The Essence of the Miracle, Lesson 4
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Nature, Miracle, and Frequency
- The Maharal and Two Systems of Laws
- Dawkins, Naturalism, and the Problem of Definition
- Laws, Forces, Material and Non-Material
- Magic, “Be wholehearted,” and the Sitra Achra as a Criterion Problem
- A Fourth Model of Miracle and Direct Intervention
- Nachmanides at the End of Parashat Bo: Hidden Miracles, Providence, and the Memory of the Exodus from Egypt
- Commandments as a Substitute for Open Miracles and the Role of Stringencies
- The Role of Miracle According to Nachmanides and Maimonides
- Wonder at Nature versus Wonder at Miracles
Summary
General Overview
The text argues that the boundary between nature and miracle becomes blurred in several major approaches, because the distinction is made mainly by frequency and not by essence, and therefore in certain senses “there is no miracle as such.” It presents Maimonides as interpreting everything as nature, the “Mutakallimun” as saying that everything is miracle, and the Maharal as speaking about two systems of laws, though this raises a fundamental difficulty in defining and distinguishing between them. It then criticizes Dawkins and his naturalism as a position that is hard to refute and even hard to define in terms of what exactly counts as “supernatural,” and the text suggests that the ordinary concept of miracle requires a different model of direct intervention not mediated by laws. Finally, it presents Nachmanides at the end of Parashat Bo as explaining the role of miracles in combating heresy and making present creation, knowledge, providence, and divine ability, and the role of the commandments as a permanent remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt when there are no open miracles in every generation.
Nature, Miracle, and Frequency
The text states that even miracles are deviations built into the natural law itself, and that the exception too was embedded in the law, to the point that the miracle is perceived as part of the law. It cites the idea that “the Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the work of creation” as a framework that erases the difference between nature and miracle, and formulates the dispute between those who say everything is miracle and Maimonides, who says everything is nature, as ultimately boiling down only to frequency. It defines the practical distinction this way: something that happens often is called nature, and something that happens rarely is called miracle, and presents this as a hidden agreement between the sides in erasing the essential distinction.
The Maharal and Two Systems of Laws
The Maharal is presented as proposing two systems of laws, with laws of nature operating consistently by means of forces, and laws of a “separate world” that occasionally break into the physical world and produce what are called miracles. The text says that this separate breakthrough also operates according to fixed laws, so there too there are forces; it is not a random eruption in which the Holy One, blessed be He, “freezes nature,” but rather two systems of forces: separate spiritual ones and physical ones. It asks whether the distinction may be merely semantic, since there is no clear criterion distinguishing the set of natural laws from the set of laws of the separate world, and it asks how one knows whether a particular law is natural or separate and what the division really means.
Dawkins, Naturalism, and the Problem of Definition
The text cites Julian Baggini in his book Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, according to whom the atheist is committed to naturalism, in which there is only physical matter, and from it emerge minds, consciousness, moral values, and emotions, and there is no soul after death and no miracles except in the sense of natural phenomena we still do not understand. It quotes Dawkins as saying that he is not attacking a specific version of God but rather “God, all gods, anything supernatural and all supernatural things wherever they may be,” and defines God as the hypothesis of a “superhuman and supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe.” The text argues that Dawkins’s thesis is immune to refutation, because any phenomenon that is found will be classified as natural even if still not understood, and sharpens the point by saying that the problem is not only inability to refute but inability to define what “supernatural” is. It rejects definitions like “not understandable,” “not measurable in a laboratory,” or “contrary to a law of nature,” and argues that if something occurs, then it is part of the world and therefore natural, and that this only shows that the laws are broader than we thought.
Laws, Forces, Material and Non-Material
The text tries to distinguish between “non-material” as a possible conceptual category and “supernatural” as a category that is unclear, and illustrates that it is hard to determine what counts as a “physical” force, since even physical forces like gravity are not matter with mass, yet they operate within a lawful system. It raises the possibility that the Maharal means a kind of lawfulness in which the active factors in natural law are material, whereas in the separate lawfulness there operate forces that are not physical, but argues that even then there is no clear criterion and the problem returns. It claims that distinguishing by rarity does not help, because a law can be valid even if the relevant circumstances are rare or one-time, and the difference in frequency does not define an essential difference.
Magic, “Be wholehearted,” and the Sitra Achra as a Criterion Problem
The text presents two schools of thought concerning the prohibitions of magic and the command “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” in which Maimonides and the rationalists see this as a prohibition against being an idiot, or against falsehood and deception, while other medieval authorities (Rishonim) see it as a prohibition against resorting to powers that come from the Sitra Achra. It gives the example of a critically ill patient seeking healing from an “Indian healer in Bolivia” who apparently succeeds through magical means, and argues that according to Maimonides, if it works then by definition it is not magic but natural healing for which we have not yet found an explanation. It says that according to the other view a criterion problem arises: if it works and is still forbidden because it is Sitra Achra, then one needs some measure that can decide what is natural and what is supernatural, and the text argues that there is no clear way to know this without resorting to a kabbalistic diagnosis. It emphasizes that the problem is not merely perceptual but essential: if the prohibition truly depends on the source of the power, then a person is obligated to have some tool of identification in order to observe Jewish law.
A Fourth Model of Miracle and Direct Intervention
The text suggests that the only definition that gives meaning to the concept of the “supernatural” is direct intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He, not through laws at all—not laws of nature and not “separate laws”—but a freezing of the laws and intervention that is not the result of a force. It connects this to free choice as a possible definition of the supernatural, and argues that if human action is a product of free choice, then in that sense “every human action” is supernatural, but the word “miracle” carries a connotation of rarity and is therefore less suitable for describing something frequent. It concludes that neither Maimonides, nor the Maharal, nor the Mutakallimun make it possible to define miracle in its accepted sense, and presents this fourth model as a condition for understanding miracle as something genuinely supernatural.
Nachmanides at the End of Parashat Bo: Hidden Miracles, Providence, and the Memory of the Exodus from Egypt
The text cites Nachmanides’ words: “And from the great and public miracles, a person comes to acknowledge the hidden miracles, which are the foundation of the entire Torah… for all of them are miracles; there is no nature in them and no customary way of the world,” and emphasizes that after a correction that was pointed out to him, Nachmanides is not necessarily like the Mutakallimun who abolish nature, but is speaking mainly about “our affairs and our occurrences” and their connection to reward and punishment in providence. It explains that Nachmanides means that what happens to Israel is not entirely subject to the forces of nature, but rather “if one fulfills the commandments, his reward will make him succeed, and if he violates them, his punishment will cut him off,” and that the Torah’s promises in blessings and curses publicize the hidden miracles before the masses. It quotes the opening of Nachmanides on the corruption of beliefs since the days of Enosh, on those who deny creation of the world, those who deny particular knowledge, and those who deny providence, and explains that the proof “through changing the customary course and nature of the world” teaches that the world has a God who renews it, knows, provides, and is able. It cites Nachmanides’ point that when a sign is decreed through a prophet, the truth of prophecy becomes clear, and presents the verses “so that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land,” “so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s,” and “so that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth” as teaching providence, creation, and ability.
Commandments as a Substitute for Open Miracles and the Role of Stringencies
Nachmanides is quoted as saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, “does not perform a sign and wonder in every generation before the eyes of every wicked person or heretic,” and therefore the Torah is stringent about the remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt and its obligations. The text quotes Nachmanides as connecting this to the severity of karet for leavened food and for neglecting the Passover offering, and to the command “that we should write all that was shown to us of signs and wonders upon our hands and between our eyes,” and that we should write it on the doorposts of our houses in mezuzot, and mention morning and evening “so that you remember the day you left the land of Egypt all the days of your life,” and dwell in a sukkah every year, and so on. The text adds its own view that the prohibitions of leavened food are not connected to some inner “evil,” but are rather a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, arguing that there is no issue with eating leavened food all year long, and therefore it should not be seen as a symbol of essential evil.
The Role of Miracle According to Nachmanides and Maimonides
The text states that according to Nachmanides the role of miracle is clear, because the miracle is a freezing of the laws and therefore teaches that there is someone who stands beyond the laws and can freeze them. It argues that according to Maimonides it is difficult to explain such a role for miracle, because miracle is merely irregularity within the law itself and does not reveal control beyond nature, but only a more complex law. It suggests that according to Maimonides the “miracles” are functional—for example, so that the people of Israel can cross the Sea of Reeds—and not necessarily meant to establish faith, and it proposes that the biblical language about “that I may multiply My signs and wonders” and “and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord” fits better with the ordinary conception of miracle.
