On the Phenomenon of Leaving the Religious Path (Column 36)

Dear Rabbi Michael, hello,

There are several matters that deserve attention.

A. The place of prayer. Prayer (usually long) in the yeshiva, and the emotionless prayer characteristic of Ashkenazi communities everywhere, is a major crisis for the religious person. In this sense, your attitude—for example—toward prayer (in your writings and in practice) testifies to honesty, but in my opinion exposes a kind of religious nakedness. All the more so since the synagogue, that is, the community, is a place of superficiality (= a typical synagogue dvar Torah) and heartache. This is a major crisis, that the discourse with God has disappeared.

B. The rabbis in the yeshiva world whom I knew were educated and pleasant people, but the place of emotional discourse in their world—that is, developed empathic abilities—was limited. That is my humble opinion in the overwhelming majority of cases. This is hard to teach. By the way, this kind of discourse is important not only for human warmth, but no less for reading a page of Gemara or Saadia Gaon—for example, something Micah Goodman knows how to do, at times in a homiletic way; or take Rabbi Binyamin Lau.

C. The attitude toward sexuality and LGBT issues is, in my view, deeply tainted by superficiality. From the rabbi of Eli to Menachem Nusi’s article in HaShiloach. The various arguments seem so far from reality, and so disrespectful of others.

D. The newspaper Makor Rishon. In the past I used to rejoice over its Shabbat supplement as one who finds great spoils, but very quickly I got bored. The Religious Zionist communality repeats itself again and again. There is no deep intellectual challenge, not even compared to Haaretz’s books supplement. In fact Religious Zionism withdraws into Sarelui’s poems, and even when it addresses current issues, it is rather dull.

Deep-rooted renewal is interpreted as Reform not only by the rabbis who bear the word of God, but also by the conservative tastemakers—the synagogue wardens and worshippers. For deep-rooted renewal means, for example, women’s place in the service of God, and there many men and women stand in the breach, Heaven forbid. And those who carry this proudly are, for example, the people of Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, who are suspected of leftism; and even in your article that I read recently they are mocked for their repeated declarations about human dignity, rather than depth in Shev Shema’teta, Wittgenstein, and the like.

Hello Shlomi.
Thank you for the response (I’m amazed at the speed).

A. Prayer is indeed long, but it seems to me that this is built into fixed prayer beyond repair. I don’t see this as a deterioration but as a necessary and expected result. The solution is not to pray better, but to make a fundamental change in our prayer. To shorten it greatly, and perhaps reduce the number of prayers.
A community, like any human society, is an expression of superficiality. This is not an elitist group, and the hope that it will be such has nothing to rely on. Any non-selective human society will always be superficial.
As for superficial divrei Torah, that indeed deserves attention. It has bothered me for years. Perhaps the solution is for the rabbi, or someone knowledgeable, to regularly assist those preparing the dvar Torah (assuming the rabbi himself says sensible things. Even that is not always true, but here too the community needs to help him with feedback and demands for a better level).

B. I actually think that the heads of hesder yeshivot are usually very good people, as far as I know them (at least the good yeshivot). As for the existential dimension in learning, that is a difficult issue, and this isn’t the place to elaborate. I’m not sure I agree with you on this (apropos what you cited in my name in the last section regarding Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah).

C. I completely agree that the attitude toward sexuality and LGBT issues is tainted by great superficiality. In the secular world this is even more true. Respecting others is an issue independent of superficiality. Beyond that, it’s easy to respect someone when you have no problem with him (that is, for a secular person). So the comparison is misplaced.

D. I partially agree. But a newspaper addresses the broad public; otherwise people won’t read it. In our country there simply are not enough people to produce a newspaper at a level that can sustain itself.

There is room to mock both sides, and I’m fairly careful to do that 🙂 Each with his own flaws (and advantages). It’s a shame that a willingness to think and to treat others respectfully has to come together with a disconnect from deep learning and philosophy.

Hello Rabbi,
What do you think about what is proposed in the article—to train faith counselors? I think that’s the solution: not to turn to rabbis and teachers who deny the problem, but to develop a new professional field, like a couples counselor, educational counselor, etc. Once this becomes a field recognized by the public, people will know there is an address where they can get answers, or at least accompaniment through the process. It would be worthwhile to establish a beit midrash, or an institute whose sole purpose would be to train those counselors. I think that if the rabbi were to lead such a move, it would be a significant breakthrough.

Dear Rabbi Michi,

I read your article eagerly. I’m sure many others have done and will do the same, which apparently teaches that everyone has a little heretic hidden in his heart—and perhaps now the redeemer has come with the magic solution and will succeed in destroying the destructive germ. I said “magic solution” because that is what all of us—those who grew up in a classic Orthodox society—long for: a solution that will restore to us the psychological resilience and fervor of faith we had before the eruption of the great explosion of the soul, when from simple faith in every sense of the phrase we fell into a whirlwind from which there is no escape.

As one of the rank and file who observes the processes in the religious and Haredi world, it seems to me that there will not be many who disagree with what you wrote. And even if various rabbis [and probably most of them] will not take to heart what their eyes see, when the day comes the affliction will spread into their own homes, in one of their children or in their own souls—and then it will probably already be too late.

If I understood correctly, I’ll try to summarize what, in your view, is the root of the problem: A. Through the internet a person is exposed to an enormous quantity of information; the information on the internet comes from the best of the “heretical minds,” with all sorts of convincing arguments [many of which contain more than a kernel of truth].

B. A person has become accustomed to believing and thinking that only the accepted religious faith is the true one, and therefore questions and thoughts that cause him to deviate in some matters from the faith on which he was raised will cause him to leave everything. In the sense of: if part of the testimony is nullified, all of it is nullified.

C. The social attitude, both from authority figures and from the environment itself, is decidedly unsympathetic to questions of faith, to put it mildly [apparently a kind of social pressure driven by such a wheel, in which everyone thinks the other believes what he says and what is accepted to believe]—this causes a person to understand inwardly that the whole system is driven by intellectual dishonesty, like in the parable of the emperor’s new clothes.

In your view, the solution: train educators/bodies who know how to deal with the questions honestly. Not to be afraid to speak about the problems. And most importantly, to begin shedding the enormous quantity of “superstitions” that have clung to us over the generations. [It reminds one of Maimonides’ attempt in the Guide for the Perplexed; apparently since then we’ve accumulated a few more tons of new waste, while at the same time not getting rid of the old garbage.]

I don’t quite understand. Those who leave—the talented, courageous, beautiful ones—don’t find the answers on their own and are waiting for some bearded rebbe to stamp approval on the questions they raise? Or are they waiting for a society that can contain the questions and doubts in their hearts so that they will feel [and I emphasize feel, because there is a lot of psychology here and not rationality] that society is not deceiving them? That seems right to me, but not only that.

I remember about a year ago sitting in one of your classes [I won’t elaborate for fear of the evil eye…], and after ontological and cosmological arguments, and the dismissal of psychological and emotional problems [of the kind you detest] and other such delicacies, the question came up: so why do many still leave religion? There was one student there who said: even if we accept that evolution is a divine product, it doesn’t fit into the creation story. In other words: it is easier for a reasonable person to believe [rationally and psychologically—yes, yes, you heard right, psychological faith; after all, in this article you admit that much of belief and becoming non-religious is a psychological product] that there is a connection between evolution and God, than to believe in a direct connection between the creation story as described in Genesis and evolution as described scientifically. In my opinion, that is exactly the point, and I’ll explain.

What am I actually trying to say? You talk about the person and the internet, the questions and society’s ability to contain the questions, and even the adoption of a new belief-system. But in my opinion the central problem is simply that the answers to the questions are not good enough.

Of course the description of the creation story is only one example. It could also be true regarding the Flood, the lives of the ancients, a talking serpent, bread falling from heaven, and especially many difficulties in Scripture and biblical criticism.
When a person sees a religious reality laid out before him, and that reality is woven both into the practical life of the people and into the foundational writings of that religion, he tends to say that what he sees is the religion, and the text before him is the book, and its apparent plain meaning is the correct one. And for the educated ordinary person it is hard to believe this, and in our age of abundant knowledge almost impossible.

From what I’ve come to know of you, questions like biblical criticism / religion and science interest you less; your thinking is philosophical, and therefore you focus on religion from the philosophical angle. An ordinary person wants practical answers: explain to me how evolution goes with the Bible. And when he hears excuses like “it’s a parable” and the like, he goes to sleep at night with the feeling that the question is much better than the answer. [Of course this is true for most questions of Torah and science and biblical criticism, and also for questions of the type you raised: what exactly did we receive at Sinai, and so forth.]

To this you propose a solution: refresh our system of beliefs. An excellent idea. But what happens when a person realizes that from now on he has to believe that the resurrection of the dead is possible, but not firmly enough rooted in the tradition and perhaps just a folk legend; the famous messiah is apparently not at the door; the Torah in our hands did not really descend from heaven and has undergone edits and renovations [and who can know what was there originally at all?], though perhaps the foundation is true; providence existed in the age of the prophets, and since then God has gone on a long vacation—He simply got tired of being a kindergarten teacher and watching us all day; and the world of souls is not mentioned in the Torah, and the tradition about it is not exactly overwhelming.

The person understands that he simply has to build a new religion—or that there are those building one like this. And if so, I prefer either to remain in the old one with the questions, or not to be a partner in creating a religion that will bother religious people in the “Hebrew religion” in the year 3016. It’s simply not nice; after all, they already did that to me, and it says in the Torah: what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.

In sum, it seems to me that there is a certain disconnect between you and what is happening on the ground, and that is of course because you climb too high—or, as some would say, the topography of your life has placed you on a high mountain, and getting down from there is really hard…

With blessing,

loving and appreciating you

That’s part of what I wrote, isn’t it? I’m thinking about it, but where are we to get the time, energy, and funding from?

Hello.
You describe reality as it is. Because I have a philosophical temperament, it is clear to me that there is a God. It seems very likely to me that He revealed Himself and established contact with us and expects something from us. That is my point of departure. Now a tradition comes to me, I encounter difficulties, and I try to explain them. If I try to be honest, that indeed changes quite a bit of what we received, but what can I do—that is the truth (as I understand it). To my mind these are not apologetic excuses but processing the truth as far as I understand it.
The unwillingness to do this and accept it stems, in my opinion, from the defective education we received, and that is what I am trying to fight against. You suggest surrendering to it (for psychological reasons). What am I to do? My Father in heaven decreed that I not be a psychologist and not like psychology and think that faith or opinion are unrelated to psychology. (Perhaps that’s my psychology?…)
The people of 3016 will take care of themselves. The religion I am trying to pass on to them does not impose but opens a door to their own processing, which will be done in their time (if there will still be anything there at all), exactly as we are doing with our predecessors. And if in the end nothing remains, that really doesn’t bother me. Then apparently the truth is that nothing needs to remain (as the Sages said: “Torah and commandments will be annulled in the future to come”).
By the way, this very process leads me to the point where things in our tradition that seem problematic do not bother me. I attribute them to the interpretations of previous generations who did what I am now proposing should be done. Therefore I also have no psychological problem saying that this is mistaken, nor do I see in it a theological difficulty. The tradition is supposed to undergo continuous processing, and it is not for me to think what will come out in the end. “What have I to do with the hidden decrees of the Merciful One? Do what you are required to do.”

