Topics in Halakhic Thought – Lesson 26

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Moving from the role of the halakhic decisor to Jewish law and morality
• Three basic approaches to the conflict between Jewish law and morality
• The Chazon Ish: Faith and Trust and the example of schoolteachers
• Going beyond the letter of the law and the distinction between permission and obligation
• The source of the ruling in cases of children’s teachers as a moral consideration and “the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh”
• The Chazon Ish, section 2: weighing things on the scales of Jewish law, and only then applying the study of ethics
• Rabbi Dessler and lying: criticism of semantically erasing a moral problem
• Rabbi Kook: Olat Re’iyah on the Binding of Isaac versus Kierkegaard
• Upright and self-restrained: an educational process and straightening natural inclinations
• Rashi’s first comment, Sefer HaYashar, and the Netziv: uprightness as the basis for the right to the land
• Maimonides, Eight Chapters chapter 6, rational and revelational commandments, and “truth because it is truth”
• Interim summary: sharpening the dispute between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook, and preparing for the lecturer’s disagreement

Summary

General overview

The lecturer moves from the role of the halakhic decisor to the subject of Jewish law and morality, and presents the basic problem as a possible conflict between a halakhic command and a moral value. He lays out three main approaches: canceling morality in favor of Jewish law (in a moderate version where morality operates only in halakhic lacunae, and in an extreme version in the spirit of Leibowitz), identifying “true morality” with Jewish law so that contradictions are only apparent (an approach attributed to the Chazon Ish and also expressed in Rabbi Kook), and an approach according to which Jewish law and morality are independent categories that can clash. He then reads passages from the Chazon Ish and from Rabbi Kook’s Olat Re’iyah, points to qualifications within each of these conceptions, and concludes that the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook offer different compasses in a situation of contradiction—and that next time he intends to disagree with both of them.

Introduction: Moving from the role of the halakhic decisor to Jewish law and morality

The lecturer says that in previous lectures the role of the halakhic decisor was clarified, leniency and stringency were defined, and the relationship and division of roles between the decisor and the questioner were established. He now presents the topic of “Jewish law and morality” as a charged subject that mainly arises when there is a contradiction between a halakhic ruling and a moral value. He formulates the difficulty as the question of how it could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands immoral behavior.

Three basic approaches to the conflict between Jewish law and morality

The lecturer presents an approach according to which where there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, morality is nullified. Within it there is a moderate shade that places morality only in halakhic lacunae, and an extreme shade that claims there is no place for morality at all in the world of one committed to Jewish law, and that morality is an “atheistic category,” in Leibowitz’s language. He presents a second approach, attributed to the Chazon Ish and also identified with a line that appears in Rabbi Kook, according to which if there seems to be a contradiction, then morality has probably not been understood correctly, because “true morality” is reflected in Jewish law and the contradictions are only apparent, resulting from error. He presents a third approach according to which Jewish law and morality are independent categories, and sometimes there is a real contradiction that places a person in conflict. He later argues that this is not only a solution, but the best solution, though here it is only the framework.

The Chazon Ish: Faith and Trust and the example of schoolteachers

The lecturer brings the opening of the Chazon Ish: “Moral obligations are sometimes one and the same body as halakhic rulings, and Jewish law is what determines what is forbidden and what is permitted in the Torah of morality,” and emphasizes that the word “sometimes” hints at complexity, not total identification. He suggests an interpretive possibility according to which “sometimes” refers only to halakhic areas that have a moral dimension, as opposed to laws that are not moral in nature, such as the prohibition of pork, redeeming a firstborn donkey, and sacrifices. He presents the example from Bava Batra 21b: in a town there are veteran teachers making a living, and new teachers come in, and the public “jumps” to the innovation; the veterans are harmed, and from this come hatred, malicious speech, slander, quarrels, and revenge. He explains that the Chazon Ish argues that if Jewish law had ruled that the veterans could block the newcomers, then the actions of the veterans would be “cleansed of every sin and transgression” and would even be a “commandment-war.” But since Jewish law ruled that “the rivalry of scholars increases wisdom” and that there is no claim of “you have cut off my livelihood” in cases of teachers of children, then the newcomers are acting according to Jewish law, and those who rise against them “shed innocent blood” and violate “Do not hate your brother,” malicious speech, “Do not be like Korach,” and “Do not take revenge.” He concludes from the example that the Chazon Ish does not deny the very existence of morality, but rather determines that when Jewish law rules on a moral question, there is no room for a moral claim against behavior that accords with Jewish law, and morality has no independent standing opposite Jewish law.

Going beyond the letter of the law and the distinction between permission and obligation

The lecturer raises the question of “going beyond the letter of the law” through the example of a lost object after despair of recovery: Jewish law permits taking it, but “the sages are pleased” with one who returns it, and in the Shulchan Arukh it is even brought that one can compel this. He explains that this is not a major difficulty for the supremacy of Jewish law, because there is no obligation to take the lost object, only permission, and therefore one can “be stringent with oneself” and not take it—unlike the case of the teachers, where according to Jewish law it is desirable that there be competition because “the rivalry of scholars increases wisdom.” He argues that a new teacher who would say “beyond the letter of the law” that he will not compete would be seen as acting against the interest of Jewish law, because the importance of education overrides the livelihood of individuals.

The source of the ruling in cases of children’s teachers as a moral consideration and “the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh”

The lecturer notes that the principle “the rivalry of scholars increases wisdom” is not a verse in the Torah and is not a Torah-level law, but rather an illustration of the reasoning of the sages, and therefore the Jewish law here was born from a moral-rational-human consideration. He asks what will happen in cases where Jewish law clashes head-on with morality, such as “killing the Amalekite babies” or “not saving the life of a non-Jew by desecrating the Sabbath,” and he doubts whether one can extrapolate from the example of the teachers to such situations. He mentions the expression attributed to the Chazon Ish about “the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh,” according to which there are extra-halakhic principles such as reasoning and moral principles that are involved in determining Jewish law, and suggests that the Chazon Ish’s words fit better with a situation in which the sages decide a moral question using moral tools than with a sweeping claim that Jewish law always determines morality. He emphasizes that the Chazon Ish does not explicitly write that a halakhic ruling whose source is exegesis, tradition, or a law given to Moses at Sinai is necessarily also a moral directive, and he suggests the possibility that Jewish law may prevail “as something overriding” without identifying Jewish law with morality.

The Chazon Ish, section 2: weighing things on the scales of Jewish law, and only then applying the study of ethics

The lecturer quotes from the Chazon Ish that among moral obligations is “to weigh on the scales of Jewish law in order to know who is the pursuer and who is the pursued,” and explains that the study of ethics instills love for the pursued and hatred for the pursuer, but the definition of who is who is determined only from the books of the halakhic decisors. He argues that the passage indicates that morality has a real role after the halakhic clarification, not that morality disappears. He adds that if there is no halakhic ruling in a given situation, then a lacuna is created in which ordinary moral judgment can be applied.

Rabbi Dessler and lying: criticism of semantically erasing a moral problem

The lecturer brings, in the name of Rabbi Dessler’s Michtav Me’Eliyahu, the claim that someone who lied in situations where Jewish law permits it “simply did not lie,” and he defines this as a semantic trick and an outrageous statement. He argues that a lie remains a lie even when it is justified, and it is only overridden by another value such as peace; therefore it is not correct to say that Jewish law determines that this is not a lie. He uses this example to sharpen the distinction between something being fully permitted and a situation in which a moral value is overridden but does not disappear.

Rabbi Kook: Olat Re’iyah on the Binding of Isaac versus Kierkegaard

The lecturer presents Kierkegaard as an existentialist who describes three stages: the aesthetic, as hedonism and natural flow; the ethical, as subduing nature in the name of a moral command; and the religious, as subduing both nature and morality before a religious command, where the Binding of Isaac is the example of the “knight of faith,” who is ready to bend logic, morality, and a father’s compassion before the divine command. He says that according to Kierkegaard, “Do not raise your hand against the boy” looks like a withdrawal after the test has already been completed. He presents Rabbi Kook in Olat Re’iyah as someone who goes all the way with this move, but turns the ending into the central lesson: “the absolute command” from the side of justice and from the side of nature to refrain from bloodshed remains fully in force, and the recognitions engraved in spiritual and material nature “did not descend from their level.” Therefore there is not really a contradiction between a father’s love for his son and love of God. He interprets Rabbi Kook as claiming that the divine command is not supposed to contradict morality and natural inclination, and if there seems to be a contradiction, then there is a mistake in understanding.