Wonder at Nature versus Wonder at Miracles
The text argues that from a rational perspective the regular operation of the world is more awe-inspiring than exceptions, and that the less the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes, the greater the wonder at the wisdom of having set up the laws in advance. It suggests that the need repeatedly to “freeze” laws may weaken the picture of the system’s perfection, unless one is dealing with “the impossible,” like a “round triangle,” which no system of laws could realize. It ends by claiming that theological arguments are not empirically refutable, both among supporters and opponents, and presents this as a consistent criticism of Dawkins’s accusation against religion.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And even miracles are deviations that are built into the nature of the law. Meaning, the exception itself is built into the law. There are non-regular parts of the law that we call miracles, but really they’re just part of the law itself. Right, “the Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the work of creation.” And I said that both of these sides are actually erasing the difference between nature and miracle. There really is no miracle. The Mutakallimun say everything is miracle, Maimonides says everything is nature, but both sides basically agree that the difference between nature and miracle is only frequency. Meaning, if something happens a lot, it’s nature, and if it happens rarely, it’s a miracle. The Maharal, whom we saw in the introduction, proposes an approach that is perhaps somewhat similar to Maimonides, but not entirely. And that’s what I want to pause on a bit now, because the Maharal basically argues that there are two systems of laws. Meaning, fundamentally it seems that he understands the concept of nature like Maimonides, in the sense that when something behaves consistently, that’s the result of a law operating—not because the Holy One, blessed be He, just happens to want the same thing all the time, but because the law makes sure that it proceeds according to the law, meaning in a regular way. The force, not the law. He agrees there is a law, but behind the law there is a force. Except that he says that every so often there is some kind of breakthrough of what he calls a “separate world” into our physical world, and that is what is called miracles. But his claim is that this too proceeds according to certain fixed laws, and if I interpret the concept of laws here the same way I interpret it with regard to the laws of nature, then the claim is that there too there are forces. Meaning, there too it’s not that the Holy One, blessed be He, bursts in and occasionally freezes nature, but rather there are forces that he calls separate spiritual forces, and there are physical forces, and both systems of forces behave in a regular way, and we describe that through laws. Since there is a combination here of two systems of laws, then yes, sometimes it looks as though the law is broken, the law of nature is broken, but really what that means is that the separate law is intervening, or whatever he called it. Now, with these words of the Maharal, it seems to me that we need to discuss a bit what exactly he means. Meaning, why is this description different from Maimonides’ description? You could say that the difference between them is purely semantic. What difference does it make whether it’s two systems of laws or one? If there are ten laws, why do you care whether you call these four one system and those six another? Bottom line, there are ten laws that determine how this world works. What distinguishes the set of laws we call laws of nature from the set of laws we call laws of the separate world? Meaning, what is the significance? These are laws of nature just like those are laws of nature. Meaning, the world runs according to forces that operate it, and that’s all. So what is the place of this distinction, or what defines this distinction? When I look at a given law, how do I know whether it is a natural law or a separate law? What does that mean? Meaning, all he is claiming is that there is a system of laws of nature, and in other words that is exactly like Maimonides. What is he really trying to claim that differs from Maimonides’ position? In this context I want to bring maybe an example from the book about evolution, where a similar problem comes up. We’ll soon see whether it’s entirely similar, but it’s a similar problem. When Dawkins presents his view, he wants to say that he denies anything supernatural, anything non-natural. Let me read you maybe a few passages from what he writes. Julian Baggini says in his work Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, explaining the atheist’s commitment to naturalism—to a view of nature alone: “What most atheists believe is that although there is only one kind of substance in the universe, and it is physical, out of that substance emerge minds, consciousness, beauty, emotions, moral values—in short, the whole range of phenomena that gives happiness to human life. Human thoughts and feelings emerge from the amazingly complex interactions that take place among material entities in the brain. An atheist, in this philosopher-naturalist sense, is a person who believes that there is nothing beyond the natural, material world. No supernatural intelligence lurking behind the observable universe. There is no soul surviving the death of the body, and no miracles, except in the sense of natural phenomena that we do not yet understand.” In that sense, that’s basically like Maimonides, I think. “If there is something that seems to lie beyond the natural world, something our understanding of is still far from complete, we hope that eventually we will understand it and welcome it into the bosom of the natural. And as every time we unravel a rainbow, it will not become any less wonderful.” Right? In order to be amazed, you don’t need miracles. Something that works according to laws, and that you understand, can be no less—and maybe even more—astonishing, and maybe we’ll talk about that later. So up to here he lays out the materialist atheist’s position, the naturalist, what he calls the investigator of nature. But now he wants to broaden it, because very often he encounters claims like, “The God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either.” You know those lines? So he wants to attack that too, and he says this: “I must therefore make it clear that I am not attacking the particular qualities of Yahweh or Jesus or Allah or any other specific god, such as Baal, Zeus, or Wotan,” from Norse mythology. “Instead, I shall define the God hypothesis in a defensible way: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence complex enough to design anything comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.” Maybe one more sentence: “I know you don’t believe in an old man with a long beard sitting on a cloud, so let’s not waste much time on that. I am not attacking a particular version of God or gods, I am attacking God, all gods, anything supernatural and all supernatural things, wherever and whenever they have been invented or will be invented in the future.” That’s what he says. Don’t tell me you believe in a different God, not the God I’m describing. Any God you want—I deny him. Meaning, anything supernatural. And then I try a bit to clarify what exactly he means by supernatural. Ultimately it’s clear that the thesis he is presenting here is, first of all, immune to refutation. It’s not a scientific thesis. Why? Because the moment we encounter something, he’ll say that it’s something natural—after all, we saw it. We don’t understand it? Fine. There are lots of things we still don’t understand. More research is needed and then we’ll understand it. So how exactly can you argue with this claim? Meaning, what exactly does he propose that I bring as evidence for my position? In what sense is he subjecting his thesis to an empirical test? Meaning, what am I supposed to do in order to prove to him that he is wrong? Right, that’s the problem.
[Speaker B] What? I didn’t say he was wrong, if there’s some criterion for testing here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I didn’t say that. I’m just pointing out that ontologically, that’s the situation. No, I didn’t say that.
[Speaker B] Show a contradiction in his assumptions? What? Show a contradiction in his assumptions, for example of—
[Speaker C] free choice and—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, contradiction—but I’m talking about a claim in the sense of empirical contradiction, meaning a fact that would contradict what you’re saying. Put the—after all, he very often attacks religious claims, claims of faith, on the grounds that they don’t stand up to empirical testing.
[Speaker C] A claim doesn’t hold? A logical claim about his own claims?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if you find a contradiction in his claims, that’s true—well, that’s always true. Any contradictory claim is obviously contradictory. But when you advance some claim that isn’t contradictory—like “every fairy has three wings”—that’s not a contradictory claim, but it’s not a claim you can test empirically either. Right? At least not—I don’t know… fine, okay. So I don’t know any way to find fairies and count their wings. Right. And if you find them, then it won’t be a fairy. Exactly, the same principle. So the point is that first of all, this statement is not refutable. But it seems to me there is something much more problematic here than just that it isn’t refutable. The question is whether it even has meaning. Because in the end, how are you going to define the difference between natural and non-natural? What is non-natural? There’s no such thing. Not understandable? What does non-natural mean? Not understandable? How do you know? Meaning, we’ll think more and investigate more, and then yes, we will understand. So what is non-natural? Meaning, are there things that we can understand and that are still non-natural? Is there such a thing? It’s just that you deny—meaning, not whether there is such a thing, but can such a thing even be defined and you deny its existence? Or is it not defined at all? Meaning, what are you talking about when you say you deny the existence of the supernatural? You need to understand that both someone who believes in the supernatural and someone who denies the supernatural first has to define what he’s talking about. Meaning, let’s agree on the definition of the concept “supernatural,” and then see whether we agree with it or believe in its existence or don’t believe in its existence. Meaning, it’s not that someone who doesn’t believe in its existence is exempt from defining it. Because even if you say you don’t believe in something, define what the thing is that you don’t believe in. Now, it can’t be defined. There’s no way to define it. What is supernatural? Everything that exists in the world is natural; it’s part of the world, the nature of the world—so what is supernatural? So I can maybe understand what non-material means. That’s what he started with. There are things that are material, and maybe—or at least we can understand, I don’t know whether define, that too would be rather hard I think—but let’s say I can understand that. Meaning, anything non-material, okay, there are things of another kind. Fine. But what is supernatural? Not what is spiritual or non-material.
[Speaker B] Something that contradicts a law of nature.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it doesn’t contradict a law of nature.
[Speaker B] If, for example, someone started flying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —in the air, then it doesn’t contradict a law of nature. It only means that the law of nature isn’t this but something else. You understand why I’m bringing this up in connection with the Maharal, because I’m basically asking: what is the meaning of what the Maharal says? It’s the same question, right? What is the meaning of what the Maharal says when he says there is a system of laws of nature and a system of laws of the separate world? He too is basically sharing this strange definition—or non-definition—of Dawkins, which says there is the natural and there is the supernatural, and that—
[Speaker D] means that there is no supernatural.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—there is, in the sense that it’s defined. Meaning, you can define the concepts natural and supernatural; they have a dispute about whether there actually is such a thing. But I’m asking, first of all, before you argue about whether it exists or not, explain to me what it is, so that I can know whether I agree with you or with him. What is supernatural?
[Speaker C] What’s wrong with non-material, according to Dawkins?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying: if it’s non-material, I can understand that. Non-material can be defined.
[Speaker B] But according to what we know of nature, that can’t be. What? Like the Maharal, if it’s something not in accordance with the natural order as we know it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You realize that you’re using the concept of nature in order to define what is natural. I’m asking: what is natural?
[Speaker B] Something that cannot be measured in a laboratory.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, cannot be measured? Couldn’t you measure the splitting of the Sea of Reeds in a lab? What’s the problem? What would they measure? Put whatever measuring instruments you want there and measure the height of the walls or whatever you want to measure. What isn’t measurable there?
[Speaker B] That we have no explanation for why it happens.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “We have no explanation”—what does that mean? It means nothing. We have no explanation for lots of things.
[Speaker B] There are—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have phenomena that I measure in the lab and I don’t know the explanation for them—so are they supernatural? No. It only means more research is needed.
[Speaker B] He himself says that we don’t understand. Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, something I don’t understand may very well be—no, no, wait. First I’m talking about Dawkins. Let’s talk first about Dawkins and then return for a moment to the Maharal.
[Speaker D] Is it that by definition the non-material can’t be investigated, but a phenomenon that departs from the laws of nature as we know them from experience up to now can?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, electromagnetism for example—
[Speaker D] It also explains why something used to be supernatural in people’s eyes and today it isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but then what is supernatural? That’s nonsense. So Dawkins denies everything we don’t understand?
[Speaker B] All physical development—people said it was something supernatural, and then they discovered it wasn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does Dawkins deny the existence of something unexplained?
