Faith and Its Meaning – Lesson 1

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was generated automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[0:04] Introduction: what faith / belief is and why discuss it
[1:31] The distinction between believing in X and believing that X
[6:37] Faith as emotion versus faith as a factual claim
[12:04] Narrativism and postmodernity — comfort without proof
[20:31] Factual claims versus moral claims
[25:32] The spinach test — checking whether a claim is objective
[30:23] Determinism, influence, and the attitude toward veganism
[32:06] Moral relativism and objective truth
[33:37] Slavery in the Torah — Jewish law versus morality

Summary

General Overview

The text clarifies the meaning of the concept of faith / belief and distinguishes between faith as a factual claim and faith as a mental attitude or emotion, while rejecting the postmodern understanding that identifies faith with a subjective “narrative” that cannot really be debated. The speaker argues that a statement like “I believe there is God” is equivalent to the factual claim “There is God,” and therefore belief has the status of truth or falsehood even if it does not have a simple observational test, as with certain claims in science or metaphysics. He uses examples from morality to show that non-empirical claims are still treated as claims that can be argued about, and develops a conception of God as one whose authority obligates obedience by virtue of the command itself, relying on Maimonides in the context of “accepted it upon himself as a god.” Finally, he argues that since belief is a factual claim, it cannot be commanded, and he presents the difficulty in Maimonides’ commandment of belief.

The aims of the series and the distinction between deism and theism

The speaker is dealing with a series on the subject of faith / belief and its meaning, and wants to clarify the concept itself and examine different ways of arriving at belief. He distinguishes between arriving at belief in the philosophical sense that there is a God or that God created the world, and religious commitment, and presents the distinction between deism and theism. He defines deism as the view that there is a God who is not necessarily in interaction with human beings and does not necessarily expect things from them, and theism as God in the religious sense, who commands and obligates.

Believing in and believing that

The speaker argues that the concept of belief has at least two meanings: belief that, and belief in. He presents belief that as accepting a proposition as true, such as “I believe there is God,” and belief in as a mental attitude of trust toward the object of belief that is not equivalent to a claim of existence. He emphasizes that he wants to deal with belief in the sense of “I believe that X,” not in the sense of “believing in” as an emotional attitude of trust.

Rejecting the identification of belief with emotion and narrativism

The speaker rejects the common understanding that “I believe in God” is mainly an expression of a religious feeling, and explains that emotion is an inner feeling that does not express a factual claim and therefore does not allow for real debate, when each side is only reporting its own mental state. He explains that when belief is interpreted as emotion, a statement like “I believe in God” versus “I do not believe in God” ceases to be a disagreement about reality and becomes unresolved self-reporting. He attributes to Rabbi Shagar, in the book Broken Vessels, the understanding that faith is “just another point on the circle of differences,” and interprets this as an exemption from discussing evidence for and against by means of a language of different discourses and narratives.

Belief as a factual claim and the dispute with atheism

The speaker argues that understanding belief as emotion is “atheism” with a religious feeling, and gives examples of people who have a religious feeling without believing in God in the cognitive sense, including Einstein, for whom “God” is a pantheistic image or a “cosmic spirit” rather than a personal God. He presents the possibility of a person who believes in God without religious feelings, and by contrast a person with religious feelings who does not make the claim that there is a God. He determines that belief is a factual claim, and that “I believe there is God” is equivalent to “There is God,” and the atheist disagrees with him not at the level of category but about the truth or falsehood of that same claim.

Truth and falsehood, Aristotle, and positivism

The speaker defines a claim as a sentence that can be judged in terms of truth or falsehood, and cites Aristotle’s definition, distinguishing between claims and questions that are not claims. He describes the approach of the positivists in the early twentieth century, according to which a factual claim is only something that can be tested empirically, and presents this as an extreme position that is not correct. He gives the example “There are one hundred billion ants in the world” as a factual claim that cannot be empirically checked in practice, but still there is someone right and someone wrong about it even if there is no way to know who.

Morality, “murder is forbidden,” and examining the status of non-empirical claims

The speaker uses the example “murder is forbidden” to show that there are sentences that are not tested by simple observation but are still treated as claims that can be argued about and judged. He argues that if morality is interpreted as merely a subjective feeling, then morality is emptied of content, because there is no basis left for condemning or judging someone who acts differently. He emphasizes the difference between a universal moral claim and a sociological claim about what is accepted in a particular society.

David Enoch’s “spinach test” and moral relativism

The speaker cites a test by David Enoch that he calls the “spinach test,” in which a statement about subjective preference like “How good it is that I don’t like spinach” sounds funny, whereas a statement about progress in knowledge like “How good it is that I know relativity and quantum theory” is not funny, because the truth has not changed. He applies this to morality through the example of enslaving Blacks and argues that the intuitive reaction is not like spinach but like factual knowledge — meaning that morality is perceived as claim-like and not just a matter of taste. He rejects the argument that moral diversity between societies proves there is no moral truth, and presents that as a logical mistake, because a multiplicity of positions does not imply that they are all correct.

Torah, Jewish law, and morality, and the beautiful captive woman

The speaker argues that the Torah speaks about Jewish law and not about morality, and distinguishes between halakhic rules and the moral question of whether it is proper to keep a slave or do certain acts. He brings the case of the beautiful captive woman and the words of the Sages, “The Torah spoke against the evil inclination,” as proof that Jewish law can regulate a reality without determining that it is morally proper. He mentions the affair involving Rabbi Eyal Karim and the discussion about “raping captive women,” and argues that the debate rested on a failure to understand the difference between Jewish law and morality.

Belief in God as a factual claim that is not scientific

The speaker returns to argue that belief in God is a factual claim, even though there is no direct observational route to it, and that this does not make it a scientific claim in Popper’s sense of falsifiability. He compares the claim “There is God” to metaphysical claims like “There is a soul,” when one means the ontic existence of an entity, and presents these as fully factual claims. He argues that someone who says there is no God is mistaken in his perception of reality because he is missing an object that exists in reality.

Religious feeling as a possible result of belief and not its identity

The speaker rejects the identification of belief with experience or emotion, but describes an alternative claim according to which cognitive belief may give rise to emotions and experiences in a “healthy” or “normal” person. He does not accept that claim either, but presents it as a different claim that does not contradict the understanding that belief is a claim. He argues that a different psychological makeup can lead to a believer not experiencing religious feelings, and yet his belief is no less real.

Asking forgiveness without emotion and pangs of conscience as an “indication”

The speaker gives a personal example from a talk at the environmental school in Sde Boker during the Ten Days of Repentance, where he described a person who hurt someone, feels no pangs of conscience, but cognitively understands that he was wrong and asks forgiveness. He argues that this is the “greatest” and “purest” request for forgiveness because it is not meant to calm inner distress but to repair the wrong. He concludes that pangs of conscience in themselves have no essential value and serve only as an indication, and that a person who does not feel them is not necessarily worse but simply built differently.

Kant, “religion” as feeling and morality, and the return of the Christian understanding into Judaism

The speaker argues that the common conception identifying religiosity with religious feeling and moral behavior is represented sharply by Kant, and therefore Kant claimed that Judaism is not a religion but a social code of laws. He attributes this to a Christian cultural background in which, after giving up practical commandments, feeling and morality remained as the essence of religiosity. He argues that this distortion has seeped back into Jewish thinking, and that some people identify religiosity with feeling, whereas in the Jewish sense religiosity is commitment to Jewish law and legal obligation, in keeping with the biblical meaning of “religion” as law.

The multiplicity of definitions of God and the need for a definition in order to disagree

The speaker argues that one cannot say yes or no about something that is not defined, and presents the dispute between a believer and an atheist as dependent on both sides meaning the same definition of God. He says a disagreement exists when the atheist denies God according to the believer’s definition, and that the question of multiple definitions among religions and individuals is a separate question that will be discussed later.

God as obligating authority, and the transition from deism to theism

The speaker argues that even if a person accepts that there is a God, and even that the revelation at Mount Sinai happened and the Torah was given, many still ask, “But who says you have to do what He said?” and he presents this as the link that collapses the religious conclusion. He brings a story in the name of Haggai Luber about a change in a generation of teenagers in which accepting the claims about God, Mount Sinai, and Torah no longer automatically leads to practical commitment. He says that the question “Why observe if God commanded?” reflects a misunderstanding, similar to someone who says “I know murder is forbidden, but why not murder?” and formulates this as a gap between descriptive sentences and normative, prescriptive sentences.

“God” as judges in the Sanhedrin and formal authority

The speaker brings the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Sanhedrin, where three judges are derived from the law through the three appearances of the word “God,” and explains that judges are called “God” because they have authority that obligates obedience. He defines the concept of God as an entity that has formal authority that obligates “simply because He said it,” not because of utility, truth, goodness, fear, love, or awe. He argues that every other answer to the question “Why observe commandments?” is “mere empty talk,” and distinguishes between an arbitrary “that’s just how it is” and an axiomatic “that’s just how it is,” self-evident like axioms in geometry.

Maimonides: idolatry out of love or fear, “accepted it upon himself as a god,” and the definition of a god

The speaker cites Maimonides in Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, law 6, who rules that one who worships idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, contrary to the understanding of most medieval authorities (Rishonim), who limit this to love and fear of a human being. He explains that according to Maimonides the liability exists only “if he accepted it upon himself as a god,” and interprets “acceptance as a god” as obeying “because it said so,” not due to external considerations like fear of punishment or benefit. He gives the example of slowing down in front of a police officer to show that obedience out of fear of punishment is not idolatry, and concludes that idolatry is the acceptance of the formal authority of something other than the Holy One, blessed be He.

