The Place of Religiosity in Religious Faith: D. On the Value in the Existence of Emotions and Experiences (Column 314)
In column 310 I responded to claims raised against things I said in an interview with Yair Sheleg in Makor Rishon. Repeatedly, the claim returned that I unjustifiably alienate myself from the significance of experiences and emotions in the service of God and more generally. To explain my position on these issues in greater detail, I immediately began a series that deals with the status and value of experiences and emotions in our cognitive world and in serving God. In the first column (311) I presented my general position, and I summarized it at the beginning of column 312 as follows:
- a. Religious feeling and experience are not necessarily an expression of a real encounter with the Creator. b. Even if there were such an encounter—there is not necessarily value in it.
- a. If there is no encounter here, I agree that it is possible this is a subjective emotional expression of belief in the Holy One, blessed be He. b. Yet even such an expression does not necessarily have value.
- Even if there is value in either of these (the encounter and the subjective expression), it is certainly not the foundation nor a basic component of faith and the service of God. At most, one can regard this as a possible path of faith or service of God, atop the level of cognitive faith and religious commitment, which are the fundamental and binding plane of serving God.
- To complete the picture I would note that I also added there that even if all of this had great value, my theology does not try to help people arrive at illuminations and experiences of that sort. After the rational foundation I propose, each person can take matters and build upon them a whole edifice of experiences and emotions as he wishes and understands.
In the last two columns I dealt with the fact that emotions (as distinct from intuition), whether stormy or not, are a poor foundation for decision-making. I argued that their role can be, at most, to supply information and data on the basis of which the intellect ought to make its decisions. In this column I will try to speak about the value that emotions and experience have in themselves (not necessarily as a basis for decision-making), thereby clarifying my first three claims above. I will preface by saying that I have touched on these topics more than once in the past (see, for example, columns 22, 97, 142, 218, 259, and more—most of them deal with emotion, and a minority, like column 97, deal more with experience). Still, I thought it appropriate to complete the picture in this series as well, even if there will be repetitions of what I have already written.
Emotion: On Asking Forgiveness
I will begin the discussion on the evaluative significance of emotions with a story. Many years ago, when I lived and taught in Yeruham, a good friend who headed the environmental high school at Midreshet Sde Boker invited me during the Ten Days of Repentance to come and speak about concepts such as repentance, atonement, and forgiveness. He asked me not to do so in a religious context, but on a general human plane. Note that this was a very high-level school, with very capable students and truly exceptional teachers. I have friends who studied there many years ago and later became religious; from them too I knew it was indeed a magnificent educational institution. I decided to accept this interesting challenge and thought it a good opportunity to present to them a distinction that is ostensibly universal-human, but in fact to a large extent distinguishes between religious and secular, even if it does not directly touch on religious faith.
I began by describing a hypothetical situation. Suppose Reuven harmed Shimon grievously. He returns home cheerful and content, without any emotional pangs of conscience, and his heart and feelings are as clean, pure, and calm as they were. He is indifferent to Shimon and his pain and feels no regret and no guilty conscience over what he did to him. And yet, at home he coolly thinks to himself that it was really not right to harm Shimon so unjustly. I emphasize: these are thoughts in the intellect without any emotional accompaniment or expression. In the end Reuven decides to approach Shimon and ask him to forgive him and grant him atonement. Shimon, hearing the request, is inclined to forgive Reuven, for from his perspective he appears to be a true penitent. But at that moment Elijah the Prophet appears to him and quietly reveals in his ear that Reuven does not feel in his heart any guilty conscience; he has no feeling whatsoever regarding Shimon’s pain and no participation in his suffering. He does not regret in the emotional sense, and he comes to ask forgiveness only because he has concluded that he did something unworthy and thus ought to act. I emphasize that Reuven is not doing this to gain something (good relations with Shimon or some other interest), but simply because in his understanding the harm to Shimon was an improper act. Yet this is a cold, intellectual conclusion without emotional expression.
Now, I said to them, put yourselves in Shimon’s place: in light of this information would you accept Reuven’s request and forgive him, or not? Unsurprisingly, there was a wall-to-wall consensus—both students and teachers—that this is a hypocritical request for forgiveness and should not be accepted. If Reuven does not feel remorse and pangs of conscience, his request is lip service, a rote performance, and therefore he is not worthy of forgiveness.
I told them that in my view this is a perfect request for forgiveness and worthy of great appreciation. If there is any request for forgiveness to which I would respond—it is this one. The reason is that if Reuven has feelings of remorse and pangs of conscience, it is likely that he comes to ask forgiveness in order to appease the stomachache he himself feels—to calm his conscience. This is a request whose aim is Reuven himself, something that will help him make peace with himself. The victim is not the focus of this act. In contrast, in the situation I described here, this is a pure and pristine request, clean of any ulterior motives. Reuven comes solely for my sake, because he understands (with his intellect) that he harmed me and that it is right to ask forgiveness and to express his understanding that he erred and will not repeat it. Is there a greater request for forgiveness than that?!
In my eyes their approach reflected the contemporary tendency to follow emotion and place it at the center (the “animal soul,” in the terms of the previous column). By contrast, my stance seems to me like the conduct described there as the “divine soul,” namely an attitude whose focus is the intellect and decision rather than spontaneous feeling.
I then added that of course I am not claiming that a person should try to neutralize his conscience and his emotional moral sensitivity. But he is indeed supposed to act according to an intellectual decision—according to what is right and what is wrong—and not according to this or that stomachache. The reason is not that emotion misleads or leads to an incorrect act, as I described in previous columns. In our case it is clear that this is not the situation. Here the emotion leads the person to do the right thing—to ask forgiveness for a wrong he did. Therefore, in my opinion the problem here is different. Emotional remorse as such has no value. What matters is the decision that “I was in the wrong,” intellectual remorse, not emotional remorse. The emotion that accompanies it has no essential importance. It can, of course, help me take the step, and there is certainly no point in neutralizing or eradicating it. We have already seen in the previous column that emotion is a powerful engine, and therefore the divine soul harnesses the emotion (descends into the heart) so that it will drive it to carry out what ought to be done. But that is an instrumental value, not an essential one. The very existence of the emotion has no significance. At most it helps me carry out what the intellect has decided is proper to do.
One might think of another importance emotion has: providing data and information. A person who does not feel the other may sometimes find it difficult to understand that he has harmed him, and certainly will find it difficult to grasp the meaning of the harm and the pain that accompanies it. Therefore empathetic feeling is indeed important as a data supplier. It is an indication that harm occurred and helps me understand its meaning. But the knowledge that there was harm is factual information. Evaluative significance attaches only to the decision of what I do with that knowledge, not to the knowledge itself—that is, only to an intellectual-moral action/decision, not to some mental state or another.
Imagine that Reuven is a person whose empathy region in his brain (or soul) is impaired, and he cannot feel the harm he caused Shimon nor experience sorrow that it occurred. Do you think he is morally inferior to a person built normally who does feel such feelings? In my view definitely not. He may be ill, but it is not correct to see him as less moral. Our morality resides in the intellect, not in feeling—in decisions, not in the data upon which they are made. If that person reaches the intellectual conclusion that he harmed the other and understands logically that it hurts (without feeling it himself), and decides to go and ask forgiveness—Is he inferior to his normal friend? Absolutely not. On the contrary, as I explained, in my eyes he even surpasses him, because he does so on a purer, more distilled moral-value basis.
A person without empathy will indeed find it harder to reach the conclusion that the other was hurt and to understand the meaning of that, but that is a technical deficiency. Just like a deaf or blind person who failed to notice that another was hurt by him and therefore did not go to ask forgiveness—is not a person morally defective. He did not receive the data that would bring him to the correct moral decision. A person devoid of moral feeling and empathy is, in my eyes, comparable to a blind person, not to a morally defective person. Of course, if the lack of empathy is the result of a decision or of ignoring the data that feeling brings me, that is indeed a moral problem. But the problem is the ignoring, not the absence of data—and not even the lack of emotion, which is only the expression of that ignoring.
The example of the patient was brought to illuminate and sharpen the proper attitude toward a healthy person. My claim is that even in a healthy person the important aspect is not what and whether he feels, but what he thinks and decides and how he acts. My claim is that in a person who is not disabled and does have empathy, what matters in his request for forgiveness is still not the feeling and not even the empathy, but only the decision what to do with these two. The existence of a feeling is a fact. Feeling is aroused in us by virtue of the fact that this is how we are built. But facts cannot have moral value (this is the naturalistic fallacy).
A person can try to develop his moral feeling and empathy so that these will help him make proper decisions and carry them out. That is already an action a person undertakes, not a mere fact. He decides and acts to develop his empathy and feeling. Such an action certainly has value, but its value is not that it creates a developed emotional dimension. I do not see why that, in itself, is important (and is that ill person who cannot do so morally defective?!). Its value is only instrumental. The intellect has decided to develop the emotion so that it will help it implement its decisions optimally, and that can have value. If so, the value in developing emotions is that they serve as an instrument for conveying data and for carrying out the intellect’s decisions. And if emotions have any value at all, it is not in their mere existence (which is a fact) but in the decision and work a person performs to develop them. That is the person’s decision, not a mere fact, and as such it can have value.
