For the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 14

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, no, I don’t know. Personally, I don’t accept distinctions like that. Morality is morality. There isn’t natural morality and divine morality. Morality is morality. Jewish law or the Torah doesn’t always allow me to act according to ordinary universal morality. There are places where the Torah intervenes for me. But that doesn’t turn the place where it intervenes into an alternative morality. No, it tells me: don’t act morally, because here we have other goals. I know, when I need to save someone’s life, I hurt him—so what does that mean? That I’m not hurting him because of that? I am hurting him, but there’s no choice, because I need to save his life. So in the context of killing Amalek, I don’t know whether one can really find some moral justification for killing Amalek—whether that really is the true morality, whether it really is that, or whether there are two moralities: universal morality, which says you must not just kill babies, and Jewish morality, which permits killing babies. I don’t think that’s true. Morality forbids killing babies, that’s all. It doesn’t matter whether Jewish or not Jewish. I don’t think there are multiple moralities. The Torah says that there are certain situations in which there are values that override moral values. Meaning, there are—I don’t know—it has its own considerations, but it says that in some cases, or even that one must in some cases, kill babies even though it is not moral, not because it is moral. Rather because there are other goals that override that goal. There’s a nice example of this that I heard—I saw yesterday—from Rabbi Shmuel Ariel from Otniel. Yesterday I saw some response of his to the book Torat HaMelekh, which came out there under Yitzhak Shapira’s name. So he brings there—he says that they distort sources and interpret them a bit—not a bit, much too expansively. Meaning, on this point he is actually very insistent, and in that sense I very much—I’ve always enjoyed him; a very interesting person. He says it’s not right to focus only on the moral criticism; one has to check whether the halakhic analysis actually holds water. Because when you focus on the moral criticism, what comes out is basically that Jewish law really does say this and they are right. We just need somehow to smooth things over and be embarrassed and afraid and not reveal it to anyone, and so on. But the question is whether Jewish law really says such a thing. Yes, and regarding the rabbis’ letter, I felt the same thing—that the moral criticism here misses the point. Because the moral criticism basically says: you’re halakhically right, but don’t reveal it to anyone, because otherwise, oh no, they’ll kill us or kill other Jews somewhere else. But halakhically, they are really the authentic people, the ones who authentically express Jewish law—and that isn’t true. So here too, same thing. He brought some Rabbeinu Bachya—I already don’t remember from where—he brought some Rabbeinu Bachya that they had cited, and they argued that one may kill non-Jewish children even if they are not endangering us and nothing of the sort, because it says, “Kill the best of the gentiles,” and that’s it. That is more or less the claim. Then they bring Rabbeinu Bachya, who also says this, and they say that it’s because maybe of some future danger—that they will endanger us in the future. He explains there some rationalization of the matter: even though right now no danger at all emanates from them, you can’t know, and there is future danger, and so on. Then he shows that when you read Rabbeinu Bachya, Rabbeinu Bachya is speaking altogether about the seven nations or about Amalek—or the seven, I think, the seven nations. And regarding the seven nations, the Torah says to kill them all. That’s where it starts. And Rabbeinu Bachya in the very first line already establishes: this is a scriptural decree. That’s the first line. After that he asks himself: fine, but what is the explanation? Why kill even children? Apparently the Torah understood that they would endanger us in the future, and therefore the Torah commanded it. So it begins from the command of the Torah. Then you ask yourself why the Torah commands it. Apparently the Holy One, blessed be He, assessed that they would endanger us in the future. So what does that mean? That from now on every non-Jewish child I can kill because I think he might endanger me in the future? Who am I to determine that at all? How can I judge such a thing? On the contrary, after there is a scriptural decree that the Holy One, blessed be He, said it, and I look for an explanation, this is the only explanation I manage to understand. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, said it, then He can apparently assess who will endanger me in the future and who will not. Fine—if He says it, that’s what I do. But how can one infer from here some statement that every non-Jewish baby you see, you may kill because maybe he will endanger you in the future? That is taking things out of context. So in this context too, I now return to our discussion: this identification between morality and the service of God, or commandments, or the study of divine concepts—which is very characteristic of Rabbi Kook—I’m not sure I agree with it. Meaning, I’m really not sure that the instructions of the Torah are necessarily always the instructions of morality. The Torah’s instructions are the instructions of Jewish law, the instructions of the Torah, the instructions of spirituality—I don’t know what to call it. It does not always correspond to morality. Sometimes morality is set aside in favor of other values. And an example of that—I once brought two examples of this. In Derashot HaRan, sermon 11, the Ran writes there that morally speaking, the laws of the nations are sometimes more complete than our laws. That’s what he writes. Why? Because for us there are additional values besides moral values, and the laws are meant to achieve all those values. And sometimes there is a clash between values—I’m calling it now in my own language—between religious values and moral values. In cases where there is a clash, sometimes the religious values prevail and sometimes not. But when the religious values prevail, it comes out that we are in fact doing something that, from the perspective of flesh and blood, appears immoral. So in general, of course, someone whose world contains only moral values will always act morally. Obviously. Because other values do not interest him; he does not aspire to other values. Say, someone whose world contains only not causing pain to people—he will never cause pain to people. That is the only value he has. But someone who also has another value, namely to save a person’s life, then sometimes he will hurt someone, amputate his leg if he was injured or something like that, in order to save his life. So