Q&A: Gratitude Between Parents and God
Gratitude Between Parents and God
Question
The Rabbi argues that our obligation toward the Holy One, blessed be He, stems from a duty of gratitude for our very existence, somewhat like the gratitude we owe our parents for bringing us into the world.
My problem with that claim is that toward my parents, I do have gratitude, but with limits.
I won’t do everything they tell me to do, and I won’t necessarily live according to their wishes or their worldview.
My gratitude toward them is expressed in respect, appreciation, and help.
But it is in no way total self-nullification, as the Rabbi thinks should be the case with God.
If my parents, God forbid, were to command me to murder someone, I would not do it. By contrast, when God commands Abraham to kill his son, he is obligated to do so.
So what is the difference between the duty of gratitude toward parents, which lies within a certain sphere of appreciation and respect, and the duty of gratitude toward God, which obligates me to subordinate my entire life to Him and to do anything He commands, even if it goes against my whole value system?
Answer
First, there can indeed be differences of degree in gratitude. The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and your parents, and therefore the obligation toward Him (the ontic one, not the moral one) is greater than the obligation toward parents. The moral obligation is greater toward them, but it is indeed limited. An ontic obligation, at the fundamental level, is not limited, because mine and yours are His.
Beyond that, the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, demands something does not mean that I am supposed to comply. If in your view your gratitude does not reach those levels, then don’t obey. That does not mean He will not demand it, but only you make your decisions. I have written and said more than once that in a dilemma where Jewish law requires me to pay an extremely heavy price (to kill someone or be killed), it is possible that I would make a cost-benefit calculation and conclude that I do not obey. My confidence that this is indeed what Jewish law requires, and that I am indeed obligated to it, is not great enough to justify such a price.
Discussion on Answer
Did you read what I wrote? I answered that.
I read it, but I couldn’t understand the distinction, at least not the essential difference. After all, my obligation toward my parents is also for my very existence and for the very fact that they brought me into the world, and not only for the things they did for me. And even if I have gratitude for my very existence, does the value of gratitude override the prohibition against murder? Why should it have unlimited status? And if it is limited, then how can one say that Abraham should have killed Isaac? Is there a limit at which other values override gratitude, even gratitude for existence itself?
In addition, you once wrote:
“The meaning of the concept ‘God’: the factor such that whatever it commands, we are obligated to do (by virtue of the fact that it commanded). In light of this principle I have more than once explained the puzzling words of Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry 3:6 (the concept of ‘acceptance of divinity’). Therefore the concept ‘elohim’ in the Bible also describes judges (see Sanhedrin 3 and elsewhere), since a judge is a person whose commands one is obligated to obey by virtue of his being a judge. That is precisely God.”
And here you wrote:
“The fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, demands something does not mean that I am supposed to comply.”
How does that fit together?
All right, we’re repeating ourselves. I’ll try one more time.
I explained that there is a difference between the Creator of the world and everything in it, and someone who brought me into the world. The obligation toward the Creator is total and absolute, and toward parents it is not. If someone created me and everything around me and keeps us all alive, the straightforward assumption is that He has absolute authority to determine what will happen to me and to the world. Everything I have is by His power and thanks to Him. That is not true regarding parents. Therefore no value overrides ontic gratitude (as distinct from moral gratitude). Also, my obligation to values is itself based on obligation to the Holy One, blessed be He (without Him there is no validity to moral laws. See Column 456).
Let me sharpen one more point. It is impossible to explain and ground values. If you ask me why not murder, I have no answer. That’s just how it is. Someone who does not experience obligation to some value or to values in general simply does not experience it, and that’s that. But someone who does experience it, yet has questions like yours arise in him (“What difference is there between gratitude to parents and gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He?!”), in my opinion this is a sufficient explanation for him.
The binding of Isaac is a result of revelation and a direct command, and therefore there Abraham probably had no doubt that this was what the Holy One, blessed be He, required. So that does not touch on my claim about what one does in a situation where I have doubt. But it does indeed show that the demand itself is absolute.
If the Holy One, blessed be He (= the Creator of the world who was revealed at Sinai) said something, you can think that He is not “God” in the sense that whatever He says is binding. But if you have decided that He is also God, then of course His words are binding.
If I understand correctly, you claim that the obligation toward the Holy One, blessed be He, stems from a duty of gratitude for our creation. But elsewhere you wrote: “Benefiting a person is only benefiting an existing person, and it is measured against his condition without the benefit. Creating someone in a good or bad state—the creation itself is neither a benefit nor a harm. The benefit and harm to him are benefit and harm to him.” If so, I ask: if our creation is not a benefit, why should we owe the Holy One, blessed be He, gratitude for something that is not considered a benefit?
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Doesn’t the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, obligate absolutely?
After all, the price of killing one’s son is perhaps the most horrific of all, and still most thinkers agree (and from what I remember, you too, though maybe I’m mistaken) that Abraham was obligated to do it, and had he refused, he would have acted wrongly.
That implies there is normative criticism of someone who refuses to carry out God’s command even in cases where the price is very heavy.
True, it is obvious that a person has a choice how to act, but if when he does not fulfill God’s command he is acting wrongly, that means the command is still binding.
That is not the case with a parent’s command, which is not binding in every case.
If a parent asks his son to kill another person, and the son refuses, not only is that his choice whether to refuse, as the Rabbi says, but in such a case I would have no moral criticism of him; quite the opposite—he acted properly.
That is not true in a case where the Holy One, blessed be He, commands. True, I can choose to refuse His command, but in any case I am acting wrongly, because His command is binding.
That means there is an essential difference between God and parents: unlike honoring parents, which has its limits, with God every command obligates me, and if I do not do what He says, I am acting wrongly.
So where is the difference that makes all His commands binding based only on the principle of gratitude? After all, we already said that gratitude too has limits (with parents), and we will not always fulfill it. I am not speaking, of course, about whether in practice I will do what God commands, but about the normative, binding claim.
For example, in a case where the commandment of prayer demands too heavy a psychological price from me, and I do not fulfill it, would the Rabbi give me permission?
Where am I mistaken in the analysis (if at all), and what is the difference that makes every one of His commands binding?