Upright and self-restrained: an educational process and straightening natural inclinations

The lecturer explains Rabbi Kook’s concepts of the “upright” and the “self-restrained” as two stages: at the first stage, a person cannot rely on his inclinations and therefore must restrain them through Jewish law; later, that restraint straightens the inner self so that the inclinations become proper, and one can act as an “upright” person. He answers a question about Abraham at the Binding of Isaac by saying that the test teaches readiness for total devotion to the command, but its purpose is also to straighten the inner direction and not to allow every impulse to be justified as “the will of God.” From this he derives an educational conception of beginning with self-restraint and only afterward trusting natural feelings, and he illustrates this also in Talmudic analysis and in teaching mathematics, as the difference between building foundations and premature “creativity” that produces “nonsense.”

Rashi’s first comment, Sefer HaYashar, and the Netziv: uprightness as the basis for the right to the land

The lecturer quotes Rashi’s first comment: “The Torah should have begun only from ‘This month shall be for you’… so why did it open with Genesis?… ‘He declared to His people the power of His works’… He created it and gave it to whoever was upright in His eyes,” and remarks that the explanation seemingly reduces Genesis to an argument against the nations of the world and mainly explains only chapter 1. He suggests that the key is “to whoever was upright in His eyes,” and that the book of Genesis is called “the book of the upright,” and he brings the Netziv, who explains that the patriarchs acted before the giving of the Torah מתוך inner uprightness, something like the words of the sages about Abraham’s “two kidneys” teaching him. He interprets the flow of Rashi’s words to mean that Genesis teaches not only divine ownership but also non-arbitrariness: the land is given to those who are upright, and Genesis describes the uprightness of the patriarchs by virtue of which the Jewish people are entitled to it. He sharpens the point that uprightness here is inner uprightness that guides behavior, not only “upright” behavior. He distinguishes between the self-restrained person, who behaves correctly but whose inner self is not upright, and the upright person, who acts correctly in a natural way.

Maimonides, Eight Chapters chapter 6, rational and revelational commandments, and “truth because it is truth”

The lecturer draws a parallel between Rabbi Kook’s “upright and self-restrained” and Maimonides’ discussion in Eight Chapters chapter 6 about “the excellent person” versus “one who restrains his impulse,” and presents Maimonides’ resolution through a distinction between revelational commandments and rational commandments. He says that in revelational commandments, the self-restrained person is preferable, whereas in the moral-rational realm there is value to a naturally upright inclination, and therefore the excellent person is preferable. He emphasizes that one should not conclude that moral commandments are fulfilled “because of” inner uprightness, but rather that uprightness is a compass that coincides with the command, while the source of the obligation is the command itself. He answers a question about “truth because it is truth” by saying that it means truth because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, and he brings Maimonides in Laws of Kings chapter 8, that one who does it from independent reasoning is “among their wise men” and not “among the pious of the nations of the world.”

Interim summary: sharpening the dispute between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook, and preparing for the lecturer’s disagreement

The lecturer concludes that both the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Kook become more moderate when read carefully: the Chazon Ish recognizes morality but denies it independent standing opposite a halakhic ruling, while Rabbi Kook identifies a deep harmony between divine command and morality after a process of inner straightening, and not as a position that validates every intuition. He sharpens the point that when there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, the Chazon Ish would instruct one to act according to Jewish law because it determines what morality is, whereas Rabbi Kook would instruct that if this is true morality, then Jewish law must be interpreted differently so that it accords with morality. He ends by saying that next time he will try to explain why he disagrees with both of them.

