Rambam's Messiah or a dystopian nightmare?

Yesterday morning I sat reading a book review in The Economist of Deep Utopia – a novel by Nick Bostrom which contemplates a future era in which all human work and activity is rendered redundant by progress in AI and robotics. The reviewer was deeply troubled by the nightmarish scenario and implications of the “terrible boredom” which would ensue once humans no longer have to dedicate the majority of their hours to earning a living and performing necessary chores. 

What struck me is the stark contrast of this reviewer’s outlook to that of Rambam in the closing statements of his Mishneh Torah:

“The Sages and the prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come, as explained in Hilchot Teshuvah.

In that era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God.”

It got me wondering how enthusiastic talk of “wanting to bring Mashiach now” should be translated practically. While a lot of focus is understandably placed on maximizing mitzvah performance and debating how and when a Mikdash might be built, how much of our nation would regard the Messianic era of Rambam and our sages as a utopian blessing rather than dystopian dullness?

One separate matter that this book review might resolve is how to reconcile and interpret some other difficult sources regarding the Messianic era. In a famous passage (Berachot 35b, see further discussion in Judaism Reclaimed), Rabbi Yishmael interprets the blessing contained in the Shema of “And you shall gather in your grain” to be envisioning an ideal future of great abundance. Rabbi Shimon objects that this would hardly be a blessing: if the super-abundance means that we are required to spend all day gathering in grain “what will become of Torah study?!”. Rather, he contends, the true future blessing can be found in Yeshaya’s messianic vision in which we will be able to sit and study while “strangers” will happily and voluntarily till our land.

Who might such strangers be? If it refers to non-Jews, how is this then to be reconciled with a further messianic prophecy of Yeshaya which describes how the nations will rush to learn the word of God from the Jews?

Well, if Nick Bostrom’s vision comes to pass, the “zarim” (strangers) who are tasked with harvesting the abundance and feeding humanity will be mechanized robotic ones, programmed with just the right amount of intelligence for the job. (I’ve recently wondered, during my weekly farm-volunteering in Southern Israel, if Rabbi Shimon would have been placated had he seen people in the modern era picking fruit while listening to hours of Shiurim and Torah podcasts!).

Finally, there are those who raise the question as to whether AI developments could even influence or render redundant the Maimonidean messianic vision of sages dedicating endless hours to Torah study and absorbing divine wisdom. With expected advances of technology, they ask, would the sages not just be able to plug a computer chip into their brains and thus instantly possess all the requisite Torah knowledge?

To understand the fallacy of such an assumption, I believe, one first has to be aware of the nature and function of Torah study (a matter explored at length in a chapter of Talmud Reclaimed). Torah knowledge is not simply a set of facts, laws and statistics which can be memorized or uploaded from a computer drive. Rather, as sources as diverse as Rambam, the Ba’al HaTanya and Rav Soloveitchik show, it is a relationship with God and perspective on the world which arises from immersing oneself in sophisticated Talmudic analysis. From absorbing such wisdom and training one’s mind sufficiently, a person can come to look at the entire world differently – from a more divine perspective.

In fact for Rambam, such a process is critical as a prior stage before one enters the esoteric areas of the Torah known as “Pardes” (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 4:13).

It is hard to imagine that delegating one’s Torah study to a robot can even begin to achieve these benefits. There is a derogatory concept in rabbinic literature of “Chamor Nosei Seforim” (donkey loaded with books) which refers to a putative Torah scholar who has merely memorized numerous sources without having properly understood or internalized their meaning. What we can hope for is that the advent of AI makes information so ubiquitous that all Torah rote-learning becomes unnecessary. If this occurs, it could allow for a shift of focus in the Messianic era to analysis of more profound principles and a utopian era in which we are free to develop our minds to that our “sons and daughters will prophesy” – a vision which represents the pinnacle of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah and vision of Judaism.

First posted on Facebook 2 June 2024.

Concealed commemoration: the Torah's ambivalent attitude to recalling the events of Sinai

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

A malady that frequently afflicts academic critiques of the Torah is the tendency to build mountains of theories on the most fragile of foundations: the argument from silence. This argument involves the inference that, if a book of the Bible fails to mention any particular historical detail that preceded it, this detail was therefore unknown to the later biblical author.

In an article for thetorah.com (linked at the end of this post), Dr. Rabbi David Frankel writes of the Sinai theophany, “it is striking to note that, in the rest of the Tanach, this event is almost totally ignored”. He proceeds to argue that this absence across biblical works demonstrates that the event was unknown by most, if not all ancient Israelites, and reflects an alternative tradition that sees Israel’s laws as deriving from multiple small revelations from prophets throughout history.

