For the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does it mean to talk about this? No, I’m saying, I think what Rav Kook means to say is that everyone has his own binding of Isaac. It’s an educational process. Meaning, when you educate a child, you can educate him in two ways, and that’s really right at the center of this chapter—I haven’t gotten into it yet, but still. You can educate him through the idea that basically everything is good and everything is moral and everything is wonderful, and therefore it’s worthwhile to observe it. It’s good to observe it, and it’s moral to observe it. You can educate him the opposite way. You can educate him by saying: listen, I don’t know whether it’s moral or not moral; it may be that it isn’t moral. You need to observe it because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. The process of the binding tells you that the truth is like the first way, but pedagogically you need to go through the second way. Meaning, you need to begin with the second way, to tell the child: listen, you observe this because what the Holy One, blessed be He, said—you must do. After he has bound his personal will before the divine command, after all, the binding of Isaac is not the binding of a child; it is also the binding of principles. Right. So after he binds that, he will discover from within that in fact there is no need to bind. That’s basically the fit. If you begin education at the first stage with the idea that it fits, you will create someone spineless. Meaning, you’ll create someone who has no… he won’t do anything beyond what he thinks and what he wants. There’s no dimension here of serving God. He’ll simply find whatever he wants already in the Torah in one way or another. Today, after all, we are masters of interpretive tricks; we can do anything. Give me your conclusion, and I’ll prove it to you with signs and wonders from a hundred sources. That’s not a problem. So that’s exactly the danger in the first kind of education, even though Rav Kook says it is the correct one. It is correct, but it’s dangerous; it has to come after the binding. It cannot come at the outset. And therefore they put Abraham through this—that’s the answer to your question. That’s why they put Abraham through this whole process. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had told him from the outset: listen, My commands always fit morality, then he would have educated by the first method. He wanted to educate Abraham our forefather by the second method. He tells him: first of all, you will bind even your own son if I tell you. In the end you will discover that there is no need. Because what I tell you fits the rules of morality. But you will discover that only after you have given practical expression to your willingness to bind everything, showing that you are wholly a servant of God. Okay? Now here Rav Kook makes a major retreat—I’ll get back to why in this chapter—Rav Kook now basically says: let’s turn the whole thing upside down. He is basically saying: okay, then let’s educate everyone that everything is terribly moral and terribly fitting, and therefore they will keep the Torah. Meaning, he tells us: move over to the educational approach that is correct in principle but not pedagogically. Meaning, because that’s the only thing that will work. That’s the ex post facto side of it on the one hand. On the other hand he says: why is this not only ex post facto? Why is there some process of advancement here? Because it really is true. Today’s generation, says Rav Kook, no longer buys the second approach even as a pedagogical tool, because it understands that it isn’t true. It is not willing to accept such a thing—that I need to do immoral things just because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. It already knows the lesson of the binding without going through it. That’s an educational problem. It’s an educational problem even though it’s right. Because without passing through a stage in which you bind everything, every child knows this, I think—that there is some stage in his educational process where he understands that being religious means going against the world, against everything everyone thinks, simply doing the opposite. The less understandable the Torah is, the more religious I am and the more I am a servant of God and the more righteous I am. The less moral it is, the less understandable it is, the more I bind. There is something true in this process. It isn’t true—the conception, Rav Kook says at least, I’m not entirely sure I agree with him. Rav Kook says it is not true on the principled level. On the principled level there is harmony; you are not going against the world. The world, or natural feelings, are fitting, and that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from you. But it is not right to educate this way. That’s what he said about the binding. Now here he says: fine, but our generation doesn’t buy that education. If you tell them: look, this must be done because there are intellectual demonstrations that whatever the Holy One, blessed be He, said must be done—the generation doesn’t buy it. That’s how he opened the chapter. So there is no choice; you have to explain to them how good and moral and upright it is, and then they will do it. Meaning, this is a pedagogical concession; this is not ideal pedagogy, it is a pedagogical concession. But that concession leads us to an educational way that is more correct, whose content is more correct. It isn’t an educational way recommended ideally, but only for a tactical reason. In truth it is more correct. Meaning, it really is a more correct way. Therefore, in a certain sense, I think that this is the meaning of the double melody I spoke about earlier: on the one hand he presents this as a kind of ex post facto path, there’s no choice, the generation no longer buys this kind of service of God that is like a scriptural decree against all the rules. But on the other hand he says that justice and uprightness are the root of wisdom—that’s ideal; that’s how it is; it’s true as well. So if it’s true, then why is it only a gateway into fear of God and love of God and so on? Why isn’t it the fundamental thing? Why isn’t it ideal? Because it isn’t ideal because educationally it is not correct to educate this way. And by the way, that’s true—I think that really is correct. Here I do fully agree with him; I don’t agree with the outcome. On the pedagogical considerations I agree. Meaning, it is not correct to educate this way, to educate a child that being good and serving God are the same thing. That’s not right; educationally it isn’t right. Substantively—we’ll talk about whether it is right or not—but educationally it really is not right. But Maimonides says there, when there’s no choice, people aren’t willing just to do ritual things, or things only because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. Fine. Then try to show them that this is also justice and uprightness, because the truth is that this is also correct. With a child, in order to educate him, you need to hide the truth. You need to tell him: no, it’s not moral, and you need to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so—even though that isn’t true. Because you need to build some level of commitment, of determination, of serving God, of not bending the Torah to wherever you want just because you happen to feel this way or that way. You need to build such a level. After you have built that level, you can tell him: okay, but know that natural morality is a very important thing, it is also an interpretive tool for the Torah, and according to Rav Kook at least, a contradiction between what the Torah says and it is impossible.