Okay, I want to… in the previous classes we talked about the role of the halakhic decisor. I defined leniency and stringency, and in the end I came to a conclusion about what the relationship is supposed to be between a decisor and the person who comes to ask him, what the division of roles is between them. And now I want to move on to our next topic, and that is Jewish law and morality. Okay, this is a loaded topic, and I’ll try to cover it in the meetings we still have left. Basically, the fundamental question that comes up in the context of Jewish law and morality usually arises when there is a contradiction or conflict between the halakhic command and the moral command. I’d appreciate it if those who are here would turn on their cameras—I didn’t say that earlier. Okay, Rafael, are you with us? Gideon? Good. So the issue of Jewish law and morality really comes up mainly around cases of conflict. That is, when there is some halakhic instruction that seems to contradict moral values or some moral value. Then the question arises: how can such a thing be? The Holy One, blessed be He, commands us to behave immorally? That doesn’t sound reasonable. And in this context there are, I would say, three principled approaches. One approach says that where there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, morality is nullified. There are two shades within this approach. One shade says that morality has a place only in halakhic lacunae, meaning only where Jewish law leaves something open is there room to take the moral command into account. And in a more extreme formulation, the claim is that morality has no place at all in the world of a person who is committed to Jewish law. There is Jewish law, and that is what obligates. Morality is an atheistic category, in Leibowitz’s language, and it is not supposed to trouble or interest people who are committed to Jewish law. That is one approach, with its two shades. A second approach—you could attribute it, say, people often attribute it to the Chazon Ish—a second approach says that if we see a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, apparently we haven’t understood morality correctly; that principle that troubles us simply isn’t the correct morality, because true morality is really reflected in the directives of Jewish law. Therefore contradictions between Jewish law and morality are only apparent contradictions; they are contradictions that result from a mistake. In certain respects you could say this is like what analytic philosophers say about paradoxes. The basic claim of analytic philosophy is that paradoxes are simply the result of a failure in language. There are no real paradoxes, meaning there is nothing that is truly paradoxical; reality has an answer. Either yes or no—there is no place here for paradoxes. When we struggle with paradoxes, it’s simply because we are mistaken in some way. Analytic philosophers tend to attribute it to mistakes rooted in language. But that doesn’t matter—on the principled level, these are our mistakes; there are no real paradoxes. In the same sense I want to say—and this is an approach that it seems to me Rabbi Kook expresses in many places—that when there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, really the deeper morality is what Jewish law says. If you think there’s a contradiction, you simply don’t understand what morality really says. While one has to remember in the background that Rabbi Kook really does attribute importance to natural morality, meaning to our natural feelings about what is moral and what is not moral. Rabbi Kook is far from dismissing them; that is, he does see them as an indication of what should be called moral. That is on the one hand. On the other hand, all of that is when there are lacunae, but if Jewish law says something clearly and you think morality says something else, know that you are simply mistaken. True morality says what Jewish law says. That is the second approach. The third approach says that Jewish law and morality are two independent categories, and yes, sometimes there is a contradiction between them, and then I am in conflict. On the face of it, what I just described may sound like just repeating the question, only instead of ending it with a question mark, ending it with an exclamation point. That is not a solution to the question; it just says okay, we have a problem, we’re in conflict. I will argue later that this actually is a solution to the question—not only is it a solution, it is the solution, the best solution there is to the question. But for now that is only the framework. Now let’s go in a little more, a little more into the details. Okay, I found it. I’m now going to share with you a passage from the Chazon Ish in Emunah U’Bitachon. Okay, this passage is often the one on which people hang that interpretation I mentioned earlier of the Chazon Ish’s approach, meaning that from here one supposedly sees that the Chazon Ish advocates the supremacy and absoluteness of Jewish law and does not recognize the existence of conflicts. So the Chazon Ish says this: “Moral obligations are sometimes one body together with halakhic rulings, and Jewish law is what decides the forbidden and the permitted of the doctrine of morality.” Let’s pause on this first sentence before continuing. What can one understand from this first sentence? First of all, the end of the sentence—that Jewish law is what decides the forbidden and the permitted of the doctrine of morality—that really does look like the approach I described earlier: yes, Jewish law determines it, Jewish law tells you what morality is, there is no morality as an independent category. On the other hand, in the first half of the sentence he says: “Moral obligations are sometimes one body together with halakhic rulings.” What does “sometimes” mean? On the face of it, it seems this probably is not a complete identification. It’s not that he does not recognize the existence of morality, only the existence of Jewish law. He says sometimes Jewish law is what determines morality. Fine, the question remains when this “sometimes” applies—when yes and when no—but the very expression “sometimes” hints a bit that his approach is not quite as extreme as one might have understood. That is, he does not completely identify morality with Jewish law, he does not completely say there is no room for morality and all that matters is only Jewish law. Rather there is a more complex situation. Of course one could say, interpret that “sometimes” a bit differently. One could say that “sometimes” means because there are parts of Jewish law that have nothing to do with morality. It is forbidden to eat pork, redemption of a firstborn donkey, I don’t know, sacrifices—all these things are not related to morality. So there it is clear that Jewish law does not determine moral principles. But in areas that concern morality, there is the “sometimes.” There Jewish law—the determinations of Jewish law—are the determinations that say how one ought to behave. That is, Jewish law is what determines morality. If I interpret that “sometimes” this way, then I can read this whole sentence in the same imperialistic way: basically there is only Jewish law, and Jewish law determines morality. True, there are parts of Jewish law that do not relate to morality—ritual parts, religious parts, whatever you want to call them—but the parts of Jewish law that deal with moral issues, with moral questions, are basically our morality. There is no independent category or other source from which to derive these things. So fine, for now this sentence still does not completely tell us what we want to know. Let’s continue reading how he explains it. “How so? They said in Bava Batra 21b that regarding schoolteachers there is no claim of ‘you are cutting off my livelihood.’ Behold, there are teachers in a city making a living from their labor, and suddenly other teachers come from another city, and as is human nature people are not satisfied with the old familiar things, everyone jumped toward the new guests, and the city’s teachers were harmed.” Yes, meaning there were teachers, schoolteachers, who had already been working here for years, making a living, everything was fine. New teachers came, or a new school was opened, and they tried to attract the students to come to the new school. As is human nature, people always like new things. The old thing always seems unattractive to them, and therefore even if the new ones are no better than the old ones, they will jump to try the new ones—maybe it’s better. Okay? So they flocked to the new guests, went to the new school, and the city’s old teachers, the veterans, were harmed. “The deprived ones,” I continue reading, “spread their hatred in their hearts against the new pursuers.” So of course the veteran teachers hate the new ones. “And from hatred of heart they went out seeking claims of defects and false accusations against them, and taught their tongues to speak evil about them.” Yes, they look for complaints about them and spread malicious speech and seek pretexts so they can get rid of them and hurt them, and so on. “And from one evil to another they went out to spread false slander and stir up the compassion of the townspeople against the cruelty of the newcomers, until they increased quarrels and disputes, and at times they took revenge on them whenever it was in their power.” Yes, they start a conflict, they incite the townspeople against the newcomers, quarrels, disputes, trying to frame them, speak evil about them, to drive them out. “And behold,” says the Chazon Ish, “all the actions of the old ones would have been clean of every sin and iniquity if the Jewish law were like them, such that they could prevent the newcomers, and the newcomers would be the ones sinning against their own souls by rebelling against the Jewish law stated to Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, at Sinai. There would be here no prohibition of dispute, nor prohibition of evil speech, nor baseless hatred; on the contrary, there would be here a commanded war to uphold religion.” Did someone ask something? Let’s mute the video for a moment. What is the Chazon Ish saying? If Jewish law had sided with the veteran teachers, then everything the veteran teachers were doing would have been excellent, moral, perfectly fine—even though they are framing them and inciting the townspeople against them. Jewish law is with them, and it determines that this is okay. Jewish law determines morality—I remind you. That is what he is trying to say. But now that Jewish law has ruled… “But now that Jewish law has ruled that ‘the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom,’ and this principle is loftier than the livelihood of individual people,” the livelihood or sustenance of individual people, “behold, the incoming guests acted according to Jewish law, and those who rise against them are shedding innocent blood. And when they hate them in their hearts, they transgress ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart.’ When they speak ill of them, they transgress the prohibition of evil speech. When they gather groups for quarrels, they transgress ‘Do not be like Korach.’ When they take revenge on them because the others do not benefit them, they transgress ‘Do not take revenge.’” Yes, Jewish law ruled that the new teachers are permitted to open a competing school. Why? Because the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom. We want there to be competition among teachers, among schools, because that will benefit education. “And this principle is loftier than the livelihood of individual people,” even though this ruling harms the livelihood of the veteran teachers. But the principle that the jealousy of scholars increases wisdom overrides, according to Jewish law, the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood,” the claim that you are interfering with my livelihood, hurting my livelihood. That is what Jewish law determines. And the moment Jewish law determines that, the whole picture flips over. The new teachers are the righteous ones, and the veteran teachers are acting immorally—inciting, framing, speaking evil speech, violating “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” Why? Because Jewish law determined that it is permitted to open a new school. And that is what he says: “And when the Talmud said there in Bava Batra: ‘And Rav Huna agrees regarding teachers of children that one cannot prevent them’”—that is, the Talmud there discusses the claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood.” Yes, I have a certain business, someone comes and opens the same business next to me. Can I sue him in religious court to get him out of here? “You are cutting off my livelihood”—you are hurting my income, I already captured the market in this area. But regarding teachers of children, there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood”; “one cannot prevent them.” The old teacher cannot prevent the new one from opening a new school. “Included in this Jewish law are many moral laws that will be encountered among the consequences of this halakhic ruling.” So here we have an example that the halakhic determination is what determines who is behaving morally and who is not behaving morally. That is his illustration of the opening sentence, the sentence in which he stated the program, yes, the principle that Jewish law is really the factor that determines morality. So let’s try to think a moment about what is going on here. First, he does not say there is no such thing as morality and there is only Jewish law. Rather he says Jewish law is what determines morality. But there is such a thing as morality, otherwise there would be no need to discuss anything. He should have said: act according to Jewish law—what is morality? I don’t know what that is. He does not say that. He says the moral rules exist, but Jewish law is what determines them, how to behave morally correctly. This is not a denial of the existence of the category called morality. That is one point. Second, the Chazon Ish says that if Jewish law had really said that it was forbidden to open a new school, then the new teachers would have been immoral and the veteran teachers would have been moral. Because Jewish law determined that there is no claim of “you are cutting off my livelihood” regarding teachers, the status of the veteran teachers becomes that of immoral behavior. There is a moral claim against their conduct. That means he recognizes the existence of moral claims. He only says that if you behave according to Jewish law, there is no room for a moral claim against you. Morality has no independent standing. Morality is determined by Jewish law. But it is not that there is no such thing as an immoral person or a moral person. Notice: he does not identify Jewish law with morality. He says that where Jewish law speaks in a moral issue, there behavior according to Jewish law is itself the moral behavior. One cannot come with moral complaints against you if you acted according to Jewish law. What happens when Jewish law says nothing? In such a case, the Chazon Ish does not say there is no weight to one’s inner feeling, conscience, our usual moral conceptions. He only says that when Jewish law has spoken, you cannot say independently: true, you acted according to Jewish law, but you are immoral. No. According to Jewish law he is also moral. That is what the Chazon Ish says. Two more comments. One comment: then what is “beyond the letter of the law”? What are those things about which we are told that Jewish law really says such-and-such, but someone who also wants to be a moral person should do more than that—for example returning a lost object after the owner has despaired of recovering it? It appears in the Shulchan Arukh; it is in the Talmud and then ruled in Maimonides and in the Shulchan Arukh, that if I find a lost object after the owner has despaired of it, I may take it for myself—that is the Jewish law. But the sages are pleased with someone who returns the lost object even though he could take it. So there is such a category called beyond the letter of the law: “so that you may walk in the way of the good.” Even where Jewish law allows me to take the item, they tell me: yes, but morality forbids it to you. Morality expects you to return the item. The Shulchan Arukh says that they can even compel you to do so, even though in terms of Jewish law this item is yours. This is not such a strong objection. Why? Because it is not that I am obligated to take the item. I am allowed to take the item after despair of recovery, and of course I am also allowed not to take it. So if I want to be righteous, I sanctify myself within what is permitted to me. True, I may take the item, but I am stringent with myself and do not take it. That is not the same as the teachers. Regarding teachers they tell me there is a point in Jewish law to opening a new school, to having competition. Not merely that one may open a new school—one should open a new school. In such a case there is no such thing as saying, but beyond the letter of the law, if one of the new teachers comes and says: but beyond the letter of the law I won’t compete with the veteran teachers—is that okay? How would that look according to Jewish law? Obviously not. We want there to be competition; it is not that we permit competition, we want it. It is an interest. If you refrain in order not to hurt the livelihood of the veteran teachers, you are acting wrongly, because it is more important not to hurt the education of the children. That is not the same as a lost object, because there your right to take the lost object is only a permission. After despair of recovery you may take the lost object. Fine—but you may also refrain from taking it. So the sages say: morally we recommend that you not take the lost object but return it to its owner. That is not going against Jewish law but being stricter than Jewish law. Therefore it is not such a great objection. A second comment. The second comment concerns… yes, concerns the source of this Jewish law. Where does Rav Huna’s agreement regarding teachers of children that one cannot prevent them come from? Where did this Jewish law come from? “The jealousy of scholars increases wisdom.” Right? Meaning they derived it from the verse, at least conceptually; not certain that this is the actual source. That verse is not a verse in the Torah. It is not a Torah-level law. Clearly that verse is used as an illustration of the conception, of the reasoning, of the sages who dealt with the topic. It is not that the Torah itself forced this upon us. We originally thought morality says “you are cutting off my livelihood.” Then the Torah came and innovated—what do you mean, morality says to establish schools. The Torah says nothing about this matter. This is the reasoning of the sages. But if so, I ask: where did that reasoning come from? It does not come from the verse, so where did it come from? Seemingly it is a moral consideration. Or in other words, what the Chazon Ish here calls Jewish law, in the sense that Jewish law determines the moral principle, he is not talking about a halakhah written in a verse. He is talking about a halakhah established by the sages through moral, logical, human, ordinary judgment. Fine, that is something else. Why? Because here it is not just Jewish law, but the sages determining in Jewish law what morality really says. Well then, no wonder that in such cases Jewish law is what determines morality. But what would happen, for example, when Jewish law tells me to kill Amalekite babies? Or not to save the life of a non-Jew by desecrating the Sabbath? All kinds of problems of Jewish law and morality, right? Can I say there too that Jewish law is what determines that it is moral to do this? Meaning to kill the Amalekite baby or not to save the life of the non-Jew because Jewish law says that is what one has to do—so that must also be what morality says? I do not know whether the Chazon Ish would say such a thing. The Chazon Ish says it about laws like these, laws that are rooted in moral judgment. So there, when the sages determined that this is the relevant moral judgment, it really does determine what the binding morality is from the Torah’s standpoint, because the discussion is a moral discussion. But where the discussion is a halakhic discussion and it clashes with a moral principle, there I do not know whether the Chazon Ish would say that there too this is actually the proper moral behavior. I remind you of an expression attributed, at least, to the Chazon Ish: this is called the fifth section of the Shulchan Arukh. After all, the Shulchan Arukh has four sections: Orach Chayim, Even HaEzer, Yoreh De’ah, and Choshen Mishpat. The Chazon Ish, as it is commonly said in his name, said that the Shulchan Arukh also has a fifth section, a section not written anywhere. There are certain extra-halakhic principles that are also supposed to be involved in determining Jewish law. What are those principles? Among other things, logical reasoning, moral principles, and the like. So the Chazon Ish really does recognize the existence of moral principles, and not only that—he does not necessarily subordinate them to Jewish law; on the contrary, sometimes they are what determine what the Jewish law will be. And that fits with what he says here. It seems to me that what he says here is that when the sages discussed a halakhic issue and reached the conclusion that this is the Jewish law, but their consideration was a moral consideration—not that they derived it from a verse, but a moral consideration—in such a case the halakhic determination is itself the binding morality. Because the sages discussed a moral question. But when the sages discuss a halakhic question and reach a halakhic conclusion through methods of interpretation, exegesis of Torah, whatever it may be, tradition, a law given to Moses at Sinai, whatever you want—and they reach the conclusion that this is the Jewish law, does that necessarily mean that this halakhic determination also determines how one ought morally to behave? That is not written in the Chazon Ish. Maybe it is true, but it is not written in the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish explicitly speaks about a halakhah that is rabbinic, a halakhah rooted in moral and human thought, and not a halakhah that comes from verses. So when one decides a moral issue, one can see that ruling as a moral instruction. But when one decides a halakhic issue, who said that ruling is also a moral instruction? It may be that morality says one thing and Jewish law says another. Fine, it may be that Jewish law overrides morality in the sense of being deferred, but not that Jewish law determines what counts as moral here. Okay, that is a different question—what to do afterwards—but to identify Jewish law with morality, it does not seem to me that this is written in the Chazon Ish. Let’s look, for example, at section two. “Among the moral obligations is that a person should strive to plant in his heart this great principle: that in every case in which he encounters his fellow, he must weigh on the scales of Jewish law in order to know who is the pursuer and who is the pursued,” as in the case of the teachers. “The study of morality imparts love and compassion for the pursued, and bitter wrath toward the pursuer. How terrible is the stumbling block and great the breakdown of those who reverse the pursuer into the pursued and the pursued into the pursuer. And as for knowing its truth, knowing truly who is the pursuer and who is the pursued, there is no