Faith and Its Meaning – Lesson 24

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely. Absolutely. He is a good person, he is a person who did a good deed, a moral deed; he is one of the sages of the nations of the world, but not one of their pious ones. Meaning, this is not a commandment. Again, if you believe in God and you didn’t think you were doing it because of the commandment, it would still be a commandment. That might depend on the question of whether commandments require intention or not, but with charity the question is whether that exists or doesn’t exist; that’s not important right now. But all of this is only if, in context, you are in fact a person who is obligated in the commandments. You can say that you gave charity even if you didn’t think about it; it’s pretty clear that you did it also because it’s a commandment. Okay? But someone who doesn’t believe in God, or isn’t bound by His command, or whatever the case may be—then he’s a good person, he gave charity, he’s a good person, he helps others, everything is excellent, he deserves every bit of appreciation, but there is no commanded act here. Okay? You have to distinguish between the question of whether you are a good person and the question of whether you performed a commandment. Yes, in everyday speech, when people say “you did a mitzvah,” they mean you did a good deed, right? You were a moral person. I’m talking about a commanded act in the formal sense: when have you discharged your obligation of a positive commandment? If earlier you said that formula “for the sake of unification,” did you say it in vain before giving the charity? You can say “for the sake of unification” before giving charity, and your “for the sake of unification” was in vain. Not that there’s some prohibition like that; I’m just saying. Or if you recite a blessing, for example. Someone who recites a blessing—a blessing over commandments, right? There is a Rashba on why we don’t recite a blessing over giving charity, but take a commandment over which we do recite a blessing, fine? “To dwell in the sukkah.” Now he sat in the sukkah because it’s a nice bit of folklore; he’s a disciple of Ahad Ha’am. Fine? He recited “to dwell in the sukkah” with deep devotion and sat in the sukkah. His blessing is of course in vain. Fine? Again, even saying that his blessing is in vain—I don’t know what that means, because he’s not even in the game at all—but that’s another discussion. Anyway, for our purposes, what I want to say is that when I talk about religious obligation, or about God in the religious sense and not only the philosophical sense, I’m talking about God as the giver of commandments and the one who obligates us in commandments. That is the meaning of religious God. That is the definition I am talking about. It’s important to put that stone on the board—that’s what I’m talking about. And therefore, when I ask how I move from a philosophical God to a religious God, what I’m really asking is: how do I move from belief in God in the philosophical sense—that there is some kind of transcendent being—to commitment to His commandments? More concretely, that is what I mean, and that is where I want to get to. Okay. Now the question of how I get there—there is a great deal to say about that, but I’ll do it briefly here. So in this context, as I said earlier, in order to arrive at religious commitment I first of all need to become convinced—after I’ve reached the conclusion that there is a God—I need to become convinced that God revealed Himself, that in that revelation commandments were given, and that those commandments are binding. Right? That is the chain I need to establish here in order to create religious commitment, in order to arrive at religious commitment. Now why is revelation necessary? Maybe it isn’t? Why am I putting that into the chain as well? Someone could come along and say: God wants me to keep commandments; I know that even without revelation. I don’t know—placing the Name on fear, intuitions, I don’t know exactly what. Like Abraham our forefather, whose two kidneys became like two rabbis for him. Okay? That’s what Hazal say in the midrash. Fine? So I got there too. Maimonides says no—only if the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded Moses at Sinai. That is a condition. Why is that a condition? Why isn’t it enough that I think this is what God wants? That’s a good question. I don’t really know.

There is the rabbi of Kibbutz Alumim, Rabbi Amit Kula—I think he still is, I’m not actually sure, but until a few years ago at least he was—Rabbi Amit Kula. He once wrote a book called Was There Being or Was There Not. “Was There Being or Was There Not” meaning: within Jewish faith, is acceptance of factual claims required? Does Jewish faith require me to accept some factual claim? And in the book, he devotes the whole book to reaching his conclusion and arguing that no, it does not. You can be a fully committed Jew, kosher to the highest standard, without believing any fact that a non-Jew doesn’t believe. Okay? Now as far as I’m concerned—I wrote to him, I also wrote a review of the book at his students’ request, and afterward I corresponded with him about the matter. I told him that there are two facts that it seems to me he won’t be able to evade, or at least in my opinion can’t be evaded. One fact is the existence of God. Meaning, if you do all the commandments like Ahad Ha’am, then in my eyes you are not a proper Jew; you are a complete atheist. You don’t count for a minyan and I have nothing to do with you—you’re a potted plant in the synagogue as far as I’m concerned. The existence of God. And the second fact is the giving of the Torah. Meaning: a revelation that conveys the commandments to us. He answered me on the second question—I don’t remember what happened with the first one—but on the second question he told me that he thinks you don’t need it. I said to him: on what basis would a person reach the conclusion that he is obligated in these commandments? So he says: on the basis of—I don’t know what—understanding, intuition, or call it a trickling revelation. Meaning, all kinds of prophets can introduce one commandment or another, and the person feels that there really is some word of God here, something that obligates him. So first of all, according to that he still believes in revelation, just a trickling revelation and not one revelation that gave us all the information at once. Because I think that without revelation at all, I don’t see how a person reaches the conclusion that he has to keep commandments, and I also don’t see how he reaches the conclusion that he is obligated in them—that this is a religious command. And those are conditions; meaning without that, what he does is not a commandment. You might perhaps reach the intuitive conclusion that this is the proper way to act, I don’t know. Someone might think redeeming a firstborn donkey is simply a matter of reason. Meaning, this is what should be done even if there were no commandment and no revelation and no Torah and nothing. I don’t know—I’m as far from that as east is from west—but someone might come and say that. Still I ask: how do you know that one is obligated in it? Meaning, how do you know that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands it?

