But if I know for certain that there is some preference for a Jew’s life, then it no longer makes sense to use the Talmud’s reasoning that “who says your blood is redder than that man’s blood,” because I do know that the Jew’s is “redder,” apparently?

Anonymous, that is basically the question that appeared here once before: why was there a need for the “redder blood” consideration when there are territorial considerations? I don’t remember what the answer was, or whether there was one.

That itself is what the reasoning of “who says?” is saying. Otherwise, we could kill an old person to save a young one, a sick person to save a healthy one, and so on.
Besides, I also don’t know, and certainly not with certainty, that a gentile’s life is worth less. The explanation of the parameters of “You shall not murder” and the punishment can also be attributed to something else.

Is the username “Michi” the Rabbi?

Michi is the Rabbi from his phone.
And above I meant to refer you here: https://mikyab.net/posts/66018#comment-32594. See there.

Yes. His Eminence.

Hey!

So is the Rabbi basically retracting the claim that there is some preference for a Jew’s life?

No. I wrote that there is preference in terms of the prohibition and the punishment, but that is not necessarily a moral difference.

Doesn’t the preference in terms of the prohibition and the punishment stem from the moral difference? And if not, then where does it come from?

There is indeed a distinction to be made between Jewish law and morality, as you are making.
But contrary to what seems to emerge from your words (correct me if I’m wrong), Moses our Teacher determined the correct morality in the Torah.

As for the issue itself: the Torah does not say “Do not murder your brother,” but rather “Do not murder.”
And the matter is already explained with Noah: “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man.”

This is not talking about Jews but about all human beings.

Likewise, when it says “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” the intention is not specifically a Jew, but literally your fellow—even if he is a gentile (and the same command applies to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” also to a gentile who is your fellow).

That is on the Torah side, meaning Jewish morality. But it was not ruled that way in Jewish law because of the circumstances.

Is it really obvious that “Love your neighbor as yourself” refers to all human beings? Not obvious at all. It is very reasonable that “your neighbor” in the Torah means one of your own people, and “your fellow” means someone who is your fellow in his obligations to uphold the covenant made with the Holy One, blessed be He.
There were already commentators among the rabbis of the Italian Renaissance who tried, supposedly, to say this—that all the reciprocal commandments in the Torah apply to all human beings, and that it is a distorted interpretation to say otherwise.
So have we already said that everyone draws from the Hebrew Bible whatever he wants?

“Your fellow” means a person you know or who is close to you in some way, as opposed to a stranger. And it doesn’t matter whether he is a Jew or a gentile.
The prohibition of coveting, too, originally applies to people you know. It involves corruption and betrayal. And it makes no difference whether he is a Jew or a gentile. You are the corrupt one if you covet your fellow’s wife.

“You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your fellow as yourself.”

The first part is about your own people—that you should not take revenge against them in any case.
And the second part says, in other words: don’t treat your fellow as though he were your slave or something like that. Love him as yourself.
When the Torah wants to distinguish between a Jew and a gentile, it does so. As with interest. “Do not murder” is general. Any other claim is contrary to the Torah.
But the circumstances led Jewish law to rule as it did.

Anonymous, in my view there is no connection between Jewish law and morality. I’ve discussed this here in the past, and even more in a series of lectures (under video lectures) on Jewish law and morality.
I don’t know why there is a difference in punishment and prohibition, but it could come from several different places. For example, there may be an interest in strengthening our attitude toward members of our own people, and not necessarily because our blood is redder.

Decisor, Moses our Teacher determined almost nothing in the Torah at the moral level. Morality is entrusted to conscience and our ethical understanding.

So if I understand the Rabbi correctly, you can’t infer from Jewish law any indications about Judaism’s worldview?

I think there is no such thing as “Judaism’s worldview.”

Let’s bring a little order to all the confusion here. Morality is not Jewish law. Morality belongs to basic decency, which preceded the Torah (straight human reason) and is included within it. The same applies to gentiles: basic decency and morality precede their “Torah” too—the seven Noahide commandments. Therefore it could be that, from the Torah’s perspective, the value of a Jew’s life is greater than that of a gentile, even though from the standpoint of morality (straight human reason) that is not so. Even from the standpoint of common sense, although in my humble opinion true equality between human beings does not really exist (I think it is not well-defined; there are things in which human beings are equal and things in which they are not), it seems that there is equality in the value of human life (you may not kill another person in order to save your own).

