God and the World – Lesson 4
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The dimensions model and tzimtzum
- Giving up dichotomies, weakness of will, and repentance
- Hasidim and Mitnagdim: filthy alleyways, the mundane, and the sacred
- “These and those,” shifting emphasis, and the claim that the theological dispute may disappear
- Practice versus metaphysics and the direction from below upward
- Opening the discussion of divine responsibility: providence, history, and an argument against “everything comes from Him”
- Conflicting sources: Nachmanides, rabbinic aggadah, and Maimonides on knowledge and reward
- Miracles embedded in nature and the reluctance to speak of intervention
- Dividing the discussion: human actions versus nature, and active versus passive providence
- Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance: denying active providence in choice and presenting the problem of divine knowledge
Summary
General Overview
The text proposes a model of “dimensions” in order to reconcile the claim that there is none besides Him and that “the whole earth is full of His glory” with the absurdity of saying that only the Holy One, blessed be He, exists and nothing else exists. It presents the model as a perspective in which the world “exists” in a lower dimension that does not detract from the higher one. It argues that many dilemmas are created by mistaken dichotomous presentations, and illustrates this through the problem of weakness of will and the question of repentance, where “from outside/from inside” may be a connection rather than a contradiction. It then ties the controversy over tzimtzum to the practical differences between Hasidim and Mitnagdim regarding the presence of the Divine Presence in “filthy alleyways” and in the mundane world, and suggests that the theological dispute may mainly be a matter of differing emphases rather than disagreement about metaphysical facts. Finally, it opens a direct discussion against the common assumption that “the Holy One, blessed be He, is responsible for everything that happens,” and establishes a distinction between active providence and passive providence, while reading Maimonides as denying active providence in acts of free choice and placing the issue of knowledge and free will at the center as a difficult problem.
The Dimensions Model and Tzimtzum
The text proposes understanding the relation between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world as the relation between a higher dimension and a lower dimension, in such a way that a lower dimension does not “take away from” a higher one at all, just as a two-dimensional sheet does not block a three-dimensional reality. It argues that from the perspective of the higher dimension, there is no “slice of reality” in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is not present, and yet one need not conclude from this that the world does not exist, because relative to a higher dimension the world “takes up no volume” and still exists in its own dimension. It emphasizes that the higher dimension is not merely “different” but “more,” in the sense that the two-dimensional is included within three dimensions whereas the reverse is not true, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, in some sense “contains” us without canceling the existence of separate beings.
Giving Up Dichotomies, Weakness of Will, and Repentance
The text uses the problem of weakness of will to indicate the possibility of an action that does not fall into the dichotomy of “from outside” versus “from inside,” and suggests that acts of choice may be acts that cannot be attributed only to the person alone and cannot be attributed only to external intervention, but rather as something done through the partnership of the Holy One, blessed be He, within us. It presents dilemma arguments as a structure in which “either X or not-X” leads to the same conclusion, and argues that the usual flaw is that the dichotomy is not exhaustive, because “not-X” has many shades or there may be a third possibility. It illustrates this with the claim that “there is no point in exams, because diligent students study even without one and lazy students do not study even with one,” and explains that the world is not divided into extremes but into a continuum. It applies this to the question of repentance: if repentance comes from outside it has no value, and if it comes from inside it is impossible, so one must assume an action on the seam where outside and inside work together. It presents this as “marking a breach” rather than giving a full explanation, while linking it to the issue of free will.
Hasidim and Mitnagdim: Filthy Alleyways, the Mundane, and the Sacred
The text presents tzimtzum as a controversy with practical consequences for the service of God and not as an abstract issue, and brings as a central image “filthy alleyways” as a place that signifies low realities in which it is forbidden to pray and study Torah. It describes the Hasidic position as the claim that the Divine Presence is found even there, meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, is present in all dimensions of being, even in the material world, in the mundane, and in what is perceived as non-spiritual. It describes the Mitnagdic position as the claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, is present in places of holiness, and that there are realities from which one must distance oneself, even giving the extreme description that mundane activities are “only tests” and the goal is to withdraw from materiality. It brings as a Hasidic example the story of the shepherd who desecrates Rosh Hashanah by playing a flute and whose prayer ascends, and interprets this as a declaration that the Holy One, blessed be He, is present even with someone who does not act according to the accepted halakhic form of holiness.
“These and Those,” Shifting Emphasis, and the Claim that the Theological Dispute May Disappear
The text suggests that the principle of charity leads to a reading according to which both sides may mean the same dimensions-model, especially in Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin through a distinction of “from His side and from our side” as an objective distinction between different aspects. It argues that the Hasidim emphasize the “four dimensions” in which there is no empty space and everything is divinity, whereas the Lithuanians / Mitnagdim emphasize the “three dimensions” in which there exists a reality of created beings as entities with independent existence that are not identical with the Holy One, blessed be He. It uses the Talmudic discussion of the “fly” and the “hair” in tractate Gittin to explain the logic of “these and those are the words of the living God” as a situation in which reality has several objective facets and the dispute stems from focus on one aspect. It suggests that if both sides already recognize the existence of both aspects, then the dispute is mainly about focus and emphasis, and therefore “the whole dispute about tzimtzum” is not necessarily a dispute in theology but rather shifts to the plane of practice.
Practice versus Metaphysics and the Direction from Below Upward
The text argues that the Hasidic-Mittnagdic dispute begins with the question “how one ought to behave” in the service of God and in relation to the world, and only afterward does one “climb upward” and build a metaphysical discourse that will support the practice. It compares this to Tamar Ross’s description of feminist theology, which proposes changing metaphysical imagery in order to change social implications, and argues that the move there starts from practice and moves toward metaphysics. It presents the view that the very production of metaphysics for the sake of support is largely “unnecessary,” yet still argues that the discussion of tzimtzum sheds light on the “point of vulnerability” from which the details of the disputes branch out. It compares this to the difficulty of finding a sharp “litmus paper” distinction between Religious Zionism and Haredi Judaism, and brings in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in order to explain a concept that is identifiable in practice but difficult to define in sharp terms, while for Hasidim versus Mitnagdim it suggests that the litmus paper is one’s relation to the presence of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world.
Opening the Discussion of Divine Responsibility: Providence, History, and an Argument Against “Everything Comes from Him”
The text states that a common religious starting point says that nothing happens without the Holy One, blessed be He, and illustrates this through theological questions that arise around tragedies and the assumption that “there is something to understand” even when one remains silent in the style of “And Aaron was silent.” It seeks to put that very assumption up for discussion and asks, “Who says there is even something here to understand?” arguing that perhaps there is no divine act here that needs interpretation. It presents two questions: can there be something for which the Holy One, blessed be He, is not responsible, and how many such “somethings” are there? It links the conception that the Holy One, blessed be He, is responsible for everything to a Hasidic conception of “there is none besides Him,” in which both events and human acts are seen as God’s action behind the scenes, and contrasts this with the question of human responsibility, using the Holocaust as a sharp example of the question of “who did it” and who bears responsibility.
Conflicting Sources: Nachmanides, Rabbinic Aggadah, and Maimonides on Knowledge and Reward
The text brings Nachmanides at the end of Parashat Bo as a forceful position according to which “all our experiences are nothing but miracles,” to the point that “a person has no share in the Torah of Moses” without this belief, and notes aggadic sayings such as “There is no blade of grass that does not have an angel striking it and saying: Grow,” and “A person does not stub his finger below unless it was announced concerning him above,” as a basis for the conception that “everything is from above.” Against this, it sets the tenth and eleventh of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles and emphasizes that Maimonides writes that the Holy One, blessed be He, “knows the deeds of human beings” and “gives reward,” but does not write that He “does” human actions. It interprets Maimonides as distinguishing between passive providence (knowledge and monitoring) and active providence (bringing about events), and argues that the absence of active providence does not appear as a binding principle of faith in Maimonides. It adds that the expression “the Lord has abandoned the earth” in Maimonides concerns knowledge, not involvement, and argues that his position is “abandoned” in the sense of non-involvement, not non-knowledge.
