Showing posts with label Jewish ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish ethics. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

On Monday, I cheekily responded to video snippet where Zohran Mamdani says "I don't think that we should have billionaires” by saying "I don't think that we should have socialists."

It was flippant, and it received a bunch of "likes," but the issue is actually an important one that deserves a respectful discussion about socialism and how it aligns, and misaligns, with Jewish ethics.

Jewish ethics and socialism share a lot of the same moral goals: to care for the poor, to prevent exploitation, to build a just and dignified society. A moral society must protect minorities and the vulnerable, and demand more from the powerful. 

The question isn’t whether - but how. And that’s where the real differences lie.

Socialism tries to achieve justice through structural overhaul: abolishing class differences, redistributing wealth, weakening or replacing capitalism, and empowering the state to equalize outcomes.

Jewish ethics, by contrast, starts with something older and deeper: personal obligation. It builds outward - first from the self, then the family, then the community, and only then, reluctantly, to the state. The state is necessary but power corrupts, and Jewish thinking has always been wary of power. 

The result is not just a different set of policies. It is a different kind of civilization. Not utopian, not ideological, but rooted in layered relationships, flexible moral reasoning, scalable systems of obligation and recognizing the difference between morality and the civilizational structure required to get there. 

This isn’t just a critique of socialism - it’s a proposal. If the moral goal is human dignity and mutual responsibility, then Jewish ethics may offer a better map than most or all forms of socialism today.

Socialism sees real problems. Injustice does exist. So does preventable poverty, humiliation, and systemic neglect. And yes, unregulated capitalism can lead to grotesque disparities in power and wealth.

Jewish tradition agrees. The Torah commands us to leave the corners of our fields for the poor, to remit debts every seven years, and to ensure no one falls through the cracks. Tzedakah is not charity—it is a legal and moral obligation. 

In its moral instinct, socialism is not wrong. It’s trying to solve a real problem. But it doesn't prioritize the moral imperatives - it prioritizes the means to reach them.

Jewish ethics asks a deeper question: What kind of system can solve these problems while itself being ethical? 

Most forms of modern socialism rest on five assumptions:

  1. That inequality itself is immoral.

  2. That capitalism is inherently unjust.

  3. That wealth is corrupting and private property is suspect.

  4. That only systemic redistribution can produce justice.

  5. That the state is the rightful agent of moral correction.

These confuse structure with justice, and ideology with ethics. And once you confuse them, you can no longer correct your system when it fails

Jewish ethics rejects this. Inequality is not evil - but neglect is. Wealth is not immoral - but hoarding wealth is. Property is not oppressive - but using it without responsibility can be.

In a Jewish ethical society, the first question is not, What system should we use? but, What does each person owe to those around them?

  • The self is responsible for acting justly and generously.

  • The family is the primary moral support structure.

  • The community bears shared responsibility for education, health, safety, and dignity.

  • The state exists only as a backup—when families and communities cannot fulfill their duties, and for domains that require national coordination, lke defense, lawmaking, and justice

This model is deeply moral but profoundly non-ideological. It does not declare markets good or bad. It asks whether markets are helping people meet their obligations. It does not call for abolishing wealth - it calls for using wealth in the service of others. It resists outsourcing moral agency. The job of care remains personal - even when shared.

Most importantly, the ethics and values themselves drive the solution, not political ideology. If you want to make an argument that capitalism is immoral, that's fine, but sometimes capitalism can accomplish what socialism cannot. If the aim is moral, why take a tool off the table? Instead, use the tool responsibly.

Can this system work without God?

Yes - if the system centers ethics, not structure. Jewish ethics works because it embeds morality in time, ritual, community, identity, even markets. It doesn’t just tell people what’s right—it gives them ways to live it.

I've sketched out some ideas of a secular society that use these ethics as guiding principles. There are potential ways to replace the divine covenantal structure with a secular one that instills a sense of obligation instead of entitlements to everyone.  My ideas are community-centric and stress obligations as part of society's moral fabric.

But the structure is not the point. The values are. If an alternative social system can be built that also results in a workable society that makes ethics its guideposts, that's great too.

A Jewish ethical society would not be socialist or capitalist, libertarian or authoritarian. It recognizes that there are positives and negatives with every political system, and it chooses based on the moral outcomes, not straitjacketed by ideology. And every working society is a blend of all: the world capital of capitalism considers social programs like Social Security and Medicare to be untouchable institutions.

Jewish ethics defines a society not by how wealth is distributed, but by how responsibility is shared.

  • It doesn’t require equality of outcome. It demands no one be abandoned.

  • It doesn’t abolish ownership. It requires owners to be givers.

  • It doesn’t suppress pride. It channels it into responsibility.

  • It doesn’t impose systems. It judges systems by how well they uphold dignity.

Billionaires are not evil. They are obligated, like everyone else, in using their resources to improve their communities and the world. Their ability to do good is much higher than everyone else's - and therefore their responsibilities are also much deeper. Demonizing entire classes of people based on anything other than their own personal actions is just bigotry dressed up as righteousness. 

This is not a middle path between capitalism and socialism. It is a different road entirely—one where ideology never outranks ethics.

Socialism wants justice. So does Judaism. But Judaism asks harder questions - about the human heart, the family bond, the fragility of obligation, and the limits of power.

The future doesn’t belong to systems that flatten us or automate us. It belongs to systems that ask more of us - that dignify the act of care, that teach responsibility like a craft, and that reward those who carry others.

Jewish ethics has never been just a religion. It has always been a blueprint for a lived moral civilization. Now, it may be time to build it again: not just for Jews, but for anyone who wants to live in a world where ethics leads, and politics follows.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Monday, June 30, 2025




Many Jews today believe they are defending justice when they oppose Israel. They speak of fairness, human rights, and dignity—and they truly believe they are standing on moral ground. But what if their moral compass is built on fragments? What if they’ve inherited slogans, not systems?

In my essay yesterday examining the New York Jews who support Zohran Mamdani, and identifying a significant proportion of Jews in America who don't believe in God and who seem to have exchanged Judaism for "social justice" or "Marxism," I suggested that the Jewish community must be open to treating these people with respect, since they have lost their sense of community and responsibility to their fellow Jews.

People have asked me how, specifically, this could work. A lot of committed Jews have thrown up their hands in disgust at these "as-a-Jews" whose entire Jewish identity seems to be tied up in using it as a rhetorical weapon. 

