Mysticism – Lesson 11

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can take things upon myself after there is already a system that I recognize, and it’s clear to me that it is binding and correct and so on. I can say, okay, this body or this person has authority, and whatever he says within that system I have to accept, because I accepted him upon myself. But that’s within a framework that already exists. You can’t create such an acceptance, and by means of that acceptance create the framework itself. I can’t accept astrology upon myself. If it isn’t true, then it isn’t true even if I accepted it upon myself. Okay? So in short, the question is how do I explain to myself, first, that this is even accessible to someone, and second, once I accept that in principle it can be accessible to someone, the question is how I, as someone to whom it is not accessible, can know who is standing before me. So look, regarding accessibility, I already mentioned this, and I think that at least I have some sense that there can be people who have spiritual intuitions and they succeed in perceiving certain spiritual facts that are inaccessible to most of the public. That is the meaning of mysticism. I claim, though, that there is such a thing as mysticism. Meaning, there is such a domain, and there are people with certain talents who have some ability to grasp these things that others do not have. That is my tendency to think, on some level. With all the suspicion and healthy skepticism, I still think there is something to this, such that even if it is not accessible to me, I am willing to listen to a person who says, listen, it is accessible to me. But listening to him still doesn’t mean much. I still want controls. I want to see—I’m not going to accept just anyone who comes and tells me stories. So therefore—but yes, this introduction is important. Because I do not categorically rule out the possibility of the matter. And then the possibility opens up, and then the question opens up: okay, so if I do not categorically rule it out, how nevertheless will I know? Because if I ruled it out categorically, the second question would not arise. There is no such thing; there is nothing to identify here. Nothing, it’s all nonsense. But if I say that in principle there may be something to it, now I need tools to understand, okay, so when yes and when no. And here I want to talk a bit about that point. It is a very important point when we try to build a balanced attitude toward this field. Because a childish attitude toward this field is very easy to construct. Yes, he is wise, he is a genius, he is righteous, and therefore what he says is true. That I don’t buy. Even if he really is wise, a genius, and righteous. I still don’t buy what he says in these areas, because it could be that he himself is mistaken; it could be that he is a fraud. Well, if he is righteous then he is not a fraud, but a wise man can also be a fraud. But many times not; many times the person innocently really thinks he is perceiving something, and in fact he perceives nothing. We spoke about the statistical biases that people—sometimes good people, innocent people, and some of them very smart people too—can fall into on this matter because they do not have skill in statistical thinking. And they can fall for it. And they can perceive something and think they understood something, that some sort of message was conveyed to them, and in fact there is simply nothing there. Therefore this is what is called imagining, yes, in Jewish law. There are situations in which the witness is not lying, but still what he says is not true because he is imagining. And therefore, for example, in such situations a migo will not help. Because migo tells me—we spoke about this once—that if he had wanted to lie, he would have lied better. But if my suspicion toward him is not that he is lying but that he is imagining, that he simply did not perceive the situation correctly, then what does migo help me? Migo proves that he is not lying, but I didn’t think he was lying. My problem with him is not that he is lying. My problem with him is that I am not sure he perceived reality correctly. Okay. Sometimes in identifying corpses, yes, in permitting agunot. A witness comes and testifies that her husband died. So the Talmud itself discusses there, at the end of tractate Yevamot and elsewhere, the Talmud itself discusses there how to examine him: the features of the nose and the appearance of the eyes and the nose, and exactly how the person has to be identified so that we will believe you that you saw the woman’s husband. What has to be seen for me to be convinced that you indeed saw him. Now these examinations are not examinations like interrogations and examinations of witnesses that are basically meant to see whether they are lying. These examinations, at least some of them, are examinations meant to verify that you really saw what you think you saw, even if you are not lying. That you are not simply mistaken in your identification. Especially in a situation where you have a very great interest in permitting the woman. And you know that her husband disappeared. Now you see someone dead who resembles her husband. You understand that the obvious conclusion is, well then, obviously that is her husband. And you can even be sloppy with checking the precise identifying marks and verifying whether it really is him. Yes yes, I saw her husband, because after all we all know he is dead, we just have no proof, so I saw him, so apparently it is him. It is like, you know, with regard to Ron Arad or all kinds of missing persons of that sort. So there is partial, faint, indirect evidence of one kind or another. But since he has been gone from us for decades, and somehow it is intuitively clear to all of us that he is probably no longer alive, it is natural that the moment a person sees partial evidence, that will be enough for him. And he will say that the person is probably dead. But we have to be careful with that, because partial evidence is partial evidence, and it may be that we are mistaken. Therefore many times a person can himself be mistaken. It does not have to be that he is lying when he makes all kinds of claims of this sort. For example, when he comes to permit a woman, as I said before. Also in the mystical realm, many times a person has some feeling that he is seeing some sort of vision, when in fact it is his own reasoning—that is, he sees the thoughts of his own heart. Yes, a person is shown nothing except the thoughts of his own heart. So therefore there are all kinds of complicated mechanisms; people are complicated creatures, and all kinds of things can be presented as some sort of message, some half-prophecy, divine inspiration, whatever you want to call it. And the question is how can I separate the wheat from the chaff. How can one decide what yes and what no. I will bring several points in this connection. Regarding a prophet, we already spoke about this: a prophet makes claims that in the end are subject to refutation. Meaning he speaks about certain things that will happen in the future. You can test him. And you have to test him, not only can you. Once we have tested him, then we already see that he has prophetic ability, so it really makes sense to accept from him further prophecies as well, because we tested him. So true, I have no way to know whether the prophecy he is telling me right now is correct, but if he is established as a prophet and I tested him on previous prophecies, that is also a kind of indication that he apparently has some powers, some powers, such that one can accept things from him. So that is a very clear example, and it also appears in Jewish law and in the sources, and therefore in that sense life is easy. Usually that is not the situation. Usually we cannot really test a person in such a, let’s call it, scientific way. Take the example of the “it will not happen” of Rabbi Eliyahu, okay? With the disengagement, all right? Now everyone—on the one hand there were enthusiastic devotees of his who of course took it as an unequivocal promise, and on the other hand after it apparently did happen, the “it did happen,” then other people say: “Well then, there is nothing to this man, he is just a liar.” This is exactly the same dichotomy I presented earlier. Now here of course the excuses begin: he didn’t really mean it, he only wished that it would not happen, he didn’t promise that it would not happen, maybe—I don’t know, I didn’t hear the original statement. But obviously there can be all kinds of interpretations this way and that, and it all depends on whether you are for him or against him. If you are for him, you will find excuses; if you are against him, you won’t accept the excuses. Therefore these areas are areas that are very hard to test. Even after something turns out false, you can always find some kind of excuse that he didn’t mean it seriously, that he maybe—yes, like they say about the Lubavitcher Rebbe, yes? That people said he was the messiah, and in the end he went the way of all flesh—yes, the way of all faxes. So people bring proof: there, you see, it’s all nonsense. What do the Chabad people say? They say—some of the Chabad people; another part says that he is still with us and still will be. But the somewhat saner part—there apparently are a few such people there too—say, no, we did not merit it. Meaning, he was destined to be the messiah, but the generation did not merit it. What can you do? If the generation does not merit it, then the person, great as he may be… Now go argue with a claim like that; you can’t refute it. Yes, there is even such a thesis that in every generation there is a person worthy of being the messiah, and the question is whether the generation merits