From an email I sent the rabbi

About five years ago, when I left the “bubble” and arrived at the Weizmann Institute, I could no longer take the approach of “everyone believes” and “we are running toward the life of the world to come and they are running toward a pit of destruction.” I remember the Tiferet Yisrael’s interpretation of the prayer recited upon entering the study hall as standing at the basis of one of Rabbi Sabato’s more foundational talks. In short, four years ago I stopped keeping Torah and mitzvot, and three years ago I took off the kippah and became like one of the free.

In relation to what you wrote, I’ll note that when I tell my story, sometimes I turn to the philosophical plane and sometimes to the psychological, and sometimes I combine them.
As was answered to you in one of the comments, once a person finds himself asking questions—once they are already troubling him—throwing away the shell and remaining with the core is somewhat similar to changing religions. One of your articles that I liked most was the one on the “captured infant,” in which, if I remember correctly, you argued that to a great extent the question of which outlook to adopt is influenced by the worldview in which a person was raised. And if faith did not change continuously from a distorted faith to a refined faith, then suddenly a man gets up in the morning and realizes that he does not believe. At least that is exactly how it was for me.
So when I heard claims like “why throw out the baby with the bathwater,” I really didn’t understand the parable. To me it was like throwing out an old rubber duck with the water. Even if I recognize that there are many believers whose faith is rational and well-founded.
A childhood friend of mine, with whom I happened to spend a few days abroad recently, argued that in his opinion the whole issue is “Yiddishkeit.” Therefore he, who grew up in a home that “nursed” Torah, with a Haredi rabbi grandfather and a father who was an educator, will remain religious despite the questions; while I, who grew up in a Religious-Zionist home, even if I strengthen myself, and even if I studied in yeshiva and really was righteous for a day or two, was doomed to leave. Perhaps this is the meaning of the Sages’ statement that one who was originally righteous does not become wicked, but one who was wicked and became righteous can become wicked. I at least prefer that interpretation much more than thinking that someone who was wicked and then righteous and then became wicked turns out never really to have been righteous. Maybe there are other possibilities.

Hello.
I completely understand what you are saying, and I even experienced it myself. In the end, my conclusion was different (even though I too come from an ordinary Religious-Zionist home).
I now understand that you are no longer among synagogue-goers. It’s a shame, but that is your conclusion, and I completely agree that you should act accordingly.

I understood from what you wrote that the solution is to train the yeshiva teachers, except that the problem is that they deny the problem. I am talking about a new counseling field, not just in-service training.

Hello and blessings,
In this post as well as in the previous ones, you make a very reasoned and impressive call for important action—but is this venue (the blog) the best place for that? For example, this article and the previous one could have been published in Shabbat, and there they could have made incomparably larger waves. And even if you want to remain on the blog, why not also open a Facebook page that links to the blog and hosts discussion there as well? It is clear to me that such a page would significantly increase the blog’s reach, and today there are almost no blogs without Facebook pages (since everyone is on Facebook), and people would share, and the ideas would reach a much broader and larger audience by far. In that sense Facebook really could suit you and the blog very well, in my opinion. Perhaps you remember it from the past, but today there is a great deal there at a high level, and it makes sense that high-quality people would share many of the posts, which could then reach tens of thousands of people (perhaps more) and spark broad discussion.

Sounds reasonable. That’s what I meant.

Unfortunately I have no time for Facebook. I don’t have an account there. I understand you can get here through Facebook too, but I’m not familiar with it.

You don’t need to write things for Facebook (and there is no significance to getting here from Facebook; of course one can link). It’s enough to have a Facebook page where you simply link your posts with three opening sentences, etc., and a link, so that the content (which is supposed to accomplish something, like the recent call and more generally) reaches much larger audiences several times over (both regular followers, and if there are 120 subscribers here, there it could reach a thousand and more within a few weeks). Within a short time many people would send you friend requests (after a few publicize that you are there). Opening a user page (preferably a regular one) takes about ten or fifteen minutes, and the ongoing maintenance is minimal (as I said, it is enough to link your new blog posts with a few short introductory lines). Of course there will also be discussion there on the posts themselves, God willing, but it is easy and convenient to manage that discussion on Facebook (which is much better suited to it in many respects, and not for nothing the whole world is there), and it can be at a higher level, with a more diverse and larger audience (and the discussion here is not all that convenient). I believe that on the contrary, you would find it interesting there (just as you reply to comments here). In short, even merely as a tool to strengthen the blog—it is a very powerful tool that requires almost no resources or time. I strongly recommend thinking about it seriously (and in my opinion there is hardly any good blog today that does not also have a Facebook page accompanying it, since so many people are on Facebook and are accustomed to consuming all content there, and it is so convenient for following and discussion).

You wrote that one should convene “the relevant factors and personalities”—who, in your opinion, are those factors and personalities? Do they exist? (I mean not who they ought to be, but whether the factors that are supposed to be relevant are in fact relevant.)

Thank you for this important article.

In my opinion, at the present time—the smartphone generation—some kind of lack of response has developed.

After the generation of the semi-Haredi yeshiva high schools in the past, where they would feel your shirt to make sure you were wearing tzitzit…
And after the generation of the “embracing” yeshivot where they sing Carlebach in emotional outpouring in flag dances in Jerusalem, while at the same time raising lazy and idle youth (during high school years) in everything related to secular studies—

there has arisen here a generation that, in my opinion, has caught the educators with no answer and no suitable tools.
And now we are at a stage of unusual disregard—similar to Haredi society, which refuses to adopt tools and acknowledge changes in society.
And the response to that: extremism.
Either Religious-Zionist conventionality / comfort / traditionalism / “lite” religion / secularity,
Or “Har HaMor.”

I didn’t know there was any Torah other than the philosophical Torah you are talking about, and I didn’t know there was any chance at all of coping with questions except, well—coping with the questions…
So from that I ask seriously—why shouldn’t we succeed, with full seriousness and depth, in teaching in yeshivot that train educators, how to cope with the questions? Honestly, I believe we have excellent answers, and also not-bad proofs that the difficulties are not as strong as they first appear.
Not that I know as many people’s questions as you do. I have my own and the answers I sought and found for myself, already as a youth in activity with Gesher together with Rabbi Benjy Levine and many other good people, and over the years also with the help of your excellent books (Two Carts and God Plays Dice) and with the help of my teachers (especially my rabbi and teacher Rabbi Dr. Zini, with whom I studied during my physics studies at the Technion many years ago). But I feel that someone who seriously and intellectually honestly seeks answers can find them—especially those from the third group you talk about. It is true that if educators themselves have the right orientation, that will greatly help the process and can keep it from turning from a process of clarification into a process of distancing.
In short, as mentioned here, your presence and the dissemination of your words and articles through the Facebook platform mentioned in the comments would certainly help seekers of clarification at early stages. And your joining the echo created by the article under discussion—including perhaps proposing and developing a training program on this topic in hesder yeshivot (there is no shortage of students there who begin their process of inquiry)—or perhaps mainly in the teacher seminaries affiliated with them, is something very much needed.

I join the call, and I even volunteer to open a profile/page for you.

BS"D, 14 Cheshvan 5777

The percentages of “going off the religious path” today are far smaller than they were in the past. Moreover, according to a study conducted at Talpiot College in 2011 (cited on Wikipedia, entry “Leaving religion,” near note 6), a significant percentage of those who leave religion return to it by age 28. Just as it is natural that the teenage years are full of questions and people seek answers in all kinds of places, so it is natural that when one is about to establish a home and family, one returns to the only path that has stood the test of generations—the path of faith and Torah.

All the questions of “Torah and modernity” have already been asked and extensively discussed over the last 200 years. The variety of answers given by thinkers from different circles is found in the Jewish Thought curriculum taught in every yeshiva high school and girls’ ulpana. Jewish Thought studies also occupy an important place in hesder yeshivot, pre-military academies, colleges, and seminaries. One whose mind was engaged in his studies receives this broad knowledge already during his school years. One who did not have the “attention span” during those years must take responsibility in adulthood, seek out, and find the answers. Great help can come, for example, from Dr. Aharon Barth’s book Our Generation Facing the Eternal Questions, which has not lost its vitality to this day.

And as mentioned, a large part of the problems are not purely on the intellectual level, but in the ability to connect Torah to life. To the extent that the younger generation sees before its eyes a personal example of Torah people filled with faith, who love God and people and work to settle the world in fidelity to Torah and with joy and gladness of heart—the younger generation feels that this is a “Torah of life.”

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

Thank you for the comment (to Eyal) and the offer (to David Lev). I’ll think about it.

I didn’t understand the question. Those responsible for the educational institutions and who run them are the relevant factors and personalities. Maybe they are not suitable or are not doing their job, but they are the factors.

I don’t know whether the problem is the smartphone. There are real questions that require attention. I also don’t think different answers are needed from what was appropriate in the past; rather, even in the past no appropriate answers were given, and today this is more evident. People today no longer accept the usual lines. As I said, it isn’t only about answers but about a genuine examination of our tradition itself. First and foremost, we need to give ourselves answers.

Hello Tzvika. I agree with the spirit of what you say, but you focus too much on “answers,” as if the problem lies with the questioners. As I wrote, what is needed is also an examination of our tradition itself (answers for ourselves). Some of the questions have no answer (to the best of my understanding), and they require us ourselves to do some soul-searching.

That is clear, but in my opinion it is not directly connected to the article under discussion, but more generally to the process of searching for and clarifying the truth and understanding the world—which is certainly the duty of any seeker of truth in the world, according to our understanding as believers. Faith, among other things, is a demand for continued clarification.
And besides, let it be clear: I never for a moment thought the problem was with the questioners. To my mind the problem is with those who do not ask. But on the other hand it seems to me that many of the questions do have answers, which admittedly are not quick and simple, but rather a complex and non-simplistic philosophical-religious position—yet they are not in heaven either. That is, this approach can definitely be taught, an approach that knows very well how to cope with most of the familiar questions.

