Dogmatics – Lesson 9
This transcription was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Do Not Stray and Split Consciousness
- Esoteric Writing and Noble Lies
- Truth, Permitted Lies, and “Keep Far from Falsehood”
- False Halakhic Rulings, Adding Prohibitions, and Loss of Trust
- Rabbinic Prohibition, the Authority of a Religious Court, and the Chazon Ish
- What Is a Halakhic Decisor, Uniformity of Jewish Law, and the Role of Ruling
- The Community Ledger, Gur Regulations, and the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh
- The Permission to “Hang on a High Tree” as Autonomy and Serious Consideration
- Forgeries: the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, Besamim Rosh, and the Threshold of Acceptance
- Maimonides: Heretic, External Books, and Deeds That Have No Share
- The Thirteen Principles: The Numerical Framework and the Question of a Principle
- The First and Second Principles: The Existence of the Creator and His Unity
- Falsehood as a Law Given to Moses at Sinai and the Implications for Trust
- Normative Discussion: Morality, Divinity, and Understanding the Principles
- “He Accepted It as a God” and Split Thinking in Idolatry
Summary
General Overview
The speaker continues clarifying the prohibition of lo tat’uru through Maimonides in the laws of idolatry, and suggests that the prohibition may be connected to a person’s ability to create a kind of “split consciousness,” in which he lives inside a false awareness even though inwardly he understands it is false. He raises the possibility that Maimonides is writing esoterically here, aimed at non-thinkers, and expands on the destructive price of “noble lies” and of halakhic rulings that define things as “forbidden” without any source, to the point of total loss of trust in halakhic discourse. From there he reaches the question of autonomy: the words of great authorities should be taken seriously, but not accepted automatically, and he suggests this is how to understand the permission that “whoever wants to be hanged should hang himself on a high tree,” and the attitude toward forgeries. Finally, he begins reading Maimonides’ principles from the introduction to the chapter Chelek, asks how principles are determined and what makes philosophical claims into “foundations,” and ends with a debate about the meaning of the principles as moral norms and about “he accepted it as a god” as an essential condition rather than a formal act.
Do Not Stray and Split Consciousness
The speaker ties the prohibition of lo tat’uru to situations in which a person intentionally creates a second false consciousness that allows him to live within a belief or justification that inwardly he does not really accept. He distinguishes between inquiry meant to clarify one’s true position and inquiry meant to manufacture justification for one’s inclination, and raises the possibility that the second move could be prohibited on account of the inclination, though he himself is hesitant about that justification. He adds another possibility, that Maimonides is writing esoterically: someone who does not think is better off living under a framework of prohibition so he will not arrive at false conclusions, whereas a wise person understands on his own that there is no prohibition here in the simple sense.
Esoteric Writing and Noble Lies
The speaker argues that esoteric writing and a policy of lying “for a positive purpose” exact a heavy price, because they drain all the writer’s speech of content, since one can always claim he did not mean what he wrote. He cites the Talmudic saying, “whoever wants to be hanged should hang himself on a high tree,” and the Magen Avraham, who brings this as Jewish law as the basis for permission to lie so that people will accept your words. He also tells a story about Rabbi Shalom Schwadron saying in the name of the Chazon Ish that one may say things in the name of a great authority so they will be accepted, while emphasizing the problem that one can no longer know whether the quotation itself is true. He presents lying as almost the gravest transgression, because it destroys the human fabric and the possibility of attaching meaning to what people say, and he rejects justifications that legitimize a norm of lying as a “disaster.”
Truth, Permitted Lies, and “Keep Far from Falsehood”
The speaker distinguishes between “non-destructive” lies, such as the three matters in which Torah scholars alter their words in the chapter Elu Metzi’ot, and principled lies meant to mislead in Jewish law or thought in order to educate or prevent harm. He argues that lies in matters of modesty do not damage discourse, because someone who asks improper questions should not expect a reliable answer, whereas a lie in halakhic or theological positions creates enormous broad damage. He says that “keep far from falsehood” is not counted as a prohibition, and presents this distancing as signaling a special depth, similar to the distancing from sexual prohibitions. He mentions Rabbi Sherlo, who wrote a “Shulchan Arukh of the laws of lying” in Tzohar. He quotes Kant, who argued that one must not lie even when one’s life depends on it, and states that the main problem is not only the formal value of truthfulness, but the collapse of trust and of the ability to speak at all.
False Halakhic Rulings, Adding Prohibitions, and Loss of Trust
The speaker argues that many halakhic decisors lie systematically when they say “forbidden” about something for which there is no source of prohibition, in order to prevent a phenomenon they see as harmful, and he defines this both as lying and as adding prohibitions. He gives examples from questions involving women’s status in synagogues, such as partitions, giving a Torah talk, reading from the Torah, and also the example of riding a bicycle on the Sabbath, where justifications like “weekday activity” are presented in a non-objective way. He argues that in an age of accessible information, people quickly discover these lies and then lose trust in every halakhic determination, and says he has met many people who have no trust at all in what halakhic decisors say. He cites the midrash about Eve adding that it is “forbidden to touch,” and when she touched and nothing happened, the way was paved for eating, and concludes that this is the lesson of “whoever adds subtracts.”
Rabbinic Prohibition, the Authority of a Religious Court, and the Chazon Ish
The speaker says that a rabbinic prohibition requires a decision by an authorized religious court, and a halakhic decisor is not permitted to “invent” rabbinic prohibitions just because he does not think something should be allowed. He distinguishes between interpretation that includes a new case within an existing prohibition and declaring a new prohibition without any anchor, and presents the second declaration as a lie. He notes that the Chazon Ish himself recognized the problem and asked how decisors say “forbidden rabbinically” without an authorized religious court, and presents the Chazon Ish’s answer as a suggestion that the ancient sages enacted a general ordinance that whatever sages in later generations would prohibit would take effect by its power. But the speaker says he has never heard of such an ordinance and sees it as an invention. He concludes that the Chazon Ish at least felt that the phenomenon required explanation.
What Is a Halakhic Decisor, Uniformity of Jewish Law, and the Role of Ruling
The speaker defines a halakhic decisor as an expert in Jewish law, not as a Sanhedrin, and argues that he has no “advantage over” “Rabbi Google” if he does not convey halakhic truth. He cites an article by Nadav Shnerb, “The Jewish Ark of Lies,” and argues that praising a decisor who permits to a poor person and forbids to a rich person in the same case is really praise for dishonesty. He says a decisor may present possibilities such as “in pressing circumstances one may be lenient” and may recommend that a wealthy person be stringent, but may not change the content of what is permitted and forbidden based on the identity of the questioner. He pushes back against the claim that Jewish law is not uniform for everyone and argues that it is built on principles valid for all, and that disputes belong to the realm of interpretation, not the invention of laws according to “what seems appropriate.”
The Community Ledger, Gur Regulations, and the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh
The speaker brings a story about the Sha’agat Aryeh, who wrote the Ten Commandments in the community ledger because people are more careful about community regulations than about severe Torah prohibitions, and presents this as confusion between what is essential and what is secondary. He gives an example involving his brother-in-law in a hospital with Gur Hasidim, who said they do not keep the regulations, and presents Gur as a “cult,” and the mixing of regulation with Jewish law as systematic damage. He criticizes the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh for not distinguishing between Torah-level law, rabbinic law, custom, and good practice, and argues that this uniformity brings short-term gain in stringency but long-term damage in contempt even for binding laws when it becomes clear that part of what is written is not binding.
The Permission to “Hang on a High Tree” as Autonomy and Serious Consideration
The speaker suggests the opposite interpretation of the permission brought in the Magen Avraham: the permission to lie and attribute things to a great authority assumes that the listener is not supposed to accept things merely because a great person said them, but to weigh them seriously and decide independently. He explains that the move is meant to cause a conversation partner who does not respect the argument to consider it seriously, not to create blind acceptance. From this he defines a norm of autonomy in which the authority of a great figure obligates serious listening but not automatic acceptance.
Forgeries: the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, Besamim Rosh, and the Threshold of Acceptance
The speaker discusses forgeries such as the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim and Besamim Rosh, attributed to the Rosh, and suggests that forgery is forbidden when the listener accepts the content automatically by force of the text’s authority. He says that with the Talmuds there is binding force, and therefore falsely attributing something to the Talmud is a forbidden lie, because the listener is supposed to accept it by virtue of its authority. He says that with the words of medieval authorities (Rishonim) there is weight, and sometimes the norm produces practical acceptance even without formal obligation, and therefore there too the forgery may be forbidden if it is clear that the audience will accept it automatically. He concludes that esoteric writing or an argument not presented as binding authority may be less problematic when the reader weighs claims rather than accepting them by the author’s authority alone, but a claim addressed to an audience that accepts it because of authority is invalid.
Maimonides: Heretic, External Books, and Deeds That Have No Share
The speaker reads from the introduction to the chapter Chelek: Maimonides defines a heretic as an Aramaic word referring to contempt for the Torah or its sages, and also links the concept to one who does not believe in the foundations of the Torah. Maimonides identifies “external books” with “books of sectarians” and with the book of Ben Sira, and expands on books that contain neither wisdom nor benefit but only wasted time, including chronicles, customs of kings, genealogies, and poems found among the Arabs. Maimonides also lists actions about which it is said that such a person has no share in the world to come, such as publicly humiliating another, calling someone by a derogatory nickname, and honoring oneself through another’s disgrace, and argues that such acts testify to a “deficient soul.” He states that the foundations of our Torah are thirteen foundations and presents them as principles of faith.
The Thirteen Principles: The Numerical Framework and the Question of a Principle
The speaker argues that there is no binding tradition that the number of principles must specifically be thirteen, unlike the discussion of the 613 commandments where Nachmanides discusses the source of the number and additions to the count. He says that Maimonides’ division into principles is not the main question; the main question is why a given claim is a principle and why someone who does not accept it should be considered one who denies a fundamental principle. He says that a philosophical argument may perhaps support the truth of a claim, but does not necessarily make it into a binding principle, and suggests that the more a claim seems “required by reason,” the more suspicion arises that it is not a tradition from Sinai but a product of human thought later strengthened through an attribution of authority.
The First and Second Principles: The Existence of the Creator and His Unity
The speaker brings Maimonides’ first principle as the existence of the Creator as the cause of the existence of all beings and the condition for their existence, and raises the difficulty of why the assumption that if His existence were removed all existence would be nullified is a binding principle rather than one possible philosophical position. He then brings the second principle, the unity of God, and emphasizes that Maimonides interprets “one” as not unity of species, not generic unity, not divisible composition, and not a simple body that can be divided. He argues that loading so much onto verses like “I am the Lord” and “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” is not enough to turn all the details of that interpretation into a principle, and suggests that one could interpret them differently without thereby becoming someone who denies a fundamental principle.
