For the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 15

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

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[Speaker F] In that sense I can say that this leads out from hearing: the sharper the hearing is, the more I move from captivity to seeing. For example, I’ll give an example—schema—and they’re connected together with the… As my knowledge becomes broader, as my education becomes higher, I can see my hearing more sharply. I can—my imaginative faculty has more of a basis to create some visual image of something that doesn’t exist. The imaginative faculty grows stronger.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The picture becomes more sophisticated. I think so. I think so, because really if you…

[Speaker F] And there’s no end to it, I’m saying. It’s also true of the power of sight. Again, theoretically, the more hearing—I’m saying hearing is the root thing here—the more hearing is sharpened, deepened, clearer, broader, then sight too becomes sharper and deeper. I agree.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, let’s say—I think that someone who really understands the mathematical manipulations of four dimensions can also try a little to imagine what that is. Meaning, you really can try; you make some kind of projection. Do you know the book Flatland? There’s a book about life in a two-dimensional world. An amazing book. It was translated into Hebrew as Flatlandia. It’s a kind of book where all life takes place on a plane. The creatures are maybe one-dimensional or two-dimensional creatures, but everything is on the plane. And there are all sorts of things that we’re so used to being able to do that you simply can’t do there—you just can’t. Meaning, there are things—I don’t remember anymore—you can’t, for example, pass someone. If he’s in front of you, you have no way to get past him. Because there’s no dimension of “up.” So you can’t make a tunnel and go through—there’s no such thing. In a two-dimensional world there are no tunnels. Meaning, there are all sorts of things we’re used to in a three-dimensional world—I don’t remember all the details anymore—there are lots of really trivial things there, that you suddenly discover are actually only three-dimensional phenomena; in two dimensions they don’t exist. The beautiful idea in that book—or at least for someone reading it—is that it gives you some tools to try and now move to four dimensions. Meaning, to try to generalize from the three-dimensional world. Exactly the transition from two to three. To make an analogy from the transition from two to three, where you suddenly understand what that transition means, and then try to see what it does when you go up from the three dimensions we know to four. And I think yes, maybe you can even try a little to imagine it when you understand the mathematical properties well. So here what he’s saying is that in Moshe Rabbeinu’s prophecy the imaginative faculty was not involved. That’s called a “luminous lens” as opposed to a “non-luminous lens.” So maybe that’s an interpretation of it—I don’t know, he doesn’t bring a source here. But the intention is probably that Moshe Rabbeinu, as he said above, grasped things and the information entered him directly. It wasn’t the result of translating from some visual experience. He didn’t see something and then understand and then internalize, because then he couldn’t understand very much. From sight—sight is something that… But if he doesn’t use the imaginative faculty, then nothing interferes with him. The information—the result of what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants you to understand—He Himself inserts it into you. It’s simply there, already inside you. You don’t have to pass through the limitations of your imaginative faculty. That’s why he relates here to the imaginative faculty as some kind of limitation. Yes, so his knowledge was a grasping knowledge that apprehended the very intensity of the ultimate end reached through divine guidance. The message itself reached him directly—not that he learned it out of something the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him, but rather the outcome, what he had to learn, that itself was already placed inside him.

[Speaker E] The imaginative faculty—from the word “imagine”—is it from the sense of image, meaning the power of sight, or from the sense of comparing one thing to another, meaning logic? Is it another name for logic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, from the sense of sight. But I don’t—comparing one thing to another, making inferences—the question is whether…

[Speaker E] There’s a connection between the two things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s clear that it comes from image, in the sense of vision—that’s the meaning of sight here, not logical inference. No, I don’t think so. Though there may be a connection between the two. It’s not exactly logical inference, but rather I show you some image, something visual, and you try to compare to it something more abstract. That’s the whole point of a parable. So visual parables too—after all, prophecy is a visual parable. They show you something, and from that thing you’re apparently supposed to understand some content. So there is also this aspect of comparing one thing to another. I think there is a connection between the two meanings of that word, “to imagine” or “to compare.”

