Topics in Halakhic Thought – Lecture 13

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time I started dealing with the question of religion and morality, or Jewish law and morality, Torah and morality, and the point of departure, or really the motivation for getting into this issue, was what we saw in Derashot HaRan, in sermon 11, where he talks about two goals that the Torah has… normative goals that the Torah has. One of them is the goal of applying the divine matter, meaning, let’s say, the religious goals, and the commandments and the laws are basically about that, the application of the divine matter. And the legal system that deals with this is the system of the courts under the Sanhedrin. Alongside that there is another normative system whose purpose is political order, as it’s called, or social justice, or a proper society, and that is handled by the king. And this distinction of Ran is really not just a distinction between two governmental systems, between the judicial branch and the executive branch, because under the executive branch there is also a judicial branch, the king’s law. It too is conducted through courts, so there are really two legal systems. But beyond that, it’s also not just a distinction between two legal systems, two governmental-legal systems, but a distinction between two different categories, two different normative categories. There is a category called Jewish law, and there is a category called the king’s law, which is administered in the king’s courts, but still there is some kind of law book here. The law book of these two systems is different, not just the authorities that deal with them. Okay? The law book is different. Here it’s the law book of Jewish law in the court system, and with the king it is the king’s law. Where do the norms of the king’s law come from? Morality, justice, logic, common sense. Of course this is a universal matter shared by all the nations of the world; the king’s law and the laws of foreign nations are basically more or less the same thing. And then I said that this model, or this logic that Ran assumes, is really a logic of commitment to two parallel, different normative systems, simultaneously, and I am obligated to both of them. And that itself is a new logical basis, or at least a different one from the accepted one, for describing the relationship between Jewish law and morality. And then I said that with Jewish law and morality, you can identify morality with Jewish law, you can identify Jewish law with morality, and you can see these two categories as two independent categories, where Jewish law aims at religious goals and morality aims at regulating social life and proper administration, the management of life. So what this distinction basically does is cast a somewhat different light on the question of collision between Jewish law and morality, or between Torah and morality. And I said that if we adopt this conception that emerges from Ran — and I think it’s a very reasonable and necessary conception — and not only that, but the fact that people don’t see it that way is simply a result of what I called the historical accident, the loss of the monarchy and the concentration of all powers in the court, so that today we are already captive to the conception that everything is under Jewish law and everything is judged in court. But the truth is that these are two independent systems, and the external system is not a matter for Jewish law at all. It has no connection to Jewish law. It is a secular system — secular in the sense that it is responsible for ordinary life, not secular in the sense that it is detached from the Holy One, blessed be He, but secular in the sense that it is responsible for ordinary life, while Jewish law is responsible for religious life, let’s put it that way. And once we grasp… the relationship between the systems in that way, it resolves in one stroke all these dilemmas and tensions between Jewish law and morality. Because what I want to claim on that basis is that Jewish law does not aim at moral goals at all, and therefore there is no reason to be surprised that certain laws seem immoral. They achieve non-moral goals, since they are trying to achieve something entirely different. They are not meant to take care of morality; they are meant to take care of something else. Sometimes that can lead to something that contradicts moral rules. In exactly the same way, moral rules, because they aim to achieve moral goals, can lead us to steps that contradict Jewish law, because their goal is a moral goal, whereas the steps of Jewish law do not aim at a moral goal but at applying the divine matter, the religious goals. And because of that, it sounds strange to treat such a picture as a solution to the contradiction between Jewish law and morality, because what I’m really doing here is taking the question mark and stretching it — turning it into an exclamation mark. Right? I’m basically saying: true, there is a difference, there is a contradiction between the two things, and I live with it in peace. The point is that not only do I live with it in peace — to say I live with it peacefully is a psychological statement. I’m not talking about living with it in psychological peace; I’m talking about living with it in philosophical peace. What does that mean? It means that this kind of double life contains no contradiction at all. It is not a logical contradiction. It is completely reasonable and possible, and even expected — in other words, it’s exactly what one should expect. What it does create, though, is a conflict. A conflict means that it creates a difficulty for me in deciding what to do in practice. Let’s say morality tells me not to kill an Amalekite baby, and Jewish law tells me yes, to kill an Amalekite baby. So now you say: well, there’s a contradiction; that’s the problem of Jewish law and morality. I claim there is no contradiction whatsoever. In order to achieve the application of the divine matter, you have to kill Amalekite babies. But in order to achieve moral goals, or to behave morally, you may not kill Amalekite babies. Why is there any contradiction here? What’s the problem? There is no contradiction here at all. Rather, there is a conflict. Why? Because in the end I have to decide whether I do kill them or I don’t kill them. The practical decision is really asking which goal prevails — the religious goal or the moral goal, or the religious value or the moral value. But that is not a contradiction; it’s a conflict. Like in the example of chocolate that I gave, where there is a debate whether to eat chocolate or not: one person says eat chocolate because it’s tasty, and the other says don’t eat it because it’s fattening. Who is right? They are both right. There is no contradiction between what they are saying; it is both tasty and fattening. So now to say that I myself hold both views — this is not a debate between two people, I myself am now deliberating — and I think that it is both tasty and fattening. Am I living in contradiction? Of course not. I am living in the real reality in which chocolate is both tasty and fattening. The only thing is that this creates a problem for me on the practical plane, because on the practical plane I have to decide whether to eat it or not. Considerations of taste tell me to eat it; considerations of health tell me not to eat it. So here I am in conflict, but it is not a contradiction.

[Speaker B] But isn’t there an issue here, say, if that same person holds that these two systems come from the same source? For example, as you mentioned at the end of the previous lecture, both came from the Torah, both are in some sense God’s will. It’s just that one is the application of the divine matter and the other is morality. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suppose the Holy One, blessed be He, told me that He requires me to be healthy and also requires me to enjoy life. What, He can’t require both things of me?

[Speaker B] He can, but it sounds like that puts you into a certain contradiction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It puts me into a conflict, not into a contradiction. That’s exactly the point. There is no contradiction at all between those two demands.

[Speaker B] I’m not making the distinction. I just don’t make the distinction between, say, having two things that belong to the same framework that put me in conflict, and something that lies between two different frameworks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. It’s a conflict and not a contradiction in both cases. There can be a conflict between a religious value and a moral value; there can be a conflict between one moral value and another moral value. In both cases these are conflicts and not contradictions. And therefore I think this solves the problem of Jewish law and morality perfectly. That doesn’t mean that now I’ll know what to do in every such situation; I have a problem of decision, but that is not a contradiction. A contradiction means that on the principled level you cannot be committed to two things because they contradict each other. And my claim is that there is no obstacle whatsoever to being committed to both of these systems. On the contrary, not only is there no obstacle, we are actually required to be. Okay, so we have to deal with it, but that is a practical problem, not a contradiction. Okay, the problems of Jewish law and morality are not practical problems. The question there is not how to behave in practice. The question is how can it be that the Torah commands me to do something immoral? That is the problem of Jewish law and morality. And my answer is: what’s the problem? The Torah commands me to do this in order to achieve the divine matter, regardless of the moral goals that the Torah also expects of me. Two different things. It’s just that the moral goals are not a matter of Jewish law. The moral goals are “and you shall do what is upright and good,” and that is not part of Jewish law. We talked about this last time. But still, the Torah expects both this and that from me. And if I came to my son or to someone, to a student or whoever, and I said to him, “I expect you to take care of your health as much as possible; besides that, I expect you to enjoy life as much as you can.” Now he’ll deliberate whether to eat chocolate or not. So I haven’t given him the tools to know what to do in that dilemma, which is why it’s a conflict, but there is no contradiction at all between the two instructions I gave him. He can be committed to both, and one does not contradict the other. There is no difficulty in saying it. You can’t tell me, “You can’t require him to enjoy life — after all, he’s forbidden to eat chocolate.” I can require him to enjoy life and at the same time require him to be healthy, and if he finds himself in conflict, let him solve it as he sees fit. Yes, did someone want to comment?

