Broken transmission in Bayit Rishon?

The Judaism Reclaimed chapter related to Parashat Ki Tavo explores the implications of the fearsome curses and punishments which are to be unleashed upon Israel in the event of severe national sinfulness – something which the book of Devarim makes clear will come to pass.

As is made clear from later books of Prophets, Israel does indeed descend into idolatry and the nation as a whole no longer appears to obey or be interested in the Torah’s commandments. Could such a nation possibly have faithfully transmitted the Torah’s teachings through such sinful periods?

In his commentary to the curses, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch grapples with these dramatic threats. He observes that it is evident from the recurring conclusions such as “until you will be destroyed”, “until you will be annihilated”, that the Torah cannot mean that all of the various forms of suffering described would fully affect the entire nation. Rather, they appear to indicate that some will perish through illness, others through famine, others again from war, and so forth.

More significantly, writes Rav Hirsch, the general proclamation of these decrees is conditional, to be carried out in their entirety only if the nation descends to a complete defection from God’s Torah. Such a level of degeneration, he argues, was never reached. We know from the books of the Prophets that a loyal nucleus always remained so that even when the upper classes of society, who were more susceptible to the pagan influences of the surrounding nations, descended into idolatry and corruption, a pure and virtuous religious class maintained and transmitted the tradition of the prophets. Since the defection was never absolute, so too God’s punishment was never implemented to its fullest extent, and there was thus no “total annihilation”.

In his Collected Writings, Rav Hirsch develops further the idea of a ‘healthy remnant’ of faithful Jews, based on the opening chapter of Yeshaya. There the prophet describes the moral and religious degeneration of his era, writing: “Had God, Master of the Legions, not left us the trace of a remnant, we would have been like Sodom and resembled Gomorrah”.

What is clear from Yeshaya is that, while this righteous minority certainly existed, it was too small in number to influence the trend of events in the state and therefore seldom appeared in historical records. Elsewhere, Yechezkel testifies that an entire clan of Tzaddokite Kohanim – whose job it was to teach and transmit the Torah’s teachings – remained loyal to the Torah.

The weak and persecuted status of this minority can be seen from further prophetic descriptions such as this statement much later in Yeshaya (66:5): “Listen to the word of God, you who are zealous regarding His word, your brethren hate and shun you ….”

And the description by Yechezkel (9:4) of how the righteous would be saved from Jerusalem’s destruction: “… put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst."

Nevertheless it is their existence alone which prevented the nation from descending to the level of total wickedness and corruption that would have engaged the full force of the tochachah curses.

Rabbi Alex Israel, writing in I Kings: Torn in Two points out how even the generation of the wicked king Achav is described by Eliyahu as “poschim al shnei se’ipin” – wavering between two beliefs rather than being idolatrous through and through.

The books of the prophets, particularly the two books of Kings, tell the story of the decline and fall of the Jewish state. This story focuses upon the leaders and elites since the demoralisation of the people began at the top before spreading downwards and engulfing the nation as a whole. But we learn little about the lives of the masses of people during those centuries.

Prophetic critiques of the sinful state of the nation will often seek to exaggerate its extent for the sake of rebuke. The use of such exaggeration is evident from an exchange between God and Eliyahu during the reign of the wicked Achav. Eliyahu bitterly condemns the entire Israelite kingdom for having “forsaken God’s covenant…I alone have remained” (I Kings 18) – yet not long after God attests to the fact that 7,000 Israelite remained totally loyal to Him.

Rav Hirsch concludes that, without this precious minority, we cannot explain the appearance during sustained periods of ‘total sinfulness’ of such brilliant men as the prophets. Prophets do not just appear overnight; rather, the gift of prophecy is limited to those who excel in wisdom and moral character, qualities that must be patiently acquired.

It follows that a nation which, through the centuries, could produce such luminaries as Devorah, Shmuel, Eliyahu, Elisha, Hoshea, Amos, Yeshaya, Micha, Habakkuk, Yirmiyah, Yechezkel and many others, must have maintained an ongoing cadre of righteous and spiritually healthy members of Jewish society. This is presumably the “healthy remnant” to which Yeshaya refers. A religiously loyal nucleus who would have possessed both the capacity and the motivation to transmit the Jewish tradition throughout its darkest and most sinful periods.

First posted on Facebook 3 September 2023, here.

Atheism vs. idolatry: can anything be worse than a cardinal sin?

