Dogmatics – Lecture 8

Table of Contents

• Double consciousness, coercion in beliefs, and idol worship
• The turkey prince story, “hearts are drawn after actions,” and The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Duality in the soul, split-brain, and political considerations as a metaphor
• A moral atheist and kinds of duality that are not a basis for responsibility
• Maimonides in the laws of idol worship: knowledge of God and acceptance of the idol
• “Do not stray,” heresy, and an explanation that is not anti-inquiry
• A Jew who worshiped idols, heretics, and responsibility versus coercion
• The sin of the spies, the section of tzitzit, and the connection to “to scout/stray”
• Postmodernism, biases, and the prohibition against letting desire determine truth
• Closing questions: the ma'apilim, conquest, and the Binding of Isaac

Summary

General Overview

The text presents the claim that double consciousness and cognitive duality explain how responsibility and punishment for idol worship are possible even though coercion in beliefs is still coercion. It suggests that in the past there was a desire to worship idols, similar to sexual desire, and therefore a person could know deep down that it was false and forbidden, yet still construct for himself a theory that allowed him to engage in idol worship and thus be held liable. It uses the turkey prince story and the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes to show how people maintain an external theory that serves a desire or a social fear, while inwardly a knowledge of the truth remains, making correction possible. It reads Maimonides in the laws of idol worship as describing such a mechanism, and proposes interpreting the prohibition of “do not stray” as a prohibition against entering into the construction of false theories that originate in desire rather than genuine inquiry.

Double consciousness, coercion in beliefs, and idol worship

The text argues that it is hard for a modern person to understand how a Jew could worship idols without believing in them, and therefore it seems that anyone who worships idols is coerced in his beliefs and exempt, which would in practice cancel punishment for idol worship. It argues that in the past there was a desire to worship idols, and when such a desire exists a person knows that it is nonsense and forbidden, and yet still builds a theory that there is something real to idol worship, and in that way a cognitive duality is created. It compares this to a desire for another man’s wife, where a person knows it is forbidden, but the desire also leads him to construct a theoretical justification so that he will not be sinning against what he really thinks.

The text presents two sides to “coercion in beliefs”: it insists that someone who holds incorrect beliefs is considered coerced, because if that is what he thinks, you cannot expect him to act otherwise; but it also determines that not every holding of an incorrect belief is coercion, because sometimes the mistaken belief is created because of desire, even though inwardly the person knows it is not true. It argues that this complexity makes it possible to understand how liability for idol worship can exist even though according to Maimonides one needs acceptance of the idol as a god, because the person simultaneously holds an inner knowledge that God is the true God and an external theory that accepts the idol as a god.

The turkey prince story, “hearts are drawn after actions,” and The Emperor’s New Clothes

The text explains that the turkey prince story demonstrates a person who knows inwardly that he is a human being, but has developed a theory that he is a turkey, and suggests that the treatment is that “hearts are drawn after actions,” by preventing the attainment of the results that the desire seeks, so that the theory dissolves. It compares this to The Emperor’s New Clothes, where everyone knew inwardly that the king was naked, but developed a theory that they were seeing magnificent clothing so as not to be perceived as fools, and the immediate reversal after the child’s words proves that the truth had been present within them all along. It states that psychological healing is possible only if there exists within a person some healthy inner point from which one can begin; if everything is sick and there is no Archimedean point, healing is impossible and the situation is a lost cause.

Duality in the soul, split-brain, and political considerations as a metaphor

The text argues that cognitive duality is not a unity of opposites at the very same point, but the holding of contradictory positions at different points in the soul. It brings an example from neuroscience of a split brain in which one side is “Republican” and another side is “Democratic,” and argues that this can express a division in the representation of considerations rather than the cancellation of the existence of a soul that performs integration and weighing. It describes a conscious situation in which a person recognizes considerations in both directions and ultimately decides through balancing them, and concludes that duality accompanies life in many forms, and therefore cognitive duality is also possible in religious and moral contexts.

A moral atheist and kinds of duality that are not a basis for responsibility

The text argues that there is no valid morality in a materialist world without belief in God, who gives it validity, and therefore a materialist atheist who believes in valid morality holds a cognitive duality in which there is an implicit belief in God alongside a declaration of atheism. It distinguishes between a duality that has some access to consciousness and can therefore serve as a basis for halakhic responsibility, and a duality that is not on the conscious plane and therefore is not a basis for assigning responsibility, and it states that “what a person has in the unconscious is not interesting” for the purpose of responsibility. It adds that for a moral atheist, a proof of God’s existence would be a new discovery, not the exposure of already existing knowledge, and therefore one cannot accuse him as though he “knew” the truth inside.

Maimonides in the laws of idol worship: knowledge of God and acceptance of the idol

The text quotes Maimonides, chapter 2, Jewish law 1, and emphasizes the apparent contradiction between “and even though the worshiper knows that God is the true God” and the requirement in chapter 3, Jewish law 6, of accepting the idol as a god in order to incur liability. It argues that the resolution is a cognitive duality in which the person knows inwardly that God is the true God, but desire pushes him to construct a theory that justifies worship of a created being or an intermediary, in a way similar to the process described in chapter 1 about the beginning of idol worship in the days of Enosh. It interprets “they forgot the Holy One, blessed be He” not as complete disappearance, but as a deeper burying of the knowledge until an external theory is created in which the attendants or the sun are the god.

The text quotes Maimonides, chapter 2, Jewish law 2, on the prohibition of reading books of idol worship and the prohibition of inquiring into modes of worship, and raises the possibility that this is a safeguard, but also a more strained possibility that the prohibition stems from an essential problem in the act itself. It rejects Rabbi Kook’s position in Musar Avikha, according to which every rabbinic decree contains some essential component of the prohibition, and argues that decrees are “lest” prohibitions that have no essential similarity, whereas enactments that resemble the prohibition are “half-Torah-level,” and not a decree.

“Do not stray,” heresy, and an explanation that is not anti-inquiry

The text quotes Maimonides, chapter 2, Jewish law 3, which expands the prohibition beyond idol worship to any thought that uproots one of the fundamentals of the Torah, and brings the rationale that “a person’s mind is limited,” along with the expansion to thoughts about the unity of the Creator, prophecy, and Torah from Heaven, and the rabbinic exposition: “after your hearts—this is heresy; after your eyes—this is promiscuity.” It presents a difficulty: if a person is convinced by arguments and truly comes to believe in a mistaken position, then he is coerced in his beliefs; therefore a prohibition against clarifying the truth out of fear of reaching a mistaken conclusion seems illogical and even contradicts the need to investigate the very authority of the commandments.

The text proposes that the only way to reconcile Maimonides is to limit the prohibition to a situation in which the person is not truly deliberating, but rather enters into heretical arguments because of desire, in order to justify sexual transgression or casting off the yoke of obligation, in a way in which within the person there exists a knowledge that the truth is otherwise. It states that genuine hesitation and serious inquiry are legitimate and even desirable, and argues that the prohibition is against constructing a “second consciousness” born from the counsel of desire rather than from a search for truth.

A Jew who worshiped idols, heretics, and responsibility versus coercion

The text quotes Maimonides, chapter 2, Jewish law 5, that a Jew who worshiped idols is like a gentile and is not like a Jew, that one who apostasizes to idol worship is an apostate with respect to the entire Torah, and that “they are never accepted in repentance,” based on the verse, “None that go to her return, neither do they attain the paths of life.” It quotes Maimonides’ definition of heretics as those who “search after the thoughts of their hearts in foolishness” and arrive at transgression “to provoke, brazenly and high-handedly,” saying that “there is no sin in this,” and interprets this as a theory that serves a desire to provoke rather than an intellectually compelled conclusion. It returns to the interpretation of the “poor fellow heretic” associated with Rabbi Chaim, as a possibility of viewing the person as someone who holds a mistaken belief without guilt, while still being defined as lacking understanding, and notes that his own position is that coercion in beliefs is full coercion, and therefore it is hard to see guilt where there is authentic belief.

The sin of the spies, the section of tzitzit, and the connection to “to scout/stray”

The text analyzes the appearance of the root meaning “to scout/stray” throughout the Torah portion of Shelach and argues that the section of tzitzit at the end, with “and do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes,” comes to repair the sin of the spies. It brings the question of Nachmanides and others: what did they want from the spies, if they were sent to bring information? It presents the common answer that their mandate was to say “how to attack,” not “whether to attack,” but argues that even that is not enough if they truly saw that there was no chance.

The text proposes that the sin is a kind of interpretive “tourism,” a selective interpretation determined by a weakening desire, and brings the midrash about “a land that devours its inhabitants,” where the spies interpreted funerals as a bad sign instead of understanding that this was a miracle meant to distract the inhabitants from the spies. It states that if the spies had truly believed in their picture, there would have been no claim against them; therefore the claim assumes that inwardly they knew that the picture was incomplete, and desire pushed them to adopt a negative interpretation. From this it reinforces its interpretation of “do not stray” as a prohibition against allowing desire and the counsel of the evil inclination to distort one’s picture of the world despite a different inner knowledge.

