Conversion and Islamic Exile and Separation of Religion and State
2009
On the 'accidental crowd' in Halacha – a response
A. Introduction
Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun, in his article 'A Mistaken Audience and Those Whose Assumptions Are Mistaken or Wrong – Secularists and Secularism in Halacha' (Akademut, Decade Issue, Kislev 5761), raises a seemingly new possibility for addressing secularists and secularism within the framework of Halacha.
The conventional reference to 'captured infants' is not to his liking due to the degree of arrogance it contains, and paternalism, as is well known, prevents the possibility of debate ("It is impossible to hold any debate with 'infants' or 'captives,'" as he puts it). Furthermore, Rabbi Ben-Nun argues, this reference does not at all describe the state of secularism as it is, and in his own words: "Although it is clear to everyone that most of them are not 'infants' and not 'captives.' Most of them know a chapter or two, most of them decide for themselves which beliefs they are willing to adopt and which they reject... and above all, we are talking about a large crowd, not individuals 'captured among the Gentiles.'"
Rabbi Ben-Nun's main proposal, which relies mainly on the Ramban's commentary on the parashah 'The Mistake of the Whole Torah' (Numbers 15), and which he then finds reference to in other poskim, is that a congregation is always mistaken, with the exception of a few individuals within it who act rashly. Later in his article, there are references to heretics and heretics, and it is not entirely clear when he is referring to those individuals who act rashly, and when his references concern individuals in the 'mistake' congregation. His remarks later cite the standard and well-known references from the Chazo"a and the Rai"a, which for a reason that I do not understand are given the title "Not so well known" (at the beginning of page 248). One renewed point is indeed found there, and that is the treatment of modern heresy (after the three Copernican revolutions, in his terms: that of Copernicus, that of Newton, and especially that of Kant) as skeptical heresy, as opposed to absolute heresy. I will address this point later in my speech.
These things are based on an understandable motivation to find some degree of legitimacy, or at least understanding, for the secular audience, which is currently the majority of the Jewish people. Despite the motivation with which I completely identify, and perhaps precisely because of it, we must be careful in the halakhic arguments in which we try to anchor these feelings. Halakhic consideration should be conducted using the halakhic tools that are accepted by us, and if someone decides to forgo them, then unfortunately he must clearly state this, and not use pseudo-halakhic tools that lead some of the audience calling for error. Such attempts are not new, and they have been increasing in recent times (see, for example, several articles in issues of 'De'ot 2-4, and more). Most of them claim innovation (often sensational) in the proposed halakhic approach, and I have yet to find any innovation in any of them. For the record, these articles are generally divided into two types: those that innovate things outside the framework of halakhic law (even though they claim to occur and speak within a halakhic narrative), and those that innovate nothing at all beyond the accepted references.
A substantive consideration of this issue requires a comprehensive philosophical clarification of concepts such as 'truth' and 'pluralism', 'choice' and 'weakness of will' (= akrasia), and of the relationship between them, a clarification that has been conducted in the general philosophical literature (although, certainly not enough, as far as I know). Most of the Torah arguments (and in particular, that of Rabbi Ben-Nun) for the En"d are plagued by confusion due to conceptual ambiguity regarding terms such as 'skepticism', 'truth', 'choice', 'pluralism', and the like. It seems to me that only after a comprehensive philosophical clarification can the various approaches be applied to the Torah-halakhic context. This discussion is of course beyond the scope of the current response, and when I turn to the Aza, I may try to contribute my part to this issue. In the following, I will try to point out several points in the course of Rabbi Ben-Nun's argument that the En"d does not stand up to criticism.
B. The Halachic Foundation
Rabbi Ben-Nun bases the bulk of his article (see p. 239) on the words of the Ramban in his commentary on Numbers 15:24 (in commentary) and on the words of the Maimonides (when one is precise in his words), which determine, according to Rabbi Ben-Nun's understanding, that there is no deliberate audience, or at least that they assumed that they were mistaken. I will not be able to discuss all the details of Rabbi Ben-Nun's argument in this context, and therefore I will concentrate on the words of the Ramban, which is ostensibly the explicit source for Rabbi Ben-Nun's approach, and then I will comment on a few additional points.
