[Avodah] Tzinius and the ILG

[Micha Berger]

Anyone notice how many of our threads lately revolve around the question of
the relationship between halakhah and aggadic moral imperatives? Not that I'm
really sure they are aggadic, I think it's more the vagueness of mitzvos about
being tov, yashar, and qadosh -- TYQ.

We have the discussion about slavery, the question of whether we are
mechuyavim to speak up about the Sudan, or whether such interest may be
assimilationism from liberal Judaisms that distracts us from more central
priorities, the issue of avaq ribis being close enough to ribis to be wrong
but not prohibited...

Something I just noted about TYQ. (Actually, I noticed it a few paragraphs
from here, but I jumped back to type.)

Tov is something that requires a recipient -- R' Saadia Gaon and the Ramchal
use this idea to explain Hashem's motivation for creating.
Yashar is an internal quality.
And qedushah is a dedication to avodas Hashem.

IOW: We have (in a different order) Torah (hayashar), avodah (qedoshim tihyu),
ugemillus chassadim (hatov).

Some TYQ issues become assur derabbanan. In fact, I would think there would
only be three grounds for issurim derabbanan:

1- Gezeiros, covering for violation through habit.
2- Things HQBH didn't need to assur because the metzi'us wasn't there yet.
This would include our examples of the shift to chalitzah or the shift away
from qidushin a"y bi'ah. Peritzus became more rampant, priorities changed
becuase the metzi'us did.
3- Things recognized as TYQ.

The third category is problematic. Why would Hashem allow a TYQ problem bad
enough for Chazal to see the need to assur it? However, the case of avaq ribis
seems to be an existence proof -- the category must exist if we find an
example of it. But in addition to avaq ribis, there are also all the things
prohibited on Shabbos mishum shevus; I can't see why amira laakum was less
Shabbosdik in Chazal's day than in Yehoshua's. (I would have said Moshe's but
I don't know if they had akum around very often.)

It is therefore acceptable, to my mind, to ask whether the eved Kenaani is
also in this category. And I would still argue that eved kenaani is a TYQ
issue, since it's "desani lakh".

My suggestion that when everyone else has slaves the Jewish community can't
feed itself without them was building off the idea that it too is about change
of metzi'us, in a case where the alternative causes worse problems. Which need
not be starvation -- sweatshops are worse in many ways. Or it may be something
I haven't identified, the core of my point is the approach, not the particular
reason.

On Tue, February 27, 2007 7:32 am, Rn Chana Luntz wrote:
> The same thing would seem to be true by slavery.  There was slavery
> before matan torah. The Torah took the concept and modified it and
> required various elements that were not there before (eg obligation in
> mitzvos), but did not ban it entirely.  It has been argued, on this list
> and elsewhere, that this shows that the Torah is morally in favour of
> slavery, and that therefore any notions that we have that slavery is not
> necessarly moral are contrary to the moral compass of the Torah.  If
> this argument were to be true, then the same thing would have to be said
> for kiddushin by way of biah - it didn't ban it when it could have done,
> therefore it must approve of it. Otherwise you are left with the idea
> that there may be concepts that the Torah is morally uncomfortable with,
> but that doesn't mean it always bans it, sometimes it leaves it for
> later generations, when the time is right, to procribe them out of
> existance.

Or avaq ribis. I believe we truly are left with that idea.

I can't explain why. Part of the missing general TYQ theory.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter