Ethics, Faith, and Halakha – Lesson 18 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s try to get aligned about what we’ve done so far. I was talking about the categorical imperative on two planes. One plane is the plane of the character of morality: that a moral act is supposed to be done out of absolute commitment to the command, not out of any other considerations. And the second plane is the content of the categorical imperative. The content of the categorical imperative is to do what we would want to become a universal law. I explained that this is some kind of hypothetical test; it’s not really a consequentialist argument. But through the content of the categorical imperative I tried to sharpen the meaning of the first aspect. Because if the content of the categorical imperative, as I explained, is basically not consequentialist — afterward we said that maybe it still closes some kind of circle, but it’s not consequentialist — then that means I’m supposed to do the act even though no consequential effect is expected from it. Nothing is going to change, and still I’m supposed to do that act. And of course that sharpens much more the point that if I want to justify or characterize a moral act, I need to appeal to some kind of commitment to a command. Because if the moral act always produced some positive result or prevented some negative result, then it would be easier to say: fine, I do it because it’s good, because it’s beneficial, because it improves society, all kinds of things like that. Even though I said all those things cannot serve as moral explanations. But if I understand that the actions required of me are actions that don’t really have a positive result or prevent a negative result, then you can’t justify the act that way. So why am I actually obligated to do such an act? Because of commitment to the categorical imperative. Simply because it exists. I have no justification beyond the fact that this is what the categorical imperative says.

Now I want to remind you of a point I already discussed both last semester and at the beginning of this semester, namely that there is a move here that is completely analogous in the context of Jewish law as well. That is, in the halakhic context too, the religious value of an act exists only if it is done out of commitment to the Torah’s command, to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. If I do the act for other reasons, then it has no religious value. As Maimonides says: someone who does these things because of rational judgment, because he thinks that this is the correct way to behave, is among the wise of the nations of the world but not among their pious ones. He is not among the pious of the nations of the world but among their wise ones — that is Maimonides’ language. What does that mean, in the translation I suggested? It means he is a good person, he behaves properly as one should, but it has no religious value. That’s what “their pious ones” means: religious value. It has no religious value, because he is not doing it because of God’s command, but simply because it seems to him the right way to behave. So that’s fine — he is a good person, he does what seems to him the right way to behave — but religious value exists in an act only if you do it out of commitment to the religious command, the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, exactly the way Kant describes moral obligation. In other words, the divine command in the religious context is also a categorical command. You have to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it.

Now, maybe it also has positive results — that’s what Maimonides claims, and it also seems to me quite reasonable — but I don’t do it because of the results or for the sake of the results. I do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. And therefore this analysis is completely parallel on the moral plane and on the religious plane; it works in exactly the same way. In the parallel class on Tuesdays, yesterday — I don’t know if any of you attend — over there I just finished talking about this: I showed from Maimonides, from various sources in Maimonides, that in the religious context too the basis is a categorical command, just like the categorical imperative in morality.

In any case, this analogy basically says that we have two normative systems, Jewish law and morality, and they are parallel. Completely parallel in the sense that both are founded on commitment to a categorical command, the moral command and the religious command, let’s call it that, and both are not done for the sake of results, even though they may have positive results. But that is not why I do them. I don’t do them for the results but because of commitment to the command. This sharpens very much what we spoke about last semester, and really this semester too, namely the proof from morality for the existence of God. The proof from morality for the existence of God basically says that once there is some categorical command that binds you, there has to be some basis for your obligation to that command. In other words, if there is no God, then who is the commander? Who is the lawgiver who legislated this categorical command and demands from me unconditional obedience to it? Exactly as at the basis of religious obligation there obviously has to be a God to whom I grant — that is, who has some kind of absolute authority over me — so too at the basis of the moral command I am supposed to assume the existence of God and be committed to His command. Both of these things are things He expects from me: He expects morality from me, He expects Jewish law from me. These are two systems, both of which come from Him, both require Him — meaning without Him they have no validity — and in both systems He makes demands of me. But these are two different systems.

One of them is based on verses of the Torah, the interpretive teachings of the Sages, that is, everything we know as Torah, the Oral Torah, what we know as Jewish law. The second has no binding corpus of any kind. Our morality is what our conscience tells us, what we understand to be good and what we understand to be evil and must be avoided. Where is it written what is good and what is evil? Nowhere is it written; we understand it on our own. Right? So these are two systems that despite the complete parallel I’ve described so far between them, still have some differences that need to be taken into account.

One difference is that the source of the halakhic system has a written source: the Torah and its interpretations, whatever, but basically we received this from the Holy One, blessed be He. When I say that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded me, that is the description of a historical fact. He came and spoke to me, He commanded me, okay — at the revelation at Sinai. When I speak about the divine command with respect to morality, that is a statement with no historical factual basis. There was no event in which the Holy One, blessed be He, was revealed and commanded us morality. We understand that this is what He expects from us. There is a verse in the Torah, “ועשית הישר והטוב” (“and you shall do what is right and good”); we spoke a bit about that. But beyond that, we understand it because we feel within ourselves the moral obligation, and we understand that there is no such thing as obligation unless at its basis stands an authoritative factor that demands this obligation, to whom this obligation is owed, who has authority. Okay? And that is the proof from morality for the existence of God; that is what it is based on. Therefore, “the divine command” with respect to morality is an expression that has no factual basis. We feel within ourselves that this is what is expected from us. In Jewish law there was an explicit command. There are things known by reasoning, but at the base there is an explicit command.

Another difference between the two systems is their domain. Morality deals with regulating relations between people within human society. Jewish law, at least part of it, does not. Part of it deals with the question of what I may or may not eat, whether I have become impure or not, not necessarily things connected to my social functioning or my relation to other people. Okay? So the distinction between these two systems is not only that one has a written source and the other doesn’t — that’s one difference. The second difference is the areas they deal with.

But as I mentioned, or hinted earlier, the second distinction is not absolute. Jewish law does touch on regulating relations between people too. Some of it doesn’t, but some of it does: do not murder, do not steal, honor your father and your mother, charity, things like that. In other words, there are quite a few commandments and laws that do deal with regulating relations between people, and therefore the distinction I presented earlier does not seem unequivocal. So much so that one could even say — and some people do understand it this way — that Jewish law includes morality as a subfield; morality is a subfield of Jewish law. Okay. Later on I’ll argue that it’s not, but such views do exist, and in terms of the boundaries of the subjects these laws deal with, that really does seem natural, right? Jewish law deals with the same areas morality deals with. That is, part of Jewish law deals with the same areas morality deals with. It also has other areas, but it also has things to say in the moral areas.

Now that basically raises the question of what exactly the relationship is between these two systems, and maybe the best way to open that discussion is actually to talk about situations in which these two systems clash. Because situations of conflict can sharpen the question of the relationship between them. Is a conflict possible? If so, what do we do with such a conflict? Is living with two systems that conflict with one another even consistent? Can I be committed to two systems that have conflicting norms? Or is that inconsistent, and I’m just confused? Meaning, maybe I can’t really be committed to both systems. And then there will be those who say, well, where they conflict it’s obvious that I’m not really committed — there’s no conflict — I’m committed to Jewish law. If morality contradicts Jewish law, then no, it’s not relevant to me. Because it can’t be that I’m committed to Jewish law and to something else as well. You could even describe it as a kind of idolatry in partnership. Yes, I’m not only committed to God’s command but also to some other additional system. Even though earlier I already said that this system too is rooted in the Holy One, blessed be He, so it isn’t exactly idolatry in partnership. But I’ll come back to that point.

So I want to start specifically with the question of clashes, the clashes between Jewish law and morality. First of all, let’s remember the facts. Are there situations in which Jewish law and morality clash? For example? Let’s say slavery. Okay. Even though in slavery Jewish law does not obligate you to sell yourself into slavery, or to sell slaves, or to buy slaves. It only defines the institution, and therefore from the standpoint of Jewish law the clash here is not a head-on clash. You can — what? I didn’t understand.

So that’s the question of someone sold by the court; maybe there yes. But in the simple case, slavery as an institution — say, when the court sells you because you have nothing with which to pay — it’s not certain that that is immoral. You need to pay: you stole, you have to pay; if you don’t pay, then you’re sold as a slave. That’s the form of payment. When people talk about the moral aspect of slavery, they usually mean someone who sells himself, not someone sold by the court. And someone who sells himself is only an institution that is defined — meaning, if you sell yourself, that has halakhic validity, but there is no commandment to sell yourself; on the contrary, there may even be a prohibition on selling yourself. Therefore the clash here is soft; it’s not such a direct clash. Maybe we would have expected Jewish law not to allow such a thing at all. But Jewish law doesn’t command it, it only allows it. In that sense this is a relatively soft clash. Okay? There are more blatant clashes. For example?