Also, the reasoning of “who says your blood is redder, etc.,” in my humble opinion, despite its obvious logic, belongs to the Torah side and not to morality (it is a reason for a Torah law, so it too should be, as part of the axiomatic approach to Torah, Torah itself). That is, even though the Talmud calls it “reasoning” as opposed to a “verse,” it really belongs to the Torah’s internal logic, which surprisingly (and very strangely) often—always?—coincides with our common sense. But that really is the case with all interpersonal commandments: they are not actually “moral” commandments but “religious” commandments (that is, they are really commandments between man and God), which is often reflected in the details of those commandments that are not necessarily understandable to our common sense.

Doesn’t the Rabbi think that Ethics of the Fathers is “Judaism’s worldview”? At least the Pharisaic-Orthodox one.

By the way, I am not a halakhic decisor, but apparently even according to the Torah the rule of “be killed rather than transgress” exists with respect to gentiles (even though in terms of punishment one would be exempt, because that is also the case for Jews according to Maimonides), because of the Torah principle that nothing was forbidden to us when we were gentiles (before the giving of the Torah) and then permitted to us once we became Jews (after the giving of the Torah). That too is a principle derived from reasoning. It seems to me there is also an expression of this principle in the idea that the gentiles should not say that we moved from a stricter holiness to a lighter holiness.

So that means the Torah can command us to perform commandments even though they clearly and sharply contradict morality, and one should not try to show the moral side of commandments that are perceived as immoral—if I understand the Rabbi correctly?

Moses our Teacher determined what the correct morality is! Obviously different people have different consciences and different morality. But for Jews, the correct morality is what Moses our Teacher established. That is the meaning of being a Jew. Gentiles have Kant or other moral chatterers. For us, the Torah determines what is morally right.
If a person’s conscience tells him the opposite of the Torah, then either the text was not understood correctly, or the person has a defective conscience and has no choice but to act according to the Torah (and correct his ways).
As for the Sages, who in several places instructed the opposite of the Torah, that is usually because of exigent circumstances, and not because, as some ignoramuses think (like an ant), morality evolved.

Emmanuel, “basic decency preceded the Torah.” Basic decency is not morality but the accepted manners and conduct of a given place.

For a Jew, the one and only morality—that is, what distinguishes the wicked from the righteous—is the Torah. Anyone who does not believe this is, by definition, a denier of the Torah and of Moses our Teacher.

To Anonymous,

I believe there is not really—and cannot be—a contradiction. And if there is a contradiction, then you have to think. And if no solution is found, then you remain with the matter unresolved, and then these are two verses that contradict each other and wait for the third verse to decide between them. This has happened to me quite a few times, and I found very good solutions. Usually what happens in such a case is one of three things:
1. Either what you thought was morality is not really morality.
2. Or the Torah did not command what you think it commanded.
3. Or both of the above together.

To the Decisor,

What declarations. Fire and lightning. I really can’t stand before you. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, is astonished. Wait till I get up. In any case, “basic decency” includes lots of things (including manners and etiquette). For example, “conduct yourself according to the way of the world” in tractate Berakhot—that means work or livelihood or labor. In the ketubah, “to come unto you in the way of all the earth” means marital relations. There is also the tractate Derekh Eretz in the Talmud. And “the Torah taught basic decency, that a person should not…” (which is a bit paradoxical). The general category is all the things dictated by common sense and human normality. When the Sages expounded, “to keep the way—this is basic decency; the tree of life—this is Torah,” I don’t think they meant something as marginal as manners and etiquette (“table manners”…).