In order to counter this argument, we will first note numerous later references to the events at Sinai (or Horeb). The second half of this post will then examine whether the theophany was really the “dramatic highpoint” of Jewish history that Frankel suggests. Is it justifiable to be so astounded by the paucity of its subsequent recounting in biblical texts?

Deuteronomy 33:2 consists of a reference to God’s glory appearing at Sinai that is referenced in at least three other biblical books:

“He said: The LORD came from Sinai; He shone upon them from Seir; He appeared from Mount Paran, And approached from Ribeboth-kodesh, Lightning flashing at them from His right.”

Judges 5:4-5 uses notably similar language to describe the theophany:

“O LORD, when You came forth from Seir, Advanced from the country of Edom, The earth trembled; The heavens dripped, Yea, the clouds dripped water. The mountains quaked— Before the LORD, Him of Sinai, Before the LORD, God of Israel."

Habakkuk 3:2-3 

“God is coming from Teman, The Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His majesty covers the skies, His splendor fills the earth. It is a brilliant light Which gives off rays on every side— And therein His glory is enveloped.”

Habakkuk employs similar terminology to Deuteronomy 33 and, while not mentioning Sinai explicitly, is understood by biblical scholars as a reference to the Sinai theophany.

Psalms 68:8, 9, 18: 

“O God, when You went at the head of Your army, when You marched through the desert, selah. The earth trembled, the sky rained because of God, on Sinai, because of God, the God of Israel…God’s chariots are myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them as in Sinai in holiness.”

This reference to Sinai employs similar terminology to both the revelation at Sinai in Deuteronomy 33 and that of Judges 5 cited above.

Other biblical references to the events at Sinai are more explicit:

1 Kings 8:9 “There was nothing inside the Ark but the two tablets of stone which Moses placed there at Horeb, when the LORD made [a covenant] with the Israelites after their departure from the land of Egypt.”

1 Kings 19:8 “He [Elijah] arose and ate and drank; and with the strength from that meal he walked forty days and forty nights as far as the mountain of God at Horeb.”

Psalms 106:19, 23: “They made a calf at Horeb and bowed down to a molten image…He would have destroyed them had not Moses His chosen one confronted Him in the breach to avert His destructive wrath.”

Malachi 3:22 “Be mindful of the Teaching of My servant Moses, whom I charged at Horeb with laws and rules for all Israel.”

A high proportion of the so-called “Later Prophets” consists of allegorical poetic verse rather than precise historical recordings. Nevertheless, certain clear references to the events of Sinai are evident in the haunting words of Ezekiel (chap. 16) as he recounts the delicate dynamics of the early relationship between God and Israel, as well as in the stern rebuke of Jeremiah (chap. 2). Both draw upon the term “edyo”: the ornament with which Israel was crowned at Sinai before being stripped of after the sin of the Golden Calf (more on this soon). Other more subtle references, such as Rahab’s speech in the second chapter of Joshua and Elijah’s vision at Horeb in Kings I 19, are analysed by biblical scholars.

While Frankel claims that historical reviews of the Israelite’s sojourn in the desert (Psalms 136, Numbers 33, Deuteronomy 26, Joshua 24, 1 Samuel 12:8) omit mention of Sinai, it should be recognized that each one of these apparent reviews of history are brief in nature, and contain minimal details of the Israelite sojourn in the desert.

This is typical of biblical reviews which are generally brief summaries, or focused on specific themes such as sins or plagues, and are hardly comprehensive. In fact, there are many major events in the Tanach, such as the Akeida, Mannah and miraculous death of Korach’s assembly, that are barely mentioned again. The fact that some individual book or prophet does not record a particular major event from the past should not lead us to conclude prematurely that it must not have been known to its author.

While the sources listed above provide ample evidence that the theophany at Sinai was well known to later biblical authors, the question remains why such an apparently significant event in Jewish national history is referenced only obliquely and indirectly in subsequent biblical texts.

When one carefully examines the Torah’s account as well as rabbinic sources it becomes evident that the prime significance of Sinai is not the Ten Commandments themselves, which are not the first laws taught to the nation. Nor can Sinai truly be considered the primary place of the Lawgiving with the majority of the Torah’s laws and text transmitted over the subsequent 39 years in the desert. Rather the Sinai revelation was intended to authenticate Moshe’s prophecy, as God explains to Moshe:

"I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever." (Exodus 19:9, see Hil. Yesodei HaTorah 8:1)

In terms of the historical implications of Sinai, it is the national covenant with God which appears most important. A covenant the significance of which is emphasised and continually referenced not just in the Torah itself, but throughout later prophetic works.

