Mysticism – Lesson 16

Table of Contents

• Background: using commandments as charms and the distinction between “works” and “permitted”
• The responsa VeYashev HaYam of Rabbi Yaakov Hillel and the commandment “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God”
• “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God” as a framework versus the list of prohibitions
• Nachmanides: the count of the commandments, “whole,” and the prohibition on seeking knowledge of the future from the Chaldeans
• A fundamental dispute: does magic have real existence?
• “Israel is above the stars” as an explanation for the prohibition even if it has real force
• Analysis of Maimonides’ approach: the prohibition stems from foolishness and an empirical test
• Analysis of Nachmanides’ approach: even if it works it may still be forbidden, and the criterion disappears
• Dreams and esotericism: information that “works” without halakhic / of Jewish law status
• Part II, section 13: “a man who can hit a hair’s breadth” and shifting the criterion to the character of the person
• Prophecy among simple people and the use of Maimonides’ words to define the source of knowledge
• The supernatural, Wikipedia, the James Randi prize, and the argument about empty definitions
• A quotation from Dawkins and the claim that there is no practical definition of “everything supernatural”

Summary

General overview

The lecture draws a distinction between the factual question of whether practices such as charms, incantations, magic, astrology, and fortune-telling actually “work,” and the halakhic / of Jewish law question of whether one may make use of them. It argues that Maimonides ties the two together when he forbids them because they are “nonsense” with no substance. The lecture presents the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides over whether magic and divination have real existence, and describes how Rabbi Yaakov Hillel in the responsa VeYashev HaYam deepens this dispute through the positive commandment, “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” It then raises a serious practical problem according to Nachmanides and most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim): even if a phenomenon works, there is no clear criterion for distinguishing between permitted powers from the “side of holiness” and forbidden powers from the “other side,” and the discussion gets pushed toward identifying the source of the power through the person himself. Finally, the lecture presents an analogy to the difficulty of defining “the supernatural” in modern skeptical discussions, including examples from Wikipedia, the James Randi prize, and debates surrounding gaps in scientific knowledge.

Background: using commandments as charms and the distinction between “works” and “permitted”

The lecture opens with the prohibition against using commandments and religious practices as segulot, as magical influences, against seeking healing through ways connected to idol worship, and against making use of incantations and useful-seeming things of that sort. The lecture divides the discussion into two separate questions: does it work in reality, and is it permitted or forbidden in Jewish law. The lecture argues that Maimonides apparently connects the two questions and holds that the prohibition stems from the fact that it does not work and is “nonsense,” and that the whole family of prohibitions such as “Be wholehearted,” “you shall not practice divination,” “you shall not practice soothsaying,” sorcery, and the like is, on his view, basically a prohibition against being foolish.

The responsa VeYashev HaYam of Rabbi Yaakov Hillel and the commandment “Be wholehearted”

The lecture presents the central discussion in Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s responsa VeYashev HaYam, mainly Part I, section 13, and in addition Part II, section 13, “regarding the commandment ‘Be wholehearted’ and what branches off from it.” The question described there arises from the many people called “rabbis and sages who see hidden things,” to whom people turn regarding illness, livelihood, childlessness, and bereavement, and they disclose things in various ways about the past and the future, open lots, examine the lines of the palms and the face, check signs in the stars, names, and birthdays, write amulets, give segulot, invoke names, recite verses and incantations and adjurations, and are even proclaimed to be “workers of salvations.” The question is whether the Torah permits one to seek from them cures, advice, and remedies, with the emphasis that there are situations in which it is claimed that these things actually “work,” and therefore a distinction is needed between practical effectiveness and halakhic / of Jewish law permission.

“Be wholehearted with the Lord your God” as a framework versus the list of prohibitions

The lecture presents “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God” as an overarching principle that appears after the Torah’s list of prohibitions: one who practices divination, a soothsayer, an augur, a sorcerer, a charmer, one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, and one who inquires of the dead. The lecture emphasizes that all of these are prohibitions counted in the enumeration of the commandments, whereas “Be wholehearted” is a positive commandment that apparently includes them all, and it notes that Maimonides does not count this positive commandment. The lecture quotes the structure of the verses: the nations “listen to soothsayers and diviners,” whereas “as for you, the Lord your God has not given you so… a prophet… to him you shall listen,” so a prophet is the permitted alternative to turning to sorcerers.

Nachmanides: the count of the commandments, “whole,” and the prohibition on seeking the future from the Chaldeans

The lecture cites Nachmanides’ addition to Sefer HaMitzvot (positive commandment 8), where he counts “Be wholehearted” and explains it as a command to devote one’s heart to God alone, to believe that He “alone does everything,” that He knows the future, and to seek what is to come from His prophets or from His pious servants such as the Urim and Tummim, and not from astrologers and sorcerers. The lecture emphasizes Nachmanides’ language that one should not trust that their words will necessarily come true, and that even if we hear from them, we say “everything is in the hands of Heaven,” because God changes the system of the stars and constellations as He wishes, and it cites the Talmudic passage in Pesachim: “From where do we know that one does not inquire of the Chaldeans? As it says: ‘Be wholehearted with the Lord your God.’” The lecture notes Onkelos’ translation as “whole” and emphasizes the double tone in Nachmanides: on the one hand attributing everything to the Holy One, blessed be He, and on the other hand forbidding inquiry of the Chaldeans and sorcerers, while engaging the question whether “there is no truth in these matters” means they have no substance at all, or only that one must not trust them as necessary and binding.

A fundamental dispute: does magic have real existence?

The lecture presents Rabbi Yaakov Hillel as defining a fundamental dispute between “the great eagle, Maimonides” and Nachmanides and most commentators over whether the acts of the soothsayer, diviner, and sorcerer are false beliefs with no substance, or whether they have a real existence involving changes in nature and knowledge of the future. The lecture quotes Maimonides in Jewish law, where he rules that “all these things are falsehood and lies,” that it is not fitting for Israel to be drawn after them, and that anyone who believes they are true and wise but the Torah forbade them is “among the fools and those lacking understanding… and included among women and children,” whereas “the masters of wisdom and those of complete understanding” know that these are “emptiness and vanity,” and therefore “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God” comes as a warning against such vanities. The lecture then quotes Nachmanides in his commentary on the Torah, where he explicitly disagrees, describes a system of higher and lower forces, the power of the stars and constellations “as is tested in the wisdom of astrology,” and adds that one who denies them and says “there is no truth in them at all” cannot deny “things that have become well known before the eyes of observers,” and that our sages acknowledge them, so Nachmanides claims that these powers do have substance even though they are forbidden.

“Israel is above the stars” as an explanation for the prohibition even if it has substance

The lecture describes Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s explanation that most sages of Israel followed Nachmanides and understand that soothsaying and sorcery are real acts, except that they were forbidden because Israel, “the root of our souls is a divine portion from above,” and we do not belong to the external quarries of astrology and sorcery, which come “from the quarry of the husks and darkness.” The lecture interprets this as the suggestion that on the one hand these are real powers, but on the other hand “for Israel this does not necessarily operate,” or Israel can escape them through prayer and service of God, and therefore one must not trust such predictions as necessary—not because they are unreal, but because God changes the system and Israel is not delivered into the hand of the stars.

Analysis of Maimonides’ approach: the prohibition stems from foolishness and an empirical test

The lecture argues that according to Maimonides, what determines whether something is permitted or forbidden is an empirical test of whether it works, and therefore in a practical “either way” situation the prohibition barely restricts anything: if it does not work there is no point in doing it, and if it works there is no prohibition. The lecture gives the example of an “Indian healer” with pagan practices and asks whether one may go to him for a terminally ill patient, and argues that according to Maimonides one should examine rumors and reliable testimony, and if the benefit is statistically significant then it is permitted. The lecture illustrates this also with the example of “pigeons that cure jaundice,” and argues that even without a mechanistic explanation, the very fact of effectiveness means that behind it there is some natural explanation not yet known, and therefore there is no prohibition. The lecture expands this to cases of medical uncertainty in general, where this is how people proceed, and using “uncertain” medicines when there is no alternative is a reasonable step and not “nonsense,” and therefore it also does not fall under the prohibition according to Maimonides.