[Speaker C] Yes, according to the… really, say according to that verse, “and you shall do what is upright and good,” then let’s say according to the Torah, according to the Torah’s way of thinking, right? So what is good? Who decides what is good and what is not good? Morality, right? Yes, but I… so until today I understood that according to the Torah’s way of thinking there is, as it were… there are things that, say, the Torah doesn’t address, and then indeed according to that there is common sense. But things that the Torah does address — what the Torah says to do is good, and what the Torah says not to do is not good. Not at all. I’m talking according to the Torah itself, according to its own view. No, no. So basically what you’re saying is that the Torah says there is something that is not good, but do it anyway? Correct. Yes. Right. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not good, but do it because there’s no choice; in order to achieve the religious goals, you have to pay in moral currency.

[Speaker C] But why doesn’t that make it good, if there is some goal here and that goal… because morality also depends on the situation. Let’s say killing, the example of killing. There are situations where killing is good, right? There are such situations in the world where killing is good. No, there is no such thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are situations where one is required to kill because I need to save myself. Killing is never good. Killing is always bad. But sometimes I have no choice. In order to save myself, I have to kill the one who is threatening me. That doesn’t make it good, absolutely not. It is my right in order to save myself, that’s all. I’ll give you a better example. Look, I spoke about a priest’s wife who was raped, and I said that this is one of the problems of Jewish law and morality, because a priest’s wife who was raped must separate from her husband. Now she went through trauma, she was raped. She loves her husband, the husband loves her, they have children, they all love each other, they want to stay together. Jewish law demands that they separate, that the family be broken up. Not only did she undergo trauma, they now put her through more trauma — her and the family, more trauma. But that’s what Jewish law requires: that a priest’s wife who was raped separate from her husband. Now you can come and say that if Jewish law requires it, then apparently that is the good thing — but that’s nonsense. Obviously it is not good. The concept of “good” is a concept that we understand perfectly well. There are no scriptural decrees on the question of what is good and what is not good. Good or not good is something we understand very well through our moral intuition. Every non-Jew knows what is good even without studying Torah, and is also expected to behave well. Therefore the Torah too assumes that people know what is good. When the Torah says “and you shall do what is upright and good,” it doesn’t specify what the upright and good is, because it is obvious to it that we all understand what that is. So what does that mean? It means that when she has to separate from her husband because the application of the divine matter, meaning the indwelling of the Divine Presence in the people of Israel, requires preserving the holiness of the priesthood, and apparently a woman who was raped somehow damages the holiness of the priesthood, then therefore they must separate. Not that I understand why, but that’s what the Torah says. Okay? So I’m claiming that in order to achieve the indwelling of the Divine Presence, I have to do something immoral, something that harms people, without anyone else really gaining anything from it in the ordinary human moral sense. I harm them in order to cause the Divine Presence to dwell in Israel, or in order not to impair the holiness of the priesthood. But damaging the holiness of the priesthood is a religious transgression; it is not a… But for that purpose we definitely have to pay in moral currency. The action we are doing is problematic on the moral level. Those are two different things. Any other solution, any other explanation of this dilemma, is just word laundering. Right? There are those who will tell us — yes, I mentioned the other two approaches — what will they say? Those who identify Jewish law with morality will say, what do you mean, it can’t be that Jewish law requires a priest’s wife who was raped to separate; you’ve misunderstood, because that is plainly immoral. That’s one possibility. A second possibility: there are those who will tell us, no, what do you mean — what is the meaning of morality anyway? Jewish law has spoken; there is no such thing as morality. What Jewish law says, that is what obligates, and there is nothing beyond it. The apologists will go even further and say that if the Torah says they must separate, that proves that this is the higher divine morality, which of course none of us understands — why that is moral, how it could possibly be moral, if it only harms people and no one else gains from it. But they will say that. Word laundering — no problem.

[Speaker C] But we do have other examples in the world of things that at one time seem moral and at another time don’t seem moral. Morality changes, after all. That’s not relevant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not relevant to the issue. Obviously morality can change between situations. On the contrary, that means morality doesn’t change — it’s just that the same morality in a different situation demands different behavior from me.

[Speaker C] I’m talking about understanding morality across different generations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that doesn’t advance our understanding of morality in any way. Give me the situation and I’ll tell you what is moral to do in that situation. There is nothing hidden in morality. Morality is a simple thing. Any ordinary person understands it. And it depends on the situation, true, and any ordinary person understands that it depends on the situation. Any ordinary person understands that it is very moral to give money to someone if he is in need. But any ordinary person also understands that if he will use that money to buy drugs, then it’s not a good idea to give it to him. You don’t need verses in the Torah for that. Obviously morality is situation-dependent. That’s elementary. So what? But that doesn’t mean we don’t understand what is moral. Give me the situation and I’ll tell you what is moral to do in that situation. And in the situation of a priest’s wife who was raped, nobody will say that it is moral. But in the same

[Speaker C] situation, something that seems moral to me now, five hundred years ago could have been completely different.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morality is something that develops, right? Anything is possible, but I know today what is considered moral.

[Speaker C] No, it’s not just possible, it happens, it’s a fact. There are things people used to do — slavery, for example.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Slavery was entirely moral in the world back then, and today it isn’t. That’s right, yes? The fact is that people conceive of morality in different ways in different times and places. There is no fact here that there are several different moral principles. The fact you described is a descriptive fact: that there are people who think different thoughts about morality in different periods. One is wrong and the other is right. That’s all. It is no fact at all about moral pluralism. I know of no such facts.

[Speaker C] I understand. That’s why I’m saying it doesn’t seem so problematic to say that maybe here there really is something moral, even though it doesn’t seem moral to us, because we know this happens often — that there are people and situations where things seem moral and in the end it turns out they were mistaken. So I have no problem saying maybe here I’m mistaken too, as we know people often are.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, that happens very rarely, not often at all — very rarely, that’s one thing. Second, it’s not interesting. It’s not interesting because as far as I’m concerned, a judge has only what his eyes can see. I make my moral decisions according to my own perceptions. And if that changes in the future, or if I’m mistaken, maybe. But nobody is going to tell me that hitting someone is moral because maybe I don’t understand what morality is. I do understand what morality is, and hitting someone is not moral. That’s all. And now you can always hang things on all kinds of hidden factors that nobody understands and that have no logic to them whatsoever. So I say instead: be intellectually straightforward, and say that the goals for which Jewish law is intended are not moral goals; they are religious goals. The holiness of the priesthood is not a moral goal. Why identify those two things? It is a religious goal. A society that does not preserve the holiness of the priesthood is not a morally defective society. It can function wonderfully on the moral level. It is defective in the religious sense. It is not fulfilling its religious obligations or not achieving its religious goals. That’s all. And I think this is terribly simple. You don’t need all these contortions and squaring the circle that people do in order to reconcile all these things, and resort to some kind of higher morality that nobody understands. There is no higher morality, and we all understand exactly what morality is, very well indeed, and everyone knows that separating a woman… that is not moral. But one must pay in the coin of immorality in order to achieve the religious goals. That’s all — so simple. I perform surgery on a person, I cause him pain; there’s no choice, I have to cause him pain in order to heal him. Someone threatens me with a gun and I kill him — is it good to kill him? Absolutely not, but it’s necessary, what can you do? Otherwise he’ll kill me. Murder is bad, period. It’s not… I also don’t see any reason to do all these interpretive contortions when there is such a simple and natural solution. So why? Why assume all kinds of higher moralities that no one understands and no one even believes in? Why assume them if there’s no need?

[Speaker E] But Rabbi, then you’ve just replaced the question from “why is this moral” to “why do I need this, why do I have this need in order to do the immoral act so as to…”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not the same thing. The first was a difficulty; the second is a question. Do you understand the difference? There are things I don’t understand, but there are things I understand cannot be. The first is a question, the second is an objection. The Holy One, blessed be He, tells me: look, for the sake of the divine matter — yes, for the sake of the religious goals — it is necessary to separate the woman who was raped from her priestly husband. Now I don’t understand why that is, but if the Holy One, blessed be He, told me that that is what is needed, then He presumably knows, and presumably there is some spiritual matter that is corrected if one behaves that way, and damaged if one does not separate them. There is no difficulty in that at all. The fact that I don’t understand — there are many things I don’t understand. Do you understand why we put on tefillin? Do you understand why, I don’t know, we don’t eat pork, or why the blood is dashed when a sacrifice is brought? No. But the Torah tells me that this is the right thing to do because this is what gets the job done. No problem — I trust the Torah. If this is what gets the job done, that’s what I’ll do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to reverse my concepts for myself. I’m not going to decide that all this belongs to morality. It has nothing to do with morality. What connection does it have to morality? Again, I don’t see any reason to force the issue. Even if you succeed in finding some strained escape hatch, some strange way out, and scriptural decrees and things we don’t understand and higher divine morality and all that nonsense that even those who say it don’t understand — why do we need to get there? There is absolutely no need. There is a simple and natural solution. That’s all. There is no contradiction whatsoever.