Now here it gets trickier, because for example with morality—with morality I don’t think revelation is required, and I still think that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to be moral. Therefore I don’t reject out of hand the possibility that someone might say: look, intuitively it seems to me that I should redeem a firstborn donkey, and I also intuitively think that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects me to do it, and that it obligates me even though it isn’t written anywhere—no revelation, nothing. If such a thing exists, maybe he’s right. I just don’t see how such a thing could exist. If Amit Kula came to me today and said: look, redeeming a firstborn donkey suddenly became binding on me—I have no doubt that he took it from the Torah. Let him not tell me that it was revealed to him in some intuition, or that some prophet told him and he became convinced that this prophet—suddenly, yes—that the Holy One, blessed be He, is speaking through his mouth. That doesn’t sound plausible to me. But again, here it really is a question of plausibility, not of the concept itself. If someone came and said: for me it’s like morality; it is clear to me that God expects this from me and that it obligates me—I have nothing to say to him except that I don’t believe him, but I have nothing to say to him. Meaning, that is a possible approach. Yes, I’ll remind you that Saadia Gaon, in the introduction to his Emunot Ve-De’ot, says that in principle one can arrive at all the commandments through reason. In principle, the giving of the Torah is unnecessary. So the question is: why was it still needed? You can give two answers to that. Either for those who can’t manage to reach it on their own—I don’t know what he answers, I don’t remember; these are answers I’m suggesting—or in order to explain that this also has religious value, because otherwise you would do it because you think that’s right, but that wouldn’t turn it into a commandment, because it is a necessity of reason in Maimonides’ view, which we saw. In order to turn it into a commandment, you need a command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and I don’t see how you get to that without revelation. With morality, there really is no command. Morality is not an obligation; morality is an expectation of the Holy One, blessed be He, and someone who doesn’t do it has not met His expectations, but you can’t say that we have a command concerning morality; there is no command concerning morality. Even in a place where the Torah brings a command that sounds like a moral command, such as “And you shall do what is right and good,” the enumerators of the commandments do not count it, because they understand that such a thing cannot be a command. Fine, that’s already a topic for another lecture; I won’t get into here why. In the background, in order to get to commandments, there has to be revelation. But revelation by itself is also not enough. The revelation has to give me commandments. Why? Because if no commandments come out of the revelation, then in what sense do I remain religious in the Jewish sense of the matter, not in the Christian sense? In the Christian sense, sure. In the Christian sense, you really do remain religious, because you worship the Holy One, blessed be He, you experience Him, you stand before Him, you have religious experiences, and so on. But in the sense of obligation to commandments as binding command, and so on—without revelation and content of commandments given in that revelation, I don’t see how one produces that.

So basically what we need to do now is show how we understand that there was revelation, and how the content of the revelation reached us. So first of all regarding revelation itself. Regarding revelation itself, I want first to make an a priori claim. And to introduce why it’s important, I’ll bring the argument of the celestial teapot, which I think I’ve already mentioned in the past as well. Bertrand Russell, yes—one of the well-known atheists of the twentieth century, a philosopher and famous mathematician—said that if someone comes to him and says that God revealed Himself to him and told him that one must eat the sacred bread, then he’ll say to him: Tinker Bell revealed herself to me and flapped her wings three times and told me to say “abracadabra” every evening. In short, don’t bother me with nonsense. What does he mean? He says it’s an illustration. If someone comes to me and says: look, there is a little teapot orbiting around Jupiter—I ask him, wait a second, I don’t see it. Of course not, because it’s small; you can’t see it. So should I now—fine, so-and-so told me this—am I now in a state of doubt, fifty-fifty, whether there is such a teapot or not? I have no way of knowing there isn’t one, and this fellow says there is. So Bertrand Russell says: what are you talking about? It’s clear to me there isn’t one. So he says there is. What, he’s a liar? Why, does he have a presumption of reliability? I have no indication, no reason to think there is one, there’s no prior basis, yes, no monetary footing here—there is no reason at all to think there is one, and therefore there isn’t. Not every time I don’t know is it fifty-fifty. Not every time I don’t know is there really a doubt. You need a basis. Even to create doubt you need a basis. If the person had flown to Jupiter and returned and told me, “I saw a little teapot there,” then maybe I would accept it, or at least it would create doubt in me. Because it would still sound strange to me—how did a teapot get there? But listen, he says he saw it. Fine? Then doubt is created in me. But the man is here on Earth; he can know about it exactly as much as I can know about it. How does he know there’s a teapot there? I have no reason to assume the fellow isn’t hallucinating. And therefore, even if he said it and I can’t determine with certainty that he’s a liar—or even not with certainty—he has a presumption of reliability, it’s obvious that I’m not even in doubt. There is no teapot there; don’t bother me with nonsense. Yes, this is the famous Rabbi Kook in Ein Ayah on Shabbat page 30, where they come to Rabbi and say to him, “Your mother is my wife and you are my son.” Meaning, you’re a mamzer; I slept with your mother and you are my mamzer. So Rabbi says to him, “Would you like to drink a cup of wine?” He drank and burst. In short: don’t bother me with nonsense. What does that mean? One witness comes to you and tells you that you are a mamzer, that he slept with your mother. Now there are cases like that in life; it’s not some impossible case like a flying camel. There are such things. People do commit adultery sometimes; there are mamzerim in the world. So how can he just wave him off like that and not even be in a state of doubt? Even though a doubtful mamzer, by strict law, is not a mamzer, still there are rules about lineage and rabbinically one has to be concerned. Why isn’t he concerned? Because he has no reason that awakens this doubt in him. In order to doubt, you need a reason.

Now Bertrand Russell says that if that’s the case, then when someone comes and reports a revelation to me, or a miracle, or something else, it’s not that I say, “Well, maybe yes, maybe no, I don’t know, I’m in doubt.” No, no—it’s like the celestial teapot. Nonsense. It’s like Tinker Bell. That’s the teapot argument. Now what I want to claim is that here all the work we’ve done until now becomes important. Why? Very often people say: fine, you proved to me that there is a God at the philosophical level. How does that relate to putting on tefillin? So He created the world—so what? Fine? You still have to move to revelation, commandments, obligation to commandments—the whole chain, right? So how is it relevant? What relevance is there to the philosophical discussion? Yes, most people today, if you ask them, will tell you the philosophical discussion isn’t relevant to the issue. Even if you convince me, it isn’t relevant because… you’re talking to me about a religious God; what do I care about a philosophical God? It’s not relevant. I want to claim that although even if I prove that there is a philosophical God, that still doesn’t mean you have to put on tefillin, it does move me one step in that direction. There’s still a gap, but it’s not completely irrelevant. And why? Because it removes the celestial teapot claim. What do I mean? Bertrand Russell says: look, I tell you that God revealed Himself to me at Sinai and told me to put on tefillin every morning, and to me Gerber tea revealed itself. Don’t bother me with nonsense. Wait a second—you agree there is a God, right? I have a philosophical proof for that; let’s say I convinced him. You agree that there is a God in the philosophical sense. All I’m telling you now is that that God revealed Himself to me and said I have to put on tefillin. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not true, but you can’t dismiss it out of hand. Meaning, if you say I have no indication at all that God exists, and now you invent for me some entity I have no reason to assume exists and then tell me it said something—that’s a celestial teapot. But if I say no, we got through the philosophical stage; I reached the conclusion that there is a God, I already proved it, I already know that—then now the question is: fine, did He say it or not say it, is it reliable or not reliable? We can discuss that, but now it is already a doubt. You can no longer reject it out of hand and say there isn’t even any doubt here.