I will perhaps begin with a comment that is more about the style of the words. Throughout the article, Rabbi Ben-Nun uses firm and confident language, as if anyone who disagrees with him has nothing to rely on. It seems from his words that he alone was the one who brought these words of the Ramban out of the darkness into the light of the world. In particular, I find his presumptuous reference to those who sat on the podium and discussed this issue (such as the author of "Ha'aruch Laner" and many other good people), difficult, in his statement (p. 227): "There is reason to be surprised that in all the halachic discussion of this issue from Rabbi Yaakov Etlinger to the present day, the Ramban's place has been absent, and the entire discussion remains incomplete." In comment 22, he also enlightens us that throughout some two hundred years of addressing this issue, he did not find these words of the Ramban being brought up, until he brought them to the ears of his listeners for about twenty years, and these people are of course surprised by them every time.
Is the fact that all these great men of the world, who certainly did not lose sight of the Ramban's words (since many of them are known as eminent scholars, and not just as experts in halakhic law), did not find it appropriate to address them in the framework of their halakhic discussions, insignificant in his eyes? Is there only ignorance here? I feel that although there is certainly room for discussing the ground before these rabbis, a little humility would not harm any of us in our approach to them. Rabbi Ben-Nun also finds it appropriate to comment on the author of Divrei Shaul in his assertion that the Ramban's silence is thicker than his waist (next to note 16). I must note that such an expression is usually used by a Torah scholar to describe his own standards in relation to those greater than him, and not to compare the standards of others. And in general, as every Rabbi knows, Rav Dachad Yoma, since Abaye and Rava, 'halakhic law is as if it were seen' (as a giant on top of a giant). Certainly, such an expression is not intended to whitewash a correct comment against a seemingly dishonest opinion.
As for the commentary on the words of the Ramban, it is worth continuing to read the commentary of Rabbi Sha'avel on a website that explains the words of the Ramban well in accordance with the commentary of the author of 'Divrei Shaul', and in any case there is no need to assess the scope of the contents of 'Divrei Shaul', nor the extraordinary innovation of Rabbi Ben-Nun, as will be explained below.
Let us now return to the substantive content of the argument. For the sake of completeness, there are two main reasons underlying the conspicuous and long-standing lack of attention to these words of the Ramban: 1. A commentary on the Pentateuch, no matter how important it may be, is not perceived as a sufficiently authoritative halachic source, and certainly not for far-reaching conceptual innovations. 2. Even if we agree to accept the Ramban's commentary on the Pentateuch as an acceptable halachic source, it seems that there is no such assertion in the Ramban's words. The first reason is known to everyone who is in the world of halachic argument, and therefore I see no point in discussing it here. Below I will focus on the second reason.
As Rabbi Ben-Nun himself mentions, the Sages treat this parasha in the context of the sermon, and only the Ramban attempts to put the sermon into context. The Sages interpreted (or: preached) the congregation that transgresses all of God's commandments as a congregation that indulges in idolatry, which is considered equivalent to all transgressions in the Torah. The immediate question that arises in this context is why our Sages needed to preach when there is such a simple explanation, such as the one offered by Rabbi Ben-Nun (that every assembly that intentionally commits sin is an accident). It seems to me that the need for a sermon stems precisely from the fact that the Sages refused to perceive a situation in which the entire community errs in all of the Torah. Rabbi Ben-Nun's proposal, which, as stated, is based on the path of simplicity, was not accepted by them as halakhic, since an individual can live among the Gentiles, but a group that does not observe all of the Torah is usually wilful. In other words, in fact, the understanding here is exactly the opposite of that of Rabbi Ben-Nun: the Sages understood that a group that is entirely sinful is usually wilful, and certainly cannot be assumed to be generally wilful.
