For the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 16

[Speaker A] Thursday, the 8th of Shevat 5771, January 13, 2011, a lecture by Rabbi Michael Abraham in Nachlei Dor. I was about fifteen minutes late.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A line of law is for exacting payment from him, to do him harm. The Holy One, blessed be He, inclines toward kindness and does not incline toward harm. Inclining beyond the letter of the law is done in order to do good, not in order to do harm. So Rabbi Elchanan says: if so, if this also works toward the negative side, also in order to do harm, then that means this is not an inclination, not beyond the letter of the law, but rather it is the letter of the law—that if someone regrets an act he did, he has lost it. If that is so, then with repentance—then why does the Ramchal say that repentance is beyond the letter of the law? You did the act, but you regretted it, and yet the letter of the law says that if you regret a certain act then it is erased, so why is this beyond the letter of the law? Either way, right? If it is beyond the letter of the law, it should have been only in the positive direction. If it is also in the negative direction, then that means it is not beyond the letter of the law—it is the letter of the law. It seems—I don’t know—maybe there is some kind of spiritual law of nature like that, that when a person regrets an act he did, he loses it.

[Speaker C] And what happens when he goes back again? What about the righteous person?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—when the righteous person goes off the religious path and then returns again, does he get the commandments back? I don’t know. Interesting question. I don’t know.

[Speaker D] Like what happened to one of them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Beyond the letter of the law, certainly yes. Beyond the letter of the law, I assume—why not? After all, it’s exactly the same thing. But by strict law, really, good question. I don’t know. Okay, in any case, so what he asks—we already talked about this there—that a person can’t give up the minus in the bank; he can only give up the plus in the bank. So it’s that kind of question. Meaning, if I give up the merits I earned, of course I can give them up—that is by strict law. I have plus one hundred in my account, I say to the bank manager: take it, I’m giving it to you as a gift. Fine. If I have minus one hundred in my account and I go to the bank manager and say: take it, no problem. What do you mean, take it? You’re in the red, okay? You can’t give up debts that you owe; you can give up rights you have. It’s that sort of difficulty. So it seems to me that this is where we finished last time. The claim was that that’s not the problem of minus and plus—those are the consequences, meaning the reward or punishment that is coming to me, those are the consequences. But the question is: what about the actions themselves? In other words, can I really rewrite history, erase from history things that were done? And the view apparently of the Ramchal and of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman is that repentance does not only erase the debts I have—meaning, okay, you won’t get Gehenna. It repairs me myself, not only the result in the world to come. That is a consequence, but first of all there is my own repair. And here it really is symmetrical. Meaning, if I can repair the past, rewrite history, then I can do it in both directions. And therefore he asks the question. And his claim, basically, is that in every—he brings the Ramchal in Derekh Hashem; the Ramchal is also the Ramchal of Mesillat Yesharim. The Ramchal in Derekh Hashem writes that in every commandment and every transgression there are two aspects: there is the aspect of the command, and there is the essential aspect. Okay. Let’s say honoring father and mother. I have the commandment to honor father and mother, so honoring father and mother has some benefit because of which one ought to honor parents—that is the reason, the benefit or value, yes, because of which we were commanded. But after we were commanded, there is something else here besides the benefit: there is the very act of responding to the command, the fulfillment of the commandment in that. Right? People often ask: why does the Torah need to write ‘You shall not murder’? Don’t I understand that on my own? Every human being understands that murder is forbidden. Why is a command needed? After all, as the Talmud says, ‘I would have known it by reasoning; why do I need a verse?’ By the way, that’s a kal va-chomer, and there’s some room there for reasoning. Why really write it? Is there anything more obvious by reason than that murder is forbidden? The answer is that I think the Torah expects from us not to murder for two motivations. Meaning, not to murder because one should be a human being, meaning behave morally, and not to murder because one should be a servant of God. In other words, in order to bring the moral commands—easier, to be a servant of God—in order to bring the moral commands into the context of serving God, you need a command. Because otherwise I do it simply because one should be a decent person; it has nothing to do with my service of God. I don’t steal, or I help another person, or I give charity—many people do that, and they are very good people, no less good than any religious Jew who does that. What difference does exist between them? They don’t do it as service of God. They do it because they are good people. But if you want to do it as service of God, for it to be understood as part of your religious service, then it has to be commanded—it has to become a commandment.

[Speaker C] And afterward, is it that the commandments are abolished in the future era, or that the command doesn’t cease—the uprightness doesn’t cease—the command doesn’t cease, after all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I’m explaining in this whole discussion. Slowly, slowly—we’ll get there at the end too, okay? So the claim is—so the claim is basically that there is. Beyond that, there is the very act of responding to or violating the command. Okay? He brings examples there. Rabbi Elchanan says: if someone intended to eat pork—on him, or in Nazir?—if someone intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb meat, then the Talmud says he needs atonement. On the face of it, he needs atonement, but clearly the meaning is not that this is a full-fledged transgression in every respect. But he needs atonement. Why? If he intended to eat pork, then in terms of the dimension of, let’s say, wickedness or deviation from service of God that exists in him, what difference does it make what came out in the end? He did everything he possibly could in order to be a sinner; it just got messed up for him. Meaning, it’s like someone attempted murder. Someone tried to murder, but the firing pin was broken. He got the weapon, he bought a weapon, he prepared, made a plan.

[Speaker A] The difference in the law is defined—the law defines that as a difference also regarding the degree of punishment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, obviously—if it’s attempted murder or murder. Why? But essentially the person as such performs exactly the same action, only this one by luck and that one not, that’s all. So what—because it happened by luck, that means he isn’t wicked? He is equally wicked; he was both wicked and an idiot, or just incompetent. That’s all. So because of that he deserves a discount in punishment? What does that have to do with it? Those who say everything goes by intention, or everything goes by the act—those are slogans. The question is why. Why say that? So one says this and one says that. But why? Why really is there someone who says everything goes by the act? What difference does it make that because the firing pin was broken he gets a bonus? I didn’t break the firing pin so that he wouldn’t murder. What would someone say who thinks everything goes by the act?

