Halakhic Thought – 5783 – Lesson 18

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

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, let’s get back to our topic and cut through all of this. Right, so—I was living in Yeruham. And at a certain point, the guys there from the Haredi community used to travel to Midreshet Sde Boker, which is a branch of Ben-Gurion University. And every so often there was transportation in the afternoon; they would pray Mincha and Ma’ariv there, and in between they’d give a lecture and then head back. Okay? Why? Because there were two traditional guys there for whom this was very important. That was it—there weren’t really any religious people there at all, just two traditional guys, the doctor—by the way, a Hadassah graduate—and someone else, some kind of farm manager. And they wanted the synagogue to be a little active, to hear lectures and so on, so they organized the ride, the budget, everything, and brought the guys there.

At a certain point, the people there went into hysterics. The residents, the other people living there—Ben-Gurion lecturers and the like—went into hysterics. Why? “The Haredim are about to come, they’ll buy houses here, close our streets, wipe us out.” So they set up an association, went to the press, there was a huge uproar. Nobody knew what to do with it. The guys in the Haredi community in Yeruham asked me whether I’d be willing to go speak with the action committee of that association. So we had a meeting there with the committee of that association, and there was no one to talk to. They came to issue an ultimatum: get out of here, period.

But after a week or two—I don’t even remember how it developed—a request came from the residents for some kind of meeting that was more about listening, more about actually talking and hearing each other and not just issuing ultimatums. And then indeed more people were present than those three committee members. There were, I don’t know, twenty people, something like that, twenty-five people. And we spoke with them.

And in the course of that, I started speaking and asking them a few questions, and at a certain point the penny dropped for me—the point I’m going to tell you today. That’s where it hit me. So it works like this. They said to us—someone asked me something like this: “Why are you coming to our place to restrict us, to crowd us out here, and bring your ideas? Leave us alone, let everyone live their own life, each river in its own course. We’re not coming to you to persuade you not to light Sabbath candles, so why are you coming to us to…” Right, to light Sabbath candles, yes.

Now, I’m not even talking about the fact that nobody was trying to persuade anybody. They were simply sitting in a synagogue and two people came and heard the lecture. It’s not as though they were roaming the streets hunting children to get them to light Sabbath candles. Nobody was dealing with that at all. But there was some kind of fear. The fear I can understand. There are places where people really do behave in problematic ways. But there it genuinely wasn’t grounded in the facts.

In any case, they asked me that question. I said to them: why indeed don’t you come to persuade me not to light Sabbath candles? Why don’t you come? They presented that as some kind of moral virtue they possessed, and why I was behaving so badly. I asked: why is that a moral virtue? Why don’t you come? Do you really think I shouldn’t light Sabbath candles? Then come persuade me. Maybe you’ll succeed. What can happen?

Now, there were all kinds of answers there, and I rejected all of them—I said I didn’t agree. And little by little I realized they couldn’t give me any answer, because I was rejecting all the answers with exactly the same logic. And that’s a very important point, because at a certain point I suddenly grasped that something here was broken. I started thinking to myself: wait, so how can that be? So it’s impossible to give an explanation for tolerant behavior? Meaning, I’ll give you a sense of how it went there, approximately as far as I remember, so you’ll understand the essence of the matter.

So they ask me, “Why are you coming to us? We don’t come to you to persuade you not to light Sabbath candles.” I ask them, “Why really don’t you come?” One answer was: “Why should I care if you light Sabbath candles?” And I say, fine, okay—but I care that you don’t light Sabbath candles. So you don’t come because you don’t care, fine. But I do come because I do care. So what kind of claim is this—“I don’t come to you, so why do you come to me”? You don’t come to me because you don’t care.

More than that, I ask: the fact that you don’t care about me—is that a moral virtue or a moral deficiency? I care about you and you don’t care about me, and you wave that around as though you’re the virtuous one and I’m behaving improperly? That seems strange to me. Usually caring about another person is something that ought to get more moral credit. I don’t know, morality, whatever—leave the labels aside. According to what’s right: if I care about someone, then I’m moral, and if I don’t care, then I’m less moral. That’s all. So this claim—“Why should I care whether you light Sabbath candles?”—to my mind falls away. I don’t understand why that’s a relevant argument.

Others told me, “Look, in any case we won’t succeed. You won’t listen to us.” I said, fine, if that’s the case then of course you don’t come. It would just be a waste of time to come. But if I come to you and I decide anyway to spend the time, and maybe I even hope someone will listen to me—then I’m in the wrong? What’s the problem exactly? You don’t come because you don’t want to waste your time, because you think it won’t help and nobody will listen. But I’m giving you credit; I think maybe you will listen to me, and that’s why I come. So what is the basis of the comparison that if you don’t come, then I also shouldn’t come? So I rejected that too.

So in effect we dropped the answer of “Why should I care about you,” we dropped the answer of “You won’t listen to me.” Then another answer: “If I come to you, then you’ll come to me, and I don’t want that. I want each person to live by his own faith.” Right—if I come… again, then if you don’t come because you’re afraid of the consequences, that’s not a moral virtue. You don’t come because you have an interest in not coming. You can’t pride yourselves on not coming when all you’re doing is looking out for yourselves. I told you: look, I’m coming anyway. So now I’m coming anyway, and you haven’t achieved your goal that I wouldn’t come. So now come—persuade me, because I’m already coming to you anyway. You don’t come to me because you’re worried I’ll come to you? Well, here I came anyway, despite the fact that you don’t come. It didn’t help you at all. So that argument doesn’t hold water either.

Someone else said to me, “Look, it doesn’t really do any harm. Do what you want… In our eyes it’s really nonsense, but it doesn’t really harm anything. Why should I care? Lighting Sabbath candles—who’s harmed by that?” I said, fine, but I claim that if you don’t light Sabbath candles, then there is harm. So you don’t come to me because it’s truly unnecessary, a waste of time, because it doesn’t cause harm. But I come to you because I think what you’re doing is harmful, and I’m trying to save you from that harm.

[Speaker C] Okay? But how did you get into that game with them at all? You were… the whole game of “I’m coming in order to do something here”—that’s because you entered their field.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. I told them, look, first of all my claim is that people aren’t coming at all in order to persuade anyone, and nobody’s doing anything to them. Whoever comes to the synagogue comes, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. Why do you care? That’s point one. After that I said to them, look, you’ve managed to annoy me—not in those words—but fine, I do come to persuade you. Now explain to me why that isn’t okay. Okay? What exactly is wrong with that? And I’m not talking about coercion; I’m talking about trying to persuade.

And I ask just generally—this is an absurd view. You’re telling me that I’m not okay because I come to try to persuade you of something where maybe you’re mistaken, and I think you’re mistaken and that I’m right? You’re an adult. I’m not talking about grabbing your child, who can’t cope and doesn’t know what’s going on, and brainwashing him. You’re an adult, a university lecturer, a professor. I come and try to persuade him to light Sabbath candles. Don’t be persuaded—health to you, go play soccer. But what’s wrong with the fact that I’m trying to persuade you? Even if I actually were doing that. I don’t understand this twisted logic. What’s the problem with it?

