Platonism – Lecture 25

Table of Contents

• Platonic love, Socratic love, and Jewish law
• The three types of relation and the rejection of “hatred of ideas”
• Emotional complexity: loving and hating the same person
• Freedom, circumstances, and the question of hatred
• Karl Popper, total ideologies, and trampling human beings
• Friendship, “companions on the road,” and Sarah Stroud
• Judging actions versus judging the person who acts, and evil and ideology
• Fundamentalism, critical thinking, and the distinction from postmodernism
• Idealized love of the Jewish people and its implications in Israel: Haredim, Hardalim, and a demonic prism
• Antisemitism, pro-Palestine, and rejecting “demons” as explanations
• Messianism, Zionism, and metaphysical considerations versus realpolitik
• Hallel on Independence Day, a religious response to the secular, and stories about the Rabbi of Brisk
• Dreams, “What have you to do with the hidden things of the Merciful One,” and rejecting metaphysics in decision-making
• The stubborn and rebellious son and the distinction between practical prediction and metaphysics
• Conclusion: the coalition, Haredim and Hardalim, and the pessimistic feeling

Summary

General overview

The speaker sharpens the point that love and hatred have three modes: a relation to a person regardless of his qualities, a relation to a person because of his qualities, and a direct relation to ideas and qualities without seeing the person at all. He argues that in halakhic discourse, love and hatred are always directed toward human beings, even when they are “Platonic” in the sense that they depend on a trait, and he rejects the presentation as though “hate the sin and not the sinner” means a relation to an idea rather than to a person. Later he presents “extreme Platonism” as inhuman and dangerous, because it turns human beings into tools for the realization of ideals, and connects it to ideological fanaticism, to metaphysical discourse about historical movements, and to messianism that replaces realistic considerations with considerations of “demons” and mechanisms of redemption.

Platonic love, Socratic love, and Jewish law

The speaker presents Socratic love as love for the person himself, “not because of something else,” and defines Platonic love as love for a person because he is such-and-such. He says that the commandments of love and hatred in Jewish law carry a “Platonic tone” because they depend on identity or status, such as “love for the convert because he is a convert,” and hatred for a wicked person by virtue of his being wicked. He rejects the reading of “let sins cease, and not sinners” as a relation to an abstract idea, and states that the intention is a desire that the person be eliminated because he is a sinner; and with repentance there is no longer anything that should be eliminated.

The three types of relation and the rejection of “hatred of ideas”

The speaker formulates three situations: a relation to a person detached from his qualities, a relation to a person because of his qualities, and a relation to qualities or ideas themselves without any relation to the person. He says the third situation is sometimes perceived as a lofty ideal of focusing on the abstract, but in his view it is problematic and distorted, and he identifies it also in interpretations that try to say one may not hate a person but only “hate the sin within him.” He argues that ideas “are guilty of nothing” and have no free choice, so there is no point in attributing love or hatred to them, and the relation should be to human beings.

Emotional complexity: loving and hating the same person

The speaker attributes to moderate Platonism the advantage of complexity, which allows one to love and hate the same person from different angles, such as a “wicked convert,” where one loves in him the fact that he is a convert and hates in him the fact that he is wicked. He connects this to commentators’ discussions of “when you see the donkey of your enemy” and to the tension between the commandment of love and the permission to hate a sinner, and offers a solution in which “you live both things” without contradiction. He replaces the wording “to loathe opinions” with “to oppose” them and to see them as harmful opinions, but emphasizes that love and hatred are relations between people, not between a person and an idea.

Freedom, circumstances, and the question of hatred

The speaker rejects the assumption that one must automatically hate a person who behaves badly, and argues that hatred is justified when a person “made bad choices,” not when he is the almost-certain product of circumstances. He proposes a continuum in which the degree of responsibility is connected to the chance the person had to choose otherwise, and translates that also into the degree of hatred that may be possible. He distinguishes between defending oneself against someone who threatens you—“if someone comes to kill you, rise early to kill him first”—and hatred, and argues that the discussion is about the attitude, not about the need for self-defense.

Karl Popper, total ideologies, and trampling human beings

The speaker presents Karl Popper as someone who identifies a connection between Platonism and violent ideological movements such as communism and Nazism, because they place an ideal utopia as something static and perfect and are willing to trample human beings for its sake. He describes human beings as “oil on the wheels of the revolution” and as pawns sacrificed in order to realize an ideal, and argues that the danger lies in the very focus on the idea instead of on the person. He accepts the diagnosis of the danger but rejects a sweeping anti-ideological conclusion, and emphasizes that one can struggle for values without turning people into tools.

Friendship, “companions on the road,” and Sarah Stroud

The speaker brings an example of a person who said, “I have no friends, I have companions on the road,” and interprets this as the loss of human connection in favor of a shared ideal. He cites an article by the philosopher Sarah Stroud about friendship and the question of “giving preference” to friends, and suggests that friendship is a kind of “contract” between person and person that creates commitment even when the friend sins or chooses badly. He argues that one can condemn actions and fight them and still continue to love, and that there is value in preferential treatment of family members and friends that does not stem from pure ideological judgment.

Judging actions versus judging the person who acts, and evil and ideology

The speaker says that when you judge an action, you judge “according to my view,” but when you judge a person, you need to judge “according to his view,” based on motives and considerations. He rejects the claim that there is no evil that is not the product of circumstances or impulses, and argues that there are people who act against morality even when they know it is evil—for example, a hired murderer who prefers his interest over values. He also rejects the determination that every atrocity is “pure evil” with no explanation, and argues that people can justify extreme acts out of revenge or a distorted religious command, without that meaning that the act is not wicked according to the judge’s own view.

Fundamentalism, critical thinking, and the distinction from postmodernism

The speaker defines fundamentalism as a position that does not stand up to critical examination, and argues that the criticism of it is not only consequentialist but touches on a flaw in the position itself, even if the results are ostensibly good, as with “Mother Teresa.” He proposes an alternative of holding an ideology in a non-fundamentalist way, one that recognizes the possibility of error and is willing to hear arguments, yet still decides and acts. He describes “erasing ideology” as postmodernity and “erasing the human being in favor of ideology” as Platonism, and connects this to Maimonides’ “golden mean” as avoiding extremism.

Idealized love of the Jewish people and its implications in Israel: Haredim, Hardalim, and a demonic prism

The speaker brings a saying of his grandfather about an admor who loved “the Jewish people as a whole” but got tangled up with the particulars, and interprets this as love not for individuals but for the “Jewishness in a person” or for religious identity as an ideal. He argues that both poles in the debate over Zionism tend toward Platonic-metaphysical judgment: extreme opponents see Zionism as a movement of religious destruction and the “other side of evil,” while extreme supporters see it as “the beginning of redemption” and the footsteps of the Messiah. He describes among Hardalim a view of the Ministry of Education, LGBT people, secular Jews, the left, the army, and progressivism as agents of “demons” whose goal is religious destruction, and argues that their “love of the Jewish people” narrows down to those who fit the ideological model.

Antisemitism, pro-Palestine, and rejecting “demons” as explanations

The speaker rejects an automatic shift to an antisemitic interpretation for every pro-Palestinian demonstration, and suggests seeing at least some of the activists as human beings acting out of ignorance, a distorted news picture, or moral commitment according to their own lights. He describes the activity as infuriating and dangerous in his view, but opposes an explanation that erases human choice and replaces it with the demon of “antisemitism.” He warns against “Marxist” thinking that looks behind concrete phenomena for metaphysical conspiracies, and argues that this erases the people in favor of an idealized story.