[Speaker C] Why nonetheless? That’s my question, that’s what I’m asking. Exactly that question. Why? Why is there such an opinion? Why at all?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not even an opinion. I don’t know what it means to say everything goes by intention or everything goes by the act. There is no other opinion—everything goes by the act. That’s the Jewish law. If you didn’t murder, then you’re not a murderer. It doesn’t matter that you did everything you could to make it happen; if it didn’t happen, you are not a murderer. In Jewish law, by the way, this is much more extreme than in secular law. In secular law there is punishment for attempted murder; in Jewish law there isn’t. By strict law, you basically go home free. There is nothing. If the religious court knows its craft, it won’t let you go home free, but that would be punishment not according to strict law. By strict law, nothing happened. If nothing happened, then you did nothing, so no punishment comes to you. The act is almost the exclusive factor, to the point that there is really a novelty in the Talmud that he needs atonement at all. Someone who intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb meat, yes—it’s attempted murder, it’s an attempted transgression of eating pork that failed. In the end he ate lamb, and there is a novelty in the Talmud that he needs atonement. In principle I would have thought this is nothing, nothing happened. And ‘he needs atonement’ apparently means: listen, you weren’t okay on the level of service of God, but on the formal halakhic level there is no transgression here. As long as it didn’t happen, there is no transgression. So on the one hand, what do we see here? That in order for there to be a transgression, there has to be an act. Meaning, there has to be a result. It is not enough that you intended to violate the command, that you had this conscious state of rebelling against the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Something has to happen. And that basically means that the point of the prohibition of eating pork is not merely that you should not violate God’s will by eating pork, but that eating pork itself does something problematic, and if it didn’t happen then there is no transgression. On the other hand, there is also the opposite case, where there is the result but not the intention. We had a case where there was intention but no result. What is the case where there is result and no intention? An inadvertent sin, right? If a person did not intend the transgression but the result was still achieved—he desecrated the Sabbath but did not intend to. What happens there? There it is a transgression in some sense—not deliberately, so he doesn’t deserve punishment. He needs a sacrifice, for example where a sin-offering applies, but he needs some kind of atonement, because an inadvertent transgression—atonement not in the sense of the Talmudic passage in Nazir—he needs atonement. It is a transgression. Meaning, it’s not just a matter of—it’s an actual transgression. So from the combination of these two things, we see that in order for a transgression to be complete, you need both the result and the subjective dimension in the transgression: what I intend to do, whether I am rebelling against the command or responding to the command. And that is basically what the Ramchal says: that in every commandment there are two things. You need to honor parents because you were commanded to honor parents—as a response to the command—and also because honoring parents is something of value. And regarding a transgression… basically nothing happened here; my body acted, but the person in me wasn’t there. So this is treated as inadvertent at a level such that the act almost no longer exists. Okay, in any case, so there is here—so the claim is, yes, so I’m going back again. Rabbi Elchanan says that in every commandment and every transgression there are two aspects. In a commandment there is the fulfillment of responding, there is the dimension of responding to the command, and there is the act itself. And in a transgression there is the aspect of rebellion against the command, and of course also the act itself. Okay? These aspects are expressed in the two opposite cases I spoke about earlier. Either in the case where he intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb, where basically the act was not there but the intention was there. I basically rebelled against the command; the rebellion against the command was there, but the result was not. And inadvertent sin is the opposite situation: the result was there, but there is no rebellion there. Okay? He says there—he himself brings the Talmudic passage in Bava Kamma at the end of the first chapter, also in Bava Kamma and also in Bava Batra there. And there is Jeremiah saying to the Holy One, blessed be He, regarding the people of Anatot: ‘Make them stumble over poor people who are not worthy.’ Yes, what does ‘make them stumble’ mean? A poor person will come to them who is a fraud, he is really not poor, and you will give him charity, and in fact you did not give charity to a poor person—he isn’t poor. Yes? That is like intending to eat lamb and ending up with pork, in the sense of transgressions. Meaning, you wanted to do a commandment and all your intentions were right, but it didn’t work out in the context of the commandment, not the transgression. Right? ‘Make them stumble’—that’s between inadvertent and deliberate in the context of transgressions. The same alternatives exist in the context of commandments.

[Speaker A] The act was done—no, it wasn’t done, because no charity was given to a poor person. You can throw the money into the sea, that’s not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] called—it’s not called giving charity to a poor person.

[Speaker C] Maimonides writes there that in the particulars of the commandment he did his part.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, here one can debate a bit, but really that is what the Talmud apparently says. The Talmud says this is called causing them to stumble. What does that mean? That the people of Anatot in fact spent the money, but they will have no reward because it is not a commandment. To what extent it is worth nothing or not—one can argue, I’m not getting into that now—but it is certainly not a commandment in the full sense. You did not give money to a poor person.

[Speaker C] He makes them stumble over people who are not worthy—that’s the point. So what if they failed to do the commandment? Maybe it’s even a transgression? More severe—to give it to such people, and then what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll use it for something bad?

[Speaker C] But that’s the intention—I think the intention here—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that he did not fulfill the commandment of charity even though he intended to do it. That’s at least how I understood the Talmudic passage. In any case, the Talmud in Bava Batra brings another discussion right next to this story. There the Talmud says that Turnus Rufus asks Rabbi Akiva: if the Holy One, blessed be He, loves the poor, why doesn’t He support them? Yes, that’s not a question someone just invented. Why doesn’t He support them? And then Rabbi Akiva says to him that Torah and commandments were given to us only in order to refine people through them. Right? So the conception expressed in Rabbi Akiva’s words is that basically the commandments concern the “I,” not the “poor” with an ayin, but the doer. Right? If the Holy One, blessed be He, had supported the poor, then I would not have had the commandment of charity. True, the state of the poor would have been better, but we would have lost the refinement of the person who gives. And the purpose of the commandment is to repair the person who gives. So that is a perspective that basically views the commandment of charity as something whose purpose is the giver, not the recipient. Right? By contrast, the passage of Jeremiah about the people of Anatot says exactly the opposite, right? It basically says that the goal is the poor person. Therefore if there was no poor person here who received the money, then nothing happened, even though I corrected my own character traits to exactly the same extent. After all, all in all I took money out of my pocket with all the good intentions, gave it to someone I was sure needed it, and in the end it turned out to be nonsense—I threw it into the sea.

[Speaker D] That doesn’t mean that’s the goal. It means that’s the command, and the command wasn’t fulfilled. The goal—we don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, okay, the point is the command. Still, the point is: where do I place the focus? Is the focus on the intention of the doer, on his standing before the Holy One, blessed be He, or is the focus on what happens in practice, not on the doer’s intention? So this too is really an expression of the same double aspect that exists in every commandment and every transgression. Although in charity—I once spoke about this in synagogue—in charity there is a simpler explanation; Maimonides, in my humble opinion, noticed this. Anyone who looks at Maimonides sees—not only in parentheses I’m saying—anyone—

[Speaker C] who looks at Maimonides sees that there is—

[Speaker A] a difference between how he describes the prohibition—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of ‘do not harden your heart’ and ‘do not shut your hand,’ which is the prohibition on someone who doesn’t give charity, and ‘you shall surely give,’ which is the positive commandment of charity. Regarding the positive commandment of charity he says… stinginess—that is, that we improve our character traits. And I think Maimonides also intends to resolve the contradiction in this Talmudic passage. And Maimonides argues that the prohibition—there is a prohibition and a positive commandment in charity. The prohibition concerns the giver. Meaning, if you don’t give, then you have not corrected your character traits. That’s what the prohibition is for. You must give in order to correct your character traits. The positive commandment is for the poor person. And in fact, when you look in the Talmud, take a look at how it is presented there. What is written regarding the people of Anatot? There the claim focuses on the act, right? What is being discussed there? It is discussing the positive commandment, right? You are basically fulfilling a positive commandment and you will not receive reward for it because this is not a poor person at all. For what does one receive reward? For a positive commandment, not for a prohibition. For refraining from a prohibition there is no reward, right? By contrast, in Tosafot in Shabbat, Rabbi Akiva says no—Torah and commandments were given only so that we may be saved through them from the judgment of Gehenna. For what does one get Gehenna? For a prohibition. Right? Meaning, the prohibition basically places the focus on the giver. And the positive commandment places the focus on the recipient. The positive commandment is there to help him; that is why the positive commandment was given. The prohibition is meant so that I should not be stingy, or so that I should correct my traits. Fine—that’s in the context of charity. But clearly these two aspects exist. Once I thought about this in connection with gifts to the poor. What happens with gifts to the poor when I give to a poor person from Jerusalem? Fine—when do I need to give it to him? On my Purim or on his Purim? Meaning, if I am the focus, then it should be on my Purim. If he is the focus, then it should be on his Purim.

