Thread by @JYuter

1. Time for a Twitter Class / Shiur.

Today's Topic: Kavod Haberiot / Human dignity (an extremely general overview).

2. The impetus for tweeting this thread is that we came across one of the sources in the daily Daf Yomi Talmud study this week, but it's an important subject I've addressed in the past.

3. In 2016 I gave a talk at my old shul called "Humanism and Halakhah: Dimensions of Dignity" which dealt which the broader question of navigating competing ethics. A key text I used was R. Aharon Lichtentein's article Mah Enosh which can be found here:
yutorah.org/_cdn/_shiurim/…

4. I'm not going to do the full shiur, but will instead focus on typologies for how to view the role of Kavod Haberiot / Human Dignity in Jewish law

5. By way of introduction, we find several Rabbinic statements which not only find a concern for human dignity in certain commandments but stress it's importance in the Torah system.

6. For example, if someone is too fainthearted to go to war, no proof is required to justify the fear. According to this midrash, this is due to preserving dignity by not forcing someone to publicly shame himself

7. Here we find R. Yochanan B. Zakkai even finding a concern for the dignity of a thief in explaining why someone who steals a sheep pays less of a penalty than someone who steals an ox

8. But the most precarious expression of the importance of human dignity is what we recently saw in the Daf Yomi, that, "great is human dignity bec it overrides a Biblical precept," which the passage qualifies to refer *only* to Rabbinic laws

9. I stress that last part bec I've seen far too many people cite the above passage partially, omitting the critical qualification to permit even Biblical violations.

More on this point later.

10. The above example of human dignity superseding Rabbinic law involves not taking off one's garment in public. Here's an instance where it overrides rabbinic violation of Shabbat for carrying something to wipe in the outhouse

11. Interestingly, we also find the concept of human dignity applied to the deceased. Here are two examples:

12. I mentioned earlier that the Talmud limits the principle of human dignity to overriding rabbinic laws. I should state there is an opinion in the Yerushalmi which even applies it to Biblical laws, though not as a permanent policy (more of an extenuating circumstance)

13. With all that being said, how can/should we apply this principle to the challenges of today? A huge part of the problem is that the Talmud never actually defines the parameters of "human dignity." Here's R. Aharon Lichtenstein's formulation of the problem.

14. To illustrate this point, I'd like to cite some examples where people have invoked the principle of human dignity to address contemporary issues. This is by no means exhaustive and I cite these w/o any judgments if I think they're correct.

15. First, R. Eliezer Waldenberg permits wearing hearing aids on Shabbat in part due to the concern for human dignity

16. R. Daniel Sperber invokes human dignity regarding women's role in the synagogue

17. And more recently, someone even argued that one shouldn't correct a Torah reader who makes a mistake due to human dignity

18. The lack of any sort of clear halakhic definition for kavod haberiot / human dignity means its applications can be exceptionally varied.

I'd like to suggest four possible typologies for applying the principle of human dignity and their risks.

19. Note these are only *theoretical* approaches and not necessarily reflected in halakhic literature.

20. The first is the most restrictive: that human dignity only overrides Jewish law when we have an explicit rabbinic statement saying it does (i.e. the examples given above). This could fit nicely w/the last line from Berachot 19b, but would drastically limit the appication

21. The next two typologies would be to extend the application to cases that are *similar* to what we find in the Talmud. One approach would be to take *every* example into consideration, another would be *any* could stand on its own for extrapolation

22. Finally, we can leave it completely open-ended. This gives us the greatest flexibility, but it's obvious to see how this could be easily abused.

23. If human dignity is a function of feeling bad, then anyone could disregard any rabbinic law which offends them. Someone could say mourning violates my personal dignity and *poof* no more Tisha B'av.

For more, see:

https://twitter.com/JYuter/status/935537660654964736

24. Thus we get to the Big Question of religious authority: Who has the right to say what?

I believe there's more latitude when it comes to hora'at sha'ah / emergency situations, but for global policy issues this can be exceptionally dangerous
joshyuter.com/2013/01/06/pod…

25. As I said, this is at best a cursory introduction to the complexities of applying kavod haberiot / human dignity to contemporary situations. No psak/ruling is intended.

As always, thank you for reading and have a lovely day.

*application