The Distinctive Virtue of Israel, Lesson 1
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI
Table of Contents
- Tension between sources and reality regarding non-Jews
- An essentialist view as a different “substance” and its implications for converts
- Arabness, national conflict, and the distinction between racism and generalizations
- Overuse of the term “racism” and the distinction between a generalization and a false claim about a group
- “Jewish genius,” genetics versus culture, and the debate over the root of the differences
- A conceptual clarification of “essential difference” versus “accidental difference,” and the claim that the discussion may be empty
- The meaning of “and you shall be My treasured people among all the nations” and whether the difference depends on choice or mission
- “Religious racism,” divine source, and the Euthyphro dilemma in the choice of Israel
- Practical implications and the example of Gilad Shalit
- Tosafot Yom Tov on “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image” and the universality of the image of God
- Religious value versus moral value in commandment observance according to Maimonides
- Tosafot Yom Tov’s criticism of commentators who restrict “man” to Israel
- Affection for Israel as an additional level without denying the image of God in every person
- Rabbi Kook in Orot Yisrael: clarifying the Israelite form and the gap between souls
- Opening the study of additional sources
Summary
General Overview
The text raises the question of the unique quality of Israel against the background of a dissonance between sayings of the Sages and the tradition on the one hand, and direct observation of reality on the other, where non-Jews seem to be human beings like everyone else. It asks what one does when the essentialist description seems not to fit the world as it is actually observed. The speaker distinguishes between a practical halakhic discussion, which may change over the generations, and an essentialist claim about a different “substance” in a Jew that does not depend on choice or belief, and connects this to the problem of converts and to mystical theories about “sparks.” He then sharpens a distinction between racism and generalizations, stereotypes, and national conflict, arguing that the term “racism” is being cheapened when every group distinction is called that, even though in his view there are statistical differences between groups that are not necessarily racism. From there he returns to the conceptual question: what does an “essential difference” as opposed to an “accidental” one even mean? He suggests that conceptual clarification may drain the discussion of content, even though the terminology has deep practical implications for serving God and relating to the world. He then turns to sources, chiefly Tosafot Yom Tov on a Mishnah in Avot, and brings a sharp passage from Rabbi Kook in Orot Yisrael about the gap between the soul of Israel and the souls of the nations, while emphasizing that Rabbi Kook himself presents the issue as one requiring clarification through a variety of sources.
Tension between sources and reality regarding non-Jews
The speaker describes a kind of fixation in the religious world regarding non-Jews that stems from an interesting ambivalence between the authority of the sources and what appears in reality. He asks how far one lets the sources dictate one’s worldview when reality does not “look like the way the sources describe it.” He says that even without broad personal acquaintance with non-Jews, one can get an impression from cultures and societies, and his own impression is that non-Jews are “people like me and like anyone else.” He sets this dissonance against sayings of the Sages such as “You are called man, and they are not called man” and “their flesh is the flesh of donkeys,” and distinguishes between a practical halakhic discussion about what is permitted or forbidden regarding non-Jews—which can be explained as changing because non-Jews themselves changed over the generations—and a discussion about an essential attitude when a person simply “sees them.”
An essentialist view as a different “substance” and its implications for converts
The speaker defines the essentialist approach as the claim that in a non-Jew there is “a different kind of human being,” something that does not depend on moral choice or on belief, and that is not supposed to change over the generations. He compares it to the distinction between species: “Just as a monkey is always a monkey and not a human being,” and even “inanimate, plant, animal, speaking being, and Jew.” He notes that the Kuzari is the strongest expression of this, with its “five levels,” and argues that this language describes a gap in “substance” and not in “software,” so that even changing the “software” would not bridge the gap. He raises the question of the convert under such an approach and describes “lots of hesitations” about what to do with converts, along with kabbalistic theories according to which converts are the result of Jews who left and whose “sparks” are now returning. He brings examples such as a midrash about Ruth the Moabite and even the beautiful captive woman, and says these theories “don’t really hold water.”
Arabness, national conflict, and the distinction between racism and generalizations
The speaker argues that identifying “the non-Jew” with “the Arab enemy” is a common mistake on both sides. He explains that anti-Arab statements in the Israeli context usually reflect a national conflict and not necessarily racism. He defines racism as treating a person “because of the race to which he belongs,” and distinguishes that from generalizations and stereotypes, which are common phenomena and not necessarily racist, even if they are unjustified or inaccurate. He gives examples of different treatment by institutions and government ministries toward Arab municipalities, and argues that the psychological-social reason for this is that they are perceived as enemies within the conflict, not that people believe they are made of a “different substance,” even if the situation is “not okay.”
Overuse of the term “racism” and the distinction between a generalization and a false claim about a group
The speaker argues that the term “racism” is now used for every generalization, and he sees this as “a certain cheapening of the concept.” He explains that the problem with a generalization is applying a group characteristic to an individual without checking, whereas a claim like “all Jews are thieves” is not “a problem of generalization” but racism and falsehood, because there is no real statistical characteristic there. He distinguishes between decisions made under uncertainty that rely on statistical averages and an absolute disqualification of an entire group, and emphasizes that even if there are average differences between groups, one must still judge a person as an individual whenever possible. He mentions examples of information that is not published out of public sensitivity, such as data about traffic accidents by sector, and raises the affair of Ethiopian blood donations and the reaction of the medical system as an illustration of the tension between statistical risk and accusations of racism.
“Jewish genius,” genetics versus culture, and the debate over the root of the differences
The speaker describes an argument with someone from Essex about what is called “Jewish genius,” and says that the label is racist only if it is asserted without a factual basis, whereas if it is an empirical fact then saying it is not racism but a description of reality. He emphasizes that the crucial question is whether the root is genetic or cultural-historical, and raises the possibility of genetic selection or a long-term cultural-historical drive, without deciding between them. He uses the example of dividing the number of Nobel Prize winners by the size of the population to illustrate how one might approach the question statistically, and poses the question of causality: is a unique characteristic the “cause” of Jewish biography or the “result” of it?
A conceptual clarification of “essential difference” versus “accidental difference,” and the claim that the discussion may be empty
The speaker argues that belief in the unique quality of Israel is solid among many people, but the hard question is how to define an essential difference as opposed to an accidental one, especially through evolutionary lenses that blur sharp boundaries between biological categories. He says that even if people argue passionately about “essential” versus “non-essential,” conceptual clarification may show that there is no sharp distinction and that sometimes the dispute is “just different terminology,” similar to the debate over whether divine contraction is literal or not literal. Even so, he stresses that terminology has practical force, because living within an essentialist framework as opposed to a universalist-relational one leads to different conduct in the service of God and in one’s view of the world. He asks whether there are any differences in the world that are truly unchangeable, and challenges the distinction between “substance” and “software” even on the biological plane, while noting that the Jewish conception also assumes a non-biological dimension such as the soul.
The meaning of “and you shall be My treasured people among all the nations” and whether the difference depends on choice or mission
The speaker presents two approaches to the verse “and you shall be My treasured people among all the nations”: a “Maharal-style” approach, also associated with the Kuzari and Rabbi Kook, which sees it as a factual statement about an inner difference by virtue of which Torah and commandments were given; and another approach, toward which he himself leans, which sees it as a choice and the assignment of a historical mission. He says there are rabbinic midrashim pointing in both directions, and that people tend to quote only one type. He suggests that if the Holy One, blessed be He, had chosen another nation—“say, the Belgians”—their unique biography would have developed and would have produced character and selection processes among them. He gives the example of the abundance of start-ups in Israel as a story explained through survival and improvisation resulting from persecution, and argues that even if differences were created “even genetic ones,” they could be the result of the biography rather than its cause.
“Religious racism,” divine source, and the Euthyphro dilemma in the choice of Israel
The speaker calls part of the essentialist approach “racism,” but says it is a “soft racism” when it rests on the belief that “the Holy One, blessed be He, said so” and not on self-exaltation. He draws a parallel to Christians who hold degrading beliefs about Jews on the basis of their religion. He develops the Euthyphro dilemma in the context of chosenness: did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose Israel because of a different “substance,” or is the “substance” different because of the choice? He brings midrashim about the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai in which God went around to the nations and checked whether they would accept the Torah, with the possibility of understanding this as a real test or as a “fixed game.” He adds historical-familial explanations for why the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob accepted the Torah out of an existing tradition, and argues that it is hard to decide whether the unique quality is the cause or the result.
Practical implications and the example of Gilad Shalit
The speaker says that on the practical level these essential distinctions do not seem sharp to him. He cites the period of Gilad Shalit’s captivity in contrast to the captivity of an American soldier, and argues that the public uproar in Israel does not necessarily reflect an “essential” difference but may stem from irrationality or from different cultural structures. He mentions the rule “captives are not redeemed for more than their value” and says that a policy of not releasing prisoners can be rational even out of compassion and considerations of protection. He presents the claim that the group especially opposed to Shalit’s release was religious-essentialist, which in his eyes illustrates that the practical map is complex and does not fit easily with descriptions of essential levels.