[Speaker C] Fine, but gifts to the poor also aren’t necessarily—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] certainly a law of charity, but that’s another sugya altogether. In any case, let’s return to our matter. So basically there are two aspects here. Now Rabbi Elchanan started from the difficulty about repentance versus going off the religious path, right? How can that be? And he argues that basically this is how it works: regret over acts done in the past helps erase the subjective aspect of that act. When I committed a transgression in the past, let’s say, there are two problems here: first, I rebelled against the command; and second, I did an act that is itself problematic, right? Its consequences, the act itself. So as far as the subjective rebellion against the command goes—I regretted that. I am already a different person. What difference does it make what kind of person I was then? Today I’m a different person. But as far as what happened goes, what happened happened. Meaning, if I killed someone, he doesn’t come back to life when I repent. Right? Or if I didn’t give charity and as a result the poor person got into trouble, it doesn’t matter that in the meantime I repented. The consequences are consequences that occurred. That cannot be erased. That is beyond the letter of the law. And therefore he says that where it is written that by strict law you lost your merits, the meaning is with respect to the subjective aspect. And in the subjective aspect, you lost your merits or your sins. It goes in both directions, because that is strict law. If you regret it, then you are a different person in the subjective sense. I don’t care what you were once. Today you are someone else. You are judged as you are today, not as you were then. And if today you regret it, then what is the problem? But the consequences themselves—how can it be that this rewrites history, as if what happened didn’t happen? So that doesn’t happen with regard to the righteous person. The righteous person who later rebelled—what he did remains; that is a fact. As for repentance, the novelty is that beyond the letter of the law even history itself can be rewritten. And that is his claim, and that is what is beyond the letter of the law. Does he come back to life? Of course not. No, okay, that is part of repentance—he asks forgiveness. No, okay, that is part of repentance—he asks forgiveness. But still, what he did, he did. The fact that he asks forgiveness—that’s within forgiveness. Forgiveness is needed because I sinned in relation to both factors, but it still atones only for the subjective part. But for our purposes, what Rabbi Elchanan is basically arguing is that in every commandment and transgression there are two aspects. One aspect is the aspect of my standing before the Holy One, blessed be He—whether I respond to His commands or rebel against His commands—and the second aspect is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to achieve by giving these commandments and prohibitions. It seems to me that this stands in contrast to what Rabbi Kook says here. Because what Rabbi Kook says here is basically a claim as though the command is just an unavoidable necessity in order to make sure that we actually do it, because without that we wouldn’t do it. In the future we won’t need either the command, and maybe not even the acts themselves, but certainly not the command. Meaning, it seems from him that the whole point of the command is just as an instrument, because otherwise we wouldn’t do it. Rabbi Elchanan claims more than that. He basically claims that there is intrinsic value in responding to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is called service of God. Whether as children or as servants. Meaning, He commands, and we respond. ‘Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.’ Why is the commanded-and-doer greater? Usually people look for psychological explanations. When you are commanded, maybe you have a stronger inclination or something like that, and therefore you are greater. According to what Rabbi Elchanan says earlier, it is much simpler. Greater is one who is commanded and does because he has two elements. He both responds to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and he also does a good act. One who is not commanded and does performs the same good act, but he does not have the aspect of service of God in it, of responding to the command. So therefore he is less great. He simply has one benefit, while the other has two benefits. This is already written in the medieval authorities (Rishonim) too. As I said, Tosafot HaRosh writes this.

[Speaker C] So according to Rabbi Kook’s approach, the question really is why commandments require intention at all? After all, what matters is the result.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because apparently he means that the intention takes part in my inner repair. Meaning, commandments require intention because doing the act brings the benefit, but clearly there is also some benefit not only in the external world; there is some benefit in my soul that repairs me. Now, the act in itself does not repair me unless I do it with the intention of a commandment.

[Speaker A] Maybe not regarding charity, but regarding—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When we become upright… when we become upright, then we will no longer need repair. Now true, the world still needs to be set right, so according to the view that commandments are not abolished, we still need to perform the commandments. But we—that is exactly his whole move—that in the future we will already be upright, so our inner repair will no longer be needed, and therefore the command will no longer be needed either. Okay? So that’s fine. One can connect them. One can say that Rabbi Elchanan is only describing the current situation, this intermediate stage. He says there is value in responding, or not rebelling, against the command at this stage. Rabbi Kook says okay, this too will end at some point when we become upright. When we become upright, then it’s no longer needed—the picture changes. Somehow, the way I read Rabbi Kook’s words tells me—I think—that this is a different conception. He really sees the command here as having only instrumental value, meaning only to make sure it actually happens, because otherwise it isn’t certain that it would happen. That’s all. Now perhaps in that same context—I thought of talking about this last week because it really connected to the weekly Torah portion, because ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months,’ and Rashi’s first comment on the Torah asks why the Torah did not begin with Bereishit and did not begin from the portion of Bo with ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months’? What is Rashi’s underlying assumption? Rashi’s assumption is that the essence of the Torah is commandments. Right? Torah from the language of instruction. And anything that is not commandments requires explanation—why does it appear there? We don’t really need it. And then what does Rashi answer? ‘He declared to His people the power of His works, to give them the inheritance of the nations.’ Rashi’s first comment on the Torah says that if the nations of the world say, ‘You are robbers, for you conquered the land of the seven nations,’ then we will tell them that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and the land and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes. So we need the Book of Genesis in order to show that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner and He can give it to whomever He wants. And then of course the question arises: fine, so you explained the first chapter, which deals with the creation of the world. We saw that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner, He created the world. Now where did we get another book and a third? After all, Rashi asked why it didn’t begin with the portion of Bo, not why it didn’t begin with chapter 2 of Genesis. So what about the rest? Why did Rashi ask why it didn’t begin with the portion of Bo? We went through all of Genesis and the portions of Shemot, Va’era, and part of Bo. And what did he answer? The creation narrative I understand—the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to show us that He is the owner, He created the world and therefore He can give it to whomever He wants.

[Speaker C] You also see in that the choosing of the people of Israel afterward.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?