Now he brings an example of this: just as the medieval authorities (Rishonim), of blessed memory, tried to align the demands of philosophy with the Torah as much as possible regarding anthropomorphism and emotional attributions in relation to the law of God, may He be exalted. So what example is he bringing? Just as in philosophy they had anthropomorphism, or all sorts of philosophical principles they arrived at not from the Torah. Like we saw in Maimonides in the previous lesson or the one before that, I don’t remember—that anthropomorphism is actually what emerges from the plain sense of the verses. The hand of God, the will of God, “I regret that I made them,” and all sorts of our passages. So the plain sense of the Torah does say that. It’s through intellectual notions—we arrive at them through philosophical considerations—that this cannot be true. Okay? And the fact is that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) saw these philosophical considerations as weighty enough to bend the interpretation of the Torah so that it would fit them. We saw this very clearly in Maimonides and also in Rav Kook in chapter 1. The fact that things are written in the Torah proves nothing. If reason says the opposite, we’ll work it out interpretively. Submission to the Torah? I got it.

[Speaker C] And I’m already a bit… the Torah according to what…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s in just a moment, I’ll come back to it. For now I’m still in the introduction, I’ll return to it; that’s a point that still needs discussion, one of the points that still needs discussion. So he says: if so, just as with anthropomorphism and philosophical issues, so too with moral issues of justice and uprightness. This comparison is problematic. What?

[Speaker C] That the medieval authorities (Rishonim) tried to align philosophy with the Torah. Earlier you said that we need to align natural morality with the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, there is a difference. In Maimonides there is an example of this.

[Speaker C] No, he doesn’t accept it because…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The creation of the world, for example.

[Speaker C] No, he says that because it isn’t necessary, so it’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Almost. It’s not bending, but at least you’re not even willing to recognize it as a doubt. You say: no, the world is not eternal, even though philosophically there are two sides and both are possible. Half a bend, okay? There is some problem with this comparison between philosophical questions and moral questions. Because with philosophical questions, if philosophically I arrive at the conclusion that anthropomorphism is wrong, then the fact is that anthropomorphism is wrong. So what am I… what can I do? Clearly I have to bend the Torah, otherwise the Torah is saying something untrue. But here there is… no, okay, I mean on the assumption that I’m sufficiently convinced of this, I have no choice but to bend the Torah. And again, it’s all a game of weights. Clearly, one does not completely bend the Torah in an unreasonable way, and even when one bends it, that is only when I am sufficiently convinced of my philosophical conclusions. It’s not all or nothing. It’s a matter of how convinced I am of my philosophical conclusions as against what interpretive price I have to pay. But overall, I do it. But that’s in relation to facts. If I have facts that lead me to conclude that anthropomorphism is wrong, that God cannot be corporeal, fine—then I have no choice, I must change my interpretation of the verses so that it fits, because otherwise the facts are simply wrong. But in contexts of values, and justice and uprightness—what kind of intellectual considerations can lead me to the correct values? I have some inner feeling that this is right or not right; the Torah teaches me that it isn’t right. So what’s the problem? Why… what place is there for this comparison?

[Speaker C] Because the inner feeling is stronger than what reason proves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning—no, but yes, but that’s exactly the point: that feeling, ostensibly, is not reason. After all, it deals with norms, not with facts. So to see it as having the same force as philosophical force through which I arrive at positions about facts—that’s a problematic example. But again, I’m not challenging it; I’m trying to sharpen what we see here in Rav Kook. We see here that he treats the natural rules of uprightness and justice as a kind of facts. You cannot ignore them just as you cannot ignore facts that lead you to conclude that God cannot be corporeal. Meaning, from his standpoint it is like… like facts. And if it doesn’t fit… and therefore if it doesn’t fit with the verses, then there is no choice but to interpret them creatively so that it will fit. Okay? There is some message behind this comparison.

[Speaker C] You said that he… but when you are already prepared to accept and you have no ability to prove—as perhaps the medieval authorities (Rishonim), at the early stage of their philosophy, thought, that there are things that can be proven—then revival joins perhaps some level of faith that has no demonstrative proof. So once you descend to that level, move past what we might call it, arrive at a level of deficiency, you say: if natural justice and natural uprightness are also faith, then why do you decide that you believe in this more than in that? You have no way to decide.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that’s not what he says.

[Speaker C] He doesn’t…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He isn’t making some compromise here between faith and natural justice and uprightness. It doesn’t even occur to him to say that. He claims that faith says this—not that you deviate from faith so that it will fit natural justice and uprightness. So your consideration doesn’t explain it.

[Speaker C] He cannot escape natural justice and uprightness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but I’m saying again: he doesn’t say, give up a little of the certainty of your faith in the Torah so that it will fit natural justice and uprightness, because after all this is a faith and that is a faith, so this isn’t preferable to that. That’s the interpretation you basically presented; it is not what he says. Because if that were what he said, you wouldn’t need to interpret the Torah differently. Meaning, the Torah says this, but okay, I am also committed to natural justice and uprightness, so I give up a little of my commitment to the Torah in order to fit natural justice and uprightness. He doesn’t say that. He says that the Torah itself cannot possibly say something that does not fit natural justice and uprightness. He does not deviate one millimeter from commitment to what is written in the Torah. He only claims that if in your interpretation it came out that this contradicts natural justice and uprightness, then you made a mistake. That’s the claim. It is not a compromise between two commitments; on the contrary. His claim is that he is unwilling to make a compromise. He is unwilling to make a compromise because a conflict between them is impossible. It is impossible that there be distance between them; therefore there is no need to reach a compromise. In a certain sense, it is exactly the opposite. Therefore, broadening the reasons for Torah and commandments, and aligning and expanding the paths of natural morality according to the way of the Torah, are the main tasks we must labor at in our generation by writing books that will help repair the generation. And that brings us back to the starting point.

