Ethics, Faith, and Halakha – Lesson 16 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so basically last time we started talking about the categorical imperative. I’ll briefly remind you what the issue is, even though once again we’re now heading into a couple of vacation breaks, but no choice. So I talked about the basic Kantian rule that says that the criterion for a moral act is what you would want to become a general law. Meaning, you’re supposed to examine the act in front of you through some kind of hypothetical experiment. Let’s assume everyone behaved this way. Would the world be good in my eyes in such a situation, or not? If yes, then it’s a moral act. If not, then it’s an immoral act. And I distinguished this from a consequentialist kind of statement: don’t do it because otherwise others will do it to you. What’s the difference? If I tell a person, don’t steal because otherwise others will steal from you, he can always tell me: fine, so what if they try to steal? I’ll defend myself. I’m a better thief — meaning I’ll succeed. In other words, that’s a consequentialist consideration, not a moral one. Yes, basically you’re supposed to be afraid to steal, not to think that stealing is forbidden. So that’s not it. By contrast, with Kant, the claim is that it’s not that I don’t steal because otherwise others will also steal from me. Rather, there is some criterion here for the morality of an act. And that criterion does not depend on whether others will steal from me or not, but on a hypothetical question. Suppose everyone stole — would I like such a world or not? Okay? Not because that’s really going to happen — it won’t happen, it doesn’t have to happen — but suppose it did happen. Would I like the world created in that situation or not? If yes, it’s a moral act, and if not, it’s an immoral act. And this distinction can be understood more sharply. Remind me of your name?

[Speaker B] Noam. Let it be Noam, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, my mental computer tabs just got released. What distinguishes these two principles, which seem similar, is the case where there is no bad outcome. Meaning, the act you’re doing does not lead to a bad result. So I gave a few examples of this. One example: let’s say I want to hide a thousand shekels from the tax authorities. Okay? Now my claim is that on the consequentialist level, I don’t want to cause damage to people or to the state or to anyone. On the consequentialist level, a shortage of a thousand shekels in the state treasury has no significance at all. No significance — not even a small one. None, none at all. Okay? Meaning, not the slightest blip will change in the way the state functions if it’s missing a thousand shekels. A thousand shekels for the state is about like — I don’t know — a millionth of a penny for a private person. It won’t change your conduct in any way. There won’t be a single matchstick you’d need to buy and won’t buy because you’re missing that amount. Okay? So it has no significance whatsoever. So why not evade it? When someone raises this kind of question, people say: yes, but if you evade, everyone will evade. That’s the second kind of consideration, the consequentialist one, which basically says: wait, if you evade then everyone will evade, and then things will be very bad. Meaning, the result will be a bad result. And the person will answer: but why would everyone evade if I evade? What connection is there between what I do and what they do? More than that — let’s say everyone evades. If I don’t evade, then they won’t evade? Each one of them will make whatever calculation he makes either way, right? He’ll either evade or not evade. So what difference does what I do make? Is it relevant to the state treasury only at the level of a thousand shekels more or a thousand shekels less? If everyone else evades, then the treasury will be empty, but then even if my thousand shekels are there, it won’t help anyone. Okay? And if the others don’t evade, then the treasury has everything it needs and only my thousand shekels are missing. So true, the others might also evade, but what they do is not the result of what I did; it’s independent. So why should I care that if everyone evades things will be bad? If everyone evades, yes, it really will be bad. But it will be bad even if I do pay my thousand shekels. Meaning, my own tax evasion is devoid of any consequences. So on a consequentialist view, you can’t explain to a person why he’s forbidden to do it. Okay? And you can say this about many things — for example environmental quality. There are philosophical articles on this. What you change in the environment by throwing one ordinary bag in the trash is nothing. You change nothing. True, if everyone did that it would be bad, right? But the fact that I do it doesn’t cause others to do it. They’ll do it or they won’t. So my individual bag changes nothing either way.

[Speaker B] On the contrary, maybe I’ll wake up — if people see that the situation is so desperate that no one cares, maybe responsibility will awaken in them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that’s already a cute bit of pilpul, but I’m saying that either way, it certainly doesn’t harm. Meaning, it’s not something where you can point to a bad consequence in order to persuade the person not to do it. A consequentialist consideration won’t work here. Yes, I also talked about voting in elections, and there are all sorts of examples of this. Now here, the only answer, I think, that can be raised against or in favor of the position that says not to evade taxes is the consideration of the categorical imperative. Because what I’m basically saying to the person is: look, I’m not saying that if you evade, others will evade. There’s no dependence. What they do, they’ll do, but it doesn’t depend on what you do. On the contrary, if you evade you’ll certainly hide it, because you don’t want to get caught, right? So obviously you won’t do it publicly, and it won’t affect anyone. You do it quietly and tell no one. Right? So a consequentialist consideration is irrelevant. Rather, Kant tells us: fine, let’s do the hypothetical experiment. Suppose everyone evaded income tax. Is that a good state of affairs? No, because the state treasury would be empty; we wouldn’t be able to function here, right? So if that’s the case, tax evasion is a bad act. Again, not because the tax evasion brings about a negative state of affairs — it doesn’t. My tax evasion changes nothing; it won’t lead to a negative state of affairs. Even if there is a negative state of affairs, it won’t be because of my tax evasion. Okay? Meaning, I’m not claiming against him that what you do leads to a worse situation. No, it doesn’t. It’s a hypothetical experiment. It says: suppose everyone evaded taxes — it has nothing to do with you in particular, but in principle. The standard for determining whether a given act is good or bad is always a global standard. Meaning: if the whole world does it, is that good? Then the act is moral, and you should do it too. If, when the whole world does it, that’s not good, then don’t do it — even independently of what the world will actually do afterward. It’s just an indication that the act is a bad act. Okay? The result is a sign, not a cause, to use the classic analytic jargon. Meaning, it’s not because of the result that I don’t do it. The result serves me only as a kind of hypothetical experiment. I check what the state of affairs would be if everyone did it, and that is the measure that helps me determine whether this act is a good act or a bad act.

[Speaker B] Does the Torah agree with this standard?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know — right now I’m presenting Kant. We’ll talk about the Torah in a moment, but right now I’m presenting Kant. Okay? Now, there’s a similar principle that we know from Hillel the Elder, right? “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” But there, in the straightforward sense, despite the similarity to Kant, it doesn’t look like the Kantian principle. It’s a bit vague, hard to know exactly, but it doesn’t seem like the Kantian principle. What it basically says is: what you wouldn’t want done to you, don’t do to others — some kind of reciprocity. Kant is not talking about reciprocity. He doesn’t ask that. He tells you: don’t steal from him, not because you don’t want him to steal from you, not even on the hypothetical plane. Meaning, even if we interpret Hillel the Elder on a hypothetical plane, it’s still not Kant. Because Hillel the Elder says: think how much it hurts him. After all, if someone stole from you, it would hurt you too, right? So don’t steal from him, because you’re hurting him. You understand that the consideration in its essence is a consequentialist one? Not because if you steal from him he’ll come back and steal from you — not in the causal sense. Meaning, not that when you steal from him, it will cause him to steal from you. That’s not a consequentialist consideration. Hillel the Elder’s consideration is a moral one, but it’s not Kant’s. Hillel’s consideration says: just as — it’s an indication — you don’t like when this is done to you, so don’t do it to others. It’s an indication that the act is not good, not because of the causation that if you do it to him he’ll do it to you, but only as an indication that the act is not a good act. So it resembles Kant, but it’s not Kant’s indication. Because Hillel, for example, won’t be able to tell me: look, don’t evade taxes, because you wouldn’t want someone to evade taxes from you. No one is evading taxes from me; I’m not a state. Okay? So Hillel’s argument, seemingly, is not relevant to the question of tax evasion. But Kant’s argument is relevant. Because Kant’s argument basically says: leave that aside. This is not a matter of reciprocity between you and someone else. The question is what kind of world it would be if everyone behaved like you. Do you think that would be a good world? Not whether you would suffer. Not what would happen to you. This is not an argument from empathy. Hillel the Elder’s argument is an argument from empathy. Meaning, if you would suffer if this were done to you, then show empathy to someone else; understand that he too suffers if you do it to him, and don’t do it. That’s an empathetic argument. Okay? Kant’s argument is a cold argument; it’s not an empathetic argument. It’s an argument that says: I run an experiment. Suppose everyone evades taxes. Is that a good world? No. So in that case it’s forbidden to evade taxes. Okay? It’s not a question of feeling empathy with someone else; that’s not the point at all. It’s some very cold, intellectual argument. Meaning, it has nothing to do with feelings, sensing the other, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, or anything of that kind. Okay? And so on — there are all sorts of examples one could give here. Now here, maybe I’ll already jump ahead to this point — you asked about Jewish law. There’s room to hesitate on this issue. There is no halakhic source that gives authority to the Kantian principle, to Kant’s categorical imperative. So seemingly, very nice — philosophy is a nice thing — but what is the halakhic status of this? Except that if Kant really is right on the philosophical level, then from my perspective this is relevant to the halakhic world too. “Why do I need a verse? It is reason,” right? Things that emerge from reason don’t need a verse. Meaning, if it’s true on the level of logic, then what is true on the logical level is relevant to Jewish law as well. Why do I need a source? I don’t need any source. Okay? Assuming I was persuaded by Kant’s argument. Meaning, someone who wasn’t persuaded — fine, he disagrees with him philosophically. But assuming that on the philosophical level I was persuaded by Kant’s argument, I see no need for an additional source in order to say that it’s relevant to Jewish law too. Okay.

