Mysticism – Lesson 10
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
- The esoteric character of mysticism and charlatanism
- Leaders and followers, and the lack of rational skill
- Alternative medicine, anecdotal stories, and scientific research
- Vaccines, COVID, and the need for systematic testing
- New Age, disappointment with science, and conspiracy theories
- Balancing logic, science, and mysticism
- Providence as a mystical thesis and research on prayer
- Claims of the Sages, excuses, and the inability to decide
- Statistical miracles, storytelling, and the example of “the miracle in Gedera”
- Statistics, anomalies, and hypothesis testing
- Belief in God, the coming of the Messiah, and the worlds of reward
- Circles of trust, “righteous people,” conspiracies, and a mystical cult
- The wisdom of crowds and distinguishing between custom and a mystical aura
- Unfalsifiability, scientific status, and truth
- Prayer, “truth,” and claims about changing divine policy
- The Sanhedrin, disputes, and halakhic autonomy
- Summary of the position on mysticism and the road ahead
Summary
General Overview
The text attributes mysticism’s bad reputation to the fact that it is built on esoteric claims that are not accessible to public scrutiny and therefore require trust, which opens a wide door to intentional charlatanism and innocent charlatanism, and also to social attraction toward New Age ideas, alternative medicine, and conspiracy theories. The speaker argues that the abundance of charlatanism does not prove that there is no real mysticism, but it does require an attitude of “respect it, but suspect it,” along with as much testing as possible through rational thought, statistics, and philosophy of science. He distinguishes between being scientific and being true, defines claims such as divine providence and the coming of the Messiah as mystical claims in the sense that they depend on trust rather than testing, and demonstrates how miracle stories and personal testimonies are not evidence without statistical validation.
The Esoteric Character of Mysticism and Charlatanism
Mysticism relies on claims that are not accessible to scrutiny by the general public, and therefore decisions about them are based on trust in people. Charlatanism arises either intentionally, out of interests such as money, honor, and influence, or innocently, when people truly believe they have insights and abilities and spread them in good faith. The scientific realm makes charlatanism hard to sustain over time because the scientific method allows repeated testing, whereas in mysticism the very esoteric character allows manipulation. The speaker emphasizes that he does not mean to argue that there is no real mysticism, only that deliberate and unintentional charlatans are not necessarily the whole picture, and there may also be genuine mystics.
Leaders and Followers, and the Lack of Rational Skill
Charlatanism is often divided between those who lead the trend and the public that follows it innocently. The speaker gives the example of Oren Zarif as a possible leader driven by economic interests, as opposed to many of his followers, who are influenced by a lack of skill in rational thinking, statistics, and probability. It is easy to convince a broad public with tall tales, especially when people interpret isolated cases as proof.
Alternative Medicine, Anecdotal Stories, and Scientific Research
Alternative medicine is presented as a mystical field in the sense that it relies on trust rather than on scientific validity, and the speaker adopts a formulation he found on Wikipedia: whatever has been tested and found effective enters conventional medicine, and what remains “alternative” is what has not been tested or not been proven. He describes how stories about Bach drops, acupuncture, reflexology, and dramatic healings are not evidence, because they may result from placebo or spontaneous recovery, and therefore large groups, a control group, and double-blind testing are needed. He mentions Simon Singh’s book Trick or Treatment as surveying systematic studies and showing that in most cases there are no significant results. The speaker is in principle willing to look at studies and change his position, but refuses to “buy” old wives’ tales.
Vaccines, COVID, and the Need for Systematic Testing
The speaker addresses the claim that maybe “there is no epidemic” and responds that in his view there is a significant difference and that this is not “the flu,” although he agrees that each case must be judged individually and perhaps with Omicron mortality is lower. He gives an example of testimonies on the program “Orly and Guy” about miscarriages and stillbirths after vaccination, contrasted with the response of the Ministry of Health, which checked and found no difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. He attributes the power of personal testimonies to a lack of statistical skill, and argues that changing policy and mistakes are not proof that one should adopt “crazy” views or prefer media “experts” over systematic testing. The speaker opposes silencing people, including Professor Idit Matot and also “Orly and Guy,” and argues that free discussion with reasons is better, tactically too, because silencing creates a sense of conspiracy.
New Age, Disappointment with Science, and Conspiracy Theories
The speaker describes the attraction in recent decades to New Age, spiritualism, communicating with aliens, and nighttime radio content, and attributes it to a reaction against “scientism” and the exaggerated hopes pinned on science, which has not solved most fundamental problems. He argues that one should not infer that the failure of one path proves the validity of another, illustrating this with an analogy to Shimon Peres and the question “What is the alternative?” which may be answered with “Maybe there is no alternative.” He describes the field as full of money and interests, and points to the irony that conspiracy theories against the pharmaceutical industry also serve the economic interests of the “alternative” people. He quotes the line, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you,” to argue that finding charlatans is not proof that everything is false.
Balancing Logic, Science, and Mysticism
The speaker rejects the claim that logic and science are “everything” for him, but presents them as excellent tools for understanding reality and as “a necessary condition, even if not a sufficient one.” He says that if something is contradicted by science, he will not accept it, and if science has nothing to say about it, he does not reject it merely because it lacks scientific validation, but he also will not accept it without good reasons. He presents the proper attitude as “respect it, but suspect it,” and suggests that the way to achieve balance is to understand philosophy of science and to learn how mysticism works and how errors in thinking produce absurd beliefs on both sides.
Providence as a Mystical Thesis and Research on Prayer
The speaker defines belief in divine providence as a mystical claim because it is esoteric and cannot be systematically tested, especially when speaking of active providence in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is “involved” in the world. He describes Christian studies that tested the effect of prayer on healing using large groups and statistical tools, and notes that there are studies of varying methodological quality with different results. He mentions an appendix in God Plays Dice and a Hebrew article in a medical journal from Tel Aviv University in which Professor Shoenfeld and others conclude that there is no scientific decision, even though a table they present shows that, according to them, studies with full methodology did find an effect, and he presents this as an example of possible bias even on the scientific side. He adds that Jews do not test this because of the prohibition “Test Me in this,” except for tithes, and presents this as a situation in which people launch mystical slogans when it is forbidden to test them.
Claims of the Sages, Excuses, and the Inability to Decide
The speaker gives the example of the claim, “Because of the sin of vows, a man’s children die,” and asks who ever tested that, arguing that even if one tried to test it there would be difficulties of sample size, not knowing who violated a vow, and excuses such as “nowadays it is no longer true” or distinctions between rabbinic and Torah-level law. He concludes that the question remains mystical in the sense of accepting a claim on the basis of trust in the Torah, in the Sages, in Rabbi Shach, or in Maimonides, and not on the basis of evidence and testing. He describes how, after adopting the assumption “there is providence,” a person begins to see providence in every event, whereas one who does not assume this sees no providence at all, and therefore the conclusion “this was supervised” comes from the assumption and not from the event itself.
Statistical Miracles, Storytelling, and the Example of “The Miracle in Gedera”
The speaker rejects stories such as rockets in Gush Katif that did not hit, “a prayer book that saved someone,” and objects in a pocket that stopped a bullet, because no orderly calculation of probabilities and distributions was made. He tells a “story that happened to me” about an accident in Gedera at night with eight people, and about a neighbor from Yeruham who stopped immediately with a large empty vehicle and took everyone, including the detail of an unusual navigation error that brought him to the area. He suggests that the event may be very rare and still remain within statistics, where “it has to happen to someone,” and distinguishes between attributing it to providence after a prior assumption of providence and using it as evidence for the existence of providence. He argues that statistical miracles prove nothing without examining a broad distribution, and that only a miracle “against the laws of nature” could change the kind of evidence involved, though even then the question of interpretation would remain.
Statistics, Anomalies, and Hypothesis Testing
The speaker is asked what it means to “deviate from the statistics,” and he replies that this depends on comparing hypotheses, checking significance, and preferring the most plausible explanation, like diagnosing a “loaded die” versus claiming coincidence when anomalous results appear. He says that the atheist can always say “it was chance,” but a believer may prefer “the hand of God” when there is a good indication of that, while recognizing that absolute certainty is impossible.
Belief in God, the Coming of the Messiah, and the Worlds of Reward
The speaker distinguishes between belief in God, which he presents as also resting on logical-philosophical arguments accessible to everyone, and beliefs such as the coming of the Messiah, which depend on trust and are therefore mystical. He raises doubts about the chain of trust in matters such as reward and punishment, heaven and hell, and argues that there a great deal of human interpretive work is required before one arrives at the resulting picture, and therefore his trust is qualified. He refuses to accept claims merely because he is called a heretic, and presents his position as one of not knowing rather than deciding.