Dear S.Z.L. You are blessed with radiant optimism, and you repeat it here again and again. I, by contrast, am pessimistic (or perhaps realistic), since from my experience (which is not negligible) the situation is utterly different. I was not speaking about rates of secularization, nor about questions of Torah and modernity. I am speaking about the old, good questions (and completely genuine ones) that have never received an answer, not in the past and not now. Except that today people are more honest and open, and less willing to live on the basis of empty lines. As I wrote, today there are also fewer social barriers to drawing the necessary conclusions.
I don’t know whether rates of secularization have gone down or up, since as I wrote I have not checked the studies on the matter (and I also don’t put much trust in them). I am talking about a change in the phenomenon itself, not necessarily in its scope. Today we are losing the best of our youth, whereas in the past it was fringe elements (not numerically, but in the quality of the people).
The “Torah people filled with faith” that you describe do not impress me at all, and apparently not the best of the youth I described either. I can appreciate them for their personality, but difficulties need to be answered, not met merely with a broadcast of fervent faith. That they usually do not do. It is no wonder that the youth (and not only youth) whom I meet do not at all feel that this is a Torah of life. If I may express myself honestly and bluntly, the feeling is of a fossilized, irrelevant cemetery.

Again you wrote “clarification,” and I would add: and filtering and processing and change. Clarification in the sense of sorting (food from refuse. That, from the Torah, can even be done on Shabbat).

BS"D, 14 Cheshvan 5777

Anyone whose eyes are open sees the strengthening of Torah in recent decades. How many remained religious among graduates of religious education in our youth, and how many today? How many secondary and higher Torah institutions were there in our youth, and what multiplicity and diversity exist today? Before our eyes old streams are coming back to life and renewing themselves—Kabbalah and Hasidism, Musar and Jewish thought—and each offers its own path for coping with the questions of Torah and life. So that everyone can find the spiritual nourishment suited to his soul.

Against this flourishing, the withering stands out of those who saw Judaism as a “fossilized and irrelevant cemetery,” and aspired to sift out from it the “collection of empty lines” in order to create a “new and enlightened Judaism,” and in the end their communities are drowning in a sea of alienation and assimilation. We’ve already been in that story…

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

As for the age-old questions of “Torah and science”—I have already referred to Dr. Aharon Barth’s book Our Generation Facing the Eternal Questions, which discusses these questions at length. “You labored and found—believe!”

Forgive the petty remark, but together with the correctness of the statement that “this is your conclusion and you should act accordingly” (which is trivial, of course), I think there is much to add. This is because the religious matter is accompanied by additional matters. I think one can and should demand moral behavior even of secular people. In other words—one should say to the questioner: even if you do not believe, assuming that you are a moral person and believe in absolute values, you must pay attention to preserving and upholding them. Or in other words—you must formulate for yourself a system of values of good and evil and act according to it in an absolute way.
It seems to me that you yourself point out that secularity does not mean only denial of the principles of faith, but lack of moral steadfastness, since there is no “absolute command” before one’s eyes forbidding a person to cheat, steal, and the like (see this at length in Dan Ariely’s last book).

Thank you very much, Rabbi. A very beautiful article.
What do you think of the proofs in the Kuzari as foundations for faith? (The Vilna Gaon’s words that the principles of Israel’s faith and Torah depend on it, etc.)—
The proof from the revelation at Mount Sinai, which supposedly cannot be refuted, and also his explanation in the second and third essays about the transmission and development of the Oral Torah? Should we invest our resources in a modern presentation of it? For example, compare denying Sinai to denying the Holocaust. I would be glad to hear your opinion.
In any case, there is no doubt that the next generation of educators must be trained to give deep answers in simple language to the problems of the generation.

I do not know the Kuzari well enough, since I am not very interested in that literature. Usually I find it outdated and not very relevant. I very much doubt whether the faith of Israel should depend on it. From that you may understand that I don’t think efforts should be invested in the Kuzari. Efforts should be invested in explaining and examining our tradition, in whatever way. If the Kuzari seems useful to you—do it through that.
I’ll repeat once again two points I’ve already explained: 1. The need is not only for explanation but also for self-examination. 2. These are not necessarily new questions, but good answers to old questions.

As someone whose eyes are open, I see both the advantages and the disadvantages. I already dealt with the rate of secularization (or rather with the fact that I am not dealing with it), and I won’t return to that.
What I do see is the great flourishing of those who saw Judaism as a degenerate cemetery, who—contrary to religious propaganda—are in fact flourishing (even if not in accordance with my own thought and faith). Most of the Jewish world today is not Orthodox but secular and Reform. And that is partly because of the attitude you express here. Indeed, we’ve already been in this story, and unfortunately we have not really learned the lessons.
Besides, in my opinion the survival of an idea or worldview is not a criterion for its truth. Someone who thinks that Aharon Barth contains the answers to questions of Torah and science does not know what he is talking about. There are a few initial points there, far from exhaustive. One can of course glean sparks from it. But such a statement again reflects unfamiliarity with and lack of understanding of the situation.

Tuvia. With respect, this is not a petty remark but an irrelevant one. Of course one should be moral, but what does that have to do with the discussion here? Maybe I should also tell him that he has to obey the law, eat breakfast, raise a family, etc. These are demands addressed to every person, and there is no reason to discuss them here.
I do not think the issue is lack of moral steadfastness but lack of a theoretical basis for moral obligation. See the Fourth Notebook, Part Three.

I too join the call for Facebookism (that’s where the real things happen, and on a huge scale—see the Arab Spring, etc.) that emerged from the previous commenters.
Just one comment. There is a certain feeling in your words of shooting the arrow and then drawing the target around it afterward.
Let me explain: you discuss how to explain, how to train, how to educate. I think that if one does not take into account the option that perhaps the questioners are actually right, such a discussion has no value. And I would add that the questioners themselves will not be impressed by an “institute” set up to provide answers, because by its very definition it “has to” provide an answer. And sometimes there simply isn’t one.

And about this Rabbi Chaim said that for some questions it is better to give one answer!

In this context I would be glad to hear from you whether the proofs you have in your arsenal would convince you from the outside (as a non-Jew, a secular person) to choose this way of life. Or whether for someone who is already inside it, and very much wants to remain rational, these questions provide him an escape route.

I greatly appreciate and very much enjoy the site.
Uzi

But I wrote that the system itself must be examined, not just “answers given.”
In the five notebooks that appear here on the site I write at very great length about this issue.

Hello Rabbi Michi,

Thank you very much for the detailed and interesting article.

1. Without detracting from the need to deal with questions and clarify the foundations of our faith,
throughout your remarks you present the question of faith as a dichotomous one. Is a person religious or secular? A believer or a heretic?
In my humble opinion this presentation is lacking. These are very weighty questions, some of which have been discussed for thousands of years (for example God, free choice). It seems difficult to expect to “solve” them in one stroke. Indeed, many people live with a certain humility, knowing they do not know all the answers, while in practice tending to believe in certain elements of the tradition and to doubt others. It seems to me that this description accurately captures the way Jews from Middle Eastern communities lived until recently, and perhaps also the situation in the U.S., and it may be that the religious society in Israel is moving in that direction as well.

Such a broad and non-dichotomous approach can serve as a solution on the social level. All human beings are located somewhere on the continuum of skepticism, and society is flexible enough to take even those of little faith under its wings. This model suits Judaism especially well, because at its foundation it is much more a practical covenant than a creed of binding dogmas.

2. Alongside the social issue, there is indeed a real need for contemporary clarification in matters of faith and halakha. In my humble opinion such clarification is a public matter, not a private one. The real challenge here is to do it as broadly and expansively as possible, so that it reflects the views of many and is accepted by many. For that, a great deal of humility is needed on the part of great people, that they be willing to gather and discuss with other great people, and also know how to respect one another and yield to one another.

Hello Tomer.

1. Faith is indeed a dichotomous matter. Either a person believes or he does not. Of course one can discuss what one believes, and here there will be many answers. One can also discuss to what degree one believes, and here too there will be a continuum of answers. One can discuss what one is obligated to on the basis of that faith, and perhaps here too there is a continuum (I am not sure). But a noncommittal statement of the sort you make seems to me like evasion that prevents discussion where there is room for one.
If you want to remain in an amorphous picture in which everyone does whatever he feels like and makes whatever declarations he wants without being subject to critical examination, that is postmodernism, which in my view is lazy nonsense.
I am not looking for a social solution to anything. For me the desirable state is that people be believers and committed. A solution that contains everyone does not interest me much. I am not troubled by polarization in society or similar issues, nor do I see faith or its shaping as tools for social purposes.
And if Judaism is a practical matter, then observance of commandments does not just come from nowhere. People need justifications and explanations. Someone who merely performs acts for reasons of folklore and the like seems to me to have no religious value.

2. Here I did not understand. What does public rather than private mean? People need to clarify their faith and it is worthwhile to help one another. That is exactly what I wrote. And why should they yield to one another?

1. Well. In your article, social motivation played a significant role (many are leaving the religious community). To that I claim that the solution is for the community to be able to contain even those of little faith. And that is indeed happening, which is why I do not see religious society disintegrating—quite the contrary.

By the way, I cannot understand in what sense faith is dichotomous in your view, if “one can discuss to what degree one believes, and here too there will be a continuum of answers.” That continuum is a realistic description of a continuum of faith.

2. Religion—and certainly Judaism—is not a philosophical school. Judaism was founded as a belief-and-normative system of a people. Therefore the discussion about which foundations of faith are more important and which less so, and about what halakha should look like, is better off being as national and collective as possible. If this were only a discussion about facts and logical inferences, then in principle it really would not matter whether the process took place alone or publicly. But since matters of judgment are involved here as well (what is more important/central and what less so, and certainly when it comes to the normative part of the discussion), and since we want to take Judaism (and not only ourselves) to a better and more correct place, it is worthwhile to involve Torah scholars who represent broad segments of the public, as far as possible.

1. My article does not deal with social problems. Leaving faith is not a social problem but a collection of problems of individuals. The community already does contain people of little faith. That does not solve the problem that they are people of little faith. And that is the problem from my perspective, not the character of society.

If a person believes in God, then he believes; if not, then not. He can decide that he believes on the basis of 60% evidence or 70%, but in the end he has to decide what he does and to what he is committed.

2. I don’t understand the claim. Judaism is the service of God and not a collection of acts. If everyone were to observe all the commandments, from the least to the greatest, like Ahad Ha’am (for the sake of cohesion and national culture), this would have no religious value whatsoever. For me, that is the same as complete secularization.
As far as I’m concerned, let everyone participate in the discussion. Who said otherwise?

BS"D, 15 Cheshvan 5777

“Great is study, for it leads to action”—when one understands, in the plain sense and in depth, what one is praying, it is easier to connect to prayer and to have intention in it. In the order of prayer, after all, the Men of the Great Assembly gathered all the aspirations of the nation, and an in-depth study of it opens these treasures to the worshipper.

