[Avodah] Rav Schwab on Chillul Hashem

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 11/11/2015 12:03 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> The Sho'el uMeishiv's position that if secular society saw the moral
>>obligation to protect an author's creation and publisher's investment

Where did the SuM get this idea?  Secular society never saw anything of
the sort.   All it ever saw was the *practical advantage* of protecting
an author's creation.  And it did *not* protect a publisher's investment.


> But I would think the distinction is obvious -- whether they express
> a moral imperative we don't vs whether they call something "moral"
> that "contradicts the Torah."

Any claim that some moral imperative exists that the Torah does not
mention or seem to hold is by definition a contradiction to the Torah.


> Halakhah does a lot to limit the execesses of slavery, it does not
> mandate slavery. (Except when it comes to freeing aku"m, but that has
> its own ulterior value issue.) One cannot really assert that it
> *contradicts* Torah values to ban slavery altogether.

Of course it does.   The Torah expresses no moral problem at all with
slavery, and current Western opinion does.  Thus it claims that the
Torah's system of values is ch"v defective.   It's the same problem
as being vegetarian because one thinks it wrong to kill animals (rather
than because one thinks meat is unhealthy, or because of personal
squeamishness, etc.); it's an open challenge to the Torah, and thus
not allowed.


> Or, for that matter, to ban polygyny. Did Rabbeinu Gershom bow to the
> opinion of "savages" in ending the instituion that created "tzaros"?

No, because his takana had nothing to do with the "morals" of the
undoubted savages among whom he lived (and even in his day nobody
considered them "enlightened").   It also wasn't on any kind of moral
grounds; he never claimed that having one wife was morally better than
having two, just more peaceful.

-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
zev at sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".