect causation. Indirect causation in damages is exempt. Morally he damaged, halakhically he is exempt. And therefore that is what the Talmud says: exempt in human courts and liable in the heavenly court. There are medieval authorities who say he is obligated to discharge his duty before Heaven, and there are medieval authorities who say he must actually pay in the heavenly court—pay the money. But it is not in human courts, it is in the heavenly court. No, because the court does not extract it from him. He is obligated to pay. The Holy One, blessed be He, will exact it from him. What? No, not because you can’t… no, no. Indirect causation in damages is exempt. Not because it can’t be proven. Indirect causation in damages is exempt. What about principal categories of damage? I’m talking about indirect causation, not principal damages, that’s something else. It’s written and established. What? I’m talking about indirect causation—why does that matter? You’ve caused someone damage. Forget the moral problem—pay him! What do you mean? But no, you are not obligated to pay. Indirect causation in damages is exempt in human courts, liable in the heavenly court. There, we’ve done it. Obviously. Good luck on your rabbinical court exams coming up. Look in Bava Kamma page 60 at length, at the beginning of the chapter HaKones, page 60. At the beginning of the chapter HaKones, at great length. Yes.

Basically what I’m claiming—understand—is that the commands of the Torah from all three categories, all the commands of the Torah, are really intended to deal only with the religious dimension. Jewish law has no philosophical concern with the moral domain. Even in commandments connected to morality, the so-called moral, rational commandments, I claim that even there the halakhic command does not deal with morality. No—Bava Kamma, the beginning of the chapter HaKones. A bit before page 60, it’s 58. You’re welcome. If you merely redirect it, you did nothing. If you do nothing, then you are obligated in nothing. Not rescuing—“do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood”—there is no punishment.

Intuition everywhere is very, very problematic, but it’s what we have. If all we have is reason, then even in moral intuitions too you sometimes have disagreements between people. Fine, so what? That said—yes, so what is the claim? Fine, but also in applications of values, in applications of moral values, what difference does it make whether the argument is about the application? There too, I don’t think it should be applied that way. So why should I do it? What difference does it make? Why should I care? What difference does it make? Your question exists there too. Why should I implement this application? I don’t think it’s the correct application. You can always ask that. Whenever there are disagreements—and in Jewish law there are no disagreements? So that’s it, what can be done? Why should I do this? I don’t agree with you. Why should I do it? You can ask that always. What can you do? There are disagreements.

No problem—then in morality too don’t do it. Correct. Correct, correct. Therefore I ask: what is your question? It’s like this in morality, it’s like this in Jewish law, it’s like this everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere the same thing. No, it’s not a strange explanation, because that’s what I’m showing you—that it behaves this way in all domains. Here too you behave like this. What is strange about that? What is the problem? If it doesn’t convince you, you won’t do it, fine. Also in Jewish law, not in morality and not in anything else. So what? Correct. No, it’s not absurd. And you say it’s absurd and I’m telling you it isn’t absurd, even if you understand it that way. What’s absurd about it? In morality you accept it? No, you don’t share it. No, you don’t share it. No, since the disagreement is about the application, and regarding the application I ask you: why should I do it if I don’t agree with you? Why should I care what the disagreement is about? No! I’m not talking… I’m not talking… Understand, I heard you, but I’m telling you again: what difference does it make whether I disagree about the values or about the applications? Your claim exists even if I disagree about the applications. Since if I don’t agree with you on the application, then why should I do it? Is that strange to you? No, why is that okay? Why? Why is it okay? I disagree with you about the application. There it is okay—why? Why? Yes, why? We are partners? So right, right, we are partners and we disagree about the application. Correct. Now why should I do it? Wait, excuse me, just a second. I am asking you too: if I disagree about the application, is it okay or is it absurd that I don’t do it? That I don’t do what you say, because I don’t agree with you about the application in morality. Is that okay or absurd? It’s okay. So why is disagreeing about the values not okay—why is that absurd? Explain it to me. What’s the difference? Why? Why? Why? It’s the same thing. What can you do?

And someone who doesn’t see is blind, so he doesn’t see—so what? So what? No, it doesn’t obligate anyone if he truly doesn’t see. No, it proves nothing. It proves nothing. Because if he doesn’t see, he is genuinely coerced, so what happened? Exactly like a blind person. What’s the problem? That’s all. What’s the problem? Correct, exempt—he should be. He’s under compulsion if he doesn’t fulfill it. Not exempt in the sense that he should; he is coerced if he doesn’t fulfill it. Obviously, no doubt. Correct. Therefore he is coerced. Listen, therefore he is coerced. That’s all, what’s the problem? What troubles you? Correct, if he doesn’t see it, then he is coerced, what’s the problem? Exactly like a blind person. What difference does it make, this… yes, yes. That’s not the situation. Even if it were the situation, then everyone would be coerced. That’s the answer. Why not? There is! You think there isn’t but there is. Apparently you’ve never learned this issue; I recommend that you get into it and you’ll see—there are religious intuitions there, intuitions at every step. In the discussions of sacred offerings and purity, without intuitions you cannot move a word in any learning, also in sacred offerings and purity. There are also appearances. I’m telling you, I’m sure of it. Tractate Zevachim, tractate Menachot, tractate Temurah—there is an order of sacred offerings in the Talmud.