he is, as it were, causing more pain to people than the other person, but he is causing more pain to people simply because he has more values that he wants to realize. And when there are more values, life is always more complicated; they can clash, and then one will impair another, there are conflicts between values, and so on. And that is exactly what he says in Derashot HaRan, except that he says that here the conflicts are not even on the moral plane alone, but can also be between a moral value and a religious value. Then when the religious value prevails—say, the killing of Amalek—when the religious value prevails, that means that we behave in a less moral way than the laws of the nations. But that does not mean less correct. Since right and wrong have to take all considerations into account, not only the moral consideration, but also the religious or spiritual consideration. And in the end, the more values you have in your world, the more you will certainly violate every part of them, because there are always internal clashes. All right? Someone who has no value of human life in his world will never desecrate the Sabbath. But someone who is also committed to the value of human life will sometimes be forced to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a person’s life. It is always like that: the more values there are, the more you have no choice but to violate some of them. But that is the dilemma; there’s no way out of it. Maharal writes the same thing. Maharal writes in Be’er HaGolah—he brings the law of returning a lost object, and he says that regarding a lost object, after despair I may take the object. After the owner has despaired, I may take the lost item even though I know exactly who the owner is. I know exactly that he is the owner; I have two witnesses that he is the owner. But if it is clear to me that there was despair before I picked it up, of course, then I may take it, and he can scream until tomorrow, and I know he is the owner and he knows he is the owner and the whole world knows he is the owner—and the lost item is mine. And on this the Sages say—and this also appears in Maimonides and in the Shulchan Arukh—that the view of the Sages is pleased with someone who nevertheless returns it even after despair. Meaning, the claim that when I take the lost object after despair it is mine is not an alternative morality. It’s not that universal morality says: return the lost object even after despair. It’s his—what difference does it make whether he despaired? He despaired because he thought he wouldn’t find it, but it’s his, not yours—why don’t you return it to him? That is what morality says. And apparently Torah morality says the opposite. It says: what do you mean? If he despaired, that doesn’t interest me. So that is not Torah morality. That is what Maharal says. Morally speaking, of course universal morality is the correct morality. And the proof that there is no alternative Torah morality is the fact that Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh—the Talmud, followed by Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh—rule that it is more moral to return it even after despair. They do not claim that if the Torah says the opposite, then our morality must be different. No. Our morality is exactly the same morality. Morally speaking, it is preferable to return it even after despair. This is not an alternative morality. But there are legal matters because of which, after despair, the lost object is nonetheless mine. Legal considerations—I don’t care right now what they are—but on the legal level, when you despair, it is no longer yours. So sometimes the Torah dictates legal directives, and it is not always right to identify those with moral principles. That is not necessarily the same thing. It is not automatic that every instruction of the Torah is Torah morality or Jewish morality or an alternative morality, as people often say. I do not think there is such a thing as alternative morality, just as I do not think there is such a thing as alternative logic, as they always say about Rabbi HaNazir, right? That he says that Hebrew logic is auditory and Greek logic is visual. And there are people who think this is an alternative logic. We do not accept Greek logic; we need to live in mysticism and I don’t know what, above logic and beyond—I’m not even sure what those sentences mean. It’s not true. There is no such thing. There is only one logic. There are not two logics. Greek logic binds everyone. If something is true, then its contradiction is not true, and vice versa. You can’t deviate from that. There are additional principles also on the level of thought—call it logic or not, doesn’t matter. There are additional principles that of course also characterize Jewish thought, but this is not alternative logic; rather, these are additional principles that go beyond what logic dictates. Yes, we talked about this last year in greater detail, in fact. So therefore, in general, universal concepts are true for us too. I don’t think there is such a thing as Jewish morality, there is no such thing as Jewish logic, and in my opinion there is also no such thing as Jewish philosophy. There is no such thing as Jewish philosophy; there is Jewish thought. Jewish philosophy—there is no such thing. There is philosophy. There is correct philosophy and incorrect philosophy. I don’t know what Jewish philosophy and non-Jewish philosophy mean. If Kant was right, then what do I care that he was a gentile? And if he was not right, then again, what do I care that he was a gentile? So even if he had been Jewish, I wouldn’t accept it. The question is whether it is right or not right. What difference does it make whether it is Jewish or not Jewish? Jewish thought is something else, because it means thinking about subjects connected to the Torah, which gentiles do not think about because that is not their world. So it is simply defined by the subjects, not by your approach to certain issues. Your approach to certain issues should be determined by the question of whether it is right or not right, not by the question of whether you are Jewish or gentile. Either it is right or it is not right. What difference does it make whether you are Jewish or gentile? So very often the attempt—by the way, this is essentially connected to the topic of this chapter—because very often the feeling that there needs to be some kind of Jewish alternative is a feeling that comes in order to differentiate us, to define our identity in a much stronger way. We have a different logic, a different morality, a different philosophy. Agreed? First of all, I’m not coming with an example except for Jewish thought.

[Speaker F] In a certain situation opposite morality, there is ethics and there is ethical theory. If that’s not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so ethics, I don’t know—but morality says the ethics. But what is ethics, what is theory?