Tosafot Yom Tov on “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image” and the universality of the image of God
The speaker brings the Mishnah in Avot: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image… Beloved are Israel, for they are called children of the Omnipresent… Beloved are Israel, for a precious instrument was given to them,” and emphasizes that there is a hierarchy there between “man” and “Israel,” yet the advantage of Israel can still be understood as related to mission and not necessarily to different substance. He quotes Tosafot Yom Tov, who explains that “Rabbi Akiva said this about every human being,” and brings proof from the verse “for in the image of God He made man,” which was said in the portion of Noah before Israel appeared as a nation. He quotes Maimonides in the Laws of Kings: “Moses our teacher commanded… to compel all the inhabitants of the world to accept the commandments that were commanded to the descendants of Noah,” and emphasizes Maimonides’ statement that anyone who accepts the seven commandments because God commanded them is “among the pious of the nations of the world” and has a share in the world to come, whereas one who does them “because reason compelled him” is merely “among their wise men.”
Religious value versus moral value in commandment observance according to Maimonides
The speaker explains that Maimonides innovates the idea that observance of commandments receives religious value only when it is done out of commitment to the command from Sinai and not merely out of moral judgment, and suggests that this principle applies to Jews as well and not only to the descendants of Noah. He gives the example of Sabbath observance for non-religious reasons and argues that such a person is not “Sabbath-observant” in the religious sense, even if he is careful about all the details of Jewish law. He notes an exception regarding charity, where “one who gives charity on condition that his son shall live” is still considered to have fulfilled a commandment, and remarks that there are discussions about whether that is unique to charity or broader.
Tosafot Yom Tov’s criticism of commentators who restrict “man” to Israel
The speaker quotes Tosafot Yom Tov’s astonishment: “Why have the commentators gone so far from the proper path,” in not interpreting the opening clause simply as speaking about every human being. He explains that they “relied” on the homiletical statement “You are called man, and they are not called man,” even though this is “a homily built on a homily.” He presents Tosafot Yom Tov’s claim that this restriction forces a strained interpretation of “image,” because the image of God in the sense of free choice belongs to non-Jews as well, and he connects this to the continuation of the Mishnah: “Everything is foreseen, yet permission is granted.” He brings Tosafot Yom Tov’s explanation of why the Mishnah says “in the image” and not “in the image of God”: as a hint of rebuke to the descendants of Noah, who do not keep their commandments, or do not keep them “because God commanded them,” and therefore in their case there is only “potential” and not the realization of “attainment of God.”
Affection for Israel as an additional level without denying the image of God in every person
The speaker emphasizes that Tosafot Yom Tov still leaves room for there being an “additional affection” for Israel beyond the affection for human beings in general, because Israel “are called children of the Omnipresent” and “were given the precious instrument,” namely the Torah. He notes that Tosafot Yom Tov depicts a structure in which the image of God belongs to all human beings, while Israel’s uniqueness is expressed in an added belovedness connected to Torah and mission. He uses this to argue that even the sources themselves are sometimes “forced” in an essentialist direction, and adds that in contemporary discourse this is taken as “simple and obvious,” even though, in his words, “there are many sayings of the Sages that say the opposite.”
Rabbi Kook in Orot Yisrael: clarifying the Israelite form and the gap between souls
The speaker brings Rabbi Kook from Orot Yisrael, who formulates an inquiry: does “general humanity” exist in Israel just as it does among all the nations, with the Israelite form built on top of it, or is “the line of development from the very beginning entirely unique”? He emphasizes that Rabbi Kook says this requires clarification through sources that are “Torah-based, rational, historical, mystical, experiential, poetic, and sometimes also political and economic.” He quotes Rabbi Kook’s language in section 10: “The difference between the Israelite soul… and the souls of all the nations… is greater and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the soul of an animal,” and presents this as an intensification beyond the Kuzari, with the claim that the gap between man and animal is “quantitative,” whereas between Israel and the nations it is “essentially qualitative.” He comments on the tension between a formulation that sounds investigative and open-ended and such a sharp conclusion, and frames Rabbi Kook’s question as whether there is a “universal level” to which an Israelite level is added, or whether the universal itself is “colored differently” within Israel.
Opening the study of additional sources
The speaker concludes by saying he is bringing “four passages” for what follows. He notes that the basis is the Mishnah in Avot and Tosafot Yom Tov, then Rabbi Kook in Orot Yisrael, and finally Rabbi Shlomo Fischer in Beit Yishai, who repeats Rabbi Kook in different words “without mentioning him, as is his way.” He says this is his “introduction,” and from here, “let’s start reading now,” ending with the point that the question seems to him at first glance “meaningless” on the conceptual level, yet has deep implications for forms of serving God and for one’s relation to the world.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s talk here about the issue of the unique quality of Israel, a very popular topic, at least in teachings that come after Rabbi Kook. Among the gentiles? I feel it’s too popular. Among non-Jews? I heard that this is one of the antisemitic claims. The truth is, this topic can be approached from all kinds of angles. I once wrote in Makor Rishon, this year in the Torah portion of Noah I think it was, about this matter of how one relates to non-Jews—not on the practical level, but how one sees non-Jews. My feeling was that there’s some terrible fixation on this issue that reflects a very interesting ambivalence that exists in the religious world between the attitude toward sources and the attitude toward reality. The question is how much I allow the sources to dictate how I see reality, even in places where reality really doesn’t look the way the sources describe it, or seem to describe it. And my feeling was that people construct for themselves—some of them know, I also don’t have great familiarity with lots of non-Jews, I didn’t have much contact with non-Jews over the course of my life, here and there you meet someone, you also see things on television, you can get some kind of impression of how a non-Jewish world or society functions, even if you don’t meet them day to day. My feeling was that they’re people like me and like anyone else. I don’t see any difference. And of course there are all the well-known sayings of the Sages: “You are called man, and they are not called man,” “their flesh is the flesh of donkeys,” and all kinds of things of that sort. And there’s a dissonance between the commitment to the sources that is supposed to exist—there’s a kind of natural authority to the Talmud, to Scripture as well, not only the Talmud, also the Prophets and so on—and reality doesn’t look like that. So what do you do in a situation like that?
[Speaker C] Idol worshipers?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, yes. So beyond that question—this part I think is still relatively easy to solve. The halakhic commands about what is permitted or forbidden to do with regard to non-Jews—you can say that this changes over the generations because the non-Jews changed. I once wrote another article on that too. In my opinion that’s relatively simple, although there are lots of people there as well who talk about reform, about how you can change Jewish law. My claim is that it’s not reform; we’ve already talked about that here on previous occasions as well. I’m talking about the question of the essential attitude, not the question of what you do with them, not the practical side, but when you see them. Here it is already less judged according to whether this particular non-Jew chooses to be a good person or not, or whether he believes in idol worship or doesn’t believe in idol worship. There are these essentialist conceptions—if I return to the question of this unique quality—that there is something here that is a different kind of human being. It’s not a matter of what he chooses or what he believes in. It’s not something that is supposed to change over the generations, because that’s what they are. It’s like a monkey is always a monkey and not a human being.
[Speaker C] Inanimate, plant, animal, speaking being, and Jew?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. The Kuzari is the strongest expression of this idea, really those five levels in the Kuzari. And the essentialist perspective, this perspective that says there is something here—it’s a different substance. Even if you change the software it won’t help. There is a different substance here, and you can never bridge a difference in substance. Software you can improve, but there’s a difference in substance. It’s something else. Just as you can’t turn a sheep into a human being. It can be this kind of sheep or that kind of sheep, but it isn’t a human being, it’s something else.
[Speaker C] And does the convert remain with the substance of a non-Jew?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so with that there are lots of hesitations—what do you do with converts? So all kinds of kabbalistic theories were created, that converts are always the result of Jews who left, and then there are sparks returning—these are theories that don’t really hold water.
[Speaker A] The midrash after Shavuot—
[Speaker C] That Ruth the Moabite also came from Jews?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course. All of them.
[Speaker A] And there’s even the beautiful captive woman. Yes, right. And there’s another very special problem for the people of Israel dwelling in Zion: the non-Jew is the enemy Arab. Not here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By the way, that’s a common mistake on both sides. People who form their opinion about non-Jews based on the… Look, we also know non-Jews—Arabs.
[Speaker A] And for us, anthropologically speaking, that’s how it was back in yeshiva—what? A secular Jew was some kind of anomaly; that was the only contact we once had with the secular world. Right. Nice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, that’s on the one hand. And by the way the other side has the same problem: when someone says something against Arabs, they accuse him of racism. That’s categorical nonsense, because when someone says something against Arabs, there is a national conflict here. Now, you can say it’s unjustified, there are all kinds of people, each person has to be treated according to what he is—why are you making generalizations? But what does that have to do with racism? It has nothing to do with racism. Racism is when you treat someone because of the race to which he belongs. Here there is a national conflict with them; it’s not that I think they have some different substance, or at least not necessarily.
[Speaker C] No, a national conflict—still, all Arabs are human beings. You’d say “Arab work.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but when I say that, it doesn’t necessarily reflect racism. Suppose you treat Arabs in a certain way that is different from the way you treat Jews in that context—even if it’s not okay, I’m not saying it’s okay, I’m only saying that even if it’s not okay, the basis for it is not a racist basis.
[Speaker A] The reason isn’t racist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. The reason is a national-conflict reason.
[Speaker C] But if, say, someone says “don’t do Arab work,” what is that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “Arab work” really comes from the fact that we’re used to, or at least used to be used to, the idea that Arab work is of lower quality. Lower quality—is that true? Maybe. But I don’t think that’s what’s called racism. There’s something similar with Romanians. There are always stereotypes. Stereotypes are not racism. Racism is something stronger. Take, for example, Arab local councils clearly don’t receive the same treatment as Jewish local councils. And you see that in practice—not in the law, the law is equal—but in practice that’s not what happens. And maybe that’s not okay. Even though there are also real aspects to it, because of which they don’t receive the same treatment—they also don’t pay taxes in the same way, there are lots of reasons to distinguish in reality as well. But never mind, let’s say there is different treatment. When you ask yourself why there is different treatment, it’s because you perceive them as your enemies. Which maybe isn’t true, partly true, partly not true, each case on its own. Enemies of Israel? Yes, enemies of Israel, yes. A lot of people understand it that way, since they identify with the people fighting us.
[Speaker C] You understand that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A council, some clerk in the Interior Ministry? Of course. He has much less sympathy, and you know, lots of things depend on people; it’s not just dry law. The question is how much you go toward him, how much you want to stick it to him within the framework of the law or outside the framework of the law. And the fact that the natural attitude toward a Jewish council or authority is different from the attitude toward an Arab council or authority—which is not okay, I’m not claiming it’s okay—I’m only saying that when I look for the reason why it happens, the reason is a national one, not a racist one. We’ve had a conflict with them. They’ve been killing us for a hundred years.
[Speaker C] Non-Jews all around—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Would they discriminate against them the same way? No, I don’t agree, absolutely not, absolutely not. What do you mean, “not one of us”? If there were a place of Russians who are non-Jews, they wouldn’t receive the same treatment as Arabs.
[Speaker C] There’s no such place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. Even if there were, they wouldn’t receive the same treatment. Non-Jewish Russians do not receive the same treatment as Arabs. It’s not the same thing.
[Speaker C] Because they aren’t identified as non-Jews.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but why not? Because they’re not our enemies. What do I care whether they’re non-Jews or not?
[Speaker C] If there were a council of non-Jewish Russians…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying if there were a council of non-Jewish Russians, then also no—I don’t think so.
[Speaker C] The search for—
[Speaker A] But the Jew is the whole point. I’m saying, and I’m sure this is true, that in large parts—including part of the Religious Zionist public—the hatred that sometimes exists toward our Haredi brothers is actually not found toward Arabs in general. It’s visceral hatred, ideological hatred. Yes, exactly, and it doesn’t come from racism. And that complicates the issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, right, but that has nothing to do with racism. You hate him because of his worldview, because of… but not because of genetics, not because of—
[Speaker C] What does it mean that many people hate Haredim much more than Arabs? Unequivocally. Okay. Because of the clothing, because of everything, because of the sidelocks they’d say that about them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand, but what does that prove? It still doesn’t belong to racism. On the contrary, that’s exactly what shows it isn’t racism. It isn’t racism. That’s exactly what it shows—that it isn’t racism.
[Speaker C] And there are two meanings to racism. Today racism is used—
[Speaker D] It’s not genetics, racism—
[Speaker C] kind of—
[Speaker D] it doesn’t refer only to race, it’s also to any generalization it applies to.
[Speaker C] No—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the problem with generalization is not a problem of racism. If, for example, you say all Jews are thieves, that’s not a problem of generalization, it’s just not true. You understand? That’s the problem. No more thieves than some other population, let’s say for the sake of discussion—I’m not sure that’s true, but let’s say the percentage of thieves among Jews is the same as among Belgians, okay? And someone says, “All Jews are thieves.” He isn’t committing the sin of generalization. It’s not generalization; it’s racism. You see? Generalization means taking a group that really does have some such characteristic, but then taking every individual and saying, wait a second, this individual may not be like that. Still, it isn’t that the statistic says—for example, you don’t admit a black person to university because black people are stupid. Okay?
[Speaker E] And then it could be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suppose that on average their intelligence is lower. Just for the sake of discussion, okay? Even then, check him as an individual. See whether he’s okay, and if yes then yes, and if not then no.
[Speaker E] And that’s not racism? If, say, there were—if, say, for the moment they blocked all—say researchers found that there’s a slight average difference and because of that, because of that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it’s a problem of generalization, not a problem of racism. Why? In my opinion I wouldn’t call that racism. No? It’s a problem of generalization. If I say, look, a black person and a Jew come stand here and I ask who plays basketball better, I’ll say the black person. I didn’t check, I don’t know, and maybe I could check and I still won’t always bother to check. There are candidates, I’m the coach, okay? I’ll take the black person—obviously he plays better. Now that isn’t always true. It can happen otherwise. Today there are even black Jews, so it gets even more complicated. But fine, it could also be otherwise. And what I’m doing here is not racism, it’s generalization. But generalization is fine—we generalize all our lives, we just have to pay attention. Sometimes a generalization is unjustified, and when you have the possibility of checking, then of course there’s no reason to rely on generalizations; check. But for example, if you have no possibility of checking, and right now you need to admit students to a university, okay? And you have a limited number of places, and there’s no way to check—for the sake of discussion—they come in and you have to decide immediately.
[Speaker C] I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I admit the Jew before the black person. And that’s not racism. That’s a decision under conditions of uncertainty. I’m saying that on average, intelligence… assuming that this is really the case, that their intelligence is higher, I admit them. That’s not racism.
[Speaker E] If so, then there are very few racists in the world. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I don’t agree with you at all. It’s true that many of the phenomena that today are accused in terms of racism are not such. That’s true. And I really do think there is a certain cheapening of this concept. And it isn’t right. This business of Sephardim and Ashkenazim, where everyone—
[Speaker C] Depends what you say about it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Depends what you say about it. Depends what you say about Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
[Speaker F] If—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you say something that really does characterize Sephardim, but you didn’t check it specifically about this person, rather you know there are things that characterize… what, are there no average mental differences between Sephardim and Ashkenazim? Of course there are. Certainly there are.
[Speaker C] Obviously there are.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? It’s obvious. And that’s exactly the point: today even saying such a thing is perceived as racism, and that’s nonsense. Of course there are characteristics. What, is someone going to argue that black people are better athletes than Jews on average? Statistically? Of course that’s true. It’s just that being a better athlete is not a sensitive issue, right? It’s not a problematic point. But if you say one group is more intelligent, no one will publish your article. If you find that the intelligence of these is higher than that of those, they won’t publish your article. Try sometime to find traffic-accident statistics—how many Arabs are involved in traffic accidents compared to Jews in the State of Israel.
[Speaker C] They publish that all the time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not traffic accidents, not… do they publish traffic accidents? I once heard on the radio that someone tried to find out—nothing, you can’t get that data. No, they publish in Judea and Samaria.
[Speaker C] Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now, every time you hear that someone involved is Arab, I don’t know, I don’t have the statistics. But it sounds like the percentage is disproportionate.
[Speaker C] It’s disproportionate, and they said that once too.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but you can’t… I once heard on the radio that someone tried to check; they said it’s impossible to get the data, they’re not willing to publish that data. Why not? Same thing with Ethiopians, where they don’t let them donate blood. There was the whole story with Yael German, who decided to go on a jihad over that issue. And the doctors object. Apparently there really is a problem, a risk.
[Speaker A] There is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a problem, it’s a risk, risk levels; they do this all over the world. In the Knesset there was that whole story with that Ethiopian member of Knesset whom they didn’t allow to donate blood.
[Speaker C] Ze’ev Jabotinsky… there was a member of Knesset named Jabotinsky… once David—once David there was some great ruling that said okay, we’ll take from them and throw it away. And then they did a media lynching on him, like in one certain branch everyone wrote some declaration letter, as if okay, what else could he do?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t—you can’t do anything. If you take it and throw it away, then you’re wasteful and a hidden racist. And if you don’t accept the donation, then you’re an overt racist. But really it’s not right to accept that donation unless, again, you check one by one.
[Speaker C] That’s exactly the issue of generalization. There isn’t, as the rabbi always says, enough sensitivity relative to frequency, and so automatically generalization… exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So therefore—but the sensitivity is so strong on these issues of racism that every time you make some distinction between one thing and another, it’s immediately racism. And it isn’t. There are differences between people and between groups; that’s obvious, it’s simple.
[Speaker C] I had an argument here with someone from Essex. There’s some very senior person here who wrote half about genius… what’s called Jewish genius. He argued yes, I argued no. What is Jewish genius? Jewish genius is racism.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true, except that I don’t know whether it exists.
[Speaker C] Maybe sometimes it does.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do you call it racism? No, if it exists, then it’s not racism.
[Speaker C] If the fact is that it exists. Yes. Then it’s not racism. Fine. But because it exists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, is it racism to say that black people are dark-skinned and we aren’t? No, because they really are dark-skinned.
[Speaker C] What can you do? Dark-skinned. If it exists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s true. I’m saying yes. Fine, I don’t know, you’d have to check. I don’t know.
[Speaker C] You take all the Nobel Prize winners and divide by the number of people in the nation. Yes. And then determine it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the Jews, I think, are ahead by a factor of a hundred. No, the question is whether the root—
[Speaker C] is genetic; you have to check that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe. Maybe if the root is genetic. Who said it’s genetic? The question is whether it’s genetic—that’s—
[Speaker A] the question.
[Speaker C] It’s genetic. Maybe it’s cultural, maybe it’s—yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. No. That’s the debate.
[Speaker A] Maybe through genetic selection. But the question is whether it’s something with a strong drive inside a people for two thousand years already.
[Speaker C] So more or less—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Less than two thousand years, because in recent years not anymore. Until a few years ago it was true. But is it genetic?
