On Idolatry as Split Consciousness, and on Sins in General (Column 199)

With God’s help

Last Friday night (parashat Yitro) I spoke in the synagogue about the matter of idolatry. The first commandments after the commandment to believe are the prohibition of idolatry, of making a graven image or likeness, and of worshipping them. This prohibition has puzzled me for many years, and this past Sabbath something finally clicked for me about it. Allow me to share it with you.

The puzzle

On the face of it, idolatry is astonishing, and for a modern person it is very hard to accept and understand. A person takes a log or a piece of stone, declares it to be a god, and worships it. True, Maimonides at the beginning of the Laws of Idolatry explains this as a process that began with worshipping God through intermediaries (to worship through the sun and the stars, since that is a way of honoring His attendants), and then continued into idolatry proper. But even that is not really convincing. At least at the end of that process, people were worshipping the wood and stone themselves. And if with regard to the stars and the sun one can still understand it somewhat (people once thought they were living beings, possessed of will and intelligence), how does one get to worshipping logs of wood and chunks of stone? And even if we say that here the process continued because they represented some spiritual force (not God), in the final analysis they worshipped the objects themselves, and that is still not understandable. The midrash about Abraham smashing the idols, and others like it, is meant to mock those who worshipped idols and thought they were capable of doing something. That is, they did not see them merely as emissaries of some spiritual force, but understood that they themselves had powers of one kind or another.

Is a person who worships a chunk of stone or wood serious? Did this really ever happen? What exactly is going on here? And even if this foolishness really did once exist, why does the Torah view it as such a grave prohibition? At most, we are dealing with the village idiot (or even an entire village of idiots, a whole benighted village). The problem can be formulated as a dilemma: if the person who worships truly believes in it, then he is not culpable (and is also insane)[1]; and if he does not believe in it, then this is not full-fledged idolatry (see Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry 3:6, that one must accept it as a deity in order to incur liability).

On the verse “You shall have no other gods before Me”, Rashi writes that the words “before Me” teach that the prohibition of idolatry applies “for as long as I exist”—that is, always—even to later generations. He writes that this comes to exclude the initial assumption that the prohibition applies only to that generation, the generation that saw the revelation at Sinai and heard God speaking to it from within the fire. This is truly astonishing. How does a person who saw God revealed and speaking to him begin worshipping idols immediately afterward? You are surely chuckling, since that is indeed what happened in practice (as is well known, “it is inconceivable” is said only about things that are perfectly conceivable, and even happen in practice). The sin of the Golden Calf took place during the Sinai revelation itself. They did not even wait a minute before they began worshipping idols.

Leibowitz used to say that from here we learn that miracles bring no one to repentance. As is well known, there are no atheists in foxholes; that is, when you have a powerful experience, you suddenly become a great believer. But by the same token, almost no one keeps believing afterward. Emotion and experience, however powerful, are temporary. Usually they do not last very long, and the sin of the Calf is a clear example of that. But this does not answer the difficulty. The revelation at Sinai was not just an experience. It was a direct encounter with God and hearing His word. That has cognitive value, not only experiential value. How is it that immediately after it becomes clear to you in a vivid and tangible way that the Lord is God, you switch to idolatry? It is like meeting Reuven and then immediately denying that he exists.

In short, who exactly is a person who worships idols? What is the mental state that brings this about and accompanies it? Does he really believe in it or not?

Idolatry as an impulse

Let us leave idolatry aside for a moment and think about a sexual transgression, for example adultery with a married woman. In that context we understand very well how a person comes to sin. A person can understand that adultery is wrong, and yet his impulse seduces him and he does it. Why is that understandable to all of us? There too a person acts against his own understanding and his own values. Presumably because we know these impulses very well. They are powerful, and they succeed in making us act in ways that even to us seem forbidden and wrong.

In my view, our lack of understanding of the sin of idolatry stems from the fact that we have no impulse to do such a thing. Once there was an impulse that caused people to sin through idolatry. That impulse does not exist in us, and therefore this sin is no longer understandable to us. Without positing the existence of such an impulse, it is indeed strange that a person would do something that he himself thinks is improper and wrong. The impulse is the explanation, and when there is no such impulse—or when one does not understand the impulse—it all seems pointless and unintelligible.