Analysis of Nachmanides’ approach: even if it works it may still be forbidden, and the criterion disappears

The lecture argues that according to Nachmanides, the fact that something works does not permit it, and therefore even if the Indian healer succeeds there may still be a prohibition. If so, a definition is needed of what is permitted and what is forbidden beyond the Torah’s specific list. The lecture rejects the possibility that the criterion for permission is “there is a scientific explanation,” because medicine also uses things that work even without fully understanding the explanation, and because it seems unreasonable to say that the very same thing would be forbidden until an explanation is found and then become permitted. The lecture suggests that according to Nachmanides the distinction ends up shifting to the question of what source the power comes from: the “side of holiness” or the “side of impurity.” That raises the question of how one diagnoses such a source in practices that look Jewish, like checking mezuzot, amulets, and whispered formulas, which are not overt idol worship but may still fall under “Be wholehearted.”

Dreams and esotericism: information that “works” without halakhic / of Jewish law status

The lecture compares the problem to examples of dreams in Jewish law, such as someone who dreams about a hidden place and that the money there is “second-tithe money,” then goes and finds exactly that amount, and nevertheless the dream has no binding halakhic / of Jewish law status. The lecture suggests that there is a pattern here in which even if there are indications of reliability and of something that “works,” Jewish law does not use it as evidence or as practical guidance, and links this to the question whether the prohibition is in effect a prohibition on resorting to mysticism or esotericism as a basis for action.

Part II, section 13: “a man who can hit a hair’s breadth” and shifting the criterion to the character of the person

The lecture brings a question from Part II, section 13, about “a man to whose door many flock,” who answers in revealed and hidden matters, and “according to careful examination… hits the mark to a hair’s breadth and does not miss,” without forbidden external means and without incantations or amulets, but he is “a complete ignoramus,” and may even speak slander. The lecture shows how the question itself looks for permission through the man’s personality traits and fear of Heaven, because there is no clear objective criterion for classifying the source of the power. The lecture quotes Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s responsum that “the one who asks and the one who answers about future events violate ‘Be wholehearted,’” and rules that regarding questions about the future this is forbidden. But the problem continues when one tests him through questions about the past and present, which do not violate the positive commandment, and one still needs to define whether the power is prophetic, divine inspiration, “intuition,” or some other source.

Prophecy among simple people and the use of Maimonides’ words to define the source of knowledge

The lecture quotes that Rabbi Yaakov Hillel discusses under the heading “Can prophecy apply to simple people?” and uses Maimonides’ statement that “prophecy rests only upon one who is a great sage in wisdom, mighty in his character traits,” in order to say that a person who does not meet those criteria cannot be a prophet. The lecture explains that according to Nachmanides’ framework a person can know future events from other, non-prophetic sources as well, and therefore when something “works” but the person is unfit for prophecy, the conclusion is that the source is “from somewhere else,” and therefore it is forbidden to rely on it. The lecture presents this as a pattern in which the ruling is based not on the nature of the act but on the nature of the person, and emphasizes that this still leaves major practical ambiguity regarding cases that are not “future-telling” but cures and remedies.

The supernatural, Wikipedia, the James Randi prize, and the argument about empty definitions

The lecture argues that the halakhic / of Jewish law difficulty in distinguishing between permitted and forbidden powers parallels the philosophical difficulty of defining “the supernatural” or “the mystical,” because popular definitions depend on the boundaries of scientific knowledge rather than on essence. The lecture quotes Wikipedia, which defines the supernatural as something “not subject to accepted scientific understanding,” and emphasizes that there is no agreed-upon definition, then points to the flaw in saying that whatever can be examined scientifically is not supernatural, even if it has not yet actually been examined. The lecture mentions James Randi’s million-dollar prize and argues that it is impossible to win, because if a phenomenon is proven in a reproducible way they will say it is natural, and if it is not reproducible they will say it has not been proven, so the conclusion that “the supernatural does not exist” becomes a result of definition. The lecture brings an analogy to creationism-evolution disputes around “gaps” in scientific knowledge, and argues that even an experiment that succeeded in showing the creation of life from inanimate matter would not settle matters of faith / belief, because even then one could say that it happened “through the inspiration of the Holy One, blessed be He.”

A quotation from Dawkins and the claim that there is no practical definition of “everything supernatural”

The lecture concludes with a quotation from Dawkins in his book The God Delusion, where he says that he is not attacking one particular version of God but “God, all the gods, anything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.” The lecture argues that this declaration remains empty without an ability to define what “supernatural” is, because any criterion that relies on what science does not yet know how to explain is temporary and dependent on progress, and therefore does not define an essence. The lecture ends with a practical sense of helplessness in the face of the view of Nachmanides and most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim): how can one maintain the severity of the prohibition without a clear criterion? It presents Maimonides’ view as a practical solution through checking “does it work or not,” even though according to the lecture it is less satisfying interpretively as an account of the Torah’s severity on this topic.

Okay, last time we talked a bit about the prohibitions against using commandments as some kind of magical influence, healing through the prohibition of idolatry, all kinds of practical uses of incantations and things of that sort. And we saw there that, at least according to Maimonides, as I said, there are really two kinds of questions that come up in this context. One question is whether it works or doesn’t work—that’s the factual question. And the second question is whether it’s permitted or forbidden—that’s the halakhic question, the question of Jewish law. And I mentioned that Maimonides apparently links the two questions. Meaning, he says that the reason this thing is forbidden is because it doesn’t work. In other words, because it’s nonsense. You’re forbidden to resort to nonsense. For Maimonides, these things—the whole family of prohibitions like “You shall be wholehearted,” “you shall not practice divination,” “you shall not practice soothsaying,” sorcery, and all those matters—that’s basically a prohibition against being stupid. That’s Maimonides’ position.

But from here I want to move on, because I mentioned that on this issue many medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagreed with him. And one of the most detailed discussions—maybe the most detailed one—on this matter is found in a responsa work called Veyashev Hayam by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, head of the yeshiva of kabbalists in Jerusalem, Nahar Shalom I think. And there, in his responsa volume, he deals with several responsa, but the main responsum is Part 1, siman 13. There’s also a responsum in Part 2, siman 13, called “On the commandment ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God’ and what branches off from it.” There he basically analyzes in depth—much of that responsum is an analysis of the dispute that I want to open with today.

“My soul has come to ask”—that’s of course a play on words. Meaning, “my soul has come to ask,” but also “it has labored to ask,” meaning it has struggled to ask. “Since in recent times there have multiplied all kinds of various types of people”—that too is a play on words, by the way—“all kinds of various types of people, among them some who are called rabbis and sages, masters of hidden matters, lords of mystery, to whom bitter souls turn, Heaven spare us, whether because of illness or livelihood, childless people and bereaved parents and so on, Heaven forbid, and they inform them by various methods what they did in the past and things that are destined to be, whether they will succeed or not, through various counsels. And they open lots and examine the lines of the palms and faces, and check the constellations—the constellation of the day and the constellation of the hour—and the names of those asking and their birthdays, the star of their celestial order, astrology, and their character traits. And among the stars they place their nest,” meaning they situate themselves among the stars, “to reveal many wonders and repairs for their souls. And they write amulets and give segulot and mention names and recite verses and various incantations and adjurations to higher and lower powers, and about them they proclaim in the streets that they perform salvations”—meaning some of them there are even claims that this works. “Whether it is permitted according to the Torah to seek from them cures, advice, corrections, and the like, or not.”

The question is whether it’s permitted or forbidden, and he notes that there are some among them—there are situations where it is even known that this business, or at least so they say, this business works. And that’s the distinction between the question whether it works or not and the question whether it is permitted or forbidden.

And then he begins with the commandment “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” even though there is a whole family of commandments and prohibitions here. Really these are all prohibitions except for “You shall be wholehearted”; “You shall be wholehearted” is a positive commandment. “You shall not practice divination,” “you shall not practice soothsaying,” sorcery, spirit medium, consulting the dead—each of these is a prohibition, a prohibition counted among the commandments. But “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God” is a positive commandment that apparently includes them all. Maimonides, for example, does not count the positive commandment of “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” The accepted explanation for why Maimonides doesn’t count it—because when there is a positive commandment that includes many prohibitions, in principle one ought to count it. Anyway, this is the topic of the responsum, this commandment of “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.”

