Q&A: The Transmission of Morality to the World by Judaism, and More Questions
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The Transmission of Morality to the World by Judaism, and More Questions
Question
Hello and blessings to our wonderful Rabbi.
I have a few unrelated questions:
- You wrote in the second book of the trilogy that in the past the Torah had an important role in transmitting moral values to the world. The Torah succeeded in this, and today morality belongs to everyone. My question is: is this a consensus view? I have never heard the claim that the world today is moral thanks to Judaism.
- Regarding the argument against a theological interpretation of historical events on pedagogical grounds: you argue that since every stream within Judaism interprets events differently, that is a sign that the Holy One, blessed be He, was not trying to teach us anything; otherwise the message would have been clear and uniform in everyone's view. It seems to me that this argument can also be used against revelation—there are a great many people who do not believe there was a revelation, for all sorts of reasons, some of them very good (for example, that there are parts of the Torah that do not fit simple morality). If the Holy One, blessed be He, had revealed Himself to us, wouldn't He have made sure that everyone knew without doubt that He had revealed Himself? (By the way, it seems to me that this was the situation in the days of the Hebrew Bible—everyone believed in God; even idol worshippers practiced syncretistic worship; the question wasn't whether there had been a revelation.)
- You wrote about studying the Hebrew Bible that you define it as Torah in itself only because it is the word of God, not because one can really learn something from the Hebrew Bible. If you have concluded that revelation, in its non-halakhic part, is not relevant to the reality of our lives, isn't it reasonable to continue that logic regarding the halakhic part that derives from revelation as well? If revelation is not relevant to our times in its non-halakhic parts, why should the Jewish law that derives from it be relevant now?
Sorry for the poor wording, and have a wonderful day.
Answer
- Apparently you weren't listening. Replace "Judaism" with "the Hebrew Bible," and then you'll certainly hear it more. Search online for "the morality of the prophets" and you'll be very pleased.
- Indeed, if that were the only argument, it would carry weight against the existence of revelation. But there are various supporting arguments indicating that there was revelation, so for now it remains an open question. I elaborated on this in my first book (when I discussed the weight of the totality of arguments as opposed to each one on its own).
- See 2.
Discussion on Answer
But there is no reason at all to assume that there has been a change between the past and today in the context of Jewish law. In that respect, there does not seem to be any difference. Especially since regarding Jewish law there is a rule that it does not change, unlike the relevance of the other parts.
1. Thank you very much, I'll look it up.
2. I didn't mean to set the arguments against each other. One could reconcile them and say that there was a revelation, and it was binding in the past, but today it is no longer relevant (in the past everyone knew about it, and the morality of the Hebrew Bible was relevant, so points 2 and 3 were not relevant to that period, respectively). Does anything in the overall set of arguments for revelation require its continued validity, and the need to observe the commandments, even nowadays?