The Hebrew Bible and the Sages describe that impulse to us in a very vivid and concrete way. The Israelites, and the other nations as well, return again and again to idolatry despite understanding that there is nothing there. The prophet rebukes them, and even if they mend their ways, they very quickly fall back again. If a prophet came to us today and rebuked us for not standing on one leg, we would laugh at him and perhaps hospitalize him, but not persecute him. It is like someone coming today to a secular society and rebuking them for eating non-kosher food or desecrating the Sabbath. They would laugh at him. By contrast, in a religious society they would either heed him or persecute him, because to them it is obvious that he is right. In the biblical period, the rebuke of the prophets over idolatry was meaningful because in the background everyone understood that the prophet was right. So why did they worship? Because they had an impulse to worship, exactly as in the case of sexual transgression.

Lack of understanding because of the cultural change

The Sages describe (Yoma 69b) that the Men of the Great Assembly prayed to God to abolish the impulse toward idolatry. I assume the meaning is that they somehow worked on this impulse, and perhaps produced a cultural suppression of it, much as we know today. In any case, it is factually clear to all of us that from then onward this impulse was pushed inward more and more, until in our present consciousness no such impulse exists. Whether this was a cultural process or whether there was divine involvement because of the prayer of the Men of the Great Assembly, that is certainly the situation.

In Sanhedrin 102b the Talmud relates that Rav Ashi made a disparaging remark about King Menashe, and Menashe appeared to him in a dream and showed him that he was a greater scholar than Rav Ashi. When Rav Ashi sees this, he asks Menashe our question:

He said to him: Since your wisdom is so great, why did you worship idolatry?

If you were so wise, how did you worship idols?

And Menashe answers him:

He said to him: Had I been there, I would have grabbed the hem of his cloak and run after him.

If you had lived in my generation (before the abolition of the impulse toward idolatry), you would have hitched up the hem of your robe and run after idolatry. His meaning is that this was a powerful impulse, similar to what we know in relation to sexual desire, except that Rav Ashi—and certainly we—do not know it. That is why we do not understand the situation either. A person really did something he did not believe in, and the explanation is that he had an impulse. What happens to us with respect to sexual immorality happened to them with respect to idolatry.

Incidentally, it seems to me that there are situations in which the impulse toward idolatry erupts from the depths even in us. It apparently did not truly disappear; it was pushed inward, deeper and deeper into the subconscious. They say that in the spine there are ancient evolutionary layers, and somewhere in there, I assume, we could still see its fingerprints. It seems to me that I once wrote about trance parties, where utterly ordinary people enter ecstasy and dance for a whole day, or even two, almost without pause. It turns out that many of them, while dancing, chant and fling into the air the names of Indian and other deities. The ecstasy of idolatry is apparently somewhere within us, but hidden deep beneath the garments of culture. Which, of course, reminds me of the immortal conversation between Dorothy and the witch, after the cyclone lands her house in that land:[2]

“Aunt Em told me that all the witches died many years ago.” “Who is Aunt Em?” the little old woman asked. “She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from.” The Witch of the North seemed to think for a while, her head bowed and her eyes fixed on the ground. Then she raised her eyes and said: “I do not know where Kansas is, for I have never heard the name of that country before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?” “Of course,” replied Dorothy. “Then that is the reason. I think that in civilized countries there are no witches left, and no wizards, no sorcerers and no magicians. But, you see, civilization never reached the Land of Oz, because we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore there are still witches and wizards among us.”

In fact, they are still there, but we in the civilized lands (or in the modern age) deny and repress their existence, so much so that by now we really can no longer understand these phenomena.

The difficulty does not disappear: the parallel to the question of weakness of will

So we understand why we do not understand. This is an impulse toward idolatry that once existed and has now disappeared, and therefore it is unfamiliar to us. But the problem is still not solved, for idolatry is not a desire-driven sin like sexual transgression; it also has an intellectual dimension, meaning that it involves a different belief. It is not only an act, but an act that requires intention. I mentioned that a person who performs an idolatrous act without believing in it (without accepting it as a deity) is exempt (apparently only from punishment; see Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry 3:6 cited above). So who is the person who really worships idols and is also liable to punishment? If he believes in it, then he is not culpable; and if he does not, then he is not liable to punishment. It therefore seems that the explanation in terms of impulse alone is not enough to understand this strange sin.

