Two Reflections Following the Conference on the Trilogy (Column 281)

Rabbi Michi,
How do you explain the fact that people who were undoubtedly very wise believed in things that seem to us plainly incorrect?
This is a topic that really embarrasses me: how can I, who am really not as wise as they were, have the audacity to say that they were mistaken?

A lot of it is a matter of period and society. Once people were convinced that blacks, or slaves, or women, were not human beings. What seems obvious to us was not always so. Not to mention demons and the evil eye, etc. If there’s a specific example, we can discuss it. By the way, atheists and religious people see each other this way too.

What I meant to ask is how you explain that a wise man, say Rabbi David Cohen (the Nazir), who was proficient in Torah, philosophy, and science, was mistaken about providence, which you reject? It seems very problematic to me to say, “he didn’t think of it,” because ostensibly everything you know he also knew, and his philosophical skill was no less than yours.
(It’s important to me to clarify that this is a substantive question, and I’m not trying to accuse you but to seek an answer to a question that troubles me.)

Can the conference be watched on YouTube? תודה

Do you hold Rabbi Yaakov’s position also regarding the very existence of the World to Come? How would you define it?

Hello Rabbi,

First of all, I’d like to say that I share many of your views and outlooks. And the connection you made to the sugya with “Acher” was truly brilliant! Many thanks!

In any case, below I want to dwell on a point that is supposedly marginal according to you, but in my opinion many people are aiming at it, even if they do not state it explicitly:

I mean the level of effort to understand the ancients.

What am I referring to? Well, I remember a brilliant critical article of yours about Amos Oz in which you argued that דווקא the multiplicity of details and methods causes a person to bring out of himself complexity and new, interesting theses. To some extent it seems to me that you used to be more like that, and therefore you arrived at very interesting proposals.

For example, in your Two Carts, one can see quite a few “plain-sense readings” of our Sages that illuminate them brilliantly. With a little effort and “translation work,” one can see that very often there are only differences in terminology.

And here is an example: the saying of the Sages that there is an angel who teaches the fetus Torah was interpreted as Plato’s theory of recollection, and as the foundational principle that one cannot learn anything without axioms embedded in us (“the emptiness of the analytic,” etc.). That is a brilliant suggestion.

And now, as someone who has already read the entire trilogy, in the appendix to the last book you cited the words of the late prophet Amos, and argued that to some extent you accept him. And indeed, many sayings of the Sages should be thrown in the trash. Truthfully, you are right. I agree. But in the end it is a question of dosage, and a question of willingness.

In short: if today someone were to ask you about the words of our Sages that there is an angel who teaches Torah, it seems to me that first you would say, “How did he know that?”, “What, is this a tradition from Sinai?”—and only perhaps at the end would you offer some interpretive suggestion. And that’s a pity.

For example, the commentators who spoke about the four elements—“fire,” “water,” “air,” and “earth”—one can dismiss them and talk about primitive Greek tradition. But—as Daniel Shalit showed so nicely—one can translate this into liquid, gas, and solid. About demons one can brush it off as cheap mysticism, but one can say (at least about some of the sugyot) that the intent is to “bacteria.” And so on and so forth.

What I’m ultimately saying is that your basic claim about reality and facts is certainly correct. But methodologically, it would be worthwhile to approach these things with interpretation and proposals of translation and reinterpretation, rather than with hammer-blows like “nonsense” and “empty words.”

And if you like, that itself is contained in the sugya you brought about “Acher.” After all, Rabbi Yaakov offered an interpretation. So before dismissing all the “demons” (which do not exist), one should try to propose models of interpretation and translation. It seems to me that once this method was more useful for you.

With great appreciation,

Rabbi Yaakov was Elisha ben Avuyah’s grandson, not his nephew as was written (by mistake)

The thesis of reward in the World to Come is also not falsifiable. Yet you still accept it as an explanation, and it is no more consistent than “Acher.”

A. On Shabbat morning I had an insight. I was looking for the story of Rav Sheshet the blind man in Berakhot 58, in order to speak about it at the conclusion of the tractate that I completed with two other friends at a shared Shabbat meal. Rav Sheshet the blind man manages to see better than those who can see, within the chapter “One Who Sees,” which is entirely filled with “sights” and the religious response to them (blessings and the like). The insight was that the halakhic part and the aggadic part in the sugya are actually conducting a dialogue, arguing and complementing one another. This dialogue itself is the command, the instruction, the outline for study that Ravina and Rav Ashi laid out before the learners. Therefore, even if according to your approach the interpretive act of aggadah is not absolute and there is nothing here hewn in stone—still, the editors of the Talmud, the amoraim, the בעלי הסמכות, fixed the aggadot into the sugyot so that this ḥavruta would come into being, and it would be conducted according to the tools in their hands, which would continue to develop over the generations. This editorial act is a kind of “ruling.” There is truly a shaping decision here—this is how one is to learn: halakhah and the aggadah upon it! Dostoevsky is not part of this ḥavruta, and cannot be.
B. A small literary note: the Gemara—in both the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud—brings two suggestions for what Ben Avuyah saw. One is the case of the son who fell from the tree, and the second is the tongue of Hutzpit the Interpreter licking the dust (in the Bavli), and the tongue of Rabbi Yehudah the Baker (in the Yerushalmi). What does the second example add to the first? (The martyrs of the kingdom over against the falling child?) Is it the same example at a higher intensity, or is there something additional here? My suggestion is that the event of the Ten Martyrs of the Roman Kingdom is not just another example of the unfair way in which God runs His world, but is on a cosmic scale, like the Holocaust. That is, the righteous man’s tongue licking the dust represents the entire destruction—an event that brought with it trauma and a spiritual and religious rupture, and perhaps that is what broke Ben Avuyah.
C. (P.S.) Is the study of the complete and beautiful aggadah of Elisha ben Avuyah, in (what is apparently) its source, in Jerusalem Talmud Ḥagigah 2:1, according to your view Torah in the person or Torah in the object?

Again you did not address the central points of my criticism.
1. The claim I focused on was that your entire approach rests on the a priori assumption that divine intervention in reality is something strange, bizarre, and implausible, with no reason at all to assume it. But since you too admit that in the past there was intervention, then even on your own view there is no room to claim a priori that it is a strange idea. Consequently, if it is not a strange idea but a plausible one, then the explanations for “why we don’t see it” are not forced excuses as you claim here, but far more reasonable (just as all the physical explanations for why balloons and birds do not fall are not merely forced excuses to justify belief in gravity).

2. You set up a straw man of providence, according to which the righteous always have it good and the wicked always have it bad, and against that you argue that “we don’t see it.” But since that is not what providence is supposed to look like, these repeated claims of yours are no more serious than those of the Russian cosmonaut who flew into space and claimed he didn’t see God there. He too can argue that all the explanations according to which God is abstract and formless are apologetic excuses, while he is simply observing reality and drawing conclusions from it. If something is not supposed to be visible, there is no logic at all in claiming that it does not exist because it is not seen.

