Beit Hillel’s position seems puzzling. Beit Shammai are not claiming that one should hurt the groom or the bride, only that one should praise her truthfully, without saying things about her that are not there. How does “his mind is at ease with people” solve the problem? The groom understands from what you say that you are describing what the bride is objectively like (or how she appears to you), not how she appears in his eyes. Otherwise, you would not have been asked / there would be no point in saying anything. Just because it becomes clear to you that in his eyes she is different, does she suddenly also appear in your eyes the way she appears in his?

On a certain site (link below), in response to the question of what a person should do if his friend bought a piece of furniture and asks his opinion, the answer is that “in such a case there is no commandment at all to tell the truth.” But I would expect any person to say exactly what he thinks—certainly a friend. Beyond the problem of lying, there is also the issue of “love your fellow as yourself” (what is hateful, etc.), “do what is upright and good,” and perhaps also causing harm to another by preventing him from learning from his mistakes.

I did not understand why Elijah cannot play a role. Theoretically, he could say that the heavenly voice that came forth and said, “These and those are the words of the living God, but the law follows Beit Hillel,” was a test for the sages—whether they would alter a Torah-level commandment (or the rules of halakhic ruling) because of a heavenly voice—and they failed it.

From Berakhot 52a it seems that Rabbi Yehoshua did not accept the rule that the law follows Beit Hillel precisely for this reason:

“And the law follows the words of Beit Hillel—this is obvious, for a heavenly voice went forth.
If you wish, say it was before the heavenly voice; and if you wish, say it was after the heavenly voice,
and it is Rabbi Yehoshua, who said: We do not pay attention to a heavenly voice.”

https://ph.yhb.org.il/08-02-18/

It does not really matter for our purposes. Beit Hillel argue that one should not hurt the bride in the name of truth. If in your judgment this does not hurt her—then there is no problem even according to Beit Hillel. After all, Beit Hillel’s claim, and the halakhic ruling in accordance with them, is not about the factual claim (whether such a statement hurts the bride or not) but about the value claim (that it is forbidden to hurt her in the name of truth).
The question whether it hurts or not depends on situation, society, and culture, and therefore it is not important to the discussion. Decide each time according to what seems right to you (whether there is hurt or not). But assuming there is hurt, then the law follows Beit Hillel that you must lie—that is, the obligation to tell the truth does not override the prohibition against hurting another person.

To my mind this is plainly unreasonable. First of all, what kind of test is it for the sages if they do not know that they are not supposed to follow the heavenly voice? If Elijah is the one who reveals to them that this was a test, then it is not a test but simply a trap.
Beyond that, Elijah can say anything, but even in that we would not listen to him. For that itself is his own view, as you explain it—that we are not to follow heaven in issuing halakhic rulings. So why should we follow his own words?!
Bottom line: we rule the law like Beit Hillel, whether by force of the heavenly voice or for any other reason (see the passage in Berakhot that you cited, and the parallel in Eruvin 6b). This seems not to be a matter under dispute. Therefore, even if Rabbi Yehoshua does not accept the ruling like Beit Hillel by force of the heavenly voice (and that is only one option in the Talmud), this view of his also was not accepted as Jewish law. And once the law has been decided, Elijah the prophet has no standing.

The main question concerns other practical implications, such as a friend who bought a piece of furniture, where it seems the decisors instruct one to lie like Beit Hillel (and one cannot distinguish between the cases, because that is what Beit Hillel themselves imply), and this creates the other problems I mentioned (what is hateful to you, do what is upright and good, the buyer’s inability to learn from his mistakes, and additional moral and social problems that tend to arise when people learn to lie).

Second, Beit Shammai’s position is only that one should refrain from actively uttering a lie: the Torah does not command you to perform an act that is inherently wrong just because if you refrain from an act someone else will be hurt. They do not require you to mention some flaw in the bride, only not to say things about her that are not there. In such a situation the hurt is not attributable to the person who refrained from telling a lie—who performed no action at all—but to the one who is hurt. So it does not seem correct to say that the discussion is about whether one may hurt in the name of truth, because there is no act of hurting here.

