To the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 3
This transcript was produced automatically by means of artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Review of Chapter 2 and the justification for its placement
- Guide for the Perplexed: image, likeness, and attribute in Maimonides
- Rabbi Kook: the essence of the image as freedom, and perfection as drawing forth will
- Critique of the Maimonidean model and emphasis on multiple paths
- Choice, determinism, and indeterminism as the basis for understanding the image
- The example of elections in Syria, Switzerland, and meaningful choice
- Choice as creation ex nihilo and as resembling the creation of worlds
- Divine freedom, logic, and anthropomorphism in the concept of “will”
- The eternity of the world in Maimonides and its connection to will, miracle, and reward and punishment
- Two levels in Rabbi Kook: necessary compulsion versus a pure outlook
Summary
General Overview
The text goes back from Chapter 2 to Chapter 1 and suggests that the reason the book opens with the concept of tzelem is a deliberate parallel to the opening of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, which deals with image and likeness. Maimonides defines image as the essence of the human being, whose power is intellectual apprehension, whereas Rabbi Kook says that the core of the image is complete freedom and choice. From that he presents a model of perfection that is not static and uniform, but depends on the ability to “draw forth will” from the blessed Name. The discussion then develops into the meaning of choice as a third kind of process, neither determinism nor randomness, and its resemblance to creation ex nihilo. Finally, the idea of will and freedom is connected to the question of the eternity of the world in Maimonides, who distinguishes between an Aristotelian eternity that destroys miracle and reward and punishment, and more refined possibilities. Rabbi Kook adopts a similar two-level structure for understanding the relation between human actions, the higher will, and eternity.
Review of Chapter 2 and the justification for its placement
The text states that Chapter 2 places upon sages an obligation to deal with philosophical issues in order to answer the needs of the generation, even though it hints at a view that ideally the great scholars occupy themselves with “the discussions of Abaye and Rava” and not with philosophical issues. The text proposes a relation between halakhic questions and philosophical questions against the background of Maimonides’ language about a “small matter” versus a “great matter,” and defines this as the context of Chapter 2. The text asks why the book does not open with Chapter 2 and suggests that opening with Chapter 1 comes from the parallel to the structure of Guide for the Perplexed, whose first chapter deals with the concept of the image.
Guide for the Perplexed: image, likeness, and attribute in Maimonides
The text quotes Maimonides that the statement “that man was created in the image of God—this is a foundation of the Torah” leads to clarifying what the main point of the image is and what “the image of God” means. The text describes the common view that tzelem means shape and bodily form, leading to anthropomorphism from the verse “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and the fear that abandoning anthropomorphism would be seen as denying Scripture. The text presents Maimonides’ distinction that the term for physical form is “attribute,” and that this term is never applied to God, whereas tzelem is the natural form in the sense of a thing’s nature and essence, “the notion that makes a thing be a substance and what it is.” The text phrases this as essence. The text says that according to Maimonides the human image is “apprehension,” and because of intellectual apprehension it is said of man, “in the image of God He created him,” and disgrace attaches to the soul and to the form of the human species, not to the shape of the limbs.
Rabbi Kook: the essence of the image as freedom, and perfection as drawing forth will
The text says that Rabbi Kook follows Maimonides in opening with the concept of the image, but departs from him when he defines the essence of the image as “complete freedom” and choice, rather than intellectual apprehension. The text brings his claim that choice is a foundation of the Torah, based on Maimonides in the laws of repentance, and concludes that if the human being is made in the image of God, then the perfection of complete freedom must necessarily be found in the truly perfect Being, blessed be His name, and this is the theoretical foundation upon which all deeds depend. The text says that Rabbi Kook sees the whole system of human self-perfection as directed toward bringing the human being to complete freedom, and therefore there is no doubt that the highest aspect of perfection cannot be absent from the Necessary Existent, blessed be He. The text describes a movement “from below,” from knowledge of the human image and from there to learning about the image of God, in the spirit of “from my flesh I behold God,” so that the divine essence is understood as absolute freedom through which the Holy One, blessed be He, acts.
Critique of the Maimonidean model and emphasis on multiple paths
The text presents the Maimonidean model as a rigid one in which intellect is the focus of perfection, “there is only one truth,” and deviation from truth is considered error or “a defective mind,” so that the perfect human being comes out looking like one single uniform figure. The text says that intellect is viewed as opposed to freedom because its conclusions are “compelled,” and therefore image-as-apprehension places choices beneath intellect, while commandments and behavior are necessary conditions for perfection but not perfection itself. The text says that Rabbi Kook sets up the opposite model, perfection as freedom, in which perfection is not conformity to a static standard of an “ideal person,” but is measured by whether a person “draws forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He.” The text argues that within this framework different human beings may draw forth will to the same degree in different ways, according to their tendencies, environment, and constraints, and thus one gets freedom, multiplicity, and pluralism as against the fossilized image in the Maimonidean picture as presented here.
Choice, determinism, and indeterminism as the basis for understanding the image
The text formulates three modes of operation: determinism, in which circumstances determine the next moment in a one-to-one way; indeterminism, as complete randomness without correlation; and free choice as a third process. The text says that the paradoxes of choice arise when people try to translate it into deterministic causality or randomness, and so either responsibility is cancelled or freedom is lost. The text defines choice as an action that involves deliberation and responsibility but does not arise as a cause from the past; rather it works “facing toward the future,” and it formulates will as the conversion of a purpose into a cause. The text illustrates this with the decision to make a phone call so that something will happen tomorrow, and describes this as a situation in which a future event “causes” an action in the present through the will.
The example of elections in Syria, Switzerland, and meaningful choice
The text gives a parable of three kinds of elections: “elections in Syria” as determinism, with a single ballot and a known outcome; “elections in Switzerland” as meaningless randomness when there are no problems and no cost to the decision; and elections with value, where the decision involves costs and goals. The text says that free choice in the full sense exists when there are considerations and purposes that give meaning to the decision and allow it to be judged as good or bad. The text connects this to the fact that choice is a mechanism that is neither “this nor that,” and therefore there is no point in translating it into the other two mechanisms.
Choice as creation ex nihilo and as resembling the creation of worlds
The text argues that indeterminism is mostly an abstraction, and that even randomness such as rolling dice is in practice a complex deterministic process, whereas the exceptional case is acts of choice. The text says that an act of choice is unique in that it is not “something from something,” part of a causal chain going back to the big bang, but the beginning of a new chain, “something from nothing.” The text explains that when a person decides and performs a physical act, a new causal chain is created that begins with the decision itself, and therefore even a “supercomputer” could not have predicted it, because choice adds new starting points into the world. The text identifies this as the depth of the image of God, because the action of the Holy One, blessed be He, is also described as freedom with no external causes and as creation ex nihilo, and human choice is the closest thing to this freedom within the system of human constraints.
Divine freedom, logic, and anthropomorphism in the concept of “will”
The text asks about the relation between absolute freedom and constraints such as morality, and argues that morality itself is the result of creation and therefore cannot serve as a constraint that preceded creation. The text distinguishes between moral laws and laws of nature on the one hand, and logic and mathematics on the other, and says that there is no meaning to “subjection” to logic, because there is no alternative concept such as “a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side.” It gives the example of “Puss in Boots” to illustrate that it has no meaning to claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, “will become a human being” in such a way that He can be killed. The text emphasizes that the relevant question is “what kind of God do you believe in,” not what divinity is in itself, and therefore concepts such as will are human-faith depictions. The text cites a passage from Chapter 4 on page 24, that “what we call will with regard to the exalted law” means that qualities such as awe and love, faith and trust, ought to be drawn into us, and according to them the blessed Name is revealed to us as acting by will.
The eternity of the world in Maimonides and its connection to will, miracle, and reward and punishment
The text quotes Rabbi Kook on page 16 that the reason the eternity of the world contradicts the Torah is that eternity is “bound up with necessity,” and with necessity there is no room for capacity, miracles, or reward and punishment. The text brings Maimonides in Part II, Chapter 25 of Guide for the Perplexed, according to whom the refusal to believe in eternity does not stem only from the plain sense of the verses, because just as verses implying corporeality are interpreted figuratively, so too verses about the world’s coming into being could have been interpreted that way if there had been a conclusive proof for eternity. The text says that Maimonides rejects Aristotelian eternity because it nullifies miracle and reward and punishment, and distinguishes a more “refined” version of eternity that does not destroy the principles of religion but is still rejected for lack of proof.
