Mysticism – Lesson 17
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Schools among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): Maimonides versus Nachmanides
- The problem of diagnosis: the “other side” versus the side of holiness
- An Indian idol-doctor, Acamol, and honoring idolatry
- Answers focused “on the person himself” and the lack of examination of the procedure
- A halakhic puzzle and its implication in favor of Maimonides
- A halakhic anecdote: “tilting a handbreadth” on scales
- The supernatural, Dawkins, Popper, and the Randi prize
- The mystical as the esoteric and non-scientific claims
- Kabbalists as diagnosticians, and reservation about that solution
- Works / doesn’t work, conventional medicine, and the presumption created by three times
- “Beyond reason” and “beyond logic” as vague language
- Paradoxes, analytic contradictions, and a priori contradictions
- Omnipotence and refuting self-contradictory questions
- The supernatural, the natural, and dogmatism
- God and the soul: not mysticism by this definition
- Segulah-based medicine and Sabbath desecration
- Ambiguity in Maimonides’ words: helpful or not helpful
- Radbaz, an established amulet, and the definition of clothing on the Sabbath
- Birkei Yosef: writing an amulet to save someone who drank poison
- An attempt to explain: a slippery slope and segulah-based doubts
- Closing questions: beyond time and the soul as consciousness
Summary
General Overview
The text presents two schools among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) regarding the accessory prohibitions of idolatry and practices such as divination, necromancy, spirit-consulting, and amulets: Maimonides’ approach grounds the prohibition in the fact that these things do not work, and the prohibition is basically a prohibition against “being foolish,” whereas the approach of Nachmanides and his camp allows that there may be something real in these things and nevertheless they are forbidden. From that comes a sharp diagnostic problem in Nachmanides’ approach: without a “works / doesn’t work” criterion, there is no practical way to know what belongs to the side of holiness and what belongs to the “other side,” and the solutions offered by halakhic decisors seem based on signs about the person himself rather than examination of the procedure itself. The text then argues in principle against empty use of terms like “supernatural,” “mystical,” “beyond reason,” and certainly “beyond logic,” relying on the difficulty of putting such claims to a falsification test (Dawkins, Popper, the Randi prize) and on a distinction between logical contradictions and things that only look contradictory in philosophy. Finally, it discusses the law of segulah-based medicine on the Sabbath through Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah in Yoma and the discussion among later authorities (Acharonim) about whether one may desecrate the Sabbath for segulot even when they “help.”
Schools among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): Maimonides versus Nachmanides
The text states that there are two schools among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) regarding the accessory prohibitions of idolatry and acts such as “you shall not practice divination,” “one who casts spells,” and the other related prohibitions. Maimonides sets out a simple criterion of works / doesn’t work, and says that whatever works is not prohibited, while whatever does not work is prohibited, with the basis of the prohibition being precisely that it does not work, because the prohibition is a prohibition against being foolish. Nachmanides and his camp hold that there can be something real in these things and yet they are still forbidden, so the criterion of works / doesn’t work is not decisive in their view.
The problem of diagnosis: the “other side” versus the side of holiness
The text explains that according to Nachmanides’ view, the question arises: how do we know what is permitted and what is forbidden when things can work and still be forbidden? It formulates a conceptual distinction between what belongs to the “forces of darkness” and what belongs to the side of holiness by the power of the Holy One, blessed be He. The text says that even if all these things ultimately draw from the power of the Holy One, blessed be He, there is still room for the idea that He grants power also to other entities in order to challenge us and provide an alternative, and so one must decide to which side a given action belongs. The text says that in cases the Torah spells out explicitly, such as necromancy, spirit-consulting, and divination, there is no need for diagnosis beyond the fact that the act itself is prohibited. But with regard to a general framework like “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” the question remains: what exactly is “suspect,” when there is no clear criterion?
An Indian idol-doctor, Acamol, and honoring idolatry
The text gives the example of an Indian idol-priest healer who is said to succeed in curing a disease that conventional medicine cannot cure, and asks whether one is allowed to go to him. The text argues that even if a practice appears in an idolatrous context, it does not necessarily follow that it draws its power from idolatry. It illustrates this with the imaginary possibility that an idolatrous religion might tell people to take Acamol; in that case there would be no reason to avoid Acamol, since it lowers fever and is known to work. The text suggests another possible reason to prohibit using a practice in an idolatrous setting: not because of “forces of darkness,” but because of exalting idolatry, giving honor to idolatry, and causing people to be drawn after it, within the framework of the accessory prohibitions of idolatry.
Answers focused “on the person himself” and the lack of examination of the procedure
The text notes a reference to a responsum attributed to Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, and argues that one does not find there answers to the diagnostic question, but mainly considerations about the person involved: whether the practitioner is an ignoramus or a Torah scholar, whether he is suspected of Sabbath desecration, idolatry, malicious speech, and the like. The text argues that there is no way to test the medical procedure itself, and that judging the person is not a good test, because even a conventional doctor who desecrates the Sabbath is still relevant if he uses a procedure that works. The text adds that the reverse is also true: even a worthy person may use powers that are forbidden to use. So the question “how do we know?” remains open, and is defined as a genuine halakhic puzzle.
A halakhic puzzle and its implication in favor of Maimonides
The text says that the speaker personally is not very troubled in practice, because he sees himself as belonging to Maimonides’ school. In his opinion, if something works, then it is probably conventional medicine that simply has not yet caught up with it or cannot yet explain it. The text argues that most listeners are probably in a similar position, according to which Maimonides is right: if it works, it is fine; if it does not work, it is not. The text describes as astonishing, in a halakhic context, a situation in which there is an important list of severe prohibitions, which Maimonides classifies as accessory prohibitions of idolatry up to the level of “be killed rather than transgress,” and yet “nobody knows how to define what is prohibited there and what is not prohibited there.” It suggests that the very practical inability to apply these laws supports Maimonides’ claim that the criterion is not mystical-diagnostic.
A halakhic anecdote: “tilting a handbreadth” on scales
The text brings up an association from the Talmud in Bava Batra about the law of “tilting a handbreadth” in the marketplace, and asks: in ordinary scales made of a beam and two hanging pans, what meaning can there be to a required degree of tilt? If the weights are equal, the scales remain in any position; if they are not equal, one side goes down. The text suggests that certain medieval authorities understood the scales to have been in the shape of a kind of bent frame, in which changing the angle changes the torque and makes it meaningful to talk about a handbreadth of tilt. The text emphasizes how strange it is that this is a practical law for the marketplace, and asks how people actually observed it.
The supernatural, Dawkins, Popper, and the Randi prize
The text returns to the question of how to define “supernatural,” by analogy to the “forces of darkness,” and cites Dawkins, who says he denies not only one specific God, but everything supernatural. The text asks what Dawkins’ criterion is for the supernatural, and argues that in practice anything found to “work” would be classified by him as natural, even if unexplained. Therefore only things that do not work could count as supernatural, and those the speaker also denies. The text asks what experiment could falsify Dawkins’ thesis according to Popper’s criterion of falsifiability, and argues that no such experiment exists, because every success would simply be reclassified as natural. It also mentions the Randi prize, which offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove a supernatural phenomenon, and says no one will ever win it, even adding a theoretical offer of “a billion dollars” in the same spirit.
The mystical as the esoteric and non-scientific claims
The text proposes a principled definition of the mystical as the esoteric, meaning something not equally accessible to all human beings but dependent on special capacities in certain individuals for interaction. The text argues that one cannot define the mystical empirically, and therefore the claim that there is mysticism or that there is no mysticism is not a scientific claim, because it cannot be subjected to a falsification test. It stresses that scientific status and truth are not synonymous. The text says that a claim about the existence of the supernatural is not meaningless, but it cannot be tested with scientific tools.
Kabbalists as diagnosticians, and reservation about that solution
The text presents a theoretical possibility according to which people with mystical abilities can diagnose whether something comes from the side of holiness or from the “other side,” but says that this requires a double trust: trust that such abilities exist at all, and trust in the particular person. The text argues that in practice halakhic decisors do not send people to a kabbalist to diagnose the source of incantations, and even where responsa were written, no such instruction appears. Instead they rely on indicators such as whether the person keeps the Sabbath, is a Torah scholar, and so on. The text calls these indicators “a complete invention” and “things with no meaning whatsoever,” and says that even the authors of learned responsa understand this no better than he does.
Works / doesn’t work, conventional medicine, and the presumption created by three times
The text grapples with the question whether according to Nachmanides everything “mystical,” or everything without a scientific explanation, is prohibited, and points to the difficulty posed by conventional medicine, where procedures are tested, found to work, and only afterward explained. It gives the example of Acamol before a full understanding of its mechanism of action, and argues that if the criterion is “there is no explanation, therefore it is forbidden,” the result is bizarre. In the context of Maimonides, the text raises the idea of an established amulet that helps three times, and says that from a halakhic perspective, repetition three times creates a presumption that it “works,” until it loses that presumption through three failures.