[Speaker C] Now — why don’t you need a halakhic source?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it’s logical. Logic has universal validity by virtue of being logic. A source is needed for an idea that has validity in a particular context, that has the standing of a halakhic principle. Without a source from the Torah or some other source, it has no halakhic authority. But is two plus two equals four true in Jewish law as well? Why? Do you have a source for that?

[Speaker C] You don’t need a source.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t need a source because it’s logical, right? Logic is universal in scope by definition. So therefore it’s relevant to Jewish law too. What’s the difference? Against the utilitarian—

[Speaker C] I — this goes against Kant’s ideology, so you have two conceptions that maybe are both logical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, that’s why I said: I’m speaking to someone who was philosophically persuaded by Kant. I’m not interested in the fact that there are disputes. There are disputes inside Jewish law too. I’m asking you: were you persuaded by Kant’s argument? If yes, then you need to apply it in Jewish law too. Someone else who wasn’t persuaded — fine, like any halakhic dispute. But the problem is not that you have no halakhic source. Do you understand? If you were persuaded, then from your perspective it’s a logical argument, that’s the philosophical conclusion, so it’s relevant to Jewish law too. I don’t know. That’s what the Talmud says: “Why do I need a verse? It is reason,” right? The Talmud asks that. Why do I need a verse? It’s reason.

[Speaker C] But maybe there’s room to say that perhaps — I know you don’t like these words — but my own logic, I diminish myself a little in relation to the Sages.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then diminish yourself as well regarding whether murder by indirect causation is permitted. From the standpoint of Jewish law there’s no direct discussion of that. Diminish yourself — who knows, maybe it’s permitted, maybe it’s forbidden. What do you mean, diminish yourself? If that’s what your logic tells you — maybe you’re wrong; I’m not claiming that what your logic says is certainly correct — but it’s the best you’ve got. Anyone who wants to claim otherwise, the burden of proof is on him. If you prove to me that I’m wrong — fine, no problem. I’m not claiming that my logic must be right. But I’m saying: my logic is what I have; that’s my logic. It can’t be that I don’t use my logic in the halakhic world. What else am I supposed to do there? Those are the tools I have.

[Speaker C] If they bring me a counterexample from another ethical philosophy — if they bring me a counterexample and it persuades me—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t care about a counterexample. There are many philosophies besides Kant’s. I’m asking not about Jewish law, but about philosophy. Now I’m asking what persuades me. If I reach the conclusion that Kant is right, then I couldn’t care less that ten others disagree with him. Why should I care? For me that leads to the same result; that’s the conclusion.

