On the Proper Methodology in the Study of Jewish Thought and the Humanities

With God's help

Toward the end of last year, a discussion took place in the pages of this supplement regarding the proper approach to research in Jewish thought. What sparked the discussion was an article about the dispute in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University between the philological-historical "party," which aspires to objective, impartial research stripped of contemporary significance, and Avinoam Rosenak, who advocates raising contemporary issues and integrating them into the department's study. It was reported that as a result of this struggle Rosenak, the former chair of the department, was transferred against his will to another department at the university (the Department of Education). Shalom Rosenberg, Avi Sagi, and Mordechai Rotenberg all attacked the philological-historical approach. They argued that it performs a mercy killing on the field of Jewish thought, since it insists on clinging to texts and context while severing itself from the relevant and contemporary questions they raise. I do not know the details of the case, nor the people involved in it, but I came to the conclusion that this debate skips over the deeper point at issue. That point concerns the very foundations of academic research and the role of academia in general. Here I wanted to offer an explanation on behalf of the attacked party, precisely as one who does not belong to it.

Several years after my first book, Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon, was published, a well-known person from Ariel College (as it was then called) called me and informed me that they were about to launch a new journal for Jewish thought. He asked me to write an article for the first issue, but added that it should not be like my books. It had to be assessable, since this was an academic journal. I immediately understood what he meant, and told him that I write as I write, and if that did not suit the journal then they would have to make do with other writers. People to whom I told this did not understand. After all, I too write in technical terminology, sometimes I also include references to various sources, I engage in philosophy and in analyzing the conceptual dimension of things and the significance of earlier sources. So what exactly is the difference? To explain the difference, we need a few examples, some of them banal.

Would anyone imagine that a poet would write a poem and send it to a journal devoted to the study of poetry? Or that he would be given an academic appointment where he would write poems? Certainly not. The same is true of a novelist or playwright. Why? Academic research on poetry does not concern itself with writing poetry; it studies poetry. Academic scholars do not engage in the thing itself; they discuss it. The same is true of the study of literature and art in general. Even in psychology, academic research does not engage in treatment, but at most in the study of treatment methods. No one would think of employing athletes in academic positions, even though there are academic departments that study sports (its history, physiology, the various techniques, and the like). Industrialists and economists likewise do not operate within faculties of economics and management. Even lecturers in education are not necessarily good teachers, and usually do not teach either (thank God).

One of the main differences between the two kinds of activity is assessability. A poet writes whatever comes into his heart and is bound by no rules. By contrast, when a scholar makes a claim about the poet's poetry, or about a group of poets, he is supposed to anchor his determinations in a way that makes them assessable: the reader should be able to decide about them, as objectively as possible, whether they are right or wrong. Of course this is not mathematics, and clearly there are disputes and different approaches, yet this distinction is important and valid. When you endorse pluralism, that is your position, and anyone can hold a position of his own. That is not assessable. At most the reader can say that he opposes pluralism, and that too is fine (after all, I am a pluralist). Therefore such an article belongs either in a book of philosophy or in an op-ed in a daily newspaper. But when you argue that Maimonides was a pluralist, the reader can test your claims empirically against the sources you brought. He will examine whether you have provided reasonable evidence for your claim or not, and he will be able to judge it. Therefore that is an assessable claim, and its place is in an academic work. If we return now to the opening story, my books and writings do not deal with the study of Jewish law or philosophy, but with Jewish law 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 too was right when I did not agree). The meaning of this is that academia deals with knowledge, with its accumulation and analysis. Creative work, by contrast, does not deal with knowledge. Knowledge in its academic sense tries to be (as far as possible) objective and unbiased. It is not dependent on opinions and tendencies (as much as possible). That is the deep meaning of the demand for assessability.