“Beyond reason” and “beyond logic” as vague language
The text argues that “beyond logic” has no meaning and is an empty phrase, and that when something is contradictory—“a thing and its opposite”—it is nonsense, not something “deep.” The text distinguishes between things not yet understood and real contradictions, and says one ought to think and investigate rather than shutting down the discussion with words like “it’s beyond reason.” It attacks slogans such as “faith begins where philosophy ends” and attributes to them intellectual laziness, citing Rudolf Otto to the effect that the unity of opposites is the refuge of the lazy.
Paradoxes, analytic contradictions, and a priori contradictions
The text argues that there are no paradoxes in reality in the sense of actual logical contradiction, and distinguishes between things that look paradoxical and pure nonsense. It describes a lecture and an article about “believing contradictions” and argues that one cannot believe logical contradictions because they have no content, while distinguishing between analytic contradictions such as “a round triangle” and a priori or philosophical contradictions. It gives the example of God’s foreknowledge versus free will, and argues that the question depends on whether this is a logical contradiction or a philosophical problem that could in principle be resolved.
Omnipotence and refuting self-contradictory questions
The text rejects formulations of omnipotence such as “a shell that penetrates every wall and a wall that stops every shell,” and argues that the Holy One, blessed be He, “cannot” in the sense that there is no such coherent concept, not because of limitation. The text says that the claim “maybe there is, I just don’t understand it” when the issue is contradiction is an empty expression, and emphasizes that nothing is beyond logic.
The supernatural, the natural, and dogmatism
The text argues that both the statement “everything is natural” and the statement “there is a supernatural” are equally dogmatic, because neither side can know in advance how knowledge will develop. It compares this to the argument between creationists and “believers in evolution” about “missing links,” and says that both sides hold a kind of belief regarding what future inquiry will or will not close. The text declares a stance of “constructive ambiguity” throughout the series, meaning that it is not claiming with certainty either that mysticism exists or that it does not; first of all, it demands a definition.
God and the soul: not mysticism by this definition
The text defines mysticism as the esoteric, and therefore argues that belief in God is not mysticism, because there are philosophical arguments accessible to everyone. It also argues that belief in the existence of a soul is not mysticism, because every person inwardly experiences his own consciousness and selfhood, and it cites Schopenhauer on the breaking point in Kant’s distinction when a person experiences himself from within. The text brings Descartes’ cogito to argue that the existence of the mental is prior to knowledge of the existence of material objects, and presents a position against materialists according to which the mental is more certain than matter. It says that someone who experiences God in a private experiential way that is not accessible to everyone holds an esoteric God, but the bare claim that God exists remains non-mystical by this definition.
Segulah-based medicine and Sabbath desecration
The text opens a discussion of segulah-based medicine and asks whether one may desecrate the Sabbath or violate a prohibition for the sake of segulah-based medicine in a case of danger to life. It presents a dispute among medieval and later authorities according to which the permission to desecrate the Sabbath was said regarding natural medicine, but not regarding segulah-based medicine, even when the segulah works. It places the source in the Mishnah in Yoma: “One who was bitten by a mad dog is not fed from its liver courtyard, and Rabbi Matya ben Charash permits it.” The text quotes Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah, which says “the law does not follow Rabbi Matya ben Charash” because the thing “is only helpful by way of segulah,” and adds Maimonides’ wording that the sages hold that “one violates a commandment only for healing alone,” meaning something required by reason and experience, whereas “healing by segulot” is weak in substance and remote in experience.
Ambiguity in Maimonides’ words: helpful or not helpful
The text points to a linguistic tension in Maimonides’ words between “it is only helpful by way of segulah,” which implies benefit, and the description of such things as “weak in substance” and “remote in experience,” which sounds like lack of efficacy or only rare efficacy. The text argues that even if the benefit is partial, the Sabbath is desecrated even for a doubtful danger to life, and introduces the modern language of statistical significance to explain that conventional treatments work in percentages and not necessarily every time. It raises the difficulty of how to define “works sometimes” according to Maimonides, and whether this means a low but significant rate of success as compared with alternatives.
Radbaz, an established amulet, and the definition of clothing on the Sabbath
The text brings Radbaz’s question: why may one go out on the Sabbath wearing an established amulet if segulah-based medicine does not override the Sabbath? It answers in Radbaz’s name that the permission there is not because of danger to life, but because of the laws of carrying: an established amulet is considered clothing, and therefore there is no forbidden carrying. The text presents this as showing that even if a segulah works, had it involved actual Sabbath desecration it would still be forbidden; only here no prohibited labor is involved.
Birkei Yosef: writing an amulet to save someone who drank poison
The text quotes Birkei Yosef, Orach Chayim section 301, telling of a person who wrote an amulet as a segulah for someone who had drunk deadly poison, and the amulet had helped several times. In one case, on Friday night, he wrote the amulet and saved a Jewish girl, and the community was upset with him for desecrating the Sabbath. The text brings Birkei Yosef’s discussion, whose initial conclusion is that he did not act properly, because although danger to life overrides the Sabbath in the case of natural medicine, one does not override the Sabbath for something that works by way of segulah. He proves this from the Mishnah in Yoma and Maimonides’ explanation. The text emphasizes that Birkei Yosef understands the segulah as something “established as certainly effective,” and nevertheless one may not desecrate the Sabbath with a Torah prohibition for it, though certain rabbinic matters were permitted, such as going out with an established amulet.
An attempt to explain: a slippery slope and segulah-based doubts
The text raises a possible explanation for the prohibition against desecrating the Sabbath for segulot: perhaps this is not because the benefit is certain, but because it is only a remote doubt; and if such things were permitted, a slippery slope would be created in which “every creature will invent some magic of his own,” and people would desecrate the Sabbath for anything. The text suggests that the prohibition focuses on unclarified segulah-based doubts in order to preserve the boundaries of the Sabbath, and ends with a promise that the next lecture will offer another explanation in light of previous lectures.
Closing questions: beyond time and the soul as consciousness
The text includes audience questions and answers in which it is argued that there is no problem in thinking of the Holy One, blessed be He, as always existing, and that one can speak about infinity within mathematical models, while qualifying that one should not necessarily assume a concrete infinity. The text identifies the “soul” with mental properties and consciousness that are not properties of the body, rejects materialist “interpretive maneuvers” as a competing interpretation, and closes with the blessing “Shabbat shalom.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time I spoke a bit—after we had discussed the prohibitions of all the accessory prohibitions of idolatry according to Maimonides, things like “you shall not practice divination,” and spell-casting, and all the other derivative prohibitions—I said that there are two schools among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): those who follow Maimonides, and a minority versus a majority of the Rishonim who take a different approach. Nachmanides, you could say, is perhaps the most prominent figure in that second camp. The question is whether there is really something to these things or not. Do they work, or do they not work? According to Maimonides, whatever works is not prohibited, and whatever does not work is prohibited. But not only that—the prohibition is because it does not work. Meaning, the fact that it does not work is itself the basis of the prohibition, because the prohibition is a prohibition against being foolish. That’s how Maimonides understands it. In Nachmanides’ camp, Nachmanides and those with him hold that there can be something real in these things and yet they are still forbidden. And I said that according to their view, the following question arises: according to Maimonides it is very simple to determine what is forbidden and what is permitted—whatever works is permitted, whatever does not work is forbidden; you’re not allowed to be foolish. According to Nachmanides, there can be things that work and yet are still forbidden, and then the question is: how do we know what is permitted and what is forbidden? How do we distinguish between what is permitted and what is forbidden? Basically, this is probably what belongs to the forces of darkness in Harry Potter, right? If it belongs to the “other side,” then it is forbidden, and what belongs to the side of holiness—right, by the power of the Holy One, blessed be He—is permitted. Even though everyone says that all these things obviously draw from the power of the Holy One, blessed be He, still, they understand it as meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, also grants power to other entities so that they challenge us in some sense, so that they present us with an alternative. And then the question comes up: how do you know whether some particular thing belongs to these powers or to those powers? The criterion of whether it works or doesn’t work won’t help according to Nachmanides, so what will? How do you know? Now, when the Torah itself spells things out—necromancy, spirit-consulting, divination—when these forms of divination are specifically defined, then there are certain acts that are prohibited, and we don’t need to agonize over diagnosis; that act is forbidden. But in all contexts that do not appear explicitly in the Torah, and I would say maybe even everything connected to “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” meaning some kind of general statement—
