Faith, Doubt, and Certainty – Lesson 3

Table of Contents

• An analytic worldview and the absence of discourse
• The geometry example and the skeptical foundation
• A synthetic worldview, intuition, and the justification of axioms
• When discourse gets stuck, the “train to Scotland,” and the limit of theological proof
• “Where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this,” Hermann Cohen, and Russell’s teapot
• Accumulating information: deduction versus analogy and induction
• Thinking versus cognition, and generalization as an act of cognition
• The possibility of discourse in the synthetic picture, and rhetoric as conversion of first premises
• “That’s just how it is” as a basic intuition and not arbitrariness
• Pluralism, thin democracy, and the cultural threat posed by faith
• The paradox of tolerance and the conditions for its existence
• Autonomy as the sole basis for tolerance, and sources from Jewish law
• Ritva in Sukkah, “do not place a stumbling block,” and “these and those” as tolerance rather than pluralism
• The limits of tolerance: “fit for this,” purifying the creeping thing with 159 reasons, and the framework of the study hall
• Summary of the framework: discourse, halakhic truth, and measured tolerance

Summary

General Overview

The analytic picture presents intellectual discourse as a structure of axioms and logical derivation. Within it, there is no real possibility of discourse, and no point in conducting one, because the basic premises cannot be examined logically. Therefore every system of premises is equally legitimate and does not claim truth. From here emerges the logical root of postmodern pluralism, in which “everyone has his own truth” as long as he is consistent. The synthetic picture offers an alternative that is willing to accept even unproven arguments through analogy and induction, and it grounds first premises in intuition and cognition. Therefore it allows for more meaningful discourse, and even for changing first premises through rhetoric. From there a distinction is built between pluralism and tolerance, and the claim is that real tolerance requires dogmatism and concern together with recognition of the value of autonomy. In a halakhic framework, “these and those are the words of the living God” reflects measured tolerance, not pluralism.

An analytic worldview and the absence of discourse

The analytic worldview holds that every person has basic premises, and conclusions are derived from them by logical tools. Therefore, when the premises differ, there is nothing to talk about; and when the premises are the same but the conclusions differ, then there has been either an error in the derivation or a disconnect between the conclusion and the premises. This picture rules out real discourse, because logic only operates after first premises have been adopted, while the premises themselves are not examined logically. It also empties discourse of content, because someone who holds the analytic position does not claim that his premises are true, only that if one adopts them one should adopt their conclusions as well. So there is no “right” and “wrong,” and no truth to be decided between different systems.

The geometry example and the skeptical foundation

The comparison between Euclidean geometry and non-Euclidean geometry illustrates how two researchers can arrive at apparently contradictory conclusions about the sum of the angles in a triangle without any real contradiction, because each is working with different axioms that are not subject to testing. This framework creates skepticism, because only logical consistency is tested, and every set of premises becomes legitimate and equal in content. Pluralism emerges naturally from the rigid stance of “I accept only things that are proven,” because at a certain stage of maturation it becomes clear that the first premises are not proven either, and then one reaches the conclusion that everyone is simply consistent with himself and therefore “everyone is right.”

A synthetic worldview, intuition, and the justification of axioms

The synthetic picture drops the demand for absolute proof and accepts considerations of plausibility through analogy and induction as well. This picture places an initial intuition as the basis from which the axioms and the rules of derivation are drawn. Therefore, the first premises are not merely hypothetical, but are taken to be true. In this picture, logic is used to produce conclusions, and the conclusions are claimed to be true because they stem from premises regarded as true.

When discourse gets stuck, the “train to Scotland,” and the limit of theological proof

Discourse can get stuck when, after clarification, it turns out that there are different first premises. The example of the “train to Scotland” presents an attempt to show a person that he already implicitly holds a believing intuition. A person can accept that exposure and admit that he believes in a directing factor, or he can retreat into the claim that he no longer trusts his cognitive tools, in order to avoid the conclusion. Here the weakness of theological proof is presented: at most it can expose an existing premise, or bring one to some sort of higher cause, but it can stop there if the person rejects the reliability of the tools of cognition.

“Where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this,” Hermann Cohen, and Russell’s teapot

The story about Hermann Cohen raises the question, “Where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this,” and leads to the answer that the philosophical argument stops at some factor that runs things, without any ability to decide philosophically whether He gave the Torah at Mount Sinai or what exactly He demands in practice. Bertrand Russell’s argument about a “golden teapot” is used to describe the feeling of the nonbeliever, for whom claims of faith seem like unverifiable inventions. The philosophical move is presented as an infrastructure that blocks dismissal in the style of “deus ex machina,” because it establishes that there are good proofs on the philosophical plane for the existence of a transcendent factor, even if there is still no decision as to which religious interpretation is most plausible and what is required in practice.

Accumulating information: deduction versus analogy and induction

Deduction does not add information; it only reveals information that already “exists in the safe.” So it is a tool of processing, not a tool of accumulation. Information is accumulated by non-deductive means such as analogy and induction, and science is built on generalizations and comparisons, not on deductions like mathematics. Hume’s problem of induction, and the objections to analogies and generalizations, sharpen the question of how we decide when to generalize and why the generalization should correspond to the world.

Thinking versus cognition, and generalization as an act of cognition

A sharp distinction is presented between thinking and cognition, where cognition is observation and sensing of facts in the world. The difficulty is how one moves from data points to a general law. The claim is that the stage of generalization belongs to cognition and not to thinking, because when one looks at measurement points one “sees the straight line” as the product of interaction with the world, and not as an internal intellectual inference. From here a claim is built that there is a “logic of cognition” that allows additional information to be drawn from the world, unlike deductive logic, where one can “close one’s eyes” and the process takes place without adding information.

The possibility of discourse in the synthetic picture, and rhetoric as conversion of first premises

In the analytic picture, discourse always gets stuck at the level of first premises and is pointless. In the synthetic picture, by contrast, it sometimes gets stuck, but at times it can move forward, because first premises are viewed as a product of cognition and one can talk about them. A change in first premises happens when one succeeds in getting the other person to see the issue “from the angle” from which the plausible explanation becomes visible. The way to do that is rhetoric, in the sense of the art of presenting ideas in a way that leads the other to adopt a different perspective. The identification of rhetoric with demagoguery is attributed to an analytic worldview that recognizes only rigid deduction, whereas in the synthetic picture rhetoric is a central tool of persuasion in disputes that usually are not about logical mistakes but about first premises.

“That’s just how it is” as a basic intuition and not arbitrariness

A chain of reasons about “why study Torah” or “why observe commandments” necessarily stops at basic principles for which there is no further explanation, and that stopping point is described as “that’s just how it is.” In the analytic conception, “that’s just how it is” is taken as arbitrary, like choosing axioms with no validity. But in the synthetic conception, “that’s just how it is” means a strong and solid intuition that serves as the primary infrastructure from which conclusions are derived. Axioms are described as choosing what appears to be “the most solid thing,” not as drawing lots. On such a basis one can also conduct discourse and examine whether the intuition really stands up under tests of imagination, thought experiments, and different descriptions.

Pluralism, thin democracy, and the cultural threat posed by faith

In the analytic picture, pluralism arises from a system of “bubbles” of arbitrary first premises, with no discourse, and then all people seek are rules of the game so that we do not kill one another. That is what is called “thin democracy.” In the synthetic picture, by contrast, a sharp problem of tolerance arises, because people can be convinced of their truth even without proof and feel justified in imposing it. Culture is presented as fearful of faith, because faith may lead to forceful action, and therefore it becomes necessary to clarify the value basis for tolerance.

The paradox of tolerance and the conditions for its existence

Tolerance is defined as a situation in which I think the other person is wrong and yet I still behave toward him tolerantly. Therefore it cannot stem from pluralism, where there is no “right” and “wrong,” and no special significance to refraining from harm. Claims such as “it doesn’t hurt anyone,” or “I don’t care,” or “I have no ability to influence it,” are presented as things that neutralize tolerance and turn it into mere noninvolvement. The cumulative conditions presented are: belief that I am right and the other is wrong, belief that the mistake is harmful, concern for the other person, and the ability to influence him. Then the question arises: why not coerce anyway?

