Q&A: Jewish Law and Morality
Jewish Law and Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi,
From what I’ve seen in your columns, the Rabbi said that the commandments and moral values represent two different kinds of values, and therefore a contradiction between Jewish law and morality is a contradiction between values. But what about various rules in the Torah that are not commandments—how do they fit with morality?
For example, a father is permitted to sell his daughter as a maidservant (and in general, in the Talmudic passage in Ketubot it seems to me that he has a kind of ownership over her). Here it does not seem that there is any Torah value involved (after all, there is no obligation or even commandment) in selling the daughter; rather, the Torah defines that as the monetary reality, even though it seems immoral to allow a father to sell his daughter.
Answer
The father’s rights are a legal rule like any other legal rule. I do not see why you could not say the same thing there as well. From a religious standpoint he has that right, but morally it is not proper to do so. Beyond that, there is also fairly clear logic there. In that period, daughters could not support themselves, and their fathers supported them, or else their husbands did. When a need arose and she had no means of support, he would sell her. If he were to do so without justification, a religious court would stop it for moral reasons.