The Ten Commandments, while occupying a special place within Jewish thought, are not as central in Jewish tradition as they are for Christians, who emphasised the Ten Commandments at the expense of the Torah’s other teachings. To quote biblical scholar, Professor Dominik Markl:

“Within the New Testament, Jesus is shown as taking the validity of the Decalogue for granted (Mk 10:19 // Mt 19:18f // Lk 18:29) and using it for his ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5: 21, 27, 28). Against this backdrop, the Decalogue gained a central role in Early Christian interpretation of the divine law. Rabbinic Judaism, however, emphasised that every commandment of the Torah had the same divine authority.”

From the Jewish perspective, the special significance of the Ten Commandments lies more in their representation of the entirety of Torah law in condensed form; perhaps as a manner of preamble which was utilized for the sealing of the nation’s covenant with God. Scholars evaluating the Sinai theophany solely from the perspective of Jewish tradition, unaffected by Christian teachings and influence (which includes the Western tradition of art) may be somewhat less surprised that the Ten Commandments are not explicitly referenced throughout later prophetic works.

Finally, it can also be persuasively argued that the momentous national revelation of Sinai was irreparably marred by the sin of the Golden Calf which immediately followed it. We read in yesterday’s parashah how, in the aftermath of the Sinai sin, God proposes to destroy the nation. While God rescinds His threat, the fallout of the Golden Calf sees an angel lead the people in His place and Moshe remove his dwelling place from the camp. Not only is the nation described as having lost their adornments (“edyo”, see above), it is also informed that punishment for the sin would be visited upon them in future. Centuries later, memories of the sin still haunt the Israelite kingdom, with Jeroboam forming his own golden calves and repeating the declaration: “these are your gods O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt”. The Talmud shockingly compares the Israelite sinning with the Golden Calf at Sinai to a “bride whoring under her wedding canopy” (Shabbat 88a).

Taking this loss of status and national shame into account we may be able to understand why later biblical books do not refer to Sinai explicitly. The Torah’s instruction to “remember” the national revelation is accomplished through veiled references to the event which initially promised so much, but ultimately set the stage for a complicated relationship between God and Israel.

https://tinyurl.com/3k9fyxnh

First posted to Facebook 7 March 2021.

A Rosh Hashanah showdown in the Holy Land

Anyone witnessing the wide-eyed panic of Israeli shoppers in the Machane Yehuda market last week would have been quickly reminded of the fact that a two-day celebration in the Holy Land is a relatively rare occurrence. While Jews living in the Diaspora are accustomed to repeating festive days on account of an ancient calendrical doubt whose results remain enshrined in Jewish law, this phenomenon was never instituted for Jews in the Land of Israel – except that is for Rosh Hashanah.

Or was it?

In the course of my recent research into the formation and authority of the Babylonian Talmud, I came across a fascinating passage contained in the Me’or Hakattan commentary of Rabbi Zerachyah Halevy. Reviewing the Rif’s codification of the Talmudic ruling that Rosh Hashanah must be observed for two days – even in the land of Israel – Rabbi Zerachyah notes that this law was not observed in Israel throughout the Geonic era.

The calendar had always been within the jurisdiction of the original Sanhedrin that sat in the land of Israel, an institution which ceased to exist only with the migration of Jews to Bavel in the fourth century. Perhaps for this reason, the attempt by Babylonian sages to impose a second day of Rosh Hashanah upon the community in Palestine was resisted so strongly, even though this ruling was apparently formalised within the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbi Zerachyah recounts how Rav Hai Gaon attempted unsuccessfully to convince Palestinian communities to observe a second day of the festival in accordance with his understanding of the Babylonian Talmud, but that they had only finally acquiesced to the two-day observance rule in “recent” times at the persuasion of rabbis from Provence. [Rabbi Zerachyah lived circa 1115 to 1186. Rav Hai Gaon lived from 939-1038 CE.]

Ran in his commentary to this ruling of the Rif points out that both sides of this dispute could be seen as legitimate interpretations of the Babylonian Talmud which only rules concerning an era in which the Sanhedrin fixed the calendar according to witnessed sightings of the new moon. Nevertheless, the matter evidently evolved into a question of authority between the Babylonian Geonim and their understanding of the Talmud and the Palestinian community who wished to maintain their tradition of celebrating for one day only.

A further ancient practice of the Palestinian-influenced communities which ceased at around this point was the triennial cycle of Torah reading. The triennial cycle was the practice in Israel, whereas in Babylonia the entire Torah was read in the synagogue in the course of a single year. As late as 1170, Benjamin of Tudela recounted how Egyptian congregations took three years to read the Torah.