Messianism, Zionism, and metaphysical considerations versus realpolitik

The speaker argues that the central problem in the religious debate over Zionism is reliance on metaphysical considerations instead of a concrete discussion of a historical movement, and he asks for arguments of success, failure, benefit, and harm instead of “the beginning of redemption” or the “other side of evil.” He presents “false messianism” as a call for mass action on behalf of a metaphysical goal while ignoring realistic considerations, and sees in this an expression of extreme Platonism. He identifies with a statement in the style of “a Zionist like Ben-Gurion” as a practical decision that welcomes the establishment of the state without turning it into a metaphysical event.

Hallel on Independence Day, a religious response to the secular, and stories about the Rabbi of Brisk

The speaker explains that one can give a religious response to national reality without attributing metaphysical holiness to it, just as one recites the Asher Yatzar blessing over a physiological phenomenon. He brings the story about Rabbi Herzog, who said, “We have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed,” as against the Rabbi of Brisk, who said, “When they’re shooting, you have to run away,” and presents this as a dispute between metaphysical reasoning and practical judgment. He argues that even if a metaphysical consideration is correct, it should not be used to manage practice, and he prefers a method that decides according to reality and practical obligation.

Dreams, “What have you to do with the hidden things of the Merciful One,” and rejecting metaphysics in decision-making

The speaker brings the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, page 30, about a dream that reveals where second-tithe coins are located and even gets the amount right, and yet one need not be concerned with the halakhic status conveyed in the dream. He argues that dreams can be factually “reliable” and still not serve as a basis for halakhic decision-making, and parallels this to political decisions that are not supposed to derive from considerations of Messiah and Satan. He uses Hezekiah’s phrase, “What have you to do with the hidden things of the Merciful One,” to say that even when the vision is correct, that is not the kind of consideration a person is meant to take into account, because “the heavens belong to God, but the earth He gave to human beings.”

The stubborn and rebellious son and the distinction between practical prediction and metaphysics

The speaker distinguishes between practical future-oriented considerations such as the law of a pursuer and “he is judged based on his ultimate end” in the case of the stubborn and rebellious son, and metaphysical considerations of redemption and Satan. He presents the stubborn and rebellious son as a behavioral assessment about future danger, not as a claim about hidden mechanisms, and mentions the well-known difficulty in relation to “as he is there” regarding Ishmael. He remains with the position that a future-oriented consideration based on probability and danger is legitimate, but a metaphysical consideration is not supposed to guide action.

Conclusion: the coalition, Haredim and Hardalim, and the pessimistic feeling

The speaker argues that the current political situation combines Haredim focused on practice with Hardal Religious Zionism focused on metaphysics, and that this combination “is bringing us to the brink of disaster.” He says the tools are realpolitical, but the engine is an ideal that pays little attention to constraints, and presents settlement as an example of harnessing security considerations in favor of an ideal even when reality is complex. He ends the lecture on a pessimistic note and with the blessing, Sabbath peace.

