[Avodah] Right/Wrong

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really
belongs here. Some background....

At some point, one person wrote, in part:
| Right is right and wrong is wrong,...

Speaking about moral correctness.

To which someone else replied:
> Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree
> about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar...

And my reply, from Areivin:
} This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes
} can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different
} strategies to obtaining the same goal.

} Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the
} halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which
} is right.

} Or...

} But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't
} change which is which.

That second person wrote later in the conversation:
> Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact,
> now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi).

My response:
} I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to
} be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning
} Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate
} to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic
} theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic
} faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that
} demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't
} an option, then our choices are different.

} Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same
} direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time
} because the world rotates beneath it.

Them again:
>                                                 Zionism is right (DL)
> and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of
> colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well).

Me:
} But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response,
} and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then
} someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone
} else as black.

} But the grayness is not a matter of opinion.

And also, from the same person, in an email between the two:
> And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ...
> it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant.

My response, continued:
} Is that true?

} As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an
} "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly
} for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something
} else.

} Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once.

} People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those
} who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like.

} It's out there and as objectively real as gravity.

} Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be
} subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some
} more right in others, some simply wrong.

} Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid
} source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah?

Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah:
: There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and
: wrong.  Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one.  Actual reality is
: *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin.

To which I responded:
} Law, not reality.

And Lisa, post #2:
: I disagree.  Torah *is* reality.

Finally, some new material.

R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz
tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso,
but I bought into it) Emes itself.

The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the
medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation
of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says
"emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process
of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there.

But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim",
I spoke of halakhah.

Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei
shamay galya.

Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post:
} And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is
} expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many
} ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading
} and reconteuring figuring out which one is best.

} And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions.

Lisa's 2nd post, cont:
: And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's
: decisions.

New material again:

If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that
it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism.
Halakhah as a man made reality.

Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of
thing.

But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality,
you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral.
Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't
entirely absolute or objective.


The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that
is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in
Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human
minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the
Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence
of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path
(R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level,
the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to
Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim.

So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more
moral people.

Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are great, and our foibles are great,
micha at aishdas.org        and therefore our troubles are great --
http://www.aishdas.org   but our consolations will also be great.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook