Intellectual dishonesty

Does the Rabbi not know Avraham Korman's answer to the question of the rabbit and the hare?
The rabbit and the hare have a two-stage rumination mechanism - chewing the grass and its initial digestion. Then the grass is expelled in the form of small pellets that are eaten, and then the final digestion takes place. This is exactly the rumination that other herbivorous animals do (other animals do not have this two-stage mechanism, and therefore cannot digest cellulose). By the way, this mechanism also appears in the book Givat Watership, which deals with rabbits, through eating pellets (the grass pellets that are expelled after the initial digestion).

I've seen several answers in the past, including this one (there's also a reference by someone named Rabbi Segal to know the truth about this matter). I just added that there's also the possibility of misidentification. Because of all of this, I'm not interested in this issue.

There is a clear halachic definition of cud-rearing. It cannot be defined any other way. This answer sounds like bad apologetics. It can lead to many bizarre claims and qualify quite a few animals that are known to be unclean.

It is interesting that Christians do not have this problem, because the Septuagint translation actually mentions that the hare (identified with the rabbit) and the rabbit do not cud-reare. It is possible that this is a mistake or that the Septuagint translator, who was educated in Hellenism, changed the verse.

If everything can be interpreted so that it fits with the facts, how does it fit with the assumption that the detail came from heaven?
After all, the words have a clear meaning and probably the intention is clear. A strange interpretation was clearly not the intention of the writer.
I would understand claims like “The specific detail is not from heaven” or “It is a copying error”.

After all, if we assume that God will not give incorrect details, and that the Torah from Him if a contradiction is revealed and we really understand that it is a contradiction, then there is a contradiction in the assumptions. Therefore, there is a problem that also extends to the model
(and in general the problem is also more serious because anything can be proven later).
Trying to interpret it differently when it is clear that this is not the intention in order to avoid reaching an absurd situation does not seem serious.

A
In Maimonides, this definition applies to animals, and therefore he excludes the camel from it. The rabbit and the hare are not animals, and therefore it is not clear that this definition should apply to them.

That sounds strange. Why would there be a different definition for rumination between an animal and a beast? The division between an animal and a beast in Chazal is also not clear, and therefore today everything is treated as beasts.

It is a fact that the Rambam bothers to include the camel and does not bother to include the rabbit and the jackal, which the Torah does include, perhaps because in the first place they do not belong to the relative group of animals with this sign of rumination.

A very good question, that's why I don't study the Bible and I don't think there's any value in studying it. This of course has nothing to do with whether it's from heaven or not.
You're also not accurate when you say that everything can be proven. On the contrary, nothing (or almost nothing) can be proven.

To those who wrote that the excuse of a dedicated digestive system is a bad excuse – What other animals, besides rabbits and hares, have such a digestive system?

And to Mikhi, if you have already decided that ”The Torah is from heaven, and therefore there is no problem interpreting it in a way that does not contradict the facts”

There are at least 2 problems with this:
A. What happens if someone, unlike you, is not yet convinced that the Torah is from heaven and is studying it to understand whether these are words of life or not?

B. Does “there is no obstacle to interpreting it in a way that does not contradict the facts” outweigh rationality?
After all, common sense says that there is no good enough reason to assume that the Jewish people lost the tradition regarding rabbits and hares.
So I have no problem with reconciling the Torah with facts, when it fits with logic. But that's not the case here, which is why it seems like evasion or intellectual dishonesty.

If you want to ask about my lack of integrity, you have to start from my starting point. Unless you want to accuse me of lack of integrity for thinking differently from you. That is of course possible, and good luck to you.

I flow with you.
Let's take a step back – What makes you see a supernatural source in the Torah?

I do think it is rational to believe that there is a creator for reality. I even think that he probably left some purpose for realization here.

But how did you come to the conclusion that it is the Torah?

You are so attached to the heavenly source of the Torah that even if you are shown things that are crystal clear that they do not fit with the facts, you agree to make fun of it (after of course you are clear about the heavenly source of the Torah) and leave rationalism behind.
Why?
What in the Torah convinced a rational person to agree to make fun of it?

A quick look at the site reveals that you yourself admit that if you were born a Muslim, you would probably boast about the words of the Hadith’, and speak in praise of the great Muslim philosophers, and the great Muslim mathematicians.

So where does such high confidence in the Torah come from?
What is superhuman about it?

So now that we're done with the accusations of dishonesty, you back off and just want a general lecture on my belief in the Torah. Nice. How nice of you to go along with me.
In short, I don't see anything superhuman in it. I've been reading about the Parosa issue in my first book. Especially in the fifth conversation. Good luck.

I didn't exactly accuse you of dishonesty.
I was just wondering if it wasn't ridiculous that you accuse religious people who ignore problems of dishonesty, while you solve the problems crookedly. That was a question, not an accusation.

Why do you decide that those religious people who ignore problems are “dishonest”, maybe just like you they have already come to the conclusion that the Torah is from heaven, and therefore there is no need to acknowledge the existence of problems (or “solve” them crookedly)?

Another thing, I read the fifth notebook, and it is very, very, very unconvincing.
The witness's argument with all sorts of “Yainî” philosophical wrappers + all sorts of apologetics about tradition and the influence of the Torah.
Not something that would give a neutral person a solid basis to believe that the Torah is indeed from heaven.
And I repeat again that the fact is that you yourself say that if you were not Jewish you would not have gone towards Judaism.

We are left in the end with the fact that your accusation of others for lack of intellectual integrity is unjustified, since perhaps they, like you, – have come to the conclusion that the Torah is from heaven, and therefore there is no need to delve into the problems about things written in the Torah.
Or in the less nice case (and here I am already accusing loudly) – both you and they lack intellectual integrity.

Wow, a fascinating response. You didn't accuse me of dishonesty, you just wondered if my words weren't ridiculous.
In addition, it now turns out that you read the notebook and found it unconvincing, so you ask in a focused and intelligent way (and with impressive integrity) directly to the points that seemed difficult to you: why do I believe in the Torah. In other words, you expect me to briefly review the entire notebook (which you've already read), and this is probably so that you can then again wonder in a very focused way whether all of this isn't ridiculous. We've had a bit of a discussion here. I must say that this is an amazing and honest troll.
I would appreciate it if in the future you could turn up your voice a little, because it's still not clear to me whether you're just wondering if this or that book of mine is ridiculous or just silently accusing me of dishonesty or perhaps loudly accusing me of some other amorphous accusation.

I feel uncomfortable with how the discussion has developed.

I'll make a kind of summary:

Regarding the zoological problems in the Torah,
in your book “The First Test” you wrote something like:

“It is enough if we say that we do not know which animals the Torah was referring to” …

When in this thread you proved that you yourself do not really believe in this statement (which, as mentioned, you wrote and signed in your book), since regarding the doubts that writers have raised here regarding “zoological sleuthing” you wrote “a good question. Therefore, I do not deal with what is written in the Bible”.

In other words, you showed in this thread that the sleuthing experiment that you yourself recommended in the book is not serious at all.

We are tired of your saying that it is permissible to square the triangle and round the square, because you believe that the Torah is from heaven, but anyone who claims that the Torah is from heaven without trying to square the circle already lacks intellectual integrity.

Everything is documented here and in the book.

How beautiful for us.

Every time I wonder whether to delete such trolls, and in the end I don't delete because a person is allowed not to be too sharp a pencil.
You quote a sentence that says “Suffice it to say…” which means precisely that I really don't commit to it, but that it is one of several possibilities that exempts me from dealing with the Bible (especially in light of its vague nature), and then you see this as a contradiction to the statement here that I don't deal with the Bible due to its vague nature.
It's a bit difficult to argue with a person with such poor reading comprehension.
I see no point in getting into the rest of the demagogic nonsense here (squaring the circle, etc.).
Okay, we're done.

Miki is given a simple geometry calculation exercise that shows that a triangle has 200 degrees.
So he excuses himself that the pencil in which the exercise was written is not sharpened.
Then he says, “It’s enough if we say that this exercise is vague . . . There is no fundamental need to check the error.”

Very logical.

Is the Bible vague?
Maybe. But in the case of raising immigration, things are written quite clearly.

Either you make a serious excuse (and it’s okay to make a mistake) or you’d better be like those who fill their mouths with water.

But after you've already been shown how problematic the excuse of "let's just say it's not clear which animals the Torah was referring to" is, and after you insist that you are allowed to continue using "because of the vague nature I am exempt from dealing with this issue", I have no reason to conclude that you simply lack intellectual integrity.

Instead of taking responsibility and admitting to a mistake and arrogance in your writing, without examining things in depth, you still try to say in a matter-of-fact way that your writing is actually perfectly fine.

Lacking intellectual integrity, and that's obvious.