Beyond that, emotions can also express something. The existence of a feeling of remorse indicates that I have grasped, in depth, the harm I did to another. But that is not empathy itself; rather, it is some expression of it. Empathy lies in the intellectual understanding, and the feeling is only an expression of its existence. Alternatively, the existence of feeling during a mitzvah or prayer can perhaps express the depth of a meeting with the Holy One, blessed be He. But even here, upon examination you will find that it is a means of expression, not something of value in itself. A person who is not built emotionally will not feel these feelings. Does that mean he encounters God less? Not necessarily. Perhaps in him it comes less to emotional expression because that is how he is built. Just as Reuven, who harmed Shimon, can understand well that he harmed him even if he does not himself feel the type and form of the harm.[1] Once he understands this with his intellect he has achieved what is needed on the moral plane. The emotional expression is certainly not a condition for the value in that insight; at most it is its expression (which appears in people built that way). Again, I do not see value in it per se.
Generalization: The Evaluative Meaning of Emotions in General
I will now generalize the conclusion and say that to the same extent I do not see value in the existence of emotions in any context whatsoever, and in particular with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the service of God. Is an unwell person who has no ability to experience religious feeling inferior or defective in his religious standing and service of God?! In my view, very unlikely. Again, the existence of emotions is a fact. Some people are emotionally inclined and develop religious feeling, and others (some of whom I know well) do not. Why is this fact important on the evaluative plane? It would seem that even for one who does have religious feeling, it is only because he is built differently. Therefore the matter has no value in itself.
Again, developing religious feeling may help a person to perform acts of the service of God or to express, in some way, the connection with Him, but that is a purely instrumental value. What is essentially and evaluatively important are his decisions and how he implements them. So too with feelings such as love, which receive rhapsodic literary and poetic effusions and which, in my eyes, are nothing more than a neutral fact. A person loves So-and-so because that is how he feels. So what? What value is there in this? Only after they have made a covenant is there value in keeping the covenant—and certainly when this demands costs from him or her. But the very existence of the feeling is a fact, and as such it is a matter that is evaluatively neutral. Everyone is very moved at the sight or sound of a stormy, tumultuous romance—in literature or in life—but that is simply because of our psychological makeup. I do not see in it an expression of anything of essential value. The same holds true even for parental love for their children. It is a fact (biological or psychological), and although we greatly enjoy extolling it (there is an obvious evolutionary value), it seems to me that as such it has no evaluative significance. The decisions about what to do with this feeling and with the obligations toward children or parents—these, and only these, can have evaluative significance.
Note: Back to the Jewish Orthopedist[2]
Ironically, religious thought often encounters lack of understanding because our world inclines greatly toward feeling and experience (as I explained in the previous column; this does not mean it is unintelligent, but that for it the fundamental engine is feeling rather than intellect). It is difficult for a secular person to understand the coldness and analyticity in religious and halakhic thought. Often he sees this as a detachment from natural life (=feeling and experience). As this emotional approach spreads, it has entered the realms of religious life and thought as well, including Jewish thought.
This of course stands in contrast to the prevalent view that links faith to feeling and secularity to rational, cold thought. In my view, if one needs generalizations at all (which are never precise), the situation is essentially the opposite. Religious thought is very rational and usually colder (regardless of whether one agrees with its premises), sometimes extremely so, whereas contemporary secular thought leans more toward emotionality and puts feeling and experience at the center.
To sum up this part, at my friend the principal’s request, I truly did not speak with them about the religious dimensions of the concepts of atonement and forgiveness. But I think that with my words I demonstrated to them the difference between the typical religious thought and the prevalent secular thought, without saying anything explicit about it.
Up to now I have dealt with emotions. I will now try to outline a parallel move regarding experiences. In column 142 I briefly noted the difference between experience and feeling, and I will not return to that here. To demonstrate my claim regarding experience I will use column 97, in which I discussed secular prayers.
Experience: On Prayer
In that column I argued that it is certainly possible that secular “worshippers” undergo deep religious-like experiences and feel intense and varied emotions, but this is still not prayer in its essential sense. Prayer can receive religious and evaluative meaning only by virtue of being a standing before God. One who does not believe in Him is not praying, but at most is doing meditation and reaching a psychological catharsis of one kind or another. From here I derive a conclusion regarding the religious worshipper (i.e., the worshipper): the value of prayer is not in the catharsis or in the experience he undergoes, for that exists also in his secular counterpart.
The conclusion is that, just as I argued regarding emotions, so too with experiences. The very existence of an experience is evaluatively neutral. It can perhaps assist the worshipper (the religious one, who stands before the Holy One, blessed be He) in making the encounter more meaningful for him, and of course it can help anyone, religious or secular, to cleanse and purify his soul (catharsis or meditation). But as I argued regarding emotion, experience as such has no value. As a facilitating element it can have instrumental value, but not essential value. Here too I claim that if a person is built such that religious-like experiences are easily aroused in him—then they will arise in him. That is a mere fact. If he is not built that way—they will be aroused in him less. It is hard for me to accept that someone built in one way or another can be considered defective or inferior on an evaluative and religious plane compared to someone built differently. The difference between them is factual, not one that touches decisions and modes of action; therefore I do not see in it an essential evaluative dimension.
Of course, here too a person can decide to develop his religious-experiential dimension so that it helps him cling to God and fulfill his halakhic and moral obligations. Such a decision can in principle have value, because it is not a mere fact, but as I wrote regarding emotion, here too it is, in my opinion, only instrumental value. The very existence of the experience has no value, but perhaps the thing it helps achieve does. A person who does not experience this—either because he is not built that way or because he simply is not interested—does not, in my view, seem inferior in any way with respect to his service of God compared to his more experiential counterpart. Religiosity is mainly a temperament and psychological makeup, not a value.
Here too I broaden this claim beyond the service of God. An artistic or other experience likewise has no essential value. At most it can help in decisions and actions that do have value. Experience, by its very nature, is at most of instrumental value—and not only with respect to serving God. Experience can also express something, some kind of depth-perception, and still it is an expression of something that has value; the experience itself is not of value in itself. It can also express a deeper grasp of the work, and still the value lies in the grasp, not in the experience that expresses it. A person who cannot or does not want to experience this is not inferior in any sense or in any evaluative or cognitive respect to his experiential counterpart.
“Emotion-Commandments”
In responses to previous columns the claim recurred that the Torah itself commands us in mitzvot that relate to emotions and addresses our feelings (“because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart”). In column 22 I already addressed this matter and also pointed there to a more comprehensive article in which I argued—and also showed (at least according to certain approaches)—that “emotion-commandments” do not truly address emotions. At times we are required to perform actions that express the emotions, but not the emotions themselves. One can see this in the homily of Hillel the Elder in Shabbat 31a, which commentators explain as revolving around the verse “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Seemingly the verse commands the feeling of love toward the other, but Hillel the Elder offers a practical translation of this mitzvah: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” What must and must not be done—not what I must feel or experience.
Similarly one can see this in Maimonides’ puzzling language at the beginning of Hilkhot Avel 14:1:
It is a positive commandment of the Sages to visit the sick, to comfort mourners, to carry out the dead, to bring in the bride, to accompany guests, to tend to all the needs of burial—to carry [the bier] on the shoulder, to walk before it, to eulogize, to dig and to bury—and likewise to gladden the bride and groom and to provide them with all their needs; these are acts of kindness done with one’s body that have no measure. Although all these mitzvot are from the Sages, they are included in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”: all the things you would want others to do for you, do them for your brother in Torah and mitzvot.
Again there is a practical translation of a mitzvah that appears, at first glance, to be “emotional.”[3]
Sometimes perhaps a certain feeling is indeed required of us, but still it is reasonable that the mitzvah is the work of developing the emotion, not the mere existence of the emotion, which, as noted, is a neutral fact. The emergence of the right feeling is only the indication that the work has been done. The work is intended to achieve the feeling, and in that sense the feeling is its goal. But that does not mean that, on the evaluative level, this is truly the relationship between the two things. It may be that, evaluatively, the relationship is the reverse: we are required to feel so that we will do the work needed to achieve it. In such cases the feeling is the operational goal (the goal that stands as a practical target), but not the essential goal (not the end for which the activity is intended).[4]
I will go further. It may be that in certain cases the Torah addresses a person built in a normal way, and it is known that in every normal person there are emotional dimensions. Therefore, when it wants to ensure that he will have the proper attitude toward his fellow (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”), it requires that there be an emotional expression of this. Its aim is not necessarily the emotion itself; rather, the emotion expresses that he has reached the desired state (the goal of the work). What is required of him is to develop his attitude toward the other—that is what has value. The existence of the emotion is only an indication that the goal has indeed been attained. According to this, a person who is not endowed with emotional and experiential capacity can fulfill this mitzvah no less well. He will develop his attitude toward the other (will understand and internalize that if he harmed him he did something unworthy), even if he does not feel this emotionally and does not experience it existentially. On this proposal, when the Torah speaks in emotional terms it is only describing the state that results from fulfilling the mitzvah in an average person, not necessarily stating that the feeling is the mitzvah’s purpose. Thus, when the Torah expects us to regret in the process of repentance, or—when it concerns interpersonal matters—to go and appease the fellow, I claim that the intent is not emotional remorse but remorse (in the intellect). In an average person, when there is true remorse, it will have an emotional expression; thus we use an emotional term. But as I understand it, the Torah’s intent is to set a cognitive-intellectual target rather than an emotional one.
