Dogmatics – Lesson 20

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …answers it. This is my next point. In other words, another possibility is to make an accepted diagnosis, as I wrote there, also in the medical and psychiatric world—a diagnosis based on a certain number of traits from a given set. Say there are ten or twelve characteristics; if seven of them are present, or five of them are present, then you have such-and-such an illness. It doesn’t matter which five. In other words, it could be one, two, seven, nine, and twelve; it could be three, eight, ten, eleven, and twelve—whatever, it doesn’t matter. If there are five like that, or seven, doesn’t matter—then you have that illness. And definitions like these are common in complicated fields. There are complicated fields, so it really is hard to find one litmus test. So you need some kind of definition that is more flexible and less unequivocal. What I’m not comfortable with here is that, in the end, once you define it this way, then once again we’ve actually gone back more to sociology than to essence. Because in the end you’re telling me: look, each of these characteristics also exists in other groups. So what then? Those five out of the seven won’t exist in any other group? I don’t think you’ll find such a thing. In other words, suppose you find ten Haredi characteristics and you say: whoever has five out of those ten is Haredi. You won’t find in other groups someone who has five out of the ten? In my opinion you will. In any set of characteristics you look for. And therefore it seems to me that in the end this brings us back again to sociology and not really to essence. And I’m trying to understand, essentially, what this thing called a Haredi outlook means.

[Speaker D] It seems to me there’s another point here too. I think that the moment you examine symptoms, then you’re defining a symptom—you’re not defining the essence. I also think, if I’m not mistaken, that in medicine too you see the symptoms and through them you’re supposed to define some underlying thing. I don’t have a problem with that, but the definitions I’m looking for, as far as I’m concerned, can also be definitions through symptoms.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but through a symptom you can say, based on the symptoms, who is Haredi—but what is Haredi in the first place? Fine, that’s another discussion, but first of all the question is whether I have a definition at the phenomenological, descriptive level. In other words, if I can define it through the symptoms, then I’ve already taken a step forward. After that I can try to think whether there is something standing behind these symptoms. That’s another question.

[Speaker D] And what you want here, in this case, is really not to define Haredi-ness, but to define symptoms of Haredi-ness?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want both. And I’m saying: first of all, the way to do it is first to look for the symptoms. After I look for the symptoms, I can try to think about what underlies them, if I succeed. In the scientific world too they use two kinds of theory. There is phenomenological theory and essential theory. A phenomenological theory describes the phenomena in some way; it generalizes them into one pattern. So that’s a phenomenological law. Afterward you can try to think: wait, but what actually brings about this law? Why do all these phenomena obey the same law? Then you already have an essential theory. Maybe the best-known example of this is Einstein’s blackbody radiation from 1905, in one of the papers he published in 1905, what is called his miracle year. A year in which he overturned all of physics in three or four different fields. And in every field he turned all of physics upside down. And all in one year, while he was sitting in the patent office, by the way, in Switzerland. He wasn’t even in academia or anything. Just in his spare time at the patent office. It’s unbelievable what that guy did there, by the way. In any case, blackbody radiation—Einstein was the first who suddenly noticed that a collection of various laws could be described by one function that describes the distribution of radiation: for each wavelength, how much is emitted at that wavelength. Some function. That’s a phenomenological theory that says: give me the wavelength and I’ll tell you how much will be emitted, okay? A blackbody is a body without color, let’s say, such that when you heat it up—when you heat it, radiation is emitted at various wavelengths, and you can draw a function that depends of course on the temperature, but at each temperature, how the radiation is distributed—in other words, how much is emitted at each wavelength. But after that Einstein thought: this is a phenomenological theory; he has a formula that describes the distribution of the radiation or the emission. Then he asked himself: wait, but what explains such a phenomenological distribution? And then he arrived at the idea that light is made of quanta, packets, and that’s how quantum theory actually began. But that was an essential explanation for a phenomenological theory, because he asked himself what stands behind this graph that describes the phenomena. The graph only describes; it explains nothing. It puts all the phenomena into one description, one formula or one graph. And the explanation—but that is of course the first step on the way to an essential explanation. Once I have some broader description, it’s easier to think about the essential explanation. So in our context too, first of all we need to look for the symptoms. Now, symptoms—we know what the symptoms are. I don’t know how to give a definition based on the symptoms—there are ten symptoms, whoever has five of them is Haredi—I don’t have such a definition. But all of us, the things I described earlier are definitely correlated with being Haredi. That’s clear. Right? That we do know. Now the question is whether this can give us a clue to something essential, to some substantive outlook standing behind this whole thing. And I want to suggest what I’ve been thinking, and this will bring us back to the foundations or principles we’re talking about. So I’ll start with what Shmuel noted earlier, that for many years now I’ve noticed this—mainly after I had been in Bnei Brak for a period and came back to civilization—that in the religious but non-Haredi world there’s no talk at all about the World to Come, not heaven, not hell, nobody cares. It’s not part of the discourse at all. Nothing. I think I’ve never heard in the non-Haredi world anyone even raise these things at all. Maybe in some theoretical discussion about some… no, not in life. It just doesn’t come up in conversation between people. Whereas in the Haredi world it definitely does come up, and quite a bit. That is, this is a difference that caught my eye a long time ago, and I think it may be a key that can help us understand the broader question we’re dealing with here. And the claim is basically—what I want to argue—that it’s not because, as some say, of weakness of faith. Fine, okay, the Religious Zionists believe less; they’re not exactly great believers, so messiah, World to Come, heaven, hell, resurrection of the dead, all kinds of abstract concepts—they don’t see it before their eyes, they don’t really believe in it. I don’t think that’s it. If you look, for example, at the Hardalim, if you take them as more pious, more attached, or something like that—I disagree with that, but that’s how people usually see them—even there you won’t hear this. They also don’t talk about it. And therefore this thing, it seems to me, may be some kind of key to what we’re looking for there. It seems to me that the focus that defines the concept of Haredi-ness is that Haredim are people of the World to Come. In other words, as far as they are concerned, their whole lives are conducted in a way aimed toward the World to Come. In contrast, those who are not Haredi are people of this world. We operate in this world. Again, they can believe that there is reward and the World to Come and hell and heaven and messiah and resurrection of the dead and all these things, but in the end the focus of our activity is to repair or do what needs to be done in this world, here and now. And afterward, if the reward comes, it’ll come, but that’s not the focus of our attention. And I think that this seems to me to be the essential difference between Haredim and non-Haredim. And by the way, I’ll come back to this, but this difference, in my opinion, really gathers together all the non-Haredi groups. In other words, even the Hardalim—which up until now I thought were a Haredi group, just as there are differences between, I don’t know, Belz and Gur and the Lithuanians, so there are also Hardalim, fine, just more differences, sometimes even smaller than the differences between two types of Haredim—for me that was a nuance, nothing essential. They wear different clothes—big deal—but that doesn’t really matter. And here, for example, with this characteristic, the Hardalim are categorically on the non-Haredi side, completely. In other words, they operate entirely in order to fix this world, yes, under the kingship of the Almighty or something like that—not in terms of heaven and hell and the World to Come and resurrection of the dead. That’s not their language. And in that sense I think this definition really does capture the distinction between Haredim and non-Haredim as it was, without all the changes I wanted to make in the manifesto and so on. No—just as it was. I think this is the focal point, and now I’ll try to explain why, or how I see it, where else I see it. I’ll just point out a few implications of this. Basically I’ll formulate it this way: a Haredi person basically acts in this world while having before his eyes how he gets to the World to Come in the best possible way. That’s basically the goal. This world is a corridor; you have to get through it in the most successful, most complete way, so that in the end you arrive as whole as possible in the World to Come. That is basically the destination. By contrast, non-Haredi religious people—and by the way this includes Hardalim and moderns and liberals and everybody—they are people who see themselves mainly as repairing this world. Repairing the—each one according to his own conception of repair. There are different conceptions of what a repaired world means, but they operate here and now, in this world. The World to Come plays no role at all. And for example, in this context—I’ll get to this later too—but in this context, say, in the Haredi world, you need some kind of struggle in order to serve for Heaven’s sake. Because the natural tendency is to serve not for its own sake. After all, you’re serving for the sake of the World to Come, so you’re serving for reward. In a moment I’ll explain what serving for its own sake means in the Haredi sense, because I don’t think Haredi-ness is necessarily service not for its own sake. But if you’re Haredi, the tendency is to serve not for its own sake. It takes struggle to become someone who serves for its own sake. In the Religious Zionist world, I can’t imagine someone who serves not for its own sake. That sounds a bit surprising, because we would think the opposite, but no. In the Religious Zionist world, or in the non-Haredi world, I don’t understand at all how someone could serve not for its own sake. There can be someone who performs a particular commandment because he wants a good name or wants people to see him as righteous or something—that’s obvious, we’re all human beings. But I’m talking about serving not for its own sake in the essential sense: serving in order to receive reward in the World to Come, or even in this world. Nobody serves for that. Think for a moment whether you know someone—whether you can imagine someone in the non-Haredi world who serves in that way. I don’t think there is anyone like that. Why? Because for them the World to Come is not even in the game. Someone for whom the World to Come is in the game has to work on himself so that his service has the value of serving for its own sake and not just in order to inherit the World to Come. But someone who works here because he needs to repair here—the World to Come doesn’t interest him at all. The World to Come will come when it comes, but that’s not the point, it’s not standing before my eyes. So this doesn’t require work at all; it doesn’t require some effort to serve for Heaven’s sake, to overcome this impulse toward serving not for its own sake. There is no such impulse. Again, this is not because they are more complete people. What I’m doing now is not judgmental. What I’m doing now is descriptive. I’m not determining who is right and who is wrong, who is better and who is less good. I’m only trying to diagnose—that is, define—the two groups. And therefore the claim is not that these people are better; rather, their outlook is such. Once you work in this world, then you work in this world. Whatever needs fixing, you fix. You don’t have those bonus incentives that can even cause you to work not for its own sake in order to get bonuses. The bonuses aren’t on the map, they’re not in the game at all. You don’t see them before your eyes.