3. You yourself admitted that your position too is unfalsifiable, because nothing in the world would convince you that there are hidden miracles, only a giant transparent hand descending from the heavens. So on what basis do you accuse us of that? If both theses are unfalsifiable, the question is which is more plausible a priori, and that takes us back to section 1 and to “leave a matter in its presumed state.”

4. I do not agree with you that God does not do everything. God indeed does everything, like the driver who drives the bus; only some things are done as part of driving along the regular route (the regular operation of the laws of nature), and others are done through hidden deviations from it, “and for Your miracles that are with us every day.”

5. By the way, only while speaking at the conference did I catch the surprising similarity between the words Levi hurled heavenward—“You have ascended on high and do not watch over Your children”—and what you are claiming, and the fact that precisely regarding this case the Gemara brings the principle of double causality, which can also be interpreted as an answer to Levi’s claim: it may be that Levi “looked at reality and saw no providence,” like you, and therefore hurled accusations heavenward, and as punishment he became lame in such a way that made clear to him that even when there is a natural cause, that does not negate the existence alongside it of a spiritual cause as well.

Rabbi Michi, what about Dr. Deutsch’s question as to why the editors of the Talmud chose to include so many aggadot and to integrate them into the sugyot themselves? Is there not some proof in that of their importance, or of what can be learned from them? After all, the editors of the Talmud were very sparing in certain areas and nevertheless saw fit to include whole pages of aggadah…

Rabbi Michi’s philosophical skill is far greater than that of Rabbi HaNazir; that is the reality!!!

Regarding the fact that the rabbi agrees with those who disagree with him on the vast majority of issues:
In my opinion, the significance of that is extremely small.

I follow the approach of Rabbi Shalom Arush and Rabbi Cherki, may he live long—faith is first and foremost prayer and speaking with the Creator of the world, and the essence of the world is the dialogue between God and man.

The fact that on the other issues the rabbi agrees with Rabbi Moshe Rat and Rabbi Yehuda does not mean very much.
It is like taking the gene (Gene) responsible for regulating cell reproduction in a person with cancer, and comparing it to the gene in a healthy person. And then saying, “Come on, they’re almost exactly the same thing; the fact that a tiny mutation changed the gene in the sick person—that’s not the main thing . . .”

Answer—the “small” change is the main thing, and it distinguishes between a healthy person and a sick one.
So too the difference between the approach of those who believe in dialogue between man and his Creator, and those who follow Rabbi Michi’s view.

And one more thing, as I wrote in the past: what the rabbi raises is very interesting and thought-provoking for part of the public.
On the other hand, I do not see that the rabbi’s words are being accepted . . .
I don’t remember ever seeing a religious person who changed his views to become like Rabbi Michi’s views.

I disagree.

I have changed my position, not once and not twice, בעקבות what Michi has written. And surely there are others.

And besides, even where and to the extent that I remained with my own position, Michi challenged me and sparked genuine intellectual discussion, and that itself is a tremendous achievement.

Hello A’

When I speak about religious people who changed their position because of Rabbi Michi (and of course remained religious), I mean of course only on the issue of prayer and speaking with the Creator of the world.
I don’t think there are more than ten such people in the world.

Why?
1. Because the intuition regarding individual/general providence is so strong—just as Rabbi Michi’s intuition is so strong regarding free will—that even if there are scientific/philosophical and good arguments against free will, that intuition is still very strong and hard to give up.

2. Rabbi Michi’s arguments against providence are not good enough.

Michi is indeed intellectually challenging on every subject, and of that there is no doubt.

After writing this, my friend Nadav Shnerb referred me to the concept of the “Overton window,” which described exactly the idea I wrote about concerning shifting the window of ideas considered legitimate in the discourse. There is a Wikipedia entry on it, and a more detailed description here:
https://www.epochtimes.co.il/et/132139

Shai, I do not usually answer questions about other people’s views (why they thought what they thought). That should be asked of them. I presented my arguments, and they can be accepted or rejected. Ad hominem arguments are not important in my eyes.
By the way, I have two columns (247–8) on arguments and disputes, and perhaps it would be worthwhile to read them there.

It should go up in the coming days. When it does, it will also be displayed here on the site.

I wrote in the second book of the trilogy that I have no position on these questions. I have no way of knowing whether there is, and what there is, there. I wrote there that it seems likely to me that something remains after our death (the body dies, but the soul apparently does not perish). But that too is only my conjecture, and it is hard to draw clear conclusions. Beyond that, what exactly happens there—that truly is a question I do not think anyone can answer.

Thank you.

Who said I accept it? See above. Here I spoke only about the principled methodology, not about the conclusions.

A. We have already dealt with this, and in my opinion there is no difference between this and Dostoevsky. The fact that they wanted me to study those aggadot as part of the halakhic sugya—perhaps (I am not even sure of that). But that does not mean that in practice those aggadot teach me anything beyond Dostoevsky.
B.
C. In the person, of course, like any other aggadah. When I wrote the column I expected people to raise the question whether studying the Kiddushin sugya I brought is Torah, and whether the aggadah there does not teach me something. Deliberately I did not discuss this in advance in the column itself, because I wanted it to arise from the readers. Beyond that, I am waiting to hear what those who disagree with me will answer. If they are persuaded by the sugya there, then there is room for that claim, but I guess that will not happen. They will probably interpret it according to their a priori assumption.

Rabbi Moshe, you keep returning again and again to double causality, and I have already explained more than once that this is simply a mistake. If the laws of nature are the work of the Holy One’s hands, that changes nothing at all, and I have already said and written dozens of times that I agree with this. My claim is that the world is conducted only according to them, and you claim there are exceptions to them. That, and that alone, is the dispute. I don’t know why this has to be repeated over and over.
I already answered all your claims in the original column and in our discussion in the talkbacks that followed it. In this column I raised a sugya that deals with the methodological dispute between us, and this is not the place to discuss the claims themselves. For some reason, while accusing me of not answering your claims in a column that never intended to do so and is not about that, you yourself do not address the claims raised in this very column. How do you understand Rabbi Yaakov’s view in the sugya, and the accusations against “Acher”?

At most, that is proof that they thought something could be learned from them, but not that something really can be learned from them. My claim on this matter is not a priori but empirical. I claim that in practice almost nothing new is learned from the aggadot. Therefore it is not relevant here to bring proofs from what the Sages thought.
Beyond that, I am not at all sure about your assumption. It is possible that the integration of the aggadot was done for purely didactic reasons. Like Rabbi Akiva, who expounded puzzling teachings only to awaken the students (“Why did Esther merit to reign over 127 provinces? Because she was the daughter of Sarah, who lived 127 years.” And I am sure that homiletic preachers and students of aggadah will spin out sermons that add nothing even on this midrash).

