What Is Philosophy: On Happiness and Meaning (Column 159)
With God’s help
To my three granddaughters, Oriya, Sophie, and Hadar, who erased for me the dilemma between happiness and meaning
In the last four columns I tried to define what philosophy is and addressed Ron Aharoni’s criticism of this strange field. I thought of devoting the next column to a more representative and less serious criticism, which was mentioned at the beginning of Column 157 (Bill Nye’s criticism of philosophy from a scientific angle. See here). I mentioned that Olivia Goldhill wrote an article addressing most of his claims, under the illuminating title: Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy? (At the outset she cites several well-known scientists who share this kind of criticism.) There is quite a bit to say about her remarks, and of course about his as well, but in the end I thought that after the discussion I conducted here in the last several columns, all of this already seemed superfluous.
Admittedly, the many criticisms of philosophy, even if they are guilty of overgeneralization, do testify to something problematic about this field. So after defending it vigorously and explaining its essence, I thought it appropriate at this stage to take a text that can illustrate the problems and why these criticisms arise, and to analyze it a bit from that point of view.
I will add already now that the next column will conclude the series, and I very much recommend that even those who skipped the current one read the next (there is a bit of work there, but it leaves a great deal of food for thought).
The root of the problem
Because philosophy is not science but, as we saw, intuitive reflection on reality, many see it as subjective delusions, and others confuse it with psychology. Aharoni assumes there is nothing beyond these two possibilities (we saw that in his view philosophy is either misguided delusions or the psychology of thought), and therefore concludes that there is no such thing as philosophy. But as I argued, he is mistaken in his premise and therefore also in his conclusion.
Still, these criticisms did not emerge out of thin air. Quite a few philosophical texts really do suffer from these defects. Some of them deal with psychology and present it as philosophy (on this it is worth seeing my critique of existentialism in Column 140). Another portion, like continental philosophy of the last generations, in my best judgment deals mainly in delusions. These are texts whose essence is a grinding of words and concepts, usually not well defined, without saying very much (here and there you may also find a pinch of psychology there).
To illustrate this, I wanted to choose a text that does not merely heap up concepts and grind words, but something that ostensibly makes substantive and even persuasive claims, and does so relatively clearly. And yet it is still a text through which I can show how quickly one can slide into one of the two problematic directions above, and also explain how to avoid doing so. This is really an exercise on the last four installments.
The article
I chose an article that Oren sent me a long time ago, asking what I thought of it. It is an interview in the magazine Lady Globes (which, despite its name lowering expectations, has already published several good articles that I have seen), conducted by Vered Ramon Rivlin with Shimon Azoulay. Azoulay is a musician who completed a doctorate in philosophy and is currently a faculty member in the philosophy department at the Hebrew University.
The interviewer calls Azoulay “the rockstar of philosophy” (well, after all this is Lady Globes), no less. I say this in advance because one really has to get past quite a bit of posturing that envelops these remarks (beyond the grandiose and off-putting epithet), in order nonetheless to examine his arguments and their meaning on their merits. His arguments are timely and touch on very human points that are highly relevant to most of us, and so I assume that quite a few readers may connect with them (I allow myself to guess that this magazine would not conduct a similar interview with Kant, Leibniz, or Descartes). But perhaps precisely for that reason it is worth taking a closer look at the remarks and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Before you continue, I very much recommend that you read the interview, or at least skim it. Otherwise I fear that, as happened with Aharoni’s cat, the criticism may spoil the reading for you and therefore also be less effective. As I said, on a first reading I assume that many of you will find the article rather impressive and interesting, and also persuasive.
I will say in advance that my reading of the interview will be a bit nitpicking, since what we are doing here is an exercise based on the previous installments. Therefore my purpose is not to examine the claims themselves (with most of which I tend to agree), but the category to which they belong: is this philosophy, and in what sense? To that end I will go through the first part of the interview and comment on it, since that alone suffices to illustrate my claims.
The headline and the interviewee
Let us begin with the interview’s headline: “Philosopher Dr. Shimon Azoulay: ‘The pursuit of happiness is dangerous’ ”. So first of all, the interviewee is presented there as a philosopher. I already mentioned that if a person belongs to a university philosophy department, that certainly does not mean he is a philosopher. He is supposed to be a scholar of philosophy. But of course that also does not mean that he is not. Although this is rather rare, a scholar of philosophy can also be a philosopher (this is not a right reserved only for cobblers or taxi drivers). So for the moment there is no reason not to accept the interviewer’s definition.
As for the content of the headline, one can wonder on at least two interconnected planes: 1. What does it mean? 2. Is this a philosophical statement?
As for the meaning of this statement, the question is in what sense is the pursuit of happiness dangerous? Does it endanger life, or society? Is it dangerous in value terms? This connects to the second question, because if this is a warning about an expected consequence then we have a factual, psychological, or medical statement, but certainly not a philosophical one. If the intention is a philosophical statement, then it is not clear to me what kind of danger is being referred to. Even if it is a warning against moral deterioration, we are in the factual domain. Suppose that the pursuit of happiness leads people not to take others into account and not to help them. The claim that failing to help or take others into account is immoral is indeed a philosophical claim. But the claim that the pursuit of happiness leads to such situations is a factual claim. If so, in any event this does not seem to be a philosophical statement but a factual one. So what added value is there in a philosopher’s statement with respect to facts? Why not interview the accountant who lives next door to me, his taxi driver, some psychologist, or perhaps the director-general of the Ministry of Welfare?
Well, those are preliminary questions raised by the headline. To examine the matter better, it is worth also reading what is said inside.
The opening
Azoulay says the following by way of introduction:
Sometimes we are too comfortable. This comfort causes us not to do things that are sufficiently worthwhile. We waste time and energy on marginal things. You need to train yourself to be aware of death in order to do more and more meaningful things.
Again, is this a philosophical claim? I do not think so. There is indeed a factual claim here (perhaps a psychological one): if you do not see the end before your eyes, you are complacent and do not make use of your time. Therefore it is worthwhile to train yourself to be aware of death in order to do more meaningful things. Fine.
He is then asked, “Why is the idea of meaning hard to understand?”, and answers:
On the one hand, it is the force that truly moves human beings. The question of meaning touches on the question: what is the thing for whose sake you would be willing to sacrifice and give things up. Some would say money, sex, power. On the other hand, some would say happiness – which is the greatest enemy of a person’s life.
What we have here is a psychological question: what motivates a human being, that is, for what is he willing to pay a price. And the answer, which is also apparently on the psychological plane: money, sex, and power. Others say that happiness motivates us (what exactly is the relation between it and money, sex, and power? That is unclear). But how does all this relate to meaning?
In response to the interviewer’s puzzlement, he elaborates on why happiness is the great enemy and clarifies the previous statement:
Happiness is a dangerous concept. People think that what drives them is happiness, and that this is what they need to attain, and worst of all, this is how they educate their children. This idea leads to enormous personal and social damage. On what basis do you build a family, a community, work? On the basis of meaning. Sometimes workplaces fail at this. The central thing that will motivate your employees is whether you offer them the chance to play in the realm of meaning; otherwise they will leave you. What truly motivates people and entire societies is meaning. Look at identity politics, the identity war that today brings out of people the most aggressive and violent place. That is what happens when you touch people in their sense of meaning.
Here the claim becomes clearer: people think that what motivates them is happiness (apparently the combination of money, sex, and power, though the “on the other hand” above is puzzling), whereas the truth is that what motivates them is meaning. He even has empirical evidence: workplaces fail because they strive for happiness. Such places would succeed if they offered their employees meaning. Meaning is something deeper, as can be seen from identity politics.
Does he deny the fact that people act for the sake of money, sex, and power? That these matter to them? It seems that he is claiming that they do indeed act for the sake of those goals, but that they are making a mistake. Why? Because in the end they will be disappointed. In the final analysis, it will not satisfy them.
The example he offers comes from managing workplaces. Fine, but again this is a claim in management theory: places that play in the arena of meaning will succeed more than those that play in the arena of happiness (money, sex, and power). This can be tested empirically, and indeed there are quite a few management theories that say precisely this. But where is the philosophy here?
He now clarifies further:
According to this conception, if you are suffering – something is defective in your life, and that is perhaps the main thing that must be uprooted. One must understand that every worthwhile activity involves suffering. I freed myself from the yoke of happiness, from this totalizing injunction.
If you live on automatic pilot or live someone else’s life, that is the most terrible thing. In a relationship you can live ideal lives, but those are your partner’s ideals, not yours. When you discover that – it is terrible.