This is, of course, only a possible interpretation that I offer for these mitzvot, and on the exegetical plane it is easy to argue otherwise. Indeed, in that column and in the article I cited there I brought several proofs for this, but it is important for me to emphasize that my basic motivation is philosophical, not exegetical. Philosophically, I refuse to accept the assumption that there is value in emotions, and therefore I am unwilling to see them as a target or purpose for a religious or moral command. Hence I interpret matters in this way. The proofs come only afterward.
In a similar vein I recently saw a beautiful (and moving?) clip of Rabbi Soloveitchik, who speaks about the importance of feeling in study (worth listening; it is truly an experience). And yet, even after hearing this, I refuse to see emotion as a value in itself. At most one can see it as an expression of a person’s connection to Torah, which in an average person is expressed through feeling. But the feeling is only a non-essential expression, and what matters is the connection itself. A person lacking an emotional dimension will not feel this connection emotionally, but that does not mean the connection is not present in him.
In this context it is very worthwhile to see the discussion in column 142 about the existential experience of the Brisker (the Litvak). Contrary to common belief, there is certainly such a dimension in him, but his experience differs from simple feeling in its content (it revolves around intellectual content rather than ordinary matters of feeling and experience), and my sense is that there is a difference also in its psychological nature. It is not that the Brisker is overwhelmed by feeling just like the Hasid, but that in him it revolves around a distinction between two halakhic categories rather than an emotionally stirring Hasidic teaching (which usually does not say much). His type of experience is different. I defined this there as experience versus feeling. One might say it is elevation and a sense of depth, not necessarily excitement in the emotional sense. It accompanies the intellectual grasp of an idea or a certain distinction, and perhaps constitutes its expression.
But here, too, it is important for me to say that despite the differences—and although I personally certainly have many such experiences—I do not see value even in them. Just as with feeling, so too with experience. Experience is a mental state, and as such it has no intrinsic value. At most there is here an expression of a connection to Torah, but the value lies in the connection, not in its experiential expression. Even for one who does not have such an expression, the connection may nevertheless exist—and that is what matters on the essential evaluative plane.
Back to the Questions
Above I set out three claims, and I can now return to clarify and substantiate them. The first claim was that feeling and experience are not necessarily an expression of an encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He. The proof: secular people too can experience and feel similar religious-like sensations. There are religious-like feelings that are aroused in people even when engaging in art or consuming it; therefore, it is certainly possible that the feeling is a subjective matter and does not necessarily attest to a true encounter. In addition, I claimed that in the very existence of such a feeling, so long as there is no real encounter here, there is no value. It is a mental state, not an action I decided upon and acted to achieve. And even if I did act, still, in light of what I argued in this column, one can perhaps see in it instrumental but not essential value.
I further argued that even if there is an encounter here (and in column 142 I argued that perhaps a secular person’s religious-like feeling is also an encounter, though he himself does not admit it and is not aware of it), it is still difficult for me to see inherent value in such an encounter. The explanation is that feeling and experience are expressions of an encounter and of a connection, but the value is in the connection itself, not in its expressions. As I argued, I do not see why a person not endowed with such a religious-experiential personality would be any less good than his counterpart who is built differently.
In many cases there is indeed instrumental value in such an emotional and experiential meeting, but that is certainly not the foundation and not a basic component of faith and the service of God. It is certainly not its goal (perhaps only operationally, if at all).[5] At most one can regard this as a possible path of faith or service of God, atop the level of cognitive faith and religious commitment, which are the fundamental and binding plane of serving God. This, of course, returns us to claim 4 above, that it is not for me to finish the work. In my words I usually deal with the basic foundational level, and everything else—even if someone chooses to see value in it—is at most voluntary and personal levels, and each person may build them as he understands.
Being Moved by Emotion Is Itself an Emotion
I will conclude by saying that human beings have a tendency to feel powerful emotion toward emotions and experiences. We highly esteem emotions and experiences, and they act upon us (in the previous column I explained that for this reason the animal soul is also called the “vital soul”). This is even more true in the post-modern era described in the previous column, in which there is despair of the intellect and the deification of feelings and experiences. This is conduct of the animal soul and a focus upon it; that very focus is itself an act of the animal soul (an emotional attitude). The intensity of feeling and the rapture aroused in us are not necessarily expressions of the height of value in what arouses them. This very evaluation is following feeling (animal soul). So we are all apparently doomed to continue to feel intense emotion toward emotions and experiences and to read novels about love with rapture and deep psychological connection (cf. Romeo and Juliet), but that does not mean there is any moral value in all this (artistic value, of course, yes).
I note that we can now also understand the answer to a question I was asked: how do I allow myself to determine that there is no value in an emotional experience and such an encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He, without experiencing it myself (see in my article here and in chapter thirty of the book Mahalkhim Bein HaOmdim.) Perhaps this is only the result of my psychological makeup (the ultimate Litvak)?! In light of what I explained here, it is clear that my claim is philosophical-a priori-conceptual, and therefore it does not depend on direct acquaintance with this or that feeling or experiential encounter.
What Shall the “Moss on the Wall” Do?
Mordechai, in one of his angry essays (here I mean the one directed at column 312), challenged the elitism that ostensibly emerges from my views:
You ignore the path described by Rabbi Pinḥas ben Ya’ir in his famous baraita (in which “Torah” is only the first station) and, above all, the destination at its end. In this ignoring lies the flaw in your entire thesis, according to which the complete Jew is an intelligent robot or a “non-Jew who observes commandments,” in your phrase in the second book, whose Torah study too is (mainly) because of the commandment. (For not everyone is supposed to be enchanted by Talmudic pilpul.) In so doing you have sketched very narrow boundaries that only very few can enter, leaving the masses of the house of Israel, Jews the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—loved and desired before the Omnipresent no less than you—outside. It reminds me of the outrageous saying of R. Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar: “There are only a thousand Jews in the world, and they all live in Williamsburg.”
But the Holy One, blessed be He, did not address only the obvious scholars or the Hasidim of Satmar, but the entire people of Israel; therefore He multiplied for them Torah and mitzvot, as said by R. Ḥananiah ben Akashya according to Maimonides’ interpretation that you mocked—so that every Jew could find the path fitting him on the way ascending to the house of God. Not for the sake of “religious” experiences and feelings (for the umpteenth time—what is that?) but in order to bring pleasure before Him, may He be blessed, and to draw near to Him, each person in his own way and according to his ability, his talents, his intellect, and his heart. (You hurried to mock Maimonides without trying to understand him, but it is quite clear that he came to resolve a severe question in R. Ḥananiah’s words—does an abundance of Torah and mitzvot indeed bring merit to Israel? For thereby the chance of their stumbling increases, as the famous Mishna Berura says in his introduction to part 3, and much more could be said.)
Of course, do not read in my words disdain for the value of in-depth Torah study and meticulous observance of the commandments. But I will by no means accept that there are only a thousand Jews and all are in Williamsburg, or that there is only one Jew sitting in Lod. All Israel have a share in the World to Come, and each one arrives there by one of the paths that the Holy One, blessed be He, opened before the people of Israel. It may be that your way is the mitzvah “from the choicest” (and even this needs much discussion), but by no means the only one.
And perhaps by way of homily in a halakhic sugya specifically: we learned in the chapter “With What May One Light” (Shabbat 25a, and the Yerushalmi there 16b): R. Tarfon says, “One may light only with olive oil.” R. Yoḥanan ben Nuri stood on his feet and said: “What shall the people of Babylonia do, who have only sesame oil? What shall the people of Media do, who have only nut oil? What shall the people of Alexandria do, who have only radish oil? What shall the people of Cappadocia do, who have none of these but only naphtha? Rather, you have only what the Sages said.”
R. Tarfon (a tanna with a Greek name!) stands guard over the “cruse of pure olive oil,” and R. Yoḥanan ben Nuri (son of the lamp?) says there is more than one way to light the darkness—even if we say olive oil is the choicest mitzvah. Indeed, as the poet said, “Learning Torah is the best thing,” but not every mind can tolerate this; and for the rest of the masses of Your people, the Holy One, blessed be He, paved many paths to draw near to Him—each person according to his level—and even the emptiest among them are full of mitzvot like a pomegranate, etc., and much more could be said.
He wonders, according to my view, what the simple folk are supposed to do—those who indeed need the emotional-experiential dimension. Not everyone is a separate intellect, cool of spirit, devoid of warm feeling and experience. Is the Torah not intended for all? How are the Baal Shem Tov’s wagon drivers and Rabbi Levi Yitzḥak of Berditchev supposed to serve God according to my approach? There are quite a few logical flaws in this passage, distortions of my position, and, to top it off, several misrepresentations. But here I will relate only to the core claim.
First, there is no elitism in my words. I reject that. I place at the center decisions, not feelings. That’s all. Every Jew is supposed to conduct himself thus, and every Jew can do so—each in his own way. I did not write here that every Jew must be a great scholar or philosopher, though certainly scholarship is a very important virtue in Judaism and in general. Second, is there no elitism in every other approach? In the eyes of one who puts emotion at the center, is there no difficulty that the path to being a good Jew is not open to me as it was to the Baal Shem Tov? Is emotional capacity not elitist? Why should I not be considered a good Jew? And indeed, even on the rational-intellectual plane—are we all like Moses our Teacher, or Maimonides?