[Speaker F] There are types—utilitarian and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those are already approaches within morality; that’s a different question. And there is also a standard of morality—there is going beyond the letter of the law, and there is the letter of the law. It could be that the examples the Rabbi brought, that despair is… there are many examples the Rabbi brought, that despair is… No, with despair it is easier, because you can behave morally; there is no prohibition against behaving

[Speaker F] morally, but there are situations where it will be prohibited.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so that’s semantics; then you empty the distinction of content.

[Speaker F] But he emphasizes that there are Jewish values, and there are values that are what people usually call morality as a value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that is certainly true, but then you’re saying not that the Jewish value is to kill children and the moral value is not to kill children. The moral value among Jews too is not to kill children. Damn it, there are sometimes situations that force us to kill children. Fine? So therefore this is semantics.

[Speaker F] No, so he explains—maybe he’s not talking about morality, he’s talking about values.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says there are values and there is morality. But certainly he is also talking about morality; that is clear from everything he says, everywhere. When he talks about morality, he means morality in our sense. He does not mean “Hear, my son, the discipline of your father.” “Hear, my son, the discipline of your father” is something else. But he means morality in the same sense—ethics. And in retrospect it is known that Rabbi Kook identifies these things. For Rabbi Kook, there cannot be a commandment that is immoral. In his conception there is no such thing. Every commandment is moral. Sometimes we do not know the explanation, but every commandment is moral. That is his conception, which I’m not sure I accept. But anyway, this really is just a side remark, because he is talking—this is only a remark on that pairing of morality and spirituality. You can say that the people of Israel are responsible for spirituality, for religiosity, for divine studies, all kinds of things like that—that I understand. As for responsibility for morality, I’m not sure. But that is another discussion. Maybe it was true in the past. In the past I think it was, yes. To a large extent it is true that what today is considered universal morality did in fact come from the Torah, from Jewish sources. I think in that sense it is true.

[Speaker E] It could be that in the historical description he does not mean universal morality; he means a morality that is, as you said, a morality in which killing Amalek, the Amalekites, is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, for him that is moral in the same sense.

[Speaker E] In my opinion, that distinction, in his view, does not exist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I know from other places: morality is morality, on the same level. Morality is what you understand when we are doing—what

[Speaker F] does it mean that for a socialist there is one morality and for a capitalist…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a socialist and a capitalist argue about how to realize morality.

[Speaker F] You can think that there is a universal morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, we talked about this once—and maybe even one of the previous times, I don’t remember anymore—that moral relativism often relies on the fact that there are disagreements between different groups. With the Eskimos in the snow—I think I mentioned this one of the previous times—that among the Eskimos you have to put the elderly out in the snow to die, whereas among us we care for the elderly at home or in a nursing home or I don’t know exactly where—we don’t put them out to die. Right? So what is morality—each person and his own principles? I think that’s not true. It’s not true because, on the contrary, the fact that there is a dispute over what is right to do with the elderly means there is something to argue about. Meaning, if we do not accept the existence of a shared platform of morality in the same sense for me and for the Eskimos, then what are we arguing about? Then he behaves according to morality, I behave according to morality, and he behaves according to anti-morality or according to who-knows-what—I don’t even know what to call it. Yes, or the argument over who is a Jew. I say that a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother or someone who converted according to Jewish law. Someone else says a Jew is someone who reads Amos Oz, pays taxes, and serves in the army, or I don’t know, something like that. Fine? So if in fact we are simply talking about different concepts, then there really is no such thing as a Jew. Then what is this—just a dispute over the right to use the word “Jew”? I don’t buy that. There is a real argument here. The concept “Jew” is one concept. We are talking about the same concept.

[Speaker F] But he thinks he’s right. What? He argues.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does he argue?

[Speaker F] Because he thinks that’s the moral thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I think something else is the moral thing. Meaning that the concept “moral” for both of us has the same meaning. Because otherwise there would be no argument.