[Speaker C] There’s this idea, I’m not sure, whether the wiping out of Amalekite males includes babies?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, for example, yes. On the face of it that sounds very problematic, right? Morally speaking. That you have to kill a baby that was just born. I’m not even talking about the animals and everything else. What do you want from them? So that’s another example. There are mamzerim, for example — the laws of a mamzer. A child is born to two parents who got a little carried away. What do you want from him? Is he guilty of anything? What did he do? You ruined his whole life; he has no one he can marry; he’s lost. Okay? Obviously immoral. There is also the wife of a priest who was raped — also a favorite example of mine, yes? The wife of an ordinary Israelite, if she commits adultery, is forbidden to her husband and to the adulterer. But if she was raped, she remains permitted to her husband. That’s the wife of an Israelite. But the wife of a priest, even if she was raped, becomes forbidden to the priest. Which means that this woman went through trauma, she was raped, and now we’re going to put her through another trauma: we’re going to separate her from her husband; the children will remain in a broken family, when really they want to continue together, everything is fine, there is no problem between them. Jewish law requires them to separate. Okay? So that too sounds like something very, very problematic.

You can talk about equality in general between women and men. That too seems immoral, and Jewish law is not egalitarian. Okay. Okay? You can talk about the beautiful captive woman. The beautiful captive woman — yes, the Torah says that basically you can take a captive woman and rape her. She’s not a soldier, she didn’t do anything to you; she simply belongs to the nation against which you are fighting. But what permission is there to rape her? Okay? So all of these, in short, are examples of situations that rather clearly raise a conflict between Jewish law and morality. You can argue, fight, insist — it’s not plausible. In the simple sense, all the halakhic directives I have just described are clearly immoral directives. Saving a non-Jew on the Sabbath, for example — yes — not violating the Sabbath, the prohibition on violating the Sabbath in order to save the life of a non-Jew, and so on. Rabbi, maybe just a clarification.

[Speaker C] After all, human morality changes according to the period, right? What is socially acceptable, what isn’t socially acceptable. Okay. So how do we see the moral side in that respect, if morality is dynamic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t agree with you, but let’s say it is dynamic — then what problem does that raise? Fine, it’s dynamic, so what?

[Speaker C] That basically morality has no real validity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Today’s morality — and it wasn’t the morality of the fifteenth century — okay, so I’m talking about today’s morality. A clash with today’s morality. It’s still a clash. You can say that because morality changes, there is really no such thing as morality, it’s all made up, and therefore if it clashes with Jewish law there is no conflict. So just ignore these inventions and stick with Jewish law. Fine — that is already a proposed way of relating to these problems. But right now I’m still talking about the problem before we develop how to relate to it. Okay?

I’ll take, for example, the last case I brought, that of the beautiful captive woman. When the current Chief Military Rabbi was chosen — I don’t even remember his name anymore — when he was chosen, someone pulled out of storage some old article of his in which someone had asked him about raping a captive woman: according to Jewish law, is it permitted to rape a captive woman? So he answered yes, based on the passage of the beautiful captive woman. Now, fine, it was some answer by an anonymous rabbi to an anonymous questioner; nobody cared. But when he was appointed chief rabbi, suddenly everyone and his wife came out of the woodwork. People started screaming: what do you mean, this is going to be the chief rabbi of the IDF? What norms do we want to prevail in the army? And so on. There were huge fights there, and of course great embarrassment for the chosen military rabbi, but also for the religious public in general, because it really does look very problematic. Okay? And then they started — what?

[Speaker D] But according to the law of the beautiful captive woman, it’s not just to go and rape her, that’s not how it works.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you wait the month after the first rape. If you want to marry her, then there is already a procedure for how to do that. So yes, there was great embarrassment, and then the excuses started. No, “the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination” — yes, that’s what the Sages say there about this passage — or, that was in the past but it’s not relevant today, things change, all kinds of things like that. And of course there were those who resolved the embarrassment in the opposite way: proudly and forcefully they announced that morality does not interest them, because we are servants of God and we do not care about morality; it is an invention of wicked gentiles, and therefore it really doesn’t matter. So these are two opposing approaches to this conflict.

And I wrote about this on my website in one of the early columns. I wrote about it around the time he was chosen as military rabbi. And I said that people don’t really understand how to relate to passages like this, and for that you need some analysis of this issue of Jewish law and morality. But let me sharpen the difficulty even more, okay? When you look at the Torah commentators discussing why the Sages said that the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination with respect to this passage — meaning, what problem did they see in the passage of the beautiful captive woman? That’s my question. In other words, what was the problem? To think that this is something the Holy One, blessed be He, wants you to do — yes, that’s obvious, but what? What was this thing that you shouldn’t think? What was the moral problem, or some other problem, I don’t know.

[Speaker C] That it’s not ideal to act in a beastly way in a time of anger, of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To rape a woman, right. It’s immoral to rape a woman. No commentator deals with that. The only problem that troubled them was intercourse with a non-Jewish woman. How can it be that sexual relations are permitted with — in other words, “the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination” is not only the answer. Even the initial assumption they are dealing with was not the moral problem at all. The moral problem did not trouble the tip of anybody’s little finger among the commentators. Meaning, even after the Torah is already written, and the Sages already comment on it — okay, this is only after the fact, only against the evil inclination, etc. — they say that not because of the problem of rape. They don’t even talk about rape. They talk about consensual intercourse, not rape. How can such a thing be permitted — a Jew with a non-Jewish woman? After all, that is forbidden intercourse. How can such a thing be permitted? That is the problem. The problem is not the rape at all.

On the contrary, there are those who even discuss — there are suggestions that wanted to argue that really rape would in fact be forbidden. The whole discussion there is only about consensual intercourse. That is not the plain sense of the Talmud and the Torah.

[Speaker B] How do they permit it? A verse, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he doesn’t understand how the verse permits it. What do you mean?

[Speaker B] How did God say such a thing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Intercourse with a non-Jewish woman is forbidden. What do you mean? But obviously He said it in order to permit it only in the framework of war. Why did He say it? After all, this thing is forbidden. If they had permitted you to eat pork in war — obviously, I’d also have relations with a non-Jewish woman if He permits me to, I’m only asking myself why. The question is not whether to obey Him. I’m trying to understand why He said it. It’s a question; it’s not a protest or rejection of this from Jewish law. We ask many interpretive questions. Jacob married two sisters — so we ask why he married two sisters, right? Jacob lied too — so we ask why he lied. What do you want? That’s what the Torah said; that’s what he did; everything is fine. But we always compare passages in the Torah to our conceptions, moral conceptions or even conceptions arising from the Torah itself, and we ask how this is to be understood, what the meaning of it is.

So when the Sages were troubled, and the commentators who explain them, all that troubled them was intercourse with a non-Jewish woman. Not rape. Try looking there; I did. Try to see whether they discuss whether it applies to rape as well. In practice, there is almost no discussion at all of whether this is only with consent or also with rape. The simple reason they don’t discuss it is that it is obvious to them that it applies both with rape and with consent. But the very fact that they don’t even need to address that point means that what troubled them was not the question of rape at all. What troubled them was the act of intercourse itself: how can the Torah permit the prohibition of intercourse with a non-Jewish woman?