[Speaker C] Fine, if you disagree with Kant, and assuming they say otherwise—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not disagree with Jewish law. Jewish law says nothing about Kant — neither yes nor no. Now we need to decide. I’m saying, if there were a verse that said we don’t want Kant, we want to go crazy, as it were — fine, then Kant would have no validity in Jewish law. But there is no source for that, neither this way nor that way. So now I’m saying: if I’m persuaded that Kant is right, then it’s relevant to Jewish law too. Someone who is persuaded that Kant is not right — very good, then he won’t apply it in Jewish law. But the problem is not the absence of a source. The absence of a source is not the problem. The problem is that you have to be persuaded it is true — that’s all. That Kant is right. Fine, I’m not claiming that Kant is right against a verse. But there is no verse. Now why am I bringing this up? The penny dropped for me in some argument between two rabbis in the journal Tzohar, of blessed memory, many years ago already. There were two rabbis there, Rabbi Nehorai and Rabbi Yehuda Amichai — in advance of one of the previous Sabbatical years, I don’t remember when, it was a very long time ago — and they argued about the sale permit. Rabbi Yehuda Amichai argued — he belonged to Otzar HaAretz, that organization of Otzar Beit Din that organizes things for the Sabbatical year — he argued that, well, not argued but this was the policy of Otzar HaAretz: they would not buy produce grown under the sale permit unless there was no other produce. Meaning, they preferred Otzar Beit Din or other sources, whatever, other alternatives. If there was no other produce, then they bought from the sale permit. They weren’t saying it was forbidden, but in terms of order of preference it came last. Okay? And Rabbi Nehorai wrote against this — that was one article — and in his article Rabbi Nehorai criticized this position, this policy, and basically argued all kinds of things against it. He said: if we don’t buy produce under the sale permit, then what was the point of the sale permit? The sale permit was meant so that the farmers could make a living. Now if nobody buys from the farmers who rely on the sale permit, then what did the sale permit accomplish? They won’t be able to make a living. Why should I care that you have other produce? So what if you have other produce — what will happen to the farmers? They need to make a living. Okay? Therefore he argued that the sale permit should be preferred — not preferred, but given equal standing. Meaning, the sale permit should be considered acceptable from the outset, not just as a last option. That was his claim. Now there was a very detailed debate between them, back and forth, maybe two or three rounds, I don’t remember exactly, and it suddenly dawned on me there that they hadn’t managed to focus the point of disagreement, and in my opinion the point of disagreement was Kant’s categorical imperative. I’ll maybe read you one passage. I wanted to project it, but there’s no projector. Right, so Rabbi Nehorai kind of brings the— actually Rabbi Friedman, not Rabbi Yehuda Amichai, someone Friedman, I don’t know, he was also from Otzar HaAretz. So he brings the— Rabbi Nehorai in his article quotes Rabbi Friedman’s words. He says like this: “Our point of departure is that we support the sale permit and even offer it to farmers where there is necessity and where there is no proper alternative. Nevertheless, produce grown under the sale permit will not be a supply source for Otzar HaAretz. We do not wish to turn the sale permit into a banner that we must defend. We are comfortable with our approach, which views the issue of the Sabbatical year in a complex and comprehensive way, trying to find macro-level solutions for agriculture in the State of Israel and for farmers,” and so on. “And it should be emphasized: introducing produce grown under the sale permit into Otzar HaAretz does not constitute strengthening the Jewish farmers who rely on the sale permit. This produce will be marketed in markets throughout the country and abroad, and Otzar HaAretz neither adds nor detracts in this matter.” That’s the crucial line for our purposes. He is basically saying: look, I, Otzar HaAretz, will buy produce under the sale permit where there is no other produce. Now Rabbi Nehorai’s argument was: yes, but what about the farmers’ livelihood? Right, as I said before. So Rabbi Friedman says to him: what do you mean, what about the farmers? All the consumers of Otzar HaAretz are, I don’t know, half a percent of the country’s population. The ultra-frum, conservative, I don’t know exactly what, segment within Religious Zionism. That’s it. Meaning, it’s a very, very small percentage of the public at large in the country. So obviously, in terms of the farmers in general — most or all of whom use the sale permit, because the supermarkets are full of sale-permit produce, and that’s the ordinary produce in a Sabbatical year — there won’t be any halakhic problem in the fact that this half-percent buys something else as a first choice, and buys produce under the sale permit only when they don’t have their preferred source, namely Otzar Beit Din. Okay? So what consequentialist problem — I’m putting it in my own words — what consequentialist problem is there here? Right? That’s what he’s saying. There’s no consequentialist problem here. Nothing will happen. So why does it bother you? I want to fly first class. True, I would also fly second class if there were no room in first class, but there is room in first class and nobody loses anything by my flying there. So what do you care? Okay? That’s basically the claim. So Rabbi Nehorai, and Rabbi Weitman joined him on this too, argues against him as follows: “I am astonished! The sale permit is trampled in the city streets by significant parts of the religious public” — mainly the Haredi public, yes — “and who will defend me against the slanderers? Shall we leave support for the farmers to the secular public, who buy in the large chains whatever comes to hand?” So he’s basically responding to Rabbi Friedman’s claim. He says: you argue that the secular people will support the farmers anyway. Those who sell produce under the sale permit won’t lose anything from the fact that this half-percent buys from Otzar Beit Din, right? So what’s the problem? So Rabbi Nehorai says: what, you want to leave it to the secular people to support them? Why? What’s wrong with that? So what if it’s secular people? Is it forbidden to earn a living from secular people? What’s the problem? Somehow his feeling is that it can’t be right that you leave their livelihood to secular people, right? That’s what he says. But on the face of it, that sounds like complete nonsense. What difference does it make who supports them? Everything is arranged. I consume produce that is excellent from my standpoint, and those who produce the less good produce make a fine living even without me. One side benefits and the other side loses nothing — what’s the problem? Nobody loses; it’s win-win. Everything is fine. Or win-zero, whatever, but he doesn’t lose and I gain. That’s all: one benefits and the other loses nothing. So he says: “Can it be that the farmer asks: who will eat my fruits? And the answer of the rabbi who rejects use of the sale permit should be: there is a population that is not so strict — they will buy your produce, and therefore you will lose nothing.” So notice, that is not Rabbi Friedman’s answer — that is Rabbi Nehorai’s criticism. I would read it not with a question mark, but with an exclamation point: exactly, that is your answer — so what do you want? Right? He’ll make a living from the secular public, and nobody loses anything; everything is fine. He writes it with a question mark. “Can it really be that you leave the sale-permit farmers to make a living from the secular public and nothing bad will happen to them?” He asks it with a question mark. Rabbi Friedman doesn’t need to answer him with anything. He just needs to take the question mark and stretch it into an exclamation point. Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. My feeling was that this was a dialogue of the deaf. A dialogue of the deaf because Rabbi Nehorai didn’t correctly grasp what he himself was arguing, and so Rabbi Friedman simply wasn’t answering him on the relevant plane. Rabbi Nehorai means to argue — and this is what I wrote in an article in the next issue — Rabbi Nehorai is basically arguing from the force of the categorical imperative. He says: look, you’re right consequentially. Consequentially nothing will happen, everything is fine, the sale-permit farmers will make a living, we will eat enhanced produce, and everything will be excellent. Win-win, right? Everything is fine. Yes, but he says it still can’t be right. Why? Let’s do Kant’s hypothetical experiment: if everyone bought from Otzar HaAretz and not from the sale permit, then the sale-permit farmers would not be able to make a living, right? Okay? So that means buying from Otzar HaAretz is an immoral act. There are no consequences — you’re right, Rabbi Friedman, there’s no consequentialist problem. Meaning, if I buy from Otzar HaAretz nobody loses. But what Rabbi Nehorai probably means to argue, what he really means to argue, is not this matter… He tries to push back with some kind of principle that isn’t clear: what, secular people will take care of the livelihood of the people using the sale permit? What’s the problem? Is it forbidden to earn a living from secular people? It’s a very strange claim. He simply can’t find the words because he probably hasn’t conceptualized for himself what he means, but he means what I’m saying, I’m sure of it. He basically means to say: it cannot be that we build on transgressors, because building on transgressors means you are building your policy on the existence of transgressors, right? If there were no transgressors, then you couldn’t act this way. You yourself say that you want the sale-permit farmers to have a livelihood, and then if they fell into hardship, you would indeed favor buying from them. Okay? You’re only saying: fine, but there are secular people. So he says: what do you mean, there are secular people? You are basically building your policy of stringency on the fact that there are transgressors. You can’t build something like that. Why? Because Kant’s categorical imperative says: after all, you would not want the whole world to consist of transgressors, right? A whole world of transgressors is certainly not a good state of affairs from your standpoint. You only permit yourself to be stringent because there are others who are transgressors. That contradicts Kant’s categorical imperative. And the consideration is not a consequentialist one — that is exactly the point they missed there. It is not a consequentialist consideration at all. Now Rabbi Friedman can say: okay, but who loses? Let them make a living from the secular public — what’s the problem? Right, if the issue were a consequentialist one, that they would fail to make a living because of this, then there would be no argument. You’re right, Rabbi Friedman, completely right. But that wasn’t the issue here, so don’t give me consequentialist calculations about whether they’ll lose or not lose. The issue here was an essential one, a consideration that says it cannot be that we build policy on the existence of transgressors, because after all we would not want it to become a general law that the whole world be transgressors. Notice, this has a very broad implication. There are cases, for instance, where I buy, I don’t know what, from a more stringent kashrut certification. Fine? Say a Rabbinate Mehadrin certification, because an ordinary Rabbinate certification is less strict. But Rabbinate Mehadrin is a stricter certification than ordinary Rabbinate. Okay? So I buy the Rabbinate Mehadrin certification, which is stricter. Why am I allowed to do that? Wouldn’t I want that to become a general law? Yes — I have no problem with it becoming a general law. Because if everyone demanded stricter certification, then everyone would produce under stricter certification. Meaning, by consuming stricter certification, I’m not building on the fact that there are others who don’t do this. Fine, true, there are many others who don’t do this, and therefore the market remains as it is, with some taking ordinary certification and some taking stricter certification. But what I’m doing is not built on the existence of other people who are transgressors. But here, you are basically claiming that you want to create for yourself a more stringent path, and you are building on the fact that there are others who won’t want it, because otherwise you yourself wouldn’t do it. Okay? That can’t be. That, you can’t do.

[Speaker B] But how does the fact that most of the public buys under the sale permit mean that most of the public supposedly wants to be transgressors? It’s permitted to eat produce from the sale permit. It doesn’t make them transgressors.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no — “transgressors” here means, for our purposes, not people who are stringent. That’s enough. That’s also not really okay, in a certain sense, because why doesn’t he buy from the sale permit — Rabbi Friedman, or Otzar HaAretz? Because it’s less okay, it has problems. So true, if there’s no choice, we buy it — but it has problems. So you’re basically saying it’s not fully ideal to buy under the sale permit; otherwise what’s the problem? Buy it from the outset. Meaning, you also agree that it’s not fully ideal. Okay? So then he says: you’re building on the existence of transgressors. What does “transgressors” mean? Not actual transgressors, but people who aren’t careful about that level of stringency, that “glattness,” as it were. Okay? So Rabbi Nehorai says to him: no, you can’t build your stringency on the existence of others who are transgressors, or half-transgressors, or something like that. A stringency is something you can do when it’s not at someone else’s expense. If the whole world could act as you do, then go ahead and adopt that stringency. But if your stringency is built on the fact that others won’t adopt it, then don’t do it. That isn’t a stringency.

[Speaker B] And what would Rabbi Friedman answer him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I didn’t read a response to my article. In my article I clarified this point, and I don’t recall that they responded to that article.

[Speaker B] What would you answer on Rabbi Friedman’s behalf?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wouldn’t answer anything; I’d say Rabbi Nehorai is right. I agree with him — with Rabbi Amichai, sorry, with Rabbi Nehorai. I agree with him, though not exactly for his stated reasons. I do think he meant this reason, but that’s not what’s written there. Meaning, he didn’t quite manage to formulate it for himself. He kept looking for an escape in the consequentialist direction because he understood that this needed to be a consequentialist explanation. And that is exactly where he got stuck, because there is no consequentialist explanation here. Okay? And this is exactly parallel to tax evasion or voting in elections and all the other things I described in the arguments with my son, right? Everybody gets stuck in these arguments because the entire debate is conducted around the question of whether there is a problematic consequence here or not. And here my son is right: there is no problematic consequence at all. So if you look for it on the consequentialist plane, you won’t succeed in defeating the rebel. Okay? The only way to deal with him is to rise to Kant’s categorical imperative, which is plainly non-consequentialist. And that is exactly the point. It tells you: even though no problematic consequences follow from your actions, the fact that I buy from Otzar HaAretz doesn’t mean I’m now causing the whole country to buy from Otzar HaAretz. They are not influenced by me; they buy what they want. On the consequentialist level, my action has no bad effect or good effect whatsoever. Okay? But Kant’s argument is not a consequentialist argument, and that is exactly the point. And when we treat this not on the consequentialist plane, then we move into philosophical discussions about characterizing acts as good acts or bad acts. And we perform this hypothetical consequentialist experiment only in order to determine whether the act is a good act or a bad act. But not because we are actually claiming that this would be the consequence of your act. It’s only hypothetical: if such a consequence existed, if everyone acted this way, what would the world look like? That’s what we’re asking.

[Speaker B] I just understand from this example that whether something is consequentialist or not doesn’t necessarily refer only to a single individual, but also to a larger group.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that too is consequentialist.

[Speaker B] So up to what percentage does it already enter the test?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wherever there is a result, there is a result. But I’m arguing that where there is no result at all—not a small result, no result whatsoever. If I hide a thousand shekels from the tax authorities, it has no result at all—not a small result, nothing. Okay? Even with environmental quality, you could say that there is some kind of result here, admittedly tiny—my contribution as one individual, maybe. But with income tax, with the state treasury, it has no result at all. Meaning, in the computer one digit less will be recorded somewhere after who-knows-which decimal point. Okay? But in terms of what the state will do, there will be no difference at all. Nothing, nothing. No one will be harmed by it. With the environment, you can say that this particular bag that I threw away added some extra harm to someone on earth, maybe, I don’t know, small. So there you can say there is a consequentialist consideration here: you caused a small harm, everyone else causes another small harm, so you contributed to the harm. But here I’m arguing there is no result whatsoever, no result. Okay? On my website I bring two columns that I devoted to philosophical articles dealing with this issue, and among other things I made distinctions between these cases—whether you have a result. So this sharpens for us the difference between Kant and Hillel the Elder, or consequentialist considerations. I’ll maybe give you some implications, implications like that. Here—I mean here, first of all, just so you understand—this is an application of the categorical imperative within Jewish law, right? We asked earlier whether the categorical imperative also has validity in a halakhic discussion. Now in my view, and Rabbi Nehorai’s, and so on, yes. Again, I have no source for this. It’s not that I’m saying I have a source that says the categorical imperative exists within Jewish law. But because my reasoning says that this imperative is correct, I argue that it is correct. I’ll give you another example. There is such a custom—we are now after Passover. You know that the custom is not to sell actual leavened food, right, as part of the sale of leaven. Why? Because people are concerned that perhaps the sale is not complete, not fully valid, and so on. But businesses are allowed to sell even actual leavened food. Why? Because businesses have a substantial loss. And I’ll say more than that: I argue that for businesses there is also no concern that the sale is not serious. Because if a non-Jew decides to buy all the leaven from them, wonderful—all the business wants is just to sell its leavened goods. Meaning, for us it’s our leaven, we don’t really put it up for sale, so there is concern that we are not wholehearted. But for businesses there is no problem. Okay? By the way, in factories like Osem, for example, maybe not, because they are talking about raw materials. And the flour—they want it in order to produce noodles, I don’t know exactly what. So the flour they don’t want to sell; they want to sell noodles. Fine. But say in a grocery store, for example, there is no concern whatsoever, right? A grocery store that sells actual leavened food—there isn’t the slightest concern. Everything is excellent. Okay. But it doesn’t matter; many people are stringent, yes—meaning they are stringent not to sell actual leavened food, but for businesses it is allowed. Now when I was in Bnei Brak, the holy city, there was a grocery store under us, and the custom of the kollel men around there was that no one bought from him after Passover the leaven he had sold. Because they said: we don’t sell leaven. For you it’s permitted, you are a business owner, but we are private individuals, and we are not willing to eat actual leavened food that passed over Passover, even if it was sold. Okay. At some stage I suddenly realized that this is complete nonsense. Why? Because if I don’t buy from him the leaven he sold on Passover—if I don’t buy from him after Passover that leaven because I am concerned that this is leaven that remained in Jewish possession over Passover—then what did the permission to sell actual leavened food help him? The whole permission for him to sell actual leavened food is so that after Passover he can sell that merchandise and earn his living. Okay? But if you tell me it is permitted to sell the leaven to a non-Jew, only we are forbidden to buy from him after Passover, then what is his permission for? Clearly the permission for businesses to sell actual leavened food also includes permission for consumers to buy from them that actual leavened food, right? It can’t be otherwise. Okay. Now people say, fine. But then another claim can arise. Okay, so the Religious Zionists will buy from him, but we, the righteous ones, won’t buy that leaven because we are more careful. And here we return to the dispute between Rabbi Nehorai and Rabbi Friedman, right? Because basically the claim is: you say the Religious Zionists are not okay, but you, the righteous ones, are relying on the fact that there are Religious Zionists who cut corners, and therefore you act more stringently and don’t buy actual leaven that was sold over Passover. Meaning, your stringency is built on the fact that there are others who are sinners, right? Because if nobody bought the actual leaven after Passover, then you also wouldn’t buy—because you also agree that the grocer should not suffer a loss. Meaning, he is allowed to sell the actual leaven to a non-Jew so that after Passover he can sell it and earn his living, right? Everything you are building on is only the fact that there are other sinners, yes, who will buy from him that actual leaven after Passover. Meaning, your stringency is built on the existence of sinners. That is not stringency. Again—the categorical imperative. Meaning, you need to behave in a way you would want the whole world to behave. Would you want the whole world not to buy from him the leaven after Passover? No. Because you too agree that a business is permitted to sell actual leavened food, right? So after Passover surely you want him to make a living, otherwise what is the point? You are only relying on the fact that there are others who cut corners. But a stringency that is built on the existence of others who cut corners is not a legitimate stringency. Someone who does that is not okay. Not only did he fail to be stringent—he is not okay. In a certain sense he committed an offense, a moral offense or whatever you want to call it. Why? Because he should have bought the actual leavened food from the grocer after Passover. Because that is what I would want to be the general law. If you don’t do that, then you are not okay.

[Speaker B] But what’s the problem if you imagine to yourself that there will always be in the world a certain number of sinners?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that is exactly the point. The categorical imperative says I’m not talking about a consequentialist question, that if I do this then there won’t be sinners. That is not the point. The point is: you would want a world in which there are no sinners at all, right? Every kollel fellow from Bnei Brak that you ask, “Would you want all Jews to observe commandments in the most enhanced way?”—of course yes, right? And if all Jews observed commandments in the most enhanced way, then clearly you too, like everyone else, would buy the leaven from the grocery store. Right? Meaning, what you would want to be a general law is that people do buy this leaven. So why do you allow yourself not to buy this leaven? You are relying on the fact that there are sinners. No, that’s not legitimate. Because you need to behave in a way you would want to be a general law. Only something that you think the world should behave by, that everyone should do—that is a good stringency. Now even if not everyone does it, I am being stringent—excellent, good for me. But if my stringency is built on the fact that not everyone does it, then no, then no blessing should come upon it. Yes, many times people ask—even about drafting Haredim they ask today—“Okay, fine, so whether I enlist or don’t enlist, one more soldier in the IDF, what difference does it make?” But you wouldn’t want it to be a general law that no one enlists, right? Again, consequentially you are right. One soldier more or less won’t make a difference. When I, as a Haredi person, ask myself whether to enlist or not enlist, it has no significance whatsoever. Why should I enlist? Yes, but anyone can say: why should I not enlist? He says yes, anyone can—but they don’t say it. The question is, the consequentialist consideration here won’t help. There is no result. You don’t enlist—you’re one less—what difference does it make? I’m talking about myself, not all the Haredim. I myself—should I enlist or not? He says yes, but what would happen if everyone did as you do? And again, hypothetically, like Kant. Not that because you don’t enlist, others also won’t enlist. That is not the point. That’s not true. Rather, you yourself are doing an improper act because you yourself would not want that act to become a general law. You also wouldn’t want there to be no army here and for everyone to murder us all, right? If no one enlisted. This runs like a thread through many, many disputes that exist in our world. People just don’t know how to formulate this position for themselves, and therefore all the discussions are always consequentialist discussions. I heard this argument from many Haredim. “Fine—whether I enlist or don’t enlist, it’s one more soldier here, one soldier there, and there are also many wasted soldiers in the army, hidden unemployment, and so on.” And everyone knows how to run the army best when they are sitting by the lectern. So they also have criticism about how the army is run and how it isn’t run and so on. I say: leave all that nonsense aside. I’m not talking to you at all about a consequentialist question. I’m talking to you about the categorical imperative.