Postmodernism, biases, and the prohibition against letting desire determine truth

The text rejects the claim that its interpretation is postmodernist, and argues that the sin is precisely the adoption of interpretation according to desire and interests—that is, bias—whereas the alternative is to beware of one’s desires and make an effort to see reality and the truth. It presents “do not stray” as a prohibition against “being postmodern” in the sense of determining that everything is interpretation dictated by desire, and emphasizes that the prohibition is not against an honest mistake, but against a state in which a person ignores an inner understanding that he knows is not true and builds for himself a theory to justify desire.

Closing questions: the ma'apilim, conquest, and the Binding of Isaac

The text moves on to side questions about the sin of the ma'apilim as the reverse of the sin of the spies, and about the question of how contemporary rabbis would respond to a hypothetical command to conquer and destroy another people in order to settle their land. It answers that when there is a divine justification for killing the inhabitants of the land, this is not cruel or colonialist, and declares a rejection of post-colonialist conceptions. It also rejects interpretations according to which Abraham failed in the Binding of Isaac, and concludes with summary remarks and open questions that remain in the context of responsibility, desire, and obedience.

Last time we talked about dual consciousness. I brought the story of the turkey prince, and from there we got into the question of dual consciousness, when the motivation really was to try to explain the change the world has undergone from the period of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Sages, and so on, down to our own time—where for us it’s very hard to grasp a situation in which a person worships idols without believing in them. If he worships idols, then apparently that really is what he thinks, that’s what he believes in. But then the assumption—at least my assumption, and I brought support from the Radbaz and others—is that such a thing is called coercion in matters of belief. So then what is this idolatry for which we’re supposed to punish someone? If anyone who commits idolatry really believes in it, and anyone who really believes something is considered coerced, then in effect there is no situation in which someone is punished for the prohibition of idolatry. What I wanted to argue is that what is hard for us to understand in this situation is simply that we are unfamiliar with the impulse to worship idols. In the past, by contrast, there was such an impulse, and in a situation where there is an impulse toward idolatry, that basically means there can be a case where a Jew knows that it’s nonsense, that it’s false, and that it’s forbidden too, and everything else—and still, because of his impulse, he develops for himself some sort of theory. He develops some kind of theory that there is something real in this idolatry, and in effect you get a state of cognitive split, of double-thinking. I gave an example from impulses that still exist among us too; they didn’t completely eliminate the instinctive dimension from us. So, for example, the impulse of forbidden sexual relations with another man’s wife. They said that the Men of the Great Assembly also abolished the impulse for sexual immorality, the impulse for idolatry and the impulse for sexual immorality, but the impulse regarding another man’s wife they did not abolish. Right? So somebody can come and have relations with another man’s wife, and both of them know it’s wrong, right? In terms of if you asked him coldly, outside the story itself—sure, obviously it’s wrong. But his impulse overcomes him. Fine, that can happen, the impulse overcomes him, but very often because the impulse overcomes him, he also builds himself some theory that it’s actually okay. Meaning, it’s not only that the impulse got the better of him, what can you do—but he constructs for himself some theory that it’s okay, because without that, it’s really hard for a person to sin against what he himself truly thinks. And that situation, at least regarding sexual impulse, is more familiar to us. A similar situation with respect to the impulse toward idolatry is unfamiliar to us—it doesn’t really exist—so it’s hard for us to understand this sin called the sin of idolatry. But once, you have to understand, the impulse to worship idols was similar to an impulse we do know, like sexual impulse. And since that’s the case, double-thinking could develop with respect to idolatry too, not only with respect to sexual sins.

And what that basically means is that this coin of coercion in matters of belief has two sides. On the one hand, I insist that coercion in matters of belief really is coercion. Someone who holds false beliefs is coerced just like someone coerced at gunpoint or for any other reason, because adopting beliefs is also a force. In other words, if that’s what I think, how can you expect me to behave differently? That’s what I think is true, so there’s no greater coercion than that. The other side of the coin is that not always—but sometimes—when I hold false beliefs, I’m not really coerced. Sometimes I hold false beliefs because of impulse, even though deep inside I know those beliefs are false. That is the state of double-thinking. So this coin really has two sides. On the one hand, you can’t deny the fact that coercion in matters of belief is coercion. On the other hand, not every holding of a false belief is coercion. There are cases where it’s the result of impulse. The impulse causes me to develop some theory; I supposedly hold it, believe in it, and so on—but deep inside I know it’s not true. That is the state of double-thinking, and therefore the picture is much more complex than the way we usually relate to it.

In other words, on the one hand there are those who say that someone who worships idols is a criminal and deserves punishment, just as Jewish law says. What are all these games about coercion in matters of belief? Coercion in belief—that’s the sin, that’s what we punish for. What do you mean coercion in matters of belief? That’s not true. Coercion in matters of belief is coercion. So the good question is: fine—then what do we punish for? When do we punish? If you hold false beliefs but are not coerced—that’s self-contradictory. So no: I hold false beliefs for reasons that impulse caused me to develop this theory, even though deep inside… If he is worshipping idols now, then yes, he really believes inwardly that this is a god, as Maimonides says—that the condition for idolatry is that he truly regards it as a god. So what does that mean? In the end, what is the inner consciousness with which he performs the act? What is the consciousness there? In such a case he’s coerced, so he is exempt. No—but the consciousness, yes, but no—but it’s a condition, after all. In idolatry the condition for it really to be idolatry is that you actually think it is a deity. Well, I don’t understand. So when you worship idols, you really do have to think that it truly is a deity, right? So when you do that—what? You’re saying, as if, that you divide it up and say that even though inwardly he really knows that it isn’t, there is still some kind of loose consciousness like that? Right, that’s the double-thinking I spoke about—that’s exactly the point. That’s the only way to reconcile Maimonides: on the one hand coercion in matters of belief, on the other hand idolatry without accepting it as a god is not idolatry. Is there no possibility that at the beginning he wouldn’t have arrived at those beliefs if he hadn’t mixed in imagination, and now nevertheless he really believes it totally? But if he really believes it, then what do you want from him? Yes—the path, the path he took to get there was one in which he sinned negligently, and in the end he’s coerced. Because if right now I’m really a simple person who believes it, then that’s what I believe—what can I do? What difference does it make how I got there? If the belief is genuine, then I’m coerced. At most, I brought myself into coercion. Okay, bringing oneself into coercion is a long discussion among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim). So it seems to me we have to arrive at double-thinking if we want to preserve both sides of the coin: on the one hand, coercion in matters of belief is full-fledged coercion; on the other hand, in order to worship idols and incur liability, you have to genuinely believe in it. Because otherwise, that’s someone who worships idols out of love or fear, and he is exempt without accepting it as a god. How are these two poles reconciled? Only through double-thinking. In other words, that’s the only way out I can think of.

And therefore the story of the turkey prince is really just illustrating this matter of double-thinking: the person knows deep down that he is a human being, but he developed for himself some theory that he is a turkey. And then I said that the way to treat this is basically that the heart follows actions. In other words, try to make it so that he does not achieve the results his impulse wants to achieve, and automatically the theory he developed in order to achieve those results will dissolve on its own. That is basically the claim. And I brought the example of The Emperor’s New Clothes. In The Emperor’s New Clothes, inwardly everyone understood that the emperor was naked. But they built themselves some theory, because a person doesn’t like to see himself as stupid. And whoever doesn’t see the emperor’s clothes is stupid. So since they don’t want to be perceived by themselves as stupid, or by others as stupid, they slowly build themselves a theory that they really do see these marvelous royal clothes. How do I know that deep down they still knew the truth—that there were no clothes there? Because the moment the little child said, wait a second, the emperor is naked—suddenly, collapse. In one instant the whole story turns over. Suddenly everyone understands the whole thing. How does that change happen in an instant? Because inwardly they knew it all along. It was a theory they built for themselves due to impulse or for other reasons, but deep inside the point of truth still existed.

And I said that in order to heal someone—psychologically at least—in order to heal someone who is mentally ill, there has to be some healthy point within him from which one can begin to move forward and repair the rest of the soul as well. But if everything is sick—if there is no Archimedean point to grasp—then you cannot heal that person. It’s a lost cause. That is the story there of the king’s son with the turkey prince. And “accepting it as a god”—does that mean a kind of speech act, like he accepts it, some kind of bluff? Even though inside… No, not “as if,” but double consciousness. It’s not “as if.” Double consciousness sounds good, but still—does he believe or not believe? Does he both believe and not believe? What, have we entered dialectics now? Yes, yes—that’s exactly the whole claim. Unity of opposites? I devoted the entire previous lecture to explaining why there can be states of double-thinking. Yes, that’s the point, that’s the claim. Unity of opposites literally? Believes and doesn’t believe? We’ve already gotten to unity of opposites. Yes—but that’s not really unity of opposites, because at different points in the soul I believe X at one point in the soul and not-X at another point in the soul. In the soul. If it were in the very same point, that would be unity of opposites, but no. A person is… you know, I once wrote about neuroscience, in the book The Science of Freedom. There I discussed the question of whether there is anything besides the brain—the question of dualism. And the claim people made was that the brain is what determines things, because you could see in a person, say, with a split brain—or, in various ways, you can reach a state of split brain, or sometimes after an accident they literally did such a splitting surgery—you could see that the right side of the brain was Republican and the left side of the brain was Democratic. And that supposedly means there is no soul here; it’s just mechanics. So once you split it, you have two brains. This brain can be Democratic and the other brain Republican. If there were a soul here making the decision whether to be Republican or Democratic, then it wouldn’t depend on which part of the brain you were dealing with; the soul ought to tell you whether you’re Republican or Democratic. That was basically the argument.