[Speaker F] Yes, but maybe the decision is Jewish.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore I say that the concept of morality is universal. How to realize it—meaning, what morality tells me to do—there are all sorts of arguments there. Utilitarianism, deontology, capitalism… there are lots of arguments. And by the way, very often these arguments too can be translated—at least some of them can be translated—into arguments that are really arguments about facts. Very often. Because very often you hear, say, socialists explaining that in fact all of us will be better off if we are socialists. And likewise the reverse: capitalists who say that all of us will be better off if we are capitalists. They don’t—after all, in essence, the dispute

[Speaker C] between capitalism and socialism is a value-based dispute.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because suppose everyone had it good and everything was fine—what’s your utopia? The capitalist’s utopia is not the socialist’s utopia. The capitalist’s utopia is that everyone does whatever he wants—freedom. And the socialist’s utopia is equality. That’s not the same thing. Okay? Now, if we frame it like that, this is a value-based argument. The question is what value is more important in your eyes—freedom or equality? But a lot of times, in the arguments you hear, it’s instrumental capitalism or instrumental socialism, not the real thing. Meaning, I show you that if you use capitalism there’ll also be more equality, or everyone will be richer, or something like that. He’s not saying, “I support the value that everyone should do whatever he wants.” The argument is really about the value—but the claim is simply that the way for everyone to do well is if each person contributes exactly according to… But what “good” means may be something shared by everyone. Yes. Even though the essential dispute between capitalism and socialism is a dispute over what “good” is. At the theoretical root, the dispute is whether the good is equality or whether the good is freedom. And that’s something completely different. But in practice, a lot of times it gets mixed together. There are all kinds of arguments that explain to you, “What do you mean? Look, here’s a socialist country and it’s flourishing,” and all that. Meaning, you also want flourishing and I also want flourishing—so how do we get to flourishing? What? Meaning the value is flourishing. Exactly. When there’s a shared value, we argue about the way to get there. That’s not really a dispute between socialism and capitalism in the true sense. But I’m saying that many, many arguments, even where they exist, don’t really reflect a value-based disagreement, but rather a tactical disagreement about how best to reach the shared value. Sometimes, though, there are of course value-based disagreements too. And here the claim is that even where the dispute is a genuine value-based dispute, still the very fact that we are arguing about this value—whether it’s equality or freedom—means that there is nevertheless something shared by both of us, otherwise it wouldn’t be an argument. You’re acting for equality, I’m acting for freedom—fine. So what are we arguing about? The argument is about the question of what one ought to act for, morally ought to. Meaning that the concept of morality serves both of us in the same sense, otherwise there would be no point in arguing. You say that its realization is through striving for freedom, and I say that the striving is through striving for equality. But we are still trying to realize the same idea, the same concept. And therefore there is something in morality that is universal in any case. Even if I say that the values themselves, or the actual realizations of morality, can differ between different societies or different outlooks and so on. So there is something universal in morality. Meaning, when there are disputes, when I condemn someone, and I condemn him, what that means is that I assume he is acting wrongly in a moral sense—not that he is doing something altogether different and not operating in the moral realm at all. Okay? Through this you can prove that there is a concept of justice, a concept of the good, a concept of… yes. All those universal concepts over which there is dispute—in my opinion, contrary to what the relativists always claim—in my opinion, the dispute is exactly what proves that the concept has real content. Because otherwise there would be nothing to argue about. They always claim that because there’s disagreement, that means everyone has his own morality, everyone his own justice, everyone his own Jewishness—what are all these arguments? Just empty words. And I’m saying that’s not correct. The fact that there is an argument means that there is some concept here that we are arguing over. Now the question is how you decide, how I manage to persuade the other side. Fine, that requires thought. But the very existence of the argument, and the fact that both sides agree there is an argument—if there is an argument, that means there is a shared platform on which the argument is taking place. Now there was a discussion here where we said: is there one correct morality or not? And when you say there is one morality, you’re saying there is truth. You are assuming moral truth. Yes. Okay. One moral truth. Yes. And I’m saying: what does it matter that there’s morality, that everyone agrees there is morality? It’s not important. Why? Everyone agrees there is some standard of morality, and they argue about how to apply morality—what the application is. That’s what matters in the end, how you apply it, what the application is. Of course—but the moment you… one second, one second. We began the discussion fifteen minutes ago from the point where we assumed there is truth, that there is one morality shared by everyone, or didn’t we distinguish between… No, no, I didn’t say one morality shared by everyone… We didn’t distinguish between Jewish morality and universal morality. I’m saying, in the end, divide among another seventy nations of the world and there will be seventy different moralities. No, obviously, but once there is a shared morality, that means I can argue with you and persuade you, or you can persuade me. But to me it’s empty, it’s empty—fine, so there is morality, we all agree there is a truth called morality. I agree. Ground base. It doesn’t interest me. No, it’s very interesting. No, I’m explaining to you again why it is interesting. It’s interesting because if that shared platform didn’t exist, then arguments would be pointless; it would be impossible to persuade anyone. I do this and you do that; we would have no basis for discourse. But if both of us agree that there is a shared ideal called morality, and we only disagree whether to send the elderly out into the snow or keep them at home—right now I’m conducting that argument with you, trying to persuade you not to send the old man into the snow. Either I’ll succeed or I won’t, I don’t know. The fact is that if your morality is your morality and mine is mine, then we’ll never agree. No, no, no—that’s an assumption I don’t agree with. That’s exactly the point. But for that there needs to be a separate discussion; I wrote about it in my books. I don’t agree with that assumption. Meaning, the claim is that not only things that fall under analytic definitions