I keep returning to it because you are not answering the simple question—why do you decide a priori that the idea of intervention is so strange that nothing will be accepted by you as evidence for it and all explanations are merely “excuses.”
As for Rabbi Yaakov, the discussion there is not about providence but about reward for mitzvot in this world. That is precisely one of the mistakes that recurs in your writings—the identification of providence with recompense. Providence does not necessarily mean reward and punishment; providence means that things do not happen (necessarily) by chance but as part of a plan. It could be, for example, that that child fell from the tree and died precisely in order to cause Elisha ben Avuyah to become a heretic and set a certain chain of events in motion. I highly recommend reading Yoav Blum’s The Coincidence Makers.
In the case of reward for mitzvot in this world, indeed, if it existed in its plain sense we should have been able to see it clearly (as in the example of that child), and clearly in many cases we do not see it. Here one cannot say “the Holy One doesn’t work for us” (because what does that have to do with it? In fact, that child did not receive reward), therefore the explanation that the reward is in the World to Come is necessary. But when it comes to providence, which as noted is not necessarily connected to recompense, we have no idea what its considerations are, and therefore the claim “we don’t see it” is simply ridiculous, like that of the Russian cosmonaut. And why believe there is providence if we do not see it—that returns us to the discussion of the a priori and the a posteriori.

Hello A’.
I think what you are saying is true of every source, not only of Hazal and Torah sages. When you see some saying or argument in any text and from any source whatsoever, if you make an effort to reconcile it (according to the “principle of charity” in interpretation), you can arrive at interesting insights; whereas if you dismiss it out of hand, you will never have such insights. That is certainly true.
But the question whether those insights are in fact the meaning of the saying is a different question. When I reject some saying with the claim “How would they know that?”, I mean to claim that the assertion is not correct. That does not contradict the attempt to find insights by reconciling the saying. Here the saying is a source of inspiration, not a source of authority (and therefore this is not Torah study, as I defined it in the second book).
For example, identifying the angel and the fetus with the theory of recollection is a natural interpretation (it does not seem very brilliant to me), and there too it is probably the correct interpretation of the Gemara. So there I would not reject the Gemara by asking how they know that an angel comes. It seems quite plausible to me that the Gemara does not mean to say that there really is such an angel. But translating the four elements into modern states of matter is a derashah that does not uncover the meaning of the original sayings. That derashah can be useful and generate insights in me, but only because it develops my own insights. Those insights are not the meaning of the saying. By the same token, I can expound any poem or story and generate insights in myself. There is nothing unique about the Gemara and its commentators in this respect.
This is exactly one of my claims against the study of aggadah and Hasidism. Insights can of course be awakened in me, but the question is whether those insights are the interpretation of the source I am studying.
By the way, the Gemara in Kiddushin that I brought here really does teach what I inferred from it. There it is not a derashah (in my opinion). So that too is not a good example.

Rabbi Moshe, I see no point in reopening yet again a discussion that has already been exhausted to the point of bloodletting, especially since this is not the place for it. I answered this more than once, and in my opinion I answered it well. If you do not accept the answers, that is of course your right, but what is the point of repeating it over and over? Exactly as there is no point in repeating again and again the double causality point (from your previous comment), which is irrelevant to the discussion.
As for your proposed interpretation of the sugya in Kiddushin: first, I do not identify providence with recompense. I wrote that my topic is not providence but involvement. Recompense certainly implies involvement (if the Holy One gives recompense, He is involved in the world), though involvement does not imply recompense (because there can be forms of involvement unrelated to recompense). As far as I recall, I never assumed the second claim, only the first.
I did not bring proof from Rabbi Yaakov for my view regarding providence. I brought from him proof for the methodology. If I had made Rabbi Yaakov’s claim, you would have rejected it and said perhaps that child had idolatrous thoughts and therefore he died. And I showed you that Rabbi Yaakov does not accept that thesis; in his opinion, if the Torah says long life, he expects to see long life, and not little sermons that explain away reality and tell him he does not understand it correctly. For example, your explanation that the case happened in order to cause Acher to become a heretic. That is exactly the type of strained excuse Rabbi Yaakov would not have been willing to accept. [Beyond that, you are suggesting here that the decision to become a heretic was not his? The Holy One turned him into a heretic? I truly have nothing to say about that strange suggestion.]
As for what you said at the end, that a promise of long life is something we are supposed to see—well, on your own view that is not true. It may be that he died because he had idolatrous thoughts, or because the Holy One decided to cause “Acher” to become a heretic. So why does Rabbi Yaakov not accept this? How does he arrive at the conclusion that there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world?
In closing, I suggest a thought experiment: suppose there were no such Gemara. Now I (=Michi Avraham, in the 21st century) would see such a case of a child who fell and died, and I would conclude that there is no long life for honoring parents and sending away the mother bird, despite what is written in the Torah, and I would write that in the second volume of my trilogy. What would you say to that? There is no doubt at all that you would come out against me with exactly the same claims. You would tell me perhaps he had idolatrous thoughts, and perhaps he died so that “Acher” would become a heretic, etc. There are explicit verses in the Torah promising long life, so how could one suddenly shift them to the World to Come? It is just like the verses about providence that I shift to ancient times alone.

Rabbi Moshe, to say that providence (intervention) is not necessarily connected to recompense is a bit problematic. . .

Both from verses in Tanakh (“And it shall come to pass, if you surely listen”; likewise Moses’ sins for which he was punished, Achan’s sin during the conquest of the land, etc.), and from statements of Hazal (“There is no suffering without sin”), it is hard to think that there could be a case where a person/community suffers only in order “to set a certain process in motion.”

The problem is Rabbi Michi’s way of looking at this by checking it at resolutions like “Okay, let’s see how many religious cancer patients survived as compared to secular cancer patients,” and then when he sees that the percentage of survivors is identical, he concludes that he does not see intervention, and therefore there is no intervention.

The problem is Rabbi Michi’s “stinginess,” looking only at what the eyes can see. He is not willing to take into account concepts like “reincarnation of souls,” or things like “the individual suffers because of the sins of the collective” or “the collective suffers because of the sins of the individual,” as well as other things that make it difficult for us to see divine intervention—which Rabbi Michi is unwilling to accept (for example, accumulation of prayers, etc.).

In summary, I indeed think that even in the processes God leads, there is no unnecessary suffering; the attribute of judgment comes only where it ought to come. The only problem is that Rabbi Michi needs to read (and of course accept 🙂) your chapter in the book Simply to Believe that deals with the praise of ontological maximalism.