[Speaker F] How do you define contradiction, Rabbi? Contradiction?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] X and not-X. What do you mean, how do I define contradiction?

[Speaker F] No, you once explained the distinction between contradiction and conflict. You said that this is specifically a conflict and not a contradiction. You gave the example with chocolate. With chocolate, you said it was specifically a conflict. So I’m asking: when would something count as a contradiction?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When they say the chocolate is healthy and the chocolate is not healthy. Even that, by the way, isn’t really a contradiction, because maybe it’s healthy for brain activity but unhealthy because it adds fat. But if they tell me, no, it both adds fat and does not add fat — that’s a contradiction. There’s no such thing. If one is true, then the other is not true. Okay, all right? Here there is no contradiction at all. Both can be true; it just creates a conflict for me on the practical plane. Okay, fine. By the way, these mistakes are so common in postmodern thinking, for example. They constantly mix this up. This is the ABC of the analytical distinction between two laws. Once there are two laws, people say: aha, then there is a multiplicity of truths. There is no multiplicity of truths. There are two aspects of the truth, both of which are true. That’s all.

[Speaker C] There are two aspects of the truth, and “a multiplicity of truths” sounds to me like two ways of saying the same thing, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, absolutely not. Because two truths would mean that this is right and its opposite is also right—that’s a logical contradiction. But to say that these are two different laws, that’s not a logical contradiction. After all, when I say, for example, that a person is obligated to pay when his property causes damage—yes, the later authorities (Acharonim) investigate this—whether the obligation is because he was negligent in guarding it, or whether the very fact that it is his property obligates him to pay. So you can say either this is correct or that is correct. You can also say that both together are correct—that these are two separate laws. You need both: that it is his property and that he was negligent in guarding it, in order to obligate me to pay. When I say that both are true together, I’m not saying there is a multiplicity of truths. I’m saying there is one truth composed of the sum of two aspects. What’s the problem? Very often there are complex pictures. Complex pictures are not a multiplicity of truths; complex pictures are one truth, one truth that is complex. To say there are multiple truths means to say that it is also correct to say that only negligence in guarding obligates, and it is also correct to say that only ownership obligates. But that’s a logical contradiction—that’s nonsense. But if I say that in order to obligate, you need both things, both negligence in guarding and ownership, what’s the problem? That’s one truth made up of two aspects. There’s no problem with that at all. Most truths are like that; in our world very few truths are simple, and that’s perfectly fine. Okay, in any case, what I actually want to claim is—I’ll perhaps formulate it from a different direction. I’ll start—look, I once saw in Michtav MeEliyahu by Rabbi Dessler that he says that when a person lies for the sake of peace, for example—and that’s one of the reasons one is permitted to lie—then it’s not a lie at all. Because a lie is speech that one is forbidden to say, but here he is doing something that is permitted and even should be said, so it isn’t called a lie. Now, of course that’s semantics, but as far as I’m concerned that’s an outrageous definition. It’s an outrageous definition because a lie is a lie. A lie is a deviation from the truth. That’s a lie. It’s just that sometimes there are situations in which one must lie. Fine, okay—but that doesn’t turn it into not a lie; that’s just word laundering. Of course you can also call religious values moral values and put them all under the same basket and everything is fine. We laundered the words, solved all the problems—but you solved nothing, you just changed the name. Because we are not dealing here with moral values in the ordinary sense of the concept of morality. So you’re just changing the concept and calling that too morality. What did you gain? It still isn’t moral value in the ordinary sense. Same thing here with truth: a lie is a lie because it is a deviation from the truth. Sometimes one has to lie. I’ll say more than that: I’m not even willing to say there is no moral problem with such a lie. There is a moral problem with such a lie. But there is no choice—I have to pay in the coin of that moral problem in order to gain a more important moral benefit. Meaning, not only do I disagree with him on the factual definition of a lie—that a lie is a deviation from the truth—but I say more than that, also on the evaluative definition. Meaning, I’m not willing—every deviation from the truth is flawed. Every deviation from the truth is morally problematic. Period. Except what? Sometimes I have no choice and I have to deviate from the truth for the sake of a higher value. When I say that saving a life overrides the Sabbath, that does not mean that this Sabbath desecration is an act without problems, it is not an act that creates no defect. It absolutely could be that it does, but I have no choice because life is worth more. Such dilemmas, by the way, exist within Jewish law between halakhic values and within morality between moral values. It’s not only a dilemma between morality and Jewish law. Right? The example I like is one Sartre brings about one of his students in occupied Paris during World War II, a Frenchman who was debating whether to flee and fight with the Free French army under de Gaulle against the Nazis, but then leave his elderly mother in Paris—she was sick and old—without any help, or to give up the war against the Nazis and stay to help his mother. Here there is basically a dilemma between the duty to help his elderly, needy mother and the duty to fight evil. Both of these are moral values. They are not religious values; they are moral values. But there is a clash between them. The clash does not mean contradiction. There is no contradiction in his adhering to both of these values. There is no contradiction between them. There are situations in which adherence to both of these values creates a conflict for him, because he doesn’t know what to do in practice now—whether to go with this value or that value. What does he have to decide? He has to decide what his scale of values is. Which value is higher on the scale and which value is lower. Then the higher value will override the lower value. But that does not mean that if you overrode the lower value, you paid no price. Suppose you decided to flee and fight with the Free French against the Nazis. Then is there no price to leaving your mother? Obviously there is. And obviously there is a moral price here. But I decided that the moral benefit of this side is worth the moral price I pay. But you cannot say that leaving my mother in such a situation is a morally perfect act. It is an immoral act—the aspect of it is immoral. But there is another aspect whose moral benefit, in my view, outweighs the moral damage caused here. Okay? So I make my calculation and I have to decide what outweighs what. Therefore also in the context of lying, and in every other context, and same thing with chocolate: if I eat it, then I pay the health price for the pleasure; if I don’t eat it, I pay the pleasure price for the health. But you can’t say that I didn’t pay a price in pleasure or that I didn’t pay a price in health if I ate it. I decided to eat it, so I enjoyed it a lot, but you can’t say that because of that I paid no health price. Obviously I paid, I just decided it was worth it to me. An immoral act is an immoral act. Period. Sometimes it is justified to do it because there is

[Speaker C] Is there also such a concept as looking at it a bit more from above and relating in general to what he did? Was what he did good or not good? Or can’t you answer that question because it’s both?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, so you can. In the moral context you can say it. You can say that the moral decision is to flee and join the Free French army. But basically what you said, translated, is that the value of fighting evil is higher for you on the scale than the value of helping your elderly mother. Fine, that’s one way to say it. But in the context, say, of religion and morality, there it’s more problematic. Because you don’t have some common yardstick for those two categories with which you can weigh them and decide I was completely moral or I was completely religious, because this is morality versus religion.