Circles of Trust, “Righteous People,” Conspiracies, and a Mystical Cult
The speaker describes a circle in which trust in a person is built from the fact that “what he says comes true,” while the assumption that his words come true is built from the fact that he is “righteous” and “doesn’t make mistakes,” and thus myths are created about kabbalists and righteous figures. He sharply criticizes Rabbi Tao in connection with things he said about Chaim Walder and about a conspiracy theory linking the affair to Aharon Barak, presenting this as a disconnect from reality and a pattern of a “mystical cult.” He notes that a prophet requires testing before being granted status, and sees that as a lesson in the need to examine figures in whom people place trust.
The Wisdom of Crowds and Distinguishing Between Custom and a Mystical Aura
The speaker rejects a simplistic use of “the wisdom of crowds” as proof of a person’s greatness, and argues that the original concept is a statistical result of offsetting errors around an average, as in estimating the weight of an ox or the number of leaves. He distinguishes between “Go out and see what the people do” as evidence of custom, hinting at tradition or some reason, and a claim about “the holy spirit of the public” that knows who is “the leading sage of the generation.” He is willing to give custom some weight as a default in the absence of other information, but not to treat it as independent truth when the masses “do foolish things.”
Unfalsifiability, Scientific Status, and Truth
The speaker emphasizes that the criterion of “unfalsifiability” is a criterion for the scientific status of a theory, not for its truth. He notes that positivists turned this into an ideology that identifies the non-scientific with the meaningless or untrue, and he rejects that identification. He gives the existence of God as an example of a thesis that is not falsifiable but nevertheless sounds reasonable to him and which he is prepared to accept.
Prayer, “Truth,” and Claims About Changing Divine Policy
The speaker presents a principled difficulty in that every prayer asking for change is a request for a deviation from what nature would otherwise do, and therefore if it is forbidden to pray about what is already “fixed,” it follows that one cannot pray about anything. He mentions the words of the Sages in tractate Yoma that “the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth” as an explanation for the cessation of certain praises when they are perceived as false, and uses this to explain his difficulty in saying requests that do not feel true to him. He argues that there were miracles in the past and that there has been a “policy change,” like the cessation of prophecy, and expands that in his view the discussion also includes a claim of retreat in divine involvement, but he continues to recite the ordained prayers because he is not certain enough to “uproot” an established enactment.
The Sanhedrin, Disputes, and Halakhic Autonomy
The speaker is asked about the role of a future Sanhedrin in setting standards for measurements and disputes, and replies that there is no principled problem with their deciding if they see fit, but as a policy he hopes they will not intervene in disputes that do not create a social problem. He argues that autonomy has value and that “a Torah that is many Torahs” is a good thing, while the Sanhedrin would mainly intervene when disputes create social fragmentation such as groups not marrying one another. He rejects the hope for complete synchronization among halakhic decisors, and argues that if a decisor “contradicts his own position” arbitrarily, that is a problem of inconsistency that can already be addressed now and not necessarily through a Sanhedrin.
Summary of the Position on Mysticism and the Road Ahead
The speaker concludes that mysticism “invites charlatanism” because of its esoteric nature, but that a sweeping and total reaction of rejection is unjustified. He recommends a balanced attitude of “respect it, but suspect it,” and intellectual testing as much as possible, including a principled willingness to examine claims of unusual abilities if they are testable. He ends by saying that he has finished the chapter on charlatanism and intends to move on to Kabbalah and to the question of prohibitions related to the field.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’re in the middle of the topic of mysticism, and last time I got to the reasons for the bad reputation it has acquired. And quite justifiably, it seems to me, if I may express an opinion. It got a bad reputation because—or let’s start earlier—because of the character of mysticism, which as I defined it is built on esoteric claims, claims that are not accessible to scrutiny by the broader public, claims where you rely on trust in human beings in order to accept or reject them. That opens a very wide door to charlatanism. Charlatanism can of course be of two kinds: intentional charlatanism and innocent charlatanism. Meaning, there can be deliberate charlatanism by people who manipulate, present themselves as mystics, kabbalists, whatever you want to call it, for various reasons—economic interests, money, honor, all kinds of things, influence. That’s deliberate charlatanism, intentional. And then there’s innocent charlatanism. Meaning, people—some of these people may genuinely believe that they are mystics, that they have insights, that they have abilities, and things of that sort, and therefore they also sell this to the public innocently; they sincerely think so. And both of these things are made possible by the unique nature of the mystical realm, by its esoteric character. And again I keep repeating and emphasizing, and I’ll get back to it later too, at least for now I do not intend to argue that there is no real mysticism. On the contrary, I want to explain why it is entirely possible that there is real mysticism despite everything we keep discovering anew about charlatanism in these fields. The charlatanism in these fields stems from the nature of the fields, but that doesn’t really mean everyone is a charlatan, neither intentionally nor unintentionally. Deliberate charlatans and accidental charlatans are not necessarily the whole picture. There may also be people who really are genuine mystics, not charlatans of either type. I’m only saying that the nature of the field is such that it opens the door—yes, a breach calls to the thief—it opens the door to charlatanism. In a scientific world, in a rational world, it’s harder—you can do it there too—but it’s harder to be a charlatan, certainly over time, because in the end people can always test you. That’s the whole idea of the scientific method, that everything is supposed to be reproducible—I spoke about that last time—supposed to be testable by anyone willing to go into the lab, and in that sense it really is different from mystical fields. Now, the two kinds of charlatanism, deliberate and accidental—or innocent and intentional—are often also divided between those who lead the process and those who follow it. Various Oren Zarifs of the world—maybe he’s innocent and really thinks he has powers, or maybe he really does have powers, I have no idea. I tend to think not, and I even tend to think he’s not innocent. But I don’t know, there are economic interests there. So let’s say for the sake of discussion that he’s not innocent, but many of his followers are innocent. Meaning, very often the person leading the process may be a deliberate charlatan, but those who follow him really do so innocently, simply because of a lack of skill in rational thinking, in statistics, in probability, as I talked about last time. So it’s quite easy to convince a broad public with all kinds of tall tales of that sort. And I gave several examples last time of how this works, or how it can work. I brought examples from various areas, mainly alternative medicine. We landed there because in a certain sense alternative medicine is a clear example—in some sense alternative medicine is a mystical field, yes, because basically you are supposed to feed off your trust in the person who tells you, or in the technique he offers you. You believe him, you believe him; you don’t believe him, you don’t believe him, because these techniques have no scientific validation. As I said, afterward I told you that I found this on Wikipedia. I always thought it was my own brilliant line, but now I saw that that’s actually how they open the entry on alternative medicine. Alternative medicine is all the techniques that don’t work, and that’s the definition of alternative medicine, because whatever works and is systematically tested in research enters conventional medicine and gets used. So everything that remains in the alternative wing is simply those things that don’t work—or what do I mean by don’t work? That haven’t been shown to work. Maybe they do work somehow without being tested, I don’t know, but by definition the fields that were tested enter conventional medicine. Meaning, if you test something and see clearly that it works, then conventional medicine will use it. So what is the secret of the magic of alternative medicine, that I’m repeatedly stunned anew by how many people, including intelligent people with scientific education, buy this nonsense—and they even offer it in HMOs, in hospitals, it’s unbelievable.
[Speaker C] Wait, what about Chinese medicine—acupuncture—is that considered alternative or not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that anything not systematically tested is considered alternative. As far as I know, acupuncture also falls into that category, but I don’t know. It could be that there’s something there that was systematically tested and then that’s fine. That department in the hospital is a separate department, and in the HMO it’s a separate service, a separate wing called alternative medicine. What has been tested in studies will be given to you by your family doctor. Even if it’s acupuncture, so what difference does that make? If there’s research showing clearly that it works, then conventional doctors will use it too; you don’t need a separate department for it.