If this is a philosophical discussion and not a psychological one, then we ought to understand that it is “terrible” in value terms (and not in experiential terms). But then I would expect some kind of rationale. From his remarks it seems more likely that he means a psychological claim about feelings. That is, he means to say that such situations are experienced by us as something “terrible”. If so, this is once again a psychological statement (whether true or not; it can be tested empirically).
Incidentally, does the feeling of something terrible and awful mean that you are not happy? Then what is the problem with that, if happiness is not the important thing?! In fact there is a conflation here between happiness and meaning, since his claim is that only meaning gives us happiness. So this is not a clash between meaning and happiness but between different senses of happiness. Once again we have returned to the province of psychology (a factual claim: what gives human beings happiness, which can and should be examined empirically).
Are Azoulay’s remarks philosophy?
At this stage the interviewer finds it appropriate to present Azoulay:
The philosopher Dr. Shimon Azoulay, 47, who studies meaning at the Hebrew University and has also written the book ‘The End of Happiness,’ shatters in his interview with ‘Lady Globes’ a series of axioms and slaughters sacred cows that stand at the foundation of entrenched conceptions. He analyzes how contemporary culture reshuffles the deck.
He is engaged in the study (presumably philosophical) of meaning. Up to this point we have seen him present several psychological determinations that are open to fairly simple empirical examination. Moreover, I have an unfounded suspicion that the research he does on meaning is done from the armchair and not in the field by way of genuine empirical testing (perhaps with reliance on the results of field studies carried out by others).
Well, you will say that this is the essence of philosophy, no? After all, I myself argued that it ought to be carried out by intuitive observation rather than sensory-scientific observation. The problem is that this is research into distinctly psychological questions, and here armchair research is not exactly a recommended tool. When things can be checked empirically, and instead one conducts armchair research, that is one of the things that give philosophy a bad name, and justifiably so. It resembles Aristotelian science, which through armchair research reached the far-reaching conclusion that objects fall to the ground at a speed proportional to their mass (and I already remarked that one does not need a particle accelerator to test this empirically and discover that it is nonsense). But a few thousand years have passed since then, and we have learned a few things about the importance of observation in science. Intuitive observations, which are the essence of philosophical discussion, are meant for the investigation of concepts and subjects that are not accessible to ordinary scientific-observational research, not to replace scientific research with speculations pulled out of thin air.
So what could count as a philosophical claim regarding happiness or meaning?
For example, the claim that one ought to live for the sake of meaning and not for the sake of happiness. This is a claim about values, and therefore there is no way to test it empirically. It also, of course, does not depend on facts, psychological or otherwise (such as whether it will make you happy or make you feel “terrible and awful”).
Here is another psychological passage:
The human being is a creature driven by ideas and ideals about what money is, what love is, what justice is. These ideas come from many places: advertisements, Hollywood, the education system – ideas are what shape you, only many times they are stupid, corrupted. Quite often, if you do not understand why things are not working out for you – after all, you are doing everything right – the reason is that your ‘Waze’ is broken.
Fine, this is interesting, but it still belongs to the psychology of the masses. One can try to test it empirically (for example, to check whether those who were not exposed to Hollywood live differently). For a moment one may get the impression that he means “corrupted ideas” in a value sense, and then we really would be dealing with philosophy. But immediately afterward he explains that there are consequences (“things are not working out for you”). Perhaps lurking behind his words is a philosophical assumption that what is valuable also succeeds and brings happiness, and vice versa? That is an interesting claim, but here too I would have been happy to see some rationale. In fact, first of all I would expect a philosopher to formulate it and place it on the table.
Defining the philosopher’s role
At this point Azoulay moves on to define the philosopher’s role. This is a central passage, because it may shed light on his claims and on their philosophical significance:
As a philosopher, what is my work? My role is to heal ideas, to offer a repair of concepts and ideas. Philosophy is unique in its ability to shatter one space and create another in its place.
What interests me is what echoes in people’s heads about what happiness is. Happiness is perceived as the total absence of suffering, difficulty, and effort. This conception prevents coping. Look at Generation Y, look at the damage that has been done here. An entire generation was educated by a generation that wanted what was best for its children under the idea of happiness happiness happiness. They created a generation that is unwilling to exert itself and that rejects every suffering and difficulty.
They get hired and after two weeks they leave, because suddenly they discover that one has to work. For 20-30 years they wrapped them in a cocoon of ‘the main thing is my happiness.’ If you are sad for a second, then something here is defective, to the point that they caused the value of reality to be nullified. A child comes home from school sad, and the parent asks: ‘Why?’ He answers: ‘I failed a test,’ and the parent tries to encourage him: ‘It is all right, sweetheart, it is not so important.’ He nullifies the value of the test in order to save the child’s emotional world.
Reality presents failures and difficulties, and he removes them in order to prevent hardship. Tests? Not important. Challenges? Not important. If that is the case, then I will not make an effort next time. In the end this harms my future ability to cope.
Here we have moved from psychology to coaching (applied psychology, or pseudo-existentialism). If you pursue happiness, you will not attain it, you will not succeed in life, and then you will also feel disappointment and frustration. If you do not cope with difficulties, you will not succeed. Again, this all seems quite true to me, but where is the philosophy here?
Disappointment and crisis
At some point he expresses his disappointment with philosophers:
The question of meaning arises when meaning collapses, when there is no meaning. You would expect that in thought this would be the question dealt with most, but the philosophical world hardly deals with it, and in my eyes this is almost a betrayal. It has disconnected itself from the challenges of society; it has abandoned the world of ideas in favor of foolish forces like New Age and the happiness industry
Why is this a question that thought ought to deal with? At least by his own definitions, this is a question in psychology. The question whether one ought to live a life of meaning is a question in philosophy. But the question what happens when one lives without meaning, and how one manages to train for a life of meaning, consists of scientific questions.
But all this cannot be detached from the definition of meaning. So let us now turn to that.
What is meaning?
Azoulay offers his definition of meaning:
For me, meaning is connected to traces. In order to enter the game of meaning, you have to do, to carry things out. Sometimes we do not carry things out because we are afraid, because there is an element of uncertainty, and I deny that to myself. No, I will not go and stand on a stage, I will not bake a cake, because maybe they will say it is not tasty, I will not leave the job. All because of the fear that the traces will not manage to flourish. Meaning, just as it promises, is paralyzing, because what happens if you do not succeed? If the article you wrote is met with mockery, or worse than that – with indifference.
Meaning is always something outside you. Meaning is your traces in the world. This is the hidden way to overcome death; my traces have a chance to echo in the world after my death. The deepest expression of meaning is sharing, because that is how my traces echo in the world…
A person is far more willing to die for his traces than for himself. Ask any reasonable parent whether he would prefer that something happen to him and not to his children. Freud, who suffered terribly before his death and used opium, preferred not to take it so as not to harm his work. The same is true of athletes: they are willing to suffer so much for the sake of inscribing their traces in history. The Olympics is not a game of sport; it is a game of meaning. Billions watch a game of meaning. My goal is to save the next generation, to educate children toward meaning and to train in meaning.
I am inclined to accept his proposal that meaning is something beyond you. True, he interprets this as a life in which you leave a mark on the world, a kind of self-perpetuation. I agree with that too, but that does not exhaust the claim that meaning is “something beyond you” (I will discuss this further below).
In any case, even when discussing the meaning of the concept of meaning, one must clarify whether this is a definition of the concept in its accepted usage (dictionary), a practical proposal for arriving at a feeling of meaning (coaching), or the outlining of some value (this is how one ought to live), in which case we really are dealing with philosophy.
If it is the outlining of a value, the question is on what it is based. Why ought one to live this way? One can of course argue that values cannot be grounded (following Leibowitz). Why is life valuable? Just because. Why is helping others valuable? Just because. Actions can be classified as good or bad given a system of values. But the values themselves cannot receive an explanation on the basis of something outside them (otherwise that external thing would be the value, and what we called values here would merely be its derivatives). But if so, perhaps one can treat such statements as philosophical statements, yet this is not a discussion with any added value. By the same token, the statement that murder is forbidden belongs to philosophy, but as long as you have not done anything intelligent with it, it is hard to see this as a philosophical discussion of value.
So what, after all, can a philosopher contribute in this area?