[Speaker D] No, on the contrary. That’s why he said that something supernatural is something that doesn’t exist, because in the end—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m asking: what is the supernatural that you say doesn’t exist? First define it for me. What is supernatural? I’m not claiming whether it exists or not. Maybe it doesn’t exist. First explain what you’re talking about. What is the concept of the supernatural? After all, if it’s just something unexplained, you yourself say, fine, it’s something we’ll investigate more, maybe we will understand. By the way, maybe we never will understand, but that still proves nothing. Fine, so we won’t manage to understand—who says we can understand everything? Fine, and that’s not necessarily because of lack of time; it may be that we really won’t ever understand because our minds just aren’t strong enough to grasp this matter. Okay. But still, from his perspective he isn’t claiming that we will necessarily understand everything in the end—he doesn’t have to adopt that claim, right? So what in the world is this concept “supernatural”? Meaning, if he’s talking about spiritual versus material, again, defining that will be hard, but there I think we do understand what is meant. Meaning, okay, either matter or some transformation of it—by which I mean mass. Meaning, either mass or some transformation of it. We know there are relations between energy and mass, there are laws that connect the two, so I’m willing to accept even the concept of energy as part of the material world, even though there can be energy that appears in a form that has no mass, like photons. Photons have no mass; it’s a particle of pure energy. Fine. But I have no principled problem with that. For me that’s matter. It doesn’t have to have mass. Why? Because it interacts with matter, because there are laws that tie it to matter. Fine, there are various manifestations of the material world. So let’s say even if I don’t know exactly how to define it, I understand what it is. And then anything that isn’t in interaction with matter—or I don’t know exactly how to phrase it—something beyond matter, I might call spirit. That too is not entirely precise; you have to understand, because once you sharpen it too much—since if it’s not in interaction, then it has no meaning whatsoever. After all, the whole meaning of spirit is that it does affect what happens in the world, so there is interaction, and therefore that too is not entirely simple to understand. But if I can somehow understand that, what does natural and supernatural mean? That, that I simply do not understand at all. Meaning, that, yes.
[Speaker E] Maybe you can take it in a few directions. It could simply be, as an extension of what you’re saying, the distinction between material and non-material, so maybe that’s also what the Maharal means. Natural lawfulness is a lawfulness in which the active causes are material things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And supernatural lawfulness is a lawfulness in which the active causes too—and not the affected things… never mind. But the affected things are natural even in those laws.
[Speaker E] Okay, so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The separate lawfulness lifted the waters of the Sea of Reeds. What is acted upon here is matter.
[Speaker E] But—but it came from some interaction with principles, with things that are not natural. With forces.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is “not natural”?
[Speaker E] With forces that are not physical, not bodily.
[Speaker D] What isn’t physical? The splitting of the Sea of Reeds wasn’t physical?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, is the force of gravity physical?
[Speaker E] No, the force of gravity—I don’t know if you can treat it as an entity in itself; there’s an interaction here between two bodies.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. So I’m saying again, I prefaced and said that the Maharal seems to be going in Maimonides’ direction. Meaning, laws are not regularities; laws are the result of forces. So this force is itself something.
[Speaker E] Meaning there is something—it’s a characteristic of matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “characteristic” mean? There is no characteristic. Once the matter—this mass is here and that mass is there—how does this one move? What moves it? The characteristic of that mass? The other matter? There is no such thing. Meaning, something has to move it. There is no action at a distance.
[Speaker E] Particles pass between them, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, exactly. So that’s the force. Those particles aren’t passive particles; they’re force particles, like photons. But there is something that is a force—that’s an entity, a kind of… no, what does material mean? That’s exactly the question. You call that material—why do you call it material? Why do you call it material? In what sense is it material?
[Speaker C] It has no mass—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it acts on matter.
[Speaker E] Okay, the Sea of Reeds too—it had no mass and it acted on matter. And that’s supernatural? No, it’s not supernatural, so that’s… fine. He’s sort of—meaning, Maimonides is trying to offer some very…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, again, I’m not really looking for a full definition. I’m trying to make clear that there’s some—
[Speaker E] a certain track of lawfulness revolving around matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As if the separate lawfulness doesn’t revolve around matter. Do you know why? Because that’s what we’re talking about. No, that’s what we’re talking about. Why don’t you know about every other case? Only about these cases you know?
[Speaker B] Well, there was leprosy, telepathy, in the modern world—what do you say?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Maybe that’s some level lower than what we—
[Speaker B] are trying to investigate and understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And when they understand it, then it’ll be natural. In the meantime we don’t understand it, so it’s supernatural, right? Fine. Or it doesn’t exist and it’s just charlatanism, I don’t know. What? Charisma.
[Speaker B] That there are people who have charisma, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. Okay. I’m saying again, all these are examples of things where in the end, at most, all you can say is that we are looking for an explanation. We don’t know the explanation. Just like two hundred years ago they didn’t know the explanation for electromagnetism. Fine, so they searched and found it. So what—was it supernatural then and now it became natural? So should Dawkins of two hundred years ago have denied electromagnetism, and then later accepted it? He himself says it. He himself says: fine, there are natural things we don’t understand; more research is needed and then we’ll understand. So you need to understand that there’s something problematic here at the definitional level, beyond the fact that you can’t put it to the test, to empirical examination.
[Speaker B] What’s supernatural? You can’t take some ark that isn’t according to the measurements? Well. If I measure from here to here, and from here to here, and from here to here, and I get one sum. Right. That contradicts—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean? That this law—no. So the question whether that contradicts logic or not—that’s an interesting question, I’m not sure it does.
[Speaker B] No. It’s eight here and here it’s ten plus ten and it’s still twenty.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think no claim about the world contradicts logic. Meaning, that’s my view. But that’s another discussion. It contradicts the application of logic or mathematics to the world. Once it’s an application in the world, then it’s no longer logic. But let’s leave that aside. In the end I’ll say, fine, then I have an explanation for it: the Maharal says, the separate laws. Fine. Then the laws of physics by which I work, or the laws of geometry by which I measured the dimensions of the ark there, are not correct. You also have to take these laws into account. Okay. But now, after these laws—those are the laws.
[Speaker B] Okay, now these are the supernatural laws.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what sense are they supernatural? In the sense that they are rare? That usually things aren’t like that? Fine. But Maimonides also tells us that no, usually things aren’t like that because the law isn’t such-and-such but rather such-and-such. Fine. And there is a certain segment on the time axis where the law is to jump, not to walk normally. Okay. Or the Maharal says that the law isn’t this—this law really is like that—but there’s another law as well, and when they meet, there’s a jump. What difference does it make? So there are two laws. In the end I don’t see how you can distinguish between something that is… natural and supernatural. The difference is semantic. Okay, so if that’s the case, then a semantic difference isn’t a difference. Meaning, that’s exactly the point. Now I’ll give an example. There are no spikes in laws. What? There are no such spikes in laws. Why not? There are no laws with spikes? Of course there are. There are laws of nature with spikes, certainly. For example?
[Speaker B] For example?
[Speaker E] A point of continuity, a point of discontinuity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Local spikes, certainly. There are situations with discontinuity—phase transitions and things like that, certainly. Those are phenomena.
[Speaker E] No, measurements—maybe things like that are derivatives of a general principle. They’re not something that stands on its—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does that make? This too is a derivative of a general principle. The general principle is this. That is the general principle.
[Speaker E] What? The principle is continuous.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what do you mean continuous? It is continuous. What does continuous mean?
[Speaker E] Like transitions between states of matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, or a phase transition.
[Speaker B] So in short, all the time this phase transition is a law of nature; it’s not that it has a point of discontinuity. But the way it’s formulated is mathematics, not a physical thing. No, no, it happens all the time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The law of nature that whenever the people of Israel arrive at the Sea of Reeds, the Sea of Reeds splits—that also happens every time. What can you do if they arrived at the Sea of Reeds only once?
[Speaker B] And it happened once, so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if the freezing of the water happened only once because it didn’t happen—you would relate to it—but it really wasn’t like that. That’s exactly the point. And it’s obvious to me why I relate to it differently. You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know.
[Speaker G] There are places in the world, in Nevada, where the water hasn’t frozen for two thousand years. So what? If suddenly someone brings a refrigerator there and freezes the water, will people say it’s a miracle?
[Speaker C] No, he knows the rest of the world. What does that mean?
[Speaker G] No, again—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What one knows here is not important. Because if I don’t know, I may live under the illusion that it’s a miracle. But I, as someone who does know from the outside, understand that the illusion of miracle is an illusion.
[Speaker C] And that’s a criterion for testing—he as a scientist says, I examine the world, and I see that from what we know of the world, if this almost never happens, then something happened.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. It means that we don’t understand; we’ll investigate more and then it will happen. That neutrino—or whatever it was they found there that passed the speed of light—say that was real, okay? So what happened? That hadn’t happened before our eyes since the creation of the world.
[Speaker C] The Sea of Reeds—now all the scientists in the world have been investigating it for a hundred years and it hasn’t happened again.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what? And that neutrino that passed the speed of light also never happened before. So because of that it isn’t true? I don’t know if that actually happened—it also isn’t known whether it did. But I’m saying, so what? You say it isn’t true? It means it is true, only they didn’t manage to measure it. That’s all. But there is a simple assumption that it is part of physics. Meaning, it doesn’t matter whether it happened once or ten times.
[Speaker E] Because the assumption—but the assumption, it seems to me, was that whoever thought the experiment was correct and not a measurement error assumed not that such a thing really happened and that’s what was measured, and that the explanation is that there’s a law that in the year 2008—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter. The law doesn’t have to say that. I also said that even the Maharal’s law doesn’t say that. The Maharal’s law doesn’t speak about dates. It speaks about circumstances. Under certain circumstances. And every set of circumstances occurs on a date, obviously.
