Studies on Repentance, Lecture 3

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As an actual positive commandment? Yes, it’s listed by all those who enumerate the commandments. All the enumerators count it, the positive commandment of “to cleave to Him.” So what exactly is behind this question? It seems to me—and I’m only saying this parenthetically—it seems to me that the question is about character refinement, not about conduct. To cleave to the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, does not mean to refine our character traits. To cleave to the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, means to conduct ourselves as He does. How do I know that? Meaning, this is a commandment about behavior, not about traits. How do I know that? Because even regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, what I know is what He does. I don’t know His nature, His character; you can’t really speak about that at all. What I know, at most, is how He conducts Himself in the world. So when they tell me to cleave to the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He—“Just as He is merciful, so you should be merciful; just as He is gracious, so you should be gracious”—the meaning is: behave with mercy and grace as the Holy One, blessed be He, does. What Rabbi Chaim Vital is asking, it seems to me, is where we know from that one must refine one’s traits—the inner psychological repair, not the practical conduct. Who said that has to be done? That’s the question. So Rabbi Chaim Vital argues that the Torah did not command this because the Torah is the condition for your being commandable. The Torah commands human beings. Someone who isn’t a human being—there’s no point commanding him. If you don’t understand this on your own, then there’s no point imposing any command on you. To command you to refine your traits—that’s ridiculous. Because if you’re not commandable, then there’s no point commanding even that. To be commandable means to understand that you have to refine your traits. That’s Rabbi Chaim Vital’s claim. Rabbi Kook takes it one step further; he wants to claim more than that. He wants to say that if the Torah had commanded you, it would actually have ruined things. Because in essence the Torah prefers that you refine your traits through, yes, an awakening from below, on your own initiative and not as a response to a command. Because if you do it as a response to a command, it’s less meaningful. And therefore, intentionally, it did not command it, because in the context of traits, greater is one who is not commanded and does than one who is commanded and does. That’s what Rabbi Kook writes. The example I always bring in this context is that—yes, that joke they tell in yeshivot about the yeshiva guy who went out on matchmaking dates and rejected all the girls; none of them seemed right to him. The mashgiach says to him: “What is this? Are you the rabbi of all the exiles? No one is good enough for you? What are you, some supremely righteous saint? Sit down and work on your character a bit. Work for a year, and after a year go back to dating.” Fine. He works on his character with great enthusiasm, isolates himself, studies books of… works on his character with great enthusiasm, isolates himself, studies ethical works, and after a year he goes back to dating, and once again he rejects all of them. So the mashgiach asks him, tell me, what did you do this year? He says: Look, Rabbi, a year ago I was arrogant, and no one was good enough for me. Now that I’m humble, all the more so no one is good enough for me. That’s an a fortiori argument with no answer. That’s what someone looks like when he refines his character because there’s a commandment to refine his character. And so Rabbi Kook says the Torah did not command the work of refining character, because it preferred that we do it from within our own understanding that character needs refinement, and not as a response to a command. Okay? And maybe similarly—and this is what Yoel suggested earlier—maybe that’s also the reason the Torah does not command repentance, because the Torah prefers that it come from within us, from our own initiative, and not as a response to a command. I want to make a stronger claim. If indeed the meaning of repentance is, as our conclusion in the previous class, that to repent means to return to being a chooser, then how could it make sense to command me to repent? Logically it doesn’t make sense. You can’t command me to be a chooser. Right? Command me to be a chooser. If I choose, then I fulfill it—but if I choose, then I don’t need to fulfill it, because I’m already choosing. And if I don’t choose, then what good does it do to command me? That too I’ll choose or not choose to fulfill, right? There’s no point in commanding. In that sense I think Rabbi Chaim Vital is actually right here, not Rabbi Kook. Or Rabbi Kook too, but even more than that—you don’t need to get to Rabbi Kook’s formulation. Because here, it simply doesn’t belong to command a person to be a chooser. If indeed the essence of repentance is to be a chooser, to return to being a chooser, to take the reins in hand, then you can’t command that. It’s a bit similar to—first of all, in the Torah itself it says, “And you shall choose life,” in this week’s Torah portion. What is “and you shall choose life”? No one who counts the commandments counts that. Why not? It’s a command in every respect: “I have set before you life and good, death and evil… and you shall choose life.” A commandment. Why isn’t it counted? Because it cannot be counted. You can’t command someone to be a chooser. If he’s not choosing, there’s no one to talk to. We speak to someone who chooses. If he doesn’t choose, then what can you command him? That too he’ll choose or not choose to do. Your being a chooser is a condition for commands being addressed to you. You can’t command someone to be a chooser. It simply makes no sense; it’s an oxymoron. A bit similar to this is the paradox of the scoundrel. You know that Nachmanides writes on “You shall be holy”—Nachmanides says that this is a commandment to behave beyond the letter of the law, not to be a scoundrel with the permission of the Torah. Now if you look at the fourth root principle, Maimonides writes there about commandments that encompass the entire Torah—that commandments that encompass the whole Torah are not counted. There are people who explain that this is why the commandment to settle the Land of Israel isn’t counted, or various other such nonsense, because it’s a commandment that includes the whole Torah. That’s a particularly amusing Zionist invention. Several important halakhic decisors wrote it, but intellectually it’s just a joke, pardon me. When you read Maimonides in the fourth root principle, you see that it has nothing to do with the matter. Commandments that encompass the whole Torah are not foundational commandments. Commandments that encompass the whole Torah are commands to observe all the commandments. It says, “And you shall perform all My commandments and observe them”—that’s what Maimonides means when he speaks about commandments that encompass the whole Torah, simply when the Torah says: observe all the commandments. Why don’t we count that? Because it’s already duplicated: the commandments themselves tell us to observe them. You don’t need a commandment to observe commandments. If I’m not observing commandments, why would I observe this one? There’s no point commanding me to observe commandments, right? That’s what Maimonides means there—not that there are foundational commandments and therefore they aren’t counted. Such a principle doesn’t appear in Maimonides’ root principles at all. And there are those who say this is about the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. Quite apart from the fact that there is no hint in Maimonides of this new notion that the Land of Israel is the whole Torah—there’s that Nachmanides passage about the command to engage in pioneering settlement; he said it explicitly in his Torah commentary, and people turn it into a principle of faith. He said it as a nice interpretive comment in his Torah commentary. But this becomes some kind of self-evident doctrine, and therefore Maimonides didn’t count it because it’s a principle encompassing the whole Torah. It’s nonsense. Belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, Maimonides counts as positive commandment number one. Is that not more foundational than the Land of Israel? With all due respect to the thinkers of Religious Zionism. Belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, is after all a bit more foundational than the holiness of the land, no? So why is that counted as positive commandment number one if such commandments aren’t counted in the tally of commandments? It’s simply nonsense. I think the reason—and this is speculative—but it may be that Maimonides does not count the commandment of settling the Land of Israel because he thinks it is not a commandment. It is a preparation for a commandment. It is a preparation for a commandment: you need to be there in order to fulfill the land-dependent commandments. But in itself, without the land-dependent commandments, it is not a commandment in Maimonides’ view. Leibowitz was precise about this; he always cites it from tractate Keilim: “And what is the holiness of the Land of Israel? There are ten degrees of holiness. And what is its holiness? That from it they bring the omer and the two loaves.” Meaning, the holiness of the Land of Israel means that one can fulfill there the land-dependent commandments, not some metaphysics of holiness. Now by the way, there I think he’s wrong. That is not its holiness. But in the context of commandments, of the tally of commandments, Maimonides does not regard dwelling in the land as a commandment, and for him dwelling in the land is only a preparation for a commandment. That is why he doesn’t count it. I assume that’s a much simpler explanation, and much more fitting to Maimonides’ overall views. In any case, back to our topic—I’m closing the parenthesis. So the commandment of repentance is not counted because it is a commandment to be a chooser. And you cannot count, or command, someone to be a chooser, and therefore “and you shall choose life” does not enter the tally of commandments—not because it’s too foundational a commandment to enter the tally, but because it cannot be entered into the tally. It’s a logical problem, not a matter of the commandment’s importance. Simply a logical problem. You can’t command someone to be a chooser, because if he doesn’t choose he is not commandable. And if he does choose—if he is commandable—then he is already choosing, so why command him to be a chooser? He already is one. By the very fact that you commanded him, you assume that he chooses. Okay? I started with the paradox of humility, so—

