Is There Divine Involvement in the World? (Column 298)
With God's help
This column was written as a continuation of the previous one, which dealt with the logic of causality. For some reason, although I explained again and again that I was dealing only with the logical question of causality and its nature (necessary and sufficient conditions and double causality), readers (including Rabbi Ratt) kept returning, again and again, to the theological question (about which I wrote that I was not dealing), and in addition assumed all sorts of incorrect things about my position, and also repeated things that have already been discussed here ad nauseam. Still, this repeated conflation tells me that the matter requires further explanation. I therefore ask your pardon if there are repetitions here of things I have already written more than once. I faithfully promise you that, as in the past, the responses to this column too will consist mainly of repetitions of matters that have already been discussed (most of which are answered in this very column). Tried and tested. You can view this column as an answer to quite a few questions that arose following the previous column (to the latest of which I no longer responded at all).
In that column I dealt with the logic of the causal relation, whereas here I will deal with the other angle, the theological one (sporadic involvement), and in this way I hope finally to complete the picture (though, in light of past experience, I am certain not the arguments). As noted, this topic has been discussed here ad nauseam, in columns 280–1, 243, and many others (especially in the second book of my trilogy). Even so, I felt I had to complete the picture sketched in the previous column.
So I decided to gird up my loins and enter this swamp. But since this is also today's subject (Independence Day), which for many is based on conceptions of divine involvement in history, I will open and close the column with today's subject (as a brief Torah thought before the lecture). And finally, because of the workload, I ask pardon for not fully editing the piece.
Reciting Hallel on Independence Day
I will begin with a question that came up on WhatsApp, where I was asked whether one should recite Hallel on Independence Day. A stale and battered question, and not a very important one, although far more has been written about it than it deserves; nevertheless, I will open with a brief statement of my own position on it. I will not resort to sources and discussions, which in my opinion are quite unnecessary in this matter. I think these halakhic discussions are conducted only in order to fit the matter into the framework of Jewish law. Some people, for some reason, feel more comfortable that way, seeing this day as a religious festival with halakhic significance. So may it be God's will that I thereby fulfill the requirement to discuss the laws of a festival on the festival itself, and intend to discharge the readers as well.
The source of the obligation to recite Hallel on Independence Day is the Talmud in Pesahim 117a, which deals with the Song at the Sea and the Hallel verses in Psalms:
Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: The song in the Torah was recited by Moses and Israel when they came up from the sea. And as for this Hallel—who instituted it? The prophets among them ordained for Israel that they should recite it on every occasion and on every trouble that may not come upon them, and when they are redeemed they recite it for their redemption.
Later on that page, the very same statement appears again as part of a tannaitic dispute about the source of those Psalms verses. It is quite clear that we have here a general halakhic statement, according to which the prophets enacted the recitation of Hallel for every distress from which one is saved (incidentally, no miracle is mentioned here).
And indeed, from here a good number of contemporary halakhic decisors concluded (I am of course not referring here to the positions and rulings of the Chief Rabbinate. Even if genuine Torah scholars once happened to stand at its head, it has no status beyond that of government clerks appointed by the government) that Hallel should be recited for the establishment of the state and the victory in the War of Independence (and later also for the other wars). True, this is not stated explicitly by the legal decisors (Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh), and it requires examination why. But it seems obvious that this Talmudic passage is enough at least to permit the recitation of Hallel, and probably also to obligate it. I am not entering here into the question whether this is Torah-level or rabbinic (the plain sense of the Talmud here is that it is an enactment of the prophets. Although one could say that they enacted the text from the verses of Psalms, while the obligation itself is Torah-level, somewhat like what happens with the commandment of prayer according to Maimonides).[1]
What Is the Dispute About: The Question of the Blessing
Nevertheless, many legal decisors (most Haredim) claim that Hallel should not be recited. Others, including some among those who obligate reciting Hallel, claim that one should not make a blessing. The root of both of these claims lies in various doubts regarding this Hallel, which I will now address. Peninei Halakhah summarizes them briefly in five points (if I remember correctly, the source is in Rabbi Ovadia's responsa, where he ruled that it should be recited without a blessing):
a) According to Chida, on the basis of several medieval authorities, Hallel with a blessing may be recited only when a miracle occurred for all Israel, whereas on Independence Day only part of Israel was in the Land of Israel. b) Thanksgiving is due only for a complete deliverance, and we are still threatened by our enemies all around. c) Because of the spiritual condition of the state's leaders and many of its citizens. d) Because one must take into account the view that Hallel may be recited only when an overt miracle occurred, such as the miracle of the jar of oil, whereas in the establishment of the state the miracle was natural. e) There is doubt whether the day of thanksgiving should be fixed specifically on Independence Day, or on the day the War of Independence ended, or on the day of the UN resolution to establish the state, namely the seventeenth of Kislev (November 29).
I will address each of these points briefly.
a) This is the only one of the five points that has any halakhic basis at all. Tosafot writes that only a deliverance of the public as a whole justifies Hallel with a blessing (and indeed, Purim celebrations observed in various communities in memory of particular deliverances, what is called in halakhic literature Second Purim, were not accompanied by the recitation of Hallel, so far as I know). But the casuistic quibbling over whether our deliverance was for all Israel or only for part of it is ridiculous formalism. Many have already pointed out that the people living in the Land count as the Jewish people as a whole in many places and halakhic sources, but in my opinion no such justification is needed. If this is not a development of significance for the entire Jewish people, I do not know what is. In any case, Purim and Hanukkah certainly were not.
b) According to this strange argument, Hallel can be recited only in the days of the Messiah, after the Temple has been built. There is of course a question as to when deliverance is complete, but clearly waiting until the very end is folly. And people have already noted the example of Hallel on Hanukkah, which was recited even though not long afterward we lost our independence. The point is apparently alluded to in Maimonides (and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years—'and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years'). That, of course, was not even close to two hundred years, and certainly not sovereignty in the full independent sense.
c) This is an altogether ridiculous argument, both rationally and scripturally. Rationally speaking, just because we are not in good shape, are we therefore exempt from praising and thanking God for our deliverance? To what is the matter comparable? To a child who receives a gift from a friend and does not thank him because he himself threw it in the trash. There is an implicit assumption here, as though the secular people are not us (they are on the side of the persecutors, not on the side of the Jews), but even if that were true, it would not exempt us from Hallel and thanksgiving. If his brother, friend, or even enemy threw the gift in the trash, or if it simply burned up, would that exempt him from giving thanks for it? That is the rational side. And from Scripture, people have already cited the precedent of Hallel on Hanukkah, when Hasmonean rule became corrupt and descended into very deep moral and Jewish degradation, and that does not stop us from reciting Hallel with a blessing for eight days. The point is apparently alluded to in Maimonides' words at the beginning of the laws of Hanukkah (and they established a king from among the priests—'and they appointed a king from the priests').
d) If there is doubt whether Hallel is said only for an overt miracle, it is not clear to me why Hallel is said on Purim (the Talmud says its reading is on that night—'its reading is its Hallel'). Moreover, even the explanations given there in the Talmud for why actual Hallel is not recited—none of them raises this claim. In my view, it need not even be a hidden miracle; see below.
At the margins of my remarks, I would note that it seems strange to me that those who hang every event on an overt divine miracle—such as the number of casualties from missiles from Iraq or Gaza (for my part, I see nothing exceptional in that at all; just statistics)—regard the return of Israel to its land as natural (or as the work of the sitra achra, the 'other side') and therefore as not warranting Hallel. In my view, all of these are apparently natural, but this contradiction in the position of those who advocate divine involvement seems very odd to me.
e) Indeed, a 'grave' doubt. A certain day was fixed, according to the judgment of the people of the time, on which praise and thanks are offered. Does time itself cause anything? What difference does it make whether it is set on this date or another?
Incidentally, the claim that when events are natural they are not God's handiwork does not arise here at all. The only distinction is between a hidden miracle and an overt one, but everyone agrees that everything is His handiwork. See below on this.
A few more aspects have been raised in this context, but this representative sample can teach you that these discussions are empty and unnecessary, and certainly do not depend on any sources. These are gut intuitions in one direction or the other, while common sense says quite clearly what it says. In the end, we all understand that one's position on this question is a matter of worldview and ideology, not of halakhic clarification (incidentally, that is entirely legitimate in itself; it is simply proper to put this honestly on the table).
Two Comments from My Perspective
Before we leave Independence Day and Hallel, two preliminary comments from my perspective. First, there is no need to assume that the establishment of the state has metaphysical significance in order to recite Hallel. Breakfast has no metaphysical significance either, and I thank God in Grace after Meals, not to mention the blessing Who formed after relieving oneself. The fact that we were in trouble and were saved, or that our condition greatly improved, is enough to recite Hallel. A secular conception of the state and its significance does not contradict an obligation to recite Hallel over its establishment. Even if the state is merely a need and an interest of mine, and not the beginning of redemption, or any other vague concept that in any case nobody really understands, that is enough to thank God for its establishment.
Second, there is no need to assume that the establishment of the state was a miracle, God's direct handiwork, in order to recite Hallel. First, because the baraita brought in Pesahim mentions not a miracle but deliverance. The question whether the deliverance is God's handiwork is another theological question, and it has no necessary connection to this matter. One may of course wonder what there is to thank and praise God for if He did not do it. It should be noted that reciting Hallel is not necessarily thanksgiving; it is also praise (the Briskers will tell you: Hallel as song). But either way, one may of course wonder what there is to thank or praise God for if He did not do it.
To this I would say what I have written about thanksgivings in prayer in general. Requests indeed have no place if one assumes (as I do) that God is not involved in the world. But thanksgivings have a different status. My claim is that we are obligated to thank God for creating the world and for creating us, for what He implanted in it so that we could manage and live here (for it is He who gives you the power to prosper—'for it is He who gives you the power to prosper'). He gave us the power, and through it we achieve. The moments when it is psychologically most natural to do this are the moments when we are saved or redeemed. This is an elevation of spirit that naturally leads us to thanksgiving and praise. Therefore, even if there is no divine involvement here, neither overt nor hidden, these are still the moments that Jewish law fixed for thanksgiving for God's deeds in creating the world.
My Position Regarding God's Involvement in the World
We have now arrived at the main point of the column. As noted, I claim that, as a rule, God is not involved in the world. My claim is not that He cannot be involved, but that at least in recent generations He has chosen not to intervene. I have written more than once that there may be sporadic involvements at very specific points in space and time. This cannot be ruled out a priori, but I see no indication whatsoever that such points exist. Therefore, although I do not rule it out, the burden of proof, from my perspective, lies on whoever claims that they do exist. One thing is clear: even if God is in principle involved from time to time, in order to attribute a particular event—even if it seems unusual (unless it is something that manifestly departs from the laws of nature, and certainly if it was predicted in advance)—to the hand of God, evidence is required. This is similar to the distinction I made in the previous column between cause as a sufficient condition with respect to a class of events, while it is always a necessary and sufficient condition with respect to a particular event.
