Chapter 43: Ethics Without God, Judging Without Evidence
On The Good Place, Eleanor and the others have to assess Glenn’s claim that Michael is actually demon Vicky in a Michael suite -- and they have to help keep the neighborhood going in the meantime without Michael and it turns out without Janet, who has been kidnapped by the Bad Place). On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon Spira-Savett mull over ethics without God and critique King Solomon’s approach to judging others when the most important evidence you’d rely on is ambiguous or just isn’t accessible.
Texts
(Go to Jewish Lexicon on this site for more on Jewish terminology, names of texts and other background. The links here in the citations take you to the specific quotes in their full contexts.)
Jerusalem Talmud, Chagigah 1:7
”Adonai said: For their abandoning My Torah….” (Jeremiah 9:12 — Jon made a mistake in the podcast attributing the verse to Amos)
Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said: [God says] I’ll give in on the people abandoning Me, as long as they keep my Torah, for if they abandon Me and keep my Torah, the leavening in it would bring them closer to Me.
Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b
We made glancing reference to this story — the whole of it and the continuation (follow the link) are well worth studying.
And this is the oven of Akhnai…
The Sages taught: On that day, Rabbi Eliezer answered all possible answers in the world, but the Rabbis did not accept from him. Rabbi Eliezer said to them: If the halakha (law) is in accordance with my opinion, this carob tree will prove it. The carob tree was uprooted from its place one hundred cubits, and some say four hundred cubits. The Rabbis said to him: One does not cite proof from a carob tree.
Rabbi Eliezer then said to them: If the halakha is in accordance with my opinion, the stream will prove it. The water in the stream turned backward and began flowing in the opposite direction. They said to him: One does not cite proof from a stream.
Rabbi Eliezer then said to them: If the halakha is in accordance with my opinion, the walls of the study hall will prove it. The walls of the study hall leaned and began to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua scolded the walls and said to them: If Torah scholars are contending with each other in matters of halakha, what is your involvement? The walls did not fall because of the deference due Rabbi Yehoshua, but they did not straighten because of the deference due Rabbi Eliezer, and they still remain leaning.
Rabbi Eliezer then said to them: If the halakha is in accordance with my opinion, Heaven will prove it. A Divine Voice emerged and said: Why are you differing with Rabbi Eliezer, as the halakha is in accordance with his opinion in every place? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: It is written: “It is not in heaven” (Deuteronomy 30:12). ….
Rabbi Natan encountered Elijah the prophet and said to him: What did the Blessed Holy One do at that time? Elijah said to him: The Blessed Holy One, smiled and said: My children have triumphed over Me; My children have triumphed over Me…
I Kings 3:16-28
Later two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The first woman said, “Please, my lord! This woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. On the third day after I was delivered, this woman also gave birth to a child. We were alone; there was no one else with us in the house, just the two of us in the house. During the night this woman’s child died, because she lay on it. She arose in the night and took my son from my side while your maidservant was asleep, and laid him in her bosom; and she laid her dead son in my bosom. When I arose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, it was not the son I had borne.”
The other woman spoke up, “No, the live one is my son, and the dead one is yours!” But the first insisted, “No, the dead boy is yours; mine is the live one!” And they went on arguing before the king.
The king said, “One says, ‘This is my son, the live one, and the dead one is yours’; and the other says, ‘No, the dead boy is yours, mine is the live one.’
So the king gave the order, “Fetch me a sword.” A sword was brought before the king, and the king said, “Cut the live child in two, and give half to one and half to the other.”
But the woman whose son was the live one pleaded with the king, for she was overcome with compassion for her son. “Please, my lord,” she cried, “give her the live child; only don’t kill it!” The other insisted, “It shall be neither yours nor mine; cut it in two!”
Then the king spoke up. “Give the live child to her,” he said, “and do not put it to death; she is its mother.”
When all Israel heard the decision that the king had rendered, they stood in awe of the king; for they saw that he possessed divine wisdom to execute justice.
Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:6
Yehoshua ben Perahiah used to say: Make yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a friend/study-companion, and judge all people with the scale weighted toward favor.
Commentary of Rambam/Rabbi Moses Maimonides to Avot 1:6
…when there is a person about whom you do not if they are righteous or wicked and you see them doing an act or saying something and if you interpret it one way it will be good and if you interpret in another way it will be bad - [in this case,] take it to the good and do not think bad about it.
But if the person is known to be famously righteous and of good deeds; and an action of theirs is seen that all of its aspects indicate that it is a bad deed and a person can only determine it to be good with great stretching and a distant possibility, it is fit that you take it that it is good, since there is some aspect of a possibility that it is good.
….And so [too] when it is an evildoer and their deeds are famous, and afterwords we see that they do a deed, all of the indications about which are that it is good but there is an aspect of a distant possibility that it is bad; it is fit to guard oneself from them and not to believe that it is good, since there is a possibility for the bad. And about this is it stated (Proverbs 26:25), "Though he be fair-spoken do not trust him, etc."
But when the person is not known and the deed is indeterminate towards one of the two extremes; according to the ways of piety, one must judge a person as meritorious….
Learn more about Elliot and Jon on our Hosts page!
