Doubt and Probability—in Halakha, Thought, and in General—Lesson 35 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:04] The transition from the lecture on statistical evidence to Hume’s questions
[2:50] The infinite chain of assumptions and Hume’s skepticism
[16:10] An example of an infinite product of fractions that does not equal zero
[18:51] The decline of the generations and standing on the shoulders of predecessors
[21:17] The mistake in multiplying probabilities in a chain of assumptions
[22:56] Dependence and independence in calculating complex probabilities
[30:29] Distrust of personal insights and vanishingly small probability
[31:36] David Hume’s doubt about the witness argument
[33:51] Looking for the flaw in David Hume’s argument
[42:08] “Telephone” as an argument against a chain of transmission
[43:57] Presenting two possibilities: a reliable miracle or a corrupted transmission
[51:45] Oral tradition versus the book: the source of the testimony
[54:43] The difference between probability and plausibility in philosophical discussion

Summary

General Overview

The text moves from a discussion of statistical evidence in law to two skeptical questions of David Hume dealing with doubt, probability, and trust in our cognitive tools, and then to the witness argument and tradition about miracles. The speaker presents a skeptical argument that tries to show that trust in cognition rests on an infinite chain of assumptions, so that the “product of the probabilities” leads to zero, and he rejects it as a computational mistake and a confusion of concepts involving probability, dependence, and independence. He then presents Hume’s attack on the possibility of believing reports of miracles transmitted by tradition, explains how Hume frames the issue as a comparison between two alternatives, and argues that Hume’s argument is not decisive and tends to be circular and unfalsifiable, while distinguishing between “probability” and “plausibility” and discussing both the weaknesses and strengths of comparative reasoning.

The Plan of the Series and the Continuation of Topics

The speaker says that last time they finished the discussion of statistical evidence in law, and now they are moving on to two skeptical questions of David Hume connected to doubt and probability. He says that in the next lecture he will probably discuss a statistical paradox called “the ship from Liverpool,” and later he wants to conclude the series with some discussion of permitting agunot, where there are also interesting probabilistic aspects they will want to examine in light of what they have seen.

David Hume’s First Doubt: Trust in Cognition and an Infinite Chain

The speaker presents a claim attributed to Hume according to which every conclusion relies on cognitive tools that are not certain, so one must ask what the probability is that the tools themselves are reliable, and what the probability of that assumption is, and so on to infinity. He describes the move according to which multiplying infinitely many probabilities, each smaller than one, is supposed to lead to zero, and from this it follows that the chance that trust in our cognitive tools is justified is zero. He presents this as a paradox whose conclusion is “obviously not correct,” but where it is hard to identify the flaw, and he compares it to Zeno’s Achilles and the tortoise paradox in order to stress that the problem is locating the flaw in the argument, not just rejecting the conclusion.

Rejecting the First Doubt: Symmetry, Wordplay, and Dependence of Probabilities

The speaker suggests a first response: the same infinite regress undermines the opposite thesis as well, namely “it is not right to trust the senses,” so you get the absurdity that both the probability that our insights are correct is zero and the probability that they are not correct is also zero, even though the two possibilities should add up to one. He says this proves there is some flaw in the calculation, even if it does not immediately show where it is, and he adds that this removes the option of accepting the skeptical conclusion “as the solution” rather than seeing it as a mistake in the argument. He argues that there is also a verbal confusion here: “uncertainty in our insights” already expresses the result of the doubt, and stepping back to an “assumption about the assumption” is not a new multiplication but just a repetition of the same uncertainty, so a number like ninety-five percent stays ninety-five percent. He illustrates a parallel formulation by adding logically valid assumptions to the argument about Socrates, and he claims that there too, building a chain of assumptions does not justify an infinite multiplication as representing the actual state of our trust.

Infinite Products That Do Not Go to Zero and Mathematical Examples

The speaker adds that even if one accepts a model of an infinite product, it is still not true that a product of infinitely many numbers each smaller than one must equal zero. He gives the example of the limit \((1+1/n)^n\), which approaches \(e\), and presents \((1-1/n)^n\) as approaching \(1/e\), noting that by changing the numerator one can aim at various different results between zero and one. He stresses that this shows the automatic move from “infinitely many factors smaller than one” to “the result must be zero” is not necessary, though he sees this as more of a technical aside than the heart of the problem.

The Problem of Independence and the Rule of Conditional Probability

The speaker presents the central difficulty as the fact that the argument assumes independence between the errors in the assumptions and therefore multiplies probabilities, even though such multiplication is valid only for independent events. He explains this by means of the example of coin tosses whose results depend on a previous toss, and stresses that in a case of dependence one must use conditional probabilities rather than simple multiplication. He argues that the possible reason one assumption is wrong comes from the same source that explains doubt about the other assumptions, so the events are dependent, and the conclusion of “zero” comes from an unjustified multiplication. He also presents this as equivalent to his earlier point that the uncertainty at all levels reflects the same factor and therefore does not accumulate as an infinite product.

Remarks on Pascal, Hume, and Kant as the Speaker’s Position

The speaker says that Hume raises excellent questions but “turned the questions into answers,” and he attributes to Kant the statement that Hume “awakened him from his dogmatic slumber.” He compares the flaw he attributes to Hume to similar failures of probabilistic reasoning such as “Pascal’s wager,” and argues that here there is not even a real paradox but just “a plain mistake,” because the probabilistic flaw is relatively easy to point out. He notes that he does not know where Hume wrote the first argument, and says that the question reached him from someone who wrote to his website.

David Hume’s Second Doubt: The Witness Argument and Tradition About a Miracle

The speaker presents the “witness argument” as the claim that by means of a reliable tradition transmitted from generation to generation one can accept truths about miraculous events such as the revelation at Mount Sinai or the splitting of the Red Sea, and he notes that in Saadia Gaon, the Kuzari, and other books this argument is regarded as a strong one. He describes general criticisms of the argument, such as the existence of liars, similar traditions in other religions, and the game of “telephone” as a metaphor for cumulative distortion. He cites verses from Deuteronomy chapter 4 (“For ask now of the former days…,” “Has a people ever heard the voice of God…,” “Or has God ever attempted…”), and interprets them as focusing on the uniqueness of the event and on “and lived,” not necessarily as an argument from a long chain of generations. He also notes that the verse “and not your children, who have not known and have not seen” highlights the difference between the generation that saw and the next generation.

Hume’s Formalization: Comparing Alternatives

The speaker explains that Hume turns the “telephone” criticism into a formal argument that compares two alternatives: either the miracle happened and the tradition is reliable, or the miracle did not happen and the tradition became corrupted. He presents this comparative principle as a general way of testing hypotheses, and explains that one should prefer the more plausible alternative rather than ask in isolation, “is this plausible?” He describes Hume’s claim that a miracle is an “impossible” event, or one with a vanishingly small chance, relative to any natural event such as distortion in transmission, and therefore a priori it is preferable to assume distortion rather than a miracle.

Probability Versus Plausibility and the Fine-Tuning Example

The speaker argues that Hume’s discussion is not really probabilistic but rather about plausibility, and he distinguishes between “probability,” which requires a measurable sample space and calculation, and “plausibility,” as an assessment of how believable something is. He illustrates this through the fine-tuning claim, where the “chance” of getting exactly certain continuous values is zero, so a naive probabilistic calculation is not even defined, yet one still speaks philosophically of the “implausibility” of randomness. He says that with Hume too, the discussion of miracle does not rest on an exact number but on the claim that a miracle is “implausible” compared to the “natural” possibility that tradition became corrupted.

The Speaker’s Criticism of Hume’s Argument: Induction, Circularity, and Unfalsifiability

The speaker points out that Hume himself challenged induction and the justification of laws of nature as nothing more than habits of thought, yet in his argument against miracles he relies on laws of nature in order to make a miracle sharply implausible. He says this is not necessarily decisive, because Hume still appeals to the intuition that when there is a reasonable natural explanation, one should choose the natural option. But the speaker adds a central criticism: Hume “knows” that miracles do not happen only because he dismisses every report of a miracle by means of the very same argument, so the result is question-begging and an unfalsifiable thesis. Every testimony to a miracle will be rejected as perceptual error or distortion, and so no testimony will ever be allowed to endanger the conclusion. He compares this to science and argues that science also advances when reports appear that seem to contradict existing paradigms and people try to explain them, so an a priori rejection of anomalies is not a methodology that allows progress.

Class Discussion: Broad Tradition, Miracles, Cameras, and the Zohar

In the classroom discussion, participants raise claims about a broad tradition versus “a single testimony,” about the fact that reports of miracles are perceived as happening mainly in primitive societies, and about whether rare exceptional events can occur only once, like a solar eclipse. The speaker argues that the reliability of the reporter can sometimes outweigh the implausibility of the event, and that one should not reject the possibility of a miracle a priori just because there is a natural alternative. Participants raise the Zohar as a kind of “father-to-son” tradition and either reject or strengthen the comparison, and the speaker argues that traditions of this kind may reflect beliefs acquired without criticism and are not identical to a tradition about a mass event. He brings other examples of “traditions” that, in his view, are not well founded. The discussion spills over into questions about disputes in the Mishnah, the decline of the generations, Jewish law transmitted to Moses at Sinai, and historical traditions, and the speaker distinguishes between disputes that arise from new questions and disputes whose source is corruption in transmission.

The Lesson the Speaker Takes from Hume

The speaker says that Hume’s important contribution is the instruction to think comparatively between alternatives, and not to settle for asking whether an event is “plausible” in itself. He concludes by saying that next time he will continue to dig deeper into how to assess the plausibility of alternatives, and he sums up that the argument attributed to Hume is not as “crushing” as people present it, and should be examined as a tool of thought rather than as a binding conclusion.