[Speaker C] Okay, fine, wait.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m only asking. In HaGashash HaHiver there are two policemen, one knows how to read and one knows how to write. Together they know how to read and write—meaning one knows how to read and the other knows how to write. Fine. In short, then, this question of the unique quality of Israel is on the one hand highly charged today, as you already mentioned, and on the other hand it seems to me to be quite a solid belief among quite a few in the religious public, certainly. And the third side of it is the question of how you define this thing at all—how do you know that a certain difference is an essential difference or an accidental one, basically? That’s really the question. Especially when you look at it through evolutionary glasses, then very large changes can happen in all kinds of creatures, people and so forth. And people go through—look, the neo-Darwinians claim that even species change in an evolutionary process. They even claim there is evidence for it. I haven’t checked it deeply, and there are lots of falsehoods there, so I don’t know. But fine, there are claims that even species arise from previous species, zoological species of animals. So that already blurs somewhat how far you can even talk about a sharp separation in the essential sense. If you’re talking about there being differences between Jews and non-Jews, that’s trivial. Not only is that not racist, it’s obvious—just as there are differences between Belgians and Swedes. There’s something in character that is the result of culture, the result of history, the result of many things, of the biography we’ve gone through.
[Speaker G] Something spiritual—if you believe the Torah is divine, then of whom else did God say, “and you shall be My treasured people among all the nations”? In His name. God Himself said it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So we need to understand what the meaning is of what He said.
[Speaker C] The question is whether we see—
[Speaker G] or don’t see the unique quality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, He didn’t say that. I’m claiming He didn’t say that. Not that He didn’t say the verse, but that you’re not interpreting the verse correctly. But I’ll get to that in just a second. So even the concept of the unique quality of Israel first of all requires conceptual clarification. What does it mean? Does it mean that Jews have a special character? There’s no problem with that. Many nations have a special character, certainly nations that preserved their distinctiveness relatively strongly. So it stands to reason that they have some character that on average differs from other nations; that’s obvious. They’re simply more similar to each other. The question is whether the Jews have something that others do not have. That’s the same question as whether Belgians have something that others do not have. I don’t know why Belgians always come to mind, but—
[Speaker A] That’s not really a nation; it’s a nation that isn’t a nation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Walloons and the Flemings, yes, there it’s—
[Speaker A] the point. Italians, okay, fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Chinese.
[Speaker C] Chinese.
[Speaker A] Portuguese.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, in that sense what’s the problem? Every nation has some characteristics or other that statistically characterize it more. That’s not what people mean when they say the unique quality of Israel. When people say the unique quality of Israel, I think they mean something like what the Kuzari writes in perhaps the sharpest way: that there are five levels of beings—inanimate, plant, animal, speaking being, and Jew. Meaning the claim is that this is a difference like the one between inanimate and plant or between plant and animal; that’s also the difference between the speaking being and the Jew. Right? Now again, even that is still not something sharp, because after all there are intermediate creatures between plant and animal as well. These divisions are divisions where you can discuss exactly where the line passes, if there is a line. Certainly, I’m saying, from an evolutionary perspective. And therefore, for example—
[Speaker C] What are the things between plant and animal?
>
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there are things like that, never mind. Yossi will tell us, I don’t know. Carnivorous plants? Yes, why not? Carnivorous plants aren’t that, it’s just… Sea anemone? Sea anemone, there are things like that. In any case, it’s clear that in the standard evolutionary description, things came out of one another. Meaning, as a matter of fact, supposedly once everything was similar, in the standard account. So that means that basically there isn’t some boundary that can’t be crossed. So how can you even ask whether this difference is an essential difference or an accidental difference? Are there even two kinds of differences? What does it matter? There are differences; they can change; that doesn’t prove anything. And so I think that to a large extent the question loses its meaning even on the conceptual level. Meaning, even though people discuss it endlessly, when you actually examine the concepts, I don’t know. Now again, like I said also about tzimtzum, and it’s the same thing, this comes up in many topics, especially in Jewish thought, which is our subject this year. It comes up in many topics. When you examine the subject of the discussion conceptually, you sometimes discover that it’s empty. But both conceptions are meaningful in the practical sense. Meaning, you can say the difference is essential, and you can say the difference is not essential. Now if you ask him what “essential” means, and by mistake ask what “not essential” means?
[Speaker G] That one is commanded in the commandments and the other isn’t?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, wait, we’ll get to that in a moment, that’s not the difference. Why is that not the difference? One second, I’ll explain in a moment, I’ll get there. Right, in just a second, I’ll get there. In any case, at least in my opinion, you can argue and fight very vigorously for your position as to whether this is an essential difference or a non-essential difference. And then when we do some conceptual clarification, we’ll discover that there really is no real difference between an essential difference and a non-essential difference, okay? But still, living inside a conception that sees this as an essential difference leads you to a worldview, to conduct, completely different from someone who lives it in terms of it being only a terminological variation of a non-essential difference. Meaning, in that sense it’s the same as with what we discussed about tzimtzum; I gave the example there regarding Religious Zionism and Haredi Judaism and whether tzimtzum is literal or not literal. Sometimes when you do the conceptual clarification, you can arrive at the conclusion that really there is no actual difference, it’s just different terminology for the same thing, sometimes. And still, the terminology determines things; it has a great deal of significance in practice. And in practice you see a very clear difference between those who hold that there is such a thing as the unique quality of Israel in the essential sense, the inherent sense, and the conception of the unique quality of Israel in the sense of, yes, we are different, that’s obvious, we developed, we developed properly, but it’s not that the hardware is the same hardware. And you can ask what the difference is between hardware and software. That’s really the question, right? What’s the difference between hardware and software? There is no difference between hardware and software. Meaning, software is how the hardware is built, in the biological context, that’s what I mean. So biology is constantly changing. You can call it the same hardware with software that changed, and you can call it hardware that changed. What difference does it make? Yes.
[Speaker E] The accepted conception in Judaism is that in a human being there is something beyond biology, and certainly in a Jew.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, so what?
[Speaker E] The moment there’s something beyond biology, then all these comparisons from biology…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, of course, these are just examples, I’m not trying to prove anything from there.
[Speaker E] No, I’m just saying, the moment it’s something that is… then I can ask whether the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew is only a material difference, a difference in how things are structured.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a difference in the soul too, just as there is a difference in the body, let’s say. But what is that difference? Is it essential? Is it impossible to bridge? Is it not subject to change? What, souls don’t change? Bodies change; who said? Maybe not? I don’t know. So that’s what I’m saying: what is still the question of the definition? It changes nothing. I use evolution not because I’m a materialist; I’m not a materialist. I use evolution as an example to show that things that seem to the Kuzari or to others to be essential are not necessarily really so. The difference between inanimate, plant, and animal doesn’t concern humans and souls. It’s a difference in biological or physical classification. And even that classification, which seems so uncrossable, so sharp, you can argue about it.
[Speaker C] Meaning, because half of, let’s say, half of the conception of the State of Israel, can you even go at all in the direction of the unique quality of Israel?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said, that’s how I opened at the beginning: that practice here stands against the sources. And the question is what you do with that. So people explain it—there are about a million theories—that the Jewish spark inside never changes, ever. There are gentile influences and all kinds of accidental things, but not essential things. The Maharal—half of the Maharal writes this, half of his books write this thing.
[Speaker G] That’s not true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Jewish law it appears—
[Speaker G] At the beginning of—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ibn Ezra—that Jews are compassionate, children of the compassionate, doers of kindness, and so on, and if someone is cruel you should check his lineage, because maybe he’s not Jewish. And the Beit Yosef brought that as Jewish law in Even HaEzer. Meaning, these are conceptions that have significance.
[Speaker E] But you can’t determine from that that he isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but it arouses suspicion; it should be checked. Fine. Now the truth is that if statistically it’s correct, there’s no problem with that. The moment you claim that it must be so, then it already crosses over into racism—and again, maybe that’s true, maybe not, but here you can start discussing it. But if you say that statistically that’s how it is, fine, maybe.
[Speaker C] Yes, you need to check reality. At the same time that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, an American soldier was also kidnapped for about a month. The whole world knew about Gilad Shalit, there was a lot of noise here, and there there was nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who opposed Gilad Shalit’s release in the State of Israel? Which group opposed it the most? Religious people? People who advocate the unique quality of Israel. Meaning, they were exactly the ones who said the same as the Americans.
[Speaker C] It’s a personal matter—
[Speaker G] But they thought about him and prayed for him more than anyone else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe the Americans also thought and prayed, I don’t know what happened there, I didn’t investigate them. Fine, you don’t really see those distinctions. I’m sorry, I don’t see it.
[Speaker A] Americans don’t—it’s a big difference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Besides, Americans are rational and we aren’t. That’s another difference too. Is there something in us beyond the rational? Exactly—they’re rational and we aren’t, so I’m saying there are many reasons for the difference. No, more than that—really, if you have compassion for human beings, then there’s logic in not doing that, but rather doing what the Americans did, so people won’t kidnap from you. The sages already said: captives are not redeemed for more than their value. Again, without getting into Jewish law—on the level of a conception, even out of considerations of protecting your citizens, that’s a logical policy. It’s not because they lack compassion; that’s a completely different question, I don’t know. Also—
[Speaker E] Even if the difference is, say, quantitative, or really as you say between plant and inanimate and it isn’t fully, even here there are intermediate things—still, I can say there’s a difference just as every nation has a difference between one nation and another, so too there are differences regarding the Jewish people, as opposed to someone who says it’s something that, even if it can be bridged somehow, it’s a difference of heaven and earth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, we’re moving into a domain where I don’t know what to say; it’s very hard to define that. It may be that there is some difference here that is greater than among other nations, but the difference between any two nations is also not the same difference. So you’re saying we’re at the end of the scale. Make a table of every nation and every other nation, write in the table what the distance is between these two nations, quantify it somehow.