Miracles Embedded in Nature and the Reluctance to Speak of Intervention
The text cites in the name of Maimonides and rabbinic conceptions the idea that miracles are “embedded” in nature from the six days of creation, to the point that even the splitting of the Red Sea is perceived as part of a law set in advance and not as real-time intervention. It explains the possible motivation for this with two philosophical arguments: that intervention suggests a deficiency in the ability to establish a complete system of laws, and that reactive involvement suggests change in the Holy One, blessed be He. It notes that he himself tends to think that open miracles are involvement “in real time,” but uses these sources to argue that there are rabbinic and medieval roots for a position of non-involvement. From this it argues that there is no binding “consensus” on the question whether the Holy One, blessed be He, causes every natural or historical event.
Dividing the Discussion: Human Actions versus Nature, and Active versus Passive Providence
The text divides the discussion into two planes: the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in human acts of choice and His involvement in natural events. It argues that there are different approaches: some in which the Holy One, blessed be He, governs nature but is not involved in acts of choice; some in which He is involved in neither; and some that claim He does everything, including human acts. It cites the rule “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven” as the basis for the distinction that natural occurrences are “in the hands of Heaven,” while value-laden, voluntary decisions are not.
Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance: Denying Active Providence in Choice and Presenting the Problem of Divine Knowledge
The text quotes Maimonides in Laws of Repentance, chapter 5, where he presents free choice as a “great principle” and “a pillar of the Torah and commandment,” and rejects the view that the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees in advance that a person will be righteous or wicked. It emphasizes Maimonides’ question: “Can anything happen in the world without the permission of its Master and His will?” and interprets Maimonides’ answer as saying that the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, is that the human being have autonomy and that his actions be entrusted to him, and therefore in voluntary acts there is no active providence that brings about human choice. It argues that the necessary implication of this position is full human responsibility, and that formulations that try to hold together “He does everything” and “the human being is responsible” are a contradiction that empties responsibility of meaning. It continues to Maimonides’ question about knowledge and choice and asks whether the Holy One, blessed be He, knows in advance whether a person will be righteous or wicked, presenting the dilemma that foreknowledge seems to nullify the possibility of choosing otherwise. It notes that Maimonides states that the answer to the question is “longer than the earth in measure and broader than the sea,” and ends by presenting the framework for what follows: in human actions active providence is denied, and the next discussion will focus on whether there is prior knowledge, that is, passive providence in advance.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s begin. Last time I ended with some attempt to propose a model for tzimtzum in a way that would somehow preserve the persuasive considerations of both sides—whether tzimtzum is literal or not literal. On the one hand, the accepted claim is that “the whole earth is full of His glory,” and without Him nothing can exist, and so on and so on. On the other hand, to say that only He exists and nothing else exists—I don’t know, that’s devoid of all meaning, it’s a completely absurd statement. And I’m just sick of the word “nonsense,” so I’m trying to find alternatives. And the way one might somehow wedge a foot between the door and the frame, lengthen the short blanket, is to speak in terms of a model of different dimensions, with the Holy One, blessed be He, say, in a higher dimension than the world—if you like, an infinite dimension, it doesn’t matter, but a higher dimension. And in that sense, the lower dimension does not in any way take away from the higher dimension, just as a two-dimensional sheet does not take away from the three-dimensional world, and so on. So in that sense, nothing blocks the Holy One, blessed be He; there is no segment of being, of reality, in which He is not present, from the standpoint of His perspective, of His number of dimensions. But that does not necessarily have to mean that we are not here. We exist in our three dimensions, or whatever number of dimensions we have, while relative to a higher number of dimensions we occupy no volume at all. And so in this way one can somehow dance at both weddings. I spoke a bit about the fact that three dimensions, say, versus two dimensions, are not just two kinds of reality that don’t speak to one another, that’s all. Rather, there is nevertheless something in three that is more than two. It isn’t only different from two; it is more than two. More than two in the sense that, in some way, all those points of the two-dimensional sheet are actually located within—somehow—within the three-dimensional space, whereas the reverse is not true. So on the one hand, they do not belong to the three-dimensional world; it’s some different kind of creature. But on the other hand, there is still some sense in which the two dimensions are contained in the three. And therefore it’s not that we and the Holy One, blessed be He, simply live in two different dimensions of being that have nothing to say to one another, period. Rather, there is something in Him that does, in some sense, contain us. And on the other hand, that does not mean that we as such have no independent existence, no existence as beings distinct or separate from the Holy One, blessed be He.
After that I illustrated this a bit through the problem of weakness of will, and I said that the way—that is, through that problem of weakness of will one probably has to proceed. I’m saying this is the only way out I can think of, though I didn’t give the positive explanation, I only pointed to a direction that might perhaps lead to it. And I said that if we give up this dichotomy of us versus the Holy One, blessed be He, then there is some kind of fusion or some kind of connection between us and Him. Let’s say that actions we perform out of our own choice are actions that one cannot say we do alone, and one cannot say that He does to us. Rather it is some kind of thing that can only be done through His partnership within us, or some kind of action that we do together in some sense. Then it is not someone from outside—in which case I said it would have no value—and it is not done from inside, which cannot be, but rather this outside, this tension between outside and inside, is not as dichotomous as it apparently seems to us. And therefore one cannot ask this dilemma-question: is it from outside or is it from inside? Because outside and inside nevertheless also have some point of contact.
Yes, many times questions of this sort—what in logic or philosophy are called dilemma arguments—work this way. Dilemma arguments are arguments that say: if you assume X, conclusion A follows. If you assume not-X, conclusion A also follows. So A must be true in any case. In other words, it doesn’t matter under which assumption; you always arrive at conclusion A, and therefore that proves A is true. Now, many times this seems problematic, seems wrong, but people have difficulty putting their finger on where the problem is. Usually the problem is that there is something besides either X or not-X. In other words, this dichotomous presentation is probably incomplete.
Yes, an example in this context: people say there is no point in giving exams. Why? Because diligent students study even without an exam, and lazy students do not study even when there is an exam. So what’s the point of exams? That is exactly the structure of a dilemma argument. Right? Either you’re diligent or you’re not diligent. If you’re diligent, there’s no point in an exam because it’s unnecessary. If you’re not diligent, it won’t help. Therefore there’s no point in exams. What’s the problem here? Why is that not true? It’s not true because the world is not divided into diligent and pathologically lazy students, extreme cases. Rather there is some continuum of levels of diligence or laziness, some spectrum between zero and one, let’s call it that. Now it is true that with respect to one—the perfectly diligent people—and zero—the perfectly lazy people—there really is no point in an exam. The exam changes nothing. But there is a whole range of states in between. In other words, the dichotomous view as though there are only zero or one is simply mistaken. Many times in arguments like these, the bug in the argument lies in the assumption that all possibilities divide into either X or not-X—apparently the law of the excluded middle. Either X or not-X; there is no third option. But no, many times in reality there is a third option. Because not-X has many forms of not-X. It doesn’t have to be a logical contradiction; there are simply many forms of not-X. When you say someone is not diligent—how not diligent? Completely not diligent? A little not diligent? Twenty percent diligent? Eighty percent diligent? Ninety percent diligent? Or zero? There are many kinds of not-diligent. Therefore dividing the world into diligent and lazy does not exhaust all the possibilities.
So here too, same thing. After all, basically the argument here is a dilemma argument. It is impossible to repent. Why? Because if it is done from outside, then it has no value. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, is doing repentance on me; I did not repent. If it is done from inside, it cannot be done. I myself—I spoke about this last time—I myself cannot change myself, right? It’s an oxymoron. So since it cannot be done either from inside or from outside, and it has to be either inside or outside—what else could it be? So if in both possibilities we reach the conclusion that repentance has no value—or that it is impossible or valueless—then that means repentance has no value. That is a pure dilemma argument. And the way to solve it, like all dilemma arguments, is to say: wait, wait—the dichotomous presentation of either outside or inside, I’m not sure those are the only two possibilities that exist. Sometimes there is some action on the seam, something where outside and inside play there together or operate there together, and then if we give up the dichotomy, the argument may collapse. As I said, this is only marking a breach in the argument. I am not pretending to say that this is an explanation. It is very hard to explain; this is an extremely difficult issue, the issue of free will.