Also, there is no such thing as determining the correct morality. Morality is a matter of fact (that is, saying what is moral and what is not—what is good and what is bad—is an observational matter, not a normative one). It is like Moses our Teacher being the final decisor on matters of reality—physics—and telling me what my eyes do or do not see. That doesn’t make sense. Moses our Teacher can tell me what is bad in the eyes of Moses our Teacher or of the Holy One, blessed be He. Then I will have to think how that fits with what is bad (immoral) in my eyes—which is also what is bad in God’s eyes. He also does not want me to do what is bad (immoral) in my eyes, although admittedly on a lower level than Moses our Teacher’s.

Anyway, if you are the last decisor, then no one can come after you and disagree with you… final ruling.

Small correction: the exposition is of course: “to keep the way—this is basic decency; the tree of life—this is Torah.”

To Anonymous,

By the way, in my opinion your question to the Rabbi really points to something that does not exist, and it even detracts—“Whoever says, ‘May Your mercy extend to the bird’s nest,’ we silence him, because His commandments are not acts of mercy but decrees.” That is, finding morality in the Torah’s commandments detracts from their holiness and the supreme wisdom within them. As though the Holy One, blessed be He, needs approval or praise or justification from us. But there is an issue of finding solutions to a contradiction with morality, from the standpoint that understanding matters. That is, if it does not contradict, we should understand how. In other words, there is also a point in not declaring the Holy One, blessed be He, guilty.

No lightning and no thunder. Anyone who denies the Torah as the source of authority is a denier of the Torah. Anyone who thinks he is more moral than Moses our Teacher is just a wicked heretic.

And you forgot that proper conduct in Germany, the homeland of Kant, at first consisted in spitting on Jews, and as a result of development and German wisdom—for their morality and custom are so great—the behavior practiced in Germany quickly developed, as is well known to the great understanders of morality among us.

That’s the well-known cry of “Heeereeetiiiiic!!!!!!!” (I hope you’re not a troll). You must feel really righteous. Happy are you, righteous one. What does “source of authority” even mean? After all, part of Torah is optional, as is known (obligation, commandment, permission). That’s exactly the discussion: where the Torah’s authority applies and where it doesn’t. What is included in the 613 commandments and what is not. What is the source of authority for believing in the revelation at Sinai for one who was there? Isn’t it his own eyes? Maybe it is forbidden to believe in the Torah until the Holy One, blessed be He, tells us to believe in it. And it is forbidden to believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, until the Holy One, blessed be He, tells us to believe Him, and turtles all the way down…

You apparently don’t understand what basic decency means. The Germans also didn’t think it was okay to spit in a person’s face. They sinned, and if they did think so, then that was the course of their development. Their problem was that they had no God, and I too believe there is no morality without God (as with Abraham and Abimelech). But there is morality without Torah. God is also part of basic decency. Besides, the Germans really were more developed (morally too) than the other East European nations, which were barbaric and savage. If they had had the brains the Germans had, they would have caused us greater harm than the Germans did. It was only because they were less developed that they had less ability. And many Jews who observe Torah and commandments also have no basic decency (and therefore they also have no Torah. Ah, here is another use of basic decency: “If there is no basic decency, there is no Torah”—and there it was in the sense of livelihood, but then the meaning of “if there is no flour, there is no Torah” is unclear). That is, they are savage and barbaric. So you see that Torah by itself cannot produce basic decency, although according to the Mishnah a Jew cannot exist without one of these two levels, and if he lacks one of them he has neither. Maybe the same is true for a gentile in relation to his own “Torah.”

To the Decisor,

By the way, it seems to me that Moses our Teacher would prefer me, with my questions about his morality—which I don’t actually have; I said I believe that at the root of the matter there is no contradiction—over you and your flattery toward him. Moses was a man of truth and loved men of truth like himself. And a man of truth does not deny his inner feelings even if he believes in people greater than himself and even in God. To believe your own feelings is to believe in yourself. And believing in yourself comes before belief in anything else—even before belief in God, and certainly before belief in Moses our Teacher. He will try and strive to find the solution until he reaches it, and if he does not, he will not reject one truth for the sake of another, and he will remain with the matter unresolved. Your approach is not faith in Moses our Teacher. It is self-righteousness—conservative self-righteousness, as opposed to liberal self-righteousness, which really does prattle on a lot about morality. You love the feeling of being a warrior of justice on behalf of the Torah, but believe me, you are doing it a disservice.