What I said there was that a person basically… yes, I literally had a debate—just the day before yesterday, I think, or maybe yesterday, I don’t remember—about free will. And there my interlocutor kept coming back to this point all the time: in our brain, when we reach a conclusion, say whether we are Republicans or Democrats, obviously there are considerations here and there—or at least there should be, among decent people. Most of us aren’t decent, but among decent people there should be considerations in both directions. There are considerations favoring the Democrats and considerations favoring the Republicans. Now, what happens in the brain is that very often one certain part of the brain represents those considerations and another part of the brain represents these considerations, and in the end a person is supposed to do some kind of integration of all the considerations, and after weighing them, arrive at a final conclusion—what the bottom line is for him. Therefore it absolutely can be that two parts of the brain hold different views, and that does not mean the views are located in the brain. It means there are different parts of the brain responsible for arguments on different sides. In the end, the soul can take all those arguments, do some weighing, and arrive at some bottom line that takes the whole story into account. So there can be—I’m just bringing this as an example, I happened to remember it now—an example of a split that is really physical. It’s not even mental; it’s physical. I have a split inside the brain. “There are two trains racing inside my eyes,” as they say in the old comedy sketch. In other words, inside my brain there’s a Republican wing and a Democratic wing, and both are inside me. In the end I arrive at a bottom line by weighing the arguments in all directions and deciding what outweighs what, what matters more to me. So here the split is even stronger, because this split is in the conscious domain. In other words, both sides—I am conscious that there are considerations this way and considerations that way; I need to weigh everything and then reach a bottom line. So splitness accompanies us in many forms and aspects of life. And therefore in this context too, I claim there is such a thing as double-thinking.

I also gave other examples where I don’t think you can really impose legal responsibility—criminal or halakhic or however you want to put it—such as a split in situations where, say, a person is an atheist committed to morality. Again, without entering those arguments, I claim that’s inconsistent. In other words, there is no valid morality unless you believe in God who gives it validity. In an empty world without God—a materialist world, if you like—there is no such thing as valid morality, no such creature. Now, if there is a materialist atheist who believes in valid morality, I have to understand what that means. Is he really an atheist, or does the fact that he believes in valid morality actually hide behind it some sort of belief in God, though he is not aware of it? But it’s clear that if he upholds the validity of morality, then implicitly he really believes in God. So there you have another case of double-thinking. Because on the one hand, ask him—he’s an atheist, absolutely sure there is no God, he’s an atheist. On the other hand, you see that in the way he behaves, and in certain aspects of his behavior and thought, you do see some implicit belief within him. So that too is some kind of double-thinking. Only here, of course, again—it can also just be a mistake, obviously. But I’m saying, assuming it isn’t simply a mistake, then there is double-thinking here. But this double-thinking, unlike the split I described earlier, is a split that I think is not a sufficient basis for imposing legal or moral responsibility or whatever. In other words, I can’t view such a person as someone who really believes. If such a person were to worship idols, he would be exempt. Not like the person of the earlier type, where in double-thinking he worships idols but deep down he believes there is God—so I would hold him liable, even though on the level of conscious awareness he developed a theory that there is no God, that the statue is god. Okay? But deep inside he knows the truth, and I can hold him to account for that. That means he’s not coerced. He is responsible for his actions, because that consciousness is an external consciousness; in some place he actually knows that this consciousness is false. The double-thinking I described earlier with the moral atheist—there it’s something else. There it seems to me that even inwardly he doesn’t really know; it’s not even on the plane of consciousness for him. And therefore, if you were to prove to him that there is a God, he wouldn’t suddenly discover it and realize he was always a believer. It would be a new discovery for him. Even though behind his relation to the validity of morality there really does stand an implicit belief in God. In other words, that’s a kind of split that you really can’t go by; what a person has in the unconscious is not what interests us. In other words, it’s not a basis for imposing responsibility. So even within the realm of splitness there are many kinds of split. And what I’m talking about here is a split that also has some contact with consciousness, and therefore in such a split there is criminal responsibility or halakhic responsibility. It’s not just a statement that somewhere inside the person there is some point that believes, but that he is also conscious of it in some sense, even though he has developed some conscious theory that covers it up, a theory that ostensibly says he doesn’t believe or that he believes in the idol. Okay?

So the Rabbi doesn’t mean this is just a difference in how hidden it is—like this one is more hidden and that one even more hidden—but really two kinds that differ qualitatively? That one is conscious and one is unconscious—that’s what the Rabbi is claiming? I don’t understand the difference between those two possibilities. No, because if it’s only quantitative—that it’s hidden in one sense and even more hidden in another sense—how can one divide them? What exactly does that mean? This one is totally unconscious to me and that one is a little conscious to me or something like that—I don’t know exactly how to define these things. But why does the Rabbi think it’s in his awareness too, even if deeply and weakly, but still in his awareness? Just—why are you dividing between the cases? Why make such a distinction? Because if it’s totally unconscious, then you really are coerced. What can you do? What do you mean, not conscious at all? After all, clearly the Rabbi says he is conscious in some implicit sense. No. The moral atheist, in my view, is a real atheist, even though deep inside there sits a belief in God, because otherwise there would be no valid morality. Right, so okay—those are two entirely different things. So this one is really aware of it and lies to himself? Exactly. I could say this is entirely unconscious and that is somewhat conscious. Whether you call that qualitative or quantitative, define it however you want. Wait, but I didn’t understand. The Rabbi says that the one liable for idolatry is only one who doesn’t do it out of love or fear—so he has no impulse, and despite that he accepted it as a god? Who said there’s no love or fear? There is love and fear; it could be that there isn’t. He is not worshipping out of love or fear, but because of accepting it as a god. Like in worship of God, as I said, when I say accepting it as a god. But wait, wait—the Rabbi says he created that theory out of love and fear. That was the basis for him creating that false theory, according to the Rabbi. But that basis, love and fear in itself, is not grounds to make him liable, so what are we making him liable for? I don’t understand the claim. The Rabbi argues that he created this theory of belief in idolatry because of love and fear, because of idolatry—that was the evil impulse. Someone who created a theory for himself because of impulse, but inwardly he believes… An impulse that is neither love nor fear—what’s left? Impulse—what do you mean? I have an impulse toward idolatry. Not that I like it, not that I fear it. I recoil from it because I don’t like it, and I also don’t fear that it will do anything to me. Not recoil and not anything—but I have a strong impulse by which I create a theory out of belief in idolatry that I don’t actually believe in. So I’ll say again: I did not say he has no love and fear. He may have love and fear too, only he is not worshipping because of the love and fear. That is what is called accepting it as a god. Now what happens when there is no accepting it as a god? Or rather, sorry—what happens in a case of accepting it as a god, where you are liable? For worship out of love or fear, you are exempt. But worship… worship of accepting it as a yoke doesn’t mean you have no love or fear. It means the worship is not because of the love and fear but because of accepting the yoke. But even when you worship because you accept the yoke, that still doesn’t mean that inwardly you don’t know the truth. Because if you didn’t know the truth inwardly, you’d be coerced. But why did you create this theory? Because… no, but there is impulse. Love and fear are… there’s some basis—what remains? So what other impulse can you talk about? Love and fear—I created it because of impulse. No, what do you mean love and fear? There is no idol. I don’t think that this idol is anything at all. It’s the totality of a person’s emotions—love and fear, say. So what else is left? What other impulse? He has an impulse toward accepting the yoke of something he recoils from? There’s an impulse to wreak havoc, I don’t understand—what’s the problem? Because if the basis for creating this false theory, which he recognizes as false but still believes in because he created it due to an impulse—and that impulse has to be love or fear, because what else is left? What else is left? Impulse. Why love and fear? Why are you trying to connect love and fear to impulse? I don’t understand. What’s left? The whole set of a person’s self-interested emotions. What? Why? What do you mean? I have an impulse to sin. Again: this person inwardly knows that he does not believe in idolatry, but he creates for himself a theory of idolatry. He has an impulse, even though he doesn’t love it and doesn’t fear it. He has an impulse to sin. In idolatry—not just to sin generally. Right. But to sin in something that gives him no satisfaction, neither love nor fear—what impulse is that? The impulse is to sin. He wants to sin. Does the Rabbi know such a thing? He’s angry at the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine? He’s angry at the Holy One, blessed be He, he has an impulse to take revenge on Him, to sin, to go against Him, so he built himself a theory of idolatry. What does that have to do with love and fear? These are two completely different planes. Love and fear themselves, in my opinion, are a product of impulse, because we’re speaking about someone who inwardly knows that this idol is nonsense. If this idol is nonsense, then whom do you love or fear? After all, it’s nonsense. Even the love and fear toward the idol were created by the impulse. In short: we have to arrive at a state of double-thinking if we want to reconcile these two sides of the coin.