So there was some embarrassment there, “pluralism” started coming up, and that’s where pluralism and all those stories came in. And at a certain point basically… yes, so they said, “No, there is no truth, everyone is right, each person should live by his own faith, we’re pluralists.” Fine—but I’m not a pluralist. Is pluralism a moral virtue—to be a pluralist? It’s a philosophical view. You think both sides are right, or not wrong, or there is no right—however you want to phrase it. Fine, that’s your philosophical view. I think only one side is right and the other is mistaken. That’s my philosophical view. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. According to your view I probably can’t be wrong, because there is no wrong. But even if I’m wrong, that’s not moral wickedness. So what’s the problem? I think there is truth, and therefore I come to persuade you. You think there is no truth, so of course you won’t come persuade me, because I’m not mistaken. Why would you persuade someone who isn’t mistaken—even by your own lights? I think you’re mistaken according to my view, so I come to persuade you.

In short, something came out there that in the end made me myself uncomfortable. Because somehow what came out was—I told them, look, I too am tolerant, I hold by the value of tolerance, I believe in the value of tolerance, and I’m trying to think how tolerant behavior can actually be grounded. And it turns out that tolerant behavior can’t be grounded. Why? Now notice what came out of that short dialogue. There were a few more stages—it doesn’t matter, I’m skipping the details, and I don’t remember them all anyway. All the arguments that came up there—and more came up—I rejected all of them in exactly the same way. You see, it all gets rejected in the same way. And suddenly I realized there was one single logic here responsible for everything.

And the point is this: if you have a reason why you don’t come to persuade me, then there is no moral virtue in that. Right? All the arguments were basically of the same type. If you have some reason, if you can explain why it’s pointless to come, then there is no moral virtue in your not coming. On the other hand, if you have no reason, then why indeed not come? You tell me, no, no—there’s a moral virtue in not coming, in not coming to persuade the other person. But no reason can explain that, because the moment there is a reason, there’s no moral virtue; but if there’s no reason, then it’s just stupid behavior. Why do something for no reason? Why not do something for no reason?

[Speaker C] Tolerance as an excuse for not coming to explain?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. The value of tolerance—where does it come from? How can something like that be grounded? There’s some kind of tangle here, and it’s really a logical tangle. And if we break it down further, then look what came out of all my arguments. In order to be called tolerant—that is, I don’t come bother you because I’m tolerant, say—for me to be able to say that sentence, for me to count as tolerant, the following conditions have to hold. I have to assume that I’m right and you’re wrong. I must not be a pluralist. If I’m a pluralist, then the fact that I don’t come to you is worthless—obviously. If you’re not wrong and I’m not right, why should I come persuade you? Right?

So I must not be a pluralist. In order to be tolerant, I must not be a pluralist. Notice the difference between the terms. Meaning: I have to believe that I’m right and you’re wrong. I must not be driven by the fear that if I come to you, you’ll come to me, because otherwise again there’s no credit in it—I don’t deserve moral credit for that, I’m simply doing it out of fear. I have to believe that if I come to you, you’ll listen to me, or at least there’s a chance you’ll listen to me, because otherwise, again, I don’t come because it’s a waste of time, not because there’s some moral virtue in not coming. Right? So I need to believe that you’ll listen to me, and I need to believe that if you don’t listen to me there’s harm in that, because if there’s no harm, then again, why should I care—do whatever you want, why would I come persuade you? There’s no harm in it.

So look at what has to hold in order to count as tolerant. In order to count as tolerant, I have to believe that I’m right and you’re wrong, that there is one truth, to be a monist and not a pluralist, okay? I have to believe that your mistake is harmful. Wait, Rabbi—why is one not allowed to be a pluralist?

[Speaker C] Because—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I’m a pluralist, then you’re not mistaken. So why would I come persuade you? I don’t come because there’s no point in coming. I come to persuade someone because I think he’s mistaken. If I don’t think he’s mistaken, then do whatever you want. So in short: I need to assume I’m right and you’re wrong; I have to be a monist in order to be tolerant. I have to believe your mistake is harmful. I have to care about you, because if not, again, it’s not a moral virtue that I don’t come. It has to be that if I come to you, I believe—assume—that maybe you can listen to me, that there’s some chance it might work, because otherwise again there’s no point in coming, it’s a waste of time. I have to not be afraid that you’ll come back at me, because otherwise again the fact that I don’t come is due to self-interested considerations, not due to moral virtue.

Now I say: if I think I’m right and you’re wrong, and I can influence you, and if I don’t influence you there will be harm, and I care about you—then why on earth not come? After all, all the reasons are there to come. You’re wrong, I can influence you and prevent harm, and I care about you—so all the reasons say that I should come. And then I say: no, and nevertheless I don’t come because I’m tolerant. What, is “tolerant” just stupid? There’s something illogical here. That is: if there’s a reason for the tolerant behavior, then it isn’t tolerance. If there’s no reason, then it’s stupidity—it’s irrational behavior. Someone is causing harm to himself, to others, whatever; you can prevent it, you care about him, and you won’t come, won’t prevent the harm? Why not?

[Speaker C] Wait—tolerance in the discussion, what even is tolerance?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tolerance means, let’s say for the sake of this very simple definition, not interfering in another person’s life. In my view, tolerance means not coercing. Not coming to persuade has nothing to do with tolerance—it’s just not caring. But I went with them even on their own terms. And I said to them: so explain it to me. What is the meaning of this? An adult whom you can come and speak with, save him from a mistake, you care about him, and you know he’s mistaken, and you’re not afraid of anything—so why not come? All the reasons are there to come. So why not come?

And then in the end I understood that this paradox exists in relation to almost every value. Think, for example, about humility. The value of humility. There’s value in being humble, okay? Now suppose I—yes, the famous story of the Kotzker. The midrash says that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah on Mount Sinai because it was the lowest mountain—humble. The Kotzker asks: so why didn’t He give it in a valley? A valley is even lower than Mount Sinai. So he answers: because it’s no great feat for a valley to be humble; you have to be a humble mountain. Because if you’re not a mountain, there’s nothing for you to be proud of, so it’s not called being humble. It’s called being realistic, not being humble. Okay?

So understand that in the realm of humility too there’s basically a very similar move. Meaning: if I have no reason to be proud, then I’m not considered humble. But if I do have reason to be proud, then why not be proud? And if you go through all the values you can think of, it seems to me at least, I think in all of them you can formulate basically the same structure. If you’re doing it for certain reasons you can give for your behavior, then it has lost its moral value. You have considerations why you did it or didn’t do it. But if there are no reasons, then why do it? It’s irrational. So in a certain sense, almost every value, or every value-laden behavior, is exposed to this logical paradox. There’s something here that basically says there is no such thing as value-laden behavior. Either the behavior is self-interested, in which case it isn’t value-laden, or if there is no interest and no explanation, then why actually do it?