I am not sure all that much, but even so he has a place here too. First, he must discuss the question of what meaning is and not merely talk about meaning. A discussion of what one ought to do and why is a philosophical discussion. A discussion of implications, of connections to other values and ideas, and the like, will also be a philosophical discussion. So too, the discussion of what meaning is in its philosophical sense (as distinct from the psychological one), if such a sense exists at all, is a philosophical discussion. Azoulay does none of this here, and therefore his remarks bear no relation, in any way I can discern, to philosophy.
It seems to me that the most basic thing in a philosophical investigation of meaning is the distinction between meaning in its philosophical sense and meaning in a psychological sense. Viktor Frankl (who of course was a psychologist), in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, proposes meaning as a psychological focus. Some saw him as the founder of a new Viennese psychological school: after the schools of Freud and Adler, which located the human engine in sex (psychoanalysis) and in honor (or individuality), he proposes locating the basic human engine in meaning. For him, of course, this is a claim in psychology and not in philosophy. Admittedly, in so general a formulation it cannot be tested empirically, and in order to do so one would have to pour more concrete content into it, but still the proper classification of Frankl’s claims is under psychology and not under philosophy. Frankl offers us a way to live happier and more fulfilled lives, not more correct lives in some objective sense. That is a claim of psychological fact and not a philosophical claim. So what is meaning in its philosophical sense? Is there even such a sense?
Subjective and objective meaning
It seems to me that the basic principle that must be discussed in a philosophical discussion of meaning is the question of the connection to what lies outside you (mentioned above). For Viktor Frankl, the claim is that a person needs to find meaning for himself as a psychological tool. If something fills a person and gives taste to his life, that is meaning. There is no need for that meaning to be anchored in something outside him. A person creates the meaning of his life with his own hands, and each person has his own meaning. One is fulfilled by training for a marathon, another by establishing charitable mutual-aid institutions, and a third by some form of scientific excellence. All of these are meanings that a person creates for himself, and they are assessed in terms of his feelings and his satisfaction.
But that cannot be meaning in its philosophical sense (for it is a factual claim). Philosophical meaning must include reference to something objective outside me. Otherwise, as noted, we are dealing with psychology. God, or some other transcendent being, can give meaning to things, or to a person’s life. In a world devoid of such beings there is no room for meaning in its philosophical sense. In such a world, meaning necessarily belongs to the psychological realm. In its philosophical sense, meaning functions like a value, for with respect to values too (as I showed in the fourth notebook, part 3) they cannot exist without some source outside us. Otherwise we are dealing with psychology (what I feel) and not ethics (what ought to be and what is right).
So, in order for our lives to have meaning, not in the psychological sense (that is, that we feel they are meaningful) but in the philosophical sense (that they really have meaning), there must be an external yardstick against which that meaning is measured. God can provide a yardstick that gives meaning to one who lives in a world that He created. A human being cannot do this, because “a person dwells as a stranger within himself”. He cannot create an independent criterion that measures him (see on this in the series on freedom and liberty, especially in Column 128).
Implications for my definition of philosophy
The brief discussion I have conducted here sharpens my definition of philosophy as intuitive observation. In order for us to talk about meaning in its philosophical sense, there must be something else out there that defines it, and that is what we are dealing with when we talk about meaning. This expresses the fact that philosophy is a kind of observation outward and not burrowing inward. Meaning in its psychological sense is burrowing inward, but in order to move to the philosophical plane we must deal with something outside us, conduct a kind of observation.
Frankl is a psychologist and not a philosopher, because he deals with us and not with something outside us. Psychological engagement with meaning can be either observation, finding within ourselves a sense of what can give us meaning – and then it is science; or inventing meaning and convincing ourselves to feel that it fills us – and then it is delusion. These are exactly the two possibilities assumed by Ron Aharoni, and so he concludes that philosophy does not exist. As I have shown, the alternative is to understand that what is involved is non-sensory, non-scientific observation of the world.
Therefore Azoulay’s remarks in the interview cannot belong to the philosophical sphere. He does not speak about the essence of meaning, about its contents, about its sources (God), but is basically giving the advice of a coach who helps us find psychological meaning in our lives and improve them (not in the sense of happiness but in the sense of meaning, which is in fact also a kind of happiness). That is also why his criteria are what we feel when we live without meaning. This is a psychological discussion, in one of the two senses defined above (delusion or inner observation).
For Azoulay, meaning is a kind of drive. Human beings seek meaning, and therefore as long as this drive is not satisfied they will feel bad. This is patently a psychological assertion. One may argue against him that the search for meaning is merely a special case of the pursuit of happiness, except that in his view (as a matter of fact) happiness comes from meaning and not from money or ordinary pleasures. So what is the essential difference? But meaning in its philosophical sense, if there is such a thing, is connected to truth and not to satisfaction or psychological motivation.
One can of course argue that there is no meaning in this sense, and therefore there is no room for discussion. An atheist or materialist will probably think so. And indeed we saw in previous columns that a materialist must accept Aharoni’s analysis, and therefore from his perspective there really is no philosophical sphere. Every such discussion is either scientific-factual observation or delusion.
Reflection
What is the nature of this very discussion that I have conducted here? It seems that it too is a philosophical discussion. It contains clarification of concepts and distinction between planes of discussion, and it also involves intuitive observation of these concepts and of the relation between philosophy and psychology. A discussion of the relation between those two is itself philosophy.
Beyond that, there is room for further philosophical discussions on the subject of meaning. Except that these will take us into the regions of metaphysics (whether God exists or not, and what He demands). Those who try to create philosophy where it is not, that is, atheists or at least people trying to avoid bringing God into the discussion, necessarily fall into the trap that Aharoni presented.
Summary
In the end I tend to agree with most of what he says (this too, of course, only from my comfortable armchair, and without the pretension of saying it as a “researcher of meaning,” and even without a university salary for these “researches” of mine). So then, you will surely ask, why does all this matter at all? If the claims are interesting and/or true, why does it matter whether this is psychology or philosophy? (And even if not, then just say so, and that is that.) First, this makes a practical difference for betrothal (a yeshiva joke). Beyond that, what we have here is a live demonstration of Aharoni’s criticism of this field, and also of the correct way to escape it. Statements that sound very deep and fundamental turn out to be factual claims accessible to empirical research or delusion. But philosophy is neither empirical science from the armchair nor delusions. Philosophy ought to focus on domains inaccessible to science and to scientific observation, yet say about them something meaningful (not delusions and not trivial claims). For that it requires intuitive observation of that part of the world that is relevant to this discussion. The discussion I conducted here is important in order to clarify where thought and intuitive observation (philosophy) have their place, as opposed to science and sensory observations and as opposed to delusions, and also to demonstrate why and how the great confusion surrounding this subject is created.
Aharoni, who thought there was nothing beyond what is grasped in scientific and sensory observation, argues that the field is empty, and from his perspective he is right. Others, who ostensibly engage in philosophy but implicitly actually share his conception, present lazy claims (from the armchair instead of from the field) in applied psychology, or sheer delusions, as though they were deep philosophy. Aharoni criticizes them, and entirely justly. The only alternative that allows us to define philosophy and understand its role is to identify those domains that are not accessible to scientific observation, and to try to say about them something non-trivial (preferably intelligent as well) by means of intuitive observation.
One more remark in conclusion
Think about what was said in this interview that is not said every day by any ordinary mashgiach (yeshiva spiritual supervisor) in a type-C yeshiva (or actually a type-A mashgiach in a type-A yeshiva). Nothing. Every day you can hear from the preacher on duty in the yeshiva or synagogue that one has to suffer and not recoil from hard work, that it is not right to chase pleasures, and that if you do so then you will arrive at rest and inheritance (both in terms of the proper spiritual-ethical ideal and in terms of the psychological reality). So why does this always sound banal, boring, and shallow when it comes from the mashgichim, whereas with Azoulay, for some reason, the remarks sound to many of us deep, exciting, and innovative? I truly do not see any substantive difference, except that he has a doctorate. Ah, and also that he is a rockstar…
Discussion
I once heard Rabbi משה שפירא zt"l say: "A person seeks to give his existence meaning just as God wanted to give His existence meaning when He created the world (the image of God)." That statement, which at first sounded radical to me until I got used to it, made me think about the translation of the word "mashma'ut". In Hebrew the word "mashma'ut" translates two different concepts in English: the concept of MEANING and the concept of SIGNIFICANCE. The second concept requires something outside of me, and Hebrew, by using the same translation for both, is in effect expressing its view of MEANING too as something that requires something outside of me.