Now I want to move one step further, but still on the same subject, and look at Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry, chapter 2. Maimonides says this, chapter 2, law 1: “The essence of the command concerning idolatry is not to worship any created being—not an angel, not a sphere, not a star, not one of the four elements, nor anything created from them. And even though the worshipper knows that the Lord is God, and he worships this created thing in the way that Enosh and the people of the first generations worshipped at the beginning—this is idol worship. And this is what the Torah warned about when it said: ‘Lest you lift your eyes to the heavens and see the sun,’ etc., ‘which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples’—meaning, lest you wander in the vision of your heart and see that these are the ones who govern the world, and that God allotted them to all the world to be living and existing and not passing away, as is the way of the world, and you will say that they are fit to be bowed to and worshipped. And concerning this it commanded and said: ‘Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be seduced’—meaning, that you not err in the thoughts of your heart to worship these as intermediaries between you and the Creator.”

Now Maimonides here is really saying two things that at first glance seem contradictory. He says, “And even though the worshipper knows that the Lord is God.” So if he knows that the Lord is God, then in what sense is he worshipping idols? Especially in light of Maimonides’ words in the next chapter, chapter 3 of the Laws of Idolatry, law 6, where he says that you need accepting it as a god in order to be liable. So how is that reconciled with the fact that “the worshipper knows that the Lord is God”? We are forced to say that this is a split, right? Because of his impulse he builds himself some theory that it is proper to worship this idol. More than that: Maimonides also hints later, both in the previous chapter and here, that it really begins by seeing this idol as some kind of intermediary to the Holy One, blessed be He. At first I worship the attendants of the Holy One, blessed be He, because it is fitting to honor the ministers; that constitutes honor for the king. And slowly they come to occupy the central place and people forget the king and worship only the ministers. So again, Maimonides is simply describing here some kind of process that creates double-thinking, because you begin with the idea that they are attendants—you do believe in God. The whole of chapter 1 in the Laws of Idolatry is devoted to this. He mentions Abraham and Terah and how idolatry began. He says there, “In the days of Enosh…” He tells there how idolatry began. And that is how he describes it. He says at first everyone knew there was a Holy One, blessed be He; they began worshipping the attendants of the Holy One, blessed be He. And little by little they forgot the Holy One, blessed be He, and worshipped the attendants themselves. But what does it mean that they forgot the Holy One, blessed be He? I claim they did not forget the Holy One, blessed be He; rather, He was buried deeper and deeper. And it became double-thinking—they developed a theory that the attendants were now the real powers, but deep inside they understood that the Holy One, blessed be He, is God. And that is what Maimonides writes here: “Even though the worshipper knows that the Lord is God.” So there is accepting it as a god on one hand, and there is knowing that the Lord is God on the other. Accepting the idol as a god, yes. Doesn’t Maimonides simply mean that the Torah decrees “lest”—that is, lest you come to that? What? Doesn’t it sound from Maimonides like it’s a decree—that even though you know He is God, the Torah has no issue with that, but it decreed not to let you get to that point? I say no, I claim no—it’s not a decree. Who says there is such a thing as Torah-level decrees at all? No, but a Torah-level safeguard from the Holy One, blessed be He, a Torah safeguard, so to speak. I’m saying: but in Torah law there are no decrees, in the simple understanding of the later authorities. A Torah prohibition is not a decree. No, but we do find that several times, don’t we? That’s a question. The Avnei Milu’im brings either seclusion or “it shall not be seen” regarding leaven—those are the two examples he brings of safeguards or decrees that are Torah-level. And even that is disputed. Meaning, there’s the Ran there and Rashi here, but it’s a dispute. The simple conception is that there is no such thing; Torah laws are ideal, first-order laws—they’re not decrees. Otherwise it’s accessory categories, rabbinic things, and so on. So in the plain sense, it seems to me that the simplest way to understand this is that Maimonides is speaking about double-thinking. He is just describing the mechanism by which this split came about. It’s not that we forgot the Holy One, blessed be He, and now we really worship the sun. If we really worshipped the sun, we’d be coerced. The Holy One, blessed be He, is there the whole time, only pushed deeper and deeper, and little by little some theory is created that the sun is god. Now I worship it. But in the background, or inside, the true point is always still there, because otherwise I am coerced in my belief.

Fine. In law 2: “The idolaters composed many books about its worship—what its essential worship is, and what are its procedures and rules. The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us not to read those books at all, nor to think about it nor about anything related to it. Even to look at the form of the image is forbidden, as it says: ‘Do not turn to the idols.’ And concerning this it says: ‘Lest you inquire after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods?’—that you should not ask about the mode of its worship, how it is done, even though you do not worship it, because this thing causes one to turn after it and to do as they do, as it says: ‘And I too shall do likewise.’” Here, incidentally, the language really does look like a Torah-level decree, right? Because of distancing from idolatry, here there is ostensibly a decree. Although here too, maybe one could force the reading a bit and say that anything that leads to idolatry itself contains some problematic aspect of a kind of idolatry, and therefore it is prohibited. And the fact that it leads to idolatry is only an indication that there is something problematic here. Rabbi Kook writes this in Musar Avikha, I think. He says there that anything prohibited as a safeguard really also has an intrinsic prohibition. Because if a certain act brings me to commit the prohibition, then apparently something of that prohibition is already found in the act here. Therefore the prohibition is not only because perhaps you’ll come to the Torah prohibition—he’s speaking there about rabbinic law—but because in this act that was prohibited rabbinically there is also a certain component of the Torah prohibition, perhaps at reduced intensity. Therefore the Torah itself didn’t prohibit it, but there is something of the Torah prohibition here. Something like that might be what Maimonides means here too, and then it’s not really a fence or a decree at all, but a regular Torah prohibition. But fine—in the plain sense it does look like a fence or decree.

But in the previous series the Rabbi said the opposite, no? What? Right—regarding rabbinic decrees. I didn’t understand. I’m saying that in the previous series we learned, regarding rabbinic decrees, the Rabbi divided it up in exactly the opposite way. That a decree says there’s nothing essential there. It could be. What I said there was that there are two kinds of rabbinic laws. There are rabbinic laws that are decrees—yes, I said that. Decrees are something in which there is nothing in itself, only concern that perhaps I… yes, for example the example I gave there is the classic one: riding a horse on the Sabbath lest you break off a branch. No one in the world would ever say that riding a horse is reaping on a rabbinic level, right? There’s no dimension of reaping here. You’ll come to reap not because riding a horse resembles reaping, but because riding a horse might lead you to reap. And does the Rabbi think Rabbi Kook meant that too? What? The question is whether the Rabbi thinks Rabbi Kook meant that too, or whether he meant the other kind. No, no, no—I don’t agree with Rabbi Kook. No, because the other cases just aren’t decrees, that’s my claim. Decrees are all of that sort. The other cases aren’t decrees; they’re simply quasi-Torah prohibitions. And there are cases like meat and milk—for example poultry with milk—which are much more similar to the original prohibition. Meaning, it’s not as far removed as riding a horse on the Sabbath. Right, there it’s a decree because of actual meat and milk, there is some dimension of similarity. There you could maybe say something like that. But I claim that if you say something like that, then it isn’t a decree. It’s an enactment. A decree is something prohibited lest you come to that thing. And here you’re saying: the fact that I can come to that thing only indicates that there is a substantive problem here. So in essence this isn’t a decree at all. Rather, the concern lest you come to that thing is only an indication that there’s something problematic here. A decree is a prohibition because perhaps you’ll come to that thing. That’s what a decree means. Okay? In any event, fine.