“Learned-by-rote commandments,” prayer as obligation, and the story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev

The speaker argues that the critique by spiritual supervisors of “commandments performed by rote” is the opposite of the truth, because acting out of obligation is the first and highest level of serving God. He says that praying in order to fulfill the obligation of the commandment of prayer is prayer “because of the obligation,” and on top of that can come desires for connection, experiences, and requests. He brings a story about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev as a parable for the idea that a person goes to synagogue with prayer shawl and tefillin because of obligation, even if right afterward he is occupied with matters of the wagon, and he sees in the story a true point about basic commitment preceding emotional dimensions.

Can belief be commanded, and the difficulty in Maimonides’ first positive commandment

The speaker presents Maimonides, who counts “I am the Lord your God” as positive commandment number one, and explains that this seems strange because a command presupposes acceptance of the authority of the one commanding, whereas someone who does not believe in God does not accept His authority. He makes a more fundamental claim, namely that one cannot command a person regarding facts, because a command operates only where a person can act even though he would not otherwise act or agree on his own, whereas belief as a factual claim is accepted only if one is convinced that it is true. He illustrates this through “believing in the coming of the Messiah,” and argues that if a person is convinced, then he does not believe because of the command but because of persuasion, and if he is not convinced, then verbal assent is not belief at all — therefore a command to believe is an oxymoron.

Conclusion and attendance notes

The speaker stops the lecture and notes that he will continue next time. He adds attendance registration and asks for names, writing down “Michael Yair? Michael Yair Yiger?” and “Yosef Stand?”

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In this series we’re dealing with the subject of faith / belief — what the meaning of belief is. And I want to touch on this topic from several different angles. I’ll start by trying to clarify the concept itself, the concept of belief, because I think it suffers from problematic ambiguities, sometimes intentional ones, I think. And after I try to make the concept itself a bit clearer, I want to move on a little to the different ways one can arrive at belief. And there too we’ll have to distinguish between arriving at belief in some philosophical sense — yes, that there is a God, or that He created the world, or something like that — and the question of religious commitment, what in philosophical jargon is called deism and theism. Deism is the philosophical view that there is a God, but He is not necessarily in interaction with us, or does not necessarily expect things from us. And theism is God in the religious sense, where you are also obligated — He commands you and you are obligated, and so on. Okay, so I’ll start with a bit of clarification of the concept of belief itself. First of all, yes, people have pointed out more than once that the concept of belief has at least two meanings. There is belief in, and belief that. “I believe there is a God” means I believe some proposition, I think it is true, let’s put it that way — I’ll clarify that a bit more later — but yes, I think it is true. That’s called believing that X; I think that X is true. And believing in means some kind of mental attitude toward the object of belief. To believe in God or to believe in someone is basically not to speak about the factual claim that he exists, but to place some trust in the fact that he is wise, that he loves me, that he is this way or that. In other words, it’s some kind of attitude of mine toward him, I trust him. Not that I believe he exists. Because the concept of belief, as against the concept of belief — yes, in Hair: “I believe God” and “believes in God,” right? Do you know that distinction? So I think that’s exactly the distinction. Hair — yes, that’s another generation, I see most of you don’t know it. My father told me when I was young that it was a musical in which only the director was dressed. That’s how he described it. Slightly exaggerated. Anyway, I want to talk about belief in the first sense. Belief in the sense of “I believe that X,” not “I believe in X.” That’s our topic in this whole series, so that’s the first distinction I want to put on the table. The first thing I want to deal with, to touch on — or the second thing, if you like — is how to relate to belief-that. There are those who want to claim that this is basically belief-in; belief in God in the sense of… I believe that God exists. From now on, belief-in is also belief-that. Meaning, when I say “I believe in God,” the intention is “I believe that God exists.” I gave that introduction — now ignore all the distinctions I made earlier. There is a common way of relating to that statement as though it is basically some expression of an emotion. “I believe in God” means: I have some kind of religious feeling. Some people have that feeling, some don’t have that feeling. So first of all I want to reject that point, or at least I’m not talking about belief in that sense. Emotion — I’ll clarify a bit more what I mean. Emotion is some kind of feeling dwelling inside me, which usually, or really always, does not actually express a factual claim. Let’s say I love so-and-so. Someone else doesn’t love him. Do we have a disagreement? No. I’m built in such a way that I love him; someone else is built differently, he doesn’t love him. There’s no argument about that. There’s no arguing about taste, right? Basically, when I say the statement “I love someone,” it’s just an expression of a mental state that exists within me. I’m revealing to you something that exists inside me; you can’t know it because it’s inside me, I experience it directly. I’m informing you: there’s such a feeling inside me, I’m in such a mental state. Okay? Now if someone says, “I love so-and-so,” then he’s saying: inside me there dwells a feeling of love for so-and-so. Someone else says, “I don’t love so-and-so” — what has he said? That within him that feeling does not dwell. Not necessarily that he positively dislikes him, but that he doesn’t have the feeling of love for so-and-so. Okay? So within him that feeling does not dwell. Now you understand that this can’t be an argument, because the subject of the sentence is different. A disagreement always means that we have the same subject of a sentence and we make different claims about that subject, opposite claims about that subject. Here the subject of the sentence is different. When I say “I love so-and-so,” the subject of the sentence is not so-and-so — it’s me. Right? The feeling is inside me. Someone else says “I don’t love so-and-so” — what’s the subject of the sentence? Him. What feeling dwells or does not dwell inside him. And when you say something about what dwells inside you and I say something about what dwells inside me, we have no disagreement at all. Right? Inside you there is something, inside me there isn’t something, or vice versa. That’s not a disagreement. Okay? Therefore, when we basically say that belief is an emotion in that sense, what we mean is that belief is not a factual claim. And therefore if someone says “I believe in God” and someone else says “I don’t believe in God,” or believes there is no God, or doesn’t believe that God exists, or believes that God does not exist — they have no disagreement. Right? I’m built in such a way that I have this feeling, he’s built in another way so that he doesn’t have this feeling. There’s no disagreement. That’s if we understand the meaning of the statement “I believe that God exists” as merely a report about a feeling dwelling inside me. Right? That’s what it means for it to belong to the emotional plane. Why does anyone come to such an understanding? Yes.