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time we finished the issue of statistical evidence in law, and now I want to move on to two—to deal with two skeptical questions of David Hume, which in one way or another also touch on doubt and probability. After that I want to talk about another question—I mean, not after that, probably already in the next lecture. I’ll want to talk about a problem, some kind of statistical paradox, the ship from Liverpool, and after that I want to conclude the series with a bit of discussion about permitting agunot. Meaning, in permitting agunot there are also interesting probabilistic aspects that we’ll want to examine, that we’ll want to examine in light of the things we’ve seen. And that’s supposed to be the end of the series. So let’s begin with Hume’s doubts. Some time ago, I don’t know, a month or something like that, someone sent me a question through the website. He said that there’s a question of David Hume’s that I didn’t know. He claims that basically there is no possibility of believing my own thinking or my own cognition because of the following argument or calculation. Let’s say I arrive at some conclusion, so my tools basically tell me that this insight is correct. Now, but who says my tools are right? There’s always some kind of doubt. Right? I’m never—nothing is ever certain. We saw, for example, with witnesses, yes, in the question of statistical evidence that we dealt with in the last few lectures, we talked about the fact that witnesses don’t always see correctly. So the fact that my tools lead me to a conclusion, to some insight, doesn’t mean that the insight is one hundred percent. It could be that my tools are malfunctioning. So what then? Fine, but I assume that they’re not malfunctioning. Now I ask: what is the probability of that assumption itself? The probability of that assumption itself is also, I don’t know, ninety percent, eighty, ninety-five, whatever—attach whatever number you want to it. Then what? I also assume that assumption. Then the question is: what is the probability of that assumption itself? And it turns out that in order to believe some insight I arrived at, I have to assume a chain of infinitely many assumptions, each one of which is uncertain, not secure, and if I multiply all those probabilities together, I’ll get zero.

[Speaker B] Right,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] multiplying infinitely many terms, each one smaller than one, is supposed to get you to zero. And therefore, basically, the chance that my trust in my tools of thought or cognition is justified is zero. Meaning, it is not right to believe my tools of cognition and thought. Right, that’s basically the claim. Now this—

[Speaker B] this—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of course sounds very, very tricky, and I don’t assume that anyone on earth was ever actually convinced by this argument. But as I’ve said more than once, with paradoxes you often have some argument that leads to a conclusion that is obviously not correct, and yet it’s still not so simple to put your finger on where exactly the problem is in the argument that leads there. Right? So there’s something like Zeno’s Achilles and the tortoise—Achilles not catching up to the tortoise, the famous paradox—so the conclusion is that Achilles doesn’t catch the tortoise. Now we know that Achilles does catch the tortoise. Meaning, that’s obvious. So the conclusion is wrong. But that still doesn’t solve the paradox, because the argument leading to the conclusion that Achilles doesn’t catch the tortoise sounds like a good argument. I don’t know how to put my finger on what exactly is problematic in that argument. So the fact that I know the conclusion is wrong doesn’t solve the paradox; on the contrary, that’s what creates the paradox. Because if I didn’t know that, I’d say: okay, so this argument really proves that Achilles doesn’t catch the tortoise. Meaning, why do I see it as a paradox? Because it’s obvious to me that he does catch the tortoise. So what follows? I need to look for exactly where, in the argument leading to that conclusion, exactly where the flaw is. And sometimes it may be very hard to locate that flaw. And then we’re basically in a state of paradox. Because if it’s easy to identify the flaw, then once again it isn’t a paradox, it’s just a mistake in a proof and everything’s fine, go home. A paradox is always a situation where the conclusion is wrong, but it’s hard for me to put my finger on what’s defective in the argument that leads to it. Okay? Now in Hume’s case too, it seems to me that anyone who takes this argument as really leading to the conclusion that we’re not supposed to trust our insights, our thinking, and our cognition—that’s not serious. I don’t think there’s anyone like that. But it is true that it’s worth thinking about—or we need to think about—what exactly is wrong in Hume’s argument. If the conclusion is wrong, then something must be flawed in the argument. And then we need to understand what is flawed in the argument. So it turns from a skeptical challenge into a riddle, a kind of paradox, because someone presents you with an argument and says: go ahead, put your finger on what’s wrong with it. You understand? Meaning, it slightly shifts the focus of the discussion. Instead of the discussion being about whether to trust my insights—which to me is obvious, I do trust my insights—I now have a riddle. There’s an argument here that looks good and leads to a false conclusion, so something in the argument is flawed. Come on, show me. Put your finger on what’s flawed in the argument. So that’s a kind of riddle, and that’s why paradoxes—many paradoxes are really riddles. Right? I know the answer; it’s not that I have a question about the answer. The question is why the argument that leads to the wrong answer—what’s wrong with it? So I’ve got a riddle. That’s how I see this doubt of Hume too. Right? It’s obvious that… I don’t think anyone would start doubting their own insights because of this argument. It’s obvious to us that the conclusion is wrong. Now the question is: yes, but what’s wrong with the argument? So let me present a few points here, a few points in that connection. First point, right, what I actually answered him in the question—I told him that in exactly the same way I can cast an infinite series of doubts on the thesis that I should not trust my senses. He examined the thesis that I do trust my senses—my senses or thinking, let’s say more generally my insights, okay, my intellectual tools, observation, thought, everything, doesn’t matter right now. So when you examine the argument of whether to trust my insights, you place it on an infinite chain of claims, each one not certain to be true, and therefore the product basically gives zero. But exactly the same thing applies to the other side. Meaning, the thesis that I’m not supposed to trust my senses—that isn’t certain either. So what? You want to assume that I don’t trust my senses, and that assumption are you certain of? Also no. Oh, so you assume another assumption, that that assumption is correct. And that assumption are you certain of? Also no. So basically I also get to the other side with zero probability. I have zero probability that my insights are correct and zero probability that my insights are not correct. Now here we’re already in trouble, right? Because basically, either they’re correct or they’re not correct. Those two probabilities should add up to one, right? There are no other options. Either they’re correct or they’re not correct, and it has to add up to one. So it can’t be that the chance they’re correct is zero and the chance they’re not correct is also zero. So that’s an indication that there’s a flaw in the argument here. But notice that even this indication isn’t really a solution to the paradox. It’s not a solution to the paradox because it only says that there’s a problem in the argument, but I knew that even before what I just said. I know there’s a problem in the argument, because I do in fact know that I trust my insights. So all this says is that I have an indication that there’s a problem, but it doesn’t tell me where the problem is. What exactly is wrong in this calculation? Okay, so in the second calculation too, explain to me what’s wrong. You only proved to me that something is wrong. Okay, but I already knew that before. All I’m looking for now is what exactly is wrong. And in that respect this didn’t help me much. Now that’s not entirely accurate, because it did add something. Meaning before, there was room to say, look, you think it’s right to trust your insights, but here’s an argument that says not. You say, yes, but I do trust my insights. So he says: be open, maybe it really is not right to trust your insights; maybe this argument is still good. The argument I gave now removes that option. Meaning, it’s true that it didn’t point out what is flawed in the argument, but it did prove that there is a flaw in the argument. When I first set the paradox before your eyes, I didn’t have proof that there was a flaw in the argument. I tend to think there is a flaw in the argument because the conclusion isn’t acceptable to me—the conclusion that I shouldn’t trust my senses. Okay, but I also arrived at that conclusion using my tools of thought, right? Even my conclusion today, the one that tells me not to trust my tools of thought—even that I was convinced of by way of my tools of thought. So you can cast doubt on that too. Meaning, in the end, the point is that when I stood facing the paradox, I also had the option of saying: okay, but maybe it really is not right to trust my insights. I can’t rule that out categorically. I tend to think not, and there’s probably a problem in the argument, but maybe yes, and maybe I was in fact mistaken to trust them and the argument is good. What the claim I just raised says is: no, there is no such option. Because the calculation is wrong. I proved that the calculation is wrong. I didn’t put my finger on what is flawed in the calculation, but I proved there is something flawed in the calculation. Okay, and that is some progress on a certain level. Now let’s continue, let’s move on for a moment. In fact, I’m not even sure about the wording of the argument itself. What is David Hume actually saying? David Hume is basically saying: you’re not certain of your insights, say ninety-five percent. And you assume that you should still trust your insights, but that assumption itself is also not certain, and it too has some probability that isn’t one, right? A probability less than one, and so on. There’s some sort of wordplay here that I don’t think is correct. Because when I say I’m not certain of my insights, I’ve already said what the result of multiplying all the previous assumptions is. That’s why I don’t have certain trust in my insights. What are you telling me? No, you assume that you trust your insights, and now the question is what your degree of certainty is in that assumption. But in that assumption, my degree of certainty is ninety-five percent, and that’s exactly why my trust in my insights is ninety-five percent. It’s not a multiplication; it’s just repeating the same thing. All I’m saying is once again that my degree of trust in my insights is not absolute. It’s not a multiplication of infinitely many things. So the claim that what we have here is some kind of multiplication of claims, all of which I need, and therefore I have to assign a probability to each and multiply—I think that’s wrong. It’s not a multiplication of claims. You’re just stepping back one step and explaining the ninety-five percent you have at stage one by means of an assumption at stage two, which itself is at the level of ninety-five percent, and therefore at stage one I was at ninety-five percent. Because I have ninety-five percent certainty in the meta-assumption, right, in the previous assumption. And if you retreat further back, that doesn’t add another multiplication. It only says: and why do I have ninety-five percent here? Because the assumption that this is true is itself worth only ninety-five percent. Fine, so it stays ninety-five percent. The ninety-five percent is sort of the result of the multiplication—or else there is no multiplication here at all, it’s just repeating the same thing each time. I say I’m not certain of this assumption—say I claim X, okay? Now I say: I’m not sure X is true; there is a ninety-five percent chance that it is true. Now I say: okay, but I still assume it’s true even though it’s only ninety-five percent. And what is the probability of that assumption itself? The same ninety-five percent. That’s not another decision; it’s the very same decision itself. Therefore I’m not certain, because the assumption that it’s true is itself ninety-five percent. Now there’s a slightly different way to say this. It sounds a bit like philosophical pilpul, I agree, but it’s just sometimes fun to play around with paradoxes of this kind.