[Speaker E] So Rabbi, that’s exactly the weakness in the method the Rabbi is presenting. I don’t understand what the advantage is in what the Rabbi is presenting. I understand the advantage, say, if you treat Jewish law as part of morality, because then it isn’t some thing that demands arbitrary things of you, but rather it wants the good. You just have to understand what the good is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But according to the Rabbi… I have an advantage. I have mechanics far better than Newtonian mechanics; it has a lot of advantages. For example, a mechanics that says that if a body is here on the table, it will never move whether a force is applied to it or not. It’s so simple—every problem in this mechanics can be solved easily. The answer is that the body is at x equals some constant at all times. Wonderful, it has tons of advantages. The only drawback is that it’s not true. It’s terribly simple and has lots of advantages. And as Michio Kaku, the Japanese physicist, says—he brings the well-known joke about quantum theory: that quantum theory is a theory full of flaws and deficiencies and is incomprehensible. It has only one small advantage: it just happens to be true. So things having advantages—so what if they have an advantage? The question is what is true. There are lots of advantages to saying that murder is a good thing. But it isn’t true—murder is not good. I don’t evaluate the things I say by the question of what…

[Speaker E] But Rabbi, this is a discussion about starting assumptions. If you understand Jewish law as part of morality…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a discussion about starting assumptions; it’s a discussion about word laundering. Because those who talk about the higher morality and so on of separating a woman from her priestly husband, or of killing Amalekites, or whatever—they are just playing with words. They understand morality the way I do. Only in order to solve the problem they play with words. But playing with words doesn’t solve problems. You can define a different morality and include in it things that are not moral, and call those morality too. Health to you—but does that solve anything? It solves nothing.

[Speaker B] The point is that I think, at least, the point is that okay, they too probably identify a certain conflict; the difference between the approaches you present and theirs is that they identify the religious value as something moral, because they identify religion and morality as one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but what moral value is there in separating a woman from her husband? Explain to me where human society gains from that. Do you see it? After all, that’s the measure of moral value.

[Speaker B] But that’s exactly it—I’m not sure everyone agrees on that point. After all, morality…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So where is the measure? So we’re back to word laundering. So you’re saying the values that I call religious, they call moral.

[Speaker B] But this isn’t a religious discussion. I’m saying this even in a completely secular context. There are different moral models that reach different conclusions about what is considered moral and what isn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are different moral models—there too there is lots of confusion. One of two things: either one is talking about morality and the other isn’t, or they have some disagreement and you have to decide who is right. One is right and the other is wrong.

[Speaker B] So I mean the first type. After all, there are completely secular moral models…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then explain what your moral model is. But if your moral model is X, and there is an instruction that contradicts it, you cannot say that it too is morality. Unless, ad hoc, all 613 Torah-level and rabbinic commandments are included in your moral model. That is what I call word laundering. You emptied the concept of morality of content. All you did was translate what I call religious values and call that too morality, and you got off scot-free. That does nothing. You solved nothing.

[Speaker C] The question is also whether morality is something—some kind of real truth in reality, or whether it’s something determined, something people determine?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different question, a question in moral philosophy. I’m sure morality is something real that people do not determine; I think that also emerges from the Torah. But even apart from the Torah, that’s how I understand it myself. The Torah says, “And you shall do what is upright and good”—does it mean do what you decide for yourself to do? I would do that even without it.

[Speaker C] What meaning does that reality have if from the beginning of history and apparently until its end there has never been agreement about it? I mean, what meaning?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not the same question—you’re mistaken here. There is very broad agreement; the exceptions are relatively rare. You can bring me examples here and there about slavery and whatever you want, examples at the margins. Most things are more or less agreed on. The disputes and examples are at the margins. So let’s talk about the core right now, and even the marginal disputes can also be discussed. Once people understood that Black people are human beings like you and me, they suddenly understood that morality actually says not to keep them as slaves. In the end that is a difference in perception of reality, not in perception of morality. If they had perceived Black people then as human beings like you and me, I believe they too would have said it is immoral to keep slaves. Morality at its root is very universal. I do not accept these claims that explain to me about moral relativism, that everyone thinks differently—that’s simply not true. Factually, it’s not true.

[Speaker G] The fact is that everyone

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] agrees on most things.

[Speaker G] What the Nazis thought they were doing was benefiting the world and all of humanity by advancing their race.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how many of them thought that, but even if we assume some of them did, fine—again, it’s like with Black people. The question is how you view the Jew. If you view the Jew as a monster hiding in human form, then it’s like the way they viewed Black people then. They did not see the Jew correctly; that’s a factual mistake, not a moral mistake. The morality is the same morality. They too thought it was forbidden to murder and that one should help others. The greatest Nazis thought that too. They just painted Jews for themselves as some sort of monsters or I don’t know exactly what. Fine, a distorted picture—but why did they have to, why after they murdered Jews in some mass grave like that, did they go get drunk? Or before that, he drank a lot of wine so he could endure it? Because he too understood there was something problematic here. Not only understood—felt, of course, that there was something problematic here. He just found explanations for himself because Jews are such-and-such and such-and-such, and so on. The very fact that you need explanations means that you too accept the value of “do not murder.” Usually almost all moral arguments are like that. Not all, but the great majority, the great majority. And even if there is a dispute, even if there is a dispute, say, like between capitalists and socialists, between freedom and equality, okay? That really is a dispute; no one denies the other value. They both agree that both freedom and equality are values. The question is where to place them on the scale. There is a dispute over how to build the scale of values, which value is higher and which is lower. Here there are more disputes. The question whether a certain value is correct or not—there are almost no disputes about that, really only at the margins, I can hardly think of examples.

[Speaker G] There’s an example people bring from the Roman Empire—that the Roman emperor said the Jews were immoral because they let babies with deformities be born and live. And they killed babies with deformities because they were a burden on society.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, fine, that could indeed be a real dispute, because here I don’t see some different perception of reality from which one could derive the difference. Right, so there are a few disputes here and there—then one is right and the other is wrong. There are disputes at the margins, as I said.

[Speaker G] But everyone claims he is the moral person. How can you know who is wrong and who is right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Also among doctors, one claims this procedure works and another claims that procedure works. So what does that mean, that both are right? No, it means one is right and the other is wrong, and you have to examine who is right and who is wrong.

[Speaker G] But in medicine you can; in morality it’s all just a matter of perspective.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In morality too, you can. Or maybe you can’t—but one is still right and the other is wrong. It’s only a practical question whether you can or can’t. The point is that what I actually want to claim is that all the other approaches don’t really solve the problem, they hide it. It’s like, as you know, there are solutions to paradoxes—for example, in Bertrand Russell’s introduction to Principia Mathematica, the book that no one except Russell and Whitehead read. They are the ones who wrote it—three volumes this thick, nothing but formulas. So the introduction I managed to read. And in the introduction he talks about type theory. Type theory came to solve all kinds of paradoxes of self-reference. Say, the liar paradox or the paradox of the barber who shaves all the people who do not shave themselves. The question is whether he shaves himself. If he shaves himself then he belongs to the group of people he does not shave, so he does not shave himself. And if he does not shave himself then he belongs precisely to the group of people he does shave, so he does shave himself. And so on—various tricks of that sort. So Bertrand Russell proposed a solution to all the problems of self-reference through type theory. What does that mean? He divided language into statements that belong to a certain hierarchy of statements, and he set a rule that any statement may refer only to statements lower than it in the hierarchy. Then of course he prevents self-reference. Does that count as a solution to the paradoxes? Of course not. All you did was build a language in which the paradoxes cannot be expressed. You forbade me to express the paradoxes; you didn’t solve them. This is the Stalin type of solution. Stalin also solved problems that way. He simply chopped off the head of whoever raised the problem. Okay? So Russell was more moderate and more refined; he merely forbade us to express the problem, but he didn’t solve it. To define something differently, to set some arbitrary rule—that solves nothing. It is simply wordplay. Analytic philosophy, in its extreme versions, basically sees all the world’s problems as problems of language. And therefore, in order to solve a philosophical problem or a paradox, all you need is to define the concepts well and use completely precise language, and then nothing problematic will arise. That’s a view that says there are no problems in the world, the problems are only in language. I do not accept that. I think there are real problems, and real problems cannot be solved by semantic tricks. One has to examine the problem itself, look for a solution, maybe one will be found and maybe not, but semantic tricks won’t solve it. When you call mathematics morality, you solved nothing. You just played with words. Yes, again I return to postmodernism, this fashionable statement that you have no monopoly on—fill in the blank—Judaism, on morality, on love of the Land of Israel, on whatever you want. Constantly: you have no monopoly on… this kind of stupid claim that says I am exempt from arguing with you because I think this way and you think that way, and you have no monopoly. What does it mean that I have no monopoly? I have arguments; either agree with them or don’t agree with them—let’s argue. What is this ‘you have no monopoly’? Right away they explain to me that I am arrogant because I think I’m right and he’s wrong. Obviously if I am right and he says the opposite, then in my opinion he is wrong. What does that have to do with arrogance? It’s logic. You can say maybe I’m not right. Fine, let’s hear arguments—maybe I’ll be convinced. Perfectly fine. But statements of this kind that instead of arguments say no, no, there are many truths and each person has his own truth and don’t be arrogant and you have no monopoly on such-and-such and so on and so on—these are statements that are word laundering; there is nothing there. Fine.