Falsehood as a Law Given to Moses at Sinai and the Implications for Trust
The speaker says that some medieval authorities (Rishonim) interpret things that the Talmud calls a law given to Moses at Sinai as in fact rabbinic laws about which it was said “a law given to Moses at Sinai” in order to strengthen them, and he presents this as a noble lie that damages trust in every attribution of a tradition from Sinai. He argues that when everything is presented as “a tradition from Sinai,” including customs and nonsense, trust in traditions collapses, especially precisely in areas that appear rational and seem to be products of human reasoning.
Normative Discussion: Morality, Divinity, and Understanding the Principles
At the end of the lecture, a claim is raised that Maimonides’ principles should be read only in their normative meaning, and the speaker responds that the dispute becomes the question of what claims about divinity even mean as a foundation for morality. A debate develops over whether, if divinity is conceived as part of the forces of nature, that empties morality of its validity, and the speaker rejects claims that he does not understand their content when they are presented as “fictions” or as a single reality.
“He Accepted It as a God” and Split Thinking in Idolatry
At the end, a question is asked about “he accepted it as a god” and how that fits with split consciousness in which a person knows the idol is not a god and nevertheless worships it. The speaker says that accepting something as a god is not a formal declaration but an essential understanding that a god is something with formal authority that obligates action “simply because it said so,” and if a person asks “why obey,” then he does not really grasp the entity as a god. He argues that an idolater can live in a split condition in which inwardly he knows that God is the true God, yet he builds a conscious commitment to the idol, and thus a state exists in which inner knowledge is not translated into acceptance of authority in practice.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Last time we talked about different possibilities for how to understand the prohibition of “do not stray,” and we went through Maimonides’ words in chapter 2 of the laws of idolatry, and I tended to connect it to situations of split consciousness. Meaning, a person basically—like in the story of the turkey prince—a person is really living inside a consciousness in which he believes in something in a certain way, but deep inside there is still a point at which he understands that it is not true. And very often a person can even deliberately create that consciousness, you could say that false consciousness, that second consciousness that he supposedly lives inside, and then there might have been room to say that a person is forbidden to approach or examine positions and arguments in order to create from them a false consciousness. If he wants truly to clarify what he thinks and formulate a position, that’s something else. I said that in that regard I don’t see how you can forbid a person to do such a thing. But it could be that one can forbid him to do it because of his inclination—to create a false consciousness that will basically give him justification for things that his inclination leads him to do. And I said that even with that I’m not all that comfortable, but maybe it could be one possibility. There may be another possibility that I’ll add now. It seems to me I didn’t mention it, because for quite a while I thought maybe this is the intention. It could be that Maimonides here is actually writing in a kind of esoteric way. Meaning, he says there is a prohibition of “do not stray,” while really speaking to those people who will take such a prohibition seriously. Intelligent people won’t take it seriously anyway, so what difference does it make? Meaning, basically he is saying that someone who doesn’t think—better that he live under the framework of “do not stray,” because basically he isn’t capable of reasoning, or he doesn’t want to think, and then it is better to control him with the statement that this is a prohibition, and that will prevent him from reaching all kinds of conclusions, maybe false and maybe not—but we are talking about a person who doesn’t think. And the proof is that he accepted the fact that such a prohibition exists, even though it is absurd. And then the assumption is that an intelligent person already understands on his own that there can’t be such a prohibition, and therefore there is no harm in the fact that you are, let’s say, misleading people here. I don’t know. Esoteric writing was something very common until not all that long ago among philosophers, among religious thinkers. It was very common. Maimonides himself talks about esoteric writing in the introduction to The Guide for the Perplexed and elaborates on the matter, and certainly he does not reject that kind of writing. Writing that basically addresses people who do not understand and conveys one message to them, while to people who do understand it conveys another message—or does not convey the first message—although I have to say parenthetically, maybe I talked about this, I don’t remember, that this policy really infuriates me. This policy of writing esoterically, because basically what it means is that a person who is willing to write esoterically—in the end, it means that you cannot derive anything from what he wrote. Because in the end, if you disagree with what he wrote, you’ll say, okay, then he probably didn’t mean it; it’s esoteric writing. And if you do agree, then you don’t need him—you already agree even without reading it from him. Meaning, this willingness to tell noble lies, lies for a positive purpose, or to write esoterically—it has a very heavy price. It has a heavy price because in the end, from such a person you can learn nothing from anything he writes. Who knows whether he wasn’t lying here for one positive purpose or another, but he didn’t really mean what he wrote. So that is something very problematic. It reminds me—I think we didn’t talk about this—there’s a Talmud in two places where the Talmud says: whoever wants to be hanged should hang himself on a high tree. Meaning, if a person wants his words to be accepted, then he is allowed to lie, to say his words in the name of a great person, ki heikhi delikablu minei, so that they will accept it from him. So he says, ah, this Rabbi Ovadia said this, or Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, or yes. Hang yourself on some high tree, and then they’ll accept your words. The Magen Avraham brings this as Jewish law, yes, in that catch-all section—I forget the exact siman in the Shulchan Arukh—afterward one should go out to his business. There is such a section in the Shulchan Arukh, 151 or 156, something like that, in Orach Chayim, at the end of the morning prayer. And afterward one should go out to his business. And there the Magen Avraham piles in all the laws for which he didn’t find another suitable place, and he brings many, many laws there from all kinds of categories. Among other things, he brings this—that a person is permitted to lie so that others will accept from him. This is the famous story that Rabbi Shalom Schwadron, yes, the well-known Jerusalem preacher, once said in a talk that he heard in the name of the Chazon Ish that the Chazon Ish says it is permitted to say things in the name of a great person even if it is not true, so that people will accept from you. And even that I won’t tell you whether I really heard from the Chazon Ish. Meaning, yes, I think this illustrates very well the problem I spoke about before. So this policy—which maybe in terms of the value of truth and falsehood one can justify because there is some other value that justifies the price of having spoken falsely—but there is some very heavy price here, and it is not just the fact that now you lied, but that you have basically emptied of content everything you always say. Nothing—people can no longer relate to anything you say. Therefore this has such a heavy price. In some senses, lying is almost the worst transgression there can be. People do not understand how severe it is. Meaning, it is something that simply destroys the world completely. You simply cannot relate to anything a person says. Who knows—maybe he is lying for good reasons. Meaning, if truth were not some absolute value that you cannot deviate from under any circumstances, then even if there is justification for the lie that you tell, the damage is enormous. I think all these justifications—it is really a disaster to adopt them. And again, for example, there are certain cases where lying may indeed be possible and may not cause these damages—for example, like the Talmud in Elu Metzi’ot says that Torah scholars are accustomed to alter the truth in three matters, and someone who lies only in those three matters is considered a Torah scholar, and one returns a lost object to him based on visual recognition, without identifying signs. So what is the lie there? Say, matters of modesty—someone asks a person whether he had relations with his wife. You do not have to tell a person when you are intimate with your wife and when you are not. Meaning, those are matters of modesty. Or whether you studied this tractate or that tractate—there too, out of modesty, you don’t say. Or one may lie for the sake of peace—that one is elsewhere, but we can leave that aside for a moment. Those three matters that appear in Elu Metzi’ot are lies that I do not think are destructive in the sense I described before. Because fine, if I ask a person idiotic questions, then obviously I am not supposed to take seriously what he answers me. Don’t ask, and don’t expect an answer. Those are not the harmful lies I was talking about before. The harmful lies I was talking about before are when you state a halakhic argument, a theological argument, or something of that kind, and you lie because you think this will educate the public better, or I don’t know, prevent one harm or another. That is destructive. That is not a piece of information about your personal life. You don’t have to reveal it, and in principle you can even lie, at least if there is justification for it. The problem there is only the problem of saying a falsehood, which is a limited problem. And if there is justification, then maybe one can pay for that justification with the currency of falsehood. But the peripheral damage, the broad damage caused by a policy of lying, is terrible. Meaning—but not in personal matters, rather in matters of principle. For example, a great many halakhic decisors customarily lie all the time. Meaning, they lie in a completely systematic way, openly. People ask them whether something is forbidden or permitted, and they say forbidden. And it is not forbidden. There is no source at all that says it is forbidden. But it seems harmful to them and proper to forbid it, so they forbid it. Now that is destructive. That is really destructive. They think they are increasing fear of Heaven and preventing problems, but they are creating problems so severe and so deep that it is a huge mistake. And many decisors do it—sometimes unconsciously, sometimes intentionally—but many do it. What? An example? Yes, all kinds of questions, I don’t know, people ask. Regarding the status of women in synagogues, this is very common. Yes? They ask whether a woman is allowed to give a Torah talk in synagogue, or whether one may put up such a partition or do this or that, or whether a woman may read from the Torah, or all kinds of things of that sort. Now in most of these questions, at least in my view, there is no prohibition at all. You can say it is positive or negative, everyone according to his own position, but prohibition—there is none. These are all inventions. And there are decisors who speak very unequivocally: yes, this is forbidden, period, forbidden. And first of all, this is adding prohibitions. You are not allowed to say about something that is not forbidden that it is forbidden. You are adding prohibitions beyond what is actually forbidden. Beyond that, it is harmful. Why is it harmful? Especially in our time, because today information is accessible to everyone, and if they don’t hear it from here, they read it there on the internet, or from someone else, or yes—today the world is a global village and information is accessible to everyone, and very quickly these lies are discovered. The moment these lies are discovered, trust is lost. And now every halakhic statement, every theological statement, whatever you want that they ask you—nobody will believe you anymore. Yes, they lose trust in you. Now I have spoken with quite a few people—they have no trust at all in what halakhic decisors say. A bunch of liars. And that’s true—they are a bunch of liars. A bunch of liars, maybe with good intentions. But still, it is a very accepted norm among decisors to say of something that it is forbidden because it is not proper, because you want to prevent it.