[Speaker I] “You shall be holy,” Nachmanides…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second. Nachmanides, in his glosses on the fourth root principle—so Nachmanides says there, he writes, there’s a debate there about “You shall be holy,” not important now—but Nachmanides does not mention there that “You shall be holy” is a command to act beyond the letter of the law. More than that: in his additions to the tally of commandments you will not find a positive commandment to act beyond the letter of the law or not to be a scoundrel with the permission of the Torah, even though Nachmanides interprets the commandment of “You shall be holy” that way. The question is: why does Nachmanides not count that in the tally of commandments? And the answer is the same reason we’ve been discussing here. Because if he had counted it in the tally of commandments, then behaving that way would not be beyond the letter of the law—it would be the letter of the law. We would be obligated. There would be such a positive commandment, right? By definition, you cannot put this into the tally of commandments, because all it is saying is that you are expected to behave beyond what you are commanded. So to put that into the tally of commandments? Then you have emptied out the meaning of the fact that you are acting here beyond the law. It becomes the law if it enters the tally of commandments. You cannot count such a thing. Does that mean you are not obligated? Of course you are obligated. But it does not enter the tally of commandments because it cannot enter the tally of commandments. And similarly, I want to say the same about the commandment to repent. In the Book of Commandments it does not appear because such a commandment cannot exist. There is no such commandment. You ask whether one needs to repent? Certainly one needs to repent. Therefore, in the Mishneh Torah, when Maimonides writes all the things one must do, he also writes that one must repent. That is obvious. But not because there is a positive commandment to repent. Therefore, in the Book of Commandments it will not appear, because the Book of Commandments contains only what we are commanded in. Okay?

[Speaker J] So the claim is that as for anyone who is already choosing, there’s no point commanding him to repent?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no point commanding him to be a chooser. And to repent is to be a chooser. If I was right in the previous class when I said that to repent means to return to being a chooser, then there’s no point commanding someone to repent, since if repenting is being a chooser, and there’s no point commanding someone to be a chooser, conclusion: there’s no point commanding someone to repent. Which is what we wanted to prove.

[Speaker D] So the Torah is basically speaking only to the community of choosers? Of course. Yes, okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Seems obvious, no? What is there to say to someone who doesn’t choose?

[Speaker D] I don’t know, say in elections people want others to vote.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand. Sure, I also want them to vote.

[Speaker D] No, apart from that, I mean here in the practical realm there isn’t that contradiction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why isn’t there that contradiction? What do you mean? If someone has no choice whether to vote for me, am I going to go persuade him to vote for me?

[Speaker D] Ah, so it’s not the public of choosers, it’s the public of people who have the capacity to choose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? You are assuming they also choose, because if you persuade him, you hope he’ll draw conclusions and choose you. Because if there is no chance he will choose you, even if theoretically he has the possibility of choosing, you don’t talk to him. You talk to someone when you think it will help when you talk to him.

[Speaker D] But then you’re saying this also applies to people who aren’t choosing but do have the capacity to choose. Because if we compare this to elections…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If they’re not choosing and they have the capacity, what help is that to me? You may as well talk to the wall. What good does it do if they don’t make use of the possibility of choosing? Then why command them or persuade them or whatever?

[Speaker D] Because they have the capacity to choose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but they aren’t making

[Speaker D] use of it, you mean.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but you can change their mind so that they do. Then they are making use of it. What do you want?

[Speaker D] So they are making use of it. If they were persuaded, they were persuaded.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s a difference between

[Speaker D] people who don’t

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know how to choose and people who… There is such a difference, only that difference is not relevant to our matter. Because if someone has the ability to choose but does not make use of it, there is no point commanding him, because he doesn’t make use of it. If he does make use of the ability to choose, then there is a point in commanding him.

[Speaker D] But then there’s movement between those who don’t make use of it and those who do make use of it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The moment there is movement, then there is no such thing as someone who doesn’t make use of it. Because if he moves, that means he does make use of it. Not always, fine, but in principle he makes use of it. That’s enough for me.

[Speaker D] So there’s basically no difference between them? For our purposes, no. So we’re back to the point that since all human beings have the possibility of choice—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If human beings have the possibility of choice and they don’t make use of it, then as far as I’m concerned they are walls, flowerpots. You can speak to the flowerpot if it doesn’t make use of it. If you speak to him, then you assume there is a chance he’ll make use of it, right? That’s all.

[Speaker D] So you speak to someone who does make use of his choice. But every human being has a chance that he will.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Very good, but the assumption is that there is a chance he will make use of it—that’s the only reason you speak to him. So there is no point commanding someone to choose. That’s my claim. Because if he doesn’t choose, then what will you command him?

[Speaker D] Okay, fine. Okay, so—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This basically explains the meaning of the concept of choice. And now notice that this connects to what I opened with. In the Book of Commandments I showed that the concept of repentance exists at the Torah level even without a commandment. Even in the world of the Book of Commandments, where there is no command to repent, the concept of repentance still exists at the Torah level, right? It’s not that the concept of repentance was established by—I don’t know—the sages, rabbinically, or whatever. It’s not that the Torah doesn’t recognize it; certainly not. The Torah understands that there is a path of repentance. Cain repented—it doesn’t matter—people repented in the Torah; also in Scripture, in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), there is a concept of repentance, only there is no commandment to do it. Okay? Like prayer according to Maimonides. That’s what I said regarding the Book of Commandments. Consequently now, in the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides tells us: if you have the possibility of repentance, then simple reasoning says that you should make use of it. So if you ask whether one needs to repent, certainly one does. Does that mean there is a commandment? No, there is no commandment. Because there cannot be a commandment; there cannot be a command regarding this. Okay? So that is basically the implication of the conclusion I reached last time: that to repent means to return to being a chooser. That’s one branch I wanted to continue from what I discussed last time. The second branch concerns— I want to go a bit more deeply into the descriptions I gave last time of a person’s struggles: taking the reins, not taking the reins, yes, what is the meaning of this whole thing, external factors, internal factors. Remember I spoke about how this difficulty—or really the impossibility, apparently, it’s not a difficulty, it’s apparently an actual impossibility—to choose or to repent, stems from the fact that if some external factor moves me or turns me in another direction, then it repented, not I. And I myself cannot turn myself around; that’s Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, what we saw. It cannot be that a person transforms himself, because then he was already transformed from the outset. Yes, to do such an act and demand of you proactively to approach your own set of values and change it—that’s an oxymoron. So what happens is that it can’t be done from outside, and it can’t be done by myself. Which means it can’t be done at all. So then what is the concept of repentance? So I said there that this is some sort of—apparently one has to arrive at some kind of connection between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, something that happens partly from within and partly from outside. It is probably some sort of continuum, not a dialogical stance of me standing opposite Him, but rather something of Him is within me, and the process—as I spoke about it, no?