place for that except in the books of the decisors, which the mighty ones of the earth, our rabbis, handed down to us.” The Chazon Ish here is basically saying that when you encounter such a situation, you have to weigh it on the scales of Jewish law first of all in order to determine who here is the pursuer and who is the pursued. Afterwards use what you learned in moral study, which tells you to identify with the pursued and save him from the hands of the pursuer. But first you have to define who is the pursuer and who is the pursued—that is what Jewish law does. But again notice: he does not say morality has no role and nothing to say. After we have defined who is the pursuer and who is the pursued, morality now comes and says one must act on behalf of the pursued. And that is morality. “Pursued” in a physical sense may be Jewish law, but “pursued” here in the case of the teachers is morality, not Jewish law. And therefore this paragraph too actually says—he tells us always, always, you must look at the situation through halakhic glasses. But that does not mean it ends there. After the halakhic glasses determine who is pursuer and who is pursued, the moral command now comes and says: act for the sake of the pursued and against the pursuer. So there is room for morality. One first has to establish the definitions of pursuer and pursued, which are made by Jewish law. And what happens if from the standpoint of Jewish law I do not find an answer to who is the pursuer and who is the pursued? There is no halakhic statement. Suppose there had been no topic of teachers of children. Then I would wonder: who is the pursuer and who is the pursued here? The veteran teachers? The new teachers? On whose behalf should I intervene? I assume the Chazon Ish would say: then use your moral reasoning. You must weigh it on the scales of Jewish law if Jewish law says something about this matter. But if Jewish law says nothing, then fine, there remains a lacuna, and you absolutely can use moral judgment. What basically emerges from the words of the Chazon Ish is that the picture is much less clear-cut than it appears when one reads the first sentence. The first sentence of the Chazon Ish sounds like halakhic imperialism: there is no such thing as morality, Jewish law determines morality, period. Later, when he elaborates, it becomes very, very, very moderated. There definitely is morality, and even when Jewish law determines morality, even then there is room for morality: after Jewish law determines who is pursuer and who is pursued, morality spurs you to act as you ought to act on behalf of the pursued. Second, this speaks in a place where Jewish law deals with a moral question and decides it with moral tools. What about laws that do not stem from moral reasoning but from verses? There I do not know whether Jewish law determines morality. It is quite possible that it does not, and Jewish law determines what must be done, and it is against morality, and it does not say that this is morality—it says this is against morality, and nevertheless it must be done. Let’s perhaps bring an example of this. Once I saw in Rabbi Dessler’s Michtav MeEliyahu—by the way, afterward I searched a bit and didn’t find it—but once I saw in Michtav MeEliyahu that he writes: after all, the Talmud says there are several situations in which one is allowed to lie. A Torah scholar lies—in the second chapter of Bava Metzia—about three things. Rabbi Dessler says: one who lied in those situations where Jewish law permits lying simply did not lie. To lie means to say something one is forbidden to say, but here he said something he ought to say, is permitted and even ought to say; that is not called a lie. Fine, on the face of it that is only a semantic trick, but in truth I find it an outrageous statement. It is outrageous because it is obvious that even if you lie for justified reasons, it is still a lie. You did not tell the truth. True, it is permitted and perhaps one should do it; all of that is true. But you cannot tell me that it is not a lie. So if we go back to our examples, Jewish law says one may lie for the sake of peace. Does that mean that when I lied for the sake of peace I did not violate the moral prohibition of falsehood? I think I did violate it—it was simply deferred because of the value of peace—but one cannot say Jewish law determines morality. Morality determines morality; falsehood is falsehood is falsehood. Sometimes Jewish law tells me there are values that override the moral command, but that is not the same as saying Jewish law determines morality. To say Jewish law determines morality is basically some conception of complete permission, and even more than complete permission—there is not even anything to permit at all, there is only Jewish law. To permit always means that there is something opposing it and this principle permits it, but here perhaps there is not even anything opposing it. The Chazon Ish can definitely speak here of something deferred rather than fully permitted. It is permitted to lie, one should lie, but one cannot say this is not lying. You crossed a moral line—true, it was justified. Therefore it seems to me that this interpretation of the Chazon Ish is an interpretation that does not really fit what he actually writes, even though that is the common way of interpreting him. The source opposite this, I said, for the opposite approach is Rabbi Kook. One of the places where he speaks about this—and there are many places where he speaks about it—is in Olat Re’iyah on the binding of Isaac. Olat Re’iyah is his commentary on the prayer book. And in the section on the binding of Isaac there, before the morning prayers, Rabbi Kook has a long discussion interpreting this passage. And he essentially explains that passage very similarly to what Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, does—with one principal change at the end. What is the conclusion? A very important change, but one change. Basically, I’ll start with Kierkegaard perhaps. Kierkegaard basically claims—Kierkegaard was an existentialist philosopher. He was an existentialist philosopher. And existentialists basically quarry philosophical statements out of their biography and their soul, statements that have some significance also for the broader public. So he describes there three stages a person is supposed to go through in life, and he calls them the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage. The aesthetic stage is a kind of hedonism. That is, a person does whatever he feels like, whatever he connects to, whatever he wants—just goes with the flow, as they say. That is the aesthetic stage. The ethical stage is the stage where you buy into a kind of Kantian ethics. This is the stage where you basically say: true, I feel like doing this, I connect to this thing—but there is a moral command, a categorical imperative in Kant’s language, and that command is supposed to cause me to impose this behavior against my nature. “Do not say: I do not desire to eat pork; rather say: I do desire it, but what can I do, my Father in heaven has decreed it upon me.” And one must conquer one’s natural inclination, one’s aesthetic flow, before the ethical command. Ethics means conquering the inclination, overcoming nature. In the aesthetic stage you go with your nature. The ethical stage is to overcome your nature and go with what is right, to subordinate the natural flow to what is right. The religious stage is the third stage. There is the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage. The religious stage is the third stage, and in Kierkegaard’s eyes this is the highest level, the highest spiritual level. This is a person who basically lives inside a paradox and bends not only his natural inclination but even his moral principles before the religious command. And the clearest example of this for Kierkegaard is Abraham our forefather in the binding of Isaac. Kierkegaard wrote an entire book—the aesthetic, ethical, and religious appears in many of his writings, but he devoted an entire book to the binding of Isaac; the book is called Fear and Trembling. It is absolutely an experience to read, I recommend reading it—even though, again, he is a Christian thinker, but I think it is really an experience to read that book. And there he describes—Abraham our forefather is called there the knight of faith. That means he is the one who reached the third stage, passed through the aesthetic stage and the ethical stage and arrived at the religious stage. Very few people reach this stage fully, and Abraham our forefather is their model; he is the knight of faith. What does this mean? Then he goes through it—and there are also midrashim of the sages very similar to what he describes there—how Abraham our forefather should really have refused the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, to bind Isaac, for two reasons. One reason is the logical reason, not the moral one, the logical one—what is it? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, told him, promised him, “Through Isaac shall your seed be called.” And if he goes to bind Isaac and kill him, then obviously the promise of the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot be fulfilled. So it cannot be—there is a logical contradiction here between the command he receives now from the Holy One, blessed be He, and the previous promise. So he should have refused for reasons of reason, of logic. Beyond that, there are of course also the moral, human reasons, the bond of father to son. And there is also a rational dimension here: the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself expects us to behave in a human and moral way. So how can it be that He commands me to slaughter my son? To the point that many indeed ask how Abraham our forefather was so convinced that this command he heard from the Holy One, blessed be He, was an authentic command and not just some kind of delusion. After all, it contradicts reason, it contradicts morality, it contradicts everything—so who told you this was not really some kind of illusion? And nevertheless Abraham our forefather got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey himself, as in the well-known midrashim, took Isaac, and stood ready to offer him on the altar. That is the knight of faith, says Kierkegaard. The knight of faith is someone who bends his entire being to the religious command. His entire being means both his natural inclinations— a father’s compassion for his son, and so on—and also his moral principles, the prohibition of murder, and also his reason—everything. He bends everything before the religious command and lives—leaps into the paradox, lives in the paradox. That is the most complete human being, the religious human being. The most complete religious person. And that is the third stage. The aesthetic stage is the first, going with nature. The second stage is forcing nature in the name of the moral command. The third stage, the religious command, the religious stage, is forcing both nature and the moral command before the higher religious truth, which we do not understand; it appears paradoxical to us, but it is supposed to override everything. You understand that there is really here some sort of Chazon-Ish-like statement. Right? Because it basically says that Jewish law, the divine command—it doesn’t matter that he was Christian, but translated into Jewish terms, yes?