it or does not merit it. Now here this is a bit midrashic and so on. In short, you can do—you can find excuses for anything, if you are sufficiently ad hoc. Yes, it reminds me of an article that appeared in one of the first issues of Tzohar, I think the first or second. There was there some excerpt from a book that I later saw was published years afterward, some notes by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda on the New Testament. It was very amusing, yes? The New Testament with notes and explanations by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda. So they brought there some chapter; I was rolling with laughter, truly it is a ridiculous work. Now the main absurdity there was that he attacked it in a way that sometimes was really—meaning, this passage is against the Ketzot, therefore it cannot be true, or arguments of that sort. But okay, that is really silly. But there were certain arguments where he interpreted the things literally and said: “But this is not true, this cannot be true, and therefore obviously it is nonsense.” And as I read it I thought to myself: the very same thing can be done to the Hebrew Bible. Easily. There are many things you can see in the Hebrew Bible that are obviously nonsense—or the aggadic passages of the Sages, even better. The aggadic passages of the Sages—and Maimonides writes this in his introduction to the Mishnah—he writes that there are three groups regarding the aggadic passages of the Sages. There are those who interpret them literally and mock them—those are the wicked. There are those who interpret them literally and believe them even though they are not logical—those are the fools. And there are those who understand that there are deeper things there and that they need not be interpreted literally; sometimes it is a parable, and one needs to understand the message behind the aggadah. And that is the group of the wise. Now everything depends, of course, on how much credit you give the text. If you give the text credit, then of course you will judge it favorably and find explanations and excuses and resolutions and everything will be fine. If you do not give the text credit, then every thing you see there that is not logical—you know, we spoke about Shimon Shkop, yes? This is exactly that matter. Or the topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose.” So if you do not give the text credit, then of course you will seize on it: here he speaks nonsense, and there he speaks nonsense. Now Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda of course does not give credit to the New Testament, so he catches it on these errors and those errors. The very same errors, and many more, can be caught in the aggadic passages of the Sages and also in the Hebrew Bible. But we have all kinds of excuses that we have already become accustomed to. Okay? Okay, so what? Simply because we are in favor. Whoever is in favor finds excuses and judges the text favorably. Whoever is against it does not. So what is the point of attacking the New Testament? You understand that Christians who are in favor of it will find a hundred thousand excuses. Yes, for everything. Everyone has excuses. I once saw a book published by Sifriyat Poalim, in “Workers in Struggle.” It was part of Sifriyat Poalim, some communist kind of thing; “Workers in Struggle” was the red series. Yes, probably the hardcore communism books. So in the 1950s I once saw a little booklet translated from Russian by someone named Umilansky, I think, something like that. I have it somewhere. I greatly enjoyed seeing it—meaning, smirking at it. And that booklet was about Lenin and the new physics. And there he shows how Lenin, by signs and wonders, foresaw all the discoveries of modern physics—apparently by equidistant letter sequences of sevens and forty-nines. I don’t know exactly, but in short he shows that everything is there in Lenin’s writings, all of modern physics. Of course whatever does not fit Lenin is of course also physically incorrect and will be refuted, if it has not already been refuted. And there you see levels of pilpul that would not embarrass the greatest Talmudic hairsplitters. When you want to reconcile something, if you are sufficiently for it, you will always find a reconciliation. There will almost never be a difficulty that topples it. The whole question is whether you are for or against. And in these areas it really somehow turns out that it is very hard to put anything to a falsification test. Because if you can always explain away everything, then the whole business says nothing. Yes, about—I don’t know—twenty years ago maybe, someone came to Israel, what was his name, David Passig. Today he lectures at Bar-Ilan, a futurist. I think he brought to Israel the field of academic scientific futurism. Scientific in double quotation marks—in my view, double quotation marks. So this is some academic discipline that apparently even has a chair at Bar-Ilan and all kinds of people doing doctorates there, and abroad it is apparently even more popular, in places where one can also do a doctorate in home economics, so one can do a doctorate in anything. And he wrote some article right after he arrived, after the post—he came to Israel and wrote some article, and Azriel Ariel, I think—Rabbi Azriel Ariel was the editor of Tzohar—sent it to me to ask what I thought, as if to look at it a bit from a scientific perspective. He asked what I thought because there he was predicting miracles and wonders for the State of Israel, what enormous successes it would soon have, and all kinds of things of that sort. So I looked at the thing, and honestly it just made me laugh out loud. It is a collection of such nonsense and drivel that truly our fathers never imagined the like. Meaning, these predictions are predictions in the style of the Oracle of Delphi, yes? It always tells you something such that whatever happens will fit it—yes, like the octopus from Munich. Meaning, whatever happens, you will be able to explain it. He says it in a sufficiently vague way that whatever happens, in the end you can explain that he indeed hit the mark. He does not give you clear forecasts. Now of course one cannot give clear forecasts; he only gives directions and so on because he is an academic, not a prophet. And precisely for that reason the Oracle of Delphi was also an academic. He too only gave directions; he did not give clear forecasts, and therefore it is worth nothing. It is worth nothing because it is not falsifiable. Of course they explain there, no, there are tools to measure it and statistics and everything—I do not have a millimeter of trust in that whole field. And what little I read—I did not read much—but from the little I read, it is a collection of drivel such that it is simply unbelievable that this field got past first-year finals, not to mention a doctorate. Not he himself; he may be a genius, I am not talking about that. But the field itself is simply a collection of nonsense. And the whole idea is simply because it is impossible to put anything there to a falsification test. If one could, then surely half the things would be refuted like any guess; it would be no better. An educated guess, if you like, at most. And the same thing basically exists in this context too, because if you want to examine, I don’t know, a Jew like Rabbi Eliyahu. You want, say, to examine—I don’t know—a Torah scholar, it is clear he is a Torah scholar, but you want to examine his spiritual abilities, yes? Whether he can predict things about the future or see depth or all kinds of things of that sort? So you want to put him to a test. So you test some prediction of his—it did not happen, it was not fulfilled—and then they say no no, he didn’t mean it seriously, he only wished for it. So how am I to test him? On what basis can I believe such a person if I have no way to test him? Yes, it is like “test Me in this,” yes, regarding the tithe, yes? Or testing the Holy One, blessed be He. How can one test that? It is nonsense. How can one test? That is the one thing one is allowed to test the Holy One, blessed be He, with, right? Charity, the tithe. How am I to test Him? What, after I tithed, then what? I made money? Others make money too, and those who do not tithe also make money, and sometimes those who do tithe do not make money. So what—how do I know what came because I tithed and what did not? I would need to do some very, very careful experiment on a large population of tithers and a large population of non-tithers in the same situation, say, at a certain time, and see what happened after a year—or I don’t know exactly, you’d have to plan it, it’s very hard. And whatever result comes out there, I’m sure one could find a hundred thousand excuses for it this way and that. Like the prayer experiments, yes? Where they test the effectiveness of prayers. I think I spoke about this one of the previous times. The effectiveness of prayers in healing people. There were experiments that tested this, among Christians, not among Jews. Jews know that it’s better not to test. But Christians are serious; when they believe in something, they really believe in it. So they are even willing to put it to a scientific test; they test it. So there are arguments: yes it works, no it doesn’t work—not important right now—but the very fact that there are arguments means that it is indeed very, very hard to test such things. So how, then, can one nevertheless give trust to such kinds of statements if they cannot be tested in any way? So I will give a few points. First of all, sometimes it really can be tested. For example, I gave the story of jaundice, yes? Remember, with the pigeons. Suppose that systematically and in a controlled way I would test, on a broad experiment, the effectiveness of pigeons on jaundice patients. A large group with pigeons, a large group without pigeons, another group I put a hoopoe on them instead of pigeons in order to neutralize the placebo, yes? So there will be double blinding, never mind, something else—and I test whether the pigeon group recovers significantly more than the group without pigeons. In principle one can do such an experiment, and one can more or less define parameters of recovery. I am not sure the results will be unambiguous, but they could be unambiguous. If this thing comes out true, then in principle this is a test that should convince me that the pigeons work. Of course now one can come and say, well, if they work then apparently it is not mysticism but medicine. Now we only need to think why it happens, do research, see why it happens. I don’t know—whatever you call mysticism, in principle one can try to put it to a scientific test, to a test of effectiveness, meaning to see whether it works or not, as long as it really gives me statements or predictions about reality that one can put to the test—predictions, yes?