Question

Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about a point that came up in the interview for the trilogy (Yair Sheleg). It received criticism and also clarification in the latest column here on the site, but I would still be glad to ask a few questions about it:

1. Briefly, in the interview it was explained that since we see a contradiction between morality (which is also included in the command, “and do what is right and good” — behave morally) and Jewish law, the proper approach is to interpret Jewish law in a way that fits morality. And interpretations were indeed suggested.
   In the clarification column it was explained that the interpretation (at least one of them) is not far-fetched; it is not a halakhic ruling, but it is legitimate. More importantly, it was explained that the interpretation is not tendentious — meaning, I am not interpreting in order to reach a result — but one may use the interpretation (if it is legitimate).
   That is what I understood so far.

   There are a few points on this issue that I did not understand:
   It is not clear to me what the difference is between tendentious interpretation and using interpretation for a purpose. If the assumption is that I can interpret on my own (and am not choosing an interpretation from a closed, agreed-upon pool), and then — if the interpretation is legitimate — I can use it, seemingly in a tendentious way, to resolve a contradiction, then from an outside perspective there is really no difference. The only difference is in the sense of “the Lord sees into the heart,” that is, the integrity of the interpreter (meaning how far the interpretation was detached from the agenda). But from a cool external perspective, it is the same action: a contradiction gives rise to a legitimate interpretation, and then the interpretation is used to resolve the contradiction.
   If the problem were the lack of integrity in the interpretation, one could say that the whole problem comes down to the “heart,” and if so the answer would be: trust me that I am not interpreting for the sake of an agenda.
   But it seems that the problem is not the interpreter’s lack of integrity, but a substantive problem of “there is no end to it” in this approach, since in effect there is no fixed Torah and even its most severe statements (like its lenient ones) can be changed.
   I saw in the column a comparison that even Maimonides interpreted, and perhaps also in a way that led, through the interpretation, to a change in Jewish law. In fact many of Tosafot’s answers to questions are also interpretations that lead to a change in Jewish law. But even if we do not accept the lack of comparison between us and them in terms of greatness (and I fully accept that lack of comparison), still, without a framework of the unfolding tradition that sets boundaries on the questions “Who can change?” and “What can be changed?”, seemingly there is no end to it.
   So my question (the first one…) is: why is interpretation in the way I described not tendentious interpretation, if the problem with tendentious interpretation is not lack of integrity but a substantive problem of “you have made your words variable,” meaning that everyone can interpret and change things as they wish?

2. Another question about the basis for “and do what is right and good” as a “general” commandment to behave morally (which was explained as not specifically Jewish at all, but human). Who established definitively that this is the divine command in Deuteronomy — that this is a commandment of the Torah?
3. Even if we grant question 2, that the Torah commands us to behave according to human morality (which changes over time? from place to place? those are also troubling points, but let us leave them aside), why shouldn’t we say — and to my mind with considerable logic — that when there is a conflict between a general commandment and a specific commandment, the specific one prevails? For example, if I told my son to behave nicely at school (general), and also told him not to lend his pencil sharpener to a friend (specific), would it make any sense that if he feels a contradiction (it is not nice behavior not to lend the sharpener), he should interpret the specific commandment (in a legitimate way but for the sake of resolving the contradiction) in a way that would ultimately allow him to lend the sharpener? Surely it makes more sense to assume that the general command to behave nicely does not include within it an instruction to lend the sharpener (hidden in contradiction to the specific command).
   So the question is about the logic of resolving the contradiction in a way that subordinates the specific command to the general one.
4. Even if we grant question 3 (and say that the logic is to interpret the specific command in a way that does not contradict the general command), I would still ask specifically about homosexuality (or a similar parallel case): who determined what human morality says about homosexuality? After all, there is a difference in approach between conservative thinkers and liberal thinkers regarding homosexuality, in their view of the individual and society (and this is not the place to elaborate). Even if we say that the moral question concerning the individual homosexual is a question whose answer is self-evident, the question about society is much more complex, and the moral question of how to relate to the individual very often has to take into account the broader view of the collective (for example: is it moral for the state to give a poor person everything he needs?).
   So my question is: how do we know what is included in the command of “and do what is right and good” (after accepting the previous questions) regarding the homosexual?

Respectfully,