[Speaker C] Maybe it could be formulated differently.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suppose I present a logical argument that assumes premises A and B. Say: all human beings are mortal, Socrates is a human being, conclusion: Socrates is mortal. Okay? So that’s a logical argument. Now I say: who says that’s right? Maybe both premises are true and the conclusion isn’t. I’ll add another premise. The premise is that every argument of the following form—every X is Y and A is X, conclusion A is Y—is a valid argument. Now that will be a third premise. So now I have three premises: all human beings are mortal; Socrates is a human being, second premise; third premise, that the argument form I just stated is valid. Conclusion: Socrates is mortal. Now I ask: okay, and who told you that? So I’ll add another premise. The premise is that if you assume that all human beings are mortal and that Socrates is a human being, and you also assumed the argument form I stated before, then that form which leads to the conclusion—the conclusion is a valid form—and I add that as a fourth premise. And so on. And of course you can continue with infinitely many premises. And now you can say: what is the probability that all the premises are true? Now these are already independent premises. What is the chance they’re true? You have to multiply the probabilities that each one is true. This already looks a bit more like a product, but I think it’s just wordplay; it isn’t. Fine, it’s just another way of showing it. But now I want to add a few more points connected to things we’ve seen. Rabbi? Yes.

[Speaker B] Where did David Hume write this?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no idea.

[Speaker B] In which book does this appear? I don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone on my website brought up this argument; I’m not familiar with it. For example, I told him another point, and this is also interesting. Let me show you: suppose there really is a product of probabilities here. Fine? I need to multiply infinitely many numbers, each one smaller than one, so apparently the result is zero, right? That’s not exact. Here, I’ll show you a product of infinitely many numbers, each smaller than one, where the result is not zero. Take, for example—you know what the limit is of one plus one over n, all raised to the power n, as n goes to infinity. Say one and a half squared, one and a third cubed, one and a quarter to the fourth, one and a fifth to the fifth, one plus one over n, all to the nth power—that’s e. Right? The limit as n goes to infinity is e, right? Now what happens? Notice, this is interesting, because here you have a set of numbers all greater than one, and I’m multiplying infinitely many such numbers and the result is not infinity; the result is e. Then suddenly an idea popped into my head. I said, wait a second, let’s check one minus one over n, all to the power n. One minus one over n is a number smaller than one, right? And to the nth power means I multiply it by itself n times. Now take that to infinity. You’re basically multiplying infinitely many numbers, each of which is smaller than one. Do you know what the result is?

[Speaker E] One over e.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One over e, right? The result is one over e. One over e is a number smaller than one, around a half, a little less than a half. By the way, I can of course make it approach any number you want between zero and one. Just put two over n, three over n, whatever you want; in the end that only changes the result, but it will be somewhere between zero and one. Okay? So this example shows that even if you multiply infinitely many numbers, each of which is a fraction between zero and one, the result does not necessarily come out zero. Here, the result comes out half. I could also have gotten 0.99; it’s only a question of what I put above the n. So the claim that if there is here a product of infinitely many probabilities then the result must be zero—that’s not necessary. It depends. Now of course this is a kind of model that says: let’s take the infinitely many assumptions and assign a probability to each one, so the probability I assign is one minus one over n. And I assign that to each of them. Fine, this is only an example, of course; I’m not claiming that this is really the chance that those assumptions are true. I’m only showing that the fact that this is a product of infinitely many fractions doesn’t necessarily mean the result is zero. But that too is a kind of pilpul, and I think even that isn’t—Rabbi? Yes.

[Speaker F] It reminds me, I think, of another example the Rabbi gave in the previous series when we talked about the decline of the generations and also progress toward perfection. So each generation always—I don’t know whether the Rabbi remembers this—but the Rabbi explained that every generation advances, but by less than its predecessor. Meaning, if perfection is one, then each time you advance by half, half of the previous amount, and then we never actually reach perfection, which is one, but the series always advances by half of the previous number.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t remember that argument. Could be that this is… I’m thinking about it now—maybe it’s that expression that appears in several medieval authorities and later authorities, of a dwarf standing on the back of a giant. People always say there is decline of the generations, and yet Jewish law follows the later authorities. Why does Jewish law follow the later ones? Because the later ones are a dwarf on the back of a giant. Meaning, even if the earlier sage is greater than I am, if I sit on his shoulders, I’ll always see farther. And the claim is that in the end, when I sit on his shoulders, I’m smaller, but I’m a plus. A plus him together is more than he is alone. So if you now continue that further—whoever sits on my shoulders, and whoever sits on his, and so on—in the end you’ll get to perfection. Okay? Even though each one is smaller than the next.

[Speaker F] Exactly, so you never actually get to perfection.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You approach it, apparently. Approach it, yes. Okay, all right, I didn’t remember that I had spoken about it or brought it. Anyway, so that’s—

[Speaker E] What is the logic of saying that each one is smaller than the previous one? What? What is the logic of saying each generation is smaller?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the assumption of the decline of the generations, so it’s a model. The claim is that there is a decline of the generations and yet we can still know more, can still hit the truth more accurately than our predecessors, because we stand on their shoulders. And if you sum that series to infinity, then maybe at some point we’ll reach perfection.

[Speaker B] That’s what the Rabbi said three years ago, that in thought we’re much more advanced than the earlier ones, but they were superior in knowledge of the source.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That argument I do remember, and I also wrote it. But that’s not what he said before, so therefore—

[Speaker B] I remember that lecture.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claimed that there is both decline of the generations and ascent of the generations at the same time. In analytical thinking there is ascent of the generations, and in intuitive thinking there is decline of the generations. Right. In any case, the problem—maybe the hardest problem—in this argument of David Hume’s is: why does he assume that the probabilities should be multiplied? That already touches on things we talked about. After all, he assumes that my uncertainty with regard to each of these assumptions is independent of the uncertainty regarding the other assumptions, right? Remember we talked about the fact that if the probabilities are dependent, then you must not multiply them together in order to get the aggregate probability. Right? When I say—if I have events that depend on one another, say, I don’t know, let’s say if I toss a coin and the second toss depends in some way on the result of the first toss, okay, suppose there’s some dependence, fine? If the first toss came up heads, then on the second toss the coin somehow gets a tendency toward heads, okay? And if it came up tails, then it gets a tendency toward tails. Then you understand that the chance of getting heads twice is not a quarter, right? A half times a half—if I multiplied the probabilities, that would be a quarter. But if there is dependence between the events, then the probability you get is not a quarter. Okay? Therefore, the claim that in order to get the probability of the compound event by multiplication—meaning, when is the probability of the compound event the product of its components? Only if the components are independent. But if the components are dependent, then it is not correct to do such multiplications. What you need to do is multiply conditional probabilities. We talked about this in the first lectures. Right? I have, say, the probability of A and B—that’s the probability of A times the probability of B given that A occurred. And the probability of B given that A occurred is not just the probability of B, because there is dependence between A and B. Okay? So the correct multiplication has to be conditional probability. Meaning, the probability that A happened times the probability that B happened on condition that A happened—a conditional probability—and not the probability of A times the probability of B. Therefore the very claim that I need to multiply the probabilities of these assumptions is an assumption with no basis whatsoever. Even if I grant that there are infinitely many assumptions and each one has probability a half, say, not one minus one over n and all the games I played earlier—just a half. Then if it were a product, one-half to the infinite power is zero, right? If I were multiplying. But who said you have to multiply? You assume the probabilities are independent, but in fact common sense itself suggests that they are dependent. Why? Because what is the source of the possibility that maybe I’m wrong in assumption number eight? It comes from some incorrect perception of reality on my part, right? That is exactly the reason why I’m also uncertain about assumption number seven, and six and five—none of them. They all have the same factor. And therefore there is dependence between these events. Once there is dependence between these events, the aggregate probability is not the product of the probabilities. So it’s simply wrong to multiply them. But if you’re not—

[Speaker B] sure of any of them, meaning you don’t have one hundred percent, then you can’t just not multiply them—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The probability is pi—

[Speaker B] Yes, but I mean—it ends up somewhere between zero and one. Fine, but that could also supposedly be negligible, meaning they all become null, supposedly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what do you mean null? The opposite. If I multiply the probabilities by one another and each one is a fraction, then the result is zero.

[Speaker B] That’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if it’s zero, that means I can’t trust my insights. Right. That’s what David Hume is claiming. And I’m saying he’s mistaken. Why is he mistaken? Because who said we need to multiply those probabilities? Understand that what I’m saying now is equivalent to what I said at the beginning.

[Speaker B] What I said at the beginning was—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] basically that the probability that—that is, the fact that I’m only ninety-five percent sure of my insights is because the assumption that my insights are correct has a ninety-five percent chance of being true. So the assumption is not multiplied by the degree of trust in my insights. It is what determines the fact that the degree of trust in my insights is ninety-five percent. It’s not a product. It’s the thing itself. You understand that this is exactly what I’m saying now, just in different language? What I’m basically saying now is that the reason for my lack of confidence throughout this whole chain of assumptions is the same reason. My uncertainty with respect to all these assumptions is dependent. It depends on the same factor. And therefore it’s not correct to multiply them at all. You simply have to take the probability of that one factor, and that is the probability of the whole chain—ninety-five percent. Right?

[Speaker B] So you see that I’ve used here all kinds of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] different points that we encountered throughout this series, which allow us to think more systematically about something that every child understands stinks. But a lot of children won’t succeed in putting a finger on what stinks in this argument. Okay? So if you use systematically the tools we’ve seen, then you can also point out what the problem in the argument is. Very often statistics only confirms things that we also understand intuitively. Of course the famous cases are those in which statistics goes against our intuition, meaning it shows us that our intuition is mistaken. Which is supposedly what David Hume tried to do here—that the statistical calculation shows us that our intuition, which says that we can trust our insights, is not correct. Here, there is a statistical calculation that shows it’s not correct. No—but it isn’t correct, because the calculation itself is not correct.

[Speaker D] In a certain place, if that is the insight of the great David Hume, then it really becomes hard to trust our insights. I didn’t understand. Just joking. If David Hume—that’s his insight—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] then it really is hard to trust insights. The insight is that very thing itself.

[Speaker D] Yes, okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As for David Hume’s insights, I really don’t put a lot of trust in them. His questions are thought-provoking, but he turned the questions into answers. And that is one of the problems. That’s what Kant basically pointed out when he said that David Hume awakened him from his dogmatic slumber. So David Hume as a questioner is a wonderful questioner. The problem is that he takes his questions seriously, and that really is a problem—it’s not serious. Okay. I think at some point we talked about Pascal’s wager, right?