[Speaker E] The imaginative faculty is always understood as something inferior to the intellectual faculty, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. That’s why I’m saying: “imaginative” here means the visual realm of images, that you show a person something in a vision. That’s what “imaginative” means. But I think that comparing one thing to another is a close meaning. There’s a connection between the meanings, because basically when someone gives you a parable, what do they do when a person doesn’t grasp something abstract? They draw it for him on the board. They draw it on the board. Now, on the board they draw concrete things, but from that he has to understand the abstract idea you’re trying to convey. So he compares one thing to another. He also takes the image you place before him on the board and uses the imaginative faculty to understand it, but afterward he also takes that thing and compares it to the abstract thing. So there’s a… well, in any case, here the meaning is image. And now, quite surprisingly, in the next paragraph he moves on: “Such a Torah of truth must exist in the form of the compulsion of commandment and belief in its details, as long as humanity still needs guidance, as long as the earth is not yet filled with knowledge, until each individual finds with complete clarity his entire purpose from self-knowledge, at which point it rises from the category of belief to the category of clarified knowledge.” The connection between that and the previous paragraph wasn’t entirely clear to me, because we’ll also see later in the chapter that it really deals with the question of how much things have to come from within me, to fit my intuition, as opposed to how much they are imposed on me, how much they are commanded to me from outside and I comply even though it doesn’t come from me, I don’t understand why it’s right, it’s something imposed on me from outside. That is basically this confrontation between the natural and the imposed, like I once mentioned—“the upright” and “the conqueror” in Rabbi Kook—that’s the theme of the chapter later on. And it wasn’t entirely clear to me why the first paragraph was important, where he talked about prophecy and the imaginative faculty and all that. It seems to me that what he means to say is simply this: beyond the specifics of the imaginative faculty and exactly how prophecy is conveyed, his claim is that there is apparently some reservoir of information that is truth itself—not representations of truth, but truth itself. Now, something like that is hard to attain. Moshe Rabbeinu managed to attain it; the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it to him. The prophets don’t quite attain it; they have an imaginative faculty, meaning they are given visual parables, and through that they somehow manage to understand things that an ordinary person perhaps doesn’t understand. And what is the ordinary person supposed to do? In the end, this basic certain knowledge—supposedly everyone needs to attain it. That’s what every person needs to know. After all, in the end we want to get there. So someone who is not a prophet, and certainly not Moshe Rabbeinu—how exactly is he supposed to reach that? So there is something here that apparently cannot come to us naturally, cannot come from us, but must be imposed on us from outside—there’s no choice—until we reach the stage where we’re already ordered correctly from within, I’ll explain this more later, and then in fact we too—like the prophet—grasp the thing itself and don’t need all kinds of mediations and parables and things of that sort. It seems to me that this is the role of the first paragraph here in the chapter, because from here on he never goes back to prophecy or anything like that. I don’t know why this initial discussion of prophecy suddenly appears in the first paragraph of the chapter. I think prophecy is not the focus here, but the knowledge that prophecy conveys. He says—it’s there at the beginning, just one second—he says here at the beginning: “the foundation of prophecy,” not prophecy, “the foundation of prophecy.” What prophecy conveys, the purpose of prophecy, is “the most complete knowledge, in its clarity and truth, that is possible within the human order.” Meaning, there is some body of knowledge here that every person needs to know, every person needs to reach; it’s terribly important; everything follows from it; that’s the whole point—and you can’t manage to reach it. Either Moshe Rabbeinu can, because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it to him, or a prophet reaches it partially—but what do we do with that? And from here on the chapter begins. Meaning: so what do we do? How do we get there? And Rabbi Kook’s historical description is really both biographical and historical—we’ll see in a moment. For each individual and for humanity as a whole—that’s what I meant by biographical and historical—we basically pass from a state of compulsion, from a state where things are dropped on us from above without us always understanding them, until we become upright or properly formed, and then we actually understand them on our own. And then maybe commandments are annulled in the future, because we no longer need all these commands and directives dropped on us from above, and so on and so on. That’s the basic structure of the first part of the chapter.

[Speaker I] We’ll read it in a moment. And that’s the goal, so to speak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Prophecy is the means through which the absolute truth arrives. The goal is the truth. I don’t care about not being a prophet—I only want to know the message that comes through prophecy.

[Speaker I] So then the second paragraph says, okay, that’s the aspiration—to get there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but how do you get there? An ordinary person is not a prophet; he’s not Moshe Rabbeinu. How does he get there? So it begins as necessity, as a burden. Meaning, there are commands: accept it as scriptural decree—you don’t understand yet. Slowly, slowly, you’re supposed somehow to straighten out and improve, become more refined, until you really will have some grasp of this lofty, abstract level.

[Speaker I] “Until each individual finds with complete clarity his entire purpose from self-knowledge.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. “From self-knowledge” means from within himself. He no longer needs things dropped on him from above. Meaning, that’s the structure. And then he starts to elaborate.

[Speaker F] Maybe the Moreh—maybe you’ll tell me if this is connected—our teacher and master begins talking about how when you learn knowledge, you become the knowledge.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He is the knowledge, and the known, and the knower.

[Speaker F] Meaning, it’s kind of the same idea here. It turns from the conquered into the upright—that you suddenly become the body of knowledge yourself; you walk with the level; you can bring out your true knowledge; suddenly you see.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right, you…

[Speaker F] You become the imaginer yourself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Nefesh HaChayim writes this when he’s dealing there with Hasidic conceptions—that the goal of study is some kind of means to create cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. The concept of cleaving in Hasidism is an experiential concept. Meaning, you have to reach an experience of cleaving—some kind of experience, an ecstasy, some kind of union with the Holy One, blessed be He—I don’t know exactly how to describe it. And Nefesh HaChayim comes out against this—the Lithuanian, of course—so he argues that cleaving is the engagement with Torah; it is not a means to cleaving, it is itself the cleaving. It is itself the cleaving. Why? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, and His will are one—they are one thing. And once they are one thing, when you engage—this is exactly the knower, the known, and knowledge—when you grasp the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and it enters you in your vessels of thought, then you and the Holy One, blessed be He, become one thing. Then you have grasped the thing; now it is already you, not Him—it is part of you. This is a concept of intellectual cleaving, not experiential cleaving. So I think it’s exactly the same thing as the…