Within this framework, quite a few scholars have created detours for themselves. A scholar of Jewish thought cannot write an article in praise of pluralism in Judaism. He can show that Maimonides was a pluralist, if he properly justifies that from sources in his writings. So what do they do? In order to support pluralism, they show that Maimonides was a pluralist. In order to support equality for women, they show that the Rashba was a feminist. All this is perfectly fine, so long as the arguments meet the tests of assessability against the sources. The agendas and motivations of the author are not the concern of the academic critic (this is the well-known distinction in philosophy of science between the context of discovery and the context of justification). The rabbi or the thinker is not bound by any of this. He can write a treatise or a journalistic article (or deliver a talk in a yeshiva) in which he preaches pluralism, or opposes it, in a manner that is plainly not assessable.

There are fields in the humanities in which this disciplinary distinction is really not clear. Moreover, my impression is that there are groups that are intentionally trying to blur it even more. The difference between a poet and a scholar of poetry, or between a novelist and a scholar of literature, is sharp and clear. But in fields such as philosophy, Jewish thought, the study of the Talmud and Jewish law (the academic study of Judaism), and the like, it is sometimes hard to put one's finger on the difference between studying the thing and engaging in the thing itself. An article written by a scholar of Jewish thought appears, at first glance, similar to a work written by some thinker or creator who deals with Jewish thought. Maimonides too tries to understand what underlies the midrashim of the Sages and other sources, and to draw conclusions from that. That is apparently also what the scholar does (both with respect to the Talmud and to Maimonides himself). So what is the difference between the creator and the scholar in the field of Jewish thought? The same applies to philosophy, or to the study of Jewish law. After all, both the halakhic decisor and the scholar deal with the sources of Jewish law, compare them, try to probe them and understand their meaning and what conclusion emerges from them. So what exactly is the difference?

For this reason, professors of philosophy are perceived (also by themselves) as philosophers, and scholars of Jewish thought therefore regard themselves as thinkers in Jewish thought in their own right. To the best of my judgment, this is a mistake. Professors of philosophy are not philosophers, and they do not need to be. They are experts in the study of philosophy. That expertise includes knowledge of methods and trends in the history of philosophy, the ability to compare and analyze the various systems, and an examination of their significance. This of course involves knowledge of philosophy, but there is no reason to expect them to be philosophers themselves. A philosopher innovates new ideas and systems in philosophy. He is a creator, exactly like a poet or a novelist (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 arguments and sometimes without them. He is not at all required to make use of earlier sources (though of course he can do so), and he also does not necessarily use the analytical and comparative techniques of philosophical scholars. He simply writes his opinion, and there is no demand of assessability placed on him. It is well known that the writings of Kant, Hegel, or Nietzsche would not be accepted by any philosophical journal that respects itself, and rightly so. Kant was a philosopher and not a scholar of philosophy, and his writings express positions of his own; they do not study philosophy.

I am dealing here mainly with the humanities, but the same is true of the natural sciences. A physicist is engaged primarily in the study of the laws of nature. He does not create the things but studies them and speaks about them (though of course there may be creativity in his research). Even in a faculty of engineering one can distinguish between development carried out in industry and basic research in academia. Unfortunately, there is now deterioration even in those fields (because of interests and economic pressures), and that is regrettable. The academic physicist is supposed to study the laws of nature created by the Creator, and the humanities scholar is supposed to study what human beings create (not within the framework of the blessing "Asher Yatzar" ["Who formed"], of course J). The humanities scholar does not engage in creation but in the study of creation, just as the natural scientist studies nature and does not create nature or add to it.

By the way, in my view this is also the difference between halakhic decisors and scholars of Jewish law. The decisor, to be sure, also deals with sources that preceded him, but he is not examining what Maimonides thought; he uses Maimonides in order to derive a halakhic ruling of his own that will be correct for his time and place. Therefore he also does not need the context in which Maimonides' words were written, unlike the academic scholar (who is committed to the philological-historical method). On the contrary, decisors who do cling to precedents and ancient sources (I call this "Mishnah Berurah decisors") are not decisors in my eyes but scholars of Jewish law. They report what the decisors wrote. But a true decisor is a creator or a player, not a researcher. He must formulate a halakhic position on the situation brought before him, and the precedents generally serve for assistance and guidance. For some reason there are decisors who behave like scholars (= "Mishnah Berurah decisors"), and to the same extent there are scholars who behave like decisors. This distinction is bound up with what I once called "first-order ruling" as opposed to "second-order ruling." A decisor is supposed to deal with the first order. He is supposed to produce the correct Jewish law for his time and place. The duty of reasoning and assessability does not apply to him in the same sense as it does to the scholar. A decisor may use his sense of smell, tradition, and unarticulated and unconceptualized ways of thinking that he received from his teachers or from himself. All this is forbidden to the scholar. He is supposed to describe and analyze what exists, and not to play on the field himself.