[Speaker C] Meaning, as part of that He is the owner and He chose us. And that’s the continuation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To show factually that He chose us—I think that’s part of the answer. Meaning, it’s true that He’s the owner, but now you also have to show what He decided. You claim that He decided to give it to you—okay, who says so? Show it. So you have to say, “To your descendants I have given this land,” and so on, to show that Abraham’s descendants really received the land. I think there’s more here than that. Rashi also means this, I think even in his wording. The Book of Genesis is called the Book of the Upright, the book of the upright ones; the Patriarchs were called upright, and Rashi there also uses that term. Rashi says that the Holy One, blessed be He, created it and gave it to whomever was upright in His eyes. What does that mean? The Book of Genesis is really teaching us who was upright in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. Because the force-based claim is an argument that says: look, we ask why we took the land, and the nations say to us, what is this thuggish use of force? The Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner… the Holy One, blessed be He, is the owner and He can do anything—He’s the biggest bully in the neighborhood. Fine, so now the force-based argument gets transferred to Him. Now they ask the Holy One, blessed be He: why are You giving it to them? Why? What’s wrong with us? It’s the same question. What, is this just bullying by a bigger bully? The question is a moral question. If they had thrown us out without arguments, then they’d throw us into the sea without arguments. But what happens? When we’re stronger, suddenly they start debating, right? And then they ask: wait a second, why are you using force? That’s not nice. Right? No—the power, He is the one using power, He’s the bully, not us.

[Speaker C] Not that He’s using force—it all belongs to Him, so He—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] can do with it whatever He wants. Yes, but still—it’s His, so what? Why does He choose specifically to give it to you and not to us?

[Speaker C] Fine, but there’s no bullying here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, it’s not bullying, but it’s still injustice. Why do You give it to them and not to us? Like Joseph’s striped coat—as if, what, You prefer that one? The claim is that these are the people who were upright in His eyes. And that’s the Book of Genesis. The Book of Genesis comes to explain why these are the people who were upright in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He—to answer not only the force-based claim, but also the moral claim. Meaning, to explain that these are the people whom the Holy One, blessed be He, chose to give the land to. Fine—that’s the book of the upright. And basically what this says is that the Patriarchs, in the phase before receiving commandments from above—right?—in the portion of Bo the portion of command begins. Of course it comes to its peak at the Revelation at Mount Sinai. But this story begins in the portion of Bo. In the portion of Bo we begin to be commanded from above in commandments: “This month shall be for you the beginning of months,” and so on. Maimonides says that already in the days of Amram there were commandments; in Laws of Kings there Maimonides describes it. Never mind—for our purposes, it began at least as far as what appears in the Torah. In the Torah itself, the first command appears in the portion of Bo. Command in the ordinary sense, leading to the Revelation at Mount Sinai. Okay? And the claim is that the Patriarchs kept it. This is Rabbi Kook’s “upright” and “subduer.” The Patriarchs up until the portion of Bo basically conducted themselves without commands, and they still did what needed to be done, apparently more or less.

[Speaker C] Parabola. What? In the part with the parabola?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In just a moment I’ll get to the parabola. One second. For now it’s only monotonically descending or monotonically ascending, depending on how you look at it.

[Speaker C] So that’s why Abraham didn’t establish commandments? What? So Abraham didn’t establish commandments?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?

[Speaker C] Abraham founded the community that followed him out of knowledge of God; he didn’t do commandments in practice. He couldn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He couldn’t command. As long as the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t command, then there is no commandment. You can’t invent commandments. There’s only one commander, only the Holy One, blessed be He. So all he can do is persuade them to do it too, because that’s the right way to act. He can’t command them. “For I have known him, in order that he command his children and his household after him”—this is said about Abraham, but obviously it doesn’t mean command in the formal sense. “Command” here means request, educate, guide—in the way of God, yes. So basically there’s some kind of phase here of keeping commandments not as a response to command, without that first dimension of being indebted, right? Basically just the action itself, without reference to command. And then comes “This month shall be for you.” This is the book of the upright, and one who does this deserves the land, and so on. We’ve left Rashi now. Now comes the portion of Bo and after that the Revelation at Mount Sinai, where we receive commandments. What suddenly happened? Why was it necessary to receive commandments? If the Patriarchs managed until then even without it, what changed? Apparently there is some kind of decline here, some sort of deterioration. Basically the Patriarchs managed even without command; they could serve God even without getting orders from above. Anyone reading this through Rabbi Kook’s lenses—I think that’s how he read it. And at some point a decline came, because now we basically need some command imposed on us from above, and we do those same things that the Patriarchs did out of uprightness—we do them as subduers, not as upright people. Right? But Rabbi Kook says: fine, but in the future this will return. In the future, when commandments will be annulled—or at least the command-element of the commandments will be annulled. Why? Because once we become upright, then we return to the state that existed before the giving of the Torah, or before the portion of Bo—to the state of the Patriarchs; the world is repaired. Once the world is repaired, you no longer need this deterioration into commandments. You can give that up. Or we’ll do the commandments the way the Sages expound that our father Abraham fulfilled everything, even rabbinic cooking arrangements. Yes, that’s taking things one step further—it’s aggadic midrash, no need to get carried away with it. But what it’s coming to describe is that Abraham fulfilled what needed to be fulfilled. I don’t know exactly what it was that he needed, but he fulfilled what he needed. And we too will fulfill what we need even without command, in the future. So it’s some kind of transitional state whose role is to repair some decline and bring us to the most complete state. Which of course—we spoke about this, I think, one of the previous times—raises the question that this is a terribly pessimistic view of history. Basically we were in a perfect state, we deteriorated, and the goal is to get back to the state we were in. A kind of Sisyphus, always going down for no reason. In the end you’ll just get back to exactly the same place you were before. So what is the whole process for? Why go through this whole thing?