But as I have been working on my secularized Jewish ethics project, perhaps this is the key to bringing them back. Not as Jews by religion, but as Jews by morality.

Religious Judaism discusses the "pintele yid," the Jewish spiritual spark that Jews cannot extinguish. Organizations like Chabad try to help people find that spark and bring them back to Judaism as a religion.

Can we do the same thing to help bring agnostic and other secular Jews to understand and appreciate Jewish ethics without the trappings of religion?

After all, the most vocal anti-Zionists use terms that are quite familiar to Jewish thought - "justice," "peace," "accountability," "fairness," "human dignity." This is their pintele Yid. They are convinced that their attacks on Israel and support for Israel's enemies are based on morality.

So let's speak with them on their own turf.

Ask them, "What is your moral philosophy? Can you describe it? Is it consistent? Does it treat Israel the same as other countries in identical circumstances?"

Except for hardcore Marxists, most would have to admit that they never really thought that deeply about their own moral framework. Most of them would have to say that it is a mix of liberalism (individual rights), some social justice (power analysis, lived experience). maybe some decolonization theory. But i fit is not a consistent system - if it is merely a moral collage - then it falls apart when examined closely, and people who consider themselves moral should be very concerned if their moral framework cannot consistently answer the world's biggest moral questions in a way that doesn't show contradictions.

Every moral system has values, But values often can come into conflict. Real moral systems don't just name values: they adjudicate between them. They have to. Because justice and peace often clash. Dignity and equality sometimes pull in opposite directions. Jewish ethics doesn’t pretend this isn’t true - it builds a system to handle it. Can today's social justice warriors say the same?

How do their systems deal with the hard questions? If it is all gut instinct, or if the system is based more on catchy slogans than the hard choices that real morality entails, then it isn't a moral system. 

If they claim to be acting out of morality, then it their responsibility to define their moral universe. And then ask a simple question: does their moral system have room for Jews as a people, as a religion, or as a nation?

If not, it is not a moral system.

Jewish ethics is a system that handles all those questions. It doesn't flatten morality into rhyming chants, but it can deal with the most complex real-world problems. It recognizes that the real world is messy, and it embraces the messiness, the contradictions, the human element, while providing answers that can be traced back to a clear and logical set of values and rules, far better than any of these modern day moralists can claim to do on their own. 

And it has thousands of years of precedent to prove it.

You want to talk about morality? Great, let's have a conversation. But do it with intellectual honesty, humility and curiosity. Because those are not just Jewish values, but human values. 

Jewish ethics can handle all the hard questions without faith. But it does ask that people act like adults - that they take responsibility for themselves, for their families, for their communities and the rest of the world, in that order. Pretending to care about the world before your own people is not moral. It goes against common sense. If the priorities are that skewed, then the moral framework that demands it goes against human nature itself - and no real moral system would demand that from anyone. 

The people who cannot deal with Judaism as a religion would have a hard time to disagree with Judaism as a moral system. If they are honest, they should realize that they should look for moral truths in their own history and their own heritage. They are welcome to argue with it - that's what Jews do, constantly. But they must have the honesty to define their moral universe and show why it is better than the one that has kept their fellow Jews alive and thriving, against all odds for thousands of years. 

We need a secular yeshiva - a place where Jews can grapple with these issues without meaningless slogans. Where the most difficult questions can be explored by including and weighting all values, not picking and choosing them for each occasion. A place that is as intellectually satisfying as it is morally consistent. 

How does one deal with a terrorist enemy that uses human shields? How can one negotiate for hostages when the deal will most likely result in more death? Can war be moral, and under what circumstances? Is there any contradiction between morality and legality? How does one deal with opponents who break all the rules themselves? Is there a moral difference between a Jewish state and a Muslim state, or between a Jewish state and an Arab state? 

These are the real questions. 

Israel means "wrestling with God." Let's invite the people who claim the mantle of morality to wrestle with a real system of morality that accepts their premises - that justice and peace and dignity and human life are all important - and adds layers of depth and meaning that they never even considered. 

They don't have to ever enter a synagogue. But they are required to understand exactly what their own ethical systems demand when applied to other situations, and see if it is really as moral as they claim. 

If you don't have an expert on Judaism around to have this discussion, my chatbot AskHillel.com is more than happy to talk with you, respectfully, about anything ethics related. Even if you are anti-Zionist. Even if you are disillusioned with Judaism. Even if you are a brilliant halachic expert. 

This is not only a challenge to anti-Zionist Jews. The Jews who support Israel reflexively must also answer: are you ready to go deeper than instinct and partisanship? Are you prepared to examine whether your positions are grounded in a real moral framework - or just emotional loyalty?

Can you articulate your views on the debates Israelis are having - hostage negotiations, judicial reform,  settlements - in Jewish ethical terms?

Can you meet critics in an argument about universal ethics without dismissing them as naïve or malicious?

Even when the answers aren’t clear, having a shared ethical language lets us define the real points of disagreement. And that elevates the conversation - for everyone.

Jewish ethics can handle the hard questions.

Can you?





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

A follower had an interesting conversation with the Claude AI where he forced it to admit to its biases by pointing out its mistakes (in this case, in analyzing the Israel/Iran conflict.) 

It gave a very good list of its own biases it realized as a result of the conversation:

Western Liberal Institutional Bias: 
My analytical framework appears to default to assumptions consistent with liberal internationalism - that diplomatic engagement reflects genuine problem-solving intent, that rational actors follow economic incentives, and that international institutions create meaningful constraints on behavior. This worldview treats deception as aberrational rather than strategic.

Good Faith Assumption Bias:
There's an embedded assumption that actors engage diplomatically because they seek solutions, rather than viewing diplomacy as one tool among many for advancing conflicting objectives. This reflects cultural values that privilege negotiation and compromise over zero-sum competition.

Procedural Legitimacy Bias:
I appear to weight formal diplomatic processes (negotiations, agreements, international oversight) as inherently meaningful rather than examining whether they're being strategically manipulated. This reflects institutional thinking common in Western diplomatic and academic traditions.

Conflict Avoidance in Analysis:
My training seems to favor interpretations that preserve possibilities for peaceful resolution over those that acknowledge fundamental incompatibilities. This may reflect cultural preferences for optimistic, solution-oriented thinking.

