Free will and the Philosophical Jew Podcast

Here's an interesting discussion on free will and the existence of evil on this exciting new podcast of Jewish Philosophy.

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Can God change His mind?

In a popular post last month, this group explored a suggestion (advanced by the Seforno and developed by Rabbi S. R. Hirsch) that God’s initially “universal” plan for the world was recalibrated and amended to seek out a single “Chosen Nation” which would receive and transmit His Torah. While that post addressed the issue from the perspective of Choseness, the very idea of God appearing to change His mind and resort to Plan B raises thorny theological problems.

Judaism Reclaimed highlights Rav Hirsch’s approach to tackling this difficulty. Focusing on a close grammatical reading of the relevant biblical phrase, he argues that none of these amendments represented a 'change of God's mind', but rather a tailoring of the divine plan in response to human conduct.

“And God regretted (vayinachem) that He had made man upon the earth, and He became grieved in His heart.” (Bereshit 6:6)

Crucially the Torah employs the active form of the verb "vayinachem" rather than the reflexive form of the verb "vayitnachem", which would have implied that God changed himself. This usage supports the idea that the element of change was caused by a factor — the exercise of human free will — that was inherently external to God rather than being intrinsic to His original plan.

The word vayinachem appears again in response to Israel’s repentance and Moshe’s prayer in the immediate aftermath of the Golden Calf:

“God reconsidered (vayinachem) the evil He had said He would do to His people.” (Shemot 32:14)

This can be seen in contrast to the word vayitnachem – which the Torah itself tells us cannot be applied to God:

“God is not a man that He should lie, nor is He a mortal that He should change His mind (veyitnecham).” (Bemidbar 23:19)

Interestingly, while Rav Hirsch in this instance steadfastly rejects the literal implication of the Torah’s text, he nevertheless makes it clear that he opposes the position advocated for by Rambam which seeks to reinterpret and explain any biblical terms which appear to impute physicality to God.

“Scholars have philosophised about these expressions [anthropomorphism], in order to keep us far from ascribing to God material features. This gives rise, however, to the danger that the Personality of God will become increasingly blurred and indistinct to our perception. Had that been the Torah’s intention it could easily have avoided such expressions … Belief in the Personality of God is more important than the speculations of those who reject the attribution of material features to God.”

Elsewhere Rav Hirsch explained further how: “the maturest mind of the philosopher knows no more about the essence of God than the simple mind of the child”.

As Judaism Reclaimed proceeds to analyse in a subsequent chapter, Rav Hirsch’s position comes very close to that of earlier rabbinic authorities who took biblical descriptions of God at face value. Marc Shapiro, in The Limits of Orthodox Theology, invests great effort to collect and present rabbinic statements which, taken superficially, reflect belief in a physical deity. While he sees medieval rabbinic commentator, Moshe Taku, as the “most significant" example of rabbinic corporealism, leading scholar of medival rabbinic mysticism, Joseph Dan begs to differ, writing that:

"He [R’ Taku] insists on the literal acceptance of the prophets' descriptions of their visions as well as the anthropomorphic references to God in talmudic-midrashic literature. He does not do so because of his belief in the literal veracity of these descriptions; he only insists that they represent the maximum that can be conveyed concerning God's essence and appearance, and that any further inquiry cannot lead to valid conclusions. God chose to reveal to us in the scriptures whatever is found in them: man should be satisfied with that, and ask no more questions. It is not that Rabbi Moses Taku believed in an anthropomorphic God; most probably, he did not.”

Having addressed claims of rabbinic belief in a physical deity, Judaism Reclaimed then proceeds to demonstrate, however, that none of this would be likely to impress Rambam, who states with equal force that any attempt to worship or connect “without knowledge” to God such as by attributing physical features to Him:

“does not in true reality mention or think about God. For that thing which is in his imagination and which he mentions is his mouth does not correspond to any being at all and has merely been invented by his imagination”. (Moreh Nevuchim 3:51)

Since, for Rambam, connection to God is an absolute reality and achieved primarily by means of the intellect, the quality and existence of such a connection is directly affected by the correctness of a person’s intellectual perception of God. He cannot accept, therefore, the notion that one should just accept the biblical text at face value. Instead biblical indications about the incorporeality of God combined with a powerful rabbinic tradition serve as signposts to scholars seeking to maximise their understanding of and relationship with God.