It is interesting to sketch the lines of similarity between this question and the question of weakness of will (discussed in columns 172–173). There too we dealt with a person who acts against his beliefs and values, and we wondered how this is possible. There too we saw that explanation in terms of impulse is insufficient, since the person decides whether or not to yield to the impulse, and then the question returns: what caused that decision itself? But in our case the sin also has an intellectual dimension. A person believes in something forbidden, but at the same time he knows that it is a false belief (which is why it is forbidden). Even if we accept that on the practical plane a person sometimes acts against what he thinks right, on the intellectual plane this looks like an outright logical contradiction: does a person think that what he thinks is false? So does he believe in idolatry or not?[3] It is no wonder that the solution I will offer here parallels to some extent the solution I offered in column 173 to the question of weakness of will.

The story of the “hindik” and its meaning[4]

Let us begin with Rabbi Nahman of Breslov’s famous story of the “hindik” (= turkey):

A disaster struck the royal household. The king’s son, who until then had been sane and well-mannered, sank into black melancholy and began to rave. He rolled about on the floor beneath the dining table, dragging toward himself bits of bread and bones that he found there, saying that he was a turkey…

And that was not enough for him; he insisted on no longer wearing his clothes, explaining that a turkey does not wear clothes…

This caused the king great sorrow… the king summoned his doctors and sages… but to no avail; the king’s son stuck to his position: “I am a turkey, and there is nothing surprising about my behavior, for all turkeys behave this way…“.

One day, after all the doctors and sages had long since despaired of curing him, a wise man came from a distant city and claimed that he would take it upon himself to cure him completely…

What did the wise man do? He too removed his clothes, sat down beneath the table next to the king’s son, and also began dragging crumbs and bones, with an innocent expression, as though the matter were perfectly obvious…

The king’s son stared at him in astonishment and asked him: “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” The wise man replied: “And what are you doing here?” “I am a turkey,” answered the son innocently – “I too am a turkey,” the wise man replied after him…

Several days passed, even weeks, and the two became accustomed to one another, eating the same food together without clothes on their bodies, and a strong bond was formed between them.

The wise man understood that the time had come to begin real action. He signaled to those around them to throw two shirts beneath the table, and turning to the king’s son he said: “Do you really think that a turkey cannot wear a shirt and still remain a turkey?”… And so they both put on shirts.

After a reasonable amount of time had passed, the wise man signaled again, and they threw down trousers for them to wear. And once again, turning to the king’s son, he said: “Do you think that with trousers one cannot be a turkey?!”…

Thus the king’s son put on one garment after another, without any resistance. Again a considerable amount of time passed, and the wise man signaled those present to throw down human food from the table. Again he said to the king’s son: “Do you think that if one eats good foods one thereby ceases to be a turkey? It is possible to eat them and still remain a turkey,” and he ate.

After some time, the wise man asked the king’s son to sit with him on a chair at the table, and from that point it did not take long until he restored him to the full course of normal life, without the king’s son sensing it at all…

Breslov Hasidim explain that the point of the parable is to explain how one can overcome the destructive feeling that the service of God is meant only for great people and not for us. We disguise ourselves as a hindik and think that we are a hindik. But the truth is that we are not turkeys, and we are indeed worthy of serving God. One can also think of an alternative thesis, according to which we really are hindiks, but the service of God is meant for creatures like that as well.

Two difficulties in the story

Let us begin with a problem that arises almost by itself: at the end of the process, was that prince actually cured? Without a doubt—no. He does indeed behave in a completely healthy way, but in fact, inwardly, he is still just as sick as he was at the beginning. This is a behaviorist cure, that is, a behavioral one, but inwardly he is still convinced that he is a turkey. If so, why is he presented as a healthy person? Seemingly, the wise man succeeded in outwitting the king’s son, but his cunning operated not on the medical plane, but in the realm of rhetorical persuasion.

One can penetrate one step deeper into the story. If before I asked why Rabbi Nahman thinks that prince was cured, now I ask why Rabbi Nahman thinks he was ever sick at all. Notice that the story describes how the wise man enters beneath the table, and then the king’s son looks at him in astonishment and asks what a human being is doing down there in the underworld (what is one born of woman doing among us?!). That means that in the depths of his consciousness, the king’s son knows that creatures who look like him are human beings and not turkeys. So in what sense was he sick at all?

