Sunday 6 December 2020

Vayeishev: What is Morality?

From the archives of Nishma's Online Library at http://www.nishma.org/, we have chosen an article that relates to the week's parsha, both to direct you to this dvar Torah but also for the purposes of initiating some discussion.

This week's parsha is Vayeshev and the topic is the nature of morality. Does morality have its own inherent value or is it simply defined by the Will of God. The story of Yehuda and Tamar begs this question for how are we to understand how a tzaddik, such as Yehuda, went to a prostitute. Was he coerced by the Divine? Or was there no problem as prostitution was not forbidden until Sinai? But wasn't it still immoral? But what is morality? 
Nishma Spark of the Week 5754-10, on this topic, is at http://www.nishma.org/articles/insight/spark5754-10.htm

1 comment:

  1. Rabbi Rich Wolpoe17 November 2013 at 20:47

    To an extent, a Torah-Informed Morality, if not explicitly from Hashem may be seen as an Implicit "Word of G-d". This would probably need to follow some kind of convention, but perhaps a Parshan who is thoroughly involved with Torah Texts would intuitively produce Torah Worthy explanations naturally.

    ReplyDelete