Incidentally, the prohibition of intercourse with a non-Jewish woman is a prohibition whose source is not clear. There is no real prohibition on relations with a non-Jewish woman — that is, there is no source, no verse, that forbids it. But in Jewish law it is accepted as some kind of, I don’t know, meta-halakhic thing or something that is absolutely terrible, something awful. Yes? It’s a bit like Rabbi Amital’s well-known remark: he once said that eating human flesh — let’s say you have to eat either pork or human flesh, you’re sick and in order to recover you need to eat either pork or human flesh — which is preferable? In ordinary halakhic thinking, certainly it is preferable to eat human flesh. Because pork is a prohibition. Human flesh has no prohibition. According to Maimonides there is a neglect of a positive commandment, but in the simple sense there is no prohibition. Okay? But he said it simply cannot be. Obviously, in such a situation pork would be preferable and not human flesh. By the way, I’m not sure he’s right, but that’s what he argued. Okay? Why? Because there are things that are simply not done. There are things that, even though their halakhic source is not entirely unequivocal or not all that severe, are still seen in halakhic thinking as something that breaks the boundaries. Intercourse with a non-Jewish woman is one of those things. It has no clear source. There is no clear source, no explicit prohibition that you transgress. They tried to find one here, one there. There is no real clear source for it, but still there is no denying — and this is already in the Talmud, not just a later invention — that it is viewed as something very, very problematic. Sorry, as an act that is very, very problematic. Okay? And I think that is what troubled the commentators in the passage of the beautiful captive woman. How did the Torah permit intercourse with a non-Jewish woman? Consensually, not rape. Also rape, but it was not the dimension of rape that troubled them, but the intercourse with a non-Jewish woman itself. Okay? Why is there no prohibition?

[Speaker B] What about Pinchas?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He who has relations with an Aramean woman — zealots strike him. Okay. Zealots strike him, but which prohibition did he violate? Which prohibition did he violate? Did he do something God does not—

[Speaker B] want him to do.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where did the Holy One, blessed be He, say He does not want him to do it? Where is that written?

[Speaker B] It’s not written.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For a prohibition you need a warning. Is there a warning? Where is the verse that warns against it? There isn’t one. What suddenly? What source?

[Speaker B] What are you talking about?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary. If that is the source, then it is the opposite source. Because what is written there is that one who has relations with an Aramean woman — zealots strike him. It doesn’t say there is a prohibition. What does “zealots strike him” mean? Give a punishment, a prohibition. “One who has relations with an Aramean woman receives lashes.” Lashes or death — in forbidden sexual relations we put people to death, right? Nothing of the sort is written. No lashes, no execution, nothing. There is permission for zealots to strike him. Why? Because meta-halakhically it is very problematic; it is a breach of boundaries. And exactly that, the passage of Pinchas, is the proof of what I said before: that this is not a formal halakhic prohibition, but rather there is some meta-halakhic perception here that sees this as a very problematic act, even though it has no clear source. You cannot point to a warning verse. Okay?

[Speaker C] Is there some kind of social etiquette in the commentators’ mindset, being politically correct? Is there such a thing? That as a commentator I won’t deal with why rape, why not rape, because it has a social stigma so I just won’t touch it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no such thing. I don’t know of such a thing. They don’t write it. If you write it, then you haven’t accomplished anything — you already said it. And if you don’t write it, then how can I know whether that was his thought or not? Maybe it was his thought, but I have no way of knowing.

[Speaker C] And censorship and fears of the authorities, regarding things that would appear—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Intercourse with a non-Jewish woman sounds much more problematic vis-à-vis non-Jews than rape. Relations with a non-Jewish woman means going against non-Jews; rape just means you’re generally immoral. But relations with a non-Jewish woman would be far worse from the standpoint of censorship. No, no — and at that period it wasn’t even really an issue. The moral issue here only arose in recent generations. It didn’t trouble anyone until the nineteenth century or something like that. It troubled nobody.

[Speaker C] It was even considered an honor in wartime to take women.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, though I don’t think the Sages would say that someone who does this deserves a medal of valor or some kind of heroic decoration. Fine. I don’t think they would see him as a model figure. But the moral dimension doesn’t seem to have troubled them. It doesn’t seem so. It didn’t bother them. And that of course deepens the difficulty I described earlier. Meaning, not only does the Torah permit it, even when the Sages already say that this is only after the fact, only against the evil inclination, they’re not saying that because of the rape at all. Meaning it doesn’t bother them at all. Not only does the Torah permit it, but that permission doesn’t even trouble anybody. To such an extent do we ignore moral considerations that not only do we issue an immoral instruction, we don’t even blink when we issue that immoral instruction. It doesn’t trouble them at all. And even when we are already dealing with the problematic nature of the instruction, we ignore its moral problematic nature. Meaning, if there is one thing — perhaps the most extreme example of this disconnect between the discussion and morality — I think it’s the beautiful captive woman. Not because that act is the gravest, but because precisely in this case there was a discussion of the problematic nature of the directive, and therefore it stands out even more that the discussion ignores the moral dimension of the matter.

So in short, for our purposes, what this means is that there are certain laws that appear blatantly immoral, and it doesn’t even trouble them that they are immoral. Which of course naturally brings us to the approach I described earlier, the one that says: right, the Torah simply doesn’t recognize this category called morality at all. We have Jewish law. What Jewish law permits, it permits; what it forbids, it forbids. Morality — who even mentioned it? It isn’t part of the game. Morality has no status from the Torah’s perspective. Okay? Yes, a lot of people will tell you this — the really pious people, yes, the “authentic” ones, will tell you: of course, morality is an invention of gentiles and wicked people. We cling to Jewish law; every clause of the Mishnah Berurah we’ll keep, the minor and the major alike. If that tramples morality, I couldn’t care less. Why should I care? Meaning, there is no second side here in this conflict between Jewish law and morality. Once you define there as being a conflict between Jewish law and morality, you are basically saying: I’m committed to both sides, and when they clash, I don’t know what to do, I’m in conflict. Even if I decide that Jewish law overrides morality, as long as I view it as a conflict, that means I’m committed to both systems. Right? My decision is that Jewish law overrides morality, fine. I’m talking about people for whom there is no conflict. It’s not that they decided in favor of Jewish law over morality — there is no conflict. What do you mean, a conflict between what and what? A conflict between idolatry and Jewish law? A conflict between some system invented by people or idols or I don’t know exactly what, and Jewish law? There is no such thing. If you are committed to Jewish law, that is the only thing in your world. What else could there be?

So apparently this passage of the beautiful captive woman is a good catalyst for that approach. It naturally leads to that approach. Fine. So if you belong to the camp I just described, the camp that says there is Jewish law and nothing else, and any other norm unrelated to Jewish law should not interest us and is irrelevant — even where it does not contradict Jewish law. Meaning, there is no place for other norms that are not Jewish law. Yes? Conflict is only the sharpest place where this appears. But if we conclude that in the world of a believing Jew there is really only Jewish law and nothing else, then even in places where morality does not contradict Jewish law, I’m not supposed to be committed to morality. Okay?

And in truth, even if you don’t hear many people explicitly articulate such a view, in behavior there are quite a few people who express it, sort of innocently. Sometimes I feel that among yeshiva students there is a very typical disregard for basic moral principles. Principles that don’t get some recognized place in Jewish law somehow are sometimes ignored — not always, but there are quite a few yeshiva students who somehow ignore them. There was once someone in the yeshiva in Yerucham whose family had a gathering, and he didn’t go to the family gathering because it would have been neglect of Torah study. And he said that Rabbi Blumentzweig, the head of the yeshiva, had said one has to stay and learn, and just as you don’t leave your job in order to fly abroad, so you also don’t leave the yeshiva in order to fly abroad; your Torah is your vocation, you sit and learn.

Now, maybe that’s right, maybe it isn’t. But his family took it very hard. And the feeling was that somehow he was not in conflict. Meaning, it wasn’t that there is some value here — what do you mean the family is gathering? What is family? Let them gather. Why should that concern me? Now I assume he had natural feelings and a connection to his family; he simply wasn’t willing to give them value-status. In other words, in terms of values there is only Jewish law: Torah study, let’s call them religious values. Okay? And therefore, my sense at least was that for him this was not at all a conflict situation. Meaning, what do you mean? There is neglect of Torah study. What is the question? It’s as though he isn’t in a dilemma. I’m not talking about someone who was in a dilemma and nevertheless decided to stay and learn. Fine, then he decided as he decided, but at least he was in a dilemma. There, the feeling was that there was no dilemma at all. What stands against the matter of neglecting Torah study? Nothing. Meaning, so what if there is a family gathering? It’s just not all that interesting.

Fine, you can tell him that there is honoring one’s parents. Honoring one’s parents is already Jewish law, right? It’s not just anything. But that narrows the issue. The feeling is that you also need to be a mensch. You need to be a mensch. And it may be that you decide to continue learning Torah and not neglect your study, but that should come after recognizing that there is a conflict. First of all, there is a conflict. Now let’s see what we do with it, which one prevails.