[Speaker B] —that gathers—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —under it all the questionable actions, not necessarily just the closed list that appears in the Torah, then the question arises: what does “questionable” mean? And I gave the example of that Indian idol-priest healer, who is said to have success in curing a certain disease that conventional medicine cannot cure. The question is whether one is allowed to go to him or not. Now, I don’t know. If this is connected in some way to idolatry, then maybe it’s easier to say that it draws from his idolatry. But on the other hand, it could be that there is some practice there which is part of the idolatrous system, but in fact it’s a practice that works. Let’s say there were an idolatrous religion that told me to take Acamol. So now I’m supposed to stop taking Acamol? Acamol lowers a fever, and we also understand how it works—not we, but the people who know this stuff understand how it works. So the fact that idolatry uses some technique or procedure that works should apparently not invalidate a procedure that works—unless it draws its power from the force of idolatry; not merely that it is part of the practice, but that it derives from its power. Yes, I’m speaking according to the view of those medieval authorities who hold that it has power—that there is something real in idolatry, that it’s not just nonsense as Maimonides says. According to Maimonides, of course, the question doesn’t arise: if it works, then it’s fine. So if that’s the case, it still isn’t clear what can be attributed to idolatry. Even something done in an idolatrous context—it isn’t clear that it really draws from the power of idolatry. And therefore the question of diagnosis really is a very difficult one. I don’t know the answer. I’m not familiar with a good answer. And if I mentioned Rabbi Yaakov Hillel—the responsum of Rabbi Yaakov Hillel—there you won’t find answers. You’ll mainly find discussions—as I mentioned—about the person himself. Is the person operating this an ignoramus or a Torah scholar? Is he suspected of, I don’t know, Sabbath desecration and idolatry or malicious speech or whatever exactly, or not? So we examine the person himself, but we have no way to examine the medical procedure itself, what exactly he is doing. And therefore I’m not sure that when we focus on the person himself, that will be a good test. So this person desecrates the Sabbath—so what? Because he desecrates the Sabbath, does that mean he doesn’t understand medical procedures? Even if it’s a conventional doctor who desecrates the Sabbath, I still go to him despite the fact that he desecrates the Sabbath, because he works with some procedure that works. Now if there are procedures that work that are not conventional medicine but come from other powers—or don’t come from other powers—the fact that a person desecrates the Sabbath, does that necessarily mean that what he is doing draws from some demons, some alternative powers? Why? Why is that kind of evaluation of the person himself relevant at all? It’s really not clear to me. And beyond that, of course, the reverse is also true. Even if the person is a worthy person, doesn’t desecrate the Sabbath, doesn’t practice idolatry, nothing of the sort, it could still be that he uses all kinds of powers that are forbidden to use. So how do I know what is allowed and what isn’t? There’s a very difficult problem here. I don’t know a solution to it. And I’m not especially troubled by it, because I consider myself part of Maimonides’ school. Meaning, I think that in all those other things there is nothing to them; they simply do not work. There aren’t other things that also work but are from—if it works, then it’s probably conventional medicine that maybe just hasn’t caught up with it yet or doesn’t know how to explain it. But if it works, then it works, and that’s all. I think simple common sense in meta-halakhic thought—and among halakhic decisors you can argue this endlessly—but if I ask you what you really think, it seems to me, and I allow myself to estimate, that most of you at least are where I am: that it is obvious Maimonides is right, and there’s no point agonizing over all the questions of what source these various powers come from. Therefore, if it works, then it’s fine; if it doesn’t work, then no. There could be something else—I mentioned this—namely, if it is connected, say, like that Indian healer, somehow to idolatry, then maybe one is forbidden to make use of it, not because it comes from forces of darkness, but because it glorifies idolatry. In other words, it gives importance to idolatry, it gives honor to idolatry, it causes people to be drawn after idolatry, and therefore it would be forbidden. Not because of “you shall not practice divination” as such, but as Maimonides says, as an accessory prohibition of idolatry. So yes, that of course could also be forbidden—but not in the sense of using the forces of darkness, okay, you’re not allowed to study at Hogwarts. So this question of diagnosis—how do I know what is permitted and what is forbidden—I’ll leave open. I have no answer for it, I know of no answer, I know of no one who has given an answer to it. And this is fascinating, because we’re talking about a substantial list of prohibitions, severe prohibitions. Maimonides at least classifies them as accessory prohibitions of idolatry, which means basically “be killed rather than transgress,” and nobody knows how to define what there is forbidden and what isn’t forbidden. There is simply no answer to this. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with one, and I also can’t imagine what the answer could be. Which is really an astonishing state of affairs in a halakhic context. Okay, in any event, this reminds me—once someone asked me: the Talmud in Bava Batra brings a law, I’m just remembering this by association, it brings a law that in the marketplace, when you sell goods, you have to tilt the scale by a handbreadth. Meaning, if you have weights, the merchandise should be lower than the weights in order to make sure you are not cheating the buyer. So someone asked me: what does it mean to tilt a handbreadth? Think about scales that are, say, two strings with little pans, right, hanging by strings from both sides of a rod, and the rod is hanging in the middle from some point, and there’s some weight arrangement like that. Now if it stands like this, then if you tilt it a handbreadth it also stands if you tilt it two handbreadths, and also if it’s balanced. There’s no difference; it doesn’t depend on the weight. If the weight on this side is greater than on that side, it goes all the way down. And if it’s the same, then wherever you place it, it stays there. A handbreadth, half a handbreadth, two handbreadths, five handbreadths—it makes no difference. The assumption there seems to be that the amount of tilt depends on the weight, but that isn’t true. Now, why did I remember this? Because the question—yes, afterward I also asked Nadav, after they asked me this in Bnei Brak, I got Nadav interested in the issue too. There are medieval authorities from whose words it seems that the scales were shaped like an H. There was a top bar and two descending legs, and then yes—because the torques, once it tilts, the legs of the H are now diagonal, so the distance from the pivot changes: this one gets closer and that one gets farther. So then clearly it is a function of the weight, and then you can talk about a handbreadth of tilt. But with straight scales, some of the medieval authorities explain it as simply a rod with two strings hanging from it. How can you tilt that by a handbreadth? God knows. Now what is amazing about this whole business—and that’s why I remembered the whole story—is that this is a law that has to be observed in the marketplace. How did people observe it? I’m not talking about technology and knowing Newton’s laws. Forget Newton’s laws. I’m asking how the people in the marketplace carried out this ruling, this tilt. I have no idea. Very, very strange business. Okay, so back to our topic. That was the part about the prohibitions. Then at the end of the previous lecture I spoke about the question of how to define the supernatural, which is basically like how to define the forces of darkness. The same problem of defining the forces of darkness is, by analogy, also how to define the supernatural. I brought up Dawkins, who says that he denies not only the old man with the long beard and all that—the god that, as he says, you also don’t believe in—but that he denies every supernatural thing: all gods and demons and angels and all supernatural things of every kind. Everything that has nothing to do with the laws of nature—I deny it. That’s what he says there. And then of course I ask myself—and I asked him too in a book, though he didn’t read it because it’s in Hebrew—in the book I wrote about evolution, I asked: what exactly is his criterion for defining the supernatural? After all, anything he finds and sees to work, even if he has no explanation for it, he’ll say: okay, more research is needed until we figure out the explanation. But of course it’s natural, because it works. Meaning, only things that do not work can be supernatural. Fine—in things that don’t work, I also don’t believe. Meaning, the claim that there is a supernatural means there is something supernatural that works, that has some impact in reality, some presence. So the question is: how would Dawkins diagnose the supernatural thing he denies? What experiment am I supposed to do in order to refute Dawkins’ thesis, basically? Let’s say, if his thesis is supposedly meant to be a scientific thesis, right? The father of scientific theses—he speaks in the name of science. So I ask: give me Popper’s criterion. What could falsify this scientific thesis? I think there is none. There is no experiment that could falsify it, because as soon as they see that something works, they’ll say to him: ah, you see, Dawkins, here is something supernatural that works. And he’ll say: no, if it works, it’s natural, not supernatural. We don’t understand it? Fine, we’ll do more research. Once they didn’t understand current science either. We’ll do more research and we’ll understand what we don’t understand today. So by definition everything we discover will be natural, so of course he denies the supernatural. It’s like the prize of—what’s his name—Randi. The Randi prize, where he promised a million dollars to anyone who could prove the existence of a supernatural phenomenon. Of course, as I said, I’m prepared to offer a billion dollars, not a million dollars. I have no problem with that. I don’t have small change in my pocket right now, but I have no problem offering that prize. No one will win it—I’m telling you already. No one will win that prize. So there is some problem here of how to define the concept of the supernatural or the concept of the mystical, as someone here remarked earlier. Same question, really: how do you define the concept of the mystical? So the mystical really is hard to define in a scientific sense, but on the principled level you can define it. You can define it, as I said at the beginning of this series—or pretty near the beginning—that the mystical is basically the esoteric. It’s something not equally accessible to all people, but rather there are people who have some special abilities that let them interact with it. So I’m not saying there’s no such thing. Maybe there isn’t, by the way, and I’m also not saying there is. I have no position. But I am saying that you can’t define it empirically. Meaning, all the people who want to offer a prize or claim scientifically that there is no such thing or that there is such a thing—that is not a scientific claim; it cannot be subjected to a falsification test. That doesn’t mean there isn’t, and it also doesn’t mean there is. Scientific status and truth are not synonyms. So that answers the question that came up earlier in the chat. So yes, in principle someone can come and claim that there is something supernatural. That isn’t a meaningless claim. Rather, it is a claim that cannot be tested using scientific tools. That’s what I mean to say—not that the claim is meaningless, okay? That’s an important point. Now regarding that same question—I don’t remember who it was that commented—regarding that same question, he