—so Jewish law, which is the divine command, overrides morality, overrides natural inclination, overrides everything. Jewish law is what determines. That was Kierkegaard. Okay, let’s stop here for a few minutes and come back afterwards to Rabbi Kook. Five minutes. Okay. We continue. All those joining us. Gideon, Amichai, are you with us? Ben? Rafael? Rafael, are you with us? Ben? Good. So I described the picture of the binding of Isaac according to Kierkegaard. How does Kierkegaard basically read the end of the passage? “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do not do anything to him.” There it looks like some sort of concession by the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, tests Abraham, and once He sees that Abraham is on the level of the knight of faith, yes, that he is already in the third, religious stage, then there is no need for him to kill his son, so He lets him off. Rabbi Kook goes with Kierkegaard all the way except for that last stage. He wants to argue that the conclusion of the binding of Isaac is the opposite. I’m sharing here the relevant passage from Olat Re’iyah. Look, for example, here. “And He said: Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do not do anything to him. The voice of the Lord in power, through His angel who does His word, says that the absolute command—both from the side of justice, to refrain from the wickedness of bloodshed, and from the side of nature, to abstain from anything that harms the feelings of love, filled with love for his beloved son—remains in full force. The holy, sturdy recognitions engraved in spiritual nature and in material nature did not descend from their station by even a hair’s breadth because of the supreme vision revealed in the word of God.” What does that mean? I think there is more than a hint here to Kierkegaard. He is basically saying: both from the side of nature and from the side of justice—in other words, Kierkegaard’s third stage, the religious stage in which you are supposed to subordinate your nature, your aesthetic self, and your morality, your ethical self, before the religious command—is not correct. This is exactly the lesson of the binding of Isaac. Do not think, Abraham our forefather, that Kierkegaard is right. Do not think that the divine command requires you to bind your reason before it, to bind your morality before it, to bind your human nature before it. No. All those things, on the contrary, reflect the will of God. They do not stand against the will of God. The will of God is that you go with those things. And that is what he says—really the opposite of Kierkegaard. The whole path he goes with him, but “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad”—the lesson at the end simply turns the whole thing upside down. For Kierkegaard the whole binding of Isaac comes to teach the importance of forcing nature and morality before the divine command. And for Rabbi Kook it comes to teach exactly the opposite: that one must not force nature and morality before the divine command. Not because one need not force them, but because there is no conflict at all. Because the divine command will always fit our natural inclination and our moral principles. There cannot be a conflict between them. You see Rabbi Kook’s conception regarding morality and Jewish law. Then he continues and says: “Regarding sacrifice and the deepest self-surrender to the living God, which is holy and mighty truth in the power of desire and sincerity of the soul’s will—therefore, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against the lad,’ with all the force of the simple and upright prohibition inherent in the matter.” When they tell you “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad,” that is not a concession, as Kierkegaard says: okay, you’ve reached the right level, now there is no need to kill him. No. Now you need to understand: this is the lesson of the binding of Isaac. It is not just an epilogue. For Kierkegaard it is only an epilogue. The test ended, Abraham proved that he is such an exalted righteous man, and now they told him okay, but don’t kill Isaac, don’t stretch out your hand against the lad. That is the epilogue. Know that in the end he didn’t kill him. For Rabbi Kook this is not the epilogue, it is the lesson. The whole binding of Isaac came to teach this. What? That the divine command is “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” That the divine command is really meant to be identified with natural inclination and with principles of justice and morality. Therefore when they tell him “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad,” that is in the name of morality, not in the name of the divine command. Morality itself, which you thought should be bent before the divine command—no, no, there is no contradiction between them. There is no contradiction; the divine command wants morality, not something else. That is what he says: “with all the force of the simple and upright prohibition inherent in the matter.” You know that for Rabbi Kook the term “upright” comes in contrast to the term “conqueror.” Upright and conqueror. Upright means one who behaves naturally, and conqueror means one who conquers his inclination. His nature pulls him to do one thing, but he subordinates that nature to the principles of truth, to what is proper. So the upright person is someone who acts with nature; his inner self is upright, so naturally he does the right thing, he does not have to force his inclination. The conqueror is someone who has not yet reached the level of the upright. He has to force his inclination until the inclination straightens out and reaches a state where one can conduct oneself according to one’s natural inclinations. So that is what he means by “with all the force of the simple and upright prohibition inherent in the matter.” “And do not think there is here any contradictory enterprise between your pure fatherly love for your precious son and the noble love of God that goes and surges in might through the depths of your profound soul.” That is, do not think there is any contradiction at all between the divine command and the natural inclination, morality, a father’s love for his son, and so on. “To the extent that there would be even the smallest correct practical step indicating some diminution of that love. Such a thing does not rise to the level of possibility.” It cannot be that we would be required to take some step that goes against natural morality. It cannot be that the Holy One, blessed be He, would demand such a thing from us. “Not so. And do not do anything to him. For a father’s compassion and love in a pure soul are themselves a flame of holy fire, moving uprightly”—again the verb uprightly—“from the pure love of God and His compassion upon all His works, whose appearance in the world increases the splendor and glory of the supreme purposeful holiness that elevates life and the entire universe to the height of their station.” There are many more passages in Rabbi Kook where he says that there cannot be a contradiction between morality and Jewish law. If there is a contradiction, then you’ve made some… you’ve gotten confused. There is some mistake here. Either you didn’t understand the command of God, as with Abraham our forefather, or you didn’t understand what morality is. But let’s also go a little more deeply here into what is written beyond this idea in its simple form. Even in Rabbi Kook it is not entirely smooth, as we saw with the Chazon Ish. Because then why did the Holy One, blessed be He, put Abraham our forefather through this whole workshop? Let Him tell him from the outset: what you feel, a father’s compassion for his son, that is exactly what I want you to do. There is no problem at all. Why drag him around, wake him in the morning, have him go for three days with the feeling that he is going to bind his son, and in the end say to him: don’t worry, nothing needs to be done. That is really abusive. Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, put him through this abuse? He did it for two reasons. The first reason is to teach Abraham this very principle, that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not abuse us. Our natural inclinations and our moral conceptions are things He Himself planted within us. Therefore clearly they are supposed to fit what He wants from us. But beyond that—and that could also have just been said to Abraham our forefather, and that would be enough—there is no need for that to drag him around for three days and put him through that nightmare. It seems to me that what he wants to say—and again this connects to this theme of upright and conqueror. I told you that for Rabbi Kook the concepts upright and conqueror are two opposing concepts. The upright person is one who acts according to his natural inclination, and the conqueror is one who has a natural inclination toward evil but forces himself and imposes what is proper, the divine or moral command, on his natural nature, on his natural inclination. What is the relationship between upright and conqueror? After all, there is a state of conqueror. For Rabbi Kook the state of conqueror… Shilo, did you want to ask something? Yes, according to Rabbi Kook’s thesis, then in the end Abraham didn’t pass the test, did he? Why? Because in the end he did want to bind his son, meaning he did not take his natural feelings and all the things Rabbi Kook values into account. But he received an explicit divine command to bind his son. There was no room for interpretation. Only at the very end did the Holy One, blessed be He, tell him: know that all this was only a didactic lesson to teach you that such a command is a fiction, there are no such commands. But at the moment he received this command, before he understood that lesson, he had to obey the command. That was the purpose of the workshop. So what is God’s assessment of the test then? It’s not that crazy according to Rabbi Kook. Why? It is a huge thing. A person was ready to give up his son in order to fulfill the command. True, when we know the truth, the command itself can never contradict morality. But practically, in principle, you have to be willing to surrender your whole self to the divine command. And we see that Abraham was willing. I’ll now explain something that may sharpen this further. What is the relationship between upright and conqueror? These are two different stages in human development. At the first stage, “the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” What does that mean? A person is born with conceptions of the good, with a desire to do good, but also with many drives toward evil. In the end, a person cannot rely on his natural inclination to show him the right way. Therefore at the first stage, a person has to act as the Chazon Ish says, says Rabbi Kook. He has to be a conqueror. He has to go with what Jewish law says, or with what the Torah says, and subordinate his natural inclinations to Jewish law. This is the ethical stage. The stage where you understand that your natural inclinations are supposed to bend before the command of God. This is Kierkegaard’s second stage, the ethical stage. But after you do this, after years of education, of forcing your natural inclinations before the divine command, what this process will do to you is straighten your natural inclinations. Your natural inclinations will gradually become balanced and lead you in the directions one really ought to go. And little by little you will become upright. After you become upright, you can truly rely on your natural inclinations as a guide. Follow them and do what they say. But only after you have gone through the stage of the conqueror. Therefore this workshop that the Holy One, blessed be He, puts Abraham through is a workshop whose purpose is to straighten his inner uprightness. To take his natural inclinations and make sure they really will take Abraham in the upright direction. And in order to do that, you need to go through a stage of conqueror. A stage where you ignore your natural inclinations and do what is written, what the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. And slowly, over time, as you find yourself attached to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, your natural inclinations will straighten out and they will naturally lead you to do good. Then you are in the stage of the upright. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, had started Abraham our forefather straight away with this lesson—don’t worry, there is no contradiction between My command and your natural inclinations—you know what would have happened? What would have happened is that he would have said about all his impulses: okay, apparently this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, and therefore that is what he would do. He would have done whatever he pleased. He would basically have remained in the aesthetic stage. And Rabbi Kook wants to say no: the aesthetic stage is an excellent stage; Kierkegaard is not right. There is a U-turn: aesthetic, ethical, then the religious stage, and then one returns from there downward—not up to the religious. Ethical—sorry, aesthetic, ethical, and then one does not rise to the religious but returns to the aesthetic. But one returns to the aesthetic in a different sense. In the end you really do go with your natural inclinations like the aesthetic person, but that is after you have straightened your natural inclinations. Not with the natural inclinations with which you were born; after you have worked hard to straighten them, now you really can behave aesthetically—that is, flow, go with what seems right to you, with what you naturally think is right—after you have straightened them. Not every person, every desire that arises in him, is the ultimate guide for knowing what is right or wrong to do. That is a banal conception. It is not true. But there is a possibility of working on your inner compass so as to straighten it, so that after it has been straightened you really can trust what it says. Do what it says, and it is supposed to match what the Holy One, blessed be He, commands. So in practice—perhaps there is also an educational implication here. You know, people who raise their children on the idea that the Holy One, blessed be He, is good and compassionate and loves us, and that basically our natural inclinations are what He really expects us to do, will not get very far. Because in effect they will raise children who do whatever they want. Whatever he feels is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, therefore everything is fine, no problem. In order to reach this state, you have to pass through the state of the conqueror. Education by its essence has to be education of the conqueror, not of the upright—so that in the end you can return to being upright. Not as in Kierkegaard, to suppress even that and rise to a third level, but to return to the first level, but this time correctly, when my inner orientations are already straightened and correct. Therefore even in the stages of education, it seems to me that at first you have to educate children on the basis of the conqueror. What the Holy One, blessed be He, said is what needs to be done. You think otherwise? Overcome it. Take a pill. After you struggle with this for a while, after you suppress your inclination and your tendencies for a long time, they will probably straighten themselves more and more in the right direction, and as an adult the hope is that you will be able to place more trust in your natural feelings. By the way, that is also true in learning and analytical study. People who from the outset want to encourage students to come up with analytic theories are doing enormous harm to their students. Because when you start producing ideas before you are built for it, you are just producing analytic theories and simply talking nonsense. To encourage a person to activate himself when he is not at all ready—that is an educational mistake. At first, listen to what I am saying. I am your rabbi or your teacher. Repeat it, prepare yourself toward it, submit yourself to me. After you have gone through a few years like that, you will ripen, you will straighten out, you will consolidate, and now your own analysis, your own idea, really is interesting. And whoever begins immediately with everyone saying his own theories—this will simply be a collection of nonsense. It reminds me of a controversy I once saw in the newspaper Haaretz. As you know, the Ministry of Education has to justify its existence, and therefore about every two weeks a new program comes out about exactly how one should teach mathematics. There was a period when they taught mathematics from first grade by teaching how to think already, thought problems and all kinds of things of that kind, these silly questions where the student had to use his head and think and so on. They didn’t teach them one plus one equals two, the multiplication table, and the foundations of mathematics, but immediately how to think and in creative ways and all kinds of things like that. This is a serious didactic mistake. People wrote to the newspaper, some of them even, it seems to me, mathematics lecturers, and said: my child in first, second, third grade brings home questions that I, as a mathematician, do not know how to answer. They are scrambling children’s brains. Instead of teaching them the multiplication table and one plus one equals two, and letting them finish high school with the basics of mathematics—then you can start thinking, after you already have some infrastructure. But if you start reinventing the wheel without knowing anything, without having any idea, without learning, without seeing what other people have done, you are just talking nonsense. It is not right to act that way. All these are basically, I think, expressions of the educational and didactic conception that Rabbi Kook presents here. One has to begin with the stage of the conqueror, straighten one’s inner uprightness, and then one can behave as the upright. The term upright reminds me—you know there is… I am opening here Rashi’s very first comment on the Torah, yes, a very famous one. “Rabbi Yitzchak said.” Notice what Rashi chooses to place at the opening of his commentary on the Torah. “Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Torah should have begun only from ‘This month shall be for you,’ which is the first commandment the Israelites were commanded. So why did it begin with Genesis? Because ‘He declared to His people the power of His works, to give them the inheritance of nations.’ For if the nations of the world should say to Israel, ‘You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,’ they say to them: ‘The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes. By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us.’” Fine. So Rabbi Yitzchak’s question is: why do we need the book of Genesis at all? It should begin at the start of Exodus, from “This month shall be for you the beginning of months.” Why? What is the advantage of the portion of Bo over Genesis, Noah, Lech Lecha? Because that is “the first commandment the Israelites were commanded.” Torah is commandments. First of all, Rashi is coming here to tell us that. Torah is about commandments. All the surrounding stories need explanations for why they appear there; that is secondary. Torah in its essence is Jewish law. We already talked about that. But Rashi asks: if so, why indeed was Genesis written? Why didn’t it begin with “This month shall be for you the beginning of months”? His answer is a very strange answer. Yes: “Because He declared to His people the power of His works”—that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner and can give the land to whomever He wants. Fine. For that they wrote these book and a quarter? So that if the nations come and say to us, what are you doing here in the Land of Israel, we’ll tell them the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner, He created everything, and He decided to give it to us—what do you want? It is a doubtful answer for several reasons. First, is the whole point of Genesis really just to give us arguments against the nations if they ask us why we are sitting here in the land? Let’s say they also don’t really accept it, in my experience. But that is the meaning of the Torah, and that’s it? For that we needed all of Genesis with all its details and precise wording and everything? It sounds a bit detached. But beyond that there is another difficulty. You explained chapter 1 of Genesis to me, where it describes how the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world. But we have a whole book, and another quarter of a book, that you have not explained. After all, you asked about the whole first book and quarter—why do we need them in the Torah?—and the answer you gave explains chapter 1. What about the rest of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus? Why do we need them? What do they have to do with the story? Chapter 1 of Genesis says the Holy One, blessed be He, owns it and therefore can give it to whomever He wants. Fine. Now why do we need the rest? He does not answer the question he asked. In my opinion, though, he does answer it. And the key phrase here is this. You know that Genesis is called the book of the upright. And the Netziv, in the introduction to his commentary on that book, explains this title; among the sages it is called the book of the upright. And the Netziv explains why it is called the book of the upright—because Genesis is before the Torah was given, right? And the patriarchs conducted themselves before they received commands from the Holy One, blessed be He. How did they conduct themselves? So the sages say in the midrash that Abraham our forefather’s two kidneys became for him like two rabbis. What does that mean? They conducted themselves with their natural uprightness, without command. What their natural uprightness told them, that is what they did. Therefore Genesis is called the book of the upright, because it is the book of the upright ones, as the sages say—people who had a good, straight, inner uprightness, and therefore could conduct themselves by it even without command. For later generations we needed a command at Sinai because the command helps straighten, “it will straighten your paths.” It straightens our inner uprightness. But the patriarchs, who acted before the giving of the Torah, acted with their natural uprightness. They did not need the stage of the conqueror. They were born upright; they were upright. Now I return to Rashi. What I asked—what exactly is Rashi answering to his question? After all, he did not explain the whole missing book and quarter, only chapter 1. The answer is not correct. Chapter 1 says the Holy One, blessed be He, has the right to give the land to whomever He wants because He is the owner; He created it. But then it would present the thing as His arbitrary act. I feel like giving it to so-and-so, so I give it to so-and-so—not because he deserves it, not because he is righteous, not because of anything, just because I feel like it; I am the owner. That is a forceful answer. But Genesis comes to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not acting here arbitrarily and forcefully. “He gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes.” To explain why the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the land, you need two things. First, “He created it”—He is the owner and can give it to whomever He wants. “He gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes.” And this is not just arbitrary—He gave it to the people of Israel because the people of Israel are the children of those upright ones whom Genesis—the book of the upright, as it describes how they conducted themselves—portrays. And now we must understand that God’s giving us the land is not an arbitrary act. He has the right to give it to whomever He wants, but He does not act arbitrarily; He gave it to us because we deserve it, because we or our forefathers