[Speaker C] That sounds awful.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, rabbi—even though it sounds awful, doesn’t it also have some very important advantages, really essential ones, beyond the supposedly local benefit of trying to persuade people to do something? Once people write point blank—assuming you can even write in a non-absolute way, because after all anything a person says can always be interpreted in 150 opposite ways. But beyond that, the very fact that it gives us the message to think for ourselves. No matter what the other person said, however great or small he may be, you can never fully rely on what he said, and in the end you always have to think for yourself. That’s an enormous advantage—that you don’t need to rely on any decisor or any great authority just because he is a great authority.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that comment in a moment, I’ll get to that comment in a moment. It’s a correct comment; I’ll get to it shortly. So in short, the claim is that yes, I don’t know, questions like whether one may ride a bicycle on the Sabbath, okay? They ask whether it is permitted or forbidden. Of course almost all decisors will say it is categorically forbidden. They ask them: why is it forbidden? What is forbidden? Then suddenly they start—well, maybe he may come to fix it, or it is weekday activity, or all kinds of things like that. Now some of them may even genuinely believe this, but really it is not something for which you can provide a solid foundation for prohibition. The whole concept of weekday activity is itself some kind of catch-all clause that gets used according to whatever seems right to you. Yes, what is weekday activity? If you permit riding on the Sabbath, then people will ride on the Sabbath too, so then it wouldn’t be weekday activity. It is weekday activity because you forbid riding it on the Sabbath, so people do it only on weekdays, and therefore it is forbidden to do on the Sabbath because it is weekday activity. Meaning, what is the objective definition of weekday activity? But fine, here one could perhaps argue. It could be that he thinks there really is some dimension of weekdayness here, and maybe there is some prohibition of weekday activity, and that is how he interprets it. But this is so common. You see it everywhere. You see decisors—the Chazon Ish, by the way, addresses this explicitly. I talked about this yesterday or today, I don’t remember. Today in the morning. The Chazon Ish, for example, sensed this problem, something that has driven me crazy for years. Meaning, all kinds of decisors that you see in responsa or various answers, you see that people ask them whether something is forbidden or permitted. So they conduct a discussion and come to the conclusion that it does not fall under the category of a Torah-level prohibition. Fine, then apparently it is forbidden rabbinically. Now what does that mean, that it is forbidden rabbinically? For something to be forbidden rabbinically, it requires a determination of an authorized religious court that prohibited it. The fact that you decide it is not appropriate to permit such a thing does not turn the thing into a rabbinic prohibition. A rabbinic prohibition is when an authorized religious court determined that this matter is an enactment, a decree, yes, all those things. It is within the authority of a religious court; it has the authority to prohibit. The moment the religious court determines it, it becomes binding and turns into a rabbinic prohibition. You cannot invent rabbinic prohibitions. Decisors do this at every step. At every step. Anything that doesn’t seem right to them—well, this can’t be permitted, but they don’t find a category—fine, then it is forbidden rabbinically. This is not selecting, yes, but it is selecting rabbinically. As if it can’t be permitted, so therefore it is selecting rabbinically. There is no such thing as selecting rabbinically. If an authorized religious court—or let’s say the Talmud, which gains a status like a religious court—determined that this thing is forbidden, then say that it is forbidden. Fine, a rabbinic prohibition. But if you think it is proper to forbid it—so what if it is proper? But they did not forbid it. You can say, in my opinion it is proper to refrain from this. Perfectly fine. A completely legitimate statement, and one can absolutely accept it, and it is also proper to say it. But you cannot say forbidden. It is not forbidden. It is a lie. A lie, and adding prohibitions. Two things.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, but doesn’t the definition of a halakhic decisor even today include the ability, supposedly, to prohibit something that was never prohibited before?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ability—that’s authority. Many people have ability. He has no authority. He cannot create prohibitions. He can interpret an existing prohibition and say: in my opinion this is included in prohibition A, or prohibition B, Torah-level, rabbinic level, all fine. You cannot say this is forbidden rabbinically because it seems to me it is forbidden. There is no such thing. It is simply a lie.
[Speaker B] Fine, so that means he is not creating a new prohibition but including a prohibition, like—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A new case.
[Speaker B] Within an existing prohibition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, if it really is included in the existing prohibition, no problem. That’s perfectly fine. That’s his job. But only if in his opinion it really is included in the existing prohibition. But if he decides it is forbidden because he found no Torah-level prohibition, and it can’t be that we allow it, so therefore it is forbidden rabbinically—that is just a lie.
[Speaker B] No, that’s clearly not right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not clear, because decisors do it—almost all of them.
[Speaker B] No, but I’m trying to understand—I’m trying to understand what the word posek even means. What is a halakhic decisor? When I hear halakhic decisor, I think he is a halakhic expert.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is a doctor? A medical expert. A halakhic decisor is a halakhic expert. That’s all. A decisor is not a Sanhedrin. A decisor is not supposed to innovate laws. A decisor is supposed to interpret the existing laws.
[Speaker B] But the word “to decide” means that now he can issue a ruling, supposedly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To determine whether there is an existing halakhic clause here or not, but not to create halakhic clauses.
[Speaker B] So what advantage does he have over, I don’t know, Google, where I can find everything?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No advantage at all. He is simply a halakhic expert. If you have that same trust in Google, ask Rabbi Google. There is no difference at all. On the contrary—there is an article by my friend Nadav Shnerb. He wrote an article called “The Jewish Ark of Lies,” as a play on “the Jewish bookshelf.” And he says there that very often people praise decisors for going according to the spirit of each individual. You know, some poor miserable woman comes to you, you permit her the chicken. If someone else comes, you forbid him the chicken. And how wonderful that the decisor is not just a technocrat, but understands who stands before him and takes that into account. It’s a bunch of liars. When someone comes to ask you Jewish law, if the matter is permitted, say permitted; if the matter is forbidden, say forbidden. If there are two possibilities and you can say, look, in pressing circumstances one may be lenient, say that. But you cannot say to one person permitted when it is forbidden, or to another person forbidden when it is permitted. The role of a decisor is not to understand who stands before him. The role of a decisor is to say what Jewish law says. That’s all.
[Speaker C] So does that mean it should be the same answer for everyone?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can present it this way or that way, that’s all fine. You need to know whom you are speaking to, but not change the content of the answer. You can say, in pressing circumstances one may be lenient. Fine. There are halakhic situations where you say that. If there is a situation where you can be lenient, say so. But in such a case, you must say it to the wealthy person too. Let him know that this thing is not actually forbidden; in pressing circumstances one may be lenient. From you I would expect stringency, because you are not in distress. Say it that way. But don’t say to him forbidden and to the other one permitted, because that is a lie. Therefore this great praise—and you can see it everywhere, there’s no one who doesn’t write and think this way—what enormous praise, how the decisors understand who stands before them and all that. It’s simply a bunch of liars. That’s all. Beyond that, I have nothing to say about it.
[Speaker B] And rabbi, forgive the perhaps overly simple question, but what is the source—the Torah source, a verse—for the prohibition against lying?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a value; it is not necessarily a prohibition. There is “keep far from falsehood” in the Torah. But “keep far” is not counted as a prohibition. The prohibition that appears in the Torah against lying is generally interpreted as lying in a religious court.
[Speaker B] So there isn’t a verse?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is the distancing: “keep far from falsehood.” Rabbi Sherlo once wrote about “keep far from falsehood.” He made a kind of Shulchan Arukh of the laws of lying in one of the first issues of Tzohar. So he writes there that there are two things from which the Torah distances us, not just prohibits us. One is falsehood and the other is sexual prohibitions, because seclusion—forbidden seclusion—or closeness to sexual prohibitions is basically distancing from sexual prohibitions beyond the forbidden act itself; you are also commanded to keep far away. That basically means there is something much deeper or much more foundational here than an ordinary prohibition. It means not only that it is forbidden; you even need to keep your distance, even though it is not counted as a prohibition. “Keep far from falsehood” is not counted as a formal prohibition. But the Torah says it—maybe it doesn’t count it as a prohibition because it doesn’t want to turn it into some formal ban where we ask when it is permitted and when it is forbidden. No, no. You need to keep far away, period—not according to formal halakhic definitions. Because it’s immoral? Is it a matter of morality? No, because it is harmful. It destroys the whole human fabric. Kant spoke about this at great length. In any event, yes, Kant wanted to argue that one must not lie even when one’s life depends on it. Because there is the categorical imperative: you would not want everyone to lie, therefore it is forbidden to lie even if your life depends on it. He went a bit too far, but yes, there really is something here that is very, very destructive. This policy that allows channels for lying is a very destructive policy. It is insanely destructive—not because of the value of falsehood itself, that’s not the point. Meaning, if you uttered a falsehood right now, that’s not good; one should not lie, it’s improper, forbidden, whatever—lying. That is not the point. The point is that it empties speech and discourse between people of all content. You can’t speak anymore. It becomes impossible to speak. Everything you say will be interpreted in the opposite way, because maybe you spoke esoterically, or lied, or whatever—so forget it. There is no point talking; be silent. And that is what often happens today in people’s attitude toward decisors. More clear-eyed people, of course—not the naïve ones. More clear-eyed people, who suddenly see that the decisor is just selling them nonsense and lying to them all the time, lose trust. They will no longer relate to him even when he says things that really are forbidden. It’s like—yes—Eve and the tree, what Rashi brings, the midrash Rashi brings, that when the serpent comes to Eve, when he tempts her to eat from the tree of knowledge, she says to him that it is forbidden to touch the tree of knowledge. So the serpent pushes her, and she touched the tree of knowledge and nothing happened. So he says to her: see, you touched the tree of knowledge and nothing happened, and then she ate. The Holy One, blessed be He, did not forbid touching; He only forbade eating. But the moment she expanded the front, as lawyers call it—meaning, she said that it was also forbidden to touch and not only to eat—then the damage immediately came. Meaning, that is supposedly a good lie, because she wanted to fend off the serpent and be God-fearing, not to come anywhere near even a possibility of transgressing the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, so she lied to him and said: I am forbidden even to touch. And see what happened—in the end she also ate. And I think that is the lesson of this midrash. The lesson of this midrash is that whoever adds subtracts. Don’t think you are more righteous if you prohibit things and say that things are forbidden. You are only a harmful liar, and someone who violates the prohibition against adding. That’s all; beyond that I have nothing to say. Just one comment that I still have to add: I do not agree with him, but the Chazon Ish was at least an honest Jew in this sense, in that he sensed it. He sensed that decisors do this, and in two places, I think—I bring this in the book—in two places he talks about it and asks how decisors really do this. How do decisors say this is forbidden rabbinically? If it is forbidden rabbinically, you need an authorized religious court to establish it as a decree or ordinance. You cannot decide on your own that something is forbidden rabbinically. So he wants to argue—this is one of the Chazon Ish’s well-known inventions, he has all kinds of such inventions that I am always unsure whether he himself believed in—yes, that itself may also be a noble lie, perhaps. He says that the early sages, yes, the religious courts back when there was a Sanhedrin, or at least the Talmud, or something like that, basically made some kind of enactment like the law of agency, that whatever the sages throughout the generations would find appropriate to forbid, truly we are already enacting now that it will be forbidden. And now they merely indicate what is included in that enactment and what is not. Fine. I have never heard of such a session of a religious court or such a general enactment, so to me it sounds like an invention. But he at least sensed the phenomenon and its problematic nature. He understood that there is something here that requires explanation. Meaning, how do decisors say things that are simply not true? You cannot say that something is forbidden when it is not forbidden. So that is regarding this whole topic of esoteric writing and lies and so on.