And then he says: “Behold, the foundation of foundations and the central pillar of this topic is what is stated in our holy Torah in the commandment ‘You shall be wholehearted,’ which according to most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) is counted among the 248 positive commandments.” “Most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)” means excluding Maimonides. Okay. According to most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), apart from Maimonides, it is counted among the positive commandments. “And since from the content and nature of this commandment, as our sages taught us its parameters, we learn the Torah’s perspective on the whole of our question, therefore we said to open our responsum with it.” In the second part of his responsum he also goes through all the other prohibitions, but the framework is the positive commandment of “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.”

So he begins: chapter one is “The parameters of the commandment ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.’” It says in the Torah: “When you come into the land that the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you one who passes his son or daughter through fire, a diviner of divinations, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, one who consults a spirit medium or a familiar spirit, or one who inquires of the dead.” Each one of these is a prohibition, by the way; there are lots of prohibitions here. “For whoever does these is an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out before you. You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.”

Yes, so it really seems that “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God” is the counterweight to all the… Meaning, all those things are what you are forbidden to do. What are you supposed to do? The alternative is to be wholehearted with the Lord your God. “For these nations whom you are dispossessing listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not given you so. A prophet from among you, from your brothers, like me, the Lord your God will raise up for you; to him you shall listen.” Up to here. So to a prophet you listen, but not to all the other sorcerers.

Then he says: Maimonides did not count the commandment of “You shall be wholehearted,” and in his glosses Nachmanides did add this commandment. But what Nachmanides writes is interesting. After all, Nachmanides has supplements to Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot—what Nachmanides adds and what he subtracts from Maimonides’ count in order to remain with the count of 613. So in positive commandment 8 in Nachmanides’ supplements he writes—and I’ll read from here as well:

“We were commanded that our heart be whole with Him, exalted be He, and that is what is said: ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.’ And the meaning of this command is that we should dedicate our heart to Him alone, blessed be He, and believe that He alone does everything, and that He knows the truth of every future event, and from Him alone shall we seek what is to come, through His prophets or through His pious servants—that is to say, the Urim and Tumim—and we shall not inquire of the astrologers,” meaning all sorts of sorcerers like these, “nor of others. And we shall not trust that their words must inevitably come to pass. But if we hear something from them we shall say: everything is in the hands of Heaven, for He changes the order of the stars and constellations as He wills; He frustrates the signs of impostors and makes diviners mad. And we shall believe that all that comes upon us will be according to our closeness to His service, as in the matter in which He promised, ‘Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be dismayed by the signs of heaven.’ And they said in the last chapter of tractate Pesachim: from where do we know that one does not ask anything of the Chaldeans? As it says, ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.’ And the Chaldeans are the remnant of the nation occupied with the craft of the stars. And the language of the Sifrei is: if you have done all that is stated in this section, then you are wholehearted with the Lord your God. The meaning is that Scripture prohibited asking the future from a spirit medium, a familiar spirit, the dead, a soothsayer, and a diviner, and afterward commanded that our heart be whole with Him in these matters, and that we not fear the foreteller of the future from those mentioned or from others, but rather from His prophets shall we inquire and to them shall we listen, as He said in the section. And this is the translation of Onkelos,” and so on. In short, he continues, but that’s the principle.

So far the language of Nachmanides, and he wrote similarly in his Torah commentary on Parashat Shoftim.

So basically Nachmanides does count in his list of commandments “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” But there’s a double tone in Nachmanides’ words. On the one hand he says that the basis of “wholehearted” means whole, complete—not “simple” in the sense of naïve, but “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God” means “be whole with the Lord your God.” Be completely with the Lord your God. Don’t think there is anything apart from Him; everything is really attributed to Him. Onkelos translated it as “complete.” Didn’t hear? Onkelos translated it as “complete.” “Be complete with the Lord your God.” Yes, yes.

So he says that one must really attribute everything to the Holy One, blessed be He. Even if you have some sorcerer or soothsayer or whoever it may be who predicts something for you and it comes true, you need to know that it comes from the Holy One, blessed be He; there are no other things unrelated to Him. That is one side.

On the other hand, he tells us that it is forbidden to ask the Chaldeans and Kasdim and all these various sorcerers. Why is it forbidden to ask them? After all, if they are right, then seemingly it comes from the Holy One, blessed be He. So I would say maybe because it doesn’t come from the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore it is forbidden to ask them? After all, if it doesn’t come from the Holy One, blessed be He, then there is also no point in asking them, because everything comes from Him; there are no powers outside Him. So if they do not receive their powers from Him, then such powers don’t exist, and so it doesn’t work. So it is not just some prohibition; it should not work. But Nachmanides’ position, as we’ll see in a moment, is that these things do have substance, that they do work. Meaning there is some double reasoning or double attitude here, and it’s not so clear why exactly Nachmanides—how Nachmanides understands all these activities. If they have substance and they are from the Holy One, blessed be He, then what’s the problem? If they have no substance, if they are not from the Holy One, blessed be He, then they have no substance—because this is “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” to think that everything comes from Him.

He also says here in one of the sentences we read: “and we shall not fear the words of the foreteller of the future from those mentioned or from others, but from His prophets shall we inquire and to them shall we listen.” What does “we shall not fear” mean? It probably means because it won’t work; there is nothing to be afraid of. Then he says, “and one should not place in his heart that there is from another any truth, and one should not look into their matters at all.” What does it mean that there is no truth in these things? Does it mean they are not correct, they are not true? Or that I am supposed to relate to them as though they are not true, or not trust that they will necessarily happen? There are some not entirely clear statements here.

In other places Nachmanides writes things more clearly. Chapter two: “Whether acts of sorcery and the like have real existence.” Understand, we must make known here a fundamental dispute in the understanding of this topic between the great eagle Maimonides and Nachmanides and most of the commentators. And it concerns the prohibitions mentioned in the Torah—soothsayer, diviner, sorcerer, and so on—whether they have real existence, such that they can bring about changes in nature and know the future, or whether everything is false beliefs of the nations with no substance at all.

So he says there is really a dispute here on this matter: whether they have substance or do not have substance. In any case it is forbidden to resort to this. But the question is whether there is substance to it and nevertheless it is forbidden to resort to it, or whether there is no substance to it and according to Maimonides that is why it is forbidden to resort to it.

“The master of the testimony,” Maimonides, wrote in his Mishneh Torah, after he mentioned there the details and forms of the laws of the diviner and soothsayer, one who casts spells, and the sorcerer, and this is his language: “All these matters are falsehood and lies, and it is with them that the ancient idolaters misled the nations of the lands in order that they should follow after them. And it is not fitting for Israel, who are wise among the wise, to be drawn after these vanities, nor to suppose that there is any benefit in them, as it says: ‘For there is no divination in Jacob and no sorcery in Israel.’ And it says: ‘For these nations whom you are dispossessing listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, not so,’” and so on. “And anyone who believes in these matters and the like, and thinks in his heart that they are true”—true and something wise, but the Torah forbade them—notice this: anyone who behaves like Nachmanides, yes? Meaning anyone who thinks they have substance but the Torah merely prohibited them. He isn’t denying that the Torah prohibited them; he says the Torah prohibited them despite the fact that these things have substance. Anyone who thinks this “is nothing but one of the fools and deficient in understanding, and is among the women and children whose understanding is incomplete. But those who possess wisdom and complete understanding know with clear proofs that all these things forbidden by the Torah are not matters of wisdom but chaos and vanity, after which the deficient in understanding have been drawn and because of them abandoned all the ways of truth. And because of this, when the Torah warned against all these vanities, it said: ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.’”

So that’s Maimonides. Actually we’ve already seen part of this Maimonides, and this is really the main source—you can see it in other places too—but the main source for the idea that Maimonides ties the question of whether it works to the question of whether it is forbidden. And his basic claim is that it is forbidden because it doesn’t work, because it is foolish. It is forbidden to be foolish—that’s really the point.

However, Nachmanides explicitly disagreed with this view in his Torah commentary. And this is his language in short: “Know and understand regarding sorceries that the Creator, blessed be He, when He created everything from nothing, made the upper beings the governors of the lower beings beneath them, and gave the power of the earth and all upon it to the stars and constellations according to their governance and influence upon them, as is verified in the wisdom of astrology, and above the stars and constellations He made governors, angels and princes, which are like souls for them,” and so on. “And many make themselves pious by saying of divinations that they have no truth at all”—that’s Maimonides, yes?—“but we cannot deny things that have become public before the eyes of onlookers. It is impossible to deny that they have substance. There are people who testify to it, and our rabbis too acknowledge them,” and so on. And therefore he wrote in his sermons, in the sermon “The Torah of the Lord is perfect,” and so on.