The accepted religious conception is that God is indeed involved in the world—according to the strictest version, always—and others think this only in certain cases. But even the second conception, which is seemingly very similar to what I described, differs from what I am claiming. In my view, the assumption is that He is not involved unless clearly proven otherwise (and that simply does not happen). On their assumption, an improbable event is probably His handiwork, and when they are not careful they say this about everything (like Newton's apple). In moments of carelessness (very common), they explain to us that although everything is in His hands, He does not work for us, and therefore one cannot understand why so-and-so died or suffers, and why there was a Holocaust, and so forth. The assumption is that everything is His handiwork. For some reason, I have never heard anyone say that the death of so-and-so or some unnamed holocaust is among those events that are not God's handiwork. Above, in the previous part of the column, I noted the dispute over whether Hallel is recited for a miracle that is not overt (but rather occurs by way of nature). I noted there that I have never seen anyone argue that one does not recite Hallel because it is not a miracle at all, but a natural event. The only claim is that it is a hidden miracle, and for that one does not recite Hallel (why not?). In other words, everyone simply assumes that everything is God's handiwork, and the only question is whether it is overt or hidden.
The claim that He is involved only sometimes arises only when I pose difficult questions against the accepted conception of providence, and those who hold the interventionist approach are forced to defend their position. You can see this in the talkbacks after the previous column. Some of the commenters (including Rabbi Ratt) begin with the standard defensive move that not everything is God's handiwork, and then move to the broader claim that there is no contradiction between saying that things are in His hands and saying that they occur according to the laws of nature.[2] If there is no contradiction, then why not assume that everything is in His hands? This is a very typical picture of apologetic discussion in our circles. When defending themselves, people throw out arguments from every possible source, even if they contradict one another.
One more clarification before I enter the arguments. If someone claims that God is the one who operates the laws of nature (beyond the obvious point that He is the one who created them), I have no dispute with that. The claim I am dealing with here is only the claim that sometimes there is divine involvement that departs from the laws. That is what is called a miracle.
The Reasoning
For the moment, for the sake of the discussion, I am setting aside the content of what is written in Scripture and in the words of the Sages. I will come to that later.
My starting point is the laws of nature, which for simplicity I will treat as the laws of physics. Claim A is their determinism: as far as we currently know, the laws of physics are deterministic. This means that given a certain state of the world, the laws determine in a unique way the direction of further development, that is, the next state. Physics does not allow progression from a given state to two different states. True, quantum theory speaks of indeterminism, but that is not relevant to our discussion for two main reasons: a. It occurs only at very small scales (not relevant to the large scales of everyday life with which we are concerned here). b. Even if there were indeterminism here, quantum theory still gives a certain distribution of outcomes that statistically determines the next result. Divine intervention tilts the balance, and that too constitutes a departure from the laws of nature (quantum laws too are laws of nature).
The next important point is Claim B: every divine involvement is a miracle. There is no such thing as involvement within nature. Divine involvement means that we were in state A and, without divine involvement, the laws of nature would have taken us to state B (for example, an illness leading to death). Divine involvement causes result C to occur, that is, a departure from the laws of nature. Involvement within the framework of nature is a conceptual confusion. There is no such thing. This is, of course, connected to the discussion in the previous column about double causality (the same event cannot have both a theological cause and a natural cause).
Therefore, the question of divine involvement is always a question of changing nature. From what we have seen so far, it follows that if there is divine involvement, its meaning is action against the laws of nature.
The next point, Claim C, is that the laws of nature are general and are as we know them. True, we have seen the laws of nature only in certain examples (the experiments on the basis of which we established the law), but the assumption accepted by everyone is that the laws of nature are valid for all situations (unless proven otherwise), including situations we have not observed. This is the meaning of scientific generalization, which, as is well known, is the lifeblood of science. This does not mean, of course, that the generalization is certainly correct, but it is the best we have, and that is what should be assumed unless proven otherwise. Thus, for example, we concluded that there is a law of gravitation from experiments conducted here on earth, and no one imagines that the law is not valid on the moon or in outer space, or on every fourth new moon of the Julian year. No one also imagines that the law is not valid for another kind of particles (so long as they have mass). That is admittedly possible, but scientific generalization is not perceived by us as speculation. It is the default, and anyone who wants to claim that there is a situation in which this is not what happens must bring strong evidence. Therefore, the claim that the laws are a generalization from examples is indeed true, but only in a theoretical sense. The assumption of every rational person is that the laws are valid.
From this follows the default assumption, Claim D: in order to claim that some event did not occur according to the laws (but is instead the fruit of divine involvement), one must bring strong evidence. Without that, we will not accept such a claim.
I will now offer a certain qualification, Claim E: even if someone accepts in principle the possibility of divine involvement (as stated, I too do not rule it out), this is only a general claim. That is, the claim is that there may be events in the world brought about by God (and of course they contradict the laws of nature). By contrast, the claim that a particular event was God's handiwork requires strong evidence regarding that particular event. One cannot say that the apple fell on Newton's head because of God and not according to the laws of nature, merely because there once was the miracle of the splitting of the Sea, or because there are phenomena here or there that we do not understand.[3]
One can of course claim that in this picture it is almost impossible to become convinced of divine involvement, since we will always find some explanation, and even if not, we will assume there is an explanation that we still do not understand. That is of course true—so what? That is indeed the result of what I have argued so far. True, there are situations in which even I would admit that a particular event is the result of divine involvement, namely when known laws of nature are broken before my eyes (especially if we were informed in advance that this would happen).
And from here, by a short step, to Claim F: if there is no need and no basis to assume a theological explanation for any event we have seen (that is, to claim that it is the fruit of divine involvement), then the general thesis that in principle such involvements occasionally occur is also greatly weakened. It is possible, but it is unreasonable to accept it. There is no basis for it, and therefore no reason to depart from the accepted natural description.
In short, the laws of nature work whenever we examine them. There is no reason in the world to assume that there are situations we have never observed in which the laws of nature do not work. One can always claim, of course, that God hides, and whenever we look He does not intervene. By the same token, we could say that there are demons constantly playing soccer in the city street against Elitzur Fairyland, except that whenever we look they hide and disappear. These are Russell's-teapot claims that will surely show up here in abundance in the talkbacks. That is a good excuse if I were convinced that God really is involved and had to find some way, however strained, to reconcile that with reality (see column 243). But since I see no reason at all to assume that, there is no reason to force ourselves into bizarre pictures such as this one.
What Do People Think?
From this description it follows that when we observe an event like Newton's apple falling, all of us will explain it as a natural event and not as the hand of God. Even if one accepts in principle the possibility of divine involvement, there is no reason in the world to assume it in this case. And so too with any other event that is not manifestly miraculous (such as the splitting of the Sea, the creation of the world, or the bush that was not consumed). And as I believe I showed in the previous column, if the explanation for it is natural (gravity), then there is no possibility of dragging God into the matter. Even if one retreats to the physical causes that brought the event about, one would still need to claim divine involvement, and without a good reason it is neither correct nor reasonable to do so.
But this is not only a conclusion from the theoretical picture I have sketched so far. It is also what most sensible people assume, including the greatest believers. None of them entertains the thought of saying about an ordinary event occurring before him that it has no natural explanation. On the contrary: if we have not found a natural explanation, we do not stop searching and attribute it to the hand of God. We keep searching until we find the natural explanation. None of the believers refrains from using a medicine or medical procedure that has been tested in medical research, even though no researcher in the world—even the greatest believer—entertains the thought of neutralizing the effect of the prayers and righteousness of the sample and control groups. Paracetamol always lowers a fever, with no visible connection to the morning's prayer or to this or that commandment, and if it does not, we go to a doctor and not to a rabbi.
Note that here too, even if we adopted the above apologetic according to which God hides from us every time we check (the demons'-soccer thesis), it would not help. For here we are speaking about statistics, and there there certainly are effects from His hidden involvement. Moreover, even if in the study He did not intervene because we were testing Him, one still cannot rely on that study and take the medicine, for who is to say it will work for us? With us He may indeed intervene. In short, if we ignore this component of reality, that is a sign that we simply do not believe in it.
At the level of declarations, of course, everyone is a great believer, but their practice testifies a thousand witnesses to what they really think. The spiritual overseers will of course accuse them of surrendering to routine and rote, but the truth is that this is really what they think. The spiritual overseers are the ones who surrender to slogans, when 'routine' is in fact the truth.
In short, my claim is that there is no reason to deny the obvious. The world is governed according to the laws of nature, and God is not involved in it. That is what emerges from the scientific picture of the world, and it is also what all of us think (apart from occasional overly enthusiastic declarations of faith). Our problem is the principles of faith, which ostensibly require us to declare something different from what we really think. So I will now touch on them a little.
And What About Tradition and the Sources?
For me, what matters is what is written in Scripture. God presumably knows what happens in the world and what His policy is. On that, of course, I have no dispute. But the words of the Sages and the great figures of the generations, with all due respect, are not really important here. Their knowledge of the world is drawn from their experience and from their interpretation of Scripture, and therefore they have no real added value over me and over you. Moreover, we have an advantage in our scientific knowledge. There are quite a few mistakes in the Talmud on these matters, and that is an excellent indication that the sages of the Talmud had no exalted source of knowledge beyond their experience and reasoning and, of course, interpretation of Scripture. There may of course also be an oral tradition reaching back to Sinai, but in order to determine that something was given at Sinai, evidence is required (see Maimonides in the second root, who says this even about laws. So long as nothing else is known to us, the assumption is that laws were created by human beings and not received in tradition from Sinai. A determination that a certain law was received at Sinai requires an explicit statement of the Sages).[4]
The Sages themselves made quite a few errors, and in my opinion also on the subject of miracles within nature. Thus, for example, in column 280 I explained the topic of prayer for something that has already occurred. There one sees quite clearly an error by the sages in understanding nature, and from this one may conclude that no exalted knowledge should be attributed to them, and what they say on the basis of their own reasoning is not supposed to bind me (authority exists only in the halakhic context).
As for Scripture, my claim is that the divine involvement described in it probably existed in earlier periods. From that point onward there is a clear change of policy. One sees this with regard to overt miracles, prophecy, and more. See there for more detail. In columns 280 and 243 I explained why this proposal is not a strained interpretation of Scripture, but rather the interpretation called for in light of the data I presented above. Therefore Scripture too does not decide the matter, certainly when set against weighty considerations such as those I presented above.