[Speaker C] And ancient Chinese wisdom—isn’t that enough experience from five thousand years, or however much?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Five thousand years of experience is worth nothing. The question is what they did in those five thousand years. Do you know how many people around me have rich experience with alternative medicine that “works”? Every single one I checked, I saw that his experience was worth nothing. So if I have five thousand years of hundreds of people all talking nonsense, does that make it non-nonsense? Now, I don’t know, maybe it’s very serious and maybe it really works. I want to see whether there are studies—no problem, I’m not captive. I’m only saying I’m not willing to be captive in the opposite direction. Meaning, when people tell me it worked on their grandmother—after everything I talked about, yes—when all the doctors had given up on this person or that person, and he took, I don’t know, Bach drops, acupuncture, acupressure, I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to, reflexology, whatever, all kinds of things like that, and immediately he was healed and the cancer flew into the air and he returned to full functioning and became world champion in the marathon—those stories are worth nothing. They’re worth nothing. And again, they are told innocently. I’m sure most people who say this say it innocently; they really believe it. But it’s nonsense, of course, because precisely for that reason scientific research is supposed to be done on large groups, comparing a sample group to a control group, and it has to be a double-blind experiment in order to rule out placebo and spontaneous healing and all kinds of things of that sort. Then you can talk. But one case that you saw where he took, I don’t know, Bach drops and recovered—that’s worth nothing. Maybe he would have recovered even without the Bach drops. Maybe it was placebo healing, because if he believes Bach drops heal, then it really healed him—but by the same token he could also have stood on his head and that would have healed him too, if he believed in it. Meaning, that doesn’t really show that these things have healing power. Okay, that’s basically the claim. And placebo is fine, because if it heals, it heals—what do I care? But don’t tell me that this is a medicine that works. You can make a placebo out of anything. So the point is that I did mention Simon Singh’s book Trick or Treatment; he goes through technique by technique, all those techniques, and shows that the very few studies that were carried out systematically to test them all showed that there was no result—there is never a significant result for any of the techniques. He goes chapter by chapter, you can see it; each chapter is devoted to a different technique. He surveys the systematic studies, not the grandma stories, the systematic studies—and the systematic studies do not show results, at least not significant ones. Now, you can believe a person who has great intuitions and it really worked and it healed his grandmother—maybe, I can’t be certain it didn’t—but I’m not willing to be captive. I’m not willing to buy it because it healed his grandmother. Fine. A lot of things can heal your grandmother, and that proves nothing. One case proves nothing. People also recover spontaneously every now and then. There are what are called medical miracles, things doctors can’t explain. Fine, maybe. There are lots of such things. That doesn’t mean that whatever was done at the time—yes, I mentioned that story with the woman, right? A Jew called me saying that his wife opposes vaccines. You can’t convince her. Why? Because she saw on Orly and Guy hundreds of testimonies about women who had miscarriages or stillbirths immediately after getting vaccinated. Now in this particular case I heard the story, I heard the response of the Ministry of Health. Of course there can always be conspiracy theories that the Ministry of Health is an agent of the New Israel Fund. But I heard the Ministry of Health’s response saying they checked the matter and the rate of stillbirths and miscarriages is no different between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Now there are many such cases among the unvaccinated too, so naturally there’s no wonder that there are also among the vaccinated. And of course it can also happen a week after you took the vaccine. At some point it has to happen. So there will be people for whom it happens a week after the vaccine, and there will be people for whom it happens at another time, and there will be people for whom it never happens at all. What help are these stories to me? They’re worth nothing. It’s simply a lack of statistical skill. You need to take a large group, test significance—there are statistical techniques for how to do that. If you did all that and checked, and it turned out that indeed it causes stillbirths or miscarriage, the Ministry of Health would ban it. I think so at least. I have some trust—look, I’m a bit of a mystic too—I have some trust in the Ministry of Health. Basic trust. They can make mistakes, they don’t always act exactly right, everything’s fine, but basically it seems to me they are at least trying to function properly. This point about lack of statistical skill is very important in this context, because a lot of these phenomena are really built on it. Okay. The example—or before the example, maybe I’ll add one more sentence. There has been some attraction over the last fifty, eighty years to New Age, spiritualism—yes, these things somehow came back into fashion in recent decades after being kicked out very crudely at the beginning of the twentieth century. And this probably stems from a kind of despair with scientific rational thought, because people pinned on it hopes that were probably exaggerated, thinking it would solve all the problems of the universe. And it turns out that apparently many of our fundamental problems are not solved by scientific techniques. In fact, very few of our substantial problems are solved by scientific techniques. So a kind of reaction arose to those great hopes that had been pinned on science, and suddenly there was an attraction to alternatives. Not necessarily alternative medicine, but all kinds of alternatives. These alternatives can be expressed, yes, in all kinds of things under the label of New Age, all kinds of attraction to spiritualism, mysticism, communication with aliens, and I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort. You can see it—there are all kinds of radio programs like that, for some reason it’s always at night, I don’t know, demons walk around at night. But there are all kinds of things like that, and it turns out there’s a big audience for it. And these books apparently sell like hotcakes in bookstores; you probably see shelves full of this stuff. There is such a trend, and in a certain sense I understand the disappointment with science, because truly there are many things that science has either failed to explain or cannot explain. Meaning, fine, it doesn’t solve many of the problems we’re dealing with. But now the question is: because of that, are we supposed to believe every piece of nonsense or every fairy tale sold to us? The fact that we don’t have a scientific solution does not mean there must be some other solution. Maybe there is no solution. There just isn’t. What can you do? There are things we don’t know how to solve. There’s always this feeling that once you’ve rejected one solution, that proves the validity of the other solution. It reminds me of Shimon Peres, who asked what the alternative of the Right was. Meaning, the Right always rejected Shimon Peres’s peace process—so what’s their alternative? The answer is that maybe there is no alternative. But the fact that there is no right-wing alternative—yes, you can’t decide or solve the problems by force—doesn’t mean you can make peace. Maybe neither this nor that is possible. But we have this kind of mode of thought that says that if one way doesn’t work, that’s proof that the second way does work. Meaning, if there are problems science can’t solve, then apparently there are other techniques that do the job—mysticism and esotericism and the like—and that’s how people really go off in all kinds of strange directions. Listen, billions of dollars are poured into this. It’s a field full of interests and money, and it’s funny because it’s built on conspiracy theories, some of which, by the way, probably do contain truth, about pharmaceutical companies stirring things up and trying to fool all of us in order to advance their economic interests—and these very arguments themselves serve economic interests that are no less powerful. The interests of the alternative people, so to speak. All in all, they make a very nice living from their nonsense, and it’s built on conspiracy theories that attribute everything to interests on the conventional side. And again, there are interests. Yes, as someone once said—I don’t remember who said it first, I once heard it attributed to Kissinger but I’m not sure—just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Sometimes they do go after paranoids. It can happen. And by the way, I think that’s a very powerful sentence. Because as I said before, a lot of times when we see all this charlatanism in mysticism, we say, fine, so that’s a sign that it’s all nonsense. No. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Meaning, maybe you found a lot of charlatans, but maybe there are real people in the matter too. Therefore, in this area we need to be a bit careful with the conclusions we draw. Basically what happens in this process of the drift toward mysticism or the New Age is that on the one hand there was what in English translation is called scientism, blind or absolute faith in science. The reaction against that produced mysticism, which is excessive faith in mysticism. Whereas the truth is probably neither here nor there. Meaning, one has to understand that these fields have their limitations, if they have anything to them at all. Science, I think, does have substance, but it has limitations. Mysticism, I’m not even sure has substance, but limitations it certainly has. And therefore one has to relate to these things in a balanced way, and one of the ways to do that is to understand very well how this whole business works and what mistakes lead us to absurd beliefs on each of the two sides. One needs to understand philosophy of science and one also needs to understand how mysticism works. That seems to me to be the best recipe for a balanced attitude toward these things. Many times when I say, for example, rationalist things like this against mysticism or against things of that sort, people say to me, fine, for you logic and science are everything. Logic and science are not everything. Now I agree, logic and science are not everything, and I never said they were everything. But I do think that logic and science are excellent tools for understanding reality, and if I have a logical and scientific option for dealing with a matter, I have no reason to assume or adopt the mystical option. More than that: science and logic are a necessary condition, even if not a sufficient one. Meaning, if something is contradicted by science, I will not accept it. If science has nothing to say about something, then maybe there is something to it—I don’t reject it just because it lacks scientific validation. But on the other hand, I also won’t accept it without having some good reason to accept it if it lacks scientific validation. So this balance is a very delicate balance: respect it, but suspect it. Let’s maybe bring an example of these things, which already brings us back from alternative medicine.
[Speaker C] Can I ask a small question, Rabbi? Yes. Regarding COVID—there’s a claim that even scientists raise, maybe there wasn’t really an epidemic at all? After all, if you look at the number of deaths before the epidemic and now, the difference isn’t that significant. So who says there was even an epidemic?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, as far as I know there is a very significant difference. These stories that there isn’t much of a difference, it seems to me there’s nothing to them—that COVID is just the flu. Absolutely not. A bit more people died, but not in a dramatic way. I checked how many people die from the flu each year in Israel; we’re talking about something on the order of a hundred people.