Okay, so I’ve just given a few comments, a few initial hints as I read this. Now let’s try to see a bit more of what lies behind these words. He touches on several very heavy issues; I don’t agree with him on all of them either, so let’s try to clarify them one by one. His first assertion: in our generation, when opinions have become very tangled, and philosophy in general has declined from its stature in the eyes of many. What does it mean that philosophy has declined from its stature in the eyes of many? On this matter, it seems to me that the process continued even after the period in which he wrote. He wrote this at the beginning of the 20th century; the process went on much further, and I think that today anyone who looks a bit around sees that there really is great despair of reason. Great despair of reason in many contexts, and therefore philosophy declines from its stature in two senses. First, I don’t know how many people deal with philosophy or to whom it speaks, although I think it was never the possession of the many. But second, it seems to me that even those who do engage in philosophy do not place great hopes in it as a way of bringing us to conclusions. I think that’s the more significant process for us. There is a kind of despair over the idea that in philosophy you can reach anything. There are opinions like this and opinions like that, assumptions like this and assumptions like that—you can’t reach any conclusions. You can basically say whatever you want. At most, philosophy can defend what you want to say against objections. Meaning, you show that you have some answer to the objection, but it cannot lead you to positive conclusions, to decide this is right or this is not right. I’m describing a mood right now, a very widespread mood in the world. And of course, we talked about this last year in the first part when I spoke about this three-stage process; I hinted at it briefly. The process, this three-stage developmental process both of the individual adolescent and of our civilization in general: in the first stage there is a dogmatic period, in which a person accepts what he is told as correct, as obvious. A child accepts what his parents or teachers tell a small child. He accepts what they say; if they say it, it is probably true. Humanity too, in its initial period—or at least in what is known to us—was also basically in some kind of dogmatic childishness like this: what the tribal elders or the shamans or I don’t know who said was apparently true. There was not yet rational critique of traditions, of the first principles that are passed down to us. So that is the first period. Then there is a second period, the period of adolescent rebellion. The adolescent of course immediately says to his parents: prove it. Who says? And to teachers or educators: what are you talking about? Prove it. Who says this is so? Maybe the opposite? This period also exists in civilization—in the West, I’m speaking now more broadly, and especially in Greece, where this was the main conflict between Greece and Israel, at least in the rabbinic picture of it. I don’t know what was really there, but the way the Sages describe it, I think this is a very strong focal point of the conflict: basically, a kind of rationalization of things and willingness to critique traditions. Greece, of course, began with—or didn’t begin with; almost to the end it was a very mythological culture, full of gods and full of traditions and myths and paganism and all sorts of such things—not paganism, but mythology. And many times that coexisted peacefully with the philosophy that began there, the more systematic philosophy and the logic that began to develop there in a more orderly way. But that is where the process of rational critique of traditions already began. Yes, the adolescent period of our civilization, which begins to ask why, who says, maybe the opposite. And this was one of the dangers the Sages saw in Greek rationalism: when they ask, wait a second—who says? Why? Maybe the opposite? When you do that to tradition, it naturally sounds very threatening.

The third stage is the stage that, we discussed this at length last year, so whoever was there was there, and whoever wasn’t, I’ll just summarize briefly. The third stage bursts forth when the second stage reaches its full expression. Meaning, the adolescent asks: who says? Prove it. Maybe the opposite? Until he reaches the conclusion that in fact nothing can be proven, since every proof is based on first principles or on basic assumptions, on axioms, and therefore there is nothing that can be proven independently, unconditionally, without something that itself has no proof. Every proof is always a reduction to basic assumptions. So once you internalize this simple and terrible fact, you suddenly enter a real crisis, because you expected to be a rational person and to do only what is proven to you and throw away all the nonsense and go only with the truth—and only with proven things—and suddenly you discover that not only is it impossible to go only with proven things, there are no proven things in the world. None at all. There is no such thing as proven things. Everything is based on assumptions, and regarding assumptions you can always ask: why? And who says? And maybe the opposite? Then a crisis arrives, and from this crisis one can emerge in one of two ways, what I said there—two ways to mature. This is the transition from adolescence to maturity in the broader civilizational context. I think this happened approximately in the middle of the 20th century, after the Second World War. The adolescent period is from Greece until roughly the middle of the 20th century, very schematically. And this maturity can take one of two forms: either in a skeptical direction, which basically says: if the opposite can always be the case and nothing has proof, then fine, I become a skeptic, that’s it. I give up the naivete of the adolescent who thinks things can be proven and one can be rational and follow reason. I mature and say: okay, there’s no choice, nothing is true—nothing is true, get over it, grow up. And that is postmodernism, in a nutshell, of course. That is one kind of maturity. The second kind of maturity is maturity that basically says to the first kind of mature person: there was one principle you were not willing to give up, the adolescent principle, that anything you accept must be proven. You are willing to accept only proven things. That was the adolescent’s assumption. The postmodern, skeptical adult continues with that. He has not given up that assumption. He accepts only proven things, except that he has already matured and understands there is no such thing as proven things. There aren’t any. Therefore he accepts nothing. He is a skeptic. The alternative adult—the modernist, perhaps we can call him, although historically it appeared earlier, but here these are two parallel axes—basically matures and says: wait a second, who says? Who says maybe the opposite? He asks the adolescent. Who says I can accept only proven things? There are things about which I have intuition; I accept them. Maybe not at 100%; one should always be a bit skeptical, a bit cautious, critical, one should examine things as much as possible. But who says only proofs are the tool that grants legitimacy to claims? I am willing to accept claims for which I have no proof if they seem reasonable to me, if my intuition tells me they are reasonable. That is the alternative maturity. So at this point there are basically two ways out of this crisis marking the end of the age of adolescence. When Rav Kook speaks here about the crisis, about despair of philosophy, it seems to me that he is beginning to smell the roots of postmodernism. It has not yet emerged, of course, but its roots are certainly deeply planted in the modernist period, as we also discussed last year. Modernism in its essence, in its essence, still did not give up the assumption that only what is proven is true. It still lives with that adolescent feeling; it is still the period of adolescence, not the beginning of maturity. We will go only with proven things, with science. Science will replace the myths, religions, all the non-rational things, and we will be rational people. That is basically the culmination of the Enlightenment process; it is not the beginning of maturity. Therefore Rav Kook senses that despite the fact that there are all sorts of ideas there that people ostensibly believe in passionately—it is the age of the great ideas, the age within which Rav Kook operates. So all the great ideas are born and operate at full strength. But he senses that behind them there is in fact some despair of philosophy, some despair of truth, and basically you go with whatever suits you, each person with his own narrative—what perhaps fifty or seventy years later they would call it, each person develops his own narrative and goes with it, because there is some despair of reason. And once there is despair of reason, then I go with feelings, with what I feel, instead of what I believe or what I think.