—that one can put to the test. But usually kabbalistic or mystical statements are not statements that put themselves to the test. They tell us about spiritual worlds, and what our actions do, and what our actions do not do, and prayers here and prayers there and all kinds of things of that sort. It is not something that really presents me with a factual claim that I can put to a test, a test of falsification or confirmation. And the question is how do I test claims of that sort? So again, the first thing I said here is that sometimes they can be tested. There were, by the way, systematic experiments on parapsychology. Not many, but there were. I no longer remember what his name was; there was someone at Berkeley or Harvard, I no longer remember, some person in the 1960s I think, of the previous century, who conducted a series of systematic experiments on parapsychology and claimed that he found very significant findings, that it works. What does “works” mean? It means that there are people with para-abilities, who succeed in doing things that ordinary people do not succeed in doing. Okay? So he tested, and afterward there were many arguments about it; I understood that in the end it was not accepted. Again, because these areas are loaded, I do not place much trust even in those who did not accept it, because everyone is biased in arguments of this sort. I don’t know; I did not examine it deeply, I do not know what came out. It is accepted that in the end there is no clear scientific confirmation of these phenomena. In principle, if someone claims he has parapsychological powers—what do you mean? You can test him scientifically. Let him guess, I don’t know, cards that I am hiding, versus an ordinary person who guesses, and see whether he guesses significantly better. If so, apparently he has an ability that another person does not have. Call it mysticism or not mysticism, but this is something—it is a claim that can be tested. But of course that is because it is a claim that says something about reality. A claim that says something about reality is, in principle, testable. What about—so that is the first direction, that one can test—but only regarding claims that say something about reality. What about claims that do not say something about reality? Here too there are, I think, several indications that one can nevertheless use. For example, it is well known that different mystical doctrines around the world have lines of similarity among them. Not insignificant lines of similarity. One cannot ignore them. Again, it is hard to quantify, I do not know; it is hard to quantify how much one mystical doctrine resembles another, but somehow the impression is that there are not insignificant lines of similarity. Yin and yang, kindness and judgment, male and female—yes, all this dualism that appears in many mystical teachings—these are things that are very similar. One cannot ignore this similarity. There is—I once read, I was once interested in the doctrine of Gurdjieff, yes, some Bukharan scholar, a Bukharan mystic, who had many students from the West, all kinds of devotees from the West, some of them academics and Russian aristocrats and all kinds of generals and such, important people, some of them, who studied mysticism with him systematically. Ouspensky was some American sociology professor who wrote—he basically published the books on Gurdjieff’s doctrine. In the end Gurdjieff, I think around the time of the First World War, moved West, from Bukhara to the West, to Paris; he had an estate there with his students, and he became a fairly well-known art critic. In any case, he was a character, okay? I even remembered that I wrote a column about this; someone here reminds me. In any case, his books, which are really Ouspensky’s books describing his doctrine, are books whose resemblance to Kabbalah is very strong. There really are seven sefirot there, a ray of creation divided into seven sefirot—not called by the same names as in Kabbalah, but still, the number seven as well, and the mode of reference or the structures are structures that very much resemble the structures we encounter in Kabbalah. That happened to catch my attention. Now I don’t know how to measure that, and it may be there was direct influence; maybe he met some kabbalist and learned from him, or I don’t know. Because he met mystics all over the world. He recounts there in the books—there is one book, I think, that he himself wrote, Meetings with Remarkable Men, that is the only book I think he himself wrote, not Ouspensky. And there he describes various journeys he made across the deserts of Asia, and he got from Iraq to Persia and met all kinds of scholars living in caves, mystics, and they knew about one another. They knew that in that cave, somewhere hundreds of kilometers away from him, there sat some scholar whose doctrine was such-and-such, and he wanted to speak with him, so he took all his students and they traveled on camels to that scholar, and after that to someone else, and they went on these mystical journeys across the deserts of Asia. And once—it reminds me that once I went to see some movie called In Search of the Miraculous, with several friends. In Search of the Miraculous is the title of Ouspensky’s first book. I did not understand how one makes a movie out of such a thing. It is like making a movie about Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, filming the Critique of Pure Reason. It is a theoretical book—what is that? And I remember only the first ten minutes of that movie: some camels walking in the desert with some mystical music. After ten minutes I fell asleep; apparently the rest was also camels with the same mysticism. I think nothing happened there. But for our purposes, the similarity I found there is not insignificant. In the introduction of—I think in the introduction of Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo, the physician, who wrote a work around Sefer Yetzirah, he tells that at the beginning of his involvement in these subjects he understood nothing. And he did not find anyone who succeeded in explaining these matters to him, until he met some Muslim, Persian scholar—I don’t remember exactly what he was—a gentile, yes, and from him he learned the whole story, and then he wrote a work around Sefer Yetzirah. Meaning, he too apparently saw the resemblance between Muslim mysticism—apparently it was Muslim—and Jewish mysticism. There are the Muslim Sufis, yes, the Muslim mystics, whom Rabbi Abraham son of Maimonides is known to have had contact with in Egypt, and more. Meaning, there are of course also interactions between the mystics from the different directions, and therefore there may also be some direct influences. But sometimes I get the impression that it cannot all be the result of direct influence. Things develop in different places with no connection to one another, and there are not insignificant lines of similarity between them. And this means that these people apparently have some intuitive ability to perceive the spiritual layers of reality, and the similarity between the various pictures means that they are apparently grasping something real that really exists there somewhere. So this similarity itself, although the thesis itself is not falsifiable—I do not know how to see the ray of creation and see whether it is divided into seven. But if I hear from different mystics, from different schools in different places around the world, that there is a ray of creation divided into seven parts, and assuming this is not the result of contact between them, then this does constitute some kind of confirmation. Yes, if people develop mysticisms in different places, in different regions, at different times, and it looks similar, then this gives some indication that they are apparently perceiving something that has substance. I think I once told this story: there is some friend of a friend of mine, somewhat younger, Benny Shanon. He is a professor of psychology at the Hebrew University, and he deals a lot with mysticism that results from hallucinogenic drugs, psychedelic drugs. There is some South American drug—I forgot its name—that a friend of mine had actually used in South America. He told me when he returned—today it is already known, it even reached Israel a bit, but this was long before people had heard of it. He was somewhere in the forests of Bolivia, and he says that everyone who smokes—or I don’t know exactly what one does with that plant—it is some particular plant that the Indians in some village where no white man’s foot had trodden. He says that the previous white man before him in that village was some German scholar several decades