[Speaker E] By the way, I think I have a nice example of this. A few years ago my brother-in-law had a daughter born. He was in a hospital, and next to his wife’s bed there was a Gur Hasidic couple, husband and wife, who had also just had a baby. And he noticed that the husband was touching his wife with no problem at all. So he didn’t feel comfortable saying something to them, but after a few days he spoke with him and gently mentioned the matter, asked him what was going on. And the Gur Hasid said to him: no, we don’t keep the regulations. There are the Gur regulations, after all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, we don’t keep them.
[Speaker E] Gur is really a cult.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I mean, what happens there is really terrible.
[Speaker E] This whole thing, that there is no longer any distinction—no distinction between the regulation and Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The damage caused by this codification, in the end—you know, there’s a story about the Shaagas Aryeh. The Shaagas Aryeh was a bit persecuted by the Enlightenment types and so on. He came to some city—this was really at the very beginning of the Enlightenment, because he was actually quite early, but I don’t know, that’s how I remember it. He came to some city and they appointed him the rabbi of the community there, of the city. So he asked for the community ledger. They brought him the community ledger, and he wrote the Ten Commandments in it. So they asked him, “Why are you writing the Ten Commandments?” He said, “I know you people, and I know that people are usually much more careful about what’s written in the community ledger than about the Ten Commandments. Meaning, if you stand on your right foot instead of your left foot when the community ledger says you have to stand on your left foot at this stage, people will kill you on the spot. But if you speak slander, or worship idols, or things like that, well, that’s not so terrible—on that you can be lenient.” So he wrote the Ten Commandments in the community ledger. Right, again, it’s the same issue. People get the minor mixed up with the severe—or not even the minor, but the nothing with the severe. And once you stop being careful to distinguish between these two levels, or these two kinds of things, you pay a heavy price for it. People think you become more religious if you present everything as forbidden, but no—you cause terrible damage. By the way, one of the problems with the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh—and this appears somewhat even in the Shulchan Arukh itself, but in the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh it’s very common—is that it makes no distinction at all between a Torah-level prohibition, a rabbinic prohibition, a custom, a nice practice, or things of that sort. From its perspective, everything is presented in the same form: forbidden, permitted, that’s it. It isn’t careful at all about making those distinctions. It’s a book for laypeople, right? But that’s a very problematic thing, very problematic. You present everything in the same way, so the layman will keep everything. Ostensibly you’ve achieved a halakhic success, right? You’ve brought your public to be more stringent. But on the other hand, once those laypeople start discovering that all kinds of things are written there that in fact aren’t binding at all, they’ll start treating with contempt even things that really are Jewish law. So it’s a short-term gain and major long-term damage.
[Speaker D] Moving on—Rabbi, the criticism of the ledger of halakhic decisors is different for different people; it depends on two assumptions. First, that desire doesn’t influence the ruling, and that’s an illusion—we see all the time, in every direction and every day of the year, that it’s not so. I didn’t say that. And beyond that, I think it’s also built on the assumption that Jewish law is uniform for everyone, and that’s also not necessarily true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And it could very well be that Jewish law is specific to every situation, every state—it’s unique to each person.
[Speaker D] Who says it isn’t uniform for everyone? Of course Jewish law is uniform for everyone. The question is what Jewish law says, that’s all. And if Jewish law is specific to every situation, every state, then it’s unique to each person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no such thing as situations. In Jewish law there are halakhic principles, and that’s true for everyone. Except that there is…
[Speaker D] That’s an assumption, Rabbi, it’s not proven, not proven.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could certainly be that Jewish law is—
[Speaker D] —that God’s will is specific to every thing, every case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In each case, every case is different. Anything could be. It could also be that in a Torah-level doubt we rule leniently; it could be that idol worship is permitted; anything could be. Fine, it just isn’t true, what can I do. There is Jewish law, and that’s it—you don’t invent things, you’re not the master of Jewish law. Jewish law says what it says. I’m not saying there aren’t disputes, I’m not saying that in every situation there’s only one possible ruling—no, absolutely not. I’m saying there are definitely situations in which there’s room to be lenient, room to be stringent—so say that. Tell this person there’s room to be lenient, and tell that person there’s also room to be lenient, but from you I would expect stringency. But what they say is no: for you it’s permitted and for you it’s forbidden.
[Speaker D] If Jewish law is God’s will, then it’s completely reasonable—most reasonable in the world—that God’s will differs from case to case, from person to person, from background to background.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what “God’s will” means. Jewish law is what Jewish law established. “God’s will” is not a relevant term here. Jewish law is what Jewish law determines. Somebody can say that God’s will is for me to worship idols—so what if it’s written otherwise? That’s esoteric writing. Fine? Everything’s fine.
[Speaker D] No, that’s not the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is the same thing.
[Speaker D] God’s will isn’t important to us in halakhic ruling? What? God’s will—what we think God’s will is—we don’t care about that in halakhic ruling?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course not—what do you mean? “It is not in heaven.” In the end, what is written in Jewish law is God’s will, as far as I’m concerned.
[Speaker D] Fine, we represent the Holy One, blessed be He, in this world and not somebody else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true. Practically speaking, God’s will is what is written in Jewish law, that’s it. Everything else is inventions. Ah, because there was… There is God’s will in the sense of morality, which is not connected to Jewish law. But in terms of Jewish law, God’s will is what Jewish law says, that’s all.
[Speaker C] And even when the Torah was still an oral Torah—
[Speaker D] —and we couldn’t rely either on the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh or on the Shulchan Arukh—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that has nothing to do with what’s written. I’m not talking about whether it’s written or not written; even if it’s transmitted orally. No problem if everything is transmitted orally, but you still need a source in order to prohibit. Right? You can’t just make things up.
[Speaker D] And Ben Petura and so on, until Rabbi Akiva came. What does “until Rabbi Akiva came” mean? And what was until then? Until then people died, supposedly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe until then the question never arose, or maybe they thought differently. What’s the problem? I don’t understand.
[Speaker D] He’s saying there was much greater freedom of thought.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not that there was freedom of thought. Whether there is freedom of thought or not is a completely different question.
[Speaker D] What—does the Rabbi really think Rabbi Akiva reached his conclusion only because of the verse? Suddenly he said, wow—“that your brother may live with you,” your life takes precedence over the life of your fellow?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The plain meaning of the verse actually says the opposite: “that your brother may live with you.” I’m not talking about the verse at all, whether he arrived there by way of the verse.
[Speaker D] But when he says—and this wasn’t a received tradition, after all, it wasn’t a received tradition—when he says—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When he says that something specific is forbidden, he has to tell me from which clause it is forbidden. It could be that his interpretation is what determines that this thing belongs under that clause, and someone else—Ben Petura—will disagree with him. Fine, no problem. Interpretation is allowed, as long as you interpret within the bounds of Jewish law.
[Speaker D] Right, conservatism is an important value. I’m not saying— I’m not talking about conservatism.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It has nothing to do with conservatism. I’m a great revolutionary; it has nothing to do with conservatism at all. No connection whatsoever. Conservatism or revolutionariness is a question of how far you go in the world of interpretation. I’m talking about people who establish Jewish law not on the basis of interpretation, but because it seems to them that it ought to be prohibited. That’s not the same thing. The question is whether you’re a revolutionary in the world of interpretation—there are different approaches, perfectly fine. As long as you’re in the world of interpretation, I have no problem with you. But if you tell me, no, this should be prohibited because it’s a rabbinic prohibition—not because you interpreted it, found some rabbinic enactment or rabbinic decree and said this is probably included in that decree—fine, that’s interpretation. Even if I don’t accept the interpretation, it’s still legitimate.
[Speaker D] Does the Rabbi remove desire from that interpretation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, of course not.
[Speaker D] Not at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying you need to interpret. How do you interpret? Is desire involved, is desire not involved? I don’t care—that’s a psychological issue, not mine. What I’m asking is: do you interpret before you state the law, or do you state the law because that’s what seems right to you? I’m objecting to the second possibility. That’s all. Now, if you interpret and afterward somebody from the side says, no no, this interpretation is biased because you think such-and-such—fine, we’re all human beings. But you are supposed to interpret. Interpretation is your gross total; your entire gross total is interpretation.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, in the specific case you gave as an example, where Rabbi Akiva suddenly had the idea pop into his mind that “that your brother may live with you” means your life takes precedence—did he really sit there as a biblical interpreter detached from life, from reality, from the situation, and say: linguistically it seems to me that “that your brother may live with you” means your life takes precedence over your fellow’s?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t understand the connections you’re making. I simply can’t understand.
[Speaker D] How did he arrive at that interpretation? Surely from—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He decided on the basis of his reasoning that “that your brother may live with you” means that your life takes precedence. That’s all. What’s the problem?
[Speaker D] What motivated that ruling, opposite to Ben Petura? The existential human situation of what do you do in such a case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does that matter? Why does that matter? They both interpreted a verse; each came with his own reasoning, and that reasoning interpreted the verse. As long as it’s within the world of interpretation, I have no problem with it. Yes, fine, I agree too—
[Speaker D] I’m not saying otherwise, and that’s exactly—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —what I’m talking about.
[Speaker D] Yes, but I’m only saying that interpretation of the verse is not detached from life and from desire.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it was detached. You keep repeating that all the time; I didn’t say it was detached.
[Speaker D] Okay, so the dispute between us doesn’t exist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The main thing is only that you have to do it by way of interpretation—whatever that interpretation may be. That interpretation includes within it the totality of the world—your upbringing, your biography, your tendencies, your values, all true. But in the end, in the end, it’s you. And when you interpret Jewish law, that’s perfectly fine—that’s Jewish law as far as you are concerned. But if you say, look, I have no interpretation, I can’t find any rabbinic decree that this thing falls under, but it’s rabbinically forbidden because I haven’t found an anchor for it but it can’t be that it’s permitted—that’s a lie. That’s all.
[Speaker D] Obviously. But when that poor woman stands before the halakhic decisor, as opposed to Elon Musk, and both have the same chicken, he won’t necessarily rule the same way for both of them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he has to rule exactly the same way for both of them. Exactly the same. He has to tell them, friends, listen, this chicken is a problematic chicken. There is a certain approach that is lenient in cases like this, or a certain side on which to be lenient in cases like this. Now it’s your decision.
