Q&A: Halakhic Morality
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Halakhic Morality
Question
1) Why don’t you see the commandment of “and you shall walk in His ways” (which deals with behavior and not inner character work, as you wrote) as a halakhic command to behave in a moral way? And again, your distinction between Jewish law (God’s will) and morality (God’s word) would not exist, since morality is part of / one of the halakhic commands, no? (Granted, “and you shall do what is right and good” was not counted among the commandments, but “and you shall walk in His ways” is difficult.)
2) You wrote that Jewish law deals with obligation, permission, and prohibition. But morality deals with that too, right? It is forbidden to murder, one is obligated to help another person, and so on.
Answer
- I didn’t understand the question. The distinction of mine that you are quoting says exactly that: to walk in His ways is a counted commandment (positive commandment no. 8 in Maimonides), but improvement of one’s character traits is not a commandment, rather a meta-halakhic moral matter.
- Correct. Jewish law deals with what is halakhically forbidden and permitted, and morality deals with what is morally forbidden and permitted.
So what does “to walk in His ways” mean? Isn’t that an instruction to behave morally?