Why questions about ethics matter

Hello, Michael the Moderator speaking. I think we had a pretty solid first week, some quality posts. Here's the summary of the positions taken so far:

YOSEF allows his ethical compass to operate and criticize, and judge halacha. For example, he criticizes the prohibition against homosexuality under its current interpretation as immoral, citing the loneliness it causes and the innocuous of the homosexual act, as far as morality is concerned.

DOV thinks that the Torah, being the word of God, may not be immoral. Therefore, the approach he takes is to understand why a prohibition against homosexuality is not immoral, and he tries to provide arguments for that position.

I wanted to take a moment and talk about why I think that the argument about the relationship between ethics and halacha matters. Because many people that I've talked to about these sorts of issues dismiss them are merely semantic exercises. And in a way this is true: no one, on either side of the debate, thinks that the vast vast majority of what we intuitively claim to be required or forbidden by morality is required or forbidden for a Jew. The only question is whether there is an external moral impetus that creates obligations, or whether those ethical obligations have somehow been imported into halacha (through a prohibition like "kedoshim t'hiu" or a concept such as "lifnim meshurat hadin").

However, there is a big difference between how you look at the world between these two views. The difference is whether you're allowing your ethical compass to guide you in life, or whether you're allowing your ethical will to be under the submission of the law.

Say that I don't know the law at all. I don't know halacha. The question is whether I am operating on my own instincts, or if I'm submitting many of my life decisions to legal deciders, poskim. So the position that there is no ethics outside of halacha fits well with communities that are centered around a rebbe or a rav. And I see this all the time-a lot of things are asked as shailos in more right-wing communities that many on the left would consider matters of ethics.

There is more to say, always. But this is a wonderful debate which is not only a lot of fun, but is of foundational concern for the religious experience of a Jew. So let's enjoy more fun posts from Yosef and Dov next week!