Mordechai can of course claim that according to his approach there is truly no exclusive path, but that all paths are equal—and thus we reach the resting place and inheritance. Here is an enlightened and blessed democracy of religious excellence. But this is a claim I do not accept. I certainly agree there need not be only one path, but I wholly reject that all paths are equal and that there is no possibility of pointing to incorrect paths. With all due respect to the Baal Shem Tov’s novelty that the shepherd who whistled a tune on Yom Kippur (and desecrated Yom Kippur) is no less than the greatest of worshippers and scholars—I do not accept it. I understand that it greatly appeals to people of the animal soul who follow, spellbound, after some piper—from Hamelin or from Berditchev—but if my logical conclusion is that emotion has no essential importance, then no argument regarding those I “left by the wayside” will help. Even if that were true (and it is not), to attack a claim one must raise counter-arguments, and it is not enough to wave at the “dire” consequences of its conclusion.
I will only recall that non-Jews did not receive an equal opportunity to Jews, and Israelites do not receive the same opportunity as priests, or the tribe of Levi, who were distinguished from the rest of Israel to serve in holiness and to learn—and so on. True, Maimonides writes at the end of Hilkhot Shemitta ve-Yovel that anyone whose heart moves him so is considered among the sons of Levi; and still, Levites have a better opportunity to be Levites than I do. Not to mention women, who, in all streams of Orthodox thought, do not receive equal opportunities to advance and self-actualize. And what of secular people and “captured children”? Will Mordechai claim that their path is equal to those obligated in Torah and mitzvot? For “all Israel have a share in the World to Come,” do they not? Perhaps they have a share, but they may or may not merit it. I do not see here an automatic hechsher for whatever each person does.
In short, the fashionable claims (especially in the sentimental, Hasidic, gloomy era in which we live) about the democratization of religious excellence do not impress me much. If, in my view, there were only a thousand Jews in Williamsburg, then no slogans and hurt feelings will change that. Not every non-Jew will thereby become a Jew, nor every idler a Torah scholar and wondrous servant of God, nor every mamzer a king. But, as stated, these are theoretical and principled statements. In practice, in my eyes my way is no less democratic than others. It is open before every Jew, each according to his abilities and inclinations. One who wants to and is suited for it will learn in-depth Talmud and halakha, and one who is not will observe mitzvot and perform kindness and be active in the community. But this does not imply that everything a person does is of equal value to everything else. That seems ridiculous to me. If there is a person who cannot think and must constantly experience intense emotions—good for him. That does not turn those things into something of value. Even a person who feels he must stand on one leg all day and cannot study Torah in the desired depth will not thereby turn standing on one leg into a choice service of God like Torah study.
And finally, even if someone disagrees with my words and my approach, that too is perfectly fine. Let him meditate in the fields, full of religious feeling, and cry “cock-a-doodle-doo” to his God to his heart’s content. He is indeed mistaken (in my opinion), but the Torah was not given to ministering angels, and the Holy One, blessed be He, does not withhold the reward of any creature. We all err from time to time, and that is not the end of the world. I state my opinion, and the reader will judge.
[1] This is essentially an intellectual reconstruction of deficient psychological and emotional faculties. There are very interesting examples of this. John Nash of A Beautiful Mind is an excellent example. Other examples can be found in Jill Bolte Taylor, the American brain researcher who studies psychological deficits that exist in her following a severe stroke and overcomes them with intellectual tools. See, for example, her viral TED talk from 2008.
[2] See on this in the previous column.
[3] Admittedly, one could argue here that the biblical obligation is the feeling of love, and the Sages added a rabbinic obligation to express the feeling on the practical plane. But even according to this interpretation, there is still no necessity to interpret this as a feeling rather than as the value of love for the other (commitment and concern for him—not in the emotional but in the evaluative sense).
[4] This point requires logical development, and I will not enter into it here. I will only note that at the beginning of his Sefer HaKlallim, the author of the Leshem dwells on a change of terminology in the second inquiry at the beginning of the Arizal’s Etz Ḥayim. There the Arizal asks what was the reason for the creation of the worlds, and answers by presenting the purpose of creation (and not the reason). The explanation may be that ends and causes exchange. From our perspective, the world was created in order to bring the Divine Names from potential to actual; that is, we see in the bringing-forth of the Names the purpose of creation and the purpose of our service in it. But from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, the demands placed upon us to bring forth His Names in certain ways are intended so that we perform the actions required for this. It may be that, for Him, the actions are the goal and the bringing-forth of the Names is the means. Similarly, a parent who promises his child a candy if he does something. From the child’s perspective the candy is the goal and the act is the means to achieve it, but from the parent’s perspective the setting of the candy was only a means to achieve the true goal—the doing. One can say that the candy is the operational goal (the goal for which the action is done) but not the essential goal.
[5] See note 2 above.
Discussion
In paragraph 12, line 1
A person without empathy will have difficulty…
Regards, S.Tz.
***"Now I will generalize the conclusion and say that to the same extent I do not see any value in the existence of intellectual arguments in any context whatsoever, and especially regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, and the service of God. Is a person who is not healthy and has no ability to attain insights and make rational arguments somehow inferior or deficient in his religious standing and in his service of God?! In my opinion, that is very unlikely. Again, the existence of rational arguments is a fact. Some people are built in a more intellectual way and they develop religious arguments, and others (some of whom I know well personally) do not. Why is this fact important on the evaluative plane? It seems that even for one who has religious arguments, this is only because he is built differently. So this has no value in and of itself"
This hair-splitting is beyond me. Are you sure you see a question here? Replacing words does nothing and says nothing. By that method one could also replace the claim that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees with the claim that the sum of the angles in a quadrilateral is 180 degrees.
Thanks. Corrected.
It seems to me that it is self-evident to any reasonable person that an ignoramus, for example, or a “lite” religious person, a traditionalist, just some enthusiastic little Hasid who only sings melodies and the like, whose whole service of God is based on being stirred by Sabbath songs, hearing rabbis’ sermons, crying at the Western Wall, lighting candles, and minimal observance of commandments (for example Sabbath, kashrut, prayer with a quorum, and the like) — there is no superiority in his service of God like that of a sharp scholar, one who sets fixed times for Torah study, a decisor, and so forth. And it seems to me that even Mordechai would not disagree with this. The claim there may perhaps be connected to a different kind of argument, namely, to what extent one can expect from people and trust in their intellectual abilities in general.
There is a claim that says that because our desire (the public of those who observe Torah and commandments) is that as many Jews as possible should observe Torah and commandments, and because in this generation that task is so difficult anyway, then what difference does it already make in what manner and in what form they observe commandments. In any case it is clear from your words that you do not expect all the Jews in the world to be scholars like the Rabbi of Brisk, the Hazon Ish, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, but simply to be serious and formulate a position out of decisions that come from the head and not from the gut and from some feeling that has no basis. But in any case, a certain smell of detachment does come out of it, and I think you also write this, that you do not really have much interest in “bringing Jews closer to their Father in Heaven” at any price. (And therefore you also oppose things like pious lies and the deployment of slogans that are not true in your opinion, even if they are useful.) I do not know Mordechai and I do not know his approach, but it reminds me of the line of thought that says that as long as Jews keep Torah and commandments and believe, the motive does not really matter — serious, not serious, well-founded or not. Shenrav, in his article from a long time ago, mentioned the words of Rabbi Dessler, who says that in essence any lie — if it is for the sake of Heaven and brings people closer to the Holy One, blessed be He — is in fact not a lie but truth.
In any case, one can rationally understand this line of thought, in my opinion. Because if I want everyone to keep Torah and commandments, then perhaps it would be preferable if there were masses of coarse wagon-drivers who were not especially intelligent, rather than that they become heretics with sharp minds. (For in the first possibility they at least fulfill, partially, the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and at worst they are in the state of inadvertent sinners because they do not know all the religious obligations, or they are on a lower religious level. And in the second possibility? They have no share in the Torah of Israel, their ability to cause the broader public to sin is greater, and they also have no share in the World to Come.)
Of course, again, to me at least it is clear that your doctrine is not addressed only to intellectual elites. I myself am a fairly simple householder, far from being a scholar on the level of a kollel man from Bnei Brak, and yet I am capable of understanding and aspiring to things from your teaching. It seems that the dispute is more fundamental.
And why does thought have more than instrumental value? After all, in the end, if I understood the spirit of the article, the main thing is the decisions/actions, isn’t it?
Again a mistake – there is no content at all to asking forgiveness without emotion, and therefore the thought experiment is fundamentally absurd. Perhaps a person can forget his emotions and go on automatic and ask forgiveness out of thought as though he is acting rationally; all our actions are driven by emotion, even if it is very faint to the point of seeming automatic. With all due respect to the rabbi, in the next column start with a “proof of a moral theory that is not based on emotion,” and then a discussion will begin that has any point at all.
Thinking, in my view, is a value in itself. First of all because it is not merely a state of being but the product of an action of ours.
I already wrote in the past about your approach in this area, that it leads to the burial society. Every person is emotional, and there is no such thing as a cold intellectual. A cold person is unconscious. We are driven and we think from emotion, and religion is certainly no exception.