can be argued about. In other words, you can try to persuade someone not only by logical means but also by rhetorical means, for example. Okay? And then, just take an example—we talked about this once too. There’s a very interesting phenomenon. Despite all moral pluralism, there is still some phenomenon whereby, it seems to me, ideas in the world are generally moving in one direction. Despite all the multiplicity and arguments and variations and changes and everything. And when a Westerner meets an African, the Westerner will win. Always. I don’t mean with cannons; I mean culturally. Western culture will take over African culture, not the other way around. Why not? Because the Africans also understand that the West is more correct. Sorry for the politically incorrect statement. They understand it. So you’ll say: what do you mean? They have different standards—among them, shamans and dancing around the fire are what matter most; why should they care if in the end everyone dies and doesn’t progress and whatever. But the fact is, in the end you do manage to convert them—not convert them to Judaism, convert them—their moral conceptions shift in that direction. Somehow, as a matter of fact, Western standards, at least in discourse—not that I’m saying the world stops murdering, but the West doesn’t stop murdering either, never mind—but the claim is that in discourse, yes, people do agree that these are the correct values. Even those who initially didn’t agree. Therefore I think this is more than just some theoretical platform that no one really has access to and over which the arguments will remain forever. No—this platform ultimately also comes to practical expression, uniform or more uniform. Of course there is still room for many arguments, but it’s not true that the world is a vacuum—I don’t agree with that. All right, one more comment on the paragraph beginning “it is understood.” In the last paragraph we read, there are two comments there that are also interesting for the discussion. It says why the Jewish people are uniquely suited to the spiritual and moral part and so on: “because of their elevated spiritual preparedness for the most exalted things.” What is “their spiritual preparedness”? It sounds like an essentialist conception, right? Again, a big debate. The question is whether there is something about Jews that is essentially different from non-Jews, or whether these are processes of acquired culture, resulting from our history, from the Torah that we received, whatever—but these are things that acted upon us and that’s how it developed. Or not. Was Abraham chosen because the Holy One, blessed be He, saw—or created him, not just saw—that he had certain qualities, or some particular traits, which he also passes on to his descendants, “for I have known him so that he will command his children and his household after him,” because in the third generation and from there it passes on—but what difference does it make? And if that’s how it happened… I didn’t say it makes a difference. I said there’s a debate about it. Whether it makes a difference or not—I’m really not sure how much difference it makes. But there is a major debate about it. A few years ago there was an article by Navon—what’s his name, Chaim Navon. There was an article arguing that in the book of Genesis it actually seems very much not to be an essentialist conception. What we got used to because of the Kuzari—that’s really not the picture there. In the end, the one who is chosen is chosen according to his deeds, or according to—I don’t know—parameters of one kind or another, and there is no notion here of some inborn essential quality. Now, there was tremendous uproar over that article. I remember all sorts of people talking about it—what do you mean, this is an essence, the Kuzari says there are the inanimate, the vegetative, the animate, the speaking being, and the Jew. Yes, there’s some other type here. It’s not a different culture, it’s not something acquired, it’s something else—it’s another kind of creature. Okay? And his claim was—and I very much tend to identify with it—that no, that’s not true. So what is true? I’m not saying there’s no difference. Of course there’s a difference. There’s a difference in traits, a difference in culture, a difference in values, a difference in many things. But that difference does not necessarily stem from my being a different kind of creature from every other human being. Semantically explain “and you shall be to Me a treasure.” “And you shall be to Me a treasure”—you shall be special to Me and you shall realize what I demand of you. But that’s a command, not an observation, not a diagnosis. “And you shall be to Me a treasure”—why is that different from our discussion now? It’s a command to be special. You have no essence… “And you shall be” is language of command, not language of diagnosis. You’re saying that semantically the meaning there of “treasure” is: be special, distinguish yourselves. When we say “segulah,” we mean some different kind of thing. Yes, why not? This is specialness and that is specialness, but when you have… No, but “and you shall be to Me”—if we really mean a specialness I was born with, then what does “and you shall be to Me” mean? What is the command? We already are like that; the Holy One, blessed be He, made us like that. On the contrary, on the contrary—the command itself proves that I’m right. The claim is that this is a task, not a trait. There is a task to be special or to be a treasure, to realize who you are. “And you shall be to Me a treasure”—you can maybe say it that way with some strain, but I think the simpler understanding is that that’s not correct. You are supposed to… you have a role; I have imposed a role on you. Of course that role, and your history and your forefathers, all that also prepares you somewhat for it—that’s true. It’s not that you’re a different kind of creature like the difference between a human and an animal. Like being an ascetic. Yes, exactly—you will be more righteous. You’ll be a bearer of ideas, morality will matter to you, you’ll try to repair the world, you’ll serve God. Obviously in the end that also creates character. It also affects our spiritual genetics, but it’s acquired; it doesn’t have to be innate. In rabbinic midrashim there are many such midrashim, mainly concerning Jacob and Esau, where regarding Jacob and Esau it says that if Rome falls, Jerusalem rises, and if one rises the other falls—but it never says who will rise and who will fall. Where you do find something like this is in Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah, I think on the Mishnah in chapter 4 in Avot, where he does portray the prophet as someone prepared for this from the outset. That the prophet is born a prophet. Because of the imaginative faculty, because of the special imaginative faculty he is born with. So there is something—there’s a kind of genetics here. On the other hand, Maimonides’ view is that all of us can learn and learn until we become prophets. There are people who are suited for it. Because of the inheritance of intellectual power and imaginative power. Usually the general understanding—you’d have to check this, I haven’t done a comprehensive study—is that Maimonides disagrees with the Kuzari. He is the non-essentialist position. Because of the second part, that it is acquired