Beyond Fundamentalism and Skepticism

Contents of the Article

In recent times we have been exposed to the face of Islamic fundamentalism. Operation ‘Protective Edge’ on the one hand, and the exploits of ISIS in Syria and Iraq on the other, have given much food for thought. Shiite extremism and the Iranian bomb already look like an old children’s game next to the Sunni organizations that are springing up every morning, each one overshadowing its predecessors (it has now been reported that al-Qaeda is condemning ISIS for its extremism). These organizations compete with one another over who can perpetrate more horrifying atrocities, and the world seems quite helpless. Moreover, volunteers by the thousands arrive from Europe, from Australia, and from the rest of the world to fight in their ranks. If we add to this the strengthening of Islam in Europe, what was once called the ‘Arab Spring,’ terrorism in Africa, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Hamas and Hezbollah in our own neighborhood, we get a picture that is far from heartening. Well, but all of this exists only among those primitives. We Jews are pure in mind and deed, democratic and enlightened, rational and moderate. There is Jewish religious extremism, but it has no such violent expressions. At most, among us people go to various charlatans to receive blessings, amulets, and ‘spiritual CT and X-ray scans’ that rob us with our willing consent; we merely do not teach evolution in the schools, discriminate against women, rule on Jewish law in a fossilized way, oppose renting apartments to non-Jews or LGBT people, demonstrate crudely against a mixed marriage (Mahmud and Morel), oppose ‘anti-religious legislation,’ want to control conversion and the personal-status issues of all the state’s residents, and so forth. Among us no one murders or tortures anyone. All of this is indeed true, and yet it is hard to escape the feeling that, despite all the differences, there is some connection between the phenomena. There is something fundamentalist among us as well. As part of this fundamentalism, ultra-Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodox nationalism are perceived as more authentic religiosity. Open and modern religiosity is portrayed as compromising, as secularism under a thin religious veneer (which is sometimes true, just as it is in the ultra-Orthodox camp). A rabbi dressed in a black robe and wearing a brimmed hat on his head, who expresses fossilized positions and rules on Jewish law dogmatically, or dispenses blessings and mutterings to anyone who asks, will automatically receive respectful treatment (think about yourselves when meeting such a figure). By contrast, a rabbi who looks more modern, who weighs considerations of common sense instead of merely quoting sources, who speaks a modern language, is open to his surroundings, their culture and values, and is prepared to interpret the sources more flexibly, may perhaps be a youth leader in Bnei Akiva, but he is not really a rabbi. There is something in him that seems inauthentic and unreal. It is important to understand that fundamentalism receives preferential treatment even from those who do not belong to it. At the very least, our healthy inferiority feelings toward it remain intact. The ethos and authentic religious archetype in the heart of the modern layman are usually fundamentalist (the rabbi whose voice I do not obey is only the ‘black’ and conservative rabbi. The other one is not a rabbi at all. Just like the God in whom he does not believe is only the one we learned about in the cheder). They are preferable to modern laxity; but as long as our fundamentalists do not murder or harm anyone, what is wrong with that? They increase reverence for Heaven and shake us out of mediocrity. They are more committed to Torah and its values. They have more pure reverence for Heaven, do they not? At most they exaggerate a bit and are a bit annoying. Is that not better than modern laxity? These days invite us to examine our principled attitude toward fundamentalism. Is there some problem with it? What is the secret of its charm? Why is it so difficult to cope with it? Is there any need to do so at all? In order to understand these phenomena and their significance, we must first try to diagnose them. Fundamentalism is connected to violence and to extreme behavior that is irrational and unreasoned, and to complete confidence in the justice of its path. The fewer the arguments, the more decisive the certainty. The literal meaning of fundamentalism is a return to the source, to primordial beginnings. In religious contexts this usually means a return to the sources and the sacred writings, or to the original will of God as it was before being distorted by human beings. Therefore, in the Christian context, fundamentalism