On the appropriate method in the study of Israeli thought and the humanities

With God’s help

At the end of last year, a discussion took place in the pages of this supplement regarding the appropriate approach to research in Jewish thought. What sparked the discussion was an article about the dispute in the Hebrew University's Jewish Thought Department between the philological-historical "party" that strives for objective, unbiased research devoid of current meanings, and Avinoam Rosenk, who advocates raising current issues and integrating them into learning in the department. It was reported that as a result of this struggle, Rosenk, the former head of the department, was forcibly transferred to another department at the university (the Department of Education). Shalom Rosenberg, Avi Sagi, and Mordechai Rotenberg all attacked the philological-historical approach. They claimed that it euthanized the field of Jewish thought, since it strictly adheres to texts and context, while disconnecting itself from the relevant and current questions they raise. I don't know the details of the case nor those involved in it, but I have come to the conclusion that this debate misses the point of the debate. It concerns the merits of academic research and the role of academia in general. Here I wanted to offer an explanation to the side of the party being attacked, specifically as someone who does not belong to it.

A few years after my first book, Two Carts and a Balloon, was published, a well-known person from Ariel College (as it was then called) called me and told me that they were going to establish a new journal for Jewish thought. He asked me to write an article for the first issue, but added that it would not be like my books. It had to be fair, because this is an academic journal. I immediately understood what he meant, and I told him that I write the way I write, and if it doesn't suit the journal, then they will have to settle for other writers. People to whom I told this didn't understand. After all, I also write in foreign terminology, sometimes there are also references to different sources, I deal with philosophy and the analysis of the conceptual level of things and the meaning of previous sources. So what is the difference? To explain the difference, we need a few examples, some of which are banal.

Would anyone think of a poet writing a poem and sending it to a journal for poetry research? Or would they hold him in an academic position and have him write poems there? Of course not. The same is true for a novelist or playwright. Why? Academic research on poetry is not about writing poetry, but rather researching poetry. Academic researchers do not deal with the thing itself, but rather discuss it. The same is true for the study of literature and art in general. Even in psychology, academic research does not deal with treatment, but at most with researching treatment methods. No one would think of holding athletes in academic positions, even though there are academic departments that deal with sports research (history, physiology, various techniques, etc.). Industrialists and economists also do not work within the framework of faculties of economics and management. Even education lecturers are not necessarily good teachers, and usually do not engage in teaching (blessed be God).

One of the main differences between the two types of work is judgment. A poet writes what comes to his heart and is not bound by any rules. In contrast, when a researcher makes a claim about the poetry of a poet, or a group of poets, he is supposed to anchor his assertions in a way that will be judgments. That the reader can determine about them as objectively as possible, whether they are true or false. Of course, this is not mathematics, and it is clear that there are different arguments and approaches, and yet this distinction is important and correct. When you support pluralism, this is your position, and everyone can hold their own position. This is not judgment. At most, the reader can claim that he is against pluralism, and that is fine too (after all, I am a pluralist). Therefore, such an article belongs either in a philosophy book or in a journalistic article in a daily newspaper. But when you claim that the Rambam was a pluralist, the reader can put your claims to an empirical test against the sources you cited. He will examine whether you have presented reasonable evidence for your claim or not, and will be able to judge them. Therefore, this is a justified claim, and it has its place in an academic essay. If we now return to the opening story, my books and essays do not deal with the study of halacha or philosophy, but with halacha and philosophy themselves. As far as I am concerned, I am a player on the field and not a researcher of what is done on it. Therefore, that editor was right when he asked me to write the article differently (and I was also right when I did not agree). This means that academia deals with knowledge, its accumulation and analysis. Creation, on the other hand, does not deal with knowledge. Knowledge in its academic sense tries to be (as far as possible) objective, and not biased. It does not depend on opinions and trends (as far as possible). This is the deep meaning of the requirement of justification.

