Q&A: Jewish Law and Morality
Jewish Law and Morality
Question
Regarding the debate with Yaron Yadan.
You said that things which are, in your view, an explicit word of God override moral principles, whereas the words of the Sages do not, because they depend on the Sages’ reasoning.
In the Talmud there are halakhic rulings by the Sages that conflict with morality, as you know, and there is no doubt that they wanted us to act contrary to morality in cases of that sort. So are you basically saying that you do not accept the Talmud’s ruling in those cases, because you would act contrary to the Sages?
If so, doesn’t that mean that your explanations are not really relevant to the foundational principle of rabbinic Judaism, and that you are actually bringing in principles from outside the halakhic system of accepting the Talmud?
And then Yadan is seemingly right. Because as I understand it, the argument revolved around acceptance of religious Judaism as rooted in the Sages.
I hope I managed to explain the question well.
Answer
I didn’t say that. I said that in the face of an explicit divine command—a thing that in practice almost never really exists—morality has no validity. In the face of the words of the Sages, it does have validity, and therefore a conflict arises. How one decides, that depends on the situation and on the values and costs involved.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t say that. I accept the Talmud as a binding halakhic source. The question is what one does with a binding halakhic instruction, especially when it conflicts with a moral principle. Here there is room to interpret differently; there is room to think that morality prevails (and you also find this in the Sages—”a transgression for its own sake”—and also among halakhic decisors—”it doesn’t fit”); and above all, there is room to say that my confidence in this halakha is not complete, and therefore I will not carry out that halakha even though it is a binding halakha. Like conscientious objection to a law, which does not indicate rejection of the authority of the law, but rather viewing the law as something non-exclusive. These things have been explained on the site in the past ad nauseam, and there is no point getting into it again here.
But you present it as though I have two different theoretical sources telling me different things, and I’m supposed to decide between them. But in practice, the Sages already issued practical rulings, and therefore instructed us how to act after weighing the moral value standing on the other side. So that means you do not accept their ruling in certain cases where it seems to you that they contradict morality.
If so, then you do not fully accept the Talmud, because regarding the rule of Jewish law versus morality, you can depart from the line of the Sages.
And why don’t you also consider setting aside the words of the Sages when they rule against explicit divine halakhic commands? It comes out that you set aside the Sages because of morality, then set aside morality because of an explicit divine command, and then again set aside that same explicit divine command because of the words of the Sages.