Q&A: Morality According to Rabbi Kook
Morality According to Rabbi Kook
Question
The Rabbi contradicts the approaches among those who interpret Rabbi Kook’s view as identifying religious values with divine morality.
I want to ask: couldn’t one say that this is a conflict within the normative system of morality, so that there is no principled problem, only a question of how to decide in practice? Then it would be similar to Sartre’s dilemma between helping his mother and fighting the Nazis. Both are moral values, and there is a contradiction between them. Similarly, according to Rabbi Kook’s approach, everything is morality, except that in the law of a mamzer there is a contradiction between morality as we understand it and divine morality, but on the principled level they are identical. What is wrong with this approach? I would appreciate your explanation.
Answer
I didn’t understand your point. If the category of divine morality is different from morality as we understand it, then what you call “divine morality” is what I call Jewish law (or “religious values”). You want to change the name? Be my guest.