[Speaker F] In the Religious Zionist public, the claim is that his service of God is for the sake of this world? Yes, yes, I’m talking about serving God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking only about serving God. Not that these focus on serving God and those focus on the vanities of this world. I’m talking about two kinds of serving God.

[Speaker F] No, but as someone familiar with the Religious Zionist sector, it just doesn’t occur to me that someone keeps a commandment so that rain will fall or something like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not reward in that sense. But they understand that you need to repair the world in some way, and that’s why people often attach moral matters to it, which I don’t agree with. I’ll get to where I place myself on this map later. Not because I’m important, but because I think there is a third option. But the point is that basically the larger goal, beyond the local commandments that you do, the larger goal is to repair the world, to bring—

[Speaker F] it to a more complete state.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is basically the goal. And whether this is connected to the commandments or not, I’ll discuss later. But usually they do connect it to the commandments, although here there is definitely room to discuss it. So now I’ll say more than that: when Haredim talk about repairing the world—Haredim talk about repairing the world only rarely—but even when they do talk about it, they mean bringing it to the point where more commandments are observed. That is called repairing the world. Not that the commandments are a means for the world to be more whole and repaired. No. The world simply needs to observe more commandments, because that is what needs to be done. That is what is called repairing the world. In other words, even when repairing the world, that itself is the meaning of the repair. They do not see themselves as having some mission to turn the world into a better world, a more moral world, I don’t know, more environmentally comfortable, or whatever—to solve the ozone problem. That’s not part of their discourse. I don’t think anyone there would even understand what you’re talking about. It’s not in the spectrum. Nobody talks about it at all. So therefore even when they already do talk about repairing the world, the intention is to make sure that more commandments are kept in this world and that more people keep commandments. In this respect, for example, until now I’ve spoken about the World to Come, heaven, hell, and so on.

[Speaker G] Rabbi, here too, is this perhaps part of a deep motive that pushed it forward? Maybe before modernity? Kabbalah here, after all, did mighty things and wonders—in the negative sense of the phrase. In other words, every step you take with even a tiny bit—first of all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said I’m not judging. Negative or positive—I’m not dealing with that right now.

[Speaker G] I didn’t say—I’m also not judging, I’m only speaking about the influence. If you’re a person living in a consciousness that if he cuts his fingernails not in the right order and doesn’t skip, that will damage his World to Come in the most tangible way possible, then that’s how he acts.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] His whole mode of conduct—here specifically we’re not talking about the World to Come; we’re talking about spiritual damage, not injury to the World to Come. It’s not a transgression to cut fingernails that way; rather it will bring some kind of magic, some kind of spiritual damage of one sort or another. So that’s something in the consciousness. But he doesn’t think that in the world—fine, leave it, this is taking us off track. It could be because of Kabbalah and it could be not. It doesn’t matter to me right now; right now I’m describing.

[Speaker D] By the way, the question is: to keep commandments in order to repair the world—is that also serving for its own sake? In other words, if I want to live in a better world and for the world to exist in a better place and because of that I keep commandments, that too is not for its own sake. In other words, I’m not keeping the commandment because of accepting the yoke, because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded me; I’m—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —doing it in order to repair things. That doesn’t contradict it. I can do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it—but what did He command? He commanded repairing the world through the commandments. And then those are two different things. It could be yes, it could be no. You can do it in response to the command, and you can also not do it that way. But what I said doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not for its own sake. Then those are two different things. The question is: what mission did the Holy One, blessed be He, impose on me? Is the mission to repair the world? But then, when I repair the world, do I do it because that’s what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects of me, or not? Or not. I’m saying, clearly there can be—

[Speaker D] What is the Haredi side, in your view, on this issue?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand. Neither of them is Haredi.

