Q&A: Meta-Halakhah and Thought
Meta-Halakhah and Thought
Question
The Rabbi brings in the third book the case of a judge where, if there is a clear danger to life, then he is not obligated to render a just judgment; whereas if it is only a possible danger to life, then the judge is obligated to render a just judgment. The Rabbi says here that Jewish law assumes a distinction between, on the one hand, the “hat” of the individual, and on the other hand, the “hat” of the collective, and that Judaism adopts something of a middle position.
If there are conceptions within Jewish law, why shouldn’t we say that this is also the Torah’s philosophical outlook? What I mean is: what is the difference between the meta-halakhic outlook and the philosophical one?
The Rabbi always tends to say that the Torah cannot command thought, since on the conceptual plane that is not something that can be commanded, but we see that halakhically we are commanded to act in a certain philosophical way. Isn’t it possible to say that although the Torah does not command us to think certain things, because that is not in its domain, it does command us to act in accordance with certain thoughts?
If the answer is yes, then there really is such a thing as Jewish thought; it just cannot come in the form of a command to think it.
Answer
Behind the laws there are principles. But our obligation to the Talmudic rulings is to the laws themselves (the bottom-line rulings), not to their underlying philosophical basis. Therefore commands about actions are possible, but thought remains free (“no person rules over the spirit”).
Discussion on Answer
There is thought of Jews. There is no Jewish thought. I elaborated on this in the second book of the trilogy.
For half my time in yeshiva I heard from the spiritual supervisor / rabbis the sentence, “It’s forbidden even to think like that,” and in the other half I heard, “It’s forbidden to laugh at things like that.”
If the Rabbi is right, who’s going to give me back all those lost days??
Yes, but in the end, living in accordance with those principles is itself Jewish thought.
Beyond that—after all, Jewish law sometimes changes according to the thought of the generation, as in the mechanism for changing values that the Rabbi proposes. That itself proves that there is Jewish thought, and that although it can sometimes change, clearly there are eternal principles (even if it is impossible to command people to believe in them, they can be commanded to uphold them, and indirectly that means they believe in them in a certain sense)?