It would seem that Babylonian authority over communities in Palestine was a sore and contentious point. During the early generations of Amoraim, scholarship and academies in the land of Israel had rivalled and perhaps even eclipsed those of Bavel, with its sitting Sanhedrin and Yerushalmi Talmud which was produced by Rabbi Yochanan in the 4th century. Subsequent religious persecution led to a significant wave of migration to Bavel and with it the inclusion of numerous Palestinian voices and rulings in the Babylonian Talmud. Nevertheless, Jews in the land of Israel for centuries to come did not fully accept the notion that they were bound by the conclusions of the Babylonian Talmud rather than its Palestinian counterpart. They seem to have maintained that the two Talmuds bore equal legal force, since each represented a legitimate representation of the same underlying oral tradition. This was the situation until the establishment of the caliphate in Baghdad in the eighth century, when Abassid Babylonia became the centre not only of Arabic but also of Jewish culture. From then on, the influence of the Babylonian Talmud gradually began to overwhelm that of the Palestinian Talmud.

Ultimately, the Crusades thoroughly weakened the Jewish community in the land of Israel. This, coupled with a sustained campaign on the part of students of the Rif, appears to have ended whatever resistance had remained to the universal acceptance of the Babylonian Talmud as an exclusive binding source of Jewish law. However, the existence of a precise historical point at which it could be deemed “universally accepted by all of Israel”, as Rambam maintains in his introduction to Mishneh Torah, is a matter which might be subject to some debate.

First posted to Facebook 28 September 2022, here.

Does the Torah recognise the existence of other Gods?

The parashah we read yesterday features phrases which appear to recognise gods other than the God of the Torah. First, Yitro declare that “YHVH is greater than all the Elohim” then the second of the Commandments requires that “you shall have no other gods before me”. Verses such as these have led to claims in certain quarters (see link at the end) that the Torah’s system of belief is most correctly labelled “Monolatrism” – demanding belief of a single God while recognising the existence of multiple deities.

How might traditional Judaism respond to such a claim? Does the Torah’s use of the term “El” in reference to God imply any sort of recognition of ancient Canaanite religion with its pantheon of deities headed by the supreme “El” creator-god?

The Torah’s very first mention of God at the start of the Creation narrative presents Him in terminology which raises questions. “El-ohim” can be seen to contain the Canaanite term for a deity while also appearing to take on a plural form (albeit following a singular verb “bara”).

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch examines this term in the context of what is often considered to be Torah’s primary agenda – negating pagan belief and practice. R’ Hirsch notes how paganism fragments the natural world into many competing forces and phenomena, each of which is headed by some kind of deity – whose conflicts and clashes are reflected in the dynamic natural world that we encounter.

Judaism denies the existence of these numerous “Elohim”, instead ascribing the power that is attributed to them to the one God of the Torah – the God who created and controls all these numerous natural forces. Thus when Yitro, upon leaving pagan society to join the Israelites, states “YHVH is greater than all of the Elohim”, his intention could be interpreted in two ways. Has he completely renounced any belief in the efficacy of pagan deities or is he simply stating that the God who has taken the Jews out of Egypt and performed an impressive array of miracles clearly possesses greater power than other gods?

Yitro returns to his people soon after – his theological convictions can be debated. The Torah’s views on the matter are, however, far less ambiguous. The book of Devarim in particular emphasises God as being One, as well as describing Him as “YHVH is the Elohim in the heavens above and the earth below” and “there is none beside Him”.

Nevertheless repeated biblical passages, supported by archaeological evidence, make it clear that the Torah’s monotheism presented an enormous challenge to the Israelites, a challenge which a significant portion of the nation appears to have failed for much of the first Temple period. In rebuking the idolatrous Israelites, the prophets repeatedly reiterate that these gods “are vanity, a work of delusion” (Yirmeyah 10:15). Further details of the idols’ incapacity are related by the Psalmist (chap. 115) as well as in the second chapter of Habakkuk:

“What did a graven image avail that its maker has graven it? A molten image and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusted in it to make dumb idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, "Awaken!"; to the dumb stone, "Arise!" Shall it teach? Behold it is overlaid with gold and silver, and no spirit is within it.”

Even for those Jews who resisted the popular allure of outright idol worship, the corrosive Canaanite influence infiltrated even mainstream Jewish practice to the extent that, for the masses, it was often difficult to differentiate between legitimate divine worship and Caananite idolatry. Radak describes, for example, how Jews were influenced by the Canaanite custom to perform sacrificial pagan rites "on high mountains and hills”, until this practice became adopted by those attempting a genuine worship of God on private altars (bamot). Malbim adds that this adopted practice led to a joint ‘shituf’ practice in which the worshippers saw no contradiction between the idea of serving a supreme God on the one hand, and mimicking pagan recognition of ‘his intermediaries’ such as Ba'al and Ashera.

