What Is ‘Engagement’? (Tzohar – 2007)

How Does One ‘Engage’?

(A response to Aryeh Katz’s article, ‘Dealing with Biblical Criticism in the Talks of Rav Tzvi Yehuda’)

Aryeh Katz describes in his article Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s engagement with biblical criticism as an original and novel approach, essentially different from that of Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann (= a point-by-point engagement with each critical claim) and that of the late Rabbi Mordechai Breuer (the author of the aspects method, which is a comprehensive engagement with the critical method).

I found nothing in his remarks that is new or different from those two approaches; in fact, nothing beyond the trivial. Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s ‘engagement'[1] according to Katz amounts to this: if one sees the Torah as a whole, there is no sense in examining it piece by piece. This is, of course, a tautological statement[2], for that very point is what the dispute is about (whether the Torah is one unified whole or composed of patches). How does he address the substance of the critical claim that the Torah is not one unified whole? Even if that was the intention, the article does not make it clear.

Arguments of this sort are useful, if at all, when they are voiced within the study hall, and only to the already convinced. But today a large part of the public is already aware of detailed claims, and it is well known that their casualties are legion. Almost anyone who has seriously encountered the critical claims describes the serious difficulties they raise for him. What is required here is engagement, not ‘engagement’ of the kind described in the article.

The article describes Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s ‘engagement’ with criticism through two theses: 1. Each book of the Torah has a different role, and therefore passages in different books should be read in accordance with the role of the book in question. 2. The passages appear in pairs that present contradictory facets of the same matter. I would like to make several comments about this (precisely as a reader who is not at all versed in biblical criticism):

1. Throughout the article, not even a single example is given of a critical claim (note 9 includes an apology that, since the author does not wish to give space to heretical views, he does not spell out the claims), nor of the answers to them. I find it hard to see an ‘engagement’ with something one refuses to address. If one does not wish to address something, one should not say (or think) that one is engaging it. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

2. What the article contains is only general slogans (with a strong scent of condescension), along the lines of the article’s concluding sentence:

When we see [how? where?] the systematic structure of the Torah in its wholeness, the attempt to cut it into fragments pasted together in patchwork fashion appears sheer nonsense.

I did not see in his words the ‘structure’ of which he speaks, and whose existence he assumes without providing evidence. I therefore fail to see the nonsense in biblical criticism. In fact, in light of these remarks, the reader may well feel a genuine need to see what is actually meant, and with ‘engagement’ tools of this kind, I think the chances of emerging unscathed are rather slim.

3. The two theses above are described at a general and noncommittal level. The author provides no proof for these claims. The claims themselves are vague, general, and noncommittal. Beyond that, I also failed to understand what is novel in them (on their face they seem trivial).

4. As far as I know, biblical criticism does not divide specifically between books of the Torah, but between sources (which are sometimes interwoven within the different books), so it is not clear to me why a claim about the role of the books of the Torah is a response to it. On the contrary, in light of what I have said, the picture presented in the article only aggravates the difficulty.

5. Certainly ‘critical’ contradictions do not arise only between adjacent passages. And this reversal of aspects is nothing more than a very partial and nonconcrete version of Rabbi Breuer’s aspects doctrine.

6. The main problem raised by biblical criticism lies not in this or that specific claim, but in their accumulation. To the best of my understanding, it is the overall picture that genuinely calls the Torah’s unity into question, and therefore a local response (like that of Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, unlike that of Rabbi Breuer) will not help here. Well known is R. Chaim’s remark (on the Talmudic discussion of the mentally incompetent person at the beginning of Tractate Chagigah) that one can offer one local resolution, or two, but not three. If there are three problems (and there are many, many more), it will be very hard to solve them with local resolutions.

7. I did not find here a third approach, as the author claims. What we have here is only a treatment (highly indirect and unsupported by evidence) of marginal and unimportant problems, which at bottom recycles part of Rabbi Breuer’s method (but unlike him, without any detail and without any attempt to offer an overall picture and structure).

To tell the truth, I do not know toward whom to direct my criticism: toward Rav Tzvi Yehuda himself? I am not sure that he even intended to engage biblical criticism at all.[3] Toward the author of the article, whose arguments seem to belong to a period thirty years ago, and are addressed at most to a convinced audience within a very specific study hall (to whom, in my opinion, there is no point in directing criticism of biblical criticism). Or perhaps toward the editors, who permitted the publication of such an article? It may be that admiration and affection (for Rav Tzvi Yehuda) have skewed judgment.

Quite apart from determining the addressee of my criticism, what emerges here is a rather bleak picture regarding the ability of the traditional yeshiva world to contend with the new winds around us (which, in fact, are no longer all that new). Academia presents a method that tries to ground and define its claims (of course mixed with quite a bit of nonsense and speculation, as is the way of the ‘human sciences’), and opposite it stand declarations written without any investment in systematic analysis or in addressing the objects of criticism, and without arguments or reasons. Veneration of a rabbi is no substitute for arguments, and what works within the study hall is not necessarily good for engagement with the outside world.

We have long since passed the period when ‘mockery of idolatry’ (= jibes, without argument or justification, aimed mainly inward) was enough to cope with ideas. Contempt for the opponent (as also the automatic labeling of everything outside as an ‘opponent’) has already brought upon us, and continues to bring, not a few calamities. The time has come to free ourselves from these anachronistic and harmful approaches.

I suggest asking students who come to study Bible at the university how much such ‘engagements’ help them and their friends in confronting what they hear there. In my opinion, their harm exceeds their benefit. Such treatments create the impression that the critical claims are indeed well founded, and that the traditional world truly has no real ability to respond to them. There are by now several better and more fruitful directions, and I do not see here any unique contribution to that important effort, which is a pity.

[1] Two important clarifications:

a. The quotation marks are not intended to express cynicism, but rather the main point of my argument: that there is no engagement at all in these remarks. This expression is meant to sharpen the fact that I am not trying here to dispute the form of the engagement, but to point to its absence.

b. The claims in my article are directed against the theses attributed by Aryeh Katz to Rav Tzvi Yehuda, not against Rav Tzvi Yehuda himself, since I am not familiar with his writings or his approach on these issues. The only exception is the footnote dealing with Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s engagement with Christianity, as published in Tzohar 2.

[2] Meaning: a statement that asserts nothing, but presents a definition (or identity) in the guise of a claim.

[3] Indeed, even with respect to Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s critique of Christianity, as presented in Tzohar 2, my sense is that it is hard to see there a genuine engagement. He attacks Christianity with internal Torah and legal arguments, and his arguments beg the question, so they address a convinced audience. He also accuses Christianity of absurdities whose counterparts can certainly be found among us as well (it is all a matter of empathy and willingness to accept). Beyond that, it is not clear to me what point there is in engaging Christianity at all. Does it pose any threat nowadays? Here too we see the phenomenon of advancing claims that beg the question before a convinced audience, and here too, if someone were to try seriously to examine the matter, he might arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions precisely because of this very ‘engagement’. Incidentally, at least there one finds relatively detailed attention (though far from systematic) to the object of the critique, and there is no fear of presenting problematic positions to the reader, unlike Aryeh Katz’s approach in the article under discussion here.

Even Torah scholars—important, wise, and influential though they may be—cannot always successfully contend with ideas that lie outside the study hall. Sometimes their main importance lies in providing general direction to students and their students, who may do so better than they can.