Is belief in the Torah's divinity irrational?

By Rabbi Professor Sam Lebens

“Do you really believe in all of that Judaism stuff? But you’re so clever!” I’m never quite sure if this is a compliment or an insult. But it’s a question I’ve been asked. To save me from the accusation of lying to others, people must think that I’m engaged in some sort of compartmentalization.

The religious scientist, when in the laboratory, puts nothing down to super-natural causes. Every phenomenon requires a natural explanation. And yet, the same religious scientist, when outside of the laboratory is willing to believe in miracles. Once again, the only explanation is that the religious intellectual must have erected an internal iron curtain between their religious persona, which they occupy in the synagogue and at home, and their worldly persona, which they occupy the rest of the time.

Professor Solomon Schimmel writes (https://www.thetorah.com/.../my-personal-struggle-with...):

For years, I have been studying Orthodox Judaism and exploring the question of how it is that modern, highly educated people can make unreasonable faith claims. Specifically, how is it that Modern Orthodox Jews, in the face of overwhelming evidence and logical arguments, believe that God revealed the entirety of the Pentateuch, word for word, to Moses at Sinai and/or in the wilderness?

Let’s examine his example: belief that God revealed the entirety of the Pentateuch to Moses. James Kugel, a leading contemporary Biblical scholar, claims that his discipline stands upon a number of assumptions; assumptions which are owed to Spinoza. According to these assumptions:

1. Scripture is to be understood on its own terms, rather than through the interpretative lenses of any particular church or religious tradition.

2. We have to make efforts to understand the language of the Bible and its own world of ideas, without imposing later conceptions upon it.

3. Consequently, we should assume that scripture means just what scripture says, even when its plain meaning contradicts contemporary values, mores, and conceptions, unless internal textual considerations force upon us a figurative interpretation.

4. To understand the meaning of scripture, we first of all have to investigate how the books were put together. We have to construct biographies for the authors, based upon knowledge of their writings and their historical context, and understand their words in light of these biographies.

5. In considering the words of the prophets, one must recognize that they frequently contradict one another. Hermeneutics of reconciliation are to be eschewed in favor of recognizing the multiple conflicting voices beneath the surface

But Orthodox Judaism rejects many of these assumptions. We think that the Torah is properly interpreted by the Rabbinic tradition; that God speaks to us through these texts; that God may have meant to communicate things to this generation through the same words that communicated other things to earlier generations; and that the words of the prophets are all true. It follows that their words must admit of a reconciliatory reading.

As Kugel sees it, what separates Orthodox interpretations of the Bible and contemporary academic scholarship is just:

the set of unwritten instructions that guide them in reading the biblical text. Accept the one’s, and the other’s interpretations appear irrelevant at best, at worst a willful and foolish hiding from the obvious. It is thanks to this crucial difference in assumptions that these two groups can read exactly the same words and perceive two quite different messages.

Perhaps an analogy will be helpful.

Meticulous scholarship has led some theorists to suggest that ‘William Shakespeare’ was merely a pseudonym for Sir Henry Neville. Detailed study of Neville’s biography renders his life a compelling fit for having authored the works attributed to Shakespeare. Neville’s handwritten notes, found in the books of his extensive library match exactly what we’d expect to be find in the books of a playwright conducting research so as to write Shakespeare’s plays. Notwithstanding this evidence, and this meticulous scholarship, the vast majority of Shakespeare scholars remain resolutely unconvinced.

A key proponent of the Neville theory, John Casson, told the Guardian newspaper: “There are no letters from William of Stratford. His parents were illiterate, his daughters were illiterate: how do you become the greatest writer ever when your family are illiterate?”

Can you hear the prejudice in those words? The son of illiterate parents simply couldn’t have authored such majestic work. Accordingly, noted Shakespeare expert, Brian Vickers put the theory down to:

snobbery, and ignorance… They are unaware that the Elizabethan grammar school was an intense crash course in reading and writing Latin verse, prose, and plays – the bigger schools often acted plays by Terence in the original … Above all, he had a great imagination, and didn’t need to have been to Venice to write The Merchant of Venice, or Othello. What’s most dispiriting about these anti-Stratfordians is their denial of Shakespeare’s creative imagination.