We’re in the topic of Platonism, and in the last few sessions I spoke about the definition of Platonism also in personal, human contexts and the like. I spoke about platonic love, and actually here the direction somehow changes—at least for me, the direction changes a bit. Because Platonism in the first stage, at least I feel, is some kind of way of thinking that’s worthy of appreciation, and I also identify with it, but the Platonism we’re getting to now will go in the opposite direction. So platonic love, on the one hand, is presented as some kind of ideal, something more exalted than mere lust or merely instinctive things of one kind or another. But there are two sides to this coin. We spoke about platonic love and Socratic love. Right, the claim was actually that love should always be directed toward a person, not an idea. The only difference between platonic love and Socratic love is that Socratic love is love for a person, simply for the person himself, not because of something else. And platonic love is love for a person because he is such-and-such. And we even saw, in halakhic / of Jewish law contexts, I spoke about how the commandments of love and the commandments of hatred in Jewish law actually have a platonic character. They basically speak about “let sins cease, not sinners,” or hatred for the wicked because they are wicked, or love for the convert because he is a convert. Not love for the person—if he’s a convert then you have to love him, no. You have to love him because he is a convert. Meaning, these commandments are commandments that in their essence speak in platonic language and not in Socratic language. But I rejected the seemingly simple view that says that “let sins cease, not sinners” doesn’t refer to a person at all, but to an idea. Love and hatred, or emotions in general, are supposed to be directed toward human beings and not toward ideas, characteristics, forms, and the like. When we speak about “let sins cease, not sinners,” the meaning is: I want the one who disappears from the world to be that person, not the idea. It’s not like the simple view: I want the sin to disappear and not the person—no, no, I want the person to disappear. But I want him to disappear not because I hate him; I want him to disappear because of what he is, because he is a sinner. Of course, if he repents and is no longer a sinner, then I have no interest in his disappearing, because all I wanted to disappear was due to his being a sinner. But all these Kook-style perspectives—you know, I said this was either the rebbe of Vizhnitz or Rabbi Kook, I don’t know, people quote it in the name of both of them—that it is better to err or fail through baseless love than through baseless hatred. Right, this framing of the matter that you’re supposed to hate and love ideas and not people—I don’t agree with that at all. Love and hatred should be for people. Platonism means that I love or hate a person not just because I love or hate him, but for a reason. There’s a reason to love him; there’s a reason to hate him. But the love itself or the hatred itself is directed toward the person and not the idea. That’s the point. Now I want to move on, because there is another kind of Platonism, and this is actually that original Platonism that I rejected, and that is truly hatred for an idea or love for an idea, and not for a person at all, only for the idea. Sometimes they present this as some kind of exalted ideal: you’re basically not relating to the person at all, you relate only to ideas, yes, only to abstract things. This kind of Platonism, in my view, is very problematic in many respects. It’s an extreme Platonism—I don’t know what to call it—and in my view it’s very problematic in many respects, and that’s what I want to talk about a bit today. So again, let me sharpen the distinction: we’re talking about three different situations. There is emotion—and when I say emotion I mean either love or hatred or any other feeling toward a person—which is a relation to the person. The person of course has various traits, but the relation to the person is detached from the traits: love, hatred, whatever it may be. There is a relation to a person because of his traits, but it is still a relation to the person. And there is love or hatred or a relation to the traits themselves, not to the person at all. Now I claim that this third thing doesn’t really exist in halakhic / of Jewish law and Torah discourse and so on—it doesn’t exist. When people talk about “let sins cease, not sinners,” they are still talking about the person, the person because he is a sinner and not the person as such. But it is still always toward a person. I relate to human beings, not to ideas. What do I have to hate or love ideas for? The ideas—the question is who carries them, who acts according to them, and who created them—that is who I am supposed to love or hate, not the ideas. The ideas are not guilty of anything, they have no free choice, they are not the kind of thing relevant to my attitude. So therefore this third type, which up to now I claimed wasn’t even on the map, didn’t exist—that’s not true. Factually, it does exist; there are groups that conduct themselves that way. They relate to ideas and not to the people who carry them, to the ideas themselves. As I said earlier, there are quite a few commentators who interpret the commandments of love and hatred in Jewish law this way, especially hatred, but perhaps also love—that hatred, how could it be, you’re forbidden to hate the person, you’re supposed to hate the sin within him. Not true: you’re supposed to hate the person because he is a sinner. But there are those who really do relate to the characteristics themselves, not the person, and then they basically see human beings as carriers of ideas or forms. That is a platonic perspective that I find detestable. Meaning, that is an inhuman perspective, because you’re basically saying: in your eyes, human beings are carriers of ideas, that’s all, but you relate only to the ideas, not to the human beings. That is the Platonism that I think is very negative, and that’s what I want to talk about a bit today. So this is as opposed to the two situations I described in previous sessions. Maybe I should preface— One second, I just want to make sure I understood. We’re talking about a reality that the Rabbi claims either doesn’t exist or is detestable, I’m not sure—but in my house there is such a thing. I love my son with all my heart, and he has opinions that I detest. So what? Is that not true? Is it true? Do I hate him? There’s nothing to detest in the opinions; you disagree with the opinions. What is there to detest in opinions? Okay, so as for the opinions—what is there to detest in the opinions? The fact that you love him is unrelated. We talked about this—I think maybe I didn’t talk about it, so maybe I’ll add one more sentence about it. The moderate platonic perspective I spoke about last time—one of the things it can lead to, and in my view this is positive, is complexity. Meaning, for example, what happens if there is a wicked convert? Or even just a wicked Jew? So I hate him because he is wicked, and I love him because he is a convert or a Jew, and there is no contradiction. When love is platonic love, meaning that I love him because of traits, then there is no contradiction, because I can love him from this aspect and hate him from that aspect. And therefore many times the commentators, when they speak about “when you see the donkey of your enemy,” the contradiction between Tosafot in Pesachim and Tosafot in Bava Metzia—these are well-known matters, they discussed them at length. The question is: how can you hate a person—“when you see the donkey of your enemy”? Tosafot asks, the Talmud asks, how can this be, after all there is no such thing as an enemy? So we’re talking about a sinner whom it is permitted to hate. Then Tosafot asks, one second, but there is a commandment of love—so what happens with the hatred? There is a contradiction between the two Tosafots. At the end of the day, many commentators say that you have to live both things. What does it mean to live both things? When you love or hate in a platonic way, there is no contradiction between platonic love and platonic hatred, even though I explained earlier that even platonic love and hatred are directed toward a person. But I can love him because he is one thing and hate him because he is something else—two different things. And regarding your son, for example, you can love him because he is your son and at the same time hate him because of his views, or hate what you call hating his views. I don’t think there is such a thing as hating views, but that’s the third type we defined—to hate the views, not the son. We said the third type is to hate or love the views, so okay, then let’s just change the term, that’s all. So not hate—not accept the views, oppose them. Yes, you think those views are harmful and you oppose them, that’s perfectly fine. But we defined that as a kind of third type. Love is relations between human beings. Okay, fine, it’s just that this was the third definition, which says to hate or love the views, not the son. Wait, no—the third definition goes further. I’ll get to it in a second. But you understand—platonic love or platonic hatred makes possible a complex situation, a duplication, an emotional duplication or a duplication of attitude. Because I can love and hate the same person. He has various aspects. From this aspect I love him, from that aspect I hate him. Right. So the Platonist— Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi. Rabbi, isn’t it really ridiculous to hate a person once you understand that if you had grown up and been born in his place, there’s a 99.9% chance you would probably have turned out exactly the same? So the fact that by chance you were born in an environment or in a society or— Who said you have to hate him? No, who said you have to hate him? No, say there’s a Hamas member, for example—let’s say you say, he raped, murdered, kidnapped, he supported it, doesn’t matter, that’s classic someone to hate. So you say, why hate him? But I don’t know what “classic” means. You don’t have to hate him. If it’s a situation where, had you been born there, you too would have done it, then it is not right to hate him—not even platonic hatred. But even for someone libertarian, even for someone who chooses that position, we still know that for the vast majority—almost—an enormous part of human life is basically determined by life conditions. I’m saying again, Shmuel, an enormous part— What comes out, then? What remains? If indeed your assessment is that for that person, in his environment, this is almost the most likely result there is, and you too, had you been there, would have developed the same behavior, then it is not right to hate him. It’s simply not right. That’s not what we’re talking about. Because that’s exactly the point. Classic or not classic, I don’t know, but it’s just