Human credit. All beliefs, values, facts, etc.

Dear Rabbi Michi, good evening and peace.
Following the elections and your columns that dealt directly or indirectly with the issues that arise from them, several issues popped into my head that I would love to hear your opinion on.
 
One of the most important things I learned from you and thinkers like Leibowitz, Kant to a lesser extent , and Sartre (mainly because of his announcement of the failure of his method and the uncertainty it contains) is the correct separation between facts and values, every feeling of certainty and uncertainty in reality.
 
In many columns you repeat the principle that if you look at the essence of most debates that take place in the areas of ethics, politics and religion, the disagreement usually does not stem from the root of different values, but from a division and incorrect perception of the facts (in your opinion). So it is with the debate between the right and the left about harming innocent people. In your opinion, it is agreed on both sides that Ayyub and a person who came to harm him are ethically and morally deserving of death, and the whole question is only in the facts: do the citizens of Ayyub identify and also actively and mentally act in the war (in your opinion. From what I remember – yes). So it is with regard to political elections (in your opinion, almost 75-80 members of the Knesset are right-wing in one way or another, and only a small minority, and the Arab citizens think fundamentally differently on some issues, such as a state of all its citizens, the Law of Return, etc.). And so it is with regard to philosophical issues (in your opinion, there is no dispute that there is no proof It is not certain here or there about the existence of God, but the whole dispute is about the matter of plausibility. What is more plausible?). And also on the question of keeping the commandments and their form (there is no dispute between the Haredim and modern Orthodoxy that keeping the commandments and carrying out the will of God is the most important value, and the whole question is whether the will of God, the Blessed, is also that we be moral and accept modern principles from the ends or not.)
 
The very problem with separating an emotion from a fact and experience.
I agree in principle with the claim that there can only be one truth, even if it has several different angles, unlike postmodernism (the video in which you were a guest at a conference on religious postmodernism also helped me to distinguish between several types of claims that can be made in the field). But I have a final question about the analytical way of thinking of that school. Or actually a question about this way of thinking.
Mixing emotions, feelings, experiences, facts, and values: The correct value is the one that indicates what reality is, or the opposite.
Rabbi Solbeitzik, zt”l. I once heard this in a class by Rabbi Sharki. He claimed that the difference between Greeks and Jews is that in Greek culture, beauty is truth, while in Jewish culture, truth is beauty (I think you would be less likely to connect with Wart, but you would agree with the principle that truth is more important than aesthetics and emotion in general).
 
The first confusion between all emotion and experience, value and fact: the question of utility: hell or heaven.
I don’t think there is any religious literature in the world, not even Jewish religious literature, that would neglect the issue of reward and punishment as the primary and most instinctive motivation for observing or not observing a commandment. I don’t think there is any dispute that the reason why religious education generally doesn’t want to have an open discussion about the truth of religion is because of this. After all, one can talk about values ​​and meta-values ​​from today until tomorrow night. If, in the end, there is a theoretical reality in which, because of a failure in a question, one is saved forever in hell, it won’t contribute at all to the issue of whether we acted with intellectual honesty or not.
Your many books and articles repeat the issue of reward and punishment and answer it with a simple answer. He who has no doubts about his faith and is content with his innocent faith – blessed is he, and this is excellent and good. You have also said many times that you are not an elitist on the matter, and from your point of view, innocent and simple faith is no less qualitative than rational and clarified faith. As long as a person acts correctly and does what he should do – but if he needs intellectual investigation, this is also not objectionable in your eyes as long as he wants to investigate the truth of the tradition out of a sincere desire to reach the truth and not from improper motives – because in your opinion, the concept of commanding to believe and to fear punishment as long as you do not know whether the claim presented to you is true or not is an unreasonable demand from the principle of law. (I assume that you say this because you are starting from the premise that God, the Holy One, is not a punishment. At least not to a serious extent. A person who has sinned by mistake is just as guilty as a person who has sinned intentionally.
But I would like to present an opposite approach, very similar to yours, and thereby compare them to different concepts (the main question I would like to get to is after the examples I bring for the purpose of the question):
Does man establish his values ​​by making decisions, and from that God judges him? Or does God create man with a finite essence, and according to that essence he receives reward and punishment? On the similarity between Rabbi Tzadok HaCohen of Libulin, between Yeshayahu Leibowitz, between you and the gap between you (I am not putting you and Yeshayahu in the same category for the sake of demagogy, but only because on this specific issue I find a similarity between you).
 