also asked: so going back to Nachmanides and the forces of darkness, right, where it is forbidden to use the forces of darkness, I asked how will we know what is forbidden and what is permitted? So the claim is that people with mystical abilities can diagnose for us whether it comes from this side or from the “other side.” Because they have some ability to connect with the esoteric, something ordinary people don’t have, and then maybe that really could be a solution, assuming I actually believe them. Meaning, I have to believe, first, that such abilities exist at all, and second, that the particular person I’m talking about has them. I don’t really have any way to know that, unless he does some hocus-pocus and shows me various things, I don’t know, but it would be very hard to demonstrate. But on the face of it, when I spoke earlier about diagnostics, I mean the question of how I, as someone who does not know how to connect with those realities, am supposed to know. I don’t think any of the halakhic decisors—even those who belong not to Maimonides’ camp but to Nachmanides’ camp and his followers—I don’t think any of them would say to me: fine, go to a kabbalist who will diagnose whether this belongs to the side of holiness or to the “other side.” That’s not what a halakhic decisor does. A decisor does not send you to a kabbalist to diagnose where these incantations come from, and based on that decide whether it is permitted or forbidden. And in what we actually see from halakhic decisors who deal with these matters, none of them tells you to go to kabbalists. Responsa have been written about this, and none of them tells you to go to kabbalists and they’ll tell you whether it’s like this or like that. Rather, they discuss it, as I said earlier, for example in terms of the person himself. Is the person who does these things Sabbath-observant? Is he a Torah scholar? Does he speak malicious speech? I don’t know, all sorts of indicators like that. Meaning, they themselves also do not rely on kabbalists, nor do they pretend to be mystics or kabbalists who know how to diagnose from which side it comes. Rather, they have all kinds of indicators, and I have no idea where they invented those indicators from, but it is a complete invention. There is nothing to it. These are things with no meaning whatsoever. They understand this no better than I do and no better than you do. And therefore this question is, on the practical level, a very difficult one. Again, I’m not arguing at the theoretical level right now whether it could be that there are some other powers that have some reality to them. Maybe. I don’t know. But what I am arguing is that we have no practical way to decide whether something comes from those powers or does not come from those powers. And therefore, at the halakhic level, when I come to make decisions—okay, so what do we do? Is it permitted, is it forbidden?—I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know who does know how to do that. All the learned responsa written on this issue cry out as if with a thousand witnesses that whoever wrote them understands this no better than I do. All kinds of indicators that he invents from his overheated imagination—they’re worth nothing. And therefore this is a genuine halakhic puzzle, one of the great halakhic puzzles: an entire field in Jewish law where there is really no way to decide what is permitted and what is forbidden. In principle there is no way. Not that I personally have a doubt because some law has happened to escape me, or because I don’t know, or because I’m not smart enough, or things like that. These are commands, Torah-level commands, all appearing in the Torah, and we have no way to decide what these commands mean. So what—why write them? And that itself, I say, the very fact that there is no practical way to implement these laws testifies to, or confirms, Maimonides’ claim that probably this is not the criterion. The criterion is not—like I said—not only those forbidden actions. No, nobody says you need to ask a prophet. The medieval and later authorities themselves make halakhic decisions on these questions; they did not ask any prophet in this context. They try to play the prophet themselves, and that doesn’t work very well. So what, should we prohibit every mystical act? The question is what “mystical” means. Yes, I’m answering questions coming up in the chat. Maybe according to Nachmanides every mystical thing is forbidden? There is nothing permitted and forbidden, but rather everything is forbidden. What does “everything” mean? Everything I don’t understand, everything for which I have no scientific explanation? If I see clearly that it works, then more research is needed in order to say. Many times, for example in cancer, this is an area where many times they do some experiment, see that some cocktail works, and meanwhile they don’t know how or why it works. They’ll do research, and the hope is that later on they’ll also know how to explain it. But as long as it has been tested and shown significant results, they use it. So someone who is concerned for Nachmanides’ view will find himself in very difficult situations even in conventional medicine. Because I’m talking about things that do not work—there there is no issue; Nachmanides also says that’s forbidden. The novelty of Nachmanides and his camp is that there are things that work and yet are still forbidden. So if they work and yet are still forbidden, then how do I know? If it works, then all I need is more research to understand why it works. So because I’m not smart enough, that makes it forbidden? Was it forbidden to take Acamol a hundred years ago, say, when they still didn’t know how Acamol works? It was clear that it worked. They gave everyone Acamol, measured the fever, and the fever went down. But they didn’t know how to explain it—let’s say for the sake of discussion. So therefore it was forbidden to lower a fever with Acamol? Do you understand? It’s a terribly strange thing, very strange.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, according to Maimonides, which the Rabbi already mentioned last time, with an established amulet that helps three times—Maimonides doesn’t know how to explain it either. He says there is some amulet; it worked three times, so it’s fine. And that also is some kind of thing you can’t prove scientifically in any way, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Maimonides there is no problem at all. If it works, then excellent.
[Speaker C] Yes, but there’s no scientific proof for it, just the three times.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What scientific proof? It worked three times—that is scientific proof.
[Speaker C] Okay, okay, that’s the definition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even for the Sages, a presumption is built on a phenomenon that repeated itself three times. That is the appearance, that is the scientific proof in the halakhic context. In the halakhic context, what worked three times in a clear way has the presumption of working, until you discover three other times in which it did not work, and then it loses that presumption. Even to remove something from a presumption, you need three times.
[Speaker C] But it’s all from experience. Maybe that’s the mystical? We have no explanation for it, but it works? So I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] says, according to Maimonides this thing is not a problem; if it works, then it’s permitted. But according to Nachmanides, even though it works, it could still be forbidden. Now how do I know whether it’s forbidden or permitted? Anything I can’t explain is forbidden, and anything I can explain is permitted? Meaning, is there an obligation to do scientific research in order to discover more and more things and turn them from forbidden into permitted? That’s very strange, very strange. Okay, so this is basically a summary with a few additions from last time. One more comment regarding the question of yes, supernatural. A lot of times people use very vague terminology, of course, but this whole context is very vague: beyond reason. Yes, if something is beyond reason then it’s supernatural. What does beyond reason mean? Again, something that of course you can’t really define. Beyond reason means that I don’t understand it right now, some action, I’m not smart enough, maybe we haven’t accumulated enough knowledge, so therefore I don’t understand it, and that’s not beyond reason. It’s beyond my reason right now because I’m not smart enough. We’ll do more research, ask people smarter than me, and in the end maybe I will understand it, or all of us will understand it. What does it mean to call something beyond reason? A lot of times, and this is a rabbit that people like to pull out of the hat in all kinds of situations when they get stuck with questions they have no answer to, contradictions in theology regarding… the Holy One, blessed be He, His conduct, and so on, it’s beyond reason. Therefore everything is fine, we’re all set, it’s beyond reason. There’s no such thing as beyond reason. There definitely are things we don’t understand. But if we don’t understand, that’s a reason to think more and investigate more. To say that it’s beyond reason is not an answer. And when I’m talking about something contradictory, then to say that it’s beyond reason is simply nonsense, not only is it not an answer. Because if it’s contradictory, then it’s nonsense. What does beyond reason mean? Beyond logic, yes, beyond logic is an empty phrase. There’s no such thing as beyond logic. So all these statements about beyond nature, yes, supernatural, beyond reason, beyond understanding, all these things, they’re all vague statements whose meaning I don’t exactly understand. Before even asking whether such a thing exists or doesn’t exist. Notice, I’m not arguing right now about whether such a thing exists or doesn’t exist. Beyond logic is nonsense, there’s no such thing, of course. I’m talking about beyond reason, beyond understanding, yes? Or beyond nature. I don’t know—before I get into the question whether it exists, whether it’s true or not true that such a thing exists, whether it exists or not, first explain to me what it is. After you explain to me what it is, I can try to discuss whether it exists or not. But I don’t know a good explanation of what it is. And therefore I can’t understand the discussions about whether such a thing exists or doesn’t exist. Usually statements of this sort reflect intellectual laziness, almost always. And when people say something is contradictions, it’s beyond reason, faith begins where philosophy ends, and all kinds of phrases of that sort—it’s been tested and proven. Whoever says that is simply too lazy to think. He doesn’t want to think, so he says it’s beyond reason; it also sounds terribly profound. When you say it in terms of a leap into the empty void and I don’t know what, and grabbing hold of the twelfth hair of the beard, it sounds terribly, terribly deep. But it’s empty chatter, people are too lazy to think and they think that if they confuse everyone with all sorts of concepts that say nothing, they’ll be taken for very deep people. It has no meaning at all, it’s empty verbiage.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, so what’s the Rabbi’s solution to paradoxes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there are paradoxes. What is this? Each paradox has to be discussed on its own. There are paradoxes with known solutions, there are paradoxes for which maybe I haven’t found a solution, there are paradoxes where there’s nothing to solve because it really is nonsense. But there’s no such thing as solving a paradox by saying it’s beyond reason.