[Speaker F] And the rejection of experiential cleaving is what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says there is no such thing. Nefesh HaChayim says it’s unnecessary—it’s Hasidic fantasies. Now, if the Hasidim apparently think otherwise, you’d have to ask them, but Nefesh HaChayim says there’s no such thing. Cleaving is intellectual cleaving; experiences are good for theater. Okay, so again: “Such a Torah of truth must exist in the form of the compulsion of commandment and belief in its details.” Meaning, commandment here means burden, yes? That we are commanded—both in belief, in opinions, and in actions. Yes, commandment and belief. “Belief,” of course, in the sense of the main issue here—belief meaning knowledge, thought, correct ideas—and “commandment” means what must be done and what is forbidden to do. Yes, “in its details, as long as humanity still needs guidance.” We are still in an intermediate state; this is not the ideal state. It’s an intermediate state in which we still can’t reach that message he spoke about in the first paragraph, so we need some guidance in beliefs and commandments, “as long as the earth is not yet filled with knowledge.” So what is the goal in the end? “That each individual finds with complete clarity his entire purpose from self-knowledge.” So then it comes from me; it’s not imposed on me from outside by necessity, but from my own awareness. Then I, too, become like Moshe Rabbeinu. Yes? I now grasp the things from myself. “At which point it rises from the category of belief to the category of clarified knowledge.” Clarified knowledge is of course what he spoke about regarding prophecy—that it is the clearest knowledge there is. You reach that knowledge; it isn’t imposed on you as a decree; there are no more scriptural decrees in such a world. No scriptural decrees. “Scriptural decrees” are always things where you’re told: know that this is true even though you don’t understand. That’s called a scriptural decree. In a world where you already know everything, where everything is understood, then there are no scriptural decrees. His assumption—and of course this follows Maimonides as well—is that there really is no such thing as a scriptural decree. Meaning, there is no such thing as something that truly has no reason. Like Maimonides writes: it cannot be that we would make the Holy One, blessed be He, worse than His creatures. His creatures, when they do something, have some reason, some rationale. And the Holy One, blessed be He, would do things with no reason and no rationale? There’s no such thing. He always has some reason. We just don’t always understand. So as long as we don’t understand, from our perspective it’s a scriptural decree. If the Holy One, blessed be He, said so, then it’s true, but I don’t understand. It’s a scriptural decree, and I accept that as something imposed. At some stage I discover that in fact I do understand it. Meaning, I’ve become more refined, improved—I do understand it. Now there are no scriptural decrees anymore; now everything is understood.

[Speaker F] So then why is a sage preferable to a prophet? A sage is the prophet. What? Why is a sage preferable to a prophet? A sage is the prophet.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—a sage is preferable to a prophet because the prophet is subordinate to the visual medium, and therefore he does not truly grasp the message.

[Speaker F] But a sage is a prophet.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. A prophet is someone who sees. And through that, exactly. A prophet may be a kind of sage, a lower kind of sage—not that the sage is a kind of prophet. Meaning, the sage is the one who grasps the body of knowledge itself. The prophet grasps the body of knowledge by means of his imaginative faculty: he sees some visual parable and from it infers the knowledge. But that kind of attainment is always a little problematic—you miss something.

[Speaker F] So you’re saying the prophet goes top-down and the sage goes bottom-up?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You could say that, although I’m not completely sure, but…

[Speaker H] In order to become a prophet he has to go through a bit…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s clear. I’m talking about after he became a prophet—that’s half the road. Meaning, they show him some picture—that comes from top-down, yes? They show him the picture, and from there on he goes bottom-up.

[Speaker F] Okay. This whole thing we’re talking about now—what? That the sage ultimately reaches a level of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, and prophecy—that there is no greater prophecy than that, where there’s no scriptural decree because of wisdom.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s already a question of how you define prophecy. Prophecy is one particular way of reaching cleaving. You identify prophecy with cleaving itself. But I don’t think that’s what’s written here. What’s written here is that prophecy is the path for an average person to reach cleaving. “Average person” meaning someone who is not Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu gets there directly. The prophet needs visual parables, and the world can’t even do that. But after the world improves, all of us will essentially be Moshe Rabbeinu in that sense. Okay?

[Speaker H] What he described here—can it also apply to the individual, or is it only at the collective level? I mean, what do you mean by collective? At the level of the world? Meaning, if I myself have now undergone some kind of process…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think definitely yes. I’ll talk about that later. That’s why I also emphasized earlier: this is biographical and historical. Meaning, every individual person also goes through a process of this sort. Again, it’s not that everyone becomes Moshe Rabbeinu, but it’s kind of like a fractal. You know: what exists on the large scale exists in every tiny piece of the large scale—if you magnify it, you basically see a reflection of that same picture.

[Speaker H] Could it be that someone would no longer be obligated in commandments because he has already reached that intellect?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hasidim claim yes—at least the very avant-garde parts of them. Yes? They are no longer subject to various halakhic limitations—the rebbes, or all kinds of people like that who pray the afternoon service in the middle of the night. Above time, above time.

[Speaker H] But that’s part of the conception.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, the claim is that there is something here—someone here—who has already passed through this. It no longer applies to him; he’s already at a later stage. Now, to draw practical conclusions from that is something very revolutionary. But conceptually, that is basically what he writes. Rabbi Kook, as is known, has Hasidic roots.