No, I claim not. The command says there is a religious problem here in addition to the moral problem. It does not come to strengthen the moral problem. It comes to say: besides the moral problem there is also a religious problem here. And for example there really is non-overlap between them. There are situations in which you will do the thing and there will be a moral problem but no religious problem. The opposite could also happen, by the way, that there will be a religious problem and no moral problem. Maybe. I claim not. I know that for most people it’s like that, and I claim a different religious position. I claim that the halakhic command deals only with the religious layer. It has no contact with the moral layer. The moral layer remains as it is.

The conclusion with which I’ll finish: “Jewish morality” is an oxymoron. There is no such thing as Jewish morality; there is morality, period. Morality by definition is universal. Torah does not deal with morality—the halakhic parts of the Torah do not deal with morality. It is universal. Whatever morality obligates obligates all human beings, not only Jews. There is nothing special about the Jew. If it is a moral thing, it obligates all human beings. Like Cain regarding murder. Jewish law is the specifically Jewish, particular thing that obligates Jews and not others. Therefore I say there is no such thing as Jewish morality; there is Jewish law and there is morality. And morality obligates all human beings. That is basically what I’m saying.

I don’t think so; it seems to me factually. I’m not sure of it, but no, I’m not sure of it. No, no, obviously the questions are independent, but I also think that on the factual level I’m not sure. I don’t think Israeli society is more moral than comparable societies in the world. I’m not sure. And the whole world lies in situations of wartime need. Why do you need the whole world? Why do we need commands? Whatever the world does by moral judgment, I too will do by moral judgment. Why do I need the Torah for that? There are halakhic commands. Halakhic commands. And then you claim—what I already know anyway. And then I argue back: not true, because you see that different nations are moral in their own eyes; they have a different concept of morality. So I’ll answer you what I answered you before. The fact that there is disagreement does not mean we cannot know what to do. It means one side is right and the other is wrong. And the proof is that there are disagreements in Jewish law too. So the fact that the Torah says something still doesn’t mean that now we know what to do. About that too we’ll argue. So what does it help?

I’ll explain: if there is such a need, it is not answered, because even after the command we still argue in exactly the same way. No, it is not answered. The disagreements in Jewish law are greater than the disagreements about morality. More extreme. In morality the disagreements are at the margins. In Jewish law the disagreements are extreme—much more so. Very extreme. The co-wife of one’s daughter is permitted, the co-wife of one’s daughter is forbidden. There are disagreements. There is nothing in Jewish law without disagreement. So? What then? Why does Jewish law help you solve problems over which you argue in morality and can’t know what to do? In Jewish law you won’t know any better what to do. There are always disagreements. So what? Jewish law solves no problem. Correct? Obviously. Therefore I say: the existence of disagreements—you keep returning to this all the time—the existence of disagreements doesn’t trouble me. There’s that in Jewish law and there’s that in morality. Right? So what happened? It is still religious despite the disagreements.

I don’t know from the Torah that it is forbidden to eat pork. You don’t have the faintest moral sense for that. Wait, one second. You have no religious intuition about that. Right, because there isn’t any. There just isn’t. Look—there isn’t. Once there is a prohibition against eating pork and you study the sugya, you will see that you do have intuition about how to apply it correctly, where yes and where no. But you won’t derive the prohibition of pork from intuition. Fine, that’s what I call a secondary intuition. Anyone who studies these sugyot knows this. Yes.

The question is whether morality—I am not claiming there are no disagreements about morality. I’m not claiming that. I’m also not at all sure, by the way, that the Nazis really disagreed in the moral domain, or whether they were simply evil. The question is how to understand the Nazi mind: did they really think differently, in which case from our point of view they were coerced, or did they really understand that it was wrong but, I don’t know, somehow brainwashed themselves? I have no way of knowing that. But that there are disagreements in the moral domain is obvious; nobody disputes that. Of course there are.

No, no, they do not overlap in morality; they overlap in Jewish law. Because “for you were strangers”—who says that is a moral reason? That is a religious reason. If you were strangers, then you need to honor strangers, apart from the moral reason. Right? Correct, but what people say is that this comes to say “do not murder” because murder disgusts you. What is that? Is it moral? No, I claim not. I claim there is a moral prohibition, and the Torah adds the religious prohibition. When you were a stranger in the land of Egypt and now you mistreat the stranger despite having been a stranger in the land of Egypt, besides the moral problem there is also a religious problem. That’s all.

Meaning there is a double value here? Yes. And it sounds that way because here there is overlap with the moral value. Of course. There is overlap between the religious value and the moral value, that’s all. That doesn’t mean it is a purely religious value. Many, many things in the Torah have obligations on the religious side that are also obligations on the moral side. Listen, it’s simple. Why does the Torah need to tell us? Of course it needs to tell us. Of course the Torah needs to add the religious value. The religious value is an intrinsic value; the moral value is a functional value. It’s simple—to say that there is an additional religious prohibition beyond the fact that it is immoral, and that’s all. We do this all the time.

It doesn’t come, or we don’t always implement it; that law too we don’t always implement. Ecologically, in principle this world is not ownerless. Well, I don’t know what “completely ownerless” means, and there is in it a moral obligation, and the Torah adds to it a religious value in the prohibition of needless destruction. That’s all, very simple. What do you mean “they don’t claim it”? The position I presented here is my own position. It is not the standard position.