[Speaker C] So that—sorry—you were tempered, so you can rise higher.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah—so apparently there’s something here, that’s how the Baal HaShem writes about it and others—it’s apparently not a matter of returning to the same state as before; it will be a more complete state. Meaning, the claim is that after we’ve gone through this whole thing, this crucible of being commanded and acting, ultimately when we no longer need it, it will be a more complete state than the one before, when command wasn’t yet needed. Meaning, there is some purpose to this process. This process is not Sisyphean; we climb higher each time, not descend and rise back to the same place. And maybe you can see this through—and I think I spoke about this one of the previous times—Rabbi Kook on the Binding of Isaac. We spoke about that, right? If I remember correctly. In his commentary Olat Re’iyah, when Rabbi Kook speaks about the Binding of Isaac, he follows almost exactly the description of Kierkegaard—Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher. He wrote Fear and Trembling, a Danish Christian, and in my view it’s a wonderful book, Fear and Trembling, on the Binding of Isaac. And his process, his line of thought, and Rabbi Kook’s in Olat Re’iyah are exactly the same move; the resemblance there is quite astonishing. Meaning, I’d be pretty surprised if Rabbi Kook didn’t know him. And the only difference is at the end. The ending is completely different. I think that’s very characteristic. It starts with this: for Kierkegaard, since his philosophy is existentialist, for existentialists philosophy is carved out of biography. So Kierkegaard divided his biography into three stages and built around that a more general philosophy. The first stage is the aesthetic, the second stage is the ethical, and the third stage is the religious. I think maybe we spoke about this once. The aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The aesthetic is natural, normal behavior. The ethical is the behavior that subdues—say, in Rabbi Kook’s language, Kantian morality—which says you need to restrain yourself, criticize yourself, decide what is right and what is not right; don’t act naturally, don’t act however your intuitions or instincts carry you. And the religious is someone who even subdues the control mechanisms of the ethical. Meaning, when our father Abraham—this is what Kierkegaard calls the knight of faith, Abraham. The knight of faith is the paradigm of life in the religious stage, the third and highest stage, the archetype. And what happened with our father Abraham in the Binding? Why? Because our father Abraham bound there logic, bound there morality, bound there all the things that guide us in the ethical phase. In the ethical phase we are supposed to criticize our natural behavior by means of logic and morality, by means of thought and values—yes, logic and morality. And what Rabbi Kook has to address, what our father Abraham was required to do in the Binding, was to bind the control mechanisms, to bind the binders. It’s “One Little Goat,” right? “Then came the slaughterer and slaughtered the ox,” sorry, and then came the Angel of Death and slaughtered the slaughterer. Yes, that’s exactly the point. Meaning, we have control mechanisms—logic and morality—and they too have to be criticized or slaughtered. And that is the religious phase. The religious phase for Kierkegaard is basically to live in paradox. To be ready to go against the rules of thought, against moral rules. With our father Abraham, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him, “Through Isaac shall offspring be called to you,” and then immediately after that—not immediately after, but afterward—He says to him, “Take your son, your only one, and offer him up as a burnt offering.” And that is simply a logical contradiction. So how will offspring be called to me through him if I offer him up as a burnt offering? Not to mention the moral problem, of course—that a father kills his son. So you are basically binding both logic and morality. For Kierkegaard this is the summit of the religious person. Someone who succeeded in binding logic and morality, to live in a non-logical way—that’s the most ultra-religious person there is. Meaning, he is outside logic, outside values, outside everything—religious to the core; he has only the Holy One, blessed be He, in his world. Very Kierkegaardian. In any case, Rabbi Kook follows this whole line with Kierkegaard, but he ends completely differently in the final stage. And he claims that the peak of the Binding is “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” Meaning, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad” is the lesson of the Binding, not “Offer him up there as a burnt offering,” as Kierkegaard says, where in the end Abraham was let off. For Kierkegaard it’s a concession to Abraham; for Rabbi Kook it is not a concession to Abraham—it is the lesson. That’s the punchline of the Binding. You thought—what? That can’t be the punchline? If once again it’s “do not stretch out your hand,” then that’s not sacrifice—what? No—not that it isn’t the punchline. Obviously that was the greatest sacrifice Abraham made. This is the lesson that one is supposed to learn from the whole story of the Binding. The lesson one is supposed to learn is that the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Abraham: listen. I demand complete submission from you. Complete submission. Not conditional on logic, not conditional on morality, not conditional on anything—like Kierkegaard. After I saw that he was prepared to do that, then the Holy One, blessed be He, is basically saying to him: what, do you really think that’s what I expect of you? Do you really think I expect you to behave irrationally or immorally? Exactly the opposite. Get that idea out of your head. Such a thing is impossible. “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad” means—as with Hagar, where this also appears, maybe even more strongly—that suddenly the Holy One, blessed be He, opened her eyes and she saw the spring. With our father Abraham too there is a very similar aspect. The bindings are very similar—there is the binding of Ishmael among the Ishmaelites, and the binding of Isaac; the Hagar story and the binding of Isaac—there are many, many parallels between these two things, and both indeed end in some kind of change of direction, an opening of the eyes. Hagar’s opening of the eyes is that she found a spring, and our father Abraham’s opening of the eyes is that he saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. He suddenly understands that this whole process means that the ram needs to be sacrificed, not Isaac. You do not need to bind logic and you do not need to bind morality. What is needed is the readiness to bind logic and morality. Meaning, what is needed is complete subjugation to the service of God—when the Holy One, blessed be He, says something, you do it. But don’t for a moment imagine that the Holy One, blessed be He, actually expects you to act irrationally or immorally. He Himself gave you reason and morality. Where did you get them from? Who put these capacities and insights into you? The Holy One, blessed be He. So He doesn’t expect you not to use them. And therefore there is some kind of test here—again a kind of parabola. Meaning, there is some kind of test that says to our father Abraham: let Me teach you a lesson, but through your feet. This lesson you don’t learn in the classroom. In the classroom it doesn’t help at all to learn this. It has to be learned through your feet. I first take you all the way down to the bottom. Be a perfect Kierkegaard. Yes—the Christian religious summit is to live in paradox, in general. “I believe because it is absurd,” yes, Tertullian. I believe because it is absurd. Not despite its being absurd, but because it is absurd. And that is exactly Kierkegaard—the claim that faith in its essence is the willingness to live in paradox.

[Speaker D] You know, and on—

[Speaker C] this—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] we also spoke—that faith in its Jewish sense is exactly the opposite. It is to live according to reason, not in contradiction to reason.

[Speaker C] So basically Abraham failed? Because if beforehand he had said, “I’m not going to bind him, because I understand that I’m forbidden to do this, because I’m subject to morality, to the reason You put in me,” then he would have come out much greater?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he would have come out greater in the sense that he would have come out more moral. But you also have to be prepared to submit yourself to the Holy One, blessed be He, at such a level that you really bind everything. Here Kierkegaard is right. Kierkegaard is not mistaken about the question of what is required from the religious person. What is required from the religious person is complete submission. Whatever the Holy One, blessed be He, says, you have to do. What is mistaken in Kierkegaard is his conception of divinity—not what is required of the servant of God, but his conception of divinity. Because he thinks that God can also demand that you be immoral or irrational, and that is not true. Meaning, you have to be willing to go all the way, that is, to bind everything for the sake of serving God.

[Speaker C] Knowing that such an end cannot really happen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Now if you knew—if you knew that in advance—if you knew that in advance, then of course the whole test would be meaningless, because it’s a fixed game. You know that in the end they’ll tell you, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad.” And therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, put our father Abraham through this—it’s terrible cruelty—when in the end He didn’t intend to demand it of him at all. So what is this? Just abuse?

[Speaker E] But that doesn’t make sense as a divine attribute, because it’s not moral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s already another question. It’s a hard passage. A hard passage. Rabbi Kook really—I don’t know exactly how he deals with it. It’s a hard passage. I think we also spoke about that here.

[Speaker E] No, the idea is to put morality aside for this purpose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The willingness to put morality aside. Yes. The willingness. We said there are two claims here. I am prepared, at the principled level: if the Holy One, blessed be He, says so, I do it. That’s it. I’m not checking it against logic or morality or anything. But know this: in your conception of divinity, the God to whom you are bound is a God who cannot demand that you do something immoral or irrational.