[Speaker D] No, I mean the other side—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Serving for its own sake and serving not for its own sake among non-Haredi religious people, what I described just now. Haredi religious people do not work in order to repair the world at all. They work because there is a command, and that is the commandment and that is what has to be done.

[Speaker D] That’s what you mean by for its own sake?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. And if it’s not for its own sake, then it’s in order to inherit the World to Come or things of that sort. Yes.

[Speaker D] And the claim is that Haredim basically observe the commandments not in order to repair something but in order to gain, so to speak?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—maybe to repair themselves. I’ll refine that a bit later. My next claim touches the next principle. Until now I spoke about reward, heaven, hell, the World to Come, and so on. What about the coming of the messiah? The coming of the messiah, seemingly, is certainly on the lips of Religious Zionists too, not only Haredim. On the contrary, in a certain sense people always refer to them as messianic, meaning their whole concern is to advance redemption and bring the messiah. But I think that is an optical illusion. In other words, they do not do the work in order to bring the messiah. They do the work in order to repair the world. Only, as part of repairing the world, the messiah will also come. But the messiah is basically just an expression of the fact that we need to plow and hoe and cultivate the soil in this world so that the world will be more whole. As opposed to—as I said earlier to the one who asked about “and you shall return to the Lord your God”—yes, there too I said that repentance is needed before the messiah comes. But not that the messiah is a response or reward for one who repented; rather, repentance makes the world whole, and then the messiah can come. For Religious Zionists, the desire to bring the messiah is not because we want the messiah to be here, but so that this will be a whole world. It is the summit of repair. And our aim is basically to repair the world. Bringing the messiah basically means that we did the job—that is, that the world really is repaired; we reached the goal. Okay? By contrast, when we speak about messianism in the Haredi context, we want the messiah to come so that he will save us from this world and we will move on to the World to Come. To the World to Come on earth, yes—in other words, we’ll move to some other world, a spiritual world. It’s not about repairing this world, it’s about replacing it. It’s simply to live in our bodies in the World to Come, yes, in some more complete world. And the utopia is basically that then everyone will keep commandments and there will be tranquility and everything will be wonderful—in other words, they won’t persecute us anymore; they’ll let us keep commandments. In the Religious Zionist world, when people talk about the messiah or redemption, they mean a world that will look different. A world that will look different morally, a world that will look different in every respect. That is basically the utopia of the process of repair on which they are constantly working. And the messiah is the expression of that. When people talk about messianism, it is not work in order to bring the messiah. It is work in order to repair the world through the work that I am doing. When the repair is completed, what will happen is that the messiah will come. But it is not work in order to. The messiah is a sign, not a cause.

[Speaker D] That is actually the Kabbalistic description of the coming of the messiah, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, maybe. You can discuss it, because Kabbalah uses parables, so the question is what the parable means. So therefore—well, it’s also a question whether Hasidism or Kabbalah; those are not the same thing either.

[Speaker D] Okay, the shattering of the vessels and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’m saying, Hasidism and Kabbalah are also not necessarily the same thing. Yes, the Leshem already spoke about this in several places—at least in my opinion. Again, maybe you think otherwise, but…

[Speaker D] But actually I heard your example from the author of Leshem, and I—at least from what I learned—I don’t agree with it, but fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, fine. Therefore there’s no point—we won’t get into Kabbalah, because that’s a minefield in itself.

[Speaker E] Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, as the most prominent symbol in Kabbalah—he came out and they said to him, “Did you come out to destroy My world?” They didn’t say to him, “Did you come out to repair My world?” Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, yes, when he came out of the cave—he supposedly represents the archetype of the Kabbalist to which one aspires: to shut oneself in a cave and in the sand there and study Torah and not be in the world. When he came out into the world he destroyed the world, to the point that a heavenly voice came forth and said to him, “Did you come out to destroy My world?”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s too stereotypical a description. A Kabbalist does not necessarily shut himself away—in other words, Kabbalist and recluse are not the same thing. No, obviously.

[Speaker E] I’m speaking in generalization.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, in a certain sense, especially in the Hasidic context, Kabbalah did bring us out into the fields—that is, out of the study hall into the wider world—and suddenly you see a picture or spiritual meanings even in daily actions and not only… So that’s why I’m saying it depends on the conceptions; it’s not… fine, but let’s not get into that, I suggest. So in the end what I basically want to say, yes, is that even the coming of the messiah, which is indeed on the lips of Religious Zionists, is on their lips with a different meaning. I don’t do the work in order that the messiah will come. I do the work in order to repair the world. The coming of the messiah is the sign that I succeeded. In other words, the coming of the messiah is a sign and not a cause, as I said before. Yes, Yeshayahu Leibowitz made his well-known provocative statement—that I believe the messiah will come, but a messiah who has already come is a false messiah. That is, he said this before the Lubavitcher Rebbe, by the way; he wasn’t aiming at that. In other words, his claim was that the messiah is basically a kind of expectation that is not supposed to be fulfilled. Now, that of course doesn’t sound reasonable, certainly not as an interpretation of accepted beliefs, but I’m saying that it does carry to the extreme the outlook I’m describing here. The outlook that says that the messiah is basically some kind of catalyst for us to do the work of repairing the world. And therefore, from Leibowitz’s perspective, he doesn’t even have to come in the end. In other words, all you need is to repair the world toward him. In other words, he gives you the motivation or the direction for repairing the world, but in the end you don’t really need him to come. The main thing is that the world be repaired. His coming is only the symptom or sign that we repaired it, that we succeeded. Okay? So he also says okay, so he won’t come at the end either. Fine, that goes one step too far. But still, in the conception behind it, it really is the same conception that says the messiah is some kind of utopia that comes to direct our actions in the present. In other words, it is supposed to guide us in how to act, or to give motivation to act for the sake of repair. Also when… yes, so I also spoke about what will happen when the messiah comes. Will the world be repaired in the sense that all of us will keep commandments? Or not? The world will be repaired morally, socially, in every respect; everything will look different. That too—the utopia of when the messiah comes—is, I think, different between the two groups. Resurrection of the dead in this sense really plays an interesting role along this axis. This is the thirteenth principle. We spoke about reward, the World to Come, about the coming of the messiah, and now resurrection of the dead. Resurrection of the dead, from the Haredi perspective, in my opinion, is apocalypse now. In other words, after we finally reached the World to Come and escaped this disgusting world we’re in, now they’re bringing us back to it. I mean, who wants to be here? In other words, you have to convince the person that resurrection of the dead is good. Fine, look, you’ll meet your rabbi and your friends and your family, and it’ll be a wonderful world, an already repaired world after the messiah and after everything. After the messiah that already gets us into various disputes, never mind, but you have to convince him why it’s good. And from the Religious Zionist perspective, he doesn’t want the World to Come; he doesn’t want to get there; he needs to remain here. He needs to remain here because he has work here. In other words, the return to this world is not some necessity or something that you need to comfort him about so that he’ll accept it, but on the contrary—it’s excellent. Ultimately the goal is that we will be in this world in a repaired way. And that is the meaning of resurrection of the dead. The meaning of resurrection of the dead is: we did the work, we reached a situation in which the world is whole, the messiah came, resurrection of the dead, and so on. And we return to be here, and now the world is whole. We did the job. From the Haredi point of view, if the whole purpose of all the work is the World to Come, then what does resurrection of the dead help me? What do you mean, what for? I need to come back from the World to Come to here—for what? I did the work, I reached the purpose, everything is fine now; why go back?