[Speaker E] A question, Rabbi: who defines the concepts? I mean, who changed the definition of the concepts? I didn’t understand. The Rabbi said before that the correct concept is what the Rabbi says. They will say their definition of the concepts is correct and what the Rabbi is proposing is the change that doesn’t solve the problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I can say anything. I can say they don’t exist, and then I solved the whole problem altogether. Now everything is fine—what do you want? I answered your question. No, I’m saying you don’t exist and they don’t exist either, and therefore I didn’t hear a question. We can continue. Does that seem to you like a solution to the question you raised? That’s the solution you’re proposing.

[Speaker E] I’m saying that the problem the Rabbi points out in them is the same problem that exists for the Rabbi. I’m not hearing. I’m saying that the same problem the Rabbi says they accept also exists for the Rabbi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, absolutely not. I’m saying that the conception of morality as… After all, why do those people define this as a problem they’re trying to solve? Why do they define this as a problem of Jewish law and morality? Do you know why? Why do they see a problem here at all that needs solving? Because they too define morality the way I do. Because they too understand that killing an Amalekite baby is not moral. Now they are looking for a solution. Meaning, the starting point is identical. I am not giving an arbitrary definition. My definition is accepted by them too. And they, in order to solve the question, change the definition, perform semantic tricks, and think they solved the problem—but they didn’t. If someone came and said, I don’t see any question here at all, I don’t know what Jewish law and morality are, there is Jewish law and that’s it, there is no morality—what is morality? There is no morality—that’s one of the two approaches I mentioned earlier. Then I can accept that; of course I think he’s talking nonsense, but fine, I have nothing to say to him. But the person who asks the question and proposes a solution of this sort—I claim that if he asks this question, he defines morality the way I do. Otherwise he wouldn’t get stuck on the problem here. And if he defines morality the way I do, then the solution he proposes is not a solution.

[Speaker G] But Rabbi, maybe he is simply saying that from a first glance it seems immoral, but

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if we investigate

[Speaker G] further, we’ll say that it is moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. Anything can maybe be right. And I’m saying that this “maybe” is wordplay. Because if you say it is moral, then you are simply defining the concept of morality differently. And what you are saying is that morality is the religious goals—that is what is also called morality for you. Health to you. So you are basically saying what I say, that Jewish law basically strives for religious goals, only you call them morality for some reason. Good for you. That solves nothing; it’s just word games. When you say that such a thing is morality—because morality, we all know what it is. We do not always know the moral answer to every question, of course. There are dilemmas, everything is true, it depends on the situation—that’s also true. But overall we know what morality is. And we know that not eating pork is unrelated to morality, and neither is offering sacrifices. It is unrelated to morality.

[Speaker C] Until now I thought I knew what it was, but now I think less so. So what really is morality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now again—and you’ll see that now you understand it very well, in my opinion.

[Speaker C] What is morality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morality until now is what is right

[Speaker C] and what is not right, what is good for someone and what is not good, how to behave and how not to behave.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good and not good, and right and not right, are not the same thing. Good and not good means what is morally proper and improper. Right and not right is something broader. It can be right and not right in the religious sense; that has nothing to do with good and evil in the moral sense. Two different things. Good and evil—do you understand the difference between good and evil and beautiful and ugly? Do you understand that these are two different categories?

[Speaker C] Yes, yes, yes. No, I understand—I meant more right and not right behavior, but that’s according to good and evil, so right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s according to good and evil. Right. And the consideration and weighing of moral good and evil, religiously proper and improper—you weigh it all together and in the end the bottom line is what is right and not right to do. Fine, but that is at the level of conflict, not at the level of contradiction. It’s a question of what you do, not what you think.

[Speaker G] Rabbi, even if we say that doing good is the moral thing, everyone will define doing good differently.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is not a definition of morality—that morality is doing good—that is saying the same thing in different words. What is the Rabbi’s definition of morality?

[Speaker G] The Rabbi says we feel it, but how do you define it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I do not define the concept of morality, just as you can’t define it either. It is that same thing we all understand as proper in the human sense.

[Speaker C] But Rabbi, how can you say on the one hand that it is a reality and on the other hand that I can’t define it and everyone grasps it differently?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it is

[Speaker C] reality, then seemingly there ought to be a way, there ought to be a way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you know how many things in reality you do not know how to define? There is not one thing in reality that you know how to define. One thing! Anything you define, you will use a collection of other concepts in the definition. And I will ask you what those concepts are, and you’ll have to define them too. Where will that stop? In the end you’ll arrive at a circle. There are things we understand what they are; they don’t need to be defined. A definition is an attempt to formulate what everyone understands. But if I understand it, then there is no need to formulate it either. One can understand on one’s own what is being talked about. Let’s stop here for a few minutes; we’ve already gone past half the lesson. In another three or four minutes we’ll come back and continue, okay? It is written in the Torah portion we are entering now, the portion of Chayei Sarah: “And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Lord had blessed Abraham with everything.” The Talmud in tractate Bava Batra says: what is “with everything”? Rabbi Meir says that he had no daughter. Rabbi Yehuda says he did have a daughter, and her name was Bakol. Others say he had a daughter, and with Abraham—and some say he never had a daughter at all. These matters require great explanation. What is the meaning of this blessing, “with everything”? Rashi brings that the numerical value of Bakol is ben, son. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, blessed him with a son—that Isaac was already in the world and he was the son who continued his path. But the deeper meaning is that our forefather Abraham reached a level where he felt that everything is from God. That he lacked nothing in the world. When a person feels that everything he has is exactly what he needs, and he is happy with his portion, then he is blessed with everything. This is complete trust. We see that our forefather Abraham, despite all the trials he went through—our forefather Abraham was tested with ten trials and stood firm in all of them—he did not lose faith and trust. Even when our matriarch Sarah died, he did not come with complaints against the Holy One, blessed be He. He goes to buy a grave in the Cave of Machpelah, he pays full price, he does not ask for favors. He knows that everything is under divine providence. This is the great lesson for us: to know that even in moments of difficulty, even when things do not seem to work out as we wanted, the blessing of “with everything” is there if only we know how to look at it. Everything depends on a person’s perspective on reality. If he sees the hand of God in everything, then he lives in paradise in this world. The Mishnah in Avot says: “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion.” This is not only a matter of ethics; it is a matter of lived reality. Our forefather Abraham teaches us how to live with the Holy One, blessed be He, at every single moment, and by virtue of this he merited to be blessed with everything. May it be His will that we too merit to walk in the ways of our forefather Abraham, to strengthen trust and faith, and to see the revealed blessing in all the work of our hands. Wow. Look at all the people with those expressions. Okay, let’s continue. Just one last question on this matter: according to this, it comes out that there is no such concept as the end sanctifies the means? Basically the means will always remain, let’s say, unsanctified, but the end justifies the means. There is no such thing as the end sanctifies? That there is also an override and not only complete permission, in the concise Talmudic language. What? I… That there is also override and not only complete permission. That there is a clash between two values. Saving a life on the Sabbath. So you can say that it is complete permission. Complete permission means that if you desecrated the Sabbath in order to save a life, there is no element of Sabbath desecration here at all; it is completely permitted. And other conceptions say that it is override. Override means there is Sabbath desecration here, but it is overridden by the value of life. But these are statements; they don’t have much meaning. Obviously one must do it in the bottom line. Tell me, no one is supposed to repent for desecrating… there isn’t… for example, if I mentioned this maybe once, I don’t remember anymore, there is no practical difference between complete permission and override. No practical difference whatsoever. They wrote books and articles about whether it is override or complete permission and brought practical differences—there is not one single practical difference anywhere in the entire universe. You will not find a practical difference for the question whether Sabbath desecration—I think, at least I can’t think of one—whether Sabbath desecration is complete permission or override; there is no practical difference in this thing.