So Nachmanides—there is really a frontal dispute here between Maimonides and Nachmanides. Maimonides calls Nachmanides’ position the position of fools and the deficient in understanding, those who think this business works but the Torah prohibited it. And Nachmanides says that Maimonides is denying the facts. He very much wants there not to be any substance in it—it’s pleasant for us, nice for us, to think there’s no substance in it—but in fact you are denying the facts. There is clear testimony to this; even the sages of the Talmud have testimony that there is substance in these things. The only thing is that it is forbidden. Exactly the “fools’” view according to Maimonides.

And now—question? Is this connected to the fact that Nachmanides was a kabbalist and believed in this, as opposed to Maimonides who is seen more as a philosopher? It could be, yes, many have argued that. Yes.

And most all Jewish sages—now I’m back to Rabbi Yaakov Hillel—followed here the opinion of Nachmanides, as he wrote, for the words of our rabbis in various places explicitly teach this: first of all the sages of blessed memory, that matters of the soothsayer, divination, and sorcery are real activities, and by means of them one attains what one attains, and they have the power to cause changes in nature and wonders and to reveal the future. Only they were forbidden to us because we, the collective of Israel, the root of our souls is a divine portion above, and the quarry of our souls is deeper and more inward than the quarry of those who act through constellations and sorcery, whose source lies in the outer quarries, and presumably in the quarry of the husks and darkness; and Jacob’s portion is not in these, but in the quarry of souls before Him above.

What is he saying here, really? It seems to me he is trying to explain Nachmanides and also illuminate the point I raised earlier. Nachmanides, as we saw explicitly, writes that these things have substance. They can alter nature, know the future; they have these powers. But Israel—as the sages say, “Israel is above mazal”—“the root of our souls is a divine portion above, and the quarry of our souls is deeper and more inward than the quarry of those who act through constellations and sorcery.” He says: this governs the nations, but Israel has no mazal, meaning Israel is not handed over to the rule of the constellations. What does he mean to say? Presumably, if I understand correctly, this is how he explains Nachmanides’ position: that indeed there is substance in these things, and they know the future, can influence, can perform sorcery, and have mystical powers of one kind or another. Why am I not supposed to resort to this? Because it does not act on me. On me, as a Jew, it does not act. Meaning, in a certain sense it’s also “not effective,” as Maimonides says—but not because such powers do not exist, rather because those powers belong to a certain level, and the root of our soul is higher than that, and therefore they do not rule over us. That is basically the point: Israel is not under the mazal.

So this is a different statement from Maimonides’. More than that: the fact that it does not rule over us does not mean it is nonsense from our perspective. It means that if we pray or turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, or fulfill commandments or whatever, perhaps we can escape these influences. But these things are still threatening even with respect to us. Meaning, in that sense Nachmanides goes here in a different direction from Maimonides. There are real powers here, there is a prohibition against resorting to them, but there is some partial concession here to Maimonides. What do I mean? He says that although there are such powers, they do not necessarily operate on Israel. We can escape their influence. They do affect us, but we also have the ability to escape. It is not certain that it will happen. And therefore Nachmanides, whom I quoted above, indeed says you are not obligated to trust what they say, because it may also not happen. Not because there is no substance in it, but because it may also not happen since Israel is above mazal. That is basically the claim.

So for our purposes here that is enough. What emerges, then, is that there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). He then brings several more medieval authorities (Rishonim) and classifies them, showing who is like Maimonides and who is like Nachmanides. He says most are like Nachmanides, but even those who go with Nachmanides in certain places or in certain contexts also say that some things have no substance. The picture is a bit more complex than the sharp dichotomy I presented here. But for our purposes right now, this is good enough.

Now I want to open up a preliminary analysis of the two positions—Maimonides and Nachmanides. According to Maimonides, the prohibition against resorting to these things stems from the fact that they are nonsense. That they don’t work, that they have no substance. A prohibition against being stupid. From this it follows that if I check and see that the thing does in fact work—remember the example of that Native healer doctor I mentioned, that came up on some internet forum? The question was about a terminally ill patient. The doctors have nothing to offer him, medicine knows of no cure for his disease, and he heard that there is some Native healer in South America who does wonders with patients of that kind, and he asked whether it was permitted to go to him. Now over there he deals with pagan matters and incantations and all sorts of idolatrous things, and the question is whether it is permitted to go to him.

What I wanted to say is that according to Maimonides you can raise there a kind of mima nafshakh argument—either way. You have to examine the rumors. If there is substance to these rumors, meaning it really seems there is reliable testimony that statistically it works—not always, but significantly, statistically—then it is permitted to go. Because if it works, then all these prohibitions are not present there, since the whole prohibition is to go after something that doesn’t work, to be stupid. And if you conclude that it doesn’t work, then there’s no point in going there. Meaning either way, according to Maimonides, the prohibition should not limit you in such a situation. Because if it doesn’t work, then you shouldn’t have any motivation to go there anyway—why go? And if you became convinced that it does work, or can work, then it is also permitted to go. So either way the prohibition should not constrain your decisions or your actions.

So what comes out is that according to Maimonides, what determines whether a certain action is forbidden or permitted is really the empirical test, the scientific test: does it work or not? If it works—let’s say yes—go back to the pigeon example, okay? Those pigeons that cure jaundice. The feeling is always that this is some sort of mysticism and sorcery and things like that. So according to Maimonides, you need to check. If statistically this thing works, then there is no prohibition in it. If it doesn’t work, then there is no point in doing it—not because of the prohibition, but because it doesn’t work. Okay? So in practice this whole prohibition gets somewhat emptied of content according to Maimonides. Because in the end what Maimonides is telling us is: check carefully before you do something whether there is any reason to do it, whether it works. If yes, go for it. If not, it is forbidden. If not, then not only is there no point, but it is also forbidden, because it is forbidden to be stupid. But practically speaking, this prohibition doesn’t make much difference; it’s not all that important.

And in that sense, even if I have something for which I have no mechanistic explanation of why it works—like with the jaundice and the pigeons, let’s say, assuming for the sake of argument that it works, doesn’t matter—and there is no mechanistic explanation for why it works, that still doesn’t matter. Because according to Maimonides, if it works, then I still need to investigate in order to know the explanation, but in the end, clearly there is some explanation behind it, because the fact is that it works. So I am allowed to resort to it even if I do not yet know the explanation. We’ll do more research; maybe later we’ll find the explanation and maybe we won’t. But if it works, that means it is something one is permitted to resort to. That is basically the picture that emerges according to Maimonides.

Therefore in that sense Maimonides… Sorry? And that is according to Maimonides. Now the Torah says, “But as for you, not so has the Lord your God given you”—“not so,” you are not that kind of idiot who goes after all sorts of nonsense like that. Yes, so then why say this at all, as you’re asking? So why? There is a prohibition against being stupid. In order to impose a prohibition on stupidity you need a verse that prohibits it. Meaning, not being stupid is an interest or an insight that every one of us should have even without the Torah. But were it not for the Torah, I wouldn’t understand that there is a prohibition against being stupid. So that is what the Torah writes. If someone is stupid because… can you convince him that he’s not stupid? Everyone thinks he isn’t stupid. You can try to convince him not to be stupid. Tell him, listen, there is a prohibition here. Okay, obviously if he isn’t convinced and he thinks it works, then that won’t persuade him not to resort to it, because if it works then it is also permitted. Yes, that’s it. Right. If somebody is really stupid and locked in, there’s nothing to do about it; that’s true. Okay.

Someone here raised a question about what happens in cases of doubt. In cases of doubt too, in the end you make the calculation the way you make a medical calculation. Even with conventional medicines you can be in a state of doubt. Does it help for this type of disease or not? With cancer, for example, they often use combinations that work in one context but have not been tested in this context, yet we have no other option, so we use them in this context too. I don’t think anyone imagines forbidding that. Why? Because I have a reasonable doubt that maybe it works. It isn’t foolish to do that even if it isn’t established, even if it hasn’t gone through the FDA yet. Okay? It still hasn’t received approval, it isn’t established, but it isn’t foolish to resort to it if I have no other option and there is some chance that this thing works, so I do it.

