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Leading-a-Secular-Jew-into-Transgression-A-Reply-to-a-Response.pdf

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1__ Rabbi Michael Abraham__

Reply to a Response

A. My main claim was that the act of a secular Jew is not even an act done under ‘compulsion,’ since ‘compulsion’ is fundamentally an exemption for one who stands within the sphere of the commandments, whereas in the present case a person who does not believe does not belong at all to the realm of commandment-observance. Thus I cited Rabbi Moshe Feinstein to the effect that the blessing recited by such a person is not a blessing at all, and this is also Maimonides’ intent in Hilkhot Melakhim (ch. 8) concerning a gentile who observes commandments on the basis of rational judgment and not מתוך belief that the Torah is from Heaven (in note 30, Rabbi Kasirer suggests interpreting Maimonides’ words as referring only to gentiles; however, in the original article I already noted that several later authorities did not interpret him that way, and rightly so). My central claim was that our generation differs from earlier generations. Even if there was an individual who denied on ideological grounds, the presumption was that he did so out of temptation, and therefore this was a transgression to one degree or another. For the Sages and the medieval authorities, it was obvious that every person bears a religious obligation and is bound to the path of his forefathers. In our generation, by contrast, that presumption has been reversed. This is a simple factual determination. A systematic discussion of a phenomenon begins only once it becomes a phenomenon, and therefore no such discussion was undertaken by the medieval authorities.

B. Rabbi Kasirer argues that there is religious and halakhic (!) significance to observing commandments out of cultural and national identification, without belief in God. Such an ‘Ahad Ha’am’-style approach on Breuer’s part has no source or place in Jewish law¹. Observance without belief has no religious significance (therefore the Gutman Institute survey, which points to different levels of commandment-observance among completely secular people, is irrelevant here). One may perhaps see in this a national or moral value, but certainly not any halakhic-religious significance. The novelty of my article concerns only the claim that even the transgressions of the secular Jew are not transgressions; as for the commandments, this is self-evident.

C. Around note 28, a claim is raised that observance out of national and cultural identification is similar to custom, which too is observed out of love for our people. These remarks are problematic even on their own terms, but in any event they do not concern us: my claim is that when someone stands outside the sphere of the commandments, no halakhic significance can be ascribed to his actions, and therefore his customs as well will not possess religious value. Someone who stands within the sphere of commandment-observance and acts מתוך the belief that God desires identification with the Jewish people as a whole is a different matter. And even where it is said that a person should perform the moral commandments out of identification (as Maimonides writes in Shemonah Perakim), this does not mean that their performance has significance without belief.

1. As for Rabbi Breuer’s thought, I do not see this as an objection to my position. I am aware that my view does not accord even with the conception of a halakhic and philosophical giant such as Rav Kook, and there is no point in raising further arguments against me from the thought of R. Yitzhak Breuer (which has also been empirically refuted, as Rabbi Kasirer notes).

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2__ Rabbi Shlomo Kasirer__

Response to the Reply

A. Rabbi Michael Abraham’s words imply that faith is binary: a person either believes or does not. In my opinion, this perspective does not reflect the complex reality of the public in Israel. Most people believe with varying degrees of certainty, or at most remain uncertain, and do not trouble themselves to investigate and decide, since the ancestral practice they inherited remains with them (that was my purpose in citing the results of the Gutman survey). Many times, when they are pressed into an existential corner, as one can see in time of war, their deep faith is revealed to the point of self-sacrifice for the sanctification of God’s name (as this matter has been well explained in Chabad Hasidism). Therefore it is difficult to state categorically of a secular Jew that he does not believe, except in very unusual cases.

Beyond this, even secularism itself secretly contains so much tradition and faith that it is sometimes difficult to separate the ‘secular’ element within it from the ‘religious.’ Several thinkers have already noted that, in their view, the depth even of the modern secular world is religious, and Nietzsche perceived this when he fought against the ‘shadows of God.’ Concepts such as “commandment,” “holiness,” and “oath,” which are also used in secular discourse, are an inheritance from earlier generations and are still charged with their religious meaning. To be sure, these treasures may gradually be squandered until, heaven forbid, they become an empty shell; but in my opinion that is not the present situation, and the secular Jew understands very well the religious meaning of a commandment.

B. Rabbi Michael sees Jewish law as a pure, autonomous category, distinguished from every other reality. It is a kind of closed mathematics, whose test of truth is based on the internal coherence of its premises and conclusions, rather than on any reality outside it. Accordingly, here and elsewhere he emphasizes that Jewish law has nothing to do with ‘Hebrew law,’ nationhood, and the like. Unlike him, I see Jewish law as interwoven with nationhood, law, history, and other realms toward which it is directed, in order to elevate and sanctify them. For that reason I cannot accept Rabbi Michael’s rebuke regarding an ‘Ahad Ha’am’-style approach. Ahad Ha’am correctly understood how closely Judaism and nationhood are bound up with one another. His mistake lay in seeing the Torah as a human creation, whereas the truth is that the spirit of God pulses within the spirit of the people itself, as Rav Kook wrote (Orot Ha-Tehiyah, ch. 9). Therefore a secular Jew who observes commandments because of their national value is not altogether mistaken, for they certainly do have such an aspect; it is simply partial and incomplete.

Accordingly, Rabbi Michael Abraham sees Jewish law as a structure that exists solely on the basis of command, and therefore if that basis is removed it has no value at all. By contrast, in my understanding, Jewish law expresses a reality beyond itself, which has independent existence even without the command. For example: according to Rabbi Abraham, a secular Jew who participates in the Passover seder fulfills no commandment in eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs, drinking the four cups, and recounting the Exodus from Egypt. Yet surely the memory of the Exodus from Egypt is a primary fact upon which faith and the commandments themselves are based, as Judah Halevi wrote; and for that reason it has independent value, even if not a complete one, even for someone who is not clearly aware that he is commanded to do so.

In sum, there is great value in the commandments performed by a secular Jew, whether as full observance or as partial observance, even if his faith is not complete, and concerning such a case the Sages said (at the beginning of Lamentations Rabbah):

Would that they abandoned Me but kept My Torah, for through occupying themselves with it, the light within it would bring them back to the right path.