A few comments following your remarks, without expressing an opinion one way or the other:

A. The wording you use leaves room for error. Throughout all the articles you contrast “natural events” with “acts of God.” This implies that if an event is natural, then it is not an act of God. For example: “There was agreement between us that the Holy One does not cause everything that occurs here, except in certain situations… It is important to understand that this position stands in contrast to conceptions that ‘everything is in the hands of Heaven,’ according to which every event that happens—a terror attack, war, Holocaust, illness, plague, traffic accident, and the like—people immediately ask why God did this to us, and even if no answer is found, it is still self-evident that the Holy One is the one causing all of it.”

However, it is seemingly clear—and it seems you agree with this as well—that even natural events are acts of God. First of all, by virtue of the fact that God created the laws of nature in the first place. Also, because if He wished, He could change them at any moment with no effort on His part, and therefore even when He chooses not to do so, one can say that the laws of nature operate at every moment only because God wants them to operate. One can also say that the very existence and activity of the laws of nature is not like a clock that is wound once and then keeps going on its own, but more like a lamp that depends every single moment on the electric current from the power station. For from the existence of something at time X it does not follow philosophically that it will continue to exist at time X+1. Therefore the laws of nature operate at every moment only because God actively wants them to operate. (I do not wish to expand on this point, because the point I want to make could be based even on the previous clause—that in any case God can change the laws.)

Therefore, even on your own view, apparently one must say that God is the one who runs the world and determines at every moment how it will be run, and simply speaking this governance follows what seems to Him, blessed be He, to be the best and most proper thing. Except that according to your view, what seems best to Him at the moment is to run the world according to fixed regularity and not deviate from it.

B. Regarding what you wrote, that they agreed with you that not every event has a special “theological” meaning: this is already explicit in Tractate Ta’anit, which explicitly and in detail distinguishes between events that are considered divine punishment requiring the declaration of a fast and repentance etc., and events that are part of the ordinary way of the world. According to this, it is clear that not every terror attack, or accident, or illness has significance on the public level. (According to your view, however, no event has such significance, and that is the point under dispute.)

C. Regarding the baraita about the reward for commandments: it is not clear to me what Rabbi Yaakov gained with his words. Instead of interpreting the event contrary to the plain sense, he interprets the reward contrary to the plain sense, in a very forced way that of course is also not falsifiable. In essence he too is “adding epicycles and deferents.” If we believe that the verses of the Torah express a truth about reality, why is forcing the verses a better solution than forcing our understanding of reality? This is of course a general difficulty, not necessarily directed at you. And the same is true regarding issues such as the age of the world, etc.

D. Aside from that, how do you yourself explain the verse “that your days may be prolonged,” etc.? After all, you wrote that the matter of reward and punishment in the World to Come is doubtful in your eyes, and if so you do not necessarily accept even Rabbi Yaakov’s explanation.

E. Regarding what you wrote, that “no one” really believes in God’s involvement and acts accordingly: it seems to me that quite a few people believe that there is in the world a combination of governance according to nature, together with governance that intervenes in nature according to spiritual considerations. And the higher a person’s spiritual level, the more he is governed according to spiritual considerations and less according to nature. For most human beings the meaning is that, on the one hand, one should act according to nature (and “effort” is not a “spiritual” obligation but a practical one, and its benefit is direct rather than a matter of reward and punishment), but on the other hand one should not overdo it, because that already looks like an “invasion” into the realm of spiritual governance. And I think there are quite a few who in practice act this way, refraining from excessive effort they would like to make, not out of laziness but because of their faith-based outlook.

The Chatam Sofer claimed that aggadata is the humorous preface before learning

Rabbi Michi, I truly hope that indeed, as you wrote in the post, our dispute is about dosage. Between “I claim that in practice almost nothing new is learned from the aggadot” (but every so often something is), as you wrote to one of the commenters below and have told me dozens of times, and “it is very important to study the counter-aggadic material alongside the halakhic sugyot, since those aggadot almost always yield balancing, complementary, or subversive insights that are vital for completing the picture, including the picture of halakhic ruling, without which it comes out barren, lacking, and pale.” Therefore I spoke about the “editorial command,” of the editors of the Talmud, in their act of insertion—the command to study these two genres together when they appear in the sugyot. The command is not verbal; it is implied, though it would be nice to try to formulate it properly as a halakhah in the laws of Torah study. In my humble opinion it was not formulated because it is so obvious.
I do not know the numerical ratio of aggadot to halakhot in the Talmud, but take note that according to your view, which does not ascribe importance to aggadah, you are missing limbs from the body of the compilation that in your eyes today, in the absence of a Sanhedrin, is the only source of authority.
An example of this, of course, is those times when you yourself resort to aggadah, as here with the story of “Acher.” Meaning, the memory of Ben Avuyah’s story was etched in your mind and you used it, and even studied it, despite your own advice and positions. So apparently there was nevertheless a point in inserting it there in the sugya. Wasn’t there?

I also thought of the Overton window; Rabbi Tau often uses it to explain the changes in consciousness in the world today, regarding LGBT, polyamory, etc..

A question regarding the previous post—you wrote there in the name of Rabbi Kook that the reason there is no practical annihilation of Amalek today is that we would not be able morally/practically to do it.

I’ve been hearing those statements in his name for years, and I’ve looked several times and not found it. Is it possible to get sources for this in the writings of Rabbi Kook? In general regarding commandments, and especially the annihilation of Amalek.

Hello Rabbi, and thank you very much for the full response.

As to the substance of the matter:

As I wrote, I tend to say that you are right. On the principled level we have no dispute, and I agree with your main claim about factual assertions, as well as with the rejection of the various claims.

But:

A. The claim is that repeating again and again the mantra that aggadah and Hasidism are merely sources of inspiration leads, unsurprisingly, to truly seeing them as only sources of inspiration. Whereas with a little “principle of charity” one can see in them more than just a source of inspiration. At times (even a stopped clock, etc… no, just kidding :-)…), they really do contain content, only it is vague and terminologically unclear. Of course, I agree it does not always work. In the end it is a question of dosage. But it is still worth trying…

B. Even if you are right, and 99.9% of the Hasidic “sugyot” are only a “source of inspiration,” still, it is simply a pity not to engage with them. Okay, so let them be “sources of inspiration” (“Torah in the person,” exactly like Dostoevsky). In the past, when the rabbi was not afraid of “sources of inspiration,” he came up with very fascinating insights, and not only logical pilpulim (and I am the last person who would disparage logic and classic Talmudic analysis). It is a pity not to engage in these “sources of inspiration.” In short, as far as I’m concerned, call the experience of aggadah yekum purkan; even if it is not included in the mitzvah of “Torah study,” in the end it awakens fascinating insights. So it is a pity to neglect this area.

Thank you for everything!

The commenter “Moshe” wrote above:

“The Chatam Sofer claimed that aggadata is the humorous preface before learning”

Could I please get a source for those words?