Autonomy as the sole basis for tolerance, and sources from Jewish law

The proposed basis for tolerance is recognition of the value of the other person’s autonomy to act according to what he thinks, even if he is mistaken, so long as the damage is not extreme. The Magen Avraham is cited in section 156 regarding the permission to say something in the name of a great person “so that they will accept it from him,” and it is explained that the goal is to bring about serious consideration, not to hand the decision over to authority in place of independent judgment. The Talmudic passage about Rabbi Meir, that “his colleagues could not get to the end of his reasoning,” is brought as an explanation for why Jewish law was not ruled in accordance with him. The Maharal’s position is also cited: he prefers someone who rules מתוך his own analysis, even if he is mistaken, over someone who rules from books, even if he is correct, in order to establish the importance of acting מתוך personal understanding.

Ritva in Sukkah, “do not place a stumbling block,” and “these and those” as tolerance rather than pluralism

A dispute between Amoraim in Sukkah 10a is cited regarding sitting beneath sukkah decorations that are suspended four handbreadths below the roofing, along with the incident in the house of the Exilarch where Rav Nachman seated Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna beneath the decorations. Ritva in Chullin is cited as proving that this is permitted only if the other person knows, and the tension is developed between the requirement to inform and the claim that if, according to my view, the thing is permitted, then there is no transgression here at all. The proposed explanation is that there is a value of autonomy: one must inform the other in order to allow conscious choice, and yet there is no violation of “do not place a stumbling block,” because according to my position there is no transgression, so causing someone to do something that is forbidden according to him is not, from my perspective, a stumbling block. Without informing him, however, the injury is to autonomy, not to the laws of causing transgression.

The limits of tolerance: “fit for this,” purifying the creeping thing with 159 reasons, and the framework of the study hall

The Rosh in chapter 4 of Sanhedrin, section 6, is cited regarding the permission to issue an autonomous halakhic ruling on condition that the decisor be “fit for this.” The requirement to know how “to purify the creeping thing with 159 reasons” is explained through the Maharal as a situation in which there are sound reasons to declare it pure and sound reasons to declare it impure, and the ruling is reached by weighing the force of the reasons, not by dismissing the other side’s arguments as nonsense. Halakhic tolerance is presented as limited to disputes conducted through accepted halakhic tools, where the error lies in the weight assigned to valid arguments and not in the arguments themselves. Outside the study hall, or in relation to positions that do not accept the rules of the game, there is no place to apply “these and those are the words of the living God.”

Summary of the framework: discourse, halakhic truth, and measured tolerance

The concluding position states that the analytic picture leads to non-discourse and to emptied-out pluralism, whereas the synthetic picture allows discourse, change in first premises, and accumulation of information. When discourse ends and we are left with different intuitions, questions of pluralism and tolerance arise. The proposed framework is measured tolerance based on autonomy, not on pluralism. “These and those are the words of the living God” is presented as recognition of the practical value of making room for error within the framework of the rules of decision and under conditions of being “fit for this,” not as a declaration that everyone is equally right.