is associated specifically with Protestantism rather than Catholicism, even though it is דווקא the latter that Jewish legal authorities regard as idolatry. This exists also in Sunni Islam, and in several shades in Judaism as well. The unmediated connection to the supreme source gives the decisiveness and the confidence. A clear example of Jewish fundamentalism is the Hilltop Youth. Not because of the extremism and lack of supervision and control, or the unwillingness to compromise. Those are only symptoms. The root is the attempt to restore the crown to its former glory and to live authentically and close to the primary sources (Torah, Talmud) and to God’s will, sometimes also Beyond Fundamentalism and Skepticism Michael Abraham, Rabbi Michael Abraham, PhD in physics, engages in general philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and logic, to return to the ancient way of life. Hence also the fundamentalist connection to the land (this is a return to the warm womb of Mother Earth). Fundamentalism is based on a desire to rid oneself of later human cultural and interpretive burdens, and to return to the original and secure certainty, the one anchored somewhere in heaven, above human reason. In the ultra-Orthodox mainstream there is a different kind of fundamentalism. There they have succeeded in creating a false consciousness as though Moses our teacher walked around in a shtreimel and caftan (with two buttons in back; he was a rosh yeshiva) and studied Talmud in Yiddish. Rava’s wife covered her legs with 40-denier stockings. Jews never served in the army and never went to work, but studied in the kollel from time immemorial (our father Abraham ‘was an elder and sat in the academy’ (Yoma 28b) – this means Volozhin or Pressburg, not Gush Etzion, Heaven forbid). And everyone, of course, ruled on Jewish law only according to the Mishnah Berurah and ate matzah according to the Hazon Ish’s measure. In these places a fundamentalist atmosphere is created, without any real return to the past. This is a distinctly modern phenomenon. They redraw the past in their own image and cling to that fiction in a fundamentalist way. Extreme examples of these phenomena are the burqa women and other extreme sects in the ultra-Orthodox world (Lev Tahor, certain strands of Breslov, and more). These too cling to the primary sources under the leadership of charismatic leaders, and try to cast off the outer layers perceived as surrender to foreign influences. These phenomena are not unique to Judaism. In this sense, Islamic Shiism and Catholic Christianity are also fundamentalist. Closer to home, Rabbi Kook, the greatest of innovators and path-breakers, became for his students a binding figure who represents an absolute truth that descended to him and through him to us, straight from Sinai. Fundamentalists of the second type are prepared to accept the authority of later sources (such as the Talmud) out of self-abnegation before them. But this is מתוך a conception that these are not really human creations, but the result of divine revelation and holy spirit in various forms (‘All its general principles and particulars were given at Sinai’ (Sifra, Behar 1:1). ‘Everything that an experienced student will one day innovate, the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moses at Sinai’ (Jerusalem Talmud, Peah 2:4)). This is a replacement of rational thinking with exalted sources of certainty. On the philosophical plane, fundamentalism is the suspension of critical thought. This is the root of the problem in fundamentalism. Its violent expressions are only symptoms. The extreme expressions of fundamentalism are the result of an inability to conduct discourse and critical discussion. One who carries the absolute truth in his pouch is not really open to listening to claims and arguments. He is unrestrained. It is important to understand that the contemporary attraction to fundamentalism does not contradict modernity. On the contrary, it is a direct result of it. If until the twentieth century there was a sense that science and rationality would save us from all our doubts and bring us pure truth in place of the religiosity that disappointed, by the middle of the twentieth century many had reached the conclusion that rational thought had not brought salvation. We have no scientific way to deal with values, beliefs, and ideologies, with human nature and with the structure; on the philosophical plane, fundamentalism is the suspension of critical thought. This is the root of the problem in fundamentalism. Its violent expressions are only symptoms. The extreme expressions of fundamentalism are the result of an inability to conduct discourse and critical discussion. Soul-Searching 2014. Mosaic, Tishrei 5775, September 2014. Mosaic, Tishrei 5775, September 2014, p. 19.