If you resolutely assume from the outset that x is false, then you’re almost bound to find ‘compelling evidence’ that x is false. Likewise: if you assume that God wasn’t the principle author of the Pentateuch, then certain textual anomalies are bound to take on a different light than they would if you assumed that God was the author. But the anomalies in question really don’t serve as compelling evidence that God was not the author, unless you’re already assuming that God was not the author (just as the evidence for Neville only becomes salient on the assumption that it couldn’t have been Shakespeare who wrote those plays).

Spinoza’s assumptions are attractive to Biblical Scholars. They want their discipline to approximate the standards of a natural science. Even the most religious of scientists tend to adopt a stance that is sometimes called methodological naturalism. According to this stance, it is always inappropriate to appeal to the acts of God in coming to a scientific theory. Even if God exists, we should keep him out of the laboratory.

Methodological naturalism is not compartmentalization. God created a world that abides by natural laws. Science progresses as we try to discover what those laws and regularities are without any appeal to super-natural processes beyond the empirical data. But why come to this chaotic world with the assumption that its many varied phenomena should yield to one set of laws? Why think that the basic principles that govern the development of a fetus should govern also the birth of distance galaxies? Science operates in the hope that unifying laws will be found. But that faith is blind, unless you believe that the universe itself, with all of its varied phenomena, is the creation of a law loving God. In this way, theism can serve as excellent scaffolding for making sense of the sciences. But, scaffolding holds a building up from the outside. God is not welcome in the laboratory itself.

That’s well and good for the sciences. But if the question is whether or not God was involved in writing the Torah, then using a discipline that adopts a methodological naturalism is to beg the question. Methodological naturalism rules out any theories that use God to explain phenomena. So you can guarantee, before you start your investigation into who wrote the Bible, that methodological naturalism won’t discover a Divine author. But its failure to find a Divine author is not evidence that God wasn’t involved. It’s not a finding. It’s not a conclusion. It’s just an assumption. You don’t need to be a fundamentalist, or manifest a pathological compartmentalization, or show disrespect to the academy, to recognize the logical fallacy of petitio principia (i.e., of begging the question). If anything, it is the scholars who raise these accusations who show a basic disregard for the philosophy of science.

Samuel Lebens is associate Professor in the philosophy department at the University of Haifa, he is also an Orthodox Rabbi and Jewish educator. He is the author of The Principles of Judaism (Oxford University Press), and has a forthcoming book, The Guide to the Jewish Undecided, which is set to be published by Maggid in 2022.

First posted to Facebook 19 December 2021, here.

A half-baked proof for an elusive truth

One important lesson that I’ve learned from the last few years of vigorous Facebook discussion is that a weak argument can often end up inflicting significant damage on the position that it is trying to advance.

A few weeks ago I received my copy of Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai, a collection of essays which examines how modern Judaism grapples with and addresses questions of faith and doubt. While the philosopher, Leo Strauss, sought to rationally rescue Orthodox Judaism from those who considered its beliefs untenable, the nature of his arguments leaves religious thinkers questioning whether he has indeed strengthened their position.

In short, Strauss argued that neither Orthodoxy nor its opponents could claim to be able to refute the claims of the other concerning crucial principles such as the nature of God and revelation. Each camp can choose to believe its own claims but there is no way to objectively evaluate the validity of either side in this debate. Orthodox Judaism, he considers, cannot possess any knowledgeof its core principles – it can merely adhere to belief of unknowable claims.

As I slowly make my way slowly through this fascinating book, the essay by Rabbi Shalom Carmy has really got me thinking. Carmy writes of Strauss’s argument:

“it is not an argument for the truth or likelihood of belief in revelation…One does not worship God as a hypothesis that might improbably turn out to be true. And revealed religion requires much more than acts of worship. It demands thorough commitment and, when necessary, sacrifice and suffering. Real people do not live and die for a remote hypothesis.”

This response very much resonates with my reaction to those who argue for religious observance on the basis of practical probabilities such as Pascal’s Wager (that the potential consequence of being wrong regarding religion is far more severe for one who chooses to be non-religious).

My understanding of Judaism – which is heavily coloured by Rambam –centres around creating and nurturing a very real two-way relationship with God. On an individual level this consists of a genuine connection which a person’s mind and soul can make with God – a connection which is fortified through prayer and the performance of commandments. Performing an action because one feels that there is a decent chance that there is a God who has commanded it misses the whole point entirely from Rambam’s perspective.

