Q&A: Between Emotion and Intellect
Between Emotion and Intellect
Question
Hello to Rabbi Michael Abraham, may he live long and well.
What do you think lies at the foundation of humanity—emotion or intellect? Most people are driven by their emotions. A person who loves knowledge will argue that knowledge is the main thing; a person who loves compassion will argue that liberalism is the main thing, etc. Have you seen a person who feels deep in his heart that a certain thing is good (such as the prohibition against murder, which exists deep in the feelings of most people), and nevertheless acts the opposite way because someone logically convinced him? In practice it seems that logic adapts itself to people’s emotional principles, which only need intellectual explanation—almost like the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the Oral Torah?
P.S. I’m not talking about external emotions, like a person who loves to eat and therefore eats unhealthy food, but about emotions like the prohibition against murder and the like.
Answer
First, liberalism is not compassion but some kind of worldview. It has not the slightest connection to emotion, nor to feelings toward it.
The prohibition against murder is not a product of emotion but of intuition. The feeling of revulsion toward murder has no moral significance at all. It is probably embedded in us for evolutionary reasons.
Of course, a skeptic could come along and argue that there is no difference, and that in fact everything is emotions and there are no values or moral beliefs. I have nothing to say in response to such a claim (since anything I say will also be suspected of being a product of my own emotion), except that I do not agree.
Excellent question, Yosafon. An answer can be divided into before and after Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Before eating from the Tree of Knowledge, emotion prevailed over intellect. But after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, intellect overcame emotion.
Which is better—emotion or intellect? You need intellect just to answer that, so I assume intellect wins over emotion. Emotion is one of the tools used by the intellect—don’t you think so? “They have eyes but do not see.” The intellect analyzes things that emotion feels. And when it says that God sees into the heart, the intention is that it is impossible to hide our true intention from Him. Intellect is a blessing; it is written, “Good understanding belongs to all who practice them.” Intellect—“and know Me.”