I will bring an example here. I once wrote an article on conversion in which I argued that there is no opinion in Jewish law that is willing to dispense with acceptance of the commandments (not with the declaration of acceptance, but with acceptance in the heart). Afterward an angry response was published by a well-known scholar of Jewish law who quoted from a responsum of Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann (which was familiar to me). From my point of view, the fact that Rabbi Hoffmann wrote this says nothing. So he wrote it and was mistaken. The fact that his book is printed in Rashi script and bound in gold lettering does not turn this into a halakhic opinion that counts. But that is only from my point of view, as one who is on the field and arguing with Rabbi Hoffmann around the halakhic table. But from the scholar's point of view he was right. He is not supposed to relate to the matter as a player on the field (or around the table) but as a scholar dealing with the objective data. He is not sitting at the table around which we sit and grapple. From his perspective there is such an opinion in the halakhic field, and therefore he is obliged to present it and take it into account. He has to draw the general map. The creator himself (the philosopher, the decisor, the poet, or the novelist) is not at all obliged to conduct such a survey. He can select opinions as he sees fit. This is another example of the difference between a creator who plays on the field itself and a scholar who examines it from the outside in an assessable manner. The anger of that respondent stemmed from that same blurring between decisor and scholar. He read my article as if it were a study of conversion surveying the opinions. I am not a scholar but a player on the field.

It is important to note that this is not a distinction between persons but between disciplines. A person who engages in the study of philosophy can of course also engage in philosophy, and write works that take positions of his own rather than only studying the doctrine of others. But he does that wearing a different hat. Here he functions as a philosopher and not as a scholar of philosophy. It can be the same person, but these are two different disciplines (see in this connection a debate between me and Rabbi Benny Lau regarding R. A. S. Rosenthal, in Akdamot 13-14, for an example of a serious confusion between the two hats that shows how far things can go). Nor should he receive academic credit for such works, or even publish them through academic presses or engage in this within the university. He will do that on his own, or in private institutes for supporting philosophers, just like a philosopher, painter, or poet, who are not academics. He will publish the articles as journalistic writing in the press, in journals, or as books through various publishers.

There is room to distinguish in this matter between teaching and research. Within teaching at the university there is more room to introduce existential and experiential aspects. After all, the faculty of engineering produces engineers and not only researchers of engineering. The department of Jewish thought should likewise contribute to the formation of thinkers and not only scholars. Therefore there is certainly room to engage students with aspects of meaning and the formulation of contemporary positions. But not within academic research. That should concern itself only with developing the tools in the most objective sense possible.

Precisely against the background of the sharp distinction I have presented here, it is important to me to note again that, beyond intentional agendas, even in the matter itself the line between the fields is not sharp. In recent generations, quite a few philosophical ideas have arisen, and continue to arise, within academic works (though, in my impression, this is still a small minority). Sometimes the study of philosophy brings a person to ideas of his own, and he expresses them in the academic article itself. By the same token, in the opposite direction, there may be a passage from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason that could enter an academic journal, but that is merely incidental. Usually that is not supposed to be the purpose of the academic article, and in the other direction it is also not supposed to be the purpose of the philosophical treatise.

