Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, professor emeritus of the orthodox Hebrew Theological College in Skokie , proclaims that“The rabbis in the Talmud were guided by the following insight: God forbid that there should be anything in the application of the Torah to the actual life situation that is contrary to the principles of ethics." If a ruling is halakhic, it must be ethical. If it is unethical, it cannot be halakhic.
The Talmudic sages and later decisors witnessed many tragedies that were the effect of slavishly literal interpretations of the existing halakhah. When a proportion of the people felt they were suffering from unethical rulings, the existing legal approach lost its exclusive halakhic validity. Therefore by offering a different approach, even if it be a legal fiction, the moral problem might be resolved. This new approach then became part of the halakhah. Here we have halakhic innovations initiated by an ethical imperative and eventually becoming part of the ongoing halakhic system.
Not only in the authoritative Talmudic period did scholars allow themselves to innovate but also, as we shall see, in a decision that was rendered many centuries later.
Throughout the generations the sages initiated halakhic principles which enabled them to rule leniently and even permit the forbidden. One such principle established that in“a time of emergency,” it is permissible to make a lenient decision and permit a rabbinic prohibition. The first generation Babylonian Amora, Rab, permitted carrying Hanukkah candles on Shabbat because this was an emergency situation. The candles must be hidden from the Parsees who ruled that it was forbidden for Jews to light them.’