Q&A: A question following up on your column “A Look at Revenge”
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
A question following up on your column “A Look at Revenge”
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
A question I’ve been wrestling with for a long time: how do we know what is morally forbidden?
Is it according to our “moral intuition”? After all, one person’s moral intuition is not necessarily similar to another’s, and it is very dependent on emotion and culture.
For example, in the period of the Patriarchs it was considered moral to punish children for their fathers’ sins, whereas today it is not.
Answer
This is far too broad a question, and this isn’t the place for it. I addressed it in my lectures on Jewish law and morality, and you can look there. In short, there are disagreements in many areas, and people still make decisions.