Emmanuel,
A. You wrote that usually there is no contradiction between Torah and morality (either a mistake in understanding the Torah or a mistake in understanding morality). What do you think about the well-known classics: the wife of a priest who was raped, the offspring of Amalek, discretionary war, exemption for indirect damage, damage that is not externally visible, permission to kill animals for any need, the idolatrous city, women and children, the congregation of Korah, Sodom and Gomorrah?
B. When you say there is no morality without God, do you mean that in a theoretical, fundamental, abstract, on-paper sense there is nothing that gives morality binding force other than God (as Rabbi Michael thinks), or do you mean in a practical sense that consciously atheistic people—even when they de facto behave according to the moral imperative—do not deserve to have the label of morality and the label of its forefathers Abraham and Isaac applied to them? Or something else?

Yishai,
Ethics of the Fathers contains a collection of universal insights, and anything there that doesn’t seem right to you, you also won’t accept. I don’t see anything specifically Jewish there.

Anonymous,
Indeed. It’s worth listening to my series on Jewish law and morality (and more briefly at the beginning of the third book). And briefly in column 15.

Emmanuel,
As for your claim that explanations diminish the stature of the commandments—that is exactly what Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, part 3, chapters 25–26 rejects out of hand.

To Sheep,

A. I wrote that regarding such cases, I wait for the third verse that will decide between them. But the truth is that these are not such difficult objections. The wife of a priest who was raped is a tragedy only relative to us. For them, it was not viewed that way. In their world, the concept of holiness (and in our case, priestly holiness) occupied a place that it does not occupy for us. I believe that in their period both the priest and the woman would have taken it lightly (she would have married someone else, and he too, and they would not have made too big a deal of it).

As for wars, it was a cruel world (and I know that today in the East it still is, and in the West inwardly it is too, so even today it is less terrible than we pretend; but outward appearances do matter, though this is not the place for that discussion). From the perspective of the ancient world, what you call cruelty was actually justice. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not behaved that way, they would have thought He was a sucker—like the Arabs in our time, who interpret morality as weakness (and there is a tiny grain of truth in that).
As for the children of Korah’s congregation, that is connected to the fact that in the ancient world the organic units were families and nations, and they were punished for their own sins, not for others’ sins. (This is not the place to explain how children can sin, but children are not righteous people.)
So basically, what still needs solving is only the morality of today’s West in relation to the eternity of the Torah, and even that is not a severe difficulty, because inwardly the world today is still cruel and savage—but this is not the place to elaborate. In short, the principle is that morality is built on reciprocity. It is not immoral to behave immorally toward someone who would not behave toward you with the same standard. That solves almost everything you mentioned. I won’t address the rest here (and those are minor details of a legal system, which is easier still), because I only wanted to demonstrate.

B. I think like Rabbi Michi, but not exactly like Rabbi Michi. For me, belief in God in the context of morality is belief in a universal mechanism of reward and punishment in reality for sins against morality—that crime does not pay. I don’t care if you call it karma. The main thing is that people fear something. Even atheists—then there is still fear of God in them, but not fear of the Lord, the God who gave the Torah. But someone who does not believe in reward and punishment for morality—even if he claims he is moral—I think he is not moral. And if he is moral after all (judging by his actions and behavior), then I claim that deep down he does believe in God. He has an “Abrahamic point” (by analogy to a Jewish point), but not a “Moses-our-Teacher point.”

To the Rabbi,

First of all, even if Maimonides thinks so, so what? This is my observation (which has had a lot of thought invested in it). Second, I am not claiming that explanations diminish the stature of the commandments, but that explanations from outside the Torah—that is, not from its internal logic—taken from the world of human experience, psychology, history, law, and sociology, diminish the stature of the commandments. After all, I wrote that there is wisdom in the commandments, so that means they do have explanations; it’s just that one must look for them within the world of the Torah’s internal logic. That is the essence of the Brisker method of learning (which really also deals with the “why,” even though it claims to deal with the “what”). After all, a definition is needed for understanding—which is a “why”—and also requires a why. That is, in order to define something, you also need to understand a little of the “why” of the law being defined, meaning its rationale. It’s just that there is a limitation: the rationales must be drawn from the existing halakhic conceptual system. Just as one proves a theorem in mathematics from other theorems and does not look for proofs from something outside mathematics. Outside the Torah includes human morality as well. Take note. And I haven’t even spoken about Kabbalah.