So that is the first direction. The first direction for resolving these conflicts between Jewish law and morality is basically to deny obligation to morality altogether, or even reject it — not just deny it. Meaning, if you are also committed to morality, then you are committing idolatry. That is, you are not serving only the Holy One, blessed be He; you are also serving some other entity, another normative system. So that is either forbidden or at least not binding, and therefore there is no conflict at all. That is one approach. Leibowitz, for example, said more than once that morality is an atheistic category. That is, it has no place in the world of Torah, in the religious world, no place. An atheistic category. Fine. Many people criticized him for this, but some also challenged him. They said: you, Leibowitz, were a major activist against the occupation, perhaps one of the first and most prominent. Okay? They asked him: what’s the problem? Is there some halakhic prohibition against occupying? After all, you’re talking about a moral problem. But morality is an atheistic category, and you are committed to Jewish law — why does morality interest you? Okay?

So they understood Leibowitz’s position as the position I described earlier: morality is an atheistic category, meaning that in the world of a believer there is no place for another normative system; there is Jewish law. That’s it. Okay? There is an article by Eliezer Goldman in which he argues that they misunderstood Leibowitz. Leibowitz means that it is an atheistic category in the sense that it does not belong to the religious sphere. Not in the sense that it is not binding on him. Every religious person is also an ordinary person and also a religious person. As an ordinary person he is committed to morality like any other person. As a religious person he is also committed to Jewish law. So now he is really committed to both systems. But the first is secular and the second is religious.

What I argued at the end of last semester and again this semester is similar to that, but one step further. I argued that morality is not secular. It too is a system based on the will of God or on a command of the Holy One, blessed be He. But that distinction of Leibowitz’s — I’ll still keep it, as we’ll soon see. Okay? I just claim that it is not a secular category.

Now this conception is a bit strange, because first of all in the Torah itself we see that there are moral demands. There are moral demands in the Torah. Right? It says “ועשית הישר והטוב” (“and you shall do what is right and good”). “והאיש משה עניו מכל האדם אשר על פני האדמה” (“and the man Moses was more humble than any man on the face of the earth”). Humility is seen as a good trait. And “ועשית הישר והטוב”, as Nachmanides explains there, is some kind of demand that we conduct ourselves morally. Right?

[Speaker E] “וסרת רשע…”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? David’s turning away from evil? Yes. In other words, there are very clearly moral demands in the Torah. Therefore it is hard to accept the position that says that in the world of a religious person there can only be Jewish law; there is no place for morality. It is true that “ועשית הישר והטוב”, and “סור מרע” (“turn away from evil”), or whatever else you mention, do not enter the halakhic category. Meaning, there are parts of the Torah that do not belong to the halakhic category. This is another category. No enumerator of the commandments counts “ועשית הישר והטוב”. But it is a verse that appears in the Torah. You cannot say it is secular. In other words, you cannot say that in the world of a believer moral demands have no significance. Clearly they do — it’s a verse in the Torah. But true, it does not enter Jewish law; it is not an enumerated commandment. In a moment we’ll come back to that and try to understand it.

So this basically means that the conception that says morality has no significance does not hold water. There is no religious significance to morality? That doesn’t work. A second conception says that Jewish law has no significance, only morality. Again, this is a conception that says there is no conflict. Wherever morality has spoken, there is no place for Jewish law. Now on the face of it this sounds like the position of secular people. In other words, people who are simply not subject to Jewish law; for them indeed there is only morality and not Jewish law. But that’s not precise. You can see that such a conception underlies statements found even in religious positions. For example, the position that says Jewish law includes morality within it. I mentioned that earlier. The moral commandments within Jewish law are the ones that define morality. Besides them there are other commandments not related to morality. So morality is a subcategory of Jewish law. Okay, that is another possibility.

And there is a more extreme possibility, which you find in several places in Rabbi Kook, where he claims that morality is Jewish law. Not a subcategory. Jewish law is Jewish morality. Meaning, every single law has the role of leading to a moral goal, period. Jewish law is the way we realize moral conduct as we understand it. This is an identity between Jewish law and morality.

Now understand that behind this statement of Rabbi Kook there really sits the same conception that says there is no world of Jewish law; there is only a world of morality. Jewish law merely translates into practice how you are to conduct yourself morally. But as far as the idea goes, the goals toward which you strive, the values you are supposed to realize, are only moral values. Jewish law is the way to realize them in the best manner. Fine, okay? So it’s not only a position of atheists. Really, the conception that stands behind Rabbi Kook’s statements and those like him — namely that Jewish law is basically the purest expression of morality — every law… he writes in several places that every single law has a moral aim. There are no laws that are not— Therefore, unlike what I said earlier, that Jewish law is a broader category and morality is a subfield within it, for Rabbi Kook it is not a subfield. It is an identity, the same field. Morality… Jewish law is morality as a Jew is supposed to realize it.

[Speaker C] Okay. What does he say about all the commandments?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He explains that behind each of them there is some moral matter. Even pork, eating pork and so on — in Nevukhei HaDor he goes on at length about reasons for the commandments, and he explains that behind… lofty explanations, of course, needless to say. But that’s what he tries to do. He tries to show that Jewish law is really the purest expression of morality. It is the way we realize morality.

So behind his view there really sits the same conception that people tend to attribute to atheists or secular people, namely that there is really only morality; there is nothing in the Torah beyond that. The most basic difficulty with this conception is: so why are non-Jews not obligated in Jewish law? Apart from their seven commandments, what about all the 613 commandments? If really the purpose of all the commandments is simply to achieve moral goals, then non-Jews too ought to be moral.

[Speaker C] Morality for Israel and morality for non-Jews, maybe in a different way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, in a different way? What does that mean? If it’s morality, it’s morality. What do you mean, for Israel and for non-Jews? Is violating the Sabbath moral or immoral? If it’s immoral, then non-Jews too should not violate the Sabbath.

[Speaker C] The morality a father has to practice and the morality a child has to practice and the morality of someone in a wheelchair—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not relevant. So take a father and child who are non-Jews. What difference does it make?

[Speaker C] No, I’m just saying, the difference between the Jewish people and non-Jews is like how you wouldn’t expect the same level of morality—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand, explain it to me.

I’m saying: violating the Sabbath, okay? You say that violating the Sabbath is immoral? I don’t know exactly why, but invent some explanation for why violating the Sabbath is immoral, okay? Then why are non-Jews permitted to violate the Sabbath? Do you have some substantive explanation? Not some general statement that non-Jews are creatures different from Jews. How can you understand such a thing? And if you already go there — Rabbi Kook offers explanations for why such things are moral, and those explanations are in ordinary moral terms, as we understand them. If so, I see no logic at all in exempting non-Jews from them. The assumption is that all people ought to be moral. There are differences between Jew and non-Jew in religious tasks, but if there are no religious tasks, if everything is just aimed at achieving moral goals, then basically non-Jews should keep all the commandments.

So in my view it is a very problematic conception, this conception Rabbi Kook expresses. But in any case, these are more or less the range of possibilities I know regarding the relation between Jewish law and morality.

Yes, there are people who say: what do we do with immoral laws? After all, that is really the question — that’s where I started, right? The beautiful captive woman, or things like that. What would Rabbi Kook say? I have no idea. Or one who says Jewish law includes morality would also have to answer this question. Okay? So what would they say? That behind it there is some exalted moral command we don’t understand, something like that, I don’t know exactly what. That’s words. In the end, after all, we all understand that this is immoral. What do you want to tell me — that not violating the Sabbath in order to save a non-Jew is actually the true moral command? That’s not serious. I mean… fine, language can bear anything, you can say whatever you want, the words come out of your mouth — but what does it mean? If you have to save a life at the cost of violating the Sabbath, then why not the life of a non-Jew? What’s the difference? If this is moral then yes; if not then not even for a Jew. How do you explain to me that this is some higher and loftier morality? I don’t buy it.

A mamzer, it doesn’t matter, everything we spoke about in previous sessions. It reminds me a bit of something I once saw in Mikhtav MeEliyahu by Rabbi Dessler. He says there that — after all, the Talmud says that in certain circumstances one may lie, for example for the sake of peace. Okay? So Rabbi Dessler says: obviously, because this isn’t called a lie at all. A lie is speech one is forbidden to say. But here this is exactly the speech you need to say, so it isn’t a lie. Now you understand that this is a kind of word game. But beyond it being a word game, the definition irritates me. Of course it’s a lie. A lie is when you say something untrue; that is a lie. You can say that in this case a lie was permitted because there is a good goal that justifies it — I understand — but don’t tell me it’s not a lie. It’s exactly like saying that not violating the Sabbath in order to save a non-Jew is terribly moral. No, it’s not moral. But maybe there is some reason why the Torah nevertheless forbids it. Fine. Don’t tell me it’s moral. I don’t buy it. I understand very well what morality is. We all understand very well what morality is, and the proof is that the Torah also recognizes it. It nowhere writes what the moral demands upon us are, right? The Torah too assumes that we understand on our own what morality is. The Sages say yes, we could have learned modesty from a cat, industriousness from an ant, and things like that. Meaning, the good traits we understand on our own; it’s not that we read them in the Torah. Okay? So really… we understand them entirely on our own.