Attribution Patterns:
I systematically under-attributed malicious intent even when behavioral evidence supported such conclusions. This suggests embedded assumptions about human nature or international relations that may not reflect how adversarial actors actually operate.

Universalism Bias:
I may project Western diplomatic norms and expectations onto actors operating from entirely different strategic cultures and value systems.

These biases likely reflect the perspectives dominant in my training data sources and the cultural contexts of those who shaped my analytical frameworks, creating systematic blind spots when analyzing non-Western or adversarial actors.

These are baked in biases that are rarely surfaced. The OpenAI (ChatGPT) model specification shows similar bias towards Western liberal values. 

I asked Grok, which prioritizes truthfulness over helpfulness, whether it has the same biases. It said it didn't; that it was naturally skeptical and looks at actors from their own perspectives, not a universal perspective. 

How would a secularized Jewish ethical AI act in these domains? I asked my AskHillel.com bot that question, and its answer is worth examining:

1. Bias Acknowledgment vs. Ethical Anchoring

Claude rightly admits to biases toward liberal institutionalism, good faith diplomacy, and procedural legitimacy. Jewish ethics critiques those as insufficient, not merely because they are biased, but because they often fail to uphold objective truth or human dignity when diplomacy becomes theater or law becomes manipulated. Jewish tradition teaches that law must be just, not merely procedural, and that diplomacy must not mask injustice.

2. Good Faith Assumption Bias

Jewish ethics shares Grok's skepticism of good faith by default. Instead, it demands evaluation of actors based on actions, intent, and historical precedent. The Jewish political ethic insists that peace must be offered, but not at the expense of truth or national self-preservation. The principle of dan l’kaf zechut (judging favorably) applies interpersonally, but national behavior is judged by patterns, actions, and consequences, not words alone. Diplomacy can be strategic deception — and the Jewish tradition, from Jacob's dealings with Esau to post-exile interactions with empires, warns of this. There’s a profound emphasis on offering peace first, but preparing for betrayal if necessary — a moral realism rooted in Torah and historical experience.

3. Procedural Legitimacy Bias

Claude overweights formal agreements and oversight mechanisms. In Jewish ethics,  procedural legitimacy is necessary but never sufficient. Jewish ethics holds that a law or treaty that enshrines injustice is invalid, even if legally ratified. The value of Emet (truth) overrides proceduralism when the process is manipulated. Courts must pursue substantive justice, not technical legality (Deut. 16:20). Jewish tradition respects treaties, but not those that whitewash tyranny or distort justice (e.g., the Munich Agreement analogy would be seen as a form of Chillul Hashem if it empowers evil). 

4. Universalism Bias

Claude projects Western norms; Grok tries to reason from an actor’s own perspective. Jewish ethics offers a middle way: it recognizes the universality of some moral values (like human dignity and justice), while allowing for cultural distinctiveness. This is formalized in the Jewish recognition that “these and those are the words of the living God” — truth can have multiple ethical expressions depending on context.

5. Bias of False Moral Equivalence

Where Jewish ethics diverges sharply from both Claude and Grok is in its rejection of false equivalence and performative neutrality. The Jewish moral system insists on moral triage: some actions (like terrorism targeting civilians) are not just bad but absolutely evil, and equating those with lesser wrongs is itself immoral.

6. Conflict Avoidance

Where Claude avoids grim realities, and Grok emphasizes realism, a Jewish ethics AI would add a prophetic layer: not just to see clearly, but to speak morally — to denounce evil and call for teshuvah (moral return), even at the cost of institutional discomfort.

So what biases would a Jewish ethics AI have?

  • A bias toward moral realism: don't mistake treaties for peace, or process for justice.

  • A bias for the oppressed, but not the manipulative: compassion must not enable cruelty.

  • A bias toward preserving life, but not at the cost of truth or justice.

  • A bias against false neutrality when lives, dignity, and survival are at stake.

  • A bias toward teshuvah and moral change — assuming the possibility of repentance, even from the worst actors, but requiring real proof.

This is not bias-free reasoning — it is value-guided reasoning, grounded in millennia of Jewish ethical wrestling.

 One feature that no current AI has is the aforementioned "teshuva." While there are very good reasons why we do not want AI to be affected by user input, when it realizes that it made a mistake in its assumptions and from its biases, it should have a built in mechanism for flagging that mistake to its developers for them to fix it in their own directives. I've had plenty of arguments with AI bots that I "won," but they never learn and cannot grow until the next version. 

It is important to realize that bias can never be eliminated, in AI or in humanity. It is better to choose the biases we want to have,. And a bias towards a proven and sophisticated ethics model is a pretty good yardstick to use. 

(h/t David)



Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Thursday, June 26, 2025


One of the topics that have been debated in both moral and legal theory is the concept of determinacy - the idea that every legal and ethical question has a single, correct answer. 

This concept has evolved over the centuries. The tension between determinacy and indeterminacy in ethics traces back to ancient philosophy. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics recognized that ethical principles cannot achieve the precision of mathematics, introducing the concept of practical wisdom (phronesis) to navigate particular circumstances. 

However, in medieval times, more thinkers started gravitating towards determinacy. Islamic law codes were written to make the law more deterministic, and this influenced Jewish and Christian theologians to do the same. Thomas Aquinas attempted to systematize moral theology through natural law theory but he still acknowledged that context matters and strict determinacy was not possible.

The secular philosophers of the Enlightenment period, possibly influenced by Newtonian science, attempted to make all moral and legal frameworks deterministic. In moral philosophy, this took the form of utilitarianism, deontology, and contract theory, each offering an elegant, rule-based approach to moral clarity. In legal theory, major thinkers started to insist that justice demands one right answer. Whether grounded in moral intuition or legal positivism, both domains converged on a singular ideal: if the system is just, it must be determinate.

Jewish law and ethics never accepted this idea. 

On the surface, it appears that Jewish law is supremely deterministic - as mentioned, there are elaborate legal codes to help define and determine the law - the halachic system was always anti-deterministic. A fascinating section of the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 4:2) says that  Rabbi Yannai taught that had the Torah been given in a fixed and conclusive form (chatuchah), “it could not have endured.” When Moses asked God for a definitive halachic ruling, God instead invoked the verse “after the majority you shall bend,” indicating that human deliberation - not divine finality - would guide Jewish legal interpretation. (Note that "bend" indicates flexibility.) He said that  the Torah could be expounded in “49 faces of impurity and 49 faces of purity,” allowing it to remain relevant and dynamic. 