Conclusions
Requests in prayer. I will preface this by saying that if I were completely convinced that on the principled level there is no involvement whatsoever, I would cancel the requests in prayer even without authority (a Sanhedrin), because there is no meaning or value to prayer that is not accompanied by thought and intention. Even if this were halakhically obligatory, I still would not be able to fulfill that law (I once cited in this context the Talmud in Yoma 69b regarding the cancellation of prayers because of changed circumstances. The Talmud there says: Because they know of the Holy One, blessed be He, that He is truthful, therefore they did not attribute falsehood to Him.—'since they know that the Holy One, blessed be He, is truthful, therefore they did not lie about Him.' Their intention is to say that God, whose seal is truth, hates falsehood, in the spirit of One who speaks falsehood shall not endure—'one who speaks falsehood shall not stand'). But as I wrote above, I have no clear indication that there is no divine involvement at all. There is always the possibility of sporadic involvement that cannot be ruled out, and therefore the conviction is not enough for me to stop reciting the requests in prayer. What is needed is to say them only in desperate cases (when there is no natural solution) and for people who need it, wherever they may be. As for thanksgivings, I already wrote briefly above.
Explanations for human death and suffering. Since with respect to every specific event there is no indication whatsoever of divine involvement, there is no place to ask why God did this, nor to answer that we have no explanation. It is not that we have no explanation; rather, no explanation is needed, because God did not do it. In order to demand explanations, one must first have some indication that it was God who did the thing and not the laws of nature. True, God did not intervene and prevent the thing (as in the Holocaust), and that is a difficult question. I will not enter into it here, since it is not connected to the present discussion. For those who hold that God is involved and brings about all things, the question is far more difficult still (incidentally, I have proposed an answer to that question as well in several places here on the site).
Interpreting historical events. Even with regard to unusual events such as the modern return to Zion, there is no indication of divine involvement. True, here there were prophecies in advance that this would happen, but even they do not constitute a decisive consideration. First, because even if they had not been fulfilled, we would not have thrown away the Hebrew Bible. We would always have found excuses. A prophecy that does not put itself to the test of falsification is weak evidence for the abilities of the prophet and of the One who inspires him. Second, Scripture could have predicted that this would happen based on familiarity with our people and the Torah and the culture we received. It is entirely possible that these are what caused us to return to the Land. Moreover, that is also how those who do not believe in Scripture and in God explain it; that is, there are reasonable natural explanations for this as well. If so, we have no indication of divine involvement in these matters either.
Back to Independence Day
For the reasons I have detailed here, my claim is that even with regard to the modern return to Zion and the victory in the War of Independence there is no clear indication of divine involvement. It is possible that He was involved, but so long as there is no clear indication of that, there is no reason to assume it. It does not seem that there was an overt miracle here, nor a hidden one. On the other hand, my remarks in the first part remain fully valid. There is no need at all for a miracle, neither overt nor hidden, in order to recite Hallel. By the same token, there is no need to subscribe to a metaphysical conception of the beginning of redemption or the like in order to do so. It is simply praise and thanksgiving for what happened to us in the world God created, and for the physical, cultural, and spiritual powers He gave us with which to achieve.
[1] And from here there is also an answer to the strange claim (I think of Nachmanides in his glosses to the first root) that the fact that Hallel is recited through verses of Psalms proves that it is not a Torah-level obligation. This is a very strange claim. See the opposite dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides in the same place regarding the view of Bahag that Hanukkah and Purim are included in the count of the commandments.
[2] A straightforward and intelligent treatment of the sources on this topic can be found in Rabbi Shmuel Ariel's article, 'Is Every Event Directed from Heaven?'. It is highly recommended (like all his other articles and writings). But he too does not deal with the logical and physical analysis of this topic, only with placing the sources and the different approaches opposite one another. In that sense, his article seems lacking to me.
[3] Similarly, in the previous column I distinguished between cause as a sufficient condition on the principled theoretical level (there may be several causes for the burning of a log) and the claim that the burning of a particular log had several causes. I showed there that the second is impossible and the first is possible.
[4] And even that is not always enough. The medieval authorities already noted that the sages of the Talmud sometimes say of something that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai only in order to strengthen it.
Discussion
With God’s help, 5 Iyar 5780
According to what is explained here, nothing special happened on 5 Iyar. Our deliverance from the enemy who plotted to destroy us resulted from a successful chain of coincidences and from “our own power and the might of our own hand.” All our gratitude to God is only for having created a world with fixed and rigid laws of nature, which allow us to make intelligent use of them in order to save ourselves from every trouble. If so, one should recite Hallel on the day of the world’s creation, which we mark on Rosh Hashanah.
The reason given in the Gemara for not reciting Hallel on Rosh Hashanah is that on that day “the books of the living and the books of the dead are opened before Him”—so how can one sing? But now that it has become clear to us that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in the world—then on Rosh Hashanah neither the books of the living nor the books of the dead are opened, and with no dread of judgment hanging over us we can sing on Rosh Hashanah for the creation of a world that runs “on automatic” 🙂
Best regards, Hallel the Egyptian
Or perhaps we should recite Hallel on the day RMA came to the realization that God “has forsaken the earth”? And if it is not remembered on which day he said this, one can establish Hallel on the day the “trilogy” was published 🙂
Paragraph 1, line 3
…make intelligent use of them in order to be saved from every trouble…
Paragraph 2, line 2
…so how can one sing? …
There, line 4
…and with no dread of judgment hanging over us…
According to your definitions of the concept of intervention, can a human being yes intervene in nature?
An excellent article, except for one part which in my humble opinion is lacking. The part where you reject the claim that the State of Israel was “foreseen” by the prophets. First, why are prophecies not falsifiable? The fact that their defined target lies many years in the future does not make them hard to falsify, all the more so when we are already after all those years and see them being fulfilled. And of course the claim that even if they had not been fulfilled, we would not have “fallen off our feet,” is a nice and important statement, but not relevant to the discussion, because they were fulfilled. If I isolate this claim from the rest of the arguments for and against God’s involvement in the world, plainly it is a much stronger claim than your answer to it.
I do not know whether it has the power to refute the whole article, but in my view it deserves another answer, more in-depth than the one you gave (assuming you have an answer to the claim).
Blessing and success
At the beginning of your remarks, you argue that the indeterminism of quantum theory is irrelevant for two reasons. A. It occurs only at very small scales. B. There is still a statistical distribution that one may not deviate from.
I think that even given those reasons, one can use quantum indeterminism to explain the possibility of divine involvement in the laws of nature. This explanation is in the spirit of the proposal of Rabbi Prof. Yehuda Levi, whose words you cite in your book "The Science of Freedom," p. 297.
First, quantum phenomena are capable of affecting events on large scales as well, in situations where there is high sensitivity to initial conditions (chaos). The death of Schrödinger’s cat, for example, is an event on a large scale caused by a quantum phenomenon.
Now, the second claim as well, regarding the limitation imposed by the statistical distribution, is in my understanding invalid. I will try to clarify this as follows: if we accept that quantum phenomena indeed affect events on large scales, then even given all the laws of nature known to us, there is more than one possible history of the world (and probably infinitely many possible histories). If that is true, then the Holy One, blessed be He, can choose to realize דווקא one of the possible histories according to His considerations, without violating any of the laws of nature.
I assume that you would agree with me that what I have raised is indeed a valid possibility, and would only argue that there is no proof that such involvement actually occurs in practice.
Maybe that is true, but at the very least one should acknowledge that it is not correct to claim that divine involvement necessarily contradicts the laws of nature known to us today.
Eliezer, which Gemara are you referring to? If to the Gemara in Pesachim 117a, then is your interpretation grounded in lack of familiarity?
Did I understand correctly that according to all the above, the doctrine of the Baal Shem Tov is not correct?
I propose a compromise solution: precisely in this itself, that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in the laws of nature although He can if He wishes, this means that it is His will that things be so; and if He did intervene, there would be a miracle. It follows that He is always involved in that He made it so.
A question that interests me very much:
Isn’t it simpler not to believe in the Bible than to get into all these strained distinctions between then and now? At bottom, the Bible is full of assertions about divine involvement in the world (“And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken,” etc.), and the division between then and now is surely, at the very least, a major stretch that ought to set off a red light regarding the very general truth of the Bible’s content.
Let me sharpen the question: to the best of my knowledge (based on previous columns), you do not think that the commandments and the Bible are moral, you do not find especially great pearls of wisdom in the Bible, and in general you do not hold that one can learn anything from it.
An ordinary believer believes in the Bible, among other things, in light of identification with its contents. You, by contrast, do not identify with a very large part of it, and even hold that some of its commandments and contents are not moral at all or useful to the world in any other evident way (and in order to reconcile belief, you explain that the commandments have another purpose—“spiritual”—another stretch, since this is a purpose not evident to the eye).
On your view, belief in the Bible must be based on some kind of “external” evidence, unrelated to the Bible’s content.
I am not familiar with such external evidence. Could you enlighten me?
That is the plain meaning of the Gemara. As with Hanukkah and Purim, which at least according to the Behag are learned from that very same law.
Beyond that, I have not seen that the Haredi decisors said to recite Hallel in 1948 and only a year later retracted.
This is empty casuistry. One says it when the event happens.
Obviously. All of The Science of Freedom is devoted to that. But that is not called intervention. A human being is part of nature. There are laws of physical nature, and there are human beings. That is how nature in the world operates.
When you have a verse that whatever happens confirms it, such confirmation should not be taken seriously. This is the ABC of the philosophy of science. Check the predictions of David Passig (the futurist from Bar-Ilan), and tell me whether such fulfillment would have confirmed them.
Nor do I reject the claim that the State was foreseen by the prophets. On the contrary, my claim is that even if it was foreseen, that does not mean there was divine intervention. Examine my words carefully.
If you read it, I explained the matter there.
1. The transition from small to large scales does not happen except in a very carefully directed experiment, and that is only in very specific situations in the laboratory, and only there. In nature it does not happen. So there is no possible explanation here. I explained there that at most one can hide inside the quanta, but involvement would still count as a deviation from the laws of nature even within the framework of quantum theory. By the way, I remember that when I read it I thought Rabbi Yehuda Levi was badly mistaken there. Everything else falls away in any case. Involvement indeed contradicts the laws of nature.
2. Moreover, even if there is a transition from the small scales to the large ones, on the small scales themselves, if there is involvement, it contradicts the distribution and therefore the laws of nature.
I have never seen such a vague question in my life. Is this a riddle?
What from the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching? According to what is it contradicted? What is the contradiction? And even if so, then what? If the words of Hazal are contradicted by this, then is the Baal Shem Tov holier than they are?
This casuistry was answered in the column. I explained there that I have no dispute with those who see the Holy One’s involvement in the very basis of the laws themselves. With that I too agree.