[Speaker D] No, no, I want to ask you, Rabbi—she asks him, Rabbi, rule for me, I’m a simple woman—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And Elon Musk too, whose only desire is for the rabbi to rule. I know she’s asking me, and that’s the answer I give her.
[Speaker D] But she doesn’t know, Rabbi. It’s like when people ask me as a doctor—I can’t tell them, go break your head over it. Sometimes he tells me, sometimes the patient says, I can’t decide, I want you to do the work for me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then tell him to go jump in a lake. That’s what you should tell him. Let him dance a hora around it. If he can’t decide, let him find somebody else. You are not supposed to decide; you’re supposed to present the medical data and the implications of each of the options. The decision is ultimately his, not yours. That’s all. And if he’s unwilling to decide, let him go to the neighborhood witch doctor who’ll decide for him. I don’t know. Again, as a favor you can decide for him, fine, but that isn’t your role as a doctor. As a doctor you’re not supposed to decide, and a halakhic decisor also isn’t supposed to decide. A halakhic decisor is supposed to present the options, and the person has to decide. In the end, in the end, the questioner has to decide—only him. You just present the options. You tell that woman: look, there are opinions that are lenient; in great need you may rely on them. Now decide whether you rely on them or not. And to Elon Musk you say exactly the same thing. There are lenient opinions; in great need you may rely on them. Now decide whether you are in need or not, whether you rely on them, don’t rely on them—that’s your decision, it has nothing to do with me. I present to you the halakhic world because I’m a halakhic expert. That’s all. I don’t provide decision-making services.
[Speaker D] What I’m trying to understand is whether the Rabbi still sees in reality—take lawyers: give him a million dollars and he’ll find everything, he’ll genuinely believe in side A, but give him a million dollars for side B and he’ll fully believe and present side B honestly and properly. How can that be? How can someone present opposite opinions? Does he really believe it? His judgment—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re going back to the same comment from before, and I already told you—it has nothing to do with the discussion.
[Speaker D] Does the Rabbi agree that desire decides?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not discussing the question of how we do interpretation. The fact that we’re biased and have desires and agendas and interests—I’m not talking about that at all. All of that together is interpretation. I’m talking about somebody who acts not by way of interpretation.
[Speaker D] On that I agree, that I agree with.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That’s what I’m talking about, only that. If the lawyer says, you’re innocent even though he thinks you’re not innocent, because he wants to give you pleasure, I don’t know why—fine—then he’s a liar, not a lawyer. If he thinks you’re right because he entered into the issue, and the interests including agendas—all true, we’re all human—and in the end he formulates some position, and that is genuinely his legal position, perfectly fine. But you can’t tell someone, look, you’re acquitted, when according to the law he isn’t acquitted; he’ll get to the judge and get slapped in the face. That’s not—you’re just lying to him. Okay, in any event, for our purposes, I need one more completion. This took me too much time, this whole thing. So one more completion regarding autonomy. I mentioned that Magen Avraham, who says that it’s permissible to lie—to attribute things to a great person so that people will accept them from me. So I once thought to myself: how can it be that such a thing is permitted? It’s outrageous, right? We’re discussing some question, I don’t know, in the laws of the Sabbath, and someone says: oh, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein permits this, no problem. And Rabbi Moshe Feinstein never even dreamed of it, and this ignoramus thinks it’s permitted and tells me so in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, and I’ll say, well, if Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said so then apparently one can be lenient here, and I’ll end up violating the Sabbath for nothing because this ignoramus decided to lie to me. It’s not reasonable that Jewish law would permit such a thing. Meaning, to say things in the name of a great person, to lie in the name of a great person so they’ll accept it from me. Therefore my claim was—and I’ve spoken about this more than once—that my explanation of the Magen Avraham is the opposite. I think the Magen Avraham—it’s not really the Magen Avraham, it’s Talmudic passages—but what those Talmudic passages that the Magen Avraham brought assume, in my view, is the opposite assumption. They assume that when a person hears things, even in the name of a great person, he is not supposed to accept them just because the great person said them. He is supposed to decide for himself. And therefore it is permissible to say those things to him in the name of a great person. Now one could ask: then what’s the whole point? He won’t accept it anyway. After all, you say it in the name of a great person so that he’ll accept it, and if in any case he only does what he himself thinks, how does that help you? The answer is—and this connects to Shmuel’s earlier recurring comments—the answer is that we are all human beings. And sometimes there are situations where, say, I raise arguments that in my view are good arguments, and I feel that my interlocutor isn’t weighing them seriously, he’s dismissing me: this idiot, what does he know about his arguments. And I feel that if he gave them more serious attention, he might perhaps change his mind, he would weigh it seriously. So what do I tell him? Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said this argument. A total lie, and I’m an ignoramus, it has nothing to do with anything. Now what happens? That person will not necessarily do what Rabbi Moshe Feinstein supposedly said. Rather, he won’t dismiss it. He’ll weigh it seriously, and when he formulates a position he’ll take those arguments seriously as well—and then his final position will be his own. In the end he’ll do what he thinks, but he’ll do it מתוך a fuller perspective. He’ll consider all the factors and won’t dismiss arguments that in my view are good arguments, which he otherwise doesn’t take into account. So in that sense, this very permission to lie in the name of a great person so that people will accept it from him is actually an indication that people are not supposed to accept things because a great person said them. So what if a great person said it? He said it. All you need to do is weigh seriously what that great person said. If a great person said it, naturally we’ll weigh it seriously; it’s probably not nonsense. But in the end, I formulate my position based on what seems right to me, after I’ve heard all the arguments of that great person and of various others and my own. In the end I formulate my own position. But I weigh it seriously—that is basically the foundation of that permission in the Magen Avraham.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now this has implications. For example, for a long time I had difficulty with the well-known stories about forgeries. Right? There’s the responsa collection Besamim Rosh, which was attributed to the Rosh. Later it turned out to be a forgery. But it was attributed to the Rosh. Besamim Rosh with the commentary Kisei Deharsena—and Kisei Deharsena basically forged the responsa of the Rosh too, right? It was a forgery, and then everyone got terribly angry: how can he forge like this, he’s misleading the public, and so on. And I said, what’s the problem? He’s simply making use of the Magen Avraham’s permission. What’s the problem with that? Or similarly there was a very famous forgery of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. Right? Somebody came—I think this was at the beginning of the twentieth century—and claimed he had found a manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. There is no Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. And he found a manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim. Obviously in the end it became clear that he had forged it, and he wrote his own novellae on Kodashim in the form—he was apparently a talented Jew and also a Torah scholar—and he wrote his novellae on Kodashim as if it were Talmud, as if it were the Jerusalem Talmud on topics in Kodashim. Then of course everyone became upset; there are many fascinating stories about this. The Klei Chemdah wrote a book to prove that it was forged, and the Rogatchover claimed it was forged on the basis of a very interesting consideration. He argues that in the Jerusalem Talmud, in every chapter, a sage appears who had not appeared until then. And he checked this Jerusalem Talmud and found that it didn’t hold there. So he says it’s a forgery. It’s simply an amazing phenomenon. I don’t know whether anyone ever checked that claim of the Rogatchover; it could be that he too was fooling us, but it really is a fascinating argument. Very fitting for him, for the Rogatchover. In any case, for our purposes, in the end there was enormous anger at those forgers. And ostensibly, what do people want from them? There is a permission in the Talmud, brought as Jewish law in the Magen Avraham, that you may lean on a great person so that people will accept things from you. So what’s the problem? Now in light of what I said before, the picture changes a bit. Because the whole permission you received to say things in the name of a great person so that people will accept them from you applies only where you know that the listener won’t accept them just because of you, but will merely consider your arguments more seriously. But in a place where the listener, once you bring him that source or that great person who said it, you know he will also accept it—clearly in such a situation it is forbidden to do this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now regarding the Jerusalem Talmud, that’s simple. Because Talmud is an authoritative text. Meaning, we are bound by the Talmud—primarily the Babylonian Talmud, but also the Jerusalem Talmud. Maimonides even says that the Jerusalem Talmud is more authoritative, meaning of higher authority than the Babylonian Talmud. But to the Talmuds we are bound, to the Sages we are bound. Therefore to say things in the name of the Talmud is certainly a forbidden lie, because the person who hears it is supposed to accept it. And you may not lie to someone who will really accept it solely because it is written in the Jerusalem Talmud. If it’s somebody who will weigh it seriously but in the end formulate his own position, then I’m allowed to lie to him. But if it’s somebody who accepts it automatically, then this permission was not said there. What about Besamim Rosh? The words of medieval authorities (Rishonim) truly need not be accepted automatically. Consider it on its own merits and decide what you think. But even that is not entirely simple. First, the words of medieval authorities carry weight. It could be that if I’m hesitating and I see that there is a responsum of the Rosh saying such-and-such, I might say: fine, then I’ll go with that side, because I have no other clear position, so I’ll accept the Rosh’s position. Or alternatively, in a place where the norm has developed and we know that in most places this is how it works—if one of the medieval authorities said it, then people will accept it, even though they don’t really have to, but the norm that developed is that people do accept it. Now assuming that is the norm that developed, once again it is forbidden to lie. Because once you lie and say it in the name of one of the medieval authorities, you know your listeners will accept it automatically. And in such a case the permission to lie was certainly never said.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So esoteric writing can be justified. Say Maimonides were to write an argument based on premises leading to a conclusion. He himself doesn’t believe in that argument. Fine, I have no problem with that. Why? Because I don’t accept the argument because Maimonides said it; rather, if I am persuaded by the argument then I am persuaded, and if I am not persuaded by it then I won’t accept it—what’s the problem? He merely presented me with another argument for my consideration. Therefore, once Maimonides presents an argument, I have no problem at all. But if Maimonides establishes a halakhic or theological or whatever kind of assertion, and it is addressed to a population that will accept it simply because Maimonides said it, that is forbidden. Okay, so therefore there are situations in which—yes, this is the answer to what you asked earlier, Shmuel, about autonomy. Meaning, where there really is an autonomous conception, which in my opinion is how it ought to be, then there is indeed room for this permission. But where the conception is not autonomous, but rather that the words of the medieval authorities are binding, or any binding text—then you cannot lie and tell them things in the name of that binding text: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, or Rabbi Ovadia, or Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, no matter who it may be. Because you know that people will accept it from you simply because Rabbi Shlomo Zalman said it. So you may not say he said things that he did not say. Okay? So that is basically what this Talmudic passage is about.
