Rabbi, according to David Enoch’s view, how does he explain that there were thinkers who saw an obligation in serving God for His own sake?
Seemingly he would have to say they were mistaken. Or perhaps they were theistically confused.
But if not, then if this appears among one of the objects, that would be evidence for the existence of God.

Another question is that if there are many people, and I think you are among them, who see no point at all in some fact floating in the air telling them not to harm other people, and do not see that as a source of authority—whereas when they hear the name “God,” that serves for them as some sort of better stopping point—doesn’t that make his position difficult?

I saw that you still haven’t answered 🙂 so I thought I’d add a third question:
Epistemically, according to his view, how are we aware of moral ideas, given that for him this is not a causal connection? I couldn’t understand how he explains that.
This touches on the question of epistemic coordination between man and the world, and here we are talking about a higher level, between man and the metaphysical world.

A request in advance of the planned article: please explain very clearly the difference between our master’s view, may he live long, and Enoch’s view. I watched the whole video and couldn’t understand the difference (beyond a difference in terminology).

Adding a few more requests:
A. A clarification question — is grounding the validity of morality in the Holy One, blessed be He, a direct intuition, or is the intuition only that there is a binding morality, while grounding it in the Holy One, blessed be He, is merely a theoretical explanation (in a term I know from you: “inferring the unfamiliar from the familiar”) meant to make sense of the feeling?
B. A question about practical difference — would someone who grounds the validity of morality in the Holy One, blessed be He, feel no dissonance whatsoever if, in his view, the Judge of all the earth commanded him to do something immoral? That is, is a commandment that creates conflict with morality, in terms of human feeling, exactly like a commandment that creates conflict with another commandment (for example, a positive commandment overrides a prohibition)? And from that — can someone who does feel such dissonance, meaning he still feels the moral obligation in full force and his heart aches over it, conclude that apparently he does not really ground the validity of morality in the Holy One, blessed be He?
C. I listened to the interesting discussion, and there you used the example of a consequentialist categorical command (to pay taxes and enlist, not to pollute the environment, etc.). Is that example deliberate (as it seemingly sounds), or could you just as well have used a simpler example such as not hitting someone without sufficiently good reason? [That is — it seems to me that someone who assumes there is an intelligent source for the validity of morality will certainly assume that same intelligent factor would also require the categorical command, because it leads to a morally desirable result, etc. It is hard to think what would cause an intelligent factor that requires the moral law not to require a categorical command. Therefore, someone who does not accept the categorical command presumably does not assume an intelligent factor that gives validity to the moral law. But someone who does accept the categorical command — do you think that especially supports the claim that he assumes an intelligent factor, or is there no distinction between that and an immediate moral law such as not hitting without sufficiently good reason, and someone who manages to accept “do not hit” without a legislator should seemingly also accept a categorical command without a legislator?].

K, I don’t see why Enoch needs to explain other people’s positions. Let them explain themselves.
The same answer to your second question: other people’s positions aren’t supposed to pose a difficulty for his own position. From his standpoint, they are mistaken.

A. Simply speaking, it is a theory that arises after the intuition that there is binding morality. But that is not precise, because this theory itself rests on an intuition that without a legislator there is no validity to a law.
B. I answered that in the discussion. As far as I’m concerned, a transcendent factor is needed in order for there to be binding morality. If God is not moral in your view, the conclusion is that there is no binding morality. But my claim is only the hypothetical if-then claim.
C. In my opinion there is no difference, and every moral value requires a transcendent factor that gives it validity. What I draw from Kant is not the content of the categorical imperative (do what you would want to be a universal law), but only that morality is founded on a categorical imperative (that is, that a moral action is only an action done out of respect for a moral command, whatever it may be). I used the content of the categorical command regarding taxes and voting in elections only in order to challenge him and demonstrate why, in my opinion, the mere existence of an ethical fact is not enough to motivate people to act and/or create obligation.