As stated, beyond the natural blurring in these fields, it seems to me that various scholars have an interest in this blurring. They find the distinction between a professor of philosophy and a philosopher difficult to bear. They greatly enjoy the mantle of the philosopher (the one with the pipe, who can speak on the radio and state his opinion as an expert on the philosophical and ethical questions on the agenda), which in many cases they really do not deserve. Very few among them merit the title philosopher, and it is unfortunate that radio broadcasters or other journalists are not always aware of this important difference. This interest clothes itself in the general blurring that has prevailed in the postmodern age, and has not passed over academia either. Today all sorts of strange fields and "studies" enter the university, whose connection to academic research is entirely accidental. Starting with experiential practical Kabbalah, continuing with predicting the future, which for the most part is nothing but valueless modern witchcraft that uses impressive foreign terminology and a language of numbers and percentages that says nothing at all, just like the Oracle of Delphi or one of the charlatan miracle-workers of our day. It continues with gender studies, which for the most part is nothing but political ideology in academic dress and no more, historians with agendas that distort their research, and more and more.

Incidentally, many of these "scholars" say this openly, and naturally explain, with impeccable taste, that there is no such thing as impartial research. On their view, everything is political and everything is based on agendas and hegemonies and plots and power positions and narratives and the rest of the vague postmodern garbage whose function is to create the blessed blurring that prevents a distinction between the secondary and the essential, between quality and garbage, between creator and scholar, and between anything and anything else. Usually, those who explain to us that there is no impartial research are the first to suffer from this illegitimate tendentiousness, and the postmodern fog serves them as a defensive strategy. In order to hide the lack of academic value in their work, they accuse the whole world of a defect found chiefly in themselves. The article by the physicist Alan Sokal, which was sent to the postmodern journal social text (whoever knows the nuances can understand already from the name what awaits him in reading; compare the Hebrew journal "Theory and Criticism"), published by Duke University, and which contained a heap of quotations from different fields that had no connection to one another together with pseudo-scientific nonsense-this nonsense was accepted and published there, and thus exposed their shame and disgrace in public.

Of course, the question of proportion is also important here. A scholar can engage in Jewish thought with academic rigor (philological-historical), and afterward ask his students or readers what all this means for us or for them. But that is only at the margins. A university deals with knowledge and not with opinions. It teaches and does not educate (except for research and academic training, of course). It investigates and accumulates and analyzes knowledge, and does not engage, nor should it engage, in creating opinions and positions. At least not within academic research (as distinct from intellectual debate clubs, which unfortunately have disappeared from the world because everything moved into the academic sphere). I oppose that academic imperialism that seeks to conquer the realms of action and creation as well, and in the long run causes the degradation of academic research and a shameful confusion between research and creation. This blurring turns research into an instrument for promoting social and political agendas and tendencies, as we have seen quite a bit in our academia in recent years.

There are additional costs to this blurring. Philosophical and intellectual literature that was not created in academia is ignored (Avi Sagi mentions in his article Rabbi Shagar, who is "blacklisted" by the tone-setters in academia). Prize committees for books of ideas judge the books by academic criteria, and a book that creates new thought but is not written in academic style usually will 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 that takes a position can be published (unless you are a well-known scholar, in which case of course everything is permitted to you). In my view this is the main reason that philosophy today is created mainly in journals for the study of philosophy. This is a self-reinforcing process, and in that way it excludes from the field those who do not write in the "proper" way. To avoid any doubt, I am entirely in favor of this separation, provided it is on the table. Neither 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 scholar is simultaneously also a creator, that is, a player on the field, then both the creation and the research are harmed. A few years ago there was a conference at Bar-Ilan University entitled "There Is No Judaism without Jewish Studies." Well, there certainly is. Jewish Studies can sometimes help illuminate different aspects, but one must not confuse Jewish Studies with Judaism. These are two utterly different things, just as the study of Native American culture differs from that culture itself, and just as the philosophy of mathematics is not mathematics. In both cases, the second does not really need the first. Of course scholars can also contribute to Judaism itself (as also to Native American culture or to mathematics), and they should be blessed. But they do that wearing a different hat, and not that of the academic scholar.

We are thus led to conclude that the academic scholar really does need to kill the field in which he works. He must drain from it the moisture of its relevance in order to preserve academic distance. One may aptly apply here the wonderful words of Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol, in Orland's translation): "Yet each man kills the thing he loves; some do it with a look, some with a myriad of words. The coward kills with a kiss, and the man with his sword."