Within this framework, quite a few scholars have created indirect paths for themselves. A scholar of Jewish thought cannot write an article praising pluralism in Judaism. He can show that Maimonides was a pluralist, if he properly reasons it from sources in his writings. So what do we do? To support pluralism, we show that Maimonides was a pluralist. To support women's equality, we show that the Rashba was a feminist. All of this is perfectly fine, as long as the reasoning stands the test of fairness in comparison with the sources. The writer's agendas and motivations are none of the business of the academic critic (this is the well-known distinction in the philosophy of science, between the context of discovery and the context of justification). The rabbi or thinker is not obligated to any of this. They can write an essay or a publicistic article (or a yeshiva conversation) in which they preach for pluralism, or against it, in a clearly unjudgmental manner.

There are areas in the humanities where this disciplinary distinction is really unclear. Furthermore, I feel that there are groups that tend to try to further and blur it even further. The difference between a poet and a poetry scholar or the difference between a writer and a literature scholar is sharp and clear. But in areas such as philosophy, Jewish thought, the study of the Talmud and Halacha (Jewish wisdom) and the like, it is sometimes difficult to put one's finger on the difference between studying the subject and engaging with the subject itself. An article written by a scholar of Jewish thought seems seemingly similar to a composition written by a thinker or creator who deals with Jewish thought. Maimonides also tries to understand what is at the heart of the sages' lectures and other sources, and to draw conclusions from that. This is also what the researcher apparently does (both for the Talmud and for the Rambam himself). So what is the difference between the creator and the researcher in the field of Jewish thought? The same goes for philosophy, or the study of halakhah. After all, both the posak and the researcher deal with the sources of halakhah, compare, try to delve into their study and understand what they mean and what conclusions emerge from them. So what is the difference?

For this reason, philosophy professors are perceived (even by themselves) as philosophers, and therefore scholars of Israeli thought consider themselves thinkers in Israeli thought themselves. To the best of my judgment, this is a mistake. Philosophy professors are not philosophers, and they should not be. They are experts in the study of philosophy. This expertise includes knowledge of methods and trends in the history of philosophy, the ability to conduct comparisons and analyses of the various methods and examine their significance. This, of course, involves knowledge of philosophy, but there is no reason to expect them to be philosophers. A philosopher innovates new ideas and methods in philosophy. He creates, just like a poet or a writer (with all the differences between them, of course), and is not bound to one method or another. He takes positions and expresses his opinion, with various reasons and sometimes without them. He is absolutely not obliged to rely on previous sources (although he can of course do so), and he also does not necessarily use the philosophical analysis and comparison techniques of scholars. He simply writes his opinion, and there is no requirement for fairness. It is famous that the writings of Kant, Hegel, or Nietzsche would not be accepted in any self-respecting philosophical journal, and rightly so. Kant was a philosopher, not a philosopher, and his writings express his own positions, and do not engage in the study of philosophy.

I am mainly dealing with the humanities here, but the same is true for the natural sciences. A physicist is mainly concerned with the study of the laws of nature. He does not create things but rather studies them and talks about them (although his research can, of course, be creative). Even in the faculty of engineering, one can distinguish between development done in industry and basic research in academia. Unfortunately, there is currently a deterioration in these fields as well (due to interests and economic hardships), and it is a shame. The academic physicist is supposed to study the laws of nature created by the Creator, and the humanities scholar is supposed to study what man creates (not within the framework of "who created," of course J). A humanities scholar is not concerned with creation but with the study of creation, just as a natural sciences scholar is concerned with the study of nature and not with the creation of nature or the addition of nature.

Incidentally, in my opinion this is also the difference between poskim and halakhic scholars. The posk does indeed also deal with sources that preceded him, but he does not examine what the Rambam thought, but rather uses the Rambam to issue his own halakhic ruling that will be correct for his time and place. Therefore, he did not need the context in which Maimonides' words were written, unlike an academic researcher (who relies on the philological-historical method). On the contrary, poskim who do adhere to precedents and ancient sources (I call them "poskim of Mishnah Berura") are not poskim in my opinion, but rather scholars of halakhic law. They cite what the poskim wrote. But a true poskim is a creator or actor, not a scholar. He needs to formulate a halakhic position on the situation presented to him, and precedents are usually used for assistance and guidance. For some reason, there are poskim who act as scholars (=poskim of Mishnah Berura), and to the same extent there are scholars who act as poskim. This distinction is intrinsically linked to what I once called here "first-order jurisprudence" versus "second-order jurisprudence." A poskim is supposed to deal with the first order. He is supposed to issue the correct halakhic law for his time and place. The obligation of reasoning and judgment does not apply to him in the same sense as to the scholar. A posk is allowed to use his sense of smell, tradition, and unformulated and unconceptualized ways of thinking that he received from his rabbis or from his own. A researcher is prohibited from all of this. He is supposed to describe and analyze what exists, and not play the game himself.