Now this process is of course not found only in the world or in abstract human beings; it is also within us, inside the religious world, inside the study hall. This process has entered the innermost chambers. I don’t think there is any gate that succeeded in completely keeping it outside. Meaning—I told this story here once last year when we were talking—there is some actor, a kind of rabbi-actor, Haggai Luber, and once I saw some one-man show of his in Elkana. He used to go around to such communities, do this one-man show, and afterward hold a discussion with the parents about various educational issues. And there was a topic there—he was talking about formerly religious people, but never mind. In any case, afterward he described a situation very beautifully; the description stayed with me very strongly. He said: look, all in all I’m a young guy. I’m a young guy; seven or eight years ago I was an instructor at the yeshiva preparatory program in Ofra. Groups of high-school kids used to come there, they would sit around the bonfire, and there was tension in the air—you could cut it with a knife. Either I prove it to them or I don’t prove it to them. If I prove it to them, they all come with me to yeshiva and become religious and leave everything else. And if I don’t prove it to them, then they throw everything away, go to the beach, that’s the end of the story, forget it. There was tension in the air, he says. No more than seven or eight years passed, he says—what happens today? They sit around the bonfire, I talk to them, sitting there with the guys, cracking sunflower seeds, and I say to them: Is there a God? Sounds reasonable. And then I say to them: and there was also Mount Sinai. Yeah, isn’t it written in the Torah? Ah yes, and the Torah was given there? Sure, here it is. And there are commandments in the Torah? Right, anyone can see that. And everything written in the Torah needs to be observed because the Holy One, blessed be He, said it? Right. And then… and then I’m left with—so what? So why are you… so what? So where are we stuck? We agree on everything, so where…? After all, they weren’t with him. They still weren’t with him in the second phase either. Seven or eight years later the groups were not essentially different. The arguments that worked on them were different. So he says: where are we stuck? It just doesn’t suit us right now. That’s all. Meaning, there is—I think this is something very true. Anyone who has a bit of experience doesn’t connect with this? Yes exactly, doesn’t connect with it, it doesn’t speak to me right now, and that’s all. That is exactly what Rav Kook is talking about here in the first sentence: philosophy has declined from its stature. All kinds of sophisticated and abstract arguments don’t speak to people. Justice and uprightness—and here I come to the question: what are justice and uprightness? I don’t know exactly what Rav Kook meant here when he spoke of justice and uprightness. It may just be two nice words he uses, or he may really mean two different things. It may be that justice is morality, and uprightness is some kind of intuition or natural straightness—meaning, as opposed to arguments built on premises and conclusions and logical inferences. Yes, that’s what Sefer HaYashar—the book of Genesis is called the book of the upright because of this, the book of the upright ones, because the patriarchs observed the Torah, as the Sages say about Abraham our forefather, that his two kidneys became like two rabbis to him. There was some natural feeling. Maybe one needs Mount Sinai in order to keep the commandments. That is also what is called uprightness, and with Rav Kook too in other places that is what is called uprightness. Uprightness means some healthy intuition or simple intuition that says the right thing without intricate arguments. In any event, justice and uprightness here—or justice and uprightness really mean something that immediately settles in my heart, something I connect to insofar as I feel it is right: emotion instead of reason. But that is exactly the same phenomenon I described earlier—something like ninety years after these books were written—but it is exactly the same thing. Meaning, despair of abstract arguments. Arguments don’t speak to people. They really don’t speak to people. You cannot bring anyone anywhere through arguments. I even spoke not long ago with someone active in outreach and values, the Arachim seminar. He told me they feel the same process, the same thing. Once this seminar consisted of some ostensibly logical arguments—I don’t think all of them hold water—but logical, analytical, formal arguments, premises and conclusion. Here, whoever hears this becomes religious for sure. Meaning, I compel you, whether you want it or not, to become religious. And indeed people became religious in droves. I attended one seminar—unbelievable, the percentages were impossible to describe. Today, they told me, it’s simply a completely different world. Completely different. All these arguments just do not speak to people at all. They say them because you need some intellectual backing, but that is not at all the level at which one should speak. One needs to speak in literary, emotional, moral terms, in terms of connection and so on. So in all the spheres in which we operate—inside the study hall, outside the study hall, in the wider world, among Jews, among non-Jews—these processes are universal. There is some despair of reason, and emotion somehow replaces it.