*Your three granddaughters (unless they are transgender (or transgenders? I'm not sure), in which case maybe one could say they are determined as granddaughters according to their sex but counted according to their gender)
I tend to think both meanings require something outside of me. I'm also not sure about the identification you made. It seems to me that both can be interpreted as meaning in Frankl's sense or in the philosophical sense.
Corrected. Many thanks.
Could this be Tema, of blessed memory, who switched links? The content and style really remind me of him.
By the way, I don't think the ideas here are ill-defined. But as for patience, I really don't have any. For me this was an exercise and a demonstration of things I wrote in the previous columns. The real punch line will come in the next column.
You are very critical of junk science, but in this article as in others you do not treat psychology as junk science. Is your criticism of it only on the practical level, or in fact do you have no criticism at all?
As for defining philosophy: the philosopher believes in judgment against religious fanaticism and following desires. Ecclesiastes is the example of a biblical philosopher. Logic sharpens judgment. Science transfers it to the empirical plane. I once thought of proposing, opposite the Kookist model, the following description: "A God-fearing person who acts with God through judgment." First of all, we are God-fearing. Acting with God expresses our autonomy, and judgment expresses our commitment to rationalism.
I am very critical of psychology and its scientific pretensions. That is certainly true on the practical plane, but also in principle (a considerable portion of its claims are not scientifically testable at all. Psychoanalysis, for example, is a branch of speculative philosophy). Most things there are not really well-founded. Still, questions like those he raised are empirically testable, and it is not proper to deal with them from the armchair.
As I wrote, if he had said that one ought to live a life of meaning rather than a life of happiness, that would have been a philosophical claim, because it deals with what ought to be and not with what is. But I got the impression that this was not what he was claiming there. Beyond that, this itself is a rather banal statement, and it is hard to call it a philosophical discussion (like the statement that one must not murder. That too is a statement that belongs to philosophy, but there is no intelligent discussion here, so it cannot be regarded as a philosophical discussion).
I am puzzled why Tema would use my name.
But since we are under suspicion, I have a request of Tema: please write to our teacher Rabbi R. Michael, may he live long, with the respect due to him, and things worthy enough that I too may be honored by them, for from today you are writing in my name as well.
For my part, I will try to write things that will honor you.
Apparently I was mistaken. That's how it seemed to me from the character of the message.
With God's help, 13 Av 5778
R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik already taught us about the contradictory traits in man: on the one hand, he is the 'man of faith,' awestruck before the infinite light of his God, 'the light of Y-H'; and on the other hand, he is the 'man of majesty,' capable of creating, building worlds, and perfecting them.
The point of connection between faith and majesty is philo-sophy, which seeks to be 'watching' the infinite divine light and to define it in 'finite' rules and patterns, and therefore—capable of being observed and understood.
The creative ability of the 'man of majesty' stems from his faith that creation has laws and rules, and from the expectation that the more we labor to seek them out, the closer we come to understanding them; and the more we understand, the more we will know how to perfect the world and adapt it to its divine destiny.
In short:
Out of contemplation, which defines the rules and laws of the world, we can adorn and perfect it; and conversely, our wonder at the infinite light of God grows..
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
With God's help, 14 Av 5778
R. Soloveitchik's view that 'hadar' is man's ability to create and act in the world can fit nicely with some verses in the Book of Proverbs.
For example: 'In a multitude of people is a king's glory' (14:28), where the king's splendor lies in his ability to rule over a great people. Likewise in the verse, 'The glory of young men is their strength, and the splendor of old men is gray hair' (20:29), one can say that the influence of the young on the world is through their strength, which enables them to achieve great things, whereas the influence of the old is their gray hair, through which people listen to the wisdom and experience they have accumulated in life.
However, in the chapter on the 'woman of valor' (Proverbs 31), hadar seems connected to a reality beyond this world, a 'larger-than-life' reality. Therefore the woman of valor who is 'clothed in strength and splendor' does not fear death, and 'she laughs at the last day.' Her splendor is inward and does not depend only on her influence in this world, but rather as it says of the king in Psalms 45: 'And in your majesty ride on prosperously, because of truth and humble righteousness…'.
The inner splendor of the woman of valor leads her, on the one hand, to engage in matters of the spirit beyond this world—'she opens her mouth with wisdom.' Yet her spiritual greatness is also translated into vigorous action to improve the world—'and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue; she watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.'
The splendor of the woman of valor resembles the 'light of the Lord's countenance' described in the blessing 'Grant peace'—'for by the light of Your countenance You gave us… a Torah of life and lovingkindness'—a lofty spiritual level that requires a person to influence the world with 'righteousness and blessing and life and peace.'
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
Yaakov M.—although I usually tended to agree with your responses and opinions, this time I disagree utterly with your crowning Michael Abraham as "our teacher the rabbi," etc..
I will explain to you and to the site editor my discourse. I came across this site while searching and engaging with some philosophical topic that I no longer remember. Philosophy (in the sense discussed in the recent posts) is, in my eyes, an immensely powerful tool, and in fact the only tool that enables a person to attain any cognition through the faculties of cognition, to critique them, distinguish among the solidity of different cognitions, understand their nature, clarify vague concepts and ideas for praise or blame, and above all distinguish between objective cognitions, whose source is reason and the senses and which can be discussed, and subjective sensations, which belong to emotion, will, and imagination, where discourse has no real value (even if it is more enjoyable).
At the same time, I too suffer greatly from the empty egg-bubbling uttered by many who masquerade as philosophical ideas and bring philosophy as a whole into disrepute, whereas to my understanding no person has any possibility of denying its basic ideas. Therefore, when I encountered this site, my heart rejoiced, for I found in it many things that matched my outlook on the plane of ontology and epistemology, with zero tolerance for vague ideas or for those that do not stand the test of reason (well, perhaps here and there there are exceptions, but let us let them pass).
However, little by little I saw that a considerable portion of the ideas appearing here on matters of Judaism are strange, with touches of heresy, sectarianism, and apostasy—not only in the view of Maimonides, Sefer Ha-Ikkarim, or the Kuzari, but according to what is explained in explicit passages of the Gemara. I am not speaking of the halakhic discussions found here and there, which to my understanding suffer from shallow superficiality and do not get to the heart of the matter from the sources of halakhah through the halakhic issue under discussion (and which remind one of the style of those who sit in university chairs rather than those who sit in yeshivot and the rabbis throughout the ages), but rather of those principles of faith that every Jew is commanded to believe.
The central idea on which all the problematic views mentioned above depend is the argument that all factual claims (about the past, present, and future) stated by the Written Torah/Oral Torah or the Sages, whether in a halakhic context or in any context whatsoever, are not things we are obligated to believe (even if from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself), but rather it is incumbent upon us to examine them with such-and-such tools to see whether they are indeed acceptable to us.
From this premise it follows, for example, that when the Sages determined that it is permitted to kill a louse because it does not reproduce, they erred; and so too in a number of similar examples where the halakhah is based on factual determinations that ostensibly do not accord with what seems to us, so clearly the Sages erred in this. (An answer not stated by any of the accepted halakhic decisors throughout the generations.)
The same applies to several principles of faith: resurrection of the dead, the World to Come, reward and punishment, providence of any sort, the power of prayer/Torah to protect a person, Torah from Heaven (in its entirety!), and more. All of these are factual claims, and although they have been accepted by all God-fearing Jews for several thousand years, and such a strange and bizarre claim to deny all of the above wholesale and accept only those that fit our empirical findings has never once been heard—this does not disturb the peace of mind of the thinker of these views..
So the editor of this site may perhaps excel in belief in the reality of God and in His incorporeality, but regarding the rest of the principles of faith, his opinions are strange and unprecedented, unheard of from time immemorial.
I know that the claim that these ideas are innovative will not cause Michael Abraham to retract his views, but I am sure that any outside observer who understands היטב what is at stake here, and who is standing on the scales—on one side him and his views, and on the other explicit verses in the Torah, explicit Gemaras, Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim, and not one of all these ever claimed that all the factual claims above must pass an empirical test before we adopt them—it is hard for me to believe that anyone would choose to follow him rather than cleave to the accepted tradition.
I quote here from Maimonides regarding the fundamentals every Jew is obligated to believe, and without which he has no share in the World to Come (which, in itself, I am not sure Abraham believes in), and I would expect Abraham to clarify whether these views are consistent with Maimonides or with any other commentator or decisor ever, and thus perhaps spare me the attempt to go principle by principle and check whether Abraham accepts it or not.