[Speaker C] Why can’t he say — there can also be arguments about that kind of thing. Meaning, you can tell someone you love him and he can tell you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “you don’t love me.” Right — meaning, if you don’t claim “I don’t love so-and-so,” but instead you claim “you don’t love so-and-so,” then we do have a disagreement, because we’re arguing about exactly the same subject. Here we’re both dealing with the same subject, so we have a disagreement. But when I say “I love so-and-so” and you say “I don’t love so-and-so” — well, there’s no disagreement there. Okay? Now if someone tells me “I don’t think you believe in God,” then he has an argument with me. But if he says “I don’t believe in God,” according to the interpretation that this is emotion, then we have no disagreement at all. Okay? Why do people arrive at this strange interpretation — bizarre, I’d even say? Because people think there’s no way to prove it, no way to convince one another; either you believe or you don’t believe, and since that’s the case, then apparently it’s a matter of subjective feeling. Makes sense, right? That’s what Rabbi Shagar writes in his book Broken Vessels — in the earlier version — he says, and it appears in various forms also in Tablets and Broken Tablets, he says that faith is basically just another point on the circle of differences. Now what characterizes a circle? A circle is a collection of points at equal distance from the center. Right? That’s the geometric definition of a circle. Okay? What was he really trying to say? You believe, I don’t believe — these are differences of discourse, differences of feeling, narratives if you like, yes, these kinds of postmodern concepts. And therefore, in effect, he exempts himself from discussing arguments for and against, evidence, because in his view this is not an objective factual claim. If you believe and I don’t believe, fine — you’re at this point on the circle, I’m at that point on the circle, we’re all equally distant from the center. If the center represents truth, then we’re not making claims about truth; each of us just has his own discourse, his own narrative. I’ll come back to this point later, and it’s very popular these days, certainly in the secular world, where they don’t see it as something true, so they hang it on emotion. You have such a feeling because you grew up in some place or whatever it may be. But even within the religious world this suddenly becomes a very convenient escape route, because it basically exempts you from dealing with objections, or justifying your position, or discussing it. I’m not making any claim. So it’s very convenient, a very convenient way out. But it’s very convenient because basically it’s atheism. Someone who thinks that that is faith is an atheist. He’s an atheist with a religious feeling. There are many people who are atheists and have a religious feeling — documented cases, by the way, there are many such cases. Einstein, for example. Einstein did not believe in God, not in the sense we’re talking about here, even though people often quote all sorts of statements of his — God plays dice, doesn’t play dice. He didn’t mean it in this sense; he meant it in some kind of pantheistic sense, nature, some kind of cosmic spirit, not in the sense of a personal God, as we’re talking about in the religious context. But he had plenty of religious feelings. Many artists report that they have religious feelings even though they don’t really believe in God in the cognitive sense, they don’t make the claim that there is a God in the world. But they do have religious feelings. It’s a certain kind of feeling that exists in people regardless of the question of what their philosophy is, what they actually believe or don’t believe. Two different questions. Therefore, there can be a person who believes in God in the cognitive sense but has no religious feelings, like yours truly, or someone who has religious feelings but does not believe in God. These are things that are, in principle, independent. So yes, it’s a very convenient escape route because it exempts the believer from arguments, from reasoning, from justification. No problem, “the righteous shall live by his faith,” everyone has his own narrative, his own world; you’re exempt from bringing justification. In general, I think this narrativism, this postmodernism, this view that says everyone has his own truth — it’s a very convenient view because it exempts you from justifying your positions. It exempts you from dealing with difficulties in your position, because you’re not making any claim that you’re supposed to stand behind. Someone who claims the opposite — you have no disagreement with him; you live this way, he lives another way. Okay? It’s a very convenient claim. It’s very convenient, but its convenience comes from throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You can supposedly be a believer without justifying your position, but no — that’s just not belief. You live in an atmosphere with a religious feeling, okay, so what? Someone like that I wouldn’t count for a minyan. Again, I’m not one who probes hearts and kidneys, and by the way a great many of these people don’t interpret themselves correctly — Rabbi Shagar, in my opinion. I would count him for a minyan, despite the fact that according to his definitions he is an atheist, because I think he didn’t understand himself correctly. But I’m speaking at the principled level. Meaning, if I really take this claim seriously, then you are not a believing person. Or in other words, what I want to say is: belief is a factual claim. When I say “I believe that there is a God,” that is completely equivalent to the sentence “There is a God.” A factual claim. And if someone asks how do you know, who told you that you’re right — we’ll discuss that, that’s our topic. But first I want to clarify the category of the claim. The category of the claim belongs to the category of factual claims. Okay? “I believe there is a God” means the factual claim: there is a God. That’s what I’m claiming. By the way, someone who does not believe in God either — the atheist who says “I don’t believe in God” — he too, in my opinion, should share my definition that the statement “There is a God” is a factual claim. It’s just that in his view it’s a false factual claim, and in my view it’s a true factual claim. We have a disagreement. But both of us agree, categorically, where this claim belongs — it’s a factual claim. Because otherwise, once again, we’re expressing feelings, not arguing. Okay? Now what does a true factual claim and a false factual claim mean? That’s a point that needs sharpening. When I say right now it’s light outside — that’s a factual claim, in this case a true one, right? It’s still daytime. If I say right now it’s dark outside, that’s still a factual claim, it’s just a false one. Why do I define it as a factual claim? Because it’s a claim that can be judged in terms of truth or falsehood. That’s Aristotle’s definition of a claim. There are sentences that are not claims. For example, “Excuse me, what time is it?” That’s a sentence, a question sentence. You can’t say of that sentence that it is true or false, right? It doesn’t assert anything. If the claim is false, it’s a false sentence. Okay? Now what makes people think that this way of relating to faith as a kind of emotion and not as a factual claim is a reasonable way of looking at it? I explained earlier what the motivation is for holding such a position. The motivation is that you’re exempt from arguing, or dealing with things, or justifying, or checking arguments, and so on. Fine — but I can also exempt myself by locking myself in a room and not letting anyone in. That also exempts me from dealing with things. Okay, but is there any justification for that? So here we need to pay attention. What is a factual claim? Let’s ask ourselves what a factual claim is — the answer is not so simple. There is a debate about this among philosophers. In my view the answer is actually quite simple, but philosophers do debate it. Positivists — that’s a philosophical approach that was very widespread at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the West of course — understood a factual claim to be only a claim that can be tested by empirical tools. Okay? Something you can observe. Say, there is a table here — you can look. So that’s a factual claim. There is no table here — that too is a factual claim. Why? Because you can look and see. I’ll discover that there is a table here, and therefore the claim that there is no table here is false. Okay? Meaning, I have a way to test that claim empirically. And according to the positivists, factual claims are claims that can be tested empirically. What would you say about the claim: there are one hundred billion ants in the world? That seems to be a factual claim, at least I think that’s the straightforward definition, right? But you can’t test it empirically. Impossible — not just difficult, impossible. You can’t test that. Here you’re talking about one moment in time; you have to cover the whole universe — not the whole universe, even just the whole earth if you like — at one moment and catch all the ants. You can’t do that. So is it not a factual claim? Is it not a claim? Right — positivists, if you take it to the extreme, logical positivists would indeed tell you that that is not a claim. It’s not a claim, it’s a pseudo-claim. It’s not a claim, because you can’t test it empirically. That’s an extreme approach; obviously it’s not correct. You can call it whatever you want — that’s semantics — you can call it a claim, you can call it something else. But there’s no difference between that and the claim that right now it’s light outside. So it can’t be tested? Fine. But there’s still truth here. If one person says yes and another says no, one of them is right and the other is wrong. I have no way of knowing which is which, who is right and who is wrong. But there is a right and a wrong here. In that sense it is like the claim that it is light outside, right? In that sense it is a full-fledged claim; I’ll ignore these positivist hallucinations. But there are more delicate questions where it is harder to diagnose whether this is a factual claim or not a factual claim — or whether it’s a claim at all. Okay? What about “murder is forbidden,” for example? Huh? That’s not a factual claim, you agree? Why not? Because there’s nothing I can observe in order to verify whether it’s true or not. Right? There is no observational way to test that claim. Again, if I say “according to Israeli law murder is forbidden,” that’s a factual claim — you can open the law book and see. It’s written there. If I say “morally, murder is forbidden,” that is expressing a position. Okay? We may all agree, doesn’t matter, but it’s an expression of a position, and in that sense many people think this is not a claim. Even more people think it is not a factual claim. But many people also think it is not a claim at all. What’s the difference? A factual claim is something you can observe in order to refute or confirm. Okay? Something that is not a claim — I’m not even prepared to call it true or false. I do not judge it in terms of truth or falsehood because it asserts nothing. Okay? That’s not the same definition if you’re not a positivist. So now — do you agree that this thing is not a claim? It’s not a factual claim, “murder is forbidden.” But is it not a claim? If someone says murder is permitted, is he as right as I am? We have no disagreement? I feel revulsion toward the act of murder and he doesn’t feel that way, right? That’s how people generally interpret it, those who see it as experience, emotion, or whatever — not something objective. You don’t observe the world and discover that murder is forbidden. There’s nothing to observe. No, I’m not talking about specific cases where it might be justified. I mean in principle, just taking an innocent person and shooting him in the head, okay? For no reason. So look, I’m putting this here because I think you understand the difficulty. The difficulty is that on the one hand this is not a factual claim in the simple sense. There is nothing to observe in order to confirm or refute this claim, right? On the other hand, it is hard to treat this as emotion in the subjective sense. You feel “murder is forbidden,” so don’t murder. He feels “murder is permitted,” so let him murder. We have no disagreement. Each person and what he feels. So what is this thing?

[Speaker C] But when you say “murder is forbidden,” you’re saying something else. You’re saying that according to accepted moral laws, we need to—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, then you’ve turned it into a trivial factual claim. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about according to the correct moral laws, not the accepted ones. Even if the whole world were to decide to murder, I would still think murder is forbidden. That’s the claim. I’m putting that claim up for discussion right now. And about that I’m asking whether it’s a claim or not. Because otherwise, if it’s a sociological claim, then it’s a claim in every sense. Meaning: in a certain society it is accepted that murder is forbidden — that’s like saying the law book says murder is forbidden. That’s a factual claim. You can look and see whether it’s true or false. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the claim “murder is forbidden.” Not that in a certain group or in a certain book it says murder is forbidden. Okay? That’s already trickier. Now understand that if you do not treat this thing as a claim, then you have emptied morality of content. Right? Meaning, I don’t murder because I feel revulsion toward murder. But then I can’t have any claim against someone who does murder because he doesn’t feel that revulsion. I can say I feel revulsion toward him. Meaning, if he doesn’t care about murdering, then I feel revulsion toward him. Fine — but that’s not a basis for condemnation. It’s a feeling. I love him, he doesn’t love him. We already talked about this — that’s not an argument. Okay? So if this is only a feeling, then there really is no actual disagreement here. You can’t judge someone favorably or unfavorably if he does something that in your eyes is immoral. He feels this way, you feel differently — on what basis do you judge him? And our feeling usually, most people’s feeling, is that if someone does something that in my eyes is immoral, I do have a claim against him. I judge him; he is not okay. What does that mean? It means that I understand the claim “murder is forbidden” to be a claim. And if someone says “it’s not true that murder is forbidden,” or “murder is permitted,” then I have a disagreement with him. It’s not a matter of reporting a different mental state. Okay? So this basically means that morality, despite the fact that I have no observational way to confirm or refute the claim — so it’s not a factual claim in the simple sense — I nevertheless have some sense that it is a claim. Not a factual claim, but still a claim. Because otherwise morality is emptied of content, even though a great many people, including philosophers, are really confused about this. But it’s simple; there’s no room for confusion here. There’s a very nice test I once saw in an article by David Enoch, a philosophy professor at Hebrew University — he calls it the spinach test. Think about a child who comes to you and says, “How good it is that I don’t like spinach, because if I liked spinach I’d eat it, but spinach is yuck.” Why are you laughing? What’s funny about that? The reason why he’s not — why he’s happy that he doesn’t like—