Two levels in Rabbi Kook: necessary compulsion versus a pure outlook
The text returns to page 15 and presents in Rabbi Kook two levels for understanding the relation of actions to the higher will: one that is “necessary,” without which there is no place for moral perfection; and one that is “only a pure outlook,” without which a moral world could still exist. The text identifies the first level with Aristotelian-style eternity and necessity as something that contradicts the foundations of religion and is therefore rejected, and the second with a more refined eternity that does not contradict the foundations but is rejected on the level of purity of outlook. The text says that this whole structure parallels the structure in Guide for the Perplexed, and concludes that the continuation of the discussion will deal with the differences between Rabbi Kook and Maimonides and with the more refined eternity “next time,” with the note “with God’s help,” and that this will be “in two weeks.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time we were really dealing with the introduction and Chapter 2. Chapter 2 talked about the obligation of sages to engage with philosophical issues, to answer the people of the generation. We talked a bit about the question why you need after-the-fact justifications in order to encourage sages to deal with these issues, when really there’s some underlying view here that ideally all those great figures who occupy themselves with the discussions of Abaye and Rava are right not to get into these issues—but now, since it’s a need of the generation, there’s no choice but to roll up our sleeves and get into them. I tried to suggest some explanation there that shows the relationship between philosophical questions and halakhic questions—why indeed the focus of Torah, the heart of Torah, has always been seen as engagement with the discussions of Abaye and Rava and not with the supposedly big philosophical questions, which in Maimonides are also called a great matter, whereas the discussions of Abaye and Rava are a small matter and the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot are a great matter. So that was Chapter 2. Today I want to go back to Chapter 1. And I think the possible reason, at least, why—Maimonides, sorry, not Maimonides—why Rabbi Kook didn’t open with Chapter 2 as would have been expected, and that is exactly the necessary introduction to why one must deal with the topics this book deals with—so Chapter 2 should have been Chapter 1, not Chapter 2. Why does he begin with Chapter 2? So actually I don’t fully know, it’s not entirely clear to me, I’m not sure there is a reason, I don’t know exactly how he arranged the notebooks there. But one point is interesting and important to know. This chapter, the first chapter—if you look, you’ll see the opening sentence: “That man was created in the image of God—this is a foundation of the Torah.” Then he goes on to discuss what the essence of the image is, what the term “image of God” means. And if we remember that this book is called For the Perplexed of the Generation, then of course we can only expect a parallel to Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed. What? Your teacher? Everything follows Maimonides, I think. This is Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, and the first chapter of course deals with the concept of the image. So it may very well be that this is the reason Rabbi Kook starts specifically with this chapter and leaves Chapter 2, which is the real opening, to remain Chapter 2. So when Maimonides writes there, he says: image and likeness. Maimonides, in the opening chapters, defines concepts, or distinguishes between nearby meanings of concepts, for things he’ll use later. So the first chapter deals with image and likeness. People thought that in Hebrew the word image indicates the shape of a thing and its form. This led to total anthropomorphism because of the verse “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Yes, “our image, our likeness” really sounds anthropomorphic. But it sounds anthropomorphic because we understand the concept of image as referring to a pattern or the physical form of things. They thought that God has a human form, meaning its shape and appearance, and from this it necessarily followed that they would arrive at complete anthropomorphism and believe in it. They thought that if they abandoned this belief they would be denying Scripture, because it says “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Meaning, it’s not just that we may think image is something tangible, something physical—we have to think that way, otherwise we deny Scripture. Maimonides, as is known—well, he’s not speaking exactly about the verses, he’s speaking about rabbinic midrashim—but he distinguishes between three groups in relation to rabbinic midrashim: there’s the group of fools who take everything literally; there’s the group of sages who, whenever necessary, interpret things non-literally; and there are the wicked, who also interpret literally and therefore say it isn’t true, because there are things that are completely unreasonable. So in relation to the Torah too, I think Maimonides’ approach is similar, and we’ll see that later too; he writes this in other places in greater detail. In any case, here he distinguishes between image and likeness. “However, what must be said in order to remove corporeality”—I’m reading from Maimonides now—“and to establish the true unity, which can only be truly established by distancing corporeality—you will later know the demonstrative proof for all this from this book. Here in this chapter I need only clarify the meaning of image and likeness, the meanings of the concepts.” He says, therefore, that the term specifically used for the form commonly understood by the masses, namely the shape of a thing and its appearance, is attribute. In other words, when we talk about physical form, that’s not the right thing to call it—he says “fair in form and fair in appearance,” “what is his appearance,” a verse in Samuel, “like the appearance of the king’s sons,” in Judges. Yes, and it is said of an artificial form, “he marks it out with a stylus, he outlines it with a compass.” So again, description is always a physical form. This is a term never applied to God, exalted be He, heaven forbid. People never speak of God’s attribute; they speak of God’s image. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And attribute and image, says Maimonides, are not the same thing. Up to here he was speaking about attribute. “Whereas image means the natural form,” meaning—not “natural” in the ordinary sense, that would be just the external form. “Natural form” means the nature of the thing. The form of the thing means the nature of the thing. That’s what he means. That’s the concept of image. Its essence, yes, exactly. The essence. Yes. “That is, the notion which constitutes the substance of a thing and makes it what it is.” Yes, the essence of a thing is what makes it what it is. That is called the image of the thing. “And this is its true reality insofar as it is that being.” Yes, a human being, insofar as he is human, is human because of, say, some particular defining feature. Those features are the image of man. They are the image of man, and similarly the image of an animal or any other image, and, with all due distinction, also the image of the Holy One, blessed be He. “That notion in man by virtue of which human apprehension comes into being, and because of this intellectual apprehension it is said of him, ‘in the image of God He created him.’” Yes, for Maimonides the image of God lies in apprehension. Human apprehension is the image, the image of God. That’s an interesting point; in a moment we’ll see what Rabbi Kook does. “And because of this it is said, ‘You despise their image,’ because the disgrace attaches to the soul, which is the form of the human species, and not to the shapes of the limbs and the external appearance.” So Maimonides distinguishes here between attribute and image. Attribute is physical form, and image is the essence or that by which the thing becomes what it is. And he continues after that and elaborates on this. Against that background, we now need to read what Rabbi Kook writes here in Chapter 1, and he too begins with the concept of the image. So in that sense he follows Maimonides. But there are several things here that seem a bit like a departure from Maimonides’ path. For example, we saw before that when Maimonides comes to the image of man—what was the image of man? Apprehension, right? Apprehension, the intellect. The intellect is really the image, meaning the essence of man. The thing by virtue of which man becomes man—that is called man’s image. And what is it according to Maimonides? Apprehension. Rabbi Kook writes: “The essence of the image is the complete freedom that we find in man.” In other words, Rabbi Kook sees the image not in intellectual apprehension but specifically in free will. Yes, in the complete freedom that we find in man, or in will rather than intellect. Those are two different things. “For he is possessed of choice, and without choice there would be no place for the Torah,” as Maimonides says in the laws of repentance. “If so”—I’m now reading Rabbi Kook, of course—“choice is the foundation of Torah and action. And the knowledge that man is made in the image of God thus comes to teach that the perfection of complete freedom must necessarily be found in the essence of the truly perfect Being, blessed be His name. It is the theoretical foundation of the whole Torah, upon which all deeds depend.” Maybe let’s read another few sentences. “And one whose heart is truly the heart of a human being, and who understands the majesty of freedom”—who understands the important meaning of freedom—“sees with the eye of his intellect how the whole system of human self-perfection goes only toward bringing man to his complete freedom.” All human development, basically, its goal, says Rabbi Kook—not maximal apprehension as Maimonides says—oops, sorry, I said Maimonides, I meant Rabbi Kook—not the optimal apprehension or the best possible knowledge, as Maimonides depicts, but complete freedom. That is the full expression of human perfection. “And he will have no doubt within himself”—after you understand that all human conduct is intended only to perfect the self in the measure of its freedom—“he will have no doubt within himself that this highest aspect of perfection cannot possibly be absent from the Necessary Existent, blessed be He, by virtue of the necessary condition of absolute perfection.” What does he mean? He says: “Man was created in the image of God—this is a foundation of the Torah.” So now, what is the image of God? We don’t know. We don’t know the Holy One, blessed be He; you can’t know what the image of God is. But we do know what the image of man is. How do we know? We look around at what all the actions meant to perfect us are directed toward. Rabbi Kook’s claim is that those actions are meant to make us freer or to bring our freedom to full expression. So clearly that is our image, our essence, the main thing, the thing by virtue of which we become human. Now we go back, since we know “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” as Maimonides cites, therefore we know that man is built in the image of God. So just as we understand this is the image of man, and man’s image is God’s image, then apparently God’s image too is that same complete freedom. In other words, the move is this: we are given that the image of man is according to the image of God. What the image of man is, we can simply look and see. And from that we can