More than that: even a medicine that has been proven to work will not necessarily help me. A medicine that is proven to work means that its statistics are significant. It doesn’t mean 100 percent. It means it isn’t fifty-fifty, maybe yes maybe no. So there is never certainty. Therefore if I have a doubt whether the medicine works or doesn’t work, that shouldn’t be fundamentally different from a medicine that I know works but there is doubt whether it will work for me or not. Therefore I think that according to Maimonides, since the logic is that the prohibition is against being stupid, I simply need to examine whether your step is reasonable, whether a reasonable and intelligent person would do such a thing. If yes, then it is not forbidden. Once you have no other medicine and you have a medicine that is uncertain, a reasonable and intelligent person will take it. Yes, what can you do? That’s the alternative he has; there isn’t another one. Once that is a reasonable and intelligent decision, it should not be forbidden. Okay? So I think that from Maimonides’ own definition one can also extract the answer to that question. That is according to Maimonides.

What happens according to Nachmanides? According to Nachmanides, the assumption is that both sides work. Therefore, suppose I investigated that Native sorcerer-healer and concluded that he really does get good results with this disease—that still isn’t enough to permit it. According to Nachmanides, even if the thing works it may still be forbidden. But then the question arises according to Nachmanides: so how exactly do I define what is forbidden and what is permitted? After all, this works and that works too. So what didn’t I understand? What are the actions that are forbidden and what are the actions that are permitted?

True, there is some closed list in the Torah: soothsayer, diviner, one who casts spells, one who inquires of the dead. But almost everyone agrees that this is not really a closed collection of actions, and certainly the positive commandment of “You shall be wholehearted”… by “closed collection of actions” I mean. It is not a closed list; it’s examples and “anything similar.” For example, the positive commandment “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God” is certainly phrased in a general way; it does not speak about specific acts. So there it is clear that this is some general principle.

Now I ask: what is called being wholehearted or not wholehearted? I see something that works. Am I allowed to resort to it or not? I don’t know. Now they tell me: look, Tylenol lowers fever. All right? It’s established, they tested it, it went through trials, Tylenol lowers fever. Am I allowed to take Tylenol? I don’t know. What’s the criterion? Maybe it’s an incantation and a spell and some kind of magical binding—I don’t know exactly what according to… what is the criterion?

So you’ll say maybe the criterion is what we can give a scientific explanation for. By the way, we should remember that Nachmanides too was a physician. What we can give a scientific explanation for—that one may use. Tylenol has an explanation, therefore one may use it. The Native sorcerer has no explanation, therefore one may not use it. But that too is a problematic criterion. It’s problematic because, say, we run an experiment and discover that something works significantly. Conventional, scientific medicine will adopt it. It will use it even if it has not yet found the mechanistic explanation, the scientific explanation of why it works. If they tested and saw that it works, then that’s it, they use it. The criterion is like the criterion we saw in Maimonides; the criterion is empirical. Meaning, you have to test whether it works. If it works, then from my perspective that’s… We talked about alternative medicine. What is alternative medicine? The definition is medicine that doesn’t work. Because if it worked, then a conventional doctor would also use it. What is conventional medicine? Conventional medicine is medicine that has been tested and found to work. There is no other definition of conventional medicine, right?

Meaning, if there were something that worked significantly but was built on incantations and sorcery and dancing around a fire—if it were tested clearly and shown that this works, then a conventional doctor would prescribe incantations and dancing around a fire. Because it works. So there is no other definition here except whether it works or not.

Now what Nachmanides would basically tell us is that Jewish law is more stringent than medicine, because Maimonides identifies Jewish law with medicine. What the doctor prescribes is also halakhically permitted. What the doctor does not prescribe is also halakhically forbidden, yes? What works and what doesn’t work. According to Nachmanides, seemingly Jewish law comes out stricter than medicine. It basically says there are things that medicine would prescribe for you and Jewish law would forbid you to do—even though it works. Why? What kind of things are these?

So the first suggestion I offered earlier was: maybe these are things for which we have no explanation. Then they’re sort of supernatural; they’re unscientific. So they’re a kind of sorcery, some other sort of power. And now, according to Nachmanides, this does work, it can work, but it is forbidden. Okay? But as I started saying earlier, that is a very problematic definition. It’s problematic because for many of our medicines or medical procedures we don’t really understand them fully. How much do you need to understand for it to count as scientific? We don’t always fully understand; science advances. Or I’ll put it differently: suppose today, say, I found that those pigeons do work, but I have no explanation, okay? So the doctor will prescribe pigeons because it was statistically tested and works significantly, so he’ll prescribe it. Along comes Nachmanides and says yes, but it is forbidden to use this because we don’t know the mechanistic explanation. What happens in two years, after we do research and discover the mechanistic explanation? Now it will be permitted. That sounds implausible. It sounds implausible that the very same thing would be forbidden as long as we don’t understand it, even though it works, and after we understand it it becomes permitted. The fact that our science is incomplete, not perfect, should not change…

A suggestion—I’m saying again, you can say that, but it sounds implausible. It should not forbid things to us just because we don’t fully understand them; then let’s do research. Therefore I think the common explanations in Nachmanides are not hung on the question of what has an explanation and what doesn’t have an explanation. Rather, he will talk about the question of from which side the powers come that activate this medical path. I’m talking about medicine right now, but this could apply to all sorts of things—knowledge of the future or whatever. Does it come from the side of holiness or the side of impurity? Does it come from powers of impurity or powers of holiness? Somehow through the Holy One, blessed be He?

Rabbi, but the verses you quoted speak about knowledge of the future—casting spells, inquiring of the dead. And we saw that it did work with Samuel and Saul. And that’s what Nachmanides says. What? And that’s what Nachmanides says. Yes, and it works; we see that it does work. But it’s not in the sense of medicines or anything like that; it’s in the sense of knowing the future. There are all kinds of things. Several things are mentioned here—healing through it, knowing the future. As I said, I’m bringing medicine as an example. Yes, but the Torah—but the Torah in the verses you quoted, I think there’s nothing there connected to medicines or things like that, especially “but as for you, not so has the Lord your God given you; a prophet from among you like me”—that is, it’s about things of… It speaks also about… you can look at the verses, it also speaks about the early authorities. The early authorities explicitly discuss healing through these things; meaning it certainly enters under “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” So in the specific prohibitions of diviner, sorcerer, one who casts spells, one who inquires of the dead, and things of that sort, it depends; each such case needs to be examined on its own. But it is clear that healing through this type of thing is also included among the prohibitions.

Fine, but I don’t care, then talk about knowledge of the future. I said medicine here is just one example; I’m not speaking only about that. So now the question is: according to Maimonides—actually according to Nachmanides—what is this supposed to be? There are basically two kinds of things that work, and the difference between them is not what has an explanation and what doesn’t have an explanation. Rather, there are two kinds of things that work and for which we have no explanation. Within those that work and for which we have no explanation, they still divide into two kinds. One type comes from the right side, from the right sitra, and the other comes from the sitra achra, the other side. To this one it is permitted to resort, and to that one it is forbidden to resort.

Now of course the question arises: how do you know? How do you know from which sitra it comes? What is the criterion? If, say, they do all kinds of sorcery connected to explicit idolatry, another religious belief, say maybe that’s easier, though even that isn’t so simple—but say it belongs to those sectors of idolatry. But there are just ordinary things like he opens with—after all I read the beginning of Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s responsum, where he talks about all sorts of these people—people whispering over mezuzot and incantations and amulets and all sorts of people who open books and who knows what, all kinds of things of that sort that are not connected to idolatry, or at least on the face of it they have no tie to another faith or religious worship. They are inside the Jewish world, and lots of foolish God-fearing Jews go to them. Meaning it isn’t connected to something that is idolatry, and nevertheless that is what he is talking about when he speaks of “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” That was the question with which he opens his responsum. That was the question he received.

So when someone starts opening mezuzot, checking your mezuzot to see why you are sick or something like that, that is of course forbidden. But why is it forbidden? What is the criterion? In what way is this similar—let’s put it that way—in what way is it similar to use of idolatry? Or alternatively, in what way is it different from use of a conventional medicine for which we have no explanation? Assuming it works, for the sake of discussion let’s say it works—he opens the mezuzot and knows how to tell you things, okay? How do you classify it? Meaning, what defines it? How can you know what the diagnostics are? How can you know whether a given thing belongs to this side or that side?