The question of intervention and the question of the divine will (in another post) can be understood only according to the words of the prophet and Maimonides:
“But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these I delight, says the Lord.”
That is, man does in the world what God desires, and thus God in fact intervenes in nature.
And at the opposite extreme, those who believe in changes to the laws of nature are in fact believers in sorcery and magic. And it requires clarification whether they are part of the people of Israel: “For there is no enchantment in Jacob, neither is there divination in Israel.”
I am not alarmed even by that. Many parts of the Bible have received metaphorical interpretations. But the revelation at Sinai, in my view, did occur, and there are several passages where it seems that they describe reality. Therefore I say there is room to argue that the policy changed.
In my fifth notebook (the fifth conversation in the first book in the trilogy) I described the move as I see it.
And perhaps one should recite Hallel for our deliverance from dependence on divine providence, on 5 Elul. After all, the statement that “the Lord has forsaken the earth” (Ezekiel 8:12) is quoted in Ezekiel’s prophecy that was said “on the fifth day of the sixth month” 🙂
As for us, we rely on God’s promise that “He will not forsake us,” and we rejoice as we see before our very eyes the mountains of Israel putting forth their branches and yielding their fruit “for My people Israel, for they are soon to come.” We thank God for His miracles that are with us every day, that after the terrible Holocaust we merited the beginning of the restoration of the people of Israel in its land, and the ingathering of millions of Jews from all the exiles amid spiritual and material flourishing.
And as our state reaches 68 years, let us thank God for His past kindnesses, and ask of Him that He hasten the completion of the process of our redemption and the liberation of our souls with great might and peace.
Best regards, Shatz
1. I read carefully. You did not explain there why a transition from small to large scales is possible only in an experiment, and in nature it never happens (in situations of chaos, of course).
2. As I wrote, the involvement I am positing does not contradict the statistical distribution. The reason is simple (sorry for repeating myself): if there is a transition of quantum phenomena from small scales to large ones, that means there is more than one history compatible with all our laws of nature. Out of the possible histories, the Holy One, blessed be He, chooses one according to His considerations.
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…we rely on God’s promise that He will not forsake us…
Hello Rabbi,
A) Do you have a formal definition of what counts as a miracle? After all, as you noted, if we saw a deviation from the laws of nature, we would probably treat it as a sign to update some theory, not as a miracle.
B) It reminds me of Carl Sagan’s famous line:
A universe with no edge in space, no beginning or end in time, and nothing for a creator to do
I read what you wrote. I still find your conclusion puzzling.
On the one hand, there are indeed the witness argument and the uniqueness of the Jewish people (with all the difficulties in those arguments), which in your view support the truth of the Bible and the fact that there was revelation at Sinai.
But on the other hand there are all the clear and glaring difficulties—the Bible is full of miracles, which are a phenomenon we do not know today. The Bible claims, generally speaking, that God’s hand directs the whole world and not the laws of nature, which is also a phenomenon that in your view does not exist today. In your view, the Bible commands commandments that lack any visible value and some of them are even immoral. In your view, the Bible’s content and the messages expressed in it are not at all impressive and nothing can be learned from them.
So true, all these “difficulties” can be reconciled and part of the Bible interpreted metaphorically—but there can be no dispute that this is strained.
Under these circumstances, it is not clear to me how your conclusion leans toward trusting the Bible and the claim of revelation.
I would be glad for a response.
1. As I recall, I explained that chaos has nothing to do with this in any way. Chaos is a completely deterministic process. That is precisely Rabbi Yehuda Levi’s mistake. The transition from small to large scales in quantum theory is when there is phase coordination (no decoherence), as in superfluids or superconductors. Schrödinger’s cat is a hypothetical experiment. No one has done it. But even if they do, it will be only in the lab (very complicated), not in everyday life.
2. Incorrect. The question of which history I am in is determined by the distribution. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory changes nothing here. Beyond that, I wrote that involvement on the small scales itself is a deviation from the laws of nature. What difference does it make whether it rises to the large scales or not?
I do not. I assume that if I saw the sea split, especially after being told in advance that it would happen, I would treat it as a miracle. When such a situation does not recur, one does not go looking for an updated theory.
Do you want me to write you a new booklet? What I had to write, I wrote there. If you do not accept it, then you do not.
1. Chaos is a deterministic process, but it is also a process sensitive to initial conditions. If the initial conditions are set quantumly, then we have a transition from small scales to large ones. I used Schrödinger’s cat only to demonstrate that possibility. If you claim that a certain phenomenon occurs only in the lab, you need to explain why it does not also occur outside it. Do the laws of nature stop working outside the lab? What are those conditions prevailing in the lab that are not also found in nature, because of which one cannot find scale transition in nature?
2. I did not say that the question of which history we are in is determined by the distribution. Nor was I referring to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory at all.
My claim is very simple:
The laws of nature allow, given a certain state of affairs, the occurrence of both event A and event B (this is quantum indeterminism). The occurrence of quantum event A can have an effect on event C on a larger scale. (This is my assumption above, that transition between scales is possible in nature as well.)
From this it follows that both world (1), in which event C (the Exodus from Egypt, for example) occurred after a certain history, and world (2), in which it did not occur after that exact same history, are worlds that operate in accordance with the laws of nature known to us.
And therefore, a moment before the Exodus from Egypt, the Holy One, blessed be He, could have chosen that the world in which we live would be precisely the world in which the Exodus from Egypt would occur, rather than the alternative world, without that choice intervening in the laws of nature.
1. The transition from small scales to large ones disperses the phases. This is a quantum phenomenon.
2. The decision about which initial conditions one starts with is determined by the quantum distribution.
An aside: why is it forbidden to pray for a miracle?
1. I still do not understand why scale transition is possible only in the lab, and not in the world.
2. Why does that matter? The moment you agree that there is more than one possible world (consistent with the quantum distribution), there is already the possibility of choosing among the possible worlds.
If you ask me, I will answer that it does not happen. But the commentators offer all sorts of explanations (deducting from his share in the World to Come; the devil knows why). One may pray for a hidden miracle, otherwise there would be no point in prayer (requests) at all. All these rules seem to me like wrapping the picture I propose (that there is no involvement and no miracles) in a theologically digestible package.
1. That is the fact. It does not happen outside the lab. The reason is that one has to organize the system so that the correlation range is very long, and that does not happen on its own.
2. Incorrect. The choice among the worlds is determined by the quantum distribution.
We are repeating ourselves.
Hello and blessings, and good evening,
Much is spoken here about “divine involvement,” whether overt or hidden, whether common or very rare, in what happens in the world.
And I stand in my perplexity and ask: how can one, on the one hand, say that God intervenes in the world, and on the other hand say that God is “one” and perfect in every perfection?
For one who says this is also saying that “changes” apply to Him, and that He is “composite.” And every composite thing has something external to it that composed it and “limited” it.
Regarding the comments on the previous column, it is important to explain something.
People in many cases “allow” themselves to argue with you not only about the pilpul itself discussed in the column, but about the macro level, about the bottom line that emerges from your words. And if it emerges that you are claiming a lack of divine involvement, they argue from several angles, even if, heaven forbid, they stray from the argument itself.
Another thing: I corresponded today with Rabbi Moshe Rat, and he argued regarding Israel’s wars that one can see them as a miracle in every sense. From the very fact that there were such promises in the Bible and they were fulfilled in a wondrous manner, and from the fact that the war consisted of dozens of coincidences and a chain of surprising events. One can say with reasonable logic that these events are defined as a miracle.
He says that you yourself argued against Dawkins that there is an equation of plausibility versus probability (regarding the creation of the universe). And here too, although it is plausible that such an event could occur, the probability points to attributing the circumstances of the event to that same being who has more than once been involved in processes occurring in the world.
And here I would add that in this too you are changing your approach compared to the debates about the creation of the universe. After all, your claim regarding Russell’s famous teapot is that the teapot is based only on the testimony of one person without any basis, unlike God. In this case too, how do you compare it to demons and all sorts of things, when here there is a much greater basis for believing in involvement, if only because it existed?
And if one accepts the argument that even today there are miracles here and there (I seem to recall that you yourself argued that the criticism directed at us in the UN is a deviation from nature, due to the evident gap between condemnations of us and places like Syria where people are being slaughtered), then the comparison to the teapot and fairies is even less appropriate. Moreover, it is easy to assume that in many cases where people experience personal providence, that is what it is—if one assumes that there are indeed certain channels for intervention.
In general, it is hard for me to understand why the simple conception is that science is valid unless proven otherwise, and tradition and Jewish faith are the ones that need to bring proof. Maybe the other way around?
And one last thing (I’m shoving everything into one question because usually there’s no second chance…)—you confined the discussion to two aspects, sporadic intervention and double causation. And once Moshe Rat did not answer according to the outline you created, you said he was not addressing the matter itself. But as I understand it, he meant something third (especially since he kept emphasizing 17 times that he did not mean the principle of double causation, and he indeed did not mention such words). Namely, that there is involvement on a daily basis (not sporadic) combined with a guiding hand (not double causation). Exactly as a car turned left because the steering wheel moved, and the steering wheel moved because of the driver. That is not double causation; it is one combined cause. And his proof for the steering wheel being moved by the driver, as stated, is because of the miracles done for the people of Israel (which I seem to recall you yourself brought as examples, as mentioned above).
For all the skeptics: today there is filmed video of divine interventions:
A wondrous perplexity beyond me. I did not understand the difficulty, and I hope you did.
It should be noted that according to Rabbi Soloveitchik of Boston’s understanding, the view of the Guide is that providence applies only to special righteous individuals (there are more radical views, but let us leave them aside). Assuming that God knows what He is doing—where there is no providence, there is no doing or directing. And that should suffice for the discerning.
Rabbi Michi, you could have spared all this controversy and all your readers’ crises of faith if from the outset, instead of expressing yourself in a provocative style like “God has forsaken the earth” and “prayers do not help,” and bringing in the whole logical discussion about double causation (which is completely unnecessary the moment you agree that sporadic miraculous intervention is possible), you had simply written something like:
“It seems to me that God intervenes in reality today less than in the past, and not all prayers are answered (as Hazal already said: from the day the Temple was destroyed, an iron partition was placed between Israel and their Father in Heaven), and therefore we must act by way of nature and not rely on miracles.”
As I understand it, that is a sentence that expresses your position, only in a reasonable and non-provocative way. After all, once one gets down to details, you too do not claim that intervention is impossible, nor do you deny that it happens sometimes—only that in your opinion it happens less than before.
So, isn’t it a shame? Wouldn’t it have been better simply to formulate it that way and that’s it?
You assume at the basis of everything that the world is deterministic, but it really isn’t so—maybe in some imaginary theoretical world. We can never calculate all the variables, and in practice we can never predict what will be.