Anyway, I brought up that issue—it isn’t our topic right now, though later on it may come up—but I brought it as an illustration in order to show this meaning, this division, between the Holy One, blessed be He, and us—the three dimensions versus the two dimensions—and my claim was that it is not entirely foreign. The three dimensions have something to say also with respect to the two-dimensional creatures, unlike the reverse. And therefore the expression of this in free will is exactly what I said: that the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved in some way in the activity and the choices, in repentance and in all human decisions. And only in this way can choice actually happen.
So in the end we were left with questions from all kinds of directions, because when I summed it up I said that this whole discussion of tzimtzum is some sort of abstract theological discussion. But as we saw both in the Lubavitcher Rebbe and in Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin—which are really the two sides of the barricade, Hasidim versus Mitnagdim—both speak about the fact that this has many practical implications for the service of God, for our perception of the world and its relation to the Holy One, blessed be He. This is not just some abstract, airy issue; it has meaning. What meaning? Both describe it in terms of filthy alleyways. That’s the accepted term in the Hasidic-Mittnagdic controversy. “Filthy alleyways” serves here as a claim, basically as a low place—bathrooms or bathhouses, all the places where it is forbidden to pray and forbidden to study Torah, maybe one may think Torah there but no more than that. And the question is whether the Divine Presence can be found there, whether the Holy One, blessed be He, is present there as well.
So the Hasidim say yes. Again, I’m not talking only about bathrooms. I’m talking also about the world, the material world, all realities that are not connected to holiness. Realities of the mundane, realities of materiality, realities we would not associate with spirituality and the Holy One, blessed be He, and the like. The Hasidim say: in all dimensions of being, the Holy One, blessed be He, is present. I would even say only He is present—that is tzimtzum not taken literally. And the Lithuanians, or the Mitnagdim, argue that no, the Holy One, blessed be He, is present in places of holiness, and there are places disconnected from the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore we too are supposed to distance ourselves from those places. Therefore, for example, from the Hasidic point of view, you do not necessarily have to pray in the exact liturgical formula—you do have to, but you can also pray otherwise. Like the shepherd who plays the flute on Rosh Hashanah and it rises as prayer before the Holy One, blessed be He, just like prayer recited according to the formula instituted by the Men of the Great Assembly. This is a classic Hasidic statement, because it basically says that the Holy One, blessed be He, is present even with someone who plays the flute on Rosh Hashanah, not only with someone who does things according to the definitions of Jewish law, which is really an expression of the domain of the mundane as opposed to the domain of the sacred. Jewish law is usually perceived by us as the sphere in which holiness operates, where the Holy One, blessed be He, is present. And shepherds and flutes and all those things—that’s for gentiles, that’s for people who have no connection to holiness and spirituality. That is the Mitnagdic perspective. And the Hasidim say: what are you talking about? God is there too. God is among the wagon drivers, God is everywhere, in every place whatsoever.
And in the Mitnagdic view they say: what are you talking about? God is in the study hall, God is there when people pray, God is there when people study Torah, when people perform commandments. Mundane occupations—what does that have to do with the Holy One, blessed be He? In a somewhat extreme formulation—though I think it’s very common in the world, certainly in the Lithuanian world—those things are only tests. Meaning, everything in the world that is not connected to holiness is a test. The goal is that we distance ourselves from there, that we not be there. In contrast to sanctifying the mundane or sanctifying matter, the Lithuanians say: distance from matter. On the contrary, the Holy One, blessed be He, is not there—what are you doing dealing with it? Sit in kollel and study. Why are you going to be a wagon driver or playing the flute on Rosh Hashanah? You have the rules for exactly how Jewish law says things should be done. You see that this connects to the Hasidic versus Mitnagdic conceptions, and they tie it to tzimtzum. Both sides tie it to tzimtzum. It begins from the theology of tzimtzum.
And then the question arises: how? How is that connected to the differences in the theology of tzimtzum? Especially in light of what I said last time: that at least according to the principle of charity, because if I don’t want to make either side out to be idiots or people just talking nonsense, then I assume—or at least propose—that both sides in some sense mean the model I described earlier, the dimensions model. With Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin it seems to me this is almost required; I have several proofs for it. And also the whole issue, from his standpoint, of “from His perspective and from ours,” or “from His side and from our side,” can definitely be interpreted as the four-dimensional outlook and the three-dimensional outlook. That’s from His side and from our side, but that does not mean these are subjective matters. These are entirely objective matters. In three dimensions, that really is the reality; and in four dimensions, that really is the reality. It’s not “from His perspective and from ours” in the sense that each is trapped in his own narrative or conception in some relativistic sense, where each one sees only part of the picture. No. Each one sees a completely true picture. Okay? That’s the perspective.
And then I said in the end that maybe the Hasidim also actually mean this when they say that tzimtzum is not literal: they mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, is in four dimensions. There nothing is lacking; there is no empty space in four dimensions. The empty space is in three dimensions, and within it all reality is created. And therefore, in the end, it may be that the dispute does not exist on the theological plane at all, but that both sides are really talking about the same thing. I’ll say again—I emphasize again—this is a proposal that I feel more at home with on the Lithuanian side, not only because of my sympathy for the Lithuanian side, but also because I really read it there more clearly. To read it that way on the Hasidic side is more complicated. For example, in the letter I brought from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, it seems to me that to say this is what he means is very forced. Because if that’s the case, then it’s not clear what his disagreement is with Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. What are all those levels of tzimtzum that he talks about? He says simply that tzimtzum is not literal, period. I don’t think one can interpret him with the meaning I tried to suggest here. Therefore I said: this is a proposal on the basis of the principle of charity. I would not offer it as an interpretation on which I would really bet that this is what they meant. But the principle of charity tells us: treat every position, try to place it on the most reasonable foundations possible. And in that sense, these seem to me the only reasonable foundations on which I can place it.
But even so, let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that there really is a theological dispute, all right? For the sake of the continuation, let’s say there is no theological dispute in terms of the conception of tzimtzum itself, and everyone adopts the dimensions model I proposed here. Even then it is clear that the emphasis, or the aspect from which one looks at this complex picture, is different. Meaning: the Hasidim look at this picture as though the real essence is four dimensions. It is that same reality in which everything is the Holy One, blessed be He; there is nothing devoid of Him, nothing in which He is not present. And the Lithuanian outlook places the emphasis, of course, on the three dimensions. Okay? And I say again: even if everyone agrees that there are four and there are three, and these are simply two aspects that both exist—not subjective, both exist in objective reality—okay? Still it is obvious that there are differences of emphasis. Each puts the focus on a different aspect of the same existing reality.
I don’t remember whether I mentioned it—I think I did—about the Talmud in tractate Gittin, where it speaks about the concubine at Gibeah, about “these and those.” The Talmud brings a dispute there about whether he found a fly on her or found a hair on her. Why did the husband of that concubine become so enraged? So there is a dispute, and then Rabbi Yonatan, one of the disputants there, meets Elijah the prophet and asks him what the Holy One, blessed be He, is doing. Of course He is studying the section of the concubine at Gibeah. And what does he say? “My son Yonatan says thus, and My son Evyatar says thus.” Meaning, He repeats the dispute of the Tannaim. So Rabbi Yonatan says to Elijah the prophet: Heaven forbid—is there doubt before Heaven? What, the Holy One, blessed be He, is in doubt? He doesn’t know what that man found on his concubine? And he says: no, no—“these and those are the words of the living God.” What does that mean? Apparently it means that each of them grasped some facet of reality. The truth is that he found both a fly and a hair. But what happened? His indignation was produced by the accumulation of both the fly and the hair together. Each one by itself would not have generated the insane terror that happened there, that terrible outburst he had there. What created the fury? The combination of the two things together. So what does that mean? It means that in reality itself there was both a fly and a hair. But there was still some dispute between the Tannaim. Clearly one cannot say that both were entirely right. They are both right—“these and those are the words of the living God”—but not completely right. Because one said “fly” and the other said “hair.” Now, neither of them grasped the full picture. The full picture is that there was both a fly and a hair. So what is the dispute? The dispute is only over which aspect each one focused on.