In Nachmanides’ words it somehow seems that this prohibition is a bit similar to what I discussed in the context of esotericism. When I tried to define the concept of mysticism, I talked about esotericism, and I brought several examples of this—for instance the example of dreams, the status of dreams in Jewish law. There I showed examples of dreams for which we have good indications that they are reliable. Someone dreams that in a certain place there is a certain sum hidden that his father left there, and in the dream it says that it is second-tithe money. He goes to that place, digs, and finds exactly the sum he dreamed of. So that means there is substance in that dream. And still that dream has no halakhic status. It is forbidden to use it.

So that somewhat resembles Nachmanides’ argument here: even though it works, meaning even though it is reliable, I do not treat it as evidence. Because in the laws of evidence of Jewish law, one does not regard as proof forms of evidence that are not ordinary rational evidence, evidence that is above nature or above the normal human world—from dreams or from mysticism or from esotericism or from whatever. So Nachmanides’ words here very, very much resemble that. He basically forbids us to resort—I don’t know if this is an exact definition, but it’s similar—he forbids us to resort in practice to mysticism. Not that he doesn’t believe in mysticism; he is simply… accepted. But to resort in practice to mysticism—that, seemingly, is what he forbids.

I said I’m not sure that is a correct definition, because the feeling you get when you read his words—and also in terms of the laws and in other medieval authorities—is that I don’t know whether he forbids all mysticism. Rather, somehow there is mysticism connected to those sectors, the other ones—to idolatry, sorcery, those other things. I don’t know, for example, whether Nachmanides would forbid opening mezuzot. I don’t know. Maybe from his point of view that is mysticism, but not mysticism belonging to that side, and so it would be permitted. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.

In any event, assuming of course that it works—an optimistic assumption that it works—then the definition, what exactly the criterion is that will help us in practice know what is permitted for us and what is forbidden for us… We now need a practical criterion. We now see, say, some kind of alternative healer. Is it permitted to resort to alternative medicine? Now I’m not asking whether it works. It doesn’t… I’m asking whether one is allowed to resort to it. According to Nachmanides it’s not clear at all. Assuming it works, of course, for the sake of argument that it works. It may still be forbidden to resort to it; I don’t know. Who knows—maybe Bach flowers, whatever they call all that nonsense, maybe it comes from the sitra achra. I don’t know where it comes from. How do you know where things come from? From where they draw their powers. Do you need to whisper something around the thing in order to understand that it comes from some other place? I don’t know. There are also incantations or amulets and things like that that come from the side that is supposedly the positive side, the side of holiness—at least that’s what many commonly think. I’m not sure, but that is the common assumption among many. So there is no criterion at all; according to Nachmanides there is no way to know what is permitted and what is forbidden.

Therefore, although his definition sounds more reasonable, more fitting to the Torah and the Talmud, and most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) go in that direction—because according to Maimonides it’s just a prohibition against being stupid. It doesn’t seem that all the essence, all the great severity that the Torah and Jewish law give to this matter, all of that is simply “don’t be stupid.” So in terms of interpretation at least, the direction of Nachmanides and his camp seems more plausible. But this entire direction is a very problematic direction, because on the practical level I don’t know how to apply it. How do I know what is permitted to me and what is forbidden to me? What is the criterion? Yes, what is mysticism, really? Okay? It’s almost the question of what mysticism is. How do you know what mysticism is and what it isn’t? If there is some action that is natural, only you still have no explanation for it, then it isn’t mysticism. You just don’t know the explanation yet. More research is needed and we’ll discover the explanation. Right? Electromagnetic fields in the seventeenth century—was that mysticism? They didn’t know them yet then. So was it mysticism? It’s a completely natural matter. Is it supernatural? Why? Because there was no explanation, so it was supernatural? There was no explanation because we had not yet found the explanation. So how do you know—maybe mysticism is something for which an explanation will never be found? How do you know whether an explanation will never be found? It could be that they do research and discover it. By the way, it could be that they never find an explanation even though they could have found one, only nobody was smart enough to find it—but there is a natural explanation. We have no practical way to decide what is permitted and what is forbidden; it really is a broken cistern.

Read Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s responsum, by the way—you won’t come out any wiser. In the end, in my opinion, this is one of the most difficult subjects in Jewish law. I’ve stood helpless before it for many years. I don’t know how one fulfills this law, except according to Maimonides, of course—because then it’s very simple. Relatively simple. You need to check whether it works or not; as much as you can check, check. If it works, it’s permitted; if it doesn’t work, it’s forbidden. Fine, that’s simple. But according to the view of most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—Nachmanides and most of those who follow him—this whole story is a very, very severe prohibition. I have no idea how one fulfills it, or how one guards against it. I don’t know. What is the criterion?

There are all kinds of… go back to the question they asked Rabbi Yaakov Hillel. All the sorcerers around us, the New Age and all their nonsense, communicating with aliens and I don’t know what, doing incantations and magic and fortune-telling and all kinds of things of that sort—there are millions of them. They get paid a lot of money. People go to them, including God-fearing Jews. By the way, people like the Baba Sali also did things like that—people commonly regarded as definitely not from the problematic side. Yet they also did things like that. So what—does that mean it’s permitted or forbidden? How do I know? Because Baba Sali was a righteous person, so therefore obviously in his case it came from the positive side? So it’s determined by the person? That’s strange. How does Baba Sali himself know from which side it comes? Leave aside the fact that he’s righteous and therefore I know. How does he make the decision? Does he have some kind of holy spirit? Does he know how to identify where the powers come from—from the holy side or from the side of impurity? The whole story seems so vague and strange, and it’s part of Jewish law. This isn’t some marginal thing; there are at least ten commandments here, if not more, related to the matter, and it is really not at all clear how one actually fulfills them.

Now again, some of these are specific acts prohibited in Jewish law, and that is easier. To inquire of the dead is forbidden, to cast spells—meaning there are definitions of exactly what is included in these things. So there the sages already spelled out for us what exactly is included in that prohibition, so there you don’t need to agonize over the diagnostics of whether it comes from that side or this side. They said this act is forbidden. What one can ask there is: how did the sages know? How did the sages know that this was the act that comes from the problematic side? But okay, say—I don’t know exactly—maybe they had a tradition from Sinai, I don’t know.

But with respect to the broader cases, like reading mezuzot, Native sorcerers, all sorts of things of that kind that do not fall under one of the categories of casting spells, diviner, familiar spirit, and the like—how do you know whether you are resorting to powers of holiness or powers of impurity? In that context it is really a very, very difficult dilemma. And here I want to turn to Rabbi Yaakov Hillel’s second responsum, Part 2, siman 13.

Look at the question. “I hereby turn to the honor of his Torah, as one known to be greatly versed in the revealed and hidden, and as author of the book Tamim Tiheyeh”—that’s Rabbi Yaakov Hillel. The book Tamim Tiheyeh, by the way, I think is basically the previous responsum that came out as a book, a very long responsum. “Concerning the following matter: In our area there is a man to whose door many flock, and he answers questions on revealed and hidden matters, and after careful examination it turns out that the above-mentioned man hits the mark exactly and does not miss.” Meaning, he doesn’t miss. And again, I also have doubts about these careful examinations, but never mind—let’s say for the sake of discussion that it’s true. “And likewise, he uses no external means forbidden by Jewish law.” Okay? There is no connection to idolatry in the phenomenological sense. He does not connect to other faiths or other things. Does he do incantations? I don’t know, all kinds of things like that? “And also not incantations and amulets and the like.” Fine.

“However, it should be noted that the man is a complete ignoramus, yet at the same time he keeps commandments according to his scant knowledge. And apparently he also speaks evil speech about others; perhaps this is from ignorance of the prohibition.” In short, they really get into ad hominem details here, details about the person. “And since even Torah scholars flock after him, please let the honor of his Torah answer us with a clear and reasoned Torah opinion with sources, so that rabbis and Torah scholars too will accept the matter, whether it is permitted to go to him and ask his advice.”

Here I think the dilemma is presented in its full force. Because on the one hand we have something here that works—he doesn’t miss by a hair’s breadth—it works, okay? On the other hand, the questioner at least assumes Nachmanides’ view—that the fact that something works is not yet a guarantee that it is permitted. Because according to Nachmanides there can be things that work and are still forbidden. So he asks: what is the criterion? And the questioner, innocently enough, goes straight to criteria that pertain to the person himself. Who is the person doing this? Is he an ignoramus or not? Does he speak evil speech or not? But really, where does this come from? Why should resorting to powers used by a certain person be forbidden? Either these things are forbidden or they are permitted. What difference does it make whether you are a Torah scholar or not? Why discuss the person rather than the issue itself?