You refer to Kant, but Kant himself is forced to relate to emotion in order to formulate verbally the rules for judging reason, and that formulation is completely arbitrary if one thinks of the judgment of reason as though one could leave those formulations in the court of reason without the emotional grounding (and bias!) that determines them. It is a “synthetic” judgment between analyticity and emotion, and therefore it cannot exist in a “rational without emotion” way.
In addition, what you say about halakhah as a categorical imperative whose legislator is God sounds bizarre, insofar as one understands that God has no body, no likeness of a body, and is not a force in a body (and therefore cannot contain needs or anything resembling needs), on the one hand; and on the other hand it sounds bizarre to think that God has a particular body or particular commands that are the commandments, rather than saying that morality as a whole is the will of God in the very existence of morality throughout creation/being (that is, that God established it to instruct us thus and so in His very creation). The thought that the tablets of the covenant, or voices, or supernatural visions (people’s thoughts about prophecy) are what instruct what is moral and what is not fails decisively in the naturalistic fallacy. What does not fail in the naturalistic fallacy as a guide to what is moral and what is not are emotional intuitions. (And this does not mean that one cannot conduct an a posteriori synthetic thought process discussing how to refine those intuitions.)
Since the two systems of morality you advocate (Kantian and divine) require emotion in order to be coherent, your notion of a moral act or moral thought or rational thought in general devoid of emotions is simply a bitter mistake.
With God’s help, 26 Sivan 5780
To Ratzah"i – greetings,
Contrary to your words (and Mordechai’s words), that religious feeling enables even a simple Jew who is not a Torah scholar to take part in the service of God – a comparative observation of the prayer of “householders” and the prayer of “Torah men” yields the opposite picture: it is דווקא in-depth Torah study and precision in the observance of the commandments that bring greater intention, vitality, and enthusiasm also in prayer. As the author of Sefer HaChinuch says: “Hearts are drawn after actions.”
Regards, S.Tz.
And if you say that God is a particular, then I suggest stopping with the sadomasochistic relationship in His worship, and worshiping YHWH. It is not worth dedicating a life to idols — who knows, one time he’ll perform miracles for you and give you gifts, another time he’ll commit genocide on you; better to muster courage and abandon the idols…
It is accepted in Chabad in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that the essence of the commandment of love of God is the labor to attain it.
(By the way, as someone who knows the world of mental health very well, I took John Nash for myself: his whole connection to the “real” world is through emotion. He deals with mathematics because he is crazy about mathematics, to the point that he doesn’t feel like eating because he is sick with love for mathematics, and he agrees to connect to social reality because he feels what love is in his relationship with his wife.)
You mentioned him in the first reference to describe “rational morality without emotion.” But your choice to describe it that way is interesting psychoanalytically.
You’re great, Ofir. I wrote similar things in the previous column, if you feel like taking a look.
In line 4
.. as the author of Sefer HaChinuch says ..
You wrote, “There is a claim that says that because our desire (the public of those who observe Torah and commandments) is that as many Jews as possible should observe Torah and commandments.” Where did you get that from? A. that there is a “public that observes Torah and commandments,” B. that it is your public, C. that it wants as many Jews as possible to observe Torah and commandments???
A. This whole line of thought takes the discussion onto completely different tracks from how it ought to proceed. No one keeps Torah and commandments in this world. At most one can try.
B. I do not know the “World Association of Righteous People,” and even if it exists it sounds like nonsense to me.
C. In the Torah itself it is never written that you need to cause as many people as possible to keep Torah and commandments.
D. You mentioned a consequentialist line of thought of trying for results on the ground, so know that what is written in the Torah about consequentialist thinking is: “And it shall come to pass, if you diligently heed My commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” And therefore there are two important points here. One – disqualifying the thought that the goal is that people perform as many actions as possible, as though love is merely an instrument for that; and the second – that the only value of fulfilling the commandments is that it brings to love of God with all one’s heart and soul. So it is great that you are in favor of emotion, but this whole corruption of thinking that love of God comes to serve observance of the commandments and not the other way around is precisely what feeds the mistake that Rabbi Michael Abraham presents. “Mitzvah,” in its Hebrew linguistic root, is “something that connects,” something that creates togetherness. The commandments are not commands, although command is part of a mitzvah. (Because one who does not feel the divine call to do something will not feel connected to God when he does that same thing.)
E. By the way, in the Mishneh Torah too the first commandment is love of God and the second commandment is to cause love of God, and the first book is called the Book of Love; and Torah study, which is ostensibly “rational,” is part of the commandment of love, as it is said: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children,” etc. And the Mishnah too begins with the commandment of reciting the Shema, and in the Gemara it is also said that the Temple was destroyed because they studied Torah but did not bless over it first, and all the mussar books are full of this, beginning with Duties of the Heart, and so on.
I am astonished….
By the way, another strong argument against the approach of “commandment observance without emotion,” as though the commandments are something that needs to be “proven without emotion” and then “derived from the proof into practical law without emotion,” is that I think we would all come out deranged if we started understanding the first commandments in the Torah this way – “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat” — is it even possible to make sense of the following sentence: “When God commanded man to eat from every fruit of the Garden of Eden and to be fruitful and multiply, He proved to Adam with a cold rational proof and one not emotionally grounded in any way that he was obligated to eat from every tree of the garden and have sexual relations with the woman”?
Is it any wonder that when the first Jewish philosopher known to us (Philo of Alexandria) came to speak about the Torah of Moses, he said that this is the constitution of the Jewish people enacted by Moses the philosopher-king? That is, simply a political law that teaches the Idea of the Good? Can one philosophically prove a political law that teaches what is good without intuition? Without the inspiration of the euphoria that concludes every Socratic dialogue? Is it any wonder that likewise the first Jewish philosopher recognized in all circles that call themselves Orthodox (Rabbi Saadia Gaon) says that one does not accept a prophet who says to do something immoral, and that this testifies that he is not a prophet? So does prophecy begin from “a divine command proved without regard for emotion,” or is it simply the prophet’s moral intuitions? Is it even possible to read the prophets without feeling their pathos? Is it possible to read the Torah of Moses without noticing the repeated threats and promises of reward, appealing to human emotion?
Haha, I remember that I was once at the funeral of one of the Hazon-Ishniks, one of the sons of R. Meir Greenman, his firstborn son (a kollel scholar and Torah scholar with many children who was my neighbor), and the one who eulogized him was the master of emotion, R. Dan Segal, who cried a great deal. And afterward, in a sharp transition, when it came time for the funeral procession itself to begin walking, the loudspeaker was on and I heard the bereaved father over the sound system (as is known, that circle is committed to punctilious “cold” halakhah) saying to his sons several times, “hour of heating, hour of heating,” in Hazon-Ishnik pronunciation. I did not understand what he meant, but I understood that he was instructing them to fulfill some particular halakhah precisely at this moment, this “hour of heating” — perhaps rending one’s garment, I have no idea — but it drove me crazy: halakhah in the cold intellect at such a hard time.
The only wholly intellectual person was Moses our Rabbi.
Torah scholars are supposed to increase peace in the world, and in order to do so they must understand the human soul and the realities of the world.
Rabbi Shlomo Polachek, the Illui of Meitshet, who was considered the sharpest Torah scholar of his generation, the one for whom the entire Talmud together with the reasonings of the Rishonim — to whose study he devoted his life — lay clearly in his pocket, and who always strove to understand and grasp the phenomena and events in our Jewish world and in the wider world by means of abstract intellect and logical inquiry, also knew a great deal of the best Russian literature dealing with profound questions that stand at the height of the world, and all his life was an avid reader of the Jewish, Hebrew, Russian, and German press.
His student wrote of him:
“Wonderful was his learning and hewn from rock were his conversations! How much he encompassed and how deeply he penetrated; how few were his words and how many his intentions! The students labored to grasp some word, to understand some ‘behold,’ and in the end they still did not attain his great mind, did not descend to the depths of the matter. For the rabbi was too great for his students — and even his colleagues did not always penetrate the full extent of his thought. The secret of his wisdom was the secret of the Lord, for those who fear Him alone.
“And though the generation was not worthy of him, though his students were far from him — how much he adapted himself to the generation, and how much he understood his students! He penetrated the inner spirit and understood the impulse of their hearts. He was their advocate and judged them favorably. He descended to the depths of the soul, plunged into the abysses of the spirit, and searched out the hidden good. He was devoted to each and every one, with heart and soul. There were no ‘generals’ before him at all, only individuals, and he related to each individual as though he were the whole community. How he cherished them, and what fatherly love they felt around him! He acquired souls, stirred hearts — not only by his speech, but also by his gaze, his very being, and his nobility.”
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, of blessed memory, wrote:
“One must especially emphasize the need for sensitivity to the human soul. More than once, it is דווקא an in-depth study of a psychology book, or reflection and reading in the work of a great writer who plunges into the recesses of the human soul, that grants a person the ability to relate properly to another and to penetrate the depths of his soul.
“Indeed, this ability may also be acquired in other ways, but growth in Torah itself is no guarantee of interpersonal ability attentive and sensitive to another’s soul. Can one rely blindly on a Torah scholar who is great in Torah but lacking in understanding? Can one obey someone who lacks the human dimension — sensitivity and understanding of the human soul?
“Indeed, not everyone who knows how to crack difficult sugyot in Eruvin is also a great expert in the human soul.”