[Speaker D] Like Maimonides also understands it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? That it’s like Maimonides understands it. Yes, so I said—I mentioned the disputes of Nachmanides and Maimonides and all the well-known disputes about the order and what comes before what, and whether this is an intermediate stage or the final stage. Fine, all the well-known disputes. And I’m saying: in terms of outlooks, I’m not entering into the sources at all right now, but rather what is embedded in people’s outlook, in the simple outlook of ordinary people, without their reading Maimonides and Ramchal and all these things. So in the simple outlook of people, complete life, the complete world, is this world that has reached its fulfillment. And that is an outlook that characterizes people of this world, not people of the World to Come. And that’s why I brought this example: in the tank commanders’ course, in the army, there is a track—I was an instructor in that course—called the Ringo track. What is the track? It’s the one before the last track. There the person drives a tank, the trainee drives a tank, and every time they hit him with some different thing: minefield and grenade and squad and anti-tank and all kinds of things like that, and he has to respond using all the tools he has. Cannon, machine gun, grenades, all kinds of things like that. And each time he has challenges and he has to deal with them—that’s his training. And that metaphor struck me so strongly as a metaphor for how, essentially, a Haredi picture sees our world. Our world is some kind of Ringo track. It is a corridor. It is full of silhouette targets. All kinds of things here hit you, there you encounter something from over there. Separate first tithe, second tithe, redemption of a firstborn donkey, this one you repair this way, that one you repair that way. And in the end the goal is to overcome all the challenges, reach the final state whole, and inherit the World to Come in the best possible way. Okay? In other words, the whole world is basically some kind of series of challenges that you need to get through in order to reach the desired end. And in an extreme way I would say—yes, I once devoted a column to this long ago—I defined there the concept of spiritual solipsism. Solipsism is the view that basically the world does not exist. All that exists exists only in my consciousness. Okay? There is nothing else. Why the decision that I myself do exist? Fine, you can discuss it, but that’s what solipsists want to claim. I don’t believe anyone really believes it, but no matter—it’s called an existing philosophical approach. In any case, spiritual solipsism is the view that the world does not really exist—not, of course, in the physical sense—but rather everything around me is basically intended to provide challenges on the course that I am traversing in this world, throughout my life in this world, in order to arrive as whole as possible in the World to Come. “I lived with Laban and kept the 613 commandments”—something like getting out safely, surviving all the challenges of this world. And therefore, when I see, for example, a poor person, I give him charity—but not in order to improve his condition, rather in order to improve my condition. In other words, I have a commandment of charity; I need to give charity in order to discharge my obligation. Now, the claim—yes, I brought the famous joke, usually told about a Lithuanian kollel man, who wanted to give gifts to the poor on Purim, but there was no poor person around. So he called the head of the local gang of robbers and asked him to rob some good Jew so that he would have a suitably poor person to whom he could give gifts to the poor. In other words, this joke basically reflects this outlook, which says: I’m not giving charity for the poor man; I’m giving charity in order to fulfill the obligation of gifts to the poor. Therefore—yes, I once said there’s a practical implication: what happens if I live in an unwalled city and the poor man lives in a walled city? When do I give him gifts to the poor? If the goal is him, then I give it to him on the fifteenth, because he is in a walled city. If the goal is me, I have to give it on the fourteenth, because the goal is me; my Purim is on the fourteenth. Okay, of course you can engage in pilpul over this, but I’m bringing it only as a parable. And basically the claim I want to make is that if there really were no halakhic prohibition against robbing, then the first story would not be a joke. That’s what people would do. They would rob the person so that he would become poor and it would be possible to fulfill the obligation of gifts to the poor. Because what’s the problem? Nobody lost anything, everything is wonderful. In other words, he has the money because I gave him gifts to the poor, I gained the commandment of gifts to the poor. Everything is wonderful—why not rob him? Only what? There is a decree of Scripture and a prohibition against robbing. What can I do? Therefore it’s not an option. But in principle, it seems to me that this joke certainly reflects something real in the way of looking at things—the Haredi way of looking at the world, at its root, is some kind of spiritual solipsism. I am basically standing opposite the Holy One, blessed be He, and everything around me is silhouette targets. In other words, they are trying to challenge me and see whether I act correctly. And my goal is to do the maximum number of commandments, the minimum number of transgressions, get through this minefield, and in the end arrive at the destination, which is the World to Come. And that—that is basically success. Yes? This world is a corridor, and my goal is to reach the banquet hall. And everything else is statistical—like extras in a movie, yes? Everyone else is basically extras who come to challenge me. So of course I’m presenting this in an extreme way, but I think the point is a correct one. Now, a very important point I want to make here, because one can definitely get confused in this context: I am not claiming that a Haredi outlook means egoism or serving not for its own sake. It is very easy to slide in that direction, and I am absolutely not claiming that. I’m claiming that there are two conceptions here of serving for its own sake. In other words, let’s put it this way: a Haredi person who sees the world as a Ringo track, yes, as a series of challenges that you need to get through on the way to the World to Come, he too can do that service for its own sake. He can say: I do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, and maybe that is what repairs me, or I don’t know, or simply because it pleases the Holy One, blessed be He, for some reason, and therefore I do it for Heaven’s sake, not for the sake of the World to Come. I’m only claiming that this action, for the Haredi, is not done in order to repair the world, but rather because that is what must be done. And why is that what must be done? Because either it repairs me, or because it pleases the Holy One, blessed be He, who commanded it that way and I must fulfill His will. And he does it for Heaven’s sake. I’m not talking about—therefore I emphasize again—the description here is not a judgmental description. It is a distinction between two outlooks in serving God. It is not judgmental. It is not that one is egoistic and the other altruistic. No. Neither one has to be egoistic, and both can be egoistic. But in the Haredi world especially, it is tempting to identify this with egoism, and that is not correct—or not necessary. A person may do it in order to discharge his obligation because there is such a commandment. He does not see the poor person before him. He sees himself: I need to be as pure as possible, to fulfill as many commandments as possible, to avoid as many transgressions as possible, and therefore I do it—not in order to receive my reward in the World to Come and enjoy it. That would be serving not for its own sake. No. Rather, because that is what is imposed on me. Completely serving for its own sake. Therefore you need to understand well: I am not making a distinction here between egoist and altruist. These are two forms of conceiving service for its own sake; both are service for its own sake. The only question is what counts as service for its own sake. Of course, on both sides there can also be service not for its own sake. Obviously. And as I said earlier, on the Haredi side it is even more natural. Because if you are working for spiritual matters, for the World to Come, and not in order to repair this world, then it is even natural, basically, to shift into working in order to inherit the World to Come. And then that really is service not for its own sake. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can be Haredi and serve completely for its own sake. True, in the Haredi outlook this often quite easily develops into service not for its own sake, but it is not an identity. In other words, I am not claiming that everyone who looks at things through Haredi eyes serves not for its own sake. That is simply not true. That is not what I mean to say.

