Amalek, the creation of the world, commitment to the Torah, morality, and the number of the Exodus from Egypt
I found a contradiction in your words that I couldn’t resolve:
1)
“For example, there is a commandment to kill Amalek, which seems to be a clearly immoral commandment. Conventional religious apologetics finds various explanations for why this act is nevertheless moral, but they are not really convincing to me . My assumption is that there is a religious value here, and it rejects the moral value of preserving human life.”
On the other hand: “I assume that Amalek was a people who educated all their sons to be murderous, and therefore there is justification for killing them even when they are small. The future is clear in advance. Think of a Jew in a concentration camp who prays that all the Germans, old people, women and children, die. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? The assumption was that there was something corrupt in this people, and therefore there is justification for destroying them from the face of the earth. I assume that the Torah sees Amalek this way and therefore commands their destruction.”
2) How many times has the Rabbi written that in his opinion the creation of the world speaks through the science that existed at the time, and that it should not be seen as something that describes reality, and on the other hand, many times the Rabbi notes that it is impossible to decide between the various possibilities for adapting the creation of the world to the biblical story (long days, etc.), so is there supposed to be some kind of compatibility between what is narrated, only there is no way to decide between the possibilities? Or is there no compatibility at all between the two things, and the Torah tells a myth (and there is no problem with that… (because?)).
3) Regarding the obligation to keep God’s commandments, on the one hand, the Rabbi once said that we do it “this way,” in the sense of an axiom that cannot be proven, and on the other hand, the Rabbi claims that we are obligated to the commandments only because of the acceptance of the people at Sinai.
4) Regarding morality without God, the Rabbi said that when someone asks him why one must keep God’s commandments, the answer is “like this,” and when he tells you: “What is like this? Be rational!”, the Rabbi asks him: “Why are you moral?” And just as with morality the answer is “like this,” so also with regard to the obligation to obey God the answer is “like this.”
So morality can be based on “this way” without God, so why say that there is no morality without God? After all, even if we say that morality obligates God, ultimately the obligation to obey God is also because of “this way,” so what difference does it make what the “this way” is based on?
5) Regarding the Exodus from Egypt, you claimed that it is not clear that the number 600,000 is typological, since the number of each tribe is specified.
So, does the rabbi think that the only way to remain a believer in the Bible is to believe in the fact that two million people left Egypt, a people as huge by any possible measure for that time, roughly the size of all of Egypt? Isn’t this a huge leap of faith?
And if we also say that the story of the creation of the world is not true, then why not say that the number of tribes is also typological? Does the rabbi believe that we are forced to believe that 2 million left Egypt? And in other places he wrote that the event may not have been as large as described.
Sorry for the many questions.
PS: I sent additional questions a few days ago, I assume the rabbi didn’t notice them, I obviously don’t want to push the rabbi.
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1) So you gave an explanation for the Amalek commandment that doesn't convince you? Why give such an alternative?
2) Don't you see another way to say that the numbers are not literal? After all, the Rabbi said several times that even if there was no Exodus from Egypt, it is not unreasonable that the Torah would command us to observe a commandment following a myth that it invented. So why isn't it said here that the Torah invented a myth of numbers as a literary part of the biblical description? What is the difference between this and the myth of the "six days" in which the world was created?
1. Choose what convinces you. I see no point in repeating this over and over again.
2. I explained that too. It doesn't seem reasonable to me to invent specific, meaningless numbers within the framework of a myth. If it's good for you – for your health.
1) We really don't repeat ourselves over and over again.
The rabbi did not answer the simple question: Does he think the moral interpretation of Amalek is reasonable (“I assume they were a people of murderers”), or a far-fetched interpretation (“It doesn't really convince me”). There is no answer to this in your words, but there are two possibilities. But we ask what the rabbi thinks about the moral interpretation? Does the rabbi hesitate about this himself? What is the difficulty in saying that it is moral, that makes you unconvinced?
2) Here too. The rabbi did not answer me what the difference is between inventing the number of days of creation of the world and the Exodus from Egypt.
Sorry for the trouble.
We do, over and over again.
1. The explanations regarding Amalek are possible given that they were indeed like the Nazis. I have no information beyond what appears in the Torah, so I cannot say this unequivocally. And since it is not necessary for the commandment to correspond to morality, it is not necessary that this is indeed the case. Therefore, I offered explanations by way of an alternative.
2. The six days of creation describe six stages, and therefore it is not a random and arbitrary number. Therefore, there is no problem in seeing it as a typological number that does not describe days but stages. However, the number of people from each tribe in the Exodus from Egypt.
As far as I am concerned, I am finished. Happy Holidays.
“The interpretations are possible” This directly contradicts “It doesn't convince me”. And the readers will judge whether the Rabbi and I are in a foreign country”.
I think I have come across one of Rabbi Michi's most powerful rhetorical tools.
After all, the Rabbi responds to many threads at the same time, and therefore his decision to end the discussion is legitimate.
Therefore, he can say ‘We are arguing again and again’, without providing ‘evidence’ for this.
It is clear that the person here asked that from the phrase ‘does not convince me’, it seems that the Rabbi completely does not accept this interpretation, compared to another place where he himself suggests it.