This emotion finds expression either through postmodernism—which is the philosophy of emotion—or through New Age, which is the nonsense of emotion, I don’t know exactly what—apologies to all sensitivities—or through several other things, never mind. In any case, by the way, there are other aspects—perhaps I’ll mention this too because it also relates to the continuation of the chapter. Pragmatism is a similar expression of this, although as an idea it is older in terms of its historical appearance. Pragmatism is usually associated with Americans. Pragmatism is basically, again in one sentence, to argue for some claim through its results, where it leads. There are, for example, people who will argue in favor of ideas—democracy, for example—through the fact that it leads to the best regime, or the least bad regime, or whatever arguments of that type. So with democracy it even sounds reasonable, because after all a form of government is not some abstract principle. Its purpose is to achieve a just society, or whatever you like. Therefore teleological arguments, pragmatic arguments, are relevant arguments when we discuss questions of systems of government and so on. But pragmatism is broader. You can find its fingerprints also in all sorts of philosophical questions that have nothing at all to do with systems of government. And there too people examine things according to whether it is just or upright, right? Various claims, for example. This comes to expression through people who do not even know what pragmatism is; that doesn’t matter, it’s the spirit of the age. You don’t have to be conscious of it. People say—I don’t know—they can bring someone back to religion and say to him: look how beautiful the Jewish family is and the Sabbath candles glowing, and all sorts of nonsense like that. Arguments of that type are basically saying: look, I don’t know whether there is a God or there isn’t a God, but what do you care? It’s really nice to be Jewish. It’s the best, it’s the best kind of life there is. So come join us. That sort of argument. I’m presenting it a bit grotesquely, of course, but I don’t think it’s far from that. In many places you see it. And that too, in my opinion, is an expression of a kind of pragmatism. We are despairing of reason. After all, you’re not going to prove whether there is a God or isn’t a God. I don’t go through God at all; let’s go through Sabbath candles, leave God aside. Let’s go through Sabbath candles, the family, society, the nation—each person and the plane he likes to talk about—and through the results I’ll bring you to the ideas. This too is a kind of despair of reason. In my view that too is a kind of postmodernism—again, not historically; historically it was in a completely modernist period—but I think essentially it belongs there. It is some kind of despair of rational considerations, so let’s choose what is most useful. If I don’t know what is true, let’s choose what is most useful. What can happen? Often when people make arguments… well, let’s leave that now, that’s something else. Anyway, pragmatism too is an expression of some kind of despair of reason.

[Speaker C] This practical side, this pragmatism, is the most rational thing possible, because in the end—take a specific example—say when Americans present the approach that according to their theory there will be no wars between two democracies, then democracy is a good thing, excellent, I’ve proved it in the world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that. That’s why I said earlier that pragmatism, when it was born in the United States, was born as arguments in favor of a system of government, or what you are saying now, and there it really has a place, because a system of government I do not build according to absolute truth. I want to see which government leads me to the results I want to reach, as you say—that there should be no wars, and so on. But it expanded, and this is precisely the postmodern process or this despair of reason. It expanded to places where once you really would have done this through… as I said earlier with belief in God. Once you would have tried to persuade someone through proofs that there is a God, or arguments—I don’t know—of one sort or another in favor of there being a God, that the Torah is true, I don’t know exactly what, all sorts of things like that. And the pragmatic substitute for this says: forget it, come join us because we have the nicest life, it’s the best, the happiest family, the children behave beautifully, and all sorts of things of that type. The experiment succeeded—that doesn’t interest me. It could be that the fiction of the Holy One, blessed be He, creates well-behaved children, but that still doesn’t mean I’m supposed to believe in Him. What does that have to do with anything? The fact that it creates well-behaved children means that this fiction has a blessed educational effect, fine. Maybe I’ll adopt it as a fiction to educate the children, but I’m not going to become religious because of that. It’s absurd. If I believe there is no God, then there is no God. It won’t help whether it educates my children or not, because either there is or there isn’t—that is a fact. I think that is a problematic way. You can say that there is an assumption—and this is another assumption that needs to be put on the table—an assumption that says that if a certain path leads to a better society, or better-educated children, or happier families, or things of that sort, then that is some indication that there is something to it. That is a far-reaching claim in itself, but fine, there are people who believe it, one has to put it on the table. But when you make such a claim, then it is no longer pragmatism; then it becomes a valid philosophical argument. Because the results in themselves do not prove the idea. You have another assumption—that achieving results is an indication of a correct idea. By the way, I don’t know how far you can get with this, because I’m not sure we really can. Just today I read some article that someone did, some neuroscience study. Someone did some study on centers in the brain that are responsible for happiness in one way or another—I’m a bit skeptical of all these concepts, but never mind—and he concluded that Buddhists are the happiest population there is, or at least much happier than average. So by considerations of that type, all of us are now supposed to go become Buddhists. But I’m not a Buddhist because I don’t think it’s correct to be a Buddhist, so what do I care if they are the happiest? Even before the question of whether the study is actually true. This kind of argument doesn’t hold water. It only holds water where there is despair of reason. When you have despair of reason, you have already despaired of adopting a worldview through considerations of logic, considerations of reasoning, and you go through goals—what do you care?

[Speaker C] Yes. In fact, what you said regarding the traditional issue—it’s not just more reason or more philosophical things to prove whether it is true or not, or to show how much happier the family is or not, but to reach the conclusion that you light Sabbath candles in order to be happy. Meaning, the experience itself is the main thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but do you expect someone to become religious because lighting Sabbath candles creates a pleasant atmosphere at home? I wouldn’t become religious because of that.