[Speaker H] And is it impossible to see repairing the world in its spiritual sense? Meaning, that everyone will be in a consciousness of serving God, like we pray on the High Holidays, “Instill Your fear,” and all things of that kind? That is, repairing the world, but not in its universal sense—rather in the simple sense in which “repairing the world” is understood.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a spiritual sense? Yes. About that I’ll still speak. Yes, definitely—

[Speaker H] It’s possible. Spiritual—I don’t mean abstract. I don’t mean moving into some other phase of reality. Rather here, that there should be such a consciousness of commitment to Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And what? Then where is the repair? I didn’t understand. Yes—that you fulfill obligation, do the will of God. But when you speak of spiritual repair, what do you mean?

[Speaker H] Okay, you can call it spiritual repair, psychological repair, soulful repair, whatever, but it is still repair here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said: in order to repair myself, or in order to be a more complete person because I do the will of my Creator. Okay, that is completely serving for its own sake. It’s only a question of what conception of “for its own sake” we’re talking about.

[Speaker H] No—the world will reach such a state. For me, repairing the world means that the world—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but you generally don’t go out on campaigns of persuasion so that the world will keep commandments. Here I’m taking Chabad out of the game, but maybe we’ll come back to that too. In the simple Haredi outlook, that doesn’t happen. You can say: I repair myself, I do my part, in my own little divine plot. I do what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from me, become as complete a person as possible. That is serving for its own sake. But in what sense is that repair? My repair, not the world’s repair. Unless you talk about repair in the spiritual dimensions of the world, or I don’t know, all kinds of things like that. Yes—about that I’ll speak later, on that point.

[Speaker E] Can I ask a question on a slightly different topic? What is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re in the middle of the class.

[Speaker E] Ah, sorry, I thought the Rabbi—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, we’re almost done. But briefly, what is important for me to say is that we are talking here about two models—two models, both of which speak about serving for its own sake. Not serving for its own sake versus serving not for its own sake, or versus egoism. Now, if I’m right that this is the ideological distinction—and notice, this is already an ideological distinction, not merely sociological differences—then I want to argue that from this ideological distinction one can derive a great many of the characteristics I spoke about earlier. And I said that I can use the characteristics I described earlier, even if they are not a definition, as some sort of indication that tests the essential distinction I’m making. And that’s what I basically want to do now. I’ll just begin now because we’re out of time, but what I basically want to say is that from this distinction I can derive—not sure if everything, but almost all the differences you can think of between Haredim and non-Haredim. So first of all, and obviously foremost, the attitude toward Zionism. The attitude toward Zionism is of course an outgrowth of this issue. In other words, Zionism is a movement whose whole concern was to fix a situation in this world. Not necessarily to fix the world, but to fix the situation in this world for the Jewish people. Okay? But still, it is a movement whose aim is social repair in the world. Okay? And therefore I think that the attitude toward Zionism, beyond the question that it was secular and this and that—there is also that issue, of course—it goes far beyond that. Haredim wait for the Temple to descend from above. We are not supposed to work for that. And from their perspective the goal is: we do commandments so that the Temple will descend from above. Any action whose goal is to improve or repair the world is an action that does not fit the Haredi agenda. Before the question of whether this is done by secular people or not done by secular people. Rather, the very aspiration to repair already means that you are not looking at things in a Haredi way. The Haredi outlook does not repair the world. You do your commandments, and if you succeed, the messiah will come, the Temple will descend from above, or you will merit the World to Come.

[Speaker D] But to do repair… this claim was said explicitly by Haredi rabbis when they opposed Zionism, that it is forbidden to act in order to bring the messiah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, here too saying that it’s forbidden to act in order to bring the Messiah—that’s also too narrow. I would stop after “it’s forbidden to act,” regardless of the Messiah. They don’t act; that’s not really the whole point about the Messiah. The point is—I think the Messiah here is again just an indication. The claim is that this has nothing to do with actions. You’re not supposed to take actions to bring the Messiah; you’re supposed to perform commandments. If you perform the commandments, the Holy One, blessed be He, will send you the Messiah, bring down the Temple for you, and everything will be wonderful. But taking actions that repair the world and prepare it for redemption, the Messiah, the Temple, and so on—the problem is with the actions. Not with the way the Temple will come or the Messiah will come. Rather, we aren’t supposed to take action in order to repair the world. That’s not the goal at all. On the contrary, from our perspective the world is the Flood, and we are inside Noah’s ark. Our role is to separate ourselves from the world and make sure it doesn’t destroy us. This outward-facing perspective—that I’m going to repair the world, change it—that’s simply… in the Haredi outlook it’s almost heresy. Because the whole reason the world was created is to pose a hostile challenge to us. To change that—there’s some noise here—to change that is to act against the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, created an entire world whose whole purpose is to provide a platform for us; they are supposed to be hostile. If they aren’t hostile, then what are we doing here? But repairing the world is simply changing the… But I think that’s what lies behind the Haredi conception. Meaning, the very fact that you act in order to repair the world—there’s something there that just doesn’t sit right with them. So no, leave aside how the Messiah comes and how the Temple will come and all that. Your whole stance before the Holy One, blessed be He, and before the world is simply not that stance. By contrast, non-Haredi religiosity, Religious Zionist or national religiosity, is a religiosity whose aim is to repair the world, to repair at least the space around me in the world. More than that—even, say, the universalist religious people, I’m not talking about the non-religious, the Bund, but I’m saying even the universalist religious people, say, the people of Torah with worldly engagement. The people of Torah with worldly engagement actually opposed Zionism. But they opposed Zionism for real; they really opposed Zionism perhaps because the way to bring the Messiah is not this way. They opposed Zionism because they think we are supposed to repair the world, not the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. That too is a conception of repair. They did hold a conception of repair, or at least some of them did. It’s just that the Zionist repair is too narrow. It leaves us fenced in somewhere and still leaves the world abandoned. Don’t worry about yourself; you’re supposed to be universal, to act in the world. In that sense it’s really just like the Bund. The Bund was a certain conception that opposed Zionism because of Zionism’s particularism, because it didn’t repair the world but only cared for the Jewish people. That’s a kind of egoism, even if it’s egoism on behalf of a people and not an individual. But it’s still egoism. Where are you? You need to repair the whole world. And even today there are very many universalist Jews—usually they’re not Orthodox, but there are Orthodox ones too—universalist Jews whose criticism of Zionism is that it doesn’t repair the world enough. Not that it does repair the world. It’s the opposite criticism from the Haredi criticism of Zionism: that it’s too narrow, too concerned only with Judaism and only with us, and doesn’t repair the world. So in that sense those criticisms too are of course non-Haredi criticisms; they are the opposite. Criticisms coming from the opposite direction from the Haredi one. So first of all, the first characteristic—and maybe I’ll stop here—the first characteristic of the attitude toward Zionism seems to me to be a direct derivative of the distinction I made earlier. Later on I’ll try to show several more implications that follow from this, but I’ll stop here. Any comments or questions?