[Speaker C] Depends on the year.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of all the possible causes, this kills a huge number of people. If there’s one thing that kills as many people as all the other things, then you have to be careful about it. Suppose every year, I don’t know, three percent of Israel’s population dies. So if there were now a missile attack that killed three percent of Israel’s citizens—I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of citizens—then we shouldn’t do anything about it? That argument is nonsense. Okay. That’s exactly the point: a lot of times arguments of this kind have to be examined in an orderly and systematic way. Again, I also don’t have all the information, and I don’t always know, but I’m very careful with the… I try to be very careful with these easy comparisons, yes, Yoram Lass’s flu. No, apparently it’s not flu. Again, Omicron, for example, maybe yes. I don’t know—really, here the mortality rate is apparently very low. Meaning, I don’t know exactly, I haven’t checked the data. Each thing on its own merits. Maybe yes, maybe no. You don’t have to be captive to anything. I’m only saying that you have to be careful; things need to be checked. The fact that science doesn’t have answers doesn’t mean that now every Orly and Guy suddenly became experts. Or Yoram Lass. Well, Yoram Lass in this case is an expert, but never mind, he’s talking nonsense. The fact that science doesn’t know how to deal with this, or doesn’t fully know, because they’re studying the phenomenon—what can you do? Or at least they’re trying to do it systematically. And when they don’t know something, they say they don’t know, and when they try to play it safe, they say, look, we’re playing it safe. We don’t know if this is the right path, but we’re trying. They make mistakes, they try and make mistakes. What can you do? Whoever doesn’t act doesn’t make mistakes. And that’s fine, there’s nothing to do. I’m very saddened by mistakes, and sometimes it’s terribly annoying and disturbing. Certainly people who have children at home. I no longer have little children at home, and this constantly changing policy is crazy. Fine, but somehow they’re trying to find their bearings in all this chaos. When people bring all these mistakes as proof that you should accept all kinds of other bizarre opinions because science knows nothing, so that means the mystics know, or the journalists know, or I don’t know who knows—that’s a ridiculous argument. Fine, with all the awareness of the limitations of scientific thinking, especially when it gets mixed up with politics, where it’s really a recipe for disaster. Fine, but I don’t know, I’m not familiar with a better way to run a public than through political institutions. With all their flaws—and they have many. I’m the last person to hide the flaws and my attitude toward politicians and politics. But fine, that’s how a public is run, what can I do? I can’t run it in their place. I wasn’t elected for that, I’m not qualified for that, and I’m not… with all… there can be criticism, so I’ll voice the criticism, and that’s fine too, by the way. Anyone can voice criticism. For example, I’m unwilling—I object—to the Health Ministry’s attacks on Professor Idit Matot. I don’t know, maybe she’s right, maybe not; I tend to think she is. But even if she isn’t right, what is this silencing about? She says what she thinks; you can say you disagree, present the arguments, and everything is fine. By the way, Orly and Guy too—that’s perfectly fine. They also shouldn’t be silenced. Not because she’s an expert—she isn’t an expert—but not because she’s an expert; anyone who has something to say should say it. No one should be silenced. I’m just saying, each thing has to be examined on its own merits. Meaning, bring arguments when you present a position, justify it, that’s all. If you justify it, maybe you’re wrong—that’s perfectly fine—then people will say you’re wrong. I’m completely in favor of free discourse, and you should be allowed to say everything, even dangerous positions, everything. Say everything, as long as it’s reasoned and open to discussion, and we’ll deal with it. On the contrary, these acts of silencing often—just tactically—often create the feeling that there really is some kind of conspiracy here and suppression of opposing views. Therefore I think that even tactically it’s a mistake to do that. If someone says something different, that’s perfectly fine; deal with what he says, state the arguments, and say why you disagree with him. That’s fine. There’s no problem with that. All these cries of anguish—what she’s saying is irresponsible—why is it irresponsible? She’s saying what she thinks. That’s perfectly fine. She’s not making decisions; she’s expressing her opinion, and excellent—let as many opinions as possible be expressed; that’s better. In the end, the authorized bodies are the ones who need to make the decisions, and that’s also perfectly fine—that’s why they’re there. So on this matter, I think it’s a symptom—I’m lingering on corona like this also because we happened to get into it—but I think this is the context in which you can see very well the phenomena I’m talking about. How people go to all kinds of arguments, develop beliefs in all kinds of nonsense because rational thinking sometimes… That doesn’t mean the alternative is correct. I think both alternatives are incorrect. And with that, okay. What I wanted to say is that an example of this issue, which now takes us from the scientific side back to mysticism—come, let’s look for a moment at stories of providence. Fine, divine providence. Belief in divine providence is basically, as far as I’m concerned, mysticism. Not because it’s false—true or false has to be discussed. I claim that it’s mysticism. Why categorically? I’m saying this is a mystical claim. And why? Not because it belongs to spiritual entities and so on. I said, that’s not the definition of mysticism. Rather, because it’s esoteric. What do I mean? You can’t test it. Try to test a thesis about providence in a systematic, scientific way—I don’t know, however you want. You won’t succeed. At least I don’t see how one succeeds; I haven’t seen anyone who really succeeded. Maybe there are great geniuses who can, I don’t know. On the contrary, in systematic tests of—yes, there were systematic tests of certain experiments, by the way only among Christians; Jews are smart enough not to do this. Christians systematically tested the effect of prayers. Do prayers help healing? There are studies about this. They took large groups that people prayed for and others that people didn’t pray for, and checked recovery rates using various statistical tools and did research on it. And it turns out there are studies that showed this—including, there were studies, it depends, there were various kinds of studies, there were studies done with full scientific methodology, one hundred percent. But there were studies that were flawed in their methodology in one way or another, without double blinding, or without a control group, or whatever, or sample sizes too small. There were all kinds of… or there wasn’t a clear measure of what counts as healed, or how much the person healed. There are many things there where these things can fail. But there were also studies that examined it seriously, and on that there are big arguments whether it works or doesn’t work, but there were studies that really examined it seriously. Among Jews they don’t do that. They don’t do that, so of course there is the prohibition of “Test Me now in this,” you’re not allowed to test the Holy One, blessed be He, except with tithes, as the Talmud says. Meaning, we Jews are smart; we’re willing to launch mystical slogans into the air as long as it’s forbidden to test them. Meaning that there is a great prohibition against testing them. But among Christians, there are no tricks. When Christians believe in something, they really believe in it—not like Jews. Meaning, if they believe in it, they really believe in it and are willing to put it to a scientific, experimental test. In any case, it’s hard to test these things. And yes, there is an appendix in the book God Plays Dice that someone once sent me—I think it was Mordechai Alperin—he sent me an article of several pages surveying the studies on the effect of prayer. An article in Hebrew published in the journal HaRefuah of Tel Aviv University. And there Professor Shoenfeld and a few others who wrote that article surveyed the studies in this field. Now the article was very strange; I’m saying this simply to show you how biased these discussions are from all sides. They made a table there of all the studies they surveyed. They also classified the studies into studies with full scientific methodology, studies that were not double-blind, studies… there are studies at different levels of scientific method. Now there were studies that showed an effect, there were studies that did not show an effect. It turns out that all the studies that examined this with full scientific methodology showed a significant effect according to their table. I didn’t read the studies; I read their article. And then they summarize the article and say, well, “the righteous shall live by his faith,” and everyone can choose, there is no scientific decision, and the question remains open. That’s the conclusion of the article. So I asked Mordechai Alperin, because he’s a doctor—tell me, am I missing something here, or is this just a pile of nonsense? He told me, no, no, you’re not missing anything, it’s a pile of nonsense. Meaning, afterward I saw that online there are critiques both of the articles and of the scientific studies with full methodology. I even gave a link in the book below to a site detailing the critiques of this. But in terms of what they presented in their article, they presented the studies and the results, and it turns out that all the studies with full methodology—with full scientific methodology—show a significant effect of Christian prayers. And their conclusion is that the question remains open and there is no scientific determination and nothing. Why? Because there are many other studies that are not with full scientific methodology that don’t show significant results. So I think I’ve never seen bias greater than that in my life. It’s really on the level of stupidity. It’s unbelievable. Which teaches you that there is bias from every direction, even from the scientific side. But at the end of the day, I’m saying that it’s really very hard to examine systematically such theses of providence—meaning active providence, of course passive providence is not even a claim about the world. But active providence—meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved in what happens in the world. That’s called active providence. That is very hard to test. The Sages say, “Because of the sin of vows, a person’s children die.” Has anyone ever tested that? Whether among people who violate their vows the child mortality rate is higher than among other people? I promise you no one tested it, and even if someone tests it he won’t discover any unambiguous findings. Because if he’s religious then he’ll find unambiguous findings, and afterward the secular person will come and show him that he biased the results and the study. It’s very hard to test this. You don’t know—maybe the children… maybe the group isn’t large enough. Maybe there are people who violated vows and don’t even know it because they don’t remember they made a vow. And then afterward the excuses will come: well, nowadays it’s no longer true, it was only true when there was prophecy. I don’t know, like with the blessing that “I will command My blessing in the sixth year.” If the Sabbatical year nowadays is only rabbinic, then there is no blessing there, the blessing wasn’t said. I think it’s written in the Sma or in one of the commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh. In short, there are excuses for everything; you can’t test anything. Now what does that mean? It means that the question of providence essentially remains a mystical question. What does mystical mean? Mystical not