Question

A discussion recently developed on Facebook between your student, Rabbi Dr. Moshe Roth, about a book he published called Truth and Obligation, and Rabbi Haim Navon, who reviewed the book critically.
I haven’t read the book, and I don’t know exactly what it deals with. From Rabbi Navon’s post it appears that one of the topics discussed in the book is the relationship between religion and morality, and whether or not God is subject to moral law. Rabbi Haim presented a position that I was quite surprised to hear from someone considered as conservative as he is: that the Holy One, blessed be He, is so to speak subject to the laws of morality just as He is subject to the laws of physics, logic, and mathematics, and that according to Jewish tradition it is impossible for God to determine that 1 plus 1 equals 4.
Rabbi Roth presented the position from the other side of the divide, according to which all the sources show the opposite.
 
My own view about the relationship between Jewish law and morality is known: both are the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and in a case of conflict one decides based on considerations this way or that way.
 
But what caught my attention here is the definition of the Holy One, blessed be He, as so to speak subject to something — do you think this isn’t just wordplay? True, the tradition also often contains statements that the Holy One, blessed be He, can never violate the covenant with the Jewish people because He is a God of truth, or cancel the laws of the Torah because with the Holy One, blessed be He, there cannot be such a thing as a change of will. But in my humble opinion all of these are borrowed concepts, used metaphorically; they do not claim that there is something that logically or essentially forbids the Holy One, blessed be He, from acting that way, but rather that He informed us in the Torah that His modes of conduct are such-and-such, and therefore there is no reason to assume the possibility that He would violate them.
 
 
Do you think this is just wordplay, or is there something real here?