All analyses are always retrospective. For example: a patient who gets the flu may die or may not. In advance you can only estimate what will happen according to age, health condition, etc., but the doctor has not yet been born who can guarantee you with certainty that he will live or die. Only afterward, once he dies (or lives), can you explain medically what happened here.
In short: the assumption that the world is deterministic is theoretical, and in my view not by chance. Perhaps this is a built-in feature the Holy One, blessed be He, created in order to prevent articles such as this?
On the other hand, if all your polemic (Rabbi Rat) was about the phrasing, then you too could have spared it by presenting Rabbi Abraham’s position in your own moderate wording. After all, you are not claiming that new insights and changes have arisen since the writing in the book. So why did you enter into the issue itself instead of arguing only about the wording?
My disagreement is with Rabbi Michi’s basic assumptions and with the conclusions he draws. Even if in the bottom line the difference between us is not very large, his principled approach to these matters seems to me problematic and mistaken.
What is there here? Could you explain..
The principled approach is problematic even though it has no consequences (intellectual or practical) that are problematic in your view? A dispute for the days of the Messiah.
When I explicitly focus the discussion on the logical component and not on sporadic involvement, I expect people to talk about that. There is plenty of room on the site to discuss other things. Especially when the discussion is being conducted about this, and the comments are presented as though they too are dealing with it. One cannot discuss that way. It is a case of claiming wheat and being answered with barley.
The claim about the wars is common and mistaken. Any unbiased observer will tell you that in every war there are many coincidences, and therefore there is no indication of a miracle here.
The condemnations of us at the UN and the like are indeed anomalous. Is the Holy One involved in them? Does He cause them to condemn us? This is nonsense, and no one claims that. This anomaly is rooted in antisemitism, but that is people’s decision and not the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He.
If you think tradition is more reliable than science—good for you. In my view, science is very reliable (of course not necessary), and tradition is partly made-up material that should very much be examined. I have written more than once that God probably does not err, but the bearers of tradition are human beings who are fed by many things. As such, in my opinion their status is indeed lower than that of science.
What you wrote, that you’re cramming everything in here because with me there’s no second chance—that is simply a brazen and deeply insulting lie. I trouble myself to answer everyone, including you, as many times as needed, so long as they are not repeating themselves, in which case I see no point in continuing (as happens here quite a bit).
And here, immediately, we got an example. The defense claims for Moshe Rat that you raised are an excellent example of repetition that is not worth a response, because you are simply once again repeating claims that have already been answered. Therefore indeed I will not answer that again.
Rabbi Moshe, I suggest that each person write and present his own position, not the other’s. If I want someone to write my books for me, I will be happy to turn to you.
I do indeed base my claim on detailed arguments and reasons, and do not suffice with merely saying that the Holy One is not very involved, for the prosaic and unfortunate reason that that is your statement and not mine. I, unlike you, argue that He probably is not involved (except that I cannot rule out sporadic involvements. By the way, I do not think those exist either, because there is no indication of them). This may sound logically equivalent to you (although it definitely is not, and from a doctor of philosophy who knows my thought and me well I would expect him to understand this), but at least in our language you will surely agree that these statements have utterly different meanings, and that they have many implications for life and faith. From this you will understand that the statement “God has forsaken the earth” is not provocation but a description of my claim (as opposed to your claim, that you say He has only distanced Himself from it).
The one who brought the discussion about the logic of causation in here was you (in your last post), not I. Indeed, behind my words there stands a logical consideration about causation (that there is no such thing as double causation), and you are the one who chose to place it at the center of your post. So what did you expect? That I would argue with what you wrote in your post without making use of it? In the book I certainly had to present this argument, since without it the result is that you are right and I am not (and I remind you again that, contrary to your false presentation, our positions are not identical). It now turns out that you too needed these arguments (like many others who speak of involvement within nature), so why do you claim it is unnecessary and can be dispensed with? The explanation is needed in order to clarify to people like you why in my opinion they are mistaken on this matter.
In short, my detailed and reasoned formulations are intended precisely to disabuse people of your error. The identification you make between our positions is exactly the reason these arguments are not superfluous.
I explained above why there definitely is a large difference between us.
I am certainly not claiming that our positions are identical. But the moment you agree that sporadic intervention is possible and that there is no logical impediment to it, you have already qualified your words. The whole story about double causation is not interesting if you leave an opening for hidden miracles within the system. According to your own words, it is possible that God intervenes in exceptional cases. How “exceptional” is that? One in a million? In ten thousand? In a thousand? Once a jubilee? A sabbatical year? A year? Since you have no indication whatsoever to say one way or the other, then at the very least out of humility you should have said “it seems to me that He intervenes little,” and not emphatically declared that He “has forsaken the earth,” which is a statement that even according to your view has no basis.
Of course, if what you want is specifically to be provocative and to break people’s faith, then your wording indeed serves the purpose.
I assume nothing beyond the simple and accepted scientific worldview. That is all. Whoever wishes to claim that the laws of nature are not as physics describes them—good for him. He should just not forget that in the other aspects of his life as well.
My words are intended precisely to disabuse people of this common mistake, as though belief in God and Judaism requires abandoning the scientific worldview (for who said they know everything? And who said they are right? Theories? Generalizations?). Those who do this sometimes also use philosophy of science (Popper, for example) to explain that everything is theories and generalizations and there is no certainty and no proofs. All of that is true, and still anyone who does not accept it is not a rational person (and usually not an honest one either. Because he does accept it, except in situations where he is arguing about theology).
By the way, does the traditional conception presented here have proofs? Is there certainty about it? Are you sure I am mistaken? Is it clear to you that what the Torah describes is full involvement that also prevails in our own day? From where do you know that? Surely the certainty in this is far less than the certainty we have in science, with all the doubts about it. The fact that science is presented as something uncertain is a badge of honor for the honesty of scientists and the scientific community, something that does not characterize the Torah community that clings to the tradition in whose name you speak. There there are no doubts and everything is clear, while science is “theories.” In short, you made me laugh.
Ah, and we have not yet mentioned those who use after-the-fact justifications, explanations manufactured after things happen. That, of course, is science. Tradition knows everything in advance. Every event is known in advance and explained with magnificent and certain explanations.
That much I was able to understand from the explanations of the positions themselves, but I was speaking according to his own view. He said that the difference is not so great and that he would not have polemicized if the wording had been different. So why did he polemicize about the content and not say, “In effect it comes out such-and-such and that is pretty much fine”? Because he too understands that there is a big difference in content and not only in wording. There are two sides to a polemic, and if the whole thing is merely a tempest in a linguistic teapot, then the puzzlement should be directed at both sides, and it is unreasonable to direct it at only one side.
With God’s help, Independence Day 5780
Yaazaniah son of Shaphan and his companions, who sank into despair in the period of exile and destruction, can still be understood. After all, there had been no precedent for a people surviving in a state of exile.
But we stand after thousands of years of exile and bondage and unceasing attempts to destroy us, and we have seen with our own eyes that even in the greatest hiding of the Divine face, God kept His promise: “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them to destroy them utterly.” And not only that, but we have merited to see the beginning of the fulfillment of the divine promise: “Then the Lord your God will restore your captivity and return and gather you from all the peoples…”
R. Tzvi Yehuda used to say that his father, R. A.Y. Kook, was careful to write “history” with a tav, because history is, as it were, “the hiding of Yah”—the revelation of the Master of the palace within the hidden natural historical processes.
R. Avraham Shapira would regularly cite the Ibn Ezra on the verse “and let them consider the mercies of the Lord,” where Ibn Ezra wrote: “the mercies of the Lord—that they should consider,” meaning that even in order to reflect one needs the mercies of the Lord, so that the great events not pass us by without our paying attention.
With holiday blessings for the complete redemption, Shatz
A short lesson in logic. The claim “it is possible that there is sporadic involvement” (or “I do not rule out the possibility of sporadic involvement”) is not equivalent to the claim “there is sporadic involvement.”
If I were persuaded that there is involvement, I would indeed agree that perhaps there are hidden miracles. But what can I do—I have not been persuaded of that. Therefore I hold that there is no sporadic involvement (except that I am not certain of this. It is possible).
Therefore the question about the degree of exceptionality (how many cases of involvement there are) is irrelevant. In my estimation: 0.
As I just wrote in reply to Maor, for some reason the Torah conception that there is involvement, for which there is not a shred of indication, is the correct one, while the scientific conception, for which there are thousands and millions of indications, is the one that requires qualification. Science is only generalizations and there is no certainty (which is true), but your interpretation of tradition is certain. Therefore, despite there not being a shred of indication for divine involvement, you insist on inserting it there with no reason and no justification. And I am the one straining and drawing unfounded conclusions. Amazing!
And regarding the consequences of my statements, we have already argued about that more than once. First, I am against holy lies. If the truth causes people to lose their faith—it is still the truth, and in my opinion it is still important to say it. Belief in the wrong God is not of much value (like Maimonides’ parable of the elephant). Second, there are quite a few people who go off the religious path because of the conceptions you present (because they understand that it is absurd and highly implausible, and they think that this is what faith requires and therefore they abandon it). My words are directed to those people, and everyone else can continue reading the usual material that explains to them the wonders of God’s hand and daily providence over every blade of grass. You demand that I abandon the people who go off the religious path because of you, so that the people who remain religious because of your doctrine (which in my opinion is mistaken) will not go off the path? That sounds a bit asymmetrical to me. Somehow you probably do not meet those people and I do, but it seems to me that this too is not accidental. Why would you meet them, if your words are what cause them to go off the path?! They come to me. (And likewise probably vice versa, although I do meet some who go off the path because of me as well. Rare, but it exists unfortunately.)
So man, who is part of nature, intervenes by his choice in natural processes, but the Creator, who created nature, is neutralized? And after He announced through His prophets that even in a period of terrible hiding of the Divine face “His eyes are open upon all the ways of the children of men, to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds”—you have no “indication” that He keeps His word?
Well then…
Best regards, Shim Shvayn
There is no need for lessons in logic, thank you. What is needed here is humility. If you are not convinced that there is no sporadic intervention, and you agree that it is possible, then there is no room for emphatic declarations about God’s forsaking, etc. etc. Even if, in your view, there is not a “shred of evidence” for divine intervention (of course, because you accept nothing short of a transparent hand), still even in more esoteric matters, such as the existence of aliens, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You will not find many intelligent people emphatically declaring that we are alone in the universe; rather, they say the matter is in doubt. All the more so when you already believe in the existence of a God who intervened in the past, in which case the possibility that He intervenes in the present is not at all far-fetched.