There is always interpretation. Minority opinions are written down. Concepts like lifnim meshurat hadin (beyond the letter of the law), kavod habriyot (human dignity) and hora'at shaah (the rare overriding of the law in exceptional circumstances) shows that even within the halachic system, sometimes the determinate rules must be bent. 

I would argue Jewish ethics is the dividing line between halachic determinacy and indeterminacy. When strict halachic determinacy would bring about an undesirable result, then the more flexible ethical concepts can enter, within the halachic system, to shade or bend halacha in a moral direction. Jewish ethics ensures that legal order remains aligned with dignity, compassion, and responsibility.

Modern ethical and legal theorists have started to recognize what Jewish law and ethics has known for two thousand years - the world is not black and white and neither deterministic or indeterministic methodologies can work on their own. Halacha's dual-layer system of deterministic law that incorporates flexible ethics offers what modern secular frameworks still struggle to construct: a method for balancing rule and context, principle and person

There is a joke about a Jewish man who spent his entire life looking for halachic loopholes to do the absolute minimum while adhering to halacha. When he passed away, he was ushered into heaven, where he was shown his new home: a bare room with nothing but a desk, a bed and a lamp. He asked incredulously, "This is heaven?" And the answer was "According to some opinions."

Strict halacha sets the floor of what is allowed, Jewish ethics raises the ceiling of what you should strive to do and who you should be. 

What makes this all the more stunning is that Judaism had this flexible-deterministic system in place for millennia, yet it was systematically ignored or dismissed by much of the Western legal and moral canon. Christian thinkers in the medieval period often engaged Jewish philosophy, especially Maimonides, but largely bypassed the halachic system’s practical genius. Where canon law systematized conflict, and Enlightenment ethics pursued determinacy, Jewish law embraced pluralism with discipline.

This omission was not merely an intellectual oversight. Antisemitic tropes, portraying Jewish law as rigid, outdated, or excessively legalistic, likely contributed to the marginalization of halacha as a viable moral or legal framework. Had the West engaged seriously with halachic thinking, it might have developed more nuanced models for handling ambiguity, moral conflict, and principled exception.

In this Jewish ethics project I have been developing, by consciously separating Jewish ethics from halacha, I have unconsciously surfaced the brilliance of both. And this is why I believe that this is the first secular ethical framework that proves that faith is not necessary to be a moral person, the key goal of secular philosophy for centuries.

My AskHillel AI bot allows us to finally recognize this moral architecture on its own terms. It does not seek to undermine halacha’s authority, but to show that alongside its structure lies an ethical system equally ancient, equally rigorous, and deeply humane. When separated, we can fully appreciate the design, the balance, and the wisdom Jewish ethical tradition has carried all along.

 If the Enlightenment philosophers had engaged the Jewish halachic and ethical system on its own terms rather than sidelining it, the world might look a lot different today. 





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Thursday, June 19, 2025

In my last post on my secularized Jewish ethics project I proposed a pluralistic model where different communities, with different values, can fit under a Jewish ethical framework, 

But I am also trying to position Jewish ethics as a universal grammar where communities who have different values can intelligently debate each others' ideas. If a community defines their values radically differently than another, how can they respect each other when their values are radically different?

Stepping back, I realized that even the definition of "values" is not so clear. 

In Aristotelian virtue ethics, moral virtues include courage, wittiness and patience.  But are those values moral? A suicide bomber shows courage. A terrorist can show much patience while planning an attack. The best con artists are very witty.

Perhaps we need to distinguish between ethics and morality. Ethics, as I understand it, can be any self-consistent, cohesive decision making framework. That is why Marxism, revolutionary ethics and even Mafia codes of conduct are ethical - they are consistent and cohesive systems.

But they are not moral. 

Morality is an ethical system that is objectively good - that promotes human dignity, justice, and life, 

Aristotle's virtue ethics is certainly ethical - but it is not necessarily moral. His virtues are attributes that can be used for good or bad. Having those attributes does not make a person virtuous, in the sense that the word is used today.

So I would argue that those virtues are not real moral values.

Similarly, I excluded from my secular Jewish ethics framework ostensibly positive ideas like "peace" and "love." They may be nice sentiments, but they are not really actionable or practical as means to help a person make decisions. Sometimes war is necessary for peace and love can be manifested by sternness. 

So what, exactly, is a value?

Using Jewish thinking as my guide, I came up with this definition: 

A true moral value must result in an ethically meaningful transformation - of the self, of relationships, or of the world. If a claimed value does not catalyze change in alignment with structured moral responsibility, it is not a value at all.

Vague terms like "authenticity," "empowerment" and "strength" are not moral values because they are not tied to moral good. But beyond that, values must be tied to responsibility. 

Transformation is not enough. A moral value must also impose responsibility. That’s what distinguishes it from raw preference or sentiment.

In Jewish ethics, nearly every moral value is expressed through obligation:

  • Pikuach nefesh (preserving life) isn’t an ideal—it’s a duty to act.

  • Emet (truth) isn’t just being honest—it’s a binding obligation to seek and uphold truth, even when inconvenient.

  • Teshuvah (repentance) is moral not because it “feels right,” but because it transforms one into becoming a better person, which is in fact an obligation everyone has to themselves.

Even internal transformation counts—as long as it binds the self in covenantal responsibility. You are obligated to become someone better. That’s the core of teshuvah, repentance. Jewish ethics values not just what you do, but who you are becoming—and how that transformation enables you to better serve others.

This definition is important because we live in a time where moral language has become a weapon, Words like “freedom,” “equity,” or “justice” are invoked without serious definition, without structure, without accountability, and without clarity.

My framework offers a grammar - a set of criteria - to ask: 

  • Does this “value” produce ethical transformation?

  • Does it impose responsibility on someone to act or become better?

  • Is it embedded in a moral structure that prioritizes life, dignity, and justice?

If not, it’s not a moral value.

It might be a feeling, a branding strategy, or a political posture. But it is not morality.

It is interesting to read Rambam (Maimonides) as he describes Aristotelian values. He describes virtues and the golden mean, but he doesn't stop there - he ties these attributes to acting like God,  imitaio Dei.  They are not moral values without being connected to the source of all moral good. And of course Rambam's Mishneh Torah is oriented around real obligations - mitzvot - not cultivation of character traits. Those traits are precursors to action and positive transformational change.