[Speaker B] Why do you care about something that is not consequentialist? Huh? Why do you care about something that is not consequentialist?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, I’ll get to that, okay? That will come later. So that’s one example. A second example.

[Speaker B] It depends on the question of whether Jewish law—

[Speaker D] —is pluralistic or not. Why? Because if it is pluralistic then I can…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “pluralistic” mean? But the other side is not claiming that what they do is fine. The other side cut corners. Jewish law is not pluralistic in the sense that you desecrate the Sabbath and he doesn’t desecrate the Sabbath. It doesn’t matter—but he relies on the sale permit and he also understands that it’s not okay; he is just cutting corners, according to your view, okay? This is not a halakhic dispute. They do not perceive it as a halakhic dispute; they perceive it as people who cut corners or sinners versus righteous people. Maybe another example, which is also something well-known and accepted in the army—we’ve already gotten used to it as something obvious. There is a mission that has to be done on the Sabbath. A life-saving mission. Meaning, a military operation: guard the borders, I don’t know, do what needs to be done. Now there are secular people in the platoon and there are religious people, right? A question that comes up every day—every soldier encounters it: should you switch shifts? Yes? Should I let the secular soldiers do the Sabbath shift and I’ll do it on a weekday? So it is accepted that no, right? Every religious soldier already knows—we are educated not to. Why not? What do you care? I mean, he desecrates the Sabbath anyway, so let him do it. No problem, the mission will be carried out and I won’t desecrate the Sabbath. Win-win, no? So why not? You understand that here too Kant’s argument is sitting underneath. It basically says: after all, you would not want no one to go out on the mission if everyone were righteous. If everyone were secular, then no one would go out on the mission? Obviously not, right? Even you agree that this mission must be carried out. Now this is not a consequentialist consideration because there are secular people here. The mission will be carried out; they’ll drive on the Sabbath and everything will be fine. So why shouldn’t I be extra stringent? Because in general, hypothetically, I would not want that to be a general law. I would not want everyone to do that. Okay? All these things—when you look at them, you are used to looking at them through consequentialist glasses, but this is not a consequentialist issue. No—consequentially there is no problem here at all. The mission will be carried out and I’ll do it on Sunday—what’s the problem? I switched a shift.

[Speaker B] But the hypothetical also changes when the hypothetical situation arrives, in terms of the result. Meaning? When it gets to a situation where no one enlists, then the hypothetical is also affected consequentially.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that itself is a hypothetical situation. Obviously if it happened in practice, we’d be sunk. But that is exactly the point. But this case will not happen in practice; I’m only asking hypothetically: if it did happen, what would the situation be? Okay? So the situation would be bad. So now, even though there is no chance that it will happen—it doesn’t matter—but if one imagines that it happened, it would be a bad situation, then even now this is an act that may not be done. Therefore I call it hypothetical. Obviously if it happened, then it’s not hypothetical. If it happened, then it happened. So basically what we see here, what we see here in practice, is that Kant’s categorical imperative, the moral principle, is not a consequentialist principle—even though it is phrased in a way that might imply it is consequentialist. If everyone did as you do, it would be very bad—as if your act leads us to a bad situation, to a bad result. But no—it is a hypothetical experiment, not a factual claim that this will happen consequentially. Okay, it is a hypothetical experiment. Now two comments. One comment is that if you remember at the end of last semester—and I mentioned it also at the beginning of this semester—I spoke about the argument from morality. The proof for the existence of God from morality. What does that mean? If there are valid moral principles, binding ones, then there must be some lawgiver who legislated them, who gave them validity. Okay? Because otherwise what gives them validity? That was the argument from morality. Now many times people, when I ask them this question, say, “What do you mean? I want to do good to others and therefore I’m moral; I don’t need God for that.” I want to do good. So I explained why that claim is wrong. But notice that now, in light of the analysis of the categorical imperative, the claim is strengthened doubly—the proof is strengthened doubly. Why? Because the categorical imperative basically tells us to do acts that have no bad consequences. You are not harming anyone else, so why—as you asked earlier—why not do it? The answer: because it is immoral; therefore, don’t do it. But it harms no one. The determination that it is immoral does not stem from the fact that someone’s situation will be worse afterward, right? Because it is not consequentialist. And nevertheless Kant argues—never mind for the moment how he got there—that such an act is immoral. Now I say: if that is the essence of morality, then it is all the more obvious that you need a lawgiver to give this thing validity. Because without a lawgiver, why would anyone—even if someone says, “I won’t steal from someone because he will suffer from it; I have empathy toward him, just as I don’t want people to steal from me, I also won’t steal from him.” Suppose, okay? But the categorical imperative you won’t be able to explain that way. Because what you do has no problematic consequence whatsoever. And if you think this thing is valid, that it really is a criterion that determines how one ought to behave, then clearly there must be someone in the background who gives validity to that criterion. Because it has no consequences. You can’t build on the consequences—look, this is wrong, look, he’ll suffer from it, it will hurt him, he will become poor if you steal from him, or whatever, heartbreaking, fine, so I won’t steal from him. Okay? But where it affects no one, then what’s the problem? Therefore I think that once you understand that the categorical imperative is a binding moral principle, this very much strengthens the argument from morality. Because as long as morality is consequentialist morality, it is much easier for an unbeliever to say, “Look, I don’t need God. I don’t want to cause harm to someone else just as I don’t want harm done to me.” Hillel the Elder. Yes, ironically, Hillel the Elder’s principle can also be stated by an atheist. Show empathy—just as you don’t want him to suffer, just as you don’t want to suffer, don’t cause him suffering. Right? So many atheists will say: true, you are right, and therefore I really won’t do that. But now when I come and say: leave aside his suffering—he won’t suffer, nobody will suffer, the situation will be excellent, and still don’t do it. Why not? Here there is no consequentialist explanation. So what is there? All you can say is that the Holy One, blessed be He, determined that this is immoral and forbidden to do. Meaning, once we arrive—if we arrive—at the conclusion that the categorical imperative is binding, valid, and precisely because it is not consequentialist, that strengthens even more the argument in favor of the existence of God. Now of course this returns us again to the question: so why? Why indeed commit to such an imperative if it has no bad consequences whatsoever? Why define such an act as immoral if it harms no one? Okay? So Kant has some kind of philosophical move by which he arrives at this formulation. But now if you examine the bottom line, it really is something that requires explanation. If it harms no one at all, nothing—there are no bad consequences, nothing—then truly why assume that such a thing is a binding moral principle? Why assume that we really ought to conduct ourselves that way? Okay? So here there is something very, very tricky. And I’ll try maybe to explain it using something we talked about—I talked about it in yesterday’s class. Was any one of you there? I don’t remember. In yesterday’s class, which dealt with Torah and Torah study. You weren’t there—none of you were there, I think. So there we discussed the question whether there are altruistic acts. What does that mean? Usually we are used to thinking that when a person does a certain act, he does it for some reason. Right? Say you give charity to a poor person. I ask myself: why are you giving charity to a poor person? I don’t know—because I felt compassion for him, suppose. Okay? So I have a reason why I gave charity to the poor person. What happens if someone comes and says: look, I gave charity to the poor person because I think it is right to give charity to a poor person. I don’t feel any compassion for him. I have no feeling of compassion, but I think it is right to give charity to a poor person, and therefore I gave charity to a poor person. Many people will say: I don’t believe you that this is the case, even before the question whether that is the right way to act. I don’t believe you. A person does not do acts without having reasons for doing them. Okay? This view… wait, one second—this view basically says that an altruistic act cannot exist. Because if you do—say you do something because you have compassion for this poor person—then in fact you are giving him the charity in order to calm your own stomach pains. The compassion that you feel inside—you give him charity and that calms you down, right? So in the end you are doing it for yourself, not for him.

[Speaker B] What is an altruistic act?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An altruistic act is an act for the sake of another person, where the other person is the goal.

[Speaker B] Without any connection to values.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right… no, values—yes, values. The opposite. Only values. And not my interests and not any goals that benefit me. Even a positive goal, to calm pangs of conscience or compassion or something like that—to quiet those feelings—so I give you charity, that is not an altruistic act by my definition. Why? Because you are doing it in order to calm your own stomach pains.