[Speaker E] Wait, does the Rabbi agree that there are paradoxes in reality?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.
[Speaker E] Does the Rabbi agree that there are paradoxes in reality? No? What, there are no contradictions in various subjects?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean contradictions? If there are contradictions, then you have to think about a resolution. Maybe there are things that seem contradictory to us as long as we haven’t thought enough, and maybe we’re not smart enough, so even if we think a lot we still won’t reach the answer. But if something is really contradictory, a thing and its opposite, there’s no such thing. It’s either this or that. There is no round triangle in reality.
[Speaker F] No, I mean in the realm of thought, theoretically.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also in the realm of thought. There’s no round triangle there either.
[Speaker F] So basically the Rabbi is saying there are no paradoxes, that’s what the Rabbi is saying? What? So the Rabbi is saying that the Rabbi has not seen paradoxes in reality, in the world of thought?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I haven’t seen them. I’ve encountered things that seemed to me like paradoxes, most of which can be solved; there are some I don’t know how to solve, so we need to keep thinking. But a paradox like that—if you diagnose that there’s some proposition and its opposite there—then it’s nonsense. If there’s something that looks like a paradox because you can’t explain how it coheres or doesn’t cohere, then it simply requires more thought. I’ll give you an example, yes, something I once wrote about belief in contradictions—there’s an article on the site, it wasn’t ultimately published—Belief in Contradictions. A lecture at Ben-Gurion in the philosophy department there. Can one believe in logical contradictions? And I argued that logical contradictions can’t be believed in, because there is nothing there to believe in. A logical contradiction simply says nothing. But one can believe not in analytic contradictions but in a priori contradictions. What is an a priori contradiction? Yes, like Kant’s synthetic a priori—there are synthetic a priori propositions, and there are also synthetic a priori contradictions. What does that mean? Analytic contradictions are a round triangle, a thing and its opposite, okay? A priori contradictions are contradictions where the two claims don’t fit together not because of empirical observation, but on the other hand… and the meaning of one is not the opposite of the other. For example, I’ll give you an example of something I’m undecided about: God’s foreknowledge and our free choice. I tend to think that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot know the future regarding things that depend on free choice. There was, yes, there was a whole series of columns about this with endless arguments, and there were really very strong reactions in some of the talkbacks, and that strengthened the small amount of doubt I had left beforehand. I’m not sure about it, but that’s how it seems to me. But what does it depend on? It depends on whether foreknowledge and free choice are an analytic contradiction, a logical one, or whether it’s only an a priori contradiction. If it’s an analytic contradiction, meaning that to say foreknowledge means that the choice is not free, then you cannot hold both beliefs at once. But if I can only show that it may lead to a problem if I adopt both, but the content of one is not the negation of the content of the other, then the contradiction is not analytic but a priori. In that situation, it may be possible to hold both of these things, because each one has meaning on its own. I don’t know how to reconcile them, but in principle they have a reconciliation, because this doesn’t contradict logic, it contradicts philosophy, not logic. Okay? And the question is whether the contradiction between foreknowledge and our freedom of choice is a logical contradiction or a philosophical contradiction. That’s the dispute over whether one can hold both of those beliefs or not. In any case, for our purposes, the claim we’re talking about—yes, beyond reason, beyond logic, all kinds of things of that sort—say when we talk about the Holy One, blessed be He. All right? The Holy One, blessed be He, is beyond reason, that’s often what people say, right? What does beyond reason mean? Obviously there are many things about Him I don’t understand. But contradictions can’t be attributed to the Holy One, blessed be He. To attribute contradictions to the Holy One, blessed be He, to say that I believe He is both X and not-X, then I haven’t said anything. It has nothing to do with Him. He can be omnipotent, beyond whatever you want. But when I speak about my picture of the Holy One, blessed be He, as I conceive it, I can’t say that I believe He is both X and not-X at the same time. Not only can’t I say it—I can’t even think it. It’s just empty words, moving the lips. And therefore there is no such thing as beyond logic, not even for the Holy One, blessed be He. There is nothing, nothing at all, that is beyond logic. Why? Because there is no such thing as beyond logic. No, Rabbi, wait, one second Rabbi.
[Speaker B] Yes. Maybe there is such a thing, it’s just that a person who is below logic doesn’t understand it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you understand that when you say maybe there is such a thing, only I don’t understand it—when you say such a thing, you’ve uttered an empty expression? Because from your point of view it’s a contradiction, so you’ve said something empty. So there isn’t even any meaning to that statement, it has no meaning. You can’t say anything about it; you can’t say maybe it exists and I just don’t understand it. There are things I don’t understand—fine. I don’t understand why we put on tefillin. I don’t understand, fine. That’s not a logical contradiction, I just don’t understand. The Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal it to me and then I’ll understand. But when there’s something that is a thing and its opposite, it’s not that I don’t understand it—I understand that it’s not so. I understand that it cannot be. That’s not the same thing. Yes. Can the Holy One, blessed be He, create a shell that penetrates every wall, and a wall that stops every shell? He cannot. Not that I don’t know whether He can—He cannot. He cannot. If He creates a shell that penetrates every wall, and a wall that stops every shell, one of two things follows: either the shell won’t penetrate one of the walls, or the wall won’t stop one of the shells. Conceptually, no—He cannot do it. Now, He cannot because there is no such thing, not because it’s a limitation on His omnipotence. There is no such thing.
[Speaker G] No, there is no such thing as long as I’m below reason, but if I rise above reason, then maybe I’ll see that there is such a thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, I don’t know. I think you also don’t understand the sentence you just said, but I certainly don’t understand it. I don’t know what beyond reason means. I work with my reason. I don’t know what beyond reason means. What does beyond reason mean? I don’t know. There is beyond understanding, that’s obvious. There are things I don’t understand; in science too there are things I don’t understand. That’s obvious, because of human limitation. But not beyond logic. There’s even logic itself, yes, which philosophers are so fond of, especially those who understand nothing about logic, writing about Lukasiewicz’s three-valued logic. They talk about Rabbi Kook—the unity of opposites—yes, Nicholas of Cusa was mentioned here earlier, unity of opposites, and Rabbi Kook with the unity of opposites and all kinds of things of that sort. And the influences of Lukasiewicz’s three-valued logic, yes, a logic in which the law of the excluded middle does not hold, meaning it is not true that a proposition is either true or false and there is no third possibility. There is also a third possibility, for example that it is paradoxical—either true or false or paradoxical. A logic with three truth values, not two. Or however you want to put it. That very logic itself is built, tested, and developed using binary logic. When I examine Lukasiewicz’s truth table, if I proved that it is not true, then it is not true. So the fact that there is a three-valued formalism here is of no interest whatsoever. In the final analysis, logic is two-valued, there is no escape. Yes or no, there is no third possibility. And it also cannot be both yes and no at the same time. The law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle are absolute; you cannot deviate from them. And when you read in books all the attempts to deviate from the law of the excluded middle, or maybe even from the law of non-contradiction, it’s all nonsense. All these deviations are nothing more than attempts to show that there is no contradiction here, that’s all. Like the postmodernists, who so love to speak about a thing and its opposite—they’re really just speaking about two different aspects, what Rabbi Chaim called two laws. But people are limited, so they can’t formulate things precisely, so it becomes beyond reason, living in contradictions, narratives, waving hands around just so as not to activate thought too much. Yes, Rudolf Otto wrote in the introduction to his book, The Idea of the Holy—yes, it’s an interesting book, written by the Christian philosopher Rudolf Otto. In the introduction to the English edition of the book, he said that the unity of opposites is the refuge of the lazy. Someone who doesn’t want to think, someone too lazy to think, or incapable of thinking, says unity of opposites and it sounds terribly, terribly deep, and he lives in contradictions and leaps into the empty void and dances a hora there, and then everything is fine, he’s solved all the problems. He’s simply lazy or incapable. So when I speak about beyond nature, beyond reason, beyond logic, all kinds of things of that sort—beyond logic, there’s no such animal. Beyond reason, there may be something like that, something that in principle I cannot understand. Meaning that even if I’m a human being, by virtue of being a creature with the sort of reason we have, maybe we are unable to understand something—not contradictions, but unable to understand. Say, for example, the reason for the commandment of tefillin; yes, I said, “I said I would become wise, but it is far from me.” So it may be that in principle, no matter how much we continue to investigate, we won’t understand, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t rule out the possibility that such a thing may exist in principle. But you can never know. Here the problem is practical. How do you know it’s beyond reason? For now, you don’t understand it—that’s what you can know. You cannot know that in principle it cannot be understood. So even if such a thing may exist in principle, practically there is no way to determine that the thing I’m talking about is such a thing. Beyond logic there is no such thing at all, no such animal. Beyond reason maybe there is, but practically it helps with nothing, because all it does is tie my hands or tell me: don’t keep thinking, you have no chance. Why? Have you tried? Let’s try to think—maybe there is a chance. Maybe not, maybe I won’t succeed, maybe no one will succeed, maybe no one ever will succeed—but maybe yes? How can you know that in advance? It’s like the optimism of believers