[Speaker H] It seems to me he intentionally says that this only happens when the whole public goes through it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a question of dosage. I’ll talk about that later too—about in what sense this comes to expression on the biographical plane, on the plane of us as individual human beings today, not just in the vision of the future. Okay? We’ll get there later. But first of all, I think that these first two paragraphs are basically the structure of the chapter—or the structure of the first part of the chapter. Meaning, this structure says that there is some supreme, complete, abstract body of knowledge. Moshe Rabbeinu manages to reach it directly, perhaps with the aid of the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, but in the end he reaches it. The prophet manages to reach it through a visual parable, and then he misses something a bit—that’s why it is a non-luminous lens. Something is a little dim there; he does not really grasp the thing. We are not even there, the ordinary person, but the goal is indeed to progress in that direction. How is that done? I’m summarizing now what emerges from these two paragraphs. How is it done? You begin with scriptural decrees. There are directives dropped on you. The correct belief is such-and-such; this is an incorrect belief. This should be done; this is forbidden. Everything is imposed. At the first stage, we still understand nothing. But this is supposed to guide us, shape us, straighten us, so that if we do it correctly and keep going persistently and try to understand and improve and so on, we gradually come closer to the ideal state, the state of the upright. Meaning, from the conqueror to the upright. Yes, I’ll remind you again: the conqueror is someone on whom things are imposed against his nature, intuition, and natural feelings; and the upright is someone who has inner rectitude—what he thinks is apparently right. He understands things. Yes, he has gone through the press, exactly. Okay? So the order really is: first be a conqueror, and afterward you can be upright. That is basically the message of the second paragraph.

[Speaker E] You said earlier that you don’t really understand the connection between the first paragraph and what follows. I think the expression “the foundation of prophecy” is a confusing expression, because we’re used to reading it as a construct phrase: the foundation of prophecy. But maybe those words can be read differently. Like when it says here “the prophetic foundation of the Torah.” Meaning, the foundation of prophecy of the Torah—the one mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I read it in a fairly similar way earlier. The claim is that it means the foundation that prophecy conveys to me. I read it that way earlier too. But that would be the content of prophecy.

[Speaker E] And unlike mathematics, which doesn’t rest on some prophetic foundation, Torah does rest on one—it has a basis that is prophetic—and that gives it a certain authority and certain properties.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but then you’re relating to the content as prophecy and not to the channel through which the content is transmitted. Usually when we talk about prophecy, we’re talking about the character of the transmission channel—how information reaches a person when he beholds the prophetic vision. But you’re saying that the content itself is the prophecy—

[Speaker E] He’s dealing with the foundation of the Torah, which supposedly rests on a layer of prophecy, let’s call it that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So I’m saying again: but then you’re defining the concept of prophecy now not as the channel through which the content passes, but as the content itself. Fine—maybe that’s a possibility. Again, we agree about what he’s saying. Whether the expression should be interpreted this way or that way—I don’t know. It could be this way, it could be that way.

[Speaker E] Why does he suddenly begin explaining to me what the foundation of prophecy is?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and that’s why I also said…

[Speaker E] After all, he’s not going to talk about other parts of prophecy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so that’s also why I said earlier—and on that I agree—but it still seems to me the question is only how one gets from that to the place he clearly intends. So I said earlier: “the foundation of prophecy” means that foundation which prophecy conveys. Okay, so that’s fine, that’s not… okay. “According to the simple understanding, it continues as long as there is some deficiency and evil in reality.” What continues? The necessity, yes—of commandment and belief continues as long as there is some deficiency, as long as we need coercion, as long as we are not upright. Yes: “as long as death still rules over man, to embitter his life and rob him of his rest, and with it evils beyond measure that are the offspring…” what?

[Speaker H] A multitude.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Evils beyond measure that are the offspring of the deficiency of human knowledge and the deficiency of power to overcome all the evil that stands against him as his adversary, with strength and might.” Meaning, in a place where we still… when truth is completely clear, that’s what the Beit HaLevi has a parable about in his Torah commentary. He writes there: how can a person overcome his impulses? Sexual impulse, for example—things like that. He says: imagine you’re a tightrope walker standing on a rope in a circus, and below there may be all the spectacles in the world, but you won’t move your eye downward to look. Why? Because it’s obvious to you that with the slightest movement of the eye you crash. So that is, of course, the frightening model of dealing with impulses.

[Speaker E] The concept of a fall in the most literal possible sense.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. But of course there’s an opposite model. In a place where the truth is completely clear to you—meaning, there is not the slightest thought that you would give in to the impulse or try something forbidden—then apparently you also won’t be tempted in any way. Meaning, that is of course the more optimistic, less frightening path. When it’s completely clear to you that this is right. Freedom—you aren’t torn by all sorts of alternative initial assumptions. We talked about Chaim Grade, right? The Battle of the Inclination, Chaim Grade’s book, where he describes there the Novardok yeshiva head, all aflame, going out on crusades against impulses and against incorrect worldviews and all kinds of…

