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is it better to not do something cause your a good prson, or cause hashem said so. killing for example
Al regel achas, doing it cause Hashem said so will lead to doing it simply cuz “you’re a good person.” Mitoch sheloi lishmah bah lishmah. Doing teshuvah from yirah is good but ahavah is even better! Also, the statement from avos comes to mind: ?? ???? ?????? ??????? ?? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???.
Machlokes Rishonim. In general, we assume that there are some form of “natural laws” that God commanded us to do anyway and that all other Mitzvos that have moral implications though they are not inherently intuitive.
ALWAYS because Hashem Said so. Present day morality, as we all know too well, is a relative concept. Depending on the society in which we live, it may be moral to euthanize babies and or the elderly or terminally ill. Pre-marital relations between the genders are no longer considered immoral by the secular world. Same gendered people are now permitted to go through the farce of a wedding ceremony. What was once considered seriously immoral is now acceptable societal behavior for many people.
ONLY the Torah is truly Moral. ONLY Hashem detemines what is moral and what is not. So we follow the Torah in the true spirit in which it is meant. That reminds us that how we deal with our fellow man in addition to how we observe the mitzvos that relate to Hashem Alone, is of the highest priority. if we do that, we will always be good people.
oomis +1000!
Both!
oomis, i hear but lets ASSUME that hashem said not to kill cause its an immoral thing taking a life, do we not kill now cause its immoral or cause hashem said so? “
Good question, and I hope I can answer it well. Hashem didn’t say it’s immoral to kill, He just said, “Lo tirtzach.” That’s why we don’t. The fact that it IS immoral is probably WHY He gave us this law, but there are people who think it is NOT immoral to kill certain types of (innocent) people. So if it were left up to them to decide whether or not it is ok to do so, they would say SURE. BTW, it’s not really “Thou shalt not kill,” but rather, “Thou shalt not MURDER,” otherwise one would arguably likewise be prohibited from killing in self-defense, or in war, etc.
Think of the issur on eating chazir. The Torah doesn’t tell us WHY Chazir is not kosher, only that it is one of several animals specified by name as being unkosher, having only one of the two mandatory simanim for kashrus. The fact that pork is known nowadays to have been a source of deadly trichinosis or the like, is wholly incidental and irrelevant as to why we don’t eat it. It might even taste great (I would not know), but it is assur, so that’s that. So do we not eat it because of a million and one logical (moral, so to speak) reasons, or do we not eat it because “Hashem said so?”
Read up on the Euthyphro Dilemma, which is basically the same question you’re asking.
Keep in mind that everything Hashem tells us to do, is of the highest morality, and He doesn’t ask anything of us that is not inherently good. If we accept that premise, then there is no question about why we need to do what Hashem commands, because it is the ONLY Objective Morality.
oomis, VERY well-said. There is no such thing as true morality. For us Jews, eating pork and marrying gays is as immoral as murder. Obviously there is a concept of mitzvos kalos and chamuros, but there is no external form of “morality” playing any role.
Lawrence Kellerman uses the human race’s general condemnation of murder as one of his four approaches to proving there is a god, in his book Permission to Believe.
LAB- if its really that black and white as you say, what happens to eilu v’eilu?
I retract my original comment because this is a silly discussion until we define terms. “Moral” can mean many different things.
rationalfrummie – I don’t see how that conflicts with what I said, but if you want a nice explanation on that, see Ohr Gedalyahu on Chanuka (the one about Torah Sheba’al Peh). It’s a long piece, but somewhere in there he talks about this.
OYOYOY, at the end of the day, the reason you should do it is because Hashem gave us defining rules that HE knows will make us better human beings. Because He could not solely rely on our own innate sense of right and wrong (look at a baby’s or young child’s choices), He gave us a Torah to guide our actions, so that we choose to do the right thing. When you don’t know what’s right or wrong (back to euthanizing the elderly, or what the Nazis Y”Sh did to “defectives,”) you can rationalize away almost ANY wrong action and CONVINCE yourself that it is the right and moral thing to do. Ask that nurse known as The Angel of Death, if she did not believe herself to be a tzadeikes for killing all those terminally ill patients.
So the final answer to this question is, we should do it because Hashem commands us to, and He commands us only to do the morally correct thing.
Zahavasdad;:thank God this is only a hypothetical quandary. sennacherib solved that problem for us!
Oomis: How are you defining moral? Because otherwise this is silly. Is it immoral for me to not take a Lulav on Sukkos? Is it immoral for you? What’s the difference? Why? And what does that have to do with morality?
oyyoyyoy,
is it better to not do something cause your a good prson, or cause hashem said so. killing for example
What defines a good person is societally and culturally dependent, as oomis eloquently described. What one society considers morally repugnant behavior another might see as great virtue.
Some behaviors, such as killing and stealing, seem to carry a greater universal morality than others, such as dietary laws. I believe this sense of heightened morality comes from the fact that societies cannot be built or maintained unless these behaviors are curtailed. Therefore, there are some basic moral concepts that all humans, who are social creatures, instinctively adopt. Also, we are wired to feel empathy, so most humans can develop a sense of, “what is hateful to me, do not do to others.”
Torah changes the entire ball game. Instead of morality from within, which can be influenced by environment, culture, and society, Torah gives us morality from Heaven. Some of that morality will line up with our instincts, but some will not. Building a society around this heavenly moral code is what the Jewish people are all about.
rationalfrummie,
LAB- if its really that black and white as you say, what happens to eilu v’eilu?