Of great help are the books Olam HaTefillot by Rabbi Eliyahu Munk (2 volumes) and Netiv Binah by Rabbi Yissachar Jacobson (5 volumes), which are a treasure trove of explanations and customs for the order of prayers on weekdays, Sabbaths, and festivals. The prayer book Olat Re’iyah with Rabbi Kook’s commentary, and the prayer book Tehillat Yisrael with the commentary of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch—open a window onto the conceptual depth hidden in prayer.
Y

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

1. Faith is continuous all the way through. That is, the degree of practical commitment depends on the level of faith, and both are continuous variables. This is a simple thing, but Meir Buzaglo made an entire doctrine out of it.
I think this (correct) conception of reality also has implications both for the social problem (which clearly troubles you less) and for the faith problem. Presenting faith as a dichotomy is exactly what pushes those of little faith away from remaining people of little faith and drives them to become secular (socially and in faith). I prefer them as people of little faith. I think that in many matters it is also unreasonable to demand complete faith, because things are not mathematically proven and therefore depend on judgment and personality structure. Therefore the correct thing is to convey the (correct) message that in many matters a continuum of faith is acceptable, both philosophically and socially.
Note that I am not talking here about postmodernism. In anything that can really be proven, one can and should demand it. But in the twilight zones—there is no need, and it only harms and distances.

2. The statement “as far as I’m concerned let everyone participate in the discussion” is too weak. My claim is that the level of validity of the conclusions of such a discussion would be completely different if, say, only you and Rabbi Bigman participated in it, or if many Torah scholars representing different religious sectors participated in it. The validity in purely logical questions, of course, would not change; but the normative validity, and the validity in questions of judgment—certainly would. Therefore, if we truly want to repair Judaism, we must ensure and work so that many and diverse people indeed take part in this discussion—not for their sake but for ours. Otherwise this will not be Judaism but a negligible sect.

To Mr. Tomer—hello,

It seems to me that instead of discussing who should participate in the discussion, one can simply begin the discussion. If so-and-so has a difficulty with one of the accepted principles of faith, or if another wants to propose a new principle of faith—let him present his proposal backed by arguments and reasons, and we can hold a discussion. And all will be well with Israel!

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

I’ve lost you. I don’t understand what the discussion is about and what the disagreement is.

Even if a yeshiva student feels he cannot find answers to his faith questions from his yeshiva staff—there are today, in all circles, rabbis with broad knowledge both in Jewish thought and in general philosophy, with whom one can talk about all troubling questions. There are also centers to which one can turn anonymously, such as “Friends Are Listening” or “A Listening Heart” and the like, where one can turn with questions of faith and personal problems and find a listening ear and guidance.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

Good evening, Michi,

I read your remarks (Post 36) on those leaving religion, and I saw a need (for myself) to respond.

If you wish, integrate this into your site, and if not I won’t mind.

I am writing this in order to unload, not to dismantle.

Ariel

———————————
It seems to me that there is suppression and disregard of a factor that is primary in importance, one that determines and influences the very emergence of the questions facing the believing person. Attempts to belittle the impact of this factor are like burying one’s head in the sand, and therefore the proposed solutions are like searching for the coin that was lost under the streetlamp.

A great and weighty part of the rebellion of the young religious person is occupied by wonder and anger at the rigidity of halakha, which has ceased moving and is unable to catch up with modernity and with technological and scientific developments, and even with the attitudes and ideas blowing through the world today—ideas and trends that our ancestors never imagined and did not even know of (cf. the status of women).

The solution to these things does not lie in professional development for yeshiva teachers and heads of yeshivot, nor in preparing written materials and directing people to solutions concentrated on the web.

· When a young person sees how far the derivatives of the derivatives of the descendants of the descendants of the forbidden categories of labor on Shabbat have gone,

· when he sees the hypocrisy in strained solutions to present-day difficulties of life by way of legal fiction (on halakha itself),

· when he hears weak and insipid explanations for his questions about prayer in a language not understood (Aramaic), and the use of cumbersome and meaningless liturgical poetry and rhyme (“Shen’ananei sachak”),

· when he senses the irrelevance of certain prayers (for the peace of the Exilarchs and for the communities of Mainz slaughtered during the Crusades),

· and when he asks about the foolishness of the argument over whether to say Hallel with a blessing or without one on Independence Day,

· and when he hears hardness of heart in response to his question about the absence of any mention of the millions murdered in the European Holocaust,

· and when he is tormented by endlessly long prayers,

· when he asks himself about the use of electricity on Shabbat,

· and about the stringencies surrounding the prohibitions of meat and milk (6 hours? 3 hours? half an hour? glass utensils, Pyrex, stainless steel, two sinks, two sponges…) and he wonders at the “logic” of such rulings,

· and when he cannot understand the matter of legumes on Passover, and the feebleness and bowed stature of the halakhic authorities of the generation,

· and when he hears the swelling uproar, the storm over “a woman’s voice is nakedness,” and sees buses with partitions between men and women dressed like B’not Taliban,

· or the “priests of righteousness” wrapping themselves in plastic bags while the plane flies over Holon.

When all these things pile up on his heart and peck at his brain, only then and only from that point on does he ask himself and his teachers theological, philosophical, deep-as-the-sea questions.
But if he could understand why it is forbidden to drink wine from a sealed bottle touched by the hand of a non-Jewish waiter, and the reason given to him were not “because of their daughters,” perhaps the “big” questions would never be born and would never arise at all.

The story of the “slippery slope” is itself a slippery slope, and it no longer satisfies those asking the questions and hungry for explanations. When fear of change is the middle bar locking the gates of progress, we have remained but a few wall-guards. The majority has gone to graze in other fields and is trying to see what is shown there. One cannot deny the fact that Orthodoxy, with all its shades and factions, constitutes a small minority among world Jewry, unlike the situation in the past.

It may be—and so I believe—that had there been understanding and responsiveness to some (!) of the prevailing currents, had the decisors not ceased to understand the importance of their craft, we would now be in a different reality. And if the decisors of our day continue to freeze and to make things freeze, and to fear the sword that they say is placed at their neck and threatening them, the phenomenon of leaving religion will continue and intensify.

But this is something the heads of yeshivot and the yeshiva teachers will not agree to discuss at all from the outset. The rabbis who serve as heads of the community, the heads of yeshivot, the decisors, and the judges will continue to dismiss things as before, and will not permit their flock to reflect and question their ways of leadership. Anyone who dares will immediately be considered as raising a hand against the Torah of Moses, Heaven forbid.
The cry of the oppressed women—they, the “eyes of the congregation”—stop their ears from hearing, and you stand “mad from the sight of your eyes,” how can they not free a woman from the chains of her agunah status when the tools to do so lie on their own table?!

“Leaving religion” in our time is practiced by both males and females, adults and young people. But the adults find it harder to free themselves from the bonds of the environment that more tightly embraces them. They already have families, sons and daughters, and to rebel against the society in whose midst they grew up and in which they are found is hard and complex, almost impossible for them. It is not the same for them as for the young men and women, who see the adults around them and try to escape before they chain themselves.
When the young see the absurdity in the laws concerning married women’s head coverings—women who “carefully” cover their heads with a wig that gives them hair far more beautiful and desire-arousing than their own hair, or a wig made from their own hair (!), and no one can distinguish this deception at all, or for whom a cute fabric flower placed on their naturally flowing hair is enough, and by that they have “fulfilled” the halakha (in their own view and in the view of the society around them)—then they ask questions about the principles of faith. And rightly so.

It will not be possible to convene a forum that discusses the weakness of its own hands. In fact, there is no need for that at all. All we need is courage in halakhic ruling, using the tools that have long been lying in the decisor’s toolbox. There is no need for new tools. It is time to go back and use the existing tools that are rusting (because they are not used), and as long as that is not done, the questions and difficulties will come, and those who abandon the path will multiply.
Some of the “rebels” will openly eat legumes on Passover.
Some will remove their kippah demonstratively and yet continue walking with tzitzit hanging out and will not stop being meticulous in major and minor matters, biblical and rabbinic alike.
Some will display their rebellion by wearing a cap in protest.
Some will text on Shabbat.
Some will dress in black and go to another city.
Some will become contemptuous of the “frozen” rabbis and will not agree that a rabbi should officiate at their wedding canopy, even though they themselves are observant.

And still, the “eyes of the congregation” are smeared over from seeing all this! Their methods of halakhic ruling and their methods of teaching—these are the mothers of all sin.

True! Not every question will have an answer, and not every difficulty caused by the times will have a solution. But when the paradoxes are reduced and the approach changes, it will be easier to come to terms with matters that the Torah commanded us concerning which we have no solution or explanation. There will no longer be a need to leave. Even systems of civil law that are not connected to religion at all raise for many people substantial difficulties and questions and disagreements. But when the overall picture seems reasonable, people accept the reality of life, according to which one must accustom oneself to the fact that not everything is understood and accepted, and nevertheless “it still moves,” and people do not leave the country.

The warmth, the love, the open conversations with rabbis—all these do not help someone facing questions that definitely arouse a desire to leave religiosity. Those wavering want to know why we continue to postpone the prayer for rain until the seventh of Cheshvan, even though there are no longer pilgrims returning from Babylon, and even though we long for rain and believe our prayers have value. An excellent example! Not every question will have an answer, and not every difficulty caused by the times will have a solution. But when the paradoxes are reduced and the approach changes, it will be easier to come to terms with matters that the Torah commanded us and for which we have no solution or explanation.
A typical example of the rigidity of halakha.

The rigidity of halakha is not the only factor that gives rise to theological questions, but without a doubt (in my opinion) it is a factor of very great specific weight.

Hello Ariel.
First, you can comment on the site itself and your words will be published. You do not need to ask my permission to comment there. The site is intended for discourse between the readers and me, and among themselves. I am sending your email and my response for publication there.