[Speaker B] I think we talked about it a long time ago, in earlier series.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There too you basically have a similar phenomenon. And there too it was Pascal, one of the fathers of the field of probability, so for him to stumble on a probabilistic issue is more surprising. But David Hume as well—yes, here too, it seems to me, he fell into faulty probabilistic reasoning. His probabilistic thinking is not correct. And again I’m saying: it’s not only because he took it seriously and therefore basically says that it is not right to trust our insights—that is, supposedly to take the conclusion seriously. Even if you don’t take the conclusion seriously, the argument itself as presented is a mistake in probabilistic thinking. Meaning, the fact that you take your argument seriously—even if in the end you remain in a state where this is a paradox—no. It’s not true that the conclusion is correct, and it’s not even true that this is a paradox. It’s just a mistake. The argument is simply a mistake. I said that if there is a simple mistake in the argument, then it’s not a paradox. A paradox is always when the argument appears free of mistakes and the conclusion is clearly wrong. Right? That’s something that creates a paradox for us. Here I think the argument is simply not a correct argument.

[Speaker E] Sorry for my ignorance—what is this actually based on? What? That you can’t rely on our insights?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, what is it based on?

[Speaker E] What exactly is his claim? What is the basis of it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is what he wants to claim here with this multiplication, I didn’t understand.

[Speaker E] No, what is the basis of the argument that basically you can’t rely on our insights, on our senses? It’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That what? That you need to multiply infinitely many probabilities.

[Speaker E] Does he have—

[Speaker B] Does he have—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This argument, this exact argument, is meant to establish precisely that point: that it’s not correct to trust our intuitions, because in fact the chance that they’re right is zero.

[Speaker B] In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume talks about the fact that a person is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] prone—

[Speaker B] to making mistakes in probability.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, you wanted, you’re saying, to prove this by a proof—what’s it called—a constructive proof, as mathematicians call it. You know, you can prove a theorem by showing that it follows from assumptions, and you can prove a theorem constructively, meaning you can simply build the result. Say I want—there’s a theorem that equations of a certain type have a solution, okay? So you can prove that there is a solution, and you can simply find the solution. That’s a constructive proof. Right. So when you want to claim that a person’s intuitions, like Elazar said earlier, when you want to claim that a person’s intuitions mislead him—there, I gave you proof, a constructive proof, of human intuitions that are mistaken. Okay. Fine, so that’s regarding this game. The second point I wanted to talk about is also a doubt raised by David Hume.

[Speaker B] And that is basically the claim

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that he raises against the witness argument. And here I’ll give a short introduction. People often attribute this claim to the Kuzari—that a father doesn’t lie to his son, right, and one generation passed it to the next, and therefore it’s clear that there was revelation at Mount Sinai, or the splitting of the sea, or whatever it may be. Meaning, some miraculous event or another—there is a reliable tradition that conveys it to us, and therefore we can accept it. Right? That’s what in today’s language is called the witness argument. Right? There is testimony from witness to witness, even though in Jewish law hearsay testimony is invalid, but there is testimony from witness to witness to witness to witness, and each one of them is reliable. Again, you see the multiplication of probabilities; here too one could talk about multiplying probabilities, and here there really is room to talk about multiplying probabilities. In any case, all the answers I gave earlier wouldn’t be correct here—or at least, it seems to me, the ones I’m thinking of right now. In any case, this is what’s called the witness argument. Now, people within the religious world treat this argument as a decisive one, meaning: what do you mean, obviously—don’t you believe your father? And your father won’t believe his father? And therefore, clearly, I’m supposed to accept this testimony even after a chain with many, many links, okay? Now of course this is roughly like—well, there are many problems with this argument. I mean, there are liars in the world, right? There are liars in the world. Now, true, each of us tends to think that his father isn’t a liar, but some of us are apparently mistaken, because there are in fact liars in the world, and there is no guarantee that those liars don’t have children. They too have children, and I assume their children also think that their father doesn’t lie, right?

[Speaker B] But that’s not exactly how the argument sounds.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] The argument doesn’t sound exactly like “a father doesn’t lie,” but rather the claim is that over the course of generations, if it were a lie, people would abandon it and wouldn’t relate to it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if it was a lie, they don’t know that it’s a lie.

[Speaker E] Not only that, it’s also an entire nation—that’s the argument, supposedly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, of course you can broaden it in all kinds of directions.

[Speaker E] Yes, but the question is really about the foundation, because there’s also a father-to-son tradition about the Zohar, that it’s from Rabbi Shimon, even though that was said—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even Hasidic stories, yes—there are traditions. Right. And therefore it’s a problematic argument, a pretty problematic one.

[Speaker E] Muhammad also has a father-to-son tradition, right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does the argument undermine itself?

[Speaker C] What? I think this argument also undermines itself, because from the moment it was stated and people believed it, then people think it’s true because of this argument, so they have no problem passing it on to their son. Meaning, that intergenerational chain in which a father doesn’t lie to his son stopped mattering the moment people were convinced by the argument itself.

[Speaker E] Exactly, the problem is at the base, at the root.

[Speaker C] No, I mean, in the end they rely on it because it really is true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unless what—you’re saying it isn’t true? So you’re assuming it isn’t true. Then leave your argument aside and show me that it isn’t true.

[Speaker C] No, I’m saying it undermines the idea that each generation adds some layer of reliability. And once this argument was somehow stated—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it doesn’t add—no, no, no, no, it doesn’t add a layer of reliability. It doesn’t reduce it. It’s not that if there’s a longer chain, it’s more reliable—nobody claims that. The claim is that despite the chain being long, it’s still reliable. That is, the length of the chain doesn’t reduce the reliability—that’s the claim, not that it adds. There’s no addition. It’s not—obviously the first generation knows it more reliably than the hundredth generation.

[Speaker B] No, it’s obvious that it does gradually reduce it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, it gradually reduces it or something like that, I don’t know how to explain—

[Speaker B] It gradually reduces it.

[Speaker E] There’s another problem too: this tradition actually transmits other things that people don’t quote, like the fact that the Sages themselves say that the Torah was completely forgotten and was reestablished by Ezra.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, I’m not talking about those objections—

[Speaker B] Those are different

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] objections.

[Speaker E] What? It’s in writing. No, the Torah was completely forgotten—that’s what it says in the words of the Sages.

[Speaker B] No, no, certain things were forgotten, things about which—

[Speaker E] No, the Torah was forgotten, that’s what it says.

[Speaker B] The Talmud in Megillah talks about writing, the Talmud in Kiddushin talks about the tradition of generations, the Talmud in Sukkah as well. Right, also—so each one is talking about something else. There’s another question here: the fact that there’s a dispute in the Talmud over who wrote the Torah and who finished it—if it hadn’t been a problem for the Tannaim, they wouldn’t have entered into that question at all. Meaning, something bothered them and that’s why they asked it. That’s it—that’s the question. Obviously.

[Speaker E] How can you say that King Solomon knew the Torah? He married foreign women—

[Speaker B] And that’s not forbidden in the Torah, it’s not forbidden in the Torah. There is no prohibition in the Torah against marrying—

[Speaker E] There’s a Maimonides on this. He celebrated in the middle of Yom Kippur. It’s forbidden to marry an Ammonite or a Moabite.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Guys, let’s not turn this into an Arachim seminar now. We’re trying to examine an argument. We’re in a series on doubt and statistics, not on faith. So I want to examine only this aspect of the argument. So I’m saying: ultimately, this argument can be attacked from many directions. And there’s an attack of—yes, one can find a certain formulation of this argument even in the Torah. “Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, those of us here today, all alive. Face to face the Lord spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire.” “For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived?” So these are various proofs that aren’t really proofs from the witness argument. But there is a source in Deuteronomy chapter 4: “For ask now of the former days, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of heaven unto the other, whether there has ever been anything as great as this, or has been heard like it. Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has God ever attempted to come and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation,” and so on. In short, here there is indeed some sort of transmission being discussed—not necessarily a long chain, but the uniqueness of the event, and the fact that we heard about it means it was probably true. There’s more to this chapter. One can argue a lot about whether what’s written in these verses is the witness argument. I tend to think it isn’t. The focus of the argument here is whether a people heard the voice of God speaking to them from the midst of the fire and lived. Meaning, there may be other peoples to whom God spoke, but they didn’t remain alive, and we remained alive. The focus is not at all whether the hearing itself is the convincing thing, but that we remained alive—that means that the Holy One, blessed be He, is with us, meaning that He wants us to hear Him, and therefore He keeps us alive or enables us to encounter Him without being harmed. I don’t think—in short, from these verses I don’t think I would derive the witness argument, certainly not the witness argument with a long chain of generations. That is definitely not what these verses say.

[Speaker E] In the verse there it’s actually almost the opposite too, because that verse says, “For it is not your children who did not see and did not know,” meaning there is a difference between the children, who do not see and do not know, and you yourselves. Meaning, the next generation that received it is different; the demand made of it is different. Meaning—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said earlier. Obviously the next generation has a lower level of certainty than this generation.

[Speaker E] Yes, but in the verse—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the Torah assumes that the next generation is also supposed to believe it. Less than us.

[Speaker E] No, on the contrary, the Torah says: fine, if you were the next generation, I wouldn’t come with complaints against you, but you are the first generation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The opposite, the opposite. It says that I also demand belief from the next generation. That’s a simple assumption—they need to believe what happened; the next generation is supposed to believe. What then? Regarding you, it’s an even more elementary demand, because you are not the next generation—you are the ones who saw.