Correction: in the first passage, I meant: from their perspective it was not such a big deal. In their world, the concept of holiness (and in our case, priestly holiness) occupied a place that it does not occupy for us. After studying the Hebrew Bible for many years, I realized that people today do not really understand this concept. It has disappeared from Western culture, and we do not absorb it from birth as they did. Only after much study did I begin to understand various laws and events in the Hebrew Bible against the background of realizing that there is something here I do not understand, but that people in the ancient world valued greatly and that does not exist at all אצלנו.

Emmanuel, it seems this drifted a bit into Mishnah interpretation.
The point is that for a Jew, the Torah is the source of the correct morality. “And you shall walk in His ways.”
And in Jewish law it was ruled otherwise because of the force of circumstances.

What do you mean, for a Jew? Is there different objective “correct” morality for a Jew and for a gentile?

Every person has a different morality from that of his fellow. This is expressed in a different conscience that is stirred differently by different things (and the differences result from different genetics, different education, and different circumstances).

What is “correct” is simply the one people follow. Why? Hat.
And it’s not because there is some objective thing here that is correct, but because the Jews believe in Moses our Teacher.
As opposed to this blind approach, there are those who adopt moral theories that fit their own morality and then follow those.

Rabbi Michi, what does it matter whether you accept Ethics of the Fathers or I accept it? It contains the basis of Jewish thought. A God-fearing person can think things that are outside Jewish thought, and likewise a gentile can think things that are within Jewish thought. So why does it matter if I don’t accept part of Ethics of the Fathers?

Another correction: this may be obvious, but I meant that “it is not immoral to behave immorally toward someone who would not behave toward you by the same standard.” That is, morality does not apply with respect to an immoral person. Someone who is immoral is like an animal. And morality does not apply with respect to animals either (also because of the principle of reciprocity. It’s a somewhat circular argument, but the rationale is that animals do what their drives tell them to do. And someone who chooses evil also does what his drives tell him to do. Choosing good means rising above drives; it is acting out of deliberation and not out of impulse. So it makes no sense to blame someone who harms an animal because of his own drives, when animals act that way too. And they are not yet aware of it.)

The discussion, of course, is about someone regarding whom it is clear to you—or there is a presumption—that your person is immoral. If there is doubt, then my tendency is to say that one should be stringent and incline toward kindness.

To the Decisor,

Well, you’re probably new here, but my observation (and that of many others) is that morality is objective, and talking about Jewish morality is like talking about Jewish clothing and Jewish food. That’s culture, not something serious. All this talk of “we are Jews,” etc., is childish talk. No national identity is going to obligate me in anything. That’s just conservative posing, like the Indian mentality. What obligates is only objective things. The Torah obligates us not because we are Jews but because it is true (though only Jews were obligated in it). And morality too obligates because it is true. Therefore it obligates every human being. Cultural relativism regarding morality exists only in the outer shell of the concept. At its core there is agreement about it; otherwise there would be no point in conceptualizing the term at all, and everyone could just call it whatever he wants.

Yishai,
If so, we’ve moved on to semantics. Call it Jewish thought, or call it what is written in any other book—health to you. It is not binding, and it is not accepted by the Jews, nor does it need to be accepted by them. Any Jew or gentile who accepts it, accepts it, and whoever does not, does not.
As for me, I see no point in calling it Jewish thought, since in the overwhelming majority of cases these are universal insights that did not come from the Torah, and most of them also are not related to the Torah. The only thing is that the person who said them was a Torah scholar. This is true of Maimonides’ medical writings as well; there too there are universal principles said by a human being whose mother was Jewish.
If in your eyes that is Jewish thought—health to you. There is no point in arguing about the definition of a term.