[Speaker C] The Torah doesn’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] help us with that at all.

[Speaker C] So why does it give us the book of Genesis? Not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In my opinion, not to teach us morality.

[Speaker C] Certainly not today.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe once people learned morality from it, I don’t know. Certainly not today. It comes to tell us… We discussed this with Rashi’s first comment on Genesis. It comes to tell us that we merited the land, say, as Rashi writes there, because we are upright. But it doesn’t come to teach us what it means to be upright. That we understand on our own. How do I know that? Because the patriarchs — the fact is, they did it. They didn’t have the Torah. How did they know to do it? Because obviously a person is supposed to understand on his own what upright conduct is.

How does the Holy One, blessed be He, come with a complaint against Cain for murdering Abel when there wasn’t yet any prohibition of “do not murder”? It still had not been said, “שופך דם האדם באדם דמו ישפך” (“Whoever sheds human blood, by man shall his blood be shed”). The Torah had not yet been given at all. So what does He want from Cain? Obviously, everyone ought to understand that murder is problematic, not because the Torah says so. Right? And the assumption of the Torah and of the Sages is completely clear: we understand what it means to be moral and not to be moral. So don’t tell me stories now that it is terribly moral to separate a priest’s wife who was raped from her husband. I understand what morality is, right? It isn’t written in the Torah. I know — that’s not moral. Or not saving a non-Jew on the Sabbath, or the beautiful captive woman, or a mamzer, or the whole list I brought earlier. Okay? Therefore I don’t buy all that stuff. It is apologetic wordplay. It’s comfortable to entrench oneself there: yes, this is divine morality, the Holy One, blessed be He, no one can understand because He is omnipotent and a total genius and therefore none of us understand, but this is actually the more divine morality. Those are just words. It’s like I could murder you and then say that it was terribly moral. I don’t have the energy to explain why, but murdering you was the most moral thing in the world. That seems to me roughly the same thing.

Of course people say this because they are in distress. The distress is understandable: but still, how can it be that the Torah commands these things if they are so immoral? I fully understand the distress. What leads people to adopt these strange positions is the distress. And the distress I understand very well.

So now I want to explain to you what I think is the correct relation between Jewish law and morality, and it is none of these three approaches. It’s a fourth approach. And I have no doubt it is correct. This is not a dispute. They are simply confused, all those who hold the existing approaches. Almost everyone, in short. No, really — once you understand this, it is obvious; you can’t say otherwise.

I’m going to divide Jewish law into three types. All existing laws into three types. One type is moral laws: honor your father and your mother, do not steal, do not murder, all those things. This subfield that parallels morality. The second type is non-moral laws: the prohibition of eating pork, keeping the Sabbath, things that have nothing to do with morality. They are not anti-moral; they simply have no connection. They are morally neutral. And the third type is anti-moral laws. That’s the list I described earlier. Okay? Those are the three types.

Now I want specifically to begin with the second type, the non-moral laws. It seems to me that this is the key to the whole story. Why? Let’s try to think what it tells us that there is such a category in Jewish law as non-moral laws. If there are non-moral laws, that means Rabbi Kook is wrong. He doesn’t accept that there are non-moral laws; he claims they are all really moral laws. But in the standard classifications there are laws that don’t appear connected to morality: impurity and purity, dietary prohibitions, things like that. They are not connected to morality. What does the existence of such a category tell us? It tells us that first of all, Jewish law clearly does not see itself as an instrument for attaining moral goals alone. It has other goals too. Let’s call them for now, for the sake of this discussion, religious goals or religious values. The Torah wants to advance not only moral values but also religious values. Okay? Dietary prohibitions advance spiritual values — whatever you want to call them. Dietary prohibitions, all the neutral prohibitions, are what we can call religious prohibitions. Which means that if that is so, then I understand that in the Torah’s arsenal of values there may be moral values, but certainly not only those. Right? There are also other values. Let’s call them religious values.

Now what exactly are these religious values? Why don’t people conceptualize it in this way? Because usually when you speak to people about values, that immediately leads — and this is what lies behind Rabbi Kook’s thinking. This is Rabbi Kook’s mistake in my view. He thinks that “values” means moral values. And what I want to claim is: no, moral values are only one kind of value, and there are other kinds as well. There are religious values whose purpose is not regulating social life, but which have some spiritual aims — to repair eternity within majesty, I have no idea, it doesn’t matter right now, okay? But values with religious aims, not social, moral, human aims.

This follows, it seems to me, quite clearly from the existence of the second category. Now if I adopt this conclusion, then let’s move to the third category. The third category is anti-moral laws. Once I understand that the Torah’s arsenal of values includes religious values too, not only moral values, I am no longer troubled by anti-moral laws. Why? Because if Jewish law tells me, say, that a mamzer may not marry — okay? — for example, that is an anti-moral law. We’ve ruined the child for his parents’ sin, fine? So that’s an anti-moral law. Yes, but it has a purpose. The Torah does not command it for nothing. It has some religious spiritual purpose it is meant to achieve. Meaning, if you let a mamzer marry, it will damage eternity within majesty. Okay? So there is some religious purpose that would be harmed. We have some religious goal that we achieve through this prohibition.

Now does that obligate me to say that this act is also moral? Meaning, that it does not harm moral values? No. It only means that from the Torah’s point of view, achieving the religious value justifies harming moral values. There is no principled problem with such a statement, right?

[Speaker C] Does that push morality into the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not at all.

[Speaker C] If the preference is religious over moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t say preference. In this specific case, when the Torah says that a mamzer may not marry, what it tells us there is that in this specific case the religious value justifies harming moral values. That’s all. Broader implications — we’ll see later. Okay? Right now I’m speaking specifically about the examples I brought. In those specific examples, all the Torah says is that there is some religious value that would be harmed if you let the mamzer marry.

If so, there is no need whatsoever to say that the prohibition on the mamzer marrying is moral, or not anti-moral. No — it is obviously immoral, but still justified, because we need to achieve some religious goal.

Now notice: when we speak about a clash between values — I mentioned this last semester, Sartre’s story, the French philosopher in occupied Paris during the Holocaust. One of his students came to him — at least that’s how he tells it — with a moral dilemma. He lived with his mother in Paris. His mother was already old, sickly, needed help. His brother collaborated with the Nazis, and his father had been murdered by the Nazis, so he alone was left, okay? Now he desperately wanted to fight the Nazis. He hated the Nazis and wanted to fight them. He wanted to flee to the Free French army, de Gaulle, and join up in order to fight the Nazis. Okay? That is a moral value, fighting evil. On the other hand, if he flees abroad — de Gaulle’s headquarters were in London — then his mother remains alone. Here there is the value of helping his mother. What should he do? He asks Sartre. What should I do? I’m in a dilemma between two moral values.

Now notice: the dilemma here is not between morality and Jewish law. It is between two moral values. It is an intra-moral dilemma. Was he Jewish? I don’t know. Was Sartre Jewish? I think perhaps ethnically, if I remember correctly, but I don’t think there was anything especially Jewish about him. In any case, this is not a dilemma between morality and some other principle; it is an intra-moral dilemma between two moral values. Okay? What do you do in such a situation? Now I don’t remember what he decided there, or whether Sartre wrote it, I’m not sure. But let’s say he decided to go fight, to leave his mother. Okay? Does that mean he is an immoral person because he does not honor his mother, does not help his mother? No. He is very committed to honoring his parents and helping his mother, but he is also committed to fighting evil, and he cannot do both, so he has to decide. Whichever value he chooses, clearly there will be a cost with respect to the other value. Even if he had decided to stay, what, then he doesn’t care about fighting evil? Of course he cares. But what can he do? He can’t do both.

