Q&A: On Morality, Gratitude, and the Path to Faith
On Morality, Gratitude, and the Path to Faith
Question
Hello and blessings, Honorable Rabbi,
A. I wanted to ask: there is an approach that claims that there really is no good definition of what a moral act is, and that human beings have failed in their attempts to define it. The Torah is what determines what is a moral act and what is not, since it was given by God. What do you think of this approach?
B. I once heard one of your lectures about what obligates service of God, and you spoke there about various formulations, one of them, for example, being “out of gratitude.” But I wanted to ask: many people today, if you ask them “Why do you serve God?” will tell you that even though they get satisfaction from it, joy, and so on, the basis is still the doctrine of reward and punishment. God created me and has the power to punish me and to do good for me, and therefore that is what obligates me to do His will. There is no other justified reason.
C. Regarding rational faith—I see that your approach is to justify Judaism rationally, etc. The question is whether you really think that this is what will lead a non-believer to Judaism. After all, the reality is that people do not act on the basis of mathematical considerations and simply do what is correct; especially since it is also hard to assume that every person who wants to strengthen his faith or to believe has to be proficient in philosophy and various fields of research.
Thank you very much.
Answer
A. That approach is utter nonsense. Just an empty slogan. The Torah does not define anywhere what a moral act is; rather, people interpret it according to their understanding of what morality is. For example, there is a commandment to cleave to the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, but no one would think of cleaving to the attribute of being “jealous and avenging.” Why? Because it is clear to us a priori that it is not morally right to do so. In other words, values are used by us in interpreting the Torah; it is not the Torah that teaches us values.
B. I don’t see a question here. There are many who say that. So what?
C. I do not deal in tactics. I’m not interested in what will be effective or efficient. The question is what is true. I agree that a believer does not have to be a philosopher. He should make decisions to the best of his understanding. But if there are philosophical arguments that would persuade him and he has not examined them, there is a kind of negligence here.
Discussion on Answer
Hello again, thank you for the quick reply.
A. I understood you. But according to your view, the various philosophers failed to define the moral act, so how, then, are we to know what a moral act is and what is not? In addition, according to this approach, there are many moral acts or Jewish laws that do not appear moral in the Torah and in the words of the Sages, whether in commandments such as Amalek, or in attitudes toward the unlearned, gentiles, women, and so on. According to various moral standards, the Torah is definitely not moral.
B. You’re right, I didn’t define the question properly. What I meant to ask is whether you see this as a justification for serving God or not. And why. (And if yes, then there is no need to arrive at justifications such as gratitude and the like.)
C. According to your view that a person has to examine philosophical arguments, you are saying that a person basically has to become wiser, become a philosopher, hear arguments, then counterarguments will arise, and he has to examine those too, etc. In that way a person will never arrive at faith. Another point, as I already said—it cannot be that every believing person is required to be a philosopher. But it is not only philosophy; the same applies to archaeology, physics, and so on. A person would need to know and be familiar with those fields and check that they do not contradict the Torah, etc… That sounds strange.
Thank you.
P.S.
I have to say that I am truly full of admiration for your patience and the time you devote to so many questions… I think your contribution is simply enormous, and I don’t know whether you are aware of your influence, but you have definitely become a kind of Guide for the Perplexed for the broader public that keeps Torah and commandments. May there be many more like you.
I replied through a friend, but I hope there’s a solution to the problem…
Ari, press Tab and you’ll get to the “Reply” button.
A. First, the philosophers did not fail; rather, they offer several definitions, and there are disputes. You decide what seems right to you. Second, it doesn’t matter, because the dispute is mainly over how to formulate a general theoretical definition. The question of what counts as a moral act is agreed upon in the overwhelming majority of cases (aside from edge cases where there is disagreement).
The contradictions between Jewish law and morality do not depend on the theoretical definitions. Killing an Amalekite baby or separating the wife of a priest from her husband after she was raped are not moral according to any definition. See Column 15 regarding contradictions between Jewish law and morality.
B. At the end of the column that has just gone up on the site, you can see the words of Maimonides. I identify with them. But he himself writes there that there are those who serve God in this way (women and children, in his chauvinistic doctrine).
See my article that gratitude is not meant in the usual sense (a moral value): https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%94/
In my opinion, this is not service of God, because they are serving themselves (for the sake of self-interest). See again the above-mentioned column and the references there.
C. I did not write what you put in my mouth. On the contrary, I said he does not have to. What I argued is that if a person did not examine them, he has no claim of complete coercion if he errs (he is still coerced under certain circumstances—if he had no initial reason even to consider checking, because on its face it seemed to him like nonsense).
Many thanks for the compliments. I very much doubt the phrase “the broader public that keeps Torah and commandments.” But perhaps I help some of them, and that is enough for me.
“In his chauvinistic doctrine”..
?
Indeed. How do you define a person who relates to women like minors and the mentally incompetent? (And not only here.)
Though there are mitigating circumstances (because the women of his time were not like the women of our time).
It’s not only mitigating circumstances. In this case (and others) he is simply relating to reality, not to abstract essences. From this one cannot infer anything at all about his view of women in principle.
It is mitigating circumstances, because even in his time it was not justified to relate to all women that way. I am sure that even in his time there were women worthy of a different attitude, and certainly if he and his colleagues had enabled it, they would have become such. Rather, he was captive to the views that were accepted then.
It seems to me that I saw several ethical teachers who wrote that one should be jealous and bear a grudge against the wicked and wrongdoers.
That does not change the essence of the matter. They are still inserting their own moral reasoning into the interpretation of the Torah, rather than learning morality from the Torah. The proof is that based on their own reasoning they qualify what we learned from the Torah.
I wanted to reply, but for some reason, because of the length of the message, the “Reply” button disappeared. How can the problem be solved?