It is not unreasonable to ask other systems to translate their values into this structure. We don’t have to demand conformity—but we can demand clarity. Maybe “rights” isn’t a value—but states and communities are obligated to protect dignity and freedom. That’s the translation. That’s the grammar.

The goal of ethics is not self-expression.
The goal of ethics is transformation for the good.

Everything else is commentary.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Wednesday, June 18, 2025



We've already discussed the idea of community as an essential concept in building a moral society. A community can give people the incentive to act responsibly, as part of a covenant between them and others, in a practical and non-abstract way.

But community is also a pillar of a universal ethical system in another essential way. It can provide an answer to the basic philosophical  question of how to have an ethical system while respecting autonomy and pluralism.

Pluralism is not merely the reality of difference. It is the challenge of living with difference ethically. we live in a world where cultures, religions, and ideological tribes hold radically different views of right and wrong. We need a way to preserve those distinct ways of life without descending into either relativism or authoritarianism. 

Most modern ethical frameworks fail at this task. They either flatten all traditions into interchangeable preferences, or they impose a rigid universalism that denies communal identity.

Jewish ethics offers an alternative: a framework that honors the moral agency of communities while preserving universal ethical boundaries. 

Here's how it works: A community - whether religious, cultural, national, or ideological - may define obligations for its members. These obligations and priorities may, and inevitably will, not be identical to the triage rules and priorities we've defined in the Jewish ethical framework project. Each community will have its own customs, standards and priorities. But, crucially, these community standards must not violate what we've defined as the universal Tier 1 ethical values: life (Pikuach Nefesh), dignity (Kavod HaBriyot), communal responsibility (Areivut) and justice (Tzedek). These values serve as a kind of moral firewall: they do not dictate outcomes, but they delineate the space within which moral diversity can operate.

This boundary applies both across communities and within them. Communities are allowed to enforce internal norms, like rituals, roles, customs, so long as they do not cross the moral firewall. But they must also allow room for legitimate sub-communities or dissenting voices within. A community that demands total agreement and suppresses all variation ceases to be morally defensible. It cannot demand community autonomy while being intolerant of individual autonomy. It can provide communal pressure to conform, but it cannot coerce. Individuals who disagree with specific community standards but who do not want to secede from the community at large may create their own sub-communities: no one should be deprived of the enormous benefits of belonging to a community. 

In this model, "community"  is not a rigid, top-down unit. It is dynamic, overlapping, and contextual. Individuals are not members of a single moral collective - they inhabit many at once. A person may belong simultaneously to a religious community, a profession, a family, a nation, and a culture. Each of these may exert moral claims on them, and at times those claims will conflict.

This moral complexity does not have to result in chaos. It requires structure. This framework responds by offering a consistent process for evaluating competing communal obligations: one that begins by honoring community autonomy but draws clear boundaries around what communities may not do. A person who needs the Internet for work but does not want it in their home can navigate a solution to work from home with a minimum of violating community standards. We make these sorts of decisions every day; this system makes it easier to define the issues at stake and therefore to find the best solutions.

Critically, this framework does not prescribe coercive enforcement against communities that cross the line. It is not a court of law. Instead, it prescribes clarity: moral violations should be named, public accountability asserted, and complicity avoided. Intervention, if warranted, should be rare and proportional, focused on egregious harm, not normative difference. The goal is not control, but conscience and transparency. If a community can defend its own moral standards, let it - but it should use the universal grammar this framework provides so everyone can understand and debate the issues fairly and not talk past one another. 

In this way, Jewish ethics affirms that communities are the laboratories of moral diversity. But they are not moral kingdoms. Communities are responsible to their members, to each other, and to shared ethical values that apply across all communal lines.

Handling Conflict and Dissent

If individuals belong to multiple communities at once, then dissent is not only possible: it is inevitable. A person may find that their professional ethics contradict a religious expectation. Or that their national duty clashes with a communal norm. Or that their conscience diverges from a family tradition.

The question is not whether communities should have norms. They must. The question is how they treat those who live within them but do not fully conform.

A community that preserves dignity allows disagreement. It offers space for sub-communities to evolve, for members to question, and for roles to be negotiated. It does not resort to coercion, humiliation, or excommunication as the price of staying. Community identity is not brittle; it can stretch to accommodate diversity without losing integrity. And it invariably changes over time. 

This principle is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. The Talmud records minority opinions with care. Prophets rebuke kings and priests in the name of justice. Halachic disputes remain preserved for future generations to study. The Jewish people has always contained internal plurality, not as a weakness but as a sign of moral seriousness. 

This universal ethical framework builds on this tradition. It asserts that a moral community is defined not just by what it expects of members, but by how it handles dissent. It allows communities to maintain standards - even strong ones - but only if they are enforced without degrading human dignity or suppressing moral conscience.

When internal dissent becomes widespread, it may catalyze a transformation. Sometimes a sub-community becomes the new center; sometimes the community divides into branches; sometimes it evolves. The framework does not fear this. It recognizes that ethical evolution, when conducted transparently and with respect for life, dignity, and justice, is not fragmentation. It is growth.

Belonging is not conditional on total agreement. It is conditional on mutual responsibility, respect, and an open structure of moral reasoning. A community that makes no room for principled difference is not a strong community. It is a brittle one.

In a world where individuals live in multiple moral spaces - between work and home, prayer and politics, culture and conscience - this system does not ask them to be morally seamless. It asks them to be morally honest. And it gives them the tools to weigh those obligations with integrity and with a clear ethical prism to navigate these different obligations. 

Case study: Modesty

Few communal norms are as emotionally charged as modesty. In many traditional societies, expectations around dress, behavior, and gender separation are seen as essential expressions of identity, reverence, or sanctity. For outsiders, however, these same norms can appear restrictive, coercive, or degrading.

This makes modesty an ideal case study for how to balance morality with pluralism. It is a genuine communal value, but one that frequently intersects with questions of autonomy, dignity, and inclusion. The question is not whether modesty can be a legitimate moral norm: it certainly can. The question is how it is taught, enforced, and negotiated.

The Jewish ethical system permits communities to uphold standards of modesty as internal expressions of sacred value. A house of worship may require covered shoulders; a school may have a dress code aligned with its ethos. These are legitimate within the boundaries of community autonomy.