With God’s help, 26 Sivan 5780
To Shmuel – greetings,
I do not think that R. M. Greenman mentioned to his sons at the beginning of the walk that now was an “hour of heating” so that they should fulfill the commandment of tearing their garments, for it is the members of the burial society who carry out the tearing for the mourners at the time of the funeral.
It seems that he mentioned the “hour of heating” at the beginning of the walk to the cemetery because naturally at that time there is some slackening of emotion. During the eulogies every heart melts and every eye sheds tears, and likewise when standing opposite the open grave. But when walking, or generally traveling, and the way proceeds in silence — there is some lessening of the emotional intensity.
And against this, during the walk one constantly encounters acquaintances one has not seen for a long time, and naturally the desire arises to ask after their welfare and what they are up to — therefore Rabbi Greenman had to warn his sons that even the time of walking is an “hour of heating,” in which one must preserve the emotional fervor of an “hour of heating.”
Regards, S.Tz.
The case you mentioned reflects the side on which the halakhic obligation preserves natural emotion so that it not fade.
There is, of course, the opposite situation, where halakhah guards the storm of emotions so that it not burst forth and cause irreversible damage. For this is the purpose of the prohibition “You shall not cut yourselves” and “nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead,” in order to prevent the ancient custom by which mourners would disfigure and wound themselves in their grief over the dead.
Therefore the Torah forbids these acts of despair, saying, “You are children of the Lord your God,” and you must remain aware even at the height of pain that everything is done under divine providence, and therefore you must maintain a certain restraint, as befits “sons of kings.”
Regards, S.Tz.
In the comment “Halakhah commands…,” paragraph 2, line 2
… at that time there is some slackening…
I sign every word. How does this bear on our discussion?
At the beginning of the coronavirus period, Rabbi David Yosef stood out as the most important rabbinic figure who called for a complete closure of the study halls and for praying individually from the outset, while the rest of the great sages of the generation somehow overlooked an explicit halakhah that preservation of life overrides every commandment in the world…
How did it happen that only he ruled correctly and the rest of the great rabbis ruled in complete contradiction to halakhah?
Regarding the others, we know they ruled from emotion (“They didn’t close synagogues even in Auschwitz”…)
But why didn’t Rabbi Yosef fall into the trap of emotion?
Anyone who knows Rabbi Yosef can testify that his way has always been detached from emotion (I remember that in his Megillah reading there was none of the joyous noise at Haman because of concern for interruption); people always claimed against him that he was a technocrat of halakhah.
With God’s help, 26 Sivan 5780
To Gabriel – greetings,
In my comment “‘… in the tents of the righteous’” from 21 Adar on the column “The Coronavirus Disease — A Systemic Response,” I noted that R. D. Yosef’s view was also followed in the “Darkhei Hora’ah” of R. M. Eliyahu (whereas a member of the Great Rabbinical Court, R. Tz. Boaron, held that Torah study should not be canceled so long as the whole economy remained open with restrictions).
The Talmud Torah schools of the Gur Hasidim also closed and switched to learning by telephone. In Belz they made something of a compromise: they continued studying in small groups of up to ten in a room, as was then the rule for all shops and offices. That same day it was published that R. Ch. Kanievsky and R. G. Edelstein had also accepted this compromise, that studies would take place in groups of up to ten in a room, as was the practice throughout the economy.
The entire discussion ceased to be relevant within a few short days, when the whole economy was shut down, without the permission for “up to ten in a room.” From then on there was full alignment between the Ministry of Health and the great sages of the generation, Sephardim, Lithuanians, and Hasidim alike (except for a few fringe groups).
It should be noted that at the beginning of Iyar, when the Ministry of Health began a gradual return to routine and they were also speaking about frameworks for the return of the yeshivot, the gaon Rabbi Asher Weiss issued a warning against the Ministry of Health for being too lenient regarding the danger of coronavirus. See the article: “The senior decisor: the new guidelines are a great danger” (on Channel 2000). See also his lecture on “The danger in the coronavirus disease” on the Kol Halashon site.
With the blessing “The sound of joy and salvation is in the tents of the righteous,” S.Tz.
1) In the first post in the series you decide (and not for the first time) that something “has no value” (in this case — religious experience). Is there some criterion by which you determine when things do/do not have value (religious or otherwise) that is not merely “I do/do not like it”? In addition, it seems to me that you too would agree that there is value in making another person happy; perhaps there is also value in being a happy person yourself, and perhaps there is non-religious value in having a joyful religious experience. All in all, I want to understand where, according to your approach, the line passes (is it clearly defined?), and why.
2) In the second post you bring a whole range of sources (and in the third you even bring the Tanya) from which you learn (force the text?) that emotional outburst may lead to undesirable behavior, whereas rational thinking helps in making correct and measured decisions. It would have been preferable had you acted in accordance with the sentence stated at the end of the first post: “In my opinion, the source of any given idea or notion is irrelevant to the substantive discussion about it. What matters is the idea itself.” The claim made in the second post is true even without those sources, and it is quite clear that those sources did not originally intend your view. If this is an attempt to hang your conception on great trees (strange — you have never needed that before, and rightly so), then in my humble opinion it is a poor attempt.
3) In the third post the sentence appears: “Love is an emotion, an affect, and as such it makes no claim whatsoever about the world.” And as a contrasting example (which does make a claim about the world?) you gave the sentence “The solution to the equation is (y=sin(3×2+4”. I would be glad to know what you call “a claim about the world” (does “the world” mean specifically experiences called “sensory” and not experiences called “emotional” perhaps? How does a mathematical formula enter into this?), and perhaps in this way the problem of problems of analytic philosophy will finally be solved.
4) In the fourth (and last?) post it is said: “Now I will generalize the conclusion and say that to the same extent I do not see any value in the existence of emotions in any context whatsoever, and especially regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, and the service of God. Is a person who is not healthy and has no possibility of experiencing religious emotion somehow inferior or defective in his religious standing and in his service of God?! In my opinion, that is very unlikely.” That is, by way of negation, one can understand that a person who is intellectually inferior (an autistic person, for example), in your opinion is religiously inferior (in God’s eyes?) and morally inferior. Although I am not sure I am fiercely opposed to this conception, it seems to me fitting to present it to the public as it is, so that it may be suitably shocked.
In addition, against secular prayer it was said: “Prayer can receive religious and evaluative significance only by virtue of being a standing before God,” and it is strange to hear this from a person who wants, in principle, to abolish a large part of the commandments of prayer.
Paragraph 1, line 2
…that R. D.’s view…
Paragraph 2, line 1
…and switched to learning by…
Paragraph 3, line 1
…without the permission for…
Paragraph 4, line 4
… ‘the danger in the coronavirus disease…
It is not right to found things only on intellectual inquiry, in the manner of the Enlightenment, nor only on inspiration from inner excitement, in the manner of Romanticism. Rather, Rav Kook wrote: “For complete wisdom is only that which spreads over all the powers of the soul and unites with the inner aptitude, and fills the soul with its splendor. Thus every wisdom, at the goal of its perfection, is also grounded in inner feeling… even general wisdom, abstracted from all bodily feeling and dependent only on knowledge and intellectual understanding, will nevertheless not be complete for the knower unless he has spiritual aptitude and an inner relation to wisdom, so as to be called wise of heart, and then the blessed Lord will give him wisdom according to his activity in his contemplative service.” And since “Happy are you, O Israel, for all of you are great sages, from the greatest of you to the smallest of you,” it follows that every person in Israel has an inner feeling essential to his faith and his service of God and to his Torah, his character traits, and his deeds. Therefore, God forbid that one should disparage either intellect or emotion. Rav Kook wrote: “The healthy intellect, original in its nature, is compounded in a balanced composition from the elements of intellect and emotion. The rational intellect within it gives it the nourishing element, and the emotion developed within it gives it the delightful element. And everyone who engages in Torah for its own sake is blessed with their complete unity and perfect wholeness, in such a way that each broadens the border of its fellow, and they are companions who never part.”
What difference does it make whether emotion has some value, or whether it is only an expression of something deeper and that is what matters? After all, even according to you there is something in Judaism beyond dry halakhah.
In his later years they brought the Illui of Meitshet to America to serve as a rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, and then he added the English-language press to his reading circle.
When his students asked him how he managed with reading newspapers in English, given that his knowledge of that language was very poor, the rabbi replied: there are those who read the text and understand “what lies between the lines.” I read “between the lines,” and from that I understand what is written within the lines 🙂
Regards, S.Tz.
I believe the story is brought in the introduction to Chiddushei Ha-Illui MiMeitshet, Mossad Harav Kook edition.
The Illui of Meitshet was truly humble. He wanted to immigrate to the Land of Israel, but he feared they would not accept him because he did not know Hebrew. They said to him: How do you know what you know and what you do not know, seeing that you also think you are no Torah scholar?
1. I explained my position very well. In contrast, you merely make declarations (incorrect ones) and misrepresent what I wrote. Was it for nothing that the scribes wrote and the embalmers embalmed? Were the columns written for nothing? I do not know what to do with this.
2. This time, beyond declarations, I also received a grade. Thank you. I will try to improve.
3. How many times have I sharpened the point that descriptions of emotion are claims about the person and not about the world. When I love someone and you do not, we have no dispute. It does not take a whole long school day to understand that.
4. Indeed, intellect too has no value. The use of it does. And that is open to every person (although unfortunately not everyone takes advantage of that opportunity).