A short summary so we can move forward. We’ll start with a slightly different formulation, but really it’s a summary of what we did the previous times. If we see all intellectual discourse as logical discourse, what’s called an analytic worldview, then the picture is very simple. Everyone has his own basic assumptions, and from those assumptions he can derive conclusions. If someone else has different assumptions, then there’s nothing to talk about. And if he has the same assumptions as I do and still reaches different conclusions, then either there’s a mistake in his logical derivation, or there’s a mistake in mine, or the conclusion simply doesn’t follow from the assumptions. Bottom line, what this picture really says is that there’s no real possibility of genuine discourse. Contrary to what people asked me during the break—I’ll come back to that in a moment, but I want to sharpen the point first—in such a worldview there’s no real way to speak. I have my assumptions and you have yours. Each person has his own assumptions, and discourse about assumptions can’t really happen, because the discourse uses only logical tools, and assumptions themselves aren’t tested by logical tools. Logic comes only after I already have assumptions; it derives conclusions from them. So in fact there isn’t much room for discourse. But it’s more than just there being no possibility of discourse—in this picture there’s really no point in conducting discourse. Not only is there no possibility of conducting it, there’s no point in conducting it. And the reason is that even I, with my own assumptions, am not really asserting anything. It’s not that my claims are one thing and your claims are another. I’m not claiming anything at all, because a person who holds an analytic picture does not claim that his assumptions are true, since he has no proof for them. He only claims that the conclusion follows from the assumptions—that if one adopts these assumptions, then one must also adopt this conclusion. So it turns out that not only is there no possibility of discourse, there is no point in discourse, because you are not really claiming anything. It’s like holding a discussion between someone who works in Euclidean geometry and someone who works in non-Euclidean geometry. It’s just a dialogue of the deaf. One person assumes certain assumptions suited to Euclidean geometry and concludes that the sum of the angles in a triangle is one hundred and eighty degrees. His mathematician colleague works in non-Euclidean geometry—for example, on the surface of a sphere, where when you draw a triangle the sum of the angles is not one hundred and eighty degrees because the space is not flat—and he finds some other angle sum on his surface, whatever it is; he builds non-Euclidean geometry. Now what exactly are they supposed to discuss? After all, I don’t put the assumptions to the test. My assumptions are hypothetical. If I assume this, then the conclusion is such-and-such. I’m not claiming the assumptions are true, because I have no proof for them. I only accept things for which I have proof. And I have no proof for the assumptions. All I can check is that if these assumptions are true, then this conclusion must be accepted. Which means there is no possibility of discourse here, and there is no point in conducting discourse, because there’s nothing to discuss. There is no real truth. I’m not really asserting a claim; I don’t think I’m right and the other person is wrong, or vice versa. There is no right and wrong. In that sense, the analytic picture is the basis for a skeptical worldview, as I said earlier, because it basically says that the only things you can test, verify, or reject are things accessible by logical means. The moment you use only logical means, then any set of assumptions is equally legitimate—and equally says nothing—and you can derive whatever conclusions you want from it. One of you will be a researcher of Euclidean geometry and the other a researcher of non-Euclidean geometry, and both of you will publish articles side by side without contradiction. There is no point in conducting discourse, and no way to conduct it, because the assumptions are different. So specifically in the analytic worldview there is no meaning at all to discourse between sides that supposedly disagree. From here, it seems to me at least, comes the logical root of pluralism. The logical root of pluralism actually begins with a rigid logical worldview, a worldview that says: I accept only proven things, like the river in the process I described earlier. And then what happens when you reach maturity, the end of the Enlightenment? Suddenly you notice that your own assumptions are also unproven, and therefore you have no way to prove things, and in fact you are claiming nothing. So the postmodern adolescent, or the skeptical adolescent, basically says that everyone has his own truth and everyone is right, because each person is consistent with his own assumptions. That’s where pluralism naturally comes from. In other words, pluralism is founded on an analytic worldview, on a conception that says only proofs are a means I’m willing to accept. And that automatically empties the world of content, because that way I can’t really say anything. Every proof is based on assumptions. By contrast, the synthetic worldview—I said, the alternative maturity—is a maturity that gives up the adolescent’s assumption that I don’t accept unproven things. No, I’m prepared to accept things even without proof. For example, by means of analogy or induction, which are not absolute proof. There is some consideration, some level of probability, and I’m willing to accept it even though I have no proof for it. Then I ask myself: what justifies that? So I said earlier, I have some kind of primary intuition that is the basis for everything that comes after it. From it I derive my axioms, my rules of inference. All the basic assumptions are the result of some primary intuition, and therefore I claim they are true, not merely hypothetically assumed so that if they are true then the conclusion is true. I say: the assumptions are true. Now I will use logical tools to derive conclusions from those assumptions, and I will claim that those conclusions are also true. Because if the assumptions are true and I derived conclusions from them, then the conclusions are true as well. Then people ask me: all right, so let’s argue about the intuitions. How do you justify your initial axioms? And I say: because that is my intuition. So people asked me at lunch: all right, but if he has a different intuition, then how will you talk? How can you conduct discourse about such a thing? So the answer is that in the alternative—certainly you can’t conduct discourse, in the analytic alternative. That’s what I said earlier. Because there, in the rigid picture of axioms and logical derivation and conclusions, there is no possibility of discourse and no point in discourse. In this picture, it’s true that sometimes the discourse will get stuck at the point where we clarify everything to the end and discover that I think one thing and you think something else, and that’s it. For example, the example of the train to Scotland that I mentioned earlier. Suppose I try to show someone that he already believes—not in order to convince him to believe, but to prove to him that inside his safe, so to speak, he already believes. His intuition is a believing intuition even though he is not aware of it. So I try to show him that using logical means. I said that such a person can always defend himself and say: you said that in effect you trust your cognitive tools and your thought processes. Apparently you assume they were not created by accident and that there was some guiding hand that created them, and that’s how we arrive at a guiding hand. So what alternative stands before him? He can either accept this and claim that it’s true implicitly—that he really does believe and simply didn’t notice it; thank you very much for drawing it to my attention. The second possibility is really to say: you know what, you’re right, I hadn’t noticed that until now, so I no longer trust my own eyes. Fine—I don’t trust them. In other words, my primary intuition was that these tools are reliable tools, that they can be trusted. And from that I derive the hidden assumption that there is God. And then on second thought he reaches the conclusion that his assumptions are actually different. He no longer accepts the assumption that these tools are reliable, and therefore he is not forced to conclude that there is God. I said that this is the weakness of the theological proof; it has an advantage and it has a weakness. But here I’m bringing it in a different context. Notice that here the discourse gets stuck, obviously, right? In other words, here is an example of exactly what you wanted. Fine? He is consistent, right? Exactly. You see consistency? That is, he is consistent with his assumptions, I am consistent with mine. Once we clarified things and reached the conclusion that we really do have different assumptions, the discourse is over. So that’s true—but it is not a result of the synthetic perspective. On the contrary. In the analytic perspective this exists in every case. In the synthetic perspective, sometimes it is also true that this can happen. That is not an attack on maturity, on this synthetic thesis that I’m proposing—that we should accept things without proof because my intuition says this seems to be the case—as though it blocks every possibility of discourse. What, instead, if we accept nothing that has no proof—does that open up the possibility of discourse? No. Then there is no way to conduct discourse and no point in conducting discourse. So this is not an attack on the synthetic position; it only means that even in the synthetic position not every argument can be decided. That is very true. There’s nothing to do about it. You can’t always resolve arguments. On the other hand, there are arguments that can be resolved. For example, again with the train to Scotland: if the person really doesn’t escape into that corner and say, okay, I changed my mind, I checked again, I don’t trust my cognitive tools—but rather he really is convinced, genuinely convinced, and understands that behind his trust in his cognitive tools there is some kind of belief in some factor, some transcendent factor—fine, now I remember what I needed to complete, just a moment. So there is some belief in some transcendent factor. Then in fact he was convinced. What does it mean that he was convinced? Did I prove it to him? I didn’t prove it to him; I merely showed him that this is what he believes. That’s all. He could be wrong. I have no argument to support that assumption. All I did was show him that this assumption exists in him. That’s all. In effect this is clearly a synthetic process, right? Because an analytic person would say: fine, you showed me that this assumption exists in me, but at least I don’t treat it as something proven; all the more so this is just an assumption, not something that can be proven. So in fact the synthetic perspective, which supposedly blocks discourse—not true—it is precisely what enables discourse. It’s true that not every discourse can be finished with a conclusion, but it definitely allows far more discourse than the analytic perspective does. Now another important point—and this is a remark people asked me about, and I really think it’s important to mention it in order to complete the picture, and then I’ll move on. How do you get from here to the Holy One, blessed be He? There’s that famous story about Hermann Cohen, the neo-Kantian philosopher, who was walking in the street, grabbed some Jew, and explained to him his whole complex doctrine about divinity and so on—sublime philosophical arguments and all that. And then the Jew asks him: tell me, but where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this? And