This is because Judaism is not a set of magical boxes to be ticked or dangers to be avoided in one’s journey through life. Rather it is about fulfilling our covenant with God on a national scale – establishing the sort of just and altruistic society that this entails – while forging a very real relationship with God on an individual level. As Rambam emphasises in the third section of the Moreh (3:51), fulfilling the commandments – particularly prayer – without being mindful of this context is simply performing empty actions – it carries no significance at all.

Of what value therefore, is living a notionally religious lifestyle on the basis of a probability, wager or remote hypothesis that might prove to be accurate?

What I will acknowledge however, is that the existence of the Straussian argument – that Orthodox Judaism’s belief in revelation can never be rationally refuted – remains a useful practical safety net to fall back upon.

Our relationship with God is not static. It consists of waves of faith, commitment and enthusiasm which rise and fall through the year – and often even the day. (On a personal note, I know that the tired Shmuli Phillips who has dragged himself out for Shul on a cold morning is far more grumpy and skeptical about EVERTHING than the version of him swaying serenely at an uplifting Kabbalat Shabbat service.) If a Straussian safety net can temporarily assist a person to remain connected at such a low-point, it certainly serves an important role – providing a platform from which they can reforge their real relationship with God once their inspiration returns.

As several of the essays in this book explore, questions of philosophy and theology do not belong to the category of propositions which one can ever hope to objectively prove or disprove. Unlike mathematics with its neat solutions whose correctness can be determined, philosophical and theological arguments which appear persuasive to some will always fail to impress others.

Rabbi Carmy underscores the importance of traditional arguments such as the likelihood of such a finely-tuned world possessing a designer – and that such a designer might well be expected to have communicated his purpose in creating the world to the primary protagonists within this universe. Nevertheless, the merit of such arguments will always contain a subjective element: does one consider it to be the best possible explanation for a set of phenomena among competing explanations?

For many who contemplate existence – creation, humanity and history – the answer will be strongly in the affirmative. They will be sufficiently convinced to develop a relationship with this Creator and live their lives in accordance with his apparently revealed commands. For others who have not achieved this level of clarity, Pascal’s Wager and Strauss’s argument for Orthodoxy may remain an important launching pad for further meditation and exploration from within the world of religious observance.

First posted on Facebook 18 April 2022, here.

Pagans, Greeks and Rabbi Sacks' battle with New Atheism

One chapter of Judaism Reclaimed compares the theological debates between Judaism and its surrounding cultures in different eras, concluding with the arguments advanced by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks against the New Atheism of the twenty-first century. To mark the first anniversary of Rabbi Sacks' passing, the chapter has been adapted for this post (my personal tribute can be read here).

When Aristotle contemplated the multiple “forms” that make up the universe, he understood that there must be a single, simple source from which they all emanate. This source, however, he viewed as being a natural and constant First Cause, eternally bound to its role of producing the physical universe. The most important consequence of Aristotle’s view is that God does not exercise free choice, which is to say that according to the Aristotelian understanding, the world is governed by necessity.

Rambam’s rejection of Aristotle’s belief in an eternal universe thus becomes a matter of fundamental significance. Rambam teaches that the “Prime Mover” is not simply a more refined cog in the ever-turning wheel of nature but rather preceded and transcends the entire physical framework of space and time. This concept of a God who transcends and is not bound by nature is crucial to Jewish belief, as it means that God’s will lies above and beyond nature, rather than being a product of inevitable necessity as the Aristotelian model proposes. Only a transcendental God can freely the design the universe in a way that facilitates miracles and providential interaction with its creatures.

In contrast to Aristotle’s understanding that the world emanated from a single source, pagans looked at the multiplicity of concepts and forces which appear to be in conflict with one another in the natural world. They rationalized these in terms of there being a multiplicity of deities, each with limited powers and spheres of influence, who engage in battle with one another where their interests come into conflict or their limited spheres of influence overlap.

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch describes how Judaism firmly rejects this position, emphasizing that God is morally free—above, not part of, the natural world—and, by extension, that He has a free will which is unbound by any rules or constraints of physical necessity. Humanity, by receiving the Divine gift of “tzelem Elokim”, is also granted this ability to transcend and overcome natural forces—most significantly the forces of its own natural tendencies—through the moral freedom of human free will. According to R’ Hirsch, this fundamental principle was one of the key messages of the miraculous Exodus from Egypt (as we examine in other chapters).