in a negative connotation. I’m only defining the category to which these claims belong. This is that category; it’s the category of mysticism. What does that mean? It means you can accept that there is providence because the Torah says so, or because the Sages said so, or because, I don’t know, Rabbi Shach said so, or whoever—it doesn’t matter, whoever you trust, or because Maimonides said so, or whoever, pick whoever you want—but you choose, you determine your position on this issue because you trust someone. Not because you saw it. Now what happens as a result of that? After you trust someone, of course you also see providence at every step. After all, every two days you can see someone who sees the hand of God at every step and turn, accompanying him step by step. He sees individual providence in every millimeter he walks. Obviously, if you see it through those glasses, you’ll see providence in every millimeter. And whoever sees it through different glasses won’t see providence in any of the millimeters. And in the end, you do not conclude that there is providence from what happened to you. You conclude that what happened to you was providential because you assume there is providence. And that’s obvious. All these stories about the rockets in Gush Katif, how they didn’t hit anyone—I once saw a book like that about the miracles, how the rockets didn’t hit anyone. I didn’t see there any orderly calculation of what the chance is that such rockets would hit, or how many casualties should naturally be expected from such inaccurate rockets over what is in the end quite a large area. I don’t know, I never checked it, but the authors of the book didn’t check it either. I’m not sure they even have the tools to check. Until you check it, I don’t buy this line about miracles. How do you know these are miracles? Maybe it’s just statistics. Therefore these claims about the prayer book that saved someone, this urban legend, all those cases where the prayer book in their pocket stopped the bullet that was fired at them in the war when they were soldiers—Psalms or a prayer book or whatever in the pocket and it stopped the bullet. There are all kinds of stories like that. I don’t know, I haven’t done research on how many soldiers had a prayer book in their pocket and died and it didn’t protect them, or how many soldiers had the New Testament in their pocket and it stopped the bullet, or a Chipopo and it stopped the bullet. And all these things need to be checked if you want to make a serious claim. Again, I’m not saying this in order to say it isn’t true. I’m saying this to say that these claims are not serious. Now decide what you want to do with them. You can’t claim that this is what happened to you without doing some kind of statistical validation of the matter. It’s simply not serious. It’s so easy to be impressed by things and be amazed and see in them the hand of God and an open miracle because you’re simply not trained in statistical thinking. We all fall into this, because even someone who… when you are skilled, if you’re inside the situation, it biases you, it trips you up. Obviously. Now, yes, the story—it’s not an urban legend—it happened to me personally. I always tell it, so surely you’ve already heard it, or many of you have heard it from me, about the miracle in Gedera. Yes, when I was traveling with my family from Yeruham—to tell it again, a story like this you can’t skip. I was traveling with the family from some family celebration in Kfar Chabad, some relatives of ours. We were driving back at night to Yeruham in the car, my wife and I and six children—eight people, okay? In Gedera—and I’m talking about twelve, one at night I think, something like that—we passed through Gedera, and from the side some young woman came out, later it turned out she had just gotten her license, didn’t stop at a stop sign, whatever, she came out, the guy in front of me braked and I crashed into him. The car died on the spot. Meaning, that was it, there was nothing left of it. Now in principle I’m stuck at one in the morning, eight people in Gedera on the way to Yeruham. I can order two taxis that will hold all of us and pay a fortune for it. What do you do with the vehicle? A whole mess. There was some kiosk open there, so I left the key there and told the tow truck to take it from there—but I’m getting ahead of myself, because the very second the accident happened, a large empty vehicle pulls up next to us, belonging to a neighbor of ours from Yeruham. He takes all of us—all eight—into his empty vehicle and takes us home. I’m talking about the moment of the accident, that very second. Meaning, he didn’t even see that there had been an accident. He thought—he told us afterward when we were in the car—he hadn’t even seen that anything had happened there, he intended to keep driving. Then his wife sees us and says, wait, stop a second, the Abraham family is here. Well okay, the Abraham family, so what? They didn’t even see that it had happened; it had literally just happened. But no, no, stop; maybe they need something. He stopped, all eight of us got in, and we drove home. Now it turns out that’s not all. It turns out he was some local politician in Yeruham, representative of the Haredi community on the council, something like that. So because of his political business he would always drive to Jerusalem. Yeruham-Jerusalem was a route he knew with his eyes closed. On that night he missed the turn at Latrun, where you normally leave Jerusalem toward the south. He missed Latrun, and that’s how he somehow ended up in Ramla-Gedera. He says, I don’t know these areas, I don’t know how I got there—and then precisely he arrived to us at the second my accident happened. The whole story is bizarre, because he never lost his way, he knows it by heart. He has no idea where he is, by chance his wife saw that it was us, and by chance she said wait, maybe they need something, and by chance his vehicle was big and empty. Not small and empty, not big and full, but big and empty, so all eight could fit besides him and his wife—a transit van like that. Okay? And our neighbor from Yeruham. What is the probability that such a thing would happen? Very small. Okay. Fine, so of course—I think it was Thursday, I think. On Friday there was a tish with the guys in the yeshiva, in the yeshiva in Yeruham. There was a tish, and I jumped in to tell them my miracle stories—maybe it would be written in the book of memories about the wonders I had performed. So I told the guys there, I said to them, listen, what do you say about this story? An open miracle, no? So they said yes, it’s unbelievable. I said to them, I don’t know, in my eyes I don’t necessarily see a miracle here. Let’s say that the chance of such a thing happening—I’m just throwing out numbers because it’s hard even to calculate such a thing—suppose the chance of such a thing happening is one in ten thousand. Okay? How many people around the world got stuck with a large family in the middle of the night with an accident and no one stopped for them? How many people got stuck and someone stopped only after they’d waited an hour? Draw the whole distribution. If you show me that the distribution is unreasonable, then I understand that there was a divine hand involved here. But if there is a one in ten thousand chance, and for ten thousand people this didn’t happen, and I’m the one out of ten thousand to whom it did happen, then it’s not a miracle. It’s just statistics. After all, it has to happen to someone, no? So that someone happened to be me. If it weren’t me, I’d be wailing and mourning my bitter fate, and someone else would be telling about the open miracles he experienced. So look—even something so unequivocal, no one wouldn’t see a miracle in it, only a heretic like me could deny miracles like that. Deny the good that the Holy One, blessed be He, bestowed upon him. No, but seriously, I told the guys there—and then I was still less radical than today. I told the guys there that I don’t think that, let’s say in a seminar for people returning to repentance or for outreach people, I wouldn’t bring this story as evidence of the hand of God. But I, as a believing person who thinks that God does indeed provide providence, maybe I would attribute it to Him—to the fact that He chose me to be the one out of ten thousand. That one out of ten thousand whom He does help. Fine, so maybe He is hinting something to me in this matter. That could be, maybe there could be a claim like that. After I think there is providence, to say that here I am the one who was chosen, maybe. But to bring from here proof that there is providence—that, no. And today I already think that even the weaker claim, I don’t really accept it. But I’ve gone through some stages since then. But right now I’m talking about my first claim. My first claim says that this is not evidence of divine involvement in any way. Now understand that if this is not evidence, then I don’t know what miracle could be evidence. Maybe if they stand the sun still, like “Sun, stand still over Gibeon,” or if they hold up the water like the splitting of the Red Sea. A miracle that is against the laws of nature. But statistical miracles can never prove anything, because you have to examine the whole distribution and what happened in all the cases throughout the world at all times, and then see whether what happened to you deviates from the expected statistics or not. And whether there is, what?
[Speaker D] No, what? No, I’m saying, what about “A person does not stub his finger below unless it is proclaimed about him from above”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, ask the one who said it. The Sages, no? Ask them, I don’t know. Am I responsible for what they said?
[Speaker D] How does the Rabbi interpret it? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t seem right to me. Ah, okay. The aggadic teachings of the Sages, or non-halakhic statements, are not binding. They thought what they thought. They also thought there were, I don’t know, various remedies that work, and that, I don’t know, eating onions is bad for memory. Fine. They thought all kinds of things. Does that mean they didn’t make mistakes? They did make mistakes, because they were like us today—we also make mistakes according to the knowledge we have—so they made mistakes according to the knowledge they had. Our knowledge is greater, so it turns out they had more mistakes than we do. In the area of Jewish law, the Sages have authority and that is binding, so there I accept it. But not everything written in the Talmud I am obligated to accept. There are things there that are clearly not correct. In any case, for our purposes in this context, I once brought this Talmudic passage in Berakhot. The Sages say there—the Mishnah talks about praying about the past. If one prays, “May it be Your will that these not be my household members,” or “May my wife give birth to a male” when his wife is already pregnant. So the Talmud says that one cannot pray for that; it is a prayer about the past. During the first 40 days the fetus… it doesn’t matter, the Talmud makes distinctions there, when yes and when no.
[Speaker D] So I showed—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There, in the analysis—also on the website I wrote this, also in the book Antinomy, in the second book—that there is a statement there that is very problematic. Because if you’re talking about the fact that you can’t pray about a reality that has already been determined on the scientific level, then you can’t pray for it even in the first 40 days, not only afterward. Even in the first 40 days there is already differentiation whether it’s male or female, the fetus. So what changes after 40 days? Rather, the claim is that you can’t pray for an open miracle, only for a hidden miracle. But the fetus after 40 days is also a hidden miracle. So why can’t you pray for that? A six-month-old fetus, an eight-month-old fetus, about to be born. Fine? I pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, that He turn it from male to female or vice versa. Why is that forbidden? They didn’t have ultrasound. They didn’t know.