[Speaker C] That it’s not the same order of magnitude, that it’s a completely different kind of difference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how to define such a thing, and I also don’t see it. But that’s a different discussion.
[Speaker C] We can see with our eyes that it isn’t true. Between inanimate and plant there’s an extreme difference; maybe there’s something in the middle at the border.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m bringing it as an example, so—
[Speaker C] Between a speaking human and a Jew, who knows what difference? No one will find it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here you’re going back to that same point, that looking at reality does not reflect the differences described by the sages, or perhaps in Scripture, or in all the sources.
[Speaker E] The Kuzari explains what, in his view, the differences are. He talks about prophecy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but again the question is: what is the root of those differences? Are they crossable or bridgeable? Even in the Kuzari itself it’s not entirely clear what he really means, as opposed to what people read into him, so it seems to me at least. In any case, I’m trying to argue that on the conceptual level it will be very hard to define what an essential difference is—not whether there is an essential difference, that’s an empirical question, to examine whether yes or no. I’m asking whether these are even two sides—what are we supposed to check? What is an essential difference? Not the question whether there is an essential difference or not, but what is it? On that level, it’s not clear to me that there is an answer. Meaning, it’s not clear to me that there really is some sharp distinction here between differences that are essential and differences that are accidental, differences that are in themselves and differences that are by chance. Things that overall seem essential to us might all in fact be accidental.
[Speaker G] How can you say that? The fact is that this is a people that survived all these years.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course there are unique traits here. The question is whether that is the result of its biography or the cause of its biography. That’s the difference. I’m arguing that it may all be the result of our biography, not the cause. And that’s exactly the whole difference. Now again, what does that mean—cause, result—maybe, what is biography? There are many stages in biography too. So the first part of the biography is the cause of the next part of the biography. Fine, that’s exactly what I’m talking about here: I think it’s very hard to define these two sides. Now if I go back indeed to “and you shall be to Me a treasured people above all nations,” now clearly both conceptions—the Maharal-type conception, what people also attribute to the Kuzari, and to Rabbi Kook and the like—Rabbi Kook, by the way, that also is probably not entirely simple—this is a conception that really says there is some factual statement here. Meaning, you are different from all nations, and therefore I imposed the commandments on you, I gave you the Torah, and so on. The other conception, to which I tend, is a conception that says: “and you shall be to Me a treasure above all nations”—I choose you, I assign you a mission, now you need to observe the commandments, that is your mission. The midrashim of the sages, by the way—there are midrashim like this and midrashim like that. We like quoting only one kind.
[Speaker G] But within the mission, you’re saying that He chooses us. Obviously, that’s why our reality is something tremendously unique.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, but not genetically unique. If He had chosen the Belgians, then the Belgians would have gone through the biography we went through. So He would have chosen them, and from that a lot of consequences would follow, because you’re bound to the Torah, people persecute you and so on, and that puts you into a very particular biography or history. That naturally creates character; it creates evolutionary selection, yes. I have a friend who says: why, why are there so many start-ups in Israel? He himself made some exit. So he says to me, what, why is there such a high percentage of Israeli start-up people? In Israel there are as many start-ups as in all of Europe. Not percentages—in absolute numbers.
[Speaker C] And the success rate in the country is also something like fifteen percent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I don’t know the details, but these are numbers far beyond the objective number of people here. So he said, obviously, because who survived until today after everyone tried to kill us? Only those who know how to scheme and find loopholes and improvise. Who didn’t go extinct in Auschwitz? The one who managed to do all kinds of tricks and somehow slip away. So there’s some process of natural selection here.
[Speaker C] Okay, what suddenly? The ones the Russians happened to reach? That was the biggest factor.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They happened to reach many people, and some of the people they happened to reach were saved, and some of the people they happened to reach were not saved, but survival is not necessarily accidental. The strong survive. Fine, but that’s really another discussion. I’m only saying that much of this—I’m bringing it only as an example—that even if today you did statistics and discovered there are extraordinarily creative quantities here, disproportionate to other places, say, that still doesn’t mean we have some different genetics. It only means that maybe now genetics has also changed after the processes of natural selection, but that is a result of our biography, not the cause of our biography.
[Speaker C] The first conception is built, for example, in—
[Speaker G] Rabbi Sacks—that we are descendants of those who stood at the event of—
[Speaker C] Mount Sinai.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, to some extent, yes. That’s racism, but again, I think it’s not racism in the severe sense. I’ll tell you why: because they genuinely think it’s true. But the point is, they think that the Holy One, blessed be He, said it was true. They didn’t just decide it because they think they’re the best. That’s a bit different from a person getting up and looking around and saying, “I’m the best and everyone else is trash.” There’s something different here, because at least according to their conception they have some source that conveyed this information to them. And again, this is racism, but I think there are different levels of problematicness even when you say it’s racism.
[Speaker C] Unless they say that this doesn’t grant—
[Speaker D] An advantage over others.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another claim. But let’s say it does grant an advantage—I’m talking right now even if it does grant an advantage.
[Speaker D] And on the other side too, let’s say this: if there are Christians who think about Jews that they should be humiliated because that’s what they were told?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, same thing. Right, and that’s not racism? Of course it is; it’s racism. It is racism, but it’s soft racism, as I said here. Again, there are different levels, but I think there’s a difference between these two things, in my opinion. But again, you can argue. It comes from some kind of divine judgment.
[Speaker A] Someone who steals for his own pocket steals for the benefit of his public. Right, so every religion is racist at its root because it throws out—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not every religion, but every religion can be racist, because it has some external source from which you derive right and wrong, or equal and different. By contrast, a person who develops it from within himself—if he has no real basis—if there is a real basis, then as we said earlier, it’s a real difference, it’s not racism, that’s simply how it is. But if you say something that isn’t true, then it depends why you say it. If you say it because basically you’re the type who looks at everyone different from you as something inferior to you, then you’re a racist. But if you see it because you say: at Mount Sinai the Holy One, blessed be He, was revealed, it’s a scriptural decree, He told me that non-Jews are less good than Jews—that’s what He said, what can I do? So here I say: that too is perhaps racism, because I think what the Holy One, blessed be He, said can be interpreted differently, but… and I also think it’s not true—but I see it as less severe than racism that comes from a perspective that says, what do you mean? I’m the best, and anyone else is less, is trash.
[Speaker H] But that’s the fact. What? Because He chose specifically those people, so they say that. Meaning, maybe that indicates that they specifically have some special quality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then there’s no problem. If they’re talking about being chosen to observe the Torah, that’s a historical fact, that’s true.
[Speaker H] No, I mean, from the fact that specifically they were chosen?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. Were they chosen because they… It’s like the Euthyphro dilemma. Does the Holy One, blessed be He, want us to do the good because it is good, or is the good good because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants us to do it? So here too: did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose us because we have different hardware, or is our hardware different today because the Holy One, blessed be He, chose us? After all, if He had chosen the Australians, then they would have had this hardware.
[Speaker F] But the fact that He chose specifically them is because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says? Not true. The sages, in the midrashim about the revelation at Mount Sinai, say that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to all the nations and asked them whether they wanted the Torah. Now, of course you can read that as a rigged game. He already knew what they would answer, and it was only so they wouldn’t have grounds for complaint. And you can say, not at all—He really checked, and if they had been willing they would have received it, and He chose them, that’s it.
[Speaker H] Even that, I can sharpen: the fact that specifically they agreed is because they really have something different in them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if you take this essentialist direction… or different genetics or a different biography. After all, they’re the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also passed something on; even before we received the Torah we had some Jewish tradition. So it didn’t come to us on a blank page. It came to us at Mount Sinai—who are you, anyway? Do I know you? Meaning, we live within some such tradition overall. There are also historical-familial explanations, let’s call them, for why the Jewish people decided to accept the Torah and others did not. Fine. I’m saying these are questions that I don’t know how to decide. I’m only saying that when I look around, I think every difference I see in principle between a Jew and a non-Jew is reversible, even if it exists. Meaning, I don’t see anything special here. No difference that I don’t know how to explain.
[Speaker C] But in the world it’s not reversible. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s what I’m saying. And therefore I say that the question itself—not only is my answer to the question a different answer… not reversible. No, it is reversible. No, certainly not. Look at the model, you can see: there are processes of natural selection, and that’s how the black man became black, or how the white man became white. I don’t know who was first, but in the end one differentiated into black and the other differentiated into white. Those are natural selection processes. What, did the Holy One, blessed be He, say that He created the black man separately? Huh?
[Speaker C] Another one burned out for me. Another? Another one burned out for me. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. In any case, in short, bottom line, what I want to say is that this question, on its face, seems meaningless, and yet it has implications for forms of serving God, for one’s view of the world, for one’s relation to the world. In many places you see the difference between these two conceptions. And when you look at it on the conceptual level, I’m not at all sure there really are two conceptions here, or whether it’s just two terminologies. But the terminologies create a reality here, they create a consciousness—exactly like with tzimtzum, literal and non-literal, in the previous topic.