This confused synthesis of monotheistic belief and polytheistic practice is perhaps most graphically demonstrated in the dramatic episode of Eliyahu on Mount Carmel. Confronting the idolatrous Northern Kingdom which was riddled with Ba'al worship, Eliyahu challenges the gathered audience:

“For how long will you skip between two opinions? If Hashem is God, follow Him, if Ba’al is God follow him”.

Eliyahu appears to be emphasising that his audience cannot claim loyalty to and “skip between” two incompatible theological beliefs. They must choose between a pure, monotheistic conception of God and pagan polytheistic worship. His audience appear, at least briefly, to have grasped this principle. Echoing Yitro’s words they solemnly declare “YHVH is the Elohim” – thereby affirming that the forces of nature deified by polytheism have no power beyond that granted by God.

Returning to the Ten Commandments, the wording mentioned above prohibiting the worship of other gods now appears to be very precise. Rather than simply outlawing idolatry the Torah says “You shall have no other gods before Me” – targeting, it would seem, the syncretic shituf of attempting to combine the Torah’s monotheism with the pagan pantheon of the Canaanites. The very same practice concerning which Eliyahu faced off against the priests of Baal in order to expunge from Israel.

While some archaeologists have argued that the significant quantity of idolatrous shrines and figurines uncovered from the First Temple period makes it unlikely that the early Israelites were prohibited from such practices, others such as William F. Albright attempt to put this in context:

"...Polytheism had a popular appeal in many ways like that of the dominant secularism of our own age. The wealth, science and aesthetic culture were lined up on the side of Canaanite religion. All the sinister fascination of the elaborate proto-sciences of magic and divination was marshaled in defense of polytheism...The extraordinary thing is that the way of Moses survived in Israel despite all of the forces drawn up against it".

"When the Jews believed in other gods" (Elon Glad, Haaretz) here.

First posted to Facebook 23 January 2022, here.

Shoah survivors and humanity's eternal challenge

For Yom HaShoah (Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day) this year I have decided to share some passages from the memoirs of Holocaust survivors that I find particularly profound and inspiring. The unique perspectives and reflections of those who have personally witnessed the greatest atrocity inflicted by one set of humans upon another can often highlight or reinforce moral and religious lessons for the rest of us.

The first extract is taken from Man’s Search For Meaning, the Holocaust memoirs of Viktor E. Frankl:

“Even among the guards there were some who took pity on us. I shall only mention the commander of the camp from which I was liberated. It was found after the liberation…that this man had paid no small sum of money from his own pocket in order to purchase medicines for his prisoners from the nearest market town…It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing.

Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of the camp’s influences and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible…

From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two – the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere and penetrate into all groups of society.”

The overpowering insight of Frankl – words that only a survivor could dare to record – is a far-reaching restatement of Rambam’s statement in chapter 5 of Hilchot Teshuvah regarding the absolute free will granted to all individuals. “This matter is a great foundation and a pillar of the Torah… Were God to decree on any person to be righteous or wicked, or were there to be a matter that pulled a person’s heart…toward one of these paths…how could God command us through the prophets…and of what utility would be the entire Torah…and with what justice could God punish the wicked and reward the righteous?” A chapter of Judaism Reclaimed probes the tension between human free will on the one hand and Divine Providence on the other, citing Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ response to the ever-present question of “Where was God during the Holocaust?”. God, writes Rabbi Sacks, generally does not impose His will but rather guides humans as to how to use theirs.

Frankl’s insistence that we view the monstrous perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary humans who abused their Divine gift of free will is underscored by another passage, this time from Out Of The Depths, the memoirs of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau. Rabbi Lau is recording his own passionate response to one of the witnesses from the Eichmann trial:

“If Auschwitz were indeed another planet, it would be easier to accept the Holocaust. But in truth, the disaster of Auschwitz is that it happened on the very same planet where we had lived before, where we live now, and where we will continue to live. Those who carried out the cruel murders of the innocent where ordinary people, who returned home from their murderous acts to water the flowers in their manicured gardens. They tended the flowers lovingly and carefully so they would blossom, just after they had torn infants to pieces and shattered the skulls of men and women. Just after shoving thousands of people into the gas chambers to their deaths, they came home to play with dolls together with their little girls, and listen to classical music, eyes closed, engrossed in the uplifting spirituality of Bach and Beethoven…Those were people just like you and me, and that’s the whole problem. When you transfer all those horrors to another planet, you minimise the issue. You are saying that something like the Holocaust can never happen to us again. In my humble opinion, you are wrong…”