[Speaker A] Against—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, Tzemach Atlas and The Battle of the Inclination—against all sorts of doubts and things of that kind. Which, of course, on the literary level, means that he is really fighting only against himself. Meaning, inside him he has all of that, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Usually, when you resort to wars, to these crusades and these fanatical battles, it is because for you the truth isn’t clear. If the truth were totally clear, no fanaticism would be needed. Meaning, you don’t have to fight against tendencies to do other things. There’s none of that—you simply know this is right and that is not right. The figure he describes there opposite Tzemach Atlas—or the twenty-year-old yeshiva head, it doesn’t matter—or standing outside the picture is the Chazon Ish, right? He calls him there “the author of the vision Abraham,” which is exactly the opposite figure. A very harmonious figure—not that he wasn’t extreme; the Chazon Ish had a very extreme worldview—but he was very harmonious. He was not aflame, he didn’t shout, he wasn’t a fanatic in the behavioral sense. He was a fanatic in terms of worldview, but not a fanatic in terms of behavior. He simply thought that this was true, and that was it—and therefore he had no alternative initial assumptions at all. He didn’t need to fight with anyone; he wasn’t fighting with himself inside, so he also wasn’t fighting with the outside. Meaning, this is the… “Indeed, there will come a period of perfection for man.” All this is the intermediate stage, where compulsion is still needed, where one still needs to deal with alternative possibilities, truth is not yet clear to us, it is imposed on us, we are still in a world of scriptural decree. “Indeed, there will come a period of perfection for man in which not only will every human being on the face of the earth recognize all people as brothers and friends, but he will also recognize his exalted purpose”—yes, his lofty purpose—“which the Torah wrote at the beginning of man’s creation: ‘And rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and every living thing that creeps on the earth,’” where “rule”—yes, “and rule,” from the language of dominion—“should not be understood as the rule of a tyrannical ruler who uses those subject to him for his own pleasure and for personal gain, but rather rule in order to benefit those subject to him and to shepherd them”—we have a shepherd, right, and a flock—“to shepherd them with knowledge and intellect under the scepter of uprightness, the scepter of his kingdom.” Meaning, “rule over the fish of the sea” means: guide the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky toward their purpose. As the species with the highest capacity, take upon yourselves some mission to care for others, not to use others. Now here, of course, I don’t think this description is the essential point; it’s just one aspect of that perfected world. He’s trying to explain to us in what sense the perfected world differs from the world we live in. So the perfected world is one in which the ruling over the fish of the sea—which today we do as subjugation—will become, in fact, shepherding them toward their purpose, guiding them toward their purpose. And that’s a perfected world. What will happen in that perfected world? We’ll get to that in a moment. “Therefore, when the time comes that the measure of kindness and love of justice in man will no longer find…” will not find—sorry—“hands for the labor of benefiting man himself”—himself, yes, because I will already be perfected; I will no longer need to improve myself, refine myself further—“then his authority and concern will begin to extend over all living things,” over the animals around him or over other people, “to teach them or enlighten them, to perfect them and elevate them from the depth of the darkness of their wildness, that they too may become useful workers within the whole of reality, according to the division of labor of man. Not through crushing labor and burden”—that’s the point; this sentence is the central sentence—“but rather through order and discipline, with measure and rhythm, in a way that sweetens their lives and supports their dignity and strength.” So here he says: this whole description of how empathetic we will become toward our surroundings is only there to describe the circumstances. Meaning: this is the state of the perfected world. And then what will happen? How does this suddenly enter here? That we will rule over the fish of the sea for their purpose. What does that have to do with his larger argument? The point is that when the world reaches perfection, it is clear that this comes together with complete attainment, and together with the fact that there will no longer be impulse. There is no point in commanding me with commandments as one who is commanded and acts, or beliefs as one who is commanded and acts, because then I will already have reached that goal that Moshe Rabbeinu reached in the first paragraph here.

[Speaker F] Maybe there’s a parallel process in which the commandments also fall away from us?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s exactly the point. That’s what he’s talking about. That’s why he says “in the form of the compulsion of commandment and belief in its details”—that’s exactly the point. And from this we gradually free ourselves; when we are already perfected, there is no longer any need for it. The same way with what we do to animals: when we no longer need to perfect ourselves, and they no longer do either, then dominion will become something entirely different. In a moment he gets exactly to “commandments will be annulled in the future.”

[Speaker F] And on what plane will we be perfected? Hm? On what plane? He doesn’t specify. He doesn’t distinguish between the planes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t distinguish between the planes. That’s one of Rabbi Kook’s characteristics. He has a completely harmonistic conception. Meaning, if we become perfected morally, then we’ll also be perfected in terms of knowledge, we’ll also understand everything, we also won’t be sick at all, and we also won’t die at all. For him, it all goes together. There’s a total harmonism here. He can’t, or won’t, see a world that is morally perfected while people still die or don’t understand everything, aren’t perfectly wise. Perfectly moral but not wise—there’s no such thing for him. Meaning, perfection is one thing, one axis. It’s not moral perfection, intellectual perfection, spiritual perfection, scientific perfection, medical perfection—no, no, no. There’s no such thing. It’s all one. Either you’re perfected or you’re not perfected. And that’s a very Kook-like outlook—a kind of harmonistic outlook in which everything depends on everything else. If you become morally perfected, you become intellectually perfected, you also won’t die, the world will be perfected, the animals won’t eat, you’ll look at them and play the flute for them, and everything will be wonderful. And it all goes together. One thing depends on another. Meaning, it cannot be that I be perfect in one thing while lacking in another. Okay? And if the world is perfect, it also cannot be that I lack anything in any sense whatsoever. It’s kind of a package deal, in every aspect.

[Speaker G] In contrast to what the Rabbi said last week—you brought both the Ran and the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it’s in contrast—that’s why I brought them—because there too I said that Rabbi Kook disagrees. Rabbi Kook also identifies Jewish law with morality; that’s part of his harmonism.

[Speaker G] But actually it works with the Chazon Ish. What? It actually works with the Chazon Ish. What? That it’s not a contradiction? No—what Rabbi Kook says, identifying Jewish law with morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, the Chazon Ish does not identify Jewish law…

[Speaker G] Actually he does, he has…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here at the beginning of Faith and Trust there are contradictions about this. Even within Faith and Trust itself there are contradictions about this. With the schoolteachers he brings there? Yes. Yes, there are contradictions even within Faith and Trust. The Chazon Ish simply… what? What’s the contradiction with the schoolteachers? “The jealousy of scholars increases wisdom” as opposed to the schoolteachers.