What the pagan and Aristotelian conceptions have in common is their view of God(s) as being part of and therefore constrained by His physical creation. In absolute opposition to these positions, both Rambam and R’ Hirsch point out that Judaism interprets these differing features of the physical world as reflecting the absolute free will of a God who transcends His physical Creation. A God who acts as He sees fit and whose will and power is not bound by anyone or anything. Only such a free God can impart similar freedom to humanity, and enable it to transcend physical necessity by exercising its free choice.

The positions adopted by Rambam and R’ Hirsch to battle the determinist ideologies of their respective eras were occupied in our generation by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his efforts to counter the “new Atheism” of modern science and the determinist arguments it puts forward. This school of modern determinist thought, which can be traced back as far as Spinoza through to twentieth-century atheists such as Bertrand Russell, asserts that

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

Humankind’s rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul.

As Rabbi Sacks summarizes their position: “We are, on this view, not distinctive at all. We are part of nature, nothing more.”

This scientific form of determinism differs from its predecessors only in detail, replacing irresistible deified natural forces with the assertion that humans are internally restrained by their own atomic and electrochemical processes. However, its underlying challenge to Judaism, and religion in general, is identical: if the universe is nothing more than a naturally evolved complex network of necessary and predetermined collisions of matter, with no genuine element of freedom to choose, then any system premised upon free human choice and responsibility is rendered invalid.

Rabbi Sacks argues, basing himself on a principle first introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, that the true meaning of anything necessarily lies outside of it; therefore, by extension, “the sense of the world must lie outside the world.” This true meaning, Rabbi Sacks continues, relies on the monotheistic conception of God, which understands that He transcends, entirely, all physical existence. In identifying the world’s “sense” and “meaning” with the transcendental God of monotheism and the human free will that He facilitates, Rabbi Sacks is following the well-trodden path of Rambam in his dispute with Aristotle and, more explicitly, the arguments of R’ Hirsch which strenuously oppose all forms of pagan and natural determinism.

A consequence of this proposition is that religion and science are two distinct and quite separate disciplines. If their nature and specific spheres of application are correctly understood, it is to be appreciated that science and religion can never clash or conflict with one another.

R’ Sacks described repeatedly how science examines the physical world on the basis of what is detectable to our five physical senses and develops theories as to how it works. Religion, by contrast, offers meaning as to why the universe exists and operates. This meaning, as stated above, derives from beyond the physical universe, in the metaphysical realm of God and our free-choosing human soul. That these metaphysical elements lie beyond the scope of scientific investigation merely confirms and reinforces their function in providing eternal religious meaning—a meaning which transcends the dynamic and ever-changing process of scientific discovery and theory.

First posted to Facebook 15 November 2020, here.

Rashi in a Maimonidean vision

My previous post discussed Rambam’s position on prophecy, an approach which is often regarded as radical. While the simple reading of the biblical text creates the impression that God is initiating a form of communication with prophets, Rambam interprets this process to be significantly more passive. The mind of the prophet is able to gain an insight into God’s will regarding necessary matters (Ralbag explains that the prophet can choose to concentrate on certain topics in order for the prophetic inspiration to address them).

How original though is Rambam really being with his theory of prophecy?

In Judaism Reclaimed I quote some surprising remarks from Jewish philosopher, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who argued that a very similar approach was taken in Ashkenaz – a century earlier – by none other than Rashi!

Citing a low-key remark hidden at the end of the longest parashah in the Torah, Naso, Rashi comments on the word “midaber” which is used to describe God “speaking” to Moshe that the words “to him” really mean “to Himself”. Moshe did not hear a voice but rather gained an inner awareness of God’s meaning. This pivotal comment is described by Leibowitz as “astounding”. He adds:

“Rashi lived two generations before Maimonides, but in these few words Rashi gives Maimonides’ entire view on prophecy…”.

“We are not surprised at Maimonides, for this view of prophecy is in keeping with his entire system of faith. But Rashi, who is always considered to be of naive faith and far from philosophic thought and analysis, says the exact same thing”.