This is clearly evident from these words of the Sages, which originate from the Babylonian Horiyot 6:1 (and the equivalent in Yerushalmi Nedarim 53:9):
Taniya, I read the text of the idolatry of the gods. What does it mean [=how do we know this?], said Kara: 'And if you err and do not do all these commandments', what is the commandment that is equivalent to all the commandments, he says this is idolatry.
If indeed the parsha were dealing with a group that erred in the entire Torah, then there is no evidence that this is a case of a group that is considered against all the mitzvot, since this is not a case of one mitzvot that is considered against all of them, but rather all of the mitzvot. It is clear that the Sages refused to interpret this as a case of a group that erred in all of the mitzvot, for the reasons above (which, as stated, are opposite to Rabbi Ben-Nun's explanation). We see in these words of the Sages not only the sermon, but (in a veiled way) also the reason that led them to demand the verses and take them out of their ordinary form. For the Sages, this reason is the assumption that a group that erred in the entire Torah cannot be considered an error.
It is true that the Ramban, in a simplified way, suggests situations in which it is possible for an entire congregation to be mistaken, but in the Ramban's words there is not even the slightest hint of Rabbi Ben-Nun's statement that every sin committed by a congregation is automatically a mistake, meaning that there is no deliberate congregation. As stated, the view of the Sages suggests the exact opposite. I hope that no one will try to start a discussion here about the scope of the Sages' and the Ramban's stipulations.
It seems to me that the end of the Ramban's own words contradicts Rabbi Ben-Nun's interpretation. There, the Ramban distinguishes between the Israelites who disobeyed the words of God after the return of the spies and said, "We gave our heads and returned to Egypt," and those who sinned unintentionally (and even by worshipping idols) for whom forgiveness is possible. According to Rabbi Ben-Nun, the Ramban should have summarized the main point of his innovation and distinguished between a group of sinners, who are always unintentional, and individuals for whom a situation of "high hand" can also arise. The Ramban does not do so because he does not even think of making such a distinction.
As Rabbi Ben-Nun noted, the situations that the Ramban presents to the inadvertent public are indeed very reminiscent of the situations in which we find ourselves today. For example: that they may think that the time of the Torah has passed and that it has not existed for generations. That they may forget the entire Torah by abandoning it. That they may think that shedding a burden is permitted (I will not perform and will not receive a reward, there is no Torah abroad, and see also the commentary of Rabbi She'el there). If so, we can conclude that the situation today is indeed that of an inadvertent public and not of a deliberately high-handed public, but is there anyone who claims otherwise? This is not the essence of Rabbi Ben-Nun's innovation. This is a public of 'babies who have been captured.'
What may lead to a perception like that of Rabbi Ben-Nun in understanding the Ramban is that situations such as these are generally treated as heretical and not as forgiving as accidental. Rabbi Ben-Nun apparently understood that the surprising treatment of these situations as accidental stems from their being communal sins. However, here too, a distinction must be made between those who truly and sincerely think so, and if so, they are truly accidental, and those who seek ways to evade fulfilling their Torah obligations (as Rabbi Sha'avel writes there in the commentary of the author of Divrei Shaul).
This comment leads us to the next point. Rabbi Ben-Nun's interpretation in itself is not clear to me. Is his claim that a deliberate crowd would also be considered as an accident, or is he saying that when a crowd sins, there are usually a few who incite the many, and they are the ones who are the ones who are inciting, and those who follow them would be considered as an accident. There are passages in Rabbi Ben-Nun's article of both types, and in fact he himself mixes the two types of arguments.
If his intention is to claim that in reality, when a crowd sins, usually only individuals act with a high hand, then we should simply observe the situation and examine it, whether this is indeed the case, and whether there is an oversight or intentionality here. I do not see why the Ramban needs to be enlisted for this purpose. If we do understand that the crowd is usually an oversight (like the descendants of the captive babies), then there is no need for precedents in this matter.