[Speaker D] This Talmudic passage is somewhat against faith in the sages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly, that’s my claim. This Talmudic passage is against the distorted notions of faith in the sages that exist today among many people. It’s not against faith in the sages. So that’s the concept of esoteric writing and lies and the like. Now, basically I want to move on. The next stage—we have finally reached, after all the introductions, the dogmatics themselves. So let’s look a bit at Maimonides’ principles of faith. The principles appear, as I already mentioned, in Maimonides’ introduction to the chapter Chelek. Those who have no share in the world to come—and there they discuss heretics and sectarians and all these distinguished personages—and in the introduction to the chapter Chelek, among other things—it’s a long introduction—but among other things Maimonides speaks there about the principles of faith. So he says as follows: “And the word apikoros is an Aramaic word, meaning leniency and contempt toward the Torah or toward the sages of the Torah. Therefore they apply this term generally to one who does not believe in the foundations of the Torah, or who disparages the sages, or any Torah scholar whatsoever, or his rabbi—one who disparages his rabbi.” Now this is interesting, by the way, because as far as I know apikoros is the name of a Greek philosopher, not an Aramaic word. But I don’t know; maybe we should ask experts in Aramaic linguistics whether there really is a source for that. “And external books”—they said, the books of sectarians, and likewise the books of Ben Sira, who was a man who composed books full of fantasies on matters of divination, which contain neither wisdom nor benefit, only a waste of time with empty things. Such as those books found among the Arabs concerning chronicles, customs of kings, genealogies of Arab tribes, books of songs, and the like—books that contain neither wisdom nor material benefit, but only a waste of time.” This too is very interesting, by the way. Maimonides sees all these things as a waste of time. Books of chronicles? For example, we—about the Oral Torah, Maimonides himself wrote the whole chain of generations of the Oral Torah. Customs of kings, genealogies of tribes—that’s just history. Books of songs—so you have poetry, literature. “All books that contain neither wisdom nor material benefit, but only a waste of time.” Maybe he means a certain kind of poetry and writings, but not these fields in general, because this attitude is strange.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And one who whispers over a wound,” specifically while spitting, because that involves contempt for the Name; “and one who pronounces the Name with its letters,” meaning that he pronounces yod-heh-vav-heh, which is the explicit Name. “And they already mentioned things besides these, such that one who does them has no share.” They said: one who humiliates his fellow publicly has no share in the world to come; and one who calls his fellow by a nickname; and one who honors himself through the disgrace of his fellow. “For none of these actions, even though they are light in the thought of the thinker, come except from a deficient soul.” Meaning, these actions may be light, but the one who does them has a deficient soul, one that has not reached perfection and is not fit for life in the world to come. “And what is fitting that I mention here—and this is the most fitting place to mention them—is that the principles of our pure Torah and its foundations are thirteen foundations.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now of course Maimonides determines that there are thirteen principles. Where did the number thirteen come from? There is no tradition that there are thirteen principles. Maimonides simply collected the principles that he thought were principles, and it came out to thirteen. Right? It’s not that if someone disagrees with one of Maimonides’ principles, he has to find another principle in order to bring the number back up to thirteen. No. There is no sanctity in the number thirteen; it’s simply what he came up with. Why am I saying this?
[Speaker B] Because unlike the 613, for example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Regarding the 613 commandments, the tradition ostensibly tells us that there are 613 commandments, and therefore it is accepted that if someone disagrees with Maimonides—Nachmanides disagrees with Maimonides concerning some commandment, positive or negative—then he has to insert another commandment in its place so that the count remains intact. And in fact, whoever knows, in Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot, at the end, appear the commandments that Nachmanides adds to Maimonides’ count, among the positive commandments and prohibitions, to complete the total of 613 for all the commandments on which he disagreed. So here there is some assumption that the number 613 is not the accidental result of simply counting the commandments and coming out with 613, but rather no—there is a tradition that there are 613 commandments. And therefore Nachmanides himself, by the way, in the introduction, at the beginning of his glosses to Sefer HaMitzvot, on the roots, at the beginning of the first root, really discusses this point. Who says? Why do you assume there have to be 613 commandments? What Rabbi Simlai says—that 613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai, at the end of tractate Makkot—maybe he simply counted the commandments according to his own count and got 613. But that doesn’t mean that if someone disagrees with him about some commandment, he can’t disagree—who says it has to be exactly 613? Now in Rabbi Simlai himself it’s not so simple, because plainly it says there that he derives it from the verse. It says: “Torah Moses commanded us”—Torah is 611, and “I am” and “You shall have no other gods” we heard from the mouth of the Almighty, so in practice that comes out to 613. So if you derive it from the verse, that means we really do have a source for there being 613 commandments. It’s not that I counted up the commandments that I think are commandments and happened by chance to get 613. But apparently Nachmanides assumes that this Talmudic statement isn’t literal, because it’s this sort of gematria: “Torah Moses commanded us” equals 611, plus 2. Right, gematrias and acronyms and things like that are side dishes to wisdom. So Nachmanides apparently does not see this as a real exposition; it’s a kind of support text, some sort of acronym-like mnemonic—it happened to come out 613. But it doesn’t really obligate someone else who disagrees with Rabbi Simlai on a particular commandment to look for another commandment to complete the number to 613. And in fact there were enumerators of the commandments who claimed this too—the Tashbetz and others said this explicitly: that it is not true that there must be exactly 613. Nachmanides himself claims that since all the enumerators of the commandments say 613, it’s likely they also had a tradition regarding this number and it isn’t just a number that happened to come out by chance. And therefore in the end he aligns with that, but at the beginning he raises this challenge.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want to note regarding Maimonides’ thirteen principles—or foundations—that here it’s really quite clear that there is no tradition with the number. Here it’s clear that Nachmanides’ challenge is correct, and therefore if someone disagrees with Maimonides about one of the principles, he doesn’t have to look for another principle to replace it so that there will still be thirteen principles. Okay, that’s just a note on the framework of the discussion. Now he lists the principles, and notice—we’ll go through them a bit in order to see some more concrete things before our eyes—but in the background we always need to think: how did Maimonides arrive at these specifically being the thirteen principles? Why these and not others? Why not say that some of them are not principles? Meaning, how did he determine that these are the principles, and these are the only principles, and that’s it, and they alone. Well, that’s a question I may comment on later.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let’s begin. The first foundation is the existence of the Creator, blessed be He. “That there exists a being complete in existence and in the modes of existence, and He is the cause of the existence of all existing things, and in Him lies the persistence of their existence.” This is from the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, right? “And from Him their continued existence is derived. And if we were to imagine the removal of His existence, then the existence of every existent thing would be nullified, and none would remain in existence.” Meaning, he assumes not only that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, but that He is also a condition for the world’s continued existence. If one could imagine Him removed from here, there would be no world; the world cannot continue to exist if the Holy One, blessed be He, is not here. “And if we were to imagine the removal of all beings other than Him, His existence, exalted be He, would not be nullified, for He does not depend on others. It would not be diminished, for He, exalted be He, does not need any other being for His existence. And everything other than Him—intellects, meaning angels, the spheres of the heavenly bodies, and what is beneath them—all require Him for their existence.” Because the next stage is to infer that belief in the existence of spheres is also a principle of faith. “And this first foundation is what is indicated by the statement ‘I am the Lord’” and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the first foundation is basically belief in the Holy One, blessed be He. But notice that this foundation includes all sorts of details as well. And one could ask why in fact each of those details isn’t a separate principle in its own right. But that question isn’t important, because what difference does it make? Fine, then you’d come out with thirty-two foundations instead of thirteen. Maimonides decided to group them by topic. It doesn’t really matter, because there’s no practical difference whether it’s a separate principle or part of the same principle. In the count of commandments there can sometimes be a practical difference if two details constitute one commandment or two different commandments. Right, the Mishnah in tractate Menachot says: the blue thread does not prevent the white, and the white does not prevent the blue; the arm tefillin do not prevent the head tefillin and the head tefillin do not prevent the arm tefillin. And Maimonides, in root 11, really discusses the question whether this is one commandment or two commandments—for example, the commandment of tefillin or the commandment of tzitzit, the blue and the white. So there can be practical differences there as well. But with principles of faith, what difference does it make? If it’s a principle, it’s a principle. There may be thirty-two principles rather than thirteen, so let it be so. Maimonides classifies them this way, so that’s not an important question. The important question is: why did you decide that these are principles at all? Regardless of whether it’s part of the first principle or a separate one—why is it a principle at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The existence of the Creator, blessed be He, sounds to us like the ABCs, right? Very reasonable. And it’s the basis on which everything rests. We discussed the first positive commandment, “I am the Lord your God”; I said it isn’t clear how such a thing can count as a commandment. But clearly it is a principle. Meaning, clearly without it you’re not even in the game. Therefore I have no reservations about Maimonides’ determination that this is a principle. One can debate whether this is a positive commandment—that’s a different discussion. Were it not for Maimonides, I would say that “I am the Lord your God” is really a statement that this is a principle, not a commandment, not an imperative.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but look at the details. The fact that He is the cause of the existence of all beings, right? That if He were removed then all existence would be nullified—where did he get that from? Why does he decide that this is a principle? And if someone doesn’t think that? The Holy One, blessed be He, could create the world like third-generation missiles, right? I launch and forget. I create the world like what they claim in Aristotle, right? That there was creation and afterward He withdrew. So what? Aristotle spoke about the eternity of—