There’s an analogy I always remember when I talk about this. Imagine that thirty years ago someone came to you and said: look, the United States has a Black president; his name is Barack Obama and he passed Obamacare, Obama’s health-care reform. What I would have done if someone had come and told me that in 1995 is of course immediately send him for evaluation. Evaluation—possibly hospitalization too, immediately, even without the evaluation. Fine? He’s simply bringing me teapots. I mean, a Black president of the United States? Before you talk to me about a Black president, first let there be equality over there. You’re talking to me about a president? That was the situation in ’95. That was the situation a year before Obama was elected too, not just in ’95. I don’t even remember what year he was elected. But after Obama was elected and I already have the information—the United States has a Black president—now someone comes and tells me, you know, his name is Barack Obama and he passed health-care reform. Fine, maybe yes maybe no, I don’t know, but there is certainly at least a doubt here, right? Meaning, if someone had come to me in ’95, I would have said to him: that’s a celestial teapot, don’t bother me with nonsense, run off and drink a cup of wine and disappear from here. Okay? But if he comes to me afterward, I already know there is a Black president in the United States. So his name is Barack Obama—he’s got some name, right? And that’s his name, and he passed health-care reform. Fine, presidents pass laws from time to time. So maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not, but I can’t dismiss you out of hand. The same thing here. If I’ve reached the conclusion that there exists a transcendent entity, yes—created the world, I don’t know, however each person got there—and now someone comes and says: look, I met this transcendent entity and it told me you have to put on tefillin. Maybe yes, maybe no, but you can no longer reject it out of hand. Right? Meaning, there is—and this is very important—a connection between the stages of the proof for the existence of a philosophical God and the religious conclusion. A connection does not mean that I’ve finished the work. It does not mean that the moment I’ve proved there is a God, you immediately have to put on tefillin. That is the mistake many people make from the opposite direction. People think that if I proved there is a God then they have to be religious. No. I can prove there is a God and remain a deist, yes—a believer in God in the philosophical sense—and not accept that there are commandments, or that they obligate me, or things like that. But it does take a step in that direction. In that sense I think the proofs for the existence of God are very important, and they are underrated. And they are underrated because people say, come on, it’s not relevant to the religious discussion; what do I care now about this philosophical question? No, it’s very important. Because if I’ve reached the conclusion that there is a God, then when testimony reaches me that He revealed Himself and said such-and-such, I can no longer reject it out of hand. That doesn’t mean I’ll accept it; we have to discuss yes or no—but I no longer reject it out of hand. And many times I think most people who relate to such testimony, to the tradition, treat it with contempt as nonsense.

For example, when you talk about—yes, the witness argument, I’ll get to that later. The argument that says that the tradition was passed down from generation to generation and right on, and if we are told that one must put on tefillin, then apparently God said one must put on tefillin. Okay, that is basically the claim. People say: what do you mean? Maybe this was a plot by the priests, who wanted to sell hides from pure animals because that’s what they raised, and therefore they promoted the commandment of tefillin. Fine? All kinds of hypotheses—not far, not far at all, from all the nonsense of scholars in these directions. I don’t have much confidence in their speculations. Here and there there are also things of value, but there is so much speculation there that the hairs stand on end. And articles are written there at every step and turn. In any case—now look: if I have no reason at all to assume there is a God and that He revealed Himself and gave commandments, then any hypothesis whatever I’ll be willing to accept, right? So if it’s a plot by the priests who wanted to promote the sale of animal hides—there, I have an excellent explanation for why everyone thinks you have to put on tefillin, so I’ll accept that too. Even though it’s totally speculative; you have no basis for it. Fine, but it’s a reasonable explanation and I have no other explanation. Because God is not part of the picture—there is no such thing. So what’s left? It has to be a plot either by the priests or by the Levites; what else could it be. Fine, right? That is the point of view of scholars. That’s why they publish an article on every speculative bit of nonsense that pops into their fevered minds every morning. That’s what happens in those fields. Not everyone is like that, but many are. Okay, why? Because at the base it is obvious to them that this is nonsense. Meaning, God is not an option, that is obvious—or the giving of the Torah is not an option. So then how did it happen? There must be some cultural, historical explanation for how this thing came about. Therefore every speculation is a good candidate; what else could it be. But if I reach the conclusion that there is a God, and now you tell me: look, a tradition came to me saying I have to put on tefillin. Now someone comes and says to me: yes, but that could also be a priestly speculation, a priestly plot. Okay, that could be—but I have such a tradition, and God does exist. It’s not that He doesn’t exist. So now, you understand, I certainly won’t automatically adopt the speculation, and I’m not even sure I’ll treat it as equal to the possibility of the tradition. At most it will be a doubt and not an explanation. Such an article would not be accepted in my journal. Fine? This is a very important point, because you can see the interface between theological and metaphysical assumptions and academic research, which supposedly ought to be free of such assumptions. Okay? In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is that if we’ve reached the conclusion that there is a God in the philosophical sense, that is a very significant conclusion for the theological discussion too, for the theistic discussion as well. It doesn’t do the whole job, but it is a necessary condition, and it is a condition that moves us in that direction. We are no longer—it is no longer mere speculation that one can just toss aside, yes? Not every speculation can now inherit the place of the traditional thesis, as is common in discussions today. And that is what very many people do not understand. All kinds of people offer one speculation, another speculation; it has a little basis, it has no basis at all—it doesn’t matter. Any such thing can make it onto the royal table, the scholars’ table. Why? Because it is clear that there is no other alternative; there has to be some historical explanation. If I have another explanation, then I’m willing to accept an alternative—I’m not dogmatic—but show me some reasonable basis so that I’m willing to take it seriously. Without any basis, why should I treat it seriously at all? That’s why this is so important.