If Rabbi Ben-Nun's intention is indeed to claim that a group is also intentionally mistaken, I fail to understand the logical difference between an individual and a public. At most, I can understand that the Torah tends to spare a public more than an individual (the public has more rights, etc.). Perhaps this is also the reason why the law of a remote city is not applied to several cities (which Rabbi Ben-Nun brought as support for his position). It seems that in order to accept such a paradoxical position, we must mobilize all our Sage faith and say, following what Rabbi Ben-Nun seems to be the position of the Ramban, that on the left is the right and on the right is the left. Moreover, we also have to accept that this amazing interpretation is what the Ramban understood as the literal meaning of the Bible (to the time of his sermon). I am amazed!
In other words, I am unable to decide in which of the two above categories Rabbi Ben-Nun's article should be classified, the one that includes articles that do not innovate anything, or the one that includes articles that are incorrect (at least in terms of halakhic law, and here also in terms of elementary logic).
Even on the level of arrogance, I do not see why Rabbi Ben-Nun's approach is less paternalistic toward secularism than the conventional approach that uses the term 'captured infant.' Rabbi Ben-Nun claims that the majority of the audience are captive infants, and they should be treated with forgiveness, and the few who understand the matter are heretics who learned and changed and chose differently, and for whom there is indeed no remedy, whether according to the Ramban or according to Rabbi Kook (as he himself cites). In other words, secularists are divided into captive infants and conscious heretics. With whom of these will the discussion that Rabbi Ben-Nun proposes to conduct be conducted? How does this reconcile with the assertion (which is clearly incorrect in my opinion) quoted at the beginning of my response that most (so!) of secularists have learned, and are not infants, and certainly have not been captive at any stage of their lives.
As far as I understand, the solution to paternalism, and the possibility of discussing even with those who are like 'captured babies,' should be based on the distinction between those who are mistaken and those who are stupid. Whoever says that a secular person is mistaken does not intend to say that he is stupider, but rather that he has less information and less educational background that is necessary to develop religious consciousness and experience. For the majority of all secular people, this is an indisputable fact. The religious person does not lack the background to develop a secular experience, and therefore there is definitely an asymmetry here. Such a deficiency, which is not essentially informative, also exists among professors of Jewish studies, and perhaps among them more than among any other layperson. Such a person can undoubtedly be discussed, even though he is a 'captured baby.' It is true that he was captured among the secular and not among the gentiles, but there is no real difference of opinion here.
C. The real problem: Who is doing it with a strong hand?
I would like to briefly address the fundamental difficulty in the issue of evil heresy, which, to the best of my knowledge, underlies all attempts, more or less successful, to understand the status of secularists in halakhah. I wonder what Rabbi Ben-Nun would say to those today who do not also have national identification (the universalists), whom Rabbi Kook saw as having a much more difficult (though fixable) situation. Further, is there, or has there ever been, someone who simply acts in a way that he himself does not believe in? Do any of us know such a person? Who is truly evil according to Rabbi Ben-Nun's definition? Who has ever been evil according to his definitions? Even before the members of the Great Knesset abolished the Yazra of Illicit Worship, was not the Yazra al-Bashyah a kind of extenuating argument?
There is a fundamental difficulty in understanding the blasphemous heresy, about which it is said, "There is no one to teach and no one to do it," even in past periods. Rabbi Ben-Nun makes life easy for himself when he presents the past periods as situations in which there were wicked people who acted with a high hand, or fools who did not reach the lofty intellectual peaks of modern skepticism. I do not know of such wicked people today, but I believe that by my standards today, there were no such people in the past either. This is the real problem for me, and I did not find any solution to it in Rabbi Ben-Nun's words, as well as in all the other articles I have read on this subject. It is completely clear to me that the secularist of today is a "captive infant," and certainly is not in the sense of being wicked and wilful. The real question is the opposite: according to the standards that I take for granted today, who were those wicked people that Chazal spoke about?
Some reference to the change between generations can be found in Rabbi Ben-Nun's interesting comment on skeptical heresy. According to him, after Kant's Copernican revolution (Newton and Copernicus are not at all related to the matter) we are in a skeptical age, and therefore all heresy is of a different, softer kind. According to him, according to Rabbi Kook, the words of Chazal apply only to those who categorically disbelieve, and not to those who are content.
