[Avodah] Halachic who is right from "The Lost Scotch"

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, March 25, 2007 4:33 pm, Yaakov Moser wrote:
: Can we assume that usually Halacha, at least in realms of Hoshen
: Mishpat, is close to what we feel is morally correct and it is only this
: case which is out of line, or are there plenty of other examples of such
: a dissonance? ....

I was asked a variant of this theme on scjm, so I started thinking about the
question already.

"Ve'asisa hatov vehayashar" implied that someone has a concept of tov and
yashar that is not spelled our in specific halakhos. Where else are we
supposed to get these notions from? It would seem to argue for an inherent
morality that is usable to define a chiyuv de'Oraisa.

Then there is Hillel's kol haTorah kulah al regel achas, "De'aleikh sani..."
Somehow, assuming infinite knowledge and intellect, all of halakhah can be
derived from this simple rule. Even Amaleiq. I would be forced to argue that
the only way de'aleikh sani, lechaverkha lo sa'avod could apply to Amaleiq is
if letting them live would somehow be more sani WRT someone else.

But still, de'aleikh sani is a pretty instinctive rule. Many other belief
systems came up with variants on the theme. And, regardless of the validity of
my speculation about Amaleiq, it is Hillel haZaqein's statement that says that
this morality underlies the entire Torah. So, the idea that underlies the
Torah is instinctive, it is just the complexity of the world to which we apply
it that hides that fact.

As a mashal: If physicists ever come up with a Grand Unified Theory of
Everything, all of nature will come down to a single formula. However, getting
from that formula about how subatomic things interact to biology and genetics
would still be beyond human ability, and require would take experiment to
figure out.

Thus, Hillel has to tell the prospective geir, "zil gemor".

Nu, when it comes to bein adam laMaqom, who can guess what Chaverkha would want?

But WRT bein adam lachaveiro, you would think that there are many more cases
where we could map from the underlying and intuitive rule to specific dinim.
Minus those BALC which depend on your impact to his spiritual state in some
way neither of you understand. But neziqin, choshein mishpat... I would think
that instinctive assessment of a well-thought-out understanding of the
metzi'us ought to be the same as din in the majority of cases.

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