also learn what the image of God as it were is—that image does not mean attribute, as Maimonides distinguished, but essence. The divine essence is really the complete freedom with which the Holy One, blessed be He, acts. And we know this from below: “from my flesh I behold God,” as the kabbalists say. Meaning, from what happens in the human being I can learn about what happens with the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine, as for the meaning of all this, maybe later in the chapter he’ll speak about it a bit. “And this is the depth of the truth in Torah and its study: that everything is attributed to the will of the blessed Name. One who walks in the way of God and draws forth will from God.” This is a very important point. He says about this: someone who does the right thing does not do it because it conforms to some static truth that exists somewhere, some utopian model of the ideal human located somewhere and you are supposed to fit yourself to it. Rather, you draw forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He. And now the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were judges what you do, and since you draw forth will from Him, you are perfect. Perfection is not something static, it’s not that there is some ideal person—the Maimonidean picture, really, is a very rigid one, not a free one. The image of man is his apprehension, his intellect. And the intellect is of course also the conclusions I reach with the intellect, and in principle they are compelled upon me. Intellect is something opposed to freedom; intellect is something compelled upon me. Someone who has—and especially in Maimonides—someone who has correct intellect understands what the truth is, and someone who doesn’t understand the truth—it’s not that his intellect says something else; he has a broken intellect. Meaning, intellect, certainly in Maimonides’ view—and I think this is true in general—is something very unfree, very fixed, and that is the essence of man. And when we ask who is a perfect human being, the perfect human being is an intellectual one, a person who behaves correctly according to some prescribed, rigid, clear criteria. It seems to me that throughout the whole way, despite all the parallels to Maimonides—that he too deals with the concept of the image, and he too deals with human perfection and man as the image of God—throughout, you can see the difference. Because Rabbi Kook, when he speaks about human perfection, as against Maimonides’ static model, sets up the model of freedom. And a person is perfect not because he hits some set of behaviors written down somewhere, but because he has drawn forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He. If you did that—if the Holy One, blessed be He, was pleased—that means you have a proper image, it means you acted properly. It is not determined according to some set of prescribed standards of some perfect wisdom, some ideal of a perfect human being that you are supposed to fit. For example, out of this there can also come freedom in the sense of multiple possibilities for being a perfect person. In Maimonides it’s very hard to see how there can be several kinds of perfect human beings. The perfect human beings, in some perfect utopia—say you reached the top of the hierarchy—you’d be a duplicate of everyone else who got there. That is, the picture of the perfect human is a static one. And it seems to me Rabbi Kook here is constantly pushing against that and saying: the picture of the perfect human is someone who draws forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He. Now one person will draw forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He, through behavior A; another person may draw forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He, through behavior B. Each person according to his own tendencies, according to the environment in which he acts, according to constraints, according to many things. Therefore the whole model here is a model that moves in the direction of freedom, multiplicity, pluralism, as against the very petrified, very rigid concept of image that Maimonides presents. I see that you…
[Speaker B] In Maimonides the highest ideal is the prophet. And there’s a path, right? Okay, and that’s how I understand the Guide for the Perplexed—he repeats it a number of times—only the person who is intellectual, systematic, a physicist or astronomer, meaning someone who knows, can claim that he is free of passions; otherwise the common person is influenced by emotions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Very true. So why don’t we agree? Up to here we agree.
[Speaker B] Someone who just loves God without knowledge and without being sure that this is so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, no, no, no—
[Speaker B] That’s a static, systematic, rational conception.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So where do we disagree? What? So where do we disagree? I completely agree. You said you disagreed.
[Speaker B] No, Maimonides said one thing and Rabbi Kook brings another model. Right—that this comes from above. Right? And according to Maimonides it comes from us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know if I’d present it as coming from above and below. I wouldn’t put it that way, like how many tracks there are. In Maimonides the focus is the intellect. Intellect is one. There is only one truth. Whoever thinks differently is simply mistaken. There is only one truth. Therefore if you’re there, you’re perfect. If you’re not there, you’re not. There is one perfect image sitting up there in the Platonic world of ideas—which Maimonides probably wouldn’t have agreed to—and you’re supposed to keep working in relation to it. The closer you get to it, the more perfect you are. The path is very clear, it is one, it is prescribed, there is no freedom in it at all. You don’t need to draw forth will from anyone. The will of the Holy One, blessed be He, was already defined in the creation of the world, when He created that perfect image toward which you are supposed to strive. And Rabbi Kook, it seems to me, presents almost a complete antithesis. He doesn’t mention Maimonides here, but I think every sentence here says it. He presents a totally different conception. He says the image is really the will, not the apprehension. That itself is already something entirely different. Will is not apprehension. Will is the question of what you do. It’s choices, norms, values. That’s will. And in that respect you don’t have to be a great philosopher; it’s not at all certain he’s better than the simple person. And every person becomes perfect not because he resembles some rigid model located somewhere and you check off ten boxes—if you checked all ten boxes you’re perfect. I’m drawing it as a caricature, of course, but I’m still trying to show something static here. And for Rabbi Kook it’s not like that; there is no such set of boxes. The Holy One, blessed be He, in His free will—and on His level too He is completely free—if you draw forth will from Him, then you are perfect. And if you don’t draw forth will from Him, then not. And there is no one prescribed path. There are different human beings who can draw forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He, to the same degree through different behaviors, different conceptions, different choices, different ways of life. If they draw forth will from the Holy One, blessed be He, then that is perfectly fine. And the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, is something determined when He judges you. It’s not something fixed in advance, not something static. He judges you, He relates to you. If you have drawn forth will from Him, you are perfect, and if not, then not.
[Speaker B] Yes, maybe the word “static” is a little bothersome. Maybe one-directional or something like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, call it whatever you want. I think it means the same thing. No, he thinks there’s a path, but the path is one, it’s fixed. Yes, one-directional. It’s like Einstein’s time. Einstein’s time doesn’t flow; there is one infinite line that always exists, always existed, and all you can do is just be located at different points on that timeline. And Bergson, in his famous debate with Einstein, constantly looks at time as something dynamic that flows, and you are constantly flowing—there’s nothing dynamic in the famous debate. What?
[Speaker B] It’s so famous that we never heard of it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the debate between Einstein and Bergson is very famous. Bergson lost, of course, because he had no chance against Einstein’s mathematical ability, but he was right even though he lost. Who? Bergson. Yes.
[Speaker B] Fine, but at least on the theoretical level it could be that that same static evaluation requires different behaviors for different transitions, and therefore it could also be that a model of absolute and total order requires two different people—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But for Maimonides it isn’t behavior that determines things but apprehensions, and apprehensions I think are uniform. After all, Maimonides places the image in apprehension, not in will, not in human choices, but in what a person understands, where he stands in apprehension.
[Speaker B] Okay, in Maimonides that’s more significant. And as far as I remember, I understand something from the Guide for the Perplexed—I think the whole second part, at a certain point, is where Maimonides argues that free will is above the intellect from the first part, and his whole battle over the issue of creation, his battle against Aristotle’s eternity—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get to that later in this chapter here.
[Speaker B] Okay, because he emphasizes there that there is will.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course—there is free will. Maimonides also does not deny the fact that there is free will, that’s obvious. Nobody disputes that. But in Maimonides all behavior in general—free will is a measure of behavior. You choose what to do and you do it. You fight the inclination, you choose the good—these are choices. In Maimonides, I go back to the same answer I gave before, the image of God is not your choices. The image of God is your apprehensions.
[Speaker B] Right, and that’s what ultimately produces the choices, which are below the intellect. In the second part Maimonides presents free will as something spontaneous, independent, not dependent on the intellect, without intention, that just exists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I’m saying that’s not your image of God. You need to choose correctly, you also need to fulfill commandments, but even the fulfillment of commandments, the choices, everything—that’s infrastructure, so that you can engage in intelligibles and then become perfect. That is not perfection itself. It’s a necessary infrastructure. Someone who denies it is in very serious trouble, but it is infrastructure. It is not perfection. Perfection is in apprehension.
[Speaker B] Isn’t God’s desire to create a world the most radical side that makes it so?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I think from Maimonides it seems not. From Maimonides it seems that apprehension, the total capacity for apprehension, is His perfection, if you want to make the analogy between our perfection and His perfection. I don’t know. By the way, my command of Part III of the Guide isn’t much, so I really don’t presume to teach the Guide either. But certainly in comparing the chapters, this chapter against that chapter, it comes out very clearly.