On the substance of the matter: you have already heard from me more than once things in this spirit. I agree with the spirit of what you wrote. I also wrote here that these questions are an opportunity that has come our way to examine our tradition and not only to “answer the questioners.”
But I cannot agree with some of the details in what you wrote. Instead of dealing with particulars, I’ll address two general points:
1. Explanations that rely on a slippery slope are problematic, especially when their use is exaggerated and cripples our ability to act and adapt halakha to time and place. But one must remember that the consideration of a slippery slope enters into halakha itself, and now it obligates in its own right, even if one is not really worried about slippery slopes.
Anyone familiar with halakha knows that it has its own methods. Change is made through proper and valid halakhic mechanisms, and distress alone is not enough to justify change. When an agunah comes before a decisor, he does not permit her because she is miserable. The fact that she is miserable is motivation to seek a valid mechanism that permits her (evidence that her husband died). Therefore it is not enough to point to the distress in order to justify change. The distress is motivation to seek a valid mechanism for change.
And it is well known that today we no longer have halakhic institutions. This is a tragedy for which, of course, we have some share of blame (perhaps all the blame). But one must remember that according to the Gemara, “a matter established by a court requires another court to permit it” (and if it is rabbinic, that court must be greater in wisdom and number; see Maimonides, beginning of chapter 2 of Hilkhot Mamrim). This is already a binding halakhic principle and not merely concern for slippery slopes. In my opinion there are valid mechanisms even in our time, and I am now trying to explain and develop them in the trilogy I am writing. But this is a necessary condition for change.
2. There are formal dimensions in halakha, like any legal or normative system. Head covering is a formal prohibition, and as such it must be observed. Behind it stands a conception, but once the halakha was established, that is the halakha. Therefore when this is done with wigs there is indeed something distasteful about it, but there is still value in formally keeping the halakha. To the best of my understanding, the basis of the matter is that today it is not really true that one needs to cover one’s head in order to be modest. Usually, by contemporary norms, a woman without a head covering can be considered entirely modest. But the prohibition remains in place, since it is from the law of the Gemara (in the straightforward reading, according to the Talmud this is a biblical prohibition). The solution found by the clever daughters of Israel is the wig, and therefore I do not see this as invalid. This of course brings us into a discussion of legal fictions (I assume you too do not object to the sale-permit in the Sabbatical year), and this is not the place.
Anyone who desires the continued existence of halakha cannot ignore these two considerations. And after all this, I join the general feeling blowing through your words: that as much as possible, everything possible should be done for change and adaptation in halakha so that it may emerge from its frozen state. The ossification stems from fear of Reform, but its results are graver than Reform (secularization and abandonment). The golem has risen against its maker.

I wanted to note a few things. First, that I identify with what you wrote there and with the idea of establishing workshops intended to help the wavering and perplexed in the matters described, and also for yeshiva teachers and educators who could provide an answer to wavering students.

It would be worthwhile for you to read the response of my friend and your student Moshe Rat in the Shabbaton Sabbath leaflet from last Shabbat; he wrote sensible things.

Another thing I wanted to note is that naturally, in an educational institution not all teachers will be “aces” in every subject. Still, in my opinion it is enough if there is one teacher in the yeshiva designated as dealing with this topic and occupied with it; that can provide a good answer to students who are interested or perplexed by these matters. In my opinion, once there is one such “representative,” it no longer matters that the other teachers are less involved.

In the yeshiva where I studied, all the teachers are Torah scholars worthy of the name, and from all of them I learned and absorbed. But there was one teacher who dealt more than the others with the matters under discussion, and when during my yeshiva years I had questions or wanted to delve into these subjects from the perspective of Torah, I knew he was the address. [And no, he did not relate to these subjects in the style of the “Hidabroot” website and the like—not at all.] Today I continue to consult with him on these issues, and after I came to Bar-Ilan and began studying with you in the kollel, I also began consulting with yousmile

In short, in my opinion it would suffice if every educational institution had at least one educator designated as the one who “settles” these matters. That could be very beneficial. It is not necessary that all the teachers be like that [if they all are, so much the better!], but it is indeed important that there be one who is.

I completely agree.

Hello and blessings, Rabbi Michael Abraham,

My name is N', and I am an educator in a religious high school, and in addition I am studying for a B.A. in Jewish Thought and Tanakh.

I read your article on those leaving religion with care. This question troubles me very much, whether because many of my friends are no longer religious today or are on the way “out,” or because I am interested in and occupied with these questions day after day.

I would like to share with you a bit of my personal background, if that is alright with you: I grew up in a mixed home with a mitzvah-observant father and a secular mother. My father always educated me toward openness of mind and inquiry.

At the end of my high school years, I set out on the classic path of pre-military academy – yeshiva – army. I studied in a mechina and yeshiva associated with the “Kav,” enlisted, and thank God got married. Throughout all my years of study in the mechina and especially in the yeshiva, I felt somewhat like a foreign plant in terms of faith. While everyone else went and studied the same books [mainly Maharal and Rabbi Kook], I felt that my soul was not satisfied with this edifice of faith. Yet I could not find even a single rabbinic figure who could give me any alternative, any additional ideas or different opinions in matters of faith. I loved the yeshiva and the friends, but I acquired my studies of faith from outside [lectures, books, etc.].

Just to give you some sense [or chill your ears], there were certain books that people explicitly said should not be brought into the beit midrash, lest they introduce different ideas into the students’ hearts [Rabbi Shagar, etc.]. Personally this frustrated me, but I did not switch yeshivot for reasons of convenience and the like. I completed my studies there, and after I got married I began studying for a B.A.

Many thoughts have accompanied me since finishing my studies as a graduate of a hesder yeshiva [I studied there for a total of seven years, thank God]. I felt that I had certainly acquired diligent Torah study and attachment to my fellow students, but an open, searching edifice of faith—unfortunately not. Perhaps this is only my personal feeling, but from conversations with my friends who studied or still study in the yeshiva, I find that they are simply “not prepared” to talk about certain topics because “the Rosh Yeshiva said so.”
Of course, almost all of them look askance at the fact that I went to study humanities in academia. For them that is almost suicide.

I have no doubt that opening oneself up and dealing with the questions requires courage, as the rabbi wrote. Depth is required; a solid construction of faith is required. But what is also required is the knowledge that in the process of clarifying things, one discovers and opens up new paths that sometimes undermine the previous structure, upon which a new one is built.
I am indeed an educator. But already now I try to educate my students, as much as is possible and appropriate at this age, to clarify. To ask.
I would like to sharpen one further point for you.
I am currently reading Rabbi Sacks’s books. I connect very much to his way of thinking, and I especially took from him the point to which I connected most: we must sharpen for ourselves and for others that faith is responsibility. Choice. Acceptance of the need to clarify the issues. We must not place the blame only on the educators, the rabbis, and Judaism.
We need to educate the generation to clarify on its own, to seek on its own, and not to abandon things when they do not receive an answer. Clearly the educators and rabbis themselves need to be magnified for those who seek and ask of them, but at the same time to educate that the Torah is lying in the corner and waiting for each and every person to come and take it.

I hope, with God’s help, that through this process of clarification we will merit to magnify Torah and glorify it. More power to you.

Hello N'.
I was glad to receive your letter. I agree with everything.
As for the question of responsibility, I’ll just refer you to an article I once wrote, in Tzohar in 2005, in response to a young man who complained that educators do not prepare their students with a proper Torah: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%AA%D7%92%D7%95%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%A0%D7%95-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A3-%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%AA-73/

I don’t know whom you mean, but I do not see in practice the rabbis you are talking about.
Rabbi Michi is right that in yeshiva high schools the situation is far worse, where there is no one who knows how to answer, and their capacities in the necessary fields are highly questionable.
The hotlines really do not provide an answer. Those you cited give an innocent response in a religious direction different from the philosophical one that is rightly required here in the article. From what I’ve read, it seems that even those who volunteer in such hotlines themselves need the kind of counseling proposed here.

Shmuel, I appreciate you, but you are an educator from the previous generation. Your answers are optimistic, but it seems to me that they are not up to date and not connected to the current generation.
As one who searched for answers already quite a few years ago in Our Generation Facing the Eternal Questions, I can testify that today there is not a single book, including that one, that gives an answer (it may perhaps have answered questioners of an earlier generation). The Jewish thought books in the curriculum that you mentioned are full of statements from the medieval and later sages that simply do not provide an answer. During yeshiva high school they were boring and the matriculation exam dealt with memorization. At a later age I returned to these books to seek depth and was deeply disappointed! True, they contain a broad survey of the sources, but what stands out is the lack of a deep, philosophical answer as a remedy.
As Rabbi Michi wrote here, what is needed is an update of religious philosophy that will actually provide an answer (including filtering out outdated and mistaken beliefs), as opposed to merely surveying and quoting outdated thinkers who believed with simple faith that does not answer the real problems. And this is needed among us as well; this is really not only a problem of youth!

* To illustrate, we all learned different approaches to the question of divine foreknowledge and free choice. We quoted the answers of the medieval sages, but anyone with a little straight thinking in his head understood that there was no answer—yet we were afraid to cry out that the king is naked (after all, this is Maimonides, Saadia Gaon, and Rabbi Kook…). Only Rabbi Michi dared to say this truth and to try to provide a real answer that includes scientific and philosophical knowledge. In yeshiva high schools they educate toward simple faith (not only a problem of the teachers; it is the curriculum itself!)—but someone who does not believe in that is not a heretic, but a person who is true to himself.

“Because I have a philosophical temperament, it is clear to me that there is a God. It seems very likely to me that He revealed Himself and established contact with us and expects something from us. That is my point of departure.”
I understand that there is probably not enough space here, but I find the perspective that there is no God much more natural—certainly not one who created an entire universe some 15 billion years ago just in order to talk with a small tribe a few thousand years ago and expect something from it. (And if He is unrelated to the world, then again His existence is philosophically quite superfluous in my view.)
I think your opposite perspective is accepted in the religious public because of education from a young age, although perhaps your situation is different.
As others wrote here, with such a perspective it seems much cleaner, simpler, and more plausible to me to remain with the tradition as tradition, and not as a system of divine command.

Well, then we have a disagreement. I don’t know whether you think there is no God, or that there was no command, or that the command is not binding. In any case, I explained my position in the four notebooks on the site, and beyond that it is hard for me to add. In my view, to be an atheist is blatantly irrational.
In any event, remaining with the tradition sounds to me utterly absurd. What for? Why keep all this nonsense if there is nothing to it?

BS"D, 15 Cheshvan 5777

To Yuval—hello,

On the one hand, clarifying faith in our generation is very easy and accessible.

As I mentioned, there are many rabbis in our generation well versed in Jewish thought and in general philosophy, and God has graced them with a “trained tongue” to explain deep matters in clear and lucid language, in writing and orally. For example: Rabbi Shabtai and Rabbi Chaim Sabato; Rabbi Shlomo and Rabbi Elisha Aviner; Rabbi Eliyahu Zini and Rabbi Uri Sherki; Rabbi Yuval Cherlow and Rabbi Ra’am HaCohen; Rabbi Ze’ev Karov (author of Know What to Answer Yourself) and Rabbi Eli Sheinfeld; Rabbi Chaim Navon and Rabbi Yoni Lavie, and more.

And of course there lie before us the books of our great thinkers—medieval and later: among them Maimonides and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, Maharal of Prague and Ramchal (whose book The Way of God explains the foundations of faith in clear language),

and in recent generations Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik have illuminated the way for us, and from them and from their students and students’ students we draw nourishment. Worth mentioning are Chapters in Jewish Thought, in which Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin? [sic in original? actually likely R. Shaul Yisraeli] summarizes fundamental issues in faith; And the Earth He Gave to the Sons of Men by Rabbi Yehuda Amital and By the Light of Your Countenance They Walk by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, which provide infrastructure for a coherent religious outlook. Rabbi Ruth Sofer’s book Israel, a Holy People clarifies foundational issues in light of the thought of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Clarification of basic questions can be found by the reader in Rabbi Yaakov Ariel’s book Halakha in Our Time—Its Heritage, Study, and Application, and in Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch’s book Mesillot Bilvavam.