Moshe, excellent. I didn’t know that. Do you have an exact source?

You’ll have to ask experts more qualified than me.

Yosef, you raise points here that have all already been discussed.
A. This point was discussed to exhaustion in the debate with Rabbi Moshe Rat. See there.
B. This is explicit in many places (see the article by Rabbi Shmuel Ariel, which I referred to in the book). I was speaking about the contemporary discourse, for example Rabbi Steinman in the previous column and several other examples I brought. The common coin of the realm is not like this. That is what I was talking about.
C. What I brought from Rabbi Yaakov is the reference to reality in its plain sense. His own proposal can be criticized, and that is not what I was talking about.
D. One can suggest several explanations (for example, that one who does this lives long in a natural way because it is a worthy and healthier way of life). But the point here is not to discuss the interpretation of the verses but the relation to reality. Even if I had no interpretation for the verses, still, if reality showed otherwise I would not accept them but would remain with the matter unresolved.
E. See B. When discussing this point, you can bring proofs and find quotations one way or the other. But in ordinary life conduct almost everyone declares other things (they look for an explanation for every attack, death, or other event, and then excuse it by saying that God doesn’t work for us, etc.).

With God’s help, 13 Adar 5780

From Rabbi Yaakov’s words, as they are interpreted in the Gemara, it emerges that the main reward for a mitzvah is not in this world but in the World to Come, and in this world there is only “eating the fruits” in those matters listed at the beginning of Tractate Peah. It also emerges from the Gemara’s explanation that Rabbi Yaakov too agrees that “agents of a mitzvah are not harmed, neither on their way nor on their return,” except that he excludes from this a situation of kevia hezeka—where the danger is established—in which even an “agent of a mitzvah” may be harmed.

It seems that Maimonides followed Rabbi Yaakov’s path, explaining (Hil. Teshuvah ch. 9) that the main reward for the mitzvah is the refinement of the soul for the World to Come. In this world only an incentive is given in the form of more comfortable life conditions for the doer of good, making it easier for him to acquire eternal life. In his commentary on the Mishnah at the beginning of Peah, Maimonides explains that the fruits in this world are given to a person for the benefit his actions brought to others. In Hilkhot Ta’aniyot another matter is clarified—that they are intended to arouse a person to self-examination leading to repentance.

Both from Rabbi Yaakov’s words and from Maimonides’ words it is clear that there is divine intervention in the world assisting a person in acquiring the World to Come, where he receives his principal reward. The view proposed by the author of the “trilogy,” which denies all divine involvement in this world and even casts doubt on reward in the World to Come, effectively claims that there is no recompense—“there is no justice and no Judge”—and this is the view of Epicurus (mentioned in Guide for the Perplexed III:17), which “Acher” followed.

The novelty of the author of the trilogy is that he has not cast off from himself the yoke of the commandments. “Acher” too continued to study Torah even after losing his faith, but the author of the trilogy also preaches the observance of the practical commandments. On the other hand, with “Acher” there is some room for justification. He lived in the generation of the destruction, when one could reach complete despair. By contrast, we have merited to see the hidden providence of the Holy One, who even in two thousand years of exile preserved the sheep so that the wolves did not tear it apart, and not only that, but our own eyes see the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophets’ vision regarding the return of the people of Israel to its land.

The very fact that even when people lose faith, they still find it hard to free themselves from commitment to Torah and mitzvot shows how much religious Judaism has strengthened in recent decades. If sixty or seventy years ago they already thought that religious Judaism was nearing its end—today we see an enormous flourishing of tens of thousands of Torah students, and even among a public raised in complete secularity there are sparks of interest and closeness to tradition and to “the Jewish bookshelf.” To a great extent, we are already beginning to see in our world “the world that is coming.”

With blessing, Shatz

On the promise to those who keep the sabbatical year, to those who honor parents, and on “Acher” and his grandson Rabbi Yaakov
https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?t=34134

Why is a forced ukimta of verses not considered epicycles?

It is definitely epicycles. As I wrote, to propose epicycles for an established thesis (=a verse in the Torah) is logical. But epicycles for an unestablished and non-necessary thesis (=divine involvement in our world today) is not logical.

With God’s help, 13 Adar 5780

After all, it is explained in the Torah and the Prophets that even in the most terrible hour of hiddenness of God’s face, God’s providence did not depart from His people. For in the rebuke it is said: “And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them nor abhor them, to destroy them.” And at the dreadful hiddenness of face of the destruction, Jeremiah says to his God: “Whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jer. 32). In our generation the hiddenness of face has only lessened, as our eyes see the mountains of Israel giving their fruit, and the people of Israel steadily gathering together and living a life of national dignity and material and spiritual prosperity. Precisely now shall we whine that “the Lord has forsaken the land”?

With blessing, Shatz

I will note that in my humble opinion, in the writings of Rabbi Dessler this is called only the point of choice and not a window. No practical difference

With God’s help, 13 Adar 5780

And correspondingly, just as human choice is made only in the narrow interval of the “point of choice,” so too divine intervention is generally made only in the area close to nature.

With blessing, Shatz

If we are discussing Acher, there is another aggadah about him where one sees the conflict between tradition and the factual reality reflected before his eyes. In Hagigah 15a: “Acher cut down the saplings; concerning him Scripture says, ‘Do not let your mouth bring guilt upon your flesh.’ What was it? He saw Metatron, to whom permission had been granted to sit and write the merits of Israel. He said: We have a tradition that on high there is no sitting, no competition, no turning one’s back, and no weariness. Perhaps, God forbid, there are two authorities.”
He has a tradition that above there is no sitting at all. Before his eyes he sees Metatron sitting. There are two possible conclusions: the tradition was wrong; there are two authorities.
We see that Acher was uncertain about this (“perhaps”), but inclined more in that direction until he went off into an evil culture. In this, he did not act like Rabbi Michi Avraham, and did not reject tradition in the face of reality.
Truthfully, the cases are not similar. For here we have two traditions that reality brings into conflict. Tradition A: there is no sitting above; Tradition B: there is only one God. Reality shows that one of the traditions is not correct. It is not clear to me why Acher decided to reject the more deeply rooted tradition, which every Jewish child knows to this day, in favor of the other tradition, which is some obscure and unknown aggadah.

The similarity is problematic. Here, after all, we are dealing with an aggadah that is not factual but symbolic. Therefore here it is fairly clear that the meaning lies in the conceptual significance, not in the factual description. The question is what the sitting there means and what exactly contradicted what in his mind. Only after explaining that can one understand the depth of the contradiction and the solution he did or did not find for it. This case is not similar to the case of the child and the fledglings, which at least can occur in reality and is taken from the reality of our own day. There it seems that this is not symbolic but a factual claim.
Though on the margins I will add that I myself tend to think that Acher’s abandonment did not rest on this one case alone. That one stark case (which perhaps never even happened in reality) merely sharpened for him the general feeling he already had before, that there does not really seem to be long life among those who honor parents and send away the mother bird any more than among others. Similar to the example of Nachshon Waxman that I brought, which sharpened for me a general feeling that had already existed beforehand.