The problem that leads him to discuss the person is precisely because one cannot discuss the issue itself. We have no criterion. How do I know what is permitted and what is forbidden? What is the criterion here? It works. Okay. Now how do you know whether it comes from the power of holiness or the power of impurity? How do you know? Do you have some kind of camera that follows the information to where it comes from and checks whether it is in Satan’s abode or from the Holy One, blessed be He? How do you test it?

Now in the answer he gives, he says: the asker and answerer regarding the future transgress “You shall be wholehearted.” So first of all he says that with regard to answers about the future, it doesn’t matter at all from which side it comes. Once someone answers you about what will happen in the future, you transgress the prohibition of “You shall be wholehearted.” So that already removes part of these matters for us—this is forbidden in any case. There is nothing to discuss. You do not ask a person about the future. That is called “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” But of course from a prophet one may indeed hear about the future. So it’s not all that simple.

Moreover, what about academic sorcerers? I mentioned what’s-his-name—Pessig, yes, David Passig from Bar-Ilan—where there is ostensibly an academic discipline that deals with forecasting. Forecasting what happens, rational forecasting. Meaning, checking trends, checking precedents, checking data, and trying to predict what will happen in the future. I’m very skeptical of that field on the purely scientific-rational plane, but say for the sake of argument that they succeed in reaching some meaningful achievements. They manage to foresee; they manage to be experts on the future too and not only on the past, like Ben-Gurion always said that all the experts are experts in what was, not in what will be. So say they also manage, in some sense, to be experts in what will be. Is it permitted to resort to that?

You’ll say yes, because it is rational thought, just a forecast of what will happen in the future on the basis of rational considerations. So now one has to define what counts as rational considerations. Do we have a definition? What are rational considerations? Things connected to economics, society, things of that sort? Why specifically those? And if someone sees with his spiritual inner eye the spiritual trends and on that basis predicts the future—is that not a rational consideration because it’s spiritual? So what, then, is rational? But all that is still less difficult, because you’re speaking about asking and answering concerning the future. Asking and answering concerning the future, as Shlomo mentioned earlier, is seemingly forbidden because the Torah itself prohibited it.

The harder questions are what happens not with questions about the future, but with things like healing, as I said before, or things of that kind. In that context you will not find a satisfying answer in Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, as far as I have seen.

If you look at the heading of the first chapter: “Can prophecy apply to simple people?” The discussion begins with the person. Why should I care whether prophecy applies to simple people? If I tell you it works, then apparently it does apply. No—the claim is not “can prophecy apply to simple people,” not whether he is correct. It may be that it works, but it works not through prophetic power but through what? Through the sitra achra. Meaning, he is really discussing here through the person the question of the source of the information or the methods he uses.

In the end, if the person is a simple man, or a sinner, or speaks evil speech, or whatever, then he cannot be a prophet. If he cannot be a prophet, and he speaks about the future, then that means it apparently comes from somewhere else. And again we are speaking about someone whose every answer works exactly and does not miss—not someone for whom it doesn’t work. It does work. Again, that is the assumption in the question. Okay?

Maimonides defined a prophet… What? Maimonides defines a prophet. For Maimonides, a prophet cannot be a foolish person or not a wise one. That is the discussion he is dealing with here: can prophecy apply to simple people? But I’m explaining again: “can prophecy apply to simple people,” at least in our context—not in Maimonides’ context, in Nachmanides’ context, say for the sake of discussion—is a different question. It is not the question whether simple people can know the future. They can. The question is whether their knowledge of the future comes from a prophetic source. Because if they did not merit prophecy, then they cannot be prophets. So how do they know the future? Since he hits the mark exactly and does not miss, then he knows the future. How does he know the future? Apparently from other sources, and it is forbidden to resort to that.

When Maimonides says a simple person cannot be a prophet, he would tell you that a simple person simply cannot know the future, because there are no other sources according to Maimonides. If it comes from the Holy One, blessed be He, then it comes from Him; and if not from Him, then there is nothing. But according to Nachmanides, you can know the future from other places too; only it is forbidden to resort to that. Okay? So in that context it is a bit simpler regarding knowledge of the future—that is what he says.

Look, yes: “If one asks him about the past or the present, in which case they do not transgress the positive commandment of ‘You shall be wholehearted,’ and for example one asks whether so-and-so is an upright and proper person and whether it is worthwhile to make a business deal with him and the like, and he answers both about the revealed and the hidden matters of that person, and he hits the mark in his answers, informing about matters that happened with that person in the past that were not known to others at all—then according to this it turns out that he has supernatural powers to know such hidden matters. And if so, we need to define what these powers are: whether prophecy or holy spirit or some sort of natural power, though uncommon among most people, like intuition, as such things are heard from people”—or—and he doesn’t say what the alternative is—or that it is other powers. Because again, it works. The alternative is not that he does not know, that he is lying—no. The alternative is that he knows, because we checked, but he knows it from another source, not from a holy source. Then it is forbidden, that’s what he says.

“Now if his powers are prophetic, then certainly it is permitted to ask of him,” as brought above from Nachmanides. “That is if he was tested in his prophecies and all of them came as he said,” and so on. “But regarding prophecy Maimonides wrote: prophecy rests only upon one who is a great sage in wisdom, mighty in his character traits, and whose inclination does not overcome him in anything in the world.” So once again he returns to the idea that by way of the person you can test whether his sources are prophetic sources or other sources, and thus know whether it is permitted or forbidden to resort to him. Meaning: if the person is righteous and a Torah scholar and so on, then apparently it comes from a prophetic source and it is permitted to resort to him. If he is someone else, then it is forbidden to resort to him.

In short, the picture according to Nachmanides is very problematic on the practical level. Meaning, how do we know what is forbidden and what is permitted in practice, how do we conduct ourselves? By the way, according to what I mentioned earlier, according to Maimonides there is probably a prohibition against resorting to alternative medicine. The prohibitions of “you shall not practice divination” and “You shall be wholehearted” and all the rest. Unless someone thinks it works—but I’m saying, if I am right that it doesn’t work, then these things are actually bound up with a prohibition. So Maimonides is both stringent and lenient. He is stringent in the sense that he forbids things that seem innocent—just being foolish—and turns that into a prohibition. And he is lenient in the sense that anything that works, even if it seems to come from a dubious source, is permitted. There is a leniency and a stringency in Maimonides’ view.

In Nachmanides’ view, it depends on the source of the thing. But how do you diagnose the source of the thing? That question parallels—and from here I’ll begin to move the discussion a bit—that question parallels the question of what the supernatural is. What is mystical, in certain senses. What is supernatural? In many places you can see discussions of supernatural phenomena, parapsychology or things like psychokinesis, things of that sort—a discussion of supernatural phenomena. What is supernatural? The concept “supernatural,” which is used so often—again, even those who don’t believe in it use it—is very hard to define.

Usually the supernatural is treated as whatever does not belong to the scientific world, what does not work with the laws of science, with the laws of nature. What is beyond the laws of nature is called supernatural. But that’s just words, because the question is how do you know what works with the laws of nature and what doesn’t. So how can one speak at all about the concept of the supernatural? How does one define that concept?

Look for example at the Wikipedia entry on the supernatural. Look how badly these things fail. See? “Supernatural.” That’s the Wikipedia entry. “Supernatural, or paranormal, is a term for something above nature, meaning that it is not subject to the accepted scientific understanding of the laws of nature.” You can already see this is a very doubtful formulation. Something we currently do not know and in a few years will know—is that also supernatural? “The term supernatural is widely used in popular culture. There is no agreed definition of what is supernatural, but it is commonly understood to include, among other things, gods, demons and spirits, extrasensory perception, magic, fortune-telling, telepathy, superheroes, people with special powers, out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, and influences from astrology. Theories that can be tested by the scientific method and do not contradict existing observations are not defined as supernatural.”

Notice: theories that can be tested—not theories that have already been tested and checked, but what can be tested. Now what does “theories that can be tested” mean? That’s a matter of techniques. It could be that in the future there will be techniques and we’ll be able to test many more things. Is free will something supernatural? It used to be accepted—until fifty years ago it was accepted—that there was no scientific way to test whether we have free will or not, that this was a philosophical question. Okay? In the last decades people have begun to think there is a scientific way to test it. I’m still not sure about that, but such claims exist. So did it become from supernatural to natural? So then in fact this is not an essential definition at all, but only a definition of how far our scientific knowledge currently reaches—that’s what determines the supernatural.