then he starts to cry, because Hermann Cohen was also a Jew with a heart—a believing heart. So where is the Holy One, blessed be He, in all this? The answer is that in some senses He really isn’t here. That is, the meaning of these arguments is a meaning that stops at the philosophical sphere. There is some factor, some something that is responsible for what is going on here, that governs things, that created our faculties—apparently, if we really believe this. That is the conclusion I can reach, at most. Did this factor give the Torah at Mount Sinai? Does He want us to put on tefillin or turn the other cheek? I have no idea. You won’t get that from here. You won’t get it. But one point is still important to understand: these are not questions that can be decided philosophically. Still, there is one point that is important to understand, and I’ll suffice with that here, because this is not an Arachim seminar—and so much the better. The point is this. When someone comes—there is Bertrand Russell’s very famous argument, the twentieth-century British philosopher, about the celestial teapot. It’s often mentioned in the context of evolution. A celestial teapot means that someone comes and claims that there is some golden teapot floating in the heavens, orbiting Jupiter. It is so small that no instrument can see it, but there is no doubt at all that it exists. So how exactly are we supposed to relate to that kind of claim? Yes, immediately Pascal’s wager comes up, that I say: listen, I prefer that it exist. True, you don’t see it, because it’s too small and impossible to see. So Bertrand Russell says: of course we are not going to treat any such claim seriously. With claims like these you can prove the entire world at fifty percent. You can prove that in Kamchatka, in the northeastern corner, there’s a huge treasure buried there worth billions of dollars or rubles. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. None of us will probably go there to check, so it’s fifty-fifty—either it’s true or it isn’t. Is a fifty percent chance worth investing a hundred thousand shekels in? The expected return is huge. Half times fifty thousand shekels—or fifty billion rubles—the expected value is very high. And yet we won’t do it. Why? Because we don’t treat arguments as if they suddenly have a fifty percent chance just because someone raised them. And that is often the nonbeliever’s feeling when the believer comes to persuade him—that this is a celestial teapot. You’ve invented some transcendent factor that nobody sees, nobody can detect, but it certainly exists, and it also wants all kinds of things from us, and so on and so on. Stop bothering me. What do you want from me? There are all kinds of crazy people in the world. So what do you want from me? Here I think the process does have significance, because if I really do manage—even on the philosophical level—to bring him to the point where there really is such a transcendent factor, then now the question whether you also need to put on tefillin or not, I really don’t know—maybe yes, maybe no—but you can’t say this is a deus ex machina. You can’t say this is some invention out of the blue, like, where did you even come from? After all, we agree that by philosophical means we can arrive at the conclusion that there is some such factor. I don’t know how to identify very many of its characteristics, and certainly not exactly what it wants from me, other than perhaps that I should use intellect and cognition, because it gave me those tools. But beyond that—what the results of working with intellect and cognition are—I really don’t know. I have no indication. Christians say one thing, Buddhists say another, Jews say another—I don’t know. But one thing is clear: you can’t say this is a deus ex machina. There are good proofs on the philosophical level that there is such a factor. Now we can begin arguing. Then one person tells you that this means He revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and wants you to put on tefillin and observe the Sabbath and honor parents and all kinds of other things. And someone else tells you that you need to do this, and another says you need to do that—now check which of them seems most plausible. But that is completely different from a situation in which you come without this philosophical foundation and tell a person: listen, God revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and He says you need to put on tefillin. Fine—and the angel Gabriel revealed himself to me and said you need to stand on one foot; what do you want from me? In other words, you understand, this philosophical step is very important as an infrastructure. It won’t bring us to putting on tefillin, but on the other hand it does put us in a position where we really should examine which interpretive option seems most plausible to us. I don’t know which one will come out; everyone can examine what he examines. But you do need to examine it. You can’t just say, nonsense, the whole thing is an invention, there is no such factor. That you cannot say. That is the point I wanted to convey. Beyond that, exactly how you identify that this is specifically the Jewish God and not someone else—I don’t know. Those are questions for Arachim. Fine, so we’ve talked about the possibility of discourse. Let’s look at another point. How do I actually reach those conclusions? How do I accumulate information? I said earlier that deduction cannot add information for me. Deduction only reveals information that is already in the safe. But how do I build the safe itself? How do I add information? Where is the process of thought that accumulates information? Not revealing information that is already inside, but how is it accumulated? So I said that part of it is perhaps already in the safe from birth—I don’t know—but then we need to ask ourselves: if it is there, who says it is correct? And the other part is accumulated by non-deductive means. By analogies or inductions. Yes—science is not built on deductions; it is built on generalizations, on comparisons, and therefore science is an instrument for accumulating information, unlike mathematics. How exactly does that work? So we talked about Hume’s problem of induction, and about the objections that arise against these methods of inference, analogy and induction. Because I learned—I think this resembles that, and if this one is green, then that one is green too. Maybe yes, maybe no. When, and on what basis, do you make those decisions? Many such comparisons we make will not be correct. How exactly do we make these comparisons or generalizations? So here—this is not two answers, but two sides of the same answer. It seems to me, and this is a topic for a lecture of its own, so I can’t go into it now, but it seems to me that at the basis of this question there lies a very sharp, dichotomous distinction between thought and cognition. There are processes of thought and there are processes of cognition. By cognition I mean observation by the senses—eyes, ears, touch—that is, the perception of facts in the world. And we make a very sharp distinction between these two things, and then the question always arises: all right, this collection of points—that’s empirical data, I saw that, fine. But where did the general law come from? That is the result not of cognition but of thought, right? Cognition, observation, gave me the points. But the general law—the general law is the result of a generalization that I make. Right? If in deduction we saw that the conclusion, all the information in the conclusion, was already hidden in the premises, in analogy and induction that is not so. Yes? I say Socrates is mortal; Reuven is also a human being; therefore Reuven is also mortal. That is an analogy, right? Clearly the information that Reuven is mortal was not hidden in the premise. The premise is that Socrates is mortal, that’s all. I did not assume that all human beings are mortal. That is analogy. Fine? So here the information in the conclusion is not hidden in the premises. So is there really something valid going on here? We seem to have some assumption that you cannot acquire new information by means of thought. You have to see, or hear, or grasp. Did you see it? If not, you weren’t there—so how can you know it’s true? It only seems that way to you? Fine, it seems that way to you. This is really a reflection of the same problem, the problem of induction. So here it seems to me—and again, this is a topic for another class—but it seems to me that this stage of generalization is really a stage of cognition, not a stage of thought. A stage of cognition. When I look at these experiments and I see the four points that I measured, I see the straight line. I do not reach that conclusion by means of thought. It is a result of cognition. True, in the instruments I saw the results only in this experiment and this one and this one and this one—but we have some ability to interact with the world, to draw information from the world not only through our five simple senses, or I don’t know, maybe somehow through them but in a much more complex way. And therefore the straight line too is really some kind of result of cognition and not of thought. Because if it were a result of thought, there would be no reason to assume that it will include the next experiment, that it really corresponds to what happens in the world itself. So there is some dimension of cognition in these generalizations. And then it turns out that the process of generalization is not a process of thought, unlike deduction, logic, mathematics, where it is a process of thought. You can close your eyes, not look, not hear, nothing, and the process takes place inside your head. You don’t need interaction with the world. Because you will not add information here. All the information you will have at the end was already there at the beginning. You already finished the stage of accumulating information; now you are processing it. But analogy and induction are not processing information; they are accumulating new information. There is some additional drawing of information from the world here. Therefore these processes of analogy and induction are a kind of cognition, not a kind of thought. We draw more information from the world. Then what comes out is the following. In the synthetic picture—we began with the analytic picture, which leads us to pluralism and to the idea that nobody is really wrong about anything, that there is no meaning to discourse and in some sense no point to discourse—what happens in the synthetic picture? In the synthetic picture I basically arrive with several intuitions, maybe innate, maybe not, I don’t know, probably some of them are. In addition, I arrive with deductive tools that can derive, or reveal, information that is already in me. But I also have logical tools by means of which I accumulate information. A logic of cognition, not a logic of thought. That is analogy and induction. Now these tools—in the past two years we did some work on these tools, and I think we have a very interesting logical model that presents a logic of non-deductive thinking. It can be shown that this is done in a logical, almost rigid, controlled way, very tightly—almost like Aristotle’s logic of deduction. In other words, there is a logical procedure here. On the other hand, this logical procedure accumulates information for us. Unlike regular logic, which only reveals existing information and cannot add information, here there is a kind of logic of information accumulation. Then what comes out is that I have intuitions with which I am born, or from which I draw—I don’t know—various intuitions. I have simple empirical observations, like the points on the graph, and I have the ability to accumulate information in a non-deductive way through analogy and induction. Therefore in the synthetic picture I really can come out with