[Speaker I] And the process—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The process of repentance actually takes place at that seam, where inside and outside are not clearly defined. Okay? In any case, this difficulty—

[Speaker I] Fine, there’s a seam—so what does that solve?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: from the outset, I agree that from outside it can be done, right? It just has no value, because I didn’t do it; someone else did it. From the inside, it would have value if I did it, only it can’t be done. What I’m claiming—and I said this—that I don’t have the final formulation completely nailed down, but the claim is that this whole either-or formulation, this entire dilemma argument, is based on a dichotomous outlook: that it’s me here, the Holy One, blessed be He, there, I stand opposite Him, and the question is whether He does it or I do it. But if the ontic picture from the outset is not like that—not a dialogue in which I stand opposite Him, but rather some kind of continuum, something of Him is ultimately found within me—and when I act, when I repent, then apparently He too is somehow involved there, otherwise it couldn’t happen. It is somehow done by me while something of Him is also part of me. So maybe that can solve the problem. And I said, I’m not formulating it fully, because I’m also not sure exactly how it works. But I’m saying: it seems to me to be a necessary condition. Without that, there is no solution. I didn’t say that if you have that, there is necessarily a solution. Okay. So what we basically have here is some kind of clash between the things outside me and the things inside me. And the dilemma is that if the things outside me repent me, it has no value; if it comes from me, then it can’t be done. So again, there’s something problematic here. By the way, parenthetically, at the beginning of my book The Science of Freedom I bring… there are two common types of error there. Some people say that because today we know that the brain has plasticity—that is, we don’t die exactly as we were born; the brain and our neural structure also change through interaction with the environment and various processes we go through—therefore, because of that, there are those who claim, Schopenhauer I think is one of them, who claim that this means there is choice, because the world is not deterministic, the brain is plastic, it can change. Total misunderstanding. Obviously that is not true. The very fact that the brain changes means that there are external factors shaping it. What does that have to do with me? Only if I can act against my neural structure—that is the meaning of choice. But if my neural structure changes because of external factors, exactly as I discussed before, that is not what is called choice. It is called change, but not choice. If something happens to me, then I underwent a change, but that change is not what is called choice and not what is called repentance. The opposite mistake is compatibilism, which says that if things happen from within me, then that is called choosing. Two opposite mistakes. Schopenhauer thinks that if something happens from outside me, that is choice. What is internal to me is deterministic, but if things from outside happen to me, then that is choice—education, for example, or things like that—which is the mistake I discussed before. The opposite mistake is that of the compatibilists. They claim that the deterministic picture does not contradict the thesis of free will. It is compatible; there is no contradiction between them. Because if I am in fact driven by certain inner forces of my own, then that is what I want. What does it mean to choose freely? That nothing outside interferes with me, but rather I do what I want. The fact that this thing is dictated in advance by my nature does not mean I am not doing what I want. It is what I want. Therefore it is called free will. So of course as a definition one can accept that, but it empties the substantive meaning of free will. When the question is whether I should be held accountable, whether I bear responsibility for it, obviously not. Because if I have no ability to change it, then in what sense am I responsible? Why should I care that it comes from within me? Okay? That is the opposite mistake. These are two opposite mistakes. There are those who think that influences from outside are choice; there are those who think that influences from inside are choice; and both are wrong. Neither this nor that is choice. Choice is something done by me against the internal and external forces. For example, in Nefesh HaChaim, when he explains Adam’s sin, he says there that in the verse it says, “And you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.” Maimonides also asks this at the beginning of Guide for the Perplexed: what sort of punishment is it that “and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil”? That’s a spiritual advance. How can the punishment for sin be spiritual advancement? So he explains—Nefesh HaChaim explains; in Maimonides it’s written a bit differently, though maybe one can translate the two into each other—Nefesh HaChaim claims that “knowing” in this context means as in “And Adam knew Eve his wife.” “Knowing” means connected. And the claim basically is that good and evil—when the serpent tempted Eve, it was clear that these temptations came from outside. Okay? After she sinned, the serpent’s contamination was cast into her. The skin of the serpent—this is what the sages call it; in the Zohar it’s “the serpent’s skin,” whatever—the serpent’s contamination in the midrashim. And this basically means “knowing good and evil.” The good and evil that tempt me, the good and evil inclinations that tempt me from outside, entered me inwardly, connected to me—that is called “knowing good and evil,” like “Adam knew Eve his wife.” Connected. And now it seems to me as though I myself want it. What my inclinations say is basically what I want. Understand? That is exactly compatibilism. Compatibilism basically says: what do you want? This is what I want, this is free will. My inclinations are me, what I want. So Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin says therefore it is so hard for us to cope with our inclinations after the sin. Because after the sin we lost the understanding that the inclinations are not us. It is very easy to fall into a compatibilist view, which basically says that the inclinations are me, among other things—that is, this whole aggregate is me. So if my inclinations pull me to do something, then the inclinations are me wanting to do something. Okay? So what does it mean to surrender to inclinations, to fight against inclinations? Who is supposed to surrender or fight against the inclinations? After all, it is I myself. But that is a mistake. The punishment following the sin is that our illusory perception is that the inclinations are us, but the truth is not so. They really are external forces; it’s just that we experience them as though they speak to us from within, and therefore it makes it very hard for us to deal with them. That’s the point. Now I want to maybe—distribute the pages in the meantime. If two people are sitting by one table, then maybe take one so that… I’m not sure there are enough for everyone.

[Speaker G] What about the case where someone has to give a bill of divorce? If he doesn’t want to give the bill of divorce, then they beat him, and Maimonides says, until he says, “I want to.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does it say, yes?

[Speaker G] And then basically he is removing the shells of evil.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s a whole topic in itself. I also have what to say about that, but it’s a different discussion. It’s somewhat related, but yes.

[Speaker B] Can these things be done in the ways of the solution to the difficulty that you mentioned?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The choice to choose. It’s the same thing; I think one can translate them into each other. They are two ways of looking at that seam point. The choice to choose is apparently done in some sort of partnership with the Holy One, blessed be He. After I’m already in the mode of a chooser, then now I choose. But how do I get there? Somehow that is probably the answer to what you asked me after the class—why doesn’t it regress backward? And I could repeat all the difficulties regarding the choice to choose, because there there is some kind of connection with the Holy One, blessed be He. That either-or already no longer exists—of either Him or me.