This is just my opinion. Torah was given to the Jewish people to be followed as an eternal system. A framework is established, but many of the details are left for the Jewish people to delve into, and more than one possibility can arise within the framework. In this way, Torah can be just as relevant to an agrarian, bronze age culture as it is to an urbanized, “internet-of-things” culture. Our mesora provides us with the tools to authentically mine the Torah for wisdom, and protects us from going down paths that may take us outside of the eternal framework.
Moral refers to a sense of right and wrong as perceived by humans, and dictated by human intellect. As such, morals are different in different societies and in different historic periods. The Torah, the word of HKBH, is eternal. It is not bound in any way by place or time, or by the limitations of human judgment. The two cannot be compared.
Is it immoral for me to not take a Lulav on Sukkos?
I would not call that immoral at all. It is sad that someone would deliverately lose out on the opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah, but that is a bechira that affects only yourself, and you are not punished for it, merely lose out on the s’char mitzvah (unless I am grossly mistaken, in which case someone please enlighten me).
Morality, IMO, relates primarily to mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro, not necessarily to mitzvos that are solely bein adam l’Makom (as your Lulav example was). If you choose to not use a lulav on Succos, you are simply not getting the mitzvah of Lulav. It is not immoral I guess, but it certainly is the failure to do a mitzvah, which is not a GOOD thing.
Most immoral acts seem to connect in some way whether directly or remotely by extrapolation, to one of the three yehareig v’al yaavor mitzvos, if we think about it. Even if one rightfully points out that “just” stealing or cheating on taxes is not one of the three cardinal sins, the way I see it the worship of money (both literal and figurative Mammon), is a form of A”Z, which leads to many ethical fiscal aveiros,and can subsequently lead to the other two cardinal sins for real. ALL cheating stems from the feeling that one can and should take whatever he so desires (ultimately that potentially leads to arayos). I don’t think that is such a stretch, if we are intellectually honest about it. Of course, this is all my opinion and no one has to agree with it.
If you want a concise definition of morality from me, you’re outta luck, Sam. I do not get to define morality, only Hashem does. Which is what I have been saying all along…
There are things in the torah that would be seen by many as immoral
Ben Sorer O’Morer or where you have to kill an entire city (I forgot what its exactly called) because of an unsolved murder
ZD, I think you just combined Ir Hanidachas and Eglah Arufah.
We don’t kill an entire city for an unsolved murder, AFAIK.
I think killing someone is not a good example. Even if it didn’t say not to kill, most people would abhor the idea.
Reasons not to kill:
1-A very frightening thing to do. Most healthy people cannot do such a thing.
2-Would land the killer a prison sentence.
3-Very embarrassing.
4-Because Hashem said so.
If a person is not going to kill someone only because Hashem said so, they must be a very sick individual.
ZD, DY is correct. When there is an unsolved death(a body has been found just outside the boundary of the city (?), a calf is taken and axed in the neck, as a sign that something was deficient in the people of the city where a man could leave and end up dead, with no one caring about him as he left. Some words of mussar are said to the people, too. The Ir hanidachas is a city wherein everyone is corrupt beyond salvation. Two different cases.
DY, forgive my ignorance, but I see this expression a lot and don’t know what it stands for. What is “AFAIK?”
You might be correct, the main point is there are cases where we might kill someone who many would think is immoral or innocent people
AFAIK – As Far as I Know
ZD (and everyone else):
Being that we have had this discussion before, I will ask the same question: Would killing the infant Maria Schicklgruber (or even her son, Alois Schicklgruber) be moral or immoral?
(I’ll risk Godwin, as it brings out the point very well).
“is it better to not do something cause your a good prson, or cause hashem said so. killing for example”
I take “not do something cause your a good prson” as the other (human) party’s interests being an END in the decision. The question being when being Mekayem a B”O lachaveiro Mitzvah, should the other person or Hashem be the end of your decision.
After thought, this great question is fundamentally flawed: G-d is not only plain “the Creator,” but the Ultimate Good. Thus, you cannot separate the two sides of the question, and doing the mitzvah for Hashem’s sake, is doing it for morality’s sake and for the Mitzvah’s sake at once.
?? ????”?
Of course it is always a better aspect of Avodas Hashem, to do mitzvos for their own sake, out of your sense of it being the right thing. But ultimately, EVEN if you only do it because Hashem said it’s good, that is still a good thing. It’s a different level of fulfilling the Torah. Is it better to give tzedaka because you recognize that it’s RIGHT and moral to help another Yid? Of course! But even if you DON’T care about its rightness, if you ONLY give it because it’s a mitzvah to do so, you get sachar. The quality of your Tzedaka might not be as pure as the person who recognizes the value of the mitzvah, but it is still worthwhile to be done on its own merits.
To answer OYOYOY’s last post – Of course Mishpat is moral. Hashem only gave us moral mishpatim.
A. I don’t care what others think. The Torah is ABSOLUTE morality.
B. There are i.e., Catholics who believe it is immoral for a person to get divorced and remarried. The Torah permits divorce and remarrioage, follwoing certain guidelines. I go with the Torah, and the Catholics can do what they want.
C. has been answered pretty extensively here, so I think we have exhausted this question. It is ideal to do a mitzvah lishmah, but even if not, eventually most people will come to do them lishma, if at first they do them just because “Hashem said so.”
The Torah is a Chiyuv, not just good advice. The Mitzvos are Gezeiros Melech. Delving into the reasoning helps relate to the Mitzva and therefore to accomplish more with it. But we never know the full reason, which is why we need the 13 methods of deriving Torah. The Pasuk says, ??? ???? ????? ?? ???? ????? ???.
The greatest Chiddush I’ve seen yet is to call Leshem Hashem, Shelo Lishma, and Leshem yourself, Lishma.
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