[Speaker C] One could argue that a value—values serve reality, a desired reality. Say, for example, humility: if I’m an arrogant person, then now, I don’t know, he causes social rifts and so on, all kinds of things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that he doesn’t cause social rifts. Humility itself as against pride in itself, apart from the damages this causes. The simple understanding is that the problem here isn’t the damage it causes.

[Speaker C] If pride didn’t cause damage?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there would still be a problem with being arrogant. In many places you can see this—

[Speaker C] In the Sages.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “He crowds out the feet of the Divine Presence.” It’s not about damage.

[Speaker C] But that’s because of the damage caused.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—he crowds out the feet of the Divine Presence. What do you mean, you’re arrogant? You’re a created being. The Holy One, blessed be He—how can you be arrogant?

[Speaker C] That too is a kind of damage. Damage to whom? Who is harmed by it? What does damage mean with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Damage even with respect to yourself. Nobody is harmed by it. No. What does that mean, with respect to myself? Because it’s not okay to be arrogant. And that’s exactly what I’m asking—why? If there’s something you can point to, then the problem isn’t character traits, the problem is the result. If there’s no problematic result, then why not? What’s the problem? Right, there’s no—

[Speaker D] Problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, and therefore I say: with every value-laden behavior, basically—at least that’s how it seems to me—you can formulate a similar paradox. Meaning, if you have a good explanation why you behave that way, then it’s not value-laden behavior. You’re doing it because of the explanation. And if there is no explanation, then why do it? It isn’t rational. I think the answer to all these questions is the same answer. The penny dropped for me there. When I—let’s talk about coercion, because coming to persuade isn’t even related to tolerance; that’s just not caring. Let’s talk—I ask the question “why not?” that I asked them there. Forget why persuade you; explain to me why not come and coerce you. What’s the justification? If you say I won’t come coerce you because then you’ll come coerce me back, or because you’re more violent—that’s not a value-based reason. Right, it’s self-interested.

[Speaker C] Even if coercion will create antagonism, that too is self-interested.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore I can repeat the entire process I described here also with respect to coercion, not only with respect to going to persuade. Every behavior that receives a value-based explanation gets stuck in this tangle. And the question is how I can nevertheless explain value-laden behavior.

[Speaker C] Maybe, Rabbi, if we take coercion for example—we say what characterizes a person, his being created in the image of God, is choice, free choice. If he does it not out of free choice, then I lose the very creature called man. It turns into something else. So in that sense this value really does have some meaning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why is it problematic to harm his image of God?

[Speaker C] Ah, that’s something else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is it that there’s no damage?

[Speaker C] No additional damage. No, assuming that, say, I love a person and I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “I love a person”—then you’ve brought your gut into it. I’m asking a value question, not a question of what you love.

[Speaker C] I value the person, no matter what.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “value” mean? So I say: why value the person? Does that have value? Explain it to me. What results does it have? I’ll repeat the exact same dilemma on any explanation you offer. I’ll try to sharpen it, because I think this is what you mean. Look, in every explanation of value-laden behavior, it can never be an explanation in terms of interest, right? Because if it’s interest, then it isn’t value-laden behavior. But that doesn’t mean there’s no explanation. The explanation can be the value. The value is an explanation.

I don’t come to coerce you even though I care about you, and even though what you’re doing is harmful, and even though I’m not afraid you’ll come coerce me back, and even though I estimate that you’ll listen to me—or I don’t know, that there’s a chance I’ll succeed in changing your behavior. Why don’t I do it? Because I believe in the value of tolerance. That itself is a value. Not because of some self-interested reason, because if there were always a self-interested reason, that would be an alternative to the value-based explanation. Meaning: every value-based explanation, by definition, can never be based on pointing to some interest that is harmed or achieved in this way.

[Speaker E] And who needs that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nobody needs it. That’s exactly the question. When you ask “who needs it,” you’re already dragging me into the whole world of interests, and what I want to argue here is exactly that a person can act not only in the name of, or for the sake of, interests. There are other reasons for human action. In other contexts this is called altruism. And yes, it is possible.

The claim—there are many people who really do argue this, and there are columns about it on the website—that every human action has some kind of interest behind it: internal, external, a feeling of satisfaction, whatever; that too is an interest. Doesn’t matter—there’s always some interest. And I argue: no. If behind every human action there were an interest, there would be no actions with moral value in the world. Because then you’re coming to achieve an interest—why should anyone value you for that? You don’t deserve moral credit for it.

[Speaker D] Rather, one acts according to reason—you act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I say: if you don’t accept that there are actions with moral value, that’s one thing. But anyone who assumes that there are actions that have moral value must accept that there are altruistic actions.

[Speaker F] What do you mean, “assumes”? “Anyone who assumes”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—anyone who presupposes, not defines. Anyone who thinks this is true. It’s not a definition. You’re right.

[Speaker F] And what can’t be proven, can’t be proven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, that’s right. The most fundamental things can’t be proven. Okay. A proof is something built on assumptions; we talked about that. So in the end what I want to argue—and this confuses many, many people, including philosophers, who constantly tie moral behavior to the fact that it gives me satisfaction, or that it gives someone else satisfaction—that is the naturalistic fallacy. Yes, David Hume’s. You can’t explain a norm on the basis of a fact. The ought on the basis of the is. The is is the fact, what exists—that’s facts. The ought, what should be done—you can’t explain on the basis of the is alone. There’s no such thing. That’s called the naturalistic fallacy. Later on it got that name.

[Speaker C] Is the naturalistic fallacy looking for justifications of morality in nature?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in facts. Not necessarily in nature—in facts. The claim that you explain norms by means of facts. But there is no argument whose premises are facts and whose conclusion is a norm; that’s an invalid argument. When I say: this wall is white, therefore this wall is beautiful—that’s an invalid argument. Why? Because the premise is a fact: this wall is white. The conclusion is a judgment. He would call it an aesthetic judgment, not an ethical one, but it’s still a judgment—that this wall is beautiful. A judgment never comes out of premises that are only facts. For the argument to be valid you need to add a premise, for example, that what is white is beautiful. But notice: that premise is already not a fact. Right? “What is white is beautiful” is not a fact; there’s already some judgmental dimension here. Therefore premises that are only facts will never yield a conclusion that is a norm or a judgment. Okay. Conclusions that are facts cannot yield judgments of any kind.