Elsewhere in his book of parashah analysis, Leibowitz asserts that those who read Rashi with a trained eye will be aware of a sophisticated philosophical comprehension of God concealed behind his customary low-profile presentation. In one instance, in his commentary to Yevamot 49a, Rashi contrasts the superior prophecy of Moshe to that of other prophets saying:

“All the prophets looked through a dark glass –and thought they saw, and our teacher Moshe looked through a clear glass and knew that he had not seen Him to His face”.

Rashi clearly understands that God’s essence is beyond comprehension and that Moshe, who experienced an enhanced level of prophecy, perceived this more acutely than other prophets. For Leibowitz, Rashi’s words foreshadow Rambam’s negative theology and his understanding (Guide 1:59) that the wisest of all sages, such as Moshe and Shlomo, are distinguished from lesser sages by the extent to which they perceive and internalise the gulf between God and His creatures.

While Judaism Reclaimed attempts to defend Rashi from allegations that he believed in a corporeal deity, Leibowitz goes much further, considering him a first-degree philosopher.

This leaves us wondering which is more radical: Rambam’s theory of prophecy or Leibowitz’s theory of Rashi?!

First posted on Facebook 15 June 2022, here.

The role of miracles: Maimonidean minimalists and mystical maximalists

The post a few days ago on the extent to which the Ten Plagues in Egypt could and should be understood as having occurred through natural means generated an extensive and fascinating debate. One of the main issues which arose is the question of motivation: why would a religious person, who seeks to perceive and relate to God, seek to minimise His miraculous interactions with the physical world?

Judaism Reclaimed’s chapter on parashat Beshalach focuses firmly on the desirability of miracles, contrasting the theological approaches of Rambam and others to the phenomenon of miracles and the rules of nature. An interesting introduction to this topic relates to a passage of Rambam in the final chapter of Shemoneh Perakim, where he cites and rejects a certain philosophy which was popular among Islamic theologians (mutakallim) of his era:

“For I have heard them say that [God’s] Will in every matter is always repeated at each moment – and this is not our belief. Rather the Will during the six days of Creation was that all things would continue according to their nature…and for this reason the sages were required to say regarding all miraculous exceptions to nature which have been and which will occur in the future, that the Will for all of them was during these six days of Creation.”

It also significant that even Sa’adiah Gaon, whose theological approach tended to be close to the mutakallim, rejected their theories of continuous creation. Nevertheless, more recent trends in Jewish thought have popularised this approach. Ba’al Shem Tov and the Tanya on the Chassidic side, and Beit Halevi from the mitnagdim, all powerfully promote the notion that God is perpetually creating the world at every moment. A crucial repercussion of this difference of opinion is how these two groups view the laws of nature.

Rambam explains that a person's ultimate purpose is to develop the intellect in order to comprehend divine truths to the best of one’s ability, and thereby achieve a place in the World to Come. While dramatic miracles can create feelings of awe and wonder, these impressions are limited to the senses and emotion and do not represent an intellectual comprehension and understanding of God and His ways. Rambam teaches that this is to be achieved through quiet contemplation of God's works — His Torah and Creation — in order to recognise the wisdom lying behind them. For Rambam therefore, every miraculous abrogation of the perceived Godly order actually challenges the very bedrock of ‘knowing God’ – his first and most fundamental commandment in Mishneh Torah. Miracles by definition cannot be understood by people, and are therefore only useful for providing temporary inspiration rather than genuine understanding of the divine.

The alternate approach of perpetual creation, which views what we perceive as cause and effect based on the rules of nature to be an elaborate illusion results in a very different understanding, summarised by Ramban in his commentary at the end of parashat Bo:

“A person has no portion in the Torah of Moshe until he believes that all matters and occurrences are totally miraculous and that there is no nature or way of the world contained within them.”

While for Rambam, therefore, the Torah’s miracles were performed only out of particular necessity at very specific times, the mystical approach seeks to maximise the role and significance of miracles. Judaism Reclaimed proceeds to show how this basic theological split between the two camps influences their approach to several other areas of Jewish thought.

For example, the utopian messianic era of Rambam consists of the removal of all barriers to quiet contemplation and understanding of God’s wisdom. These barriers removed, biblical assurances that “your sons and daughters will prophesy” and “the world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed”, can be fulfilled. Meanwhile, the messianic era of Ramban and the mystics is one in which, on account of our worthiness, God’s miraculous wonders will no longer need to be concealed behind rules of nature leading to a supernatural and miraculous future era.