What does it mean that “the sages do not know that they are not supposed to follow the heavenly voice”? The Torah says, “Keep far from a false matter,” implying that one may not follow a heavenly voice that says otherwise. And indeed, that is the nature of tests in the Bible: there is some rational possibility to think that this is not a test.

As for the objection that “that itself is his own view”: at first glance it seems to me from biblical practice that prophets can be sent in order to change a halakhic understanding, but they do so in a way that allows the listeners to understand on their own how this is not some innovation in the commandment, but something that was already rooted from the outset in the words of the Torah itself, which they simply had not understood well enough to see (and similarly people interpret “A new Torah shall go forth from Me”). Then the expectation is that we should heed their words not only by force of the commandment that we now see the Torah commanding us, but also because he is a prophet and an emissary of God. In other words, Elijah could (theoretically) demonstrate through the sharpness of his arguments, as a great Torah scholar, that it is impossible to rule in accordance with a heavenly voice against the rules of halakhic decision-making, while at the same time testifying to the metaphysical meaning of the heavenly voice.

In any event, whichever way you look at it: if one may rule the law like Beit Hillel because of a heavenly voice, then all the more so one may rule the law because of a true prophet. (Not that I think one may rule against the Torah because of a prophet, only that if we are going to be consistent, the problem exists in both directions.)

But Elijah already testified (regarding “the oven of Akhnai”) that the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “My children have defeated Me,” and agreed that the law is decided on the basis of the majority of sages in the earthly religious court, and that “it is not in heaven.”

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

I think everything has already been explained. Regarding your final whichever-way-you-look-at-it question: everyone rules like Beit Hillel, either because of the heavenly voice or because of some other reason (for example, that they were the majority).
What Elijah might show through his sharpness and arguments is not relevant here. If he convinces the sages, there is no problem at all. The question concerned only using him as a prophet, not using him—or his arguments—as a sage. As for arguments, their source changes nothing whatsoever. They can come from the moon or from the mouth of a demon; as long as we are persuaded, there is no problem.
[In parentheses I will only say that the objection from the oven of Akhnai is not difficult at all, because in the case of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel there was no halakhic way to decide, and therefore they needed a heavenly voice (as Tosafot explained, that Beit Hillel had a majority in numbers and Beit Shammai had a majority in wisdom, so the question remained as to which majority one follows, and that could not be decided without a heavenly voice). In the case of the oven there was a way: to follow the majority.]

Rabbi,

It is still not clear to me whether (and thank you in advance for the trouble):

1. Your principled position is that when there are contradictions between Jewish law and morality, one must obey Jewish law.

2. Beit Hillel’s obligation to lie is not such a contradiction.

3. The reasoning (outside Jewish law) that says one should obey what has been established in halakhic ruling is solely because of public acceptance, or also because that seems to be God’s will; and either way, whether it is so strong that it applies even in cases like these.

4. There is no need to worry that this is a test—that what your intellect tells you is God’s command versus the authority of the community.

5. What exactly is the essential difference between “standard” halakhic arguments and the factual claim Elijah might present—that the halakhic practice in his time (received from Sinai) was the opposite. And does question 3 not then return?

Levinger,

From the Talmudic passages one can understand that Elijah has authority to decide at least in tie cases (contrary to what seems to emerge from Rabbi Michi’s view here). The question is what would happen if Elijah came and presented that the law given to Moses at Sinai in his possession was A, whereas among us the opposite ruling was accepted by mistake, and the sages of the generation were unsure whether in such a situation one may rule according to Elijah’s law given to Moses at Sinai. Seemingly Elijah could decide that indeed one may.

1. Definitely not. Although where the contradiction is essential and not incidental, it seems to me that Jewish law prevails. For example, in killing Amalek, even if someone sees this as plainly immoral, the Torah itself has spoken. But in an incidental conflict like saving life and the Sabbath (where preserving life is not usually bound up with violating the Sabbath, and vice versa), there one should make decisions as in any conflict of values.
2. As I understand it, the obligation according to Beit Hillel is not such a contradiction, because the dispute itself is about morality. They argue that the moral act in such a case is to lie. That is also why I wrote that in a case where it is clear that one should not lie because the truth does not hurt, they were not dealing with that.
3. These are not necessarily two different reasons: God’s will is that we uphold public acceptance. I do not know what “cases like these” means. What is the problem here?
4. There is room for concern, or for deviating from communal authority. In a specific community certainly, and with acceptance by the public as a whole, in sufficiently extreme cases. One must remember that even the obligation to the revelation at Sinai and to the Torah in general is because of public acceptance.
5. This factual claim has no halakhic weight. What was decided in the oven of Akhnai beyond not paying attention to a heavenly voice is also not paying attention to the tradition expressed by Rabbi Eliezer (who said nothing that he had not heard from his teacher), and the superiority of the decision of the sages of the current generation. See my article here about this:

כל היכא דאמרינן ‘בו ביום’ ההוא יומא הוה – יום מכריע אחד בהשתלשלותה של תושבע"פ

1. Is the decision in such value conflicts arbitrary?

2. In my view this is a contradiction. It would make sense if there were a real conflict between values, but (as I mentioned before) Beit Shammai are not claiming that you must say something hurtful; only praise if there is something praiseworthy, or else say nothing. The conflict is only between refraining from action and performing a forbidden action. In any other normal situation there is no permission to perform an act that is inherently wrong, such as lying, just so that something good may indirectly result from it (especially since it is not even certain that pleasure from insincere praise counts as “good”).

The moral problem may be greater than what is described in the dispute. Even if we were in a situation where we had to choose either to say a statement that was in fact hurtful, or to say something false, it might still be forbidden to say something false. For there is no causal connection between the statement and the hurt. Hurt results from the listener’s relation to what is said, not from something inherent in the statement itself. There is indeed value in actions meant to prevent hurt of this kind too, but not when the alternative is an act that is inherently wrong.

3. “Cases like these”—cases in which the reasoning that it is God’s will that we not violate His prohibitions or natural morality (when the conflict is incidental) is stronger than the reasoning (outside Jewish law) that His will is that we implement public acceptance.

4. I did not understand how one decides that the value of not deviating from communal authority is more absolute than what plainly seems like a deviation from God’s will, and how this whole matter of public acceptance works. Seemingly the obligation to the Torah derives first and foremost from the covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He, which obligates every Jew for all generations—”and also with whoever is not here with us today” (Deuteronomy 29).

1. The decision in such value conflicts is like any other decision between two conflicting values. In my opinion it is not arbitrary, but it cannot have formulated criteria. The reason is very simple: a value by its nature cannot be rationalized (that is, reduced to something more basic). Therefore it cannot be measured against another value (what is called the incommensurability of values).

2. I have already explained why in my opinion that is not correct.

3. Both reasonings are outside Jewish law. As I wrote, if the hurt is very great there is room to consider deviating. That is certainly not the case here.

4. I explained that the obligation to God’s word is also based on public acceptance (at the revelation at Sinai), and the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted. The Torah was given to the public, and therefore that is apparently also God’s will. And what you cited from the verse, “and also with whoever is not here with us today” (Deuteronomy 29), is itself proof of this. How does the Sinai oath obligate future generations who neither obligated themselves nor were there? As is known, according to Jewish law an oath or vow obligates only the one who took the oath or vow (and the obligation in commandments is defined by the sages as an oath that we swore at Sinai, though this is apparently a meta-halakhic fiction like the social contract). Because the one who obligated himself was the public, therefore anyone included in the public throughout the generations stands obligated. This is exactly like a constitution that obligates everyone who belongs to the public even two hundred years after it was enacted, when all the lawmakers and their voters are no longer here. And the reason is that the one who obligated itself was the public, not the collection of individuals who were there, and therefore it continues to obligate all who belong to this public in the future as well. And so wrote the Rosh in a responsum brought in the Rema, Yoreh De’ah, the laws of vows, regarding the bans of the public and communities. And these are the words of Tosafot on Me’ilah 9b from the verse, “One generation goes and another generation comes, but the earth stands forever.”