earlier. And he claims that everyone who smokes the stuff sees certain visions, and they are the same visions, and it resembles the kabbalistic chariot, the descriptions of the chariot in Kabbalah. He himself is completely secular, even anti—yes, he has no background and no sympathy for this field—but that is the fact, that is what he told me. And then he sent Benny Shanon—sent him to do research on this. He went there to those places, and he returned to Israel and wrote things about it and so on. I arranged some meeting with him, but he disappeared into the forests—exactly, ayahuasca, exactly. So he disappeared there for about half a year in the forests of South America, and in the end the meeting never materialized. Then after—I don’t know—ten or twenty years I heard a lecture by him, and then I remembered that this was he; I had not remembered at all that it was him. I heard some lecture by him in which he mentioned this business, and afterward we spoke a bit after the lecture. What? Can’t hear? No. In any case, the point is that the claim, at least, is that everyone who consumes, smokes—I don’t know exactly what one does with that plant—sees more or less the same visions. This too is some kind—you can say that it is simply a result of the structure of the human psyche, that these are the visions that surface when we consume this thing. But if we really think there is some particular vision here—but if we really think there is some particular vision here and everyone sees the same thing, then this can constitute some indication that maybe there is substance to it. Meaning, that everyone really is seeing something here, and not merely imagining. Again I say, this is an indication; one can say no. One can say it is a result of the structure of our psyche. The structure of our psyche simply dictates that when we consume this ayahuasca, we will see a certain type of vision, because that is how it affects human beings. Okay, so I don’t know. But these are a certain kind of indications that can exist even without a direct indication testing the claim itself on its own merits, because here there is no claim that can be tested; it is not a factual claim. But if different people in different places with no connection tell me, describe to me, the same picture, then that is some indication perhaps that there is substance there. How do I nevertheless—this is the second point. Meaning, the first point: claims that are claims touching facts can really be put to a scientific test. Claims that do not touch facts—perhaps if I hear them from different and independent sources, that is some kind of indication that they have substance. By the way, there need not be identity, because as the Sages also say, no two prophets prophesy in the same style. So each person can see the same vision and describe it somewhat differently, or each of them sees it somewhat differently, and it is enough that there be significant or meaningful lines of similarity in order to be convinced that there is something there. The fact that there are many differences—fine, there are many differences because each person of course also sees it in a way adapted to him, meaning, according to his own tools. But if there are lines of similarity, then that can nevertheless say that there is something substantial in it. There are sometimes situations in which a mystical theory works like a scientific theory in the sense that it places many insights for me within a context, and suddenly I understand that it is right. Meaning, I have certain insights of one kind or another, and suddenly some theory comes that ties together many insights, places them within a single conceptual framework, okay? And because of that, this gives me an indication that this framework is correct, because the fact is that it succeeds in explaining or unifying many insights that I also had beforehand. And again, without my being able to put the thing itself to a falsification test, the very fact that it succeeds in explaining many things, or bringing them all into one explanation, is a kind of strengthening that I can give to mystical claims. Somewhat similar to this are the Talmudic discussions that speak about a presumption after three times. This is really a fascinating topic, presumption after three times; it is mainly in Yevamot, but there are several places. Yes, three times that women see on a certain date, or at a certain interval, establishes menstrual status. Three times that an ox gores makes it a habitual gorer. A woman whose husbands died, or whose children died from circumcision—after three times there is a presumption there. Meaning, the three times that something happens teaches me that there is some mechanism causing these things to happen, even though I have no indication that this mechanism is correct except that it simply explains a collection of things. Yes, this is the well-known Rabbi Chaim on the Talmud at the beginning of Moed Katan—at the beginning of Chagigah, sorry. The Talmud there brings three signs of an imbecile. Yes: sleeps in a cemetery, goes out alone at night, and tears his clothing. And the Talmud says there, okay, the one who sleeps in a cemetery—maybe he forgot something there, or wants a spirit of impurity to rest upon him, or whatever; they have explanations. The one who goes out alone at night—it is because he forgot something and wants to look for it, or each such thing has an explanation. So the Talmud says if there were one thing, if he has only one sign, there is an explanation. If he has two signs there is an explanation—there is a discussion there. Rabbi Chaim asks: then even for three signs there could be an explanation. He sleeps at night in the cemetery so that impurity will rest upon him, he goes out at night because he forgot something, and he tears his clothing because he is seized by disturbing thoughts. Okay? So I have explanations for each phenomenon. Why, if there are all three signs, is there a presumption that the man is an imbecile? So Rabbi Chaim says: because for one thing you can find an explanation, two things can also happen by chance, and there are two different explanations. But if you have three things that line up—what, one explanation probably is the correct explanation. If the alternative is three different explanations, one for each phenomenon, or I have one explanation that weaves together the three phenomena, then probably the second explanation is the correct explanation. And scientific generalization is built on this, and all kinds of presumptions after three times in Jewish law are built on this, and all kinds of such things. The basic idea here is that there are sometimes situations where I cannot confirm the theory directly. But if that theory explains many things, then it is probably correct. Like in science, I create theoretical entities. I have no way of knowing whether they are correct or not; I cannot observe them. But if the system that I created succeeds in explaining many facts, that strengthens the claim that this system is probably correct. And here there really is an important point that I think many people miss. There is—I mentioned in the classes on, I think in the Friday classes—I mentioned the article by Elia Leibowitz. He is a physicist from Tel Aviv University, the son of Yeshayahu, and he wrote a critique of the physico-theological argument. Yes, the argument—say that Reverend Paley presented the argument of the watch. Yes, you are walking on the seashore and you find a watch lying there on the shore, and you say to yourself, how did a watch get there on the seashore? Two possibilities. It could be that there were all kinds of parts and somehow they came together and by chance a watch was formed. Second possibility: there was a watchmaker who built this watch. I assume every rational person would choose the second possibility. So Reverend Paley says: here is a very complex world. One possibility is that it happened on its own in some accidental process and somehow the complex world we know came to be. Second possibility: there was someone who assembled it, there was a watchmaker. So here too Paley argued that the second possibility is the more reasonable one. So Elia Leibowitz says about this that the analogy fails. In the case of the watch, or say the Sistine Chapel, yes? You arrive at the Sistine Chapel and you see the paintings there of Michelangelo, yes? You say, well, these paintings could not have come into being on their own; apparently there was a genius painter who painted them. That is your conclusion. He says that is a logical conclusion. Why? Because you know that there are painters. You know there are painters in the world, so why assume that this painting came into being on its own? So you can assume there was a painter who painted it because that fits something already known to you. You know there are watchmakers who build watches, so there is no reason to assume that the watch came into being by chance; it is preferable, more reasonable, to assume that there was a watchmaker who built it. But you do not know that there is a God who creates worlds. So when you see a complex world, there is no preference at all for the theory that there was a God who created it over the theory that it was created in some accidental, blind, arbitrary process. That is the claim. Now where is he mistaken? He basically—he almost says it explicitly—that an explanation has to be grounding in the familiar. When you want to explain something, you explain something not understood by means of something that is itself understood; otherwise it is not an explanation. So when I want to explain the paintings of the Sistine Chapel—after all, I know there are painters who paint paintings—so I take the principle that I know and use it to explain the phenomenon