I note that I have no personal stake in the matter and do not wish to be dragged into labels and insults, but rather to discuss these views fairly and honestly.
Laws of Repentance, chapter 3, halakhot 6–8
6. And these are those who have no share in the World to Come, but are cut off, perish, and are judged for the greatness of their wickedness and sin forever and ever: the sectarians, the apostates, those who deny the Torah, those who deny the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the redeemer, rebels, and those who cause the many to sin…
7. Five are called sectarians: one who says there is no God and no leader of the world; one who says there is a leader but there are two or more; one who says there is one Master but that He is a body and has a form; and likewise one who says He is not the sole First Being and Rock of all; and one who worships a star or constellation or anything else in order that it serve as an intermediary between him and the Master of the worlds—each one of these five is a sectarian.
8. Three are called apostates: one who says there is no prophecy at all and no knowledge that reaches the hearts of human beings from the Creator; one who denies the prophecy of Moses our teacher; and one who says that the Creator does not know human actions—each one of these three is an apostate. Three are those who deny the Torah: one who says the Torah is not from God—even one verse, even one word—if he says Moses said it of his own accord, behold he is one who denies the Torah. And likewise one who denies its interpretation, which is the Oral Torah, and denies its transmitters, such as Zadok and Boethus…
To Tema:
Already Nahmanides objected to Maimonides regarding the first commandment in Sefer HaMitzvot, "to believe that there is a God," that one cannot command belief in matters of fact.
And let me add one more point, with your permission.
All my life I wondered about the Gemara in Sanhedrin, which was satisfied with defining an apikores as one who disparages sages, and did not require all thirteen principles of Maimonides and everything derivative that Maimonides requires concerning sectarians and the like. Today, however, I think that is enough. I am but dust and ashes, and who am I to speak? Yet the Talmud's ruling is enough for me, and I do not need even the thirteen principles of Maimonides. I have already been following the site for over a year and have not seen Rabbi Michi disparaging Torah scholars. The only one I have seen him disparage is Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, may he live long, toward whom Rabbi Michi has some personal vendetta for some reason, and whom he sees as fitting the verse, "Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord" (those who hate You in the sense that they make others hate God; though for some reason he does not apply this hatred to other such people).
You may say—who am I, Y.D., to speak? I do not speak. Yet I still ask: please, not in Your anger.
To Tema, my friend,
Like you, I seek people after my own heart—or more precisely, after my own mind. I too found on Michael Abraham's site a discourse that, in terms of its level and honesty, is a refreshing novelty. In addition, surprisingly, the level and style of the comments on the site are substantive and respectful. A site of this kind, expressing opinions on burning issues, draws like a magnet mindless people who disgrace the discussion. And here, remarkably, miracle of miracles… may it continue so, with God's help.
As for Michael Abraham, clearly according to Maimonides (and most of the Rishonim), his views entitle him to the title of consummate apikores. It seems to me that Michael himself would also admit this (he is usually an honest man).
But with all due respect, what is the point of bringing a philosopher rulings of Maimonides? You yourself say you are looking for philosophy. After all, you learned how to understand Maimonides' plain meaning in yeshiva (apparently, judging by your style, in Hebron or one of its offshoots like Ateret Yisrael and the like). You do not need people like Michael on such matters; after all, you've seen a thing or two…
Let's see you fight his views on his own field—philosophy.
After all, you yourself are fighting with the apikores within you. If Maimonides' ruling were enough for you, what would you have to do with philosophy?
Personally, I am grateful to Michael not because he teaches heresy, but because he strengthens me to fight his views—because he helps sharpen issues. He hides nothing and does not speak ambiguously; everything is put in a hard and jarring way.
A suggestion to Michi (or the site administrator):
Please allow anyone who wants to expose his email address to certain commenters with whom he wants to be in contact; perhaps fruitful cooperation will emerge among the commenters on the site.
I'll just make a few comments:
1. I do not demand empirical proof for anything. My claim is that authority has no meaning in factual domains. If I am convinced, then I believe it; and if not—then not. Appeals to authority have no meaning whatsoever. No one has ever disagreed with this, because it is a necessary philosophical-conceptual determination. Does one need empirical proof in order to be convinced? Not necessarily. I have devoted several books to showing that there is no such animal as empirical proof (for even the laws of nature are based on generalizations and conjectures).
And my remarks apply in particular to statements of the Holy One, blessed be He. Of course there is no doubt that they are certainly true, since He knows everything. But even that is not authority but persuasion (I do not accept it because the Holy One has authority, but because I assume He knows and therefore is correct). Of course one must discuss which statements are actually statements of the Holy One and what is merely people's interpretation of His words (the vast majority belong to the second category).
It is true that I do not regard our sages throughout the generations as heavenly seraphim incapable of error; therefore even what is accepted by all the sages of the generations is not necessarily correct in my eyes. And this too seems obvious to me, like an egg: human beings can err.
2. I have already written that I do not think Maimonides would define me as an apikores. I deny none of the principles; I only wonder whether they are correct and to what extent (mainly regarding providence). True, even if he did define me that way, it would not matter to me. And by the way, there were also those who defined him that way, so in any case I am in good company.
3. And in conclusion, I would be very happy if no one regarded me as his rabbi and teacher. Anyone who does so does so at his own risk. At most, one may regard me as your rabbi and teacher in sense B of Hazon-Ishnikism. For as is well known, there are two kinds of Hazon-Ishniks in the marketplace: A. Those who do everything written in his books. B. Those who do what seems right in their own eyes, just as he himself did.
Anyone who wants to publish his email address may do so in the message itself.
Y.D.
1. The Nahmanides you cited is not talking at all about factual claims; rather he argues specifically against Maimonides' position that there is a commandment to believe, because there is apparently a logical failure in such a command: in order to receive it and obey it, you must already believe that the Creator exists, and if you already believe in God, there is no point in such a command. This has no connection whatsoever to factual claims.
2. The Gemara does not speak only about one who disparages Torah scholars; rather, all the principles that Maimonides brings there in the Laws of Repentance originate in Gemaras here and there (most of them from the sugyot in the chapter Helek in Sanhedrin). As is well known, Maimonides does not invent halakhot without sources in the Gemara. Specifically, one who disparages Torah scholars is not mentioned there in Maimonides.
In any case, this is not the place to open up all the halakhot, but learn Maimonides there with the commentaries and you will find the sources.
Yaakov M.
1. I do not think that according to most of the Rishonim Abraham is an apikores; rather, according to all of them. Find me one rabbinic authority in history who questioned all factual claims that do not fit the empirical findings or our own reasoning (even Moses our teacher had difficulty with the question of the righteous who suffer—meaning the visible side of reward and punishment in this world—and remained a believer). We are not talking here about some particular commentator or decisor, but about entire sugyot in the Gemara that were codified as halakhah. On the contrary, I would be glad to find someone like that. I too appreciate Abraham with regard to logic and philosophy, but on these matters his views are strange, innovative, and do not fit any traditional approach.
2. I do not engage in these topics out of a desire to spar with the apikores in me, but in order to clarify and understand them well.
As a general rule, in every philosophical discussion one should distinguish between understanding concepts and arguments and clarifying the validity of the inferences that follow from them (as well as exhausting all such inferences and examining their validity), and checking whether the arguments before us are valid or are some kind of axioms.
In Judaism there are many axioms, scriptural decrees that we accept as premises and do not try to test their validity. That is true both in the sphere of practical halakhah and in the sphere of thought and doctrine (which, to my understanding, is also halakhic, though not on the practical plane but on the plane of thought). I do not use philosophical/logical tools to contend with those premises and try to determine their validity in my eyes. My use of these tools is only to clarify concepts and arguments, remove ambiguity, and demand consistency in all these matters; likewise to consider everything that can be inferred from those premises. As stated, these things apply both to practical halakhah and to theoretical halakhah. I hope the matter is more or less clear.
3. For that reason I do not think one can fight over those axioms in the philosophical arena. They do not stand the test of logic and philosophy, and never needed this sort of critique.
Michi
1. You argue that conceptually one cannot command belief in factual claims, but rather each person is supposed to weigh, on the basis of this or that evidence, whether they are indeed acceptable to him.
First, I do not agree that one cannot command belief in factual claims. As a matter of fact, most principles of faith are commands to believe factual claims (and they are well anchored in the Oral Torah, explicit Gemaras, and all the decisors), so how can you erase them all and claim that there is a flaw in the very command to believe?