And their solution

We need to understand that someone who is truly and completely convinced, with his whole being, that he is a hindik has no chance of being healed. Psychological healing makes use of a healthy part that remains in the psyche, draws it out, and expands it to encompass the whole psyche. Someone who has no such healthy part within him, someone who has entirely lost the truth—for him, at most one can destroy and rebuild. Psychological healing is not relevant to him, because there is nothing to build on and nothing from which to begin. In order to heal someone, we need an Archimedean point within him, by means of which and from which we can begin the process of recovery. Hence there is an assumption that every patient who can be treated in fact knows in the depths of his soul that he is sick. Somewhere within him there is a point that the illness has not reached. The hindik lives with a repressed awareness that he does not allow to rise to the surface. He lives like a turkey, and even convinces himself that he is indeed such a creature. That is his illness. But in the depths of his heart he knows—even if he does not formulate it to himself in words (and perhaps does not even know that he knows)—that he is not such a creature. The illness is that he does not allow the healthy part within him to be present in consciousness and guide him; instead he formulates imaginary substitutes and lives by them.

But if he really knows the truth, then what exactly is sick in him? It seems that the illness is precisely this repression of what he knows. He tries to sell himself the idea that he is a turkey, even though in the depth of his heart he knows that he is a human being. Why would he do that? Presumably because, for some reason, it is very convenient for him to be a turkey (= a sinner). There are no obligations, nothing is demanded of him, he is treated indulgently, and so on.

A person who is looking for a way to behave freely and without restrictions, exactly as his impulse draws him, constructs for himself an alternative theory. He knows that it is not true, but little by little he convinces himself that it is indeed the truth. It seems to me that each of us knows this from his own experience. When we want to sin, we generally build for ourselves a theory according to which this is not a sin. That it is actually the right act, and the right way of thinking. This gives us backing for what we want to do. Now it is no longer mere surrender to impulse, but action based on a theory—pure truth.

The two difficulties in the story of the hindik solve one another. The cure is a cure even though we did not touch the psychic state itself but only the behavior, because the illness too was not in the depths of the psyche but only at a superficial and behavioral layer. True, as we shall see below, this is still not a full explanation of the process.

What is idolatry?

It seems to me that this is the meaning of the sin and the mental state of idolatry. A person has an impulse to do all sorts of things, but he understands that they are forbidden. God forbids them. What does he do? He builds for himself a theory that the log is an idol, and that idol commands him to do what he wants. But now he understands very well that a log is not an idol and has no real significance. So he goes on and explains to himself that this tree is actually a representative of some spiritual force. After a while he is convinced of this, and then he takes one more step: the tree itself has acquired power and influence. In the end we forget altogether where we began, and live with the sense that this tree really is an idol. That enables us to do what we want, and therefore we hold on to that theory, even though inside we may still know that it is nonsense. It seems to me that this is also what Maimonides describes, whom I mentioned at the beginning of the Laws of Idolatry. There too an absurd theory began to spread, and it was adopted only because of impulse. After some time, we suddenly forgot that it was an absurd theory, and for us it became the truth.

My claim is that if this is indeed the process, then it may be that within us there is still a point that did not become sick. A point at which we still know the truth—that logs do nothing. But we live in denial and repression in order to let ourselves get rid of bothersome limitations (manners, values, or commandments). In this strange state, at the level of consciousness we are turkeys (that is, believers in the idol), but inside there is a point at which we know the truth. The force of this absurd theory, and the motivation to hold onto it, stems from what it allows me to do. It is a way of legitimizing action in accordance with my impulses. That was exactly the state of the king’s son, who even while living under the table with his theory, when another person comes down there immediately asks him about it, because it is obvious to him that this is a human being and not a turkey. As long as it does not concern him personally, he knows the truth. But he himself, of course, is exceptional. Although he looks like a human being, he is really a turkey. Now everything is excellent, because no limitations apply to him and he is free and happy. This theory tells him that he does not need to wear clothes and does not need to eat from the table with knife and fork—and that is why he holds onto it.

The cure

I mentioned that the picture is still incomplete. If this is the illness, what is the way to heal that sickness/sin? The wise man persuades him to behave like a human being, and the assumption is that at the end of the process he is indeed healthy. Why is that so? Because the whole absurd theory he built for himself (that he is a turkey) was meant to allow him to be free and to behave without limitations. Once I went along with him on his own terms and gave him reasons why even turkeys can sit on a chair and eat like human beings, he had no way to deal with that. After all, it is true; there is no prohibition on turkeys behaving that way. And once he is pushed to behave like human beings on the practical plane, he again has no reason to hold onto the theory. Here the healthy point peeks out—the point at which he always knew that the theory was absurd—and now it rises to the surface. Once the theory no longer helps me and no longer allows me to act as my impulse counsels, I have no reason to hold onto it, and it dissipates on its own. I return to what I always knew: that I am a regular human being. Thus the behaviorist cure drags in its wake a genuine psychological cure.