Find out more at www.TalmudReclaimed.com.

First posted on Facebook 10 November 2024. For comments and discussion, click here.

Chance or guided providence?

As I flitted through the reporting of Al Jazeera, BBC and the Tehran Times last week, one repeated theme I noticed in the anti-Israel media was the attempt to downplay the significance of Israel’s achievement in its “lucky” killing of Yihyeh Sinwar. But while it seems true that Sinwar’s demise did not involve the same degree of intelligence and planning as that of others such as Nasrallah, does it automatically follow that it should just be attributed to good luck?

On what will be a particularly poignant Simchat Torahin a few days’ time, we will read the final poetic portion of the Torah in which God is depicted as “rochev shamayim - Rider of the heavens”. This cryptic description is expounded by Rambam towards the end of the first section of Moreh Nevuchim, where he sees it as providing an important insight into the nature of the relationship between God and the physical world. Not only does “rochev” denote that God is separate from the world and not a force within it (a statement which powerfully rejects any notions of pantheism/panentheism), but it also indicates that God controls and moves the world just like a rider who “makes the beast of burden move and go where he wishes”.

This second aspect of “rochev” got me wondering if we could take the rider metaphor one step further. Some brief research on forums of horse-riding enthusiasts confirmed my suspicion that the way in which riders guide their horses can be extremely subtle – barely detectable to the casual observer:

“Someone recently asked me an interesting question: “Can my horse read my thoughts?” This person went on to describe the extraordinary bond he has with his Arabian horse, and his belief that the horse knows how he feels and where he wants to go without being cued. What appears to be a telepathic connection develops from experience and sensitivity and emerges when the horse and rider are working together in harmony with a common mind and purpose.”

What does this all mean for our understanding of hashgacha– the way in which God is perceived to manage and govern His world?

Judaism Reclaimed dedicates long chapters to an exploration of Rambam’s view of the subject. On the one hand, Rambam’s worldview sees God as having a constant will with which He established unchanging rules of nature. Certainly, those approaching Maimonidean thought from the academic perspective tend to downplay any possibility for miraculous or providential interference with the natural order. Rambam himself comments on a Mishnah in Avot:

“They (the sages) did not believe in the constant renewal of God’s will, but at the beginning of creation (God) put the nature of things into the world, both the way in which things should act regularly – this is ‘nature’ – or the abnormal manner in which they should act rarely – this is a ‘miracle’. All is equal.”

But does this tell the whole story?

As David Hartman pointed out in his Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest, once it has been stated that God used His knowledge of ‘future’ necessity in order to build miracles into the natural world from its origin, it makes no difference, from a strictly logical perspective, whether one admits to one or a thousand such miracles.

The Moreh Nevuchim also contains several intriguing comments which suggest that Rambam’s position on providence may be more complex than is commonly thought. First, in 1:35, Rambam states that “the character of His governance … the ‘how’ of His providence are truly the secrets of the Torah”. Later, at the peak of the famous palace parable, Rambam describes the highest category of those who seek God – the prophets in the king’s inner chamber – as turning their intellects “to know His governance of them in whatever way is possible”.

In his Iggeret Techiyat HaMeitim, Rambam explicitly considers the historical fate of the Jewish nation to be providential:

“…we believe that the blessings which come from obedience [to God] and the suffering from disobedience, for this nation, become a sign and a wonder”.

Returning to our opening question, to what extent should Sinwar’s death – along with a number of other events from the past year – be attributed to good or bad fortune?

Drawing upon the Torah’s horse-riding metaphor, at times it may be impossible to detect any guidance or direction from the rider – yet when one examines the horse’s entire journey around the race track or obstacle course it will be abundantly clear that it could not have achieved what it did unaided.

So too at times with our national fate. It may be possible to explain away each isolated event via natural cause and effect. But, taking a step back to appreciate the broader – sometimes historical – perspective, the series of events that we have experienced over the past year(s) and indeed throughout Jewish history appear far too unusual to be attributed to natural phenomena alone.

I am reminded now of an Israeli spy series “Tehran” that I watched a couple of years ago. At the time I thought that the show was well written and put together – my only complaint was that the final episode in each season just seemed way too far-fetched. Too removed from reality. Today the show’s drama and unexpected twists and turns cannot even begin to compete with what we have been witnessing on the news cycles.

We continue to pray to the Rochev Shamayim for the protection and success of our soldiers and swift return of all our hostages as we await the final dramatic episodes of the festive season.