In other words, when we have a clash between two values, acting for one value at the expense of another, or trampling another, does not mean I don’t care about the other value. It only means I have no choice; I must choose one of the two options, I can’t realize both values. The same thing applies to a clash between Jewish law and morality. Once we have expanded the arsenal of values and we now have moral values and religious values, if they now clash — a religious value and a moral value — and let’s say I decide in favor of the religious value, in the case of the mamzer, for example, does that mean I am not moral? Or that the Torah is not moral? No, of course not. It only means that the Torah, besides moral values, also wants to advance religious aims, and sometimes you cannot advance both at once, so you have to decide. So when the Torah says the religious value is preferable to the moral value, that is simply a question of a hierarchy of values, which one ranks above which. But it does not mean that the Torah is indifferent to morality, or that the Torah does not require us to be committed to morality.

In other words — one second — what I want to say is that the existence of situations of conflict between Jewish law and morality, like the examples I brought earlier, raises no theoretical principled problem at all. There is no problem. On the practical level I have a problem, because now I need to decide what to do, which one overrides which. Fine, on the practical level. But on the practical level we also have that in moral-versus-moral dilemmas; I need to decide what to do. That is a practical question. But I have no theoretical problem: how can it be that the Torah commands something immoral? What do you mean? Because it wants to achieve a religious value, and what can you do if that religious value cannot be achieved without harming a moral value? That’s all. There is no challenge to the Torah in this, no principled theoretical problem.

True, in practice now you have to decide who overrides whom and what to do. Okay, that discussion I’m leaving for the moment. Do you understand? But this completely solves the theoretical problem. There is no theoretical problem of Torah and morality; that problem is over.

[Speaker B] It is a bit of a problem for morality though.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why?

[Speaker B] Because in the end, if you take something that is really anti-moral, killing an Amalekite baby.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, killing an Amalekite baby. Okay.

[Speaker B] But killing—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Killing an Amalekite baby is necessary in order to repair eternity in the world. Without it, eternity in the world will not be repaired. So what do we do?

[Speaker B] Then why is the realization of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, that’s reality. What do you want? Why does fire burn? If someone enters fire, he gets burned, even if he’s not guilty. What can you do? He’s in the fire; fire burns.

[Speaker B] But who created the realization—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that is another discussion. The question is why He did not create a world in which religious repair would not require a moral transgression. I’m putting that aside for the moment — I’ll answer it — but setting it aside for now, okay? But I’m saying: once it is given that this is the world, then there is no question. There is no principled theoretical problem in the existence of anti-moral laws. It is a conflict like any other conflict between two values.

[Speaker E] But in the sense of the religious value, if the Torah is moral and yet you’d call it this, that means it always tramples morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, why always? There are laws that do not trample morality, only the anti-moral laws.

[Speaker E] I said in the case where a conflict is created between morality and Jewish law, because Jewish law has already taken morality into—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No no no, I’m not making that as a general claim. I brought the example of the mamzer — we’ll come back to it — I’m not claiming that Jewish law always prevails. No, I’m claiming not — Jewish law does not always prevail. Wait, we’ll get there and then I’ll talk about it.

[Speaker C] I just wanted to sharpen my understanding. In the example the Rabbi brought earlier, between morality and morality, you really see that even when there is harm to one moral value, the decision is still moral. But when there is harm to morality because of a religious reason, then how can one say here too that the Torah is moral in this case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly the same way. After all, when you look at the clash between a moral value and a moral value, yes?

[Speaker C] Here it’s not morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait. Between moral value and moral value, like in Sartre. Can you say that he is indifferent to honoring parents — not to morality? He decided to go to de Gaulle. Okay?

[Speaker C] Honoring parents in the religious sense or the moral sense? No, the moral sense.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He was a non-Jew; I don’t care right now. Indifferent? He is sensitive to morality. Not only sensitive to morality — sensitive to honoring parents. Why? Did he trample that value? He doesn’t care about it? After all, he goes to de Gaulle. No. He didn’t trample it. There was no choice, because another value outweighed it. So with Jewish law and morality it’s the same thing. What is the difference? Also with Jewish law and morality you can’t say I’m indifferent to morality. I’m not indifferent to morality. It’s just that the realization of the religious value requires me to harm morality. There’s no difference.

[Speaker C] But the Rabbi argued that Jewish law and morality are not integrated into each other. Right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously not. What do you mean by not integrated?

[Speaker C] If Jewish law and morality are not the same thing, and you make a distinction by preferring the halakhic side over the moral side—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not always, again I’m saying.

[Speaker C] No, I mean in this specific case. Okay. Then in that one situation, for sure the decision is not moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — the decision, obviously. That is exactly what I’m claiming. The decision is unequivocally not moral, and that raises no problem whatsoever. That too is unequivocal.

[Speaker C] So the Torah is not always moral?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah not always — the Torah is always moral. It is always concerned that the moral value be realized. But there is a hierarchy of values. Saving a life overrides the Sabbath. Does that mean the Torah doesn’t care about Sabbath observance? Obviously it cares. But where there is another value that overrides it, what can you do? Then realizing that other value requires me to violate the Sabbath. That does not mean the Torah is indifferent to violating the Sabbath. In exactly the same way, when the realization of a religious value requires me to harm this mamzer morally, then what can I do? I have no choice. But that doesn’t mean the Torah is insensitive to the plight of the mamzer. It is sensitive. But it is no less sensitive to eternity in the nation, and that requires me to harm the mamzer. What can I do? I’m just saying — that’s a kabbalistic kind of term, it doesn’t matter. I mean: there is a religious value. I can’t point to what it is; I’m just using that term.

In other words, one has to pay close attention and distinguish between the existence of a conflict and a difficulty or contradiction. The initial perception, the difficulty we deal with in Jewish law and morality, is difficult because it looks like a contradiction. You can’t say that the Torah is moral and at the same time say that it tells me not to violate the Sabbath in order to save a non-Jew. Not true — I can say that. That’s exactly what I want to explain. Yes, the Torah is moral and the life of a non-Jew is very important to it, very important. And Sabbath observance is also important to it. And sometimes Sabbath observance requires me to pay the price of harming the life of a non-Jew, or not saving the life of a non-Jew, yes? That does not mean I am indifferent to the value of the non-Jew’s life. Not at all. What can we do? We have to maneuver when we cannot realize both values. We have to decide which one overrides which.

Do you understand that this conception completely solves the problem of Jewish law and morality? Completely solves it, leaves not a trace of it. No apologetics are needed, no explanations that there is some hidden higher divine morality that we don’t understand. No. There are religious values, and I proved that there are religious values in the Torah from the non-moral laws, okay? Once you understand that there are religious values in the Torah as well, and not only moral values, then the anti-moral laws are completely intelligible on the theoretical level. Practically, you have to decide, when such a conflict occurs, which one prevails. And again I say, Jewish law does not always prevail; we’ll speak more about that.

[Speaker E] But if Jewish law weighs the religious value and the non-moral—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it does not weigh them.

[Speaker E] It—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It does not weigh them and it does not decide that they win. There are particular cases where yes and cases where no.

[Speaker E] The mamzer case weighs the moral against the religious and says the religious wins.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, yes.

[Speaker E] So that means it has already decided that morality has force, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Morality—

[Speaker E] does not win everything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here, right. Yes. So that means that Jewish law and morality, in the cases where Jewish law clashes with morality, Jewish law… no no, you jumped from the particular to the general; that’s exactly the point. No. I’m saying that here Jewish law overrides morality. But I’ll tell you more than that: even if the conclusion were that Jewish law always overrides morality, even then you could not infer that Jewish law does not care about morality. That too would be false. It cares very much about morality, but its religious values are more important than moral values, and therefore there is no choice, you have to transgress them. Practically speaking that is obvious, so what? But the theoretical question is not necessarily practical. The theoretical question was: how can you tell me that the Torah is moral, or that the Holy One, blessed be He, is moral, when He commands me such things? The answer is: there is no problem with that at all. It is not a contradiction in the least. Okay? I’m just claiming more than that, in parentheses — we’ll discuss later — that it is also not true that Jewish law always overrides. But what I said before is that even if it always overrode, I could still say this. There is no problem with it.

[Speaker C] Does a religious value inherently have some connection— No, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said: eternity within majesty. Yes, something abstract, I don’t know what it is. Fine? So regarding the third category, the anti-moral laws, there is basically no problem now. But for the moment, notice where we are. We are still in a situation in which Jewish law includes morality, meaning there is a branch within Jewish law that speaks about commands in the moral sphere, and there is some hierarchy between moral values and halakhic values; sometimes Jewish law overrides, maybe not always, that will be the next stage of the discussion. Okay?