Yes. Can we go back to the previous issue? The Rabbi says that according to Maimonides, the sin of idolatry is that on the one hand he believes and on the other hand he doesn’t believe. The impulse is what pushes him to create the theory. Now regarding the side of the impulse—let’s say the Rabbi says he’s angry at God. If we accept that being angry at God means believing in Him, which by the way is pretty obvious, then the part of him that is angry at God is not his idolatry. And in the part where he performs idolatry and doesn’t believe in it, then he’s not sinning there either, then he’s not doing idolatry there either. So for which part is he actually… For the part where he really believes? For the theory he created and the part of his soul that believes? No. On that side he’s coerced. Why coerced? Why coerced? Because inwardly he knows that the Lord is God. Yes, but how—on that part? So if he knows, then he’s not violating idolatry at all. No, that’s what I’m saying. No. He built himself a theory—that’s the notion of double-thinking; we’re back to that again. He built himself some theory on the conscious level; he’ll say, “I’m an atheist,” or “I believe in Peor.” Okay? But deep inside, like the king’s son and the turkey prince, yes?—he knows that the Lord is God. So I ask Maimonides: on which part do you want to punish him for idolatry? On the part where he really believes? You say that’s the believing part—then I have no complaint against him. Against the part of the impulse that caused him, I also have no complaint. So on what part do I punish him? A person is one person. The question is why did he worship idols? Why did he… He worshipped idols because of the impulse. The impulse itself—if it were only the impulse—he’d be coerced and exempt. Not because of the impulse. Not because of the impulse. He worshipped idols; the impulse caused him to produce a theory, and now he worships idols because he believes in idolatry. But the theory—but the basis for his liability, the claim I have against him, the condemnation with which I condemn him, is the fact that he created this theory. Because once there is the theory… No—what are you talking about? I condemn him because he worships idols, not because he created the theory. No, but the Rabbi says that if he only had this theory, then he would be coerced and exempt. נכון—right. So for the idolatry side I don’t obligate him because he… once… I’m not dividing it into parts, I’m not dividing it into parts. The person is one entity. If inwardly he knows that the Lord is God and he built himself a theory that Peor is god, then he is liable—he is not considered coerced. But wait—the Rabbi just said he is one. If he is one, then does he believe or not believe? Does he believe in this idolatry or not? Does he believe in God or not? I’m saying he is both. We’re back to the same point. So for which part do I hold him liable? For the part that believes? That part is perfectly fine. I don’t hold liable for any part. I hold liable for both together. When you examine each part by itself, there is no liability. No, what are you talking about? You know, this reminds me of another question. Milk is permitted to drink, right? And meat is permitted to eat? So why can’t you have them together? How do two permitted things combine and produce a prohibition? It’s the same thing here. No, the Rabbi says it’s one figure, the Rabbi says it’s one entity. Right, that’s what I’m saying. But I’m trying to focus on where this one entity is, what it is—is it believing or not believing? That’s it—it both believes and doesn’t believe. The one figure is both together. He believes inside and doesn’t believe outside. But for the believing inside he isn’t liable; for the believing outside by itself he wouldn’t be liable; for their combination suddenly he becomes liable. I don’t understand where this liability sprang from out of nothing. Like meat and milk—how did the prohibition of meat and milk spring into existence out of nothing? What’s the connection? It’s connected. We’re talking about the human soul and the prohibition of meat and milk. Exactly the same thing. Exactly the same thing. In the human soul there are two parts. When a mix of those two parts is created, and by virtue of that mix you worship idols, then you are liable. That’s all. But then he sits with me afterward and says, “Tell me—what exactly are you condemning me for?” So I say: look, for the fact that you had an impulse, built a theory, and acted on it, even though inside you knew it was false. Okay, I get it. But he asks me: explain it precisely. For the fact that I have an impulse—you’re not blaming me for that. Don’t call it a “fact,” stop saying “fact.” Fine, but the question makes sense. I’m asking—he asks me: are you making me liable because I have an impulse? No. Because I worshipped something I don’t actually believe in, you’re not making me liable for that either; because I do believe, you’re not making me liable for that either. So for what, yes? I can repeat the same thing a fifth time; I have nothing more to explain than that. Are you making me liable for the milk? No. For the meat also no. So why for both together yes? I don’t understand the question. No, soul and all that—it’s not about condemnation here. There is a new situation, a new prohibition called meat and milk. Exactly. And here too there is a new prohibition. This prohibition says that if you build a theory of idolatry, while inwardly you know that the Lord is God, and you worship idols—you are liable. Let’s say we went to court, tried to explain to a flesh-and-blood judge why to give him a severe punishment. He would ask, in the sentencing discussion: so what are you condemning him for? For having an impulse? No. For believing? No. So what are you…? Some unclear new creation. I have no more to say. I condemn him for the fact that although inwardly he believes, he sinned against the belief within him by building himself a theory that the belief within him is false. That is what I condemn him for. This whole combination together. I’m not going to divide it into this part or that part. The whole. I don’t understand—it’s like what I said before with the Republicans and Democrats. In the end, the person is a Republican, but that doesn’t mean he has no considerations favoring Republicans and considerations favoring Democrats. In the end he has to decide which direction he goes. In the end, when he goes in a certain direction, that’s what he decided. And who decided it? All of him together. Both hemispheres together made the decision. The whole is him. So the prohibition, the problem, is that he distorted his own mind? Very simply. Yes. In other words, although inwardly he knew the truth, he nevertheless sinned—that’s what he is liable for. And all these prohibitions—yes, law 3—if he had been honest with himself, if he had been honest with himself and said, “I have an impulse, I’ll worship idols out of love or fear, I’m honest with myself,” we would have said to him: fine, you’re exempt. But now that you deceived yourself—on that point of deceiving, that you somewhat deceived yourself, covered it over a bit—instead of being more authentic, more truthful, for that now we’ll crucify you. Why? What do you mean why? Because that is called worshipping idols. Otherwise you’re just doing an external act. But is it specifically a matter of some sort of honesty? Some sort of honesty? No, it’s not honesty at all. He is deceiving himself—what honesty? Fine, we’re repeating ourselves.

“And all these prohibitions are of one matter, namely, that he should not turn after idolatry. And anyone who turns after it in a way that involves an act receives lashes. And not only idolatry is forbidden to turn after in thought, but any thought that causes a person to uproot one of the fundamentals of the Torah—we are warned not to raise it upon our hearts, nor turn our minds to it and think and be drawn after the thoughts of the heart.” Here he already broadens the issue. Now he says any thought—not only idolatry, but any thought that deviates from the principles of Torah, any heresy basically—we are warned not to raise it upon our heart and not to turn our mind there. “Because a person’s mind is limited, and not all minds can attain truth in its fullness. And if each person were drawn after the thoughts of his own heart, he would end up destroying the world because of the limitation of his mind. How so? Sometimes he will seek after idolatry, and sometimes he will think about the unity of the Creator: perhaps He exists, perhaps He does not; what is above, what is below, what is before, what is behind. And sometimes about prophecy: perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. And sometimes about Torah: perhaps it is from heaven, perhaps it is not. And he does not know the methods by which to judge until he knows truth in its fullness, and thus he comes to heresy. Concerning this matter the Torah warned, as it says: ‘And you shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes, after which you go astray’—meaning, let not each one of you be drawn after his limited mind and imagine that his thought grasps the truth. Thus the Sages said: ‘After your hearts’—this is heresy; ‘after your eyes’—this is sexual immorality. And though this prohibition causes a person to be cut off from the world to come, it does not carry lashes.”

All right? So this is the prohibition of “do not stray.” Now here the complication is obvious in all its purity. Because either way—what are you saying? In the end you tell the person: don’t engage at all with the arguments of heretics. Why? Because you might be persuaded. So what? If I’m persuaded, then that’s what I think. What do you want? I am coerced in my beliefs. What? After all, I want to clarify the truth. You’re telling me: no, you’re forbidden to clarify the truth because you might arrive at false conclusions. How do I know they’re false if I haven’t examined them? Because you decided? What? Yes, this brings us back to all the discussions we had in the past about authority regarding facts, about the possibility of demanding that a person hold a certain factual belief. Yes? Positive commandment number one, what we discussed. There is something very problematic here, though on the face of Maimonides’ wording, that does seem to be what he means. He tells you: you are forbidden to think, because if you think, you’ll reach a false conclusion; you’ll authentically arrive at a false conclusion, you’ll genuinely believe it. So what’s the problem? If I genuinely believe it, that’s what I think—what do you want me to…? So I’m saying: I don’t know whether I agree, but the only way to explain this Maimonides, in a way that at least won’t be difficult logically—it’s not the straightforward reading of his words—the only way to explain him in a way that won’t be difficult logically is that there is a prohibition against producing this because of impulse. Meaning, if you are truly and sincerely torn, and you have good questions, and you need to deliberate over them, and hear arguments this way and that, and in the end you form a mistaken position—then you are completely coerced, and there is no prohibition in doing such a thing. There cannot be a prohibition in doing such a thing. In the end I need to formulate my beliefs. How can one impose prohibitions on me if I haven’t even yet reached the conclusion that the one who gives the prohibitions, who imposes the prohibitions, has authority, or even exists at all? I need to investigate whether there is a God, and then I’m ready to accept commandments He commands me, but He cannot command me not to investigate whether He exists. If I haven’t investigated, why would I fulfill His commandments? And again we return to what we discussed in positive commandment number one. There is no logic in this at all, even though on the face of it that is what is written in Maimonides.

But there is no logic in it. The only way I manage to explain it in some less self-contradictory way, let’s call it that, is to say that there is a prohibition against entering into those arguments and that literature and those positions if you do not have a genuine dilemma, but only because of impulse. In other words, you know the true faith; your impulse says to you, okay, but let’s examine this so we can permit forbidden sexual relations to ourselves. So I want to investigate and this and that, and I’ll reach the conclusion that Torah is not from heaven, or that there is no God, or whatever it may be. So I’m really building a theory that is double-thinking because of impulse. Deep inside I understand that the truth really is otherwise. That—I can perhaps understand as the prohibition of “do not stray.” Perhaps. In other words, in the end you are putting yourself into a situation that you yourself understand is false; you are not coerced in your beliefs. On the contrary, it is the counsel of impulse. So they tell you: don’t let your impulse sink so deep into you that it actually creates a second consciousness in you. Okay? That is basically the prohibition of “do not stray.”