[Speaker K] Regarding this interpretation you just gave, “to be like God, knowing good and evil”—does that mean that it is so with God as well? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only with Him it is actually true. With Him, it is truly in the nature of the good to do good, as the Ramchal says. With Him, beneficence really is part of His own essence; it is not a good inclination. With us, we are like God—yes? The comparative “like.” As if with us too the inclinations supposedly enter into us, but we do not thereby become essentially good or evil. In a moment I’ll talk about this. Look, there is a chapter here from the Tanya, a fascinating chapter, and let’s read a bit of it and I’ll try to offer an explanation. And it connects to what I discussed earlier. “Now the dwelling place of the animal soul from kelipat nogah in every Jew is in the heart, in the left cavity, which is full of blood. And it is written, ‘For the blood is the soul.’ Therefore all desires, boasting, anger, and the like are in the heart, and from the heart they spread throughout the whole body, and also rise to the brain in the head, to think and reflect upon them and become clever in them, just as the blood, whose source is in the heart, spreads from the heart to all the limbs and also rises to the brain in the head. But the dwelling place of the divine soul is in the brains of the head, and from there it spreads to all the limbs, and also in the heart, in the right cavity, where there is no blood. As it is written, ‘The heart of the wise is to his right.’ And it is the love of God like fiery flames, blazing in the heart of those who understand, who grasp and contemplate with their knowledge,” etc. So what is he basically saying? The dwelling place of the animal soul from kelipat nogah—I’ll explain some of the terms in a moment—is in the heart, in the left cavity, and from there it also spreads to the head. It starts in the heart, left cavity—not important right now—and it spreads to the head. Where is the divine soul, which is the opposing entity? Its root is in the brains of the head. And from there it goes down to the heart, another part of the heart, but from there it goes down to the heart. Right? What is he trying to say here? What he means to say, I think, is this: usually when we perceive the struggle between good and evil, it is conceived—metaphorically—as a struggle between right and left, with no current political connotations, yes? A struggle between right and left. Let’s say the right is evil and the left is good. Fine? Just so it’s clear that we’re not—

[Speaker F] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the struggle is basically between this side and that side—which will win. That’s how kindergarten teachers always describe it, right? But that description is a

[Speaker F] childish

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] description. Why? Because that description omits the most important point in the story. Let’s say the good inclination overcomes the evil inclination—what does that have to do with me? I was created with a stronger good inclination than evil inclination. Someone else was born with a stronger evil inclination than good inclination—so I’m righteous and he’s wicked? Why? Because I was created righteous and he was created wicked?

[Speaker G] Your task is harder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whose task? Who is this “you”? “You” is something beyond the inclinations, right? Meaning, the struggle is not a struggle between the good inclination and the evil inclination. The struggle is your struggle against your instinctive dimension, which includes both a good inclination and an evil inclination. In a moment we’ll see—I’ll sharpen this more. Okay? Therefore, the main thing is missing from the account in this description of good inclination and evil inclination. The good inclination and the evil inclination are both inclinations. Each tries to pull me, one in a positive direction and one in a negative direction. What determines things regarding me is the question of what I decide to do, not what my inclinations are telling me or how they are struggling with each other. That interests no one. The question is what I decide to do. There is a third factor in the picture. Not a third—the only one that really counts. Me. The factor that has to choose and decide whether it goes here or goes there. The inclinations are like the serpent. Although after the sin they entered inside, and it seems to me as if they are speaking to me from within, still, no—they are still two forces that from my point of view are external to me. One pulls me to the good and one pulls me to the bad. And now the question is: what will I do? That is what matters. And therefore the author of the Tanya basically argues that the struggle is not between one inclination and another, between right and left. The struggle is between above and below. “Above” means that the instinctive dimension is in the heart. The entire instinctive dimension, both the good inclination and the evil inclination. The struggle is over who leads. Does the heart—the instinctive dimension—take me? By the way, whether to good or to evil. The instinctive dimension also includes the good inclination. The good inclination can take me to do good things; I am still a person of the animal soul. Because a person of the animal soul is a person who has dropped the reins, in the language of the previous class. Essentially the inclinations carry him; he does not decide. A person of the divine soul is a person whose head actually rules. The inclinations try to pull him here or there, but he doesn’t drop the reins. He decides. The real struggle is not a struggle between the good inclination and the evil inclination. Good inclination and evil inclination are both located somewhere in here. The real struggle is the question whether to obey those two inclinations or to decide on one’s own. Whether to hold the reins or let the horses—the inclinations—carry me. And therefore the struggle is between the divine soul, whose dwelling is in the brain, and the animal soul, whose dwelling is in the heart. And not between good inclination and evil inclination. Maybe one more note: although the divine soul dwells in the head, as he says it spreads to the heart. And the animal soul dwells in the heart, but it spreads to the head. So practically both are found in both places. So what is still the difference? In the end, where is the root? Which is the locomotive and which is the car? Right. In the divine soul, the locomotive is the head and the car is the heart. The head pulls the heart after it. In the animal soul, the locomotive is the heart and the car is the head. Therefore, look, I’ll read a bit of the continuation: “Therefore it is written, ‘And one people shall prevail over the other people,’ for the body is called a small city. And just as two kings wage war over one city, each one wanting to capture it and rule over it, all of it—meaning to direct its inhabitants according to his will, and that they should obey him in everything he decrees over them—so the two souls, the divine and the vital animal soul from the kelipah, wage war with one another over the body and all its limbs, for the divine soul desires and wills that it alone rule over him and direct him, and that all the limbs obey it and be completely nullified to it and a chariot to it,” all the limbs, including of course the heart, “and be a garment for its ten faculties,” etc. And then I’m skipping ahead—look one line before the end: “But the animal soul from the kelipah,” at the very end of the page, yes? “wants the opposite exactly…” for the good of the person, that he should overpower it and defeat it, like the parable of the harlot in the holy Zohar. Meaning, the animal soul wants to draw the whole body after it. What does that really mean? Look, often we have some tendency to divide between the struggle of good and evil and wisdom versus stupidity. Wisdom versus stupidity means going after the gut or after the head, right? But those who go after the gut are not stupid people, nor are these stupid outlooks.

[Speaker I] They can have tremendous wisdom.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole question is how much credit they give their wisdom. Yes, despair of reason, despair of the intellect—which I think characterizes a lot of this generation—does not mean we are speaking about people who are more stupid than people who do give credit to reason. Their intellect can be brilliant, that’s not the point. But it is not what determines. What determines is the feeling of the heart, emotion. And the intellect is the car drawn after the locomotive; the locomotive is the heart that steers or dictates the direction. The intellect comes afterward. In a moment I’ll explain a bit more. By contrast, people of the divine soul are not necessarily smarter, but they are people who give credit to their intellect or their thought. What determines what they do is thought and decision, will, our cognitive part—not the inclinations and drives. But there too they try to harness the inclinations as a car that will travel after the locomotive, that will help them go in the direction the locomotive dictates. So the difference is not in the question of how long the train is. In both kinds of trains—both that of the animal soul and that of the divine soul—there is a car and a locomotive. The difference is also not the question of who is smart and who is stupid, or who has a good inclination and who has an evil inclination. Both have a good inclination and an evil inclination, and both also have wisdom and stupidity in them; they can be smarter or less smart, each person according to what he is. That is not the issue at all. The issue is the order of the cars in the train. The locomotive can be an amazing car; wisdom or emotion can be a complex and sophisticated car, everything is fine. But if it is a car and not a locomotive, then you are a person of the animal soul, even if you are an intellectual genius. This is not a struggle between stupid people and smart people, nor between those naturally good and those naturally bad. Rather it is a struggle between one who chooses the good—or even before that, one who chooses—between one who chooses and one who does not choose. I’ll now describe this a bit more fully. I’ll begin maybe with the… conclusion that one has to choose?