before me that requires explanation, the paintings. Or the watch: here is a very complex mechanism; I don’t know how it got here, so I take the information I have about watchmakers and use it to explain the existence of the watch here. Okay? Therefore these explanations are logical, reasonable explanations. But to explain the existence of the world with God, he says, you take something that is unfamiliar—God—not at all drawn from our experience, we have no indication whatsoever that such things even exist—and you take the world, which overall is actually fairly familiar to us, our world, and in order to explain it you use God, who is unfamiliar. In what sense is that an explanation? That is grounding the familiar in the unfamiliar. An explanation is supposed to ground the unfamiliar in the familiar, but to ground the familiar in the unfamiliar—is that an explanation? That is the claim. He says the world is overall fairly familiar to us, our world, and to explain it you use God, who is unfamiliar. In what sense is that an explanation? That is grounding the familiar in the unfamiliar. An explanation is supposed to ground the unfamiliar in the familiar, but to ground the familiar in the unfamiliar—is that an explanation? That is his claim. And he is mistaken there in many things. I think the physico-theological argument—I explained this on Friday—the physico-theological argument does not speak about explanations; it speaks about arguments. It does not purport to explain anything. The conclusion is that there is something that created the world; that is a logical conclusion. It does not come to explain the existence of the world. But we won’t get into that here. What is important for my purposes is something else. He is also mistaken in understanding not only the physico-theological argument; he is also mistaken in understanding the concept of explanation. It is not true that every explanation is grounding in the familiar, as he assumes. In the scientific world there are two types of explanations. There is an explanation that is grounding in the familiar, and there is an explanation that is grounding in the unfamiliar. Grounding in the familiar—yes, in the language of Thomas Kuhn, this is basically—Thomas Kuhn is a philosopher-sociologist of science, and he divides scientific activity into two kinds, two periods, in each of which there is a different kind of activity. There is a period of activity within the paradigm, and there is a period of crisis that leads to a paradigm shift. What does that mean? We have a good theory that works—the theory of gravitation, say, okay? Or electromagnetism, never mind. Work within the paradigm basically means: take the theory and use it to explain various phenomena. You want to explain refraction of light, you want to explain I don’t know what, all kinds of such phenomena—you can use electromagnetic theory to explain these phenomena. So you use a theory that works, that you know, in order to explain phenomena that are not understood. That is grounding in the familiar, yes? Or gravitation—you know that two bodies attract one another. Now you use the theory that two bodies with mass attract one another in order to explain the phenomenon of the tides, which seemingly has no connection. It really is not understood why there are tides, and here I have the theory of gravitation. The theory of gravitation is familiar; I know it. I use it in order to explain the tides. Because when the moon is close there is gravitation, when the moon moves away there is no gravitation—never mind, there are explanations connected to the moon. So you use a familiar theory to explain phenomena that are not understood. That is the paradigmatic situation, scientific activity within an existing paradigm. But sometimes a situation arises in which too many phenomena cannot be explained in terms of the existing paradigm. Many experimental results contradict what the paradigm would have expected, predicted, to happen. Then a crisis arises. One or two results do not create a crisis—in that he is right—that is an interesting phenomenon, and he is right about that; one or two do not create a crisis, so apparently we did not understand, and we will be wiser later and understand. But there is some critical threshold of phenomena from which onward we understand that this paradigm does not stand the test of the facts. It has to be replaced. And now they begin searching for a new paradigm, a new scientific theory that will explain all the facts, including those that the previous paradigm did not explain. When does this crisis pass or end? When we find a new theory that explains all the facts. Now what is the new theory? For example, let us go back to gravitation, but gravitation in Newton’s time, not in ours. In Newton’s time he found the theory of gravitation; meaning, in his time it was not a known theory. So what did he do? He basically argued: there is a collection of phenomena that we know—attraction, the tides, the paths of the stars, all kinds of phenomena of that sort. I claim that there is such a thing as the law of gravitation or gravitational force, and it explains all these phenomena. Now I do not know what gravitational force or the law of gravitation is; he invented that at that moment. These were not known things. The phenomena I know: I know there are tides, I know there are paths of the stars, I also know that bodies fall to the earth—I know all of this. So in what sense, according to Elia Leibowitz, yes, in what sense does the theory of gravitation constitute an explanation of these facts? You invent concepts no one has ever heard of and explain with them a collection of phenomena familiar to us. Do you see Elia Leibowitz’s argument? It is like inventing God in order to explain all kinds of phenomena in the world that are familiar to us. Elia Leibowitz claims that such a thing is not an explanation, and therefore there is no point in accepting it. So according to his position, there is no point in accepting any new theory, because whenever there is a new theory, whenever there is a paradigm shift and a new theory is created, it is always grounding in the unfamiliar, always. Why? Because I take a collection of phenomena that have no explanation in the existing paradigm and I propose a new paradigm that I have no idea whether it is correct, but I reach the conclusion that it is correct because it succeeds in containing all the facts, all the phenomena that had not been explained until now. It sort of explains them. What does it mean that it explains them? In what sense does it explain them? After all, it itself is not known to us and not understood by us. It explains them only in the sense that it shows that they are particular cases of it. That is what Carl Hempel calls the deductive-nomological schema. What does that mean? Scientific explanation is basically to find a general theory of which the case you want to explain is a particular case. It follows from it by deduction. I want to understand why the ball that I let go falls to the earth. I find a general theory: every two masses attract each other. The falling of the ball to the earth is a particular case of that theory; therefore one says that that theory explains this particular case. Meaning, if this theory succeeds in showing that many insights or phenomena that we know can fit within its framework, it succeeds in containing them within a unified framework, that itself constitutes an indication that it is correct. This is called grounding in the unfamiliar, not grounding in the familiar. And the creation of a new theory is always explanation of the grounding-in-the-unfamiliar type. Once the theory is known and accepted, from that point on we explain various phenomena on the basis of that theory, and those are already explanations that are grounding in the familiar. But scientific progress always takes place when we use grounding in the unfamiliar, because we find a new theory. That is what it means to progress. Now, of course, with a scientific theory, after we have found the new theory we try to test its additional predictions and do experiments that put those predictions to the test. If there are such experiments, then the theory we have found is scientific. In a mystical theory, we may find a theory that explains many facts, but apparently one cannot put it to a falsification test. It is not scientific. But the fact that it is not scientific does not mean it is not correct. And more than that, the very fact that it explains many phenomena and puts them into one framework gives us some indication that there is something correct in it. The very fact that it succeeds in containing many phenomena, even without my being able to put it itself to a falsification test. There are some philosophers who claim that to examine whether something is true or not is only a question of consistency. One cannot examine independently whether something is true. If there is internal consistency, then as far as I am concerned the thing is true. It is tested in the relations between its components, yes? It is not tested outwardly. I think that view is incorrect, but regarding mysticism I do want to point out that internal consistency, or the inclusion of a collection of particular things within a general theory, does give some indication that there is something in the general theory. Therefore in that sense, if we encounter a mystical thesis that can unify many particular phenomena familiar to us, that can constitute an indication that it has substance, that it is correct. Again, a certain indication with limited warranty, but it is an indication. We are looking for indications; I do not have proofs, not even at the scientific level. But an indication—certainly that can be. Was there another question?