I do not really understand the argument. I was at the conference and heard you say regarding Purim that you too admit there was divine intervention, even though to our eyes everything appeared normal, and your answer was that on that we have revelation from our Sages that this is how it was (wait, maybe we’ll also create an argument about that—what is the weight of all this, after all it did not come down from Sinai). That means that in principle there can be a situation where everything looks normal to us and there is divine intervention without our awareness. I suppose your argument would be that as long as we do not have such a revelation, I go with what seems most plausible to me. I have no problem waiting until the messiah comes and we all see what the truth was; for now it is a law for the days of the messiah.
In my opinion we have no ability at all to check such complexity with our tools. It would be easier to invent a tool that checks exactly how many grains of sand there are in the world, down to a single grain, than to propose a test for such a thing. I have only one question: what about all kinds of anomalies in nature that people tell us about firsthand and they are trustworthy to us—for example, a firsthand story about someone who studied in Ponevezh and had doubts in faith and wanted to go off religion, and entered the Steipler and laid out his claims without fear, and says that the Steipler told him he could prove it to him, but that he should know that after he proves it to him this is no joke, and promised him, and indeed the Steipler said to him, come close to me and look into my eyes, and he says (I heard this with my own ears; it is not a story from a book or the internet or a newspaper) that his eyes turned into all the colors of the rainbow one after another, and he asked the Steipler how this was possible, and he told him it was combinations of divine names that he had done. It is clear to me that this is not a phenomenon with a natural explanation (unless he was a magician performing an illusion), and so on. How are we supposed to relate to all these stories of signs and wonders, such that even if we filter out all the millions of stories and are left with 10 percent true—actually, you know what, one true story is enough for me.

P.S. I saw that you gave a thought experiment to Moshe Rat regarding Rabbi Yaakov’s position. I also have an exercise directed at you: try to go back in time to Mordechai’s period when he provoked Haman (without obligatory halakhic justification, as is known from Hazal), and because of that extermination was decreed on all the Jews, and they come to him and he tells them that the reason for this whole disaster is actually that they ate (with the certification of the ultra-Orthodox kosher authority) from Achashverosh’s feast 9 years earlier (this sounds utterly bizarre and crazy to me). How would you have responded at the time? It is clear to me that you would have raised an outcry that Mordechai the Jew is a dangerous factor who is deteriorating the situation and will lead to genocide. I, by contrast, even though in my eyes you would seem logically right, would only check whether he was sane, and if so I would believe with faith in the Sages without understanding. At least that is how it seems to me.

A. I am quite skeptical about those stories. In many cases it turns out to be an illusion or a mistake. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein already said that since he knows what all the firsthand stories told about him are worth, he does not believe firsthand stories told about others.

If Mordechai was not a prophet, I certainly would not accept his approach. You are of course assuming that the story was as the midrash describes it (eating from the feast of that wicked man). But that is a homily of the Sages, of course.

“If Mordechai was not a prophet, I certainly would not accept his approach.” Blessed is He who directed me aright.
That reminds me that once I heard a radio interview with Avraham Burg (former MK from Meretz, the only one with a kippah): what does he have to say about the Hanukkah miracle that we celebrate—Maccabees versus Hellenizers—what’s so bad about Hellenizers, enlightenment, sports, etc.? He answered without batting an eye: indeed, had I lived in their time, I would have been one of the Hellenizers. As our Sages said, the best defense is offense—and in that way you diminish and sometimes make the questioner look ridiculous. Indeed, this all needs further thought.

Correction: “If I had lived in their time, I would have been among the Hellenizers.”

Hello

I was asked by a certain rabbi to post the following words on the site as a response to column 281, and for the time being he wishes to remain anonymous.

These are his words: not Dr. Michi but Rabbi Hamachui. The doctor who asks for clear logical reasoning and truth according to the test of reality, and anyone who disagrees with him he scorns and reviles as a person disconnected from reason.
Let us enter the heart of the confrontation. The doctor claims that there is no connection between prayer and outcome, and therefore he does not waste his time praying in vain. He does not occupy himself with requests and vain prayers, but during prayer occupies himself with worldly vanities. For there is no connection between the deeds of the wicked and, to distinguish, of the pious, in relation to the result. He has found no support for this in reality, and after all he is a doctor versed in reality.
He presents himself as holding like Rabbi Yaakov, but he is not precise, for according to Rabbi Yaakov the main recompense is in the world of souls, but even here in this world there is some—which does not exist אצל the new thinker Michi.
His position is that the famous “it was and it will not be” was contradicted by reality, and he wonders at Rabbi Eliyahu’s followers for not drawing from this conclusions that undermine Rabbi Eliyahu’s wonders.
Now let us explain what a wonder is: a huge tank of water crashed, a million drops fell according to the laws of physics, but ten drops, instead of falling according to the laws of gravity, flew toward a candle that had flared up and could have caused a disaster, and extinguished it. Before us is a physical surprise, and a blessed result. This is a miracle!
Michi claims in several places that we can never find a miracle, and if we were to find one like this, what would he say?
Many disasters occur, and in those events indeed no miracle happens; blind laws rule nature, but does that disprove the miracle? Clearly the laws of nature are blind laws, and if there were transparency between human deeds and the results of their actions, then choice would disappear, and in that the purpose of creation would be disrupted.
The confrontation with Michi is over the question whether there are exceptions and providence, and for that there is in fact support in reality, in the miracles of Egypt and the wilderness. For if not, how did a scattered group of people suddenly accept upon themselves in Canaan strange laws that restrict and afflict—Shabbat, the sabbatical year, and the jubilee, as well as abstention from sexual immorality—and in a forceful male world, status was given to women? And all this runs counter to the ruling establishment and the forces of religious worship built on licentiousness and promiscuity. Could this have existed in natural reality? And are the things told about Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha mere products of imagination?
The list of wonder-workers is enormous, among them the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Eliyahu, and this is not refuted by the fact that at times they did not succeed. For man works for God and not the reverse.
Is the survival of the nation in exile for 2,500 years not a proven wonder?
Can it be imagined that the Jewish people have no desire for pleasures, no drives for success, happiness, power, self-fulfillment, and exceptional talents—and yet all that was blocked for them because they were Jews.
If so, the conclusion is the opposite: there is indeed support for miracles in reality.
Therefore, this certain individual called Michi is indeed worthy of his name, with only a small change: “Hamachui,” for as a rebellious elder he denies the foundation of providence, earns a living deceitfully from being a rabbi, and is an inciter and enticer.