were upright. And for that one has to describe Genesis. Genesis—“He created it”—that is chapter 1. It has now been described that the Holy One, blessed be He, created it. And “He gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes”—that is the next book and a quarter. Because the next book and a quarter show us how the patriarchs conduct themselves, the book of the upright, and how we are their descendants who came from them, and therefore we deserve things due to the uprightness of our forefathers. That is Rashi’s answer. Therefore really these things are very difficult. That means that in the end Genesis is, as it were, only a tool for defending ourselves against attacks from the nations, to explain to them why we received the land from the Holy One, blessed be He. But really Genesis comes to teach us how upright people behave. That also serves us in an argument with the nations, but in the end obviously that is only a use, not the whole point. It is not only a tool for arguing with the nations; it comes to educate us how to behave uprightly. Therefore it is called the book of the upright. And this brings me back to Rabbi Kook’s upright and conqueror that I talked about earlier. When we speak of behaving uprightly, one can understand that we behave uprightly in the sense that we follow the rules, fit the rules of morality, the rules of Jewish law—we behave uprightly. The uprightness referred to in Rashi here and in Rabbi Kook there is something stronger. Not only that we conduct ourselves uprightly, but that we do so through our inner uprightness, not in the mode of the conqueror. The conqueror also behaves uprightly; he obeys the commands of the Holy One, blessed be He, and does what the Holy One, blessed be He, tells him. So he behaves uprightly, he does the right things. The uprightness spoken of here is inner uprightness—not the uprightness of behavior, but the uprightness of our inner axes that direct our behavior, that they themselves are upright. Consequently we also behave uprightly. To behave uprightly in the sense of upright versus conqueror does not mean that the behavior is good, but that our natural behavior is good. This says something about our inner being, not about our behavior. Because the conqueror too behaves perfectly, but his inner being is not upright. He is constantly forcing his nature in order to behave correctly according to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. So inside he is not upright; he merely forces his inner lack of uprightness against the command. But someone truly upright is someone who is upright inside. If he proceeds naturally, he proceeds correctly. That is what is called upright. And that is exactly Rabbi Kook’s upright. You know, this obviously connects to Maimonides’ words in chapter six of Eight Chapters. There Maimonides asks which type is superior or more praiseworthy—the virtuous person or the one who conquers his inclination. He sets up there two figures, which basically parallel Rabbi Kook’s upright and conqueror. He says that the philosophers say it is better to be the upright one, the virtuous one, the one whose natural inclination is to do good and who does good because that is his natural inclination. So he both does good and is inwardly good. But the sages of Israel say the one who conquers is more praiseworthy. Where do they say that? For example: “Do not say, I do not desire to eat pork; rather say, I do desire it, but what can I do, my Father in heaven has decreed it upon me.” I need to do what the Holy One, blessed be He, says as one who conquers his inclination, not because of his natural inclination. So Maimonides asks: so who is right? By the way, just an interesting side note—Maimonides asks from the philosophers against the sages, and he does not say, okay, so apparently the philosophers are talking nonsense, onward, next topic. He says no, there is a contradiction between the philosophers and the sages, and that requires resolution. He is committed to both, to the philosophers and to the sages. And what is his resolution? These things are well known. He says one must distinguish between two kinds of commandments: revealed statutes and rational commandments. In the revealed statutes, indeed, the conqueror, or the one who conquers his inclination, is preferable. In rational commandments, the upright, the virtuous one, is preferable. Someone whose natural inclination is not to eat pork or not to wear shaatnez is not more virtuous than someone who refrains from pork and shaatnez because of the command. On the contrary: the one who does so because of the command is more virtuous, because he is basically submissive to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, against his natural tendencies. In the moral, rational sphere, there too there is value in being built inwardly in an upright way, and therefore there it is specifically the upright one who is preferable, not the conqueror—the virtuous one, not the one who conquers his inclination. Because there you need to act in such a way that your natural inclinations lead you in the right direction. There is value in being a moral person. There is no value in being naturally religious. There is value in obeying the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, but there is no value in my natural drives leading me to be religious. On the contrary, if my natural inclinations are the opposite, then there is value in the fact that I force them for the sake of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. In morality it is not so. By the way, Rabbi Kook explains—this is Rabbi Chaim Vital’s question—why did the Torah not command the refinement of character traits? Morality, refinement of traits? Rabbi Kook says we have a tradition from the sages that “greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” And if I asked you, the simple intuition would be the opposite: that greater is one who is not commanded and does. But the sages tell us no, greater is one who is commanded and does. And Rabbi Kook says—but there are things in which greater is one who is not commanded and does. In those things the Torah intentionally chose not to command, because if it had commanded us, we would have had to do it as one who is commanded and does, and that is an inferior level. The Torah wants to allow us to do it as one who is not commanded and does, and therefore it does not command it. This is exactly what Maimonides says in chapter six. He says that in moral commandments, there specifically the virtuous one is preferable to the one who conquers his inclination, because there, when your natural inclination is to do good, then you are a better person than if you do it only because of the command while your natural inclination is not that way. Indeed, in that saying of the sages, “Do not say I do not desire to eat pork, do not say I do not desire to wear mixed fibers,” and so on—notice that all the examples there are examples of revealed statutes; there are no moral and rational examples there. Because really this whole principle of preferring the conqueror to the upright applies only in revealed statutes and not in rational commandments. And one more comment, with which I’ll conclude. One must not infer from here that the fulfillment of rational or moral commandments should be done because my inner uprightness tells me to do so. That is not written in Maimonides. They should be done because of the command. It is just that there is also value in my inner uprightness telling me that too. This does not mean I should do it because of inner uprightness. I do it because of the command, because that is how one performs commandments. But here there is value in its also coinciding with my inner uprightness. Or in my inner uprightness directing me and telling me what the Holy One, blessed be He, really expects of me. But I will do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, expects it, and not because that is what I feel like doing because it is my natural uprightness. My natural uprightness is a compass, not the source of authority. It is the compass that tells me where to go. But why do I go? I go because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. That is true also in moral and rational commandments, not only in revealed statutes. Fine, that is just a comment in parentheses; perhaps we’ll return to it later. Rabbi, may I ask a question? Yes. So what does it mean, “do the truth because it is truth,” which Maimonides says? “Truth because it is truth” means that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. So that’s not… seemingly it sounds like he thinks it is true and therefore he does it? No, the opposite. Look at Maimonides at the end of chapter eight in the Laws of Kings, and Maimonides says there—I may get to this later—but Maimonides says there that one who does a commandment because of rational decision is not among the pious of the nations of the world but among their wise men. In other words, it is not a commandment; it is a good deed. A commandment exists only when you do it not because of rational decision but because of the command. Only that is the truth that Maimonides is talking about. But perhaps we’ll still talk about that. I just want to summarize for our purposes in order to close the circle we opened. So I now return to Rabbi Kook’s conception. It is not so simple that he identifies morality with Jewish law. He identifies morality with Jewish law after you have straightened your inner moral axes. Not everyone for whom something seems moral—then that is probably also what Jewish law requires of him. After you worked hard and straightened your inner axes, then there really is an identity. So Rabbi Kook too is not nearly as extreme as he appears at first glance, and the Chazon Ish too is not nearly as extreme as he appears at first glance. And still there is a dispute between them. Because the Chazon Ish basically claims that Jewish law determines what morality is, whereas Rabbi Kook claims that Jewish law fits morality; it does not determine what morality is. It fits morality; it cannot contradict morality. Let’s say there is a conflict between Jewish law and morality, and I become convinced that this is the real morality—Rabbi Kook will say: then interpret Jewish law differently. And the Chazon Ish will say: then ignore what you think about morality and follow Jewish law. That perhaps sharpens the dispute that remains between them after the qualifications I made about each of them separately. Okay, I’ll stop here and we’ll continue next time. If anyone else wants to comment or ask, you can. Rabbi, I have a question. Bottom line—if in the end they say to do the same thing? No. As I said at the end—my last sentence said they do not. I argued as follows: if there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, then the Chazon Ish will say: fine, Jewish law is what determines what morality is, so follow Jewish law. Rabbi Kook will say: look, if you’re already—at least if you are already at the stage of the upright—and you are convinced that this is really morality, then apparently you did not interpret Jewish law correctly. But you will still fulfill Jewish law. So you will interpret Jewish law differently according to what your inner morality tells you. So you will follow morality, not Jewish law—on the assumption that this is also what Jewish law wants you to do. In that conflict, Rabbi Kook will tell you: behave according to morality, and the Chazon Ish will tell you: behave according to Jewish law. Rabbi Kook says behave according to morality because that is also what Jewish law will say, fine—but if you are asking which is the compass, whom should I follow, it is morality. Okay? Okay, next time I’ll try to show you why I disagree with both of them. Good, goodbye. Thank you very much, Rabbi.