[Speaker B] Can I ask one more question? Yes, yes. It seems to me that both Maimonides and Rabbi Kook are trying to explain “in the image of God He made man” by emphasizing a quality that exists in man and not in the lower level, the level just beneath him. And there are generally four levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking. So let’s see what exists in man that doesn’t exist in the level before him, and that is the image of God in him. And the dispute, seemingly, is whether that is intellect or morality. Right. That’s what he says—the ability to decide between good and evil. It seems to me there are actually two advantages to Rabbi Kook’s choice of morality over Maimonides’ choice of intellect. First, it seems to me that intellect exists in humans and also in animals to some extent—just a quantitative difference. Meaning, it’s more of a matter of degree; it’s not that this exists only in man, but rather he has much more of it. But we also see pets solving simple problems. Right. Whereas moral decisions do not exist in animals at all. We don’t judge them in categories of good and evil. Right. And the second advantage of Rabbi Kook’s proposal is that it gives meaning to Torah. If action is what places man above animals, then—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but for Maimonides that’s exactly the point.
[Speaker B] By “Torah,” what you call Torah, you mean Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But for Maimonides that is infrastructure. Maimonides writes that. Maimonides writes that, and that’s
[Speaker B] exactly what
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] he says: that behaviors and commandments and everything really are necessary infrastructure so that you can become perfected; that’s not perfection itself. That’s exactly the point. True, without it you can’t become perfected, but it isn’t perfection itself, it’s only a condition for perfection. So that is exactly his claim. Now regarding your first remark—that’s a big question. I mean, when you see—there’s an example from John Searle, the British philosopher, where he talks about the Chinese room. A famous example. Someone is sitting in a Chinese room and only speaks Hebrew. Fine? And there are two windows in the room, input and output. And inside the room there are crates full of Chinese letters, but he only speaks English, for the sake of discussion. They put questions to him in Chinese through one window, and he’s supposed to put out answers in Chinese through the other window. And if he gives a wrong answer he gets an electric shock. Fine? Of course he has no idea—he understands neither the questions nor the answers—but he’ll get an electric shock. The claim is that maybe, after an infinite amount of time, as much as you want, and an infinite number of tries, he’ll give relevant answers to the questions he receives. He’ll learn instinctively from the shocks which combinations to make in response to the combinations he gets. Fine? And suppose now you converse with that person after an infinite amount of time, and now he gives you intelligent answers in Chinese. You carry on an interesting and enlightening conversation with him in Chinese. And now the question is, of course, whether he knows Chinese. And the answer, of course, is no, right? The person inside has no idea what the question is or what the answer is. He only knows what gets him an electric shock and what doesn’t. Right? Now when you measure his intelligence, you’ll discover very high intelligence. Because the measures of intelligence are external measures; they’re functional measures. You measure how he behaves, how he responds to circumstances, and so on. By those measures it could be that an animal also has intelligence. Say an animal, in Descartes’ picture, was something like that, right? Some kind of instinctive response. The animal doesn’t deliberate—I don’t know what the right thing to say is, I’m just sketching an example. Meaning, it doesn’t weigh anything, but it responds correctly. In its instincts, one way or another, it also solves problems correctly—
[Speaker B] With its instincts it manages to produce a solution.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And all of that, all of that still doesn’t necessarily mean—I don’t know—but I’m saying, all of that still doesn’t necessarily mean that the animal thinks. It only means that when the input is a problem, its output is a solution. The question is what happens in the middle, in its head, between perceiving the problem and producing the solution. Does a process of thought happen there? It’s like the birds that make their way, that navigate across thousands of kilometers. It’s obvious they don’t know how to navigate. It isn’t a cognitive process. They have some instinct or mechanism of one kind or another that leads them there. So it could be that an animal also has some mechanism or instinct of that sort that can solve problems too, sometimes maybe. I don’t know, I’m just saying maybe. And it’s quite possible that at least your first advantage Maimonides would not accept. Because if he sees animals the way Descartes did, then he’d say animals do not think at all. Not that they think less—they do not think at all. Conscious thought, where you’re aware of what you’re doing, you weigh things and make decisions, you think—that, perhaps, exists only in the human species. Okay?
[Speaker B] Well, seemingly they also have moral functions to some degree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, moral functions—on the functional level you can see a lot of morality. “We learn diligence from the ant,” the sages even tell us. So what, is it really diligent? I don’t assume it’s really diligent in the sense in which we speak about diligence. But it has some kind of such function.
[Speaker B] I haven’t found that people judge an animal’s behavior with moral judgment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but one could say—who says we judge it to be intelligent?
[Speaker B] It didn’t make a decision.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why? Exactly. But that’s precisely the example he brings you. So on the functional level, you can also find morality among animals. So it could be that the intellect you find among animals is also only on the functional level, and there’s no cognitive process behind it. So you see? So it could be that the advantage you found, in Rabbi Kook’s account according to Maimonides, maybe isn’t really an advantage. In any case, there really are two different pictures here of who the complete human being is. And Rabbi Kook chooses the model of choice, or freedom, as the person’s primary perfection, and that is also the image of God in him. After that he goes on and says that from this we also learn something about the Holy One, blessed be He: that His image as well is His freedom, not His apprehensions, let’s say, if we continued with that same line of thought in Maimonides, but rather the absolute freedom with which He acts. Behind these remarks, actually—we may see this later in the chapter—there is the dilemma of Euthyphro, in the Platonic dialogue, where he asks there whether the good thing is defined as good because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, or whether the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it because it is good. The question is whether the concept of the good has some independent existence, or whether the concept of the good is simply that the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that this is what ought to be done. There’s some dilemma there—it’s about idols, doesn’t matter—but of course you can ask it about the Holy One, blessed be He, as well. Now, in a certain sense, I’m not entirely convinced, but if you think about it again it may be that this question is somewhat meaningless. Both of these sides aren’t really—it’s not clear they’re truly separate. Because what does it mean to say that the good is independent of the Holy One, blessed be He? Everything that happens here on earth—there was an absolute vacuum here, not even space, I don’t know whether to call it even a vacuum, there wasn’t—no, not a vacuum. A vacuum is empty space. There wasn’t even space; in other words, there was nothing. Let’s say there simply was not, absolutely, before the Holy One, blessed be He, created. So what—and morality still existed? Or is morality connected in some way to certain properties of the world, of the human being, I don’t know, something like that. So how can one say that morality has some independent status when the Holy One, blessed be He, is in a situation where He can basically create a world as He wishes? He could have created a world in which it really was good to murder, maybe, I don’t know. Because—I don’t know exactly why. What? Not only a world in which we would live under the illusion that it is good to murder, but maybe a world in which it really would be good to murder in some way, I don’t know exactly. I find it hard to see how one could limit the Holy One, blessed be He, as to which worlds He can create. Why am I saying—just one more second—why am I saying this? Because that itself shows us the great freedom in which the Holy One, blessed be He, exists. Meaning, there is no constraint with respect to Him, not even the moral constraint, since morality too is a result of the creation that the Holy One, blessed be He, made. Now think about someone sitting there right now and thinking what kind of world to create. When we think about what to do, we think within a well-defined system of given data. We have a system of good versus bad, there are commandments, there is law, there is Jewish law, there are lots of things. We have to take them into account and choose the option we choose. Our choice still points to great freedom, as Rabbi Kook says, but it is a freedom of operating within a very extensive and complex system of constraints that is not in our hands. For the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no such system of constraints. Meaning, this is absolute freedom. There is nothing. He does not need to decide whether to do good or do evil. He also probably cannot—“the nature of the good is to do good,” as the Ramchal says—He cannot decide not to do good. But He also is not in a position of deciding at all with respect to that, because what good and evil are has not yet been defined. Meaning, when He created the world, then maybe from the structure of the world—or I don’t know exactly what—good and evil would be defined. But that too is part of the same creation. Meaning, the initial stage, when the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create the world, to create the world, is a stage of absolute freedom, and we cannot even grasp the intensity of that freedom, that vast nothingness that was there. No constraint, nothing. Meaning, He is now creating the constraints. He is not creating either in accordance with or against constraints; He is creating the constraints themselves.
[Speaker B] Is He subject to His own intellectual apprehension? What? Is He not subject to logic?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To logic, yes—but being subject to logic is not sharing a name. To logic, we are not subject. Logic is simply logic. Meaning, a logical law and a moral law or a legal law—“law” there has a completely different meaning. Meaning, as the medieval authorities say—this is exactly what the medieval authorities say—that the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to the laws of logic. The medieval authorities too—Maimonides, the Maharal, the Rashba, and others—say that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot make a square whose diagonal is smaller than its side. Because that is something utterly impossible. The Holy One, blessed be He, can perform a miracle against the laws of physics. He cannot do anything against the laws of logic or mathematics. Why? What, does that limit Him? Are the laws of mathematics stronger than He is? No—simply because there is no such thing. Like the stone He cannot lift. There is no such thing as a square whose side is greater than its diagonal. So it’s not that He cannot do it; rather, it simply does not exist. It’s not the same concept of constraint. We talked about this once, I think, so I gave the example of the—this is just in parentheses, just for the one who asked—the example of Puss in Boots. Maybe I mentioned it here, I don’t remember anymore. The famous story of Puss in Boots. The miller leaves all his property to his three sons. One of the fellows—two got all the property, and the third got a cat. He didn’t know what to do with the cat, truly depressed, no livelihood. The cat says to him, don’t worry, buy me boots and I’ll set up the whole world for you. He says all right, buys him boots. One day that miller goes to bathe in the sea. The cat takes his clothes and hides them. Just then, of course, the king and his daughter pass by in a splendid carriage. The cat says, Your Majesty, the count—my lord the count—is bathing here, and thieves stole his clothes. It is not fitting for a count to walk around without clothes; perhaps you have some garment to give him? The king says, of course, such an important count, certainly I’ll give him something. So of course he gives him royal garments, and the cat says to the king, fine, now perhaps my lord the count invites you to his palace as a token of thanks and appreciation? Well, the king says, certainly, such an important count, of course, I’ll go visit him in his palace. The cat runs ahead of him, of course, and arrives at the palace of the terrible sorcerer. And then the terrible sorcerer sees him, poof, turns himself into a lion, and the cat almost dies of fright. Then he says to the terrible sorcerer—and then the terrible sorcerer returns to being a conventional sorcerer—and he says to him, tell me, do you also know how to turn into a mouse, or only into lions and terrible things like that? He says, what’s the problem? Poof, immediately turns into a mouse. Then the cat devours him, and of course they travel, get married, and live happily ever after. Meaning, the message of this story—at least for me, the message of this story—is a very interesting message. Can this really be? Can it really be that the terrible sorcerer turns himself into a mouse and then the cat devours him and there is no more terrible sorcerer? Or in the parable: can the Holy One, blessed be He, turn Himself into a human being? If He turns Himself into a human being, I’ll shoot Him in the head. That’s it. What will you say—He won’t die? If He won’t die, then He didn’t turn Himself into a human being. A human dies when shot in the head. Meaning, He cannot turn Himself into a human being. Right? That’s obviously so. But what does “cannot” mean? Cannot in the sense that it is beyond His capacity? No. Because there is no such thing as the Holy One, blessed be He, who is a human being. It’s like a round triangle, like a square whose side is greater than its diagonal. Do you understand? Being subject to the laws of logic, which we are used to speaking about in this language, is not subjection. These are the laws; there is nothing else. Again, at least in our conception. I don’t know what happens with Him; I know only what we think about Him. All right? To that, of course, He is subject, but that is not called subjection.
[Speaker B] These discussions that try, as it were, to think in the conceptual world of the Holy One, blessed be He, remind me of the examples of creatures living in a two-dimensional world and trying to think what happens in a three-dimensional world—Flatland, as it’s called.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a famous book about that.
[Speaker B] Or in the words of one of the sages of Israel who said, “If I knew Him, I would be Him.” What lies beyond the world of—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but still, the question—Rabbi Kook will speak about this, by the way, in a moment later on—but right now we are speaking about the “figure,” in quotation marks, of the Holy One, blessed be He, as we perceive it. The question is what our faith / belief will be, not what He is. What He is, I do not know. But the question is what our faith / belief will be: in what God do you believe? Do you believe in a God who can turn Himself into a mouse? Or not? That’s a question. You have to say something about the God in whom you believe, otherwise you don’t believe. Now the question is what the relation is between what—we perceive Him as we perceive Him with our own tools; that is what we believe in. We have nothing else. All right? Okay, so let’s return for a moment to this issue. So basically he says that everything is attributed to the will of God, and the human being produces will from the Holy One, blessed be He, and that is essentially the indication of the human being’s perfection. Now perhaps a few more necessary preliminaries: why, really, what is the meaning of this choice, how is it connected to freedom, and why indeed is this the central point, the image of the human being in which he resembles the Holy One, blessed be He. So regarding choice, there are of course many paradoxes that accompany this concept. It is very hard to grasp, and I think many of them—if not all—stem from one point. We know three ways—at least we can think, I don’t know whether we know—of three modes of conduct in the world, three kinds of occurrences in the world. There is determinism, there is indeterminism, and there is free choice. These are three modes of conduct, three modes of conduct. All right, determinism means that the present circumstances determine unambiguously what will happen in the next moment. Meaning, there is no freedom whatsoever; everything is predetermined. Indeterminism is a mode of conduct that is basically completely random, with no—there is absolutely no connection, zero correlation, between what exists now and what will exist in another moment. Think of a person walking down the street whose hands are flailing in all directions with no control, just like that, some kind of process—not deciding anything, not—it is not caused by anything, it just is. Leave aside the physiological causes for the moment; just as a parable. So this is something completely free. Now, the usual complication with the concept of choice comes from our trying to attribute it either to this side or to that side, and we fail to understand that it is in fact a third kind of process. Meaning, when we get tangled up with the concept of choice, what are we really asking? Wait—the human being chooses freely. Okay, fine, but what caused that action? After all, some action took place in the world, a physical action. A physical action has causes. Nothing happens without a cause. When I ask myself what caused his choice, I am looking on the psychological plane, on the physiological plane, whatever, I am looking for causes, and the moment I look for causes, immediately the question arises: wait, but if the causes caused it, then it is deterministic, this is not free choice. What will you say—no, so apparently it is not deterministic, there is no cause at all. But if there is no cause at all, then it is just arbitrary, so that is indeterminism. But if it is something arbitrary, then how do we judge the person for that act? And how can you judge someone who just does things without deliberation, without deciding, without reasons, they just happen.
[Speaker B] What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly, under determinism I certainly cannot judge. That’s why I’m saying the other side also doesn’t get me out of this problem. So it turns out that the concept of choice somehow falls between the cracks. It cannot fit under the heading of determinism, and it cannot fit under the heading of indeterminism. Then we say—wait, so what else remains? So something is wrong here. And from here come all the paradoxes, or almost all the paradoxes, maybe all, that accompany the concept of choice. And it seems to me that what is missed in this process is the fundamental picture. The concept of choice is indeed neither this nor that; it is a third thing. It is a third thing that I know how to describe in certain terms familiar to all of us because we simply experience it from within. But if I try to translate it into the language of causes and effects, or into the language of indeterminism, then of course I will get into tangles and paradoxes. Why? Because that is not the right language to describe it. It is a third kind of process. What is this process? Maybe just in a few words: it is a human action that does not stem from prior causes—that is clear. It does not stem deterministically from prior causes, because then it would be determinism. But on the other hand, it is indeed something that involves deliberation, and therefore the person can be judged for his choices. Meaning, it is also not indeterminism. So what is it? Deliberation, one could perhaps say roughly, is something done with one’s face toward the future, not toward the past. Meaning, determinism is causes dragging along effects. Right? There is a cause, and following it there is some law saying that from such a cause comes such an effect. All right? Indeterminism means there is no cause at all; things just happen without any visible mechanism. Choice is neither this nor that. It is something that happens out of deliberation; it does not just happen randomly, therefore I judge. But deliberation is not a cause; it is not a “result of.” It is not a result of a cause, but a result of a purpose. For example, I now want to decide whether to make a phone call to set up a meeting with someone or not. If I decide that I want to arrange a meeting with him, then I will make a phone call and set up a meeting with him. But where did this whole process begin? From something that I want to happen tomorrow. Meaning, an event that will happen tomorrow caused what I did today. How does this miracle happen? How can it be that the cause appears after the effect? That cannot happen in processes of cause and effect. This transformation, this conversion of the future into a cause, is called will. That is the whole point of will; that is the definition of will. The definition of will is to turn a purpose into a cause. And this may be something that apparently, at least as far as I understand, only the human being has. No one else. All other creatures basically act in a chain of causes and effects. A human being has will, or free choice—which are synonymous terms—and the meaning of the matter is that I know how to translate a future event and turn it into the cause of something I am now going to do, like making a phone call to someone. I make the phone call to someone not because of something that happened, but in order to. In order to. I decide.