[Speaker G] What? Did I understand? The conclusion is that one has to choose?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, that’s why

[Speaker G] I’m saying it here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I’ll describe a certain picture that underlies the libertarian conception—what’s called, in the metaphysical sense, free will. Not social-economic libertarianism, but the metaphysical sense. The view that says we have free will, the non-deterministic view, okay? Usually all sorts of arguments are brought against this view. Look—they found the gene responsible for belief in God, the gene responsible for violence or generosity or whatever you want, okay? So first of all, they didn’t find that. These are all newspaper headlines. They haven’t found any gene responsible for anything to this day, at least as far as I know. What they have found are genes that influence various things. Of course our genetic structure has an influence—there are no genes that dictate, at least they haven’t found such. The assumption is that it does dictate, but that is an assumption. The dictation, if they ever find it, would only be from an entire genetic structure; no specific segment of the genome is solely responsible for a trait, certainly not for a psychological trait—maybe for organic diseases, yes. So these objections basically assume that the libertarian view says there is no influence of genetics or education or whatever on a person’s behavior. But that’s nonsense. It’s denying the facts; it’s creating a straw man so that one can attack it. That is not the libertarian view. The libertarian view agrees that genetics and environment and influences and inborn tendencies and whatever you want—education and environment—influence the person. That’s obvious. What it claims is that they influence the person but do not uniquely determine what he does. The deterministic view says not only that they influence, but that they uniquely determine. That is the dispute. The dispute is not over whether there is influence; the dispute is over the degree of influence—whether it is one hundred percent, or whether it is only influence, but not determination, not deterministic fixation. And to explain this, I’ll give you a parable, a picture that I think clarifies it better. Think of some area with a complex topographical profile, okay? There are mountains and hills and valleys and saddles and steep mountains and all kinds of things and hills and all kinds of things. Put a little ball there somewhere—what will happen to it? It will move to the lowest place, let’s say for our purposes, okay? So basically the contour of the terrain determines the direction of the ball’s movement, fine? What happens if you put there—or if you pour there, I don’t know, a bit of water? It too will flow to the lowest place. What will happen if you place a person there? Then he can of course decide to climb the mountain. The little ball, once there is a mountain and there is a valley, will go down to the valley, right? But a person can decide to climb the mountain. He can also decide to go down to the valley.

[Speaker H] Depends how much strength he has.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, a climbable mountain, otherwise it’s…

[Speaker H] No, the place… he plans it, and in the end he sees himself as a person…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: a mountain is climbable—right now I’m speaking from the standpoint of the person I’m talking about. Now what does that actually mean? Is a person not a physical creature? Doesn’t he feel the difference in potential between the mountain and the valley? Of course he does. Those forces act on him exactly as they act on a little ball. If he decides to climb the mountain, he’ll have to invest energy, he’ll have to exert force for it; it doesn’t happen on its own. So clearly the topographical layout affects him too, just like it affects the ball. The difference between him and the ball is not that the layout doesn’t affect him. The difference is that the layout does not determine what he will do. There is an influence. Say we put people there—a hundred people in such a place—and assume they’re distributed in some uniform way. Then I assume the distribution between those who go up the mountain and those who go down won’t be fifty-fifty; it’ll be seventy-thirty, and on a very steep mountain it’ll be ninety-ten, okay? What does that mean? That statistically, the topographical layout also affects people who have free choice. It’s not true that there’s no influence. It is true that there is no determination here, okay? Meaning, influence exists, but the influence does not dictate the result, unlike the little ball or a stream of water, where it’s not just influence—it determines where you will go. The true libertarian picture is not a picture of a person without a topographical layout, a person in a vacuum. That’s usually how people present it, and then they immediately attack it with education, environment, genetics—and everyone starts rejoicing as if they’ve proven something. I don’t know why everyone is so happy about such a… such a non-humanistic picture. But the fact is that a lot of people are very happy about those findings, apparently because it goes against the religious view, and that’s good enough to make them happy. So there you go—you see? Genetics determines. Genetics influences. Genetics does not determine; genetics influences. Those are two completely different things. Okay? When they find that genetics determines, then yes, we really do have a problem with determinism. So far, as far as I know, they haven’t found that about anything—anything connected to human choices, I mean. So therefore, what is this topographical layout? Let’s try to think about what builds it. What does it represent, really? It represents the levels of difficulty I have in doing different kinds of actions. I’m in a certain situation. Someone slapped me. I have a few possibilities. One possibility is to run away. A second possibility is to stay there and hold back. A third possibility is to slap him back—and maybe give him many slaps, or one strong slap, or a weak slap; lots of possibilities. Let’s describe this metaphorically within the framework of some such topographical layout. I’m standing in some place. If it’s very, very hard for me to hold back, then that means that in the direction of restraint there’s a high mountain; it’s hard for me to go that way. Okay? In the direction of a violent response there’s a valley here; it’s very easy for me to react with violence in return. So that means, basically, that there is some kind of layout trying to push me in a certain direction, trying to push me to respond violently. Okay? But obviously I can always decide not to go along with that layout. I won’t respond violently, even though I have a tendency to do it. Here I take the reins into my own hands. That’s exactly what I talked about in the previous class. My tendencies take me to all kinds of places, my impulses take me to all kinds of places. But I’m not obligated to answer them. Because impulses are not me. Even though after the sin of Adam they are inside me, and the compatibilists already think that the impulses are me—that’s not true. The impulses are really the layout around me. Now, by the way, this layout can sometimes be a layout that pushes me to do the right and good thing. It’s not always a war against the layout. Because we also have good impulses; it’s comfortable for us to do good things. Very often, it feels very good for a person to behave well. It’s pleasant too, not only because he thinks it’s right. It’s very pleasant. If he let go of the reins, many times he would behave well. Okay? Therefore I’m saying: both impulses, both the good inclination and the evil inclination, are part of my powers and my genetics and my environment and influences and everything—all of that builds the layout around me. All of that is not me. It is the environment in which I operate. Who is the “I”? I am the one walking there who has to decide whether to go up the mountain, go down into the valley, climb the hill, go through the saddle—I don’t know what. Decide whatever you want. Now sometimes I’ll go down into the valley, because if the valley is both comfortable and good, that’s perfectly fine. There is no issue of always doing what’s hard; you need to do what’s right. If what’s right is easy, excellent, I’ll go with that—but I’ll go with it not because it’s easy. I’ll go with it because it’s right; it just so happens that in this case the right thing is also easy. But if it weren’t right, then I would decide to climb the mountain even though it’s difficult. And that is what measures me. What measures me is not whether my mountains are in the bad direction and my valleys are in the good direction. That’s how the determinist describes the righteous person. Who is the righteous person? The righteous person is someone built in such a way that naturally he does the good. And the wicked person has a strong good inclination—yes, the kindergarten teacher’s description. And the wicked person is someone who has a strong evil inclination. What does it mean, a strong evil inclination? That the high mountains are in the direction of the good; it’s hard for him to do good. He has a strong evil inclination, it’s easy for him to do bad. But the environment does not determine whether I am righteous or wicked. The environment determines the range within which I operate. What really determines my character is what I do across that range, not what my range looks like. What my range looks like, to a large extent, is also not in my hands. I do have some ability to change it—that’s the plasticity of the brain we talked about earlier—but broadly speaking, that’s not the point. The point is what I do across the terrain, not where the terrain drags me. I’m starting the review; I’m returning to the concept I skipped over: “And here is the dwelling place of the animal soul from kelipat nogah.” Do you know what kelipat nogah is? There are four kelipot in Kabbalah. Three kelipot are completely evil, and the fourth kelipah is evil mixed with good; it’s called kelipat nogah. And the kabbalists identify it with the “skin of the serpent,” yes, with the serpent’s pollution, what entered the human being after the sin of Adam. He cast his pollution into the human being, into Eve and into Adam. What does that mean?