Again, I am not saying that each of them was also aware that the one who said fly knew that there was also a hair. He probably thought there was only a fly, and the other thought there was only a hair. Again, it sounds like a funny kind of dispute, but that’s what the Talmud says. What difference does it make what was there? What practical difference does it make? In any case, for our purposes what matters here is really the logic of “these and those.” And the logic of “these and those” says that, at the principled level, in reality there was both this and that. These are not subjective perspectives; they are objective perspectives. Both are right in the sense that there was both a fly and a hair there. But still one cannot say that they have no dispute. Each placed emphasis on, or focused on, a different aspect. One focused on the aspect of the hair and the other on the aspect of the fly. And in that sense, both were mistaken, because each one did not grasp the full reality, reality in its fullness. Okay?
So something like that is what I want to say about our issue as well. One can say that from a certain perspective, “from His side,” as Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says, there really was no tzimtzum at all. Because in four dimensions there is no empty space at all; everything remains divinity as before. But from another perspective, a reality of three dimensions was also created, and in that reality there exist creatures, distinct beings that are not the Holy One, blessed be He. It is a space empty of the Holy One, blessed be He; He is not there. He is not there—it is an empty space. Meaning, all the objects and entities created there are entities with independent existence. Again, He can help them, He can support them, He created them, but it is not Him. They are something else; they are not identical with Him. And in that sense, if this picture is correct, then it is exactly like the fly and the hair. There is the aspect of four dimensions and there is the aspect of three dimensions in reality itself. Both aspects exist. And the dispute is over where I place the focus. So the Hasidim place the focus on four dimensions, and the Lithuanians or Mitnagdim place the focus on three dimensions. But assuming both sides know the truth—that is, they both mean that there are both four and three—then it is only a choice of where to place the emphasis.
In that sense this is no longer exactly like the fly and the hair. With the fly and the hair, I don’t think the dispute was about where to place the emphasis. The dispute was about what really happened there. Only that, in relation to reality itself, there were both a fly and a hair, and each sage grasped only one aspect. With us, if I am right about the principle of charity, then both sides grasp the full reality with both its aspects. The difference between them is only the question of what to emphasize. And then here “these and those are the words of the living God” is really true in the full sense. Because both are also completely right, since both say there are both four dimensions and three dimensions, and still each chooses to put the focus on his own aspect. And in that sense, the whole dispute over tzimtzum is not really a dispute in theology at all, if I’m right. There is no theological dispute here. The theology is agreed upon by everyone. Again I say, with the Lubavitcher Rebbe this doesn’t really fit. I am offering here an interpretation based on the principle of charity, okay? So I’m saying: assuming this is what they really mean, then there is not truly any real dispute in theology. We are not dealing with theology at all. We are dealing with the question of what this means for practice. And the whole dispute now descends to practice. By practice I do not mean only mundane matters; also the practice of serving God, the practice of spirituality, of course. But in the end it is a dispute about practice and not theology. That is really the focal point of the dispute.
Now if the Lubavitcher Rebbe really means tzimtzum not literally, then there is no dispute here; there is someone here talking nonsense. But if he means what I said here—and I don’t think so—but even if he means what I’m saying here, in the end a dispute still remains. But then the dispute is really not about theology; the dispute is about practice. Therefore one can discuss the question of how practice emerges from theology. How can it be that if we don’t—if we don’t have any dispute at all on the metaphysical-theological plane, then suddenly in practice a dispute appears? Because in the end we still somehow begin with the question of where to place the focus. Where does that dispute come from? Why are there some who decide to put the focus here and others who decide to put the focus there? Here there really is some point from which the dispute must begin in some way.
But it seems to me that in the end it actually begins from below. The dispute begins with the question of how one ought to behave, or how one ought to relate to the Holy One, blessed be He, to the world, and to the relation between them. And then we climb back upward to the conceptual worlds of tzimtzum, to metaphysics, and we basically produce a different metaphysical discourse—I am careful not to call it a dispute—but a different metaphysical discourse, which basically is not a dispute. Because the simple view says: I begin with theology, with high metaphysics, and then after I arrive at a certain theological picture I derive practical conclusions from it. It seems to me that here it works the other way around. I begin with the question of how it is right to relate in practice, and then I build a theology that will support that approach. And therefore the metaphysical discourse here is really secondary. It is derivative. The practical discourse is not derivative; the metaphysical discourse is derivative. It’s a kind of back-and-forth. The Hasidim think one should serve God in a Hasidic way, so they build a theology whose focus is on four dimensions. And now, if there are four dimensions and there is none besides Him and so on, then of course one can go be a wagon driver and play on Rosh Hashanah—all the things the Hasidim say, okay? But it goes from practice to theology, and theology provides support for practice. And the same thing with the Lithuanians. Meaning, it begins with the question of how one ought to serve, and the metaphysics is produced for that purpose.
It also reminds me a bit—in the book we had a bit of an argument about this, Hayuta—in the book about feminism, I had some discussion there about Tamar Ross, who spoke about feminist theology that tries to present the Holy One, blessed be He, not in the usual way He is generally presented as male. Never mind—not male in the ordinary biological sense, of course—but still, people speak to Him in the masculine. The relation to Him is as to some sort of male, while Knesset Yisrael, the Divine Presence, is like His partner in some sense. Okay. And she objects to that, arguing that this is some metaphysical description that in effect produces paternalism, some kind of male chauvinism, or things of that sort, and therefore she proposes a different metaphysics. There I think very clearly she is not beginning from metaphysics and going to practice. She began from practice and is trying to produce a discourse or a conceptual system—metaphysical, kabbalistic, whatever you want—in order to support her agenda. Agenda not in the negative sense necessarily, but her feminist agenda.
[Speaker B] In the sense that just as male doesn’t fit, then why not? If after all male isn’t relevant, because there’s nothing biological here, right. So let’s say female and gain something sociological.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s what she argues. She basically argues that those who built the masculine picture also had no basis for it. They too basically built some picture that would support a certain way—say a chauvinistic one, for the sake of discussion, from her point of view. So why am I not allowed to?