[Speaker E] But the verse says, “For not your children, who did not see and did not know,” meaning it’s not you, the next generation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, that’s what I just said. You said exactly what I just said. You are not your children; your children—that is a more far-reaching demand. More far-reaching, exactly, that’s the word. Right, but more far-reaching and still there is such a demand—it’s just less reliable than in this generation. I said earlier: the length of the chain reduces the reliability of the argument; nobody disputes that. Good. Fine. But that doesn’t matter, because the claim still is: okay, even after the reduction, it is still reliable. But as for you, there isn’t even a preliminary thought otherwise, because for you it should be completely certain—you saw it. That’s the claim here. Fine, let’s leave that. In any case, in short, within the Torah itself it seems to me it would be hard to find this idea. In any event, Saadia Gaon and the Kuzari and various other books raise this argument as one of the strong claims, or one of the strong grounds, in favor of the reliability of the giving of the Torah and miracles and various things like that. Now David Hume attacks the very possibility of transmitting a report of a miracle through a chain of transmission. He says it doesn’t matter at all what it is—divine revelation, the splitting of the sea, whatever it may be. He claims that basically you cannot transmit a report of a miracle through such a chain. Let’s start maybe—first of all, there’s perhaps the most basic argument, the one you hear all the time: broken telephone. Right? Everyone who played the children’s game of broken telephone: they sit on a bench one next to the other, and one whispers a word to the next. The first one started, whispered to the one on his right, he whispered to the one on his right, and the last one says the word out loud, and then they compare the word the first one said to what the last one said. And it never comes out the same. It always comes out distorted. Okay? So something like that is basically the common claim against chains of transmission. There’s always some small distortion—this distortion, that distortion—and if enough generations pass, nothing remains. Here it really does begin to resemble multiplication. Right? Meaning, here a small distortion, and here another small distortion, and here another small distortion; multiply all those distortions together and in the end nothing remains from the original. Okay? So this is a very common argument against witness arguments and traditions—we know they get distorted: the Zohar, Hasidic stories, everything we discussed earlier. Sometimes the claims are negative claims, saying: after all, it could have been distorted. And sometimes they even bring positive evidence for things that were in fact distorted in tradition, and so on. Okay? So these are famous arguments. But what David Hume did with this was to formalize the argument. Right? It’s only three or four sentences in his book, but he basically turned the argument into a formal argument. Okay? He says that we are supposed to choose between two alternatives. Right? A report reaches me, witness from witness in this way, a chain of transmission, saying that some miracle occurred—I don’t know what—a thousand years ago. Fine? Now I have—I’m jumping to the end for a moment—but I now basically have two possibilities. One possibility is to say: fine, the report is reliable, and indeed a miracle occurred. That’s one possibility.

[Speaker B] A second possibility: the miracle did not happen, and there was a distortion in the report, whether intentionally or unintentionally—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter, but the report got distorted, and the miracle did not happen. Those are the two possibilities. Now whenever we examine two alternatives, we need to compare them. Right? This is Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, where he says: once we have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is probably the truth. Meaning, we always need to compare between alternatives. The fact that something is improbable does not yet mean it is false. If the second alternative is even less probable, then apparently this is the more probable possibility. Okay? Therefore it always has to be comparative. And in statistics generally—whoever has studied hypothesis testing—you always set up a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis, and you try to choose between the hypotheses in order to confirm one over the other, which is a more systematic way to confirm some claim than just doing a probability calculation. A probability calculation is usually floating in the air. Do a probability calculation of the two possibilities against each other and tell me which is more probable. That is the more correct probabilistic way to reach a conclusion about it. So in this context too, David Hume says: we have two things that could be the case, right? One possibility is that the tradition was distorted and the miracle did not happen. The second possibility is that the miracle did happen and the tradition was not distorted. Let’s compare these two possibilities and see which one is more probable. So he claims that inherently, the possibility that the miracle did not happen is more probable. Forget all the previous arguments; this has nothing to do with any concrete claim. I’m telling you this a priori. It’s a simple probability calculation. He says like this: let’s assume—because after all, the possibility that the miracle happened and the chain is reliable—you tell me that a chain can get distorted. It can also not get distorted, right? So the chance that the chain is reliable is, say, I don’t know, maybe one half, doesn’t matter, two thirds, I don’t know how much, something like that. But you have to multiply that by the chance that a miracle occurred.

[Speaker B] Or attach it to that. Let’s say that’s a subtler compromise.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But attach to that the chance that a miracle occurred. Right? Now the chance that a miracle occurred is zero. We have never seen miracles, there is no reason to assume there is a miracle. When you tell me that a miracle happened, I say this is an impossible event. That is the reasonable person’s reaction. You tell me, I saw this phone stay in the air and not fall to the ground—I say, don’t talk nonsense to me, you’re a liar. Fine? A miracle—such a miracle doesn’t happen. So basically the possibility that says the miracle happened and the chain is reliable is simply an impossible possibility. Miracles don’t happen. Now the second possibility says the miracle did not happen, and the chain that reported the miracle was simply distorted, or it was a lie, or some distortion, or whatever. Now distortions in a chain are something that can happen. I don’t know how to estimate the probability. I mean, what is the chance that there was a distortion here and what is the chance that it is reliable? Good question. I don’t know how to estimate it. But it is a probability that exists—it’s something, I don’t know, one half, one third, three quarters, something like that, right? When you compare that to zero—to the chance that a miracle occurs—you understand that it is a natural event for a chain to become distorted. A miracle is a supernatural event. When you ask what is the chance of a supernatural event versus the chance of a natural event—this probability, that probability, there may be debate, it doesn’t matter, but it is some probability between zero and one, something greater than zero and up to one. By definition it is greater than the chance of a miracle. Therefore, a priori, says David Hume, we should prefer the interpretation that the chain was distorted and the miracle did not happen, over the possibility that the miracle happened and the chain is reliable. Because that is basically to prefer the improbable over the impossible.

[Speaker B] More or less.

[Speaker D] If according to Kant any truth that is not one hundred percent—that is, it’s not equal to one, because about anything you can ask—then basically the argument that there is no miracle is also less than one. I didn’t understand. Basically I think Kant argues that you can’t prove anything, you can’t know anything with certainty, which also means you can’t know that there is no miracle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know such a statement in Kant, but I accept the statement in itself, so let’s leave Kant aside.

[Speaker D] Maybe it’s not Kant. Yes, I’m not expert in names. So basically you can’t prove that there is no miracle—how can Hume prove with certainty, to the value of one, that there isn’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says: think about it yourself, forget the calculations, okay? I offer you two alternatives. One alternative is that there was a chain of transmission that got distorted. Fine? That’s one. The second possibility is that something supernatural happened—the sea split in two. Now you tell me what you prefer. Forget all the calculations and certainty and uncertainty; tell me what you prefer.

[Speaker D] Personally I prefer the possibility that the transmission got distorted, but most people in the world, according to surveys, do believe in the supernatural—in some sort of supernatural.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking you—forget “believe in the supernatural,” that’s not—I’m asking when you have these two—most people in the world haven’t thought about Hume’s argument. When you present these two possibilities to them and tell them: look, one possibility is that an event happened that can happen—there’s no obstacle to it happening, right? It’s not something impossible. The second possibility is that a miracle happened—fine, it’s not impossible, it has some probability, right? Some second possibility. I’m asking you which of the two possibilities is more probable. That’s all, a very simple question. Not certainty and not impossibility; let’s not speak in extreme language. I’m asking which of the two possibilities you would choose. The possibility that something natural happened, even if it’s not probability one—or not one—but fine, it’s something natural and it can happen. Why assume that a miracle happened if you have a natural possibility to explain it with an event that can happen at all? Understand that if you have two possibilities—one possibility that a miracle happened, and a second possibility that I have some natural explanation for it—then you would generally assume that the natural explanation is the correct one, not that a miracle happened, right?

[Speaker D] I completely agree. The only thing is that with transmission, it depends how you look at it: whether there are six hundred thousand people here—or more precisely one million two hundred thousand—each one passing it on, or whether it’s only one transmission.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe that’s another discussion. In that podcast I had with Jeremy Fogel, where this question first came up, and afterward I wrote my columns about the witness argument, this question also came up, and he really argued that it isn’t six hundred thousand testimonies, it’s one testimony—and he is deeply mistaken. It is six hundred thousand testimonies. Meaning, it’s six hundred thousand—it’s the multiplication of one by another, which means the probability tends toward zero. The fact that they all rely on the same book doesn’t mean anything. They all rely on the same book, but they also claim that that book is true. And it’s not that they all read it in the book and therefore pass it on; they received a tradition that this book is true, and that tradition passed among people—it’s not that they read the book. Therefore these are six hundred thousand testimonies and not one.

[Speaker D] But suppose the quality of the testimony is close to one, tending toward one. Okay, tending toward one.

[Speaker E] But even that testimony of the six hundred thousand is based on the Prophets, where it says in the Prophets that they found a book and then based on that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No no no, again, you’re dragging me into an Arachim seminar. I’m now talking about the probabilistic question, okay? I’m talking about a probabilistic question. As for the fact that they found a book—I have answers to that.

[Speaker E] No, so the tradition itself, the testimony itself, is based on the fact that everyone relies on the finding of a book, or that it was forgotten and reestablished—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true, not true. What they found there was a book that everyone knew existed. No, but everyone relies—

[Speaker E] But its content was not known.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does that make? They knew there was a book. Why do I care about the content?

[Speaker E] Suppose they knew there was a

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] book—that is exactly the proof that the tradition does not rely on the book but rather on an oral tradition.

[Speaker E] Suppose they knew there was such a book, even though in the verse it sounds like there was a dramatic element and fear and so on—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But let’s assume that’s how it was.

[Speaker E] Still, everything written inside the book—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And why is that relevant? I’m talking about the question—

[Speaker E] It reduces the testimony from six hundred thousand to the testimony of a single book, of the author of the book.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true. On the contrary—exactly the opposite—this passage proves that I’m right.

[Speaker B] I also want to say—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This passage proves that the tradition was transmitted orally and does not rely on the book—that’s exactly the point. Because even the book they accepted because orally they had a clear tradition that everyone knew that—

[Speaker E] Yes, but all the content written there—who said it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not talking about the content. Ah, the content about the whole Sinai event and the six hundred thousand—that is written there. I’m talking about the question whether a book was given to us at Mount Sinai. I don’t care what was written in it—it was chipopo, fine? I’m asking now whether a book was given at Mount Sinai. On that there are six hundred thousand traditions; everyone knew that, not from the book. There is no proof that everyone knew

[Speaker E] that, because in the Prophets—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it is not brought—

[Speaker E] In the whole Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Sinai event is not mentioned except in this book.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so we’ll stop here. The Sinai event is definitely mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), several times, but I’m not talking about that now. Forget it—we’re

[Speaker E] getting into—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] an Arachim seminar, and I don’t want to. I’m talking now about the witness argument because I want to deal with it, not prove that God exists. I want to analyze the witness argument, okay?