[Speaker E] And what is a proof then? And how would you prove that those are the tools within the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no proof of that. That’s how I think. There’s proof of nothing; we talked about that in previous lectures. That’s how I think. It’s clear to me from my inner experience; I think everyone understands it. People who think otherwise, by the way, that’s because of this paradox. People who think otherwise think that behavior not based on interest can still not be rational behavior. They’re convinced it’s the behavior of an idiot. If there’s nothing in it for you, why are you doing it? Just a fool. “Moral” does not mean “fool.”

And therefore people reach the conclusion that there’s no such thing as altruistic behavior. And what they’re missing is that behavior not based on factual or consequential reasons is not necessarily irrational behavior. Acting in order to be good is not irrational behavior, and that’s exactly what he’s claiming. It’s completely rational behavior. I have other motives—not self-interested motives, but value-based motives. I’m not going to coerce you even though all my reasons to go and do so are present. I can influence you, and what you’re doing is harmful, and I care about you, and all that is true. Why don’t I coerce you? Because I’m tolerant. I believe in the value of tolerance. That itself is an explanation.

I don’t need—one second—I don’t need explanations for the value. Giving an explanation for a value, we talked about this last semester, is an oxymoron. A value explains other things. You can’t explain values. And therefore when I ask why one should be tolerant, that’s an illegitimate question. Tolerance is a value, period. I don’t need explanations for why. I am tolerant, and therefore I don’t coerce you. Because I believe in the value of tolerance.

And therefore, precisely in order to be tolerant, it has to be the case that nothing is present that would give me a self-interested motive for that behavior, because otherwise it isn’t value-based tolerant behavior. So notice what that means: in order to be tolerant you must be a monist. Believe in one value, one truth. You cannot be a pluralist. A pluralist cannot be tolerant. Not only are tolerance and pluralism not the same thing—tolerance and pluralism are opposites. The pluralist cannot be tolerant. Tolerance means accepting an opinion that in my eyes is mistaken—that is what tolerance means. But in the eyes of the pluralist, the other opinion is not mistaken. So he cannot be tolerant. Okay? This is an important point, because as I said, everyone uses them as synonyms. They are not synonyms; they are simply the reverse. In fact, values—not values at all, I’ll say even more. Pluralism, as I said at the beginning, doesn’t even belong to the semantic field of values. Pluralism is a philosophical worldview. Maybe there is one truth, or maybe there are multiple truths. Fine, you can argue about that; in my view you can’t really argue about it, but some claim you can. And that is a philosophical dispute.

But tolerance or intolerance is a moral, value-based, ethical question. So what does pluralism have to do with tolerance? Pluralism belongs to the world of truths—what is true and what is not true—to philosophy, to epistemology if you like, to logic. And tolerance belongs to ethics. How can these be seen as two synonymous terms? They have no connection at all. If anything, there’s an inverse relation. If you are a pluralist, you cannot be tolerant. Not in the sense that pluralism is the opposite of tolerance, but rather that monism as opposed to pluralism is a necessary condition for being tolerant—but not a sufficient one. You can be a monist and not be tolerant. You think the truth is with you, the other is mistaken, and you will not be tolerant toward him. You can be a monist and yes be tolerant. I think I’m right and he’s mistaken, and I am tolerant toward him, toward his mistake. You cannot be a pluralist and tolerant. It cannot be; there’s no such thing. Okay?

[Speaker F] Yes. You said earlier that from your impression, from your experience, you say there really is action that is altruistic. Can you give an example? Because I can’t think of a case where someone does something with no personal interest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no example—you have to examine yourself. When you go and do a good deed, the question is whether there can’t be a situation where you do the good deed because you think that’s the right way to act. Not because it will give you satisfaction afterward, not because afterward you’ll gain something from it—I don’t know what—but rather you do it because you think it’s the right act, the good act. Check—really check yourself. Maybe you’re right. But check yourself carefully, because I don’t think you are. I think you’re trying to force onto reality a conceptual framework that ignores the option I just spoke about.

Many people think: if there’s no explanation, then it can’t be that I behave that way, because what am I—a rational person? So then of course there must always be an explanation. No. There can be an explanation, but not a self-interested explanation—a value-based explanation. I do it because I think it is right. Now that doesn’t mean there is no satisfaction, but it does mean that even if, say, hypothetically, there would be no satisfaction afterward, it could still be that I would do it because I think it’s the right thing to do.

[Speaker F] I understand. This isn’t really related, but if we—what do we call it when there is one truth? Monism. Then apparently it can’t be that both claims are true, so either there is such a possibility as altruistic acts or there isn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim there is. What do you mean?

[Speaker F] So again, then right now there are simply some people who hold this and some people who hold that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because—

[Speaker F] —and there’s no way to prove it, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no way to prove it, but they’re mistaken. Let a blind person come and say, “There is no projector here.” I have no way to prove to him that there is one, but he’s mistaken because I see that there is. The fact that I can’t prove something to someone doesn’t mean there isn’t truth and falsehood here.

[Speaker F] I understand, because the other side will look at you and say: you’re mistaken.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so there’s a dispute here, and still I think he’s mistaken. Sometimes there’s no way to resolve it. Sometimes there is. Sometimes with arguments of one sort or another I can change his mind, or he can change mine. Doesn’t matter—that can happen in both directions. And sometimes not, right.

[Speaker F] So this is basically what we talked about also in scientific conceptions, for example.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the question of—I don’t know—how many ants there are in the world. We talked about this last semester. How many ants are there in the world? I don’t know, someone tells me, say, a trillion, okay?

[Speaker D] A trillion and one, two, a kabillion, okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no way to check that, right? To check in the whole world, count all the ants—you don’t know whom you missed and whom you didn’t, there’s no way to do it. Does that mean there’s no truth and falsehood in this matter? Obviously there is. Meaning: either there are a million ants or there aren’t; there is truth and falsehood here. The fact that I have no way to check a certain claim or persuade someone of a certain claim doesn’t mean there is no truth and falsehood here. Positivists thought that way, but they were mistaken. Logical positivists thought that way.

[Speaker D] What did logical positivists think?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That truth and falsehood are defined only for a claim that is open to scientific confirmation or scientific refutation.

[Speaker D] Meaning if there’s a claim that cannot be verified or refuted, it isn’t considered a truth-or-falsehood claim; it’s simply a meaningless claim. Doesn’t matter—we’ll come back to that in one of the next lectures, as to why we think that’s not right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But not because everyone is right—I’ll get to that shortly. Not because everyone is right. It’s important to me that there be different opinions even though I think the others are mistaken—those who disagree with me.

[Speaker D] And that isn’t pluralism?

[Speaker F] No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That isn’t pluralism, that’s tolerance. That’s exactly where I’m heading.

[Speaker F] What you’re saying is that if, for example, there’s a person interested in anonymous charity, then you can’t call the act he’s doing a value-based act. Right, obviously.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s not for its own sake, then it’s not for its own sake, yes, obviously. It’s like Maimonides in chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance—that’s what he writes.