[Speaker A] What happens with…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What happens with the schoolteachers is that he says that where Jewish law says the schoolteachers should indeed exist, then there’s no point talking about a moral problem, because if Jewish law permits it, that means it’s moral. On the face of it, he identifies Jewish law with morality. In other places he says explicitly that this is not so, both in Faith and Trust and elsewhere. Anyway, if you want, I can once look it up and bring you sources. I think the simple conception of the Chazon Ish is not like that. Maybe, by the way, even here in my opinion he does not identify Jewish law with morality. It’s not an identification of Jewish law with morality. He simply doesn’t recognize that category called morality. Leaving aside the contradictions for the moment—just in terms of how to read the passage about the schoolteachers in Faith and Trust. He’s not Rabbi Kook. Because Rabbi Kook would say that if those schoolteachers strike you as immoral, then you haven’t understood the passage correctly—go study it again. And the Chazon Ish says that if the schoolteachers strike you as immoral, excellent—that means morality is what you need to throw in the trash. Meaning, the Chazon Ish does not identify Jewish law with morality; he simply doesn’t recognize the second category, morality. For him there is only Jewish law. I think that is the conception at the beginning of Faith and Trust, but again, I’m saying this is a more complicated issue—what exactly the Chazon Ish thought about this. Anyway…

[Speaker E] Wait, yes—these utopian states that are described here, according to Rabbi Kook, is this something we’ll actually reach, or only approach asymptotically, meaning a goal it is proper to aspire to? I assume it’s… What does “reach” mean? The world will reach it—I don’t know exactly who, or when—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it will happen, but he claims that the world is supposed to reach it—that’s the whole point. To approach asymptotically would mean there’s no end to the process, but the accepted belief is that there is an end to the process. An asymptote always has to go to infinity; there’s no asymptote in finite time.

[Speaker E] A state in which no one dies is a little problematic in terms of population growth. Fine, that’s always…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Resurrection of the dead and “death will be swallowed up forever”—these are all simply part of the eschatological promises… How do you solve the resource problem? Fine, I don’t know, we’ll have to leave that to the Holy One, blessed be He, apparently. What? Three hundred and ten worlds—that’s not the problem. What? Three hundred and ten worlds is also finite, you know. In the end even that runs out.

[Speaker E] Three hundred and ten worlds for each person?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Three hundred and ten worlds for each person. Ah—and the number of worlds will increase with every child we give birth to; there will be more worlds. Okay, fine.

[Speaker D] Yes, and then there’s the question what will happen at the resurrection of the dead when someone had been married to two women—one died and afterward… and then both of them rise—which one will he marry? How does that divide up?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s a completely different question. A completely different question that appears in discussions of resurrection of the dead. Okay, it’s like when people ask about Elijah the Prophet’s wife, because Elijah the Prophet didn’t die—he went up to heaven in a whirlwind—so the question is whether she is permitted now. And what happens if someone lives again at the resurrection of the dead—does he need to remarry his wife, or is she still his wife? He doesn’t need to marry her again. There are all kinds of halakhic discussions—there’s even responsa about it. Okay. Okay. “The eternity of life, too, depends only on the perfection of humanity as a whole, in the powers of body and soul. Then the bodily mechanism will be able to do its work under proper and very easy conditions. The strong life-force that comes from continual delight, from the radiance of the greatness of goodness and kindness, and complete recognition of the majesty and delight of the treasury of life—we have no way to assign to it value or limit. And since nothing at all is lost from reality—not an act, not a force, not matter—and all the more so an idea and a spiritual image, for that is the mightiest of acts, the spiritual image is the most important act—the matter is understood: the desire will also awaken to repair the past, to revive the dead, to renew for them lives of splendor and strength in accordance with the glory of that honored era.” Nothing will be lost in that period. Meaning, people won’t die; on the contrary, the dead will come back to life; everything will be repaired and nothing will be lost. Similarly, the author of Leshem also writes that nothing will be lost, but I’m not sure it’s in this sense. “Nothing will be lost” means that nothing that happened happened for no reason. But that doesn’t mean that afterward everything will return, that the dead necessarily all have to live again and live forever—about that too there are many disputes. But the claim is that the fact that they died had some benefit in it. Someone derived benefit from it; it didn’t happen for no reason. That’s the point. But with him, no—it’s all reversible, these are all failures that will be corrected and restored, and the world will be perfected. Everyone will live in peace, there will be peace, there will be morality, there will be knowledge, there will be science, there will be immortal life—everything will be complete.

[Speaker F] And it’s not clear from what he says that he really means people will live. It could be some metaphor within what he says about…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? I don’t see why to think that.

[Speaker F] Because he doesn’t use precise words that say people will be here and people from the past will also arise to life.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? He says: “to repair the past, to revive the dead, to renew for them lives of splendor and strength.” What else does he need to say beyond that?

[Speaker F] To renew the dead, okay, to revive the dead—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says “to revive the dead.” I don’t know—you can say everything is a metaphor, but I simply don’t see any hint as to why one should assume it’s a metaphor here.