[Speaker B] Rabbi, we all agree, the entire Jewish people, that from the outset there is only tradition, and the fact that there is a book is only support for the tradition—that’s the first thing. Now for Akiva: a book that was found—learn this very well—that is not a Torah scroll. In those days a complete Torah scroll was never written; rather, separate books were written, according to which Ezra the Scribe was checked. That’s it, that’s all I wanted to say.

[Speaker E] Yes, but maybe the whole story was written there—the whole story of the

[Speaker B] six hundred thousand who saw it was written there? No no no no no, there is a tradition, and the tradition is what determines it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, let’s stop this, guys, let’s stop. This is not our subject right now. Okay?

[Speaker B] You’re right, it’s not the subject, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let’s—I want to discuss this issue for a moment. On the face of it, he is basically presenting here a choice between two probabilistic alternatives. Okay? First of all I just want to make a distinction that is very important—I think I talked about it somewhere at some point in this series—but a distinction that is very important to put on the table. We are not talking here about probabilities at all. We are talking about plausibilities. There is a difference between probability and plausibility. For example, take the fine-tuning argument—whether the world was created by chance. There is a claim that the values of the physical constants are set in such a way that they allow chemistry and biology and life and so on, and if the difference were even a very small difference in the values of the constants, all of this would not happen. Okay, that is the fine-tuning claim. And the claim is basically that such an adjustment between the values of the constants cannot arise by chance. Now when I examine this, when I make this claim on the probabilistic level, it’s not really formulable. Because probabilistically, what is the chance that the values of the constants would be exactly as they are? Zero. Exactly—zero, right? Because there is a continuum of possible values.

[Speaker B] Okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the probability that they will be exactly this value is zero. So you can’t talk about it—there is no event space, no measure on this space. We need to talk about probability densities, not probabilities. But I think philosophically there’s no point getting into all that. Because let’s say, fine, there are infinitely many possibilities, a continuous infinity of possibilities, and only one discrete possibility was chosen, and only it allows life. That’s not true—there’s a small interval—but say it’s one discrete possibility, and only it allows life. Then you can’t talk here about probabilities. What is the probability of selecting one discrete point from a continuum? It’s not defined; the probability is zero. Okay? So the claim is that it is implausible that it happened this way. I’m not making a probability calculation. I don’t know the distribution, I don’t know anything, I have no way to make a probability calculation. It is implausible that such a thing would happen without some guiding hand producing it. Now this claim should not be translated into probability—not because I don’t know how to do the calculation, but because it’s not really a calculation. It is a claim of plausibility, not a claim of probability. But even on the plane of plausibility and not probability, I can use a mode of thinking very similar to the one used in probability. When I did what David Hume did earlier—he compared the possibility that the chain erred or misled with the possibility that a miracle happened—how do you measure the chance that a miracle happens? I don’t know how to measure that. There is no way to calculate such a probability, right? On the other hand, I also don’t exactly know how to calculate the probability that such a chain erred, although there it may be that there is a calculation—I just don’t know it. One can look at how many chains there were, how many of them got distorted and how many did not, and perhaps try to derive some kind of number from that. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how to do the calculation, but there could be a calculation there. On the other side, what is the probability that a miracle occurs? It is simply not plausible that a miracle occurs. It’s not because the probability is 0.02. That’s not the point. It’s simply implausible. That is a philosophical statement, not a mathematical one. Okay?

[Speaker D] Maybe one can add something about the—yes. I hope I’m not interrupting. Maybe beyond the plausibility claim one can also add a probabilistic claim. How many cases among testimonies of miracles—proven testimony of a miracle—were in the end shown to be unreliable? Whether because lightning is not a supernatural phenomenon but a natural one—in other words, many testimonies about supernatural phenomena

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] eventually turned out to be natural. And if because—

[Speaker D] You’re mixing things up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that people saw lightning and thought it was supernatural, and then it turned out to us that it’s something natural, is simply because they lacked the scientific knowledge. It’s not that there was a problem with their perception. What they thought was supernatural was actually natural. But the revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He—nobody claims that is a natural event. They only claim that it didn’t happen. That’s something else. It’s not the same discussion. It’s different, and still—

[Speaker D] there are plenty of testimonies about miracles of wonder-workers, really supernatural things—the students of the Baal Shem Tov who jumped in the air.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Although again, mass testimony—once you’re dealing with mass testimony, then you’re no longer so secure. Meaning, with mass testimony it’s not exactly like that.

[Speaker E] Miracles only happen when there are no cameras—why? What? Miracles always happen only when there are no cameras.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Almost everything in the world happens only when there are no cameras. How many things in the world happen when there is a camera? Almost nothing.

[Speaker E] Everything that happens in the world also happens when there isn’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How much do you film? What are the chances that you are filming exactly when something happens?

[Speaker E] No, but anything can happen also when there is a camera.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, but I’m saying—do you know how to measure how many events, what is the chance that such an event will happen in front of a camera? Almost everything that happens, happens without a camera. So what can you do? That’s what happened. Especially when there’s a very discrete number of miracles. It’s not a massive number. So in those events there were no cameras. What happened? There are lots of events without a camera.

[Speaker B] That’s not true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You only hear testimonies about miracles in primitive societies. In modern societies you don’t hear them.

[Speaker B] No, but I claim that a miracle is something very, very individual. What a person raises within himself as an intuition—that some thing could happen—and then you give it a rationale, then it exits the category of miracle. When a person doesn’t see the full picture and thinks that something beyond happened.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you’re returning to the claim that miracles don’t really happen, and when someone reports a miracle, it’s only because he doesn’t know the full picture.

[Speaker E] What the Rabbi calls statistically rare. What? What the Rabbi calls things that are statistically rare. For example—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another example, very similar in its logic. Yes, exactly. The accident in Gedera and all those examples.

[Speaker B] Yes. No, there is a Maimonides about this. Maimonides says that a person’s understanding should reach this. That’s all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I’m saying—you are basically returning to Hume’s claim. You are basically saying: miracles don’t happen. When a person talks about a miracle, it’s only because he didn’t see the full picture, that’s all, or because he didn’t understand the science behind it.

[Speaker B] Hume wasn’t Jewish, he was Scottish. So what can you do? Well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying the question is whether Hume is right. I claim he isn’t right. I claim he isn’t right. Not because miracles happened—you can argue about that. But his argument is not correct.

[Speaker B] In principle it’s been rejected.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why isn’t it correct? So I’ll say in just another second—I’ll just mention, look in Wikipedia under the entry for the witness argument and you’ll see what a carnival atheists make out of Hume’s challenge. There’s a collection there of very impressive quotations. They say Hume murdered religious faith, slaughtered the possibility of believing in miracles; that’s it—anyone who believes in miracles after David Hume is simply an idiot, ignorant and uneducated. Statements like that, very inflamed statements, about this issue. It’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. I think Hume’s argument doesn’t hold water, for several reasons. I wrote two columns about this, so you can see more detail there. I’ll do it briefly. First of all—first of all—I want to note something that I don’t think is decisive, but it is a point. David Hume himself, after all, challenged the concept of induction.

[Speaker C] Now how do we know the laws of nature?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the basis of induction, right? We know examples, and from them we make rules, and then we assume those rules are laws of nature. That’s what always—this is how the world always behaves. Now Hume himself said that these generalizations are nothing more than a habit of thought. They are not—

[Speaker B] They are not claims about the world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He challenged induction. That’s one of his famous critiques of causality and induction. Okay? Now here, in this critique, he goes in the exact opposite direction, contrary to what he did there. Because now he says: look, to think that there was a miracle is impossible, and therefore it is clearly preferable to think that there was deception in the chain of transmission. Why is it impossible? Because the laws of nature, which you arrived at by means of induction, say that such an event cannot happen—and you yourself say that this is only a habit of thought. Now why do I say this isn’t a decisive argument? Because Hume is indeed somewhat careful, and he says: forget all the calculations and all that—I’m asking you now directly, tell me yourself: these are the two possibilities before you; which of the two do you choose? Meaning, even if it’s true that it’s a habit of thought, not a habit of thought, I have doubt, I don’t have doubt, I don’t know—when the two possibilities stand before us, any reasonable person would choose the natural possibility and not the unnatural one. Forget all the philosophy. And in that sense there is something to his argument. Meaning, although it really does place some question mark over his critique of induction, because it basically means that we do accept induction as a reliable tool, okay? We do relate to the laws of nature as reliable laws, such that if something happens not in accordance with them, it surprises us very much; we don’t expect it to happen. Okay? That’s one point, on the side. That’s one remark. A second remark: how do you know that miracles don’t occur? You say, after all, miracles don’t occur. By contrast, distortions in tradition can occur, and therefore obviously the thesis of distortion in tradition is preferable to that of a miracle. How do you know miracles don’t occur? I’ll tell you how you know. Because when a report of a miracle reaches you, you reject it because of your argument. If someone reports to you and says, look, a miracle happened to me—yes? So what do you say? Look, there are two possibilities: either a miracle really happened to you, or no miracle happened and you made a mistake. Now the second possibility can happen; the first possibility is impossible. Therefore I do not accept your report. It turns out that you cannot accept a report of a miracle even if you want to. So what’s the wonder that you say we have never heard of miracles occurring? Of course you haven’t heard—you’re not willing to hear. By the way, that is exactly why his thesis is unfalsifiable. Because every time I bring him a report of a miracle, he won’t accept it because of this very argument. And then, since he won’t accept it, he has never heard of miracles. Fine—if we have never heard of miracles, then why should I accept a report of a miracle? After all, we have never heard of miracles. Obviously—you haven’t heard of miracles because you’re unwilling to hear of miracles.

[Speaker E] Fine, the Rabbi is turning this into a circular argument, but it’s not exactly like that. One can say that in our immediate environment we have never seen nature change.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But even if I saw the miracle—no, it changes nothing. Because even if I saw the miracle myself, not through a report, I would say something went wrong in my perception. Because after all, it can’t be that something non-natural happened here. Whereas errors in perception do happen from time to time. So I would prefer that option.

