Question

With God’s help. In honor of Rabbi Michael Abraham, greetings! You may have happened to read Dr. Harari’s much-discussed article, whose title deals with religionization in the field of education, but whose content mainly deals with the differences between the secular wagon and the one opposite it. The article also discussed the differences between natural morality, which according to the article would seemingly be found among secular people, as opposed to religious people who act out of blind obedience to commands. Among other things, he wrote this: The second main commitment of secular people is compassion. Secular morality is not based on obedience to some divine command or other, but on a deep understanding of suffering in the world. To behave morally means to help myself and others free ourselves from suffering. Secular people refrain from murder not because some book or some person once said “Do not murder,” but because murder causes immense suffering. In the eyes of secular people, there is something very dangerous about people who refrain from murder only “because God said so.” Such people are driven by obedience and not by compassion, and what will they do if they believe that God said to kill heretics, or Amalekites, or homosexuals? Of course, in the absence of absolute divine commands, secular morality often faces difficult dilemmas. What happens if the same action harms me but helps someone else? Is it moral to impose high taxes on the rich in order to help the poor? Is it moral to remove a child from the custody of an abusive parent? Is it moral to eat meat? When secular moral discourse faces such dilemmas, it does not ask: “What did God command?” Instead, it carefully weighs against one another the feelings of everyone involved, examines a wide range of evidence and possibilities, and looks for the middle path that will reduce suffering in the world as much as possible. This is also the reason the secular person seeks truth—not in order to satisfy his curiosity, but so that truth will help us free ourselves from suffering. The commitment to compassion translates scientific truths into medicine, food, and shelter. The commitment to compassion also underlies the democratic regime and the system of human rights, which have helped free billions of human beings from tyranny, violence, and poverty. Of course, this is only a small part of the article. Dr. Harari is considered quite a respected figure in the academic world, as far as I know, perhaps mainly because of his book “A Brief History of Humankind,” and so it was rather painful to read the content of the article. I wanted to know the Rabbi’s opinion about it, especially because I know that what Harari wrote is, to put it mildly, not accurate. And I recall hearing the Rabbi in a lecture dealing with complex perspective and harmony, where the Rabbi expressed himself to the effect that he does not recognize a concept of divine morality and the like, and morality is morality. In my humble opinion, Harari’s words seem absurd to me mainly because commandments such as “Do not murder” are defined as rational commandments. It is very important to me to know the Rabbi’s opinion on the matter. Thank you very much, I look forward to your reply.