more information than I went in with. If I was born without information, I can still emerge with information. There are ways of accumulating information, because I do not demand only logical proofs. Then what happens when we begin conducting discourse—we talked about the possibility of discourse—what comes out is that the discourse will seemingly get stuck at those same points where I say: listen, this is my intuition. And that’s where it ends; the other person has a different intuition, so what are we supposed to do now? So first of all, that’s true. Sometimes it really will get stuck. It can get seriously stuck. But not always. Because in the analytic picture it always gets stuck, if it even begins. Here it only sometimes gets stuck, so that criticism obviously should not be directed at the synthetic picture. But when does it not get stuck? It doesn’t get stuck when I do something like what I did on the train to Scotland. What does that mean? When I reach the conclusion that I and my interlocutor have different basic assumptions, the analytic person will say: okay, this is where it ends. There is nothing more to discuss and no way to discuss it. But in the synthetic conception that is not true. Basic assumptions are something you can talk about, discuss, and maybe even persuade about—convert someone away from his assumptions. A very interesting question is whether one can convert an analytic thinker into a synthetic one. But in the synthetic picture you can convert assumptions. How do you do that? For that we need to go back to what I said earlier: how does one adopt assumptions in the first place? I said assumptions are the result of cognition. Even with ideas—not only with objects, not only in science, but also with ideas—there are certain assumptions that seem plausible. In the analytic picture, of course, they’ll say: that’s just emotion, subjective, dogmatic, it has no significance. Those are just structures of your brain; someone else has other structures in his brain. Those are what are speaking here. But in the synthetic picture I say no, that’s not right. It is a result of cognition. What does that mean? When I look at the issue from a certain angle, suddenly I see that this is the explanation of the issue. Fine? Someone else sees it from another angle and sees another explanation of the issue. In a Talmudic passage, in a philosophical issue, in any issue over which there can be disagreement. Now, if that is really so, then there is room for discourse about the assumptions. Why? Because I can try to bring my interlocutor to the place from which I am looking at the issue, and try to show him what I see from the angle from which I see it. Then perhaps suddenly he will adopt a different assumption. Because if assumptions are not necessarily innate, and on the other hand not arbitrary either, but something that is the result of cognition, of observation—fine, then let’s look. There are things I see from my angle, and perhaps he does not understand from what angle one needs to look. I’ll try to bring him to that angle and persuade him that from here it looks this way, not the way he thinks. And that is how discourse is built in a synthetic world. Usually, by the way, most real arguments are conducted this way. It’s an attempt to show a person that his initial intuitions are not necessarily correct. And then suddenly he discovers that in fact he must give up one particular intuition and be convinced of another. How can that be? How do you replace assumptions? How do you replace assumptions in a mathematical-logical picture? There’s no such thing. You can replace them with others, but that has no meaning of persuasion. What does persuasion mean? In the synthetic picture, persuasion means successfully bringing someone to look at the issue from my angle. How do you bring him there? It’s not a pair of binoculars and taking him to some physical coordinate. This is an intellectual or evaluative issue. Here rhetoric comes in. Rhetoric has a very negative connotation in our world. Why? Because it’s connected with demagoguery. Rhetoric as opposed to logic. Logic is rigid arguments: premises, conclusion, mathematics, wonderful. But everything else is demagoguery. But that’s not right. Arguments that take someone and show him, through some literary presentation of the issue—think of a situation like this or that, some example, some thought experiment—he suddenly sees that the principle he thought was correct is actually not correct in his own eyes. In other words, if I have literary talent in this case, then I have rhetorical talent. That means I will succeed in bringing him to see the issue from my angle and adopt a different assumption. That is how one persuades. Therefore there is a point to discourse. Specifically in the synthetic picture there is a point to discourse; rhetoric has significance. The classification of rhetoric as demagoguery assumes an analytic worldview. An analytic worldview says only logical proofs are valid. All rhetoric is demagoguery. Any argument that is not a severe deduction—an example, say—is arbitrary, just emotion. So this identification of demagoguery with rhetoric is completely analytic. It is not true. There is demagoguery, which really is just raising arguments that merely confuse the other person. But there is also rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of presenting your ideas in a persuasive way, and it is a very, very important art. No less, and perhaps much more, than logical skill. Because this is where the real argument usually takes place. Usually people do not have simple logical errors. Usually, in most cases, you won’t catch someone on some simple logical mistake in his argument. Sometimes yes, but it’s rare. In most cases your dispute is over assumptions, not over the derivation of conclusions from assumptions. And that dispute is conducted through rhetoric, not through logic. Rhetoric uses logic, of course, but the goal is not to take assumptions we agree on and convince you. The goal is: forget that—let me describe a situation for you, think about it, see whether you don’t see there what I see. Then suddenly I have converted—or, as with the rhinoceros, you never saw that every rhinoceros has one horn here. And this is how you should see it, and suddenly you see that every rhinoceros has one horn. You saw it. In the same way, you can see with your own eyes a perspective, something new, and I convert the assumptions. No—what, I showed you that every rhinoceros has two horns, so maybe let’s change it again? No, I showed you it has one, so fine, sorry, there is one. So what? So he says that if we observe the world, we see. Fine, he sees, but he doesn’t draw conclusions. No—you can say, fine, sight is misleading. Okay, of course. Someone who barricades himself in his analytic position has no way to communicate with—exactly the point. But I’m not talking about a discourse between an analytic thinker and a synthetic thinker. I’m talking about discourse between two synthetic people with different assumptions. Fine? So precisely from the standpoint of the possibility of discourse, it seems to me that this conception makes discourse more possible, not less possible, despite what came up during the break among several questioners. Now there is another very important point here. The next point is that some discussion is conducted and eventually I reach my primary intuition, and then they ask me: why keep the commandments, or why study Torah? There was once such a discussion in Yeruham, in the yeshiva, and I said that if we conduct a discussion about why study Torah, then the assumption is that there is some principle more basic than the obligation to study Torah, by means of which we want to explain the obligation to study Torah. Gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He, I don’t know; because Torah study makes you wise; it doesn’t matter; everyone can invent whatever explanation he wants. So there is some more basic principle that will explain to us the obligation to study Torah. Then I will ask you: and what about that more basic principle—why is it correct in your eyes? You will need to find an even more basic principle to explain it. And of course, at some point you stop, you get stuck, right? Like the story of someone describing the Greek theory that the whole world stands on a huge turtle. They ask him: but what does the turtle stand on? Another turtle beneath it. And what does that one stand on? Another one. And that one? Come on—there are turtles all the way down. Somewhere it stops. Where does it stop? In the analytic conception, it stops wherever I feel like it. There is no meaning to assumptions; they have no proof; I adopt them arbitrarily, as in mathematics. But in the synthetic conception, it stops at the point where I have an intuition solid enough that I don’t need to ground it in some other principle. If it is sufficiently certain to me, sufficiently acceptable to me, then that is where I stop. Now the question, when we are grounding a reason—for example, why study Torah or why keep the commandments—is whether there are any more basic principles that do not themselves require explanation, and by means of them it would be possible to explain this. Because there will always be the most basic principles of all, and they will have no explanation. And perhaps that principle is precisely the obligation to study Torah or to keep the commandments—again returning to our previous discussions. Perhaps that itself is the basic principle. Then I do not need explanations of why I should study Torah or why I should keep the commandments. This is the basic principle, it is self-evident to me, and therefore it is clear. There is no need to continue the chain of explanation. And then I say this: why keep the commandments? Just because. But why study Torah? Just because. This “just because” often confuses people, because some understand that “just because” as something arbitrary. I flipped a coin—because what difference does it make, since in any case you can’t really say anything, there’s no proof for anything, you can say whatever you want. That is one kind of “just because.” Here I am not speaking of “just because” in that sense. This “just because” is the kind that says: because I have a very strong intuition that this is correct. That’s it. I have nothing even stronger in me by means of which I could explain it. This is the strongest thing in me. It does not mean that it is certain, by the way. It only means that it is the initial foundation, the thing clearest to me. From it I can begin deriving other things. So I stop at “just because.” This is a different “just because.” It is not an arbitrary “just because.” The arbitrary “just because” neutralizes the possibility of discourse. This kind does not neutralize it. So let’s see why this is so clear to you. Let’s see whether a garment entirely made of blue wool, and all Korach’s tricks, and various situations one tries to describe with one literary talent or another—whether you still think that the most correct thing is to keep the commandments or not. You can put it to the test and try to see whether this really is your intuition or not, as we said earlier. But here you can conduct discourse about this second kind of “just because.” The arbitrary “just because,” the analytic one, is just random, like throwing dice, and that’s it. I have a sense that axioms are always that kind of “just because,” but that isn’t true. Axioms are the second kind of “just because.” It is the thing clearest to me, and therefore I trust it, and therefore it does not need explanation. It isn’t arbitrary because it lacks an explanation. It does not need explanation because it is so self-evident. As in geometry, that one straight line passes through any two points, or that two parallel lines do not meet—I choose this as an axiom not just because I feel like it, but because