Q&A: Non-Halakhic Morality
Non-Halakhic Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi, regarding the Rabbi’s lectures on Torah and morality, I would be glad if the Rabbi could give me sources from Rabbenu Nissim and the Maharal for what the Rabbi said, that they claim morality is not always identified with Jewish law. If there are other medieval or later authorities who think this way, I’d be glad if the Rabbi would mention them too.
And if the Rabbi could explain to me how the concept of morality is defined, I’d be glad.
Answer
For a definition of morality, see the fourth booklet.
Maharal, Be’er HaGolah, second “well” (pp. 31–32 in the edition of Maharal’s works):
In chapter 2 of Bava Metzia (21b) they said there that one need not return a lost object after the owner’s despair. And this matter appears to people far-fetched—that a person should take what is not his, though he did not labor or toil for it, and covet another’s money. And this is not in accordance with conventional law, for conventional law obligates returning the lost object even after the owner has despaired of it.
The reason is that conventional law obligates whatever is fitting to do for the sake of repairing the world, even if reason itself does not require that thing, but only because that is what improves the world. Therefore conventional law is sometimes strict about something even though, according to reason and straightforward justice, there would be no need to do it. And sometimes conventional law is overly lenient when that thing is not needed for the repair of the world, even though according to reason it would not be proper—only according to conventional law.
Therefore, according to conventional law, one must return a lost object after the owner’s despair, and this is a stringency. And conversely, if one found silver vessels or gold vessels and announced them once or twice, and no one came to claim the lost object for a year or two, he keeps it for himself and uses that vessel, for there is no further repair of the world in this after he announced it several times and waited a year or two or more—no one will come anymore.
But this is not according to the Torah. For if one found silver vessels or gold vessels and announced them many times, they remain forbidden to him forever. Rather, they should lie until Elijah comes; he may never touch them. So you see that they were very stringent.
And all this is because the words of the Sages are according to the Torah. For all matters of Torah are measured by intellect, and whatever is fitting according to intellect is fitting to do. As the Torah says (Deuteronomy 4), “Keep them and do them, for that is your wisdom…” And it is not a conventional law that leaves matters to mere supposition and thought; rather, the Torah is entirely intellectual, and the Torah does not turn to mere conjecture.
Derashot HaRan, discourse 11:
“Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all your gates… and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment” (Deuteronomy 16:18).
Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki wrote in his commentary (Deuteronomy 16:18): “Appoint righteous and expert judges to judge justly.” He needed to explain it this way, because if the verse came only to command the judges to judge justly, that is already written afterward (ibid. 19), “Do not pervert justice.” Therefore he explained that it comes only to say that the judges who are appointed must be fit to judge justly—that is, they must be righteous and expert. And so it is taught in the Sifrei (on Shoftim, on that verse): “Righteous judgment”—but has it not already said “Do not pervert justice”? So that you should not say, “So-and-so is handsome, so-and-so is my relative,” meaning, “and I will seat him as a judge”; therefore it was necessary to warn us to appoint one who is expert and righteous. And certainly the phrase “and they shall judge the people” by itself indicates that this is not a positive commandment, but rather a descriptive expression. Yet in that baraita taught in the Sifrei they further proved it from what is written afterward, “Do not pervert justice.” This is the meaning of the verse according to the exposition of our Rabbis of blessed memory.
But in my opinion, the plain meaning of the verse is as follows. It is known that the human species needs a judge to decide between its members, for otherwise people would swallow one another alive, and the world would be destroyed. Every nation needs this for civil order, to the point that the philosopher said that even a band of robbers agreed among themselves on justice. Israel needs this no less than the other nations. But in addition, they need something else for another reason: to uphold the laws of the Torah, and to punish those liable to lashes and those liable to death by the religious court when they violate the laws of the Torah, even though that transgression may involve no harm at all to civil order. And there is no doubt that in each of these two areas, two situations will arise: one in which some person must be punished according to true justice, and another in which he ought not to be punished according to true, just law, but nevertheless must be punished for the sake of political order and the needs of the hour. The blessed God assigned each of these matters to a distinct institution. He commanded that judges be appointed to judge the truly just law, and that is what is meant by “and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment”—that is, it comes to explain for what purpose these judges are appointed and how far their authority extends. He says that the purpose of their appointment is to judge the people with genuinely true and righteous judgment in itself, and their power does not extend beyond that. And because political order cannot be completed by this alone, God completed its correction through the commandment of the king.
