[Avodah] Outside societies' standards

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 7:18pm EDT, R Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
: On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:11:51 -0400 "Rich, Joel" <JRich at sibson.com> wrote:
: > Several questions - other than R'OY in his pants tshuva does anyone know
: > of sources in non- monetary cases which specifically mention outer
: > society as measure?  was the prisha saying either/or?  If it's not from
: > the outside, how did malbush yisrtael get defined over the years?

: Rav Breish (Shut Helkas Ya'akov EH 14:1) argues against artificial
: insemination with donor sperm from the fact that the Catholics and the
: Pope find it morally abhorrent.  He cites several precedents for the
: concept of banning that which non-Jews consider immoral, including the
: Magen Avraham (244:8) prohibiting a form of Amirah L'Akum which is
: permitted midina, since the non-Jews do not allow even non-non-Jews to
: work on their holidays, and if we would allow it (mutatis mutandis), a
: Hilul Hashem would ensue.  Rav Moshe Feinstein (published there #17)
: rejects this principle entirely, insisting that we do not care about
: what the non-Jews prohibit for religious reasons...

That's not quite the same as rejecting using their moral standards. Rel
Separating a person's moral stance from their religious one isn't ever
going to be a clean cut. But in many religious minds, it's the gut
defined morality which is then justified using their religious terms.

Yahadus seems to me to embrace the need to follow both natural morality
and religious dictate. The latter, halakhah, has the greater authority
-- where the pesaq is well defined. I could see natural morality being
a factor in creating a pesaq where no one position is compelling for
internal reasons, although RRW will certainly object to that idea.

 From my post of 8 Jun 2001, my notes of a lunch-n-learn type shiur by R'
Zev Reichman <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol07/v07n058.shtml>, here
is one of the shitos I listed about halakhah and copyright law:
> 2- I already cited the most chamur, the Sho'el uMeishiv 1:44, who goes
> beyond ddd. RZR wondered if the SuM would also recognize the French
> philosophy of copyright: that the artist could sell reproduction and
> profit rights, but eternally retains rights to controlling how the idea
> is changed. (So even if you sell a painting, the owner is allowed to copy
> it, but not modify it.) After all, this is also a secularly identified
> moral right. Would it be a halachah only in France?

ddd = dina demalkhusa dina, which came up all over that discussion.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You will never "find" time for anything.
micha at aishdas.org        If you want time, you must make it.
http://www.aishdas.org                     - Charles Buxton
Fax: (270) 514-1507