There is another connection that carries me from the philosophical God onward to the next links in the chain. I now ask myself an a priori question: if God created the world, then I assume—I don’t ask myself but rather assume—that He probably did it for some reason. He didn’t do it for no reason at all. Because even people, or any other creature, don’t do things for no reason. In fact, there is even a point in the laws of muktzeh where the Ran, and after him several later authorities, infer from the Talmud in the chapter “All Sacred Writings,” as stated in the Talmud, that even a utensil whose primary use is permitted may not be moved for absolutely no purpose. You may move it from sun to shade, something that is forbidden with a utensil whose primary use is prohibited, but for absolutely no purpose, it is forbidden. So the Arukh HaShulchan asks: what does “for absolutely no purpose” mean? Then why is he doing it? He’s moving it for some reason. What does “for absolutely no purpose” mean? A person does not do acts for absolutely no purpose unless he is merely tinkering, doing it absentmindedly. But if that’s the case then it really isn’t forbidden, because unintended action is permitted. So where is there a prohibition? Something you do for absolutely no purpose, and it isn’t inadvertent—what kind of situation is that? So the standard explanation is that it means not for a Sabbath purpose. He does it for some purpose, but for another purpose, not for a Sabbath purpose. Fine. I’m only bringing this as an example of the fact that when a person does something—or anyone else does something—the simple assumption is that he does it for some reason, for some purpose. He doesn’t just do it. And I claim that in the absence of other information—true, I can’t say anything positive about God out of information I have about Him—but a reasonable assumption, in my view much more reasonable than its opposite, is that if He created the world then He probably created it for some purpose. He didn’t do it for no reason.

Now we can discuss what that purpose is. So I say: let’s try to think, for the time being, a priori. A priori, there could be another candidate for that purpose, and that is morality. Maybe He created us in order that we keep the dictates of morality. What is the advantage of that alternative? Here you don’t need revelation. We see that people who do not believe—and certainly not in revelation—are still obligated to morality. They understand what is moral and what is not moral, and they also act that way. Which means that here you won’t be able to prove to me that there was revelation from the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a purpose in creation. Because where am I heading? I’m heading toward the claim that if He has a purpose, then He has to convey it to me in some way; He has to tell me what He wants. But no—if the purpose is morality, then He doesn’t have to, because I understand on my own what is incumbent on me even without revelation. So who says revelation is required? True, you can still say: yes, I have a tradition telling me—maybe it wasn’t required, but it happened; the tradition says so. And notice: this is a bit Kantian again. Because if I don’t expect there to be revelation, and now someone comes and says there was revelation, then with one reservation or another I’ll be willing to reject it. But if I have a good a priori argument that there should be revelation, and I would expect there to be revelation even if no tradition had reached me about that revelation having happened—you understand that this strengthens it greatly. Right? Now I want to argue that there really is such an a priori argument. I would expect there to be revelation even if no tradition had reached me about that revelation having happened. Why? Because morality, in my view—which is the alternative—is not really an alternative. Why not? Because in my conception at least, and I think this is what I call morality—it’s even a definition—morality is something whose function is to make sure society conducts itself properly. Now you cannot tell me that society was created in order that it conduct itself properly. Don’t create it, and then you won’t need it to conduct itself properly. It cannot be that something was created for the sake of that very thing which was created. If it was created for something, then that something presumably lies beyond the thing that was created. Okay? So if morality serves the existence of a proper society, then it seems to me it cannot explain why that society in general was created—humanity, yes. And therefore—

[Speaker B] Here it could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a purpose: He sees that there are people who have an impulse to behave immorally, and yet they overcome the impulse and act morally, unrelated to commandments. Why isn’t that a purpose?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand; I didn’t hear you well.

[Speaker B] I’m asking—can the Rabbi hear better now?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s try.

[Speaker B] I’m asking: why is it far-fetched to argue that God created a world in which there are human beings for whom it is difficult to overcome the impulse to do immoral things, and yet they still do moral things and overcome it—and that this gives Him pleasure, like commandments do, only without revelation and without commandments? Morality is the purpose. One hundred percent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying again—even then, you are still saying there has to be a purpose beyond the mere proper functioning of society. Right? That’s certain. Only you are saying that this purpose could be the overcoming of the impulse in the doing of moral acts themselves; no other acts are needed. Right, and therefore revelation is not needed. But still notice that the purpose is a religious purpose that goes beyond morality—the overcoming itself.

[Speaker B] Yes, but I agree. What I’m claiming is that we still won’t need revelation for such a thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, one second—I understand what you’re saying. I’m sharpening it. What you’re saying is that in any case there still has to be something beyond morality. Because the overcoming in itself is not the important thing; the action itself is not the important thing. The action is only a means for society to be proper. The overcoming is what does the work, right? Okay. But now notice: I’m claiming that first of all we’ve reached the conclusion that there has to be some purpose beyond morality itself, beyond moral acts.

[Speaker D] In the sources there is something: there is no king without a people.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not interested in quotations. My discussion right now is an a priori discussion. If you bring me sources, they won’t help me at all. Bring me arguments.

[Speaker D] But it’s not only a priori; it actually gives some kind of reason for this whole story—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That the Holy One, blessed be He, needs us in order to be considered a king. Exactly. So that’s perfectly fine. Meaning, there has to be another purpose. There has to be another purpose besides morality. You can say that it’s in order to be considered king—okay—but it’s still the same thing. Now, however, I want to claim—

[Speaker C] Rabbi, according to Kant, is the purpose of morality to ensure that society is repaired? Obviously not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not going to get into that here, because that would require me to get into the categorical imperative. In my opinion, yes. In the final analysis, the categorical imperative is also the only way we have to repair society.

[Speaker C] That’s a by-product, but it’s not the purpose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. The purpose from the standpoint of the Holy One, blessed be He, is yes. My motivation is something else. But let’s leave that aside; look in the first article, I discussed it there. In any case, the claim I want to make is that there has to be a purpose here beyond morality. Now such a purpose would very plausibly require revelation in order to clarify to us what it is, because our intuition tells us that we must be moral. Our intuition does not tell us other things. Okay? Therefore I would expect there to be revelation that tells me what those “other things” are that are actually the real purpose. In just a second I’ll get to your comment, Yedidya, just one second. So what I’m basically trying to say is that there has to be some religious purpose that is in fact the purpose for which we were created. And of course we also have to be moral, so that society can function properly and can realize its religious purposes. But morality is a means and cannot be the purpose.