[Speaker B] But any creature that eats because it is hungry—it eats in order to; it knows that by eating it will in the future be satiated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So that means that the future satiation, the future satiation—
[Speaker B] is what causes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] is the act—
[Speaker B] that is pushed by a purpose, by a will?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, you can decide to eat, you can decide not to eat.
[Speaker B] What do you mean? Maybe—but animals do this too. Obviously. I just said that right now this is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. I said, I think, that as far as we also have received in tradition, only the human being has choice. We’re coming back to animals. Animals too eat because they have an instinct to eat, but I choose to eat.
[Speaker B] There are things that are at the level of need, and things that are—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, if you’re already in such starvation that you can be—there are of course things that lie outside our window of choice, when you are already—I’m talking about things regarding which we do in fact choose. Obviously we can’t do everything. There are many things outside our abilities. But we also have things regarding which we choose. And choice is such an elusive concept only because we try to map it, to reduce it to one of the other two mechanisms. And that is a mistake, because it is a third mechanism. There is no reason—there is no reason at all to look for causes for an act of free choice. It is simply a conceptual mistake. Because there are no causes for an act of free choice. There are motives, there are decisions that stem from desires about where to get to, so I decide what I want to do: I want to do good, I want to achieve this result or that result, I want to do evil, whatever. But I still want something to happen in the future, and I suddenly turn that into a cause that moves my hand, and now as a result of that I perform an act. This concept is called will. Will is simply a spiritual—I don’t know what to call it—really a spiritual-physical function, that converts a purpose and turns it into a cause. That is will. Therefore you also cannot place it under either of the other two mechanisms. Now perhaps yes, this is the example that someone here in the study hall has surely heard from me more than once. A nice example that illustrates this context. There are elections—political, of course, yes? There are three kinds of elections. There are elections in Syria. All right? A person enters the voting booth, there is one slip that says Assad on it, and he chooses, with completely free choice, the only slip there, puts it in the ballot box, and lo and behold, Assad gets 99.8 percent. It’s never 100 for some reason—99.8—and it’s always Assad. The father, the father, the son, and the holy spirit, exactly. It doesn’t matter, but it’s always Assad. Meaning, these are free elections of one kind. There are free elections of another kind, namely elections in Switzerland. All right? In Switzerland we have two metaphorical candidates, of course. There is also a metaphorical Switzerland for the sake of discussion. There are two slips, one for each candidate, and a person freely enters the booth, chooses one of the slips, and places it in the ballot box, and the person elected is the one whom the majority of votes supported. Fully free elections. Except that in Switzerland there are no problems. What difference does it make to me who will be prime minister? Why should I care? Just do a lottery. But there is freedom there. The freedom exists; the elections are free, but they are without meaning. Why does it matter? If you did a lottery, the same thing would come out. You don’t change a thing. There isn’t one thing that is good and another that is bad; there are no prices attached to this process of choice to give it its meaning. So the freedom exists there, but this freedom is devoid of meaning and value. Real elections are a third mechanism. These are elections that say: we have a set of problems, a set of challenges, and now we choose one of our two candidates, and we will pay a price. Meaning, if we chose the candidate, if we chose the better candidate, then we will profit, all of us will profit. Freedom of choice is like in Switzerland; the difference is that here it matters very much whether I chose well or chose badly. Here this freedom has value. It is not just freedom, period, but value—there is something that judges it. The values around me, or the prices defined around me, are what judge my choice. All right? These three kinds of elections are exactly determinism, indeterminism, and free choice. Meaning, Assad’s elections are determinism, obviously, right? You choose with complete freedom the only slip there is, and it is completely clear who will be elected. That is determinism. Elections in Switzerland are indeterminism, because in effect it is a dice throw. There are no prices, there is no real difference between the two options, you are choosing between two equal options. A dice throw. The choice has no meaning, there are no considerations accompanying the choice. You are not taking the future you want to reach and translating it into a slip, into which slip you put into the ballot box, because the future will be the same with this slip or that slip, it doesn’t matter. Therefore it is basically parallel to indeterminism, to something that just happens, a dice throw, something random. There is no point in judging it. We won’t say of anyone who chose there that he chose well or chose badly.
[Speaker B] Are there problems in Switzerland? There are—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s why I said I’m talking about metaphorical Switzerland, Switzerland living on the moon. There are infinite resources there, no problems and nothing. Switzerland is maybe a concept culturally close to us for this issue. Obviously they have problems. So the elections I spoke about before, the ones accompanied by prices, are what is called deliberation, or what is called free choice. Free choice because we have goals we need to reach—that’s the prices. Either we’ll reach them or we won’t, depending on whether we chose well or badly. So that is the concept of free choice, and it is neither this nor that. Therefore there is no point in translating this concept into one of the other two mechanisms. It won’t work, and it cannot work. All the paradoxes of the concept of choice are because we always try to translate it either to this side or to that side. Now what does this actually mean? What this really means is that there is some process here. Choice is a concept—after all, indeterminism is really a fictitious concept; there is no such thing. Meaning, it is an abstraction. What indeterminism? There is no such thing in the macroscopic world. Leave quantum mechanics aside for now. I’m talking about occurrences we know. Nothing we know is indeterministic. If I throw a die and the die lands on face five, was there anything random here? Nothing random whatsoever. There are precise equations governing the motion of the die. If you give me the air density, the strength of the winds, the size of the die, the friction, and everything else needed, I’ll tell you exactly on which face it will land. There is absolutely nothing random in that process, nothing. We call it a random process because it is terribly complex and the conditions keep changing all the time, and therefore the chance that it lands on each face is roughly equal, so we call it random. There is nothing random there. It is a completely deterministic process, just a deterministic process that is complex and changing. Chaos? You could say yes.
[Speaker B] So in any case—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Deterministic processes of this kind are handled with tools of randomness, but they are not truly random processes. So in fact, all the things we know in the world, at least in our experience, are deterministic things except for one thing: acts of choice. Because acts of choice are the only thing in which there is some act that is not a result of prior circumstances; it has no causes. It is done something from nothing, not something from something, like the processes—meaning, all the nature around us is a nature that is very unfree, a constrained nature, subject to the process of causality, cause and effect. All right? The only exception is human acts of choice. And now perhaps one can somewhat understand this matter—and maybe it will be emphasized more later in the chapter here—that therefore choice too, in a very deep sense, is a kind of image of God or resemblance to the Holy One, blessed be He. Because the Holy One, blessed be He, also acts in absolute freedom. There are no causes that bring about His action. He basically does things something from nothing—that is the meaning of there being no causes. He does not do something from something. There is nothing that generates what the Holy One, blessed be He, does. What the Holy One, blessed be He, does is done solely by Him; nothing else is involved in creating the things the Holy One, blessed be He, does. That is the meaning of freedom. Just one more second: the free choice of the human being is the closest concept to this freedom that we speak about in relation to the Holy One, blessed be He. Because here too, clearly the constraints have an effect; this is not the absolute freedom that the Holy One, blessed be He, has. The constraints have an effect. The person weighs: this is good, this is bad, this is hard, this is easy—obviously. There are many influences acting on us. But in the final analysis, we are supposed to decide what to do with these influences—whether we will do this or do otherwise. Therefore, in this sense it is not correct to say that the influences dictate the choice. What dictates the choice is my decision; the future, through the will that converts it into a cause, dictates the result of the choice, not the circumstances. The circumstances are something I take into account when I deliberate. But my deliberation is not dictated by the circumstances, otherwise it would not be a choice. Rather, it operates within circumstances, and within those circumstances I decide whether to choose this way or another way. So what this really means is that an act of choice is the only process in the world that in some sense resembles what the Holy One, blessed be He, did. It represents freedom. It represents something not done by constraints outside me, but done something from nothing. And in that sense it is a kind of world-creation. If the deterministic process is built of chains of cause and effect, say from the Big Bang until our day—let’s say if there were no human beings—then someone with a large enough computer at the time of the Big Bang could have said what would happen in 2010, in this month, on this date, at this hour, in this place. Why? Work the calculation all the way through with all the data, and I’ll tell you exactly what will happen there. Everything is defined. That is cause and effect. Roll the chain along, run the simulation, and you’ll arrive at the answer of what will happen there. Of course it’s impossible to do because there are no computational means, but that’s a technical problem, just a technical problem. In contrast, with human choice it is not a technical problem. The problem isn’t technically calculating what will happen. Here something new is created. It was not potentially hidden in the Big Bang. It simply wasn’t there. There are no prior causes saying what will happen later. Meaning, when a person chooses, he creates causal chains something from nothing, beginning from his act, and now of course they too are added to the chains occurring in the world. Because after all, after I choose, I perform some action, a physical action. That action already has physical effects and results, and cause and effect, of course, everything rolls along—hopefully exactly toward the goal I want to reach by means of this act of choice. And that too has implications afterward. But that chain begins here, not in the Big Bang. And therefore in this sense, a person who chooses is a person who creates a new world something from nothing.