Second, nearly all God-fearing people throughout the generations saw in the Sages a formal authority even with regard to principles of faith. On whom/what do you rely
when you erase that so easily?
2. From what I have seen in various places on the site, your problem is not specifically with providence but with all factual claims that lack strong support. This includes almost all the principles, and with respect to all of them I am almost certain that if you try to discuss them in an objective, dry scientific manner, your opinion will incline not to accept them (nobody got up in resurrection of the dead, came back from the World to Come, etc.).
After all, you yourself claim that it is impossible to bring direct empirical proof for anything, so how can one decide on such an essential issue on the basis of all kinds of circumstantial evidence?
3. On what basis do you determine formal authority for the Sages in matters of halakhah? What is the source for this? And why do you accept that source?
By the way, it is a mistake that the Sages have binding authority even if they erred. This is true only in very specific cases like sanctifying the month (where it says "you—even if mistaken, even if inadvertent," etc.). Elsewhere, an error in ruling nullifies the ruling. There are distinctions concerning what type of mistake is involved, whether regarding court rulings in Horayot (which is what Tractate Horayot discusses) or an erroneous ruling by a court (Gemara Sanhedrin, Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 25), and the main distinction there is between an error in an explicit mishnah and an error in judgment.
4. You write that in your understanding you are not an apikores according to Maimonides because you do not cast doubt on the principles but simply do not accept them in their current form. What exactly is the difference between the two formulations?
5. I think it would be proper for you to present an orderly doctrine of all your views, with explicit, detailed reference to all the halakhic sources relevant to the matter, and clarify whether and how they are consistent with all of them.
Dear Tema, greetings.
In general there are strange confusions in your words. Even if we assume I am saying things no ear has ever heard, that does not make me an apikores (as is known, so did R. Eliezer). Even if none of the sages of Israel agrees with my interpretation, that too does not make me such a person. Is everyone who writes an unusual opinion an apikores? (Maimonides too would be an apikores by that definition.) From where did you draw this bizarre claim? If the whole world and his wife are accustomed to seeing the Gemara as a source of authority even regarding facts, does that make it so? Certainly not. If there are manifest errors in the Gemara, must we deny what is evident? What did Maimonides do with sorcery, demons, evil spirits, and the like? Why does he explicitly write otherwise in the Guide for the Perplexed (and his words were cited in his son's letter printed at the beginning of Ein Yaakov), that there is no authority regarding facts and one should accept the truth from whoever says it (from the sugya in Pesahim that the sphere stands still and the constellations move)? Well, as I said, he too was an apikores.
By the way, by your definition you too are an apikores, since you hold a bizarre opinion that no one agrees with (that whoever holds a minority opinion or an individual opinion is an apikores).
As for your factual claim, here too you are mistaken and misleading. There have been those who said quite a few of the things I wrote. Even if they are a minority view, I have never heard that it is forbidden to hold a minority view and that whoever does so is an apikores. Especially when he is obviously right, of course. And well known are the Kotzker's words that against the truth there is no majority ("truth has been cast to the ground").
But as stated, even if there were such a prohibition—it would be nonsense on the logical level. Therefore it would not trouble me.
As for your request that I present my doctrine in an orderly way, I have done so regarding several of the issues on this site itself (without success, because apparently you either do not read or do not understand). I do so more broadly and systematically in the trilogy I am writing. You will have to search here and/or be patient.
And now, to your specific claims against me:
1. This question is based on an error. Even if there is a command dealing with facts, it is null and void like the dust of the earth. It is like a command to say that day is night (that right is left), or that a triangle is round. The reason for this is twofold: such a command cannot be fulfilled (unless you convince me it is true). And in any event it is clear that there is no such command (for the Holy One, blessed be He, is not a fool as you describe Him). Suppose I think there is no providence. Now there is a command upon me to believe there is providence. What am I to do? If I am convinced, because the Torah is surely right, then I am convinced. Now I do this not because of the command but because I have been convinced. But if I am not convinced, does this command expect me to recite something I do not believe? The command is to believe in providence, not to say there is providence. So please, kindly explain to me how I am supposed to fulfill this command. In other words, kindly explain to me how formal authority over facts could possibly exist.
For example, Maimonides cites the prohibition of "you shall not go astray," and yet he himself dealt with all the forbidden literature (books of idolatry and heresy of all kinds). How do you explain that? I offer a simple explanation: clearly there is no such prohibition, because there cannot be a prohibition that forbids me from examining the system to which I am subject (especially since, of course, there is no authority regarding facts). It is ridiculous and childish. So what is it? Whoever accepts this foolish prohibition—toward him the prohibition is directed, because he truly lacks the capacity for thought. So let him receive instructions from above about what to think. But one who understands that such a prohibition cannot exist thereby knows that he is exempt from it. Alternatively, the prohibition is to study such literature out of evil inclination. But one who does so in order to clarify the truth—there is not and cannot be the slightest trace of prohibition in it, of course.
But as stated, even if I had no explanation at all, I would not accept a contradictory and foolish prohibition of that sort. Of that it is said, "Even if Joshua son of Nun said this, I would not obey him"—here is another apikores from among the sages of the Gemara.
Maimonides himself, who wrote the principles of faith, also wrote in several places that there is no halakhic ruling regarding matters unrelated to practice. And I have not yet even entered here into the disputes against him on the subject of principles and the Raavad's remark regarding corporealism ("many greater and better than he…" ).
Those many and good ones who thought so, as you say, may be many, but not really very good. I rely on my own logic when I reject their position. A bit of simple logic ("why do I need a verse? It is logical"). Must I agree with everything many and good people thought? Strange.
2. You again repeat the nonsense that, according to me, factual matters and principles of faith require scientific discussion. I did not write that, nor did it occur to me. What I claimed is that there is no authority with respect to facts (unless it is clear to me that they came in tradition from the Holy One at Sinai, and even then this is substantive authority, not formal authority; see above in my remarks about persuasion). Indeed, regarding some of them I doubt whether their source is Sinai or whether they were innovated throughout history. Again, this is a factual claim, and therefore the fact that people think otherwise is not really relevant.
You wrote that nobody rose in the resurrection of the dead or returned from the World to Come. That is nonsense that points precisely to the fact that this cannot be tested scientifically. But that does not mean reason cannot be applied here. There are logical considerations and conjectures, there is critical examination of the tradition that reached us, and various philosophical-historical methods (not empirical). See column 155 regarding these methods. If in some way you reach the (factual-historical) conclusion that these principles were not transmitted in tradition from Sinai, why should you accept them anyway? Because of the sacred obligation to think like "the many and the good"?
3. Because here we are not dealing with a fact but with a norm. Exactly as I accept the authority of the Knesset to legislate, but not to determine facts for me, and just as I accept the authority and binding force of the Written Torah.
And that is precisely the point: it is not a mistake to attribute binding authority to the Sages even if they erred. Again, you did not read my words carefully (if at all). I wrote again and again that I am not entering into the issue of one who unwittingly sins regarding the command to obey the Sages as expounded in Horayot (incidentally, it seems to me that you fit very well into that category, and deeply—see the things you wrote that are discussed throughout this message). My claim is that even if there is concern that they erred, and indeed it is clear to me that they did err in certain matters, like any person who errs from time to time, this still does not impair their fundamental authority. If it has become clear to you regarding a specific matter that it is a manifest error, that is what enters into the above sugya, and as is known there are many distinctions of opinion about it, and this is not the place.
4. There is a difference between saying there is no providence despite what is written in the Torah and saying that indeed there was providence, but the Holy One gradually withdraws it over the generations (like prophecy and miracles). That is an interpretation of the verses, not a rebellion against what is written in the Torah. Maimonides himself did this in several matters, and therefore it is unlikely that he would not regard such a position as a legitimate disagreement (even if he himself would not agree with it, and I am not at all sure of that) and define it as heresy.
It should also be remembered that when you cite sages who lived many generations ago, then even if they write against my position, that is not necessarily a dispute, because I too say this happens gradually, and in our day providence has withdrawn far more than it had in their time. So at most you can bring the sages of our own generation. So remove from here the Rishonim and the Amoraim.
Moreover, I wrote that this is a question of dosage (perhaps He intervenes, but very little, if at all—as opposed to ongoing involvement in every big and small thing). Now you need to determine from what dosage this is heresy and up to what point it is legitimate disagreement. For already the Rishonim disagreed about what exactly He supervises (the species, the individual, human beings, Jews, Gentiles, and more).