First posted on Facebook 20 October 2024. For comments and discussion, click here.

Rosh Hashanah and the philosophical challenges of petitonary prayer

 In conversation with Rabbi David Silverstein

In a few short days, most of us will be gearing up for our biggest ‘’Prayer-thon” of the year. But how much time have we spent thinking about what prayer is and how it works?

• Are we somehow attempting to change God’s mind through our prayers?
• To persuade Him to through our words and feelings to improve our lot in the coming year?
• Can our words and thoughts really impact the fortunes of others we look to pray for?

In this conversation with Rabbi David Silverstein of Yeshivat Orayta, we explore the thoughts of Rambam, Rabbi S. R. Hirsch and Rabbi Yosef Albo among others as to the function and mechanism of petitionary prayer. What are the relative advantages of each of these approaches and how can we combine and draw upon all of them to enrich our prayers this Rosh Hashanah?

First posted on Facebook 15 September 2020, here.

God only knows? Divine knowledge according to Rambam, Ralbag and Ibn Ezra

Guest post by Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, Chief Minister of The Great Synagogue, Sydney

The thorny theological challenge of relating to Divine knowledge – in particular as it can be reconciled with the doctrine of human free will – features in several chapters of Judaism Reclaimed. Perhaps the most radical position to be found in Jewish tradition is that of Ralbag (Gersonides), who concludes that God’s knowledge relates to “universals” of the various species but not to details – including details of specific human actions. Ralbag, writing in Book 3 of Milchamot Hashem, further claims that this was also the view of the famed Spanish sage Abraham Ibn Ezra.

When the Torah in this week’s parashah records God as saying “I will descend now and see, whether according to her cry, which has come to Me, they have done; [I will wreak] destruction [upon them]; and if not, I will know.”, Ibn Ezra appears to comment that God’s knowledge relates only to generalities (the Avi Ezer super-commentary by Rabbi Shlomo HaKohen of Lissa disputes this interpretation of Ibn Ezra’s words).

My intention here is not to advance the approach of Ralbag, which is certainly an outlier in Jewish thought, but rather to highlight the implications for our assessment of Rambam who people too-often attempt to characterise as a radical Aristotelian who allowed his Greek philosophy to dictate to his interpretations of the Torah. It is important to see how other Jewish thinkers of his era described him in this matter. Ralbag writes:

“It seems that Maimonides’ position on this question of Divine cognition is not implied by any philosophical principles; indeed, reason denies this view, as I will show. It seems rather that theological considerations have forced him to this view.”

In the essay below, Rabbi Dr Elton provides a fascinating insight into just how far Rambam strayed from Aristotelian thought on the subject of Divine knowledge. He explains in the process why it was repeated in Hilchot Teshuvah, despite having already been included in Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah where Rambam addresses the nature of the universe.

How does God think? Understanding Rambam H. Teshuva 5:5

I want to examine a passage in the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah which is regularly read and almost never understood. In the middle of Rambam’s Laws of Repentance he takes a philosophical detour and asks how it is possible to reconcile Divine foreknowledge with human free will. If God knows what we are going to do, how can we have the ability to choose whether to do it or not. Rambam answers:

Know, that the answer to this question is longer in measure than the earth and broader than the sea, and many great elements and ranking mountains are suspended thereon; but it is essential that you know this fundamental matter which I outline. In the second chapter of the treatise of Fundamentals of the Torah (2:9-10) it was already elucidated that the Holy One, blessed is He does not know of things with a knowledge which exists outside of Himself, like, for instance, people do, for they and their knowledge are two separate things; but, He, may His Name be exalted and his knowledge are One, and it is not within the power of the knowledge of man to attain this matter clearly, and even as it is not within the power of man to attain and find the truth of the Creator…

This being so, it is not within our intellectual power to know in what manner the Holy One, blessed is He knows all the creatures and their actions, but we do know without a doubt that man's behaviour is in the hand of man, and that the Holy One, blessed is He neither draws him nor issues edicts against him to do as he does. And, not solely because of having accepted the religion do we know that there is no predestination, but even by clear evidence of the words of wisdom. Because thereof it is said in prophecy that man is judged for his actions according to his actions, whether they be good or evil, and this is the very foundation upon which all the words of prophecy depend.