There is an unsettling tendency in some quarters to depict heroes and religious leaders as ever-righteous superhumans who are never subject to temptation – and certainly always distant from sin. As we discuss in Judaism Reclaimed, such an approach not only robs their followers of potentially potent role models who can inspire others to battle and overcome challenges, it also undermines the fundamental principle of absolute free by implying that these leaders were naturally pre-ordained for greatness. Even more damaging and destructive, it emerges from Rabbi Lau’s continuation, is the implication that evil is committed by a team of inhuman monsters, inherently differentiated from the rest of mankind. Not only does this notion challenge Judaism’s core teaching of human free will and autonomy, it also prevents us from taking seriously the deadly potential of genocidal threats, relying on the false premise that “the world would never let that happen”.

First posted on Facebook 20 April 2020, here.

Is "storming the heavens" a Jewish approach to prayer?

Requests to pray for sick friends and relatives – and even for people who I’m pretty sure I’ve never met – have become a regular feature of my social media in recent years. This phenomenon can certainly be said to have advantages: increasing the pool of people praying while enhancing our feeling of care and concern for our unfortunate brethren.

One phrase which has started to feature with increasing regularity, however, has been causing me considerable discomfort. “Let’s storm the Heavens with our prayers!”. This battle-cry did not seem wholly consistent with what I understand to be a Jewish approach to prayer. While it is true that certain prophets, such as Avraham, have been known to question God’s actions, this came from a place of humility rather entitled demanding. Yesterday’s parashah saw Aharon seemingly praised for humbly accepted his fate rather than petitioning God. In the Talmud meanwhile, Choni Hame’agel is heavily criticised for his strongly worded and irreverent insistence that God must provide rain for the Jewish people.

More broadly, Judaism Reclaimed examines the approaches to prayer of Rambam and Rabbi S. R. Hirsch who understand its function as being primarily to forge and maintain a relationship with God and improve our understanding of him rather than to try and force Him to comply with our demands.

I set out therefore to investigate the origin of this troubling phrase. Imagine my surprise when I discovered not only that it has firmly Christian roots, but that it has also been the subject of inter-denominational debate among Christians. The following was written by a Catholic Friar:

“…we see Protestant spiritual terminology adopted by Catholics, such as “storming heaven with prayers.” What this means is that when you pray, you have to do so in a bold and confident manner and seeing our urgency, God will not turn down our request. In modern lingo, some might say, “Pray big or go home.” Storming a castle in the Middle Ages meant that a king was defeated and forced to submit to the will of his conquerors. So, in like manner, “storming heaven with prayers” suggests that we can force the hand of God and demand that His divine will conform to my will. This is not the nature of Catholic prayer.

When we pray as Catholics, we remember the proper order: God is our Father, we are His children. This means that we believe He knows what is best for us and our salvation and we accept this with humility and faith. We always pray with divine providence in mind, repeating over and over again the words of the Our Father: “Thy will be done.” When we pray, we believe that we are merely asking for blessings that God has waiting for us for all eternity. We can’t change the divine will by “storming heaven with prayers…”

My feeling is that Judaism would broadly concur with this critique of the “Storming the Heavens” model of prayer, and gravitate instead towards “hatzne’a lechet im Hashem” (walking modestly with God) suggested by the prophet Micha. In the concluding words of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer:

“Our Father, Our King, be gracious with us and answer us though we have no worthy deeds; treat us with charity and kindness and save us.”

First posted on Facebook 16 April 2023, here.

Maimonidean mysticism as a love song

“Cold”. “Elitist”. “Rationalist”. “Aristotelian”.

These are the sorts of words which are customarily associated with the Jewish philosophy of Rambam. In recent years, the popular trend in Jewish thought has portrayed a gaping gulf between Mysticism and Rationalism – with Rambam typically placed firmly in the rationalist corner.

As I have posted on a couple of occasions however (links at the end), a strong mystical theme is detectable in much of Rambam’s writings. While it is true that Maimonidean thought firmly rejected magical rites and superstitions as well as the notion that divinity could enter the physical domain, much of the Moreh Nevuchim seeks to guide its readers to train their “tzelem Elokim” mind so as to be able to transcend the limitations that the physical world places upon it. By doing so, it enables itself to receive flashes of intuition and profound knowledge which form the basis of a providential relationship with God.