[Speaker E] Yes. Rabbi, can I ask something briefly? I understood what the Rabbi expressed and wrote and said, and also expresses regarding the hostage deal—in one word, if possible. The Rabbi kind of presents it, and rightly so, I very much agree with the Rabbi’s distinction, that somehow it has appeared and keeps appearing quite clearly that an overwhelming majority of religious people are against the deal, and most of, let’s say, the supporters of the deal are secular. Let’s put it that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know if most religious people oppose it, but most of those who oppose it are religious.

[Speaker E] And that’s supposedly strange. What does hostages have to do with religion? What does this have to do with religion? But now the Rabbi presented the explanation—maybe a particular one—that supposedly the secular people act from emotion, they don’t act rationally, whereas the religious are used to Torah study and to the importance of Jewish law, which is detached from morality, and they think in a more practiced, more accustomed, more rational way—and obviously rationally the deal doesn’t make sense, because there will be a thousand victims.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not obvious, no.

[Speaker E] No, wait, wait. I’m saying that ostensibly that’s how it appears. It’s not—there is a very strong rational argument against the deal, let’s say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I was talking about something else. I was talking about something else. What I said is that there is a very strong emotional argument in favor of the deal. Exactly, fine. Against the deal there are considerations this way and that way. I think the considerations against it prevail, but regarding the considerations in favor of the deal, there is a very strong emotional tendency.

[Speaker E] I completely agree. Now what I wanted to ask the Rabbi, what isn’t clear, is that at the end of the day, when we discuss this after putting the rational arguments on the table, it’s obvious that the secular public is not idiotic; they understand the rational arguments of those who make them. Suppose the argument that there will be far more victims—orders of magnitude more victims—from releasing terrorists and from this deal, compared to saving lives, is a simple rational argument that obviously many secular people would understand, or other arguments. But clearly their argument—what makes it emotional? They decided to place at the top of the scale of priorities the supreme value, supposedly, that the state is not the very existence of the state and its prosperity and strength and total victory, but compassion right now for souls suffering before our eyes. That’s the supreme value. For that we sacrifice. It’s not “why are we doing this?”—that is the value. That. You can certainly dispute the supreme value. You can say that isn’t the supreme value. Compassion is not the supreme value. The state is the supreme value, survival, prosperity, total victory—that’s the supreme value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not claiming that, Shmuel, I’m not claiming that. What I want to say is that the discourse is emotional, not the position. I said there are considerations in favor of the deal. The considerations for releasing the hostages are not emotional considerations. There is value in releasing the hostages—what do you mean? No one disputes that. And I can absolutely hear someone saying, look, I think releasing the hostages now overrides every other consideration—a legitimate position, a legitimate view. I don’t agree with it, but it is a legitimate position, and I certainly would not classify it as emotion. When I refer to emotionality, I’m referring to the forms of reasoning and discourse that accompany the expression of that position. People who say, look, do you see these hostages? How can you say not to release them? That is an emotional position. What would you do if your son were there? That is an emotional position. Because if my son were there, I would remove myself from making that decision. That is exactly the conclusion one should draw logically. And someone who says, what would you do if your son were there, is basically appealing to my emotions. He is making emotional arguments. Therefore I claim that the discourse accompanying support for this deal—not that support for the deal is by definition emotional, of course not. I’m sure there are also people who support the deal and they are sensible and rational people, with whom I disagree, but that’s fine. But the discourse around this issue, and what pulls the public en masse in the direction of supporting the deal—that is sheer emotion.

[Speaker E] But why isn’t that a value judgment? A value judgment is obviously emotional. Here—no—but to say that the supreme value is compassion is obviously emotion. After all, our well-known disagreement is that I claim values are emotions; that doesn’t contradict anything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The moment values are emotions, you’ve emptied the discussion of content.

[Speaker E] No, but again, if the Rabbi asked most supporters, they wouldn’t say “because it’s my son”; they would say “because I think this is the supreme value.” To have compassion for the one who is suffering right now is the supreme value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but from the way they say it, you can see that it’s emotion. I see it. Anyone who doesn’t see it is blind. I have nothing more to say than that. It’s simply blindness. You can’t miss it. You can’t miss the fact that people don’t even bring up the counterarguments. They don’t weigh at all—there’s a case for it and a case against it, and I think the case for it prevails. No—you don’t hear the counterarguments. There aren’t any.

[Speaker E] Because it’s a supreme value. If it’s a supreme value, what is there to say about counterarguments? If that’s the end in itself, then every consideration you mention for the sake of the value turns the value into a means to something else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An end is an end, and it overrides the other. Don’t tell me “supreme value.” When someone tells me “supreme value,” that’s whitewashing. You’re talking about emotionality.

[Speaker E] Okay, I agree. No, I’m not whitewashing, I’m putting it on the table. I think a value is always emotion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I said, if that’s the case, then there’s no point to this discussion.

[Speaker E] But no value has a rational justification. The Rabbi has told us that many times. Right, so what? But whenever a person decides some value is the supreme value, it will always be emotional; it has no justification. If it has a justification, then it becomes a means.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ve had this argument before; there’s no point repeating it. I claim that it has no justification and it is not emotion. It is a moral intuition, not emotion.