with the help of… Yes, so in the end it’s not really an essential difference, because clearly it is also acquired. Meaning, well, I don’t know, we’d have to look at the… I didn’t do a seminar on this. What? He says it’s entirely acquired? He says that of the three things required—intellect, character traits, and imaginative power—the imaginative power is genetic or hereditary. Let’s see, but that could be born in anyone among the nations of the world. You can be born with imaginative power or not, creative power, imaginative force. He says there is an example of a person who has more of a tendency for… Yes, but that’s really not a very novel claim. Because obviously there are human beings who are… I assume Einstein was born smarter than most other people. Not everything is acquired. That’s obvious. People are born with special traits. The question is whether there is something in the Jewish race or the Jewish people, by virtue of being what it is, that is essentially different to the point of a distinction like that between a non-Jew and an animal, or an animal and a plant, or the inanimate, or something like that. Here—well, again, I really don’t think it makes a difference. What difference does it make? Racism today arouses a great deal of antagonism. I think it’s just… it’s really not interesting. Whether it’s this way or that way, the tasks are clear. Meaning, the fact that a task has been imposed on us is obvious. Whether we are different or not different, what difference does it make? It’s a theoretical discussion without much importance. But here you see, “because of their elevated spiritual preparedness for more exalted things”—it does somewhat sound as though they have some kind of prior preparation. And Rav Kook is certainly operating with an essentialist conception, yes? So it’s not surprising to find that here. But look at the continuation: “and because of their role in general history, which is their ancient claim to illuminate the world with the light of knowledge of God.” That is already acquired. Meaning, in light of the history we’ve gone through and what we’ve done and the tasks we were given, suddenly there is something acquired. As a result of that, again, we have certain special traits. Huh? It’s the realization of potential. Fine, in short, he’s talking about potential. Okay. But the first part talks about the connection to Torah, and the second part justifies spreading it outward. I’m not sure. Why… I don’t know. I don’t see that here. I simply see two reasons by virtue of which we are special and capable of having this influence. One is innate and the other is constructed. If we go back again to imagined communities, then here too there are two aspects, in short. There is an essential aspect—that we are a community in the real sense, there is something that distinguishes us; that is “segulah” in the ordinary accepted sense today. And there is also what is called the imagined element—it’s not really imagined, but that’s what it is usually called. Something that is, all in all, acquired over the course of history through the activities we engaged in. Okay? “And according to the stage of human development, it is necessarily envisioned that as the human spirit rises upward, he will regard as the noblest of acquisitions the loftiest acquisitions, namely knowledge of God and all the teachings that flow from that. As we can see even today, in every nation properly ordered in its conduct and character, recognition quickly comes that inquiry into the depths of the religion of divinity is the greatest spiritual advantage in all human wisdom.” Here too I don’t know—again, perhaps in his time this was clearer—I’m not sure to what extent this really stands the test even today. Meaning, the claim is that as the human spirit rises upward, then the more elevated people are, the clearer it is to them that involvement with divinity is the highest pursuit. If that’s a definition, then I have nothing to say. Anyone for whom it is clear that involvement with divinity is the most important pursuit is, by definition, more elevated. Fine—but then the sentence is empty of content. If I had to characterize the better people around me, is there really a correlation with the view that involvement with divinity is the most important pursuit? I’m not sure that correlation really holds up… it even seems to me maybe not quite so. Yes, there are many criticisms, yes, about murders motivated by religion and so on—which by the way I don’t accept, this whole “religiously motivated murders” thing. Secular people maybe do it in an even harsher way than religiously motivated people. But there are both backgrounds. I don’t think there is some clear correlation here that I can see, that wherever there is a society or a person who behaves better, it is obvious that he will also understand that involvement with divinity is the nobler pursuit. In Rav Kook’s time, we should remember, in Rav Kook’s time it seems to me—again, this was written early, so it’s even before communism, I think. So in the communist period I can see a statement like that. You see a place that conducts itself very wickedly, and indeed there is also no divinity there. Yes, opposition to divinity. And then perhaps a person could form for himself such an intuition that if there is no God in that place, then “they have killed me,” as the ethical teachers say. But I don’t know—today I’m not sure I see that correlation. There are many… someone once told me perhaps this is already the result of the work. Meaning, after all… in the end the whole mission here, as he’ll say in a moment, is that the Jewish people should influence their surroundings. If the Jewish people influence their surroundings, that means they bring morality outward, correction, the importance of divinity—everything good. After they succeed in spreading it outward, then of course they won’t remain special. Because that is their success. Their success is to improve everyone else too. As people say today, today many non-Jews already know how to read and write, win Nobel Prizes; the percentages are no longer what they once were, at least the ratio between Jews and non-Jews. Does that mean… what does that mean? Does it really mean we weren’t special? Maybe it means we weren’t special on the essentialist level, I don’t know. But it certainly means we influenced and succeeded. That is, yes, exactly—it means that in the end we succeeded in spreading what we needed to spread, and success is in fact erasing the gap or reducing the gap. So the fact that now the gap is smaller doesn’t mean… I only mean that when Rav Kook says “as we can see even today,” he is speaking about the twentieth century. And in the twentieth century, to say that—well, I don’t know. In any event, “therefore,” I’m moving to page 37, “therefore in the arrangements of national life, it is fitting that each nation find the truth of its foundation in that part upon which the eternity of its existence depends. And by this it is understood that for no nation in the world can its religion and its relation to the service of God be its national side. For the future of its nationality does not come at all from its service of God. For this is the part destined to develop within it through its borrowing from the nation uniquely designated for this, namely the Israelite nation. And the foundation