We can explain this further if we take one side of the matter. For we learned in chapter “Hayu Bodkin” (Sanhedrin 40b): “The Rabbis taught: Do you recognize him?… Did you warn him? Did he accept the warning? Did he release himself to death? Did he commit the act within the time of utterance?” etc. There is no doubt that all this is appropriate from the standpoint of righteous judgment, for why should a man be put to death unless he knew that he was entering into something carrying the death penalty and nonetheless transgressed it? Therefore he must accept the warning, along with all the other requirements taught in that baraita. This is truly righteous judgment in itself, entrusted to the judges. But if the transgressor were punished only in this way, political order would be entirely destroyed: murderers would proliferate and would not fear punishment. Therefore the blessed God commanded, for the sake of the world’s order, the appointment of a king, as it says in this passage (Deuteronomy 17:14–15), “When you come into the land… you shall surely set a king over yourself…” This is a commandment obligating us to appoint a king over ourselves, as comes in the tradition of our Rabbis of blessed memory (Sanhedrin 20b), and the king may judge without prior warning, according to what he sees is needed for civil society.
It emerges that the appointment of the king is common to Israel and the other nations, all of whom require political order; but the appointment of judges is unique and more necessary in Israel, as he further mentioned when he said, “and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment”—meaning, the appointment of judges and their authority is that they judge the people with judgments that are truly and inherently just.
I will explain this further and say that just as our Torah is distinguished from the legal systems of the nations of the world by commandments and statutes whose purpose is not political order at all, but rather that the divine overflow should rest upon our nation and cleave to us—whether the matter is visible to us, like the sacrificial rites and everything done in the Temple, or not visible, like the other statutes whose reasons were not revealed—nevertheless there is no doubt that the divine abundance attached itself to us and took effect through those acts, even though they are remote from rational inference. And this is no wonder, for just as we are ignorant of many of the causes of natural phenomena and yet their existence is verified, so all the more should it be fitting that we be ignorant of the causes of the divine overflow resting upon us and cleaving to us. This is what distinguishes our holy Torah from the systems of the nations mentioned above, for they have no involvement in this at all, but only in regulating their collective life.
Therefore I hold—and it is fitting to believe—that just as the statutes that have no role at all in the repair of political order are themselves a direct cause for the resting of the divine overflow, so too the laws of the Torah have a major role, and are as though shared between causing the divine matter to rest upon our nation and repairing our social order. It is possible that they are directed more toward that loftier matter than toward repairing our society, for the king whom we appoint over ourselves would complete that social repair. But the purpose of the judges and the Sanhedrin was to judge the people with judgment that is truly and inherently just, such that the divine matter would thereby cleave to us, whether or not the social organization of the masses would thereby be fully completed. For this reason it is possible that in some of the laws and legal systems of the nations mentioned above, there may be something closer to the repair of political order than can be found in some of the laws of the Torah. And we lose nothing by this, for whatever is lacking in that repair was completed by the king. But we possessed a great advantage over them, because insofar as the judgments of the Torah are just in themselves, as Scripture says, “and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment,” the divine overflow would thereby cleave to us.
For this reason the chief judge, and the choicest among them, stood in the place where the divine overflow was visibly present—that is the matter of the Men of the Great Assembly standing in the Chamber of Hewn Stone (Middot 5:4). Therefore our Rabbis of blessed memory said in the first chapter of Avodah Zarah (8b): “When they saw that murderers had become numerous, they said: Let us go into exile from our place, so that we may fulfill ‘And you shall act according to the word that they tell you from that place’ (Deuteronomy 17:10)—teaching that the place is a causative factor.” From this standpoint follows all that our Rabbis of blessed memory said (Sanhedrin 7a): “Any judge who judges a completely true judgment is worthy that the Divine Presence rest with them,” as it says (Psalms 82:1), “God stands in the congregation of God; in the midst of judges He judges.”
And along these lines is what our Rabbis of blessed memory said in the first chapter of Shabbat (10a): “Any judge who judges a completely true judgment, even for one hour in the day, Scripture accounts it to him as though he became a partner with the Holy One, blessed be He, in the work of creation.” Here it says (Exodus 18:14), “from morning until evening,” and there it says (Genesis 1:5), “and there was evening and there was morning.” This partnership alludes to what we said: just as in the work of creation it is visible among lower beings that from Him came all that came to be, so too any judge who judges completely true judgment draws down that overflow, whether his judgment fully completes political order or not. For just as in the sacrificial rites, though they are wholly remote from rational inference, the divine overflow was visible, so too through the laws of the Torah it was drawn and flowed forth, even though political order might require further correction, which the king would complete.