I will give an example here. I once wrote an article on conversion in which I claimed that there is no opinion in halakhah that is willing to forgo the acceptance of a commandment (not the declaration of acceptance, but the acceptance in the heart). After that, an angry response was published by a well-known scholar of Hebrew law who quoted from the response of Rad"tz Hoffman (which I was familiar with). As far as I am concerned, the fact that Rabbi Hoffman wrote this means nothing. Then he wrote and was wrong. The fact that his book is written in Rashi script and bound in gold letters does not make it a halakhic opinion on the map. But that is only as far as I am concerned, as someone who is on the field and arguing with Rabbi Hoffman around the halakhic table. But as far as the scholar is concerned, he is right. He is not supposed to relate to things as a player on the field (or around the table) but as a scholar who deals with objective data. He does not sit at the table around which we sit and grapple. As far as he is concerned, there is such an opinion in the halakhic field and therefore he is obligated to bring it up and take it into account. He needs to draw the general map. The creator himself (the philosopher, the arbiter, the poet or the writer) is absolutely not obliged to conduct such a review. He can choose opinions as he sees fit. This is another example of the difference between a creator who plays on his own field and a researcher who examines it from the outside in a judgmental manner. The anger of that commenter stemmed from the same blurring between arbiter and researcher. He read my article as if it were a study on conversion that reviews opinions. I am not a researcher but a player on the field.

It is important to note that this is not a distinction between personalities but between disciplines. A person who studies philosophy can of course also study philosophy, and write essays that take their own positions and not just study the teachings of others. But he does this wearing a different hat. Here he functions as a philosopher and not as a researcher of philosophy. It could be the same person, but these are two different disciplines (see the debate between me and Rabbi Benny Lau regarding Rosh Rosenthal, in Akademo 13-14, regarding an example of a serious mixing of the two hats that shows how far things go). He should also not receive academic credit for such compositions, nor should he even publish them in academic publications or engage in them within the university framework. He will do this himself, or in private institutes for holding philosophers, just like a philosopher, painter, or poet, who are not academics. He will publish the articles as publicistic articles in the press, in journals, or as books by various book publishers.

There is room to distinguish between teaching and research in this matter. Within the framework of university teaching, there is more room to introduce existential and experiential aspects. After all, the Faculty of Engineering produces engineers, not just engineering researchers. The Department of Jewish Thought is also supposed to contribute to the creation of thinkers, not just researchers. Therefore, there is certainly room to engage with students in aspects of meaning and the formation of contemporary positions. But not within the framework of academic research. It should only deal with the formation of tools in the most objective sense possible.

Precisely against the background of the sharp distinction I have presented here, it is important for me to point out again that beyond the targeted agendas, even in terms of the matter itself, the line between the fields is not sharp. In recent generations, quite a few philosophical ideas have emerged and continue to emerge within the framework of academic essays (although, to my impression, this is still a small minority). Sometimes the study of philosophy brings a person to his own ideas, and he also expresses them in the academic article itself. To the same extent, in the opposite direction, there may be a section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason that could make it into an academic journal, but this is only an accident. Usually, this should not be the purpose of the academic article, and in the other direction, neither should the philosophical essay.