of its existence depends only on the parts unique to its character, though each nation’s specific qualification has not yet been properly clarified. Yes—what is it unique in, what contribution is it supposed to make to the whole? For that clarification itself is one step toward establishing peace, since when each nation recognizes the truth of its unique qualification, it will immediately understand in what respect it must be perfected through desiring the other nations. And then they will all come to be united as brothers, members of one family, dividing among themselves the labor of the household in order to increase its happiness and blessing.” Up to here, that is already from the source. Maybe it’s a dispute over what is moral and what isn’t—perhaps that’s where the disagreement will be. Yes, apparently not, I would assume, at least according to the way Rav Kook argues. And basically the claim is that there is some evaluative process here that also expresses itself politically. Meaning, the claim is that in the Jewish people, their national uniqueness is defined in advance. They are not supposed to determine for themselves their national uniqueness, to discover what makes them special and then formulate for themselves the mission of their nationality, as he calls it here. Rather, for the Jewish people this is dictated in advance. And therefore in the Jewish people the national identity is already not imagined, already from now. And among the others it still appears like some kind of imagined identity. And then slowly they will succeed in constituting it. And again, I’m not entirely sure whether “constituting it” means completing the imagination so that now they will be orderly, secure in themselves, even though it is imagined—or whether they suddenly discover that it wasn’t imagined. That until then there was something fictitious, but suddenly when they discover that they really do have some unique quality, then it’s no longer something imagined. They suddenly discover an essential quality of their own, and not merely something culturally constructed over the course of history. There’s a second side that Rav Kook doesn’t mention here, but maybe says in later periods elsewhere. Here he speaks only about everyone taking from the Jewish people the point of morality. Rav Kook in many places brings out the point of each nation, and as he writes here, this is the basis of its future and its continued existence, and he says that once the historical role is complete, that nation disappears. It only brought us what it was meant to bring into the world. And Rav Kook says that every nation has some point of truth, and he says that the Jewish people have to take all the points… not only do the Jewish people give, but their role is to be an eternal people, unlike all the other peoples that come to an end, and to take the points of truth of all of them, to gather them, and as it were the Torah is basically to contain and gather all the points of truth. In the next chapter he speaks a little about that. So maybe we’ll leave that for the next chapter. But the claim is that therefore at this stage every nation is some kind that is indeed a bit fictitious, because it is not yet fully defined. In the end, again, I don’t know whether we are supposed to reach a state in which that nation will understand that it is not fictitious, or whether in the end the whole business will actually disappear—they will all be brothers, members of one family, and the fiction will really disappear. Meaning, there won’t be—and it really is fiction, it really is fiction. It’s not only a temporary conception of fiction. When he speaks here about peace, then it really is a concept of peace that maybe we’ll succeed in reading as follows: “But for Israel, their mission has been clarified, because the duty has already been imposed upon them to engage in their labor to be a light unto the nations according to the order of history, even before the coming of the happy time in the end of days, when each nation will already know its role—we already know this in advance, there is no need to wait for that time. Therefore the nationality of Israel is necessarily bound up with the Torah of God that is with us. And since the occupation with Torah and the labor of all generations is a firm foundation for increasing the wisdom of Torah until the earth is filled with knowledge of God, therefore the habituation to observing the Torah and the education to cherish faith and the commandments, all of them in practice, so that the quality within us may come into action, to be fit for the greatest spiritual labor on behalf of all the nations, is among our national necessities by the nature of our existence. Therefore our holy Torah is entirely sealed within the domain of nationality, and this is made most prominent through the Oral Torah.” So in the next chapter this will be more distinctive still. I only want to add a few comments here on the concluding section. Rav Kook’s vision is basically a kind of world peace. But there is a nuance that is very, very important—and also relevant to our own time—in two variations of how to understand this concept of peace. Meaning, you can understand it… there’s something, I don’t remember whether it’s from Rav Kook—I think not, I looked and looked—the Talmud in tractate Berakhot 56 says there are three kinds of peace: the peace of a dove, of a bird, of a pot, and of a river. And once—I don’t remember in whose name I saw it—that these are three models of the concept of peace. The peace of a pot: the pot makes peace between the food inside it and the fire outside. How does it make peace? It simply separates between them. Right? So they won’t consume one another, because if they were together nothing would remain. Good fences make good neighbors. Or else it would burn it—but they wouldn’t be able to derive benefit from one another. It separates them. Okay? There is the peace of a bird, where from above everything looks the same—it basically appears as one thing. Never mind, there is some interpretation there and I don’t even remember all the details. But for our purposes there are basically two conceptions of the concept of peace, and today they are very strong and collide in the world in a very intense way. And the claim is that there can be a peace that comes as a result of giving up any standard. What is called postmodernism in our contemporary language. Meaning, once you give up the standard of who is better than whom, who is more moral than whom, who is more just than whom—everyone is equally right, each according to his own approach, each with his own narrative—world peace will reign. Everything will be fine because no one will fight, no one will argue, everything will be wonderful. Usually when people fight, they fight over notions of right and wrong, moral and immoral, religious and non-religious. If you give up all those concepts and let everyone do whatever he wants, then there will be no wars and eternal peace will reign. That is the idea of postmodernism—a peace that in effect perhaps enables separation, but it creates a non-constructive separation. Meaning, it’s a separation where everyone lives inside his own narrative and there is no discourse from bubble to bubble. Each person has his own starting assumptions; there is no room for discourse. And then there is marvelous