It thus follows that the appointment of judges was only to judge according to the laws of the Torah, which are inherently just, as it says, “and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment,” whereas the appointment of the king was to complete the repair of political order, and whatever was needed for the needs of the hour.
And do not object to me from what we learned in chapter “Nigmar HaDin” (Sanhedrin 46a): “It was taught: Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov says, I heard that a religious court may flog and punish not according to Torah law—not in order to transgress the Torah, but to make a fence around the Torah,” etc., which seems to indicate that the appointment of the court is to judge according to the needs of the time and circumstance. This is not so. Rather, when Israel has both a Sanhedrin and a king, the Sanhedrin judges the people only with righteous judgment, not to further regulate their affairs beyond that, unless the king grants them his authority. But when there is no king in Israel, the judge includes both powers: the power of a judge and the power of a king. For we find in chapter “Nigmar HaDin” (ibid. 49a): “Amasa said to him, ‘He was interpreting only limiting and qualifying terms.’ He went and found the Rabbis opening a tractate. He said: It is written (Joshua 1:18), ‘Any man who rebels against your word…’ Could this apply even to matters of Torah? Scripture says: ‘Only be strong and courageous.’” Here they granted Joshua royal authority even though he was not a king. And similarly our Rabbis of blessed memory expounded (Shemot Rabbah on Exodus 3:5) the verse “And there was a king in Jeshurun” (Deuteronomy 33:5) as alluding to Moses.
Discussion on Answer
It’s not that there is no connection to morality. Jewish law adds a religious layer on top of the moral one. The fact that some commandments have a moral character—though their parameters differ from the parameters of morality, like indirect murder and constricting someone, etc.—doesn’t mean they all do. At most one can say that the Torah also wants morality, but certainly not only that. This is reinforced when you see that food prohibitions, like many other commandments, reflect nothing moral that I can discern. So why assume otherwise?
By your logic, if there are commandments that come to protect property, that means all the commandments come to protect property. That’s odd, no? In my view, it means there are commandments that come to protect property because the Torah wants that too.
So what else might the Torah want? What else can be achieved through the commandments? If it’s something we don’t understand and never will understand, and from which we’ll never see any benefit in reality—whether in the world or within ourselves—then the commandments lose their meaning. If we see no result from the actions and never will be able to, why observe them in the first place?
And if you say the point of doing them is to show commitment to God’s word even if there’s no logic in it, then the commandments are arbitrary and it really wouldn’t matter what we had been commanded.
Wonderful questions (in the sense of “it is not beyond you”). But they aren’t relevant to your claim.
I wonder what your answer is to those questions if you say the Torah wants morality. The fact is, that doesn’t stand up to the facts. The prohibition of pork has nothing to do with morality, nor do the other forbidden foods and many other prohibitions and commandments.
So as I understand it there are 3 options. 1) To try to understand what is moral in those commandments. Rabbi Kook, if I’m not mistaken, goes in that direction. Again, that doesn’t mean it’s the absolute reason; there will always be other dimensions. 2) Not to try to understand what is moral in the specific commandments, but to understand by deduction that if the system of commandments is meant to morally refine me, then that’s also what’s happening when I keep commandments I don’t understand. 3) To conclude that certain commandments have no benefit whatsoever in any way, and therefore it follows that I simply have no reason to observe them. Isn’t that the necessary conclusion?
1. There is nothing moral in those commandments, so it’s a waste of time. Indeed, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook tried to go in that direction, and in my opinion came up empty-handed (as expected).
2. I don’t really see that “deduction.” But the conclusion may perhaps be true (I have no idea).
3. Even if they have no moral benefit, that doesn’t mean they have no other benefit. If the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them, it’s reasonable that they have some benefit. Therefore I don’t understand why the conclusion would be that there is no reason to observe them.
1. Maybe there is nothing moral in the act itself, but if the act creates in me a moral consciousness, which may later also express itself in moral acts—then it’s a moral act.
3. So if an act has some sort of benefit that improves reality, then by doing the act and helping, I’m doing a moral act. No?