[Speaker B] spinach is because he doesn’t like spinach. The reason is the same thing itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is, the claim “I don’t like spinach” is really a claim about a mental state, not a claim about the world. It’s a report about a mental state, right? And if you were in a different mental state in which you did like spinach—or physiological, psychological, however you want to describe it—if you did like spinach, then what would be the problem with eating spinach? Good for you. Let them eat grapes and be satisfied. What exactly is stopping you from eating spinach? When you judge the hypothetical situation through the lens of your current situation, you’re simply showing a lack of understanding. Okay? Now think about a different claim: how great it is that I’m alive today and not in the 17th century, because back then I would have thought Newtonian mechanics was correct, whereas today I know it isn’t correct. There’s relativity, quantum theory, and I know Newtonian mechanics is not correct. Is that as funny as the spinach example? I saw fewer smiles on your faces just now. Right? It’s not funny. Why isn’t it funny? Because relativity and quantum theory were true in the 18th century too. The fact that we didn’t know that—too bad, we really did have less knowledge. And someone says, look, I’m glad I have more scientific knowledge. Someone else might say, look, scientific knowledge doesn’t interest me, so I don’t care, it doesn’t make me sad. Fine, but it’s not funny. If someone says, look, I want to have the maximum amount of scientific knowledge, there’s nothing funny about that, right? What? Exactly, that’s why I’m bringing up this test. So notice: we actually have a test here with two categories, and it gives us a way to check ourselves. If I want to examine whether claim X, from my perspective, is really a claim and not just a report about a mental state, then basically I need to ask myself—I need to put myself through the spinach test with respect to X. Okay? Then I need to find out whether X seems to me more like “I like spinach,” or more like “I know relativity and quantum theory.” Right? That’s the criterion. So let’s do an experiment. Let’s test, with the spinach test, the claim that murder is forbidden. Or—you know what—forget murder being forbidden. Let me give you this test instead. How great it is that I live today and not in the 18th or 19th century, because today I know not to enslave Black people, not to work them brutally, and not to treat them like animals as they did in the 18th century. Okay? Is that like spinach? Is it funny in the same way as the spinach statement, or is it more like relativity and quantum theory? What? Like spinach? No—don’t assume the conclusion. First you have to apply the test, and only after that can you decide whether it’s like spinach or not, meaning whether it’s objective or not objective. You’re assuming it isn’t objective—ah, so it’s like spinach. No. First think whether it’s like spinach, and then decide whether it’s objective or not. There’s nothing funny here. I don’t know—if someone laughs at this, that’s a sense of humor I don’t understand. That is, someone says, look how good it is that I live today and not two hundred years ago, because back then I would have enslaved Black people. That’s not funny like the spinach case, right? It’s not the same as saying, how great that I don’t like spinach, because if I liked spinach I’d eat it, and spinach is disgusting. You understand that these are not the same thing, right? What does that mean? It means that the claim that it is forbidden to enslave people is not perceived by us as some kind of subjective taste, like whether I do or don’t like spinach, but rather as something more like an objective claim, like a scientific claim—quantum theory, relativity, and the like. This is a test that helps us check ourselves. Again, I’m not proving anything to you here. If someone tells me, look, to me it really is like spinach—I laugh when I hear that too—then I have nothing to say to him. So he has found that, for him, morality is not a claim but merely a report about a mental state. But this is a tool each person can use about himself, not to prove something to someone else or persuade someone else. So you can test yourselves with this test in order to see what your attitude is toward moral claims. Do moral claims, in your eyes, express only taste and smell—something subjective, arbitrary—or are moral claims actually claims, and if someone says otherwise, you have an argument with him, you condemn him? Okay? I think most people feel that a moral claim is not like spinach. It is like factual claims, factual claims. What? If in the 18th century they enslaved Black people, then was quantum theory true? No. No, no. In my view, it was not legitimate. Neither one changed. It wasn’t legitimate; they just didn’t know that it wasn’t legitimate. Exactly like quantum theory, which was true back then too, but they didn’t know it. On the contrary: if you say that back then it was legitimate, then you’ve basically said it’s like spinach. Today we think this way, back then they thought differently. That’s exactly the point. Okay. What I asked was: in the 18th century they enslaved Black people, and today I don’t,

[Speaker B] not enslaving Black people—right, Black people—as if later when you repeated it, you said something like, because then I would have enslaved them. Right, there’s a chance that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, not all the people there were wicked. The moment you added the sentence that yes,

[Speaker B] I would have enslaved people back then, it makes it sound as though…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it only shows that I would have… Even if I had lived back then, I would have thought quantum theory and relativity were not correct. I simply wouldn’t have known what I know today. I would have been mistaken. Same thing with slavery. My claim is that if I had been there, right, I would probably have lived like everyone else. I assume I wouldn’t have been better than everyone there, and maybe I would have failed and participated in enslaving Black people. But I would have failed. I’m claiming that would actually mean I was in a less developed moral state. True—but that’s how I would have been. We are influenced by our surroundings. Right, it’s possible—but what I’m saying is that there’s a good chance I would have been influenced. No, no, I didn’t say it’s deterministic. I’m not a determinist. But the fact is that there were people who began to fight against it, otherwise it wouldn’t have changed. That is, there were already people in that period who felt it was wrong. Fine, I’m not a determinist. I’m only saying that, okay, maybe I would not have been independent-minded enough, and I would indeed have been influenced by the accepted norms in that environment. Yes, many people argue that what we do today to animals is basically what people once did to Black people. And if someone looks at what we are doing today fifty years from now, he’ll say those people were Nazis. What we do today as a matter of social norm—all of us, not all of us, almost all of us—we do horrifying things to animals. But it is so deeply embedded in our culture, so self-evident to us, everybody does it. So how many people really rise up and say no, this is where I draw the line, I’ll pay the price and I won’t take part in this; I won’t consume animal products, or things like that, yes—vegans and so on. Very few. It could be that fifty years from now, when it no longer requires from us the prices it requires today—when they grow meat from tissue cultures or things like that—we’ll look back and say those people were a gang of raving Nazis. Okay? So there is a difference between the claim that if I had lived then I would have done it, and the claim that I would have been right if I had done it. No, I would not have been right, but there’s a good chance I still would have fallen into it. I didn’t say it was the same thing, but I claim that in both cases this is a judgment. Maybe from another angle—look, people often bring proof for moral relativism, the relativity of morality, from the fact that in different societies you see somewhat different moral rules. By the way, they’re not all that different. The shared ground is much greater than what is up for debate. But still, there are disagreements in moral matters, so there you see that in fact there is no moral truth. There are different moral positions. That argument is a logical mistake. Because the fact that there are different moral positions does not mean that all those positions are equally correct. It could be that one is right and all the others are wrong. Now we can discuss who is right, and whether it is possible to prove who is right and who is not—that’s another discussion. But the fact that there are many positions does not prove that there is no truth. The fact that there are many positions only means that at least all but maybe one are wrong. Maybe they’re all wrong. But at least all but one are wrong. Right? That’s all. The fact that there is a dispute does not mean that there is no truth. That is a very common mistake. And that is exactly what I said earlier. That is, the fact that different people behave differently, and maybe I myself under different circumstances would have behaved differently, does not mean that I recognize that back then I would have been just as right as I am today. Those are different things. The fact that I would have done it does not mean that I am expressing a relativist position here—a relative position—that everyone has his own different morality, or ought to have a different morality.