[Speaker C] Fine, so you wouldn’t, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are people who would—they’re idiots.

[Speaker C] You talked about speaking about how socially successful the Sabbath is, and enjoying it more than experiencing it that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, I’m saying—but still, that is an experience of happiness, so what? Who says that if it brings you happiness—assuming it does bring you happiness—who says that if it brings you happiness then it is true? The Buddhists—I don’t know—that they experience Buddhism; I’m not sure they would be less happy. So according to the people at Arachim, or whoever—again, I don’t know exactly what they do there, I just heard from someone not long ago that the direction has changed a bit—so now everyone needs to become Buddhist because they are happier. We now have rational measures of who is happiest. If happiness is the measure of what is true, then now we have to search—we have a parameter, exactly. We can check with an fMRI whether there is a God or not, look in the brain.

[Speaker C] No, that’s fine, with…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no problem with that at all. That’s why I said—meaning, if you arrive at that conclusion, then that’s perfectly fine. But the pragmatic argument in its pure form, the pragmatic argument in its pure form, basically hangs the idea on its results. And that is problematic, logically problematic.

Okay, now regarding another point, about happiness and justice: both in the Ran’s Derashot and the Maharal in Be’er HaGolah, they both write that there is something immoral or unjust in Jewish law. In certain places in Jewish law. The Maharal speaks, for example, about returning a lost object. He says that with returning a lost object, when a person has given up hope, then according to Jewish law you are not obligated to return him the lost item. The spirit of the Sages is certainly pleased with someone who does do so. So you don’t need to return it. And the Maharal says: this is not just. What, are you more entitled to this object? Assuming I know who the owner is, of course. If I don’t know who the owner is, I have no option to return it. But when I do know who the owner is, yet he gave up hope. If he gave up hope, nothing will help him. Meaning, if he comes to me and says this object is mine and gives me a hundred identifying marks—if I have indications that previously he had given up hope, all sorts of indications can exist for this matter—then I do not give it to him. I’m not obligated to give it to him. Why? The Maharal says: after all, he worked for it, it’s his. You just happened to find it. Justice says you should return it to him. Every legal system in the world would say: return it to him. Why don’t you return it? That is the most just thing. The Ran’s Derashot also speaks about this, not specifically about returning a lost object but more generally. And the Maharal claims—he has some very interesting formulations there—he says that the Torah follows truth. I no longer remember the exact wording, there are some formulations there that are a bit confusing in our language, but I’ll translate it into my language: the Torah follows truth, not justice. What does it mean, according to truth? The conception he expresses there, which it seems to me has a lot of anchor in Jewish law, is that legal determinations are a kind of facts. We said earlier that Rav Kook treats moral conceptions as a kind of facts. Legal determinations—whether this object is mine or not mine—are a kind of fact. Once you gave up hope, the fact is that it is not yours. Once the fact is that it is not yours, I am not obligated to return it to you. It is not a question of justice. The heart says return it, morality says return it, all true. The Sages say so too—again, the Sages do not dispute this either. They also recognize that it is more moral to return it. So if it is more moral to return it, then why doesn’t Jewish law obligate me to return it? Doesn’t Jewish law want us to behave morally? So Jewish law itself recognizes that it is more moral, because Jewish law says that the truth is that it isn’t his. If you want to be a good person, of course, the spirit of the Sages is pleased with you if you return it, all good. Factually, in terms of truth, it isn’t his. So here there is some further expression of this conflict between truth and justice and uprightness perhaps, although again, I don’t know exactly what he means here by justice and uprightness. But here this conflict really is a real conflict that the Maharal and Ran’s Derashot, in another context, acknowledge. There is no resolution. They are unable to produce the resolution Rav Kook produces here. They say something entirely different.

[Speaker C] Yes, yes, they say that the laws of the nations are more refined than Jewish law. That’s the phrase they write there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The laws of the nations are more refined morally than Jewish law. But…

[Speaker C] Why, if in terms of the truth it isn’t his, does morality say that it is his?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because all in all, he worked on it; he’s more unfortunate than you are if you give it up. Give it to him! After all, it doesn’t really belong to either of you; it’s just lying here, so give it to him. Why should you take it? I’m drawing this, of course, in a very specific way. Let’s say if I’m terribly poor and he’s terribly rich, then you can already start hesitating, because if these are moral questions and not legal ones, then Robin Hood can enter the picture. But let’s say that for the sake of the discussion we’re both in the same economic position, okay? Then fairness and justice mean giving it back. The halakhic truth? Yes, exactly, right.