[Speaker B] So an altruistic act can’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —be both this and that? It can be both this and that, but the altruistic dimension in it is that dimension where you do the act because that is what should be done. If you also feel compassion, very good; one is allowed to feel compassion. But that is not why you do the act; you would do it even without that. Okay? There is—I gave the example yesterday, I’ll tell you too—there was once… I lived in Yeruham; I taught there in a hesder yeshiva, and some friend of mine who was principal of the environmental high school in Sde Boker invited me to speak there with the teachers and students during the Ten Days of Repentance. He said to me: talk about atonement, forgiveness, pardon, things like that, but without any connection to religious matters. A secular high school, yes? No connection to religious matters. Fine, so I decided to take up the challenge and I said to them, look—this is how I opened. I said to them: suppose I hurt someone. And I don’t have the slightest pang of conscience about what I did. Nothing. I go home happy and cheerful, whistling a merry tune to myself, I go back home, and while drinking my afternoon tea I remember that actually I hurt someone and that’s not okay. Completely indifferent—I keep whistling a merry tune and no pangs of conscience, nothing, that lobe is missing in me, okay? I feel nothing. Fine? I go to him and ask his forgiveness for hurting him. I asked them: now tell me, would you accept such an apology? And there was total consensus in the room that no. You’re a hypocrite, you’re not really sorry, you’re apologizing only outwardly. And I told them that in my eyes this is the loftiest apology I can imagine. Because if you go to him because you feel guilty, then you are really going to him in order to calm your guilt. You’re doing it for yourself, not for him. Precisely when you have no pangs of conscience—then why are you doing it? Because you really think you hurt him and you think one needs to appease someone to whom one did something improper. There is no greater righteous person than that. Now I say again, if you also feel compassion, that doesn’t mean you have to take a pill to neutralize feelings of compassion or pangs of conscience. Okay? But one should notice that I am not doing it because of the pangs of conscience. You should do it because that is what is right. If I also have pangs of conscience, fine—a healthy person should feel—

[Speaker B] —pangs of conscience after behaving badly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And doesn’t that violate “one thing with the mouth and another in the heart” when you do that?

[Speaker B] No, it’s not one thing with the mouth and another in the heart. It’s the same thing with the mouth and in the heart. I don’t feel that I only—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —need to tell him I’m sorry because I hurt him, but rather he should tell me he’s sorry because I threw a cake at him. Then you’re just… so… really a hypocrite. But that’s not what I described. I described a case where I came to the conclusion that I really was not okay. It just doesn’t bother me in the emotional sense. Not that I’m lying—otherwise obviously it’s nonsense. I really regret it. I regret it not in the sense that I sank into depression or feelings. I regret it intellectually. Meaning, I understand that this act was hurtful and improper, and for that I come to appease him. But I’m not doing it in order to support some distress that exists within me. Okay? So just a second—so I argue that if I do it in order to support my own distress, that is actually an act of lesser value than when I do it in a completely cold way. That is what I call an altruistic act. Now many people do not believe in the existence of such acts. There is no such thing. Meaning, if you didn’t feel guilty you wouldn’t go. Meaning, if you went, something caused you to do it. I say yes, something caused me—the recognition that I was not okay and that I need to appease him. No, no—what causes you is always some psychological, emotional motive, some feeling within you. That is the assumption of those people. And here I argue—not true. In principle I can—I’m not saying that all my acts are done this way—but there can be a situation in which a person does an altruistic act simply because it is right. And in this sense, understand, Kant’s categorical imperative expresses exactly this point. Why? Because there there is no reason at all to feel guilty; no one will suffer. After all, no one will suffer—there are no bad consequences from the act that I am doing. Right? So why do I refrain from doing it? Because it is not right, if I accept Kant’s line of argument. Because it is not right. So that is exactly the definition of an altruistic act. Meaning, an altruistic act is an act that I do not do because it is not right, that I do do because it is right, even though I have no emotional or other aspects that cause me to do it. And the question is whether there are such acts. Is an altruistic act something that exists? Is it something possible? Is this a real situation or not? I argue yes. If it did not exist, Kant’s categorical imperative would be a dead letter. Kant’s categorical imperative demands of us to perform acts in a purely altruistic way. That you do it because that is what is right. Why? Because where there are no bad consequences, there is no other reason to do it except because that is the right way to act. There is no other reason, because there are no bad consequences. Do you understand? Therefore it is, in its essence, a purely altruistic act.

[Speaker E] What happens—usually what feels right is also what really is right. Meaning, usually you converge on that. Do you see a reason why there is a connection between the two? Meaning a person who also understands…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can attribute that either to the Holy One, blessed be He, or to evolution. Both of those explanations work. Clearly what is right, you are also evolutionarily conditioned to do.

[Speaker E] Okay, and also if, say, now someone needs a kidney, then I am not obligated to give him a kidney, but it is called altruism to give him a kidney, but that is different from…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that is called altruism in everyday language. Philosophical altruism is not necessarily that. If I give him a kidney in order to feel good about having donated it to him, then that is not an altruistic act in the sense that I defined here, the philosophical sense. In ordinary discourse that is called an altruistic act because it is not done for money. But I argue it is not really altruistic because it is done for a good feeling.

[Speaker E] What difference does it make? That too is compensation, like the money. I’m talking about someone who has nothing—he has no problem if everyone drops dead. He doesn’t feel pain over anyone who dies. But he says, he feels that there is value in preserving life… thinks, not feels. Meaning, he thinks there is value in preserving life and therefore he donates a kidney. That is an altruistic act according to the definition I gave here. This altruism—it needs, like… like the only reason to do good things when there are no bad consequences. Right. And if so, then maybe it is preferable that there be bad consequences, because then they won’t do it out of altruism but will do it because…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is that preferable?

[Speaker E] Because then you’ll have a person who feels connected, like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That means more people will do it; even someone who is not altruistic will do it. Fine, that is consequentialist. But the question of whether altruism is right or not right is also not examined consequentially. If it is right, then it is right even if it leads to worse results. And if it is not right, then it is not right even if it doesn’t lead to better results. Meaning, the consequentialist test is not relevant. I’m discussing the question whether this is right, whether this really is the moral criterion or not. That is the question I’m discussing. I don’t care right now whether it will create a better world or a worse world. That is not my discussion.

[Speaker B] Where does this exist? The Rabbi said there is such a thing—altruism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In each one of us—what do you mean where? In—

[Speaker B] —every—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —one of us there can be situations in which you act not because of some psychological urge or feeling or distress, or the opposite, but because you think that this is right.

[Speaker B] But a disconnect between emotion and mind?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is. Of course there is. That very assumption which says there is no disconnect—I am attacking it, I do not agree. This is a very common assumption among psychologists, and for psychologists it is almost self-evident. Among philosophers as well, many of them think this way, and in the view of all these people there is no altruistic act. I’ll give you an example of a consequence. For example, people think that people devoid of empathy are immoral people. Empathy is the ability to feel another person’s suffering, to feel the other person, and especially his suffering, okay? Now someone who has no empathy—say he has that lobe missing, as I said earlier—so suppose he’ll punch you, he won’t understand that it’s not okay because he doesn’t feel you and he doesn’t feel that you are suffering, okay? So he has no problem punching you. And therefore, for many, many people in the psychological world, it is almost definitional: people who lack empathy are immoral people. And I argue that this is nonsense. People who lack empathy may indeed very often throw the punch, but someone who doesn’t throw the punch because of empathy—that is not because he is, not necessarily because he is a moral person, but because he doesn’t want to feel guilty afterward. Empathy is a tool that enables you to be moral, but empathy in itself is not a moral criterion. It’s like if I don’t see the poor person, then I can’t give him charity, right? So is seeing a moral capacity? Is a blind person less moral? He doesn’t see poor people, he can’t give them charity. No. But it is true that sight enables moral behavior. I argue that empathy is a kind of capacity to perceive the environment, like sight. It may be epistemic—that is, to see, to perceive the environment. So empathy is a tool that enables me to behave morally, but it is not that empathy itself is moral. If a person lacks empathy—I said, a missing lobe, okay?—but he does it because he understands that this is right, he is no less moral and maybe more moral. True, very often he will do it less, because he doesn’t have the emotional urge to do it, okay? But once he did it, his act is the purest morality there can be. Okay? That is exactly a consequence of what I said earlier—whether you believe that altruistic acts can exist or not. Either you always attribute it to some motive that the person himself has, a self-interested motive—money, or a good feeling from having done a good deed, or all kinds of things of that sort. Okay? What’s the difference between people—just think about it—what’s the difference between a businessman who donates, yes, in the newspaper, an article in the newspaper, he donated money to, I don’t know, a hospital, something like that, and everyone laughs inwardly—well, he’s no great righteous man, he did it for the publicity, he did it to gain respectful treatment toward him. Fine? What is the difference between that and someone who gives charity in complete secrecy, total secrecy, so that he himself will feel good about himself? There is no difference. No difference at all. Both are doing it in order to receive a bonus. What difference does it make whether the bonus is internal or external? Moral giving is where you do it for no bonus whatsoever, neither internal nor external. The question is whether there is such a thing. I argue yes, and all these discussions assume no.

