Morals In Religion

Dear Ubiquitin,
I think it is unreasonable to assume that this was an old discussion going back for millennia. The early polemics (Saadya, Eight Chapters) make a forceful conclusion, that seem to indicate that it was not a topic of conversation in those days.

Dear Doing,
Stealing is bad because of what it is. If one could not decipher that on his own, how would the commandment ‘enlighten’ him to realize that it is bad? He would think ‘the Torah forbids all the good stuff’, and would deny the very basis of moral ideas.

Dmb,

Didn’t Hillel tell the future גר, “מה דשנאי לך אל תעשה לחבירך״ and that’s כל התורה כולה

CA:

The dilemma described in the OP doesn’t hit me quite that way. In my mind, the Torah is the absolute truth. There can be no other system.

Imagine we had a world where the Torah did not exist (obviously not reality). It would be incumbent upon us to establish a moral code, since without one, the world would quickly deteriorate into chaos. However, the inherent bias we have to ourselves would guide us and influence us to create a code that was somehow pleasurable to us. The restrictions we know of would never emerge from a code that is based only on our own thinking.

So the basics of morality must emanate from a spiritual source. What follows is that there can be no true conflict between Torah and morality. What I need to take from this is that anything that is moral has its root in Torah somewhere. Hillel derived a general rule from Torah. He proceeded to instruct the individual to pursue the details and related values through Torah study.

Dear The Little,
Your first point is an excellent one. On your second point, we could claim that punishment is a good thing. Or, that there is no such concept as good and bad.

the Mishna In perek keitzad mevorchim (Brochos 5) sstates, one should not say’ al kan tzipor yagiu rachameca’ meaning just as you have rachmanos so have mercy on us, rashi explains ‘hashems mitzvos are not to be taken as having mercy, but as a mitzvas hamelech

There is a difference between chukim and mishpotim. By chazir it says don’t say I don’t like chazir but say I like it but Hashem forbade it. This does not apply by stealing which is self understood that it is wrong as the Ibn Ezra says not to desire what belongs to someone else as a villager does not desire a princess, being out of his reach.

Ubiquitin, Rashi say the opposite. Even if they were not written they would have been commanded. That is to say, people would prohibit them.

Doing, Rav Shimon Shkop addresses this in Shaarei Yosher. How do we allow a possessor to retain a disputed object where there is no proof? It is a safek d’Oraita of robbery and therefor we should be stringent and leave it aside until there is proof. He answers that before an object can be considered stolen the law must say that it does not belong to the possessor. The whole idea of the mitzvot is that there are actions which are inherently bad, in the case of the sheva mitzvot, or bad for us, in the case of the Taryag. Good and bad obviously were created before people as the Tree of Life was created before Adam and Chava.

I think that the first point of morals in any discussion is the difference between morals and ethics.
Morals are society’s definition of right versus wrong (keeping in mind that different societies have different morals)
Ethics are whether or not you choose to FOLLOW the “rules” set by the society you CHOOSE to live in.

Religion, yiddishket, frum, charedi, whatever term you want to use, is a society of it’s own, but each sect has it’s own concept of what is moral. And it’s not our place to judge or determine that one sect’s moral code is wrong just because it’s different than another’s interpretation of Talmud or Gemorrah when it comes to halachah. That being said, it is difficult to have a true conversation on morals (and ethics) in Torah, because if two people are having a halachic discussion and they are from different sects, they will have different interpretations of what is morally right or wrong, and they would both be correct,
It’s like the “Schroedinger’s Cat” (physics example, look it up) of religion.

Just my two cents.

Dmb,

I don’t think that’s what it meant it says middos and it says cleanliness from a cat

The Dubner Magid explains that a person might go to a beis din for two different reasons. Either to make sure that the other did not take something that belongs to me or I did not take something that belongs to him. Moshe Rabbenu said to Yisro, if they have a dispute, he comes to me. Should have said, they come? As he is arguing in the second case behalf his friend, one side is enough to come. The Chasan Sofer explains that their dispute comes to my heart to act on it.

Ubiquitin, Rashi does not say that we would not know that stealing is wrong. Quite the contrary, people would prohibit it. However, according to Rav Shimon Shkop the Torah tells us what is and is not stealing. It also gives custom and dina d’malchuta a say. For example, if Reuven admits that he stole Shimon’s object the bet din will give it to Shimon even if it is not factually correct. Similarly, if the government seizes property it belongs to the government. Thus, we can travel on roads and bridges that were built through eminent domain (Baba Kama 113b).

The Dubner Magid interprets the above Hilel with a mashel. A young man hired his uncle as a financial advisor.
He constantly told him that he is losing money. Eventially he had enough. The young man went to someone else. He was told, separate yourself from your uncle as he is a ganev and pocketing the money. The interpretatiion is, whoever has hatred towards you, don’t make him your friend. This refers to the yetzer hara.
He acts like a friend but realy he is your enemy. When go out to the battle, know that you are fighting your enemy. Recognizing this, you will succeed and Hashem will give him into your hands to defeat him.

“morals are often discussed as the absolute decider between good and bad”

Actually the opposite is true — many insist that Donald Trump, who has no morals at all, is a good person.

Thank you Reb eliezer for bringing the source

Who would’ve guessed Charlie would have brought the president in a non political topic

I’m telling you Trump lives rent free in people with TDS

Before the sin of the Eitz Hadaas there was an innocence like children. We did not need physical action to perform mitzvos as the mind was clean. Someone on the level of navi regains this innocence as King Shaul was shedding his clothing when he prophesized.

Dear Shnitzel,
The line of questioning you mentioned, received attention from Menashe ben Yisrael. Mendelssohn wrote just about as full a thesis as there is on the subject. His ideas are mainstream to the modern day. Rav Hirsch, the Malbim, Rav Yisrael Salanter, and almost every notable jewish thinker of the nineteenth century agreed with the theory. It is still in place in the modern day, in the works of Reb Aryeh Kaplan and Reb Avigdor Miller.

Dear Doing,
Morals that transcend our existence, are intrinsically beyond our ability to determine. Even with Divine Revelation, we cannot say that something beyond our recognition is moral. (Such as how gods treat each other.) Because it is beyond our dimension, we could never grasp the moral of it.

However, things that are within the sphere of our individuality, we can and must define an ethic for it. (For example, what lengths to go to on personal hygiene.) We would not be able to cultivate ourselves without it. As we develop into social circles and civilizations, the need arises for a common moral good. Such as being determined to avoid theft. This will be subjectively good, when it enhances the growth of society. But it is completely and objectively good at doing what it is intended to do; sustain the respect for other people’s property.

On this basis, Kant, Hegel, Locke, and who knows how many others, demonstrated that theft is bad because it leads to the ruin of civilization. Though it could be argued, that in if our view would transcend the small perspective of humanity, we might be convinced that the ruin of civilization is the ultimate good.

How did Avraham Avinu know that hachnosas orchim comes before kabolas hashchina before Kabolas Hatorah?
They say that 613 body parts are against the 613 mitzvos as in the end of Koheles, his legs carried him towards the orchim.

“Many feel he does have morals. ”

No frum Jew would think that someone what a history of cheating on all three of his wives, of repeatedly cheating customers, employees, contractors, suppliers, lenders, and business partners through decades of business misconduct, and of repeatedly lying about just about everything, would have morals. The Torah objects to all of this.