Is there a distinction between something that is right and something that is good? Can a right action be bad, or a wrong action be good?
The Gemara (Nazir 23) discusses the concept of aveirah lishmah, of transgressions committed with positive intentions. The Gemara praises those who commit these "good transgressions." If they are real transgressions, without any Halachic justification, they must be wrong. But perhaps it is sometimes good to do the wrong thing.
It is unfortunate that Gemara is full of oxymorons such as "aveirah lishma". The more I hear/read it, the less I tend to relate to it as "oral law" in any meaningful way.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the fact that we are having trouble understanding it have to do with its status as "oral law?"
ReplyDeleteIt has to do with the purpose of law in general - an interesting topic for your consideration...
ReplyDeleteThis discussion suffers from a lack of agreed-upon definitions of the words. I'm going to take a (fairly well-founded) guess that "right and wrong" refer to the standards of Halacha and/or Torah.
ReplyDeleteExactly what do "good and bad" mean? Until we all agree on the answer to that question, any "conversation" will be just noise.
The Gemara seems to be making certain assumptions about these definitions, and my question is exactly this - what are those assumptions?
ReplyDelete