[Speaker C] Rabbi, doesn’t he just mean to say that this—being the cause of the existence… Rabbi, can you hear? Yes. Yes, yes. Doesn’t he just mean to say that “being the cause of the existence of all beings and their continued existence and so on” is not itself the principle; he only wants to explain what he means by the existence of the Creator, blessed be He. He is clarifying and explaining his words. The principle is only the existence of the Creator, blessed be He—however you interpret that…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t seem that way. The first foundation is the existence of the blessed Creator, and then he spells out what that means. Fine, so all of this belongs to the first foundation. “And if we were to imagine the removal of His existence, then the existence of every being would be nullified.” Why? What if I think that even if I imagine the removal of the Holy One, blessed be He, the world has already been created, so it still remains here? Why can Maimonides now tell me this or that philosophical argument? Is the fact that you have a certain philosophical argument enough to turn something into a principle? That’s interesting. It needs to be checked, it needs thought. I’ll give you an example from the next principles, say principles like providence, reward and punishment, the World to Come, the coming of the Messiah, things of that sort. Right? So suppose someone tells me, say, the persistence of the soul, okay? The World to Come and all that. I don’t really know what the source of this principle is, whether it’s a tradition from Sinai or not, but by reasoning I tend to think it’s true. Since there is something in us besides the body, the soul that we have, then when the body dies I assume the soul does not perish—though it could be that it also just dissipates suddenly, I don’t know. But there is no necessity to say that; it’s even reasonable to assume that probably something remains after we die. Okay. Now that claim is a claim based on reasoning, not because I saw it in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or received it by tradition. It’s a claim based on reasoning. Is that reasoning enough to turn it into a principle? The persistence of the soul. That whoever does not accept it is a heretic with regard to a principle. Whoever does not accept it is foolish. Why a heretic with regard to a principle? Meaning, suppose I’m right—I’m not talking about whether I’m right, I’m talking about whether this thing I’m claiming can be considered a principle. A principle means that whoever does not accept it is an apostate, right? He is a heretic with regard to a principle. That’s what Maimonides said above; this whole elaboration of the thirteen foundations is part of clarifying what is called an apostate. Okay? So whoever does not accept this is basically an apostate, in which case “one lowers him into a pit and does not raise him out,” and all kinds of things of that sort. Now why is it that if his philosophical reasoning differs from Maimonides’, so what? If you don’t accept the tradition from Sinai, then fine, I understand. You can’t be considered part of the Jewish people; you’re not in the game. Okay? But if someone has a different philosophical argument from Maimonides’, what’s the problem? He conceives of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His relation to reality differently from Maimonides. So because of that he is a heretic with regard to a principle? Why? Understand that the question here is really a double question, and it will stay with us later too. The first question is: who told you this is true? The second question: even if you bring me some reason or argument showing that it’s true, who said that someone who doesn’t accept it is a heretic with regard to a principle? In other words, who said that this true thing is a principle? Okay? Who said that everyone must accept it? And that’s a different question. And if I can answer the first question with a philosophical argument and explain to you, look, this is certainly true because I have such-and-such an argument proving it, that still need not be enough for the second question. The second question I’m asking is: why is it a principle? So what if I have a philosophical argument? I’ve even said several times more than that. Take, for example, the persistence of the soul. Precisely because there is a good argument in favor of the persistence of the soul—because if I’m a dualist and I think that besides the body there is also a soul, then it is very reasonable that even if the body dies, or even if I die, the soul remains. It is not dependent on our physiological mechanisms. Our life is dependent on them, but not the soul. So the soul remains. So I have an excellent argument. But notice that if this argument is so excellent, that itself is a good argument for the hypothesis that people thought of it on their own—it’s not a tradition from Sinai. Because it is so compelling that even if there had been no such tradition from Sinai, people would in effect have produced this principle even without tradition. And notice that precisely because it is a good argument, that strengthens the answer to the first question: why is it true? But it greatly weakens the answer to the second question: is it a principle? Because the more correct it is, the more my suspicion grows—not necessarily, but my suspicion grows—that it was invented over the generations. Now what does “invented” mean? I think it’s true, so it’s not an invention in the sense that it’s false. It’s an invention in the sense that when people tell me this is a law given to Moses at Sinai or that this is a tradition, that is the invention. That isn’t true; it came from your own reasoning. You just want to strengthen it. We talked about noble lies, so you say it’s a law given to Moses at Sinai or that it’s a tradition. But really it’s only your own reasoning. Now here again we have a noble lie, because what does that mean? If you have an argument, then maybe that’s good enough to convince me it’s true. But precisely because there is a strong argument, that means it’s not a principle. Because for it to be a principle, it has to be part of the Torah that we received at Sinai. Whoever does not accept that Torah is an apostate. But if it’s not part of the Torah, then what about the argument? Reason also says that two plus three equals five. Is someone who denies that a heretic with regard to a principle? There is a very strong argument that two plus three equals five, right? No sane person disputes that. Now suppose someone comes and does dispute it. Is he a heretic with regard to a principle? Why? It isn’t part of the Torah. It’s a very strong argument; it’s true. If you ask whether it’s true, of course it’s true. Is someone who says otherwise mistaken? Of course he is mistaken. Is someone who says otherwise a heretic with regard to a principle? Why is he a heretic with regard to a principle? Because he thinks differently from me, or because he is foolish? What does that have to do with it? In other words, someone who does not accept the religious tradition, the messages we received from the Holy One, blessed be He—I can understand treating him as a heretic with regard to a principle. But where there is a strong argument, that itself constitutes a kind of indication that it emerged from human reasoning, from philosophical reflection, and not from a tradition from Sinai. And then it’s actually an argument the other way: the stronger the argument, the weaker the claim that it is a principle. It doesn’t nullify it; it could be that it’s also a tradition from Sinai and also a strong argument. But I begin to suspect whether this is really a tradition from Sinai, or whether people only say that it is a tradition from Sinai in order to strengthen the point. And I’ll again remind you, apropos of the previous discussion about noble lies: there are several medieval authorities (Rishonim) who write in a few places about certain laws that they are laws given to Moses at Sinai. The Talmud says that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, and medieval authorities (Rishonim) write—there’s a Tosafot like this, a Rosh like this, and Rabbi Shimshon of Sens writes—that in fact it is a rabbinic law altogether. And they said it was a law given to Moses at Sinai only to strengthen it. A noble lie, right? Now go figure: everything they say about it that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai—go figure what its halakhic status really is. You see the implication of a noble lie. The same thing when people tell me about principles of faith. What principles of faith? Obviously the Messiah will come, the resurrection of the dead… the persistence of the soul, or things of that kind. Obviously, whoever denies that is a heretic with regard to a principle—why? Because we have a tradition about it from Sinai. Where is there a tradition? Who said there is a tradition from Sinai? The fact that people say something is a tradition from Sinai makes it entirely plausible that all they’re doing is strengthening something that came from reasoning; it’s not really a tradition from Sinai, they only wanted to strengthen it. And now, since I have examples from the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who talk about things said to be laws given to Moses at Sinai that in fact are not such laws, I now completely lose trust in claims that something is a tradition from Sinai. What today is not presented as a tradition from Sinai? Everything. Every foolish practice people do is a tradition from Sinai—from Lag BaOmer to the first haircut ceremony at age three, and on to who knows what, whatever you want—or that someone who died for his Judaism is called holy, and all sorts of strange principles from Sinai that are both absurd and were never dreamed of at Sinai, yet they all become laws given to Moses at Sinai. So I completely lose trust in these traditions that are passed on to me and people tell me are traditions from Sinai, and I lose the most trust precisely in the reasonable things, because with reasonable things it probably came about because people’s reason told them so, and afterward they strengthen it and say: this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Fine, so for now I’m just putting this out there as a question, because Maimonides,
[Speaker B] Rabbi, excuse me, yes, I think that of all the examples the Rabbi gave, even two plus three equals five—it’s true that that’s something you can’t say is false, and someone who says it’s false is mistaken, but here it’s something—but here in the example Maimonides gives, or in the case Maimonides gives, it’s something connected to God, it’s not just mathematics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “connected to God” mean? Suppose I think the world—I think the world can exist even without God. He created it and now He dissipated, fine? And now I claim that even with the departure of the Holy One, blessed be He, the world still remains in existence. I don’t accept this thesis of Maimonides. Why am I a heretic with regard to a principle? Because Maimonides thinks I made a mistake in judgment? Well, saying that two plus three equals six is also a mistake in judgment. But here it touches on God.
[Speaker B] But how can one know that it really is something he thinks and not actually a tradition from Sinai?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I’m not familiar with such a tradition.
[Speaker B] But we don’t know all the traditions. I don’t know what this is,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So according to that, everything anybody says is a tradition from Sinai?
[Speaker B] No, I’m saying you can’t decide that it isn’t; you can’t decide that it isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You also can’t decide that it is. So what exactly am I supposed to do now?
[Speaker E] But he himself doesn’t claim that it’s a tradition from Sinai.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but he says that apparently this is a philosophical judgment he is making. He himself does not say, “this is a law given to Moses at Sinai.” I’m saying more than that—even when people do say about something that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai, it still isn’t certain that one should accept that, and he doesn’t even say it.
[Speaker B] No, so that’s it—then apparently we need to define what a foundation means for him, what the meaning of that is.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s part of the question I’m putting on the table here. Okay, so for now I’ve just put it on the board. The second foundation: His unity, may He be exalted. And that is that the cause of all is one, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is one—not one in the sense of a species, and not one in the sense of a category, and not as one composite thing that can be divided into many ones, and not one like a simple body that is one numerically but can be divided and split endlessly, right? A physical body that can be cut in two. Rather, He, may He be exalted, is one—a unity unlike any other unity in any respect. And this is the second foundation, indicated by what is said: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” A few points. First of all, Maimonides is innovating here that “the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” says He is one—that’s written in the Torah, “the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”; it says He is one, okay? But Maimonides again elaborates here what is meant when we say He is one. So it isn’t that He is composed of many things of the same type and the type is called divinity, right? It’s not unity of a category. And not as one composite thing that is divided, say, like an organism. Right, there are those who conceive of the Holy One, blessed be He, as some kind of pantheism, who think of the Holy One, blessed be He, as a kind of organism in which all the parts of the world are really organs within Him. According to Maimonides, they are heretics with regard to a principle, because according to Maimonides they conceive of the Holy One, blessed be He, as a one that is a body and admits division and fragmentation without end, that gets divided into many ones.
[Speaker B] Wait, Rabbi, but the very fact that he brings the source in the first foundation, “I am the Lord,” and here “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”—isn’t that from Sinai?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is from Sinai. I said that. It comes from a verse.
[Speaker B] Right, so then that means he bases his foundation on a verse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He—I said he bases it on a verse.
