Thinking.
LearnNoah7Laws
Things that Emanuel Kant Missed
Regarding Justice and Civil Order
Rabbi Dr. Z. Aviner
NoahideSevenCommandments.com
Seeking Justice and Civil Order, comprises the fifth Commandment of Noah.
Unlike the rest of the Commandments, that are prohibitions that tell us what not to do,
the fifth one is positive, telling us what to do; to set up Court of Justice in every district and large town, to appoint qualified judges , and establish a loyal police force.
Hence, seeking Justice and Civil Order is not only a logical obligation, conceived by our mind for the welfare of society,
but is also a religious obligation, dictating to us by the Divine.
The question is – do we really need the Divine, God, to tell us
how to keep the welfare of our society?
The philosopher Emanuel Kaant, in the 18th Century, reached the conclusion that we do not need any input from God, or any external authority, to formulate the best Moral Code and system of Justice. The ability to choose it is completely given in our human hands.
Kaant noticed that our brain is somehow built with the talent to perceive and form a natural code of morality. No different, he said, from our ability to perceive Nature and formulate its natural laws.
Kaant was fascinated by our brain ability to discover and express the laws of nature by precise mathematical theories and equations.
There is an inherent Wisdom in the structure of our brain, Kaant said, allowing us to comprehend Nature in such a precise way. Our brain is somehow pre-set to discover those Natural Laws.
In fact, we project that Wisdom in our brain onto the World
We see the World through that inherent Wisdom is us.
It is therefore possible, that we do not have a clue about the World for real
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In the same way, Kaant continued, our brain is pre-set to sense and formulate moral code and laws. Like perceiving Nature, our brain is pre-set to perceive the laws of the so-called Natural Morality, readily understood by all peoples.
Kaant asked: what constitutes a moral act? And he said:
A moral act is one that most people in society would think it is moral. Since we know what is best for us.
Kaant’s important contribution to philosophy heralded the Scientific Revolution and the era of Enlightenment, prompting the dignity of the individual and his power and freedom to follow his own goals.
His teaching has also prompted the freedom of society to choose and formulate its own moral values and codes, disregarding what the priests and the kings say.
After Kaant, the role of religion in our society has diminished, gradually removed from the public arena.
The question is – How can we, as Noahites, respond to Kaant’s teaching?
We should first agree with Kaant, about the extraordinary capacity of our brain to perceive both – the natural laws, and the moral laws.
Like Kaant, we too wonder how is it that our mind seems preset to comprehend Nature in a precise way expressed by mathematical equations.
And like Kaant, we too wonder how is it that our mind can also conceive and formulate moral laws that are readily understood by all peoples.
But unlike Kaant, we do not see that as a mystery of Nature. Instead, we learn about it directly from the Bible. How?
The Hebrew text of Genesis says that the world was created by the All-Mighty Judge ELoHeeM, who created it with His Wisdom.
For Six Days, or Six stages of CREATION, ELoHeeM functioned as both – a Builder and a Judge. Thus, at the end of each Day, He passed a judgment on that Day to see whether it was good or not. If it was good in His eyes, He allowed it to stay into the next Day. If it was deemed not good, He would eliminate it, like He eliminated the dinosaurs.
His criteria of Judgment was, and still is, Truth and Justice. He pays measure for measure, in exact justice. Precision and truth characterize both His Wisdom as a Builder of Nature, and His Morality code.
Chapter One then says that ELoHeeM created the Adam in His Form and Image, inferring that Adam, like his CREATOR, possesses that Wisdom of the Laws Nature, meaning Science, as well as the Wisdom to execute Truthful judgment and justice.
Thus, Adam mind is blessed with the inherent Wisdom to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, truth from lie.
The connection between those two types of Wisdom is important, implying that God’s Morality is like a physical entity sustaining Nature. Messing up with ELoHeeM morality is not a mere transgression but rather a mistake that would destroy our world, as shown in the story of Noah Flood.
Emanuel Kaan was unaware of the Torah’s message, since His Bible Latin mistranslation says, that God created the Heavens and the Earth , and that God created Adam.
The term God infers a sense of awe and reverence, but it lacks the specific meaning of the Hebrew term ELoHeeM The Judge. Kaant therefore was left to puzzle about the ability of our mind to perceive the Wisdom of nature, as well as the Wisdom of Morality. For Kaant, our mind structure is a mystery that can’t be solved.
