[Avodah] Right/Wrong

Kenneth Miller via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 PDT 2015


Continuing the discussion from Areivim...

R' Joseph Kaplan wrote:

> About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right
> to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything
> fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha
> didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong,
> then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and
> wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for
> something to be right in one setting and wrong in another.

I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom
Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an
unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others
(the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom
Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical
sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy).

For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man:
In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if
he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations
where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah.

My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to
think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of
setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The
only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue
that thought, please start a new thread.)

Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and
wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the
opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting
gemara. As translated by
http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html
it reads:

> Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and
> Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is
> better for man not to have been created than to have been
> created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for
> man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the
> opinions and] reached a consensus: ...

I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to
this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah
to even discuss this question at all.

There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it
is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the
possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the
option that He did choose.

This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at
least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right
and what is wrong.

Akiva Miller




More information about the Avodah mailing list