Just as an aside, I wanted to ask about the point that the obligation to God’s word is based on public acceptance. If, hypothetically, the public had not accepted this obligation upon itself, would that mean the public would not have been obligated to God’s word? After all, the command itself remains in force (“He held the mountain over them like a barrel”). And from God’s standpoint He commanded the people immediately and for generations. That is, even without the matter of the oath and public acceptance, there is an obligation that applies to later generations by virtue of God’s command to them. Seemingly one could understand that what public acceptance added was an additional layer of obligation—meaning, when a person who belongs to the public rebels against God’s word, he rebels not only against God but also against the public that accepted upon itself to keep God’s word.

I do not think so. I was not there, and the covenant that was made obligates me only by virtue of my belonging to the public. If I understand correctly, the coercion was not to obey but to swear and obligate themselves in the public obligation (something like: we compel him until he says, “I consent”). That is why there was also the claim of a great protest against the Torah until Purim, when they accepted it again. This implies that without that there would have been no obligation at all.

True, you were not there, but the Jewish people were there, and the Jewish people are still alive (a public does not die). That is, the Jewish people are still obligated by virtue of the command at Sinai, and today you are part of the Jewish people, and therefore you too are obligated today.

Jewish law is not God’s word.

There is no obligation to God’s word. “If you walk in My statutes” is not an obligation.

Jewish law is the word of bored rabbis who thought they were wiser than Moses our rabbi, and public acceptance shows that this is a golden calf.

1. I do not hold that view regarding values. In my opinion, values can in principle be represented coherently because they are grounded in facts in reality (I do not think there is a “naturalistic fallacy”), of which God is the ultimate cause. But that is a topic for a separate discussion.

2. Do you mean the following quotation?

“Beit Hillel argue that one should not hurt the bride in the name of truth. If in your judgment this does not hurt her—then there is no problem even according to Beit Hillel. After all, Beit Hillel’s claim, and the halakhic ruling in accordance with them, is not about the factual claim (whether such a statement hurts the bride or not) but about the value claim (that it is forbidden to hurt her in the name of truth)… that is, the obligation to tell the truth does not override the prohibition against hurting another person.”

However, I replied that this is not a regular conflict between values, but a dilemma between performing a wrongful act and refraining from acting. How can one violate a “prohibition against hurting another person” simply by doing nothing? It may well be good to perform an active deed that will make the bride feel good about herself, but in every other standard moral case we forbid actively doing something inherently wrong just so that some other good will indirectly result from it, when we could simply refrain from acting altogether (unless you are a consequentialist, in which case there is nothing to discuss).

It may be, by the way, that even Beit Hillel do not dare say that one must literally lie, but rather that the fact that “a person’s mind is at ease with people” is somehow supposed to make it not a lie. But in my view that seems impossible in most cases. If a person thinks she is not beautiful and gracious, the mere fact that his friend thinks she is does not manage to change his own perception.

4. As for the American’s obligation to a constitution whose entire validity depends on the citizen’s agreement (consent of the governed), I would say: not necessarily. One could say that because the morality embodied in the constitution is not the result of an arbitrary declaration but expresses natural rights, a reasonable person would certainly agree to it (and if someone would not, his opinion is nullified against that of all people). If the descendant had been there, he certainly would have agreed to it of his own free will. But that does not justify laws that plainly contradict the spirit of the constitution beyond the minimal basis of protecting property rights.

So maybe with us too—were it not for the miracle of Isaac’s birth, and had God not brought His people out of Egypt in order to give the Torah, either we would not exist or we would still be slaves to Egypt. Therefore each of us, had he been there, would certainly have willingly agreed to accept the Torah in exchange for freedom from the yoke of Egypt, and there is no need for the mediation of “public acceptance.” That one who is “not here with us today” is likewise obligated in that very event itself as though he were present here.