[Speaker D] So in the end there is a difference, bottom line, no? If now I take a person maybe—if I believe there is such a thing as the unique quality of Israel in the essential sense, then no matter how he behaves, he has that thing inside that will never go away. Ah. But I’m asking whether there even are such things. Not whether a Jew has such a thing, but whether there are such things at all—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Such things that never go away, that never change. Are there such things at all? I don’t know who said there are. I’m speaking on the conceptual level, not on the empirical level of whether the Jew is like this or not like this. I’m asking whether “like this” and “like that” are even different at all, before the question whether the Jew is this or that. I’m asking on the conceptual level whether there is such a thing.
[Speaker C] Yes, but there are no pure Jews left. It’s all the result of mixtures and mass conversions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So each time the Holy One, blessed be He, refurbishes it anew. It’s like conversions.
[Speaker C] Fine, was it once like that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you arrive at all these mystical theories that the moment someone converts, his hardware changes, and all kinds of things like that.
[Speaker C] But how can you say you don’t see it? No, you do see it even without genetic work.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? We have no genetic understanding because the genes got mixed. But no, the people of the special-quality camp will tell you—not at all, the moment he is a Jew living with commandments, the Holy One, blessed be He, changes the hardware. The spiritual hardware. There’s a law of conservation of special quality. The Chatam Sofer talks about physical hardware, not spiritual. The Chatam Sofer says that one may not be treated by a non-Jewish doctor.
[Speaker E] And he said it was because of the food, no? I don’t think so. That’s how I read it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Really? I don’t think so.
[Speaker E] That he says that because Jews eat kosher, their bodies are different. That they’re different?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, never mind. Factually, of course that’s not true. So that’s exactly the point: it doesn’t matter at all why it is. The fact is that it isn’t true, and he says it. Meaning, that one may not be treated by a non-Jewish doctor because… he acquired his experience on the bodies of non-Jews, and non-Jewish bodies are different bodies from Jewish bodies. Yes, today we can close the hospitals, because the approach that almost all—
[Speaker C] The knowledge—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We have comes on the basis of the experience of non-Jews.
[Speaker C] Even if he said it, who says he meant it? Sometimes it’s just a kind of line like that. He doesn’t want people getting treated by non-Jewish doctors, so why is he selling them this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that I don’t know, that already requires psychoanalysis. But that’s what he writes. I don’t know what he meant, or what his hidden intentions were—that’s a different discussion. In short, so that’s my introduction. Let’s start reading now. I brought four passages here, really. There are many discussions about this, but broadly speaking there isn’t much here beyond what we’re going to see. There is the Mishnah in Avot, which is of course a very natural basis to start from, the very well-known Tosafot Yom Tov on this Mishnah in Avot, which we’ll see in a moment. After that there is Rabbi Kook in Orot Yisrael, there’s a very interesting passage, and Rabbi Shlomo Fisher in Beit Yishai, who repeats in somewhat different words what Rabbi Kook says, without mentioning him, in his usual way. He knows the material, I mean, that’s known, and he brought it to the table. What?
[Speaker C] He brought it to the table.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. That, you know, I didn’t have the privilege of hearing him. Right. So the Mishnah says as follows: He would say: Beloved is man, for he was created in the image; an extra measure of love was made known to him in that he was created in the image, as it is said: “For in the image of God He made man.” Beloved are Israel, for they are called children of the Omnipresent; an extra measure of love was made known to them in that they are called children of the Omnipresent, as it is said: “You are children to the Lord your God.” Beloved are Israel, for a precious vessel was given to them; an extra measure of love was made known to them in that a precious vessel with which the world was created was given to them, as it is said: “For I have given you good teaching; do not forsake My Torah.” There are two things here. First, there is some hierarchy between man and Israel. The first clause speaks about man; the latter clause speaks about Israel. It really seems called for, ostensibly, to make here some sort of Kuzari-style hierarchy: one level called man, and a second level called Israel, although, as I prefaced and said, these levels certainly do not have to be levels of genus. It is entirely possible that they are more beloved because they received the mission and serve the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore they are more beloved to Him. Meaning, it’s not… “an extra measure of love was made known to them in that a precious vessel with which the world was created was given to them”—that of course depends: is it because a precious vessel was given to them? Or is “an extra measure of love was made known to them” the proof,
[Speaker C] And the proof—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that a precious vessel was given to them, because otherwise, if they were not especially beloved, a precious vessel would not have been given to them. You can say it both ways. After all, in the first clause too it says “an extra measure of love.”
[Speaker C] What? Yes, in the first clause too, where it speaks about man, there is also an extra measure of love.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, and is there an even more extra measure of love? Is there an even more extra measure of love…? No, clearly there is a hierarchy here. I think it would be hard to deny that in the Mishnah. There is man in general, who was created in the image, but to whom was the precious vessel given? It was given only to a particular group. So it’s quite clear that this is an even greater extra measure of love than the first extra measure of love. I think that’s fairly clear in the Mishnah.
[Speaker C] An extra measure of love on top of the extra measure of love. Yes. Man—an extra measure of love relative to animals or whatever.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so I’m saying, here indeed the discussion—the discussion that takes place on this Mishnah—is not conducted on that plane. Rather, it is conducted on the question of how to interpret the first clause, not on the question of what the relation is between the first clause and the latter clause. Most commentators on the Mishnah interpret the first clause too as referring to Israel.
[Speaker C] Even though here it says “man”—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And immediately after that it says “Israel”—most commentators on the Mishnah interpret the first clause too: “man” means Israel, as the sages said, “You are called man, and they are not called man.” And then of course one has to ask: so why there is it said about man, and here it is said about Israel? The wording of the Mishnah is problematic, and that is what Tosafot Yom Tov asks. Tosafot Yom Tov is the one who interprets the Mishnah in the simple way, as written—wait one second—he is the one who interprets the Mishnah according to how it is written, and afterward he asks: and why didn’t all the commentators interpret it that way? Meaning, because that is the plain meaning of the Mishnah, right? So let’s see. “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image; an extra measure of love…” and so on, “as it is said: for in the image of God He made man.” The Bartenura explains: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image; therefore it is incumbent upon him to do the will of his Creator,” end quote. And Rabbi Akiva said this regarding every human being. Meaning, what does the first statement, “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image,” mean? It means every human being, not only a Jew, right? And just as that is shown by the proof text he brought. Yes, the verse—on what verse does he rely? “For in the image of God He made man.” That is a verse in the book of Genesis, chapter 9. There were no Jews yet. It is a verse said to the children of Noah. So from here he immediately brings another proof, besides the difference in terminology—that in the first clause it says “man” and in the latter clause “Israel”—the verse they bring is a verse said when there were not yet Jews. Okay? And Rabbi Akiva wanted to confer merit upon every human being, even the children of Noah. The meaning is: the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted, according to Rabbi Akiva. And Maimonides said a full statement in chapter 8 of the Laws of Kings, and this is his language: “Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, was commanded by the mouth of the Almighty to compel all the inhabitants of the world to accept the commandments that the children of Noah were commanded. And anyone who does not accept them shall be killed. And one who accepts them is called a resident alien everywhere,” and so on. “Anyone who accepts the seven commandments and is careful to observe them is among the pious of the nations of the world and has a share in the World to Come—provided that he accepts and observes them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, that the children of Noah had previously been commanded regarding them. But if he does them because reason compels it, he is not a resident alien and is not among the pious of the nations of the world, but rather among their wise.” End quote. So this is the very famous Maimonides. I think we once spoke about this too; I wrote something about it once. In Maimonides here there is a very great novelty in the end of the passage. He wants to claim—it’s not directly connected to our topic, but just as a side note—that observing commandments has value only if you do it מתוך the obligation to the command that was given at Sinai. Meaning, if you observe the commandments not because of obligation to the command at Sinai, but because it seems right to you, because reason compels it, then you are among the wise of the nations of the world but not among their pious. Meaning, in my language I think the translation is: it has no religious value; it has human value, moral value, but not religious value. Religious value is when you do it out of religious obligation. Leibowitz, right. So that is Maimonides’ novelty, and I wanted also to argue that this is not said only about the children of Noah—he speaks here about the seven Noahide commandments—it is also said about a Jew. Meaning, the same is true of a Jew who observes all the commandments because of rational compulsion or for all sorts of other reasons: that has no religious value. But when does it have religious value? When you accept it because you are bound by the revelation of the Torah given to Moses at Mount Sinai. For example, someone who keeps the Sabbath as Ahad Ha’am said to keep the Sabbath—that more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel—then he is not Sabbath-observant. Yes, that’s clear, even if he is meticulous about every small clause in the Mishnah Berurah, it doesn’t matter. With charity there is a special novelty: it says that even if one gives charity on condition that his son live, on condition that he merit life in the World to Come, that is still called the commandment of charity. There are major disputes about whether that applies only to charity or also not to charity, whether this is a truly unique motivation, because the World to Come and “that my son may live” are not ordinary motivations, so there are many discussions about that. But in principle I think this Maimonides is true also regarding Israel and not only regarding the children of Noah. But for our purposes, that is only in parentheses. For our purposes, Maimonides says that basically all the people of the world were compelled to accept the commandments given to the children of Noah. And now I am puzzled—wait—so what does it mean, “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image; an extra measure of love was made known to him in that he was created in the image”? What is the meaning? That you are obligated to observe the commandments. Meaning, you are beloved because you were created in the image of God, and the image of God is the reason why you—after all, this is Rashi with whom he begins in the first line, right? Rashi explained: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image; therefore it is incumbent upon him to do the will of his Creator.” What is the will of his Creator? For man, that means the seven Noahide commandments—that is, the non-Jews—and for the Jew, that is the 613 commandments with all of Jewish law. Meaning, this belovedness, because man was created in the image, is what basically underlies the obligation to observe the commandments. That is what Rashi claims. It’s an interesting question why—meaning, why is this belovedness a reason that justifies the obligation to observe commandments? What is the connection? Why specifically is that the reason? Or perhaps the fact that he was created in the image is what obligates, and “beloved” is only the reason why he was created in the image.