This is a difficult and perplexing passage. As Ra'avad noted, and protested against, Rambam’s explanation does not answer the question, it just raises a philosophical idea that by Rambam’s own admission no one can understand. Further, what is it doing in H. Teshuvah, especially when Rambam has already explained it earlier in the Mishneh Torah, in H. Yesodei HaTorah?

To understand this we have to look at the Aristotelian aspects of Rambam’s epistemology, and its connection with his theology. Aristotle (at least as understood in the Arabic philosophical tradition that Rambam inherited) saw that there was movement in the world and therefore posited a first mover which causes all the other movement. This mover (a sort of Aristotelian god) is entirely passive, eternal and perfect. As all things move towards perfection they are moving towards this first mover, which is the cause of all movement in the world. Part of its perfection is omniscience, but it is omniscience of a very particular type. It only knows universals, that is to say, the concept of a horse or a table. It does not know about particular horses and tables.

In that way, its knowledge is just like our knowledge, because our knowledge is also limited to the concepts of things but does not encompass the things themselves. Let us take an example. I have knowledge about horses in general, and I know some specific things about particular horses. But I don’t know everything about horses in general, or anything at all about every single horses that exists: everything they have ever done, and certainly not everything they will ever do. Furthermore, the knowledge I possess of these horses exists only in my head. I have taken sense data I have picked up in my encounters with horses, abstracted from that data and thereby created a piece of knowledge that resides inside my mind. What I know about horses is an abstract derived from all the data I have derived from real horses, that has been processed by my mind and exists in my mind. Thus in the case of myself and horses, and indeed every piece of knowledge that I have, the thing being thought about, the process of thinking, and the thinker, are all one. This is equally true of the Aristotelian first mover and of people.

But Rambam says explicitly that God and people do not think in the same way. That is because Rambam believes that God has knowledge that the Aristotelian first mover does not have. God knows every particular. What is more (and this is totally incomprehensible) God even has ‘knowledge’ of material things. That is an absurd concept to us, because a physical object cannot get into our minds. The idea of something exists in our mind, but obviously not the thing itself, that remains outside our mind. By contrast, all spiritual and material things exist in the mind of God. Indeed, they only exist at all because they exist in God’s mind. God did not acquire knowledge of them (if God ever acquired knowledge that would imply a change in God, and that is impossible), they exist because God ‘knows’ them. If that does not make sense to us, we should not be surprised. Rambam says explicitly that the human mind is incapable of comprehending such a notion. Therefore, while we and our knowledge are not one, because the horse or the table remains outside our minds, they are not outside the mind of God, because God and God’s knowledge are absolutely one. It is not within our ability to understand that concept, but it remains true.

Rambam expressed this in the Guide for the Perplexed (3:21)

Our knowledge is acquired and increased in proportion to the things known by us. This is not the case with God. His knowledge of things is not derived from the things themselves; if this were the case, there would be change and plurality in His knowledge; on the contrary, the things are in accordance with His eternal knowledge, which has established their actual properties, and made part of them purely spiritual, another part material and constant as regards its individual members, a third part material and changeable as regards the individual beings according to eternal and constant laws. Plurality, acquisition, and change in His knowledge is therefore impossible. He fully knows His unchangeable essence, and has thus a knowledge of all that results from any of His acts. If we were to try to understand in what manner this is done, it would be the same as if we tried to be the same as God, and to make our knowledge identical with His knowledge.

We can now see why Rambam included this point in H. Teshuvah 5:5. It is not an attempt at an answer at all, rather it is sharpening the question. It is easily possible to reconcile human free will with the sort of omniscience Aristotle’s first mover has. But the omniscience of God as Rambam understands it, seems totally incompatible, yet Rambam assures us that it remains the case. He tells us that it is ‘essential’ that we know that God’s knowledge of every details of past, present and future is absolute, and yet as he says at the end of the halakhah (in a statement which flows perfectly logically from what has come before) people have complete free will and are judged according to their exercise of it. That is why this brief discussion is repeated in H. Teshuvah, because it is the central concept that makes teshuvah compatible with Rambam’s concept of God.

I am grateful to the scholars I discussed this question with, especially Dr Daniel Davis.

First posted to Facebook 5 November 2020, here.

Souls on fire: Rambam and Gehinnom

The chapters of Judaism Reclaimed which relate to parashat Ha’azinu explore Rambam’s understanding of core aspects of the afterlife such as Gehinnom and Resurrection of the Dead. We note the challenge of how the “fires of Gehinnom”, vividly depicted in Aggadic literature, can have any effect on, or relevance to, the metaphysical soul.