[Speaker C] So there is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] something in Jewish law that is also accused of this many times, of being cold and alienated. Meaning, it doesn’t fit our simple conscience. So Rabbi Kook says this has to be resolved; there has to be some moral explanation. I don’t know how he would resolve returning a lost item; I don’t know whether he addressed it, I’d be happy to hear if anyone here knows, I don’t. Because the Sages themselves say that it isn’t moral. So here it will be hard to resolve it, that morality does say to return it; the Sages themselves say so. That’s why the Sages say that the opinion of the sages is not pleased with someone who does not return it. It’s supposed to be moral too; according to Rabbi Kook, the commandments are supposed to overlap with that. Fine, but still, but still there’s no identity. Why not establish it in law, that you would be obligated to return it? So that morality would fit the Torah. Here the Torah is indifferent to morality; it isn’t opposed to it, it’s indifferent to it. Fine, still, full correspondence was supposed to be correspondence, not indifference. Here a very important point really comes to expression, and that is another assumption Rabbi Kook makes here in this chapter: he assumes there must be a correspondence between justice and fairness and the Jewish laws. I said earlier that I tend to agree with him on this point, although it requires a bit of definition; maybe it’s only a difference in definition. For example, in this context of returning a lost item, which I also said earlier, sometimes there are things in Jewish law that are blatantly not moral—again, in the simple sense of the concept morality. Why? The wife of a kohen who was raped—the example people always wave around—must separate from him. That’s a double tragedy. After she is raped, they still have to separate, leave the children, I don’t know what to do with them. It’s a double and redoubled tragedy. But that’s what Jewish law says. It contradicts the simple moral feeling. So how do you resolve that? Here, as I said earlier—and I’m debating whether this isn’t just a question of definition, because I assume Rabbi Kook would also agree on this point—he would just say that the obligation to preserve the sanctity of the priesthood overrides the desire not to cause suffering to people. Many times we have to cause suffering to people for the sake of a greater value. Even in surgery that we perform on someone, it can hurt him, okay? We hurt him in order to heal him. There are often conflicts between values. But the point that crystallizes this conflict here is that this is not an intra-moral conflict; it is a conflict between a moral principle and a principle that is not a moral principle, some other principle. The sanctity of the priesthood—I don’t know what exactly it is, but it isn’t a moral value. So I don’t think it is correct to say here that Jewish law fully corresponds to the moral imperative. That is not true. Jewish law takes the moral imperative into account; the moral value obviously plays a part, but there are other values too, and sometimes when there is a conflict they will override the moral value. That means it is correct—again I return to the Maharal’s terms—that this is the right way to act, this is the truth, but it does not mean that it always fits morality. Not always.

[Speaker C] I don’t think the sanctity of the priesthood is not a moral value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that the sanctity of the priesthood is not a moral value. What is it? What moral value is there in preserving the sanctity of the priesthood?

[Speaker C] It’s an important value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Important, but not moral.

[Speaker C] What does that mean, important? No, it really is moral to be an upright and faithful person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you’ve emptied the concept of morality of content. So morality is whatever is important? It’s also important that I have a lot of money, so is it moral to go to work, or moral to work overtime? If you translate moral as important, you empty the concept of morality of its content.

[Speaker C] Not because it’s important, because it’s true, it is right to act that way, so morality goes in the direction of truth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, why? Morality and truth are not the same thing. Morality deals with good and bad; truth deals with truth and falsehood. I don’t think it is correct to identify those concepts with one another.

[Speaker C] Maybe it isn’t, but I’m saying it goes in the same direction. I understand, okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying again, once we—this is why I said that maybe Rabbi Kook would say that it is moral to preserve what you’re talking about, essentially. And that is what I said earlier, that maybe there is some kind of semantic dispute here. But the problem is that this semantic dispute somewhat empties the chapter of its content. One second. Because then what does it actually say? That the Torah will always fit morality. What does it mean, fit morality? It means that if you know all the values for the sake of which we were commanded these commandments, you will understand that this is the right thing to do—and with that I certainly agree. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not just do things out of caprice. But that is not identifying it with morality; it is identifying it with what is correct. Once you say that this is the correct identity, then it is an empty tautology.

[Speaker C] Maybe it’s more an identity with justice? And fairness is simply getting along with reason? The divine command… I actually used fairness and not justice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, it doesn’t matter. Morality is not justice. Okay? I’m only saying that if that’s so, if that’s so, then this assertion is emptied of content. Because then I don’t understand what critical tool I have when I see a clash between the Torah and a moral principle. Okay? So Rabbi Kook says there cannot be a clash; there must be identity. Either change your moral principles, or interpret the Torah differently. Now here, I’m not interpreting the Torah differently, I’m not changing my moral principles, and there is no identity. There is no identity. So what will you say? Then bring the sanctity of the priesthood too into the moral values. Fine—but then, just like that, I haven’t done anything; it’s just semantics. Then I can call everything morality and I’ve achieved perfect correspondence, so what have we accomplished? Maybe here

[Speaker C] the Torah hints to us… It means that in all those cases where there isn’t such a strong conflict.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, when there is no conflict then of course. It’s not that the Torah decided to be immoral just because it felt like it.

[Speaker C] Maybe there is some philosophical purpose no less important than simple idolatry, but he…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but Rabbi Kook says more than that. Rabbi Kook here is not making the weaker claim, the claim that says morality is something that must be taken into account, that it was not nullified at Mount Sinai. That is the claim you mentioned earlier; he certainly holds that. But that’s not what he says here. Here he is making a much stronger claim. He is making the claim that there is identity. Not that morality remains in force and must also be taken into account, but that the commandments must fit morality. Not that the commandments also take morality into account, but there may be other things too. No—they must fit. That is something much stronger. That

[Speaker C] maybe we see in Or HaChaim, a kind of single being within which all the forces of nature and all the Torah and the Mishnah were particularized without there being any contradiction between them, because both were derived from one source. Right? That Rabbi Kook’s mode of thought here is similar. After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who gave both the laws of the Torah and implanted in us what are called these moral feelings. And therefore Rabbi Kook’s assumption is that there exists a vantage point sufficiently high, sufficiently close to the Holy One, blessed be He, where somehow everything must work out and be harmonious.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but here I agree with the assumption; I don’t agree with the conclusion. I completely agree with the assumption that the moral feeling or the conscience was planted in us from above. I’m only saying that this does not mean there must be correspondence. It means the weaker claim, what I said earlier—that certainly this too must be taken into account. But it does not mean that this is the whole picture. There are other values besides these feelings, and they too must be taken into account, and sometimes there is a conflict, and then Jewish law will not fit the moral feeling, because the other value overrides the moral value.