I do not know why I bothered answering this hysterical message. It is evident that its purpose is to let off steam and not to make arguments. And this whole series explains that in this way you arrive nowhere. Perhaps I should have posted this message as one final column to illustrate my claims.
All the best.
Well, well. Could he really not have found a Torah position until he learned Hebrew and then “they would accept him”? Even if “humility” (“true”!) involves self-blindness regarding one’s personal stature, there is a point of exaggeration that leads one to shake one’s head: “Yes, but they don’t tell stories like that about you and me.” Every intelligent person knows, more or less reasonably, his own worth. In my opinion, this is quite a contrived story.
I apologize if my message above gave the impression that I wanted to let off steam. That is not the case, and in truth the message was written in good spirit even if perhaps it comes across otherwise.
But still, my questions were not answered.
Regarding the first point – I was unable to find in any post on this site clear criteria for determining values. In the posts on religious commitment you determine that there is value in being a servant of God; here you say there is no value in religious experience, but no criteria were given at any stage. I did not find them either in the quartet or in the new trilogy (perhaps I did not look enough; I would be happy for a reference). To sharpen the point: usually people say “I see value in x,” and then it is quite clear that x is some state the speaker aspires to or acts to bring about. And if I argue with him, I need to try to convince him that x is not a state worth being in. But from this phrasing it is evident that the matter is subjective (“I see”). Your phrasing, by contrast, is usually “there is/is not value,” and it seems you are determining something objective. I do not have the tools to discern objective values, and therefore your words seem puzzling to me.
Regarding the third point, everyone agrees that claims like “I love someone” are claims about the person and not about the world. But that is not the type of claim at issue here. All the recent posts deal with claims like “I feel holiness in the air” or “I feel the presence of God,” and the fact that those who “feel” these things will indeed argue with you about those claims proves that this is a different type of emotion. You are building a straw man when you mix the emotion of “love toward a person” with religious experiences. And philosophically it is not clear what makes such experiences “not existing in the world” as opposed to an experience of color or shape that “exists in the world.” Perhaps there is a distinction between phenomenon and noumenon that needs to be made here, but the story is complicated and contemporary analytic philosophy is working on it extensively.
With God’s help, 27 Sivan 5780
The story M80 mentioned about the Illui of Meitshet’s desire to immigrate to the Land of Israel is brought in the words of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin), from “Volozhin on the Illui,” included in the introduction to Chiddushei Ha-Illui MiMeitshet, New York edition 5707 [1947] (on the HebrewBooks site). There too additional material was brought about his greatness, both in Torah and in humility and good character traits.
It is told there that he longed to immigrate to the Land and be there as a “teacher of Talmud,” but feared that his knowledge of Hebrew would not suffice. It seems clear that it was not relevant for him to come to the yeshivot of the Old Yishuv, after he had served all his life in yeshivot where secular studies were also taught, such as Rabbi Reines’s yeshivah in Lida, the “Tachkemoni” yeshivah in Bialystok, and Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan.
In the New Yishuv, religious high schools had not yet been established until after the death of the Illui of Meitshet in the 1930s (the first was “Yeshivat HaYishuv HeChadash” of R. A. Amiel). Perhaps he had the salka da’ata of teaching at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, which began in the 1920s, and perhaps in his humility he would have been willing to serve as a Talmud teacher in an elementary school or high school.
About his thought of immigrating to the Land in order to live there as a farmer, his student Dr. Hirsch Leib Gordon relates (ibid.): “Rabbi Eliyahu bar Barkovsky told me: In those days [his return from Russia to Poland in the year 5681/1921. S.Tz.] Rabbi Shlomo turned to me and said in soul-consuming longing: If only I could go up to the Land of Israel… not to hold office and not even to teach, but rather to plow, to harrow, and to plant… What happiness it is for a man to bend over in his garden and pull out a radish which he himself sowed, to pick oranges which he himself planted, to toil in the sweat of his brow on his own land, especially on holy soil, in the land of our fathers.”
On his admiration for Maimonides, and his assessment that he was greater even than the Geonim who preceded him, and that even in the days of the Sages he would not have been considered “a cutter of reeds” [an insignificant scholar] — see the article by Dr. Natan Klots (ibid.).
And thanks are due to the cupbearers — “M80” and “Nupoint” — who gave me the opportunity to engage with the greatness and wondrous personality of the Illui.
Regards, S.Tz.
Many immigrated and succeeded. Had he wanted, he would have immigrated. Perhaps he yearned, but to make his lack of Hebrew the reason for not doing so sounds ridiculous to me. The happiness of pulling up a radish can also be achieved abroad. Unfortunately this story sounds rather muddled to me, and it seems he expressed a basic wish and no more.
The view that Maimonides (and quite a few other Rishonim) was greater than the Geonim is fairly common (though people do not repeat it publicly. Even the Hazon Ish’s many statements about the levels of sages across the generations are hardly ever found in writing, and usually one has to hear them by word of mouth).
Your supposition that to the yeshivot of the Old Yishuv “it was not relevant that he come” — is that your addition, or is it found in writing? If it is a tradition, we accept it; if it is a supposition, then it does not seem plausible to me at all, neither from their side nor all the more so from his.
By the way, in engaging with his greatness and personality, the main engagement is of course with the content the Illui produced. The loss of his writings is truly a sad matter. To my shame, the only idea from the Illui that I know is the difficulty he raises about migo, and in my eyes it is not difficult at all (see for example Rabbi Michi’s pamphlet on migo), so one should not build towers on it.
To N.P. – greetings,
It stands to reason that in the yeshivot of the Old Yishuv, where there was fierce opposition to general education, it was not relevant that he come. In those yeshivot there also would have been no impediment because of lack of Hebrew, since the language of study in them was Yiddish.
As for immigrating to the Land as young pioneering settlers, there was a chance of success — and even among them many did not endure. For a man over 40 with a family and children — it was not at all simple. Since he received a good job offer at Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan in the professional area in which he excelled, teaching Gemara analytically to young men interested in that, it is clear that the compulsion of reality overcame the heart’s desire. Perhaps if he had lived longer (he died suddenly in 5688/1928 at age 50) he would have been invited to teach at Yeshivat HaYishuv HeChadash and those founded after it (Midrashiyat Noam, Kfar HaRoeh, or Yeshivat HaDarom).
Regards, S.Tz.
Because the yeshivot of the Old Yishuv would not have accepted him, or because he would not have been interested?
On the “HebrewBooks” site there appear Chiddushei Ha-Illui MiMeitshet, both in the first edition, New York 5707 [1947] (where there are articles about him, from which I quoted), and in the third edition, Haifa 5749 [1989], in which there are additions from his teachings, though the articles about him were omitted). You are invited to look!
Regards, S.Tz.
The author of the Tanya distinguishes between “everlasting love,” with which a person is filled when he contemplates the world and is impressed by the greatness and divine wisdom in the world, and “abundant love,” which is a divine gift given to a person as a reward for his toil in Torah and in the observance of its commandments. Either way, religious feeling is a necessary result of contemplation, study, and action. One need not “stand with a stopwatch” searching for an intense thrill, but neither should one delegitimize it or suppress it when it appears.
Regards, S.Tz.
Thank you. I still have a great, great deal to learn before I arrive specifically at the novelties of that Illui (which I remember reading were crumbs, tiny fragments of a meal-offering, from the great original source). I am not pleased to hear that unique creativity and knowledge were lost from the world, even if I myself would not in any case touch them. It is really hard for me to diagnose the source of that feeling, and I feel it touches on an elusive point. Not only knowledge created by a human being. And also in terms of my own body, if the writings had existed then they would surely have contained quite a few excellent insights that would have scattered through the study hall, and I would have heard reports of them (and perhaps then I would have been tempted enough to study the writings themselves).
To speak about religious experience without mentioning William James and his monumental book The Varieties of Religious Experience is like speaking about free choice in our country without mentioning the Ramda.
In short, ridiculous — too ridiculous.
You wrote that it is not logical that a person who has no ability to experience religious emotion should be inferior in his service of God. Why is that different from people who are born with various defects such as autism or intellectual disability? Such a person usually will not be able to fulfill commandments and will not be able to serve God like ordinary people, and therefore in that sense he will be inferior. It is a case of coercion and one can say that the Torah exempted him, but he will still be inferior in his service.
With God’s help, 27 Sivan 5780
And thus James’s book The Varieties of Religious Experience concludes (according to the table of contents):
The question of immortality — the question of the uniqueness and infinity of God. On this question religious experience does not answer in the affirmative — the pluralistic hypothesis is more reasonable.
That is the gist of James’s words.
But as for us, better for us a dry monotheist than an idol worshiper full of experiences.
Regards, S.Tz.
Posek, give us one successful argument from the monumental book. At least one that would make it worthwhile to read the book and see the full argument and the whole structure.
The shocking description of what happens when one develops a person’s intellect but suppresses his emotional life — the inquirer will find in the life story of “William James Sidis”…
And the conclusion: brain and heart need one another; the heart is the “engine” that channels energy into life, and the brain is the “driver” that directs toward the right path, and “together they shall sing, they shall give praise.”
Regards, S.Tz.
1-2. Then you simply did not read. Search better. I explained, for example, that facts are not values. Acting for the sake of an emotion is not a fact, and there may indeed be value in that. All of this is written here.