[Speaker E] But under one-time circumstances.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean? I don’t know if they’re one-time. Bring the people of Israel again from Egypt to the Sea of Reeds and it will split again. Who says not? Repeat the circumstances, restore the same circumstances from the beginning, maybe it will happen again—I don’t know, I don’t know. Again, this is something that is immune—not only immune to refutation but immune to definition. Meaning, you can’t… Maybe I’ll give an example that will sharpen this a bit more. Look, there are the prohibitions of magic and the whole “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God” and all these matters. There are two basic schools, with some shades in between, but two basic schools in relation to these things. There is Maimonides and the rationalists, who say that this is a prohibition against being an idiot. And there is the—well, that basically there is no such thing, all these spells and things.
[Speaker E] Or a prohibition against lying, or a prohibition against deceiving, whatever.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But first of all, it’s a prohibition against being a fool. And other medieval authorities (Rishonim) say that there is a prohibition against resorting to powers that come from the Sitra Achra. Now this is no longer supernatural; it’s Sitra Achra. Okay? Now there’s an implication here on both sides that is very interesting. I don’t remember whether I ever told this. Once there was some discussion online, where an American Jew who was sick with what was apparently a very rare disease heard that there was an Indian healer in Bolivia—right, not a healer by way of the Sitra Achra—who succeeds in healing with his spells, with his magic, I don’t know exactly what, succeeds in curing this disease. There was no conventional treatment, meaning there was no way to recover. And it was life-threatening; he was about to die. And the question was whether he is allowed to go be healed by that dear fellow over there in Bolivia. Fine? So now we need to examine that.
[Speaker G] First of all, saving a life…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, saving a life—no, not in the case of idolatry; saving a life doesn’t permit that. The question is whether this counts as idolatry. Yes, yes, there’s… of course, he talks to their idols and all those things. Both this and that—and incantations in general, Maimonides includes all that under the laws of idolatry altogether. But… so here we are, now I need to discuss this according to Maimonides and according to those who disagree. Okay? So according to Maimonides, if it works, then by definition it isn’t sorcery, right? By definition. If it works, then that means it’s apparently a natural healing method that maybe we just haven’t yet found an explanation for. So what’s the problem? You can go get healed, right? Just pay attention—don’t say idols, don’t say that it’s the idols, just do what he tells you and that’s it. In the end, you’re using a law of nature that works.
[Speaker C] And if it didn’t work, then it turns out you violated…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But no—if it generally works, it doesn’t have to work on me. It has to be regarded as something that generally works. No, you have to do research. I’ll do research, I’ll check: a hundred people went to him, a hundred people didn’t go to him—let’s see what the recovery rate is. If it’s statistically significant, then it works. And we check it the same way we check any medicine.
[Speaker E] But if it’s without the idolatrous thought behind it, Nachmanides, it seems to me, says something about the Other Side, assuming it works because of the idolatrous thought.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does that make? It doesn’t matter—let him think the idolatrous thoughts too, there’s no problem at all.
[Speaker E] But that’s idolatry, that’s idol…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No! No! No! Thinking the idolatrous thoughts is just part of the healing algorithm, that’s all. So let him think the idolatrous thoughts too. The question is whether worshipping idolatry out of love or fear, according to Maimonides, also invalidates the healing, not just makes it forbidden. Someone who worships idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, as is well known. So if you think the idolatrous thoughts only in order to be healed, only as part of the mechanism of healing, the question is whether that’s even called idolatrous thoughts at all. And then, accordingly, the question is whether it will heal you—fine, and let’s say yes, for the sake of the discussion. So according to Maimonides, ostensibly the criterion should only be whether it works. Meaning, if it works, then that’s perfectly fine. After all, obviously nobody would think to forbid me from using a medicine whose mechanism I don’t understand. If it works and it’s been tested, then I take it—what’s the problem? You just have to make sure it isn’t dangerous, okay, but let’s say it isn’t, that I checked that, but I don’t know how it works. So what, I’m forbidden to use it? Of course not. It works, I just don’t yet know how, that’s all. So this witch too—if it works, according to Maimonides, then that means there’s some, I don’t know, medical, ordinary natural thing here that heals people, so by definition it’s permitted, right? Now, if we take the other position of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the opposite problem comes up. Because the question is—suppose it works, but if it’s the Other Side then it’s forbidden, right? But what’s the criterion? How do you know whether it’s the Other Side or not? If it’s supernatural, then it’s the Other Side. If it’s natural, then it’s ordinary medicine, right? But what is supernatural?
[Speaker C] What’s the definition of the Other Side?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Using powers that are not natural powers, yes.
[Speaker E] Why a separate power? Why? Why a separate power? It could be the power of holiness if it’s supernatural.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—the claim, the claim is that there is a prohibition of “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” at least according to some interpretations, against resorting to something that is beyond the ordinary laws of medicine, say in the context of medicine, or beyond the ordinary laws of nature.
[Speaker C] But what if God performed a miracle for you and healed you?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a question. That too is not a simple question, and let’s leave it for now. You need to know exactly what one is doing and how one is doing it; it’s not so simple. But the claim is that you’re forbidden to resort to something that is not according to the ways of medicine. Now what counts as not according to the ways of medicine? If it works, then according to Maimonides of course if it works, then it is the ways of medicine, even if we don’t understand it.
[Speaker B] But that’s like the academy now, and only in another ten years it will be considered medicine?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, okay, that’s the same question; we can discuss that too. Now according to those who disagree with Maimonides, there’s the problem of the criterion. Meaning: how can you distinguish between a power that is just a natural power that you don’t yet understand or don’t know how to describe, and a power that is not natural or something else? What’s the criterion? How do you know? I have no idea; I don’t know how one would know. But if there is such a prohibition, then we’re supposed to be equipped with a criterion that tells us when it’s forbidden and when it’s permitted. And this is Jewish law, not some general thought where I can say there are such powers, I don’t know how to define them, I don’t know how to look at them, but they exist. Here I’m talking now about a prohibition—how am I supposed to observe the Jewish law? There’s something here that works, I just don’t know how it works yet. Am I supposed to assume it’s the Other Side? Why? There are medicines that work and I don’t understand them.
[Speaker B] No, but that guy sits there dancing and mumbling words.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says things, so he says things—so what if he says things? But it’s sorcery because he says things?
[Speaker B] No, he says—what is he, the authority here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Meaning, if a doctor gives you antibiotics and tells you he’s using the Other Side, is it forbidden to take them? So I’ll take the antibiotics and that idiot can think it’s the Other Side, and that’s all—what difference does it make? There’s something problematic here in the definitions.
[Speaker E] That’s only if you understand it that way, if you really understand it as meaning there’s some explanation…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—if that’s the truth, not if I understand it that way. If I understand it that way, maybe I’m mistaken, so what difference does that make?
[Speaker E] Then maybe it’s sorcery.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does it make? Maybe I’m mistaken. The question is whether that’s the truth. After all, according to the view that disagrees with Maimonides, this is not a matter of perception—idolatry, or “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” It’s a real problem. Meaning, if you draw on a power that is illegitimate, from the other side, then it’s forbidden. Whether you know it or don’t know it isn’t really important. Practically, of course, if you don’t know then you don’t know, but on the essential level it doesn’t matter. Meaning, if you use that power, that’s illegitimate, and if you use this power, that’s legitimate. How do you know when it’s a power of that kind? So the only way is to think that maybe there are sages, I don’t know, kabbalists or I don’t know exactly what, who know how to identify where these powers come from. I have no idea, I don’t know. Maybe there’s one power that starts from Netzach within Hod and another power starts from, I don’t know what, Kelipat Nogah. Fine? So that’s the Other Side and this is the ordinary power. Whoever knows how to make these kabbalistic diagnoses—and based on that—but you have to understand that this is quite surprising even within this mystical conception of Jewish law. It’s surprising that within the halakhic world we would have to resort to a kabbalistic diagnosis. And you would have to go to a kabbalist to tell us whether this is a legitimate power or an illegitimate power, with implications for Torah-level prohibitions, of “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God.”
[Speaker D] Why isn’t it intuition? Why does it go to a kabbalist and not to intuition? Intuition—I don’t know, suppose there’s that story about a person who woke up one morning in the United States and all he knew was Swedish. In the end he moved to Sweden. He suddenly woke up one morning knowing only Swedish. So you don’t know if that’s natural, supernatural—you don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s completely natural—he naturally knows Swedish. I mean, I don’t know.
[Speaker D] Someone suddenly woke up in the world—from Sweden, in a Swedish-speaking world—there was also some story like that in Africa, someone who suddenly spoke fluent French. Never mind, suppose so. Why can’t you rely on your intuition about whether it’s unnatural?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, because I don’t have that intuition. Maybe I could rely on it if I had it. I don’t. I don’t have it, I don’t know, I really don’t know. Maybe the medieval authorities (Rishonim) did? Okay, so I’m saying it seems strange, because maybe there’s some conception there that says whatever we understand is the natural—just as Dawkins thinks, same thing. And whatever we don’t understand, or a certain kind of things we don’t understand, is probably the supernatural—though of course he denies its existence; in terms of definition that’s the supernatural. I don’t have that intuition. As far as I’m concerned, whatever I don’t understand, I should investigate, then I’ll understand it, and that’s all.
[Speaker F] Maybe things like the laws of reward and punishment are supernatural in both directions? Meaning, if a person—just as we pray—does a good deed and receives reward for it, that’s not in the natural order, but rather something… why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How do you… why do you define that as supernatural?
[Speaker F] What’s the criterion? Basically, he receives—he didn’t act within the laws of nature where, as it were, one wheel turns another in that sense, but rather there is a spiritual entity that acts and rewards him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Him.