[Speaker G] Maybe it’s an expression of belovedness that he received commandments; maybe it’s an expression of belovedness that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That God obligates him—that’s—
[Speaker G] Belovedness, because you received such a great gift. God said about you that you are beloved because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. In any case, that is already a question of why one is obligated to observe commandments; it is less relevant to our topic. But that is what he wants to say. And then he explains the Mishnah following Rashi: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image.” Rashi explains: therefore man must accept the seven commandments. Therefore it is clear that the “man” spoken of at the beginning is a non-Jew, and therefore too the verse brought is a verse from the period before the giving of the Torah. And the continuation of the Mishnah is the same thing: “Beloved are Israel,” and therefore they too must observe their commandments, all 613 commandments and not only the seven Noahide commandments. And now he asks: “And now I am puzzled: why did the commentators go so far afield and not wish to go this way, to explain Rabbi Akiva’s words as spoken regarding every human being, and instead only regarding Israel?” He doesn’t understand why all the commentators interpreted this statement of Rabbi Akiva as referring only to Israel, when the plain meaning, as he proved here in several ways, is that it refers to all human beings, not specifically Israel. Now I want again to emphasize: even if you interpret it as referring to all human beings, the way is not closed off to those who hold the doctrine of the unique quality, because the first clause speaks about every human being and the latter clause speaks about Israel. The latter clause speaks about Israel. Therefore that does not necessarily mean—even if you interpret like Tosafot Yom Tov—that you do not think Israel has a special quality. Because there is also a latter clause to the Mishnah. The Mishnah speaks about all human beings and then about Israel. But for some reason the discussion always takes place—the ideological discussion and so on—always takes place regarding the first clause. The question is: who is that “man” about whom it says he is beloved and was created in the image and so forth? And Tosafot Yom Tov says: every human being. But he himself says: all the commentators did not interpret it that way; they interpreted it only about Israel. So he says: “And they relied on the saying of the sages, ‘You are called man, and they are not called man.’” That is the saying of the sages. So is he also attacking the sages, saying that the sages too did not interpret correctly? He simply means to say: the sages were only offering a homiletic interpretation, but what is the simple meaning? The simple meaning is that “for in the image of God He made man” means all the inhabitants of the world. And the sages in a homiletic reading said, “You are called man, and they are not called man,” but that is a homily. Don’t mix homily with simple meaning. This is not criticism of the sages; it is criticism of those commentators on the Mishnah who take the sages and see that as the whole picture. The sages proposed a homiletic reading, but the plain meaning is not that. “And by this they were forced into a strained explanation regarding the image and the interpretation of the verse that he brought as proof.” Because now one has to explain: so why is the verse brought a verse from the period of the children of Noah? And what is “the image”? After all, the image of God exists in the non-Jew too, ostensibly. So one has to explain what this special image is that also exists in Israel. Because what is the simple meaning of “the image of God”? It seems to me he also writes later in the name of Maimonides that the special image of God is the ability to choose, free will. Okay? Now that exists in a non-Jew too. If that is the plain meaning?
[Speaker E] What? Are there some commentators who held that non-Jews have no free will?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know of any. It sounds strange to me. What, that non-Jews have no choice? What are they, animals? I don’t know of such a view, I don’t know.
[Speaker E] There’s a Talmudic passage, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe has a piece saying there’s room to discuss it or something—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like that.
[Speaker E] Okay, fine. So if they have no free will?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, you have a choice, you can judge it, that’s true. They probably can’t judge this, the gentiles. In any case, so the claim—he says this is the simple plain meaning: “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image.” What is the image of God in a human being? That he has free will, which other creatures do not have. So if that’s the simple meaning—but if you interpret it as referring only to Israel, then you can’t say “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image” in its simple sense, because a gentile also has choice. Then you have to force the meaning of “image.” That’s what he writes here. And therefore they forced the meaning of “image.” They had to explain what the image of God is in some other way, okay? Not as having free will. And again, what is he really claiming? That “image”—what is the image of God, in other words? The image of God is free choice; that applies to all human beings. Anyone who has free will is called created in the image of God.
Now of course, as I said earlier, even according to his interpretation you can still say, fine, and the second clause says that Israel has an additional level, okay? So this doesn’t shut the door on the notion of a unique Jewish quality, but the fact is that they always argue around this opening clause and this Tosafot Yom Tov on this issue of universality versus particularity. But in my view this is a broad and straightforward path, because Rabbi Akiva came to set straight all inhabitants of the world, as we were commanded by Moses our teacher, in the words of Maimonides. And if we were commanded to do so by force of sword, killing, and destruction—yes, Maimonides says that one must compel people to keep their commandments, including the seven commandments of the gentiles, by the sword if we can, if we have the power—then there is an obligation to compel them to keep the commandments, just as we are supposed to compel every Jew to keep commandments, within the framework of the image of God, meaning that he has free will, right?
So if we were commanded to do this by force of sword, killing, and destruction, then all the more so by words—to draw their hearts toward the will of their Maker and the desire of their Rock. Okay? Meaning, obviously, if that’s the case, then if by the sword we are supposed to do it, certainly at the very least by words we are supposed to persuade, be concerned, preach. Again, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, with his campaign of the commandments of the children of Noah, when he ran a campaign to bring the children of Noah closer to their seven commandments—may he be remembered for good—that they should remember that they are beloved and were created in the image, to teach what was placed in their hearts. For this is the law of man: to perform the laws of God and His ordinances because he was commanded, in the words of Maimonides. For it is fitting that his Creator cherished him in His image, therefore it is incumbent on him to do the will of his Maker, as Rashi explains.
And now it makes good sense why he took this verse. Yes, that’s why he brought this verse. Even though there are several similar verses that come before it, such as “Let us make man in our image.” So why did they bring specifically this verse—this verse of “For in the image of God He made man,” which is in chapter 9? “Let us make man in our image” is already written at the beginning of the book. Why not bring that verse? So he says: because this verse is the one said regarding the commandments they were commanded in. What is the context of this verse? “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man.” Meaning, here the term “image” appears in the context of a commandment. The verse brought is in the context of a commandment—“for in the image of God He made man”—and not the earlier verses. Therefore he brought this verse, for the blessed God stated the reason for the commandment He commanded them: “for in the image of God He made man,” and the verse was said to the children of Noah. And to the children of Noah Rabbi Akiva said these words.
And it also makes good sense and fits very well that he said “created in the image,” and omitted the modifier, which is “God,” stated in the verse. Because in the verse it says, “For in the image of God He made man”—the image of God. What does the Mishnah say? “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image.” Why not “in the image of God”? “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image”—the modifier is missing, because it says “in the image” and not “in the image of God.” In the image of God? And isn’t that really the same thing? Why? There’s an image of a table, an image of a chair, and the image of God; there’s an image of many things, even Hasidim of Tzelem. Do you know the Hasidic group called Tzelem? In Hungary there was some city named after that man, and there was a Hasidic group of Jews who lived in that city; apparently they couldn’t say “the Hasidim of Jesus” or “the Hasidim of”—I don’t know what the city was called—so they said “the Hasidim of Tzelem.” And “tzelem,” as in “the Hasidim of Tzelem.” So there is an image of many things. So why do you say—if the verse says “in the image of God He made man,” then write “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image of God.” What does it mean, “created in the image”?
So here he says as follows: “and the omitted modifier is ‘God,’ which is stated in the verse; whereas regarding children he said that they are called children of the Omnipresent.” Yes, later in the Mishnah what does it say? “Beloved is Israel, for they are called children,” but it doesn’t say “called children of the Omnipresent.” It says “called children,” not “called children of the Omnipresent.” So why in the first clause, when it says “Beloved is the human being, for he was created in the image,” does it not say “in the image of God”? He says: and this is also because these are words of rebuke—to rebuke them and say that they were created in the image, and in what image were they created? In the image of God. For he says that creation was in the image of God. But since they do not keep His commandments—and even if they do keep them, they do not keep them because God commanded them—yes, this is what Maimonides says in the Laws of Kings, that one who keeps the commandments not because the Holy One commanded them but because reason compels him—so he says there is rebuke for the gentiles: they do not keep them, and even if they keep them, they do not keep them because they were commanded. So therefore, because of this rebuke, the Mishnah says “created in the image” and does not say “created in the image of God.” That hints that there is some hidden rebuke toward them. He of course continues consistently with his own view that this is addressed to the gentiles.
And behold, they are indeed lacking knowledge of God, and the verse that says “in the image of God He made” means that they were indeed created that way—that is, that this was the intention of the creation of man, that he should have intellectual apprehension leading to knowledge of God. But since in fact “they know not, nor do they understand; they walk in darkness,” and the intention did not come into actuality, it is proper to say that they were created “in the image” and not “in the image of God,” because in the end it did not come into actuality. What does he mean—the gentiles? In the Talmud in Bava Kamma 38, “He arose and released the nations”—the Talmud says: He permitted their property, since they do not keep the seven commandments of the children of Noah, He permitted their property to Israel. Since they do not keep the seven commandments of the children of Noah, the restraints regarding how gentiles are treated were nullified, and as a result their property was permitted to Israel; stealing from a gentile is permitted, because they do not keep the seven commandments of the children of Noah.