[Speaker B] Why did his awareness awaken? What? Why did his awareness awaken to go ask forgiveness, when it didn’t awaken at the time of the act?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know—he thought about it again. What happens when a person changes his mind after some time? Why didn’t he think that way before, and now he does think that way? You assume that of course emotion did it, but no, it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes a person reconsiders and reaches the conclusion that he was mistaken, even not on moral questions. You solved a problem in physics or mathematics, okay? And afterward suddenly you say, wait, but actually this is wrong, and now you solve it correctly. What did you think before? Before I was mistaken and now I corrected it. What? It doesn’t always have to be—sometimes it is the result of the influence of emotion, but it doesn’t have to be that way. That very assumption that it must be that way is the same assumption that says there are no altruistic acts. It is—

[Speaker B] Purely rational? Yes. But the concepts themselves of good and evil have no emotional connection whatsoever. Right, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fortunately, we are built in such a way that there is some correlation between our feelings and the morality of acts, or the immorality of acts. Because otherwise indeed a few righteous people would do it even without any feelings, but many people would not do it. So evolution did us a kindness by causing us to feel these kinds of feelings that push us to do things that we ought to have done altruistically. Okay? But that does not mean that one cannot do an altruistic act. It only means that in many cases altruism is joined by some emotional, experiential push of one sort or another that directs us to the same place. Okay?

[Speaker B] Is the Holy One, blessed be He, altruistic? What? Is the Holy One, blessed be He, altruistic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume so. I don’t know exactly—I have never been the Holy One, blessed be He—but I assume He has no emotions. I have no way to characterize Him or define how He acts.

[Speaker E] Yes. And altruism, like by itself—if you ask forgiveness from the person only because, like, you see it as a problem that you punched him, it could be that, say, he didn’t see it as a problem that you punched him, and in general all the acts you do as an altruist…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter how he—

[Speaker E] —saw it; the question is how I saw it. Right, so why is that selfishness? Why do you say I saw it that way?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, why—who decided it for me? I decide. Will you decide for me?

[Speaker E] No, but if he tells you, say, that the punch—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —didn’t bother me at all, and in fact I saw it as a good thing that happened to me. Fine, so I understand, everything is okay, then we part as friends. Excellent. So I didn’t do you harm; everything is excellent.

[Speaker E] But you owe him an apology because from your perspective you want to be altruistic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Not at all. Then I need to repent. But asking his forgiveness is only if he was hurt. If he was not hurt, I don’t ask his forgiveness. If a person likes being punched—he can even ask me, if he’s a masochist, he can ask me to punch him—so afterward should I ask his forgiveness for punching him? No. He enjoyed it and everything is fine. Someone who goes to a wrestling match, I don’t know what—two sides come for sport, they want to be there, okay? Do you have to ask his forgiveness after you beat him up? Of course not. That’s what he wanted. It hurts him. So what? He wants it. Pain is not… pain is bad only because you don’t want it. Pain in itself is a fact. To determine that pain is bad or not bad—that is a norm. There is David Hume’s is-ought fallacy. You cannot derive judgments from facts. You can’t say that this wall is white and therefore this wall is beautiful. “This wall is white” is a fact; “this wall is beautiful” is a judgment. Or you can’t say: I hit you and it hurts you and therefore it’s wrong. Not true. The fact that it hurts you is a fact. The fact that it’s wrong is a judgment. In order to move from the fact to the judgment, you need some principle that transfers you between the levels. For example, that causing suffering is wrong. And even that is not certain. Causing suffering that the other person does not want, because he is not a masochist—that is wrong. But causing suffering that he does want, then that is not suffering.

[Speaker B] Even that—there are situations where you have to hospitalize people by force.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that is already a question of how responsible he is and how much judgment he has—that is… that is already another discussion, of course.

[Speaker E] If all human beings decide that white is beautiful, then is a white wall necessarily a beautiful wall? Of course not. Why not? Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They decided, so what?

[Speaker E] Human beings determine it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Why not? Certainly not.

[Speaker E] Who determines what beauty is? The principles of beauty. What are the principles of beauty?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The principles of beauty. I am an aesthetic realist. Just as there is ethical realism, there is aesthetic realism. Who determines that murder is bad? Because all human beings decided that it is bad? Of course not. Moral principles determine that murder is forbidden. Aesthetic principles determine that a work of such-and-such a kind, or such-and-such a combination of colors, is beautiful. Yes, principles of aesthetics, not principles of morality. That is a question for another class; I spoke about it last semester. There is a claim that it is the Holy One, blessed be He; I argue not—He gives them validity, but He did not determine them. So human beings? No. It is simply so. Who determined that two plus two is four?

[Speaker E] The Holy One, blessed be He. No. It simply emerges from the concepts two and two and plus and four.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is an analytic statement. No, no—we did not invent it. These concepts are concepts… okay, that is another discussion; we won’t get into it now.

[Speaker D] Why can’t you say that it is sustained by his desire to do what is right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I say: if that is the case, then it is not an altruistic act.

[Speaker D] About every act you can say…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can always say that, and you can also not say it.

[Speaker D] But if it’s true?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not true.

[Speaker D] That when a person does what is right, you can look at it as…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not “you can look at it”—these are two different claims, one of which is true and the other not. These are not two viewpoints that are both equivalent. I can do something because it is right, and I can do something because I derive satisfaction from doing the right thing. That is not the same thing. The Talmud in tractate Kiddushin on page 6 says that one can betroth a woman by means of a loan, and one can betroth a woman by means of the benefit of forgiving a loan. What is the difference? Here I betroth the woman with the money of the loan—I say, don’t repay the debt to me—and here I betroth her with the satisfaction she has from not having to repay the debt. From the fact that she gained… not with the money that she gained, but with the satisfaction she has from having gained the money. It is not the same thing. Okay?

[Speaker B] Rabbi, you were on a question before that I don’t quite agree with. If the Holy One, blessed be He, creates us and we want something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, also wants or thinks something like what we do. Because…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course not. If I want to desecrate the Sabbath, that doesn’t mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants me to do it. That is what I want to do.

[Speaker B] But even my desire to desecrate the Sabbath comes from some desire whose source is in the Holy One, blessed be He?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it comes from you. You want to desecrate the Sabbath.

[Speaker E] What, “There is no place devoid of Him”? I don’t know what “there is no place”—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what “there is no place devoid of Him” means; I don’t understand those concepts.

[Speaker E] Meaning, He has to be… there can’t be existence without Him, so there can’t be anything without Him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? What does that have to do with it? But my desire depends on me.

[Speaker B] Also—

[Speaker E] —my existence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it does not come from me.

[Speaker E] Even if the influence is pure evil inclination, one hundred percent…

[Speaker B] No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not influence — it has nothing to do with influence. A decision, not influence. It’s your decision; there are no influences. You decided to do good or to do evil — that’s your decision. That’s the meaning of free choice. If the Holy One, blessed be He, decides for you, then He decided, not you, to punish Himself. What I basically want to say is that the categorical imperative really demands that we act altruistically. And since there is no bad result from my action, or good result from not doing it, then there can’t be any motive for my doing it other than the very desire to do good. That’s how Kant begins his books. A good action is defined as an action done out of good will, period. And not out of any other side reason. Okay?

[Speaker B] And I just wanted to ask — from all this, what does it mean to work on one’s character traits?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Working on your character traits means that since the traits affect my will, it’s worthwhile to improve those traits so that the influences will try to pull me in positive directions and not negative ones. But in the end, the traits only try to pull me. Whether I do it or don’t do it — that’s my decision.

[Speaker B] Character traits are emotion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, among other things.

[Speaker B] So you want to neutralize emotion — that’s the meaning of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not neutralize emotion. I want to develop emotion that will try to draw me in a positive direction.