[Speaker F] If it’s the Holy One, blessed be He, then He rewards him in the positive sense. If it’s powers of the Other Side, they reward him for having turned to them, prayed to them, and the like. No, but here with the Other Side…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Other Side—I’m a bit stuck once you moved to the Other Side. No, I’ll tell you why—not because of whether it exists or doesn’t exist, but in terms of the definition. On the level of definition I’m willing to accept your first definition, and in a moment we’ll see—I think this is really Nachmanides. But there is here a conception that is none of the three: not Maimonides, not the Maharal, and not the mutakallimun. Dawkins also is none of the three. This is actually a conception that says the following: the laws of nature are what operates on the basis of forces—not regularities in that sense as in Maimonides. Not something that always happens, but something that always happens because there is some force that makes sure it always happens. That’s what’s called the laws of nature. Deviations from that are things that happen not because of a force. Without a force? Even before the question of how I know, first I’m asking what the definition is. After that we’ll see whether I can know or not. I don’t know. But first, what’s the definition? So such a definition is meaningful—I understand it. Direct interventions by the Holy One, blessed be He, where this is not the result of a law at all, not even a separate law, no law at all, but an intervention that freezes the laws. Without a physical force or without any force? Without any force at all, not even a separate one—unlike the Maharal. That I understand completely—again, conceptually. I’m not talking right now about how I know to distinguish when it’s this and when it’s that.
[Speaker B] But how can you define what “without a force” means?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One, blessed be He, acts directly; there is no force moving it—what do you mean? What’s the proof? Not how I know—that’s a different question. First I’m asking what the definition is.
[Speaker B] Not how I know—what’s the definition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? I don’t understand the problem. If the force of gravity moves this body, then there is a force that takes this body and moves it, right? If this body moves without a force acting on it—suppose I know how to see that there is no force here, okay? The question is how I know. That’s why I’m saying: leave aside the question of how I know. First there’s the question of the definition. How do I define the concept? So I can understand the concept of the supernatural in the sense that it is an intervention not by means of laws at all. Not separate laws, because separate laws take us back to all the previous paradoxes. Separate laws are still laws. In what sense are they separate? What is unnatural about them? Rather no: there is simply nothing at all that produces this thing. It happens without anything producing it. A direct intervention of the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Speaker G] What is…
[Speaker H] That they are separate in that they cause intervention?
[Speaker G] Free choice—that’s this definition. What is free choice? Exactly this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. What’s the question?
[Speaker G] So free choice is also a miracle? Yes. Is it also supernatural? Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the claim is that something that happens through the intervention of some agent, not by means of the laws that ordinarily govern the world—I’m willing to accept that as a definition of the supernatural. But if I accept that, it’s the only thing I’ve managed to define.
[Speaker C] But that goes back to something—that’s only part of the problem, because it still isn’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, now only the second question remains, the question of diagnosis—meaning how I know at all. Fine, really. First of all, I said there are two questions, both with Dawkins and the ones we need to deal with. The first question is how such a thing can even be defined, before the question of how I can know. The second question is: okay, it’s defined—now how do I know? Okay? Now, the advantage of having solved the first question is that with respect to the second question, I’m willing to accept—look, I have some sort of intuition. I can sense when something is according to the laws of nature and when it isn’t. Once I’ve defined it, I already understand that there are two kinds of such occurrences. As I said, just as I see there is a wall here—how do you know, maybe it’s an illusion? I don’t know. It’s clear to me that if I see it, then there’s a wall here. I don’t know how to explain it more than that. Same thing here: I see that this thing is not the result of forces but of an intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He, let’s say, just for the sake of discussion. I’m willing to accept such a claim in principle—again, not that every time we see it, that’s really what it is—but on the principled level I’m willing to accept such a claim; it’s not absurd. Okay? It’s a certain kind of possibility of encountering something that goes beyond an encounter with natural things. So that is already the form of how I encounter it, meaning that’s already the question of how I know it’s so. But the condition for that is that I can define that such a thing exists at all. And to define that such a thing exists, it seems to me that the only basis I can find is a model that is none of the three—not the Maharal, not Maimonides, and not the mutakallimun.
[Speaker B] The mutakallimun say everything is supernatural.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine—so again there is no supernatural. If everything is supernatural, then it isn’t supernatural; then that’s nature. Notice that what comes out here is basically just what I’ve been saying all along: both the mutakallimun and Maimonides erase the distinction between nature and miracle. Right—so now I’m just saying it from another angle. What comes out is that in order to accept the concept of miracle in its ordinary sense, and in the sense in which we usually talk about miracle as something supernatural, we have to accept such a model. And that’s why it was important to know Maimonides’ definition and, opposite it, the definition of the mutakallimun, because those are exactly the two things that come together when we see a miracle. There are laws—in Maimonides’ sense specifically, because if I interpret the laws as the mutakallimun do, there are no miracles. The laws are as in Maimonides: laws are the result of the action of forces, not mere regularity; they are the action of forces. On the other hand, there are points in time or certain situations in which suddenly the laws are frozen; there is some direct intervention; something happens not through laws—again, not “not through laws” in the sense of regularity, I don’t care about laws in the sense of regularity—but not through the intervention of other forces that bring it about.
[Speaker G] I’m going back and connecting this to the whole issue of free choice from the end of last year, okay? And then what comes out according to this approach is that miracles actually occur every day—millions of miracles every minute.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. Every minute.
[Speaker G] Every human action, every action that is the result of free choice, is a miracle.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can call it a miracle. I prefer to call it supernatural. Why? Miracles are when God does it. No—“miracles” also carries the connotation of something rare. So it wasn’t by accident that you said every moment something supernatural happens to him—that we would accept. But when you say every moment a miracle happens, that seems more problematic to us. Why? Because although a miracle is supernatural, miracle also has the connotation of rarity. And if I say no, there is a connotation of frequent supernatural activity, maybe every…
[Speaker C] All the time He’s making changes here, for…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe—doesn’t matter—then it’s not a miracle but nature.
[Speaker C] And in that sense, it’s also—I don’t know when you choose; you probably know that you choose. When you choose, I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter, not important. So he thinks he chooses all the time; maybe you don’t think so, so it doesn’t matter.
[Speaker B] Okay, so in the end…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the end, what I want to say is that after we encounter these three models, none of them stands up to the conceptual test. Meaning, within none of them can I really define the concept of miracle. Now again, this isn’t an attack. Maimonides will say: right, there are no miracles; there are just non-regular segments of the law. Okay, fine. I’m only saying that in the end, if I want to use the concept of miracle in its accepted sense, none of these three models helps me. Fine? Now, as for the Maharal, I don’t understand him at all—that is, it’s completely not… I mean unless he means—unless he means laws only in the sense of regularity, the laws of the separate world. But then why say it? It changes nothing. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes—it makes no difference whether He intervenes in the same way every time, like…
[Speaker B] Maimonides, just with slightly different terminology.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but then what difference does it make whether these are supernatural laws or natural laws, if it’s in order to define… these three models? These three models—three models, none of which can really give us the concept of miracle in its ordinary sense. The separate realm is the miracle.
[Speaker B] No, no, because that too is a law. From my perspective that too is a law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The laws of the separate realm are also laws. As far as I’m concerned, that’s physics just like the laws of physics. What’s the difference? What difference does it make? It’s exactly the same thing.
[Speaker B] In that it’s a law—but they are laws not…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you say these are laws in the sense of regularity, not in the sense that they are enacted by forces that actualize them—fine, then you arrive at this fourth model. Now in this fourth model too, even a miracle has laws. What? Even a miracle has laws. And that’s what the Maharal says. But what are “laws”? Laws in the sense that there are forces that operate them? If so, then it isn’t a miracle.
[Speaker B] Like what happened with the woman and the oil—no, it wasn’t creation out of nothing; there had to be something in the house.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, what difference does that make? Creation out of nothing is the addition. That doesn’t matter to me. In that sense, it’s still creation out of nothing, because the laws of physics don’t allow for it. It doesn’t matter that at first there was oil and afterward there was more oil.
[Speaker C] But miracles also have laws.
[Speaker B] They do too.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if they also have laws, then we’re back to the Maharal’s problems—the same thing.
[Speaker C] No—the way the Holy One, blessed be He, usually…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Chooses to behave is in the form of laws, but not in the same sense as the laws of nature. It’s not an existing force; it’s just how He usually works. But then you gain nothing for him. It’s obvious the Maharal doesn’t mean that. It’s completely obvious. Otherwise he gains nothing. Why say that the Holy One, blessed be He, chooses to work the same way every time if in any case you decide that the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes? What do you gain from that? After all, what you want to gain is that the world is constantly conducted according to laws that were implanted in it from the beginning—that is, that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene. That’s what you want to gain, after all. He brings what Maimonides brings—that the Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with creation in the beginning; he brings that too. So clearly, if he wants to gain something, then that’s not what he’s saying. Meaning, the Maharal does not mean that. Okay? So now basically what we have left is only Nachmanides. There are pages here—maybe they can be passed around. Nachmanides at the end of Parashat Bo—I already mentioned that Ari corrected me on this one of the previous times, so now we’ll see it inside. Because I think Nachmanides really means this thing, what I just called the fourth model. And then this really is the concept of miracle we’re used to, meaning the one we usually talk about. That’s what it seems to me, at least. Fine? Okay, so look—let’s begin from the end, as Jews ought to do. We’ll start from the end, the last paragraph. The last paragraph is Nachmanides’ more famous paragraph, and that’s why I remembered it when we spoke then. And he writes as follows: “And from the great, public miracles a person acknowledges the hidden miracles, which are the foundation of the entire Torah, for a person has no share in the Torah of Moses our teacher until we believe that in all our affairs and all our experiences they are all miracles; there is no nature and no ordinary course of the world in them, whether in public or in private. Rather, if one performs the commandments, his reward will bring him success…” Okay, stop there for a moment. Up to here, from what he says, there is room to understand this as meaning there is no nature.