First, anyone who is even slightly familiar with Kant's role in the history of philosophy knows that he is precisely the father of dogmatism. The complete opposite of skepticism. Kant is the only one who tries (and in my opinion fails) to offer a rational secular basis for human cognition and thought, and perhaps also for morality. In fact, Kant's main historical role was to defend rationality against Hume's skeptical attacks (which only caused him to awaken from what he himself called his 'dogmatic slumber' and move to a non-drowsy dogmatism). Our transition, following Kant, from the noumena (the world as it is for itself) to the phenomenon (the world as it is perceived by us) is not a skeptical transition at all. In contrast to objectivism, Kant proposed an approach of intersubjectivism, and not of pure subjectivism as Rabbi Ben-Nun mistakenly understands it, and for this Kant is also widely criticized. The subjective view, according to Kant, is not skeptical at all, and should in fact be shared by all human beings.
After Kant, we can only say that the divine entity, like all beings in the world in general, are perceived as entities that are known to us through our means of cognition and thinking, and not as they are to themselves. With regard to God, this is nothing new, since we have always known that we are unable to know Him as He is to Himself. Kant's innovation is that the real world around us also has the same character. After Kant, the opposite question arises: how does the divine entity differ from all other entities, since we are also unable to perceive them as they are to themselves. In this we see that there is a great innovation in Kant's teaching, contrary to the claim, which seems somewhat naive, of Rabbi Kook (in the quotation that appears there, p. 259).
Moreover, this very claim of Rabbi Kook undermines Rabbi Ben-Nun's position. If indeed we have long known about Kant's innovations, what has changed in the skeptical heresy of the modern era following Kant? As I argued above, in my opinion, not much has changed on a substantive level, but I do not understand what Rabbi Ben-Nun is trying to explain here?
Beyond the misunderstanding of Kant's role, we can agree that our time is indeed skeptical in essence, but this is not new either. Skepticism has existed since time immemorial, at least since the beginning of the era of philosophical thought in ancient Greece. Its modern (and especially postmodern) clothing is nothing more than a seemingly new cloak for an age-old approach. Today, they have only managed to give skepticism a cultural, value-based and intellectual dimension, something that was not so common in the past (although, Socrates had already refined that too).
Beyond that, this line of argument is not at all clear to me. Precisely in a skeptical age like ours, the infidel who absolutely believes in his infidelity should be prosecuted more forcefully, since he too must understand that his position is subject to the same doubt as the religious position. Precisely in a skeptical age, the prosecution of adamant infidels is more difficult. Therefore, I do not understand what is the point in Rabbi Kook's skeptical characterization of our time.
As I mentioned, as far as I understand, the main problem is not how to defend the wicked of our (secular) generation, but why the Sages did not defend the wicked of their generation with the same arguments (and perhaps they did, and 'wicked' is also a purely theoretical concept? And so on). In contrast to the proposals of those who favor easy solutions, not much has changed since then, at least on a substantive level. The difference is normative-social (the majority of the public today is secular), and not philosophical-substantive.
Much more could be said on this difficult and painful issue, but I think that for our purposes here what has been said is sufficient. In conclusion, I would like to say that I agree with Rabbi Ben-Nun's assumptions and predicaments. Moreover, I also agree with his current conclusions (for the sake of argument, they are almost trivial, and they also arise from the accepted references). However, correct assumptions and correct conclusions are no guarantee of a valid argument. It seems to me that the path that Rabbi Ben-Nun took from assumptions to conclusions is tainted with intellectual dishonesty. His erroneous interpretation of the Ramban's words and the speculative halachic conclusions that he drew from them do not stand up to elementary criticism, and as we have seen, they probably also stand against the approach of the Sages. Indeed, the predicament is difficult, but the solution that Rabbi Ben-Nun offers is not a long way from it.