[Speaker G] That there’s something unfair here, because if one person received more data to be righteous, and another received more data to be wicked.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so he’s also judged accordingly. I’m not the one coming—The Holy One, blessed be He, is the one coming—and the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what his givens are and judges him accordingly, I assume. The claim, ultimately, is that kelipat nogah is neither good nor bad; it is impulsive. That impulse includes both good and bad, both the good inclination and the evil inclination—the evil inclination. And this kelipat nogah entered the person, and it is what makes up the topographical terrain within which he acts. Both the pull toward good and the pull toward bad. A person is not judged on the question of whether his pull toward good outweighs his pull toward bad. That only tells you what kind of topographical layout he operates within. A person is judged by what he decides to do with the given layout, not by what the layout looks like. And therefore kelipat nogah, which enters the person, builds in him some topographical layout, creates in him a kind of illusion: “this is me.” But that’s not true. It’s not you. That is your environment. It’s just that part of the environment is built out of inner forces and not by external forces—society, education, parents, or whatever. But it’s still the environment. You are the one who decides what to do as he walks across this layout, or acts within this layout.

[Speaker H] And does the inclination change accordingly?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the inclination doesn’t have to change. There’s a second-order phenomenon, that after you do good, apparently that also changes the layout. We know this from neurons too. You know, after we act, the neural structure also dictates action to us. After we’ve done an action, it feeds back and also changes the neural layout.

[Speaker H] Like—let’s look at this figure—take a person who observes the commandments, so he won’t go live in a place where there’s an inn there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t want to deal with high mountains. It’s better for him to deal with hills, because then it’s easier for him to succeed.

[Speaker H] No, but he feels that in practice, in such a place he can keep himself—not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because in a place where good people live, that means the mountains in the direction of the good are lower. Maybe they’re even valleys; it’s easy to do good. So when you move to a different place, you’re not changing yourself. When you move to a different place, you’re simply moving to another layout within which it will be easier for you to act well. But ultimately what determines things is not the place; the place only perhaps enables you to do things more easily. But in the end you are judged by what you did. And does the inclination change accordingly? Yes, of course it changes. It’s easier for you to do good in a good place, harder for you to do bad. But that doesn’t matter; you are not judged by the question of the strength of your inclination. You are judged by the question of what you did. Okay? So therefore the point, really—when I say I’m returning to the description from the previous class, that the demand involved in repentance is basically to take the reins into your own hands and become a chooser—this means exactly this point. What is demanded of a person is to act in the mode of the divine soul and not in the mode of the animal soul. A person who acts in the mode of the animal soul, even if he does the good absolutely all the time, is a person on a low level. He is a sheep. Yes, this is my favorite story of Amnon Yitzhak. I once heard Amnon Yitzhak tell it: the rabbi of some town slaughtered a sheep, covered it at 4 in the morning, covered it with a prayer shawl on the main street of the city, and he’s shouting, “A righteous man, a righteous man has died”—he’s an actor, after all—“a righteous man has died,” crying and wailing and “Alas,” and “The mighty have triumphed over the strong,” and so on. People wake up at 4 in the morning; the city rabbi is there with such a righteous man, everyone joins the funeral procession. Who wouldn’t come out to accompany the righteous man? They arrive at the cemetery, they remove the prayer shawl in order to bury him, and they see what kind of righteous man it is. They want to add the rabbi to him. But the rabbi stops them and says, “What? What’s the problem? What do you want?” So they say to him, “What kind of righteous man is this? It’s a sheep.” So he says to them, “I don’t understand. Whenever I rebuke you or scold you, you say, ‘What do you want from us, Rabbi? We don’t hurt anyone, we don’t murder, we don’t steal, we’re perfectly fine—what do you want?’” He says to them, “The sheep was also righteous. It didn’t hurt anyone, it didn’t murder, it didn’t steal. Nothing. It’s as righteous as you are. So why are you upset when I call it righteous?” What is he trying to say here? That righteousness is not determined by your nature. The sheep has a good nature. It does good not because it chose to do good, but because it is in the mode of the animal soul, because it is an animal. Right? It has no choice. So its impulses take it along; it just happens to be a creature born with good impulses, so it does good. Is that a human being’s aspiration—to be a sheep? A good human being means a human being who has impulses—“the greater a person is than his fellow, the greater his inclination is than his”—but he has to take the reins into his own hands and not let the horses take him, or the sheep take him. Rather, he has to decide, and if there’s a mountain, then he’ll climb the mountain; or if there’s a valley toward evil, then he’ll restrain himself and not slide down into the valley. What determines things is not the topographical layout. In the sheep there is only topographical layout. The sheep is made of kelipat nogah, full stop. There is no head there; there is only a heart, in this metaphorical language. Okay? There is only the topographical layout there. There isn’t the someone who has to decide what to do within that topographical layout. But a person is required to be a person of the divine soul, not a sheep. So if a person is born righteous by nature and always does good, maybe he is a very nice person and… very pleasant to live with, but that is not really the figure of the righteous person we are talking about. The figure of the righteous person we are talking about is a flesh-and-blood person, with impulses, with all the difficulties and weaknesses and everything, who has to overcome them and still do good, as much as he can. And that is a person of the divine soul. A person of the divine soul is not a person who chooses the good. A person of the divine soul is a person who chooses, period. A person of the animal soul is not a person who chooses evil. A person of the animal soul is a person who does not choose, whose reins are not in his hands; the horses take him. Sometimes he goes toward good, sometimes he goes toward evil. So we talked about Rebecca, “Two nations are in your womb,” right? Sometimes houses of study, sometimes synagogues. So that is the animal soul. Why? Because he didn’t really decide on his path. Remember the great repentance? That a person needs to decide on his path. The intermediate person is one who is sometimes pulled here, sometimes pulled there. Okay. Basically, the claim here is that the true struggle is not a struggle between good and evil. It is the struggle between a choosing person and a person who does not choose. That’s the point. And sometimes it can happen that the person who does not choose does only good, and he still does not choose—he’s a sheep. And that’s the essence. A choosing person is a person who decides to do good, even if it is very comfortable for him—there’s no problem if he does good—but he should understand that he is the one determining it; the horses are not carrying him along. Okay. The truth is—and this is a parenthetical remark connected to the last column I wrote, for anyone who happened to read it—the claim is that when a person already chooses, almost always he chooses the good. It’s very hard for me to imagine a person who is in a choosing mode and chooses evil. I can hardly imagine such a thing. Even the craziest wicked people—I don’t know, Hitler and people like that—it seems to me that in some place even he at least thought that what he was doing was what ought to be done.