[Speaker C] But if today we no longer need to go through this, then this was a lesson for Abraham, but it’s not the moral of the Binding. If the Holy One, blessed be He, now told him again, “Bind your son again,” then what—what is the test?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then there would be no test at all. He would go whistling cheerfully, because he would know that in the end he wouldn’t have to bind him. That’s the whole idea. This test can be passed once. It can’t be passed twice.

[Speaker C] But today we no longer have to go through it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That brings me to today. Because today we really are in a problem. We’re in a problem because in the end—what is the whole purpose of this? Why didn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, sit our father Abraham down in the classroom and explain to him: listen, I’m not demanding that you be immoral, I’m not demanding that you be irrational, don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine, I’m moral, I’m rational, everything is okay. That wouldn’t help at all. Because if you give someone that kind of religious education, you produce a nobody. Meaning, this has to come afterward. After the person has become Kierkegaard. Meaning, after the person is willing to bind everything, after his commitment to the Holy One, blessed be He, is total. Only after that can you tell him this point. And why? Because once you tell a person who hasn’t gone through that path, you tell him: listen, I’m not expecting you to be immoral or irrational or anything like that. So from now on what’s the problem? Whatever seems moral and rational in my eyes is what I will do, because obviously that is also what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects—He doesn’t deviate from that. So basically there is no significance to serving God in my world, because I’ll do what I think. That’s all. Like any other person. It doesn’t help at all. What? In the sense of the—

[Speaker C] What he means? No, I said the morality here becomes God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly! And then in the end it becomes idol worship and not service of God. So where is this aspect of responding to command? I’m going back again to the two aspects of serving God: to do the right thing, and to act according to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. The second aspect does not exist in such a world. Right? So first of all you need to create that aspect, and that’s what Rabbi Kook is talking about here. It must be a transitional stage. You have to create this commitment, unconditioned by anything. After you are committed to this, and you will also kill Amalekites and you will do what the Torah tells you—Rabbi Kook believes that in the end it is moral, because otherwise the Torah would not have commanded killing Amalekites. I said I’m not sure I agree; that was in one of the previous sessions. But that is his view; I’m currently describing his view. And therefore you will do what the Torah says. What will happen in the end is this: why does it seem immoral or irrational to you? Because something in you is crooked. Because Rabbi Kook’s assumption is that the Holy One, blessed be He, always works with morality and reason. So if you are in a state where something seems irrational or immoral to you, that is a sign that something in you is crooked. So how do you work on that? “Hearts are drawn after actions.” So you will do what the Holy One, blessed be He, says—as a subduer, not as an upright person. What will happen in the end? In the end you will become upright, because little by little, through the actions, you’ll suddenly understand more and more what the logic behind them is, what the morality behind them is, and so on. Once you become inwardly upright, you will basically understand on your own—these things will no longer be conflicts for you. And that is the utopian picture Rabbi Kook gave at the beginning of the chapter. Yes? In the end everything will be wonderful and moral and whole, and nobody will have questions, and everything will be excellent. In the end your inner uprightness is built as a result of this sanctification through command. You become sanctified through standing before the command. You don’t… you rebel against it and you do it. And that sanctification—in kabbalistic terms they would call it crushing the letters in the vessels—that straightens you out, your inner uprightness. After your inner uprightness is straightened, what happens? What happens basically is that there are no conflicts. What the Holy One, blessed be He, says is also what would have seemed rational to me to do. I’ve basically returned to the state of the Patriarchs. So now indeed commandments are no longer needed. Commandments are annulled in the future. Okay? But this can only happen after sanctification and after the willingness to do everything without questions. Because if you raise a child that way from the start—if you tell him, don’t worry, whatever is moral and rational is what you should do—he’ll come out a nobody. He’ll just do what he wants. Why? Because everything he thinks, out of self-love, when his uprightness is not really upright, then everything that seems right to me must surely be what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. So what’s the problem? I’m doing whatever I want anyway. Service of God does not emerge from that. Even though, really, Rabbi Kook doesn’t see value in service of God as such. For Rabbi Kook, service of God—meaning response to command—is not a value in itself; it is only a means to become upright, to be straightened. In the end, when we become upright, we return to a more complete state. But still, it’s clear that in the intermediate stage this has to be there, because if you educate a child that basically there’s no problem, whatever is moral and whatever is rational is what you should do—then that is not service of God. It is neither upright nor service of God. First you need to begin with ‘as servants,’ afterward ‘as children.’ Meaning, first of all do what you are told because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. Even bind everything that Kierkegaard told you to bind. But you need to know in the background of consciousness that in the end this is really only in order to straighten yourselves out. You are not doing anything immoral or irrational here on the true level. If it seems immoral and irrational to you, the problem is with you. When you become straightened out, you will understand that it is moral and rational.

[Speaker C] What do you do with a public that gets stuck in the middle? At the stage where it does everything it is commanded, but it doesn’t reach that stage where it also analyzes and says: but it cannot be that God would ask—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t need to analyze.