[Speaker H] Nothing. Basically everyone agrees that one must do it,

[Speaker I] one is obligated to do it, not merely permitted. Okay? So what shall we say, that we should repent for desecrating the Sabbath if it’s override? Because after all we desecrated the Sabbath. As part of repentance I also need to accept upon myself for the future never to return to that sin. Meaning that the next time I encounter life-saving need on the Sabbath, I won’t desecrate the Sabbath? That’s nonsense. Meaning, there is no practical difference to it, in short. A question: if I try to do something rabbinic in order not to violate something Torah-level? That is correct in any case. Whether it’s override or complete permission. But if it is complete permission, then it’s completely permitted. I can even do something Torah-level. What do you mean? If it is permitted, what is permitted is whatever is needed for the sake of saving life. If it is not needed, then it is not permitted. What, just because there is danger to life, I am also allowed casually to stuff myself with pork for pleasure? To sleep with menstruating women? But something that is a means to solve the life-threatening situation, even if it is Torah-level. A means that is needed! If it is not a needed means, then it is not a means. If something is needed, then it is permitted. If it is not needed, then it is not permitted. Say in the army I have the option of using a phone that turns on incandescent bulbs, and I have the option of using an IP phone that works only on electricity—I will choose the electric phone, because the other is Torah-level. Right. Whether according to complete permission or according to override. Whether according to complete permission or according to override. That is not a practical difference. It will be so according to both approaches. There isn’t—there is no practical difference, in short. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) speak about it in those terms. But when they speak about it in those terms, it’s not really complete permission and override. It’s just imprecise terminology. Complete permission and override in the simple sense that I defined here—there is no practical difference whatsoever whether it is complete permission or override. Fine. In any case, according to the Rabbi’s view, is the value of life a moral value or a religious value? According to the conception you just presented, it seems to me that you are presenting it as a moral value, as it were. No, no, I brought it only as an example of a clash. Of course it is a moral value, but it is also a religious value: “and live by them.” In any case, “and choose life,” right? There is—maybe I’ll present this from another angle. Look, one can divide Jewish law into three categories in this context. There are laws that conform to the rules of morality, there are laws that contradict the rules of morality—anti-moral—and there are, meaning moral laws and anti-moral laws, and there are a-moral laws, which are indifferent to morality. Okay? For example, “do not murder”—that is a moral law. Okay? Killing Amalekite babies, or separating a priest’s wife who was raped from her husband, that is an anti-moral law. Laws such as, for example, phylacteries—that is a-moral, right? What did he hear? Putting on phylacteries, or not eating pork, or offering sacrifices, or all things of that sort—that is a-moral. Now, that is the definition, the simple perspective. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) sometimes call this revealed laws and rational laws, or whatever, call it what you like, but I think everyone understands there are several categories of laws like these. The laws that arouse the problem of Jewish law and morality are of course the category of anti-moral laws. But now I say, leave that aside

[Speaker H] one second, let’s look specifically at the other two categories. Not the annoying category we have to deal with. Let’s talk about the other two

[Speaker I] categories. What will we say about a-moral laws? That they too really come to achieve hidden moral purposes, or that the simpler explanation is that they come to achieve some religious purposes? Let us call them, for the sake of discussion, religious purposes. When someone tells me not to eat pork,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it doesn’t seem to me that this is supposed to do good or harm to anyone in the world, so it is hard for me to accept that not eating pork is a moral act, or

[Speaker H] eating pork is an immoral act. Whom does it hurt? What’s the problem? It is an act that is not okay, apparently for religious, spiritual reasons—call them what you like. But it has nothing to do with morality. If that is so, then automatically you see that Jewish law has purposes that are not moral purposes. I didn’t say they are anti-moral purposes. They are a-moral purposes, other purposes. Meaning, Jewish law has other purposes besides morality, right? But once I reached that conclusion, why shouldn’t I continue and extend it also to the anti-moral laws? And I say that the clash between Jewish law and morality in these contexts stems from the fact that Jewish law wants to achieve religious purposes, and therefore not always

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] does it coincide with

[Speaker C] morality. After all, the fact that there are non-moral purposes is not my innovation; we are supposed to reach that from looking at the a-moral laws, right? There we see that Jewish law has purposes beyond morality. But once we have already reached that conclusion, it only makes sense to extend it also to the anti-moral laws. And there too basically to say that the clash between those laws

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and morality does not stem from a different conception of morality within Jewish law, but stems from the desire

[Speaker C] of Jewish law to achieve

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] other goals, and sometimes that clashes with moral goals. When I present it this way, I previously focused on the anti-moral laws and asked how one solves the problem of Jewish law and morality. So it seemed to many of you who asked questions here that I was inventing some concept in order to solve the problem—the concept of religious purposes. By the way, it was the Ran who invented it, not me. He calls it the divine matter, okay? I say leave the inventions aside—let’s go to the a-moral laws. There is no tension, no need to resolve any difficulty, everything is fine. One should not eat pork, one should put on phylacteries. Does that come to achieve some moral purpose? I don’t see any such purpose. There too, Rabbi, it depends on how much one grasps, how much one believes in the influence, say, of a spiritual world on the physical world. If, say, I hold, if I believe that every transgression creates angels that negatively affect the world, then it is immoral to eat pork because I am making a bad impact on the world. But first decide that this is a transgression. Why do you decide that it is a transgression? What, eating pork? Yes. What do you mean? Why did the Torah forbid eating pork? After I violate the prohibition of eating pork, then maybe I am boring a hole in the ship and that will sink the whole ship and it will affect the whole world. But it affects the whole

[Speaker G] world because eating pork is not okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking why it is not okay, though?

