Q&A: Several Questions About Faith
Several Questions About Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael, it’s important to me to say that I really connect with your rationality, and I very much enjoy listening to you. I have 4 questions, if I may.
1. What is your opinion of Spinoza’s conception of God? That is to say, according to Spinoza, what created the universe if not God? (As I understood it, he views substance as self-caused, meaning that the tree is its own cause. I didn’t understand the logic of that.)
2. And how was the Oral Torah also given at Mount Sinai? In my opinion that simply doesn’t make sense. Even if it was given, how did the whole people manage to remember it orally and pass it down word for word throughout the generations? And similarly regarding the Five Books of the Torah—do you think that some of the verses were edited / written by human beings? Because I see the entire Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) as a human creation.
3. And what do you think of Spinoza in general as a philosopher?
4. And have you read Yuval Steinitz’s book "A Scientific-Logical Missile to God and Back"? If so, what do you think? Thank you!
P.S. I’d be more than happy if you did a podcast together.
Answer
Happy holidays.
1. In my opinion, his God is empty of content. Identifying God with all of creation is atheism. It is parallel to the Hasidic conception that the contraction is not to be understood literally.
2. What was given was the mode of thinking, the methods of interpretation, and the explanations of words. It is clear that the Jewish laws in our hands, almost all of which are part of the Oral Torah, developed over the generations.
As for the Written Torah, it is possible that there are verses that were written later (such as the verses that say "to this very day"). Beyond that, it is certainly possible that the text was edited later.
3. I haven’t studied him in depth. His Ethics, from what I’ve read, seems to me like empty casuistry.
4. I read it many years ago. I can say in general that in quite a few places Steinitz is not precise, and there are holes in his arguments.