in evolution of all kinds, yes, who always talk about the missing stages; creationists talk about the missing stages, and the believers in evolution explain very well that this is only a lack of scientific knowledge, but as research advances we will of course close all those gaps. They believe exactly the way creationists believe. Creationists believe those gaps will never be closed, and neo-Darwinians believe all those gaps are going to be closed at some stage. And both of them are believers descended from believers. I don’t know how anyone can know that in advance. You can try. Maybe there are things that will be closed, maybe there are things that won’t be closed, I don’t know. How can you know in advance? Again, to say that everything is natural, and to say that there is something supernatural—both are equally dogmatic statements. Because neither side can really know. And therefore I always insist on constructive ambiguity in this context. Yes, throughout this whole series I’ve kept saying that I’m not coming now to claim that there is no such thing as mysticism. I don’t know, maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Try to define what we’re talking about, and then we can try to think of arguments this way or that. To tell you that I know for certain there is not, or there is, is very pretentious and baseless. Whether you say there is or say there isn’t, I think both sides equally. If maybe a few more comments before I move on—does belief, for example, in the existence of a soul or in the existence of God count as mysticism? Is that esoteric, something beyond reason? I don’t think so, because I defined mysticism as something esoteric, something not accessible to everyone. Now, belief in God, at least as I understand it, has very good philosophical arguments that can substantiate it, prove it, whatever you want to call it, and they are accessible to everyone. I said philosophy is not mysticism, even though philosophy cannot be decided by empirical, observational tools. But still, it is a tool of reason, and something that can be handled with rational tools and one can reach conclusions about—yes, no—that I would not call mysticism. Therefore belief in God is not mysticism. And belief in the existence of a soul is also something a little different, but there too in my opinion—unlike God, I mean in a different way from God—but there too it is accessible to everyone. I at least do experience within myself that I have a soul. I assume that most human beings, or all of them, anyone who doesn’t deceive himself at least, also experiences this thing within himself. At least that’s what I think. If so, I don’t know whether it’s right to define this as mysticism. Because it is accessible to everyone. True, my soul is not accessible to you. But the very claim that there are souls is accessible to us, each person through the soul he encounters from within. Schopenhauer once said that Kant’s distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing—the phenomenon and the noumenon, yes, the thing as it appears to our eyes and the thing in itself—breaks down in one place. When a person looks at himself, when a person looks not with his eyes, but when a person experiences himself inwardly, his selfhood, his consciousness, the yes, through reflection on himself, then he is actually meeting not the thing as it appears to our eyes, but the thing in itself, because he encounters it from within, not from outside. And I think that’s basically what I mean to say, and therefore the statement that there is a soul is also not mysticism. In a certain sense yes—the principle, we spoke about this once I think—the principle of Descartes’ cogito, yes, I think therefore I am. Cogito ergo sum. So the principle of the cogito teaches us something, although again I don’t think the argument is valid, but it teaches us something very interesting. Because basically—how does he prove his existence, his own existence, prove to himself that he exists? He says because the very fact that I think that I do not exist means there is someone thinking that. So whichever way you look at it, I exist. Okay, that’s basically his claim. Now who is it that exists? I don’t want to get into the details of that argument; I devoted, I think, two columns to it. What is the thing whose existence this argument proves? Not the body, right? Our thinking, our intellect. It proves the existence of the intellect. If you want, soul, I don’t know—the intellect at least. Okay? The existence of material, tangible, physical things is something you can accept only after you have agreed to accept that your consciousness and your intellect exist, or that your awareness and your intellect exist. Because after all, when you assume there is a chair here, you are really saying: since I see that there is a chair here, I perceive that there is a chair here, then apparently there is a chair. Meaning that my perceiving there is a chair here comes before the conclusion that there really is a chair. And therefore my knowledge of my own existence, of the existence of my mental life, of my soul or of my intellect, precedes my knowledge of the existence of material objects, of my body or of other objects. Contrary to what materialists keep pumping into us—that no, no, tangible things obviously exist; souls and things like that, who knows, I don’t know, maybe yes maybe no. I say the opposite. The mental certainly exists; material objects maybe yes maybe no. I’m getting close to Moshe Rat, I’m starting to worry. But the claim that the existence of my soul and my awareness precedes my perception of objects, because my conclusion that they exist derives from the fact that I perceive them in my awareness and thought—so my awareness and thought precede the conclusion, meaning the existence of spirit precedes the existence of matter. If I don’t accept spirit, I also can’t accept the existence of matter, because spirit is what perceives matter, the existence of matter. Therefore when I talk about the question whether the existence of a soul is mysticism, it seems to me not, according to the definition I proposed. Not because it’s accessible to each of us. Each of us, if he looks inward, can become convinced that he has a soul. He can deny it or argue about it, but again, even if one can argue about it and someone claims he doesn’t think so, these are not people with special mystical capacities. It’s a question of interpretation. He interprets his experiences differently. But he experiences exactly what I experience. In that sense it is accessible to everyone. In science too there are disputes. No one will say that if it’s disputed then it’s mysticism and not science. Why? Because in principle it is something accessible to everyone. Now one can argue about what it means, interpretations, but there are no special tools that I have and someone else doesn’t, by means of which I perceive the thing. Each of us perceives this matter. Some give it a different interpretation and claim there are no spiritual components, only matter in some sense. Fine. But they experience exactly what I experience. I have no tools different from theirs. Therefore it is not esoteric. To say that the soul exists is not esoteric. It may be controversial, but it is not esoteric. The existence of God is even less esoteric, because there are good arguments for the existence of God. By the way, I also think there are arguments for the existence of a soul, but less good, I think, than the arguments for the existence of God. There is a known book by Moshe Kroy, Proofs for the Existence of a Soul, Moshe Kroy. Anyway, these are just a few comments to complete this matter of the supernatural and beyond reason and beyond whatever you want. Someone who encounters the Holy One, blessed be He, in some experiential dimension, meaning not through philosophical arguments, then his God really is an esoteric God. Because he experiences something that not all human beings experience. It’s not that they experience it and merely give it a different interpretation—no, they do not experience what he experiences. So either it’s an illusion or it’s true, but even if it’s true, it is something esoteric or mystical, because it is not accessible to everyone. But the very claim that God exists is not mystical. The very claim that God exists can be reached through philosophical arguments accessible to everyone. Therefore it does not fall under the definition I gave earlier of mysticism. All right, the next topic I want to deal with, the next chapter I want to deal with in this context—still in this series, I mean—what’s going on here, are you with me? Yes. The next chapter is segulah-based medicine. Now segulah-based medicine ostensibly is what I spoke about earlier, but I’ll add another nuance and that will sharpen an important point for us. There are discussions in Jewish law whether one may desecrate the Sabbath or violate a prohibition for segulah-based medicine. Meaning, we know that the Talmudic text in Yoma says that saving a life overrides all Torah prohibitions except for the three severe transgressions. Okay? Meaning not only Sabbath, but all prohibitions except for the three severe ones. So if there is danger to life, one may violate prohibitions. What happens if someone is in mortal danger, in a life-threatening situation, and he heard that there is that Native healer, and let’s assume in principle it is permitted to go to him, there is no “do not practice divination,” say according to Maimonides. According to Maimonides, if it works then it is permitted. Okay? But now he has to desecrate the Sabbath in order to reach that Native healer, or that Native healer tells him to eat forbidden foods as part of the healing process. Is it permitted to do that? The medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) dispute this. There are medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) who write that one does not desecrate the Sabbath or violate a prohibition for segulah-based medicine. Now notice, segulah-based medicine can of course mean medicine that doesn’t work, what’s called alternative medicine. But I’m also talking about segulah-based medicine that does work—the same Native healer, assuming I have indications that it works. It works for this kind of disease. Still, it could be forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath or eat forbidden foods in order to be healed, because the permission to desecrate the Sabbath or violate a prohibition was said only regarding natural medicine and not regarding segulah-based medicine. There are claims like that among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim). The known source for this is a Mishnah in tractate Yoma and Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah; I’ll share it. This is an article by Ohad Fixler, I took it from there, but it doesn’t matter, it appears in many places. Yes, the Mishnah says: “One whom a mad dog bit is not fed from the lobe of its liver, and Rabbi Matya ben Heresh permits it.” Okay? What’s the dispute? Maimonides says there in his Commentary on the Mishnah about this Mishnah: “And the Jewish law is not in accordance with Rabbi Matya ben Heresh, who permitted feeding a person on the Day of Atonement the lobe of the liver of a mad dog if he was bitten, because it is only effective by way of segulah. And the Sages say: one violates a commandment only for healing, which is something clearly compelled by reason and by simple experience. But healing by segulot, no, because its matter is weak, reason does not compel