A newly-released book, The Mysticism of Andalusia, by Rabbi Yamin Levy, explores this dimension of Rambam’s thought in great depth – also showing how it contrasts with the mysticism of Kabbalah. The opening chapter of this book presents Judaism as embracing the seemingly contradictory notions of a God who is both unknowable and indescribable on the one hand, while being personal and reachable on the other. A biblical prohibition of idolatry emphasizes the “otherness” of a God who cannot be represented in any form or image – yet God is also depicted throughout Tanach as being acutely concerned and involved with human affairs. At the foot of Mount Sinai, as the Jewish people prepared themselves to receive the Torah directly from God, barriers were placed around the mountain so that the people would maintain their distance.

Rabbi Levy proceeds to draw upon the powerful poetry of Shir HaShirim, a book that many of us read yesterday, in order to illustrate how Maimonidean thought approaches the subject of mysticism. Shir HaShirim, in Rambam’s telling, describes the complex nature of this relationship between God and humanity, portraying it in the form of two lovers who are seized by a holy passion for one another.

The following is paraphrased from Rabbi Levy’s opening chapter:

From the moment the scroll of Shir HaShirim opens the lover becomes increasingly bold and brave in her attempts to consummate her relationship with her heart’s desire. She craves him, she pursues him to the hills and through the valleys in order to find the one whom her soul loves. The lover, however, is in no rush to respond. He hides behind the walls, looks through the window and peers through the lattice but does not reveal himself to her. When she asks about his whereabouts, he responds by advising that she go and search for him.

The passionate lover is bursting with emotion. She does not hesitate and leaps forward in a torrent of stormy love. Her love is not gradual – it is a rush that ascends along a path of holy passion through the burning sun (1:7) and late at night (3:2). And while her lover tries to calm her down and allow their love to deepen gradually her unmitigated passion and impulsive pursuit exhausts her to the point that when the great and long-awaited moment for their union finally arrives, she is unable to open the door of her chambers (5:1-6). When she finally does her beloved is gone.

After recognizing her mistake, she passionately resumes her pursuit. The beloved, we are informed has sixty men surrounding his chamber so that the lover is not able to storm his room, espousing a love that is carefully nurtured and disciplined. He has earlier asked her to be like “a stallion of the chariots of Pharaoh” (1:9). While the horse is one of the bible’s most striking images of unrestrained energy (Iyov 39:19-25) here he invokes a horse that is hitched to a chariot. The same horse that has enormous energy in this image must harness that energy for the sake of the chariot and channel it to afford his charioteer the maximum strength. The disciplined powerful horse is the symbol of harnessed and restrained energy ready to burst forward in a disciplined manner at the appropriate moment. The lover must learn to integrate her heart and her head – her emotions and her actions.

The story of the lover and the beloved in Shir HaShirim ends in a calm and soothing place:

“Come my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine has flowered, if the grape blossoms have opened, if the pomegranates are in flower; there will I give you my love. The mandrakes give fragrance and at our gates are all manner of choice fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.”

The contrast between these verses at the end of the book and the tension of the pursuit at the beginning of the story are striking. At this later stage in the relationship the lover and beloved have found a place of love and harmony where the lovers merge as one; a mature and serene love has replaced the unrestrained passions of youth.

Rambam concludes Hilchot Teshuvah with a description of the sort of love for God that a person should aspire to:

“What is the proper love of God? That a person should love God with a very great and exceeding love until his soul is bound up in the love of God. In this way, he will always be obsessed with this love as if he is lovesick”.

The entire Shir HaShirim, notes Rambam, is a parable describing this love. Yet this is not an overwhelming emotional frenzy. Rambam proceeds to explain that love for God is by means of the “knowledge through which we know Him”.

The Andalusian mystical tradition, according to Rabbi Levy, teaches that God is absolutely separate from, and not dependent upon His creation and yet the possibility of an intimate relationship with God is real. The crucial message which emerges from Shir HaShirim, however, is that our pursuit of a relationship with God must be patient and mature. Built upon carefully thought out knowledge and serene meditations rather than fueled by passionate emotional impulse.

From the sections that I have read so far, Rabbi Levy’s book is an excellent introduction to this world of Maimonidean mysticism.

https://www.amazon.com/Mysticism.../dp/B0BXNK5DF6....

Previous posts on the subject of Maimonidean mysticism.

https://www.facebook.com/.../permalink/2945031085726048/

https://www.facebook.com/.../permalink/3204453023117185/

First posted to Facebook 9 April 2023, here

Praying at the graves of our greatest sages

By Ben Koren and Shmuli Phillips

In a few days time we are set to read about the death of the first – and likely the greatest – leader that the Jewish nation has been privileged to produce. Given the unique relationship with God enjoyed by Moshe as well as the extraordinary self-sacrifice that he exhibited on behalf of his people, we can expect to learn a great deal from the way in which the Torah directed the people to honour and revere Moshe’s memory.