But if the dilemma is genuine, like you said? Then there is no prohibition. No—but then why this attitude, in the previous lecture too, of Rabbi Chaim and you spoke about it too—that basically the attitude toward the heretic is like toward an animal, like someone who doesn’t know what he is doing, or something like that? No, I didn’t say that. What I said was that when Rabbi Chaim said “it’s a poor heretic,” meaning even a coerced heretic is still a heretic, one can understand him in two ways. One can understand him normatively—that he is still an offender, a sinner, deserving punishment, or whatever; that is, he is a heretic in every respect. And one can understand it definitionally—to say “poor heretic” means he still holds false beliefs; that’s what he is. Fine—but the whole issue of “false” is now something subjective. I don’t know if that’s something objective now. What? The truth is that there is truth. The fact is that in Jewish law there are real disputes on very serious matters, and no one comes along and says that if someone follows some opinion that is not in accordance with, say, Rabbi Chaim’s view, then he is a heretic. No, but this is Rabbi Chaim’s position. He claims there are opinions that are not under dispute, let’s say for the sake of argument, within the thought-world of Judaism—they are not disputed. Okay? And about that Rabbi Chaim says: if you try to produce another theory only because of your impulse, then there is a prohibition. No, that I agree with. But I’m saying: if there is a person who is genuinely torn, examining these things, why this contempt? Why come and say he’s a heretic, a poor heretic? Why not respect that struggle? I respect it very much. Rabbi Chaim calls him a poor heretic. As I said. But I respect Rabbi Chaim—why does he do that? I don’t know, ask him. The accepted views in the rabbinic world—I don’t know, traditional, whatever—are views like Rabbi Chaim’s. The position I’m presenting here, which seems to me so obvious that I can’t even understand how anyone could disagree with it, is a position that almost no one holds. I understand. The Rabbi agrees, but what’s the problem with saying that Rabbi Chaim said it as a factual determination? No, but Rabbi Chaim—because that is not the straightforward reading. The straightforward reading is that he meant to determine that normatively he is a heretic. So what I said in order to judge Rabbi Chaim favorably is this: it could be that Rabbi Chaim sees a person who holds such problematic beliefs as a heretic, and says, look, he’s not to blame; true, he’s coerced, so he’s like a cat. Meaning, he’s like an animal. He’s just not guilty of being an animal, fine—but he is still an animal. The claim is that someone who holds such problematic beliefs—and in the past beliefs of that kind also led to problematic actions, while today they can remain only on the intellectual level—Rabbi Chaim’s claim is that there’s no reason to relate to him as a human being, because he is not a human being, a person devoid of understanding. Okay, say that—maybe that’s what he means. Again, I don’t think that’s correct, but I’m saying maybe that’s what Rabbi Chaim meant. Then maybe I can understand what he said, because to say there is guilt here—I cannot see how there is guilt here. This is complete coercion.

And how does that fit with what we also learned with you, about respecting the autonomy of someone who goes to issue a halakhic ruling? Mine fits with it, not Rabbi Chaim’s words. That’s true. Fine. I’m consistent with what I said; Rabbi Chaim doesn’t need to be consistent with what I said. Okay. We disagree, what can you do? But if someone exercises his autonomy and arrives at unconventional beliefs, is he then also condemned? Unconventional beliefs are something else. Heresy is sharper. Unconventional beliefs—fine, there are disputes. We discussed the question of the boundary, right? That was in the first lectures. Yes. Fine. Rabbi Chaim calls him “poor heretic” according to my argument. Meaning, he holds a false belief and that is really what he thinks. Okay.

Anyway, the claim of Maimonides, I think—again, in the straightforward reading of his words it doesn’t sound like this—but I can’t make sense of it logically unless Maimonides is really speaking about constructing double-thinking because of impulse. And that is basically the prohibition of “do not stray.” The prohibition of “do not stray”—if I go in to read certain arguments or hear certain arguments because I am truly torn and want to find out what the truth is—look, even if I’m not torn, not torn, but I’m not sure I’m right because there may be wise people and arguments I haven’t thought of that could change my mind, even though right now my position is completely one of belief, everything’s fine—that still seems to me completely legitimate, not only legitimate but desirable. So if that’s the case, go do your inquiries, examine, and in the end arrive at a conclusion. The prohibition can only be in a situation where it is clear to the person that these arguments have no substance, and it is clear to him that there is a God, and it’s just the counsel of impulse—like the impulse toward idolatry that I described, Menashe and so on—where because of impulse he enters into the matter and builds himself theories and so on. Yes? Like the Talmud says: “Israel sinned only in order to permit forbidden sexual relations to themselves.” Meaning, he builds himself a theory that he does not believe because he basically does not want to be obligated. If that is really the situation, then perhaps I can understand the prohibition against engaging with false arguments or positions, because you are not really coming to investigate—you are really coming to find ad hoc justification for your impulses. Okay? That is basically the claim. Like the turkey prince, or like “we compel him until he says: I want to.” We could have avoided all these difficulties if we had accepted belief in God not as a cognitive claim but as a normative claim. We could have saved all of Judaism if we accepted it that way. As a cost-saving program it might work, but in my view it’s not true.

Fine. Look at law 5: “A Jew who worshipped idolatry is like an idolater in all respects and is not like a Jew.” You see? Very similar, very reminiscent of the interpretation I gave earlier to “poor heretic.” He’s basically like an animal; the point is beyond the issue of guilt—he simply is not… not a human being. “And he is not like a Jew who commits a transgression punishable by stoning. One who apostatized to idolatry is considered an apostate to the entire Torah. And likewise the heretics among Israel are not as Jews in any matter, and they are never accepted in repentance, as it says: ‘None who go to her return, nor do they attain the paths of life.’ And the heretics”—now he defines it—“the heretics are those who seek after the thoughts of their heart in the foolish matters we mentioned, until they are found transgressing the core principles of Torah spitefully, brazenly, with a high hand, and they say there is no sin in this.” Right? So now what does that mean? They seek after the thoughts of their heart—so what, that’s really what they think, they’re coerced in their beliefs? It doesn’t sound like that. “They seek after the thoughts of their heart in the foolish matters we mentioned until they are found transgressing the core principles of Torah spitefully, brazenly, with a high hand.” So I don’t understand—does he believe it or not believe it? So is it spite? I claim they seek after the thoughts of their heart, but the thought they are using is really only there to provide justification for their need to act spitefully, with revulsion. It begins with impulse. The theory serves the impulse. This reminds me… “And it is forbidden to converse with them or answer them at all, as it says, ‘And do not come near the door of her house.’ And the thought of a heretic to idolatry…” I don’t know what that means; in the end there is probably some textual error in the version. Fine. In any case, here too it seems to me there is no alternative but to speak of something where impulse builds within you some kind of theory, a consciousness in which you live.

I just want to add something really about “do not stray” from its source. The source of the matter is in the portion of Shelach. The portion of Shelach begins with the sin of the spies—they send the spies, your sin, and all that—and it ends with the section of fringes, tzitzit, in which appears “and do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” Now the verb “to scout out” appears many times throughout the portion. It is the… that’s the spine threading the entire portion—the verb “to scout out.” And therefore the correction in the section of tzitzit that appears at the end is pretty clearly meant to correct the sin of the spies. “Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes” is so that you won’t be like the spies who scouted out the land. Okay. Now we need to understand what exactly it means, these spies who scouted out the land.

Now there are medieval authorities—I wrote about this in one of my columns—medieval and later authorities who ask: what did people want from the spies? After all, they were sent to scout out the land. The spies need to bring information. Now they reached the land and saw that this land had encampments and fortifications and giants and so on—very threatening—with fruit the size of watermelons and all sorts of things of that kind. That’s what they saw. They came back and reported what they saw. What do you want from them? Nachmanides asks this and other medieval and later authorities ask it too. What is the accusation against the spies, the sin of the spies? What were they supposed to do? Were they supposed to lie and not report what they saw in order to give us motivation? In other words, were they spies whose purpose was not really to bring information at all but to stage the appearance of reconnaissance and in the end be preachers, motivational agents for the Israelite army? Is that what was wanted of them? If you send spies, you want them to bring information.

Fine, there are all kinds of answers. “I only wanted you to tell me how to attack, not whether to attack”—that’s the most common answer. I sent you to tell me from which side to come or which tactic to use, and you overstepped your mandate. So that explanation also has some logic to it, but still not completely, because in the end if they say, “Look, there is no way to conquer this, it’s hopeless, the whole business is lost—giants, encampments, fortresses—there’s no chance. We can’t recommend methods. If you ask us, it’s a lost war, no chance”—that’s what they saw. What are they supposed to do, deny what they saw? So that too is still problematic even after that answer I mentioned. The problem doesn’t disappear.

I think that there too we probably have to understand what it means “to scout out.” They came “to scout out,” like what we call tourists. Tourists choose what to look at, right? What they like, they look at; what they don’t like, they don’t look at. That’s a tourist. Many times… I once heard Rabbi Moshe Shapira, of blessed memory—he once attacked Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and among other things he said that Ben-Yehuda distorted Hebrew. Why? Because the concept of “visit,” levaker, sounds like something superficial—like I dropped by to visit, see what’s up, and leave. But originally, he said, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the pleasantness of the Lord and to visit in His sanctuary.” What does “to visit” there mean? It means to dwell there permanently. To inspect, to visit something, means to do something carefully, precisely, not to be sloppy with the details. That’s what it means for something to be done in a controlled, critical way. So I just remembered that now because it’s the same thing with “to scout out.” If we think about “to scout out,” what is a tourist? A tourist comes, looks around casually, whatever is nice he looks at, whatever is not nice he doesn’t look at. Everything’s fine; he chooses what to see. But the spies were not supposed to be tourists. The spies were supposed to look seriously at all aspects—what you want to see, what you don’t want to see—look at everything and bring us full information.