You’re saying there is benefit and therefore one should observe. But just as you say there is no moral benefit because I can’t discern it, on what basis do you say there is any benefit at all? After all, I don’t see any benefit, and if we’re being consistent, just as there is no moral benefit because I don’t see it, so too there is no benefit at all, and therefore no reason to observe the commandments. So then we have to say that even though there is no visible benefit, there certainly is benefit because that causes me to keep the commandment, and therefore even though I don’t currently see the moral benefit, it’s very possible that moral benefit is the goal.
1. As I wrote, it is possible that these acts have hidden moral effects. However, I don’t discern this and see no indication of it. I also don’t see in practice a correlation between the degree of meticulousness in Jewish law and the degree of a person’s morality. Beyond that, if the commandments are a means, then one can think of other means, perhaps better ones, to achieve the same result. That actually drains them somewhat of content.
3. There are different kinds of improvements to reality, and they aren’t necessarily connected to morality. I call those religious values. Renovating the house of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not necessarily morality. Just as the purpose of creating the world does not seem likely to me to be moral improvement (because morality is a means to create a better society, but then it would be preferable not to create a society and not ask it to improve and become better).
In the comparison you made at the end there is a basic flaw. Regarding morality, you and I understand very well what morality is and know how to tell what is moral and what isn’t, what contributes to morality and what doesn’t. Therefore here I assume that if I don’t see a moral aspect in some commandment, then it doesn’t exist. But regarding other goals (religious ones), I don’t know what they are, so it’s hard for me to determine that a given commandment lacks them. On the contrary, as I wrote to you before, a very reasonable consideration says it is highly likely that creation and we ourselves have such goals beyond morality.
By the way, I’m not saying one should observe because of the benefit. One should observe because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. It’s just that presumably He wouldn’t have commanded it if there were no benefit.
Why should I care about renovating the house of the Holy One, blessed be He? If there were no value in it, I wouldn’t do it. The question “Why does God care that I put on tefillin?” according to you takes on real meaning, because I really don’t know why He cares or what He wants from me. Looking at the commandments as unrelated to the commanded and to our improvement empties them of content. And yes, we also observe the commandments because we understand that this is what ought to be done. If I didn’t think this was the truth, I wouldn’t care that it’s “God’s word.” “God’s word” with no connection to us has no meaning for me.
The conclusion according to your approach is this: your father comes and commands you to stand on one leg every morning. Since you see no logic in it, you say to yourself: apparently this helps make me a richer person, so I’ll do it every morning. Ah, you don’t see how it helps with wealth or anything else? Doesn’t matter. I want to observe, and there’s no other logic, so you decide that’s the explanation against all reason.
The only difference is that in the first place my father wouldn’t command me to do something pointless and meaningless that brings no benefit either to me or to him. Since the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t need us, what’s left is that it’s for our good.
See Tosafot Yevamot 6a, that the obligation to honor parents applies only (!) when the matter is for their benefit. And several halakhic decisors likewise wrote that if they command something for your benefit and not for theirs, you are not obligated to obey them.
Does that seem to you like honoring parents—to do something only when it benefits you?
I wrote: for me or for him. And of course, all the more so, my parents’ benefit is my benefit too—morally at least.
But He apparently does need us, otherwise He wouldn’t have created us. This is what I wrote above: to create us for our sake is an oxymoron. Better not to create, and then there won’t be someone lacking who needs things done for him.
Beyond that, the benefit could be for us, but not moral benefit; rather spiritual-religious benefit. For example, the commandments can purify us and make us closer to Him. In principle that’s possible even without any moral improvement.
Can you give examples of spiritual-religious benefit? What does it mean to get closer to Him? Those are just words. Is it character refinement? personality building?
First, if possible, please give one example of the moral benefit in not eating pork or milk with meat.
I didn’t say I have one. But “spiritual-religious benefit” without explanation is like saying benefit x. As far as I know, cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, means emulating Him by cleaving to His attributes: just as He is compassionate, so you too. And isn’t that moral?
We’ve exhausted this. I’ll summarize my position once more and we’ll part as friends:
My claim is that there are commandments in Jewish law that quite obviously have no moral meaning. Therefore it is unreasonable to attribute hidden moral benefits to them. The alternative I suggest is that perhaps they bring some other kind of benefit (spiritual, religious, cleaving to God, etc.). Or perhaps they refine my soul on the moral plane in some hidden way and turn me into a more moral person (something that, in my understanding, doesn’t really fit the facts, but in principle is possible).