First posted on Facebook 9 January 2022, here.

Religious coercion and Jewish theocracy

This week’s parashah opens with a requirement to appoint law enforcement officers. In Torah law, it is not only civil and criminal law which is regulated by governmental authorities, but also religious rules such as Shabbat observance.

How are we to relate to the Torah’s apparent endorsement of such a phenomenon? Can this passage be cited in support of those who campaign, for example, to close entertainment venues on Shabbat in Israel?

Setting aside the practical efficacy of adopting heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to increase religious observance among secular people – and the likely backlash that this would continue to provoke – certain Talmudic passages suggest that implementing such coercion in today’s society may not be correct from a religious perspective.

In its chapter which grapples with the ability of Jewish civil and criminal law to govern a society, Judaism Reclaimed cites a fascinating passage from the writings of Yeshayahu Leibowitz. The passage concerns the Eglah Arufah ceremony – also found in this week’s parashah – which was performed by the elders of a community which had suffered an unsolved murder. By carrying out this rite, the community is brought to realise the enormity of what has occurred and the sanctity of human life.

A Mishnah at the end of Sotah teaches, however, that “when the number of murderers increased, the Eglah Arufa ceremony was suspended”. This religious rite is meaningful only in a society for which murder is an abhorrent and exceptional occurrence. Once murder is commonplace, explains Leibowitz (and supported by Rabbi S. R. Hirsch), there is no need to pretend that we are shocked by an unresolved murder. In such a society there is a certain measure of hypocrisy in such a rite. The society must first be purged of daily occurrences of murder – only then is there reason to hold such a ceremony. A parallel tannaitic teaching informs us that “when adultery became common, the bitter waters [Sotah rites] were suspended”. Once again, concludes Leibowitz, if a society is saturated with sexual immorality, there is no reason to be shocked at the case of a suspected adulteress. One ought instead to try to reform the society.

Leibowitz then proposes that the spirit governing the abolition of the Eglah Arufah and Sotah rites contains an important lesson for today’s generation:

“In a society and state which are not based on the recognition of the obligation to observe the Torah, there is no reason to investigate whether some specific law of the state is in accordance with the halakha. By directing our thoughts and actions to just these details…we make the struggle for the Torah and its mitzvot into a caricature.

In a society and a state in which public life, as based on government and law, involves the operation of ports and airports on Shabbat, where hundreds of factories work on Shabbat with government permission, where there are government radio and television on Shabbat, the struggle against the opening of another movie house on Shabbat makes religion into a mockery. In a society where large parts within it, of all social classes, have ruled that “You will not commit adultery” and “there will not be a harlot” does not apply, and that such phenomena are even understandable – the requirement that marriage must be in accordance with halakha is only a desecration of the institute of religious marriage, a desecration of the Torah, and only serves to increase the number of mamzerim in Israel.

Mend the society, mend the state – and then you are permitted, and even obliged, to be concerned that the details within the framework of the society and the state should be in accordance with the demands of the Torah. As long as you do not struggle for a change of the image of the Jewish people, you cannot struggle for certain details in the lifestyle of the members of this community, and certainly not for details in the laws of that state, that community – which has not assumed for itself the Yoke of the Torah and mitzvot – is establishing for itself.”

It may be possible to bolster these powerful words from Yeshayahu Leibowitz with those of his prophetic namesake, who sharply rebuked Israel for their misplaced priorities in the First Temple era:

“You shall no longer bring vain meal-offerings, it is smoke of abomination to Me; New Moons and Sabbaths, festivals, I cannot [bear] iniquity with assembly. Your New Moons and your appointed seasons My soul hates, they are a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing [them]…Wash, cleanse yourselves, remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes, cease to do evil. Learn to do good, seek justice, strengthen the robbed, perform justice for the orphan, plead the case of the widow.”

If God, as represented in the first chapter of Yeshaya, considers the ritual observances of a corrupt and unrighteous people to be unwelcome and burdensome, can we rightly expect our secular brethren to embrace a religion which is so regularly tainted with scandal and unethical behaviour? Rather than battling to coerce whole swathes of a resentful secular society to unwillingly curtail their Shabbat entertainment, perhaps the most potent tool of persuasion available to religious warriors is to concentrate on constructing a religious society which is so ethical, holy and righteous that is serves as a spiritual magnet for those searching to better themselves and live a refined and godly existence.