[Speaker E] Right, because in 99.9% of things we don’t see miracles. What do you mean? If someone comes and tells me—if someone comes and tells the Rabbi that he—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t see miracles because you’re not willing to see them as miracles.

[Speaker E] Wait, one second. If someone comes—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nachmanides sees miracles at every step in Parashat Bo. You don’t see them—you’re unwilling; I too am unwilling to see them as miracles. So have I not seen miracles? Of course—because you’re unwilling to see miracles. By the way, earlier we also talked about—I see in nature

[Speaker E] a miracle, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not in nature. There are also miracles that are departures from nature. A plane crashed, okay? They set up an investigative committee to check what happened and they found nothing. What would you say? Would you say, okay, apparently it was a miracle, the Holy One, blessed be He, crashed the plane?

[Speaker E] No, they didn’t find the problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, one second—there was a reason it crashed, and they didn’t find the reason. Right. What would you choose?

[Speaker E] Obviously that they didn’t find the reason.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I choose the second possibility. Meaning, even if a miracle appears before your eyes, what you will say is: there was a natural reason here, I just didn’t figure it out.

[Speaker E] No, the reason is this: why would I prefer that? Because when I throw a ball upward, in my life it never happened—I’ve thrown a ball upward a billion times—and it never happened that instead of falling back down, the ball began spinning up in the sky.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And when it did happen? People tell you that it did happen. So what’s the problem? A tractor turned over—but the billion times that

[Speaker E] I observed with my own eyes, one hundred percent—only where there are doubts can that happen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, even when you observe with your own eyes and a miracle happens, you will not accept it. I’m explaining to you again—you will not accept it.

[Speaker E] A billion times I see that it’s nature.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what if it’s a billion times? A billion times I never saw a solar eclipse. But a solar eclipse—it’s a solar eclipse—I never remember these eclipses. There’s something that happens once every 28,000 years. Fine? Someone will come and tell me—because it has an explanation. So what do I care that it has an explanation? This too could have an explanation. I’m saying: when I receive the report—

[Speaker E] A thing that happens a billion times—why think it suddenly changed?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait. I’m getting the report right now about a solar eclipse, okay? A billion times I’ve seen it and the sun was never eclipsed. Okay? A billion times. I don’t accept the report. You’re telling me there was a solar eclipse? What are you talking about? You’re talking nonsense. It’s against the laws of nature.

[Speaker E] Why are you even going looking for explanations?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why had you always not seen it, and now suddenly there is one? Exactly. Why are you looking for explanations? I don’t accept the report, so why look for explanations? The report is wrong. Wrong report, what’s the problem? No, the report is in fact correct. It’s just rare. But if I have an explanation—or not even that, if I believe there is an explanation, even if I don’t have one—after all, even before people knew the explanation for a solar eclipse, they accepted the testimony that there had been a solar eclipse. That’s why they looked for explanations. Right? And they accepted the fact that solar eclipses exist even before they had an explanation, because they believed there was an explanation. So it’s the same thing, and that’s why I’m arguing that this—

[Speaker E] Good, because they believed there was an explanation, but not because someone—no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A miracle also has an explanation: the Holy One, blessed be He, did it. If you believe there’s an explanation, you accept it. That’s exactly the point.

[Speaker E] So if I tell the Rabbi that three elephants came in through my window and danced on my nose, does the Rabbi believe me?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends. If you’re credible in my eyes, then maybe yes. I’m telling you.

[Speaker E] I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t rule it out a priori, that’s the point. But in a little while I’ll—well, not in a little while—but I’ll get to the questions of what—

[Speaker E] If I’m credible, the Rabbi will believe it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, one second. I also tend toward this rationalism, as is well known. So I’ll explain next week probably, I’ll explain where this connects to what I’m saying here. First of all, I’m trying—I’m not trying to claim anything. It could be that I agree with Hume. I’m arguing that his argument is wrong. His argument is wrong. By the way, that’s one of the reasons reports of miracles happen in primitive societies. You say, why? Because they’re primitive people who swallow any story they’re sold? No. Or not necessarily. It could be that they’re not rationalists like Hume, and therefore when a report of a miracle reaches them, they don’t reject it out of hand. Unlike us, who are already stuck in scientific patterns of thought, and even when a report of a miracle reaches us, we don’t accept it.

[Speaker D] Or they’re rationalists and not empiricists. What? Fine, or they’re rationalists and not empiricists, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Same idea. Fine, so a lot of the reason…

[Speaker D] Why shouldn’t we use Hume’s razor, which says that if I have an explanation I already know exists—I know this kind of thing exists in the world, namely probability, errors in the chain of transmission—why should I choose to give testimony about a miracle some new explanation that I don’t know and that for me doesn’t exist?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if the testimony is credible, then it’s credible—what do you mean? According to your logic, we should still be today at the scientific level of Adam.

[Speaker C] Any experiment that wouldn’t fit—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the paradigms of Adam in physics, Adam would say, “Why should I look for explanations? It doesn’t fit, so apparently the report is wrong.” That’s it.

[Speaker B] Do you believe in Adam, by the way? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You—

[Speaker B] Do you believe in Adam?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter, it’s just a metaphor right now for the sake of the point.

[Speaker B] The claim is that science—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] cannot progress from a perspective like David Hume’s. Science would never have advanced. Science advances precisely at those points where a report comes in of an experiment that happened contrary to the laws of nature as we know them today. We accept the report despite that and look for an explanation. Afterward, a scientific explanation, fine. Either they find one or they don’t, but we don’t reject the explanation.

[Speaker D] Science advances and accepts new claims, but it does so with lots of controls, with peer review, with—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, what difference does that make right now?

[Speaker D] In the end, if the testimony was one-time only—if the testimony about the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt was one-time only—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it’s not weighty enough. There are experiments in science that are one-time and still get accepted. Yes, there are experiments that are very complicated to carry out and still get accepted. People received a Nobel Prize for the EPR experiment—what’s that Frenchman’s name? Aspect. He got a Nobel Prize for the EPR experiment. Only he did that experiment; nobody else did it. That’s what he got the Nobel Prize for. And that’s that, so what? Fine, you believe him. Yes, I believe him too, everything’s okay. Meaning, your degree of trust in the reporter can often overcome your degree of trust in the event. When the event is very improbable, but the reporter is a reliable reporter, then I’ll accept his report. That is at least possible. You can’t reject it a priori. Whom do we believe regarding Mount Sinai?

[Speaker B] Huh? Whom do we believe regarding Mount Sinai?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The chain of transmission, that’s not important right now.

[Speaker B] Who, who was there then? Moses our Teacher?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The people who were at the revelation at Mount Sinai. Generation after generation after generation until today.

[Speaker B] No, I’m asking the Rabbi. In terms of if we relate to Hume, yes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To Hume? To the whole chain of generations from Moses our Teacher until today.

[Speaker B] We do accept it, but the tradition tells us—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone should answer for himself. I tend to accept it, though I also have other supports.

[Speaker B] Fine, there’s rationale everywhere, but in principle yes. From the moment that, how shall we put it, we assume that God is theistic and did indeed turn to the Jewish people and that there was something, a transmission, some sort of thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re also adding all the supporting evidence, and that’s not what matters to me right now. I’ll get to that later—I won’t have time now—but I’ll get to it later. I just want to close this part of the discussion by saying that basically what David Hume does is a kind of, first, begging the question. He assumes there are no miracles; therefore he doesn’t accept any report of a miracle; and then he says, “Well, I haven’t heard any report of a miracle, so apparently there are no miracles.” That’s begging the question. And second—and this is the other side of the same coin—it’s an unfalsifiable thesis, because he won’t accept reports of miracles even when they do reach him. So in effect this is something fortified within itself, and to say this in the name of science against mysticism when your statement is completely unscientific—it sounds strange.

[Speaker B] An unfalsifiable thesis, not scientific.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For that you don’t—

[Speaker B] need David Hume.

[Speaker E] And if he had corrected himself and said that 99 percent of the world behaves without miracles?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem, but a single event can be miraculous; that’s enough for me, like a solar eclipse.

[Speaker E] Fine. No, 99 percent we know is not, one percent is doubtful.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, why? I’m saying miracles generally don’t happen, agreed. But this event happened once—what’s the problem? That time it happened, like a solar eclipse. What’s the problem?

[Speaker E] So when we have doubt, isn’t it better to attribute it to the 99 percent?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes and maybe no. Again, maybe yes and maybe no. But I don’t see an argument here. This crushing argument people attribute to David Hume—saying it’s a probabilistic calculation, nobody can argue with it—that’s nonsense.

[Speaker E] It’s at the level of “unlikely.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not true, I disagree. To each his own preferences. You can prefer this way, prefer another way. I really do not accept the argument. So I’ll bring additional examples later to sharpen this a bit more. The lesson is, in the end, that really—first of all, the lesson from David Hume himself that he places before us—is that one has to think in terms of comparing alternatives. And that is a very important lesson that really is worth learning from him. Don’t always think whether something is probable or improbable; rather, you always have to compare between alternatives and check which of the two is more probable. That’s a more systematic statistical way of thinking. And after that, I say there’s also a lesson in how to assess the likelihoods of those probabilities, of those possibilities. And here too I’ll continue next time. Okay, let’s stop here. Any comments or questions, or?

[Speaker F] Yes, Rabbi, doesn’t the very writing down of the Mishnah, with all the disputes there, prove that there really was a broken telephone?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What’s the connection? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker F] Because the moment they decided to write down the Oral Torah and turn it into a written text, you see that there’s no broad consensus there on key points, only disputes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, the disputes weren’t born with the writing of the Mishnah; the Mishnah documents disputes that existed generations earlier.

[Speaker F] Right, meaning at some stage the disputes arose because the telephone broke, so to speak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s not a broken telephone. There are disputes; the laws were formed when there was a dispute. That’s the naive approach of the Talmud, and afterward of Maimonides, that the disputes arose because they did not fully attend upon their masters—the students of Hillel and Shammai did not fully attend upon them—which really does speak of broken telephone. I don’t think that’s correct. Disputes arose because in a new situation there are different opinions and a dispute arose. It’s not that Moses our Teacher transmitted something to us, the tradition passed down to us and got distorted on the way, and that’s why a dispute arose. You assume that all the laws were already given by Moses our Teacher and all disputes that arose were only because of distortions in transmission. Not true. The disputes arose because a question came before us and two sages thought about it and thought differently, so a dispute arose.