[Speaker C] Okay, so regarding the question of slavery—it also appears in the Torah. Maybe the Torah should have said, well, don’t enslave people. But that’s not what…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did he say that the Torah speaks about morality? The Torah speaks about Jewish law. From a halakhic perspective there are rules: what must be done with a slave, what is permitted and what is forbidden to do with a slave. The question of whether it is moral to own a slave or not is a different discussion. It could be that it is not moral. The fact is that there are societies that keep slaves, and the Torah says okay, here are the rules for how to do it. The question of whether it is moral, proper? No, who said it is proper? The beautiful captive woman—the beautiful captive woman has halakhic rules, exactly what may be done, what may not be done, when, how, first intercourse, not first intercourse, all kinds of things of that sort, right? But the Sages themselves say that the Torah spoke in response to the evil inclination. If you ask morally whether it is right to do this—of course not. What are you talking about? This is one of the biggest mistakes in the debate. There was the last military rabbi who was appointed, Rabbi Eyal Karim if I’m not mistaken, Rabbi Eyal Karim—when he was appointed, they dug up some statement of his from years earlier about raping captives. Some soldier had asked him—he wasn’t the military rabbi then, he was a rabbi in some pre-army academy—so a soldier asked him whether it is permitted to rape captives, and he said yes, the beautiful captive woman, according to Jewish law. A complete misunderstanding, both on his part and on the part of his critics. Not because it is relevant—then too it wasn’t relevant, and today it isn’t relevant. What the Torah says is what Jewish law says. And as for whether it is moral or not? Obviously not. Who was talking about morality? We’re talking about Jewish law. These are two different things. There are people who assume that morality and Jewish law are synonymous terms. As if morality, Jewish law—that’s Jewish morality. There is no such thing as Jewish morality, and Jewish law certainly is not Jewish morality. Morality is, by definition, universal. Okay, so what I basically want to say is that claims—when I speak about claims—not all of them fall into the category of factual claims in the simple sense, where you can discover by observation whether they are true or false. There are other things that we have no observational way to test, and still many people, myself included, treat them as claims. For example: murder is forbidden. Now I’m returning to belief in God. What I said earlier is that belief in God is a factual claim. First of all, it is a claim; second, it is a factual claim. That comes to exclude the approaches that say belief in God is some kind of feeling, experience, something like that. Why, I said, do people arrive at those approaches, that it’s a feeling or an experience? Because the sense is that it’s hard to treat it as a claim, because how do you know? There’s no observation that yields that conclusion. So how do you know? One person thinks there is, another doesn’t think there is; they were born in different places, they have a different psychological makeup, different genes responsible for belief, all kinds of popular folktales like that. So that’s what leads people to say that belief is not a claim but some kind of subjective feeling or experience. What I want to argue now is: that’s not true. Belief is a factual claim. Not only is it a claim, it is a factual claim. If I say that there is a God, if I say I believe in God, that means: there is a God. A factual claim. Except that here it’s even more than a moral claim; this is a factual claim, because I am factually claiming: there is a God. Anyone who says there isn’t is mistaken in his perception of reality. There is one object in reality that he does not perceive. It is there, and he doesn’t perceive it, so he is mistaken. Okay? The question of how I know—that is, how do you test whether there is or isn’t a God, how did I arrive at that, or can I persuade someone else or not—that doesn’t matter. That is a completely different question, a diagnostic question. But the claim is a factual claim. And just as I say that murder is forbidden is a claim, all the more so, beyond all the more so, that there is a God is a claim; here it is even a factual claim, not just a claim. True, I have no simple observational way to verify or refute this claim. True. So this is a claim that is not a scientific claim. You know that according to Popper, the criterion for a scientific claim is a claim that can be subjected to a test of falsification. This claim cannot be subjected to a scientific falsification test. Fine. That means it is not a claim that belongs to the world of science, but that does not mean it is not a claim, and it certainly does not mean it is not a factual claim. It is entirely a factual claim. Anyone who says otherwise is simply mistaken about the facts, like someone who says there is no table here. Except that the table can be seen. God—we have no direct observational way to ascertain whether He exists or not. Fine, but the claim is still a claim, like with the billion ants. If someone says there are ten billion ants in the world, or a hundred—whatever I said, I don’t remember—and someone else says no, there are only ten billion, then at least one of them is mistaken. Maybe both are mistaken, but at least one is mistaken. Ah, I have no way to check. True, I have no way to check, but still, factually there are either ten billion, or a hundred, or neither. So this is a factual claim. The fact that I have no factual or observational way to check it or subject it to falsification does not mean that it is not a factual claim. Same thing with God. There is no difference at all. The claim that there is a God is like the claim that there are a hundred billion ants in the world. Exactly the same thing. A claim that there is a soul. What? A claim that there is a soul. If you mean in the ontic sense, then it is exactly the same claim, yes. If you say there is such a thing as a soul—because there are many people who say the soul is a collection of phenomena, not a distinct substance. If you are a dualist, then you say there is matter and there is spirit. There are two kinds of substances. You believe in dualism, in two types of being. Then it is a factual claim in every respect. If you say no, the human body or the human brain, no matter where you locate it, has phenomena that we call psychic or mental phenomena or whatever, then it’s not a claim about the existence of some thing, but the phenomena themselves—you could say that too is a factual claim, that the phenomena exist. No one argues about that, at least no one with a brain in his head. So that is the first point. The second point I wanted to clarify is that the statement “I believe in God” is basically a factual claim: there is a God. That is the claim. Now again, this does not mean that it is a correct or incorrect claim—that’s another discussion. Now we have to discuss how one arrives at it, how one knows, whether it can be proven, whether it cannot be proven—all true, all true. One has to understand categorically. Categorically, this thing is a claim, a factual claim. Should this thing lead me to a feeling or an experience? Again, I do not identify belief with a feeling or an experience. But someone could come and say, okay, that’s not the meaning of belief, but if you really believe, it should generate some sort of feeling or experience in you. That’s a different claim. I do not identify belief with feeling and experience, but I could still say that feeling and experience are derived from the fact that you believe. If you don’t believe, you don’t have the feeling; if you do believe, you should have the feeling. I do not accept that. I don’t think that’s true. But here one can discuss it. Someone might say, well, if you don’t have such experiences or feelings, then you don’t really believe; you’re not reading yourself correctly; you don’t really believe. Okay, that could be. I’ll give you an example. I once gave—there’s a friend of mine who used to be the principal of the environmental high school in Sde Boker. I taught in Yeruham at the yeshiva; we’re friends. So he invited me during the Ten Days of Repentance to speak with their school about matters of, well, forgiveness, atonement, repentance, things like that, but without any connection to religiosity. Without God, without Torah, without anything—just to speak about the issues themselves. A secular school, and today he himself is basically half-religious already. In any case, I accepted the challenge, and I opened the talk with them—they were sitting there, students and teachers, a very high-level school. It was a very impressive meeting. I said to them: think about the following situation. Suppose I hurt someone, and I feel absolutely no pangs of conscience as a result. I couldn’t care less. I go home happy and cheerful, whistling a merry tune. Okay. I get home, think to myself, and reach the conclusion that I hurt him. That isn’t okay. Again, nothing emotional here, yes? I feel nothing, but intellectually, cognitively, I reached the conclusion that I was wrong, I hurt him. I go and ask him for forgiveness: forgive me. I said to them, suppose you know what is going on inside me, or what is not going on inside me—do you accept that request for forgiveness? I asked them there in that meeting. And there was wall-to-wall consensus that no. That’s hypocrisy. You don’t really feel that you hurt me, you don’t really want to ask forgiveness, you’re just mouthing words. I told them that in my view, that is the greatest request for forgiveness possible. Only such a request would I accept. Because if I come to ask your forgiveness because I have stomach pains over the fact that I hurt you, then I’m asking your forgiveness in order to feed my own distress and deal with the distress I feel. I need to calm my own stomach pains. But if I have no stomach pains at all, and I reached the conclusion—again, I’m not doing this to gain something from you, that’s always where we jump. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about someone who understands intellectually that he was wrong, that he hurt his friend, and he goes and asks forgiveness because he was wrong. But he feels nothing, not in the emotional sense. This is understanding in the head, not in the heart. Okay? That isn’t hypocrisy; it’s the exact opposite of hypocrisy. It is the purest request possible. You do it because you truly understand that you were wrong. You do it in order to appease him, not in order to satisfy your own distress. What does that actually mean? It means that even when we feel pangs of conscience over a bad act we did, over hurting someone, the pangs of conscience in themselves have no value. It’s a feeling. That’s how I’m built, so I feel pangs of conscience. Someone else isn’t built that way; his amygdala is a bit cut up, so he doesn’t feel it. Okay, so what? Is he not okay? Is he worse than I am? No, he simply doesn’t feel it. That’s how he’s built; I’m built differently, so I do feel it; he’s built that way, so he doesn’t feel it. There is no good or bad here; that’s how we’re built. Where are you measured? In whether you do what must be done once you reached the conclusion that you were wrong. So if he does that and I do that, then both of us are perfectly fine—and on the contrary, he is even more fine. Because when I did it, maybe I did it because of my guilty conscience, whereas he did it because he truly understood that he was wrong. Now of course this doesn’t mean I have to shut off my conscience, this emotional dimension in me. But I do need to do it not only in order to feed the emotional distress I have. The distress can signal to me that something here was wrong. A person who is built in a healthy way is someone who, when he hurts someone else, also feels pangs of conscience. That’s how we’re built. But that’s not essential; it’s an indication. Meaning, if there is someone built differently who does not feel that, he is no less good than I am. He is built differently. Okay? It’s exactly the same thing as I feel and you don’t feel. There is no better or worse here, and it’s not even an argument. It’s just true that many times, if I sincerely understand that I hurt someone, pangs of conscience will also be stirred in me, because that is how normal human beings are built. Okay? But that’s only because that’s how we’re built. It doesn’t make that feeling or experience into something that has value in itself. It is only an expression or indication that I understand I was wrong, and that is the thing with value: that I understood I was wrong and I will do what is needed to fix it. Same thing here. One can ask—I brought that example in order to return to belief—someone could come and say: look, if you really believe, then a religious feeling, a religious experience, will also be stirred in you. Otherwise, apparently you don’t really believe. Like the claim that if you have no pangs of conscience then apparently you do not truly think you were wrong, because if you really thought you were wrong, normal human beings are built so that pangs of conscience are aroused as a result. That is another claim. It is not a claim that says the feeling is itself the belief. Rather, genuine belief, which is cognitive, in a healthy person, a person built in a normal way, should arouse religious experiences or feelings. That is another claim. I do not accept it. And it is another claim, and it does not contradict what I said earlier, that belief is a claim, a factual claim, and not a feeling. One can say that someone who internalizes that fact properly will have such and such feelings aroused in him. Fine. That doesn’t mean I identify the feelings with belief. But I am saying it’s a relation of cause and effect, not identity. Meaning, if I believe, then I have feelings or experiences or whatever. Again, I don’t accept even that. But that claim is another claim. It is a claim that can also fit into the picture I am describing here. Okay? The practical difference, for example, is that someone who does not have that structure, who is built differently—even if he reaches the conclusion that there is a God, those feelings and experiences and so on are not aroused in him. There is nothing defective about his belief, and it is no less good than anyone else’s belief. It’s just that he is built in such a way that the expressions of his conclusion that there is a God, of his belief, are different, because that’s how he is built. Okay? So therefore it does not indicate in any way whether he does or does not believe, even if I assume that in an ordinary person belief will express itself emotionally or experientially. But that is only an expression, not the thing itself. Okay, so that is regarding the meaning of the claim of belief. There is a very widespread conception in the world, as I said before, that religious belief is tied in some way to a religious experience or a feeling, and I will now perhaps add one more thing: and to moral behavior. It seems to me that the one who represents this conception in a very sharp and clear way is Kant. And therefore when he looks at Judaism he says Judaism is not a religion. Judaism is a social code. There are rules about what is permitted, what is forbidden, Jewish law, and so on. And in his view religion is something else: it is experience, it is feeling, it is an emotional relationship with the Holy One, blessed be He, moral behavior, or various things of that sort. Today atheists are supposed to be offended by this, but then it was a natural statement. It is obvious—the way I see it at least—that Kant’s conception was formed because he came from a Christian environment. His nurturing environment was Christian. And in the Christian world, after they gave up the practical commandments, what remained to define religiosity was religious feeling and morality, meaning proper human behavior. Okay? And now through those lenses, when Kant looks—since he came from a Christian environment, his nurturing environment was Christian, and in the Christian world after they gave up the practical commandments, what remained to define religiosity was religious feeling and morality, meaning proper human behavior. And now through those lenses, when Kant looks at Judaism, he says, wait a second, this thing does not connect in any way for me to what we call religiosity or