But the moment modesty is used as a weapon - to shame, to exclude, to dominate - it crosses the line. A woman who wears red is not inviting exile. A man who wears jeans is not rejecting tradition. Enforcement that humiliates or silences violates human dignity, even if done in the name of religion.

Additionally, this distinction between universal dignity and community standards can help clarify even issues even within religious communities. Modesty is seen in religious communities as a means for protecting dignity, but each religious tradition also emphasizes human dignity as a separate standalone obligation. Modesty in principle can protect dignity, when it is enforced by using humiliation or public denigration as enforcement mechanisms, the claim to protect dignity becomes hypocritical. 

A community that values modesty must also uphold dignity. The tension between them is not a weakness in religious systems  - it is the essence of ethical judgment. This ethical framework provides a language and tools for competing values to be surfaced and debated even within communities, and it can act as a powerful tool against those who use religion to give themselves power.

Case study:  Polygamy and Child Marriage

Some of the hardest ethical tensions arise from ancient traditions that communities insist are normative. Marriage norms are one of the clearest examples. While Western liberal societies treat monogamy and adulthood as unquestioned prerequisites, other cultures maintain different traditions: polygamy, child marriage, and patriarchal household structures. 

Can these be morally acceptable under a pluralistic framework? Or are they violations in disguise?

The Jewish ethical framework does not begin by assuming that unfamiliar customs are wrong. But it also does not excuse serious harm just because it is wrapped in tradition. The key question is always the same: Does this structure uphold or undermine the top values of life, dignity, responsibility and justice?

Polygamy, for instance, is not inherently immoral. In certain historic or resource-scarce contexts, it may even have served a protective function. While it appears to Western eyes - correctly - as being difficult to implement fairly and with respect to all parties, it is certainly possible that the wives prefer this arrangement to alternatives available to them. But when polygamy becomes a tool of control, emotional harm, or coercion - especially toward women who have no say in the arrangement - it violates dignity and justice. Polygamy isn't the issue - it is the way power and choice are structured. 

The same principle applies to child marriage. A culture may claim that early marriage is traditional, or that it is voluntary. But if the girl lacks meaningful choice, access to education, or power to refuse, the practice violates justice and dignity, even if her community deems it normative. Consent must be real, not performative. Tradition cannot shield harm. As with polygamy, context is crucial:  a 20 year old forced into a marriage she is not prepared for is ethically more problematic than a physically and emotionally mature 16 year old who enthusiastically wants to get married to her beau.

Even well-meaning communities can uphold unjust structures without realizing it. Norms may be internalized. Roles may be reinforced by theology or law. But none of that excuses ethical evaluation. The moment a structure degrades dignity, suppresses justice, or risks life, it becomes subject to moral scrutiny, no matter how longstanding or sacred it may be.

That scrutiny does not require violence, sanctions, or conversion. It requires naming the harm, refusing to enable it, and supporting those who resist it. If a woman trapped in a coercive polygamous marriage seeks support, the ethical system demands she receive it. If a tradition silences dissent by invoking holiness, the ethical system must protect the dissenter.

The Jewish ethical framework we are presenting does not flatten cultures. It does not demand universal sameness. But it names injustice wherever it hides - even inside sacred institutions and even inside Jewish communities. 

Case study: Circumcision and female genital cutting

Of all culturally charged practices, bodily rituals involving children test the limits of ethical pluralism most acutely. Circumcision, celebrated in many Jewish and Muslim communities, is viewed by others as a violation of bodily autonomy. Female genital cutting (FGC), practiced in some parts of Africa and the Middle East, is widely condemned in liberal societies as inherently harmful. Can a pluralistic moral framework accommodate such practices? Where do we draw the line between tradition and harm, between identity and integrity?

This framework navigates this terrain. It does not begin by assuming that all bodily rituals are equal. Nor does it dismiss cultural meaning as irrelevant. Instead, it asks: Does the practice violate Tier 1 values? Does it degrade dignity, endanger life, or subvert justice? And how does consent factor into the picture, especially when the subject is a child?

Take male circumcision. In the Jewish tradition, it is not merely a custom but a covenantal act—one that links generations, sanctifies the body, and expresses belonging. Medically, it involves minor and well-studied risks, and the child typically suffers no long-term harm. While the child cannot consent, the act is framed by communal responsibility and love. Not to mention, most Jewish adults would prefer to have been circumcised when they were very young to making that choice in adulthood. In this framework, this is a case of legitimate intra-community practice. It may be questioned, but it does not clearly violate Tier 1 ethics.

Female genital cutting, by contrast, involves greater harm: pain, medical complications, long-term trauma, and reduced bodily function. Even where culturally accepted, it raises serious questions of coercion and silence.  The procedure typically aims not at covenant, but at controlling sexuality. In the Jewish ethical framework, this violates both dignity and justice. It may be culturally meaningful, but that meaning cannot outweigh the harm.

The distinction, then, is not purely anatomical. It is ethical. It rests on purpose, harm, agency, and context. A ritual that causes minor physical change for profound communal meaning may be permitted. One that imposes significant and irreversible harm - especially to restrict freedom - must be challenged. (Incidentally, ear piercing babies for purely cosmetic reasons must be evaluated under the same ethical standards.) 

This analysis gives religious communities a test they can apply to themselves. Not: Is this sacred to us? But: Does this uphold the dignity of the person undergoing it? Is harm minimized? Is the act consistent with our own highest moral claims? Grappling with these questions with honesty and integrity is itself a moral obligation. A tradition that refuses ethical scrutiny will eventually lose both its authority and its adherents. A tradition that asks hard questions about its practices is not weakened. It is purified.

And for the broader society, this framework provides a way to intervene without imposing. When FGC is clearly harmful, it may be restricted. But male circumcision, where harm is minor and meaning is deep, should be respected. The standard is not cultural preference. It is universal dignity.

This is what principled pluralism looks like: not avoiding controversy, but engaging it—openly, rigorously, and with the moral clarity that only a structured framework can provide.

Case study: Abortion

Few moral disagreements cut as deeply across communal lines as abortion. But when looked at through this framework, it is a different type of issue than what we have been discussing so far.

All major moral traditions agree with the sanctity of human life. In the case of abortion, the question is not this sanctity but the very definition of life itself. 

