Q&A: Hello Rabbi
Hello Rabbi
Question
How are you? Recently on Kan 11 there’s a series called We’ll Meet Again, which deals with attempts to restore broken relationships between parents and their children who have become non-religious. One of the women (the Haredi woman who wants to renew the relationship with her son) says that from her point of view, the desire for a renewed meeting with her child stems from a wish to try, ultimately, to bring him back to repentance. In her view, a person who does not observe Torah and commandments, who does things forbidden by the Torah, “is a rotten part” (her wording; maybe later in the series she softens), and she has no interest in having a relationship with him.
For my question: it seems that many people (myself included) would agree that when a person commits a grave moral act—rape, murder, and the like—that is sufficient reason to cut off contact with him. By contrast, when a person sins, that seems not to be a good enough reason to sever ties with him, provided he remains a good person. I tried to clarify whether there is a real reason for the difference in attitude between someone who committed a moral sin and someone who committed a religious sin, and I didn’t really succeed. Does it stem from the fact that the commandments are not important enough to cut off contact with someone who does not keep them? Or is it simply an emotional reaction that causes one to feel revulsion toward a person who behaves immorally? What do you think about this? Happy holiday.
Answer
There are two differences between morality and Jewish law in this matter: 1. Someone who acts against Jewish law does what he believes is right, whereas someone who acts immorally does something that even he believes is not right. This is a very important difference. See my column 372 on this. 2. Someone who violates Jewish law is not a bad person (although halakhically he is defined as wicked), but rather a person who acts incorrectly. Someone who violates morality is a bad person.
But if there is someone who understands that this is how one ought to act and nevertheless violates Jewish law, there is room to distance oneself from him. That does not mean one should sit shiva for him or take drastic steps. It is important to use common sense here.
Discussion on Answer
Following the Rabbi’s answer,
there is a famous statement of Rabbi Kook that there is a wicked person [a secular person who does not observe commandments] and there is a bad person [someone who is morally criminal].
Happy holiday.
Perhaps an indication of these differences, even according to that mother herself (based on what is described in the question), is the fact that this kind of conduct is directed only toward family members—presumably she does not abstain from collegial friendships and the like with secular women or with formerly Haredi women who are now less religious, whereas toward a son, apparently when there is a break, it becomes a total rupture. By contrast, the strict attitude toward a moral offender is actually the opposite—softer the closer the offender is as a family member. This reversal as a function of the family relationship (in religion—the closer the person is, the harsher the attitude; in morality—usually the closer the person is, the more lenient the attitude) may perhaps open the door to further analysis of the motives (such as educational failure, betrayal on his part, and a missed opportunity in his hands, etc.).
And another point: the two differences mentioned in the answer deal with the state, not the process—that is, with the difference (from religious eyes) between the state of a secular person and the state of a morally criminal person. But it seems that the harsh attitude is also tied to the fact that there was a change from religious to secular; whereas if he had been secular from the outset, such as a child of secular parents who became religious, or if the child had somehow been adopted as an infant by a secular family and came to know his biological family at age 20, then the attitude would be less harsh.