We can now understand that the two difficulties we raised regarding the story resolve one another. The prince was indeed sick, even though deep within he understood the truth. We understand that such sickness is a state of duality, a dissonance between inside and outside. If the sickness is total there is no way to heal it, but even though inside the person knows the truth, the very state of this duality is itself an illness, since in his conscious awareness he really feels that he is a hindik. Now we also understand that the cure, which seemingly was only behaviorist, in fact achieved its full goal. The behavior caused the healthy point to push aside the other, sick circles in the psyche, and the prince returned to being like everyone else inwardly and in his consciousness as well.

This is probably what the author of Sefer HaChinukh meant when he wrote (commandment 16): “Hearts are drawn after actions” (“the heart follows the deeds”). In such a case, if you make sure to correct the deeds, then at the end of the process the heart itself will also be corrected. In the state of duality I described, the conceptions (the heart) do not determine the deeds; rather, the deeds determine them. Both when we adopted the absurd theory and when we rid ourselves of it, in both cases what lay at the root was the deed and the desire, not worldview and values. Practical change creates psychic change. If there is a person whose heart is governed by his deeds and that is what causes him to fall ill, one can leverage this and reverse the direction: cause him to change his deeds for the better, and the heart will follow. It is worth seeing all of Sefer HaChinukh there, where he elaborates on this matter.

The severity of the prohibition of idolatry

I asked above what makes the prohibition of idolatry so severe. Seemingly, this is merely stupidity and intellectual folly. One can of course attribute the severity to the consequences, since as the Hebrew Bible and the Sages show us, idolatry enables perverse moral behavior. As we saw, perhaps that is the reason we adopt the absurd conception of idolatry, according to which the log is an idol that ought to be worshipped. Yet this idol is like the king in de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, who commands the stars to move exactly in their orbits and not deviate from them. Astonishingly enough, they of course obey him perfectly. The idol is a creature of our own making, which commands us to do exactly what we want to do. And lo and behold, we are willing to listen to it.

Every sin is basically committed in this way. In order to yield to impulse and sin, a person builds for himself a theory (an idol) according to which this is a worthy act (= the command of the idol), and little by little convinces himself that there is something to it. Perhaps this is what the Sages meant when they said (Sotah 3a):

Reish Lakish said: A person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly enters into him, as it is said (Numbers 5:12) Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: “If any man’s wife goes astray” [and commits a trespass against him]—it is written tisteh (goes astray).

Sotah comes from the word for folly. A person knows that he is not right, but he constructs a foolish theory, and that justifies the foolishness (and deviation) that he commits.

If so, this duality is the mother of all sins. Living in duality, in the false consciousness of an absurd theory, is what enables a person to sin. In that sense, the mechanism of idolatry is the basis of every sin whatsoever. Every sin requires an idol (a theory) to justify it. I suggest that perhaps that itself is the severity of this sin. The Torah warns us not to develop false theories, and to cling to the true understanding that accompanies us all the time. Not to repress it and not to deny it. If we uproot the mechanism of idolatry (= living in duality), we will probably not sin any other sin either.

A note from Meiri’s approach

However, in my article on Meiri’s approach to the attitude toward Gentiles, I showed that he makes a sharp distinction between these two planes. The Gentiles in his time and place (the Christians of Provence) were not morally deficient, but only idolaters. He concludes from this that we must change our attitude toward them, and that all the sanctions the Sages imposed on Gentiles are nullified. We should now treat them exactly as we treat Jews (including desecrating the Sabbath in order to save them).