[Speaker C] Yes. I don’t really understand why that’s an indication, because in the end, when we’re talking about these kinds of mystical theories, then for every difficulty—as great as your imagination—you can explain it away and build endless theoretical and spiritual structures.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends on what you build with it. It depends on… if the structure is endless, then you haven’t done anything. If the theory is a simple theory with few components, and it succeeds in explaining many phenomena, that’s exactly its power. Obviously, a theory that you keep adding components to according to the number of phenomena you want to explain is worthless. That’s obvious. That’s what’s called ad hoc, right? Ad hoc fixes to a theory. You keep patching the theory every time you have something that contradicts it, you add another component—that’s worth nothing. The power of a theory is judged by its simplicity. Meaning, if it has few components and it succeeds in explaining many phenomena with those few components, that means there’s probably something real there.

[Speaker C] Okay. So basically, when you say that such a theory can serve as an indication for scientific data, then I’m going back to concepts you mentioned in another series—necessary condition and sufficient condition. Are you proposing this as an alternative to scientific theory, or does it somehow work in parallel alongside it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can be in parallel. What’s the relation between them? That’s what I talked about—the relation between parallel planes of explanation. But as far as I’m concerned, they’re parallel. Is there a one-to-one mapping between them, or is it a global mapping? I talked about all those possibilities. I discussed that there in other series. In any case, actually I talked about it a bit here too. Actually, I also talked about it in this series—about parallel planes of explanation I spoke here, about the relation between scientific explanation and mystical explanation. Is there a mapping or is there no mapping? I talked about that here. In any case, maybe I want to bring an illustration. Look, the Briskers like studying Kodashim, right? In Brisk they study Kodashim, that’s well known. Kodashim and Taharot. Why? Does anyone have an idea why? What’s their great love specifically for Kodashim and Taharot?

