Q&A: Between Man and His Fellow and Between Man and God
Between Man and His Fellow and Between Man and God
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Although this is a well-known question, I’d be glad to hear your opinion on the following:
The commandments between man and his fellow were commanded by God; why doesn’t that make them commandments between man and God?
To put it more sharply: aren’t commandments between man and his fellow really commandments between man and God, where the fellow is the object of the commandment (just like tefillin or a lulav)?
Thank you,
Answer
Simply speaking, no. Clearly there is also an aspect here of between man and God, but the fellow is not merely the object upon whom the commandment is performed. I wrote about this in Column 236, which dealt with an egocentric attitude toward the world. Look there carefully. I also linked it there to the issue of obligations and rights in Jewish law.
The Hatam Sofer distinguishes between two types of commandments toward one’s fellow: there are commandments whose purpose is the fellow, and there are commandments where the fellow is the addressee of the commandment (it is directed toward him, but the obligation is toward Heaven). It seems to me that I brought his words in the lecture series on charity; see there.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion, morality too is grounded in the Holy One, blessed be He, who legislated it. It is not clear to me whether it has to be done for the sake of Heaven, but it certainly has to be done for the sake of morality (doing a good deed incidentally is not a moral act). Commitment to the categorical imperative is a condition for a moral act.
When I give charity to a poor person or help a friend, I do so because that is the moral act. If I do it as a response to feelings of compassion or some inner urge of one kind or another, it is not a moral act. That does not mean those feelings should be eliminated, but an act done solely as a response to that feeling is not a moral act. The test is whether you would do the act were it not for that feeling.
In short, when I help a friend I am supposed to do so in order that the friend be helped, because the Holy One, blessed be He (through morality), expects me to do so. The dichotomous conceptual split of whether it is this or that is incorrect. We are dealing with a combination of both. See my article on the dichotomies of conceptual analyses:
I was thinking of suggesting (following things I learned from you) that commandments between man and his fellow have two layers: the moral and the religious. On the moral level, the addressee is the fellow; a person who helps another while thinking only about the moral benefit he brings to himself and to the world is missing the point badly, and there is no moral act here at all (Kant, etc.). The religious level is indeed only toward Heaven, and in that sense it is a commandment between man and God in every respect.
That raises the question: what should the motivation be in such commandments? For the sake of the fellow, or for the sake of fulfilling God’s word? And one could say that the novelty in such commandments is that the addressee needs to be the fellow. Alternatively, that God’s word is that we should think about the fellow, and if so both are fulfilled in such a motivation.
It may be that this is not essentially different from what you said. If it is different, I’d be glad to hear what you think about this possibility