Q&A: Torah and Morality
Torah and Morality
Question
Does your approach regarding Jewish law and morality not conflict with the Torah’s own statement that the nations will see how wise and understanding the Jewish people are, and that their Torah is true and right?
More generally… I don’t know how reasonable it sounds to me that Jewish law would be devoid of logic and basically just a decree, according to your view.
Answer
A very strange question, although it has already come up here in the past. And how do you yourself deal with the Torah’s statement? Suppose the Torah says to separate a priest from his wife if she was raped, or to forbid a mamzer from marrying. Do you say these are moral laws, even though you yourself don’t understand why? Do you think the nations will understand it? If so, then they must have a very deep understanding of the Torah, certainly compared to little me. In short, declarations that the Torah does or does not fit morality are not relevant to the question of whether the nations will have difficulty with it or not. They see what is in the Torah, and in quite a few cases it does not appear to fit morality, and so they have difficulty with it. They will continue to have difficulty even if you were right that deep down there is some exalted moral explanation here that none of us (including you) understands.
Discussion on Answer
The nations aren’t supposed to think anything. That’s simply a mistaken understanding of the verse. But I won’t get into that, because you’re just insisting for no reason. I showed you that the problem exists even according to your view.
See here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94-12/
And also columns 724 and 716.
Yes, but according to my view there is some deeper morality that I’m supposed to search for and understand, until I eventually reach the point where I see that there really is genuine logic when you think it through.
According to your view, Torah is something imposed on me from above, and therefore in your view there is nothing genuinely logical about it. How are the nations supposed to think highly of the Torah, according to the Torah, if the real conception is that there is no genuine logic in it at all?