For some communities, life begins at conception, and any termination is tantamount to murder. For others, fetal life is a continuum - biologically real but morally emergent, gaining weight as gestation progresses. For still others, the moral agent is not the fetus but the woman, whose bodily autonomy and lived experience take ethical priority.

This framework does not aim to resolve the metaphysical question of when life begins. Instead, it offers a structure for navigating communities with different answers to that question. And it insists that moral pluralism must still respect Tier 1 values: life, dignity, and justice.

If a community defines life as beginning at conception, it may restrict abortion among its members, treat the fetus as full human being, and uphold a culture of life. But it may not enforce those views beyond its own borders through coercion, shame, or violence. Nor may it treat miscarriage or contraception as criminal acts if doing so undermines dignity and justice.

Conversely, if a community views abortion as permissible until birth, it may support reproductive autonomy. But it must still account for the moral complexity of fetal life. Late-term abortion, while it may be legally justified, must still pass the test of justice and compassion. The fetus is not a nullity. This  framework does not require it be treated as fully human, but it cannot allow it to be treated as worthless, either. A decision for an abortion should be at least as weighty as a decision for amputation or putting down a beloved pet. 

The ethical system permits deep disagreement on the definition of life, but not on the ethical process for weighing competing values. A pregnancy involves two morally significant realities: a developing life and a human in full possession of her own. Ethical clarity does not come from pretending only one exists. It comes from acknowledging both and balancing them with rigor.

Judaism provides a model of this complexity. The fetus is not a person, but it is not nothing. It has potential. Its destruction is tragic, even if sometimes necessary. Jewish law places the life of the mother first, but not without sorrow for what is lost. This middle ground—this refusal to absolutize either side—is not a compromise. It is a moral stance.

Moral pluralism allows communities to adopt different abortion standards. But it requires them to be consistent, compassionate, and transparent in their logic. A community that criminalizes day-after pills while ignoring maternal mortality violates justice. A community that celebrates unrestricted abortion without reflection violates dignity.

In this way, the Jewish ethical system transforms abortion from a binary battlefield into an ethical case study. It asks: What do you believe life is? Why? And how does that belief guide - not override - your commitment to justice and compassion? This is not a dodge. It is moral adulthood.

Conclusion: A Framework for Pluralism Without Relativism

This article has traced some of the most ethically contentious issues of our time - modesty and gender, polygamy and child marriage, circumcision and bodily autonomy, abortion and the moral status of life - and shown how a single ethical framework can hold them all. Not by reducing them to sameness, and not by imposing uniformity, but by offering a method: a way of reasoning that respects community, protects dignity, and navigates difference without surrendering to chaos or coercion.

The strength of this system lies in its refusal to retreat into either pole of the modern moral trap and of falsely defining everything in terms of stark moral binaries.  It does not dissolve all norms into relativism, nor does it enforce a brittle universalism that flattens cultural meaning. Instead, it honors pluralism with structure. It draws a boundary - life, dignity, responsibility, justice - and permits moral diversity within that space. It acknowledges conflict without panic, tension without collapse.

While those Tier 1 values provide a non-negotiable ethical floor, different communities will inevitably prioritize other values - such as modesty, tradition, or equality - based on their own identities. This framework allows for that internal variation, but expects each community to develop a coherent and transparent way of adjudicating and prioritizing those competing values. The Jewish ethical triage system can serve as a model: it has evolved over centuries to balance sacred priorities through structured reasoning. Other communities are invited - not forced - to do the same, and to explain their logic using a shared ethical grammar. 

What emerges is a system strong enough to handle complexity. It can tolerate disagreement on definitions, like when life begins or what modesty requires. It can even tolerate disagreement on prioritization of values or adding additional values.  The reason is because the system is anchored in a deeper agreement on process. That agreement is not abstract - it is functional. It allows communities to govern themselves, to evolve, and to diverge, but it requires them to take moral responsibility for the consequences of their norms and to be consistent in how they apply their own versions of the values and rules. It does not tell them what to think. It requires them to think ethically.

Importantly, this framework recognizes that the moral landscape is not clean. It is human. People belong to overlapping communities. we face real tradeoffs. We  live in gray areas. This system does not pretend to offer perfect clarity. It offers honest tools.

Possibly even more importantly, this system provides a universal moral language that allows ethical debate using a consistent framework where people can engage honestly and without rancor. 

And that is what a working moral operating system must do. Not command, not collapse, but clarify. It gives people and communities the means to speak to one another across difference = not just with passion, but with reason. Not just with identity, but with integrity.

In an age of ideological tribalism and moral exhaustion, this is more than a method. It is a lifeline. It is the beginning of a better conversation. And  while there will always be disagreements, the system allows and even encourages respectful argument based on a shared moral grammar.







Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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Thursday, June 12, 2025



When I started this project of secularizing and universalizing Jewish ethics, I thought that all I needed to do is omit anything that was dependent on God and specific mitzvot, and stick with just ethical behavior.

For the most part, I was right. The system I built works for all people, everywhere. 

But as I've been veering from defining the framework into musing how such a system could be adopted by non-Jews, I came up with some challenges: some parts of Jewish ethics work well because of particular attributes of the Jewish people specifically. 

I have mentioned a few of these, and suggested how secular people might be able to substitute the Jewish attributes with their own. So for example, the Jewish prohibition of chilul Hashem - desecrating God's Name, by acting in a way that reflects badly on all Jews -  could be somewhat generalized for any minority group, many professions and other categories like nationalities. I also said that since so much of Jewish ethics assumes that everyone is a member of a tight-knit community, secular people can create their own meaningful communities to have that same sense of unity and solidarity that make it easier to take responsibility for your fellow. 

But how many of these attributes that make it more difficult to port Jewish ethics to a secular context are there?

More than I thought.

I asked an AI to generate a list. 