[Speaker B] Yes, that this is the mutakallimun.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically the conception of the mutakallimun. Basically everything we call nature is hidden miracles, that’s all. There is nothing but hidden miracles, which is basically the conception of the mutakallimun. That’s how I had presented Nachmanides then. So I said that apparently the view of the mutakallimun is really like Nachmanides’ view at the end of Parashat Bo. And then Ari commented to me after the lesson—and I think he was right—that this is not true. Meaning, that is not Nachmanides’ view. Nachmanides does not mean to say that there is no nature, absolutely not. Nachmanides means what I am now continuing to read: “Rather, if one performs the commandments, his reward will bring him success, and if he transgresses them, his punishment will cut him off; everything is by decree of the Most High, as I have already mentioned. And the hidden miracles will become public in relation to the many when there come the promises of the Torah concerning the blessings and the curses, as Scripture said: ‘And all the nations will say: Why has the Lord done thus to this land?’ And they will say: ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers’—so that the matter will become public to all the nations, that it is from the Lord in their punishment. And regarding fulfillment He said: ‘And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord is called upon you, and they shall fear you,’” and so on. What is he really saying? Here he focuses more clearly that he means to say that what happens to us is the result of the commandments and sins that we perform, the good and the bad. He does not mean to say that everything that happens in the world is that. That’s not written here. At least I don’t see that here.
[Speaker C] It doesn’t say that it isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t say that it isn’t—we’ll soon see. But what does it say positively? No, no—at the beginning too it also doesn’t say that it isn’t. Because he says, “until we believe that in all our affairs and all our experiences they are all miracles.” You have to understand: according to the definition, if he really were like the mutakallimun, then there is no such thing as miracles. Well, you can say he means what you call miracles is really everything. That’s possible; it’s not decisive proof. But it seems to me that what he means to say is that all our affairs and all our experiences—what happens to us—like the Maharal says, that it applies only to the Jewish people, connected to the separate realm, and so on—meaning he is referring to things that happen to us. He says all of them, our experiences and our affairs, all of them, yes, “there is no nature and no ordinary course of the world in them.” He speaks generally. For some reason I remembered it as “there is no nature and no ordinary course of the world in them at all,” but yes, he says they are all miracles. Yes, he makes some sweeping statement, and still it seems to me that you can’t derive from here a conception like that of the mutakallimun. Rather, this is really the fourth conception, the conception of miracle that says there is nature. Of course there is nature, and the world behaves according to the laws of nature. And this nature too consists of forces, as Maimonides says—that behind it stand forces that actualize this regular behavior. But don’t think that we are also entirely subject to those forces. What happens to us is indeed the result of the commandments and transgressions that we perform. Now—to what extent? Regarding nature he says all of them, our experiences and our affairs, all of them, yes, “there is no nature and no ordinary course of the world in them.” It seems from him that this really is a very sweeping, very strong statement. I’m not sure I would go that far, but in terms of the basic model, it seems to me this is the model—the fourth model, not the model of the mutakallimun.
[Speaker B] Because in Nachmanides this thing screams it loudly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Yes, well, he does say it differently. Meaning, he says that in the end there are interventions, and these interventions are not the result of forces; they are the result of intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He. But He intervenes within a nature that really does operate by forces—that is, nature as we ordinarily understand it. Meaning, this model says there are two systems: one of them with laws that are the result of the action of forces, and the second one—maybe it has laws, maybe not, I don’t know—but in any case these are at most laws of probability, not laws that are the result of the action of forces. Yes, that is the fourth model. And if we now go back to the beginning of his words, then let’s see this a bit more strongly. What he really means to speak about is indeed a model of providence, human beings, commandments and sins. He is not speaking here about our conception of nature; I don’t think that is his intention at all. That’s not the context in which these words appear. So let’s look now at the beginning: “And now I will tell you a general principle and the reason for many commandments. Behold, from the time idolatry came into the world in the days of Enosh, opinions began to become confused in faith. Some denied the root principle and said that the world is eternal; they denied the Lord and said, ‘It is not He.’ And some denied His particular knowledge and said, ‘How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?’ And some admitted knowledge but denied providence”—they know that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything, but does not oversee everything; no, He does not act in the world, rather He is passive, He merely has the information, okay?—“and they made man like the fish of the sea, over whom God does not watch.” “Does not watch” means does not act with respect to them, yes? He knows what’s happening with the fish, but He does not act with respect to them. “And there is no punishment or reward for them; they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the earth.’ And when God desires for a community or an individual and performs for them a wonder by changing the customary way of the world and its nature, the falsity of all these views becomes clear to everyone. For the wondrous sign indicates that the world has a God who originated it, and knows, and oversees, and is able. And when that wonder has first been decreed by the mouth of a prophet, then the truth of prophecy also becomes clear from it.” Right? If some unusual wonder just happens, that is indeed surprising; it seems there is some other hand here. But if the prophet says in advance that a wonder will occur, and then it actually occurs, that is of course much stronger. “For God speaks with man and reveals His secret to His servants the prophets, and with this the whole Torah is validated. Therefore Scripture says regarding the wonders: ‘So that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth’—to indicate providence, that He has not abandoned it to chance events as the believers in chance think,” meaning the laws of nature, yes? That’s what he means by chance events—that the laws of nature are not what governs matters here, but rather the Holy One, blessed be He. “And it says, ‘So that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s’—to indicate creation, for it is His, who created it from nothing. And it says, ‘So that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth’—to indicate ability, that He rules over all and nothing can prevent Him.” What does “rules over all” mean? Again, as I read this, there are laws of nature. The Holy One, blessed be He, created them, okay, but once He created them, there are laws. True—but since He created them, the same mouth that bound can release; meaning He can also intervene. That’s all. But he does not say there are no laws. Fine? “For in all these matters the Egyptians denied or doubted. Thus the great signs and wonders are faithful witnesses to faith in the Creator and in the entire Torah.” So that is about the purpose of the signs. After that he moves on—maybe we’ll read the last paragraph: “And because the Holy One, blessed be He, will not perform a sign and wonder in every generation before the eyes of every wicked or heretic…” I don’t think he means to say that because we are wicked and heretics He doesn’t do miracles for us, because that was true then too. Rather, he means that today, although there are wicked and heretics, they don’t have this tool to deal with wickedness and heresy by means of miracles, as there once was. So what do we do? Right? What is the solution? “And He was very strict in this matter, as He made one liable to karet for eating leavened food and for neglecting the Passover offering.” If you remember, in one of the previous years I spoke a bit about this issue: that the prohibition on eating leavened food, or deriving benefit from leavened food, and also, in my opinion, the prohibitions of it not being seen or found in your possession—they are not, as preachers usually say, that leaven and sourdough are the evil inclination and all that, and that one must eradicate evil. There is no connection between leavened food and evil. Otherwise there would be some point in not eating leavened food all year. I mean, maybe not an obligation, but some value in it, right? Let’s be more careful to eradicate evil, and let’s be careful not to eat leavened food all year. Nobody suggests such a thing. Here, pride and all those speeches. Leavened food is leavened food. The prohibitions of leavened food are a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. That’s all. Just as our ancestors did not eat leavened food, as part of the obligation to remember what happened then, we too must not eat leavened food. Now I can prove this from Talmudic passages, from Maimonides, from various places in Jewish law—not in philosophy—that there are clear proofs here, beyond the simple reasoning of course, as I said earlier. Nobody thinks there is some special value in not eating leavened food all year. A value, not an obligation.
[Speaker B] In the Temple, the offering wasn’t leavened food. So what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? Because there too there is some issue that there not be leavened food. Does that mean there is something problematic in leavened food? If there were something problematic in it, then there would be value in being stricter, going beyond the letter of the law more—come on, let’s not eat leavened food at all. In the separate laws. Okay, in any case that’s not correct.
[Speaker B] That’s not proof. It’s a function—it could be a function of time. Meaning, I can take a certain substance that is perfectly fine, and also another substance…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And on Passover suddenly it becomes evil. You put two substances together. You didn’t—you didn’t just put them together then. They are together, water and flour together, also in Kislev, not only when you make doughnuts. Is there some value in not eating doughnuts?
[Speaker B] A matter of time-dependence.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true of most commandments, but it’s time-dependent. But that changes nothing about this leavened food. It’s clearly a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. So you can see it—it’s obvious.
[Speaker B] They want you on Passover to feel a bit of the taste of the separate laws. It’s obvious that this is a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, because it says so explicitly in the Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I want to be stricter with myself, to feel the separate laws all year, to be on a higher spiritual level. Is there such a thing?
[Speaker C] Offer sacrifices every time, in…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Temple.
[Speaker B] No…
[Speaker C] This is again, this is…
[Speaker B] The leavened food is obviously because of remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. Right, that’s all. But to say that it’s…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can say anything. You can say leavened food is—I don’t know—whatever you want, you can say. But the question is what holds water.