[Speaker G] If you define it as okay, then there will be no problem at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why did you define it as not okay? Because it probably causes some kind of spiritual harm. And as a result of that you can say that someone who harms the world spiritually also harms people. Fine, so there’s an indirect immoral aspect here, but that’s a result. I’m asking why you decided that it’s forbidden. I think that just as honoring one’s parents is a moral thing because they care for me and brought me into the world, so too honoring what the Holy One, blessed be He, asks for. I’m answering you with what I answered Shimon earlier. I’m asking why the Holy One, blessed be He, demanded this, not why I need to listen. I need to listen because of gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He. But I’m asking why He demanded it. What did He want to achieve through it? That I should obey Him because there is moral gratitude? You’re mixing level two with level one. But with parents too, why do I need to listen to why my parents asked me for what they asked? They asked for their own reasons, what does that have to do with anything? Truly not always for moral reasons. They asked for all kinds of reasons, and I need to comply because there is a commandment to honor parents. Meaning, the religious compliance is moral on the side of the compliance itself. But again, I’m answering you with what I answered Shimon—listen. You’re right, you could be right in the consequential sense. You could say that once something is defined as a transgression, if you do it then it’s not okay. Either because it harms another person, as Shimon said, or because it’s ingratitude toward the Holy One, blessed be He, as you say. I don’t care. But I’m asking the question: why was this defined as a transgression in the first place? Not what the consequences are after it was defined as a transgression. Why is this act defined as a transgression? Why not the opposite? It would have been possible to define an obligation to eat pork; whoever doesn’t eat pork is ungrateful, and whoever doesn’t eat pork harms others because he damages the spiritual state of the world. Just the same. So why did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose specifically to forbid pork rather than require it? I think that the fact that we have no answer to this question means that such a reality doesn’t exist? No, on the contrary. It means that there is an answer; it just isn’t the moral answer. I don’t know what it is—there is some spiritual benefit there because of which we were commanded. On the contrary, that’s exactly what I’m claiming. So it’s a reality? Of course, but it’s a non-moral reality. It has nothing to do with morality. Just as morality is a reality, this too is a reality. But a reality from a different category. It harms eternity-within-splendor, in the seventh sefira from the right, in the firmament of eternity-within-splendor. Fine, so what do I care now? There is damage—why? No, because morality emerges from reality. Why is it immoral to kill? Because there is life. So if there is a reality in which eating pork is bad, I just don’t know why, then it can be immoral. These things have nothing to do with one another. It’s not connected to reality at all. In the background there is some factual matter, but the fact that something is immoral is a norm. That has nothing to do with the question of whether it is grounded in reality or not grounded in reality. What does that have to do with anything? There are different realities that project different things. Harming another person or harming society is an immoral act. Harming eternity-within-splendor is a religiously problematic act. That’s all. Both are damaging to the same degree. I think the intellectual move here is to act as though induction doesn’t obligate truth—and that’s clear to me—but to say: we have the first set we talked about, the sort of intersection between Jewish law and morality, and then they say, okay, I assume that because God is moral, this too is what—I also didn’t understand why His morality is like this. It’s irrelevant. It’s an unjustified logical leap. I also think the Holy One, blessed be He, is moral, but He is also religious. Besides being moral, He also wants you to be healthy and also to enjoy the chocolate. He wants you to be moral and also to produce the religious results. Sometimes that creates conflicts, right? So what? So I’m saying: their attempt to solve the conflict—as if solving the conflict means making this invalid induction and thereby arriving at this concept—but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t solve the contradiction, because you still don’t know what to do. It doesn’t solve the conflict. But it also doesn’t solve the contradiction. It just hides it. That’s Bertrand Russell’s solution. It forbids expressing it; it doesn’t solve it. You solved nothing. I’m saying, notice how many contortions you have to make in order to present something that in the end sounds illogical, when from the outset the problem never really existed. There is no problem. Look at reality as it is and simply describe it as it appears at first glance. Don’t add a millimeter beyond what you see with your own eyes. That’s all. Everything is simple; there is no problem. You can plainly see that in Jewish law there is an a-moral category. It isn’t connected to morality in the simple sense. So why invent things to say that it is connected to morality after all? What for? What’s wrong with the picture I’m describing, which is completely faithful to the facts? There is something here that comes to achieve other goals. I don’t know what they are, but the Holy One, blessed be He… He said it, apparently He knows that it achieves other goals. But if that’s true in the a-moral laws, then also in the anti-moral laws there is no reason not to assume it, and therefore the clash between those laws and morality does not stem from the fact that the higher morality is different from our morality and all that chatter. It stems from the fact that the laws, including the anti-moral laws, come to achieve religious goals, and sometimes that comes with a moral price. That’s all. Very simple. There is no problem; nothing needs to be solved, and there is no need for hair-splitting in order to solve it. There is no problem. But that does mean, I think, in a certain sense, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not moral, because the Holy One, blessed be He—because according to this, the Holy One, blessed be He, is Himself also in conflict, because there is morality, and then the very fact that He created the world in such a way that in certain situations I’m supposed to make immoral decisions turns Him into someone non-moral. Now I’ll ask you the same question according to your own view. Forget it—everything is morality, okay? Everything is morality. How did the Holy One, blessed be He, create a world in which Sartre’s student is torn between two moral values? Forget Jewish law and morality and the conflict between them. Or in a moral conflict, a halakhic conflict, sorry—how did the Holy One, blessed be He, create a world in which there is a halakhic conflict? So then the Holy One, blessed be He, is not halakhic; He doesn’t want Jewish law. Would you say that? What’s the difference? What’s the difference between what I’m saying and the conventional picture? You can ask the same questions all the time. I didn’t really understand. You’re saying that if I claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world with two kinds of goals—religious goals and moral goals—sometimes they can clash and that creates conflicts, and then when I have to act in order to achieve the religious goals it will come at the expense of achieving the moral good, then you say: if that’s so, then the Holy One, blessed be He, is not moral. So I’m saying, forget what I said, okay? I’m not right, I was mistaken, I retract it. Now we’re talking about morality, okay? There is a moral conflict. Sartre’s student doesn’t know whether to run off to fight the Nazis or help his mother. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, created a world in which there are two moral values: to fight evil and to help your elderly mother. Okay? So does that mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t care about helping elderly mothers?

[Speaker G] That’s your logic, because

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He created a world in which fulfilling this value contradicts that value. It’s nonsense. Obviously the Holy One, blessed be He, wants

[Speaker G] both of these values, and there’s nothing to be done—reality presents us with conflicts in which those values can clash. There’s no problem with that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if within morality this can happen

[Speaker G] and also within Jewish law alone

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] this can happen, then why shouldn’t it happen between Jewish law and morality? The Holy One, blessed be He, wants both morality and Jewish law, and sometimes that creates conflicts. Within morality, within Jewish law, or between morality and Jewish law. A positive commandment overrides a prohibition—so what? Because a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, does that mean the Holy One, blessed be He, isn’t committed to prohibitions? He doesn’t care about prohibitions? Because there is a rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition? What kind of logic is that? I’ll tell you more than that—come, let’s

[Speaker D] move to the third category of laws, the moral laws. I started with the a-moral ones and showed through them that the Torah has religious goals. From that I moved to solving the problems of the anti-moral commandments and said there is no problem, because these commandments

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] also come to achieve religious goals, except that in these cases it comes at the price of a moral cost. Now let’s move to the moral commandments. I want to make an even more far-reaching claim: the moral commandments also do not come to achieve moral goals; they too come to achieve religious goals. The commandment “You shall not murder” does not express the immorality of murder; it expresses the irreligiousness of murder. The immorality of murder has nothing to do with Jewish law; that is a value belonging to morality and to doing what is right and good. The Holy One, blessed be He, comes to Cain and says to him, “Where is Abel your brother?… Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” The Torah had not yet been given; there is no halakhic law of “You shall not murder.” So why does the Holy One, blessed be He, come with a claim against Cain? Because there are human beings involved? Because it’s immoral? No. The Noahides—why human beings?

[Speaker J] Seven commandments

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of the Noahides.

[Speaker J] That’s just one more commandment that was added

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to them, but six commandments had already been given to Adam. But how was Cain supposed to know that there is a prohibition on murder? Adam was given six commandments, including “You shall not murder.” “You shall not murder” at a time when he couldn’t even die? What? Or after he was expelled from the Garden of Eden? In the Torah nothing like that appears, and in the straightforward sense there is a moral claim here. There is a moral claim here: it is forbidden to murder. And the moral prohibition of murder remains in force—by the way, afterward it undergoes translation: “Whoever sheds human blood, by man shall his blood be shed”—that is the prohibition of murder for the Noahides. And “You shall not murder” appears in the Ten Commandments as a separate prohibition. Why isn’t “Whoever sheds human blood, by man shall his blood be shed” enough? Because “Whoever sheds human blood, by man shall his blood be shed” is a moral principle, and therefore it is not counted in the tally of the commandments. “You shall not murder” is a religious principle. And what “You shall not murder” tells you is that when you murder someone, not only is there a moral problem, there is also a religious problem. And “You shall not murder” speaks only about the religious problem. It has nothing to do with the moral problem. And the same is true of “You shall not steal,” and the same is true of positive commandments and prohibitions in the moral realm: even the moral commandments are not connected to morality. I’ll bring you several proofs of this. For example, in the moral commandments there are all kinds of definitions that are absurd formal definitions. If you murder by indirect causation, by constriction, bringing the object to the fire or the fire to the object, all kinds of things of that type, the sun ultimately coming, yes, all those discussions in tractate Sanhedrin. What does that mean? If I murdered someone like that, then there is less of a moral problem because I did it with my left hand? Or because I did it indirectly? I intended to murder him and I murdered him, and it’s obvious that he will die, I just did it this way. So I’m exempt? What does “exempt” mean? Is it more moral to do it this way, or less immoral to murder in this way? Of course not. The moral transgression remains exactly as it was. You performed an act that took a human life, but you did not violate “You shall not murder.” Why? Because here there is the moral problem; there is no religious problem here. That’s it. “You shall not murder” does not come to state the moral problem; “You shall not murder” comes to add a religious layer on top of the moral layer. Wait—idolatry is one of the seven Noahide commandments, and that is not something moral by definition, so why did the Torah repeat it? I didn’t understand. Idolatry is not something moral; it’s something religious. It’s one of the seven Noahide commandments that obligate them, and then the Torah obligated us as well. Who said that among the Noahides everything is morality? I didn’t understand. The Rabbi said that the reason the Torah wrote “You shall not murder,” even though we already had it with the Noahides, is because it wanted to add a religious aspect to the moral aspect. And we see that even regarding things that have