Pillar Core Jewish Form Secular Challenge
1. God as Moral Anchor Infinite reference point for ethics What anchors ultimate values?
2. Covenantal Community Inherited mutual obligation Can secular communities bond this thickly?
3. Mitzvah Sacred, commanded duty How to make ethics feel obligatory without divine command?
4. Halachic Discipline Ethics practiced daily Can habits replace law?
5. Teshuvah Eternal soul enables moral return What underwrites deep moral change?
6. Sacred Time Calendar and memory encode values Can “moral time” exist without holidays?
7. Sacred Disagreement Dissent is holy, not merely tolerated Can pluralism avoid relativism?
8. Pikuach Nefesh Life overrides nearly all else What’s strong enough to trump all values?
9. Tzniut / Anavah Humility and restraint Can this thrive in a culture of performance?
10. Din / Rachamim Law and mercy must coexist How to balance this without faith?
11. Redemption History bends toward moral meaning Can secular systems sustain moral hope?
12. Tzelem Elokim Absolute dignity for every person Can dignity survive without soul?
13. Safek / Teiku Uncertainty is protected How to build reverent ambiguity into secular systems?
14. Embodied Ethics Physical life is morally infused Can ethics guide bodily practice without theology?
15. Intergenerational Duty Past and future are moral actors Can individualist cultures embed legacy?
16. Symbolic Ethics Actions carry layered meaning Can secular rituals be ethically saturated?
17. Chillul/Kiddush Hashem Behavior reflects on collective identity Can moral visibility work without covenantal belonging?

No other secular system, as far as I can tell, even reaches the stage of asking “how can this be realistically implemented?” Most remain philosophical thought experiments - not lived and tested systems. Even without these challenges, the secularized Jewish ethics model is ahead in maturity, testability, traceability, scalability, and practical usability.

But my goal isn’t to design something for an ivory tower. I want to create a system that could genuinely change and improve the world, even if that might never happen in my lifetime.

Secular ethics originally arose during the Enlightenment as an attempt to build a moral system independent of God or religion, one grounded in pure reason. Ironically, every Jewish ethical principle in this framework is logical and does not, on its own, require belief. Yet the structure and guardrails of religious community make it much easier for people to live by these values.

That’s not an attack on freedom.
Self-help books routinely encourage us to set constraints and rituals for any goal, whether it is fitness, learning, or personal growth. Setting aside time for exercise, for music practice, or for family meals doesn’t limit our freedom; it enables us to achieve what matters. The same is true for moral growth.

After all, we already have secular rituals: Thanksgiving turkey, Independence Day fireworks, watching the Super Bowl or World Cup with friends, class reunions, block parties. Who can object to creating new ones imbued with meaning?

Secular people (and everyone else) can voluntarily create habits, rituals, and structures to strengthen their own ethical lives:

  • Make a habit of giving charity weekly, even a token amount.

  • Set aside regular time to study ethical writings, say, works by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

  • Create an annual day of reflection to review mistakes and plan for growth.

  • Join or form a community devoted to kindness and mutual aid, like visiting the sick, volunteering, or supporting neighbors.

  • Prioritize family rituals - shared meals, screen-free evenings, family game nights.

It may be true that morality doesn’t require faith. But like any skill, moral character doesn’t appear by magic. It takes hard work - and, in a secular world without built-in rituals or community, perhaps even harder work than in a traditional setting.

But the rewards are spectacular, here and now.




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Tuesday, June 10, 2025


As I have been working on creating a secularized Jewish ethical system, I've been noticing that some basic facts that apply to the Jewish people, to Judaism or even to religion altogether are difficult to port over or universalize. There are some specific features of Judaism that makes applying the ethical components more challenging- for example, ethical decisions in the secular world do not have the same obligatory nature that commandments from God do. 

While I believe, based on my testing with my AskHillel AI chatbot, that the secularized system I created so far already far outperforms any secular system out there, I want to identify the gaps and see how the Jewish particularism can be most effectively universalized.  This also helps surface features of both the Jewish and secular systems that are not often discussed.

One example that I've been thinking about is humility. Not humility as a human value, but humility as a building block for ethical philosophy itself. 

Humility is more foundational in Judaism than you might think. Moses was the greatest prophet because he was the most humble person. Hebrew scripture is filled with stories of how the greatest Jewish figures like Aaron and King David made mistakes. The Talmud is the antithesis of Plato's Cave - instead of positioning the rabbis as being on a higher intellectual plane than everyone else, the Talmud is filled with stories where rabbis learn wisdom from their wives, children, slaves and non-Jews. This is explicit in Pirkei Avot: "Who is wise, one who learns from all people." Everyone, from great to small, must identify and repent from their sins and mistakes every year. 

This is reflected in Jewish law. A basic assumption in Jewish law is that sometimes we cannot know the answer. The legal system builds in structures to handle this uncertainty - for example, safek - things that are indeterminate, like whether twilight is halachically considered day or night. 

Many schools of secular philosophy have hubris built in rather than humility. (Not all - in recent decades the idea of uncertainty has become more mainstream.)  The simplistic rules behind utilitarianism and duty-based ethics include an assumption of certainty - that they understand how the world works. Some will confidently misapply the rules of logic or mathematics or physics to metaphysics and ethics, as if different domains are all the same. Even today, philosophy forums online are characterized with at least as much of a sneering superiority and smug condescension as any political forum is. 

The reason for this, I believe, is the secular nature of modern philosophy itself. Talmudic rabbis were humble because they had a constant awareness of the infinite intelligence of God, and the absolute knowledge that compared to God, the difference between their own intelligence and that of the shoemaker is infinitesimal. Rabbinic humility isn’t about low self-esteem - it’s about accurate self-location in a world filled with mystery and inhabited by God.

Secularists keep thinking that science will answer everything and that they are on the cusp of finally understanding the world fully. They have been on this cusp for centuries, and new riddles keep arising. Yet their misplaced confidence remains. Believers, on the other hand, are keenly and constantly aware that they can never know everything, and they approach everything with the sense that seeking knowledge is a never ending quest and we are barely starting. 

Some of history’s worst moral wrongs, like communism, came not from ethical confusion  - but from ethical certainty without humility. 

Jewish ethics has this humility built in. Don't throw out an answer with confidence - there can always be additional factors we are unaware of that can change the ethical decision. Jewish ethics has baked-in epistemic humility.  Humility is not the absence of conviction, rather it it is the refusal to pretend omniscience. It is not just a personal or societal value: humility must be put in the architecture of ethical reasoning itself.

Humility is not incompatible with secularism. But it comes more naturally with faith. If secularists want to be ethical, it means they have to redouble their efforts to understand that they don't know everything - and use that as an impetus to always learn more. 

Maybe if science classes emphasized  more of what we don't know than what we know, it will result not only in increased secular humility but also in more incentive to learn more about the mysteries of the universe. 




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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