[Speaker E] But it seems to me that in that respect, actually—I mean, it definitely seems to me like an interpretive tool to try to look for connections to evil. Because obviously, regardless, it’s clear in the Torah why the prohibition of leavened food exists: as a remembrance of that. But as for the fact that it’s done only on Passover, I can say it’s something that symbolizes, say, complacency and pride, and also being too strict and distancing oneself too much from pride isn’t good. Fine, so I’ll be a bit stricter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or maybe that’s exactly the measure—that one-eighth of one-eighth, that’s Passover. Seven days out of three hundred and sixty-five—multiply by sixty-four, one-eighth of one-eighth; maybe it really comes out close. Okay, not bad, nice little homiletical point. In any case, I can show this in Jewish law too, it’s not… it doesn’t hold water. In any event, the solution…
[Speaker B] Again, it doesn’t hold water… because just by chance they didn’t manage to make…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because it is a means of remembering what happened in the Exodus from Egypt. What do you mean they weren’t commanded… no, we already discussed why they were commanded already from the new moon. We already discussed that—that it’s embedded, doesn’t matter, in the nature of the time, that there is significance to not eating it. But it is not embedded in the nature of the time that leavened food is something evil. Rather, what is embedded in this time is not eating leavened food—but not because of any evil in the leavened food. Fine, never mind—this is only a parenthetical comment, let’s leave it, because Nachmanides here is basically saying this. What is he saying? Therefore they were strict enough to make one liable to karet for eating leavened food. Why? Because this is part of remembering the miracles, right? After all, he is speaking here about the fact that we need to remember the miracles because now miracles are not taking place. Part of the ways in which we remember the miracles is this obligation regarding leavened food—namely, not eating leavened food. Therefore he was also strict and made one liable to karet for this matter.
[Speaker B] The Exodus from Egypt?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—obviously, the Exodus from Egypt.
[Speaker B] The matzah is nothing; it’s just the reminder.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No miracle in the matzah. But it is the reminder; we remember the Exodus from Egypt. Obviously, yes—that’s what we’re talking about. So: “And He required that we write all that was shown to us in signs and wonders on our hands and between our eyes, and that we also write it on the doorposts of our houses in mezuzot, and that we mention this with our mouths morning and evening, as they said, ‘True and firm’ is Torah-level,” what is written: “so that you remember the day of your going out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life,” “and that we make a sukkah every year,” and so on. In short, all these commandments—this is the root, after all he begins this whole passage by saying, “a general principle in the reason for many commandments.” Right, that is the opening sentence. And here he arrives at what he wants to do with this whole passage. He is basically saying that many, many commandments are intended—today it’s impossible otherwise—so the function of the commandments is to perpetuate the miracles that happened then, so that they will have an effect also on us. Fine, that is basically what he is saying.
[Speaker C] And these commandments existed for I don’t know how many hundreds of years, I don’t know how many thousand years, with the miracles—in parallel to those miracles.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t plan in advance when the miracles would stop, so he said: keep this so that we will always remember those miracles. And miracles on that scale really weren’t around anymore—that is, miracles like the splitting of the Red Sea and the ten plagues and so on—that didn’t happen.
[Speaker C] Even in a period when you go to the Temple and see miracles, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, yes, but I don’t think it was on that scale… yes, okay, so you saw the pillar, you saw things there, but not on the scale of the Exodus from Egypt. Never mind, that I can understand in his view; it doesn’t bother me. In any case, that’s his claim. Now here, first of all, what do I want to learn from this Nachmanides? First, it seems to me that there is a fourth model here, and this really is the concept of miracle as we generally know it. Now again, I’m saying, one can argue about the dosage—meaning, to what extent nature affects us, if at all, and to what extent everything depends only on commandments and sins, with no nature at all in what happens to us. I’m not sure I would go all the way with this Nachmanides in terms of degree. But the basic model of what nature is and what miracle is—that seems to me to be the necessary model. The others—I don’t know, it’s a bit hard to accept them for various reasons we discussed.
[Speaker F] Now the second thing—the Nachmanides himself says that this itself also depends on the person’s trust, on the type of person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—meaning, to what extent he merits intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He. Yes, okay, fine. In any case, the second point that appears here in Nachmanides is the role of the miracle. Because according to every such model in which we define what nature is and what miracle is, now we have to think about what the miracle does. According to the mutakallimun, one can perhaps understand the role of the miracle as Nachmanides does. True, there is no miracle in the essential sense, but sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, creates some deviation from the routine, from the fixed regularity, in order to remind us that there is Someone here running the show, so that we don’t fall captive to this conception that everything is the laws of nature. You can understand it like Nachmanides, even though their metaphysical conception is different. Okay? According to Maimonides, it’s a bit harder. True, maybe the influence on us does exist, but in truth, someone who really understands what Maimonides says—there should be no effect at all from a miracle. Meaning, according to that, Maimonides should not have been allowed to write what he wrote, even though Maimonides always violates these sorts of things, because Maimonides also writes laws that one does not instruct people to follow. You know, after all, it’s written in Maimonides that this is the law, but we do not instruct accordingly. And if we do not instruct accordingly, then why are you writing it? Meaning, Maimonides also writes things that one does not teach as practice. But on the principled level, according to Maimonides it is hard to grasp the role of the miracle. And now I’m not talking about what a miracle is, but what it is for, like Nachmanides. The miracle is not supposed to bring us back in repentance. The miracle is only supposed to… it is a miracle—that is, basically the miracle is only an expression of a natural phenomenon that is an expression of a more complex law than we thought. That’s all. It doesn’t reveal anything that ordinary conduct doesn’t reveal. No—that our choices make a difference.
[Speaker C] No—that our choices, yes, that’s the law. The law also, according to Maimonides, is that according to our choices—as we discussed—if you do good, then the law says good will happen to you. That means I learn from this that I need to be good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure. Maimonides didn’t say that. If you say so, then maybe it’s really true, but I’m not sure. That may be more the Maharal…
[Speaker C] Maimonides doesn’t think there is reward and punishment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Reward and punishment—I don’t know, in this world I don’t know, in this world there’s room to discuss it. But regarding the Maharal, I agree more—meaning that there, the separate laws, let’s call them that, it could be that they really are a function of our actions; we talked about the gears. Those separate laws could really be a function of our deeds, only the Maharal argues that there are mechanisms that bring this into effect, because that was already stipulated in the act of Creation. So there too you can understand that the fact that things are a response to our commandments and transgressions really does have some role, although there I think it’s still difficult, because I don’t think you can see it with your eyes, and I also don’t think it was ever really like that, or in most cases and most circumstances in the past, that you could see some direct response to our actions. I don’t think that’s true. What we can see—or what people could see—is deviations from nature, meaning the splitting of the Sea. The splitting of the Sea is not a response to actions. The splitting of the Sea is a suspension of nature. The force of the splitting of the Sea was not because the people of Israel saw that they were so righteous and therefore merited a miracle. The force of the splitting of the Sea was that something happened here that does not usually happen.
[Speaker C] But that’s an element of faith.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, so I’m saying: according to Nachmanides—so I’m saying—it could be that if I see miracles as something that is a response to commandments and transgressions, I understand how they are supposed to strengthen us. But a miracle like the splitting of the Sea is not like that. Fine—but according to Nachmanides it doesn’t matter that it isn’t like that, because Nachmanides doesn’t need the link to commandments and transgressions in order to achieve the result. What he needs is the freezing of the laws. And once you see that the laws are not what run the world, but that sometimes there is a freeze, then what do you learn from that? That there is someone who stands beyond the laws, and they are in His hands; He can freeze them, He can choose not to freeze them. So according to Nachmanides it’s very clear what the role of a miracle is. But according to Maimonides, there is no freezing of the laws here—this is the laws. So what do you learn from that? It could be that the world is built with laws of this kind—one second—the world is built with laws of this kind, fine, and that’s it, with forces and everything, and that’s all, and these are the laws; they have non-regular parts. So what happened? But why does that testify to the existence of the Holy One, blessed be He, any more than the laws as I ordinarily perceive them? In what sense? Therefore it seems to me that in the simple sense at least, according to Maimonides not only is the definition of miracle different, the role of miracle is different. According to Maimonides, a miracle simply has a function. The Holy One, blessed be He—according to Maimonides, again—the miracle, what we call a miracle, meaning the irregularity of the laws, what is its role? So that the people of Israel could successfully cross the Sea. It was not meant so that we would believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, because He arranges the systems of nature; rather, it was meant so that we would succeed in crossing the Sea. If it had not split, how would we have crossed? And the laws of nature—we already said this then, at the very beginning I said, that in fact the concept of miracle weakens the image of the Holy One, blessed be He, in our eyes. Wait, wait, wait—“and they believed in Moses,” fine—but the phenomenon of miracle is a phenomenon that actually weakens our conception of the Holy One, blessed be He, right? Because if He needs miracles, what does that mean? That He did not succeed in making fixed laws that would realize exactly what He wants, and therefore every so often He has to freeze them.
[Speaker B] And that’s an interpretation—
[Speaker H] An unsuccessful one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? If He wants the world to operate according to laws, then fine, let Him make it according to laws. I see that He wants… but here He does make it—I’m saying, my conception is according to laws.
[Speaker H] If He wants there to be His intervention—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why does He want that?
[Speaker H] So that we will see His power.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, so that’s Nachmanides.
[Speaker H] But then how does Maimonides relate to this whole matter of all the remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt? Why remember it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, one second. Remember it in order to thank the Holy One, blessed be He. What do you mean, why remember it? We remember in order to thank the Holy One, blessed be He, and that’s all. It’s not some—it’s not… The whole meaning of miracles receives, I think, a completely different meaning according to Maimonides. It does not come to strengthen our faith that the Holy One, blessed be He, rules nature. Miracles are functional miracles. Meaning: simply, the Holy One, blessed be He—the laws would not have enabled us to cross the Sea, the ordinary laws of nature, if they were totally regular. How would we have been saved? He wanted to save us, so He built such laws in advance. He already built the laws in advance in such a way that we would succeed in crossing the Sea. This proves nothing to us about the power of the Holy One, blessed be He, or His control over nature. It says nothing. It could be that these are the ordinary laws; if we measured with an ammeter, and discovered more precisely, we would discover that the law is like this, and that’s all—and we’d be left with Dawkins.
[Speaker C] But Maimonides also says to look at nature and discover the wondrous act of the Creator, right? Right, in nature. So look at nature with the non-regular laws, all the more so… why not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is more wondrous in this than in that? There is nothing more wondrous. This law and that law. So that people will be impressed. That’s exactly the point, and that’s the point I already want to make—and exactly, “that I may multiply My signs and My wonders.”