Good that things have been clarified, and now everything is clear.

Well, now after I have finished reading the first two books in the trilogy and am at the beginning of the third book, I have impressions. (By the way, contrary to my expectations of myself, דווקא from the second book, which is harder to digest in the author’s words, my enjoyment increased.) But I do not want to multiply topics, so I will begin with what is bothering me most, namely an apparently explicit contradiction between the author’s words in his first book Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon and what he says in the second book here in the trilogy. I mean the well-known dilemma between foreknowledge and free choice, to which in his first book the author devoted 17 pages (from p. 356 to 387) of systematic, weighty conceptual discussion, even with a mathematical formula, descending to the philosophical resolution limit of human ability. Of course it is impossible to elaborate here, but in two words what emerges there is that there are logical contradictions that are not analytic and with which one can live, and there are analytic logical contradictions with which one cannot live; and the dilemma of foreknowledge and free choice belongs, of course, to the first type. That is to say, even if there is no limitation on God’s foreknowledge of the future, this still does not contradict free choice. (And there too in the notes you already connected the issue to the dispute among the kabbalists about tzimtzum, and in the book itself you managed there to give a logical explanation also to Maimonides’ negative attributes; only for some reason you took pains several times in the footnotes to qualify that your whole discussion is only to make a claim about the believer’s cognition and not about God Himself, who is not subject to any laws whatsoever, “except only that we as human beings cannot make such statements without falling into utterances that are devoid of all meaning,” as you put it.) Whereas here in your second book you stated simply that this is a contradiction with which one cannot live, and therefore one must say that God has no foreknowledge, and that this is part of literal tzimtzum, end of story. So my question is:

A. Have you really retracted from your ordered and reasoned position there? (Just when at last someone had cracked the answer to the question of questions!) It would seem דווקא that there you entered more deeply into the thickness of the beam than you do here.

B. If so, we would like to know what is not correct in the above model.

C. Why, as is your way in the trilogy books, do you not refer for completion of the picture to what you wrote there in your own book?

You reminded me of old things. What I remembered was that there I only argued on behalf of those who think one can live with the two conceptions (foreknowledge and free choice), that on their view this is an a priori contradiction and not an analytic one. But I myself wrote that in my opinion God has no foreknowledge. And the explanation for that is given here through Newcomb’s paradox. Now I have seen that indeed I wrote there that one can live with it. If so, I retract.
The logical model (not all that complicated) only explains the difference between an analytic contradiction and an a priori one, and in that I remain even today. I retracted only on the question whether foreknowledge and choice are an analytic contradiction or an a priori one.

My heart still reproaches me.
(I want to ascertain whether I understood your second position entirely.) It is not so simple to retract from your reasoned and deep words of then without pointing out how Newcomb’s paradox erased them. I want to refer you to Two Carts, page 385 at the bottom, and this is your language: “If we now return again to the example of the problem of foreknowledge and choice, and ask ourselves why we see in it a contradiction—clearly there is no analytic contradiction here, for the concepts have independently intelligible meanings. On the other hand, it is clear that the problem that exists in the conjunction of the principles of divine foreknowledge and free choice is not found on the physical plane. It is not derived from any observation, scientific or otherwise; that is, it is not a posteriori. If so, the determination that divine foreknowledge and free choice are incompatible is a determination that is synthetic (not analytic) on the one hand, yet a priori (not a posteriori) on the other. In other words: this determination is a synthetic-a priori proposition. If so, that intermediate domain of which we spoke in the course of the section, the domain that lies between the physical and the analytic yet is still included in the logical, is in fact the a priori domain. More precisely, the justification for adopting the proposition that free choice and divine foreknowledge are incompatible is not on transcendental grounds. I do not know of such a consideration that leads to this complex proposition. The true rationale for it is contemplation of the concepts that make up this conjunction, and of the relation between them. As we recalled, Kant and Hume held that relations, unlike objects, are not observable, and therefore only the transcendental route is open to us in order to justify a proposition of this sort. The synthetic alternative is that one can become convinced of such propositions by cognition with the ‘eyes of the mind,’ that is, by using the synthetic part of reason, intelligible logic. Our certainty in the results of such a viewing (or hearing) is based on the same rationale that the analyst would give for his certainty in the results of observing objects in the material world. What I have observed is certain to me, and this requires no further rationale. The same holds with respect to ‘observing’ (or, more precisely, ‘listening to’) concepts, relations, and ideas. Any reader can test his position on this issue by examining his own thinking. He should examine why he grasps divine foreknowledge and free choice as contradictory principles. Is this the result of observation? It seems very likely that for no reader is this the case. Is this the result of analyzing the concepts? It also seems that this is not the method by which we recognize this contradiction, since their meanings do not directly conflict (that is, by the very meaning of each of them). If so, we have here a synthetic-a priori proposition in which we believe.” End quote. And here I ask: why is the experiment of Newcomb’s paradox equivalent to “observation”? Or to “analysis of the concepts”? Before you thought about this paradox, did you observe with the eyes of the mind some synthetic space between foreknowledge and choice, and then that paradox came and erased every possibility of a space between foreknowledge and choice, showing that the relation between them is 1 to 0 and not 1 to 1-minus, as you brought earlier in the book in examples of hot and cold, positive and negative commandments, and kinds of negation, etc.? For after all it is still always possible, as you wrote on page 366, “If we try to ask ourselves whether the term ‘divine foreknowledge’ and the term ‘free choice’ have independently intelligible meanings, there is no doubt that one can understand each of these terms even without grasping the other term. If so, the contradiction between them is not analytic but synthetic. It is not derived from the very meaning of these terms, but from some relation between them.” End quote. This state still exists, after all, even after Newcomb’s paradox.
P.S. See there your note 67 about understanding concepts based on a network model. I did not understand your intention there, and perhaps it is a hint to the answer. Sorry for the length, but most of it is made up of quotation from the book in order to spare you the trouble of looking it up there.

I did not understand what is difficult. Exactly as I wrote there, this is a synthetic-a priori contradiction. The concepts, by virtue of their definitions, do not conflict. Therefore it is not analytic. The contradiction is not the result of observation, so it is not a posteriori. The result: it is synthetic-a priori.
Newcomb’s paradox is the way to become convinced of the contradiction. When you follow it, you see that foreknowledge does not fit with choice, even though there is no contradiction between the concepts as such.
Perhaps there really is a connection to the understanding of a network of concepts (in Quine’s approach), but this is not the place for it.

Well (perhaps this needs to be clarified sometime in person in order to understand it fully), only one tiny remark remains before this matter is concluded, as we are discussing your book. The weakest contradictions are contradictions in physics—for example, that God has the power to make a stone rise upward instead of fall downward, which is indeed a physical contradiction to what we know, but it has logical meaning; therefore it is not nonsense to speak about it and even to believe that such a thing once happened (one-time, as for example in the miracles of the Exodus).