Tel Aviv light rail dispute here.

First posted on Facebook 28 August 2022, here.

The shifting sands of philosophical certainty

 Shmuli Phillips is with Alec Goldstein and Gil Student.

Many Shabbat tables yesterday are likely to have been entertained by enthusiastic youngsters eagerly regaling us with accounts of how a three-year-old Avram discovered proto-Judaism by means of an intellectual exploration of ultimate theological truths. Armed with his newfound religious certainty, these popular Midrashim continue, Avram proceeded to vanquish the pagan dictator Nimrod in theological debate before being cast into a furnace by the enraged tyrant – and surviving – all this before our parasha has even begun.

While many in today’s Jewish world profess a similar certainty as to the existence of proofs in favour of their religious dispositions, a major theme of Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith is the recognition that prevailing philosophical wisdom considers that such matters can neither be proven nor disproven. In a thoughtful chapter that I was reading over Shabbat, Rabbi Gil Student draws heavily upon the writings of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, a 19th century Prussian rabbi.

Rabbi Kalischer emphasises the importance of a Judaism which is built upon both intellectual inquiry and traditional faith in order to produce an enduring and meaningful engagement with Judaism in the modern world. Devoid of sufficient rational grounding and understanding of Judaism, the bearer of simple faith is likely to be unprepared for any serious challenges that come his or her way. In addition, an intellectual relationship with Judaism, he argues, leads to a stronger and more refined lifestyle and set of priorities: “Someone who views the world with scrutiny will avoid the vanities and foolishnesses of life, the pitfalls of pride and jealousy, the meaningless trivialities that occupy so much time and resources”.

Even more forcefully, however, Rabbi Kalischer insists that rational exploration alone cannot provide a firm enough grounding for a religious life. Modern critiques of long-respected philosophical positions have shown us the limitations of man’s knowledge – the lack of information that we have about the world – which force us to rely upon our personal questionable interpretations of reality. Our only reliable source, concludes, R’ Student, is revelation and tradition.

Examples are offered of Descartes, Kant and Hegel – towering historical figures in philosophy whose theories are now obsolete. “All the great theories have failed, all the great geniuses have been superseded time and again by new geniuses. What certainty lies with today’s geniuses over last century’s and next century’s?”

Significantly, this argument about the “shifting sands” of philosophy is not wielded against the entire philosophic endeavour itself. Instead it is a warning against a tendency among thinkers of any particular era to be overconfident in the fruits of their own rational deliberations. “No argument, no approach can yield conclusive results. The history of philosophy demonstrates that amply”.

The conclusion drawn from this is that intellectual inquiry should be used as a tool to enhance revealed truths which have been faithfully transmitted through the generations:

“We must pursue wisdom, but with the caveat that its conclusions are all tentative. Faith guides us; wisdom deepens the faith. When the two conflict, we view today’s wisdom as tentative, temporary, a step towards an ultimate wisdom that walks lockstep with faith”.

A somewhat similar Midrashic teaching relating to Avram’s early intellectual odyssey forms the basis of the opening chapter of Judaism Reclaimed. Bereishit Rabbah (39:8) explores the comparison of the Jewish nation with a dove. There we are taught that while all other birds rest on a rock or tree when they tire, when a dove is tired, it pushes itself with one of its wings, and flies with the other.

Based on this, Rabbi Shalom Mordechai Schwadron explains that each wing represents a different way that we connect with God. The first, which we may call the philosophical approach, emerges from our own intellectual endeavours to comprehend and connect with the awesomeness of God, while the second - which is a more emotional and spiritual connection - is stimulated by religious and spiritual moments that God sends our way to uplift and inspire us. As I summarise there:

“by developing these complementary aspects of religious endeavour, a person who runs into difficulty with one approach can fall back and rely upon the other (just like when either wing is “tired”, the dove can “fly” with the other). Both intellectual and spiritual-experiential approaches are thus of crucial relevance in every individual’s religious quest, even thought the extent to which each of these two approaches is drawn upon will necessarily vary from person to person” (see more here)

The midrashic accounts of young Avram, it would seem, highlight not only the importance but also the limitations of independent rational inquiry.

First posted to Facebook 6 November 2022, here.