On the other hand, there is great difficulty.

Each person has emphases unique to his own personality. Some focus on philosophical inquiry and some on moral questions; some seek the happiness of the individual and others seek the improvement of society, the nation, and the whole world. Some seek intellectual analysis and others seek experience and feeling. What excites Reuven “doesn’t speak at all” to Shimon. And much searching is needed until a person finds the “spiritual nourishment” suited to his personality—there is no “master key” that opens the doors of all hearts.

There is no escaping the long and short road, in the words of Rabbi Kook at the beginning of Musar Avikha: every person needs to “arrange for himself a book in the fear of God,” clarify for himself the various methods, ask questions and resolve them, find what strengthens and enlivens him in faith and in the service of God, and clarify how to implement the great ideals in his own world.

Happy is the boy or girl who begins already in youth to write papers (“chaburos” in yeshiva language; “notebooks on faith” in R. M. D. A.’s language), in which they clarify for themselves topic after topic. Teachers and books help in clarification and sharpening, but once a person reaches bar/bat mitzvah age, the responsibility rests upon him to clarify his spiritual world and shape his paths.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

That there isn’t one, but as I tried to explain above, the idea that there is a command seems blatantly implausible to me. Without command and providence, what remains is a God about whom one basically can’t say anything, and as such His existence is superfluous (conceptually).
Observing part (not a large part) of the commandments is a communal and familial act (if the community and family are religious), and at least for someone who grew up with them—or at least for me, who grew up with them 🙂—they are not burdensome, as long as I don’t have to hide behind a faith I don’t have.

To Yuval—hello,

For the moment all I hear from you are words of dismissal and contempt—“contrary to common sense,” “not relevant,” “boring,” “outdated,” “the king is naked”—in the best style of the talkback subculture, the disgrace of our generation.

When we hear from you a detailed and reasoned critique of the positions of Saadia Gaon, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, and Maimonides on “divine foreknowledge and free choice” or on other questions, then we can try to discuss your words!

With blessing, Shimshonosaurus Lavingerax, a living fossil

Regarding the title “educator” that you gave me: I am not an “educator” but a librarian. In my humble opinion, a good “educator” should first and foremost be a “librarian,” one who charts the path for his students and gives them directions for thought and “tools of work” with which they will seek and find for themselves the answers to their questions.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

You put in a few expressions that I never said at all, and judged me to be a “talkbacker” as “the disgrace of our generation.” Fine, I’ll swallow the insult. I’ll only note that your talkback-style response indicates that you have apparently internalized the spirit of the generation quite well 😉 (that, by the way, was a winking smiley).

I did not show contempt at all. I am grappling with reality. What was written may perhaps have suited a certain time, to the conceptions and knowledge that then existed. Today it does not provide an answer. It seems to me this is the very point of departure from which Rabbi Michi set out, and I am only agreeing with him. I definitely think that in the field of thought many thinkers are quoted and nobody dares admit that the explanations do not provide a logical answer; and indeed in this field many share the feeling, but unlike the child in the emperor’s clothes, they are afraid to say aloud that this is the truth and shut their eyes to seeing. After all, the easiest thing is to cling to great trees.

I did not go into the examples in depth, because that is not the topic, but only spoke in a general framework.
Regarding the books you gave as examples, I do not have them with me at the moment, but when I visit my parents I can look into them, recall specific points, and raise them. Not for nothing are these books no longer marketed today and have been left behind despite their past role. In general, there are not many younger people from the last decades who know Our Generation Facing, unlike other books that did continue onward—and not for nothing.
By way of example, I mentioned the issue of foreknowledge and free choice without elaborating. I heard the analysis of this issue from the rabbi himself. I assume perhaps there is something written here on the site or a recording of one of those classes. The gist of it was that there is no real answer in the answers that tried to be given over the generations on this issue, and the rabbi tried to give a logical and clear explanation.
Many great and important rabbis tried to provide an answer that did not satisfy our ears as high-school students (nor today). Admitting this does not constitute contempt. On the contrary, that is what makes it possible to reach the third type mentioned in the post. The learning, unfortunately, really was memorization of opinions and not giving a rational answer. The curriculum does not discuss what the correct answer is, but surveys a variety. As high-school students we did not dare say that these answers are blatantly illogical. All the answers eventually lead to three possibilities: they range between saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not really have foreknowledge of our actions (something no one in our circles dares to claim, because it would be considered heresy), and saying that we do not really have free choice, or that we do not understand God’s knowledge because He is above time, thereby emptying the concept of knowledge of content. However you look at it, no answer defined how there really is prior knowledge and yet there is free choice in the present, without falling into logical contradictions or inventing new terms that in any case say nothing.

Love truth and peace,

The discussion is certainly fascinating. I very much identify with Tomer. Why not accept as broad a spectrum as possible of faith and commitment to Torah and mitzvot? My uncle, a French Yekke, does not keep Shabbat or kashrut but feels committed to the holidays, to saying Kaddish for his parents; yet as a Yekke who sees everything in black and white, he is convinced that anyone more observant than he is Haredi, and anyone less observant is an assimilated Jew. I am very happy with what is happening now in Israeli society, because the open discussion about Jewish identity that exists both in religious society and in secular society only strengthens the commitment to belonging to the Jewish people. One may tell young people that not every question has an answer. It seems to me that there are many wise and good Jews, committed to Torah and mitzvot, who do not feel the need to grapple with difficult questions of free will or why the righteous suffer. They are not living a lie with themselves.
Rabbi Michi is right that one must not ignore the questions, but I am not sure that the same answer suits every questioner.
More power to you for the discussion.

Rabbi Michi already answered that all the answers these organizations give do not really convince those who have piercing questions about the tradition. Therefore his proposal does not include only training people who know what to answer, but also—and primarily—a clarification of the tradition itself and which parts of it, and on what basis, can be relinquished; and thus more people will be able to identify with the tradition.

BS"D, 16 Cheshvan 5777

To Yuval—hello,

Regarding your denial in line 1—
Read your previous comment carefully and you will see that, unfortunately, those things are indeed there. I assume you did not notice these expressions while writing, but it is proper that even unconsciously we be careful with such a style.

Regarding divine foreknowledge and free choice—

Rabbi Yitzhak ben Sheshet in his responsa (section 118) explains:
“Necessarily we must believe that a human being has choice over his actions, in order for the commandments of the Torah and their rewards to stand… And likewise we must believe that the knowledge of the blessed God encompasses everything a human being will do by his choice before that thing comes into actuality… And this knowledge compels nothing at all, because once it has been established that a human being has choice and it was possible for him to do the opposite, then when God knows that he will do a certain act, He knows that he will do it by his choice and that it was possible for him to do the opposite; and if so, this knowledge compels nothing, for the knowledge is that he will do that act by choice… for a person’s act does not follow from God’s knowledge of that act before it comes into actuality; rather His knowledge follows that act, which is done by choice and with the possibility of doing the opposite, even if God knows it before it comes into actuality…”

If I understand correctly, God’s prior knowledge is like human knowledge of the past, knowledge that is not the cause of the event. For a human being this is impossible, because there is no situation in which before the event he will already be after it. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is not subject to the limitations of time (and as Maimonides explained, God’s knowledge is not like human knowledge). I assume that these words of the Rivash are what Rabbi Michael Abraham explained in the class you heard.

Rabbi Kook’s approach (based on the words of Rabbi Tzadok HaCohen of Lublin) is explained by Rabbi Uri Sherki (in his lesson on “The Question of Foreknowledge and Free Choice,” from 2011, available online): even what a person does by free choice is also done by divine action, since at the very moment he decided to do the act, God gave him the power to perform it and did not prevent him.

Therefore, before repentance the act is attributed to the person, since it was done in accordance with his will; but after repentance, he uproots his will from the act, and the act is henceforth attributed to God alone.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

In my opinion, a tiny minority become non-religious because of questions of faith and the existence of God, and they are probably the ones Rabbi Michi meets. Far more leave religion because of a social-public atmosphere and a lack of belonging to the sector. Regarding the social atmosphere and lack of belonging to the sector (mainly the national-religious sector), I think there is a pendulum movement on this issue, and the current situation greatly resembles the situation in the 1950s, when many religious young people felt ashamed to belong to the religious stream and many of them decided to leave. True, since then Religious Zionism has gained strength and many felt a certain pride in belonging to it, but in recent years Religious Zionism has been going to bad places, and many want to disconnect from it and from what it represents. The social disconnection leads in many cases to religious disconnection. By the way, an interesting phenomenon that has taken place in recent years is religiosity without a kippah (or “the transparent kippah,” as Yoav Sorek once called it), and I think that comes from the same point. Another, broader phenomenon is the possibility of slacking off and still remaining religious, and for all the advantages of this model (which in the past was not accepted at all), it leads very quickly to complete disconnection from religion (see, for example, the phenomenon of texting on Shabbat. I know quite a few friends who started with these little things and at some point freed themselves from all yoke). In short, Rabbi Michi is addressing one aspect, and in my opinion a marginal one, of the whole phenomenon; and if one really wants to deal with the phenomenon, one has to look at the overall picture.

BS"D, 16 Cheshvan 5777

To A"Sh—hello,

I do not think we are in the reality of the 1950s, when young people felt ashamed to be religious and aspired to connect to the secular “hegemony.” Today the situation is the reverse. It is precisely the size and strength of the Religious-Zionist public and its integration into all systems of leadership that bring some young people to feel that the leadership of the religious and Torah public is the “establishment” that must be “shaken up and refreshed.” That is the price of size and power…

As for the patient and containing attitude toward young people who leave the path—this is actually for the good. In a study conducted at Talpiot College in 2011 (quoted on Wikipedia, entry “Leaving religion,” near note 6), it emerged that many of those who leave return to religion by age 28, because the family and society continued to maintain loving contact with them.

This was the guidance of Rabbi Kook, which he repeated again and again in his letters to Rabbi Dov Milstein: to act with patience and love toward his sons who rebelled against the way of their parents, and he repeatedly emphasized that there is a covenant made with love that does not return empty-handed and in the end exerts influence, in the near or distant future.

And in general, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook already taught us that the three foundations of education are: patience, patience, and patience.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

As a Haredi educator, I am entirely envious of you. When will our rabbis open up such topics with courage and originality of thought?