Now Yedidya suggests: yes, but morality might perform both roles. It might be both the means to a proper society and also the religious purpose. The overcoming of the impulse and the doing of the moral act also realize the religious purpose. But here, notice, maybe you’re right and maybe you’re not—but already there is some evidence that revelation is needed. You are offering an alternative according to which perhaps not. Do you see that the burden of proof has already shifted? That’s enough for me. I’m not building certainty here. I’m only trying to show how each time I reinforce, with another slice, the credibility of revelation. Okay? So that’s enough for me. Meaning, even if there is an alternative—not really an alternative—but in that alternative the burden of proof lies on it. Okay? Now I say: if so, then I’ve reached the conclusion that if the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world—and that is my philosophical conclusion—then He probably wants something from us. Second conclusion: that something is not morality. So what is it? After all, there is nothing I find within myself beyond morality from which I understand that this is what I was created for, or that this is what is incumbent on me, that this is my mission. There is no choice but to conclude that the Holy One, blessed be He, has to convey it to me in some way, because it is not found within me. Morality is found within me even without revelation, but this is not found within me. So let Him convey it to me. How can He convey it to me? Revelation is required. Again, revelation as a general term—it could be transcendental revelation with a great voice that did not cease, yes, from the tops of mountains; it could be revelation into each one of our hearts separately; it could be all sorts of things. It could take many forms. But there has to be revelation. I’m not getting into the details right now of how it would be, and what revelation is, and exactly how it happens, and whether there was speech there or only sounds and people understood—I don’t care. But there has to be revelation.

Now notice that I got from the philosophical argument that there is a God to the conclusion that there has to be revelation that gives us commandments. We’ve taken many steps forward. This is where it stops. The a priori discussion stops here, because I have no way of knowing what those commandments are that would be revealed in that revelation, or that will be revealed. I have no a priori argument that can reveal to me what those commandments are. The a priori argument brings me from the existence of God to the conclusion that there has to be revelation in which commandments will be given to us—non-moral commandments. Maybe morality too, but as commandments, I have to keep them, okay? And not from the moral consideration. That’s it. The argument stops there going forward. Now I go backward. And I say: okay, a tradition has reached us that the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at Mount Sinai, gave the Torah, and the Torah says such-and-such. Okay, in very general terms. This is the tradition that has reached us. That tradition in itself has various weaknesses, gaps, alternative suggestions about how to explain the formation of the tradition, and all kinds of things, right? It’s not something you can build on by itself. But now I connect the two moves. There is a forward move that brings me to the point where there has to be revelation and commandments have to be given in that revelation. And I have a backward move from my own time—from the existence of God to Mount Sinai. Now I also have a backward move from me back to Mount Sinai. The tradition takes me back and says: look, He revealed Himself there and He gave such-and-such. The connection I make between these two moves creates a structure here that is stronger than either of them by itself. Because the fact that a tradition about revelation has reached me strengthens the a priori argument that says revelation is to be expected—because expected, yes, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Holy One, blessed be He, really does do things for no reason, or maybe overcoming in morality like Yedidya said before—that’s also an alternative—all kinds of things. It isn’t certain. So I say yes, but a tradition reached me saying that He revealed Himself and gave us Torah and commandments. So that strengthens the claim that there has to be revelation. And the reverse is also true. I have doubts about the tradition. Maybe these are inventions, maybe that isn’t what He said, all kinds of things—who knows, maybe He didn’t say anything at all and this only emerged over the course of history, culturally. So I say no—but I have a forward argument, the a priori argument that says no, there has to be revelation and commandments have to be given there. I don’t know whether specifically these commandments—but you understand that if the tradition tells me these are the ones that were revealed, then why assume they are not these? After all, I expect there to be revelation and I expect commandments to be given. A tradition reaches me: indeed there was revelation and these and those commandments were given there. Why assume there was revelation but different commandments were given and not these? There is no reason.

Once I look at the overall picture, what I want to say is that in these discussions we are accustomed to examining each aspect separately. People look at the witness argument, at the tradition. Is it logical, is it not logical, is it reliable, is it not reliable, maybe there is another possibility? Archaeologists suggest one thing, historians suggest another; this is an influence of these people, that is an influence of those people; this arose for such-and-such need, this arose—yes, one can explain the emergence of the religious halakhic tradition in all kinds of ways, okay? Those are doubts about the tradition. And the standard religious apologists—I call them apologists not as an insult, but those who defend the tradition, yes—they basically try to show that the research is mistaken, or less plausible, or something like that. I say: leave it. It may be that if I looked only at the tradition and at scholarly considerations this way and that, I’m not sure I would build my religious commitment on that alone. And likewise the forward argument I mentioned earlier: one can argue about the proofs for the existence of God; we saw lots of refutations, and everyone can now decide whether he agrees or doesn’t agree. And about the need for revelation—I also made here a kind of anthropomorphism, that if He did this then He has a reason, the way I think this is not necessarily only a human characteristic; it is a reasonable assumption regarding anyone, yes. Someone can come and say, yes, but not God. Maybe not, I don’t know. There are all kinds of “maybe nots” that can come up at every step. But when you look at the connection between the forward move and the backward move, some kind of puzzle emerges whose pieces support one another. And therefore it is not correct to conduct the discussion about each piece of the puzzle separately. Because if the pieces fit one another, that strengthens the character—the credibility—of each piece by itself as well. And it is not correct to discuss each piece separately with arguments this way and that and that’s it. You can discuss that too, but afterward you also have to look at the whole and then go back again and ask what we think of each piece separately. And the whole creates something that the pieces, each on its own, do not manage to create.

[Speaker E] Now, with regard to those Greeks who have revelation from their gods—would we accept that revelation for the same reason? Meaning, on the one hand they have a tradition that gods revealed themselves to them, and on the other hand it makes sense that there is something that created the world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I didn’t say anything about tefillin. Okay, yes, right, I understand. As if I said, yes, there are other traditions too, so who says it has to be specifically our tradition? Fine, good question. I hope to get to it, but right now I’m… building this step by step. Meaning, first of all there has to be some religious tradition, and indeed religious traditions have reached us. So the natural thing is to connect them. Okay, you’re saying there are several religious traditions, so now the question is which one of them should be connected to this whole line of argument? Good question.