it and its experience is remote, and it is merely an assertion of the one who makes it, and this is a great principle, know it.” Here Maimonides says that in essence the Jewish law follows the first tanna, not Rabbi Matya ben Heresh, and Maimonides’ claim is that one may not desecrate the Sabbath for segulah-based remedies. Now the later authorities (Acharonim) dispute how to understand Maimonides, and this really begins from two different tones that appear in his words. One tone is when he says “because it is only effective by way of segulah.” Yes, you see the sentence here: “because it is only effective by way of segulah.” That implies that in fact it is effective. It’s just that since this isn’t ordinary medicine but alternative medicine, therefore even though it is effective, one does not desecrate the Sabbath or violate a prohibition in order to be healed in that way. But afterward he says—yes, so what is it that permits violating the Sabbath and other prohibitions? “Only for healing,” that is, “something clearly compelled by reason and by simple experience.” But, the alternative that is permitted is that—but “healing by segulot, no, because its matter is weak, reason does not compel it and its experience is remote.” What does that mean? So it doesn’t work? Because in the previous sentence he said “it is only effective by way of segulah,” so it sounds like it does work, it’s just not medicine but alternative medicine. But here it sounds like “its matter is weak,” meaning it doesn’t really work, and “reason does not compel it and its experience is remote.” Again, “reason does not compel it” still only means we have no explanation, not that it doesn’t work, so that’s not a contradiction. And what does “its experience is remote” mean? Usually people say that “its experience is remote” means it works only on rare occasions. But then several later authorities (Acharonim) ask: even if that’s true, even if that’s true, one also desecrates the Sabbath in a doubtful life-threatening case. So if it works with some probability and you have no other alternative, then even for doubtful danger to life one desecrates the Sabbath. So what exactly are you saying? Are you saying it doesn’t work? Or that it does work, even if only sometimes? Someone asked me by email too, I think—if I remember correctly after the previous class, or on the site, I don’t remember—they asked me: after all, even in regular medicine, a great many medical procedures in practice also do not always work. So I said, that’s irrelevant. Conventional medicine is not something that always works; it’s something that works significantly. Meaning, you test it on a sample and control group, double-blind, all the rules that need to be observed, and you find a statistically significant difference. A statistically significant difference means this works in eighty percent and that works in fifty percent. That’s statistically significant, but it’s still eighty percent. There will be twenty percent where even in the trial it didn’t work, and from the standpoint of conventional medicine this is a medicine we would use. Of course with the appropriate caution, and if there is a better alternative then we will use the better alternative. But it is still an alternative we would use. It doesn’t have to work all the time. What if it works in twenty percent? I don’t know; if the alternative is zero then we would still use it. Right? As long as the twenty percent is significant relative to the zero, then it is still conventional medicine; we would use it. So does segulah-based medicine work in the modern sense? I don’t know, because I don’t know whether Maimonides and the decisors, the medieval authorities (Rishonim), were even aware of this mode of thinking, statistical significance. And therefore from their point of view I don’t understand exactly what it means to say it works sometimes—“its experience is remote,” as Maimonides writes. Does works sometimes mean twenty percent significance, but the alternative is zero percent? Meaning without it no one recovers, say? Or ten percent recover spontaneously or by placebo or whatever, and with this thirty percent recover? So it is significantly better, but still only in a minority of cases. Is that what “its experience is remote” means? I don’t know; Maimonides’ words are vague on this point. But from his formulation it seems he doesn’t mean it’s nonsense, because he says that it is only effective by way of segulah. Meaning he does see some benefit in it, even if it’s a low level of benefit. But I would say, even in modern language, that it has significant benefit, just only in thirty percent or twenty percent. But it is significant relative to the alternative. So is that a reason not to use it? Not likely. Why? Because if the alternative is zero percent and I have a treatment with thirty percent, every conventional doctor would prescribe it to me. That is what medicine says; this is ordinary medicine. No one in the world, I think, no halakhic decisor would say about a medicine that works in thirty percent: die, don’t desecrate the Sabbath, and let yourself die. I don’t think any decisor would say such a thing. Even regarding Sabbath desecration—certainly if you already take a medicine despite the rabbinic prohibition of grinding medicinal ingredients, obviously not. I mean actually desecrating the Sabbath for it. Yes, there is the well-known story about Rabbi Chaim, about that woman who came to him, the mother, yes, whose son had been seized by the cantonists—they took her child and drafted him into the Russian army. So she came to Rabbi Chaim asking whether she was allowed to travel on the Sabbath to Petersburg, the capital, St. Petersburg, in order to try to free him. He said, certainly, it’s a great commandment, you must travel. The students there asked him, what, are you so lenient in the laws of the Sabbath? He answered them, no, I’m stringent in the laws of danger to life. But the truth is that obviously that’s how it is. Meaning again, if there’s something that helps in I don’t know, one tenth of one percent of cases, I don’t know if one would desecrate the Sabbath for that, because that really isn’t something one can relate to. But say something significant—it helps in twenty-five percent of cases—then for that one would certainly desecrate the Sabbath if the alternative is to die. Okay? So it’s still not clear whether that’s what Maimonides means. In our language at least, that would be called something that works. So if it works, why not desecrate the Sabbath? And if it’s only doubtful whether it works, even for doubtful danger to life one desecrates the Sabbath. There are various approaches here. Some want to say that one does not desecrate the Sabbath because it really does not work at all, and that fits Maimonides very well from what we saw earlier about “do not practice divination” and all those things in the previous lessons—that what works, you may use, you may work with, and what does not work, you are forbidden to be foolish about. But Maimonides here doesn’t imply that; here he implies that there are segulah-based remedies, like amulets for example, with which one goes out on the Sabbath, a validated amulet. I assume Maimonides would define that as segulah-based medicine, a validated amulet. Why do you go out with it on the Sabbath? The Radbaz actually asks this about Maimonides, because after all it is segulah-based medicine, so why may one go out with it on the Sabbath? And the Radbaz assumes that a remedy that works can still be segulah-based medicine, because we’re talking about a validated amulet, meaning it worked three times. So he says one may go out with it on the Sabbath because going out with it on the Sabbath is not carrying, it is clothing. If the amulet is validated, the validated status of the amulet turns going out with it into something permitted in the laws of the Sabbath, not because of danger to life. Because a validated amulet is ordinary attire, just as I wear a watch to see what time it is and that is considered attire, so too a validated amulet is considered attire. An unvalidated amulet is just putting things on the body for no reason at all, so it is not attire, and therefore it is forbidden to go out with it on the Sabbath even in the laws of the Sabbath, not because of danger to life. That is what the Radbaz claims. What do we see from this? That he understood that according to Maimonides it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath for segulah-based medicine even if it works; it’s just that here, going out with a validated amulet simply is not Sabbath desecration, so it is permitted. But if it were really Sabbath desecration, it would be forbidden. Why? Because it is segulah-based medicine. And also in Birkei Yosef, which is one of the most central sources on this whole issue of segulah-based medicine, and also one of the earliest central sources on this issue of segulah-based medicine. Wait, here—Birkei Yosef, Orach Chaim, section 301, one of the well-known sources among the later authorities (Acharonim) on this matter. “There was an incident involving a man who performed a certain segulah from a manuscript book from a great early authority among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): for one who drinks poison, one writes for him, and the person immediately vomits and returns to health.” Yes, you write him something and then he vomits the poison and returns to health. “And it happened several times that some young man, bitter of spirit, in his anger drank poison, and this man wrote this amulet and did so successfully, causing him to vomit it out and healing him. And one day, on the night of the holy Sabbath, it happened that a Jewish girl drank poison and the throes of death began to cling to her, and they came to this man on Sabbath night and he got up and wrote”—yes, he wrote on the Sabbath; writing on the Sabbath is a Torah prohibition—“and wrote the amulet for the girl, and she immediately vomited and stood restored. And on the Sabbath day it became known in the city what had been done, and the community slandered him for desecrating the Sabbath at a time of crisis and writing and placing it in her hand.” “Writing and placing it in her hand” is of course a play on the language of a bill of divorce, yes. “And he replied: danger to life overrides the Sabbath—what do you want from me? I wrote because this was danger to life, there, I saved her. And they were muttering about the matter. Therefore the man asked whether he had sinned in this, and if you say that he sinned, whether it was a Torah transgression or a rabbinic one. And at first glance it would seem that he did not act properly,” that he was forbidden to do this, “for although it is an established Jewish law that one desecrates the Sabbath for a dangerously ill person in order to heal him, nevertheless that is specifically for medicine that follows the way of nature. But for something that follows the way of segulah, no. And the proof is that we learned at the end of Yoma: ‘One whom a mad dog bit’”—the Mishnah we saw—“‘is not fed from the lobe of its liver, and Rabbi Matya ben Heresh permits it.’ And Maimonides wrote in his Commentary on the Mishnah: ‘And the Jewish law is not in accordance with Rabbi Matya ben Heresh in what he permitted feeding a person on the Day of Atonement from the lobe of the liver of a mad dog to the bitten person, for this is only effective by way of segulah, and the Sages hold that one does not violate commandments’”—yes, one may not commit a prohibition—“‘except for healing alone,’ that is to say, for things that heal by the way of nature, etc. And this implies that even though there is no doubt regarding this segulah, since it has already been established that it certainly helps”—notice how he interprets Maimonides just as we read him earlier, that Maimonides is talking about segulah-based medicine that works—“even so, anything that is not medicine by the way of nature, the Sages forbade violating religion for the sake of healing by way of segulah. And if so, infer from there to our case: even if we say that the matter is as established, that this writer of this amulet protects and saves from deadly poison, nevertheless, since it is by way of segulah, one may not write it on the Sabbath and desecrate the Sabbath with full-fledged labor.” That’s what he says. “And even though we find that they permitted going out with a validated amulet and with a grasshopper egg and the like, all of which are segulot, nevertheless they did not permit a Torah prohibition, for all these involve only a rabbinic prohibition, since one is not carrying in the usual way of those who carry, as the Radbaz explained well in his new responsa; and there the Radbaz concluded, according to Maimonides, that segulah-based remedies are not medicine at all, and they do not even have the status of doubtful medicine with regard to desecrating the Sabbath with a Torah prohibition or eating things forbidden by the Torah.” That is the conclusion of the Radbaz. But at the beginning he says that because the carrying there is only a rabbinic prohibition, it is permitted. And Birkei Yosef, which is the Chida, also learns that way. So essentially he claims that segulah-based remedies, even though they work, according to Maimonides are forbidden. Now here it seems to me that maybe the claim is—after all, the big question is of course, again, the diagnostic question: what do you define as segulah-based medicine? If it works, then it’s a procedure that works; in what sense is it segulah? And here, in this context, it seems to me that amulets—for example, if I drink the amulet, then I don’t know, because maybe it really is doing something internally, some chemical or physiological work. But if you just write me an amulet and hang it here, then maybe here there is room to say that this is segulah-based medicine by definition, because it is a medicine that does not work on our physiology, it has no contact at all with our chemistry and biology, and nevertheless if it heals people, then perhaps one can say that this is segulah-based medicine. Assuming of course that it is not placebo—it was probably placebo—but assuming it is not placebo, rather that one can really test it against, say, write him a different amulet and that won’t work, and this amulet does work even though he believes in both amulets equally, so I tested it and ruled out the possibility of placebo, then it works. But it doesn’t work through our chemistry and physiology. So perhaps here one can define it as segulah-based medicine. The problem I mentioned earlier doesn’t really exist here. I say—why do I put it this way? Meaning, say I now ask: on a weekday, would this be permitted according to Maimonides? A validated amulet would be permitted because it works. Right? And that also emerges from his language, because he says one does not desecrate the Sabbath for segulah-based medicine. The problem is Sabbath desecration. But on a weekday there is no “do not practice divination,” and “you shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.”
[Speaker B] So on a weekday—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On a weekday he would permit it, because it is medicine that works. On the Sabbath there is something else, namely a rule that one does not desecrate the Sabbath for segulah-based medicine, even if it works. The whole rule that allows us to desecrate the Sabbath is only for remedies that follow the way of nature, not for segulah-based remedies. Where did the Sages learn this from? I don’t know. In the Gemara there in Yoma no source is brought for this on that Mishnah in Yoma. Where did the Sages get this from? It’s very strange, because without a source, to say such a thing—why? It’s danger to life, the person will die. Because according to the explanations that it really doesn’t work and therefore it is permitted—well, okay, if it doesn’t work then it is forbidden, sorry, to desecrate the Sabbath, so that’s fine. But then according to Maimonides, on a weekday too it would be forbidden. Therefore in Maimonides himself it is not reasonable to explain it that way. Rather, there is something that on a weekday would be permitted because it works, and on the Sabbath they nevertheless forbade it.
[Speaker C] But for doubtful danger to life, we override the Sabbath. What? For doubtful danger to life, we override the Sabbath—even if maybe it will help, maybe it won’t, we override it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I took doubt out of the picture.
[Speaker C] Doubtful danger to life also overrides—it’s considered working.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When there’s doubt, this works; even an ordinary medicine has cases where it works and cases where it doesn’t. So because of that—and more than that—there were those who argued that maybe according to Maimonides, segulot are only a doubt in a very remote sense; their empirical basis is remote, as he writes. And with specifically segulah-based medicine, they did not permit desecrating the Sabbath on the basis of doubt. Why? Because since we don’t understand how it works, then every person will invent some magic of his own, and people will freely desecrate the Sabbath for anything because of the slippery slope. So here the Sages decreed not to desecrate the Sabbath for doubts—segulah-type doubts—even though in principle one does desecrate the Sabbath even in a case of doubt. A segulah-type doubt is a special law. Because if you permit this, then who knows—every bit of magic… after all, we know how all the fools in the world believe in all kinds of nonsense magic, and they explain to you with signs and wonders that it worked for their grandmother after all the doctors had given up. Yes, all alternative medicine. So in practice people will desecrate the Sabbath over everything, and then you completely break down the boundaries of the Sabbath. Therefore they argue that in such a situation you don’t desecrate the Sabbath for doubtful cases.
Now here too, I think—let’s say there were a fifty-percent chance—it’s hard for me to see a halakhic decisor saying not to desecrate the Sabbath for that. I assume they mean something that works, say, only for the grandmother of the person selling this medicine—only for her it worked. So, I don’t know, maybe there’s some one percent of cases where it works; about that they say not to desecrate the Sabbath. Where exactly the line is drawn, I don’t know. But that’s the only explanation I found for… yes, as I said, assuming it’s not placebo. Let’s say we tested it double-blind and it’s not placebo, okay? So they probably didn’t do that there, but let’s say today, when we know how to rule out the placebo issue—still, that’s the only explanation. That’s the only explanation I found for why Maimonides forbids it. In the next class I’ll give another explanation, in light of things we already discussed in previous classes, so next class I’ll finish this point. Okay. We’ll stop here. Any questions or comments?
[Speaker H] Rabbi, I’d be happy to ask.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two questions.
[Speaker H] One question regarding what we said earlier about logic and what is beyond logic or beyond reason. So I wanted to ask how the Rabbi would relate, for example, to the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He—sorry if the wording isn’t precise—but we relate to Him as being beyond time. For example, because we can’t manage to think of something that preceded Him, or we can’t even really manage
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to understand the matter all that well.
[Speaker H] What’s the problem? He always existed. And something that we don’t manage—we can’t imagine something that has no beginning.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the problem? He always existed.
[Speaker H] There was never any moment in time when the Holy One, blessed be He, did not exist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the problem with thinking that?
[Speaker H] I didn’t hear. There
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] was never any moment in time when the Holy One, blessed be He, did not exist. Okay,
[Speaker H] so that’s something we can’t apply to anything in reality, except maybe only to someone who created reality and created the dimension of time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the problem with thinking that? I don’t know—apply it, not apply it—those are just words. What’s the problem with thinking that? I don’t see any problem with it.
[Speaker H] I feel that it’s like what the Rabbi described earlier, that it’s something you say as words, as lip service.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely not. There are mathematical models that speak about infinity. What’s the problem? You can even formalize it mathematically, not just understand it. Very easy. Not for me.
[Speaker H] You don’t need
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to assume an infinite amount of time; you need to assume a potential infinity—that there was never any moment in time when the Holy One, blessed be He, did not exist. Because a concrete infinity really is not a simple question. But a statement like this doesn’t need to assume a concrete infinity.
[Speaker H] What is a concrete infinity?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I explained that in the second notebook.
[Speaker H] Fine. Rabbi, if I may ask a question about something secondary that came up in the class? When the Rabbi said that a person looks inward and then identifies within himself a soul—did the Rabbi mean a person’s awareness? Consciousness?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Not looking with the eyes, of course. Reflection.
[Speaker H] Yes. So this soul, then—but that’s not the mysterious, shrouded soul people talk about among us as a divine spark and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why isn’t it? It is.
[Speaker H] Because that’s not a definition of consciousness.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Our mental properties are not properties of the body. So whose are they? The soul’s. I don’t grasp the body itself either. What do I grasp? Its shape, its thickness, its height, its form—but the thing itself that has those properties, the thing in itself, I don’t grasp. It’s the same with the soul; there’s no difference.
[Speaker H] And Rabbi, when you claim such a thing, are you claiming it against all the reinterpretations the scientists make, that it’s a product of chemicals?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If that’s the reinterpretations they make, good health to them. I don’t agree with them. That’s what I mentioned—the argument I mentioned. I said, there’s a dispute over the interpretation, but they experience exactly what you and I experience. In my book on the sciences of freedom I dealt with this a bit. Thank you very much. Okay, fine, I’m already moving on to another class, so goodbye, Sabbath shalom.
[Speaker H] Sabbath shalom,
[Speaker B] Thank you very much.