Seemingly, his words contradict what I wrote here, for I would have expected that if they behave properly on the moral plane, they would no longer have any reason to hold onto the conception of idolatry. We would expect that in such a case it would dissipate on its own. But that would be a hasty conclusion. First, this is a refined form of idolatry (not all halakhic decisors agree that Christianity, even Catholicism, is idolatry). Second, they themselves really believe in it, and it is not so far-fetched (this is not worship of a log). That is, it may be that there is no point within them at which it is clear to them that this is an absurd theory. And beyond that, even if there once was such a point, in the end they crossed the Rubicon; that is, now even the deep point at which they understood that it was nonsense has disappeared. If so, there is again no point in imposing sanctions on them. The sanctions are meant to put them through a behaviorist treatment that changes their behavior and drags their consciousness after it, that is, returns them to the inner point within them that knows the truth. But when there is no such point, their worldview no longer depends on impulse and on the desire to reach conclusions that are convenient for them; they really believe in it. Therefore there is no point in those sanctions anymore, because they will change nothing. If so, we should now relate to them as they are. If they are good people, they deserve proper humane treatment.

An implication for coercion regarding commandments: the rule of “we coerce him until he says, ‘I want to’”

A similar phenomenon can be seen in Jewish law. As is well known, according to Jewish law a “coerced get” (= a bill of divorce that the husband is forced to give) is invalid. The get must be given by the free will of the divorcing husband. And yet we know that Jewish law permits, and at times even requires, coercing a recalcitrant husband to give a get in certain cases. In situations where there is no point in preserving the marital unit, if the husband refuses to dissolve it, the judges are supposed to coerce him to divorce his wife. This raises a difficulty, because this is a coerced get, which is invalid. How can the woman be released by means of such a coerced get?

The Talmud itself addresses this matter, both regarding sacrifices and regarding a get, and establishes (Yevamot 106a): “We compel him until he says, ‘I consent'” (“we coerce him until he says, ‘I want to’”). After the coercion he says that he wants to, and only then gives the get. So he has a will, and the get is not coerced. But that too is unclear. What does it help that he says he wants to, when it is obvious that this is only the result of the coercion? And if he does not really want to, the get is still coerced and invalid.

Notice that once again we encounter a state of duality: the husband says that he wants to, but inwardly it is obvious that he does not want to. Only here he must genuinely want to, and it is clear to us that he does not genuinely want to, even on the conscious level, so what good is this coercion? Once again we have gone after the behavior and neglected the heart and the true will, just as in the healing of the king’s son the hindik.

Maimonides addresses this question, and writes (Laws of Divorce 2:20):

One for whom the law requires that he be compelled to divorce his wife, and he does not wish to divorce, a Jewish religious court, in every place and at all times, beats him until he says, “I consent,” and writes the bill of divorce; and it is a valid bill of divorce. Similarly, if gentiles beat him and say to him, “Do what the Jews tell you,” or if Jews pressured him through the agency of gentiles until he divorced, it is valid. But if gentiles on their own coerced him until he wrote it, then although the law requires that he write it, it is a disqualified bill of divorce. Why is this bill of divorce not void, seeing that he was coerced, whether by gentiles or by Jews? Because “coerced” is said only of one who is pressured and forced to do something that he is not obligated by the Torah to do—for example, one who was beaten until he sold or gave a gift. But one whose evil inclination overpowered him to neglect a commandment or commit a transgression, and who was beaten until he did what he is obligated to do or until he distanced himself from what he is forbidden to do—this is not coercion by others; rather, he coerced himself by his evil mind. Therefore, this person who does not wish to divorce—since he wants to belong to the Jewish people, he really wants to perform all the commandments and keep away from transgressions, but it is his inclination that has overpowered him. Once he is beaten until his inclination is weakened and he says, “I consent,” he has already divorced of his own will.

Seemingly, he establishes here a mystical principle, according to which every Jew inwardly surely wants to divorce, even though in practice he does not really want to. That is a very strange argument, especially coming from rationalist Maimonides. If a person says that he wants something, then that is what he wants. It is unclear where Maimonides got this speculation from, and even if it were true, it is unclear since when mystical speculations have standing in interpreting a person’s views (see columns 191 and 194 on unconscious views).

However, in light of what we said above, it seems that these words of Maimonides can be well understood. In the background we must remember that Jewish law deals with a world in which faith is clear, and in which the religious ideal is widespread in society, so that everyone knows that this is the right thing to do. We are now faced with a God-fearing man who is careful about Jewish law, and who stubbornly refuses to give a get to his wife even though the religious court instructs him that this is what Jewish law requires of him. At times he is prepared to suffer for this, to go to prison, to take beatings, to pay with his money, and he still does not yield.