[Speaker D] These are abstract matters, so they don’t bear responsibility for practical Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying because they don’t want to take risks in practical Jewish law?

[Speaker D] Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even though they always present two sides. Even in topics of damages they present two sides, or in Orach Chayim. So there too there are two sides. That’s Rabbi Chaim—the well-known story about Rabbi Chaim, that he sent a question to Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan of Kovno, saying—

[Speaker D] Answer me—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —only yes or no, without reasons. Because if you bring reasons, I’ll bring you a hundred reasons against. Just tell me yes or no. Meaning, he didn’t issue halakhic rulings even in areas where people do issue rulings, so that’s not—I don’t think that’s the point.

[Speaker B] To enter into something unfamiliar, something people don’t usually deal with maybe, to be unique.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, they’re more righteous? So why specifically the Briskers? There are righteous people of other kinds too.

[Speaker B] Not righteous. It’s more challenging, something not everyone deals with, to see why—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —people move aside from it.

[Speaker D] To bring the redemption closer. To bring the redemption closer, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are lots of explanations. I’ll tell you—look, the Briskers, their basic ethos is that they ask only what and not why. Right? In the yeshivot they always say in the name of Rabbi Chaim: we deal only with the what, we don’t deal with the why. Of course that’s nonsense, but never mind. That’s the ethos by which they educate themselves; they convince themselves that this is their ethos. Now, in areas like Nashim, Nezikin, or even Moed, very often we have intuitions about the why. Right? Talk about damages, topics that we study analytically in yeshiva, okay? We raise conceptual possibilities. You can understand it this way; he is believed because of this, he is believed because of that. There’s some logic here that we can try to search for in the passages, or insert into the passages. If you want to ask what without asking why, the best place is Kodashim and Taharot. Because in Kodashim and Taharot you have no intuition at all about the why. A collection of scriptural decrees—I don’t know why you need to throw the blood, why you need to carry it, why inside, why outside—what? I don’t know, all kinds of laws like that which say nothing to me. They’re not from my everyday world, not connected to my everyday world. In a place like that, I have no evil inclination toward the why. I can be a Brisker comfortably: ask only the what and ignore the why. And I think that’s the reason why in Brisk they so love Kodashim and Taharot, because there our common-sense, homeowner-style conceptual assumptions, as they used to call them—our ordinary everyday common-sense assumptions, the why—don’t get mixed in. Except that, as I said before, that’s of course nonsense. There’s no such thing as what without why. How can you answer the what without answering the why? After all, every move Rabbi Chaim proposes is always a why. He proves it by means of all kinds of whys—the practical ramifications are the what, sorry, not the why—by means of all kinds of whats. There are all kinds of facts in the medieval authorities (Rishonim) or in the Talmudic text or something like that, and he builds a theory that explains the facts. Right? That theory is basically some kind of why, because without the why, for every finite set of facts there are infinitely many theories that can explain it. That’s a theorem, okay? Now what? It’s just that common sense makes some sort of classification, says there are implausible theories; the plausible theory is this one, or the simplest one is this one. There’s the why. The why is what led you to the theory you chose from among all the other theories. Because the facts in themselves—if you ask only the what—the what is the facts. What does Maimonides say? That’s the fact. What does the passage say? That’s the fact. Explanations—there can be infinitely many explanations. How do you decide specifically on this explanation rather than another one? Because it seems more plausible to you. Meaning, you are in fact bringing in the why. There is no what without why. You can’t build a theory about the what without having some intuition regarding the why. That’s a Brisker illusion; there can’t be such a thing. Except that now let’s go back to Kodashim and Taharot. If I’m right, then this really raises a question: how are analytical theories created in Kodashim and Taharot? There we truly have no intuition about the why. So how do we succeed in doing Talmudic analysis in Kodashim and Taharot? I think the point is that we have some ability to look through the what and from within it understand the why. We have some kind of intuition that isn’t necessarily built on previous experience, or on what we encounter around us, on observations or things of that sort, but some intuitive ability to grasp abstract things, the why—the Platonic ideas that stand at the base of things, the tangible objects. The horseness through the horses. I look at the horses, but through them I see the horseness. So we have some ability to grasp the theory, or the why, that stands behind those facts, even though we have no everyday experience of it. And I’m bringing this as an example of our grasp of mysticism, because in the end the way the Brisker can know whether he has grasped things correctly—whether the theory he proposes, the analytical theory he proposes, is a correct theory—is if he succeeds in explaining many facts and resolving many difficulties with that theory. Without knowing whether this is a law in the object or a law in the person. How do I know whether it’s a law in the object or a law in the person? I have no direct way of knowing whether a certain law is a law in the object or in the person. But if it explains many facts, then I’m convinced that it’s a law in the person. Meaning, the fact that this statement, this simple statement, succeeds in containing a great many insights and laws, resolving difficulties, presenting a unified and consistent picture—that itself is confirmation that it is correct. Even though we’re dealing with areas where I have no direct way to test the statement itself. Is this a law in the object or a law in the person? I have no idea; it could be this way and it could be that way. Sign or cause, all the Brisker conceptual distinctions. I really have no direct way of knowing whether it’s this or that, but if one side explains many facts, then it’s probably right. So there’s an example of our ability to accept something as correct without having the ability to make direct contact with it or examine it directly, but simply by the fact that it gives context, gives some meaning to a large collection of things. That itself is enough to present it as correct. And my claim is that the mystical outlook is very similar to what I described here. You look at phenomena in the world or at laws in the Torah—the Kabbalah also explains laws in the Torah, also events, cases, occurrences that happened in the Torah or something like that—and gives them some meaning in terms of a mystical, kabbalistic conceptual world. How do I test whether that meaning is plausible, whether it’s correct? If I have a meaning-framework that is defined with, or contains, few components and explains many facts, then there’s probably something real to it. And that itself is my indication that there’s something real there. Now, to generate that meaning-framework—I don’t think anyone could manage to generate that there are ten sefirot and five partzufim and worlds and Atzilut and Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and all kinds of things of that sort. In order to make contact with those things, you have to be a kabbalist. You have some spiritual intuition that grasps those things in some way. But now when the kabbalist tells me: look, there are ten sefirot and it works this way and that way and so on and so forth—how do I know that what he says has substance? If the picture he presents explains a great many laws, or events, or phenomena, depending on the context, okay? If so, then I can be convinced that there’s substance there, even though I myself am not a kabbalist and have no way to check the things themselves directly. But the consistency, the unified picture that this creates, is for me an indication that it’s true.

[Speaker D] But specifically the Briskers aren’t necessarily great experts—they don’t bring many sources and lots of facts and so on and so forth in order to reach their conclusions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. They bring a few facts. Rabbi Chaim raises one or two difficulties and shows that a certain theory resolves them, and how do you know whether that theory is right or not right? From the fact that it resolves the difficulties. But the difficulties can be resolved in other ways too. Now, when I want to be convinced by what Rabbi Chaim says, I’ll test it maybe on more practical ramifications, on more cases. And the more cases that fit the theory, the more convinced I’ll be that it’s correct. Obviously, the larger the number of cases and the smaller the number of components in the theory, and the larger the number of facts it explains, the stronger and more convincing it is. And again, it’s convincing even though I have no way to directly test the truth of the theory. I don’t know how to test the theory itself. I simply look at how many facts it explains and how economical it is—Occam’s razor. How few components are in this theory, and how many things it succeeds in explaining. The more that is so, the more it gives the impression of something truer.

[Speaker B] So that’s, for example, a way—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that is open to people who don’t have access to the mystical theory itself, but we still have a way to critique these mystical ideas by means of their implications, by examining the picture that they create.

[Speaker D] And in the end, how do you really test Rabbi Chaim’s theory, for example?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With more practical ramifications in Maimonides, for example, if it’s a theory about Maimonides.

[Speaker D] But the fact that the theory is useful doesn’t mean that it’s justified.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that—right. I don’t know how to examine the theory in itself directly.

[Speaker D] So it’s impossible altogether? You’re saying it’s impossible?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sometimes I may have an intuition that a certain law should be in the person and not in the object, maybe. But usually it’s simply built on the basis of the difficulties it resolves or the facts it explains. And the more there are, the more I’ll be convinced it’s correct.

[Speaker D] But really, you can’t actually check it, really see it in a…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To check it directly—I don’t see how that’s possible. No. Sometimes, again, sometimes we have a direct intuition, because Talmudic analysis isn’t mysticism. In Talmudic analysis we sometimes have an intuition that a certain conceptual idea is correct even before the question of whether it explains many facts or few facts, if any. This idea sits right in my head; it seems correct. In the mystical world that’s rarer. The idea in itself doesn’t tell me anything. But if I show you how many things it explains, maybe I’ll still manage to convince you that it’s correct. And that’s the way a person who is not a kabbalist can still think critically about kabbalistic claims. Now, I wanted to bring examples for this; I’ll do that next time already—a few examples to put some content into the general statements I gave here. So we’ll do that next time, okay? Comments or questions? Can I ask a question?