[Speaker F] I know, but that removes a large part of it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does “removes” mean? Fine, they’ll receive reward as those who serve not for its own sake, okay, but it doesn’t—it has no value-based significance. By the way, even people who do it for the reward, many times that’s not the whole story. People are complex creatures. Yes, exactly—the reward helps me too, but it’s also because I believe it’s right. You know, all kinds of people give charity and then have their names printed in the newspaper—what good people they are, and so on. A cynical view says they gave the charity so their name would appear in the paper. It’s not always like that. It helps that my name appears in the paper, but truly I give because I think it’s right, because that’s the proper thing to do. I think one should be less cynical about human beings. It’s true that all kinds of considerations are mixed in, but there is also the altruistic consideration. There are altruistic actions. On my website I devoted a column to this because it’s such a widespread approach that it was important to me to clarify why I don’t think it’s correct. Okay, but back to our topic.

[Speaker C] Just a question about when you say “interest.” Suppose I now think something is right because of my values and so on, then when I carry out my actions I have an interest in realizing that value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not an interest.

[Speaker C] You could call—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It an interest—again, these are words; I’m not going to argue about words. That’s not what I call an interest. Call it an interest if you want. Interest means I gain something from it.

[Speaker C] Why don’t I gain?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Money, a good feeling, something with monetary worth that you could betroth a woman with. One can betroth with benefit, right? With something of monetary value one can betroth a woman; with a commandment one cannot betroth a woman. Commandments were not given for benefit. A commandment—even though maybe you’ll have reward in the World to Come—that’s not a thing that has value, not value in the ethical sense but value in the economic sense, let’s call it. Yes, exactly. Do you understand? You can call everything an interest, fine. Then no—I have an interest that the world should be better. Fine, that’s an oxymoron. I act so that the world should be better not because I have an interest in it, but because I think that is what is proper. Okay?

[Speaker C] Even if you do have an interest in it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but if it comes from interest, then it really isn’t something of value. If I do it not because of interest but because I think that’s the right thing to do, then it has value. Okay, so what does that actually mean? It means we have two types of behavior that look very similar, but are actually complete opposites: tolerance and pluralism. Tolerance and pluralism both cause me not to coerce someone else. Right? That’s why people confuse the concepts, and why people often call pluralism tolerance and vice versa. Because in practice they appear in the same form. But the reasoning for why I don’t interfere or don’t coerce the other person is opposite.

In the pluralist world, I don’t interfere because I have no reason to interfere. He’s as right as I am, so why would I interfere? Or he’s not right just as I’m not right. But in the tolerant world, the underlying assumption is monistic: I’m right and he’s wrong. I don’t interfere because there is value in tolerance. I’ll say more than that: the value of tolerance itself is not even a fundamental value. The fundamental value underlying it is respect for the autonomy of the other. The other person has to make his own decisions; I’m not supposed to make his decisions for him. And once he has to make his own decisions, there is no justification for coercing him. Because I have to respect his right to make decisions. Even though he’s mistaken, and even if his mistake is harmful. Because if it isn’t harmful, then there’s no cost at all. If his mistake is harmful, even then within certain limits I will not interfere, because in my view it is important that a person make his own decisions.

Think, for example—just for a moment, to sharpen this—about religious education. Okay? Very often parents see their child leaving everything—he no longer has any religious commitment, he’s nothing. They usually see that as an educational failure. And I don’t think that’s correct. It depends why he left. If he left because he doesn’t identify with it, because he thinks it’s simply not true, he thinks the secular path is right—then that’s an educational success. If he went there because he just couldn’t be bothered, he doesn’t have the energy, I don’t know, he wants to enjoy himself—then it’s a failure. But by the same token, someone who stays on the path can also be a failure. If he stays on the path because it’s comfortable, because that’s what he’s used to, because that’s it, because that’s what his parents said—then that’s an educational failure. And if he stays because he chose it, that’s an educational success. Okay?

Therefore I think the autonomy of a person is something of value. And tolerance is based on the fact that you have to give a person his autonomy. You’re not supposed to make decisions in his place; he has to make his own decisions—even at the price of making mistaken decisions that harm him or others, within certain limits that I’ll touch on in a moment. Still, a person has to make his own decisions, and not have you make them in his place. That is the reason why I don’t coerce, or why I am tolerant. Not because I don’t care, and not because I’m a pluralist.

[Speaker D] How do I know whether he really chose?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the diagnostic question. And the question is: how do I know that a person who doesn’t interfere or doesn’t coerce—how do I know whether he’s a pluralist or merely tolerant? On the face of it, it’s the same behavior. That’s why people also always describe it in those terms as though they were synonyms. So look, I’ll give you a few indications. One indication is the issue of openness. A third concept, which people also always connect to those first two. The concept of openness is the practical difference between tolerance and pluralism. What do I mean? In a pluralistic world, what is openness? Openness means listening to the other person’s arguments. Beit Hillel, who stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own, weighed their arguments and then formed their position. That’s called openness. Okay? Now, openness has a place only in a monistic world. Because in a pluralistic world, why should I care about your arguments? You’re right and I’m right, and there’s no right and wrong; in any case we’re not going to arrive at the truth. So why listen to you? Maybe for the sake of politeness, but no—I won’t gain anything from it. It has no value. Openness has no meaning there. I’ll be polite, I don’t want to hurt you, so I’ll listen politely. But I’m not going to go looking for you in order to hear what you have to say. What you’re saying isn’t interesting, because from the outset I assume that neither of us is going to reach the truth anyway. Either because there is no truth, or because there is no way to reach the truth. There are shades within pluralism. Okay? Think about that TV program from many years ago, Popolitika. A pretty disgusting show. There was some panel of regular people there, and every time there was a different interviewee and they crucified him. There was one Haredi, one anti-religious person, one in the middle, it doesn’t matter, it changed a bit from time to time. And they argued with each other and tore each other down, and it was very ugly. And of course no one was ever convinced, that’s obvious. And everyone denounced that program for how terrible it was, and everyone kept watching it. Now I thought to myself, why was it conducted that way? I don’t think they were bad people. Or not necessarily, at least—I don’t know them—but not necessarily. They simply never imagined that there could be some argument that would convince them. There’s no such thing. I have my truth, you have your truth, no one will convince the other. So what are we left to do? Fight, insult each other, tell jokes. Whoever came out looking more impressive—he won. Give entertainment to the masses. Okay? So it’s not really a place where you came to discuss things in order to reach a conclusion and maybe change your position. I talked about this last time, right.