As for holy lies: if you yourself, by your own words above, are not convinced that there is no sporadic intervention, then one who claims that there is such intervention is not “lying.” He simply assesses reality differently from you. And in order to claim that “my method” causes people to go off the religious path, you are forced to create some ridiculous caricature of it. There is no reason for anyone to go off the religious path because of the claim that God intervenes in reality and supervises it, so long as one does not take it in anti-scientific and anti-rational directions—which is certainly not what I do. To say that God intervenes in a hidden way does not stand in any contradiction to science, so long as you are not claiming that scientists observe every molecule in the universe at every moment.
In general, it seems to me that your extreme approach grew mainly as a reaction to certain Haredi trends, against which you wrote in previous columns and thereby confirmed my suspicion. But the fact that certain Haredim go to an extreme in one direction does not justify going to an extreme in the opposite direction.
The idea that God is your servant and your fixer is the opposite of humility.
And the thought that God needs to “intervene” in the reality that He Himself created is shooting yourself in the foot. Because then it means there was a “bug” in the design and that He is not such a smart God after all.
Actually, that is surprising. I am indeed talking about the same arguments but from completely different angles (last time I wanted to verify a point that was not clear to me, and this time I raised the argument of plausibility versus probability, and the point about the UN, and a different approach to explaining Rat). Even though you still remain in your position, these are entirely different points within the discussion.
But I accept your approach and from now on I will try to exhaust the discussion more quickly.
In any case, from what I understand there is a lot of room here for personal interpretation, and therefore the opinion cannot be so emphatic (you always rightly say that emphatic certainty does not replace a good argument).
In practice, one can easily argue that the wars really were miraculous acts (of course there are coincidences, but take for example the Six-Day War, where the astonishing victory manifested itself in so many aspects and cases that it is hard to ignore), and if this happened to the Jewish people—the people that even you believe has uniqueness, and even you believe had divine interventions in its tradition (and by the way, it is about this tradition that I spoke vis-à-vis science, not about the other things; and about this tradition you also agree)—then there is much more room for this interpretation of miracle.
And once a miracle happened one time (according to the other approaches), there is already a breach in the theory, and one cannot say that “God has forsaken the earth,” and it becomes much easier to assume regarding many more cases that there is heavenly intervention in them.
No one claimed that God is a servant or a fixer or that there was a bug in the design. He created human beings with free choice (according to Rabbi Michi, He does not even know what they will choose), and therefore He intervenes in the system in accordance with their choices, whether in order to reward, punish, direct toward the desired goal, and so on. Free choice is not a bug in the system but its feature. I understand that without caricaturing it is impossible.
Your question stems from a lack of understanding.
Only one who is part of nature can intervene in nature.
For God to intervene in nature, He would have to become embodied.
Hello. I join Phil’s questions in the context of quantum theory. Once there is a distribution, doesn’t that mean God can intervene without breaking the laws of nature?
Do you explicitly think that one cannot relate to the entire universe as a quantum system? Maybe I really just repeated what he said, but I did not understand the answers.
The whole matter here raises a great anthropological puzzle. Two intelligent people who also know each other keep repeating each of their claims thousands of times beyond measure or number without reaching any exhaustion of the discussion (even if not agreement of views). How can such a thing be? I, for example, am entirely on one side of this argument, and my own puzzlement is only about one of the sides, but how does each one explain the other to himself? Granted, each one thinks he is right and the arguments are clear and simple and so on and so on, but what, in his opinion, is going on with the other? How does each of the sides explain to himself this strangest of all phenomena—a discussion whose hundredth message is remarkably similar to messages 1 and 2 and 3 and 5 and all the other small prime numbers under one hundred? It is very easy to slide into psychological explanations, but to me at least it is truly very puzzling (for me the puzzlement is about one side, as stated).
Hello and happy holiday.
One of the conclusions from “God plays dice” is that evolution, which indeed happened, is reinforcement for the physico-theological proof, because it is a process whose chance of occurring without prior direction is far lower than the chance that it occurred intentionally by means of an external agent, and therefore the burden of proof is on the one who claims that it happened spontaneously.
In the same way one can argue regarding the return to Zion. The chance that the only people who would carry out an impossible process of returning to their land after 2,000 years of exile and reviving a language and culture would be a small and persecuted people, and in this case the only people for whom prophets stood up saying they would do this, and that this is accidental and not providentially guided—is negligible. And the burden of proof in this debate is on the one who claims that, not necessarily on the opposing side.
A people that goes into exile, by nature assimilates. That is always what happens. Even when it is a people of hundreds of millions. Again, I am not claiming certainty but probability. Very strong probability, in my opinion.
How does the Holy One intervene? He did not reveal that to me, and it is less relevant to my argument. It may be by planting souls in each generation with courage and initiative to carry out processes of preservation and change in every generation.
If one accepts this argument, then one can also project it onto coincidences such as the book of Esther, and perhaps other processes too.
I hope I did not send this several times, because the browser seems to send it but I do not see the comment; it is rather strange.
Hello,
1. It somewhat sounded to me as though the rabbi holds that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who actually operates the laws of nature (and not merely like some kind of angel). If so, then providence is constant, no?
In any case, I felt like a school student in this column; there are no real novelties here, just one claim after another that needs to be substantiated.
In my opinion, the main place where there is room for doubt is in claims D and E. And that depends very much on how much divine involvement in the world you assume on the a priori level. If someone assumes that, then despite all your previous claims he has no reason at all to neglect it.
Especially since the person observing an event does not really know the entire chain of causes, but only the causes close to the event. More precisely, he does not even observe the causes themselves, as David Hume showed.
(That is, in practice there is also much room not to accept assumption C. Certainly the Holy One allows us to understand the world, because He is not the God of confusion, as Newton said—I assume he believed quite well in miracles… And thus He allows us to conduct ourselves in the material world with understanding of what ought to happen if one puts a hand in fire or how to create a transistor, but that certainly does not mean He does not control the material world in places that are unknown to us for our sake! And there He creates chains of causes, or affects human desires without harming freedom of will, as you brought in The Science of Freedom regarding the Egyptians.
And if that sounds strange to you, let me remind you what you argue regarding the effect of free will on the brain, or the effect of free will and conservation of energy, or providence over the creation of a particle and antiparticle; and thus the Holy One can once create a deviation from the distribution in one place and correct it on the other side somewhere else in the world. But what difference does it make as long as we do not see it? He can do even more than that if He does not want us to know of it as an open miracle…
Also, as far as I know, you do not hold that the material world is deterministic when you propose teleological interpretations of physics…
In short, the discussion here reminds me of column 144, where you did not want to beg the question regarding the internal probability of the hypotheses… yet here suddenly, in order to be rational, one has to beg the question. And not for nothing did you call such people in the present discussion not rational but rationalists….
P.S.
The rabbi’s obsessive occupation with the subject of double causation, as though the entire plane of discussion of religious people were on that plane, is completely bizarre. Perhaps it itself is a sign of higher providence regarding the last attempt, or regarding various lusts of people. It reminds me of your friend’s conference that appears under the title "Blind" on his site with the broken link…
And to TLP—hello there,
And I had thought that precisely when one stands outside the system one can move it 🙂
Best regards, Archimedes
To move the whole system—yes.
To change things within the system, one has to be inside it.
One must be able to distinguish what to move and what not to move.
If one can move the whole system, then all the more so one can change details within it—and all the more so the “manufacturer” can.
Best regards, Remote Control
We’ve exhausted this.
Absolutely. When there is a distribution, that means any involvement is a deviation from the laws of nature. A distribution means that these are random events, not somebody’s handiwork. When I roll a die (this is only an example, because there is no genuine randomness there), six outcomes can result. If the Holy One ensures that the outcome will be 5, is that not intervention in nature?
As I said, and you chose to ignore it, in order to change details one has to be inside. To come with tools of change and decide what to change and what not to change.
Your a fortiori argument stems from excitement and shutting one’s eyes. It has nothing to do with reality.
About this it was said in Proverbs: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord”—divine intervention that is not apparent.
Best regards, Shatz
I have already answered this several times, and I will answer again. This phenomenon is indeed exceptional (though I am not sure it is unique. It would be worth checking carefully with historians; also to check other anomalies. One should not tailor anomaly to this case. There are statistical nuances in such a test), but that does not mean there was divine involvement, only that a special people like us was endowed with traits that caused it to happen. After all, we received commandments instructing us under no circumstances to assimilate among the nations (with punishments of Gehenna and major threatening taboos), and also to return to the land, which exists in no other people. So indeed we did not assimilate among the nations and we returned to the land. What a miracle. The handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He. It does not seem to me so hard even to predict that this would happen. Thousands of years of a people repeatedly trying to return—so is it such a great wonder that at some stage it succeeds as well?
You know, until a few decades ago only Bob Beamon managed to jump 8.90 meters in the long jump. A miracle, no? Surely the Holy One did it. Strange why they gave the medal in Mexico to Beamon and not to the Holy One. He trained for it and had the ability (with a little help from the wind), and therefore only he succeeded.
Only a certain clerk among all the state clerks did action X. But only he received instructions from above to do it, and also underwent very intensive training to fulfill the instruction and fear not fulfilling it. A real miracle that only he did it, no?
So before you jump to far-reaching conclusions and plant souls in God’s garden, I recommend checking simpler possibilities first.
Line 1
…in Proverbs (16:33): “The lot is cast into the lap…”
This has nothing to do with the issue of proofs and explanations. Before Bob Beamon and the anonymous clerk there were others who did a bit less than he did, and then they added a bit more. What the people of Israel did has no parallel. This is agreed even by secular people (I discussed it with a professor from Tel Aviv and others), except that there is a dispute over the interpretation. The explanations people try to give for it, including the one presented here, are far from convincing. So what if we were given commandments? Why hold on to them even in the Holocaust? That is not human.
The Men of the Great Assembly, who instituted saying in prayer “the great, mighty, and awesome God,” that His might is revealed also in restraint, “that foreigners are croaking in His sanctuary and He remains silent”; and His awesomeness—that He “preserves the sheep among seventy wolves,” putting into their hearts some sort of inhibition that prevents them from realizing their power of destruction.
We saw in the Holocaust what the Germans did when for a short time the “brakes” were removed from them: within some five years they exterminated six million Jews. To think that for 1,800 years we lived among the Germans and their like, and they were far more savage and far less influenced by ideologies of tolerance and enlightenment, and yet some reason was always found that prevented them from realizing their hatred
These are indeed the awesome deeds of the Creator, who kept His promise, “I will not reject them or spurn them to destroy them utterly.”
Best regards, Shatz.
True. But in any case there is a difference. Here the laws of nature can “be broken,” but one cannot detect their breaking observationally because one can intervene in a way that preserves the distribution; then indeed God broke the laws of nature, but this cannot be observed. Does that not mean that in every practical sense they were not really broken? Or in other words, you want to assume that there is no cause for the distribution. Why assume that?