[Speaker E] Okay, and I also might have expected God to give me revelation much earlier than the Jewish religious faith at Mount Sinai, because it could be—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Questions of “I would have expected” are always questions that don’t really move me. I’ll tell you why. It’s the parable of the broken clock. Meaning, you know the clock parable, maybe I mentioned it, I don’t remember anymore, of Paley, right, the American priest Paley. He proves the existence of God through the physico-theological argument. He says, suppose you see a watch lying in the street. The watch is very complex. You say: it didn’t just come into being here on its own; there was a watchmaker who built it, right? Everyone would agree that’s a reasonable argument. Same thing with the world. Here we have a world that’s much more complex than a watch, so clearly there was someone who created it. Okay, people say: yes, but suppose I found a stupid watch. The watch is fifteen minutes slow. If that watchmaker is all-powerful, I would have expected him to make an accurate watch and not a slow one, right? So that’s a difficulty, so maybe there is no watchmaker? Let’s examine the two alternatives. One possibility is that there is no watchmaker and it came about by chance. Totally implausible, because it’s super-complex. Even a watch that’s fifteen minutes slow is very complex, right? Second possibility: there was a watchmaker. True, I would have expected him to make a perfect watch, so I don’t understand this watchmaker’s mindset. His mind is built differently from mine. Which of the two possibilities is more reasonable? To me, much more the second, right? Meaning, if the arguments in favor of the existence of a watchmaker are strong, then the fact that he behaves in a way I wouldn’t have expected simply says: right, no wonder I don’t understand everything this all-powerful, all-knowing watchmaker does. That’s the whole point—that he is something much smarter and stronger than I am, and so I don’t understand things. So the fact that I don’t understand things is a pretty weak objection. Okay? Now again, if I didn’t have arguments in favor of his existence, then yes, this weak objection could also tip the scale, and I’d say it’s not likely there’s a watchmaker because the watch is slow. If the watch were something very simple that could also come into being on its own. But if the watch is complex enough that it’s highly unlikely it came into being by itself, then the fact that it’s slow doesn’t bother me. It bothers me because I want an accurate watch, but it doesn’t bother me regarding the conclusion that there is still a watchmaker here. Just that this watchmaker thinks a little differently than I do; he prefers slow watches, I don’t know why. Okay? Same thing here. Therefore all kinds of objections from God’s conduct in the world—the problem of evil, the problem of I don’t know what, whatever you want. He doesn’t behave properly; why doesn’t he reveal himself in a certain way so everyone would know? Why did he give us free choice instead of programming us to do exactly what he wants? All kinds of questions like that—whether there are answers to them or there aren’t answers to them, that’s not important right now. I claim we don’t need answers to them. We don’t need answers because they do not collapse the thesis. It interests me to think about answers to them, fine, because it is disturbing; I’m not saying it isn’t. I’m only saying that for the discussion of whether there is a God and whether he gave the Torah, it’s irrelevant, because all it means is that the clock is a little broken—but a clock still requires a watchmaker. Okay? That’s why many, many of the arguments you’ll encounter anywhere, in any such field of discussion, you’ll see that in the logic I’m presenting here, this neutralizes almost all of the arguments that come up. That doesn’t mean we now arrive at a certain conclusion that there is a God. I’m only saying the arguments that seem so crushing become completely marginal. Someone can still come and say: look, there are so many arguments that even if each one is marginal, this still doesn’t pass the threshold of certainty that I set for myself. Fine. Then he can remain an atheist, or a non-believer, or uncommitted, or whatever. I’m not claiming that the path I’m outlining here is supposed to persuade every rational person to adopt the conclusion. All I am claiming is that the counterarguments lose some of their sting. Meaning, don’t get too excited, don’t be overly impressed by these counterarguments that are always presented as some definite, absolute trump card, and anyone who doesn’t accept it is a primitive, benighted idiot. Okay? So that is really not true. I also think that even this approach is much more reasonable than the other one. Okay, but everyone sets the threshold of plausibility where he sets it. Therefore here, on the one hand, we need to understand what we achieved, and on the other hand, understand what we did not achieve. Meaning, to be as confident as possible, but not less than possible. Okay? You don’t have to have too little confidence in this approach. True, there are doubts, there are difficulties, but as in every area of life, we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. I already said that faith does not need to be certain; it also cannot be certain. Okay? So I’m not looking for certainty. I’m looking for plausibility. I’m looking to show that someone who relies on this kind of argument is a thoroughly rational person—more rational, in my opinion, than someone who opposes it, but that’s already a matter of evaluation. And because of that, I’m really not frightened by all these wild, grandstanding attack arguments. Now I want to get to the heart of this issue of the witness argument. I said that when we examine the focus of the discussion, I said: we moved past the existence of God, and I tried to show that a whole puzzle is formed here that brings us up to the giving of the commandments. I haven’t yet spoken about the last link: if the commandments were given, why does that obligate me? That is already a philosophical question. At the moment I am dealing with factual questions. Is there a God, was there revelation, and what was given in that revelation? All of that is purely factual questions. In the end we are left with the normative, philosophical question: okay, suppose it’s all true, why does that obligate me? Fine, that is already a normative question. I’m dealing right now only with the factual levels, which are the first three links in the chain: the existence of God, the giving of the Torah, and the content of the giving of the Torah—the commandments. Okay? So the discussion on the factual plane, beyond the philosophy of whether there is or isn’t a God, usually revolves around the witness argument. And the witness argument is the argument that is often attributed to the Kuzari, even though there it’s only a sentence and a half, right? That a father doesn’t lie to his son; that a tradition passed on across a broad front—the parents don’t lie to their children, and therefore it is clear that what reached them is true. And against that there are attacks and refutations and counter-refutations and so on. This is called the witness argument. There are entries on it in Wikipedia and elsewhere; you can also read about it in my book The First Source and more. The discussion around the witness argument—first of all, I want to return and remind you of the conclusion we reached earlier. The witness argument—I’m now going to examine it on its own merits—but in the background there will always be the broader framing discussion I made earlier: that the witness argument is only one piece of an entire puzzle, and when the parts of that puzzle fit together, each part strengthens the others. So suppose I came to the conclusion that tradition really does suffer from flaws and I have doubts about it. Suppose the attacks on the witness argument convinced me, at least to the level that I’m now doubtful. Okay? Someone can still come and say: yes, but there is a presumption in its favor. I’m doubtful, but there is still a presumption. Why? Because the forward argument brings me to the conclusion that there was a revelation and commandments were given in it. Now true, if the witness argument stood alone, maybe I wouldn’t be persuaded. But it combines with the forward argument, the backward argument. So even if this argument is doubtful, it’s still important to look at the whole framework. That’s the framework. Now I want to go into the arguments themselves about the witness argument itself. Let’s leave the framework aside for a moment and see what force the refutations of the