[Speaker C] So the Rabbi is focusing more on the issue of the war in Gaza and the need to eliminate Hamas, because otherwise we’ve accomplished nothing, more than on the price of releasing prisoners.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Personally, regarding future costs, I think I would pay them. Because listen, right in front of you there are people who are in trouble right now, suffering, and so on. As for future deaths, we’ll have to work harder and not make blunders like October seventh. And if we don’t, then we won’t, but that is taking away a certainty because of a doubt. I think I could live with that. That’s not the main consideration.

[Speaker C] And it doesn’t matter what number? Even if it were one hostage, two hostages, it’s like—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s already a matter of proportionality. It may matter. I don’t know where to draw the line, but in this situation I think it’s enough. The fact is they didn’t do this for the hostages who were there before October seventh. There are several people there from before then. For that they didn’t wage these wars. Meaning there is a sense that here the blow was too great. Entire communities were destroyed. It’s not only bodies—isn’t it also living people?

[Speaker C] No, no, some of them are living people, what do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are living people too, dozens of them. They return to us every day, what do you mean?

[Speaker C] Oh no, I thought you meant before the war. Those who were kidnapped in the past.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, even those from before the war—it’s not just bodies, not all of them. There’s Avera Mengistu; I don’t know, maybe by now he’s already a body, but he’s not supposed to be a body. And there’s some Bedouin man, and there are the bodies of Oron Shaul and Goldin and so on. There were several there.

[Speaker C] And then to go back to fighting afterward, that’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But phase two won’t end until you commit not to fight anymore, and “commit” means with international guarantees. Hamas wasn’t born today either; they’re more intelligent than we are.

[Speaker H] It’s good that Trump is here.

[Speaker C] No one talks about why Hamas is more intelligent than us.

[Speaker H] There are gaps between us. Yes, yes, I agree too; the question is how that happened. That’s what surprised me on October seventh—that they’re more intelligent than us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, there’s the fact that when a person doesn’t care about paying any price, then of course he has the upper hand by definition. Meaning, he doesn’t care if tens of thousands of his people are killed, he doesn’t care if the city he lives in or the strip he lives in is destroyed—obviously he has an advantage. But still, he’s playing; he also has major disadvantages. Our power is far greater than theirs. They are playing their cards more intelligently than we are, unfortunately.

[Speaker H] Where does the Rabbi speak about this in an orderly way? In a post or something? About what? About this issue of hostages and all of phase one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There were columns here, many columns about it. At different stages of the war I dealt with it in quite a few columns.

[Speaker C] And there’s a problem here: on the one hand we can’t really win because of all the humanitarian aid and all the other things they wouldn’t let us do, that the United States didn’t let us do, and now the United States does want to let us, but it wants to let us do that by first releasing all the hostages.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So as if from the outset we couldn’t, and today I’m not sure we couldn’t.

[Speaker C] Now that Trump is in power, there’s more of a chance.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even without Trump, even with Biden. If we had been sufficiently resolute and stuck to our position and refused to compromise, it’s not clear to me that we couldn’t have won.

[Speaker C] But we kept feeding them, and Hamas recruits more people and becomes richer and richer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suppose we don’t feed them and we kill them and don’t stop for twenty years, and I’m not sure their staying power is infinite the way they try to sell it to us.

[Speaker C] But it would take years—it’s not something that can—you can occupy it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, then years. We also have steadfastness, not only them. If we are as determined as they are, then they too will say, wow, these Jews are crazy. What we—

[Speaker C] You can keep fighting, you can keep fighting in the strip for years without someone going in to administer them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. I would stay there for thirty years. Kill them and kill them and kill them until they get sick of it. The moment you don’t give in, you probably also won’t need to get to thirty years, exactly like them. Why do we surrender? Because we know they don’t surrender.

[Speaker C] No, and at a certain stage you won’t need to—you won’t leave divisions there fighting the whole time. You’ll go in and out, go in and out, and try to kind of… No, no, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Occupy the strip and continue the war to the bitter end, until they surrender and leave. Don’t stop. Thirty years.

[Speaker C] So you want to occupy the entire strip.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course.

[Speaker C] Okay, so that means you are willing to endanger the lives of the hostages who are there in this war.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely.

[Speaker H] It could be that there isn’t enough manpower for all this, and that’s why the IDF doesn’t want to tell us that there isn’t enough.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We have enough, we have manpower in abundance for this. If they decided to do it, there would be no major problem doing it. Now we also no longer have the north; we did things in parallel in the north and south. We have manpower for this and we can do it. Especially if we’re talking about many years ahead, then it also doesn’t have to be five divisions the whole time; it could also be one or two divisions, I don’t know, I’m just throwing that out because I really don’t know the exact numbers, but I definitely think it can be done. A military government? I’m speaking from the armchair; obviously I don’t know exactly what the American pressures are and what this is and what the constraints are, but from my impression, I think that if we were determined I would not rule out the possibility of defeating them—total victory, the thing everyone laughs at Bibi about.

[Speaker C] And a military government there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a military government—an endless war. A military government is to occupy and remain there and run their lives. No. An endless war. I kill them and kill them and kill them and kill them until they despair. Not a military government.

[Speaker H] It’s just an iron wall.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.

[Speaker C] And what about the whole population there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole population there can take care of itself, or the world can take care of it. The world is so good—

[Speaker C] But the world won’t let you keep fighting there forever.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what they said, and that’s what I also thought—not only “they said,” I include myself in that. That’s what people said at the beginning of the war. We are already a year and four months into this game; they haven’t stopped us. They condemn us here and there.

[Speaker C] Because we’ll need weapons from the United States, and in the end the United States will decide to shut off the tap. The United States—we have four years now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s what—

[Speaker C] That’s what they’re doing now in Ukraine; they want to stop the story in Ukraine, and here too at some point…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ukraine is lost because the Ukrainians won’t defeat the Russians, and we will defeat Hamas if we decide to. Trump wants to close the files, but closing the files means defeating Hamas—that’s closing the file. Moving on—but it’s pretty clear that if the Rabbi is talking about victory, they won’t defeat the Russians. So in Ukraine Trump’s business interest says, okay, then give up what you need to give up and that’s it, this has to be wrapped up.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, but total victory clearly means in the end—it’s clear, very logical—that it ends with destroying all the Palestinians, destroying Hamas completely.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. If there’s no choice, then you destroy them all.

[Speaker E] And that’s what victory means, step by step.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no problem with that.

[Speaker C] It sounds like endless guerrilla warfare, like Vietnam, never ending.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. Once Hamas understands that it does not control the strip, that it is no longer the determining factor, and that we are there and will keep killing it all the time, it will reach an agreement with us and leave the place.

[Speaker C] But it controls the humanitarian aid, and through that it controls the civilians.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So until we—

[Speaker C] Stop that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because of us. We don’t need to let it control the humanitarian aid. Why are we letting it?

[Speaker C] Because then we have to distribute the food, and that’s what the army doesn’t want to do.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let them distribute the food.