I now want to move one step further and say: no, Jewish law does not include morality. These are two completely separate systems. And I’ll show that through the laws of the first type. We spoke about the laws of the second type, the non-moral laws, which show me that Jewish law has religious goals. From that I inferred with respect to the third type, the anti-moral laws, that there is no problem with them, because that only means that the religious goals require me to harm the moral goals.

And now I move to the laws of the first type. The laws of the first type are the moral laws. And I want to claim that even in those laws there is no connection to morality. They too come to achieve religious goals. In a moment I’ll explain.

Let me ask you a question, or several questions. First question: why does the Torah need to command “do not murder”? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, already has a complaint against Cain long before the command, right? Meaning, it is obvious that one must not murder; everyone should understand that. They even complain to someone who murdered, so it is obvious, self-evident. So why do we need “do not murder”? Right, but that gets ahead of me — but yes, exactly, that’s where I’m heading.

Or another question: there is the prohibition “do not murder.” The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, over many pages, discusses all kinds of indirect forms of murder: confining someone, bringing the thing close to the fire, the sun will eventually come, indirect causation, different kinds of causation, whether someone is liable because of his arrows, all kinds of ways to murder like this and murder like that, with closed eyes, standing on one foot, all kinds of things of that sort. Okay? For some of them you are liable, for some you are not. I ask you: morally speaking, is there any difference among all of them? What difference does it make whether you murder this way or that way? If I shoot you in the head, that’s one thing, and if I just lift a door and that allows fire or water to sweep over you and kill you — is that less? More moral? Less immoral? What difference does it make? I murdered you this way or that way. No, but in terms of suffering, shooting may even involve less suffering. A shot is a quick death. Okay, but from the standpoint of Jewish law, when I lift the door and the water sweeps over you, I’m exempt. And if I shoot you in the head, I’m liable. Yes, it’s indirect causation. No, intentionally. Indirect causation. Exempt from the death penalty. A murderer is liable to death. Yes, that doesn’t mean it’s permitted, but you are exempt from the death penalty. It isn’t called “do not murder”; it’s not included in “do not murder.”

I ask you: morally, there is no difference, right? This is murder and that is murder to the same degree. So why does Jewish law distinguish between them? I’ll tell you more: there is no source in the Torah for these distinctions either. They come from the reasoning of the Sages, all these distinctions. Why? Morally there is no difference. If the whole point of “do not murder” were the moral prohibition involved in murder, I would not expect such distinctions to be made.

Therefore my claim is — exactly what you said earlier — my claim is that the prohibition of “do not murder” has nothing to do with morality in any way. The prohibition of “do not murder” comes to tell us that, beyond the fact that murder is an immoral act — which we knew before the Torah and independently of the Torah, as we saw with Cain — the Torah comes to tell us that there is also a religious problem in it. Meaning, one who murders is both an immoral person and someone who damaged eternity within majesty. There is a moral problem here, and also a religious problem — sorry, a religious problem. Therefore there is also no question of why the Torah had to write “do not murder.” After all, we know that on our own; that’s just common sense. No — we know on our own that it’s immoral, but how would we know that there is also a religious problem here? That the Holy One, blessed be He, has to tell us; we don’t know it on our own.

And why does the Talmud in Sanhedrin distinguish between this kind of murder and that kind, and direct murder? Because religiously there really is a difference. Morally there is no difference. The discussion there is a halakhic discussion. Halakhically there is a difference among those kinds of murder, but morally what difference does it make whether you murdered this way or that way? Bottom line, you murdered. Therefore what I want to claim is that the first type of laws, the moral laws, also have nothing to do with morality. They too are aimed at achieving religious goals, not moral ones.

So you’ll ask: then why this correlation? There is some correlation that is hard to believe is accidental. “Do not murder,” “do not steal,” “honor your father and your mother,” giving charity to the poor. All these are commandments. I’m saying they aren’t connected to morality, but morality also tells us to do all these things, right? So how did this happen — is it by chance? This fit between the moral command and the halakhic command in these cases? Yes? In those laws I call the first category, the moral laws. Yes? There are many such cases. It’s not plausible that this is accidental.

According to what I’m saying, it is entirely accidental. By chance, the murder prohibited in the Torah happens to line up exactly with when I also achieve the moral goal. Okay? That doesn’t sound plausible. Here I want to return to the question you asked earlier, the question that hovers in the background: why doesn’t the Holy One, blessed be He — who after all created the world, is omnipotent, can do what He wants — create a world in which religious goals can also be achieved by moral actions? Or where anti-moral actions are not needed in order to achieve them? After all, He can create whatever kind of world He wants, right?

What I want to claim is something like what I said in one of the previous classes, in the class on Euthyphro exactly. There I wanted to say that moral values are imposed on the Holy One, blessed be He. That’s what I said there. So it’s not in His hands; He cannot make it otherwise. I want to claim that religious values are also imposed on Him. Religious values too are imposed on Him. And therefore it is not in His hands. He cannot create a world in which religious goals can be attained in other ways. He could have created a different world, not our world, and there perhaps it would have worked out, but then morality would have been damaged in some other way. Meaning, you cannot produce a world in which there is complete correlation between religious goals and moral goals.

I want to claim even more than that. How do I know you can’t? I say the other way around: you, who ask the question — how do you know that it is possible? You are raising an objection, right? Asking the Holy One, blessed be He: why do You create a world that requires us to perform immoral actions? Prove that there is a better world. Prove that one could have made a world in which there would be no contradiction.

[Speaker B] But the claim doesn’t make sense, because if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it doesn’t make sense, then if He can do it—

[Speaker B] do it, why didn’t He do it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly the objection. So I’m asking you. So I’m telling you why He didn’t do it: because it can’t be done. That’s all. You insist on holding on to the objection. People say there is “forcing an objection,” and “forcing a resolution.” There’s no such thing as “forcing an objection.” If there is an available answer, you don’t remain with the objection.

The claim is, I’m saying, that the discussion of Euthyphro was very important. It is impossible to produce a world in which murder is not evil. The Holy One, blessed be He, cannot produce such a world. He can produce a world in which people are not aware that murder is evil. He can simply change our minds. Fine. But He cannot produce a world in which morally speaking murder is good. No, there is no such thing. Because murder is evil by definition. He cannot make a square triangle. Okay?

[Speaker B] Then His will has no significance?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In these areas, correct. He wants us to achieve religious goals. But how do you achieve religious goals? No, what does “for Him” mean? I don’t know what “for Him” means. The religious goals are intended to improve His state, or the state of the world, I don’t know whose. But there is only one way to do that. There is no other way. Or if there is another way, it too would trample moral values, it doesn’t matter. There is no way to do it without trampling moral values. That’s the claim.

Now notice what this means. After all, it is clear that He did indeed try, as much as He could, to align the two things, right? I’m only claiming that complete alignment cannot be achieved. So what happens? The result is that in most situations there is indeed a correlation. That means He succeeded in achieving the greatest possible correlation. But there are points where you get stuck — it’s impossible, a logical contradiction. It’s a square triangle. You can’t make a square triangle. Okay? And therefore there are places where this correlation breaks down. But the fact that there is much correlation in most areas of Jewish law does not mean that Jewish law comes to achieve morality. Rather, it means that the Holy One, blessed be He, tried to create a world in which we would not need to harm moral values in order to achieve religious goals. He succeeded as much as possible. Where one gets stuck because it is impossible, logically contradictory, there He cannot do it.

[Speaker B] New thought: maybe He simply doesn’t see such a contradiction as a problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t want us to be moral — is that what you’re saying?

[Speaker B] He wants us to be moral, but morality itself also has contradictions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave aside morality itself having contradictions. Is this moral or immoral? Is the command about the mamzer moral? No. So why did He command it? Because there are contradictions?

[Speaker B] What do you mean, because there are contradictions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But He doesn’t want there to be something immoral, so why does He command us to be immoral? Why? Yes, no, but He wants us to be moral. His will is that we be moral. So He both wants us to be moral and not moral. He wants us to be moral, but there are laws that are exceptions.

[Speaker B] But what are these exceptions? Why make exceptions? You don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m telling you, I do know. And that knowledge only says that apparently He has constraints, because without constraints He would not do this. You don’t need to know anything more for that. And those constraints are what I call religious goals. That’s all. There is no alternative. You can’t say anything else.