[Speaker C] And thoughts—are they the same thing? What? Not all thoughts, but many thoughts are something from nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How do you understand the concept of thought? Whether you create it or whether it is merely created. If it is merely created, then why? It is the result of something. Maybe, I don’t know. That is not the concept of will. Regarding thought, you have to discuss what your model of thought is. With will, by definition it is like that. Unless you are a determinist and say there is no such thing as will, it is only an illusion—but the concept of free will represents exactly this. With thought—certainly, as I presented Maimonides earlier—you have no choice whether to think this way or that way.
[Speaker D] A new thought that never existed before.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay.
[Speaker D] It is created something from nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or something from something. How do you know it is something from nothing? Maybe the circumstances created that idea. The sages even say about Torah that it is in the category of a find, right? You have a good answer or a good line of reasoning—that is basically some kind of find that comes to a person when his mind is off it. It is not something where you deliberate and create an idea. The idea comes; it simply arrives.
[Speaker D] One can certainly understand it as looking more like something from nothing, maybe less under human influence.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe that would be indeterminism, but it is certainly not—certainly not—but it is less close to the concept of choice. I’m speaking about the concept of choice. I also don’t know whether it is indeterministic—
[Speaker B] But there is less of a power of choice there. After all, we believe—we believe that our choice also influences what happens, that it’s not all planned on a computer such that, if you had one, you could predict this mathematical physics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, clearly not. I’m saying our choices are the only points at which the supercomputer could not have discovered it.
[Speaker B] No—if our choice is good there will be rain, or there will be a flood if it is not good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So we have effects; even in physics our actions have effects, even before mysticism and divine promises. Right now I’m speaking about the worldview. In the worldview, when I decide to move my hand in order to pick up the phone and call someone, then that phone is already heating up, electrons are moving inside it, I don’t know, various things are happening. Physical effects are created as a result of that decision of mine, which is done something from nothing, and these effects too presumably have cause and effect, and they open a new chain that can continue to infinity.
[Speaker B] So in fact one cannot predict.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course—but only because there are creatures here who have the ability to begin new chains. And in that sense, this is why, in the deeper sense, it is the image of God. Therefore choice really is the true image of God. Because choice is a kind of creating a world something from nothing, and that is an ability only the Holy One, blessed be He, has. And in that sense it is the image of God.
[Speaker B] Nachmanides elsewhere similarly places will above wisdom for this reason. The supreme will—will preceded wisdom. Meaning, reality began with will. There was a will that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, that He should have a dwelling in the lower realms. Will was the root of everything. Meaning, in Yiddish, a simple will is something irrational.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Kook himself also arrives at that later on.
[Speaker B] That there is no concept or apprehension or something that caused Him to do it, but rather there was will. And the will came from itself. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The will and the wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He—again, these are two separate functions. I don’t want to say that with the Holy One, blessed be He, it is possible to separate them at all.
[Speaker B] He places will above the processes of wisdom.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When Rabbi Kook spoke about the will and choice of the Holy One, blessed be He, that was regarding the creation of the world. But Rabbi Kook also spoke about the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that we produce will in another place—and then you can’t be speaking about the same thing, the same will. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, has the reality in which He creates a world, so there basically isn’t some set—
[Speaker E] of laws, and the Holy One, blessed be He, created Torah, created the world, and then there is a set of laws. But now, within the set of laws that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself created, I, with my choice, choose. Rabbi, you said that I produce will from the Holy One, blessed be He. What does it mean to produce will? I can’t do something contrary to Torah and also produce will. There are many ways to fulfill the Torah. There are two people who will make it an elixir of life for those on the right and of death for those on the left, right? Meaning, you can do the same act and it will produce will, and someone else will do the same act and it will not produce will. But that takes us back to Maimonides, because that is predetermined. The Holy One, blessed be He, had absolute freedom the moment He created the world. And after He created the world and the Torah and this whole lawfulness, it’s not that one time I do—if two people went in exactly the same way, the choice would be exactly the same; it’s not that one will produce will from the Holy One, blessed be He, and one won’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are no two people who do the same thing. What do you mean?
[Speaker E] Theoretically. So that means that the divine choice was only at the outset. So what does it mean to produce will now?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One, blessed be He, now looks at what you chose. What you chose, you did, not He, right? So He could not have decided in advance what His attitude to the matter would be. After you chose, a new world was created, a new reality was created, and now He must decide what His relation is to this choice and to your later choices that come against the background of this choice.
[Speaker E] But from the outset He gave the Torah, the set of laws—what is the Torah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those laws are a very small part of the rigid part of these things—
[Speaker E] a very small part. I’m not speaking about Torah in the halakhic / of Jewish law sense. I mean all of reality—that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world with all its relation to the human being and his choices—He did that from the creation of the world. When I now produce the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, He isn’t now—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying that the rules according to which this producing of will will be done—those are rules that always existed.
[Speaker E] Meaning, that this is something fixed in advance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is already a question. Rabbi Kook speaks about this in chapter 4, if I remember correctly. Look at chapter 4, page 24. Maybe I should have introduced this matter a bit earlier; now it’s okay. “The basis of our purpose is that when we say ‘will’ regarding God, may He be exalted, what we mean is that it is fitting that there be drawn forth in us, by knowledge of God, those qualities that are fitting to be drawn forth by one who acts with will—namely awe and love, faith / belief and trust, which build human happiness—and according to them He is revealed to us as acting by His will,” or “as one acting by will,” actually that is how it should read. Meaning, when we say that the Holy One, blessed be He, has will, this is not a description of Him. This is what I said before, Ido. It is a conception of who is the God we worship. But I do not know who He really is. For me, His picture is assessed by the question: what does this do to me? And he speaks about this in this chapter too, when he comes to prayer, on the third page of the chapter, page 17 in chapter 1 for us. So there is some reference—and we’ll read it later on—there is some reference to prayer as though prayer produces will from the Holy One, blessed be He; it is not dictated in advance. Now, that doesn’t mean that something happens in Him that is similar to what happens in us. But for us, this is our conceptual system. We are supposed to relate to Him as someone from whom we are meant to produce will now.
[Speaker E] Maybe that’s the difference between Maimonides and Rabbi Kook—not what actually happens in divinity, in the Holy One, blessed be He, but rather how I perceive it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not that they conceived of the Holy One, blessed be He, differently, but rather my place. Correct—but that’s the only place where one can speak. Because about the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, one does not speak. Therefore this is a very relevant dispute. This is our God. We have no other God. The God I perceive is the God I worship; there is no other God. And later in the chapter he sharpens this more. So now, up to this point, this is basically the—
[Speaker B] Yes. Just perhaps in connection with the last remarks—maybe you don’t know this—it’s Notebook 7, section 41. Rabbi Kook addresses the question whether there is a nature existing below in the bosom of the Creator, and there he says that all these questions about making a god like Him, or a rock, and that a part be greater than the whole, and the like—he says that this is impossible only from our side, and not that one could supposedly say that He really can do it, I’m translating a bit freely, not that one can really say that He can also make a god like Him and the like, or cut off His own hand—but there it somewhat comes out that if we could say something in these places, then we would say yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s hypothetical. We can’t.
[Speaker B] Fine, but that’s why I said, in connection with the last remarks, that there really is no difference between Rabbi Kook and Maimonides from this standpoint, because both of them—they are not speaking about His essence itself. Maimonides says in a total way that the Holy One, blessed be He, is bound by the laws of logic, and for Rabbi Kook it is important to say that from His own side He is not bound. Yes, but I think I can—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] translate that easily from one into the other. When you say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is bound by the laws of logic, this is the same Holy One, blessed be He, whom you perceive—that’s the one you are speaking about.
[Speaker B] So automatically, right, that Holy One, blessed be He, really is bound by the laws of logic. I’m not sure this is really a dispute. I just made such a distinction, to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, exists even prior—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that He has existence of His own, exists for Himself in a supra-logical way. Of course He exists for Himself—what do you mean, is there any doubt that He exists for Himself? But what I say about Him is only what I perceive in Him. What else can I say?
[Speaker B] Maimonides would think that this statement itself is unintelligible—when I say it may be that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not bound by the laws of logic, He is only perceived that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—that’s not just Maimonides, I don’t understand it either.