We ask ourselves what this stems from. Does he disagree halakhically with the judges? Usually he is not such a great scholar, and therefore that is unlikely. The required conclusion is that basically he would want to obey the directives of Jewish law in this case too (just as he always does), were it not for his anger at his wife and his desire to hurt her and keep her chained to the marriage. As a God-fearing person, he certainly would not act against the directives of Jewish law, except that this anger and the impulse that follows it cause him to build theories according to which the judges are actually mistaken and only he knows the truth and what is proper in God’s eyes in his situation. He has a theory according to which what he is doing is not contrary to Jewish law and morality. But all this is of course a product of the anger and the impulse to harm his wife and keep her chained. The impulse caused him to build an alternative theory, and in the end he even believes it. Because of the impulse, he succeeds in “convincing himself” that this is not a sin at all (that is, that he really is a turkey).

So what is the way to get him out of such a state? We have already seen that the behaviorist path is designed to treat exactly such states. If we coerce him to fulfill the commandment and give a get that will free his wife, then he will understand that the result for whose sake he built the whole theory will no longer be attainable. The judges tell him that even if he persists without limit, they will beat him until he says, “I want to.” And when he argues that even if he says “I want to,” it will be nothing more than lip service and the woman will still remain forbidden, the judges (or Jewish law) tell him that this does not interest them. They will rule that the woman is permitted and will themselves arrange her remarriage with full legal force (although, if he were right, the truth would be that she is still another man’s wife, because the get is coerced). At that point the husband understands that nothing will help him, and despite all his stubbornness his wife will be permitted. If so, he finds no point in holding onto the theory he developed, because even with it he will not achieve his goal. He therefore gives up the theory, and it dissipates. At that stage his inner values, which were always there but repressed and denied, burst outward. Now he really stops deceiving himself and understands that Jewish law does indeed instruct him to free his wife, and as one loyal to Jewish law he relents and truly frees her. The heart follows the deeds. In the end the get really is not coerced.

According to this explanation there is no need for mysticism, and this is not mysticism. That is his true will, except that it is repressed and denied. It is not the root of his soul, but an ordinary will wrapped in layers of impulse and absurd theoretical coverings; once these dissipate, it is released and exposed.

Incidentally, one of the important implications of this explanation, beyond its simplicity and plausibility, is that this whole mechanism is effective only if we are dealing with a God-fearing husband who is committed to the commandments and generally keeps them (except in this case). If we are dealing with a person who is not committed to the commandments in other cases either, coercion will not help. Even if we coerce him, the get will be invalid as a coerced get. My claim is that the rule of “we coerce him until he says, ‘I want to’” is ineffective with a person who is not committed to the commandments. I share the criticism of the religious courts that do not take a sufficiently firm hand with get-refusers, because they always fear that perhaps this is a case that does not justify coercion, in which case the get would be a coerced get. That I would not fear. But all this can be said only regarding a God-fearing husband who is careful in the commandments. With others, coercion will not help even in a situation where everyone agrees that coercion is permitted and required, and there is no doubt at all that the situation justifies coercion. This path simply does not exist for a husband who is not committed to the commandments.

A note on yet another state of duality

Lately I have been reading the book of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory. The book deals with the question whether physicists have grounds to hope that in the end they will arrive at a complete theory that explains everything (theory of everything). Einstein believed in its existence with all his heart, and therefore searched for a unified field theory that would bring all the laws of physics under one roof. For the time being, of course, we are not there yet.[5]

On the last Sabbath morning (at that hour which is neither day nor night, that is, during Shacharit) I read, among other things, the chapter that deals with God and His status in the world of physics, especially in a state where such a complete and all-embracing theory will have been found. In the course of his discussion, he attributes belief in God to people’s wishful thinking and to the consolations that religion offers them. Incidentally, I think he is quite right with regard to many believers,[6] but I absolutely do not agree with his tacit assumption that every belief is of that sort. That is already a logical leap, and in my opinion he himself makes it because of wishful thinking and prejudices.

The following passage from that chapter connected in my mind with what I had said the evening before in the synagogue—that is, with what I am saying in this column (so much for those who say there is no individual providence). Because it is so appealing, I will quote it here in full (there, p. 240):

The decision whether to believe or not to believe is entirely in our hands. I might be happier or better mannered if I were descended from the emperors of China, but no effort or desire on my part can make me believe that, just as I cannot by sheer will cause my heart to stop beating. Even so, many people seem able to exercise some control over what they believe, and choose to believe what makes them better or happier.