it is clear to me that it is true. Even though there is no proof for it and you cannot demonstrate it, and this too is simply an impression, and you never actually see all possible cases—but it is clear to me that it is true. So I choose these as axioms and derive various conclusions from them. I choose my axioms not just because I feel like it or because of some lottery. I choose my axioms because this seems to me the firmest thing on which I can build everything else. These are two different kinds of starting points. And that too can be discussed, to see who is right and who is not, whether it is really correct to be convinced of this or not. Now, of course, this raises the discussion about attitudes toward other positions—tolerance, pluralism, democracy, all those issues. Because in the analytic picture this discussion perhaps arises, but it has no real meaning. In an analytic picture, where only proven things are accepted, what is created are kind of monads—separate bubbles in society—of people who have some set of assumptions of their own in a completely arbitrary way. No real importance is attached to this. And in each such bubble sits some group that holds a system of assumptions. There is no possibility of discourse between the groups. In fact, not only is there no possibility of discourse, as I said earlier, but there is no point in discourse. Therefore the ideal of pluralism arises, that everyone is equally right, since all assumptions are arbitrary for me anyway and I have no proof otherwise. Then all one has to look for are some rules of the game so we don’t kill each other. Sometimes that is called democracy, or thin democracy. Thin democracy means only rules of the game for conducting life, not a democracy with evaluative content. By contrast, in the synthetic picture a problem arises not only regarding the possibility of discourse, as I said earlier—because it seems to me discourse is actually more possible in this picture—but rather a problem of tolerance toward other positions. Because if I really can be convinced of my assumptions even though I have no proof at all, because—just because—they are what is most certain in my eyes, then everyone will be sure that he alone is right, and if he needs to kill the other person, he’ll kill the other person—or I don’t know, harm him. In other words, this raises some very serious concerns. A world in which people believe things is a very threatening world in our culture. There is a culture that cries out very loudly against believing things, because believing things is dangerous. People might actually do something with it. So yes, that really is something threatening that exists in the synthetic picture. But to understand how to deal with that, I want to present some conceptual introduction. Look, the concept of tolerance is a concept that contains an internal contradiction, like every evaluative concept, it seems to me. It seems to me that every evaluative concept contains a parallel internal contradiction. Because tolerance can—what is tolerance based on? Tolerance means giving legitimacy to a position different from mine. Relating to it with some measure of tolerance, not harming the person who holds it—there are different degrees, of course, but generally speaking. Then the question arises: why, really? Why really treat a position different from mine as a legitimate position, or not harm it, or not even try to change it by force, and so on? Various arguments can come up here. A first argument is what I said: maybe you are right, maybe he is right. After all, these are basic assumptions; you can’t prove your assumptions. Maybe he is right. In effect, a pluralistic argument. So this is tolerance derived from pluralism. But tolerance derived from pluralism is meaningless, because in a place where I really think there is no superiority to my truth over his truth, that both of us are equally right or equally wrong, or that there is no such thing as right or wrong at all, then what does tolerance mean? Obviously—why should I hurt him? Why should I try to change what he thinks or how he behaves, when I really do not think I am any more right than he is? So what’s the big deal? Then it’s just not being a murderer. That’s not the significance of tolerance. Therefore pluralism is not merely not parallel to tolerance; it is the opposite of tolerance. Pluralism does not allow tolerance. In a pluralistic world my behavior may look like tolerance, but it is not. It’s not tolerance. It is simply living life as it is, that’s all. I don’t think I’m right, you don’t think you’re right, and all of us are equally not right. Tolerance is always a situation in which I am in some tension, what I said earlier about the paradox built into evaluative concepts. That is, I have a position regarding your claims, I think you are wrong, and nevertheless I behave toward you with tolerance. If I don’t think you are wrong at all—if I am a pluralist—then there is no significance to tolerance. That is, the value of tolerance can exist only in a world where pluralism does not prevail. Fine. If so, then the first condition for the existence of tolerance is, let’s call it, dogmatism. That is, the belief that I am right and the other person is wrong. Dogmatism is a somewhat strong word, but for the sake of discussion, okay? That is the first condition. But if that condition really holds—if I think I am right and the other person is wrong—then why not actually change his behavior by force? Someone will say to me: well, because what he is doing is not harmful. What do you mean, not harmful? I was once at some meeting in Sde Boker. There was some association there that had been established in order to get rid of some Haredi kollel that had come to study in the midrasha there, and they were very militant, and there was nobody to talk to and nothing to talk about. But afterward there was another meeting with the local public, a broader meeting, and there actually was a very interesting conversation. And they said to me: look, we are not coming to force you not to light Sabbath candles or whatever. So why are you coming to force us to light Sabbath candles, I asked them. They said: why would we? What do we care if you do it? Fine, light Sabbath candles. Fine—but I care that you are not lighting Sabbath candles. So it’s not symmetrical. In other words, the claim that I don’t care about you, or that you are not harmful, is also something that neutralizes the possibility of tolerance. That’s not tolerance. Fine, I don’t interfere with him because what do I care, let him do what he wants. What do I care? Or because I don’t care about him? “Not harmful” or “don’t care”? “Don’t care” is even worse, of course. Because “don’t care” simply means that he doesn’t care about me, and that’s nothing to be proud of. In other words, I care about you and you come to me with complaints? After all, you don’t care about me—so why should I care about you? You come to me with quite a claim. In other words, I do care about you. On the contrary, I want you also to come and persuade me not to light Sabbath candles. If you think it is really problematic and wrong, then come persuade me. So if that is the case, then “not harmful” and “don’t care” also cannot be it. That means it must in fact seem harmful to me. I’m writing here the conditions for tolerance. It must seem harmful to me, and I must care about the other side. Right? So here we’ll write condition three: I care. Good. Of course, there are opposite components appearing here—notice. All right, then if I think I’m right and he’s wrong, I think his error is harmful, and I care deeply about him—then why shouldn’t I intervene? If there is a reason, then it isn’t tolerance; and if there isn’t a reason, then why not intervene? Maybe because it won’t help. There’s no ability. If I lack the ability, that also isn’t tolerance. I simply don’t have the ability to affect him. Big deal—I’m very tolerant because I don’t force Obama to resign. Fine, I have no possibility of doing that, so I don’t force him. That’s not exactly something I can boast about as tolerance. Fine? Obviously, the fact that I can’t influence him is also not a basis for tolerance. So one also needs the ability, if so, in order to be tolerant, right? Let’s go back. That means I need to believe that I am right and the other person is wrong, I need to believe that his error is harmful, I need to care about him, and I need also to have the ability to influence him. Well, now we’ve really lost every trace of humanity. So why indeed not intervene? He doesn’t want it? Fine, I don’t impose—so what? Tolerant. How are you tolerant? He doesn’t like it. But he doesn’t like it, and this is for his own good. He is mistaken. His mistake is harmful. Therefore I say: he is mistaken, his mistake is harmful, and it is for his own good that I intervene. For his own good. Right? I have an intuition that tolerance is something positive. Maybe. Maybe an intuition that one should leave it to him without anyone else. To explain tolerance as a conception that says that if he does it in error, there is no value in it—yes, like coercion in the Torah and in Jewish law. Someone who is coerced, “the Merciful One exempts one who is coerced.” If someone is coerced regarding a positive commandment—Persians forced him and he ate matzah—fine, he did not fulfill the commandment. There’s a doubt there whether he fulfills it or not, intention in commandments and all that. So if Persians forced him to eat matzah, then he did not fulfill the commandment. So perhaps that is the explanation. The explanation would be that if I force him, his act will have no value. But that is not correct, because that maps back onto this. Because what that really means is that I do not have the ability to compel him. Because even if I force him, he will not thereby fulfill the commandment. So that really means I do not have the ability to force him—not that I lack physical ability, but that I lack the ability to bring him to a state where he is fulfilling a commandment. So there is no great significance there; that is not tolerance. I simply did not achieve my goal, so what’s the point of taking that step? That is a reason to be rational. I’m asking where tolerance comes from. And I’ll shorten the path now: it seems to me that tolerance is based on a conception that says a person has autonomy to act as he thinks, even though he is mistaken, and even if the mistake is harmful to some degree. Again, this is not absolute. Today people take this to very extreme situations sometimes, but I do not mean extreme situations specifically. In measured fashion. Obviously, if I see someone harming himself to such an extent that he is about to die, I will usually intervene, despite being very tolerant. But in places where there is some reasonable proportion between the harms he will bring upon himself and the violation of his right to do what he thinks, I will not intervene. And this is the only explanation I can think of for the concept of tolerance. That the concept of tolerance is basically based on recognizing the importance of the autonomy of the other person—that he should do what he thinks. You know, there is a Magen Avraham. The Magen Avraham says that one may tell someone something in the name of a great person “so that they will accept it from him.” This is from the Gemara. He brings it—the Magen Avraham in siman 156 there, where he brings all the rules of how one may arrange them. Then afterward he writes “he went out to his business”—that’s in the Shulchan Arukh—and those are the business dealings the Magen Avraham goes out to there. So he says there that when you want to persuade someone, you present it to him in the name of the leading sages of the generation. Fine? That is permitted, “so that they will accept it from him.” And all my life I have wondered how such a thing can be permitted. It’s outrageous. Some