[Speaker B] It’s not from reasoning, it’s from a verse.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, no, but now—so I said: the verse says that God is one. But now Maimonides reads into the term “one” a great deal of additional content. It’s not one of this kind and not one of that kind, and it is a unity unlike any other in any respect, and so on. That is his interpretation. You can accept it or not accept it. By the way, personally I think this sentence is simply meaningless, devoid of content—not that I accept it or don’t accept it. What is the difference between one and two in entities so abstract? I don’t really understand how one defines here one, two, three, or five in entities that have no boundary, no definition, nothing. So maybe there are three such things, and those three are all defined as one unit. I don’t know. I’m not at all sure this claim of the second foundation even has content. But suppose it does have content—even then, this is an interpretation Maimonides decided upon for the verse, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” So here again there is a source in a verse. In the first foundation too, by the way—as you said—in the first foundation too he brings “I am the Lord your God” at the end; he also brings a verse. But just as in the first foundation, so too here, he loads onto this verse a great many things that are apparently the result not of interpretive reasoning, that he extracts this from the verse, that he has textual nuances proving that this is what the verse means, but rather of philosophical reasoning. Meaning, he thinks that this is the truth. Now the fact that this is the truth is nice—but who said this is what the verse says? If someone interprets the verse differently, is he a heretic with regard to a principle? Why? Therefore the fact that he brings a verse is not sufficient. It is enough to determine that it is true. It is not even enough to determine that it is a principle. Because who said it is a principle? There are many verses; there are thousands of verses in the Torah, so now I have thousands of principles. But why did you decide that this verse is a principle? That’s a second question. And the third question: why is this principle—meaning not why is it a principle rather than something marginal, but why does this principle really include all the contents that you are loading onto it? And who said that all of this is part of the principle? So I believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, is one like an organism. I’m a pantheist, or a panentheist if you like. So I believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, is some sort of organic entity of which the whole world is parts. Fine, never mind whether I’m right or wrong—but why am I a heretic with regard to a principle? That’s what I think. By the way, quite a few people think that way. So again, the same question. Third question—the third foundation, sorry—the negation of corporeality in relation to Him. We’ve gone a little over time. Fine, so regarding corporeality I won’t read the whole thing now, but regarding corporeality we’ll come back to it next time. I’ll just remind you of the Raavad, whom we already saw in the laws of repentance, where Maimonides says there that many people greater and better than he thought that the Holy One, blessed be He, was indeed corporeal, and even the plain meaning of the verses indicates that the Holy One, blessed be He, is corporeal. So here not only is there no proof from the verses, but apparently the verses indicate the opposite. He brings a verse at the end, “For you saw no form,” and so on, but we’ll talk about that later. But here the situation is already worse than in the previous two foundations. One can also note something else: why is the negation of corporeality not part of the details he says, for example, about the existence of the Holy One, blessed be He? The existence of the blessed Creator is the first foundation, and the fact that He is not corporeal is simply part of who this Creator is whom you have to believe exists. So this Creator is not corporeal, and He is also one. In other words, this division into separate foundations can also be discussed, but as I said earlier, that’s not a very interesting discussion, because what difference does it make? It’s only a question of how many foundations there are, but for us what matters is whether this principle is really a foundation. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a detail within the first foundation or an independent foundation. Regarding commandments that may be a consideration, a discussion that may be relevant; regarding principles, less so. Okay, so let’s stop here. We’ll continue next time.
[Speaker D] Isn’t it incorrect to be so Maimonides-centric in this series, when one can accept Maimonides’ principles—certainly the first one, but in my opinion the others too—only in their normative sense? Obviously it’s only normative. One can understand Maimonides’ treatment of these as principles, after all everything depends on them and without them there is a problem of pluralism, only if one accepts them in a normative sense, their normative meaning. As we said in another series, you can’t ground morality, you can’t ground morality without the existence of God. And Maimonides says: if you don’t accept God, then you’re also not moral, and if you’re not moral then…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if I don’t accept that He is a foundational condition for the existence of reality, or whether He is corporeal or not corporeal—then likewise I can’t keep commandments or be moral?
[Speaker D] I think that if we probe more deeply into what that means, and if we turn God into part of the forces of nature, then all morality becomes part of the forces of nature.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’s not part of the forces of nature, but He has mass.
[Speaker D] So then He’s part of nature—what difference does it make? So He has a certain power—where is the significance in that? Part of nature, another being. So what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I still can’t worship Him?
[Speaker D] No, then we can’t base morality on Him. Because why doesn’t the Rabbi base morality on stones and mountains and elephants?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is the Holy One, blessed be He, He is all-powerful and He created the world.
[Speaker D] But He’s just another being!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Another all-powerful being who created the world—but how would morality come from Him? Why on earth? I don’t see, I don’t see any obstacle to worshipping Him on the conceptual level.
[Speaker D] No, but grounding the validity of morality in Him is impossible if He is part of this world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t see any problem with that.
[Speaker D] Then you can base morality on all kinds of things in the world; why do you need an all-powerful being? Even if He’s half-powerful that would also be enough. Right. So why does the Rabbi say that a moral person believes in God?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he has to believe in God, but who said he has to believe in an all-powerful God? Or that it must be a necessary condition? It doesn’t have to be.
[Speaker D] If the basis of morality is the existence of God, and if God is just another being in the world, which could be…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, He’s not just another being in the world; first of all, He is the one who created the world and all of us.
[Speaker D] So what? But where does the validity of morality come from that, if He is part of it…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If He created us, then what He says obligates us. So what? And if He is all-powerful and not part of the world, then because of that I have to listen to Him?
[Speaker D] Why? We go back to the question: from the fact that God created the whole world and is all-powerful, why exactly should I obey Him? We return to the same dilemma. I don’t understand the logic of thinking that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, granted, then in the end—you know—then you have no answer, whether He is all-powerful or not all-powerful.
[Speaker D] Yes, but no person can answer that. No person can tell me why.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. So if no one can answer that, then you can no longer distinguish between yes all-powerful and no all-powerful, or yes corporeal and no corporeal.
[Speaker D] Practically speaking, you have no answer even if He is not corporeal. No, of course I do. No, but this is something we all feel, this moral demand—we all feel it. Every person, however wicked he may be. So here we are speaking the same language, the language of human beings.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but now suppose God is corporeal, and I feel the moral demand within me—what’s the problem?
[Speaker D] No, I’m saying: the fact that I suddenly learn that God exists and is all-powerful—what does it mean that God exists? There is some entity that is part of nature and is all-powerful and created this whole unnecessary entity of the universe…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And also implanted in us the moral tendency.
[Speaker D] And implanted in us the moral tendency, which is just one more part of the morally indifferent reality that exists in the world. From that I ground the moral demand? That sounds a bit detached to me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the other conception also sounds detached to you. No. Why not?
[Speaker D] No, if I say God is one and the only metaphysical excess is the moral demand and there is nothing else, then there’s no dispute about that; everyone feels it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is there no dispute?
[Speaker D] Because everyone knows it, every person believes. Every person has some feeling…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I know a great many people who don’t feel that. It’s not true that everyone feels it. I happen to agree, but many people do not feel that. People think that one can fail to believe in God and still be moral, as a secular person, without any connection to God.
[Speaker D] No, Heaven forbid, certainly—I’m not… I’m saying that in saying they feel the moral demand, they thereby fulfill the first, second, and third principles, and in my opinion all of Maimonides’ principles. Well, of course that’s so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, in short, then these are not factual claims but just fictions intended to…
[Speaker D] Not fictions! These are the most… these are the fictions that are the only reality. What Maimonides said in the second principle—that is the only thing that exists. All the other things do not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t exist; it’s a fiction. You are producing a fiction so that people can be moral.
[Speaker D] The only true fiction. No, since the moral demand is the absolute demand, the only thing that truly exists, all the other things are not fiction—they are reality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I… okay, whoever accepts that, good health to him. I don’t even understand the words. Any other comments or questions?
[Speaker E] I wanted to ask something from last week’s class, which I wasn’t at live, about the cognitive split you spoke about. In the class there came up the issue of Maimonides that you mention more than once, of “he accepted it upon himself as a god.” And the question came up: how can this cognitive split exist, where on the one hand a person knows that this idol is not divine, and on the other hand he accepts that idol upon himself as a god?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then—
[Speaker E] It seemed, only I didn’t understand, because usually I’ve heard you speak about this several times, and I always understood that this is something formal—“he accepted it upon himself as a god.” Meaning that a person knows, for example, that this idol did not create the world, he knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, but he likes it, he thinks, for example, that this idol has some influence over the universe. Maimonides says that this is idolatry, actual idolatry. Right? No, no, yes, and then he accepts upon himself this idol, which he thinks has some influence, he accepts this idol upon himself as a god in that sense, in the formal sense you always talk about, in the sense that he does whatever it tells him simply because this idol said it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then what? He knows that it is not the god, but that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the god?
[Speaker E] No, but you… what I’ve always heard in your other classes is that you define a god as one whose commands I do simply because he said them. Right, but that’s not arbitrary.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I do it because it really follows from the concept of a god. It’s not that I arbitrarily declare someone a god and that counts as accepting him as a god. Rather, I really understand him to be such an entity that he has formal authority, such that whatever he says I must do. Okay, okay. It’s not writing down “I accept you upon myself as a god,” declaring before three people by mere lip service. Rather, there is some actual claim here that you really are a god.
[Speaker D] So—
[Speaker E] If so, then what is this status? This status of “he accepted it upon himself as a god” sounds like some sort of status from which point onward—until now, no, and from this second onward, yes. It sounds like some kind of more formal status.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be a formal event that happens at a specific time. But you are in a state in which, from your perspective, it is a god. Okay. You accept it upon yourself as a god—not that there was some act where you said before a few people, “I accept Peor upon myself as a god.” Rather, in practice, right now, from your perspective, it is the god.
[Speaker E] Meaning, could there be a situation where I believe that someone, that something, is a god, and I still do not accept it upon myself as a god?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is exactly the cognitive split I was talking about.
[Speaker E] No, or for example: a person can believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and has the authority, the authority over me to demand things of me, but I do not accept that authority upon myself?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is what the idol worshipper does. The idol worshipper, basically—so I claim—if he is in a cognitive split, then deep down he actually knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the god. But he does not do the commandments of the Holy One, blessed be He; instead he does the commandments of the idol. How can that be? I claim that in his split consciousness he constructed an obligation toward the god that is the idol. Deep down he knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the god. So here is a situation where a person knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the god and does not do what He commands.
[Speaker E] But isn’t it that when he does not do what He commands, that means more than just that he does not accept upon himself doing what the Holy One, blessed be He, says—isn’t that itself the meaning of not accepting the Holy One, blessed be He, as a god? Meaning, I don’t accept—I know that I should accept, I should accept upon myself Him…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re again going back to the formal issue. Accepting something as a god is not a formal matter. If I understand that He is a god, that is called accepting Him as a god. The obligation to obey His command follows from His being a god. It’s not that you need a formal act of “I accept upon myself.” It’s like the example I think I gave: if someone says, “I know it’s immoral to murder, but why not murder?” If you ask why not murder, then you don’t know that it’s immoral to murder. Because if you knew, you wouldn’t ask why not murder. Don’t murder because it is immoral; no further explanation is needed—that is the explanation. The same thing with a god. If I know that the Holy One, blessed be He, is a god, then I have accepted Him upon myself as a god. I don’t need a formal act of acceptance. Rather, a god is someone who has authority such that whatever he says, I do. If I don’t understand this thing—that he has authority—and I do know that he created the world, but I don’t understand that his being a god also gives him authority, then I don’t really know that he is a god.
[Speaker E] Okay. Nice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Fine. Sabbath peace.
[Speaker E] Sabbath peace. Good.