[Speaker B] Part of the paradox.

[Speaker D] What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every—

[Speaker B] The whole concept of revenge is choosing a prohibition. Again? The whole concept of revenge is choosing a prohibition; he knows it isn’t good.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything, every bad decision—what is special about revenge? Everything.

[Speaker B] That he’s not doing it out of the good; he’s doing it in order to screw the other person back.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So every case—not specifically revenge—anything that you do only because the horses are carrying you along, then it is not your act.

[Speaker B] Only—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only when you decide is it your act. When the horses decide, it’s the horses’ act. Then you’re a little ball, you’re a stream of water, you’re not a human being—or a sheep, in the terminology of the Alter Rebbe. So the claim, basically, when we are called upon to take the reins into our own hands—in the translation of the author of the Tanya—means to return to being choosers. To take the reins in hand and not let the animal soul drag us to all kinds of places. I want to sharpen this a bit more. Our impulsive dimension, kelipat nogah, or our animal soul, to a large extent overlaps with what we call emotions, I think. True, it’s more complicated than that, but in a moment I’ll sharpen what I mean a bit more. There is some… maybe I’ll start with some… There’s a joke I once heard in the name of Dov Sadan, who was a literature scholar at the Hebrew University, a very interesting Jew. And he said that the next person who will make a revolution in the world will be a Jewish orthopedist. Why a Jewish orthopedist? And why Jewish is obvious, because everyone who makes a revolution in the world is Jewish. But why an orthopedist? So he says it’s simple. The first person who made a revolution in the world was Abraham our father, or Moses our teacher, whichever one you want—he taught us, “Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these,” to use the head. Okay. The second Jew who made a revolution in the world was Jesus, that man, “The Merciful One wants the heart,” right? That you have to go after the heart. So we went down from the head to the heart. The next Jew who made a revolution in the world—

[Speaker B] was Marx.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything is in the belly; Capital basically takes us along, interests take us along, right? So we went down from the head to the heart, after that to the belly. The next Jew who made a revolution in the world was already mentioned—that’s Freud, who explained to us that everything is below the belt. Right? So we started with the head, moved to the heart, to the belly, below the belt. The next one will be an orthopedist or a podiatrist, someone who deals with feet.

[Speaker D] And in the middle there’s Maimonides, in the middle there’s Einstein.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, don’t start now with objections; it’s a joke. But the joke comes to describe a real process. And I think that this real process is indeed happening in the world. This process of descending is happening. But notice—I do not mean to say that the world has become stupider. Not at all. I think the world has become smarter, if I had to decide. The world has less confidence in reason. That’s what I mean. That is exactly the difference between the animal soul and the divine soul. The move from the divine soul to the animal soul does not mean that you become more stupid—on the contrary. Very often, because you are so smart, you lose confidence in your reason, because your reason can explain anything to you. And then you basically lose trust. Because the analytical ability has developed so strongly, much more than in previous generations, you can explain Maimonides’ position magnificently, explain Rashba’s position magnificently—now go decide who is right. Someone who isn’t smart enough to explain every position and answer every objection can decide: this seems more logical, because there’s an objection on the other one. But that objection? I’ll pull five answers for you out of my sleeve. What the medieval authorities (Rishonim) would leave unresolved, today a boy in yeshiva can give you three answers on the spot. Good answers, not bad ones. Because our analytical ability is much stronger than it was in previous generations. And I think that because of this, Briskers are stringent. They’ve lost the ability to decide. Because the analytical ability is so strong that you can explain every position, you can ground anything. So how do I decide? So who is right? Is this a law in the person or a law in the object? You explained that one as a law in the person, and that resolves all the practical ramifications and the objections and everything. The other says it’s a law in the object, and that resolves all the objections and answers and everything. Okay, now I ask: is it a law in the person or a law in the object? I don’t know. Each one explains everything, so there’s no objection against either one—so how do I rule? We’ve lost the ability to decide. Very often the analytical ability leads to despair of reason. And I think postmodernism largely comes from this. Because for every single position in the world, I can show you how I justify it and ground it, so now I’ve lost the ability—or the self-confidence—to say that one is wrong and this one is right. After all, each one is consistent with his assumptions. I can show you a completely consistent system that explains him, even if he himself doesn’t think that way, but I’ll explain him—just like with Maimonides. We do the same thing with Maimonides too, don’t we? So that’s what postmodernists do with every person or every worldview. And then what happens is that despair of reason is created. And then what happens as a result of despair of reason? Then people let the heart go. What is called pragmatism in its inferior sense. Pragmatism in its inferior sense—philosophical pragmatism—means going after what is pragmatic, because what is true is in any case outside our scope; we can’t know what is true. So let’s go after what is useful—this sort of American approach.

[Speaker G] In my day, back then, IQ was the model by which they tested people for jobs and the like. Today there’s no IQ; today there’s EQ.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Multiple intelligences, but—

[Speaker G] Once—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I gave a class on that too, and I once wrote a column about it, about multiple intelligences. There’s a very interesting logical loop there in the definition of multiple intelligences. In any case—well, I don’t want to get into that here. The claim in the end is that our world has not become stupider. We haven’t gone down from the head to the heart in the sense that we’ve lost the head, that we have no intellect. Of course there is intellect—people are brilliant. But their confidence in what the intellect says doesn’t exist, and therefore they are people of the animal soul. And if you pay attention, you see this immediately in current events. The whole discussion is emotional. Why is it emotional? This is essential; it’s not just because people are wicked or stupid. In most cases we’re not talking about stupid people. The discussion is emotional because people have lost confidence that good questions can be settled with reason. So they turn to the gut. So Gideon Levy in Haaretz describes for you heartbreaking scenes of helpless Palestinians being abused, innocent people who are not guilty. And he’s right—at least in the cases where he’s not lying, and he also lies; in some cases I know that he lied. But there are cases where he didn’t. And it really is true. So what do you want me to do now—that I should make an agreement with the Palestinians because innocent people are suffering? Those are two completely different things. What he is trying to do is bring me to the emotional place that pities those who are suffering—and rightly so, that is as it should be—and to subordinate my logic or my reason to my emotion, to make me a person of the animal soul. By the way, the Right does the same thing, of course. The Right is not pure intellect either. Meaning, there too they try, through emotional means, emotional pressure, to harness the mind in the emotional direction. And therefore the whole discussion is conducted on the plane of kelipat nogah. There is no intellectual discussion here, no discussion of arguments. By the way, in the previous elections, whether to vote for Feiglin or not for Feiglin, I wrote why I thought one should vote for Feiglin. Not because I so admire the man, but because he was the only one who raised arguments. Now, you can agree—I agreed with a large part of them, and with another part I didn’t agree. But he raises arguments; he doesn’t speak to your gut. Unlike all the others, to the very last one. For me, that alone was worth it—but you see, today it’s no longer relevant. But they’ll think you’re a foolish devotee.