I wanted to ask you about an example of a contradiction that, although it is physical, in my opinion is also an analytic logical contradiction in the severe sense that one cannot live with it, and therefore it is nonsense—and despite that it is accepted by everyone, including you, namely what everyone accepts: that God created the world ex nihilo. I cannot see any direction whatsoever in which such a thing is possible; even if you use all the tricks of philosophy, mountains will rise and valleys sink, in the end one must finally say that the only possibility is being out of some prior being, such that the first primal being also came out of some being that existed within God, so to speak—but never out of nothing. And out of utter void and absolute non-being, as Ramban says if I remember correctly—I mean, even God is seemingly subject to this, that He cannot create being from nothing, but only being out of Himself. What do you say about that?

You have company in the commentary attributed to Ramban on Song of Songs ch. 3 (on the well-known Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, about which Maimonides writes that it is the strangest of all the midrashim he encountered, concerning creation being from being). As for me, I do not understand at all what the problem is here. Creation ex nihilo does not mean that being comes out of non-being, but that being was created even though beforehand there was non-being. Was it previously in potentia within the Holy One? Perhaps yes. So what?

If being was not created from nothing, then I have no problem at all with the fact that before the time of being there was nothing, and then the Holy One imported being from Himself, from some place whatsoever, into the place of nothing—or even that He created place itself from some being somewhere else. All I meant was that I will never, ever be able to live with a view that being was created out of nothing, not even by God. That is nonsense, like saying that God created a triangle with four corners.
All I meant to ask you was whether you would agree that such a physical contradiction (even though it is physical, and you wrote in your book that every physical contradiction has meaning) is in this exceptional case something one cannot live with, and is like an analytic logical contradiction. (And perhaps it can be defined as an analytic logical contradiction itself, even though we are dealing with physics.)

I simply do not understand what you are talking about.
To create new being not out of previous being—there is no problem with that in my opinion (as opposed to what is attributed to Ramban). What I only noted here is that the expression “being from nothing” implies that being is made from nothing itself, meaning that nothing is the material from which being was made. That is just loose talk (unless the expression “nothing” expresses an entity of a different kind, as the kabbalists say about the Keter). That is all. The creation of new being is not problematic at all. This is of course a physical contradiction, because it contradicts the laws of nature, but that is precisely creation of the world, and physical contradictions are not supposed to trouble the Holy One who created the physics. One can live with it very easily.

Sorry that I’m being a pest

“To create new being not out of previous being—there is no problem with that”?? Where did this created being suddenly come from if there was no prior material from which this new being was created and formed? Unless, of course, we decide that the whole universe including us is basically just imagination—“and there was nothing because there is nothing.”
That is exactly equivalent to what you immediately write, that the being was made from nothing itself—which is just empty talk.

On second thought, perhaps in fact we both mean the same thing. Until now I understood that the meaning of “being from nothing” is literally that God does not need any material whatsoever in order to create (as opposed to an ordinary magician who merely deceives the eye and does not create rabbits from zero and the void, but only pulls out something that already exists and we simply do not notice how he brought it here). But the Holy One wants something and poof—from absolute nothingness there comes to be being, created from nothing. If I understand you correctly, then the Holy One created a world out of something that existed in Him in some fashion, and shaped that into our familiar world—because if He had no material whatsoever with which to create, He would have no possibility of inventing a world of being out of nothing abracadabra.

As stated, I do not understand what the problem is at all.

At the end of line 1
… also the divine intervention…

Hello and blessings.

Regarding the interesting point you raised about putting forward an extreme claim in order to drag the “window of discourse” toward the desired point: there is an interesting video by the propaganda outlet VOX claiming that this is exactly what Trump does.
Attached is a link to the video. I believe you will enjoy the idea.

Exactly. Very nice. Thanks.

The difference between you and those who disagree with you is not about apologetics, but only about the point from which you apply it.
You disparage apologetics that cannot be falsified and the defense of dogmas that turn out not to be true in reality (or at least are not necessitated by reality, and have a simpler and more logical explanation).
But you too use exactly the same practice when you defend the Scriptures and their divine truth (and therefore are compelled to interpret them differently, because to claim that they are not true, and that the Torah is a text with no connection whatsoever to the divine will—that is out of the question for you). So if rational honesty flowing from observation of reality—then all the way. Why engage in apologetics for the Scriptures at all?

These questions have come up here more than once, and I will briefly repeat what I explained.
When I have confidence in the source of some claim, I am certainly prepared to stretch in order to defend it. If I saw a body floating in the air, I would not throw out the law of gravity, and I would prefer to strain or assume there is some explanation even if I do not understand it. That is not apologetics (in the negative sense) but common sense. But when it is clearly seen that there is no divine involvement in the world, and the whole scientific picture of the world denies it, then good arguments are required in order to depart from that. Strained excuses that cannot be falsified are not enough in such a case.
See also my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%AA%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D

So are you convinced of the truth of the Scriptures the way you are convinced of the law of gravity?

Another question
God operates within the framework of the laws of nature, including statistics.
But the fact that I—specifically I—find myself on this side of the statistics, and that person—and specifically that person—finds himself on the other side of the statistics, isn’t that evidence of providence? Especially when I have a subjective sense that it is so..

Where did I write that it is the same thing? I wrote that the definition of apologetics depends on the a priori force of the claim. The claim that there is a God is very plausible to me, and there are excellent arguments in its favor (I do not know how to compare this to the force of the law of gravity).
The laws of nature do not include statistics. They are completely deterministic. Feelings that can be measured—there is no reason to rely on them when the measurements show the opposite.

I didn’t understand anything.
Believing in God is one thing; believing in the Scriptures is already a further leap. Therefore the claim that there are good arguments for the existence of God is irrelevant to the discussion of apologetics about the Scriptures. Regarding statistics, I also did not understand your words.
There are deterministic laws of nature, and there is statistics. There are people with the same starting conditions; one succeeds and the other does not. True, there is no open miracle here and such-and-such a coincidence is possible within the statistics of success/poverty/health, etc., but who winds up on which side of the statistics, to my feeling, is connected to providence. Why should I not assume so?

Belief in God was an example of a claim in which I have confidence, and therefore defending it is not apologetics. The same applies to the Scriptures: even if my confidence in them is less than my belief in God, I still have confidence in them.
Statistics is only a lack of information. The laws of nature themselves are completely deterministic. Therefore, when two people arrive at different places, that is only because they do not have the same starting conditions, or because of differences in their choices. The fact that I do not see the differences does not mean that there are no differences. Obviously there are.
I have already written about this here many times. There is no providential involvement that is not a miracle. Many people are mistaken about this, but there is no such thing as divine involvement within the framework of nature.