The most interesting description I know of how such control can be achieved appears in George Orwell’s 1984. The protagonist, Winston Smith, wrote in his diary that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” The inquisitor O’Brien takes this as a challenge and sets out on a mission to force Smith to change his mind. After torture, Smith agrees of his own will to say that two plus two are five, but that is not what O’Brien wants. At last the pain becomes so unbearable that, in order to escape it, Smith succeeds for a moment in convincing himself that two plus two really are five. O’Brien is satisfied for the time being, and the torture is suspended. In a very similar way, the pain that comes from confronting the prospect of our own death and the death of those dear to us forces us to adopt beliefs that soften that pain. If we are capable of adapting our beliefs in this way, why should we not do so?

I see no scientific or logical reason not to seek consolation by adjusting or adapting our beliefs—except for the moral reason: a matter of honor. What do we think of a person who has succeeded in convincing himself that he is going to win the lottery because he desperately needs money?…

Quite apart from the question whether this is indeed the source of belief in God, he is in fact dealing here with the very same matter as ours: living in duality. A person adopts an absurd theory for various reasons. It may be because of convenience, various forms of distress, torture (as in Orwell), or, as we have seen in this column, out of evil impulse or simple desire for freedom. In the end, that person not only recites the theory at the crowd’s demand, but even convinces himself of it and lives by it. As I wrote here, as long as there remains within him a point at which he remembers that this is an absurd theory, there is a chance of healing him. It seems to me that many people have already crossed that Rubicon and lost the healthy point within them, and then they really are lost.

[1] I can picture before my eyes the spiritual supervisor in the yeshiva of Ur Kasdim, when the skeptical student Abraham comes to him and wonders how one can worship and believe in a block of wood, and he answers him: this is the counsel of the impulse. Faith is above reason. After all, our rabbis taught us that the block of wood puts us to the test: will we believe in it despite logic or not? Are you wiser than all the elders of the congregation and all the sorcerers of every generation? And now everyone in mighty and enthusiastic song: whoever believes is not afraid of losing the faith…

[2] I now remember that I brought this in column 7. One could say that in fact that whole column deals with the phenomenon I am describing here.

[3] This distinction is closely connected to the distinction I have often made here between authority regarding norms and authority regarding facts. Authority can be defined regarding norms, because I may be required to act in a way that I myself do not think right. But authority regarding facts (and beliefs) is not defined at all. One cannot demand of me that I think what I think is false. That is a logical contradiction. See on this, for example, column 159, and also here and here.

[4] The move presented here appears in my book Anosh Chatzir. It is the second Hasidic intermezzo, at the end of the third section.

[5] Even when we get there, it will not help us solve most problems in most areas of physics. Those problems do not depend on the question whether there is one equation that governs everything. Therefore, contrary to what many people think, science certainly will not come to an end once we discover such a theory. In fact, not all that much will change from where we stand today.

[6] It is very interesting that he directs the main thrust of his claim against liberal (and postmodern) religious people, those who adopt belief because it is comforting and who recognize every strange and bizarre belief on those grounds. By contrast, conservative believers are at least worthy of respect, because in their view (mistaken, from his perspective) this belief has reasons. They think they are right and the others are wrong. Here are his words (pp. 237-8):

Religious liberals are in a certain sense further from scientists than fundamentalists or other religious conservatives. Conservatives, like scientists, at least tell you that they believe what they believe because it is true, and not because it makes them good or happy. Many religious liberals think, quite wrongly, that different people can believe different things, even things that contradict one another, without any of them being mistaken, so long as their beliefs “serve them faithfully.” One person believes in reincarnation, another in heaven and hell; a third believes that the soul is extinguished with death, but none of them can be said to be in error, because all of them draw spiritual satisfaction from carrying their belief. To quote Susan Sontag, we are surrounded by “piety without content.” It reminds me of the story of Bertrand Russell’s experience in 1918, when he was thrown into prison for opposing the war. According to prison routine, a guard asked Russell what his religion was, and Russell replied that he was an agnostic. The guard seemed puzzled for a moment, but then his face lit up and he remarked: “I suppose that’s all right. We all worship the same God, don’t we?”

Well said. I myself have often written similar things against confused notions that champion postmodern religiosity and broadcast infinite depth where the content simply is not there. Mere empty verbiage. Unlike conservatives, liberal believers of the sort he describes are not believers at all. They adopt absurd beliefs (at least in their own eyes) only because doing so allows them a comfortable life and a good feeling.