[Speaker G] Huh? They’ll think you’re a foolish devotee because of that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, also—the same thing, that’s exactly it. I’m saying: don’t be a foolish devotee; talk about arguments, and either you were persuaded or you weren’t persuaded. That’s exactly the point. You know, when someone comes today from a museum or from a concert, what do they ask him in the interview afterward? Was it moving, right? Everything… everything is emotions. Good Lord, what do I care about all the emotions? You were moved? Take a pill. Tell me whether it was interesting. Was there some new form of creation there? Did you see some solution there to some aesthetic-artistic problem or another? I don’t know. Give me some intellectual insight. Everything is all kinds of feelings—“it moves me.” There was once some TV program, one of those music shows, I don’t remember which one. I saw it with my kids. One of the judges said to someone who was singing there, “Look, my head tells me one thing, but my heart tells me another.” And he stopped. I asked, wait, so then what do you do? He didn’t bother to say, because if my head tells me one thing and my heart tells me another, then obviously we go with the heart—as if it’s not even a question. My head says this, but my heart says that. What decides? Obviously the heart. And he didn’t even bother afterward to say, so I’ll go with the heart. For some reason, as soon as he said no, no—when there’s a conflict between head and heart—there was no need to add anything. It was obvious to all the viewers; my children burst out laughing when I asked that, because it was obvious to everyone that once he said that, then obviously the decision goes that way, right? Because that’s what the heart said. But why? If the heart says this and the head says that, fine, there can absolutely be a dissonance between the head and the heart. And now you have to activate the head and force the heart, to do what the head says. But no, it’s not an isolated example; it represents a very, very widespread attitude, that obviously we go after the heart, not after the head. The head? I can explain whatever you want with it. That is exactly the meaning of the animal soul. I think that’s what Dov Sadan—what stands behind this joke, I think, of Dov Sadan. In the end, what goes down lower is not intelligence. We are not less intelligent. Rather, what goes lower is the place where we make decisions. That’s the difference. And what is required of us in order to return to being choosers, or to repent, is to take back the reins, to raise the center of decision-making upward. Decision-making needs to be here, not here. And that doesn’t mean there is no heart. Of course there is heart. And it’s good that there is heart too. The heart sometimes gives indications of what things really mean. But afterward—once my students in Yeruham asked me, more than once actually, a student asked me about a match. If emotionally he feels very connected—actually the reverse. His head tells him that she is an excellent match for him, suitable for him and everything, but in his heart something just doesn’t connect. So what should he do? Or the opposite. So what should he do? I told him: only the head. But the head needs to take into account the consideration of emotional connection. When you want to build a home, clearly if there is emotional connection between the couple, then the home will look better. But that’s not because the heart determines; the heart gives its input, and the head will also factor that consideration in when making the decision. In the end, a decision is made only in the head. The heart was not meant to make decisions. The heart is the metaphorical heart—it is the amygdala, really. It’s our empathic ability, what is called in neuroscience or psychology. That is, our ability to feel the other person. Here the heart can contribute. The heart tells us how the other person feels or what his significance is. Once I understand that, now the head has to decide what to do. The fact that the other person feels distress does not mean I won’t do it to him. If he deserves it, then I will do it to him. But it is very important to understand what he feels; that is very important input when I make the decision. So that doesn’t mean the heart has no role. Of course it has a role. But bottom line, the decision has to be made in the head. That is the issue of the divine soul. I’ll perhaps finish with a story, also a story that once—I was in a midrasha in Sde Boker, not in a women’s seminary, yes, in the environmental high school midrasha in Sde Boker. Really high-level kids, I was very impressed by them. They asked—the principal there was a good friend of mine and he asked me to come speak with them. I was in the yeshiva in Yeruham; he asked me to come—these are secular kids—and he asked me to come speak with them about atonement, forgiveness, and pardon during the Ten Days of Repentance without any connection to religion. Without bringing in religion and things like that—just talk about the concepts themselves. Fine. So I decided to take up the challenge, and I asked them—I described a situation and asked them what they thought. I hurt someone, and I got home and realized that I had been in the wrong. I hurt him. My heart didn’t ache one bit. I’m autistic, okay? Asperger’s, I don’t know, whatever you want. I feel nothing, I have zero empathy. Okay? I don’t feel him at all, but I know intellectually that I was in the wrong. I did the calculation—not okay. Fine. The next morning I go and ask him for forgiveness. I feel nothing, emotionally I couldn’t care less if he burns; I meant emotionally I couldn’t care less. Intellectually I do care. I say: I was truly in the wrong. No—I was in the wrong, and I need to ask forgiveness. A very computer-like decision, very cold and intellectual. I don’t feel anything in my heart. Would you forgive me in such a case? I asked them. There was total consensus: no. That’s hypocrisy. What do you mean? You’re not really remorseful, it’s hypocrisy. I told them that in my view this is the highest request for forgiveness there can be. Because if someone comes and asks forgiveness because his heart hurts, then what is he doing in that request for forgiveness? He is trying to support his stomachaches. He has stomach pain because of what he did, and in order to soothe it, he goes and asks forgiveness to calm his churning gut. Okay? So in effect he’s doing it for himself, not for me. But if a person goes and asks forgiveness despite having no stomachache at all, when emotionally he couldn’t care less—intellectually he cares. He says: I was genuinely in the wrong. Not, I was in the wrong and I need to ask forgiveness. That’s the purest request for forgiveness there can be. The first one is the hypocrite. The second one is the straightest request for forgiveness there is. Why? Because he is truly asking forgiveness because he understands that he was in the wrong. The first asks forgiveness because it’s the tranquilizer he’s giving himself. So that’s why I say: that’s a parable I bring here. Today there is a certain attitude as if the heart is the authentic thing. And going after the head is some kind of cold, alienated, rational intellectualism. Nonsense. In the end, our decisions need to be made from the head. You need to choose the right thing. Obviously the heart has significance; you should take it into account if it exists. If it doesn’t exist, then a person is ill, fine, so what happened? There are sick people. But that doesn’t diminish their level of righteousness or their spiritual level. They have an illness; they don’t feel anything—what can you do? But someone who does feel, that’s of course not to his detriment; that’s perfectly fine, it’s a work tool. You have to work with that thing. But in the end, the decision is made here, not here. The actions you do should be done because of considerations from here, because of considerations from here—and certainly not from lower down. Okay? And the feeling today is that acting from the heart is precisely the most authentic thing, the loftiest thing—the sublime ballads about the love between spouses, this insane romanticism. Fine, so they love each other; that’s what happened, what can you do? What do you have to sing serenades about? They love each other and they want to live with each other, okay, and they go through very hard lives in order to realize what they want, their interest, okay. What is so lofty about that? If someone helps another person whom he doesn’t love, to me that is the loftiest thing there is. He doesn’t love him at all, but he helps him because it is terribly important to help—that’s what I would write ballads about. Okay.

[Speaker G] Today, hiring for a job is only intuition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is something to that—no, there is something to that, yes, it is something significant. Okay, now I’m going here. This—

[Speaker B] Could be one of the more successful ones I put on my chair on the floor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To catch it. Wait.