B. I didn’t understand. I’m asking whether in conflicts internal to Jewish law there is (for you) a different feeling than in conflicts between Jewish law and morality. It seems to me that no one feels any problem with wearing wool-linen mixture in ritual fringes, because if the Holy One, blessed be He, permits it then there is no prohibition of wool-linen mixture at all. And likewise that should be the case with eating prohibited food for the sake of saving a life. But there is a problematic feeling about offering someone up as a burnt offering, even though if the Holy One, blessed be He, permits it then the moral problem also disappears on its own and this is not really a conflict (according to your view).
C. It is clear to me that according to your view every moral validity requires the Holy One, blessed be He. What I still haven’t understood is why you chose the relatively complicated example of taxes and not a regular example like hitting.

B. Why shouldn’t he feel dissonance? He certainly would, and probably God would want him to feel that. The moral obligation is not nullified, only overridden (in the essential sense, not “overridden” in the formal sense familiar in Jewish law, which also does not express dissonance). Even God Himself is, so to speak, in dissonance. But obviously dissonance is not necessarily hesitation about what to do; it can just be an inner psychological tension even if it is clear what must be done.
C. Because in the example of hitting it is easy to understand that people would obey the command even without God. The example of a non-consequential obligation is much sharper in showing that there is no chance they would obey it merely because there is such a fact.

B. But you yourself testified to us that between principled Jewish law and morality a person is in conflict, and it is not obvious how he will decide. That is, even if he is certain that this is the Jewish law. And why would he not apply rules of interpretation such as the Latin term you mention and that I forgot, which rightly says to prefer the more specific rule (that is, Jewish law, such as punishing Sabbath desecrators with witnesses and prior warning), so that morality would not be completely cancelled out?

Could you please explain more what you meant in parentheses, that Jewish law being overridden (a positive commandment overrides a prohibition) is formal, whereas morality being overridden is essential? Suppose there is an unattended corpse and one is obligated to go bury it, and instead the person goes to wave the lulav — does he thereby fulfill the commandment of waving and discharge his obligation, or is it like waving the lulav on Hanukkah?

The simple truth is that it’s all emotion.
Apparently truth doesn’t make a living.

He certainly can apply it. I only pointed out that even where he has no practical hesitation about what to do and Jewish law prevails (for example, in a situation I called an essential-structural collision), there is still room for tension (dissonance). The rule is lex specialis.

You are returning to practical hesitation, and that is exactly why I pointed out that the tension exists even without it. Of course it is not exactly like waving the lulav on Hanukkah (even in a case of complete permission), but let us assume for the sake of the discussion that it is. When there is an unattended corpse, I do not need to feel sorrow that I missed lulav. I did the will of my Creator, and that is the essence of the commandments (they also have some sort of spiritual consequences, but that is His interest and not mine. And perhaps when I am obligated not to fulfill it, the consequences are achieved anyway. See my responsum about citric acid on Passover). But in the moral case, at least when I have harmed someone (with the categorical imperative there are also situations without problematic results except perhaps indirectly), there is definitely room to feel sorrow over what I was forced to do. And even in cases without results there is room for that too (perhaps because of the indirect results, though my feeling is maybe even without that).
By the way, everything I wrote here is one possibility. There are those who would feel sorrow even about the lulav, and I assume that is because of the spiritual consequences. Such an approach certainly should not be ruled out.

Thanks. I think I understood, but I still need to think about it some more.

[Someone who feels sorrow over the lulav should seemingly also spend his whole life sighing sadly that lost objects never happen to come his way to return (that is, that he never happens to find objects that were already lost), and how bitter his fate is that the house he bought already has a mezuzah and he did not merit to affix one. Or is there a distinction between an overridden obligatory commandment and a conditional commandment where the conditions are not in his hands?
(Remembering, I think, that they cite Rabbi Akiva Eiger regarding someone who violated the Sages and blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah that falls on the Sabbath — did he fulfill a Torah commandment? Let us ask the Holy One, blessed be He, what to do, and He would of course say not to blow. That apparently means there is no commandment of blowing at all (as on Hanukkah). If we say that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands to blow, then obviously every person would go and blow, and what have the Sages got to do with it? Someone who thinks that nevertheless there is still something to such blowing (a practical difference: if he transgressed and blew, and that same day the Sanhedrin revoked the decree, would he be obligated to blow again?) perhaps takes a middle path and understands the commands like forces of nature and not like legal instructions — that is, even if the balance of forces points to the right, there is still meaning to the existence of a force to the right. That seems strange to me.) ]

I saw the discussion with Enoch, and I have two comments:

A. As stated, Michi takes it to a place of a “very, very thin God” because there it works out for him, but as was said, that is too easy in this case. Therefore philosophically Enoch’s method is preferable to the method of “a God who does not supervise.”