Yeshayahu Leibowitz claims in many of his articles that values ​​cannot be argued about, but only fought over. From his perspective, serving God is not a matter of dispute over facts at all. Since the Israelites knew about the existence of God and chose to sin with the sin of the calf in Exodus 27. And there were kings who were wicked and corrupt even though they lived in an era of prophecy. From this he concludes that serving God is a value that a person takes upon themselves. That cannot depend on circumstances of reward and punishment, nor on knowledge versus ignorance. You conclude in a slightly different way and from a slightly different angle than him that this is true only for a period in which prophecy is absolute certainty, while in real reality the existence of God is the truth of the Torah and the commandments. These are indeed things whose plausibility and implausibility can be ascertained through arguments from conclusions and deciding what seems more plausible. But even according to your opinion, the degree of plausibility and implausibility is subjective and varies from person to person and is not a certain claim.
Rabbi Tzadok, in his books Tzadkat Tzadik, Peri Tzadik, Yisrael Kedoshim, and the like, presents a very similar argument from a somewhat mystical angle. However, to the extent that he supplements his arguments with mystical arguments that may sometimes seem pretentious, he claims as follows:
Throughout the Bible, throughout the Mishnah, the Gemara, and so on, we see fundamental claims about the souls that act, which touch the depths of the hearts of sinners versus those who act rightly. And this cannot be a superficial judgment that refers only to their external actions. Rather, it must be a judgment that touches the depths of their hearts. The sinner will remain a sinner, even if he justifies his actions infinitely, because he will fall in the end. Because his deep inner mental motive is a desire to separate from God, he will also sin gravely in the end, while the righteous in the depths of his heart will also condemn his actions infinitely. He will return to God in the end because in the depths of his heart this desire exists (a bit like the parable that is told today about Uncle Amsalem and the traditional Likud voters who are certainly more connected to God in the depths of their hearts than Bennett. Because in the moment of truth, they showed that they would not dare (to harm the budget for yeshivas/support for the enemies of Israel/uprooting religion).
For Rabbi Tzadok, the categories of Jew and Gentile play a strong role. I would like to ignore this issue for a moment because it is not essential to my question, and therefore instead of Gentile, I will translate his statement into the concept of the natural man versus the man who fears God by nature. From his perspective, he repeatedly states that a true free range of choice exists among people who fear God by nature, who can be Israel by birth. Or a righteous stranger who is also born with a spark of good in his opinion. Or a Righteous Among the Nations (who is not clear in his teaching whether he is included in the category of good by nature or one who overcomes his inclinations, but I assume from the nature of his writings that he is included in the first category). As for the natural man who is deprived of Torah and commandments, he will end up falling into the pit and sinning, as we saw in the story of Balaam. And in the case of the wicked Esau, who was obliged by nature to be a model against Jacob (he repeats that in his opinion, as soon as there is a righteous man, there must be a wicked man in order for the former to take Paradise and the latter to Hell). And divine justice Explained in two ways:
1 In the same way that according to him, there is free choice in the world of action, even though God knows the depths of the hearts of His creatures and the future of their choices. Therefore, the mechanism of reward and punishment is justified. Because theoretically, a choice between good and evil was possible (as in the case of Esau, who could not sell the birthright to receive the blessings from Isaac and serve Jacob as a “helper against him.” In the same sense, evil can be turned into good in a practical sense and be rewarded if he bends to good). Or as in the story of Haman and Mordecai, if Haman had theoretically remained a slave to Mordecai, he could have repented by virtue of the holy sparks that existed within him, from which his sons who learned Torah emerged. In the same way that if the first man had not been tempted by the serpent, all the seed of Israel would have emerged directly from him, holy and pure, teaching the Torah throughout the entire world, and then the nations of the world would have been created by mistake later. And they suffer the enslavement of kingdoms, exiles, and the like by Israel, and thus they too would be purified like Israel. And the serpent and all the forces of impurity in the world would be transformed into true good.
