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Q&A: Morality and Following the Majority in Jewish Law

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Morality and Following the Majority in Jewish Law

Question

My question is this: does bypassing a moral problem by defining it as a “pressing circumstance” / “great need” (which allows one to rely on minority opinions that were not ruled as Jewish law but also were not completely rejected by proof) actually solve the problem?
Suppose that in practice I rule in accordance with a minority opinion, and through that arrive at a halakhic result that accords with morality. Does that mean that the Jewish law is moral (because in practice the bottom line is moral, and so in my own conduct I will do only moral acts), or does it make no difference (because the morality of Jewish law depends on the range of *legitimate* opinions within it and not only on the bottom line)?
More than that—even in matters that were ruled as the Jewish law ab initio (because of the majority) in accordance with a moral opinion, and against them there is an immoral minority opinion—is the morality of Jewish law determined by the whole range of views considered plausible for ruling?
And I would add another question—even regarding an initial proposed assumption that is rejected by proof, assuming it is rejected by logical proof and not by moral rejection*—does that mean that Jewish law gives legitimacy to the very existence of that initial assumption, which would mean that if that initial assumption is immoral, that is what I use to determine the degree of morality of Jewish law?
 
*Obviously, “absence of evidence is not proof,” and Tosafot in various places answer things of this sort by saying that on the contrary, if they had not rejected it from here, they would have rejected it from there. But come on—in the present case that probably would not have been true.

Answer

What matters is whether I behave morally, not whether this or that opinion in Jewish law is moral. There is no such thing as “the Jewish law.” Each person has his own Jewish law. Therefore you can ask whether my Jewish law is moral, not whether Jewish law is moral. By the way, my answer is no. See Column 15.

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