For my part I’m reluctant to talk in terms of “proofs” and binding logic for religious propositions. That said, I think that it can ever be legitimately questioned whether the 'Kuzari principle' was ever intended to be taken as an absolute rational 'proof for Judaism'.
The book opens with the Kazhar King already convinced of God's existence and the need for religious practice. His quest is simply to identify the most authentic claim to 'correct mode of practice' which he does by comparing favourably the Jewish claim of mass divine revelation to the claims of other religions. His rejection of 'Aristotelian philosophy' is based not upon reason but upon his conviction (from a dream) that there exists a correct code of religious practice. It seems likely therefore that the book is addressed to those who already have come to the conclusion that the world has a Creator, and that this Creator is likely to have communicated His purpose to mankind. The Kuzari's argument simply attempts to provide the logical next step, identifying mass revelation at Sinai as the most appropriate candidate for this communication.
Without getting drawn into this broader discussion, I would like to suggest that the Kuzari’s basic argument is often over-simplified and tends to be under-stated when compared with one-off wondrous events that other nations and cultures claim to have witnessed.
It should be recognised that the miraculous events which the Torah describes as having been witnessed by the desert generation constitute something far more significant than a one-off miracle. In their totality, they were a series of regular (and in some cases constant) miracles which took place over a period of 40 years. These miraculous events were not simply seen by onlookers who decided subsequently to report them; rather, they played an integral role in the historical development of the Jewish people’s ancestors and in the formation of their nation. For those who suggest that the Jewish people are merely a maverick Canaanite tribe which evolved into its distinctive form by developing its own individual myths, it is not only the single revelation at Sinai that the entire people would have needed to become convinced their forebears had seen, but an account of its origin and its entire national history. All of this contributes substantially to the potential difficulty of passing off such a fraudulent claim to a nation at a later time – which is the crux of the Kuzari’s contention.
Any analysis of the likelihood of the Jewish tradition having been fabricated must take into account the content as well as its claimed source of national revelation. In the essays contained within his commentary on the Chumash, Rabbi Hertz argues that the Torah’s history would have been a remarkably inconvenient myth for the Jewish people to have developed falsely. The nation was, for much of its biblical history, struggling to gain and maintain a foothold in the land of Israel, being frequently at war on this account with the neighbouring nations. It is hard to imagine that the notion of their origin as a lowly slave people (deriving from Babylonia not Canaan) who had violently usurped the rightful indigenous possessors of the land would have easily gained popularity.
Furthermore, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has pointed out that a unique element of the Torah, one which points to its divine origin, is the fact that much of it is dedicated to criticisms of the disobedient and sinful behaviour of the Jewish people, and to their punishments. This is not the sort of narrative which a nation would be likely to fabricate about itself, and is conspicuously out of character with the method of favourably selective historical recording which prevailed in the ancient world.
This is particularly true since the members of the Jewish nation’s elite, who might have been suspected of seeking to entrench their position through dispersing favourable religious dicta, bear the brunt of severe and repeated biblical criticism, with both the monarchy and priesthood receiving regular censure throughout the Tanach. Moreover, the laws pertaining to these two privileged groups can generally be seen as restricting rather than establishing their power, as can be seen in the Torah’s concept of a ‘limited monarchy’ – a novel political notion in the ancient East. The Torah also emphasises repeatedly that the Jewish priesthood has no entitlement to inherit a portion in the land and must instead rely on tithes and charity for its sustenance. These laws, which contrast strongly with the privileged land ownership rights of priests within both Hammurabi and Egyptian culture, guard against the religious elite abusing their position to secure political power.
Another major factor in any assessment of the credibility of the Torah’s validity is that the Jews’ monotheistic belief and moral code as well as the whole societal structure envisaged by the Torah are quite revolutionary when set against the values and beliefs of the surrounding pagan cultures. The monumental theological transition from a polytheistic worldview that created multiple gods in man’s own image in the deification of all-powerful forces of nature to a monotheistic belief in a single God, represents more than a numeral reduction to a single Deity. As Rabbi S. R. Hirsch explains, it is only the belief in a single God who transcends any specific society or generation which allows a religious law to claim a universal ethical ideal. If the gods and the laws and rituals of their worship emanate from humans, the relevance and applicability of such laws are naturally limited to the experiences and terms of reference of those specific people.
As well as the theological revolution introduced by the Torah’s monotheism, the legal, ethical and societal values that it teaches were also anathema to the ancient world from which it emerged. In contrast to the feudal societies of lords and serfs, in which the ‘common folk’ were no more than tools to be owned and exploited by the ruling classes and ultimately the king, the Torah envisaged a community of equal portions and ownership in the land of Israel, with loans and loss of land to debt being cancelled at regular shemittah and yovel intervals within the Jewish agricultural cycle. Shemittah represented a revolutionary change not just from the typical economic structure of the ancient world, but also in terms of its strong emphasis on the spiritual health of all of its members. This climax of the Jewish agricultural seven-year cycle involved all farmers and workers on the soil dedicating an entire year to religious study and spiritual reflection, represented by the hakhel mitzvah which required a national reading of the Torah at the conclusion of each shemittah year. The Torah’s concern for the wellbeing and spiritual inclusion of even its most simple members was a substantial break from the fate of the illiterate peasants who tilled their landlords’ soil around the rest of the world, in societies where knowledge and literacy were the guarded secrets of the elite few.
The Torah’s radical and substantial departure from the polytheistic beliefs and entire value systems that preceded and surrounded it therefore indicates that the Torah was received from an external source, and is most unlikely to have been developed from within the Jewish people themselves.
Some may be tempted to add that such a departure from norms is not solely historical. They will point to the extraordinary and unique history of the Jewish people which, echoing ancient prophecies, has seen it suffer unrivalled deprivations throughout a lengthy exile, yet survive and return to re-establish itself in its ancestral homeland. A reality and a challenge that we continue to both celebrate and grapple with through to this present day.
Find out more about Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah at www.JudaismReclaimed.com.
First posted on Facebook 29 January 2023, here.