Now the claim, I’m trying to suggest an interpretation, is probably that the accusation against the spies was that they chose how to look and what to look at. They had some sort of weakening, demoralizing impulse. In the end they say, “Look, but these are the facts.” So if you ask them, apparently they sincerely believe that this war cannot be won. Those are the facts; they truly believe that. If there is a claim against them—and I’m stepping backward—if there is a claim against them, then it cannot be that they really believed that. If they really believed that, then what’s the claim? Apparently inwardly they understood the truth, or at least they knew they had not done the job properly. Rashi brings that midrash, after all, that they saw a “land that consumes its inhabitants.” They saw everyone burying their dead, and they didn’t understand that the Holy One, blessed be He, had actually performed a miracle and caused all those deaths so that people would not notice the spies. They were occupied with their dead and wouldn’t notice the spies. And from their perspective they gave it the interpretation that it was “a land that consumes its inhabitants,” everyone dies there. So again, it’s a midrash, of course, but that midrash comes to say: they basically chose one interpretation of what they saw, when there was also another interpretation. The interpretation “a land that consumes its inhabitants” is only one interpretation. You could just as well have said the opposite: it’s a wonderful land, and the Holy One, blessed be He, killed those people so that they wouldn’t notice us and we could scout peacefully. Okay? They chose the interpretation, or the mode of looking, of “a land that consumes its inhabitants.” And to me that is just an example of a more general accusation against them. You presented us with a picture. I understand that in your conscious mind that is probably what you genuinely think. But I claim that this is the counsel of impulse. If you had looked generously, if you had trusted what the Holy One, blessed be He, says—conquer the land and you will be able to, and that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said—then you would have understood that it is possible, and you would have examined only how to do it most efficiently. When you come back and tell me, “No, no, it’s impossible, and these are the facts,” you chose a certain mode of seeing, and for that you are called to account.

But why are you called to account? After all, that really is their way of seeing. No, because deep inside you understand that this picture is not the correct picture—or at least not the full one. And the impulse caused you to adopt that picture or that theory. And only because of that can one make claims against them. Now leave aside my explanations. Independent of my explanations, the very fact that all the commentators ask this—that itself says what I’m saying. Leave it, I’m not even talking right now about the answer. I also suggested an answer. But what are the commentators asking? They ask: if the spies truly believed in what they said, then no claim should have been made against them—then they were fine. What do you want from them? So now I suggested an answer too. I said: because they didn’t really believe it. Deep inside they knew it wasn’t the full picture. Leave aside the answer—I’m talking about the question. Other commentators share the question. So that question assumes that if a person sincerely believes something, you cannot come to him with claims, right? That’s what they assume. Now leave aside the answers, but that is what they assume. So I want to adopt that assumption. And I also suggested an answer, as I said before. But beyond that, I adopt the assumption of all the commentators who ask this question.

And now I say: if that is the interpretation I give to the spies who scouted out the land, and to the whole verb “to scout out” that accompanies this whole journey of the spies, then now I move to the end of the portion. At the end of the portion there is the prohibition “and do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” And there too the verb “to scout out” appears, because that is apparently the way we correct what the spies did when they scouted out the land. The commandment of tzitzit is supposed to make us not tourists, but people who really see. What the Talmud says—why do we need blue thread in tzitzit? Because blue resembles the sea, the sea resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory. What does that mean? When you look seriously into the depth of things, not only at their external side, then you can get from the tzitzit to the Throne of Glory. Otherwise it’s just some cloth dyed some color. The same is true of the land. When you looked at the land, if you had understood the depth of the fact that they were all burying their dead, you would have understood that this was simply divine assistance. So in effect, the commandment of tzitzit comes to correct—the prohibition, not the commandment of tzitzit, but the prohibition of “do not stray” comes to correct the sin of the spies. And what was the sin? That they adopted a conception which they ostensibly really believed in, but deep inside they probably knew that it was not the full conception. And of that it says: the prohibition of “do not stray.” Because if “do not stray” comes to correct the description of the sin of the spies, then just as I interpreted the description of the sin of the spies, so I interpret “do not stray.” And what does that mean? That the prohibition of “do not stray” is exactly doing what the spies did. That is what “do not stray” means. What? What is it? It means to build myself a theory, convince myself it is true, even though the whole story is only because of impulse. Deep inside I know it is not true. That is called “to stray.”

So from the context of the portion, it seems to me that one can even bring support for this suggestion I’m making about the prohibition of “do not stray,” from its connection to the story of the spies. But isn’t that an ultra-anti-rational conclusion? It means that basically—this is really a very postmodern statement—that facts don’t interfere with the narrative we create before we see the facts. If we want, we can look at the tzitzit and see the Throne of Glory. Just threads with blue dye, and we see the Throne of Glory because we want to see it. That’s a very clear postmodern statement. I claim it is exactly the opposite of postmodernity. Completely. Why? Because postmodernity claims that every stance of ours is like that, and every stance has equal weight to every other stance, and one just chooses arbitrarily one of the stances. Not arbitrarily—we want something. First of all we want something. After that we examine reality and create scientific theories for it, like in Kuhn’s book. That’s called arbitrary. Choosing truth according to what you want—that’s arbitrary. That’s what postmodernism talks about. Is desire arbitrary? Desire isn’t arbitrary. What? I didn’t understand. Is desire arbitrary? Desire is not arbitrary, but desire does not determine reality. But that’s what you see here. Determining reality because of desire—that is an arbitrary determination, obviously. If I want to be rich, does that make me rich? What’s the connection? No, but what I want determines what exists. Look—I want to believe in God, I look at the tzitzit and see the Throne of Glory. Simple. No, no, wait. There you made a leap. I’m saying: if desire determines my factual judgment, that’s what I call arbitrary. That is postmodernity. Postmodernity says that desire determines the stance. The interpretation of reality—what do you mean “the stance”? Same thing. Interpretation of reality is determined by what you want: that is what postmodernism says. And I am claiming exactly the opposite. The Rabbi says there is such a thing, that’s all. I claim exactly the opposite. I claim that the sin of “do not stray” is being a postmodernist. Since it depends on what the impulse is. If he had a good impulse, the Rabbi says they could have interpreted the… Shmuel, listen, let me finish the question. I’m answering. So the sin of being a postmodernist is “do not stray.” What does that mean? In a place where you let your perception of reality be determined by your desire—that is “do not stray.” What is the alternative? When do you not violate “do not stray”? When you look at what reality actually is—not what you want, but what reality actually is. And the postmodernist doesn’t acknowledge the existence of such a mechanism. For him, what you see is always what you want. And that is exactly the mistake.

But look—they saw funerals. They saw funerals. The Rabbi himself said one can interpret it as “a land that consumes its inhabitants,” and one can interpret it as divine kindness. What is correct here? Factually, the facts are—they did not deny the facts. The interpretation was determined by desire. So I’ll tell you what’s correct. The correct thing is that the Holy One, blessed be He, said “a land flowing with milk and honey,” and therefore this land is not consuming its inhabitants, if you trust the Holy One, blessed be He. And if you see them burying their dead, think: how does that fit? Apparently it’s divine assistance, so they won’t notice you. That is again a person coming with an agenda, with faith in God. Wait. Now you replaced desire with agenda. No, it’s the same thing. Agenda is desire. Agenda is something broader than desire. And here you can already bring in all sorts of things, depending on what you mean by agenda. If agenda means the assumptions with which I start, the assumptions I think are true, then yes, that’s agenda, and agenda is perfectly fine. But if I’m claiming that I interpret reality according to what I want, according to my interests, according to my cravings—that is postmodernism. That is exactly the difference. And the prohibition of “do not stray” is the prohibition against being a postmodernist. That is the prohibition. The prohibition against understanding in the postmodern way. It’s the father of all “do not stray.” Why? Because postmodernism builds a philosophy that justifies postmodernism, the tendency to follow the heart. It turns that itself into a philosophy. It can’t—they tell a person, take responsibility, know this: be very careful with your desires and with your impulse, because you will create ideologies for yourself that will destroy the world. That is “do not stray” in full force. That’s really not what they say. That’s what I say. What everyone, every normal person says—even in the 12th century; you don’t have to get to the 20th century—is that you need to watch your desires and not let them determine the truth. Noge’a, personal bias, as they say. Postmodernity was created as a result of… Postmodernity says not to be careful. Postmodernity says the opposite: you can’t be careful. Let your desires determine reality. That is what it says, because that’s what happens for everyone; we have no other way to determine reality. That is the postmodern claim. It’s exactly the opposite.