The magazine that adds color to the news. The answer is yes, but it does not begin with religiosity or with faith, but with our concepts of truth. There is a remarkable agreement between postmodernity and fundamentalism. Both assume that truth must be certain, and whatever is not certain is not true. Hence, because the rational cannot give me certainty, the required conclusion is either that there is no truth (subjective relativism) or that truth lies above rational thought (fundamentalism). Both of these turn from rationality to feeling. The fundamentalists see in it a source of supreme certainty, and the postmodernists see in it legitimate subjectivity immune to criticism. To cope properly with fundamentalism, one must attack and neutralize that very point of agreement, and certainly not be dragged into relativism (which is the same thing in a different guise). The first and most important step is severing the Gordian knot between truth and certainty, but without giving up the concepts of truth and commitment to them. The alternative is not skepticism, but a conception that sees its own truth, or its own religious faith, as an exclusive truth (not skeptical and not relativist) on the one hand, but on the other hand also not absolute (not fundamentalist). Such a conception is open to criticism and ready for change. It does not accept a return to the source as religious authenticity, and it does not try to neutralize and strip away human involvement in beliefs and in rulings of Jewish law. It recognizes no absolute truths and no supra-authorities that are not subject to rational criticism. It is a religious conception that conducts critical discourse in a contemporary, rational language, using common sense and scientific tools. In such a conception, if you think X, then whoever thinks not-X is mistaken (perhaps because he was never properly taught). There is no arrogance here, as the postmodernists claim, but a simple logical inference. On the other hand, this does not mean that you cannot be mistaken and that you are completely certain of your path, as the fundamentalists think. We were raised on the notion that faith means certainty, and that arguments and criticisms are the evil inclination (Amalek has the numerical value of ‘doubt’). But what if something in the contemporary legal picture and in the ideological conceptions of contemporary religiosity seems problematic, unsuited to common sense, contrary to basic values, to feelings and intuitions, and sometimes even to the sources and to the facts? All of these are supposedly the counsel of the evil inclination and a lack of trust in the sages, a product of foreign and inauthentic influences. ‘It is very important to ask. We actually encourage that, but your questions are nothing but answers.’ The point is not to ask in order to examine myself, but in order to receive answers. And if there are no answers, one can also leave the matter as requiring further study. Instead of clinging to the low, defective, and limited rational impulse, you are supposed to soar to lofty peaks of faith, to the absolute divine truth that lies far beyond us and our intellect, and of course also beyond criticism, and of course to trust the tradition and the all-knowing rabbinic leadership. Alternatively, one can also live fully in both contradictory worlds at once (here we have already moved from fundamentalism to the districts of postmodern nonsense). Education that identifies truth or faith with certainty is the root of all evil. And education toward relativism and pluralism is another side of that very same root. A flesh-and-blood human being can err in any matter whatsoever, including belief in God. There is no escaping this, and the fundamentalism that tries to flee from it errs and deceives itself. Does that mean I should abandon my faith? Absolutely not. Truth is not identical with certainty. On the other hand, this does not mean that one who does not believe in God is as right as I am, that these are two narratives of equal standing (or two points on the circle of differences). In my opinion, one who does not believe in God is mistaken. But I am not a fundamentalist, and therefore I am not certain of this, just as I am not completely certain of anything else. I arrived at my positions after rational examination, and I am committed to them and prepared to fight for them. To the same degree I am also committed to trying to confront difficulties and questions without fleeing, unlike the fundamentalist and the relativist. I fear that all this sounds a bit clichéd and fashionable. It is important to understand that this is a very non-trivial conception of truth. It requires development and grounding, and the lack of that is what lay at the basis of the fundamentalist charm and the failures in confronting it. In order to build a philosophical infrastructure for such a conception, a far from simple theoretical move is required, some of whose practical importance has been demonstrated here. I am currently engaged in writing a book that tries to propose such a move, but it seems to me that the diagnosis presented here is at least an initial step on the way to a solution. [email protected]. Society. The things that truly matter cannot be proven or empirically clarified, and remain subjective and ungrounded. Logical arguments always depend on their basic premises. And how shall we prove those? Modernist tools cannot give us absolute truth and the hoped-for certainty. In a state of disappointment with rationality, two options open before us: postmodern relativism and skepticism on the one hand, and fundamentalism on the other. According to the first option, if rational thought does not bring us the hoped-for certainty, we must make do with the subjective. Thus a culture arose in which doubt and relativity become the central and most important value. From this skepticism one can derive almost all the values that constitute the postmodern condition: self-awareness of subjectivity and of deep structures in our society and in ourselves, humility and recognition of our shortcomings, a respectful attitude toward other opinions (pluralism and tolerance), equality among different positions and values, and also among people. To each his own narrative. Truly wonderful and pastoral, but