So for example parapsychology or reincarnation or out-of-body experiences or things of that sort—why is that called supernatural? Maybe we’ll have a device that can measure out-of-body experiences. Today we don’t. Maybe today we’re already starting to, too, but perhaps you can test it through brain phenomena. But then how do you ultimately define it? What about gods, demons, and spirits? The sages in the Talmud even give us recipes for how we can detect demons—with the ashes of a black cat, male and female, daughter of a black and red one, burn it and scatter the ashes at midnight. We have a whole scientific process for measuring the presence of demons. So are demons no longer supernatural, or are they still supernatural?

He says: “And so too observations that current accepted theories cannot explain, but that can be reproduced according to scientific standards, such as the photoelectric effect in its time.” Also hypotheses that cannot be confirmed or refuted with existing means, such as string theory, will not necessarily be considered supernatural. It cannot be tested scientifically, so why is it not supernatural? Because there is some trust that in the future we will succeed in testing it, that in principle it can be examined scientifically, even if today we lack the ability. But how do you know that with all the other things we won’t be able to test them in the future? How do you know? What does “supernatural” mean in this context? Yes, that’s what he says.

“Supernatural ideas, at least in their overwhelming majority, meet antagonism from circles of naturalistic and materialistic skepticism. Among the skeptics working to reject claims and disprove the existence of supernatural phenomena are James Randi and…” and so on. There are skeptics who work to refute supernatural phenomena, but these skeptics do not know how to define supernatural phenomena.

Now I’ll show you a wonderful example of this. Look—James Randi was an American magician and basically, I think, the founder of the skepticism movement. Skepticism means all those who cast doubt on reports of all sorts of non-scientific phenomena and cling only to science, those who see science as the be-all and end-all. Now in his estate Randi left a prize of one million dollars to anyone who could prove the existence of a phenomenon considered supernatural. Okay? And until 2015 no one met the challenge.

Now I ask: how can one get this prize? Whoever shows me—not whoever gets the prize, but whoever shows me how one gets the prize—will get a million dollars from me. It’s impossible. You can’t get the prize. Because if you demonstrate systematically that this phenomenon exists, then he’ll tell you, okay, then it’s a scientific phenomenon, it can be reproduced by scientific means. If you say it happened once and then not again, he’ll say, okay, then it was probably some experimental error, it isn’t consistent. So you haven’t shown the existence of the phenomenon. So it turns out you can’t win this prize, because every time you go to these skeptics and show them, with signs and wonders and an experiment, that this phenomenon exists—in an experiment they are willing to stand behind, since they demand observational confirmation of it—then if I show them observational confirmation that this thing exists, they’ll say, okay, then it’s a natural phenomenon, not a supernatural one. Here, you showed it with scientific tools. We don’t yet know how to explain it? Fine, we’ll do more research and explain it.

It’s like the argument in evolution about the “God of the gaps.” That is, you can’t prove the existence of God from gaps in scientific knowledge. Many creationists try to prove the existence of God from the fact that we don’t understand something. Science doesn’t know how to explain something, therefore there is God. Why does Yated Ne’eman always rejoice when the meteorologists are wrong, when weather forecasts don’t work? Because then it means there is God. Against that stands the claim that one cannot prove the existence of God from gaps in scientific knowledge. In the past there were larger gaps, and we keep narrowing them all the time. Presumably in the future they will narrow still more. So proving the existence of God on the basis of a scientific gap is very problematic.

Do you understand that what stands behind that argument is basically that you cannot claim that there is something supernatural here? At most it can be something natural but as yet unexplained. Do you understand that this is exactly the same argument as my argument against those same people themselves, who here happen to be standing on the other side? Meaning, these atheists argue this against the creationists, but the argument also rises against the atheists in exactly the same way. It is impossible to win the prize they offer.

There is perhaps another example that is somewhat connected to the debate over evolution. One of the arguments is that evolution says that once a protein chain was formed, from that point on we have a natural explanation of how living creatures developed—how all the biological diversity around us, plants and animals and everything, came to be. But how did the first living creature come to be? Or the first DNA? How did the first protein chain come to be? That is the question of abiogenesis. Many creationists say there is no evolutionary explanation for that, and therefore there is God. God created life.

Now what do the atheists, the neo-Darwinians, say against that? They say no, we will search and find a scientific explanation for that process too. And indeed, today there is very intensive work on abiogenesis. Part of it is of course just science, but a large part of the motivation for doing things like this is also the war against the creationists, to show that everything has a natural explanation.

Now you can understand that you cannot decide this question empirically. Suppose you succeed in producing a living creature through a chemical process, producing life from inanimate matter. Okay? Some living creature. You make primordial soup, some simulation of primordial soup, pour in some materials, and suddenly a frog jumps out of it. Okay? So here, you have shown that you don’t need God in order to produce life from inanimate matter. But of course that isn’t true. You have not shown that. Because it could be that God created that frog from the materials you put into the puddle, into the primordial soup. Meaning, if you assume that without God no living creature can emerge from inanimate materials, then even if I test it in the lab—yes, that’s the argument from… the laws, right—even in the lab when you do it, then of course it came out because the Holy One, blessed be He, created a mechanism that produces life from inanimate matter. And if you create the appropriate circumstances in the lab, then of course under the Holy One’s governance it will happen there too. Therefore no experiment can decide that theory. Understand?

People often have this sense of great confidence that once we perform an experiment and measure this phenomenon in the lab, we will clear all the mystics and believers and supernaturalists off the field. But we will not, because the fact that you tested it in the lab does not mean it is natural rather than supernatural. Unless, of course, you assume that everything that exists is natural, in which case you are begging the question. Then of course the supernatural does not exist, because everything you show to exist you will call natural. So the conclusion that the supernatural does not exist is simply a result of definition. There is no point in dealing with it; it’s exactly like Randi’s prize. You can’t win Randi’s prize.

I am offering a prize of ten million dollars. I don’t have it, but I’m offering a prize of ten million dollars, not one million. That’s okay because in any case nobody will ever get it, so I can offer a billion too.

Therefore the question of when it is forbidden to resort to these phenomena, as Nachmanides says, is very similar to the question of what the supernatural is or what the mystical is. Okay? Because I suggested a definition for the mystical—and here I’m sort of returning to the beginning of our path—I suggested defining the mystical as something inaccessible to other people, something that relies on trust in a person. Do you now see the picture here? It’s the same thing. Here too, when you want to discuss whether something is mystical or not, whether it comes from those powers or these powers, you judge according to the person. The question is whether you trust this person or not.

In other words, the prohibition against resorting to these things is a prohibition against resorting to mysticism. Not that he doesn’t believe in mysticism—rather, a prohibition against resorting to the mysticism of an unreliable person. The mysticism of a reliable person may perhaps be all right. “Reliable” not in the sense that it works, but reliable in the sense of righteous. Right? Therefore the question of what is supernatural and the question of what is mysticism and the question of how one determines what it is forbidden or permitted to resort to in all those prohibitions I mentioned earlier are very similar questions.

I’ll end perhaps with a sentence from Dawkins. In his book The God Delusion—or “Is There a God?” with a question mark—he says this: “I know you don’t believe in a man with a long beard sitting on a cloud. The God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either,” as in those sayings you know. Every time an atheist comes and asks a question, someone says: you know, the God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either. So Dawkins, as an atheist, responds to those responses: “I know you don’t believe in a man with a long beard sitting on a cloud, so let’s not waste much time on him. I am not attacking a particular version of God or of gods. I am attacking God, all gods, everything supernatural and all supernatural things as such, wherever and whenever they were invented or will be invented in the future. Not one particular type of God. Don’t tell me that that’s not the God you believe in. None. Whatever God, whatever it may be, I attack it.”

Of course, all that remains for him now is to show what the supernatural is. Or what that… so what does define the God he attacks? There is no definition. You won’t find a definition there, because there can’t be one. There is no definition. Everything science doesn’t know how to explain—that’s not a criterion either, because maybe it will know in the future. So how do you define it? There is no way to define it. It’s an empty sentence. It’s like Randi’s prize. It has no meaning.

Okay, I’ll stop here. Any comments or questions? Okay, so we’ll stop here. Thank you very much. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom, have a good new month.