Kaant was also unaware of the way the story of Genesis also describes the way that ELoHeeM endowed Adam with the precious gift of such a smart mind.
At Adam creation, ELoHeeM said in the plural: Let Us Make an Adam in Our Form and Our Image. The Midrash, written 15 centuries before Kaant, explains that when creating the Adam,
ELoHeeM consulted many entities mentioned in the Chapter, like the Six Days. To each entity He said, “Let me and you make Adam in our Image and Form.”
This way, He Consulted the Six Days of Creation and made Adam accordingly. Hence, Adam is the summary of everything that was created before him. We can see the evidence for that truth in the way that every human embryo develops in the uterus. It passes all the stages from a single cell to a full-blown human baby.
ELoHeeM then consulted also the Wisdom by which He had created those Six Days and made Adam’s mind accordingly.
No wonder that Adam is blessed with a mind capable of comprehending Nature, as well as comprehending the moral code of ELoHeM by which He created Nature; namely the Absolute Truth and Absolute Justice of ELoHeM. Kaant puzzle about the special structure of our mind is thus solved.
It is therefore not true that there is no such thing as Absolute Truth and Justice, as people claim today. Truth and Justice are divine, related to the CREATOR himself.
Another thing that Kaant was unaware of is what the Oral Torah have said so many centuries ago, that besides Wisdom, ELoHeM consulted the Attribute of Mercy and made Adam accordingly. Justice should be accomplished by emulating the two Attributes – Mercy and Justice.
Moreover, Chapter One goes on to tell us the purpose of making Adam in this fashion.
As we have said, the term ELoHeeM means the All-Mighty Judge, implying that He creates things to stand a trial and a judgment. You can’t see that in the term God.
You can see this not only in the story of the Six Days, as we mentioned above, but also in the way we celebrate the annual anniversary of Adam creation. We celebrate it as a day of judgment, reminding us that Adam was born to stand judgment.
Hence, ELoHeM in His Kindness blessed Adam with a precious mind capable of understanding nature, as well as understanding His moral code of Truth and Justice.
But ELoHeM does not give precious gifts without asking something in return. Operating by Truth means Give and Take. And what He is asking from all the creatures He had created is to stand judgment. is to stand judgment. We may not comprehend the judgment between Him and the rest of the Universe, but when it comes to Adam, our our judgment is moral.
Thus, we can use His gift of science for our benefit, yet we should not be tempted to worship Science.
In the same token, we should follow ELoHeM Morality as shown in Moses’ Torah, and refrain from falling into the trap of following our own Man-made morality. In fact, avoid doing what Kaant preached.
If Adam fails and chose to follow his own morality, the result may turn catastrophic.
For instance, in his trial in Jerusalem, the arch- murderer Adolf Eichman, the Nazi officer who orchestrated the atrocities of Auschwitz, based his defense on the claim that he had acted as a devout disciple of Kaant and followed the accepted morality of the Nazi society.
And here we come to another major achievement of Kaant, proclaimed by all as a revolutionary insight that changed history. This achievement is called Categorical Thinking.
Believe only, he said, and have the courage to stand up and accept only thing you can touch, smell, see and hear. Hence, we should believe in science, rather in mythical stories like the Bible.
We can now ask, is Moses’ revelation true or is it a myth?
Kaant could not tell, but we can.
As we know today, our science validates the truthfulness of the story of Genesis in full. If you compare Genesis to the best account of the history of our planet, such as shown by the famous video of the History Chanell, you can see for yourself how perfectly well the two stories match. You can see by your own eyes how Genesis takes you from the most primordial stage of Earth, to the current stage we live in. You can hold that miraculous chapter in your hand, read it in your eyes, hear the words of Moses in your ears and stand in awe to the extraordinary truthfulness of the Bible. No one in Moses time could write such a credible story, without input of revelation from the outside.
Thus, the very science that Kant was so proud of, is now confirming the validity of Genesis and the entire Torah.
Hence, to emulate ELoHeeM and be holy, we do not need to seclude ourselves in a cave, grow long hairs, go into fasting and prayers.
We need instead, to stand up and fight for the truth and justice.
We need to set up Court of Justice in every district and town, appoint qualified judges who know ELoHeM Moral Code, and implement Noah’s Commandment number Five. This is not a mere obligation, but a necessary step to secure our physical existence on Earth.
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