completely empty of content. But relativistic and subjective culture creates a split consciousness. On the one hand, I believe in certain values and am sometimes even prepared to fight for them, yet at the same time I am also aware that all this is a product of my habitat and of the social constructions in which I live. Add to this the findings of neuroscience and conceptions of scientific determinism, and you get scientific postmodernity and relativism. A person is nothing but the landscape of his birthplace. It is hard to live like that. There is also a strong feeling that this is not true, that our values are worth a little more. Therefore those who are not willing to submit to this relativism begin to look for alternatives above thought and beyond rationality. Thus the second option, the fundamentalist one, is created, expressed in sayings such as: where philosophy or thought ends, faith or Kabbalah begins. When rationality disappoints, we suspend it, leap into the empty void, and rid ourselves of the shell of Amalek – that is, we flee into fundamentalism. The secret of the attraction of fundamentalism in an age of moral and ideological vacuum lies in the possibility of holding certainty from some higher source. As the saying goes: despair has become more comfortable (ibid., ibid.). This picture is surprising. Subjective relativism rests on the same philosophical platform as fundamentalism. Sometimes there is even a real mixture of them, as can be seen in New Age culture. Subjectivity allows me to adopt arbitrary positions because that is just who I am, and also because I communicated with aliens, or Elijah the prophet appeared to me, or that is what the stars told me, or my rabbi did. When there is no critical scrutiny, nothing prevents me from developing a fundamentalist attitude toward my subjective beliefs, bizarre as they may be. Cults based on absurd principles can be dragged into doing rather extreme acts. Charlatans will offer blessings and salvations to anyone who asks (for a modest fee) and become millionaires. Rabbis and Hasidic leaders, as well as the graves of more or less obscure righteous men, spring up out of nothing and for no good reason, with courts overflowing with every good thing around them. Cheap little teachings in Kabbalistic jargon become methods of healing and salvation that attract people from every shade of the spectrum. The fact that this is something ungrounded, unreasoned, and irrational does not prevent me from attributing certainty to it and acting on it in a fundamentalist manner. Thus one passes from conceptions of conscious subjectivity to decisive fundamentalism. How convenient it is for a religiosity that feels threatened by the findings of science and by modern values to arrive at postmodern calm. Rabbi Shagar, the new prophet of renewed religious postmodernity, writes about this modernly; the religiosity in our postmodern world dances together with everyone in the circle of differences (a circle is a set of points all equally distant from the center, that is, from the truth). We no longer need to produce arguments, debate truth and falsehood, bring proofs, or certainly feel old-fashioned. We too have a narrative, like everyone else. Rabbi Shagar and his students see here exciting possibilities in the service of God. In my view this is Orwellian Newspeak, or rather meaningless verbiage. Fundamentalism and postmodern relativism are cousins that suspend rational criticism and thereby succeed in avoiding the need to confront it and give an account of themselves. Arguments of criticism encounter a fundamentalist resistance based on absolute and higher truth, from which it will not budge: ‘Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes’ (Num. 15:39). Others quarry this out of the depths of their subjective being, but with the same decisiveness. If you dare cast doubt on the greatness of the rabbi, the Kabbalist, the sorcerer – even if they speak nonsense, or if they are merely investigated by the police and even convicted in court – you are simply a heretic. After all, they are above criticism. Where is your trust in the sages?! On the other hand, the relativists too rally behind their fundamentalist colleagues. They explain to you that there is no point in criticizing narratives. After all, criticism too is only a kind of narrative. If what confronts fundamentalism is relativism, then the hammer and the anvil really belong to the same side. No wonder no real battle arises here. Moreover, from within such a relativist consciousness, it is quite hard to create a self-confident motivation willing to fight for its path against fundamentalism. Democratic states do not easily go to war, and they also conduct war in rather feeble ways. Complex and open religious conceptions do not want to contend with all-knowing fundamentalists and their burning reverence for Heaven. An empty wagon, even if its drivers deny its emptiness again and again, cannot defeat wagons that feel full. This is part of the reason for the failure in confronting fundamentalism, both among us and outside. This dichotomy, as though the only alternatives are relativism or fundamentalism, leads to identifying openness and complex thought with lack of commitment and lack of reverence for Heaven. And rightly so, for if your faith is no more than another point in the circle of differences, then you are really a covert atheist. If the atheist is as right as the believer, then faith is empty of content. If everything is subjective emotion, constructions, and points of view (narratives), then there is no faith here. Contrary to what Rabbi Shagar wrote, subjective relativism is the problem and not the solution. So what is the solution? Seemingly only fundamentalism. People think that religiosity, by definition, entails suspending rational thought. Can there be another kind of religiosity? Another reverence for Heaven? Another kind of commitment? It seems to me they have succeeded in creating a false consciousness as though Moses our teacher walked around in a shtreimel and caftan (with two buttons in back; he was a rosh yeshiva) and studied Talmud in Yiddish. Rava’s wife covered her legs with 40-denier stockings. Mosaic, Tishrei 5775, September 2014. Mosaic, Tishrei 5775, September 2014, p. 21.