Ramban addresses this problem by explaining that “hell-fire” does not consist of earthly substances but rather is a special “quasi-physical” creation by God which is therefore capable of inflicting suffering upon the quasi-physical souls of sinners. This solution, however, is not available to Rambam, since he does not subscribe to the notion of a quasi-physical realm for the soul post death. (Further analysis of the contrasing conceptual frameworks within which Rambam and Ramban operate is available here at pp 60-62).

Rambam emphasises that upon death, the only element of the soul that remains is the pure intellect (sechel). In the opening chapters of Shemonah Perakim, he describes how the sechel transcends all other aspects of the person, such as emotions, which interact with the physical realm. One consequence of this is that the soul which remains after death is not equipped to experience any kind of physical pain which could be inflicted by a fiery Gehinnom.

Rambam’s difficulty in explaining posthumous punishment is deepened by a tradition which teaches that punishment in Gehinnom is time-limited: “judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom is 12 months”. This introduction of the concept of time into metaphysical matters is difficult to reconcile with Rambam’s understanding of the eternal and unchanging spiritual existence of the soul in the afterlife. This is because Rambam understands time to relate exclusively to the physical realm as a measure of its change and decay.

In addition to the difficulty of constructing a conceptual framework within which Rambam can explain Gehinnom, several statements which appear in Hilchot Teshuvah raise the further question of what function such a Gehinnom could fulfil within his worldview. In the 8th chapter, Rambam makes the following strong comments that appear to preclude the possibility of a “place of punishment” in the afterlife:

Anyone who does not merit this life [Olam Haba]…is cut off by his evil and lost like an animal…this is the “karet” [excision of the soul] which is described by the Torah… The greatest revenge that can be visited on a sinner is that his soul will be excised and he will not merit this eternal life. This is the destruction that the prophets refer to as be’er shachat [etc.] since it is destruction after which there is no subsequent resurrection, an irredeemable loss.

These statements troubled many Jewish scholars in the thirteenth century and added force to an attempt to ban Rambam’s works. Ramban, while bitterly opposed to many of Rambam’s ideas, wrote a lengthy and famous letter to the Rabbinic leadership in France in defence of Rambam,
pointing out that the apparently troubling passage of Rambam is paraphrasing a midrashic teaching in the Sifra that karet “is the loss of the soul”. Ramban then highlights other passages in Rambam’s work which make explicit reference to the sinner being judged for his sins, after which he can still achieve Olam Haba.

Ramban concludes that Rambam’s statements regarding ultimate punishment being the complete absence of the soul from any Olam Haba refer only to the soul’s subsequent fate once it has already undergone a temporary period of suffering. Ramban does not, however, attempt to explain how any such suffering could feature within Rambam’s broader understanding of the soul and the severe problems that this would entail.

After producing the initial draft for Judaism Reclaimed, I felt very uneasy about rejecting the interpretations of Ramban – along with all other Rabbinic commentaries I had found – of Rambam’s approach to punishment in the afterlife. I was therefore delighted to unearth Abarbanel’s lengthy analysis of the subject in which he explains Rambam on the basis of his clear statements in Hilchot Teshuvah that karet, the severest form of punishment, results in a total absence of existence. On this basis, Abarbanel points out, there cannot exist any form of gradation as between levels of different karet punishments. Abarbanel concludes forcefully that any other interpretation of Rambam is “a clear error in understanding his words”. I also discovered important precedent: several Tannaim cited in Avot d’Rabbi Natan expound verses to show that those such as the sinful inhabitants of Sodom and Korach’s assembly “were not living…were not judged…are not to be found even
among the congregation of the wicked, cease to exist in the world”.

Several questions remain:

• How, if at all, does Rambam interpret the copious and detailed aggadic material depicting a fiery Gehinnom?

• How are we to read Rambam’s own words in Hilchot Teshuvah that certain sinners receive Olam Haba after judgment and punishment?

• How is Rambam’s position reconciled both with broader concepts of justice and with the wider Maimonidean Jewish worldview?

Judaism Reclaimed attempts to develop an understanding of Gehinnom and Resurrection of the Dead which addresses these intriguing questions.

First posted on Facebook 23 September 2020, here.