As mentioned, beyond the natural blurring in these fields, it seems to me that various researchers have an interest in this blurring. They have a hard time distinguishing between a philosophy professor and a philosopher. They greatly enjoy the status of the philosopher (the one with the pipe, who can speak on the radio and express his opinion as an expert on the philosophical and ethical issues at hand), which in many cases they really don't deserve. Very few of them deserve the title of philosopher, and it's a shame that radio broadcasters or other journalists are not always aware of this important distinction. This interest is added to the general blurring that has prevailed in the postmodern era, and it has not escaped academia either. Today, various and strange fields and "research" are entering the university, any connection between which and academic research is strictly coincidental. Starting with experimenting with practical experiential Kabbalah, continuing with predicting the future, which is mostly nothing more than worthless modern witchcraft that uses impressive foreign terminology and a language of numbers and percentages that means nothing, just like the Delphic Oracle or one of the charlatan "dolls" of our time. This continues with the study of gender, which is mostly nothing more than political ideology in academic garb, historians with agendas that distort their research, and so on.

By the way, many of the "researchers" say this on the table, and of course explain with good taste that there is no such thing as impartial research. In their opinion, everything is political and everything is based on agendas and hegemonies and conspiracies and positions of power and narratives and the rest of the vague postmodern garbage whose function is to create the welcome blurring that prevents distinction between nonsense and the essential, between quality and garbage, between creator and researcher, and between anything and everything else. Usually, those who explain to us that there is no impartial research are the first to fall prey to this inappropriate bias, and the postmodern fog serves them as a defense strategy. In order to hide the academic worthlessness of their work, they accuse the entire world of a defect that is mainly found in them. An article by physicist Alan Sokel sent to the postmodern journal Social Text (those who know the nuances can understand from the title what is in store for them. According to the Hebrew "Theory and Criticism"), published by Duke University, and contained a jumble of quotes from various fields that have nothing to do with pseudoscientific nonsense, and this nonsense was accepted and published there, thus revealing their nakedness and shame to the public.

Of course, the question of dosage is also important here. Can a researcher engage in Israeli thought with academic (philological-historical) rigor, and then ask his students or readers what all this means to us/them? But that is only on the margins. A university deals with knowledge, not opinions. It teaches, not educates (except for research and academic education, of course). It researches, accumulates, and analyzes knowledge, and does not engage in, nor should it engage in, the creation of opinions and positions. At least not within the framework of academic research (unlike intellectual debate clubs that, unfortunately, have passed away, because everything has moved to the academic field). I oppose that academic imperialism that wants to conquer the fields of action and creation as well, and in the long run causes the emasculation of academic research, and a shameful mixing of research and creation. This blurring turns research into a tool for promoting social and political agendas and trends, as we have seen quite a bit in our academia in recent years.

There are additional prices for this blurring. There is a disregard for philosophical and intellectual literature that was not created in academia (Avi Sagi in his article mentions Rabbi Shagar, who is "banned" by the tone-setters in academia). Non-fiction book award committees examine books using academic criteria, and a book that creates new thought and is not written in an academic style will usually not pass them. Because of this imperialism, there are almost no serious journals for philosophy (and not for the study of philosophy) in which an article in which a position is taken can be published (unless you are a well-known researcher, in which case of course everything is allowed). This is, in my opinion, the main reason why philosophy today is created mainly in journals for the study of philosophy. This is a process that builds itself, thereby excluding those who do not write in the "standard" manner from the field. To avoid any doubt, I am completely in favor of this separation, as long as it is on the table. No side should take over the other side, otherwise we will all lose. The results of the blurring between research and creation harm both research and creation. If The researcher is simultaneously a creator, that is, a player on the field, so both the creation and the research are damaged. A few years ago there was a conference at Bar Ilan University, entitled "There is no Judaism without Jewish Studies." So yes, there certainly is. Jewish Studies sometimes helps to shed light on different aspects, but Jewish Studies and Judaism should not be confused. These are two completely different things, just as the study of Native American culture is different from this culture itself, and the philosophy of mathematics is not mathematics. In both cases, the latter does not really need the former. Of course, researchers can also contribute to Judaism itself (as well as Native American culture or mathematics), and they will be blessed. But they do so wearing a different hat, not that of an academic researcher.

We have learned that the academic researcher must indeed kill the field in which he deals. To cleanse it of its dampness of relevance, in order to maintain academic distance. We can quote the wonderful words of Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol, translated by Orland): "But every man kills what his heart loves, some with a look, some with many words. A heartless man kills with a kiss, and a man with his sword."