3. Yes, it is this type of claim that is under discussion. Emotion as a tool of perception was mentioned by me, and I explained that this is intuition and not emotion. No straw man and no shoes. Someone who says he feels holiness in the air — I wrote about that that there may be something to it (though I tend to doubt it, usually). In short, if this interests you, read again, and this time with the requisite care. I did not write the columns for nothing. What I have to say is written in them, and I see no point in repeating what I wrote.
This is not a self-standing argument. After I say that emotion is only a state and not a decision or an exercise of judgment, I add that one who lacks this thing is not inferior in his service of God. Just as someone who has no legs and cannot walk to pray in synagogue is not under coercion. He is not inferior in his service of God. And similarly for the blind and the deaf. By the way, the same applies to someone endowed with less intelligence. That too is not a deficiency in the service of God, so long as he activates what he has to the best of his ability. If he does not even understand that he ought to activate his intelligence, then he really is inferior in his service of God (though under coercion). A person lacking emotion is definitely blemished, like one missing legs or eyes. In my view that is an entirely correct analogy. But I do not see value (religious or spiritual) in the existence of legs or eyes. It is convenient and useful, but not an essential value. Instrumental value.
Start at the bottom of page 200 (Bialik edition), with the story of Suso the German mystic and how he would mortify himself until God appeared to him and instructed him to stop. Just for the detailed and creative descriptions of poor Suso’s mortifications, the book is worth reading…
And even more recommended is to read Maimonides’ description in the laws of the Foundations of the Torah about the way to attain love of God and awe of Him through contemplation of God’s greatness and His wondrous wisdom embedded in creation — and the feelings aroused in a person as a result of this contemplation.
Regards, Agur ben Yakeh
In the First World War the Illui of Meitshet was forced to flee from place to place and witness the destruction of the great yeshiva world of Europe. From anxiety and thought his sleep fled, and at night he would read the novels of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev. In America, despite being a rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, the atmosphere was not the Torah atmosphere to which he had been accustomed, and no one understood his spirit. Had he immigrated to the Land of Israel after the war, most likely here too they would not have understood his spirit.
By the way, the roshei yeshivah who opposed the establishment of Rabbi Reines’s yeshivah in Lida feared lest their students leave them and move to Rabbi Reines’s yeshivah. In practice this of course did not happen. However, when the Illui of Meitshet would deliver lectures in the yeshivah, yeshivah students from other yeshivot in Russia and Lithuania would come especially to the yeshivah to hear his lectures.
Had he, instead of being a rosh yeshivah at the Lida yeshivah, immigrated to the Land of Israel and served as a rosh yeshivah in Rabbi Kook’s yeshivat ha-iluyim in Jaffa, the entire Torah world and the yishuv in the Land of Israel in later generations would have looked completely different.
Reading a detailed description of mortification is itself a mortification.
A note regarding what you wrote under the heading “Emotion: on asking forgiveness” and your conclusion: “I told them that in my eyes this is a perfect request for forgiveness and one worthy of great appreciation. If there is any request for forgiveness to which I would respond — it is this one.”
Now, while it is clear that forgiveness that comes only from the offender’s conscience should not be accepted, nevertheless, in my opinion, forgiveness that comes only from the ‘cold’ intellect is not sufficient, and certainly not ideal. I will now explain what I mean.
First of all, let us examine what “forgiveness” is. Forgiveness is the absence of the hurt (without hurt there is no need for forgiveness).
Hurt: a situation in which Reuven bears a grievance against Shimon because he thinks an injustice was done to him (Shimon acted unfairly toward him).
By definition, “hurt” is a personal and subjective experience (if Shimon wronged Levi, Reuven will not feel hurt). It follows that an “elevated” person, for whom his own personal existence is not important in his own eyes (the only thing that interests him is to reveal truth in the world), by definition cannot be hurt. And when a person is hurt, that is a sign that he matters in his own eyes. One can say that, really, what bothers the hurt party is the fact that the offender did not give place to his reality; the offender did not take him into consideration. In other words, the concept of “hurt” basically defines a situation in which Reuven says to Shimon, “How could you ignore my reality?”
If so, it is clear that the true response, and the correction of the deficiency (lack of consideration for the other), is that the offender decide to change and to give the hurt party a place in his perception. When the offender has decided to change (he reflected that there is another person here, and recognized that one must take his feelings into account), and now he senses the reality of the hurt party — and the hurt party is aware of this — then this nullifies the hurt party’s claim (“How did you not give place to my reality?”). And therefore it is clear that this is real forgiveness.
Moreover: any other forgiveness, that is not this forgiveness, is not truly the matter of forgiveness. Because when the offender says “I’m sorry” only from the side of intellect, then on the essential level no change has really occurred: the offender still gives no place to the reality of the hurt party (rather, the offender has merely decided to act in accordance with justice and fairness. Therefore, in truth, this forgiveness should not cancel the grievance of the hurt party).
What I mean is this: even though by the test of the outcome, according to everyone an indispensable condition for accepting forgiveness is reflection on the part of the offender, nevertheless, all things considered, one must still distinguish a bit between what you say and what I say.
For my claim is that, really, what “grips” the person in forgiveness that comes from reflection is the fact that now the offender gives place to his reality (and therefore he forgives him [and the deeper the giving of place, the greater the acceptance of forgiveness]).
It is as though, from the way you presented things, it seemed that the reason the hurt party accepts the forgiveness is because the offender reflected. Whereas I claim that the reason the hurt party accepts the forgiveness is because the offender gives him place. Rather, the indispensable condition for this giving of place to be genuine is that it came through reflection.
What I mean is this: suppose a father sends his son to bring him a cup of water because he is thirsty. Now the father thanks the son. What is he thanking him for? For behaving according to justice and fairness? No. He is happy that his thirst has been quenched, and since this happened through his son, he thanks him. Now, clearly, if the son had been compelled to bring the water (someone threatened him with a gun), that would be an impediment and would prevent the thanks — again, he would not deserve thanks. But that does not mean that when the father does say thank you, it is thanks for behaving with justice and fairness. The thanks is for the water.
In conclusion:
– what the hurt party seeks is that the very person who, in the act of hurting, showed that he did not give him place, should now give him place.
In cases where the forgiveness comes from emotion, the hurt party does not forgive because the offender still is not giving him place (the offender only wants to rid himself of the oppressive feeling of conscience).
– in the case where the offender reflected that in truth the act he did was not legitimate, the hurt party still should not forgive (it may be that the offender wants to behave according to justice and fairness, and still is not giving the hurt party place [for then either way: if from the outset it does not matter to the hurt party that the offender does not recognize his reality, then he should not have been hurt. And if he was hurt, then what will remove the hurt is the offender’s giving him place — which is not necessarily present when the offender reflected that he had not acted legitimately].
– when the hurt party senses that the offender has changed (as a result of reflection) and now gives place to the hurt party, then this is the true matter of forgiveness (and, as stated, there are many degrees in this).
This change itself (giving place) is done by the intellect and not by emotion. I do not see what this prolixity adds.
If Reuven hurt Shimon though Shimon had done no wrong, and afterward he understood that hurting Shimon was an improper act, and his understanding was intellectual without any emotion whatsoever regarding Shimon’s pain or participation in his sorrow — then, if Reuven had been wholly intellectual from the outset, he would not have hurt Shimon, because intellect forbids this. Rather, it follows that the hurt stemmed from Reuven’s selfish emotion, which brought him to be inconsiderate of Shimon. It is proper for Shimon to forgive Reuven because in the end Reuven understood that he had erred, waived his honor, and asked forgiveness. However, most people, including Shimon, do not need Elijah the Prophet in order to know that Reuven still does not really value Shimon in his heart. Therefore the Torah says: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And one of the righteous once said: If you are not capable of loving your fellow, then at least what is hateful to you do not do to your fellow.
I completely disagree. The hurt can stem from the fact that he chose evil. The choice is not necessarily between emotion and intellect, as you assume.
What the prolixity adds is that although forgiveness requires intellect (reflection), it is not enough to reflect in general (“it is improper to insult”) but a particular reflection is also required (“there is a person called ‘Shimon,’ and if one insults him, he suffers from it”). It seems to me that there is clearly a substantive addition here to what you said. (And by the way, perhaps this is in fact what the students meant when they said that emotion is needed for forgiveness: that it is important for the offender to recognize the reality of the hurt party in an immediate way.)
From the side of intellect there is no such thing as forgiveness.
Again: had they not revealed this to the “religious,” they would have fled to religions in which there is forgiveness.
If you did an evil deed intentionally, then you sinned. All your deeds are written in the book. Up above there is no delete. Only in the imagination of dreamers.
not=revealed to
Nupoint, think of it like Yom Kippur: true, it is mortification, but its reward comes with it.
Choosing evil stems from folly. A person’s indifference to pain he caused stems from a sealed heart. “As in water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man.”
In this wonderful post you address only intellect versus emotion; it is not clear to me from your presentation where the will is. Is it identical with intellect for you?
I understand that both intellect and emotion are substrates and an environment in which the will (and actual decision-making?) is realized. And that both affect it. If so, both are important, but both are instrumental to the will, which is neither of them.
Could you address that?
Indeed, I did not go into the place of the will. When I say intellect, I also mean the will. These are our cognitive and free components. The will is free, and the intellect has judgment. See columns 35 and 175.
Wonderful! And moving…