[Speaker D] They knew there would be. What? They knew there would be ultrasound, so they said—what.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Through divine inspiration they knew there would be ultrasound. Nice, that’s a good answer, I hadn’t thought of it. In any case, the Sages’ problem is not that the miracle is a hidden miracle, but that they understood that there is a point from which onward the sex of the fetus is determined, and until 40 days it is not determined, it remains open. So then you can pray, and from then on you cannot pray. But today we know that is not correct. It’s already fixed earlier. You may not be able to see it, or it may be harder to see. But it’s fixed earlier. Now if indeed it’s fixed earlier, then in practice, according to our knowledge today, it is forbidden to pray for this even before 40 days. It is already fixed. You are not allowed to pray for what is fixed. But then again, everything in the world is fixed, because nature is deterministic. So you can’t pray for anything. Therefore, if you take the thesis of the Sages with the scientific knowledge we have today, the conclusion is that you can’t ask the Holy One, blessed be He, for anything. Because everything you ask of the Holy One, blessed be He, you are basically saying: look, naturally X is supposed to happen, and I am asking You that Y happen. Suppose I’m ill. So if I’m dangerously ill, and I say naturally I am supposed to die, please Holy One, blessed be He, heal me, intervene. Okay? Then I am basically saying to Him: do something that goes against nature. And every prayer is a request against nature. There is no prayer that is a prayer within nature. Another common mistake among sages. There is no such thing. Every request that the Holy One, blessed be He, get involved—involvement means to deviate from what nature would have done without the involvement, right? After all, you don’t need the Holy One, blessed be He, if nature would do it anyway. If nature would do it anyway, why pray to the Holy One, blessed be He? I would have managed fine on my own. So the claim is that when I ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to intervene, I’m asking Him to change what would have happened to me naturally. But if it is forbidden to pray for what is already fixed, because that is called a vain prayer, then it is forbidden to pray for anything. And indeed, that is what I think in principle if I were completely sure of it. But that’s just by the way. For our purposes, that’s not our topic. What I want to say here is that the claim regarding providence is essentially a claim that by its nature is a mystical claim. It is a claim that begins with trust that you have in someone or something—in the Torah, in the Sages, it doesn’t matter in whomsoever—and not something accessible to examination by anyone who wants to examine it or decides to examine it. Anyone there?
[Speaker E] I wanted to ask a question. You said earlier that if something deviates from the boundaries of statistics, then I would see it as a miracle. I’m trying to understand what it means to deviate from statistics.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent question. I don’t know how much of a deviation. If the probability on a die is one-sixth, the probability is one-sixth, right? So if a three comes up, is that a miracle? Because the probability of getting a three is one-sixth. Fine, but something with probability one-sixth will always come up, right? But on the other hand, if on a die you show me a thousand sixes in a row, that is no different in probability from any other sequence of a thousand outcomes, and still I’ll say that something here is unreasonable, this did not happen statistically. Meaning there is some level of plausibility beyond which I’ll say okay, this I don’t attribute to statistics—at least if I have an alternative explanation.
[Speaker D] The die is crooked.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, maybe the die is not fair. Fine. But if I have an alternative explanation, I’ll prefer it over the explanation that it happened by chance. But if I am sure the die is fair—suppose I somehow know with certainty, the die is definitely fair and no one was involved—then I will say it happened by chance. There is some very small probability that this would happen, but there is some probability that it would happen. Right? Therefore in the end it’s all a question of comparing possibilities. You choose the most probable thing. There is a whole theory in probability and statistics of hypothesis testing, and you have to compare the probabilities of two hypotheses, and there are statistical measures for what the significance level is of the null hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis, and then one decides between the two. There are statistical tools for how to do this. Now you can never be certain, but you can say with a high degree of probability that a divine hand was involved here. Maybe not. The atheist can always say, I say it’s random, right? Very small probability, but random. But here I’ll say: I’m not an atheist, I say there is a Holy One, blessed be He, so I have no problem with the claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, was involved as long as I have a good indication that this is really what happened. So therefore I say: if there is such an indication, then fine; if there isn’t such an indication, then no, there is no reason to assume it. So this claim, the claim of providence, is basically a classic mystical claim because it is essentially built on trust that I have—like the claim about the coming of the Messiah. Someone who believes in the coming of the Messiah is basically believing in mysticism, right? Forget someone who believes in God, not in the coming of the Messiah. So here in this case of someone who believes in God, I too believe in God. I just think that belief in God—as I already mentioned—is not entirely mystical. Why? Because in the end I have arguments that are logical arguments that God exists. And those arguments are accessible to anyone—not scientific arguments, but logical arguments, almost scientific. I talked about this in the Friday classes. They are logical, philosophical arguments, let’s call them, that anyone can examine. In that sense this is not mysticism. By contrast, the claim that the Messiah will come or that there will be redemption is a mystical claim. I need to believe the one who told me that. And that’s perfectly fine—you can believe it. I’m not rejecting the claim; I’m only classifying it. I’m saying this is a mystical claim because it is a claim that depends on trust. It is not subject to verification. But of course once it is such a claim, now you have to check whether you trust or not. Many times, by the way, there are many distortions around this issue too.
[Speaker A] Distortions also around this issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because let’s say belief in the coming of the Messiah. Fine? Okay, fine, God exists, we’ve reached that conclusion, and God said the Messiah will come. Did He really say that? Let’s check. Maybe not? And then it’s only human interpretation of statements of the Holy One, blessed be He, and then your trust already has to be trust in human beings, not in the Holy One, blessed be He. Or reward and punishment, Gehenna, the World to Come, things of that kind—that’s even harder. About the coming of the Messiah, you can more readily say there are indications in the Prophets. Maybe. You can also interpret those in various ways, but there there are indications. About the World to Come, Heaven, Hell, and all those things, it’s not clear to me where exactly this business started and in whom I need to believe in order to accept these things. Not in the Holy One, blessed be He—or at least it’s not enough to believe in the Holy One, blessed be He. There is a lot, a lot of human work involved before you reach this picture of worlds of reward, Heaven and Hell. To tell you that I have trust in this thing? Very qualified trust. Because in order to accept this thing I need to have trust. This is an esoteric claim, it’s a mystical claim. Now I need to check whether I have trust or not. It won’t help if they tell me I’m a heretic. So I’m a heretic—what can I do? But if I don’t believe, I don’t believe. What can I do? Because I’m a heretic, then I’ll believe? If I don’t believe it’s true then it isn’t true; if I do believe then yes. I don’t know—again, I have no position. I simply have no position in either direction; I don’t know. So all these things are examples of the application of the definition I proposed for mysticism. And you see that it reaches regions which, all in all, are not just found at two in the morning on Reshet Bet or on 103 FM, whatever it is—yes, all kinds of communications with aliens. Rather, it also touches the foundations of the religious faith of all of us. This has to be examined with the same tools and see what yes and what no. And mysticism is fine, but by the rules of mysticism. You have to examine it and see. Is there an indication, is there no indication. The fact that people say it—so they say it, so what? They said it. The fact that something is said doesn’t mean it’s true. Okay? Each thing on its own merits. Very often this trust people have is built in the same way that our belief in mysticism in general is built. I believe in a person because he is a great person, yes, he is righteous and he surely does not err. And the proof is that what he says comes true. How do you know it came true? Because someone as righteous as he is surely does not err. And therefore of course it will come true. Ah, and it did come true, so he is probably righteous because what he says comes true. Now it sounds very funny when I say it like this, but a great many of the myths about various righteous men and kabbalists are built in exactly this way. Yes, there is—I’m not talking about Rabbi Tau; he’s already come up here more than once in this series regarding Chaim Walder, yes, that was his latest statement, his Torah statement. So there too you see the attitude to this man—again, I don’t know him, maybe he really is a tremendous genius and I don’t know exactly, I’m not familiar with him, what I do know doesn’t impress me very much, but I don’t know, I truly don’t know him well enough. But many times I see people believing what he says, when none of it really stands up to the test of reality, but it doesn’t matter because someone as great as he is surely doesn’t make mistakes. He is a great man because his understanding of reality is so deep that of course he is a great man. How do you know his understanding of reality is so deep? Because everything he says comes true, he offers wonderful interpretations of everything that happens. But it only comes true because he is a great man, because in practice I at least don’t see anything that really constitutes a deep interpretation of reality, I just see someone living in a movie. So I don’t believe in him, and therefore reality also doesn’t cause me to believe in him. And someone who does believe in him, then reality also causes him to believe in him. Meaning—and this really happens. It sounds very funny the way I’m presenting it here, I’m making a bit of fun of it, but it’s not a joke. I’m describing things as they are. That’s how it works. And therefore many times these claims of trust in a person are built on his mystical abilities, and his mystical abilities are built on the fact that I trust the person. In most