And finally I will add that on this topic others too have written as I do, and I am not alone. But as stated, that does not really matter to me.
5. As I mentioned, this is what I am trying to do on the site (and also in the trilogy). But it does not help, because angry zealots like you do not read my words; in the heat of their anger they interpret things contrary to my intention and ignore things I write explicitly, and so on.
I of course will not clarify "whether and how my words accord with everyone," because "everyone" does not really interest me. I write my reasoned opinion, and it really does not matter to me with whom it accords and with whom it does not. That you may do, if it interests you (I only suggest that you do so more carefully than what I see here).
All the best and much holy satisfaction,
You are trying to paint me as an angry zealot, but know that I am as far from that as east is from west.
1. The claim that there is an inherent flaw in a 'command to believe' is not acceptable to me. I agree that with respect to factual claims open to direct empirical examination there is no meaning to a command if I see that it is false (to claim that it is now day when in fact it is night), but here we are speaking of factual claims not open to direct observation—either because they occurred in the past or will occur in the future (the giving of the Torah, miracles, resurrection of the dead, etc.), or because they are principles such as providence. So with all due respect to all your circumstantial evidence against one principle of faith or another, it seems to me that the weight of the statements of nearly all the sages of the generations is very great, and so long as we are not dealing with factual claims contradicted by direct observation, they can be commanded and one is obligated to believe them, and there is no logical flaw in this.
2. I have not seen precedents anywhere for views like yours; I would be glad if you would direct me to them.
3. I do not give absolute authority to any person (the human species does not escape error), but this is the last possibility I take into account when I discuss the words of the Sages. I do not expect them to make amateurish mistakes, and I will make every effort to understand their view. Difficulties like killing lice on Shabbat can be resolved in several ways; there is no need to turn the Sages or the Rishonim/Aharonim into idiots (on what basis did they determine that a louse does not reproduce—made-up theories? Believe me, they were more God-fearing than the two of us, and they did not permit a Torah prohibition on the basis of all kinds of belly-born speculations).
4. I have not seen your views on the site in a systematic orderly form (perhaps you can direct me), only bits here and there, and therefore it is hard for me to discuss your views that way. I will wait patiently for your books.
Regarding providence, a friend showed me the view of Ran (he too is both a rabbi and good), a quotation from Wikipedia:
The Ran further restricts individual providence. According to his view: "This lower world has been handed over and is conducted according to the system of the stars," and therefore "it necessarily follows that a person may be punished even when, according to his deeds, he did not deserve that punishment."
According to the Ran, the Creator created the world so that it would proceed by way of nature, and it follows that even the innocent will suffer from the evil of the system, since "God does not always alter the nature of reality but lets it continue in its state except for a great need" and "it is not the will of God, may He be blessed, that nature change according to each individual person." However, if "a person's merit is strong enough, then God will save him from it by changing nature."
I am not trying to portray you in any way, but simply describing the way you write here. I also explained your questions here, and apparently you are not trying to understand (I find it hard to believe you are incapable).
As for your points themselves:
1. This is a logical misunderstanding and a failure of reading comprehension (since I explained it). Every factual claim suffers from the same problem, entirely irrespective of whether there is an empirical way to verify it. The problem with applying authority to factual claims has nothing to do with how they are verified. It is a logical problem. As I explained before, one must distinguish between substantive authority and formal authority. Substantive authority is persuasion, and formal authority is an obligation to accept without persuasion. And I already asked you about Maimonides' view regarding demons and evil spirits, etc. In your opinion, is there an empirical way to test that? So how did he not accept the Sages' view? But you choose to ignore my answers, proofs, and sources.
2. If you bring a specific point, I may be able to find you precedents. First read and decide what you are talking about; only then decide to issue sweeping declarations.
4. You write that you have not seen my views in a systematic way, yet apparently that was still enough for you to form a firm opinion based on misunderstandings.
As stated, I am not troubled by going against the views of all the Rishonim, and I do not regard that as slander either. Nor am I troubled by being called an apikores, so long as it is reasoned and accords with the facts—that is, if it is indeed what I think. But what certainly does trouble me is when people write emphatic nonsense unrelated to what I wrote, put words in my mouth without basis, and especially when they do so without knowing or understanding what I wrote.
In light of these remarks, perhaps you will better understand why you are indeed an angry zealot, despite your denials.
If there is nothing more concrete in your next comments, or alternatively if I again have to explain things I already explained and you ignore, I will respond no more, lest I violate the prohibition of wasting the keyboard.
Thus far.
Y, yes—he is one among other Rishonim and in the Talmud itself. And logically too one cannot say otherwise, of course. But as stated, I will not violate the prohibition of wasting the keyboard.
To Tema,
1. You agree that one cannot be commanded to believe facts contradicted by the senses. What is the difference between what the senses reveal and what our reasoning tells us? More than that, the senses are very limited; there is no sensory fact that is not accompanied by reasoning and background assumptions. (Aren't you green in philosophy or epistemology?)
How can one be commanded to believe when one does not believe? You can lie to yourself or whistle with your tongue principles that your reason compels upon you, but how can you change what your judgment tells you?
On this I agree with Michael; I cannot think otherwise.
On the other hand, from my experience I have seen that many times I thought something was true and later discovered that I was mistaken.
Therefore, even if my reasoning tells me something is true, I treat it with limited confidence, and so when my reasoning tells me one thing and our rabbis or other sages tell me otherwise, I cast doubt on my own view.
But that is the maximum I can do: only cast doubt on my own reasoning.
I agree with you that Michael gives the impression that he does not care what our rabbis thought. It seems that he gives them no credit; one gets the impression that their opinion casts no doubt whatsoever on his own judgment. That is quite jarring.
2. You grant our rabbis decisional authority by virtue of their perfect and true cognition of reality and Torah, and therefore the matter of lice (for example) pains you so much. Michael does not accept their authority because of their perfect knowledge but because of the authority the Torah gave them even if there is error in their words.
It seems to me that Michael's view on this matter is accepted by many of our rabbis.
P.S. The most accepted decisors discuss lice on Shabbat, and there are those who forbid killing lice on Shabbat. (Those who permit it do so for all kinds of reasons that are not really halakhic. I think Rabbi Dessler discusses this in Michtav MeEliyahu.)
With God's help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “Noah found favor,” 5779
It seems that 'hadar' has two meanings. In biblical Hebrew, the more common meaning is 'honor,' whereas in the language of the Sages the more common meaning is 'beauty.'
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
Hello Rabbi,
1. I still haven't understood from this column what meaning is. Is it one value among all values, only with priority and precedence? Or is it a purpose? The only thing I understood is that this is not a feeling, or at least not only a feeling.
2. Also, if it is a purpose, how does God help here in the story to constitute the meaning? If your parents created you for a reason—that you would be the helper on their farm—does that mean that from the moment the child is created, your meaning in life is to help them on the farm? That sounds ridiculous.
Perhaps that was the purpose they assigned you, but it does not seem reasonable to think that this gives you some consideration in how to live your life.
1. Meaning is not a value. Values give life meaning. There is a point to their existence (so that values may be realized). And indeed this is not a feeling but a claim about objective reality (that is, its normative dimension).
2. Only a factor with validity outside us can create meaning. A lump of matter does not create meaning and has no meaning in itself. Therefore helping on the farm is not meaning but a purpose. As stated, a purpose is not meaning. By the way, my parents did not create me in the full sense. My soul was not created by them, and the body has no meaning.
1. So what is it, then…? So far, from what is understood, it is not a value, not a purpose, and not a feeling. And it is something measured on a scale external to me.
2. Your parents are not only the body but also the soul. But better that I wait for 1. to be defined more clearly in order to create a proper analogy for the matter. (If that will be reasonable.)
I don't know how to define it better than I have so far. When life has meaning, this means it is not merely a (biological) fact. It has a point or a purpose.
1. It seems from the first part of your words that values are the content that characterizes our meaning in life (and apparently it follows from this that without them life has no meaning).
But if so, why claim that there is such a thing as meaning? Why isn't it simply our general desire to realize the values we believe in?
2. In any case, I did not understand why, if I create the sheep Dolly (as I asked you in Q&A) for a certain purpose, she has meaning even if she does not feel it; whereas if parents beget a child to help them on an agricultural farm, he has no meaning in helping them—why not? (Because they did not create his soul?)
A washing machine has no meaning. I do not mean only that it does not feel it, but that its existence has no meaning in the sense that a person's existence does.
