[Avodah] Tzinius and the ILG

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 02:58:50PM -0700, Daniel Israel wrote:
: Or, to put it in l'maaseh terms, I don't have a problem with 
: someone who chooses to buy such merchandise nor with someone who 
: doesn't.  The problem is someone who denies that there are ethical 
: (by which we here must mean halachic) implications to the decision.

There are laws which simply say "be moral" or "be ethical" without
specifying what morality is. "Ve'asisa hatov vehayashar." "Qedoshim
tihyu." Not only does halakhah inform ethics, but these chiyuvim require
using aggadic notions of ethics to define halakhah.


On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 07:29:57PM -0500, dfinch847 at aol.com wrote:
: Here's the problem: Contemporary Torah Judaism can engage in the same 
: Talmudic machlokes that sparked dispute eight centuries ago, and thus 
: help preserve Talmud as a living dialectical instrument of law and 
: reason. Torah Jews can even pine away for the reestablishment of the 
: Temple and its customs of priests and animal sacrifice..

Well, these are chiyuvim. Slavery isn't obligatory; the halachos are all
limitations.

On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 04:40:12PM -0500, Shmuel Weidberg wrote:
: The truth is, it is the same with slavery. Although the gemara
: determines that it is a zechus for a slave to be freed. The gemara
: does not consider it a slam dunk...

Only because he gets encumbered with ol mitzvos after living a life
of greater license. In olam hazeh, it is a "slam dunk"; it's the risks
to olam haba that raises questions.

We really don't see that halakhah endorses slavery. Rather, that
HQBH saw fit to regulate it rather than prohibit it. Certainly the need
for such legislation shows a dissatisfaction with the idea. So, why
isn't there an actual issur?

Of the ways to get cheap labor, halachic slavery is far from the worst
in terms of both quality of life AND human dignity. The ideal would be
to avoid needing any such compramise. But an economy never was local
to a single country. My personal theory is that economically, Israel
couldn't ban slavery unless everyone did.

Much like the eishes yefas to'ar, there are times when human nature
calls for curtailing rather than altogether prohibiting.

This is the same dilemma we face today considering the sweatshop laborer.

Which is why I agree with the sentiment in RnTK's post of
Sun, Feb 18, 2007 at 12:26:32AM -0500:
: AFAIK the Torah does not have different words for "slave" and "servant"  -- 
: the word eved is used for both. I'm not sure the demarcation is
: so clear-cut....


On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 03:29:13PM -0500, Rn Ilana Sober wrote:
: 2) I will not get into a discussion about whether, given all the givens, the
: people who make our clothes are a lot better off than they would be if they
: were unemployed, or worked in coal mines, or were sold into brothels, or
: whatever. Indeed they are - but they are also quite a bit worse off than I
: am, and that should matter to me...

But so should refusing to support the least of evils of their choices.
We need to really sit down and determine how our actions would best
improve the odds of their having a better life. Refusing to participate
in the least of evils may give one the satisfaction of keeping our
hands clean, but might actually make their lives worse. Unless the
alternative is an earlier death of the system as a whole. We really
have to sit down and think these things through. I don't see easy answers.

The same issue with slavery. If one lacks the power to fix the universe
one may be forced to support a lesser evil. If the Chinese economy can't
feed everyone otherwise, and we can not fix that in the short run, is
it better to refuse to funnel money to sweatshopes than make sure they
at least can buy enough food to keep soul in body?

The metzi'us side isn't simple, IMHO.

But I fail to see how doing hatov vehayashar can involve anything less
than my trying to sort it out and worry about this issue when shopping.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha at aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l