2 In the same way that sin, evil, and punishments are the works of the Holy One. Sinners, like Amalek and the wicked of the rest of the nations, were created as a burden to the holy forces on purpose. It is better for the righteous person to know how to deal with them and receive a reward. But their punishment comes not as a sanction, but because through that punishment, the name, honor, and will of the Holy One are sanctified (and I do not know which method he chooses in the end, because not all of his writings on the subject of free choice are consistent). Whereas for the righteous, the reward is from the opposite direction, because the Holy One wants them to praise Him, worship Him, and praise Him. He causes them to walk on the good path. They can indeed sin, but the Holy One turns events in a direction in which they can also rise from those sins and reach a level of repentance.
The second confusion between reason and emotion: the issue of human morality. Natural instincts. Intuitions. and subjectivity.
1 I noticed that many of the disputes between moderns and conservatives also concern the question of subjectivity. The individual versus the group. And some ethical questions that can arise from this. The Torah conservative can claim that the laws of the Torah – the 613 commandments for the people of Israel and the 7 commandments for the children of Noah – are eternal laws that do not change under any circumstances. What was defined as evil in creation is evil because of the decision of God, and what was defined as the right and proper act is proper and right. And there is almost no room for pragmatic considerations on this subject. Some would say that although the rules are universal and apply to human judgment, it varies from person to person according to their circumstances. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, in a letter to Eliyahu, writes about the point of choice that every person (or every Jew for that matter) has. He says that someone born into a criminal family and a criminal society will be judged by the attempt not to murder. And if he succeeds, they will roll from heaven for him to reach To try not to steal and so on and so forth. There is also a midrash about Naaman, who was a resident resident. It was said about him that depending on the circumstances of his life, he was allowed to worship idols in collaboration and to transgress the 7 commandments of the children of Noah, and it was worth being saved. I assume that others will write. But Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman writes that even a shepherd who lived his entire life in a detached Zelviziya will be held accountable for the fact that he had the opportunity to learn and did not learn.
In the two examples I gave about the tension between the individual and the rule and between the law and life circumstances, and also in the second example about the tension and controversy between free choice and ancestral decree, I want to ask you essentially two questions:
1a. Do you think there is room for the hypothesis of a primordial decree that transcends free choice? (As can be found in many other sayings of the Sages: “He created the righteous, He created the wicked, He created darkness, He created light.” And also from a perhaps simple explanation: that if there are so many people in the world, even if theoretically generations from the end chose good, wicked people would have to appear at some point.)
1b. Assuming that there is no free choice. At least not in essential and fateful matters. In your opinion, can anything be deduced from this about the contract between God and a person in whose life there is no free choice (whether he was a son of the wicked, a person who is naturally hot-blooded, mentally or emotionally damaged as a result of trauma, etc.)
2 And this is actually the main question: Are there reasonable and unreasonable facts in all discussions of values? In your opinion, the right way to learn is first to validate whether the principle, value, or fact that we have learned is correct. Or should we be open to theoretically accepting completely absurd situations that may exist as correct (and not only in matters of free choice and determinism, but also in matters of the existence of two independent possibilities. Thinking that perhaps there is also a hidden point of evil in the Creator that during creation He wanted to shed from Himself, and thus all evil was created. As is brought by way of a parable. I emphasize a complete parable. According to my understanding, it is better not to slander the Kabbalists). Ideas such as seeing creation as a cynical amusement (as is brought in the Divine Comedy and among the Italian Kabbalists). And in general openness towards schools of thought that are considered taboo in classical systems of thought?