[Speaker C] No, he needs to reach that stage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He needs to reach that stage where it comes by itself, not through analysis. With Rabbi Kook I don’t think—at least I don’t see any reference here to analysis. Rabbi Kook says: you do it, it straightens you out; when you are upright, you will suddenly see that things fit together for you. The turn. First of all you need to do what is written. Now, this is of course a very schematic description, because obviously someone looking through these Rabbi Kook-style lenses also interprets Jewish law differently. It’s not that Jewish law contains unequivocal things, you do what is written, and in the end you discover that everything is wonderful. Your interpretation of Jewish law is also fed by the… by the belief that there cannot be something crooked in it. And therefore you will choose interpretive options that make the laws more rational and more moral, and so on. So what I’ve described until now is very schematic, but you need to know: the real picture is much more complex. Even in the stage of sanctification there are different levels. It’s not that when I finally get to the top everything will be wonderful, everything upright, and I won’t have any conflict. No conflict with what? The Torah, in the end, is a collection of many interpretations accumulated over the generations. I won’t have any conflict with what Rashba said? With what Maimonides said? With the interpretation of Radak, of Metzudat David, of—I don’t know. I may have many conflicts there. I can choose for myself an interpretation in which there won’t be conflicts. Someone else may have conflicts, he’ll have another interpretation. It’s not… it’s not that there is some static word of God, given once and for all, and I can now decide whether I do it or I don’t do it. Once I think that the word of God is also supposed to be moral and upright and rational, I also interpret it accordingly. Meaning, it’s not… so it’s not correct that this stage is entirely Kierkegaardian, entirely against reason, against morality. Interpretation will take things as far as possible within the framework. That’s the point. There is a certain binding here. Within the possible framework you choose the more rational, more moral options—but within that framework. Meaning, what is not possible within that framework—that will be your binder, that will be your subduer, and you will have to straighten yourself out. So the picture is not entirely simple, but I still think this schema describes it correctly. And this point—I’m now returning to our time, really, to what I started saying earlier—there are many people today who revolt against this alienation in Jewish law, which seems irrational, immoral, something utterly detached, terribly alienating. And they’re always told that this is… bend yourselves, this is service of God, all kinds of things like that, at most with some theory that maybe in the end it’s terribly moral, we just don’t understand it, never mind. But bottom line, we have conflicts—or they have conflicts. I think it seems to me that everyone ought to have very strong conflicts. There is a very great tension between what the Torah—at least as it has reached us—demands, and what is upright, moral, right. In many respects I think. Not in general, not in 90%, but there are quite a few such problems. Quite a few. Now, if you educate a child without a Binding—and now I’m talking about the bindings each person has to do for himself, not our father Abraham; we are already after Abraham’s lesson—then we have some problem with that. Because in the end, if we already… if the Holy One, blessed be He, had taught our father Abraham in a classroom, nothing would have come of it. He would have said to him: look, I only do moral and rational things. So our father Abraham would have gone with his morality and his reason and done what he wanted, as we said before. You have to straighten him out through this sanctification with command, so that you become straightened out, and then I can tell you this message—that I do only moral and rational things. Now how can any of us go through this after he has already read Olat Re’iyah? Meaning, Rabbi Kook’s interpretation of the Binding. There really is a problem here. But I think in the end the complexity I described earlier solves the problem. Because there is some measure of binding and some measure of it not being right to demand binding. Meaning, both sides in this argument are mistaken, I think—both sides that take it to very extreme directions. Those who basically say: whatever seems right to me is what is right. And whatever does not seem right to me is a sign that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want it. You still haven’t been straightened out. You still haven’t been straightened out. How do you know that your inner uprightness really hits on what is right? Especially since what is right is not only what is moral in my eyes—apparently it’s not only morality; we spoke about that once. But even if we go with Rabbi Kook—who told you that you are straightened out? So this demand that emerges from the Binding—even if you know it—you have to understand that this still doesn’t mean you can automatically apply it. That’s why the Holy One, blessed be He, taught Abraham this through his feet. He had to bring him to become upright and only then tell him: go with your inner uprightness. So how do you expect to go with your inner uprightness when you still haven’t become straightened out? On the other hand, those who say to him: okay, then you’re not yet upright, so do everything and stop talking nonsense—that’s also wrong. Because there are some… some genuine demands here. Listen, within the framework there are degrees of freedom. You can interpret this one way or another, and there’s no need to become completely ossified and think we understand nothing, we are neither upright nor rational nor anything—it’s all simply an unreasoned divine decree, period. There’s this tendency in circles—the closer you get to Haredi society, or maybe Haredi-national too, but non-national Haredi even more—to present everything as an unreasoned divine decree. That is the summit of religious service: if everything is an unreasoned divine decree and nothing is understood. That is service of God in its pure embodiment. And I think that too is a mistake. It’s not right. Meaning, in the end there is indeed some need and desire and legitimacy to understand and to give the rational, moral interpretation as far as possible within the framework—but to know that there is a framework. And that framework basically marks which parts in me are still not straightened out. Once I am fully straightened out, I won’t… within that framework it will be settled in me. But that comes after I have collided with the framework many times, struggled with it, rounded corners, until in the end I reached some state where I can live in a more natural way. Therefore the correct attitude toward those rebellions—you know, the desire to connect, and experience, and morality, and uprightness, and all that—which is on the whole a very healthy desire, and I think in part comes from Rabbi Kook’s educational influence—but one has to be careful with it. Meaning, not too early and not too much. You have to educate the person—and this is very difficult education after all this. Very difficult. Because you have to tell him: act with two faces. We will fight terrorism as though there is no peace, and fight for peace as though there is no terrorism—something like that, I don’t even remember all these doubled attitudes. This really means: I will serve God as though this were a perfect unreasoned divine decree. But I know, in fact, that it is not an unreasoned divine decree; it is supposed to fit morality and reason and so on. So if I know that, then what—I’m fooling myself? No, I’m not fooling myself. I need to know that it fits uprightness and reason and morality; I am not always fitted to it. Meaning, in me not everything is always straight. I am influenced by very many things, and not all of them are necessarily upright. And therefore I need to live with these two faces until I settle. And when I settle, then it will be more correct; in the end things are supposed to fit. It is also true that even on the way there is no great ideal in presenting everything as an unreasoned divine decree. If there is an interpretation that is more reasonable, there is no reason not to adopt it. No reason. Even though people today think that this is called being lax. If you interpret something so that it fits contemporary values, then you’re wishy-washy, you’re liberal, you’re not a real religious person. Which is not true. Meaning, as long as it’s an interpretation within the framework, then it is perfectly fine for me to adopt an interpretation that fits morality or reason or whatever as much as possible. That is exactly the other side of the coin, and I think both sides exaggerate here. There is a rather difficult tension here, but it seems to me that it is necessary. Anyone who wants to solve it either in the direction that everything is an unreasoned divine decree, or in the direction that one should just do what I think and that’s it—those are the two battling poles here—both of them miss the point. Both are wrong. One is right in ideology and the other is right in practice. And what is needed is to do both. So I think that is ultimately the message here.

[Speaker D] Rabbi, if according to this we’re basically saying that the commandments have no truth, כביכול, on their own, but are basically just a tool to bring me onto the upright path—commands, not commandments. The commands. Now there are commands in which I also don’t see morality; they’re technical commands. I don’t know, this week I installed some utensil at home—what am I supposed to do with that now, exactly? I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t have any—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Kook would tell you: you still don’t understand. In the future you’ll understand. I think in this matter, as I said, I don’t completely identify with what Rabbi Kook says. I don’t think everything has only moral purposes. There are also purposes that are not moral, other purposes—let’s call them spiritual, not moral—because I really do not understand the moral aspects of mixing meat and milk. But Rabbi Kook claims that apparently, at least as far as I understand him, everything is ultimately supposed to converge on morality. Meaning, in the end you’ll see that everything has moral purposes. I don’t know how. In the end we’re supposed to see it, I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But one thing is clear: if that is the Jewish law, then it has to be done.

[Speaker D] But if the purpose of Jewish law is to bring me onto the upright path—I don’t know, suppose I do everything one hundred percent, and then this one thing suddenly I don’t… then am I still within the framework?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re simply not within the framework, because you’re not straightening out that crooked corner in yourself that doesn’t allow you to understand why this is the right thing to do. But eating meat with milk, for example—why?

[Speaker D] Is that something that is Torah-level, or I don’t know, a decree instituted by the Sages?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even a decree. As long as—

[Speaker D] As long as you don’t understand it, you’re not straightened out.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? It straightens something in you; the very act itself straightens you. Listen, just on the completely phenomenological level, personal experience: I think that someone who does not take the four species—any clever homily he gives you about the four species is worth nothing. In regular, cold analytical study, in the topics. There is something about being inside that world, that—I don’t know—you encounter it in a different way from someone who studies it theoretically. And I’m talking about someone who knows how to learn, knows the medieval authorities and later authorities, could give you a whole treatment of the laws of the four species. But he doesn’t take them; he’s a complete heretic. I think there will be something crooked in the logic of his thinking—not only in the sense that it’s not okay that he doesn’t observe it, but it will also affect how he grasps things. There is something in observance that brings you into contact with the thing in such a way that when you study it, you study it differently. I really think so. It just seems obvious to me from experience. Not that I know the explanation, but experience says so, in my opinion. Someone who does not encounter it at the level of practice will not be able to understand it either. After you encounter it—encounter it again, encounter it twice, encounter it three times—it’s like quantum theory, you know: you don’t understand, you just get used to it. After enough times hearing it, you get used to it. Someone else hears it for the first time and says, where did you drop all this nonsense on me from? You got used to it. But there is something in that getting used to it—it’s not only getting used to it. You also begin to understand a little bit more. It’s not only that… that encounter does something.