[Speaker D] Discussions that are completely unproductive.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that if you change your mind—if you lost in an argument—that’s one thing. And beyond that I said: when did you gain from an argument you conducted? When you lost it. If you lost the argument, then it turns out that what you thought beforehand was a mistake, and you learned something new. In an argument you won, it turns out that you already knew the truth beforehand. So what did you gain from the argument? You didn’t gain anything from it. A waste of time. Right. Well, here, in terms of one person toward another, you also need to help him discover the truth. But you yourself gained nothing from it. Winning an argument is a moral virtue; losing an argument is an interest. To conduct an argument in order to lose it—that’s simply in your interest, because then you learn something new. Okay? So that is exactly the meaning of openness. But all that is only on condition that you assume there is some truth that we can reach a conclusion about, and think that it is indeed right or not right. But if you’re a pluralist and you don’t think there is such a thing as truth, or that it can be reached, then why listen to arguments? All I can do is attack each other, and that’s it. Whoever comes out tougher wins. That’s all. Or fight like Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, who killed each other. Actually killed each other? A pluralist as I’m defining him here—there are intermediate shades—a pluralist as I’m defining him here, yes, there’s no right and wrong. Anyone who has a coherent argument, then he is coherent within his own system, and he is as right as I am. If there’s a logical contradiction in the arguments, fine, then it doesn’t count. But a person who presents a coherent argument, with assumptions different from mine, reaches a different conclusion from mine. A lot of people will tell you, if so, who says you’re right? He’s as right as you are. So the first practical difference between tolerance and pluralism is openness. Meaning, if you see a person who doesn’t force the other person, but does seek to hear his arguments or to present his arguments to someone else, that means he is tolerant and not a pluralist. He believes there is truth, he strives to reach it, and he’s not arrogant, so he understands that sometimes he may be mistaken. It’s worthwhile to hear other people’s arguments because that will bring him closer to the truth. So if he is open, he is a monist—he is a tolerant monist. A pluralist, by contrast, has nothing to listen for, because in any case it’s impossible to get close to the truth, so why listen? Why look for arguments? Okay? So openness is one practical difference. The second practical difference is what I call the radius of tolerance. What do I mean? If you’re a pluralist, pluralism has no radius. What does that mean? Any position, however wild, if it is internally coherent, then it is as right as my position. I have nothing to say against a reasoned position based on assumptions I disagree with—fine, he’s as right as I am. There’s no place to stop pluralism. Meaning, if you’re truly a pluralist, then you’re pluralistic toward every position, every opinion, everything, all of it. You can, as people say, have a defensive democracy. If someone threatens to slaughter you, then you won’t be pluralistic toward him in the sense that you’ll let him slaughter you. You’ll defend yourself. But you’ll defend yourself not because he isn’t right or because he is wrong, but because you want to live, and that’s all. Those aren’t value-based reasons; those are reasons of simply wanting to live. But if he is as right as I am, I’m not arguing with him over whether he is right or not right, I’m just defending myself. Okay? But as far as pluralism itself is concerned, it has no radius, no boundary. Meaning, every coherent argument—fine, then it’s coherent, so it’s okay, it’s like mine. Tolerance has a radius. I’m tolerant up to a certain point. Why? Because remember what tolerance is. Tolerance is when I think I’m right and you’re wrong, and your mistake is harmful, and it is in my power to prevent it. Now, if your mistake is colossal and irreversible, and it is in my power to prevent it, it is definitely possible that I will coerce you despite being tolerant. It depends on the cost, on the expected consequences of your mistake. It is not automatic that I will never intervene in your life. For the pluralist this is essential—it will always be that way. For the tolerant person there is a certain radius, a certain boundary up to which I am tolerant; beyond that radius I am not tolerant. For that radius I can give a few criteria. How do you determine that radius? Obviously, each person determines it for himself, but how? How does each person determine it for himself? And I’ll give two criteria. One criterion is perhaps the severity of the outcome, the harm, or the severity of the harm caused to the person himself or to others. I won’t allow everything. Would we let a person shoot in the street wherever he wants? Even my own son—would I let him become addicted to drugs? He wants to; maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s right, but I won’t let him if I can help it. Okay? Why? Because the harm is irreversible and very great, and I assume he will regret it afterward, and therefore I will prevent it, even though I do hold tolerance as a value. But there is a boundary, beyond which the costs are so heavy that I’m not willing to be tolerant. There is some line.

[Speaker C] It’s a value that can clash with other values,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Other values or other consequences—he’ll suffer from it, whatever—but yes, there is a certain line beyond which I won’t be tolerant. A pluralist shouldn’t have such a line, aside from self-defense, I think, but not intervention in someone else. The second parameter is the question of how the other person formed his position. Tolerance has to be earned. Tolerance is not something you’re entitled to. I’ll give you an example. When I was in Yeruham, a group came to us from the Hartman Institute—religious and secular people and so on—who were holding discussions around the Kinneret Covenant. The Kinneret Covenant was a kind of pact for shared life between religious and secular people; there was some initiative like that a few decades ago, not important right now. It was circulating around the country, and they held discussions around this issue and traveled around the country to hear various people, and among others they asked me to speak with them. So I told them, look, I will never in my life sign the Kinneret Covenant, because the Kinneret Covenant is permission—permission to be an ignoramus. If I meet someone who will hear my arguments and I’ll hear his arguments, and he weighs them seriously, listens seriously, and reaches the conclusion that he is secular and believes in nothing—I will fully respect that, and I’ll sign any covenant he wants with him. But I’m not willing to give credit to someone who isn’t even willing to examine things. That’s not a position.

[Speaker C] The problem with the covenant is trying to come and create some kind of agreement

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That everyone should respect everyone else and no one has a monopoly on the… fill in the blank, and so on. Okay? There are two-for-a-penny of all these covenants. So I’m not willing to sign such a covenant, because that covenant is permission to be an ignoramus. If you want to convince me to become secular, excellent—you’re welcome. I want to convince you to become religious. After we talk to each other, really listen to each other, seriously weigh what each one says, and reach different conclusions—I’ll sign any covenant you want. No problem at all. But if you want me to respect your position when you haven’t invested a penny in forming it—I don’t respect that. You’re free not to ask me; I’m not the master here giving people permission what to do. But if you want to sign a covenant that says I should respect it, I won’t sign. No, I don’t respect it. It’s like a child coming and telling me, “I think—I don’t know—something about the theory of relativity.” He understands nothing. Am I supposed to respect that because he thinks this and Einstein thinks that? Everyone with his own thought? That’s not serious. You have to study, you have to invest effort, you have to hear what others say, you have to weigh the various arguments, you have to think about it. In the end you’ll reach a conclusion. If you did what you had to do and reached a different conclusion from mine, I completely respect that. That’s my tolerance. But if you didn’t invest what was required, I won’t respect your position because it isn’t a position. And that doesn’t count as having a position. A position is like Beit Hillel stating the words of Beit Shammai before their own. That’s why I say I have two criteria for determining the radius of tolerance. One criterion is the magnitude of the cost, and the second criterion is whether you have really rightfully earned the tolerant attitude. Are you entitled to it? Did you really invest and form a position different from mine? If so, I’m fully with you—but almost nobody does that. By the way, among the religious as well, it doesn’t matter.