I can’t explain what all these things mean, but that is the conclusion required by the facts. That’s how we infer from the phenomenon that bodies with mass fall toward the earth that there is a gravitational force pulling them. A person can ask me, “Explain to me what that gravitational force is,” and he won’t get an answer. It’s simply a conclusion required by the facts, that there is such a thing. I have no direct description or explanation of that thing, which is an abstract entity.
One thing is clear. Someone who, because he doesn’t understand, attributes hidden moral benefits to those commandments is making a serious mistake: he is replacing something we do not know with something we do know—and know to be false. So what is gained by explanations like that?
All the best
Thank you, and Sabbath peace
In my opinion, anyone who calls the force of gravity “the force of gravity” is a heretic, because that is a force the Holy One, blessed be He, created only after the completion of creation. And it isn’t correct to call it that, but rather a miraculous force, for this force operates only when there are several bodies. And the purpose of God’s creating this miraculous force was so that the creatures in the lower world would stay here and not fall, since we’re on a ball in the air. And only on the fourth day were the other luminaries created, and even so we were not drawn toward the bodies larger than planet Earth.
So from now on call it a miraculous force.
Hello Rabbi,
Continuing the Maharal’s words that you quoted from Be’er HaGolah, he goes on to explain the logical reason for Jewish law’s attitude to a lost object after the owner’s despair, arguing that Jewish law follows objective truth (and thereby also positively affects those who observe Jewish law), unlike conventional law, which originates in human reasoning.
Doesn’t that contradict your claim about the lack of a logical/moral reason in Jewish law?
I never claimed that Jewish law has no logical reason. I claimed that Jewish law does not necessarily reflect a moral reason.
On the contrary, it seems likely to me that there are reasons for Jewish law, even if they are unknown to us. The Maharal there explains that the laws of returning lost objects do not fit morality—and that is exactly my point.
His claim is that it doesn’t fit conventional law. Why necessarily define that as morality?
The finder of the lost object doesn’t have to return it after the owner’s despair because according to the truth the lost object no longer belongs to the owner. Is it impossible to define morality according to the truth, if it turns out that following the truth is precisely what is beneficial, and the true correction?
There the Maharal explained that from this law one learns the value of a person’s money and other possessions insofar as they are not essential to him, since once they leave his domain they are no longer his. In contrast, Torah and good deeds are essential to the person himself, and therefore the law is supposed to influence the person’s world of values and his moral considerations. Isn’t that a moral reason?
Hello Gabi.
Conventional law means ordinary human morality and justice. See his words there.
No. At most it teaches an important lesson, but it doesn’t justify not returning a lost object to its owner (morally speaking).
From the Rabbi’s phrase “ordinary human morality and justice” it sounds like there is another kind of morality—what do you mean?
Could I also get a short definition of what morality means for you?
Thanks
No. There isn’t another kind. As opposed to those who talk about some supreme divine morality and other nonsense.
I don’t have a simple definition. I assume everyone understands quite well what we’re talking about.
Hello Rabbi,
I’m not sure the example from the Maharal shows that Jewish law has no connection to morality. Jewish law is concerned both with interpersonal morality and with a person’s inner moral character. On a basic level it makes sure a person tries to find to whom the object belongs, up until the point of the owner’s despair. From there on, returning it is commendable but not obligatory. The very fact that from the outset the Torah tells you to look for the owner of the object, even until the stage of the owner’s despair, clearly shows a connection to morality.
In addition, there’s also the lesson of building a person’s character, which in my opinion is also a moral matter—character refinement—even if it doesn’t express itself in action toward another person. The very fact that the Torah tells me not to use it even though the loser will never come to claim it builds in a person a deep consciousness that he uses only what is his, what he worked for, perhaps even in order to distance him from the prohibition of theft. So in both respects one can find a moral dimension.
And the very fact that in many laws, especially interpersonal laws, one can see a moral basis shows that there really is a close connection in Jewish law to this. Because if not, I would expect interpersonal commandments to look arbitrary on a regular basis and not only in extreme cases like a gentile on the Sabbath… Why not steal? not murder? not covet? And if so, regarding interpersonal commandments, one can look at the overall system of commandments and assume that the less understandable ones also have a moral root, because there is no reason to distinguish between the purpose of interpersonal commandments and the purpose of the other commandments.