[Speaker D] Yes, yes. In the lesson you said several times that for every difficulty there are a thousand answers and you can say whatever you want, and so on. So are you really claiming that with regard to the Bible and the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and saying that therefore there’s no need or…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. In the Bible, in aggadic literature, we have no way of testing it on additional cases. And therefore, in the final analysis, you end up saying what seemed reasonable to you beforehand. And in Jewish law you do have that possibility. There’s a difficulty that can knock down an analytical move.

[Speaker D] No, but to a difficulty you can say—if you’re skillful, you’ll find a difficulty, you’ll find an answer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If—two things: either you’ll find an answer that seems implausible to you, in which case I don’t want to accept it, or once the number of answers equals the number of difficulties, what Menachem noted earlier—if the number of answers equals the number of difficulties, then that theory is worthless. I’m looking for a theory with few components that succeeds in explaining many things. And you’re saying that in the Bible—

[Speaker D] —you don’t have that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think in the Bible you don’t have that. The fact that I see people—no. If the number of answers equals the number of difficulties, then that theory is worthless. I’m looking for a theory with few components that succeeds in explaining many things. And you’re saying that in the Bible there isn’t that? I think in the Bible there isn’t that. The fact that I see—people don’t change their minds as a result of studying a passage, a biblical section, or an aggadic teaching of the Sages. It always comes back to what you thought in advance. Right? Just today I posted a column about this a bit, and I mentioned that too.

[Speaker D] But it seems to me that in Jewish law too it’s like that. As you always say, if you go to this rabbi he’ll forbid it for you, and if you go to that rabbi he’ll permit it. You already know in advance.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t agree. Obviously there are disputes and obviously there are several opinions, but it’s not true that everything is open and everyone does whatever he wants—not at all. There are plausible and implausible things; there are things you can reject because there’s a difficulty against them, and within that there are also a few possibilities that maybe you won’t manage to decide between. That’s what the laws of doubts are for, or what disputes are for. Fine. But in aggadic literature it’s all like that; there’s nothing that isn’t like that. I’m not claiming that Jewish law is mathematics or science.

[Speaker D] So in aggadic literature you can say whatever you want, but in Jewish law there are boundaries.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Jewish law too, beyond the… I wrote about this at length in the second book of the trilogy. In Jewish law too, very often, in large parts of Jewish law, you also don’t have your own intuition. There is a prohibition against eating pork; now they found another kind of pig—is it forbidden to eat it or permitted? I don’t know, I have no intuition at all. I don’t know how one decides that by intuition. If I find evidence, then that evidence will convince me. I don’t come with a preexisting position and then look for evidence to reconcile with my prior position, because regarding the prohibition of pork I have no idea why it exists. I’m not… In contrast, in aggadic literature and in the Bible they deal with values. In values I have positions—what is proper to do, what is not proper to do. Therefore there it almost never happens that I change my mind. I’ll always explain it according to the values I believe are correct. Again, in the second book of the trilogy I elaborate on this.

[Speaker D] So in Jewish law one generally doesn’t come with a preconceived view, you think?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying in certain areas, not in every matter. Regarding the status of women there are preconceived views, but in many—in most halakhic topics there aren’t. Regarding selecting on the Sabbath, in the topic of forbidden foods, in the topic of mixtures—you don’t come with preconceived views; you look at the evidence and reach conclusions. But you do have conceptual arguments in the passages that lead you to those conclusions, but those conceptual arguments you derive from the passage, not from yourself. That doesn’t exist in aggadic literature and in the Bible. In aggadic literature and in the Bible, the conceptual assumptions come from you, and you dress it onto the… Yes, in the column I posted today I wrote about Uri Ofran’s book. You asked, I think, about that book? Not you actually—Yosef, it was someone else. About the column, about Uri Ofran’s book, it’s called The Torah of the Soul, about the Torah in light of psychological ideas. A nice book actually, in my view. In any case, of course he puts all the psychological ideas he learned—he’s a psychologist—into the biblical portions. If I believed in reverse psychology, I’d put the opposite into the portions. And the book ends by saying that the Torah is like a Rorschach test.

[Speaker D] Right, but for example in questions of the status of women, then you know in advance that if you go to a modern rabbi he’ll be lenient with you, and if you go to a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) rabbi…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there are boundaries.

[Speaker D] There are preconceived views—no, but there are boundaries.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even if there are preconceived views, there are things he still won’t permit. I very much want to permit homosexuality, but right now I have no way to do that. In aggadic literature that won’t happen. I understand. Yes, so in the book itself I actually wrote there, in that very section of the second book, that the Bible and aggadic teachings seem to me like a Rorschach blot. Basically everyone sees there what he wants to see there. Yes, it’s that Swiss psychologist; it’s a well-known test where they give you some kind of blot and ask you what you see here, and that teaches the psychologist various things about you, okay? As far as I’m concerned, studying the Bible and studying aggadic literature is basically reading a Rorschach blot. And afterward I saw that he writes this too, except that in my view writing that at the end of a book on the Torah is ridiculous, because when you write that at the end of the book you’re basically saying: forget it, this whole book is worthless. Basically I wrote here what I wanted to write anyway. You’re not learning Torah here; you’re learning Eli Ofran, right? Or psychology, whatever. Fine. And still, the book is interesting.

[Speaker D] And specifically regarding the question I asked you, I think yesterday or in the morning—what considerations need to be taken into account in order to reach a halakhic conclusion? Only halakhic considerations… and also extra-halakhic considerations, social, sociological, and psychological ones? I didn’t hear your answer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a question—a very general question. It depends in what context. If there’s a clear answer, then no—then there’s no place for other things. But in this topic, in today’s column, I raised exactly this issue: whether women are allowed to put on makeup during Chol HaMoed. The dispute of the Amoraim in the Talmudic text in Moed Katan. Okay, now there the discussion is about the question of how important it is for a woman to put on makeup. So there’s an opinion that it’s only for younger women; there’s an opinion that even for older women. But basically in the end it depends on the question of what matters to a woman. So obviously you need to know reality, women’s psychology, in order to understand what matters to them. But if it’s something that is formal Jewish law, not connected to what you think and what you want and how difficult it is for you, then no—then it doesn’t depend on that. It’s a very general question; I don’t know how to answer it in general. Okay. That’s it? Okay. Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace.

[Speaker B] Sabbath peace.

[Speaker C] Thank you very much.