Values are what give us meaning, but the two should not be identified (as I wrote, meaning is not a value). A creature with meaning exists in order to realize values. But that does not necessarily mean there is identity between values and meaning. By analogy, perhaps, the Holy One created us so that we would realize values. But He could achieve the realization of those values even without us. So why did He create us? Because there is meaning in our realizing the values, and not only in the attainment of that realization itself (the consequentialist aspect).
It seems to me we have exhausted this.
So in practice, if I understood correctly, you use the term meaning for something that lies somewhere between a role and an essential reason for your existence.
In any case, I did not understand why, if you were to create in a laboratory a robot (with free choice and emotions) in order to clean your shoes every day, you could not claim that its meaning in life is cleaning the shoes.
What is special about God as opposed to another entity that created someone?
Are you starting from the assumption that just as, in order for normative values to have validity, one must posit behind them a validator like God, whose command cannot be grounded in another source—so too here?
Above I already explained that the main difference lies in the object that is created, not only in the creator. A washing machine has no meaning like a human being does. But it certainly sounds plausible that the creator matters here too, as you wrote.
If the whole difference is only on the side of the object created, then how do you determine when the creator can apply meaning to the object and when he can only set the object a purpose but without normative validity?
You wrote that the distinction lies on the side of the object, as you explained, but I did not see that you ever explicitly explained the difference.
Do you mean that for the created object to have serious meaning, it must realize things connected to the normative dimension, such as realizing certain *values*, etc., because otherwise we are speaking only of a purpose?
(For example, what is the difference between creating a person in order that he realize values, creating a feeling washing machine with free choice in order that it wash clothes, and building a humanoid robot to polish shoes?)
I wrote that it is not only in the creator. Beyond a divine creator, there also has to be a creature with free choice and free will.
Perhaps this can be seen from another angle. When you manufacture a machine, it has no meaning in itself. It serves you. When you create a person, he indeed serves you, but in this he also fulfills his own destiny. There is also a purpose in his own perfection, except that this is achieved through the service he performs for the creator. By analogy, R. Akiva's parable to Turnus Rufus—that the Holy One creates poor people and gives the commandment of charity. This is done not only so that the poor person will live reasonably; otherwise the Holy One could simply give him the money directly. It is done for the giver, even though the giver does it in order to sustain the poor person.
Okay, so aside from the creator, you are giving two conditions here, if I understand correctly:
1. that the created being be a creature with the importance of free choice and free will. But according to your view, free choice cannot be actualized unless there are objective values external to us. Otherwise it is just picking.
So any creature that creates another creature must also provide it with some normative system within which it will act…
2. There must be a reason why this creature should exist also *for its own sake* and not only be a conduit serving you for a purpose external to it (for example, so that it can perfect itself, etc.).
Does it not bother you that if so, a person's action is never altruistic but always egoistic? Likewise, this seemingly assumes a World to Come, in my understanding (otherwise it is not clear how the person perfects himself or grows, etc., from observation in this world where there are tzaddik ve-ra lo situations).
1. You do not have to give it meaning. If you want to give it meaning, do so.
2. It is not egoism. "For its own sake" means for the sake of its spiritual-value perfection, not for its interests.
2. What is the difference between its spiritual-value perfection and its interests? Or what is its spiritual-value perfection at all? Does this have no real basis in the form of reward and so on?
It seems to me we have exhausted this. That difference is self-evident.
Rabbi Michi,
From your silence it seems that you agreed with him, but I did not find this in Nahmanides. Here is his language in his glosses to Sefer HaMitzvot (and also in his commentary on the Torah he says explicitly that this is a positive commandment: "this utterance is a positive commandment… it instructs and commands you to know and believe that there is a Lord")
"The author said: This belief in this utterance is neither wondrous nor far off, and likewise it is explicit in the words of our Rabbis that it is acceptance of His kingship, may He be blessed, and it is the belief in divinity. They said in the Mekhilta: 'You shall have no other gods before Me'—why was this said? Because it says 'I am the Lord your God.' A parable of a king who entered a province. His servants said to him: issue decrees upon them. He said to them: no; once they accept my kingship, I will decree upon them. For if they do not accept my kingship, how will they fulfill my decrees? So the Omnipresent said to Israel: 'I am the Lord your God'; 'You shall have no other gods before Me.' I am He whose kingship you accepted upon yourselves in Egypt. They said to Him: yes. Just as you accepted My kingship, accept My decrees: 'You shall have none.' And with all this, I have seen that the author of Halakhot did not count them, [and furthermore, if we count that] commandment among the 613 commandments, and in the utterance 'You shall have no other gods' there are many prohibitions—'You shall have no other gods' is a negative commandment, and 'you shall not bow down to them nor serve them'—then there would be five from the mouth of the Almighty and 608 from the mouth of Moses, not the count of Torah. And it appears from the view of the author of Halakhot that the count of 613 commandments includes only His decrees, may He be exalted, that He decreed upon us to do or forbade us not to do.
But belief in His existence, may He be exalted, which He made known to us through signs and wonders and the revelation of the Shekhinah before our eyes, is the principle and root from which the commandments were born, and it is not counted among them. And this is what the sages said—[they said to him: decree upon them; he said to them: no, once they accept my kingship I will decree upon them]—they made acceptance of the commandments a matter in itself, and the commandments decreed from that matter.
And furthermore, there is no difference between this utterance and what He, may He be exalted, said regarding the justness of the laws, 'I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,' which is to say: since you accepted My kingship through the exodus from Egypt, accept My decrees.
And if in every place there is a commandment, that He says: know and believe that I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt and do My commandments—even so it would not enter the count of the commandments, because it is the principle and they are the derivatives that are counted, as I have explained. And according to this view, what they said in answer to the question, 'Torah' is 611; 'I am' and 'You shall have no other gods' they heard from the mouth of the Almighty—meaning that in the utterance 'You shall have no other gods' there are two commandments that complete the count to 613: the prohibition concerning graven images, 'You shall have no other gods' and 'you shall not make for yourself' are one matter; and the prohibition concerning their worship, 'you shall not bow down to them' and 'you shall not serve them,' another commandment. They informed us that up to this point the commandments were from the mouth of the Almighty and understood by them all, as they are in the first-person language: 'I am the Lord,' 'before Me'; and the other commandments are in the language of a prophet translating between them. But the intent is because of the commandments in the second utterance that complete the count. And thus the author of Halakhot counted among the negative commandments: one who worships idolatry once, and counted among the prohibitions punishable by lashes 'You shall have no other gods' as one, which for him is the prohibition concerning graven images, and he did not mention another prohibition regarding making them. And I found support for his view in what they said in the Mekhilta: 'You shall have no other gods'—why was this said? Since it is said 'you shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness,' I have only 'you shall not make'; from where do I know that one may not maintain one already made? Scripture says: 'You shall have no other gods.' This is the view of the author of Halakhot Gedolot, and it has merit, but later among the negative commandments I will explain what seems clearer to me."
All right, I will respond to myself.
Apparently even from this silence Rabbi Michi agrees with me—or go in this direction and say that Rabbi Michi's silence is no admission whatsoever, for he does not intervene at all on his site in the babbling of the commenters, except in sporadic cases.
Again and again, what is astonishing is the patience you have to seriously analyze a heap of hackneyed ideas, (mashgiach-style, in your terminology) and horrifically ill-defined ones.
A comment:
Defining the domain of philosophy, as you tried to do in the last articles, is itself philosophy (as you wrote in the summary). It also allows someone who disagrees with your definition to speak in the name of philosophy by virtue of his own undefined definition of the field of philosophy. After all, he has the right not to define it; the very obligation to define is a philosophical conception that he does not want to accept. Why—who said there has to be a definition? And so on, ad infinitum…….
At least one sentence accepted by all philosophers comes out of this move (a real cogito):
'Any idea that someone thinks is philosophy is philosophy.'
A general and depressing sentence, fitting for Tisha B'Av (though not for the night after Tisha B'Av).
It has been decreed upon us to see articles and books of philosophy that do not pass the threshold of defining the field.
It has been decreed upon us to waste precious time in endless reading of nonsense because we have no ability to judge in advance the quality of the material.
And worst of all, from so much nonsense we lose faith that there is any chance a book, an article, or even a paragraph might fall into our hands that contains philosophical content worthy of real attention and of trying to understand what it says.
So that even if by good fortune something genuine does fall into our hands, we miss it (the boy-who-cried-wolf phenomenon).