religion. Okay? You know, in Hebrew, “the law was given in Shushan the capital.” What is dat? Dat means law, in biblical language. That means that from the perspective of religiosity in the Jewish sense, it is commitment to law. That is what it means to be a religious person. In the Christian sense, a religious person means a relationship to God, religious feeling, and moral behavior. Okay? Now, after this Christian distortion, this suddenly came to be perceived so deeply as the definition of the concept of religion or religiosity that it penetrated back into the Jewish conception. Today many people, even within the Jewish world, identify religiosity with that, not with commitment to Jewish law, but with—a religious person is someone who has a religious feeling inside. Kant’s students, Kant’s successors—quite a few Jews among them, Mendelssohn and others—they tried to defend Judaism against Kant’s criticism and show that no, there is feeling and morality here too and various things of that sort. He understood Judaism better than they did. He was right. Feeling and morality are not essential to the matter. What is essential is commitment to Jewish law, to law. That is what religiosity means in the Jewish sense. Okay? Now, there can be emotional expressions, as I said before, maybe yes and maybe no, but that is not the thing that defines religiosity in the Jewish context. There are people who have religious feeling, and there are people who don’t; it’s a matter of psychological structure. Okay? But that is not the essence, or that is not the core of the definition of religiosity. I want to ask regarding God: if He means different things to different people—for example, if a fundamentalist now says there is a God, now I’m going to murder Jews, and I say there is a God and we mean completely different things, even opposite things. You’re saying that the concept of God has to be defined when I speak about it. Okay, we’ll get to that later. We’ll get to it. First of all, according to your own definition, let’s set aside for the moment the multiplicity of definitions and what we do with that. Each person, when he wants to define for himself whether he believes in God, has to decide whether this factual claim is acceptable to him, however he defines God, it doesn’t matter, each one for himself. And then we’ll discuss this phenomenon that there are multiple definitions and what to do with it, whether we are even talking about the same thing. I can’t say yes or no about something that is undefined. Why? If I say there is a God and the atheist says there is no God, and he means God in my definition, then there is an argument, right? Why should I care that the Muslim says there is a God in a different sense? Because he is talking about God under a different definition. That’s not correct in my opinion, but let’s assume. That’s another question; we’ll get to it later. Now one more note about the concept of God: theism and deism, I mentioned earlier. If someone says there is a God and He commanded to do such and such or not to do such and such—but why do it? If I believe there is a God, I was persuaded that at Mount Sinai He commanded all kinds of things, but why do them? Then it will be very hard to give an answer. Right? Okay, you know, many times—it reminds me, I once heard from Haggai Luber, he’s been in the headlines a bit lately, but this was years ago. He said he was an instructor at Midreshet Ofra. There were all kinds of groups of teenagers who came to stay there, from religious high schools or yeshiva high schools and the like. So he says, we sat around the campfire—he had then, I think, been an instructor for seven years if I remember correctly—he says, seven years earlier, when I arrived at the yeshiva institute, groups would come and sit around the campfire, and there was electricity in the air. Meaning, if I prove to them that there is a God, they all immediately become ultra-religious, observe commandments, yeshiva, I don’t know what. And if not, they go to the beach, finished. Shut down the whole business and go to the beach, everything’s fine. And now there is this great tension: will I succeed in proving it or not? He says, seven years passed—not five generations from Adam to Noah—seven years passed. We sit around the same campfire with kids the same age. I tell them there is a God. Most likely. Then he tells them, and He also revealed Himself at Mount Sinai. Cool, they say to him. And He gave the Torah there. Sure. And whatever He says has to be done. He’s God, right? Then he says, okay, here we’ve shifted… So where are we stuck? He says… They were not actually willing to do what he thought followed from that set of claims. It doesn’t suit us. Meaning, many times we think we’ve closed the argument because all the claims are settled, we’ve reached agreement on all the claims, but many times in the end there is still some final piece that basically breaks the whole story. So I’ll go one step back. Whether it suits us or not, let’s speak about the guys from seven years earlier. Even there the claim is not simple. Very often we discuss whether there is or isn’t a God. The moment I prove to you that there is a God, you are supposed to come right away—yes, drag him to the study hall. The scoundrel, not God. So the sophisticated ones say, wait, wait, wait. Fine, there is a God. Who said He gave the Torah at Mount Sinai? What are you talking about? That never happened, folktales. Then suppose I manage to prove to him that yes, there was a Mount Sinai and the Torah was given and everything, then the feeling really is, okay, the matter is settled, let’s open a study partnership, come to our Sabbath meal. Then he says no, God gave the Torah and commanded, but—but who said you have to fulfill what He said? You still have something more to do before you reach the conclusion that now I have to observe everything, or not transgress what He forbids. And somehow many people don’t put that on the table at all. It’s as though if there is a God and if He gave the Torah, then the discussion is closed; meaning once we’ve proven that, everything is fine, we’re done. The whole question is whether there is a God or not, was there a Mount Sinai or not. And there is another question here. Fine, there was, there is, everything is true—but so what? I also exist. If I were to reveal myself at Mount Sinai and tell you, take this marker, stand every morning on one foot while holding it in your right hand and then on the other foot with it in your left hand. I say okay, the revelation at Mount Sinai—you even exist from time to time—you told us such and such. Why is that important to me? Why should I care? Why do I have to fulfill what you say? The same thing can be asked even about the Holy One, blessed be He—yes, God. That too is a claim that needs to be discussed. Here I think it’s almost a trick, but I think it isn’t a trick; it is correct. That question is a question that stems from misunderstanding. Someone who asks such a question—that is a misunderstanding. It’s like saying, look, I know that murder is forbidden, but why not murder? It is morally forbidden, yes, not to murder—but why not murder? If he asks such a question, then don’t tell me you know that murder is forbidden. You don’t know. If you knew that murder is forbidden, you wouldn’t ask, so why not murder? That is the meaning of “murder is forbidden.” The meaning of “murder is forbidden” means: don’t murder; that it is not okay to murder. There is nothing to ask: I know murder is forbidden, but why not murder? You don’t know that murder is forbidden. Right? Forbidden is not a descriptive word. There are those who think murder is a bad thing. “Murder is forbidden” is something that addresses me; what is called in analytic philosophy, this is a prescriptive statement, not a descriptive one. It is not a statement describing; it is a statement commanding, a statement of norm, not a statement describing a fact. I claim that it is the same regarding God. If someone says, I believe in God, and God commanded such and such, and he still asks, but why do it? Misunderstanding. He does not believe in God. Because God, in essence, is someone that if He commands, one must do. That is the definition of the concept. Meaning, if you do not believe in such a God, then you simply do not believe in God. No, another argument doesn’t interest me, I don’t think there is one—but that is another discussion. What, what is going on here, postmodernist? Because God said so, therefore I demand of you not to murder. You tell me, I understand that God said so, but why not murder? That is the discussion I am conducting here; that is the question—what do I answer to such a thing? Now it doesn’t matter—even Sabbath observance, eating pork, not important—but I asked about morality, now I’m asking about Jewish law, and let’s not take murder specifically because it belongs more to the world of morality. Let’s take eating pork. I told you—suppose God revealed Himself and said not to eat pork. Yes, but why not eat pork? Suppose someone like that asks me. He says, yes, He revealed Himself, I know, I believe in Him, He revealed Himself at Mount Sinai, He said not to eat pork—but why not eat pork? Someone who asks such a question is the same as someone in the moral realm who says, I know that murder is morally forbidden, but why not murder? It’s a misunderstanding. He does not know that murder is morally forbidden; he only says that he knows; he does not understand what morality is. The same with someone who says I believe that God commanded such and such, but why do it? He does not understand what God is. He does not truly believe in a God who commanded to do such and such. No. What God said is binding. Whether that is good or not good is another question. True, maybe he does not believe in God, fine. But if you tell me you believe in God—God, look. In the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Sanhedrin, the Talmud says: from where do we learn that a monetary court requires three judges? One or three—there is a dispute of Amoraim there—but according to the view that it is three, because the word elohim appears three times in the passage. “And the master of the house shall come near to the elohim”—who is elohim there? Judges, right? Why are judges called elohim? What? And therefore what? There is authority, that if the judge said you are obligated to do something, therefore he is called elohim. Elohim is someone that if he says something, you are obligated to do it. No explanations are needed. Not that you do it because it will help you, not because it will help him, not because you are afraid, not because of whatever else. That is not relevant. I do it because he said so. No, I didn’t say it is irrational. I asked whether it is binding, not whether it is rational. I don’t know what the logic is in tefillin or in pork or I don’t know, various things. I only know that if God said so, it is binding. Can a person say, I know that God commanded not to eat pork, but why not eat pork? That is a fact. God commanded—that is the fact. No, why? He wants to eat pork. And the fact that God commanded—so what if He commanded? Who said I have to do what He commanded? I claim that this question expresses misunderstanding. Because if you understand the concept God, then what He commands you must do. That’s it. That’s what I said. If that is certain, then everything is fine, we agree. So the claim I want to make, yes, is that the concept God is an entity such that what He says I need to do. Not because of this reason or that reason. When I say I believe in God, it is not only believing that there is some factor that created the world, but that this factor, if it says something, that is binding by virtue of the fact that it said it—not because it is true, not because it is good, not because it is useful, and not for any other reason. It may also be good and useful and true, but that is not why it is binding. It is binding because God said so. Whenever you see all kinds of discussions about why to observe commandments, the only possible answer is this. There is no other answer. And all the texts that try to offer explanations are all just empty words. Simply this. What does “simply this” mean? There are two types of “simply this.” There is “simply this” that is arbitrary, and there is “simply this” that is inherently correct. Look, there are the axioms of geometry, right? The axiom that one straight line passes through two points, that two parallels do not meet, and so on. You ask, why is that? Who told you it’s true? That one straight line passes through two points. Can you prove it? No. Who said it’s true? Just because. What does “just because” mean? Arbitrary, because I felt like it? Just because? No. Truly, one straight line passes through two points; you won’t succeed in drawing two straight lines. So what does that “just because” mean in this context? It’s the foundation. On top of that there are other things. It’s no accident that Rashi asks this at the beginning of the Torah, why it didn’t begin—no, read Rashi’s answer too, not only the question. Rashi does not answer what you are saying. No, it is exactly to explain that no. No, he remains with the assumptions of the question in the answer too. They added the book of Genesis in order that “He declared to His people the power of His works,” etc. Fine, that is another discussion. In any case, for our purposes, the claim that God is an entity that has formal authority, such that what He says I am obligated in, by virtue of the fact that He said it. It may be true, it may not be true; it may be good, it may not be good; useful, not useful—we won’t get into that at all. Those are all theological conceptions, each according to his own conception. Whether it is beneficial, not beneficial, whether it is good or whatever. It is binding because He said so. That is all. That is this notion of “just because,” yes. I said there are two kinds of “just because.” There is “just because” in the sense of arbitrary, because I decided so. Just because. I chose to eat this roll and not that bread. Why? I felt like it. Just because. I have no explanations. Okay? I flipped a coin. But there is another kind of “just because,” like one straight line passes through two points. That is not “just because” in the sense of arbitrary, because I felt like it, I flipped a coin. No, it is true. I have no proof. I do not know how to ground it on more fundamental principles, true? It is an axiom. Yes, it is true from itself, inherently. It is completely clear to me from within itself that it is true. That is another meaning of the concept “just because.” “Just because” means I have no further explanations, but no further explanations are needed. Not needed because it is self-evident. A person who believes in God cannot be asked, so why do you observe His commandments? The answer is: just because. Because God is someone who, when He says something, I need to do it. And if you examine yourselves, in my opinion at least, and compare all the standard answers people try to produce for that question—one more ridiculous than the next—you will see that none of them really describes what you think, what you feel. Gratitude because He created me, it doesn’t matter; He knows best what is right and what isn’t; all kinds of answers of that sort. None of that really describes our basic religious intuition. Our basic religious intuition is that this is what He said, and therefore it is binding. Because God said so. Many people try to force in some reason. There may also be a reason, but that is not why I am obligated to do it. I do not think He said things arbitrarily. He told me not to eat pork; apparently there is some reason. But why am I obligated not to eat pork? Not because of the reason—because He said so. Like with the legislator: when the legislator establishes a law, he has a reason why he established the law; he doesn’t make it up for nothing. I’m talking about other legislators, not the ones we have here. So he doesn’t establish it for nothing; he establishes it for some reason. And why do I obey it? Not because of the reason—because the legislator said so. That is why I do it. Okay? Motivation is a question in psychology, so fine. Each person according to his own psychology. The question is why one must do it, not where the mental or psychological motivation comes from. Why is it binding? Why must one do it? The answer is: just because, because God said so. If you ask, how do I recruit the reservoirs of energy to invest in it and so on—that’s psychology. I’ll take a pill. A psychiatrist