[Speaker F] Completely different things. You have to earn it, invest in it, and that’s the price.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If my son wants to be drugged up, then I’ll intervene, I’ll try to force him not to be drugged up—not because he didn’t invest effort in forming his position. Even if he did invest effort, I would intervene because the price is very heavy. So those are two criteria that can determine the radius of tolerance, and both of these criteria exist only in relation to tolerance, not in relation to pluralism. I return to the two distinctions between pluralism and tolerance—the non-philosophical distinctions. Philosophically, tolerance and pluralism are two opposites, but in actual conduct they look very similar. Where is there a difference in actual conduct? One is openness, and the second is the existence of a boundary, the radius. And I said there are two criteria that determine the radius: the effort you invested in forming the position, and the cost of your mistake. Okay? That’s roughly an initial map of this picture. Now if I go back to Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, we asked what “These and those are the words of the living God” means according to the monistic reading. Right? We said the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel because the truth is with them. Why is the truth with them? Because they stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own and weighed them, and therefore they got closer to the truth. So in what sense are “these and those the words of the living God”? My claim is that “these and those are the words of the living God” in the sense I mentioned earlier—that there are one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing pure and one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing impure. When Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagree, neither of them is talking nonsense. Neither of them was an idiot. Okay? Beit Shammai were sharper. Fine. Neither of them was an idiot; they were Torah scholars. Okay? So think—just think for a moment about every argument you’ve ever had. In almost every argument you’ve ever had, both sides are right. In almost every argument. Very rarely is someone just talking nonsense. Rather what happens—and this is like the chocolate example I already gave, right? Should one eat chocolate? I say don’t eat chocolate because it makes you fat. The other says eat chocolate because it’s tasty. Who is right? Both are right. It does make you fat and it is tasty. So what is the argument about? The reasons we bring forward—both are correct. The argument is over which reason carries more weight, which reason is more important than the other, and there there is a real argument. Now my claim is that there are one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing pure and one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing impure. And in Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, Beit Shammai presented one hundred and fifty reasons to declare the creeping thing impure, and Beit Hillel presented one hundred and fifty reasons to declare it pure. Who is right? “These and those are the words of the living God.” All 300 reasons are right. But now the question is whether the creeping thing is impure or pure, bottom line. So here you have to see which reasons carry greater weight. Here there is a real dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and here only one side is right—Beit Hillel. Why? Because Beit Hillel stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own, weighed both the 150 reasons to declare the creeping thing impure and the 150 reasons to declare it pure, and only then reached a conclusion. Therefore they are more right. But “these and those are the words of the living God” means that the reasons of Beit Shammai are certainly valid reasons. It’s not that they gave invalid reasons. They simply ignored other valid reasons that outweigh those reasons.