[Speaker B] But there’s no metaphysical claim here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So she says: if that’s the metaphysics, then why is it forbidden for me? What’s the problem? I too can do metaphysics, if you want, and generate support for a different path. And in that sense I דווקא agree with her. I agree with her not in the sense that I think, in my view, it’s unnecessary—and that was our argument—but I agree with the basic point. The basic point is that it’s also unnecessary to generate the opposite discourse. It’s all unnecessary. Say what you want, and that’s it. Why are you constructing metaphysics for me in order to back up what you’re doing? Don’t construct metaphysics—do what you want, and that’s it. In any case, you’re only constructing the metaphysics in order to support what you’re doing, so what is this whole move for? Okay? So in that sense, you can make the same claim about the Hasidic–Mitnagdic dispute that I’m describing here. Why do you start talking to me about contractions and all kinds of things? Forget it. You think one should worship God in a Hasidic way, and he thinks one should worship God in a Lithuanian or Mitnagdic way. Fine. So say what you want—why are you constructing metaphysical worlds and discourse and concepts and arguments and all sorts of things of this kind, when really this whole business starts from below, not from above? So if it starts from below, and then you go up above in order to support what’s below—why go up? Stay below, and that’s it, and do what you think is right. So in that sense, there really is something here that is a bit unnecessary. But yes, I do think it gives some kind of light, it sheds some light on the dispute. In that sense, I think it’s not completely worthless to deal with contraction. Because after all, you do see where the point is. Meaning, if we were looking at the Hasidic–Mitnagdic dispute in practice, then there would be lots of details where the Hasidim say this—and again, of course, that’s an umbrella term for many Hasidim and many approaches and so on, but never mind—let’s say the Hasidim say this and the Mitnagdim say that. How do you generate from that—how do you get to the core point? Yes, to the fundamental point from which all the details are really spread out, all the other disputes? In that sense, I think contraction is a good way to do that. Because contraction basically tells us: in practice, the dispute begins with the question whether the Holy One, blessed be He, is present everywhere, or whether the Holy One, blessed be He, is present only in the worlds of holiness and spirituality. Now of course, we already know this isn’t really a dispute about where He is; it’s only a question of where to place the focus. But it helps us sharpen the point from which the whole dispute really grows. And in that sense, I think the discussion about contraction is not unnecessary. The discussion of contraction does give some illumination; it gives some general axis to a collection of many detailed disputes between the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim. In that sense, I think it’s very enlightening, even though it really is a move that, on the logical level, basically says nothing. You go out from below and return to below, so why pass through above at all? Right, so that’s a bit—maybe an example that always comes to mind for me in this context, and it’s related—it’s not just an example, there’s an essential connection. It’s, say, the dispute between Religious Zionism and Haredi Judaism. Okay? So when I try to define the basis of the dispute between Religious Zionism and Haredi Judaism, what’s the point? Or give me some indication such that whoever says it is Religious Zionist, or whoever doesn’t say it is Haredi—or vice versa. I can’t find such a thing. There isn’t one. I don’t know of such a statement. There are some general slogans, some sort of atmosphere, but there’s no point that serves as litmus paper. Meaning, if you say yes, you’re Haredi; if you say no, you’re Religious Zionist, or vice versa—I don’t know such a question, except for the question whether you are Haredi. Yes, maybe that’s the only question there can be. All the other questions—whether you support army enlistment or oppose army enlistment—absolutely not a dividing line. Haredim can also say Hallel on Independence Day on the level of principle. There were Haredim, by the way, who said Hallel on Independence Day, at least in the 1950s. There’s even that well-known rabbis’ proclamation—Rabbi Shlomo Zalman signed it among others, and more—that the state is the beginning of the flowering of our redemption and all kinds of things of that sort, and they were Haredim. It’s not that they weren’t Haredim—they were Haredim. I can’t put my finger on any question that would serve as litmus paper. But the fact is that there are two ways of thinking, or two ways of worshipping God, like that. You can’t say there’s no difference. There is a difference. And then once again the same question comes up, the one we’re wrestling with here regarding contraction: how can it be that there are two conceptions so different in many details, and yet there’s no point from which the whole story begins? I can’t find any essential point that would serve as litmus paper, where the whole story starts. In the Religious Zionist versus Haredi context, I don’t have such a point. In the Hasidic versus Mitnagdic context, I do. It’s the attitude toward contraction. But in the Religious Zionist versus Haredi picture, I don’t have such a point. I don’t know how to formulate the definition of what makes a person Haredi, but each of us—you know—it’s like Wittgenstein: when you see it, you know that’s what it is. But to propose a definition, to conceptualize it, to formulate an explicit definition that tells me, okay, this is Haredi—whoever meets these criteria is Haredi, and whoever meets different criteria is Religious Zionist—I don’t think the attitude toward history does that, but I won’t get into that here; maybe we’ll get to it later. The discussion is lively here in the chat. Maybe we’ll get to that later when we actually talk about the Holy One, blessed be He, and history. There I’ll try to show in more detail why, in my view, the attitude toward history does not provide that litmus paper. In any case, this is the kind of thing that’s like—you know—in Pirsig’s book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which was a cult book when I was in the army. So there he tells about some rhetoric lecturer—he calls him Phaedrus, that’s the name of a Platonic dialogue—who goes out on some motorcycle journey, a kind of philosophical journey full of reflections, with his son Chris, crossing the United States on a motorcycle. And in the course of that he reflects on all kinds of things, and the fundamental question from which the whole story begins is basically that he, as a rhetoric lecturer, had to grade his students’ essays, and he gave them grades. And at a certain point he came to the realization that he had no criteria. He couldn’t provide criteria that would explain what a good essay is and what a bad essay is. And the point he ultimately reaches is that the concept of quality—when you want to assess the quality of an essay or the quality of a work of art or something like that—you probably won’t be able to give a conceptual definition of the matter. But when you stand before it, you know that that’s it. And he said there: the wicked Greeks messed up our minds. They implanted in our culture the feeling that everything must be defined, and if it isn’t defined, it doesn’t exist. And here is the concept of quality—I don’t know how to define it, but it exists. When I stand before it, I recognize it. I can see when an essay is a good essay or when an essay is a bad essay. But very often I can’t explain it, and even if I give some ad hoc explanations, there may be another essay that meets the criteria I’m stating here but it will still be clear to me that it isn’t good. Meaning, those criteria won’t be a litmus-paper definition, a sharp definition that can give me yes or no, quality or not quality, or provide a scale of qualities. And it’s the same thing here too. Haredi versus Religious Zionist—we know when we’re dealing with this and when we’re dealing with that, but it’s hard to give a sharp definition here. If it’s even possible—I don’t know. I can’t give a sharp definition that defines these things for me. In the Hasidic–Mitnagdic context, it seems to me that the litmus paper really is the attitude toward the presence of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. Whether you call that contraction or not, it doesn’t matter. But basically, translated into more practical language, or more into our world, it’s the presence—or the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world. That seems to me to be the basis of the dispute between Hasidism and Mitnagdism. All the other things, it seems to me—at least as far as I understand—branch out from that. Okay, that’s regarding the question of the relationship between practice and metaphysics, or the higher-level pictures. Now I want to begin demonstrating the significance of these things with respect to the issue of the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world. And then we’ll have to get to the questions of providence, free choice, history, the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in history. All of that falls under the title of this series: the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the world. That’s basically the topic of the series. So let’s begin. As I said earlier—I said this in the previous lesson, I think I said it—no, actually not, that was in another series. The starting point of the discussion is that there is basically a certain accepted religious mindset, very widespread, which says that basically nothing here happens without the Holy One, blessed be He. Right, every blade of grass—there is no blade of grass that does not have an angel above it saying to it: grow. Even the growth of grass is not something that happens by itself. The Holy One, blessed be He, does everything here. That’s it—His hand is in everything and everything is in His hand. There is nothing detached from Him, done in some independent way. The Holy One, blessed be He, brings about everything. Therefore, for example, when someone dies, okay? Some tragedy happens. Immediately people ask themselves theological questions: why did the Holy One, blessed be He, do this to us? And then there are explanations, or there are no explanations, or “Aaron was silent,” and we are silent because we cannot understand. But even one who is silent because he cannot understand still has some assumption that there is something to understand. Meaning, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who did this. And now you have to start seeing whether I can understand, whether I can’t understand, what about explanations, whether explanations can exist—but the assumption is that there certainly exists some explanation, that the Holy One, blessed be He, did this and presumably did it for some reason. The question is whether that reason is accessible to me, whether I can understand it or can’t understand it—those are all kinds of disputes. But I’ve never heard anyone challenge that itself. When someone dies, people ask: why did this happen? What do you mean, why did this happen? Because he caught a flesh-eating bacterium, that’s why he died. What other explanations do you need? You ask yourself: why do we deserve punishment? Did he deserve punishment? Did he not deserve punishment? All these questions assume—even one who doesn’t answer them, even one who is silent before them—even he still agrees that there is some act of the Holy One, blessed be He, here; it’s just that we are too small, we can’t understand. But I want to put this shared assumption—held by almost all shades and all the religious people I know—up for discussion. Who said there is even something to understand? Is there even anything to be silent in front of? Okay? This whole discussion assumes there is something there to look for. I’m not sure there is. That is the big question. And in that sense, the discussion I want to conduct now is basically a discussion directed against this conception that the Holy One, blessed be He, is basically responsible for everything that happens here. And I want to claim that no. Now, to claim no—as I said earlier—you can claim it at many levels. You can claim that He is not responsible for everything that happens here, only for part of what happens here. Which part? Ninety-five percent? Twenty percent? Five percent? I don’t know. But you can also say that He isn’t responsible for anything that happens here. So therefore the discussion has to be divided into several layers. One discussion is the question whether something can exist that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not responsible for. First question. Second question: how many such things are there? Meaning, is this most things? All things? No thing is like that? That’s another question. Okay, but first of all we need to put up for discussion whether it is even meaningful at all to talk about something for which the Holy One, blessed be He, is not responsible. Okay, that is the first question I want to ask. Now, first of all, we need to understand where this conception—which in my eyes is really strange—comes from. Where does this conception come from, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is responsible for everything that happens here? It begins with the Hasidic conception. And that’s why I prefaced all of this. It starts there. It starts there because these are basically people who say: there is nothing besides Him. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, is everything; there is nothing that exists outside Him. And even if something exists outside Him, that is only from our perspective, a parable, I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort, some manner of speaking—but not really. Basically, everything that exists, everything that happens, the whole world, is only the Holy One, blessed be He. Nothing outside. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. From within that outlook, it’s very easy to see how we arrive at the conclusion that the Holy One, blessed be He, is basically responsible for everything. And therefore the Hasidim, I think, really excel at this more than the Lithuanians, even though at the level of slogan the Lithuanians too often relate this way, but among the Hasidim it is almost a foundational principle, and it is obvious that everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. It’s not just that everything that happens is the Holy One, blessed be He—everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore, beyond the fact that all entities basically don’t really exist because it’s all the Holy One, blessed be He, now I’m talking about events. Meaning, when I do something, it’s an illusion that I did it; really, the one who did it was the Holy One, blessed be He. I was perhaps the rod of His anger, right? He moved me like a marionette on the board, but basically He does everything. Of course, here once again the question comes back. On the one hand, it sounds reasonable, because there is nothing besides Him, and who can act without Him, and so on. On the other hand, if He does everything, then what place do we have in the matter? What responsibility do we have for what we do? What is the meaning of our choice, our responsibility for what we choose? All these things completely lose their meaning if basically everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. Yes, if we go straight to the Holocaust—which we will get to later—but if we go straight there, we ask: what responsibility did Hitler or the Nazis have for what happened there? And if the Holy One, blessed be He, brought about everything, then they have no responsibility at all. And I’ve already heard a million convoluted formulations explaining how you can have it both ways. The Holy One, blessed be He, did everything, and then of course the questions immediately arise: why did He do it? Presumably because we opposed Zionism, or on the contrary because we supported Zionism, depending on whom you ask, okay? But there are theological explanations. Others who don’t want to be so simplistic say: we do not know, we are too small, His ways are beyond us. Again, everyone assumes that He did the Holocaust. The whole question is only whether it can be understood, and if so, what the understanding is, or what the explanations are. And I want to bring the discussion itself, this very question, up for discussion: who said He did it? In my view, Hitler did it, not the Holy One, blessed be He. Hitler did it, and therefore he is responsible for his actions. Because if the Holy One, blessed be He, did it, then what do you want from Hitler? Then the Holy One, blessed be He, did it. So He used Hitler—so what? He could have used someone else. The entire discussion of a person’s responsibility for his actions really gets emptied of content. I know all the convoluted formulations of “merit is brought about through the meritorious and guilt through the guilty”—it doesn’t hold up; none of it holds water. It’s all empty verbiage; it has no meaning. We’ll get to that later. I’m just laying out the framework of the discussion here so as to understand where I’m coming from and where I’m headed. So this discussion is basically a prominent consequence—perhaps the clearest one there is—of that same dispute I’ve been talking about until now regarding contraction. Right, the question whether there exists a world that operates in some autonomous way, where the Holy One, blessed be He, is not the one doing what happens here. We do, or nature does, what happens here—not the Holy One, blessed be He. And that is essentially an expression of contraction in its plain sense. Contraction in its plain sense means that in the world, in this space, in every kind of space—not only in the spatial sense but also in occurrences—everything that happens here in our atmosphere, what happens happens because of nature, because of human beings; it has nothing to do with the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, is not doing it; we are doing it, or nature is doing it. Okay? That is basically the conception of contraction in its plain sense. And contraction not in its plain sense says that this is all only an illusion, some kind of hiding of the face, but basically the Holy One, blessed be He, is operating behind the scenes. Now, so indeed, the point is this. It doesn’t begin with the Hasidim or with Baal Shem Tov Hasidism. It may begin among pietists, but among earlier pietists, not the Baal Shem Tov Hasidim. Because among the pietists, even among the earlier pietists, you can definitely see views of this kind. Nachmanides at the end of Parashat Bo—not exactly someone who belongs to the pietists, but there is certainly an affinity to the earlier pietist movement, not Baal Shem Tov Hasidism, right? Nachmanides is definitely, say, closer than Maimonides to what is called pietism, Ashkenazi pietism if you like. Nachmanides, at the end of Parashat Bo, yes, says that a person has no share in the Torah of Moses unless he knows that all our happenings are nothing but miracles. Everything that happens to us, everything that occurs in the world, is all miracle; it is all the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He. And Nachmanides is so emphatic about this that he says that one who does not accept this has no share in the Torah of Moses. Meaning, in a certain sense it seems there is here a conception of contraction not in its plain sense, a Hasidic conception. This conception that says that everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. It’s all miracles; there is no nature and no anything else. What he says about human choices we’ll discuss later. But for the moment, at least regarding nature, it seems he says this. Later we’ll see that even regarding nature he doesn’t say this. People misunderstand him. But we’ll see that later. In any case, there are sources for this: the angel standing over every blade of grass and saying “grow,” “A person does not stub his finger below unless it is decreed for him above.” There are aggadic sayings of the Sages like this too. Right? There are sources for this; it’s not something invented out of thin air. There are some sources on which those who hold this view rely. But on the other hand, look for example at Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles. Thirteen—I’ll share with you the Thirteen Principles. The Thirteen Principles, as is well known, appear in the introduction to chapter Chelek. So here it’s called “translated principles,” what we usually call the Thirteen Principles. And the tenth principle—look here—the tenth principle: that He, may He be exalted, knows the actions of human beings and has not neglected them, and not like the opinion of the one who says “The Lord has forsaken the earth,” but rather as it is said, “Great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the children of men,” and it says, “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth,” and it says, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great.” These indicate this tenth principle. Now I want you to pay very, very close attention to what is written here in Maimonides, because usually people immediately throw this Maimonides at me when I say my heresies. Now look at what Maimonides says. Never mind—as I also wrote in the book—I’m not, even if Maimonides were saying the opposite of me, that still wouldn’t be checkmate as far as I’m concerned. But I also don’t think he is saying the opposite of me, because what Maimonides writes here is that He, may He be exalted, knows the actions of human beings. It does not say that He does the actions of human beings. By the way, not only does it not say it here—it doesn’t say it anywhere. In all Thirteen Principles, look at the next principle too, the eleventh principle: that He, may He be exalted, gives good reward to one who fulfills the commandments of the Torah and punishes one who transgresses its prohibitions, and that His great reward is the world to come and His severe punishment is excision. What about in this world? The Talmud already says: there is no reward for a commandment in this world. Meaning, Maimonides says here, even when he is already talking about the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, Maimonides says—not in this world; he talks about reward for good and evil in the world to come. Where does what I call active providence appear? I’m now going to distinguish between passive providence and active providence. Active providence is involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, where He does, where He brings about things in the world—it doesn’t matter right now whether all things, but that He brings about things in the world—that’s active providence. Passive providence is providence in which He only follows what is going on, right, writes it down before Him, keeps a file on each one of us; He follows what everyone does. That is passive providence. He only looks; He is not involved, okay? In Maimonides, very clearly I think, and perhaps even surprisingly if you like, there is no concept of active providence. There isn’t; it doesn’t appear. In Maimonides, the tenth principle is passive providence: that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what is happening here, and afterwards He will also give each person reward according to his actions. Maimonides does not say that the Holy One, blessed be He, brings about everything that happens here. It’s not there anywhere. In all the Thirteen Principles it isn’t written. If this were such a fundamental principle of faith, and if people accept the Thirteen Principles as the binding framework of faith—I don’t share that conception—but those who criticize me always bring me the “Code of Jewish law of faith.” So