To say that there are two possibilities in your words here, it could have been if it had been written: ‘I am not sure that this is the interpretation’, and not: ‘It does not convince me’.
The first answer does not address what your real opinion is, whether the interpretation is possible or not, and the second answer does address it, but it does not justify the phrase “not convincing.”
And so the Rabbi manages to make the questioner out to be a fool who does not understand reading comprehension, and repeats the claims over and over again.
I suggest that a vote be held here on the site on who thinks that A is right and who thinks that Rabbi Michi is right (not on the matter itself, but on the question of whether there was a repetition here).
Happy Holidays Rabbi.
I couldn't understand why you don't have a problem with the story of the Exodus itself, in principle, that it is a myth (you once wrote, although you qualified that you think the event did happen, even if not with all its details), and with the numbers, this is absurd. If it is possible to say that the story itself is a myth, then this certainly includes the assumption that the numbers written in the census of the people are typological. So why doesn't it make sense that the Torah creates a small myth, only with regard to the numbers, if it does make sense that it created a large myth that includes the small one.
Is it precisely the combination of the two data: the truth of the general story, and the myth of the numbers, that creates the problem?
2) Doesn't the Rabbi know of another solution to the problem? Or: If theoretically it turns out with complete certainty that there were not 3 million in all of Egypt, does faith fail? Or should we say that these verses are not part of the Torah?
1. I've already explained this and I don't understand what's unclear here. When you give a number of people in a tribe like 34,512, it doesn't look like a myth. There's no reason to invent such an arbitrary and specific number that doesn't mean anything in the context of a myth. Either don't write how many there were at all or write some round number (preferably meaningful).
2. Nothing falls through, even if we stay in the past. This doesn't seem like such a cardinal question to me. There's always a possible solution that we haven't thought of. No theory falls through on a single difficulty, and one that isn't really that powerful.
I agree that it doesn't appear that the number is typological, but it apparently follows from this that it is also impossible to say that the entire Exodus in general is a myth (as the rabbi claims it might be), because the story also contains very specific numbers, which we have agreed describe the truth, so it doesn't make sense that it is a myth.
If the big story includes a detail that the rabbi says is not typological, then that makes the whole story not typological, doesn't it?
Why not? No, it cannot be a myth with real facts woven into it. On the contrary, when they say that a biblical story is a myth, they mean precisely that it contains various details that are not necessarily accurate.
Do you mean to say that according to the side that there was no Exodus, the myth is only the exodus from Egypt, but the number of the Israelites is not a myth?
Are you kidding, or what? What does it mean that the Exodus is fake but the number of those who left is real?
The basic argument is that even if a story like the Exodus is a myth, this does not necessarily mean that all of its details are fake. There are details in it that add to the glory of the story. Therefore, the fact that there are real details does not mean that the entire story is real. The question is whether the total number of those who left is real – I do not know. Whether the number of all members of a tribe is real – I do not know (although it is unlikely in my opinion that the intention is not to provide a real number).
I think we have exhausted.
Why are you kidding? I didn't call the number of people – “the number of those who left”! But just “the number of the Israelites”.
I actually understand from your last sentences that you agree with me. The number is real (meaning the Bible intends to report a real number), even though there was no exodus from Egypt. Obviously I don't call them (and I didn't call them) “those who left Egypt” because there wasn't one, but the number is real (the Bible reports a real number).
Got it?
See also a related answer in this link:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%91%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%90%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/
The number of the Israelites when? In an exodus that did not happen? It becomes meaningless. The things are clear, and that is enough.
Well, I couldn't understand, thanks anyway.
After all, if the whole story wasn't there, and included the numbers of the people's number (since there are no “coming out of Egypt”), then we're back to the same problem:
The Bible describes real numbers (from its perspective), and we say they are a myth (like the entire Exodus), so it's not clear to me what we gained by saying that everything is a myth. Maybe someone understood and can explain?
Y, I have already explained everything and will try one more time.
The story of the Exodus does not have to be a reliable historical description. It is possible that there was another event, perhaps more minor or in a different form. But it is still reasonable to me that there was some event (a historical kernel for the myth).
The numbers of the exodus from Egypt do not seem logical on their own, but in the Torah it is presented as a true description (it is not interpretively reasonable to treat this as a typological number).
Therefore, the number of the exodus is problematic, and this has nothing to do with the mythic nature of the entire Exodus. The problem is in the contradiction between the language of the Bible and the possibility of seeing it as part of the myth. The claim that the Exodus was a myth will not help this difficulty.
Therefore, I did not gain anything by saying that everything is a myth regarding the problem of the number of the exodus from Egypt (and by the way, I did not say that everything is a myth. I said that there is a story here that is not necessarily historically reliable in its details).
On the other hand, I also claim that this difficulty does not defeat me. It is an interpretive difficulty and it may have an explanation that I do not see. I do not see any fundamental difficulty here that forces me to draw conclusions. It is possible that these numbers have meaning and are indeed mythical. It is possible that these are real numbers and that this was really the number of those who left, although to me it does not seem likely. And there may be other possibilities that I have not thought of.
I have written all of this in detail and clearly up to this point. In this summary I have not added anything. This is what I called “repeatedly and repeatedly” above.
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