peace because no one… is that the peace of the bird? As if from above you see… I think that’s the idea. I don’t remember all the details there anymore, I just mentioned it. But exactly: it all looks the same. The bird from above sees everyone in the same way, so what difference does it make—this is this and that is that, and therefore there is nothing to fight over, so they won’t fight. This is peace, wonderful peace. In this postmodern conception, each nation, each collective, each unit, each person, is also aware with regard to himself that he has no standards—not only with respect to others. Even what I believe in is not really true; rather, fine, this is just how I am used to living, this is how I live, that’s all. Whether it’s really true or not true—fine. That is the postmodern vision of world peace, and that vision generally fails. And the second vision of peace is a vision in which everyone knows perfectly well that he is right and the other is wrong—or perhaps right in another respect, doesn’t matter—but there are truths, and everyone argues for his own truth, yet you still succeed in creating some harmony between these differences. You do not give up the concept of difference. When people speak, for example, about multiculturalism, which is very, very popular today, often they don’t define which of the two models they mean. Does multiculturalism mean: you’ll cook Moroccan food, I’ll cook Polish food, and maybe we’ll eat at each other’s place and maybe not—but what difference does it make, why fight over what food gets cooked? Fine? And multiculturalism in the sense Rav Kook is talking about is a multiculturalism that says: you’re good at cooking, so you’ll cook; I’m good at, I don’t know, soccer, so I’ll play soccer. In the end the world will come out more complete not because there is no preference between cooking and soccer, or vice versa. There is. I’m weak at soccer and strong at cooking. Fine? And vice versa. So that way the world comes out more complete, because everyone really does fight for his own thing, says that he is right and the other is wrong, but understands that each person has some contribution to the whole—which sometimes sounds very similar. The two concepts, multiculturalism and the concept of peace in the sense of wholeness, of harmony—that is the peace he is speaking about here. The name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is called Peace because in essence He turns—like Ahad Ha’am. We spoke about the king as one of the people. The Holy One, blessed be He, as king of the world, turns the whole world into one single unit, and therefore His name is called Peace. And here we really return to this issue of imagined and unimagined communities, because this concept of imagined communities has the same goal, and therefore I think this ending is very, very connected to the whole movement of the chapter. Because this vision of imagined communities, after all, is meant for the same purpose. Why are you fighting? You just created one cultural construction, they created another cultural construction, we’re all really the same. There really is no such nation and another nation—there is nothing to fight over, nobody has rights to anything, nobody has obligations to anything, everything is fine. No problem. This is the peace of the bird, yes? It is basically: let’s create a postmodern world with no standard, no definitions, nationality is basically fiction, and everything is fine. So who will fight? We always fight over national rights. If there is no nationality, then no one fights, everything is fine. Okay? So the imagined community is also part of that same process of peace of that type. And yes, when Shlomo Sand writes Who Invented the Jewish People, what is he really trying to do? In that dispute, which here is perhaps the most extreme, because it is a dispute between an identity that really is imagined by everyone’s account except for a few fantasists, and an identity that is probably at least the closest thing to non-imagined that exists, yes? How can you still show that no one is right and no one is wrong and everyone should stop fighting? By emptying of content even the non-imagined identity, and then everything will be fine. If we too are an invention and they too are an invention, then no one has rights and we won’t fight and everything will be fine, wonderful. It doesn’t work so well because it doesn’t persuade either side. But that is the vision. And Rav Kook argues that there needs to be a different vision: not to give up my identity, not to give up the fact that the identity is imagined. Everyone has his identity, everyone has his purpose and his message, and he also needs to fight for it. But when you fight for it, in the end you know that each person is fighting in order to contribute what he has to give to the whole. Okay? It’s a different kind of peace. It is a more real peace. Harder to achieve, apparently harder to achieve, because in the end it demands that you really do fight for your own. So how can you both fight for your own and also understand that the other has a place? Very often in arguments between rabbis or between different religious factions you see this—each one is sure he alone is the exclusive divine truth and all the others are talking nonsense. So from Rav Kook’s perspective, that’s actually correct—that’s what one should do. Only on a second level, you have to understand that, fine, but he too has some role. You should continue to fight for yours, because if you become some limp postmodernist who says no one is right, then you won’t advance anything. Neither Hasidism nor the Mitnagdim would ever come into being, nothing, it would all be worthless; there would be nothing worth dying for, as the song says. So each person does need to fight for his own. So this is a very delicate tension between the willingness to see myself as right, as carrying something real and essential, not merely fictitious and imagined, and at the same time understanding that the other is also such a bearer. That doesn’t mean I won’t fight him, it doesn’t mean I won’t say I’m right and he’s wrong, and if necessary then I’ll fight. But on a second level, I am aware that he too carries something with him, and that is another kind of peace. It is the peace of the pot, where you need to create some separation between the fire and the food, and then what happens? The fire heats the food; the food can draw from the benefits that the fire provides precisely because of that separation, precisely because there are standards, because I am here and you are there, not that we are all the same. Therefore it seems to me that in the end his vision is that there should be non-imagined communities—that is, he does not agree with Benedict Anderson. What was the third peace? I don’t remember, I really don’t know, I don’t remember what the third peace was. Here again, Rabbi Yohanan Abraham’s lecture, 23 Tevet 5771, December 30, 2010. Sometimes the struggle is over resources—each side thinks this land is too small for two peoples. Those are technical disputes. You won’t get out of that unless, again—unless what does “two peoples” mean? Once it’s imagined, then it’s really just one people with a lot of individuals, and we need to think together about the solution. If you take that all the way, then even a dispute over resources won’t exist.