So that means that in practice the image that the Holy One created them with is not realized. It of course exists—the hardware exists—but the software does not. Meaning, they do not realize what they are supposed to realize. As was said above, one who was created in the image is supposed to keep the commandments. They do not keep the commandments they were commanded in, so in effect their image of God is now only potential; it is not realized. Therefore the Mishnah says “in the image” and not “in the image of God.” That is a hidden reproach. “And not in the image of God, since the intention—which is apprehension of God—was not completed, and they have nothing but preparedness alone.” Yes, this is hardware without software, and that is appropriately called simply “image,” without the modifier, which is “God”—just image.
And this seems to me to be the explanation of Rabbi Akiva’s statement. And according to this, the next Mishnah is also very precise: “Everything is foreseen, yet permission is given.” This is what I mentioned earlier—what is “Everything is foreseen, yet permission is given”? That is the next Mishnah there. Why? Because that is the image: “in the image of God He made man”—what is that? It is free will, that everything is foreseen and yet permission is given. And those who interpret this Mishnah not as he proposes, but as though even the first clause speaks about the people of Israel—then “in the image of God He made man” cannot be talking about free choice, because choice characterizes all people, so they have to force the meaning of “image.” That is basically what he is saying.
And furthermore, in this too there is an additional belovedness made known in Israel: that even though He already cherished them, like every human being, with the image of God in which He made him, even so He did not cease cherishing them further, with even greater elevation and strength, in that they are called children of the Omnipresent. And that is a greater elevation and level. Now here there is a bit of room for hesitation. What does it mean, “He did not cease cherishing them further”? Does it mean that they have the same image of God that exists in gentiles, but they have some more elevated image already in the very material? Or not? The plain sense of his language does not really sound like that. The plain meaning of his language is that the material is the same material, and therefore “in the image of God He made man” means all human beings. Everyone has choice, everyone was made in the image of God. The Holy One cherishes them more, and therefore He gave—or either therefore, or because He gave—them Torah, and then they have some additional task. But either way, the original material—rather, their uniqueness—and that is already a somewhat universalistic view.
Meaning, in his reading of the second clause of the Mishnah, as I said earlier, if you interpret the first clause like Tosafot Yom Tov, that is still not complete universalism. It is true to say that all human beings were created in the image, but then there is the more developed image, and that is the Jews. But it seems to me that here the continuation is also written—that this means it is not a more developed image; rather, they received more commandments. That is their advantage. “And that is a greater elevation and level, and the cherished vessel is the Torah which He gave them. And this is strength, as in the verse, ‘The Lord gives strength to His people,’” which the Sages interpreted in chapter Parah Chatat and the like as referring to Torah.
Okay, so this is basically what Tosafot Yom Tov says: that the Mishnah is interpreted as referring to all human beings. He himself says that all the commentators did not interpret it this way. Meaning, this addiction to the idea of the unique quality of Israel is apparently not a new phenomenon. And he wonders why, because the simple meaning of the Mishnah is not that way, and he has proofs from the verse and from all the contexts. So one of them is also Maimonides…
[Speaker C] Rashi too, and Maimonides too, like him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I assume he means all the commentators; he means the later authorities, that is… yes. Okay, so this is basically a first presentation of this debate, of these two ways of looking at things. And in a certain sense I think I began with this issue that we force reality so that it fits our dogmas—yes, our sources—we look at reality differently. So in that sense Tosafot Yom Tov is also saying: we also force the Mishnah. Meaning, even sources that do not say this, we force them so that this won’t happen.
And in fact today, when you ask people, they will take it as something simple and obvious, that all the Sages say this. And that is not true. There are many statements of the Sages that say the opposite. But somehow that is either never quoted or is interpreted differently, because this Kookist education is apparently very powerful. Meaning, everyone grew up on it, and it can’t be that there are other conceptions. So let’s look at Rabbi Kook. If he is the source of this idea, then let’s look at him inside. Rabbi Kook has a very famous passage in Orot Yisrael, and he writes as follows: “The form of Israel…” Maybe you know—let’s start from the end. Look at section 10. You see there are sections 8, 9, and 10, so look at section 10; for you it’s three lines from the end in the Rabbi Kook excerpt. “The difference between the Jewish soul—its essence, its inner desires, its aspiration, its character and its standing—and the souls of all the gentiles at all their levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a human being and the soul of an animal.” Like the Kuzari, but upgraded. Meaning, not just that there are five levels…
[Speaker G] What? So the Jewish… is indeed a level…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, there are five levels, but not only are there five levels—the gap between them is even greater than the gap, yes, the differences—so he is even more severe than the Kuzari. Right? “Greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a human being and the soul of an animal; for between the latter ones there is a quantitative difference, but between the former ones there reigns an essential qualitative difference.”
[Speaker C] Between an animal and a human there is a quantitative difference?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. He claims that that is a quantitative difference, whereas between a human and a Jew it is an essential qualitative difference, and so on. Fine, everything is relative. I already said—I’m actually wary of defining these concepts at all. But that’s what he claims. Now what?
[Speaker C] What, that’s not obvious? Who are “the latter ones”? “Between the latter ones…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Between the Jew and the gentile, as opposed to between the gentile and the animal. “The latter ones” in my words—the ones mentioned in what I said.
Now look at something interesting. Let’s go back to section 8. We don’t have much time, so at least just notice this tension. “The form of Israel must be clarified: whether the general humanity of the content of man exists in it in its character as it does among all the nations, and upon that the distinctive Jewish form was built; or whether from heel to head everything is distinct.” Okay? There is an inquiry here; he is discussing it. How do I understand the uniqueness of the people of Israel? Is the uniqueness of the people of Israel only an addition? Exactly. Is there a first level that is universal—exactly what we’re talking about in the Mishnah, right? “In the image of God He made man” is the universal level. And “Beloved is Israel” is on top of “Beloved is the human being.” Meaning, that is a second level. Or does the belovedness of Israel really mean that they are a completely different type of people? Meaning, even level one is colored differently. Okay? If we speak in the language of hardware and software, then maybe one could say—perhaps in a way that somewhat softens things—that the hardware is the same hardware, but there is a difference in the software. Or not—even the hardware is already different. Okay?
So here it is very interesting to compare this with section 10. Seemingly it is a somewhat different tune, because here he is willing to take into account that there is really no essential difference, while in section 10 he writes things that are harsher than what is written here.
[Speaker C] He starts by saying it has to be clarified. Is that not the conclusion?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. We’ll see in a moment that this is not the conclusion. We’ll see in a moment—but not really the conclusion. But one has to pay close attention: even when you say that level two is a unique level, it can still be a level two of unique essence. And that does not mean—that level one is universal does not mean that level two is not unique. So his question touches only on… it is obvious to him that there is a level two; that is obvious. The question is whether level one looks the same. Or whether even level one is already different. That is all he is discussing. He is not discussing the question of whether there is no level two. And in light of what he writes in section 10, it is quite clear that he relates to level two as something essential, something intrinsic. Otherwise there would really be a problematic jump here.
And then he says: “For this clarification we need to use different sources: Torah-based, intellectual, historical, mystical, experiential, poetic, and sometimes also political and economic.” He says: this has to be discussed on many different planes. Very interesting, by the way, because that means he is willing to use observational tools in order to examine it. I opened my remarks with the point that many of us tend to ignore what you see because there are certain dogmas or sources that supposedly obligate you to think differently. And he says: no, we have to use all the tools, including observational ones—economic, political, and so on—and draw conclusions from them. And if so, I don’t know—he reached certain conclusions, but if I use the political and economic tools that I apply, I reach somewhat different results.
[Speaker C] That’s not the main point here, the political and economic. He says different tools—there are conventions, there are all the tools.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine—use all the tools. But you have to arrive—no, you have to arrive—no, you have to arrive at a synthesis or a picture.
[Speaker G] Do you know another nation that developed such a culture of Talmud and Mishnah and so on? Because really, that says nothing. Why doesn’t it say anything?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I just wanted to discuss what you mean. No, why doesn’t it say anything? Because it may be a result of its biography and not the cause of it. I keep coming back to the same point. Obviously we have a biography in which we received Torah. The question is whether we received Torah because we are different, or whether we are different because we received Torah. It’s like the nature-versus-nurture dilemma I mentioned earlier. There is no dispute that we are different. Everyone—but I said, the Belgians are also different. Forget the Belgians. The Swedes, fine. More homogeneous, more heterogeneous, I don’t know. Any other nation. Fine? But the question is whether it is a result or a cause—that is the question. Because biographies can be changed. Meaning, the biographies of others can also change.
[Speaker G] But you can’t test that with observational tools, this thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can form an impression from what you know. You see changes in people, you see societies undergoing change.
[Speaker G] You can test what is happening now. You can’t test whether it is a result or a cause.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I can test whether the differences I see today between Jews and gentiles are the sort of differences such that I cannot expect gentiles ever to undergo that change over the course of history—say, in another five generations. Or maybe yes. Or maybe these are exactly the kinds of changes that, overall, I see populations go through in history. I can form an impression and try to develop a position about that—why not? Certainly yes. I also have a position about it, yes. And therefore regarding this matter—okay, I’ll stop here, because this is only the introduction. Maybe we’ll collect the pages so that…