can prescribe me a pill and solve the psychological problem. I’m dealing here with the question of what is correct, not with the question of how I cope with things. Okay? So the claim basically is that the concept God is an entity with formal authority, such that what He says I must do. There is a Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry chapter 3, law 6, which actually begins in the Talmud—a dispute between Abaye and Rava: one who worships idols out of love or fear, is he liable or exempt? Maimonides rules like Rava, that he is exempt. Abaye says liable; Rava says exempt. In disputes between Abaye and Rava, except for the six cases indicated by the mnemonic, the law follows Rava. Okay? So Maimonides rules that he is exempt. One who worships idols out of love or fear is exempt. Fine, most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) understand—Rashi, Rivan, Raavad, most of the medieval authorities understand—what does it mean, one who worships out of love or fear is exempt? So when is one liable for idolatry? They say: love and fear of a person. If you worship idols out of love or fear of a person, to please him or because you fear him or something like that, then you are exempt. And if it is love and fear of the idol, then that is religious worship in the fullest sense, and of course you are liable—you are worshiping idols in the fullest sense. But Maimonides says it literally. One who worships idols out of love or fear is exempt. Not love and fear of a person. And Raavad comments there, we have only love and fear of a person. But Maimonides doesn’t say that. One who worships out of love or fear is exempt. What is the alternative? It already appears in the Talmud: unless he accepted it as a god. If he accepts it as his god, that is idolatry for which one is liable. But if you worship it out of love or fear, then you are exempt. Now the question is, what is called accepting it as a god? Accepting it as a god means—I’ll give you an example. I heard this explanation from my friend Nadav from physics here, Nadav Shnerb, we used to study together. Suppose I’m driving on the road, I’m speeding, I see a police officer and slow down. Did I commit idolatry? I obeyed the officer’s laws, right? So I committed idolatry. Obedience to the laws of another factor that is not the Holy One, blessed be He. So no. I obeyed it because I feared punishment, because I thought it would save lives, or all kinds of things of that sort, it doesn’t matter right now. Okay? Then that is no longer idolatry. Which means that one who worships idols for some foreign consideration, including fear—fear of punishment in this case—is indeed exempt; he did not worship idols. If you worship an idol because you think that if you don’t worship it, it will kill you, then that is not idolatry. Not in the fullest sense, in any case. Those who want extra stringency shouldn’t do that. It is not idolatry. When is it idolatry? If you worship an idol because it said so. That is called accepting it as a god. I accept it upon myself as a god. Remember what god means? God means someone whose word I do. Except for the blessing in the divine name, there too it is god. But for our purposes, god is someone whose word I do. That is called a god. To accept it upon myself as a god means: I do what it said because it said so. Not because I’m afraid, not because I think it will be useful in this way or because it will do this or that. Rather, I obey it by virtue of what it is. That is idolatry. If I accept upon myself someone like that other than the Holy One, blessed be He, and obey him by virtue of the fact that he said something, that is idolatry. But if I obey him for all kinds of reasons—I obey a doctor, I take the medicine because I want to get better. That is not idolatry. I don’t go into the fire because I don’t want to get burned—that is not idolatry. Same thing if I love or fear the idol—remember the feelings I spoke about? If I love or fear the idol, yes? That is not idolatry. I do it to feed something inside me, not for its sake. Idolatry is when I accept it upon myself as a god. Meaning, what it says I do; it is a god, like elohim the judges. That is called idolatry. You see here in Maimonides, and elsewhere too in Maimonides, that god is not only someone who created the world or someone who is some sort of being. First of all, it doesn’t matter right now why He receives that mandate or that authority, but god is someone who has this formal mandate, that what He says I do by virtue of the fact that He said it. That is called god; that is the definition of god. Okay? So that wouldn’t be considered gods, say, I don’t know, if people accept the authority of all kinds of factors? Only if they have no reason for it. If it is without reason, then it is idolatry. Meaning, if you do what I say because I said it, not because you believe that if I say it then it is also right, or if you are a doctor—suppose I am a doctor—you do it because you think you will get better. You are not a doctor, you don’t understand, I do understand. So you do what I tell you in order to get better. That is not idolatry because you do it for reasons. Accepting someone as a god means I do what you say because you said it, not because I have some reason. Because you said it. That is called accepting as a god. If there is someone else like that besides the Holy One, blessed be He, that is idolatry by association. Okay. Many times, yes, this too is an example he gave me. The moral overseers are always scolding people: out of rote. Yes, you serve the Holy One, blessed be He, with commandments learned by rote. You come to pray just because you’re used to it, because that’s what everyone does, not because you really feel you want a relationship with the Holy One, blessed be He. It is simply the opposite, the opposite of the truth. Someone who comes because of rote is serving God at the highest level there is. Because he comes because one must come. Not because he wanted a relationship with the Holy One, blessed be He—that would be love or fear or whatever. Not because he wants the Holy One, blessed be He, to support him or heal him or all kinds of things of that sort. Maybe he also wants that; one is allowed to want that. But that is not why you come. You come because one must pray. That is all. That is why I come. That is the very highest form of rote, according to the moral overseers. That is the highest prayer possible. Only because of that. Someone who comes in order to be healed has not fulfilled his obligation at all; that is not prayer. There is a commandment of prayer. And because of the commandment of prayer—there were prayers even before Mount Sinai, the Patriarchs also prayed. Fine? They did not have a commandment of prayer. Fine. That is prayer that you can do for any reason whatsoever. If you want to fulfill the obligation of the commandment of prayer, you need to fulfill the obligation. You do it because of the obligation. There is a commandment to pray. On top of that, of course, you may also want a relationship with the Holy One, blessed be He, and experiences and whatever you want. To ask for healing and livelihood and whatever else you want. On the second, third, fourth, up to the hundredth floor. But the first floor, first of all, is that there is an obligation to pray, and that is why I am here. Yes, maybe—I think he was the one who told me this story—I’m always annoyed by Hasidic tales. But Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev saw, so they tell, some Jew coming out of the synagogue with tefillin and tallit and fixing the yoke of his wagon, preparing the next stage of his day. And he said: look, Master of the Universe, see what a nation of righteous people You have. They pray in the synagogue, they pray while fixing the wagon, they never stop praying. In every situation they pray. Fine, these are stories for idiotic children. But behind this there is a real point, it turns out. What does it mean? If he wanted to fix the wagon, why did he go to the synagogue with the tallit and tefillin in the first place? He could have fixed the wagon quietly. What? Obviously he went to the synagogue first of all because there is an obligation to go to the synagogue. Now true, we are all human beings and we have urges and no strength and we are in a hurry and all kinds of things like that. But first and foremost he went to the synagogue with tallit and tefillin because he understands that this is what one must do. There is a commandment to pray, tefillin, whatever it may be. A rabbinic commandment, a Torah-level commandment, Maimonides and Nachmanides. But tefillin is a Torah-level commandment. Okay? That’s it. On top of that, fine, we all deal with urges this way and that, okay, everything is fine, none of us is perfect. But there is something true in this story, okay? Even though it is a Hasidic story. So the claim in the end is that when I say I believe in God, what that means is: I believe in an entity that has formal authority, such that what He says I need to do. By virtue of the fact that He said it. Not for any reasons whatsoever, including not love and fear toward Him, including not to repair the world, extract sparks from the apple, and all that—it is not relevant. I do it because one must. On top of that, one can think about sparks and love and experiences and whatever else you want. On the higher floors. But the first floor, the thing that turns this into service of God, into a commandment, is the sense of obligation. That is what I said earlier, that I think Kant was right: the concept of religiosity in the Jewish context is that commitment to the system of laws. First of all. After that can come all the ideas and experiences and whatever else. Good. Now the next point I want to touch on is the question whether it is possible to command a person to believe. Maimonides, in positive commandment number 1—yes, this is the commandment of belief, “I am the Lord your God.” Okay? And quite a few commentators have already remarked that this commandment is a strange commandment. It is strange because when you command someone, the command assumes that the commanded person accepts the authority of the one commanding; otherwise, what are you commanding? I can command the President of the United States to do such and such tomorrow morning; I can command till tomorrow, and what I command him interests my grandmother. Okay? But when you command someone, there is some assumption here that you have authority over him, that he also accepts your authority. Okay? Someone who does not believe in God cannot be commanded about anything, and certainly not commanded to believe in God. Belief in God is the foundation that makes command possible. If you believe in God, now God comes and tells you keep the Sabbath, do not eat pork, honor your parents, I don’t know, various things. But if God is not yet in the background and we are still before that, then what sense does it make to command a person to believe in God? That is the common argument against this Maimonides. But there is a stronger argument against Maimonides’ logic. Belief in God, as I said earlier, is a factual claim. You cannot command a person regarding facts. There is no such thing as commanding a person regarding facts. It doesn’t matter at all—I previously spoke about a kind of circularity. You cannot command a person to believe in God when belief in God itself is the foundation that makes it possible for you to command, makes it possible for Him to command. Okay? I am not speaking now about that; I am speaking about a much broader question. Suppose you command a person to believe in the coming of the Messiah. Not belief in God. Here the logical problem is not there, right? I already believe in God, everything is fine, now He commands me to believe in the coming of the Messiah. I claim that even that cannot be commanded. Because you cannot command someone regarding facts. Why? What is a command? A command means that even if I myself would not do it and would not want to do it, once the authorized factor commands me and I accept his authority, then I must do it. Right? I am required to do it, I am obligated to do it. That is what a command means. One moment, let me just complete the difficulty. Meaning, if we are talking about a factual claim, then what are you saying to me? Look, you don’t actually believe in the coming of the Messiah. But I command you to believe in the coming of the Messiah. You cannot come to a person and tell him such a thing. Why? Either way. If I am convinced that I know the truth, that the Messiah will come, and therefore he accepts it, no problem—but then he accepts it because he was convinced, not because of a command. So I persuaded him. Okay? But a command means I do not need to persuade you. You need to do it because I said so. But one cannot believe a fact because I said so, unless you are convinced that I know and you were truly persuaded that I am right. Fine. Even if you were not persuaded by the claim itself, but you were persuaded that I am an expert and therefore I know, or I am a prophet, or whatever. Then suppose I am a doctor. When a doctor tells me to take medicine, okay? Why do I listen to him? I listen because I assume he knows more than I do. And if he said that I should take this medicine and it will treat my issue, then I assume he is right. Okay? That does not mean the doctor has authority. He has no authority. He is not commanding me to take the medicine. I owe him nothing. Even if he commands till tomorrow, I am not obligated to do it. I do it because I was persuaded that it is correct, even if I don’t know how it works because I didn’t study medicine, but I trust that he does know. Therefore in the end I was persuaded that it works. That’s why I do it. A command is not that point. A command you are supposed to do because the commanding factor commanded. Even if you yourself think one should not do it or would not do it. Now when they command you regarding a fact, one cannot command you to adopt a fact. If you were persuaded, then you will adopt it not because you were commanded, but because you were persuaded that it is true. But if you were not persuaded, then what will you say? “I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah”? I do not believe it at all. But I say it, I move my lips. I say “I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah.” To believe in the coming of the Messiah is to believe in your head, in your heart—not to move your lips and say “I believe in the coming of the Messiah.” If I was not persuaded, then I do not believe. What will it help if I say it? And if I was persuaded, then you persuaded me—not that I did it because of the command, but because I was persuaded it is true. I was persuaded that you were right. Understood? It simply makes no sense to command factual claims. What does it mean, command me to know the truth? If that is the truth, then I know it. If it is not the truth, then what good is the command? I accept the command to seek the truth; that can be. To seek the truth until you reach a conclusion. Which conclusion? Either there is a God or there isn’t. Whatever I arrive at, that can be a command. But a command to know that there is a God, or a command to believe in God—okay, you cannot command them to believe the world is round. What does it help you to command it? Either persuade them or be quiet. There is nothing to command them about. If that is what they think, that is what they think. What will it help? So what I want to say is exactly the implication of what I said earlier. If indeed belief in God is a factual claim, then it cannot be commanded. If they tell you, develop a subjective feeling of love for God or of belief in God—a concept that does not make claims about the world—in principle you can command such a thing. Not that I would be obligated if there is no one commanding him, never mind whether I would fulfill it. But fine, a command that contains no internal contradiction. Okay? But to command me to believe the factual claim that there is a God—that is an oxymoron. You cannot command such a thing. Okay? So what about Maimonides? Good question. It requires further study; I don’t know. Okay, so that is basically the implication: if this is a factual claim, then one also cannot command it. Okay, we’ll stop here. We’ll continue next time. Wait, there are a few more people here I didn’t write down, who came in a little after the beginning. Let’s do that. What’s the name? Michael Yair? Michael Yair Yiger? Another one? Thank you very much. Just one second. Yosef Stend? Okay.