I recently had a discussion with a member of this group on the subject of Rambam, idolatry and atheism. Jewish law and prophetic protest both focus strongly on the evils of pagan worship. Does this preoccupation confirm its status as the ultimate biblical sin? Or does it merely reflect the fact that polytheism (as opposed to atheism) represented the primary threat to the monotheism which the Torah was promoting? If the latter is true, how are we to regard the Torah’s respective attitudes to paganism and atheism in a modern world where atheism is widespread and growing?

It occurred to me that the answer to this question may depend on the approach that one takes to Judaism.

One position that I remember being advanced consistently in Yeshiva hashkafa classes emphasises the need for us to recognise that the world is truly run by spiritual forces which are closely impacted by our good and bad deeds. From this mystical outlook, a key component of Judaism is our need to acknowledge the limits of the laws of nature and concentrate instead on the spiritual dynamic which dictates to it.

From this perspective, I remember hearing one rabbi declare, bygone generations were vastly superior to our own. In those heady days, even non-Jews were fully aware that the world truly operates through spiritual forces. All that was left for debate was whether this force was Ba’al, Ra or the true God of Israel. Alas in our sinful days the spiritual dimension is increasingly derided and ignored by people who are focused exclusively on physicality and their worldly aspirations.

When viewed from this perspective it would appear that modern atheism is more distant than idolatry from Jewish beliefs.

[As an aside I remember this being starkly evident on my trip down the Nile 14 years ago. On the East side of the Nile, which housed the major population centres in ancient times, very little remains intact for archaeologists and tourists. The full focus of the Pharaohs was on the Nile’s West Bank, where the sun sets and from where the souls were believed to enter the afterlife. It is here that the magnificent Temples and pyramids, well stocked with mummies and treasures, were built to last for millennia. This, it seems, was the primary focus of the ancient world.]

When we weigh up idolatry and atheism from Rambam’s worldview, however, I’m not convinced that this conclusion holds true.

For Rambam, the problem with paganism is not simply that it represents an incorrect address for one’s prayers. Rather it represents the antithesis of Judaism – a wholly corrupted world view in which competing deities spar with one another over the fate of the world and its inhabitants, and must be appeased through supplication and sacrifice. Aristotle, whose belief came close to what might now be called atheism, was praised by Rambam for his understanding of the physical world – even if he resorted to “conjecture” when it came to the spiritual realm (Guide 2:22).

Would Rambam therefore consider atheism to be closer to Judaism and less damaging than pagan religion? Or perhaps even Rambam would consider bad religion preferable to the sort of denial advanced by Bertrand Russell who argued that:

“[Man’s] origin, his growth, his hope and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve the body beyond the grave…”

A further consideration is the extent to which the Torah’s campaign against idolatry is tied in with its prophetic vision of the need to establish a just, merciful and righteous society. Particularly since neither atheists nor pagans, in Rambam’s understanding, are likely to receive a share in the world to come, it is important to assess the extent to which they are able to provide a stable society for those who do pursue monotheistic faith. Is paganism assumed to be synonymous with human sacrifice? Is atheism associated with humanitarianism or rather the destructive atheist regimes which defined much of the past century?

A further question which must be addressed is what atheists truly believe regarding the origin of the world. If a person doesn’t believe in a creator-God, does that mean that something else other than God – some unstated force – must have created the world and guided its development?

Certainly there are some atheists who advance complex theories of how the world may have created itself from nothing. Some hold that the world has always been here and is perpetually expanding and contracting; others prefer to push aside the question of the origin of the universe entirely. It may be more accurate to consider that those who fall within the latter category are ignoring the possibility and implications of a creator-God rather than actually holding atheist beliefs. They may have considered the sorts of absurdities and atrocities that religious beliefs have produced through the centuries and concluded that life is better lived without dwelling upon such questions. Could it be that the Torah’s primary protest is against pagan worship rather than simply a lack of pure monotheistic belief?

I would be tempted to conclude, from Rambam’s telling, that atheism certainly is preferable to idolatry. This is because it typically involves a person possessing a broadly correct outlook in terms of the functioning of the physical world – just one that lacks recognition that laws of nature are divinely ordained. While this lacking will hold a person back from appreciating the wisdom and building a relationship with the God who put those laws into place, it avoids the damaging and magical falsehoods propounded by pagan beliefs in multiple competing deities which must be appeased through imagined rituals and sacrifices.

First posted to Facebook 29 June 2022, here.