ignoramus comes along, convinced that turning on a light on the Sabbath is permitted. The prohibition is some invention of the religious people. Now someone comes and says to him: after all, all the great luminaries and sages of the generation said that it is permitted to turn on a light on the Sabbath. That’s obvious. Fine, if he says so, then apparently it’s permitted. Then I’ll turn on the light. And he was coerced, and inadvertent, and everything looks fine and everything is okay—but it’s a nice arrangement. I’m coerced, he’s inadvertent, everything looks fine. How can such a thing be? It seems to me that the only way to understand the Magen Avraham’s claim, or the Gemara’s, is that I am not supposed to accept what all the great sages said. Even if he tells me that all the great sages said it is permitted to turn on a light on the Sabbath, I still will not turn it on if I think it is forbidden. Only on that assumption can I understand this permission of the Magen Avraham. You’ll ask: then why is he doing this whole trick? After all, he presents it in the name of the great sages in order that they should accept it from him, to persuade me. But if the assumption is that in any case I won’t accept it, then why does he do all this? The answer is that he wants to persuade me to consider seriously what he is saying. A person comes and says to me: listen, in my opinion it is permitted to turn on a light on the Sabbath. It’s all made up. Fine—I’m not even willing to hear him; idiot, he understands nothing, no point in listening. But when he says to me: listen, but so-and-so and so-and-so, great sages of the generation, said it. Oh really? Fine, you know what, let’s try to think. So what are the reasons, this way and that way? I’ll begin to consider it seriously. In the end, I will do what I think. But he said it to me in the name of a great person in order to persuade me to weigh it seriously. For example, at the beginning of the twentieth century, as I recall, there was the story of the forged Jerusalem Talmud. He invented a Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. In short, there were big arguments about it all over the world, and there are also all kinds of legends about it. In any event, what did people want from him? What’s the problem? It’s permitted. The Magen Avraham says it is permitted. What’s the problem? He merely said his Torah insights and wrote them in a kind of Jerusalem-Talmud Aramaic and presented it as a Jerusalem Talmud “so that they would accept it from him.” Everything is fine, so what’s the problem? What’s that book called? I don’t remember exactly—Besamim Rosh, the responsa. So what did people want from him? The answer is: because if something appears in the Jerusalem Talmud, we actually will accept it. The Jerusalem Talmud is not merely a reason to consider something. If there is an explicit Jerusalem Talmud and no Babylonian Talmud disagrees, then we will issue a halakhic ruling, right? There, you are not allowed to do it. In a case where that deception would succeed, it is forbidden to do it. You may do it only in a case where you want to persuade me to consider seriously what you are saying, when without this I would not consider it seriously. That is perfectly fine. Why am I bringing this whole example? In order to argue that there is some importance to our autonomy when we act. There is some importance to autonomy, that we do things because we think so, perhaps even if we are mistaken. And that is the assumption of this law in the Magen Avraham—that I will not accept it just because he brings it in the name of all the great sages. I will consider it seriously, because they surely did not speak nonsense, so I’ll consider it seriously. I’ll weigh the sides again, this way and that, try to clarify it—but in the end I will do what I think. The Gemara says there that Jewish law was not decided according to Rabbi Meir because his colleagues could not get to the depth of his reasoning. And the question is: that should be the best reason to rule like him, no? Such a great genius, nobody can refute him or even argue with him—so certainly Jewish law should follow him everywhere. Why was Jewish law not decided according to him? Because they could not get to the depth of his reasoning. It seems that perhaps a possible explanation is that if you cannot get to the depth of his reasoning, then you are not doing it because you think so, but because he thinks so. But there is value in being autonomous. There is value in doing things because you think so, even if those things are not correct. And with Rabbi Meir, if his colleagues could not get to the depth of his reasoning, then usually when I disagree with him, he is right and not me—and nevertheless Jewish law is not decided like him because there is value in my deciding Jewish law as it appears to me in the issue. Yes, the well-known Maharal indeed writes that the Holy One, blessed be He, prefers someone who rules on his own out of the passages, out of his own analysis of the passages, even if he errs, over someone who rules from books, even if he is right. This is probably part of the polemic against the Shulchan Arukh—it doesn’t matter—but that is the Maharal’s claim there, and the Chida wrote an entire pamphlet about it. What is the claim here really? The claim is that there is importance to the autonomy of the person. When a person acts, when he rules according to what he thinks, that itself is something valuable. Even if he does something erroneous, harmful, and I have the ability to stop him and I care about him—but that itself is important, valuable. Not an absolute value. If the error is too great, then no, then I will intervene. But there is value to tolerance, at least on some level, because there is value in his acting according to what he thinks. Now perhaps I’ll bring a halakhic example. The Gemara in Sukkah 10 brings a dispute between amoraim. I don’t know how to draw a theoretical boundary. The Gemara there in Sukkah 10 brings a dispute between amoraim as to whether one may sit under decorations hanging four handbreadths below the sukkah covering. Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna say it is forbidden, and Rav Nachman says it is permitted. Now it is told there that they came to the house of the Exilarch, and Rav Nachman, as is known, was the son-in-law of the nasi’s house, and he hosted them in his sukkah and sat them, of course, under decorations hanging four handbreadths below the covering—something that according to them is forbidden and according to him is permitted. Fine? Seemingly from here it emerges that if I think something is permitted, then I am not supposed to take the other person’s view into account. He thinks it is forbidden—he is mistaken. I think it is permitted. When we discuss whether there is halakhic truth—“these and those are the words of the living God”—whether there is halakhic truth, whether there is no halakhic truth, whether everyone is right, whether only one is right and we don’t know who, or whether no one is right—what is the value of understanding that statement, “these and those are the words of the living God”? One might raise the possibility, yes, that either there is halakhic truth—let’s call it monism—or there is no halakhic truth, a kind of pluralism. In this story it would seem that monism rules, right? I think the truth is that it is permitted to sit under such decorations; the fact that they think it is forbidden—indeed, from here it seems one may cause someone to stumble in something that according to him is a transgression if according to me it is permitted. But he proves in the passage in Chullin—Rav Elazar Avrahami proves it there from a passage in Chullin—that this is only if the other person knows. If one draws his attention to the fact that he is sitting under decorations hanging four handbreadths below the covering. Then it somehow seems to empty the basic statement of its content. Because if he knows, then it is his decision, not mine. If he knows, then what? If he knows, then it isn’t my causing him to stumble. So it is not true that I may cause someone to stumble in something that is a transgression according to him and permitted according to me. That is not true. I didn’t cause him to stumble; he did it, he decided to do it; he knows the decorations are hanging four handbreadths below the covering. He knows that, and still decided to sit there. But that is not right. It is not right because in the laws of “do not place a stumbling block,” as is known, when I hand a cup of wine to a Nazirite I transgress “do not place a stumbling block” on a Torah level when he is on the other side of the river. I transgress on a Torah level, right? Did I force him to drink? I merely gave him the cup of wine. Did I shove it down his throat by force? I gave him a cup of wine. He asked me for it from the other side of the river, I handed it to him. That’s all. He decided to drink; he knows it is wine, he knows he is a Nazirite, and he decided to drink. So why is that “do not place a stumbling block”? The Sages say that this is called “do not place a stumbling block” on a Torah level. Which means that even when the other person, knowingly, decides to commit the transgression, if without me he would not have done it, if I enabled him to commit that transgression, that is still “do not place a stumbling block.” So if so, I return to the Ritva. The Ritva says one must inform them that there are decorations here hanging four handbreadths below the covering, draw their attention to it. So it is not true that he emptied the statement of content. No—there is still “do not place a stumbling block” here. If you informed them, why indeed is it permitted? It resembles handing a cup of wine to a Nazirite; why is it permitted? After all, according to the Ritva—because in my view it is permitted, because according to my position it is permitted. So I don’t understand: if according to your position it is permitted, and you think that in fact only your position determines things and you are not interested in the fact that they think it is forbidden, then why do you need to inform them? Even without informing them, just sit them there, because you think it is permitted—so what is the problem? How are we to understand this dance between the two clauses? On the one hand you are feeding it to them, so to speak; on the other hand you have to inform them. And that does not solve the problem of “do not place a stumbling block,” so if it does not solve that problem, why do you need to do it? How are we to understand this Ritva? It seems to me the only way to understand the Ritva is that the Ritva is really saying this. It is true that what I think is what determines things, and if I think it is permitted, then I do not worry about views that say it is forbidden. As far as I am concerned it is permitted. But there is a value of autonomy. It is not because they are committing a transgression. They are not committing a transgression, because according to my view this is not a transgression. I am convinced I am right. But on the other hand there is value in autonomy, that a person should decide what he does according to the best of his understanding. So if you do not inform them, then true, you did not violate “do not place a stumbling block,” but you did violate their autonomy; you did not allow them to make the decision. And precisely for that reason one must inform them. And if you do inform them, then what? We asked that—if you inform them, what happened? There is still “do not place a stumbling block” here, just as with the cup of wine for the Nazirite. Not so, because there is no “do not place a stumbling block” here. Because if according to my view this is not a transgression, then causing another person to do something that according to him is a transgression is not “do not place a stumbling block.” It is not “do not place a stumbling block.” So