[Speaker F] And there’s no dispute about the tradition itself, basically?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say there isn’t; I said that most disputes, in my view, are of that kind. There may also be disputes about the transmission itself, absolutely. Maimonides, for example, argues—Maimonides argues, for example—that there is no dispute about a law given to Moses at Sinai. A dispute cannot arise about a law given to Moses at Sinai, which is really to make the claim that if it’s tradition, then there’s no dispute. But there’s already a famous responsum of the Havot Yair, 192 I think, something like that, where he gathers all through the entire Talmud disputes about laws given to Moses at Sinai—there are very many dozens. Some he has answers for, some he doesn’t. Yes, disputes arose also in transmission, that’s true. But most disputes are not in transmission. Now the claim is: of course distortions in transmission can happen; nobody argues that broken telephone happens and can happen. The question is how impossible it is to think there was a miracle, versus the probability that there was a broken telephone. This can happen and that can happen too. Now each person will decide which is preferable. But Hume’s argument says not “each person will decide”; rather, it’s obvious that this is preferable to that. That is not true.

[Speaker B] Historically though, Rabbi. Yes. Historically we say that all the disputes and everything that happened arose in Babylonia, because during the First Temple period— What do you mean, in Babylonia?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tannaim disputed that—what do you mean, in Babylonia?

[Speaker B] The Tannaim are from the Second Temple period, that’s after Babylonia. There were no Tannaim before that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Babylonia during the First Temple period.

[Speaker B] Okay. During the First Temple there were no disputes and there weren’t—Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky writes about this in a book, why it was forgotten.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There was Yosi—that’s the first dispute.

[Speaker B] Right, yes, in principle we say that there in Babylonia, despite the briefest exile, most of the Torah was forgotten and only a little remained in communities of priests and the tradition and so on, and that’s why there are the last prophets.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said, that’s a naive approach that I do not accept.

[Speaker B] No, it’s not connected to naivete. It’s simply that those priests and attendants of the Torah who were living in various other places each remembered something else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The naive approach isn’t that. Obviously when we disperse and go to different places, disputes can arise and transmission can break down. That’s not naive. The naivete is thinking that only that causes disputes. Disputes can also be created simply because two people think differently. It’s not transmission; they are now creating that Jewish law.

[Speaker B] Yes, but—

[Speaker E] The fact that the disputes were born then proves that before that it was forgotten. That’s obvious, unequivocal. I think nobody disagrees. No, that before then they didn’t know; otherwise they would have argued.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There was no documentation.

[Speaker B] There probably were earlier disputes.

[Speaker E] There’s no documentation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because nothing was written down. Even what wasn’t disputed wasn’t documented. It was forbidden.

[Speaker B] Exactly.

[Speaker E] In that period the documentation began.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And from when do you know about disputes? You know from when they began writing, when the Oral Torah came into being in the Second Temple period.

[Speaker B] From Rabbi Judah the Prince. He wrote it down; if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And before him there were secret scrolls, there were before him.

[Speaker B] In principle that’s the problem of—

[Speaker E] What does the Rabbi say about the chains, the transmission of the Zohar? That also passes from father to son.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, where does it pass? It doesn’t pass from father to son, because everyone understands that Rashbi—let’s say those who believe it’s Rashbi—they believe that Rashbi received this thing, and they don’t claim there was eyewitness testimony to it; rather, they believe Rashbi. Fine? It’s not an argument about an event that happened and was passed on through broad public exposure.

[Speaker E] I’m talking about the very fact that it’s Rashbi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, who says so? That’s exactly the point. It’s not a tradition that passes through a broad chain from father to son, where everybody knows it’s Rashbi. Why not? It does pass. No, it doesn’t pass. It didn’t pass that way. No.

[Speaker E] Ask all the children, they’ll tell you that Rabbi Shimon is— they heard it from their father.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They heard it from their father. Come on, be objective and see how many doubt it.

[Speaker B] Until—

[Speaker C] the thirteenth century it didn’t exist.

[Speaker E] Who doubts it? Where I am, nobody knows of any doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a book that was printed quietly and discreetly. Fine, nobody doubts many things, but I see around me many people who doubt it. Not merely doubt it—they’re sure it isn’t so.

[Speaker E] Well, but that indicates something about a chain of transmission.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it indicates that there are populations that are more gullible, that buy things more readily without criticism.

[Speaker E] That breaks—it breaks the chain of transmission, the witness argument.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it doesn’t break it; it raises the concern that distortions can happen. I know that on my own; I don’t need this argument. I know distortions can happen. But on the other hand, miracles can also happen. Now you have to decide which is preferable.

[Speaker B] If it’s not mentioned in the Sages at all, you can’t believe it at all—what nonsense is this?

[Speaker E] No, it proves to you that a father can tell his son something he truly thinks is correct because he heard it and he heard it from his grandfather.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but the Rabbi didn’t speak about gullible people; that’s completely obvious. Who disputes that? David Hume’s question isn’t that. David Hume’s novelty is not that chains can break; I know that too. Rather, that it’s necessary, because the alternative is impossible. No, that’s not true.

[Speaker E] I’m saying even aside from that, it breaks the witness argument.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the witness argument is not necessary; that I know.

[Speaker E] Even aside from that, it’s not definitive testimony.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, but to say that it is certainly false because the alternative is impossible—

[Speaker B] possible—that’s Hume’s argument. Only that. Yes, fine. I just wanted to say specifically, excuse me Rabbi, to Akiva: there is a very strong tradition that Rabbi Shimon is buried in Meron, right?

[Speaker E] That’s from the Arizal.

[Speaker B] Absolutely not!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s altogether—

[Speaker B] from a gentile, it’s from a gentile.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are traditions that do not purport to make mass factual claims, meaning, that’s what—

[Speaker E] I mean to say, that there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] something people decided to believe. It’s like Muhammad. Meaning, Muhammad—and there’s a tradition about I don’t know what happened to him in the cave, revelations and all that. Fine. Most interestingly, people decided to believe him; that’s fine. That can happen. When you describe an event that happened and it passes through a broad chain, that’s stronger. Fine, and still it’s not—not Muhammad.

[Speaker B] So how does Maimonides rely on that? And most interestingly, the Talmud says, the Talmud says that Rabbi Shimon is buried elsewhere. And it says so explicitly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, then everything’s fine.

[Speaker B] No, I mean, you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] want to convince me there are gullible people? I know.

[Speaker B] No, I mean, to understand from these things, there are—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] things much more fundamental than where Rabbi Shimon is buried. Obviously. The tradition that every person in yeshivot will tell you, that every detail and sub-detail was given at Sinai down to the very last one—that too is a tradition everyone believes in. You—

[Speaker B] know what they rely on? Do you know what they rely on, Rabbi?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmudic passages, you know, details and sub-details.

[Speaker B] No, there’s a Jerusalem Talmud in Sotah, where it says—I don’t remember the page—it says there that the Torah was given together with all its details and particulars and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, it’s also written in the Babylonian Talmud. It appears in many places. Do you take that as a historical statement, that all the details were given at Sinai, or do you take it as a normative statement saying that all the details are to be treated as though they are the Torah that was given to Moses at Sinai, because the sages who derive it throughout the generations—that, from our perspective, is the Torah?

[Speaker B] No, it’s unequivocal, I don’t know why they accepted it that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so I’m saying there are a lot of gullible people of many kinds.

[Speaker B] And like the thirteen Torah scrolls written by Moses our Teacher—I think any sensible person understands that he did not write the Torah scroll we have. Nor in that script, nor in that form, and no—it’s something completely different. A collection of various laws and the like. Yes, in every yeshiva they tell you that this Torah we have, this is what Moses our Teacher wrote. That too is a tradition. But it’s a tradition with absolutely no support, none at all. Fine—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Friends, the main thing is that—

[Speaker B] good, and not in the same form and not that—it’s something completely different.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a collection of various laws and the like. Yes, in every yeshiva they tell you that this Torah we have, this is what Moses our Teacher wrote. That too is a tradition. But it’s a tradition with absolutely no support, none at all. Fine, friends. The main thing is that you should have a peaceful Sabbath. Peaceful Sabbath. Sabbath peace, goodbye, thank you very much. Peaceful Sabbath. Peaceful Sabbath, goodbye. Thank you very much.

Doubt and Probability—in Halakha, Thought, and in General—Lesson 35 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The Plan of the Series and the Continuation of Topics

David Hume’s First Doubt: Trust in Cognition and an Infinite Chain

Rejecting the First Doubt: Symmetry, Wordplay, and Dependence of Probabilities

Infinite Products That Do Not Go to Zero and Mathematical Examples

The Problem of Independence and the Rule of Conditional Probability

Remarks on Pascal, Hume, and Kant as the Speaker’s Position

David Hume’s Second Doubt: The Witness Argument and Tradition About a Miracle

Hume’s Formalization: Comparing Alternatives

Probability Versus Plausibility and the Fine-Tuning Example

The Speaker’s Criticism of Hume’s Argument: Induction, Circularity, and Unfalsifiability

Class Discussion: Broad Tradition, Miracles, Cameras, and the Zohar

The Lesson the Speaker Takes from Hume

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The Plan of the Series and the Continuation of Topics

David Hume’s First Doubt: Trust in Cognition and an Infinite Chain

Rejecting the First Doubt: Symmetry, Wordplay, and Dependence of Probabilities

Infinite Products That Do Not Go to Zero and Mathematical Examples

The Problem of Independence and the Rule of Conditional Probability

Remarks on Pascal, Hume, and Kant as the Speaker’s Position

David Hume’s Second Doubt: The Witness Argument and Tradition About a Miracle

Hume’s Formalization: Comparing Alternatives

Probability Versus Plausibility and the Fine-Tuning Example

The Speaker’s Criticism of Hume’s Argument: Induction, Circularity, and Unfalsifiability

Class Discussion: Broad Tradition, Miracles, Cameras, and the Zohar

The Lesson the Speaker Takes from Hume

Full Transcript

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