not right. You should hate a person who made bad choices, not a person who behaves badly. A person who behaves badly—that’s behaving badly; it depends on the circumstances, what would have happened to another person in the same situation. It’s not determined by your opinion. If there’s no reason to hate Hamas people, if there’s no reason to hate Hitler—we already discussed in the past that maybe there isn’t any reason to hate him either—then who is left to hate? Some friend with some opinion that seems a bit— First of all, I didn’t say there’s nothing to hate. It depends on the interpretation. If you think that in the same situation you too would have acted that way, then indeed there is nothing to hate. I don’t think that in all of these situations, if I were there I too would have acted that way, but true, in some of them certainly yes. And when I spoke about both Hitler and Hamas, I raised a possibility. I didn’t make a diagnosis that this is how it is. I raised a possibility. In fact there were, by the way, also on October 7, quite a few stories that somehow over time got swept aside—there were quite a few stories of various terrorists who said to some woman or child, “We’re Muslims, we don’t kill women and children,” and left them alive, saved them, put them aside or something like that. So you see that when a person is inside such a situation, he doesn’t always behave the same way. It is not true that every situation determines what the human result will be of whoever lives inside it. No, there are degrees of freedom. True, but statistically, Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva or a yeshiva, the Higher Institute for Torah, all this crowd—if they had been born in Gaza then 99% would be like the Gazans and 1% would be the righteous gentiles, the pious among the nations, who always exist. Why Gazans? Why the Gazans? They’re not all the same. But I’m saying yes, if you choose, and you had the option to choose otherwise, then certainly yes. But if every reasonable person would come out that way, then really no. Now how much—of course it isn’t binary. To what extent? So if the probability is 95%, then the hatred will be 5%. If the probability is 70%—meaning, it was more in your hands, there was a 30% chance you could have turned out differently—then the hatred, there is justification for greater hatred. It’s not black and white. But yes, there is some interplay here between the question of how reasonable what you’re doing is in the circumstances in which you live, and the degree of hatred I am supposed to feel toward you—or love, in both directions. But people are mixing up two things here. The fact that I could have been this or that kind of Palestinian really does not mean that I have to hate him. I fight him because “if someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first,” not because of hatred. You’re talking about why to fight them. I’m not talking about that at all. Obviously in a certain sense I defend myself against anyone who threatens me. Right, but my problem is— I’m talking about whether I hate him, not whether I defend myself against him. Those are two different things. I hadn’t thought of that. What, are people here bothered by whether I hate him or not? I know that right now I am against him because he came to kill me—what difference does it make? Again, you’re mixing things up. I answered. There’s a difference between the question of whether I defend myself—obviously I have to defend myself if he threatens me; that’s not the discussion. The discussion is the question of what my attitude toward him should be, not whether to defend myself. And the attitude toward him, usually the accepted attitude, is one of hatred. And I’m saying that it is not automatically correct to hate; it depends on the circumstances. Right. I’m not responding to the answer, I’m responding to the question. Ah, fine, never mind. In any case, for our purposes, that is basically the claim. Now there is—maybe I should preface one more thing—there is Karl Popper, right, the well-known philosopher. And this book, as far as I’m concerned, when I started reading it I saw that the first half of the book is devoted to Platonism. Right, although the purpose of the book is basically to attack communism. And he also makes an analogy to Nazism a bit, or to all sorts of very extreme and ideological approaches. And the entire first half of the book is a philosophical book dealing with Platonism. And that first half of the book is a book in its own right. What’s the connection? His claim is that there is something shared by all these movements—you could call them these modernist movements, these ideological movements that place some ideology, some ideal before their eyes and act forcefully, decisively, and violently to realize that ideal—and he argues that this is a result of a platonic worldview. What does that mean? If you see before your eyes some absolute utopia, an ideal, some form in the world of forms, the world of forms is perceived as something very static. It is what it is and will always be what it is. But not only that—it is also ideal. And everything that happens in our world is a partial, flawed, imperfect manifestation, but over there sits the perfect thing. You understand that a conception of this kind can lead people to fanaticism and extremism, to violence, to very problematic behavior like we see in communism and in Nazism—even though this is from the left and that from the right. But in this sense Platonism is common to both. Because the claim is that—a messianism point I’ll get to later—the claim is basically that a platonic outlook sees before its eyes not human beings but ideas. Now the moment you see ideas before your eyes, there is some tendency—and by the way it’s not necessary, but it is tempting—to trample human beings in order to realize ideas. Because you are sure that this idea is the complete world, the perfect world, the best there is. Anyone who gets in your way, you will trample. Among the communists they called it “oil on the wheels of the revolution.” Meaning, all the victims who fell, both from the opposing side but also from their own side, the victims they sacrificed in order to realize the great idea, were perceived as oil on the wheels of the revolution. Meaning, we see people as some kind of instrument for realizing the form, the idea. And this is a very, very extreme Platonism. In that sense I think Popper is right in identifying, both in communism and in Nazism and really in all the great ideologies, a very, very dangerous platonic dimension—extreme, dangerous, problematic. And the problem really is, first of all, beyond the content of the ideas; the problem is the platonic conception itself. Meaning, the very fact that I focus on ideas and people are, for me, just carriers of ideas. And therefore I have no problem sacrificing people, killing people, because in the end what I want is to realize the ideas. And this is extreme Platonism—not the Platonism I spoke about earlier—extreme Platonism, because it relates to ideas, not to people because of the ideas. It relates to the ideas themselves. And here somehow the people disappear, this world is erased. I live in the world of forms, which sounds very spiritual, philosophical, abstract, platonic you might even say; it sounds very platonic and noble, but actually this is a distorted, cruel, extreme conception that brings only bad things. And here—not only, but—it can bring very bad things. Therefore the Platonism of the third kind—not love for a person as such, not love for a person because of his traits, but love for the trait or hatred for the trait—I am basically talking about a psychological, ideological, emotional attitude to the form, and not to the person as bearer of the form. For me the person is a bearer of a form; he has no importance in himself. The person is not an end; he is a means. He is a means to an ideal end. And therefore fascist conceptions and communist conceptions converge in this sense. Even though they speak in opposite languages, at the end of the day communists always talk about concern for the person, for the individual, equality, that everyone should be in a good state, and dividing up the means of production and so on—but along the way they trampled so many people and brought things to such a problematic state that it is quite clear that concern for the person sits there in some theoretical slot. They are not concerned about a concrete human being. They are basically saying: I want to realize some particular utopia, which of course will also be best for concrete human beings—but I’ve already forgotten that. Now the utopia stands before my eyes and I’m now fighting for it, and everything else shrinks. I once knew someone, truly a person worthy of a great deal of appreciation, who used to say: I have no friends; I have companions on the journey. Meaning, he doesn’t relate to human beings because they are his friends; he relates to them because together with him they are realizing the same ideals. Look, ostensibly that is a very noble statement. I am not biased by low emotions—who more than I appreciates statements like that. I focus on ideas, on theory, on forms, and of course whoever joins me is part of the gang, part of the group, but basically what binds us is the ideal. And then you completely lose the human bond you have to the person himself. And for example, there is an article by a philosopher named Sarah Stroud about friendship. I once wrote about it in column 269, I think, where she talks about the question of what value we assign to friendship. Suppose I have a friend and he behaves badly—should I judge him differently from how I judge someone who is not my friend, or my son, like was mentioned earlier? So I think many people expect that yes, you will give some preferential treatment to your friends, but she says: what do you mean, why? If he’s wrong then he’s wrong. What is this, favoritism? Is there value in favoritism? I think the point is—and I explained there in the column—the point is that companionship or friendship is some kind of contract, and that contract is directed from person to person. And the moment I am your friend or companion, or of course spouse or family member, then I really do have some kind of commitment to you. That doesn’t mean I won’t blame you for the bad things you do, and perhaps I will even fight you over the bad things you do. We spoke about complexity, about the duality of attitude. But still, my attitude toward you is not necessarily conditioned by those things. My attitude toward you is an attitude toward you—and not what I called earlier the Socratic attitude. I love you because I love you. You fell here and you made choices—choices, I’m not talking about falls, because falls are obvious—but even bad choices. Bad choices—I’ll condemn you, I’ll fight against that, but at the same time I can continue to love you. And there is value in my caring for you more than for other people even