cases, in my opinion, that’s how it is. Not many times—in most cases, in my opinion, that’s how it is. For example, a prophet—I already mentioned this issue—needs to be tested before we give him the status of a prophet and believe what he says. And to me that is a tremendous lesson, because for some reason we don’t insist on testing various other figures in whom we place trust. You could say, look, if a person is wise, then I trust that what he tells me is probably correct. That’s fine, that isn’t mysticism, because I myself was impressed that he is a wise person, and therefore I accept what he says. That’s not mystical trust; it’s rational trust. Okay? Because I myself examined that he is a wise person, not because he said he was wise, but because I checked. And if he is a wise person, then I also accept other things he says. I’m not sure that’s a good argument, but I’m willing to hear such an argument as one that is not mystical. Okay? That’s fine. But where you build the greatness of the person on accepting his words, and the acceptance of his words on the greatness of the person—which is the case in most cases, in my opinion—then you understand that this is a foolish circle. And with many of these things, it turns out that this is what happens in practice. Yes, there is some crazy conspiracy theory there. Meaning, what he said there, that they brought down Chaim Walder because he once wrote something against Aharon Barak, I don’t know exactly what. He said very, very concrete things there. Now you say, fine, to say it’s a big conspiracy because Walder has various opponents—that also sounds strange to me, but fine. But no, he also knows who the conspirator is. And it’s because he hurt Aharon Barak, they went after him and built a conspiracy against him. All this he says without the faintest clue that there is anything to it. Now if a person like that is not hospitalized for being detached from reality, then I don’t know. To place trust in something like that is bizarre; it’s a mystical cult. About that I wrote long ago, about this move toward a mystical cult. It only gets stronger. Like everyone else, my thesis too keeps strengthening itself all the time—perhaps I’m less aware of it. In any case, where was I? But I mean that conspiracy theories are often nourished as well by building on suspicions or rejecting an alternative. When I reject that alternative, it turns out that this alternative is correct. And that is of course not a logical argument. Fine, so that’s about how mystical charlatanism is created. In this context there are various other supporting considerations. Yes, many times they tell us there is what’s called the wisdom of crowds. The wisdom of crowds—if the whole public regards So-and-so as a great person, then he is probably a great person. A billion Chinese can’t be wrong, as they say. Or a million Jews can’t be wrong either. For Chinese it needs to be a billion; a million Chinese is too small. For Jews a million is enough for them not to be wrong. Yes, like we talked earlier about acupuncture, right? That’s the billion Chinese who aren’t wrong, or more than a billion. So here it’s the same thing, but I don’t know, I’m not a great believer in the wisdom of crowds. The wisdom of crowds in non-crowd matters usually. The basic thesis of the wisdom of crowds is a simple statistical thesis. Meaning, if you want to estimate, say, how many leaves there are on a tree. And you’re not the Maharil Diskin who knows how to do this in the blink of an eye—yes, that’s one of the stories about the righteous concerning the Maharil Diskin, that he could say how many leaves there are on a tree with one glance. Well, maybe that’s even true. But maybe not. But the wisdom of crowds talks about that kind of thing, or saying how much a certain bull weighs; I think that was one of the experiments they did. Now there it turns out that if you ask a thousand people and average the answers, you get no less close than an expert in the matter, or even better. That’s what is originally called the wisdom of crowds. Afterward they take it to all kinds of places where, as I said, it’s crowds and not a taxi. But the point there is that it’s a purely statistical matter. Because if you try to estimate, say, the weight of the bull, okay? Now the assumption is that people make mistakes; someone who isn’t an expert makes mistakes, but the mistakes are distributed symmetrically around the true average. Say in a Gaussian model, probably some kind of normal distribution, where in the middle, in its expectation, is the true weight, and the mistakes are distributed—some estimate double, some estimate half, some estimate a bit differently—and so it is distributed in some way, say normally for the sake of discussion, though it doesn’t matter that it’s normal. Fine? Now if you assume the distribution is symmetric, or at least that the average gives the true weight, then of course there will be wisdom of crowds. Not because crowds are wise and know how to hit the truth, but because this is a simple statistical result: the errors of the crowd—each individual is a bigger idiot than the next—but their mistakes are distributed in such a way that they cancel one another out, and therefore the average gives the correct weight, or the average number of leaves from everyone’s predictions gives the correct number of leaves, or something close to it—closer to it even than experts. This was tested; they did tests and saw that it gives better results than the results of an expert.
[Speaker D] How does the Rabbi define the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a very simple and clear rational statistical explanation for this, but from here to saying that the public also knows how to evaluate who is a great person—I think the distance is very great. And that is true, or maybe not.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, maybe the wisdom of crowds here means like with Hillel, when they asked Hillel about the Passover offering that falls on the Sabbath with the knife, he said, “Go out and see what the people do,” meaning that within all that crowd the solution will be found.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not that within all the crowd the solution will be found. “Go out and see what the people do” means what everyone does, not what one person does.
[Speaker D] Yes, yes, that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if everyone does it, then the medieval authorities (Rishonim) already explain this. If everyone does it, then apparently they had some sort of tradition—that is a logical consideration.
[Speaker D] From that side there, as if, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not because they’re right and terribly wise. “If you do not know, most beautiful of women, go out in the footsteps of the flock” — yes, they always quote that verse about this. If you don’t know, if Jewish law is shaky in your hands, follow the custom. Yes, but the assumption — and this isn’t mysticism — is simply that if the public is doing something, there was probably some reason that led them to do it. And therefore, for example, in a place where you can assess what that reason was and it’s not a sensible reason, then there’s no reason to follow it. If most of the public does it but they’re doing something foolish, then that has no status at all. Where the fact that the public does it is an indication that it’s correct, then the fact that the public does it carries weight. It’s not something that stands on its own, unless there’s some reasonable explanation for it. Yes, the holy spirit of the public that always knows who the great sage of the generation is, and they know — “if the Jewish people are not prophets, they are the children of prophets.” I don’t know, I’m not especially impressed by the wisdom of the masses of the Jewish people, I have to say, and so these statements sound to me either detached from reality or as meaning something else. What they’re really saying is: follow the custom when there’s no other information; then go with the custom. That’s a reasonable default. That’s all. Not that the public is so wise and always lands on the truth.
Okay, so therefore in the end, the conclusion I want to draw from this whole discussion is that the nature of the mystical realm invites charlatanism, or opens an almost inevitable door to charlatans. And because of that, as a reaction to this, the opposite phenomenon also develops — total reservation about mysticism, where people say it’s all charlatanism, so there’s nothing there at all. Neither of those positions is well founded. In the end, it may be that there’s something real there. The fact that there’s a lot of charlatanism, because the nature of the field says there will be, means — I think — that you have to approach it with respect and suspicion. It’s worth trying to check, as much as you can, whether a person really has mystical abilities, whether he can tell you things he wasn’t supposed to know — that’s something worth examining. I don’t reject it out of hand. If someone can tell me things like that, then it’s possible I’ll believe he has powers that ordinary people don’t have. That’s fine — I don’t rule it out automatically, but I’m skeptical. Meaning, I would check it very carefully before reaching that conclusion, because of the nature of the field and the widespread charlatanism in it.
You also have to remember another common mistake — I wrote about this in one of the columns on the site — that the accepted criterion for being scientific is falsifiability. A theory that cannot be falsified is not scientific. But non-falsifiability is a criterion for the scientific status of a theory, not for whether a theory is true. That’s something people often miss a bit. The positivists turned this into an ideology; they identify the two things, so that whatever is not scientific is also not true in any meaningful sense. But that’s not correct. There are things that cannot be falsified and I, for example, am willing to accept them. The existence of God, which I mentioned earlier, is a thesis that cannot be falsified, and it sounds reasonable to me, and I’m willing to accept it. Non-falsifiability is a condition for a thesis to be scientific, but it is not a necessary condition for it to be reasonable or true. Science, as I said earlier, really is not the whole picture — I agree with that statement. And therefore what I mean to conclude from here is not that everything is nonsense, but that we need some kind of balanced attitude, with as much intellectual control as possible, because this is a wide-open field for charlatanism.
If, for instance, I’m talking about providence — I spoke about the question of providence — then they always tell me: right, so you can’t do an experiment, but science isn’t everything. And true, science isn’t everything, but on the other hand, if I have no indication whatsoever, why should I accept it? There’s no indication at all that it happens, so why should I accept it? So I don’t know — if it were written explicitly in the Torah and I didn’t have explanations about changes over the generations and all my other issues, which we won’t get into here, then maybe I’d say, fine, if the Holy One, blessed be He, said it, then I accept it even though there’s no indication at all and He is apparently hiding from me. But I have explanations for what is written in the Torah, and from what I see around me it’s pretty clear that this is not the case — I don’t see divine involvement here; nature behaves as it behaves.