[Speaker B] But you said that sentence?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t say it. I asked. I said I don’t know how to say anything like that. That sentence is meaningless to me. I know that the Holy One, blessed be He—that is, the divine being as I perceive it—is bound by the laws of logic. That’s all I know.
[Speaker B] Maimonides also says no more than that. No, it may be.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I think anything else simply has no meaning.
[Speaker B] What does it mean in the third paragraph of the prayer section, “to produce will from God”? “Produce” is to bring something out. What does it mean to bring out will?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To produce will—like when you do something that pleases me, then you produce will from me, and I become pleased with it. I—the Holy One, blessed be He—judges us according to our deeds. When He judges us—yes, exactly, yes. Meaning, He judges us favorably for that act. And producing will is a personal concept. Meaning, you are anthropomorphizing here, clearly. But that’s all; that’s why I read the previous passage. I read the previous passage in order to say that when we speak of the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, the meaning is in our human terms. That’s what we do, and that’s what we need to grasp there. That’s how one is meant to work.
[Speaker B] Now from here Maimonides—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] gets into the preliminary question, and this too is analogous to a chapter in the Guide for the Perplexed. And he says as follows: now, the way all actions relate to the supreme will, may He be blessed, can be understood on two levels, one higher than the other. The first is necessary, and without it there is no room for any true moral perfection; and the second is only a refined outlook, and the moral world could exist even without it. That’s already interesting even before we get into the question of the first and second level. Maybe I’ll read one more sentence. Look at the next page, 16. The reason that the eternity of the world is something opposed to the entire Torah—Maimonides already wrote that this is not so merely because it contradicts the plain meaning of the verses. For if the entire aim of the Torah could be maintained together with eternity, there would be room to interpret the verses figuratively, just as is done with the anthropomorphism that appears in the plain sense of the verses, especially if there were a proof compelling that. However, the main point in which it contradicts the entire Torah is that eternity is connected to necessity, and with necessity there is no room for ability, nor for miracles, nor for reward and punishment. And in this paragraph, all of a sudden Rabbi Kook moves to discussing eternity. Before that he was talking about a completely different topic. He was talking about the question of the freedom of the Holy One, blessed be He, or the relation of actions to the supreme will, and now suddenly he moves to talking about the eternity of the world. How is that connected? So come on, this leads us to Part II, chapter 25 of the Guide. That’s the place Rabbi Kook is explicitly referring to. He says, what Maimonides wrote—that it is not so merely because it contradicts the plain sense of the verses—that’s there. It says below Part III, chapter 25; that’s a mistake, it’s Part II. There are a lot of mistakes here in this edition. In any case, in Part II, chapter 25, Maimonides writes: Know that our refraining from endorsing the eternity of the world is not because the Torah says that the world was created anew. Meaning, why do I not think the world is eternal? Not because the Torah says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” I could have managed with that. Because the verses indicating the creation of the world are no more numerous than the verses indicating that God has a body. There are lots of verses saying “the hand of God,” “the finger of God,” all kinds of things like that—verses that anthropomorphize or personify the Holy One, blessed be He—and we still manage with those, Maimonides says. That doesn’t force us to adopt a bodily picture of the Holy One, blessed be He, or a material picture of Him. So those verses are interpreted metaphorically. Therefore, he says, in the matter of eternity too, if you were to convince me philosophically that the world is eternal, I would do with the verses of “In the beginning God created” exactly what I do there. I would interpret them in one allegorical way or another. In other words, Maimonides says, the reason I oppose eternity is not because of the verses, but because it cannot be. Why can it not be? Because, he says, they are not more numerous than the verses indicating that God has a body, and also the gates of interpretation regarding the creation of the world are not closed to us, nor is such interpretation impossible for us. Rather, we could have interpreted them just as we did regarding the denial of—anthropomorphism, sorry. And perhaps it would even have been easier, and we would have had greater ability to interpret those verses and prove the eternity of the world, just as we interpreted verses and denied that He, may He be exalted, has a body. But two reasons caused us not to do that and not to believe it. Two reasons why Maimonides nevertheless rejects the assumption of eternity—not because of the verses, but what then? The first is that God’s not being a body has been demonstrated by a conclusive proof. He simply has a philosophical proof, a demonstration, that God is not a body. So it is therefore clear that the verses must be interpreted allegorically, all right? The verses about the finger of God and so on. And in the same way, he says, regarding eternity, if we had a proof, then we would interpret them metaphorically. But since we do not have a proof—and maybe we even have some positive reason to believe otherwise, and it is enough simply that we do not have a proof—once we do not have a proof, why should we take the verses away from their plain meaning? We take the verses away from their plain meaning only when we have a proof. Therefore, regarding eternity, I do not even need proof that the world was created anew; it is enough that I do not have proof that the world is eternal. If I have no proof that the world is eternal, why take the verses away from their plain meaning? The verses do say, “In the beginning God created.” So the verses about the finger of God—even if they speak in bodily terms—there I have a conclusive proof against that, so I must take them away from their plain meaning. Here I do not even need proof that the world was created anew; it is enough that I have no proof that the world is eternal, and then I leave the verses in their plain meaning. After that—this is the first point, which Rabbi Kook also quotes here. And then he says: by contrast, belief in eternity—and up to this point he was talking about anthropomorphism, now he moves to eternity—by contrast, belief in eternity in the way Aristotle sees it, that is, by way of necessity, where nothing in nature ever changes and nothing departs from its regular course—this is the Aristotelian conception, that everything has always existed—undermines the Torah at its root and necessarily denies every miracle and nullifies everything the Torah promises or threatens with—yes, both reward and punishment. Unless you also interpret the miracles the way the mystics did; never mind, that’s another topic. But if one believes in eternity according to the second opinion we explained—that was in one of the earlier chapters—and that is Plato’s view, where he speaks about some kind of prime matter such that not everything changes: there was eternal prime matter, because creation out of nothing cannot be, and the forms change, the world develops, the world improves, but this is a more refined kind of eternity. About that Maimonides says: eternity according to the second opinion does not destroy the principles of religion. That can be accepted, because it does not contradict free choice and freedom and miracles and so on. That I still do not accept, simply because it has no proof. I do not accept Plato’s proof that one must assume there has always been prime matter. And since it has no proof, again—why take the verses away from their plain meaning? It says, “In the beginning God created,” so apparently it was created out of nothing. In response to this, Rabbi Kook also distinguishes between two levels of eternity. Now go back for a moment to the first page, page 15, in the last paragraph: now, the way all actions relate to the supreme will, may He be blessed, can be understood on two levels, one higher than the other. There are two levels of the relation between actions and the supreme will, and both are problematic, but they are two different levels of problematicity—exactly like the structure of the chapter in Maimonides that he brings, all right? Then he starts discussing eternity, and here too he brings two conceptions of eternity. One conception of eternity is the Aristotelian conception, which Maimonides also brings. About that he says it destroys the principles of religion, exactly like Maimonides; he almost copies Maimonides’ wording. Therefore we reject it because it contradicts the foundations of religion. Then he says: but there is a subtler eternity. Look at the third paragraph on page 16: and in this way we can expand the matter of necessity and say that the decree of the supreme wisdom also necessitates the spiritual and material existence, and so on. This is a more refined concept of eternity, less crude than the Aristotelian one. It does not destroy the foundations of religion—exactly the same structure as Maimonides in that chapter. But Rabbi Kook’s two concepts of eternity are not Maimonides’ two concepts of eternity. For Maimonides they are Plato and Aristotle, whereas for Rabbi Kook it is something completely different. It is Aristotelian eternity and the more refined eternity, which we’ll deal with next time. But the structure is exactly the same structure as in the Guide for the Perplexed, and the attitude toward these two levels is the same attitude as Maimonides’. In other words, the first thing is ruled out because it contradicts the principles of religion; such a thing cannot be. The second thing is more subtle—that is what he says. Look again at the bottom of the first page; let’s read the paragraph once more. Now, the way all actions relate to the supreme will, may He be blessed, can be understood on two levels, one higher than the other: the first is necessary, and without it there is no room for any true moral perfection—that is Aristotle, which is impossible, and must be rejected—and the second is only a refined outlook. The meaning is: it is not correct, but there is no necessity to reject it, and a moral world can exist even without it, even without it. In other words, it is more subtle. I reject it because, in my view, I think it is not correct, but it does not contradict the foundations of religion. So the structure of this chapter is really just like the structure in Maimonides. And next time we’ll talk about what the differences nevertheless are, just as we did at the beginning of the chapter as well. Next time will be in two weeks, God willing.