though you are wicked. There are many people who would say: what do you mean, that’s favoritism. On the contrary, the exalted person is someone who judges only according to the forms, and doesn’t relate to the person except as a bearer of forms, but doesn’t relate to the person by virtue of his being a person. And I think in that sense there is a very problematic attitude here. Relations between people should be relations directed toward the person, toward people. Not ignoring his characteristics. He has characteristics, and those characteristics can also affect my attitude toward him, but in the end, bottom line, I am supposed to relate to him. And there should also be friends, and not only companions on the road. At least it seems to me so. It’s hard to ground values in general, of course, this too—but it seems to me there is such a feeling, and I think people understand what I’m saying. That basically Platonism in this sense is something very technical, alienated, problematic, and it can also lead to extreme and dangerous fanaticism, because when you don’t see human beings before your eyes and you see ideas, you simply trample. Now in our discourse today in Israel and in the world generally, not just in Israel, it seems to me this is very common. When you see—that’s why people often say that it’s worth meeting, meeting the people and seeing that they don’t have tails, even on the other side. What are they really trying to say? You also need to have some attitude toward the person himself, not only because of the characteristics he has—A Socratic attitude and not only a platonic attitude. They used the word “noble” earlier. So in the end we come to the question: who determines what ought to be? Maybe ideology really is what ought to be, and true, throughout history all the great disasters were caused by ideologies and all that is true, but the question is what one really ought to aspire to. I remarked earlier that I don’t know how to ground values, and therefore if you ask me why I think—why is it forbidden to murder? Why do I care? Shoot him in the head and kill him, what’s the problem? I don’t know how to explain it. But it is clear to me that there is value in human life and murder is forbidden. In the same way, all basic values are the result of some basic moral or evaluative intuition which I myself do not know how to explain, but I think that if people examine themselves inside, then although at first glance human beings can conclude that Platonism is very noble, look inside yourselves again and you’ll discover, I think—at least that’s how it is for me—that it is not precise. Meaning, there is something problematic in Platonism, although again, one can relate to it itself in a complex way; it has a positive side, but also a problematic side. Of course, the fact that I relate to forms—Popper is wrong in that sense, because it is not true that because of what he said one must not be platonic. I can place ideology before my eyes and strive to realize it and not only follow people and ignore ideologies. I am in favor of ideologies, but that does not mean that I completely forget people or see them only as bearers of ideology. Those are two different things. Taking it to the end and ignoring people and seeing only ideology, with people merely as its bearers—that is the problematic thing. But that does not necessarily follow from Platonism. Platonism that believes there are forms, and that forms matter, and that ideology matters, and that one should fight for one’s ideology—as opposed to the postmodern view that ideologies are the root of all evil; Popper is one of the forerunners of postmodernity—I don’t agree. I think ideology is important. I think one should relate to values, and certainly there is an aspect in which people are bearers of values and one should judge them also in that sense. Only what? Only that this is not the whole picture. One must remember that there is also a person at the base of the matter, and even if he chose evil, he is still a person. More than that I’ll say: most people—I believe less in wicked people. I don’t really believe in the existence of wicked people. Usually—there can be such people—but usually a person who behaves badly, even in a very distorted way in my opinion, has reasons for it. Meaning, usually people do not do evil in order to do evil; usually people do what they think—maybe it turns out very bad, maybe they didn’t examine things thoroughly, maybe they made bad decisions—but at the end of the day there are very few people I can imagine acting in order to realize the evil thing because they are evil. That doesn’t happen. The worst people in the world and the worst groups in the world—right, we mentioned the Nazis and Hamas and ISIS and all those groups—even there I raised serious questions, although it is indeed extreme wickedness, but I raised serious questions whether those people are really doing evil in order to do evil. I think for most of them that is not true. According to Socrates, of course, that cannot happen at all—a person cannot but do what he thinks is good—and that is certainly true. On that I disagree; on that I disagree. Just as I once wrote in columns 120 and 122, I spoke there about altruistic behavior. The claim basically—and I’m taking your remark one step further—there are those who claim that altruistic behavior also cannot exist. Just as there cannot be behavior of evil for the sake of evil, there also cannot be behavior of good for the sake of good. Rather, a person acts on the basis of his interests and motivations, sometimes good and sometimes bad. And to say that a person performs an action because it is good—not because some motive pushed him, but because he chose to do the good—many people do not accept that such behavior can exist. But I disagree. I think a person—and this is the meaning of free will or human choice—can choose something because it is good or because it is evil. But here there is some asymmetry. Clearly choosing something because it is good is much more common and widespread than choosing something because it is evil. But it is not true that people do not do evil that is evil even in their own eyes; that is not true. A contract killer, a robber, I don’t know, or things like that—I think if you ask him, he too will say that it is evil. He’ll agree that it is an evil act. Only what? Only that his interests override morality, and therefore he does it anyway; or he simply has some urge or another to harass people—but he knows it is evil. But Rabbi, if you probe deeper, if the Rabbi probes deeper, then you’ll arrive at the silly conclusion that what drives him, the supreme value in his eyes, is his personal interest. The world was created so that I should have it good, and in that sense I do the good because it really is good for me; that’s what the whole world was created for. You’re saying that “it should be good for me” is a value. That “it should be good for me” means that I should enjoy myself. We’re not talking about good in the moral sense. No, no, no, not in the moral sense—in the interested sense: that I enjoy. That’s obvious: he prefers interest over value. True. No, it’s a value. That is the value in his eyes. No, no, no. That’s description; that’s wordplay. Not true—that’s exactly the point. It’s not a value. He prefers interest, utility, over values. And in that sense he chose evil. And he too admits that he chose evil; he just doesn’t care to choose evil if it benefits him. If it won’t benefit him, he also won’t do it because it’s evil, but if it benefits him, he’ll do it. But that is not a moral choice. And in that sense one can certainly judge him as an evil person. Rabbi, there’s no evil that is really evil and not connected to— Most people live with the consciousness that their supreme value is their pleasures in life. It’s hard to argue over majorities and minorities, we spoke about this earlier, and I agree too. Very few people choose evil even though they know it is evil, but there are such people. It’s not an absurd possibility. Rabbi, there’s no evil that is really evil and not connected to intellect, just to see that it’s evil. The things done on October 7—they stem from pure evil; there is no way to look at it differently. I completely disagree. Completely disagree. Yes? If people feel that they have justification to do something, then they can do it in a certain way, but the moment they do it in a different way— What do you mean? They say that their justification applies to the way too, not only to the act. How can one even imagine a person in such a situation doing such things? What does “imagine” mean? Revenge is a human feeling. No need to imagine—ask them. And they’ll tell you they’re doing these things because they believe this is the right thing to do. Including rape, burning babies, everything. Because it is the religious command to show the conquering Zionist infidels—I don’t know exactly what—everyone with his own justifications. Yes, such a situation can exist. Again, I’m not saying everyone is there— Is it possible to be so warped and think it’s a religious command? Yes. What, does killing Amalekite babies sound less warped to you? What about “the inclination of a person’s heart is evil from his youth”? Doesn’t that indicate that in the end there really is some evil? The evil we do is a result of inclinations. I didn’t say we don’t have inclinations. And you assume not only that we have inclinations, but that every time we do such an act it is only the result of an inclination. With that I disagree. The Rabbi assumes we are all good and circumstances bring us to behave one way or another. No, sometimes ideology also brings them there. Yes, and therefore postmodernism very, very much dislikes ideologies, because it thinks ideology can take good people and make them do bad things, and that is true. But ideology too must be distinguished. Ideology can be a socio-economic ideology, idealistic like communism or something like that, fascism; it can be an interest, like a hired killer; and it can be a religious ideology, that I think I should do this even though it is morally bad, because it is a religious command. Therefore one must do it. Now, how do you judge such a person? I don’t know. A person of that type—I also once wrote a column about this—when I judge a person, I always have to judge him by his own standards. When I judge the act, I judge it by my own standards. What he did, in my eyes, is an evil act, because by my standards such an act is evil. But when I judge the doer, I need to check what his motives were, what his considerations were. I cannot judge him by my standards. Those are two different things. Fine, so in the end everyone will have considerations and motives that you can come and interpret and explain as justified in one way or another, because his ideology moved him to do the most terrible thing in the world. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It’s not true that it’s always so. Sometimes there can be such considerations and sometimes not. A contract killer has no such considerations; that is interest. But people who are moved by— Okay, not people moved by—people moved by ideology, for free? Right, true, that’s what I’m saying about that. Then you can always excuse all their actions, no matter how terrible they are— If they are moved by ideology, not that I always can—I do. If they are moved by ideology, that’s what I say about it. But from the outset they weren’t supposed to get into a situation where they grasp ideology in such a distorted way. That’s already another stage. Any of us can make mistakes, and for the mistake you really are responsible. Not such a crazy mistake—what do you mean, any— Not such a mistake. Look at the column I wrote—not 880-something, I think, I don’t remember anymore, I can check. There I detailed exactly all these things. Meaning, I dealt with it extensively, and I don’t want to go into detail here. In any case, judgment of a person by his own standards—search on the site here, you’ll find it. No, I think I read it, but I’ll look again, yes. Okay. In any case, the claim I want to make is that extreme Platonism is basically the Platonism that does not see human beings. It sees forms; it lives in the world of forms. And human beings are pawns on the chessboard, they are bearers of the idea, and therefore it permits itself also to trample them for the sake of realizing the idea. So by a grim irony, yes, an ideology that so greatly aspired to the good of humanity, like communism, brought so much evil into the world. Why? For good reasons, from good motives. They wanted to do good. But at some stage they basically forgot that this good was supposed to be good for human beings, and focused on the ideal, on their ideology, and were willing to trample human beings in order to realize that important thing. Now by the way, sometimes we think that good for many human beings justifies doing evil to a few human beings. That in itself is not necessarily wrong. It is a legitimate consideration. What is wrong is when I move into the platonic mode and say: I don’t see human beings at all, I’m talking about ideology. As long as I see human beings, there can always be considerations that here and there one needs to do evil to some human beings in order to benefit many other human beings, or even those very same people. That is not an illegitimate consideration. It becomes illegitimate when I ignore the fact that there is good or evil here for human beings and focus only on ideology. Yes, that’s Popper’s description. No, that’s what I’m saying. My criticism is not pragmatist. I am not claiming—I don’t think this is bad because it leads to problematic actions. The fact that it leads to problematic actions is an indication that there is something bad here in itself. As Rabbi Kook writes in Musar Avikha, right, that dross, because it can lead to something problematic, is an indication that there is something problematic within it too. Fine, there I’m not sure I agree, but here I think I do. One can see that behavior of the type that does not see human beings but only ideology has something invalid about it. The fact that it leads to very, very extreme and problematic outcomes is true, but that is not the problem. As I’ve said more than once about fundamentalism: fundamentalism is usually defined among us as some kind of extremism, this kind of fanaticism—yes, beheading infidels and people who don’t think like me, in short, keeping Jewish law. So the claims usually made against fundamentalism are consequentialist claims. Look what it causes. I argue that if it causes such a thing, that means fundamentalism is problematic in itself. Why? Because I claim that what leads to that extremism is some stance that you adopt without being willing to subject it to critical examination. And that, in my view, is the definition of fundamentalism in the philosophical sense. Not connected to the question of what you’ll do with it in the end. To adopt a stance in such a way that it is not open to the test of critical thinking—that is fundamentalism. Now fundamentalism in this definition can also belong to Mother Teresa. Dogmatism exactly. To Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa adopts moral values in a fundamentalist way—the exact opposite of ISIS. She devotes her whole life to morality. But if she truly places it in some way that does not stand up to critical examination, then she is a fundamentalist. Even though consequentially this is of course something good; it is much more comfortable, and there’s nothing to criticize in the results here. And still I think the fact that you arrive at problematic outcomes is an indication that there is something problematic in the position itself, in the conception, in this meta-ideological mental state of being fundamentalist. I can hold an ideology in a fundamentalist way, and I can hold an ideology in a non-fundamentalist way. I understand there are people who think differently. I understand I may be mistaken. I’m willing to hear arguments for and against, but at the end of the day I will decide in favor of an ideology and I will also act to advance it, but I won’t trample everyone who thinks differently—certainly not if he is not doing so out of wickedness, but simply because he thinks differently. I also see the human beings before my eyes, not only the ideologies. The judgment—I spoke earlier about judging a person by his own standards—this too is basically some kind of non-platonic aspect. Because what I’m really saying is that when I judge the person, the ISIS member who commits those atrocities, I see the person before my eyes, not only his actions. For me there are also human beings here, not only ideologies of which people are the bearers. On the contrary, sometimes my criticism of him as a person will be: why did you turn yourself into nothing but a bearer of ideology? Why didn’t you use your critical sense and moderate what the ideology allegedly expects of you? But I myself certainly do not want to fall into that same pit and relate only to the ideology and not to the person who realizes it. Therefore I think there is something very, very problematic in a platonic attitude. I want perhaps to bring some implications of this, implications—yes, current or even political perhaps. My grandfather once said about some well-known Hasidic rebbe—I won’t mention his name out of fear of gossip—that he loved the Jewish people intensely, but had problems with the individuals. Now what does that really mean? What it really means is that that Rebbe conceived of love of Israel as a platonic ideal, platonic in the extreme sense I described here. He truly and sincerely lived with the feeling that love of Israel is a supreme value. I’m sure—again, I didn’t know him—but I’m almost sure that’s true. Love of Israel is a supreme value. But in practice he was constantly trampling Jews. Why? Because for him love of Israel was love for the Israeliness in a person, or the Jewishness in a person—that is, for religiosity, for the Jewish conception—not for the Jewish personality, but for the Jewish conception. And therefore this was a love not directed toward people but toward ideology. And therefore in the name of that love he could trample and act violently and harm people, and he did terrible things to human beings. Because they thought differently, because they acted in a way he thought was wrong, and perhaps he was right that it was wrong. But he didn’t see human beings before his eyes; he saw before him bearers of Jewish identity, or of Jewish Torah religious commitment. And he didn’t see the human beings here before his eyes, and that is an example of a platonic conception. Now I’ll broaden this further: I think this characterizes both sides, at least, both sides let’s say in the argument over Zionism, the two extreme sides in the argument over Zionism. The extreme Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) who oppose Zionism basically see before their eyes a movement whose goal is destruction, apostasy. Okay? They do not see the human beings who chose these directions, who may have erred and probably did err in at least some things. For them there are no human beings; they see a movement. They see metaphysical demons behind the practical events. They do not see the practical events; they live in the world of forms. They judge movements, groups, ideas, people, everything on the ideological and conceptual plane. That’s all, and nothing besides. As far as they are concerned, there are no human beings. And this is also true of the extreme supporters of Religious Zionism. They too tend to see before their eyes ideas, ideologies, spiritual movements, and not human beings. And I think in today’s discourse this is actually much more prominent on the Religious Zionist side. In the past it was more prominent on the other side. But now—yes, look at the hardalnikim, especially those affiliated with Har Hamor. Right, I’ve already written a few things about this, and I think the main problem I see in their conduct is their Platonism. Their love of Israel spills out from every corner. They are full of love of Israel; love of Israel is everything for them. They embrace every Jew—except for ninety-nine percent of the Jews, whom they do not embrace. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the ideological model they are supposed to realize. And then what happens is basically this: the Ministry of Education is an agent of the New Israel Fund and the European Union. Of course the LGBT people too, and the secular people too, and the left too, and the army too, gender issues, and progressivism and this and that—meaning everyone is some kind of operative acting in the name of demons whose whole purpose is to destroy the Jewish people and the State of Israel. And somehow it turns out that out of all this love of Israel, this love of Israel gets funneled to—I don’t know—two percent of the population. I’m exaggerating. But many tens of percent of the population are not entitled to this love of Israel, because they are not serving the right form. Now again, I’m not talking about opposition to ideas. Oppose ideas—that’s perfectly fine; I’m in favor of ideological battles. But I’m in favor of ideological battles that also see the human beings who carry those ideologies. Not everything in the world is a movement of the other side of evil. Sometimes it’s a person who made a mistake, who thinks differently from you. And maybe you’re the one who’s wrong? That can also be. When you see the person before your eyes and you have an attitude toward the person himself and not only toward the ideas in whose name he acts or your fantasies about the demons activating him—whether it’s the Marxist discourse that sees behind every action of a person or a group some kind of metaphysical plot. Yes, the world proletariat—in Marxism it’s always a war between two demons, although they were materialists and were not