Add to that the question of why the righteous suffer. In short, it is very far-fetched to think that this was achieved by simple human power. It is much simpler and more understandable that God, who created the world, has a purpose and intervenes. The burden of proof is on the other side.
Like
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Hello,
Following the rabbi’s discussion with Phil,
I will set aside the first claim for the moment; I want to focus only on the second claim, and for the sake of argument let us assume that transition between scales is indeed possible.
Phil’s claim can be formulated as follows:
Suppose the distribution of a certain physical phenomenon is 50%. In one particular case, the Holy One, blessed be He, can choose one of the possibilities that will lead to the desired result (assuming transition between scales is possible as above), and in order to preserve the distribution He will choose elsewhere the second possibility to balance it back to 50%.
That is: one can intervene in nature without violating the laws of quantum distributions.
Hello,
Following the rabbi’s discussion with Phil,
I will set aside the first claim for the moment; I want to focus only on the second claim, and for the sake of argument let us assume that transition between scales is indeed possible.
Phil’s claim can be formulated as follows:
Suppose the distribution of a certain physical phenomenon is 50%. In one particular case, the Holy One, blessed be He, can choose one of the possibilities that will lead to the desired result (assuming transition between scales is possible as above), and in order to preserve the distribution He will choose elsewhere the second possibility to balance it back to 50%.
That is: one can intervene in nature without violating the laws of quantum distributions.
I wrote what I had to write. Let the chooser choose.
Why not continue in the thread you are referring to?
This is exactly like intervening in nature without violating the distribution laws of rolling a die. That too is intervention.
If a baby poops and someone changes his diaper, that is called intervention on one hand, but it is also called serving him. Because one is responding to his poop. The baby acts and the servant reacts.
If someone asks and works connections (ancestral merit, for example) and God intervenes, that means favoritism has taken place here.
If God cannot create a world that responds on its own to human free choice without needing Him to intervene, then He is not such a smart God.
All the claims follow automatically from what you are arguing. It just does not sound good, so you decided (like all believers in a servant-God and a fixer-God) to skip the inference stage. But it follows. Directly.
And if God violates the laws of quantum theory, will the Border Police put Him in jail?
Or will you file suit in the heavenly court against God?
No, it is not the same thing, because the outcome of rolling a die is determined deterministically, so intervention would violate the (deterministic) laws of physics. But that is not the case with the laws of quantum theory, which are not deterministic; they allow intervention without violating them (one only needs to make sure to preserve the distribution), of course all this on the assumption that there is scale transition as above.
I apologize for the location of the comment. I had many technical problems writing it; for some reason the site did not respond and did not accept the comment. I have been trying to post it since last night. If there is someone who handles such problems, I would be glad if you would direct me to him. Thanks!
I am very sorry about that. Forgive me.
I will try to strip down and expand my remarks.
If we say that the Lord God is one and there is none besides Him, that is, that there are not two authorities, and that He is the Necessary Existent, and perfect in every perfection, that is, that there is no deficiency in Him at all and He needs nothing, how can we say that God intervenes in His world?
For intervention and the performance of an act necessarily indicate a lack, a need He has for the result of that act. More than that, it indicates that something became new in Him, that a change occurred in Him, that now He has a will that He did not previously have. More than that, that He moved from potential to actual, and whatever moves from potential to actual has something external to it that actualized it. (For if it had been in it, it would always have been actual.)
And even more than that, to be in potential and to be in actuality are possibilities, and possibilities exist only in matter and not in form (spirit).
In other words, can one say that God intervenes in the world without corporealizing Him?
Thank you very much for your patience and your time.
Hi.
Personally, I believe that God does not intervene except by influencing man’s free choice. He inclines the human heart in a certain direction.
For example, to plant within humanity the period of great idealism, the beginning of the twentieth century, seems to me a great miracle. Humanity today cannot behave that way.
It seems a bit strange to me to believe that the laws of nature are violated by free choice and not to see that this is an excellent opportunity for the Holy One, blessed be He, to intervene.
I would be glad to understand why I am wrong.
With God’s help, Independence Day 5780
To Shlomo—hello there,
Shlomo sought to find words of delight, and he wondered at the delight: since the King of the universe is perfect, then the world He created should also be perfect, and why would there need to be a world whose programming by the Creator requires the constant intervention of the “manufacturer”?
But the Creator “planted” a bug in His perfect world. He created a creature called “man” and gave him the power of choice, which can lead him to improve and develop the world; yet “one opposite the other,” the power of choice can also lead man to debase and ruin the world.
Since the Creator introduced into His world an independent factor that can improve or ruin the “system” out of its autonomous will, there must therefore be constant “monitoring” that will allow the “Master of the house” to deal with the mistakes a human being makes in his attempts to act autonomously, prevent deterioration into irreversible damage, and enable the correction and improvement of the problems and malfunctions caused by man’s mistaken choice.
From the fact that providence is derived from the possibility of human choice, Maimonides inferred (Guide III:17) that particular providence exists only over man, who possesses understanding and choice, whereas with regard to animals there is no particular providence, and providence is only over the species as a whole that it not become extinct.
Best regards, Shatz
I tried to stay matter-of-fact, point by point…
The rabbi’s quotations are in quotation marks; my comments are without.
"One further clarification before I enter the arguments. If someone claims that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who operates the laws of nature (beyond the obvious fact that He created them), I have no argument with that. The claim I am dealing with here is only the claim that sometimes there is divine involvement that deviates from the laws. That is what is called a miracle.
(You agree that if He is constantly operating them, there is no room for argument)."
"My claim A is their determinism: as far as we know today, the laws of physics are deterministic. This means that given a certain state in the world, the laws determine in a univocal way the direction of progression onward, namely the next state. Physics does not allow progression from a given state to two different states."
You assume on what basis?!.. That the laws of physics are deterministic—yet alongside what was said above, they are not deterministic. Your assumption is what causes your conclusion. Do not assume, and do not infer!
So of course your conclusion below is correct, but it is based solely on your first assumption.
"The next important point is my claim B: every divine involvement is a miracle. There is no such thing as involvement within nature. Divine involvement means that we were in state A, from which, without divine intervention, the laws of nature would have taken us to state B (for example, an illness leading us to death). Divine involvement causes result C to occur; that is, this is a deviation from the laws of nature. Involvement within nature is a conceptual confusion. There is no such animal. This is of course connected to the discussion in the previous column regarding double causation (it cannot be that there is both a theological cause and a natural cause for the same event)."
"Therefore, the question of divine involvement is always a question of changing nature. From what we have seen so far, it follows that if there is divine involvement, its meaning is action against the laws of nature."
(Only if we adopt your initial assumption, and consequently claim B; your claim B has a place only if your claim A is correct, for the sake of your conclusion with all its implications, because it is a necessary condition).
In your claim C, you concluded that "therefore, the claim that the laws are a generalization of examples is indeed correct, but only theoretically. The assumption of every rational person is that the laws are correct."
(Again, this entire conclusion too is based on your initial assumption! If it is not correct, there is no room for the conclusions; rather, probably if the One pulling the strings has been pulling them this way until today, He will likely continue to pull them in the same manner).
Of course your fourth conclusion as well is built on the first sacred principle, which is your assumption on which you build structures.
"From this follows the default assumption, claim D: in order to claim that some event did not occur according to the laws (but rather is the fruit of divine involvement), one must bring strong evidence. Without that we will not accept such a claim."
And you continue and continue to derive your fifth conclusion, all on the basis of the first assumption.
"Now I will bring a certain qualification, claim E: even if someone in principle accepts the possibility of divine involvement (as noted, I too do not rule this out), this is only a general claim. That is, the claim is that there may be events in the world that are brought about by the Holy One, blessed be He (and of course they contradict the laws of nature). By contrast, the claim that a specific event was the handiwork of the Holy One requires strong evidence concerning that event. One cannot say that the apple fell on Newton’s head because of the Holy One and not according to the laws of nature, just because there was once the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, or because there are such-and-such phenomena that we do not understand.[3]"
(If He always intervenes, even in what seems to us like law, then the above is not claimed and is irrelevant).
And accordingly your conclusion that "one can of course argue that in this picture it is almost impossible to become convinced of divine involvement, since we will always find some explanation, and even if not—we will assume there is an explanation that we do not yet understand. This is of course correct; so what? Indeed, that is the result of what I have argued up to this point. However, there are situations in which even I would concede that the specific event is a result of divine involvement, namely when known laws of nature are broken before my eyes (especially if we are notified in advance that this will happen)."
(is utterly irrelevant, because people are not coming to prove from the coincidences the initial assumption; rather, on the basis of the initial assumption that He is constantly involved, one draws lessons from timings that visibly seem exceptional, even if they could occur statistically. But again, we are after the assumption that statistics is irrelevant because it too is an optical illusion, and it too is His handiwork).
Here you are already fudging a bit, because it depends very much on what the exceptional event is. For example, the splitting of the sea at the exact timing proves more than any proof that it did not occur because of certain physical factors we have not yet discovered, but it itself proves the general rule that even what appears to us natural and as physical law is nothing but an illusion.
"And from here by an easy turn to claim Vav: if for no event we have seen is there a need or a basis to assume a theological explanation (that is, to claim that it is the fruit of divine involvement), then the general thesis that in principle there are such involvements from time to time also becomes very weak. It is possible, but not reasonable to accept it. There is no basis for it, and therefore no reason to deviate from the accepted natural description."
I latch onto the words “for no event,” because you actually agree that one grandiose event that does prove theological involvement suffices to prove the bill of my conclusions.
Here we have reached the clincher: there is an enormous difference between inventing teapots and a teapot that has been discovered, which gives one reason to assume it still exists. Therefore, if I were to see a revelation of demons playing soccer on the city street opposite the Fairy World FC all the time, except that whenever we look they hide and disappear—then indeed it would be good to assume, after you have become convinced beyond any doubt that the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved, and therefore you must find a way, however strained, to reconcile this with reality.
"In short, the laws of nature work whenever we examine it. There is no reason in the world to assume that there are situations in which we have never observed them not to work. One can of course always claim that the Holy One hides from us, and whenever we look He does not intervene. By the same token we could say that there are demons playing soccer on the city street opposite the Fairy World FC all the time, except that whenever we look they hide and disappear. These are teapot claims that will surely arise here in abundance in the comments. That is good as an excuse if I had become convinced that the Holy One is indeed involved and had to find a way, however strained, to reconcile it with reality (see column 243). But since I see no reason to assume this, there is no reason to strain ourselves into bizarre pictures such as this."