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Faith and Its Meaning - Lesson 2

Faith and Its Meaning – Lesson 1

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The aims of the series and the distinction between deism and theism

Believing in and believing that

Rejecting the identification of belief with emotion and narrativism

Belief as a factual claim and the dispute with atheism

Truth and falsehood, Aristotle, and positivism

Morality, “murder is forbidden,” and examining the status of non-empirical claims

David Enoch’s “spinach test” and moral relativism

Torah, Jewish law, and morality, and the beautiful captive woman

Belief in God as a factual claim that is not scientific

Religious feeling as a possible result of belief and not its identity

Asking forgiveness without emotion and pangs of conscience as an “indication”

Kant, “religion” as feeling and morality, and the return of the Christian understanding into Judaism

The multiplicity of definitions of God and the need for a definition in order to disagree

God as obligating authority, and the transition from deism to theism

“God” as judges in the Sanhedrin and formal authority

Maimonides: idolatry out of love or fear, “accepted it upon himself as a god,” and the definition of a god

“Learned-by-rote commandments,” prayer as obligation, and the story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev

Can belief be commanded, and the difficulty in Maimonides’ first positive commandment

Conclusion and attendance notes

Full Transcript

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Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The aims of the series and the distinction between deism and theism

Believing in and believing that

Rejecting the identification of belief with emotion and narrativism

Belief as a factual claim and the dispute with atheism

Truth and falsehood, Aristotle, and positivism

Morality, “murder is forbidden,” and examining the status of non-empirical claims

David Enoch’s “spinach test” and moral relativism

Torah, Jewish law, and morality, and the beautiful captive woman

Belief in God as a factual claim that is not scientific

Religious feeling as a possible result of belief and not its identity

Asking forgiveness without emotion and pangs of conscience as an “indication”

Kant, “religion” as feeling and morality, and the return of the Christian understanding into Judaism

The multiplicity of definitions of God and the need for a definition in order to disagree

God as obligating authority, and the transition from deism to theism

“God” as judges in the Sanhedrin and formal authority

Maimonides: idolatry out of love or fear, “accepted it upon himself as a god,” and the definition of a god

“Learned-by-rote commandments,” prayer as obligation, and the story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev

Can belief be commanded, and the difficulty in Maimonides’ first positive commandment

Conclusion and attendance notes

Full Transcript

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