Hello Shmil.
I have to add here that I did not address the Haredi world, even though I meet not a few Haredim who have no fewer questions, and the phenomenon of abandonment that I described exists there too. The reason is that there are somewhat different characteristics there that require a different mode of action, and also because one cannot open an open and public discussion there on such a topic. The feeling is that there the problem almost does not exist, but that too is because the educators, the establishment, and the press do not talk about it, and also because people do not expose what is happening for fear of the evil eye and out of shame. That is really a shame.

The rabbi wrote about his literary effort to write a “thin theology.” I assume the rabbi knows Rabbi Amit Kula’s little book Existence or Never Was. I assume the rabbi would not sign onto everything said there (just as Rabbi Kula himself hesitates), but it seems that both of you are based on the same distress and are aiming in the same direction.

Indeed. I even wrote a review of it that appears here on the site.

Hello.
Only now did I see the comment (for some reason it did not appear to me).
Indeed, my remarks are aimed at certain people who leave because of philosophical difficulties and questions. But as I noted, it is important to remember two things: 1. Even someone who leaves for other reasons makes use of the difficulties (many people need intellectual anchoring and backing for what they do), and it is important to answer them too. 2. I am interested in the sector that receives no answer, which includes many of the best of our young people (unlike the 1950s), and it is a shame for them and for us that they leave.
From my impression, I also do not think the alienation you describe is connected to “bad places,” that is, to the directions the religious society is taking (which directions? There are quite a few very different directions, far more than in the past, and seemingly everyone can more easily find himself in one of them than in the past). Therefore, in my opinion, this is alienation from religiosity as such.

I want to add another aspect to the problem you raised. In my view, the very concept of “religiosity” constitutes a problem. In places where educators act with excessive rigidity and dogmatism, there is usually a package deal of what and who is religious, and from that it follows who and what is “non-religious.” Freeing oneself from the package deal of labels makes it possible to move along a continuum in which a person—not out of an ideology that values some commandments and negates others, but sometimes out of difficulty, ideological, instinctive, intellectual, and more—can avoid being defined by his actions. And even if he has decided (more or less) that he does not identify with the place in which he grew up, that does not by definition require him to throw out the whole package.
The trouble is that those who most need liberation from labels are precisely the ones who produce them, and in large quantities.
A superficial sociological analysis would set Ashkenaziness here against Sephardiness. It is not an uncommon sight to see a guy in a kippah walking hand in hand with his girlfriend in the street, and for him the two do not contradict each other. In my humble opinion, freeing the labels would allow everyone to move more, throw away less, and would loosen the problem of distrust that often grows vis-à-vis the religious and educational establishment.

This is again an approach based on results and utility, not an essential one. It seems to me important to separate the discussions: first discuss what is correct (who is religious), and afterward discuss the utility/damage of labels. In every context I oppose pragmatist mixtures of utility and truth. I do not like false labels, but I have no problem at all with labels. It seems to me impossible to think without them. Therefore generalizations and stereotypes, which are usually considered pejoratives, are in my view very important things. The point is that they should be made precisely and without drawing conclusions beyond what the data say. Someone who rejects generalizations is in fact evading thought. Instead of making the effort to be more precise, one gives up altogether on classification and categorization.
In short, the path you propose is giving up on truth. I am not willing to accept the secular person as religious just in order to gain something (even assuming there is some gain in it). By contrast, if you propose a substantive definition of the concept of religious not as a binary concept but as a continuum of identities (and define the continuum and its degrees, and who belongs to it and who does not)—that would be the correct path in my eyes.

It doesn’t seem to me that one can talk about religion and faith in mathematical and logical terms. The more you try to give a more precise definition of a religious Jew, the more there will be enough other Jews who reject it. It is well known that whenever people have tried in any ideology to define and be precise, it caused schisms, quarrels, and wars. Therefore let everyone define himself in the realm of faith and religion. In my eyes each person’s personal search for truth is more important than attaining the truth.

It’s a shame that I have to repeat again what I wrote. Arguments of the type that something is harmful/divisive/brings wars are, in my eyes, completely irrelevant. The question is whether it is true, not what it does.
Forgive me, but in my view such claims usually reflect intellectual laziness. Instead of thinking and defining, one discharges one’s duty by saying that everything is complex and not a matter of logic, etc., and thus we have rid ourselves of the need to think.
But I really do not understand how we got here to logic and definitions. What in all this is relevant to what I wrote in the post?

To R. M. D. A.—hello,

So far I have not seen in this post any new definitions of the concepts of faith, nor any new answers to any question of faith.

If Your Honor really has new questions or new answers in your possession, you are invited to present them to the many, so that we may discuss them. And if not—why proclaim in advance a coming “revolution”?

One does not demolish an old synagogue before building a new one, lest we remain bald on both sides.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

The rabbi’s whole site is full of innovations and rational conceptions of reality (regarding providence in our time, for example).

To Yair—hello,

The claim that there is a God but He does not exercise providence—“The Lord has forsaken the land” (proposed in response to “providence in our time”)—was already proposed by the Greek philosophers. What is the good news in that?

It seems to me that the existence of the people of Israel among seventy wolves, and its return to its land after an exile of thousands of years, when we see with our own eyes the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophets’ prophecies about the ingathering of Israel’s dispersed—point in the direction that God has not abandoned and will not abandon His people.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

A discussion on the topic in the “Stop Here, Think” forum:
http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=1&topic_id=3126906&forum_id=1364

Don’t you have here the fallacy of small numbers? (The people who come to you are the successful ones.)

I dwell among my people, and the numbers I have encountered are not at all small. And besides, they are successful by definition. After all, these are the people who think and are willing to draw conclusions. The determination that they are successful is evaluative, and therefore reflects my own opinion.

The novelty is that the claim is being made by a Jewish theologian.
One exceptional case in God’s conduct (the return to the land) does not contradict the rule.

Dear Rabbi Michi, I read your article on the matter and agreed with it very much. Although postmodernism is not worthy in your eyes, it seems to me that there is much in common between our approaches regarding the proper way to deal with the conceptual difficulties you describe. I wrote an article about this for Mayim Midalyav, and a popular version of it was published in Mussaf Shabbat. I teach a course at Midreshet Lindenbaum that I call “The Sages Meet the 21st Century,” in which I try to do exactly what you recommend. I taught the course last year to women and teachers in Matan in Hashmonaim, and now the students are younger. I admit that it is aimed mainly at intellectuals, but one could certainly build a version of it for high-school students or for their rabbis. I would be happy to speak with you. Chana Sheks. A link to my article in Mussaf Shabbat.
A Broken World on the Floor / Chana Sheks

Hello Chana.

Thank you for your words and for the article. As expected, we are heading in completely opposite directions. I’ll try to describe briefly why.

Your point of departure in the article (and in general, since we have already managed to argue) is that science, culture, and philosophy are temporary and changing (postmodernity), while religion is fixed. Therefore you present the attempt to explain religion in the terms of culture, science, and philosophy as a kind of absurdity (though apparently a positive one in your eyes, if I understood correctly). By contrast, I see all these as a developing process (almost linear). Science is the clearest example of this. It is obviously progressing, not merely changing (as in your view). True, there are mistakes along the way, but the function is not a sine wave but a line with a rising average (modernist. I admit the facts and deny the guilt). Today we reach the moon and Aristotle did not get there. Today we cure illnesses and Aristotle did not know how to do that. According to your view Aristotle reached the moon and cured illnesses, just in a different way than we do. But that is of course not true (absolutely). It seems to me that if we cannot agree even on facts, it will be hard to discuss. Philosophy too does not merely change but is refined and improved. I think that on the essential questions there are almost no disagreements among philosophers. Many disagreements are only apparent (because they use different language or speak about another aspect). A good argument is a good argument. As for culture, I am more willing to agree, though even there it depends what you call culture. Morality is not such, but table manners are (in Maimonides’ terms at the beginning of the Guide, in his famous remarks on Adam’s sin, these are intelligibles as opposed to conventions).

To the same degree, I believe in truth in its ordinary and accepted sense also in the religious context. Someone for whom religion is a form of coping or a language is not religious in my eyes. He does not believe, but at most is a person who has religious experiences or lives in a religious culture. For me he does not count for a minyan. There are complete atheists who report such experiences (Einstein, for example). By contrast, I as a religious person have no such experiences at all (a dry little Litvak).
The purpose of my article was to save the truth, not replace it. There is no point in defending a culture. I discuss, examine, and defend truth and falsehood. As for cultures, let each choose for himself what he wants. Therefore when I speak of examining our beliefs in light of the good questions of youth and critics, I mean examining what is correct and what is not, not making adaptations of language. As I said, improvement is not mere change. Change does not necessarily have a direction, but improvement does. I am seeking improvement, not adaptation. There are truths that are revealed to us, but when that happens it becomes clear that they were true from the beginning, exactly as they are today. It is only that in the past people lived in error, and today we have tools to discover this and improve things. This is not a change of narrative but progress.
Someone for whom the Holy One, blessed be He, is a kind of language and culture (and not factual claims) simply does not believe in God (at most he fantasizes about Him). For me, belief in God is a simple factual claim. If the Torah was not given at Sinai (at least in some sense), I have nothing to look for here. Perhaps I am mistaken and there is no God, or there was no revelation at Sinai—but that would be a mistake, not a change of narrative, and I would be glad if someone could explain that to me and substantiate his claim. Belief does not, of course, mean certainty. But on the other hand, it also does not allow postmodern relativism.

Regards to Pinchas, and see you,

Thank you for your response.
Apparently I am not explaining myself properly.

I absolutely agree that religion is not an experience. And I also agree about the development of science, although it is clear to me that just as we have advanced today relative to the past, we are primitive relative to the future, and therefore I relate with a bit of humor and distance to the “truth” that we “know” today, even if it has succeeded in bringing us to the moon, curing certain diseases, etc.

What I argue in the article is not that religion is a language, but that culture is a changing language. Our problem is that today’s youth have changed the language. And I am not ashamed to speak with them in that language, alongside the fact that my religious world is real, existential, and absolute.

Educationally, I accept what you say—that one has to cope differently—but not exactly in the same way. I think we can give youth an answer using the “postmodern” conceptual and linguistic tools that I described in the article, and only with those tools. But if we continue speaking to them in the language of Aristotle or the modern philosophers—as the yeshiva teachers do in the yeshivot—we will lose them. And we already have. The language in which our generation was raised is the modern language that places great trust in universal reason. Therefore, when we pull out all those philosophical “answers,” we lose the youth. But each case is individual, and if there are people with whom one can speak from within your rationalist (?) outlook—excellent. I would be glad to cooperate with any program that gives place to languages that work (pragmatist to the end…).

My claim is that my philosophical familiarity with the postmodern “narrative” enables me to take the bull by the horns. True, it will be hard for me to speak about “truth” in your terms, and as you said, we’ve already been there. But I think that if you put that difference aside, you will find that in the important sense—fear of Heaven, rabbinic authority, halakhic commitment, faith in the eternity of Israel—we share (and do not dispute) the same world of concepts, and certainly the same project.