Here I really did not manage to understand the text: "From this description it follows that when we observe an event such as an apple falling on Newton, all of us will explain it as a natural event and not as the hand of God. Even if one accepts in principle the possibility of divine involvement, there is no reason in the world to assume it regarding this event. And so too regarding any other event that is not an obvious miracle (like the splitting of the Red Sea, the creation of the world, or the bush that is not consumed). And as I correctly showed in the previous column, if the explanation for this is natural (gravity), then there is no possibility of dragging the Holy One into the matter. Even if one retreats back to the physical causes that produced the event, one would still need to claim divine involvement, and without good reason it is neither correct nor reasonable to do so."
Why exactly are the creation of the world, the bush, and the splitting of the sea at the perfect timing not obvious miracles?! Regarding the splitting of the sea, there is the timing, which is not related to the regularity of physics (and the splitting itself is also not understandable according to the laws we know, and the combination with the timing compels the conclusion that it counts as a miracle). The bush is the inversion of the laws we know, and the creation of the world requires something beyond the laws, namely a miracle!
And again and again you continue on the basis of your initial assumption.
"But this is not only a conclusion from the theoretical picture I have sketched thus far. This is also what most sensible people assume, including the greatest believers. None of them would think of saying about an ordinary event occurring before him that it has no natural explanation. "
(because in His game and intervention He usually acts according to a fixed result, but it is His action even if it seems natural).
"On the contrary, if we do not find a natural explanation, we will not stop searching and attribute it to the hand of God. We will continue to search until we find the natural explanation. "
(because His classic interventions are usually according to fixed behavior, so people try to search for the regularity in order to infer from it what will probably happen next time when we see the precedents).
No believer refrains from using medicine or a medical procedure that has been tested in medical research, although no researcher in the world (even the greatest believer) would dream of neutralizing the effect of the prayers and righteousness of the test and control groups. Acamol always reduces fever, with no visible relation to prayer in the morning or to this or that commandment, and if it does not work we go to a doctor and not to a rabbi."
That I truly did not understand already.
"Notice that here too, even if we adopted the above apologetics, according to which the Holy One hides from us every time we check (the soccer-playing demons thesis), it would not help. For here we are speaking of statistics, and there certainly the effects of His hidden involvement exist. Moreover, even if in the study He did not intervene because we checked Him, one cannot rely on this study and take the medicine, because who can say it will work for us? With us He will intervene. In short, if we ignore this component in reality it is because we simply do not believe in it."
The matter is very simple. Since in His intervention He usually has a pattern of action that is predictable according to research (perhaps indeed sometimes in order to mislead me), I have no choice but to try to act according to the expectation based on the past. That does not mean the result will be certain, but the patterns of His actions showed that He will probably continue with them, because why think He would want to change them. (And therefore the amazement at personal providence, even though it can be explained by statistics, because the teapot was discovered in another case such as the splitting of the sea. So when it is not discovered, I receive His message indirectly. I of course do not have to receive the message; I can try to shut my eyes.)
And the bizarre thing is that you obligate me with all your conclusions even though your first conclusion is your assumption. For some reason you accuse me and everyone else on that basis.
"In short, my claim is that there is no reason whatsoever to deny the obvious. The world proceeds according to the laws of nature, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved in it. This is what emerges from the scientific worldview, and this is also how all of us think—depending on whether they agree with your assumption A, or prefer to cling to the teapot that was revealed to them several times.
(except for some overenthusiastic declarations of faith now and then). Our problem is the principles of faith, which ostensibly require us to declare otherwise than what we truly think. So now I will touch a bit on them."
A discussion in its own right.
And what about tradition and the sources?
1. If your assumption is correct, why is their interpretation of what counts as Sabbath desecration binding? (Just because we accepted it—a kind of hierarchy?)
2. What about the intuition of their native language? (I think I heard such an argument from you in the past.)
3. If your initial assumption is not correct, then the results of your science are irrelevant.
By the way, as a simple person asks: what is this—did Hazal not understand enough science in your view? Does this mean they also made up false stories out of whole cloth?! After all, there is no shortage of miracle stories in the Gemara, such as in yesterday’s daf yomi with the father who nursed his orphaned son. Was the story invented?! Why not see this as the appearance of the teapot, admittedly rare compared to what we are used to, but still a sporadic appearance backed by sources! Not according to the order of creation. I am astonished?!
I tried to be matter-of-fact. I would be glad for a matter-of-fact answer.
It is the same thing (apart from the reservation I myself wrote, that a die is only an example because it is a deterministic process. I am only using it as an illustration). You assume that the various outcomes of quantum phenomena occur just like that on their own, but that itself is not necessarily correct. Moreover, it is very likely not correct, because otherwise why do the outcomes distribute specifically that way? There is something in the nature of the world that causes those outcomes (what I called in several places the quantum nature of the world), and the distributions merely describe what results. Just like with a die. Therefore the search for hidden variables continues to this day. But even without those hidden variables, in my opinion there is a cause for those outcomes. In any case, every involvement is a deviation from the laws. But this is not the place to get further into that.
I did not understand the question. You are referring to His involvement in the world. But what would you say about the fact that He created His world? Was He lacking something before?
Therefore it is clear that His involvement in the world as well does not indicate a deficiency but rather a goal/purpose for the sake of which He acts. Not because something is lacking to Him, but because something is lacking in the world. At most, the world is lacking and not the Holy One, blessed be He. I devoted columns to the question whether there is altruistic action (without a reason, but for a purpose). It is worth taking a look there.
Beyond that, I already answered here several times and explained in several additional ways why there is no deficiency here. The world as it is, with all the changes, is the perfect world. You refer to the world at each given moment and ask whether it is perfect. But it may be that a perfect world is a function of time and not a momentary state. And there are other possible explanations as well.
Likewise regarding novelty in Him and the rest of your difficulties. I accept none of them.
I have already been asked this question several times. Obviously it is possible, just as involvement in the world is possible in principle. But one must remember that such intervention too is intervention in the nature of the world (man is part of the world. The world is not only physics). Given that, I do not see why He would refrain from intervening in nature but not refrain from intervening among human beings. Both are involvement in the world. And if He already intervenes here, I would expect Him to intervene there as well. If once He intervened in the world itself, why now does He intervene only through human beings? Therefore it is far more plausible that He does not intervene at all. That is beyond the fact that there is no indication that He intervenes through human beings, just as with the laws of inanimate nature. To plant ideology among human beings is the very least plausible place for Him to intervene. After all, all is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven. Ideals are a matter of values, and as such they specifically ought to be entrusted only to us. Here, even according to Hazal’s conception, it is plausible that there is no involvement.
I find these lengths difficult. But since you invested effort, I will try to respond. I wanted to apologize for brevity, but afterward I saw that a short response at the beginning is enough for me, because everything is built on it.
Perhaps you will be surprised, but I base my assumption on knowledge (that is also an option). I simply studied physics (not equidistant letter sequences in the Torah or the Guide, but at a university), and I know that the laws of nature are deterministic. Do you have any other knowledge? I would be glad to hear.
What is quoted at the beginning of your remarks does not touch the question of determinism even from a kilometer away. It seems to me that you do not understand what is meant by the term determinism.
Everything else is derivative of this mistaken point.
As for the stories in the Gemara about the man who nursed his son, see Maimonides’ introduction to the Mishnah on the three groups in understanding aggadot, and you will derive much satisfaction. If those are your proofs that the laws of nature are incorrect, that is a rather weak claim.
As an aside, since we are already speaking about that man who nursed his son: there is such a natural phenomenon, resulting from a growth in the brain in the hypothalamus area, which causes the inhibition of the production of the hormone prolactin to cease and milk to be produced (and likewise in cases of other hormonal disorders).
So regarding the question how excellent this person was or how terrible, we almost have an answer today.
With God’s help, 5 Iyar 5780
To RMA—hello there,
From the Sages’ response regarding the man for whom breasts were created—“How disgraceful is this man, that the order of creation was altered for his sake”—it emerges that there is a religious value in preserving the laws of nature, which are the “ordinances of heaven and earth” that the Creator established. And the desirable mode of divine intervention to help man is not by an open miracle that drastically changes the “order of creation,” but by subtle backstage assistance, helping a person in his efforts to find a livelihood and in preserving his wife’s health so that she can nurse.
Anyone familiar with life knows how much human effort and action are a “necessary condition” for success, but not a “sufficient condition.” A person cannot “close all the corners” against unexpected contingencies, and therefore divine help is most necessary even when a person exhausts all the natural avenues of effort.
Best regards, Shatz
If the fact that the rabbi presents his position “breaks people’s faith,” as you repeatedly claim (and I do not understand why that is relevant to the discussion at all), I do not know whether it is correct from the outset to call what they held faith in God, but rather faith in God’s intervention.
“I do not see why He refrains from intervening in nature but does not refrain from intervening among human beings”
I don’t know why, but that’s what He said (“And it shall come to pass, if you will surely hearken”). And there is no indication otherwise.
And unrelatedly, half a million human beings saying 72 years ago, “There is no God, but He granted us the land”—to my personal taste, and certainly not philosophically proven, is a miracle bordering on the overt…
Lev, the timing! That is what people are talking about, because this man instantly, and at exactly the right time, received what he needed. To claim that it is accidental is more far-fetched than claiming that thousands of pieces of metal came together and created a Boeing airplane.
1. If an event certainly deviates from the rules of physics—suppose today a story of nursing occurred with perfect timing—would that not contradict determinism?
From Wikipedia:
“Determinism is a philosophical view according to which every event in the world, including human actions, decisions, or thoughts, is determined exclusively by previous events.”
2. In such a case, would everything you learned at university be relevant?.. I think not, because although university learning teaches what will presumably happen, so long as there is room for deviations that necessarily do not come from matter, then there is room to say that Russell’s teapot has been revealed to us, and then the burden of proof is on the denier of the teapot.
3. Do you have proof from within matter that there is certainly no one pulling your strings, and that this is not an invented teapot? After all, a few isolated times He did indeed pull your strings—(I am assuming as a fact that right now before us is the nursing widower, or that right now we are before the splitting of the sea, or even if we think such a story happened).
4. I wrote at length even though everything is built on one assumption, because I wanted to close all the corners.
Shatz,
Peace be upon you,
I read your words describing how the world is built and explaining why there is a need for intervention.
But they do not answer my question. It stands unchanged.
Whether God needs to intervene or not—that is a separate question.
My question is: how can one say that God intervenes without thereby arriving at corporealizing God?
All the best
What is explained in the Gemara is that they should recite Hallel at the time of their redemption, but not that they should institute for future generations the recitation of Hallel on the anniversary of their redemption. And it is human nature that immediately after a miracle one’s heart is filled with gratitude to God, so they established for him the text and framework through which to express it. But to establish an ordinance for future generations when the State has long been an established fact already since our grandmothers’ time—what would be the basis for that?