Can You Really Be Good Without God? Rabbi Dovid Gottleib

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Can you be good without God? Uh we used to have a cure program in Philadelphia and the fellow who ran it asked me to speak on this subject and I was very concerned about it because in many people's minds the answer is obvious. Of course you can. Aren't there non-religious people who are good? and a little more bitter. Aren't there religious people who aren't good? So, of course, you can be good without God. And sorry, time to go home and eat. Because if I haven't introduced that subject, it can't be quite that simple. So, first of all, when you say good, you could be one of 106 things. uh two important distinctions and important decisions to make is between whether you're talking about good actions or good moral character. Those are two different dimensions and they're independent of one another and I'll show it to you. Peter fell into the raging river and he's going to drown. George jumps in and at risk to his own life with great effort, pulls Peter out of the raging river, rolls him over, takes his wallet out of his back pocket and runs. Because, you see, George just wanted the money. And if he had been able to take the money out of Peter's pocket while he was in the water, he'd have done that and let him drown. George is motivated only by stealing money. It's just that he couldn't get the money out until he pulled Peter out of the water. So, he did something good. He saved Peter's life. That's definitely good action. But his moral character is rotten, vicious. And the other way around, someone has stopped. It's Chicago January 17th and it's and the wind chill is minus 30 degrees and somebody's car is stopped on the highway and George drives up and he and he opens his window says problem. Yeah,

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00Can you be good without God? Uh we used to have a cure program in Philadelphia…
2. 5:13separate. Each thinks the other has died. The parents think the son has died. The son…
3. 11:08for this? Like let's say is let's say that there was no owner to tell him,…
4. 16:28about the status of the person. I'm talking about the status of the action. only the…
5. 22:11all sorts of other people. What about moral responsibilities to the creator? Do I have moral…
6. 28:00property, you think, "Oh my god, it's really private property. I really took somebody's fruit. That's…
7. 33:15you're combining together two subject which I'm working very hard to keep apart is a category…
8. 39:05a an objectively good action without Hashem? It's by accident. Let me give an example. An…
9. 44:32good. Does not make the action good. He doesn't find out >> it was still bad.…
10. 50:13to a certain extent subordinate them to the requirements that morality puts on you. that is…

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