if there is a most basic foundation for the “Code of Jewish law of faith,” it’s Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles. Active providence does not appear there. It doesn’t appear. Okay, so there’s no small matter here, after all—some belief that seems to people like something so fundamental that if you don’t believe in it you are a heretic. So why did Maimonides forget to include it in the Thirteen Principles? That doesn’t mean, by the way, that Maimonides didn’t believe it. That’s another question. But he certainly did not see it as some principle that defines the framework such that anyone who does not hold this principle is outside the framework. I also think Maimonides didn’t believe it. Maimonides writes elsewhere too—the Maharal brings him in the introduction to Gevurot Hashem—there are three views there regarding providence and miracles; actually he is speaking there about miracles, and he brings Maimonides following a midrash of the Sages. Maimonides says this in his commentary on the Mishnah, in the commentary on Avot I think, I don’t remember anymore. Maimonides says there that miracles are embedded in the nature of reality from the six days of creation. Like the mouth of the donkey and the staff, yes, ten things. Maimonides says: it’s not ten things, it’s all miracles. Maimonides didn’t say this—it’s a midrash of the Sages that Maimonides is only using. So this conception basically says: the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved in the world at all. It’s a rabbinic conception, by the way, it has nothing to do with me. He is not involved in the world. Even when an open miracle happens, even when there is clear involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world—that is not involvement. It is simply the law established in advance. There was such a law that when the people of Israel reached the Sea of Reeds, the sea would split. It was not that the Holy One, blessed be He, split the sea—according to this conception, I’m saying. Meaning, you see in Maimonides that he has some reluctance to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes. It is not for nothing that this was omitted from the Thirteen Principles. Now why this reluctance, where does it come from? It’s understandable. Maimonides probably held—as many philosophers did, though I’m not sure I agree—but many philosophers held that if the Holy One, blessed be He, needs to intervene in the world, there are two problems with that. One problem is that it means, basically, that He is not all-powerful; it is a deficiency in His power. After all, You established the laws of nature. What, You can’t establish the laws of nature so that they manage things exactly as You want? You have to intervene at certain points so that Your will will be realized? You established the laws of nature to run the world. If You need to intervene, that means You are not all-powerful. It means You didn’t succeed in making the laws run things all the way through as You wanted. There are places where You have to intervene. Maybe that bothered Maimonides and the Sages. And the second thing is that there is this philosophical conception that says that if the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes, that means something in Him changes. He makes decisions, He is affected, right? Affected in the passive sense. He is affected by what happened in the world and reacts. And then that means a change occurred in the Holy One, blessed be He, and there is some—I don’t know—some sort of axiom that I never understood why it is correct, that there cannot be changes in the Holy One, blessed be He. And these difficulties probably caused the Sages—and following them Maimonides—to adopt the conception that even open miracles are not involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, but are embedded in nature. The Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the work of creation that when the people of Israel—yes, this is a midrash—that if the people of Israel reach the Sea of Reeds, you will split before the people of Israel. Meaning, this is a condition built into creation from its creation. Meaning, from the six days of creation. It is not involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. So that means—again, this sounds strange to me, this whole matter. I actually tend to think it really is involvement. Why assume He did this conditionally from the six days of creation? Where would one even invent such a thing from? I also don’t see any reason to say it, because it isn’t a deficiency. We’ll discuss that further on. It isn’t any diminution of His omnipotence that He needs miracles, and that there can be changes in the Holy One, blessed be He—I don’t see any problem; why shouldn’t there be changes? Insofar as those are changes in Him. So I don’t see the motivation to generate this strange theory, and therefore I don’t—on the contrary, I think open miracles probably were involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in real time. He decided that different things needed to happen. But I do understand from here an ancient proof or basis for this conception that says the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved. Explicit in Maimonides, explicit in other medieval authorities (Rishonim), explicit in rabbinic midrashim: the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved even in open miracles. I’m not talking about every prosaic event that happens to us in life. The splitting of the Sea of Reeds was not done by the Holy One, blessed be He; rather there are laws of nature. The law of gravity, when it was established in advance, was established—yes—but that when the people of Israel reach the Sea of Reeds, there the law of gravity is canceled. Okay? That’s how the law of gravity was set. And when we measure the law of gravity, we are simply measuring it in its normal operation. But in reality the law of gravity is a very non-continuous kind of law, a law that says that in certain cases gravity is canceled, but in the ordinary course there is ordinary gravity. So it’s just that the law is a different law, a different natural law, but there is no divine involvement. This means that to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved in the world is definitely something that has solid foundations, both in the Sages and in the medieval authorities (Rishonim). And as I’ve said more than once, I don’t need those foundations. If I thought this way, I would say it even without them. I’m only saying that people feel uncomfortable when I say such things against the Sages and against the medieval authorities, so here I’m showing that it’s not against all rabbinic and medieval conceptions. There are conceptions there that quite clearly deny involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. Now basically what this says is that this myth—that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, and everything that happens here, though it seems to us that we do it or that the laws of nature do it, is an illusion—basically everything is done by the Holy One, blessed be He—that myth, which I don’t know how much basis it has at all—even if it did have a basis I wouldn’t agree to it—I don’t even know if it has a basis. It’s clear that there are other conceptions too. This is not heresy in the sense of going against a consensus; there is no consensus on this matter. There are quite a few medieval authorities and Sages who do not hold that way. That’s point number one—to reassure those who, in order to formulate a worldview, must anchor it in the Sages and the medieval authorities. Now I want to divide the discussion from here on into two sub-discussions. The first discussion is the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in human actions, in actions that human beings do. And the second discussion is the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in natural processes, in nature. Okay? In both these planes we need to discuss the matter. And we will see that there are conceptions that say that in nature the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene—sorry—that in nature the Holy One, blessed be He, governs it, but in human actions He is not involved. In chosen actions, I mean. There are conceptions that say that the Holy One, blessed be He, as I said earlier, is involved neither here nor there—the Maimonides and rabbinic texts I mentioned earlier. And there are conceptions—the Hasidic conceptions—that say that the Holy One, blessed be He, does everything. Including our actions, including events produced by the laws of nature—basically everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. So therefore I want to divide the discussion. I’ll begin first of all with the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in human actions. So here of course we need to divide things. The Sages tell us: everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven. What does that mean? It means that what happens to us is in the hands of Heaven, because natural things, natural occurrences. But fear of Heaven is not. What does “fear of Heaven is not” mean? Things that relate to fear of Heaven are basically actions that a person does which have value significance. Fear of Heaven is not only commandments; of course it is also morality, it is also value-laden things, okay? Things that have spiritual and moral significance, all right? That is called fear of Heaven. And the Sages tell us that everything is in the hands of Heaven—the Holy One, blessed be He, does everything, Rabbi Hanina, yes, we’ll yet get to Rabbi Hanina’s view. The Holy One, blessed be He, does everything, but not our actions that relate to fear of Heaven. Not those. Okay? So why? What is the difference? This is an expression of the conception I mentioned earlier: that in nature the Holy One, blessed be He, is fully involved. Everything that happens in nature is basically the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He. But human chosen actions—that’s not so. That is in our hands, not in the hands of Heaven. So here, for example, we have a model of one conception that distinguishes between these two things. And why? What is the idea here? Here we enter a double question. We also have to divide the question of the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in a person’s actions or in a person’s free decisions into two sub-discussions. After that we’ll get to His involvement in nature. One discussion is whether He knows what I will do—the question of foreknowledge and free choice. The second discussion is whether He does what I do. Whether the truth is that He does what I do and not I. Actually, the order of the discussions should have been reversed. To say that He does it and not I—that is one question. If He does it and not I, then obviously He also knows, so the question of knowledge doesn’t arise. If He does not do it, rather I do it, then one can ask the second-order question. I do it, but it could be that He knows in advance what I will do. It’s not that He causes it; He only knows. Passive providence. Notice that. But even that I want to question. And I claim—or at least I tend to think—that in the context of human choice there is not even passive providence, not only no active providence. This brings us to the question of knowledge and choice, and Maimonides basically—of course here too the starting point is Maimonides. Maimonides this time is in the Laws of Repentance, yes, the famous Maimonides. Okay. So Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance, chapter 5—sorry—writes as follows: “Permission is granted to every person. If he wishes to incline himself to the good path and be righteous, the permission is in his hand; and if he wishes to incline himself to the bad path and be wicked, the permission is in his hand. This is what is written in the Torah: ‘Behold, man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’ That is to say: this species, man, is unique in the world, and there is no second species like it in this matter, that he