[Speaker C] only a religious aspect, the Torah wrote them again. So it wanted to add another halakhic aspect for Jews, never mind. It doesn’t have to add that on top of the moral layer, but what it adds is a religious layer by definition. What was on the first level?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends in what context. Was the first level morality, or

[Speaker C] was it a different prohibition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be this,

[Speaker C] and it could be that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides defines it as things toward which reason inclines, in Hilkhot Melakhim, but “reason inclines toward them” does not have to mean specifically morality. Idolatry is a prohibition toward which reason inclines, even though in truth it has nothing to do with morality. Therefore, in fact, when Meiri speaks about the attitude toward gentiles, he says that since they are bound by the norms of the nations, then the whole attitude toward gentiles basically

[Speaker D] ought to change, both at the Torah level and at the rabbinic level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But they are still idol worshipers. There is no connection between their being idol worshipers and their being morally reasonable human beings; those are two different things. Idolatry is not

[Speaker G] a moral prohibition. So what I basically want to say is that if I now complete the three categories, then what I’m claiming is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that all three halakhic categories—I started with the a-moral, moved on to solve the problems of the anti-moral, the problems of Torah and morality, and in the end I finished with the moral laws themselves, which also are not morality. And my claim is that all of Jewish law as a whole has nothing to do with morality at all, at all. Its concern is the entire divine matter, as Ran says; I’m only spelling out what Ran says. In the moral laws, it is to add a religious layer on top of the moral layer. In the a-moral laws there is no moral layer, there is only the religious layer. In the anti-moral laws there is a contradiction between level one and level two. What can you do? The religious goal has to be achieved, and there is a moral price to that. The simplest thing in the world. It raises no problem at all. There is no need to create intricate conceptual structures to solve it. Very simple. And what this basically means is that there is some kind of normative duality here. I can be obligated to two different systems, different normative systems; even if there is a contradiction between them there is no principled problem with such a situation. It creates a conflict for me; I have to decide what to do, and it isn’t always simple, but there is no principled problem with such a state. Let me give you a few implications so you can see, for example, what is at stake. For instance, in the State of Israel there are often tensions between a person’s religious obligations and his civic-legal obligations. Okay? Can a religious person join a struggle on behalf of opening the ritual baths to… let’s say Jewish law forbids it for the sake of discussion—this also isn’t entirely clear, but let’s assume it. Okay, but I claim that since I am also obligated to the values of democracy and not only to the values of Jewish law, then in my democratic hat I can go out and take part in such a struggle, even though in my halakhic hat I very much would not want that to happen. And there is no contradiction between those two things. I want to—I believe in democratic values; from my point of view that is part of my moral value system, and it has nothing to do with Jewish law, it is a system parallel to Jewish law. Now, what happens when there is a contradiction between those two things? Then I am in conflict. Because this value tells me one thing, and the religious value tells me the opposite. What do you do in a conflict? You have to make decisions. But there is no guarantee, no simple answer, to the question of which side will prevail. It is not correct to assume that the halakhic side will always prevail—absolutely not. These are two independent obligations, and when the two obligations are independent, they need to be decided in a way that perhaps we’ll talk about in the next class. But they need to be decided. It’s a conflict, not a contradiction. And therefore there is no problem going out to fight in the name of democracy even for rights of people that Jewish law denies. The right of homosexuals to marry. As a religious person I can go out and fight for

[Speaker G] the fact that the state must allow

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that, even though in my religious hat I think it is forbidden, and I do not want people to do it. Because in terms of the democratic value, I think a state should allow people to live as they see fit.

[Speaker C] And I don’t think there is any contradiction in that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I will try to persuade them

[Speaker C] not to do it,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and together with that

[Speaker C] I will fight in a democratic struggle for the state to allow

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] them to do it if they decide to do so anyway. Two different things. Meaning that you decide the conflict in favor of one side? No, I said I can; I didn’t say I will.

[Speaker B] How exactly to decide such a conflict,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] whether in favor of Jewish law or

[Speaker B] in favor of morality—that’s a question I’ll talk about in the next class.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But right now I’m only saying: there is a conflict, and in this conflict too it is not automatic that one side will prevail. I can decide this way, I can decide that way. I’ll say more than that: if my moral obligation came from a secular source—morality is an atheistic category, as Leibowitz put it—then indeed there would be some sort of duality here.

[Speaker C] I am obligated to the Torah of the Holy One, to the commands of the Holy One, blessed be He,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and I am also obligated to another system that is unrelated to Him. And here there is a certain problem; it is a kind of idolatry in partnership. Because I am basically obligated to two sources of authority, two systems that draw from two different sources of authority. Remember the principles of value that I spoke about? Two normative systems that draw from two different sources of authority. I am serving two idols. That is idolatry in partnership. But my claim is that the authority of morality also comes from the Holy One, blessed be He—not only because otherwise it would be idolatry in partnership, but because without belief in God there is no morality. Morality has meaning only if it is the result of divine legislation or a divine expectation of us to behave in this way.

[Speaker G] So then basically the claim of “And you shall do what is right and good,” what is written in the Torah, is actually

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you can cite that, you can also do without it, it doesn’t matter. My moral intuition is also good enough. But I reach the conclusion that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to be moral. And together with that He also expects me to be halakhic. And since both of those are His expectations, then even if I prefer the moral value over the religious value, there is no rebellion against the will of God here. These are two desires of the Holy One, blessed be He, and one has to decide what to do when there is a conflict between them. That decision, of course, logically cannot

[Speaker G] be made within one of the two frameworks. You can’t decide what to do in questions of Jewish law and morality

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] according to halakhic principles, because Jewish law is only one side of that equation. Nor according to moral principles, because morality too is only one side of that equation. This decision has to be made according to some sort of system that, as it were, precedes both of those systems. And therefore you can’t say: well, obviously Jewish law will prevail in every such situation, because Jewish law is more important than morality. First, I don’t think it is more important. Both come from the Holy One, blessed be He; He wants both from us. And when you are in conflict, you have to decide it as you understand it and do what you understand—sometimes this way, sometimes that way. And therefore not only do I think there is no principled problem at all with the conflictual situation, I also think that the solution to the conflict is not always in favor of Jewish law. Not necessarily. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I’ll talk about this in the next class—about how conflicts are solved, if at all, what the meaning of solving a conflict is, when one goes with Jewish law and when not. So I’ll talk about that next time. Rabbi, then every form of Torah government that does coerce people and that is not democratic—is it not moral? I don’t know such a form of government. Is it not moral but rather religious? I don’t know that form of government. Monarchy, and coercion of people, and so on. Then you can just do it ad hoc. What? A monarchy can be democratic. A monarchy does not have to be a monarchy in the usual sense. Fine, so it’s not the matter of monarchy. More the issue of a religious court forcing people to do this or that. A religious court does not force anyone to do anything. A religious court forces believing people to do something. It does not force non-believing people to do something. Even in the time of the Temple or when the government is Torah-based? This one is stronger, that one is stronger. One second, Itamar, can you mute please? To the best of my understanding, that is true at all times. When people are coerced, it is only people who understand that this is their obligation

[Speaker C] and are not doing it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And for people who do not believe at all

[Speaker C] that this is their obligation, it is not

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] correct to coerce

[Speaker C] them, and it is also not effective to coerce them,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because even

[Speaker C] if

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] they do it under coercion, it is not a commandment.

[Speaker C] But about

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that

[Speaker H] I’m also still planning to discuss.

[Speaker C] So if a religious court

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] wanted to try me for desecrating the Sabbath, I can simply tell it I don’t believe in it and they let me go?

[Speaker C] If you convince them, you’ll be exempt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Really? Okay, interesting, fine.

[Speaker C] Okay, I hope we’ll devote something to this next semester, on this matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much, Rabbi.

[Speaker C] Okay, good, thank you. Good evening, everyone, goodbye. Thank you very much.