[Speaker C] So this is harmonism now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, this is exactly harmonism. And here we move from monism to harmonism. That’s why I said harmonism is a kind of monism. And that is the meaning of “these and those are the words of the living God.” “These and those are the words of the living God” means at the level of reasons. It is not “these and those are the words of the living God” at the bottom line. At the bottom line, either the creeping thing is impure or the creeping thing is pure. Either it is advisable to eat chocolate or it is not advisable to eat chocolate. There is one correct answer; I am a monist. At the level of reasons it is “these and those are the words of the living God,” and therefore this is harmonism. Harmonism says: there are reasons this way, there are reasons that way, but at the bottom line you have to weigh the reasons and reach a conclusion. Fine. I won’t have time to get into the halakhic example, so we’ll do that next time, so I just want to expand a little on this point, because I think it also touches current events and life in general. Just yesterday I talked about this—we had a staff Sabbath here at the institute. I talked about it on the Sabbath. There is some difficulty in the arguments that are being conducted among us generally—not just at the institute, but in the institute in recent months it’s been more noticeable, though it’s always true—that you can’t talk to anyone. You just can’t talk to anyone. Meaning, you talk to someone, and all the reasons are in his favor. You talk to someone who opposes him, and all the reasons are in his favor. No one presents a complex position: look, there are reasons like this, there are reasons like that, and when I weigh them, the bottom line, I think, is this. And someone else will weigh them differently. That’s the populist discourse in general—there’s no way to present complexity. Right, right. Now I’ll give you examples I gave them there, where the penny dropped for me. For me these realizations come from things that happened to me. I once traveled by bus to Rehovot, because at the time I worked at the Weizmann Institute. I was traveling by bus to Rehovot, and on the road next to me a car passed by, and it had a sticker on it. And the sticker said, “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan.” This was during the Rabin government, and the question had come up whether to return the Golan to the Syrians or not. “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan,” that’s what it said on the car. I asked myself whether the owner of the car was a right-wing person or a left-wing person. And I answered myself that I had no way of knowing. There was no way of knowing. Why? Because the statement “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan” can be interpreted in two ways, at least two ways. One way is the ideological, political, security-related way. You think it’s advisable to return the Golan, not advisable to return the Golan—that’s one argument. Okay, let’s say that’s left and right for the sake of discussion; it’s not clear why that’s related to left and right, but let’s say. Okay. The second dispute is a moral one. When Rabin ran for election, he said, “Not one inch of the Golan,” like Ariel Sharon with the disengagement. What did he say? Like Ariel Sharon with the disengagement—“not one inch,” not to return the Golan. The Golan is a security interest; Rabin ran on the ticket that the Golan would not be returned. Now he reached the prime minister’s seat, and information came to him, proposals, whatever, and he suddenly came to the conclusion that yes, there was a reason to compromise with the Syrians or return the Golan to them or whatever. Now there is a moral question: if a person reached a different conclusion from the one on which he ran for election, and on which he received the public’s vote, the public’s mandate, does he need to go back and present the question again and hold new elections, and now he’ll present his new position, and if he gets the mandate, excellent, and if not, no—because the public did not elect him on that basis? Does he need to go back to the public, or was he elected and now he can act according to what he understands now—what Ariel Sharon called, “Things you see from there, you don’t see from here”? Right, he too, before the election, of course, was a right-wing hawk, that’s what they claimed. It’s not true, but that’s what they claim. And after the election he carried out the disengagement. So I claim that these two disputes are, first of all, independent. They are independent. Quite apart from what you think about whether or not it is advisable to make an agreement with the Syrians, the question of political morality—whether a person who changed his mind after the election needs to return to elections or not—is an independent question, right? A person could also change his mind in the opposite direction. He could change his mind—he started out as a dove, he reached the prime minister’s seat, and he became a hawk: not one inch. Okay, and there is still the question of whether to go back or not, right? Meaning, the questions are independent. How many groups should there have been in the population? Four, right? Those who answer yes to the moral question and yes to the political question, those who answer yes and no, no and yes, no and no. Right? Because these are independent questions, and on each of these questions there are two significant sides, neither of which is absurd, on both questions. At least that’s how I see it—neither side is absurd. Therefore I really would have expected four groups. How many were there? Two, of course. Meaning, everyone who thought it was wrong to return the Golan also said it was immoral, and everyone who thought it was right to return the Golan also said there was no problem, he didn’t need to go back to the public, it was moral. What does that mean? It means that the argument is being conducted dishonestly. What do I mean? That you’re not willing to state a complex position. You’re not willing to say, look, I think it’s wrong to return the Golan, but Rabin had the right, if he reached a different conclusion—from a moral perspective, from the standpoint of political morality, I think a prime minister has the right to change his mind. Or the opposite: I think it’s right to return the Golan, but morally, in my opinion, a prime minister cannot change his mind; what he promised before the election is what determines things. There were no such positions. Now there is no reason there shouldn’t be; the questions are independent, and each question has two answers, both of which are not absurd. Why were there only two? Because people are not honest. Another example: I once wrote an article for Makor Rishon, a response in Makor Rishon. There was an argument about the conversion array of Rabbi Druckman. There was some rabbinical judge in Ashdod a few years ago; that judge in Ashdod determined that all these conversions were worth nothing, and the judges themselves were wicked too, so it wasn’t even a kosher religious court, so all these conversions were null and void, and so on. A dispute developed. By the way, I agreed with him—not about their being wicked, but that the conversion was invalid. Really? Yes. But some dispute developed, and very quickly it split along the watershed line of Religious Zionists versus Haredim. Religious Zionists were against him, against that judge, and in favor of Rabbi Druckman, and the Haredim were against. Now I wrote an article in Makor Rishon and said, look, without thinking for a minute I can write for you thirteen independent questions that you need to answer in order to determine a position on this issue. Okay? Thirteen. Each such question is one that has two sides, neither of which is absurd, and they are independent. How many groups, how many positions, should there have been in the population? Two to the thirteenth power. This is a vector of length thirteen, where at each point either yes or no can appear; two times two times two—two to the thirteenth. Eight thousand positions. Eight K. Okay, there should have been eight thousand positions. How many were there? Two, of course. There were those who answered yes to all thirteen questions and those who answered no to all thirteen questions. And in all arguments it’s like this. When I said, look, these really are not simple questions. I think that on questions one, two, five, seven, ten, and thirteen I answer yes, and on the rest I answer no. Now at the bottom line I have to decide—I don’t know what outweighs what—am I in favor of the conversion framework, am I against the conversion framework? I don’t know, you can discuss it. But why does everyone answer with a vector that is all yes or a vector that is all no? That’s a dishonest argument. Now this is what I’m talking about when I speak here. You don’t take the other side’s arguments into account, because as far as you’re concerned all the reasons point in the same direction. You’re not willing to come to a decision that this reason supports, this reason opposes, but in the overall weighing I still think I’m in favor. Or against, it doesn’t matter. Rabbi, why would someone be against it? Against what? Against the conversion. Because I think that without acceptance of the commandments, a conversion is not valid. Was that the point there? That was the main point. Yes. Again, I think it was without acceptance of the commandments. There was a bit of argument about it, but… Meaning, if there is formal acceptance of the commandments—they accept the commandments—but here there are arguments that are so significant that even if there were a hundred questions with a no. No, no—there, there were, there were several questions on which it depended. The question is whether if there is also on one side and on the other side there are a hundred questions, it could still be that you would say you think that… Fine, weigh them. The weighing doesn’t have to be according to the number of questions. According to quality, yes. If there is one very important question, then it can carry as much weight as all the others, no problem. But you still have to admit that with respect to these reasons I’m in favor, with respect to these reasons I’m against; at the bottom line I’m against, or I’m in favor, it doesn’t matter. But in our arguments today, whoever is in favor of the reform is in favor of all of it; whoever is against the reform is against all of it. Either it’s all black or it’s all white. Nobody says, look, this is a complex matter; there is room for changes like these, not for changes like those. Some people say it a little, but it barely appears. For three months already they’ve been pounding our heads with this nonsense, and both sides are talking nonsense. And what is the reason for this politicization? Because people are not honest. They harness the reasons to the goal. In the end they want to arrive at the result they sincerely believe in. But they think that—assuming optimistically that they think—if they really think, then they think that if they say it is only black or only white, that will be a stronger argument. I don’t agree with them, by the way. I think a complex argument is stronger, because suddenly you see there is serious thought here, and nevertheless the person expresses a position; he’s not just some idiot automatically going in one direction. That’s one thing. And second, many times this is done subconsciously. Once it’s clear to you that this is the right thing, then on every question you basically move in that direction. You don’t really think about each question separately. There’s identity politics too. Right, that’s the euphemistic name for the phenomena I’m describing here—identity politics. Do you think that once it used to be more… No, no, no. On the contrary, I think that because our generation is more sophisticated and has more access to the internet, there is some chance of changing this in our generation. Maybe I’m a bit naive, but I think that… Though the way people today learn and process information, and the explosion of information flooding us all the time, leads to… Another reason, another reason for the need for the ability to analyze and sort information and make complex judgments. The flood of information is even more of a reason for that. When you have a lot of information, you need to know what to do with it, how to parse it, how to analyze it, how to make decisions based on this huge reservoir of information. That is much more important in this generation. I—well, I don’t know whether I… In short, this was just an expansion of what I said here, with the one hundred and fifty reasons to declare impure and pure. Tolerance and openness come on the basis of monism—that’s what people don’t understand. The fact that I say that you have correct reasons and I also have correct reasons does not mean I am a pluralist. It does not mean I won’t fight for my position. I will fight for my position, but I will form it after hearing your arguments; maybe I’ll even accept some of them. But in the end, at the bottom line, I think differently from you. That doesn’t mean I can’t fight for my positions and promote them. People confuse tolerance and openness with pluralism. That’s where it comes from. The conceptual analysis lies at the foundation of the matter. If you understand that there is a difference, then you understand that I don’t need to be a pluralist for this. People think that someone who listens to the other person has no position, that he isn’t serious. Not true. I listen to the other person דווקא because I do have a position—and maybe, maybe I’m mistaken? I want to hear arguments from him; it will help me get to the truth. If I don’t believe in the existence of truth, then I won’t listen to him, because there’s nowhere to get to, and it won’t help me anyway. Listening is based on monism, not on pluralism. People don’t understand that. People recoil from listening to someone who thinks differently from them; they don’t want to meet at all, they don’t want to talk—it threatens them. Why does it threaten you? At worst it will become clear that you were mistaken—so what? Or that there are certain arguments you hadn’t thought about, and in the end you’ll weigh them and still remain in your position. That’s legitimate too, everything is fine. But what do you care about hearing what someone else says? Are you so smart that you think you know everything? So there needs to be moral education. Right, exactly. Okay, we’ll stop here. Thank you very much.