Q&A: The Torah Versus Human Morality
The Torah Versus Human Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi. I’m currently listening to the debate you had with Yaron Yadan, and there’s still some unresolved issue for me in your view of morality and the Torah. I’ll lay it out and would be glad for an explanation.
In the episode you basically argue that the Torah is a divine command that obligates you to some degree, and in addition you have a human moral command, and sometimes the two stand in contradiction. I completely understand that, and I also agree with it. But you argue that the Torah does not speak about morality at all—my question is why you do not hold that the Torah itself is the true moral command, but that human beings are incapable of arriving at an understanding of it on their own, since it comes from God, whose understanding we have no access to.
The practical implication of the question is that when there is a clash between your private morality and the command in the Torah, sometimes, according to what you say, you will act in favor of human morality and not the Torah. How can that be? After all, you would agree with me that private, human, rational morality changes from one era to another. Your morality is not the morality of Alexander the Great, nor that of Aristotle—even though both of them arrived at moral insights by reason alone. In other words, human morality is never absolute. Why do you see it as something significant enough that when it clashes with Jewish law / the words of the Torah, you would sometimes prefer it?
Answer
The moral command is not human but divine. Without God there is no validity to moral commands (see Column 456). Of course, the interpretation of morality is human. The same is true with respect to Jewish law. Its source and authority come from the Holy One, blessed be He, but the interpretation is human.
One can of course say whatever one wants. Paper can absorb anything. But to say that slaughtering animals is moral is to empty the word “morality” of content. It is mere empty talk. We understand very well what morality is, and that does not fall under that concept. By the way, there is no such thing as divine morality or Jewish morality or any other morality. There is morality, period. Morality does not change from one era to another. Our conceptions of it are what change (I tend to think we are making progress, much like in our scientific understanding).
Exactly the same is true regarding Jewish law. So I do not understand what this whole discussion changes. Even if the source of morality or of Jewish law is God, the interpretation always belongs to our world, and that changes over time and is not certain and is open to mistakes. In this respect there is no difference at all between Jewish law and morality. On the contrary, I expect far more mistakes in interpreting Jewish law than in interpreting morality, because morality we understand well, whereas Jewish law we do not.
I have dealt in many places, in very great detail, with the question of morality and its relationship to Jewish law. You can search here on the site, both in columns and in lecture series. If it interests you, you are welcome to listen and read.