[Speaker C] So that’s a kind of military government where we are responsible for—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A military government—that’s a war in which you also care for the population, fine, yes.

[Speaker C] That’s the army’s big blunder for a long time now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You see a Hamas man with a weapon—you need to shoot him in the head. That’s all. Clear and simple. Every one of them, no matter who, what—every Hamas official, every one, without anything. Someone who belongs to Hamas—you shoot him in the head. That’s all. And you do that for fifty years.

[Speaker E] And in the end every child will become a Hamas member. Every child will eventually become a Hamas member; there’s no reason—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then all of them in the end.

[Speaker C] So the Rabbi said this is close to Amalek. At what point does it become Amalek? Where is that gap, that it still isn’t Amalek?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, at the moment there is a population there that is not participating in the war. It’s not that I’ve reached the conclusion that, listen, there’s no choice, we need to destroy them all. Rather, I’m willing to get to a situation in which they are all destroyed. We need to see.

[Speaker E] If we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If we reach a situation where that is necessary.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, suppose the dominance of the United States intensifies, Trump is on steroids, and says, listen, you know what? I’m authorizing you even to set up gas chambers and suffocate them all. Let’s just destroy them, because really it’s a culture of evil, as the Rabbi correctly described factually, that they’re all Hamas people there. So set up gas chambers, let’s finish it quickly and elegantly, pity the suffering of the children. Let’s finish it and we’ll give you backing; I’m the strong United States. Would the Rabbi agree to that? Obviously.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Gas chambers in the strip. Whatever is needed to solve the problem. Gas chambers is once again playing on emotions, but—

[Speaker C] If you solve it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With emotions, then I’m not.

[Speaker E] Why? Gas chambers are the most humane thing—instead of starving them for thirty years and letting them waste away from disease.

[Speaker C] Wait a second—are you talking about gas chambers for the whole population or only for Hamas?

[Speaker E] No, no, everyone. Also the children who will grow up to be Hamas members—why not? Obviously.

[Speaker C] Wait, did the Rabbi say gas chambers for everyone or only for Hamas?

[Speaker E] No, for everyone. We’re talking about everyone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Gas chambers for whoever is necessary in order to deal with the problem. If we reach the conclusion that in order to deal with the problem we need to destroy Gaza, then destroy Gaza.

[Speaker E] Right, the Rabbi explained in the podcast I heard this week, on the moral level—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whether the world will allow us to—that’s another question.

[Speaker E] No, assuming the world allows it.

[Speaker C] Wait, so now at this stage, as we are now fighting Hamas, we can now go in with gas chambers and begin systematically eliminating the whole population, if I understand correctly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you do not understand correctly.

[Speaker C] Exactly—that’s what I don’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, any moment now there’ll be a headline in the newspaper.

[Speaker C] Exactly, that’s what it sounds like. It’s frightening, so I’m asking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. As far as I’m concerned—and I’ve written this in many places—what I think should be done is whatever is required, or whatever is proper to do. Whatever is required in order to deal with the problem. If you can’t deal with this problem and remove the threat without destroying Gaza, then as far as I’m concerned, absolutely destroy Gaza. I don’t care whether with gas chambers, drowning, hanging, shooting—it doesn’t interest me at all. I have no sentimentalism. If we do not need that in order to deal with the problem, then we do not do it.

[Speaker C] But what does it mean to deal with the problem? There’s an uninvolved population and there are Hamas fighters. You fight for years and years and don’t succeed, and they survive. There’s a lot of noise.

[Speaker E] In the podcast this week the Rabbi clarified very clearly: a culture of evil and crime that has no future, so that even if you destroy the active Hamas members, the Rabbi said—

[Speaker C] That they are close to Amalek, not actually Amalek.

[Speaker E] No, the Rabbi explained that this is a culture with no future, and he compared it very nicely: no matter how much you fight them, they don’t give up. There’s no reason the children will suddenly grow up normal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shmuel, once again you’re starting with emotions, and I think you can’t discuss things that way. Now maybe you have an ideology, so then it’s impossible to discuss, but I can’t deal with something like that. Because I didn’t say that. And these examples of gas chambers and deciding that Gaza is Amalek—that is exactly the emotional discussion I was talking about earlier. I am making a very cold argument here, not an emotional one. Whatever needs to be done in order to deal with the threat against us is permitted. That’s what I’m saying. Now we need to decide—people who understand these things; I do not have the information. People who understand these things need to decide what is required in order to deal with the problem. That’s all. If it is necessary to kill everyone, then it is necessary to kill everyone. I don’t care whether it’s with gas chambers or not. If it is not necessary to kill everyone, and at a reasonable price or under a threat we can live with, we can continue without killing everyone, then it is forbidden to kill them. Obviously. And I said there too that they have not yet reached the level of Amalek, although they demonstrate to us very well what such a thing looks like. But yes, they still haven’t reached that point, and that is also what I said. And I repeat that. Absolutely.

[Speaker C] Okay, now it’s clearer.

[Speaker F] And in the opening with Dushi he put in those quotations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, his opening was an annoying opening. I sent him a message afterward. Right, right, on that I agree. He took things out of context. Comments—but he told me, listen, the opening can’t be changed anymore; the picture he did replace. They had put me there with Nasrallah and all kinds of monsters and so on, so the picture he could replace but not the opening. Fine.

[Speaker F] Rabbi, and regarding the issue that came up in the lesson on “to scout out”—do the traditionalists fit in somewhere on this map of motivations?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker F] According to the division between the Haredim, whose main emphasis is reward, or the World to Come, as opposed to the Religious Zionists, whose main focus is action in this world, repairing the world—so I’m asking whether you place the traditionalists somewhere.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how to say something general about traditionalists, but they don’t have some kind of consolidated conceptions that define what “traditionalist” is. There may be a traditionalist who tells you yes, that he believes in the World to Come and what he does here is in order to merit the World to Come, but then I would expect him to do everything and not be some kind of partial traditionalist. But I don’t know—these are inconsistent outlooks, and it’s very hard for me to characterize them or say anything clear about them.

[Speaker F] Yes, I agree.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Pinchas Ben Avat is trying to connect Haredism and traditionalism. I still need to read it; as I said, I haven’t yet.

[Speaker F] And Rabbi, I was thinking—if you want, maybe to do some kind of survey on this issue and open it up, have people send you answers about what the prominent characteristics of Haredi society are, essential characteristics, then we could use the wisdom of the followers and maybe know how to connect those traits to the theory that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A project or study that I don’t know if I have the energy to get into. But it can be done, I don’t know—do it yourself if you want.

[Speaker F] If there are characteristics that I think are essential and maybe were missed, is it worth sending them to you?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can send them, yes. I don’t know. Okay, all right, Sabbath peace. Good news,

[Speaker F] Sabbath

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] peace.