[Speaker F] It’s something where “to revive the dead” could mean metaphorically first. What? In the sense…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why make midrashic interpretations of an essay by Rabbi Kook? He means what he writes—that’s how I understand it. I don’t know—why assume it’s a metaphor? I see no reason, I don’t know. “Then the earth will be filled with knowledge of the Lord to the highest degree, so that no man will any longer teach his fellow to know the Lord.” Again: there was moral perfection with the animals and all that, there is bodily perfection so that nothing is lost—even physics, but also life of course—and now also intellectual perfection. Now no one will teach another to know the Lord anymore; intellectual perfection too will be there.

[Speaker E] It sounds like people will have no reason to live.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s hard to imagine today what people would do in such a boring world. It is clear that the obligation of religion, by virtue of its unique reception and the support it has in the prophecy transmitted from Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, will no longer be able—here the circle that we began with closes—to exist as a matter of compulsion, but only as a matter of inner desire and self-awareness through love. For the question is whether that awareness will find a place for these commandments to be used as well for an exalted purpose or not. And about this they disagreed in the Talmud, whether the commandments will be abolished in the future or not. And the meaning of “in the future” is after the resurrection of the dead, when a person will stand at the height of the world, at the height of his level, when everyone will be a complete prophet. Remember the prophecy with which we opened? Everyone will be a complete prophet; he will already grasp everything. A complete prophet means Moses our teacher, not Isaiah—not just a prophet, but a complete prophet. Right? And the all-encompassing prophecy will have reached its perfection and accomplished its full effect, for the time will have come to fulfill the longing of the master of the prophets when he said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them.” Up to here, that’s the first part of the chapter, and here he is basically closing the circle of the first part, and that’s what he says: when everything is complete intellectually, morally, spiritually, physically, then of course there will also be the perfection in which all of us, all the Lord’s people, will be prophets, and he goes back to the first paragraph of the chapter. Meaning, that’s where this historical process will close.

[Speaker E] There’s a verse in the Torah: “For the needy shall never cease from the midst of the land.” A verse whose deeper meaning says that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says more than that. After all, there’s a dispute in the Talmud whether the commandments will be abolished in the future. How does he explain the dispute? He says the question is whether the commandments have some purpose in themselves, and then the commandments are not abolished in the future—but what will be abolished? The command itself. We will do them not because of the command, but because we will understand exactly what is needed and what is not needed, and we will simply do it. That is the view that says the commandments are not abolished in the future. And the view that says the commandments are abolished in the future argues that the purpose of the commandments is to bring us to that state. Exactly. To bring us to that state, to straighten the crooked, to refine human beings, exactly. And when we get there, we’re done.

[Speaker E] So—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The argument is really not about the model. That’s what he wants to claim. He wants to claim that his model is agreed to by both sides. The model in which ultimately you arrive at doing things for their own sake, and the goal is to turn the coerced person into the upright person. The dispute over whether the commandments will be abolished in the future or not is a dispute over what commandments are. Are the commandments something that really exists and is needed even in a perfected world? If so, then according to that view, at the intermediate stage they are imposed on us because we still don’t understand, and when we do understand, they will no longer be imposed on us; we won’t do them as one who is commanded and performs, but as one who is not commanded and performs. And the view that the commandments indeed are abolished in the future says that the commandments basically have no purpose in themselves. They are only meant to direct us during the intermediate state until we become complete. And then we’re done, and we no longer need them.

[Speaker D] But the model is the same model.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what he basically wants to gain here. Meaning, the dispute over whether the commandments will be abolished in the future or not—this is what he wants to say—is not a dispute over whether I’m right, says Rav Kook. The one who says the commandments are not abolished in the future does not disagree with my model; he too agrees with my model, he just understands the commandments differently. Okay? That’s basically his goal. Now here, since I almost have no time left, this is where I actually wanted to begin the lesson. So maybe we’ll continue with this next time; I’ll just start a little bit, maybe. Rav Kook speaks here about two phases in the service of God. Meaning, there is the phase of the conqueror, of one who is commanded and performs, and there is the phase of the upright person, of one who is not commanded and performs. You know that “greater is one who is commanded and performs than one who is not commanded and performs”; that’s what the Sages tell us. Rav Kook will of course say that this is true for this state—for our current state, greater is the one who is commanded and performs. But for the state of the future, greater will be the one who is not commanded and performs. And indeed, in this context of “greater is one who is commanded and performs,” there is—

[Speaker E] In the future it could be, according to one view—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One possibility is that there won’t even be a commandment at all, nothing, and then that’s even better really. Because whenever there are commandments, greater is the one who is commanded and performs, and once there are none, then there’s nothing at all anymore. There is an article by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman about repentance in Kovetz Ma’amarim. And there he discusses the question—I already mentioned him, I think, maybe not now, maybe certainly in previous years—he discusses why the Ramchal writes that repentance is something beyond the letter of the law. That the Holy One, blessed be He, forgives us for sins when we repent—this is beyond the letter of the law, a special kindness that the Holy One, blessed be He, did for us. So he says, what do you mean? The Talmud in Kiddushin says that a completely righteous person who rebelled at the end lost his merits. Okay? The Talmud asks: why is he not considered half-and-half? After all, he has the merits he has, and whatever he does from now on, let him take the hit for that. Why should it say that he loses his merits? So the Talmud says: because he regrets the earlier deeds. He did reverse repentance; he went off the religious path. Okay? He regretted what he did. Not only from now on does he become a sinner, but he also regrets the commandments he had performed. In such a situation he loses the commandments he already performed, not only are the sins he commits from now on counted against him. So Rabbi Elchanan asks: surely it is obvious that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not go beyond the letter of the law in order to do harm. Surely the Holy One, blessed be He, does not erase from a righteous person commandments he performed as an act beyond the letter of the law. Apparently that is the actual law: if you regret something, you lose it. If so, then what happens on the other side? When you regret sins, then it should also be that according to the law you have lost them. So why does the Ramchal write that it is a special kindness, beyond the letter of the law? There are statements of the Sages about this too, it’s not only the Ramchal—but that it is beyond the letter of the law. So just as an aside, someone once said something to me that was eye-opening for me, and ever since then, when I learned this article of Rabbi Elchanan, he said to me: he doesn’t understand the question at all—what kind of question is that? After all, take the analogy: when you go to the bank and you have—