[Speaker D] Usually—I studied educational psychology. In truth, in the end, the four species—the Talmud says dew and dread. Nobody knows what that “dew” is, this waving of the four species.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, I don’t know. If the Talmud said it, it probably knew.

[Speaker D] I haven’t heard any explanation that explains to me what this dew is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is exactly the point. I’m saying there are things I don’t understand.

[Speaker D] If I didn’t move the dew, then in truth—not from the standpoint of education and psychology—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says you didn’t move the dew? You moved it without understanding it—what difference does that make? What does that have to do with it? This commandment says that this is how I move the dew from eternity within splendor to beauty within foundation—I don’t know what. Fine? I don’t understand how it works; I don’t know. I’m just saying it—it doesn’t matter, everyone will interpret it in his own direction.

[Speaker D] So yes, to do things even though they go against reason?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not against reason—

[Speaker D] You are, first of all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not against reason. You’re only saying you don’t understand it.

[Speaker D] That’s not the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Against reason means something—

[Speaker D] that is irrational, as opposed to the ideology of… let’s go back to Amalek.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There, from my point of view—as I said—that really is not a simple question. And still, I think Rabbi Kook would tell you that this is actually morality—you just don’t see it. Yes, you don’t see the full picture. And I’m not sure of that. But I am sure that it is correct. Not necessarily from a moral standpoint, but perhaps from some spiritual standpoint. I don’t know what it does in the highest worlds—how should I know? But it is probably right if the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. It wasn’t said to us for nothing—that I believe with complete faith. That doesn’t mean I understand anything about it. I don’t understand. Fine. But I very much hope that at some point I will understand. That is exactly the binding required of a person: to say, okay, I don’t understand any of this, so I won’t do it. If whatever you don’t understand you won’t do, then in the end you’ll only do what you want. Maybe this is from the Torah?

[Speaker D] You’ll do what you understand? But here the rabbi basically skipped from this to the conclusion the rabbi said before, Rabbi Kook’s conclusion on the Binding. Because anything I don’t understand—even if the Holy One, blessed be He, were now to tell me once again to do the Binding of Isaac—then I would have to say, fine, I don’t understand, just as with killing Amalek—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t understand—

[Speaker D] and I would still have to do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course.

[Speaker D] So where, then, is the message of the Binding?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The lesson of the Binding is not that one should not bind when one is told to bind. The lesson of the Binding is that they won’t tell you to bind. Or they tested—

[Speaker D] this—

[Speaker C] all the way through.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. If they tell you to bind, you have to go and bind even today. It is not in heaven—never mind—but on the level of principle. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had written in the Torah that you must bind your child and there are situations in which one really must do it, then you would have to bind.

[Speaker D] Rather, the conclusion of the Binding is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically, everything fits with morality. Exactly, it’s a theological conclusion, not a practical conclusion. On the principled level, it’s a theological conclusion in my conception of divinity. It’s not… it’s not a behavioral lesson. In behavior, you need to do what you’re commanded. But theologically, you can be calm about it: that too is correct. If you think it isn’t correct, then the problem is with you. I only said that this also has practical implications. Meaning, Rabbi Kook was not different from other sages only in his theological conceptions. He also understood Jewish law differently, practical behavior differently. These things radiate outward—there’s no getting around it. It’s not… there’s no detached theology, that’s clear. And it radiates outward. I think part of the mechanisms of that influence is what I said earlier: that basically, within the legitimate framework, I will indeed choose the more sensible interpretation, the more reasonable one, the one that fits the spirit of the times. That’s not invalid—on the contrary, it’s a positive thing that it fits the spirit of the times. It’s not invalid that it fits the spirit of the times. All of these are perspectives that are still within the framework of the Binding of Isaac, but within that framework there are still quite a few degrees of freedom to make very polarized interpretations, very far from one another, within our limited framework. The Torah is not some kind of thing whose every detail and fine point descended from Sinai together with all the little commas of the Mishnah Berurah, and from that point on we just carry it out. The way we write our Mishnah Berurah involves a huge number of decisions. And the Mishnah Berurah that Rabbi Kook would write is not the same Mishnah Berurah that another halakhic decisor would write. He would interpret with a slightly different interpretation that suits me; I connect to that more. Exactly, the compass will align. Exactly, what aligns, right. No, within the framework—listen, you can’t, you don’t need to assume that everything in you is crooked. That’s the pessimistic Haredi outlook. Everything in me is crooked, so basically I need to do whatever is irrational; that’s a sign that that’s what needs to be done, because it’s irrational. I believe because it is absurd—exactly the Christian conception. But that’s not true. That’s exactly what Rabbi Kook says—it’s not true. We have many things in us that are straight. God made man upright. We have many things in us that are straight. So therefore, within the framework, I can use my uprightness. When do I see that I’ve run into a crooked corner? When I encounter the framework. When I go beyond the existing interpretive possibilities. Then there, once again, it turns out… not that it’s impossible to innovate a new interpretation—that’s outside the rules, yes? In some legitimate context; I’m not getting into definitions right now. There it is apparently a point that is crooked in me, and there I need to sanctify myself more, grind at it more, in order to straighten myself out. Uprightness. But that doesn’t mean everything is crooked. Within the framework, that’s exactly the freedom that remains there: each person has his own uprightness, and not everyone needs to have the same answer, because each person has something different from someone else, and he needs to serve God in his own way. And this—this is exactly what I’m saying—we shouldn’t take things to any extreme. Don’t assume that everything in me is crooked, and don’t assume that everything in me is straight. Neither the Haredim nor the Hilltop Youth, meaning no—both are mistaken. I have many things that are straight. My basic assumption is that I have the presumption of being upright. The Shelah as well—we are presumed to be upright. If something seems right to us, then that is probably what should be done, unless we have run into the framework; then no. But if within the framework I can maneuver and offer several interpretations, and one of them seems upright to me, I take it. Because the assumption is that I am indeed upright as long as it is not clear to me that I am not. My assumption is—listen—even when I study Torah, I rely on my own logic, I rely on my values, as long as I do not have clear proof that here it is not correct. And as long as that is not the case, I work with my own logic. The Sages imposed names on the Written Torah using their own logic; they changed it in very, very fundamental ways. Why? Because they had a very strong confidence in their inner uprightness. And that is the claim. All right, let’s not move away from this point.

[Speaker C] That concludes the lecture of Rabbi Michael Abraham at the Dachs School, in the year 5771, January 13, 2011.