inclined to believe in spiritual entities. Their speech was incredibly metaphysical. There was a war of demons against each other, the proletariat against the anti-Christ—right, those who oppose, anti-Christ is a Christian term—but against the counter-revolutionaries. Right? That movement is a demon, a demon in every sense. There are many people who are the bearers of that demon, but we are fighting the demon and ignoring the people. But there are people who think that’s the right way. You call it a demon; there’s no demon there. It is people’s choice; they think that is right. By the same token, think about—yes, today I’m dealing with a lot of current events because these things are very current—think about the demonstrations all over the world against Israel and pro-Palestine. Palestine, right? People immediately move to the anti-Semitic plane. I don’t accept that. Many of these demonstrations are very jarring to me too, but I don’t think it is right to attribute them only to anti-Semitism. I assume there is anti-Semitism there too, but it’s not only that. There are people who, out of ignorance or a position different from mine—call it whatever you want—think that the State of Israel is committing genocide. Now maybe they are right and maybe they are not right. The news presented to them is of course usually not balanced—it depends which media you consume—but we too are not fed balanced media; no one is. And therefore when you live inside such a picture, you act in a way that, to the best of your understanding, is what morality demands of you. Now I think your picture is distorted, that your activism is infuriating, destructive, and can destroy us. All that is true. But still, you yourself I do not attach to the anti-Semitic demon. Anti-Semitism is some kind of demon, some kind of maybe that took you captive—no. It is a decision of human beings who in this case, in my view wrongly, think differently from me and act for what they believe in. And in that sense too one must not be taken captive by this Marxism that says that behind concrete phenomena sit demons. I think one of the problems—now I return to Zionism—one of the problems in the religious world’s argument about Zionism is not the question whether you are for or against, but the fact that the for and against are based on metaphysical considerations. And here I come to messianism. It is based on metaphysical considerations. What does that mean? That those who supported Zionism did so because it is the beginning of redemption and footsteps of the messiah, and basically this is going to bring us our righteous messiah. Those who oppose Zionism say: what are you talking about, this is the side of evil, this is Satan, this will bring upon us the birth pangs of the messiah, it will bring disaster upon us. Okay? Now what both sides share is that they did not judge the phenomenon, the Zionist movement, the Zionist phenomenon, on its own terms. They are only discussing what drives it, where it will lead, and what metaphysics stands behind it. Judge the thing on its own terms. Here is a movement of Jews who want to come up to the Land of Israel. Are you for it? Are you against it? Fine, all right. Be for it, be against it, raise realpolitik arguments, say it will succeed, it won’t succeed, it will help, it won’t help. But leave the metaphysics aside. You don’t know that it will bring the messiah or not bring the messiah. You don’t know whether it will bring destruction or not bring destruction—I mean spiritual destruction. These are all speculations. In the end, both sides did not discuss this phenomenon as a concrete historical phenomenon, but resorted to some sort of platonic metaphysical demons and used them to judge the concrete phenomena. But the phenomenon of Zionism itself—it was seemingly obvious that it was good, no? I mean in the— No, one can argue. I think so, but I can accept someone saying no, it isn’t good, because it will lead all of the Jewish people away from religion. Everyone will become secular. Fine? That’s a legitimate argument. You have to check it. If you think so, then don’t cooperate with it; fight against it. Everything’s fine. But don’t tell me it is the result of Satan. What do I care right now whether it’s Satan or not Satan? That’s metaphysical. It’s like the Rabbi is talking about—not about the Haredim, the Rabbi is talking as if about the— No, so I’m saying: I spoke about the extreme pole of opposition to Zionism and the extreme pole of support for Zionism. Only what happens is that when you examine ideologies, ideologies are usually written and shaped by the extreme poles. Most people are not really there, but when you examine the ideology, one against the other, the ideologies are written by the extreme poles. When you look at Haredi ideology, the ideology is anti-Zionist in the way I described. That does not mean all Haredim are there; most of them probably aren’t. But that is the Haredi ideology. And the same on the other side. On the Religious Zionist side, the ideology is a metaphysical ideology. We won’t interfere with the messiah; on the contrary, we will help the messiah appear. Leave me alone with the messiah—do I know whether he’ll appear or not? Maybe this state will disappear after some time? Today it’s not even hard to see that possibility; it is really no longer fictional. I don’t know; I have no business with hidden things. I don’t know how to predict what will happen. Judge the phenomenon itself. Are you for it? Are you against it? Raise arguments. One of the problems—this is in my daughter’s work on false messianism, that’s also on the site, I think I wrote about it in columns—the problem of false messianism, I think the problematic core in it is not what it says but why it says it. Meaning, it calls for mass action for the sake of something metaphysical and ignores realpolitik considerations. That is Platonism. Platonism is detaching from the world and dealing with the world of forms. And ostensibly, once again, this is something terribly noble, but in practice, first of all it leads to very problematic results—detachment from reality is not recommended—and second, because of that it is an indication that there is something problematic in it itself. Therefore I personally, for example, oppose Religious Zionism and oppose anti-Zionist Haredism, because I think both sides make the same mistake. Both relate to the Zionist movement through a metaphysical prism. And I—yes, like the well-known joke about the Rabbi of Ponevezh, that they asked him—right, he hung a flag on Independence Day and did not say Tachanun on Independence Day, but also did not say Hallel. So they asked him: what are you? If you’re Religious Zionist, then say Hallel. If you’re Haredi, then don’t hang a flag and say Tachanun. So he said: I’m a Zionist like Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion also didn’t say Hallel and didn’t say Tachanun on Independence Day. Now people see this as a joke, but to me it’s not a joke. It’s a serious statement. What he basically wanted to say is: look, leave me alone with metaphysics. What happened here is something blessed on the practical level. Whether it will bring the messiah or Satan, I have no idea, but it also doesn’t interest me. I am happy about the establishment of the state. I don’t see in it a religious aspect, messianic or anti-messianic or whatever. But in the national sense I think this is a very positive thing. And that’s all—that’s the meaning of that statement. In that context, one can see Independence Day not as something metaphysical, but still as something that enters halakhic / of Jewish law life with regard to Hallel? Right. Jewish law doesn’t deal with metaphysics. And I certainly did not come out against Independence Day, nor against Hallel on Independence Day. You celebrate the establishment of your state—what’s the problem? It’s a national holiday, and that’s fine. I’m saying that the Rabbi’s claim is also not against Hallel on Independence Day. Of course not. You say Birkat HaMazon after breakfast—does that mean breakfast is holy? You have a religious response to all sorts of situations in the world, mundane situations, situations with no religious sanctity at all. But you have a religious response to various situations. You also say the blessing “Who formed man” after you successfully go to the bathroom. Does that turn going to the bathroom into something holy? No. You have a religious response to a physiological phenomenon. You thank the Holy One, blessed be He, that the system works. You thank the Holy One, blessed be He, that we succeeded in establishing a state. Everything’s fine, excellent. That’s a sensible religious response. But not because this state is bringing us the messiah, but because I am happy about the current, concrete situation happening here. Another story that comes up in this context is the well-known story, which in my eyes is truly foundational: during the War of Independence there were rumors that the Rabbi of Brisk was about to flee Jerusalem. They were shooting, it was dangerous, a problem. Rabbi Herzog came to him because he was worried this would create demoralization in the public, so he came to persuade him to stay there. So Rabbi Herzog says to the Rabbi of Brisk: we have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed, so there is nothing to fear. So he says to him: why, if the Third Temple won’t be destroyed, does that mean I won’t die? Those are two different things. But we have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed. So the Rabbi of Brisk says: and I have a tradition from my father that when they shoot, you run. And what stood here before our eyes was that Rabbi Herzog used a metaphysical consideration—The Third Temple won’t be destroyed and all sorts of things of that type. But the dispute here was a dispute between metaphysical reasoning and practical reasoning. And in that sense I am completely with the Rabbi of Brisk—not regarding the content of his decision, but regarding the method of his decision. And that is an excellent example, and I want to say more than that. It’s not because I don’t know whether the metaphysics is true or not. Even if the metaphysics were true, in my opinion, I would still think it wrong to use metaphysical considerations in our practical conduct. We do not use metaphysical considerations. On this matter I brought, in several places, the example of dreams, and also self-imposed prohibition (“shavya anafshei chatikha de-isura”), and various laws of that sort, all of which I explained on the plane that there are levels which, even if they are true, I am not supposed to take them into account in my practical decisions. For example, I saw in a dream money of second tithe—the Talmud in Sanhedrin 30—and in the dream they told me: the money is there and it is second tithe, in such-and-such an amount. I went there, dug, and found money exactly in that amount. Do I need to worry that this is second-tithe money? And the answer is