Q&A: Question
Question
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi Michi,
Recently I’ve been facing a decision that may have a very strong impact on my future. I thought I might ask for your help and put before you a question through which perhaps some of the aspects of the difficult decision at my doorstep will become clearer to me.
So here it is:
To what extent did the academic path you took enrich your personality, and to what extent did it contribute to the Torah dimensions within you? How much would you still have been Michael Abraham had it not been for that path?
When I say the academic path, I mean your studies in physics, from your bachelor’s degree through your postdoc. I emphasize this because I’m not interested in what contribution studies in the humanities and social sciences might make (I assume that in your view it is minimal or negative), but rather in the natural sciences and exact sciences, especially physics and mathematics.
Another emphasis in the question: I don’t want to deal with the general question of how much contact with knowledge that does not come from the study hall may prove enriching and beneficial (I think it very much can), or how much dwelling also in the tent of Japheth contributes to dwelling in the tent of Shem. Let us assume that you would have read those same philosophy books and other books, encountered those same bodies of knowledge, apart from the knowledge you acquired in your academic studies—to what extent would your personality have been close to what it is now, and to what extent would your Torah side have been developed relative to where it is now? (You can also tell me they would have been more developed, since going out to study has its price.)
One more emphasis: I’m not talking about circumstantial influence, such as your studies bringing you into contact with inspiring people, with books you wouldn’t have encountered in the study hall, and other indirect effects. I mean the effects of the bodies of knowledge, the conceptual world, and the methodologies. To what extent did they contribute to your personality and to your Torah learning?
I would be very glad to receive your answer. As I wrote at the outset, it may help me a great deal and clarify for me some of the facets of the dilemma I am facing.
Thank you very much
Answer
Greetings.
A few preliminaries:
First, it is hard to draw a sharp line between the influence of the environment and chance encounters, and the influence of the material studied itself.
Second, it is hard for me to assess what would have happened to me without those studies—rather like asking what Maimonides would say about some Talmudic passage if he were alive today. If he were alive today, he wouldn’t be Maimonides. Admittedly, your question is different, because it is well defined (even if it probably can’t be answered): what would have become of me without those studies. But there is still some similarity, since my view of what would have happened is itself influenced by what I am today (certainly the judgment, but probably the facts as well).
Third, I don’t accept concerns (if there are any) about the influence of the material being studied. That can only be beneficial. Suppose that because of these encounters you were to believe less in the Holy One, blessed be He, or in the giving of the Torah—still, in my opinion it would be right to study it, because that is the truth (from your perspective): that you in fact believe less. If you hide the material from yourself, you won’t really be yourself, but will live under the illusion that you believe although you do not. This is unlike indirect influences—not those of the material and modes of thought themselves.
Fourth, there is certainly value in studies that are not natural science and mathematics. But one should know that they are not science in the usual sense, and it is important to approach them very critically (more so than with the natural sciences. Mathematics is completely neutral).
As for your question itself, I really don’t know. It depends on what I would have done instead. Are you asking what would have happened if I had remained a kollel scholar? But that was not really an option for me. I tend to think that in almost any situation there would not have been a significant difference, except that I would have had fewer tools.
Sorry for the laconic answer after all the preliminaries, but in my assessment this is the correct answer, and I also think it may still be a useful one.