Q&A: The Podcast with Daniel Dushi
The Podcast with Daniel Dushi
Question
Hello Rabbi, I heard you say during the podcast that if you were faced with some extreme radical act, like killing someone when the Torah expects it of you, you might not do it, since even your belief in God is not absolute.
This seems paradoxical in light of your position that commitment to morality is possible only if we assume that God exists and gives it validity.
Answer
Good. A sharp question. I think the relevant doubt is whether God commanded this, not whether He exists. In other words, my doubt regarding Jewish law is greater than my doubt regarding morality. And perhaps beyond that as well: even without God, I would want to behave morally, even if not for the right reason and even though it would have no validity. That’s just what I feel like doing.
Discussion on Answer
I wrote that as a possibility, since in a world devoid of God it would be completely different, and so would I and my feelings, so it’s hard to discuss it from my current point of view. I’m not even sure that a world without God is not an oxymoron.
Beyond that, who talked about emotion or a moral experience? Do you think I have no pleasures? Like simply eating something tasty and the like?
And finally, what exactly is the problem if I have moral feeling and no religious feeling? Each person according to his own psychological makeup. You are of course assuming that religious feeling has value, and that’s why you make a sarcastic comment, but that’s your own assumption. In general, the question is not why there is more room. The question is factual: what is in me and what is not.
According to this, your confidence is greater in morality than in the Torah—so if something Torah-level comes out against morality, you’re not supposed to carry it out.
For example, like the case you bring elsewhere—the divorce of a priest’s wife who was raped. In such a case, you wouldn’t divorce her, or you wouldn’t get divorced, because it’s not moral and Jewish law is shakier…
Yossi, that was exactly the question—that he said in the podcast that there may be an extreme halakhic act that he would not do.
Quite apart from the fact that I did indeed say that, the logic is incorrect. Even if my relation to morality is more serious and more reliable, that certainly does not mean it will override Jewish law. If I become convinced that this is what Jewish law says, then it aspires to a religious value, and it also says that this should be done even at the price of harming a moral value. In such a situation I would observe Jewish law despite the harm to morality, regardless of the relation between my levels of confidence in the two. Therefore, the degree of confidence I have in the two sides does not determine which of them prevails.
Why not? Isn’t that a contradiction?
Would you behave morally even if morality had no validity?
That’s interesting in relation to someone who said about himself that he is cold and acts rationally; that’s the reason the Rabbi has no experiences of faith. But the Rabbi does have experiences of morality?
Of course I don’t mean to needle the Rabbi (though I do enjoy a bit of sarcasm).
In any case, it bothers me a little that it seems there is more room for moral feeling than for religious feeling.