[Speaker C] By the way, how do you know the Torah itself is even divine? Maybe human beings wrote it? There is a God, but human beings wrote it. And even if so — why is what’s written in the Torah decisive, while everything else, interpretation, is something different?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There too it has to be discussed. If I have trust in the Torah, I’ll accept it; if I don’t, then I won’t. I do. Each thing has to be discussed on its own merits. I’m saying nothing is certain, but that doesn’t mean I accept only scientific things. I accept things that sound reasonable to me even if they aren’t scientific, even if they aren’t falsifiable. If it sounds reasonable to me, then yes. Will I tell you that I’m certain every letter of the Torah came down from Sinai? I’m fairly sure not. Fine. But I do think that something was given there, there is a core to this matter, and yes, all the verses like “to this very day” and additions of one kind or another were apparently added over the generations. Fine — so what? Not a big deal.
Many times in this context, when people want to explain to others why they should be bound by the Talmud, that the Talmud is binding from the standpoint of Jewish law — let’s talk only about Jewish law right now — then they offer me explanations that the sages had holy spirit. The sages of the Talmud, the Sages, had holy spirit; everyone mentioned in the Talmud can revive the dead; all kinds of statements of that sort. I don’t know — all kinds of old wives’ tales. Where do these things come from? This too is the wisdom of the masses — ask the masses and they’ll all tell you this. Where does this come from? Because people aren’t willing to be subject to a text if they aren’t sure that it is always right. But that’s terribly childish. You can be subject to a text because it is the law, even though sometimes maybe it isn’t right — subject in a formal sense — and then I don’t have to invent legends. Folk tales that every Amora knew how to revive the dead in order to create commitment to the Talmud. What does that really mean? Basically they’re trying to build Jewish law as another kind of mysticism, something based on trust in certain people. But I don’t think that trust has to be based on people, or that Jewish law has to be based on trust in people. Yes, there are formal authorities that we accepted upon ourselves. There has to be a legal system, as in a state, as in any group. There has to be some framework for discussion, so they established some framework. But in the end, this is not mysticism. Jewish law is not mysticism, as we discussed in previous classes.
So therefore, in the context of mysticism — and now I’ve finished this chapter on charlatanism — next time I’ll want to move on to what, despite everything, can be said positively about it, and then move on to Kabbalah and to the question of the prohibitions connected to this topic. Okay, I’ll stop here. Any comments or questions?
[Speaker E] I have two questions. One question about what was said earlier about statistics. You raised a question, and I didn’t understand the answer. So basically, what are we praying for? If our expectation is, especially in light of the Talmudic instruction that we shouldn’t change nature.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that in the end, since I’m not completely convinced that there is no divine involvement that changes nature, I can’t allow myself to cancel the ordinance of prayer, of requests in prayer. If I had the power, I would abolish it. I don’t ask for anything beyond what I’m obligated to ask in the prayers, the fixed prayer ordinances, because I don’t believe in these requests. But since it may be that here and there He does intervene and answer requests and so on, I can’t rule it out, because you can’t know that it doesn’t happen. And as long as I can’t rule it out, there is a fixed ordinance here, and in order to uproot it you need a very, very good reason and very strong certainty.
[Speaker A] Abolish what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Abolish the requests in prayer. The requests in prayer.
[Speaker A] But the prayer text itself is a kind of request, so these requests — right, these requests — even if I’m dying to get medical leave from the army, I’m desperate, I’d love to pray “heal us,” even though I really want to get medical leave right now, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand. You can ask Him to heal you from cancer; let the medical leave remain. A fever of thirty-eight, thirty-nine for medical leave is just fine, but cancer — take that away from me. You can always attach these requests to something you genuinely want. But if there’s nothing you really want, and you don’t really think that the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved, then you can’t say these things. It’s like what the Sages say in tractate Yoma, that the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth. The God of these people hates falsehood. “The seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth,” and therefore they stopped saying “the great, mighty, and awesome God.” Why? Because, look, the Temple was destroyed — where is His awesomeness? What do you mean? There’s a fixed text that has to be said. How can you stop saying it? Moses our teacher said these praises of the Holy One, blessed be He, and you cancel them? That’s what the Talmud asks there. Rather, yes — the Holy One, blessed be He, hates falsehood. And if I understand that what I’m saying is false from my perspective, then I’m not supposed to say it, even though it’s an ordinance I have no authority to cancel. All of that is true. But it’s false, and I can’t say it, what can I do. I can mumble it, and mumbling it without thinking there’s anything behind it — that doesn’t fulfill the obligation.
[Speaker E] So what about the prayers in the Torah itself? For example, Isaac prays for Rebecca, Moses for Miriam.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said, I said that this is a long thesis that I didn’t get into here. I think there were miracles in the past. The Holy One, blessed be He, changed policy. Just like prophecy ceased. How is it that once there were prophets and today there are no prophets? You see that the Holy One, blessed be He — and everyone agrees with this, not only my heretical thesis — what does that mean? That the Holy One, blessed be He, apparently has some kind of policy of slowly withdrawing from His involvement in the world. I claim that in the same way, everyone agrees that there are no open miracles today, right? We’re talking about hidden miracles. In any case, everyone agrees there is a change of policy on the part of the Holy One, blessed be He. I claim that the change of policy also applies to hidden miracles. But this is explained at length in the second book of the trilogy and on my site and in several columns, and you can find a lot of detail there.
[Speaker E] We’ll get there. Can I ask one more question? Yes, yes. I corresponded with you last week about the role of the Sanhedrin when it is reestablished, and I didn’t really understand your answer, so I’ll restate it. I asked you: what’s the problem with the Sanhedrin setting standards for various kinds of data that are disputed and in practice today make things complicated, like quantitative measures, and I gave the example of the uncertainty regarding “who creates various kinds of nourishment” — what blessing do we recite over what.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no problem with that at all. If they see fit, they’ll determine it.
[Speaker E] No, so the Rabbi answered me: as a default. I didn’t understand what that means — they’ll set a default.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying you have to distinguish between two situations. There’s a situation where there is a dispute, but there’s no problem — everyone can do what he thinks, and it doesn’t create any social problem. In such a situation, even if the Sanhedrin has its own position, I think at least that it won’t intervene, it won’t decide. Why? Because there is value in autonomy, that a person should do what he himself thinks. The Sanhedrin decides where it intervenes; if it intervenes, that will be binding. I just think that as a matter of policy it won’t intervene. Where will it intervene? It will intervene in those places that create social problems. Say they suddenly see that people who follow different practices in meat and milk, or in Sabbath laws, or something like that, stop marrying one another. In such a case the Sanhedrin will intervene and say, okay, we’re going to establish a clear halakhic ruling here that will bind everyone, because this creates a social problem. I’m only saying that this dream people have, that the Sanhedrin will erase all disputes and the Torah will stop being many Torahs — which always sounds like some kind of pejorative expression — in my eyes that’s wonderful, a Torah that is many Torahs. What’s wrong with that? Where it creates social problems, there the Sanhedrin will intervene. I have no great hope that a Sanhedrin will come and cancel all disputes.
[Speaker E] I’m asking about a different problem: a situation where one halakhic decisor relates to several methods in Jewish law and sometimes rules leniently according to them and sometimes even stringently according to them. I didn’t understand. I’m saying, for example — so the Sanhedrin could solve such a thing, meaning.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does it need to solve that? What he thinks should be ruled leniently, he’ll rule leniently; what he thinks should be ruled stringently, he’ll rule stringently. Does it need to synchronize the halakhic decisors?
[Speaker E] No, but he changes his position from one passage to another, from one case to another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He contradicts his own position? If he contradicts his own position, then he’s just — well, then he’s not a Torah scholar.
[Speaker E] If I’m talking to you now about measurements, then sometimes on Passover we’ll go with a smaller measure—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And for example for the concluding blessing we’ll go with a larger measure. No. You should go according to what you think the measure is; that’s what you should do. Sometimes there are laws of doubt, fine, so apply the laws of doubt. But no — being stringent in one place and not stringent in another, that’s just nonsense.
[Speaker E] So you’re saying it has nothing to do with the Sanhedrin. In every case. It has nothing to do with the Sanhedrin; this can already be solved now. Yes, thank you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying again, if they see that it nevertheless creates problems, then maybe they’ll intervene. That’s fine — their decision. I’m just saying I have no principled hope that it will erase all disputes. Very often people say, oh, disputes and customs and Ashkenazim and Sephardim and all that, and then there’ll be a Sanhedrin and everything will be wonderful. Apocalypse now, as far as I’m concerned. If there’s a Sanhedrin that erases all these things and now nobody will be able to think, everyone will have to do what they say — that’s a nightmare for me, not a utopia.
[Speaker A] Thank you very much, good night.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good night, goodbye, Sabbath peace.