[Speaker C] We live inside this conflict in our daily lives. The question is whether from a sufficiently high vantage point, like when unresolved problems in physics are solved and all that, okay—then from a divine point of view what greatly troubles us is resolved.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, maybe yes, maybe no, although what is good and what is bad—

[Speaker C] There it already becomes another question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Such an assumption also stands in—I understand what assumption stands here; I think it is not correct and it also does not stand the test. It does not stand the test because with very many laws I do not see a way to resolve them unless I empty the concept of morality of its content.

[Speaker C] Because we are not close enough in level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but if that is a theoretical assertion, then there is no point. After all, he says we need to do the work so that it will fit, and if it doesn’t fit, then we haven’t understood something here—either we haven’t understood the Torah or we haven’t understood morality. You aren’t proposing something operative. You say, if we haven’t understood, then let’s wait until we get closer to the Holy One, blessed be He, and then we’ll understand. He says: if we haven’t understood, then change something. Because something here is distorted, something else. The theoretical assertion that maybe everything is moral and I just don’t understand it—that is merely theoretical, it tells me nothing. It tells me absolutely nothing on the practical level. Fine, everything is moral once I understand, but right now, as I understand things at least, it is not moral, and there is nothing I can do with that.

[Speaker C] And what is left for morality? Again I’m saying, what is left for morality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t understand; there are different domains. If you put everything—again I’m saying—if you put everything into morality, you empty the concept of morality of its content. Then everything important is moral.

[Speaker C] How does that work out?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it doesn’t work out. The price you pay in order to make it work out is the price of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Once you empty the concept of morality of its content, you solve everything. Correct. But the whole problem exists because of the content of the concept of morality. Fine, one more comment, one point I still want to get to before the end. There is a certain claim here that we need to bring closer those who stand outside by way of identifying with the commandments, because they are not prepared to accept it as a scriptural decree, out of commitment to what the Holy One, blessed be He, commands. And on this matter a very important question arises in the service of God; it is also connected to the Binding of Isaac, to what we discussed earlier. There are two ways to accept upon ourselves a normative system. One way is to assume that fundamentally it is correct; even if I don’t understand some of its details, I accept it. I go to a doctor; I don’t understand medicine. If I trust that what he tells me is correct, then I’ll take the medicine he prescribes, even though I don’t understand why it helps. But if I trust that it is correct, then I’ll take it. In the same way I can approach a normative system: I have trust in the institution or the factor that established this system, and therefore I do everything because that is what is written, or because I trust it. Another possibility, of course, is that I trust no one. I examine each and every principle. If I check all 613 principles and they all seem right to me, I will observe them, and if not, then not. Now usually the accepted view is that the basic service of God is of the first type and not the second. Maimonides at the end of chapter 8 of the Laws of Kings writes there that a resident alien, a non-Jew who observes the seven commandments that he accepted not out of reasoning, not because that is what he thinks is right, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them at Sinai—then he is among the pious of the nations of the world. If not, then he is not among the pious of the nations of the world but among their wise people. In other words, it has no religious value. It may have moral value, but not religious value. So he says it basically has no religious value; this is not the service of God. He is decent, he doesn’t murder, he doesn’t steal, fine—but that is not the service of God. Because the service of God must be done not because I identify with it rationally, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it at Sinai. Again, not because there is no reason—the question is what the motivation is, why I do it, not whether there is or is not a reason. If I am a servant of God, it means that I need to do it because He commanded. This finds expression in two very famous aggadic sayings of the Sages. There is one aggadah about that heretic who asks Rava—that Sadducee, I no longer remember, in tractate Sabbath on page 88 there—who saw him, ‘rash nation,’ saw him pressing his finger while learning and drawing blood from it. He said to him: ‘You rash nation, who put your mouths before your ears.’ That you said, ‘We will do,’ before ‘we will hear.’ What was that non-Jew actually saying there? How can you accept the Torah without checking that its contents suit you? What is the debate here? This is exactly the debate. What would Rava answer him? Rava says to him: I accept the Torah not because everything written there suits me. I have no idea why phylacteries are something beneficial or important or why they should be done. Across the board. And that Sadducee, or that heretic, is essentially claiming that one must work with individual value-principles. For each and every commandment one has to check whether it suits us or not, and only then observe the Torah. And that is not the service of God. There is another midrash that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to all the nations and asked them: do you want the Torah? So what do they ask? What is written in it? What is the meaning of this? Exactly the same approach as that heretic, right? What are they saying? We will adopt the Torah if we identify with what is written in it. We do not accept it because You gave it to us; rather, we will accept it if it sounds reasonable to us, if we identify with it. So here again, all the aggadot—that is aggadah—but these aggadot and that halakhah of Maimonides I mentioned earlier say in practice: to observe the commandments out of identification is not commandments. It is not the service of God. Not that it is forbidden to identify, of course; it is even desirable to identify. But if identification becomes the motivation for observance, not the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, but rather I do it because it is good—that is not a commandment. And therefore on this matter too I do not agree with what he writes here, with this claim that we need to bring things closer to people and explain to them why this is terribly logical and important and moral. I think that someone who does it because of that, although maybe it is also logical and moral—all of that is true—but if he does it because of that, he has not fulfilled a commandment.

[Speaker C] And maybe afterward he will study and become enlightened as well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Afterward he will become enlightened, yes or no. But even this, sometimes it seems as though ‘from doing it not for its own sake one comes to do it for its own sake.’ This is not ‘not for its own sake’; it is not a commandment at all. He has not fulfilled his obligation; he was simply a moral person. That is my extreme claim, let’s say.

[Speaker A] Up to this point, a talk from Rav Shagar, Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, in the book The Kuzari, which took place on the 29th of Tishrei or the 30th of Tishrei 5771, October 7, 2010.