Presence

Last week, Hirhurim posted about polygamy, whether or not we have the authority to forbid something that the Torah explicitly (or, perhaps, implicitly) permitted. I wrote, in the comments:

A more important question is to look at the values inherent in the halacha and see if R. Gershom is acting in accordance with those values, or not. I would argue that while polygamy was common in the times of Moshe and onward, the value system inherent in the Torah clearly favors a non-polygamistic society. The fact that it took until R. Gershom to say the society had evolved to the point where it was no longer an option to indulge oneself in polygamy is a historical matter, but not contradictoary to any sort of platonic "halacha."

I thought of posting further on this, but didn't have time. Luckily, I didn't waste my time, as ADDeRabbi did so a while back, as he pointed out today. As I was commenting, I was a bit off the cuff (also, I wrote non-ploygamistic...I don't know either); as such, I like ADDeRabbi's formulation much better:

What I've tried to demonstrate here is that there is a moral progression through history which goes beyond the law as proscribed by the Torah, but does so by developing values which are latent within the Torah. I believe this to be the true essence of chumrah, as I posted a while back.
Thus, it's possible to be 'frummer' than the law of the Torah, but only by further developing the spirit of the law.
This phenomenon can have much broader application - think of slavery, vegetarianism, and the list can go on.
It's a relatively narrow and discrete example of 'progressive revelation', but gives a good model of how it can work.

I would disagree on vegetarianism, replacing it with things relating to women's rights issues. Other than that, spot on (except, I'm pretty sure the word for co-wife is 't'zara', which probably better translates as pain, directed at the first wife, not the husband, although that's probably true also).

I will repeat that those who refuse to see cultural and societal evolution as factors when considering issues of religion (all the way from halacha to theodicy) do so at their own peril (well, really at my own peril, but whatever). Moshe did not have peyos.