At the Kosher Food Club lunch this week the teens mentioned an ethics course offered at school. When I asked what the course was about, they shrugged and said “Debating ideas back and forth.”
I was intrigued to learn more about this course and how the students viewed it and asked if the syllabus included any rules as to what is considered ethical or not. I was surprised to hear that in the context of the course “ethics” meant your own personal beliefs, so I decided to make an impromptu experiment.
“Can you explain why murder is fundamentally wrong?” I asked the group. They all agreed murder was terrible and intolerable, but could not formulate a logical argument why it was fundamentally wrong. Things get more complicated when considering the fact that killing in self-defense seems to be the right thing to do. Where do you draw the line?
In this week’s parshah we learn about “Matan Torah,” the dramatic event when the Jewish people received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. There was a tremendous commotion throughout the world, with an impressive display of thunder and lightning as G-d communicated the Ten Commandments directly the recently freed slaves gathered around the mountain.
It was a truly consequential event but when reading the story something truly perplexing emerges. Most of the commandments deal with elementary issues like honoring parents, being honest and not killing or stealing. Do these simple messages justify such global pomp and ceremony? Don’t we all know this intuitively?
Here’s the thing. If society abstains from killing and stealing just because it feels wrong - without being motivated by fundamental principles - people will find ways to rationalize the worst possible behaviors. Need I say more than “Nazi Germany?”
I recently saw a Facebook post of a letter a German high school principal shares with his teachers every year.
“I am one of the survivors of a concentration camp. My eyes have seen things no man should see. Gas chambers built by well trained engineers, children poisoned by well trained doctors, babies killed with needles by well trained nurses, people shot and burned by high school and university graduates.”
“This is why I’m skeptical of education. My request to you is as follows. Strive to make your students human. Don’t allow your efforts to produce knowledgeable monsters and inventive psychopaths. Literacy and math only matter if they help your children become more human.”
This is why the Revelation at Sinai and the Ten Commandments are such a big deal for all humanity. They yanked ethics out of the “liberal arts” column and placed it squarely in the “exact sciences” column. Ethics are not defined by our feelings or societal norms; they are determined by G-d. The fundamental reason we must never murder is because G-d forbids it; and the same G-d permits killing in cases of genuine self-defense.
Sinai made it possible for world peace to happen. So long as we rely on our own subjective reasoning to shape societal norms there will always be jealousy and war. When we allow the fundamental principles of G-d to guide our way of life, this will set the stage for all humanity to live in total harmony and cooperation.
Yep. Sinai was a big deal.