[Speaker F] The Holy One, blessed be He, says, “I will multiply My signs and My wonders,” and then it continues, “and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.” So it implies that the Holy One, blessed be He, says that I am doing this—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I agree. I’m saying: that is the ordinary conception of miracle; it is certainly Nachmanides. No—what will Maimonides do with that? I don’t know. What—tell me what he’ll do. You tell me what he’ll do.
[Speaker C] He writes that whoever—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. So what? I don’t know. It requires analysis, what he’ll do. I don’t know. I said that the simple conception is Nachmanides—that’s clear.
[Speaker C] It seems not as you see it; it’s more psychological.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because they still hadn’t learned Maimonides. No, really—that’s what I said before. That Maimonides really should not have written this, because it’s obvious that the effect on us is such an effect. Psychologically, this certainly works. It’s just that after Maimonides wrote this, he basically neutralized that effect. So in effect this is a case of “the Jewish law is so, but we do not instruct accordingly,” even though it’s true. The truth is that this shouldn’t have that effect. So now maybe Maimonides wrote it because by now there are no miracles, so he isn’t concerned that we’ll err in interpreting them.
[Speaker C] But also in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, that whoever believes because of miracles has a flaw in his heart. Meaning, one should not believe because of miracles.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, although the question is whether that is a value statement or a logical statement. Meaning: don’t believe because of a miracle because in truth it doesn’t lead to faith any more than the absence of miracle does, or because one should not believe because of miracle since you should have believed in the Holy One, blessed be He, even beyond miracles. The question is how you interpret that. The Maharal talks about this, but I’m not—again. This transition too, this transition too, is made by Him. So why talk about secondary laws, if in any case the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself makes the transition—then just say that He does the thing itself. Why the laws?
[Speaker F] Maimonides wants to say that everything is—there is a system of laws.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he says the opposite. He says it is one law—quite the opposite, he insists on saying that it is only an ordinary system of laws; overall it’s just irregularity within the ordinary laws. As opposed to the Maharal, who really does speak in that language. And I think one of the reasons Maimonides doesn’t want that is because of these problems we saw in the Maharal’s words: how do you define what is one kind of system and what is another kind of system? It’s a collection of laws of nature, that’s all. What defines these as natural and those as non-natural? Maimonides says: these are all the same laws of physics.
[Speaker B] I’m not saying natural and non-natural, I’m saying the transition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if you say transition, you’ve gained nothing. If you say there is a transition, then you’ve already gained nothing, because if in any case the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes to move me from here to there, then that thing itself has no explanation in terms of the laws. That is intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He. So what do I care that here there are laws? What have I gained? I’ve gained nothing from that. So then it no longer matters; then intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He, is needed here—it isn’t operating in a completely mechanical way in any case. So I no longer see an essential difference. Fine? So here the question really is: the role of miracle suddenly appears now in a completely different way. The role of miracle is simply to make sure the thing happens, according to Maimonides, yes—because without the miracle, the people of Israel simply would have drowned.
[Speaker H] But they didn’t have to go down to Egypt. The Holy One, blessed be He, arranged that they would go down to Egypt and that they would leave.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One, blessed be He—I’ll explain there the same thing. That too is a natural phenomenon that also needs explaining, right? Those too are events that happened. The splitting of the Sea catches history in the middle. Maimonides will explain everything all along the way, from the Big Bang. Meaning, it makes no difference; there is no essential difference. If the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene and everything is built into the laws of nature, then everything is built into the laws of nature, including Israel’s descent to Egypt—everything. It didn’t start at the splitting of the Sea. So we gain nothing from this. Therefore in the end the role of miracle is also a different role. Now here—well, I see I’m already running out of time—but here this really is an interesting question that I spoke about. Maybe I spoke about it in Elul. I think I spoke about it in Elul, right? About the question whether a miracle really ought to inspire us more than ordinary conduct does. Yes, I spoke about whether we went down a level or rose a level.
[Speaker C] Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With that song—if that was in Elul. Yes, exactly. So actually I don’t need to say it now, so I’ll say it only telegraphically, and I’ll say this: really, according to Maimonides, it could be that now we need to go one step further. I’m returning to what I said then, only now I’m grounding it in Maimonides. The truth is that being impressed by miracles is really not much. Because in my view, the regular conduct of the world, the non-miraculous conduct, is far more awe-inspiring than miracles. Think: if there were lots of miracles, then of course nobody would be impressed—then it would just be chaos. Right? Now there’s a little chaos, so a little chaos is something so surprising, but it’s actually less surprising than full regularity. Arrive at full regularity—that’s amazing. Meaning, if the world operated only in a fixed way with no miracles at all, that would be the most awe-inspiring thing possible. Because then it would mean that everything is truly unbelievable—there is someone here who managed this whole business in a perfect way, everything according to the laws. The fact that the laws can’t do everything, because sometimes some irregularity is needed, might actually lessen the degree of awe, as I said before. It somewhat lowers the appreciation of the Holy One, blessed be He, because evidently He did not manage—did not manage, in quotation marks—to create a system of laws that would realize everything He wants; sometimes He still has to intervene. Fine? So that basically means that there is, as it were, something lacking here. And I think I spoke about this then: it could be that this is simply impossible, and therefore He did not succeed. Like a square circle. Because there is no system of laws that can do this—certainly not as a response to human choices, because human beings can freely choose whatever they want.
[Speaker C] No, but it’s a finite number of possibilities, so what do you mean they can choose whatever they want?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but if you want to define forces that will produce specific results—
[Speaker C] It’s chaos, very complex chaos, that someone who contains everything—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] pushes by means of forces, not laws of regularity. Laws of regularity you can make behind anything you want. Any collection of phenomena you want, you can find regularity behind it—that’s Wittgenstein, we talked about that. But when you want to create a system of forces that produces everything, it’s not certain that there is even such a thing.
[Speaker C] And to say that in ninety-nine point forty-nine percent of cases it’s like that, so to get there, apparently yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s like topological effects, you know—there are points where the whole thing breaks. Meaning, there are places where it cannot happen. And therefore, since it cannot, then He cannot; even the impossible the Holy One, blessed be He, does not do. A square circle—He cannot do that either. So we talked about this then: it could be that this too does not detract from His omnipotence, because it could be that doing such a thing belongs to the category of the impossible. We also talked about evil. It could be that this is an explanation for evil, perhaps. By evil I mean not something that is a response to what a person deserves because he did something bad—fine. But if a baby dies, or… with no wrongdoing in his hands, what could be the explanation for that? Or the explanation is that there is nothing to be done—meaning, if I want laws of this kind, then these are the necessary consequences; there is no way to do it differently, unless of course one intervenes and freezes the laws. If the Holy One, blessed be He, decides that it will operate according to laws, then this is what comes out, and then I do not have to find theological explanations for the deaths of babies. If we talked about that—in any case, for our purposes, awe before nature, at least certainly in Maimonides’ conception—and I think more generally, not only in Maimonides’ conception; in Maimonides’ conception there is only this. If I now stop the psychological illusions that existed in the past—now I’ve already learned Maimonides, now I already know—so now I’m not impressed by miracles at all, so I shouldn’t be impressed by the Holy One, blessed be He? On the contrary: then I’m impressed by the fact that He created a world with laws like these that govern it, and look what an amazing thing. Meaning, the whole business runs. And once the business runs according to fixed laws—and notice, certainly if it’s set and forget, that’s even more so, by the way—the awe of the Holy One, blessed be He, grows the less He intervenes. Meaning, if He set the laws in advance, as Maimonides said, and conditioned the act of Creation in advance with the non-regular parts as well, and this whole business proceeds exactly in the direction it is supposed to proceed by virtue of those laws that were fixed then—that is much greater wisdom.
[Speaker G] Just like there are smaller laws.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even more so, exactly—and that is Dawkins’s conception.
[Speaker C] You’re saying that when babies die, that’s just how a system of laws operates as it needs to—but when there is the splitting of the Sea, if the sea had not split then the children of Israel would have died, Heaven forbid, yes? So here too you would be impressed because the business is running—you’d be very impressed. Right, because the business would be running very—right, I’m not impressed that there is injustice in the world, or—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a world that operates in a way of injustice. I’m not morally impressed; I’m logically impressed by this creation—
[Speaker C] this thing called the world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course I’m impressed, what do you mean?
[Speaker C] What kind of creation is this world, where babies are constantly dying, Heaven forbid?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? But you see the amazing things that are here. What difference does it make that babies die? The fact that babies die is a moral injustice; I’m talking about physical awe. No, the two don’t go together. I’m looking at the creation, at the machine, this creation of the world. I don’t know—for me they don’t go together. They are two different things.
[Speaker B] It’s not falsifiable. What? You went back to Dawkins—the same thing, it’s not falsifiable.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not falsifiable—a claim about anything.
[Speaker B] What, which claim? The claim that now, according to Maimonides, everything was planned in advance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. No, certainly—Maimonides is not making a claim that is falsifiable. Of course not.
[Speaker B] What do you mean? That too is not falsifiable. Certainly. Certainly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly. Certainly, assuming that this is—
[Speaker B] No, obviously, obviously, it’s all a claim that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But Dawkins accuses religious people of making claims that are not falsifiable. I’m only saying: first correct yourself. I’m not saying they make different claims. He’s right, he’s right—but you also make such claims. Anyone who makes theological claims—they are not falsifiable, whether you are for theology or against it. It makes no difference; it’s the same thing. After all, if it’s because their claims are not falsifiable, then my claims are also not falsifiable, because a refutation of his claims is proof of my claims and vice versa. If he makes that claim against me, then by definition he is also making it against himself. Fine, okay, so we’ll continue next time.