witness argument actually have. The witness argument basically says this: if a tradition comes to me from my father or from our parents, right, who received it from their parents and so on, that there was a revelation at Mount Sinai and the Torah was given there and so on, then it is probably true. Parents don’t lie to their children, and so forth and so forth. Okay? On this matter there are, of course, several assumptions. One assumption is that that first generation, the generation that stood at Mount Sinai, indeed experienced a revelation. Then the second assumption is that what was passed on to me is also reliable. The chain from there to us—and that the fact that they perceived it as a revelation means that it indeed was a revelation. The second assumption is that when I received information that they experienced a revelation, that information was not invented somewhere in the middle, but passed through a reliable chain from them to me. And there are attacks on the first part and there are attacks on the second part. The attacks on the first part basically address the question: maybe they saw all kinds of things there, but perhaps it was a collective hallucination; perhaps it was an interested lie; perhaps it was really an invention created later and they fabricated some mass revelation that had supposedly happened in the past, but all that occurred only afterward. All kinds of claims of that sort. And there are attacks that attack the second part: even if, let’s say, there was a revelation—and I don’t know—but let’s say yes, I don’t know, but a tradition reached me and tells me that there was a revelation. No, no—the tradition itself can be attacked. Who says this tradition is reliable? Tradition has holes and cracks and inventions and so on; it can also be an invention of people for various reasons, or a lie, or a myth innocently formed in one way or another, and so on. Here these are various attacks on the second part, on the transmission—from the original founding event to us, okay? Those are basically the two planes of discussion. I’m doing this pretty briefly because I want to finish it next time. In more detail, it’s already found in the book First Source. So look, on the first part, of course, if I manage to persuade you that the tradition is a reliable tradition, then that of course will also tell me that there was—at least, at least—the first generation believed there was a revelation. It could be that they imagined there was a revelation, but that’s really what, from their perspective, was there. Then I’m left only with the question whether what they experienced indeed was real, okay? Meaning, if I succeed in handling the witness argument in the sense of the reliability of the tradition, then I’m left only with that point. So first of all I’ll actually solve the second question. And I say: maybe what they experienced was just a hallucination or something like that. But here I want to give an example. Suppose Abraham our forefather receives a command from the Holy One, blessed be He, to bind his son. “Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey,” right, he goes, and the knife, and there—he’s just about to kill his son. So people ask, many ask—of course Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, but this also appears in Jewish commentators—why did he believe this divine command? Why didn’t it occur to him that maybe it was just a hallucination? Descartes’ deceiving demon? I don’t know, all kinds of things like that. Some evil spirit that entered him. After all, this command is obviously unreasonable. It is unreasonable because it is immoral, and the Holy One, blessed be He, wants us to be moral, so how can it be that he commands us to do something immoral for no reason? And second, it’s not logical, not just not moral. God said, “Through Isaac shall offspring be called for you.” How will offspring be called for me if I now kill him? So I have crushing proofs that the revelation I experienced is just fiction, a hallucination, I don’t know what. And despite all that, Abraham saddles his donkey and goes out to bind Isaac. How can that be? So there really are commentators—Avi Ravitzky brings this in one of his articles, mainly Sephardi commentators—who claimed that Abraham failed the test of the binding. He really should have resisted, and he failed. In obeying, he failed. I don’t know how one can insert this into the biblical text; the misleading interpretation of Scripture is beyond me. In my view it does not fit. Empty nonsense and a striving after wind. Interpretive nonsense, not substantive nonsense. So that cannot be, interpretively speaking. The Holy One, blessed be He, promises him and strengthens his hand—“now I know”—what do you mean? It is clear that he succeeded in the test there, from the biblical text; that is clear. So what’s the point? The point is that when I ask Abraham our forefather, wait, why didn’t you think it was a deceiving demon? It’s like a blind person asking a sighted person: tell me, when you think there are books here, why are you so convinced? Maybe your eyes are deceiving you. True, maybe—they do sometimes make mistakes, a mirage. What do I answer that blind person? I have nothing to answer you, but it’s clear to me that if my eyes show me this, then that’s probably how it is. Right? I have nothing to answer him. Maybe he’s right, maybe—but he’s not right. Because I experienced sight in a direct way, and it’s clear to me that sight is something real. Right? That’s obvious. Now if that’s so, then I want to claim that since we—and those commentators—were never prophets, never experienced a revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, speaking to us, then we cannot criticize Abraham our forefather and say to him: tell me, how do you know this revelation is reliable? Maybe it’s a deceiving demon. In this matter we are blind. Because we have never experienced such a thing. So one who has not experienced such a thing can always raise speculations: maybe it’s a mirage, maybe it’s a deceiving demon, maybe all kinds of things like that. Anything is possible. If you haven’t experienced it, then the sky is the limit—meaning, you can propose whatever possibility you want. But what would Abraham answer you? What the sighted person answers the blind person. Leave it—I’m a prophet, and I’m telling you that when the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed himself, it was clear to me that he was indeed speaking to me. One sees it—or not sees, but experiences it—in a direct way. A prophet knows when the Holy One, blessed be He, is speaking to him, whether in a dream or while awake. We, from the side, having never experienced it, like the blind person, can always ask him on an intellectual level: yes, but maybe not? Maybe it’s an illusion? Maybe it isn’t true? Fine, the question sounds logical. But on the other hand Abraham our forefather says to me: listen, I experienced it directly. It is simply so. And if the blind person hears the sighted person, then the sighted person will say to him: listen, you’re right on the abstract intellectual level, and I’m telling you that if you had experienced what sight is, you would understand that it is true; you too would accept it.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, but here I דווקא don’t feel that this is very persuasive, because even someone who experiences a mirage and sees something that doesn’t really exist could tell you, “I saw it, really. I can’t explain it to you, I just saw it.