why must one inform him? In order not to violate the value of autonomy. In other words, there is here a synchronization of the obligation to do the right thing together with the obligation to do what I think is right. Or in other words, if I formulate this now more generally, this conception seems to appear in a number of places in Jewish law: that the halakhic obligation is not necessarily only to do what is objectively right. Of course that is very important, but it is only one consideration. Another consideration is to do what you think is right. Like Rabbi Meir, whose opinion is not followed even though the truth is with him. So what—do we rule incorrect Jewish law? Why? Because we have a responsibility to do what we think. And if we do not think as he does, if we did not understand his reasoning, fine—but that is what we think, what can we do? Even though he is wiser and it is very likely that we did not understand his view, so that we are mistaken and he is right—so what? There is importance to autonomy. Jewish law is determined by a combination of truth and autonomy. Which basically means that Jewish law also recognizes the importance of the person acting according to what he understands. What I said earlier about the Magen Avraham and Rabbi Meir and this example of the Ritva and others—one sees that there is importance to autonomy, to the way a person acts, that the person acts out of his own determination of what he thinks is right. And that is basically the basis for tolerance, as we said earlier. Because the possible basis for tolerance, the only possible basis for tolerance, is only if I recognize the value of the autonomy, the autonomous character, of the other person’s action—that he should do what he thinks is right. And in that sense the expression “these and those are the words of the living God,” which supposedly sounds pluralistic, as if there are many truths, is not pluralistic at all. That is an illusion. It is tolerant, not pluralistic. Not because both sides are right. One side is right and the other is wrong. But even one who is wrong, if he works within the halakhic tools and accepted methods, there is value in allowing him to do what he thinks, even where he is mistaken. Therefore “these and those are the words of the living God” is tolerance and not pluralism. What? Again, proportionality here is the key point, and I can’t say much about it right now. Exactly where does the line pass? How much yes and how much no? So in effect, the meaning of tolerance is to allow a person to err if that is what he thinks is right to do. And therefore many times, when we see some attitude that looks like pluralism, it is only a pluralistic appearance. In reality it is not pluralism. It does not mean there is no halakhic truth. It does not mean we are in the analytic picture. We are in the synthetic picture. There is halakhic truth, and if I think this is right then in my eyes it is right and you are wrong, and still I am supposed to allow you to act as you think, within certain limits—mainly the limits of who is qualified to do so, who is competent. We are not going to let every child decide whatever he wants about the laws of Sabbath—that’s absurd. We are talking about someone who is competent. Fine, but within certain limits there is certainly halakhic value in this. There is a kind of pluralism that does not derive from truth itself, but from the view that truth is not found only in… what is called harmonism. In the book Lo BaShamayim Hi, he brings this as a third approach called harmonism, that all the methods together. More than that: in one place the Gemara explains what “these and those are the words of the living God” means. In the story of the concubine in Gibeah—“he found a fly and did not care; he found a hair and cared.” There it appears explicitly in the Gemara that the combination of both things together creates the full truth. A fly on one side and a hair on the other. To some extent… what? No, but in those views I think that’s not… This is exactly what I mean to say. I just won’t have time to explain it now. Anyone who wants can read an article I wrote in Da’at HaMe’ayin, where I lay this out more fully in precisely this context of harmonism. In the end I argue that harmonism is the only possible option, not pluralism and not tolerance. But that is equivalent to what I’m saying now; I just need a little more time for it. So I just want to summarize regarding attitudes toward other positions. If we take tolerance toward other positions, it can arise either from pluralism, from absence of dogmatism, from thinking everyone is right. I do not think that is a relevant option in a Jewish world. Or from the idea that the error is not harmful, or that I don’t care about the other person, or that I cannot coerce him. All these, of course, are not tolerance. The only possible way to explain tolerance is in a situation where there is dogmatism, and it is harmful, and I care, and I have the ability to influence—but I recognize the importance of your autonomous action. But this is proportional, and only where your autonomous action is not too harmful will I allow it. And perhaps I’ll give one example and with this I’ll finish. There are a number of medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) who speak about this issue. There is the famous Rosh in chapter 4 of tractate Sanhedrin, siman 6. The Rosh speaks about the obligation and the permission to issue an autonomous halakhic ruling, a halakhic ruling of one’s own, and not necessarily to follow the positions of important halakhic decisors or earlier generations. And there this expression returns—competent—on condition that he really be competent, as I said earlier. What I have just said could be taken very far indeed—that now everyone can decide whatever he wants because there is value in his doing what he thinks. That is ridiculous. It has to be someone who is competent on some level. Now what does competent mean? I’ll say in just a few words what this means, because it also connects with what I said earlier. The Gemara says that they would not accept someone into the Sanhedrin unless he knew how to declare the creeping creature pure on one hundred and forty-nine grounds. It is well known. Rabbenu Tam says: what do we need these empty pilpulim for? But the Maharal says these are not empty pilpulim. There are one hundred and forty-nine reasons to declare the creeping creature pure and one hundred and forty-nine reasons to declare it impure. The Jewish law is that it is impure, but that does not mean that the reasons to declare it pure are false. It does not mean the reasons are incorrect. It only means that in the final weighing, the reasons to declare it impure outweigh the reasons to declare it pure. Fine? It does not mean the reasons are not correct. All halakhic disputes, it seems to me—what does it mean, halakhic disputes? These are disputes where, when we take into account the arguments of both sides, the arguments of both sides are correct. No one is speaking nonsense. The arguments are correct. The dispute is not over whether your argument is correct or not—in almost every case I can think of—but rather over which argument carries greater weight. There is an argument this way and an argument that way, for impurity and for purity. The question is which argument has greater weight. And that is the dispute. And of that it is said: “these and those are the words of the living God.” Why? Because here, every position you choose is based on correct reasons. Maybe your weights are not correct, but the reasons are correct. You are not doing halakhic nonsense. Earlier you asked about the line—where exactly is the line of fatal error? Let’s talk about that for a moment. But if someone is not competent, then two problems can arise. First, the chance of error is too high—and I said this is all proportional—so toward the considerations of someone who is not competent, we will not be tolerant. Why? Because the likelihood of error is very high. He is not competent, so the chance of error is high; he will do foolish things with very high probability, and therefore there is no reason to allow him that. But more than that, it seems to me that someone who is not competent may do foolish things in the reasons themselves, not just in the weights. That is, he will think that reasons that are not actually correct are, in his eyes, correct. Someone who is a Torah scholar and is competent knows what kinds of considerations may be made, so there may be dispute over the relative weight, but the considerations he raises are valid considerations. Someone who is not competent may simply err in the considerations themselves; he may bring invalid reasons, not merely assign the wrong weight to valid reasons. And toward such a person we are not supposed to be tolerant. About that it was not said, “these and those are the words of the living God.” And really, if we widen the circle even more, the question always arises: where are the boundaries of tolerance? I won’t speak about the boundaries of pluralism, because I do not believe there is pluralism in Jewish law. Jewish law is not pluralistic. Rather: where are the boundaries of tolerance? To what point am I prepared to allow people to behave in a way that in my eyes is mistaken? If I have the power, or the mandate, or the ability, and all that is in place—to what point will I allow it? I will allow it so long as the discussion is conducted within the study hall, with the tools of the study hall, and his mistake is a mistake in judgment, let’s call it that—a weighting error. That is, I am weighing valid reasons incorrectly. But where the reasons themselves are invalid, there I am not tolerant toward that religious position. So if there is a position of someone who is not competent, or to go farther, someone who is not even in the study hall at all—like the priest who asked Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz: why don’t you follow us? We are the majority, after all, and Scripture says, “follow the majority.” So why don’t you follow us? In a place where the discussion is not even being conducted within the framework, then the other position is not one whose reasons are valid but whose weights are wrong. The reasons are simply invalid. They do not accept the rules of the game. These are not the right reasons. So toward that you cannot apply “these and those are the words of the living God” in any way—to positions that are altogether Reform, Christian, or whatever else you like. And the question always comes up where exactly the line stops, but the initial foundation is that this is not pluralism but tolerance. It is not that everyone is right. If everyone were right, then frankly I don’t know what we are talking about. There is tolerance here. One is right, the others are wrong, but there is tolerance toward incorrect positions. How far does that tolerance extend? It extends to the point where those positions are reasoned with accepted halakhic tools more or less, and the problem is only in the weights. But where the reasons are completely different, some wholly different conception, there Jewish law, in my opinion, is not pluralistic. So let me just finish with one sentence. We talked a bit about halakhic truth, we talked about the analytic and synthetic pictures, we talked at the beginning of this class about the possibility of discourse according to the analytic picture versus the synthetic picture, and at the end I concluded with what happens when there is no discourse. The discourse ends. I no longer succeeded in persuading you; the discourse is over. You have one intuition, I have another. Now further questions arise—pluralism, tolerance, and the like. And here it seems to me that the picture is one of measured tolerance, tolerance at the level of valid reasons and invalid weights. That is more or less what we will manage for today. Thank you.