Ah, wait — on the question of where they come from?

[Speaker E] So that’s what we discussed in the Euthyphro dilemma.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Euthyphro dilemma I explained that moral values are imposed on the Holy One, blessed be He. He did not create them; it is not in His power; He could not have made different values. I’m claiming that religious values are like that too. It’s not in His power. And I explained there, with good arguments, why I think that’s the case. I remember.

[Speaker E] Right, but from the standpoint of who created them, or how—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nobody created them. Who created the rule that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees?

[Speaker B] It follows from the definition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. This too follows from the definition. Murder is evil; that follows from the very definition of an act of murder. And that a mamzer may not marry — that follows from the very understanding of what a mamzer is. Yes, it follows from the definition. It is not in His hands. That is the claim.

[Speaker C] There are verses where the Holy One, blessed be He, commands us to act in a certain way because “אני ה’ מקדשכם” (“I am the Lord who sanctifies you”). Okay. I hear from the meaning of the verse that the religious command is because of Me. Am I interpreting the verse incorrectly?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, obviously. Our obligation to the religious command is because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. But why did He command specifically this and not something else? That is imposed on Him. I said the same thing in the moral context in the Euthyphro dilemma. What I said was that moral values are imposed on Him, but still, without His command we would not have been obligated in moral values. Meaning, He cannot determine that murder is moral. But He can determine that one is not obligated to behave morally. The obligation to behave morally is a result of His will or His command. But what it means to be moral or immoral — that is imposed on Him at the conceptual level. Okay? Now the same here. The fact that if you allow a mamzer to marry some spiritual matter will be harmed — that is not in His hands. The question whether one is forbidden to harm spiritual matters or allowed to do so — that is forbidden because of His command.

I understand, but you yourself said earlier that you don’t understand; there are contradictions. So you can live with lack of understanding? Then it’s better to live with something you don’t understand than with a contradiction, don’t you agree? Obviously it’s a contradiction. You’re saying that He both wants us to be moral and not to be moral at the same time. “Exceptions” is just a word, a laundering of words. Both moral and immoral? What do you mean by exceptions? There are no exceptions. If you are obligated in morality, then you are obligated in morality.

[Speaker B] I’m obligated to God’s command?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m obligated to morality, not to God’s command. God’s command is the command to us to be moral. But—

[Speaker B] What is moral is an objective factual determination. That’s it, that’s it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m obligated to it only because God commanded. Right, but He too is obligated to it. Not only I. He is obligated to morality. So why does He command me regarding this mamzer child?

[Speaker B] Because it’s an exception.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What exception? It’s a word. I have a contradiction. You know, I can also say: what I see there is both heaven and earth. Fine, it’s an exception. Usually heaven is this — but this is an exception. You understand that this is just wordplay. There’s nothing there. If you are obligated to morality, you are obligated to morality — that’s what morality says. What do you mean by exception? The only way to explain an exception is to say that there is another value because of which we have to override this value, and therefore there is an exception. That is exactly what I am saying. That is all. That is the explanation for your notion of an exception. You insist on saying “exception” without an explanation. Why without an explanation? Why not also take the explanation? What does that have to do with not knowing Him?

[Speaker B] So I don’t know why He—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I also don’t know exactly why. I’m only saying — I didn’t say what the religious value is, but I did say that there is such a value. I said that apparently there is something, which I call a religious value — I just invented a term — something that causes these exceptions. That’s all. That is the meaning of what I said.

[Speaker B] Maybe I’ll try to illustrate it. Say I want to run a program, okay, in which every even number gets “true,” except the number two. Okay? Then someone comes and sees this program, looks and says: well, apparently this was forced on you. Okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No.

[Speaker B] No?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that it was forced on you. But it’s not similar to the analogy. Because in morality, you didn’t decide to write a program. It obligates you. It’s not a choice. A program you can write however you like; there’s no value issue there. Write it this way, write it that way. But here morality obligates. Morality is true. In a program there’s no right or wrong program. You want to go with the evens, go with the evens. You want the odds, go with the odds. I don’t care. You want to make exceptions, fine. But when you are obligated to morality, then you are obligated to morality. Every exception needs an explanation. Why is there an exception? Because there is another value that says that here there is an exception.

[Speaker B] So God’s will. So what? But I’m asking why He wants it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] God’s will is not a value. Good question. Right. And the answer is that there is some value because of which He wants it. That’s all. I didn’t say anything beyond that, except that there is a reason why He wants this exception. That’s all. You insist on saying: He wants the exception and has no reason. How do you know He has no reason? Do you know Him? So what? How do you know He has no reason? You don’t know Him. So how can you say that about Him? No, that’s not His definition. No. You don’t know Him. So how do you know to say that He has no reason? That you do know how to say about someone you don’t know? Then why can’t I say that He has a reason because I don’t know Him? But to say that He has no reason and to turn Him into something contradictory — that you can say even though you don’t know Him? Why? He has no reason?

[Speaker B] We know that from the Torah…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, we know nothing. He certainly has a reason. “Physico-theological” — no, nothing of the sort. He has reasons, absolutely. What do you mean? Obviously He has reasons. Why does He want us to be moral? Because that makes for a more repaired world. Of course there are reasons. What do you mean?

[Speaker C] Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, implant in us moral insight, but the natural religious insight—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. I don’t know.

[Speaker C] If both are important.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Good question, I have no idea. I have no idea. But we do have intuitions regarding moral obligations; we do not have intuitions regarding religious obligations. Right? So I’m saying — I just need to conclude — this fit that exists between the moral part of Jewish law and moral commands is not accidental. It is a deliberate policy to try to achieve the greatest possible correlation. But all the laws I brought earlier are the outliers, the exceptions. There the Holy One, blessed be He, apparently could not achieve that correlation. Why? Because there was some system of constraints that prevented it. What is that system of constraints? Some other system of values besides the moral values. I haven’t said anything here except that there is a reason for it. That’s all. So there is no need here… I don’t need to know the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to say such a thing. Okay?

[Speaker C] What would we be supposed to say, as human beings living in a global society, to the High Court of Justice in The Hague, when we violate something immoral in this sense?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have nothing to say to them. They do not accept the existence of religious commands. What do you mean? Atheists do not accept the existence of religious values; they accept only the existence of moral values. So there is nothing… what do I have to say to them?

[Speaker C] But aren’t you supposed to try to bridge that tension?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All I can do is try to convince them that at Sinai the Torah was given, and in the Torah there are all kinds of additional goals. Either I succeed in convincing them or I don’t. But one who doesn’t believe, doesn’t believe.

There were all kinds of arguments — fine, that’s a separate topic — but there was a chemist in Jerusalem named Shahak, Professor Shahak, who was sort of anti-religious, and every now and then he would publish some story about abuse by religious people or something like that, and it would stir up turmoil. So he once published a story that he had seen religious Jews passing by, and they saw a non-Jew who needed to be saved, and they did not violate the Sabbath to save him, and in the end he died. A heartbreaking story. And another one about the wife of a priest who was raped. He collected all these things. Later it apparently turned out that most of the stories were fabricated, meaning they never happened. But what difference does that make? His claim is a correct claim. Okay?

Now, following that case of the priest’s wife who was raped, I remember the arguments. People said to me: look, have you no heart? This woman was raped, and afterward you still separate her from her husband and family and children and so on. So I said to them: I do have a heart, absolutely, just like you. But besides heart, or moral values — and really it’s not about heart, but never mind — besides moral values, I have other values too. And those additional values, the religious values, compel me to issue a certain ruling to that woman. Even though the act is indeed not moral.

Now you, as secular people, do not accept the existence of religious values, only moral values. I completely understand your criticism, because from your standpoint there is no conflict: there is a moral value and there is nothing set against it; you do not accept the religious value. What I expect from you is only to understand that I too am committed to the moral value. It’s just that in my view there is another value that compels me in this case to override the moral value. Because that they did not understand. They said: wait, are you not moral? That’s not true. It is not that I am not moral; it’s just that I have another value that in this case compels me to override this value. In your case, it is not that you are more moral than I am; it’s just that you don’t have the other value that compels you to override it. That’s all. It’s the same thing as the attitude of the court in The Hague. Fine?

Okay, we’ll stop here.

[Speaker C] Next class, will we see which moral values override the religious values?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll talk about it. What we’ll see or not see, that’s…