himself, of his own mind and thought, knows good and evil.” A, he knows how to distinguish between good and evil; and B, he does whatever he desires, and there is no one who restrains him from doing good or evil. “And since this is so, lest he stretch out his hand”—and then he continues, halakhah 2: “Let not this matter pass through your mind which the fools of the nations of the world and the majority of the undeveloped among Israel say: that the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees upon a person from the beginning of his creation that he will be righteous or wicked.” Yes, our choice is given to us to be righteous or wicked; a person inclines himself by his own knowledge and can be either righteous or wicked. “And this matter is a great principle, and it is the pillar of Torah and commandment, as it is said: ‘See, I have set before you today life,’ and it is written: ‘See, I set before you today’—meaning that the permission is in your hands, and whatever a person wishes to do from among human actions, he does, whether good or bad.” Yes, “for the Holy One, blessed be He, does not compel human beings and does not decree upon them to do good or evil; rather everything is given over to them.” Halakhah 4: “If God were to decree upon a person to be righteous or wicked, or if there were some thing that drew a person, by the essence of his nature, toward one of the paths or one of the branches of knowledge”—yes, toward one opinion or one deed—“as the foolish astrologers invent from their hearts”—those who believe in astrology, yes, astrology is basically a conception that says a person’s fate is decreed in advance, or that what he will think and what he will do is decreed in advance—“then what place would there be for the entire Torah? And by what law and by what justice would the wicked be punished or the righteous be rewarded? Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” “And do not wonder and say”—notice this comment here—“how can a person do whatever he desires and his actions be given over to him? Can anything happen in the world without the permission of its Creator and without His will? And Scripture says: ‘Whatever the Lord desired, He did in heaven and on earth.’” This is the focal point, this is the important question before the question of knowledge and free choice. This is the Hasidim. Yes, Maimonides says: how can I say such a thing, that a person’s actions are given over to him? After all, everything done in the world is given over to the Holy One, blessed be He, and He does as He desires. Whatever He wants, He does; nobody can do anything against God’s will. So how can one say that a person has the freedom to do good or evil? Clearly, apparently, everything that happens here is what the Holy One, blessed be He, does. So he says: know that everything is done according to His will, even though our actions are given over to us. Meaning: He does according to His will, and our actions are given over to us. What—I didn’t understand that. Does it contradict or doesn’t it contradict? How so? Just as the Creator desired that fire and wind rise upward and water and earth—yes, the ground, the soil, the dust—go downward, and the sphere revolve in a circle, and likewise the rest of the creatures of the world follow the custom He desired for them, so too He desired that man’s freedom be in his hand and that all his actions be given over to him, and that there be neither anyone compelling him nor anyone drawing him, but that he, of his own accord and with the understanding that God gave him, and with the understanding that God gave him, do whatever a human being can do. What is he saying here? This is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. The Holy One, blessed be He, does everything He desires to do. What does He desire? He desires that we have freedom to do both good and evil. That is what He desires. So what does that mean? It basically means that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not do what human beings choose to do; we do it. It’s just that the fact that we do it and not He—that itself is the will of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is what He wants. If He did not want that, it would not happen. If He had not given us freedom, there would be no freedom. It’s not that we have some power to seize freedom for ourselves. We received freedom from the Holy One, blessed be He, because that is what He wanted. But now, after He wanted that, you cannot say that what we do is basically what the Holy One, blessed be He, did. He didn’t do it; we do it, and not He. And here he is addressing the question of active providence. Passive providence is in the next halakhah, halakhah 5. Here he is speaking about active providence. There is no such thing as active providence in the context of human chosen actions. Human chosen actions are done by human beings, not by the Holy One, blessed be He. The one who carried out the Holocaust was Hitler, not the Holy One, blessed be He. That is what Maimonides says here. And now he says: therefore—that is the conclusion—therefore a person is judged according to his deeds. If he did good, good is done to him; if he did evil, evil is done to him. Why? Because if the Holy One, blessed be He, did everything, in what sense could the person be judged? Now, this is such a trivial statement that I feel embarrassed that I even have to repeat it and explain it. But there are so many people repeating this mantra—yes, yes, everything is in His hands, but basically He also does everything, and despite that we have responsibility for our actions even though He does everything and nothing can be done unless He decides it. They say a thing and its opposite in the same sentence, and they say it with a furrowed brow, as though there were something terribly profound here that we cannot quite understand, but actually both things are true. It’s all nonsense. It’s simply a logical contradiction. There is no such thing. The sentence simply says nothing. And that is what Maimonides says here. I didn’t need Maimonides, and I didn’t need to speak about this even on my own either—it’s just embarrassing to talk about it. But because so many people—and among them very intelligent people—keep repeating this point, that basically it is all Him, and it is all an illusion, and what we think is “my power and the might of my hand,” and that is not true at all, it’s just an illusion—but not us, we do nothing. Nothing depends on us; everything depends on Him. Yes, don’t worry, everything will be fine, the Holy One, blessed be He, does everything—all the stickers you see on cars. It’s all the same thing. Maimonides says: what are you talking about? It’s all nonsense. That’s regarding active providence: that one cannot possibly say that the Holy One, blessed be He, does what a person chooses to do. A person could have chosen the opposite, and it depends on the person’s choice—so how can it be that what happens here is what the Holy One, blessed be He, does? What, the Holy One, blessed be He, always chooses whatever I choose? Even when I choose evil, does the Holy One, blessed be He, choose that the Sabbath should be desecrated here? If He chooses that the Sabbath should be desecrated here, then let Him punish Himself—what does He want from me? It’s so simple that I can’t understand why we need to talk about it at all. Now in halakhah 5 he says: perhaps you will say—and this is the famous question—“But perhaps you will say: doesn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, know everything that will be? And before it happens, did He know that this person would be righteous or wicked, or did He not know? If He knew that he would be righteous, then it is impossible that he not be righteous. And if you say that He knew he would be righteous, and yet it is possible he would be wicked, then He did not know the matter clearly.” Yes, basically Maimonides is saying: after all, the Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent. So in halakhah 4 we already denied active providence. What a person chooses, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not do; the person does it. But now we ask about passive providence. In passive providence, the question is whether the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what I will do. He does not do it—I do it—but now the question is only about the information, not about who does it; rather about whether the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what will happen. We have already given up on the idea that He does it. I do it. But He is supposed to know everything in advance. Maimonides says: but this too cannot be. In the context of human actions, not only is active providence out of the question, but passive providence is also out of the question. Why? Because if the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what will be, then either I cannot do otherwise. Suppose He knows in advance that I will be righteous—then I can no longer choose to be wicked. Because if you say I can choose to be wicked, then it follows that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not know correctly what He knew about the future. So one way or the other: either determinism, or the Holy One, blessed be He, is not all-knowing, or does not know correctly, knows something incorrect. Okay? Again, a dilemma argument. Yes, decide: either He knows in advance and it is impossible to deviate from it, or He knows in advance and it is possible to deviate from it. If it is impossible to deviate from it—determinism. If it is possible to deviate from it, then it means what He knew was not correct. How can it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know what is correct? He is all-powerful; He knows everything that will be. All right? So there is some problem here. And here, note—this is the important point—it concerns passive providence, not active providence. It concerns the question whether the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. And about this Maimonides says: “Know that the answer to this question is longer than the measure of the earth and broader than the sea, and many great principles and lofty mountains depend on it,” and so on, “and you must know and understand in this matter what I say.” We’ll continue next time. I just want to note—I just want to put my finger here on the move of the discussion. We are dividing the discussion of the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world into two major sub-discussions: the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in human chosen actions, and the involvement in the natural conduct of the world. Now I began the discussion with human actions. I also divide that discussion into two parts: active providence over what human beings choose to do, and passive providence over what human beings choose to do. Active providence is out of the question, as Maimonides rejects in halakhah 4. We don’t need Maimonides; it’s simply an oxymoron. There is no such thing. Obviously the Holy One, blessed be He, does not do what human beings choose to do. The question is whether the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. Now note carefully: this is passive providence in a somewhat different sense from what I said earlier. After we do it, of course He knows, and presumably He watches and follows what we do in order to give us reward, as Maimonides wrote there. Here Maimonides asks whether He knows it in advance, not whether He knows it after it has been done. Can He know it in advance? And here this is a big question; opinions are divided on it, and we will discuss that. I already said earlier—I claimed that He does not know in advance, the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, even passive providence cannot be in advance over chosen actions. It can be afterward. After I have acted, the Holy One, blessed be He, of course knows what I did. But He cannot know in advance what I will do. That is what I claim, but we’ll get into that next time. Okay, if there are comments or questions.