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, factually I don’t agree. I think that someone who experiences a mirage generally does not experience something clear. He experiences something that looks like a spring or something like that. Also the context of why he experiences it is clear—because he’s thirsty. We know the psychological phenomenon; it happens to many people in the same situation, so there’s even an explanation for it. And second, after he gets there he understands that what he experienced was false. He himself understands that what he experienced there was a hallucination. Therefore I don’t accept the mirage claim as a refuting claim. I accept it as a claim that somewhat shakes things. Sometimes even if I think I see something, it isn’t certain that it’s true. But one needs to understand that all the examples we know are examples that are not really clear, unequivocal seeing. I don’t think that’s how it is. And we ourselves become convinced afterward that we were mistaken. That’s not what happened here. And when the people tell me, look, all of us as one man—one million people, millions of people—the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke with us, at least the first two commandments. The Holy One, blessed be He, spoke with us. So if all these people say this, and people say, wait, but maybe it was a deceiving demon? Fine, maybe, but they are telling you it wasn’t. So maybe they’re all liars, all hallucinating, all this. I think the burden of proof is on the one who says yes, it was a hallucination. Maybe yes, I don’t know, a mass psychosis. I think whoever claims mass psychosis bears the burden of proof. Of course this is true if I validate it by establishing the reliability of the chain, that the report of what happened there is a reliable report. But of course I need, for that, to examine the reliability of the chain, because otherwise none of this ever happened—not even the hallucination—they just made it up. So this whole discussion I made on the assumption that I was convinced the chain is indeed reliable, but on that I still need to convince you. So here I’ll only begin, because we’re already getting to the end of the lesson. The big problem in the witness argument—and all kinds of atheists get terribly excited about this and speak in superlatives and say Hume, yes, David Hume, smashed the witness argument, there’s no recovery from it. Every rational person understands that this is simply utter nonsense; it’s over. After Hume, it’s over. What did Hume say? So let’s read it inside. I’ll show it to you for a moment: “We are required to examine a book written almost certainly long after the sequence of events described, which has no support from contemporaneous testimony, and whose subject bears a great resemblance to the miraculous events by which every nation describes its origins. Let each man lay his hand on his heart and say”—I’m skipping a bit here—“whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such evidence, is a more extraordinary and miraculous matter than all the miracles it relates.” There is an argument here which is, on its face, a brilliant philosophical argument, even though it sounds like just atheist preaching. No—there is a brilliant philosophical argument here. Basically David Hume said this: look, we have two possibilities. A tradition reaches us that there was revelation, miracles, smoke and a voice from heaven and all kinds of such things, no bird chirped, all kinds of matters. Okay? Two possibilities for interpreting this tradition. One possibility: indeed that’s what happened, the tradition conveyed it to me reliably, and everything is fine. Notice, without getting into biblical criticism and all these things—I’m making a completely philosophical discussion. So one possibility is that the tradition really conveyed the events to me as they actually occurred; that’s what happened. Of course these are wondrous, supernatural events, open miracles. It is not likely that events of this kind occurred; that claim itself is an implausible claim, right? An implausible claim. We have not encountered in our life experience events of this sort—miracles or divine revelation or something like that—so the claim in itself is implausible. But fine, that’s one possibility. The second possibility is: the tradition is not reliable. This description is really the invention of a myth that developed over the course of history, over the generations. Now you’ll say to me: fine, but that’s also implausible. That an entire people would invent a myth and so on? So he says: look, what we need in order to decide is to weigh which of the two possibilities is less implausible. Both are implausible, but which is less implausible? Right, that is basically what we need. Like Sherlock Holmes says, right, in The Sign of Four: after eliminating the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is probably the truth. Even if the alternative is obviously improbable, if the alternative against it is impossible, then apparently that is the truth, despite its improbability, right? There are two improbable possibilities—let’s see which of them is less improbable. So he says: look, the invention of myths over the course of history has happened from time to time. It’s not a miracle. It’s not a miracle. Let’s say that’s implausible—eighty percent, ninety percent, I don’t know what. Miracles—that’s zero percent. Miracles are completely implausible. What, if someone came and told me now, “I saw an object remain suspended in the air,” would it even occur to me to accept that testimony? An object with mass remaining suspended in the air. That’s against the laws of nature, against all our experience, and therefore it is obviously not true. So if you ask yourself what is less implausible—that a myth developed over the course of history? What, are myths lacking? Greek mythology, Persian mythology, mythology—millions of myths that developed throughout history, and things like this happen. Now true, most stories are indeed true stories. Myths are a minority within the total body of stories we have. Okay? But there are myths. It’s not an impossible thing. So how much is it? Ten percent for the sake of discussion? But miracles—I haven’t seen a single one in my life. So that’s zero. So basically he says: this is like hypothesis testing in statistics. There is H0 and H1, the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. What do I need to do in order to decide which one is correct? Assign a probability to each and choose the one that is more probable, right? It doesn’t matter if the more probable one is very unreasonable—that’s not important—as long as it is more reasonable than the second one. You know the story of the two guys walking around in the field, and suddenly a lion appears. So one starts running and the other starts putting on sneakers, sports shoes. So the one already running says to him, “Are you crazy? You have time to put on shoes? Run fast! Even with sneakers you won’t run faster than the lion.” So he says to him, “I don’t need to run faster than the lion. I need to run faster than you.” Okay? Meaning, the possibility is not evaluated by asking whether it is reasonable or unreasonable, but whether it is more reasonable than the other possibility. Okay? That’s all. And then David Hume says: so now you tell me. If I have two possibilities, someone comes and tells you, “Look, an open miracle happened to me,” and usually this person tells the truth—it’s not that he’s lying, he’s not a liar. On the other hand, miracles do not happen. You have two possibilities: either assume that he lied, even though he usually tells the truth—ten percent—or that something impossible happened—zero percent. Which do we choose? Ten percent. Therefore he says: on a pure logical basis, leave biblical criticism aside, leave everything aside—purely statistical logical reasoning. If you have two interpretive possibilities regarding this tradition, then clearly the preferable interpretation is that this tradition is an invention. A tradition that conveys to me miracles and exceptional, supernatural events, right? Clearly the events did not occur and the tradition is an invention. Because the alternative—that the events did occur and the tradition is reliable—is a possibility with zero chance. The second possibility is a possibility with a two percent chance. Two percent is better than zero. Okay? That is Hume’s argument, and that is what needs to be dealt with. By the way, look at the witness argument on Wikipedia or anywhere else, and also in my book—you’ll see that there are many philosophers, since it was formulated this way, who realized that Hume has here a clear logical-statistical argument, and they say this is a death blow to all religious positions. That’s it. Nobody today can present a witness argument in a way that Hume won’t knock down. There is no such thing. Anyone who still holds the witness argument today is an idiot. It’s not a matter of positions, it’s not—no, it got knocked out. Okay? That’s the claim. With that claim I’ll try to deal at the beginning of the next lesson. So the next lesson will be devoted to dealing with the witness argument on the one hand, and after we finish that, we will have reached the fourth link in the chain: if there was a command, why does it obligate me—the normative issue. Okay? And with that we’ll finish. That’s it for now.

[Speaker B] Thank you very much, Rabbi. Thank you very much.

[Speaker C] Does the Rabbi see the importance of revelation in the content, or in the very fact of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s more complicated. I’ll talk about it next time. A core of the content at least.

[Speaker C] If the goal is “so what,” then is the basis more what the faith-based proof of it is, or—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’ll explain. I hope I’ll explain it; I’ll get to it.

[Speaker C] Okay, fine, thank you, goodbye.