Therefore the claim of “do not stray” says exactly: don’t think that everything is really a matter of desire. No. You do have a way to reach the correct picture, if you relate seriously and don’t let your desires dictate your vision. And the prohibition is on one who does let his desires dictate his vision. The alternative is not to desire something else. That’s not what “do not stray” says. “Do not stray” says: do not follow desires at all. Follow what you think is the truth. Now, if you are mistaken and in your view this is the truth, but you are mistaken—very well, you still did not violate “do not stray,” because you are mistaken. That’s exactly the point. Only if you follow your desires and in effect ignore an inner understanding within you that knows this is not the truth—then you violate “do not stray,” because that is postmodernity. It is exactly the opposite of postmodernity. But I don’t accuse the spies of any sin, any impulse, any desire—not forbidden sexual relations and not lawlessness and not honor, which according to some commentators they wanted—no. Only that they did not believe in God and perhaps they were mistaken. And did they really not believe in God? Really? No. Again there was impulse there. That’s exactly the point. Again there is impulse there. So there you go—again there is impulse behind it, so again I am blaming them for the impulse. Shmuel, if you want, you can always force an objection. There is such a thing as forcing an objection; that’s not a real objection. I’m explaining the sin of the spies, and you tell me, yes, but maybe that’s not true and then there’d be a difficulty. Fine. No, the Rabbi said the demand from the spies was to come as a blank slate before the facts. Not as a blank slate, but to ignore desires. To ignore desires and stick with knowledge, with facts. With the knowledge and facts—they believe in God, and God said… But if God said so, then why indeed were they not attentive to that? Because of impulse. Because there was an evil impulse that caused them to build a contrary theory. So I make them liable not for failing to recognize the facts, but for having an impulse that leads them to distort the facts. And as a result they distorted them too. Right. So again the touchpoint, the sin. The fact that we yield to impulse and distort the facts because of impulse—that is the sin. Not the fact that we have impulse. Impulse is not a sin. So again the claim is not against you for not recognizing facts, but that there is an impulse that causes you to distort facts. No. The claim is that I followed the impulse, not that I have impulse. Having an impulse is not a sin. No, obviously—that you followed the impulse, obviously. Right.

Sorry, but I don’t quite understand why we need to get so tangled up in this, because if I look at the verses it seems very simple to me. I think it may very well be that the facts they brought were correct. They saw what they saw. The problem was that nobody asked them to reach a conclusion whether, as a result of the facts they saw, one goes up to the Land of Israel or does not go up to the Land of Israel. That’s what I said at the beginning. Exactly, but that’s also strengthened, no? Because now this whole reflection on postmodernity begins, and it’s also strengthened by the fact that the dispute between them and Caleb son of Jephunneh is that after they finish describing these things, Caleb son of Jephunneh says, “We can surely go up, no problem,” and they said, “We’re afraid to go.” That’s all. Right, but I said exactly that. I said the difference… I just saw afterward that you were trying to resolve the issue of postmodernity, and I explained why. Again, I’ll briefly repeat the move so you can see. I began with exactly that explanation. I said that’s the standard explanation. The standard explanation is: nobody asked you whether to go up or not go up to the land. They told you to find the most optimal way to conduct the war. Going up—the Holy One, blessed be He, told us to go up. We didn’t ask you whether to go up or not. Okay? That’s the standard explanation. I said—but still, if they really saw that it was impossible to go up, and that’s why I had difficulty with the standard explanation—if they really saw it was impossible to go up, that was their assessment, then what do you want from them? The Holy One, blessed be He, said to go up, but you… asked me to find you a tactic. There is no tactic. There are encampments, giant fortresses, we have no chance, there is no way to attack them. It’s hopeless. Okay? That’s what we said.

Therefore I say—I’m not retracting, I’m not disagreeing with that explanation—I’m adding another layer to it. I’m saying: obviously, if they really saw that and truly believed it, then I have no claim against them if they returned and said not to go up. So what? You asked us how—we don’t know, we see no way to go up. Okay. But the claim against them must be based on the fact that inwardly they understood there was such a way, by virtue of faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, and so on, everything I said earlier. And now when they come and say not to go up, I go back to the commentators’ answer: they indeed expressed an opinion on something for which they had no mandate—but only because inwardly they understood that this opinion itself was not really correct. Otherwise you still can’t say even that. This is an addition to what the standard explanation says, not a replacement for it. And therefore this whole reflection on postmodernity has to enter here one way or another. In the end, you are being called to account for something you created through impulse—a façade of facts—and these are not facts. It is a result of your impulse, and inwardly you knew these were not the facts. You built for yourself another theory, a kind of double-thinking.

And then the claim is that when I return to Maimonides and the prohibition of “do not stray,” then basically the prohibition of “do not stray” itself—this is its definition. A person cannot—not cannot, is forbidden to—yield to impulse and allow impulse to determine his worldview. In short: it is forbidden to be postmodern. I didn’t even think of introducing it in terms of postmodernity, but Shmuel brought it in. So actually, good—it fits perfectly, only in reverse. That is, the prohibition against being postmodern—that’s the prohibition.

Rabbi, by the way, about this very section: all the preachers, thousands of preachers who expounded this section this year—if the Holy One, blessed be He, came to them, or a prophet came to them, and said: listen, conquer Norway, destroy every male and female and child in order to conquer their land, and I’m sending you to see how nice and beautiful Norway with the fjords is so that you’ll feel like doing this act—how many, in the Rabbi’s opinion, would agree to this project and how many would refuse, including the Rabbi? I didn’t understand. Moses our teacher and the Holy One, blessed be He, turn to ten people who were great men, leaders of the children of Israel, and say to them: go see the land. See what? See whether it is good, whether it has trees or not. And why? Because we want to conquer it, simply take over the territory, destroy its inhabitants, and settle in their land. A kind of cruel colonialism whose goal is simply that the Jewish people can flourish on someone else’s land. Not only to see whether it is good, but also to do tactical reconnaissance. Yes, fine, practical too—and all in order to conquer it, destroy its inhabitants, and settle in their land. If this were done today, and they turned to our ten righteous men here—how many today would accept such a proposal? Your question about the spies is unrelated. Yes, I said by the way—since we were already speaking about this issue. Okay, fine. So the lecture is over; we’ve moved to after-questions. Fine. So I’m saying my answer here is that once there is justification for killing all the inhabitants of the land, then it is not cruel and not colonialist. I don’t tolerate post-colonialist conceptions. The Rabbi would do it if the Holy One, blessed be He, came to him and said: we’ve now decided to change direction, move to Norway; we will conquer it, destroy its inhabitants, and settle in their land—how many of today’s Israeli rabbis would embrace that proposal? I assume all of them or almost all of them. They would conquer, they would join in conquering Norway and destroying its inhabitants in order to inherit their land? Not in order to inherit their land. They deserve to be destroyed—not because I want to inherit their land. But we weren’t talking about their sins. That’s what… that’s the axis. Taking over the land—that’s the axis, exactly, that’s the issue here. They should have returned, the spies, not with an argument that it’s difficult and so on. They should have said either it’s not fitting to do this, or these people are wicked and it must be done. In other words, you remind me of those interpretations that say Abraham failed the test of the binding because he should have refused. No, that’s nonsense. So it’s the same thing. What—they were sent there to offer a moral opinion? No, but regarding the binding, Rabbi—isn’t there this claim, since it says there “it never entered My mind, nor did I say it, nor did I command it,” meaning only to bind him, not to slaughter him? Fine—but “now I know,” the test was not… Abraham our father did not fail the test of the binding. Nonsense. Yes, the whole point of the test is that he thought that was indeed the command. Come on—but he truly thought that was the command, so he failed? No, right. Why not? If he thought that was the command, then according to you it’s a failure, because there cannot be such a command—so if he thought it was a command, he failed. That’s what those commentators claim. No, I just want to say only that… this interpretation that supposedly the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t retract, that He actually never said it in the first place. No, that’s something else. Rabbi Kook also writes that, and that’s perfectly fine. Rabbi Kook saying He didn’t retract—that’s fine. But Abraham our father did not fail the test of the binding. Commentators who say Abraham our father failed the test of the binding—that’s a bit… yes, if what was desired was the test. Right, so it says “now I know that you fear God and have not withheld your son, your only one… now I know.” Yes, “you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.” What they do with all those verses, I have no idea. That’s why I don’t deal in biblical interpretation—it’s all babble. Fine, that’s enough.

Rabbi, I was thinking in connection with the prohibition of “do not stray”: right after the sin of the spies comes the sin of the ma’apilim, the people who tried to go up anyway. And their sin, ostensibly—first of all—is a revelation that the people of Israel really do have a desire to come to the Land of Israel. And the claim against the people of Israel, not the spies specifically, is that they chose to believe what they… this double-thinking, and afterward they sinned in exactly the opposite way—that they really wanted to go up, even though now God had commanded not to go up to the Land of Israel, forbidding this act of going up, and then they sinned on the other side, even though ostensibly they did the right act. They followed their inner understanding and not the outer consciousness? With the ma’apilim? Yes. That’s as if… no, in that case it was mistaken, so it’s not inner, it’s outer. Again? That understanding that they needed to go up was the mistaken understanding, because the Holy One, blessed be He, said not to go up. Right, so God said not to go up and Moses told them. Is the desire to go up inner or outer? Ostensibly it’s outer, otherwise what’s the claim against them? They really thought they should go up—what can they do? No, if they really think that they should… I got tangled for a second. It doesn’t matter, just a comment anyway. Okay. Fine. Sabbath peace, goodbye. Thank you very much.