See you,
Chana

Hello Chana.
If it is about language, I completely agree. One just has to be careful not to be taken captive by the language and adopt the conceptions it expresses.
See you,

The rabbi wrote that when young men come to him at later stages, when they have already decided (partly or entirely) that they do not believe—it is harder for them to accept the answers.
What does that stem from? Is it not because a religious person is not seeking the truth, but only that his faith be plausible and reasonable even if not necessary, and therefore the threshold of plausibility he demands is lower, whereas a person who no longer believes seeks the truth more objectively?

That too is possible. But even according to that possibility, one can see it in a more favorable light: someone whose initial inclination is to believe needs less unequivocal evidence for that, since it already seems plausible to him in itself.
But of course the opposite explanation can also be true: those who have already decided are not open to hearing arguments.

BS"D, 22 Tevet 5777

Additional important books for those seeking to understand faith, books whose vigor has not faded even after decades, are: (a) Our Generation Facing the Eternal Questions, by Dr. Aharon Barth of blessed memory. (b) Letters to Talia, by Dov Indig, of blessed memory, who fell in the Yom Kippur War.

On Maimonides’ philosophical method in the Guide for the Perplexed, the following have recently been published: (a) Rabbi Shlomo Aviner’s commentary. (b) R. Yohai Makbili’s book An Invitation to the Guide for the Perplexed. (c) R. Chaim Weisman’s book Clarifications of Belief in Maimonides—Creation, Prophecy, and Providence in the Guide for the Perplexed (published by Har Berakha Institute). A comparison between the methods of Maimonides and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi appears in Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat’s book Between the Kuzari and Maimonides.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

I am amazed anew each time by the writing ability—analytical, thought-provoking, original, daring, and stirring. God has done a kindness in our generation that there is a Michi… and I am not being cynical. You express things aloud, courageously, breaking conventions and challenging them. Your lecture at Ma’ale HaChamisha a few weeks ago was also fascinating and somewhat overshadowed the others.
You almost bring me back to religion.
If only I had had a teacher like you in the Midrashiyah (I’m a graduate of class 20).
But I do not live only from your mouth either. I am, apparently, a “religi-atheist” = believer–nonbeliever (against the dichotomies you mentioned). The loftiness of “perhaps” is in my throat and the “both-and” is in my hand. I do not know whether there is a master to the palace, nor do I deny that there is a palace for a master.
I understand none of it—except for the psychological value in a human being, sovereign (not rabbinic), knowing that there is something that is not his own power and the might of his own hand. And indeed the commandments came only to refine man through them, so that his heart not grow haughty, and that he know there are hidden things, but aspire precisely to inquire into them.
So at Ma’ale HaChamisha—you did not answer me (you answered, as is your way, with smiling courtesy, but not in a skeptical way) on one question. If you satisfy my poor mind, the road is paved, perhaps, and with God’s help, to my return to myself in the style of Reish Lakish.
And this is my Rabbi Yirmiyah question: even if we think in terms of the psychological reason above—why do we keep praising and blessing Him, may He be blessed, all the time? Isn’t that excessive even for the Creator of the world, Master of the universe, who may perhaps be a creation of man?

Many thanks.
If God is our invention, then none of the questions are relevant. It is not advisable to assume the conclusion if one wants to have a discussion.
As for your question itself, it seems to me that I told you there too (I don’t remember) that those praises are for us, not for Him. By the way, the decision of how many praises and which praises is not His but ours (of the Sages and the Men of the Great Assembly). According to Ramban, prayer is rabbinic law, and according to Rambam too the text of prayer is rabbinic. Therefore even if the dosage seems excessive to you, that is not a difficulty about God, but at most about the Sages.

That itself is difficult:
Certainly those praises are for us and not for Him. Apart from the psychological explanation—do you have additional explanations?

But I do not know and do not feel—whether He is the one who exists and not the invented one, or perhaps…
And where am I to come to?
Perhaps if I had been born a gypsy, I would have been exempt from these questions.
But since I was created and born a Jew and met you—against my will I will soak my bed every night.

Why do you need further explanations? What’s wrong with it?

Hello Rabbi Michael!
I wanted to note that Rabbi Kook, in Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah, explains that Maimonides in his thought sought to establish Judaism upon the most basic and firm foundations, those that will not collapse. In that, as I recall, he answered a person who found Maimonides’ view difficult—namely that the human being does not constitute the purpose of creation as a whole. This is in line with what the rabbi wrote in the article. There are many conceptions rooted in the consciousness of the believing public that are not principles of religion and are not necessary, and one can certainly point out the lack of obligation toward them.
On the other hand, I am bothered by the rabbi’s tendency to see those conceptions as probably incorrect. In my humble opinion, it stands to reason that an opinion rooted for generations in the believing public has its source in mountains of holiness, and was accepted in the public heart out of a healthy and upright intuitive tendency.
The rabbi sets up the intelligent and courageous ex-religious people as the more high-quality group among our sons, on account of the sharpness of their minds and their courageous honesty. In my humble opinion, this group is usually not worthy of such appreciation. Usually what distinguishes those loyal to the word of God from those who deny it, among the sharp and courageous people in our society, is their character traits—above all, how much humility is in their hearts. The humble appreciate, listen, and devote themselves to understanding. The arrogant juggle it all too easily, out of lack of true attentiveness to the inner content of things. True, there is a broad public that fears sharp clarifications out of a hesitant and weak stance; but at least they sin by refraining from action, whereas the arrogant in active fashion erase all that is precious.
As I understand it, logical intellectual understanding can understand reality in a way that constitutes a basis for faith. It grasps this basis and can judge whether it fits and directs toward faith or the reverse. But faith itself is something that rests atop those layers of understanding and dwells in higher parts of consciousness. The educated ex-religious discourse touches only the lower layers of the foundation and does not reach the insights that rest upon it. By contrast, many ordinary people, for whom that foundation is not sufficiently clear and well-grasped in their minds, nevertheless understand what they do understand in a straight way that allows faith to rest upon them. Therefore I appreciate them more than the former and think that their prevalent conceptions should be given significant weight.
For all Rabbi Kook’s admiration of Maimonides’ path, as brought at the beginning of my remarks, he built his outlook chiefly by delving into the level of faith and did not suffice with what I called the basic foundation. The planes complement one another, and inquiry and evaluation in only one of them is, in my humble opinion, lacking, insufficiently clarified, and presents a picture that is not truly correct.
With great appreciation and agreement with the main point of the article,
Yonatan

I do not have such trust in opinions rooted in the public. In my eyes, in many cases the majority is דווקא wrong (see an upcoming column that will deal with the question whether the majority is right). I see how much nonsense the majority of the public believes today, and very easily, so I do not have such trust in its opinion.
I did not write that the ex-religious are usually intelligent and courageous. I wrote that there are quite a few such people and that I am sorry about them. In every group there are all kinds, of course. But that impression is the result of the sample each of us encounters.

BS"D, 1st of the portion Emor, 5777

To M.D.A.—hello,

Will those “intelligent and courageous” buy what you are offering? There are many among them who will clap for your daring in “slaughtering some of the sacred cows,” but will see you as “admitting part of it,” doing so only because you do not dare deny everything. They will applaud and continue on their way, and what will you have accomplished?

Rabbi Kook took a completely different path. He explains the difficult questions in depth, so that the questioners understand “this rabbi understands the soul of the generation,” but in his writings he also explains the various approaches in faith, not only his own. Thus the person wavering can find the path that will be acceptable to him; and since “their opinions are not the same,” accordingly there are many different methods in understanding faith and in the paths of serving God.

When we try to understand in depth the various methods, to understand deeply their arguments and the way each method copes with the difficulties—we will be able to find the path suited to us, and at the same time to understand the other paths as well. Even when one does not agree, it is important that there be mutual understanding and mutual appreciation. After all, we live together.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

From reading your words lately, it is not so clear to me why it is so important to you to prevent people from becoming ex-religious. Especially since most halakhot are convention and social tradition rather than divine utterance, and the principles of faith are not really binding at all—so what difference does it make if someone wants to be secular?
You decided that you accept this framework, which does not really have any proof or genuine rational obligation, for your own reasons (which are not entirely clear to me), but what do you want from others?

BS"D, 19 Sivan 5777

And recently Rabbi Dr. משה Rat’s book was published: Simply to Believe — A Guide for the Rational Believer.

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

Read my words again. The halakhot are divine command, though created by human beings. Obligation does not depend on authenticity. And there is certainly a rational basis for religious obligation; that is why I wrote the notebooks. See there.

Thank you for the answer. Allow me one small question before reading the notebooks.
Do you think that faith as you present it is more rational than atheism?

Unequivocally. Atheism is blatantly irrational.

And the thought that God created a sophisticated and elaborate world, and abandoned it to blind chance—is that rational?

(With this argument Maimonides rejects the view of Epicurus, who denied providence over created beings, and the view of Aristotle, who denied individual providence. Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, end of chapter 17.)

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger

That is not blind chance at all. These are the laws that He Himself legislated in creation, and they bring His will into effect (as is known, Maimonides himself writes this—that God is not involved, but His miracles and involvement are nature implanted in creation from the outset). True, when a person chooses to do something that is not good in God’s eyes, He allows it. And it is also true that if the laws produce a bad result but there is no avoiding it, then that too can happen.
And beyond all that, a logical consideration is not a principle of faith. Even if I accept your consideration and agree with its conclusion, that still does not mean there is a tradition of God’s involvement, and therefore also not a principle of faith of that sort. In such a case there is logic that leads to that conclusion, but logical arguments can always stem from the fact that we failed to notice other possibilities and various refutations. One cannot turn a logical consideration into a principle of faith.

BS"D, 20 Sivan 5777

To R.M.D.A.—hello,

But Maimonides (Guide III:17) drew the necessary conclusion from his argument that one cannot attribute to God the injustice of not rewarding a human being for his choice; and following the words of the Torah and the prophets, who testify unequivocally, he establishes in his introduction to Perek Helek the principle of reward as one of the principles of faith.

Indeed, according to Maimonides the primary reward for a person’s deeds is spiritual: one who does good merits that his soul cleave to God in eternal cleaving, as Abigail said, “And my lord’s soul shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord your God,” and, Heaven forbid, the opposite: “Whoever has sinned against Me I shall blot out of My book.” The material reward in this world is an incentive and aid given to the doer of good and withheld from the doer of evil (as Maimonides explains in chapter 9 of the Laws of Repentance), or it is “fruit” for the benefit his deeds brought in this world, while the “principal”—the perfection of soul a person acquired by his good deeds—will come to full expression in the eternal world (as Maimonides explained at the beginning of tractate Peah).

With blessing, S.Z. Lavinger