no. Now what? This dream revealed facts to me, and clearly this dream has some real source, because how did it reveal to me exactly where it was and what amount would be there and everything? Well then, if it says it’s second tithe, then at least one should worry out of doubt? No, one need not worry. Why not? Not because it isn’t second tithe. The dream may well be true, but dreams are not supposed to take part in halakhic / of Jewish law decision-making. That is my claim, and I showed this from various medieval authorities (Rishonim). Of course most commentators try to explain that it isn’t reliable, but I argue no—the claim is that even though it is reliable, one may not use it, or need not use it. And the same thing I claim about political decisions. Political, policy, and ideological decisions are not supposed to be fed by metaphysical considerations. I should not join the Zionist movement or oppose it because it brings the messiah closer or pushes the messiah away. I need to make my calculation here and now. That calculation of course includes halakhic / of Jewish law considerations and realpolitik considerations, but not metaphysical ones. That is basically the claim. And metaphysical considerations are basically an expression of that same extreme Platonism I spoke about earlier. Those who see the metaphysical demons, those forms—maybe they are true—not because they aren’t true, but because they are not what should manage my life. I am supposed to conduct my life on the Socratic level, and not on the platonic level. So again, because of the pragmatic issue, or because it’s really something incorrect? What I said earlier: first, who told you this? So who says your metaphysical analysis is true? But second, as I added now, not only that—like with dreams, even if it were true, it is not supposed to take part in the matter. “Why should you concern yourself with the hidden matters of the Merciful One?” “Why should you concern yourself with the hidden matters of the Merciful One?” doesn’t mean: who says a son won’t come out as you think. That’s not the meaning of that phrase. You know the Talmud. The Talmud says about Hezekiah king of Judah that he didn’t want to bring a child into the world because he saw in his vision that this child would turn out wicked. So Elijah came to him and said: “Why should you concern yourself with the hidden matters of the Merciful One?” Why are you making heavenly calculations? You were commanded with procreation, fulfill the commandment of procreation, don’t make heavenly calculations. Now what was he really telling him? Maybe you’re not right? No—he was right, because in the end Manasseh came out. He was right. He said to him: even though you are right, that is not the kind of consideration you are supposed to take. You should make the halakhic / of Jewish law and realistic considerations; leave metaphysical considerations to the Holy One, blessed be He. “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He gave to human beings.” You are not supposed to take those considerations into account, even if they are correct. Why? But why really? I agree with the Rabbi, but why? Because I think it’s not only practical—maybe sensible—that’s what I want to claim. Because it is not supposed to take part in the consideration. I leave metaphysics to the Holy One, blessed be He. I am not responsible for metaphysical processes. I am responsible for what happens in the world. This world was given to human beings, and human beings must manage it. Leave the demons to the Holy One, blessed be He. Seemingly against you stands the commandment of the stubborn and rebellious son. Right. Seemingly against you stands the commandment of the stubborn and rebellious son, where we see that in the future he will harm other people and other things, and we say that we judge him according to his end. The stubborn and rebellious son is not metaphysics. The stubborn and rebellious son is an assessment that if the child behaves this way, then in the future trouble will come from him. So this is basically an expanded law of the pursuer, but the law of the pursuer is not metaphysics. Not metaphysics. At the end of the day, it’s not because it will bring the messiah, but because he will kill people, he will rob people. That is a future assessment, and many have indeed already asked about the relation between that and Ishmael—right?—that you judge a person “as he is there,” and not according to his end. But even in the law of the pursuer I judge according to what will happen, and every legal or moral system in the world recognizes the law of the pursuer. This is not metaphysics. All right, that’s enough for now. But Rabbi, also the Zionism of Rabbi Kook and all that—in the end it’s because it will indeed bring about a world of human beings too, not only the metaphysical. I’m saying: to support Zionism on such grounds, I’m completely in favor; I’m there. But I don’t think one should support Zionism because it brings redemption. Yes, but the redemption Rabbi Kook speaks about is redemption of human beings here on the ground too, not only of metaphysics. Wait, I can’t hear you, there’s noise. I’m saying, the redemption they speak about is also redemption of human beings here on the ground, not of metaphysics. Right, but that redemption will happen in a metaphysical way. If you take steps that will lead to a better condition for human beings, excellent—that’s what you should do. Communism of that sort is good; I mean good in principle. Human beings take steps to improve their condition—excellent, everything’s fine. And if you do it in order to bring the messiah, then no. Or because it will bring the messiah, then no. Rabbi, what the Rabbi said about communism—so communism seemingly isn’t acting for some ideology; the ideology is for human beings, I see that. It tramples the few for the many. I said: it began as a desire to benefit human beings. At some point the human beings left the picture and the action became action for the sake of ideology, and then they trampled the human beings in order to realize the ideology. That is the indication that this process took place. So I said: at its root this is a correct and positive thing. What does “correct and positive” mean? You can disagree with communism as an idea, but if someone believes in it and acts to promote it, that’s fine by me. I’m not against ideologies. I’m against the Platonism within ideology, and that is what happened to the communist movement at some stage. They detached from human beings, from reality, and turned into people living in some platonic world of demons, and they act— But how did that happen, as it were? Their whole root was only human beings; they didn’t have ideology or anything of the sort. In the motivation. But in practice it became a religion. It became a religion that saw before its eyes an ideal, and therefore they hanged people because they were heretics in the essentials. Stalin killed millions of people for heresy—not because they were, but because they didn’t believe the correct beliefs. That is exactly the transition from ideology—which is a positive thing in itself—to Platonism. I’m saying: I’ve already lost contact with the initial motivations and with human beings; now in the end I deal only with the form. How do you define the boundaries? What? How do you find the boundaries? Where is the red line? I don’t know—drawing boundaries, I don’t know if there is some numerical line. One must not forget that there are human beings. And when you judge an ideology and when you judge a person, those are two different things. You can judge the person strictly and the ideology leniently, and vice versa. There can be good people who do bad acts; there can be bad people who do good acts. And both judgments have to be made. I’m not in favor of one over the other. One has to judge the acts and the ideology and the human beings, but not erase one in favor of the other. Erasing ideology is postmodernity; erasing the person in favor of ideology is Platonism. Is that what Maimonides says—to find the king’s path, not to be extreme, and that’s basically— Absolutely, one can apply that here too, yes. Good. Yes. Can I ask a question and make a comment? Yes, yes. So first of all I wanted to comment regarding the verse “let sins cease from the earth” that we discussed at the beginning of the lesson. I was once present at a grammar lesson where we sat on the term— That’s not the plain meaning of the verse. “Let sinners cease”—the meaning is sinful people. Right, that’s what I wanted to say. As opposed to sins in another vocalization, which means sins. That was Beruriah—don’t forget, a woman interpreted it that way. In the Talmud, page 10, we learned it. A woman. Yes. I wanted to ask—I hope the question is focused enough, and if not then I’ll prepare it for next week. In the book God Plays with Dice, there is the introduction about the naturalistic fallacy, and I wasn’t able to understand the meaning of that fallacy regarding morality. Rabbi, there’s a page or two there where you speak about the naturalistic fallacy in morality. I don’t remember anymore, but I assume the intention is this: regarding the good, if you derive a moral principle from a factual datum, that is a naturalistic fallacy. I understand that. The practical example the Rabbi gave there I couldn’t understand, and I understand the Rabbi better in these matters when it’s in conversation, so I’ll prepare it for next lesson. Okay. Thank you very, very much. Anyone else? Rabbi, doesn’t the Rabbi feel that to a large degree the messages the Rabbi conveyed in this lesson regarding the problematic nature of enslavement to metaphysics—this is part of what is happening right now in everything we’re going through? Obviously yes. The coalition we have today—sorry that I’m really getting into politics already—is a wonderful combination between the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), whose whole concern is only practice, and the fanatical Religious Zionists, yes the hardal type, whose whole concern is only metaphysics. This crushing combination is bringing us to the edge of disaster. Why? It’s not only metaphysics; it’s also realpolitik. No, they advance it through realpolitik tools, but basically they are advancing ideology, advancing a form. That is why they also tend less to take realpolitik constraints into account. No, to settle everywhere because it’s also safer. And even when it isn’t safe they’ll do it, because for them settling the Land of Israel stands there, not security. They harness security for the sake of that matter. Sometimes that’s right—it’s unrelated; I’m not expressing a view right now—but clearly they are driven by considerations that are to a large extent metaphysical. You can see how much they disdain all the constraints within which we operate, I think. Thank you very much. Well then, on that pessimistic note, I wish you a peaceful Sabbath. Peaceful Sabbath. Peaceful Sabbath, thank you very much.