B. If one follows Michi’s approach of a “very, very thin God,” the question of evil in the world is intensified a billion-fold with respect to that God. By contrast, in the case of “a supervising God” the problem of evil is much smaller (everything is directed).

I am familiar with Michi’s remarks about “natural evil,” and they are really philosophically weak, so there is no point referring me there.

Tirgitz,
Indeed, Rabbi Akiva Eiger in his glosses to Drush VeChiddush, if I remember correctly, in the section on Chagigah (where he disagrees with the Magen Avraham, though in my opinion not on this point).
Indeed there is room to feel sorrow over lost objects that never came into your hand, but there is also room to distinguish. Here it never reached you at all. But “your sorrow and my sorrow,” as the poet said, is not a matter for intellectual clarification. Each person will decide what he feels sorrow about.
I agree with the analysis that sees the basis in a conception of the commandments as a kind of reality and not merely fulfillment of God’s word.

Informatzah, I understand that this is a collection of (baseless) declarations and not a question. I just didn’t understand why you expect any response if there is no question.

Miki, regarding the problem of evil becoming stronger for someone who supports your view, this is what you wrote regarding natural evil:

“If one accepts the assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, thought there should be a nature with rigid laws, then the question arises whether there exists a system of laws of nature that would function exactly like the laws of nature in our world, but without the bad effects (disasters, tsunamis, epidemics, and the like). If there is such a system of laws, then one may ask why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not create a world whose laws are that system. But it may be that no such system exists at all, and therefore He had no option to create a world without disasters and natural evil.”

How can a person who accepts the concept of God (perfect) allow himself to say:
“and therefore He had no option to create a world without natural disasters”???

As a believer, I have no problem at all claiming that God sometimes chooses to let the laws of nature He created do their thing, but that is not because of a limitation on His part, but by choice, and for reasons that man/animal did evil and therefore deserves punishment (everything is measured).

You claim that the perfect God creates laws of nature that do so much evil because He is unable to do more. That is the best He can achieve.

In my humble opinion, you believe in a “limited God,” or in other words, you do not believe in God but in a kind of alien. And excuses (unfounded, of course) such as “this is the best there is and therefore He is not limited” simply are not acceptable to me. With all due respect.

And if we continue and press further, we can say that according to you, in addition to God being limited, it also comes out that He is not good—

He has the power to prevent a tsunami when such a bad thing arises from the rigid laws (you yourself admit He can intervene in nature), but He does not do so.
So not only does He create laws of nature that sometimes produce chaos indicating an imperfect creator (tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and more), but those same laws also do evil to innocent people, and in addition He does not respond to the suffering this causes, even though He has the ability.

So it comes out that you believe in an alien who is not good.
The Lord is perfect and good — that is certainly not it.

I apologize, but to my mind it is very simple — denying providence weakens every positive argument about God.

I can’t manage to connect one sentence here to the next. This has no connection to my position regarding providence or the absence of providence.
You are asking about my actual claim, but your question makes it clear that you did not read it. I’ll summarize briefly, and if your question doesn’t contain anything new I won’t answer further.
A. The impossibility of doing something self-contradictory is not a deficiency in omnipotence. That is precisely my claim.
B. His decision to let the world operate according to laws has its own reason, and that apparently outweighs His desire to intervene in the laws and prevent evil.
That is my claim. What are you asking? What needs to be added beyond what I have already explained several times? Assertiveness is not a substitute for substantive arguments.

A. A claim I do not accept, because we know that there are perfect creators. So why is God not a perfect creator?
B. The problem with that argument is that you strengthen the problem of evil regarding God.
The problem of evil is much smaller for someone who accepts “active providence.”

A. How do you know there are perfect creators (in the sense that their product has no flaws whatsoever)? Could you share that information with me too?
B. Nice declaration. But declarations belong in a newspaper ad, not here. Maybe I should start charging money for ads…