[Speaker E] It’s not symmetrical—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, you have one hundred shekels in your account. You come to the bank and say, listen, you have such a nice bank here. I’m giving you my account balance. Take it, I waive it. It’s yours, one hundred shekels. Fine. Now someone else comes and he has minus one hundred in his account. Okay? He comes to the bank manager and says, listen, you have a wonderful bank, I love you all so much, take my account balance, it’s on me, no problem. And Rabbi Elchanan basically assumed: if you can do the first, then you can also do the second. What do you mean? When you accumulate merits you can waive them; when you accumulate debts you can waive them?

[Speaker F] The merits are yours.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. You accumulated a positive balance, you accumulated merit, you can waive it. That’s the law. You can throw your own money in the trash—what’s the problem? Can you throw your debt in the trash? Someone who committed sins and repents wants to throw a debt in the trash. A debt in the trash. And it was so surprising for me to hear this, because for years I’ve been carrying this difficulty around and building structures on top of it and so on. Even more than Rabbi Elchanan—he also built a whole structure on it, but I have an additional structure on top of that structure. And then a person comes and says, wait, what are you even talking about? The emperor has no clothes. What kind of question is that? It’s a question for lamdanim. Any normal person understands that it isn’t true. But still, it seems to me there is something to it.

[Speaker F] And therefore it’s kindness, because the kindness is subjective. Our logic says it isn’t symmetrical, and in fact it isn’t symmetrical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, no, that’s the answer.

[Speaker F] But in our logic, according to our intellect, it’s kindness. According to the straightforward intellect of the Holy One, blessed be He, it really is the actual law and not kindness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why not?

[Speaker F] It remains kindness. Why according to the Holy One, blessed be He? Because of the point you’re making. If he falls, he fell. I’m no longer at that point, I no longer see. So why doesn’t he hear—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What you’re saying?

[Speaker F] If suddenly I hear, right, then I hear, I’m already at the point that hears.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So why don’t you understand that? Here, you also understand it now. What’s the problem? Either way—

[Speaker E] There’s a difference between transferring one hundred shekels to the bank manager and throwing away the merits. The good deeds that the righteous person did in the past nevertheless shaped his soul, did good in the world. The question here is whether things that took place in reality can be erased retroactively—whether they took place for good, whether they took place…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. I think that’s the root of the question. When he looked at the question, he looked at the reward and punishment due to me. Reward and punishment are debts and merits, one hundred shekels or minus one hundred shekels. But here we’re dealing with the question of whether it is possible to change the past.

[Speaker F] It’s not yours at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. We’re not talking about the reward you receive. You did things. How can they be erased from history? They were done. So if you say that by means of regret it is possible to rewrite history, then it’s possible in both directions. And if it isn’t possible, then it isn’t possible in either direction.

[Speaker F] You gave charity to someone, his situation is now better—it doesn’t help if you regret it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Exactly. No, I’d say even more than that—what Ido said earlier, even more than that. You improved something in your soul, you really became better. So what difference does it make that you regret it? Those are facts. It has nothing to do with the reward due to you. Okay, you waived it—you can waive it.

[Speaker F] But if you improved your soul, it could be that you walked backward again. You advanced, and now you retreated back.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? By regretting, that means I damaged what I had improved.

[Speaker F] I went backward again. Okay. But the acts themselves, in and of themselves, are there, they exist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Therefore I think this question really is a question.

[Speaker E] Of course it’s a question. What? Of course. What you always say is that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not a Maoist, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s what he doesn’t say—what that student didn’t understand. And therefore yes, that’s what… that’s basically the claim. Okay, I see we’ve already reached ten o’clock, so maybe we’ll continue this next time. So we’ve basically finished the first part. From here the omission begins.

[Speaker A] So next time I’ll already hand out the page of the omission. There are also a few lines at the beginning of the chapter that they didn’t add there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Really? I didn’t know.

[Speaker A] Yes. At the beginning of the chapter? Yes. I’ll check.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the list of omissions there, of the article, does he write that?

[Speaker A] Not in the list, it’s in the print edition, I don’t know, through the Rabbi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but I think it’s the same file, I don’t think it’s a different file.

[Speaker A] Here, chapter 8, and chapter 8 begins with these five lines: “It is fitting that the meaning of religions in general be clarified,” something that really makes sense that they censored. I wasn’t aware of this.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wasn’t aware of this. And it will connect for us to the next omissions, so we’ll do it together already. Five lines, four—

[Speaker A] Lines.

[Speaker F] That’s the part—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is missing.

[Speaker A] This is the uncensored edition. No, it’s also what I have. Thus ends the lesson of Rabbi Michael Abraham, Thursday, the first of Shevat 5771, January 6, 2011, on Perplexities of the Generation.