[Speaker B] But it’s not good to do actions if I have a tendency…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t say it’s not good. I said that the most complete, purest act is an act done simply because it is good, and that’s it — not out of these emotions or those emotions. But where I have an emotion in the positive direction, there’s a better chance that I’ll do that act. So when I develop a positive feeling within myself, by that itself I’ve caused myself to do the good act. I’m simply helping myself decide to do the good act. So the reward I receive is not for having good will, but for having done work that developed good will within me. Because that work I did out of decision. From that point on, it’s…

[Speaker B] And if you had a preference in character work — either to strengthen the positive, or to become lacking in empathy and still rational — what’s preferable?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I were sure that becoming lacking in empathy would still leave me as someone who does the right act, in pure altruism, then the second is preferable. Better to be without empathy. But we’re human beings, and human beings are often drawn after their urges and emotions and so on, and that’s why there is value to working on one’s character traits — that’s all. Only because of that.

[Speaker E] So basically you’re saying it’s even preferable to be a person with no empathy, on condition that it makes you truly rational, like one hundred percent, and then you…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that it makes me. If I am completely rational, then it’s even preferable to be without empathy. Except that most of us do not function like disembodied intellects, so we are influenced by our emotions. It’s like — why does the Torah impose punishments for things, or why does the state impose penalties for offenses? Why don’t they demand from us to do things only out of the consideration that this is right or this is wrong? Because not everyone acts in that kind of altruistic way, that kind of rationalistic way, and therefore you have to help people through lower kinds of incentives, non-altruistic incentives like that. Fine, but that’s only…

[Speaker E] That ideally you should do it even without…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. It’s only because we’re human beings, and human beings sometimes fall, and among the large group of people, maybe there’s one person for whom it really would be better not to have it because he’s especially righteous. But overall, as human beings, it is good that there is… I told you that fortunately, or evolution, or the Holy One, blessed be He, or both together, developed in us certain feelings of empathy that cause us, or push us, to do the good act. Okay? And then it doesn’t remain dependent on our altruistic decision alone, but we even have some kind of reward for doing it — an internal reward, a felt reward, for doing the good act — and that causes more people to do good deeds. But that also has costs. Because very often empathy misleads us. Empathy basically tells us: look, you can’t hit him, that’s terrible. But sometimes he deserves to be hit — if he’s attacking someone else, if my son did something where sometimes he really does need to get a slap in order to know what is right and what is not right. So in such a place I do need to hit him. Now, if I have too much empathy — “he who withholds his rod hates his son” — and therefore there are also heavy costs to the existence of empathy. By the way, in my opinion — and I spoke about this yesterday too — this is something that very sharply distinguishes between left and right. I mean, think about all… why were all those who opposed the hostage deal religious? Have you ever thought about that? Almost all of them. That is to say, a very high correlation. Not completely, but yes — more rationalistic. That doesn’t mean they’re more correct, but religious people are more used to acting with the intellect, while among secular people what operates is the heart. And your heart tells you, look, you can’t — yes, you know all the descriptions in the media and so on, and they’re true, not false descriptions — how they’re suffering there, it’s awful, they’ve been there for I don’t know, already two years, and suffering terrible suffering there. You can’t stand by. No, I can stand by, because there are certain considerations that require me to overcome my empathy because it is not right to do that. Now here, contrary to the common image — where people usually think that religious people are more emotional, act in a more emotional way, and secular people are more rational — nonsense, exactly the opposite. One of the greatest misunderstandings secular people have about religious people is that they can’t grasp religious rationalism, because they are extremely emotional. They can’t understand that a person does something that you have no natural inclination whatsoever to do — eating pork, or I don’t know, all kinds of things like that — you have no natural inclination to do it, except that you think it’s the right thing to do because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. Doesn’t matter — but you think that’s the right thing to do. A secular person doesn’t understand such a thing. Think — there once was, okay, I’m finishing because I see we’re done, so I’ll finish with this point — I gave them an example yesterday: there was some professor in Jerusalem, Sakhak, a professor of chemistry, a chemist. He was very anti-religious, and from time to time he would publish various stories like that showing that Jewish law and the Torah and religious people are not okay. For example, once he told about religious Jews who saw a non-Jew on the Sabbath in distress and did not desecrate the Sabbath, and he died; they didn’t save him — which, he said, is what Jewish law says. And — or the wife of a kohen who was raped, and the halakhic decisors required them to separate. No, actually it doesn’t say that in my opinion, but let’s leave that aside, that’s not my point. But for example, the wife of a kohen who was raped, where the decisors required her to separate — there were terrible arguments around these cases. Later it turned out they never happened, but never mind, Jewish law really does say that. So what she’s saying is: this woman went through trauma, poor thing, she loves her husband, he loves her, they have children who love them — you’re tearing apart their family. She went through one trauma, and you put them through another trauma. Now, the public arguments that took place around this matter — I still remember them to this day. People said: tell me, don’t you have a heart? Don’t you have a heart? Don’t you feel this woman’s pain? So I tried to explain to people: of course I have a heart, but the heart doesn’t decide. If I think this is right because this is how one preserves the holiness of the priesthood, or however exactly — then yes, my heart is torn apart, but I’ll still decide to do it because that is what is right. Now, if you, the secular person, argued with me and said, look, you’re talking nonsense, it’s a foolish principle — fine. We have a disagreement about whether preserving the holiness of the priesthood is something you agree with or not. That’s a legitimate debate, fine. You think yes and I think no — that’s all fine. But the argument wasn’t there at all. He says: even according to your view, okay, I understand that you think you need to preserve the holiness of the priesthood, I got it, but leave that aside — now we have another argument: where is your heart? What do you mean, where is my heart? My heart is torn exactly like yours, but that doesn’t mean my heart determines what I do. Now, the people I spoke to — it was bizarre. They simply couldn’t understand what I wanted from them. Because secular people don’t understand what it means to conduct yourself according to intellect. It sounds the opposite of what people are usually used to thinking, but that’s how it is, completely.

[Speaker E] That’s not true across the board, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Statistically there’s a very high correlation.

[Speaker E] But there could be secular people who simply don’t know the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It has nothing to do with Torah — that’s what I said. What does Torah have to do with it? I said: you understand that according to my view this is forbidden, right? You don’t agree, so we have a disagreement, fine. But why are you asking me whether I have a heart? What does that have to do with the heart? After all, I hurt just like you do — I just think it’s not right to do it. Now he’s not willing to accept such an argument — not because he doesn’t think it’s wrong to do it, otherwise it would just be an ordinary disagreement. When he says, “You have no heart,” he isn’t arguing with me about whether to obey the Torah. He says, fine, I understand you want to obey the Torah, I got it — but leave that aside, now we have another argument: where is your heart? What do you mean? It’s not another argument; it’s the same argument. Meaning, he doesn’t even take into account that even if he supposedly agreed with me that one must preserve the holiness of the priesthood, he would still say that they must not be separated because the heart revolts. And the same thing with the hostages, the same thing with peace and war, the same thing with many, many things. It’s always a conflict between the empathy you have — which overall is a positive emotion — your empathy, and the logical consideration of what is right to do. And look and see, in almost all the public debates taking place today, which side goes with the head and which side goes with the heart, regardless of who is right. Leave that aside — maybe those who made the hostage deal were right, maybe everyone is right, fine. I’m only asking: who is working with the intellect and who is working with the heart?

[Speaker E] Can you move from intellect to heart, like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can move.

[Speaker E] To reverse it, say — what secular people usually go with is the heart, so I’m saying, when he doesn’t understand you, can he suddenly start understanding you, like can he suddenly…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] People who become religious probably make such a move, and vice versa — meaning, there are transitions. For most people it doesn’t…

[Speaker E] Happen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — not because of Torah. I’m not talking about a mind equal to Torah. Again, you have to understand: I’m not even talking about the question of what is right. That’s completely irrelevant. The secular person may be right about everything. That’s not the point. The question is where he’s coming from. Is he coming from here or from here? That’s all. It may be that if you come from here, you’re right — that can definitely happen. The question is not who is right. Even in the world of Torah there are people who serve God from here, not from here. These are different approaches among, yes, Hasidim or others. And there are those who do it from here. I’m only saying that as a social correlation, within religious society there are many more people who work from here than in secular society. That’s the claim. Okay? Regardless now of what Torah is and who is right. That’s a completely different discussion. I’m simply describing something that in my opinion is a fact. Okay, we’ll stop here. We’ll continue in another two or three weeks, I don’t know exactly how long. We have — what is it now, Wednesday? What? Sunday through the following Wednesday.

[Speaker D] So yes, that’s another three weeks.

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