What kind of prayer site must his disciples have wanted to construct at his grave in order to feel inspired and spiritually uplifted through proximity to his final resting place? Surely Moshe – who interceded so successfully on behalf of the Israelites in his lifetime – should be approached to petition God for mercy from his elevated place in the World to Come?

Approaching the Torah from the perspective of practices and customs which have been popularised in modern Judaism, readers might be shocked to discover that the site of Moshe’s grave was not elevated to a holy place or prayer and worship. In fact, according to Ralbag, the reason why “no-one knows his burial place until this very day” was precisely to avoid a situation in which Moshe’s burial place would be turned into some kind of shrine. Chizkuni spells this idea out even more clearly, writing that his grave was hidden so that those who seek to communicate with the dead – a biblically prohibited practice – would not be able to seek his assistance. The phenomenon of Jews praying at Kivrei Tzaddikim (Graves of the Righteous) is a widely accepted and common practice today — but does that make it acceptable?

It is rooted in Talmudic Aggadah (non-legalistic passages) and, of course, the few obscure instances referencing this practice are open to interpretation. We have a tradition from the Geonim, the last direct link to the Talmudic academies of Sura and Pumpedita, that Aggadot are not to be taken literally, as they are didactic and often rhetorical in nature and sometimes go beyond simple reason in order to make a lesson vivid to the reader. So with that said, let us look to Tanach to find rock-solid textual support for this practice.

Herein lies the problem! Tanach contains no explicit mention of such a ritual. One may rightly point out that there are plenty of practices we do that are *learned out* from Tanach but aren't explicitly laid out in the text, so why should we treat this any differently?

The closest we get to a biblical reference for praying at graves is found in aggadic and midrashic commentaries to Tanach. Rashi mentions that Calev visited the Avot at Ma’arat Hamachpela. Aside from the fact that it's a Midrash, Calev visiting his ancestors and seeing history come full circle with Abraham's prophecy coming to fruition — was surely an inspiring moment.

But where do we find people visiting the graves of David HaMelekh or Yishayahu HaNavi to beseech God on our behalf? The answer: nowhere! Like Calev, we can visit our *grandparents* graves (as well as other loved ones) — there's nothing wrong with that.

Looking at the Torah’s laws surrounding death in the context of ancient pagan practice, a clear agenda and perspective can be noted. Pagan religions all contained priestly services revolving around death, magic and secretive rites. The Torah flipped this on its head, forbidding priests from even going near the dead, with death instead being deliberately distanced through strict laws of Tumaa (ritual impurity). Anyone who came in contact with a corpse or gravesite could not enter the Mikdash for a full seven days.

Notably the concept of the Afterlife is conspicuously absent from the Torah, in stark contrast with most of the other belief systems of its time and the ones have since followed. Judaism celebrates life and promotes making *this* world a better place, unlike other religions. By shifting the focus from the next world and making death synonymous with impurity and 'Ra' (bad/evil), the Torah distances us from the allure and romanticization of martyrdom and asceticism.

The Torah explicitly commands us not to try to communicate with the dead. Shlomo Hamelech taught that the dead know nothing. If it is so important to visit the dead, why would the Torah not have designated them as intermediaries between us and God? To the contrary – it forbids us from even directing our prayers to Michael (the chief Angel of Israel)! [Yerushalmi Berachot 9:1].

In conclusion, it would seem that there are those who promote the practice and those who oppose it. One side argues that this is a clear violation of the D'oraita (biblical) law forbidding communication with the dead. The other side usually acknowledges that although some people violate this law outright by not directing their prayers directly to God, that doesn't mean that the rest are making the same error, as they are adamant that they're only praying in the merit of the deceased or through him (a concept which itself requires considerable clarification) or that he acts as a defense attorney who can put in a good word for us in heaven.

So clearly, at best, this is a grey area. And when it comes to D'oraita laws, our Sages of blessed memory taught that we must be stringent and err on the side of caution.

Today, it has become fashionable for some Jews to leave their families on Rosh Hashana and fly across the world in order to pray by the grave of a rabbi, or go "grave hopping" in the hopes of getting married or opening up mazal, or even to celebrate engagements at a gravesite accompanied with a ritual of writing letters to the dead. It can be argued that at least a small percentage of people who pray at Kivrei Tzaddikim are extremely careful when it comes to having the correct mindset and in doing so, straddle the line of halacha. But is the feeling of spiritual elevation and connection to sages gained from such practices worth the risk of violating D'oraita laws and what appears to be the Torah’s fundamental separation of death from the worship of God? Could a person’s religious energies be better invested in visiting the sick – fulfilling biblical commandments of helping others – than the questionable activity of visiting and praying with the dead?

Posted to Facebook 13 October 2022, here.