Parashat Vayera (5760)

With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath of Parashat Vayera, 5760

Laughter and Rationality

In our parashah, God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that a son would be born to them is described: ‘I will surely return to you at this

season next year, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son’ (Genesis 18:10). Sarah responds with a laugh of disbelief: ‘After I am worn out, shall I again

have vitality? And my husband is old’ (Genesis 18:12). That is, how could a son be born to people a hundred years old, beyond the age

at which people can ordinarily bear children.

This laughter recurs even after the event has already occurred. At the beginning of chapter 21 the Torah relates,

and the Sages stress this very strongly,

that people did not believe that Isaac, even once he had already been born, was indeed the son of

Sarah and Abraham. There were various speculations as to how he came to them, but there was a general unwillingness

to believe that he was in fact their son.

From the Sages it emerges that there is a negative attitude toward those ‘scoffers of the generation’ who would say,

‘Sarah conceived by Abimelech.’

Such an attitude seems puzzling. They were in fact behaving rationally. Why should they have

believed that a son could be born to such an elderly couple? On the face of it, this really was an improbable thing.

Laughter generally appears when an event occurs that does not accord with the usual rules. When a person

behaves in a ‘funny’ way, or when something ‘funny’ happens to him, that means that it does not

accord with what ordinarily happens.[1] In the case of Isaac’s birth as well, that is what caused the laughter. There occurred

an event that does not ordinarily happen, not according to the rules.

It seems that this context demands a discussion of the very concepts of rationality. Why indeed is it not rational

to believe that an anomalous (=funny) event will occur (or in our case: did occur)? Must all events

occur according to fixed patterns? Why is one who interprets the world by fixed laws

considered rational, whereas one who views each event as separate is not?

The principal method the modern world uses to understand the world is science. The basic scientific

assumption is that occurrences in the world are indeed ordered according to fixed general laws. According to the

approach prevalent today, a scientific explanation of some event means proposing a general law of which this

event is a particular instance. For example, the scientific explanation of why a ball that we kick upward

falls back to the earth is the law of gravitation [i.e., attraction].

Since every body falls to the earth (what is called ‘the force of gravity’), this particular ball too falls to the earth.

Quite simply, there is no explanation here at all. We still need to understand why all bodies fall

to the earth, or in other words why there is a force of gravity. Stating the general law does not constitute a

fundamental explanation, but only an expansion of the question. Now, instead of wondering why a given

ball falls to the earth, we must ask ourselves why all bodies do so.

As stated, there is here an assumption that underlies science, and apparently also underlies rational thinking

as a whole: that reality operates according to general laws, and once we have seen that a given phenomenon constitutes a

particular instance of some general law, then we have ‘understood’ that phenomenon. We have an ‘explanation’

for it. An event that does not fit a general law is ‘funny.’

These concepts of explanation are discussed in detail in the philosophy of science, and in philosophy generally, and I do not

wish to enter into that issue here. I wish only to point out that concealed here is a basic assumption of

science that is not necessarily valid in every context.

Let us see a few examples of this. ‘Judaism,’ as a religion and as a people, is an example of a singular

phenomenon that is not intelligible against the background of parallel phenomena of its kind. Scholars of nations and religions often find it

difficult to ‘explain’ why Judaism is regarded as a religion, and why the Jews are a people or a nation. Within the

accepted definitions of these concepts, it seems impossible, or at least not straightforward, to include Judaism.

Lack of understanding usually stems from the nature of the tools of understanding we use. One whose understanding

is based on finding a general phenomenon of which this particular case is a specific embodiment indeed cannot

understand particular [i.e., singular] phenomena that have no reference class. He

‘laughs’ at such phenomena.

One who defines a ‘people’ as a group of persons with common origin, a common language, a common culture (to a

certain degree), and the like, immediately encounters problems in the Jewish context. Language is the most conspicuous problem,

but culture, and even ancestry, also pose no simple problem. Until not very many years ago

(and perhaps even today), even the territory of this people was not well defined.

One who defines ‘religion’ in modern terms (which are influenced mainly by Christianity, and especially by

Protestant Christianity), a definition that includes morality and religious experience as essential components,

has difficulty understanding how meticulous observance of a somewhat opaque collection of laws can, in itself, constitute a religion. This

lack of understanding, which began with Spinoza, continued through Kant into all of Western culture, and is widespread

in the State of Israel today as well.

There are many more examples of this phenomenon of particularity.[2] A miracle, for example, is such an example.

It does not conform to the laws of nature, and therefore we are not inclined to believe that it really occurred. The

common denominator of all the examples is that universal rules are being imposed on a unique phenomenon.

It is therefore also clear that if it does not obey them, people are unwilling to acknowledge it.

It seems that the matter depends on basic assumptions. When I have grounds to believe that there is nevertheless a

unique phenomenon here, such as the Jewish people, I am prepared to accept that it will not have an ‘explanation,’

or a definition, in the scientific sense, because there are no peoples or religions of the Jewish type. I see no reason

to impose on any group terms that were arbitrarily fixed by one scholar or another. This is

also the reason that scholars of Judaism (and I believe this is true of scholars of culture in general)

often do not understand, at the most elementary level, the very subjects of their research. They come equipped

with scientific tools in order to explain a phenomenon that is, in its essence, particular,

not scientific.

Incidentally, even the ‘blind’ belief in the generality of phenomena points to belief in someone who ensures

that generality. If everything is accidental, it is not clear why all the phenomena of the world cluster into

general groups, or how science succeeds in describing them on the basis of its ‘strange’ basic assumption.

This is a well-worn issue in the philosophical field called ‘epistemology’ [i.e., the theory of knowledge],

and in the philosophy of science, and in my opinion, to this very day there is no, nor does it seem to me that there will be,

any convincing alternative to the religious explanation. But that is already another story.

In Abraham and Sarah’s case as well, confidence that they were the parents stems from an inner feeling and belief that there is indeed

an exceptional case here. In such a situation, I am not prepared to bind myself to the scientific assumption that every

phenomenon must have a reference class. One who nevertheless insists on fastening himself to that

assumption does not thereby display greater rationality, but rather a presupposition of distrust

(or faith??) that he harbors. Sometimes, as the Sages teach us, excessive rationality

is a cover for ‘scoffing’ [i.e., unbelief]. Laughter at a unique phenomenon sometimes expresses a feeling

as though it ought not to be such; it ought to have occurred as phenomena usually occur.

As we have seen, this is not always the correct perspective. Sometimes the singular form is precisely

the correct form in which the phenomenon before us appears. That is not funny; on the contrary, it is rational.

This should be remembered even when we subject, in a ‘scientific’ manner, a domain that claims particularity to criticism:

one must be rational, but not a ‘scoffer.’ A person whose behavior or thinking is unusual is not

necessarily funny; sometimes he is simply unique.

Have a peaceful Sabbath

This sheet may be submitted for burial in any synagogue or house of study. Comments will be received gladly.

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[1] For an interesting discussion of laughter as a uniquely human phenomenon, and of its meanings, see the book

by the Jewish-French philosopher Henri Bergson, ‘Laughter.’

[2] One might perhaps say that there is a general phenomenon that constitutes an ‘explanation,’ in the scientific sense, for the phenomenon

of particularity discussed here. This recalls the rule that every rule has an exception

(does that include this rule itself?).

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